#let me ice my horrible skull in peace

[kayvsworld]

coming out of a migraine to several missed texts from a pal like “did you hear they’re fucking murdering blinky bernard” why is the mcu still happening. why can I not cheerfully be unaware of th*nderbolts. also who will take one for the team & start picking off mouse company execs with a crossbow if they do in fact sentence bonky to death for the crime of being too sad & gay now that they’ve drop kicked captain america to the forties to be a homewrecker

[liliallowed]

tasting colors

(short symbiot au fanfic)

-flirting

-weirdass alien biology

-magic food

-benifits of sharing a body

-fluff

-slice of life ig???

premise: players are symbiots from space! vessels are hosts! sym killed the other one behind the loop and ate it to gain the reset, but then threw it away latching onto dust. sym also took him to the surface because it already had eaten a half digested human soul. after passing the barrier sym fully shattered the soul.

some time has past and these two have become very close! kinda skipped all the slow burn and angst lol. sym doesn't really have much history with dust to repent or seek forgiveness.

sym is just best boy/girl/thing. there for suppert.

"wake up sleepy head." it gently nudged his skull with it's head.

"mmmhm... five more minutes..."

he muttered furrowing his bone brows.

"want me to make breakfast?" it smiled enthusiastically.

"no humans ... taste gross" he frowned at last nights memory.

"oh stars no!" it gasped, slightly offended.

"you know I'm a cannibal with high standards. I wouldn't dare eat HUMANS or monsters~ not without your consent. wouldn't wanna upset your soul stomach. besides I didn't hunt today. you good with pancakes?" it grinned as sans could faintly feel himself being lifted from bed.

he instinctively pulled the blanket on himself only for it to turn into soft mushy matter.

he would have been taken aback but instead he insistently continued to fake his snoring stubbornly.

some time passed and he drifted back to sleep... how long had he been out?

he opened his eyes after the scent of sweet food brushed against his nasal cavity.

he was sitting in the kitchen with a neatly stack of fresh pancakes Infront of him... and ... ketchup instead of syrup.

"aw you made my favorite" he grinned lazily pouring the ketchup on the pancake.

sym let out an audible sigh shaking it's head. "rest in peace you sweet treat."

"hey, rude. my body, my food." he picked up another piece and took a bite of it.

"your taste buds are broken. your pallet is horrible." it retorted.

"how would you know? is it cuz you've borrowed my tongue?"

he smirked licking the fork.

it squeaked in surprise staring at him in silence, a red glow appearing on it's heart shaped eyes.

"... my tongue is better at detecting any physical flavor. magic food CAN'T taste THAT good."

it huffed in annoyance, trying to direct the conversation towards a more... scientific approved topic.

"should we maybe swap our taste buds?"

he chuckled..

"oh FUCK OFF."

its heart shaped eyes vanished as it hid it's face inside itself glowing bright red underneath the black mass.

he grinned playfully poking it with gentil taps as he muched on the food.

"aren't you curious? I know I am."

he teased, making it sound like he was eating the best thing known to man.

it perked it's face out, blowing a childish raspberry.

"yes but I'm not going to!"

it frowned while glancing at the corner of his mouth.

it really wondered if magic food would taste any different with using HIS mouth-

"want some?"

he smiled smugly.

it nodded timidly, shaking it's head from those thoughts.

he let it eat some of the sliced off parts where it wasn't DEFILED by ketchup stains.

it's eyes lit up like a small pup as it enthusiastically swallowed it.

"see? it's better without KETCHUP."

it beamed.

"nah." he replied lazily finishing his last bite but taking his SWEET time swallowing.

it could not resist anymore is HAD to know to satisfy it's curiosity.

a small tap to his soul and it felt... buzzy?

it tasted like tomato sauce but sweeter. a bit like the taste of the color green... no, redorange... wait colors weren't a taste? it could feel small tidbits of energetic particles around being absorbed into a nice blend of sweet and slightly sour fruity mix. felt actually refreshing. ice cold yet warm... electric yet awfully... crunchy groundyyyy. sweet mud after rain.

such a vague fascinating aftertaste...

"you finished the entire bottle. guess you like my pallet after all" he grinned.

it opened it's eyes to find it's head stuck in the ketchup bottle, chugging it like plain water.

"... "

it refused to pull it's head out, filled with embarrassment. this was it's life now. it was the hat of shame.

he snorted a small laugh pulling the tip off it's head.

"you like magic food huh?"

his smug grin sharpened.

sym let out a small annoyed huff.

"of COURSE I'd like anything your soul would like when I'm linked to it. that's not a fair argument."

it paused.

"but... yeah. it was... good."

"better than greasy human food even?"

he raised a bone brow.

"hrgnnnn" it let out a weird growling sound of refusal to affirm the question.

he rolled his eyes at it and sighed.

"you eat people, rocks, metal, and even your own kind but you're this picky? "

it looked back at him with a smirk.

"it's your body not mine. I wanna take care of it! of us! you rarely eat... and you're-"

he looked at it suspiciously crossing his arms, his playful grin widening even further.

"aw, getting sift in me now?"

"I mean ME! I want ME to be healthy so I'm making sure not to eat anything your body can't absorb. monsters have weak physical forms."

it glanced away the same red blush appearing on it's face.

"sounds awfully cheesy don't it? "

he wore the iconic shit eating grin as he held a flat piece of cheese on his hand.

"uuugghhhhh..."

sym face planted on his arm softly.

he patted it as he sat up stretching his arms.

"so what's the plan for today. any new targets?"

sym, now resting on his shoulder shook it's head.

"no. I don't sense any other anomalies. not yet that is. still! might want to keep an eye on the guy in the basement I think he lost his determination and the reset got passed to another random human."

"oh for fucks sake."

he grunted pinching his nasal ridge.

"it's okay. we'll find it!" it chirped as it disappeared from his side and proceeded to cover sans's eye.

"wanna go look for them?"

its red heart shaped eye flashed red in place of sans's right eyelight.

he chuckled as he infused magic into his socket. the blackness spread across his face charged with his own will.

a heart on his face slpit in two then both sides in three.

six mismatched eyes glistening with excitement.

"let's make this quick. it's risky in broad daylight." they muttered, disappearing in a flash.

[andtheghost]

01/07/24 - The third (or fourth) breakdown

I used to live with a guy. Let’s call him Warhammer. He was LOUD. Not even just the kind of loud where he needed to constantly be heard (although he was that, too) but the kind of loud where he would be talking at his natural volume and you could hear him in a crowd from the other side of the room. And he had a really bad case of ADHD. So he would be playing a video game, watching a YouTube video on his phone, and playing DnD over discord all at the same time.

I’m his polar opposite in that regard. I’m typically pretty quiet, and I need a lot of quiet time or I start to get… grumpy. I put all of my focus on a single thing at a time, and I like to do so in a peaceful environment. We’re talking candle burning, comfy pajamas on, one of those ambient music playlists with the forest sounds playing in the background.

And sometimes I may have fantasized about dumping him feet first into a very slow wood chipper. Because I had to wear my noise canceling headphones, and unless I turned the volume up so high it completely counteracted the effect, I could still hear his obnoxiously loud voice over my nice peaceful ambient sounds. From a different room.

This was basically every day, slowly chipping away, along with a few other things. I’m not quite sure why the volume is always the thing I remember the most vividly, when there were other things, things that would probably bother most people a lot more. Regardless, I never said anything about any of it.

That was his home too. I didn’t feel like I had any right to tell him not to do what he wants in his home. Asking him to talk quieter would have been about as useful as asking me to talk louder (I will, for about two seconds, then I’ll go back to my normal volume without realizing it, and for those two seconds I’ll feel horribly uncomfortable because it feels like I’m yelling at you) but I could have asked him if he could turn the volume down. Or hell, maybe he could even turn at least the video game volume off. I don’t think the sound was strictly necessary. And it wouldn’t hurt to ask, right?

But I never said anything, and I just got more and more bitter, and eventually I left. The way I left was not ideal. And it certainly wasn’t fair. This was definitely not a simple case of “I was quite and you were unaware,” I did some shitty things near the end that I’m not particularly proud of. But I still can’t make myself feel too bad about it, because there’s a LOT more to that story, things I don’t think he realized I knew, and if I had been in a healthier headspace I never would have went out with him in the first place. If I’m being honest, I think the aftermath was karma for both of us.

I do that, though. I stay quiet about things that should be talked about, expect the other person to bring them up, then I get bitter and angry and hurt when they don’t, I start getting passive aggressive, and then I just cut ties and leave without any warning.

I brought that particular situation up because it was different than normal. I never had any feelings for him outside of friendship. We were both weirdos, the difference being that he wore his strangeness like a suit of armor to attract attention and I tried desperately to hide it from anyone who I didn’t think could handle it (pretty much everyone). We were similar in the ways that mattered to me at the time, and we got along better than I had gotten along with anyone in a long time, and we had known each other for a while so I got to see how well he treated his ex.

Also, he was interested in me. Honestly, at that point that may have been all it took. Everything else was probably icing on a cake made of industrial waste. As previously mentioned, unhealthy headspace. I was lonely and he was interested, and interesting, and I thought the feelings would develop if I spent enough time with him. I learned that that’s not how it works.

The feelings are either there, screaming in my face, beating against my skull, demanding that I don’t turn away no matter how many times I try, (and trust me, I try. I try so so hard), or they’re just.

Not.

And they just weren’t there. I tried breaking up with him three times. Every time he would give me reasons I’m being unreasonable. Calm down you’re being dramatic, you’re paranoid, seeing things that aren’t there, jumping to conclusions. All things I’m prone to doing. I would back down for a few days, a week, and try again with the same results.

Finally I broke up with him via changing my relationship status on Facebook and went to Texas. I also left a massive, I mean MASSIVE mess behind when I left. I left my entire life there, anything I couldn’t fit in my backpack.

It should be noted that over the last seven years I’ve had several mental breakdowns. As if I need to break down completely, but it has to happen in intervals, otherwise I would probably go insane and kill myself. Am I allowed to say that here? Oh well, I said it anyway.

That was the third breakdown. Maybe the fourth.

TBC…

[sunflowervolvimp3]

you’re someone i just want around: VII

Sunflower, my eyes

Want you more than a melody

Let me inside

Wish I could get to know you

Sunflower Vol. 6, Harry Styles

A/N: okay so this part was so much fun to write!! it originally was going to have four more scenes but uh. as we all know. i am very wordy. so the other scenes I have planned will have to be split into what will probably become two more parts and you guys will just have to deal with getting another two chapters 😌 but this part is really exciting because we are getting a lil bit of angst mixed in with harry’s general dumbassery!! love to see it love to hear it!! and please if you like what you are reading here!! reblog it!! leave reactions in the tags (we read every single one)!! send a message to andrea and i!! feedback and interaction is what keeps content creators motivated to keep cranking out nearly 30k every one to two weeks!! and that’s a general rule for all content creators not just us!! we do this for free so a lil love note is always appreciated 💌 alrighty now that that’s out of the way!! let’s dive in!!

ysijwa masterlist : andrea’s masterlist : leyla’s masterlist : ysijwa playlist

word count: 26.6k

content/warnings: another good dose of denial, Fajita Friday with a side of blended margs, waking up on the wrong side of the coffin, brutal analysis of niall’s non-existent love life, ribeye!y/n x rotisseriechicken!harry, a horrible impersonation of Bob Barker, “are you there, God?  it’s me, harry,” degradation, the violation of worksafe laws through the improper use of a ladder, mild pain kink, alexa, play ‘kiss it better’ by rihanna, and the rise of kinkrry (dir. j.j. abrams)

As Harry climbs up the stairs to Y/N’s apartment the next Friday night with a bag containing tequila, orange liqueur, and limes clutched within his jeweled hand, there are two thoughts flickering through his mind.  

The first, which weighs more heavily on the vampire, is if Y/N prefers her margaritas blended or over ice, as Harry feels that tells a lot about a person, and it would be such a disappointment to realize now that Y/N isn’t a fan of the blended beverage.  The second, which should weigh more heavily on his mind if he had his priorities sorted out, is how Y/N had managed to convince him to let her cook dinner for the two of them.

In reality, it hadn’t actually taken much convincing on the mortal girl’s part at all.  When she messaged him on her lunch break earlier that day, asking what he was up to that night, Harry had sat up on his couch, drawing Niall and Xander’s attention to him in a confused manner. He’d stared at the message for only three seconds before opening his phone and pressing on her contact name.  The action had come so easily to him that he didn’t even think about hiding his eagerness to speak to her, and instead pressed his phone tight to his ear as the other line rang three times before she picked it up.

“Harry?” Her confused voice rang through his phone speaker, the sound of the bustling cafe apparent in the background. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah, love. I just, uh…just wanted to talk to you, s’all.” Harry had replied, shushing the questions he could see hanging off of Niall and Xander’s lips. “How’s work today?  Busy?”

“As busy as it always is on a Friday afternoon.” Y/N answered with a sigh, and a small smile tugged at the corner of Harry’s lips as he heard a loud slurp through the phone, leading him to picture a stressed out Y/N sipping the last remnants of her iced latte. “But I’m over halfway through my shift, at least, so… it’s all downhill from here.  In a good way.”

Harry had nodded slowly, as if the mortal girl could see him through the phone. “I’m glad to hear that.”

His friends, however, seemed to be less glad to hear it, and paused the golf tournament that was playing on TV to stare at him with incredulous expressions on their faces. 

“Who are you talking to?” Niall had demanded, kicking his foot into Harry’s calf with more force than what was necessary. “We’re going to miss the first swing!”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Xander snickered to the Irishman next to him, a devious smirk lighting up his face. “It’s that human he’s been obsessed with for the last, like, two months.  His little plaything.”

Harry had stood up then, flipping the pair off with a pointed glare before turning towards the kitchen, intent on finding some peace and quiet where he could carry on his conversation without having to worry about Y/N overhearing something she shouldn’t.

“I don’t want to take up too much of your break,” He murmured, resting his elbows over the cool marble countertop of his kitchen island that was nearly the same temperature of his skin. “But calling you seemed easier than texting.  I’m free tonight—” He always kept his Friday nights free for her; had she not realized that by now? “So I was thinking I could be at your place around eight?  Or nine?  What works for you?”

And it was then that he had heard it, breaking through the cafe ambient noise that caught Harry’s inhuman ears, and the inquisitive whispering of Niall and Xander in the other room.  As clear as if it were really right in his ear, Harry had heard the sharp intake of breath, the slow exhale that followed, and the melodic voice that he’d become so familiar with, shaking ever so slightly.

“I was, um, actually thinking you could come over a bit earlier.” Y/N had replied, the tapping of her fingertips against her back room’s linoleum table reverberating around Harry’s head. “I got groceries yesterday, and I was going to make fajitas tonight, and I realized I had enough food for two people, and so if you don’t have anything else planned—”

Harry hadn’t meant to cut Y/N off— listening to her nervous rambling is one of his favourite things, and he’d never purposefully forfeit the opportunity to hear it (and that fondness aside, cutting off her speech would be rude)— but shock overtook his body and triggered the response before he could stop it. “You want to cook me dinner?”

“I—” The speaker crackled again, and Harry could practically picture the hesitation wrinkling across Y/N’s face, the caution in her tone a clear indication of how hard she was working to stay upright on the tense tightrope known as their relationship. “Yeah, I do.  I’m not a chef or anything, but my friends and I used to cook for each other all the time, and Fajita Fridays were one of my specialties, so—”

“I would absolutely love it if you cooked for me.” A slow grin had spread over Harry’s face, pulling the dimples from his cheeks in a way that he’d recently noticed only she could. “What time should I be over?  Do you want me to pick you up from work?”

“No, that’s fine.” Y/N had assured him quickly, the breathlessness in her voice leading Harry to picture the light rush of heat that was probably working its way over her cheeks. “You can come over around six, if that works for you…?”

Harry had checked the Rolex hanging off his wrist, which displayed the time of 2:33PM back to him. “Six is perfect.” He’d replied with an airy yet firm voice, nodding to himself once again. “Can I bring anything?  Is there anything you need me to pick up?”

“Oh, uh...no.  No, you don’t need to bring anything.  Just your appetite; I make a lot of fajitas.” The surprise that echoed in Y/N’s voice and the small laugh that followed had drawn an pleasurable ache from Harry’s dormant chest in a way he couldn’t explain. “Thank you for asking, though.  So… I’ll see you at six, then.”

“Sounds good, love.  I’m looking forward to it.” Harry had smiled again, despite no one being around to view it, and continued to smile even after he had hung up and made his way back to the living room, where his two friends had greeted him with an array of exaggerated vulgar motions and kissy faces.

He had waved them off, and though he’d glowered at them hotly and shrugged off their prodding questions, he couldn’t find it in himself to stifle the grin that the human girl’s offer had left behind on his cheeks.  She wanted to make him dinner. Just the two of them. It’d been so long since anyone had gone so out of their way for him like that, he hadn’t been able to help his giddy reaction.

As he reaches the final stair leading to Y/N’s floor of her building, a tired sigh falls from Harry’s pink lips.  He should’ve known better than to call her with his friend present, he thinks, as his footsteps echo around the empty hallway.  The moment he’d plopped back down on his couch, Niall and Xander had ignored his dismissive attitude and proceeded to continue to bombard him with a million questions about her, and a million more digs at his ego when he had later excused himself from their tournament to get ready for the dinner.  Although he’d normally be able to ignore their obsessive inquiries without so much as a second thought, he’d berated himself throughout his entire shower and get-ready routine, the harsh judgement ever-present in the back of his skull as he’d picked up his favourite ingredients for margaritas from the grocery store.  He should’ve known better.

It’s bad enough that he’s toying around with Y/N’s feelings just for his own selfish needs, but every time the topic of Y/N came up around his friends, it ended with the exact same question, just as it had earlier that day.

“So when do we get to meet her?  Like, officially meet her, and not just hear her moaning through your wall.” Niall had asked as he took a sip of his Guinness beer, layering a childish snicker on top of his curiosity.

“Yeah, I’d love to see the girl that domesticated you.  Always thought she’d be fictional, actually.” Xander’s laugh had matched Niall’s as the two of them watched Harry slip a fresh t-shirt over his head. 

A tightness had developed in Harry’s chest then, so tense that it had nearly stopped him from smoothing the shirt over his inked chest. “You don’t get to meet her.” He had replied curtly, shooting the two vampires a stern look. “She’s not something for you two to gawk at, she’s—”

Niall had interjected then, the mirth in his eyes refusing to bow despite Harry’s seething. “Your girlfriend?” 

Harry had stared witheringly at the Irish immortal. “No.  She’s not my girlfriend.  She’s just a friend I have an arrangement with.  An arrangement that will become much more complicated if she starts hanging out with other vampires and notices that there’s something… off about us.”

“Off?” Niall had questioned, grinning cheekily with a flash of his fangs, his blue irises dying blood red. “I have no idea what you’re referring to, mate.”

Pausing in front of Y/N’s front door, Harry takes a moment to swipe his hair back from his face, tousling his curls until they fall into just the right place.  His chestnut locks are beginning to get a little long again (they curl around his ears and tickle the nape of his neck now), but he can’t quite bring himself to cut them just yet; Y/N has a habit of reaching for them whenever he goes down on her, and the sensation of her tugging on his hair is too satisfying to let go of so easily.  As for the rest of his look, Harry has opted to keep it casual tonight, wearing a blue and pink flamingo patterned button down over his Chicago Cubs t-shirt, paired with a rust-coloured pair of corduroy pants and his white vans.  If their usual routine is any indication, then Harry will be staying the night, and he’s learned over the years that it’s much comfier to leave the next morning in loose clothes than trying to yank on a pair of tight leather pants in a stranger’s bedroom.  Not that Y/N is a stranger; in fact, he could probably get away with bringing an overnight bag now.  But there’s something so presumptuous in showing up to a dinner date with a bag, and in a shocking— though fleeting— change of heart, the last thing Harry wants is to seem presumptuous. 

Harry raises his jeweled knuckles and raps on Y/N’s door in a rhythmic pattern, straightening his back and leaning against the frame as he waits for the door to open. 

Even through the wooden barrier, Harry can hear the old music floating through the bluetooth speaker that he knows sits on Y/N’s kitchen counter, the sizzling of peppers and onions in a pan, and Y/N singing to herself softly under her breath, the latter of which pauses as soon as Harry knocks.  Instead, it’s replaced with the soft padding of bare feet against the laminate floor, the click of a lock, the removal of a door chain, and the turning of a knob as the door swings open. 

And then Harry sees Y/N, and the sight of her catches the breath that he doesn’t really need. It lodges in his lungs and at the back of his burning throat, causing an odd sensation to churn the pit of his tummy as a sudden wave of heat pours into his cheeks. 

If Harry’s pride wasn’t as steadfast as he likes to portray, he would openly admit that it truly is frightening how just one glance at her can make his entire nervous system flare. 

It’s obvious that Y/N’s been at work all day; her mascara is slightly smudged beneath her eyes, and the ponytail bouncing at the top of her head is loose, with wisps of hair falling out and framing her face.  Her clothing, however, has been changed from her usual work polo and jeans to a cotton bralette that clings to her chest and displays a strip of her stomach that makes Harry’s mouth water.  Her black leggings have mesh cutouts on the side, and while that detail would normally draw Harry’s eyes by default, it’s the multicolour patchwork cardigan hanging loosely off her shoulders that really catches Harry off guard.  Or, more specifically, it’s his multicolour patchwork cardigan that catches him off guard. 

“Hi.” Y/N smiles up at him warmly with the edges of her eyes crinkling, her hands grasping the side of the door tightly. “Six P.M. on the dot, Holmes.  I’m impressed.”

“Solving mysteries isn’t my only speciality.” Harry matches his grin to hers, his dimples making an appearance as his expression grows. “Although speaking of mysteries… I think I just solved the case of my missing cardigan.” With his free hand, Harry reaches forward and tweaks a button on the article of clothing, his fingers brushing against Y/N’s bare tummy when he pulls away. 

A wispy giggle falls from Y/N’s cheeks as she opens the door wider to invite Harry in. “Right, that case.  I was about to call you about it, actually.  We got a big break-through last night.”

“Did we?” Harry raises an eyebrow as he steps into her apartment, shifting the fabric tote bag in his right hand to his left as he squeezes into the narrow corridor beside her. “And what was the big break, exactly?” 

Y/N wraps her arms around Harry’s neck as he snakes his now free hand around her waist, clutching her close to his cool body. “Well, I was trying to go to sleep, and I was cold, so I went searching in my closet for an extra blanket, and found this tucked in the back from when you let me borrow it last weekend.” She explains lightly, twisting her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “Case closed.  Elementary, my dear Holmes.”

“I thought that was my line?” Harry quirks an eyebrow as fond amusement dances through his emerald eyes, his cold palm giving one of her love handles a playful squeeze. “First you steal my cardigan, and now my catch phrase.  What’s next?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” Y/N says with a shrug, her smile growing wider with every passing moment as she nudges his chin teasingly with the tip of her warm nose. “I could steal a kiss, I suppose?  That’s a very you thing to do.”

“Not quite.  Usually you’re the one trying to steal one, and I make you ask for it. Beg, even, if I’m feeling a bit meaner than usual.” Tilting his head to the side and shaking it slowly, Harry lets out a long sigh. “You’re losing your touch, Watson.”

“Tragic.” Y/N matches his sigh as she begins to untangle her hands from his hair, but when she tries to extract herself from Harry’s grasp, he just holds on tighter. 

“But for the sake of tradition…” Harry’s eyes fall to the mortal’s lips as he wets his own with his tongue. “How about a hello kiss?”

Despite the usual iciness of Harry’s touch, heat begins to blossom through Y/N’s chest as she tilts her head up to meet Harry’s mouth.  The kiss, unlike many they’ve shared before, is tender, and only lasts for a brief moment before Y/N settles back down on the balls of her feet. 

“Hi.” She whispers, her hands curling around the fabric clinging to Harry’s muscular shoulders. 

“Hi.” The vampire replies easily as he finally releases his grip on her waist, taking a step back from both Y/N and the bashful instance they’d found themselves in.

He allows her to lead him down the entrance hallway and into her living room, drifting behind her towards the kitchen and glimpsing over all the ingredients she has scattered around her counters.

“You look beautiful in my cardigan, by the way.” Harry throws out casually, admiring the way the article hangs off her figure in the most adorable oversized fashion. “If I didn’t make that clear enough before.  And,” the monster takes a sudden deep whiff for emphasis, “it smells delicious in here. Seems like Gordon Ramsey doesn’t have shit on you, huh?”

Although the initial compliment brings a flush of pleasure up Y/N’s spine, she chooses to focus on the latter half of Harry’s comment. “I’d like to think so, yeah.  Dinner is almost ready, if you want to take a seat at the table.  Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Actually…” Harry holds up the bag in his hand and bounces it jestingly, fully bringing it to Y/N’s attention for the first time. “I thought I’d make us margaritas to go with the fajitas.  Really commit to the theme, y’know?”

All of the previous drinks that Harry has made for her float through Y/N’s mind, and her mouth salivates at the thought of drinking another of his incredible creations. He really does have such a wise talent with liquor that she finds herself subconsciously wondering how that had come to be. “Of course; we can’t do Fajita Fridays halfway, now can we?”

“No, we can’t.” Harry agrees with a firm nod, setting the bag down on her small kitchen tabletop and unpacking the ingredients he’d toted with him. “Do you prefer your margaritas over ice or blended?”

The correct answer immediately rolls off the mortal’s tongue. “Blended— I’m not insane.” She states with a scoff, picking up her spatula to stir the pepper and onion mixture on the stove as she bobs her head towards the cabinet at the far end of the room. “The blender is just up in that cupboard there.”

The corners of Harry’s pink lips tug up at her response, and he nods to the girl as he drifts over and reaches for the cabinet she’d motioned to. “Gotcha.” He says, pushing back a few decorative serving platters before extracting the blender sitting on the back of the shelf. “Oh, this’ll do nicely.”

His comment is met with a quiet snort from Y/N, who glances at him from the corner of her eye as she turns her attention to the sautéing chicken in her skillet. “Oh, it will, will it?” She asks sarcastically, her lithe fingers adding pinches of seasoning to the dish. “Are you a blender connoisseur, then?”

“Of course I am, angel.  Y’have to be, to make a half decent margarita.” Setting the kitchen appliance in the counter, Harry studies it with a keen eye, running his fingers over the smooth glass and slightly worn buttons. “It has a little bit of wear and tear, but that’s to be expected; the rest of it seems to be in decent condition.” He unwraps the cord from the base of the blender, plugging it into the wall before pressing the pulse button a few times to make the machine roar to life. “Listen to that engine purr… A blender like this could bring a man to tears.”

“That’s good to know.” Y/N snorts again, shaking her head at Harry’s antics as he begins to prepare his ingredients. “If you need a knife for the limes, there’s one in the block there.  And ice is in the freezer—”

“That’s good to know.” Harry mimics her prior reply with a shit-eating grin on his face, his hand wrapped around a bottle of Don Julio he’d snagged from his bar shelves. “I was about to check the cabinet again.”

With a shake of her head, Y/N steps past Harry to open a cupboard and fetch a serving dish. “Alright, smartass.” She bumps her hip against Harry’s as she passes him, the motion sending a jolt of electricity across the vampire’s pelvic bones. “Keep it up and you’ll lose dessert privileges.”

Although she tries to step away, Harry twists a cool arm around Y/N’s waist, pulling her back against his chest as he smudges a kiss over her pulse point. “‘M sorry.” He murmurs, keeping his voice low in an attempt to hide the smile brewing on his face. “I’ll be nicer, then.  I’d hate to lose dessert—it’s my favourite part.”

With his lips over her neck, Harry can feel the exact moment Y/N’s heart rate increases, his ears pricking with the now familiar and adored sound.  Her warm hand cups his over her belly, fingers tracing over the knuckles of his icy touch. 

“I know it is.” Y/N tilts her head to the left, trying to provide Harry with more access to her neck as his mouth continues to ghost over her skin. “So I’d hate to take it away.”

The human girl’s familiar and achingly sweet honey and lavender scent fills Harry’s nostrils as his nose brushes against her jaw.  When he refers to her as dessert, Y/N doesn’t know how genuinely Harry means it. “Alright.  I’ll behave.” He relents, but he squeezes her tummy tightly as his teeth graze her skin one last time before pulling away. “For now.”

When Y/N detangles from the cage that is Harry’s arm, she busies herself with cooking again, doing her best to hide the light sheen of sweat that is beading her forehead.  It’s almost embarrassing, really; despite only being here for five minutes, Harry’s already pulling reactions out of her that she didn’t even know she had.  If she doesn’t get a hold of herself soon, she’ll be on her knees for him before he’s had a bite of dinner. 

With that thought in mind, the mortal forces herself to focus on the tasks at hand, continuing her banter with Harry while making sure to keep the subject matter PG as she plates the food and Harry blends drinks for them.  Her tiny table, which she’s already set for two, is soon filled with dishes containing sautéed vegetables, chicken, and other various toppings, and Harry pours his margarita mix into two glasses before sitting across from her with a curious air. 

“So this is what you and your friends used to do back home, is it?” He asks, crossing his arms and resting them on the table as he regards Y/N with a tilted head. “Fajita Fridays?  Taco Tuesdays?  Meatloaf Mondays?”

“Meatloaf Mondays sound depressing.” Y/N shoots back with a scoff, her hand wrapping around her margarita glass and lifting it to her mouth to take a sip. “We weren’t that pathetic.”

Harry exhales a sharp but quiet breath from his nose once—the beginnings of a laugh— before offering a dry reply. “No, it doesn’t have a very nice ring to it, does it?” He says, watching eagerly as her eyes widen at the first taste of the drink rolls across her tongue. “Do you like it?”

Y/N clears her throat as she lowers her glass from her mouth. “It’s...strong.” Y/N replies slowly, taking another gulp and smacking her lips in an exaggerated fashion. “But yummy.  This is a repeat recipe, I think.” 

The praise warms the pit of Harry’s stomach as he raises his own glass, motioning to the girl before him before bringing the edge of the cup to his lips. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He murmurs, setting his drink back down after taking a sip and letting his eyes roam over the food before them. “So how did you and your friends do this?  Everyone would just reach in at once, or—?”

“Oh, well, we—we used to say grace first, actually.” Y/N admits after a moment, her eyes momentarily flickering to the gold cross dangling from Harry’s neck.  Although his usual cross earring is absent tonight, his pearls out of sight as well, and he’s only wearing his opal and lionhead rings, that familiar cross necklace is present as ever. “And then we’d move everything around the table clockwise from the person who actually led saying grace.” 

Despite Y/N previously mentioning that she’d been a regular church goer in her hometown, this new information sparks an interest in Harry’s mind. “Really?” He quirks an eyebrow as the human girl reaches for a warmed tortilla and begins to spoon her toppings inside. “But you don’t do that now?”

“Nope.” Her lips pop on the final consonant sound of the word. “Did you say grace growing up?” She asks curiously, nodding to the chain around Harry’s neck. “You always wear that cross, so I was just wondering…”

“Oh, uh—yeah. Yeah, we did.” A crease furrows the space between Harry’s brow as he selects his own tortilla, keeping his eyes glued to the food. “My father used to lead it every night.” Although he could leave the comment there and be done with the topic, more words of explanation spill from Harry’s mouth without him realizing how much he’s actually saying, his gaze remaining trained on the way he’s filling his tortilla, almost as if it’s a monumentally difficult task that requires his utmost attention. “I liked to listen to him say it.  My father had a very calming voice; he could be loud and boisterous when he wanted to, but at home, he always kept cool and collected.  It was comforting.”

Y/N notes the use of past tense when discussing Harry’s father, but doesn’t comment on it.  With the knowledge that his mother had passed away in her mind, she assumes the same has happened to his father, and the realization twists her heart in a new and aching manner. “You speak like that, you know.” She tries to steer the conversation into a lighter direction, registering the sadness in his emerald eyes when he discusses his family. “When you’re telling stories about your life.  Your voice is low and even, quieter than usual.  It sounds a bit like a…lullaby, I guess.  Or like— like an audiobook, like someone’s reading some old poetry, or—” Her cheeks flame beneath her skin as she drops her eyes to her plate. “Sorry.  That, um, that sounds strange.”

The outpouring confessions from the girl across from him brings an awed expression to Harry’s face.  He had always assumed his voice was more of a siren song than anything— capable of luring his victims into a false sense of security before he showed his true monstrous form.  But if the stuttering of Y/N’s heart and the brightness in her eyes is any indication, maybe that isn’t quite the case.  She described him as a lullaby, yes, but she didn’t sound betrayed at the thought of him spinning stories in order to keep her pliable under his grasp.  If anything, her words give the impression that she enjoys it.

“I’ve heard stranger.” Harry murmurs after a moment, his unusually bare forefinger rubbing over his lips pensively as he waits for Y/N to raise her head again. “Thank you.  That’s a compliment, really, saying that I sound like my dad used to.”

“Well, I mean, I’ve never heard your dad speak, so take it with a grain of salt—” Y/N forces out a laugh, despite her cheeks and neck still feeling uncomfortably flushed, “—but I imagine it’s similar.  After all, he raised you, didn’t he?”

Harry nods slowly, his mind so wrapped in his own memories that he doesn’t even think about the incriminating answer about to fall from his lips. “He did, yeah, but it’s been a while since I’ve been able to speak to him.” He admits, pinching his chin between his thumb and index finger as he lifts his left shoulder in an empty shrug. “Memories fade over time.  Things change.  People change.”

Although she can feel that they’re beginning to breach a more serious topic, Y/N doesn’t pull back like she did in the restaurant.  She rationalizes this action to herself as she sips her margarita and collects her thoughts, saying that it’s just because it’s easier to be honest in her apartment than a brunch restaurant. But the truth of the matter is that the longer she spends with Harry, the more Y/N wants to know him. Really know him, outside of their usual arrangement. 

