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#But hopefully this will be one of my last posts on it. I only ever make posts when I see ace shit on my dash just bc.... As I said it hurts
simping-overload · 2 days
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ᴀ ᴛɪᴇꜰʟɪɴɢꜱ ᴛᴀɪʟ - ᴄʟᴏᴛʜꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛᴀɪʟ (ᴀꜱᴛᴀʀɪᴏɴ)
a/n: a tieflings tail is a 10+ chapter series involving bg3 men and a variety of scenarios with tiefling tavs tail
tags: gn tav, tailor astarion, fluff, 531 words
synopsis: Astarion makes you a sleeve for your tail to keep it warm during the winter months.
『read on ao3』
ヾthis is a multi-fandom blog that is designed for mlm/nbmlm identifying readers! so if you're female or fem please do not follow or interact with my mlm related post!! you will be blocked if you do not heed this warning ゛
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Over the course of your adventures with your ever-growing group, Astarion appointed himself as the tailor. Stitching together any holes and tears, he’d find in someone’s clothing.
According to him, he refuses to allow himself to be seen with people who look like disgusting hobos.
He’s mainly self-taught, but after Halsin joined the party, he’s learning from him as well. Halsin himself was taught by his mother and, along the way, picked up more unconventional tricks when he looked after the children of the Emerald Grove.
You are his test dummy to try his newly found tricks on. Though, not only because you’re his lover, but because you’re usually the one who ends up with the most tears and holes in your clothes.
Just as you were now, standing in Astarions’ tent as he patches up your clothing. Some are from old tears, and others are from completely new ones in different places.
Astarion, per usual, grumbles out his disappointments. “By the gods’ love, can you ever just not rip your clothes to shreds anytime you leave camp?”
You suppress your shrug, wanting to avoid getting jabbed with a needle again. “Sorry, Star, we both know that isn’t possible.”
Astarion scoffs, rolling his eyes as he completes the last stitch. Stepping back, he tugs on the fabric, making sure his stitches are secure, and hopefully won’t be teared for at least another few weeks.
It doesn’t seem he’s done as when he stepped away to rummage through his belongings. You stay in your spot, tail curling in curiosity. He turns back around with a long piece of cloth in his hand.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not sure what to name it but, it’s for your tail. Since winter is nearing, I wanted to make you something for your tail. Just to keep you warm.”
You don’t have the heart to tell him that you don’t need one. Since you're a Tiefling, your body heat was more than enough to keep you warm during the winter months.
“Thank you, Star.”
He hummed in response, pulling the long sleeve up your tail and fastens so it won’t fall off. He left a small hole in the end for the tip of your tail to poke out, since you’ve told him before you don’t like that part of your tail being surrounded by anything since it’s the most sensitive there.
You looked at yourself in the mirror. It didn’t look bad at all. The color compliments your skin tone. Twirling and moving your tail around, you get a feel for it. It’s quite comfortable against your skin and were you more susceptible to the cold, you’d for sure be able to keep warm with this.
You hop down from the stool, turning to Astarion. “I like this a lot, love and rest assured I will keep it intact.”
Astarion snorts, grabbing your hand and pulls you to him. “You better, or I’ll make sure you wake up bloodless the next morning, hm?” He teases.
You fake an offended gasp. “You wouldn’t dare.” Leaning down, you press your forehead against his.
“Oh, love, but I would.” He giggles and places a soft kiss on your lips.
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magpiepills · 19 hours
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Bat’s Recs Volume IX
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Bat’s Recs Masterlist
I’m late posting today because I was so busy reading the last entry of this week’s episode! Good, good shit this week. Phenomenal.
If you enjoy reading smut, do your part in supporting it’s creation by LIKING, REBLOGGING, LEAVING SUPPORTIVE COMMENTS , and FOLLOWING the writers who spend their time creating out of thin air the art you consume free of charge.
⚠️charge you vibrator and lock your door⚠️
This is my ninth and final installment of Bat’s Recs! It’s been fun but instead of doing a rec list, I’m just going to reblog fics and put the horny reviews directly in the reblog. I’ve got more followers here than at junior so hopefully that results in more traffic to the fics and writers I adore. I think that’s what we want as writers, yes? We do love a list, but reblogs are what get eyes on fics.
Devotion by @noxturnalpascal
I ate my dinner while I was reading g this because I could t put it down!! This is cult leader Joel at his very best. He’s charismatic and terrifying. Read and heed the warnings for this one, but trust me it is so good. There are 7 parts so far and I am desperate for more.
The Howler Monkey by @covetyou
This was so unexpectedly touching. I am not ashamed to tell you that I got a bit choked up. Idk man.
In The Flesh by @missredherring
This is the first Santos fic I’ve seen so far and also, Ted!! I loved this! Just a quick little illicit encounter by two of our newest characters. NBD! I need more!
Untitled by @chronically-ghosted
I’m not even into vampires. Well. I wasn’t. Now I guess I am. Put me down as Team Dieter or whatever. Lord have mercy.
Purple Haze by @schnarfer
My little Fleabag has done it again. I can’t ever get over how much I love not only how Al captures the Pedro characters we love, but the personality she gives reader! It’s such a joy to read and the smut SMUTS! The paint, Al?? The drugs?? All I want is a time machine and an alternate reality where Dieter is real.
Dámelo by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin
“There’s your help. Better use it wisely.” Fuck me into next week. Smoking Javi, spitting Javi… I needed a Gatorade to replace my lost fluids after I read this. Jesus goddamn Christ, Ang.
Something To Prove by @writefightandflightclub
I was whispering words of comfort and reassurance to my pussy after I read this. Told it we were ok and that we were going to be fine. Was I lying? I don’t know! Guess we have to wait and see what comes next from this absolute banger of a Frankie fic. “It’s a kindness.” FUCK.
Perfect Strangers by @aurorawritestoescape
Would I fuck a stranger in an alley on Valentine’s Day? Would I? I don’t know the answer to the question anymore. I don’t think I would, but like…what if Joel was real? This was a simple concept but like. What a panty dropper.
Reconnaissance by @ghostofaboy
This was so exciting! Reading this was like watching a secret episode of Narcos where Javi gets his ass fingered in a park. The picture painted in this fic is just that good. I want to know what else Javi gets up to while he’s out patrolling the streets! I bet he can find all sorts of trouble.
Belly of the Beast by @suzdin
I don’t read a lot of Dave fic. I don’t like when he’s written as a loving, devoted family man. I don’t like when he’s sweet and tender and aren’t emotionally intelligent. This isn’t that. Oh, no. Nope. This is DARK Dave in the very best way. This right here is what you want to read if you don’t know why he is Murder Daddy. I really hope we get more of this one.
Snowbound by @joeloverture
I bet you already read this one. This fic made me wish for a heavy spring snow to cover the commonwealth so I could get trapped in a truck with Daddy Joel and have nasty, nasty car sex with him while he says the nastiest shit imaginable to me. We would die of hypothermia, but we would die happy.
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant by @august126
This fic has everything a pervert needs. DBF, BFF, Boss, Neighbor, age gap, publicish sex, a little angst, sneaking around, and filthy, filthy dialogue. Eat it up, pervs.
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panharmonium · 4 months
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Hi! I love your Naruto thoughts and meta posts with all my heart and I want to ask your thoughts on something that has been on my mind literally since I was 13: what do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura? I went from being a hardcore shipper when I was a teenager, to being against any romantic relationship in Naruto after finishing the anime when I was in my early twenties. Nowadays I'm very into platonic love and depictions of friendship and I think the anime's obsession with forcing the "romantic interest" curse upon the main female character robbed us of... so much. There are a few wonderful moments in the anime where Sasuke and Sakura acknowledge each other, but because she's always "the girl with the crush", her actions are so often interpret as irrational or selfish by the fandom.
Hi @riemmetric!  It's great to talk to you again! Sorry it's taken me so long to answer this; RL has been making demands of me lately and it took me way longer to finish writing this up than I wanted it to (then again, I knew from the minute I read your original ask that my reply was going to get long, so I suppose I should have predicted a delay XD)
It's funny, my sister once asked me to choose between Sasuke or Sakura for an “unpopular opinion” meme, and I ended up doing Sasuke solely because I think the negative fandom opinions about Sakura are so unhinged and divorced from the actual text that I wouldn’t even know where to start.  People are entitled to dislike whatever characters they want, obviously, but there are some fandom takes that are, for me, so obviously rooted in bad faith viewings/readings that there’s no urge in me to discuss them.  That said, since you asked, I’m happy to go into my own thoughts on this a bit, with the disclaimer for other potential readers that I only write about fandom things for my own personal enjoyment, not as a contribution to The Discourse. If you don’t like Sakura, great!  I have no interest in changing your mind. Please consider this a sincere invitation to scroll on by and go enjoy whatever parts of the fandom appeal to you.
In general terms: I love Sasuke and Sakura’s relationship as much as I love all of the relationships in Team 7.  If we’re talking about them specifically as a romantic couple, then I probably fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, because I do like them together in a post-canon (to be clear: non-Boruto) setting, after time has passed and they’ve continued to develop individually and reconnect with each other, but I also wouldn’t exactly call myself an intense “shipper,” in the sense that I have no interest in pulling things out from the text and incorrectly citing them as evidence that Sasuke has hidden romantic feelings for her during the canon period. He cares about her in the canon period, just like he cares about Naruto and Kakashi.  That’s not up for interpretation; it’s the text.  But Sasuke during the canon time period does not demonstrate specifically romantic interest in anyone.  
[A note before people who might ship Sasuke with Someone Else emerge to rail against this statement - please just scroll past and continue enjoying fandom in whatever way is most fun for you. It is cool to ship whatever fanon thing you want; I think that’s great!  But earnestly citing any loving or emotional thing Sasuke does re: various characters in this story (yes, Sakura included) as indicative of specifically romantic love isn’t supported by the text. I know there are always going to be enormous subsets of any fandom who insist that it is, and I'm certainly not going to barge into anyone else's space to complain about that (because other people having fun together is harmless and none of my business), but I'm not obligated to indulge it on my own blog, either.]
Anyway, that said - the reason why I love Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship (from here on out I’ll use “relationship” in a general, non-romantic sense) is precisely because Sakura isn’t just “the girl with the crush.” Sakura has an arc when it comes to Sasuke, and its trajectory moves in the exact opposite direction of “irrational” or “selfish.”  She specifically goes from “the girl with the crush” to “the girl who steels herself and tries to put her personal feelings for Sasuke aside for the greater good” to “the girl who knows she can’t put her feelings aside, but who also knows full well that Sasuke doesn’t reciprocate them, and who still wants to save him regardless, because he matters to her as a person and a friend.”
[I'm putting the rest of this under a cut to save everyone's dash, and also to emphasize once again that this is a personal post on my personal blog which I wrote in response to a question from a personal acquaintance, the full content of which no one is obligated to read. I am not sending this post to random strangers and forcing them to look at it. I'm not even putting it in the character tags. I'm typing it up on my own blog and putting it under a cut. If you already know that you don't like Sakura, but you still click the link/read the post and then feel an urge to comment and complain, I am going to copy-paste this disclaimer and remind you that I specifically recommended that you scroll past and go have fun with fandom in your own way. Thanks in advance for responsibly curating your own fandom experience!]
So, from the top:
1. the girl with the crush
Sakura is, obviously, completely obsessed with Sasuke at the beginning of Part 1.  She’s also deeply clueless about him and his history (bizarre though it is, the story seems to indicate that she initially doesn’t know what happened with his family, the same way young!Obito is initially clueless about Kakashi’s father).  But what I like about Sakura and Sasuke’s Part 1 relationship is how this changes over time.
The critical scene that kicks this off happens right at the beginning of the manga, when she and Sasuke are talking by that bench - she complains about Naruto and blames his behavior on him being all alone/having no family to scold him; and even says she’s jealous that he doesn’t have parents to nag him all the time.  This obviously triggers an outburst from Sasuke, who tells her she has no idea what loneliness means and that she “makes him sick”/she’s “annoying” (importantly, the exact same thing Sakura said to Naruto in anger earlier that day), which in turn prompts Sakura to reassess herself and wonder whether she’s been making Naruto feel this terrible all the time, too:
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From that point on, it’s a process of her putting little pieces together.  She still has a MAJOR crush, and she still acts like a twelve year-old, but as we approach the end of Part I, Sakura actually has a more accurate grasp on Sasuke’s current state of mind than Naruto does.  Naruto is initially excited to fight Sasuke on top of the hospital, because he feels like Sasuke’s finally acknowledging him, whereas Sakura is the one who immediately recognizes that something is wrong about this situation.  She is also the one who, after this fight, is concerned that Sasuke is really unwell and might do something drastic like run off in pursuit of the power Orochimaru promised him, but when she communicates this to Naruto, he assures her that this would NEVER happen:
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(Sakura isn't convinced, though, because she goes to monitor the exit out of the village anyway.)
I’m not criticizing Naruto for his response here.  I ADORE hearing him say that Sasuke is too strong to need Orochimaru, with such perfect confidence - I love seeing how much respect and admiration he has for Sasuke underneath all their fighting, because that’s the whole reason he’s always baiting Sasuke and yelling at him and claiming “you're not so great!” He looks up to Sasuke; he wants to be like Sasuke; he thinks Sasuke is awesome! (It’s that Obito @ Kakashi behavior, you know?) But the fact remains that he is clueless about what’s actually going on with Sasuke in Part 1, and he remains clueless(ly optimistic) for a long time.  
(Eg, when he catches up to Sasuke during the retrieval arc and Sasuke climbs out of that cursed seal coffin, Naruto waves at him and calls "Come on, let's go!" as if Sasuke has been successfully rescued and is now going to come running home.  Even in Part II, when Naruto hears that Sasuke killed Orochimaru, he beams and immediately says, “So he must be on his way back to the Leaf Village!”  And everyone else in the room is like, “....,” because they know better.  Naruto doesn’t yet fully understand [or doesn't want to accept] the extent to which Sasuke has willingly chosen this path, and it’s not until after Jiraiya’s death/the Pain attack/the Five Kage Summit that Naruto really starts to understand Sasuke more clearly, which is something he himself admits.)
Sakura, in Part 1, has access to more information about Sasuke - she’s there for his first dissociative monologue during the bells test, she’s there for the curse mark’s placement, she’s there for his first violent transformation in the Forest of Death - she is, in fact, the unwitting catalyst for it (“Sakura…who did this to you?”), and her compassion is the reason Sasuke is later able to overcome the curse mark’s influence - so she has a more accurate/complete picture of “how he’s doing,” for lack of a better phrase, whereas Naruto, who doesn’t know about the curse mark in the first place, is still in the dark.  This means that Sakura is able to accurately discern that Sasuke is struggling more than Naruto realizes, and specifically to predict that he’s going to run away.  
(This dynamic is then interestingly flipped in the back half of Part II, since at any point after the Five Kage Summit, Sakura doesn’t have access to extremely relevant [if currently questionable and unproven] details that would in any other circumstance inform her behavior).
Of course, just because she has more info in Part 1 doesn’t mean she has some kind of miraculous insight into Sasuke’s every thought and feeling.  There are parts of her attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village that are as clueless as any of Naruto’s assumptions, and they showcase the kind of magical thinking common to childhood - like when she says that if he stayed with her, she could give him happiness, she’d do anything for him, even help him get his revenge - this idea that she herself can do something to make him feel better, that she can love him powerfully enough to defeat his pain - obviously none of that is rooted in realism.
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Is this part of her approach irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered?  Of course it is!  But it’s no more irrational and immature and inadvertently self-centered than Naruto’s stated plan to drag Sasuke back to the village even if he has to “break every bone in [his] body!” 
Hating on Sakura for her Part 1 attempt to convince Sasuke to stay in the village while simultaneously lauding Naruto for his feels like a bad faith misread of what is, to me, pretty clear narrative intention.  The story doesn’t at any point intend for us to see her begging him to stay as a selfish or conniving attempt to get something she wants.  She’s begging him to stay for the same underlying reason that Naruto is: she cares about him.  She thinks he’s making a mistake that will only cause him more pain in the end (she’s right) and she wants to make it so he feels less pain right now (she can’t.  But she doesn’t understand that/isn’t able to admit that, and she’s willing to try ANYTHING that might help).  
It’s critical that this farewell scene is set in front of that same bench from their first important confrontation - she references that day and how angry he got at her, and this time she tells him that she understands his reaction.  She’s learned things and she recognizes how insensitive she was being back then (“I know what happened to your clan, Sasuke”), even though she still can’t fully grasp all the complexities of the situation. She tells him that him blowing up at her back then helped her understand what loneliness actually meant (as opposed to her previous shallow understanding of it), and she challenges him about his choice right now: "So that's it, you're choosing the lonely path?" And when she tells him that she'll be very lonely if he leaves, we're immediately shown a panel of Sasuke thinking of both his friends, with the very clear implication that if he goes through with this, he will be lonely without them, too - that he's still struggling with the idea of leaving them, no matter how hard he tries to pretend:
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Sakura at this point knows that Sasuke isn’t interested in her the way she is in him, but she still wants to give him happiness, however fantastical and immature her ideas sound to us (and, I’m sure, to him).  “I’ll do anything, even help you get your revenge/we'll have fun every day, and...and you'll be happy! I'll make sure of it!” - of course, it’s completely childish.  It’s irrational.  It’s ridiculous to think that any of this would ever be effective, but no more ridiculous than Naruto’s belief that he can simply break every bone in Sasuke’s body and keep him in the Leaf by force.
Both Naruto and Sakura are children who have a deeply oversimplified understanding of Sasuke’s situation.  They both still think they can fix him themselves.  They both think they can save him themselves.  They both think they can convince (or force) him to do what they want, what they think is in his best interests.  Both of them don’t yet understand that he has to want to come back, if it’s ever going to mean anything.  Their attempts to keep him in the village are immature and unrealistic, yes.  What they aren’t, however, is selfish, because neither Sakura nor Naruto are doing any of this with the intention of advancing their own interests.  They’re only thinking about Sasuke - how to keep Sasuke safe, how to make Sasuke happy - even when neither of them are taking an approach that will actually work.
Naruto and Sakura are children.  They’re afraid of losing somebody they care about.  Their attempts to prevent that from happening are desperate and messy and ultimately ineffective, but they are also genuinely felt and rooted in a true desire to rescue Sasuke from his pain, which - and this is the single most important thing that should impact our viewing of Part 1 - is something that Sasuke RECOGNIZES.  He doesn’t spend that agonizingly long moment bowed over Naruto’s defeated body so we can pretend he doesn’t understand that Naruto was just trying to help him.  He doesn’t take the time to murmur, “Sakura…thank you,” before laying her out carefully on a bench, just so we can discount it and pretend that he doesn’t recognize and appreciate her genuine intention to make things better for him, however clumsy that attempt might have been.
2. the greater good
If Stage 1 Sakura is "the girl with the crush," then Stage 2 Sakura is a progression to “the girl who decides to put her feelings for Sasuke aside in order to protect innocent people, including (but certainly not limited to) Naruto.”  She’s driven to this decision by interactions with Shikamaru, who all too recently had to grow up fast himself (“We're not kids anymore...we can't allow a war to break out between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Cloud because of Sasuke") and Sai, who risks his new friendship with Sakura and Team 7 in order to speak some hard truths and deliver one of my favorite lines in the whole story: “I don’t know what promise Naruto made to you, but it’s really no different than what was done to me.  It’s like a curse mark.”
(INCREDIBLE.  How can anybody be complaining about a season where Sai gets to say something that goes THIS HARD and Sakura LISTENS and takes DRAMATIC ACTION that actually propels the story forward in a meaningful way - )
[Okay, yeah, brief personal opinion interlude - it is just bonkers wild to me that there are people who complain about Sakura in the Five Kage Summit arc. That entire season is the greatest character arc she ever has.  Literally she has never been more interesting and dynamic than in Season 10; it’s the first time she ever gets to be as deep and fascinating as the boys; what is everybody so worked up about?  Oh, “she lied to Naruto that one time” - Sasuke joined infant-kidnapping baby-murdering human experimentation machine Orochimaru when he was twelve years old in order to (dare I say it????) selfishly pursue his personal goals and yet, somehow, we are still able to root for him.  He abandoned his friends/allies to imprisonment and death (Suigetsu and Jūgo) or outright stabbed them in the chest himself (Karin) in order to (SELFISHLY) get what he wanted, and yet, somehow, we are still able to love him, understand him, and be on his side.  Naruto is canonically not upset with Sakura about her lie after receiving context for the situation and I think we can probably take our cues from him without feeling the need to bring her up on war crimes; please calm down]
[Sorry, I just really love most of Season 10 and think it’s one of the best examples of how good this story can be when every single character gets to do something that matters (as opposed to things being all Naruto, all the time) so I get a little bit worked up over people complaining about some of the best writing Sakura ever gets.  I don’t understand what certain elements of fandom want from her. People complain about her being “useless” and not doing anything that contributes to the story, but then they complain just as much when she does finally get to act decisively and have just as complex/dynamic an inner world as the boys.  She’s “weak” for being unreasonably in love with Sasuke, but when she tries to be “strong” and put her love for him aside and eliminate him in order to protect Naruto and the rest of the world, she’s evil, because she should have been more understanding of his situation (despite the fact that she doesn’t KNOW anything about his situation).  But then when she can’t go through with killing him after all because she cares about him too much despite the things he’s done, she’s not "compassionate" or "kind" or "a good friend," she’s “weak” again. Nothing Sakura does in S10 is more wrongheaded or rash than any of the batshit, buckwild things Naruto and Sasuke have done in the past (and will continue to do in the future), but when Naruto and Sasuke have big feelings or take bold action, it makes them interesting characters, whereas Sakura can’t breathe in anyone’s direction without being minutely scrutinized for moral impurities.]  
Anyway. Back to a more measured response.  
Every single piece of development Sakura has with regard to Sasuke in this season satisfies me so much.  Her initial shock and disbelief at hearing that Sasuke had joined the Akatsuki?  Good, appropriate.  The fact that she starts to acknowledge the reality of what Sasuke’s done sooner than Naruto does?  Also extremely appropriate, very in-character for both of them.  Her taking Sai’s words to heart and deciding that the promise she asked Naruto to make when they were children is causing him to suffer and she has to relieve him of that burden?  Juicy!  AND thematically significant (promises!!!!  the burden that a promise places on a person, especially when it can't be kept - we've seen that before in this story and we'll see it again).  Her anguished pivot from wanting to protect Sasuke to realizing that she has a responsibility to protect the countless innocents who will die because of the war he’s trying to start?  HELLO THIS IS INCREDIBLE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.  Her knocking out the classmates who agreed to help her so they don’t have to share in her burden (and so the only person Naruto will hate when it’s over is her)?  BRUH.  Her being so committed and focused on her goal of saving innocents and protecting Naruto (not just from being harmed by Sasuke/the Akatsuki, but by the possibility that Naruto will someday have to hurt Sasuke himself) that she tries to take everything on by herself and walks into a confrontation that she absolutely cannot win??  INCREDIBLE.  (Literally the first time I watched this, I said, “Finally!!!  It’s Sakura’s turn to go off the rails!”  I laughed with my sister about how Kakashi isn’t even mad, because Naruto and Sasuke have been pulling stunts like this for years and Sakura was way overdue for her own meltdown.)  And then, after Kakashi intervenes in the fight - Sakura barreling back into the battle when she realizes he’s going to take on the burden of killing Sasuke himself in order to spare her and Naruto the horror - “I can’t let Kakashi-sensei bear this burden!”  I love her for that.  
And then, of course, in the end - her not being able to do hurt Sasuke after all.  Despite committing herself to the act, despite forcing herself to put her feelings for him aside, despite resolving to stop him from starting a war and killing innocent people, she can’t harm him.  She cares about him too much.  This, too, is thematically significant - think about Itachi’s “you don’t have enough hatred” - she doesn’t have enough hatred to kill someone she cares about, even if it seems like he deserves it, even if would be the right thing to do to protect others.  She can’t do it, and Sasuke almost kills her for her compassion.  
I love the dynamic this sets up between her and Sasuke, for a few reasons:
1) Personally, I think Sasuke respects Sakura much more for trying to kill him than he would have if she’d just tried to talk him out of his behavior or beg him to come home (a la their original confrontation in Part 1).  This is the first significant interaction he’s had with Sakura in years, and the fact that she does something SO contrary to his memory of her is an important demonstration of the fact that she’s not the same girl she used to be.  Sasuke spends a lot of time after his defection declaring to his old team “I’ve changed; I’m not that person anymore,” but this is one of the moments where he’s forced to acknowledge that his teammates have changed, too.  Time didn’t just stop for them when he left.  While he was turning into someone new, so were they.  They grew up without him, and his old memories of them can’t encompass the whole picture of who they are now.  
(This is a little tangential, but in general, I love the spectrum of reactions that Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi have in this sequence, and the way that all of them are ultimately messages Sasuke needs to hear.  Sasuke - who we know textually regrets what he did here, who apologizes to Sakura for it later - for “everything,” in fact - needs Naruto’s aggressively optimistic open-arms policy, yes, needs that potential, that unconditional possibility of return.  He also needs Sakura’s refusal to let him hurt her friends and start a war that will kill thousands of people, needs her surprisingly ruthless attempt to take him down; needs just as much her failure to do so, because it shows him that she still loves him too much to kill him even as she condemns him.  And he needs Kakashi’s grim line in the sand, needs someone who very possibly won't hesitate like Sakura (despite the horrifying personal cost), someone who will try to reach him but also won't let him escape and become the next generation’s Orochimaru, who won't let him cause untold suffering to untold numbers of people just because a teacher loved him too much to stop him when he had the chance. 
(And then even Kakashi chooses not to deliver a killing blow when he has the opportunity -)
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(I know that in fandom people are more likely to be all, “oh, Naruto Good, everybody else Bad,” but I don’t think the narrative frames Sakura or Kakashi as “worse” than Naruto in any way.  The story goes out of its way to make it clear how desperately they don’t want to hurt Sasuke and how much they care about him.  And [this is just my interpretation, so obviously I won’t claim it as fact], I personally think that Sasuke - Sasuke, who, looking back, can see how lost he was then and how tortured he would have been if he’d gone through with many of his plans - would be grateful to Sakura and Kakashi for making an attempt to stop him when he couldn’t stop himself.)
2) On the other side of this, the fact that Sakura wasn’t able to deliver the killing blow means a lot. Sasuke was incapacitated under that bridge; he was completely at her mercy - but she stopped with the kunai an inch from his back.  She couldn’t kill him, even though she knew that he was completely willing to kill her (because he'd attempted to Chidori-assassinate her from behind just a few minutes ago).  That’s huge!  Sasuke is too out of his head right now to process this or understand it, but later, it's going to matter.  She stayed her hand.  She spared his life.  She loved him too much to hurt him, even when he’d given her every reason to take him down.  She hesitated, and he almost killed her for it, but her inability to strike him ultimately gave him yet another chance to come home, another chance to get better, another chance to have a life outside of his pain.  Despite everything, some part of her still hadn’t really given up on him, and that knowledge will matter later, when he’s finally able to acknowledge it.  
The point of all this is to say that I really have no complaints about Sakura and Sasuke’s dynamic in their S10 confrontation.  This season is the point where Sakura fully grows past her “girl with a crush” stage and into her “shinobi must make very harsh decisions” adulthood, but it never means that she doesn’t care about the person she’s trying to take down.  Her ultimate inability to deliver the killing blow remains a dangling lifeline for her relationship with Sasuke, an open door that Sasuke is able to walk through at the end of the story (literally, in fact, when Sakura opens that portal for him and saves him from Kaguya’s desert prison, and figuratively, too, when Sasuke apologizes to her).
3. she only wants to save you
The last stage in their relationship is what Sakura settles into during the war arc.  She started off Part 1 being just a girl with a crush, then tried to harden her heart and put her feelings for Sasuke aside in service of the greater good, but she was unable to actually follow through and kill him, and because of that, what she’s come to accept by the war arc is actually two things: that 1) Sasuke truly is willing to let her die if it furthers his goals, and 2) she wants to save him anyway.  
She has no intention of pursuing Sasuke romantically.  She knows full well that Sasuke isn’t interested in her.  She even knows that Sasuke isn’t really on their side (there’s a great scene where Sai questions Sakura about Sasuke’s return, and she reassures him that everything is fine, and Sai sadly thinks to himself “even I can tell your smile is fake”).  She’s well-aware that Sasuke didn’t try to help her when Madara stabbed her.  She’s well-aware that he left her to die in the lava pit.  She’s also well-aware that none of this is enough to make her stop loving him.  He doesn’t have to care about her - she still cares about him.  She still wants to help him.  She still wants to save him.
This is not hidden, hard-to-parse character development.  It’s explicitly articulated on the page:
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Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.
I’m not sure if people look at this last confrontation and unquestioningly take Sasuke at his word (as if we haven’t just read 71 volumes/watched 700 episodes showing us how how painfully distorted his thinking is), or if they stop reading/watching before the end of the scene, or if they don’t understand that Sasuke saying something doesn’t make that statement an accurate representation of reality.  The entire point of this scene is to show us how deeply mistaken Sasuke is about Sakura (and, by extension, the rest of Team 7).  He’s locked into a false pattern of thinking.  His single-minded focus on revenge and destruction has blinded him to the unconditional love his friends feel for him; he’s become so accustomed to using others and being used that he can’t understand or accept that someone would care about him without needing a reason, without needing him to love them back, without needing to receive something from him in exchange.
Sakura’s not trying or wanting to make you hers!  She only wants to save you.
Sasuke matters to Sakura as more than a love interest.  He always has.  She does love him romantically, yes, but she doesn’t only love him romantically, and her desire to help him is not and has never been contingent on him returning her feelings, romantically or otherwise.  Sasuke isn’t able to acknowledge that in this scene, but that doesn’t mean we’re supposed to just sit back and agree with his warped perspective.  Kakashi is the one who’s explicitly positioned as the voice of the narrative here.  We, as the audience, are supposed to recognize that Kakashi is the one telling us the truth.
[tangential thing 1: You don’t have to love Sakura's last plea to Sasuke here. It’s not my favorite, either - the best part, other than Kakashi’s speech at the end, is the moment after Kakashi collapses when Sakura’s expression changes from pained uncertainty to pure rage, when she grits her teeth together - when I first saw that, I almost leapt out of my seat like “Oh my god.  She’s finally going to let him have it.  It’s finally happening - ”  I wanted that so badly, and I still think it would have been a more effective writing choice for Sakura’s last words to lean more into her anger at the suffering Sasuke is causing all of them (himself included!) and less into yet another of Kishimoto’s “let me have Sakura articulate what a shame it is that she can’t do as much as Naruto despite the fact that I literally just went through a major reveal sequence in the war to show that she’s caught up to the boys; I can’t make up my mind about whether I want her to progress or not” - it’s extremely frustrating (and it's something he does at the very end of the S10 Team 7 reunion, too, which is the ONLY moment of S10 that falls flat for me).  But at the same time, even if there are ways this sequence could be more satisfying, it doesn’t change the fact that her plea to him is not remotely motivated by a desire to be with him romantically and not anything to condemn her for.]
