#whats the thing i told myself the other day uhhh put wishing into working and something soemthing

[ninja-knox-ur-sox-off]

You're literally what I wish I could be. When I came across your tumblr I thought you only did fanart but then I found out that you wrote fanfiction as well and I was like "Um, hello? A fanart artist AND a fanfiction writer? Sign me the fuck up!"

Seriously, I wish I could draw as well as you!

Well thank you for the compliment! Ngl I love when people find out I can do both, its highly entertaining and definitely a source of good vibes for me <3 I'm sure if you draw every single day you'll be as good as me, probably even better. Have a fantastical day mate!

[canmom]

personal, sex discussed, give some indication if you read please

my friend who plays ffxiv with me sometimes on American servers has recently gotten into the world of 'pillows', which are like... a sex work adjacent practice where people will rp intimacy with you in return for ingame money. ('pillows' are nonsexual, 'courts' [courtesans] are sexual, but otherwise essentially the same practice). she paid for me to go for one, and... it has given me much to think about i guess.

it really highlighted the difference between ttrpg rp and mmo rp. bc like... the mode i tend to adopt in ttrpg is that of a writer, i guess. my character is an instrument I'm using to tell an interesting story, and the choices i make are all on the basis of like, what would make for engaging drama. it's not that my desires don't factor into it - i want to feel that I'm entertaining the other players, the stories i find interesting reflect my preoccupations and interests - but what my character wants and what i want are distinct. sometimes what i want is to see her fail in her ambitions and undergo transformation as a result, because that's juicy narratively. it's a mode that suits me well, i like telling stories, and i feel very good if i seem to be entertaining people. no surprise perhaps that I'm most comfortable in the GM's chair.

mmo rp on the other hand feels more like... my character is a thin polygonal shell over me. sure she has a particular voice and a backstory, but it's a thin allegory for my own life. I'm new to this server, so she's a curious refugee from a foreign land who doesn't know how things are done. i lost Fall, so she lost someone on the voyage. logging into the mmo is these days mostly just a way to spend time with my friend in our anime bodies, going out places together - something we can't do in real life due to distance and disability.

so after a lot of pushing from my friend i agreed to do a pillow before i went to bed. why? i guess i was feeling lonely and really wishing for some touch and intimacy irl and this seemed like the next best thing. and i was also curious. i wanted to know what this would be like. but i was very concerned with being a good client - i wanted to like... rp well, make my partner in the scene feel comfortable as well. i think i did decently.

but looking back at that afterwards, and thinking about what it would be like to do that again (courts or pillows)... it occurs to me that like, that's the only way i could think to approach it, trying to do a good job. i realised i could much more easily imagine doing the job, which is figuring out what the other person desires and giving it to them, than imagine paying someone else money to perform a scene tailored to my desires.

'what do you want?' seems like the most straightforward question. everyone else seems to be able to answer it. indeed, i looked today at the list of court players in the venue my friend now frequents - all of them provide a like, list of their feelings about and willingness to do a series of 'standard' kinks. i imagined trying to fill one out myself and had no idea what I'd put. willing to do almost anything. want to do... what?

and the thing is... this is how i tend to approach sexuality in general, i guess. if someone asks me what i want i just end up on like... uhhh please touch my back? it's been years and i feel like I've opened a series of doors when it comes to talking about sexuality and writing it in fiction and yet it seems this must fundamental thing, to directly identify and express a desire, still eludes me.

when i look at the work of talented nsfw artists, animators in particular, you can see that they have it. there is a passion evident in the lavishly detailed expression: they want to be drawing that particular thing. it feels like by contrast I'm just chasing the formal codes of the medium. breaking it down analytically so i can be told i did a good job.

what's it going to fucking take to figure this out? i feel like I've been beating my head against this problem for years and I'm no closer to the solution. it's like there's a wire missing between desire and recognition/expression/action. when i was with a__, she tried to figure out what i was into, but it was so frustratingly obtuse that she gave up long before we actually broke up. like, she'd suggest stuff, and I'd feel good about it, but maybe really all it was was that she was actually paying attention to me and making me feel wanted. but in the end... i couldn't give her a usable answer. she suggested buying me outfits and i liked that but then couldn't figure out what sort of clothes I'd actually want to wear.

what the fuck am i so afraid of?? i want to want things. it's one of the most basic qualities of animal life. i don't want to always be sitting on the safe distant throne of analytical curiosity and trying to do a good job for other people. i want my art to have desire and expression and personality. i want my life to have that.

what fucked me up this way? was it the school system? did i become so dependent on feeling like I'd passed the test and done a good job that i completely lost sight of actually like... speaking for myself?

in a previous era i tried to cultivate purity. i tried to limit my stimuli to only the ones from the right categories of person that overtly stated the right political message. now I've found a voice that's like... curatorial, analytical. now i like to know the history and context, i can relate it to other things. I'm not hung up on purity but perhaps i lost something with the like... unreasonable fannishness i used to adopt so much more readily. i express my devotion now through the long critical essay, not the fanfic. i don't pick favourites. all the same, i do at least still love fiction - the vicarious, simpler emotions of imaginary people. if something can make me feel, strongly, I'm a devotee. so i want to make fiction that evokes the same sort of strength of feeling.

i wish nobody had ever told me i was clever. i wish i could let doing the things i want take priority over doing them well. all my pictures lately are attempts to capture something of what other artists are able to express. to develop into a certain kind of person - more or less a combination of the girls from eizouken. what is it that all of this aims to express? if i master all these skills, what am i here to communicate with them? i won't know that yet i suppose - art is a tool for figuring that out.

i guess we wandered away from talking about sex. but it's all related, don't you see? at least art is supposed to be mysterious.

i suppose, despite being someone who is trying to make a living off art commissions, i find it hard to imagine commissioning someone else. i have commissioned exactly one piece of art in my life, bc a friend was doing emergency commissions. i like doing commissions - it makes me really really glad to feel like I've made a picture that fully satisfies someone's desires. in a sense drawing original works should be like making commissions for myself. but instead i worry about like... cultivating technical skills, achieving specific vibes, endlessly compare myself to other artists.

i wish i could talk to Fall about this. i think she knew what's up. but... you know.

maybe I'll put a pin in that. "making commissions for myself". maybe splitting it like that, requesting and fulfilling, will help me set desire into motion. as for sexuality... that one remains a puzzle. but i will keep trying. one day the door will open.

[symptoms-syndrome]

OC ramblings relevant to trauma/mental illness stuff. TW for talk of grooming and SA. A little graphic at the end? Not describing a traumatic event just the aftermath.

I have an OC very near and dear to my heart (though all my OCs are near and dear to my heart, this one is just special) that I project a lot of my worst self onto.

And I was talking with some friends about how he's kind of a dick and definitely a bad friend. Specifically, he's a dick in that he always ensures his own safety and well-being first, and is often unempathetic to others' distress. For example, if someone he knew was being groomed or had been sexually assaulted, he would consider that "none of his business" and assume they can work themselves out. Either they work themselves out and it's fine, or they don't and he couldn't have done anything anyway.

And like, there's some small part of me that still reacts like that. I'm just sort of naturally a low empathy person, very logical. I got myself out of a bad place so others can too sort of vibe, the bootstrappy attitude I mentioned in that post about not being soft. Ofc I recognize, logically, that's not really how it works. There's other factors in other people's lives that I'm not aware of. And most of the time I can be uhhh what's the word. For fake empathy but real feelings of wanting to help etc. That sort of thing. I do care even if I don't feel the thing. I care about my friends and stuff.

Anyway I guess it was mostly on my mind because. I passively mentioned a few of the Bad Things that have happened to me during sex work very off the cuff to my drag mom bc I was rly drunk tonight. Like they don't upset me rly, not to talk about. Just like. Yeah that happened and I did what I had to do and I got through it whatever. And he said that sounded scary and I didn't really know what to say. Because it probably was, in the moment (I don't remember the moments) but it isn't now. And I guess it got me thinking like. This isn't normal. It's not just death and taxes. I guess I just. Legitimately do consider sexual assault to be just a thing that happens to most people. Some people get real fucked up and traumatized by it and some people just. IDK have it happen. It does not occur to me that there are people who never have been and never will be assaulted. That's very much this OC's outlook too. It just happens. It sucks but you get through it. Life goes on. Sometimes you get splinters and sometimes you scrape your knees and sometimes you stub your toe in the middle of the night and sometimes people touch you when you don't want them to and sometimes they do it by force. I guess I'm just. Really numb to it.

And I guess I know I'm not supposed to be numb to it. The most recent assault that I remember I remember feeling really unaffected and mostly being bothered by not feeling anything about it. I tried to make myself cry in the shower but just kinda stood there getting wet and then got out and went to bed and went to work the next day and I don't think I've ever brought it up again until now. I remember I told my friends and they were concerned about me and I wished they had something to like. Care for. Like I wanted to have something that they felt they could help with but there just wasn't really anything there, because it sucked but it sucked like how dropping your toast sucks or losing the last puzzle piece sucks and nothing more.

And I think. That makes a lot of things make sense in a way? Why I'm so different. Of course there's a lot of things that make me different. But one of the big ones is that other people haven't had to "just get through it" as much as I have. Other people haven't been forced to do things they don't want to do as often or as severely. So like. I'm already so familiar with milder discomforts that they don't bother me. I have generally lower standards for what I'm willing to put myself through. Is that considered dignity? I don't really know. I just know that accomplishing a goal makes almost any suffering bearable. I'm willing to put myself through a lot to get to something that's important to me. I'll work myself to the bone. That's probably not good, but I have yet to see problems arise. I'm higher accomplishing than a lot of my non traumatized peers purely because putting in what it takes is easier for me, comparatively to what I've already gone through. Like how my friends seem much more willing to quit jobs if they don't like them, and sometimes what they don't like feels SO minor. The idea of "I don't like doing [unpleasant task] so I won't do it" feels so foreign and insane to me. You just do things even though you don't like them because you have to. That's just how life works. Death and taxes and laundry over and over ad infinitum.

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Father of Mine – 1/2

Character: Bruce Wayne x Daughter!Reader

Summary: With the tragic passing of her mother, Y/N learns to the truth of who her father is. 

Word Count: 4,000+

Warnings: Family death, cancer, absent father, cremation 

A/N: The reader is described as tall in this fic. Bruce Wayne is 6′2 and I’m tall, so I’m indulging myself with no apologies. Read it or don’t. 

“Do you want to say anything before we…” the operator asked her.

“No,” Y/N answered quickly.

“Oh, my assistant forgot to give you this,” the operator gave her a shy smile as he handed her a small cardboard box.

She opened it to find all of her mother’s jewelry that had been on her body at the funeral.

“Thank you,” Y/N told him.

“Ready?” The operator asked.

He had been so kind throughout the whole process. It was obvious he was used to people breaking down and being extremely emotional. 

But Y/N had been stoic, almost concerningly so. 

Though he wasn’t one to judge. Everyone grieved differently.

With the pull of a handle, Y/N watched her mother’s body going into the chamber.

“It will be a few hours,” the operator told her.

He meant it will it will take a few hours for her mother’s body to burn to ash. Then they would hand her a tacky vase with her remains.

Y/N just nodded. “I’ll go for a walk.”

As soon as she was outside, Y/N called her mother’s executor.

“Ms. Y/L/N, I was just about to call you.”

“I’m at the crematory,” she told him. “I figured we should discuss the bills that still need to be paid for.”

“Yes, of course. As I mentioned to you before, your mother’s life insurance covers quite a lot of it…” his words died out.

“But it’s still not enough,” Y/N finished for him. “I’ll get the money.”

She wasn’t exactly rich, but she also wasn’t living paycheck to paycheck. But people never realized how much money it cost for loved ones to die. It was honestly ridiculous.

“You might want to consider taking out a loan,” he tried to suggest gently.

“I’ll think about it.”

“Another thing, Ms. Y/L/N. There was an envelope with a name on it. And your mother left instructions on delivering the envelope to them.”

She stopped her pacing. 

“What name is on the envelope?” Y/N asked.

There was a pause.

“Bruce Wayne.”

Y/N’s brow furrowed.

Of course she knew who Bruce Wayne was – everyone in Gotham did, as well as most of the country. He was a billionaire playboy, only making headlines when he was a mess. But every once in awhile his philanthropy would sneak in there. Y/N always assumed those were only to help recover his image and not because he was a good person.

“You still there?” The executor asked.

“Yeah. I’m just a bit confused. But please pass it along to him, if that’s what my mom wanted.”

“I can’t. The instructions specifically say for you to deliver the envelop to him in person.”

“In person?” Y/N groaned in annoyance as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

Why did all of this have to be so god damn complicated?

“Yes. Her instructions are…oddly specific."

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll pick up everything from your office before the work day ends.”

——————

Y/N stared at the envelop that she’d tossed on her coffee table as she sipped a rather large glass of red wine.

She was wracking her brain trying to think of a time when her mom mentioned knowing Bruce Wayne. But Y/N would’ve remembered her mom saying his name – even in passing. It’s not a name that one can drop casually.

Y/N pulled up her phone and googled him. But she looked at his history. Yes, he was from Gotham, as was her mom, but so were 10 million other people.

But then Y/N’s scrolling paused when she realized they went to the same high school: Gotham Academy. Not only that, they graduated in the same year.

‘Were they friends?’ Y/N wondered.

But just classmates or friends still didn’t seem to warrant a handwritten letter to be delivered after one’s death.

Y/N didn’t open the envelope.

Her mother’s instructions specifically told her not to. And if she put in that much of an effort to get this done after her death, Y/N wasn’t going to ignore such a request.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t curious.

“Fuck,” Y/N sighed before throwing back the rest of her wine.

——————

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t grant you access to the building without your name being in the system by the company you’re visiting,” the building receptionist told her for the third time.

“I understand. But I called his office 30 fucking times and they refuse to put me through to him or get me an appointment,” Y/N practically growled.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I already called their office to say you were here and they didn’t recognize your name. I can’t let you through to the elevators.”

Y/N’s gaze flickered to the security guard who stood a few feet away. He was eyeing her now that there was clearly an argument going on.

Y/N wanted to roll her eyes. She had a good foot on him – even without her heels on. And he looked like he couldn’t run a 50 yard dash without passing out or vomiting. If he thought he was going to physically stop her, he had another thing coming.

“Listen, I am not some crazy fucking stalker. My mom knew Bruce Wayne and in her will she asked me to deliver this to him,” Y/N’s voice lowered and became disturbingly calm. “I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t want to have this conversation.”

“Ma’am, I’m going to need you to calm down,” the security guard finally stepped forward.

“Oh, fuck off,” Y/N rolled her eyes at the rent-a-cop.

“Ma’am, I’ll have to ask you to leave,” he continued.

“Call me ma’am one more fucking time…” Y/N growled.

But the security guard was taking a step to her.

“Excuse me. What seems to be the problem here?” A voice suddenly interrupted.

Everyone turned to see a young man – younger than Y/N – glaring at the security guard just as he was about to grab Y/N.

“M-Mr. Drake, we were just escorting this young woman from the premises,” the guard stuttered out.

Everyone at the building knew every member of the Wayne family. But unlike his siblings, Tim Drake was at the office almost every day. As one should be when they’re the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company.

“For what reason?” Tim Drake asked.

“She insists on seeing Mr. Wayne. But she doesn’t have an appointment. For security reasons, I cannot let her through, obviously, unless the company she is visiting has put her into their system and the building’s system,” the receptionist explained nervously.

Y/N frowned as if she was bored of the whole thing.

Tim stepped forward. “May I ask what your business with Bruce Wayne is?”

Now that he was closer, Y/N noticed how exhausted he looked. He was handsome still, of course. But she wondered when he last got a good night’s sleep. He was shorter than her, probably standing at 5’5. And she still believed he was younger than her, which was wild seeing as he was already the CEO and couldn’t be older than 24.

Y/N sighed before she grabbed the envelope from her black leather satchel, and showed that Bruce Wayne’s name was handwritten on it.

“My mother wished me to personally deliver this to him.”

Tim tilted his head slightly. “Why isn’t she doing it?”

“Because she’s dead,” she shot back without emotion.

But Tim’s face became sympathetic. “I’m sorry. I should’ve assumed…”

“It’s fine,” Y/N quickly cut him off before he could continue.

She was so tired of being on the receiving end of people’s sympathy. It didn’t help. And the words stopped holding any meaning to her.

“But I’m sorry. Bruce isn’t in today. And he probably won’t be coming to the office for the rest of the week.”

“Oh,” was all she responded with.

Of course Bruce Wayne didn’t come to work. Why would he?

This was a stupid idea. And now she had made a scene because of it.

“But if you give me your information, I will personally let him know that you are trying to reach him.”

“Really?” Y/N asked in shock.

Tim smiled at her surprise. “Of course.”

“Here’s my card,” she quickly grabbed one from her wallet and then a pen. “All my info is on that.” She wrote something on the back. “And that’s my mom’s name.”

He took it from her and nodded. “What was your mother’s relationship with Bruce?”

Y/N shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure it out. Apparently they graduated in the same high school class. But that’s all I was able to find.”

He nodded.

“Thank you…Mr. Drake. For your help. Really,” she urged.

“Please, it’s just Tim.” Then he glared at the receptionist and security guard. “For you it is, at least.”

“Thank you again,” Y/N felt like saying it 30 more times still wouldn’t be enough.

“You don’t have to thank me. Someone will be in touch. Have a good day, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Y/N,” she corrected with a smile before she nodded and started backing away.

He smiled at her correction and gave a final nod.

——————

Y/N didn’t expect to hear from anyone for at least a week.

If the Wayne family was one thing, it was busy.

They probably had parties to go to, meetings to attend, private jets taking them around the world whenever they wished.

Why would they ever prioritize a meeting with her, a stranger?

So imagine her surprise when she received a call from an unrecognized number the same day she gave Tim Drake her card.

“Hello?” She answered.

Usually she would let any unknown number go to voicemail.

“Hello,” a British voice answered. “Am I speaking with Ms. Y/F/N Y/L/N?”

“This is she,” Y/N sat up straighter on her couch.

“This is Alfred Pennyworth. I work for Master Wayne and manage all his personal appointments. I was told by Master Tim that you wished to meet with him?”

“Uhhh. Yes. Yes, I do. Is that…is that possible?”

“Would you be able to stop by Wayne Manor on Friday afternoon?”

Y/N already knew she had nothing going on that would stop her from getting this done. But she still paused to pretend to think about it.

“Yes, Friday afternoon should be fine. Are you sure he doesn’t just want me to stop by Wayne Enterprises?”

It felt oddly intimate to stop by Wayne Manor. Wouldn’t they want to meet her in a more secure location like a corporate building with security that already hated her?

“He is quite certain. Should I send a car for you Ms. Y/L/N?”

A car?

Y/N felt even more out of her depth now.

“Oh, no. That won’t be necessary. I’ll be there.”

“I look forward to meeting you, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“Thanks,” she answered before hanging up and realizing that probably wasn’t the proper response to such a polite goodbye.

——————

“I haven’t heard that name since high school,” Bruce had muttered as he stared at the business card for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Yes, and the end of your relationship did not end on the best of terms,” Alfred commented.

Y/M’s/N Y/L/N had been Bruce’s high school sweetheart.

An she had seen the last moments of Bruce’s normal life. 

Upon graduation, Bruce decided to leave Gotham and that’s how his second life was founded. The two of them broke up before the summer after graduation had even ended.

Well, “Breakup” was a strong word.

Bruce stopped answering her calls.

She was his first love and he continued to love her.

But once Bruce realized where his life was going and who he wanted to be, he knew he couldn’t drag her into it. She deserved better.

And Bruce was a coward about relationships then. Maybe he still was.

“I am certain you did a thorough background check on her already,” Alfred commented with a smirk.

Bruce took in a breath before listing off all of her accomplishments. “Y/F/N Y/L/N. Graduated number one in her class at Gotham Academy. She was the star of the track team, breaking the regional record for fastest time in 100m, 200m, and 400m races. Also captain of her soccer team. Attended NYU’s photography program before dropping out after a year. Now she’s a professional photography. Her work’s been featured in Vogue, New York Times, National Geographic…amongst others.”

“Rather an impressive woman,” Alfred said.

Bruce nodded.

“I should get the tea and coffee ready for her arrival.” And with that, Alfred left Bruce in the drawing room.

30 minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Bruce glanced down at his watch: she was right on time.

He heard Alfred saying his pleasantries before he heard the clicking of her heels as she rounded the corner to enter the room he was waiting in.

For being a famous photographer, she could’ve been a runway model with her height and the way she walked into the room, completely owning it. She wore four-inch heels, only adding to her natural tallness. And her bright, red coat only added to her presence.

For a split second, Bruce was convinced that he was looking at an Amazon. Diana immediately flashed into his mind for a split second. Perhaps that was what Y/M’s/N needed help with: to get her daughter to her real people. But how would she have known Bruce Wayne had such connections? Unless she knew Batman’s true identity…

As soon as Y/N spotted him in the room, he rose from his seat.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” Bruce greeted.

He took a step forward and held out his hand.

“You guys really love the formalities.” She said it with a dark evenness, but it was clearly a joke. “Y/N is fine, Mr. Wayne,” she added as she shook his hand.

“In that case, it’s Bruce,” he countered with a soft smirk.

There was something so familiar about her. But Bruce knew they’d never met. 

“Thank you for seeing me. I don’t want to waste anymore of your time,” Y/N quickly got to it. She opened her purse to grab the envelope.

“My mom wanted you to have this. And she wanted to make sure I was the one to give it to you,” Y/N explained as she offered it to him.

Bruce took it carefully, but didn’t open it. “Yes, I heard about her passing. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” she said hurriedly, making it obvious to Bruce that she did not want nor need his condolences.

Bruce nodded slowly.

There was a pause.

“Do you know what it says?” He asked her lightly.

She shook her head. “I wasn’t supposed to read it.”

“I see.”

“I should really be going. I have a flight to catch later tonight.” Most people that visited Wayne Manor wished to stay there forever. Or their curiosity got the best of them and their eyes took in every little detail.

But Y/N looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. And she wanted to get out as soon as she possibly could.

“Thank you again for seeing me,” she rushed out.

Without waiting for his answer, Y/N turned and started walking out of the room.

But she only got a few steps before she stopped.

Bruce watched her shoulders tense and her body move as she was clearly taking in deep breath.

Slowly, Y/N turned around to face him.

“Were you friends?”

Bruce gave her a watery smile. “She was my girlfriend in high school.”

Y/N seemed annoyed by that answer. “She never mentioned you. Not once.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed at that and his eyes zoned out as if he was revising the past in his mind. “I’m not entirely surprised. Things didn’t really end well between us.”

She nodded slowly. “Goodbye, Mr. Wayne.”

And Y/N turned and strutted out of the room without looking back.

As soon as Bruce heard her cab drive away, he ripped open the envelope and pulled out a letter.

He barely noticed that Dick had walked into the room. “May I ask…Who was the extremely attractive and tall woman that just walked out?”

But Bruce didn’t hear him as his eyes raced across the letter. His heart sped as he continued reading.

“Bruce?” Dick asked after being ignored. “Is she your next conquest or what?”

It wasn’t until Bruce was done reading the letter for the third time that he finally looked up and acknowledged Dick.

Alfred had also walked into the room, unbeknownst to Bruce.

“You OK?” Dick asked, now concerned with how silent Bruce had become.

“Master Wayne?” Alfred also urged.

“That was…my daughter,” Bruce finally muttered.

Dick blinked before his eyes grew wide in shock.

Alfred seemed less surprised, almost as if he had already put that together.

“Excuse me,” Bruce told them and exited the room.

———

Dick and Alfred must’ve warned the rest of the family not to bother Bruce in the cave. Usually he would’ve been disturbed by now.

Bruce had been at the computer for hours.

Alfred was the first person to come down, carrying a tray with dinner and tea.

The butler wasn’t surprised to find Y/N’s face all over the screens.

If Bruce had left any available information hidden before inviting Y/N to the manor, it was all out there now. Bruce knew everything about Y/F/N Y/L/N that was public knowledge – probably even some things that were not.

“You know, you did not seem all that surprised,” Bruce said to Alfred as he put the tray of food down next to him.

“Seemed rather obvious, didn’t it?”

Bruce quickly turned to look at him. “It did?”

Alfred smirked. “Her eyes,” was all he said.

“The color?”

Alfred shook his head. “As soon as she walked into the manor, they were reading me.” He tilted his head in Bruce’s direction. “Observation. Perception. Attention to detail...That is all you, Master Wayne.”

“The way she held herself,” Alfred continued, "Shoulders held back, head high, walking with purpose. No hesitation.”

“Also me?” Bruce asked.

Alfred simply nodded.  

“I don’t think she liked me very much,” Bruce sighed.

He didn’t know how he felt about that yet.

“A lot of people think you don’t like them when you first meet them,” Alfred countered. “Because I don’t trust them yet.”

Alfred raised his brows and silently ask him, ‘Don’t you see my point?’

Bruce rubbed his face and reached for the tea on the tray, ignoring all the food.

“I don’t know why you’re so entertained by this, Alfred.”

“Yes, I was entertained. I just saw a younger, female version of you, Master Wayne.”

“I abandoned her,” Bruce shot.

“You didn’t know she existed,” Alfred corrected.

“And why do you think that is?”

Alfred’s face dropped a little bit when he noticed the envelope discarded on the far end of Bruce’s desktop.

He looked down at the ground as he asked, “Might I ask what the letter said?”

Bruce glared at the letter as if touching it would burn him.

But after a moment, he grabbed it and quickly handed it to Alfred.

Bruce,

If this letter has finally reached you, it is because I have passed.

I must admit that I wrote this letter mostly in the event that I leave my daughter before she is an adult. But once Y/N turned 18, I decided to still pass this along to you.

There is no easy way to tell you this, so I will get to the point.

The young woman who delivered this letter to you is your daughter, Bruce.

Y/F/N Y/M/N Y/L/N.

When I found out I was pregnant with her, I was only 18. We had just graduated high school. You had started traveling. You called less and less. And you grew more distant – physically and emotionally. Eventually, you stopped answering my calls altogether. I left you a voicemail, only saying that I so desperately needed to talk to you, that I needed you.

But you never called me back.

With no words at all, you made it very clear that you no longer wanted anything to do with me.

But there I was, a teenager who was pregnant with our child.

I would be lying if I said I never considered terminating my pregnancy. I was scared and you broke my heart. All I wanted to do was erase you from my life.

But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Once I decided what my future was going to be, I also decided that I did not want you to have any part in it.

I knew even if you pretended to play the doting father and the committed partner, you would grow tired of us eventually. You would resent me and our child for bringing you down. And you would brush us aside for yourself.

I realized I would rather Y/N have no father at all than one who would only disappoint her over and over again.

To this day, I truly believe I did the right thing for all three of us.

There are not enough words to explain the complicated woman that Y/N grew up to be. But I will try my best. I think I owe you that at least. 

Or maybe you have no interest.

I don’t know how she became so much like you, even when I never so much as showed her a picture of you or uttered your name.

She enjoys being alone – almost to her own detriment. I constantly catch her repressing her feelings, always staying strong for everyone else. It reminds me of you. She’s assertive and confident, never letting anything stand in the way of what she wants. Sometimes I don’t think she’s scared of anything. It worries me, just like it worried me when I thought the same of you.

I truly don’t know what you will do with this information.

But…if you have any desire to form some sort of relationship with her, then you should know this: she will not make it easy for you. She will push you away. And she might even hate you. I raised her to never need a man in her life, and she’ll make sure you know that.

I don’t expect anything from you. I never did.

But I would just like to know there might be someone who will be there for her should she need them.

Goodbye, Bruce.

Alfred slowly handed the letter back to Bruce when he was finished.

“I pushed her away because I knew what I was about to become,” Bruce explained darkly. “And I didn’t want her anywhere near it. She would’ve been in danger.”

“Y/N, as well,” Alfred added.

“But had I known…if I just listened to her–”

“Master Wayne, I thought we had agreed to never linger on the ‘what ifs.’”

That sure silenced Bruce.

“Now, what do you plan on doing, Master Wayne?”

———

Y/N frowned when her phone started vibrating and she recognized the name of her mom’s executor on her phone screen.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Y/L/N, how are you?”

“Fine. How are you?” She was quick, wanting to get this over with. Surely, he had bad news. Another medical bill came in or some other expense that slipped by them.

“Good, good. Just curious…have you placed any payments to our various claims?”

“Uhhh…no. But I’m working on it.”

Y/N hadn’t expected to get a call nagging about paying bills.

“No, no, no. You misunderstand. They’ve all been paid,” the executor explained.

Y/N sat up straighter in her chair. “What? That’s not possible.”

“An anonymous donor. They somehow got record of all your outstanding payments and covered all of them.”

Y/N was stunned to silence.