“That’s true,” She agrees with hesitancy etched into her voice, keeping a measured glance on Harry’s body to read his reaction. “But you can’t have changed that much since you last saw him.  When…” Her words trail off when Harry locks his emerald eyes with hers, but she takes a deep breath and finishes her question in determination. “When did he pass away?  How old were you?”

In the immortal’s mind, the answer forms without any delay.  His father had been the first to go in his family; the combination of breathing in smoke from the forge and his age being four years his mother’s senior had stopped his heart before hers.  The news of his death reached Harry a few days after it had happened, and he had just made it back to Holmes Chapel in time to watch the funeral service from afar.  

Despite his appearance being frozen at twenty-six, as it always would be, Harry was nearly twenty-nine to the day of the funeral.  Gemma had been thirty-three by then, standing with their mother and a tall man by her side, who whispered what her brother hoped were reassuring words in her ear.  His sister's eyes had been nearly a perfect mirror of Harry’s, with the exception of a few crow’s feet beginning to show around them.  And his mother had been dressed in widower’s black, a veil pulled over her weeping face to allow her the bit of discretion that was expected in Victorian times.  Harry had been distressed when he saw the veil, despite expecting it to be there; he’d hoped he could get one more glimpse of her eyes before he had to leave that day.  He had entertained the idea of walking over, expressing his condolences, and compelling her to forget she’d seen her lost son, but the thought had twisted an ache into his chest that had nearly brought him to tears, and—

“I was twenty-one when he passed away.” Harry spits the sentence out, and the familiar lie burns his throat in an entirely foreign way than the thirst he’s used to. “He had lung cancer.” At least, that had been Harry’s assumption after he read up on the disease years after his father’s undetermined passing.  It made sense, given that all the grit and soot from the coal and metal grime had found its way into the air of the blacksmith’s shop, and after slaving away for years in order to keep food on the table, it had also eventually made its way into his father’s system… “It progressed quickly.” 

As he watches sympathy glaze itself over Y/N’s eyes, all he can think about is how undeserving he is of it.  Even though he’s compelled the mortal girl in front of him, gained her trust, been invited into her home, and is kindling a connection with her, all for the simple act of drinking her blood, Harry thinks that this might be the most monstrous thing he’s done yet— paint himself as a victim of circumstance, hiding all the wrong-doings he’s ever committed, and allowing Y/N and her softly-beating heart to feel sorry for him. 

The conversation moves to an lighter tone after that, which Harry does on purpose; the less he needs to tell her about his fabricated sob story, the better.  And, truth be told, he’d much rather hear about Y/N’s day-to-day life.  It’s been so long since he had human concerns, and when he did, his concerns certainly didn’t have anything to do with being betrayed by customers because the cafe wifi was down.  It’s almost amusing to him, listening to her rant about all these insignificant people, and he can’t help the way his dimples begin to peek out of his cheeks as she raises her voice at imaginary customers. 

“So I told him, in my most polite voice, that we were aware the wifi was down, and that we’d called the provider to let them know, and that they were sending someone as fast as they could to fix it. And do you know what he said to me?” Y/N widens her eyes in incredulous disbelief as she takes a bite of her fajita, chewing and swallowing quickly to continue with her story with more emphasis. “Do you know what he said?”

“No, I don’t.” Harry shakes his head in endearment, hiding the laugh forming on his rosy lips behind his margarita glass. “What did he say?”

“He said—” Y/N twists her face to mimic the customer’s expression, dropping her voice down five octaves lower as she speaks with a ridiculous tone. “‘Oh, well, can’t you just fix it?  You work here, don’t you?  What else do you get paid for?’ Can you believe that?” She states the last phrase in her normal voice, scoffing at the memory as she crosses her patchwork covered arms across her chest. “Like, I’m a waitress!  I don’t work at an internet company!  I’m trained to bring you water and sandwiches— which are more cucumber than anything with actual substance—  so it’s not my responsibility to figure out why you can’t load Candy Crush on your phone!”

A snicker finally breaks free from Harry’s throat as he watches Y/N angrily stuff a piece of chicken into her mouth. “Sounds like you had a rough day today.”

“That’s pretty average for me, honestly.” Y/N sighs again, rubbing her hand over her forehead as she polishes off the rest of her second margarita. “Ugh, it pissed me off.  I wanted to shove his phone right up his ass and ask if his wifi connection got better.” A small smile breaks out across Y/N’s lips in spite of herself as Harry stifles another giggle at her witty comment. “But I’ve talked about it enough.  How was your day?  What did you do?”

“I did a bit of work in the morning, nothing too noteworthy.” Harry replies, deliberately keeping his answer vague as he twists his lionhead ring around his finger. “And I was about to watch a golf tournament with Xander and Niall when you called.”

Harry thinks nothing of mentioning their names, but is surprised when Y/N’s brow cinch in thought. “Which ones are Xander and Niall?  Is one of them the long haired one?” She asks curiously, pulling her (his) cardigan off one shoulder as the tequila begins to course through her veins and heat her body. 

“The— no.  No, that’s Mitch.” Harry says slowly, cocking his head to the side in confusion. “How did you know that?”

Y/N feels a spike of embarrassment in her stomach, and shyly avoids Harry’s eyes as she answers. “There was a photo of you with a group of guys in your apartment, in the living room.” She mumbles, tapping her fingers against her newly cleaned plate. “One of them— I think he was next to you in the photo?— had long hair.  Another had blue eyes, glasses… and brown hair, I think?  I don’t really remember the rest…”

Harry hums in the back of his throat, quiet and low. “That was probably Niall.” He guesses, finishing his own margarita and setting the glass down gently. “If I’m thinking of the right picture, then Xander was the one standing next to him.”

Y/N pictures the faces in her mind’s eye, imagining the two brunette boys in the clothing from the photo, slumped next to Harry on the couch of his stunning condo, knocking back pints of beer and plates of nachos as they watch golf on TV.  It seems strange to picture Harry doing something so… normal.  She forgets, sometimes, that he’s a regular twenty-six year old man.  In her head, when she thinks of Harry, regular is the last word that comes to her mind— even when he’s sitting across from her in a casual outfit, doing something as simple as eating dinner while he asks her about her day, Y/N struggles to remember that this man is just that: a man.  

Maybe, she ponders, as Harry stands up with the explanation of making more margaritas falling off his lips, it’s because she’s only ever really been alone with him.  With the exception of the club where they met, and his friends interrupting their weekend a few weeks prior (her cheeks flame at the recalling of the embarrassing memory), Y/N has only ever seen Harry in her own context.  

As the blender whirs to life behind her, the human twists in her chair to catch a glimpse of the object of her thoughts.  Even beneath his opaque shirt, she can see the muscles of Harry’s back flexing as he bends down to slice a lime, squeezing the juice into the top of the blender while holding his jeweled hand underneath to catch any seeds.  When Harry is around her, he’s charming, cocky, self-assured, and— on the extremely rare occasion— vulnerable.  What’s he like around his friends?  

Just as cocky, Y/N is sure; she can’t picture Harry letting go of his signature smirk so easily.  But does anything else about him shift when exposed to different company?  Is there different vocabulary that slips from his mouth?  What about his tone of voice?  Does that change, too, like Y/N’s used to when she was around Bradley, or when she’s with customers?  He mentioned earlier that he’d been watching golf, and that was the last sport she'd ever think he’d have an affinity for, let alone one he’d enjoy enough to make a day out of watching tournaments.  What other personality traits and pastimes is he keeping from her?  If she were to be a fly on the wall while he was with his friends, would she see someone completely unrecognizable in his Gucci boots and translucent shirts?

The sudden lack of noise from the blender snaps Y/N from her thoughts, and Harry detaches the pitcher and carries it to the table, filling her empty glass with a smile. 

“There you are, miss.” He winks at her quickly before filling his own cup and standing back from the table with a grin, his free hand folded behind his back as he straightens his posture. “Now,” He begins, his accent slipping into a more posh tongue as he bows his head lightly. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

Despite her worries, a soft laugh rolls from Y/N at his impersonation of a server. “Yeah, actually.” She drops her voice lower again, plastering an angry expression onto her face as she reaches into her cardigan pocket and retrieves her phone. “Your wifi is down.  What kind of restaurant doesn’t have wifi?  Can’t you fix this?”

A loud snort echoes from Harry’s mouth as he sets the blender back down on the counter before sliding back into his seat across from her. “Sorry, love,” He laughs, his regular accent back in its place. “That’s a bit above my paygrade.  I can, however, offer you some compensation.”

Wrapping her fingers around the icy margarita glass, Y/N leans forward, resting her chin on her free hand as she appraises Harry with a kinked brow. “Is that so?” She replies in her regular voice as well, her interest piqued. “What kind of compensation?”

“It’s part of our Friday Night Special,” Harry slides his hand across the table and pushes the baggy rainbow sleeve of Y/N’s cardigan down her arm in order to brush his cool fingers up and down her bare skin. “And it features bottomless margaritas paired with cunnilingus from our most handsome waiter.”

A fluttering warmth begins to knot itself around Y/N’s core, but she does her best to keep her composure as she straightens her spine and glances around the apartment. “Sounds intriguing.  So where’s the handsome waiter?”

Harry’s pillowy lips plunk down into an exaggerated frown as he presses a hand to his chest, his other hand continuing to stroke over Y/N’s forearm. “Ouch, Watson.  That hurt.  Might need you to kiss it better.”

“Oh yeah?” Y/N challenges, lifting her drink to her lips and sipping it slowly. “Where exactly does it hurt?”

Instead of answering her query, Harry simply stands from his chair and rounds the table to stop in front of Y/N, extending his hand to her.  She lays her fingers inside his cool grasp, allowing him to pull her from her seat.  He’s closer than she realized, she thinks, as her chest brushes with his and the intoxicating scent of his cologne fills her senses, only getting stronger as Harry nudges her nose with his own, his lips just barely gliding over her own. The copper specks around his pupils glitz under the muted lighting, electric from the alcohol, from the sensation of her close proximity, and from the ever-present intention of getting between her legs.

When Harry finally speaks, his thick cadence washes over her just as much as his tequila-scented breath, his free-hand tugging suggestively at the waistband of her leggings. “If we go to your bedroom, then I can show you.”

“Mm, is that so?” The girl gives in to his gesture, stepping forward as the vampire begins treading backwards towards their new— though entirely familiar— destination. “You’re gonna show me, then?”

“I most certainly am.” The boy keeps their bodies close, making sure that his lips continue to just barely graze hers as he moves, teasing her nerves into a frenzy. “I plan on showing you over, and over, and over…”

Y/N can’t bring herself to resist the offer.  She’s only human, after all.

///

The next morning, Harry wakes up tangled in Y/N’s sheets to two surprises: the sheets on Y/N’s side of the bed are cold and bare, and that Harry is actually waking up.  

Although he remembers falling back onto the scattered sheets the night before (after coaxing three orgasms out of Y/N and her coaxing two from him in return), he doesn’t remember drifting off into the sleep he so rarely needs, and because of that, Harry feels disoriented and groggy in a way he hasn’t in a long time.  He does his best to blink the haze from his usually sharp eyes, knuckling at them with his cool fingers as he attempts to get his bearings.

His sleep-fogged mind struggles to recall what had happened after Y/N had fallen asleep.  She’d drifted off easily and quickly, her sweat-soaked body tucked into Harry’s with her head resting in the crook of his neck.  That noted detail sticks out in his memory because it had made Harry pause before biting her.  She’d been so comfortable next to him, and in such an inconvenient position that Harry didn’t want to shift her to drink. After debating with himself for a few moments, he’d eventually decided on an alternative and had lifted her fragile wrist to his lips.

Even half awake, Harry’s lips quirk up at the hazy memory.  He recalls the feeling of her hummingbird pulse thrumming beneath her delicate skin, practically vibrating against his lips as he stamped a kiss over her vein before biting down.  Her blood had a weaker flow there, but that was alright; he’d just sucked a little harder to coax the liquid from her body, feeling his mouth overflow with her welcomed taste as well as with the supernatural chemicals that inject into her system and dull any pain his feeding might cause. He’d been careful to gauge his consumption by the strength of her heartbeat, and when he’d finished, he’d sealed the wound with a bit of his own blood, as usual. He’d made sure Y/N was healed and settled back in his arms before relaxing into the pillows to listen to her breathing, the soft pillows and her radiating body heat feeling more soothing than usual. Somewhere between counting the movement of her lungs and the sun rising, Harry had fallen unconscious.

It’s strange, being up after Y/N.  Harry has grown used to rising before her and making breakfast, or even just coffee, and there’s something disorienting about being in her bed alone, without her inherent warmth and soft skin, and only the ghost of her sugary scent left behind.  He briefly wonders if this is how she feels when she wakes up to cold sheets and no one beside her (although Harry suspects the lack of his frozen body would make the bed a more comfortable temperature), and thinks that maybe he should begin to lay in bed with her a little longer; if he’s going to fake a relationship with her, it should be a relationship where her partner wants to be around her, and isn’t awake before the sun.

And that’s another thing.  The golden orange light of the rising L.A. sun is just beginning to stream through the closed curtains, so what time is it?  It can’t be any later than seven— on a Saturday, no less— and at such an early hour, Harry would expect Y/N to still be dreamily dozing in bed.  What had drawn her away from her comfortable position in Harry’s arms?

As the sun continues to rise, the light begins to streak onto Y/N’s empty side of the bed and, instinctually, Harry begins to reach for the beam, craving the warmth she took with her when she abandoned the sheets.  Instead of the expected touch of heat, however, Harry is jarred by a burning sensation ripping across his icy flesh.

The vampire yanks his hand back in a flash, his face screwing in silent pain as he bites back a yell of anguish, but the damage has already been done.  The tips of his fingers are puckered with red blisters, which throb as he flexes his hand in the safety of the shadows. Harry digs his sharp teeth into his lip harder, forcing himself to inhale slowly through his nose and exhale shakily through his mouth.

It takes a few moments for him to collect himself, breathing deeply with his eyes closed as he does so, and as he counts his own breaths like he’d counted Y/N’s the night before, what should’ve been an obvious thought enters his mind: why had he burned?  He’s wearing his lionhead ring, which has eyes made of those precious crystals that protect his inhuman skin from sunlight, and as long as he’s wearing it, the sun shouldn’t be able to…

Harry’s sight snaps completely open as he jerks forward in bed, his head throbbing from the sudden movement.  When he’d first awoken, he’d attributed his grogginess and dry eyes to sleeping for the first time in weeks, but as Harry’s jade gaze settles upon his uninjured hand, he realizes the truth.  That disorienting feeling isn’t from sleep, but from the sunlight that had begun to seep through the curtains and affect his body, bouncing off the glossy walls of Y/N’s room and reflecting off her picture frames and furniture.  What would normally not be an issue suddenly becomes the bane of his existence, and what usually isn’t able to affect his body immediately does, obvious in the agonizing sweltering writhing through every single one of his dormant arteries. And all because his lionhead ring is missing from its rightful place.

Granted, Harry hadn’t worn most of his rings to Y/N’s apartment the night before, seeing as how they planned to spend the night in, but he’d kept his mother’s opal and the lionhead securely on his middle finger and pinky, just as he always did.  The former brings him memories of his mother, and helps him keep a piece of her— and who he once was— with him in this strange modern time.  The latter had been a rebirth gift from a family he’d rather forget, and if it didn’t keep him from flambéing himself every time he stepped into the sun, he wouldn’t wear it at all. In all honesty, he probably would’ve chucked into Hell, if he could. 

But the reality of his afterlife is that Harry needs that ring.  So why is it missing from his hand?

Cradling his blistered digits to his bare chest, the wounded vampire tosses back the covers, careful to avoid the streaks of sunshine beginning to light up the small room.  His icy chest soothes the burn in his fingers, which are taking longer to heal than Harry would’ve thought, but if the grating itch of his dry eyes is any indication, the effects of the sun aren’t just limited to direct physical harm, but are also stopping his body from healing itself as quickly as usual.

Harry presses his good hand to his dizzy head and swings his legs over the edge of the bed, planting his feet onto the ground as firmly as he can to center himself, refusing to cripple under the extraneous circumstances. He fishes his grey boxers from their signature spot on Y/N’s floor, slipping them on slowly as even the smallest of movements seems to strain his muscles beyond reason. As the elastic band snaps around his hips, another frightening possibility seizes his body: his mother’s ring could also be gone. He yanks his hand away from his head, and it takes his eyes a moment to focus on the opal ring.  At least he can breathe a sigh of relief about one thing— if his mother’s ring had disappeared, Harry’s not quite sure what he would’ve done.  

And that thought brings his spinning mind back to the present.  His lionhead ring is gone, and he can’t so much as step into sunlight without undergoing intense, insurmountable pain, so how is he going to find it?

Another groan falls from Harry’s mouth as he rests his forehead in his palm, propping his elbow against his knee so he can shield his eyes from the sunlight by hiding in between his legs.  Daylight talismans are extremely rare; he can’t exactly waltz into the nearest Wal-Mart and pick one up.  The crystals that give vampires such cherished immunity all date back to the medieval era, when vampires were considered mythical legends instead of just plain myths, and what few of the crystals are left are hidden deep within old ruins in the remote wilderness of Europe.  If Harry hadn’t been given his shortly after he was turned, he’s not sure he would have been lucky enough to own one.  He remembers Niall telling him how he had to search every night for months before he found a crystal hidden inside a ruin in Wales, and Xander had once recounted the story of stealing his from the vampire that turned him.  Even Mitch had struggled with the crystals before; although his ring had originally been a gift from the vampire that transformed him, he had to crack the crystal in half and set it into a new ring for Sarah when she had met her untimely demise. 

Vampires have been known to beg, lie, cheat, and steal in order to get their hands on a daylight crystal, so if someone managed to sneak in and take Harry’s lionhead ring while he and Y/N were sleeping, then Harry is going to have a fucking hell of a time trying to get it back. 

As the thought enters Harry’s dazed mind, a chill runs down his back, crawling across his spine and down his tailbone in an unsettling shiver as he slowly turns back to Y/N’s empty side of the bed.  If someone— if another creature just like him, who would be the only other person capable of recognizing such a treasure— got into the apartment and took his ring, and found an unconscious mortal girl with the sweetest honey and lavender liquid pulsing through her veins, then…

The sheets and curtains of the room blow in a breeze as Harry jets off the bed, forgetting to control his inhuman speed as he throws the sliding door open and stumbles into the hallway.  More sunlight streams through the windows of the living room, and it’s taking all of Harry’s dulled concentration to avoid the beams as he staggers towards the kitchen.

It’s not until the immortal smells Y/N’s familiar fragrance and hears the beating of her heart, in tune with her quiet humming, that the fear Harry hadn’t realized had tightened his chest flows out of him in one fell swoop.  He does his best to force even breaths in and out of his lungs, watching as Y/N raises her coffee mug to her lips and blows on the hot liquid before taking a small sip.

She’s dressed in his multicoloured patchwork cardigan again, buttoned up to provide her with warmth and modesty, but it slips down her bare shoulder in a way that allows Harry to see she’s wearing nothing underneath it.  Although the cardigan pools around her silky thighs— which are marked with bruises from the night before— Harry can see the tiniest peak of her panties beneath the fabric, and if he were in a better frame of mind, he might’ve noticed how they’re not the pair she wore last night (that pair had been ripped right down the middle in his frantic attempt to get them off).  However, Harry’s eyes quickly settle on Y/N’s hands, which, after she sets down her coffee cup, pick up Harry’s lionhead ring and begin turning it around in her fingers.

When he sees the ring in her delicate grasp, a wave of sheer rage begins to rumble through Harry’s chest, and it takes every fiber of his undead being to keep it at bay as he approaches the mortal girl. “Y/N,” Harry rasps lowly, voice heavy with the exhaustion that his newfound vulnerability has stacked onto his shoulders. He stands in the one spot of shadow near the kitchen counter, trying hard not to glower. “What are you doing?”

When Y/N turns her head to look at him, her sleepy face smiles softly, eyes nearly as bright as the infuriating sun. Maybe that’s why, Harry thinks, it feels like it burns.

“Morning,” She says quietly, her own voice just as sleepy as Harry’s as she picks up a grey cloth from the table and begins to run it over the ring with precision and care. “How did you sleep?”

It’s a simple, innocent question, and Harry knows that, but his mind can’t think in simple and innocent terms right now.  As the light filling the room begins to pound his head even more, Harry’s thoughts revert back to his most instinctual behavior— rough carnal impulse. “What are you doing?” He asks again, his voice lower than before.  He sounds dangerous, and he means to.  How could she possibly think that taking something from him without his permission is fine?

“I’m polishing your ring.” Y/N keeps that good-natured smile on her face as she replies, but Harry can see the smallest waver in it as she begins to sense his distorted energy from across the room. “It was tarnished, and I have a polishing cloth, so I thought I’d—”

“Give it back.” Harry doesn’t mean to snarl the phrase, but he can’t stop himself from doing it as he thrusts out his hand expectantly; it’s taking all his concentration to keep himself from baring his teeth and letting his eyes bleed red. 

Y/N doesn’t fight him on it, and drops the ring carefully into his awaiting hand without letting her warm skin meet his.  She watches with confused eyes as Harry slips the newly shined lionhead ring onto his finger, a breath of relief sighing from his red lips the moment the metal meets his skin. He finishes twisting it into its designated spot, and he feels like he can actually breathe again.

The human girl waits a moment for an explanation from Harry, some spoken word or action to justify the hostility rolling off of him as he clutches the jeweled hand to his chest.  As the moments pass, however, Harry offers no explanation, or anything at all as he takes deep and measured inhales through his nose, as if he’s trying to relax. 

“I’m sorry.” Y/N offers the words quietly, turning in her chair to properly face him with sincere eyes. “I just noticed that it was more tarnished than your other jewelry, and I thought I could—”

“You can’t take my rings from me.” Harry answers in a harsh voice, his face reflecting about as much warmth as stone on a winter’s day. “I thought I’d lost it.  You can’t do that.”

“I’m sorry.” Y/N repeats the phrase again, gentler this time as she wraps her hands around her steaming mug.  She had guessed that the opal ring was his mother’s, but like Harry’s ruby ring and initial rings, she’d deduced this lionhead decal was more for decoration than anything.  If it was something important, one would figure that he’d take better care of it.  But it seems she’s not as adept at reading Harry as she’d like to think, because his explosive reaction had been totally unexpected.  For the first time since she met him, Y/N feels uneasy in his presence.  Had she really offended him that much?

The truth of the situation, unbeknownst to her, is that Harry’s reaction is no more purposefully malicious than Y/N’s intentions. Although the ring is back on his finger, and the crystals are beginning to protect him again, Harry’s thoughts are still muddied as he glances around the apartment, carefully surveying the circumstance like the top predator he pretends not to be.  There’s still a throbbing in his skull, and his eyes remain painfully dry, despite the fact that his healing has kicked in and mended his blistered fingertips.  In this moment, Harry feels weaker than he has in centuries; if someone were to attack right now, he wouldn’t be able to react quickly enough to protect himself. How could his aching head afford him any clear plan of attack?  How could his burning eyes show him every approaching danger?  How did he let himself become so relaxed— so stupidly lax— that he didn’t notice a mere human slipping off his most precious and needed object as he slept soundly in her bed?

“I really am sorry, Harry.” Rising from her chair with her quiet speech, Y/N steps towards him, hand outstretched to touch his inked forearm. “I didn’t know—”

Her hot fingertips against Harry’s frozen skin jar the vampire, triggering his fight or flight instincts as he tenses beneath her touch. “No—” He wrenches his arm away hurriedly, the searing graze reminding him of the sunlight that had harmed him just seconds ago, his wild eyes meeting Y/N’s in a feral frenzy. 

Although her chest barely moves, Harry can hear the stuttering breath that the girl sucks in through her teeth, her eyes widening at the severity of his actions. “I’m sorry.” She whispers the phrase again, her fingers jerking back from Harry’s arm in shock. “I…”

The more time passes, the more Harry regains control of himself, and as Harry melds his shattered composure back together, he can see the fear beginning to stain its way onto Y/N’s face.  The uneven beating of her heart pricks his ears, as does the scuff of the floor beneath her bare feet as she takes a step back from him.  When that uncertain fear reaches her irises, Harry is suddenly flashed back to their first date, when he’d been worried that she might be scared of being alone with him, and how delighted he’d been when he realized that wasn’t the case.  And now, as a sick feeling begins to settle in his stomach, he knows he’s blown it. 

Inhaling deeply through his nose, Harry urges himself to relax. 

“No, I’m sorry.” He softens his voice as much as he can muster in order to apologize, rubbing his charred eyes with one hand, hoping they’re still the canopy green Y/N is familiar with. “M’just half asleep still, and I was worried that— I’m sorry.” Harry extends his ringed hand in invitation, desperately craving the warmth of Y/N’s touch now that he’s leveled out, but not wanting to take it unwillingly. He wants her to feel safe enough to give it to him. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

There’s a moment of hesitation that flickers in her eyes, but it quickly passes as the mortal lays her hand within his. “You didn’t scare me.” She reassures him, but Harry can hear the falseness of her response immediately, and that guarded demeanor only intensifies the nausea rattling inside him.

Is she lying to save his feelings, he wonders, or to make herself look tougher?  No matter which may be the truth, Harry hates that she has to feel the need to lie.  He’d been upset, yes, but he should know better.  And he should know that she doesn’t know better.  She thought she’d been doing something nice for him; she has no idea about the torturous results his ring protects him from.  And she doesn’t know because Harry refuses to tell her— because he refuses to subject her to that perverted knowledge.  This is his own doing. 

“I did. I did frighten you, and I was rude, and I’m truly sorry.” Harry sighs heavily, dragging his fingers through his sleep-tousled curls. “My ring is just— it’s very important to me, and I don’t really like to take it off, so maybe just—just ask next time, yeah?” He murmurs the words in a soothing tone, his thumb sweeping over her knuckles in a poor attempt to make up for the way he’d berated her. “I know you didn’t have any bad intentions, and I’m not angry with you for taking it, but it just scared me when I woke up and it was gone.” 

“I’m sorry.” Y/N repeats yet again, and although Harry can feel her melting into his touch, there’s still a hint of uncertainty lingering beneath her words. 

Harry forces a grin on his chapped lips, which he wets with his tongue before speaking again. “S’alright, dove.  No harm, no foul.  And no more apologies, yeah?” He brushes a finger over her cheek, trying his best to put on a lighthearted front for the girl. “It was rather tarnished, actually— needed a good cleaning.” 

A shy smile finally creeps its way onto Y/N’s face, and Harry has to stop himself from breathing an audible sigh of content at both the gesture and the lack of prying about why that ring was dirtier than the rest (the answer to said question is just as simple as it is complicated: it reminds Harry of someone he’d rather forget, and if he didn’t need it, he’d drown it in the deepest ocean he could find— keeping it clean is the least of his concerns).

“How about breakfast, hm?  It’s early, but we could make some pancakes, or—” Harry glances at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, reading the time with surprise before his gaze travels back to Y/N with a confused look. “It’s not even seven yet.  What time did you get up?”

“Around 6:15?  6:30?” She lifts one shoulder in a casual shrug, and Harry’s cardigan slips down her arm with the motion. “I don’t really remember.”

With his other hand still squeezing her own, Harry rugs the sleeve of the cardigan back up her shoulder, smoothing it over her morning-cooled skin. “It’s a Saturday, darling.  What were you doing up so early?”

Despite her heartbeat having not quite returned to its usual tempo, Y/N nuzzles into Harry’s touch as he pulls her closer to him. “Couldn’t really sleep, I guess.” Tucking her face into his neck for a moment, Y/N indulges a penetrating inhale, enjoying the remnants of his mahogany and vanilla cologne before stepping back and past Harry to the cabinet.  

Standing on her tiptoes, Y/N opens the door and retrieves a pink flowered mug before sliding down the counter to her coffee maker. “Want some coffee?” She asks, touching the glass of the carafe lightly to make sure it’s still warm. “There’s butter in the fridge, I think, if you want to make your disgusting drink.”

Ignoring the dig at his beverage of choice— which Harry has explained to her, multiple times, has many health benefits (not that he needs them) and just tastes better than coffee with cream— the vampire leans his hip against the counter, crossing his arms over his bare chest as his brow furrows over his darkening eyes. 

“Why couldn’t you sleep?” He questions, his attention glued to Y/N’s actions as she seems to deliberately avoid his gaze.  He analyzes the dark circles under her eyes, apparent even from just her side profile, and a spark of concern ignites his chest.  Could this be his fault?  Is drinking her blood beginning to take a physical toll on her body?  His blood has been healing her bite marks, but what about her iron levels?  Is her circulation being affected?  Mitch has told him multiple times that drinking from humans is okay once or twice a week, as long as there’s a grace period in between feeding, but Mitch has also never had the same human for as long as Harry has had Y/N.  Have the weeks they’ve spent together begun to unravel her?

When Y/N simply shrugs in response to his question, and offers no other words of explanation, a tired sigh falls from Harry’s lips as he steps towards her, taking the now-filled coffee mug from her hands and setting it down on the counter.  He wraps his arms around Y/N’s shoulders, hugging the girl into his chest for a moment to get a gauge on her body’s response.  Her heartbeat stutters, yes, but that’s a usual response to being wrapped inside Harry’s embrace, and it returns to normal after a few beats.  Her body feels just as warm as it usually does, and her chest is rising and falling just as it should be.  Nudging his face into her hair, he breathes in deeply, filling his lungs with her fragrance.  No, nothing smells out of place, and her blood had tasted as delicious and as strong as ever last night.  If she’s having trouble sleeping, the cause isn’t anything tangible. 

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Harry mumbles the words into her hair before lifting his head up, extracting the girl from his arms just enough so that he can see her face. “If something is bothering you and keeping you up, then you can wake me up, too.”

Y/N worries her pillowy bottom lip between her teeth as her eyes become entranced by Harry’s rosemary gaze. “I know I could, but I didn’t want to.  You—” She swallows hard in an attempt to clear the thickness from her throat as her cheeks begin to burn. “You were sleeping, and I never see you sleep.” Y/N’s voice retreats into a sheepish tone at the admittance, her eyes falling from Harry’s stare to the floor between them. “You always fall asleep after me, and you’re always awake before me.  You need rest, too, H.”

While Harry would normally laugh at that simple phrase— at the fact that Y/N doesn’t know how wrong she is— Harry’s dimples remain dormant as he focuses on the concern in her voice. “I—” His voice catches in his throat, and he has to clear it before he can say anything else. “I sleep just fine.  Better, in fact, when I’m with you.” He confesses, his thumbs brushing over the exposed skin of Y/N’s neck. 

And after Y/N has extracted herself from his grip to take a sip of her coffee, after she teasingly groans while watching Harry drop a pat of butter into his own steaming mug, after he begins to crack eggs into a pan as Y/N starts to lay bacon on a baking sheet, after all that, Harry finally realizes what lodged in his throat. It dawns on him just as Y/N slips a pink apron over his bare, faintly hickey-bruised chest to protect him from splatters of grease, giggling to herself as he poses with his hand on his hip and makes a vulgar joke about how this looks like the setup to a cheesy porno. 

The vampire comes to the realization that Y/N takes notice of him. 

She notices when he doesn’t sleep.  She notices his exposed skin that could potentially be burned while cooking.  She notices the expressions on his face, reads the tone of his voice, knows when to press a matter and when to leave it be.  And she’s concerned.  She’s concerned about not seeing him sleep.  She’s concerned about him accidentally getting hurt.  She’s concerned about the swings in his moods, the shortness of his answers.  And while Harry knows her real concerns should be about allowing herself to be in such close proximity to someone— something— like him, he can’t help but feel a warmth in his chest at the thought of her worrying about him. 

As much as Harry likes to pretend otherwise, he knows he’s not easy to be around sometimes.  He can be vain, self-centered, self-serving, and inconsiderate.  He can be selfish, dishonest, and manipulative.  His mood can teeter at the drop of a hat, and he changes his mind like the weather on the best of days.  And on his worst of days, sometimes Harry wonders if anyone could care for him, or even stand to be around him, if it wasn’t a necessity. 

Although he’d never admit it, when Harry reflects on his friendships, he can feel a degree of insecurity in the threads that tie him to his crew.  He’s fairly certain that if he and Mitch met under different circumstances— circumstances when both of them were human— they would likely still be friends.  Maybe not as close as they are today, but friends, at the very least.  When it comes to Niall, Xander, and Adam, however… he’s not so sure.  Yes, he cares for them more than he’ll ever care for anyone again, and his loyalty to them is unwavering, but on his worst days, Harry can’t help but wonder if they would be friends if their connection hadn’t been forged on the basis of what they are, and understanding something that no one else can.  If being vampires hadn’t placed them in each other’s lives and sealed them in a bond of venom and blood, would they even have given the others a second thought?  Would any of them have wanted Harry in their lives?  Harry wants to think yes, but it’s not a question of what he wants; the truth is, Harry is uncertain. 

But when Y/N sits across from him with a smear of ketchup on her bottom lip, smiling softly at Harry as he wipes it off with his thumb, and he can’t stop himself from smiling back, he realizes something that’s never occurred to him before.  He’s able to be cared for by someone who is drawn to him for all the reasons humans are normally drawn to each other, and not because they have a mutual understanding of what it’s like to be an other.

Of course, he knows there’s a certain degree of falsity in that; part of his charm and addictive qualities come from what he is, and Y/N, like any other mortal, isn’t immune to that.  But instead of allowing herself to be driven away by the usual uneasiness that pairs with being so close to a vampire for so long, Y/N is leaning closer to him, laughing as he cracks a bad joke, kissing him over their breakfast, and showing evidence that she— against all odds— wants to know him.  And the thought sends a fluttering below Harry’s ribs. 

He wishes, just for a moment, that he could be capable of feeling the same. He wishes he could have the decency to give this girl the proper relationship she wants, or even the decency to break her heart quickly before she gets too attached to someone incapable of seeing her as anything more than a takeout meal.  He wishes he could get to know her— truly get to know her, without any ulterior motives.

But Harry is vain, self-centered, self-serving, and inconsiderate.  He’s selfish, dishonest, and manipulative.  And he has his fangs too deep in this mortal to let her go. 

