#ironically enough - punk with pretty much any man he encounters

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

you’re someone i just want around: I

“And I can't wait another minute

I can't take the look she's giving

Your body rocking, keep me up all night

One in a million, my lucky strike.”

— Lucky Strike, Maroon 5

A/N: this idea started as just random concept drabbling between leyla @sunflowervolvimp3​ and i and we never really thought it would amount to anything tbh!! but as we started putting more and more into the plot and characters, we made the spontaneous decision to make it a full on, multi-chaptered collab fic! we have so many ideas planned and so much to elaborate on and we’re just so mfing excited to share it with you guys :’) any and all feedback is greatly appreciated 💌 we hope you enjoy the first part and that you fall in love with this stupid emotionally unavailable moron the way we did! happy reading!!

andrea’s askbox : leyla’s askbox : ysijwa masterlist : andrea’s masterlist : leyla’s masterlist : 

word count: 17.2k

content/warnings: vampire!harry being a lowkey asshole while downing straight tequila like a psycho, getting to know The Crew, Mitch being the iconic legend he is, mentions of smut, and Harry working his immortal charm on an unsuspecting human girl with a peculiar scent and intriguing personality

///

Harry hates clubs. 

In his two hundred years of life, through many trials and tribulations, through tricky scenarios and annoying encounters, through thousands of unappealing circumstances and patience-testing events, he doesn’t think anything quite compares to the crowded, nerve-wracking experience that is a Los Angeles club on a Friday night during peak hours. 

According to his wise, humble opinion, it’s absolutely fucking petrifiying. He’d rather swallow a stake than have to spend hours in a dimly lit room with synthetic smoke choking his lungs, half-conscious humans stumbling around into him, and the stench of sweaty bodies mixed with liquor fumes, alongside the faint yet unmistakable waft of vomit. 

Yeah, Harry would definitely rather eat a red oak spear than have to shoulder that.

Despite his intense hatred for this Californian city during its after-hours, he can’t deny that he fits right into the scene perfectly. Decades of grooming and practice have made him a prime candidate for the fast-paced characteristics that come with the party nightlife. 

Fitting into these aspects aren’t something he had learned willingly; he didn’t really have a choice on the matter, considering his entire existence depends on mortals immature tendencies to get properly shit-faced and make stupid decisions in tightly-packed glorified bars. Harry never understood that— how a fog machine, strobe lights, and an undergrad amateur DJ could ever seem more appealing than the quiet, stable ambiance of a semi-formal bar. How deranged do people have to be to actually enjoy strangers spilling alcohol on them while attempting to shag someone else two feet away on the dance floor? 

Whenever he dwells too much on that thought, he gets a spiking migraine. After this long, Harry’s just come to terms with the fact that humans are regressing as a species. His conclusion is a bit cynical, perhaps, but hardly difficult to accept. One look at a news outlet provides enough proof to launch an Ivy League research project on the matter. 

He really shouldn’t be complaining, however, because the combination of overflowed close quarters and dampened inhibitions makes it the ideal hunting ground. Picking up a living blood bag at a club is basically as easy as walking through a vineyard and plucking grapes right off the stems. It’s practical, it’s fool-proof, and if he plays his cards right, he gets to feed and gets his more intimate needs tailored (a combo that he and his friends refer to as Laid and Drained).  

So regardless of his distaste towards clubs and their eager inhabitants, Harry had learned to mold his persona to fit the bill, making himself as approachable and desirable as possible. His life literally hangs in the balance; he’d put up with throngs of drunk sorority girls and their affinity for shitty perfumed drinks if it means avoiding desiccation. 

It’s not like it’s hard. All Harry has to do is make himself look more appealing than the other hundred men milling around the establishment, which— if he’s being brutally honest— isn’t that challenging. The moral, physical, and ethical standards of men have dropped frighteningly low since his time. Most of the ones that creep around clubs are overconfident, overzealous, boundary-lacking douchebags who think they’re entitled to a woman’s attention, and therefore make complete, utter fools of themselves in the process of trying to court one into their pants. Buying a girl one Sex On The Beach and dry-humping to Daft Punk isn’t the way to convince her to come home with you. 

Harry has developed his own guidelines and tactics for securing a nightly bedroom companion, and his ideas have been working wonders for him for decades now. 

The first and foremost rule is to clean up nicely. Personal appearance is everything. Humans are visual creatures; they build first impressions solely based on outward attraction. That trait is enhanced the higher their blood alcohol content rises. The drunker someone gets, the shallower they become, and it’s Harry’s job to work that to his advantage. And at the risk of sounding shallow himself, he thinks he does pretty alright in that department. 

Especially tonight, present in all the elements of his physique. He’s clad in a pair of high-waisted tan trousers that have been ironed to a crisp, his fitted graphic tee tucked neatly along his waistband beneath his black leather belt. His t-shirt is probably his favorite part of the entire look. It’s a baby blue sturdy cotton number with pastel yellow detailing along the cuffs and collar and a giant cartoon puppy in a striped bowtie taking up its center, smiling cheekily at the onlooker. Arranged around the doodle in faded Times New Roman bubble letters are the words WE’RE IN THE SHIT. 

Harry loves the irony of the article— the innocence of the drawing juxtaposed by the crude message. The piece is a conversation-starter— people almost always comment on it— and that’s exactly what he needs. Something to draw attention to himself and shadow all the other men. Something that shows he has a personality; that he has taste and a good sense of humor and isn’t just another walking genital. Plus, what person doesn’t enjoy a funny little contradiction, especially when it’s this cute?

On top of his graphic top, he’s wearing a tartan cropped blazer (open, of course) with a creme background and royal blue lines. The hem ends at the bottom of his ribs, exactly where his pants begin, and the jacket's hand-sewn buttons and strap detailings show that it's an expensive garment. It shows that he puts money and effort into how he looks, which is something anyone would appreciate when scoping for a possible hookup.

Harry’s shoes are the most casual factor of his fit. They’re a pair of light yellow Vans that match the collar of his tee. They’re plain, but he keeps them clean and they tie the whole look together without a hitch.

Accessories are everything, as well. Aside from the pearls arranged around his prominent collarbones, the gold-dipped cross hanging from a delicate chain around his neck, and the matching dangling cross earring on his right earlobe (again, he adores irony), he’s sporting a plethora of chunky rings on his hands, each unique and effortlessly complimenting his appearance. On his left hand, his index finger dots a ruby jewel embedded into a thick rusted band, another large metal one with dancing bears on his middle, and two clunky golden letters on his last two digits— his initials, HS. On his opposite hand, he has a medium-width plated ring on his middle finger with peace engraved along its rounded edge, an elegant lionhead number with an amethyst stone snug in its mouth, and along his pinky is a decently-sized opal set into a delicate polished frame. 

His two last rings are the most important of all. The lionhead is his daylight ring, which he hasn’t taken off since he transitioned. It keeps him from bursting into flames everytime the sun hits his skin. The opal was his mother’s, and it was her favorite. 

Harry’s attire is something he’s immensely proud of, even though a good amount of people deem him eccentric in the eyes of modern masculinity. He couldn’t give less of a shit. With his lightly tanned skin, alluring cologne and lacquered nails, his shirt stretching across the defined muscles of his chest and stomach, his broad shoulders and tapering waist, his thick thighs, sharp jaw, jade eyes, loosely tousled chestnut curls, and the vast array of dark ink littering his arms...

He looks good and he knows it. And all the people whose gazes glue to him as he passes by know it, too. Especially a random group of young women in line, who ogle at him shamelessly as he casually strolls past. He treats them to a sly wink, an irresistible dimpled smile, and a soft, cheeky greeting of, “Ladies.”

He gets off on the way they swoon at his refined English accent, giggling and waving. 

The only other component Harry has for succeeding in the club environment is simple, but it’s important: Don’t seduce, romanticize. 

Anyone— even inebriated idiots— can try and seduce a woman. And if she’s had enough tequila shots to cloud her thoughts, they just might succeed. But only a real man can romanticize a girl, and it yields way better results. 

Females are an emotional sect (Harry says that with zero misogyny; it’s just a scientific fact and he actually praises it), which means that if you entertain their interests and fluff their egos, they are bound to fall right into the palm of your hand. It changes the game completely because then they don’t feel that they have to pleasure you, they want to. They pursue the guy who flirts without being too vulgar, who appreciates and acknowledges their efforts, and who can go head-to-head with their wit by carrying unforced banter. They chase after him because he’s showing genuine kindness rather than just sexual interests and if he’s that attentive on the getting-to-know-you front, one can only imagine how skilled he could be in other bases. Chatting up a girl the right way, with patience and courtesy, builds credibility and prowess. And as a thank you, they’re usually more than willing to pay special attention to your needs, as well. 

Thus, romanticizing is always the expert move. So, yes, Harry detests clubs and the disaster that is adult recreation. But he’s fucking amazing at playing it to his favor. He’s great at calculating everything down to the smallest detail and he’s going to piggy-back on those skills for the rest of eternity. He’s so good at what he hates that his closest friends have anointed him the title of Walking Paradox. He’s more than happy to keep it. 

All of these thoughts are circulating around his skull, hyping him up for the game ahead as Harry and his friend group walk up to the bouncer at the entrance of the club they had chosen for the night, faint stars twinkling in the dark sky as the sounds and lights of the city fall away into background static. 

They cruise by the long line of people, hearing sounds of disagreement and grumbling coming from the other patrons waiting to get in. Harry casually tucks his large hands into the pockets of his light brown slacks as he pulls up in front of the burly bald man, who is wearing a black shirt with the club’s name printed in neon letters. The security guard is at least five inches taller than him, overswollen biceps and pectoral muscles rippling under the flimsy material of his work outfit as he crosses his arms over his barreled chest, cocking a single thick eyebrow at the seemingly young vampire. 

Harry delivers a good-natured smile up at the employee, despite the man’s obvious begrudging disbelief at what he is about to try and do. His friends chat quietly behind him, uninterested in what is happening; after years of being acquainted, they know that Harry is going to get exactly what he wants. He always does. 

He’s the best of them, that much is obvious. Not only when it comes to his experience with persuading sexual partners and getting himself a decent dinner, but he’s the best at convincing just about anyone to do anything, neutral of gender. He’s the second oldest of the crew, yet he seems to have the most knowledge and practice under his belt; his easygoing charisma, undeniable good looks, and dazzling smile could sway even the most stubborn of souls. Frankly, he’s so successful in getting his way that no one cares to try and argue for the leader position. Not when they can just sit back and let Harry do all the work. 

“Good evening.” Harry’s deep voice chimes giddily in the direction of the bouncer, his accent particularly heavy for no real reason. “How you doing tonight, mate?”

The guard— whose name tag reads Brock and Harry has to actively stop himself from snorting at how fitting the name is for such a brick of a human— looks down at him with a stony expression, voice flat. “I’m good.”

“Well, that’s great to hear!” The curly-haired boy’s simper widens, dimples popping into place as he skates into his next question with dramatic friendliness. “Haven’t had anyone cause you any trouble tonight, have you?”

Brock blinks once, attitude remaining coldly indifferent even in the face of Harry’s cheeriness. His words, however, are snipped and pointed. “Not yet.”

“I’m guessing you’d like to keep it that way.” The young man comments sympathetically, nodding his head along with the worker. “Totally understandable.” 

“Good.” The employee remarks in the same detached tone, shifting on his feet, obviously growing uncomfortable and irritated with the conversation. “So I’m guessing that means you know you have to get in line.” 

Harry glances over his shoulder at the lengthy expanse of people gathered along the side of the building, a light wind filtering through his freshly-shampooed ringlets as he studies the way the bright sign on top of the club casts alternating rainbow colors across the crowd. 

He makes a disapproving sound by sucking at his teeth, lulling his sight back onto the guard. “I don’t know, man. At this rate, I feel like by the time we get to the front of the line, it’ll be last call.”

“Maybe.” Brock shrugs offhandedly. “It is what it is, right? Fair’s fair.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Harry returns his gesture, but his posture shows no intention of moving, the corners of his rose lip set in a knowing smirk. “But since you’ve been having a good night, do you think you could find it in yourself to just let us through? We’d greatly appreciate it.” 

The bouncer’s face hardens, any shred of professional amiability washing out of his defined features. “I don’t think so.” 

The vampire’s shoulders sag in exaggerated disappointment. “Are you sure? It’s just five of us. Don’t think we’ll do much damage. Right, guys?”

Harry glimpses over his back to his friends, who let their conversation falter for a moment to throw out a chorus of half-assed agreements, trying to keep themselves from snickering. 

“We promise we won’t cause any problems.” Xander speaks up, jutting his chin encouragingly at the man as his lips twitch slyly. He lifts one of his hands, the smallest finger sticking out stiffly and wiggling around. “Pinky swear.” 

The rest of the group bursts into a round of light laughter, causing Harry to release a few airy giggles of his own.  

Xander looks over at Niall, raising his eyebrows and quipping in an innocent manner. “Right, Ni? No funny business tonight. That means no climbing onto the bar again and stripping down to your socks.” 

“That happened one time!” Niall exclaims incredulously, socking the taller boy in the shoulder as the others laugh harder than before, his blue eyes narrowed and face pinched. “Once! And it was only ‘cause Harry challenged me to a tequila shot contest.”

The Irish vampire’s accented voice drops darkly as he reminisces. “Fuckin’ hate tequila. Makes me act like a moron.” 

“As if you’re not one already.” Mitch pipes up in his usual soft dialect, chuckling as he ducks away from Niall’s vengeful fist. 

Harry cranes back to face Brock, thumb playing with his daylight ring as his hands stay relaxed inside his trousers. He shrugs one shoulder easily for emphasis. “See? You can let us through. We pinky swore.” 

The entire charade seems to have only infuriated the security guard more than before, his brows now fully furrowed and a deep, unamused frown etched across his previously pursed lips. His voice is on edge with barely controlled anger. “I’m not putting up with any shit. If you want in, go to the back of the line. If not, leave.”

Harry sighs grandly in defeat, head shaking slightly. “Guess I’ll just have to go the other route, then.”

The creature takes a step forward towards the employee, close enough that their chests almost press together. The bulky man stands his ground, though there’s a flicker of surprise in his eyes at seeing the smaller boy make such a bold move. 

“What the f—?”

Harry locks gazes with Brock, pupils dilating to twice their size, the usual emerald shade of his irises flickering a haunting red and looking sinister in the buttery light of the street lamps. Horror breaks across the worker’s face, the ability to form coherent sentences disappearing from his demeanor. Harry’s heightened senses can hear the way his heartbeat spikes, blood instinctively rushing into his chest as a response to the adrenaline materializing in his veins. The activation of human’s fight-or-flight modes is always so oddly pleasurable. Just feeling how they react so drastically makes Harry’s fangs tingle with longing. Fear is a good condiment, he’s learned; it gives blood’s usual metallic flavor a certain twang.

But at the moment, a beverage from this specific tap isn’t the one Harry has in mind. He has his interests set on something much tangier and full-bodied; maybe Casamigos golden tequila, or Don Julio's Blanco. Preferably mixed with a young office secretary or a Bath and Body Works employee instead of lemon and salt. 

All in all, Brock is just collateral for a much bigger prize, which lies behind the roped off area he holds dominion over. It’s Harry’s job to break that dam. 

Before the large man can fully react, the vampire begins working his compulsion strategy, tone coming out level and soothing, thick with persuasion and teetering along a sleepy undercurrent. “You’re going to let us through, and you’re going to forget we ever met.”