“Ms. Y/L/N…this is a good thing.”

She blinked and shook her head. “Right. Yes, of course. I just…thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank this guardian angel of yours.”

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

Part 2

Let me know what you think!!!

[whump-a-la-mode]

Uhhh. Ok so I don’t know what this is. It’s certainly not very good. It’s different than what I usually write. I’ll get back to normal stuff soon. I just thought this would be fun.

CW//Pet whump, lab whump, wing whump, medical exams, cages, dehumanization, needle mentions, implied past abuse

Signal hated waiting.

They hated a lot of things. They hated Dr. Natalie Sampson, for one thing.

Actually, that was most of the things they hated. Everything to do with Dr. Sampson. Their lab, their stupid experiments, their exams, or whatever the hell they spent all their time doing. Staring at those screens and hemming and hawing like an idiot.

Signal hated Dr. Sampson, more than anything. And, right at the moment, that was connected very closely to why they hated waiting. As, at the moment, they were specifically waiting for one of the doctor’s medical exams.

They had told them the night before that they were due for another one. Not that it was on a regular schedule or anything, the doctor had simply decided it was time again to shine lights in their eyes and take their blood.

Stupid doctor. Stupid medical exams.

In some small part, Signal wished they didn’t know the exam was coming. Of course, they would have preferred that it didn’t happen at all, but at least then they wouldn’t have to anticipate it. They had spent the whole night trying, without avail, to get some sleep.

They couldn’t stop thinking about what was to come. Being forced onto the exam table and poked and prodded and stuck with needles.

Stupid goddamn doctor!

The thoughts refused to stop overwhelming her, and they knew that there was no point to trying to sleep, then. They got up from her position on the floor, moving to a sitting position, sliding back against the wall. The bars dug into their spine.

That was another thing they hated, they thought, blinking open heavy-lidded eyes.

They hated their cage.

Dr. Sampson always insisted on calling it their ‘room.’ As if it was a cute little bedroom where normal humans got to sleep.

It was a cage. Bedrooms didn’t sit in the corner of laboratories. Bedrooms didn’t have walls made of close-spaced metal bars. Bedrooms didn’t have plastic floors. Even with the padded material covering said floor, it was never exactly comfortable.

Hell, bedrooms had beds! The cage had no such thing, just the mattress-like floor covering. At the very least, the cell had a sort of hiding box, in the corner. That was where Signal sat at the moment-- it was where they generally slept. The only place where the doctor could not see them easily.

Right now, though, the doctor was not here. The lights in the lab had been turned off for the night, leaving Signal feeling safe enough to get up, making their way out of their hiding space, and into the wider cage.

Not that it was exactly big. Ten paces by six, if that. The rest of it was occupied, as well. A sort of modified water fountain in one corner, with the food slot next to it.

In the other corner, Signal had thrown all her ‘toys,’ doing their very best to bury them under the mattress flooring. They didn’t need toys. They were human being, at least partly.

They were human at first glance, at the very least. Two arms, two legs, human face, the works. Hell, they had been a human, at one point. It had been great! They remembered with a sickly sort of nostalgia, how it felt to walk down the street, in public, with other people. Other normal people.

But, then, they had become a ‘specially designated class of protected persons.’ In less fancy words, a human lab rat.

That’s what they were. A lab rat. It was a wonder that Dr. Sampson hadn’t thought to put a hamster wheel in here, too.

The way they looked around the lab, checking for activity, was almost instinctual. They quickly confirmed that there was none-- besides the whirring of computers, running their overnight calculations.

They were safe.

With an aching pain of pins and needles, they shrugged off their outer jacket. Their outer downy feathers pricked up at the sudden change in temperature.

Rolling their shoulders, they let their wings fall from her back. They crackled a moment as they stretched them to their whole length-- a length enough to take up the whole of their cage, if they really tried.

They were a mess. Their wings. Not that they actually belonged to them-- they were just stupid things that had been stuck onto their back one day. Or, grown out of their back. It didn’t matter. Whichever way, they took no ownership of them. They were why they were stuck in here in the first place.

That didn’t mean they couldn’t bemoan the state that had befallen them. At some point, they had started molting, leaving clumps of loose feathers barely hanging on by their tips, crowded out by freshly-grown ones. That didn’t even take into account the dirt, or the fact that her flight feathers were all crutheyd together from having been compressed for so long.

They would clean them if they cared to. But they didn’t. Cleaning their wings wouldn’t get them out of this cage, out of this prison. Out of this lab.

Even though they still ached from prolonged cramps, Signal drew the feathered limbs back into themself. They didn’t want to look at them. By all accounts, they would have been far happier if they would just fall off.

Maybe they could arrange th-

The thought got no time, no chance to continue. The creak of the lab door felt like a gong, striking Signal’s rib cage, followed quickly by the burst of light that burned their corneas.

In a moment, they were back in her hiding spot, as far back in the corner as they could manage. With no gentleness, this time, they snapped her wings to their back.

Their face fell as they peered out of the box, seeing their jacket strewn across the center of the cage. It was the only thing that helped them forget the stupid feathery things stuck onto their back, but there was no way they was going out to get it, now. Dr. Sampson might see them.

“Good morning, Signal.” That stupid cajoling voice sounded, alongside the telltale sound of the doctor slipping on her lab coat. Had the whole night passed already?

Signal did not reply to the greeting. Stupid doctor. They fucking hated them, why would they talk to them?

“Hm.” The doctor hummed in disappointment. “You left your jacket. And a lot of feathers... Signal, are you molting?”

They turned to face the corner of their hiding box, digging their head down into the soft flooring as deep as it could go.

“You must be. Well, let’s get this exam started as soon as possible, then.”

Signal’s stomach dropped to her feet. They shouldn’t have let out their wings, shouldn’t have left the stupid jacket, should have cleaned up their feathers. They could already practically feel the prodding, poking touch, latex gloves jabbing at every inch of their body.

Touching their wings.

There were a few blissful, or perhaps stomach-churning moments, where Dr. Sampson did not speak. Instead, their footsteps sounded, moving about the lab. Picking up and setting down objects. Preparing to torture their little lab rat.

Whether the wait was nice or terrifying, Signal did not know, but they knew exactly when it was over. The sound of a key pushing into a padlock was all it took to make their feathers stand on end. No no no no no-

The door to their cage creaked open. They tried to wipe their tears on the mattress-like floor-- when had they started crying?

As if it mattered.

“Signal. Come here, bud. It’s time for your exam. I told you last night, remember?”

Signal buried their head deeper, nearly cutting off their own breathing.

“Signal.” The doctor’s voice was firmer, this time. Their heart skipped in their chest. “Come here, now.”

“Go fuck yourself.” Their words were muffled, but must have still been clear enough to be heard.

Dr. Sampson let out a sharp sigh.

“I don’t know why you insist on acting this way, Signal. I don’t want to hurt you, you know that. Just because they hurt you doesn’t mean I will.”

“Shut up shut up shut up!”

Another sigh.

“I understand you’re upset. This exam is happening whether you want it to or not, and I’m sorry about that. I know you don’t like it. But you know I can’t get you out of there by myself, and Dr. Crane hates to be interrupt-”

Signal was at the cage door in under a second. They moved quickly enough that they nearly lost her footing, but managed to retain it.

Dr. Sampson smiled.

“That’s more like it. Come on, then.”

Despite their cheery tone, Signal knew they had no choice, especially as the slip leash was pulled over their head and made taut about their neck. Not that the leash was really necessary-- just because they’d tried to escape two dozen times before didn’t mean they’d do it again.

Stupid leash and all, Dr. Sampson led them to the exam table in the middle of the room. A cold, metal thing, with a sort of pole sticking up out of its side. The end of the pole was marked with a hook-- a hook which the slip lead’s end was secured to as Signal climbed onto the table, legs dangling off the side.

It may have been the worst part of the whole ordeal, the stupid metal pole that stopped them from lowering their head.

“Let’s get started, then.” The doctor clapped their hands with far too much cheeriness. “How have you been feeling?”

“I feel like I want to rip your face off.”

“That’s- Unfortunate.” Their lips pursed together. “Let’s try that again. Physically, how are you feeling?”

“Fine. Is that it?” They strained against the leash a moment. “Can I go now?”

“Hm? Oh, no. This exam is going to take at least an hour, honey.”

Signal’s stomach twisted.

“I’ll start with your wings, so we can talk a bit.”

Somehow, those words made them feel even sicker than before. Still, they didn’t resist as latex-clad hands took up one of their wings, unfurling it until it took up half the lab. The touch made them shiver.

“Your flight feathers are coming back in well. It’s terrible, to think that they clipped them like that...”

“As if you wouldn’t do the same.”

“Of course I wouldn’t.” Dr. Sampson spoke through gritted teeth. Signal’s words were getting to them-- at least that was good news. “Signal, why are you upset?”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“You’ve been so stressed out since you got here. I have tried to make you comfortable, but I must say I’m at my wits end.” A touch to a particularly sensitive feather made the winged lab rat flinch. “Are you bored? I can always get you more toys...”

“I don’t want more toys.”

“Are you sick?”

“I’m not sick.”

Signal placed their hands on their legs, gripping them until their fingers went numb.

“Then what is it?”

They hadn’t decided on the best snippy answer to that one, but they did not have to come up with one. Instead, the air was filled with the sound of the door again creaking open.

Signal snapped their wings closed, and began desperately scratching at the slip lead around their neck.

“Oh, Dr. Crane. How are you this morning?”

[hallelujah-lockandload]

Cuddles

Have a cute Ray x Reader! he needs more love so i made something cute and fluffy for him.

Rated G

Every once in a while Ray and I get together and have a movie night and sleepover. Its been a long ass time since our last one since he and the boys went on tour. I mean, I went with them too cause I’m an honorary band member helping with lyrics and harmonies but still. Being cooped up in a bus and shitty hotels kind of ruins any prospect of a fun movie night with your best friend, especially when everyone else keeps trying to get you two together. Not that I totally mind cause of my huge crush on Ray but still! It makes things awkward and it's frustrating. 

Anyway, tonight was the perfect night for us to have a sleepover! It was supposed to rain and potentially thunder which means its perfect for some scary movies, maybe an attempt at cuddling on the couch before he leaves to sleep in his bed and I crash on said couch. I can dream. Plus other than the storm, Gerard said he was going out tonight so Ray and I got the living room to ourselves.

I threw on some leggings and a comfy sweatshirt to wear over since it's nice and cold outside, while I packed a long sleeve pajama top and matching pants. Along with some shorts that match the color of my patterned pjs. You never know if their apartment heater is going to  decide to actually work or not. I put my toothbrush and face wash in my bag, then head down stairs to wait for Ray to come pick me up. 

As I reach the bottom of the stairs I take my phone out to check the time. It’s only around 5:30 but Ray and I wanted to get an early start so we can hang out more and catch up. As I pocket my phone I hear a car coming around the corner, I didn’t want to get my hopes up but thankfully I see Ray’s old car coming straight to me.

“Hey there stranger,” Ray greets as I open the door.

“Hey yourself, asshole.” I laughed buckling in. 

Ray chuckled, “You ready for our movie night?” He made his way out of the alley and back to the main roads.

“Of course I am! It's been so fricken long since we hung out, just the two of us.” I smiled watching the buildings go by.

“I know. I’m excited too.” Ray paused turning the music up a little. “Should we get pizza or chinese food tonight?”

“Hmm I feel like pizza and ice cream are in order for tonight,” I laughed looking at him. 

He smiled, “That sounds perfect.” 

“Good,” I said before turning the radio up louder as ACDC played. 

The rest of the ride went by quickly with us chatting or singing along to the radio. We got out of the car civilly but as soon as we approached the stairs leading to the apartment we raced each other. Ray beat me up, but just barely.

“I would have fucking won, if it weren’t for your long ass legs.” I huffed trying to catch my breath.

Ray just laughed as he unlocked his apartment. Walking in we took our shoes off and I dropped my bag down next to their couch before throwing myself on it. 

“Yes, of course. Make yourself at home,” Ray said from the kitchen, making me laugh. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Nah, I’m good.” I moved so I was sitting on my side of the couch like usual and Ray came and sat down next to me. 

We popped in a chill movie that we both had seen a bunch, but not Star Wars because we both get distracted by actually watching it, that way we could call in for dinner and just chat for a while. We talked the entire time only pausing to get the pizza delivery and then to take bites of our pizza. Once we finished the pizza we put on a classic scary movie to watch since the clouds were heavy now and the setting sun was invisible. 

“Should I turn the lights off?” I asked as Ray fast forwarded through the dumb commercials. 

“Yeah, let's get spooky.” He chuckled. 

I got up from my warm place and walked into the kitchen hitting those lights first before turning off the one in the living room. As I plopped back down into my spot I accidentally sat closer to Ray than before. Or was he now closer to me?

“Sorry,” I mumbled as my shoulder brushed his arm. I made to move but Ray stopped me.

“No, it’s fine. We could, uh cuddle like we sometimes do.” Ray said. “Or I could just throw this blanket over us. It’s clean, I promise.” Ray chuckled, grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch.

“As long as Gerard hasn’t puked on it, I assume it's clean.” I let out a laugh. Ray laughed as well as he threw the blanket over our legs. “And uh cuddling is fine,” I say fighting the blush that's trying so hard to show. Thank god for the lights being off. 

“Okay, cool.” Ray mumbled as he settled back into the couch throwing his arm over my shoulder casually, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning into him as the opening terror sequence finally started. 

We went through the movie like that, under a blanket with Ray’s arm around me. I could feel every breath he took and it felt like my nerves were wired. This did not help at all especially because I had not seen this horror movie before and I jumped in my seat at nearly every jumpscare. But Ray was tense too, something tells me he took this movie from Gerard and hadn’t seen it himself yet either. 

“Well that was a good movie,” Ray said as the credits rolled.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.” I confessed shaking my head in an attempt to erase the scary realism of the movie from my memory. 

Ray laughed awkwardly. “Uh yeah. I feel the same way.”

“Ughh,” I groaned leaning into Ray and putting my forehead against his chest.

Ray’s arms wrapped around me in a hug. “Should we watch a Disney movie now?”

I nodded, hiding my face in his hug.

BANG!

I jumped at the loud sound and Ray tightened his arms around me. I glanced up at him and we made brief eye contact before we heard a thump at the door. We both turned our heads to glare down the door in hopes that it wasn’t the fucking killer from the movie. The sound of keys in the door and its opening made us both relax slightly. The outline of a man could be seen as the door opened and the light from the porch shone down on him. 

“Ayy! Y/n! I didn’t know you were coming over!” A drunk Gerard said from the door way, flicking the lights on. 

Ray and I sighed, the tension leaving us. Ray let go of me quickly, mumbling a sorry as I turned to face Gerard.

“Yeah, Ray and I are having a movie night. You also scared the crap out of us!” I said loudly, pulling my feet up onto the couch under the blanket.

“Sorry, sorry.” Gerard waved a hand at us as he walked into the kitchen getting a bottle of water. 

“Sorry,” Ray said quietly next to me.

I turned and looked up at him. “Why are you apologizing? He’s my friend too, I should apologize to you.” I said, poking him softly in the chest.

Ray laughed, “Okay I guess. But I mean we planned this because he wasn’t going to be here and now.” Ray shrugged.

“It’s fine.” I smiled softly at him

“Kay, I’m out of here. You two,” Gerard pointed at us as he walked towards his room. “Keep being cute and don’t wake me up unless you’re getting murdered.” Gerard said sternly.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at my drunk friend. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Gerard mumbled. We could hear him bump into the wall before closing his door. 

“What a dork.” I said looking up at Ray.

“I know, it’s getting better though.” He said looking at the hallway our friend disappeared down.

“I know. It’ll get better one day.” I said softly. 

“Umm so,” Ray shook his head. “A disney movie? Yeah?” 

I laughed, “Yeah that sounds great.” 

Ray got up from the couch and took out the horror movie before replacing it with Beauty and the Beast. 

“Aww I love this movie!” I said as Ray settled back down next to me.

“I know,” Ray smiled, wrapping his arm around me again. Tonight was the best cuddling night ever! Even if it's platonic cuddling… whatever. 

We watched the movie cuddling under the blanket and Ray was beginning to nod off. Once the movie ended I suggested that Ray head to bed but Ray told me that I should take his bed in case Gerard gets up and makes noise in the kitchen. I tried to convince I would be fine but he insisted he take the couch and I take his bed. Somehow I managed to convince him that we should just share his bed. How my brain supplied that without overwhelming embarrassment beats me. Ray agreed though so it’s a win. I grabbed my bag and went to the bathroom to change and get ready for bed while Ray went and changed in his room. 

Once I was all changed, I headed into Ray’s room where he was throwing clothes in his hamper.

“Your room wasn’t clean, was it?” I looked up at him.

“Uhhh no.” 

I laughed before dropping my bag down on his floor at the end of his bed, “So do you want the wall or do I get the wall?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“You can pick.” He shrugged.

I nodded and hopped into his bed scooting towards the wall. Ray flicked the lights off once I was settled and came and joined me. I could feel the bed dip and then the warmth coming from Ray as he laid next to me. The rain chose that wonderful time to start pouring down. 

“Perfect timing,” Ray whispered in the darkness.

“Hahaha it is.” I said back. “I wish I could always fall asleep to the rain.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I want to live somewhere with more rain. I know we’re in Southern California for the music industry but, it would be nice to live somewhere with actual weather.” I laughed slightly as the rain poured on the roof and down the gutters. 

    “That would be nice. I’d like that too.” 

Light flashed through the window.

“You think that was lightning or a car?” I asked.

“Hmm, maybe lightning.” Ray said softly.

We waited in silence for a while but no thunder.

“I guess it was a car,” I said sadly. But as I finished thunder could be heard in the distance.

“The storm must be far away,” Ray spoke, nudging  me in the arm softly.

“Yeah yeah, I’ll count next time.” 

“Haha okay, okay.” 

Light flashed again in the room after a few moments and I started counting. “One mississippi, two mississippi,” Ray chuckled next to me. “Three mississippi, four mississippi, five mississippi, six mississippi, seven mississippi, eight-” Thunder started to rumble then. “The storm is getting closer.” I said quietly.

“Yeah.” 

“Hey, Ray?” I asked looking up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah y/n?” 

“Do you like cuddling?” 

“Yeah, why?” 

“Do you want to?” I turned my head to look at him. “It's nice and rainy, I feel like it's perfect weather for cuddling.”

He looked at me as light flashed again, “okay.”

“One mississippi, two mississippi,”

“Oh my gosh,” Ray laughed.

I put my finger up to silence him as I counted to five mississippi's. “Oh it's even closer now.”

“Haha yeah.” Ray took a deep breath, “Do you want to be the little spoon or big spoon?”

I looked back at him, “When the smaller person is the big spoon it's called being a jetpack.” 

Ray cracked up at that. He sat up and had to catch his breath before looking down at me again. “Alright do you want to be the jetpack or the little spoon?” He laughed leaning on his elbow to look at me. 

I laughed, “I feel like you don’t want to be the little spoon, so I’ll be the little spoon.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that I don’t want to.” Ray laughed lying down next to me. 

I laughed too, turning away from him to face the wall. “I bet it’s cause you’re tall, you only know how to be the big spoon.” 

Ray brushed his hand over my waist before letting his arm wrap around my stomach, “You’re right about that. Plus I like being the big spoon.” He said, his breath warm on my hair.

“Sorry if my hair is in the way.”

“It’s fine, your hair smells nice.” There was silence for a moment “Uh sorry.”

“Haha it's okay, my shampoo does smell nice.” I whispered.

Lightning flashed again in the room. 

“One mississippi, two mississippi,” thunder cracked loudly above our heads.

“I guess it is perfect weather for cuddling.” Ray whispered.

“I know right,” I responded quietly. 

We laid there listening to the rain pound down on the roof around us and tinkle down the eaves of the roof.

“Sorry if my hand is bothering you,” He said after a while.

“You’re okay,” I said, moving my arm to rest on his before placing my hand on his at my stomach. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah?"

“Yeah.” I smiled to myself feeling his hand beneath mine and the massive blush on my face. I was glad we were in the dark. Ray moved his fingers a bit before threading his up with mine and holding them.

“Is this okay?” He breathed.

“Yeah.” I said quietly, tightening my fingers with his. Lightning flashed into the room once more but I could barely keep my eyes open. I closed them, not bothering to count as I waited for the thunder. Ray’s warmth behind me added with the sound of far off thunder lulled me to sleep in the cozy bed. 

[kalimagik]

Pretty Gryffindor I Didn’t Know

Fred Weasley x Gryffindor!Reader 

~4,900 

Warnings: Talks of a rough home life (not too bad), but there is a lot of fluff! 

A/N: So, I can write fics that don’t have a song as my inspiration. This one came from a dream that I had and I altered it to fit the Harry Potter Universe a little better! Enjoy the fluff and the sweet, thoughtfulness of Fred Weasley! If you enjoyed reading it, please like, reblog, comment, or even follow! <3 I love hearing what you guys think! (Also, I swear I write for more than Fred, but I just have a lot of him that I love)

*Not my GIF! Credit to owner

Y/N breathed in the London air. Her family moved around a lot and currently, they were in Greater Manchester, so they needed to stay in London a few days in order to get her new school things from Diagon Alley. Her parents were a little hands off, so most of Y/N’s life had been her raising and looking after her little brother. However, when she went to school, she was on her own. 

Oh yeah, Y/N was a half-blood with who went to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She would be starting her 4th year, so luckily she didn’t need to worry about the O.W.L.s just yet. She was in Gryffindor, but tended to stick with her friends from childhood, most of whom were in Ravenclaw, so she hadn’t gotten too close to her house in the past 3 years. But, it being a new year, her parents were pushing her to do this. 

Y/N woke up in her bed in the Leaky Cauldron, sun shining outside and sounds of the cars from the muggle side of the hotel streaming in her window. 

“Y/N! Are you ready to go to Diagon Alley for our things?” Y/N’s younger brother asked. He was beginning his first year at Hogwarts and could not wait to get started with his magical education. 

“Give me 20 minutes to get ready and then I’ll be good to go,” Y/N yawned, getting out of bed after already being awake for about an hour.

Coming down the stairs, she found a breakfast plate for her with her family and noticed a loud family not too far away who seemed to be finishing up breakfast. She recognized the boy who lived, who was a year below her, and the strew of redheads. They were all in her house, but she’d never really gotten to know them. 

“Y/N!? Are you ready?” Oliver asked excitedly about 10 minutes after she came down. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” she smiled, ushering her brother from the Leaky Cauldron to the entrance of the magical alley. “Did you get our lists from mum and dad?” 

“Yep! They’re getting us some surprises or something before we leave. You know it’s only tomorrow that we go, right?” 

“Oliver, I’m very familiar with how going to school works,” Y/N laughed, tapping the brick wall to reveal an extremely crowded Diagon Alley. “You need to stay close to me, understand? Mum and dad would kill me if I lost you here. So don’t go wandering off!” 

“Yes, MUM!” Oliver emphasized. 

Starting at Madame Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, Oliver got new school robes and Y/N updated her ones that were too small. They then headed to Ollivanders where Oliver was able to pick out his first wand. Y/N had never seen her brother so excited. 

Next was Flourish and Botts. Y/N had never seen it so crowded. She managed to get in with her brother and find their books, but getting back to the entryway was proving difficult. Oliver had gone out before her, but when she tried to squeeze out the door, another witch was coming in and her foot caught Y/N’s. 

Y/N felt her balance go completely off center. She was free falling towards the cobble stone street and down the few steps in front of the shop. Y/N braced herself for impact when she felt her momentum stop. Her fall just stopped. She turned her head to make eye contact with a tall red head. And, he was pretty handsome too. 

“You alright there, love?” he asked, standing her up right on the road. “It’s pretty crowded out here, you gotta watch where you’re going.” 

Y/N felt a blush creep onto her face. She knew he was a Weasley twin. He was infamous at school and she’d been around a time or two for their pranks. 

“I’m Fred by the way,” he smiled as Y/N straightened up to meet his deep brown eyes.

“Uh– umm, I’m Y/N. I actually think you’re in m-my house,” she stupidly pointed out. 

“A cute girl like you in Gryffindor? Ridiculous! I would’ve definitely seen you,” he flirted. 

Y/N felt the blush deepen and butterflies rise in her stomach. Oh how she wished she wasn’t in such a bright and public spot. 

“Freddie, who are we talking to over here?” the other Weasley twin joined. 

“Apparently this pretty girl is in our house. Can you believe it?” Fred quipped. 

“Blimey! How did we miss her?” George countered. 

“Y/N, we told Mum and Dad that we would meet them at Florean’s soon,” he urged, pointing at his watch. 

Y/N turned from the twins remembering that her little brother was with her. 

“Right, sorry, Oliver.”

“Can’t keep the little man waiting, now can you?” Fred smiled widely at Y/N. “Need anyone to accompany you to make sure that you don’t fall again?” he joked. 

“Uhhh, I should be able to stay on my feet now. Thank you,” she blushed again, not used to the attention. Y/N quickly pushed her little brother and hushed his questions about who the boys were. Although, while she was walking towards the ice cream parlor, she swore that she could feel someone’s gaze burning into the back of her head. Not wanting to look any more like a tomato, she kept her eyes forward. 

_______________________________________________________________________

Pushing the short encounter with the elder Weasley twin to the back of her mind, Y/N finished packing her trunk for school. Her parents would drop her and her brother off at King’s Cross Station and she’d have to get them through the barrier. Most years it was just Y/N who had to go through the wall, but this year she got to show her brother how to do it for the first time. She’d always loved him so much that his excitement about the new experience made it seem like her first time all over again. 

“Bye Mum. Bye Dad. Get home safely,” Y/N said, hugging and kissing each before leading her brother through all the muggles at the busy station. 

She stood back as they gave her brother some last minute advice and then their parents retreated to a more secluded spot to apparate back home. It was just Y/N and Oliver once again. 

“Common, we don’t want to be late!” Y/N smiled as she pushed her cart, urging Oliver to follow. 

Once they loaded their things onto the train, Y/N asked Oliver if he wanted to share a compartment with her and her friends, but he opted against it. 

“I can’t make any friends myself if I’m with you all the time, Y/N,” he rolled his eyes. 

She laughed at his antics. He really was growing up and it was weird. Y/N felt as though she had always been an adult, but Oliver had stayed a little kid for as long as she could remember. 

“Okay. Make sure you put on your robes before we arrive. I’ll see you at the feast after the sorting ceremony, okay?” 

He nodded and ran with his trunk down the corridor of the train. Y/N headed in the opposite direction, hoping to find some of her friends. 

“Oh, hello, Y/N,” a girl the year below her waved. Y/N didn’t spend much time with her, but they’d often be the last two in the Common Room at night finishing homework. Most of Y/N’s friends were Ravenclaw after all, so she refused to fall behind in school. 

“Hello, Hermione. Did you have a nice holiday?” 

“Wonderful! My family traveled to France. It was just brilliant! How was your summer?” 

“We moved again, but I got to help my brother prepare for Hogwarts,” she smiled sweetly. 

“Excellent! I have to go find Ron and Harry, but I’ll see you at Hogwarts!” 

Y/N waved as the girl ran towards the end of the train. She went back to her search for her friends, but when the train lurched, she settled for the emptiest compartment. Her friends would have to find her. 

Struggling to get her trunk into the compartment, she was finally in enough to shut the door. Now she had to get it up on the luggage rails. Why was this part always so difficult? 

“Need a hand there, Y/N, pretty girl who I didn’t know was in Gryffindor?” 

Y/N jumped as she hadn’t even noticed who was in the compartment to begin with. 

Turning, she was once again face to face with that boy that had caught her from falling. 

“Fred,” she smiled, “Thank you. I guess you’re just going to keep coming to my rescue, huh?” 

“I could definitely get used to that. After watching you, you seem to be pretty accident prone. You could use a strong guy like me looking out for ya.” 

Once again, Y/N felt the heat rise to her cheeks and those dang butterflies moving around her stomach. Not really knowing what to say, she stood there, biting her lip and looked around. It seemed that the compartment she chose held Fred, his twin, and Lee Jordan, the boy who commentated the quidditch matches. 

“Sorry, the train started and I couldn’t find my friends, so I just stumbled into a compartment. I can leave if you all need the seats,” Y/N apologized. 

“Nonsense!” Fred waved his hand, “We’ve always got a spot for the pretty Gryffindor girl, right Georgie?” 

Y/N’s blush deepened. It did not help that boys rarely flirted with her and Fred doing so, so freely messed with her. 

“Oi, Freddie. Isn’t this the girl you saved from imminent death in Diagon Alley yesterday?” 

“Just the one, Georgie!” Fred replied, not breaking his focus from Y/N’s face. 

“You haven’t shut up about her since we saw her last!” George burst out laughing. 

