#still prefers a quilted vest after all these years

[mikexx2]

Righted a criminal wrong today and finally gave Dieter some portraits of his own.

[angelisverba]

thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number) 

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter. 

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat. 

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society. 

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’  his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room. 

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck. 

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin. 

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit. 

 Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips. 

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had. 

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango. 

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion).  The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere. 

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it. 

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’ 

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough. 

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did. 

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother. 

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat. 

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door. 

 Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be. 

And he wasn’t lonely anymore. 

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company. 

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants,  and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.  

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel. 

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already. 

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.” 

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like. 

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy. 

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation. 

Right? 

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy. 

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table. 

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon. 

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants. 

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny. 

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could. 

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again. 

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared  trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin. 

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class. 

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go. 

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.  

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’. 

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence. 

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said. 

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement. 

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.” 

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. 

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked. 

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited. 

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible. 

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another. 

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart. 

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent. 

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.” 

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy. 

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.” 

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully. 

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”  

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be. 

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her. 

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest  as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer. 

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning. 

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him. 

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked. 

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home. 

His home. 

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture). 

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too. 

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did. 

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number. 

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room. 

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise. 

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her. 

“Oh my god!” She said,  “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with.  She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’. 

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’. 

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm.  The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow. 

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up. 

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf. 

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.” 

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.” 

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.” 

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three. 

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said. 

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n. 

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her. 

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.” 

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck.  Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements. 

Like dropping her card when she piped up again. 

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm. 

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous. 

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.” 

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing. 

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”  

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram. 

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added. 

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?” 

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.” 

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma. 

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time. 

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates. 

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat. 

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store. 

***

Harry was having a shitty morning. 

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should. 

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage. 

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead. 

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance. 

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way. 

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day. 

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that. 

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning. 

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart. 

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down. 

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content. 

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.    

It’s no use. 

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true. 

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be. 

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him. 

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier. 

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin. 

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible. 

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy. 

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips. 

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay. 

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day? 

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look. 

“Back again so soon, H?” 

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop. 

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.” 

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said. 

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal. 

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and- 

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart. 

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?” 

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off. 

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove. 

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.” 

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.” 

 It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence? 

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.” 

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.” 

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out. 

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle. 

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly. 

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice. 

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like. 

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.” 

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.  

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance. 

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought. 

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.” 

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).    

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling. 

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.” 

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!” 

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles. 

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!” 

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all. 

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else. 

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time, 

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-” 

Harry and y/n giggle at each other, 

“You go first.” 

“Y’speak first.” 

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.” 

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s  side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands. 

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm? 

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.” 

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose. 

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick. 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.” 

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her. 

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.” 

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum. 

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face. 

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body. 

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything. 

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers. 

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes. 

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning. 

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole. 

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum. 

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.  

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?” 

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.” 

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-” 

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists. 

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?” 

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.” 

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning. 

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching. 

“Will you text me?” She asked him. 

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?” 

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center. 

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?” 

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.” 

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent. 

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling. 

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.  

********

Harry can’t stop thinking. 

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning. 

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom. 

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.  

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds. 

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface. 

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button. 

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like. 

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut. 

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock. 

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her. 

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself. 

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm. 

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge. 

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base. 

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum. 

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum. 

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out. 

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again. 

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body. 

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads: 

y/n <3 : so… dinner? 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name. 

He couldn’t be happier. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

[bomberqueen17]

So Dude spent all yesterday digitizing an emoji to make a patch.

In the meantime I cleaned up a bunch of my own stuff-- for Christmas I got a smaller hoop for my machine, and what I can do with that is use up the corners of stabilizer-prepared fabric that I embroidered something onto the middle of. With the 4″ hoop there’s actually a lot of space that the needle can’t really utilize, but it’s got to be the same good fabric and have stabilizer under it so there’s even pressure from the hoop.

So I took a couple of failed attempts from earlier, and hooped the 2″ hoop on each of the four corners of the fabric, and embroidered, mostly, rude words and phrases of 2 words or less.

I’m going to make a lap quilt. You know how everybody has specific decor things they get out for Christmas? A lot of people I know, anyway. They have little snowman-themed pillow shams for the couch, and lap quilts to tuck over the back of the couch, and snowman-needlepointed door draft-stoppers, and such. But in late January, you gotta put that shit away, it’s just not... right. 

But it’s still winter. It feels weird to put your regular shit back on your couch and so on.

So I’m making a festive Sick Of Winter’s Shit crazy quilt for just this time of year. After Christmas, after the magic has worn off, and there’s still gonna be three solid months of cold dark wet bullshit, and you’re going to hurt yourself shoveling, wreck your favorite shoes in a puddle when you Choose Poorly because you thought it was all thawed (last night I almost died in cute boots ok), and the ol’ seasonal depresh crashes in because you got over your holiday stress but it’s all just a letdown and there’s nothing to look forward to.

I have a lot of worn-out garments with penguins on them, because in late high school my mother made me a fleece vest with penguins on it and everyone decided I was Into Penguins because I loved this vest. I loved it because it was comfortable and cozy, but I mean, I don’t not like penguins... so I wound up with a huge selection of penguin-themed sleepwear etc.