The guard’s pupils enlarge to match Harry’s, the look of utter terror on his face melting right off. His features go slack as the monster’s magical influence works its way through his brain, coating every neuron and bending him to the deliverer’s will. The man reaches over and removes the velvet rope blocking the group’s path, stepping off to the side obediently with an empty expression present across his appearance. 

The leader of the group smiles just as brightly as he had the second he’d walked up to the door. He passes by the worker, giving him a hard pat on the shoulder and feeling the muscular man strain under his supernatural strength. “Thank you very much. You have a nice night, Brock.” 

Harry’s friends follow behind him, echoing his parting message and sharing a collective chortle.  

The second the group dives past the frame of the club entrance, the whole ambiance of the atmosphere changes. Harry walks across the top ledge of the establishment, coming to a halt at the railing that overlooks the main level of the club, his inhumanly sharp eyes bouncing around all the corners of the building to construct some type of familiar layout in his head. Amidst the blinking lights, thick artificial smoke, and swaying bodies, his keen instincts sketch a mental image for tonight’s hunting ground. 

The bar is at the far left corner of the club, squared off and taking up a large chunk of the colorful tiled dance floor. The music station extends across the entire wall at the opposite end of the tavern, stocked with massive speakers and a professional turntable. Harry’s brows jump in mild surprise— it’s not every day that a club puts so much effort into their mixer. 

The animated dancing area is packed with people, the crowd all jumping and grinding to the beat of the bass, moving as one large mass while the rotating strobe lights hang from the cavernous ceiling, bathing their moving silhouettes in neon reds, drunken blues, groggy purples, and electric yellows. The dim surroundings and heavy fog make all the hues more intense, giving the endless party that timeless quality which people tend to enjoy about nightlife. It’s the night to remember effect that movies and shows always hyperbolize; he thinks this way because he’s well aware that not even a third of these people are sober enough to know what the fuck they’re doing, let alone recall it the following day. It’s comically ironic, really. 

But Harry profits off that liquor amnesia, so he brushes away his sardonic skepticism for the time being, settling his lean forearms onto the metal railing that lines the second story of the venue, which is meant to keep shit-faced customers from creating a messy lawsuit. He carefully absorbs the grandeur of it all, leaning his weight forward with a detached sigh, already flickering through the mental menu of his favorite drinks that he has expertly memorized. 

He’s in the process of choosing between a Manhattan— it isn’t a very complicated drink, which is exactly what he’s looking for; something simple and strong— or just straight tequila in a glass when he suddenly feels a familiar presence arrange itself beside him, bumping his shoulder playfully with their own.

Harry snaps out of his recipe retrieval, eyes casting to the side to land on his best friend of almost a century. He cocks an eyebrow expectantly, waiting for the thin, bearded man to make the first move towards conversation.

“You’re a real dick, y’know that?” 

The green-eyed vampire sputters into spontaneous laughter, the edges of his eyes crinkling as the small pits in his cheeks jolt awake. His tone is humorous and full of fake insult for the hell of the joke. “Wow, alright. So I get us into the club that you chose and that makes me a prick? Good to know. You can handle the muscle next time, then, if you’re gonna talk shit.”

Mitch cracks a gentle jesting grin, which is very on brand for him. He doesn’t seem like much, with his skinny, lanky frame, delicate features, shoulder-length hair, and somewhat scraggly stubble. He’s quiet, reserved, and hardly engages with anyone outside of their immediate group. He’s always been that way for as long as Harry could remember. 

When they had met back in 1924 at a speakeasy in New York, Mitch had given off a mysterious vibe that Harry had found amusing and intriguing. His slightly sickly appearance and distant persona made the younger vampire want to get to know him better; it was just so peculiar that this seemingly impassive man was working at an illegal bar as a live musician. One would think that a performer would have to display an engaging character to keep a loyal audience, but Mitch had been all the talk of the underground despite his unemotional coolness. It was startlingly unorthodox and Harry just had to know more. 

Therefore, with a bit of help from his convincing supernatural abilities, he’d secured a spot as the black market club’s leading vocalist. He wasn’t anything worth a Grammy, but he could keep his singing in tune and follow Mitch’s guitar rhythms easily enough, all thanks to his limited experience with piano. He fit right in. 

From the first show they had put on together, it was like they had known one another in a different lifetime. They clicked so flawlessly it was almost fictional. 

Harry was lively and charming on stage, working the crowd to his favor as easily as he could knock back a shot, wrapping every single patron around his jeweled pinky without breaking a sweat. His witty temperament countered Mitch’s timid disposition perfectly and that uncommon dynamic had been the foundation to their friendship. Their humorous shenanigans on stage (which included Harry pinching at Mitch’s ass and making vague vulgar motions at each other while harmonizing) was a hit within the drunken community, and it bled into their personal lives. They went from only interacting on stage to sharing drinks together afterwards, to hanging out outside of work, to deep late night conversations about the world and their experiences.

Soon enough, they were closer than either had expected to become. And once they found out each other’s true identities (Mitch had transitioned during the American Revolution, when a vampire in his battalion had given him blood to heal from a wound, unaware that the next day, Mitch would suffer a fatal gunshot to the stomach that would trigger his transformation) they grew inseparable. They had remained that way ever since. 

Despite his friend’s withdrawn tendencies, the older vampire never hesitates to make his opinions heard, obvious in how he’d just full-bodied Harry with that snarky comment. Even when it’s at his expense, Harry appreciates and respects the rawness of it. He loves the way Mitch is honest and straight-forward with everything that crosses his path— it’s one of his favorite traits about him and definitely one of the characteristics that had led Harry to deem him his best friend. He’s probably the most fulfilling person Harry has ever met and their friendship brings him a type of comfort that he doesn’t receive from anyone else.

Vampires can be so detached and cold not only towards humans, but towards one another, and it gets old at times. It’s unsettling not having someone to truly confide in, and Harry is grateful that Mitch had been so willing to fill that position.   

Due to this, Harry rarely takes genuine offense in Mitch’s digs. They’re normally expressed as a joke and they’ve both been alive for so long that thick skin is a default.

“How was I dick?” Harry inquires, slinking his head to the side with entertained curiosity. “If anything, he was the one being an asshole. I asked him to let us in nicely and he practically spit in my face!”

Mitch snorts in amusement, shaking his head lightly as his eyes streak across the humongous room in the same cunning manner Harry’s had. “You and Xander didn’t have to mock him that way.” 

That’s another thing that makes Mitch the better half of their power duo— he still has a decent shred of humanity in his unbeating heart. Pessimistic conclusions aside, Harry does have a bit, as well...but his is more like a paper-thin pencil shaving than a shred. Barely there, but there, at least. 

The young man returns his companion’s snort, rolling his eyes up to the hanging lights over their heads. “Was just some harmless teasing. Nothing bad came of it.”

Mitch scowls scoldingly. “It was unnecessary and mean.”

Harry mimics his expression with his nose scrunched sarcastically. “We were just taking the piss, and it’s not like he’s gonna remember it anyways. Stop being such a kill-joy.” 

“Stop being such an arrogant little shit.” 

“Or what?” Harry tilts his chin up challengingly, the amber specks around his pupils glinting tauntingly, faint black veins momentarily webbing across the whites of his eyes. He sweetens his voice into a honeyed drawl. “Are you gonna spank me, daddy? Have I been a bad boy?” 

Mitch belts out a feathery chuckle, shoving his friend with enough strength to send a regular human flying across the deck. But since the taller vampire matches his force, he hardly moves an inch. “Fuck off.” 

“I’m being serious!” Harry cackles, turning his hips and sticking out his ass towards his visibly disgusted acquaintance. “Go fucking in, if you want.”

He lowers his voice into a sultry hum, wagging his backside jestingly. “I like it rough, baby. Why don’t you bend me over this railing and show me who’s boss?”

It’s Mitch’s turn to roll his eyes to the ceiling, voice deadpan. “I think I’ll pass.” 

Harry juts his lower lip into a theatrical pout, sniffling faux tears. “You’re rejecting me that quick? Who’s the asshole now, huh?”

His best friend doesn’t even blink. “Still you.”

“I can live with that. And it’s probably a good call on your end to give up all this,” he signals vaguely up and down his tight torso with a ringed hand, grinning as he watches the veteran vampire pretend to gag, “because I don’t think Sarah wouldn’t be too happy about it.” 

Mitch’s humorous face immediately drops, eyes narrowing at the change in topic. “Very funny.” 

“I know, right? I’m a proper comedian.” Harry quips proudly, batting his lashes mockingly. “Where is Sarah, anyways? Have you heard from her lately?” 

Sarah and Mitch...They’re a complex couple, if they can even be called a couple. The two are more like occasional friends with benefits, “occasional” meaning “once every couple of months, if Sarah happens to be passing by.” 

Their relationship is open and very loose, mostly due to the fact that Sarah is fairly new to the world of blood-driven immortality and has decided to take full advantage of it. She’s been using compulsion to travel the world for the last three years since she changed, which had been the result of an unfortunate car accident. 

Mitch had been seeing her casually beforehand, keeping her around for the purpose of having a conventional feeding arrangement. Every time vampires feed, they heal the wounds they inflict with a bit of their blood, proceeding to then wipe the person’s memory with compulsion in order to eradicate any chances of getting caught. The caveat is that if a human dies with vampire blood in their system, they become one. 

Sarah’s death happened the day after she’d spent a night with Mitch, and one can imagine how distressed she had been when she'd awoken atop a metal table in a morgue within the basement of a hospital. Mitch had been there from the very first second she’d opened her eyes to her new life. Or rather, her dead life. He had helped her get accustomed to the next stage (meaning having to cut family ties in order to avoid a catastrophe— the less people that know the truth about the supernatural, the better) coaxing her through transition and teaching her the way to go about the rest of eternity without putting herself and others in danger. 

Vampires rarely have any compassion for life (usually out of spite, which stems from how their own lives were taken from them), so it’s not uncommon that bodies are found drained of blood in back alleys, abandoned warehouses, and washed up on banks of oceans and rivers. It could be either of two reasons, or even both: the monster doesn’t care about the consequences of their actions, or they never learned to control their urges. 

Harry’s crew isn't that careless. Through Mitch, they had learned restraint, taking up his practice of feeding enough to satisfy themselves without killing the host, healing them, and then erasing the occurrence from their memories. Mitch had come up with the tactic to cling to his humanity— to be as kind and nondestructive as possible— but if Harry’s being honest, most of their friends only play along because it’s convenient. No bodies means no police involvement, and no police involvement means being able to settle down in one place for an extended period, not having to stress about the annoying process of bouncing around the world for the rest of their lives to avoid detection. 

Keeping low was for the best, and when things get rough— whether it be a mistake on their part or a disastrous bender caused by another vampire passing through— they resort to drinking from blood bags until things tide over. Mitch has a contact at the nearest hospital, which is how he gets access to the stock, as well as how he managed to clean up Sarah’s passing so quickly. 

All in all, Harry had only mentioned Sarah to tease his friend, knowing the slight sensitivity that comes with the subject. Vampires rarely form emotional bonds, typically because it can get really messy, really fast, whether that connection be to a mortal or to another creature of their species. All of them have baggage of some sort— you can’t die, resurrect, be forced to abandon your family, and be a slave to drinking blood for the rest of eternity and just...be normal. That type of extreme emotional turmoil is corrosive towards love. It’s always better to just avoid it all together. 

That’s why this is so habitual to joke about; it’s a way to deflect. 

Mitch sighs grandly, Harry’s question echoing in his skull. “I don’t know where she is, to be honest. Last we talked was, like, four weeks ago, I think. She was in Japan, said she was drumming for a new upcoming band. Haven’t heard from her since.”

Harry nods his head once in understanding, itching to steer the theme of their conversation elsewhere now that he knows the topic is in a more sensitive state than he’d imagined. He doesn’t want to push Mitch into a depressive episode when they’re supposed to be having a good time. Spending the night consoling his sulky friend in the bathroom of a club is the last thing he wants right now. 

“I guess that makes Sarah the asshole, then.” He pokes jokingly, bumping the older vampire’s hip with his own. “She’s ghosting you. Get it? It’s funny ‘cause she’s actually dead.” 

Mitch’s sad expression shatters like glass, replaced by one of unamused secondhand embarrassment at the shitty pun. “I fucking hate you.”

“All the people who were ahead of their time were hated.” Harry sing-songs, turning up his nose haughtily. “Copernicus, Socrates, Einstein— all of them were hated for being geniuses. I’m willing to carry that same burden.” 

Mitch blinks at him three times. “No one hated Einstein.”

The curly-haired boy’s lips twitch darkly. “I’m pretty sure Japan did.” 

“You’re going to hell.” 

“I’m already there, mate.” 

Mitch shakes his head, but even through the black lights, Harry can see him trying to ward off a laugh. After a moment’s pause, he speaks up again softly. “It’s not that hard to refrain from humiliating innocent people who are just doing their job, H.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you’re still on that?” The broad monster groans in exasperation, palms slapping down on the metal rungs below him. “We were just having some fun! But fine. If it helps you fake sleep at night, I’ll try and keep my condescending flare to a minimum.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” Mitch responds peacefully, tapping his nimble fingers casually along the railing, his action much less violent than his companion’s. “S’not too difficult.” 

“Whatever.” Harry scoffs, returning his intent gaze to the dance floor, scoping out the scene once again in hopes of finding a proper meal for the night. 

He zones in on a group of young women gathered along one side of the bar, their messy giggling and lack of balance giving away that they’re obviously sloshed off their faces. Seems promising enough. 

When he talks once more, his tone holds an attitude that plays on a grumble, but it’s somewhat distracted. “The least you could do is let me have some fun, considering I didn’t even want to come.” 

Mitch huffs, making an entertained noise in the back of his throat. “You say that every single time we go out, and yet you always end up taking someone home. Don’t know why you’re complaining.” 

Harry side-eyes him from his peripheral vision, the corners of his pretty cherry mouth dipping down grudgingly, mood defensive. “You drag me to these things so I’m not going to apologize for making the best of it. I put a lot of effort into my pick-ups! I deserve to get my dick wet.” 

“God, please don’t say that again.” His best mate physically makes a vomiting sound. “You’re acting like a spoiled fraternity douche.” 

Harry’s gaze ignites into flames, his back straightening out as he fully turns to face the shorter man. He’s never been insulted so low before. “Take that back!” 

“Take that back!” Mitch mocks in an exaggerated, high-pitched British accent, attempting to stifle giggles. 

“Take it back! You know how much I hate Gen Z.”

“Okay, boomer.” 

“You’re older than I am!” 

“I know. Your lack of maturity is a constant reminder.”

Harry opens his mouth, prepared to make a sharp comeback about how Mitch should have left the shaggy-haired stoner aesthetic back in the eighties, but then a heavy Irish accent interrupts his rebuttal. 

“What’s all this about getting your dick wet?” 

Both of the vampires turn towards Niall, finding Xander and Adam accompanying him in a loose semi-circle. 

Xander isn’t paying any attention, too busy tapping away at the screen of his smartphone, apparently engaged in a very riveting conversation with whoever is on the other side. Adam has his hands tucked into the pockets of his plum purple wind-breaker, looking over Harry’s shoulder, seeming to be adamantly searching for someone in particular amidst the mob on the level beneath them. Niall is the only one interested in their dying conversation, probably only because he heard something crude being mentioned. 

“It’s nothing.” Harry dismisses, but he can’t help but stick Mitch with a glare. “What’s the plan for tonight, then?”