[tangential thing 2: I do like how she remembers that moment when Sasuke says “Thank you.”  That panel precedes her saying “If there’s even a tiny corner of your heart that thinks about me…” (which I’m sure is one of the things that people like to criticize about this scene, aka “oh she’s sooooo self-centered” etc), but that particular line of dialogue is preceded by that particular flashback panel for a reason: Sakura knows that Sasuke DOES think about her.  He thinks about all of them.  Sakura remembers that “thank you,” and it reminds her that despite everything Sasuke has done and said since, despite all evidence to the contrary, she knows in her bones that his expression of gratitude back then was genuine.  He cared about her once.  He cared about all of them.  She’s trying to reach the part of him that still does, if it exists.]
[tangential thing 3: The fact that Kakashi says “she suffers from loving you,” and it triggers Sasuke to remember his own family - thinking about how much he suffered (and still suffers) from loving them - “Perhaps…those are the ties to a failed past” - the idea that it’s not worth it to have bonds if it means you suffer this much…that it’s too difficult, it’s too painful, and if Sakura and the rest of Team 7 were smarter they would just give it up (all Sasuke knows how to do now is sever potential bonds before they can hurt him; so why aren’t Sakura and the rest of his teammates doing that, why can’t they let it go, why are they making this so hard - ) << yeah, he clearly doesn't care about her/them at all.]
4. the shadow of my family
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This has all been a really long way to answer the original question, but the short response to “What do you think about the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura?” is “I really care about it,” just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Naruto, just like I really care about the relationship between Sasuke and Kakashi. And I don’t think the story ever asks me to choose between them.
I’m not sure whether it’s the impact of Boruto-era “canon” that gets in the way of other people approaching things this way (I don’t consider sequel material when I evaluate the original story), or if it’s Kishimoto’s frequent disinterest in/disrespect towards female characters, which yes, does sometimes make it harder, or if it's a shipping thing (bane of my existence), or some combination of factors, but for me, taking one member of Team 7 out of the equation hobbles the rest of the story.  I can’t read/watch Naruto while hating one of the protagonists and loving the other three.  It doesn’t work like that for me.  The story wasn’t written that way, and there’s nothing in the text that would cause me to receive it that way.
That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with disliking one of the main foursome (or any character, for that matter) - obviously we're all going to have different preferences, and everyone is free to enjoy or reject whatever parts of a story they want, or to like or dislike whatever characters they want. I know that some people have more fun disregarding canon and doing their own thing, which is fine.  My own personal zone of enjoyment comes from receiving the story as closely to how I think it was intended to be read as I can, and personally, when I look at this particular story, what I see is that all the members of Team 7 clearly demonstrate their love for Sasuke in ways that he himself later recognizes and acknowledges. All of them are driven by their desire to save him and their unwillingness to hurt him. All of them make repeated choices to chase after him when he runs away, to trust him when he hasn't exactly earned it, to give him another chance when he doesn't appear to deserve it. ALL of them, not just Naruto, do these things multiple times throughout the story, and Sasuke owes his life (and thus his eventual recovery) to ALL of them, many times over. Kakashi disobeys Hokage-elect Danzō and breaks the law to negotiate for Sasuke's life with a foreign head of state. Sakura and Kakashi both have opportunities to kill Sasuke in the Land of Iron, and they choose to spare him instead. Kakashi stops Sasuke from killing his only friends at two different points in the story, which would have been a mistake Sasuke couldn't have recovered from. Sasuke would have died in Kaguya's desert dimension if Sakura hadn't saved him (Sakura, who knew that Sasuke wasn't even truly on her side yet, who knew he'd abandoned her for dead multiple times already that day). Kaguya's bone bullet would have killed Sasuke too, if Kakashi, with his intention to die in Sasuke's place, hadn't leapt in front of it (Kakashi, who also knew that Sasuke wasn't fully on their side yet, who also knew that Sasuke had abandoned him for dead earlier that day). Sasuke and Naruto would have BOTH died in the Final Valley if Sakura and a severely injured Kakashi hadn't chased after them to heal their injuries.
Remove any one member of Team 7, and Sasuke never makes it home. Without the combined efforts of all three of his teammates, he doesn't survive.  That’s the way it should be, thematically, for a story whose first and most foundational premise was the importance of teamwork, and since Sakura was just as essential to that framework as everyone else, I’m just as invested in her relationship with Sasuke as I am in his relationship with everyone else.  You can’t remove one leg from a four-legged stool without damaging the integrity of the entire structure, and for me, discounting any single member of Team 7 irreparably damages the integrity of the entire story. 
TL;DR: I love all of the Team 7 relationships, including Sakura and Sasuke's, because despite what some segments of fandom seem to believe, the text of the story never gives me any reason not to.
#naruto#meta#replies#anyway that's that! hopefully that is a helpful answer#thank you for the question! i honestly don't think i would have ever gotten around to writing about this if i hadn't been directly asked#i love talking about the stories i enjoy (obviously; we all do; that's why we're here)#but i'm usually ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about responding to takes that blatantly misread the narrative to justify hating a particular character or ship#mostly because a) it's whatever. as long as people mind their own business and leave me to enjoy myself they can do what they want#and b) some opinions are so divorced from the actual text that they're not worth discussing#like. what's the point of responding to random internet posts saying that sakura was selfishly pursuing sasuke as a lover the entire time#when that is textually and provably not the case?#if you're that committed to experiencing things in direct contradiction to what the narrative is asking of us then just go ahead#is it mildly annoying to me? sure. but so are lots of things and it's better to just let stuff go#like - i initially planned to take this piece of meta all the way up through sakura and sasuke's last scene together#the one where he tells her 'maybe next time' and finally reclaims and redefines itachi's forehead tap (INCREDIBLE. THIS SCENE.)#but ultimately i changed my mind because everything i wrote for that last section was coming out too harsh#i generally prefer to talk about fandom stuff in a chill/friendly approachable way#but i kept thinking about the most obscenely & disrespectfully inaccurate read of that scene i'd ever seen#and i couldn't figure out how to talk about it in a non-scathing way#that scene and the one where naruto gives sasuke's headband back are the ONLY well-written things about the finale of naruto#they are SO perfectly constructed and i can't respond to people slandering either one without feeling an urge to kill#so i just deleted it. partially because again - this is fandom; it's not that serious; people can do what they want#but also because i know i get extra frustrated about people picking over the text and plucking out isolated bits and pieces#to contort into blatantly misinterpreted mutant shapes that 'confirm' whatever pre-existing judgments or ships they had#instead of experiencing the story as a cohesive whole & keeping in mind the greater context of what it's always been trying to communicate#people on this website say 'we all interpret things differently :)' as if it means no one can ever be wrong about what a text is saying#newsflash: not all interpretations of a text are valid. things can't in fact mean whatever you want them to mean.#the ***story*** persists and exists even if the author is dead to you#if you choose to ignore that then that's fine; it's just fandom; who cares. but i'm not going to pretend you're 'analyzing' anything.#(ok now i'm really done. you can see why i deleted this section XD)
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tomfrogisblue · 4 months
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I have finally finished O Segredo Na Floresta.
I have cried more than I thought possible.
And I fear I shall never be the same.
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Oh poggers my top three posts are finally all my art :)
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eggmeralda · 1 year
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drinking red wine and listening to no control by one direction like god intended
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impostorsshow · 2 months
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Sometimes you just listen to a TikTok audio and get the need to make a post about a self destructive cycle your in only to never acknowledge the post again yknow
The song is Don't Smoke by Mitski, specifically the TikTok version is the Audiotree Live version
#pink bowtie is the only person here whos design actually represents someone#to clarify since like art is of the beholder right but i find drawing to this song specifically ironic#because i am very aware that i have a pattern of blocking people if they're nice to ms#im being the mean one here; im being mean to my newly ex friends and myself#but this time i actually tried to keep friends and my mental health has been the worst it has in years#so i guess i just need friends that are worse than i am to keep my mental health stable??#whatever its just interesting#this is also the first and hopefully the last vent art ill ever draw for a few years#vent art#vent#art#i literally JUST made a post on my other ask blog about my ibis constantly crashing#and it IS BUT i also have feelings. i can work through crashes to get my feelings out alot more than i can for silly dsaf men#the good thing about tumblr is that the people this is about this time wont ever see it since they dont have tumblr or dont follow me#the bad thing is that i DID do this like. 3 times to the sam and max community and like. thats almost all of my followers whoopsie daisy#and like “oh if theyre blocked then they wont see the post” i didnt actually block them since i like seeing their posts. from afae#i just block them every time they follow me#actually that one sam and max server would be surprised to hear that one creepy dude was the person that kept reconnecting me to the server#whatever. i need to stop editing this post for the tags and go to sleep#funny thing is my partner wont see this post despite following me. you would think a partner would care but. ig not thats okay#my partners the only person i think is better than me who i've kept around#but that might be because they dont show. any interest in anything im interested in#im so tired of being the only person to put in effort to keep the relationship alive and be interested in the things they enjoy#but i guess i also do vent to them alot; i only talk about like 10% of my life but having mental disorders will do that ig#i need to stop typing/venting and go to sleep. or at least stop listening to this damn song
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waitingonher · 3 months
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A LIFE WITHOUT YOU ISN'T A LIFE AT ALL
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summary: the aftermath of your injury. [percy jackson x reader]
author's note: finally on break so hopefully i can post more?? also i wrote this all in one sitting so i hope it makes sense...
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percy jackson can take physical pain. he’s used to it. he’s seen everything in the book, from blood to broken bones, and it’s become easier to digest over the years. yet, what he can’t ever seem to get over, is the sight of you hurt. there’s nothing that could ever prepare him for the inevitable moments where your life would hang in the balance. today just happened to be one of those moments. 
first, percy heard the screams, then he saw the blood. it was a strategically crafted ploy to hit him where it hurt—you. honestly, if you asked percy, he wouldn’t be able to tell you anything of what had happened in the following moments. all he knows is that he fought like hell to get you back. 
“y/n,” a familiar voice pleads, “wake up, please, wake up,” fuzzy. everything was fuzzy. but then there was the familiar scent of lemon verbena—the candle will always lights in the infirmary. your hands begin to roam as you feel the cotton bed sheets, why are you in the infirmary? your eyes shoot open and immediately meet percy’s. he seems to be frantically talking, but you can only hear the ringing in your ears. 
all of a sudden your hearing rushes back, and you really wish it hadn’t. people shouting orders and people crying over their loved ones wasn’t necessarily what one would want to wake up to. percy’s eyes widen in relief as he kisses your hand, “thank the gods. i almost thought i lost you.” 
pause. you and annabeth were supposed to be leading the charge against the monsters on the northern borders of camp. where is she? how is she? despite being in no condition for sitting up, or for anything in that matter, you attempt to get up, “percy, i- me and annabeth, i need to get back,” an excruciating flash of pain pulses in your gut and you cry out. 
percy immediately ushers you to lay back down on the bed, “y/n you need to-”
“no percy,” dazed, you fight against his hold, ignoring the burning pain, “please, let me go. annabeth, she needs my help and i can’t just-” 
“y/n,” he interrupts, his voice ever so slightly raised, “listen to me,” percy cups your face in his hands, forcing you to look at him. blood. there was so much blood on his face. then you notice the wild look in his eyes, “you’re okay. annabeth is okay. everyone is okay. it’s over, we won.” 
you slowly nod as you take everything in. everything hurt. you had a relentless pounding in your head and an awful pain in your stomach, “what happened?” 
percy pulls in a chair and closes the curtain around your bed, “from what i’ve heard from annabeth, your team arrived at the planned meeting spot, and instead of the couple dozens of monsters you guys expected…there were hundreds. i guess they somehow knew that you were assigned the northern border so they-”
“they focused all their divisions on the northern border, where i was,” you realize. it makes sense, and quite frankly, it was a good plan. why go for the rest of the camp when you could aim for the one person percy cares for the most? you sigh as you sink your head back into the pillow, a potent mixture of guilt and frustration eating at you. 
percy takes your hand into his, rubbing his thumb over your bruised knuckles. he knows all too well what it’s like to be in this position, “y/n please don’t be so hard on yourself. nobody knew that this would happen.” 
you purse your lips, “i know, i just can’t shake the feeling that i could’ve done something differently. i mean look around, this is the busiest i’ve seen the infirmary since the last titan war. and you, you’re hurt too,” your arm weakly raises to wipe away a bit of crusted blood on percy’s cheek. you don’t think you could ever forgive yourself if percy died because of you.
“y/n, you did everything you could. and besides, we can’t control everything, especially when it’s war. we knew the risks the moment we decided to fight back,” his hand meets yours as you caress his face.  
you sigh, “you’re right. thank you percy.”
he gives you a reassuring nod, “and i’m okay, i promise, i already got everything looked at,” he adds, “will said i should be back to normal within a few days.” 
you hum in approval and you two lapse into comfortable silence. percy opens his mouth as if to say something, but lets it fall shut. instead, he reaches for your hand again, holding tightly as if you were to fly away at a moments notice. you look at your boyfriend, finding him deep in thought, “percy what’s wrong?”  
his gaze falls to the floor and a few moments pass before he lets out a shaky sigh, “i was just so scared. i mean, when i got there, i found you and you were just laying there,” he pauses, his brows furrowed and lips pursed, “i don’t think i’ve ever ran so fast in my entire life,” percy’s voice was barely above a whisper. 
your heart begins to ache knowing how hard this affects him. but you also can’t help feeling happy knowing that percy feels so strongly for you.
“then when i got you here, even will was concerned, and you know how good he is. and then he was working on you for hours, and there was so much blood and i just…” he pauses before looking at you, his eyes swimming with desperation, “i've realized that i can’t live without you. so please-”  
“percy," you grasp his shoulder tightly, almost as if proving your existence to him, “i'm alive. you saved my life. and i wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. you realize that, right?” 
percy nods his head slowly, he himself finally realizing that everything would be okay, “yeah.” 
“good, now give me a hug, my love,” you chuckle, “you’re too tense.” 
and he does not need to be told twice. percy practically jumps (very carefully) into your arms, squeezing you in a tight hug. at the end of the day, you’re going to be alright, and that’s all percy’s asking for.  
“i love you,” he whispers. a quiet oath to always be the one to find you, to always be the one to save you. 
“i love you too, percy,” a promise to do the same.
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teeskz · 11 days
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¡Arriba! : “Enjoying this dirty night to escape.”
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» pairing: fem!reader x OT5 (kim hongjoong, jeong yunho, choi san, song mingi, jung wooyoung)
» summary: being a bookworm, you’re used to your regular schedule of simply studying, eating, oh, and the occasional sleeping. it isn’t until one night, you find yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time, and soon get swept up in one of the craziest games you’ve ever heard. in hindsight, maybe you should’ve declined. but it was only supposed to last for one night. one, dirty night.
» w.c: 12.5k (was not aiming for this number, but this what you get)
» genre & warnings: college au, alcohol consumption, heavy kissing, oral (m. & f. receiving), tit sucking, leaving of hickies, praises, corruption, voyeurism SO MUCH, humiliation kink (reader gets embarrassed a lot), teasing, reader c*ms untouched, BUKAKKE (look it up if you don’t know what it means), no intercourse in here but there’s a shit ton of other stuff, spit mention? titty!obsessed yunho, unknown obsession w/ reader, pussydrunk wooyoung, if i were to make a pt. 2, it would be a gang bang, just saying.
» a/n: this is the first edition of my T!TS UP series, hopefully it was worth the wait! (im so so sorry for taking 19 days to upload this, yes i counted how long since i posted that teaser🙏)
» LINK TO T!TS UP SYNOPSIS HERE
» taglist: @mingyuslice @facioleeknow @sharksandminhos @yakosobaboba @xcynthiaaa @hyukssunflower @tiny-apocalypse @pearltinyy @therealcuppicake @kxrta @hrts4hanniehae @softwsan @certifiedmoa @stayskz143 @isabel-018
if your name is crossed off, i still couldn’t find you
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Mmmm, no that’s not right either.
The bites on your pencil has increased significantly as you start to chew on the end, never have being so stumped at a problem before.
You’d been rolling through your homework with ease, and even finding somewhat joy at solving these difficult questions. The answers were just flowing right out of you. Until this one.
What if I squared- wait, that doesn’t work for these kinds of theories.
You stare at the paper.
But I’ve reduced the ratio up until here, so how come………….oh!
Instant eagerness returns as you quickly realize what went wrong. And just in the matter of a few seconds, you’re able to work out the rest of the problem and eventually submit your homework.
Sighing happily, you reach your arms up to stretch and straighten out your back. Sitting at the same desk for the past 3 hours, although comfortably, has been draining. Goodness, were you ready for a much needed break.
Fixing your hair, you stand up, your pajama pants falling to the ground and begin scuffling to your communal bathroom.
Sharing with 3 other girls has its difficulties, you won’t deny that, but on Saturday nights like this where all 3 are out -and probably won’t be home till the next morning- you were thankful to get the space all to yourself.
You do your business, wash your hands and right as you step back into your room, a low rumble emits from below. It’s your stomach practically yelling for food.
Oh, that’s another bad habit of yours. Since often you’d find yourself getting so caught up in your workload, more times than not, you wind up forgetting to eat. And also sometimes pee.
Even as you check your nearby clock resting on the night stand, reading 12:49 AM, determination, and maybe the high you still rode from solving that problem, drives you to venture out for food.
So, that’s exactly what you do.
Throwing on some fuzzy slippers, you don’t bother putting on a shirt to cover your tank, believing it’ll take you less than 5 minutes to find a simple vending machine and head back.
Quietly, you open your door and peer down both ends of the corridor. Both are equal distance from a couple of machines close by, so just choosing whatever, you make a left and patter down the hall.
As you’re walking, you can’t help but notice a sort of stillness in the air, one that you can’t quite pinpoint. Like everyone’s disappeared and you’re the only one left.
You finally reach the end and walk into the common area, where on most days are packed, but for tonight is eerily quiet. The vending machine glows off into the corner and your tummy croaks in gratefulness.
Hmm, what am I in the mood for? Ambling over, you stop in front of it and ponder. I could get something simple like the cookie package. Or maybe the baked chips, I think those are good.
So many options, you’re getting overwhelmed. As you continue scanning through your options, you unexpectedly get filled with the sounds of footsteps shuffling across the hard floor, and soon a boy comes into view from the far side of the room.
“Always have to do everything myself.” He’s grumbling to himself, eyes pointed downwards as he scratches the back of his head.
Your eyes are wide as you just stare at him walking closer and closer to you, till eventually the boy glances up and you two lock eyes. And it’s then you recognize him.
“Kim Hongjoong?” Your voice raises at the end as you’re genuinely surprised at his presence. He’s a senior in one of your classes, Ethics, and wow, is it shocking to see him here.
From what you know, he doesn’t live in this housing unit nor have you ever seen him around. So, what’s he doing here? His own face contorts with shock while his legs slow to a halt, tilting his head to the side.
“Y/N, what a surprise,” Starting with your head, his gaze takes notice to your attire and travels downwards, “You just wake up?”
You follow his eyes and try to suppress the sheer amount of embarrassment rising inside of you, “Oh- um, no…”
“Needed a late night snack?” He tries again, a small corner tugging up at his lips.
You lift your head and couldn’t help the sheepish grin spreading wide, “Mmm.”
Hongjoong lets out a short laugh, “Understandable. My friends were craving those powdered donuts and cookies, and tasked me with getting them.”
“Ooh!” You turn towards the snack display and regard the white packaging, “I could get the donuts.”
He watches your expression change from quizzical to astonishment, and his eyebrows scrunch. As if you’re a puzzle and he’s having difficulty figuring you out.
He murmurs before shifting just a slight bit closer to you, “What’re you doing up anyways? I didn’t peg you as the night owl type.”
The smile you bore remains on your face, moving your head back to the boy, “When I got done with my homework, my stomach was growling.”
“Growling.” He repeats, an amused tone to his sentence.
“Growling.” You emphasize again and he could only offer a nod.
He waits a beat before going to speak, “It’s Saturday, though.”
Looking back at him, you meekly shrug, not really seeing what that had to do anything, then rotate again to the vending machine, “Yeah, perfect time to get it done. None of my roommates are home so it’s easier to concentrate.”
Hongjoong hums at your words, “All by yourself, then? Isn’t it lonely?”
“Well,” When phrasing it like that, you find it does put a minor dip in your mood, “I’m always too caught up in my assignments to really notice.”
Instead of immediately responding to you, he allows your words to hang in the air. You think you might’ve just said something out of the ordinary, glancing back to Hongjoong in an attempt to reexplain, when you notice him staring at your backside.
Then, without warning, you feel a pinch at the fabric of your waistband. A soft gasp escapes your lips as warm fingers pull at your pants and tug them upwards, “Y/N, your pajama’s are so cute. You can’t have them lopsided like that.”
You’re a deer in headlights while he goes to meet your eyes. As his gaze lingers on you, you find it more than difficult to reciprocate the action. Your cheeks feel hot, and the stutter that quickly comes when going to answer further shows your awkwardness, “O-Oh, um…”
The spot still burns from where he had touched you and it makes you lose your train of thought. It isn’t until your eyes dart around, desperately looking for a distraction, and catch glimpse of the powdered donuts in the machine, “What-what about your friends? They’re waiting for you still, right? You should be con-considerate of them, and bring them back their snacks.”
Hongjoong takes in your new demeanor, with him watching your body language, and god, are you something else. How swiftly you go from advocating for yourself, excitement radiating from you, to a stumbling mess of words; it actually fascinates him.
“Right,” he follows in your footsteps and puts attention back to the donuts, the fond smile on his lips evermore growing, “They did want me back quick.”
“Yes, yes.” You affirm in a more stern manner, hoping this copes with your unsure state.
“I’ll just tell them I got distracted by something cute.” He caps off his statement with a glance over at you and you look back at him, a stunned expression present.
He does a once over at your outfit, “Your pants.”
You now understand what he means and respond by shaking your head ‘yes’. Because of course he was referring to your pants.
This time, an audible laugh emits from the boy. He has to throw a hand over his face to stop himself from showing too much of his teeth. Fuck, he is finding so much entertainment from this.
You don’t fully comprehend what’s happening, or why Hongjoong’s outwardly making claims such as this. In all honesty, this is probably the most interaction you’ve had with him in all four months of knowing the Senior, and you’ve come to realize: he’s pretty odd.
“I should-” You start right as Hongjoong goes to speak.
“You should come back to my friend’s dorm with me. It’ll be fun with you there.”
And further embarrass yourself? Absolutely, not.
“I can’t- I shouldn’t,” you bring your hands to fumble around with the hem of your tank and deliberately avoid eye contact with him, “It’s late and I was planning on heading to um..bed soon….so it- I shouldn’t.”
When you finally drag your eyes up to Hongjoong, the friendly expression he wears somehow puts you at an instant ease, “Just stop by. And then if you wanna leave, I’ll walk you back to your dorm. That sound okay?”
The way he spoke, so nonchalant and so caring, honestly made you feel stupid. Like you have no reason to feel insecure.
But this was all new for you. You don’t hang out with friends, you don’t go out on Saturday nights, that’s not you. And you don’t have a problem with it. At least, you hadn’t before.
Then, here comes this boy, who extends an invite to you. He’s giving you a chance to venture outside of your safety room. He sees you. So, albeit hesitantly, you make an internal decision to join him. Plus, you knew well you weren’t actually going to sleep.
“That..that actually sounds nice.” You agree, and Hongjoong grins.
As he goes to answer you, he’s reaching into his back pocket in search of the crumpled bills he later pulls out, “Let me get the guys their snacks, then we can head over there.”
You step back and allow him to cut in front of you. He shoves the money into the slot, enough to get multiple things of junk, and you watch as he requests 2 packages of the donuts and a package of cookies.
Once they all drop to the bottom, Hongjoong bends down to the retrieve the snacks.
“Oh, you got two-?” Him shoving one of the donuts in your hand cause you to pause.
“Here, since it’s my fault you’re craving them now.” He states and you take the snack with gratefulness. You thank him graciously and he simply rejects it, claiming it really was no big deal, then starts to make strides back to the dormitory and you follow behind.
The two of you twists around a corridor and walk down what seems like a never-ending hallway.
“You’re too kind, Hongjoong. Inviting me out, buying me stuff.” You quietly gush behind your senior while he holds in a chuckle. You’re too cute.
“Really, I don’t mind one bit.” He slows down once he’s in front of a room and so do you, assuming that his friend’s dorm is the one with the white board that has ‘WE’RE NOT BEING LOUD, YOU’RE JUST QUIET.’ written in big, bolded letters on the door.
The sounds of faint bickering could be heard from the other side so slowly, you peer towards Hongjoong, "Is everything okay?"
He's harboring a somber gaze then lets out a slow, controlled sigh, "Knowing them, probably not."
With that being said, he grabs hold of the handle before throwing the door in, announcing your guys' entrance.
The sight you're met with is unruly, though quickly you take notice of how familiar you are with every single person in the room.
There sat in nearby chairs are Jeong Yunho and Song Mingi, both from your History class, cackling at the scene unfolding right before their eyes of Choi San and Jung Wooyoung slapping and throwing hits at one another.
Choi San is an English major just like you, and you've known Jung Wooyoung since high school. But, wow, you hadn't realized they all new each other.
"You gonna talk about me again?" Choi San threatens the junior whom he's currently hurting, applying pressure to the nape of his neck.
"Aish, aish!" Jung Wooyoung winces at the pain though a crooked smile is present on his face, "What're you, a fucking barbarian? Get off."
"What the fuck are you two doing?" Hongjoong rushes over to deescalate the situation. He shoves Choi San into a corner and rolls Jung Wooyoung the other way, "I wasn't even gone for that long and already you guys try to kill each other."
At that statement, another uproar ensues. All of the boys shouting at him, yelling claims of "You took fucking forever!" "The hell?!" And other variations.
You raise your shoulders and tuck yourself inwards at the commotion yet, part of you seemingly enjoying the racket. A soft giggle flows out of you, which in turn makes your presence known.
“Y/N?” Jung Wooyoung questions first.
All pairs of eyes briskly dart to you, some bearing perplexed expressions, others with stunned looks as there you stood, pajama’s and all, in the middle of Jung Wooyoung’s dormitory.
“Why’re you here?” Choi San adds and right as you go to respond to them, Hongjoong’s quick to answer for you, retracting his hands off of the boys and pushing himself up.
“We met at the vending machines, and I invited her back.” He’s sauntering over to you now, an all-knowing smirk in place. He leans down just a smidge when he’s inches away from your face and lowly speaks, “Want me to tell them about the distraction?”
You instantly hip at that, whatever calm manner you had dissipating by the second. It wasn’t subtle either as everyone eyes you and Hongjoong’s encounter.
“She didn’t have anything else to do, and was more than happy to come here.” He continues while his gaze stays on your face.
“I…” You open your mouth as if you have something to follow up with, but then instantly close it and opt to let Hongjoong’s reply suffice. For the most part, that is pretty much what happened.
After the wave of confusion from the boys, comes a round of cheers. They’re all welcoming you in as Hongjoong walks you over to the group, and you’ve never felt more comfortable yet red-faced in your life.
You plop down on the floor between Mingi and Yunho, both of them inches above you in rolling chairs, and enjoy the swellness of want being produced from everyone, they want you here.
“Did you just wake up?” Wooyoung asks as he scoots his way back over to the rest of the group, and you shake your head ‘no’.
“She’s been up all night doing homework.” Hongjoong smiles from the far corner and the response brings in a collection of oh’s.
“You’re so smart,” San coos while sprawling himself out on the floor, him now laying on his side and propping his head up with a hand, “Wanna help me out with my shit?”
Before you could speak up, a package of cookies get thrown at his back, a burst of laughter filling the air. San yelps from the impact and the culprit, Hongjoong, wades his way closer to everyone.
“Don’t go dragging Y/N into your bullshit, do it yourself.” The Senior throws the other package of donuts to Yunho, who catches it effortlessly, then takes a seat right behind San on the floor.
Instead of arguing, San simply huffs and goes to grab at and eat the cookies while the rest of the group moves forward in conversation.
“So, what’ve you guys been up to tonight?” You gaze around the room, asking your first set of questions, only to get unexplainable looks in return from the bunch. They all stop making eye contact with you and glance at one another with an expression you couldn’t quite decipher.
There’s a beat of silence when a nudge from a foot draws your attention to Mingi, who’s at first biting his lip but then releases it with narrow eyes, “You a snitch?”
“A…snitch?” You parrot, staring up into his face then softly shake your head no. The boys couldn’t get enough of your reactions.
Yunho’s mouth goes thin as he forces himself to look away from you right as Wooyoung watches you attentively. Just like to Hongjoong, you were an interesting thing to them, someone that intrigued them like no other.
And wouldn’t that make for an interesting night?
“Alright then,” Mingi concludes and San sits up, extending a hand underneath the bed. Before you could ask for a further explanation, a near-full bottle of alcohol gets pulled out then tossed to the middle of the mini circle you all have formed.
You regard the bottle with shock. Any form of alcohol is strictly prohibited on campus, and here in front of you lies tangible proof of it.
“Who put it underneath the bed?” Hongjoong inqueries while going in to reach for the drink. He’s eyeing San while unscrewing the cap, as San stares daggers at Mingi.
“Dumbass over here kicked it underneath there.”
“Yeah, fucking big foot.” Wooyoung interjects earning him and threatening look from Mingi.
“Ah,” Hongjoong, after getting the bottle opened, takes a big swig of the liquid, downing it with ease, “Was wondering where it went when Y/N and I came in here.”
A part of your heart raced at the actions unfolding. He passes the bottle off to Wooyoung, only after teasing him for it, then you listen as everyone scolds Wooyoung for being a hog. Out the corner of his eye, however, Yunho notices you fidget.
“What’s the matter, Y/N?” Yunho shifts to amorously watch you, drawn into your well-known rule follower persona, “You’ve never seen alcohol before?”
You feel all eyes turn to you as they await an answer. Of course you’ve seen alcohol before, knew what it is. Does he think you live under a rock? But still, the sight of it leaves a twinge bit of nervousness in the pit of your stomach.
“I have, actually.” Scatteredly, you bounce between looking at the boys while trying to sound steady, “I know my roommates like that a lot.”
“Yeah?” Wooyoung beams then leans in to place the bottle in the space between your legs, “Feeling like trying some now?”
You look down at it with uncertainty. You know this is wrong, this is so, completely, wrong, “Uh….”
“Don’t be scared.” San encourages, a tiny smirk taking over, and soon a ripple of motivation circulates throughout the room. The guys are all murmuring small praises, yet keeping watchful eyes on you, testing you.