Fred dove at his twin, shoving a hand over his mouth to quiet him. Y/N couldn’t help but giggle. It was amusing after all. The sound of her laugh made Fred stop immediately, taking in the angelic sound. How had he not met this girl before? 

“Why don’t you have a seat,” Lee suggested, “they may be at this for a while.” 

Y/N sat, enjoying the company of the boys she happened to stumble upon. It really was a happy accident. She was making friends in her house like her parents wanted her to. Eventually, her friends did find her and ask her to come join them in their compartment. Y/N didn’t want to leave Lee and the twins, but she finally gave in. 

“I’ll save you a spot at the sorting ceremony,” Fred called before the compartment door slid shut. 

In the other compartment, they mostly did last minute studying before arriving at school, but when the train slowed and became icy cold, Y/N lost all motivation she had. She forgot about the butterflies that Fred gave her. She forgot about the excitement she felt for her brother to be starting at Hogwarts. All she could feel was sadness. She felt as though no one in her life loved her. She felt as though her parents regretted having children. She felt alone. It was horrible. 

When the lights turned back on and the train started moving, Y/N didn’t recover immediately. She sat there, immobilized, but her friends didn’t notice. It wasn’t until a familiar redhead peaked into the compartment that she could move. 

“Hello ladies, just checking in on everyone after that massive mood dropper. Y/N, are you okay? Need anything?” 

The special attention returned those silly butterflies and warmth to her cheeks. Her only response was a head shake with little to no eye contact. Fred wanted to say more, but George called his attention. Apparently Draco was giving Harry a hard time for fainting from the dementors. 

When asked about the reappearance of Fred Weasley by her friends, Y/N just denied anything. Responding that she had only just met the boy the other day. Luckily, they didn’t think too much of it. Realizing what had just happened, Y/N rushed around in search of her brother. 

“Oliver, are you alright?” she asked when she finally found him towards the front of the train.

“I’m fine. You don’t have to worry about me,” he spit back. That wasn’t like him, but she did see he was with a bunch of other soon to be first years, so he probably wanted to look cool. 

“Okay. I’m just checking. Don’t forget to put your robes on, we’re almost to school…” 

_______________________________________________________________________

The whole student body was a buzz with what happened on the Hogwarts Express. As she rode in the carriages, Y/N blocked out the conversations. Her mind was stuck on her brother’s attitude. What was wrong with him? 

Everyone filed into the castle and Y/N made her way to the Gryffindor table. Meals were always the worst for her. She didn’t really have anyone to sit with at the large house table normally, so she’d read or work on homework. She wasn’t sure where’d she’d sit when her name was called. 

“Oi! Y/N! Pretty Gryffindor I didn’t know, come over here.” 

Y/N couldn’t stop the smile from growing across her face. She’d forgotten that Fred said he’d save her a seat. Plus, she could get used to the ‘Pretty Gryffindor’ nickname, but maybe not the ‘I didn’t know’ part.

“Have an entertaining rest of your train ride?” he asked as she sat down, George chuckling under his breath across the table. With one small glare from Fred, George turned to pick on their younger brother. 

“Pretty uneventful. Just did some reading.” 

“Love, we have got to get you some more entertaining friends. I think you ought to hang out with Georgie and I a bit. We could use your brains if you’re as smart as I’ve heard people say you are on the train.” 

Y/N raised an eyebrow. Who was talking about her intelligence? Catching her confusion, Fred stuttered on, “I mean, Hermione mentioned how you’re usually up late with her. You sometimes even go to bed after her. That shows brains.” 

Y/N finally found her voice and was able to quip back, “oh, you’ve been asking about me have you?” 

Even if the tops of Fred’s ears began to redden, he was quick to reply. “Seeing as you’re a fourth year and I didn’t know you, I had to do my research!” 

Y/N laughed as the doors to the Great Hall opened, the first years all shuffling in nervously. She couldn’t help but point her brother out to Fred. “He’s that one. I’ve been waiting for him to come to Hogwarts. It’s so exciting to have a sibling at school,” she beamed. 

“I’ve never been at Hogwarts without a sibling and I can say that it’s not that exciting, sorry to burst your bubble.” 

Y/N laughed, but was quickly silenced by the entrance of the sorting hat. It sang its song and talked about the four houses. Y/N silently hoped that Oliver would be placed in Gryffindor, but she wasn’t sure if that was really his personality. But, no matter where he was placed, she’d be proud of him. Her father was a Ravenclaw and her mother a Hufflepuff, so intense house pride didn’t quite matter to the family.

The sorting ceremony went on and the last names were rolling through, once Professor McGonagall reached ‘R,’ Y/N began to listen again. 

“Remington, Oliver!” 

Y/N watched as her little brother climbed the stairs to the three legged stool and put the hat on. He seemed to sit there for forever. Much longer than the rest of the other first years. Thinking back to her sorting ceremony, Y/N realized that her sorting had taken a long time too. The hat rambled between three houses and read her thoughts and memories. It was very set on the fact that she was strong-willed, a leader, a caregiver, intelligent, but also resourceful. But obviously, it ultimately placed her in Gryffindor. 

“and it will be…SLYTHERIN!” 

Y/N’s jaw unintentionally dropped. She figured maybe he’d be placed in Hufflepuff because of his light hearted nature, but Slytherin? Loud cheers came from the table at the far end of the hall and Oliver jumped down the stairs to join his new house. This was weird. 

“You okay, love?” Fred turned, looking concerned as McGonagall continued to read through the names. 

She just nodded, looking down at the empty dishes in front of her. Had she missed something in her brother’s personality? She looked over to the table doused in green and silver. He sat there with a few other first years and the prefects nearby. However, he was sitting, facing the Gryffindor table. When she managed to make eye contact with him, he waved excitedly. That slowed the pounding heart beat in her chest. He would still be the same boy she knew, she was sure of it. 

Still pondering how her brother was sorted into Slytherin, Y/N didn’t listen to what Dumbledore said about the dementors and she played with the food that appeared on her plate. She certainly didn’t notice Fred Weasley watching her every move. 

_______________________________________________________________________

A few weeks had passed, classes began, and Y/N had settled her emotions surrounding the sorting of her brother. They’d eat meals together at least three times a week and would study together on Wednesday and Sunday evenings. Oliver had even introduced her to some of his new friends. They were all nice and a mix of kids from all the houses. She was extremely pleased that they weren’t all Slytherins who believed in blood-status hierarchy. 

Another new constant was Fred and George as well, but mostly Fred. He would catch up with her in between catches, start to ask her opinion on pranks, and even study with her when she was up late. When he was around, the butterflies never went away. At this point, she was pretty sure that he didn’t know what she looked like without flushed cheeks. He still called her ‘Pretty Gryffindor I didn’t know,’ but the ‘I didn’t know’ part seemed to be dropped more and more often. 

“Good evening!” Fred elongated as he sat at the same table as Y/N in the Common Room. “I noticed you weren’t at dinner this evening. Why’s that?” 

“Snape assigned our class a 5 length essay and I have potions two days in a row, so I had to finish it on top of the History of Magic assignment that I have,” she sighed, pulling out a new ink bottle. 

“He can’t give you so much work that you miss dinner!” 

“It’s fine. Really. I had a large lunch. Plus, I’m used to not having every meal every day.” Y/N explained without thinking about what she was saying. 

“Why do you say that?” He asked, now concerned. 

Shit. Y/N realized she was about to open a bag of worms that she had never opened with anyone else. She normally kept her home life and her parents ‘hand off approach’ to herself. 

“You can tell me, you know…” Fred encouraged gently. 

Y/N bit her lip, deciding if she should or not, but it was Fred and he’d already made her school life so much more than school and studying with her friends. 

“Really.” With this last bit of encouragement, he placed a hand on her arm that rested on the table and didn’t hold a quill. 

Sighing once more, Y/N explained the situation simply. “Growing up, my parents have always focused on other things. Where to travel. How to continue hanging out with their friends. They had me pretty young and I don’t know if they ever grew up. My grandmother was around a lot when I was little, but then she died when I was about 5, so I didn’t have her anymore. And then I had my one year old brother to worry about too. Breakfast is easy enough for a 5 year old to handle, but it wasn’t until I was 8 that I could actually cook things, simple things. We always got lunch or dinner, but rarely both. My parents do love my brother and I, but they just may not have been cut out for parenthood…” 

Fred sat there silently. Y/N had learned enough about his family to know that he never had to deal with anything like this. But what surprised Y/N the most, was that he stood up without a word. Before he left through the portrait hole, he turned and said, “don’t move, okay?” 

Y/N sat confused, not entirely sure what was happening. She heard the portrait open again and spun quickly, hoping it was Fred. It wasn’t, but it was the closest thing to him. 

“Hey, Y/N!” George said, making his way to her. 

“Hi, George.” 

“How do you know I’m George?” 

“I’ve got my ways,” she smirked, “Plus, Fred just left.” 

“Where’d he go? I was meant to meet him in here after he talked to–” George cut himself off quickly. 

“After he talked to who? I’m the only one who’s been in here.” 

Y/N watched as George sat there, hitting himself mentally. She could tell he was struggling with something. 

“George?” she pushed again. 

“Okay, Y/N. I’m going to tell you something and my brother might kill me. Do you really want that on your conscience?” 

“What?” 

“UGH! Fine. Fred may or may not fancy this girl he met this year who’s apparently a Gryffindor from the first day that he met her,” George blurted in the most roundabout way. 

Before Y/N could respond, let alone process, the portrait hole opened again. In walked Fred with all types of food piled up. What was this boy doing? 

“Pretty Gryffindor, I’ve brought you the dinner that you missed! Oh, Georgie,” Fred paused in front of the fire. 

“What have you got there, Fred? You’ve brought a whole feast!” George exclaimed. 

“Well, Y/N here didn’t make it to dinner as you noticed earlier, so I figured I’d bring her some,” he told his twin, sitting the food onto the table. It filled the whole table. Y/N even had to put her potions essay to the side. 

Y/N hadn’t yet said anything, but stared in disbelief. This had to be the nicest and most thoughtful thing that anyone had ever done for her. Not to mention, George had just told her that Fred maybe or maybe not fancied someone who may or may not be her. 

“See anything you’d like to eat?” Fred asked, turning his attention to her. 

“Fred. This is amazing. How– how did you get all of this?” 

“Georgie and I may be some favorites of the house elves in the kitchen and know how to get there. They’ll normally load us up with anything we need,” he grinned ear to ear. “You need to eat something. Hogwarts has 3 meals a day and that means that you get 3 meals a day.” 

“You didn’t need to do this,” she stammered on, looking from Fred to George. George was not helping this situation. The boy had his face hidden from Fred and was winking as well as making kissy faces towards Y/N. Real mature. 

“Yes, I did. I told you, you’re rolling with us now. We keep things entertaining.” 

“Fred, I had nothing to do with this,” George threw his hands up, pushing his chair back and standing up from the table. He now made his way behind Y/N’s chair so that only Fred could see him. He made hand motions for his brother to talk to the girl sitting down at the table, mouthing “if you don’t do it now, you never will!” 

Then, the twin spoke up. “AHHH! Man, I’m tired. I’m going to go up and catch up on some sleep,” George animated. 

“Georgie, it’s only 7:30?” Y/N questioned. 

“What can I say, carrying out brilliant pranks makes me bloody tired! Good night!” 

Y/N waved and turned to look at the plates and plates of food in front of her. 

“So, where shall we begin?” Fred asks, rubbing his hands together. 

The girl could only shrug and begin eating until she was truly full. Fred also sat next to her eating despite the fact that he already had dinner. He didn’t want her to have to pig out on her own. 

“Freddie, you may have fed me into a food coma,” Y/N giggled, leaning her head on the back of her chair. “How am I going to finish this potions essay now?” 

“Seeing as how it's only 8:15, I’m certain you’ll be up until 2 AM anyways,” Fred smirked. 

“You’re not wrong, but I could do with a nap now and that fireplace is looking super inviting.” Y/N’s mind wandering to a million things besides her potions essay as she looked at Fred for a witty response. Without thinking about it, she stood up from the table and laid on the couch in front of the fire. Fred sat on the floor so that their heads were essentially in the same place. Her mind went back to her thoughts about him. He couldn’t possibly fancy her, her. She didn’t think that any boy in Hogwarts had ever fancied her. 

To fill the silence, she spoke again. “Thank you for doing this, by the way. It was really, really sweet.” 

However, Fred looked nervous. A look that Y/N was not used to seeing on his face. 

“Freddie? Is everything okay?” She was forgetting all about what George said to her just earlier. 

“I want to ask you something…” Fred eased. 

“Okay? You can ask me anything,” she smiled, hoping it would comfort him.  

“So, you know how there’s the first Hogsmeade trip this Saturday? Well, I was just wondering if you would want to maybe go with me?” 

“I’d love to,” Y/N beamed. “I thought you, George, and Lee told me you were going to make me come,” she chuckled, being oblivious to the fact that he was asking her in a different aspect. 

“Well, yeah, but um, I was actually wondering if maybe you’d like to go with just me, not George and Lee too. Kind of like a date because well, Y/N, I kind of fancy you.” Fred paused before looking up from the table to meet Y/N’s piercing E/C eyes. Merlin’s beard, they were pretty. 

Then that red color that was ever present rose into her cheeks as a wide smile formed on her mouth. “A date you say?” 

Fred nodded, unintentionally holding his breath as he waited for her response. 

“Of course I want to go on a date with you, Freddie,” she replied, turning on her side so that she was facing him. 

Fred’s eyes lit up to his normal level with a little extra twinkle. 

“Although, if I’m going on a date with you, I should probably tell you something…” 

Fred waited in anticipation. 

“Before you brought all of that food, George sat and had a chat with me. What were his words? He said that ‘Fred may or may not fancy this girl he met this year who’s apparently a Gryffindor from the first day that he met her.’ Please don’t kill him though, I think he was trying to help you out, but is that Gryffindor by chance me?” she asked almost timidly at the end. 

Fred’s face became beet red and was illuminated by the bright fire behind his head. Honestly, it was redder than the hair on his head if that was even possible. 

“Freddie?” 

Her saying his name like that, softly and airy, really did him in. “Sheisdefinitelyyou. YouwerejustsocutewhenwefirstmetandIcouldn’tbelievethatIhadnevermetyouandthatmyluckhadchangedintheabsolutelybestway!” Fred spit out in one breath. 

“What was that?” Y/N released a laugh from the back of her throat, coaxing him to say it slower. 

“That day you fell into my arms and I caught you, there was just something in your eyes that stuck with me. I bloody well think it was love at first sight. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Then, imagine my luck when you backed into our compartment. George has used silencio on me too many times when I can’t stop talking about you. It’s really becoming a problem. You’re just so sweet and wonderful and caring and perfect!” he rambled, but slightly slower this time. 

Y/N’s smile grew larger, if that was even possible as she reacted in the only way she thought would fit. She slid her head forward on the couch so that her lips met his. Sparks seemed to jump from between them in the blissful moment. 

Well, it was blissful until George, a little too loudly, said, “Merlin! Finally! Took you long enough Freddie!” from the stairwell. 

Fred clenched his eyes shut as he flicked his middle finger towards his brother, refusing to separate from the kiss, but Y/N couldn’t help but laugh hysterically. She rolled to her back, clutching her stomach. Only a twin would spy on a moment like this for nearly an hour after saying he was going to bed. 

“Ignore that git!” Fred shot towards his brother as he got onto the couch, pulling Y/N into him. “I guess you can’t be the ‘Pretty Gryffindor I don’t know’ anymore,” he whispered in her ear. 

“Well, you could just make a variation. You’re pretty good at coming up with those.” 

“Alright, Pretty Gryffindor I get to date,” he beamed as he cupped her cheek to pull her in for another kiss. 

[razorblade180]

Twin Snowflakes part 25: Date Night pt2

Atlas, city of dreams. It was a name post people overlooked and even more scoffed at. Still, it was a little hard not to believe the title from the way it looked; especially with the hundreds of lights illuminating the snow covered city. Veronica was no stranger to Atlas at night but she still couldn’t help but marvel at the sights passing by her window. They were almost as charming as the boy sitting next to her in the backseat, almost. Her mind still couldn’t believe this was happening. Veronica was going on a dinner date with Nick. How did that happen!? Well...she knew how it happened but it was still crazy! The situation wasn’t ideal but Veronica wasn’t exactly upset about it. Not in the way she had shown earlier. Veronica simply wished this event happened as a result of her efforts more than Valerie’s mistakes. Then again, all’s fair in love and war. If Valerie was going to be childish enough to hurt Nick, then that was all the more reason for Veronica not to pull her punches in winning him over. Not that she ever did, for the most part.

She looked over at Nick to see him sinking into his seat, eyes closed and body relaxed. “He must be more exhausted than he let on. She thought, listening to his breathing. He must’ve sensed Veronica’s gaze on him because his eyes opened seconds later. He caught the girl off guard by turning to her and smiling gently.

“Something on my face?” He asked.

His voice was a little deeper than before because of his short rest. The change made Veronica a little timid. “Uhh no. Hehe, your face is fine!” She uttered terribly. A snicker from Winter upfront made Veronica turn a little red. Her ears fell down as she realized how dumb that sounded. “I mean there’s nothing on it. That’s what I…yeah.” She really wanted to stop talking.

Nick sat up straight and rubbed his eyes. “Sorry I drifted a bit. I took a nap when I got home but I guess I was a little more spent than I realized.”

“No worries. A smooth ride puts me to sleep all the time. If you don’t mind me asking, where did you go? Back at the manor your mom said you went to go talk to someone?”

“Oh, that…” he looked in the rear view mirror to look at Winter, who looked back at with a smile.

“The lady asked you a question. Don’t mind me. It honestly isn’t as big of a deal as you think Nicholas. No need to tiptoe around it with your mother, uncle, and I. We’re adults after all.”

“I know. I just...I don’t know, feel a little guilty if I wasn’t careful about it.”

“You are just fine.” Winter reassured him. “To answer your question Veronica, Nicholas likes to visit his grandparents' graves to pay respects and ponder.”

Her ears perked up. This was news to her. Well, not entirely. She had known Nick liked to pray. He’s done it for as long as she could remember. Anytime things were rough or really important, Nicholas could be found giving a small payer. It was only later did she put together that the habit must’ve been formed during his sister’s time in the hospital. Though not religious in the slightest, Veronica could understand praying in a situation like that, but for his grandparents…?

“That’s a little strange, considering you never met either and one of them wasn’t exactly…” She wanted to pick her words carefully but it was hard not to call Jacques a piece of shit. “Let’s just call your grandfather a not so good influence.”

“Heh, that’s certainly putting it lightly.” Nick chuckled, “I guess I do it because...I’m a hit afraid. For me, I can’t imagine anything worse than passing away and the people left behind, the world, it just forgets about you; as if you had no impact on life. I wouldn’t wish that fate on even my enemies. Also, my grandfather’s wrongdoings in a weird way made my mom the person she’d be to have me and Summer.” He smiled at his own weird logic. “Gotta at least be thankful for that, right?”

His reasonings were flawed in some manner but completely understandable to Veronica. “Same rules apply to your grandmother?”

“More or less. I know it’s a little odd.”

“Yeah but it’s also very much a thing you’d do. Always trying to bring someone peace, it’s like your day job at this point.”

Nick shrugged. “Can’t argue with that.”

Winter began pulling over to the curbside, finally reaching their destination. A well known set down restaurant called Blended, known for its many different cuisines that specialized in ingredients that involved purée styled cooking; hence the name. Winter watched Nick get out of the car to escort Veronica, only for the girl to playfully roll her eyes as she got out of the car by herself.

“Well at least she’s consistent with her spunky attitude.” Winter thought, actually approving of the act. “You two be safe. Nick, don’t give your mother a heart attack.”

“How would I? This is just dinner, not a battlefield.”

“Knowing you, anything could happen.” She gave a little smirk before leaving them to ponder that diss.

Nick was both flattered and insulted. “Anyways…” he held his arm out which Veronica happily grabbed. The two went off to make their reservation. Tonight was going to be nice. Like Nick said, it’s just dinner. What could happen? The inside of the restaurant blew Veronica away. Elegant marble tile, pearl white cloths over the table, mood lighting,crystal chandeliers scattered about like if they were as cheap as lightbulbs, and the most divine scents imaginable. They had only entered the front door and yet her nose could pick out an array of ingredients in the kitchen. Veronica hadn’t seen the menu but she already knew there was gonna be a steak in front of her before this night was over.

“You know my opinion of Atlas might actually go up depending on this food?”

Nick chuckled at her comment and went towards the counter where a blonde woman in a waitress outfit stood at the ready. “Hello. Schnee, reservation for two. The usual spot please.”

“Why of course Mr. Sch-” the waitresses eyes quickly caught attention to Nicholas’s plus one. “Umm, Mr.Schnee? You know we actually may have a table on the private upper level if you like?” She said with a smile, maintaining eye contact with him.

“No thank you. Too close to the smoking area. I’ll take my normal table, the one by the window.” He said calmly. Nick took a moment to look at her name tag. He hadn’t seen this one before. “Sophia, that’s a nice name.”

Worry crept up on the corners of the waitress’s smile. “If smoke is the issue then may I recommend-”

“Sophia.” He said again. “Is there a reason in particular that I can’t have my window seat?”

“Well...it’s...just….” she fidgeted her hands, doing her best to not look at Veronica and cause a scene. “.....Right this way sir.” Sophia grabbed two menus and quickly went to lead them before Veronica put a hand on the menus. “M-Ma’am?” She stuttered.

Veronica wanted a good look at her but the waitress would barely meet her eyes. All Veronica could get was a side glance and a worked up heartbeat. “Nick, what do you usually drink?”

“Uhhh apple cider?”

Veronica took the menus out of Sophia’s hands. “Cool. Sophia, he’ll have that and I’d like water. Seeing how it’s a usual spot we’re going, Nick could just lead me himself. Thank you. Nick, if you would?” Veronica said, grabbing his arm.

“Okaaaay?” Nick didn’t question her orders. He grabbed the menus from her and walked through the restaurant. It was past the time most ate, but several clanging plates nearby told him there were a few late customers; about three people every five tables or so. Seeing them was easy even with dim lighting, but that also meant they saw him. A few looked up before continuing their meals while others stared for a couple seconds, forcing him to awkwardly wave as he went by.

“Sorry, usually it’s emptier by now. I come at this time to avoid drawing attention of people who always got a thing or too to say about the Schnees”

“Or the company they keep…” Veronica added. Their table was on the right side a little more than half way towards the back, right next to a window that showed the snowy streets and dazzling lights. A real winter wonderland sight. No wonder Nick liked this spot. She finally sat down. “By any chance do you know the owner of the restaurant?”

“Dyle, what about him?” He opened his menu and began reading.

“That waitress felt like she was on the verge of a panic attack. She really didn’t want us sitting here too. Care to guess why?” Veronica reached over and pressed the menu down with a finger, making sure that Nick saw her ears wiggle. “This is why I wanted a bow.”

“Point taken, but I remember saying screw anyway that has a problem with you. I’ve never known Dyle to have a problem with faunus by the way.”

“Was that because he showed that he didn’t or because you just weren’t paying attention?” Vee noticed the waitress walk over. Sophia once again avoided her gaze, in favor of Nick’s. She also made sure to place Veronica’s water on the table but handed the cider to Nick directly.

“Ready to order?” She asked.

Nick had noticed the treatment of the drinks and had been aware of the eye contact. He only wanted a little time to think about everything as a whole. He didn’t have Veronica’s hearing but he did notice the paleness of her skin. “Are you well?”

“H-Huh?”

“You’re pale. Sick, or spooked by anything?”

“Oh, I’m fine…” The woman fidgeted. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” Sophia quickly left the table.

At the same time, Veronica took a sip of Nick’s cider. “Well at least this place has good drinks. Be sure to ask for a second. I’d ask myself but you know, playing things safe around our jumpy friend.”

“Yeah….” Nick flipped through another page. “So there’s either one of two things happening right now. One, our waitress is scared of you, or-”

“A certain somebody wouldn’t want her serving us. Me, is what I should actually say. Gee, I wonder who?”

Nick couldn’t deny this was odd. “Again, point taken. However, it would be weird how many times Dyle has served my family, who actively promotes faunus rights. We’ve held meetings with your mother here before and other faunus.”

Vee always loved Nick’s simple logic, but boy was it not doing him any favors tonight. “Lesson time, my dear knight. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt of you not thinking critically with how tired you are at the moment.” Vee propped her arm on the table and rested her head in her palm. “We aren’t our parents. We’re just their brats. Adults know better than to pick on the pups when they’re around their source of income. Also, how many of those meetings were in perfect view from the street?”

Nick paused for a moment, then looked at the view. “.....None.” He closed his eyes, mentally kicking himself. “They’re up top and away from prying eyes.

“Out of sight, out of mind. Out of the way of any potential customers who may think twice of entering. Translation, private seating is a sweet way of saying it’s embarrassing to have you front and center.”

“Veronica, I didn’t-”

“Mr. Schnee!” A jolly voice called.

The teens looked to the side to see a husky redheaded man in a chef’s uniform and a hat as big as his handlebar mustache.

“Dyle.” Nick said, noticing Sophia turning ghost white a few feet behind him.

“How is the young heir on this fine night!? Craving our pastries again I bet! Oh ho ho ho!” The man patted his stomach at his one witty remark. His olive colored eyes shifted to Veronica. “My, my, where are my manners!? I’m Head Chef Dyle! Clearly Nicholas forgot his manners too for not introducing his partner in crime this lovely night. Though I guess there’s little need whenever you have credibility among the higher class? That and those lilac eyes, I’ve served a few times in the form of one fiery huntress who loves my steak! I assume your-”

“Yes, I’m her kid. To what do we owe the pleasure of the head chef himself coming to greet us?” Veronica said, hiding her attitude with fake jolliness.

“One of my little worker bees had told me one of my favorite customers was here yet again. Imagine my surprise to see him without his typical plus one. I tell you, that Valerie sure can eat until I feel a hole in my wallet! Ho! Ho! Ha! I crack myself up. Have you met her.”

“Occasionally. Sports art my thing. More of a cooking contest watcher myself. When I realized I get to try your steak I nearly jumped for joy!”

“Why thank you! Nicholas my boy, you sure bring a surprise each and every time, but you should know better. A table in the back near this drafty window at this time of year, and at night! Up your game. I’d be more than happy to let you two enjoy the comfiest seat in the building. Nothing sets the tone like the second floor. I can get you a private table right this second!”

If that wasn’t a slap in the face, then Nick didn’t know what was. Has this really gone over his head? Nick wanted to believe this was a classic case of misunderstanding, yet that felt inn accurate the longer Veronica looked at him. There was no anger, only a reserved look that poorly hid the fact she was uncomfortable. Nick stopped feeling sorry for himself, choosing to do what his family did best; put on the face that commanded respect. The face of Atlas’s most powerful family.

“Dyle?” Nick spoke, dragging out the chef’s name like a sigh of boredom. Nick focused one the menu in his hands while giving the man an occasional glance with only his eyes. “Do you know why I come here? I’ll give you a hint.” He tapped on the window.

“The...view-”

“Nope.” Nick said firmly, closing his menu. “It’s the view and the respect I believed this place had for its customers. All of its customers, but tonight is making me think I believed wrong. You’ve never been this insistent whenever Valerie and I ate here. I gotta say I’m a bit concerned. Between your behavior and our waitress, I can’t help but feel like this has everything to do with my lovely date and her perfect features.”

“Perfect.” Veronica thought, bashfully folding her ears.

“Dyle, am I correct to reevaluate my beliefs in this restaurant. No lying now. I want your honest answer.”

The jolly man wasn’t feeling so jolly anymore. Dyle’s smile turned into grimace teeth and panicked eyes. “N-No! it’s just...just!” He looked around and through the window for any watchful eyes. “It’s business. Your family should understand th-”

“My family is no longer in the business of just caring about good business. Fail to understand that and you won’t have to worry about yours.” Nick stood up and finally looked at the giant of a man as best he could. He could see it, the resentment and frustration building within the chef. By all means who wouldn’t be upset when against a member of the most dangerous family name, blatantly throwing power around like if it actually earned. Nick understood the look. If Whitley taught him anything, it was that look does nothing but keep the hate alive. Flex power, but wield it generously.

“Dyle, I will choose to believe you are in fact a good man.”

“W-What?” He said, caught off guard by the tone shift.

“If this is strictly business then we’ll treat it like so. Now there isn’t any scenario where I don’t get what I want, but I’m more than happy to get what we all want. The first thing is you apologizing to Veronica. After that you will tell all your staff to refrain from enforcing whatever faunus rules you have given them; followed by creating the best steaks you can ever create for this table. Your work won’t be done though. I do expect a dessert that will blow our mind. It is only after creating such a grand meal with your hands that you can rest easy knowing that it will have a fairly generous contribution to its stability. Indefinitely.”