So I’m going to cut all those up and make this quilt out of them.

And it’s going to have a lot of swears on it.

And I’m going to make a semi-matching pillow sham, preferably in blue velvet with glitter, and it’s going to say Let It Snow on it a bunch of times but I’m going to make it off-center so it just says Tits Now, and that’s my winter-themed décor.

[themusicalhermit]

Request for Reader & Roadhog getting to know each other and bonding over something cute like being members of a crocheting/gardening club etc. please^^ Can be either romantic or platonic and doesn't need to be from The Mountain-verse :)

That particular reader (from that story) does need to interact with him in non-murderous fashions, this is true.

However I wanted to try my hand at writing romantic stuff. Have a long short that I am cutting off where it is because otherwise it would be entirely too long for a simple Tumblr request.

Reader X Roadhog: “Quilting Class” (SFW)

You hadn’t expected this to happen.

Or, rather, you hadn’t expected that you would be ever be asked to something like this.

This being, of course, accompanying Roadhog to some crafting class. You would have thought he’d only ask Junkrat or… okay, maybe only Junkrat. But no; instead, Roadhog asked you.

When you’d ask why, he simply shook his head and said, “Too impatient.”

Then you recalled that Junkrat had recently gotten bored with how slowly the microwave had worked. Had being the operative word.

“Yeah, sure. When is it?”

Roadhog handed you a flyer and almost patted you on the head before obviously rethinking that action. Instead he gave you a thumbs up. You returned it with a smile. Roadhog didn’t move for a few moments. Your smile slowly faded as you fiddled with the flyer in your hands, folding it up and putting it in your pocket.

Did he have something else to say, or was there something wrong? Was he okay?

He raised his other hand. Well, okay then. Now he was now giving you two thumbs up. You returned the gesture and promised to meet him at the entrance of the compound.

Then he nodded sharply and pivoted on the spot to rejoin Junkrat on the other side of the room. The younger man looked up at his fellow Junker. A smirk appeared on Junkrat’s face, then his gaze shot to you. His mouth moved he said something that had Roadhog cuffing him upside the head. Which didn’t do anything except result in loud, raucous laughter and two thumbs up to the big guy.

The gesture earned Junkrat another punch as he continued to laugh. You returned to work, the sound following you down the corridor.

The hectic activities around base left you unable to consider the class any further. In fact, you were so busy that you had forgotten entirely to look the flyer over. Later, when you were in your quarters and changing for bed it fell out of your pocket. You hoped that Roadhog hadn’t been keeping an eye on you somehow to see if you actually read the thing - you did like the man.

Sure, he was a bit quiet and had a violent reputation that almost matched Reaper’s, but he had only ever been calm around you. And he had given you a customised stuffed Patchimari for your last birthday. It looked vaguely like you, which had made you laugh when you unwrapped it. The handwritten card had said simply ‘limited edition’ instead of any normal birthday wishes, but that didn’t matter. It was a lovely gift.

He had, of course, gotten a couple for himself and Junkrat as well. Which made you feel less special, but that was fine. He was just being a good friend.

But that meant that this, whatever, this was, wasn’t Roadhog stealthily asking you on a date. Which was fine.

You and he were just good friends. And that was fine. You forced yourself to stop examining the situation as you bent to pick up the flyer.

Huh. A day long quilting class. That was somehow both surprising and yet not at all surprising.

Oh, good, and you were free the day the class was.

You spent the rest of the week looking forward to the class and wondering what in the world Roadhog was thinking with this. Did he just want to make something? Did he want to get to know you better? Did he like you like you liked him?

Why did this remind you of how much you’d excite yourself over your old high school crushes? You hadn’t been in high school for about as many years as you’d been in school in total.

These thoughts filled your head as you adjusted the simple ‘jeans and jumper’ look you’d chosen for the day. So what if it was one of your nicer pairs of jeans and your nicest jumper? You were going out in public and just wanted to look nice.

You were going out in public with Roadhog and just wanted to look nice. Maybe he’d notice that you’d dressed up and -

You were going out in public with Roadhog as friends. Which was fine. You were allowed to look nice if you wanted to.

Roadhog had already been waiting for you when you arrived. You nervously checked your watch as you walked up, only to see that you were on time. Roadhog waved to you as you approached, which you returned with a smile and a wave of your own.

He was wearing a vest and shirt. It was classy yet casual, but you weren’t sure if you preferred seeing his tattoos or seeing him look like someone who would be carrying a stack of wood in one hand and bringing you a cup of hot cocoa in the other. Why seeing him in a shirt gave you such a different impression of him was beyond you. It was just a piece of cloth.

Of course that piece of cloth did leave you wondering whether he was dressing up because of you, or because he was wanting to not get kicked out of the class for giving little old ladies more reason to clutch their pearls.

You greeted him with a nod and a grin, wanting to either shake his hand or kiss the sides of his mask, or hug him but unsure if he’d accept it. He nodded in return and raised a hand to hover it beside your arm before letting it fall again. Turning, he motioned towards the garage.

Along the way you chattered about your week and how much you’d been looking forward to this class. He didn’t say much, but did hum in an approving way at several points and chuckled whenever you mentioned something funny.