One of your hands lifts to grab hold of the bottle’s neck, the other holding the bottom for support. You scan over the glass warily then hesitantly glance up to the others, “Do I just…”
You mock an action of drinking it which earns you a laugh from Hongjoong, “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Come on,” Mingi rests a palm on the back of your head, stroking you smoothly. The movement is so comforting that you don’t even realize him taking strands of your hair to wrap around his fingers, then ever so slowly he tilts your head backwards.
Instinctively, you raise your arms to guide the alcohol closer to you, and without another moment to think about it, you pour a stream of the lukewarm liquid down your throat.
“That’s it, just like that.” Yunho mutters sweetly as you continue spilling it down your throat, not really knowing when to stop.
Quickly, the burning catches up to you and reactively, you stop pouring the bitter alcohol and shoot your head forward, grimacing from the taste. Although it’d felt like you just inhaled a gallon of hand sanitizer, the congratulatory spurs, courtesy of the guys, makes up for it. They were proud of you, and it made you feel good.
San holds out his hand to you, indicating he wanted to be next, “Took it like a champ, Y/N. Good job.”
You lend the bottle to him and almost instantly, you swiftly make note of the alcohol coursing through your veins. Eyes big, a thump of reality hits you and deeply, you take in a breath while returning to your spot. Woah.
The passing of the bottle lasted for about the next 30 minutes, everyone taking turns in drinking. When it’d be close to your turn, you’d find yourself anticipating the action. Then when it came your time, all over again, you down the drink, make the most disgusted face, then hand it off to Mingi. And some time during it all, you had demolished those donuts Hongjoong supplied you with.
It’s exhilarating, the situation you’re in. It’s thrilling how you’re being commended for doing something defying. And you come to realize: maybe you actually needed a night like this.
���So, uh,” you start with a faint smile on your face, “Is this all you guys do? Drink and sit in a circle?”
Wooyoung has now made his way over to your lap, resting his head on top of your soft thigh, “Mmhmm. Sometimes, we’ll talk about other people too.”
“Oh, fun.” You smile but your attention gets captured by Mingi waving a hand out.
He’s attempting to get Wooyoung’s notice despite his lack of verbiage, “Yah, yah, what-uh…what was that game you had? That one you said we didn’t have enough players for?”
Wooyoung fails to move, instead choosing to keep his eyes shut and body close to you, “Who’s he talking to?”
A kick from Yunho sends him flying at that response, rolling off of you and makes him land on his back. You laugh amusingly as Wooyoung stumbles around to stand up.
“Okay, fine!” He whines, wavering around slightly while heading to his closet, “You guys have a fucking problem.”
Hongjoong’s laying with his back to the floor, chest up to the ceiling and yields his head to face you, “He’s always trying to get us to play this stupid game.”
“But we’ve never had enough players.” Yunho buzzes, moving from his spot in the chair to the open ground next to you.
“Not until our Y/N decided to join.” San’s tracing the exposed part of your ankle from your pants riling up, and you offer a content ‘mmm’.
“Got it.” Wooyoung uses a palm to shut the closet door, then comes back to the group with a small, red box in hand.
“What game is it?” You inquiry, bringing your head closer to the box when Wooyoung takes a spot in the middle of Hongjoong and Yunho.
Hongjoong peers over to him and begins reading off of the label, “Tits….Up.”
“The hell is this?” Mingi has the bottle currently and is resting his arms against his thighs, gripping the bottle in one hand. If you wanted to lean back, you’d touch his leg, that’s how close he is to you.
“It’s- It’s a drinking game,” Wooyoung studies the back of the box, and you happen to catch glimpse of a seductive pattern printed out on the packaging. The kissy lips are cute, you think as you aimlessly regard the box.
“So,” Yunho extends his arm out to cross in front you, the alcohol now being given to him, “How’d we play again?”
Wooyoung finally opens up the game, grabbing hold of the cards to shuffle them then instantly start to sort them out. All of the red-colored cards get grouped together, the pink-colored ones in a separate pile, then lastly the black cards lay flatly in the middle of it all.
“From what I remember, we all roll a die that tells us which color card to pick up.” He tries to grab the die out of the box but it ends up slipping out of his grip and flings towards your foot, “Whoops.”
“Ooh.” You pick it up and begin to browse, seeing the red’s and pink’s and black’s filling up different side’s of the die while the other squares have 2 ‘roll again’ and a ‘skip turn’ as the remaining options.
“Red is dare, pink is truth, and black means it’s a challenge.” Wooyoung finishes, which you could tell by him throwing down the instructions to the side of him.
“It’s just truth or dare, then?” You’re confused. If it is just truth or dare, then what’s the whole point of having this?
He shakes his head at your comment, a light laugh trickling out, “Just truth or dare? Yeah, on like steroids.”
Hongjoong retrieves the previously discarded manual and brings it to his face, “Don’t do the dares: drink, don’t do the truths: drink, don’t do the challenges: drink, drink, and drink.”
“There’s a number of shots listed at the bottom of every card, so if you choose to not do what’s on one of them then that’s the equivalent to it. That make sense?” Wooyoung explains and collectively, there’s murmurs of agreement.
“How do you win?” You perk up with a new sense of curiosity.
“Gotta have the most cards collected.” He shoots back and Hongjoong quietly confirms him.
“You only get the card if you complete what’s on it.”
“In other words, don’t be a pussy.” San teases.
Alright, you can do this. Your first drinking game, ever. Excitment’s buzzing all around you as Yunho bends down to pick up the die. So exciting.
“I’ll go first.” He says then goes to shake the cube in a closed fist. He releases the roll and all together, you watch the die travel down and around Wooyoung’s carpet, only stopping when it hits the edge of the box.
“Hmm, truth.” Hongjoong states as the rose-colored square is clearly shown upright.
Yunho reaches in to swipe one of the pink cards, turning it over, then reading aloud, “No secrets allowed, share one of your biggest turn-ons.”
Your eyebrows raise as the rest of the group hoots in await for his reply. Biggest turn on? Like…
“How many shots if you don’t answer?” Mingi asks, nodding his head in the direction of Yunho.
Yunho scans through the card till he’s at the bottom of it, “Uh, it only says one.” He says and goes to pocket the card, “That’s a fucking waste.”
You’re staring at him in awe, the suspense creeping up the walls of your stomach. What’s he gonna say? How much is he willing to expose? If you get a card like that, how much are you willing to expose?
He looks around the room while his thoughts churn, “My biggest turn on? I don’t…I guess I’ll….damn, there’s too many!”
“Just choose one.” Mingi sighs gruffly, and it’s then you decide to rest your back against his leg. It’s been brushing against your skin for some time now so, you know, maybe you need the extra support.
“Fine, just one?” Yunho catches his lip with a tooth, taking in the scenery when his eyes land on you. The eye contact doesn’t lasts too long, with him dropping his sight down briefly, too briefly for you to even wonder what he’s thinking, then he opens his mouth, “I like seeing stiff nipples through a shirt, the big, puffy ones especially. It’s so damn hot to me.”
Hongjoong immediately covers his mouth to control a snicker, San practically doing the same. Wooyoung holds in a smile and you’re left to speculate that maybe there’s something more to Yunho’s answer. And now, you’re feeling self-conscious.
“Leave Y/N alone, Yunho. You’re being a dick.” The voice behind you, Mingi, chastises.
At the mention of your name, you slowly glance down towards your chest and the embarrassment you had previously hits you like wave. You had absolutely no idea your nipples were erected, essentially sticking out miles from your tank top. They’re hard, and stiff, just like how he described them.
“Alright, fine,” Yunho throws an apologetic look your way, “But still, I’m serious. That kind of stuff turns me on.”
You want to cover yourself up, hide your chest away. You were basically flashing the boys unknowingly and yet, why does your heart start to beat irregularly? A sliver of you starts to feel shame. Is it wrong you seemingly like the attention? Enjoy the thought of knowing it was you who turned him on?
And in turn, maybe that makes you a little excited, but, a different kind. The kind you only feel when it’s late at night, your roommates are out, and have nothing but your fingers to keep you entertained.
“Should we pass it off to Y/N?” Someone questions which break you out of your state.
No way, at least not yet, “Actual- Actually, can I go last?”
The group regards you first, then pass the look off to Wooyoung who, if that’s the case, would be going next. He simply shrugs then snatches up the dice, going to roll.
In the midst of his turn, a hand is placed onto your leg, scaring you just a bit but also sending a jolt through your core, “Are you nervous now?”
San speaks quietly to you, and you look back behind your shoulder at him, “Just wanted to watch some more before I go.”
He shakes his head understandingly, but doesn’t immediately let go. It’s not until, Wooyoung announces getting ‘truth’ in which he remembers his placement on your leg. Though, he didn’t make much effort to remove himself fast.
Wooyoung’s already reading his card when you decide to hone back into the game, and you try to ignore the small build emitting inside of you. Or, is it just the alcohol? Yeah, probably just that.
“Get a good look at everyone,” He starts, “Let us know, who’s looking the most fuckable? And this one’s 2 shots if I don’t answer.”
A low ‘ooh’ rumbles in the crowd, including one from yourself. Wooyoung holds the card out to his chin, striking a ‘thinking’ pose while he examines everyone, “So hard.”
You sense your chest heaving up and down, anticipation flooding you. Wooyoung darts his eyes to one side of the room, then dramatically to other, but eventually an answer is made.
“Sannie’s been working out a lot more lately,” A sly grin spreads on Wooyoung’s face, eyeing the junior who’s currently fake flexing, and then they roll over to you, “But I think little Y/N has to be my pick. You’re just looking too good right now. So, fuckable was it?”
You ‘eep’, and before you could think, you’re throwing a hand over your face to cover the immense blush you wear. Where do these guys get off on embarrassing you like this?
He lets out a menacing laugh, knowing you’d react as such. Sometimes, he just couldn’t help himself when it came to messing with you. You just make it too easy for him.
“Wow, how’s it feel being the center of attention, Y/N?” Hongjoong smiles, taking the dice from Wooyoung’s possession and you could only offer a head shake as your reply.
San follows up next, watching you with such a fondness, “I don’t know, guys, I’m thinking she’s starting to like this.”
You drop your hands, now ready to face the group, and the intensity of your jolt worsens. It’s almost starting to feel, to feel like a throb. And instead of it residing in just your core, you could recognize it radiating to other places.
“Hongjoong, just go.” You sigh out, borderline disgusted with yourself at the new realization that you’re genuinely enjoying this. That you are getting incredibly turned on by the humiliation.
He does as you say, rolling the dice and retrieving a card after earning the first ‘dare’, but instead of reading it out loud to the rest of the group, Hongjoong looks it over in his head. His face is changing from confusion, to perplexity, then ultimately, revolution.
Placing the card back in the middle of the pile, he requests for the bottle which San hands, then takes his first shot. The rest of you guys are surprised by this decision, some of you going in to hound Hongjoong about what card he grabbed.
“Not gonna tell.” Is all he says before taking a whopping 4 swigs of alcohol back to back and shuddering every single time.
“Holy shit!” Wooyoung cackles out, amused by the older student’s willingness to not compete.
“It was worth 5 shots?” Yunho’s voice cracks and you’re left stunned. Just what was on that card?
Hongjoong tosses the die over to San, the next person to go, while he tries his best to ignore the way everyone’s watching him. No matter the looks, no matter the gazes, there’s no way in hell he’d ever reveal what was on it.
San rolls out the cube and it lands on ‘truth’. He reaches down and picks up the pink card, and unlike the senior, does read it aloud everyone, “What’s the dirtiest thing you masturbated to?”
While San lets out a disgruntled huff, Wooyoung brightens up right away, shooting an arm into the air and beaming, “Oh! Oh! I can answer this, please, let me tell them how fucking weird you are.”
“I’ll kill you,” San lowers his head, rather intimidatingly, and extends an arm out for the bottle, “It’s only 2 shots, I’ll just take that.”
Hongjoong proceeds to give him the alcohol, and San downs his shots like it was nothing. After him, is Mingi, who’s been decently far away from all of the action.
“Awww, Mingi, come down here with the rest of us. You look like a loner.” Wooyoung belittles, causing the boy behind to scoff harshly. But even then, he still does it, scooting himself off of the chair and making his way down to the ground.
You get booted off from his leg as he’s moving, though, once he has his position in front of the chair and propping himself up against that, he signals you to rest again on him, this time allowing you to lean back on his chest. He widens out his legs to get you comfortable, and now, you recline into him.
The action was so nonchalant, hardly any thought behind it, that no one even gave you two crap for it. However, they all stare enviously at the boy, “Someone give me the die.”
San fulfills his wish and does so, Mingi immediately going straight into throwing it down. The die rolls around till it lands on a red square, signaling the need for a ‘dare’. He doubles over to reach for a card, taking you down with him, and selects one of the ones at top before returning back.
He’s secretive of his card, pulling the same stunt Hongjoong did. Curiously, however, you peer over towards him. And so Mingi, all the while not taking his eyes off of the card, crosses his unoccupied arm in front of you and grabs hold of your cheek, forcibly turning you to the other side.
He mutter-reads the card softly to himself as you find humor in the way he had dealt with you, your cheek smushing against your mouth. After a period, he drops the card and extends an arm out to San, signaling him to pass the alcohol over.
“What the- you guys are pussies.” Yunho chides while Wooyoung shakes his head disapprovingly.
“Oh, booo. Y/N, do you know what this means?” He asks you, Mingi lowering his other arm so you could crane your neck back to Wooyoung.
The anxiety bubbling inside renders you clueless at the thought of knowing you’re next up, and so you stare blankly at him, “What does it mean?”
“Unless you want everything to go tits up, you need to do what’s on the cards. No matter what it says.” He finishes off his statement with a shrug, and Yunho nods encouragingly.
You feel a drop in your palm as Mingi hands you over the die, nervousness flowing through you, “I- okay.”
Your heart is pounding against your rib cage when you start to shake your enclosed hand, a mix between sweat and fear coating the cube. You release it shortly after and watch it roll around in front of you.
Eventually, the velocity of it slows and the wild spinning stops, leaving a scarlett-red square staring back at you. A ‘dare’.
“Oh, our first dare.” There’s a bite to Wooyoung’s tone, proving obvious that he's choosing to ignore the past few rounds.
San leans forward for you and grabs a card, handing it off to you, "You can do this."
You don’t even look at it immediately and instead wait until you were back against Mingi before reading it aloud to the others.
“Did someone turn up the temperatures?" you start off steadily, "Suddenly, you’re feeling hot. Have the others player choose which piece of clothing to remove, hope this helps your problem…”
Keeping your eyes locked on the words. You trail off towards the end, not finding the courage to look up knowing they're all watching you. Undressing you in their heads.
“We get to choose?” Yunho happily accepts this feat as does everyone else. They make your already rapid heart accelerate, but what’s even worse is how the stupid throb below intensifies.
Hongjoong, ever so leisurely, grabs hold of the open flap from your pajama bottoms and wiggles the fabric around, "I say we get rid of these."
San perks up excitedly at the proclamations, “I second. Y/N, you don’t need those on anymore.”
This is so wrong. So, incredibly wrong.
While you're distracted by those two, you fail to notice Mingi traveling a hand down to the waist band of your pants, lifting it up to hardly reveal the shadow of your underwear line and bare skin, “Can you take ‘em off for us?”
“Let’s go, Y/N-ie. You can’t keep us waiting.” Wooyoung pouts while also tugging at the other pant leg.
The pleads of the group grow, while your determination to not do it shrinks. God, are they making this difficult for you.
After a few more begs, and a few more touches, you break and decidedly give in, “F-Fine, I'll get these off.”
Mingi breaths out, the hand that was on your waist band slipping below to touch your smooth, outer leg. He teases the others by showing them bits and pieces of your skin, not fully pulling your pants down till Yunho comes to the other side in helps of tugging them off of you.
Collectively, they all aid in discarding your bottoms and once they’re gone, you try to suppress the urge to cover yourself. There, in full display for everyone to see, are your tight, pale yellow panties that’re always your favorite to wear to bed.
But when you’re damn-near half naked in front of a group of boys, you’re mentally scolding yourself for not wearing something more attractive; like how one of your roommates owns a lacy, black thong that you’ve seen one too many times before.
Hongjoong brings a light graze to your now exposed legs, tracing around your skin, “You’re so cute when you listen to us.”
"Look, there's even little flowers." San pokes fun at you, even going as far as pinching your underwear in a teasing manner.
“Can- Can we move on?” You’re letting out small huffs while Mingi brings a hand down to rub at your thigh.
"Aww, alright, alright. Guys, let's ease up on her." Yunho reaches over your legs to retrieve the lonely die from the ground.
The rest of the boys oblige, them returning to their spots with slick smiles on their face. Sure, they'll play the game, but just know, they're in it for the long haul.
And it’s going to get way worse than this.
Yunho gives his fist a hardy shake before releasing it to the ground. The die quickly spins before falling still and revealing a ‘skip turn’ square for all the group to see. He lets out a ‘damn’, then moves onto Wooyoung, who’s taking the cube willingly.
“It’s gonna be a good one, I can feel it.” He darts his tongue out to the side while bringing two hands to cover up the die, jiggling all around till he drops it.
It lands on red, ‘dare’, and eagerly, Wooyoung snags one of the cards from the top of the scarlett pile, “Demonstrate your oral skills on a banana or peach,” he reads with an amusement to his tone, “Or if you have the real the real thing, that’s double points.”
Your eyes close as you take a deep inhale, dreading the next words to be spoken from his lips.
"Banana or peach...." He fake ponders, stroking his chin while staring up at the ceiling, "Hmm, I guess if I have to, I'll go with the peach."
"But we don't have any on us." San makes point in which Wooyoung feigns stupidity.
"Oh, you're right Sannie. Well, then what am I supposed to do?"
Almost defeated, your eyes widen after feeling a hand cupping your ankle. Wooyoung's giving you an expression, a mix between cunning and slyness, "Y/N-ie, what do you think?"
You gape back at him, "What I- I don't think anything."
"Well, don't we have the real thing?" He quips, inching closer, and you have to physically bite you inner lip to stop a whine from coming out.
Just the thought of what he was insinuating, it's just so.....dirty that you couldn't help the way you were feeling. And you aren't sure how much more you could take.
"I...I guess technically - we do-"
"Yah, Hongjoong, what's the rule about challenges and dares that involve other players?" Wooyoung calls back and the senior's fast to respond.
"If another player's required to participate due to a card but refuses, they must be the ones to take the drink instead." He reads off of the manual so swiftly you'd almost think he has it memorized.
"Would poor Y/N rather drink than let Wooyoung show off his skills?" Yunho mocks, causing, and for the first time this evening, a tiny, nearly inaudible whimper to buzz from you.
The noise leaves the rest of the group stunned.
Wooyoung regards you and just so leisurely does he fall in between your legs, now face to face with your clothed cunt, "You'd really rather drink? I promise, I won't be too long."
"Don't leave him hanging." San nudges and the rest of the group follow in the protests.
"But I..." you quiet down, "In front of everyone?"
Hongjoong leans back on his hands, intently watching, "We don't mind."
"Just, relax." Mingi guides you to rest again on his chest, providing slack for Wooyoung to draw your hips closer. You could feel his hot breath in huffs and it's driving you mad.
"Can I? Please?" He finishes off and it's then you give him a slight nod.
"Oh, my-” Yunho groans, and you almost copy him in the way Wooyoung brings a hand up to your underwear and pushes it to side.
"I'll be...quick." He mutters, eyes tracing all around your sex. His tongue darts out then before you could react, he's sliding the wet muscle up the length of your pussy.
You gasp at the feeling. Finally, a source of stimulation for you to enjoy.
He goes in again, lapping at you till he reaches your clit and sucks on it. Waves of pleasure ripple throughout your core with each slurp of your bud. Wooyoung shifts to wrap his hands around your thigh for support as he continues going down on you.
You throw a hand over your mouth to cover the scream that was just about to be let out. And next thing you know, your hips begin circling deep into his mouth while he guzzles away at your sweet pussy.
"Damn, you don't need to fucking eat her." San scoffs, which breaks Wooyoung from the haze he was in. Absentmindedly, he pulls away from your cunt with a satisfied grin, but not before going back in to give you a quick kiss on your lips. Your pussy lips.
The action makes you quiver and if he had carried on, you were sure you would've came all over his face.
"Holy fuck." Yunho breathes out shakily and it's taking all of his strength to not palm himself like a fucking pervert in front of everyone.
Wooyoung scoots back to his original spot while you're left panting on top of Mingi. What the actual hell just happened?
"Let's check the damage." Hongjoong eyes are glazed as he's watching your fucked out expression and hell, if it doesn't turn him on.
A hand gets brought around to your front and grips the peak of your underwear, scrunching it enough to transform it into a line then scoots off to the side. Your glistening, thick cunt is now open and on display for everyone to see.
"Fuck, I'm burning this into head." San whines and subtly, not-so subtly, grabs at the loose area around his pelvis and adjusts his pants.
Mingi's still holding onto your panties as Wooyoung gloats about how good you taste in front of the group, yet your mind's distracted by some sort of growth forming on your lower back.
"Come on, Wooyoung, give me the die so we can keep on playing." Hongjoong's nearly drunk off of his own lust, the way he wants to end up in the same situation as his junior.
If there's one thing he couldn't deny, it's that lately, you have been driving all of these boys crazy.
"Wait, I wanna hear what Y/N thinks of my skills," he turns to you with a self-boasting grin, "Was my game good?"
"Oh, Woo." Yunho's rolling his eyes at him. God, the last thing the group needs was Wooyoung's ego being inflated to the max.
"It was..." you take in a huff, quickly recalling the previous events, "it was good."
Wooyoung laughs lightly before going in for a lip bite, "You flatter me. But, hey, if you ever wanted a round 2, I'll get you alone and show you all of my-"
"Dare." Hongjoong interrupts, shutting the chatty boy up. You hadn't even realized he had rolled with you being too occupied in Wooyoung's proclamations.
"Is he gonna pussy out again?" Mingi mutters, mainly to you, causing you to dryly chuckle. Your head is still foggy from the timely pulses below to illicit any stronger of a reaction.
Reaching forward, Hongjoong grabs at a new card, this time actually reading it aloud, “Don’t be shy, choose a player of your choice to give a quick peck too.”
Your eyes lazily scan around the scene as everyone curiously stares at Hongjoong, whom stared back with an ever-lasting gaze. The silence is loud, though his thoughts were flashing across his face, exposing everything he was thinking. And it was evident that what he needs, is the person right in front of him.
“Y/N, come here.” He calls you over with a nod and you protests. Physically, you’re feeling weak, but mentally, goodness are you are completely, utterly fucked.
“I-” Whining, you let your breaths do the talking to try and captivate your fatigueness. How come you were always the brut of the cards? Can’t they give you a break?
The dark look your senior gives is enough to put your whimpering to an end, “Hey, let’s go.”
Mingi pushes you forward as a head start and you catch yourself with your hands, taking in the dark carpet underneath.
“You wanna crawl over to me? Hell, I’ll take that too.” Hongjoong laughs maniacally and you’re left wondering what happened to the boy that had reassured you comfort just hours before. Had he always been this way?
Nonetheless, you still do it. You make your way over to Hongjoong all the while crawling on all 4’s. The guys couldn’t get enough of this. Your submissive state, yet your will to keep going, it was fucking ammo for them. Just fueling their running desires the longer this game continued.
You stop on your knees in front of him, then cautiously you work your way up until you were eye to eye with Hongjoong. He’s watching all over your face, part of him searching for a sign that said you wanted to stop. He knew he would, at the drop of a hat if he saw you were feeling uncomfortable, he would whisk you out of here himself.
But Hongjoong also knows, just like how you know. That secretly, you were into this shit. Little, book-reader Y/N loved being publicly humiliated and shamed for the sole purpose of getting her horny.
Which is why he doesn’t feel bad when he dips down to force your lips on his, the supposed quick peck being thrown out of the window. He’s enveloping himself into you and taking your mouth like he’d been starving for it.
He’s going at you with a level of neediness even he would’ve never expected from himself. Oh, how your lips essentially get swallowed up by his with every kiss, he’d hadn’t pictured he could get this turned on from kissing someone, his pants are so damn tight. And shit, the urge to fucking push you to the ground and make you grind on his thigh is literally clawing at him. He really is trying so damn hard to control himself.
Little noises begin to leave your lips as it fills the soundless room, and by the second you can sense Hongjoong becoming more frazzled, more sporadic in the way he’s dominating you, pushing himself further onto you.
“Are you about to take her right here?” Yunho coughs out, trying to bring attention the fact that there’s 4 other people in the room who have been witnessing this steamy make out.
Hongjoong comes up briefly from you to respond, “Fuck off,” then he’s back onto your mouth, kissing you with so much passion that you don’t even mind about the watchers. Because you knew that despite their complaints and protests, they were enjoying this too, you just knew they were.
“I’m calling it, Y/N get your cute ass back over here,” San grabs hold of your underwear then wastes no time in yanking you back, separating you and Hongjoong mid-kiss. You wobble backwards into your original spot, your lips so wet and pink, it looks like you just got done sucking on a lollipop; as Hongjoong reels himself in from it all. If you two hadn’t been stopped, there’s no tell in what he would’ve done to you.
“You two would’ve down right fucked each other in the middle of the circle,” Wooyoung muses, but not because he was repulsed by this fact, but rather for how sexy it was watching you unravel at the hands of his friend.
San starts to roll next, “I better get lucky like you shits did.” He shakes and releases the die when it lands on a ‘black’ square, the first of all tonight, “Oh, shit.”
“This is gonna be interesting.” Yunho mutters as Mingi’s fingers, after getting yourself restated back in between his legs, dance up the naked skin of your legs, absentmindedly of course, and works his way to the inner parts of your thigh, just gently rubbing at your flesh.
That action causes your eyes to briefly flutter but you try your best to focus on San, who’s reaching in for a ‘challenge’ card. He pulls at the untouched deck then goes to speak aloud.
“Choose an opponent and a player out of the group,” it’s apparent’s he’s reading ahead in his mind, judging by the way the corners of his mouth turn upright, “With a minute on the clock, let’s see who can leave the darkest mark, a hickey, on the player’s neck. Winner get’s card.”
Your heart’s pounding. Oh, god.
“Y/N, can you be my player?” Despite him asking, whining even, a mock of curiosity washing over his features, it was clear that his question is more of a demand.
Mingi laughs heartily while pushing his head against the side of yours, “Yeah, you gonna be his little play thing?”
“Woah, Mingi,” San throws his hands up exasperatedly, “How about you be my opponent, cause I already know I'll destroy your ass.”
The competition that’s ensuing riles up the rest of the group as Mingi swiftly agrees. Next thing you know, you’re being shoved into the middle of the circle, firstly on your knees then sitting crisscrossed as the two boys work their way over you.
With San on your left and Mingi on your right, your having to mentally calm yourself down from all the exposure you’ve endured so far. And how this round might actually be the death of you.
The rest of the group moves around till they sit front row in front of you, ready to watch the throw-down. You take in the boys in front of you.
Yunho, as evidence on his face, feels pleasure in this scenario and he’s so intrigued in how this will go. Wooyoung’s yanking out his phone from his pocket; and right as Hongjoong’s sits across from you, you can see through heavy lids him dropping his gaze down to your uncovered body.
He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he’s shamelessly watching you, and maybe that’s the reason for why you genuinely start to feel yourself drip liquid.
“I’m putting a minute on the clock,” Wooyoung officiates, scrolling on the phone that’s currently placed on the floor.
Both men beside you start to get into positions, hunching over to become more level with your throat.
“You have such a pretty neck,” San brings a hand to lightly stroke the large area, “Can’t wait to give you my mark.”
“San, you can’t say that.” You mew back, completely in a daze.
“Why not? It’s true.” He’s still running his fingertips along your skin and he could easily swear every touch made you whimper. God, could he listen to you all day.
“Gonna fuck up your neck, Y/N, just you wait.” It’s Mingi’s time to talk you up, him nearly mouthing that sentence onto your open skin, “Gonna leave a hickey so big people’ll think you’re getting it good.”
You briefly go to turn to him, but with Wooyoung announcing the commencement of the challenge, you’re forced back into the middle as they both sit impatiently.
“Start in 3…2….and….1!”
They pounce. Immediately, they stick on your neck like a vacuum, just taking in as much of the area as possible. Your eyes are rolling into the back of your head as you feel their sucking turn into straight buzzes shooting down to core.
It’s indescribable the feeling your experience. Both boys on you like their life is on the line, but it’s so interesting how you notably recognize the difference in how they’re forming the hickey.
San’s lips are more precise, smaller, tiny sucks with occasional licks. Mingi on the other hand, wide, open kisses are his forte. His singular mouth is covering up a vast area that you already knew it would be hard to cover this up.
“Dude, they are so into this.” Yunho comments while Hongjoong tries his best to not actually cream his pants at your expression.
“Look at her face, she looks like she’s gonna cum on herself at any second.” He nottes which causes a series of moans, one of them yours, to fire throughout the crowd.
“20 seconds,” Wooyoung warns, eyes trained onto the scene in front of him.
They go in harder. They’re putting more pressure onto your neck, sucking so hard now that you can’t help the mini whines that escape you. You actually think you’re about to pass out.
The build up of stimulation over the course of this night has left you with an everlasting throb that’s threatening to explode at any time. The more they suck, the heavier your breaths get, and you’re struggling to contain your new expressions.
It’s all starting to become so much, the sensation boys are causing trickles down to your cunt in waves, so intense and pleasurable that even your body starts to stutter.
Wooyoung’s begins to countdown, “10….9…”
There’s cheering in the audience, egging the participants on while you’re still fighting your inner self to not spill out. Mingi and San aren’t slowing, and are holding their pace through and through.
“3…2…annnnd…stop.”
The moment they detach themselves from you, you were already game over, with your orgasm taking over for everyone to see. You’re moaning as it happens, eyes shut and hips bucking forward on nothing.
“No fucking shot.” Wooyoung’s eyebrows are raised as his mouth hangs low.
You’re too consumed in your shakes to even hear the other remarks spewing from everyone else. Oh, you really tried to keep yourself under control. The orgasm isn’t as strong as it could’ve been, like if there had been genuine stimulation on your clit, but god did it feel good to finally let loose.
“You came untouched,” Hongjoong quips, part of him surprised the other so horny it’s making it hard for him to think, “God, Y/N, give us a warning next time, yeah?”
Yunho mewls with closed eyelids, “Guys, if I said I almost nutted from that, would that be weird?”
“Honestly, I think I leaked a little bit,” Shamelessly, Wooyoung lightly shrugs his shoulders while admittingly so, the lower half of his body squirming ever so gently.
“You really are a dirty girl.” San murmurs and trails your body up and down.
“Getting off on just a couple of hickeys? What the hell?” Mingi laughs bitterly, still reeling in from seeing you literally cum on yourself.
“We have to…we need to see the results, right?” Your face is beat. You think you’ve passed the road of embarrassment 2 stops ago, and now you’re heading straight for a ditch. A ditch full of nothing but straight satisfaction and contentment.
“Oh, right,” Hongjoong leans in closer to inspect both areas, “Mm, looks like San’s is darker.”