“You’re...going to invest here?”

Nick sat back down. “That depends on you. A pretty decent offer I’d say. Equality and a good meal in an exchange for financial stability. Is that good with you Veronica?”

“Hmmmm, I say we should sweeten our pot. An easy fix with an official change in this place's mission statement as a public service. One that states on paper that this restaurant is for all. This isn’t a compromise.”

Nick smiled. “You heard the lady. Is it a deal?”

Dyle stood, confused by the offer. By all means it was not expected or heard of. “So this is how a Schnee conducts business now?”

“This is how I do business.”

“Hmph! Then I guess it’s fortunate you have deep enough pockets to back it up.” The man removed his chef’s hat and bowed. “Please excuse my blatant disrespect, Mrs. Belladonna.”

“Apology not accepted, but a deal is a deal and who am I to not capitalize on it for my people? Just keep your end of the bargain and I’m satisfied.”

“Ma’am.” Dyle rose from his bow, swiftly exiting to the kitchen. Veronica took a sigh of relief. Finally the man was gone. Any longer and she would’ve said something worth being glared at.

“Sorry about all of this.” Nick said with a guilty look. “Didn’t expect this level of confrontation tonight. Here I was thinking I was taking you to a stress free spot in Atlas.”

“I don’t see why you’re apologizing. After all, you are the one who told me not to hide my ears. Screw what others think, remember?” Veronica gave him a comforting smile before getting another sip of his cider. “The occasional loudmouth or prejudiced jerk is nothing new. Still… thanks for sticking up for me. It’s usually me being the mouthpiece for others or myself. It’s nice not taking the lead.”

Nick propped his head up on his right hand “Glad to be of service.”

“I can see that. How’d you know the waitress was being forced and not racist herself?”

“I’ve never met my grandfather, but his handy work I’m too familiar with.” Nick said, staring out the window.

Veronica could tell she had walked onto a sensitive subject. Between him trying to avoid talking about the grave in front of his family, it was easy to understand what he meant. She wouldn’t press the issue any further. Now wasn’t the time to get heavy. “You know if you keep looking out the window like that, I might just faint from your handsomeness.”

Nick’s face turned red. He whipped his head around to see his date smirking at him. “Oh why you gotta tease me like that!? It’s embarrassing.”

Veronica could only giggle as the flustered boy did his best to hide his face. “That’s more like it. Just keep smiling for me. That’s all I need.”

xxxxx

While a dinner date had begun in the city, a house breakout had started half an hour later. Schnee Manor had gone quiet. Dinner had ended long ago and all adults had retired to their room. Summer couldn’t ask for more. The young huntress in training double checked her supplies before making the great escape. Black wig? check. Favorite pair of ripped jeans with a nice leather jacket; check and check. She put her guitar case on her back and looked in the mirror.

“And mom said no good would come from mentioning Bleiss? Well...I am sneaking out, so I guess she had a point.” Summer left her room and began carefully walking through the halls with her boots in hand. Can’t be too careful. Even the finest houses can creak. Thanks to Nick being out, the alarm wasn’t on. Escaping would be cake walk. All she had to do was pick an exit that wouldn’t be seen or heard. Pesky cameras and windows made that a bit more of a challenge.

“Mom and dad and probably still catching up with Blake and Yang, so I should probably leave through the-”

“Beautiful night for an escape.”

Summer whipped her head around to see Blake looking at her, arms folded and smiling. Summer’s face went pale. “Es-Escape!? Me!? No...I was just….”

Blake raised her eyebrow. “Just…?”

“Esssscaping- yeah I was escaping.” Summer held her head down in defeat. She really needed to get better under pressure. “How did you know?”

“I heard the sound of glyphs earlier when you said you were eating. Multiple glyphs, launching something outside and around the house. You know it might’ve been less suspicious if you decided to grab whatever you needed, and haul it back to your room normally? No way Yang or I would know if it’s out of the ordinary.”

“Hindsight isn’t always 20/20. Plus I like plans. This one appears to be a bust though.”

“Not exactly. I won’t tell if you won’t.” Blake winked.

Summer’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? You’re okay with me sneaking out.”

“It won’t earn me any warm feelings with Weiss but it’s clear to everyone in and out of this house that you need an outlet. I do have some conditions however.”

Summer squinted. Now she knew where Veronica got her deal making skills from. “I’m listening.”

“First, cut your parents some slack and go to school every day until after the tournament. I heard you’ll fail otherwise.”

“Ugh, why does everyone want me to- okay, fine. I was planning on it anyway. Next one?”

“Please try and be Veronica’s friend.”

“I’m sorry, did you ask me the impossible?” Summer said, making Blake frown. “What!? It’s the truth. Friendship is a two way street and both lanes are closed.

“Listen, I know my daughter hasn’t been the nicest to you, and I know what I’m asking is completely selfish. However, I’m asking anyway. Maybe if she had actual friends to open up to, then things wouldn’t be so bad for her.” Blake sighed.

“Are you trying to tell me Mrs. Fashion designer with perfect skin doesn’t have a line of people trying to rub elbows with her?”

“Hehe, you’d be surprised… Besides, I figured you would know first hand people like that aren’t exactly friend material, Mrs. Teen Idol.”

Summer bit her lip. “Fair point, got me there.” She folded her arms and began tapping her foot. Blake meant well, but it really felt like she was asking Summer to move a mountain. Especially after the forest incident. “Really twisting my arm here.”

“Could you at least make a strong attempt? You both will be spending more time together after all.”

“Hmmm, fine.”

Blake squinted, “Strong attempt, Summer.”

“I heard you.” Summer turned her head away like the snooty rich girl regular folk saw her as. “Is that all?”

“One more thing.” Blake walked up to the young girl and placed her hands on Summer’s shoulders. “Never forget you’re not alone.”

“.....Yes ma’am. Thanks, I mean it.”

Blake rubbed Summer’s head. She’s grown since the last time they met, yet still oh so small. Not to mention a bit frail. Summer may have looked like her mother but Blake could see how much more gentle she was in comparison. Not that Weiss wasn’t a softie in her own right, but she also had an uncompromising defiance. Blake didn’t see that in Summer. Her defiance by all means could be compromised. With any luck and help, it wouldn’t be. “Okay, I’ve held you hostage long enough. Have fun and be safe. I’ll feel guilty otherwise.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be at my home away from home. If I don’t get lost in the music then I’ll definitely be back before midnight.”

“And if you do get lost in the music?”

“Make sure the bathroom window in the third hall downstairs is unlocked. Sneaking is easier at ground level. Bye now.”

Summer gave Blake a hug then rushed off out of sight. Blake couldn’t help but sigh. “Oh boy, maybe I’m the softie?”

xxxx

“Nick?”

“H-huh!?” The boy shook himself out of his daze. Veronica chewed another slice of steak while giving Nick a look of concern. Nick quickly tried to snap back to reality. “Something wrong with steak?”

“Oh something is definitely wrong, but not with the steak.” Veronica took a sip of her third cup of cider. “Maybe you can tell me what’s wrong? Nick you’ve been spacing out more and more ever since we got our entrees. Is a twin thing happening that I’m not aware of?”

“What? Oh, no, no it’s nothing like that. Sorry I’m just more out of it than I thought tonight.

Veronica nodded. “I see. Well… I guess that’s what happens when your crush hurts your feelings.” She watched Nick’s face turn from shock to guilt in no time at all. “You know it’s fine to talk about it right?”

“No it’s not. This is supposed to be a date and what kind of jerk complains about relationship stuff in front of somebody who has feelings for them? It’s not exactly dating etiquette.”

“Oh absolutely. Just thinking about another woman while there’s one in front of you is a real low blow. Frankly I am a bit bruised by it.”

“That’s why-” his words were silenced by the sweet taste of steak Veronica placed in his mouth.

“Let me finish while you chew on that, kay? Yeah my poor little pride is a bit bruised, but it’s not like I don’t already know where I stand when it comes to Valerie; much like how I know you’ve been doing well to try and set that aside. However, I’m here to tell you that’s flawed thinking. At least when you’re dealing with me. I’d much rather you talk about it with me than mentally check out whenever we’re together. So seeing how this dinner date is already far from conventional, let’s not beat around the bush a talk about the girl on your mind.”

Even though she was clearly being nice, Nick couldn’t help but feel like even more of a jerk! “It’s- it’s okay, really. We don’t have to make a big deal out of-”

“Ten minutes.”

“Huh?”

Veronica pulled out her scroll and set a timer. “It was your bright idea to have a ten minute unfiltered grace period between us. I’m calling in your ten minutes sucker. Deny it and I’ll never agree to doing it like you want.” She hit the timer. “Now spill your guts.”

His own system, used against him. Nick wasn’t sure if he should be happy Veronica remembered it, or upset. “Well played. Fine I’ll talk. Yes, Valerie has me lost in thought.”

“About what?”

“About a lot of things.”

“Nah uh, it’s something specific that has you upset. Might as well come clean now.”

“You’re really not gonna make this easy huh?”

“Nope! Tough love is tough, now speak.” Veronica smiled.

“Sigh, Val...made it seem like I was embarrassing to be around. That I stick my nose into everything. It’s not just her too. Summer said something similar to me butting in as well. The entire thing has been bugging me. Am I really that annoying to them?” Nick slouched in his chair. “Have been pushing them away?”

Veronica clicked her tongue. He opened up faster than she expected. “While I can’t speak much about you being embarrassing since I don’t think you are by any means; I can totally say you do make it your mission to be a helping hand in every situation. So yeah, you do butt in.”

The waitress came back and Veronica quickly gathered their dirty dishes to give to the actually nice woman. “All that being said, that’s nothing new Nick. You’ve always been like that. I’d say it’s actually one of your better qualities.”

“It is?” He said confused.

“Mmmhmm. I’ve never minded it at the very least. There’s a comfort in knowing there’s a helping hand in your corner. Plus it’s not like you blatantly ignore any request telling you to stop. You did give Valerie space when she asked for it after all. As for your sister, she’s all talk. I can tell just from reviewing footage and our short trip to the forest that Summer is quick to depend on you. If you ask me, she’s more annoyed at herself for that than she is at you.”

“I doubt it. They both gave me that same look of frustration. Especially Valerie. One minute she wants to be included whenever I’m in trouble but the next she’s telling me to take a hike. It’s pissing me off.” Nick rubbed his hand through his hair and let out a sigh. This entire thing felt like a complex math equation he didn’t know how to solve.

Veronica could tell by the look on his face how conflicted this made him. How conflicted Valerie made him. Needless to say, she was a bit envious. “Why do you love her so much?” She asked bluntly.

Nick’s face turned red. “Uhhh what?”

“I’m just trying to understand what makes her special. After all, Nicholas Schnee could have a girlfriend everyday of the week, yet he fawns over one. The same one since kindergarten. It can’t only because you’ve known each other for so long. What makes her special in your eyes?” Veronica knew she was practically asking to get hurt but she had to know. What was it that made Valerie different from her?

“D...Do I really have to answer that? It’s kinda sudden.”

“The clock has five more minutes on it and you have a girl willing to listen to gush over another girl. Money can’t buy you a scenario this sweet. Fess up.”

Nick took a long sip of his cider before taking an even longer breath. It would’ve been nice if he could do this for five minutes straight but that would be asking for too much. The only way out was through.

“It’s not the most complicated reason if you’re wondering. Growing up the way I have has had numerous blessings I won’t begin to look down on. Family, money, influence; all of that has been a joy. That being said, I didn’t really revel in being who I am as a Schnee until maybe four or five years ago. Everything I did or everywhere I went, a person would always watch what I would do. Nick is gonna go far. Oh he’s great at that, perhaps he’ll go pro? That sort of thing. Ice skating was just a hobby at first. I did it because it was relaxing and mom liked skating with me. I never paid attention if I was actually good at the moves I tried.”

“But...the people did?” Veronica asked, receiving a nod.

“I didn’t think much of it. I was only around seven perhaps? It actually made me happy. So what if a few people liked my routine? I was on the ice for fun and happened to win a medal. But then, as I kept on skating, a pressure started to form. More eyes started watching me. Waiting for the next medal, talking my skill up, muttering rumors about the contests I didn’t participate in, shaking their heads at my failures…they weren’t looking at me. Only my achievements and shortcomings. Ice skating stopped being fun, again. Mom was always quick to tell me to never pay them mind and eventually convinced me to take a break from it altogether. I could never skate again and she’d be perfectly fine with that.”

“Of course. She shared that with you as an outlet, not a sport. I think she knows better than anyone how cruel it is to make a child participate in performances just because they’re good at it.”

“Yeah, hehe, she really has the perfect playbook of what not to do with a child. It would be cool if it wasn't also sad. Anyways, the break was well needed. People eventually stopped talking and I skated in private. By then I’ve taken up some early combat stuff. Nothing serious. Fencing, a few things a bit more in the huntsman category but for more of sparring and building blocks of it all. Valerie had taken notice one day and got the biggest smile. Finally we can do some real horse playing! She shouted and cheered. Next thing I knew I was being driven to the gym with a hyperactive twelve year old who may have been a little too eager to hit her best friend.” He chuckled.

“And they say I’m feisty. So what? Did she hit you so hard you thought it was cool?” Veronica teased.

“N-Well it was cool, but that wasn’t the linchpin! We were having fun sparring. I was having fun. Learning how she did and showing me the ropes everyday was a blast, until one day I did something really cool I guess. Cool enough that people noticed; and kept noticing. People started talking again about what this might possibly mean for me and began watching my practices. I remember starting to feel the overwhelming stress build up again. It was frustrating thinking that this thing I do for me was about to be taken for the people again. I wanted to cry on the spot. Next thing I knew, Valerie had gotten on this platform to make herself taller and kindly told everyone that they were interrupting our training. To my surprise, they left. It only hit then that I’ve been so caught up in trying to avoid them or please, that I never once tried telling everyone to leave me alone. I asked Valerie how she could easily tell people that also expect so much from her to leave because they were in way. Why would I ever care about their input? I do what I want for me. They’re just along for the ride. S-”

BZZZ! BZZZ! BZZZ! Ten minutes had finally gone by. Veronica clicked her tongue. She reached to shut her alarm off when Nick reached for her scroll.

“It’s only right to finish a story this far in. Not much left anyways.” Nick shut the alarm off to continue. “As I was saying, Soon after that is when I began getting back into ice skating and really started participating for myself; figuring out my agenda in all things I did. Especially tournaments. That’s the gist of it. Like I said, silly.”

“No, I get. Valerie gave you back your enjoyment of your hobbies. Helped make a new lease on life. How could that not be a big deal? If anything it makes me irritated that you have such nice reasoning.” Veronica poked her lips out in a dramatically pouty way before turning head to the window. “Guess I should’ve figured as much. She did to you what you did for me. No wonder you like her. Still, I’m not phoning things in yet. Especially if those are the words she told you.” Veronica stopped herself from clenching the table cloth. “That hypocrite. Not caring about their input my ass…” Veronica let out a little chuckle. That was certainly informative. “Thank you for your honesty.”

“Yeah don’t thank me yet.” Nick put thirteen minutes on the timer and smiled. “I believe it’s your turn?”

Veronica’s pleased expression quickly turned to panic. “Wait, what!?”

“Why do you like me?” He asked without mercy. The flush on Vee’s cheeks was redder than wine. “Y-You can’t just ask a girl why they like you!”

“Oh but you can ask me about my romantic feelings without question.” Vee nodded shameless.

“Yep that pretty much sums it up. Besides it’s not like I asked about your feelings towards me. That’s embarrassing as hell.” Veronica watched Nick purse his lips and gave her a look that screamed “seriously?” It was enough to make her start combing her fingers through her hair and look at the coconut cream pie slice that the waitress somehow managed to put under her nose without detection. “I...specifics are bothersome to explain. Just understand that...Nick, you’ve…” she could feel her heart pound in her own ears. “You’ve given me a lot of strength, hope actually. In ways I can’t begin to explain. I’m grateful; dare I say blessed.”

Those words truly shocked him. It wasn’t everyday a term like that came from Vee’s lips. “Blessed huh? That’s a big deal coming from a nonbeliever like yourself.”

“And despite knowing that you still tell me how you pray for me. Not that I particularly mind that I’m in your thoughts regularly. Also it’s rude to just straight up say nonbeliever. I have beliefs. Now the feelings associated and to what the beliefs are is a different story. Thank you for the prayers nonetheless though.”

“Maybe one day you’ll pray for me, hehe.”

Veronica smirked. “I doubt any deity would heed the words. I’ll keep the praying business to the faithful.”

“Fair enough.” Nick took a scoop of ice cream off his fudge brownie and looked at the timer. “Seeing how you’re a bit resistant to tell me why you feel the way you do towards me, can you at least be frank with me by telling me why you’re so adamant about not getting along with Valerie or Summer?”

Very slumped over. “Of all the questions, you’re set on detective work?”

“This timer thing isn’t even meant for interrogation. I offered this as a way to vent without consequences but you’re the one who wanted to play twenty questions.” He finally took a bite of dessert. “Tough it out” He said, a warm smile on his face from the flavor.

“Sigh, guess I have no right to complain. I wouldn’t say I have any real personal grievances towards them, even though I have a few unpleasant memories of your sister harassing me when we were little.”

“We were five.”

“Well I was six and a hurt tail is still a hurt tail, but I digress. Those two, they’re not the kind of people I find myself liking very much. Summer always wraps individuals into her pity party by acting like she’s making a genuine effort, and then Valerie, sigh, there’s not a thing about her that doesn’t make me want to hit her. I know you like her and wouldn’t say she’s a bad natured person, but…” Veronica held her tongue before she overstepped. These were still Nick’s loved ones.

Nick on the other hand wasn’t satisfied. “Say it, what’s on your mind. Zero consequences remember?”

“You say that but it’s not like we’ll magically forget what we’ve said in this last twenty six minutes.”

“No, but I trust you won’t hold my words and secrets against me. Do you trust me? Good or bad, this is meant to clear the air. I’d be a hypocrite to not let you speak your mind after asking you to.” It was a bit brash but Nick reached for Vee’s hand and held it.

Veronica felt her own breathing slow down at the sight of Nick’s reassuring smile. Her eyes went to her pie to avoid his gaze. He was too disarming for his own good. It made her feel guilty for doubting, as well as relying on him the way she did.

“Valerie isn’t a good friend, not you and I, not your sister for that matter. Yeah she might help out because she’s a good person but she’s far too self centered in my opinion. I mean just take tonight for example. You’ve made plans with her that fell apart because everything you two do are on her own terms. What friend gets upset that another saved them in a training exercise, or uses a pet name that the other person doesn’t like!?”

Nick raised his eyebrow. “Pet name?”

“Summer hates to be called Princess, right? That could be a thing with me personally but with the way she gets so pissed about it I would think Valerie using it would be annoying. Yet she does it anyway. Like how she’s quick to try to act like she’s above something when she clearly isn’t. I-”

“Vee? My hand…” Nick winced, his hand being squeezed like a stress ball.”

“Crap…” Veronica immediately loosened up to look at it. Thankfully her nails didn’t dig into him but she did make his hand red. Veronica gently begins rubbing it in some pointless attempt to relieve the pain. “Sorry I… I shouldn’t lose my temper like that. Ugh I know better too. Maybe steak was a bad idea after all?”

Nick watched as Veronica became fixated on the light injury. Her ears had fallen down and the anger she had while speaking had vanished entirely. All she could do was rub his hand. “It’s fine, honest. I don’t even feel pain anymore.”

“You shouldn’t have felt pain at all. This is the second time I’ve hurt you.”

“Well...I did actively walk into a fight the first time. Faunus reasons or not, a person should expect to get whaled on a bit when breaking a fight up.”

Veronica knew Nick was trying to be nice and there was truth to his words. That still didn’t make her feel much better. “I guess there’s one thing Valerie and I have in common. We get you hurt for needless reasons that could be avoided.”

“Vee…”

“Hey, I know she makes you happy and I shouldn’t really try to persuade you to feel otherwise, but… I can’t help but feel like… if you were to ever allow it one day if you’ll look my way, because…Nick, I think I can make you even happier.” She gently held his hand with her trembling ones.

Nick couldn’t see her eyes but could see how the blush took over her. She wasn’t the only one. How could he not feel embarrassed when Veronica Belladonna, the most brazen girl he knew, was now currently holding his hand sheepishly while her tail swayed side to side. Thank goodness he had set a timer beforehand. The buzzer finally went off and Veronica snapped out of her trance, letting go. Rather than speak further, her pie became the scapegoat, getting devoured without interruption. Nick wanted to say something but even the work up to speaking made her face redder by the second. Besides, the timer hit zero. He had to respect the rules he made. A lot was learned within a short time.

“It’s been some time since we had a talk like that. Thanks, Veronica. I feel like I know you even better than before.”

“Just...eat your dessert, please?” She said, embarrassed beyond belief. How could she say something so compromising like that!? Claiming to make him happier than Valerie was bolder than she meant to be.

xxxx

The rest of dinner was pretty quiet. Both of them couldn’t think of any light topics to discuss after prying into feelings. It wasn’t awkward to speak but felt more, inappropriate, so to speak. Both desserts were finished and the chef had passed his taste test. Nick would keep his end of the bargain. However, the generous tip he usually left for all workers involved was purposely missing. The chef had lost the privilege entirely. The waitress would be in for a shock the next time she checked her savings. No need to punish those in the crossfire after all. Veronica and Nick left without saying a word to anybody.

The two of them walked down the sidewalk in the season's chill embrace. Veronica felt the chill winds creep down her thin dress. It felt colder than in the forest. Not even a single person or car was on the street! Nothing but an ever forming winter wonderland!

“Eugh! I know walking home was my idea but maybe I should’ve thought ahead?”

Nick chuckled. “Maybe so?” He took his dress coat off and draped it over her shoulders. “Better?”

“Yeah but you just got over being sick. You can’t afford to catch another cold.”

“Relax, I got sick because of stress. Temperatures like this are nothing to anybody who lives here. The cold is nothing in the face of a real Atlesian. It’s in our blood!”

“And central heating is in your budget. Speaking of which, shouldn’t that be on full blast in the winter!? I mean my goosebumps have goosebumps.” Veronica shivered.

Nick smiled. “I’m glad you asked!” He took Veronica’s hand and quickly rushed over to a building with an awning for them to be under. “There’s a reason I picked a reservation for today. It’s the night manual resets happen.”

“Manual resets?”

Nick nodded. “Yep! You’re right about it being super cold. The lack of people is a dead giveaway.”

“What’s up with that? I thought Atlas was a city that never slept? It’s like a ghost town now. Nothing but….actually…” Veronica looked around the streets, lamps, and every building. There were noticeable less lights. A far cry from the dazzling show she saw earlier through the window. “The heating system, it’s off.”

“Not entirely. A majority of buildings still have them on but yes, external heating vents get temporarily shut off and rebooted. It’s common in the winter since they have to run constantly. You didn’t think it was weird that it was snowing so steadily?”

“Now that you mention it, I guess it is. Everything was already covered in snow so I didn’t notice.”

“Most snow melts on contact but there’s no getting past it during the cold season. Heater or not heater, you’re gonna see snow fall.”

Veronica breathed on her hands to warm them up. “So why come out when the heaters are off if you can see snow whenever?”

“Because I’m not here for the snow. There’s only one thing Atlas gets to really witness whenever the heaters come back on, because the reboot forces the heaters to come back on at full blast.”

“What would-” Before she could finish, Veronica witnessed it first hand; the sudden burst of heat that washed over her body as the orange glow of heaters returned to pale white city. The previous atmospheric silence had been broken. Pit pat pit pat pit pat pit. The familiar brought Veronica’s attention to the streets. Right before eyes like magic, suddenly and seamless, the winter wonderland turned into rain. Lots of rain.

Any and all snowflakes melted before pitter pattering on the pavement. Rain was nothing new to her and neither was Atlas at night for that matter, but a rainy night lights in the city of Atlas? That was a different story entirely. It was if she was in a new kingdom altogether, the way the lights shimmered on the water in the air and on the ground. Atlas somehow went from looking like a snow globe, to a chandelier.

“Woah~” Veronica was floored. She extended her hand out. The feeling of frigid rain contrasted against the warm so much it made her jolt. “Ah! Man that has a bite to it!” She laughed.Veronica stepped out from the awning.

Nick, shocked by her actions, quickly grabbed her hand. “Hey, your dress!” He shouted with agency. Veronica did not bother with his words. Instead she pulled Nick into the rain with her as she laughed.

“Hahaha! What’s a little water!? I love the rain!! Between the heaters and a pour like this, I’d say this is more refreshing than the showers back home.” Veronica’s grin widened. She took hold of Nick’s hands and began swaying. “Come on, dance with me!”

Nick let himself get strung along into Vee’s antics. He caught her guard by pulling the two of them into a ballroom stance and began to waltz.

Veronica’s ears wiggled. “Oooo look at you Mr. Casanova, taking the lead like that.”

“You’re pretty upbeat for a cat in the rain.” He teased.

“Jokes on you, panthers love water, and people from Menagerie love the ocean. I do have a surfboard after all.” She leaned back to que Nick to support her back. Veronica dramatically stuck her leg out to do an over the top dip before Nick brought her back up, pulling her close.

“Nice moves.”

“You’re not the only one who has to learn etiquette. Gotta stay on my toes for the public too. Pretty easy with a tail for balance.”

Nick chuckled. He waltzed his cheeky date back over to the awning near a heater as she continued to laugh. “I could’ve sworn minutes ago you didn’t want me getting sick?”

“Well someone bragged about being one with the cold.”

“I didn’t say all that now. I’m surprised someone complaining about the cold gets excited to dance in the rain.”

“Yeah well…” Veronica moves even closer to Nick, until there’s virtually no space between them. “I feel pretty warm right now.” She said, looking up into his eyes. Maybe it was the heater, the cold rain, or the warmth from his arms now wrapping around her, but it made Veronica warm to the point of feeling dazed. It couldn’t just be her. Not when Nick’s face was its own shade of red. The two let the sound of rain surround them yet again. The smile Veronica had slowly shifted into an expression of longing. She was so close to him right now. Closer than she’s ever felt. His warmth, his cologne, his lips…; Veronica’s body couldn’t help but lean forward. Right...until…

Beep! beep! The sound of a car horn made both jump out of their skin. They looked to the street to see their waitress waving joyfully.

“Thanks for the tip!” She said emotionally as she drove off.

The surprise brought Veronica back to her senses to see Nick’s face flushed and embarrassed. As well as conflicted. Like how he was back at Penny’s lab. Veronica felt the weight of her actions hit her like a tank and quickly took a step back.

“Sorry! Silly me, hehe. Here I was telling you that I wouldn’t be too forward or force anything, then I pull this! Talk about embarrassing huh?!” There wasn’t a bone in her body that didn’t want to find a hole to hide in. How could she get lost in emotion again!?

Nick frowned. “Ver-”

“It’s fine! Totally my bad.” She could feel her own heart start to race from her recklessness. “Tonight has been nice. We should probably start heading back before-”

Nick took Veronica’s arm and shut her up by kissing her cheek before wrapping his arms around her tightly. Her body went a little stiff before eventually hugging him back.

“No date is complete without a little intimacy, right.” Nick said, doing his best to kill the tension. “Sorry things got weird. I should’ve spoken up. It’s not like I would’ve been upset.” He admitted. “I just...you know. But I hope this is okay at least?”

Rejection is nothing new. Veronica was ready for the sting. However, Nick’s words didn’t sting at all. In fact, Veronica could only find herself hiding her face in his shirt, enjoying this comfort. Her heart stopped racing and she felt calmer than she had all night. This wasn’t rejection. Not by a long shot. A to be continued perhaps?

“This is perfect.” She said, holding her crush closer. “Stay just like this for your date. At least for a few more moments.”

Nick smiled. “As you wish.”

Veronica may not have Nick’s attention like how Valerie does, but at this moment, Veronica had Nick focused on her and her alone. He was hers right now. Veronica couldn’t ask for more. This definitely was an unconventional date, clumsy and hardly what anyone would call romantic. Veronica would cherish it all the same.

xxxx

While the sweet sound of rain soothed one duo, another couldn’t hear it all, it being completely drowned out by applause with bubbling excitement. Tonight may be one of the coldest nights for Atlas, but for a warehouse in Mantle filled with young adults, passion burned in the form of a young woman in black about to conquer the stage with her guitar and vocals. Summer was ready to vent. While Eliza carefully observed from afar.

If she wasn’t here then she might not have believed it. With those clothes and confidence, Eliza was sure she was watching a stranger.“Summer Schnee, you and your brother are one surprise after another.”

The singer grabbed a microphone and looked out to the many eyes ready to cut loose. “ALRIGHT EVERYBODY LET’S MAKE SOME NOISE!”