“Had a nice week myself,” he said as you entered the garage, reaching over and flicking a switch. The lights flickered on loudly as he led you to his bike. “Been looking forward to this, too.”

“Have you ever done quilting before,” you asked. You hadn’t, or if you had it had been so long you had forgotten everything about it. He looked up from opening a compartment on his bike.

Roadhog shook his head and pulled out a dusty and banged up white motorcycle helmet. “Here.”

You took the proffered helmet and put it on, looking between the bike and the sidecar. “So I’ll be in there,” you asked, pointing at the smiling sidecar.

Roadhog snorted, shook his head, and unhitched it. “Easier to park this way.”

He climbed atop his bike and turned the ignition. The engine roared to life loudly enough that you felt it in your bones and the air around you filled briefly with the scent of petrol. Most people these days used electric engines; the antiquity of the metal beast before you was almost awe-inspiring. Then Roadhog turned to you, cocking his head to the side as he gripped one of the handlebars. Gesturing with his other hand, he motioned for you to sit on the seat in front of him.

Right, of course. The customised seat he had left no where else to sit.

Sliding onto the bike never made you feel smaller, surrounded as you were by his warm mass. As he drove you could feel the thrum of the engine below you. You were also aware of him. How could you not be?

He was everywhere and you were unable to forget the incidental press of his legs on the outside of your own and the brush of his arms over your shoulders as he drove. Or how soft his belly was behind you, or the hard press of muscle just below those layers of fat.

You were also aware of the occasional small yet racking cough whose sound was stolen by his mask and the wind. Instead of asking after it, you filled the air by musing about how the class would be structured. What you were expecting, what you would do with the quilts you made when it was over.

Roadhog stayed mostly quiet throughout the drive, content with listening to you talk. Once in a while he’d say something simple, such as “Hadn’t thought of that” or “Good plan.”

“What will you do with your quilt,” you asked as he pulled into the car park of the centre the class was held at.

He waited until you had climbed off to turn off the ignition (which had been between your spread knees throughout the journey) and shrugged in response to your question. “Bedcover, maybe,” he said, sounding unsure.

You unclipped the helmet and handed it over. “That sounds like a good idea. At least then you fully appreciate it,” you said, rubbing your thigh absently. It was odd to stand for some reason - you could still feel the thrum of the engine beneath you. “I still don’t know what I’ll do with mine.”

Roadhog shrugged and stowed your helmet. “Decide when you have it.”

When the two of you walked into the classroom everyone had fallen silent. After a brief moment of awkwardness the teacher came over, asking if they could help you. Roadhog nodded and held out the flyer. The teacher had immediately become welcoming, smiling at the two of you and gushing over how nice it was to have a couple joining them today.

You had faltered, simultaneously wanting to deny their statement (because it wasn’t true) and wanting to see what Roadhog would do. Roadhog stood silently at your side, and the teacher smiled again before gesturing to two open seats.

The first hour or two was spent teaching everyone how to hold the needles, thread them, and other sewing basics. Roadhog hadn’t paid attention during this time, instead grabbing a hooked needle and practising various stitches as the teacher mentioned them. They eventually came around and asked if they could show his work to the class as an exemplar. As the scrap of cloth was passed around Roadhog quietly showed you how to do the same, fingers brushing your hands occasionally to adjust your hold or the angle of the needle.

Then the teacher brought out multicoloured scraps of fabric and soft downy materials. At last you had come to the meat of the class. The teacher clapped their hands together, looking out at the class’s blank faces with glee as they announced today’s theme.

The theme was apparently a ‘share stories in the round’ thing - something about traditions of sewing stories into the fabric. The finished quilt would thus posses scenes from stories important to the quilter, the goal being making the finished product more personal.

Of course this necessitated working in groups. Each table was large enough for four quilters to work at. You and Roadhog shared an aside glance (or you thought you did; it was hard to tell with the mask) and refused to move.

For your troubles you ended up having two random people join your table. You had seen them elbow other people out of the way, and weren’t sure how to feel about the mercenary way they looked at Roadhog and his sewing. He, however, seemed content to completely ignore their presence and respond only to your remarks.

You, however, nodded politely as the stories were shared. So what if you all but tuned them out in favour of cutting the scraps of fabric you’d need or passing things to Roadhog when he’d lean towards you and request them. They didn’t seem to mind, chattering away and looking with interest at Roadhog’s work (and jealously at you for some reason).

Then a brief silence fell over the table. You were focused on pinning a square in place, however, and didn’t notice until Roadhog’s warm hand covered your elbow. Looking up sharply, you saw that everyone was waiting for your tale. Apologising, you shared an amusing story someone in your family had told you once. It was nice, sharing the tale and reminiscing fondly of the transferred memory as you stitched it into your quilt.

Roadhog’s story was a simple one - his first day with Talon. And how everyone but someone who sounded suspiciously like you had been standoffish to him, taking his silence to be disinterest.

The four quilts at the table shared elements of the stories - the colours and small squares brought the stories to life before your eyes.

During the lunch break Roadhog drove you to a nearby café. It was a cute place decorated with colourful lights and plushes, and the hostess seemed to recognise your companion. You two were shown to a quiet corner table.