As San celebrates his declared victory, Mingi contorts into displeasure, his nose scrunching, “What?”
He wastes no time in grabbing hold of your chin and pulling it to their other side. He looks over this space, then push your head left to review his own.
“Yours looks like someone tried to draw a fucking lake with a dried up red marker.” Yunho criticizes which leaves the boy offended.
Instantly, Mingi’s ready to protest, “I want a rematch.”
Hongjoong waves a hand to dismiss that requests, “No, no, we’re not gonna redo the whole thing just cau-” But Mingi’s back onto your neck, this time going in on the middle of your throat, sucking with a much greater force that it basically makes you weak.
“Woah! Woah! Woah!”
Arms fly towards you as the rest of the boys work to separate the two of you, Mingi, almost comedically, looking genuinely confused as to why he's being split from you.
Wooyoung grabs the unoccupied die and shoves it into the palm of Mingi, “Roll this and go back to your spot.”
You watch Mingi be offended, him making a distasteful look, “Who do you think you are?” He grumbles yet does exactly that, taking you with him while he reverts back to your original places.
With you being dragged against the carpet, the after effects of your orgasm leaves you quaking at even the slightest touch, the remnants of the past actions driving your pulsing cunt.
Before you know it, you’re being repositioned in between Mingi’s legs as he begrudgingly rolls the die, throwing it down with such an aggression. It rolls and rolls till eventually it lands on a ‘skip turn’, and with soft conversations flowing around he hands you the die.
Now, you’re feeling completely, and utterly fucked out. So much so that you put zero effort into shaking the cube then tossing it to the ground, never having had such a vitalizing night before.
It rotates on its axis before slowing down to a red square. You aren’t sure how much more you can handle, trying to suppress a groan. Immediately, you reach forward for the ‘dare’ card, then begin to read it aloud.
“Everyone deserves a sweet treat, the person to your right especially,” Warily, you peer over towards Yunho, who’s ever more intrigued in the card, “Have them find something tasty and lick it off of any part you. Player’s choice.”
“My choice?” His throat nearly dries at the thought. He could choose anywhere. Any place on your body.
“What’re you gonna lick off of her?” San asks, his own curious heart gradually racing by the second. Everyone’s thinking the same thing, the direction this is heading.
Hongjoong lolls his head to his side, “Yah, how about those donuts?”
Oh, right, the ones from earlier. You had eaten yours clean before this, but as you glance back to Yunho, you see him pulling out the package, unopened.
"Feels like I'm craving some right about now." He mutters and regards the donuts before doing a glance over to you. He's analyzing every inch of you, determining what he wants.
You feel his fiery stare but when a small smile appears on his face, that's when you ask, "What're you thinking?"
He lowers his head, almost mockingly, and without missing a beat, he sighs, "Pull down that tank top for us, okay?"
You were too fatigued to even argue, sluggishly raising your arms to yank the thin fabric down only slightly. It's then Mingi who grabs roughly at the rest of your tank and slides the material down till it hits your midline.
Your tits are out; fat, puffy nippy erected just the way Yunho likes them, and everyone is instantly drawn to your breasts.
"They're even better than what I was imagining," someone mumbles, you aren't sure who because what you're focusing on, is the way Yunho looks about ready to jump you.
"Face more towards me."
You follow his instruction, well, more like you allow yourself to be turned by Mingi towards Yunho, but either way, Yunho's satisfied. He makes his short distance to you, stopping only when he's mere centimeters in front, sort of mimicking Wooyoung's earlier position.
"Then....I'll get these opened," Even though he's talking mainly to himself, you still follow every one of his movements, from him ripping wide the package to him taking out a donut and sprinkling the powdered sugar onto your skin.
He covers both breasts in the sweetness, dusting a generous amount all around till you're a powdery white, ready to get licked raw.
"Does it have to be just licking?" Yunho ponders, and for the record, it wasn't a you question, he was asking his friends.
"Nah, I think whatever is necessary should be good." San answers which leaves Yunho in gratification. He knows exactly what he wants, and it's to absolutely devour you.
So, that's what he does.
Quickly, he throws down the remaining donuts before latching onto your tits, taking in your flesh whole and it seems at first, he's disregarding the whole point of this dare.
Instead of focusing on the powdered sugar, he's going straight for your nipple, lapping and licking at the bud then switching over to the next.
He's cupping your breasts with his hands, and as he's suctioning onto you, his hands work mindlessly to fondle your skin, juggling the two sacks.
It's a feeling you've never felt before. You want to wince out in pain but could you even consider this as such? The way he's going in on you, the swift jolts of pain, if you could even call it that, soon transfer into that feel-good sensation you're all too accustomed with.
You're breathing falls in synch with his action, and rely on Mingi's chest as support for when you rest back on him, one of your hands throwing itself up into his hair to help with your wriggling.
With each movement from his tongue it's like another added layer for your pleasure to hold on to, your thighs squeezing around Yunho to alleviate the build up in your core, and by goodness, did you love it.
Yunho finally ends off the dare with what it should have been, him licking up the remaining sweetness on your tits with an overly loud slurp. And then he pops himself off of you with large grin, a coat of wetness evident around his mouth, "I am so doing that again."
"Can I be next?" Mingi murmurs, going in to play with your sticky tits, while you drop your arm down. He watches the way they'd ripple from his force before dropping down with a shake.
"You are so sexy, my god." Hongjoong rubs a palm over his face, eyeing your upper body. He must be a good man, truly. To be able to resist taking you right here, right now, his will power is incredible.
"Let's do one more, then call it for the night. Poor Y/N looks like she's about to pass out." San suggests, with him every other second glancing down at your chest, and you merely throw a hand up in agreement.
This hangout had went so left-field from what you were originally thinking, but you would be a liar if you said this didn't awaken something in you. Something you genuinely liked.
Yunho goes back to his spot right next to you, and Mingi decides to keep you two right where you guys are. Wooyoung takes the die from off of the ground, and shakes it with some much power, "Last one, fast one."
He throws the cube down and you all watch it spin and spin and spin until it stops on a pitch, ‘black’ square.
"Oh, hell." Yunho laughs out and you even grumble out a 'oh no'. Because, of course it has to end like this.
Wooyoung draws the last card from the all-black deck and straight way he begins to chuckle, though the way his eyes crinkled speaks to something much different, "The end is drawing near, everyone is feeling tired and it's clear it's time to wrap up for the day. To finish off the game, choose a player of your choice and have everyone finish on them."
After reading this aloud, the quiet that ensues is massive.
It's the calm before the storm.
Silence before an explosion.
Then…..
“Fuck, where should we put her?”
“Let’s have Y/N-ie on the ground.”
“My cock is throbbing so fucking hard right now.”
“This might be my biggest load yet.”
You’re being forced down into the middle, tits up, and all you see are more and more bodies popping into frame. They tower over you and just the sight is enough to get you aroused all over again. They’re undoing their pants, dropping them past their knees and leaving them all in their underwear.
“Take off my underwear,” Wooyoung, who’s closest to you, orders and you do. With shaky hands, you roll over to the side and bring down the boxers till it aligned with his pants and in return, his thick, naked, cock springs out, your mouth salivating.
“Do me next.” Hongjoong requests, and so you roll over to the other side and assist him. After a few more of the requests, soon everyone is bare and ready to complete this last task, and you go back to laying down.
Chest out and all, your eyes scan around to the scene of all the boys jerking away at their foreskin, some of them groaning as they continue watching you and the compromising position you’re in.
“Stroke me a little bit, can you do that for me?” Yunho asks, scooting closer to you and you oblige. You replace his hand for your own, wrapping around the hard length and begin to tug up and down.
As you’re occupied in doing this, San comes up and crouches down next to you, “Let me put it in your mouth really quick.”
Nodding, you widen your lips and allow him to dart his tip in and out of your hole all the while continuously rubbing Yunho.
“I wanna know what your mouth feels like too.” Mingi gruffs and so removing yourself from San, you place your attention on his girthy cock, taking as much of it as you could. Then someone else asks for a handjob, and without peeking you grip them nearby, sliding your palm against their shaft.
You make your way around, stimulating the group as best as you could. One after another, you’d find your mouth would be used to pleasure someone, while both of your hands would be busy jacking off a couple of others.
The ones that would remain to have themselves masturbate would find ways to combat their lust, like slapping their head against your sappy tits or rubbing their dicks on your stomach, leaving patches of pre-cum behind before you’d switch to aid them.
At some point, a body begins to shudder.
“F-Fuck, I think- I’m clo..close…” Hongjoong sputters, detaching himself from your mouth and going to jerk off and before he knows it, he starts to shoot out spurts of hot, viscous cum directly onto your face.
“I-I..” Yunho doesn’t even finish his sentence by the time his orgasm hits, his liquid aimed for around your mouth.
Person after person, ripples of orgasms hit the rest of the boys as they all spaz then cum sporadically everywhere, most of them not having a specific place but just desperately needed to release themselves, till eventually, they’re all finishing together.
“Oh, god.” Wooyoung groans as you work faster at his cock and basically milk him dry, any remaining cum dripping onto your breasts.
With a mix of grunts and whines, the flowing liquid begins to slow, and soon, everyone’s cocks are emptied out all over you. From face to torso, you are now, completely and utterly covered.
As heavy pants fill the room, some of guys dropping to the floor instantly while others make their way towards the bed, you continue resting on the floor and bask in the way you could literally feel left over cum dribble from chin an onto your neck.
You feel nasty. You feel dirty. Part of you is borderline disgusted with how even then, after all that you’ve endured, you still want to rut yourself against a pillow or something, fuck yourself on your own fingers, so needy to get off like how the guys did.
But that can come for another day. For now, the tiredness is catching up, heavy eyelids consuming you and just like that you shut your eyes and fall asleep, concluding the end to your single, dirty night.
- Bonus -
“Fuck, look at her legs,” San whimpers, pinching at his phone to zoom in on the photo, “Just wanna lick ‘em up.”
“Dude, are you still looking at photos of Y/N?” Wooyoung quips as he finishes tidying up bits of his room. Inviting friends over was not apart of his agenda this Friday night, but after some convincing (and the promise of alcohol) he eventually agreed, even if there were other thing’s he’d rather do.
“How can I not?” He exits out of the photo of you at the beach then quickly scrolls through your Instagram, stopping on a dump from last Halloween of your innocently cute, yet busty angel costume, “Can I be honest about something?”
“Mm?” Wooyoung doesn’t face him when asking, again straightening up things in his room. Mingi and Yunho should be coming back at any minute with the second bottle, and Hongjoong said he’d be quick the snacks.
“I came to one of Y/N’s photos before,” San recalls the memory of him whacking away at his dick with one hand, the other propping his phone which showed a picture of you smiling side with a bouquet of tulips in your grasp. God, he loved that photo so much, “The one with the flowers.”
Wooyoung halts in his track and cranes his neck back to the boy sprawled out on his bed, “You came to a photo of her? God, have you no self-control?” At least whenever Wooyoung masturbates, it’s to videos he finds on the web that resemble you, not actual photos.
A light blush sprinkles across San’s cheeks, him closing out of the app and then sitting up on the mattress, “It wasn’t intentional…it just sort of happened.”
Wooyoung scoffs, “You’re a pervert. A pervert that’s going to corrupt my sweet, precious Y/N if you ever get your hands on her.”
“Oh for- you’ll be the one to corrupt her out of anyone,” San bites back right as the door swings open, revealing an excited Mingi and an intrigued Yunho.
“Fuck are you two arguing for?” Mingi belts, the sole bottle of alcohol tucked underneath his elbows. The two boys make their way over to the open chairs placed out for them, Yunho flopping down instantly while Mingi pulls out the bottle and sets it next to him on the ground.
“Dumb shit Wooyoung’s saying.” San offers as an answer and Wooyoung simply shrugs, part of him feeling the need to be deceitful.
“Joong not back yet?” Yunho mutters, stretching his hands above his head.
Wooyoung shakes his head, “Nah, he’s still out, taking forever tho.”
He hums in response when suddenly a memory flicks into his head and he immediately groans, “Aw, guys, did you see Y/N’s outfit today?” Yunho reminisces on earlier today where you wore a more fitting dress to classes, hugging just the right spots for everyone to see.
“And when she fucking dropped her notebook and bent over in front of us,” Mingi adds, picturing how round and full your ass looked in the dress, “Would’ve taken her right there.”
“Hell yeah.” The two fist bump as Mingi shifts over a bit, his foot accidentally kicking the liquor and sending it flying underneath the bed. Just as San mumbles out a ‘stupid’, Wooyoung clears his throat.
“Hey, guess what San did to a photo of Y/N-”
The words couldn’t even come out before San body slams Wooyoung straight to the ground, covering his mouth and preventing any form of slip up from happening, “Absolutely not.”
The junior cackles out loud and tries to pry the hand away from his face. A fight ensues, with San on top of Wooyoung, and Wooyoung defending himself. The other two simply watch in amusement at what’s happening in front of them.
The boys were so caught up in the scuffle, that to no one’s knowledge, Hongjoong barges into the room, and apparently, he’s brought a visitor with him.
"You gonna talk about me again?" Choi San threatens the junior whom he's currently hurting, applying pressure to the nape of his neck.
"Aish, aish!" Jung Wooyoung winces at the pain though, a crooked smile is present on his face, "What're you, a fucking barbarian? Get off."
"What the fuck are you two doing?" Hongjoong rushes over to deescalate the situation. He shoves Choi San into a corner and rolls Jung Wooyoung the other way, "I wasn't even gone for that long and already you guys try to kill each other."
At that statement, another uproar ensues. All of the boys shouting at him, yelling claims of "You took fucking forever!" "The hell?!" And other variations.
You raise your shoulders and tuck yourself inwards at the commotion yet, part of you seemingly enjoying the racket. A soft giggle flows out of you, which in turn makes your presence known.
“Y/N?” Jung Wooyoung questions first.
and you know the rest….
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euphoricfilter · 1 year
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Stardust || JJK
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Pairing: Jungkook x F. Reader
Genre: Fluff || Smut || Friends to Lovers au
Summary: If Jungkook would have known an unintentional orgasm would have led to this, then he would have begged you to work out with him sooner.
Word Count: 5.5k
Tags/ warnings: himbo-ish jk, so much fluff idk where it came from, smut in the forms of: unintentional masturbation turned coregasm, oral (f. receiving), fingering, protected sex (because that’s really cool), mirror sex, doggy style, technically multiple orgasms, they’re both giggly and in love it’s kinda gross, jk is a tits man, he’s obsessed with boobs, it’s all very tame and kinda soft ig
Notes: yay first fic of 2023. this was way harder to write than i’d anticipated, hopefully i pulled through. and if there’s mistakes, no there aren’t!
<3 thank you to my prettiest baby @4amj3zz for reading this atrocity before i posted it
my full masterlist
✯ ✯ ✯
If every living being’s foundation is made of stardust, scattered when born, then Jungkook thinks the two of you were made from the same star.
A friendship that’s near impossible to come by, crafted by the hands of a higher being— delicate fingertips moulding fickle personalities and emotions that seem incomplete when not together. Two angels sent to earth to be each others’ number one in another life they’ll spend together.
Precious, like naturally formed diamonds.
And maybe that’s what your friendship was, one of the world’s little treasures. One everyone yearns for, though only a select few have.
Sure, diamonds can be replicated, graphite turned jewelry, simply there for show. A statement piece if you must.
Fake diamonds and fake friendships that seem to be more common than the real deal. Hard to crack, though not impossible— splitting the two of you up into pitiful shards and lost pieces; where even the most skilled hands have trouble putting it back together.
Jungkook doesn’t remember life before you. Though he thinks it must have been dull, flimsy smiles, and friends that hadn’t bothered to call once they moved away.
His existence so easily forgotten, that the gnawing sadness didn’t seem to last as long as he’d anticipated. Simply walking the path of life alone, though he often thought solitude wasn’t all that bad.
Until your worlds had collided. The big bang of your friendship, a new world, a new start, everything so fresh and untampered with.
He’d thought about what life would be like if one day the two of you were to ever part ways, the very thought of you not being by his side like a harsh punch the gut.
And maybe he had gotten a little teary eyed on those evenings he felt a little softer, a little sadder at the thought of you ever leaving. His hands fumbling around his sheets for his phone, your voice his only remedy for his growing anxiety, where promises were whispered and sleepy smiles remained on your faces as you rested.
Jungkook doubts that day will ever come. And maybe that’s all just wishful thinking, a juvenile dream that the promise you’d made to one another would hold strong for the rest of time, until the two of you lay six feet under. Resting side by side until your bodies rot, flesh becoming one with the earth, what is left of your existence blossoming into something beautiful; perhaps a tree, a flower, truly anything, as long as you were together.
“Together?” you blink up at Jungkook through your lashes, eyebrows creasing in distaste.
Jungkook thinks you look pretty in that moment, even if you are pulling a face at him. The two of you sat at a bench in the park, your head haloed by the setting sun, last of the days warmth kissing both your skin in a gentle goodbye before the moon watches over the two of you.
Littles galaxies reflected in both your eyes, where Jungkook thinks each star in his represents one thing he loves about you; hidden behind the moonlight because he doubt yours represent the same.
“Yes” he nods, hair flopping a little over his forehead, and you push the stray strands out of his eyes. Fingers delicate as they brush over his skin, always so gentle with him that his heart flutters like the delicate wings of a butterfly.
“Kook, I love you— you know I do” and he nods, lips quirking up a little, “But working out just, isn’t for me” you conclude, tone firm and his shoulders deflate. Because he knows it’ll take more than glossy puppy eyes and a pout for you to give in.
“First off, I love you too—“
“Thank you” you nod. But Jungkook doesn’t think you understand the weight behind those words.
“And look, how do you know it’s not for you, if you’ve never tried?”
“You put me off” and Jungkook would have thought you were joking if you didn’t have that deadpan look on your face. One he was all too familiar with.
“Huh” he gawks, “How?”
“You always complain about sore muscles, and the thought of being sweaty grosses me out” your head tips forward dramatically, cushioned by your arms from the table.
“It’s a good ache” he watches you turn your head, lips moulded into an unconvinced pout as you stare up at him through your lashes.
“There is no such thing as a good ache, Jungkook”
“Is too”
“When?” you flail, unbothered as Jungkook’s hands wrap around your wrists.
“Sex ache”
You pause, “Excuse me?”
“You know?” he cocks his head to the side.
“No” you shake your head in utter disbelief.
Jungkook’s mouth falls open, “You’re a little pillow princess aren’t you, I bet you don’t do any of the work”
“Do too, besides—“ you swallow, “It’s none of your business” you pull your hands free of his grasp.
“Come on, I feel like we’re at a point in this relationship we can share these things” his cheek rests atop of your head, each syllable pulled out into a whine.
“I don’t wanna hear about your sex life, Jungkook” you huff.
You watch him sit up ramrod straight, brain whirring behind his eyes. You think that if he thought any harder you’d be able to hear the echo of his voice.
“Actually, I don’t really wanna hear about yours either” his nose scrunches up, melting your resolve.
A secret charm of his that he didn’t know he had; and you’d never tell him either, no way in hell would you let him weaponize your weakness against you when your heart could barely stand being sat so close to him.
“Best friends don’t always share everything” you quip, only it leaves a tangy taste on your tongue.
“I suppose” Jungkook nods, evidently less enthusiasm radiating off him.
Best friends. It always wet your mood. Like sour candy that’s too sour, or a cute dog that’s breath smells like a rotting carcass.
But that’s what you were, introductions to new classmates or new lovers; it was always best friends. Two simple words that felt like utter shit to say, tumbling past your lips like vomit and then you had to rawdog the aftertaste because you don’t have any toothpaste or mints nearby.
Never anything less, even though there was definitely a lot more going on between the two of you. (Not that either of you had any idea about that.)
It’s a wonder as to how neither of you had grasped the fact that every previous relationship the two of you had, had ended because of the other. Nothing ever seeming to fit in place, the click never being there when it came to someone else.
Communication is key in upholding a relationship of any kind, issues easily resolved with hours of conversation turned mutual understanding, and progression made with a mix of both actions and words. As two people whose love languages were physical touch, the former is just as important as the latter.
One of the only reasons your friendship has lasted this long, is that you both value each other enough to communicate when necessary.
Apart from when you could probably really use it, unidentifiable emotions weaving into your hearts, mixed with a dose of denial can really set you back when you’re near infatuated with your closest friend.
It’s not that either of you had never considered a relationship with one another, others outside your little bubble had brought it up enough times that the meager possibility of it actually happening had been cemented into your thick skulls.
Something nice tickling both your brains at the fact so many people thought you were together together; like, in love together.
Long gone were the days where you’d blurt out your denial to dating accusations with rose dusted cheeks, simply believing the world had a thing against opposite sex friendships. Now, the two of you just laughed off whoever liked to comment on how good you looked as a couple. (Which had brought more than a few of Jungkook’s relationships to turmoil)
It’s just that neither of you believed the other wanted anything more than friendship. A rookie mistake on both your parts, especially when you’d both establish that every and all emotions were to be discussed with one another, no matter what you felt.
“One time” you break the silence, any way to ease the growing tension between the two of you “I’ll work out with you one time. And never again”
You watch the smile as it pulls at the corner of his lips, the prettiest smile, your favorite smile, enough of a reward for whatever pain you’re about to put yourself through. Because as long as Jungkook was happy, then you’d crawl to the ends of the earth if it meant you got to see this smile one more time.
“I love you” he bends down, sloppy kiss pressed to your cheek and you can’t help your own smile, heated cheeks covered as you swat him away from your face. Wiping his saliva from your skin with the back of your hand.
“Whatever” you tut, though Jungkook sees through your faux annoyance.
“We can use my at-home gym as well, so we won’t even be in public”
“Wonderful. Let’s go back now, I’m gonna freeze my tits off if we stay any later”
You don’t catch Jungkook’s gaze flickering down to your chest, lingering a little longer than proper before he’s slinging his zip-up hoodie around your shoulders. Eyes flickering down to his hands briefly before he’s knocking shoulders with you.
“Chivalry isn’t dead” you utter, falling into Jungkook’s side when his arm falls over your shoulder.
✯ ✯ ✯
Jeon Jungkook was sex on legs when he worked out.
You were no stranger to him training, countless vacations together, where the morning was spent with him doing press-up on the balcony or the occasional few times he’d bench-press you for a laugh.
You’d never found it funny though, pussy throbbing between your thighs as he’d grab onto you, arms flexing deliciously. And he never seemed to question why you’d lock yourself up in your room after, purely a coincidence that you’d disappear for an hour after his little stunt.
You were no stranger to a half naked Jungkook either.
Nor were you a juvenile teenager whose panties got in a twist when she saw a toned stomach.
However, this wasn’t just any toned stomach.
Jeon Jungkook was built like Adonis. Carved where every crevice had meaning and every flaw only enhanced his beauty. And it’s hard to think the bushy haired, acne prone teen boy you’d first befriended had turned into this.
If puberty had benefited anyone, it was Jungkook.
“We’ll do something easy today, okay?” he claps and you nod, watching as he saunters over to a basket.
“Pink or blue” he holds up two yoga mats.
“I didn’t think you were into rhinestones” you snort, sun catching on the bedazzled rim of the pink mat— streaks of pink painting the wall.
Jungkook drops said mat, chucking you the blue one before he’s dropping to his knees on the floor.
“It’s one of my exes” he tells you, motioning for you to sit.
If people were flowers, then this is the moment you would have wilted. Deflating in on yourself; it’s not that you were jealous per-say. It’s not like him and his ex were dating at all but still. The very mention of her was enough for you to roll your eyes.
“And you didn’t throw it out?” the words hurdle out your mouth before you can even think about what you’re saying.
“No?” his eyes meet your own, “I’m not throwing away good gym equipment”
You sigh, somehow expecting no less from him. Jungkook was a man of many skills, and he’d hounded you to try hobby after hobby with him— but nothing got him going like a good work out. If all other passion in life disappeared then he would still have working out as his escape.
You sigh, “I have somewhere to be later, so let’s hurry this up” a little white lie, but that never hurt anyone.
“You’re not going on another one of those shitty blind dates, are you?” he groans and you whine.
“I told you, I’m never going on any of those ever again”
“You better not” he unrolls his mat, and you follow.
“Or what?” you turn your nose up at him and Jungkook’s foot collides with your thigh.
“On your back, you brat.”
✯ ✯ ✯
“How much more” you flop against the mat, eyes closing.
“That was only the warm up” Jungkook hums, pushing himself up off the floor.
You hear him walk to the other side of the room, cupboard door creaking open as he rummages around for something.
You peek up at him through your lashes when he throws a towel over your back.
“Roll that up” he motions towards it, coming to sit beside you, “And up onto your back again”
Your eyes widen by a fraction when he gently takes the towel out of your hands, pushing your knees apart before he’s closing them; towel stuffed between your thighs.
Your gaze travels down the length of your body, thighs twitching as Jungkook’s fingers wrap around your ankles.
“All you have to do is raise your legs like this okay?” and he demonstrates, making sure to keep your legs straight as he lifts them to a ninety degree angle from your torso. “Leg raises should be easy, even for you” he hums.
“What’s that supposed to mean” you snap, ready to push yourself up, except Jungkook’s hands press down over your chest.
“Hey! No complaining”
You swallow thickly, aware of Jungkook’s eyes on you as you raise your legs on your own this time.
“Pretty good, remember to tense your core when you do it, okay?”
You nod, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you do as you’re told.
Your eyes squeeze shut, body hyper aware of each small movement the towel has right over your clit. Pussy throbbing inside your panties and you worry your slick had started to soak through your shorts.
Jungkook doesn’t seem to take notice of your growing predicament, hands hovering over your calf to make sure you’re raising your legs all the way. Though that’s the least of your worries as you feel each new wave of unadulterated pleasure pulse through your core.
“Not so bad huh?” he grins.
It’s a strange sensation, pure arousal ebbing up your body, every brush of your panties over your clit, weight of the towel over your slit slowly bringing you to the precipice of an orgasm.
“I don’t think—“ you start, cutting yourself off with an arm covering your face at a particularly intense wave of arousal. Your stomach tightening at the feeling.
“Just a few more, you’re doing great”
“Kook, I really don’t think—“ your hand clamps over your mouth as Jungkook’s fingers take hold of your legs, helping you raise them; and that’s all it takes to tip you over the edge. And you can’t help the surprised moan that drips off your lips.
Your knees bend, nudging against your tits as your hand falls over your sodden pussy, dull wave of your orgasm throbbing throughout your body.
Jungkook looks down at you, eyes wide as you simply lay there with your hands between your legs.
“Did you just piss yourself?” he asks, mouth falling open in awe.
“What the fuck?” you cry, “I just came you idiot”
Jungkook’s cheeks flush red, “Oh” he nods, “Oh. You had a— holy shit”
“Don’t look at me like that” your eyes glaze over with tears, heat prickling up your body in embarrassment, “I didn’t mean to, it just happened”
Your feet fall to the floor, towel falling from between your thighs as you let out a stuttered breath, body still buzzing with the after affects or your surprise orgasm.
“Jungkook?” you peek up at him through hooded eyes, heart pattering so hard in your chest you could feel it in your throat.
Jungkook’s eyes meet your own, “That was so fucking hot” he groans, “Looked so pretty”
You watch as his hand rubs over his shorts, his own arousal hard to hide as his head tips back in a way that extenuates his neck.
“Huh?” your eyes widen, willing yourself to not look at what his hands were doing.
“Should have known something like this would have turned you on”
“I wasn’t even turned on” you exasperate, “I clenched my core like you said and it just happened”
“Mhmm” and you can tell he’s unconvinced.
“Stop rubbing your dick, you horny piece of shit” you clamp a hand over your eyes, thighs clenching when he lets out a deep groan.
“Can’t help it” he lets out a sigh, “I’ve been dreaming of what you’d look like when you came, shame it wasn’t on my cock”
Your hand falls from your eyes, “Dreaming?”
“God, haven’t I made it obvious?” he asks, his own hands falling to his sides, though now you have a full view of his straining erection.
“Made what obvious?” you whisper.
“That I like you” he asks and you gawk at him.
“You, like me? I’ve been trying to hint that I like you” you point at him, mouth falling open in disbelief.
“Huh?” it’s Jungkook’s turn for furrowed brows, “I swear you didn’t like me”
“I could have sworn you didn’t like me”
Jungkook snorts, “When did I ever say that?”
“You’re unbelievable”
“Me? What about you?”
Your body lays flaccid, muscles loose; heart hammering in your ears as Jungkook leans back on his hands.
“How long?” you ask, not daring to look up at him.
“High school”
You push a palm into the socket of your eye, low groan rumbling up your throat, “I’ve liked you since, I don’t know, probably high school as well”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, voice soft and you can feel yourself tearing up— so many emotions plaguing your mind at once you don’t know how to feel.
Jungkook scoots closer to you, “I could say the same thing about you” you huff.
“Why’re you crying” he frowns, thumb gentle as it brushes against your damp cheek.
“We wasted so many years. I seriously thought— you’ve had so many girlfriends”
“Because I thought you didn’t feel the same, I guess I thought my feelings would go away if I gave my heart to someone else. And then you started dating around too and I really thought I’d never have a chance”
“Me too” you sigh, nose scrunching up in distaste for all your failed relationships.
“Guess it didn’t work out for either of us huh?” he hums and you nod.
“I think we’re both stupid” you murmur.
And Jungkook nods, “I agree”
“What do we do now?” you push yourself up onto your elbows, frown on your face.
“Can I kiss you?” Jungkook’s head hovers over your own, the sun meeting the moon at the same point in the sky— your eclipse. The rest of your world suddenly shrouded in darkness, all you can see, think, smell, everything just Jungkook.
You nod, eyes flitting across his face as his arms cage your head. You can see his biceps flexing in your peripherals, thick muscle straining under the weight of his torso.
Jungkook’s lips hover over your own, a breaths width away from touching. You tilt your head up, pillowy lips cushioning your own and that’s when everything falls into place.
There’s nothing desperate about the kiss, ever so gentle and slow, the two of you aware that lost time can be made up in the future as you simply bask in this moment; your worlds aligning, tilting on the same axis, everything just perfect and right, and your hearts beating in sync, and breathing stuttered as you both pull away with hesitance.
Your hands cup Jungkook’s cheeks, eyes searching his own for anything, just something to tell you this wasn’t all a dream— that he really did like you back.
“You’re so pretty, you know?” he whispers, his lips pressing a featherlight kiss to the corner of your lips.
“No” you smile, giggle bubbling up your throat and Jungkook can’t help but grin down at you.
“I’ll tell you every day, all the time. You’ll get sick of me”
“I could never get sick of you, Jungkook” you push yourself up onto your elbows, noses bumping.
He tilts his head, kiss firm, and you moan as his tongue licks at the seam of your lips, a silent plea for access.
You oblige, arms slung over his shoulders as you bring his body closer to your own, heat radiating off the two of you in thick waves.
