#no matter how i frame things theres always another side and also just because you like who i am now

[butchyena]

i’ll like shut up after this but lately a lot of people have been saying affirming things to me, unprompted, about things ive been working on for years. even when semi prompted they still assert things i used to be told all the time are not true. like its nice to see material change in my relationships to people around me. of course its still painful that i was shitty to people in the past and im not shy about bringing up past shitty behavior because i have little interest in pretending it never happened (not fair to Them) or im not still meant to be accountable for my actions despite change (not fair to Me) but when people are straight up shocked when i tell them things i was told about myself, repeatedly, both by people who did and did not like me, my entire life. idk. im a whole new beast baby.

[nanaslutt]

The JJK men’s fav cuddling postitions <3

incl: Gojo, Geto, Nanami, Choso, Sukuna, Toji, Megumi, Yuuji, Yuta

cont: fluff :3, suggestive on Toji’s

note: i think this is my first full fluff fic…lol

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❀⋆.ೃ

Gojo:

I know Gojo absolutely loves every position he can get you both into where you are physically as close as possible. Gojo's infinity is on automatically most of the time, the only touch he receives being from his students occasionally or from you. So when the time comes around for Gojo to be cuddled up with you, he needs to make sure every part of his body is touching some part of you.

I can see him being a fan of face-to-face cuddling, your limbs intertwined with one another, either his or your face pressed into the other's chest, your soft breathing tickling the skin of the other. Maybe something like the 'attack of the sloth' sleeping position. You on your back, Gojo's arms and legs wrapped around yours, leaving you completely enabled, his weight crushing you when you sleep; but you never complain.. well.. sometimes you do, Gojo's body is like a furnace.

Sometimes though, Gojo wants you to spoon him from behind. Of course, he loves it the other way around but theres just something so comforting about your small frame wrapped around his back. He feels so safe in your arms like this. He gets the same feeling one would when they were a kid, afraid of what was lurking in the dark, but the moment they pulled the blanket over their head, they were safe. Gojo felt untouchable, even more so than when he had his infinity on.

Geto:

A classic man, a simple man, a man of taste. I can see Geto loving the pretzel position. Him lying on his back, his toned arm above his head while his other wraps around your frame resting against him. His leg closest to you is bent, enabling you to interlace your leg with his, the appendage thrown over his thigh. He relishes in the feeling of your arm wrapped around his midsection, feeling safe and secure when you tuck you curl your fingers into his t-shirt on the side of his body.

He loves this position because he loves how close to you he feels, he also likes to see the size difference between the two of you when you're scooted down, your head on his chest. Another plus is he can scratch your back gently this way. His hands always find their way under your shirt, gently tickling and scratching the skin of your back, shoulders, and waist. He adores hearing you hum softly into his chest in approval at the relaxing caress.

You love this position for a variety of reasons as well. With your head on his chest, directly placed over his heart, you have free, unlimited access to the soothing rhythm of his softly beating heart, never failing to lull you into a peaceful sleep. You yourself were also guilty of slipping your hand under his shirt to feel up his abs. Running your fingers over the strong indents, counting them carefully in your head over and over, was the same to you as counting sheep. His skin was always so soft and warm, how could you resist?

Nanami:

Nanami's go-to is having you lay fully atop him, your head on the center of his chest, your bodies resting against one another while he strokes your hair. softly running his hands along your head, raking his fingers on the back of your neck, massaging your head, the whole nine yards. Nanami doesn't stop until he hears you lightly snoring on top of him.

Another thing about Nanami--if you drool or snore in your sleep, Nanami thinks it's the cutest thing in the world. You're always so embarrassed when you wake up and see the wet patch on his shirt after you had a particularly deep sleep, but Nanami finds it endearing; it means you felt safe with him, your body fully relaxing and letting go in his presence.

Another favorite is good ol' spooning. Nanami loves to be the big spoon. With both of your jobs as Jujutsu sourcerers, comes harrowing losses and injuries one cannot prevent, no matter how hard they try. So when Nanami gets the opportunity to completely encase your body in his strong, protective arms, it eases his nerves. He is constantly worrying about you, but in this moment he knows, nothing will touch you, nothing will get past his loving embrace.

This position gives Nanami unlimited access to the back of your neck. His lips instantly connecting with the soft skin, pressing soft kisses to the skin there, peppering down your shoulders, his fingers moving your nightshirt out of the way to touch your skin directly--god he loved kissing you. Your skin was so sweet and warm, how was he not supposed to kiss it? It was right in front of him after all.

Choso:

I have said this about Choso countless times, but he is a titty man.. so of course he's going to lay his head on top of your chest. He loves to feel the softness of your breasts agaisnt his cheek--if you have bigger breasts, you better bet he will lay face down and squish your tits around his face, holding his breath while he presses the fat against him, relishing in the feeling of your soft tits on his face.

His hands are without a doubt, on your chest as well. His large, warm hands engulf your tits in his grip, unconsciously feeling you up in his slumber, making you smile and laugh to yourself. He also loves wrapping his arms fully around your body too. The curse nuzzles his head against your chest while he slides his hands under the small of your back, his hands tickling the sides of your waist and back softly with the little mobility he has like this.

He has never felt love like this before, so when he feels your hands wrap around his back like it's the most natural thing in the world, it has his face heating up, a deep crimson blush spreading across his face while you rub his back, your nails raking over his back, over or under the thin material of his shirt. No matter how often the two of you cuddle together like this, he never fails to mumble how much he loves you into your chest, occasionally raising his head to look at you with a pout, still embarrassed even after all the time you spend together.

When you lean forward to press a kiss to his forehead, your fingers caressing his cheek before he drops his head back down to your chest to welcome the embrace of your arms around his body, he swears he's the luckiest man in the world.

Sukuna:

Your wrists and ankles are bound in chains while you sleep at the feet of his throne completely naked. <3

Toji:

I can see Toji being a fan of the 'pretzel' as well, same as Suguru. He gets a little more handsy most times, the hand he has wrapped around your back will creep down to the waistline of your night shorts. His thick fingers slip underneath the waistband, sliding under the band of your underwear as well as he grips as handful of your ass, massaging the fat in his hand, squeezing and rubbing it with his fingers.

At first, he did it as a way to tease you, and it worked, you always lifted your head to give him a stern look while he continued to massage the skin. Over time though, It became a comfort thing for the both of you. Whenever you're tired but Toji isn't, he'll turn down the volume of the TV in your shared bedroom and let you get comfortable on his chest, your ear resting where his arm and torso meet. He slides his arm around your frame, smiling to himself when you nuzzle and cozy up to him, his hand sliding down your back, rubbing up and down a couple times while you get situated.

When you get yourself to your desired position, throwing your leg over his hip; which meets his hand as he grabs it and pulls you over his pelvis more, caressing the side of your thigh soothingly; he slides his fingers into your underwear and stares groping you, his warm hands bringing you instant comfort, and familiarity. He'll continue to absentmindedly feel you up while he watches his show, his eyes occasionally darting down to look at you with softness in his eyes before he leans forward to press a kiss to the top of your head, drifting off soon after, leaving the TV running all night, as usual.

Megumi:

I imagine Megumi being super touchy with his significant other in private once he gets comfortable with you, but I still see him being a little awkward and shy about cuddling with you. It's so intimate after all. The two of you probably started with you lying on his chest with your hand resting on his tummy, you would have to make the first move because Megumi would rather die than initiate something like that at first, no matter how badly his body was itching to feel your warmth against him.

His body would go completely rigid when you laid on him out of nowhere. Megumi would hold his breath, not daring to move even in inches in fear you would move off of him. The weight of your head and your hand that was softly rubbing his tummy felt so comforting, although it did make goosebumps rise all over his body in shock. You would have to tip your head down to avoid him seeing your smile from hearing his heartbeat race out of his chest, the organ taking a significant amount of time before he gets used to your embrace, the rhythm slowing.

After a while of being together and countless cuddling sessions, I can see Megumi being more confident in initiating cuddle sessions when the two of you are watching TV or getting ready to go to sleep. His favorite positions are all of you cuddling him. You spooning him, him lying on your chest while his legs intertwine with yours--any position where your hands are wrapped around him and constantly caressing him in some way he is a huge fan of.

He also loves listening to your heartbeat. He didnt understand how you were always so calm, the soft lulling rhythm never failing to take him away to dreamland. He felt like he was going to have a heart attack every time you even smiled at him, but that was one of the things he loved about you--someone had to initiate the intimacy in the relationship and it sure as hell wasn't going to be him. If you weren't so forward, it probably would've taken him a year to even hold your hand on his own, so he was grateful you were more forward and verbal with what you wanted, because internally, he wanted the same as you, it just took a little coaxing to get him there.

Yuuij:

Yuuji has no preference! He loves each and every position, he just loves to cuddle with you. If he could always be touching you in some way, he would, and he sure as hell tries. You want to lay on his chest while he rubs your back? done. You want to spoon his large frame and wrap your leg over his waist while his fingers tickle your calf? done. Yuuji is ready for each and every cuddle position you propose to him, and he is not afraid in the slightest to initiate the cuddle sessions either.

I think Yuuji would find great joy in lifting your shirt up and crawling inside as much as his body could fit. His head resting on the soft skin of your tummy while your shirt blocks out most of the light emanating from the TV. "It feels like I'm a baby again." He would say, holding your hips in his hands on the outside of your shirt, his fingers tickling unconsciously along your sides, making you giggle.

I think Yuuji would really like coming home exhausted from training to sit in your lap and lay his head on your shoulder, his back arching slightly from the height difference between the two of you. He would hum into the crook of your neck while you stroked his back, raking your nails along him. He would smile to himself and close his eyes when you lift his shirt, scratching his warm skin directly while he falls asleep on your lap for a midday nap.

He was quite heavy and you're unable to breathe very well while he sleeps, but luckily he never naps long, and you do admit his weight crushing you felt weirdly nice, along with the ticklish puffs of his breath against your neck--it makes you feel close to him.

Yuta:

Yuta is a big baby. He handles enough in the Jujutsu world, trying to keep up his tough, strong persona while fighting, all he really wants when he comes to you is to relax completely in your embrace. Another man who loves it when you cuddle him from behind. He loves feeling your leg wrap over his waist, he knows he's not small, but he loves to feel like it sometimes, it's comforting.

One of his favorite positions to cuddle with you during the day is his head on your tummy/pelvis, his hands stroking along the length of your waist while you tangle your hands in his hair, running your nails over his sensitive scalp, down the back of his neck, reaching as much of his back as you can. It lulls him right to sleep, and he loves it. I think Yuta would struggle with falling asleep/sleeping through the night from insomnia, but when you're touching him, your warm embrace engulfing his body, he almost forgets about all the sleepless nights he spent without you by his side.

I can also see him loving to cuddle while facing you. Your head in his chest while he wraps his arms around you, and you likewise. Your legs tangled together, your bodies pressed as close as possible. During the summertime, this position is not the most comfortable because of the heat and the somehow awful AC Jujutsu high has. So during the colder months, the two of you constantly find yourselves in this position. He keeps his hand pressed snugly to the back of your neck, making sure your forehead stays pressed to his neck at all times.

[undressmewithyoureyes]

Let There Be Light - Forty Six

Four Months

               Four months passed slowly as your belly began to swell. You were almost six months pregnant, and your belly just covered over your feet so when you looked down, you couldn’t see them. The rapid movement from your precious bundle of joy gave you the most hope and brought light on your darkest days. Feeling him or her move around and kick inside you would always bring a smile to your face no matter the storm you were going through.

               König slept in your bed every night and watched over you like a hawk. His massive frame swallowing yours anytime he was close to you. Over the course of the four months from your capture, König made it a point to fuck you regularly. You hated it. Your body betrayed you most nights – him making you come over and over, but the fucked-up part is you thought of Ghost the whole time. König would praise you that you had finally broke and submitted to him, but you must’ve played the part well because you had not.

               Michael visited you once in a while but left the overseeing to König. You knew that Michael knew what König was doing to you, but he didn’t care. You were a dollar sign in his eyes, and the mention of your baby coming out of his mouth made you sick to your stomach. Michael and König, both told you that once you had the baby, it would be given to a family in need. You screamed and lashed out with the most futile anger, but König grabbed you in his arms and whispered dark threats in your ear on how he would get rid of the child if you didn’t comply. Every time, you would slump to your knees as König kneeled behind you and hushed your cries.

               Most nights you lay in bed crying yourself to sleep – feeling that there has to be another way and a way to end this hell because you couldn’t understand why this was happening to you. Michael had told you time and time again that Ghost and the rest of 141 weren’t looking for you. He tried to manipulate your mind telling you that they would have found you already and Ghost didn’t want you – especially now since you were pregnant. “Ghost didn’t love his own father, what makes you think he wants to be just like him?” Michaels words rang through your mind on repeat.

               A part of you started to believe it, but your gut told you to get that shit out of your head. ‘Simon Riley loves you. Johnny MacTavish loves you and 141 will find you’ is what you would keep telling yourself in your darkest times.

               “Something is on your mind Liebling?” König said to you as he was getting out of your bed. One thing about it, König was great at observing. Any shift in you, he was on it. You noticed that he was asking you this a lot lately, but you were also disassociating several times a day.

               “Theres always something on my mind,” you say back to him. König had stood straight up and turned around to face you from your dark tone.

           ��   “Your little boyfriend?” he taunted. “Or should I say…boyfriends.” You snarled your lips at him mocking you and trying to get under your skin. You don’t respond, but the look on your face makes his eyes crease from grinning.

               König turns and starts walking towards the door to your room before taunting you more, “If I was in a house off the radar, I’d have trouble finding you too.” You jerk your head up to him as the words processed in your mind. You keep your mouth shut, not wanting König to realize that you caught what he was saying. You swallow the lump in your throat when he stops abruptly and slowly turns to the side to look at you.

               Your face was white as snow as all color drained from it and his eyes pierced through you. “I guess the cats out of the bag,” he says darkly as he starts walking back towards you.

               “W-what are you talking about?” you ask trying to sound dumb.

               König clicks his tongue not taking his eyes off you. You slide back in the bed and press your back against the wall, “You scared Liebling?”.

               You don’t answer. The look in his eyes tells you everything you need to know – you weren’t supposed to find out they were looking for you. König places one knee on the bed and starts crawling towards you – his body towering yours. He grabs you by your throat as your hands fly to his as he pulls you to him.

               An unfamiliar sound echoed outside causing König to tense with you still in his grasp. His grip wasn’t the tightest he’s had around you, but it wasn’t a loose grip either. Your green eyes clashed with his as you both looked confused with the noise you both heard. You dared not speak or breathe nonetheless, and König did the same – listening for the sound again. Whatever it was, was loud considering you were in a concrete soundproof room.

               Another sound, but this time it was closer and more familiar. A gunshot. König jerked you off the bed, standing you up and your back pressed against his front. He reached down and grabbed his pistol from his thigh holster and held it beside you both. “Don’t make a fucking sound,” he says as he brings you both to the corner of the room where you both are facing the door.

               A small yelp came from you as a loud bang bounced off the concrete walls around you. Whoever it was, was trying to beat the door down. König raised his gun and pointed it towards the door – his other hand still around your throat. You press your body into his, instinctively knowing that it was The Shadows on the other side of the door. You felt König take a deep breath from your submission and pressing yourself against him willingly.

               Another loud bang on the door caused you to jump and your heart flutter as anxiety overtook you. Muffled chatter could be heard, but you couldn’t make out who the person was, but you knew Michael had pissed Graves off yet again and he was coming for what he wanted. You.

               You held your breath to hear more clearly, but your heartbeat thudded in your ears – making it impossible to hear anything far away. The chatter stopped as the anxiety that was in your chest was starting to spread over your body – causing your face and lips to go numb. Your breathing picked up as you tried your best to control your hyperventilating. If it was Graves, there’s no telling what he would do to you or the baby and its not like you could fight like you used to; you could, but there was a high probability the baby wouldn’t make it.

               “I got y-,” König’s words were cut off as an explosion knocked you and König against the wall behind him. Thank God he was behind you and cushioned you. Dirt and dust flew through the air as heavy footsteps and metal entered the room. Your ears were ringing, and your lungs burned from breathing in the polluted air. König released you from his grasp as you fell to your knees and then all fours gasping for air.

               “Harley?!”

               That voice. You jerk your head up. It cant be.

               “Harley?!”

               The dust hadn’t settled in the room yet, but you could start to make out dark figures. You look through squinted eyes trying to make out the dark figures better.

               “S-Simon?” you call back. You were dreaming. It cant be him. You must’ve knocked your head on something and were imagining all of this.

               The footsteps grew closer, “Fuckin’ hell. She’s here!” you hear him. His voice never sounded better. The relief in his voice brought tears to your eyes and every doubt you had ever thought, was answered, and laid to rest from hearing the confirmation in his tone.

               Most of the dust was starting to fall and familiar faces looked at you. You let out a soft sob as tears spilled down your face. It wasn’t a dream. They were here. You watch as Ghost stops in his tracks towards you – eyes wide. A burning sensation filled your head as you felt a hand in the back of your hair jerking you up to your feet; your neck craned back.

               “What did I tell you? You.Are.Mine,” König says through gritted teeth. A small yell fell out of your mouth from the pain.

               “Let her go!” Soap yells out.

               “Or what?” König plays back.

               “Weve got six guns on your one. Now let her go,” Price demands.

               König released your hair roughly as you lunge forward. He immediately grabs ahold of both of your arms with his free hand and holds you against him. You felt pressure on the side of your stomach.

               “NO!” you hear Ghost yell. You look around confused as you look down and see König’s gun pressed against the side of your stomach and his finger on the trigger.

               “Fuck your six guns,” he spits out. “You drop me, that’s one body. One bullet from me can drop two bodies. Now who’s winning Captain?”

               Your body stilled at his threat as you shake your head rapidly. “König,” you whisper out.

               “Don’t whisper now baby. Tell your boyfriend over there how much you have enjoyed screaming my name since the first time he watched.” The darkness in his voice was like daggers poking at your skin. “Or should you tell your other boyfriend, Soap, is it?,” he pauses as his words continue to taunt you. “Does the team know about your love triangle Harley? Do they know that you not only fuck the Lieutenant, but one of the Sergeants too?”

               König applies more pressure to the gun on your stomach causing the baby inside of you to kick harder. “This child doesn’t deserve to be born,” he threatens. Your breathing picks up as your vision starts going in and out.

               “Simon,” you whisper out a sob as the tears stream down your face and drip onto the large black t-shirt you were wearing. Your eyes met his amber ones as you blinked through the tears wanting to see him for the last time. He was scared as his eyes went from yours to your belly. The black around his eyes starting to disappear from the salty liquid leaking out of his.

               “I will always love you,” you whisper out to him.

               As the last word left your lips, a gunshot rang out and your world went black.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 1, Side B, Match 17

propaganda under the cut!

Chrobin:

Imagine finding a stranger on the ground, picking them up, and saying 'you are one of us now!' That's Chrobin for you! Chrom quite literally found Robin laying in a field unconscious and decided to bring them along on his little routine mission but one thing leads to another and Chrom is never without Robin. The two fight off medieval zombies, travel the continent, suffer and heal together as their story goes on. The core of Robin and Chrom's relationship is their friendship but the game gives you the option to have them get married and wow, Chrobin real!!! I could ramble about their tragedy or their silliness but it all leads back to their friendship and how they stick together no matter what life and death throws at them. In a later game in the series their souls are imprinted together in an ancient weapon. What's more romantic than being a powerful magical bracelet together?

KohaAi:

first of all they were online friends before their introduction to the game where they lost contact with each other after a while. they first met in real life after moving into the idol dorms where they met by chance. aira, meeting kohaku for the first time, LITERALLY CALLED HIM PRETTY AND WHEN HE WOKE UP IN THE MORNING, HE THOUGHT HE WAS DREAMING BECAUSE OF HOW PRETTY HE THOUGHT KOHAKU WAS. and they also think each other's names (and each other) are beautiful! theres also the fact they love each other's company and hang out just with just the two of them all the time (and theyre each other's first person to hang out with). theres even an official 4-koma where theyre basically going out on a date for crepes and boba and kohaku's cousin, tsukasa, steals his boba and kohaku WALKS OUT OF FRAME HOLDING AIRA'S HAND. FOR WHAT REASON !!! not to mention theres an official scout story where they had to act romantically together for a job and didn't even act any different and the director was like yup! perfect! that was romantic! and i will never recover. theyve shared food together, they like getting gifts for each other, and always believe theyve got each others backs. kohaku also canonically is very weak to aira. aira wanted kohaku to do a dance trend with him and he thought it was embarrassing but then aira started pouted and kohaku was like NOOOOO I CANT SAY NO TO THAT FACE. and speaking of aira's face, kohaku has CANONICALLY admitted that he loves seeing aira's happy faces and even referred to him as "a special person" (translated) using a term meant for people you really love, and usually is in regards to lovers ! and last but certainly not least, the yoru ni kakeru cover they did with their units! their lines were:

Both: Even so, someday we'll surely, we'll understand each other 

Kohaku: I believe that

Aira: In the troubling days, I became unable to smile

Kohaku: You are truly beautiful in my eyes

there might be more but these are the ones off the top of my head

[truerescreatuconfessions]

I was in the SB when this happened, to explain a bit Khione was sharing her idea about a future possible side gig or job, kind of a long story, but everyone knows that the SB has limited writing space and it gets cut off. She only was sharing BECAUSE we (at least 5 users who were fully engaged in the conversation) were expressing interest, after she showed us some of her work which we wanted to learn more about.

