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#there were two more options i wanted to add but alas
jdeanmorgan · 7 months
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leandra-winchester · 7 days
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The Tommy timeline is making me insane
We know the 911 writers are REALLY crap about timelines. I mean, just within the Eddie Begins episode there are several dates that just don't add up. I love those writers, but they can't even count to 10, lol.
Tommy was never supposed to come back, so him being in his late 20s-ish in 2005 when Chim joins the 118 was of no consequence, but now that Tommy is back, that makes it really difficult to say how old he really is.
Some people have speculated that he's 45, but I find that too old. Lou was born in Nov 1984, which makes him 39 currently. I could see Tommy being 1-2 years older than that AT MOST.
So let's say Tommy was born in early 1983 and go from there.
He would have started school at 6.5 and finished HS at 18 years old in 2001. Which means he could have joined the army that year and started training to be a helicopter pilot.
There's a program called "From Street to Seat", also sometimes called "High school to Flight School", so that is a possibility. Training would have been around 2 - 2.5 years until he'd achieved the rank of Warranty Officer and be a fully trained helicopter pilot in late 2003. After that, you have to enlist for TEN years at minimum to repay them getting you through flight school.
At that point, the US had entered the war in Afghanistan and just started the one in Iraq.
Tommy could have been stationed anywhere in the US, or been deployed to one of those countries, or at first, as a still very young officer, been deployed to an allied country like Germany. In the early 2000s, there were many bases in Germany where US soldiers were stationed, only serving short missions in Afghanistan or Iraq. So that's an option if we don't want him to be permanently stationed inside a war zone.
Now, how did young Tommy leave the army early so he ended up being a firefighter just two years later?
Well, there's always medical discharge, but if it was for any injury, him already being a member of the team (and by the looks of it no longer a probie) in 2005 is a bit tight. He'd have to recover from his injury, then apply, then be accepted, do the basic training at the academy (18 weeks) and his probie year... so yeah, that's really a very tight timeline.
Another option would have been Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Back then, army members could not be actively asked if they're gay and therefore fired for it, but if they voluntarily disclosed/confirmed it, they would be kicked out.
If he was lucky (and probably the version I'm going for in my fic), and had a very lenient superior officer, he might be offered medical discharge for depression. Usually, that can get you out of the army pretty quickly.
So, to recap:
Born between Jan/June 1983
Finished high school summer 2001, joined the army
Finished flight school in fall 2003, was deployed somewhere or in service in the US
Found out/discharged in early 2004
Started LAFD academy in summer/fall 2004
Started his probie year end of 2004
Just finished it when Chimney joined in (should be late) 2005, at now 22 years old.
Still an incredibly tight timeline, and I wish Chim joining had been more like 2007 or so, but alas. It works.
You are welcome.
And I need to lie down. God I hate inconsistent timelines, lol.
Oh and I just looked it up, and apparently you're only a probie for 6 months at the LAFD, so I guess that makes it a little easier.
I mean, if you shift things around a little, you could even make him only 40 now, born in summer 1983 instead of early. Maybe he was initially gifted and able to enroll in school at just barely 6 years old.
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robin-buckely · 1 year
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Coloring Tutorial
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Hello, this tutorial is for the wonderful @djoharrington​​ and those of you wondering how I colored this set. I’m going to be talking about how to color the first gif only to keep this tutorial from getting too long. The other two used the same coloring method with only minor adjustments made to keep them looking similar.
Yes, this scene really is that dark before coloring.
Quick notes on what I’m using:
mpv player for screencapping — not mentioned in tutorial
Photoshop 2021 for editing
I mention mpv player because I’m giffing 4k, and it’s one of the few players I’ve come across that take continuous caps that don’t end up looking washed out. It makes for easier coloring.
This is me coloring literally any Upside Down scene:
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Step 1: brighten the hell out of this gif
You can use a throwaway layer to get you started. I used an exposure layer (which I eventually kept and adjusted during the original process of coloring this scene) with end settings of: exposure at +5.25, offset and gamma correction at default.
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Now we can see all the beautiful details of Nancy’s face. Well, most of them.
Step 2: photo filter layer 1
The way I offset this horrid blue tint they use for Upside Down scenes is a photo filter layer (several for this particular scene). For now, just the one. Put this below the exposure layer!
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This brings a bit of color back to Nancy’s face and warms up the blue tones that are so prevalent in Upside Down scenes.