///

“Are you sure I can’t pick you up?” Harry slides his phone between his ear and his shoulder in order to snag his keychain from his pocket, fumbling for the right key before inserting it into his locked door. “I can just drop my groceries off and then swing by your cafe, love.  It’s no trouble.”

“No, really, it’s fine, H.” Y/N insists from the other end of the line, her voice nearly drowned out from the roar of L.A. traffic around her. “I already left work, and I’m nearly home.  I’ll be over at your place within, like, forty-five minutes, I think?  I just have to change out of my uniform.”

With his front door now unlocked, Harry grabs his phone from its perch on his shoulder before pushing open the door with his hand full of groceries, stepping inside his apartment and nudging the door shut with his foot. “I know, but it’s a long walk to my place, isn’t it?”

“It’s, like, twenty minutes— practically nothing.  And besides, I have to stop at the post office and mail a letter to my parents.”

The corner of Harry’s mouth quirks up as he rounds the corner to his kitchen, setting his grocery bags on the island before leaning his hip against the kitchen counter, his now free hand braced against the cool marble. “You still send your parents letters?  Can’t you just call them?” He asks, tapping a ringed finger against the stone.

“If you knew my parents, you’d send letters, too.” Y/N sighs into the speaker, and Harry’s inhuman ears can hear the jangling of her keys in her hand.  He can picture her searching for them like she did the night they met, digging into her purse until she’s elbow deep, her tongue tucked between her teeth in concentration.

Despite the distinctive sound of a lock turning, Harry can’t stop himself from asking about her well-being. He’s so used to doing it with his other friends, it slips out on impulse. “Are you home now?  Made it alright?”

There’s a hint of exasperated amusement in Y/N’s voice when she responds. “Yes, I managed to walk home all by myself.  Didn’t even get murdered.” There’s another thud, and Harry imagines her shutting her door, pushing her weight against it to lock it properly. “I’m pretty good at taking care of myself, you know.  I have good instincts.” 

If she’s allowed him to get this close to her, Harry thinks, then her instincts aren’t exactly the caliber she imagines them to be, but he bites his tongue to stop himself from correcting her. “I’m sure you do, darling.” He murmurs the reply as he opens his fridge to begin stocking it with the items he’d purchased earlier. “Oh, by the way, make sure you’re wearing comfortable shoes, yeah?  We’re going to be doing a bit of walking later.”

“Right.  And you’re not telling me where we’re going because…?”

“Because surprises are fun.”

When Y/N huffs in response, Harry pictures the girl with a scowl on her face, her arms crossed tightly over her tummy as she gives him an endearing glare. “Not when you’re the one who’s being surprised.” 

Still, despite her protests, Harry hears the rustling of clothing as she pulls off her work polo, followed by the clanking of her belt, the snap of a button, and the familiar rustle of her jeans being peeled off her legs. “You just worry about undressing yourself, alright?  It must be difficult, since you’ve grown so used to me doing it for you.”

“Uh huh.  I’m hanging up now.” Y/N deadpans into the phone, but Harry can tell there’s a lingering smile underneath her flat words. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Alright, doll.  See you soon.” Harry sets a carton of eggs in the fridge before closing it, hanging up the call and slipping his phone back into his black slacks.  

It takes Harry a few more minutes to put the rest of his groceries away in his pantry.  He made sure to stock up on all the ingredients needed to make pancakes at the grocery store, as well as picking up a carton of the fancy pomegranate juice that Y/N had mentioned she was fond of.  In fact, as he was wandering the aisles of his local Whole Foods, he’d found himself seeking out the snacks that he’d seen in her cupboards.  He knows that humans need to eat much more often than vampires do, and seeing as how all the activities Y/N engages in at his condo are rather exhausting and energy-burning, he thought she’d need proper fuel.

After he folds the reusable cloth tote bags he’d brought to the grocery store and puts them back in the pantry, Harry climbs up his glass stairs to his bedroom.  He takes a moment to evaluate his appearance in the full length mirror hanging on the back of his door, sweeping over every detail with a careful eye.  His outfit is alright for what he has planned, he decides; his black slacks and scuffed white vans are comfortable, but more importantly, his white t-shirt embossed with a Hollywood Bowl print that clings to the muscles of his inked arms and broad chest, which Harry knows Y/N will enjoy.  His curls, however, need a bit of tending to, and Harry slinks into his bathroom to add a bit more product to his chestnut locks, getting rid of the little frizz that had developed in the L.A. heat in order to fix his curl pattern.  

As for his jewelry, he leaves on his usual rings: his gold initial pieces, his mother’s opal, his ruby, an engraved band, and his lionhead ring, which shines under the bathroom lights thanks to Y/N’s careful efforts the week before.  Once those are secure, he fastens his pearl necklace around his neck, and fixes the clasp of his cross before slipping a plain gold hoop into his pierced ear.  Once he’s satisfied with his accessories, Harry spritzes his favourite cologne across his body, giving his appearance one more look over as he leaves his bathroom and passes the full length mirror in his bedroom again.  

The Rolex on his wrist tells him that Y/N is due over any moment, and he’s just making sure his Gucci wallet is securely tucked in his trouser pocket when Harry’s ears prick up at the sound of two pairs of feet stomping into his condo downstairs.  It only takes him a moment more to identify the intruders based on their step patterns, and a frown tugs at the corner of his mouth as he checks the time again before sauntering down the stairs.

“And just what do you two,” Harry calls to his unexpected friends as he rounds the corner of the stairs, his eyebrow quirked in question as he steps down from the last platform, “think you’re doing here?”

“We wanted some change in scenery.” Niall quips sarcastically, emerging from the end of the entrance corridor with his hands in his pockets, shoulders shrugging casually. “And I told Xander you might be shirtless, which got him to tag along. But you’re not, much to his disappointment. Though I do think the way you’re about to burst out of that tee suffices. Isn’t that right, Xanny?” 

“That’s not true!” Xander snaps hotly, his cheeks blazing and glare electric as Niall cackles boyishly, stepping around him and towards the kitchen, like he always does when he walks into Harry’s apartment. The tanned man glowers at the other vampire as he makes a beeline for Harry’s refrigerator, slowly pinning his gaze back onto the owner of the condo. He clears his throat awkwardly before offering a solid explanation for their sudden visit. “Adam cancelled on pub trivia night, so we thought you might be available instead.”

Harry shakes his head with a sigh as he makes his way into the kitchen, as well— mostly to make sure Niall doesn’t reach for any of the expensive liquors he has arranged on his bar shelves; they took too long to collect for him to just allow a single person to down one bottle like a shot— and leans both elbows against the marble island. “Sorry, mate.  I’ve got a date with Y/N.”

“So bring her.” Niall pipes up from the fridge, a stolen bottle of Harry’s favourite beer already in his hand. Harry doesn’t complain— it’s a better substitute than his forty year aged scotch. “She went to uni, didn’t she?  She must be smart.”

“I’ve got better things planned for us than pub trivia with two obnoxious knobheads.” Harry retorts, his lips tugging into a smirk at Niall’s responding eyeroll. “That’s not very romantic, is it?  Taking her on a double date with you two?”

“And that’s not very nice, H. I’m offended you wouldn’t go on a double date with Xander and I.” The Irishman sniffles with fake sincerity, biting the bottle cap off his beer despite knowing that Harry keeps a bottle opener in the kitchen drawer to his right. 

Xander watches the spectacle with distaste, his nose wrinkling as Niall spits the cap from his mouth into his hand. “And I’m offended you’d think I’d date someone who does that.”

“It’s not like you have standards.”

“Hey!”

“But then again, no one sets a bar the way I do.”

“The only bar you set for me was potential alcoholism.” Xander mutters spitefully.

“I’d make a great boyfriend.” Niall interrupts with airy confidence, ignoring his friends bickering and taking a deep swig of his beverage, smacking his lips appreciatively. “But humans are too fragile to keep around for long, and most vampires are fucking psychotic. Unfortunately.”

“What about Charlotte?” Harry suggests nonchalantly, hooking his index finger into the cabinet beneath him and fishing for a coaster. He shuts the drawer and skims the item across the top of the counter towards Niall, just in case the man wants to put his glass container down. This is real marble, after all. “She seems pretty tame.” 

Niall glances at the coaster, but doesn’t make any conscious effort to set his drink down. Harry should’ve known; Niall isn’t one to put a pint down until it’s empty, but the possibility is there, nonetheless. It’s not his fault he likes taking care of his home. 

Niall sighs through his nose dismissively, following it with a light rattle of his head. “Charlotte’s too...smart. She’s a bit out of my league, and I feel like she’d get bored of me easily. Also, how would you know if she’s tame or not? You rarely hang out whenever she’s around.” 

“That’s because she hates me.” Harry states flatly, as if it should be obvious. And it should, considering the young woman had not held back on expressing her strong dislike towards the curly brunette. Harry has thick skin and words never hurt him, but Charlotte has a surprisingly vicious vocabulary; if he hadn’t been amused by her anger, she would have come pretty close to genuinely chipping his ego. 

Niall chortles softly. “Well, I mean, you can’t really blame her, can you? You’re kind of a prick.”

“A proper asshole, actually.” Xander chimes in, drumming his digits against the table’s surface and giving Harry a bright, innocent smile. 

The immortal momentarily casts his eyes towards the ceiling in mild annoyance. “Yeah, well, that’s just the way I am. If her and Miss Billy Ray Cyrus can’t handle some dark humor and dirty banter, that’s not my problem. Everyone else seems to like me just fine.” 

“That’s debatable.” Xander corrects. 

“You’re just mad I fucked you once and decided that was enough.” 

“Anywho,” Niall interferes, waving around his beer in order to catch his friends’ attention and prevent a catastrophic World War V, he proceeeds to swivel the topic back onto himself, “like I said, I’d make a great partner. I’m funny, I’ve got a whole shelf full of PS4 games, I like to think my oral skills are pretty decent, and—”

“Have you ever made a girl wet her sheets?” Harry prods with entertained curiosity, cocking an eyebrow questioningly.

Niall pauses mid-sentence with his drink perched to his lips, eyes flitting around thoughtfully as he shovels through cluttered memories of drunken one night stands and fleeting relationships. He relents with a sheepish scoff, shoulders sagging. “...No.”

“Then you’re not as skilled as you think.” Harry remarks passively, titling his head to the side with finality. “And I’m willing to bet Mitch’s next stock of O negative that eighty percent of your hookups probably faked it.” 

“Oi, bet, then.” Niall snorts, grinning around the spout of his beverage as he finishes his sip. He wiggles his brows playfully, squaring his shoulders proudly. “You can’t fake a leg-shake, darling.” 

“A leg-shake?” Harry inquires carefully, pursing his lips to keep from sputtering into pompous laughter. “You mean like this?” He then proceeds to dramatically buckle his right leg, immediately debunking Niall’s ridiculous theory. “Just like that?” 

The Irish bloke’s face drops into a scorned scowl as Xander and Harry break into a round of mocking giggles. He draws into himself with childish pettiness, narrowing his eyes pointedly. “Piss off.”

“Unless she couldn’t walk right afterwards, you didn’t really do what you think you did, Ni.” 

“It seemed pretty real to me!” The blue-eyed boy rebuttals sharply, cheeks tinging bright pink in embarrassment. 

“That’s the point.” 

“This is precisely why I’d never entertain a relationship with you, even as a joke.” Xander pipes up towards Niall, smirking cruelly at his friend’s bruised ego. “I like my orgasms to be real, and I’m not willing to put up an act to spare your fragile masculinity.” 

“Your dick’s probably small, anyways.” 

“Bigger than yours.”

“Is that a challenge? I’ll pull it out right now, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Well,” Harry cuts in loudly, not necessarily keen on watching two grown men compare penis sizes in the middle of his home, “it seems you two have some issues to work out, so the double date is a moot point, anyways.” His jade eyes flicker to his watch again; Y/N should nearly be here, and he doesn’t want these two goons present when she arrives— especially not with their balls out. That wouldn’t be a decent introduction, despite being an unforgettable one. “So I’ll talk to you two later, then.  Thanks for stopping by.”

“Hold up, I practically just cracked my beer.” Niall whines in return, holding up the chilled bottle in protest, leaning his backside against the marble countertop with a decisive motion. “Y’can’t kick us out yet.”

Harry laughs once, the noise sounding more strained than he would like. “Seeing as how I didn’t invite you over, I think I can.” He retorts, tapping a jeweled finger against the table. 

“The blood bag isn’t even here yet,” Xander reasons as he pulls out a chair from the kitchen island, taking a seat and making himself at home as if Harry hadn’t just told him to get the fuck out. “So what's the rush?”

The hair on the back of Harry’s neck prickles at the crude nickname, and the older vampire shoots daggers at the younger as he pushes himself off the marble counter. “There isn’t one, except I think hearing herself be referred to as ‘the blood bag’ may make her a little suspicious, don’t you?”

“We’ve referred to her as worse.” Xander shrugs offhandedly, kicking his feet up onto the bar stool next to him.

Harry’s brows furrow as he pushes Xander’s shoes off his furniture, dusting the leather cushion off. “Referred to her as what?  And when?”

Although Xander lifts one shoulder again as a vague answer, Niall smacks his lips loudly once again as he swallows the rest of the beer, and answers in a matter-of-fact tone. “In Vegas, after you ditched us to get your dick wet.  I think Xander called her a fuckable slab of kobe beef, and—”

“I said ribeye, actually.  Nice flavour, but a little chewy.” Xander corrects the Irishman, but has the decency to look halfway embarrassed when he catches Harry’s stony glare. “And it’s not like we’re wrong, right?  That’s all humans are.”

Niall gives an affirmative nod as he sets his empty bottle down on the marble counter, completely ignoring the coaster Harry had slid to him. “Don’t take it personally, H.  Xanny refers to his own dates as McDonald’s Happy Meal Twinks— at least a ribeye steak is expensive.”

“I’m not taking it personally.” Harry mutters the words in a low voice as his jaw twitches, tensing under the sunlight streaming through his floor-to-ceiling windows. “But comments like these are why you pricks need to get out of here before she shows up, or else I’ll be feeding from one of you tonight.”

A beat of silence falls between the three vampires as the palpable tension flowing off of Harry thickens the room.  Xander and Niall glance between each other and Harry, hardly able to hold the latter’s eyes, before Niall offers a small comment.

“I don’t think Xander would mind that, really—”

“Out.” Harry points a jeweled finger at the entrance corridor with a firm motion. “Both of you.  Go bother Mitch.”

He can see the disappointment and frustration that lingers on Niall and Xander’s faces, but neither of them fight him as they rise from their perches in the kitchen and walk dejectedly to the front door.  Harry briefly entertains the idea of walking them out, but decides against it; there’s a strange buzzing sensation rising through his ribs, and he’s not quite sure what he’ll say as he bids his friends— he has to remind himself that, yes, they’re his friends— goodbye.  It’s safer, he thinks, if he stays where he is and cleans up the mess that they managed to leave behind in their short visit. 

He comes to regret that decision, however, approximately three milliseconds after he hears the front door creak open, and a familiar but unexpected voice echos down the entrance hallway.

“Oh— hi.  Sorry, I may have the wrong apartment…?”

Harry freezes with Niall’s empty beer bottle clutched in his hand, his grip contracting so hard that he hears the thick glass begin to splinter.

“No, no, this is Harry’s apartment.  We were just leaving.” The grin on Niall’s face is audible underneath his Irish accent. “You must be Y/N.”

“I am, yeah.” Harry can hear the tiny thread of surprise at him recognizing her in the human’s words, and the even tinier thread of pleasure that undercuts it.  “And you must be...Niall, I think?  And Xander?”

Niall’s smug reply grates against Harry’s frozen skin, even from down the corridor. “Harry’s told you about us, huh?  Only good things, I hope.”

“Oh, I—”

Harry forces his legs to move with inhuman speed, the beer bottle not even having hit the marble counter by the time Harry appears at Niall and Xander’s shoulders. “Hi, darling.” He says through a strained smile, digging his stony fingers into the back of the two vampire’s arms, an unspoken warning of behave. “Y’made it alright, then?”

When Y/N shines a warm— albeit, slightly confused— smile in his direction, Harry wishes that he’d been faster in shooing his friends out the door, because the action nearly knocks the unrequired breath from his chest.  

She’d dressed in comfortable and casual clothes, as per his suggestion, and is standing just outside the doorway in light washed denim overalls, with a black and white striped t-shirt layered underneath, and her familiar cotton candy pink vans on her feet.  But the detail that digs its way to the forefront of his mind— more so than her satin lips, her heated cheeks that are appled with her smile, and the tousled locks that are pulled back from her face in a low ponytail— is the shining silver cross pendant that hangs on a chain around her smooth neck.

It’s a new addition that Harry has never seen before, and while he knows he shouldn’t be surprised— after all, she’d told him how she grew up in a religious town, how she’d attended church, how she used to say grace before dinner with her friends— the jewelry still piques his curiosity.

“I did, yeah.  It’s really not that long of a walk, H.” Y/N replies, flicking her eyes between Harry and his two friends, who are still watching her every move as if she’s a specimen to be observed. “Sorry, am I interrupting…?”

The Irishman with glasses— Niall, Y/N reminds herself— opens his mouth to respond, but Harry quickly cuts him off as he pushes past his mates to take Y/N’s hand and step outside the apartment, fetching his keys and yellow sunglasses from the small side table by the door in one smooth motion.

“Not interrupting anything, doll.  Niall and Xander were just on their way out.” Although Harry is smiling at her throughout the comment, the mortal can’t help but feel like the last phrase was aimed at the pair still lingering in the doorway.

“We were just stopping by to see if we could steal Harry for a last minute trivia game, but he said he was already booked.” Niall answers with an accepting shrug, glancing at Xander next to him, who’s still yet to say anything to Y/N, though he is carrying an unreadable empty expression as he gives the girl a calculating once-over. “Apparently, whatever he’s got planned for you two is more interesting than a few beers and watching Xander struggle to remember all the battles in World War I—”

“That’s not fair,” The brunette finally chimes in, breaking his attention away from her body to meet the blue-eyed boy’s gaze. Y/N is surprised to hear an American accent fall from his lips. “I’m the only one who wasn’t there, so how would I know—?”

“And you two are already arguing,” Harry cuts over his friends’ bickering, shooting them an annoyed glance as he wraps a cool arm around her waist, cautioning them to watch what they’re saying. “Which will only get worse once you get alcohol in your hands, and that is why I’m not going to subject Y/N to a headache-inducing night of torture.” 

Y/N looks up at Harry with innocent interest swirling in her eyes. “I don’t know, H, it could be fun.” She worries her bottom lip between her teeth as a crease forms between Harry’s brows. “Don’t you think?”

Niall catches Harry’s eye, taking advantage of Y/N’s distraction to cheekily flash him his crimson irises for a split second, voice dripping with honeyed sarcasm that only he can detect. “Yeah, Harry. Don’t you think?”

Jaw tensing, Harry bends down to brush his lips over Y/N’s ear, dampening his irritation down into a smooth and silky tone. “Don’t try to spare their feelings, love.  I’ve got something fun planned for us, I promise.” His teeth graze against Y/N’s skin, and he nearly drags his lips down towards her neck until he remembers her stuttering heartbeat can be heard by the other vampires in their presence.

The two creatures gawk at the image before them, utterly baffled at Harry’s unusual tenderness. It’s very out of character for him, that much is obvious. In all the decades Niall and Xander have been acquainted with the Victorian era immortal, neither have ever seen him be so gentle and touchy with another soul, let alone a human. It feels as if they’re looking at some type of warped parallel universe version of the normally stand-offish young man. 

Xander is the first to clear his throat, throwing Harry an annoyed grimace before pulling Niall out from the condo’s entryway. “We’ll see you later then, Harry.  C’mon, Ni.”

The Irishman offers a quick goodbye, gifting the strange girl a frail wave and a parting smile before being half-dragged down the hallway by Xander. Niall wrenches himself free and shoves Xander’s shoulder playfully as they round the corner to the elevator, their quiet voices— no doubt spinning juvenile gossip— fading out of earshot.  The look in Xander’s eyes had been concerning, Harry thinks, but nothing he needs to worry about right now.  If anything, he wants to forget that encounter as quickly as possible, and needs Y/N to forget it, too.

“So,” he pastes an easygoing grin onto his face as he locks his front door, turning to the mortal with a giddy twinkle in his forest green eyes. “Shall we be off, then?”

There’s a lingering look of confusion reflecting back at him, but Y/N doesn’t press the odd encounter as Harry intertwines his icy fingers with her own warm digits. 

“Alright.” She agrees, raising a questioning eyebrow back at him. “And just where are we going?”

///

“The Los Angeles Antique Mall.” Harry announces proudly when he opens Y/N’s door, extending a ringed hand to help her out of his low-riding car. “Twenty thousand square feet of vintage collectables, artwork, furniture, and anything else you could possibly want.”

Y/N stares up at the massive building in front of them, observing the worn wood facade and the collection of what seems to be (half faded) stained rocking chairs adorning the wraparound porch.  There’s also an impressive amount of wrought iron planters with various greenery scattered between the furniture, with groups of people milling between them as they enter and exit the giant mall. 

“You brought me antiquing?” She asks, an bemused look in her eye as she turns to Harry for an explanation. 

Wrapping his large grasp around her smaller one, Harry nods enthusiastically as he begins to lead her towards the door. “Yeah.  It’s fun, actually.  I’m always up for a bit of a treasure hunt, and I thought, since you’re still furnishing your apartment…”

“You know, now that you mention it… I could use some new curtains for my living room.  Maybe a nice side table.” Y/N allows, stepping over the wooden stairs to the door as Harry tugs her along. “But I’m surprised you like antiquing.  Doesn’t really seem like your thing, if I’m honest.”

A mischievous glint flits through Harry’s jade eyes as he treats her to a grin that’s all teeth. “I’m actually quite fond of antiques, truth be told.  I’ve got a good eye for vintage collectables.  And…” He lazily tugs on the handle of the door to open it, stepping to the side to allow Y/N to walk through first. “Maybe we’ll find a nice painting to replace that god awful tapestry in your bedroom.”

A scoff of indignation falls from Y/N’s mouth as she turns on her heel to punch Harry’s sturdy upper arm, nearly getting too distracted by the ropes of muscle beneath his tight sleeve to give a response. “I like that tapestry!  And, seeing as how you’re either sleeping or fucking me when you’re in said room, I’m a little offended that my tapestry is the thing you focus the most on.”

Harry bites his bottom lip between his teeth.  If only she knew how much time he actually spends staring at it. 

“Well, there’s certainly other things I focus on…” He replies with a casual air, slipping his hand into the back pocket of Y/N’s overalls to cup her ass suggestively, guiding her along the aisles of antiques. “But nothing ruins a post-orgasm glow like poor interior design, sweetheart. S’a bit of a buzzkill, y’know?”

“So is being patronized.” Y/N deadpans, extracting Harry’s hand from her back pocket as a hot flash begins to creep up her spine. “You keep mocking my interior design choices, and your orgasms are going to get a lot less frequent.”

The vampire belly laughs as he throws an arm around her shoulders, the action as natural to him as breathing once was. “I don’t believe that for one fucking second.” He replies gleefully, smudging an open mouthed kiss to Y/N’s temple. 

“You don’t, huh?” The human girl raises an eyebrow, cocking her head to scan the towering racks of oddities all around them. “I wonder if we can find you a vintage fleshlight here?”

“Already got one, doll,” Harry rolls his eyes as he brushes his cool fingers along Y/N’s exposed collarbone, his eyes catching the cross pendant again and brimming with curiosity. “And it’s just the tip of the iceberg that is my toy chest, y’know that—” 

Y/N feels Harry’s arm suddenly tense around her, his muscles contracting as his touch jolts away from her collarbones, his hand flexing beneath the open skylights of the building. “Everything okay?” Y/N asks, all her teasing fading away, replaced with concern as she pauses her steps toward the shelves. 

“I—” Harry flexes his fingers again, slowly removing his arm from her shoulder to examine his hand.  The tips of his fingers are a bright red, crimson burns contrasting against his pink skin, and although it only takes a few moments for the marks to fade, the uneasy feeling bubbling in Harry’s stomach lasts. “Yeah.  My, uh, my hand just cramped.  But it’s fine now, I think.”

Who the fuck, he wonders as he cautiously slings his arm back around Y/N’s shoulders, wears a cross made of, not silver as Harry originally suspected, but polished iron?  

Iron jewelry had fallen out of fashion a century ago, and Harry had never been more thankful than when it did, given how his flesh scorches at merely brushing the metal. When he took his family’s trinkets as a way to remember them before he had to leave, Harry had snuck into his father’s forge in the dead of the night to dip the jewelry in gold that he’d stolen from a local merchant who cheated poor peasants out of their valuables.  It had been a tedious task, and rather dangerous due to the threat of being caught, but it had also been necessary; if he hadn’t taken the risk, he wouldn’t have his sister’s cross earring, or his father’s matching cross necklace.  His dad’s pocket watch, luckily, had been made of silver, and didn’t need a golden bath, but everything else had to be encased to protect Harry’s skin.  

Iron jewelry had been a deterrent to him in the years to come after he was turned; it wasn’t uncommon for him to find a pretty young girl from a village and sneak her away for a night of fun, only to discover an iron chain dangling from her neck when he leaned in to take a bite.  It wasn’t a permanent problem, of course, as there were plenty of other soft places he could sink his teeth into, but it had been an annoyance then, and it still annoys him now. 

Harry does his best to push the irritation to the back of his mind, he really does.  He shows Y/N around the twisting maze of antiques, and does his best to showcase one of his favourite hideaways in L.A.  He points to anything and everything that could interest her, and doesn’t hesitate when she asks him to reach something heavy perched on a high shelf, even if she just wants to examine it out of curiosity.  Harry pulls out typewriters, vintage cameras, tarnished cigarette lighters, and a pastel yellow bicycle with an attached wicker basket from 1941, presenting all of the objects with the enthusiasm of a showcase model on The Price is Right, spouting falsified information about each product in the best impression of Bob Barker he can pull off (“This ancient, rusted bicycle— once owned by the Queen of England herself— can be all yours for just one easy payment of $8.99! Taxes and shipping not included.”). 

And although all of that incites multiple tinkling laughs from Y/N, and lights a glimmer in her eye, and compels her to walk closer and closer to Harry until she lets him sneak his palm back into the backside pocket of her overalls, the mystery of her necklace still eats at the far end of his brain. And it’s that insipid, insistent pest of a thought that causes Harry to readjust his grip on the framed Monet print he’d spotted in the racks (Y/N had tried to deny how much she liked it in order to thwart Harry’s triumphant smirk, but she still asked him to grab it for her with a grumble) and spare another glance to the innocent looking cross resting atop her clavicle. 

“That’s a pretty little piece.” Harry slips into a nonchalant tone with ease, nodding towards the necklace as he navigates the two of them around a corner. “Why have I never seen you wear it before?”

Y/N brushes her fingertips over the iron cross with a gentle motion.  Her fingers don’t scorch with a mere graze of the metal, Harry notes scathingly.  Not that he expected it from someone like Y/N. 

“Because I don’t wear it often.” She replies, lifting one shoulder without a second thought. “It was my grandmother’s— not, like, originally, but she’d owned it, and gave it to my mom, who gave it to me, so I guess it counts as a family heirloom, huh?”

“Guess so.” The vampire murmurs in agreement, prickles of wonder still coasting against his skin. “So what made you drag it out today?” Did you subconsciously realize that your neck needs protection when I’m near? Harry tacks on in his head, his brow furrowing at the troubling thought. 

And at that question, Y/N’s eyes drop to the floor, as if her bubblegum pink vans need an audience for every step they take. “Uh, I was just a little homesick, that’s all.” She mumbles the reply, her shoulders sagging as a dark shadow passes through her usually dazzling eyes. 

Homesickness.  The one human feeling that Harry can still relate to. “I’m sorry to hear that, darling.” He removes his hand from her back pocket to wind it around her shoulders again, mindful of the jewelry in question. “Did anything in particular happen, or…?”

Y/N lifts her shoulders once again as she tucks her hands into her pockets, her posture closing off more and more with every passing moment. “Not really.  I don’t know, I— normally I’m fine, but when I addressed my letter to my parents today, it took me a moment to remember my ZIP code.  It’s the same ZIP code I’ve had all my life, but… I nearly forgot it.” She glances at Harry from the corner of her eye, and Harry realizes that dark shadow is guilt.  She feels guilty. “I’ve been in L.A. for less than six months, and almost forgot my parent’s ZIP code.  I didn’t think that could ever happen.”

Harry hums low in his throat, a noise of understanding and finality.  It’s homesickness, that’s all.  That’s explainable, and understandable, and should be enough information to silence the gnawing irritation in his chest. 

And yet...

“Do you believe in God?” The question escapes from Harry’s mouth before he can even think to censor it, his own eyes widening on his behalf as his grip on the Monet print nearly releases from the surprise. 

“What?” Y/N stops in her tracks, although she nearly stumbles forward when Harry’s sturdy arm catches behind her shoulders as her eyes boggle at him. “I don’t— what does God have to do with antiquing?”

If Harry didn’t have to worry about digging himself out of the whole he created, he’d laugh at the incredulous expression on his lover’s face. “I was just curious, s’all.” He struggles to keep his voice casual, steadying his feet against the wooden floor in an effort to ground himself mentally. “I know you were raised with religion, but you don’t really go to church here— not that church equals a belief, but—”

“Um, I don’t…” Y/N extends her arm to let her fingers graze over the shelf of old lunch boxes next to them, feeling each dip of every embossed cartoon character. “I don’t know.  I don’t really believe in, like, a concept of God— at least, not the one I was raised with.  But I believe in…” She trails off as she attempts to gather her thoughts, chewing on her bottom lip absentmindedly as she searches for the right words. “Something.  I don’t really know if it’s a deity, or an energy, or just coincidence, but… I think there’s something out there that guides us.”

“So you believe in souls.” Harry’s mouth presses into a flat line, his jaw clenching for just a moment as he grits his teeth and then reiterates her previous point. “The thing that allows us to be guided, that is.” 

Or allows her to be guided, Harry thinks bitterly, casting his eyes towards their path ahead of them to avoid Y/N’s prying gaze. That’s really the only reason he’d brought up this entire religion conversation— the only reason he ever brings it up: he wants to know if she believes in souls, because in order to be guided by whatever higher power supposedly exists, one needs a soul.  And Harry’s fairly certain his was stolen from him in 1837. 

“I suppose.” Y/N allows, tracing the embossed lettering of a vintage Wonder Woman lunch box. “A soul, an energy, an aura— they’re all kind of the same thing to me.  The thing that keeps your heart beating.  I don’t think it needs to be tied to a religion; there’s so many different religions, but everyone has a heartbeat, you know?”

Harry nearly laughs out loud at the irony, but manages to stifle the sound into a non-committal hum. “Does your something include heaven and hell, or is that too based in Christianity?” He asks, half out of curiosity and half out of necessity. “If someone were to lose their soul…” He knows he sounds insane asking the question, but it bubbles out of him before he can choke it back. “Would you think them damned?”

The mortal girl stares at him blankly for a moment, her mouth just barely open as she considers his words.  He shouldn’t have asked, and he knows that— he knew it the moment the first question fell from his lips.  But the more they discussed the topic, the more it nagged at him.  Y/N, with all her good nature, her listening skills, and her soft heart, are most certainly bound for whatever good lies in store when a soul actually leaves a body.  Harry, on the other hand… If the monster’s conscience were to ever leave this Earth, he knows it’s not for the metaphorical pearly white gates. And for some reason, that notion bothers him more right now than it has in the last twenty decades.

“Um…” A nervous laugh echoes from Y/N’s mouth, the smile curling the edges of her lips not quite reaching her eyes. “Okay, this topic is way too serious for me to discuss sober.  Can I take a rain check on the damnation questions?  I’m getting Sunday school flashbacks, and living through that once was bad enough.”

Harry wills a smile onto his own face, but the expression is more apologetic than anything as he grips Y/N’s hand in his to tow her down an aisle of antique kitchen equipment. “Yeah, of course. Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you with such heavy questions. I guess I just wanted to get to know my partner in justice a bit more.” 

Y/N takes it in good stride, just as she usually does, her smile relaxing the moment she sees Harry’s dimples peek out from his cheeks. “Don’t worry about it, Sherlock.  I’d expect nothing less from such an established detective.”

As the pair pass under another skylight, Y/N’s cross glints at Harry as if to mock him. 

///

Y/N isn’t lost.

To the untrained eye, the mindless path she takes through the towering and twisting rows of the antique mall may seem like the wandering of someone who has no recollection of where they came from, nor where they’re going, but Y/N is adamant that she isn’t lost.  She isn’t, because when she split from Harry to take a trip to the washroom, he’d warned her not to get lost in the internal maze of the mall.  And Y/N, with a glare in her eyes and a scathing remark on her lips, had assured him that she, a grown woman, would be able to find her way back after she was done, and “Honestly, H, just wander a bit.  I’ll be able to find you easily.”

So Y/N isn’t lost, because she refuses to prove Harry right.  He’s already a cocky asshole with a huge ego, and she couldn’t bear seeing that ego enlarge as a triumphant smirk paints over his face the moment she calls him on his cellphone, admits defeat, and asks him to come find her.  She’ll do a lot of things for that man, but that isn’t one of them.

With that in mind, she turns down a corridor of the labyrinth of collectables, trying to find any discernible items that she could use to pinpoint her location in the labyrinth.  The yellow bicycle, maybe, or one of the vintage cameras Harry had pretended to photograph her with, or even the strange five foot carving of Bugs Bunny that she and Harry had agreed is probably possessed by a demon.  A haunted Bugs Bunny could lead her to her destination— or kill her, truthfully, but either option seems preferable over the solidifying future of having to call Harry.

After another five minutes of aimless ambling, Y/N retrieves her phone from her pocket, a grimace crawling its way onto her face as she opens her contacts to click on Harry’s name.  Her finger hovers just over the phone icon, mere millimetres from humiliation, when a few out of place piano notes float by her ears and catch her attention.