Anakin comes and says: "easy on the amount of msgs pls getting a little spammy"

-which would be fine to the normal eye or someone who just logged on, as it was just sb and another mod who was engaged in this chat as well. She didn't seem to have an issue with it, and the sb was still carrying on. I think it was unnecessary for Anakin to even have said anything. Anakin herself has spammed the sb with her band of friends and no one says anything. Why is it okay for her to do it but when Khione is telling an actual story that MULTIPLE people asked her to get more into it's an issue?

Khione responds: "yeah, i realized, mb (assuming this means my bad as in sorry) glad you're here actually - any idea when you'll have the remaining 1.6 bil, or youre paying in increments? kinda low on tu rn x"

Anakin: "soon prob"

-Um.. note to self never give anyone something on credit with no credibility or even the decency to give you a respectful or general time frame. That was kind of disgusting and sad. - User posting

Anakin: also passive aggression is unnecessary lol def something you could've mailed me about ^^

- Khione inquiring about her TU over whatever deal agreed on is being passive aggressive? By the way, I submitted the convo. I'm just writing it in case somehow it doesn't go through, maybe a fault on my end but I'm almost sure I did all the right things. Khione literally said she noticed she was being a bit spammy, said "my bad" which translates directly to apologising. Where is the passive aggression here? I had my eyes corrected I know its not me, and I don't see the passive. aggression.

Khione: I don't see how me asking you a valid question is considered passive aggressive. There is no inflection in writing for the most part, I'm sorry you took it that way though. (KHIONE STOP APOLOGISING YOU SAID NOTHING WRONG!!!) I could've, but I'm mobile and in the sb, so it was a matter of convenience for me. Totally fair answer, Khione.

Anakin: no problem

- So myself and a few other players who discussed this amongst one another. Bit confused here, i was always under the impression the two were very, very close friends. Khione even gifted Anakin's boyfriend an amber wyrae a few days ago citing "you're my friends bf" so whats up with this? I am aware theres alot circling around Khione right now but this treatment and how a "moderator" handled this was out of line. Please do better.

There is always someone out there to replace you never forget that! Be kind, it's free.. also If Dan and Khione were as close as they clearly were and she still got banned/fired, I hope you really don't believe that it can't happen to you. I've read blogs of their friendship and the times I've spoken to Khione she speaks of him like a dear friend. Regarding Dan, we know he cheats and basically runs Res. If she did something wrong, he could've covered it I'm sure he has the means to, but he banned her I believe, or one of the admins. My theory is they just stopped liking her which is pretty sad. If thats the case whats even sadder is she still won't tell us anything, and I'm sure she knows enough to take ALL the corrupt users down. Sigh, no one wins and she gets the shortest straw. Khione if you do read this even though you said your post defending Dan's name (which I'm now raising eyebrows at because maybe he is the cause of this) would be the last one, I really wish you would just air everyone's business out, call me one for drama, or not, this just seems so sudden, and a bit.. strange? I know I'm not the only one thinking this.

Oh, and although this doesn't matter, I'd like to say I am on no side. Khione and I speak respectfully to each other, Anakin has never wronged me. However in this scenario Anakin: 0 Khione:1

request to blog staff: can you guys add anakin and khione to the tags on here? would help a bit. 

[littlemisslipbalm]

“it’s not that important”

Summary: Y/N is in Harry’s band and one night they have a drunken hook up. One thing leads to another and they find themselves engaging in a friend’s with benefits type of situation. spoiler: it is important

AKA: A friends with benefits to lovers story :) with some angst in there

This is for @stylesharrys fallinharry10k celebration so my trope is friends with benefits! prompt is “you have no goddamn idea what you do to me. when i’m around you, i have no control of my emotions or my thoughts” and the tenth picture ^ i kinda just used it in the beginning to descripe what he was wearing - i got really carried away with this story but the prompt is in there !! lol, not proofread tho but would love your feedback !!!! :) love y’all very much 

oh boy i’ve had this done for agesss but i hadn’t written the smut until today so now we’re here i dont even remember what happens - i vaguely remember not loving the end but I hope yall enjoy

Word Count: 15.4k (longest fic to date) | Warnings: smut, angst, fluff, alcohol consumption? i dont remember but i dont think theres anything too heavy in here.

-

“Hey Harold!” You smile as you easily hop over the side of the couch and settle beside your bandmate.

Harry groans, yet can’t keep the small smile off of his face when he sees it’s you. “How many times have I told you to never call me that?”

Your eyes narrow at his faux glare. “And how many times have I told you, I simply do not care?” 

You reach a hand out and tousle his already disheveled, unstyled brown hair. Despite his lack of styling, his hair still looked perfect. His chestnut hair fell into a middle part when he did nothing to it and you found it endearing. It made him look far younger than he truly was, like a boy you might have pursued when you were in your early days at college. The waves slightly framed his prominent cheekbones and chiseled jaw that was sporting a tiny amount of stubble.

He moves his arm from around the back of the couch to pat at his hair, trying to put it back in its nondescript position you had just messed with. After he’s satisfied, he uses the same hand to push up his glasses on the bridge of his nose. They’re chestnut brown Gucci frames that match the natural highlights in his hair. You can safely assume that’s why he bought them. The lenses are clear, but you know they don’t hold any prescription. He looks incredulously at you from behind them still.

“Nice glasses,” you mention offhandedly as you reach out to the coffee table to grab the drink you had left there earlier.

Before Harry had arrived, you had been taking up residence on the couch, in the spot he had actually taken up. You had ventured to the restroom for a moment and gotten held up in a conversation when asked your preference for the Beatles. Having to defend your staunch stance for the Beatles and against the Rolling Stones, you had gotten swept up into an argument with Adam. He believed that because the Rolling Stones toured for longer warranted them the title of best rock band. While you countered that despite their long touring and production of music, the Stones had a rotation of members. The Beatles maintained the four of them and held such a large impact even though they were barely together for a decade. They were one of a kind, or at least the first of their kind, you’d allow. You weren’t really in the mood for intellectual conversation tonight, so upon seeing Harry taking up your seat, you had told Adam you’d continue the discussion at a later date and returned to your spot.  

“Thanks,” Harry mumbles as his gaze flits around the room. He wasn’t sure if you were actually complimenting him, but he would take it as one either way.

The rest of your friends are all up and about, drinking, talking, dancing. It was the usual house party scene: a relatively intimate gathering, music you all actually liked, some friends of friends feeling slightly out of place. There was no pressure in this type of gathering but still Harry wasn’t necessarily in the party mood tonight. Usually, Harry was the one instigating these types of get-togethers with his friends and bandmates. He liked to be the life of the party, but as the tour loomed closer and closer, he felt some tinge of longing for quiet and solitude. He knew he wouldn’t have much quiet while on the road, which mostly didn’t scare him. He loved the stage and the high he received from performing and the gratification he felt from all the people in the room being there to see him. But there was also that other part of him that liked the quiet, the privacy. As the lack of alone time nudged itself around the corner, he had been hoping to enjoy solitude, or at the very least peace before he was on the road. Some sort of blissful state before technical chaos ensued. When Charlotte, the host of tonight’s soiree, had texted their group chat about tonight, Harry had politely declined. Then came the slew of private texts from Charlotte giving him all the reasons he should come tonight. He tried to say no again, but had shown up after the continued begging from her.

His appearance mirrored his expression, choosing a not perfectly fitted white t-shirt and random trousers rather than picking something he really loved, like usual. You could tell something was up and as his friend you were wondering what was wrong with him.

“Don’t sound so excited, Harry, someone might mistake you for somebody who’s happy to be here.” You stick your tongue into the side of your cheek, gauging his reaction.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re not very funny?” He quips, green eyes flashing to meet yours.

Your banter is probably how the pair of you communicated the best, never really falling into the whole serious side of friendship. You never shared those late night talks about the future or your fears. It was a fun friendship, so you didn’t fancy yourself one of his closest confidants. When it came to music, you and Harry were a bit more serious which formed a sort of paradox because the music you would share with each other gave a far greater insight into your souls than you probably realized. As a member of his band, you would discuss his music and what was going on with that sort of business part. But the sharing and discussion of other music that you did was part of your friendship, even if you didn’t see it like that. Because of the countless albums you had recommended to each other and the specific songs you had made note of, Harry and you knew each other much better than you thought you did. Music connects to something deep inside yourself and you have to like it enough and know the other person well enough to believe that they will also enjoy it to recommend it. As much tongue and cheek that you partook in with Harry, deep down, unbeknownst to either of you, you were that friend he shared his hopes and fears with, through the way he knew best, music.

“No, most people find me hilarious...”

You take a sip of your drink, trying to cover up the sting that his remark actually left. Most of the time you were great at keeping up with anyone’s banter, especially Harry’s, but tonight you weren’t feeling it. His tone had sounded so harsh it almost sounded like he meant it. His features soften when he sees the way your face falls, despite your sarcastic tone.

“‘M sorry. I’m just not in the best mood tonight. Didn’t want to come, but Charlotte…” He shifts to face you, arm retracting slightly around the couch, landing his hand at the edge of your shoulder. His fingers fiddle with themselves absentmindedly, he turns his rings around his fingers and they ever so slightly brush against your shoulder. You don’t mind, you know its his nervous tick that he did whenever he didn’t have something to clink them against.

“Yeah, same here, actually.” Your tuck an out of place hair behind your ear, returning your gaze to Harry, who’s tilting his head at you curiously. “But might as well make the most of it, though. After all, this is our last week before tour starts.” You raise your glass and tilt it towards him before taking a sip.

You really didn’t have a plan, you were just trying to make him feel a little better. It was seldom you saw him so solemn at this type of gathering. He usually was the one bouncing from group to group, entertaining everyone with his dazzling charm and quick wit. Sometimes he would bring a date and spend the night with them in the corner, but that was usually at bigger parties than this. At these types of gatherings you often found yourself talking with Charlotte for most of the night. You were both new additions in the band and you had clicked immediately. You would travel in a pair between different groups and talk with everyone. Sometimes you would tell a humorous anecdote about your life and everyone would laugh wholeheartedly. Your ability to retell a story and make it hilarious every time seemed to be your secret talent. You could make any experience into a ten-minute retelling and it always sounds like the funniest moment of your life. It ranged from your embarrassing audition for Grease as a tween to your supermarket run in with an old acquaintance or B-list celebrity the day before. It didn’t matter what it was, it just always had the entire circle of people laughing and wiping their eyes with joy. You’d laugh a little with themselves, but usually you just had a triumphant smile on your lips for the rest of the night.

He nods, sipping his own drink for the first time since you had settled down beside him. “Well, I’m all ears.”

“What?”

“Give me your suggestions on how to make the most of tonight.”

“Drinking, mostly, was my plan,” you laugh nervously as Harry continues to stare at you intently.

“Mostly?”

“I mean, what do you want me to say? I didn’t think to pack my bouncy castle, my bad.”

He bites back a laugh but lets some air escape his defined nose, before staring with a deadpan face at you.

You like to tease him. You simply liked him. Harry was different from other men you knew. You were pretty sure most people could say that though. Harry was just different. It seemed like no one could not have some sort of affection for him. With the playful friendship the pair of you had, you always skirted the edge of flirtation. But you also didn’t particularly ever want to cross any lines with him. He was the employer of you, technically. He had brought you into his backing band and you wouldn’t do anything to harm that position. As well, at the end of the day you knew Harry. His tendencies and the choices he made.

When you were around him at parties like this, you had to try really hard to keep him at an arm’s length. Because on one hand, you would drink and suddenly the boundaries you put up didn’t seem that important, instead his lips started to look rather inviting, but on the other, you knew that he was extremely emotionally closed off to any relationship that was more than either friendship or a one night stand.

Harry doesn’t give you a response, just swings back his drink. The pair of you sit and drink in silence. Before you know it, Harry and you are five drinks in, finally talking after the second. The pair of you decide to move to the balcony outside and continue your conversation there after the third. After the fourth, you're getting really handsy and by the end of the fifth, Harry’s arm is wrapped tightly around your waist and you're laughing breathlessly into his neck. It looks like he’s just shielding you from the cold night air, but both of you seemed to be enjoying each other’s embrace for other reasons.

Finally catching your breath, you lean back and pant softly as you meet eyes with Harry. His pupils have blown out from the alcohol and dark light. The emerald green barely surrounds the black and you swear there’s flecks of gold or maybe brown in them. Your brows scrunch at the revelation and Harry asks what you’re thinking. You don’t respond, too entranced and drunk to even hear him.

“Oi,” he bops your nose, “What is goin’ on in there, little lady?”

Your hand reaches up and widens Harry’s eye manually. His inebriated state has no qualms about you doing such an odd thing. “Why’s your green not actually green?”

“What?” He asks before moving your hand away from his face, it instead falls to his chest. The pair of you shift until your caged between his body and the balcony’s ledge. You pout as you stare up at him. His skin looks soft and taught over every inch of his face and neck. The urge to kiss him keeps nagging at the back of your mind. The idea keeps creeping up closer and closer and the drunker you are the less likely you are to suppress it.

“Do you want to fuck me?” You blurt out.

“Sure.” Harry isn’t taken aback. He had been thinking about asking for a while, so he was glad you had asked first, made it easier for him.

“Okay, let’s go.”

He takes you back to your place, the pair of you catching a cab the short distance between yours and Charlotte’s flats. No one blinks an eye at the pair of you leaving together. Everyone watched the pair of you sulk all night about being there and only enjoying the other’s company, so they weren’t keen on either of you staying. Charlotte was simply glad the pair of you had stayed for as long as you did.

The two of you walk casually until you’re inside your bedroom. Once inside, Harry throws you on the bed and fucks you. Hard. He’s got you spread out in more ways than you had ever thought possible. He’s got you saying things you had never even dreamed of saying. And he’s got you cumming and screaming more than you could have ever wanted. He enjoys himself as well. He loves the way you feel around him and the way your eyes look up at him while he fucks you straight into the bed. He loves the way you sound whispering dirty things and screaming his name. He loves the feel of your soft skin all over your body as he pushes deep inside you. He loves the way you’re able to rip a guttural moan from him every time he cums. And he cums three times that night. While it wasn’t quiet, he did find that blissful state he had been in desperate need of.

After the third round, Harry feels spent. He brings himself into a sitting position, legs hanging off the edge of your bed. You’re lying in your bed, completely overstimulated, cumming at least twice as many times as Harry. He scratches at the top of his head, his bicep bulging as he folds his arms around himself.

“That was fucking good, Y/N. Just what I needed.”

You can only hum in response.

Then he takes your blanket and lays it over you. After that he begins to stand up, getting ready to grab his things and go.

“You don’t have to go…” your voice raises when you realize what he’s doing.

“Yeah, I do. This was just a one time thing, yeah? I enjoyed it, but you know...”

“Erm, I guess?” You rolled to fully look at him, he was pulling his t-shirt back on now, his marked chest disappearing beneath the white fabric. “Do you really not stay over at your one night stands?”

He thinks about it as he begins with his shoes and his glasses at the same time. “Yes? Usually I don’t know the person and I don’t particularly want to sign an autograph when I leave in the morning. Best to leave immediately afterwards.”

“That was exactly why I wanted you to stay...Shit! No chance you’ll give me an autograph now? Could sign my tit, right next to your hickies.”

He laughs, automatically in a better mood after the catharsis of having sex. It was also a relief for him that you didn’t seem to be weird about the hook up. “Shut up!”

“You’re a twat, Harold.” He groans instinctively at the annoying nickname, not caring about the ‘twat’ part. “But be my guest, you can freeze your arse off while waiting for your cab outside at this hour.”

“Rude..” He mutters, standing in your doorway now. “You wouldn’t actually make your employer stand out in the cold at this time of night. I haven’t even got a jumper. Could get a cold and ruin my voice. ”

“You’re the one who says it’s best to leave immediately. Get on it, mister.”

Your hand makes a shooing movement, but he doesn’t budge. You sigh as he makes a puppy dog face - eyes wide and a puckered pout with his flushed cheeks and lips - playing into your actual kindness, that he knows is somewhere. Your sweetness that you were keeping hidden from Harry right now. Nothing was serious between you so it made sense that you were trying not to let your innate ability to care show as he’s about to walk out on you.

“Ugh, fine. Stop looking at me like that. Just grab one of my coats from the bottom right, they’re all oversized so one should fit.” He doesn’t relent on the face. “And you can stay inside until your cab comes.” You sigh and throw one of your pillows at him. He catches it easily and throws it back, much softer than your throw. “Also never pull the employer card on me again when I’m naked in the bed you just fucked me in,” you call as he looks through your closet.

Returning with a patchwork coat you had thrifted tight over his shoulders, he looks at you seriously, “Yeah sorry about that part. Definitely wasn’t trying to exert my power over you, it sounded better in my head. Meant more like you could ruin my voice and both of our jobs.”

You nod and chuckle slightly, finding how inarticulate Harry could be as an endearing trait. His explanation didn’t actually make it sound better. “The jacket fits.” You say, choosing to move forward from Harry’s weirdness, knowing he didn’t mean any harm from his initial statement.

“Yeah, thanks. I think my cab is here,” He glances at his phone, “So I’ll go...See you?”

“I’m sure.” You smile, “We do in fact work together and will soon be touring the world. Would be a bit weird if I didn’t see you.”

“Right.” He nods and adds a peace sign before he walks out of your sight. You know he’s gone when you hear the door click shut. What an interesting night.

-

Love on Tour had just started and Harry couldn’t lie. He couldn’t keep his mind off of you. You were both his most recent partner and the best he had had in a while. He found himself rubbing over the spots on his neck and clavicle that you had given particular attention to during the night you had shared together. When he went to bed it was your body he pictured to get himself off. So, after the first show he’s beelining to you at the beginning of the after party. He’s got an adrenaline high and he needs a release. You’re the solution. He’s whispering in your ear, asking if you’d like to meet him in his dressing room. Your eyes study his face when he pulls back and they widen slightly when the realization of what he’s implying dawns on you. Then you’re nodding and excusing yourself from a random conversation five minutes later.

Inside Harry’s dressing room, you find Harry already unbuttoning his shirt. He grabs your face and shoves his lips onto yours once you lock the door. As he kisses you he tries to make one thing very clear, “This doesn’t mean anything.”

“Got it.” You begin to finish Harry’s job of taking off his shirt.

He pulls back to look you in the eye, “Are you okay with that?”

“Jesus fuck, yes, Harry, just shut up and fuck me senseless again!”

He listens to you and begins to kiss down your jaw and neck. His open-mouth kisses leave a searing trail across your skin. He settles on a spot at the base of your neck and begins to suck and nip at it with vigor. You set to work on finishing his job of unbuttoning his shirt. Then you pull off your own shirt, reaching behind you to untie the bows at the back. The new skin exposed grabs Harry’s attention and he moves down to suck over the cleavage of your tits. He’s happy to be back with his ‘bosom friends’. You smack his head when he says it and he chuckles darkly, only sucking harder on them causing you to moan louder than you would like.

Once you’re both in only your underwear, you find your back pressed up against the mirror behind the dressing room counter. Harry’s body is nestled between your spread legs as he kisses down your skin. His fingers dance along the line of your thong as he looks up from beneath his lashes for position, you only push his head closer to your heat in response. He laughs mischievously before tugging them down off your hips.

“Missed this pretty little cunt...All I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout,” He mutters as he begins to latch onto your dripping core.

Your brows shoot up at the thought that Harry’s mind has been stuck on you for the past week. You definitely had thought about your drunken hook up a bit, but hadn’t thought it had left a lasting impression on Harry, you assumed he had that lovely of a night with every person he chose to spend intimate time with. These thoughts are forgotten when Harry’s warm tongue is lapping at your swollen bud. You’re already panting for Harry and now you’re heaving with moans and whimpers leaving your mouth with every lick and nip of his expert mouth.

“Fuck Harry, feels so good,” you whine as his tongue travels down your folds and swirls and dips into your hole.

He moans at your words and the way your legs squeeze at his head. His hands move to spread you open wide to maintain his control and he smirks at the way your body rolls due to the friction of his voice against your pussy.