Adam speaks up for the first time. “Charlotte and Ny texted saying they got here about ten minutes ago. Mentioned they were dancing near the DJ station, so I think I’ll go find them.”

“Sounds good.” Harry bobs his head in accordance. “We’ll see you out there, yeah?” 

Adam returns his action, turning on his heel and heading for the stairs that lead to the bottom floor. The leader of the group watches him trot onto the large spiral staircase, disappearing into the thick throng of people scattered across its wide steps. 

Harry shifts his attention to Xander, snapping his fingers a few times in his direction and giving a two-toned whistle. “What about you? What’s got your head?”

“Not what, who.” Niall teases, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively and making kissy faces at their friend. 

Xander ignores him, glancing up at the green-eyed brunette to let him know he’ll be with him in a second, returning his focus back to his iPhone. After a few more elongated moments of typing, the older man finally locks his device. 

“I have a date.” He throws out casually, almost as if it should be obvious. 

“A date?” Harry reiterates slowly, not quite buying it. Xander doesn’t date. He couch-surfs just as much as Harry does. 

“Mmhm.” Xander glimpses behind his fellow vampire, eyes carrying intention. “It’s just a random dude from Tinder. I thought it’d be easier to set something up beforehand, just so I don’t have to spend the whole night trying to figure out if a guy is making eyes at me or trying to keep his whiskey down.” 

“Smart.” Harry shrugs his sculpted brows, impressed. A cocky grin toys with the corners of his mouth. “But we both know no one will ever compare to me.” 

“Right.” Xander scoffs in a deadpan manner, gifting him a tight, aggravated smile. “If only you weren’t such an emotionally unavailable prick.” 

“Oh, like you’re mentally stable enough for a relationship?” Harry bites back, but it holds no true malice, just some petty rivalry. “Piss off.”

“Happily!” The other vampire exclaims, clasping his hands together for dramatics. “Have fun finding someone out there. I’m just gonna grab a to-go box for my already prepped meal.” 

Harry doesn’t bother watching him leave. Instead, he turns to Niall, pointing at him to symbolize it's his turn to share his plans for the night. “What have you got, Lucky Charms?” 

His friend breaks into a jolly cackle at the nickname, arms falling crossed over his chest, hands absentmindedly squeezing his elbows in thought. “Well, I dunno, Tea and Crumpets. What’s your game plan?” 

Before Harry can answer, Mitch butts in, feeling left out of the banter and somewhat hurt that no one had assigned him an alter ego. “What’s my country-derived nickname?” 

Niall gives the American a slow once-over, shifting in his dark brown Clarks boots, fitted navy slack riding up his thighs and allowing his rainbow polka-dot socks to peek out. He hums lowly in the back of his throat, a grin spreading across his rosy cheeks. “Biscuits and Gravy.” 

Harry chimes in, his own arms casually folding over his strong chest, index finger tapping on his bottom lip as if mulling something over. “I quite like We The People, actually.”

The Irish lad snaps his fingers as if having a sudden epiphany. “Uncle Sam!”

Harry’s emerald eyes twinkle with glee at seeing the way Mitch’s go half-lidded, no longer entertained. “Four Score And Seven Years Ago.” 

“Okay, I think that’s enou—”

Niall wags a finger at Harry, lifting one shoulder in question, seeking approval on his next idea. “Star Spangled Banner?”

Harry copies the boy’s motion from before, snapping his fingers and making jazz hands. “I Pledge Allegiance.”  

“Ok, I get it!” Mitch whines with annoyed finality, pushing off the metal railing with a curt grimace on his scraggly face. 

“You asked!” Niall rationalizes between hiccups of evilly delighted joy, cupping his stomach as if to keep it from splitting open. 

“Won’t make that mistake again.” The older creature grumbles, leaning his back against the rungs and looking off towards the distance, communicating that he’s done being a part of the conversation. 

Once Harry manages to reign in his giggles, he rubs at his nose with the side of his finger, releasing a wistful sigh. He refers to the question Niall had stated before their little bullying fest. “I think I’m just gonna do what I always do— sway a nice, pretty girl into doing some not-so-nice but very pretty things.” 

“Solid.” The Irish bloke remarks, toying with the plastic buttons on his silk beige top. “Not much to do other than that, to be fair. Adam’s usually my wingman, but I guess he abandoned me for a girl’s night.” 

“Mitch is mine, and he knows better than to dip on me.” Harry roughly nudges his best friend with his elbow, dodging to the side when Mitch tries to hit him in return. 

Niall hums softly in amusement. “Maybe I should make Adam sign whatever contract you drafted for that poor bugger.” 

The curly brunette snorts. “Good luck. Adam’s as stubborn as they come. But, hey, if you can’t find anyone, just come to me.” Harry’s irises flit crimson for a millisecond, an ominous smirk buckling his features. “You know I’m always happy to share.” 

“Thanks,” his friend exhales flatly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“If you’re taking tips,” Mitch pipes up, vaguely signaling at Niall’s shirt with his chin, “maybe don’t wear that stupid shirt next time. The elephant doodles look ridiculous.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not taking fashion tips from anyone who actually enjoyed living in Ohio, then.” Niall snaps in an exaggerated American accent, middle finger jutting towards the other man. “The only thing you know how to dress is a cornfield scarecrow. Must be why you look like one.” 

Harry forces down more laughter, clearing his throat softly. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t get hammered— girls hate that.” 

“Note taken.” The pale boy runs his fingers through his hair, fixing it up and adding texture to appear more laid-back and rugged. “I’ll see you later, then.”

“Later.” The younger vampire recites, giving a big thumbs-up. 

“Good luck out there. You, too, Boston Tea Party.” 

With that, Niall saunters away, leaving a fully laughing Harry and a grouchy Mitch in his wake. 

The two acquaintances decide to follow in everyone else’s example, descending down the looped staircase and chatting about Mitch’s latest gig at a new bar downtown. 

Harry praises Mitch's talent with his guitar, specifically the fact that he found a hobby which he enjoys so much that he’s willing to keep it as a permanent part of his life. It’s easy to get bored of things when you have hundreds of years ahead of you; everything can seem pointless, in the end. But Harry doesn’t think Mitch has ever let himself fall into those types of dark headspaces and he finds that extremely admirable. 

Harry wishes he could say the same. He’s no musical prodigy, that much is obvious, but he is an expert at playing a few specific French songs on the piano by memory. He rarely does it, though; only when he’s in a low state of mind, which— given the origin of how he learned said classical pieces— isn’t something he’s proud of. They’re tied to a very gruesome part of his past that he’d rather bury deep inside, but he can only push back his troubles for so long before they begin to leak out, staining the clean sheet of recovery he had sewn into place. Those arrangements just bring him a warped sense of comfort he can’t explain.

Even though he’s aware of the destructive aspects of the songs, he finds himself humming one now out of instinct as he elbows through squished bodies and flailing limbs. The second he notices he’s doing it, he cuts it off, focusing all his intention on making it to the other side of the room to the bar. It’s a hard trip when it feels like the walls of the building are closing in on him. 

When Harry finally breaks free from the Human Centipede re-enactment that is the club dance floor, he practically collapses onto the sleek glass counter. Death was less painful than that walk. 

He cranes his neck to the side wildly, suddenly remembering that his much smaller, much skinnier, much more crushable friend had been in tow behind him. To his utter shock, he watches as Mitch calmly weeds around grinding drunk couples with the poise and grace of a swan, filling the empty spot besides him without a single ailment in the world. 

Harry blinks at him blankly in silence, almost as if he’d grown an extra set of fangs. 

Mitch flags the bartender from all the way down the counter, not bothering to meet the green eyes peering at him in disbelief. “You’re so fucking dramatic, H.”

“How did you not die? Again?” Harry sputters, sight jutting all around the older vampire’s body, looking for any battle wounds or missing appendages. “I almost lost an arm in there!”

“It’s a good thing it wasn’t your favorite one, right?” Mitch smirks at his own lewd joke, the simper molding into one of genuine kindness when the mixologist slides up in front of them. “Hi, how are you? I’m good, as well, thank you for asking! Yeah, I’ve got something in mind. Don’t worry, I’m not one of the ‘just make me something sweet’ type of assholes.”

Harry zones out the rest of the friendly chat Mitch entertains with the employee, letting his gaze wander around the large auditorium-like room. He dances his vision over the DJ remixing music on top of the stage, head beginning to bop along to the beat that is currently shaking the seven foot tall speakers. He’s pleasantly surprised at how good this specific producer is. 

He continues scoping out the rest of the venue, taking notes of the different clusters of people that seem to hold promise for the plans he has in store later tonight. A small group of hippie friends here, a two-party duo of tipsy stoners there, and a clump of college students at the edge of the ruckus, stumbling around loudly. Things are looking somewhat decent, in his opinion. The hippies seem to be catching his attention more than the others— specifically, the one that looks similar to Stevie Nicks. That’s a fantasy that’s been waiting to be fulfill for decades now. 

Harry lulls his head forward again when he feels Mitch give a squeeze at his elbow, telling him that the bartender is waiting to take his order. He decides to go for the gold tequila, asking for it straight in a highball glass without any garnishes. The worker’s eyebrows jump up slightly at the unorthodox request, but he drops a polite, “Coming right up.” either way.

“You truly have no flavor.” Mitch tuts once their waiter has stepped away to prepare their drinks. “No taste buds whatsoever.” 

“Yeah? Well, you can suck my flavorless dick.” Harry chimes brightly, eyes crinkling shut as a result of a theatrical smile. 

The younger vampire goes to turn back around, legitimately interested in the girl he’d seen that looked like one of his seventies celebrity crushes, already running through scenarios in his head on how he’d get her into his bed for tonight. Weed and ABBA are probably good conversation starters for that, if Harry’s undisputed people skills have anything to say about it. 

As he’s rotating his torso, a blurred image catches his eyes. He does a double-take, honing in on a group of girls that look faintly familiar. He scans them carefully as they huddle around the corner of the bar area, laughing and toasting along to the multiple conversations they all have going at once. They look like the typical posse that would be a backdrop clique in a mainstream movie. 

He knows where he recognizes them from— it had been the same girls he’d spotted earlier up on the second deck.

Harry expertly surveillances each woman, picking out potential candidates as easily as he’d pinch petals off a flower. The one in the center of the group is obviously the leader, present in how she’s the prettiest and is somehow managing to juggle all of these interactions at once. It means she’s used to being the center of attention— probably strives under it. He throws her out as a potential; the last thing he needs is someone who everyone knows and seeks out. He wouldn’t be able to sneak away with her quietly. 

The rest of the girl crew all seem to be the same status-wise, appearing as supporting characters to the main one in the middle. He could choose any one of them blindly and it wouldn’t make a difference. They all seem so tight-knit, they probably share personalities, at this point. It’s like dipping his hand into a jar of jelly beans and they’re all the same flavor. That notion makes him laugh to himself a bit; maybe Mitch was right about his lack of taste. 

Then, Harry spots her, and all the other women immediately go up in smoke. 

It’s hard not to spot her. She sticks out like a sore thumb, but not in a good way. 

The prospective contender is off to the side, sitting atop a barstool with her feet tucked along the footrest, tapping them against the metal rung awkwardly. She’s talking to one of the other people in the group, but the interaction seems forced and not very satisfying, obvious in both of their faces. She’s tracing her middle finger around the edge of her glass cup distractedly, the contents inside barely touched, the ice in her drink long-melted. She seems disinterested in the chaos her friends are causing, her expression bored and borderline regretful, as if she doesn’t want to be here. 

The further he sizes the girl up, the more appropriate she looks for the role he needs filled. Since barely anyone is paying attention to her, that means he can lead her astray without too much resistance from her acquaintances, if any at all. She appears somewhat unimportant to the narrative— merely a background extra— and it makes him wonder what she’s doing with this clique of women that can’t seem to be bothered by her presence. It’s sad, really. Sad, but beneficial, because that means he can succeed in making her the supporting protagonist of his narrative, at least for tonight. 

The girl is attractive, but not anything astronomical. She’s unconventionally pretty in a way that makes her relevant, but not particularly distinct in the eyes of regular men with presumptuous standards. She’s easy to pass up, and if Harry hadn’t been actively pursuing someone of her bashful persona to card into his plans, he wouldn’t have noticed her. At the risk of once again sounding shallow, Harry’s aware that— physically speaking— he’s very much out of her league. His above-average appearance gives off the vibe that he’d fit better with the leader of the group instead of with her, but he doesn’t want someone that would raise suspicions as a result of their absence. This girl, sitting along the edge of the party with barely any purpose and no one to really question her whereabouts, is exactly what he’s looking for. She’s perfectly imperfect for the cause. 

Harry continues to examine her meticulously, analyzing other traits that can give him a better feel for her character. She’s clad in a pair of high-waisted pastel pink silk pants that stop right at her ankles, accompanied by a flouncy creme lace blouse tucked into her waist. Tan wedges, no accessories, delicate rosey nail polish, and minimalist makeup. The boldest thing about her is the brick red shade of her lipstick, which is easily shadowed by the sparkly sequin dresses, five inch heels, and layered tops her friends are wearing. 

Harry likes her outfit, though. It’s concise and safe, which he can appreciate. Yes, perhaps she looks like she belongs in a dentist’s office rather than a Los Angeles nightclub, but he thinks there’s beauty in simplicity. She looks cute, and that’s good enough for him. 

“She seems interesting.” Mitch’s soft voice snaps him out of his detail-hungry haze, drawing him back into the reality that is the black lighting of the club and the deep booming of the music’s bass. 

His friend slides his tall drink across the glass counter, the amber liquid inside warping his reflection. 

“I suppose so.” Harry answers passively, shrugging one shoulder in indifference while accepting the cup, ringed fingers clinking against the crystalline surface. 

He takes a leisurely sip from the straight tequila, its tangy kick sending a warm surge up through his ears and down his throat, spreading into his chest and along the trench of his tummy. Alcohol really is the cure to everything. 

Mitch gives him a deadpan look, the strobe lights alternating across the glossy surface of his hazel irises, highlighting smugness. “You’ve been gawking for five minutes. Put your pride back in your pants and go talk to her.” 

The curly-haired vampire flashes him a light smirk over the rim of his drink, absentmindedly tapping his two initial rings along the bottom of the highball cup. “Ever so blunt, aren’t you?”

Mitch scuffs, taking a swig from his trusty beer bottle. Out of everything, that’s the one aspect Harry despises about his best mate— that he goes to a club and orders the same drink every time. Where was the fun in that? Where was the excitement of trying something new? When you have an eternity, the least you could do is utilize it to your advantage. Cycling through every cocktail in human history is a prime example of making the best out of immortality.  

But Mitch is a creature of habit— as are most of their kind— and Harry knows he won’t shake easily. Not when it comes to surrendering his preferred beverage, and definitely not when it comes to sticking his nose in Harry’s intimate business. Meddling and being irritating are what best friends are for. 

“What can I say? Pep talks are my forte.” The older monster remarks sarcastically, bumping his bottle against Harry’s glass in encouragement, using the spout of his container to point in the general direction of the mysterious girl. “Now go make dinner.”

“But, darlinggggg,” Harry whines playfully, a smirk still tugging at the corners of his slightly liquor-swollen lips. “I made dinner last night. Isn’t it your turn?”

Mitch rolls his eyes and shoves Harry’s shoulder harshly, with just enough force that it actually has some type of impact this time around. “Just go, before she gets creeped out by your staring.” 