Summer screamed, receiving nothing less than twice the excitement back. No time was wasted in playing how she played less. Tonight was her night. Problems could wait until tomorrow.

[shiny-procrastinates]

(re)Watching Magia Record S1 - part 13

part 12 here

Hello and welcome everyone to the last post in this series. Most people probably would watch this ep right after the other one and there's much to be written, so let's skip the recap and get right to it.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record S1 episode 13

This show in a nutshell.

Really though, poor Iroha. She only came to this town to look for her sister and now she's learnt a cruel secret and is being urged to join a cult. Talk about someone who must have no idea what's going on anymore.

Back in reality, Yachiyo has finally caught up. She tries to stop Mifuyu from showing them the truth, but I'd say it's too late now. Also, Mifuyu's sure being a jerk today. You don't get to blame Yachiyo for letting them come when you're the one who made sure this would happen!

Yachiyo gets upset, and Mifuyu disappears. Iroha wakes up with Yachiyo cleaning her Soul Gem and Yachiyo says this but, nah Yachiyo, they'd have to learn this sooner or later and you don't seem like you'd ever tell them.

Iroha and Yachiyo start making their way out of Memory Museum. Tsuruno and the others were with Iroha when they went down but now they're nowhere to be found. Wait, does that mean we don't get to see their reactions to learning the truth? What a let down.

On this topic, Iroha's also pretty calm despite everything, which is probably part because realization hasn't settled in yet, part because she's occupied worrying about her team... but maybe also in part because Iroha has a wish she can’t regret, so she just doesn't care about the price as much as others. Doesn't she look like this kind of character? "I don't care what price I have to pay if that means I'll save them"-like.

Oh.

Hey Yachiyo 1: that was really outta nowhere; 2: that's not very nice of you, jumping ship just as things have hit rock-bottom. What the hell

Iroha, of course, is as shocked as we are (we are?). Sure Yachiyo had been acting strange since yesterday but this is a bit much. You can't just decide this on your own when 3/5 of the team is MiA

Iroha follows after Yachiyo, pressing her for an explanation, but Yachiyo refuses to give one.

Iroha's understandably upset at Yachiyo's attitude and asserts she refuses to leave Yachiyo's side if she won't give her a convincing reason to. And really, she has all the reasons to lose her cool here: one of her best friends is leading a cult, she's destined to a fate worse than death, half her team is missing and now the last one wants out for absolutely no discernible reason besides because she wants to. Even a saint has their limits.

Also, like, Mikazuki Team is like family to her, Yachiyo can't just decide to destroy her home with no explanation like this

Hearing what Iroha said, maybe Yachiyo realized she wouldn't get Iroha off her tail without saying anything, so she reveals her reason for wanting to disband the team. Yachiyo says that her wish was to survive. However, the way it worked was that she sacrificed others for her own survival. So she thinks Iroha and co. will die if they stay with her.

Even hearing this, Iroha's not convinced. Could such a wish really exist?

So yeah, Yachiyo was having a little crisis there and ended up being eaten by the Rumor(?). Thankfully, Iroha could still see her signal on the Soul Gem GPS, so the girl firms her determination to save her.

While Iroha's doing that, Yachiyo's having a lecture by herself to herself inside the Rumor. Quite the novel way to do introspection, if I do say so myself.

Here, we learn that Yachiyo originally wished to survive in the modelling world (we're never directly told that she's a model but there's lots of visual cues to it throughout the series). She did it because she thought she had to be a strong leader to protect her companions. She didn't want to survive at their expanse; so, uhhh...

She isn't then. Wishes in this series come true in the exact way the Magical Girl wants it to, so Yachiyo's wish can't be killing anyone if that's not what she wanted. She's misunderstanding.

...I wish they'd have put Kanae and Mel's last words in the actual scene they belong to rather than just a still, since they're literally one of the main reasons Yachiyo even reached the conclusion that their deaths were caused by her.

Iroha has learned "hold B to charge".

So, yeah, Iroha must've had a training arc off-screen because even though she's only been shown sucking at battles the whole series, she's now suddenly strong enough to defeat a Rumor on her own. Or maybe she just wanted to save her wife Yachiyo that much.

Iroha defeats the Rumor of Memory Museum (the place's an actual building, if a weird one, so that stays), hugs Yachiyo and is about to literally drag her by the hand to go search for the others, but Yachiyo's still reluctant. Iroha then tells her that Yachiyo and the others are the one who made her this strong, so she'll prove to her that her wish isn't what she thinks it is.

Don't jinx yourself, idiot! Thank god you've got protagonist plot armor.

Now, if only years of survivor's guilt could be cured this easily in real life too.

Yachiyo finally calls Iroha by her first name, accepting Iroha's promise.

The museum starts falling apart, probably thanks to the damage it received when Iroha was fighting the Rumor, so Iroha and Yachiyo have no choice but to leave the place now, even though they haven't found the others yet.

Iroha barely dodges some debris, stumbling, so Yachiyo carries her instead. Iroha's Soul Gem has been drained from fighting the Rumor, so she's having a hard time moving already. Doppels may be a thing, but there's no guarantee that they're safe, so Yachiyo's call of going to the Coordinator's to get a Grief Seed is probably correct.

As Iroha's situation worsens, Yachiyo follows Chibi Kyuubei until almost the entrance. Then, she meets with someone we know very well.

Mami says something about a gospel, and Yachiyo asserts that she and Iroha have no intention of joining the cult.

Which makes Mami snap. This girl is clearly not on her right mind. In fact, one could say she lost her head (ba-dum-tss).

Mami and Yachiyo start fighting, and I guess as expected of a veteran of 7 years, we have to commend Yachiyo here on meeting Mami's blows while carrying Iroha on her back. Yachiyo pleads with Mami to hear them out but Touka, the brat who was just watching the battle, tells Mami she doesn't have to, and Mami just keeps on her offensive.

Of course, there's only so much Yachiyo could do handicapped. But today is not the day Yachiyo's getting a bullet to her head, because

A certain someone who really likes impromptu hydrant smoke bombs is here.

Sayaka! Nice save, shining cape hero of justice! You have no idea who exactly you're calling weak tho

Seeing Sayaka, it looked like Mami had went back to normal for a moment, but nope, she's still borked. Like in all timelines where she learns it, seems like Mami didn't take the truth well here either. The difference is that she can't witch out in Kamihama so something happened instead.

Mami keeps monologuing, with Sayaka of course not understanding a single thing she's saying. Then, Mami starts to doppel out. The girl has seriously lost her mind and is now obsessed with salvation. (and man 10/10 on the VA’s voice acting here)

And here comes the bullet hell! This is so overkill Mami

Sayaka and Yachiyo do their best to deflect the rain of bullets, with Yachiyo turning back and trying to compete in number of spears. Jesus, just how big exactly is the amount of magic a veteran magical girl has? This is insane!

Yachiyo tries to send a stream of spears, who are deflected with one Tiro Finale, with another one headed their way right after

Sayaka blocks the Tiro Finale with her sword. The shot is so powerful one of her arms is torn off AND SHE ATTACHES IT BACK MID-AIR

holy-moly!

Hope this museum has insurance.

Sayaka just barely manages to reflect that bomb, which saves them from being blown to smithereens. Touka was having a nice tea time watching the spectacle, but then realizes she had something else to attend to so she exits, leaving the stage to Mami, who resumes her bullet hell.

Sayaka uses Yachiyo's spears as a platform to get closer and attempts to grab Mami, to no avail. She falls down and tries to take cover, but Mami's bullets are now homing bullets apparently, because they just change direction and start raining in her direction again.

Down below where Yachiyo's hiding, Iroha manages to wake back up, but she looks, like, on the verge of dying or something. Iroha tells Yachiyo they have to help Sayaka and Yachiyo rebukes there's no way they could win, to which Iroha subtly implies she wants to use her doppel, assuring Yachiyo it'll be okay and raising yet another flag.

Mami finally corners Sayaka, but before Sayaka can become blue Swiss cheese, Iroha comes in with her doppel to cover her. Very convenient that she suddenly knows how to control it.

Aaand Yachiyo can do that too, because of course she does, why wouldn't she. (/sarcasm)

But, uhhh, hers is considerably more creepy, what with the extra arms and stuff. Yikes.

Yachiyo says that doppels are dangerous, but one has to wonder when and how did she even learn about them. After all, she did seem surprised when Iroha did not turn into a witch in Seance Shrine.

While that's going on Touka's just out here deciding by herself that Mami would want to die for the sake of salvation. Just, uh, I don't think you can judge that when she's gone nuts, and you're a jerk if you put her in that scenario expecting her to die. Not that anyone had any doubts you're a jerk, mind you.

Also, what does she mean with Mami helping with developing Rumors?

"hey Kyuubei, I don't want to be meguka anymore, can I retire?"

Even using their doppels, Iroha and Yachiyo are not managing to make even a dent in Holy Mami. Iroha ends up getting bashed into a wall, the doppel taking over for real and her becoming a sitting duck for Mami, but Yachiyo yeets Mami before she can shoot. I'm sure this wasn't supposed to be funny but there's just something hilarious to me about Yachiyo just yeeting Holy Mami and her bouncing away.

Yachiyo transforms and shakes Iroha back to reality.

Again, why the heck do you know this, Yachiyo.

Iroha raises yet another flag for herself. What next? Are you going to say you want to marry her when you two go back?

Somewhere else, Touka arrives on her appointment: a speech for the cult. And oh my hell just look at how many magical girls there is! The amount of Black Feathers always blows me away, since the impression I got from og and even the spin offs is that, sure, there are some groups of magical girls around like the Holy Quintet and the Pleiades, but I still though it was more of a rare thing. It's shocking to see THIS many in the same place. (...I suppose the game needed the cannon fodder :x)

HEY what are these two doing here?!

Touka continues her speech over Iroha and Yachiyo's battle.

This cult leader here continues her discourse, preaching about how the power to wish for something is what advanced civilization, so magical girls, who have the power to make a wish reality, are better than normal humans, and so are deserving of being released from their fate.

OH NO, TSURUNO HAS GONE WEIRD TOO

*bonk*

There goes Holy Mami down the collapsing museum.

It's not like Touka's completely wrong (except for saying that magical girls are superior), but if it wasn't clear enough already, their actual actions makes her speech be full of hypocrisy.

Back at the crumbling Memory Museum, Iroha has managed to jinx herself so hard throughout this episode she pierced her own protagonist plot armor. Great job!

Try as she might, Yachiyo just cannot pull her back up, which also makes no sense when you consider how strong magical girls are, but alas.

And to make things worse, Mami is also pulling a literal "you're going down with me", so Iroha, making a split second decision, pulls her hand away from Yachiyo's grasp, lest both of them fall and get buried... breaking the one promise she made probably not even a hour ago.

I think that last thing she said was "sorry", but don't quote me on that.

What a loyal Mokyu. Never mind that if they can turn into water they probably can't die from this.

Yachiyo's about to follow her fate too, but thankfully Sayaka comes in for the save, only giving a brief glance to where Mami disappeared before getting the heck out of there.

Well, people promise lots of things, Yachiyo.

OH I KNOW YOU, what was your name again? It's been so long I forgot.

Back at the The Wings of the Magius' HQ, Touka's done with her speech. The way the anime cuts from Yachiyo falling to the depths of despair to the cult clapping is just *chef's kiss*

Oh no Felicia and Sana also joined the cult :(

EXCUSE ME, WHAT

oh frick we'll have to deal with that too!? Aren't things already effed up enough as is!?

...being meguka is suffering.

Also the song playing over this last sequence, Nigredo, is a real banger. Momentarily filling in that hole Kalafina left in our hearts.

After the end credits there's the teaser for season 2, with lots of overlapping lines and blink-and-you-miss-it frames hinting at the things that'll happen. I'd have to screenshot basically the whole sequence to get everything and season 2 is coming out like, today, so I'm not even gonna bother.

- x -

Aaand that's it folks! Puella Magia Madoka Magica Side Story: Magia Record Season 1! (still a mouthful)

I cannot express just how hyped I was by the end of this episode back when it aired. Did you get fired up watching it too? I was so into it back then I just couldn't stop theorizing for like, over a month, so eventually the curiosity was just too much and I caved in and watched the game.

On that matter, ironically, despite me loving the game story to bits, this is the ONE episode that makes me wish I didn't go and watch the game. Why? Because I liked this episode well enough before, but now I just can't get over how stupidly better the resolution to Yachiyo's arc was done in the game. I get runtime constraints and all, but it's almost an offense to her character having her believe in Iroha right away just because Iroha said she wouldn't die. Aaaaghh what the heck, I don't know how they could have done this better with the time on the episode but this wasn't it. I'll be eternally salty we got robbed of the full extent of alpha Iroha, too.

So yeah, I do apologize if this post sounded more salty and sarcastic than usual.

One thing I realized re-watching this though is that the reason this episode is so awkward with that character part is exactly because they halfheartedly tried to stick to the game. Yachiyo bringing back her "it's none of your account" and Iroha defeating the Rumor on her own were part of the game, but because they hadn't kept those character traits throughout the anime it falls flat here, because anime Yachiyo didn't use that almost as a catchphrase, and anime Iroha is never shown to be competent enough to take on a Rumor on her own (the opposite, in fact), so those come out of nowhere. Even last episode, Yachiyo 180ing because of what Mifuyu said comes out of the blue in the anime, because we're missing the context that she actually went back to behaving like she used to when she first disbanded her team, and anime Yachiyo didn't have the hold-up with the word "friends", at least not as clearly. On the other hand, Yachiyo being willing to accept Iroha's words right away does fit in with anime Yachiyo, who was always more soft than game version, but here it becomes awkward because they had had her acting like her game counterpart since last episode and then suddenly she snaps back to the anime self again.

What I'm trying to say here is that they should've changed this scene even more to fit the actual characters anime Iroha and Yachiyo are, rather than halfheartedly trying to force it to go the same way as in the game. That's what I think.

Besides that, Tsuruno and co.'s reaction to the truth was cut out, but I'm sure we'll get around to seeing that next season. Holy Mami's fight is cool but... I dunno. Except Sayaka reflecting that Tiro Finale, it felt really uninspired. It could've been shorter if that meant giving more time to the story, imo

Now for things I REALLY like in this episode, there's the whole sequence with Touka's speech. You might've even guessed this considering I said the dream sequence way back in episode 1 is my favorite ever. IT'S JUST SO GOOD. The constrast between Touka delivering this super charismatic discourse about magical girls, the saint of her cause being lunatic and their actions being just the opposite of the noble cause she says they're preaching is marvelous. They even manage to use this time to reveal that KaMoRe and Tsuruno and co. are on the cult. Really, really well done.

This ending tho. Iroha disappearing is the biggest anime original thing to happen besides Kuroe, so that's got me curious to see what they'll do with this. I love the game, so I have complicated feelings about the anime diverging from it, but I can't deny it's exciting to think about what they'll change up. Ultimately, it's more likely that they're just rearranging some stuff to make the progress more straightforward, but it'd be really cool if it went full anime original too. Just I'm not sure on the odds for that.

I'm sure they'll keep us on the suspense until the very last moment possible but I'm sure Iroha's not actually dead. Looking at a meta sense, there's no way they'd kill a main character off-screen. Storywise, it'd be hard to move Ui's mystery forward without the one person who remembers her and they're not just going to drop this plot, and also for Iroha to be dead Holy Mami would also need to be dead and we can't have that because they haven't even went into what's wrong with her yet. So yeah. I'll believe it when I see it. Would it be absolutely crazy if they did? Yeah, but it ain't gonna happen. (please don't make me have to bite my tongue show)

Whew, this post is long af. I didn't plan for this. I don't feel like writing a season impression because all of s1 was mostly set up for what's to come, so I can't say if it was good or bad until the series is over. Originally, I'd planned to put up another post with my theories for s2, but considering that comes out today I'm not sure there's even a point to doing it anymore lol

In any case, I hope I could provide you some fun with these posts! Being honest, the reason I decided to write this was because I've always liked to hear people's opinions on the shows I like, but I don't really have people to watch things with me, so I just read reddit and stuff. Doing that, when I was watching Symphogear s1 some years back, I stumbled across these posts of someone watching it for the first time and had a blast reading those as I watched. So I wanted to provide someone with that experience too. I'll never reach the comedic genius that person had, but I can at least keep you company while you watch :)

...these are also super useful to check back on the order of events too :v

So yeah, writing these was fun, though there were lots of parts where I really went out of ideas of what to say; it forced me to actually sit down and rewatch (or else I'd procrastinate) and made me pick up on a lot of things. That's a plus in my book.

Now that we are done with this, I hope you are as excited for season 2 as I am! I'm not sure if I'll keep writing about it here, so yeah. Whether we ever meet again or not, remember:

Don't ever make a contract with a white weasel.

[fakeloveaskblog]

Alright. So. Now, we don't have time to unpack all of that, but… Remy, don't freak out please, only you can hear me. Are you alone? Don't worry, I'll wait until you are. I'll just tell you meanwhile that you are wanted and loved and your friends wouldn't abandon you for who you are or purposefully pressure you into anything even if you started dating them.

Are you alone now? Alright Remy. First off: it's not wrong for you to want to get on hormones. Remus does too. In fact he likely will, some day. And it has been stablished that the act of saying stuff like that on the part of Remus's ex was an awful and manipulative and shitty thing to do, okay? Okay.

*deep breath* Second off, being ace (or asexual to use the technical term) is not just not wanting to have sex or having a low libido or anything like that, that's just a common misconception. Being ace is simply not feeling that kind of attraction towards other people, which sounds a lot like what you just described to us, so it sounds to me like there is a considerable possibility that you might be ace too.

Think of it this way: Simply wanting that kind of release in general can be blamed on libido. On the other hand, wanting to have sex with a specific person not because they are a specific person and you want to please them but (or maybe also, in the case of gray and demisexuals) because you are attracted to them, is sexual attraction. By the looks of your explanation, it seems to me like you are experiencing the first but not the second one, thereby comes in the possibility that you might be ace.

Did you get that somewhat clumsy explanation, or should I rephrase it? I feel like I didn't explain myself as well as I could. Kindly, the local demon.

Remy did get ready to freak out when the heard your voice, hushed into their ear like a whisper, but quickly calmed down when Virgil didn't react. He was sitting at the edge of the bed with a cigarette between his fingers. His hair was ruffled and his boxers hastily put on.

Virgil stretched a little before getting up. He leant down to kiss Remy while shoving the cigarette into the metal end of the bed to put it out.

"gonna take a shower. Yell if you're uhm dying or something. Kay?"

"Okay"

He kissed them again before leaving.

Remy didn't even think of speaking before they could clearly hear the water going. They grabbed the bottle of vodka off of the nightstand and propped themself up just enough so they could drink it while listening. They also moved the blanket farther up their chest.

They glanced away "It....It feels selfish of me to want to get on hormones...it feels like different from Remus y'know..Like...Uhm how do I say this....he like needs it more and uhm...he and his ex only dated for like 3 years anyway. But like me and Viv have been together for ages so like uhm like if uhm like he has some or I mean- with big changes like that what he thinks about it is also kinda important y'know since uhm we've- it will uhm affect both of us kinda. ANd Remus wants to get on T right? and he's gay so like everything works out. He gets T and all the same people are still gonna wanna date him, if not like more. Only reason his ex didn't want that is uhhh 'cause he was straight right? And he like started dating Rem before he realized he was trans so it just got all fucked up there. But me...I...it's gonna...if I get on hormones....Will Janus even want me anymore?"

Remy leaned their head in their hands and grimaced.

"This is so fucking stupid. Why do I always gotta make what other people think 'bout me the most important thing. It's like oh do I want love? Or less dysphoria? The dysphoria makes me wanna rip off my skin and never eat and hide myself from everyone forever and yet whatever Viv says always seems more important. I'm so stupid and like weak. I'm just- All I do is listen to others. Punching bag, like I told you. Ugh I'm so stupid"

They took a long sip from the bottle before sighing.

"....I wish I had more trans people to talk to- Or like sorry i know Jannie is trans. I just mean y'know trans people who wanna go on hormones. It would be real nice if there was some like trans person in a long term relationship with like someone cis nearby who could answer if how Viv and Rem's ex reacted is normal or not...if only..."

Remy took another long sip from the bottle after that. They reached out to take a cigarette from the package Virgil had left on the bed. They put the cig between their parsed lips and grabbed the lighter as you continued the message.

'there is a considerable possibility that you might be ace too'

The lighter fell down agains the covers of the bed as Remy froze. Their eyes were stuck in a wide stare as they tried to swallow what you had just said.

You went on explaining it further but Remy was stuck just trying to comprehend. It didn't feel like they could even move at first. The sound of the water running in the other room almost got overwhelming, Like white noise crashing in.

"....Are....Are you telling me there was an explanation thIS WHOLE TIME!?"

They slammed their hands over their mouth. Their breathe quickened just a bit as they listened for any sounds indicating Virgil had heard. Nothing happened. Until.

"OOOH they're gonna clean up your look with every lies in the book-"

Virgil was singing in the shower again. It was such a sudden mood shift it made Remy laugh. They moved their hands away and turned back to you.

"Okay girl I'm not saying I'm believing you 'cause like what is the likelihood that there's a name for everything wrong with me??? Like first the constant pain I was in was actually 'fibromyalgia' and then it turned out I wasn't a bitch fantasizing about cheating, I was just 'poly'. Like there can't be a name for everything right???"

Their hands writhed in their lap. They ached to hold onto something. To stabilize themself.

"Everyone has always assumed I'm some kind of super sexual whore....I've gotten so used to it...it feels so weird if I'm..." They looked away. Their voice got even quieter "That's what everyone said at school y'know. As soon as I started wearing mini skirts and crop tops rumors started about how I'd been with Every guy who wanted me. I remember...when Virgil met me....he had been forced to become my study buddy 'cause I was failing like everything...he thought that too...he didn't say it...But I could tell with the way he looked at me. Sometimes someone- mostly Viv- when he jokes, I know he doesn't mean it like that I think, but sometime it still sounds like people are assuming i'm like super sexual just 'cause I'm femme..I guess I've kinda internalized it...I guess....Like I said my brain always gotta take whatever the hell anyone else says as the most important...Always"

They shook their head around to clear their thoughts. It only made their neck hurt worse. The pain meds would probably stop affecting them by tomorrow. They lit their cigarette and took a long drag.

"...asexual..."

They tried out the word. It felt weird to say. It didn't fit between their teeth.

"Y'know I had thought maybe it was just 'cause of the fibro so I just didn't enjoy sex that much and that's why I was like all wrong but...asexual...that..." They took a shaky breathe "Okay so I'm not gonna say I'm NOT asexual at least. That's- That's a start right?"

The moment after, when they thought you had left, they took out their phone and started searching up asexual art, facts about it, the flag. They had always had an affinity for purple.

[redhawtriot]

Problem Child (MHA Headcannons)

I work a lot with kids and teens and was literally a teenager a few months ago myself lol, so I know just how much of little shits they can be.

I always see such cute stories and headcanons with fathers and their sweet adorable children/babies, but what happens when they get older and less… adorable?

Well…

HnM💕

undefined

💥Bakugou: 

Bakugou’s teenage daughter is probably his carbon copy. The proud attitude and sassy wit would be praised and held on an adorable pedestal when she was a little girl, but when she becomes a teenager, it is not nearly as cute.

“What the hell!? Get out of my room, dad!” She would scream at her father as he barged in her room, “It’s like you never learned how to knock!”  

He would instantly get triggered by her loud mouth, “It’s my damn house. I can go wherever I want, whenever I want!” he would scream before something shiny on the corner of her nightstand caught his attention, “What’s that.”

His daughter would immediately scramble to conceal the golden package, “None of your business,” she tucks it in her drawer.

“No! What the fuck was that?!” He has a slight idea of what it might be but he prays to god that he is wrong as he storms over to her dresser and rips it open.

“Dad!” his fifteen year old daughter shrieks as she feebly attempts to slam the drawer back shut-- not caring at all about Bakugou’s fingers, “The fuck’s your problem?!”

Bakugou’s rigid arms would hold the drawer open as his eyes blankly stare at the horror scene in front of him, “W-what are you doing with condoms?!” His eyes are wide. 

“Fucking figure it out! God!” His not-so-little girl finally slams the drawer back shut, effectively snapping him out of his daze.

He rips his furious eyes toward her direction, “YOU ARE NEVER LEAVING THIS HOUSE AGAIN, YOU HEAR ME?! GET USED TO THESE WALLS BECAUSE THEY ARE THE ONLY THING YOU’LL SEE FROM NOW ON!”

“The fuck I am!”

His significant other would have to spend the next few hours talking him down from killing every single boy his daughter had ever come into contact with.

He wouldn't be able to look his daughter in the eyes for the following days, but sooner or later he got over his anger and even eventually talked to her about more effective forms of birth control. (God was that a spectacle)

Todoroki: 

Probably going to be a super passive parent, especially with his teens. He doesn't want to be overbearing and controlling like his father was.

His teens might learn to take advantage of this. I could see his kids going to him if the other parent says no to something. This would probably lead to a lot of confusion within the Todoroki household. Lol

He isn't a complete idiot though, he would get wiser to his teenager’s antics and eventually put his foot down.

Or... at least attempt too.

He would probably be a huge softy for his kids and end up giving in to them regardless. 

Izuku: 

He would for sure be a helicopter parent. It would be touching and adorable for him to cry when his son leaves for his first day of Elementary school, but it would be less cute when he is a whole ass teenager and he still wants to drop by his middle school to “check in on him.”

“Dude… is that your dad. Again?” one of his son’s classmates would point out to him as he gawked at the hoard of paparazzi in school’s front entrance. 

“Please, god no,” Izuku’s son would cower into his arms at his desk.

However, he knew that he would have to confront his father sooner or later, “Dad! What are you doing here?”

“You left your applesauce on the kitchen counter this morning, I just thought I‘d stop by and bring it to you while I was on patrol today, son.”

Fucking applesauce!?!

The younger Midoriya would have to fight the urge to face-palm, opting for a heavy sigh instead, “I’m not five years old! I don’t need my dad to drop off snacks for me!”

The sudden outburst would slightly wound the fragile father, “Y-you’re right…” Izuku would immediately understand the new boundary and respect it, “Sorry son, I-I’ll just go then,” he would still hand the sauce over to his son.

As he turns to leave his son would feel a pulse of guilt, “Wait… Thank you… Just stop breathing down my neck so much, okay?”

“Alright!” The apology would fill the father would a sense of vigor. He would turn back around to leave on a much happier not until--

“Oh, wait!” Izuku almost forgot something! “I LOVE YOU, SON!” he shouts from across the courtyard. 

Giggles from the other kids could be heard as his son ducks shamefully into himself, “L-love you too…dad...” the boy’s face falls into a deep shade of red as people stare at him. 

Shinsou:

He would never mind control his children, but he would be lying if he said that it wasn’t tempting every now and then.

He would probably be the type of person that prefers smaller children to teenagers for some reason. As the feeling of being needed diminishes and his children grow more and more independent, he would begin feeling a little left out of their everyday lives.

He would for sure be the type of person that tries to hang onto his children's childhoods for as long as he can. The first time that his kids go out “without” parental supervision to like the mall or movies, or something, he would secretly tag along. 

He would leave after he felt comfortable enough.

Holy shit! If he got caught though? 

His kids would probably never let him hear the end of it. I feel like he would be very embarrassed because everyone would would be able to see that he did it for him and not for his kids lol.

“Awh, dad you just want us to stay little forever, don’t you?”

“I was just trying to make sure that you guys would be okay,” he would immediately retort, as if the speed of his response could cover his obvious lying. 

“Apparently we weren't the ones needing to be checked up on! You okay?”

He really wasn’t okay.

Why do kids have to grow up so fast?!

Kirishima: 

Will be very straight up and direct with his children. He will always tell them when they are not being their best selves.

Even though he is probably the most supportive guy in the world, his son will still probably hide things from him because his overwhelming positivity and wish to better himself and others can be.. well... a bit much. 

“LET”S GO GET SOME REPS IN!” Kiri would burst into his 16 year old son’s room, but finds that he is on the phone with someone, “Who’s that on the phone?”

The boy would immediately hang up the phone and stare wide-eyes at his father, “Uhhh... grandma?” he obviously lies. 

“Huh. But your grandma is in a different time zone... it’s 3 am for her...” Kirishima would bait his son to tell the truth. 

Knowing that he had been caught and that there was no backing out, he would reluctantly tell the truth, “It’s... my boyfriend.”

“BOYFRIEND?! Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone, son?? Have em over tonight! I’d love to meet him! I bet he’s great! Does your mother know?! I’ll call her as soon as I can and let her know the great news--”

“No, no, no! Stop!” the young boy would frantically interrupt, “Uh, Thanks... but h-he’s not coming over, could you... get out of my room please?”