“Be a good girl f’me,” he growls still pressed against your wet heat.

Your body rolls again as you get closer and closer to your first release. Your bite your lip trying to contain all of the sounds that are trying to escape your mouth. Harry notices the new silence and glances up seeing how you’re trying to behave. As much as he likes you obeying his words, he also wanted to hear how he was pleasuring you.

“Tell me how you feel, princess,” he demands.

“So-so good,” you hiccup as his fingers caress over your folds now as he looks you in the eyes, his lips wet with your slick. He kisses you hard, his tongue diving into your mouth and you kiss back passionately, loving your taste on his tongue.

He pulls back and your hands trail down his chest, swirling around his familiar tattoos and hair that grace his lower torso as you move. He grins, enjoying the feeling of you on him and how he was affecting you.

Soon enough, his cock is finding its way back to your glistening folds, wet with your own liquids as well as his saliva. His mouth waters at the sight. He only pushes into you a few times like this. Then he catches sight of himself in the mirror in front of him and can’t resist. He pulls out and flips you over, your squeal leaving your mouth before you can stop yourself. His dick finds your entrance once again, not wanting to be without the wonderful warmth for any longer than he must.

“Ahhh,” Harry groans when he slips back inside.

Your head throws back on your neck, the feeling of him as well as the sight of him gripping your hair in one hand and your fleshy hip in the other. His rings dig into the skin as he’s able to slam more forcefully in this position. You gasp and whine at his motions. The sounds coming from between your legs are turning you on even more and they seem to make Harry happy too. He picks up the pace and drops the grasp of your hair for a second. Your head falls down as you try to keep yourself up on your elbows.

Gripping both of your hips, Harry growls, “Look at me while I fuck you. C’mon now.”

You moan in response and tear your eyes open to see your reflections in the mirror. One hand goes up to hold onto the mirror to give yourself more traction, causing your back to arch even more. The new position has Harry’s cock slamming into you deeper.

“Fuck!” Harry practically yells and can’t keep himself from landing a harsh slap on your ass. You jump forward at the sting but his other hand keeps the pace steady. He keeps burying himself into you all the way to his base, his balls slapping at your now slick spread thighs. He rubs over the red handprint he had just left on your ass. You whimper and bite your lip, truly enjoying the sensation.

Still staring into the mirror as Harry commanded, your eyes water slightly and Harry makes eye contact with you through the mirror. You smile widely and he grins back. “This feels so fucking good. Your pussy takes me so well. Fuck…” Harry babbles, still pistoning into you. You had noticed how vocal he was the first time you had fucked, but thought it had just been the alcohol. Apparently not. But you didn’t mind, you much preferred it to partners who barely spoke or didn’t even moan. Like how were you supposed to know what was going on in their minds? With Harry, you knew he was having a good time.

A few more heavy thrusts and you felt yourself nearing the edge. Your panting was getting faster, exceeding the speed of Harry’s thrusts and he could also feel you were close. Your cunt began squeezing him tighter so he hooked a hand under your knee and brought it onto the table. He hunched over you slightly and snaked his hand to your clit. “C’mon darling, I know you're close. Can feel that little cunt putting a choke hold on my cock.” He rubs at your clit with the vigor of strumming a quick paced song on the guitar. It’s enough to overtake your senses and the laugh that had bubbled from his words turns into your orgasm moan. You try to muffle it into the arm that is holding you against the mirror to avoid a full on scream because it feels that good. You felt like you were having your first ever orgasm, it felt that new to you.

A few more thrusts and you’ve come down from it, but Harry still hasn’t finished. It’s your turn to be the partner coaxing the other to get off. “Faster, Har. Want you to cum too.” He grunts, picking back up the pace. He had slowed to let you ride out your stay. “That’s it...want you to cum in me. Your cock feels so fucking good.” You whine, meaning every word. He smiles again at you and closes his eyes, focusing on chasing his high. You watch as his smile widens to that open mouth grin, “Fuck,” he almost whispers. And there it is. There’s a twitch in his hips that mirrors his expression and then he’s pulling out and cumming on your back. His voice is now even lower and raspier than before as he babbles how good that was and how tight your pussy was. It was sweet nothings, but extremely explicit and you sighed heavily, feeling a small orgasm wash over you again. His final thrusts and voice pushing you off the cliff again easily.

The two of you take a minute to bring your breathing back to normal and Harry goes to clean your back off.

“So..how do you feel about maybe doing this regularly?”  Harry asks sheepishly as he begins to pull his pants back on.

“Like a friends with benefits kind of thing? Or bandmates with benefits, rather.” You laugh breathlessly at your not really funny joke, but you’re now truly exhausted. From the show and the fuck, you felt thouroughly worked out.

“I guess that’s what it is, yeah.”

“Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

“You’re honestly so chill, Y/N. It’s fuckin’ hot.”

You laugh and flip your hair dramatically. You’re only in your bra and panties right now and Harry licks his lips, finding your playfulness to be a turn on. “What can I say?” You laugh.

“But like I said before...it’s just sex.” He’s buttoning up his shirt and looking at your reflection through the mirror now. He watches you slip the pants you had been wearing back on.

“Oh, Harold, I know.” On cue, he groans and turns around to face you after fixing his mused hair in the mirror. Interrupting yourself, you turn your back to Harry, “Can you tie this, sorry it’s hard for me to get the -” Harry walks to you without any hesitation and begins tying the silk ribbons on the back of your shirt. “Thanks. Anyway,” you turn to face him when he’s finished and you place both of your palms on his chest. “Trust me, I know you’ve got your issues and I’m not looking to be the girl that tries to change you. I know what this is. I only ask that you let me know when you sleep with other people, because once you do, you won’t need me.” Harry nods and you pat your hands against him. You both smile and go your separate ways when you leave the dressing room.

-

Harry and you fucked almost every night on tour. Sometimes it was right after, on the counter in his dressing rooms. Sometimes it was later in the evening in his hotel room or yours. He stopped leaving immediately after your hook ups. He never kicked you out of his room so he decided it was fine for him to stay in yours. Especially because you weren’t a stranger who would be weird with him in the morning. He also didn’t like trekking through the hotel halls late at night.

The first few times you stayed in the same bed, the two of you stayed on opposite sides of the bed, not touching after you were finished engaging in your sexual endeavours. Rigid bodies against the edges of the mattress. Then one particularly long night, filled with multiple rounds, Harry was so exhausted from his performance on stage and off that he collapsed on top of you. He fell asleep there and you didn’t particularly mind. It felt nice to be slightly compressed and held. He shifted in his sleep and when he woke up he wasn’t upset to find you nestled into his side with his arms wrapped around you. After that, cuddling sort of became part of the routine. After you were done having sex, Harry or you would get up to clean up and bring back waters. Then you would settle in his arms. Sometimes in a spooning position and sometimes you cradled softly into his chest. You didn’t talk about it, it just happened.

One night it was your head directly on top of his butterfly tattoo, one leg thrown over his lower torso and your arm snuggly wrapped around his middle. He liked to pet your hair when you laid against his chest in that way. His fingers would fiddle with the strands and you liked it because he usually took off his rings before he would do it and his hands felt so soft and delicate against you. Harry liked the way he felt when he would hold you afterwards. It was calming to fall asleep against your soft skin and feel your fingertips trace lyrics to songs he wasn’t sure the name of against his own.

No one knew about how your friendship with Harry worked. To the rest of the world, you seemed to be someone who had become another close friend in the band. You were similar to Mitch in many respects. Except for when Harry winked at you during a show, it wasn’t a friendly wink, it was a ‘this song makes me horny and I can’t wait to relieve the pressure by fucking you later’ kind of wink. You knew this because Harry had gone over and whispered it in your ear during a quick break, when you had only looked at him weirdly after he did it.

Before the show tonight, you pulled Harry aside, “So what are we thinking tonight? I feel like I might want to ride you...Haven’t been on top in a while.” In the darkness of the backstage, you crane your neck to take Harry’s earlobe between your teeth. He groans softly and grips your hips to guide them against his for a second. “Sounds fuckin’ fantastic, love.” You twitch back, releasing him immediately at the word. You always told him not to call you that and he tried to reason with you, that it was just something he called people. But you disliked it a lot, adding it to the growing list of rules the pair of you had for the do’s and don'ts of being friends with benefits with each other.

“Harold,” you groan and he steps back at that pet name. While he hated this, you refused to let him put it on the list because it didn’t cross any lines with your physical arrangement. Not that there was any physical list to put it on, it was more of a theoretical list that the two of you would speak of occasionally.

“Sorry.” He says eventually, “Didn’t mean it.” You both laugh.

You think about how other relationships were sometimes desperate to hear their partner express their love for them and you believe you’re grateful for the simplicity of your arrangement. The term relationship regarding what you and Harry were doing was also in the ‘don’t’ category on the list. If either of you were being honest, there should be no need for a list and you should be questioning yourselves why you felt the need to set boundaries if one part of it was physical and the other part was your friendship and job. If it truly was just physical why were boundaries constantly needing to be set and followed? But right now honesty was not in the cards.

-

After the show Harry gets delayed with press or fans or something that you don’t really care about. You barely read the text that he sends, only caring about the ‘sorry got held up’ and the ‘be there in thirty’.

You let yourself into his room and wait on the bed, flipping through your phone, completely unbothered by the rest of the world. When you hear a knock on the door, you don’t think twice about getting up and opening the door. You only realize your terrible mistake when it’s Mitch and not Harry standing at what you’re also just realizing isn’t your door, but instead Harry’s.

“Shit!” you say under your breath as Mitch looks at you confused.

The room is dark behind you because Harry would have just entered and gotten down to business. He might turn on a side lamp, but you hadn’t felt the need to have light on while you waited. Forgetting all of that, you had just gone to the door and opened it.

Mitch tucks some of his hair behind his ear as he stares at you. “Is Harry here?”

“Er..No?” It comes out as a question. You rub the back of your ankle with your foot, feeling nervous.

“Is he actually not here or?” Mitch trails off, narrowing his eyes at you.

“No, no he’s really not here. I’m waiting for him, too.” You rush your words, but try to remain calm.

“You have a key to his room. And you’re waiting in the dark.” He says. They’re not questions and you’re not sure just how guilty you look.

“Yeah!” You try to come up with a non suspicious response, hoping there’s a way to still salvage your’s and Harry’s secret, “He gave me his key because he wanted to talk about something and I kept it dark because my eyes always hurt after shows. Kind of like a migraine.” You scratch at your head and smile, trying to convince Mitch. He seems to believe you as he nods slowly and opens his eyes more.

There’s a little bit of an awkward silence and Mitch shifts his weight between his feet, looking at you still. Just as you're about to invite Mitch to come wait inside with you, Harry steps out of the elevator and begins to walk down the hall. His key card is already in hand and your eyes widen. Harry’s expression mirrors yours when he realizes Mitch is standing outside of his door and that you are standing with him. “Mitch!” Harry says, placing his hand on Mitch’s shoulder and sliding his key card into his back pocket with the other. Mitch turns to Harry without seeing him put away the other key card and you look at the pair of them.

“I was just telling Mitch how you gave me your key card so we could talk about...that thing.” You interject, flicking the lights on in Harry’s room as casually as possible. Harry shoots you a look about how you couldn’t come up with an actual reason for being there. You shrug your shoulders helplessly.

Mitch looks between the two of you and feels some weird tension and he’s not sure if it's always there and he’s just noticing or if something is going on right now.

“Yeah, well, I came to stop by to talk about the riff in Canyon Moon. Something is wonky with it.”

“Oh! Sure,” Harry nods to Mitch and then glances at you, “Y/N, we can talk about that other thing later. It’s not that important anyway.” His tone is so casual and nonchalant. You stare at him, thinking he can’t be serious. You had been almost sure he would send Mitch away, but instead you were being kicked to the curb. When he doesn’t say sike or anything of the sort, you nod. “Okay,” then you mumble a ‘good luck’ with figuring out the problem with the song. Mitch walks in the door, but Harry’s eyes stay fixed on your figure retreating down the hallway. He watches you disappear and is only pulled from his thoughts when Mitch calls his name from the couch in the room.

After reaching your floor, you key into your room and get ready for bed. Just as you’re about to drift off to sleep, completely alone for once in a long time, there’s another knock. This time you check the peephole, a habit you realized you were going to have to get better at. It’s Harry. You open the door and walk away immediately once he’s entered the room.

“Why are you here?”

“Thought we could still...” He follows you into the room, trying to make out your face in the darkness.

“I’m not in the mood anymore.” Your tone gives away your annoyance. You couldn’t hide that you were mad at Harry for sending you away. It made you feel weird. The way he did it so easily made you feel like you were extremely disposable and unwanted.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs as he lays down beside you. You turn to face him when he places a hand on the small of your back. You’re face to face and your noses are almost brushing. It’s not really possible to see each other’s features, but after months of hooking up you knew each other’s faces pretty well. You could reach out and pinpoint all of Harry’s freckles and moles on his face and neck right now and be correct. He could likely do the same. The theory is proven correct when he reaches out and his hand dances down your cheek. “Just thought it would be less suspicious if I didn’t get rid of him. Couldn’t make him wait either…”

“I know,” your voice is small and soft, just above a whisper, “I forgive you.” You scoot closer to him and Harry instinctively wraps his arm around you, bringing you tightly into him. You sigh into his neck and he shivers at your warm breath on his slightly clammy skin. When you lick your lips, they brush lightly against his skin. He laughs at the feeling, so you decide to press an intentional kiss to the hollow in his neck. In response, he presses a kiss to your hairline, his lips slightly chapped after the concert.

The kisses are tender, filled with that thing neither of you dare attribute to anything the two of you did in the dark. The word you told him time and time again to not call you. So is just about every touch and word that has been exchanged in this room since Harry entered it. You fall asleep wrapped up in his arms, a soft smile resting on both of your faces. Neither of you seem to mind that you didn’t actually have sex tonight or anything even close to it.

-

When you wake up you feel especially well rested. You shift around and realize your bed is empty besides you. It depended on the day, but it was always a toss up between Harry being there when you woke up or not. However, lately, you had found it was usually the former. You would linger longer and so would Harry in each other’s rooms, lounging in each other’s embrace under the soft glow of the morning light peaking through whatever windows the room had. Today you were cold at his absence. Then you look up and realize you aren’t completely alone. Harry is standing at the end of your bed, staring down at his phone, smiling.

“Hey.”

You wait for his reply, but he doesn’t look up from his phone. “Hey, Harold,” you repeat. His head snaps up, a grimace on his face at the name. He slips his phone in his pocket and ruffles his hair. “Hey.” He finally responds. “I’m gonna head out.”

“Okay.”

Neither of you seem to find it necessary to talk about what happened last night. Harry definitely seemed a little off to you this morning, but you try to shake it from your thoughts. There was no reason to be upset with him being quiet. He didn’t owe you anything, you hadn’t even slept together last night, so if anything it was weird he stayed as long as he did.

It was the second night at the Forum in Los Angeles. This means no travelling necessary. No day off either, tomorrow you’d have a day off before the third and final show at the venue though.

Harry and you were talking normally at the venue, mostly about the setlist - him and Mitch had changed something for whatever reason last night, which was fine. Your banter was to a minimum, but you were trying to convince yourself that nothing was off. Even though it felt like something was different, you couldn’t place your finger on what it was, so you thought it was best to ignore it.

When Harry is about to go out on stage, you don’t pull him aside and when he introduces the members of the band to the audience, he doesn’t say anything fun or silly about you. He doesn’t wink or come up to you at any point in the performance. It’s so unusual the rest of your bandmates are giving you funny looks. Charlotte looks at you from across your keyboard in a way that she’s asking if you’re okay. You shake your head at everyone trying to signal that you’re fine.

Mitch goes over to Harry and whispers in his ear to check in with him, Harry looks at him with a bright smile on his face and says “of course, why wouldn’t I be?” Mitch looks between the pair of you, thinking back to last night and how weird the pair of you were being then. Maybe it dawns on him then what might be going on between the two of you, but if he did, he wouldn’t mention it for a long time.

You falter a bit on your back up vocals tonight. You’re trying to give it your all, like always, but for some reason your voice isn’t sounding the way you want it. About halfway through the show, when your voice comes out the exact opposite of how you would like, Harry finally gives you a second glance. His face practically emotionless, save for the single arched brow. He’s concerned, but not concerned enough where he would go over to you. He just doesn’t understand why you keep missing the right note tonight. You make a shake of your hand to say I don’t know either. He just shrugs and turns back around to continue the show, his lively smile returning while he turns his head.

After the show, Charlotte, Sarah, and you are all checking in, going over what had happened during the show in general. They’re both worried about your voice and you’re simply trying to tell them that it was just an off night. Nothing was wrong. As long as you told everyone else that, then it might turn out to be true.

“It’s fine, maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night,” you fib, having gotten more sleep last night than most other nights on this tour. They both nod, seeming to take that as a reasonable answer.

Then Charlotte gets quieter as she whispers to the three of you, “Did you guys notice anything weird with Harry? He was super lively, but he barely interacted with you, Y/N, which is so unlike him...”

Sarah nods while you look skeptically on. Sarah adds, “He kept looking up to the boxes, too. More than usual at least. I don’t know though…” She trails off and you cross your arms over your chest, not really enjoying the conversation topic. “I mean, what do you think, Y/N?” Sarah adds.

Your eyes dance between the two women, your fellow bandmates, your friends. You sometimes wished you could share with them what you were doing with Harry. The secret was fun, but it’s also nice to be able to share with your girlfriends about the guy you’re seeing, even if it is a casual thing. The friendly gossip of it all is something fun to share, but sadly that was another thing you couldn’t do. You sigh, “You never really know what’s going on in his mind, y’know. He’s just Harry.” Your response is half-assed at best. You figure they’ll both give you shit for the non-answer you just supplied, but instead someone else speaks for them.

“I am in fact, just Harry.” He says and you swivel around to find yourself almost chest to chest with him. Charlotte laughs while Sarah simply smiles. Your eyes are huge as you stare up at him and you hope your blush doesn’t come out too strongly after being caught talking about Harry by himself. “Enlighten me on when I was being ‘just Harry’ though?” You bite your lip and take a step back from him, forming more of a line with the other women. He shrugs when no one offers a response, laughing lightly.

“Oh and Y/N, I can’t talk about that thing again tonight, I’ve got-”

“A date?” Charlotte asks, trying to understand why Harry was acting a little different tonight still. The part that Sarah had mentioned about him looking up into the boxes had given her the idea that he might have plans with someone after the show. Harry scratches his head, his hair slightly wet with sweat right after the show. He’s taken off his coat so he’s just in the almost completely unbuttoned, sweat soaked shirt he had been wearing underneath. It sticks tight to his skin and you can make out all the muscle lines that hide beneath the fabric that you usually get to caress. Your eyes flit from his body back to his face when he speaks again.

“Erm, I wasn’t going to phrase it like that...but yes, I suppose, it’s a date.” He says finally, he avoids your eye contact and you look at him very confused, trying to hide the hurt. He shoves his hands in his pockets trying to look and sound as casual as possible and ignore the strain he sees on your face. Is that what had held him up yesterday? Making plans with someone else? And he hadn’t told you until now? The past twenty four hours stung a little bit more now that you knew why Harry was being so distant. It simply felt icky finding out this way and it didn’t even seem like he was going to tell you it was a date.

“Okay,” you say simply and walk away. You hear Charlotte asking him details about his date, but you try actively not to hear any of it. Sarah watches you walk away and sees the way you wrap your arms around yourself to comfort you. She feels a twinge of sadness as she watches the scene unfold, seeing something she hadn’t realized was there before.

Harry doesn’t text or call you that night. You hang out with everyone else for a little while in Charlotte’s room before heading to bed, saying you think you need an early night tonight. Before you’re able to walk out of the door, Mitch stops you. “I heard Harry blew off whatever conversation the two of you have been trying to have again. Just wanted to tell you I’m sorry.” You try to smile but it comes out as more of a grimace. There is no conversation Harry is blowing off, it’s simply you. “It’s fine. Like he said yesterday, it’s not important.” Mitch nods, but still looks at you with concern. What he had seen last night, then on stage today, and what Sarah had told him about your interaction after the show it all strung together in his mind. It didn’t seem unimportant at all. But he didn’t know how he could tell you that. He felt like he should talk to Harry about the way you looked when you left Charlotte’s room tonight, but he didn’t know how to bring it up to him either.