I don’t change the blending mode, opacity, or fill, just keep as is.
Step 3: curves layer 1
I clicked around a lot with this layer. Mostly in an attempt to get rid of the blue and adding more color to Nancy’s face. Didn’t get the result I was looking for with this layer until I added other layers. But I managed to brighten the gif a little more and add some contrast.
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Step 4: hue/saturation layer
Put this layer below the photo filter layer! I used this layer to balance out the colors I pulled from the curves layer. Brought back some warmth/purples by adjusting cyans and blues.
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Step 5: selective color layer 1
Ended up a little more purple than I wanted with the hue/sat layer, so I used a selective color layer (set between the hue/saturation layer and the photo filter layer) to get rid of the purple by, again, adjusting cyans and blues.
Make sure to have “Absolute” marked!
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This is better! There’s a lot more color that isn’t blue in Nancy’s face now that I can work with and manipulate.
Step 6: color balance layer
This one goes on top of the curves layer (should be the topmost layer at this point). Only adjusted Midtones and Shadows, adding a little more red and yellow in her hair and face.
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This looks a lot more natural. Now we just have to brighten it up again.
Step 7: exposure and curves layer 2
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I don’t touch the RGB mode on this curves layer. I mostly adjust the Red, Green, and Blue modes by adding a little more red and green while sliding the bottom corner on Blue to add more yellow to the shadows.
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Technically, I could stop here if I wanted, but the purple is still pretty prominent in the gif, especially in Nancy’s eyes, and it’s hard to adjust that without adjusting the color of the entire canvas since there’s movement in this gif. If Nancy were more of a still subject here, then layer masks are an option. Alas…
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So I adjust the colors and try to get rid of the purple. The gif as a whole kind of looks washed out as well. I want more color here.
Step 8: photo filter layer 2
I set the opacity to 55%. I want warmth, but not too much.
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Step 9: selective color layer 2
This is where I end up seeing the most change. Even small adjustments go a long way here.
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It’s mostly the cyans, blues, and magentas which makes sense given how overwhelmingly blue this scene was, then almost overwhelmingly purple as I started making adjustments. Red and yellows are important for anything to do with the face and hair. This is where I add a more “natural” shade to Nancy. Literally anything that isn’t fucking blue is an improvement to me at this point, given how it started out.
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Blue is back in the background where it belongs and not in Nancy’s face.
I think this is where I originally stopped. Like this looks pretty good to me, but I also wanted to make sure the other two gifs could be colored similarly, and they were for the most part. But there was only so much adjusting I could do to Nancy’s face in the third gif without adjusting the entirety of the scene (and set), so I had to go back and adjust her here to get a similar coloring.
(A lot of this set was back and forth, adjusting the colorings until they matched. It took so long. Especially with the stupid Upside Down visual effects in the background. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so there were a lot of minor adjustments and a lot of nitpicking until I ended up with a result I liked.)
So last and final step.
Step 10: selective color layer 3
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I ended up adding more red to the face, hair, and shadows to keep the first and third gif similar in coloring. And this is where we get our final product.
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And the side-by-side comparison again.
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Anyway, here you have it. This is the end of the tutorial. I can in no way guarantee that this method will work on other Upside Down scenes (trust me, I’ve tried), but hopefully you’ve learned something!
And hopefully I’ve explained myself well enough that you can apply this :)
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pookiwookis · 3 months
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SweetTooth1 and CurseDevourer
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playlist for the fic, no chronological order (except for like the first 4 songs maybe) and i might add more :3 https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2p3NOFNTCignOBYNkqt2yF?si=b76cafe295d84fbf also i mostly wrote this fic for myself, also i suggest reading the tags beforehand but i hope u enjoy !! (ps. posted this on ao3 as @bunnyalien !!) (pps. if you do play add me my battletag is kiwi#26932 ( i main mercy <3 )) - mittens 🫧
Description:
Rated: G
Words: 1371
Pairing orientation: m/m
The screen lights up with a word written in red; 'defeat', "dude you could've touched the point" Satoru said in slight annoyance, and he could hear Suguru sighing on the other line "I swear to god if you say 'you could've touched the point' one more time I'm offing myself" he replied, they argue about who was in the wrong in the heat of the moment, but alas, they apologized to each other and then joined the game’s practice range while waiting to queue for another game.