Kirishima would turn a little red at the realization that he had gone a little off of the deep end, “Oh... okay... Sorry for that,” he would nervously laugh as he backed out of the room, “I guess I did get a little ahead of myself, huh?”

“Yeah...” His son would purse his lips as the two made awkward, prolonged, eye contact. 

“Okay.... Well, you want the door open or shut?”

“Shut would be fine,”

“Alright,” Kiri would begin shutting the door only to stick his head on one more time,“Love ya.” he would softly speak into the room. 

“Bye...” as soon as the door is shut his son flops tiredly onto his bed.

Kaminari:

He would always be a teenage boy at heart so him and his kids would actually get a long very well—maybe too well.

He would catch his children trying to sneak out of the house and set up little boobie traps for them outside of the window they sneak out of. He would never tell his s/o about them sneaking out because, hey, if they avoided his boobie traps, they probably deserved it!

When his kids were caught they usually wouldn’t even want to go out anymore as they were typically covered in syrup, or blasted with paint-balls, or soaking wet with tomato sauce or some other random thing.

Every now and then, when his kids would successfully pass a boobie trap, however, he would up his game.

This leads to the game always evolving.

His kids respect the hell out of him, because they love him so much, but this little game they have going with him is too fun to give up!

Iida: 

He had always been told that he was a bit overbearing, and would wanna correct that about himself before he had children.

Iida would be the type of father that would read up on parenting magazines, so he wouldn’t be too authoritarian and would like for his kids to make the right decisions on their own… but damn was it hard for him to just sit back and watch.

He would be walking by, when the sight of his daughter relaxing on the living room on her phone would catch his attention. She has a series of textbooks sprawled out in front of her, but is paying them no mind. “Sweetheart? Shouldn’t you be studying right now?”

“Yeah, probably. I’ll get on it in a minute…” she would absentmindedly reply as her eyes stayed glued onto her phone. 

“Okay…” he would reply as he continued doing whatever it was he was doing before he got distracted; however when he passed by the living room again, he noticed that his daughter was still in the same position that he had left her in,  “Ahem!”

The young girl knew well what this meant as she looked up to acknowledge Iida, “Yes, father?”

“There’s no time like the present, you know,” he reminded her. 

“Thanks… I’ll remember that,” even though she knew exactly what he had been trying to imply, she looked back to her phone in a small bout of rebellion. 

This would be the last straw for Iida, “I know that you are a fine student and all; however, I just think that you should—”

“FINE,” she would loudly sigh as she throws her phone to away to the couch, I’ll do my homework right now!”

“That’s my girl!”

“Of course,” she would smile back with just a hint of resentment. 

[ratcandy]

UHHH THE SECOND IDEA FIRST

OKAY Time's disastrous universe let's get it boys

Below is a VERY long personal-story related ramble because a lot happens here and there's a lot to explain and I'm being enabled (c/w death, a LOT of memory erasure, Gods being idiots, and. If I need to add anythin else here someone better let me know hehehe)

feat some dumb lil doodles here n there because i felt like it

Exposition time first!

At the beginning of everything, eight universes were created, each differentiated by color. A Universe Owner is assigned to each universe, and that entity is then responsible for their universe's laws of reality, the lives of the characters, and... whatever else they decide to mess with. This is so I can allow myself a lot of freedom in making stories in many different areas n such without worrying about it following another story's rules >:)

Okay exposition time done! for now!

One day out of the blue, the God of Time decided that they wanted a universe all for themselves. They wanted to create life!! They wanted to make a world!! It'd be fun! It'd be a whole vibe!

So, against the wishes of the God of Balance, Time made a ninth universe and fruitlessly tried to keep it hidden from everyone else. This backfired instantly. A huge argument broke out between Time and Balance, as the latter was pissed, but Time won in the end and was allowed to keep their universe. Balance is just upset there's not a nice even number anymore. He'll get over himself eventually.

Straight up having a great time now, the God of Time went hogwild and fleshed out their universe to the best of their ability. Beautiful lush forests, stunning pink skies as if it were in a continuous sunrise, crystal-clear waters that glimmer ever-so-brightly!! Yes!! Pretty!! And immediately after, they created creatures!! And people! To inhabit their world!

Elegant flying beasts, colorful people of all shapes and sizes, bustling towns with trade and life and energy and!!! Yes! Yes!! Vibes!!

Time was living their BEST life.

But. Well. This is my story. things gotta go wrong now

SO! First, something to note about how the God of Time works:

Time's primary job is to keep the Time Fire from ever going out or touching the ground. The Time Fire is an eternally burning flame, forever shifting from vibrant color to vibrant color, getting bigger and burning stronger with every passing millennia. It also... y'know. Allows time itself to function. If it goes out, time will stop. If it touches the floor, time will go NUTS and parallel/alternate universes will go haywire, clashing into one another and messing up reality.

The God of Time, luckily, has powerful psychic abilities.. The tall mans just put the Time Fire in a sort of protective bubble, constantly floating above the ground, and left it in a temple at the center of their universe. Epic. All works out

Well. All SHOULD have worked out.

At some point, Time left their universe to have a meeting with the Gods, and on their way to Oblivion - often a meeting place for deities - they witnessed something Very Unfortunate.

One of the Universe Owners, Hesit (white universe), was being torn to pieces by an intruder in the higher realm. By killing and consuming Hesit, possession of the white universe was transferred to said intruder: a big asshole named Vexis. Time tried to confront Vexis immediately after. This was a mistake, as Vexis panicked and attacked Time. Seeing as Gods cannot die, Vexis instead trapped the god in his newly-acquired universe - binding him there forever.

So now Time is imprisoned in the white universe, lost and confused, not knowing how to get back out. And Vexis doesn't plan on telling anyone about this.

The other gods soon realize that Time has gone missing. Very soon, actually, because... well. With Time being swept away into the white universe and being held prisoner there, uhm. A certain something important isn't being held suspended anymore.

The Time Fire.

It hasn't fallen yet, but it's gradually sinking toward the ground, and sometHING has to get a hold on it soon!! Or HELL WORLD!!

Balance loses his MIND!! We have to do something about this before time becomes a catastrophic, unfixable disaster! And also we're missing a god!! This is not good!! At first, Balance goes looking for Time, but realizes he doesn't really uh... have the time to be doing that

So, in desperation, he searches his mind for possible solutions. He gets one, crazy idea, and practically begs the God of Death to help him pull it off. Death agrees, because this is the one (1) time Death acknowledges that the mortal realm being in danger might be a bad thing.

To put a long plan short, Balance used Death to turn the Goddess of Pain into a pseudo Goddess of Time.

Pain had previously been wreaking HAVOC, and Balance was NOT happy about it. Way too many mortals were dying, then not dying, then losing their sanities, then losing control of themselves, and it was just. Very messy. He didn't feel great about using her to replace Time, but he didn't have many options. And he needed someone to take over. So, he and Death worked together to erase Pain's memories and turn her into a Goddess of Time.

They couldn't give her psychic abilities, though. So, how'd they deal with the Time Fire? It now permanently rests on Pain/Time's back. As in, the flame is constantly burning her spine for all of eternity, steadily searing her flesh but never allowing her to die. She's grown progressively numb to it over many, many years, but that doesn't make it any less unfortunate for her.

Balance feels awful about this. Especially since Pain/Time doesn't remember who she was, and believes she's always been Time. This is how it's always been. The universe around her is one she made, one she owns. Anytime Balance stops by to visit (as Time cannot move now from the temple with the fire), she greets him so kindly, so happy to have company... and he just feels terrible, knowing what he's done to her.

Well... at least that's settled. This cannot possibly go awry in any way shape or f----

The new Goddess of Time is trying her best to make creations for her universe. After all, that's what she's always done! These are her children, essentially, and she needs to have more. This, uh... well, the Goddess of Pain was not made with creating in mind, rather destroying. So, despite her valiant efforts, half of her creations come out... a Lil Messed Up. But she loves them all the same and keeps them around!!! Even if they're... worse for wear, or not quite like the rest!! They're her children. Yea!

At some point, however, her creating takes a bit too much from other universes' energy, and a mortal from another universe just ends up appearing in Time's. His name is Dustivan, and he is reasonably confused. One moment, he was vibing with his sister and her wife, and the next-- where the hell is he. why is the sky pink. who is this block man approaching me

The block man in question is named Maurice, and he is a sort of guardian for Time's temple. The Time that's always been here. The Time that has always looked like that and never been any different! (All of the Original Time's creations had their memories wiped, too. This Goddess of Time is the only one there's ever been! That's your mother, see. There is no other Time. She created you. Don't worry about it)

Maurice greets Dusty under the assumption that this man is just another new creation, and is soon told that "Uh, no, I'm... from some place else? I have a family? And a home, elsewhere?" M. Maurice is a lil confused. But he asks Time about this.

Time has no idea what he's talking about, either, so Maurice just... calmly escorts Dusty away, promising to get back to him later. We'll figure this out, man, don't you even worry about it

Now, there's a bit here that's only loosely developed! That being Dusty's stay in Time's Universe! Lil man meets a lotta folks, gets used to this weird world he's living in, makes good friends with Maurice and Maurice's maybe-more-than-friends-:flushed: friend Arin, aaand has a great experience! Because Time's universe is incredibly serene and peaceful, even with the new management!

Straight up vibi--- oh no wait what's this

Somehow, Maurice, Arin and Dusty find out about the whole... thing that happened with the original Time, and Pain being turned into the new Time. Maurice and Arin get their memories back and freak out a little while Dusty is just standing there like "big rip on you guys I guess"

Shenanigans ensue and Maurice goes back to Pain/Time, thinking it'll definitely work out if he tells her everything that happened so her.

Hey so it doesn't work out

Pain regains her own memories, and becomes ABSOLUTELY PISSED OFF, shedding the form forced onto her and returning back into the Goddess of Pain. In her transformation, however, she shook the Time Fire from her back, screaming in the agony that caused her, and. well.

she hit the floor (she hit the floor) next thing ya know, time fire got low low low low low low

Time itself was sent into disarray. The God of Balance felt it happen, FREAKED OUT, picked up the God of Death and just BOOKED IT into Time's Universe, dashing toward the temple. But it... was no longer a temple! It was very much destroyed. Balance is faced with the rubble of the former temple, the Fire just chillin on the ground, Arin bleeding to death after being attacked by Pain, Maurice fretting and trying to keep Arin alive, and Dusty aboutta also fucking die because Pain is angry. Alongside the bodies of whatever other poor creations/people just happened to be nearby the temple when this went down. Which was probably quite a few, as the temple was almost always open to visitors.

Death and Balance did the exact same thing again, though with added struggle. Pain was reverted to Time, the Time Fire was yeeted right back onto her spine (followed by a shriek of... pain), and Balance practically collapsed onto the floor hoping to never get up again

Death, however, forced him up, gesturing to the creations around them and uh. hey. their minds. wipe 'em Balance was very tired by this point, but began wiping the survivor's memories, running into Dusty and realizing "hey wait a minute. you're not from this universe" and just kicking that idiot back to where he's supposed to be. might've forgotten to wipe that one's mind but uh i'm sure that's not important

And that's essentially the end of that plot thread! Life continues as if nothing happened, afterwards. Time was restored (though a fuckton of "discrepancies" are now notable throughout the universes, as if time went Wonky or something), the people are thriving, and Maurice & Arin... the latter of which did indeed survive... are wondering if there's something important they were supposed to remember.

nah. probably not

there's a few side stories with characters in Time's universe, including another survivor of the Pain Realizing Who She Is incident... though he got the hell outta dodge and managed to keep his memories. making him a sort of fugitive as Balance has to track that idiot down and fix that problem but!!! this is already a very, very long post, so. WOO

[the-fiction-witch]

Story P1

REAL LIFE COUPLE: TBS X READER RATING: ADORABLE AF

I sat in the comfy chair sipping my cup of tea as they set up the mics and such and such the magazine interviewer sat in her own chair and finished with her notes.

"We good?" she asks

"Yeah were good to go Lina" the sound engineer nodded

"Okay, hit me up" she smiled "sorry, are you good" she asks

"Yeah I'm good" I nodded putting my tea down "It's alright I'm use to it" I shrug

"Okay, two... one" the engineer nodded and I could tell the set up was all now on.

"Okay, today in the rambling corner we have an very special guest, Welcome to the corner Mr Thomas Brodie Sangster"

"Hello" I smiled "Pleasure to finally be here, we've been talking about this for like six months"

"I know, I am very happy to have you in my corner. shits been busy"

"It has, yeah"

"Frist things first as always on the rambling corner, the rules. You can swear, you can talk about whatever you want, you can tell a question to fuck off if you feel like it"

"Good. those are good rules" I laughed

"But I think we both know what is going to be discussed"

"Yes I do"

"Good, then lets get started. Now you are coming up to your one year wedding anniversary, My first question is. Do you still feel like a nnewly wed?"

"Uhhh... sort of, I think I'm getting use to it" I smiled fiddling with the ring on my finger a little "There are things I'm not use to yet. This is a primary one" I said showing my hand "I have never been someone to wear jewellery well.. I do, but not on my fingers and its something you strangely do have to get use to, it's a very physical weight you now carry around with you it's very much a constant reminder of her which I do like"

"Have you already lost it?"

"Yes. I lost my ring once. we had been married... ooohh about a month and I was working in our garden I was doing some weeding and general gardening and I took it off because I thought I'm not use to it yet, I really don't want to get it dirty, or damaged, or even worse loose it. and when I was done I had forgotten where I left it and Yeah I lost it for about half an hour"

"How was that? did y/n kill you?"

"No she didn't know. I didn't tell her I couldn't find it" I laughed "I don't think I have ever in my life felt... such intense panic, it was literally the heart racing panic when you pat your pocket and you don't feel your phone or you don't feel your keys but times a hundred"

"Obviously you found it?"

"Yes. It was on the windowsill. where I left it"

"Anything else your not use to? I imagine living together was a big adjustment" "Uhh yeah sort of. We hadn't live together before we got married which I know is a little... yeah my mate jack actually said I was nuts when I told him ohh me and y/n are engaged he sort of looked at me and went ' Thomas you haven't even like lived together yet how the fuck are you engaged', and I had never lived with a partner before, she had I hadn't. But luckily we had always spend to much time together it wasn't like odd for the other to be around." I explained "Her stuff was odd. that's something I think because I've never lived with a partner before and she moved in with me it was just sort of... ohh I need to move all my stuff and rearrange my house because it's not my house anymore it's our house"

"So do you still feel like a newlywed"

"No. I don't think I ever really did. Luckily we are very similar people and I think we have just... always been an old married couple, People have been saying that about us before we where even dating"

"Do you think the honeymoon phase is over? are you like in your sweats around each other and all that?"

"Uhh We are but we have kinda always been like that, I literally think sitting in her flat in our sweats watching lord of the rings was our second date"

"was it?"

"Yeah, extended editions as well, But no I don't think the honeymoon phase is over, I don't think we really had one, I mean the honeymoon was but we had a very long honeymoon."

"Where did you go on honeymoon?"

"we went down out of London, to the coast and then around the west side of the UK went up to Scotland explored all the islands up there then came back down the east side of the UK visited all her family, visited all mine, and then back home. and we did all of that on the motorbike stopping at little hotels, it was amazing but that took us several months to do"

"that sounds amazing"

"It was, it really was, so much ice cream though, every sea side town we stopped in we had to get an ice cream and it got to the point I kinda hated ice cream and I still don't love it as much. Ice cream is nice, twenty ice creams over the course of a week is... too much"

"If there is one thing you could change about your wedding day what would it me?"

"Oooh.... I have no idea. I wish I had seen her before the alter. which I know is bad luck, But I wish we had a little seeing each other first because I was extremely nervous and I think it would have calmed me down a little, plus I got dressed with my guys and then because we had to weight for the guests and such to sit and get sorted we both ended up sat in hotel rooms for an hour or hour and a half just like chatting shit and playing videogames because we where waiting around for everyone so It would have been nice to have chilled out together again it would have calmed me down a little"

"what's a wedding secret?"

"Uhhh a wedding secret? Okay this isn't a secret from y/n, y/n knows this obviously. but it is a secret from our wedding parties."

"Ohhh?"

"The secret is, that the day of the wedding as previously mentioned I was in no polite terms shitting myself. and we where about... an hour out from what we called open doors when they where going to start letting everyone into the venue, still a good couple of hours out from the actual wedding, and I was very very nervous. and for contest I'll add, Me and y/n hadn't seen each other in almost a month, she went to stay with her family and hung out with mine and then we went on our respective parties. she went to Napa in Cali they stayed in a villa on a vineyard with all her friends. which as well was a way better party then mine. I just stayed in London with my mates," I laughed "But we hadn't seen each other in almost a month, we hadn't really spoke because obviously all my friends where like 'oohh no Thomas put your phone away your not chatting with y/n that's the whole point of us partying, because your two aren't married yet' and her friends obviously didn't really want her to talk to me very much for the same reason 'Ohh you have forever to talk to Thomas, you guys can talk forever after this, this is your last big party being unmarried' so we hasn't really spoke either and I got very very jitteray about this time, and I did.. a bad thing"

"Ohh? what did you do?"

"I said. to my party. Look guys I need like five minuets you have fun with your game and stuff I just need like five minuets on my own" I explained "and I went and locked myself in the smaller of the two bathrooms in our hotel suite, and I rang y/n."

"You what? on your wedding day?"

"Yeah, I rang her, and she luckily wasn't in her dress yet so she also went and locked herself in the bathroom and we just kinda cried at each other. I basically did a smaller more teary version of my vows over the phone in a hotel bathroom to her, I don't know what anyone who might have heard us thought. I think if someone heard us they would have thought we were breaking up or something. but that's a secret know one knows we did that"

"what is the best image from the wedding in your opinion?"

"Ohh thats easy, we had such amazing photographer and videographer. yeah we have a full wedding video off all the parties, all the prep, the ceremony, and the reception, it's really long I think I've only sat though it once all the way though, but the best is this perfectly timed picture that I think Maggie got? or make luke I don't remember who got it. but they stood at the doors so the bottom end of the isle and they managed to get this huge wide shot of everyone in there seats, the groomsmen and bridesmaids all looking perfect there not even like a blink on anyone and our wedding parties each had six people, and its right at the exactly you may kiss the bride it looks like a photo from a set, like from a film. It looks staged because it looks so good it but just was so perfect and it's very proudly on the wall in our house, above or dinning table."

"any others?"

"Uhh there's one that's on the video that we stopped and like basically screen shoted from the video of y/n, behind the isle doors so not in yet, of her dad helping her fix her dress so she wouldn't walk on it, holding her hand ready to walk in and her mum like fixing her vail a little and I think it's such a beautiful picture and she really like it as well, I don't have one like that. I think the only picture of my dad at my wedding without it being burry or just like the side of his head, is either our actual posed pictures or one at the recipient of him doing his toast with a bottle of jack Daniels in his hand"

"Did you like her dress?"

"I love her dress. it was so beautiful. and it still baffles me that she made it"

"did she?"

"Yeah she went around lots of stores and just couldn't find what she wanted at all, she said no dress she could find matches what she dreamed off and what she had in her head so she literally just went bout got lots of fabric and she made her wedding dress" I explained "which was amazing because it means truly there is no dress in the world the same as hers and it fit her perfectly, and more then anything she was happy, she didn't have to settle for a dress."

"How much did it cost?"

"I think she said, taking out like her time to make it. I think she said it cost her maybe like one hundred maybe one fifty for everything, the fabric, the cotton, the lace, and everything else. that's all it cost her. Yeah it is more then that if you could the man hours it took for her to sit and sew it but she took it before we got married to her friend who worked at a wedding dress shop and they valued the dress for something like sixty to seventy thousand pounds that's what they would sell it for at a minimum. so I think she did good"

"that's impressive"

"she tailored my jacket as well, she like measured me up and made sure it fit right, that was just before she went to Cali, I think literally the night before she flew to Cali for her party, she was sewing my jacket making sure it fit me right."

"What wold you have done if she hasn't?"

"I would have had a suit jacket that was slightly too big. which would have been a bit awkward because it was way too long in the arms for me, it fit... okay in the body it wasn't massive It did need tinkering with but doesn't everything. but the sleeves like my hands where were the forearms where meant to be I had like a full twenty centimes between my hand and the end of the sleeve"

"What was your party like?"

"we just went out and got beer, got a take away, watching break bad, went on a motorbike ride. it was very boring compared to y/ns party in a vinery. Kinda' wish I'd gone with her"

"How did you and y/n start dating?"

"Aw this is a fun story."

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 5: I’ve Lived The Life And Paid For Every Crime]

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: Some Kind Of Disaster by All Time Low.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to drugs and violence.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Tagging: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​ @writerxinthedark​ @maggieroseevans​​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​​ @escabell​​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​​​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhye​ @some-major-ishues​ @haileymorelikestupid​ @loveandbeloved29​

Please yell at me if I forget to tag you! 💜

Easy Questions, Evasive Answers

“So it was nothing,” Archer said, glancing up from where he was tinkering around beneath the hood of my 1999 Honda Accord, checking hoses and belts and dipsticks. “This is pathetic, by the way. That you can’t change your own windshield wiper fluid. Dishonor on you. Dishonor on your cow.”

“I never had my own car in Phoenix!” I objected around a mouthful of a Starbucks pumpkin muffin, my first of the season. And that was true: Renee and I couldn’t afford one. “I didn’t have to learn about car things!”

“No, it’s great, I love it, I have a customer for life.”

“It was totally nothing,” I told him. Meaning the photograph in the newspaper article from 1979. Meaning my paranoia surrounding beautiful, brooding, certifiably lethal Benjamin Lee.

Not Lee, I reminded myself. Benjamin August Hardy, born November 3rd 1893.

“Was it really?” Archer asked, skeptical.

“Uhhh, you were the one who was making fun of me for thinking he might be a time traveler. Or a bigfoot.” Or a vampire.

“Yeah, okay, true...” He let the hood of the Honda fall shut with a bang, then wiped the muddy streaks of motor oil from his hands with a stained rag. “But you were freaked out. Like super freaked out.”

“I was, yeah. But it wasn’t him in the photo. I took another look, there were freckles and, uh, like, uh, some other things that didn’t match up.”

“Huh.” Archer watched me with an expression I couldn’t read. “I didn’t notice that.”

“Ben laughed about it. Probably thinks I’m an idiot. A stalker and an idiot.”

Archer smirked slyly. “He must not have held it against you too much. I’ve never seen that guy laugh in my life.”

I took a moody bite of my muffin, rolled my eyes, feigned shallow schoolgirl angst. “Trust me, he’s not my biggest fan.”

“Ohhhh, and this bothers you?” Archer sauntered over and stole a crumbling hunk out of the pumpkin muffin. “Does someone have a little crush on the gorgeous, grouchiest Lee?”

“Definitely not.” I sipped my chai latte, contemplative, debating telling him more.

“Uh oh. There’s something else, I can see it. Spill the tea, you walking college-chick-who’s-obsessed-with-fall stereotype.”

“I’m so excited! I’m going to get to see changing leaves this year!” Cacti are majestic, ancient, intrepid, and they remind me of home; but they never change. They’re like desert earth that way, like the ocean. Like vampires, actually.

“We’ll have to do all the Instagram-worthy stuff. Pumpkin patches. Hay mazes. Apple picking...you can even bring that Ben guy if you want to. If he promises not to murder me with his mysterious time-travelling demon powers.”

Oh, kid, you have no idea. “So...I am kind of into a Lee guy. But it’s not Ben.”

Archer gasped, inhaled pumpkin muffin morsels, bent over as he hacked them out of his lungs. “Who?!” he rasped, scandalized, and then coughed again.

I couldn’t help but smile as his name spilled out: “Joe.”

“Which one is that? The Middle Eastern Men’s Vogue model one?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “No, not Rami. He has a girlfriend, by the way.” And has for the past half a century.

Archer wiggled his eyebrows. “Just because there’s a goalie doesn’t mean you can’t score.”

“Oh my god, please never say that phrase again.”

“Joe is the...” He closed his eyes as he drummed his fingers against the metal workbench, trying to remember.

“The Italian one,” I finished for him.

“Ahhh. The annoying one.”

“He is not annoying! Why do people keep saying he’s annoying?! He’s hilarious, and sweet, and lowkey wicked smart, and, and, and...”

Archer whistled, grinning, his dark eyes sparkling. “Damn, girl. You do like him. You really like him.”

I sighed in defeat. “Okay. I really, really like him.”

“Like him as in would swipe right on Tinder, or like him as in you want to get married and honeymoon in Hawaii and have twelve pasty, angular babies?”

“Oh wow.” And for the first time, I was confronted with the singular enigma that was a future with Joe. Vampires had relationships with other vampires, obviously, even marriages; but that didn’t mean the same rules applied to humans. Did he like me? Could he like me? What would that even look like? How would it end? And it would have to end, of course, eventually. Unless somehow I stopped aging too. “More than just a right swipe. We’ll see about the twelve kids.”

“Just make sure he wraps it before he taps it. I’m too young to be an uncle.”

“Stop,” I pleaded, gulping down my latte, averting my gaze across Archer’s small garage filled with customers’ vehicles, pretending not to be intrigued and yearning and petrified. I couldn’t imagine hooking up with someone as faultless and—presumably—experienced as Joe and being anything but a disappointment. I’ve never hooked up with anyone. At all. Ever.

“What?” he asked, concerned, thieving another piece of my pumpkin muffin. Powdered sugar dusted his fingers like the snow I’ve only seen two or three times in my life.

“Nothing. I just really wish you went to Calawah too.”

“And give up all this easy money from clueless suburbs people like you?” Archer beamed, wily and proud and affectionate. “Not a fucking chance.”

No More Sad Spaghetti

Joe gawked in horror, chomping noisily on his Big League Chew bubblegum, as I unwrapped the peanut butter sandwich I’d packed for lunch. It was mostly cloudy in the early September sky overhead, but he was still wearing sunglasses. He had traded in his ubiquitous U Chicago apparel for a Cubs t-shirt. Squirrels scurried through the bigleaf maple trees that dotted the campus, snatching up acorns with tiny clawed paws, wriggling whiskered noses in our direction.

“What’s your problem?” I asked, taking a bite. “It’s not sad spaghetti.”

He blew a small pink bubble, then popped it with his teeth. “Yeah, but it’s...like...mangled.”

“It got trapped between my textbooks!” I protested. Admittedly, the accordion-shaped peanut butter sandwich—my vegetarian alternative to fishstick Thursday—kind of sucked.

“You can’t eat that. Oh my god. It’s making me so sad. Give it to the squirrels.” Joe pulled out his iPhone. “What’s your preferred pizza topping?”

“I can’t tell you,” I replied, tossing my sandwich towards the nearest tree. A hoard of squirrels immediately descended upon it and proceeded to battle for dominance, emitting shrill, peanut-butter-crazed shrieks.

His brow furrowed. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because you might not like me anymore.”

“Why would I not like you because of pizza...?” And then he knew. “Oh no, oh god, please don’t say pineapple.”

“I’m a pineapple pizza person.”

“Baby Swan,” Joe said, deadly serious, pressing his palms together. “That is straight up sacrilegious. You can’t put tropical fruit on a pizza. You realize I’m Italian, like an actual Italian. I’m so Italian I’ve killed other Italians for being the wrong kind of Italian. That’s how Italian I am.”

“I feel like maybe I shouldn’t socialize with literal mobsters. It’s unsavory.”

“Settle down, I’m ordering the half-pineapple pizza, you freaking barbarian.”

I watched Joe as he tapped his thumbs against the screen, humming to himself, amused, perpetually buoyant. And I couldn’t picture him as a monster, as a killer: pulling triggers, slitting throats, digging blades into soft vulnerable love handles, feeling for the mortal puncture of a lung or kidney. I asked him, my voice quiet, hesitant, almost lost in the autumn wind: “Did you actually hurt people?”

“Nah. I didn’t have the stomach for it, even back then. I was on the deal-making side of things. The business side. I was a people person, a smooth talker, astronomically charming.”

I smiled, mischievous. “That’s difficult to imagine.”

“Okay, so no cheesy breadsticks for you.”

“I’m sorry, mob guy. Please order the breadsticks. You’re so charming I can’t stand it. My jeans are unzipping all by themselves.”

He raised an eyebrow and grinned. “So you’ll sacrifice your dignity for breadsticks. Good to know.” He finished typing and laid his iPhone on the grass. “Alright, next question.”

“Does your hair grow?” Joe’s hair—I couldn’t help but notice—seemed longer than it was the day I met him a week and a half ago, disorderly and auburn-tinted, ruffling in the breeze.

“It does, yeah. Hair and nails still grow. So you have to shave, but you can’t get razor burn. And any nicks close right up.”

“Very cool. How often do you need to eat? You know...actually eat.”

“It varies, but generally twice a week.”