You don’t realize you’re crying until you're in the elevator, and it’s slowly rising to your floor of the hotel. You’re only one level up, but it feels like an eternity in there. You already weren’t a fan of elevators, but this ride felt impossibly worse. The walls are all made up of mirrors and you see yourself in the reflection, but you don’t exactly recognize the girl in there. Your eyes are tired from the show, dark circles already formed. Your hands are aching, clenching and unclenching on their own accord. Your body is slumped against the back wall, likely leaving a slight imprint from the smoke residue and dust on your clothes. Worst of all are the tears running down your face, smudging at your makeup, the black mascara you had applied dripping down in sinister raindrops against your skin. The sad girl stares back at you as you sniffle slightly, confused at what you’re seeing. “Why are you crying?” you ask yourself, your voice creaking and then breaking at the end as you struggle to get out the word ‘crying’ before a sob wracks through you. You roll your eyes when your reflection offers no explanation for itself. You laugh at your own patheticness and try to shake the feelings you’re experiencing.

Inside your room now, you flop on the bed and stare straight up at the ceiling. Your arms spread to your sides and your legs lay limply below you. You think about every night before last, every night since the tour started. Every night where you weren’t alone, where you were with Harry. Your mind flits to last night, how Harry’s lips had ghosted over your skin after his apology. How you had told him you forgave him and it had felt so peaceful, so simple. It was all so easy. Thinking about him and the things the two of you did together brought a smile to your face, unbeknownst to you. When you realize it’s there, your face drops immediately, deciding not to think about Harry.

But trying to not think about Harry makes you only think about him more and what you think about him now most definitely doesn’t bring a smile to your face. You’re thinking about him out on his date with some person you chose to learn nothing about. Maybe out of fear of what is happening right now. By knowing nothing about the person, you can’t compare yourself to them. Can’t see what’s different about them that would make Harry go out on a date with them. But it doesn’t matter who they are or what they look like because at the end of it all you know one thing for certain. They’re not you. You correct yourself, you know two things actually, because you also know that Harry chose to be with them instead of you tonight.

You fall asleep with tear stained cheeks that night and absolutely nothing positive on your mind. You want to sleep but know it only brings whatever is bound to happen tomorrow, which doesn’t seem very promising.

-

It’s noon when you wake up and you wake to a knocking on your door. You grumble and throw a sweatshirt over your body to hide the underwear you slept in. Not remembering your new habit, you swing the door open without any hesitation to find Harry. He looks wide awake and happy, the way he almost always looks, a fresh beautiful flower of a man. You look at him groggily, “What are you doing here?”

“You weren’t answering your phone.”

“Because I was asleep?” You tilt your head and look at him incredulously. “What about this,” you gesture to your appearance, “looks like I just went for a 3 mile jog for fun and I love the morning?”

“Can I come in?” He ignores everything you just said and enters the room when you leave the door to get back in bed. You often did that with him, you don’t know why, but when he asked to come in the room it was just simpler to let him in then say anything. He knew what you meant.

He sits at the edge of the bed as you reclaim your spot in the middle of it, tucked slightly under the covers, but still sitting up. “How was your date?” You try to sound nonchalant and it seems to work. Harry doesn’t notice your tense figure, but you notice how he tenses up when you ask.

“Good…Her name was-” You don’t let him finish, you already know the answer to this next question and you don’t need her name in order to ask it, “Did you fuck her?”

He’s silent, green eyes staring straight at you. You meet his gaze, your eyes almost burning holes into him. His eyes are begging you to not make him answer the question, he doesn’t want this to end, even if he also didn’t want the commitment he had felt himself exhibiting the other night.

When he had come to your room the other night after Mitch had almost caught you, he knew he shouldn’t have stayed. He didn’t want you to feel bad so he had come to apologize, but when the pair of you didn’t have sex, he should have left. But he didn’t, he stayed and it wasn’t for you, it was for himself. It was for him to hold you in his arms because he liked to. But when he woke up the next morning he knew he needed to leave. Solely cuddling wasn’t part of your arrangement together. It’s probably on the list of don'ts that the pair of you had. So after he realized the line he had willingly crossed with you, he quickly sent a text to Jeff who had tried to set him up with a model they were acquaintances with the night before - the reason he had gotten held up. Harry had initially declined, not very interested in seeing anyone else but you. But looking back on that choice in the light of day seemed to solidify what this relationship was - a relationship - and Harry didn’t like that. The commitment wasn’t part of the plan, so he told Jeff to set that date up for after the second show at the Forum and give the woman a ticket. That’s why he was smiling at his phone the morning after only cuddling with you, that’s why he didn’t joke around with you during the show, and that’s why he wasn’t in your bed last night.

You watch him expectantly, silently waiting for his answer, your veins cold as ice. He finally starts his answer and he wants to make it clear that it wasn’t as good with the other woman, but he’s not sure how to work that part in. He’s not sure how to explain to you it meant nothing if your arrangement also apparently meant nothing. You barely even let him get in a sentence. “Yes, but it was just a one time-”

“Alright.”

“What?” He doesn’t understand what you mean when you nod your head and cut him off.

“I told you at the beginning, Harry. Tell me when you sleep with someone else because when you do this is over. It doesn’t matter if she’s the love of your life or a one night stand. I will not be a backup plan, so if you’re able to find other people to sleep with, you don’t need to be sleeping with me.”

He sits in silence for a moment, his jaw dropped open slightly. He’s unable to keep it shut as his mind races about what to say. “Are you mad with me?”

“No, I’m fine. This was just sex. Charlotte will be happy that I’ll be going out with her more.”

Harry’s brow furrows as you shift away from him on the bed, grabbing your phone and beginning to flick through it. You feel numb and you’d like to not think about why.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asks because he does care about you, worry is written all over his face. He just can’t commit, not now.

“What would I be mad about, Harry?” You look up and your eyes widen at him, silently asking him to truthfully say why you should be so upset about this revelation. You always knew it would eventually come to an end, you just hadn’t expected so soon. You hadn’t known the last time would be the last time and it broke your heart even if you knew it shouldn’t.

He shifts to reach his hand out to touch your exposed knee. You move away from him and he sighs, looking exasperated. “I- I don’t know. It just seems like we should talk about this.”

“You didn’t even think it was necessary to tell me you were going on a date last night, so I think it’s best if we just left it at ‘it’s fine, see you around’.”

He spreads his hands out across the sheets, examining his rings and painted nails thoroughly. You’re right, he doesn’t really want to talk about this. Well, more so, he’s conflicted. He would like to talk enough that you want to continue your arrangement but he doesn’t want to talk about feelings or emotions. Even if he has those feelings and emotions, they’re just not part of the things he’d like to talk about. “But-” You set your phone down at his first word, “Were you even going to tell me you fucked someone else today if Charlotte hadn’t asked you if it was a date last night? Would you just have come to my room tonight and acted like nothing had changed?”

“I would have told you.”

“Sure.”

“I swear I would’ve. I would never break a promise to you.”

“But you would make a decision that affects the both of us without telling me until afterwards?” Your voice breaks a little and you beg yourself not to cry right now.

“I thought you said this was just sex?”

You laugh humorlessly, in disbelief, “Of course it’s not, Harry! And it hasn’t been for a long time and that’s why you got scared and went and fucked someone else.” He looks at you blankly, unsure what to say, knowing you’re right. You continue, “But I also told you at the beginning of this, that I wasn’t going to try to change you. So this is me not trying to change you.” You sigh when he still says nothing, his expression completely unreadable, even to you. “Why couldn’t you have left it at ‘it’s fine’?” You say finally, barely above a whisper.

He blinks a few times after your final question. He flexes his hand one more time and then stands up from the bed. He adjusts his clothes and stares at you. You feel helpless, but you’re still trying to look pulled together, even after your outburst. You stare back. A thousand words floating through your heads, all the things you want to say and likely never will.

“I know, I’m…” he pauses, trying to get himself to say it, but he can’t. He can’t admit that he’s completely ruined whatever messed up paradise you had created together. “I’ll see you later.”

The apology or lack there of hangs in the air as he walks silently out your door. You don’t move, you barely even blink, still staring at the spot he had just occupied. Your breath finally escapes you, a large sigh. Then some nervous laughter. It was over...just like that. But things like this, left like this are never really over.

-

It’s awkward for a good amount of the rest of the tour. You hang out with your bandmates more and Harry rarely ever comes out with them after the shows. He either hangs out with Mitch on his own or is going out with random people he knows on the road. You and him speak, but it’s never a lot or about anything relatively meaningful. It’s not the fun back and forth of before or the fiery heat of sneaking around. You try to be normal with him, act like his casual friend and bandmate.

He does his best to do the same, but it’s difficult for him. He doesn’t know how to talk to you anymore. He misses being with you, but can’t bring himself to fix it. He doesn’t do much to right his wrongs with you. He also doesn’t even know what he would want if he did apologize. It scared him to think about the step that came after ‘sorry’ so he saved himself the trouble and never did that part either. One night he texts you: “I’m trying, it’s just hard.” and that’s it. You don’t give him a response, he doesn’t need one. You know he’s trying and he knows you know.

Near the end of the tour, he comes out with the rest of you for drinks one night. Only Mitch is between the two of you in the booth, so you feel closer to Harry than you’ve felt in a long time. The group of you are chatting and having a good time. You somehow get onto a story from when you were still in college. You explain how you had narrowly avoided getting Chlamydia right before your Christmas break junior year. You act out the conversations you imagined would have happened at all your Christmas events if you had indeed gotten it. Your impressions of your mother, father, and sister have everyone laughing the most. Harry is shaking with laughter from your story and you smile at him in appreciation when he says, “That is the funniest story I’ve heard in a long fucking time.”

The rest of the night goes really well, for the most part. No one bickers or is short with each other. Everyone is laughing and drinks are flowing. Eventually Mitch gets up to go to the bathroom and you feel Harry slide back into the booth closer to you after letting Mitch out. Your hand had taken up residence next to your thigh, resting on the vinyl of the booth. You sense something next to it now and notice Harry’s hand is resting close beside it. He shifts his hand closer when he sees that you’re looking down at it. He’s almost touching you and you look up to his eyes, wondering if he’ll close the distance. He makes an imperceptible shake of his head, but you know what he means. As you’re about to shift your hand so that your pinky connects with his, Mitch returns and your head shoots up to his figure. You instantly remove your hand from the vinyl and shift closer to Charlotte. Harry gets up, but doesn’t sit back down once Mitch is settled. He instead walks off to get another drink, risking one last look at the table where he makes eye contact with you, but he doesn’t come back. Mitch informs everyone that Harry went back to the hotel because “he was tired” after Harry doesn’t return and Mitch gets a text. You roll your eyes, sure that you saw him slip out of the side door with a woman he found at the bar after he had gotten his drink. If that’s what ‘tired’ looked like on Harry, it was fine.

You start to speak to Harry on a more regular basis after that night out. It’s not funny or lighthearted. It’s just ‘I saw this song the other day, thought you might like to listen’. It went back and forth, it wasn’t everyday but it was something. The last text between the two of you before you began sharing songs again was his ‘I’m trying it’s just hard’ text that he had sent randomly one night. Then after one of you would listen, you would see each other at sound check and mention the song and what you thought about it. It can be noted that it was Harry who sent the first song.

For Harryween, Adam couldn’t be there. He has some family emergency the day of and doesn’t come with the rest of you to Madison Square Garden or the hotel you were staying at. Thankfully, Charlotte also plays keys and you can play bass. The band had to shift around some things on stage and make minimal changes to the setlist since you weren’t rehearsed on the covers Harry was doing. You spent the whole day running through the chords of those songs with Mitch, trying to memorize them so you didn’t mess it up during the show.

It was weird because for Harryween the setlist was switched up a little from the regular set for Love On Tour. Harry was playing the entire new album as well as half of the first album, Medicine, some of his other unreleased stuff, and about six covers, including old One Direction songs. It was going to be a long show and a challenge for you.

Before the show, Harry pulls you aside, to a dark corner backstage, and your mind flits back to the last time you had been in this type of position. The last time he had called you ‘love’, the last time you bit his earlobe - which always drove him crazy, the last time he ground his hips against yours, those and more and you had no idea that it was the last. By then you had already had sex with Harry for the last time, kissed his lips for the last time. It made your heart race to be so close to him and so alone once again. But it’s nowhere near the same as it once was. You shake the memories from your mind and look up expectantly at him.

“Have you got this?” He asks seriously, tone concerned. Of course it’s a music question, nothing more. Like it always was now.

“Yeah, of course.” His stare is unwavering and you try not to falter from it.

“I can get someone else to cover tomorrow, it was just such a short notice today. You know bass really well too, it made sense.”

“I’ve got this. Seriously, don’t worry, Harold.” You pat his chest lightly and for once Harry smiles at the sound of your nickname for him. You had stopped using it after the end of your arrangement. It never felt right to use when you were talking about music, and that was about the only time you had been talking. In this moment though, it felt right. His warm, large hands held your upper arms as you stared up into his big eyes. You missed staring into them, the shimmering emerald of his irises were constantly intriguing. You instinctively reach up to move back a curl that has fallen onto his forehead. He doesn’t shy away from your touch and continues to smile down at you.

“Y’haven’t called me that in forever.” He grins, his lips a shiny pink from the lip balm he had on.

“No, I suppose I haven’t. But where was the groan? The whole point is to annoy you.” You smile coyly. He tips his head back and laughs, releasing your arms from his grasp as he laughs wholeheartedly.

Then he does a soft groan, a playful sound, “How was that?”

“Eh. I’ll give you a four out of ten. Not enough emotion behind it.” You slide from the area the two of you have been occupying and make your way onto the stage to start dealing with the bass you would be playing. You hear Harry call out to you, “I think I deserve at least a five, maybe even a six!” You turn back for a second to look at him with an unimpressed expression and shake your head no. He laughs again and you hear him even when you walk out onto the stage. You smile to yourself as you pick up the bass.

When he introduces the band, he waits to talk about you last. “And sadly this evening Mr. Adam Prentergest, our usual fabulous bassist, was unable to attend our fancy dress party! However! Our lovely Y/N L/N is also a superb bassist and was kind enough to step into his place. - Anything to add?” He saunters across the stage to you and you laugh kindly, feeling at ease in this part of the stage even though you were usually on the opposite side and further back from the crowd. You nod at Harry and he leans his portable mic towards your lips. You wet them quickly and eye Harry before turning out to the crowd. “Just please go easy on me if the bass sounds a bit wonky. It wasn’t on the job description that I’d be playing songs I didn’t know, with a few hours notice, on not my main instrument.” You say this in a kind of list format, holding up your fingers as you tick off all the ways that this was out of your comfort zone. You scratch your head dramatically after you’re finished and the whole crowd laughs and cheers. The rest of your bandmates chuckle along and Harry nods and smiles at you.

“You’ll do great, love.” He leans into your ear and says without the microphone. Then he winks and turns to go back to the center of the stage. You press your lips together to contain your smile, both happy and concerned about the flip your stomach just did.  

The show is going great. Harry is killing it with the crowd. Everything is electric. You’re entirely focussed on your bass playing, but Harry has been coming over every so often to do something fun or have you tell a joke.

“She’s truly the funniest person I know! And I know a fair amount of people I think.” Harry says as he walks over to you have you tell another joke. Mitch has been looking at you and Harry interacting all night and he’s sure that it isn’t your different position that has him coming over and talking to you so much tonight. Something has definitely changed once again. First the pair of you were always together and having fun, then it was silence and stolen glances that neither of you realized you were taking, now it was back to the beginning.

“That’s because you think puns are part of the top tier levels of comedy.” You say easily, “Here, I can guarantee Harry will love this and the rest of you will likely groan.” Then you stop and act as if you’re thinking for a little, everyone’s waiting expectantly. “Sorry, thinking...Well, I’ve got some skeleton puns I could do, they’re very humerus or y’know classic vampire ones..eh but those ones kind of suck. What do you think, Harry?” You look out at the crowd, face deadpan, as Harry laughs beside you. You roll your eyes playfully and push him back to the center of the stage. Leaning into your own mic now, you say, “I told you.” That’s when everyone laughs. Harry throws another look at you over his shoulder and laughs a little more, his smile wide and eyes bright.

A little over half way through the night, it’s time for ‘to be so lonely’. You already knew the bass chords for it before today and you were confident in yourself by now. It wasn’t as hard a song so you were happy for the little break. This song allowed you to not be looking down at the notes you had stuck to the floor in front of you. Harry’s voice comes in after Mitch’s intro and you watch the way his lips move against his mic. You laugh a little as you watch the crowd yell the first “arrogant son of a bitch” line. You used to not particularly like when people did that, but after it had ended with Harry you had started to enjoy it a bit more. Having those people yell the words you couldn’t, but truly felt about him sometimes, was cathartic. Tonight you weren’t angry with him, but you enjoyed the energy in the room when everyone said it. We’ve all got our own ‘arrogant son of a bitch’ that we want to scream at sometimes. Tonight yours wasn’t Harry for the first time in a long time. The song moves along and Harry takes the microphone off its stand, he walks towards your side of the stage. When the lyrics get to:

“I miss the shape of your lips, your wit, it’s just a trick, this is it so I’m sorry”

Harry isn’t looking at the crowd, he’s looking straight at you. You don’t understand the way he’s looking at you. Or maybe you don’t want to understand it. This song, its lyrics, explains Harry really well. You saw the relationship you had with him in the words. Maybe not precisely, but a part of it was in it. Harry had unknowingly foretold your lives with his words. You know he has trouble connecting and committing, you know his issues, and you accept them. But you knew what had happened between the two of you was far more serious than meaningless sex and you knew Harry couldn’t bring himself to be that serious. He ran off and that was fine, but the face that he couldn’t even apologize hurt you the most. But the song lays it all out for you, he’s not one to be able to apologize quickly. The fact that he looks at you and means the apology he sings in the song for you, it’s a big step, but it’s not enough. The banter, the technical apology, it was all a good start, but it’s just that - the beginning. If Harry wants to make things better with you, a lot more needs to be discussed. So when you sing backing vocals for the following chorus you mean the words for Harry completely.

“Don’t call me baby again, you got your reasons, I know that you’re trying to be friends. I know you mean it, but don’t call me baby again it’s hard for me to go home and be so lonely”

His eyes flick to you again and see your lips moving around the words as you play the bass. He sees the emotion in your face and understands what you’re saying. It’s hard for you to go to your room at night and be alone while he’s out with someone else. It’s hard for him to act like everything’s all fine and perfect, back to normal, because for you it isn’t really. He can’t call you ‘love’ and tell the world you’re funny and expect it to be enough. He can’t sing his sorry that was initially for someone else to you and expect you to accept it. And he knows it, too.

After the show everyone decides they’re exhausted and need to rest before tomorrow. You all planned to celebrate the whole day and you knew it was going to be a wicked Halloween. Knowing this, you’re surprised with the knock on your door after about an hour of being back at the hotel. You’ve given up the habit you had once hoped to cultivate and swing the door open haplessly. Truly having no idea who to expect, you are still surprised to find the man standing before you.

“Mitch.”

“We need to talk.” He stares down at you, his shoulders slumped from tiredness.

“Come in,” you usher him in when you hear the urgency of his voice. He saunters in before you and you close the door. You move to the small couch in the room and sit down. Your hands gesture for him to sit as well, but he shakes his head. He stays standing and brings a hand up to smooth his hair back on the right side. His eyes staying on the floor and flickering up to you every so often.

“What is going on with you and Harry?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh come on Y/N. You’re seemingly best friends with him for a good portion of tour, then you’re barely on speaking terms for the second half, now you’re joking around again. What is going on?”

You sit there in a stunned silence, “I don’t know what to say.” Your arms go to hug your body, feeling anxious about being confronted about this topic.

“Were you seeing each other?” His voice is soft, eyes taking in your body language and knowing it’s a difficult topic.

“I wouldn’t put it like that…”

He holds back the ‘I knew it’ statement because of  how sullen you look, b..ut in his mind all of the pieces he had watched unfold came to fit in a perfect puzzle. He decides to sit beside you when you don’t say anything else.

“We were having sex,” it felt weird to say it out loud, no one but you and Harry had actually known, “But it ended. I don’t know what today was...but it felt different than how it’s been.”

“Why are you so sad if it was just sex?” He places a hand on your shoulder and your tear-filled eyes meet his. “Oh…” He knows why.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” You sob at his apology because he’s not the one who should be at your door apologizing. You sniffle and lean your head into his chest. He takes you into his arms and holds you as your cries become muffled sounds in his shirt.

You cry without words for a few minutes, Mitch coos some soothing words, his voice soft and kind. He was always a good shoulder to cry on for all of your bandmates, he was extremely strong and you made a mental note to thank him thoroughly when you actually were capable of forming coherent thoughts. “I’ve never told anyone before. It feels so weird even saying it out loud,” you say as you pull back from Mitch’s embrace. You're thankful his shirt is black, no tear stains can be made out.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks gently, gauging your reaction. You wipe at your eyes and nod.

Taking a deep breath, you decide to start from the beginning. “Do you remember the party Charlotte had a week before we left for tour?”