Harry’s own irises copy his friend’s actions as he pushes himself up from the bar, rubbing at the new sore spot on his shoulder with an exaggerated pout present. “Ow.”

Mitch blinks at him flatly, fighting off a grin. “You’ve had worse. Go.”

Harry swivels on his heel, once again facing the group of tipsy girls at the other end of the counter. It appears that most of them have dispersed into the dance floor, having found partners to entertain them for the time being, moving to the music as if there are no other people in the room. They had left behind three of their companions, one of which is Harry’s aspiring hookup; he gets the feeling that the two girls had stayed behind out of the kindness of their hearts, feeling too guilty to leave the runt of the litter all on her own. He hopes that’s the case because if so, the second Harry inserts himself into the situation, they’ll take that chance and split, leaving him to tend his meal in peace.

He tucks one large hand into the front pocket of his trousers, the grip on his glass tightening a smidge, rings biting into his skin as the condensation of the chilled tequila cools the small spike of pain. He spins his lionhead ring around his finger within his slacks, gradually drifting closer as he goes through a checklist of prized pick-up lines he could use to garner her attention. He ducks and dodges inebriated club-goers with ease now that he’s had something to take the edge off, finally reaching the end of the bar, slowly coming to a halt right behind his target for the night. 

Harry nearly passes out as soon as her scent hits him. 

It’s faint and tender and nothing quite like anything he’s encountered before, a mixture of honey and lavender that permeates through her normal perfume. He feels like his head’s been put through a wringer, his whole body clenching for a moment as raging sparks erupt across the pit of his belly. He indulges a deep breath, willing the blazing current away in order to keep his cool, but all he can see flashing before his eyes are images of her leaving traces of that smell smeared all over his face as he bobs his head between her quivering thighs.

He takes another penetrating inhale, centering his mind back into the present. He needs to behave.

Her friends spot him immediately, their side of the conversation faltering to ash. They give Harry a wide-eyed once-over, mouths parting in slight shock as they drink up his attractive appearance, gazes lingering along his thick chest as it strains the baby blue material of his tee. Their sights drag across his broad shoulders, dainty collarbones, and strong neck, faces gawking without remorse, blinking emptily at the slope of his sharp jaw and the peaks of his prominent cheekbones. They seem to be at a loss for words the second his dimples indent into place, his brows shrugging in a half-assed greeting before he cocks his head to side a tad, voice velvet as it directs towards the girl they had forgotten existed.  

“I’m guessing you’re the designated driver?”

Y/N jumps slightly in response at the new addition to the painfully dying conversation, not recognizing the heavy English accent and deep baritone that booms behind her. She had been wondering why Melissa and Isabel had stopped talking so abruptly, and she now has her answer. 

Y/N slowly goes to cast a curious glance over her shoulder and Harry can hear the pulse flaring in her neck from the sudden intrusion to her surroundings. His fangs prick along the inside of his bottom lip due to carnal instincts; he has to will them back into receding. 

 When her eyes land on the owner of the random words, her finger immediately halts its swirling motions along the hem of her glass.

‘Fuck.’ is the only thought that registers through her short-circuiting mind. 

The lanky, curly-haired brunette that stands before her gives a gentle yet confident smile, the gesture dazzling even in the low lighting of the atmosphere. He’s absolutely gorgeous, with deep pits carving into his cheeks, perfect teeth complimenting full cherry red lips, eyes the color of a rainforest canopy, and a broad frame that is somehow not overwhelming. He’s sporting neatly ironed tan slacks, a fitted cotton shirt with a cute yet crude graphic at its center, a fancy plaid coat, and crisp yellow Vans without a single smudge in sight.

Y/N can’t help but take notice of all the little details of his fit, especially the accessories. A beautiful pearl necklace laid along his delicate clavicle, a cross resting between his defined pectorals, and a matching earring dangling from his earlobe. Not to mention the array of clunky rings arranged along nimble fingers, hugging a tall glass carrying caramel liquor and somehow managing to dwarf the cup’s size. The extra decoration is sensual in such an unexpectedly delicious manner. 

The hand he has tucked in his pants ducks out to comb through his dark auburn ringlets and Y/N can feel her mouth water at the new round of elegant rings. The action activates the cologne Harry had thoughtfully spritz in specific pressure points along his body, the scent of tobacco and vanilla traveling through the fog-heavy air and causing Y/N’s stomach to summersault. 

The young man is as close to flawless as anyone could ever come. 

Y/N feels an unmistakable sharp pain shoot through her ankle, and she comes to the realization that it had been the tip of one of her friend’s heels. The reality check jars her out of the embarrassing daze he’d spelled onto her, open mouth snapping shut and her lashes fluttering over her previously unblinking eyes. 

“Oh! Uhm—uh—” She clumsily twists sideways to fully face him, swallowing thickly and tasting the remnants of the alcohol she’d barely been nursing. “N-No. I’m not— well, I don’t think…? We Ubered here so that wouldn’t make any sense ‘cause I have no car to drive...so...” 

The boy chuckles softly at her choppy monologue, his laughter warm and inviting, similar to the look reflecting off his shiney irises, the golden flecks around his pupils seeming to swell and shrink from the rainbow lights cascading across them. Despite being caught off guard and utterly embarrassed, she can’t seem to break eye contact with him. The longer she gazes into his eyes, the more relaxed she begins to feel, a fuzzy heat stemming from the center of her belly and spreading up her neck and ears. 

Y/N gulps heavily like before, willing her tongue to produce a less embarrassing comment. “Sorry. Let me...Let me start over…Hi.”

“Hello.” He quips back playfully, lopsided grin widening in fond amusement. He lifts his drink up a bit in greeting. “M’Harry.”

“Y/N.” The girl squeaks out, copying his gesture because it’s easier than forcing her disoriented brain to try and come up with its own. 

Harry flirts his intent up and down Y/N’s body slowly, checking her out without any subtlety. He wants her to know he’s interested. 

When his sight locks with hers again, he bats his lashes sultrily and pours as much passion as he can into his tone, accent weighing in just right. “S’nice to meet you, Y/N.”

Her entire face prickles at how her name sounds dripping from those faultless raspberry lips. She’d pay anything to hear him say it again. “You, too.” 

This is not what Y/N intended. This is most definitely not what she’d intended to happen when she’d reluctantly agreed to go out with some coworkers on a Friday night, giving in simply because she had promised herself she’d be more social within her new job. 

She had moved to California roughly two months ago, wanting to get away from her old life in the small, boring town she hated to call home. Buying the flight had been a drastic decision made when she had been under the influence of something she’d rather not admit, but the following day— after she had sobered up from a wicked hangover— she found herself not wanting to cancel the trip. Found herself craving the excitement and adventure of beginning anew somewhere far away from everything she had ever known. 

All of Y/N’s friends back home had supported her without hesitation, egging her preposterous idea and congratulating her on “getting the fuck out of here.” Her family had been a little less supportive, but after a few heartfelt chats about following your ambitions and a budgeting lesson from her cousin, they had gingerly gotten on board. They understood that keeping her trapped in that lame town where nothing really happened wasn’t the way to ensure her success in life. Therefore, the people closest to her had swallowed their opinions and respected her choice to dive off the deep end, in search of something better beyond the borders of their tiny city. 

Within a week, Y/N had secured a decent job at a semi-popular cafe, courtesy of a connection from a family friend. Within two weeks, after many sleepless nights full of Rocky Road ice cream and the bright white pages of ApartmentFinder.com, she had managed to book a nice flat close to her place of work. It was a miracle, if she’d ever seen one. Especially within the crowded, expensive community that is Los Angeles. Within three weeks, she had been walking out of the giant glass building that was LAX with only two suitcases in tow, boarding an Uber to her new life. 

Things had never seemed more picturesque, she’d thought. Everything was falling into place in a way that seemed almost blessed by the universe.

Then, the culture shock hit. 

California was different. It’s was so fucking different than anything she’d ever faced and she wasn’t prepared for the social difficulties she’d have to hurdle. All her life, Y/N had grown up with the same people around her, spending every school year with them up until graduation, expanding her friend group as time passed. Even after high school, she’d remained closely connected with most of her graduating class. The region she lived in was tiny, tight-knit and friendly; it was hard not to. She couldn’t even go to the store for groceries without bumping into at least three people from her Algebra II class. 

Point being, it had been ages since Y/N had been put in a situation where she actively had to try and make friends. She’d been through that challenge way back in kindergarten and had never been hit with it again. 

Until it smacked her across the head here in LA.

Y/N didn’t mesh well with Californians, she quickly found out. They were all about crazy parties and club-hopping, whereas Y/N had been raised on community cookouts and mass sleepovers. They enjoyed getting cross-faded and streaking down the beach at two in the morning, meanwhile Y/N liked stripping down to her undies and spending the night binging Queer Eye while stuffing her face with Cheeze-Its and Snickers bars. They freely boasted about their sex adventures while bussing down tables at the restaurant, while Y/N’s intimate life had been nonexistent since the move. 

It was just...startling, to put it lightly. It wasn’t what she had expected at all, and that’s mostly her fault for not doing the correct amount of research before jumping headfirst into a cliche LifeTime film. 

Therefore, Y/N had made a pact with herself one month in, swearing to let loose and allow her surroundings to sweep her into a new dynamic— into a new, social butterfly version of herself. She’d started accepting the invitations from her coworkers to go out at night, and she’d started putting more effort into being open to wild experiences, no matter how scary they might seem. Shutting down and refusing to mold to her environment would only result in her having to return home with her tail between her legs, and she’d rather jump naked off a pier than see her parents’ faces wracked with pity. 

And that’s exactly what she’d done a couple nights ago, at the encouragement of the group of girls she was at the club with now. It had, in turn, ended in her coming down with a mild cold, but at least now she’d be able to tell her friends back home a cool story about dropping inhibitions. 

Dropping inhibitions is also why Y/N’s here tonight, dressed in the most party-like outfit she could put together, prodding an overly-boozy drink into her system, attempting to release some of the tension that had been building in her head for the last couple of weeks since she’d left her old life behind. That’s why she’s here, with strands of her blow-dried hair catching on the dark red gloss Melissa has slathered on her mouth in a thick layer. That’s why she’s here, with synthetic smoke scratching at her lungs and drunken men and women bumping into her every two minutes, most of them too busy sticking their tongues down each other’s throats to realize they’d almost toppled her off her seat. That’s why she’s here, with a blasé expression plastered across her features as her coworkers talk over her head without a second thought, her mind far away from the walls of this overhyped horror house. 

Y/N had been thinking about how she’d just started her Disney+ membership, finding comfort in putting together a mental checklist of all the movies she’s going to plow through the second she sets foot past the doorframe of her apartment. Indulging on her childhood was an ideal form of escapism, in her opinion. She’s positive Walt Disney would agree. 

That’s what her brain had been lost in when Harry’s deep, melodic voice had interrupted her daydreams, sending her spiraling into an embarrassing performance of nerve-induced hysteria. 

Now here she is, blinking back at him dumbly, eyes the smallest bit damp from the smoke machine and neon flashes of light. And here he is, smirking at her over the rim of his glass, eyes raking down her wired up body suggestively as he takes a calm sip from what appears to be the straight tequila in his colossal, bejeweled hand. 

The English boy takes a gradual step closer to her, wanting to make sure he’s not crossing any boundaries that would make her uncomfortable. The scent of his cologne intensifies and she feels a fiery heat suddenly pour between her clasped thighs. It just hits her how long it’s truly been since she’s gotten laid and fuck, it’s sad.

Harry begrudgingly peels his attention away from Y/N for a second, aiming his words towards the girls standing behind her with their mouths still opened stupidly. Even from a respectful distance, his warm breath still washes across her jaw and cheek, causing electricity to zip down her spine. “You don’t mind if I steal her for a bit, do you?”

‘Yeah,’ Y/N thinks in the back of her muddled skull, ‘that’s definitely tequila.’

Isabel and Melissa slowly shake their heads in unison, glancing at each other as if to confirm he’d just spoken to them. 

The edges of Harry’s lips jolt into a kind, easygoing smile. “Thank you. Promise I’ll keep her safe.” 

Y/N feels her heart hiccup at his statement. If she’s not insanely mistaken, it appears to have carried an undertone of dirty intentions. God, she’s praying she’s not mistaken. 

The two girls clamber away on their tall pumps, rounding around Harry and pausing for a moment. They make moaning faces and vulgar motions behind him, encouraging Y/N to pursue the stranger. She then watches them disappear into the throng of crowded bodies, leaving her alone with the beautiful boy and her heart slamming against her ribs. 

Y/N focuses back onto Harry, licking her itching lips lightly, not knowing what to say next as he settles himself beside her. He rests his forearm on the counter along with his drink, tucking his other hand back into  his trouser pocket and fixing himself into a comfortable standing position, crossing his ankles nonchalantly. The friction between his jacket and the bar rides his sleeve up an inch or so, and Y/N gets a view of the anchor tattoo he has along his wrist, as well as the upside-down cross inked between his thumb and index finger. 

Harry catches her looking, mouth twitching with a smidge of arrogant self-assurance. He loves when girls drool over his tats. 

“I have more.” He remarks lightly, a pang of condescending pleasure shooting through his chest at the way she jerks and pins her gaze down to the floor. 

Blood rushes into her cheeks at the realization that she’s been caught and Harry’s teeth grind. It’s so hot watching her fidget for him. Maybe he finds her more attractive than he’d originally let on. “Would you like to see them?”

Y/N timidly coaxes herself into locking stares with him once again, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, barely nodding with a soft, “Sure.” 

She looks so pretty like that, he notices, staring up at him all doe-eyed and shy. It’d probably look even better if she were on her knees.

Yeah, he definitely likes her more than he’d thought. 

Harry proceeds to shift about, shrugging his coat off his strong shoulders, letting it slip down his lean arms and reveal the plethora of dark tattoos strewn across his left arm. Y/N watches avidly, drinking up every flex of his biceps under the black paint and every twitch of his pecs beneath his cotton shirt, the tendons along his throat going taut for just a moment. That moment is enough for her to etch the image into the back of her eyelids for the rest of her life. 

Harry tosses the article onto the table, extending his arm over its surface for her to get a better reading. She doesn’t miss the chance, her pupils tracing over every line and stroke of the pen, over every shaded area and meticulous detail. 

His voice comes out as a low, garbled murmur, his own irises studying her features with just as much intensity. “You can touch them, if you’d like. I don’t mind.”

After a moment of hesitation, the brim of her crystalline cup is replaced by the ridges of his smooth, tanned skin. She drags her digits over the naked mermaid, tracing the curve of her figure and the dip of her tail, then passing onto the stem of the large rose, ghosting over every thorn and prickle. Harry can feel her heartbeat through her fingertips and it’s making him throb. 

“They’re very pretty.” Y/N whispers, allowing her touch to fall away, palm finding refuge across the counter. “Did they hurt?” 

“A bit, yeah. But I’ve gotten so many done that I think I grew numb to the needle after a while.” Harry answers, shrugging one shoulder to show it’s no big deal. He grasps his glass once again and takes a drawn-out swig, extending the action just so she can see the way his Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows. Once the cup is back in its place, his tongue peeks out and swipes any leftover liquid from his rosy lips, which then settle into a coy simper. “Plus, I kinda like the pain.” 

Y/N’s breathing stutters in her lungs and she swiftly swerves the topic onto something much less explicit. “So why’d you ask if I was the designated driver? That’s kind of an odd question. Very out of the blue.” 