“And what kind of animal has the tastiest blood? Besides...well...” I gestured towards myself. “The upright two-legged kind with opposable thumbs and a partiality for pineapple pizza.”

He blew another bubble, then leaned in towards me. And I realized, for the first time, that he had his own inherent, exclusive, totally Bath-And-Body-Works-worthy scent as well; Dr. Gwilym Lee was sandalwood and campfires and log cabins, Mercy was roses and vanilla...and Joe was pine trees, peppermint, cold night air, like all of that eternally youthful magic of Christmas Eve sieved into a bottle. I popped the sheer pink bubble with the cap of my blue pen. Joe asked: “Do humans like chocolate or vanilla ice cream? Coffee or tea? Baseball or something hella lame?”

“Depends on the human.”

“Exactly. Same deal for vampires. I prefer bears, especially grizzlies. Lucy and Mercy like deer, elk, moose, animals like that. Ones with hooves. Weirdly, Rami’s favorite is crocodile, I think because it was the first thing he ever tried in Egypt. He doesn’t get it very often, but has been known to buy them on the black market on occasion. Scarlett likes mountain lions. Also domestic cats, but you didn’t hear that from me. Gwil is a wolf guy, but he won’t kill the endangered kinds. Such a gentleman.”

“How about Ben?”

“Ben’s still coming around to the whole eating animals thing. I don’t think he has a favorite yet.”

Joe isn’t a killer, and he never was; I could believe that. But Ben... “Why is he so different than the rest of you?”

“That’s...kind of a long story,” Joe replied carefully.

“It wouldn’t be such a long story if people stopped talking about how it’s a long story and actually told it to me.”

He flashed a grin, revealing white canine teeth filed into points; they were subtle, yes, but they were there. Fangs. I envisioned pressing a fingerprint against them and feeling the flesh split in two, the blood dripping down onto his tongue like Washington rain. And unlike Joe’s skin, mine wouldn’t knit back together on its own. “But then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of tormenting you with the prospect of incredibly juicy yet confidential information!”

I rolled my eyes, sipped my can of Diet Coke, returned my attention to our lunch plans. “So garlic doesn’t repel you. That part of the lore is completely made up.”

“Yup. Thank god. Eternal life would be worthless without pizza.”

“Can you do drugs? Get drunk?”

“We can’t overdose, but we can get the effects of anything we consume. It’s not a good habit to get into though. If you’re nodding on heroin for like four days at a time, it’s pretty easy for some other vampire to find and murder you.”

“So a vampire can be killed by another vampire.”

“Absolutely. Next question.”

I consulted my mental list. “Do you sleep?”

“Yeah. Well, kind of. We nap for a few hours a day.”

“What happens if you don’t?”

“We get bitchy. Really bitchy. We essentially turn into Ben.”

I laughed, chewing absentmindedly on the end of my pen. “So that’s his problem. He hasn’t napped in a century. Now it all makes sense.”

“Something like that,” Joe said. “You gonna come over tonight?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to present The Walruses And Me tomorrow and I still haven’t started the book.”

“What do you know, I can tell you all about The Walruses And Me!”

“Seriously? You’ve read it?”

“No, but I can enthusiastically narrate the Wikipedia article to you while you pet Mercy’s alpacas.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea.”

“Terrible for your grade in Marine Mammals. Good for your development as an interesting and happy human.”

“Nice try, but I’m already both of those things.”

Joe reached out suddenly, jarringly, and ran the back of his hand across my cheek. My favorite Lee, I thought, thoroughly transfixed but trying to hide it. Oh no. “Interesting, definitely. But I have this gnawing, distressing suspicion that you’re still working on the happy part.”

“I miss the desert,” I confessed. That wasn’t quite all of the problem, but it was accurate: I missed the heat, the sun, the parched prehistoric air I had always called home. Although I was beginning to find reasons to like Forks, Charlie and Archer and the promise of a Pacific Northwestern autumn; and then one big reason in particular. A very old, pale, chatty, Italian reason.

“A bit of a quandary for a future marine biologist,” he replied gently, perhaps apprehensively.

“I always figured I’d live somewhere like San Diego or Los Angeles or Galveston. Someplace on the ocean, but also sunny and hot and with palm trees. The best of both worlds. But you couldn’t go there with me, could you?”

Oh no.

Oh NO.

Oh fuck, this is definitely a crushing-on-Lee-boys zone.

Joe stared at me through his sunglasses, chomping on his Big League Chew, the corners of his mouth turned up and etching lines like parentheses into his face, pleased and nodding slowly and triumphant somehow. Then he struck out his hand again, this time with his pinky raised like a flagpole. “No more pathetic depressing lunches.”

“You got it. No more sad spaghetti. No more sad peanut butter sandwiches. You have my solemn, human vow.”

He smiled as his pinky entwined with mine. “No more sad anything.”

“So this vampire thing sounds like a pretty sweet gig. No dying, no consequences for a hellacious diet or wild condomless orgies, literal superpowers, perfect hair...why doesn’t everyone get to live that way?”

He shrugged; and there was an unfamiliar, meditative tension in his face. Almost sorrow. “It’s not all pizza and orgies and heroin. We have weaknesses too.”

“Like what?”

“Hey, look!” Joe piped cheerfully, twisting around towards the parking lot. “I think our GrubHub guy is here.”

Bad Blood

I was definitely regretting that fourth slice of pineapple pizza as I waddled into Chemistry, navigating sluggishly around the hulking frat boys and giggling sorority girls and mousy bookish types who lugged around colossal backpacks that were always threatening to knock an unsuspecting passerby off their feet at each unthinking turn. But while I was arriving in the classroom—physically, anyway; emotionally I was standing in an empty field somewhere screaming I cannot be falling in love with a hundred-year-old mobster vampire!! into the void—Ben was a countercurrent darting through the crowds and towards the hallway door.

“Where are you rushing off to, old guy?” I asked him. “Bingo? To renew your AARP membership? To walk vigorously around the inside of a mall?”

Ben responded in that deep, low, humorless voice. “They’re doing some kind of blood typing experiment today. I probably shouldn’t be around for that.”

“Oh.” I glanced over at Professor Belvin, who was indeed hunched over the table at the front of the classroom and laying out rows of Q-tips and rectangular paper cards and alcohol swabs and bottles of clear liquid, whistling what sounded like Time Of The Season.

Ben sighed irritably, rubbing his crinkled forehead. “I already used up all my absences. I’m gonna have to make up a compelling last-minute tragedy. Tell Professor Belvin my grandma died or something.”

“I mean, technically, she did at some point.”

“Ugh,” Ben replied, not consoled at all.

“Wait, I got this.”

I gripped my belly, sank into the nearest chair, and groaned dramatically. It really didn’t require all that much acting. Ben watched with huge green eyes, confounded.

“Miss Swan!” Professor Belvin cried, rushing over. He was wearing khaki pants, a white shirt, and suspenders and a matching bowtie patterned with bubbling multicolored test tubes. Belvin had been Charlie’s classmate from kindergarten through high school, and still palled around with him over Bud Lights and low-quality nachos on bowling league nights. Bowling was, evidently, the sport of choice for middle-aged Forks dads. Also for Welsh vampire pseudo-dads born in the 1400s.

I whimpered in reply.

“Are you alright, Miss Swan?” Professor Belvin asked worriedly. A few students had begun to congregate around the scene. I felt a pang of genuine nausea as perspiration beaded at my temples. You better appreciate this, Mr. Hardy.

“I’m okay,” I said, in my most pained and martyrish voice. “I don’t want to miss...today’s lesson...it looks so fascinating...but I didn’t wash my kale thoroughly last night and then I had a salad for dinner and now I might have food poisoning.”

“You poor thing!” Belvin exclaimed, shaking his head. “Don’t worry about class. You can just answer some textbook questions or something, no problem. Please go get checked out to make sure you’re alright.”

“Could someone...maybe...help me get to the campus clinic...?” My eyes listed towards Ben. “Maybe...my lab partner?”

“That’s a good idea.” Professor Belvin turned to Ben. “Mr. Lee, would you be willing to escort Miss Swan to the clinic? You can do an alternative assignment as well. If you don’t mind missing the blood typing lab.”

“I’d be delighted to help,” Ben responded, still puzzled. I offered him my hand, and Ben took it, grimacing as he led me out into the hallway. As soon as we were alone, he dropped my hand and opened up several feet of space between us.

“Thanks so much, Miss Swan, you are a lifesaver,” I said, imitating his morose, rumbling British accent. “Oh, you’re very welcome, Ben. You can repay me in basic courteous conversation and Starbucks gift cards and by maybe not killing me.”

“So you’re totally fine?” Ben asked flatly.                

“Of course. Nobody with taste eats raw kale.”

Frowning, frustrated, he started puffing on his vape pen. “You need to stop doing nice things for me. It’s extremely disorienting.”

“This may be difficult for you to come to terms with, but you, Ben Hardy, are worth being the recipient of nice things.”                          

“No, you still don’t get it,” he snapped, grabbing my wrist, spinning me around to face him in the empty hallway. “That’s all I’ve ever done. Kill people like you.”

The Fire

“Who is the cutest little alpaca I’ve ever seen?!” I cooed in a squeaky falsetto, scratching her wooly brown chin. “Who’s going to come home and live with me and Charlie forever?!”

“That’s illegal, ma’am.” Joe was watching me, arms crossed over his Chicago Cubs t-shirt, smiling wistfully.

“It is not!”

“It actually is,” Rami added. He was lying on the grass and gazing up into the roiling, grey, late-afternoon clouds with his fingers laced behind his black hair. None of the Lees were wearing sunglasses now. “A house has to be zoned as farmland to have alpacas, which ours is. Yours, tragically, is not.”

“What are you, a lawyer?” I shot back.

Rami grinned. “I was once. And I will be again, in approximately...let me count...five years.”

“That’s what you want to do with your boundless time and energy? Be a corporate shill?”

Joe cackled. “He tried that already. It lasted about five minutes.”

“Manhattan in the 1980s,” Rami reminisced dreamily. “Hundred-hour workweeks. Cocaine everywhere. What a time to be alive. And I hardly ever left the office, so the sunlight thing wasn’t a problem.”

“Okay, so you’re not in it for the Maseratis or the drugs...”

“I’m going to be an immigration attorney,” Rami told me. “Help refugees apply for asylum to come to the United States. Arabic-speaking refugees, in particular.”

“Wow. I stand corrected. That’s wonderful, Rami. I now feel like a total tool for only aspiring to save sea turtles.” But it made sense, of course. What would any good person spend eternity doing? Making the world just a tiny bit better. I glanced at Joe, teasing him. “And you just study how to get rich, huh?”

“I’m a venture capitalist,” he said brightly. “I invest in small businesses, counsel them, encourage them, connect them with other people in the industry, help them grow. And I don’t need the money, so I take a practically microscopic equity stake. I’m basically a professional charitable donor.”

“And you get to put all of those charming mob-guy skills to use.”

Joe winked. “Exactly.”

“Doesn’t it get old?” I asked both of them. “Being college students?”

Rami shrugged. “No really. The world changes, schools of thought evolve, our own interests fluctuate. Every few decades we circle back and go for another round, fresh degrees, maybe new professions entirely. You learn something new every time.”  

“And I’ve been waiting for all my old professors to die so I could go back to U Chicago for fifty years!” Joe shouted. “I’m fucking pumped!”

“But...don’t you already know everything...?”

Joe chuckled. “We’re vampires, Baby Swan, we’re not prodigies. We’re sharper than the average person, sure. But it still takes effort to learn. And we all have things we suck at.”

“Like not being obnoxious,” Rami said, nodding to Joe.

“Like not minding our own fucking business,” Joe hurled back.

“I cannot control the fact that I’m a literal mind reader—”

“You boys behave yourselves,” Mercy called in her relaxed, drawling Southern accent, swinging a basket of carrots and zucchinis and cabbages that she’d dug out of her garden, wearing a long flowing yellow dress and her hair tied up in a scarf. She plodded over in her bare feet, handed me a few carrots, then pointed to the chocolate-colored alpaca I was petting. “That lady there is Athens. And the black and white one by Joe is Augusta. Then there’s Norcross, and Alpharetta, and Savannah...and that real chubby grey one heading into the barn is Marietta.”

“I adore them,” I replied, beaming. Mercy had sheep and pigs and a couple of cows too, all ambling contently around the emerald green field as the first threads of fiery, rust-hued sunset were lighting up the horizon.

“We used to have ducks, too,” Mercy mused. “But they disappeared recently...”

Rami passed Joe a knowing smirk. Joe mouthed back menacingly: Do not.

“Hey mom,” Rami piped.

Joe jabbed an index finger at him. “No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare—”

“Joe ate the ducks.”

“You bitch!” Joe cried.

“Oh, Joseph,” Mercy sighed mournfully, lifting a brush out of her basket and dragging it down Athens’ fuzzy back.

“I’m sorry! It was one time! I was weak!”

“I’m not angry, sweetheart,” Mercy said. “I’m just disappointed.”

“Mom, that’s worse!”

Rami climbed to his feet and swatted grass and leaves off his cardigan sweater. “Alright folks. My work here is done. Peace out.”

“Oh no, you don’t get to do a hit and run like that, hey, Rami, hey, hey, come back here!”

Joe trotted after him, shouting a litany of insults, as Rami laughed hysterically and careened into the house. Lucy and Gwil were in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies; Scarlett was in the garage changing the brakes on Ben’s Vantage; Ben was noticeably absent from the Lee household and presumably out hunting. It was remarkably easy to picture his fingers closing around bloodied flesh, a wolf’s or a bear’s or an elk’s, lowering his fangs to a pulsing jugular.

“So you’re really into this whole farming thing,” I said to Mercy, looking out over the field rimmed by towering western hemlock trees. I didn’t know exactly how many acres of land the Lees owned, but it was a lot. Mercy adopted rescue animals, donated vegetables from the garden to local food pantries, and occasionally rented out the barn as a wedding venue.

“I’ve always loved it. I had a farm, you know. Before I met Gwil.”

Before she died.

“I didn’t know that,” I murmured, wanting to learn more, afraid to ask, never meaning to pry or offend. “I remember you mentioned the Civil War, and a barn...being...well...being trapped in it. When it burned down.”

Mercy nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s the polite version of the story, isn’t it?” She set down her basket in the tall grass, tugged distractedly at a dark strand of hair that had escaped her scarf, stared glassily out into the sunset muted with cloud cover as Athens moseyed away. “Do you want to know what happened? I’ll tell you if you do. But I don’t want to upset you, dear.”

My voice was barely a whisper. “I’d like to know.”

“We had a little farm out in the middle of nowhere,” Mercy explained. “My husband Arthur and I.”

And it felt so outlandish to hear her say those words. Husband. She had a husband before Gwil. She had a whole life before this one.

“He had a bullet in one leg and a limp from a hunting accident when he was a boy, so he was never called up to enlist. It was a rich man’s war, but it was the poor men they sent to die in it. That’s how it always goes, I expect. And how it always will. We had two daughters, twelve and fifteen. I won’t tell you their names. Don’t take that personally, dear. I haven’t spoken their names in a hundred and fifty years.”

She turned her murky eyes—like homemade bread crust or coffee or the wood walls of a log cabin—to me.

“When the Union Army came through, they were beasts. Men like that...men who have been killing and looting and burning their way across hundreds of miles...all they want to do is get blood on their hands. That’s all they remember how to do. So that’s exactly what they did. They slaughtered our cattle for meat. They burned the house down. And then they took me and my girls, and they...they...well, you know what they did. What men do when they’re monsters. And when Arthur tried to stop them, they shot him in the chest and spit mouthfuls of chewing tobacco on him as he bled out in the dirt. Called him a coward and a deserter. Told him everything they were planning to do to me and my girls. And when they were done doing all of those things, they locked the three of us in the barn and set it ablaze. I was the only one still alive when Gwilym got there. And believe me, I didn’t want to be.”

“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, my throat burning for Mercy, for her family, for this divinely kind and benign and tender woman.

She patted my cheek fondly. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s not your fault. I got a second chance. Gwilym gave me a second chance. That’s what he does, you know. He finds broken people, fixes them, loves them fiercely. He gave me forever. Two more daughters. And three sons.”

Three sons, I thought. Rami and Joe and Ben. She counted Ben.

“Does someone have to be dying?” I asked her softly. “You know. To become like you.”

“No, honey. That’s just how Gwil does things.”

“But...why? What’s the possible downside? Why not change anyone who wants it?” Why not change someone like me?

And Mercy peered over at me, contemplative, curious, like tiptoeing gingerly over rotted floorboards, like weaving through a minefield. Like she was trying to figure out what I’d already been told.

“Hey Baby Swan,” Joe said, startling me. I whirled to see him waiting with a patient smile and his hands buried in his pockets. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

He led me upstairs to Gwil’s 1960s-style office, where Dr. Lee had cleaned and stitched the tiny gash in my forehead after my misadventure with Ben in the woods outside Calawah University, where the wall above the sturdy oak desk was adorned with a massive painting filled with gorgeous, unfamiliar, inhuman faces. Joe took a deep breath, and then he began.

“This,” he announced, introducing the painting, “is the vampire version of the mob. They can trace their existence back to before the Roman Empire. They find people who they think have potential, have talents. They turn them. And then they offer them a hundred-year contract. You sign it, or they murder you. When your term is up, you get to decide whether to renew or leave. But almost no one ever leaves. After a century of taking orders and guarding and killing, what else do you know how to do?” He pointed to the terrifying woman with long white hair and red eyes. “That’s Liesl. She’s literally Satan, only blonder. The chick with the tattoos is Akari. She can meet a human and tell what powers they’ll have once they’re changed. Very useful, obviously. The dude who looks like Idris Elba is Cato, and he’s actually an okay guy, he’s the one currently assigned to keep tabs on Gwil’s coven...”

I soaked the names in like rain into dark, lush Washington earth as Joe relayed them to me, strange and beautiful names: Aruna, Phelan, Morana, Adair, Zora, Araminta, Honora, Victorien, Rigel, Sahel.

“Who’s that?” I asked, gesturing to the young man standing at the center of the painting, the one with black hair and eyes so light and luminous a brown they were almost gold and a sinister, unmistakable magnetism.

“Very good question,” Joe complimented. “That’s their Al Capone. That’s Larkin.”

“And what’s his vampire superpower?” He has to have one. I know he does.

“How do I even put that into words? It’s more than charisma. It’s slightly less than mind reading. He can see through people, what they want most, what they fear. And he can make them do things.”

I gazed into those omniscient glowing eyes, feeling myself getting caught there, feeling some primal dread swelling in the capillary beds of my heart and lungs and bone marrow. “Joe, I’m thoroughly enjoying this captivating backstory, really, but...why are you telling me all of this now?”

“Because you asked why Ben is so different than the rest of us. This is why.” Joe waved broadly at the painting, at the closest thing his world had to a mafia, to unrepentant killers, to actual demons. “This is where he came from.”

[stripper-patrick]

If only they knew🤡 Henry Cavill

Warnings: smut, language, unprotected, rough, cheating, oral (m), fat shaming, fingering

Relationship: Henry Cavill x black plus sized reader

“Hey are you busy” I look at my newly done nails

“No I had just went for a run then I was about to get in the shower. Why?” Henry asks. I frown my face up

“Because I wanted to come see you”

“That’s fine. She’s not here”

“Ok I’ll be on my way”

...

I knock at the door waiting for Henry to open it. I stare down at my feet painted a pretty opal color dressed in Steve Madden sandals Henry got me. Oh yea me and him are having an affair basically. He’s married to some model but he already knows she’s cheating so I guess this is payback. Me and him have been friends since before he even met this girl. We’ve been this whole friends with benefits thing for a long time. Before I got pregnant. You can guess where this story leads to now. I had my affairs child and never told my own husband. Because Zara, the baby looks so much like me just with lighter skin. Scott, my husband, doesn’t realize.

He opens the door pulling me from my thoughts and I see his dripping wet body clad in a towel hung low on his waist.

“Hey how are you” he smiles with his phone in hand.

“Hi I’m good” he lets me in pulling me in for a hug getting me all wet

“Ugh Henry now I’m wet”

“Wouldn’t be the first time” he smiles kissing my head “how’s my baby girl” he refers to his daughter Zara

“Good teething so she’s kept me up for a minute. Scott took her with him to give me a break”

“Mmm” he mumbles

“My clothes”

“Let me help you” he pulls my shirt off and I push him to the recliner in the corner of the living room. I unravel Henry’s towel dropping to my knees as he sits in the recliner. I think my head on the tip watching his eyes shut completely trapped in what I’m doing.

I jerk him from the base sucking on the tip collecting all of his precum on the tip of my tongue. As his eyes are closed and I’m still sucking I grab it unlocking it with the password. I click on ‘Contacts’ and select the name ‘Christina’. I let it ring and when she picks it up I set it on speaker on his chest “hey babe”

His head shoots up and I smile “h-hey honey”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing” I sink my head further. Luckily I don’t have a gag reflex. Henry tries to push me off but I swat his hand away. “I was just calling because I think we should have Y/N and Scott over tonight for dinner” my head shoots up. I smirk tightening my grip around him making a low moan escape.

“That’s a great idea. What should we have for dinner” before he responds I massage his balls and suck his tip hearing him moan again

“Oh? What are you doing babe” I hear her getting flirty but Henry pushes it off

“I stubbed my damn toe. Uh steak is fine”

“Oh ok cool. With mashed potatoes”

“Yup perfect” he looks at me grabbing a fistful of my head guiding him further. Henry pushes his hips upward and I smile letting him fuck my face. “Honey i gotta go I’ll see you later”

“Ok love you”

“Love ya too” he hangs up throwing his phone and pulling me up. Henry pulls my leg on his and I sit on his dick feeling him stretch me out. He puts my legs on his shoulders and holds my arms out bouncing upward to penetrate me. I moan smiling and then my phone rings. I look at Henry and he smiles “answer it or you won’t cum”

I whine and grab it putting it to my ear “h-hello”

“Hey babe” it’s Scott “hows the nail salon”

“It’s good I’m at the gym now. What’s up” I say rushed

“I just got a call from Christina inviting us over for dinner tonight. Did you wanna go”

“Yes” I moan. I snap out of it when Henry fucks me harder “Yea sorry these leg days kill”

“Trust me I get it. I’m going to the liquor store did you want anything”

“Uhhh” it’s harder to think when I have a huge cock plunging into me. He lets go of my arms and I straddle his waist. He’s still bouncing into me. Henry’s face dives into my bouncing breasts. “Uh cupcake champagne” my body starts shaking

“Ok wh-”

“I gotta go bye” I hang up dropping my phone and my body caves forward. Henry groans squeezing my hips as we both leak on each other.

“Look at you. You filthy bitch” my body shakes more at his degradation and I smile.

“You feel so damn good” I moan

He pumps us out the rest of the way and stops. I feel his dick throbbing inside of me.

“I gotta go home and go shower to get ready for our dinner tonight” I smile. I pull myself off of him and get dressed “your wife will be home any minute”

“That she will” he stands up walking me to the door not even before clinging his towel to his waist again.

“I’ll see you at dinner?”

“I’ll see you at dinner” he smiles winking

....

I’m at home fresh out the shower when I hear Scott get home “babe”

“I’m upstairs” I yell back. I oil my body down and he walks in holding Zara. I smile as he puts her down and she walks towards me. I pick her up kissing her cheek.

“I got the drinks” I nod “damn where’d all this weight come from I thought you went to the gym” I put down the baby and finish getting ready giving her a toy to settle her.

“The shit doesn’t just fall off overnight asshat”

“You need to lay off everything you eat” he chuckles

“Get ready so we can go” I slip into a short dress and grab my sandals. I grab the baby taking her downstairs and shake my head. His comments are really sticking to me today. I grab my phone texting Henry titles under ‘Dominoes’.

“Do you think I’m beautiful?” I text

“Of course why?” He responds

“You ready?” Scott asks. I yell back a yes and reply to Henry

“Did he say something to you again?”

“Yea. We’re on the way”

“Ok darling. Don’t worry I have something special for you tonight”

...

I knock on Henry’s door and Christina greets us at the door. She hugs both of us and I smile “thanks for having us” Zara smiles at her.

“Of course no problem. Come in” I walk through smelling the delicious food. If she couldn’t do anything else, Christina could cook. I think that’s why Henry is still around. He likes to eat. Trust me I’d know.

We migrate to the dining room where the food is neatly placed on the decorative place mats and Henry smiles standing up. He wraps me in his embrace. Henry lets go and a part of me wishes he didn’t. He tickles Zara’s feet and she instantly clings to his large arm. He hugs Scott and we all sit. Me with Henry and Christina with Scott. Zara on his lap.

“So how’ve you been” Henry asks Scott as he starts feeding her.

“I’m good. Works kicking my ass” he smiles

“I understand” I take the fork starting to eat while Christina smiles at me

“So when do you plan to get pregnant again Y/N?” I nearly choke

“Uh not for a long time I’m perfectly fine with Zara” I smile “I’m too busy with work. What about you?”

“We’re trying but nothing yet” she says sadly

“Aww you’ll get there” I feel Henry’s hand slide up my thigh all the while he’s still holding a conversation with Scott. Now they’re on the topic of business and how Henry owns multiple.

His hand moves further up parting my legs. I rest one on top of his to give him easier access. Henry rubs my clothed clit and I trip up on my words.

“How’s w-work coming along?” I ask her

“Great. Me and Henry have a banquet to go to next weekend which should be fun. I bought this beautiful gold dress” She grabs her phone and Henry inserts his fingers inside of me. I hold his large hand grinding myself against his hand. I smile as I see the dress and control my fast breathing. He uses his thumb to run my clit while stimulating my g-spot.

“That is...” I take a minute to collect myself “stunning”

“I’m so excited” she smiles “we’ve been thinking about getting another dog”

“Uh you’ve been thinking about it. I’m perfectly fine with Kal” the British hunk chimes in curling his fingers. I stab my fork into some broccoli trying to shove as much of it in my mouth as possible masking a moan.

“Damn babe can you chill with eating so much. I told you about that”

“I just got the perfect idea” Christina says “we should go to the gym together. It would be so much fun”

I can see Christina means no harm in her words but Scott’s words were dripping with humiliation. I grip the sides of the chair and I see Henry’s chest rise and fall faster. His nose flares in anger as he presses my spot harder.

“Scott that was a little mean don’t you think?”

“Come on Henry look at her. She looks like a whale”

My legs tense and start shaking while he keeps a straight face destroying my insides with just two fingers “I think she looks great especially for someone who just had a baby” he emphasizes. I can see he’s pissed. Scott did this a lot when I was pregnant as well which would make Henry go off sometimes.

I tap his thigh lightly succumbing to my demise. I let out a shaky breath and squeeze my eyes shut leaking all over his hand.

“Y/n are you ok?” Christina asks. I nod

“Headache” My nails dig into his thighs and I hear a low growl come from him feeling him hash out the rest of my juices.

I take another bite and Zara smiles. Scott feeds her another small bite of mashed potato.

“Yea but damn it’s been a like 11 months. She should look like Christina by now”

“Clearly they’re two different women” he says getting angrier. Zara pulls off of Scott’s lap walking over to Henry with her arms up. He grabs a napkin wiping his hands and picks up Zara with his clean hand. She stands on him playing in his hair ruffing up his curls.

“Hi pretty girl” she smiles giving him her one dimple. Like his.

“Can we all just eat a civilized meal” Christina says adoring Henry and Zara. God. If only they both knew. “You two are so cute together”

Henry smiles as she moves on to his buttons.

“I never realized how much Zara kinda looks like Henry” my breath catches in my throat and I cough.

“You’re right” Christina says. I grab the cup of water taking a sip “ugh Henry give me a baby tonight”

“It’s not that easy” he smiles

“Yes it is” I blurt out “sorry” I laugh glancing at Henry He smiles at me with a small smirk

[atlafan]

Take it Slow - Part Eighty

a/n: okay this is my first shot at a harry:y/n fic, and it will be multiple parts. y/n had a bad experience with an ex over a year ago, and finally accepts her coworker and good friend Niall’s invitation to go on a blind date with his friend Harry.

Warnings: Fluff and smut.

Masterpost (all previous parts can be found in the masterpost)

Harry goes to work the next day and Isaac practically leaps into his arms. Harry chuckles and hugs him back.

“Please, don’t ever leave for two weeks again. We missed you too much.” He pouts.

“Sorry, mate.” He smiles. “Where’s Mariah?”

“She’s coming in at noon. She’s had so many early appointments, she blocked herself off to sleep in a bit.” Harry hums his response. “Your first will be here in an hour.”

“Perfect, thanks.”

“So you had a good trip?”

“Mhm, it was great. I wish Y/N could’ve stayed the whole time. We had so much fun together.”

“She came in to see us.”

“She told me.” Isaac grins at him. “What?”

“So…we can really go on a double date when you all get back?”