Mitch nods and his eyes widen at what you’re saying as he remembers the night. “It started back then?” He’s unable to contain his incredulous question. He had suspected something, but hadn’t thought it had been going on for that long. He was truly astounded. You nod, “Well sort of,” then you go on to recount the last couple of months. All the way up until the Forum shows. “That night, when I opened Harry’s door and it was you standing there...Harry and I didn’t have anything to discuss. It was just…” Mitch nods again. He hadn’t spoken much since you had gotten into the story, wanting to let you be in charge of what you were saying and believing he could probably ask questions at the end. “Then the next night he blew me off for his date with that model and I cried in the elevator because I knew what was going to happen next.”

“So that’s when it ended?” Mitch asks when you don’t speak for a rather extended period of time.

“Yeah, the next morning he came over and I asked if they had sex and he said yes so I told him it was over.”

“But I don’t get why he went out with that model. He had told me she wasn’t his type the night before…” Your eyes shot up and looked at Mitch. His eyes widened when he realized what he said.

“What?”

“When we were talking about Canyon Moon, he mentioned that Jeff had tried to set him up with some woman but he had declined. Said he wasn’t interested. I don’t get what changed between then and the next morning.” He figured it was best to put all the cards out on the table right now. You’d be going your separate ways for a while, now that the tour was over and he had seen how unhappy both you and Harry had been over the last part of the tour.

You shift your leg to have it folded beneath you as you continue to stare at Mitch. “He came over after you and him had your meeting,”  you say quietly. Mitch hums, waiting for you to continue this time.

“He apologized for choosing you over me to talk to. Then we slept together, but we didn’t have sex...I think that’s what wigged him. It had felt too real, sleeping in the same bed with me without having sex beforehand made it feel like something more than just two people fulfilling needs.” Mitch nods and sighs heavily. He looks around the room and then back to you, taking in your full appearance. Again he feels terrible for you, how he had felt the second night at the Forum even though he hadn’t known the full story yet. “Now we’re here.”

“Tonight, it felt like he was trying,” Mitch finally said and you smiled sweetly, thinking back to Harry’s behavior. No matter how far from him you were, all those good feelings you associated with him never went away.

“Yeah, it’s been getting better. He texted me once saying he was trying. Then he came out with us one night and it almost seemed like that would be the night he’d apologize, but then he didn’t. Then we started sharing music with each other again. Then tonight… was tonight. It’s just confusing. He’s confusing.”

Mitch smiles sadly and brings you in for another hug and you’re actually so thankful he

showed up at your door. It was your first time telling anyone all of this, because Harry didn’t even know how you felt about some of these things. It felt amazing to be heard and to be told it was okay to be feeling like this.

Pulling back, Mitch says, “He’s definitely different. But his differences are what make him special and that’s why I think he clings to them even if they sometimes can hurt other people. The fact that he’s trying is a good sign. I hope he can find it in himself to make it right between you two because I had never seen either of you happier than when you were apparently together. Especially those few weeks leading up to Los Angeles. Sarah had kept asking me why Harry was so smiley back then. When I had asked him, he had just said “have you ever found something and realized you wanted to keep it with you forever?” I had no idea what he had meant, but I feel like he meant you now.”

Your awestruck at what Mitch has just told you. He was right about the first part about Harry trying to change, but the last bit, that’s what had left you speechless. You turn your body to face the rest of the room and put your chin against your hand as you think.

“Mitch...I have to go.”

He understands what you mean and you walk out of the door with him. He walks down the hall to his room and you walk quickly past the elevator and opt for the stairs. Before you know it you’re running up the stairs, taking two at a time even though you’re not the most athletically inclined. You can’t stand to wait for the elevator and your mind is racing.

You knock on the door that is Harry’s after reaching his floor. It swings open and reveals a confused and sleepy Harry. Thankfully he’s still fully dressed because that would have been a whole other problem you would have if he hadn’t been. You push past him and walk straight into his room without any invitation. He follows behind you, still unsure of why you’ve come here.

“Have you ever found something and realized you want to keep it forever?” You ask him, repeating the words Mitch had just told you.

“Pardon?”

“You told Mitch that about me before we ended things. If that’s how you felt, why didn’t you do what you said?”

Harry sighs as the words register in his mind. The memory of when he had smiled at Mitch so giddily and asked the vague question, his thoughts only of you as he asked it. The shit-eating grin he had plastered on his face after Mitch had looked at him confusedly flitted across his mind. As well as the way he had gone to his dressing room and had a quickie with you after that conversation.

“It’s not that simple…”

“It is, Harry! Why can’t you just be honest with me for once?”

“Okay, fine. You want me to be honest?” you nod at his harsh tone. The two of you standing only a few feet apart. “You have no goddamn idea what you do to me, when I’m around you, I have no control of my emotions or of my thoughts. I pushed you away because I didn’t like feeling out of control. I got out because what had started as a fun time had turned into me longing to be with you every waking hour. I found myself not caring what we did as long as I got to hold you and be around you, but that wasn’t part of the plan.”

“Plans can change, Harry.”

You step closer to him and he meets your eyes. He had left his music playing softly on his phone before he had opened the door so now as the two of you stared at each other, he must have been playing his Etta James playlist because her voice faded out of the song “I’d Rather Go Blind” and straight into “A Sunday Kind of Love”. Harry had shared her At Last album with you over the Christmas holiday of last year and you had decided to listen to her entire discography afterwards, so you knew the songs. The transition was a little too on the nose and you wondered if Spotify ever listened to your conversations.

His emerald eyes examine your face and take inventory of your features, measuring whether anything had changed since he had looked at you this close up. Your hand goes up to cup his cheek and he nuzzles into it, dropping his head closer to you ever so slightly and closing his eyes at the feeling of you.

“I am sorry,” he whispers earnestly as he reopens his eyes.

You can’t take your eyes off of him even if you tried. He looks so soft in the moment, so vulnerable in this light as the music swells in the corner of the room. Etta sings about how she needs a love that is going to last as the pair of you inch yourselves closer together.

“I forgive you, Harry,” you whisper back.

He nudges his head further down and your lips finally press together, slotting back together after months apart. Your lips are eager to press back against their favorite companion. You oblige them, but pull back for a second, just far enough to say, “I will always forgive you, so long as you tell me when you’re scared so we can work through it together.”

He nods, “I promise to never let you go again.” Before taking you back against his lips and gathering your body up in his arms. His lips missing yours just as much.

-

[symphonyofthewrite]

Saw your post, getting stuff off your chest, I just wanted to say that I haven't seen the thing with the kids mentioned by anyone and it really stood out to me, I feel what you mean to some extent, because for me it was a stronger reaction, albeit you probably won't feel the same and that's, obviously, perfectly fine. I have an instant recoil these days whenever a character is around kids for like one second and everyone instantly goes "THEY LITERALLY ADOPTED THEM/THAT'S THEIR CHILD/THEY'RE A PARENT"... genuinely sick of it, and I went white as a sheet when I heard it, I wanted to pluck my eyes out. I don't know if it's an American thing but English speaking fandoms (well, those teeming with fancops that is) seem like they cannot process adult looking characters being in any near proximity to childlike characters without automatically imposing parenthood and family dynamics and it's becoming distressing to me. I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me.

Thank you so much for the ask!! I don’t get many asks so it makes me happy when I can talk meta with people 💛💛 (Sorry I’m a bit late in answering.)

Funnily enough I actually do agree with you. I didn’t have quite so strong a reaction, but I definitely had a very similar one when I first hear it.

My feelings were and are a bit mixed. I was saying in my other post that I would have preferred that I got to actually see this interaction; see the kids run by him and call him father, and him smile when no ones looking. I still think that would have been a better, more touching way to do the scene, and would have had more chance of me liking it (though I probably still would have felt very weird about it). (I think it especially would have been better because it would show that Alucard himself liked it, not that Greta was forcing the role on him.) I know that it was meant to be something touching, and pretty much everyone seems to like it (and I have seen some cute posts about it), so I just tried to like it too, and focus on the fact that all they were really trying to say was he was having a nice relationship with the kids, and that was indeed sweet.

But yeah, when I heard Greta say “I heard some of them calling you father” for me it was less a reaction of horror, and more a “HUH??!!”moment. When I heard it I was like “Alucard...you agree with this???!! This is how you see yourself??!!” I almost expected Alucard to refute it and say he didn’t see himself as a father to them. Like I seriously do not see Alucard as anything remotely close to a father figure, and it felt weird and wrong to me.

Like when I saw him interacting with the kids the first time, I didn’t think “oh he’s a father figure to them.” I just thought “yay, Alucard’s playing with some kids, and getting out of his bubble!!” I didn’t have any thoughts as to what his relationship role was with them, I just thought that first interaction was lovely.

And if I saw him interacting with the kids again, I still wouldn’t go “father figure” I’d just be like “yay, Alucard’s playing with the kids again, how sweet!!”

Sometimes the relationship doesn’t need a role or a label, ya know?

And I thought it was especially strange because…he literally just met them?? Like how can they possibly start calling him father when he’s played with them once or twice? Regardless of Alucard’s side or things, what group of kids would randomly call a nice man they just met ‘father’? Is...Is this a normal thing??

Anyways, back to Alucard’s side of things, Sypha’s line about Alucard being a teenager trapped an adults body has always been something that stuck with me and shaped how I view Alucard. I definitely view him as internally much younger than he looks. No matter how much I might hate them for what they did to him, I think Sumi and Take are about the age he actually is, and their relationship with him made sense to me. He’s still a kid—or at least young—he still needs his parents in his life, really. (That’s part of why I didn’t like that Drac and Lisa don’t go to him at the end. I personally don’t think Alucard really got closure, and in my mind I think he still very much needed them, and that would have been the perfect ending to his story in my mind, where everything comes full circle; He was forced to lose his parents and grow up too early, and only when he’s started to truly grow up does he get them back.) So yeah, I really don’t see him like a father at all. One of my main focuses in my Castlevania fanfiction is his relationship with Dracula, so I very much see him as the son, not as the dad, even when Drac isn’t around.

(Sidenote, come to think of it, I think this is another reason why Greta x Alucard is a nope from me. She’s very much an adult, so I just see a discrepancy between them that makes me feel weird about them being in a romantic relationship. If we need a label I feel like she fits as an older sister for him, guiding him and giving him support. Him unloading all his problems on her within just meeting her makes more sense if he’s like a younger brother who needs to cry to his sister. I felt weird about it in a romantic context when it was so fast. I mean I know he was desperate to talk to someone, and I probably would have done the same, but still).

“I feel like Alucard needed to process his trauma and learn to trust and be whole again, he's young himself too, why he needed to be a "father figure" all of a sudden is beyond me”

^^ THIS. EXACTLY THIS.

I was honestly really hoping they’d go in depth into him dealing with his trauma, and how he’s still hurting from the wounds of it, and how he needs to heal. I thought that’s what his S4 arc would be about. I don’t think they gave him the chance to really process and work through everything that happened. (Again, I don’t think him just unloading all his problems on a nice stranger is truly working through his trauma. I would have much rather watched him struggle to trust her, and him telling her about his trauma happen later, and be difficult for him, and a deep, heartfelt moment).

Like I was saying in my other post, I think if they framed his arc in how he dealt with the town collectively, I think that would have fit better, and been more touching and satisfying. I would have liked to see him struggling to trust humans, and then see as time progressed how several different people in the town liked him and meant him no harm, and how he realized he could trust them, and that he liked them too. It wasn’t that he had a bad romantic partner and needed a new one. He believed he needed to be punished for killing his father, and in his deep loneliness he let these kids into his house and heart, and they turned on him because he was half vampire. That’s something pretty deeply ingrained, and not something a new romance just fixes by existing. He needed to work through that in a much deeper way.

I know this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion, and it's totally cool if you disagree, but in a weird way... I sort of disliked Alucard’s ending. Don’t get me wrong, Im glad he’s happy, and I’d certainly prefer it to him just getting more trauma like last season (*shudders*), and I don’t think him opening up his castle (and his heart) to humanity is a bad way to end his story, certainly not. I think that fits. And my heart did melt a bit at the "I'm weirdly happy" scene. But, where everyone else is like “*sobbing* happy endings for all our faves” ...I see the creators of the show trying to wrap everything up in a neat little bow, and while that’s certainly not all bad, I don’t love every aspect of that. Theres a time and place for that, but a show based on video games, for which there’s more content in these storylines isn’t one of them in my mind.

Sometimes some of the sadness needs to linger. At the very least, let it linger at the beginning of the season so you can work through it in a powerful way, you know? It may have been tough to see Alucard be more closed off, but I think it would have been more satisfying to see him open up his heart and go back to his old self if we saw his trauma leave lingering effects at the beginning.

To me it didn’t feel like a satisfying arc, it felt like the fairytale ending of “oh look he’s not apprehensive about humanity even after what happened! Oh look he got the girl! And the Castle’s a happy place now! Look he’s not sad anymore! He’s even a father figure to these kids! He’s totally moved on!” And all those things can be awesome when done properly, and when they have depth to them. But they didn’t work through the trauma to get there, so it felt surface level to me, and too fast. I really liked that first episode, and how we saw the two sides of him—one that's become more closed off, and the other that still buries the human despite his comments—and I also really liked the first interaction with the kids, and thought that was one of the few interactions that had depth to it and fit with his arc well. Having it go beyond “they’re helping him learn to like and trust humanity again, and displaying who he really is inside” ended up detracting from the power of his relationship with them in my mind.

Having played SOTN, I think an ingrained loneliness and sadness are, in a way, a key part of Alucard’s character. That sounds really sad and awful out loud but…there are some people that just have a sadness or a loneliness to them, and that's not entirely bad. Here’s the thing…it can make them that much more beautiful. The fact that they still fight for good, even when they see all the dark, those moments when they find true friends, despite how alone they are, those moments when they are happy, are so much more powerful. They just are always a bit…separate from other people. One of my favorite lines in anything is the line "We are connected by our darkness, not by our light" in Pandora Hearts. I think it's a line that fits Alucard well, and it’s always something that’s drawn me personally to him. Don't get me wrong, I don’t think Alucard’s all dark and sad and lonely, he’s definitely got a bright side to him too, of course he does. But I also don't think he ever is able to fully accept the vampire side of himself, and I find that interesting, and worth exploring. Personally I was honestly hoping for the show makers to come up with a bittersweet reason for why he went to sleep for 300 years, (and I thought that's why they set things up with Sumi and Taka that he’d have something against his vampire nature). Personally it felt like they were trying to say “oh he’s all better now, he’ll never be sad or lonely again” and while that’s nice I suppose…for me it sort of…stops feeling like Alucard, in a way? I don't know if I'm explaining it right, or if that sounds terrible...😅

Anyways, back to the topic at hand. I do agree that’s very common of fandom that people are like “boom! Just add water! Instant father figure!” and I don’t love it either. Sometimes it can be cute if it truly fits, but it doesn’t fit every relationship between an adult-looking character and a kid character, and shouldn't be the first place people go to. In the same way every relationship doesn’t have to be romantic, not every relationship has to be parental/familial either. Sometimes it feels like fandom culture isn't really okay to have some characters just be good friends. A good friendship can be more wonderful than a romance sometimes.

If we have to put a label on it, I think he seemed like a nice older brother figure to them? I think that fits who he is in my mind. But father? Nope. Not for me. And again, I don’t think it needs a label.

Thanks again for sending me this ask!! It was nice to get the chance to work through some more of my feelings here too. Sorry if I went too overboard. And I hope I don’t sound too terribly negative, it really was a great season, and I definitely liked some parts of his arc, just not all of it.

If you or anyone else reading would like to discuss with me more, be my guest!! 💕

[diavolosthots]

I wan anything you feel like writing. Fluff, angst, death, anything. As long as it’s Lucifer please

I really want to write some sad, heartaching fics. So theres that. Mightve used this outline from an old fic of mine but ssshhh

Warning: Heartache, cheating, mentions of alcohol

Gone ( LUCIFER X GN!READER )

They say that the first few months of a relationship are the happiest because the two people in it are in their honeymoon phase and fail to see any flaws. They ignore any red flags and any wrong doings from their partner. Instead, they lay in each others arms and talk about the future like it isnt the most uncertain thing in the world and ages away. They talk about how much their hearts swell in each other's presence and the kind of happiness they give one another. How much they could kiss each other's lips for hours on end and how their hands fit together like theyre meant to be. There's always that air of uncertainty when someone flirts with the other and an air of puppy love thats surely to never leave their heads. Lucifer felt just that with you; this seemingly never ending honeymoon phase that brought stars to your eyes and love to your soul. 

He's embarrassed by it, really. How much you swoon him and make him feel weak at his very core. Of course, he would never admit that. Not openly, but you can see it. You see it in the gentleness that overcomes him.

He remembers the subtle touches and the soft flirty phrases whispered in each other's ears at the beginning, and the lifelong adventures that you guys seemed to go on. From walking on the beach in the middle of the night, chasing each other in the sand like little children, to rainy afternoons when you guys went to get coffee and you forgot your umbrella; a cliché movie scene he will make sure to seal with a kiss. His brain floods with images of annoying his brothers and releasing a light chuckle at Satan's angry face when a bag of flour got poured over him by Beelzebub, or when you turned to 'accidentally' washing Asmodeus' sparkling white pants that he bought for a special occasion with a bright red t-shirt right before the very important event he had to go to. You made him laugh so many times; relaxed him so many times. Although he has a hard time admitting it.

But he also remembers the soft first kiss that finally broke through both of you guys' feelings, how flushed your cheeks were and how warm you hand felt in his hand. 

Most importantly, he remembers how you made him feel. The warmth and love he craved for so long came flooding into him like a tsunami every time he was around you, every time you touched. How your laugh rang in his ears and how his shirt caught all your tears. How he was always there for you because he felt like that is the least he could do after you gave him not just your love, but your time and patience. Yet it seemed like it was never enough and this time he was the one crying. 

Lucifer was angry. He felt betrayed. Used. Dirty. But most importantly he felt hopeless. He made a decision a long time ago; that you were the one he was going to keep by his side. That you'd be the one to stand by him for the rest of your life. That he was the one to keep bringing a smile to your face. He would be the one to get your heart beating and your cheeky flushing. Lucifer would make sure that you're taken care of, in every sense of the way. That he would be your knight in shining armor, your angel in disguise, no matter the challenges you guys might face. But how could he still be all that? 

To see you, in a sea of rose petals and candles, looking as beautiful as ever, with another demon, crushed him. He simply had gone to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate, because he was so sure that you'd say yes, so sure that you'd be the one to keep making him happy like this, so sure you were the one that he wanted to keep loving for the rest of his life. 

Seeing another one balls deep inside you, giving you the pleasure that Lucifer thought only he could give you,.... It crushed him…. But he didn't fall to his knees. No. He wouldnt give you the satisfaction of seeing him like that. Instead, he threw the champagne bottle at the wall, barely missing both of you and your apparent new lovers' heads, which were now turned in shock to look at him. He saw your lips moving, forming apologetic words, but he didn't hear them. He couldnt hear them. 

Lucifer stormed out of the room that night, the diamond ring thrown at your face and long forgotten. He ran through the storm filled night that so much represented his feelings. Did Diavolo knew, he wondered? Was he aware of the feelings he felt? The feelings of anger�� of sorrow… and heartbreak. 

He went back to that liquor store where he retrieved the bottle of champagne… his new best friend, and bought himself several bottles of different things; vodka, rum, red wine, white wine, tequila, bourbon… anything he could get his hands on. Some liquids entered his body, some bottles were thrown at his walls with tear filled eyes and desperate screams, finally and for once, letting his emotions take control. He was gripping his hair, knowing if he pulled just a little harder he'd pull himself apart. Bruises covered his knuckles from where he hit the walls and broken glass bottles, clothes were in disarray on the floor, his life was a mess. 

How could someone that he trusted, that he oh so much loved, do this to him? How could someone break his heart into these tiny pieces and stomp on them like it was nothing? Was this payback for all the pain he, himself, caused? The irony almost made him laugh, made him drown himself in another couple bottles. 

Days passed, weeks went by. Lucifer has barely slept; kept himself awake and numb on hundreds of different alcohol bottles. His living space was unrecognizable. Walls were stained with various glass, liquids, and blood. Picture frame were broken. His voice was gone from all the screaming and crying. Succubi left his room on the regular. Diavolo was worried. Even his family attempted to reach out to him to no avail. No one has seen him or heard of him. And he cant say he will ever step into the light again, because the Lucifer you came to know and love was gone again, back to his former self. A faint picture of the past. 

A picture you took with you the night you decided to break him. 

[thechangeling]

Eutony in a whisper

Genderbent kitty!!!! Thank you so much to El for letting me use her username.