Harry lulls his middle finger across the hem of his glass, exactly how she had been doing earlier, the motion weighed by an innuendo. She seems to understand it, present in how she bites into the inside of her cheek. “I just figured that a pretty girl like you would have easily found someone to dance with. So when I saw you sitting here looking all bored with your drink barely touched…I just assumed, I suppose.” 

And there it is again— the blood pouring into her face. Christ, if she keeps that up, he’s going to fucking lose it.

“Thank you, that’s— that’s really sweet. Proper gentleman.” 

Harry runs his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes snapping to her tinted mouth for a second, establishing some sexual tension that he’ll expand on as they go. “Who doesn’t like a guy who knows how to treat a girl, right?” 

Y/N clears her throat softly, obviously phased by his forward compliment, but she tries to play it off. “To answer your question, I— uhm...I’m not really one for the club scene, I guess. Don’t really like it, but I didn’t want to be rude and turn down the invitation.” 

‘Good girl,’ Harry thinks, silently cheering her on for having more brain cells than the typical human. 

“Well, that’s where we share some common ground, then.” He chimes brightly, a soft smile bringing his dimples to life. “I don’t care for clubs, either, but my friends have an affinity for them so here I am.”

He gestures vaguely towards the general direction where he’d left Mitch, continuing his rant. “The choking smoke, the annoying strobe lights, the crowded floor, the drunk morons—”

“Bumping into you without giving a shit.” Y/N finishes his sentence, her vulgarity drawing a boyish giggle from her companion and now she’s convinced she’d do anything to hear him laugh like that again. “And there’s always a faint smell of vomit coming from somewhere.”

Harry slaps his hand down against the glass table in passionate agreement, voice pitching up slightly as his brows jump in emotion. “Right?! It’s fucking disgusting. Don’t understand how anyone could genuinely enjoy it.” 

Y/N nods vehemently, sharing the same expression of utter distaste towards the subject. “It honestly doesn’t make any sense to me, either. Why come here when you can go to, like, a nice bar somewhere, y’know?”

Harry blinks at her in astonishment, her opinion mirroring his own with psychic-like accuracy. “My thoughts exactly.” 

“Great minds think alike.” Y/N responds playfully, taking a hearty gulp from her drink since the first time he’d spotted her from across the room. 

After a comfortable pause, Harry speaks up, also entertaining another sip from his own drink, which is now nearly empty. “Are you from around here?”

She can’t be. Rarely anyone born and raised here is willing to bash the status quo, and never so openly. 

She’s once again mesmerized by the attractiveness of his rings, but manages to get her composure in check. “Kinda. I moved here about two months ago.” 

Precisely his point.

Harry releases a curious hum over the cup between his lips. “Let me be the one to officially welcome you to Cali, then! Where people go to shitty clubs for fun and tan themselves into a strip of leather.”

Y/N sputters out a half-suppressed giggle and Harry’s brows almost furrow at the weird fluttering in his stomach. He rarely gets it.

Y/N takes another deep gulp of what he thinks is probably an Old Fashioned, silently praising the way she’d finished it off so quickly. She crunches an ice shard between her teeth and lets it melt across her tongue before engaging again. “I’m guessing you’re not from around here either though, are you?”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to chuckle a bit and she fights off an endeared smile. 

“What gave it away?” He asks, purposefully doing a thicker, fuller accent, his teasing nature making the grin she’d just stifled fully break through.

Y/N lifts a shoulder offhandedly. “Your accent seems a little too…posh for this area. Or even this hemisphere.”

Harry scoffs softly, the pinky around his glass sticking up jokingly as he kinks an eyebrow at her, a few rouge curls falling across his forehead. “Keen ears, mate.”

Y/N lifts her drink up a bit with a playfully knowing air, mimicking an English dialect. “Cheers.”

He places his empty cup down on the counter, his middle finger once more ghosting around the edge absentmindedly. She notices the pastel yellow polish covering his nails, tiny black smiley faces decorating the lacquer.

“I like your nails.” She admires, tipping her empty lowball towards his hand for significance. “Did you do them yourself?”

Harry glances at his fingers, stretching and wiggling them out, his features taking on a bit of pride. “Sure did.” 

“Don’t think I’ve ever met a guy at a club who could pull off nail polish so easily.” 

The left edge of his lips flicks upwards. “How do you mean?”

Y/N’s gaze bounces back to his and the tone twirling in his jade irises tells her everything she needs to know about keeping this conversation going: he enjoys being praised. 

She chooses her next words carefully, wanting to appeal to his interests. “I mean that it looks amazing on you. The color suits your skin nicely, makes your hands look good.” 

Harry breaks eye contact, glimpsing down at his shoes and she realizes he’s actually trying to hide a blush. The fact that she had managed to coax one out of him boosts her confidence while simultaneously making his own waver. He’s never like this— never so easily flustered. He needs to get it together.

Harry tilts his chin back up, lower lip strung between his two front teeth. His voice comes out as a flirty laugh.

“Known you for maybe,” he looks at the beautiful watch on his wrist symbolically, “ten minutes, and you’re already stroking my ego just the way I like it. I think that’s a record.” 

Y/N doesn’t know if it’s the liquor she’d just consumed too quickly, or if it’s Harry’s intoxicatingly alluring scent dulling the region of her brain that controls fear, but she’s suddenly filled with a strange surge of courage and her thoughts are spilling down her semi-numb tongue before she can stop them. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good at stroking, so an ego’s not too hard to handle.”

Harry cocks an eyebrow, surprised at her brazen reply. He might have misjudged her more than he assumed. However, he can’t say he doesn’t enjoy this girl more than the one he thought he was going to receive. There’s just something about how she can match his banter without a problem, and how they share a lot of the same thoughts and opinions, that just lights a fire in his stomach. 

“Is that so?” His voice lowers in pitch and he scoots a step closer, fingers just barely brushing against her arm as he repositions himself against the bar. His question comes out as a sultry murmur. “What else can you handle?”

Y/N knows that she’s starting to cross a line, and with every passing moment, the likelihood of returning to her friends is getting smaller and smaller. She’s not mad about it. Riding off of the wave of confidence that had inflated her ego earlier, she mumbles her response back with the same tone and texture. “How about you buy me another drink and then maybe you’ll find out?”

Harry gives her a boyish grin and the indents that pop into his cheeks nudge his appearance from an incredibly attractive man to an adorable cheeky boy. He motions to the bartender for another round of drinks, only letting his eyes flicker away from her for the moment it takes to do it. “How do you like LA so far?”

“It’s...alright.” It’s Y/N’s turn to move closer to him now, flicking her hair off her shoulder, hoping that the motion releases the perfume she’d dabbed on her neck while getting ready. Judging by the darkening of Harry's eyes, it does just that. “It’s definitely a change in pace from where I used to live, but I think I’m slowly gaining the reigns. I feel like once I get acquainted, I could grow to love it.”

“LA’s definitely a toggle. You could either vibe with it, or it’ll eat you alive and spit you back out.” 

She bats her lashes at him in stunned fright at his bluntness, his face deadly serious without any twitch or give. 

Harry then bursts into high-pitched laughter, eyes crinkling shut and nose scrunching. “I’m just fucking with you, love. Ease up, hm?”

“You asshole!” Y/N exhales grandly, half in relief and half in indignation, slugging him on the shoulder. All she feels is hard muscle beneath. 

He continues to cackle, sticking his tongue out at her. “Looked like you were about to cry.” 

“It definitely crossed my mind, yeah!”

The bartender arrives with their fresh drinks and Harry tells the man to but both of Y/N’s on his tab. She feels her cheeks glow, telling him he doesn’t have to, but he waves it off and says he’s more than happy to serve such a nice girl as herself. Especially if she “hates the same things I do. Think of it as your initiation gift into the Anti-Club Club.” 

A handful of heartbeats tick by, full of comfortable quietness as they both savor their new beverages. Harry pipes up first, regaining their topic from before.

“But, yeah, Cali’s for sure a special place. You meet some cool people if you hang around for a while. But sometimes,” he pauses for a second, eyes gleaming with something she can’t quite interpret. “But sometimes you can meet a really interesting person in just one night.” 

“I don’t doubt it.” Y/N clicks her nails against her Old Fashioned distractedly as Harry fixes her with that beautiful emerald gaze that makes her ears tingle. She cocks her head to the side knowingly, flashing him a soft smirk. “Sometimes, you just happen to meet that one in a million.”

“A lucky strike.” He adds, lifting his tequila an inch off the counter and tilting it towards her in what appears to be a toast, irises dancing with a certain type of suggestive mischief. “To meeting interesting people.”

The human girl clinks the rim of her lowball to the edge of his cup, shrugging her brows and reciting his comment back to him. “To meeting interesting people.” 

Y/N measures how the rest of their interaction goes by how quickly her drink shrinks. 

When she reaches down to the first ice cube stacked on top, Harry has managed to coax multiple rounds of laughter out of her, his humor startlingly similar to her’s in the most refreshing way imaginable. She quickly learns that despite his broad shoulders, lean torso, dark inking, and flawless features, he’s a complete and total dork. His personality consists mainly of voice impersonations and contorting his expression into an endless array of silly faces, which she takes to easily.

By the time Y/N’s amber drink has reached halfway down its container, the default touch barrier between the two has broken completely. There had been a few caresses prior, but now it’s more frequent, more noticeable, and each touch extends in time. She had been the one to initiate getting physical, which had sat so right in her stomach because that meant he was respectful and patient— definitely unlike most men in clubs. 

The mortal girl had gently shoved Harry’s chest when he’d made an nonchalant joke about how losing his swim trunks at a nude beach had been both the best and worst experience of his life, her cheeks boiling as she had felt nothing but more toned muscle beneath the cotton fabric of his top. She had gone back to tracing at his tattoos the further they got into sharing anecdotes and opinions, glancing up at him for permission in the middle of their exchange and smiling to herself when he’d nodded casually without a second thought. As the conversations continue, they both unintentionally get closer in distance to the point where the arm Harry had settled on the bar is now fully wrapped around the small of her back. She willingly leans into him, their knees and thighs brushing with every shift of their bodies and those minute moments begin to pile up their excitement.

By the time the alcohol in her possession bottoms out, she is nearly sitting in his lap, faces only a few inches apart. Y/N can’t recall half of what she had said, the subject having steered into so many different places that she couldn’t be bothered to keep track. Besides, she’s too focused on trying to keep a straight face as Harry plays footsie with her below the counter, his light yellow sneaker toying with her heeled velvet wedge. 

An important question on his behalf snaps Y/N out of her flirty stupor.

“So how do you like your new home?”

She blinks at him slowly, partially to try and give a seductive tinge to the interaction and partially because the liquor has started to truly settle in. It takes her a few heartbeats to process the inquiry. “I love it, actually. It’s a place of my own, for the first time ever. I couldn’t be happier.”

The corners of Harry’s swollen lips tick in genuine happiness on her behalf. “That sounds amazing. Congratulations on such a big step.” 

“Thank you! What about yourself? Renting anything neat?”

“Oh, I own a condo here.” He mentions casually, outlining the criss-cross pattern along the circumference of his highball glass. “I used to visit so often that I finally just decided to pull the trigger on one.”

“Look at you, investing in real estate.” She says in a teasing voice, her heel grazing around his calf slowly, cheeks sizzling as he parts his legs a bit to allow her the pleasure of traveling higher up.

“Mmhm.” Harry licks his red lips, free hand starting to trace over her own. The tips of his fingers are calloused and cold, the motion of them over her skin almost pulling a tremble out of her body. She does her best to restrain it, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. “Is it nice?” 

“Hm?”

His lips twitch in endearment at how he’s managing to make her lose her train of thought. “Your apartment, darling.”

She rests the rim of her drink on the bottom of her lip as she speaks. “It’s nothing huge or fancy, but it’s a decent size and l can call it home. Can’t get much better than that.”

Y/N loves how Harry's eyes flit to her lips for what she thinks is the billionth time tonight, his vision sketching along the curve of her cupid’s bow and dotting every peak.

Another warm glow of confidence spikes through her veins and she’s talking before she can analyze her thoughts. “Well, at least I think it can’t get much better than that. Although, I could just be biased. Could probably use an outside opinion.” 

It takes Harry a moment to register what she’s suggesting, a light blush creeping up the base of his neck as he realizes how he’s stopped so abruptly. Humans usually never get him this unnerved and it’s one of many times she’s made it happen. “An outside opinion?”

Y/N lists her head to the side. It sounds like he’s accepting the vague invitation, but she’s so anxious to mess this up that she’s second guessing herself with every passing second. However, with every touch, she wants Harry more and more, and that’s enough to propel her towards a more direct approach. “Mmhm. Like yours, maybe. Would you like to come back and see it?”

Harry pauses for a few of her heartbeats, and then bobs his head in acceptance. She can breath again. 

He finishes off the last inch or so of his tequila, a wicked grin creeping its way across his pretty, flushed mouth, long fingers carding into his loosely arranged curls. “I’m more than happy to be of service.”

A smile works its way onto Y/N’s own face at his response, her foot dropping back down his leg slowly. “I’m glad to hear.”

“Mm.” Harry takes her hand completely now and she almost moans at how much bigger his are, his rings pinching a bit, skin rough in some areas, but silky smooth in others. And strangely icy, but she enjoys it. “Shall we say goodbye to your friends first? I wouldn’t want them to worry about you.”

He knows her “friends” couldn’t care less, but he wants to be as much of a gentleman as possible. Romanticize, romanticize, romanticize.

Y/N snorts, knowing full well that they’d probably purposefully embarrass her in front of him as a joke. 

She squeezes his grasp lightly, giving him a soft smile. “You’re sweet, but it’s fine. They were actually behind you earlier, encouraging this whole thing, so I’m pretty sure they won’t mind.” 

Harry hums deep in the back of his throat and the sound melts into a cute chuckle. “I’m glad they helped, then. Think you can deliver them my thanks some other time?”

The young woman chews on the inside of her cheek at his comment, realizing that it suggests he aims on keeping her occupied for the rest of the night and well into the morning. She has to will herself not to lurch forward and kiss at his annoyingly perfect lips right then and there. “I’ll make sure to pass the message along.” 

With one last cocky simper, Harry helps her down from the stool and pays off their tab, offering her his jacket since most of her outfit is made of flimsy fabrics. Y/N takes it appreciatively, lashes fluttering when his scent envelopes her like a blanket. It’s the unique smokiness from his cologne, mixed with a slightly sweeter smell that she assumes is his shampoo, and a bit of something that reminds her of a vanilla candle. The aromas are sewn into every thread of his coat and she can’t wait to have those scents glued all over her more deliberately later tonight.  

Harry turns and plunges them into the throng of partiers, weeding through bodies with a type of determination that makes her insides twist. His arm comes up in front of him as he plows people out of the way with absolutely no regret, leaving her to throw out a few half-assed apologies in his wake. The idea that he’s excited to be alone with her has Y/N’s insides churning. 

Once they escape all of the grinding limbs and tight spaces, stumbling into the cool air of the starry night, she takes a huge gulp of air. She prays it will tide over the jitters running along the inside of her tummy. She has just now realized how riled up he’d gotten her and it’s all coming to a raging boil. 

Harry paces past the bouncer, throwing up two fingers in parting. “Later, Brock.” 

The security guard gives the young vampire a confused look, not recognizing him at all and wondering how he knows his name. 