Y/N tucks her phone back into her overall pocket as her curiosity takes over, urging her ears to strain towards the distant melody, as well as for her legs to follow. It’s not long before Y/N is walking with purpose again, albeit a different purpose than before.  As the music gets louder, Y/N begins to pick out more details— how the piano notes that prick her ears are slightly out of tune, how the player begins and stops and begins again, dragging out different phrases, speeding through others with no clear intention.  The minor key of the piece makes Y/N feel like she’s walking into a memory as she wades through the shelves of long-forgotten belongings, old photographs of deceased people in Victorian fashions watching while the young woman falls back in time.

The music grows louder as Y/N reaches a dark corridor with wood paneling lining the walls, and a painted sign saying “Music Room” beckons her down the passageway.  She follows with slow steps, and while she knows that maybe leaving the main mall area and losing her way down here isn’t a smart idea, the music that’s beginning to grow impossibly sweet pulls her forward.  Y/N rounds the corner to find the oak doors to the music room swung open, and when she lays her eyes on the figure sitting at the mahogany ground piano, she recognizes the silhouette of Harry’s back and shoulders immediately.

Y/N’s gaze falls from his flexing shoulder blades to his inked hands, the jewels on his rings catching the low light of the room as his lithe fingers dance over the dusty ivory keys.  He coaxes a melody from the instrument without any difficulty, as if the music had been simmering beneath his skin for ages.  Maybe it has, Y/N thinks, as she watches from the doorway with quiet wonder, and although she plans on silently observing for as long as she can, Harry only completes a few more phrases before the music drifts to a halt.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d find me.” He murmurs, clearing his throat of the rasp that had settled in his vocal chords as he played. “Thought I’d be getting a scared phone call any moment now.”

The human girl steps into the room slowly, gliding around to the cut out of the piano and leaning across the lacquered wood. “I wasn’t scared.  And I would’ve found you sooner if you’d stayed put. I said wander a bit, not all the way across the building.” She retorts jokingly, trailing a finger along the smooth edge of the piano. All of the sarcasm in her voice melts right out, replaced by intrigue. “I didn’t know you played piano.”

“I, uh, I don’t.  Not much anymore, anyways.” Harry runs his digits between the keys again, using only enough pressure to dust the top of the ivory covers. “I wasn’t sure I’d remember how, honestly, but this…” He lifts an index finger to brush the dust off the gold embossed brand name. “It looks like the one I learned on, so…”

Y/N takes a seat on the wooden bench next to Harry, her shoulder bumping against his as she leans in to smudge a kiss across his cheek. “It sounded beautiful.” She assures him, noting the hesitation in his explanation. “What’s that piece called?”

“It’s one of Chopin’s Nocturnes, in C-Sharp Minor.” Harry curves his fingers over the keys, as if he’s about to begin again, but then relaxes the digits as he exhales harshly. “I don’t play it as well as— as the person who taught me.”

There seems to be a hidden story beneath those words, but Y/N doesn’t press it; if Harry wants to tell her, then he’ll tell her.  If not… Well, she’d rather not drag a sour memory from him in the middle of an antique mall.  Instead, she drags her fingers over his thigh, rubbing just above his knee in a comforting manner. 

“How long have you been playing?” She asks softly, tracing over a black lacquered key with her free hand.  When she pulls away, her finger is coated in dust, and she wonders how long it’s been since the piano has been touched by someone else.

The corner of Harry’s lips twitch, as if her question is particularly humorous. “A while.” He answers simply, and he tilts his head to the side to press his face against the top of Y/N’s head, inhaling the scent of her favourite shampoo. 

“A while?” Y/N repeats the vague answer to prompt further explanation, but when she gets none, she switches to another inquiry. “Can you play me something?”

The moment she utters the question, Harry shakes his head adamantly. “No, I— no.  I’m not that good, love, and I don’t really play for people.”

Surprise colors Y/N’s voice when she replies, lifting her head from Harry’s shoulder to look him in the eye. “This isn’t the time for false modesty, H.” She says, tapping two fingers against his knee as punctuation. “Since when have you been humble?”

A bark of a laugh escapes Harry’s chest in spite of himself, and he curls his fingers over Y/N’s to move her hand further up his thigh. “I’m not modest!  Don’t insult me like that, darling.  S’not nice.”

“Prove it, then.” Y/N massages over Harry’s inner thigh as she issues the challenge, baiting the vampire’s ego with ease. “Play me something.  Show off a little bit.”

Harry squeezes Y/N’s hand once as a quiet groan twists his lips into a pout. “You’re getting pretty good at manipulating me, y’know that?” He mutters, poising his lacquered fingertips back over the instrument. “Fine.  Do you want something sad or happy?”

Y/N ponders the question as she leans her head back onto Harry’s shoulder, her lips finding the edge of his jaw and pecking his cool skin for just a moment. “Both.”

“Both.” Harry repeats with a snort, shaking his head in exasperation as his hands drift to a new position on the keys. “Indecisive little thing, aren’t you?”

The mortal girl lifts her shoulders in a noncommittal shrug, scratching her nails along the fabric of Harry’s pants. “Just play me something.  Please?”

It’s the simplest request with the most complicated implication, but Harry can’t find a good reason to refuse it. 

“This is, um, another Chopin piece.” He feels clumsy in his explanation, struggling to remember the details that he’d once memorized in an effort to seem impressive. “Another Nocturne, in E-flat this time.”

Harry’s fingers begin to dance over the keys, and Y/N listens in amazement as a melody that is both happy and sad begins to spiral out from the body of the piano, wrapping her inside the warmth of the music.  

Not every phrase is even— the more Harry plays, it seems, the more the music phrases, bending and shaping itself around his elegant fingers, rolling with his every movement.  As the music begins to get sadder, however, Y/N notices the change in Harry’s face, and how each phrase begins to get choppier as his fingers stumble their way over the keys. 

Y/N smudges another kiss against Harry’s jaw when his fingers trip up again, squeezing his knee with reassurance. “Keep going.” She murmurs, rubbing his leg lightly as the music stutters again. “It’s nice.”

“I—” The music halts with a jerk of Harry’s hands, which he retracts from the keys as if the ivory burns him. “I don’t remember the rest.” He mumbles, laying his stubbled cheek against the top of Y/N’s head. “Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.  I really liked it.” Y/N trails her own fingers over the keys, pressing a few of the lacquered notes with idle interest.  The melody she spins out isn’t nearly as nice as the one Harry played, and she laughs at her own expense. “I’m not nearly as good.  I took a few lessons as a kid, but begged my mom to let me quit.  I wish I’d stuck with it.”

“That wasn’t too bad.” Harry’s dimples wink at her as he smiles boyishly, nodding to the keys with false reassurance. “That little tune sounded a lot like Mozart.”

“Uh huh.” The mortal girl rolls her eyes at the lie, bracing her palms against the polished wooden bench before rising from her seat. “Despite that praise, I don’t think I’ll be adding this piano to my shopping cart.” 

“Hm.  Too bad.” Her lover trails his fingers after her, reaching for her hand and intertwining her grasp with his. “It could make a pretty addition to your apartment, I think.”

“It would take up my entire apartment, more like it.” Y/N scoffs as she raps the fingers of her free hand against the side of the piano. “I don’t even think I could fit this in my living room.  Your apartment, however…” She raises an eyebrow as a grin works its way over her face. “You could fit it easily.  You should buy it.”

Harry rolls his eyes as he lets her hand fall from his palm, touching the keys one last time before shutting the cover over the keyboard. “I’m not buying the piano.”

“Why not?” Eyes widening in surprise, Y/N leans onto the instrument, gesturing with her arms the same way Harry did earlier as she shifts her voice to mimic Bob Barker. “It’s made of genuine mahogany, was once played by Beethoven himself, and can be yours, for the low, low price of—” She reaches around the side of the instrument to grab the tag tied around the leg. “Eight hundred and—holy shit, are you kidding me?”

Harry hums in response as he rises from the bench, shrugging his shoulders before crossing his arms around his tummy. “That’s actually a fairly good price for a used piano, you know.” 

Y/N blinks at him, her mouth opening and closing as she struggles to find words. “I— okay, yeah.  Sure.  So you should get it, then, if you consider that a ‘fairly good price’.” 

“I could,” Harry agrees, his muscles flexing beneath his tight t-shirt as he reaches to pick up the painting leaning against the instrument. “But I won’t.”

Her brow wrinkling in confusion, Y/N watches as Harry begins to examine the other objects in the room, turning his attention to the book-lined shelves and antique lamps. “Why?” 

The man sighs as he fingers the tassels hanging from a— in Y/N’s humble opinion— particularly ugly lamp. “Because I already have one—”

“You do?”

“—but it’s been in storage ever since I got to L.A. And while I usually love things in excess… alcohol, statement jewelry, orgasms—” He flashes a toothy grin at Y/N. “I don’t think overly-heavy instruments fall into any of those categories.”

“Why is it in storage?” Y/N asks, bemusement laced through her voice.  Before Harry began to stumble through the piece, there was a look on his face that Y/N hasn’t seen very often; a serene air swirled through his eyes, hiding something beneath it that Y/N couldn’t quite make out.  And she wants to. 

“Because I don’t have any interest in playing anymore.  Honestly, darling, I haven’t thought about it in years.” Harry laughs in a nonchalant manner, moving from the antique lamp to the creaking rocking chair in the corner. “Y’can have it, if you like.  Probably do you more good than me.”

Y/N rolls her eyes at the deflection, turning her attention away from the topic at hand. “I’m good.” She responds dryly, drifting over to the floor to ceiling bookshelf bolted to the wall. 

Her eyes trail over the exposed spines of the books, reading over the variety of titles with piqued interest.  The amount of genres she sees is countless, ranging from trashy paperback romance novels to timeless classics embossed in gold.  The farther up Y/N glances, the older the books appear, and she gets more and more curious as she glides her fingers over the rippled covers of the books within her reach.

While the novels climb up the height of the bookshelf to the ceiling, Y/N can only manage to reach halfway up the length she needs to, even while stretching on her tiptoes.  She settles down on the balls of her feet with a pout playing on her lips, her attention turning to the wheeled ladder that runs along bars bolted to the bottom of the shelving unit.  It looks rather old— like everything in the antique mall— and Y/N isn’t quite sure it’ll support her weight, despite her test of gripping a rung and pushing on it.

“Harry, c’mere,” She calls over her shoulder, hands gripping the sides of the dusty ladder as she balances a foot on the bottom rung.

Upon her beckoning, Harry saunters over, the painted print she’d selected still grasped in his ringed hand. “Yeah?” He asks, raising an eyebrow in question. “What is it?”

“Can you help me climb up the ladder?” Y/N nods her head towards the far-reaching shelves, biting her bottom lip with pleading eyes. “I want to see what’s on the top shelves.”

Harry’s gaze follows Y/N’s gesture towards the top of the library wall, a look of trepidation flickering through his eyes. “Is that really necessary?”

“Yes,” Y/N answers curtly, lifting her other foot onto the bottom rung before moving from her original step to the next. “And it’ll be a lot easier if you help me.”

Despite his protests, Harry sets down the framed print and complies with the request, grasping Y/N around her waist with firm hands as she scurries up the rickety ladder.  She can feel his fingertips pressing into her love handles over the denim, and it would be a lie to say she doesn’t enjoy it, but she refocuses her attention onto reading over the embossed titles that she couldn’t see from below.

“Y’know, on second thought… take all the time you need, dove.” Harry calls from below her, the smirk evident in his voice as he squeezes her hips once with a laugh. “I’ve got quite the view from here.”

Rolling her eyes, Y/N releases one hand from the ladder to tug a novel off the shelf, examining the half exposed cover before sliding it back into its place. “I bet you do.” She retorts, wiggling her hips just enough to tease him without losing her precarious balance on the ladder.

Although the motion is meant to be a joke, Harry can’t stop the flash of genuine fear that ignites in his chest.  Humans are fragile, he knows, and a fall from the height that Y/N has climbed to could sprain her wrist, or injure her back, or crack open her skull like an egg, or—

“Careful there, Watson.” Harry attempts to disguise the worry in his voice behind a lighthearted joke as his grip on the human girl strengthens. “Wouldn’t want an accident to happen, now, would we?”

“That’s why I’ve got you, Holmes.” A tinkling laugh falls from her lips as she risks a glance over her shoulder at him, her eyes alight with amusement, before turning her attention back to the old novels. “You wouldn’t let anything happen to me, would you?”

There’s a nervous truth hidden underneath her words, and Harry knows it, but that doesn’t stop it from making his skin itch as the casual phrase sinks into his body.  In all his years, however, Harry’s gotten quite good at hiding his emotions, and this is no different.  

Instead of giving a sincere answer, Harry hardens his reply of “F’course I wouldn’t, pet.  Y’can never be too careful.” by letting one jeweled hand drift from Y/N’s hip to her backside, cupping it gently to support her, and taking delight in the way he can feel her body tense beneath his new touch.

It takes Y/N a moment to find her breath again, and when she does, all she can muster is a hum in the back of her throat. “Mhmm.” She sighs, trying her best to refocus on the books lining the shelves in front of her as she climbs higher. “Is that why your hand is grabbing my ass, you pervert?”

“Y’know, that seems to be your favourite nickname for me.” Harry’s smirk deepens as he contracts his hand, squeezing her fleshy backside after she takes another step higher. “I wonder why that is?”

“I wonder.” The flat response echoes from Y/N’s mouth as she pulls another book from the shelf to examine it before replacing it a moment later. “Maybe— and this is just a suggestion, so take it with a grain of salt, but— maybe if you didn’t act like a pervert, you’d get a nicer nickname.”

Although Y/N’s retorts are droll and to the point, Harry can hear the way her heartbeat begins to stutter each time he massages her, and it’s that fluttering rhythm that encourages him to grasp the sides of the ladder with both hands and pull himself up a couple rungs. 

“A nicer nickname, huh?” He breathes in her ear, pressing his chest to her back both to be close to her and to give her more support on the ladder. “Like ‘slut’?” Harry stifles the groan that nearly rolls from his throat when he feels Y/N stiffen. “That’s one of your favourites, isn’t it?”

“I—” Swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat, Y/N grips the sides of the ladder tight between her hands, her skin stretching over her tense knuckles as Harry’s breath begins to hit her neck. “Maybe. I...I suppose.”

Harry laughs quietly as he takes another step up the ladder, keeping himself braced against Y/N as he begins to smear kisses along the side of her neck, mindful of the iron cross that still hangs there. “You suppose?” He repeats, his tone slightly mocking when he hears the mortal shudder. “What about your other favourites?  Y’like when I call you my pretty little plaything, don’t you?”

The honey and lavender fragrance wafting over Harry intensifies as Y/N’s blood pumps faster and faster, the only sound emerging from the human girl being a quiet whimper from the back of her throat.

“There’s another one, though… another nickname…” Letting his teeth gently graze her earlobe, Harry whispers directly in Y/N’s ear, keeping his voice low and throaty as he does so. “It’s on the tip of my tongue, baby...” He suckles sloppily along her pulsing neck, delighting in the taste of her sweet skin in his mouth. “Remind me what it is?”

Already, Y/N’s breathing has grown ragged, and he waits a moment for the aroused girl to form a response, encouraging her with every nip of his teeth.  Just when Harry is about to ask again, she manages to choke out a reply.

“Whore.” She whispers, the embarrassment in her voice overpowered by the lust running through her veins. “I like it when you call me your whore.”

“That’s my good girl.” A satisfied smile tugs at the edge of Harry’s lips as he stamps a gentle kiss to Y/N’s jaw. “That’s another one, too.  My good girl.  And because you’re my good girl…” Harry snakes his right hand from the rung of the ladder to the buttons of Y/N’s overalls, deftly undoing the side snaps and gradually slipping his hand into the space between the denim and her clammy skin. “You’re going to keep looking for your books while I have some fun.”

Y/N lets out a broken gasp as Harry’s fingertips graze over her cotton panties, and her grip on the railing slackens as a rush of heat falls between her legs. 

“Careful, baby.” Harry cautions her, his left hand wrapping around hers and resetting her grasp on the ladder. “Can’t have any fun if you let go, hm?”

“We—” She twists her head to the side, straining to look over her shoulder and towards the entrance as Harry’s digits dance over the dampening spot on her panties. “Someone could walk in, Harry—”

Of course someone could, Harry thinks, but exhibitionism is so much easier to indulge when one has inhuman hearing that can detect the pounding of an approaching heart from fifty feet away.  He doesn’t disclose this information to Y/N, however, for a number of reasons, and instead chooses to scrape his teeth along the shell of her ear once more, his ruby lips soothing the marks instantly. 

“You let me worry about that, alright?” He murmurs lowly, sliding Y/N’s cotton panties to the side and dragging his index and middle finger through her dripping folds, enjoying how she shivers against his chest. “You just focus on finding the book you want and being a good little whore for me, princess.  Let me take care of the rest.”

When Y/N reflects on this moment in bed tonight, her clammy palms twisting around the sheets as she inhabits the memory of Harry’s mint-scented breath swirling around her as he massages two fingers around her throbbing clit with a teasing touch, one specific detail will stick out to her.  She won’t focus on how her heart is pounding so hard that she feels her chest might burst, or how her fingers shake as she reaches for another book on the shelf, per Harry’s quiet but intent instructions.  The thing that Y/N will remember in wonder and— on some level, self consciously— is how quickly the anxiety that spikes through her veins at the possibility of someone walking in and finding the two of them in such a compromising position bleeds into a high like no other.

Y/N likes to entertain the idea that she’s fairly adventurous, and has been open to a lot of things, especially since meeting Harry, but this— allowing him to finger her in a music room at an antique mall, where any customer or employee could discover them— is something so outside of her character that Y/N can’t think straight.  When Harry first slips his long middle finger inside her slick center, the girl nearly collapses, and Harry’s broad chest braced behind her is the only thing that keeps her upright on the ladder.

“Y’like that, doll?” Harry’s hot breath rolls over her neck as he purrs the words, adjusting his grip on the side of the ladder as his other hand skillfully toys with the human in slow and deep strokes. “Filthy little thing, you are, letting me play with you like this.”

The sinful remark draws a mewling moan from Y/N’s mouth as her head dips back onto Harry’s sturdy shoulder, her hands dropping all pretense of searching for a book and clutching the ladder like she normally clutches her sheets, or the headboard of whoever’s bed Harry has tossed her onto. “H-Harry…” She whimpers, her eyelashes fluttering as he circles his thumb around her clit. “Fuck…”

“You pretend to be so sweet, but you and I know the truth, don’t we?” The vampire sponges another kiss along her throat as he delights in the wet sounds his fingers make, which easily become drowned out by the quiet noises of bliss leaving his lover’s mouth. “You’d let me do anything to you, wouldn’t you?”

Y/N nods fervently as she allows her weight to fall back against Harry’s sturdy chest, trusting him to support her as he thrusts another finger inside her. “Anything, H, I—” The desperate proclamation is cut off as Harry curls his digits, bumping against the spot in the pit of her tummy that sets her entire nervous system on fire. “Shit, right there, baby, right there…”

Harry’s smug voice rings in her ear as he slows his stride, dragging his fingers in and out of her hot core at a pace that’s nearly criminal. “Y’don’t need to tell me, I know.” He pushes himself forward again, flushing Y/N between his chest and the ladder with just enough room to continue his activities. “I know what you like, how you like it, where you like it… Know my girl so well.”

As Y/N adjusts to the newly close proximity, the bulge in Harry’s slacks grows more apparent, rubbing against her backside over and over with each plunge of Harry’s fingers.  She lets out a strangled whine at the feeling, carving her teeth into her bottom lip in an effort to keep herself quiet. 

“You feel me, don’t you, minx?” Harry moans into her ear, catching his teeth along the shell before dragging them down her jaw to settle his lips just above her throbbing pulse point. “You feel what you’re doing to me?  How just a single whimper from those pretty lips, and one touch of your soaked cunt makes my cock ache?”

Despite her best efforts, a ragged sob breaks through Y/N’s self-imposed gag order, and her chest heaves within Harry’s tight embrace as her head lolls to the side. “I-I want it.” She pleads, her half-lidded eyes struggling to find Harry’s emerald irises in her haze. 

Those sea glass eyes, darker than she’s ever seen them, widen with fake surprise as his mouth curls into a smirk.  When Harry replies, his normally soothing dulcet voice is filled with insincere mocking. “Oh, you want it, do you?  You want me to fuck you in here?” Dropping his voice to its usual low resonance, Harry growls the next phrase in the human’s ear. “I know you want it, you fucking slut.  But you can’t have it right now.  So if I’m going to let you cum—” The conditional phrase pulls a sound of protest from her throat. “—then you’re going to have to do it around my fingers.” 

The begging girl cries out against his neck as her walls clench around his touch, the stifled pants that she gasps into Harry’s ear urging him to speed up.  Instead of giving her what she wants, Harry curls his fingers inside her, pressing deeper into that spongy spot to elicit another broken whine from her.  When he receives it, however, it’s accompanied by an unexpected blinding burn. 

The iron cross that hangs so delicately around Y/N’s fragile throat has slung to the side in her writhing pleasure, finding its way from her flushed collarbones to the base of Harry’s icy neck.  The vampire grinds his teeth as he feels the brand begin to form, choking back the sound of agony that fights its way out of his mouth.  His left hand clenches around the ladder, his knuckles stretching white as the waxed wood nearly splinters under his palm, while his right hand stutters its pace inside his lover, prodding harshly at her G-spot as a single grunt makes it past the cracks of his teeth.

Harry knows he needs to remove the cross from his skin, but he has no way of doing so without alerting Y/N to his discomfort.  If he lets go of the rung, both of them will tumble off, and Y/N has made it obvious how much she trusts him to keep her safe; that option is hardly an option, Harry thinks, struggling to keep his mind present as he fights through the pain.  The other option— the only one, really— is to retract his fingers from between the mortal’s thighs, feign some excuse as to why, and do his best to keep her from noticing the cross-shaped burn mark on his neck that will surely disappear within a few moments of the iron being removed.  It’ll be jarring, he knows, to pull Y/N from the subspace he can tell she’s beginning to slip into, and Harry hates it, but there’s nothing to be done.  His hand contracts inside her, desperately massaging her walls one last time before he retreats to—

The sharp action drags a mangled whine from Y/N’s throat, the sound more shattered than anything Harry has ever heard from her before, and it pulls Harry’s attention from the charring sensation of the cross branding his skin to the overwhelmed girl in his arms.  As Y/N lets her entire body fall against Harry’s chest, her eyes completely shut as she gives into the pleasure bubbling in her tummy, a realization dawns on Harry, searing him nearly as much as the metal on his inhuman flesh: he can’t let go of her.  He’s in too deep— literally, obvious in the way she tightens around his fingers— and if he were to stop now, Y/N would go into a sensitive daze that he can’t deal with in a public space.  If he lets go of her now, he’ll lose the connection he’s spent the last two months making. She might get over it, given that it’s just an orgasm, but subconsciously, there’s a possibility she could resent him for it. Especially in the extremely delicate phase she’s in at the moment. 

He knows it sounds stupid, but he can’t risk that.  He just can’t.  He’ll take burning agony over that any day. 

When Harry reflects on this moment in bed tonight, his jeweled fingers carefully combing through Y/N’s knotted locks as she shifts in his arms, the bite mark on her neck freshly faded to a light bruise, her chest rising and falling gently with quiet breaths, one specific detail will stick out to him.  He won’t focus on the blinding pleasure of Y/N grinding against his hardened bulge, her body moving of its own accord as she gives in completely to the sensations Harry pulls from her.  He won’t focus on the explicit moans that show she’s given up on attempting to quiet, her voice reverberating in Harry’s mouth as he inhales every desperate breath she exhales.  When Harry reflects on this moment, the thing he’ll remember the most is how the second he accepted his fate— that he’d have to bear the pain in order to keep Y/N happy, and he feels like there’s probably some deeper subliminal message hidden beneath that realization, though he refuses to indulge it— the mortal girl tilts her head to the side and begins to kiss Harry’s neck, soothing the scorched mark with her silky tongue. 

The relief is so sweet that Harry nearly cries out a fractured mewl, letting his head fall forward into Y/N’s shoulder to hide his desperate expression.  She continues to whimper into his skin, smudging kiss after kiss on his marked neck as if she knows how badly he needs it.  Even as her orgasm begins to rise in her belly, consuming her every thought, she continues to suck bruises onto his jugular, dragging her tongue over his cool skin repeatedly after every action.  Although the iron still stings, the sensation of Y/N’s textured tongue swiping over it turns the pain to pleasure, and it’s not long before Harry has himself centered once again, refocused on the task at hand. 

He speeds up the movement of his fingers, focusing on curling them inside her as his thumb rubs quick circles over her throbbing clit.  The sounds bouncing around the room are so lewd that Harry almost wishes someone would walk in, even if only to see how good Harry is capable of making his lover feel. 

“Y’can cum for me, baby.  Cum all over my hand.” He mutters in her ear, his teeth scraping against her fragile skin in desperation. “I know you have it in you.  Show me how good you are.”

Y/N feverishly grinds against his hand, all of her senses overwhelmed by the immortal as she licks across his neck. “So—so close, Harry—I—”

“I know, I know you are.” The vampire soothes her in a tone more gentle than he thought possible, palming her soaking cunt with as much pressure as he thinks she can stand. “Let go for me.  I’ve got you.”

The reassurance is the final thing Y/N needs to fall apart, and once she knows that she can, it happens with an intensity that shocks even her.  When the coil inside her belly snaps, a guttural moan tears from her mouth, and she grasps the pole in front of her as tightly as she can while collapsing back into Harry’s chest. 

“Fuck, there we go, yeah? Shhh, keep it down for me, angel. Don’t wanna have to stop until you beg me to.” 

Her grip on the ladder does nothing to support her, but as Harry’s hushed words ring in her mind, she knows she doesn’t have to worry about that.  Harry’s arms and chest are strong enough to do it for her, allowing her to sink into her pleasure as much as she needs to. 

When Y/N slumps in his arms, her neck finally shifts enough that her cross falls back into its designated position between her collarbones, providing Harry with relief from the scorching pain he’d been beginning to adjust to.  He can feel his skin begin to heal itself the moment the iron leaves it, and with that small fear tamped down, the creature can turn all his attention to the girl in his arms. 

He slowly and carefully retracts his hand from her panties, shushing the weak squeak that rolls from her lips at the motion. “Good girl.” He mumbles into her ear, kissing her temple softly as her breathing begins to regulate itself. “Shh, you’re alright.  Y’did so well for me, darling.”

The comforting praise comes easily to him, and as he continues to hold Y/N as she regains her previous headspace, Harry begins to wonder just how far he’d be able to push her before she reaches her limits.  How far into subspace can she go before she hits the point of no return?  Could Harry successfully guide her there and lead her back?  Could she ever trust him enough to submit fully to his every request, taking solace in the knowledge that he can take care of her as well as— or better, even— she can take care of herself?  Harry wants to think yes, but he can’t dwell on the idea any longer; Y/N’s beginning to shift against him again, and he’ll never be able to earn that wholehearted trust if he doesn’t tend to her now. 

Lifting his hand to his own lips, Harry wraps his tongue around his drenched fingers, lapping at the sweet wetness that coats them down to his rings.  He hums in appreciation, stippling another tender kiss to Y/N’s neck when he retracts his fingers from his mouth. 

“Taste so sweet, y’know that?” He whispers, the question half a test to see how aware Y/N is as her head begins to clear. “C’mere, I want you to taste.”

Y/N lazily tilts her head to the side, a small smile playing on her lips as they meet Harry’s for a slow kiss.  Trailing his fingers down her side, Harry skillfully buttons the side of her overalls again, adjusting the fabric to lie comfortable against her skin.

“How are you feeling, hm?” He murmurs, rubbing his large hand soothingly over her belly as her breathing begins to regulate again. “How was that?”

“I feel…” Y/N struggles to make sense of her swimming head, resting it against Harry’s shoulder as she tries to form a coherent response. “Good.”

Harry sighs with relief, smearing a quick kiss to her cheek as he grins. “Good.  That’s good.” 

With his right hand still wrapped around her middle, he carefully lowers himself and Y/N from the ladder, keeping a tight grip on the girl until he knows her feet are planted firmly on the ground. 

As the afterglow of her climax begins to fade, a heated flush begins to crawl up Y/N’s spine to settle on the apples of her cheeks. “I, um—” The corners of her lips tug upwards with a bashful tone, and she twists around in Harry’s arms to shyly meet his canopy green eyes. “I can’t believe I did that.” 

“You didn’t do anything.  It takes two to tango, pet.  And, honestly…” Harry flashes a boyish simper at her as he yanks her closer to him by her hips. “I think I did most of the work.” 

“That’s true.” A breathless laugh stutters from Y/N’s chest as she curls her hands around Harry’s bulging biceps, steadying herself from the after effects of her orgasm, which are turning her legs to jelly. “I could, um…” She flicks her eyes from the door to the prominent bulge in Harry’s black slacks before capturing his gaze in hers again. “Return the favour?”

Harry snorts as he gives a quick shake of his head, his teeth catching on his bottom lip while he runs his hands down the back of her rumpled shirt. “Not here, baby.  How about we wait until we’re back at my place for you to show me how my sweet girl sucks cock, hm?”

“So it’s alright for you to distract me from my book search to finger me in a public area,” Y/N fakes indignation to distract herself from the ache that’s starting to pulse in her core again at Harry’s proposal. “But the moment I want to suck you off, you say ‘not here’?  What kind of double standard is that?”

Lips twitching in amusement, Harry stifles a laugh as he turns the girl in his arms, pressing her back to his chest once again before wrapping his arms back around her waist. “You’re right.  I distracted you from your book search. How rude of me.” He coos, nodding up to the shelf as he grazes his teeth against her pulse. “Think I see a pretty copy of Sense and Sensibility up there.  Y’think you can reach it, or do you need me to do it, sweetheart?” 

The shuddering of Y/N’s heartbeat contrasts with her heated reply. “I can reach it just fine if you behave yourself.” She shoots back, smacking the hand that’s beginning to wander towards her center again. “Or is that too difficult for you?” 

“It’s extremely difficult when I’m near you.” The reply, while truthful, sends a quiver down Harry’s spine, and he presses a chaste kiss to the human girl’s shoulder before releasing her from his grasp. “I’ll get the book.”

Y/N tugs the hair tie from her locks, shaking them out before pulling them back again in a neat manner. “You know, I never thought I was one for antiquing, but today was fun.” 

“Well, it doesn’t usually involve getting finger-fucked on a ladder,” Harry states bluntly, glancing over his shoulder with a dimpled smile on his face. “So I’m not really sure if today can be the marker for an average antiquing session.”

Y/N’s face boils at the brazen comment, and she tucks a strand of loose hair that she’d missed behind her ear as she swallows hard. “No.” She replies with a soft and timid laugh, shaking her head gently. “I suppose that’s true.” 

Harry hums in reply as he snags the old copy of the Jane Austen novel from the top shelf, climbing down the ladder effortlessly and landing back on the ground with a soft thud. “But I’m glad you had fun.” Harry steps towards Y/N with a satisfied air, gripping her chin between his thumb and forefinger as a teasing smile plays on his ruby lips. “And I’m even more glad we found a replacement for that terrible tapestry of yours.”

Y/N rolls her eyes as she smacks Harry’s hand from her chin before snatching the novel from his hands. “Stop being mean to Amanda!  You’ll hurt her feelings.”

A snort boasts from Harry’s throat as he recalls the day she had told him what she’d named the piece hanging from her wall, and he bends down to scoop up the Monet print while shaking his head impassively, clutching it in one hand as he snakes the other around Y/N’s waist once again. “Well, I hope Amanda doesn’t have feelings, because I’m going to burn her.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Oh yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not, because I’m going to hang her over your bed, just so you can stare at her while you fall asleep each night.” 

Harry groans loudly as he guides his lover from the music room and back to the open space of the antique mall. “Please.  If anything is going over my bed, it’s a mirror, not a college freshman’s poor excuse of an attempt at interior design.” 

Y/N wrinkles her nose at the comment, shaking her head at the crude suggestion. “A mirror?  That better be a joke.”

“It was, but now that I’m thinking about it…”

“You’re disgustingly conceited.” 

“Oh please, you lo—” Harry catches himself just before the word love rolls off his lips.  Though he’s said it before when referring to certain aspects of their sex life (like how he loves the way her mouth feels, or how she loves the way he stretches her out), it just seems oddly repulsive to say at this very moment. Too intimate, almost.

Therefore, the creature bites back the offensive phrase and tugs her closer by the waist, covering up his sudden hesitation with his signature smirk. “You like that idea, don’t you, dove?”

Y/N keeps her face neutral as they pass by an older couple examining a grandfather clock. “I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Sure you don’t.” Harry laughs sharply, nuzzling his face into the top of Y/N’s hair and pressing a casual kiss to the crown of her head. “Need I remind you that your request for my interior design skills is what started this whole thing?”

“And if you had suggested I mount a mirror over my bed, this whole thing would’ve been over before it even had a chance to start.”

“You say that now, but if you were to see the way my cock looks while it slams into your—”

“Harry!” Y/N hisses, blood rushing to her cheeks as he guides her around a corner stacked with porcelain dolls. 

“Fine. No mirror.” Harry relents, a disappointed sigh falling from his lips as he palms Y/N’s waist closer to himself. “But the tapestry needs to be burned.”

“No.”

“Thrown away.”

“No.”

“Folded up and tucked under the bed?”

“Possibly.  And that’s as good an ending as you’ll get.” 

That night, after Harry has satisfied his craving for both Y/N and the sweet liquid that pumps through her veins, and has settled in for his usual nightly routine of rhythmically caressing her back to lull her into a deep slumber, and as he counts the breaths the mortal sighs between nightfall and sunrise while her soft snoring sings a lullaby to his ears, he can’t help but think that…

That yes, this really is as good an ending as he’ll ever get. 