“Is this alright,” Roadhog asked, standing beside the table.

The seat was soft beneath you as you slid in next to the window. “Of course.”

He raised a hand toward you when you smiled, but pulled away to give a thumbs up. When the waiter came you ordered your favourite meal and Roadhog ordered a vegetarian pasta dish and expresso.

“So what do you think of this so far,” you asked.

Roadhog shrugged, the eyeglasses of his mask trained towards you. “Nice.”

You nodded. “You really know your way with needles. Did you see how surprised that snotty lady two tables over looked when the teacher praised your practice stitches?”

“If she thinks it odd that I can sew,” he intoned gravely, “let her come to Oz and see just what skills you need to live there.”

You looked up at him and smiled. “Well maybe you could tell some stories from Australia after lunch. Give her something to think about.”

Roadhog’s hand grew tight around the dwarfed cup in his hand as the mask’s eyes stared into yours. Drawing in a shuddering breath, he tilted his head to the side and gave you a thumbs up.

The class resumed with much the same sort of story telling. You paid about as much attention, joking with Roadhog under your breath. It was easier now, as he had moved his chair close enough that your legs sometimes brushed beneath the table.

You told your story. Something from your childhood that left Roadhog laughing.

But then came Roadhog’s turn for telling a story. Using few words he wove a tale of two beings called Wanampi, a father and a son.

The son was deformed. Why and how he was, Roadhog didn’t specify, beyond that one could not look at him without first noticing his deformity. Some of the nearby people had simply laughed at him, taunted him, and poked him with sticks until one day the Wanampi lashed out and swallowed them all. The remaining people retaliated and chased the two away, though the Wanampi eventually returned to dwell in a nearby waterhole.

“Oh, I didn’t know we were allowed to tell myths,” one of the other people at the table said. “If that’s the case, I think I’ll tell the story about how Odin hung himself to learn the runes -”

Roadhog tensed beside you as he quietly stitched two multicoloured snake-like creatures into the border of his quilt.

The class continued, though now Roadhog stuck to stories that sounded more like his own past. References to fighting in the Omnic Crisis, references to scavenging in the Outback, a brief tale about storming the Tower of London…

Your tales seemed boring in comparison, but Roadhog always gave you a nod and a thumbs up after you finished speaking.

And so the class continued. Through it all you and Roadhog softly talked to each other, making quiet jokes and dry remarks about how your quilts were going.

Then, all too soon in your opinion, it was over.

Looking down at your quilt, you traced your finger over the stitched smile of a long dead relative. “This was really very nice, Roadhog.” Your voice may have been overly warm and soft, but you no longer gave a damn. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“Mako.”

You turned to see him carefully folding up his quilt so that the square depicting his arrival at Talon was on top. “Sorry?”

“My name.”

Smiling, you repeated it. Mako. Roadhog drew in a rasping breath, and turned to you. Reaching out, he brought a hand to you and closed it over your shoulder with slight hesitation.

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. You opened you mouth, looking curiously up at him.

“Thank you for coming with me,” he said, cutting you off. “It was… lovely.”

Your heart fluttered. “No problem.”

His hand squeezed your shoulder lightly before sliding off. His fingers shook as he took up his quilt and turned to leave.

You ignored the way your shoulder seemed to tingle and followed him.

The return trip to the compound was mostly silent. Upon your return, Roadhog nodded to you and leant down to reattach the sidecar.

You fiddled with the quilt in your arms. “Hey, Mako, maybe we could do this again sometime. I think I saw some posters for a cake decorating class at the centre next week. Maybe we could go. If you’re free, that is.”

The snout of his mask turned to you and tilted to the side as he said your name softly. “I’d love to.”

You smiled and turned to leave. Your hand had just closed over the door handle when Roadhog called out your name again.

Turning, you watched as he jogged over. He paused, wheezing slightly, before a flood of words came out of him.

“Listen, I don’t want to lead you on or be led on. I like you. A lot. I had wanted to ask you to this class as a date, but wussed out last second. I think you like me too, but…” He paused, scratching his stomach and looking aside. “I hope that this isn’t something you didn’t want to hear, because I value your friendship even if you don’t like me the same way. You’re one of the few people I’ve met who deserve better than the ruin that is our world, and I don’t want to ruin this like I ruined…”

Suddenly you couldn’t control your smile. Adjusting the quilt in your arms, you reached out and touched him lightly on the wrist.

“It’s okay, Mako. I do like you.” His body tensed at your words even as he bent towards you. “I like you a lot.”

Roadhog drew in a shaking breath and reached up to his mask. Pulling it away, he revealed a face that was at once nothing like what you had imagined and exactly that. But he was smiling at you and leaning down with your name on his lips as he asked if he could kiss you.

Your answer was to jump up, throwing your arms around his neck as you kissed him with everything you had.

[lizzienoodles]

ALL OF THE VOLTRON ASKS

YOU’RE MY HERO (i’m gonna put this in a readmore)

paladin: message a friend, and ask them to name three of your traits. what did they say? 

Daydreamer, Creator, Introverted. (thanks bethelsteans c: )

bayard: if you became a paladin, what kind of bayard would you like to have? 