Tiberia Blackthorn had grown up constantly having her boundaries violated to the point where she was trained to expect it. Right from a very young age people were always demanding things of her and her body. Telling her to hug people, be polite, make eye contact, eat your dinner without complaining, no matter how terrible the sensation of cooked vegetables is. Be nice. Put on a smile.

So Ty adapted, she learned to control herself in public and suppress her urges. The urge to move her hands, and tap and spin around or rock back and forth. She still did those things sometimes, but less so, and never in public. Ty had the tendency to be quite blunt and harsh with people, and her parents were absolutely not a fan. In fact most people weren't.

"You're so aggressive," was the comment she got the most. Right along with, "act like a lady!" Which wasn't fair because she was usually right in these situations. She was only being honest, but everyone seemed so afraid of the truth. So utterly unwilling to listen to anything she had to say.

After awhile she had just gotten used to it. So when people came to take things from her, she let it happen. Because it was polite. And when people touched her she let it happen because that's what she was supposed to do. Livvy tried to help Ty with boundries. Tried to teach her how to say no when men put their hands all over her. But Ty was so used to always having to say yes. And she didnt want to be rude.

So after years of, "you have to" and, "you'll get used to it," when Katherine (Kit) Herondale came blazing into her life and told her with such an easy going sincerity that she didn't have to do anything she didn't want to. Ty had honestly felt like she could cry.

Fast forward four years and they were in Kit's bedroom at Ciernworth and her 19th birthday had just passed. Kit was trying to master her first heir powers with no luck. Tessa had told her to try and focus on something that might work as a catalyst for her powers. Usually it had to be something that would trigger strong emotions, but nothing was working.

"I give up," Kit cried out, flopping back onto her giant bed, her blond curls spilling out around her. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. "I'm hopeless. There's no point." Ty fought the urge to reach for her. To stroke her hair, or touch that small sliver of bare skin on Kit's stomach from where her shirt was riding up.

"Don't say that!" Ty protested. "You've done it before remember?" Kit gave her a solemn look and Ty thought of the events that had taken place before Kit had made the riders disappear.

But things were different now. They had made up, and now they were dating. But the wounds would probably always be there.

Ty decided to reach over and touch Kit's face slightly. Instantly she stopped tensing up. "It'll be ok. I promise," Ty said softly. "You're more capable then you realize. I believe in you."

Kit stared at her, gaping a little. Her big blue eyes were filled with not only surprise, but overwhelming adoration. Kieran had once called Kit's eyes the colour of an ordinary sky, but Ty disagreed. They were the most beautiful baby blue colour. Soft and calming. Not too bright or overwhelming.

Ty smiled involuntarily, sliding her fingers through Kit's hair. "I don't believe in anything except you." Kit let out a harsh breath and gazed up at Ty with a soft, worshiping look. She smiled.

"Baby I just don't know what to do," Kit whispered. She looked a little scared. "I feel like I've tried everything." She squeezed Ty's free hand.

"I'm really scared," Kit admitted.

Ty was overwhelmed with a frightening intensity of emotions. She wanted to wrap Kit up in her arms and never let her leave. She wanted to go out and kill every single person or thing on the earth that was making her so afraid.

Ty shook her head feverishly. "Dont be scared," she said firmly. "I will protect you." Kit looked a little shocked at that, but then she broke out into a grin. She smiled at Ty like she was the greatest and most beautiful thing Kit had ever seen.

"Hey I know something we haven't tried yet." Kit smirked mischievously. She slid her arms carefully up Ty's sides and gripped her arms, pulling her down slowly.

"Kiss me," she murmered. Ty felt her heart do a flip as she instinctively brought their mouths together in a soft, slow kiss that rapidly became more passionate as Kit pulled Ty on top of her. Ty continued kissing her girlfriend as she placed her hands on Kit's and pushed them down, closer to the skin so that Kit was gripping her more tightly. Satisfied with the pressure, Ty weaved her fingers through Kit's long golden curly hair, stimming with the thick, rough peices.

Kit deepened the kiss and instantly Ty felt metal against her tounge from Kit's piercing. It was a weird sensation, but she could bear it. Ty dug her fingers into the blanket on the bed and felt the fabric. Kit was scratching slightly along her lower back, pulling at Ty's shirt. Ty moaned into her mouth before slowly breaking the kiss and leaning back.

"I dont think anything's happening love," Ty said apologetically. Kit pouted adorably. She looked Ty up and down slyly.

"Well theres only one way to be sure right?" She asked innocently. Ty rolled her eyes fondly and laughed

"If you wanted to make out with me all you had to do was tell me," she pointed out. Ty bopped Kit's nose lightly and Kit squished up her face. She brushed the hair out of Ty's face carefully. Ty avoided Kit's gaze.

"Are you ok?"

Ty was fiddling with the bed cover in her hand. "No it's fine. I was just getting a little overwhelmed." She lay her head down carefully against Kit's chest, breathing deep.

Kit pressed her face to the top of Ty's head, nuzzling her. "Say your words," she suggested. "Your favourite words."

Ty smiled at the fact that Kit still remembered. "I added some new ones."

Kit pressed a kiss to her head. "I wanna hear them if that's ok." Ty could hear the steady sound of her heart beating.

"Glass, twin, apple, stars, crystal, lilt, shadow," Ty stopped and looked up at Kit, staring into her piercing blue eyes.

"Whisper."

Kit looked like she was trying not to cry. "Whisper would be one of mine too." She quoted. Ty grinned and bent down to kiss Kit on the cheek.

"Mine," she whispered in Kit's ear. Kit shivered underneath her, gasping.

"That's one of your new words?" Her voice was shakey as Ty pressed a kiss to her pulse point.

"Yeah. One of them. Along with sister, remember and forever," Ty avoided Kit's gaze slightly. Kit squeezed her arm.

Ty shook her head, shaking herself out of thoughts of Livvy. They had finally found a spell to put things right and let her rest. It had been excruciatingly painful, letting her go for good. But Ty knew it was right. She had already caused too much damage.

"I'm fine," she reassured Kit. She traced the outline of her lips. "I also have another one. Wanna hear it?"

Kit's eyes shone as she kissed Ty's fingers. "Tell me."

Ty leaned over her, pressing their foreheads together. Ty's long dark hair fell like an ebony curtain, shielding their faces.

She closed her eyes, letting her emotions wash over her.

"Kit," she breathed.

"Yeah?" Kit answered, clearly puzzled.

Ty laughed, drawing away. "No. I mean Kit is one of my words," she explained.

An unreadable expression fell over Kit's face before she smiled in awe. "Really? One of your favourite words?" She seemed taken aback.

Ty reached for her, gently pushing a lock of blond hair out of her face. "My absolute favorite," she whispered.

"It's my favorite word in the whole world."

Kit made some sort of indescribable sound and grabbed at Ty's shirt, pulling her forward. "I love you so much," she whispered, pulling her into a brusing kiss.

As Ty kissed her back, framing Kit's face with her hands, a burst of light exploded, shining so bright Ty could see it through her closed eyelids.

She frantically broke the kiss and opened her eyes, completely unprepared for what she was about to see.

Kit was glowing.

@bedspells @ti-bae-rius @zfoxdraws @anxiousbookenthusiast @dianasarrow @julieandthefandoms @older-brother-kit @stxr-thxif @magnus-the-fabulous-entp-bane @waterlillies @thelandunderthehilll @doitforthecarstairs @banesbitch @talia-lightwood @jazzkaurtheglorious @flynnsupremacy @adoravel-fenomeno

[daaziscoolbesties]

i yearn for one(1) thing only, and that is to have a nice, simplistic, cartoonish artstyle. an artstyle that doesnt rely on anatomy, but the "movement" of the drawing, if you get what i mean.

i dont want realistic proportions and traditional colors and basic poses and gradient shading, i want funky lil dudes in funky poses with funky styles littering my sketchbook :( but alas i havent figured out how to develop that kind of style yet, my brain wants anatomy to look nice but also i dont want to draw eyes. i dont want to take time out of my day to learn how to draw lips i want to draw a line that extends past the characters face. i dont want all my characters to have pointy chins with curved cheeks i want their heads to be round and friend-like or full of sharp edges depending on their personalities and styles. i want to give them all not-quite human ears, blob feet, simple faces, but at the same time i want enough detail to convey the story or emotion im trying to tell.

ive spent so much time recently agonizing over how to use 3d model websites, using real-life references and tracing over them for practice, color-picking from real images to try and do realism and failing miserably, but you know whats easier than that? funky little dudes. little dudes who do not care if their legs are too long or their hair is too bouncy. i dont want my characters to look human.

ive spent enough time on the artfight website to realize that most people who classify their characters as "human" have the most basic ass designs (no offense to people who like basic human designs its just not my thing) or its like dnd-medieval style outfits which i cant draw for the life of me (ive tried). again no offense to people who actively enjoy and draw characters like that. i just need my dudes to have that certain,,, off-ness to them. tails are cool. wings are swag (especially if they arent even like,, fully attached,, ), elf ears are so wonderful to me no matter how much theyre overused, horns are so much fun to draw, and colors!! i have no knowledge in the color theory department so this works great for me!! the only thing i really know is dont shade with black, other than that i just colorpick from references usually but i dont want to do that!! i want the colors to hurt people's eyes but in a satisfying way. like the character's design is so nice to look at that you dont mind your eyes hurting a bit. like how im enjoying writing this post even though its 2 am and the brightness on my computer wont go any lower.

and then another thing ive noticed from being on the artfight website is that a lot of people classify their characters that are anthro/have anthro features under humanoids/monsters. like i made a google form to find some people to attack and someone sent me in a character with some sort of animal (wolf? idk) arms and legs. like dude!! peak character design i love her. but me personally? i cant draw that shit, its so hard for me. i tried a while back and its just Not my thing. nothing against furries i just. cant. and i dont want to either.

and i got another submission that i accidentally deleted that was like full anthro/wolf-like like my comrade,,, i cannot draw animals what makes you think i can draw an animal who acts like a human lmao. i can do like. very basic tails, and also animal ears but i cant do the arms and legs and such i just dont know the anatomy, and i know i was talking about how i dont want to care about anatomy but i feel like for anthros you really do need to know at least basic animal anatomy so you know how the limbs look and shit and i dont have that knowledge and dont feel like gaining it.

and then there were some submissions that i absolutely adored. there was one that like, was vaguely human shaped but definitely was not a human. they had a dark-ish lavender colored skin and horns and tusks and like goat ears and a sorta fluffy tail with spikes on it and they had wings and such and they were such a pleasure to draw i love them. and they had a fairly simple outfit too, nothing too complicated. and then i also enjoy object head characters, theyre so neato to me. i got one of those and i really wish i had the motivation to work on it cause it looks so fun.

i want to make funky characters but id have nothing to do with them because the only book i ever tried writing (key word tried - never got past planning it out) had strictly human characters in it, and most of the books i read are humans/humans with powers in situations specific to them so id have no idea what lore to make with the dudes. assuming i have the motivation to make lore and backstory because honestly i just really enjoy character designing its super duper fun.

(side note a song about trucks doing the deed came on just now and its interrupted my flow, apologies).

i only have three actual characters right now. one is an original roleplay oc whos design is literally athletic shorts, an oversized long sleeved grey sweatshirt, long purple hair, and demon horns. the second one is my persona whos design some sorta medival knight outfit kinda thing? but not ugly it looks really cool (idk one of my friends designed it bc i won some contest from him but the drawing was on a super small scale so idrk the details,,,) with a plague doctor mask and crown, and shoulder length wavy brown hair, dyed bright pink at the end. and then my last one im not too comfortable using other places because theyre a character my friend is using in the story hes writing, and thats really the only place theyve been used. but theyre easily my favorite and im already writing a ton so ill talk about them too.

they're a sorta elf species thing from another planet, with pale green skin and pointed ears. they also have a tail, its like,, super thin, but with a feathery bit at the end. probably not the texture of a feather but i dont know how else to describe it. they have short, curly, almost-draco-malfoy-blonde hair that when it gets too long they can put in a man bun. their eyesight is kinda shitty so when they got to earth, they were exploring some supply closets around the airship. drop off area. thing. like airport but for rocketships and also fancier. yeah. they were exploring that area and found a nice big pair of round glasses with grey frames. and they also found a cowboy-style hat and a sharpie so they wrote their name on the underside of the brim of the hat and stole the hat and glasses (but left the sharpie in the supply closet).

yeah theyre my favorite, my absolute beloved, my child, so cool. i want more characters like them but with maybe a bit more snazzier designs. theyre super cool and all but they could have more pizzazz if they werent in a story where its too late to give them more pizzazz. i just want to be able to give my characters thigh-high boots with a bunch of buckles and fluffy hair with tons of accessories crammed in and abnormally large and long ears that can harbor many piercings and horns that can hold rings on them and special little details on their outfits like who knows what but i dont have any characters to do that too, so i have to make them from scratch, which is always hard especially when you have artblock.

and i also have like 17 characters i need to fully draw, line, and maybe color for artfight before august 1st. so i dont know. i have many things to do and plenty of time to do it but instead i spend my time halfway watching repetitive youtube videos that get boring or sleeping all damn day because i stay up too late doing things like this or i just do nothing at all and its tiring and frustrating but i also feel nothing about it like theres no consequence if i dont do it besides you know. not doing it, not gaining that experience, not making something i enjoy.

so i should do it but i dont for whatever reason, i think its called executive dysfunction but im not sure. this post started out very differently than it ended and i said somewhere up there that i was writing this at 2 am but now its almost 3. this is so many words why couldnt i have put this energy into something productive

[mistymark]

nct dream x hogwarts

nct dream as hogwarts students // 2.3k words // masterlist // send requests here

r e n j u n

the only slytherin in the gang

probably muggle-born but also top of most of his classes

what can he say hes amazed by this shit

really good at theory-based subjects especially

history of magic is his bitch lets be real

sketches in his books and stuff

says he likes sketching with quills the most because theyre more aesthetic

donghyuck says its because hes pretentious

but the whole group pitched in to get him some really nice canvases and paints and other tools

one of his paintings is hanging in the school somewhere, and the little girl in it smiles and greets all the students as they walk past

somehow she always tries to spit on people who had been annoying him recently - and them only

sometimes she spits on Donghyuck for no reason

jeno laughs and says its because she has a crush on him

uses magic for the dumbest things just because he can

he mastered the wingardium leviosa spell within a week because he couldn't be bothered getting up to get things

when he gets close to graduation, hes pretty much practicing simple wandless magic

once freaked out the first years because jaemin charmed a storm cloud to hang around him for an entire day

it flashed lightning when he got particularly annoyed, which was a lot because that cloud was annoying as shit

has a really old owl that literally looks evil but has called it something like “snuggles”

laughs when he unintentionally swoops too low and skims other students’ heads on mail day

buys all his friends gifts during the holidays and comes back with bags filled with fun shit

pretends he never buys gifts for chenle and jisung

always ends up giving them more

cause hes soft like that

but he headlocks them after to show his dominance

has a habit of throwing his cases in the general direction of the dorm when he comes back from holidays and accidentally hitting other students

plays quidditch in his free time

debates strategies with Jeno during their free periods

gets called a traitor by his own captain

couldnt really give a shit about his own team, he prefers to support his friends

wears his school uniform properly and is the only one in the group who does so

j e n o

a Gryffindor

probably quidditch captain

and dubbed the best player on the team

super humble about it too

always commends his team for doing their best when they lose and every member loves him a lot

the captain that's always saying stuff like “it doesn't matter how this game ends... as long as we try our hardest and play as a team”

the entire team rolls their eyes at his cheesiness but the lack of pressure keeps them at ease

and majority of the time they play really well

though its clear his focus is on quidditch, he still does really well in his classes

cant cook but is somehow rlly good at potions??

likes all the really tiny creatures in care of magical creatures

and they like him too

has a slightly damaged snitch that he carries around with him at all times

one of the wings broke during his first ever game of quidditch and he never got rid of it

he keeps it in the pocket of his robes and fiddles with it when he's anxious about something

has a really good poker face when he's stressed and you'd never know until you hear the soft clicking of his hand playing with it in his pocket while he studies

has a terrible poker face when something confuses him though

during class its so obvious when he doesnt get something

renjun once charmed question marks to hang around his head and everyone in the class died laughing

even jeno

overall great sense of humour

he brought a cat

of course

and its always getting him into trouble for wandering into the off-limits areas of the castle or into the restricted section of the library

once jaemin joked that the cat was actually an animagus that was purposely trying to get him in trouble 

and jeno was spooked for like a week

wouldn't let the cat sleep on his bed and almost had a heart attack when he saw it wandering the halls between classes

but there was nothing wrong with the cat

shes just a curious girl

had a major glow-up between 6th and 7th year and everyone fell in love with him lmao

like everyone knew he was fit from quidditch but they didnt know he was that fit you know

heartthrob

d o n g h y u c k

an annoying brat

at least when he first arrived at Hogwarts in first year

has really good intentions though

everyone thought he would get sorted into Slytherin 

like the second he stepped on the train and found his way into mark lee’s compartment everyone was like this kid has GOT to be a Slytherin

but no! hufflepuff

true fullsun

used to be a beater on the quidditch team but he was forced to quit until he got his grades up

but he ended up commentating because he couldnt play

and who can actually talk that fast other than the lee donghyuck

and actually found that he enjoyed that more

so even when his grades were t h r i v i n g

he stayed as a commentator

absolutely hilarious and everyone loves him for it

is Not afraid to call out foul plays

mutters quick apologies to the professors when they scold him but does it again later anyway

tbh is actually really popular

known for being dared to stand on the Slytherin table and sing at the top of his lungs 

and actually doing it

he got two weeks detention

“worth it” - donghyuck, circa. 2019

has a talent for defence against the dark arts

acts like the smartest person in the room during that class

hes lowkey right tho

(don't tell him)

wears his tie way too loose and constantly gets told off about it

promises professors he’ll fix it then walks away and just,,, doesnt

his Hufflepuff scarf hangs off his bed frame back home

had a toad for his first few years of hogwarts but the toad ended up passing away so now he has a really troublesome owl

the owl itself is a good boy, flies fast and efficiently, but has a nasty habit of pecking donghyuck when hes hungry

“but hes hungry all the time” he whines when jaemin explains the bird’s just hungry. meanwhile, jaemin’s owl is sitting softly beside him, her eyes closed as he pets her

every first day back from holidays hyuck has red lines on his hands, arms and ears from the owl

chenle says its for giving the poor bastard a terrible name

donghyuck never actually refers to his owl by his proper name, always things like “bastard” and “dipshit”

theres a conspiracy theory about the owl’s real name and no one in their group will spill the secret

complains that the animals in care of magical creatures like him more than his own pet

“lol tru” - Chenle

j a e m i n

ravenclaw’s biggest flirt and most popular student

probably didnt even want to run for house captain but still got the position

theres a rumour that he was offered head boy but he turned it down

was the first one to find the kitchens and claimed it as the unofficial hang out spot for their group

if you’re ever missing jaemin, he’s probably in the kitchens chatting up the elves and stealing food every now and then

carries snacks with him everywhere for when he needs to comfort one of his babies house members

literally all the younger year levels feel so comfortable coming to him with their problems

has no issue with staying up in the common room to talk through things with someone

is known to walk people to their classes and then bolt to his own classrooms so hes not late

50% of the school is already in love with him

he was given the angel reputation back in first year and it hasn't let him down

is kind of a troublemaker tho

teases his classmates and even some professors that he has a good relationship with

really really loves transfiguration

probably wants to become an animagus

also wants to be an auror

absolutely loves defence of the dark arts

his owl is white and regal

like genuinely beautiful

she always looks like shes happy to see you

just like her owner uwu

he named her something sweet and meaningful

when Renjuns owl isnt able to fly, jaemin’s owl is eager to take Renjuns mail back to his family for him

wears his jumper all year round

its a good look though,, no ones complaining

was on the quidditch team up until his final year

he dropped it to focus on his studies and also being house captain

it takes him forever to go anywhere because he stops to talk to everyone

somehow knows everyone in school

even the third years in other houses??

runs errands for teachers with a smile

offers to buy food when the group goes out

c h e n l e

another muggleborn

but fits in so well

like the boy is just a natural at magic

unfortunately it doesnt always transfer into his grades

he has such a great interest in everything,,, just not on what hes learning

learnt fourth year history of magic in his first year but still almost failed his exam at the end of year

also hes the best other hufflepuff in the group

didnt understand quidditch for at least a year

ended up in the team in second year and is actually really good

probably the goalie

has the loudest laugh in school

the older professors claim they can hear him from the other side of the castle

somehow gets his hands on all the coolest magic stuff

has the marauders map no doubt

bought himself an invisibility cloak to mess with his friends

makes his professors laugh a lot

fist bumps everyone in school istg

like chenle w h y

really good at muggle studies too

made sure to select it as a subject the entire time he was at hogwarts as a slack class

doesnt really study and then feels threatened when someone gets a mark close to his

studies his butt off for the next test to maintain his status as top rank

definitely had a rat first year because he thought they were cool

and also because he knows rats can be pets like ??? wyd with owls you guys ??? shouldn't they be out in the wild or smth??