[prose-for-hire]

Love, Hate, Love: Part one

Part Two // Part Three

Pairing: Spike x fem!vamp!reader

Request: Not a Cordy request, but i dont want to forget it 😅 How about Spike and the vampire reader really disliking each other until she finds out his human "identity". And they remember they were best friends as kids and wrote poetry together and stuff and they fall back in love? That would be amaaazing😋

Requested by: @therapieliteratur​

Warning: Violence between reader and Spike. Swearing. Tiny blood mention.

A/N: I got carried away and had to split this into parts, hope you don’t mind. This is part one of three 💜

You had lived for over a hundred years. That does things, memory-wise. You were forgetful over little details, especially so of your human past. Faces blurred and voices distorted. Scratched lines of poetry lost to the sands of time. It was so long ago, your memories of that part of you were in black and white.

You were a modern woman now. You weren’t hung up on the social codes of your time. You embraced every new decade. Every style and you got a kick out of learning the slang of the moment. It was cute, you collected these phrases as if they were necklaces. Or buttons. Stamps, even.

There was never much room for amassing material items however. You found yourself moving from one place to another. Often without thought or warning, people after a certain amount of time figured out that you weren’t aging. Or that you had been to the butchers too often. You had spent a lot of time in Europe and there was still thick superstition in many places.

Leaving you being run out of different towns all over the continent. It wasn’t so much pitchforks and the like anymore. You would be hassled on the street. Word of mouth would spread and suddenly the home you had made for yourself would be up in flames again.

You had moved to Sunnydale within the last decade. A new climate, new faces. New humans to try to live alongside. You ate animal blood, you had retained a soul some years back. It had been painful and incredibly hard. You had barely got through it with your mental health intact. The guilt would always be there, but you strived to be and do better.

Which was not something you could say for one vampire you had met since you arrived. Spike. He had more cheekbones than brains and he prided himself on being bad. The opposite of how you lived your un-life.

He lived, now alone, in an underground crypt after Drusilla left him. You had actually been quite fond of Dru in a strange way. You felt a little sorry for her which she screamed at you for feeling as soon as she realised. The stars told her, or something.

Angel, an acquaintance of yours, had explained all about what it had been like with Spike and the rest in the past. He was a piece of work, by all accounts. Angel left to LA and asked you to come, he had become hung up on the Slayer and couldn’t bear to live on the Hellmouth anymore.

You declined, knowing you were meant to stay for now at least. You made a home here. Something permanent for once. It was certainly harder with Angel gone. He understood how you felt about the past, about the guilt. He helped you through it the best he could too.

But you could manage on your own. You had to. You got on well enough with the Slayer anyway. She was sweet and very good at fighting so even if you had a problem you probably wouldn’t air it.

You were sat at drinking in your local demon bar when he walked in. You scowled, burning holes into him as you watched him coming towards you from where you sat on the side of the bar.

You had wanted a break. You had almost been staked. Again. Vampires hated you for protecting the slayer and you were only allowed in here because the bartender found you attractive.

Spike saw you and smirked, ordering his drink and slinking over to you. He did this a lot, he thought you were both playing some game. He hated you as much as he found you attractive. Not that you were entirely aware of this.

“Well, well, look at who’s embracin’ her roots” he gestured around the room.

“Look who’s embracing the stake about to go in his chest” You warned, glancing at him only briefly as you spoke.

“Now, pet. Wouldn’t want to get yourself run out of town again would you? I got friends here y’know… you don’t” He warned, glad of the distinct lack of Angel about the place again, “Only one of us that’s gonna be missed”

“Stop calling me pet” You reminded him as you always had to, “Why don’t you turn around and let me rest in peace” You remarked. His eyes danced at those words, ones he had thought himself before. But he still retaliated in his usual way.

“’Cause, if I remember rightly you were the one making my affairs your business” He pointed at you, still standing over you rather than sitting, “Tellin’ the girlie my little plan”

“It was barely a plan” You spat. He was going to take poor Willow hostage. Again.

“It was a good plan. Smart plan… that you buggered up by running to slutty the vampire slayer”

“Don’t pick on the kid” you snapped, taking a sip of your drink and trying to tune his voice out.

“Oo, someone’s got a crush” He taunted trying to wind you up, “What is it about that bird, got every soul’s knickers in a twist”

“Spike, please. Just for tonight… Fuck off” You muttered, clutching your head. You were starting to get a headache. You missed the look he gave you, the hand that hovered over your shoulder for a fraction of a second before he snatched it away. Why the hell would he do that? He frowned at himself.

“Fine, I will. Gonna get me a pretty woman… none around here though” He said pointedly and you just waved you hand, uncaring, and didn’t look up from your drink. He didn’t like this, so he continued, “Yeah, I’ll shag her… drain her” He shrugged, taking the shot of blood he had ordered as it arrived. He smirked and starting to stalk off. You sighed exaggeratedly.

“Can’t let you do that, Spike” You got up from your bar stool and grabbed his shoulder to pull him back.

“’Let’” He scoffed, shrugging you off.

Spike instantly threw a punch that you caught. You twisted his arm and started to pull him towards the exit. You shot the bartender an apologetic look as you left.

When you got outside you hauled him away from you as he smirked at your face.

“If you wanted to get me all to yourself, love, all you needed to do was-” He started top purr, but became silenced by your fist against his jaw. He scowled, tensing his jaw before he smirked again, “Oh, you like it rough don’t you? Come on then, let’s see who comes out on top”

He beckoned you towards him. You saw him jumping on the spot, warming up as he did. Enjoying himself. It was a dance to him. You his reluctant partner.

But, you ran at him anyway. Like you always did. You fought equally to begin. Until he started to fight dirty. He used every trick in the book and you were starting to slow with the pain. You had a headache already and this was making it worse.

He hit you successively, sharp pains in the jaw that you could barely block as he caught you off guard. You groaned in pain, which made him cocky. He started to restrain you by your wrists, his smile wide and shark-like as you hit the brick wall behind you. Your brain rattling around your skull.

Your skull. You propelled your head towards him, hitting the soft part of his nose with your now vamped forehead. He dropped your wrists to clutch his nose and you took the chance to kick against his torso, hard. He fell back against the hard pavement. You were instantly on him.

You straddled him, pushing him back from trying to get up. You just stared at each other for a moment. In that second, had anyone looked it could have gone either way. You could have lowered yourself to him, caught his lips. Embraced him with a passion that only you (and probably any nesting birds watching from above) would know.

But you didn’t.

You were angry at him. For being who you used to be. For being someone you could understand. For being horrible. You punched him hard on the jaw instead in your frustration.

It distracted him enough for you to grab the stake out of your waistband and dig it into his chest. You gave him a look, one suggesting you were serious.

You thought for a moment, sighing at the way your guilt worked now.

“Go home. Cuddle up to your loneliness” You ordered, removing the stake from his chest as he wiped his bloody nose. Deciding (seeing as he was only in dead company) to lick his own nose-blood from his fingers, “You’re so disgusting” You said hitching your nose up and getting to your feet. It was an act - it didn’t phase you. You had seen worse. But you still despised him for not having the guilt that you had so deeply rooted in your chest.

“Oh, like ‘totally’” He mocked the way you spoke. The way you assimilated. It angered him. Vampires weren’t supposed to be good. Have souls. Weren’t supposed to help slayers.

You walked your separate ways. Two sides of a coin. You could be each other, you had been each other. His ego was bruised and you had to ice your jaw. You cursed and blinded and hated him.

When Spike returned to the crypt, he felt the loneliness much more acutely. He was getting madder and madder. It wasn’t just because he had been beaten by a girl either. He had looked at you in a way he never thought he would. There had been something there tonight, behind the mists of your eyes. Something he recognised.

And he hated you for it. He swore he did. It angered him so much he was shaking.

“Bloody twat, thinkin’ she’s better than everyone just ‘cause she fought for a soul. Any bugger with half a brain and workin’ fists could go through that crap” he shouted, kicking at the gate in his crypt.

When you went home to your sweet little house, you were in the same predicament. You slammed the door closed, leaving the entire house shaking.

He had gotten under your skin. Again. Walking around as if the life you as vampires had now was better than what had been. As if killing and fucking and fighting was all that was required for perfect happiness.

You hated him. His attitude. His guiltlessness. But most of all, you hated that you could see through it. The mask. And you hated that you understood him. Could be him had you not fought for you soul to come back.

Because what had it gained you? Except self-hatred and a talent for identifying different flavours of animal blood by sight alone?

Of course, you wanted to help Buffy. The others. Save the world. But some days you envied him. The way you presumed that he could just stalk through the night and not have deep thoughts about the ending of life or anything else.

You punched the wall. Hard. Screaming in frustration, shivering with the guilt. Quivering with anger. Mixed emotions.

You both were in your own heads, emotions and thoughts flashing violently behind your eyes. Not even slowing when the light came and you had to try to contend with sleep.

That was the night that they started though. The dreams.

[star-killer-md]

Dream a Little Dream of Me Pt. 8

Well folks I have returned after a long break. I was hit with a wave of no motivation and life shit but thank you to everyone who has read all my other shit and left me such nice feedback. I am patently horrible at responding to comments but I see them all and love them so much. There is not much Kylo in this chapter, so apologies in advance but I promise there will be plenty of him to come. 

AO3 Mirror

Part 9 to come

Warnings: Angst, angst and more angst, not much else except for that so buckle up. 

Summary: In which you discover sometimes knowing is worse. 

Ship: Kylo Ren x Negotiator!Reader

Word Count: 6.4k

Your breathing stopped along with the footsteps at the door. One hand remained pressed firmly against your mouth while you shrunk as far under the desk as possible. There was only horrid stillness for the next few moments. You got the distinct impression that whoever stood at the entryway was tasting the very air, sniffing like a predator for blood spilled into the sea. And a chill ran through you the second he caught your scent. A voice like ice and stone rang out as the hunt began in earnest. 

“You know, it’s impolite to enter a room without permission,” Atreus mused from behind you. 

The sound of it coupled with the knowledge that he was only mere footsteps away made your limbs shake. Like a wild creature caught in a snare, you were flooded with instinctual fear at the sound of the door clicking shut. 

“Though I will admit, I was hoping you would pay me a visit.” 

He was pacing now, footsteps softened by the carpet but still perceptible. To your right the embellished wardrobe doors were flung open accompanied by a dissatisfied grunt. You frantically searched the immediate area for paths of escape—or potential weapons if it came to that—but there was nothing. Your back was to the door and Atreus stood directly between you and the only way out. 

As the likelihood that you would walk out of this office dwindled, you cursed yourself and your hubris for ever taking this job in the first place. 

There must have been a saying about this type of thing somewhere, but you couldn’t seem to recall any at the moment. 

“You ought to show yourself,” he continued, every word laced with mockery and disgust. 

He was getting closer with each step. There were only so many places to hide and judging by the fading noises of clutter being moved, all but one had been exhausted. He was going to find you and you were going to die. 

At least you would be right about one thing. 

Kylo Ren really was a liar. 

 “I never took you for a coward,” fingers drummed on the desk above you and it creaked as Atreus leaned his weight over the top, like a ship's hull as it kicked into hyperdrive. 

He was so close now you could smell him, all artificial cologne and shoe polish. If you hadn’t been trying so hard to hold your breath before you certainly were now. His own came in calm, measured puffs and you closed your eyes tightly as if that could hide you any further. While your last moments alive and breathing wasted away, you recalled all the times the Commander had called you arrogant or prideful or any other combination of synonyms that all meant the same damn thing: foolish. 

Before you might have called it confidence. Might have thought he and all your other superiors were simply threatened by their inability to tear you down. Now you just kicked yourself for being cocky enough to leave your back turned. 

“Seems I was mistaken, Ren.” 

What? 

You recoiled at the name and very nearly said the word aloud as your eyes flew open in shock.  But the legs which came into view—unnervingly long and thin— and situated directly in front of the desk turned anything you might say to dust on your tongue.    

Why was it, even at the moment of your imminent demise, that the Commander was inevitably mentioned? 

Could you really not be executed for political gain in peace?

“I know you’re here. I can feel it,” he began but was interrupted by two more approaching footsteps and a blessedly familiar voice. 

“No, I’m sorry sir, I’ve been away sampling catering options,” Lem’s soft, clear tone was more relieving that you’d care to admit. 

You swore if you lived through the next five minutes, you’d apologize for every rude thing you’d ever said to him. 

Well, all the rude things you’d been wrong about. 

“You were in your office just before I left,” Gahl grumbled and stopped just outside the door, wrapping twice. “Atreus, are you quite finished in there? I’d rather not be late to dinner just because you’ve stained your tie.” 

The creak of hinges nearly had you slamming your head into the desk in shock. 

“No sir, I lent the space to our guest from the First Order,” Lem prattled nervously and you heard Atreus growl as he shifted in place. 

“You shouldn’t be letting just anyone wander around here, Alba,” the advisor huffed before adding under his breath, “You never know what they might get into.” 

“Really, you’re the one that suggested we invite—” Lem was drowned out by another soft knock and the creaking of a door across the hall. 

You didn’t bother tuning into what Gahl had been mumbling about as Atreus’s knees slowly bent and you were once again filled with the rush of dread at the prospect of being discovered. At best you’d be labeled as a conspirator and sent back to the Finalizer for Hux to have you killed himself for destroying Order relations to Coruscant. At worst, you were destined to die on the goddamn floor at the feet of a greasy, poor excuse for an advisor. 

But in fact, neither of those options played out. 

Instead, you found the world going black for just a split second—no more than a blink—and when you woke it was to a hand gently rocking your shoulder. 

You bolted upright, startled to find yourself no longer cramped on the floor, but seated in Lem’s office. There was a small puddle of drool on the desk and Lem himself staring down at you, brows knit in concern. 

“You alright?” he asked quietly. 

But you didn’t respond right away, just looked wide-eyed out the door as Atreus rose from the floor and met your gaze with his own indecipherable expression. 

From beside you, Lem squeezed your shoulder again and you turned to face him. 

“Yes, sorry,” you muttered, shrugging away from him and rolling your neck. Every joint and muscle in you felt stiff. “I must have dozed off a bit.” 

“I can see that,” he chuckled but his face never lost it’s questioning look. 

“Right, well,” you continued, hastily gathering your things.  The air felt thick and stuck in your throat. You wanted to get out—needed to get out—immediately. “Thank you for the office, I’ll be on my way and send the drafts to you later this evening.” 

Passing by Gahl at the doorway, you gave him a friendly nod and a quiet, “Representative, I hope you have a lovely evening.” 

You were nearly out of the wing entirely when that god awful voice sunk it’s claws into your leg again. 

“Oh, but you must join us for dinner,” Atreus hummed. 

He had sauntered back out to stand behind the Representative and was pinning you down with a horrifically sweet smile. It was so wrong on his face you shuddered at the sight. Gahl, annoyingly, nodded along as he looked you up and down. 

“A good suggestion,” he said heartily. The redness of his cheeks and the slight sway in his step suggested he’d had more than just one drink before returning. “We haven’t had the chance to speak much since you came.” 

Shit. That bastard knew you couldn’t refuse a personal invitation lest you run the risk of seeming rude or suspicious when you were here to supposedly mend ties. Gahl might have been drunk enough to forget the impasse but Atreus was not as dimwitted. 

“Well, I suppose I can’t refuse such a kind invitation,” you gritted out as politely as possible. 

Gahl clapped once, loudly and turned back, calling to Lem, “Wonderful! Lem my boy, you’ll meet our friend in the lobby, yes?”

“Of course,” he said, blonde head popping out of the doorway and offering you a sympathetic smile. “You can go drop your things off and change if you’d like, I’ll wait for you.” 

You sighed and flashed a hopefully convincing grin at the three men, “Thank you, I shall see you momentarily.” 

With that you tried your best not to turn and bolt, but waited at least until you got three corridors down before collapsing to the floor in a pile of stuttering breaths and shaking hands. You tucked your head between your knees and tried to inhale deeply. The insides of your head pounded with the slick, viscous sound of Atreus’s words. The only thing that pulled you to your feet again was the insistent need to get as far away from it as possible. 

The hallways blended together as your feet carried you father and father from the offices, the Representative, and your almost murderer. You had hoped your room would offer some reprieve from the panic, that there may be someone waiting for you inside to spin comforting lies of safety. 

There was not. 

The room contained nothing but freshly made sheets and a white blotch on the wall where a hole had been patched. 

Nothing at all to indicate the Commander had set foot there since your return. 

You considered calling for him briefly. It had worked before, and the shame of crawling behind his hulking form to hide away was incredibly alluring. But instead you found yourself discarding your jacket and top in favorite of something slightly more upscale. The clothes landed in a pile by the bed where you sat for a moment. 

With the door and several floors of high rise architecture between you and that slimy bastard of an advisor, you thought again about what your second dive into espionage had dredged up. 

‘In his head’, Atreus said you were in his head long before you ever came on this assignment. Kylo had bristled at the words, shut you down quickly and you were used to secrets—you had many yourself—so you knew one when you saw it.   

Bond. 

The word rolled around in your skull, burned on your eyelids in that awful, messy script. 

It hurt to think about. 

Physically hurt, like someone was digging needles into your spine. 

So you didn’t think about it. 

Not yet. 

Instead, you finished fixing your outfit and walked back out of the empty room. There were answers and you would find them, but it was clear you’d have to get them on your own. So you let the door click shut behind you and took a deep breath. It was just dinner. You could do dinner and you would get your answers. 

On your own. 

****

The food looked painted onto the plate, contrasting colors and lovingly set out, but tasted like sawdust in your mouth. A shame too, it smelled better than anything you’d been served yet on Coruscant and was certainly a hundred times more extravagant than anything the Finalizer’s cafeterias stocked. 

But having the man who was seconds away from killing you just a short hour ago stare diagonally across the table with his corpse like eyes every time you moved did quite the number on your appetite. 

Thankfully, Lem was seated in front of you and had been prattling away for most of the meal, leaving you with little silence to fill. Part of the way through your fourth or fifth wood-chip bite, Gahl decided to change that. His voice was low and grated with age as he turned in the seat beside you to speak. 

“So, how are you enjoying your stay on Coruscant?” he asked, inching his leg out of the chair and closer to yours. 

“You’ve been very hospitable, Representative, I have absolutely no complaints,” you lied through your teeth, smile just as purposefully arranged as the food in front of you. 

Gahl’s hand patted your thigh just as he’d done at your first meeting, “Glad to hear it, I’m sure it’s nothing like those Star Destroyers.” 

You cursed every social rule of polite society which kept you from putting your knife through his hand. 

“It’s certainly a change of pace,” you mumbled around another flavorless mouthful. “Lem has been a wonderful guide.” 

In fact, you would give anything to be surrounded once again with nothing but bland, grey durasteel and the eyes of officers who were more than happy to pretend you didn’t exist. You’d even take standing in General Hux’s office, watching his ginger head flit about between sifting through files and insulting your diction in reports. If the Commander would even bother to look your way, you would have taken his cold, inaccessible stare over this as well. 

As your thoughts drifted further in the direction of Kylo Ren, another chilling voice joined the conversation. 

“Oh, don’t feel the need to flatter him,” Atreus chose that moment to chime in, scoffing into his napkin. “No doubt Alba’s simply talked your ear off about his low class, wait staff dalliance.”

Lem bristled, cheeks a comical pink with rage, “He has a name.” 

“Well, I’m sure he does, but I simply do not care to learn it,” Atreus sipped his drink and scowled. “You shouldn’t be fraternizing with the servers at all, it’s unbecoming of an aide to the Representative.” 

Across the table, Lem deflated and looked between you and Gahl. You were given the distinct impression this was not a new topic of conversation. 

“He’s right about that my boy, you can buy whoever you like now on the salary I pay you,” the Representative chuckled and downed the contents of his glass. 

“I’m sure our guest would agree,” Atreus’ eyes were trained on the plate but you felt his gaze on you all the same. 

“Relationships between superiors and subordinates are...frowned upon in the Order, I suppose.” 

You only caught a glint of the light off Lem’s slicked yellow hair as he turned toward the man beside him. 

“Certainly but it must happen,” he said.  

“Of course it does,” Atreus looked at you then, the blue of his iris was so light it nearly blended into the whites. “But it would be quite a dangerous predicament, especially somewhere like the Order, would it not?”

You were sure to keep your face blank and unassuming, though it was either much less convincing than you believed it to be or Atreus was actively capable of hearing the panicked screaming of your internal monologue. 

“Yes, yes it would be,” you nodded and looked back down to the table. 

“Particularly with someone of your standing, working directly under the General, I can only imagine the implications of a relationship with anyone high enough to be your senior.”

You could feel your eye twitch and your jaw tense almost against your will, as if Kylo Ren himself was choosing this very moment to inhabit your body. Really, you almost wished that he would, especially with his aggravating ability to remain completely unreadable in even the most stress inducing of situations. But alas, the only part of you Kylo inhabited was your mind in the form of an incredibly inappropriate slew of evidence for your so-called ‘dangerous predicament.’ 

“Hm,” you hummed quietly in agreement, hoping he’d drop the subject. “It would be quite unsightly, I’m certain.”

Meanwhile, Lem stared at you incredulously and hurriedly excused himself from the table mumbling something about the restroom. His blonde head quickly disappeared into the crowd and you were left alone with the Representative and his advisor, a pit developing in your stomach. And it was only made deeper by the muted betrayal in Lem’s parting tone. 

“The boy has always been too sensitive,” Gahl offered by way of explanation and Atreus nodded slowly. 

“He cracks too easily under scrutiny. He should know by now that softness is not a very useful trait in this line of work.”

You frowned and shifted in your seat, swiftly moving the Representatives gnarled hand from your leg. 

“Some amount of give is crucial in politics,” you said, gaze flicking between the two men. “It’s important to be able to bend to your adversary every so often. Being underestimated by your opponent often means you’ve been unwittingly awarded the high ground.” 

Gahl laughed heartily again as you excused yourself as well, though Atreus remained stony calm even when you glanced back between the sea of tables and waiters and expensive suits. 

Lem emerged from a side door not long after you’d posted yourself in the short, empty hallway leading to the restrooms. He would have walked straight past you if not for your hand swiftly yanking him back by the arm. 

“Wait,” you hissed as he turned to face you huddled in one of the doorways.

“What?” he hissed back.

Well. That was a fair enough question, though you hadn’t exactly thought that far. 

Lem stared at you with brows furrowed, obviously less than thrilled with how things were left off. A small part of your mind, which you were more than happy to bury and ignore, whispered that you ought to apologize. But that was most certainly not why you came after him. 

No, leaving the table was simply to punctate your last statement. 

Not because some part of you felt...guilty. 

Absolutely not. 

In fact, this was a perfect opportunity to do some more digging. Lem was your pseudo-informant and that was all. 

Right. 

That was certainly why the following words left your mouth in a tumble. 

“Are you okay?”

Lem paused as you let your hand fall from his arm, shuffling back so he could stand out of sight in the door frame across from you. He still looked cross, but his lips quirked up just a bit. You supposed he’d asked you the same so many times in just the last day, it would be appropriate for you to return the favor.  

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “That was by no means a new conversation.” 

“Under different circumstances, I would have been a bit more…” you trailed off and Lem offered you a signature toothy smile. 

“Appearances and all, I get it. Atreus uses any excuse he can find to bring up Jane since he caught us a week or so before you got here,” Lem sighed, running a hand through his neat hair. 

“Who?” 

The look you received was even more incredulous than before. 

“Jane, my—”

“Right, the waiter,” you nodded and raised your hands in apology, “so, why exactly does it matter who you’re seeing?”

Lem shook his head, “It doesn’t really, since I’m just an aide, but I’m fairly convinced he’s been trying to get rid of me since he was brought on.”

A gaggle of restaurant staff rushed past to the bar where a woman was loudly complaining about her food. You welcomed the attention her display drew away from you. 

“Oh, he wants me gone too,” you muttered and quickly waved off the comment when Lem leveled you with another confused glance. “Any particular reason why?”

He shrugged and hunched over so he could lower his voice, “Not sure, but I do know he’s been butting his greasy head in whenever the opportunity presents itself. He climbed the ranks quicker than most of the other staffers.” 

Now that was interesting. Bless Lem and his affinity for gossip. 

“That seems odd,” you frowned. “I hadn’t heard of him until this assignment, and I like to think I’m fairly well informed.” 

Lem scoffed and peered over his shoulder as if he would find Atreus there, breathing down his neck, “I’m sure you are. He just happened to materialize one day, determined to take my job.” 

Yes and your life as well, but Lem needn’t know about that. 

“Strange.” 

“Yes it is,” he replied. “And they’ll think the same if we’re gone much longer.” 

You nodded and watched him turn to merge back into the crowd, but he paused halfway into the hall. 

“Thank you,” he said simply and slipped away, past the bar and into the waves of diners. 

You waited another few minutes after Lem disappeared, and allowed yourself a small, secret smile. If for no other reason than your success at finally piecing together some information about the spiraling mess your life had become. But mostly at the rosy cheeked and chuckling sincerity that alleviated some of the uncomfortable fluttering in your stomach. 

And you found the food a little less like chalk, the nerve wracking stares and inappropriate touches a little more bearable the rest of the night. 

***

The elevator ride back to your room was far more excruciating than any of the other unpleasant encounters you’d experienced that day. At least when you were cowering on the floor making peace with the fast approaching end to your mortal body, you couldn’t feel the bearer of your death breathing down your neck. 

It was so uncomfortable, you actually wished that the touch-happy, drunken Representative had tagged along instead of staying back till last call at the bar. Your heartbeat racketed up three times its normal rate when Lem pressed the button for his room a few floors below yours instead of riding back with Atreus to the office suites. 

“Did you want to discuss my notes for a bit?” you asked, trying and somewhat failing to keep the desperation out of your voice. 

Lem looked at you with a strange expression on his face, nose turning a darker shade of pink than usual, “Oh, ah, another time maybe. I have, um, someone waiting for me.” 

From behind, Atreus scoffed. 

“Truly, you are shameless, Alba,” he said and you heard him shift behind you. 

“Right,” you wanted to push the issue harder, but it would be worse if Atreus suspected you knew anymore about his plot than he already did. “I’ll see you later in the week then.”

The panel above the transparent sliding doors rang and Lem stepped out into the hall, “Yes, well not too long till the big reveal, so I’m certain we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” 

The soft hiss of the doors closing again reverberated in your bones like the thunking of an executioner's blade. You swallowed as your tongue turned to stone in your mouth. There were only a handful of floors in between before your stop but that would be more than enough time to maim your body beyond recognition and throw it down the incinerator shaft. 

You reminded yourself sternly that it was unlikely Atreus would exact whatever assassination plan he had in place in such a secluded space, but fear responses were not easily reasoned with. 

Atreus remained resolutely out of your line of sight and that only made the deep, instinctual part of your brain howl for you to run, claw, bite. Oh if only it were that simple, there would surely be far fewer aggravating superior officers in your life. 

The numbers on the panel moved far more slowly than you thought they ought to. With every extended second you spent in that horribly cramped lift, the air grew thicker with tension and the rancid smell of panic. Finally, finally, the panel flashed your floor number and the doors moved aside to reveal the beautiful sight of an empty hallway. But just before you crossed the threshold to freedom, an iron grip clamped hard down on your wrist. 

“So sorry to keep you,” Atreus began and you spun to face him. “It has only just occurred to me I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss anything with you regarding the Representative and the subject matter of your speech.” 

He really had to wait until now to do this, now when escape was dangling over your head like an unfortunate prisoner hanging over the maw of a hungry sarlacc. 

“Yes, well Lem has been providing council with respect to the Order’s representation of Representative Gahl in all our official statements,” you replied calmly. 

The slightest twitch of your hand revealed a shocking amount of force hidden in the advisor's lanky arms. You stuck your foot back as the doors began to close, unable to bear another minute trapped behind them. 

“Of course, I simply wouldn’t want you being led astray by any of Alba’s short comings,” the grip on your wrist tightened almost imperceptibly, “I’d like to work more closely with you as we approach the first campaign endorsements.” 

 “Certainly,” you forced a tight smile in his direction. “I would greatly appreciate your input.” 

The words sliced your lips as they tumbled out. You were accustomed to lying, yes, but stars that was potentially the least believable statement that had ever left your mouth. 

“I’m sure.” 

Staring hard into his dead man’s eyes, you tried not to breathe a sigh of relief as he unfurled his fingers from your wrist. Stepping back clumsily into the hall you waited until the doors hid his cheap imitation of a smile before you heading down the hall to your room. Better he not know which turn you took. 

You ran the rest of the way back. 

The tightness in your chest subsided by degrees the farther you got to safety and you didn’t even bother denying to yourself the hope that your Commander in all his black cloaked, looming glory would be waiting to stand between you and the reality waiting just outside. 

You really should have known better than to put any faith in his promises. 

“Kylo?” you whispered into the empty room. 

He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t, and maybe that was the only reason you were brave enough to call out for him. 

There was a familiar black bag propped in the corner by your luggage which indicated Ren had at least returned to the Federal District at some point during the evening. That at least was something of a comfort, though a very small one. 

You grabbed one of the chairs from the table and shoved it securely back under the door handle. It scrapped against the floor and your shin throbbed as you kicked it in place. Once again the clothes on you wore seemed to have been permeated with whatever disgusting, oily sheen that leaked off of the absolute slug of a man currently puttering around in his office planning the best way to choke the life out of you. They itched and stung and you tugged at them quickly, pulling each item off in a flurry like coals blistering your bare skin. 

Free from the growing pile of discarded laundry you dug around through your cases. Your hands still shook as you scattered the contents, pulling on fresh bottoms that didn’t reek of lies and aftershave. You paused as your fingers brushed against something far softer than any of your Order regulation garments. 

Large, flowing, and predictably black, Kylo Ren’s undershirt hung in your hands like a shroud. 

You battled with your instincts. Half of you—the portion still living in the past where hatred was a simple comfort—wanted to ball it up and stomp it full of dusty boot prints. That side did not win and its screaming reduced considerably as the shirtsleeves made their way down your arms. You were enveloped immediately in a sense of sheer relief coupled with the feeling that what you were doing was profoundly reckless. 

But even if it was a false sense of security, your hands and knees were not shaking as badly as before. 

The Commander was intimidating and cold, but in addition he was intimidating and cold and standing resolutely between you and danger which was more than you could say for just about any other coworker. 

You supposed he was probably a bit more than that now. 

Eyes shut, you recalled the warm, full feeling of his approval upon seeing you in his clothes. The way it rushed through you and pulsated when he let his voice echo in your head. You wondered what it felt like for him. Was your voice a grating nuisance or was it a tingle at the back of his neck, the shiver of cool hands or maybe the surge after a well won battle. 

How did he do it, you wondered. How did it feel to read you so easily? To know all your doubts and fears and micro-defiances before they left your mouth. And how did he remain so resolutely aloof? 

Even now, as you tensed your jaw and tried to focus on the smell of him surrounding you and conjure his presence, there was nothing but dead air. You sighed and let your knees thunk down to the floor.

Unsurprisingly, it seemed that Kylo Ren only appeared when he wanted to, only answered your thoughts when it suited him. You could scream his name into the void of your mind but you couldn’t force him there—couldn’t Force him there. Which was unfortunate for many reasons. Being capable of wielding the throat crushing, invisible fabric of the universe at your will would have come in handy in so many situations. As you rubbed your eyes and prepared to wallow more thoroughly in the mess your life had devolved into, something caught your eye amongst the sea of clothing. 

From the Commander’s open bag, you could see something brighter amongst the masses of black fabric. Further inspection revealed that the item was shoved into the back pocket of his trousers and when you looked closer, it was clear what you were looking at. 

Your underwear. 

Your underwear was hidden away in Commander Ren’s luggage. 

And in your half shocked, half strangled endeared state, a memory surfaced. 

The night you’d spent writhing on your bed as Kylo sat, watching as the Force fucked you open. The image of him was clear in your head—a princely, demonic being refusing you the luxury of pleasure through his touch and taking your soaked panties along as a trophy when he was finished with you. 

 It seemed like a lifetime ago. 

You’d thought it was a dream then. 

And wasn’t it? The lines between waking and fantasy were blurring more and more with every passing day. But Kylo hadn’t left. He was there when you woke, that you did recall clearly. But these were the same, still unwashed from all those nights ago. 

Kylo had said there was a difference between dreaming and projecting, and to be fair you’d never been able to tell them apart. The Force was somehow involved. The same Force which seemed to have a questionable relationship with existing inside you. But it stood to reason, if someone as incompetent and disconnected as you could think yourself into Kylo Ren’s presence on very specific occasions, that he could do so whenever the hell he wanted. 

And while the implications this knowledge had on all your other sexual escapades was at the forefront of your mind and burning your face to a crisp, another inkling was forming amongst the embarrassment. 

If the Commander truly had projected himself—whatever that really meant—into your room to fuck you into oblivion without lifting a finger and kept what he’d taken, maybe you could do the same. 

Maybe, sitting inside your coat pocket was your own dream contraband. 

Crawling across the floor, you sifted through the mess at the foot of the bed until your hand felt something small and hard. Your breath stuttered in your chest as you pulled a familiar leather bound notebook from the pile and turned it over in your grip—hefty and solid and so very real in your hands.  

Staring down at the book you were at once intensely excited and overwhelmingly terrified. Logically, you knew that you were alone here and free from prying eyes no matter how desperately you wished not to be, but delving into what promised to be the source for so many of your questions felt too risky in the open of your bedroom. 

Quietly, you leaped over the bed and scrambled into the bathroom, shutting the door behind you and sliding down to the floor. Only then, with your back barricading you in with the tile cooling your heated skin, did you crack open the cover and begin to read the sloppy, looping scrawl across each page. 

A picture began to form in your mind growing clearer with every passing page. 

It was very much like reading the ramblings of a madman, and upon passing the first ten or so pages, your initial deduction of mad ravings only grew more accurate. The entries were similar to that of a diary, each one detailing a new piece of intel discovered. And just as you’d noted before, almost all of it had something to do with Kylo Ren. 