Game handle names CurseDevourer, Suguru Geto and SweetTooth1, Satoru Gojo, have met through the game Overwatch and have been friends for over two years, they almost always find time after school to play for leisure (except Gojo who leaves studying for when an exam is a day or two away). Suguru and Satrou were never texters, especially Suguru who didn’t have any socials, so gaming was a great way for them to communicate, they would talk about their day and interests through it for hours until Suguru told him his curfew (that he had set for himself) is up and he has to go study, especially that he studies med subjects while Satoru studies humanitarian subjects, so he has more free time since it’s all pretty easy (of course not to mention he doesn’t really care). 
They had been friends for over two years, and yet they had never thought about meeting, it wasn’t an option since Suguru’s parents were so strict on his studying, that he had to be cautious about playing with Satoru as well. They had been friends for a while and sharing pictures of oneself was very one-sided, he was too scared to confess, scared that it would ruin their friendship, especially since Suguru had a history of toxic friendships in middle school. Suguru was curious about his crush’s thoughts on how he looked like, except he was too self-conscious to do so, his high school peers had bullied him for being friendless, an outcast, and although he would always stand up for himself, it still made him feel self-conscious. He was glad Satoru hadn’t pressured him to share a photo of himself when he refused and didn’t provide a reason. 
He liked Satoru, but he realized he had a crush on him in their third year of friendship, Suguru realized Satoru was in his head more often than he wanted, and the way he talked about the people in his life made him feel jealous and frustrated, he was happy his crush was happy but he still wondered; why does he have to live so far away? Why can’t they be in the same school? Why can’t it be him instead? Satoru was all he was thinking about, it made his studying difficult, but then he would get words of encouragement from him and would succeed still, so he couldn’t blame him. 
They still play the game even after their high school graduation and the entrance to their Universities, but when the time to study for exams came, Suguru warned Satoru about not being able to play anymore because he had to prioritize studying, Satoru asked him to make a social account for them to keep in touch, Suguru replied by saying he’s busy and he’ll do tomorrow.
Satoru waited til the next day, he logged into his play station, except it was updating and required him to sign in to his account, Satoru panicked, he didn’t remember his password or email, and he also did not connect his email to anything, so there is no back up for his account. And in an instant, they fall apart. Suguru logs in to tell Satoru about his account, and he waits, waits and waits, Suguru waits for a day, two, a week, and he gets busier and busier but still hanging on a thread in hopes of Satoru contacting him, but to no avail, so he eventually gave up. Suguru didn’t feel angry, though he did feel sad and confused that Satoru had disappeared without a trace.
A few years go by, and Suguru reminisces about the times he played with Satoru, he tried downloading the game again but there wasn’t any space, he used it all for his university studies, and now that he’s a successful adult with straight As, his parents are more lenient on what he wants to do, so he goes to a gaming cafe to play a little. Suguru arrives at a nearby gaming cafe, it is fairly empty, and he decides to sit in the corner, away from everyone else, he finds comfort in his lonesome. All was well until a few moments later, a guy sat next to him, he didn’t bother looking but he knew he annoyed him to the core, out of all the empty places he decided to sit right next to him?! 
He wouldn’t have minded it too much if he wasn’t in his personal space. How can someone be so loud even while others are wearing headphones? Suguru sighs loudly, he can’t even move elsewhere because he is already in a competitive game, he’ll be sure to move after this game though, he is not sitting through this throughout his whole session. The yelling stops shortly, and Suguru is reliev- “hey man could you help me out i have no idea what’s wrong with my game” said the man in frustration, Suguru’s eye was twitching. He turns to look at him and absolute shock fills his body “SweetTooth1?!” He yells involuntarily, “Oh my god.” said the other “CurseDevourer?!” He continued.
In the next couple of weeks, the duo's interactions became a delicate dance of emotions and unspoken sentiments. They continued their routine visits to the gaming cafe, each session revealing a bit more about the connection they shared. Casual conversations evolved into moments of shared laughter. Suguru found himself stealing glances at Satoru, wondering if he could sense the subtle shift in the air. Satoru, too, seemed more attuned to Suguru's presence, a warmth in his gaze that hinted at something beyond what they are right now.
One evening, during a gaming session, they found themselves sitting in their usual quiet corner of the cafe, the ambient noise of the gaming machines provided a comforting backdrop to their conversation. 
The tension between Suguru and Satoru grew like a thin rope that was being pulled from both ends. There were lingering glances and exchanged smiles that carried a weight of unspoken feelings. 