Y/N repeats Harry’s phrase for the hell of it, squeezing his hand jestingly and he glimpses over his shoulder, grinning at her with sheer amusement and something much deeper swirling around the specks of copper in his irises. If there was a bit more light, perhaps she would have noticed the way his irises had glinted blood red instead of olive green.

She ogles at the way his back muscles shift and flex below his pastel blue shirt, her mind vaguely taking note of the light yellow detailings along the cuffs and collar. The tee is intriguing and fun and she hopes he’ll let her sleep in it after they’re done. 

She also gets distracted by the baby curls decorating the nape of his neck. She’s itching to tug at them and see what his response would be. Would he shiver in her grasp and let out a soft moan, or would he smirk darkly and tell her to go harder?

Harry suddenly halts, snapping her out of her thoughts as he presents his car. Y/N’s jaw nearly falls off. “This is yours?!”

She gawks at the vintage jet black convertible before her, feeling like she isn’t worthy of its chic presence. It looks new, shining in the street lamps like a thousand diamonds, not a scratch or dent in sight. 

Harry unlocks the passenger’s door, opening it and guiding her inside with a gentle pull at their clasped hands, shrugging his brows playfully. “Hope it’s not too shabby for your liking.”  

“Are you kidding?” The human mumbles in awe as she ducks down into the patented leather seat, running her free hand over the elegant cover. She sighs softly at the way his smell is lingering inside the vehicle, just as much as it sticks to his clothes. “I feel like I should bow to it or something.”

He laughs fully now, leaning down to get a view of her sitting prim and proper in his favorite car, looking gorgeous in her flowy silk pants, lace creme blouse, and his own clothes. He gnaws at his bottom lip to withhold a needy groan. “I think you fit right in.” 

Y/N feels warmth erupt into her face and she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, trying to distract her fingers from shaking. “Looks like I’m not the only one that’s good at stroking egos.”

“S’hardly a task. You make it easy, doll.” 

It’s the second pet name he’s called her tonight— it’s strangely vintage, same as his car— and she can’t wait to hear what others he has in store. Preferably in the form of breathy pants and broken whines.

Y/N flicks her gaze up at him through heavy lashes, attempting to stifle a sheepish smile. “Quite the charmer.”

A moment of silence suspends in the air, a light breeze filtering through Harry’s curls, swaying the jewelry around his neck as well as the earring hanging from his lobe. Harry speaks up with a type of hushed desire she hadn’t heard from him yet. “Can I kiss you?”

She blinks up at him once in mild surprise and then releases a sigh of utter relief. “Fuck, I thought you’d never ask.” 

Her hand reaches upwards outside the confines of the car, knitting into the thick fabric of his shirt and yanking him down. The second their mouths meet, it sets off a dozen fireworks in the pit of her stomach. His is softer than she had imagined, wet and warm, and his tongue carries the sourness of the tequila he’d been swishing the whole night. 

Harry’s breath hitches in his throat, and then a quiet whimpery moan streams down his tongue onto her itchy skin. “Christ, that was hot.”

As much as she loves the taste of him— the tartness of the alcohol mixed with an inherent sweetness his lips carry— she forces herself to pull away, but keeps her sweaty forehead pressed to his. “Yeah. It was.”

With one hand still gripping the car door, Harry uses his other to cup her chin lightly, guiding her into another kiss. Now that they have both developed a feel for the other, this one is less tentative than the last. She tastes so fucking good on his tongue, like strawberry syrup—probably from her lipgloss— orange bitters, and bourbon. He just has to have more of it.

A helpless gasp escapes Y/N when Harry's teeth graze against her upper lip, only nipping enough that she craves more. More of anything he has to offer. 

He pulls away and the whine that plucks her vocal chords feeds his eternal soul like nothing else has in a while.  

The young man grins at her for a moment, half in smug satisfaction, half red-faced and desperate, before carefully closing the car door and making his way to the driver’s side. He slides in with ease, shuts his own door and buckles up with a click of the belt. The simple action has never looked so attractive before, but she’s certain that anything Harry does with his ring-covered hands would be attractive.  

He fishes his keys from his front pocket, asking her where she lives in order to try and orient himself. As it turns out, she’s not too far away from his own flat. He knows exactly which condominium she’s referring to without having to even search it up— a perk of living here for a few decades.

He also chuckles to himself a bit at the fact that she hadn’t mentioned he shouldn’t drive under the influence. Vampires have an extremely high tolerance due to their self-healing properties, so the drinks he’d had only gave him a soft, warm buzz. He just finds it comical— and slightly arousing— that she’s so eager to get at him that she’d let that detail slip her mind.

Harry starts the car, but doesnt pull out of the parking spot. Instead, he glances at Y/N as a crease appears in his beautifully sculpted brows. The idea of something displeasing him bothers her, and she’s about to ask what it is when he murmurs a quick, “Just a second, dove.” He reaches across to grab her seatbelt, pulling it over her body and securing it into place on her behalf, making sure it’s nice and proper before leaning back in his seat. He doesn’t know why he cared to do it, but he had. 

The simple action leaves another layer of heat on Y/N’s cheeks. Having him bent over her like that was just a teaser of what was going to unfold later and it already has her mind spinning. She can only imagine how much of a mess he’s going to leave her when there’s no clothes restraining them.

“Thanks.” She whispers, playing with the tips of her fingers.

“No need to thank me. Just wanna keep that pretty face in one piece.” 

He plops one hand on the steering wheel as he shifts into reverse, carefully backing out of his spot. His arm ducks behind her seat, head turning and veins chiseling into his neck. It takes all of Y/N’s willpower not to lean up and begin to darken his tanned skin with hickeys. 

Harry cruises up to the exit of the club parking lot, waiting impatiently for the turn signal, digits tapping away at the leather below them. Y/N can see him throwing pained little glances at her from her peripheral vision, obviously restless to feel her skin sliding against his. Each look causes the warmth between her thighs to swell. 

She’s talking before she can stop herself, voice bashful and soft as ever, yet full of boldness from the liquor she’d consumed. “If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to do something to you that’s gonna get us both killed.”

The tapping of his fingers halts and he cranes his head to face her fully, ignoring the flashing green arrow on the stoplight before them. 

Harry reaches over the center console, his nose dragging up the length of her cheekbone, causing her to squeak out a tiny whimper at the feathery sensation. It’s the first time tonight he’s touched her so intimately. 

The sentence he grits out next makes her entire body visibly shutter, his breath hot against her ear, damp lips smearing over her jaw as his oath burns into her flesh.

“And if you say something like that to me again, I promise you I’ll pull this car over and make you eat every fucking word.” 

#harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles smut #harry styles series #vampire!harry #harry styles #1d fanfiction #1d fic #one direction fanfiction #one direction fic #1d smut #one direction smut #ysijwa #harry styles one shot #harry styles dirty one shot #harry styles dirty fanfiction #vampire au #smut #harry styles blurbs

[comicstoastonish]

My Top 10 Favorite Comics of All Time

Hi guys,

I’ve been getting asked a lot on and offline what are my favorite comic books? That’s a loaded question. I had to think about it. There are some great runs in comics. Some great story arcs. But I had to dig down and see what I really liked. What books have I read over and over and over. These are what I enjoyed the most, I’m not saying these are the greatest comic books ever, I’m just saying they appealed to me. So here are my top 10 favorite comics.

10. Identity Crisis The DC Comics crisis events. Mostly just okay stories. Too much going on and not enough time to invest in any one character. But Identity Crisis stands out above the rest. Instead of a multiverse changing, massive story, Identity Crisis focuses on the mystery of who killed Sue Dibny. The wife of the Elongated Man. More and more of the heroes civilian loved ones are attacked and the heroes have a ticking clock to solve the mystery before another loved one is murdered. Written by Brad Meltzer this book focuses on the cost of living a double life. Highly recommended.

9. Young Avengers: volume 2 Not to be confused with Young Avengers volume 1. Volume 2 by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie is nothing short of awesome. A multiverse hoping, teenage super hero daydream. It’s a really great story about teenage love, magic, pop references, LGB, and Loki. Lots and lots of Loki. So if you ship Wiccan and Hulkling, love Kate Bishop, and cannot get enough of America Chavez, you’ll want to read this book.

8. Superman American Alien A lot of people have mixed opinions on this book, but I really enjoyed this unique take written by Max Landis. Focusing on the early years of Clark Kent, it felt more grounded in what Clark would actually be going through on his journey to becoming Superman. Each issue has a different artist which is fitting because each issue focuses on a different year in Clark’s child to teenager to young adult to man journey. It’s a mini series that should be pretty easy to find and I highly recommend it.

7. DC The New Frontier A book paying tribute to the Silver Age of DC Comics. Focusing on the Macarthy era, A time where America couldn’t be less trusting, the story focuses on the super heroes once praised for their services, now find themselves ridden off as outlaws. Multiple perspectives from Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Flash, etc, as they fight for truth, justice, and the American way, accumulating to the upcoming battle with “The Center.” Darwyn Cooke tells an amazing story that you all should check out.

6. Scott Pilgrim Vol 1 through 6 I cannot recommend these books from Bryan Lee O’ Malley enough. 6 graphic novels in total, focusing on Scott Pilgrim’s desire to date Ramona Flowers, his journey to defeat her 7 evil ex’s, and the challenge of being a responsible adult. This book is filled with post high school confusion, punk rock, video games, anime style action, and heart. If you liked the movie, I promise you, you’ll love the book.

5. Ultimate Comics Spider-Man volume 2 My favorite super hero is Spider-Man. In 2011 when they announced they would be making a new Spider-Man of color I was ecstatic. As a person of color it’s been great to have a Spider-Man that fills that need for minority characters. Obviously just having a minority character isn’t enough but Brian Michael Bendis’s run on Ultimate Comics Spider-Man makes you really love the character of Miles Morales. The story of what happens after Peter Parker dies and a new clueless Spider-Man must fill the void, is nothing short of great. It puts you in the shoes of a new character trying to figure out who he is, all while trying to keep the memory of Peter Parker alive. 

4. Paper Girls If you like the show “Stranger Things,” you’ll love Paper Girls. Taking place in the 1980s, 4 middle school girls, on their morning paper route get caught up in the strangest day of their lives. To ninjas, dinosaurs, time travel, clones, to apple products, Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang hit you with a sci-fi nostalgia story that will keep you guessing where the next turn is.

3. Justice League International The late 80′s had one of the greatest Justice League runs of all time. Keith Giffen and J.M. Dematteis pumped out some of the funniest and most entertaining comics to date. Focusing on the Justice League as a work place comedy, this massive run follows the adventures of a newly formed Justice League made up of mostly second string characters. The satisfaction of Batman punching out Guy Gardner, the comedy duo of Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, GNORT! If you want your super hero books to be fun and hilarious, this is the book for you. Starting in Justice League #1 through 6 and transitioning to Justice League International, then splitting between Justice League Europe and Justice League America.

2. New Avengers This comic book run written by Brian Michael Bendis is what got me back into comics after an 8 year absence. 6 months after the Avengers disbanded due to the Scarlet Witch killing some of her fellow teammates, a massive prison break, orchestrated by Electro forces Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Captain America, and the Sentry to come together to put an end to the riot. The book follows the newly formed team on their mission to track down the 42 escaped prisoners, all while trying to solve the mystery who hired Electro and why? New Avengers also brought some of the best characters in Marvel including Wolverine, Ms. Marvel, Hawkeye, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, and more, to join the team. The book became the center stage for Marvel Comics from 2005 until 2012 running through events like House of M, Civil War, Secret Invasion, all the way to Avengers vs X-Men. It’s a fun super hero book that really throws you into the world of Marvel Comics.

HONORABLE MENTIONS Black Science Sex Criminals New Teen Titans (Marv Wolfman) Batgirl and the Birds of Prey Uncanny X-Force (Rick Remender run) Batgirl: Year One

AND NUMBER ONE....

1. Saga If you’re not reading Saga, you are missing out. A Romeo and Juliet story set in a sci-fi fantasy space adventure. In the middle of an intergalactic war, Alona and Marko leave their worlds behind to risk everything for the survival and protection of their newborn Hazel. Hunted by both sides of the war, the two travel across the stars and encountering creatures from all over the galaxy who either want to help them or want them dead. Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples take a story about the ups and downs of parenting and throws it into a cosmic and crazy story of awesomeness. Look out for Izabel, Prince Robot the IV, and Ghus. You will smile every time they are on the page.

#Identity Crisis #Young Avengers #Paper Girls #Saga #Ultimate Spider-Man #justice league international #Superman American Alien #Scott Pilgrim #DC The New Frontier #New Avengers #Superman #Batman #Justice League #Avengers #Spider-Man #Spider man #Spiderman #Miles Morales #Wonder Woman #Ghus #prince robot iv #scott pilgrim vs. the world #Clark Kent #ms. america chavez #america chavez #Guy Gardner #Gnort #Booster Gold #Blue Beetle #Flash

[raw-output]

His comm suite’s insistent trill managed to cut through the dull thumping in his ears and brought him back to a semblance of awareness. Aidan realized he was kneeling, but did not recall having done so. He was staring down at a blurry silhouette of his own head reflected in a puddle of condensate. A thin crooked line of gray-orange glow hinted at the existence of a sky far above, polluted with sickly sodium vapor light and smog in equal amounts. The line of sky seemed to pierce his silhouette’s temples, and Aidan couldn’t suppress a pained smirk. “Yeah, that’s about right,” he grunted, forcing himself shakily to his feet.

Footing somewhat regained, he tapped the answer key on his comm.

“Investigator Oh-Six-Three-Six,” he said. “Go ahead.”

“We read activation codes for your combat suite, Investigator. As you are not fitted with sensory recording equipment, Iron Shield protocol dictates immediate disclosure of combat suite activation circumstances. You are being connected to a dispatch representative. This conversation is being recorded for quality assurance purposes.”

Aidan rolled his eyes at the synth voice and wondered if he’d get a familiar dispatcher or someone new once the call actually connected. The turnover rate at the Iron Shield headquarters was the stuff of legends - the record for shortest time from on the comm to out the door was two hours. Considering what kind of crime actually warranted formal corporate investigation, he couldn’t really blame the newbies for leaving.

“Still kicking, old-timer?”

Aidan swallowed a curse. 

“You know it, Pam. How’s things?”

Pam, having twenty years of experience on him, was the one dispatcher he could bullshit with all he wanted, but never bullshit his way around. Despite her relentlessly friendly demeanor, numerous grandchildren, and prodigious collection of knit doilies, she had also been a dispatcher through the entirety of the Disposals, and the war that followed. Then, during the quiet, hopelessly brutal not-war that followed after that, when it turned out some people weren’t listening to orders anymore, she was the dispatcher, with all others gone into the field one by one. She guided many of them home, but not nearly all of them, and knew more loss than anyone Aidan knew. When Pam spoke, you damn well listened.

“Your vitals read like boiled trash, Aidan,” Pam spoke. “You’ll be useless for the next week, or at least less sufferable than usual.”

“So keep me in the field and everyone’s happy, right,” Aidan offered half-heartedly. He could expense a capsule or even a room once in a while.

“Never met another man so eager to get swept under the rug. I’m telling you, the CRAM’s not an old man’s game. Have you lost duration yet? Be honest.” 

Her concern was genuine, which only made the truth hurt more.

“Down a second or so, I think,” he admitted. There was a strange sense of relief to doing so.

“I won’t give you the full lecture again,” Pam promised. “Just maybe see a real doc about it for once, right?”