This may sound weird, but I love the idea of a heavy-duty umbrella as a weapon. You’ve got a blunt weapon for hitting with, but also kind of a shield? If i have to stick to “real weapons” though, I’d honestly just go for some kind of short staff or maybe a club (if it wasn’t too heavy). 

form voltron: what are your 5 favorite possessions? 

The green briefcase I keep my art supplies in, my clear umbrella, my computer, my tablet, and my handmade quilt. 

altea: where’s your favorite place to spend time?

This super cozy 24 hour coffee shop with drinks named after famous literature: I’d be there all the time if i could afford to. But i must remain vigilant.

lion: do you have any pets?

No. I don’t think I’m well equipped to care for an animal, but if I did get one, it’d be a lizard of some kind. :)

quintessence: do you have anything that really pumps you up or makes you feel good?

c a r  t  o o n s!!!!!! after i watch cartoons i feel like i can do anything and be expressive and colorful and energetic. It’s like a shot of caffeine to my system. Chilly weather usually has a similar effect.

crème goolée: what’s your favorite food or snack?

When it comes to snacks I’m almost ALWAYS drinking tea. Food is unquestionably pasta, with vegetables coming in a close second.

galaxy garrison: what’s an most embarrassing moment that you’ve had at school?

I was homeschooled, but the most embarrassing youth group moment I can recall was when I was probably 14 we all went skating for some 70s or 80s fun night, and I love roller skating. I think i’m pretty good at it. I was so ready to show off to my crush (without speaking to him, of course, because How Could I Be Expected To). Well, despite having only fallen a few times in my life, i wiped out pretty hard. I don’t even know if he saw or not. But i felt pretty silly. 

crystal venom: what’s the saddest thing that happened to you this week?

Coming to terms with the fact that there are some things in my life I gotta change so that I’m putting God first, and that some of the things i’ve been relying on to make myself feel secure and loved really are going to come to nothing and I have to rely on God alone. Long term it will be a good thing but right now I feel like my favorite game’s being taken away, you know?

champion: what’s something you’re afraid of?

Losing my hands. If I can’t draw I might shrivel up into a dry, crunchy floor vegetable that got kicked under the counter by accident.

arusian: if a species of small, cute, ritualistic aliens started worshipping you, what would you like your deity name to be?

I’d like that not to happen, actually, I would hope to clear up the misunderstanding as soon as possible. I would hope they could call me Friend instead.

cryopod: if you were asleep for 10,000 years, who would you bring along as a cryosleep buddy?

@seamonkeybethany because if i woke up in a world without her i might lose my mind

bad sound effects: how do you pronounce laser sounds?

just like “pew pew pew”, honestly i’m a little suprised none of the paladins used that one

balmera: if you were something similar to a balmera, what kind of aliens would be living inside you?

Well that’s not unsettling at all. Let’s see, if i was a living planet, i’d want to grow brightly colored things shaped like stars and hearts and other fun, simple shapes, so it might actually be really cool if the aliens were like, origami people??? They’d harvest the sheets of brightly colored and patterned stuff and fold them into things to trade and use!

pidge’s headphones: what’s the last song you listened to?

When I turned off my music last night, I had just started Fellow Feeling by Porter Robinson.

keith’s shack: what would your dream home be like?

I’d live in a little apartment above a small business, preferably a coffee shop. It would have big windows and wood floors. 

hunk’s headband: what’s your favorite accessory?

I’m not much of one for accessories, but sometimes I enjoy a good scarf. My favorite one is long and made of yellow yarn. I got it from the lost and found at church when everything that wasn’t claimed went up for grabs.

lance’s pajamas: what are you wearing right now?

My FAVORITE outfit currently. My big grey striped shirt, black shorts, black leggings under the shorts because it’s “winter,” and my puffy vest, also because it’s “winter.”

shiro’s eyeliner: what’s your favorite part of your body?

:) :) :) I like my leggies bc they Strong. Other than that, i’m still learning to find the good in my features.

zarkon: what’s your bloodthirstiness on a scale of 1-5? 1 being “no thanks, i’m full”, and 5 being ”unquenchable”.

I have to admit my bloodthirstiness is probably a 1 or lower. probably because of the blood part. lol. I’m always ready to Fite someone but the minute they start bleeding I’d probably start apologizing profusely. I’d rather leave an opponent with bruises or knocked out than leave them with injuries that could bleed out. k.

[carrioncrows-readers]

You've never murdered anyone before -- but when your father dies and your assets are seized by a competitor, you consider getting your hands dirty. You hoped that the local gang leader could provide the means to your salvation, but the thing about Jacob Frye is that he is full of unfortunate surprises.

Content Warnings: terminal illness (cancer), parental death, attempted coerced marriage

You’ve never murdered anyone before. But there are some lines in life that demand crossing — and you are going to cross this one.

It’s not murder if you get someone else to do it for you. Right?

Those are the thoughts in your mind as you walk into the shoddy pub, sagging into the cobblestones with creaking pine beams, gray shingles slowly decaying under the constant, torrential abuse of London’s rain. The bruisers outside eye you up and down, taking note of every sterling silver bauble and high-end scrap of fabric; wolves watching the lamb that willingly wandered into the den. You ignore them, chin tilted up. You walk like Father taught you — glide, don’t step. Shoulders back.