Suguru found himself wrestling with the emotions he had kept bottled up. Feelings he thought were long gone, but meeting the other had proved otherwise, there was no denial especially since his feelings for him bloomed brighter with each passing day.
 The gaming cafe became a familiar place for their encounters, each session held unspoken words and lingering tension.
Suguru felt a surge of courage, "Satoru," Suguru started, his voice slightly shaky but determined, "there's something I've been wanting to share with you. It's been on my mind, and I think it's time we address it."
Satoru turned towards him, an inquisitive glint in his eyes.
"It's about us." Suguru continued, trying to find the right words.
Satoru nodded, silently urging him to go on.
Suguru took a deep breath, his gaze meeting Satoru's. "I've never said this out loud, but... you mean a lot to me, more than just a friend. Our time together has become so incredibly important to me, Satoru. I care about you deeply, I want you to know because you deserve my honesty, and I don't want to keep my feelings hidden anymore."
Satoru's expression softened, and the air around them seemed to blossom with the emotions of that vulnerable moment. As Suguru and Satoru sat in the gaming cafe, the atmosphere heavy with profound emotions, adrenaline pumping through their bodies, leaned in, closing the gap between them. In that intimate moment, their lips met in a soft, tentative kiss—a silent acknowledgment of the feelings they had finally expressed. The world outside the gaming cafe seemed to fade away as they shared the connection. The taste of exhilaration lingered with the warmth of newfound understanding, creating a moment paused in time.
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nieves-de-sugui · 1 year
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My personal experience with BL history for @waitmyturtles​
After reading through the posts of your Old GMMTv Challenge, I decided to add my own perspective, as a watcher, of how BL has evolved as a genre as time went by. I hope this “history from the perspective of the viewer” might shed some light in some of the questions you might have or bring up interesting things for your viewing and understanding of the shows. I will try to not repeat what has already been said through your posts by all the wonderful people in this fandom and keep it as concise as possible (turns out it’s still super long).
I’m gonna use ABL’s chronology of the shows as a timeline guide for easy understanding:
Context: How I made my way to Thailand
I’ve always been into BL (yaoi, gay shows, whatever you wanna call it), but I became commited to it around 2008. The options for queer content back then were very limited, as I’m sure we all remember. But for the sake of adding context this were my go to:
Youtube playlists of cuts of “the gay storyline” from western shows (Brothers and Sisters, Hit The Floor, Shameless, Skins and soap operas (Salatut Elamat, Days of Our Lives), etc), 
Queer as Folk, 
bad japanese live action adaptations of yaoi mangas (Takumi kun) or just sad/melancholic movies about lost men, 
sad chinese movies (usually with fucked up plots), 
indie queer movies (Were The World Mine, Judas Kiss, Shelter, Yes or No, Love of Siam etc). 
But I was starving for more. I wanted shows. 
In the search for more content, through Love of Siam enters My Bromance (very sad ending, also pseudo incest?, still part of what I thought were just indie movies with yaoi influences) and then appears Lovesick (S1 and S2), with very questionable subs, but finally a show with a gay couple as protagonists. 
Lovesick was for me the first show that finally put a queer story as a main thing to focus on, finally breaking free of the eternal side story filled with drama and hurt that was never comforted. After that only Make it Right was around. It was more of the same thing but this time the cast was a lot more reduced and everyone is gay. Also, it showed some of the sexual aspects of the genre (which now feels wrong for so many reasons, but alas). 
One day, SOTUS is on youtube with subs, plus it’s the official channels (yay! finally we can be legal!). 
First shock, there’s an actual plot centered around these two people, who are their own characters besides being gay, and they actually kiss (I remember it was so impactful to me (in a never seen before way) that I did fanart of it). Thai shows became my guilty pleasure, they were bad but they were telling the stories I wanted to see and no one else was doing it. Only Thai shows cared to show cute love stories that ended well, without the big drama we were used to in the west. My thoughts were “It’s bad but I’ll take it, I’m staying here”
Living through the different booms
When Together With Me came out it brought proper making out session and high heat to the genre. Sround here is when I started watching everything that I could find because I had finally found my jam. So I watched all that now I could not watch again (because, man! they’re bad) like 2moons, Puppy Honey S2, What The Duck, My Dream,... And then, with Love By Chance we got the first signs of consent and communication with AePete. It finally felt like we could get stories with healthy relationships. 