“You taste so good” he groans, hands wandering down your body, teasing as they pull up the hem of your hoodie, “Want this off”
Your fingers tug at the offending material, dragging it up your body, “Hang on” you pull away from the kiss, and Jungkook feels his cock twitch at the sight of you. Red swollen lips, a sheen of his saliva coating them.
You pull your hoodie over your head, throwing it somewhere, a problem for later. Thighs clenching as Jungkook stares down at you— eyes wandering.
“And this” his fingers skim over the edge of your sports bra, dancing over your skin, mapping you out of every little spot he wants to kiss.
You hesitate.
“We don’t have to do this if you’re uncomfortable” Jungkook’s smile is gentle, retracting his hands and you want to whine at the loss of contact.
“I want to” you tell him, hoping the shake in your voice didn’t sound too unconvincing. The incessant throbbing between your legs wouldn’t go away unless Jungkook helped you out and your patience was slowly wearing thin.
“But?” he urges.
“I’m nervous” you admit and he smiles; reassuring.
“How can I help?”
You squirm under his gaze, fizzling embarrassment painting your cheeks red, “Can we both—“ you cut yourself off with a whine.
“Come on, gotta use your words, my love”
“Can we both get naked” you splutter, “At the same time?”
Jungkook’s head falls back, fully belly laugh wracking through his body, “Of course”
You tug your shorts off, Jungkook following you; a pile of both your clothes laying forgotten by your head. You’re too distracted tugging your sports bra off to see Jungkook’s length slap against his stomach. Tip of his cock an angry red, his fingers barely touching his shaft as he closes them around the length.
“Oh” he croons, “How pretty. Can I touch you?”
You nod, falling onto your back.
Jungkook’s careful as he touches you, thumbs brushing over your hardened nipples, testing the waters as he tugs at them, eliciting a breathy moan from you.
“Feels good?” his voice low, and you nod; hips involuntarily bucking upwards when you finally cast a glance at his length. Eyes widening a little in awe.
His fingers dig into your flesh, and he bends down, lips closing around one of your nipples. Your back arches, mouth falling open in a silent moan as his teeth nip at the sensitive skin; tugging in a way that sends warm pleasure straight to your core.
He kisses over your chest, lips worshipping your skin, fingers skimming over the underside of your boob.
Each gentle press of his lips are searing as he works down your body. And your breath hitches as his hovers over your pussy, folds glistening with your arousal.
“Oh baby” he groans, and your thighs twitch as his warm breath fans over your core.
Your fingers tangle into his hair, impatient as they tug him closer to where you need him; an embarrassed whine falling past your lips when he kisses over you clit, once, then twice.
“Jungkook” you squeak, legs tensing when he finally wraps his lips around it, tongue flicking at your clit meanly.
He simply hums, vibrations sending a new wave of pleasure straight through your body, another gush of wetness dribbling from your hole. Jungkook wastes no time, fingers scooping up your leaking arousal before he’s pushing them into you.
“Oh” your chest stutters a breath as he pulls his fingers out of you, tongue licking a broad stripe over your cunt before his thumb brushes over your clit.
“You like that?” he asks, though the question was rhetorical as he repeats the motion. Tongue teasing over your hole before he’s lapping up your slick; sucking at your folds, squelching lewd accompanied by each hearty moan.
Your thighs start to shake, clamping around Jungkook’s head though that barely deters him, as he pushes your legs open by your knees.
“Stop. Kook— please” you whimper, “wanna cum around your cock”
That catches his attention, and with one final kiss to your clit he’s pushing himself onto his elbows.
Jungkook looks like the epitome of sin, slick stained chin and swollen red lips, unashamed as he licks your arousal off his face, humming in satisfaction as your chest stutters out a breath.
“Lemme get a condom” he murmurs, lips pressing another kiss over your knee before he’s pushing himself to stand. Your eyes follow his body, heavy cock bobbing against his stomach with every step he takes.
“Hopefully they’re not expired” he calls from the other room, and you giggle at that, “We’re good” he flashes you a grin as he drops back between your legs; foil wrapper held between two fingers.
You watch his fingers run down his length, thumb brushing over his slit and you feel slick dribble out of your hole as a bead of pre-cum coats the head of his cock shiny.
“Please” your head tips back, hands impatient as they tug at your nipples; Jungkook completely entranced by the sight. “Hurry, hurry” you nudge his thigh with your foot, and albeit reluctant, he tears his eyes away from your tits.
He rips the condom open with his teeth, a cheesy attempt at seducing you, and you weren’t about to tell him all he had to do was breathe and you panties would dampen.
He rolls the rubber down his length, fingers wrapping around his cock as he tugs a few times. You choose that moment to flip yourself over, hips raised as your chest lays flat against the floor and Jungkook moans.
“My pretty baby” he croons, hands roaming your ass before he’s pulling your cheeks apart; eyes fixed on your clenching cunt. Ever so enticing, silently begging to be filled and fucked until you can’t think or walk; a perfect excuse for Jungkook to pamper you a little.
You wiggle your hips, giggle muffled in the crook of your elbow has he parts your lips with his thumb, gently dipping into you hole before he’s pulling out.
“Please, Jungkook”
And that’s all it takes for him to line the head of his cock up with you entrance, tip nudging against your clit before he’s pushing into you; every inch stretching you apart deliciously.
“So good” you sigh, walls clenching around him and Jungkook can’t help the stutter of his hips, punching the air out of your lungs at the sudden intrusion.
“Sorry—“ his fingers dig into your hips, “Just feels so good, sucking me in”
You rock back onto his cock, breathy moan tumbling past your lips as your ass meets his pelvis; cock fully tucked into your pussy.
“Give me a moment” you shudder, body thrumming in anticipation.
Jungkook hums, hands wandering your body, fingers dancing over your skin. A surprised moan echoes throughout the room as his hands grab both your tits, squeezing them, fingers rubbing over both your nipples sending hot pleasure straight to your cunt.
He can feel you rhythmically clenching around him, walls sucking him in as you rock forward an inch before you’re sinking back down on his length.
“Okay” you nod, fingers holding onto the edge of the yoga mat.
“You sure?” he asks, pulling out to the tip, hips slow as he plunges back into you.
“Mhmm”
You feel Jungkook’s fingers dig into the meat of your hips, picking up the pace of his thrusts.
You can’t help each near pornographic moan that’s pushed out of you with each harsh slap of Jungkook’s hips meeting your ass, skin smacking wet as your slick coats your thighs.
“So good for me” his head tips back, arms hooking around your bent elbows.
You let out a squeak as he sits you up, and your walls constrict around his length as he pushes deeper inside of you, gush of wetness clinging to his thighs.
“So good” your head tips back onto his shoulder, knees helping you bounce up his length.
Your back arches when the head of cock hits your g-spot, ring of creamy slick gathering at the base of his cock each time you pull up to the tip.
“Look at that” Jungkook murmurs into your ear, one hand tangling into your hair as the other settles over your throat.
He tugs your head up, and you catch your reflection in the full length mirror; insides of your thighs coated in a sheen of your slick, Jungkook’s hips thrusting his cock up into you, both your bodies glistening with sweat.
The red hue of your cheeks flushes down your neck and chest, shade darkening with each wet squelch of your cunt as Jungkook helps you bounce in his lap.
He watches your tits bounce, both his hands wandering to grab them, pulling your back closer to chest as he pounds into you.
“I’m gonna cum” you hiccup, hands scrambling to hold onto his bicep as your other hand travels down your body, fingers gathering up your slick before you’re circling your clit.
You thighs start to shake, crescent moons indented into your skin as Jungkook’s grip on your chest tightens, your walls throbbing around his cock, drawing him closer to his orgasm.
“Yeah?” his hips stutter, “Come for me then, pretty. Let’s come together”
You moan, fingers unrelenting as you thrum at your clit in tight circles. Your orgasm wracks throughout your entire body when it hits, stomach tensing as your cum coats Jungkook cock, which twitches as he thrusts up into you.
He holds you down on his length, deep groan rumbling through his chest as he shoots his seed into the condom, your walls continuing to milk him of everything he’s got.
“Good girl” he soothes, hands falling to your hips as you fall forwards, cheek pressed against the mat as Jungkook pulls out, thrusting back into you gently.
“Thank you” you whimper, thighs tensing as he pulls himself out of your sodden pussy, folds glistening creamy white.
✯ ✯ ✯
Everything feels right. The two of you tucked into Jungkook’s bed after a shower, both your hands roaming one another’s bodies.
You’d clung to Jungkook’s back as he’d cooked you both dinner, work-out long forgotten as you’d both worked up an appetite. Muscles too sore, too achey, to even think of carrying on anything that isn’t wrapping up warm in each others’ arms.
It’s strange how so much, but nothing had changed. You still danced around each other with practiced ease, hands still feathery light, skimming over hips and backs, where legs are tangled under blankets, cold feet on warm skin.
There was something mellow in the air, a film of freedom, hearts on your sleeves for one another to see, where kisses felt softer, deeper in promise and love.
All the ‘I love yous’ holding the right weight, both understanding that the love you feel is the right kind of love.
He’d thought about it a lot, from the day you’d both confessed; messy, but a confession nonetheless. (And he had made sure to ask you to be his girlfriend in a more romantic setting than his spare room turned gym). That maybe the time growing up as just friends wasn’t wasted.
Failed relationships and sticky breakups simply teaching the two of you the right way to love.
Learning the give and take of relationships, what it truly meant to be in love with another person. Where you want nothing more than their happiness, a pure sort of adoration that consumes your entire being until they’re always on your mind. Small, seemingly insignificant parts of life reminding you of them. Trinkets in corner shops or the changes in season, certain smells, textures of clothing.
Learning about what you want for yourselves and how to take care of one another.
So he doesn’t regret all those years spent as just friends. Because maybe the two of you were too young, too eager, too scared about something as precious as true love. Growing up together, as just friends, might have brought the two of you closer than rushed first loves and petty arguments that you’d look back on and regret.
Red string. Stars. Fate. Destiny. Any of it. Jungkook doesn’t know what brought the two of you together, two souls intertwined until you both part ways when your lights flicker out. Though he thinks you’d reignite them wherever the two of you end up later on, new lives, new worlds. New everything, where he gets to learn about you all over again, explore your being, as you explore his, and you’re moulding into one another once more.
He wonders how long you’ve both been laying there, lips pulled up into lazy smiles, kiss swollen; little galaxies reflected in both your eyes.
Where every glistening star is a reason as to why you love each other. Your galaxies shining with a million different reasons, moonlight no longer veiling what lay beneath.
Because Jungkook thinks, if people were made of stardust before they were born. There’s no doubt in his mind, the two of you were made from the same star.
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💫 like, reblog, and feedback is encouraged!! thank you so much for reading <3
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ellemj · 3 months
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Dreaming About Me?: 12 Days of Smut #8
Bucky Barnes x Reader One-Shot
Summary: Dreaming about Bucky during a stay in a safehouse leads to a morally-grey situation.
Warnings: profanity, teasing, masturbation, mutual masturbation, mentions of unprotected sex, wet dream, fingering, slight voyeurism, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!
Word Count: 2k
A/N: This one felt pretty weak when I was writing it but I had a rough day lmao, hopefully the last 4 days will make up for it. I don't know how many of you read these A/Ns but...the Christmas day post will have something to do with Needs & Wants, do with that what you will.
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            The cool metal fingers slide your panties down your thighs, as far down as he can get them until you finish the task by kicking them off of your ankles and letting them disappear somewhere within the mess of bedsheets. His vibranium hand glides over the curve of your ass, disappearing between your legs and giving you the expectation of pleasure, but refusing to touch you where you need him most. Every inch of your skin feels like it’s on fire, each nerve ending sparking with electricity just from being so close to him.
            “Bucky, please.” You whine, fisting the bedsheets and pushing back against him as much as possible, trying to encourage him to touch you more. You’re basically spooning in your current position, or at least you would be if he’d let you move any closer to him.
            “So impatient.” He tsks, laughing darkly after the words leave his mouth. His lips attach to the skin of your neck, sucking and biting gently, surely leaving you peppered with red and pink marks that will darken later on. “Do you want me to touch you?”
            “Please, I need it.” You moan out, stretching out your neck in hopes that he’ll continue his unrelenting ministrations there.
            You’re awoken abruptly, squeezing your thighs together and gripping the bedsheets tightly in your left fist, just like in the dream that you didn’t get to finish. You relax your legs, losing the delicious feeling of friction between them just as you realize how wet your panties are.
            “Y/n?” Bucky’s voice is quiet and breathy as he checks to see if you’re awake. You feel your cheeks turning red with embarrassment. You can only hope that you weren’t talking in your sleep, or more that you weren’t moaning in your sleep. You slowly turn over on your opposite side and once you’re facing him, you find him only a few inches away from you. He lies facing you with the covers bunched up around his waist, showing off his toned chest and rippled abs.
            “Did I wake you?” You ask innocently, trying to hide the fact that you just had a dirty dream about the man who’s lying right there next to you. But honestly, there isn’t a single person in the world that could fault you for the content of that dream. Just looking at him right now makes it feel as though you’re still in a wet dream.
            “Yeah, you were…” Bucky’s voice trails off as he tries to decide how to word what he’s about to say. You squeeze your eyes shut, ready to flee the shitty little safehouse and run straight out into the woods to be struck by lightning or maybe a falling tree to be put out of your misery. “You said my name.” Bucky’s sure of it. You definitely, one-hundred-percent said his name. It wasn’t even his name alone, it was paired with the neediest please that Bucky has ever heard. It’s why his dick is straining so hard against the fabric of his sweats right now.
            “Oh, I’m sorry. I must’ve been dreaming.” You mumble, turning back over and resuming your previous position, squeezing your legs together again, but for a different reason this time. You know how heightened Bucky’s senses are, and you know that his sense of smell could easily pick up your arousal from how close you currently are. That’s the last thing you need to happen.
            “Dreaming about me?” He knows the answer is a resounding yes, but he wants to hear you admit it.
            “Maybe it was a nightmare.” You lie, earning a soft laugh from him.
            “Bullshit, you moaned my name.” He says, clearly ready and willing to discuss what he thinks he just witnessed. He’s slightly annoyed and offended that you’d try to lie right to his face after lying next to him and making such needy sounds for the past two minutes. He knows he’s right. You were having a dream about him while he laid beside you and listened to you moan and whimper for two minutes straight. You moaned his fucking name.
            “I did not.” You argue, knowing full well that you probably did moan his name out loud, but absolutely refusing to admit it. You’d rather tell a hundred lies and piss him off with your dishonesty than admit to him that you were dreaming about exactly what he thinks you were dreaming about. He’s your colleague, and currently, your partner on a very tricky undercover mission. You don’t need to complicate things for either of you.
            “Are you going to tell me what we were doing?”
            “Absolutely not.”
            “So, it was a sex dream.” Bucky decides. You can tell from his tone of voice that he has a smug smile painted across his face. You groan and throw the covers back, stomping away to the bathroom.
            “Go back to sleep.” You grumble as you cross the threshold of the bedroom door and disappear into the dark hallway beyond. Bucky lies in bed for a few seconds after you’re gone, smiling to himself at this new development in your relationship. Can he even call it that? A relationship? Probably not, but he sure as hell doesn’t feel like he can call it a regular partnership between colleagues. You’ve only been on a total of three missions together, each one involving the two of you undercover as a couple, and each one involving an inordinate amount of public displays of affection. At first, you both tried to argue your way out of being sent out on such an assignment. You preferred simpler missions like stealing intel or recovering stolen SHIELD property, always working alone. Bucky preferred basically any mission that didn’t involve him having to put on an act. Yet, somehow, you both ended up being naturals. That’s how you ended up in this safehouse tonight, acting as bait to gain the enemy’s attention while Sam and Sharon break into a secure facility to steal something that’s of minimal interest to you. While there isn’t any type of surveillance inside of the small house, you know the second you turn on a light or step out onto the front porch, you’d be watched like a hawk.
            You’re in the bathroom splashing cold water on your face while Bucky lies on his back in bed, running his hands through his hair. He tries to rationalize with his vascular system. He needs his hard-on to have completely dissipated by the time you get back in here, or it’ll only get worse. He’s just about to tuck it underneath his waistband when he hears the shower begin running. He actually laughs out loud this time, but not loud enough that his voice carries to the bathroom. He’s positive that you’re about to take a cold shower. What the hell else could you be doing?
            You’re not taking a cold shower. You’d considered it, but then you asked yourself why you should let this moment go to waste. You’ve been on three missions back-to-back in the last week and you’ve barely had a moment to yourself. You’ve barely had a moment to do anything for yourself. So, you simply turned on the shower faucet and let the water run as you seat yourself on the floor and spread your legs. It may be a bit morally-grey, getting yourself off while thinking about your work partner, who happens to be sitting just down the hall. But morally-grey is going to have to do for now, because you can’t sleep like this. Sliding your right hand down the front of your shorts and panties, you draw in a sharp inhale as the pads of your fingers meet the excessive wetness between your legs. You knew you were horny but fuck, that little dream about Bucky really did you in. You know you have to be quick, so you start circling your fingertips around your clit, applying just the right amount of pressure and angling your open legs just right. You’ve always been so good at pleasuring yourself, sometimes able to make yourself reach an orgasm in under a minute if you’re really focused and turned on. Somehow, this time it’s even easier. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the only thing on your mind is Bucky Barnes. You close your eyes tightly and rub fast circles over the sensitive bundle of nerves between your legs, letting the dream from earlier replay in your mind. You can almost feel Bucky’s hand in place of your own and your chest begins to rise and fall quickly with each breath you take.
            “Fuck.” The whimpered curse leaves your lips so quietly that you don’t even worry about whether or not Bucky can hear you, because you’re sure that he can’t.
            But he heard you. Of course he fucking heard you. If you thought that his heightened senses were good enough to pick up the smell of your arousal through your pajamas then you should’ve assumed that his heightened sense of hearing could pick up your whimper from fifteen feet away. The melodious sound drifted down the hallway and straight to his ears, causing his already hard cock to let out another little drop of precum against the fabric of his boxers. He strains his ears as he tries to determine if the sound was really what he thinks it was. When he hears a second soft fuck followed by what sounds so much like his name, he’s pretty sure you’re touching yourself. He wants nothing more than to break down the fucking door. He wants to break down the door and see how you’re falling apart for him, without even having his hands on you. But he knows that isn’t an option. Instead, he chooses the most morally-grey option available.
            Bucky reaches into the waistband of his sweats and boxers and wraps his hand around the shaft of his cock, quickly setting a good pace as he begins stroking it. His hand glides up and down, spreading the abundant amount of precum along the entire length as his head falls back into the pillow. He knows it’s wrong, but if you’re doing it then why can’t he? Another moan falls from your lips down the hall and Bucky’s cock twitches in his hand. He didn’t expect his body to respond so much just to the sounds you make. He can tell by the quick breaths and uncontrollable curses escaping you that you’re close already, so he quickly works to catch up. He isn’t sure why he’s so set on finishing at the same time as you. If anything, he should want to finish first so he can quickly clean himself up and get back into bed before you notice anything amiss. But Bucky feels an undeniable urge to finish with you. Truthfully, he wishes he was finishing inside you, but for now, he can settle for simply cumming at the same time.
            You’re so close to your orgasm that you can’t stop yourself from letting out a few moans and curses. You tell yourself that the sound of the running water will drown you out and Bucky won’t hear a thing, but a little part of you is hoping that he not only hears you, but that he’s enjoying this as much as you are. You imagine him touching himself at the mere sound of you, stroking his cock at a pace that matches your own, chasing his release right alongside you. When you finally fall over the edge, letting bliss overtake your entire body, you moan out his name just like you did in your sleep earlier.
            “Bucky, please.”
            He imagines that’s how you’d sound when you’re begging him to cum inside you. So, as soon as the words have left your mouth, Bucky’s own orgasm washes over him in waves as he fucks his hand. He imagines you taking every drop of his release, filling you up and then listening to your pretty little voice thank him for cumming inside of you.
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avatar-anna · 4 months
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Champagne Problems
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so...this is super long, the longest fic i've written in a hot minute. like 18.k words long. i wasn't going to post it until part two was underway, but i'm kind of excited to share it. here is the aftermath of champagne problems...
Part Two
*.*
"Don Perignon, you bought it, no crowd of friends applauded, your hometown skeptics called it Champagne problems."
Your fingers moved across the keys of the grand piano as you mumbled softly to yourself, only loud enough that the voice recorder on your phone would pick up on it. This wasn't your typical method of songwriting, you weren't even sure there was a song to actually write; but the melody had been haunting you for days, pressing against your mind until you finally sat down and played it.
It wasn't often you thought of the events that occurred a year and a half ago. You usually did everything in your power not to think about that night, knowing that nothing ever good came out of dwelling on that particular wrinkle of your past. You only looked forward, sometimes hoping that if you didn't think about what happened, your memories of the worst night of your life would eventually disappear from your mind altogether.
But there was something about this melody that brought that night to the forefront of your memory. You'd played it over and over on the piano for a few minutes, waiting for the words to come. Your mind kept circling back to the past, and after trying to avoid it, you finally let emotion win out. No one was in the studio with you anyway, it would be safe to unlock that particular box. Just for a few minutes.
"She would've made such a lovely bride, what a shame she's fucked up in the head," you said to yourself, the last part coming out as an afterthought. You laughed a little to yourself, remembering the disapproving stares and the whispers behind your back that people always thought went unnoticed by you. "But you'll find the real thing instead. She'll patch up your tapestry that I shed."
Despite knowing that leaving your would-be fiance was the right choice for you, breaking up with him was the hardest thing you'd ever done. It still hurt to remember that night, to recall the look of absolute devastation on his face when you stopped him from reaching into his pocket for the little velvet box you knew was in there. He didn't deserve to be wrecked so thoroughly, especially by someone like you. He had been sweet and kind and gentlemanly. He treated you like a princess and defended you to his family when they didn't approve. He was everything a man should've been to you and more.
And all you could do in return was prove his family right.
You stopped murmuring lyrics for a moment, letting that last thought float through the empty room on somber notes. You thought about your ex now, wondering where he was now and hoping he was well. You hoped he was in love and happy, that he'd forgotten all about you. He deserved all the best things that love could grant a person. You wanted that for him. You wanted someone who had the capacity for the kind of love he wanted to give.
Repeating the last few lines again, the next few thoughts came pouring out of you, the words carrying a bittersweet taste to them.
"Your mom's ring in your pocket, her picture in your wallet, you won't remember all my Champagne problems."
The song tapered off soon after that, and you realized there was nothing left in you to say. You felt lighter afterwards, as if pushing some of those long-forgotten memories out of you and onto the grand piano eased the weight you'd been carrying around on your shoulders for the last eighteen months. Quickly stopping the recording, you set a reminder on your phone to listen to it tomorrow and write down everything you'd said. The recording itself was lengthy, long pauses stretching between lyrics as you worked through your memories and attempted to vocalize them. Hopefully something was there to actually mold into verses and a chorus, if not, it was a rather odd but surprisingly satisfying therapy session.
Gathering your things into the bag at your feet, you stood up from the piano, stretching your arms above your head. It was easy to get lost in a good melody, but your poor body always paid the price if you spent too much time bent over a guitar or piano.
It was as you stretched that you realized someone was at the door. He was leaning against the doorframe, watching as you shouldered your bag and slipped your shoes back on your socked feet. He didn't say anything as you walked over to him, just stepped out of the way so you could walk out of the studio. Harry normally wasn't this quiet, in fact, he could be quite the chatterbox if the mood struck him. But his silence told you he'd probably heard more of your session than you would've liked. Because one thing Harry liked to do in all his chattering was pepper you with questions about yourself, which was annoying since you were constantly trying to have him not get to know you.
"Coffee?" was all he said as you walked toward the elevator at the end of the hall. The sleeve of his patterned sweater brushed against your arm, and you resisted the urge to lean into him. He always wore the coziest clothes when in the studio, and it made you want to walk just a little bit closer to his side, for no other reason than the feel of soft material on your arm and not the person wearing them.
Nodding, you said, "Sure."
Harry qucikly pressed the button when you reached the elevator, and you couldn't help but laugh a little. In the time you'd spent not getting to know him, you discovered that he was the kind of person that just had to press the elevator buttons. It didn't matter how many people he was with, it was like he took joy in something as simple as getting to press a button and watch it light up beneath his finger. He'd actually speed-walked to get ahead of you a couple times just so he could press the down button. It was kind of annoying, and perhaps a little childish, but you'd surprisingly grown to find it endearing. A quirk of Harry's that just made him who he was.
The ride down the elevator was quiet, and it wasn't until you were out on the street that he finally spoke. "I'm thinking about getting a pet."
You'd been bracing yourself for the inevitable questions about the song you'd been recording, and when they didn't come, your shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly, though you were sure Harry noticed. "Really?"
"Yeah. All my friends are disgustingly in love," Harry said with a playful shudder. "I'm feeling like a third wheel most days, so I thought I would seek companionship of the furry variety. Wait, that came out wrong. I didn't mean—"
You chuckled at his stuttering, at the flush creeping up his neck and warming his cheeks. "I know what you mean," you said, sparing him any more embarrassment. "So what are you thinking then? Dog? Cat? Hamster?"
"Well, you see, that's the thing," he said, quickly recovering from his chagrin. "I'm not sure I have the time necessary to devote to training a puppy, but I'm also worried about getting a cat and it absolutely hating me, and..."
You listened as Harry explained in great detail the pros and cons of each kind of domestic animal one could have. He spoke animatedly with his hands, looking at you with those big green eyes of his, as if to make sure you were following his train of thought.
You never planned on befriending Harry, and even now you weren't sure that whatever was going on between you was considered a friendship. You'd always been the type to keep to yourself, especially after what happened with your ex. You'd not only lost him after the break up, but friends too, friends who thought that what you did to your ex was despicable and reprehensible and not worth keeping a friendship over, picking sides when you hadn't realized there were any. It hurt to lose so many people in one fell swoop, and you decided soon after that you were better off alone. Except for your brothers of course, but all of you kept so busy that it was hard to keep track of one another on a good day.
Outside of them, you realized it was hard to hurt someone when there was no one around you to hurt.
But Harry was different. You'd seen him around the building where you worked on your songs—in the hallways, waiting for the elevator (after pushing the button, of course), at the vending machine, on your way out of the studio or while he was entering it to start his session. The first thing you noticed was that he was never alone. Well, that wasn't entirely true. The first thing you really noticed was his smile, how it lit up his entire face and showcased the most adorable dimples you'd ever seen. But since you refused to admit that, the first thing you noticed was that he was never alone.
Harry was always coming and going with one or two or sometimes three people around him. He was always engaged in some kind of conversation, his head always turned as he listened aptly to what his friend was saying. It seemed so odd to you that he was hardly ever by himself. It was like a foreign language to you, and you imagined your constant solitude felt the same to him.
"Anytime you want to weigh in here would be great."
"If you want a pet, get one," you said simply.
Harry rolled his eyes as he held open the door to the coffee shop a couple blocks down the street from the building where you both worked, as if he was expecting anything other than your usual direct way of speaking. "If you don't keep this conversation going, then I'm going to have to ask about that incredibly depressing song you were working on, so please, indulge me in the great pet debate of twenty-eighteen."
For the most part, Harry was a pretty easy going guy. He had no problem carrying a conversation, and knew when not to pry. As the months went by, though, he knew how to get you to talk, how to find trap doors in the fortified walls you kept around yourself before you even knew they were there. It would be frustrating if his questions didn't always come with an endearing smile.
So you shrugged, eager to steer clear of any topics regarding your past. "I don't know, I'm a little biased. I've always been a dog person. Buddy's my best friend."
"First of all, I'm offended by the fact that I am not your best friend, and second, since when do you have a dog?"
The conversation paused while you and Harry went up to the counter to order you coffees. Both of you went there enough that the staff knew what you liked—dirty chai for you and an americano for him. It also meant you didn't have to deal with the barista having a mini-freak out at the realization that Harry Styles was in their coffee house. People tended to interrupt your conversations with Harry regularly—on the street, in line for coffee, at the table—but he never seemed bothered by it. He always smiled and indulged in a couple minutes of conversation and the occasional picture before waving goodbye. He always apologized to you afterward, but after the first couple times it happened, you waved him off. None of it was actually his fault, and seeing him interact with his fans became something you actually enjoyed watching. And it was perhaps a very small reminder as to why you preferred to just write songs for other artists, not perform them. You didn't need that kind of attention. For Harry, he seemed to come alive like a flower in bloom.
You? You would probably just wilt.
When you and Harry sat down with your drinks, he raised his brows for you to continue. Wrapping your hands around your cup, you shrugged again. "I've had Buddy for about a year now."
"What kind of dog?"
"Mostly pitbull, I think. I found him in an alley behind a restaurant once, and I know what shelters do to pitbulls, so I adopted him."
You'd come to think of the whole thing as Buddy finding you.
"And you named him Buddy?"
"Yeah, I don't know, after Buddy Holly I guess." You'd grown up listening to classic rock because your brothers did, and the name just kind of made sense to you. And he was just so cute, he was your little buddy. Big buddy now, you supposed. You thought he deserved the cutest name for the cutest boy in your life.
The rest of your time in the coffee house was filled with chatter, mostly from Harry. He talked a little more about the Great Pet Debate, then about the project he and his team was working on. An album, though they were only just getting started seeing as Harry just came back from tour. He tried peppering you with the occasional question, knowing if he asked too many you'd clam up and shut down. It was almost like Harry knew that you were fighting getting to know him, but that it wasn't just him, it was everyone. He was patient with you for some reason, though, seemingly content to chip away at the brick walls around you. Even if all he had was a spoon.
"So...What were you working on at the studio?" Harry finally asked.
You knew it was coming, so answering didn't seem so daunting. "I'm not really sure. The melody had been in my head for days, and I finally decided to play around with it."
"A perfect non-answer from Y/n L/n, everyone," Harry said, though you knew he was joking. His eyes were crinkled with mirth as he hid behind his cup, his brows raising to give you a knowing look.
Nothing about your past was easy to talk about, so you just didn't. After your breakup, you didn't even tell your brothers the finer details, not wanting to relive it or face all their questions. It all brought you an overwhelming sense of shame and despair. But maybe there had been something cathartic about your session today and it left you feeling lighter and open because you found yourself sharing more with Harry.
"It...reminded of me and my ex, so I kind of just let it all out. I'm not even sure what I was doing constituted as songwriting, but," you looked down at your mug. "The melody dredged up some old memories, I guess."
"It sounded painful," Harry said, his voice taking on a soft, sincere tone.
You knew he meant well, but the sympathy made you skittish. "It's fine. It was a long time ago."
"Right, of course," Harry said, catching on to your mood change. "Well, um, my friends and I are having a little get-together of sorts this Saturday. You should come."
"A party?"
"No. A get-together. Very different," Harry corrected.
It made sense, the last time Harry tried to invite you to a party his friend was throwing, you politely declined, claiming they weren't really your thing. They weren't, but it was more that having friends wasn't really your thing.