Father. Knowing he’d be ashamed of what you’re planning hurts more than remembering that he’s dead.

The pub is smokey and dark, London’s shadows creeping in to press down what precious little light survives in the alley with hard hands. They belch coal sludge into the ground floor and smearing the walls in long streaks. The gas lamps flicker, spilling amber across the places where the shadows don’t reach, piggybacking off the haze of cigar and pipe smoke — smothering the floor in shades of rusted brown and gold. The ceiling is so low — pockmarked with bullet holes and bloodstains that just wouldn’t come out with the fourth attempt at scrubbing them off. It smells acrid — the unwashed bodies of the working class co-mingling with tobacco and lager — the floor creaks. You’re to a corner table with two chairs as the walls close in on you — one for you, one for your prospective business partner.

Jacob Frye is an intimidating man — while not particularly tall, he’s undoubtedly broad, and his personality takes up a room. Everyone retreats to the edges of the doorframe while he props his boots up onto his dented table, smiling with all his teeth. You think, distantly, about how strikingly bird-like his face is. Not in an unhandsome way, but there’s something about the hook and curve of his chin that reminds you of a laughing crow. You notice that his vest is bespoke a little too tight against his chest (on purpose, most likely) as he reaches his arms up and folds them behind his head. The fabric hugs the soft curvature of his muscles and belly in a way that most of your fellow upper-class hob noses would consider vulgar. You notice that he’s bereft of knives and firearms. It is not a show of faith. His underlings are armed to the teeth beneath their quilted tweed jackets.

You had expected someone older; but, then again, only someone young and brash could topple the Blighters and build an empire out of their red-slick bones in less than a year. When you contacted Frye with the promise of payment, he had said he’d  humor  you. The grin he keeps on his face is evidence that he finds this whole meeting very funny indeed. Seeing you squirm, out of your element among the rotting underbelly of London’s silk pelt, being drooled over by people who would gut you for their next paycheck.

You pull out a briefcase full of money and open it with little flourish, pushing it Mr. Frye’s way and watching his face light up. You suppose that’s humorous enough to warrant some respect.

It’s all the savings you have left; doctors, funeral expenses, solicitors, and Morvell have seen to take the rest. You are carrying the broken scraps of your life and giving them away to a man who could care less about them outside of their face value.

When your father first fell ill, your family was already deep in debt. The doctors told you that the initial diagnosis was tuberculosis. You spent all your reserves on medicine and physicians, hospice care. You increased the wages for the staff as you ordered them to stay in the makeshift barracks you set up in one of the dining rooms to quarantine. Every day you wasted your hours at his bedside, hoping that perhaps his aging body could beat out the infection. As the months dragged themselves across your eyes, you spent more and more. You sold your jewelry, your heirlooms, your silvered candlesticks. At the same time, your family business floundered and strangled itself right under your nose despite your desperate attempts to keep it alive. Still, you tried.

He died in his sleep after you had bid him goodnight and exhaustedly shuffled yourself to bed. The same doctors told you later that there was nothing you could have done. When they opened him up, his marrow had putrefied. Leukemia.

Thomas Morvell had, of course, swooped in to gnaw at the scraps. Barely a week after Father’s death, he had come to collect. You had nothing to give him, besides the business — already bled dry thanks to  him,  picking at it like a vulture while your father was on his deathbed — and your name. He told you in no uncertain terms that he was going to take everything from you. But you could save yourself, the last member of your family line, by marrying into the Morvells. Perhaps you could even inherit your company back.

You have never thought about killing anyone before. But that night, after you’d screamed Morvell out into the street with a tirade that didn’t do you any favors, you lay awake thinking of all the ways you could do it. Your hands were clean. You would make them red before the month was over if you had your way.

“I hear you are in the business of murder for hire, Mr. Frye.” You watch as Frye’s face droops so fast you fear a stroke — confusion, and then a hard sort of blankness that reminds you too much of steel. He snaps the briefcase shut, nearly on your fingers, and leans across it.

“Where did you hear that I wonder?” It’s a question and a demand at once. You can’t help but feel like the shuffling behind you is guards moving to block the exit. You cannot tell what he’s thinking behind that face, and it scares you. It’s practiced, and that scares you more. Instinct kicks in, and you mirror his expression perfectly. Just like Father taught you, your hands folded in your lap, your gloves feeling too heavy against your sweaty hands. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to him — you overheard his lackeys more than once talking about what a great killer he was, how deftly he split throats, and how beautifully he cracked skulls. Anyone with ears walking past a pair of his green-clad street clowns could overhear their glowing reviews of his leadership and murderous hands.

“I was under the impression that this was public knowledge,” you say, as calm as you can. You’re proud that your voice doesn’t waver; you’re slowly building immunity to negotiation after these past few months. “I have heard rumors from members of your Rooks, you know. Stories of your,” you pause, “legendary prowess, let us say, with a — what was it? Wrist shank? Quite riveting to hear, you can imagine.” Frye makes the fatal mistake of breaking his composure to glance behind you, and you don’t have to imagine the wincing; you’ve won.

There’s a self-satisfied smile that cracks through the mirror as a hairline fracture.