Also, Our Skyy came in! Great moment! Treats for everyone! And honestly, it was such a fun project to watch. Iconic side-couples from straight shows getting their moment of spotlight on the same level as the main couples from BL shows. To me, Our Skyy comfirmed the importance of the main 3 (OG, TN, KS) and cemented the path GMM was taking with their BL shows. It started to be part of the norm and not just some shows here and there. It was no longer waiting for someone to make a BL once in a while, but an assurance a small but constant flow of BLs. 
Also Taiwan started the HIStory franchise.
BIG BOOM#1 - TharnType! Also, Ossan’s Love. 
TharnType comes in. The 1st episode ends and everybody hates it for the lack of consent, but everybody loves it for the high heat and the chemistry (also for those of us who had liked Mew in WTD it was nice to see him in this show, that seemed to have less drama around it). Plus, the hype of knowing more about Tharn from LBC, who was such a nice older gay character when he was palyed by Earth (Pirapat).
I think to me, TT was a mix of a lot of the usual flaws with the very new (only achieved before by MaxTul) high heat chemistry  (which despite the controversy is an important part of the BL genre, you can’t take the sex out of BL) and an interesting idea for a plot. 
Also I watched Great Men Academy for Captain (Noh in Lovesick), and he slays. Plus the BL in the show is good (even tho technically not bl, but queer enough)
Simultaneously Japan gets Ossan’s Love, it’s first mainstream BL boom, with very well known actors and gets talked about by the regular drama watchers. Everyone was watching Ossan’s Love in Japan, it brought the genre to the mainstream for the first time. (And prepared the grounds for Cherry Magic, imo)
Other shows that left an impact at the time were He’s Coming To Me and Dark Blue Kiss. HCTM was the great Ohm comeback (who I though we would never see again), paired with Singto doing a BL again. Besides the chemistry, the change in themes was very interesting, it was the first thai bl that showed thai culture for me. For its part, DBK had an interesting opening and Aof personal queer touch to the storyline (which made it wonderful) Especially for MorkSun. It was the first taste of what we know Aof for, but it was also the first time BL had such mature and nuanced themes to it.
little BOOM#1 - Until We Meet Again and Theory of Love
UWMA and TOL, to me were surprises. I thought that like KirstSingto and TayNew, OffGun would never do another BL with new characters. That BL was still just an undervaluated stepping stone that people didn’t treat as a proper genre (as everybody had been doing up to that point, do it once and never be seen near the genre again). 
However, UWMA confirmed that BL was here to stay. It was growing, it was exploring mixing with other genres and famous thai actors were in it. It was also moving away from the usual university storyline. And TOL was the comback of the year. I remember everyone losing their shit (me included), it was the lengendary OG afterall. Up until then they had done cameos and Puppy Honey season 1 and 2 but that was it. TOL also did something interesting with its theme, and the romcom references. AND! it was the first proper kiss in a gmmtv BL. From dead fish PickRome to full on make out with KhaiThird.
BIG BOOM#2 - 2gether and Why R U?
The BL expansion thanks to the pandemic was very very noticeable. Everybody was seeing 2gether and WRU. First time anything BL trended on Tumblr. Everyone was descovering thailand. 
Also 2gether was again a first, it felt like the story made more sense. It was more believable, with tolerable tropes and a cute main pair (this was the first thai show I dared to recommend to someone who was not into BL), plus the music. The ending of the show ruined it for me, however Still2gether Fixed everything that was wrong from the 1st season and showed quickly how the show could’ve been. WRU’s plot was directly affected by the pandemic and bettered what TharnType had started with the high heat chemistry. The whole success of the show is due to SaintZee having amazing chemistry and going with it. 
My engineer was the surprise of the year, it had nothing going for it promising but it managed to be good (I think thanks to some parts of the story and the cast mainly). 
little BOOMS#2 - Cherry Magic and ITSAY and others
The riples of the pandemic 2gether boom were felt in Japan. Nothing breaks throught the japanese content barrier. Japan only consumes MADE IN JAPAN, and yet 2gether made it there. And showed the Japanese show runners that there’s an interest there. Cherry Magic aired a few months after and it was big success, like OL had been. Korea starts with Where Your Eyes Linger here too.
The thing about I Told Sunset About You was that nobody knew what we were getting. I had heard about My ambulance, I even saw some of the clips, but it seemed to be side couple queerbaiting and honestly I wasn’t expecting much. But they had promised a BilkinPP series. I think it’s no wonder it blew our minds, nobody was expecting that! 