was super depressed when he found out how short the lifespans of rats were

ended up having to buy an owl in third year because rip nugget 2k15 :((

his owl is Small

thought it would be funny to call it renjun

but then renjun wouldnt talk to him for almost a week

visits the owlery at least once a week during his free periods to check on his owl

collects his thoughts up there

also rlly likes feeding the owls

sometimes steals Jeno’s cat

catch him in his dorm studying on his bed with Jeno’s cat sleeping in his lap

chenle claims its because the cats like the warm greenhouse vibe the Hufflepuff dorm has going on

but the real reason he bribed the cat into loving him when he first met it

probably was the one to lead the cat to the off-limits areas of the castle

j i s u n g

Gryffindors best seeker to date

kinda shy but is rlly admired by everyone

likes to piss jeno off by missing practice every two practices to study

but low-key hes so good he doesnt really have to go at all

doesnt want a career in quidditch but is constantly reminded he could have one if he wanted it

easily the most popular boy in his year

got asked out a few times this year and awkwardly rejected them all in the nicest way possible

he has a cat thats just as long and skinny as he is

jeno likes to call it sungie and it now responds to that name

enjoys care of magical creatures but very hesitant towards the creatures

but because of his care and precaution, the animals all really love him lmao

gets really soft around them now

seriously oblivious to his admirers tho

chenle once said if the triwizard tournament was to be brought back jisung would be the one to be chosen

has lived in fear ever since

okay jokes

boy could totally win

the only one in the group who has attempted and can successfully perform wordless magic

he knows way too many jinxes and charms off the top of his head that he can easily jinx you without even uttering a word

once was studying in the great hall when one of his friends teased him about rejecting someone and without looking up from his book he just lifted his wand and waved it, jinxing the apple in his friend’s hand to bite him

got detention but honestly the professor was so pleased with his progress it was only a one hour session

has a lot of sass 

evidently

never Fully awake at breakfast

always looks really good in the evenings tho

he comes down to breakfast with his tie half undone and the top button of his shirt open

undoes the top buttons when he’s stressed too

professors love having him as a student

especially because they know he hangs out with jaemin

but the fact that he was in renjun and Donghyuck and Chenle’s group was enough for them to be wary

but hes the perfect blend of fun and focused in lessons

likes studying outside in summer

enjoys walking around school grounds during the holidays

[gender-trash]

kata4a replied to your post

“lately i’ve been working on a little ros utility that i hope will be...”

not exactly related, but do you have ros Opinions?

yeah, lots of ‘em!  is there anything specifically you’d like me to rant about?  

i’ve never used ros 2 and i’ve heard wildly different things about it from various robotics friends (it’s totally ready for prime time in production!  there’s no fucking way you can use it in production!  all the core packages are there!  none of the core packages are there!  etc) so these are solely ros 1 opinions, but off the top of my head, here is a list of Complaints:

jesus christ the stamped messages.  so the ros “header” will contain a timestamp and a reference frame, and a lot of the original message types (e.g. Pose/PoseStamped) come in both “stamped” (with header) and “unstamped” versions (without header), which is confusing.  it’s also possible to have messages with like three nested layers of header in them, each of which may contain a different reference frame if the producer isn’t careful.  you’re SUPPOSED to use the unstamped versions if you’re nesting them in another message like that, but in practice that doesnt... always happen

roslaunch doesnt specify an order in which things launch OR even tell you when everythings done.  it just kinda starts up everything and hopes for the best.  if roslaunch order matters to you, you will go directly to hell trying to make all your nodes wait for precursor nodes to be Confirmed Running.  i think this is one of the things that ros 2 fixes

but RELATEDLY, if you set a parameter to a default value (e.g. if it comes from a roslaunch command line arg) and then you want to load a parameter file that may override the parameter, theres... no way, as far as i can tell, to get roslaunch to execute the two parameter commands in any particular order.  ran into this one the other day and the roslaunch arg version kept clobbering the parameter file version so i ended up just putting comments everywhere like DONT SET THIS PARAMETER IN THE FILE USE THE LAUNCHFILE ARG.  I AM SORRY ABOUT THIS

[futuristic scifi world] the world in which rpcs (ros services/clients) were the default way to talk to things instead of publish/subscribe.  

i have been using ros since fuerte and i still find actionlib baffling and intimidating

love how move_base kinda works well enough that nobody will actually open-source a better version, but it is still so shitty that every company has to do a proprietary rewrite for it to actually be production-ready.  

the whole tf tree map/odom frame bullshit.  like... i understand why it is the way that it is, but also, every time i see that the robot thinks it’s on mars and it’s because the map->odom or odom->base_link transform is fucked up, i lose a year of my life

dont even speak to me about rosdep.  im never in a million years going to submit a pull request just so rosdep can automatically pull in the like 3 pip packages i need to get my thing to work.  i am simply going to write in the readme, “you will need to pip install these 3 things. sorry”, and everyone will have to cope with that.  

if i am writing an exclusively-python package that doesn’t define any messages or anything, and i haven’t written any tests because i am evil and horrible, what the fuck is my CMakeLists.txt even doing??  anything?  i know i need to edit it because if i leave it how it is by default everyone will laugh at me, but what do i need to leave in there?  should all my dependencies, in a perfect world where rosdep can actually take care of all my dependencies, be listed as run_depends sorry, exec_depends?  (i cut my teeth in a catkinless world where we all used rosbuild and you can kinda tell.)  in my life i have written exactly one beautiful CMakeLists.txt (with like!  tests and everything!  i went to linker hell and came out the other side!) and it was at an internship so now it’s top secret and i can never copy/paste it into all my other projects and edit as needed refer to it ever again

multi-robot orchestration is still horrible.  every company with more than one robot ends up writing their own proprietary robot fleet management tool.  i think the official ros answer is “just make the ros master run on a server somewhere and make all your robots connect to it uwu!” because LOL WHATS NETWORK LATENCY

theres a special place in hell for all the qt-based gui tools.  one time at an internship i wanted to like visualize camera output or something seemingly simple like that but the rqt camera gui and some other fucking node in my stack wanted different specific versions of qt and would crash if you used the wrong version.  this also made me lose years off my life

in conclusion, maybe we should just stop programming robots and go back to hitting rocks against other rocks

[jawnjendes]

shawn meets... | sapphire

SUMMARY: in the life of a rockstar, shawn mendes comes across some unique people. sometimes, things stray from the norm. (AU, shawn x every one of my oc’s)(continuation/spin off of goth gf)

AN: it REALLY feels like shawnblr is fuckign dead but yknow what its spooky szn so death is acceptable! speaking of spooky, this is another for @fourtristattoos spooky writing fest! i swear im building up to actual spooky stuff pls bear with me oh and theres more smut in this

***let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist

previous chapter

sapphire’s blog | sapphire’s playlist | masterlist

Shawn was quite open to wearing anything these days. He was also open to wearing nothing, but that photoshoot opportunity hasn't come yet, though. But this pastel pink and white suit was a bit much. Actually, the sparkly silver boots were the tackiest part of this getup. Sure, the entire outfit was worth more than all three of his guitars he'd be using during the performance, but he wasn't exactly looking forward to resembling the Had To Do It To 'Em guy when he took off the pink blazer. According to Tiffany, the birthday girl wanted all party entertainers to be in her signature color.

He still hadn't met Sapphire Venus Lilith. This performance was for her, and she hadn't even attended the meetings for it. She was apparently busy with an old friend… catching up in her bedroom. For two straight days.

The yard was full of partygoers already. Tables with hot pink clothes were displayed with all sorts of snacks and drinks. Servers were going around tending to guests, all in pink bowties of course. There was also a raised, pink metallic throne in the middle of the yard, surrounded by 2 burly security guards. The throne was right in front of the stage that Shawn was going to perform on, so he wouldn't miss Sapphire in the crowd. Music was already booming through the large speakers, a Little Mix song that reminded him of a different time. The bass was shaking the window Shawn was looking out of.

“Fan of myself, I’m stanning myself I love me so much I put my hands on myself”

Tiffany was fixing the cuffs on Shawn’s blazer. Anna was doing last minute touch ups to his hair, which was slicked back. It was similar to the 2019 Met Gala, but instead of bronze streaks, it was silver glitter that was definitely going to be a bitch to wash out.

“You nervous?” Tiffany asked.

“Excited,” Shawn corrected. “I missed playing shows.”

“We need to get you on tour again.” She smiled.

“Gotta make a record first.”

There was a sudden knock on the door, making all three of them jump. Shawn made eye contact with Tiffany, and they both chuckled at the ridiculous response.

Anna went to answer, since the door was locked. “It’s probably Andrew, wondering if you’re ready.” She opened the door, and let out a surprised, “Hello! Hi, come on in!”

Just by the change in her tone, it was safe to say it wasn't Andrew who had knocked. Shawn turned to see who had come in, and was first met with a powerful flowery scent, followed by a tall, petite woman.

“Make way for the G-O-double D-E-S-S I spare no enemies in this dress Uh huh, uh huh”

This woman was blonde, curled princess locks cascading down her shoulders. On top of her head was the largest and most extra looking sparkling tiara Shawn had ever seen in his life, but it suited her. Her face was soft with pretty pink lips and piercing blue eyes. Her petite body was clad in a tiny top made of soft pink bedazzles and equally tiny shorts of the same color. There was no other way to describe her as anything but beautiful. Knock-the-wind-out-of-me, step-on-me-in-your-white-Louboutins beautiful.

She was followed by Kat, who was the polar opposite, color wise. Tight black dress, long dark hair in a high ponytail. Unlike her employer, she was not smiling, nor giving Shawn any attention. She merely typed on her phone in a professional manner, the same look Andrew would have when he was texting important people.

Shawn couldn’t even think about the potential awkward tension he would have with Kat because he was too busy gaping at the blonde. How was one person so powerful already?

“Hello, I’m Sapphire,” she greeted, holding out her hand.

Something possessed Shawn the moment he touched her soft skin, and he bent down to kiss her hand.

That seemed to please her, because she grinned, showing the tiniest dimple in her cheek. “You’re my little singer tonight, aren’t you?”

“That’s me,” he replied, almost losing his voice by how much it softened. He really couldn’t stop looking into those eyes. “Happy birthday!”

“Oh thanks, love. I can’t wait to see what you’re gonna do for me.” She was still holding his hand, squeezing ever so slightly.

Shawn’s cheeks heated up so goddamn fast. There was something in those worse, something sickly sweet and intoxicating. “I, uh, I think you’ll like it. I hope you do.”

Sapphire was still smiling as she turned to look at Kat. Wordlessly, the assistant went to Tiffany and Anna, chatting them in on the evening’s events. Then, Sapphire took Shawn by the collar of his blazer and stepped closer to him, her glossy lips at his ear.

“If I really love your gig,” she whispered, “I may give you something extra.”

And yeah, his pants got tighter. Good thing he was going to be holding a guitar all night.

Sapphire leaned back, smoothing the area she had been clinging to. “If it’s okay with you, of course.”

He cleared his throat, trying to calm his body. “Uh, no yeah. Yeah. Yes. Very okay.”

“Wonderful, darling! I’ll see you out there. Come along, KitKat!”

With that, she turned on her heel and left the room, Kat in tow.

Shawn immediately plopped down in the nearest chair, starstruck. He’s never seen nor heard of this girl ever in his life, and somehow she managed to turn him into putty within the first few minutes of meeting him.

“You need anything?” Tiffany asked, trying to mask her amusement. “A glass of water? A cold shower perhaps?”

He blushed even more. He’s never been so flustered so fast, let alone from someone he just met.

“Did I say happy birthday to her?” he asked, dazed.

“Yes,” Anna and Tiffany said at the same time.

Then, Brian entered the room, a dopey grin on his face. “Guess who just met the birthday girl!”

“Shawn did,” Tiffany answered.

Brian’s grin vanished. “What? Man, I thought I was the first one! She’s so…”

“Yeah,” Shawn agreed. Then he got up and took his friend to the side. “Dude, she wants to meet up after my set.”

“No way.”

“I swear.”

“Didn’t you just hook up with her assistant?” Brian asked. “You’d think she caught wind of that.”

Shawn didn’t know, nor did he really care. “That’s why I need you to hit up the assistant. I don’t know if she’s hung up on me or anything and I don’t wanna take that chance.”

Brian made a noise between a scoff and a laugh. “Full of ourselves, are we?”

“Please?” Shawn asked, bringing his hands together.

“Well, what if I want Sapphire and not her stuck up assistant?”

This wouldn’t be the first time Shawn asked Brian to distract a former one night stand. But it was the one time Brian wasn’t agreeing to do it. Shawn put his hands down, surprised and mildly annoyed.

“Kat’s not stuck up, trust me,” he said. “And… Sapphire said she wants me. It’s her choice.”

“I’m not taking your leftovers again, man,” Brian said as he folded his arms. “You always get the girl! Let me have something for once!”

Now Shawn was even more annoyed. “Maybe you’d get something too if-”

“If I was a famous popstar? If I was as good as you?”

“Why are you being such a dick?”

Then, Tiffany stepped in, literally. She stood between Shawn and Brian. “Guys, don’t do this. It’s just one girl.”

Brian ignored her. “I’m being a dick because I’m tired of being an extension of you! I’m being a dick because you’ve taken dates from me! You don’t even give a shit about any of them because you can’t get over-”

“Don’t!” Shawn warned, raising his voice.

Brian narrowed his eyes. “You’re not over Annalise Flores!”

“Who?” Tiffany asked, bewildered.

Paralyzed with anger, Shawn glared at the other man. The man who was supposed to be his friend. Why couldn’t he just do him this solid?

“Get out,” he said venomously.

“You know I’m right,” Brian sneered.

“Get the fuck out!” Shawn yelled.

He scoffed as he stormed out. Shawn huffed out a sigh, wanting to punch something.

“What the hell was that?” Anna asked, utterly confused. “Who’s Annalise Flores?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he grumbled. “Can you bring me Jocelyne?”

One quick shoulder rub and a redress later, Shawn’s disgruntled state eased a little bit. It was enough for him to fully focus on the beautiful lady he had to impress.

~

The set went well. It went great, because not long after leaving the stage, Charles the butler found Shawn and led him up to Sapphire’s bedroom. Shawn didn’t get to see much of the party, but that was very, one hundred percent okay.

Most of the mansion's interior was baby pink, but this was an overload. Shawn wandered around the large, pink bedroom as he waited. The walls were made of soft pink felt, and there was a large, sparkling chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The desk against the wall was the same color, along with the laptop and picture frames sat on the surface. The photos in the frames were only of the girl he was waiting for. There was no room for modesty apparently. Shawn was never not going to think of the birthday girl whenever he saw this color.

He went over to the king size bed, draped with the softest velvet covers he's ever felt. The headboard was a metallic pink… with bars. Shawn couldn't deny how exciting that felt. He really couldn't believe someone as breathtakingly attractive as Sapphire could possibly want him.

"Didn't know it was my birthday," he mumbled with a smirk.

"What was that?" a soft, female voice said from behind him.

Shawn jumped as he turned around. There stood the birthday girl, Sapphire, blue eyes wide and expectant.

"Uh, I, I didn't hear you come in," he stammered. Way to keep your cool.

She smiled warmly, fixing the silk robe she was wearing. She was quick to get out of her tight little party outfit, but she still had that sparkly tiara resting on her head. Shawn couldn’t help but notice the perky little nipples poking through the thing material, only adding to the burn in his pants.

Wordlessly, Sapphire moved past Shawn and crawled onto the bed, letting him get a view of her ass. He was about to follow, but her high heel clad foot landed gently on his chest, stopping him.

"Take off your clothes," she ordered, her voice still soft.

Shawn had a feeling he shouldn't challenge her, even though that was something he grew to love and get off on. As he unbuttoned his shirt, he felt his face and chest grow warm; Sapphire's gaze was intimidating, she didn't even blink. She looked at his face, trailing down his body as he removed more of his performance clothes. Her tongue peeked out of the corner of her mouth as she watched him drop his briefs and step out of them. Shawn felt mildly embarrassed that he was already hard, but just looking at Sapphire's pretty features made him this way. She already possessed him without even doing a single thing.

And somehow, he couldn't tell if she wanted to fuck him or eat him.

"Don't be shy," Sapphire told him as she curled her finger to get him to join her.

She moved to the side and patted the center of the mattress. Shawn crawled onto the surface and lied down against the pillows. The velvet sheets felt incredibly soft against his skin, heightening his senses.

Sapphire traced the butterfly tattoo on his bicep. The tip of her manicured fingernail left a tiny trail of fire on Shawn's skin.

"I'm so glad you were able to sing at my party," she told him. "And I'm glad you stayed."

"Me too," Shawn replied, trying to keep his voice steady. "Really, really glad."

"I can tell." She glanced down his body, making him blush.

Shawn really wanted to touch her, feel her, learn what makes her tick. He couldn't wait any longer, and it made him feel incredibly juvenile. He hasn't been so easily wound up since his university days.

"Saph-" he tried to say but a finger went over his lips.

"Shh, I know, baby boy." She leaned in close, her nose touching his ear. "I know what you want." Then she gently cupped his chin and turned his head towards hers. "I just need to know how far you're willing to go."

Shawn could barely hear himself. "As far as you want."

Sapphire's glossy pink lips curved up as she leaned in closer. Shawn closed his eyes, taking in her intoxicating flowery scent, craning his neck in the slightest, and then he felt her lips press the quickest kiss on his cheek.

He didn't even have time to breathe before she was straddling his thighs. Smooth hands went up his torso and rested on his broad shoulders, and she was hovering over him. Shawn lifted his hands to cup her pretty face, but she was much faster than him. Sapphire grabbed his wrists and pinned them down.

"No touching," she told him, her voice still soft and borderline innocent. "Understand?"

Shawn nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.

She cupped his chin once again, her blue eyes piercing his brown ones. "Use your words."

"I understand."

"Good boy." She patted his cheek. Then, she moved down his body, to his hard cock.

Breathing out, Shawn braced himself for what was about to happen. His eyes fluttered shut as a soft, warm tongue ran up the length, and then his whole cock was engulfed by her soft mouth. His immediate instinct was to place his hands in Sapphire's hair, but he had to follow her single rule. But she also had a lot of pretty blonde hair, and it was covering her face. Shawn couldn't see her mouth move on him, and he really wanted to.

Just as he lifted his hand, Sapphire sat up again, taking in a breath. She looked Shawn in the eyes as she wiped the corner of her mouth.

"I know you wanna touch me," she muttered. "But you'll have to prove that you're gonna listen to me."

He nodded rapidly, and then she was going down on him again. Shawn breathed out a soft moan at the feeling, his fingers curling around the silk sheets. It felt amazing, way too good to be real. His toes curled as he felt her mouth suction lightly, tingles spreading all throughout his body. Tiny little whimpers came out of him as the tingles persisted, causing Sapphire's blue eyes to flicker up to him as she pulled off once again.

"You are so cute," she said, reaching up to cup his chin. "Most guys don't like to make little noises like that. Keep it up."

He couldn't stop the sounds even if he tried.

Sapphire sat up and turned her body, straddling Shawn's thighs. She pushed her robe back from the bottom, letting the smooth material spread over her partner's torso. Shawn felt his cock on her ass, and resisted the urge to move his hips up. He had to be good, had to do exactly what she said.

"So, what do you prefer, little one?" she asked, moving her ass back and rubbing against his cock. "I'm on the pill, but I have condoms here if you want that."

"Mm, no condom," he answered a little too quickly, feeling the need for relief.

Her head turned, so he could see her perfectly sculpted eyebrow quirk a little bit. Then, she sat up on her knees, taking hold of the base and swiftly sinking down on it. She let out a little hiss, and remained still in that position.

"You oka-" Shawn almost got out before choking on his words.

Sapphire very quickly recovered and started bouncing on him. For a moment, the only sound was their skin slapping together, until she pinched his thigh.

“Where are my little sounds, little one?” she asked between pants.

Shawn found himself blushing yet again. What was with that nickname? What did that say about what she thought of him? He was about to ask, but he saw the back of Sapphire’s robe fall, exposing her skin. She was naked under that little robe, and she wasn’t letting him see anything. It was a tease, and only drove him further, causing a little moan to bubble past his mouth.

“That’s it,” she praised, leaning forward on her hands so as to get better leverage. She was practically twerking on his cock, making him want to grab the plump cheeks.