And you’d thought you were a bit obsessive. 

There were names you didn’t recognize, and some you did—members of the Order, high ranking and not, scattered about. Occasionally passages were quoted from what seemed to be incident reports and older texts of galactic history. And of course, there were consistent references to the ever mysterious Force. All of which were written in such personal detail that you could be certain they came from someone who, unlike you, could and knew how to use it. 

The words were so jumbled, you had to reread each line and follow it like a hunting trail to the next running sentence. And the farther you got, the deeper you dived, the more you felt your insignificance looming—that tight in your throat feeling of being so small in the grand scheme of things. 

In this scheme of things at least.  

From what you could understand, all the events leading up to your assignment to Coruscant and everything that had transpired since your arrival all boiled down this: power and the struggle to possess it. 

And at the center of it all was Atreus, Kylo Ren, and, inexplicably, you. 

In this story, you began as nothing more than another pawn on the chess board. Your name appeared maybe twice in the entire first half of the nearly full notebook. You were a footnote, a name scribbled in the margins connected to the General due to your position. After that, it seemed Atreus had gotten his hands on some more confidential documents, dozens of them in fact judging from his lists. Some were immaterial and contributed nothing, but from what you could gather, buried amongst them were dozens of your correspondence all pertaining to the Commander and all of which more than hinting at the small grudge you carried for him. 

He’d even quoted lines from you. 

As you progressed, the text became even more garbled, the handwriting rushed and nearly illegible but it was easy enough to see where it was heading. 

You were meant to be an example—of that you were certain. But not for the First Order, not because one Coruscanti representative wanted to stick it to its totalitarian overlords. Oh no, the threat of your death was meant as an example to Kylo Ren himself. It was a message, a lure, cast down from Atreus. When you first began to piece this together, it sounded intensely nonsensical. 

Almost entirely due to the fact that this plan hinged on Commander Ren of all people, having a vested interest in your life. Which, up until very recently, you would have deemed impossible. If anything, you’d have guessed he would greatly benefit from your demise seeing as you were at best an annoyance and at worst a roadblock between him and forceful galactic takeover. 

But then you reached that word. 

Bond.

Scribbled over and bolded with arrows and circles. You still couldn’t truly grasp the gravity of what it meant, but looking it over again, you knew it was true. Whatever this thing was, between you and your Commander, this was its name. And having read the journal in its entirety, you understood now why that singular word had struck you so thoroughly to your core. 

“You aren’t going to die.”

How many times had Kylo said that to you now? 

And it was constructed to bring your downfall. This was exactly what it seemed Atreus was banking on. It seemed all this want, all this hypothermic, desperate searching for one another was manufactured. The sense of wholeness,  a sham. The pit inside you, the anger, the balm of Kylo moving inside you—all orchestrated somehow to fit into this master plan to remove the Commander and take whatever he was standing in the way of. 

Without this, you would have remained a nuisance swearing at Ren from across conference tables. Nothing more than a bug to be smashed against the wall and left to rot.  And that sat terribly on your shoulders. 

Just as the book fell from your hands and onto the tile floor, you heard a familiar rattling coupled by a crash from the room just outside. Heavy footsteps rang out against the floor and a door slammed. 

Your name was called softly into the stillness. Just as you had called for him. A few moments of silence passed before you could answer, and when you did your voice felt strange in your mouth. 

“In here,” you replied quietly, listening to his foot falls approach the door and come to a halt. 

When you closed your eyes, you could almost hear his breath. Kylo paused at the door, the soft thump of his hand coming to rest against the wood the only other sound he made. You didn’t move from the floor and he made no attempt to open the door. The tingle at the back of your neck, the slight tugging of your strings, told you he could feel the thoughts racing in your head. 

Only minutes ago you would have been relieved to feel the warm of him spreading slowly down your spine. Now it felt strangely soured. For a moment you thought he might rip open the door, maybe bend you over the vanity again and teach what happened when you called for him out line. 

But he didn’t. 

When you didn’t shift from your spot to step into his grasp, you felt him pull away and heard the rustling of sheets and clothing outside. You didn’t know what you would say to him now, so instead you got up slowly and turned the water on. The mirror fogged over as you stripped and tucked the little notebook away under your clothes so the steam didn’t seep into the pages. 

You could wash now, you thought, and hopefully Kylo would have fallen asleep or left to stalk the halls again when you finished. Then you could buy yourself some time to think, unbothered by other prying eyes in your head. 

You stepped into the stream and scrubbed your skin raw, and all while the little black book watched you from its place on the sink, ever plotting. 

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

Taglist lovelies: @couldntfuckingtellya @contesa-lui-alucard @thewilddingleberries @isaxhorror @cowboy-kylo @findyourdarkness @kit-jpg @shesakillerkween @obsessionprofessional

[elliethesuperfruitlover]

It’s Okay

A/N: I’m writing a self-indulgent fic due to fact that I’m feeling  ✨ insecure and ugly ✨Yes this is me projecting. I like Heaven’s Design Team, and Unabara is one of my comfort characters, and he’s also v tall, and he looks like a good hugger. So why not write him being the fluffy being that he is.

Warnings: once again another breakdown, body image talk, mild nsfw mentions, mention of panic attacks

Tag List (even tho i know none of y’all dont know the show but shh): @misskittysmagicportal,  @bisexualnathanyoung, @super-unpredictable98, @joz-stankovich, @hufflepuffheroine, @ghouls-buddy, @magic-multicolored-miracle, @seancekitsch, @the-freckled-luba, @neuroticpuppy

“What’s wrong?” Neptune asks, seeing you curled up on the corner of the bed, hands covering your face. He’d just come in from another day of work with the team. They were working on an animal that’s seen and heard from far away. It’d been going okay, and they were making a lot of progress.

  You’d been denying him an answer to how you were feeling all day. Yes, he deserves to know. But something told you that you were being a burden. And that he didn’t need to hear your issues. He has a lot on his plate. And you didn’t want to stress the poor thing out. It’d only add fuel to your emotional fire. So you bottled it up. Seemed to be working just fine. Nothing a little forgetting can fix. You were really struggling. You can’t tell anyone how you feel, or else they may think it’s their job to help you. And it’s not. It never is. But they do it somehow. You’d always felt like a burden, maybe it was due to how everything in the past had worked out for you (horribly). Or maybe it was just due to your extreme anxiety issues, as well as being atrocious at keeping friends. They always left. And never came back. And somehow, that mean-spirited little voice always said it’s your fault. You’re the catalyst. You’re why everything falls apart around you. You’re the reason everyone’s stressed and upset. So that’s your philosophy. How’s that been working out, huh?

“I’m tired. And I’m upset for no reason. I’m also not feeling the most confident. But I can’t really remember a time where I did feel good about my appearance. I just straight up think I’m ugly. ” you mutter, tears forming in your eyes. 

  You’d been waiting for your body to finally cave in and let you cry. Weeks of missed panic attacks. Days without breaking down. First it seemed fine. Then the fatigue set in. So did the muscle aches. And feeling like sitting in the corner for the entire day. Thinking of what you could be doing. And shaming yourself for not being able to make a full meal. It was just so much all of the time. Everyone has their limits, but those also change. People grow. Somehow, though, it seemed that you were left out. And that everyone seemed to be doing just fine. Except for you, of course.

“Well, it’s fine to be upset, or tired. And I’ve mentioned that if you need help sleeping, I’m glad to help you. Be it cuddling or simply letting you be. But the latter part is where I find the issue. Your appearance is fine. But I know people can see each other differently.” he whispers, sitting down near you, but it seems as if he wasn’t close enough.

“Well, I honestly don’t know how you manage to call me cute sometimes. I really don’t see it. Never have.” you state, falling back completely onto the bed, arms spread out.

“I only say it because it’s the truth. If I think you look cute, or nice, I’ll tell you. There’s no use in me lying. What is this stemming from?” he asks, putting his hand on yours.

“I saw some of my old classmates from school and just....how? How do I equal to them? I feel like everyone’s moving on, and looking good. And feeling confident. But I just can’t seem to.” you say. Your eyes floating to a specific spot on the ceiling that looked like a snowman, and you thought about it for a while.

“Everyone’s different. And I think you look perfectly fine. And some people may just be feeling better. It doesn’t make you any worse.” he replies softly, twisting to face your flat form on the bed.

“Yeah, but I fucking hate everything about myself. Every time I seem to have something good, that dumbass voice comes back and I’m right back here again. I love my hair, then it’s a burden and I want to get rid of it. I look nice in these jeans, then I think I should lose the weight so they aren’t as tight. What the fuck is wrong with me?” you ask, tears finally falling onto the comforter.

“Aw, come here.” he says, laying down so he can look you at you closer. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Sure, you have anxiety, and yes, you have intrusive thoughts, but that’s okay. It doesn’t make you any less of a person. And it doesn’t make you any less attractive.” Unabara whispers, holding you close.

  You begin sobbing into his chest, and your hands grasp at his sweater, trying to find something to hold onto before you fall from whatever was keeping you above the water. Dark, deep waters. Every part of you wants to scream, but you can’t seem to get that giant bubble from your chest. Neptune’s hand gently moves up and down your back, and you gasp for air as wave after wave of feeling go through you. It’s like you never get a break as tears fall repeatedly down your face, drowning you in a weird way. Your chest heaves as you wrap around Neptune, face hidden in his neck to get away from the reality of him seeing you like this. Vulnerable, and some would consider it torn to the ground. Somehow by your own feelings, you’d been torn to the ground and for what? Feelings were supposed to tell you what’s going on, not ponder if every person you’d met in your entire life was offended by you, and if they were it was always your fault. Never anyone else’s, always yours. That’s not true, but somehow you’d managed to get it engrained in your skull do much that no lobotomy would help.

  They never seemed to leave you be, it seemed. One moment everything’s fine and it’s all good and the next you’re on the floor again, wondering whether or not you should’ve said this, or that. Or said these things, or even simply existed in their presence. You had done nothing wrong, yet only the most harsh and cruel punishments were reserved for you with your name in bold, bright letters. Nothing could help you at this point. Not the warmest, and most inviting of baths, or the coldest bowl of ice water to dip your head in, disrupting you from the shaking you’d been experiencing. Even his strong arms couldn’t help as you trembled in his grip. You hadn’t even noticed that his eyes were closed, almost as if he was trying to forego tears. See look what you’re doing to him. You thought, but it was shut down as he opened his eyes, and looked directly at you. Throwing you off for a moment before you went back to dreading everything about yourself once more. Except the hiccups were subsiding, and the feeling in your fingers and toes had begun to come back. Unabara’s head was tilted onto yours, and you matched your breathing to his, calming down somewhat.

“Can you do something really quickly for me...please?” he whispered, deep voice echoing in your mind. You gently nodded, and he moved to get up as you still sat on the bed, the ends of your jacket crumpled and partially wet.

“You don’t have to do this, but I’m going to go from your feet to your head. List what you don’t like about the body part.” he said, and you nodded once more as he gently nudged your foot, looking at you to engage.

 You thought for a moment and replied in a quiet voice, rough from the tears.

“I don’t like how big my feet are. Sure, it may be fine with dancing, and it’s not that noticeable. But shoes my size are upwards of 70 dollars.” you reply, fiddling with your hands.

“Mm, I think they’re fine. I like the fact that we can share shoes sometimes. It’s more space for other things. Legs?”

“They’re oddly shaped. And they’re discolored too.” you stutter out, feeling goosebumps tickle your skin as his hands gently moved up your form.

“I think they’re quite lovely. And you’ve got quite a kick. Strong too. You can fit in more odd positions, may look uncomfortable. But you always manage somehow.” he says, kissing the top of your knee.

  It went on like that for a while, with you talking about how you hated the fact that your thighs don’t match in color to how the divots in your hip made you feel like you should look different elsewhere. When one part of the body was talked over, you both removed a piece of clothing, the same for each person. Somehow you’d even managed to mention that you didn’t like the fact that your stretch marks could be seen with a simple flick of a waistband. And only he got to see the secret ones. Hidden from many views. Eventually, it got to the point where you were mostly nude in front of Neptune. His eyes averted from where some would be looking most. When his eyes did, however, drifted southwards, it wasn’t one of sexual thought.

“What about here?” he gently asked, hands landing on your hips.

“I don’t think I can complain about her. So much to learn. And so many feelings, good and bad. But none to blame.” you mutter, gasping as a skilled finger made its way to where you seemed to want it most.

“I think it’s wonderful. And not in the “I think vaginas are nice because I only think of it in a sexual manner way. I think they’re neat. And there’s a lot to learn, and much more to unlearn as well. I always like how you feel on the precipice of orgasm. Almost like a vice, but not one that I’d be upset about. You’re usually the most vocal, pillow over your face, or face pressed into my shoulder. Then, you’re there. And I’m there, or close enough. You just look so peaceful and emotional in the most wonderful of ways. You’re not worried about how you look. Or how your hair looks spread across the sheets unevenly. You just feel everything at once. And I find that so amazing.” he whispers into your ear, and it took everything in you not to take him right then and there.

  Unabara didn’t give you a quickie that night. Or the ol’ suck and fuck. He took his time, even after you cried on his shoulder. And admitted your flaws to him. He made sure you were fine every step of the way. Holding your hand. Breathing into your neck as to not overstimulate his own ears. He even took the time to kiss over every last mark and scar from childhood on your legs before eating you out. I mean, yeah, you were ready to shove his entire face in your vagina. But the sheer amount of effort he went through to make sure that you were comfortable, and happy (in that moment at least). It honestly could push you to tears. How could someone care so much about another? They’d go through hours of love and appreciation, just to see you smile, or almost wake up the neighbors. 

  Tears fell down your face once more that night as you cuddled into Neptune’s chest. You listened to his heartbeat as his hands lay once more on your back. He looked at you with so much love and support. And you couldn’t help but crack under that pressure. Pressure to reciprocate. You always did. Somehow. Even in those moments where you pondered researching panic methods just to feel some relief. But you made it. And he found you worthy. Then slowly, slowly, you found yourself worthy as well.

Masterlist

[imaginesmai]

Tony Stark - Things we don’t mean

Requested by @snoopy3000​ a while ago, I hope you like it!! Mistakes was about make up after a fight. I tried to do it as good as I could, but I always I ended up doing something a bit different. Anyway, here it is!

Plot: a mission gone wrong, and Peter gets hurt. It hits Tony where it hurts the most, becuase he sees the kid as a son, and he blames it on you. Hard words are exchanged and apologies are muttered.

There was a clock, on the wall.

It was one of the few things that was old and broken in Tony’s penthouse, and it brought you a sense of comfort. It showed that not everything had to be neat and perfect in his life, and that he had space for common things like an old clock.

The clock didn’t work, but was stuck on the same minute.

It sounded, when the big, long needle hit the sides of the number. On a normal day, you wouldn’t notice it, because you didn’t visit the guest’s room too much; and even if you had noticed it the first time he gave you the tour through the house, you hadn’t thought about it more than a few times. The week where you made the plans of remodelling the penthouse some years ago, when your mom came to spend the weekend the first year you moved in with Tony, and a bunch of times where you had decided to clean for a bit.

The thing was it wasn’t a normal day. It had been anything but normal, from the moment the police department had called on the Avengers to cover up a huge guy, that seemed a brick stone and could dissolve into sand. There weren’t much ‘Avengers’ left, but Tony, Rhodey, Vision, Peter and you had gone.

You wondered if things could have gone different, if they had been there. The rogues, the other avengers. But they hadn’t been, and Peter, that sweet kid, had been thrown to the ground from a building, and which neck had been crushed by the monster’s rocky hand.

From what you had seen, there were thick, black bruises on his neck, and they were going to have to shave half of his head to evaluate the possible brain damage, because he wasn’t responding. You had wanted to see more, yet Tony had sent you outside the guest room with hard cold words.

They couldn’t take Peter to the hospital without risking his identity, so Cho was working the best she could with him in the guest room. Tony was there too, worrying over the child that he thought his son. And you were outside, because you knew he blamed you for inviting Peter over.

“What the hell were you thinking?!”

Everyone in the quinjet turned around at Tony’s scream. It was followed by the sound of the mask of his suit hitting the other side of the place, rolling now destroyed a few inches back.

Until that moment, he had been sitting on the edge of a chair with Peter’s hand on his grip. You hadn’t thought he was in any condition to move, so you had let him be there while you evaluated the damages on the city. Then, Tony was up and looking at the fallen part of the suit.

Rhodey put a wary hand on your shoulder, knowing Tony could get pretty temperamental when someone or something he cared about got in the way. Dismissing him softly, you walked towards the man.

“Tony, that’s not –“

“Why did you thought it was a good idea to bring a kid, my kid, into the fight?” Tony turned to you, and you were met with the most hateful eyes you had ever seen on him. “No, I’ll answer that. You weren’t thinking”

“I was thinking” you answered calmly. You kept walking until you were in front of him. “I was thinking about all the people who were going to get hurt if we didn’t stop the threat. Peter is not a kid, he’s Spiderman. And he can handle himself in a fight”

“Yeah, I see how that has turned” Tony took a step forward, his nose almost hitting yours, and pointed a finger at your chest. “Next time, you listen to my rules. Only mine. No side decisions like that”

“I can’t believe you make everything about you, Tony”

You were angry, because Peter meant a lot to you too and, in a way, you felt the guilt of having him in the battlefield in your gut. You were tired and mentally exhausted, covered in wounds, bruises and Peter’s blood, since you had been the one to stop the bleeding of his head. And you wanted to get all of that off you as soon as possible, so an argument with Tony seemed the best option.

That was what you got when two headstrong people dated.

“Your rules, your kid, your mission, your plan. We’re a team, and we work like that” you sneered at him, and watched him grew angrier. “Peter is going to be fine, the guy is out and nobody else got hurt.”

“The team is broken!” Tony screamed, and you heard Rhodey sigh in the back. “It broke with the accords, and it won’t ever be back! So we’re not a team. We’re just –“

“We’re superheroes, people that have a higher chance of helping other than normal humans” you cut him off. “And we take responsibility for it. Peter knew what he was signed for when he became Spiderman”

“There won’t be any more Spiderman if you keep taking that kind of decisions” Tony crossed his arms, his voice lowering. 

“You’re the one who aren’t thinking. Get your head out of your butt and - “

“And what, let you take control?” he scoffed a laugh. “There is no way I’m letting someone who can’t remember her own name control everything”

There was a twitch in your left eye, and you knew Tony had hit low. Because of some pain meds you had to take from the wound of the last mission, you were much less sharper during two or three hours after the pill. It hadn’t been bad, but a bad twist in your knee had made you tear up a muscles on your thigh. The pain had been so bad, that Cho had given you a meds for two months.

It made you insecure, that you were so forgetful and distracted meanwhile, and you had confided in Tony with that. You hadn’t expected the sweet understanding man, that left you notes every now and then to help you remember, would use that argument in a fight.

“You’re on thin ice” you muttered. “Peter being hurt isn’t my fault, get that into your iron skull”

“Well, you were the one letting you come. So I don’t see any other responsible people around”

Tony finished the conversation by himself when he turned around and sat with his back facing you in front of Peter. You heard the kind reassuring words he whispered into his hair, and got stuck there until Rhodey pulled you away by your arm.

Without saying another word, you jogged out of the main part of the quinjet to the piloting part, where you could share your tears in peace.

Minutes, hours, maybe days later, you were still sitting on the hard cold ground in front of the broken clock. It tickled, and with each sound, you let another silent tear roll down your cheek. There was an instant when you thought there wasn’t much more to share, but you discovered that your backpack for tears was as big as your guilt. The tears kept falling, and the intrusive thoughts filled your head. You wanted to get up, to move and to walk away from the guest room. You didn’t think you could stand another round of disapproving-Tony; yet you couldn’t move.

Distantly, you heard the door clicking open. There were voices, hushed voices; or maybe it was you who heard everything underwater. You swore you heard Rhodey with his scolding voice, and Tony tearful one accepting everything he said. There was a curse, and then a hand was touching you.

“Y/N. I’m – It’s… It’s me. Come on, get up”

Tony helped you to stand, trying to put an arm around you; but you jerked away, stumbling down the wall away from him. It was because of the anger at him for his words, the worry for Peter in the room, and the hate for yourself because of the result of the mission.

He tried again, and you didn’t have the strength to fight him. His arms, on the contrary of what everyone thought, were pure muscle. He had been lifting big parts of machines and cars since he was four, and the first suit of armour weighted at least his whole weight. So you just hung there in his arms as he carried you through the corridors. Tony smelt like grease, an horrible smell you hated until you met him. There was too the ridiculous amount of Axe, which he sprayed you with after the shower, and the coffee that always seemed to accompany him.

You zoned out until you were in your room. The clock was gone, but the feelings that the old piece of furniture had created by being the only sound for hours weren’t. Suddenly, you were more aware of the clothes you were still wearing, and Tony couldn’t stop your shaking hands from trying to rip the clothes out of you.

“Wow, wow!” Tony tried to lock your arms with his. “Hey, none of that! You’re gonna hurt yourself! Y/N – Y/N!”

“The blood, Tony” you whine, feeling the tears coming back. “There is – Peter’s blood – I-“

You kept babbling a mess between words and apologies, and when you came back again, you could hear the water running. Tony was in front of you again, with your stained shirt on his hands and the jacket on the ground. He helped you out of your shoes and socks, took out your trousers and finally your underwear. All of it while talking softly to you, as you sobbed and cried to him that you were sorry.

The hot, almost burning, water made your muscles relax. You clung to Tony as he lowered you fully into the bathtub, that filled slowly, and almost dug your nails into his arms when he attempted to move.

Sighing, he used one hand to take as much clothes as he could, that were his shoes and socks, and his jacket. Then, he pushed you forward and got into the tub with you. The water fell out of the bath and hit the floor, so Tony closed the faucet and sank down.

“It’s okay” he mumbled into your hair. He had intended to have you between his legs, but you quickly dismissed his thought and turned around to wrap yourself around his torso. The clothes stung to his body in an uncomfortable way, but he accepted it as a punishment for his hard words. “I’m not leaving, ciccino. I love you”

You nuzzled your nose against his neck and hiccupped at the nickname, that he so fondly had given you since the first moment he met you. Tony did something behind you, but you were too tired to care about it. Instead, you fidgeted with the end of his t-shirt.

A few seconds later, the familiar coconut bath salts hit your nostrils, and you cuddled closer to him. It took you a while to finally calm down, and occasionally you scrubbed with your nails a part of your body where Peter’s blood had been. Tony was there every time, to stop you and caress it softly.

“Peter – is” you started, stopping to hiccup. “Is he… Peter is f-fine?”

“Yeah” Tony whispered, and kissed the line of you hair. “He’s fine. Kid knows how to take care of himself”

You listened to Tony rambling about Peter. Cho had taken care of the swelling of his brain and had stitched up the cuts on his neck. There wasn’t any permanent damage anywhere, so with a couple of weeks in bed rest and his healing power everything would be back to normal. Tony’s voice almost guided you to sleep. When it came to Peter, or to any matter he loved, he talked with such a passion and care that his voice became thick, deep and happy.

Eventually, the water became cold and your fingers became wrinkled. Tony was shivering and trying to hide it, so you decided to move and to stop him mid-sentence about the pros and cons of hiring a sitter for Peter.

He stopped talking and just watched as you moved away, the water moving and falling onto the ground with each one of your movement. There were a few inches between you, but you knew there were much more; and one of you had to jump.

You decided to start.

“I’m sorry” you whispered. Tony was quiet, and raised a brow. “For bringing Peter into the mission”

“Yeah, for the next time maybe listen to me” he gave you a half smile. “But it wasn’t your fault. Kid is reckless enough by himself. It isn’t on you, Y/N”

“It feels like it”

Tony grimaced and shifted. He moved closer until he was on his knees in front of you, the t-shirt clutching to his skin and revealing the scars of his collarbone. You decided to focus on the hem of the clothe, until Tony brought your chin back and forced you to look at him. You weren’t ready to listen again to his rambles about being right, and usually, the arguments between you two always ended up with Tony being right.

But that time there wasn’t any pride on his face. His chocolate eyes were kind and gentle, and were searching for you attention. So you gave it to him.

“I’m sorry for screaming so much” he smiled. “I don’t blame you, no one does. And I hope Peter doesn’t hear about it, because last time I felt guilty for him being hurt he spent three days here trying to convince me otherwise”

“Apology accepted” you tried to copy his smile. “And I’m sorry too, I don’t think you’re egocentric”

“Apology accepted” he copied you. Tony brought you closer until you were sitting against his thighs. Hugging your waist close to him, he leaned forward. “I said some things that weren’t true. You’re always thinking about everyone, and I know you’re doing your best. I’m proud of you, more of what I’m proud of myself, ciccino. I love you”

“Me too, Tony”

Tony smirked and finished closing the distance. His lips were cold, as everything in the bathroom since it had been nearly an hour, and when you reached your hand to cup the back of his head, you felt the small bump of a hard hit.

You didn’t mind it, neither did Tony when you moaned in pain and he let you stretch your leg behind him. It wasn’t the type of kiss you two had when you made up after a fight, where everything was solved with sex, sex and more sex. It was slow, loving and gentle. It was a way of pouring everything you were sorry for in the kiss.

Tony moved his lips against yours like reading a partiture, knowing exactly how to work to fit perfectly. His hands roamed through your body, erasing the guilt and the shadow of Peter’s blood.

Soon, you were lost in each other, and you could almost see again the clock in front of the guest room. It wasn’t stopped, it was working and it was sounding on a normal beat. As the clock needed the battery, you needed Tony to live.

There were moments where you two had your fights, where you said things neither of you mean, and when you suffer because of each other. But in the end, it was him what kept you going, through good and bad.

Too lost in your thoughts, you didn’t notice that Tony was carrying you out of the tub. He leant you against the sink and positioned himself between your legs. His kisses travelled down your neck until his lips were only resting against your pulse point, hot breath giving you gossebumps.

“I’m really sorry for earlier” he whispered, and you knew that he was the one that needed comfort then. “I don’t think you’re not… thinking. I promise”

“It’s okay, Tony, I know” you assured him, and started to run your fingers through his hair. “There’s –“

“Mrs Y/L/N! Mr Rhodey told me you were blaming yourself!”

Peter’s voice came behind the door with a thin lay of panic, and you could hear Cho screaming in the back for him to go back. The handle moved and only then you realised that you were very, very naked and that Tony was too, between your legs and in a full view. Before you had time to warn the spiderling, that was too fast and strong for his own good, Peter broke up the handle and stumbled in.

“Peter, no – !“ Tony started.

“This wasn’t – OH MY GOD MR STARK WHAT ARE YOU DOING!”

Probably, Peter getting hurt wasn’t neither of your fault. But the screaming kid that couldn’t cover his eyes fast enough, was.

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

Tag list Tony Stark:

@snoopy3000​

@hannie-c​

@emilaa2001​

[a-dorin]

under the same stars | darth maul

word count: 2,406

warnings: cursing

a/n: hi! this was something i have been wanting to do for a looonnnggg time. sorry if my writing is poor in the first chapter, the set-up is always the hardest part. a lot of the plot in this chapter is driven by the dialogue. this is chapter one (more will come in the future if it does well!) 

let me know if you want to be tagged! 

summary: august moor, a padawan in training under the jedi master qui-gon, ponders the meaning of the title jedi. she finds herself in a mysterious encounter with none other than the sith lord, darth maul. 

the sun dipped below the horizon, casting an orange glow over coruscant. a young woman strolled through a meadow, grateful for the summer breeze as it rolled through the grass. the surrounding forest was a variety of green hues, the trees lush with life. the moon was high in the sky, waxing towards a full moon. soon, the stars would be out, dancing across the night. soon, the shades of lilac, burgundy, cyan, and tangerine would be replaced by a rich navy blue.

the stars glittered above, beginning to dot the sky. the girl's lips curved into a smile as her fingertips brushed the blades, contentment flooding her senses. the girl felt as ease, her mind relaxed. there was nothing more she loved than stargazing after an exhausting day of training. 

"where do you think you're running off to?" a voice called out in the dusk. 

the girl turned, her brows furrowed, "and who do you think you are, obi-wan kenobi? you are not my master."

"i am aware," the padawan chuckled, "you're never one to do things like this. is there something on your mind?" 

"i can't have fun?" the girl teased, nudging obi-wan. 

"well," a light blush tinged obi-wan's cheeks, "i didn't mean to come off as rude. my deepest apologies to you, august.

august stifled a giggle, "there's no need for such formalities here, obi-wan. we're not in font of the jedi council, nor master qui-gon."

a shy smile formed on the padawan's lips as he admired august momentarily. her eyes were focused on the stars, as they were beginning to twinkle as the sky transitioned to a deep shade of blue. the moon was full, casting a glow on their surroundings. the light softened her features, yet it did not take away from her beauty. 

her brunette hair was woven into an intricate half-down, half-up style.  free strands of hair swayed along with the breeze, her blue eyes glimmering. obi-wan swallowed thickly, careful not to stare a second longer. her eyes shifted, falling on the padawan. 

"you're quiet tonight. is there something on your mind?"

"no," obi-wan shook his head, "i believe i am just a little spent from today's training."

"qui-gon did a number on you, huh?" august smirked, shooting obi-wan a wink.

obi-wan scoffed, folding his arms across his chest, "we trained in the same temple today, if you don't remember."

august laughed once more, falling to the cool grass. she gazed the stars, a wisftul smile painting her features, "are you going to stargaze with me or are you going to run back to the temple and inform master qui-gon that i snuck off?" 

the padawan laid in the grass, close to august. his eyes drifted up towards the sky, widening in awe at the beauty of the constellations dancing above him. 

august piped up, her voice warm and soft, "you know, my parents used to tell me stories about fallen jedi. how they join with the stars after they pass away. i truly believe that the jedi are always keeping a close eye over us, while also letting us know that they are not too far out of reach."

"were your parents jedi?" obi-wan inquired, a slight wave of shame wash over him. he did not want to pry too much without being too nosy. 

"fuck no," august yawned, "both of my parents are alive and well, settled on the planet of takodana. my home planet is naboo, but they have moved since my training began. i have not seen them since i was about seven years old. we haven't spoken since."

"it seems as if i got you beat," a sigh escaped from obi-wan's lips, "i was taken as a youngling when i was only three years old."

"three years old?" august rolled over, propping herself up with her elbow, "holy shit kenobi. that's ridiculous."

"do you realize how often the jedi council take younglings?" obi-wan arched a brow, "once they can sense that they are force sensitive, the youglings are often newborns or infants."

"oh," august widened her eyes, "that's.."

"it is quite intriguing," he sucked in a breath, "yet, it is for the greater good of the jedi. once the council is aware of their abilities, it is best they start training as early as possible. the more skilled we are, the better."

"you're such a pushover," august snorted, rolling her eyes, "do you ever wonder if the jedi are always the divine beings they claim they are?"

"you're beginning to worry me," obi-wan retorted, "you're talking like a sith, august."

"i am just speaking what's on my mind," she exhaled, rolling onto her back once more, "you don't ever think about what would happen if you didn't seek the route of a jedi? if you were just a normal, ordinary being on your home planet? don't those thoughts keep you up late at night? do you ever just ponder?"

"there really is more to you than meets the eye," the padawan observed, "however, you must recall that jedi who are one with the force do not chose whether or not we possess these capabilities. we are born with them, as we are chosen by the force to bring balance to the universe."

august groaned, "spare me the bullshit, obi-wan. you sound more and more like qui-gon every day."

"is that such a bad thing?" obi-wan arched a brow. 

"i'm just so tired of all of this mumbo-jumbo bullshit about the jedi and all of the regulations we have to follow," she snorted, "it's all so pointless and for what? to hold some title because we're gifted with capabilities that others do not have?"

"you are quite opinionated tonight," he chuckled, "august, i am sure with time we will understand the ways of the jedi. for now, it is beyond our control. for now, if it does not offend you, i am going to retire to my quarters for rest. we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"yeah, yeah," august waved a hand, "just ignore all of my rambles. thank you for listening though. goodnight, obi-wan kenobi. may you find comfort in knowing that you will keep following the rules. meanwhile, i'll be here."

obi-wan rose to his feet, "goodnight august, may you find peace in your thoughts."

august only hummed in response, her eyes following a comet as it blazed across the skyline. the tail was a flashing white. memories drifted into her mind, taking over the thoughts of the present. two individuals towered over her, their faces blurred. she stiffened, her veins ice cold as she witnessed one of the beings pick her up, handing her over to an unknown shadow.

august let out a scream, tears streaming down her cheeks. her mind buzzed, thoughts of agony and despair filtering through her skull. an empty feeling consumed her, her heart racing. the world felt so cold. so cruel. why was this happening? why was this happening now? 

august blinked, her breathing coming in short, ragged breaths. the meadow was now crumbling away. squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head desperately trying to shake away the horrible, gut-wrenching emotions. opening her eyes, a new environment surrounded her. 

her eyes met with a marble floor, her nose brushing against the surface. the marble was a rich black, the air in the room sterile. august blinked once more, realizing that she was in a training room. sacks full of an unknown material hung around the room, as if they were punching bags. 

widening her eyes, august's heart stopped at the sight before her. a zabrak wielded two sabers, a faint hum reverberating off the walls as he practiced his technique. his muscles rippled under his crimson and black skin, horns adorning the top of his skull. strings of curses tumbled from his lips, a planet in which august had no translation. 

"h-hello?" august squeaked, her voice quiet. 

the zabrak ceased all movement, turning abruptly, the sabers in his grasps pointed in the august's face. his amber eyes blazed with fury, his words a snarl, "who are you? how did you get in here?"

"i do not mean any harm," august yelped, raising her hands in surrender. she could feel the heat radiated off the blades of the sabers. 

the zabrak inhaled, the girl's sweet scent flooding his nostrils. he sensed a trace of wildflowers and grass, "you're not from around here, are you?"

"you're v-very right," august stuttered, "i am not from around here."

his eyes scanned the space, searching for any sign of entrance. the only possible way the girl could have gotten in was through the use of a saber, as the door was to his right. she appeared in the room from the left, "where did you come from?"