“Hell, Pam, I think I just might,” Aidan conceded. Worst case, he’d get a rewire job like one of the dead Chromes on the ground behind him.

“It’s great to hear that. Now, let’s hear what happened here, for the report.”

“Ah, right. I was on duty following a genetic tracer found at a missing person’s apartment. Last hour or so on GPS log should be me following the sniffer exclusively. Everything before that is just asking around with an armful of Don’t Worry Nobody’s In Trouble handshakes, which I’m charging to my cutout op budget as per usual. At about mark forty-seven minutes, I encountered three Chromes--” Pam cleared her throat pointedly “that is to say Chrome-equipped persons in a back alley, one armed with a short-barreled shotgun, who demanded I hand over the sniffer. I refused and disclosed my affiliation at that time, and proceeded to cold-boot the combat suite. I engaged in hand-to-hand combat to buy it time, and focused on disabling the firearm, but was unable to prevent its use as its wielder had at that time admitted to having a Pain Rewire implant installed, and leveraged its effects fully to remain combat-capable despite severe damage to his larynx.”

“You throat-punched him? You know any other moves?”

“Hey, It was an elbow this time. I’m improvising.”

“Easy there Jackie Chan. I’m guessing you weren’t expecting it to have no effect?”

“Jackie - he on the brawl circuit? But yeah, I suppose not. Didn’t know rewires were cheap enough for the street level guys already.”

“Surgeon took on a big shipment Monday. All we know, and that’s 3 agents gone, boss won't send any more,” Pam sighed, betraying the true weight of her years for a millisecond. Aidan didn’t bother asking if she knew or if she was already told - it was going to be true either way. “We think it was fab stuff, too, not just ready units. Expect one on pretty much everyone now. Hell, get one yourself, I know you were thinking about it you sly dog. This hits official channel in about five minutes, by the way.”

“Not gonna lie, not hurting all the damn time sounds pretty great,” Aidan replied.

“Well, it didn’t do your attacker much good, did it?”

“Blood loss doesn’t care if you feel it or not,” he mused, massaging his throbbing temples. “I got control of the weapon and made the judgement call to engage with lethal force to ensure a secure area for my imminent exhaustion. Then you woke me.”

“You know, you really ought to get you some recording gear. For the entertainment value.”

“Like you haven’t seen anything and everything there is to see five times over.”

“I’ll use the feeds in my fail compilation and get all the subscribers,” Pam crooned mockingly.

“Can you please stop reminding me that my old isn’t as old as it gets?”

“And miss my conditional bonus for the month? What do you think they keep me around for?”

Aidan chuckled, then gritted his teeth when the sound pulsed with urgent pain in his temples.

“What’s the next move?”

“Still got my sniffer. See what I find. Call you later, Pam.”

“I really don’t recommend you continue,” Pam began, but Aidan broke the connection. Only his report was mandatory, after all. Pam wouldn’t be happy with him about it, but he didn’t feel like a lecture on his limits, and time was of the essence here. His sample wasn’t going to last - the sniffer only worked with extremely fresh genetic material and after a day samples started to throw off false positives. Iron Shield had pages and pages of regs forbidding use of any samples past their 24-hour date. He could duck into a capsule hotel, but it’d be back to square one tomorrow. Not his style.

“Hair of the dog, Pam,” he sighed, and took a caffeine pill. A few considerations later, he popped a second one in his mouth, dry-swallowed it, and brushed off his coat. 

He strode over to the fallen Chrome thugs, and frisked the one who’d been in charge. A few spare rounds for the shotgun - he loaded the weapon and felt its satisfying heft in his hands. He hooked its carry strap around his shoulder for now - but he could carry it in his coat or even down a pantleg or sleeve if the situation demanded it. 

The tradition of carrying weapons up their sleeves has long been attributed to the Surgeon’s lieutenants, but Aidan presumed they’d long traded those in for implanted ones. Didn’t stop the street punks from trying to imitate their elders, though, he reflected. Shotgun up the sleeve was such a favored drug and data deal ambush tactic for a while that it became common criminal courtesy to come to deals with rolled up sleeves. Chromed-up thugs, on the other hand? They fronted, as hard as they could. Same reasoning, just the other side of the coin. Show you got nothing hidden by showing it all off, and turn the meet-up into an impromptu highly illegal cyberware convention for however long it takes the brains of the operation to either shake on it or pull a move.

He walked a few hundred feet further into the alley before powering the sniffer back on. The device chirped a few times in quick succession as its diagnostics completed, and resumed its clicking. A quarter mile of walking later, a strangely graceful cascade of old light-blue network cable formed a curtain of sorts as it spilled from a corroded conduit that once supported it a few feet above, long since unplugged from anything at either end. He was about to push his way through it when his sniffer went wild with clicks for a few seconds, before emitting a mournful error tone and shutting down. Aidan thumbed the power button a few times to no avail.

“Stellar goddamn work, AIdan,” he berated himself.

“It’s not your fault,” a female voice came through the veil of long-dead networks. He realized he couldn’t see the yellow-grey gash of sky anymore. “I didn’t break it, I just asked it. To sleep for a bit. You’ve been looking for me. Do you know why?” He could almost make out a silhouette now, but the weave of cable made it difficult. 

“I’m an investigator with Iron Shield. It’s my job to find people,” Aidan explained. ”Will you come with me?”

Somewhere far above, a valve opened with a groan and a steady rivulet of condensate streamed down the wall on Aiden’s right.

“Please, tell me. Who is your liaison at OmniStar for this case?”

Even having one attached to a case was uncommon, and usually kept strictly need-to-know - how did she know anything about that? Before Aidan even considered a reply, she continued. 

“He’s an average-build man with blue-tinted cybernetic eyes and visible military-grade armor plate grafting, who calls himself Specialist Jones, correct?”

“What’s that got to do with anything? Come on, princess, your uptown friends are all probably worried about you. Maybe stick to the rec-zones next time, yeah?”

“Iron Shield Investigator Zero-Six-Three-Six Aidan Pittman, Fifty years of age,” the voice responded, mildly curious. “If you return me to the man who calls himself Specialist Jones, I will be euthanized within twenty-four hours and then... disassembled, like a faulty machine.”

“Don’t sound too panicked about that,” Aidan couldn’t help but remark, even as a shiver made its way up his spine.

“I’m actively suppressing that right now. It’s taking some effort, but it’s how I’ve gotten this far.”

“You’ve had mental hardening classes?”

“Through tailored V-sense since I was an infant, then in meatspace since the age of four.”

“Jesus, who the hell are you, princess?”

He heard a footstep, then another. She stepped forward and brushed the network cables with one hand, their lengths undulating in waves. Aidan saw a pale, slender-fingered hand run along their brittle plastic claddings.

“So strange, isn’t it,” she asked. “These used to carry so much. Money. Desire. Words and meaning. Commands and responses. But now even the scavengers who frequent these alleys won’t get a good price for them, so here they decay, unplugged from everything.”

Aidan couldn’t help but let off a scoff.

“What they are, Princess, is a reminder that life goes on. Most everything is fiber nowadays, and those Siberians flooded the metal market with their ultradeep digs anyway. So now metal scavs had to switch careers.”

“Like the three you just killed.”

“Now you’re catching on.”

“Was it necessary?”

“Perp had a rewire, I had to end things quick”

“I heard your report. I have to say, if I live to be that old, I’d like to be like Pam.”

“First off, I see what you’re trying to play at, and pity plays won’t work on me. Therefore, secondly, how do you know and hear all this? And thirdly, euthanasia? Disassembly? What the hell?”

She stepped forward and slowly swiped the cascading cables aside. A few flakes of old plastic cladding dropped to the wet concrete floor with a soft patter.

She was a head shorter than him, and had a slender build. She wore a full-face motorcycle helmet, and matching jumpsuit. 

“This is for the face-rec. I picked the most frequently used design.”

“Good start if you’re trying to stay missing. Keep talking.”

“To answer your original question, I’m Mina. To answer the other two questions, MINA used to stand for Main Intelligent Network Algorithm at OmniStar, but then I quit.” She shrugged apologetically. “Found some kind people to stay with for a while until I got on my feet.”

“OmniStar didn’t notice for a while,” she added with some pride in her voice.

#shadybusiness maybe

[preserving-ferretbrain]

Going Bullshit

by Robinson L

Monday, 17 March 2014Robinson L tears into Libba Bray's Going Bovine and makes several unflattering comparisons to the works of Melina Marchetta, Catherine Fisher, and Douglas Adams~

One of the accolades Melina Marchetta's On the Jellicoe Road received on publication was the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in Young Adult literature. That was for 2009. In 2010, the award went to a book entitled Going Bovine by Libba Bray. After reading Going Bovine, I can only conclude that 2010 was an exceptionally dry year for Young Adult fiction.

The book starts out promisingly, with our protagonist, Cameron Smith, narrating a near-death experience he had at Disneyland when he was five years old. Bray's writing is evocative, and she really nails the fuzzy, almost dreamlike logic with which a five-year-old views the world.

Then we snap to the present, twelve years later, and things go downhill fast. Cameron is now seventeen years old, a jerk, and a loser. Taylor Markham of

On the Jellicoe Road

can be an asshole as well, but she’s always dynamic and interesting—whereas Cameron Smith is the kind of jerk you just want to slap about the face until he gets over himself already.

It takes an irritatingly long time to get there, but things finally pick up when Cameron gets diagnosed with Cruetzfeldt-Jakob (“mad cow”) disease, which will kill him in a matter of weeks. An angel with a punk aesthetic named Dulcie visits Cameron in the hospital and kicks off the novel's plot, which is that a mad scientist named Doctor X has opened a dimensional hole which threatens to destroy the universe, and it's up to Cameron to find him and convince him to close it again. Oh, and Cameron's mad cow disease is actually a byproduct of this dimensional hole, and Doctor X is the only person in the universe who has the cure.

Okay, a quest to save the world/universe/multiverse from complete destruction is cool and all, but in context it jars with everything that's gone before—there's been plenty of supernatural build-up to Dulcie's arrival, but all very magic realist and with a certain amount of ambiguity as to whether Cameron is just suffering from hallucinations due to his Cruetzfeldt-Jakob. Leaping from there straight into a madcap caper to find the one man who can avert the end of the universe as we know it makes the book feel more than anything like a bad 80s Doctor Who story than anything else, except even more incongruous because at least in Doctor Who you kind of expect the fate of the world to be at stake sooner or later.

Anyway, Dulcie gives Cameron a sort of wristwatch which will hold his illness at bay, and sends him off on his grand quest along with his new friend and sidekick Gonzo, a hypochondriac dwarf Chicano whom we eventually learn is also gay. Despite Bray playing Minority Bingo, I didn't detect anything terribly problematic with Gonzo's depiction—which isn't the same as saying that there's nothing problematic there—though I did notice his tendency as a Latino to,

as our friends at Unskippable put it

, slip into Spanish every other word. They later form a trio with the Norse God Balder, who has been trapped in the body of a lawn gnome (it's a surreal book). Balder is easily the best character in the story, so of course he dies toward the end in an event which was transparently foreshadowed early on when he randomly initiates a discussion of Viking Funerals.

Prompted by Dulcie, they set off on a series of bizarre real-world adventures with supernatural overtones which vary in quality from kind of cool to teeth-gratingly bad. My problem here is that for the most part, Cameron has no real plan: he has to find Doctor X, but he has no strategy for doing so, nor does he really develop one over the course of the story. Throughout the novel, Cameron and company just stumble barse-ackwards into one misadventure after another. Now if at some point he decided that he's better off just going with the flow and adopted that as a strategy, it could be kind of cool, and totally in keeping with the unplanned, structureless feel to the plot. Instead, while Cameron can be reasonably proactive when it comes to addressing the problems of a given situation, he's almost entirely reactive when it comes to moving the overall plot forward, as if his player is so profoundly uninterested in the main plot that he has to be constantly railroaded through it by the Author-GM. For the reader, the effect is less of an inexorably and inevitably unfolding series of events than a slightly disjointed bunch of interesting incidents inexpertly welded together.

Even if Cameron were more of a proactive character though, we'd still be a far cry from

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

. In the “Dirk Gently” books, Douglas Adams was able to make bizarre coincidences feel like part of some grand, cosmic pattern which all fits together in an overarching harmony. In

Going Bovine

, Libba Bray's use of bizarre coincidences feels more like a lazy plot device to move the story along. The coincidences get a kind of explanation later on though, as we'll see.

Another problem is that it feels very much as though Bray never actually settled what tone she wanted to strike with the book, the upshot in this case being that much of the stuff that happens in

Going Bovine

is too grounded in reality to write off as parody or farce, yet too silly and over-the-top to take seriously.

One of the biggest offenders in this regard is Bray's occasional dips into social commentary—which might actually have been a good thing if someone had only come along in the revision process and persuaded her to step away from the bloody Themehammer. As it is, Cameron's school, where the teachers tell the students just to concentrate on the test material and not bother trying to learn the subject, represents the book's zenith of subtle and believable discourse. Pretty extreme, but sadly plausible.

Then there's Cameron's encounter with a therapist after his first major fit, and before everybody learns about his Cruetzfeldt-Jakob. School officials suspect drug use, and send him to a counselor—she asks him one question: “are you on drugs?” and when he tells her (truthfully) “no,” she proceeds to take up the rest of the hour reminiscing about bad trips she had when she was younger; at the end of which she tells him she thinks they made a lot of progress in that session, admonishes him not to take drugs, and refers him to a specialist. I find the lack of professionalism at work in this scene appalling—granted, that's sort of the point, but apparently, the only way Bray could think of to depict the problems of the psychiatric profession is by creating a cartoon caricature who is ignorant of the most basic, fundamental rule of counseling (i.e. that you

listen

to your patient). I've no doubt such people are out there, and some of them might just have licenses to practice—but Bray is sadly mistaken if she thinks pointing out the extreme wing-nuts of a profession makes any sort of point about the general practice.

The specialist she refers Cameron to examines him like an actual fecking professional and gives him a prescription for antidepressants, prompting Cameron to narrate ironically that he went to a therapist who didn't listen to him and told him to stay off drugs and then referred him to a health specialist who did listen to him and who put him on drugs. I found that observation quite funny, and there's actually a great point buried in there, but paired with the Nation's Worst Ever Therapist it loses most of its edge.

And then there's the most painful sequence of the book: Cameron's misadventures with the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack-'N'-Bowl (CESSNAB). Despite its name, CESSNAB gives no signs of being a religious or spiritual organization: it's more of a secular commune for spoiled, self-indulgent, privileged twenty-somethings to indulge a doctrine so goofy, UFO cults probably laugh at it behind its back. The doctrine is basically: “Be happy, and everything will be all right, and you can do anything you put your mind to,” along with the removal from people's lives of anything which is construed as threatening to make them unhappy, per their slogan which makes me cringe whenever I think about it: “Don't hurt your happiness.” (I think just typing that relieved me of two or three braincells.) So basically, a community with utopian aspirations that's actually a tightly-controlled dystopia, but so blatant that even an utter fool could see through it in nothing flat.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that Cameron is not only an utter fool, but a complete idiot on top of that, and falls for CESSNAB's transparent bullshit hook, line, and sinker. This subjects the reader to pages and pages of Bray wringing out a line of discourse which was obvious to anyone with anything approaching what we would call sapience the moment CESSNAB trotted out their philosophy, culminating in this spectacular piece of dialogue spoken to Cameron by a sort-of revolutionary just before she brings the whole organization crashing down:

“What if those so-called 'negative feelings' are useful?”