You wanted to say no again, but when you met Harry's eyes, something in you hesitated. His expression was open, earnest, like he would genuinely be upset if you said you wouldn't come. You didn't quite understand why he wanted to spend time with you so much. Maybe you felt a little bad for always pushing him away, or maybe you were actually warming up to him.
"I, um...that might be fun," you said, not sure if it was nerves or excitement swimming in your belly.
The way Harry's face lit up made saying you would come worth it.
After a few more minutes at the coffee house, you and Harry went your separate ways, but not before he made you promise to join you on one of your morning walks with Buddy Holly. Something must've been in the air today, because you found yourself nodding before heading down the street away from him.
On your way home, you got a phone call from your oldest brother Evan. "Hey, Evan. How's life treating you in the Big Apple?"
"Just fine. It'd be a lot better if I got to see my kid sister more often. Are you still coming for Thanksgiving?"
Of your three brothers, Evan was the one who checked up on you the most. Perhaps that was the nature of being the oldest of four, but he had always been the most responsible, the one to keep you and your other brothers in line. Well, mostly your other brothers. But Evan had always looked out for you. He was the only one you told at length about your breakup. You'd confided in him all your life, and he was coincidentally the only one of your brothers you could count on not to go and beat up on your ex or his family.
"Flight's booked and everything," you told him. "Not sure if I can swing a trip to the lake house, though."
Despite your less than ideal upbringing, you and your brothers had all done pretty well for yourselves. No thanks to your parents, seeing as you all shared a dad who never liked to be with the same woman twice. But you and your brothers all stuck together through thick and thin, supporting and celebrating and sticking together despite the differing parentage between the four of you. And now you were all scattered, your brothers Andrew and Hayden were professional athletes and Evan was a bigshot lawyer. Once you moved out of your hometown, you really only saw your brothers for holidays. And the occasional surprise visit from Andrew, though that hadn't happened in a while.
"That's okay," Evan said. "Next time."
"Next time," you agreed. Then, "How's the family?"
"Good. Sammy's gotten so big. And Laura's already showing."
You grinned as you imagined Evan's family. He deserved a happy ending with a loving family after raising you and the idiots you called brothers. "Another team member for the family football game."
"Speaking of the family football game," Evan said, and you mentally cursed yourself. "Laura's been dying to know if she should set an extra spot at the table."
Immediately, your mind went to Harry, but you quickly whisked that thought away. "Nope. Unless Hayden's got a new girlfriend."
"Really? No one?"
You narrowed your eyes even though Evan couldn't see your expression. "Why are you fishing? Gossip is Andy's thing."
"What? I'm not fishing!" Evan spluttered, but you just scoffed and waited. Evan might've been a shark in the courtroom, but he'd always been terrible at lying to you. "Fine. Laura was reading one of her gossip magazines, and you know I don't pay attention to those, but you know, I might have seen someone who looks an awful lot like you pictured alongside a former boy band member."
Well, shit. You knew that was a reality of being Harry's acquaintance, but you'd always done your best to not pay any attention to it. So far it had done a good job, but now it was coming to bite you in the ass.
"It's nothing, Evan. He's an artist. I'm a songwriter. We work in the same building," you said.
"Fine! Fine," Evan said, and you could just picture him holding his hands up in surrender the way he'd done since you were a teenager. "I just thought I'd ask now and try to soften the blow. I'll just leave you to the wolves."
"Damn you, Evan," you muttered. Evan was the easy brother. It was Andrew and Hayden you had to look out for. They would interrogate you relentlessly, or worse, squeeze the life out of you until you caved. Sighing deeply through your nose, you said, "I will ask if Harry has plans for that weekend. And that is it."
"See? That wasn't so hard!"
You rolled your eyes. "I'll talk to you later."
"You love me!" Evan called just before hanging up.
The call ended just as you pulled up to your apartment. You sat back with a huff, marveling at the strings your brother managed to pull from thousands of miles away. But deep down, you knew Evan was just looking out for you. After everything that happened eighteen months ago, he'd been keeping a close eye. As close an eye as he could all the way from New York. But that was how things worked between you and your brothers. You all looked out for each other, and your older brothers acted as personal security guards to any and everyone who so much as looked at you the wrong way. It was both endearing and very annoying.
Very annoying. Now you had to invite Harry to Thanksgiving. Evan was so going to get it.
*.*
On Saturday, you found yourself standing in front of your mirror longer than you normally would've. Harry had used the term "get-together" as a means to ease your nerves, but now that the dreaded day had come, you realized you weren't sure what that meant in terms of dress code. Was this thing laid-back? What if casual still meant dressy to Harry and his friends? Harry usually walked around the studio in jeans and faded t-shirts, but he was still a celebrity. He could see this as an opportunity to dress up.
You looked at all the clothes spread out in your room. You'd changed an embarrassing amount of times now, but nothing seemed fitting for the occasion. I could always text him, you thought, biting your nail as you surveyed the tornado of clothes around you. Harry had given you your number earlier this week so he could text you his address. You hadn't wanted to, as it would open the flood gates for conversation outside the studio, but you eventually gave it up when he stared blankly at you after offering your email as an alternative.
Before you could think too long about it, you picked up your phone and sent a quick text. Before you even had a chance to set it down, Harry sent a reply.
Harry S: We're just chilling at my house. Dress as comfortably as you'd like :))
Well, that wasn't helpful at all, you thought, but didn't say to Harry. You went back to rummaging through your pile of clothes, creating a spot for Buddy when he ambled into your bedroom from the kitchen. In the end, you settled on something simple: jeans, platform shoes, and a colorful fleece jacket over a plain shirt. It felt silly to have wasted so much time on your wardrobe when all you were doing was going to see Harry. And his friends. And that was...intimidating.
The anxiety of meeting Harry's friends, of meeting anyone new, crept through you. You didn't want to go and face the inevitability of disappointing them. Your track record with friends was pretty abysmal. But you found yourself kissing Buddy's head and promising you wouldn't be gone long, and then you were getting in your car and plugging in the address Harry had given you.
The music playing in your car calmed you some. Etta James' voice was both familiar and comfortable, welcome feelings as you pulled up to Harry's house. House was a bit of an understatement, though. Maybe a villa, or an estate. The LA version of those sprawling castles that were all over Europe. Your shoulders were tense as you cruised up the long driveway, though your anxiety eased a bit when you saw that had seen about as much life and mileage parked up front as yours did.
Music was playing inside the house, you could hear the trill of soft guitar and the low hum of a male voice from outside, and you worried if anyone would be able to hear you as you knocked on the door. Thankfully, you only stood on Harry's doorstep for a minute or two, then Harry's familiar grin greeted you.
"You made it!" Harry said, pulling you over the threshold and in for a quick side hug. He looked down at you for a moment, his cheeks flushed and green eyes bright, perhaps from drinking. He shook his head a little before pulling you further into the house. "Come in, come in, everyone is just through here."
Harry led you further into his home, giving you a chance to look around. Despite the grandeur of the outside, Harry's house was actually quite cozy and inviting. Everything was in warm tones, and potted plants and bookshelves piled high with a mix of books and records with titles you couldn't read from this distance. His house looked actually lived in, which couldn't be said for some of the other celebrity homes you'd been in. It didn't happen often as you preferred to work alone, but you occasionally dabbled in writing sessions with other artists. Their homes looked much more modern, and much more cold, than Harry's did.
"My home in London is much smaller," Harry said, noticing your craned neck. Then he shrugged, looking a little sheepish. "But I liked the look of this place. It reminded me of a house I go to in Italy most summers."
"It's beautiful," you said. "I've always wanted to go to Italy."
"You've never been?"
You shook your head, admiring the arch leading into an open kitchen. "I was supposed to go for—"
For my birthday, you couldn't bring yourself to say. Gavin had planned a summer trip to Italy for your birthday, but that never happened. You surprised yourself by revealing that much, and by the way Harry's eyes lit up, you'd taken him by surprise too.
But he didn't press you to finish your thought. He just smiled and led you further into the kitchen. "Come on. You need a drink."
Harry talked while he fixed up your drink. He'd tried to persuade you to take a shot of tequila with him, his eyebrows wiggling up and down, a look on his face that you'd seen one too many times on your brothers when they were trying to stir up trouble. You declined with a laugh, opting for a glass of wine instead. Maybe a boring choice, Harry definitely thought so as he teased by saying, "Booooring!" but you needed to be sharp, and tequila tended to have the opposite effect, so red wine it was.
"Everyone's through here. I hope you like games because Kid brought a new one over and everyone has become quite invested."
Games? Is that what Harry Styles did on his evenings off? Play board games with his friends? Before you could ask, Harry led you into his living room, where everyone was in fact sitting around a rather spacious coffee table, a board game and playing cards spread out around it. It was a small group of about five or six. For some reason you expected more people, even though Harry said otherwise. They were all talking amongst themselves, talking strategy, you presumed, as you recognized the game as one of those territory-winning ones.
All the talking stopped, however, when Harry introduced you to the group.
You felt their eyes on you, judging, picking you apart where you stood. You began to curl in on yourself, wilting at the attention. Involuntarily, you took a step back, but Harry's hand was on your lower back, warm and comforting against you. You should've pulled away, but you didn't, thankful for at least some kind of familiarity among all the new.
It had been so long since you'd had to meet new people in a non-professional setting. You'd met with producers and artists and other industry people all the time, but there was always a wall of professionalism between you and them. You knew how to navigate that space with ease, but here, where people were sitting on pillows and holding playing cards, where you stood as the outlier among what was clearly a tight-knit group, you felt very much like a fish out of water. A fish in space.
"H—Hello," you managed to say, giving everyone a small wave.
One person got up. A young woman with short brown hair, winged eyeliner marking the corners of her eyes. Her smile was surprisingly warm, but what had your eyes widening even more was when she pulled you in for a hug, squeezing tight.
"I'm Sylvia," she said. "It's so nice to finally meet you."
"Finally?"
You probably shouldn't have said that, but you weren't expecting such a warm welcome.
"Harry talks about you constantly. I swear sometimes he purposely keeps you from us."
"That is not—That is not true," Harry said, speaking to you for a moment. He sounded serious, but his eyes were filled with amusement as if he was used to Sylvia's teasing.
Everyone else introduced themselves, and you tried to keep a smile on your face as you committed their names to memory. They were all part of Harry's "team" except for Sylvia—writers, producers, musicians. "And you?" you asked her as she pulled you down to sit next to her. Sylvia had insisted you be on her team while you learned how to play. She seemed nice, eager to get to know you, but you didn't trust it. Not yet.
"I'm a full-time mom most days, and a part-time life coach to this one," Sylvia joked. She seemed too young to be a mother, but you supposed they came in all shapes and sizes. "But I'm Harry's nutritionist. And friend when he's not being a pain in the ass."
There was a wry grin on the young woman's face that told you she was fond of Harry, and fond of teasing him, if said grin grew when Harry said, "Hey," was anything to go by. It eased your mind a bit, her kindness and obvious fondness for Harry. She spoke animatedly as she caught you up on the rules of the game and gossip from her yoga class. "They're all in love with that one, of course. Can't take him anywhere," she said with a nod in Harry's direction.
When you agreed to join Harry tonight, you figured you would spend your time with him. But Sylvia kept you occupied most of the evening, and he and his friends were rather invested in the game. You were content to watch, enjoying the playful bickering and shouts of surprise and celebration. It was interesting to see how they all interacted with each other. Harry and his friends sat and drank around his coffee table while you nursed your drink, observing with the sweet feeling of nostalgia swimming through your veins.
"Y/n?"
You jumped in your spot on the floor, your wine sloshing around in your glass a little. Thankfully, nothing poured out. You would've been mortified if you'd spilled red wine all over Harry's most likely exorbitantly expensive carpet.
Eyes flicking to a man with short blond hair, you said, "Sorry?"
Kid, you were pretty sure his name was, asked his question again. "Did you first start writing here in LA?"
"Uh...no. Nashville, actually," you said. "I lived in Nashville for a while before moving out here. But I...grew up in a small town just outside."
"You never told me that," Harry said, sounding both intrigued and a little hurt that you'd never shared that with him before.
Emboldened by your near-empty glass, you said, "You never asked."
That earned a few chuckles and a raised brow from Harry as if he'd just accepted a challenge you hadn't meant to create. But you read that look in his eyes with ease. Any look was quite easy to read from Harry. He was expressive, an open book. He was going to take this as an opportunity to ask you all the questions he'd been witholding.
Throwing back the rest of your wine, you avoided his eye and ignored the excited flip in your belly.
*.*
If it wasn't for your dog, you were pretty sure you wouldn't be able to keep up with Harry Styles and his impossibly long gait.
He'd kept to his word, insisting that he join you on one of your walks with Buddy Holly. It wasn't until a few days after you went to his house for the first time, but one morning before you usually headed into the studio, he texted and asked if he could join you for your morning walk with your dog. It took some convincing, which really only meant a series of uninterrupted texts until you finally relented.
Buddy took to Harry immediately, of course, though that wasn't a surprise, seeing as your dog was friendly with everyone. But it meant a lot to you that he seemed to like Harry so much. Buddy was a rescue, and you couldn't imagine the awful things he'd been through before you'd given him a proper home.
Now he walked on the sidewalk excitedly, pulling you on his leash as his stubby tail waved around wildly. Harry walked beside you, his curly hair pulled back with a little black claw clip, some of it sticking up in a cute tuft. As he walked beside you, you took the opportunity to study him. There was a little scruff on his cheeks and jaw, creeping down the nape of his neck. His jaw was strong and angular, his cheekbones sharp. Harry really was beautiful. You understood why so many people went so crazy for him.
"See anything you like?"
Warmth flushed your cheeks as you quickly looked ahead, even if the damage was already done. Harry rarely, if ever, caught you staring at him, mostly because it didn't happen often. But in the last few weeks, you'd found yourself admiring him more and more. The movements he made with his hand as he told a story, the mischievous glint in his eye when he made you laugh, the way his arms moved beneath his shirt, how his lips curled around a smile. You cataloged each mannerism, each vocal inflection, and after just a few weeks following that night at his house with his friends, you felt like you knew him quite well.
Shrugging, you feigned nonchalance as your eyes darted back to Buddy, who had stopped to sniff a tree.
You could feel Harry's gaze on you, but you tried not to squirm. His gaze pricked your skin, making you feel things you absolutely shouldn't have been feeling. It was uncomfortable and exhilarating, and you didn't like how much you were warming up to him.
Used to your wordless answers, Harry moved on. "You're making me rethink my decision to get a cat."
"You decided, then?"
"I think I'm more of cat person," Harry said. "Well that, and I think I've found the one, but I'm worried about all the traveling."
"It can stay with me," you said, eyes widening when you did. But it was true, you realized. You were close enough to Harry to promise that kind of thing.
"Well, in that case," Harry said, and you finally looked over to him.
His grin was wide as he looked down at you, and though you couldn't see his eyes behind his sunglasses, you knew they were more than likely squinted with mirth. You liked that smile, you realized. It was uninhibited, full of warmth and good intentions. You wanted to trust it, to give in to the friendship Harry was offering.
But you couldn't. Harry didn't deserve the abysmal companionship you offered in return, and you felt bad for leading him along when you knew you'd eventually fuck things up. You always did.
Your phone buzzing thankfully pulled you away from your thoughts. Looking at it, you saw a text from your brother, Hayden. You think Laura will be cool with a few football players in her house for Thanksgiving? it said, and you shook your head as you typed a quick reply, a small grin spreading across your face.
Hayden was only going to be in town the day of Thanksgiving, as he had a game the day after. You didn't think he would make it at all, seeing how full his schedule usually was, but he managed to squeeze it in. Apparently his game wasn't too far from Evan's house. As long as he, and his teammates now, didn't drink too much, they would be just fine.
You: I don't think so. Laura might put y'all to work around the house though.
Hayden: Seems fair.
Hayden: Are YOU bringing anyone home?
Hayden: Because I can sit you next to one of my teammates.
Hayden: I take that back. Forget I said that. No teammate of mine is going near my sister.
Rolling your eyes, you stuffed your phone in your back pocket. Harry was looking at you with a curious gaze, and you scrambled to explain yourself. "My brother," you said. "Apparently he's inviting some of his football buddies to Thanksgiving this year."
"Does he play at university?" Harry asked. You could almost hear the eagerness in his voice at the opportunity to learn more about you, and while sharing in general made you squirm, your brothers were fairly easy to talk about.
"He did. He's in the NFL now."
"Oh nice You must be—Wait what's his name?"
"Hayden?"
Harry stopped walking for a moment. When you tried to stop too, Buddy protested, tugging the leash, and the wrist you had wrapped around it pulled uncomfortably. Murmuring a quick apology, Harry kept walking, keeping pace with your energetic puppy.
"Your brother is Hayden L/n?"
You nodded. "I'm guessing you've heard of him then?"
A bark of laughter slipped from Harry's lips. You'd never seen him so caught off guard before. It was strange, but also a relief to know that someone as steady as Harry wasn't so unflappable all the time.
Rubbing a hand over his mouth, he said, "I think everyone has heard of him. Any other famous brothers I should know about?"
"I don't know how you quantify fame, but my other brother is in the NHL. He plays for a team on the east coast."
Andrew was the youngest of your family. Despite that, he still considered himself your older brother, which had always been annoying growing up, especially when you were taller than him for a few years. He was rather sweet for someone so aggressive on the ice. He spent a lot of time with his mom, but was still close to you, Evan, and Hayden. It was hard not to be when you all shared the same deadbeat dad.
Outside of Evan, you probably talked to Andrew the most. You were the closest in age and grew up going to school together, and while his main focus was hockey, whenever he was in town, he'd go with you to concerts to see whatever indie band you were into or treat you to tickets to a show at the arena he played for.
"You have a third, right?" Harry asked, and you weren't even surprised that he remembered even though you were sure you'd only mentioned it once or twice.
"Evan. He's a lawyer in New York, but he lives in Connecticut with his wife and daughter," you said.
Now would be the perfect opportunity to invite Harry to Thanksgiving. You were looping back around on the trail, heading back to the park entrance where you'd met Harry this morning. Evan would pester you about it until you did, or worse, get Hayden and Andrew involved. You just had to throw it out there, be as casual as possible. Easy. You were all about being casual.
"So, um, he—Evan—he, um, said if I wanted I could invite a friend to Thanksgiving. If I wanted to."
"Oh yeah?" You weren't looking at him, but you could hear the grin in his voice.
Swallowing thickly as you willed your cheeks not to flush, you continued to look at Buddy as you spoke. "You probably already have plans, but I just thought I would ask if you wanted to come. Laura, Evan's wife, is a great cook, and it's usually pretty low-key until football gets turned on. But no offensive aunts or uncles or anything like that. Just us."
That was definitely too many words, but the amused look in Harry's eyes didn't feel antagonizing. "I would love to, but um, I already promised my mum I would go home that week."
"Oh." You didn't mean to sound disappointed. It was a good thing that Harry was going home to see his mother. And him meeting your brothers for the first time all at once probably would've scared him out of talking to you in the studio, so really it was for the best. It was for the best. "That's okay. You must be excited to go home. How long has it been?"
"London? Not too long, but I'm headed back to Manchester, and my mum has not been shy in letting me know that it's been too long since..."
You listened to Harry the rest of the walk back, trying to fight off the disappointment gnawing inside you that he'd said no. You didn't want that feeling in you. You wanted to be indifferent. It's for the best. You repeated it over and over until you convinced yourself it was true.
*.*
"You had a speech, you're speechless. Love slipped beyond your reaches. And I couldn't give a reason, Champagne problems."
You scribbled in your notebook, crossing out words from the original recording and replacing them with better ones. You hadn't planned to go back to this song. After recording it on your phone, you figured it wouldn't see the light of day again. But something kept bringing you back to it. So you worked on it between other projects, playing around with the lyrics and melody in small doses so that the past wouldn't overwhelm you.
Guilt seeped into your bones as you recalled what happened eighteen, almost nineteen, months ago. Sometimes you wished you could forget everything you'd done, but other times you decided being forced to remember was part of your penance for causing so much pain. Gavin was a good man. He was so kind and so smart, he didn't have a cruel bone in his body. And you'd taken his goodness, you'd welcomed all his kindness, and crushed it in your hands.
Wiping away a tear, you shut your notebook definitively. Your session in the studio was far from over, but you were done for the day.
On your way out, you kept your head down, not wanting anyone to see your watery eyes. You could feel the tears building, and you hoped you could at least make it to your car before you turned into a mess. It was so hard sometimes. Some days you felt great. You would write good songs, take Buddy for a walk and teach him a new trick, you would get coffee with Harry and laugh, and everything would be fine. But then there were days where the mere thought of the past sent you careening off course, leaving you with nothing but the intrusive thoughts you thought you'd learned how to keep at bay.
Today happened to be one of those days, and you hoped you could escape and wallow in self-pity unnoticed. But before you could even make it to the elevator, you bumped into something solid and warm. Arms wrapped around you to hold you steady before you could spring back, and against your better judgment, you looked up, an apology poised on your lips.
"Y/n, are you okay? What's wrong?"
You should've known that you would be unlucky enough to run into Harry on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Blinking rapidly, you shook your head and stepped out of his grasp, though that didn't make you feel any better. "I'm fine."
"You can talk to me," Harry insisted. His brows furrowed with concern, but he didn't come any closer. There was a bag slung over his shoulder and a hat covering up his hair, with only a few stray curls sticking out beneath it. He looked like he was just going into the studio for a session.
"I'm fine, I promise," you lied, not wanting to be the reason he was late for studio time. "I'm just leaving for the day."
You tried to step around Harry, but his hands fell down on your shoulders. His gaze burned, but you couldn't make yourself look him in the eye. You knew the moment you saw the sympathy swimming in them you'd burst into tears.
"Please let me go," you said, but it came out as more of a squeak, your voice breaking on the last word.
To your surprise, Harry did, and even though that was what you'd asked for, what you wanted, you somehow felt worse. Shuffling around him, you mumbled a quick goodbye and bypassed the elevator, not wanting to wait awkwardly for it to come up while he was still in the hall. It wasn't until you finally got in your car that you let everything out, all the guilt and loneliness and self-loathing that you kept bottled up regularly.
So often you were able to pretend the past didn't exist. But then there were days where you were almost slapped in the face by the consequences of your actions. Negative thoughts followed you all the way home and into your bed. Not even hiding under the covers kept you from feeling everything all at once. Your mind spun as you thought of Gavin, of his elated grin crumpling into a look of betrayal as you told him you were ending it.
You remembered every detail from that night. The brand of Champagne Gavin bought for the would-be occasion, the woodsy cologne he wore, the looks on his friends' and family's faces as you hurried down the stairs to leave the party, unable to bear their shame and disapproval, or the heart you'd broken on the landing in his family's mansion.
You didn't know he was going to propose until mere moments before it happened. You had only been seeing Gavin for a few months, and things were good. He made you happy, and you liked having someone to go through life with. He liked to shower you with expensive gifts, for no other reason than to show you he cared and because he could. You didn't have the same kind of wealth he or his family did, not even with the substantial amount of money you made as a successful songwriter. But you'd write him poems and leave them places you knew he'd find them and looped your arm through his at company parties. Things were good.
Every year, Gavin's family hosted a Christmas party, and last year was the first time you'd been invited. You hadn't wanted to go, mostly because in the two weeks leading up to the party, you realized you weren't in the same place Gavin was emotionally, and you weren't sure you ever would be. But Gavin insisted, promising it would be fun and he wouldn't abandon you to his family, who had been nothing but cold since the moment he'd introduced them to you. So you went, sipping on Champagne in a glass made of crystal and wondering if the guilty pit at the bottom of your stomach would ever stop growing.
It was a couple hours into the party when you'd stumbled on a conversation between Gavin's mother and sister, one that made your blood run cold with dread.
"Did Gav really ask you for your ring?" his sister asked.
His mother nodded gravely. "He wants to do it tonight."
"What? That's ridiculous! They've barely been together a year!"
"I'm sure she would make a lovely bride, she's beautiful, I'll give her that," his mother conceded, but you could hear the disdain in her voice loud and clear. "It's just a shame that she's—"
"Fucked in the head?"
"Larissa! Language!"
"What? She is! She's a total basket case, and everyone can see it but him. She'll never make him happy. How could she? Putting a ring on it doesn't change a thing. Gavin would have a psych patient, not a wife. He deserves better."
The rest of the night was a blur, but you knew you couldn't wait. You didn't want to break up with Gavin on the night of his family's Christmas party, but if he was going to propose, you couldn't let him. The hurt would be so much worse if you had to slide the ring off your finger a week or two after the proposal.
Gavin called you for weeks afterward, begging you to help him understand. His family did too, and his friends, people you considered friends as well, but it was clear once there was a line drawn in the sand where everyone stood, and they didn't have any trouble letting you know how horrible you were for doing what you did. Sometimes when you let yourself get angry, you wondered why Gavin's mother and sister, or any of them really, were so aggressive about your break up. They'd never wanted you to be with him in the first place, and even though they'd gotten their wish, they still called you a heartless monster.
But above all that, Gavin's messages made the deepest cut. He sounded so devastated in each voicemail. And at first, all he wanted was to talk, to somehow work it all out as if it was one big misunderstanding. I know my family can be a lot, but I love you so much, he'd said in a text. We can go to Italy like we'd planned. Elope. Buy a little cottage and just start a new life somewhere else. Please, Y/n. Talk to me. I love you.
Messages like those were the toughest pills to swallow. You knew Gavin loved you, you never doubted that for a moment. The problem was you didn't feel the same. You didn't know why. You cared for Gavin a lot, and in the beginning, you had all those giddy, initial relationship feelings, but they never developed beyond that. And when you noticed Gavin's feelings growing more and more each day while yours didn't, you started to panic.
But it was when those messages turned angry, hateful even, that hurt the most. It was what you deserved after what you'd done, but to know that you'd turned one of the gentlest souls you knew into a spiteful one killed you almost as much as stopping him from getting down on one knee had.
In the midst of all your crying and hyperventilating, your phone buzzed. Wiping your eyes and nose, you lifted your phone to your face, squinting at the bright light.
Harry S: I know you probably want space, but I'm here for you xx
You shouldn't be, was your first thought, but all you texted back was, Just a bad day that's all.
Harry's response was almost immediate, as if he was waiting around for your reply.
Harry S: Well, if you ever need a friend, you know where to find me :))
You sighed, feeling another wave of tears overwhelm you. The pressure of friendship weighed heavily on your chest. All you could offer was disappointment, and you couldn't stomach the thought of letting someone like Harry down. He was too good a person to be your friend. All you could offer him was disappointment and pain. You were toxic, and better off left alone.
You: We're not friends. I don't want to be your friend so just leave me alone.
*.*
Weeks went by and you were positively miserable. Thanksgiving came and went, and even your brothers could sense not to pry about your sour mood. Evan tried to get you alone, but you didn't want to talk. You didn't want to explain how you'd fucked things up so royally. Again. You didn't want his sympathy, or Hayden's promise to fight anyone who hurt you, or Andrew's cheesy jokes to lift your spirits. What you wanted had been all the way in England and had been giving you the cold shoulder. Just like you'd asked.
Harry stopped saying hi to you at the studio, which hurt more than you thought it would. In the grand scheme of things, you hadn't known him very long, but seeing him in the hallway and watching him purposely avoid you felt awful. You only had yourself to blame, but you thought it was better to let him down early on than further down the line. You couldn't have another Gavin situation on your hands.
But this felt entirely different. Even though you'd only spoken to Harry for a month, his absence from your life was more poignant than you expected it to be. When you ended things with Gavin, you felt guilty for hurting him, but ultimately, there was a sense of relief that you weren't leading him on, that crushing weight of his family's disapproval on your chest lifted. Breaking up with Gavin was hard, but it was the right thing to do for you, there was no doubt in your mind about that.
But this thing with Harry...you'd pushed him away when you were feeling vulnerable. A preemptive measure for the both of you, but there was no relief, no justifiable sense of rightness in your gut in the days following.
Part of you wanted to reach out to him and apologize, but you worried he hated you now and didn't know how to bridge the gap you created between the two of you.
Opportunity struck when you overheard a conversation between Harry and...Mitch. you were pretty sure that was Mitch from that night at Harry's house. It was about a week after you came back from your brother's house, and all three of them were constantly calling or texting despite their busy schedules. You wouldn't have put it past any of them to have set up times to routinely check in on you. It warmed your heart some, but nothing would feel right until you fixed things with Harry. Pushing him away had been a mistake, you saw that now. You'd done it in a moment when you were at your lowest, and that wasn't fair to either of you.
"I'm sorry, mate," Harry said to Mitch. "I didn't even think to ask if you were allergic before adopting a cat. I feel like an idiot now."
So he went ahead with his plan to get a pet, then. The thought made you smile, but you held it in. You were pressed into the corner of the elevator up to the studio. Harry was definitely aware of your presence, but he hadn't acknowledged you. Mitch gave you an awkward wave, but that was somehow worse.
"No worries, man," Mitch said now, stepping out of the elevator with Harry. He was in a white t-shirt and a light brown cardigan today, his curly brown hair looking beautifully windswept. You refused to think about the current state of your hair, which was hiding beneath a blue baseball cap. "I'll just have to—"
You never found out what Mitch would have to do because they rounded a corner of the hallway, leaving you alone outside the elevator. Quickly scurrying into your usual studio, you sat down at the grand piano, letting the smooth keys cool your sweaty palms. You felt breathless, but it wasn't the usual anxiety-ridden breathlessness you were used to. This felt different, your heart speeding up at the thought of Harry's broad shoulders beneath his sweater.
"Pull yourself together, Y/n," you told yourself.
The damage was done—once again, at your hands, but you couldn't help that right this second. Right now you had work to do.
The next day, you did something you didn't normally do—venture outside of your studio. Since working in the building, you'd never thought to explore the other rooms, to introduce yourself or make friends the way Harry had with you. As you walked down the long hallway of closed and half-open doors, you wondered who was behind them, what kind of projects were being worked on right now.
Most importantly, you wanted to know which door Harry sat behind.
After a day of writing, of trying to lean into more positive feelings, the small hope you had for a brighter future. You left the studio feeling lighter after another introspective session. There'll be happiness after you, but there was happiness because of you, both of these things can be true, you'd written, forming your thoughts around a melody that was both somber and hopeful. That moment when you'd pushed Harry away was the lowest you'd felt in a while, but you didn't want to feel that way anymore. All Harry had been asking for was friendship. You could do friendship, in fact, you craved it.
So now you were trying to make things right with Harry, or at least apologize for your rude text. He'd only ever been incredibly kind to you, and you'd treated him like garbage.
You came across a door that was partially open, laughter filtering out and reaching you in the hallway. Harry's voice was mixed among them, and hearing him laugh filled you with butterflies. Going to his studio suddenly felt like a mistake. You didn't want to bring down his mood, especially if it would affect his writing for the day.