Mr. Frye turns his attention back to you.

“I’m afraid you’ve misheard,” he says. “I will have some of my associates escort you back to a carriage.” Your stomach turns to lead and sinks into the floor.

You’ve lost.

“I don’t believe you’ve seen what’s in that briefcase, sir-” You reach for it, and Jacob Frye covers it with a palm. It’s a dangerous display from someone who’s won a game they didn’t even know they were playing.

“I have seen,” he says, “and I’m very sorry, but I am not interested.”

You can’t help it — your face scrunches up, rage and anguish and humiliation all at once as you snatch your briefcase back. “If you won’t do it then — then I’ll do it myself!”

You hate that he doesn’t laugh at you. You hate —  hate —  that his face softens into something that disgusts you, tears you open, and makes you want to scream. Pity. Amusement would have been better. Being beaten, robbed, and thrown into the street while Frye and his underdogs laughed in your stupid, clean, unbloodied face would have been preferable treatment.

“Don’t do that to yourself. I promise you: you’re not the type.”

You get up and leave with your briefcase in tow. You don’t even bother to wait for a carriage — you walk, enraged, until you get somewhere you can hail a driver to take you home. When you get to your empty house, you feel like the weight of it will swallow you whole. You betrayed it, and now you’re going to lose it. The darkened foyer is the throat to the dog you can’t afford to feed.

You collapse against the front door and wail until your heartstrings are frayed. You cry your voice ragged. You cry until you’ve cried all the tears you have left in you. Then you sit, sniffling and still, with your temple pressed to the wall until you can gather the energy to fall into bed with all of your clothes.

The following week, you sit in your near-empty study and stare blankly at the papers in front of you. Morvell goes on and on about marriages, apologies, and half-veiled threats. You don’t register anything. You can only stare at the words on the pages and try to wish them away; you want it all to be a nightmare.

Nightmares would be better.

Your assets, liquid and non-liquid, are to be seized — including your home, stocks, bonds, and inheritance — pending signatures until further notice or otherwise from Mister Thomas Gleeson Morvell. Should you sell any assets before that time, you are to turn over your profits to Mister Morvell to pay off your substantial debt by order of Her Majesty’s Justice of the Peace, so help him, God. Your other debtors have decided to consolidate their owes under Morvell, who will take great care in making sure that any loans are repaid in full.

You curl your fingers into the fabric at your legs. Morvell’s made it very clear — the only snowball’s chance in hell you have of getting your birthright back is to marry into the Morvell line. You imagine what it would feel like to take your letter opener and sink it into his eye. You’ve read that there’s a bone behind the socket; would it be soft and yielding before you hit bedrock, or would it pop like a grape? How easily would the knife twist in your hand?

You are so, so full of hate that when Morvell leaves, you consider following him until you find a dark enough alley that you can — what? Beat him with your soft, unburdened hands? Laugh him to death?

No. You need someone else for this, or you need to teach yourself to shoot at something that’s not a fox. To cut something that’s not gentle, scented paper and wax. You need Frye.

The next day you find a tell-tale flash of green on the hat of a street boy, and you offer him more money than he’s earned in two months to tell you exactly  where Jacob Frye hides out. You don’t expect him to tell you about a train. You suppose it fits. He tells you which station the behemoth will dock next, and you take a carriage there to wait, wait, and wait. At first, you sit on one of the benches, watching the tracks obsessively. You get up to pace as people give you a wide berth while you wear a hole in the floor, circle the tracks like a shark, and make yourself a nuisance.

It takes hours — but eventually, you see the train. It’s a hulking beast of dented cold iron belching smoke into the sky. Your only clue that this is Frye’s train is the steady trickle of green-coated Rooks hopping on and off from the platforms. You don’t even bother to sneak in — you walk up to the head car, the spot where first-class passengers would usually make their homes. It’s almost muscle memory for you.

Jacob Frye doesn’t greet you warmly — in fact, he grabs you rather roughly by the arm and all but drags you further into the train, looking at you like you’re a bad omen. His other hand is stuffed with money; you almost want to laugh at it, the irony.

“How the hell did you get here,” he hisses.

“A train full of Rooks is not very subtle,” you say, yanking your arm away from him and rubbing the spot that he touched, hoping it doesn’t bruise.

“Bullshit. I rotate the patrols — there’s no more of my gang coming and going off this duke than there are any other in London. Someone told you.” He searches your face, but you’re very good at what you do — London high society has trained you to keep your informants close to your chest.

“There were no other passengers. You might want to start taking fare if your best defense is ‘there are some Rooks on other trains sometimes.’” He scoffs, and the floor starts to rumble under your feet. In a fit of pique, he slams the doors to the car shut, locking you away from the rest of the train and escape. You realize then just how bad of an idea this was. Your heart starts to play rat-a-tat against its cage.

“Why did you even come here?”

“I was hoping you would reconsider my proposal.” He stares and then laughs in that disbelieving, half-scoff way you only hear when a conversation partner thinks the other is an idiot. You tilt your chin up.