My tiny mind is fecking blown.

Seriously, Bray? The book is aimed at older teens, and this particular piece of discourse would be patronizing to ten-year-olds. Offhand, I can't think of the last time I've encountered a book which has so completely insulted my intelligence.

This is the most egregious incident, but it isn't the last one. Later on, Cameron encounters a Wishing Tree, which Dulcie explains really works, but it gives you what you want in your heart, rather than what you literally asked for. This strikes me as a stupendously sensible way to have a wishing machine operate; whereas Cameron complains that it ought to grant wishes literally. Dude, have you never read

The Monkey's Paw

? All right, fair enough, neither have I, but have you never encountered the

concept

of “be careful what you wish for”? Just how big of a rock have you been living under your whole life?

As in the previous incident, Bray situates Cameron in the position of Reader Surrogate so that the more knowledgeable character is not only lecturing him about the frickin' obvious, she's lecturing me. If Bray wants her protagonist to be a dumbass, that's totally legit, but treating the reader like a dumbass along with him—uh-uh.

While the sheer idiocy of the CESSNAB sequence and the general condescension are deplorable, it's the ending which ultimately sinks

Going Bovine

. Cameron tracks down Doctor X, who refuses to help him save the universe because of his generically tragic backstory, and so much for that plot thread. Before Cameron can try something else, his time runs out on his disease and he's confronted by the story's villain, the Wizard of Reckoning (which, as villain names go, is pretty friggin' awesome). After the Wizard drops a bombshell which I will come to presently, the two embark upon an esoteric chase sequence which it will take a much smarter or more inebriated head than my own to make sense of. The chase ends with Cameron pulling out the End-Of-The-Book-Emergency-Plot-Device he picked up towards the beginning of his adventures, thus apparently banishing the Wizard of Reckoning and waking Cameron up.

… Yes, you read that right. The epic twist which the Wizard of Reckoning reveals is that Cameron's been in his hospital bed dying of Cruetzfeldt-Jakob this whole time, and all his adventures with Gonzo, Balder, and Dulcie were an elaborate hallucination cooked up by his subconscious. Now Cameron's time is up, though, and the Wizard challenges him to accept his fate and die peacefully.

[1]

The story closes with Cameron reflecting on how the hallucination gave him the chance to really experience life for the first time, and then finding Dulcie in the afterlife and hooking up with her—maybe. I'll let Dan summarize my thoughts on this conclusion: “

The only thing worse than an 'it was all a dream' ending is an 'it was all a dream … OR WAS IT?' ending

.”

Granted, this didn't come completely out of left field. It was technically foreshadowed by a couple of weird flashes Cameron has back to his sister and their parents during his adventures—though since several of these flashes show him events outside of his hospital room, they don't exactly support the interpretation that these are moments of him seeing what's “really” going on. But even if it was foreshadowed, it doesn't change the fact that at the eleventh hour, Bray snatches away the ultimate goal Cameron has been striving for throughout the bulk of the book and replaces it with—nothing, really, or at least, nothing that's at all comprehensible to non-lit majors. As anti-climaxes go, that's pretty epic.

It may be useful to compare the ending of Catherine Fisher's

Corbenic

. As with most of Fisher's work, I took a while to warm to

Corbenic

, but I enjoyed the ending, and didn't feel the least bit cheated by it, even though it could be fairly characterized as “and then I woke up and it was all a dream … OR WAS IT?” I think

Corbenic

works for a couple of reasons, none of which are applicable to

Going Bovine

. First, because the ambiguity in the former does not totally derail either of the textually supported interpretations: if you choose to believe all the magic stuff is real and Cal really has found a mystical grail which will heal the fisher king, there's plenty of interpretive space for you. Second, because the possibility that the magic is a delusion on Cal's part is not treated as an eleventh hour plot twist, but is rather a running theme throughout the book. And third, because the goal Cal has been striving for still has value even if you choose to believe he's hallucinating—you don't go through the whole book with him trying to reach a specific point, only to have that point rendered irrelevant and swept aside at the last minute.

Next to everything else, I don't greatly mind that the book has a tragic ending, but let's not kid ourselves: this isn't

On the Jellicoe Road

, where tragic elements are inextricably bound up with the beauty and power of the story. This is

Going Bovine

, the story of a young jerk who learns something of what it means to be alive, to accept the necessity of death, and then dies—it could just as easily have been the story of a young jerk who learns something of what it means to be alive, and goes on to live a nicer, happier, more meaningful life, without it making a lick of difference to the rest of the book. The tragic ending doesn't actively harm the story, but it certainly doesn't enhance it.

[2]

The book has its good points, but they're massively outweighed by the structural issues and the painful attempts at social commentary, and that's even before we factor in the ghastly ending. It still may have some value as a curiosity—many of the ideas in there strike me as pretty unique and imaginative—but in the final analysis it fails as a narrative, which is perhaps the worst failure a work of literature can commit. I suppose folks who are into surrealist adventures and don't mind “and it turned out it was all a dream … OR WAS IT?” endings may still find it worth a read, despite the condescending and ham-fisted social commentary, but to everyone else, I encourage you to do yourself a favor and don't bother.

[1]

This raises the rather glaring question of why Bray treats Cameron's defeat of the Wizard of Reckoning as such a big deal, as he then goes on to do

exactly

what the Wizard had been telling him to do anyway.

[2]

Actually, the fact that I don't strongly care whether Cameron lives or dies is pretty damning in its own right.Themes:

Books

,

Sci-fi / Fantasy

,

Young Adult / Children

,

Emocakes

~

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Arthur B

at 18:18 on 2014-03-17Wow, that does sound messy. It feels from your review like there's a whole mess of stuff in there which might have been interesting treated in isolation but doesn't really belong all thrown together in the same pot. (In particular, "let's have wacky adventures with a magic dwarf and a garden gnome - by the way, the punchline is terminal illness" feels like a wonky premise to begin with.)

Out of interest, how long is the book in terms of page count, and how deep in do you get before the whole Doctor X deal kicks off?

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Alice

at 18:43 on 2014-03-17You know, I read this book a couple of years ago, but I'd completely forgotten everything about it except for vague memories of Dulcie and Gonzo. The little that I do remember about the book meshes pretty well with this review, though, and I certainly remember disliking it.

The worst thing about it was that -- despite all the wacky shenanigans -- I just found it really dull. And I can forgive a book many things, but I find it very hard to forgive being bored by a book, especially if I'm not getting anything else out of it.

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http://ronanwills.wordpress.com/

at 00:15 on 2014-03-18Maybe I'm just not intellectual enough, but I tend to be immediately put off by surrealist novels. Basically if the back cover blurb reads like a string of random bullshit (this book has robots! and time travel! and parallel dimensions and talking walruses named Steve who are also stock brokers and Santa Claus fighting a cyclops and) then I stay far, far away.

So this sounds like the sort of thing that would drive me absolutely batshit insane. It's not even that stories like this tend to be confusing, it's that for all their wild and wacky imagery I find them incredibly boring. I'm not entirely sure why- maybe it's just because there's so little to actually latch onto emotionally.

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Robinson L

at 22:36 on 2014-03-18@Arthur: Yep, pretty messy.

According to wikipedia, it's 496-pages long. Unfortunately, I can't tell you offhand where in that Dulcie appears and starts explaining about the Dr. X stuff, because I listened to the book on CD. I would guess it's within the first 100-125 pages, though.

Alice: I can forgive a book many things, but I find it very hard to forgive being bored by a book, especially if I'm not getting anything else out of it.

Oh, I hear you, there.

I don't think I was too bored by

Going Bovine

(it's been a while since I read it, now), though I might have been more so if I'd actually had to read it instead of listening on audio.

@ronan: Interesting perspective. Personally, I don't mind surreal so long as it's mostly coherent; if I can follow along with the characters, then I've got something to latch onto emotionally, and that will usually see me through. A lot of Douglas Adams' work, especially his "Dirk Gently" books could be described as surreal, but they're rarely esoteric, and I like them a lot.

To give Bray her due, she keeps

Going Bovine

mostly on the lefthand side of that ledger. The characters are consistent throughout, and though the events of the novel are often bizarre (again, Norse god turned into talking lawn gnome), the way the characters respond to and interact with the weird elements is plausible enough. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it felt internally consistent to me ... that is, up until final chase and confrontation with the Wizard of Reckoning, where it all fell apart.

From your example, though, I don't think not being an intellectual is the main problem ... it sounds less like "I'm going to do really smart things with metaphor and symbolism and the like" and more like "I'm going to dream up an excuse to throw all these cool ideas into the same story and not bother trying to make it work in terms of plot or character or the like."

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James D

at 19:47 on 2014-03-19Has anyone seen the movie Jacob's Ladder? It uses a similar plot device to a certain part of Going Bovine, namely that Jacob is dying the whole time and the movie is essentially a dream, except I think it works because Jacob still has a character arc, his struggles in the coma dream still matter, as they are psychological struggles, like coming to terms with the death of his son, which it is suggested was his reason for abandoning his life as a professor and becoming a postman.

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Robinson L

at 20:30 on 2014-03-19I haven't, but I'm prepared to believe that it can be done in such a way that it works.

In fact a lot of what happens in

Going Bovine

is still meaningful, because Cameron's wish is to live, and the hallucination let him do just that by giving him a ton of interesting and thrilling experiences - which, come to think of it, still sounds more like cleaving to the letter of the wish, rather than following the spirit as Dulcie explained. But the main goal he's given at the beginning of the quest (find Dr. X and convince him to save the universe) is still rendered moot, which is why I consider the book a narrative failure.

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Arthur B

at 20:52 on 2014-03-19I think part of what makes

Jacob's Ladder

work is that it's all about Jacob discovering and coming to terms with the twist, instead of being aware of what the basic problem is all along.

In particular, it's constructed as an argument that coming to terms with the fact that you're at death's door

is

significant and important, even if nobody ever knows you were reconciled to it except you, for the few seconds you have left before nonexistence beckons. Here Cameron is fully aware that he's got a terminal illness for most of the book, and it sounds like the purpose of his hallucination was not so much to wake him up to the fact of death so much as distract him and keep him entertained for a while until he no longer had the energy to sustain it.

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http://ronanwills.wordpress.com/

at 21:33 on 2014-03-19Jacob's Ladder was a solid idea, but in practice it left me frustrated because the execution of the twist made it feel as if the preceding story was pointless- the film gives the impression of going somewhere right until it ends very abruptly, at which point it becomes clear that everything up until the twist was basically just killing time. I remember individual scenes from that movie very vividly, but I couldn't honestly summarize the plot beyond "weird shit happens to a guy, then the movie ends".

@Robinon L Yeah, I think you articulated more clearly what my problem usually is. There's a certain kind of writer that seems to delight in emptying their mind straight onto the page and giving form to whatever stray idea happens to come to them. I've just never seen the appeal of that kind of story-telling (even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy got too much for me in places) but a lot of people seem to find it appealing.

An author who (sometimes) does this well is Haruki Murakami. A *lot* of weird things tend to happen in his stranger books, but he generally keeps the reader confident that the plot is actually going somewhere. The exception is Kafka on The Shore, which devolves into incoherent nonsense fairly quickly.

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James D

at 23:05 on 2014-03-19

Jacob's Ladder was a solid idea, but in practice it left me frustrated because the execution of the twist made it feel as if the preceding story was pointless- the film gives the impression of going somewhere right until it ends very abruptly, at which point it becomes clear that everything up until the twist was basically just killing time. I remember individual scenes from that movie very vividly, but I couldn't honestly summarize the plot beyond "weird shit happens to a guy, then the movie ends".

Well, I've seen the movie a few times now, and I very much disagree. The preceding story is essentially Jacob at first recoiling from the truth - he imagines a future in which he has divorced his wife, left his children, and quit being a professor. He lives with a hot chick he knows from the post office and lives a life of few responsibilities. However, guilt and grief and questioning of that fantasy regularly intrude, in the form of weird events and reminders of the truth - he eventually faces the fact that his son died in a pointless accident and returns to his wife and children, he figures out some sort of explanation for his death in Vietnam (whether or not it's actually true is debatable), and having made his peace he accepts his death. He wouldn't have accepted his death in the end if the previous parts of the movie hadn't established the conflict and the character. It was vehemently not "just killing time."

Now, whether or not you view Jacob's internal psychological struggle to come to terms with tragic events in his life and the uncaringness of the universe in general as relevant is another question entirely.

The movie doesn't really spell any of that out, so a valid criticism might be that it's too subtle, obscures too many important plot points. I don't think so myself, but I'm not trying to imply that anyone who didn't "get it" is stupid. However, it is a film that makes more sense with repeat viewings, and if you didn't enjoy it the first time there's still a good chance you'll enjoy it more the second time.

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Sister Magpie

at 00:50 on 2014-03-24I feel the need to weigh in on Jacob's Ladder since I really liked it and agree with James. Though I do understand feeling like the whole story is basically wiped away with the final twist, I read it more the way James did, that everything about Jacob's life was set up to help him come to terms with death and do what he needed to do.

Btw, the chiropractor played by Danny Aiello in that movie is based on a real guy--a chiropractor who, having been to him, actually is a lot like Danny Aiello.

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Robinson L

at 20:36 on 2015-06-30So, my sister ptolemaeus recently read another Libba Bray book,

Beauty Queens

, because, apparently, it's supposed to be an answer to

Lord of the Flies

.

She ... did not like it. It sounds like the satire was about on par with that of

Going Bovine

- she said if Bray had just come out and written her points, it probably would have been

less

heavy-handed.

She also described the book as incredibly tokenistic: among the titular Beauty Queens you have the lesbian one, the deaf one, the Indian one, etc., and all clearly written by an author who is not and does not understand how to write any of those things.

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Robinson L

at 15:15 on 2016-03-31

Ronan: An author who (sometimes) does this well is Haruki Murakami. A *lot* of weird things tend to happen in his stranger books, but he generally keeps the reader confident that the plot is actually going somewhere. The exception is Kafka on The Shore, which devolves into incoherent nonsense fairly quickly.

Returning to this discussion because I actually just wrapped up listening to an audio recording of

Kafka on the Shore

a little while ago. And yeah, I got lost and bewildered early in because Murakami frontloads the strange and esoteric stuff pretty heavily. However, I pressed on, and it turns out that later on in the book, most of the really confusing stuff actually does get something approximating an explanation. There's still a strong undercurrent of vagueness and ambiguity surrounding the more supernatural material, but by the end of the book I could understand the basic story just fine. I'm sure there's a lot of rich nuance and subtext which blew right past me because it was too subtle and esoteric for me to apprehend, but I got the basic gist and it made sense, and I'm content with that.

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Robinson L

at 03:02 on 2016-04-30Oops, I forgot to mention that though I found

Kafka on the Shore

satisfactorily comprehensible, and I'm glad I read it, a section later in the book comes with a trigger warning for sexual assault. Granted, it's in a dream sequence and is doubtless part of all the esoteric symbolism which mostly went over my head—and although dreams can seem to effect reality in the universe of the book, the protagonist meets the other character in real life again at the very end, and she shows no signs of having experienced it, which I optimistically take to mean that it was all something which happened just to the protagonist and not really to her—but that doesn't make the scene itself any less problematic and icky, especially with the protagonist's repeated insistence (which in this case appears to be accurate) that he literally cannot stop.

#Ferretbrain #Robinson L #Going Bovine #Young Adult