But you finally worked up the courage to knock on the open door. You'd already made it this far. The knock immediately sobered up everyone inside the studio, and you waited outside with your gift bag clutched in your hands. One of Harry's friends appeared, eyes widening when he saw you there.
"Y/n," he said. "It's good to see you."
You couldn't tell if he was pleased to see you or not, and nerves slowly began to creep in.
"I—I won't take up too much of your time, I know y'all are probably busy," you said. "I just, um, could you give this to Harry, please?"
You shoved the bag in the man's direction, forcing him to take it. "You can come in. He's just inside—"
"No, it's okay. I should probably get back to it. So, uh, see you."
You turned and fled, heat flooding your cheeks. Honestly, you were surprised you made it that far. You figured your courage would fizzle out before knocking on the studio door.
Settling back in your studio, you pulled out your journal and phone out of your bag, and opened up to a fresh page to work on a new song. On the way into work this morning, your agent pitched you an opportunity to write for an up-and-coming artist. "Something light, Y/n," she'd said, knowing you'd been writing mostly sad, break-up songs recently. "If it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out, but at least try. You've always liked to challenge yourself."
So you were putting away the Champagne problems for now and channeling your happiest thoughts. You even brought your computer to stream romantic comedies while you worked for some additional inspiration.
You were halfway through When Harry met Sally when that inspiration finally struck. Lighter, happier words finally filled your journal, a rare, but not completely uncommon occurrence. You'd written love songs in the past, both before and while you were with Gavin. But surprisingly, Gavin wasn't who came to mind, nor was it the characters in the movie on your computer.
You thought of Harry's smile, his flushed cheeks after he'd had a couple drinks, his green eyes that seemed to sparkle when he laughed. Did you have a crush on him? You weren't entirely sure, maybe you just admired his goodness. And, okay fine, his unfair amount of good looks too. But you tried not to focus too long on who exactly inspired you, just on making sure the words kept flowing onto the page.
Perhaps you should've expected Harry to stop by, but you hadn't. His voice startled you, your eyes having been glued to the screen of your computer as the final scene of Roman Holiday played out in front of you. It had always been one of your favorites, and you decided that a brain break was needed as the final third of the film rolled around.
"What's this?"
No matter how many times you'd seen it, the ending never failed to bring tears to your eyes. Seeing the glisten of tears in Gregory Peck's eyes as he stared longingly at Audrey Hepburn's, knowing they loved each other but could never be together was heartbreaking. It had been the most tragic thing you'd ever experienced when you first watched it as a girl, and it hadn't even happened to you.
It was those tears now that you wiped away, a warmth creeping up your cheeks because this was the second time Harry had caught you crying. How embarrassing.
Looking up, you saw the gift bag in one hand, the other in his pocket as he stared at you blankly. No warmth or his usual smile, but he wasn't glaring at you, either. He just looked indifferent, and that didn't sit well with you at all.
"I...I overheard you and Mitch talking about your cat and his allergies, and I'd heard of this stuff that you can use on your pets to help people who are allergic to animals."
You'd gone out and bought it after leaving the studio the day you'd overheard the conversation between Mitch and Harry. It was your version of an olive branch, a way to express your guilt after taking Harry's friendship and throwing it in his face. You were his friend, and you wanted him to know it.
It probably seemed silly to hide behind a gift instead of saying something, considering your profession. But confrontation was almost as terrifying as love was, it was part of the reason why you only wrote songs and didn't perform them.
Harry scoffed, and it looked like he couldn't decide between laughing or rolling his eyes. "No, I know what this is, I'm asking why you gave it to me. Or not me, to my friend and then scurried back over here."
"I'm sorry about that, about everything," you said, shutting your laptop and shifting in your chair. "I was...I haven't been in the best place for some time now. It's not an excuse for how I treated you that day. You caught me in a bad moment and I lashed out."
"Thank you for apologizing," he said, his voice cool and even. You desperately wanted to know what he was thinking. What he saw when he looked at you. "Do you want to grab coffee? Maybe we can talk?"
The thought of being open and honest in the way that he was suggesting was daunting, but Harry deserved your honesty. "Sure. Let me just pack up my things."
Harry waited for you by the door as you packed your bag, jotting a couple notes down in your journal before putting it away. Your hands shook a little as you approached him, excitement swelling in your belly despite the anxiety you felt at the prospect of having to talk about things you preferred to leave in the recesses of your mind. But it felt good to see Harry again, to walk beside him and head to your favorite coffee house.
Neither of you said anything on the short walk over, and even after you placed your orders, you remained quiet. When your name was called out alongside Harry's to grab your drinks, you knew it was time to find a table, but you stayed rooted to your spot in front of the counter.
It was Larissa. Gavin's sister. She was standing next to the other end of the counter where baristas called out and dropped off orders. There was a moment when she didn't see you, and you thought you could make a break for it, even if that meant leaving Harry high and dry. But even if you wanted to, you were frozen in place, and when Larissa's gaze finally landed on you, you felt her glare even from a short distance.
"Y/n?" Harry asked, both drinks in his hands. "What's—"
"Y/n! How good to see you!"
Larissa's kind smile was anything but. You'd never trusted Gavin's sister. From the moment you met her, you knew to be wary of her, and after everything that happened, you were sure nothing good was going to come out of this interaction.
"H—Hi, Larissa. How are you?" you said, trying your best not to look at Harry, who had a quizzical look on his face.
"Oh, I'm just fabulous. I've just spent the last year healing my brother's broken heart, which you broke like it was nothing," Larissa said. "He's great, by the way. Finally came to his senses and realized what a God-awful mess you were. He realized all of us were better off without you."
Then, before you could even make sense of what was happening, a rush of cold washed over you. At first, you thought it was merely a visceral reaction to the confrontation, but Harry's, "What the fuck?" made you think twice.
Looking down, you realized Larissa had poured her drink on your sweater. Shock left you blinking at Gavin's sister, tears welling in your eyes. With shaking hands, you held the ruined sweater in your hands, then back to Larissa. "Wh—Why—"
"That's for my brother, slut."
"That's enough," Harry said, voice harder and colder than you'd ever heard him before. Even when he was upset with you at the studio, he never sounded this angry. Gently gripping your elbow, he turned you around. You hardly noticed the flashing of cameras aimed in your direction. All you could really process was Larissa's smirk and the iced coffee dripping off you onto the coffee house's floor.
When you were finally outside and a block down the road, Harry pulled you down an alley where you could have a moment of privacy. He pulled his sweater over his head and offered it to you in a bundle. You quietly murmured your thanks and took it from him, slipping it over your head. The plain black sweater was warm and smelled like him—like laundry detergent and expensive cologne. It would've been the kind of thing to flood your senses if shame hadn't currently encompassed every fiber of your being.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," you said when you felt like you could speak without your voice trembling.
"You don't have to apologize for what happened, Y/n," Harry said. He gently rested his hand on your shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"I think so."
You couldn't look him in the eye, not while your iced coffee-ridden sweater was now ruining his, not while he kept looking at you with such pity. You could feel it down to your toes, and it made you want to curl up in a ball and never get out of bed. But Harry deserved an explanation. At the very least, he deserved to know who he associated himself with.
"I should explain—"
"You don't have to," Harry insisted.
"I want to," you said, believing the words as you said them. You weren't sure what you would've done if Harry hadn't been with you a few minutes ago. His brows were still furrowed with concern, his thumb rubbing circles into your shoulder. His sweater layered over yours created a pretty thick barrier, but you could feel his touch as if he was caressing your skin. "We can, um, we can go back to my place."
Thankfully, Harry didn't protest, just nodded quietly. The walk back to the studio was completely silent, leaving you alone with your thoughts until it was time to part ways. He got in his car and followed you home, silently following you up the steps to your apartment, a comfortable little one-bedroom twenty minutes from the studio.
Buddy was at the door when you unlocked it, tail wagging and tongue lolling to the side of his mouth happily. He greeted you first, then Harry, who he tried with all his might to knock over by getting up on his hind legs and resting on your guest. "Buddy! Down!" you hissed, frantically holding onto your dog's collar. Harry laughed and waived you off, surprising you by lifting Buddy up into his arms. Both boys were perfectly content, and the image of your friend holding your dog in your apartment was enough to lift your spirits the tiniest bit. A small smile crept onto your face, and Harry's grin widened when he saw it.
"Nice place," Harry commented, spinning around in a slow circle as he looked around.
"Thanks." Your apartment was small, but it was in a nice neighborhood and close to the beach. You made just enough in royalties to be comfortable in a little one bedroom. "Definitely different from my place in Nashville."
Harry nodded mildly before setting Buddy back down on the floor, admiring the colorful furniture that took up the space in your living room. Shivering a little, you looked down at yourself, reminded of your coffee-soaked clothes.
"There are treats in the pantry," you said, setting your things down on the kitchen counter and nodding to the pantry in question. "I'm just going to get changed so I can wash your sweater."
Harry nodded, but he seemed content to play with Buddy and look around your apartment, and your dog seemed perfectly happy to never walk on four legs ever again.
You tried to make quick work of changing, not wanting to keep Harry waiting too long. But you gave yourself a minute or two to calm down and process everything that had happened in the last hour. Even though it was horribly embarrassing, you were glad Harry had been there. He'd been a calming presence throughout, and you could only hope that would continue as you explained why you'd pushed him away.
*.*
"I...I didn't want to hurt you," you said, looking down at where your hands were knotted in your lap. "I just...I don't have a very good track record with relationships. Of any kind. I didn't want you to be one of the people I ruined."
Harry had been surprisingly quiet while you explained everything. And by everything, you meant everything. From Gavin to the Christmas party and what you'd heard to the would-be proposal. You told him about that song you'd written a couple weeks ago and how it brought all that emotion to the forefront of your memory and that it led you to push Harry away. He hadn't said much, asking you a few questions here and there; but for the most part, he let you speak uninterrupted, and you were surprised at how you continued to fill the silence, not once feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps a little ashamed after explaining how badly you'd hurt Gavin, but you never felt discomfort telling Harry any of it.
"Y/n, I—" Harry began to say before pausing. Looking up at him, you saw his brows furrowed, a look of consternation on his face. You waited for the blow, the one that eventually led him to leave you friendless once and for all. "I don't think you're a bad person for breaking up with him. I can't imagine that kind of hurt, sure, but if you didn't love him, you did the right thing. Do you—Do you seriously believe you're fucked in the head? Or that you ruin people?"
He was referencing the song you'd written, and you flushed bright red at the idea of him hearing more of the song than you would've liked. Shrugging, you gave him the truth. It didn't seem fit to lie when you'd bared your soul to him. "I don't know."
You could tell that answer didn't sit right with Harry. His frown deepened, and you desperately wanted to see him smile again. "Y/n, everyone makes mistakes in relationships, and even then I don't think you did anything wrong in that moment. Was it unfortunate timing? Maybe, but I don't think you should punish yourself for it anymore. In fact, I think what you did was brave."
"What?"
Smiling, Harry took your hand in his. It was warm, and his long fingers curled around your hand with ease. On any other day, you would've pulled back, but after sharing so much with him, this felt good. It felt right.
"I said what you did was brave," he said again. "You didn't love him, but you could've accepted the proposal and stayed with him. And then what? Leave him at the altar? Stay in a loveless marriage? It was hard, but you did the right thing for you and Gavin. I'm sure even he would come to understand that one day. Have you tried talking to him?"
You shook your head. "He hates me now."
"I don't think anyone could really hate you, Y/n," Harry said quietly, a blush crawling up his cheeks as if he hadn't meant to say that out loud. "I know you might disagree, but I think you might feel a lot better about all of this if you talked to him."
"His family—"
"Fuck his family. Gavin is a grown man who can think for himself," Harry said. "If he can't separate their wrong opinions from his own thoughts, then he's an idiot who never deserved you anyway."
You laughed a little at the first half of what he said. It felt nice to know that someone was on your side. Squeezing Harry's hand, you said, "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For listening, for being a good friend when I maybe didn't deserve it. Evan's the only person I talked to about this, and even then I didn't explain everything," you said. Evan had been on your side, but it didn't really count to you. He was your brother. He had to be on your side. "I just don't have the best track record when it comes to hurting people, you know?"
Your eyes had fallen to your hand, which was still curled around his, but to your surprise, Harry's other one lifted your chin to meet his gaze. With wide eyes, you looked at him, heart beating a little wilder in your chest when you saw the look on his face. His expression was wide open, earnest and endearing, and filled with...something you weren't ready to see yet. But it filled you with warmth, and for the first time in a long time, you really believed that you didn't have to be alone.
"I don't think you'll hurt me," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
His hand pushed a strand of your hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear. The movement made your breath hitch, lips parting as you tried to decide what Harry was going to do next, what you wanted him to do next. He seemed like he was waiting for something too, and his gaze was finally too much, like he could see your soul and was currently shuffling through every little thing you longed for and were afraid of. It was heavy with emotion, and you weren't ready for it.
"You should probably get going soon," you said, rising, with great difficulty, to your feet and putting some distance between yourself and Harry. A frown on Harry's face appeared, and you quickly explained yourself. "Your cat. You probably should head home and feed her."
Before you and Harry sat down to talk about...everything, he briefly mentioned his new kitten, Sweet Pea. "It was the name she already had when I adopted her, and it didn't feel right to change it, though sometimes she's not so sweet." She was a fluffy Ragdoll cat that was apparently quite the diva, and Harry proudly showed off picture after picture, claiming he was already in love with his new furry companion.
Now though, Harry's eyes widened as if he hadn't even thought about his new kitten since being here. "Right. Good call. I'll see you tomorrow?"
You nodded as you watched him gather his things. "I'll return the sweater tomorrow."
"Don't worry about it," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
You walked Harry to the door to see him out. He crossed the threshold but paused before heading down to his car. You couldn't read the look that crossed his face, but his lingering gave you one last opportunity to take him all in. The muscles in his arms bulged beneath the white t-shirt he wore, and his hair had grown a tad longer since you'd spoken to him last, now curling around the nape of his neck and touching the collar of his shirt. Harry was taller than you, but not by much, though standing this close, it felt like he was a whole foot taller as you craned your neck to look at him.
Then, before you could ask if he'd forgotten something, he leaned forward. It took you a moment to realize what he'd done, but the lingering traces of heat on your forehead helped. He'd kissed you. On the forehead.
"See you tomorrow!"
Harry was gone in a flash, leaving you standing at the front door of your apartment with an open mouth as you tried to decide what his forehead kiss meant. To you, it felt sisterly, and you couldn't help the disappointment that swirled in your gut. You quickly pushed that feeling away, closing the door on whatever happened just then.
*.*
For the next few weeks, everything felt like it was back to normal. Better than normal, even. Despite the awkwardness you felt at having to see Harry after the odd forehead kiss, Harry acted like it never happened, which you were thankful for. You wouldn't have known what to say if he'd brought it up. Or tried to do it again.
But it became clear, despite the teeny tiny budding feelings you might have had for him, that he merely saw you as a friend. After your long talk with him at your apartment, Harry began showing you some of the work he'd been doing in his own studio down the hall from yours. It appeared he was getting over a break up too, though you never would've guessed by how cheerful he was most days. He still was, even as he explained a little about his most recent relationship, and you realized that while you hid your true emotions behind a wall, he might've been hiding behind his happy disposition. It made you want to dig deeper, to see what lay beneath all that "fineness."
As you spent more time with Harry, you also began hanging out with his friends. The first time you returned to his house for another game night, everyone seemed genuinely happy to see you, namely Sylvia. "I'm so glad you're spending more time with H," she'd said that night. "I love him to death but he's a clingy motherfucker when he's lonely."
That thought made you laugh. You recalled a conversation you'd had with Harry a while back when he'd said his friends were "disgustingly in love." He seemed like the kind of guy who loved love, but you also didn't want Sylvia, or any of his friends, to get the wrong idea.
"Oh I don't—I mean we're not—I don't think he sees me that way."
That wasn't how you wanted to explain yourself, seeing as you weren't even sure if you saw him that way. But Sylvia must have seen your flushed cheeks and understood your floundering because she smiled at you warmly.
"I think this calls for a girl's day. What do you think?"
"Oh. Um..." You didn't expect any of Harry's friends to want to hang out with you one on one, but you'd been leaning into trying new things lately. And girl's day? You grew up with three brothers, the last time you had anything resembling that was a tea party Hayden and Evan threw for you when you were six. "Sure. I could meet you for lunch this week if you'd like."
"Lunch sounds perfect."
A couple days passed until you had Buddy on his leash, walking down to the cafe you and Sylvia agreed on. You were a little nervous, but mostly excited. It had been a while since you'd hung out casually with a friend—you weren't counting Harry—and while you'd grown accustomed to the loneliness, you couldn't help but acknowledge that it felt nice to talk to someone other than your dog.
"Okay," Sylvia said once the waiter walked away with your orders. She'd held off asking about Harry, but now the time had come. "Hit me. What did Harold do?"
"Nothing," you said, perhaps a little too quickly. When Sylvia pinned you with a stare, you looked down at your glass of water. "He just...He gave me a kiss? On the forehead? And I don't know, it just read very...brotherly."
Sylvia sighed, which at the very least vindicated your feelings. It wasn't like you wanted anything more, but the whole thing left you feeling confused. A cheek kiss would've been easier to navigate, but the forehead? It left Y/n thinking about Harry more than she should've.
"Okay, I can see where you might be confused by that, but as someone with a brother, I can confidently say they don't do shit like that."
You weren't sure what you expected her to say, or what you even wanted her to say, but it wasn't that. Sylvia knew Harry fairly well, so it was safe to say that she was telling the truth, you just weren't ready to accept what she was implying.
"I do too, and I know the last thing I would expect from any of my brothers is a kiss on the forehead, but I don't know," you said, trying to remain as neutral as possible knowing Sylvia could report back to Harry. This whole thing was starting to feel very grade school-esque.
"Just know that Harry's a pretty open guy, but he's been burned in the past so he might be a little closed off or not be as inclined to make the first move," Sylvia said, though in some ways it sounded like a warning. "He's the greatest guy you'll ever meet, and whatever you decide, just be gentle, okay?"
It was hard to imagine someone as positive and happy as Harry having a dark past, but it sounded like there was a lot more than what met the eye as far as he was concerned. It was honestly a little comforting to know that he wasn't perfect. You were such a mess sometimes it seemed unfair that people wandered through life seemingly unscathed. You knew that was rarely ever the case, but sometimes it was hard to remember when guys like Harry walked around embracing life and had smiles for every occasion.
"I will," you promised, and you meant it. You were pretty sure nothing was going to happen between you and Harry, but you could appreciate Sylvia looking out for her friend. As nice as she had been to you so far, she was Harry's friend first. Her words made you wonder if you would ever have friends so fiercely loyal to you.
After that lunch with Sylvia, the weeks began to pass by in a blur. There were days when you saw Harry frequently, and then you wouldn't see him at all. He would show up at your studio to get coffee—at a new coffee shop, of course—you stopped by his to bring him and his friends baked goods, and sometimes you would end the night at one another's houses, a bottle of wine and takeout split between the two of you. You weren't dating, at least you wouldn't categorize whatever it was that you were doing as dating, but it felt nice to have someone in your life consistently again, and you liked that Harry was that person even more.
That didn't mean you couldn't read the signs. Sometimes Harry's gaze would linger when he thought you didn't notice, or he would sit a lot closer than was maybe necessary when you hung out with his friends. Sometimes his hand would brush yours as you watched a movie as if he wanted to hold it, and yours would brush back encourgingly, and then suddenly you were holding hands. To anyone else, it might have appeared confusing—in fact, Sylvia had vocalized her confusion over the non-relationship you and Harry were engaging in—but for you, not acknowledging what was happening and not putting any labels or definitions on this thing happening between the two of you was somehow easier to swallow. And since Harry seemed to be following your lead, he didn't say anything to object.
It was around Christmastime that things began to change. You'd spent your morning writing a song for an artist's Christmas album, a feat you'd managed to avoid in the past. But since you'd worked with the artist before and liked the vision she had for this album, you decided to at least try to write a holiday song. It wasn't necessarily that you disliked Christmas or the holidays, you were just indifferent to the season in question, and after everything that transpired two years ago now, you just never felt like celebrating much.
Harry Styles, however, was a huge fan of Christmas. his studio was decked out with lights and garlands, he got him and Sweet Pea matching sweaters, which you weren't entirely sure if he knitted or not, and he'd been bugging you since Thanksgiving to come over to decorate cookies. He'd finally worn you down and you were going over later tonight, but not before putting in a couple hours at the studio, which turned into sitting in on one of Harry's sessions.
It didn't happen often, but you did like seeing the team approach to writing songs as opposed to your usual solitary method. For the most part, you watched as Harry bounced ideas off his friends, observing as they focused on one chord progression or verse until something else stole their attention away. It was a bit chaotic, but everyone in the room seemed to be having fun.
It was in the middle of a heated debate between another fun, upbeat song or beginning to work on a ballad when the melody came to you. It was just piano chords, and had you been in your own studio, you would've immediately sat down to play it and see where it went. But this wasn't your studio, and it wasn't your session, and while you knew no one would've minded hearing your input, you felt nervous all of a sudden, self-conscious.
So instead, you pulled some blank sheet music out and began to scribble, writing as quickly as possible before the melody escaped you. The melody had taken up so much space in your head that everything else faded away. You envisioned arrangements, themes, a line or two sprouting as you wrote down the next note. Something sad and somber, the exact opposite of what Harry had been pushing for since he entered the studio.
"What am I now?" you wrote on the back of the sheet music. You didn't know how it would fit, but it would. You could tinker with the words later, so long as all your thoughts were written down somewhere, you would find a way to make it happen.
"What are you working on over there?"
Harry was suddenly at your side, and when he peeked over your shoulder, you didn't try to hide your frenzied notes. You handed them over, unsure if he even read sheet music. "It was just a thought I had. I can play it for you if you'd like?"
"Please," Harry said, gesturing to the piano in the corner of the room. It was then that you realized that everyone else had left the room at some point or another. At your questioning glance, Harry explained. "Ten minute break, but it felt like you were onto something...And I figured you'd be more willing to share if it wasn't in front of a group."
"Thank you," you said, those pesky butterflies swirling around in your stomach. They seemed to appear any time Harry so much as smiled at you. "It's just a melody, really, but maybe you can use it for something.
You sat down at the piano, eyes widening when Harry sat down beside you. Shaking it off, you focused on the piano, the keys cool and smooth to the touch, a familiar feeling that felt nice among such a different work setting. You explained your thought process to Harry a little bit, telling him the direction you hoped the song would go in and possible arrangements for it and whatnot. Harry, who apparently knew you better than you thought he did, nudged you with his elbow and encouraged you to play, knowing that you were stalling.
It wasn't that you were unsure of yourself or your talent. You knew you were good at what you did. You'd collaborated on multiple albums and worked with many well-known artists and bands, or artists who were just breaking out onto the scene and did so with the help of your songwriting. The difference here was that you normally didn't play an idea for anyone until it was fully realized. You typically sent over demos and typed up lyrics, and Harry would be one of the first to hear something that you'd only just come up with. Besides Buddy, but he didn't really count.
Taking a deep breath, you began to play, letting the chords you'd only just come up with pull your focus. After having played through it a couple times, you looked over at Harry, who had a faraway look in his eyes, an idea of his own forming in his head, perhaps.
"It's fairly simple, but I think that's what's rather beautiful about it," you said while still playing. "Sometimes you don't need much to get a response from someone, and I think a melody like this really allows an artist to shine, you know? Whether that's through their lyrics, or their vocal range, or both. And obviously it can be changed to a different key, this is just the one I wrote down, but...yeah, that's what I've got."
You finally stopped playing to hear Harry's opinion, though you wished you hadn't. Now your hands didn't really know what to do, and it took a lot of effort to keep them knotted together in your lap. Harry still looked pensive, as if he hadn't even heard your rambling, though now you were even more curious to know what he thought.
"Harry?"
Blinking, Harry turned toward you, his knee bumping against yours on the piano bench. His eyes cleared up as he remembered he wasn't alone in the studio. "Hm? Sorry, just thinking."
Offering him your pen and a fresh page in your journal, you said, "Did you maybe want to write it down?"
After that, you and Harry wrote hundreds of songs together. At least it felt like a hundred songs. Whether it was in the studio, or at each other's homes—mainly his because he had a home studio and a guest room for when sessions went too long—the two of you were almost always writing together. It wasn't always for his album, either. Sometimes Harry would help you with projects you were working on for other artists, or you would just write songs for the sake of writing them.
And it just worked. It felt like you and Harry just clicked. He was able to vocalize what you were trying to say to his producer, and you knew what he was thinking before he said it or the sound he was going for based off a couple descriptors. You'd never known someone so intimately before, or understood them so completely, Not even Gavin.
Harry was witty and smart and kind and genuine. He felt things deeply, and kept a lot of his darkest secrets and deepest insecurities incredibly close to his chest. You realized at some point that he was even more guarded than you in some ways. As you wrote together more and more, you obviously realized that there was more than met the eye when it came to your friend, but outside of songwriting, he wouldn't divulge much. He'd been through a breakup recently, that much you could tell, and while you wanted to know more, you respected his privacy and the desire to leave the past exactly where it was. Unless it came to the music, of course.
"So...you're what? Friends without all the benefits?" Sylvia asked you.
You met with her pretty regularly now for lunch during the week. Harry wasn't typically the topic of conversation, but on this occasion, Sylvia was giving you the third degree.
"We're co-workers. And friends," you added as an afterthought. Saying you were merely co-workers didn't seem right to you anymore, and you knew Harry would be upset if you thought otherwise. "I don't know what other benefits I would need outside of his companionship."
"Bull. Shit." Sylvia pinned you with a stare that made you blush. "Last weekend he had you practically sitting in his lap, and you're trying to tell me nothing's going on?"
"Not really. I don't think either of us are in a place to be in a relationship right now." It was the same line you fed to Andrew last week when you went to see one of his games. He thankfully bought it, or maybe he was just used to you keeping your love life to yourself, but Sylvia wasn't having it.
"What makes you say that?"
You shrugged. "I mean I'm definitely not, and I can just tell he's not there yet either. I mean, obviously, I've learned about his most recent relationship by working with him, but outside of that, he doesn't tell me anything. I don't even know her name."
You weren't offended that Harry didn't want to share about his ex. You wouldn't have told him about Gavin if you hadn't been put in that particular situation. But you understood better than most about that kind of pain. Maybe he wasn't ready. Maybe his feelings were getting all jumbled up between the past and the present. Or maybe he just didn't like you that way. The last theory hurt more than you cared to admit, but you were more scared of another potential relationship going up in flames than finding out the truth, so you decided ignorance really was bliss.
Sylvia nodded, understanding. You realized she must've known his ex, though you didn't ask for details. That was Harry's story to tell, not hers, and you were pretty sure Sylvia would say the same if you did ask. "I guess that's fair. But so, you're just...friends who kiss occasionally?"
You nearly choked on your sip of water. "What? No! Of course not. We don't—We—"
"Let me save you the struggle of coming up with an unconvincing lie," Sylvia said. "I've seen you."
"When?"
"Christmas party," she said, raising one finger as if she was about to list a few occurences.
"That was mistletoe. It was innocent," you said with a dismissive wave of your hand, even though said hand was suddenly clammy.
"New Year's."
"Everyone kisses at the end of the countdown!"
"At game night when he kissed your neck?"
"Why are you paying that close attention to my neck?"
"And," Slyvia said, pointedly ignoring your last remark. "I have it on good authority that Harry kissed you at the studio last week. Don't try to hide it, Y/n."
Sighing, you said, "So what's your point, exactly?"
"My point is that y'all are just pretending you're not in a relationship when you are!" she said, looking at you as if you had two heads. "Look, it's clear you've been through some shit and Harry has too, I won't deny that. But are you really going to put your happiness on the back burner because of it?"
Your cheeks burned at having been caught. It wasn't like you'd planned to kiss Harry any of those times. Each kiss came as a surprise, leaving you more and more breathless than the last and hopeful for another. What Sylvia didn't know was that you and Harry had kissed a lot more than the handful that she'd rattled off. Sometimes when it was late and you were over at his house working, he'd get this look in his eyes that would turn your whole body molten. He'd lean in close, nudge your nose with his, and then his lips were on yours and time suddenly didn't exist.
You liked kissing Harry. A lot. You liked the way his fingers gingerly held your jaw, you liked that kissing him gave you free rein to touch him wherever you wanted—his hair, his arms, beneath his shirt. Sometimes it felt like you couldn't get enough, but it always ended with one of you pulling away under the guise that it was getting late. Your lips would tingle long after, and you'd text Harry late at night when you should've been asleep, or he would call to talk about whatever he was thinking.
To anyone else, it wouldn't make sense, but it made sense to you and Harry. There was no pressure to be more, no urgency to define what you were doing, and that seemed to work for both of you.
"I'm perfectly happy right now," you said, and you were.
It had been a long time since you'd felt this content. Your breakup with Gavin left you feeling guilty and ashamed. And deep down, you knew you already felt more for Harry than you did for your ex, and that made you feel horrible too. Part of you still felt you were being greedy by trying to be this happy, that you should just take what you were given and try not to press your luck.
Sylvia took you by surprise by taking your hand. Her fingers were warm and reassuring, just as her eyes were when you finally met her gaze. It was safe to say now that she was your friend. She'd come over to your house multiple times for wine and movie nights, you went out to bars together, you'd met her partner, who was the absolute sweetest person on the planet. You valued Sylvia's friendship, and you valued her as a person. You didn't want to lose her if things with Harry progressed and fizzled out.
"It's okay to want more, Y/n," she said gently.
It was like she saw through all the bullshit and realized what you were really scared of. Harry was the only person who knew everything regarding your past relationship, but you told Sylvia bits and pieces. When you'd told her that you broke up with Gavin the night he wanted to propose, she didn't judge you, or ask why you'd throw away a perfectly good relationship. She was empathetic, and said she was sorry you had to go through that. It felt good to confide in someone who was willing to hear your side of the story, to have them realize if you could've loved Gavin the way he loved you, you would've.
"Maybe," you said. "But like I said, I'm not the only one who has shit to work through."
Sylvia nodded, letting the subject drop. But the words she'd said, It's okay to want more, needled at your brain the rest of the day.
*.*
"You should come with me."
You had been watching Sweet Pea doze contentedly on top of Buddy, who was curled in a ball on his dog bed. The two of them were an unlikely pair, but they'd gotten along great the first time they were introduced, and now you found it adorable any time they napped together.
Harry's voice was low and scratchy in your ear, as if he wasn't too far off from sleep himself. You were huddled together under a blanket on your couch, watching the credits roll on the second movie of the night, but you hadn't paid much attention to anything since the moment Harry pulled you to his chest and tucked his chin in the crook of your neck, peppering your skin with kisses as his thumbs rubbed circles beneath your shirt.
"What?" you asked, not having really heard him. It seemed impossible, but every day his touch became more and more dizzying.