Obscene noises of their skin slapping and Shawn's moaning filled up the room. Sapphire was incredibly talented with her hips, keeping the rhythm steady, and she didn't stop or slow down. The coil in Shawn's abdomen was tightening more and more every minute, making his heart race and his breath hitch.

He rested his hands behind his head, eyes squeezed shut from the feeling. Fuel to the fire were Sapphire's first sounds of the evening. Shawn picked his head up and noticed her arm moving rhythmically in front of her, and he immediately knew what she was doing. God, he wanted see that, and she probably knew that too. She probably picked this position on purpose.

Even after a shaky orgasm, Shawn was still thinking about the ways he wanted to take her. All the things he wanted to do with her. His body was weak and sweaty, and he was catching his breath while Sapphire fixed her robe and plopped down next to him.

Like Kat, she still looked well put together, like all she did was go for a casual stroll. Not even sweating or panting. Sapphire did all the work and all she did was dab at her leftover lip gloss with her finger afterwards.

Shawn was a little confused at this. Why was he the only fucked out mess here? He lifted a hand, his fingers gently touching Sapphire's blonde locks to get her attention.

"Was that good for you?" he asked.

She nodded with a smile. "You did everything right, babe." Then, she took his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, and she lied her head on his chest. "Hell, I might even keep you here a bit longer than planned."

Whatever the fuck that meant, Shawn didn't really give a shit. Looking down at the beautiful socialite in his arms, he realized he wasn't prepared to leave either. And he certainly wasn't thinking of Brian, or his ex-girlfriend.

next chapter

_______

taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @justordinaryjen @chillingbythesea @iloveshawnieboi @shawnsunflower @someoneunimportantxx

[goose-books]

nano update

word count: 11,281

i was going to say something here but i totally blanked and forgot. uh. nano has been an emotional roller coaster and it’s only the first week.

(edit i remembered i was gonna talk about how i spent a few hundred words describing a public bathroom and yet theres still. not a plot yet? cool)

excerpt i liked under the cut! (i tagged some ppl but no pressure to look at this rn or ever! i understand we are all Busy rn)

The question peculiar children most often ask when they learn about the Quark is, “Where is it?” The answer, of course, is that it is not. The best way to hide an entire city is to not put it anywhere. The problem inherent then, obviously, is how to get to something that isn’t anywhere. And the answer is “through a door,” which is both deceptively and honestly simple.

The doors are always silver, except in places where they have chosen to look different. The doors are always the size of any standard household door, except in places where they have decided to be otherwise. The doors are always present when you need one, except literally all of the time, because it is impossible to hold a door in one place.

You can, however, lure it in.

Not everyone has seen a door, much less stepped through it, but everyone has at some point or another been in a place where a door might be. The peculiars call them Fountains - places where the Well pools beneath the surface of the world. A school during break, empty desks arranged in crooked empty rows, hallways wide and blank and silent, dust motes floating past the windows. An airport at midnight, almost empty, silent except for automated announcements, when the sky is so dark that the windows only throw your own reflection back at you unless you press your forehead to the glass. Beneath a street lamp at night, when it is raining, when the only light in all the world is the somewhat uneven halo of neon at your feet. The bathroom when everyone you know is in the living room, or downstairs, or just outside, but you are here, and you are looking at your own face in the mirror, and you do not know who that is.

Caelum Finch does not know who that is. What he does know is that his mother was right. There’s a door in here, humming softly with energy, and it’s looking right at him.

///

One might think the fickle attitude of doors would make it hard to trap somebody in the Quark against their will. It’s hard to regulate escape routes that could pop up anywhere at any time.

This is correct.

The fact of the matter is that Caelum is not in the Quark against his will. He is in the Quark because his parents want him to be, and because the Court wants him to be, and because it is safer here, and because he senses that it is his destiny. And now, staring across a two-foot-wide room at the innocuous structure on the other side, he has the funniest sick feeling that if he steps through this door, into the New York City he has been just outside of for fourteen years, he is stepping irreversibly in the direction of his own impending death.

It’s true that this is a common feeling for prophets. It’s also true that Caelum is maybe going to puke in the sink.

Because he is going to die. That’s not prophet hypochondria. That’s his destiny.

Caelum blinks twice, does not throw up in the sink, and makes the logical leap that stepping closer to his own impending death is also stepping closer to his destiny. Ergo: the thing he is supposed to do.

He clutches the pocket watch in his coat, mumbling, “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” and he shuffles closer.

The handle is warm. The door hums encouragingly as he turns it. Behind the door frame is only darkness.

Caelum takes in a massive breath. Okay. Okay. He will go through the door. And then he will call his parents. That’s fine. That’s all right. He can do that.

He steps through the threshold.

tag list: @bluejaybabbles @yvesdot @ilfemi @luciellesgarden @thatchaoticneutraltrainwreck @deoxyribodyke @pen-for-sword @brightsoul19 (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!)

[eekispyykes]

Mr Sparklepuff Feline Obituary 5.1.2020/Abridged

Mr Puffs 4-2002-  5-1-2020

by Michael Bench

Mr Puffs was an excellent friend and adventurous hiker. He loved to be outdoors. A ferocious mouser ; he did an arc'ing jump on mice and chipmunks from 2 clumps of brush away. The porch frankly stank from all his gifts. An amazing climber and very fast sprinter crossing a square acre in about 3.5sec. Some would ask why he was named as such and close friends know the whole story. A primary point was so people had a good vibe about him and would let him be. In the past two years  he had cancer of the face that spread. He had been treated with surgery to remove the tumor. At a shade over 18yo, he set to rest as every night he was shivvering in normal home temp and couldn't keep weight on; refusing to leave the couch; hating being put in pet clothes/infant flannel.

2017-2020 were tough years for him adjusting to a new stray friend we “adopted” from the wild. They were startingn to get along. It played into the stress.I feel bad about this. it split us up somewhat.  My younger cat was more forceful about claiming me. It weighs on me; Frankly it seemed like a few rape attempts also that difficulted the social cue of ‘normal cat spooning”.. Mr Puffs was able to get out on a van ride of Fogelsville,PA about three months ago. He also gave some love to his plush hedgehog toy. He gave it a consensual drilling every once a while or daily.

What you should know about Mr Puffs:

:My grilling deputy  and trout inspector

:Loved to play the mysterious thing under blanket or newspaper game

:Love to play the mysterious tapping fingers under the many basement stairs game

:Fine taste in music and loved being my karaoke fan. Love you buddy. Not very keen on Tv after Keenan Michael Keys left Animal  Planet's morning show.

:Enjoyed less usual faire like potatoes and adored bbq chicken pizza; he could handle medium wings. He WAS WARNED each time and kept him away from it till it was obvious he wanted it. Honey ham, turkey, .. and salami**. Mind you, he has never been overweight and was complimented by his first vet for muscle tone. It's his compliment to own.

:Enjoyed jumping apartment building gaps while in town: we had to rough it for a month in a storage facility after an unexpected eviction.. which we then would go for walks 1a-3a to get his exercise and water the landscape mulch at 11th street Fred Meyers. There's a little marsh back behind the store that became our little daytime haven.

:His Hiking career started in Eugene, OR. We would go night walking ,w/o a leash and whenever someone was coming he would detour off the sidewalk and into the nearest house’s bushes.. This was optimal because he would get back on the lit sidewalk and learn to keep course. This advanced to 5-7 mile hikes from U Oregon campus to Hendrix park and back. One trip such trip he was panting so he didn’t really want to run away anywhere or into traffic fortunately.. The sun had come out of the cloud cover and heated things up above the usual. We stopped at an icecream place on the way back on the edge of campus: Agate and 19th. Even though he was tired, he was a smart and collected guy. so he slinked to the back of the shop till I came back out..It was like escorting the supermodel of manly cats.  It was at this time I knew leashes or more distant locations were necessary.  

:While we were driving back to Pennsylvania, he decided to have a playfrenzy on the dashboard while I was in heavy traffic nearabouts of Nebraska/Rushmore on the interstate.

:Short story : Since he now had room in the yard to runaround Puffs tested his speed and momentum to get up tree trunks. Our front yard had a medium sized maple oak something. Mr Puffs ran up the tree and alarmed a family of nesting doves. The doves and Mr Puffs seemed to flee the tree foilage each in horizontal directions at about 8ft off the ground.  

:Other than a shoulder injury from a fight of somesort, he was very durable. His parent's owners had coined him 'Jaco” after the famous bass player.. A green -eyed Russian Blue tuxedo, angular white paws.  with little white hairs across his coat. At times I also referred to him as “Cactus Jack”. Massive front incisors like a miniature sabertooth. I pitied the rabbits who he caught which were still squealing.

:Another Short Story. I coaxed my mom to live a little and put that front addition on the house she always wanted. She got an enclosed porch. Theres an open porch on the back of the house also. When the framing was done.. I went out to the backyard to enjoy the night sky, I heard nothing. When I turned around I had two bright eyes scaring me  to the ground. From 9ft, the top of the roof porch he looked at me Apparently Puffs had climbed the 8ft of framing from the work table, crossed the rafters, crossed the whole house roof and decided to voyeur me on the other side of the house. I was very glad he didn't tempt the electric lines whose pole he had tried to climb other days.Stressing moments on me as well.

:Puffs became a pro at taking baths since 2017, and getting nails trimmed at the same time. The trim helped him jump (getting pad purchase)  and helped the furniture too.

:Another quick story. Cats can swim. I took him to go swimming in the creek and that went pretty good the first time. (Must always be on leash. And probably use partially inflated swimmy muscle). He was really comfortable in the water if it was shallow(2.5ft). The problem with the creek is its near a road so don't be near roads even with the leash on.  He was swimming a good crawl in about 4ft.  A fish mustve brushed his foot because he panicked and started jumping out of the water like a bass on a hook. I literally had to swing him in the air (with leash) and onto the shore into some leaves and grass. There's some fault in not being close enough to him to pick him up out of the water directly. He swam pretty good and at range.  To ease that trauma.. (nearly heart attack probably; that went sour) , I let him calm down. At a much shallower area no taller than his knees(5-6”) I set him into the stream without much resentment and just petted him to get him calm.  (He wasn't a lap cat before that either.) At that point the swimming  got shuttered for downhill walks and other casual stuff.

: On similar climbing points.. even till about 2015, he liked to jump the gap from the upright piano top (4ft) to the top of the entertainment center (7.5 ft) plus the hallway gap of  3.5 ft and he was really solid at it. Would stay up there for a while and then jump down onto the sofa table (3 ft tall).. He was always calculating a new feat. When that one item stopped being in his wheelhouse it was clear he was getting bothered/ annoyed and the stress of a cat territory issue wore him down.

If you were to be near him, you'd end up watching him. This statue of a male cat with really long tail. Not lemur-long but really long.. a gray panther. And, maybe you'd try to pet him since he looked inviting. Yet, you wouldn't get much petting done. He'd probably tolerate two brushes and then give your hand a carving with his claws, hiss at you and find a new place to observe the room,  That said, he would cruise the neighborhood looking which apartment I might've visited, slink in and check out how other people decorated. A very dignified personality, sometimes to the point of indignant.  He was  a cat you'd want to clone over and over because he was just that cool on himself. Cloning him was on the slate too until those type of businesses were closed with political force.. He actually inspired a jazz song  (currently in midi form) that I’ve yet to record. I was tore up about his first cancer surgery so I started writing. Hope that will be out soon enuff. I hope this can help you appreciate Mr Puffs. He was buried at a spot he chose. It was nearby a set of brush he would choose to hide in hours near the middle of  hikes.

.. he loved to hide.  Back in Oregon I'd take him  in the van with my mentally handicapped clients. He'd be set loose to get his relaxation in. By the time it was time to leave. he wanted to stay. He hid in bushes and culverts. I learned very quickly that such outings had to be local or I'd be driving back hours to go get him at night or worse. Once I knew that, we'd take rides on the bus to the edges of the bus line and just chill on hills overlooking boating lakes. Fern Ridge Reservoir had a nice pine overlook off Territorial hwy.  He really enjoyed outings and variety. Maybe thats what kept him interested as a matter of longevity. I want to end on that.  He showed me lessons in best intentions and good in the bad.. and murdering all my Egyptian spiny mice within hours of acquiring them and their replacements. Its not like I wouldn't have gotten him a feeder mouse but there were plenty stinking up the walkway as it was. I'm blessed to have spent that month sheltered in a renta-shed with him. It seems the alternative .. without having enough for a pet deposit elsewhere (that moment) was to lower my standards for the landlords daughter and by whatever 'influence' she had. 'evicted us for periodic renovations”. So, eventually we chose instead to leave and he got a brims of fieldmice, chipmunks and forest romping. I hope that was an appreciated choice. He liked city life too. Should you choose to tribute to Mr Puffs, I welcome it. He’d be the type of cat Dos Equis beer would be looking for if he actually drank it.

Hope you’re feeling better, Puffs; BFF 

[ancanosaur]

•Without a shadow of a doubt•

Chapter one: A Temple of Memories.

The temple was building of old creaks and sounds that echoed through the halls in the night. Despite their past reputation and the swollowing cold that surrounded their temple, the Lin Kuei had welcomed you with great open arms and the warmth of family.

You don't remember much of what happened. You remember the roaring engine and slashing blades of a helicopter. The wind was warm on your cheeks, the sky giving off a golden glow of orange that signaled dayligh'ts final hours. Your body ached, temples were throbbing. "We're in the clear General, mission accomplished." A woman's voice spoke over you, your (E/C) orbs searched up, finding a blonde looking down at you. "Don't worry, we got you." She smiled softly. Her eyes were an ocean blue and filled with hope. "Cassie." A man's voice was heard, making the blonde look up at an older man, his hair a light brown with a bit of salt and pepper in the sides. "Let's get them hooked up." He said.

You suddenly felt your body lift from the ground and onto what felt like a hospital bed, your finger tips finding soft thin sheets as the buckles around your waist were tightened, a soft prick in your arm made you give a gasp of weak air, looking over to see the man placing an IV needle in your arm and sticking a bit of tape over it, keeping it in place. "Sorry kid, gotta keep you alive and hydrated." He patted your shoulder, giving a smile. "It's good to have you back." He said finally. "Let's head out, Jacquie!" Cassie called to the front of the copter.

That's all you could remember. Besides landing at base and being greeted by many smiling faces. The ones that rescued you saying that they were close friends and teammates of yours. You thought back to their happy faces, sitting around you in the hospital room. They all said that you were all close, the best of friends, and yet you couldn't think of their names. Their features all gained a veil of grief as you shook your head at them. The older man spoke up as the youngers went qiuet. "That's okay Y/N." He gave a smile. "You just get a chance to get to know us all over again." It gave the others a bit of hope.

A knock at the door pulled you out of your thoughts. You sat up from your spot on the bed and quickly made your way over to slide open the door seeing a young woman's face. "Frost." You gave a smile. She returned it in more of a small smirk. "I brought you dinner." The snowy haired girl spoke, holding up a trey of steaming food. You gave her a gracious smile, taking the trey from her and allowing her in as you sat the trey down on the dark wood of your night stand. "So when are you going to get back to helping me with the kiddies?" She said, her bare feet making icey patches on the stone floor. "You're bothered." You meet her cool blue eyes as you sat on the bed. Frost looked at you for a moment before letting out a chilling sigh, the air from her lungs thick and smokey as she took a seat beside you. "Grandmaster send me, wanting to know are you're doing and everything," Her posture was hung low, her arms crossed over her knees. "See if you remember anything."

The food on your night stand still smoked with freshness as you eyed it. You looked back at Frost, trying to find the words. You wanted to be truthful. But another part of you simply wanted to tell her the things she and the Grandmaster wanted to hear. "You don't eat as much as you should." She commented, seeing you just looking at the plate of meat and vegetables seeming unbothered.

"I just feel like i dont need it." You answered after a moment, moving your gaze to the cold tile floors. "Well, you do." The Cryomancer said in a caring yet slightly forceful way, something that was just part of Frost's charm. She see's your jaw clenched for just a moment. "It would hurt a lot of people's feelings if you starved to death." She nudge you, making you gain a low smile for just a moment.

You wish you could remember being apart of the clan and the your team, you wish you jad those memories. But you simply didnt. "Ill feed you if you dont eat." Frost finally said. That made you shake your head and give in with a smile. "Alright, alright." You pulled the trey into your lap, picking up the spoon and stirring around the small bowl of stew that was on the side before taking a bite. "There, now we can keep you." She gave a smile.

You finished your plate and sat it to the side. You and Frost had began talking about the temple gossip that you had apparently missed. Like that one of the guards, Tao had the hots for a Shiria Ryu memeber that always came with Master Hasashi for sparring training, she said his name was Atomu and that you should ask Takeda about him once you join back up with your SF team.

"Frost?" You ask after a moment of silence between the two of you. "Hm?" She looked up at you. "What..." you puased, unsure of how to really word the question. "What happened to me?" You looked at her, metting her gaze.

Frost's shoulders tighted up for a moment before loosening g up again. Her crystal eyes looking to the grey brick of the floor for a moment like she was hoping the carving in the tile would answer for her.

"You died."

She finally answered, and you felt dizzy for a moment. "I-i what?" You looked at her, "Frost, i couldnt have. Im right-" "here. You're here now." She looked at you firmly. "And thats all that matters." She let out an irritated huff but her sharp features began to soften as she looked back at you.

You just sat there, looking at the ground. Chewing on your lips like gum. "How?" You finally asked, not meeting her eyes. "You," she looked down at her hands, picking at her nails, a nervous habbit of hers. "Were with your team, everything was going smoothly and then an ambush happened." She sighed. "You took a knife and...that was that." She said abruptly, not wanting to talking about the details.

Your fingers were clutched tightly into the bed below you, the world feeling like it was spinning around you, until a hand found your shoulder. "But we got you back." Frost said, her grip firm on you. "That's all we wanted."

Time passed and Frost had left you for the night. The wool blankets wrapped around keeping you warm as you begin to drift to sleep, the candle at your bedside still burning.

Everything was nothing but pitch black around you, your body was just a drift in nothingness, it was warm nor cold. Just nothing until a pair of large hands found their way to gripp your arms, seeming to hold you in place in this endless darkness. You're eyes were open, but they saw nothing in this dark place as the hands traveled up, sliding against your skin and up to hold your face. "A lost little spirit..." the voice was deep, yet it echoed like the hissings of snakes. You felt fingers run through your hair and tilt your face to the side. "I'll take you in..." the voice whispered.

You sat up in your bed, letting out a gasp as if you had been under water. Your hand found your heaving chest, your heart desperately trying to escape your ribcage as it pounded against your sternum.

You looked around your small dark room, recognizing it as yours, aiding you in calming from your dream. You let out a deep sigh, closing your eyes for just a moment before the smell of smoke caught your attention.

The candle that was one lit was now out and it was still smoking as if it had just been blown out. You eyed it for a moment, until you were able to tell yourself that your sudden movment from waking up had blown the candle out. You shook your head. It was just a dream, a weird dream that had left you with this chill of familiarity. But a dream nonetheless.

You sank back down in your bed, until you felt something cold on the side of your face, making you feel for whatever it was against your skin. You lifted you hand up into the moon light to see somthing dark on your fingertips making you jump and rush over into the bathroom, flipping the switch on, thinking you were going to see the crimson red of blood once you looked in the mirror. But what you saw made you shiver. A Jet black hand print was perfectly framed against your jawline, the thumb was smeared as it had been rubbing against your cheek.

You didnt know what to think or do, so you simply grabbed a wash cloth, turning the water on in the sink and soaking the cloth til it was dripping and looked back up into the mirror to wash the hand print away only to see it already disappeared.

You dropped the cloth into the water, backing up into the wall giving a shaking sigh with your hands to your head. Maybe you were losing it? Maybe you were slowly dying again. Maybe- you took a deep breath. Remembering what Grandmaster had taught you, 'In a time of storm, find a shelter. In the time of doubt find hope.' You took a few deep breaths. 'In a time of panic, find peace.' You gained control of your breathing, calming your racing heart. Being thankful for your master's words.

Then a thought popped into your mind. If there was anyone to talk to about this, anyone who would have knowledge about life after death, it's him.

You flipped the light switch off, casting the room back into darkness once more as you made your way back under your sheets. It was decided then. You would speak to him first thing in the morning.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I hope you guys like the first chapter. I wanted this to be kind of a Slowish kind of burn maybe. We'll see. We get to talk to Subby in the next chapter so that should be fun :) and like let me know if you want a smut chapter because lmao idk tell me

Ill also start working on other characters i wanna write for becuase theres a big lack in MK reader inserts my doods. I feel like this chapter is a bit rough, but i havent written a full length fic like this in a hot minutes. So hopefully it'll get better. And all fics i write and will write are gender neutral reader becuase like all genders have the right to fuck hot shadow wraiths and that's just tea☕

Please forgive any grammar/spelling mistakes!

-Onyx♤