"i am from coruscant," the mysterious girl mumbled. 

the zabrak's lips curled into a sinister grin, flashing his incisors, "i cannot believe it. a jedi has fallen directly into my hands. what should i do with you?"

"i am no jedi," the girl sneered, folding her arms over her chest. 

the sincerity in her statement sparked interest within the zabrak. turning his sabers off, he slid them into their holsters. cocking his head, his eyes narrowed, "you're not with the jedi, yet you come from coruscant?"

"i am only training to become one," the girl averted the zabrak's gaze. 

"i am maul," the zabrak sat on the floor, curiosity getting the best of him, "what's your name?"

"my name is august moor," the girl replied, tucking a strand behind her ear, "i'm not sure how i ended up here."

maul closed his eyes, reaching out to august. his breath hitched in his throat, as her emotions consumed him entirely. he could sense her fear, her anxiety, "you're anxious. why are you anxious?"

"because i don't know who you are and how i ended up here!" august scoffed, her tone indignant. 

maul opened his eyes, noticing august's features for the first time. her skin was pale, with undertones of pink, a blush tinging her cheeks. her eyes were a shade of gray, hints of blue swimming within their depths. her brunette hair was down, with a braid woven around her head. strands of hair poked up, more than likely from a fall. 

although she was sitting, maul couldn't help but notice her curves, her thighs full. it was without a doubt that she was beautiful, even if maul didn't know a single thing about her. she was donned in a grey tunic, royal blue fabric wrapped around her chest. 

"don't be scared," maul murmured, "i am just as confused as you are."

august's eyes widened as she noticed the amber eyes of the zabrak, a ring of crimson around his irises. she swallowed thickly, recalling one truth she learned during her early days of training, "you're a sith, aren't you?"

"i am," maul dipped his head, "you happened to interrupt my training."

"you train in solitude?" august arched a brow. 

"sometimes," maul shrugged, his eyes glancing around the room, "my master is away, on a mission."

"maul," his name was enticing as it tumbled from her lips, "why haven't we killed one another yet?"

her question shocked him. yet, it was a question burning through his mind, consuming his thoughts as he spoke to her. the sith and jedi had been quarreling for years, yet, when he laid his eyes on her, he couldn't help but feel compelled to reach out to her. to touch her. to hold her. hold her in his arms and never let her go. 

what had brought august here? was it the force? even as a sith, the force was a powerful entity to the zabrak. it was something he had yet to understand, to fully comprehend. maybe the force had brought them together, but the question that rang through maul's mind was why? why had the force brought them together?

"i just as unsure as you are," maul's voice was low, eerily quiet. 

"should we touch and see what happens?" august inquired, her eyes curious. 

"i guess we could explore that option," he rumbled, his crimson and black hand reaching out, "although, i'm not quite sure what will happen if we do. the world around us might implode."

august reciprocated, her hand tiny compared to the zabrak's. however, once skin came in contact with skin, their worlds went back. august shot up, her heart thudding in her chest as she glanced around the meadow, feeling as if the entire incident was just a dream. a wild, vivid, intense dream. rising to her feet, she took a hesitant step through the grass, her knees wobbling. the moon was high in the sky, signaling that a few hours had past. 

meanwhile, a zabrak rose to his feet, a dull throbbing in his skull. his muscles ached, sore from hours of combat training. he let out a few, ragged breaths, attempting to clear his cloudy mind. the encounter with the padawan must have been a nightmare, or rather, an interesting daydream. whatever it was, his master, darth sidious could never hear about this. he could never find the truth. yet, when darth maul strolled down the corridor of his ship, a feeling of loneliness unraveled. he couldn't help but feel an engrained feeling of sadness, laced with regret. 

glancing out the viewport, maul gazed at the horizon stretched before him. an endless array of stars glittered, shining bright. 

huffing, august shivered as another breeze rolled through the meadow, the chill seeping through her clothing. yet, she couldn't help but give the sky above her once last look, taking in the way the stars twinkled. 

two lost souls stared at the stars, wondering if the other knew. 

august slipped underneath her sheets, her eyelids heavy. she dozed off, dreaming of her encounter from earlier. the meeting was a pure coincidence. surely there was no driving force behind it. it was all a simple daydream or fever dream. 

darth maul felt exhaustion rack his body, almost collapsing to the floor. he was tired, as he practiced combat technique for hours. yet, this was a new wave of sleep overcomig him. the zabrak crawled to his bed, dreaming about his interaction with the padawan. more than anything, he wanted to permanently ingrain the image of her in his memories, her beauty captivating. 

a sith and padawan's paths intertwined, under the same stars.

tagged: @smokahuntis​ @petalsrdead​ @sscreeching​ @thekarliwinchester​ @witchy-goth-unicorn​ @damienmoonart​ @marblegoblin​ @obiorbenkenobi​ @queen-disera-the-fifth​ @monets-corner​ @shytastemakerthing​

[deviantofthemind]

𝕾𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝕾𝖎𝖉𝖊𝖘 𝕱𝖎𝖈𝖒𝖆𝖘 2020

Inspired by @doctorroseprompts​ I’m bringing to you Sanders Sides Ficmas *.*

Snuggle up, dearies, because we are doing this! I changed some prompts that just didn’t vibe with me and here we are. I can’t believe I really managed.

Anyways, please enjoy my humble offerings 🎁 and have a wonderful December!  

I’m going to do a taglist for Ficmas ^.^ Let me know if you want in <3

Under the cut you’ll find the teasers if you’re curious <3

Dec 1: Snowed in - Logince

Logan accompanied Roman on a Dragonwitch coven stalk out. They end up trapped in an old hunting cabin by a snowstorm in the middle of the imagination with nothing to entertain them for the next 24 hours. Roman grows very interested in Logan's recent reading material.

 Dec 2: Ginger/gingerbread - Moceit

Janus comes home from a long business trip, stressed and burnt out to a nicely decorated house, the smell of gingerbread and his very lovely husband.

 Dec 3: Shopping - Prinxiety

Roman is unduly excited about christmas shopping. Virgil finds it annoying, but also unsettling, embarrassing and so very nice.

Dec 4: Holiday movies - Anxceit

Virgil is cosied up for christmas break with his boyfriend in his parents otherwise empty house. They plan on nothing but eating an ungodly amount of food, relaxing and watching mushy christmas movies. They don’t actually watch anything.

Dec 5: Ornament - Royality

A royal Christmas Wedding. (This is essentially just the newlyweds gusching about each other :)]

Dec 6: Hope - Intruality

Patton spends the night before Christmas in the hospital after his boyfriend had been in a fatal crash.

Dec 7: Cold - Roceit

Roman is waiting impatiently for the return of his most trusted advisor and diplomat to return for the Christmas festivities at Sanders Castle.

Dec 8: Ice-Skating - Dukeceit

Janus isn’t ready for going ice-skating with his NHL playing boyfriend for the first time. Not really.

Dec 9: Snowflake - Logicality

He was eternally grateful for Patton's foresight and preparation because when the time came, he just had to say one word. OR Logan announces a code snowflake and Patton delivers on it.

Dec 10: Candle - Analogical

Use me with care and never leave me alone.

(This was NOT inspired by the warning label on a candle, NO SIR.)

After Virgil finds he has the best naps in the logical Side's room and Logan has gone to desperate matters to overpower the scent left in his sheets.

Dec 11: Mistletoe - DRLAMP

The Art of kissing. [I just want to see them snog ¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

Dec 12: Tree - Moceit (Part 2 to Dec 2: Gingerbread)

Patton had been promised a ride and some (kinda) quiet holidays.

Dec 13: Peace - Moxiety

Patton and Virgil are planning on spending a holiday together a few months into their relationship. Patton is a mess about everything this entails.

Dec 14: Smell - Analogical (Part 2 to Dec 10: Candle)

“Because you gonna burn the house down?” - “No because I’m going to start to cry and we both don’t want that.”

Dec 15: Ring - Loceit

If you asked Logan then he would say that they were good. Comfortable, running smooth, fitting together. No need for change at all. 

Dec 16: North Pole - Creativitwins

“Had I known that penance is so easy, Roman, you need to believe me, I had done it before.” 

Dec 17: Mittens - Royality

Patton is an okay student, an okay friend and prefers not to look in the mirror too closely. Needless to say he is a bit shell shocked when Roman Sanders starts flirting with him.

Dec 18: Presents - DRLAMP

Logan is tired. It has been a long year and he is tired. He has accomplished nothing and he isn’t sure how to improve to be heard and tolerated again amongst the other Sides.

Dec 19: Christmas jumpers - Moceit (Part 3 to Dec 2: Gingerbread and Dec 12. Tree)

Janus is aware that they look like a bit of a gay clichè but he honestly couldn’t give two fucks about it when Patton is this happy.

Dec 20: Love - DRLAMP

A spell gone wrong leaves Patton de-aged. The newly five-year old is not what everyone who knows and loves adult-Patton expects. 

Dec 21: Star - Gen

Janus is an immensely successful and well known lawyer. Over the years he had taken countless pro bono cases in favour of abused or neglected children. Now he feels like it’s time to take a step back from his work and start his own family.

Dec 22: Mulled Wine - Logicality

When left to one's own devices unwillingly, with annoying urges and confusing emotions it was the most logical thing in the world to overindulge in something that could help with all three of one’s predicaments. Wasn’t it?

Dec 23: Traditions - Logince

When Roman was ending his work night he usually hurried home as fast as possible. But tonight he’s hungry and his ankle hurts too much to walk even one step further.

Dec 24: Midnight - Intrulogical

This could have gone horrible in so many ways that Remus is pretty grateful that it’s only about a pint of blood on the polished marble floor.

Dec 25: Christmas Dinner - Logicality

Since Patton lived with the Sanders Clan and their Master Vampire Logan Sanders he had never been summoned for Dinner. Until this Christmas Eve.

Dec 26: Box - Loceit

Jan almost choked on her Chai Latte when the unfairly attractive, very tall and obviously stressed woman behind the counter shouted “Ultimate Christmas Cookie Boy for Janice!?” 

Dec 27: Joy - Gen (Part 2 to Dec 21: Star)

It’s Christmas and after six months in Janus’ care his adoptive son feels safe enough to start talking. 

Dec 28: Shiver - Loceit

Logan desperately needs a few lessons in self-care. But until Janus manages to hammer this into his thick skull he takes on the care work, for better or worse.

Dec 29: Sleigh - Prinxiety

It was going to be Virgil's first official event without his parents and he had been nervous since the invitation came weeks ago. The prince had personally invited him to the Christmas Ball.

Dec 30: Countdown - Loceit

Logan had not expected it to be like this, not ever. Because had he, he maybe wouldn’t have done it. But he was glad that his evaluation had been wrong as he was laying face down on a soft blanket, more relaxed than he had ever been in his life.

Dec 31: New Beginnings - Anxceit

In Virgil's humble opinion the whole year has been a gigantic shit show and he was tired. His best friend Patton still had the audacity to bully him into applying for an apprenticeship with the fancy new tattoo shop in town.

---------

[monochromemedic]

Restless

I laid on the floor of Boone’s room, tired eyes blinking as I tossed and turned on the hard floor. All Boone left me with was a spare blanket and pillow, but it wasn’t that that was causing me such trouble. I was constantly having trouble with sleep, and last nights run in with a deathclaw didn’t help. I didn’t know why Boone let me into his room. Whenever I tried to walk in before I was ushered out. But tonight was different. Either that or Boone was too tired to argue with my presumed conversation. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw the jaws of the deathclaw snapping at me. Feeling weightless as it carried me into the air, claws digging into my armor right before a splash of blood and brain matter splattered against me. The bullet whizzing by my face as it exited the abomination’s skull, killing it instantly. It replayed in variations. The bullet hitting me as well, being torn apart, being eaten. So many things could have gone wrong, and I was as close to death as I had been in a long time if it weren’t for the sniper. I had been listening to Boone breath in the darkness of the room, the fall of his chest, an exhale; the rise of his chest, an inhale. It was comforting, but I couldn’t help the thoughts of it stopping from creeping into my mind. I rubbed my eyes, already red from previous bouts of panic overtaking me. I wanted to cry, to scream into the night from the repressed horror that’d been in me since this morning. But I didn’t. I did not want to wake Boone. After a while, I sat up, eyes stinging as I stared at my companion. He looked peaceful for once. The rage that usually filled him was dead, and a somber silence surrounded his being. It made me sad, knowing when he would wake up, it’d start all over again. As I began to head for the door, hoping that a breath of fresh air would clear my head and make me sleepy, I heard a stilted breath that made me stop, knowing that Boone was awake. I could feel his eyes on me. Piercing, stern. They burned into my back like a laser pistol. But even then he didn’t speak. He was deadly quiet, only observing what i’d do. I opened the door and left, standing outside in the dark Mojave night. It was ice cold, hairs standing on end and goosebumps forming in seconds sort of cold. It wasn’t smart to be honest, but I wasn’t going to crawl back into the hotel room so soon. It wasn’t bad. The Mojave that was. The sky was clear, and the stars were many, like a million eyes staring back down at the broken world it created. Out in the Mojave, with miles and miles of sand and dirt, it made you feel so tiny, so insignificant but it was worst in the night. When you could barely see the fingers in front of your face, and the noises was much more scarier. That’s when you felt like an ant. Like nothing. I let the tears fall, and when I was done I cried some more. It wasn’t just the fight, it was everything I could remember up to that point. Benny, the chip, my memory, the horrible things I saw, the blood that was on my hands, the concern for the life of my friends I made, the friends I lost. It all began to build until it broke just like the Dam that everyone was fighting for. I guess I cried so hard I didn’t notice the sound of bottle opening, and being pushed in front of my face. “Drink, it helps.” “...I didn’t mean to wake you. I’m sorry.” “Don’t think so much about it. You think too much.” I stifled a sniffle and took the beer bottle in both hands, staring at the dark liquid sloshing around inside. I didn’t drink, Boone knew this, but I guess this was how he coped and was just trying to help. I took a deep breath, and began to chug the bitter drink, only to spit most of it out on the dirt ground, pushing the glass into Boone’s stomach as I collapsed on the ground and heaved.  The tears returned, stinging, burning as I managed to hold back a wave of nausea from making me lose my dinner.  The sound of bare feet became louder, a firm hand gently placed on my back as I let out a final wheeze. “I can’t fucking take it. I didn’t wanna be like this, this is just... I don’t wanna do this Boone I don’t... I can’t even drink this shit away, it’s pretty pathetic huh? If you just let the damn deathclaw... you wouldn’t have to deal with me.” A sudden hiccup let out the bile the alcohol had stirred up, and I retched out all that I had in my body before being left with just the sound of my ragged breaths. Boone hand was gentle, moving from my back to my shoulder as he tilted me up to look at him, face as emotionless as usual. “I... i just wanna sleep. If I sleep i’ll be ok, i’m just... tired. Can I just sleep?” I begged him

He gave a single nod and began to help me up, back into he motel room where he sat me on the bed while he ran the faucet. He came back with a glass of water, probably full of sand and radiation but, that was to be expected. I drank it happily, placing the empty glass by the bedside table and beginning to get up from the mattress to go back to my spot on the floor. “Stay.” His tone wasn’t one of suggestion, more of an order.  I looked him over before obeying, sitting back down on the bed as he did the same, turning away from me as he laid back down. It took a moment, but I began to get the idea. Slipping a leg under the blanket, accidentally brushing against Boone’s own leg and causing me to jump. Then another. And soon I was laying down completely, buried in the scratchy layer of fabric. Surprisingly soothing, especially with the soldier’s body heat that was as hot as the end of a freshly shot sniper rifle. There was something comforting, intimate about just laying so close to someone else. Someone trusting, protecting, strong... someone that through thick and thin you had began to develop feelings for. It made your mind wander, made your bones restful. And soon I found my eyes begin to close, only pleasant thoughts filling my mind instead of maws, and gunshots. “Thank you Craig... for everything.”

[chris-evans-indian-fanfic]

Across Seven Seas

Chapter 12

Description: This fanfiction series is set in the year 2022, after the horrid COVID-19 has finally come to an end. In this fanfiction, Chris Evans holidays with his family in India and meets Meera Shankar. The story explores their rollercoaster journey and raises a question, whether two people, from two contrasting backgrounds and cultures, can build their future together?

Series Masterlist

Chapter 13

Main Masterlist

This series is Chris Evans x OFC with Chris Evans' family and friends having recurring appearances. Please find below a lot of Original Characters-

Meera Shankar - The female lead

Meera's Mother

Poppy - Meera's maternal grandmother

Rohan - Meera's elder brother who is 6 years older than her.

Ankur - Concierge of the Hotel Maple-Fawn in Mussoorie

Warning: Curse words, beginning of rape, alcohol consumption, angst

This is a work of fiction. The names of the hotels and companies have been changed to avoid copyright issues. Meera Shankar and her family is based on the author and her kin. No offense is intended.

I don’t consent to have any of my work published or featured on any third party app, website or translated. If you are seeing this fanfiction anywhere but tumblr, it has been reposted without my permission. In that case, please do share the link and let me know.

...

Chapter 12

Meera rang the doorbell of the Evans suite. Situated on the top floor of the hotel, the passage way to the suite was lined with ornate arches, marble statues and impeccable sophisticated lighting. The entire decor screamed opulence in capital letters. It also made her feel uncomfortably out of place.

Scott opened the door and let her in. He welcomed her to take a seat in the living room of the suite, along with Lisa, Chris, Shanna and Carly. "Did all of you see the news?" Meera asked as she took a seat, wincing a little. "Yeah we did. We just wanted to ask a few questions. Thank you for coming up here even though you are exhausted. It means a lot," said Scott. 

Meera brushed him off, "It's okay. I will try my best to put your mind at ease." She looked around at their silent faces. They looked a little nervous and Meera soon realised why. She was sitting in her usual position, legs wide apart, back slightly bent, forearms resting on her knees with her palms meeting in the middle. While she felt comfortable in this position, her Mother had always reminded her that women sat with their legs closed and not like mobsters planning to threaten people.

"Umm... Yeah so… I mean…" Scott struggled, clearly hesitant.

Meera chuckled under her breath, "Why don't I start with the obvious questions. You can ask me later on if I miss out on anything." Scott nodded.

"So first of all, why did I not take any credit for the fight? Simple. I wanted to protect my family, especially my brother. He works with a cruise ship in the US and," she sighed, "stuff like this will make it harder for him to renew his visa."

Meera looked at Chris, "You gave your honest statement to the police officer. It was I who translated it and signed the false statement. So… So please be assured, you will not get into any legal trouble." She removed her phone from her bomber jacket, "I have a voice recording of your original statement. I can give it to you right now if you want. So that just in case, in the future, if this matter ever comes to light, you will have proof to back you up."

The 5 looked considerably relieved now. Scott gave her his email ID where she could send the recording. Once she did, she deleted the sent email and his email ID from her contact list in front of them.

"Now for the next question, how and when did I manage to plan all this? I spoke with Inspector Rima when she came to arrest those 3 gentlemen. I explained to her that since you were US citizens, you were planning to file a complaint with your embassy and would see to it that this matter received international coverage. She understood that her police force would be insulted and she would definitely get suspended. So," Meera sighed again, only this time pain visibly flashed across her face, "she agreed to take the credit and include you guys in the report as just tourists."

"From whatever little I know, there were 26 members in the gang and all of them have been caught. So you guys are all safe. Plus, the hotel is…," she groaned a little with pain, "is providing us with increased security. Nobody can enter our respective floors without avoiding the hotel guards. So yes, you can stay here for the remainder of your trip," she ended.

She looked around at them with a small smile, "Any questions?"

"I do," said Shanna slowly, "Why did you not use your knife to fight those guys? I mean they had knives too right? You were lucky only your sweater was torn."

Meera nodded, "I was incredibly lucky today. The fight could have gone sideways very fast. I didn't use the knife because…" she paused again, running fingers on her forehead, "Aah... because it would have further complicated the crime scene. See you can easily explain punches and kicks as self-defence to the police, but when a knife or any other weapon gets involved, it comes close to the murder-territory. I figured if… if I could distract them with my laughter and insults, I could take them on one-by-one." 

She looked at Chris again. He was still wearing her sweater and cap, "That reminds me, can I please have my sweater and skull cap back?"

Chris became tongue-tied. He could feel everyone's attention on him now. Quick! Say something smart! He kept looking at Meera. He knew her body must be paining, but he saw a greater pain in her eyes. Her pink lips were slightly quivering, as if she could cry in an instant. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep. He knew she needed rest, yet here she was, reassuring his family. He wanted to hold her, hug her tight and tell her everything would be okay. But would she let him? He should have protected her today, and instead, he was a coward. Would she ever forgive him for that?

"Umm Mr Evans?" Tell her why can't you return her belongings. SPEAK YOU FUCKING MEATBALL!! His breaths started coming in rapid successions as his eyes grew wider. You are a fucking 41-year-old man, TALK!!! But the more he thought about talking, the more he shut himself. 

"Oh God baby no it's okay," said Lisa, lightly rubbing his hands while Shanna and Carly started fanning him with the newspapers. "Hey do you want to sing the Little Mermaid song?" Scott suggested, kneeling in front of his brother. 

Meera got up, headed to the refrigerator and brought the ice cube tray in front of Chris. "Pop one in your mouth," she suggested in a commanding tone. Chris looked at her, a little confused but still panicking.

"What are you talking abo…" Before Scott could finish his sentence, she said, "Trust me. Pop one ice cube into your brother's mouth."

Raising his eyebrows and shaking his head in disbelief, Scott still did as she instructed. 

The confusion on Chris' face grew, then the cold hit him. "AFHASGHAHAGHHFA," he said with his mouth open, his panic attack now forgotten. He looked at Meera, dancing a little on his feet with the cold ice cube in his mouth. She just nodded, "Yes you can go and spit it out now."

She placed the ice tray back in the refrigerator. 

When Chris came back, she asked him, "Feeling better?" He nodded, managing to say "Thanks" quietly.

"Umm why… and how?" a stunned Carly managed to ask her.

She addressed them, "There are 3 reasons why putting an ice cube in your mouth works while having a panic attack. One," she raised a finger, and immediately winced in pain, "...the idea acts as a distraction. Two, the cold shocks your system and confuses it. And three, I figured... you might not be drinking enough water, which would have caused your mouth to produce more… ummm…," Meera shook her head as if thinking, "more saliva, which would calm you down."

She stood while they took a seat. "Mr Evans," she spoke gently, "I am sorry I caused you to have a panic attack. When I asked for my stuff, I didn't mean immediately right now. You can return it tomorrow," she closed her eyes and gripped the chair as she felt a little dizzy, "I didn't mean for you to shed your clothes in front of me if that's what you thought."

"Oh no no," Chris finally found his voice, "I didn't... I didn't think that. Please take a seat, you are clearly injured. Have you seen a doctor yet?" 

Meera smiled again, "No I haven't. I don't need to. I will be fine. I will take your leave now." 

As she was leaving, the family thanked her once again. Lisa asked her, "Are you sure you want your sweater back? It's been torn quite horribly." 

"Yes," Meera looked even more exhausted now, if that were possible. "I… I come from a family of… of…" she shook her head and again placed a few fingers on her forehead. "Ummm you know those people who… who do repair work… but of clothes… and they sew new clothes as well? What is the word? What are they called? I am sorry I am having a hard time translating things into English now."

"No don't be sorry. Did you mean a tailor?" 

"Yes! Yes a tailor. I come from a family of women tailors. Yes tailors. Thank you. I will stitch it back together," Meera bid goodbye to them, thinking about her bathtub and soft bed longingly.

…

Back in Meera's room, her phone chimed again. Vikranth: 20 missed calls flashed across the screen.

…

Meera collapsed on her bed. She closed her eyes, the pain in her arms and legs increasing with each second. She groaned as her mobile buzzed. Can't I have a minute of peace? Slowly reaching out for the phone, she saw it was Rohan. 

"Are you okay?" he asked on the call.

"Yes. Will order room service and go to sleep."

"What's your room number? Ma is freaking out here," Rohan sounded concerned, "Look she is worried. Don't do this to her."

"If I give her my room number then she will come down here. She will not give me an iota of space or freedom. Tell her I am in the hotel and I am safe. Explain to her all the security measures the hotel is taking. Even after that, if it doesn't help her paranoia then I cannot do anything about it. No, Rohan, YOU please understand," she interrupted her brother, "I am in pain right now. My hands and legs hurt like crazy and I cannot take any medicine. Right now, I just need my space and time to heal. I am in the hotel so she has nothing to worry about. If she still chooses to worry then I cannot help it. Good night," Meera disconnected the call.

…

2am

Meera was back on the road. 6 big, strong men headed towards her as she ran. She knew she couldn't fight all 6 at once. She tried to run fast but couldn't. Her foot got stuck in the uneven road and she fell face-first. She felt multiple hands on her, ripping her clothes apart. Rough hands turned her around, and she saw her rapists as they started devouring her body in front of her family.

She woke up trembling with shock. Her mouth was open in a silent scream as her body was covered with sweat. She felt breathless. It took her a solid minute to realise she was safe in her room. It was just a nightmare, it was just a nightmare, she tried to calm herself down. Switching on the lights, she headed towards the refrigerator, and popped an ice cube in her mouth. She was on her 3rd ice cube when she finally stopped trembling. 

Reaching for her phone, she decided to watch anything to divert her mind. That's when she noticed the multiple missed calls and messages. She clicked on the notifications and saw her Mother's messages first.

I gave you my life and this is how you repay me?

I have done everything for you! Cared for you, cleaned, cooked, drove you around, was with you every step of the way and you left me all alone? No mother deserves this.

You should be ashamed of what you have done. 

No parent should have a daughter like you. 

Look at how your brother is supporting us in these times of crisis. And you did nothing. You didn't even ask Vikranth for help because of your ego.

You don't deserve to have anybody in your life.

I am extremely disappointed in you.

Wow, Meera thought as she held her head in her hands. She tried to cry, but maybe her body was still in shock, because no tears came to her eyes. 

Nodding her head, she hugged herself and kept repeating, Okay, okay we will get through this. We are okay. We just need to freak out and cry right now. Okay, okay. Freak out and cry. We need to leave this room now. Okay.

…

Chris couldn't sleep. It was all just too much for him to process. The light snores of his brother filled the room. They had all decided to sleep in the suite after the day's events. He couldn't even think straight, let alone sleep. Deciding he needed a drink, he quietly crept out of his bed, taking the room key with him.

He headed towards the hotel's 24x7 bar, hoping to find it deserted. As soon as he entered, he saw the bar was empty, except for one chair in the corner. He couldn't see the person except for a corner of their shawl hanging from the side of the large armchair. The person was playing soft music on their phone. Chris approached the bartender, noticing the shocked and… almost repulsive look on his face as the bartender kept looking at the person in the corner. 3 bottles of different soft drinks were open in front of him but he only focused on the person, his mouth slightly open.

"Ahem," Chris slightly coughed, drawing the attention of the bartender towards him. As Chris asked for a whisky on the rocks, he swore he heard the bartender murmur "Thank God." 

He turned to look at the figure in the corner. While he still couldn't see them, he saw their reflection in the floor-to-ceiling glass window. He saw Meera.

He glanced at his drink on the counter debating whether to approach her or not. He couldn't afford to have another panic attack in front of her. He had to be strong. He took two large gulps of the strong whisky, immediately regretting his action. As he coughed and sputtered, he asked for a refill. 

He felt his throat and chest burn, somewhat fuelling his courage. Taking his drink, he approached her. 

As Chris neared Meera, he heard the melodious song more clearly. Even though it was in Hindi, he understood the sad tune. He saw her tear-stained cheeks and stopped. There wasn't another chair besides her where he could sit and comfort her.

Maybe she needs to feel the pain. I should just leave her alone. She might not like me interrupting her… Chris thought, but he couldn't help himself. Taking another step towards her, he gingerly asked, "Meera?"

She turned her head to look at him. Squinting her eyes, she was still unable to see the person. Putting on her glasses, she spoke through tears, "Mr Evans?" her red eyes registering slight surprise. 

"Do you want to talk about it? What can I do to help you?" 

Meera wiped her nose with a tissue, "Please leave me alone Mr Evans. I just want to be alone," she begged. 

Chris nodded, but still stood in his spot. He looked around and decided to bring another comfortable armchair near Meera's.

He dragged it and placed it right besides the sidetable where her phone and glasses were kept. 

Meera looked at him in disbelief, "Mr Evans I just want to be left alone. So please! Leave!" she said, her voice breaking.

He looked at her, feeling his own emotions overwhelming, "I am not asking you to talk to me. Just think of me as another guest in this bar. I will not interfere in any way. I promise you I will stay quiet. But if you think I will leave you alone, after everything that you have done for us, for me, after what you have gone through, then you are wrong Meera. I will not leave you."

"Why do you not understand," Meera broke down further, "I need to cry, I need to feel this. This is going to get ugly. You will feel uncomfortable! Please just leave."

Chris considered her for a moment, then nodded and left. He soon returned with a stack of paper napkins and placed them on the table besides her phone and glasses. "This should get you through the next hour," he said. 

She looked at him, helpless, then sunk her head in her hands, crying further. Chris settled back in his chair, his body angled towards her. He wished she would let him comfort her, but somewhere, he also understood the importance of going through this alone. God only knows how many nights he had cried himself to sleep, refusing help from his own family, all because he wanted to stay alone.

Slowly, her sobs lessened. She used the new tissue and wiped her face, discarding it in the nearby bin. As she reached for the phone, Chris placed his hand on her mobile before her. "Don't change the song." "But you don't understand the lyrics," she said, her voice still broken. "No, but I like it. Let it play on loop," Chris said kindly. She nodded and took a sip of her drink. It looked a lot like neat whisky. Chris wondered, Why was the bartender repulsed? Was it because she was crying? That asshole.

After a few more sips, she said in a quiet voice, "Our Night." 

"Hmm?" 

"Our Night. The name of the song is Our Night. It is about how our night is a friend of the moon, but after a long time, she has come alone. She is darkness." Meera took another deep breath, "In the song, the singer wants to switch off all the lights and talk to the darkness. She understands that the darkness is hurtful. It is crazy even, but it is still hers. She just wants to be alone with the darkness."

Meera looked ahead and started crying again. Chris just looked at her, his own eyes brimming with tears now. He knew something had happened after she had left their suite. She didn't look like the type of person who broke down easily. He would give anything to find out who or what had upset her. 

He looked at her reflection in the window, his own tears trickling down his cheeks. Finally, he allowed his emotions to take over. 

That night, the stars in the moonless sky smiled down at them, as two people, from two different walks of life, cried together over what had happened, completely unaware of what the future had in store for them.

(This is the song if you want to listen ⬇️)

[charlemange1]

Ask of the Lesser (Frankenstein/Lovecraft Works) 10: Final Chapter

The fire had spread to engulf the surrounding buildings as I stumbled down the green to the gates of Ingolstadt University. Walton was waiting for me, his face unreadable.

“Did you succeed, Ernest?”

“Yes. It was surprisingly easier than I anticipated. I think the creatures were human enough to recognize their situation, whatever Curwen bestowed on them you cannot call life.”

Walton sighed with relief. “May they rest in peace, the poor souls! On my end, it took a bit of convincing, but Curwen’s Wanted name coupled with my documentation of your brother won the townsfolk over. They retreated to protect their homes. Napoleon’s war has taken enough from them to risk losing any more.”

“That leaves Victor,” I said.

“Here he comes,” Walton angled his head at Victor’s shape hobbling down the green toward us.

“Something is wrong,” I choked, watching each pained step. “Victor!”

I rushed over just as Victor collapsed on his side. The half-formed ribcage heaved next to chemical burns stretching across large portions of his body.

“Oh God, hang on, Victor!” I gasped, “I will help you. Walton, what do you do for these burns?”

Victor yipped weakly, shaking his head. Though his eyes were not human, I recognized that distinct look of self-hating failure I had seen in the aftermath of my incident and Mama’s death.

“You failed,” I breathed as ember’s fell onto the grass around us. “Curwen escaped?”

Victor moaned from his place on the grass. I fought against the intense throbbing in my skull. Curwen was still out there, free to pursue his wicked work on an even grander scale! Maybe we had set him back, but a man of Curwen’s wealth would have no trouble replacing his instruments.

“You had one job, Victor,” Walton sighed.

“He is wounded, Walton, find some cloth! We must staunch this bleeding.” My hand wiped blackish liquid off a patch of Victor’s half-formed scales. “Rest Victor, and then we will pursue Curwen together!”

“Ernest,” Walton knelt beside me. “You know that cannot happen.”

“Nonsense!”

“His looks would turn even the bravest man insane, and that stench would never pass in the society of men,” Walton paused. “His spirit may be here, but he belongs to the dead, Ernest. You said so yourself, you cannot call his present condition life. It is a mockery of that!”

I turned to the wounded creature slumped before me. The eyes had that same sadden look of acceptance I had seen in the others.

“But I just got you back,” I whimpered, pleading with the truth. “Your appearance is not terribly abhorrent, and I can handle the smell! We can hide out in the woodlands. We can still be a family, Victor! You do not have to leave again.”

Victor shook his head, and with a shaking claw etched C-U-R-W-E-N into the dirt before slashing it with his quickly draining strength.

“We must stop him, Ernest,” Walton said for them both.

I closed my eyes. So this was the end? My sunlit fantasy of my family and I living together was never to be. They would stay dead, while I was left alone. Even if he was just a remnant, I could not lose Victor!

I. Me. Such selfish pronouns! I knew Victor was suffering in his detestable state, and I had learned from the best to not tamper with life to suit my own desires. I would have to let him go.

“Ok,” I whispered to the wind. My arms embraced Victor’s cold, sticky flesh. “I will free you from his horrible condition, then thwart Curwen’s plans once and for all! I promise you that, Victor.”

Victor’s claws timidly cupped over my stump-of-a-wrist.

“This injury is nothing,” I patted his paw. “I shall say I lost my hand in the war, fighting like a true soldier!”