"To Japan. You should come with me," he said. "It would be like a writing retreat."
Harry had mentioned his impromptu trip to Japan over dinner. He seemed excited about it, of getting out of town for a little while and just being alone with his thoughts. Those were his words, though now he was inviting you along.
"I don't even have a passport," you said, a non-answer, as Harry would call it.
"We'll get you one," he said. "Don't you think it would be fun to explore a new city together? Just the two of us?"
"W—What about Buddy?"
"Buddy can come to," Harry said, like it was all just so easy.
You thought back to your conversation with Sylvia a week ago. It's okay to want more, she'd said. At the time, you were content with this thing you and Harry were doing. It was simple and easy and pressure-free. A couple weeks later her words still nagged you. You hadn't mentioned wanting more to Harry, but this was different. This was...big. Appearing nonchalant didn't make it so.
"What are we?" you found yourself asking, hating how cliche the question was, even if you did need the answer all of a sudden.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, but you knew he was too smart to not understand.
Still, you sat up and faced him, forcing him to sit on the other side of the couch to have a proper conversation. "I meant exactly what I said, H. What—What are we doing here exactly?"
Harry's face flushed, the muscles in his arm flexing as he rubbed his neck. "I...I don't know. I thought we were okay with not really defining it."
Not defining it, or not talking about it? you thought, even though that wasn't really fair. You were just as content not to ask as he was until now. Or a few weeks ago, you couldn't exactly tell when you began to want more, or when wanting more stopped scaring you.
"I know, but now you're asking me to drop everything and fly to Japan for...for how long exactly?"
Harry shrugged, and your jaw ticked. "A couple months?"
"A couple months," you repeated, trying to align your thoughts. All you could hear though was, It's okay to want more. Taking a deep breath, you said, "I think...I think if I'm going to follow someone across the world for a couple months, I would like a definition about what it is we're doing."
"It's a writing retreat, Y/n. We would be working on songs. Just like we've always done."
You weren't sure when you became the brave one. Perhaps it was your conversation with Sylvia bolstering your confidence, or maybe it was Harry's reluctance to acknowledge the situation at hand, you weren't sure, but his reply wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.
"I'd have to find my own hotel," you said. "Or an apartment to rent I guess."
"You'd stay with me obviously," Harry said, and you had to resist the urge to take him by the shoulders and shake him until he started seeing your perspective.
"Co-workers don't live together, H."
"But we're not just co-workers, Y/n. We're—"
Your brows raised, encouraging him to finish, but he ended up shaking his head. Running a tired hand over his face, he said, "I understand what you mean, but I can't...I can't give that to you right now."
You nodded, then stood up. "And I can't go to Japan without it."
It hurt, but at least he was being upfront about how he felt. It wasn't really fair of you to ask for more when both of you had been content to keep things simple. But somewhere down the line, you realized you liked Harry. A lot. You were okay with leaving your history with Gavin in the past, and you wanted to look to the future now. You'd thought that the future might include a relationship with Harry, but he wasn't ready, and you weren't sure if you wanted to wait. So much of the last two years had been waiting, hiding. Now you needed more. You craved it.
You felt like you were in some kind of alternate universe. One where Harry was scared and unsure of himself and unable to admit to what he wanted. You wanted more, and you weren't going to settle for anything less. You wanted to be more than his friend whom he kissed sometimes, you wanted to hear his scratchy voice as he woke up beside you, and you knew he did too, but something was holding him back. You'd spent too much time hiding from life and love to hide with him some more. Part of you wanted to, just because it was Harry, and you cared about him a lot, but a bigger part of you knew what you deserved, and it was okay to acknowledge that.
"I understand," he said, standing up with you.
Both of you were quiet as he gathered his things. You watched his broad shoulders shrug into his coat, the lean frame of his body bend down to put Sweet Pea in her little carrier. You felt the loss of him already, and he hadn't even gone yet, but you could feel the wall going up between the two of you. Both of you were guarded in your own ways, and both of you had been as vulnerable as you could be, but it wasn't enough.
"When are you planning on leaving?" you asked as you walked him to the door.
"Couple weeks," he said. "Just have to get the logistics figured out."
Nodding, you stepped into his offered embrace, letting yourself inhale the scent of his cologne and feel his arms around you for the last time for a while. His nose bumped yours in a move that was so familiar it made your heart squeeze. You weren't sure how long you stood like that, kissing until you couldn't breathe, it was only until Buddy's wet nose nudged the two of you apart that you finally stepped away from him. Harry bent down to scratch your dog's head and let him lick his cheek a few times before straightening back up. He was about to turn and leave when you called his name.
"I don't know what happened," you said, swallowing around the lump in your throat. "If you did something or if she did something to make you so...closed off, and from one heavily guarded person to another, I'm sorry that it happened and that it made you this way. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for in Japan."
Harry grinned, but it wasn't wide enough to show his dimples. Without saying a word, he left, head bent as he walked down the hall, taking a piece of you with him.
Buddy nudged your leg, pulling away from the hall Harry already disappeared down. Your dog's eyes were big and curious and completely unaware of what was wrong, which brought a watery smile to your face. "Come on, bubba. Let's get ready for bed."
992 notes · View notes
azsazz · 1 month
Text
Off Grid
Azriel x Reader [Formula One AU]
Summary: Ferrari has signed on rookie driver Dorian Havilliard. Azriel must learn to navigate the 2024 season with a new teammate and his secret relationship, with you, who just so happens to be the team’s media trainer.
Warnings: N/A
Word Count: 2,109
Notes: This one goes out to @moosemahboi for the ask this morning 😏 enjoy 😉 (idk why I can’t tag u but hopefully you see this)
Also, sorry if the formatting looks like shit I’m posting this from my phone. I busted this out so fast tho whoops
_________________________________________
“Azriel, how are you feeling knowing that Ferrari has signed young Dorian Havilliard for the 2024 season?” The reporter asks, sitting eagerly on the edge of his seat. He has his phone out, recording Azriel’s responses. The man has been hanging onto every word Azriel has said; him and the other thirty journalists eager to pester him, all cramped within the small room.
Beside him, Cassian snickers under his breath, all too obviously happy that he’s not the one who must suffer this torturous questioning. Azriel refrains from rolling his eyes at the absurdity of it all. Well, it’s not absurd but it feels like it because it’s been the only question anyone seems to care about right now, they no longer care to ask how the new chassis feels, what his thoughts are about the new Las Vegas race added to the schedule, how he’s projected to be one of the top drivers this season. Was supposed to be one of the top performing drivers of the season. Ever since Ferrari leaked that Dorian Havilliard is making his debut with the team for the first race, it’s been a feeding frenzy for the media, trying to be the first to glean insider information about the fresh meat.
“I think he’ll make a great addition to the team,” is all Azriel offers in response.
He’s hot and sweaty from practice and being blinded by flashes of cameras that don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon isn’t helping his mood in the slightest. It’s the part of his job that he despises the most. All Azriel wants to do is drive, because nothing feels as good as the adrenaline when he’s behind the wheel, but right now all he wants is to go home, not respond to million questions he’s already answered too many times before. And to be honest, he’s kind of pissed about Ferrari signing Dorian Havilliard and nixing Rowan Whitethorn, who has signed on to be McLaren’s first seat after Aedion Ashryver’s accident at the final race of the 2023 season that sent him into early retirement.
There’s a beat of silence, and when it’s clear he has nothing else to say about the matter, someone else pops up from their seat and another question is hurled his way. “And what about your former teammate, Rowan Whitethorn? How is he taking the news of losing his seat to Havilliard?”
The urge to roll his eyes into his fucking skull is so great he almost doesn’t stop it, but the last thing he needs is the team’s media trainer on his case about the appropriate ways to conduct himself during media panels, no matter how pretty she is.
They should be asking this question to Rowan or even Dorian, whenever he begins press for the upcoming season.
“Rowan understands,” he tries to hide the sour tone in his voice. Azriel and Rowan have been driving together for the past three seasons and it’s been one of the best experiences he’s had with a teammate in Formula 1. He knows the constructors are too worried about placing him on the same team as Rhysand or Cassian, who he grew up with at karting school. They’re like brothers and they act like it too, but if they were on the same team the rivalries would feel even more drastic than they already are. “He’s a good driver and talent like his isn’t going away anytime soon.”
Rowan’s new teammate, Hunt Athalar, nods from Azriel’s other side. He and Cassian seem to be enjoying not being pestered with surface-level questions, and Azriel wishes that he was feeling the same.
With a few more unnecessary queries about Dorian, press finally ends. He, Hunt, and Cassian are escorted from the room, the trail of flashes and conversation starting up clinging to his back as he walks.
“Fucking hell,” Azriel mutters to Cassian, who jabs him in the side with a snigger once they’re cleared the room, the door shutting with a loud click behind them. “I hate these interviews.”
“Don’t need to tell me that, mate,” he laughs wholeheartedly, and Azriel glares. “I’m pretty sure everyone can tell. Might want to learn to act like you like it, though. Ferrari won’t keep you if your attitude sucks. But I’m sure that media trainer of yours is about to hunt you down and tell you the same thing.”
Azriel frowns. He thought he’d done a pretty good job at deflecting the questions about his new teammate.
“People like me for me,” Azriel shrugs, defending himself. He’s never been a bullshitter, no matter how badly his team has wanted him to be. This is what the people get, 100% Azriel, take it or leave it. And Ferrari has decided to take it, for the last three seasons. The second half of his sentence is drowned out as Cassian’s snickering becomes full-bodied laughter. “And my trophies speak for themselves.” He doesn’t mean to come off as cocky, but he’d rather be authentically himself than a puppet to the media.
Cassian shakes his head, wiping the nonexistent tears from the corners of his eyes. “No, people like me for me,” he winks at Azriel’s glare. “They like you because you’re a decent driver.”
Azriel’s nose crinkles. “Decent? My car is projected to perform even better than Rhys’ this year!”
They three drivers turn down a hall, nodding to the two Haas drivers they pass: Bron and Hart.
“We’ll see, won’t we, Athalar?” Cassian cranes his neck around Azriel, directing the question to the silent driver on his other side. Hunt and Azriel have never been close, but the angel of McLaren offers a genuine smile in response.
“Should be a good season, boys.” Azriel and Cassian share a look. A perfect media-trained answer, Hunt gave. The other driver turns off down another hall, “See you later.”
“What a weirdo,” Cassian mutters once Hunt has disappeared from sight. “Good luck to Ro, having to deal with that.”
Azriel finally rolls his eyes like he’s been wanting to do since he left the press room. “Yeah, and I’m the asshole.”
Cassian huffs and the pair of drivers stop at the end of the hall where it splits to go to their respective driver rooms.
“I’ll see you later, man.”
“Hopefully in a better mood, Azzy,” Cassian chuckles and dips down the hall before Azriel can toss another glare or remark at him.
Shaking his head, Azriel returns to his driver room. He’s going to grab his things and get the fuck out of here, because relaxing at his hotel sounds much better than waiting around here any longer.
A knock on the door interrupts his actions, and Azriel wonders why the Mother fails to grace him with one sliver of luck today.
“Come in,” he grunts, snagging his water from where he left it on top of the desk.
You enter the room with your phone and clipboard in your hands. You’re typing on your phone, fingers flying across the screen as you reply to another email. The water does nothing to quench Azriel’s suddenly dry throat.
He can’t help the way his eyes drag down your body with your attention on your phone, drinking in the sight of you in your pressed pants and professional button up shirt. There’s a lanyard around your neck with your Ferrari employee access printed on it and he wants to wrap his fist around the strap and—
Wherever his mind was drifting off to is completely shattered by your piercing eyes. He hasn’t had enough time to prepare for your apparent annoyance at his attitude during the press conference. You don’t look happy, and neither is his name as it rolls from your lips in a disappointed manner. “Azriel.” You step further into the room. “What the hell was that out there? You know you can’t—”
Your rant is cut off as Azriel consumes the space between you in two long strides, leaning in to slant his lips over yours, eating up your words. You can’t help but to melt into it a little, a lot when his tongue traces the seam of your lips and you part for him, brushing up against your tongue in a sensual move.
When he straightens, you’re panting and a bit flushed. Arousal burns through your body like petrol on the track, but you steel yourself against that fire in his eyes, all ready to light you up.
“Not even going to say hello before you start in on me?” Azriel asks, licking his lips. Your eyes follow the motion, and he smirks. The way his body is pressed up against yours and the firm grip of his hands on your hips threatens to distract you further, especially when his red racing suit is slung around his waist, leaving him in that tight, black long sleeve that contours around his lithe body perfectly.
“No,” you agree, and he frowns. “I’m upset with you.”
“Was it something I said?” He cringes at his own lame attempt at a joke, ducking from your serious gaze. “‘M sorry, I’m just sick of all the Dorian questions. They’re not asking anything about the season or the car, only how I feel about a rookie taking Rowan’s seat.”
You ache for him, you really do, but things like this happen in the sport and he’s been in it long enough now that Azriel should know better than to act like this. You can admit, Rowan had been an asset to Ferrari and to Azriel, wriggling his way under the stoic driver’s skin like a worm, burrowing deep into his heart.
“Az, you need to stop playing it like Dorian took his seat on purpose,” you console gently, “We both know that it was Rowan’s time, and he couldn’t resist what McLaren might’ve proposed.”
“I know, I know,” Azriel replies unhappily, retreating to perch on the arm of the small couch. He can accept it, but he doesn’t like it, preferring to blame the new driver instead. “I don’t want to deal with that little punk,” he groans, because the thought of putting up with a cocksure rookie tires him. “Coming in here thinking he owns the damn place.”
“Azriel,” you tut, rolling your eyes. You put a hand on your hip. “That was literally you four years ago.”
“It’s different,” he mutters, but you both know that it’s not.
You abandon your phone and clipboard on the desk in the room before standing between his parted thighs and wrapping your arms around his neck. His damp hair is slicked back but a strand falls across his forehead and he looks really good like this, head tilted upwards, gold eyes painted with false innocence.
“Why don’t you, instead of being Dorian’s enemy, you become his ally?” You ask softly, fingering the hairs at the nape of his neck.
“Because that’s not how the team works, baby,” Azriel sighs, enjoying the way you’re scratching his skin. He wants to lean forward and rest his head in the crook of your neck, maybe take a cat nap or nip at the skin there. “We might drive for the same team, but I’m not looking to be the supporting driver.”
Fuck that. There’s no way he’s letting a rookie take his seat when he’s worked his ass off since he received it. He’s been driving for Ferrari since he first got an in the sport, four years ago. He fought tooth and nail to work up from second seat to first, and Azriel will be damned if Dorian rips it from under him in one season.
“Your jealousy is showing,” you tease your boyfriend a little, poking him on the nose. You know you shouldn’t be doing this, hanging all over each other when anyone could walk into the room, but you can’t resist your draw to Azriel. “It’s not as endearing as it is when you’re jealous that I’m talking to one of the engineers.”
“Don’t remind me,” Azriel grunts, eyes hardening a little. “You’re mine and I don’t like to share.”
You snort, “That much is clear, babe,” you step out of his arms and miss the heat of his body already. You collect your things from the desk and return to him for a quick kiss. You shoot him a final knowing look, dodging his attempts at capturing you against his chest again. “Work on it, Azriel. I mean it.”
He salutes you as you open the door to slip out. “Yes ma’am.”
It shuts quietly behind you and Azriel slumps back onto the couch, sighing.
It’s going to be a long season.
_________________________________________
@iambored24601 @secretlyhers @kylaisra @daily-dose-of-sass wasn’t sure but figured u might want to see this one 😅
511 notes · View notes
arkhammaid · 27 days
Text
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— ˚₊‧⁺˖ THE SIREN'S CALL.
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fandom. formula one
pairing. oscar piastri x fem!reader (fc: none)
about. y/n is a professional mermaid and oscar is her greatest admirer
content warnings. social media au spanning over a long time, not edited/proofread
notes. i got one of those aesthetic professional mermaid tiktoks on my fyp at like 2am... the idea has been stuck in my head since then lol
YOURUSERNAME
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liked by mermaidaquilla, oscar piastri and 1'788 others
yourusername Conquering the big seas with my new mermaid tail. Super excited for the big show this weekend🧜‍♀️
mermaidaquilla gorgeous pictures, the color really suits you <3
⤷ yourusername thank you, aquilla 🫶 we need to go for a dive soon!
⤷ mermaidaquilla oh for sure, let me know when you have time :)
user you're incredible, y/n
user oh my god these pictures are insane??
user i can't wait for the show, going to an aquarium just for you!
⤷ yourusername ahh, thank you so much for your support darling 💗
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YOURUSERNAME
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liked by mermaidaquilla, oscarpiastri and 35'023 others
yourusername Happy (future) World Oceans Day! @/mermaidaquilla and I'll be doing a special show on June 8th, streaming on several platforms to raise awareness and money for our oceans 🌊 We await your attendance, tell your friends and family about it!
mermaidaquilla so happy to do this show with you love!
⤷ yourusername me as well, i'm so honored we will do this together 🥹
user oh my god, collab of my dreams finally come true
⤷ user so happy for y/n to be recognized by the bigger creators!
user marking the day on my calendar!
user my daugher loved you in your last show, thank you for brining magic a bit closer to us
user hold on, what is oscar doing in her likes...
⤷ user who??
YOURUSERNAME
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liked by oscarpiastri, mclaren and 100'244 others
yourusername I've started diving when I was just a little girl and now my job is my child hood dream... I'm a mermaid and belong to the seas. I'm so thankful for all the support I've received, hopefully to many years to come with Mermaid Y/n 💕🪸
mermaidaquilla your journey is incredible, i admire you so much for your drive, you're the mermaid of my dreams. so happy for you that you've made it love!
⤷ yourusername without you it wouldn't have been possible!! i can only thank YOU for being my biggest supporter since the beginning 💗
user every time i'm blown away by the pictures you post
user thank you for making the mermaid community bigger!
user MOTHER Y/N WE'RE SO PROUD
user mother is mothering FR
user HOLD ON WHY IS THERE A MAN ON THE LAST SLIDE??
⤷ user so i'm not the only one who noticed??? is this an official soft launch????
⤷ user i think so? y/n never posted someone without tagging them..
⤷ user our mermaid found her merman 😭
oscarpiastri Congratulations, y/n. You absolutely deserve it 👏
⤷ user OSCAR COMMENTED!!! I REPEAT, OSCAR COMMENTED!!!
⤷ user oh he's brave
⤷ user you mean more like he finally got his shit together. this is his first comment ever after being a whole year in her likes 💀
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OSCARPIASTRI
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liked by yourusername, landonorris, logansargeant and 1'983'034 others
oscarpiastri "She's everything and I'm just Ken."
yourusername But you're very good at car, love 🫶
⤷ oscarpiastri At least that 🫡
user OSCAR HAS A GF, I REPEAT, OSCAR HAS A GF AND SHE'S PRETTY!!!
user omg barbie y/n and her clumsy ken, i love this
landonorris congrats mate!
logansargeant FINALLY!
⤷ oscarpiastri You're acting as if we just came together...
⤷ logansargeant Well, it did take you long enough
user my new fav wag
⤷ user fr, no one can beat a mermaid
user HE FINALLY BAGGED THE GIRL!!
⤷ user took him over a year in the likes.. i feel so proud
user hold on... DOES ANYONE REMEMBER LUCY'S THREAD ABT THE BIRTHDAY PARTY IN JANUARY WITH Y/N AS MERMAID
⤷ user WAIT I THINK YOU'RE ACTUALLY ONTO SMTH
⤷ user are you saying that 'prince eric' is OSCAR MF PIASTRI???
⤷ user his sister is an icon if this is actually true
⤷ user someone give her an award for the greatest matchmaker of the decade (right after oscar and y/n receiving one of the greatest lovestory of the decade)
⤷ user childhood friends to lovers with a twist (only if the whole thing is true which i'm manifesting rn)
user my god the delusion some people have 💀
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taglist.@keyz-writes , @obsidianjewel , @aimixx , @themercyverse , @lem-hhn , @lupicalbestwolf , @akiraquote , @lilypadlover , @adorablezhui , @peqch-pie , @namgification
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ARKHAM MAID 2024
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tomatopers · 1 month
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❝ I'm. . . late?! ❞
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in honor of me also forgetting vday :,) here is my first post for this acc !! I also need to remember to make an intro post n stuff, and hopefully i'll make some friends on here eventually </3 i see ppl interacting with their anons/followers and it's sooo cute when will that be me !!!!
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They forgot Valentine's Day... surely the nineteenth is just as special? Diluc, Zhongli x GN!Reader (separate)
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Diluc watched you silently from a window, the sunny scene outside feeling worlds away from his own dim office. You were sitting on the stone wall surrounding the Dawn Winery, pretending to read one of his boring novels while pointedly ignoring him. He was very often unaware of his stumbles, this being his first relationship, but wouldn't he would catch on soon enough?
Sure it was immature to still act huffy at this age, but Valentine's day was 5 days ago! Not one! FIVE! You had to witness Lisa flirting with the Acting Grand Master for hours, which wasn't uncommon in the slightest, but the librarian seemed to make use of all her cheesy lines on the holiday.
The stone was frigid beneath your bare legs, and you were reminded that the sun hadn't yet begun to do its job this early in the month as your legs grew numb. Perhaps on this fifth day of snubbing your lover, you'd spend the night at a bar- maybe even in Venti's company, or Kaeya's. That last ditch effort to get him to notice your huffy behavior never failed.
The worst part of this whole affair was that you couldn't even be disappointed or properly upset in peace. How could you, when this was clearly not an intentional mishap? Diluc worked diligently, and was far more dependable than most; Though, this trait of his only served to deepen your guilt. Perhaps you should apologize for this childish behavior... Maybe talk it out like proper adults...
6 o'clock found you on a barstool at Angels' share, a little early for drinking but the glass in your hand was clearly not your first. Kaeya sat to your right, an arm resting on the counter as he lent an ear to your woes. Venti stood to your left, strumming his lyre quietly and pitching in jests during the quieter moments.
The door opened at 7 on the dot, and you turned around despite knowing who stood behind you. The backlighting of the evening sun made his hair glow like fire, exaggerating the irritation on Diluc's face to resemble anger. You stood up, slightly tipsy but no less aware, and grasped Kaeya's shoulder to steady yourself before walking forward.
"Good evening, Master Diluc. What brings you here so early?" He seemed to glare at you before casting a glance at Charles. The bartender visibly jumped, quickly bowing a greeting before averting his eyes as Diluc grabbed your wrist and tugged you out of the bar. His grip, though firm, wasn't the slightest bit painful- even now, in whatever bitter mood he was in, Diluc always treated you with the utmost care.
You felt even more guilty for acting the way you did.
He released his hold on you in a more private space, tucked behind a couple trees, and waited. Just as you knew he would seek you out immediately after work, he knew you'd soon crumble under his stare and explain what you wanted. Those red eyes, sometimes blazing with anger or warm with love, were now passive and unreadable.
"Well?"
You felt heat behind your eyes, feeling the tears before they could escape down your cheeks. How stupid. It was hard to form a sentence between sniffles, so you stood and cried as he enveloped you in a hug. Maybe you had more than a few drinks back at the bar...
When your tears were all but spent, you gripped his hand in embarrassment, unable to meet his gaze. "...I'm sorry."
"What for?"
You sighed, "I've been such a child about this, it honestly wasn't even that important yet I-"
"If it bothered you, then it's important. To me."
There it was again, the ever chivalrous Diluc and his overflowing compassion when it came to you. Despite the temptation to lie and play it off, you sheepishly admitted, "It's just that, uh- a few days ago, it was Valentine's day... and we didn't really um- celebrate together... But! It's okay! You do so much already and I honestly don't need to do anything for some silly holiday when we can do stuff like that any day and.."
Looking up, you trailed off into a confused silence. Diluc's face was red, and he was the one now avoiding your eyes. "I'm- My apologies. I admit, it did slip my mind, but that is no excuse. It's more than a silly holiday, and as such, I would be honored if you would allow me an attempt to make it up to you." You burst out laughing, and he looked relieved. You really had no reason to be upset, not with this cute of a lover.
"I would allow you all the attempts possible, Mr. Ragnvindr. All the attempts and more." He smiled and took your hand, giving it a gentle squeeze as you followed him out of the alley. "Shall we visit that famous traveling chef then, darling? I heard he's in town. Or the Good Hunter, for something casual? Or perhaps we could buy you one of those gorgeous necklaces they have at the-"
You pulled him in by his collar, feeling him stiffen at the kiss before relaxing. "Diluc, sweetheart, I was thinking something closer to home? I can make dinner, and," you gestured at the setting sun, "the night is still young, I'm sure we can have some... fun, in that great big house of yours."
He turned an even brighter red, trying to cover his blush with the hand you weren't holding. "...That would be perfect."
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It was rarer for Zhongli to go a day without speaking to you than it was for him to remember his wallet. That's why it was evident to even those around you that there was something amiss. You worked at a teahouse, and that just happened to be where Zhongli's favorite tea was sold. When you weren't working, you'd help out at the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, or stroll with him along the boardwalk. Plenty of time together, to say the least.
When the regulars witnessed you not serving the consultant's tea, as you always did, it immediately became a source of chatter- Some of the older women were having quite a laugh about young lovers' quarrels, though your relationship with Zhongli was far past the "young love" stage. As you walked from table to table, it was hard to ignore his stare practically burning holes through you.
The first whole hour of his visit must've passed this way; your every movement under the scrutiny of the ex-archon, your coworkers, and half the guests in the teahouse. Your work wasn't any different than usual, no. In fact, you might even be more productive now that you weren't stopping to chat with Zhongli whenever your hands were free. The owner of the place would never admit it, but he too was curious of the predicament under his roof.
Your scheduled break was minutes away, the one you would typically spend at Zhongli's table, but you clearly didn't intend to do so today. For a being such as him, it was inevitable that certain things would slip his mind, but Valentine's Day? You had planned out the entire day as a surprise, the holiday had even fallen on one of Zhongli's leisure days, but he called in the morning to tell you he'd be assisting the Traveler and would not come by. It wasn't even a brief task! He was gone for five days!
It wasn't like you hadn't told him anything, either. "Oh illustrious Rex Lapis, God among men, I beseech your presence in my humble abode on the final day of this week." He had chuckled at your attempt of mimicking the speech of those who cowered before him in his days of glory, taking your hand with a smile and a kiss. It was going to be perfect! But the plans were discarded, and the cake you made still sat untouched in the fridge...
Xingqiu walked in with his usual cheerful wave, heading to the back corner where he'd spend a couple hours reading; As though he noticed your restlessness, he smiled and offered you a seat to join him, "I'll take you up on your offer to regale me with the stories from your trip overseas, if I may?" You smiled back, "Of course! I'll bring the tea and join you."
You spent your break with the young man, and the following remainder of the shift passed with ease. At some point, Zhongli had disappeared- had he gotten upset? Most likely not, such a small matter was far from enough to garner his irritation. It was more likely that work had called for his presence. Maybe he'd notice shop owners taking down their holiday wares on his walk and remember his oversight.
You hung up your apron, bidding the staff goodnight before descending the stairs to head home. Someone was standing at the entrance to a darker alley, one tucked away from the streetlights and the watchful eyes of the Millelith. Quickening your pace, you were about to pass by when a voice, his voice, stopped you in your tracks.
"My dear, won't you tell me what has drawn your ire?" Zhongli stepped forward, his confused expression revealing his failure to decipher the issue alone. "I am unaware of any shortcoming, but I assure you it was far from intentional-"
"..."
He walked closer, "Pardon?" You looked up at him, hoping you didn't look pathetically sad. "It was Valentine's Day, the day you left for that trip with the Traveler. That's why I had invited you over." His face fell, his immediate regret making it nigh impossible to retain your frustration. "I will not make any excuses, beloved, it was entirely my fault that we could not celebrate such a wonderful day together-"
"It was, yes."
"-and I believe I grasp the value of celebrating love with a romantic partner, so while it won't compare, please join me for dinner tomorrow, where I can properly demonstrate my affections. I recall you liking when I cook, and surely such a thing is enjoyable together."
You pretended to consider the matter, before laughing and accepting his outstretched hand. "I would love to join you, and I hope I may occupy your time through the night as well." You saw his gaze sharpen for a moment before he swept you off your feet and into his arms.
"If I didn't know any better, my love, I'd think you were trying to tempt me."
"Whatever gave you that idea, darling?"
Without setting you down, he pressed a kiss to your forehead. "I believe you wouldn't protest to spending tonight together, as well?" You could feel the laughter rumbling through his chest, could see the smile splitting his face even with your face hidden behind your hands from the embarrassment. "My most adorable lover, I shall never again miss an opportunity to exhibit the extent of my affection for you."
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sirfrogsworth · 2 months
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Mom's Antiques Auction
I wasn't sure if I should post this or not, but we are trying to auction off a lot of my mom's antiques. This particular auction isn't being held at my house, so I figured it was safe to post here.
The auction will be live until 2/13/24 with a "soft close" starting at 7pm Central. That's when items will be sold a few at a time as people place their final bids. It's just like a live auction without a fast talking fella in a cowboy hat. If you try to bid at the last second, that extends the time by 60 seconds so someone else can try to outbid. It's actually kind of exciting to watch.
If you are in the St. Louis area, you can pick up items at the auction place the day after the auction ends. If you miss the pickup window you forfeit the item. Auction rules are no joke.
Otherwise, they can do shipping but I don't know if they do anything outside the US. You can check out the shipping info and call for more details.
This auction is actually for multiple estates. So not all of these items belonged to my mom. Her stuff is from Lot 406 to 660 and in the furniture section at the end from Lot 978 to 999. The link above should take you to the start of her collection (page 17).
There are some really cool uranium glass items—including this knife.
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I had no idea that was in the display cabinet. I might have kept it if I had known, but I'm hoping people will think it is super cool and it will go for a good price.
I know that website looks like it is from the 90s, but everything is legit. We already did one auction and it went very well and everyone got what they paid for.
On a personal note, it was surreal watching them remove everything that had surrounded me for all of my life. I know it was too much for me to maintain and take care of, but nearly every one of these antiques has a memory attached to it. Most of the items will go to the auction fandom—which I had no idea existed. Pro auction people sell to hobbyists. Big auctions turn into little auctions. It's like an auction feedback loop where each auction hobbyist thinks they can flip the item for a little more money. They even have little auction meetups to show off things they got for a steal because one auction person didn't know the value of something. It's quite competitive and they like telling auction stories (whether you are interested or not).
All that is to say, I know not everything is going to a home where someone will take over custodianship of the cool things my mom collected. But it would be neat if some folks outside the auction fandom got some of her precious wares.
Hopefully with the money raised I can restore my emergency fund, which lasted all of a month after the last auction due to a busted battery and leaky-ass tires. Also, there will probably be a few more auctions after this as my mom collected antiques for nearly 40 years.
Speaking of asses, this golfing piggy bank game does not work very well (I could never get the coin in the hole), but I only ever saw it displayed from the other side and never realize all the junk in that trunk.
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