“Yes.” He sighs. “We can all go on a double date.” Isaac hands Harry his coffee.

“Thanks, I just need to get settled upstairs and then I’ll come down to chat. Got lots of pictures to show yeh.”

Isaac nods and sits back at his desk. Harry goes up to his office and rifles through his bag for your engagement ring. He unlocks his desk drawer and puts it inside. He locks it back up and checks a few emails. He forwards a ton of things to Isaac for him to take care of, and goes back downstairs.

“What did she tell you about Seth, exactly?” Harry asks, leaning on Isaac’s desk.

“She told me what he does for work, and that he’s really very sweet.”

“And it’s not weird for her to be setting him up with you?”

“She seemed really unbothered, like I literally think it was just a sex thing between friends, Harry.” He nods. “You’re not seriously jealous are you?”

“It’s not jealousy.” He fidgets with some of the pens on the desk. “It’s more like…unease. Like why is he coming back into her life now?”

“Timing is a funny thing sometimes.”

“What would you wanna do for a date?”

“Drinks could be fun, don’t you think? Something casual.”

“We could go to that adult arcade. Y/N and I went there on our second date, it was fun. The food was pretty decent too.”

“That would be fun! Nice way to beat the heat too.” Harry nods. “You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you?” He laughs.

“You have no idea.”

“Is that why you walk funny sometimes?” Harry’s cheeks heat up. “Like this morning.”

“Isaac, I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at, but-“

“Relax, I won’t say anything to anyone.”

“About what?!” Isaac gives him a knowing look. “How, how could you possibly-“

“Sweetheart, please, don’t insult me. I know what it looks like the day after some good railing.”

“Jesus Christ.” Harry runs his hands over his face.

“Like I said, I won’t say anything.”

“You know, it’s not like…I mean…she…”

“H, it’s okay, we all like different things.”

“The thing is I don’t think I’d like it if anyone else did it…it’s just something about her doin’ it.”

“You know, there are certain ways to stretch beforehand so it’s not so obvious afterwards.” Harry rolls his eyes at him. “Just speaking from experience.”

“Thanks, mate.”

Harry’s first appointment comes in, a girl and her mother.

“Hi, you must be Rebecca, here for your senior portraits?”

“Yes.” She smiles and look at Harry.

“We’re gonnna go across the street to the park.” He says to her with a smile.

//

Harry has lunch outside with Isaac later that day.

“I really appreciate you blockin’ my calendar so I actually have time to eat.”

“Please, I do it for myself and Mariah. You get so hangry when you don’t eat.” He laughs. “Does Y/N make your lunch? It always looks so good.”

“We take turns meal preppin’, but she’s usually the one to pack it. She leaves me these little notes, it’s cute.”

“You guys are such a cute couple. I hope I have that some day.” Harry puts his hand on his shoulder.

“You will.” He smiles.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“How did you know you were in love with Y/N?”

“Oh god, well, we went on this weekend away together up in New Hampshire, like, really early on. Think we had only been together a couple of months, maybe three. I took this picture of her while we were walking along this trails…” He takes his phone out. The lock screen was a picture of the two of and Buster from your trip to Castle Island. His wallpaper was the picture of you from the trip. “See?” Isaac looks at it and smiles. “When I look down at the picture and back up to her, I was like, holy shit. You know?”

“Had you ever been in love before?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never…I mean I had a high school sweetheart, and ‘loved’ her, but that wasn’t real, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

“She realized she was in love with me that weekend too.” He smiles.

“How did you say it to each other?”

“Over a fuckin’ fight on the phone.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I wish.” He scoffs. “We had gotten into this thing, it was her fault, and she went home. She called me hours later cryin’, and then she said she loved me.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t think I heard her correctly at first, but I did. And I told her I loved her too, and rushed over to her place, and then we said it in person.”

“God, that’s so romantic.” He laughs.

“I guess.” He takes a sip of his water. “You know, I’ve had girls tell me they were in love with me before, and it never meant anything to me. But when she said it, I was all consumed. She had me.”

“What was it about her?”

“What wasn’t it?! She’s insanely beautiful, smart, funny, and she’s so genuine. She’s a good person, Isaac. She’s not always great at expressing certain things, but she makes up for it in other ways. Like, she just takes really good care of me.”

“How so?”

“She does all of my laundry. She folds it all for me, puts it away, irons it, hangs it up. She washes all the towels too. I have no idea when she washes the sheets, but they’re always fresh. She restocks my shampoo and bodywash, she makes me breakfast every single morning, packs up my lunches…”

“Sounds like your mother.” He laughs.

“My mum didn’t do all that for me. Well she did, but once I got old enough to do it myself, I did. I haven’t needed her to do any of those things. She just does them. She’ll even text me to ask if I’ve eaten. She jumps at the chance to help me with whatever I need. She’s amazing.”

“I hope someone talks about me some day like this.”

“Who knows, maybe Seth will be your Y/N.” He nudges Isaac’s shoulder.

//

“We feel like we haven’t seen you in forever.” Kate says to you as you plop down on the couch in your apartment.

“Same could be said for you.” You say, rolling your eyes.

“I have a boyfriend.”

“And I have a friend.”

“Yeah, that let get in there balls deep whenever he wants.”

“Hell fucking yeah I do, and it’s not just whenever he wants, it’s when I want too.” She sits down next to you. “And we don’t always meet up to hook up, sometimes we just hang out as friends. We cook together, in fact, I’m going over for dinner tonight. I think we’re making meatballs.”

“You were just there…”

“For sex.”

“Are you sure he’s not falling into the boyfriend category?”

“Positive.”

“So you’ll come out with us for girl’s night tonight then? After your little dinner?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t miss it, Kate.”

//

The idea that this would be your first birthday without Kate in years was starting to get to you. But you knew you’d be just fine without her. You had started packing somethings on Wednesday evening. You’d all be going down to the Cape on Thursday evening to beat some of the traffic.

Harry gets home from work and gives you a big hug and kiss. He takes Buster out quick and then joins you in the bedroom to help you pack.

“You’re in a good mood.” You say, kissing him for the millionth time since he’s been through the door.

“Just had a nice day with Isaac is all. Mariah came in after lunch so he and I got to have some one on one time.”

“Oh good.” You sigh at the mound of clothes on your bed. “Let’s start with the swim suits. I’d like to bring a few.”

“Ohhhh, look at these bottoms.” He holds up a thong style bathing suit bottom. “Didn’t know you had this.”

“It’s for tanning.” You snatch it from him.

“I think you should bring it with you.”

“Oh, you want everyone to see my bare ass? Okay.”

He snatches it back from you.

“Nevermind.” You start laughing and shake your head. “What about this one?” He holds up a bright orange, strapless bikini top.

“Yeah, I like that one…I could just bring a pair of black bottoms and mix and match the tops. I’d rather save room for my dresses and stuff. What are you bringing?”

“Got my yellow trunks.”

“Are those the only trunks you have?”

“Uhhh, got a pair of purple ones too. I just prefer the yellow. Let’s look at your sundresses, what vibe are you goin’ for?” You both step to your closet and furrow your brows.

“I don’t know…oh! I have this coral, teal sparkly dress I’m wearing on my actual birthday. See?” You pull out a short, strapless dress. “I even have the heels to match. I wanna wear shorts too. I have a few tube tops, lots of crop tops…”

“It’s your birthday, pack what you want so you have options. No one’s gonna judge if you back heavy. Four nights is a lot to pack for anyways.”

“True.”

“Tell me again why all the girls are drivin’ together, and Niall and I are drivin’ separate.”

“You’re lucky you’re even invited you know?” You say jokingly. “It’s usually a girl’s trip. We wanna be able to blast whatever music we want for the drive, and talk about whatever. Plus, Sarah has a nice SUV so we can fit more of our shit in the trunk. We’ll need the room for groceries when we all shop Friday morning.”

“You and I get to sleep together right? Boys aren’t banished to one end of the house.”

“Are you crazy, I’m gonna be drunk all weekend, I’m gonna need that dick.” Harry bursts out laughing and kisses you.

“I’m very excited.”

“I’m gonna miss Buster…”

“Me too, babe.”

“You’re sure Isaac doesn’t mind watching him for so long?”

“Not at all. He likes hangin’ out with him. He’ll be bored with the studio closed anyways, it’ll give him somethin’ to do. He’s, uh, really excited about Seth.”

“Seth’s excited too.”

“You speak with him today?”

“Mhm, for a little bit on our ways home from work.” Harry nods. “Is that alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. You’re reconnecting.”

“Exactly.”

“Could you please just go put these on, I need to see what your ass looks like in these bottoms.”

“Oh my god!” You laugh and take them from him. “Fine!”

//

You and Seth are full to the brim from your dinner. You had a lot of fun cooking with him. You’re both just hanging on the couch when you see it’s starting to get late.

“I gotta get going. Girl’s night. Need to go pregame and get ready.”

“Want me to walk you back?”

“Nah, it’s still light enough out, I’ll be alright.”

“Okay, just text me when you get there.”

“Can do.”

“And, uh, text me when girl’s night is over too.” You grin at him.

“You know girl’s night ends in a sleepover in the living room.” You stand up and walk towards the door and he follows you.

“Or, and hear me out, I could meet you at the bar and bring your ass back here.” Your cheeks flush. “I’d take you upstairs now, but I wouldn’t want you looking fucked out before you go out with your friends. On second thought-“

“Seth!” You swat a hand at him. “Stop it.”

“Seriously though, come over tonight.” He tucks some hair behind your ear.

“I’ll let you know.”

**

You have a great time at the bar with the girls. You didn’t think about Seth once until your fifth shot of tequila. Even though had him that morning, you wanted him again…and again…and again. You all start walking back to your apartment when the bar closes.

“So, what movie are we all watching tonight?” Kate slurs.

“I think it should be a comedy.” Rachel says.

“I…might not stay for the movie.” The three stop short and look at you.

“Why not?” Kate asks.

“She wants to fuck Seth, obviously.” Sarah smirks. “That’s cool, do you want us to walk you there?”

“Actually, yeah, do you-“

“Wait a second. No fucking way. We’re supposed to-“

“Kate, why are we even having girl’s night anyways? Oh yeah, because Kevin went home for the weekend.” Rachel says. “So what, because you’re not getting any this weekend that means Y/N can’t? We can all watch a movie tomorrow.”

“But that’s not how girl’s night goes. If she goes, then Sarah will go off with Ben, and you’ll find some girl’s cootchie to stick your tongue in, and-“

“Woahhhhh!” You say. “Who the fuck are you to talk to all of us like that, Kate? Jesus.”

“Kate, we’re walking Y/N to Seth’s and then we’re going home.” Rachel says and turns to start the walk.

Kate walks behind all of you as you walk to Seth’s apartment. Seth opens the door after you text him.

“Hey.” He smiles and grabs you by the waist. He almost kisses you when he sees the other three. “Oh shit, hey guys.” He blushes.

“Just wanted to make sure our girl got here safe.” Rachel says. “Have fun.”

You giggle and thank them. You and Kate look at each other.

“Did I ruin girl’s night?”

“No…Kate’s just mad because she didn’t get her way.”

“Oh, well, she’s always pissy about something.”

“Exactly.”

“Alrighty then.”

He lifts you up over his shoulder and carries you upstairs. You squeal, and he smacks your ass.

“Roommates, remember?”

“God, just get me up the stairs and fuck me.” You whine.

Seth gets you on the bed and practically slams his door shut. He gets a good look at the tight dress you’re wearing. He licks his lips and smiles. You were in for it tonight.

//

Harry helps you get your bags down to the street Thursday evening. Him and Niall were already loaded up, you were just waiting for Sarah to roll up with Rachel and Mariah. Sarah drives up blasting Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and you start laughing. They all get out and help you load your things into the car.

“You get shotgun, birthday girl.” She says hugging you.

“Please, don’t crash your car. I know how crazy you all get.” Niall says, kissing his girlfriend.

“We’ll do our best.”

“See you guys in a little while.”

Harry pulls you in for a kiss that leaves butterflies in your stomach.

“Drive safe, see you soon.” He gives your bum a pat before you get into the car.

“Y/N, put on that playlist.”

You plug your phone in and connect to the Bluetooth. You put on a song by the Ying Yang Twins and Sarah cranks the radio. She honks her horn as she pulls away. Harry and Niall look at each other after they get in Harry’s car.

“What did we get ourselves into?” Niall asks.

“I wish I fucking knew.”

//

You wake up the next morning with some fresh bites on your neck and chest. Seth had scratch marks all over his back. He rolls over to face you, and watches you get up to use his bathroom.

“Hey, can I borrow some clothes to walk back in?”

“Yeah, but…later.” He yanks you back into bed with him.

“My friends think I’ve been spending too much time here.”

“And by friends you mean Kate?”

“Bingo.”

“Do you ever think she regrets getting into a relationship? She used to be way more fun.”

“I know! I have no idea, I feel like she and I can’t have a conversation these days without fighting.”

“Well, feel free to take out any and all rage on me.” He pulls you closer to kiss you. “I like the way it feels when you really fuck my shit up, the way your nails just dig into my skin.”

You groan against him as he presses his hips to yours, and you pull him on top of you. You wrap your legs around him and pull him closer. His hand trails down to your folds and you gasp when his fingers slip inside.

“I mean, why the fuck would you stay home when you can come here and feel good.”

“She’s crazy, ugh, so fucking crazy.” Your head rolls back into the pillow.

“You don’t think we do this too much do you?” His thumb circles over your clit.

“Not at all.” You look up at him. “In fact, I think we could stand to do it more.”

“I wasn’t gonna say anything, but we gotta put the overtime in to get our numbers up.”

“I agree, if we want to perform to the best level possible, overtime is a must.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” He thrusts in knuckle deep and you moan.

“Me. Too.” You say through gritted teeth.

**

“So are you like dating her?” Ben asks Seth a few days later.

“No.”

“Are you sure? She leaves a ton of her shit here, I feel like every time I’m here she’s here.”

“Am I not allowed to have a friend over? We’re not always here to fuck, and she leaves stuff here so she can dress comfortably when she stays over. It’s not in your way.”

“I think you like her more than you’re leading on.”

“She’s my friend, and a really good fuck. I don’t have to explain anything to you.”

“If all you’re looking for is a hookup, why not do it with the random girls that come onto you all the time?”

“I hate that shit, man. It’s all so fake. With Y/N I can just be myself, and it’s not awkward after. We can talk and joke around, and it’s whatever.”

“One of you is going to catch feelings.”

“Not a chance. She’s not like that, and if I thought she was then I never would have hooked up with her. We’ve gotten to spend a lot more time together this year because of it and I like it. She’s a lot of fun. You know how much fun she is.”

“Yeah, she’s always fun…I just think you guys are gonna get into trouble.”

“I really don’t think so. We’re on the same page.”  There’s a knock on the front door. “That’ll be her.”

“To fuck or to be a friend?”

Seth flips him off and opens the door. You had your backpack with you.

“You ready to kick this presentation’s ass?”

“Oh we’re gonna spank the shit outta this thing, come on.” You laugh and head up to his room, not even acknowledging Ben.

You run through your presentation three different times before taking a break.

“I’m so glad we have this class together.” You say.

“Me too, I’m even more glad we got to pick our partners. I did not want to get stuck with some idiot that would make me do all the work.”

“We certainly both know you don’t like doing all the work.” You smirk. He whips a pen at you and you laugh.

“I do plenty of the work, besides that’s not really work is it.”

“I suppose not. Work would mean it’s not fun.”

“Feel like having some fun now?”

“I think we’ve earned it.”

//

“Okay, so rule number one, save the fucking for when we all go to bed.” Sarah says, looking at you slightly.

“I’m feeling very attacked right now.” You say laughing.

“It’s her birthday weekend, if her and Harry wanna sneak off, let them.” Rachel says.

“At least be discrete. I wanna jump Niall any second of the day too, but Jesus you two are gross.”

“One time! One time you saw him give me a hickey Sarah.”

“I will never get the sound of your skin popping from his teeth out of my head.” She laughs. “Look at your neck now, I mean fuck.”

“Listen…it was not my intention to let him fuck me up last night, but he was helping me pick out swim suits and one thing let to another…so you may see many marks on my bod this weekend.”

“Oh, not just your neck?” Mariah smirks.

“Nope.” You turn to look at her. “You’ll see more when I actually have a swimsuit on. He got me pretty good on my hips and thighs last night.”

“Doesn’t it hurt when he bites you like that?” Sarah asks.

“No, it feels so fucking good.” They all laugh. “You know when we first started going out I thought he was doing it to get some frustration out because we weren’t like…actually fucking, but it turns out he just likes to leave a mark. I do it to him too.”

“On his hips and thighs though?” Rachel asks. You turn and grin at her.

“God, you choke each other, you bite, you pe-“

“Sarah!” You shake your head at her. Luckily Mariah didn’t hear over the music. “You can’t, you cannot bring that up at all this weekend, I mean it. I already told Rachel. He would kill me.”

“Shit, you’re right, sorry. My bad.”

“Y/N, you’re setting Seth up with Isaac?” Rachel asks and you turn to look at her.

“Yeah.”

“Damn…that’s really nice of you.”

“Why wouldn’t I help him out? Isaac’s super nice and so is Seth. I think they’re gonna get along well.”

“Yeah, but isn’t that gonna be awkward for you?”

“No, why?”

“Because you two used to fuck any chance you got.” She laughs. “You were addicted to what the dick did.” You all laugh.

“That was because at the time that was the best dick I ever had. Can you blame me? I’ve had better since him.”

“Yeah and his name is Harry Edward Styles.” Sarah says.

“It’s not even just good dick, it’s good everything. Harry should write a fucking book on how to get a girl off. Harry gets me off every single time, the same could not be said for Seth Rowan.”

“Ohhhh the truth comes out!” Rachel squeals.

“I mean, at the end of the day he was a guy in college, looking to get his. Sometimes he wouldn’t do stuff long enough to get me there, or like he would come too fast. You know, stuff like that.”

“Sometimes Niall comes reall fast, and then he’ll finger me until I come.” Sarah says and you start laughing.

“Shit, that’s that good good.” You say to her.

“I know, you’d think it would be gross with all his come there, but it’s actually a really nice lubricant.”

“Sometimes after Harry comes inside me he sticks his fingers in and he’ll press rally far up, and then he’ll take them out and I’ll suck on them.” The car falls silent, all the girls mouths fall open. “Oh god, I shouldn’t have-“

“That is some kinky shit!” Mariah says, bursting into laughter. “I knew I liked you, but shit Y/N, you are a wild bitch.”

“How does something like that even come up?” Rachel asks. “God, I remember what jizz tastes like, and it does not taste that good.”

“It’s not about the jizz itself, it’s about the intimacy.”

“Yeah, guys love when you suck on their fingers, show them what that mouth do.” Sarah says.

“Hey, what do all think the guys are talking about right now?” Mariah asks

//

“So the ring’s locked in my desk drawer at work.”

“That’s great! The picture you showed me I’m sure doesn’t do it justice. It was simply breath takin’.”

“Thanks, my mum loved it. She cried, I cried. Gem was about ready to kill the both of us.”

“I can’t believe you’re gonna do it next month, that’s so crazy.”

“I know.” He smiles just thinking about his plans.

“She’s gonna love it.”

“You think it’ll really surprise her?”

“Oh for sure, she’s gonna be blown away.”

//

“Probably how hard their lives are because they to adjust their balls all the time.” Sarah laughs.

“God, you know, I wish it was okay for to grab my crotch and adjust my pants in public.” You roll your eyes. “One time Harry was wearing a pair of tight dress-pants, and I literally watched him grab everything so he wouldn’t sit on himself.” You shake your head.

“Jesus Christ.” Sarah says laughing.

The car ride continues. You all sing along to the loud music. Eventually Harry catches up with the car. Sarah was driving really fast in the left lane. You see Harry’s car in the rear-view.

“Oh, looks like they finally caught up.” You say.

“I’d say lets flash them, but Harry would go nuts if Niall saw your boobs.” Sarah says.

“Wouldn’t you go nuts if Niall saw my boobs?”

“In all honesty, no. Your vag, yeah.” You both laugh.

//

Eventually you get the beach house you’d be staying at for the next few days. The four of your start jumping around when you get out of the car.

“Sarah, for the love of god, figure out how to unlock the door. I have to pee.”

“What the fuck are they doin’?” Niall asks Harry as they pull in.

“I think they need to pee, mate.”

“Shut up! It’s dark and I have to put the combination in just right, and we all have to pee!”

“Oh my god.” Rachel says. “Drank too much water on the ride.”

Sarah gets the door open and you the four of you rush in. Harry and Niall slowly walk inside. They look around and take it in. There was a large living area that extended into an open concept kitchen. There were all three bedrooms were upstairs. There was a half bath downstairs and three full baths upstairs. Harry was thankful you wouldn’t have to share a bathroom with anyone.

You all come back together after using the bathroom.

“Neither of you need to pee?” You ask.

“No.” Niall says laughing.

“Okay, boys, let’s unload the cars.” Mariah says.

“Who’s getting’ what rooms?” Niall asks.

“Oh we just claimed them all by peeing.” Rachel says. “Let’s get everything in and then we can go upstairs.”

You all take multiple trips. There were cases of water, snacks, and booze you had all gotten ahead of time. Tomorrow you’d be going to the market early to do a real grocery shop. Harry gets your bags upstairs and into the room that would be yours.

“Oh, this is nice.” He says.

“Shower’s just a stand in, and it’s a little small, but it’ll do.” You smile and go to walk out but he grabs your wrist.

You smile up at him, and pulls you close. He cups one of your cheeks and kisses you. Your hands fly up to his hair and you deepen the kiss just a bit.

“Time to make, oh Jesus.” Sarah says. You both turn to look at her. “Time to make jello shots, let’s go.”

“Oh fuck yeah.” You say and leave the room.

Harry joins everyone downstairs. Niall got some music playing on the smart TV and was sitting with Mariah while you, Rachel, and Sarah were all boiling some water for the jello. He sits down on the couch and smiles when he hears the three of you giggling.

“What flavors does everyone want?” Sarah yells out, and the three come into the kitchen. “We have strawberry, blue-raspberry, grape.”

“Just make ‘em all babe.” Niall says.

“I agree.” Mariah says.

You help pour the mixtures into the little portion cups Rachel took from the ice cream shop, and you pop them into the fridge.

“What now?” Harry asks.

“Now, we drink.” You say. “Get the shot glasses.”

Rachel gets down six shot glasses, as you slice up limes and get a thing of salt.

“Everyone sit at the table, we’re gonna play sip or spill.” Rachel says.

“What the hell is sip or spill?” Niall asks.

“It’s a drinking game, it’s a lot of fun.” Sarah says. “And a good way to get drunk quick.” Sarah grabs a hat with some torn up pieces of paper in it and everyone sits at the large round table. “Okay, so we all take turns reading one of the questions, and you either answer or take a shot.”

Harry fills all the shot glasses with tequila and puts the bottle on the table. You put the bowl of limes and the salt in the center.

“You ask the first question, Y/N.” Sarah says.

You grab a piece of paper and your eyes grow wide.

“Jesus, Sarah, where did you come up with these?”

“I got them off a website! There’s a mix of types of questions. Just read it.”

“I’m not nearly drunk enough to even read this!” Your cheeks were flushing.

“Stop being a baby!”

“Fuck! Fine, it says do you have a safe word?!” Harry immediately looks at you.

“Guess he just answered for you.” Mariah says laughing.

You open your mouth, but instead of speaking your lick your hand add the salt, lick the salt, take the shot and suck on the lime.

“He answered nothing, and neither did I.” You hand the hat to Rachel.

“Have you ever moaned the wrong name in bed?” The three of you burst out laughing. “Okay, this is so bad. Um, it was when I was still having sex with guys, I think I thought I was bi or something at the time, still figuring things out you know? So I was hooking up with this random dude, and he was going down on me, but I was picturing this girl from my college Spanish class, and I moaned her name instead of his.”

“What did he do?!” Niall asks.

“Um…he looked up at me and was like what? And I was like…I’m gonna go.” She laughs. “It was so bad.” She hands the hat to Mariah.

“Ever faked an orgasm if so with who?” She smirks. “Can’t remember his name, but it was the last guy I ever had sex with.” Everyone laughs. Niall takes the hat next.

“Oh no.” He laughs. “Out of this room who would you have a threesome with?” He grabs his shot glass and takes the shot. Everyone cheers. “Not goin’ down that road.” He laughs. He hands the hat to Sarah.

“Out of everyone in the room who is the sluttiest?” She grabs the salt and a lime and takes her shot.

“That’s right, bitch.” Rachel says.

“I didn’t say anything!” She laughs.

“Good.” You say. “Hope that lime tasted real good.”

Harry takes the hat next.

“When was the last time you took a lewd or nude photo?” Harry grabs his shot and tips it back. Your cheeks grow red thinking of his naked photos, and your own for that matter.

“Oh, do you two not see each other naked enough?” Sarah asks facetiously.

“You know, sometimes you just wanna feel good about yourself and takes pictures to look back on later, and be like wow I looked really fuckin’ good back then.” He smiles at her. “Go ahead, your turn, babe.” He hands you the hat.

“Have you had sex with guests or parents over?” You roll your eyes and fill your glass up to take your shot. “I have a feeling I’m gonna get fucked up.”

“That wouldn’t be such a bad thing to admit.” Rachel says taking the hat.

“Yes it would because then you all would want to know with what guests and parents.”

“Do you prefer oral or penetration?” She laughs. “That’s easy, oral. But I’m gonna take a shot anyways because I would actually like to get fucked up.”

“Who is your worst coworker?” Mariah smirks at Harry.

“Don’t you fuckin’ dare say Isaac.”

“Guess I’ll be taking a shot then.” She tips her drink back.

“I can’t believe he’s your favorite!”

“I didn’t say anything, I took a shot.” She smiles and he pouts at her. Everyone laughs.

You all go round after round. Everything stayed really lighthearted. It gets back to you again and you’re so drunk, you can barely read the question because you’re laughing so hard.

“Do you have a name for your partner’s genitals?” You completely lose it. “I can confidently say no to this.” You look at Harry. “I don’t call it anything do I?”

“No, babe.” He chuckles.

“I feel like I use adjectives or descriptive words, you know?” You address the table.

“Please, do tell.” Rachel says giggling.

“I’ll be like, come here and give me that bi-“

“Okay, your turn’s over.” Harry says. Everyone laughs hysterically.

“I think you’re the only guy I know who’s actually embarrassed to talk about how big his dick is.” Mariah says.

“I just think that some things should be left private.”

“Right…because leaving hickey’s all over your girlfriend’s body screams privacy.” Harry’s mouth falls open, and he looks at you, then her.

“Wait, I wanna know.” Sarah slurs. “If Y/N doesn’t have a name for your…penis, do you not have a name for her vag?”

“S’not my turn.”

“I don’t give a crap anymore, answer the question or take the shot.”

“I’ll answer for him.” You say. “He refers to it as my cunt.” You laugh and so do the girls. “It just sounds so good in his accent, go ahead Harry, say the word cunt.”

“Cunt.”

“Ahh! See, everything sounds good when he says it.” You all laugh.

A little while later you decide it’s really late and probably time to go to sleep.

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” Nialls asks as he helps Sarah up the stairs. You were being given a piggyback ride by Harry.

“Um, we gotta go to the store, and then we can make breakie, right Harry, breakie? And thennnnn, um beach? Everyone wanna go to the beach?”

Everyone agrees. Harry gets you into the room and you immediately go to pee. He makes sure to lock the door behind him. He doesn’t want anyone walking in.

“Harrryyy.”

“Yes, love?”

“I’m really drunk.” You say coming out of the bathroom.

“Me too.”

“Can I suck on it?”

“Think that’s a good idea right now?”

“I think it’s a great idea, go on, sit on the bed.”

Harry sits down and you undo his shorts. You kneel in front of him and take his dick out. You spit into your hand and start pumping him. You lick your lips and suck on his tip while you continue to pump him.

“Jesus.” He grits his teeth.

“You know what I never do, I never suck on your balls.”

“Babe, you don’t have to-“

“Shhh, you deserve it man.”

You continue to pump him up and down while your mouth trials to his balls.

“Shit!” He groans. “Oh my god, Y/N.” He falls back on the bed and bucks up into your hand.

You lick up his shaft and take him deep into your mouth and down your throat. You choke on him a couple of times, but you work through it, knowing how much he loves the way it feels.

“So good baby, sooo good.” His praise was everything you needed.

He comes into your mouth and you swallow every last drop. You stand up and look at him. He looked beautiful and breathless. You strip yourself of your clothes and crawl onto the bed. He goes to get between your legs but before he can return the favor you’re fast asleep. He chuckles and gets up to do his business in the bathroom. He gets into bed next to you and holds you close to him.

“Sweet dreams, angel.”