“Your brother will be well cared for,” Walton smiled sadly. “You saved my life on the ice, Victor. Preserving your brothers is the least I can do.”

Victor glanced back to me.

“I will get by,” My hand left his to wipe my eyes. “Maybe the name Frankenstein will always be linked to you, but that is fine. I have never wished for fame or glory, but purpose. A reason for a puny ant like me to exist in this vast world, and thanks to you, I now have perhaps the most important mission of all. A mission I know I am more than capable of completing! You can rest in peace.”

Victor’s paws flexed. A sad smile spread across his face as he settled more comfortably in the grass. His eyes closed, waiting patiently. Looking at his battered frame, I knew I had made the right choice, for him.

My voice cracked as I read those infamous lines for dispersal—a farewell to both Victor and the flaming wreckage of the university that had smoldered him so long ago. Then it was over, and a gust of wind blew his ashes away. My knees hit the grass, and I watched the distant flames for a long, long time.

“Ernest, you did right by your brother,” Walton at last broke the silence.

“Do you still have your ship, Walton?” I asked dully.

Walton blinked, surprised by this question. “Yes, it waits on the docks.”

“Curwen’s escapades will make any progress for him in Europe near impossible,” I said slowly. “I doubt such negative rapport will reach across the ocean to his native America.”

“Not unless we let it,” Walton smiled. “Shall we set sail?”

“We have not a moment to lose,” I got to my feet. Purpose was filling me, urging me forward with a strength I had not felt before. Perhaps Button Boy was not so wrong about the family taint, maybe the madness that had fueled Victor lingered within me too? I welcomed the unrelenting determination and fearlessness to overcome the impossible, I would need every bit of it to bring down Curwen.

“Hopefully New England boasts a calmer climate than the chaos of Napoleon’s war,” I said. “I noticed it has weighed heavily on you.”

Walton chuckled nervously, stroking his matted beard. “I have seen greater evils than the squabbles of man. Curwen’s monstrosities were not my first encounter with such cosmic abominations. After I returned from my failed Arctic exploration, thanks to Victor’s persuading, I regrouped and set out again with much greater caution and experience,” Walton frowned. “A foolish plan, I succeeded.”

So Walton’s shriveled state was not a result of the war?

“You really made it to Antarctica?” I asked. “I must admit that I heard no mention of it.”

“It is better left unspoken,” Walton shuttered. “I dare not speak of those Mountains of Madness.”

The unnamable smell that had hung over Ingolstadt since my arrival was fading from the green. Together, Walton and I left the gates behind for the docks.

“Try me,” I said with a smile. “I know a thing or two of madness.”

[trashcanband4]

Hi! Can you make a Daryl imagine with prompts 31 and 41? When Negan takes him, she is with him. He has always like protected her so she is really scared, and crying; and like Negan likes to play with Daryl talking about hurting her or actually doing it. Thank you!

Title: I’m Not Made of Stone.

Word Count: 3,545

Pairing: Daryl x Reader

Warnings: Forced marriage and torture, blood and gore? Idk it’sthe walking dead…so.

You sat in line with the rest of your group. Daryl was at your side, kneeling on his knees while the man with the baseball bat walked around the circle talking shit about whatever. To be completely honest the only thing you were paying attention to was Daryl who was kneeling next to you on your right. You wanted to reach out for him, but you knew if you did, nothing good would come of it.

“So now, I’m gonna beat the holy hell out of one of you.”Negan’s words pulled your wide eyes up from the dirt, to him. “This,” he held the baseball out, pointing it at Rick, “is Lucille and she…is awesome. All this…” he motioned around him with the bat. “All this is just so we can pick out which one of you gets the honor.” You simply watched as he walked around looking at people quizzically. He stopped and looked at Abraham, then kneeled down infront of Carl before he started heading down the line back toward you. When he got to Maggie he stopped, “Jeeesus, you look shitty.” You turned you eyes back to the ground. That was until his next words hit your ears. “I should just put you out of your misery right now.”

Glenn yelled out and tried to get to Maggie, but Dwight kicked him, stopping him before he pointed a crossbow at him. Negan told his minions to get Glenn back in line. Glenn pleaded for Negan to not kill Maggie and Negan just laughed. “Alright, listen. Don’t any of you do that again. I will shut that shit down, no exceptions.” Your hands shook at your sides. “It’s an emotional moment, I get it.” You couldn’t look at anyone else. You just stared at Negan, walking around talking and terrorizing. All the while you tried to figure out why in the world his voice sounded so familiar to you.

He started whistling as he walked around looking at people.Then when he started up a game of enie, meenie, miney, moe you glanced over at Daryl who just looked back at you. His eyes were just as wide and watery as yours. Your eyes stayed locked with Daryl’s until you heard Negan finish the game. Your eyes then followed the end of the bat to Abraham. “Anybody moves,anybody says anything cut the boy’s other eye out and feed it to his father and then we’ll start. You can breathe. You can blink. You can cry. Hell, you’re all gonna be doin’ that.” Then it started… the gut wrenching cracks of the bat colliding with Abraham’s skull. You cried so hard you couldn’t breathe. Blow after sickening blow shook you to your bones. You no longer looked at Negan or Daryl. Instead, you stared down at the muddy ground with tear blurred vision.

When he was finished he walked over to Rosita and spouted more bullshit. You were still staring down at the ground, but then he said, “Hold on one god damn minute.” and his feet came into your view. It wasn’tuntil you saw his knees in front of you that you realized that he was kneeling down looking at you. You probably should’ve looked at him, but you couldn’t make yourself stare into the eyes of the man who just beat Abraham’s brains to a pulp.

You felt his hand grip your chin and make you look up at him. You heard Daryl grunt, restraining himself from punching Negan. “Well I be damned.” Negan smiled at you and that’s when it clicked. He looked different…older, than when you last saw him ten years ago, but his smile had remained the same. He was the Negan. The one that made you think that you were something special, his one and only, then dropped you on your ass. He told you that he was married and that you meant nothing to him. To be cheesy, he broke your heart. “Y/n,” he said your name with a smile on his lips, “long time no see. How’ve you been?” he was looking at as if you were just some old friend.

“How’s your wife?” you asked coldly with a tilt of yourhead.

His eyes turned ice cold then before you knew it he had the bat raised over his head about to bash in your skull. But the blow didn’t come and you looked up to see Negan rubbing his jaw while Daryl was getting taken down by two men.

 **^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^

Because of that… Because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, Glenn was next to go. His head, beaten until it was just a pile of blood… When all was said and done Negan had you and Daryl in the back of a van.

“You know him?” Daryl asked you from where he sat across from you leaning on the wall of the van.

“He’s my ex.” You admitted, tears still rolling down your face. “Ten years ago, before the turn…” You answered numbly.

“You dated that ass hole?” Daryl asked with a glare at you.

“I didn’t know he was like that when we were together. We dated for a year before he told me he had a wife. He’d been cheating on her with me… said that he couldn’t do that to her anymore and left. I never saw him or spoke to him again.” you answered and just shook your head as another wave of tears started sliding down your cheeks. “What are we gonna do now?” you sobbed and Daryl slid across the dirty floor of the van to sit beside you.

“I don’t know.” he wrapped his arm around you and pulled you into his side. “We’ll figure somethin’ out.” You looked up at him and he wiped your tears. “We always do.” You pressed your face into his shoulder, letting your uncontrollable tears soak into his thin shirt. You felt him press his face into your hair, his tears eventually soaked it.

 **^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**

You had been at the sanctuary for four weeks now and while your accommodations weren’t as horrible as Daryl’s they weren’t great either.You were in a small 10x10 room with only a cot, a blanket and an old chamberpot. Dwight was over both you and Daryl. You only saw his scarred face once a day, you think, it’s hard to keep track of time in the dark of the room. When Dwight came it was to bring you food, water and empty your pot. He didn’t talk to you, ever, no matter how many questions you asked him.

Around twice a week Negan would come to see you and with the exception of the first conversation,they were all the same.

You thought about that first conversation every day.

*Flashback*

“So, really, how haveyou been?” Negan asked with the bat on his shoulder.

“Good, up until you murdered two of my friends.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, “I really am sorry about that.” he said as he kneeled down to be eye level with you where you sat on the cot.

“Are you though?” you asked, ignoring the bat that was still in his hand that he had resting on his knee.

“Red? No, but the Asian guy…yeah, I am.” You just glared at him.

“What do you want from me?” you asked. “Why did you bring us here?”

“Well, your friend…what’s his name, Daryl? Him? I’m gonna break him. Dwighty boy has him in an empty room, stripped naked, eating dog food and listening to the same insanely happy, up-beat song on loop.” He told you with a smile on his face that made you clench your teeth.

“And me?” you asked and he just tilted his head at you still smiling.

“Well, for now we’re just gonna talk.” He said and you motioned for him to talk. He stood up and set the bat in the corner. “You and Daryl were lookin’ might cozy in the back of that van. The two of you together?” You didn’t know how to answer his question. You and Daryl were very close, closer than you were to the rest of the group. Daryl protected you more than the rest, laughed with you, hugged you on occasion… but you had never kissed or anything romantic even though you thought you felt something there. “Well?” he asked after waiting for you to say something.

“I don’t know.”

“How do you not know? Either you fuck the guy or you don’t.” he said raising his voice and you just looked at him. Hate was clear in your eyes. He just gave you a look that told you to answer the question.

“We’ve never had sex.” You told him quietly as you turned your eyes to the floor.

“Oof, too bad… Daryl doesn’t know what he’s missing.” He said as he leaned back with a smile in his eyes, but you just turned your eyes on the floor. “My plan for you… Is to ask you to marry me.”

“What?” you asked as your head snapped up to look at him like he was crazy. “No.” you shook your head.

“Don’t turn me down until you hear me out, sweetheart.” You still just stared at him in fear. “If you marry me, you’ll get out of this room, fresh beautiful clothes every day, a hot bath every night and anything else you could possibly ask for. All I ask is that you take care of yours truly.” He said with another small lean back.

You just sat there for a minute, staring at the floor, not even thinking about it, just pretending to. Eventually you looked up at him and nodded. “Alright. I’ve heard you out, I’ve thought about it.”

“And?” he asked with a smile on his face.

“I’ll die before I give in to your charms again.” you answered simply.

“Mkay, then you can stay in here, all day, every day, eating shit sandwiches in the dead silence.” He turned and walked out. “Dwight, lock her up.” he said as he grabbed Lucille then walked out.  

*End Flashback*

From that day on he simply walked in, asked you to marry him, then when you replied once again that you’d rather die, he walked out with a nod and a hard face. Between eating, drinking and using the bathroom, you slept or just laid there looking at the grey bricks of the wall. You somehow convinced yourself that this was all there was for you. The cot, blanket and pot was all that was left of the world and you would die here. You made peace with that.

**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^

Daryl had broken free, and was now circled by Negan and his men. He’d gotten caught looking for you. “Where’s Y/n?” Daryl growled.

“My ex,” Negan asked with a smile at Daryl, “yeah I’d hit that,” he licked his lips and Daryl sneered, “but this time it would be with a spiked baseball bat.” Daryl charged at Negan, but one of the guys stopped him. Daryl fought back. “Where she’s at doesn’t matter, what does matter is that she’s about to become my fifth wife.” Daryl stopped fighting and Negan’s minion let him go.

Negan walked away and his circle of men started in on Daryl.

**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^^**^ 

Yet again Dwight woke you up by opening the door and letting light in. This time instead of setting down the dog food sandwich and water, Negan walked in.“Get up.” Negan told you and you did as he said. “Follow me.” he walked out, but you just stood there thinking it was a trap. He gave Dwight a nod and the skinny man moved around you and gave you a shove from the back. You finally started walking. Negan led you down several hallways until you came to a set of double doors. “Go inside.” You just looked at him. Then another shove came from Dwight’s hand and you fell forward through the doors. Inside you saw four women sitting around in the room. A tray of cheese and fruit sat on the table in the room along with wine and other drinks. Your mouth watered at the sight of the grapes and cheese.

“Take a good look.” You turned and looked at Negan who stood beside you. “This is what you could have if you just say yes.” You looked back at the women in the room. They each wore black dresses. A read headed woman sat by herself on a small couch while a brunette woman and a black haired woman saton a couch talking and another blond woman was fixing herself a drink. “Talk to them, get to know them, then I’ll ask you again.” He turned and walked out of the room leaving you alone in the room with the women.

A woman with shoulder length brown hair, dressed in a tight fitting dress that stopped just above her knees, walked up to you and offered a sad smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.” You replied, your voice raspy from going so long without talking.

“You want something to drink?” she asked and you looked around the room until your eyes found the stand at the back with ice and anvassortment of beverages. You just looked back at her and she jerked her head toward the drinks. You followed her and she put two cubes of ice in then a dark brown liquid you assumed as whisky. “He won’t get mad.” She told you when you didn’t take the glass. “Just take it. It might help.” You finally took the glass and in one fast movement you tilted the glass back and drank it all atonce. “I’m sherry.” She introduced herself.

“Is it worth it?” you asked her and when it felt like younhad more than one set of eyes on you, you looked around to see the others watching you. “Saying yes, marrying Negan?” you asked feeling like a mouse in a trap.

“It’s better than rotting in a cell.” The blond in the room answered without looking at you.

“We’re not happy, but we have each other and we don’t eat dog food.” The unfriendly red head said before she looked away from you and went back to chilling on the couch.

“I feel like I’m selling out if I say yes. I have people, family out there that need me.” You say as you look around the room.

“It’s a decision only you can make. We’re not going to sell you on it.” Sherry said putting a stop to the conversation. “Make the best of it while you’re here, eat, drink, think, whatever.” She said then looked at the clock. “He’ll be back soon.”

You were nibbling on a cube of cheese, savoring the taste when Negan walked in. The other women stood up and placed their hands behind their backs. You stayed seated on the couch. Negan walked over and pulled youup by your forearm. When you were out in the hall again Negan motioned Dwight away and he walked down the hall until he was out of earshot. Negan smiled at you and held his hands out to the side. “So, will you marry me?” he asked and you just stared at him coldly.

“On one condition.” You said and he dropped his hands then waved for you to talk. “I get twenty minutes alone with Daryl. After that, I’m all yours.”

Negan sucked his lip into his mouth as he thought about it and it actually surprised you that he was even considering it. “Ten.”

“Fifteen.” You bargained and he nodded.

“Fine. Fifteen minutes alone and not a second longer.” He said then started leading you down some halls that you had never been down before. “First, you bathe and change.” He stopped in front of an open door and inside you could see an old timey tub filled with water, a wood burning stove with a pot of boiling water on top, towels and a rack of black dresses and different containers of black high heels arranged by size. You walked inside then turned to look at Negan. “Take your time.” With that he shut the door.

Take your time you did. You were eager to see Daryl, if Negan was even going to keep his side of the deal. However you were not in any hurry to marry Negan. So you lounged in the tub till the warm water grew cold and your skin was pruned. Knowing that if you didn’t eventually get out that they would assume you had committed suicide and come in after you, you got out anddried off. After skimming through your options of dresses on the rack you chosea pencil cut knee length dress with cap sleeves and a lace over lay. For shoes you chose a pair of black stilettos with a round toe and a criss-crossing ankle buckle.

Once dressed you opened the door and Negan froze when his eyes landed on you. “Mother of Christ!” he said breaking his silence with a lean back. “Is she not the hottest thing you’ve ever seen?” Negan asked Dwight’s replacement that stood a little ways behind Negan.

“You’re lucky, Boss.” The guy said with an approving nod.

“Can you walk in those things?” Negan asked with a point at your tall heeled shoes.

You just raised a cocky brow at him. “I can run if I need to.” Negan just nodded and waved you out of the room with the ever present Lucille. He walked you to a door and stopped. “Me casa.” Negan said with a point to the door. About that time Dwight appeared from around the corner with his hand on Daryl’s shoulder. You took a step towards Daryl but Negan stopped you. “Nuh uhuh, not yet.” Negan looked at you then motioned Dwight and Daryl into his room.“Daryl and I are gonna have a little conversation first.” Dwight and Daryl disappeared through the door and you noticed that Daryl didn’t even look at you. “Keep an eye on her.” he said to the other guy before he shut the bedroom door behind him. It seemed like forever passed before Negan and Dwight walked out and Negan motioned you in. “You’re on the clock.” He said when you were inside then held up a stop watch and pushed the start button right before he shut the door.

As soon as the door was closed you rushed over to Daryl who backed away from you as if you were going to hit him. “What have they done to you?” you asked and he just looked at you, not talking. “I’m sorry.” You felt tears start slipping down your cheeks as you lifted your hand and cautiously pushed his hair out of his face.

“You really gonna marry him?” he asked and you couldn’t answer. “I thought you were better than that.”

“I’m not made of stone, Daryl, not like you. I couldn’t take it anymore.” You defended yourself as you let your hands rest on his neck. “I just…” you pressed your clean forehead to his dirty one. “I can’t stand being away from you.” you whispered. Finally, Daryl moved and placed his hands on your hips. “I knew this would be the only way I’d get to see you, even if it’s only this once.”

“Can’t stand the thought of his hands on you.” Daryl’s rough whispered words surprised you. He’d never said anything like that to you before.

It gave you the courage to say what you made this deal to say. “We only have fifteen minutes and I have to tell you this before we lose the time.” You made sure he was looking into your eyes before you continued. “I need you to know that I love you.” Daryl pulled back and looked confused. “I’ve loved you for a long time and I-”

His lips on yours cut you off. Even with the split in his lip, dried blood and the grit of dirt, his lips felt like heaven, better than you’d ever imagined. He moved so his back was pressed against the wall before he let himself slide down, taking you with him.

You were straddling his lap, making out like a couple of teens when there came a bang on the door, “Times up!” Negan’s words pulled you two apart.

You looked into his eyes, fresh tears slipping down your cheeks, “Goodbye, Daryl.” You whispered then kissed him one more time before you stood up. You were straightening your dress when Negan walked in. He looked at you then to where Daryl was still sitting on the floor.

“That shit, is OVER.” Negan gestured to the two of you with Lucille as Dwight pulled Daryl up roughly. He kept him in the room as Negan slipped a plain silver band on your left ring finger. “Welcome home honey.” Negan smiled the leaned down to kiss you. You kept your eyes open as you half heartedly kissed Negan and watched with tear filled eyes as Dwight pulled Daryl out of the room and shut the door.

Authors Note: Sorry if this isn’t what you wanted, but I’mnot good at writing violence and I’ve never written anything with Negan in it because I don’t quite feel like I have his character down pat yet. Anyway I hope this was at least close to what you asked for.

Daryl Tags: @jodiereedus22  @mtngirlforever  @zzeacat  @winchester-angel @moodygrip @beegnc @hells-mistress @lighthope08 @sapphire1727 @luisadontcurr @1lluminaticonfirmed @my-current-fandom-is @Nikkiloves-bailey @coffeebooksandfandom @coffeebooksandfandomsohmy @ilkaeliseb @twdeadfanfic @ravengalaxia

Sorry If I missed anyone in the tags and if you want to be added to the list just let me know and I’ll add you.

[perfectshadow06]

Stars of the Multiverse (so far)

     Thunder crackled in the distance, its lightening lighting up the valley below.  The scene below was usually a peaceful one, but on this night the valley of the God’s Tree was filled with shouts of anger and rage. The last of the golden fruits was held by a small, skeletal, child, bearing a golden crown. Behind him, stood his brother, a twin, matching in appearance and wearing a golden crown, similar to his brother’s, his skull cracked from rocks hurled at him. “Dream” he said “please don’t protect me…… if you do you will only get hurt!”. “Never, Nightmare, I will never leave you to be killed. Just because you are the embodiment of all negative emotions, doesn’t mean that you are a bad person! You are still my brother, and I will protect you, even if I die trying!” Dream said over the shouting crowd. Earlier that day, the brothers had been fighting. In anger, Nightmare had decided to corrupt the golden fruit of hopes and dreams, turning them into fruits of darkness, and then, one by one, consumed them all. Now, the affects were beginning to set in. Thick, black liquid poured out of Nightmare, he could faintly hear his brother’s screams of horror as it engulfed him, corrupting his very soul. He laughed, a horrible, choking sound, as tentacles squirmed from deep within his back, and he began to transform. Dream watched in horror as the creature that was once his brother, decimated the humans before him. In a panic, he consumed the last of the golden fruits, hoping beyond hope, that he could save his brother. He failed. As the creature that was once Nightmare prepared the final blow, Dream held out the wand created from the now dead God’s Tree, and was sealed away inside a stone prison, a statue, that could not be destroyed.

____________________________________________________

     A castle, engulfed in darkness, looms in the distance. Not even the glowing crystals on the roof of the cavern can be seen in the mist. Two figures make their way towards the huge, abandoned city, that lays at the foot of the castle. “Ink? Are you sure that we are going the right way? I can’t see a thing!” the smaller figure says quietly, as though scared someone might be watching. “I think so……. Yea, see? Over there is the city gate! Let’s go Blue, if we don’t hurry, we might be found out by Nightmare.” the slightly larger figure calls out without fear. As they near the open gates, the fog begins to clear, revealing the figures to be skeletons. The smaller one wearing steel armor, rubber boots and rubber gloves with a light blue scarf. The slightly taller skeleton wearing a long brown scarf, a white undershirt that is just visible beneath a brown shirt, short, brown, pants, old boots that reach his ankles, a pair of fingerless gloves, and a dark blue strap across his chest, holding tubes of various colors of ink. A large paintbrush, the size of himself, is strapped to Ink’s back. 

      The ruins of the city stretched before the two skeletons, a seemingly endless maze of carved stone. This great city was known as “New Home” to the kingdom of monsters that once dwelled in the caverns, but now, not a soul lived within its halls. As Ink and Blueberry navigated the city, they could not help but feel as though something was off, and they soon learned that their feeling was right. It started as a low humming sound that increasingly got louder as they approached the castle, and the cause was a large, inter-dimensional portal linked to the ani-void. Ink recognized this place easily, as he himself had once been trapped in this infinite stretch of white nothingness and suffocating silence, driving him insane for a time. Despite still being terrified of the place beyond the portal, he pushed on past it, trying to keep calm.

      Blueberry could sense something was off about Ink, but kept quiet, knowing what his friend had been through. They soon found the entrance to the castle, not that the huge front doors were hard to find or anything, but they were hard to get to. To reach the entrance, the two had to make their way through a nearly invisible maze, that shocked anyone and anything that touched its walls. Knowing what was likely to happen, having built something very similar once before, Blueberry led the way through the maze, reaching the end fairly quickly. As they walked past the entrance, the two friends checked for the magic aura of Nightmare, the ruler of this dead wasteland. Finding nothing, they hurried to the throne room. 

      Ink remembered it well, the day that this kingdom had fallen into ruin, he had been there, watching, and trying to stop it. The creature, Nightmare, had invaded this alternate universe, causing it to fall in a matter of hours, and for some reason, it had chosen to turn this once beautiful city into its new base of operations, causing the city to turn into the mass of corruption and darkness that it is now. Ink, having been here before, led Blueberry to the secret room behind the throne, reveling an old statue that looked like it had existed before the war between monsters and humans had ever even started. Ink reached far into his pockets, forgetting which one he had put it in, eventually finding what he was looking for. It was something called an ice needle, an old item that was said to be able to break any spell that had been cast on any living being. He pulled it from his pocket, reached out to prick the statue with it, and immediately jumped back as it began to glow. 

      Dream felt as if he had plunged face first into icy water. He saw two figures and, as his vision began to clear, he could make them out to be skeletons. As the two helped him up, he began to remember the events that had taken place. Once his mind began to clear, he realized that one of the skeletons was his good friend, Ink. “Ink!?” he said, clearly in shock that his old friend had survived. “Hey Dream! How ya doing?” Ink said, completely forgetting that Dream probably had thought that he had died years ago. “How are you-” he cut his own sentence short, as he noticed the other skeleton. “So…. who is that?” Dream asked, pointing at the shorter skeleton. “Oh, that’s Blueberry! Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.” Ink said, laughing. “Umm, hello. You can just call me Blue, it’s what everyone else calls me.” Blueberry said, holding out his hand. “Ok, Blue, it’s nice to meet you! I’m Dream.” Dream replied as he shook Blueberry’s hand. 

      Just as Ink was about to step back into the throne room, the magic aura of Nightmare flooded the area, alerting them to the fact that the creature had returned from wherever he had been. Thinking quickly, Ink opened up a portal to the Doodle Sphere, his own personal, self-made world that he had created after being freed from the anti-void. 

      Moments after stepping through the portal, a large, black, dragon-shaped skull greeted them, flinging black paint all over Ink and his friends. It was something known as a Gaster Blaster, something every Sans could summon in battle, though mostly used as weapons, sometimes the summoner would keep these things as pets, due mostly to the fact that they can sometimes have the personality of any random animal. While every Sans could summon their own unique blaster, Ink’s blasters were different. They were not made of bone, like a normal blaster, but instead they were made of hardened, black paint and shot out not colored lasers, but instead raw magic. This fact alone made Ink’s blasters special, and this one? This was his most powerful, and also the one that he kept summoned indefinitely, its name was Blasty.

      The Doodle Sphere was incredible, huge fields of tall, glowing, light blue grass stretched before the three skeletons. Beyond that, were lush forests, massive lakes, oceans and seas that seemed to stretch on forever, large mountains, cliffs, canyons, ravines, and huge cave systems. The sky looked as if it had been stuck in a perpetual night, and among the stars where huge rivers of blues and greens of many different shades. The moon, however, was something even more beautiful. It was huge, and looked as though it was made of pure starlight. This breathtaking scene seemed to stretch on forever, almost as though the world had no end. 

======================================

Story of the Star Sanses!!! ⭐️

[thesleepiestspiny]

A Family Affair

After his transfiguration stabilized, Frostolas no longer stood ragged of breath and shivering from his own cold. He had dominion over a vast well of demonic energy, and had brought himself to a twisted facsimile of his prime.

 He towered over Aquaria now, thanks to a suit of armor that had manifested over himself. It was then that she remembered he was not originally a caster by trade.

He was a spellsword.

She jumped back as he swung the large claw of ice that emerged from his side, his fogged breath emanating from his masked visage. Delenus lept to try and put himself between her and him, but Frostolas summarily slapped him aside, a jagged icicle impaling him in his side; It barely missed his vitals, but he was out of commission for now.

She wanted to cry out his name and run to his side. But she knew there wasn't any time. Frostolas was already drawing the sword his new form had given him, so she readied her trident.

 "You remind me of him, you know." he spoke in an unnaturally deep voice as his permafrost-coated boots clacked against the iced-over stone. His sword - a two handed blade by design - seemed almost weightless in his hand as he swung at her. She blocked it, but was put off balance from the sheer unholy force behind his swing. He followed up with a hook from his opposite hand, sending her spiraling backwards. By the time she recovered, he was already swinging again. She caught his sword in a block of ice to stun him and stabbed at him, denting his armor as he craned his head to one side to avoid one of the prongs.

 "He was resourceful," Frostolas spoke again, grabbing her by the head and raising her up. "But he could never match my raw might."

He swung the blade at her, using the ice around it as a bludgeon, breaking it free and shattering the mouthplate of her helmet as she was once again sent reeling back.

"s-... shut UP." she sneered as she spat blood at him. Her own quick thinking froze the blood mid-air. She took solace in the fact that he actually winced as he put his hand up to block the razor-sharp splinters. She took this moment to rush him again, stabbing deep into his foot. He let out a guttural snarl as he dropped his sword and grabbed her again, forcing her to her knees. He raised his clawed hand up, forming a blade of ice in his hand,  intending to end the fight as quickly as he had started it.

"Now, go meet him, and tell him Soui shall remain ever-lasting."

He brought the jagged weapon down. Only to be met with a clatter as something dove in the way.

He. Knew that visor. That shield.

He swore that armor had been left on the mountaintop. Where he had left his brother's corpse.

"I finally found you, my brother." the figure spoke. In that exact voice.

Frostolas's cold demeanor gave way to inarticulate rage as he roared before being interrupted with the abrupt snap of his makeshift blade, and a solid blow to the face from the assailant's shield. While the titan was reeling from the blow, the new combatant helped Aquaria to her feet.

"D... father?" she croaked as she saw him in the worn, but recognizable armor he had first left the castle in a year ago, chiefly noticing a stab wound in his chest with dried blood caked in the wound. He hugged her tight, as if he was afraid to let go. She hugged him with a similar tightness as the fact that he was truly here began to sink in.

"I'm here, sweetie. Dad's here."

Azulos turned to face his brother, still in disbelief at who was standing before him. As he did so, Aquaria used a wave of her hand to break Delenus free of the icicle so he could get somewhere safe to recover. "Delenus, get patched up. This is a family matter."

"Ngh... y-you got it, queenie." He said, limping away, keeping his wound from bleeding out too badly with his own magic. "Take 'im down, your majesties."

"No. No. You. YOU..." Frostolas ranted to himself, picking up his blade. The louder he spoke, the more his jaw-like mask opened with his own mouth. He lunged at his brother, locking weapons with him. "You played dead all this time."

"What's your call, Aquaria?" The king said, glancing back to his daughter. She nodded. "I need a moment to catch my breath; keep him in your close quarters. I'll play a bit of havoc with him!"

Frostolas pulled his fist back to punch, but felt something weigh heavy against it as it and Aquaria's own outstretched hand gleamed. He settled for kicking Azulos backwards and staggering away, leveling his sword at them.

"My brother; always needs help to fight his battles."

Azulos merely bowed his head. "You truly have gotten worse."

At that, the demonologist sneered as he stepped forward to strike. However, his feet refused to move as Azulos closed the gap for him, stabbing at him with shield and spear in-hand. It draw blood across his cheek, but caused him to grip the spear and stab his brother in return. He leered triumphantly as he felt it pierce Azulos's stomach, right where he had previously. Aquaria nearly shrieked.

"Lost your wit in that ditch, did you? "

But his blood didn't run down the blade much at all. That's when he realized exactly what happened.

'He wasn't making me think he was dead. He was making me think he was alive’

Azulos's eyes glowed as he stared up at his brother, eye to eye despite the height difference.

"You've succumbed to wraithhood, haven't you, brother?"

Aquaria started to come to grips with what that meant. She... had met him again. Only to learn she would lose him all over again. "Dad..."

"When I was attacked that day. I swore to myself. I would NEVER rest. Until I knew my daughter was safe. Until I had my final words with you, Frostolas."

Azulos grabbed the blade with one hand and pulled it in close as he stabbed his spear into one of Frostolas's feet. He used what magic he could to hold Frostolas's claw still. The usurper practically roared as he tried to tear himself loose, but Azulos used his magic to ensure he was pinned as Aquaria rushed in. She lept off of Azulos's head (to his slight chagrin), and stabbed her traitorous uncle straight through the eye on his forehead with her weapon's rapier-tip, driving it straight into his skull. He remained silent as he gazed up at her. Then back down at him before the three of them collapsed, Aquaria barely remaining on her feet, and Azulos collapsing overtop his brother, who was unable to move.

"I swore. That I would never forgive you for hurting my family..."

His cold hands wrapped around Frostolas in the best embrace he could manage.

"...nor myself, for not being there for you when you needed me."

Frostolas's eyes widened.

"a...wh-...nrl"

Azulos removed his mask. He dared not let Aquaria see him like this, a frost-bitten mummy of his former self. But he needed to show Frostolas how he truly felt. And his eyes, still welled with tears, were all he had left to do so. "I cast you out for breaking the law... but not a day went by since then where i didn't doubt myself. Where i didn't wonder what it would've been like if i had let you stay. Or yet, when i thought back to our time fighting together, if i had just asked you how you were doing more. If I had just checked on you. I didn't know you-"

Frostolas's hand twitched as he placed it on Azulos's back. He had never expected nor knew he wanted to hear those words before. But it rekindled something in his heart that ached worse than even his own death throes. He mustered all the strength he could in his scrambled head to respond.

"nmh... ghhk-...you. were always. too hard on yourself..."

Azulos's senses were numbed. But he could still feel the final gasp of Frostlas's life leaving him. The permafrost coating his frost-bitten body melted away as the area's temperature rose. He placed his mask back on his face and moved to hold his daughter again, his voice growing choked.

"Im. So sorry for leaving you alone like that. Im sorry that have to leave still. but i will never abandon you. never ever. Not for the sake of the kingdom alone or even the world. But because I will make sure you are safe. I... know all too well how heavy the crown is. I regret that you must bear it now, of all times."

She cried softly into his shoulder as he patted his daughter's back. And yet, she did the same for him.

"... Thank you, father. I remember yours and mother's teachings, but... the friends and fellows i've met, and the heirlooms mother have left me, have helped me adjust. I... I think i'm ready for that burden now, more than ever."

He made a slight choking noise as he composed himself. "That's my girl."

Azulos walked back over to Frostolas's limp body, staring down at him.

"The one final thing I would ever ask of you, Aquaria... Is to bury my brother alongside me. For all the horrible things he had put us through... i would not deprive him of his own family blood any longer. I do not demand this as your father or decree it as king. But ask it of you, as one who serves the throne you now sit upon."

She... frowned a bit. It didn't sit too easily with her at first... But she knew all too well how badly her father's heart ached over his perceived faults despite his attempts to hide it, and had avenged his death and the suffering of her kingdom not two minutes ago. She didn't particularly see any more harm that could be done by digging a spare hole in the family graveyard for him , and knew it would at least grant her father some peace of mind to make his final passing easier. Frostolas would get a grave and a marker, she thought, but would get no proper funeral service. Her compassion did still have limits.

"...I shall make the arrangements once I have the time."

He curtsied as a show of gratitude. "Thank you, your majesty," he said, as he began to walk away. "I shall... be in my old room. I want to recollect before I make my final appointment. I can't keep your mother waiting forever."

She hugged him once more before he could make it to the steps.

"I'm glad you came home. Tell mom I said hi."

Azulos smiled as best he could beneath the mask and held his daughter one last time.

"That I will. I'm sure she'll be proud to hear how strong you've become. We'll be cheering for you."