“No,” he says; he gently scoots you aside to open his safe — strangely bold of him, to let you see the combination, but you realize a moment later that you don’t. His arm is oh-so-subtly blocking the lock, and for the first time, you see what they mean by wrist shank. His bracer is a beast of gold, red, and leather. He could hide the crown jewels in there if he wanted — you’re not surprised that’s where he keeps his knives, too. You wonder if the insignia stamped on the back of his palm is a family crest or just code.

The safe swings open.

“Then teach me! I’ll pay you for that too — but I am not leaving this train until you agree to either one.” You glance to the inside of the safe out of curiosity and nearly fall over. You’ve never seen so much money in person — and not just money, papers too; envelopes, letters, a theater mask, for some reason. Stacks on stacks of pounds, and he pulls out a smaller bundle and adds to the pile before tying it off with twine and shoving it back in. Your stomach does flips doing the calculations. He won't take your money. He doesn't need it. You have to offer him something else, something more precious, but you have nothing. You are nothing, you think, wanting to curl in on yourself and die as Frye slings an arm over the top of the safe and plants his other hand on his hip. He taps his foot, hangs his head. A bit overdramatic, but you appreciate the posture of a man thinking. Eventually, he cranes his neck to look at you.

“Fine,” he says. “Fine. Who do you want dead?” You’ve never felt so happy. You can’t keep the grin from your face — whether this means he’s going to kill the bastard himself or teach you to get your hands bloody, it doesn’t matter. You’re going to get revenge on the person that ruined your life by the end of the month.

“Thomas Gleeson Morvell.”

Jacob Frye stares at you with widened eyes and a hard line for a mouth. Then he shuts the safe, locks it, and directs you to sit. And sit you do, for the next hour. You wonder, briefly, what it means; but you're drowning in the kind of giddy nervousness that only goes hand-in-hand with conspiracy to care. When the train pulls into the next station, Frye grabs you by the arm again and this time doesn’t let you shrug him off, all but dragging you to a carriage. Your elation dies in the cradle. You scream when he shoves you in, hoping someone hears or sees — anything.

No one does.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

Gift of the Day: The Stella McCartney staple that has us starry-eyed

http://fashion-trendin.com/gift-of-the-day-the-stella-mccartney-staple-that-has-us-starry-eyed-2/

Gift of the Day: The Stella McCartney staple that has us starry-eyed

All is bright this Christmas, especially with this crimson knockout on the horizon. This Stella McCartney bag is definitely a contender for our Christmas gifts for her edit and one you’ll be toting around all holiday season – and well into 2018.

Red is still very much the colour of the season and this accessory is crafted from a vegan leather called Alter Nappa, although you’d never be able to tell the difference. With a gold star detail to reward you for all the crap you had to put up with this year, I particularly love the unique star quilting – it’s giving me major Power Puff Girls vibes in the best of ways.

Buy now

Wear it on your shoulder with stunning Christmas party dresses or across your body over a houndstooth winter coat to take on the snow in style. If red isn’t your vibe, there’s also a white and black version that’ll go with pretty much any outfit below.

Buy now

Buy now

The Stella Star Small Shoulder Bag is available for £745 from Stella McCartney, so it’s definitely investment piece material. It’s been a roller coaster of a year though and say it after me: you deserve this.

Not sick of the festive season yet? We’ve got more present inspiration in our numerous galleries, including our Christmas gifts for him, Christmas gifts for dads, Christmas gifts for mum, gifts for book lovers, secret Santa gifts, best beauty advent calendars and Christmas makeup gift sets that should have every person in your life covered – and then some.

There’s only thirteen days till December 25th. Can you believe it?

I for one will be stuffing my face with mince pies till the bitter Boxing Day end. Preferably with this bag in hand.

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[fashiontrendin-blog]

Gift of the Day: The Stella McCartney staple that has us starry-eyed

http://fashion-trendin.com/gift-of-the-day-the-stella-mccartney-staple-that-has-us-starry-eyed/

Gift of the Day: The Stella McCartney staple that has us starry-eyed

All is bright this Christmas, especially with this crimson knockout on the horizon. This Stella McCartney bag is definitely a contender for our Christmas gifts for her edit and one you’ll be toting around all holiday season – and well into 2018.

Red is still very much the colour of the season and this accessory is crafted from a vegan leather called Alter Nappa, although you’d never be able to tell the difference. With a gold star detail to reward you for all the crap you had to put up with this year, I particularly love the unique star quilting – it’s giving me major Power Puff Girls vibes in the best of ways.

Buy now

Wear it on your shoulder with stunning Christmas party dresses or across your body over a houndstooth winter coat to take on the snow in style. If red isn’t your vibe, there’s also a white and black version that’ll go with pretty much any outfit below.

Buy now

Buy now

The Stella Star Small Shoulder Bag is available for £745 from Stella McCartney, so it’s definitely investment piece material. It’s been a roller coaster of a year though and say it after me: you deserve this.

Not sick of the festive season yet? We’ve got more present inspiration in our numerous galleries, including our Christmas gifts for him, Christmas gifts for dads, Christmas gifts for mum, gifts for book lovers, secret Santa gifts, best beauty advent calendars and Christmas makeup gift sets that should have every person in your life covered – and then some.

There’s only thirteen days till December 25th. Can you believe it?

I for one will be stuffing my face with mince pies till the bitter Boxing Day end. Preferably with this bag in hand.

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