Then the big comeback of MaxTul with Manner of Death, broke our minds just as OF had with TOL and bringing again the mature themes to the genre (they are called the daddies of BL for a reason). No one thought they’d come back.
Around here I started watching the GMMtv end of the year announcements. All the build up we had had from the growing of the BL genre and p’Aof culminated on the annoucement of A Tale of Thousand Stars. Because of how it breaks the rules of thai bl (no engineers, no university, no highschool, no city, no 2000′s yaoi tropes just regular shoujo tropes) and tells a compeling story that tasted so new the hype didn’t die even when it came one year later than it should have. 
And Lovely Writer, was the first to present the criticizing of the industry as well as expanding on the mature themes outside of university and the lack of need for fanservice off screen between the actors. They acted like normal people :D
Light on Me appared around here too, and showed us that korea can do better than it had. And Taiwan gave us We Best Love.
BIG BOOM#3 -  Bad Buddy and Kinnporsche
BB was the biggest annoucement GMMtv has ever made. The thing about it was the combo AofOhmNanon. Always grazing BL and forever ghost shipped with Chimon, Nanon decided to do his first (and probably only) BL with none other than Ohm (with who he had great chemistry since they became friends in Blacklist) and under the guidance of Aof. Here I want to add that Aof considers BB to be his first Y series, the ones before were dramas, so I assume by that that the thai public makes a difference between the more mature tone series and the more highschool/university BLs (??). Such a year that was! Accompanied by the epicness that was the annoucement of Not Me (confirmed to be the last OG show... but then they went and annouced another). 
And last but not least, Kinnporsche breaks the internet, everyone knows about thailand now. It entered the realm of darker themes and violence. Accompanied by other shows exploring other themes like: You’re My Sky (sports), Something In My Room (ghosts), etc...
Which is the flow we have now, some of the known old stuff some of the new expanding stuff, waiting for the next boom. My, what a journey!
I hope this was an interesting read and that I managed to show how these shows were perceived when they came out, even though now they might not be as groundbreaking. If anybody else wants to add how they perceived these shows when they came out, feel free to add to this!
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tayley · 2 years
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I have a theory that is probably unpopular in the fandom but I feel safe posting it here. I think this era’s pre-hype has been so messy because Hayley is taking social media advice from the GDY team and other friends like Lindsey B and they just aren’t good at marketing. Obviously the record label is in charge of promotion but I think since Hayley isn’t on social media to hype people up, the record label demanded her participation in some way and this is her advice/contribution to them. In that Instagram live teaser you can hear her in the background say, “put it on the discord” and then the first song snippet appeared on there.
When it comes to the discord server, Reddit mods admitted that they were contacted just a week before the discord server link was made available via the website and were asked to hand over the already established discord handle to Paramore’s official team. That seems weird to me for such a big record label to scramble to lock in an album promotion’s social channels at the very last second. Some fans that are discord veterans have weighed in online to say that it is a poorly set up channel that had no thought put into it. I think that is pretty obvious by how fast it turned into chaos. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that Lindsey uses discord to promote her NFT’s and had Hayley join her in a server earlier this year. What major record label in 2022 would think that using discord to promote a new album was a solid marketing technique? When has this been used successfully with any other album promo? Not to mention so many Twitter fans have commented that they haven’t used discord in almost 5 years/it’s an outdated platform. I hope I’m way off base but this specific platform technique seems to me like Hayley is listening to a close friend about what is most popular for social media right now when that friend has no idea and might be trying to promote their own interests.
When it comes to the website being updated with that ‘cryptic’ list with the dates I feel like it’s trying to emulate artists that are have extremely effective strategic techniques for promotion and getting fans excited ala Taylor Swift and Beyoncé. Unfortunately it’s executed so lazily or without a lot of thought that it is pretty hollow and is failing at keeping us engaged/excited. I’ve seen a few tweets from fans praising how cryptic the website is and crediting the GDY team like Becca (a self-professed Swiftie, btw) and those posts have been liked by members of the GDY team. I won’t go into how poorly I think GDY is marketed, but I will point out the TikTok that nobody noticed for two days until somebody from the paramore team posted it in the discord server. Who has had Hayley feature in multiple lackluster/cringy TikToks in the last few years and would advise her that that platform would be the best option to continue the ‘cryptic’ marketing but then not execute it successfully?
I have a lot more thoughts on this theory but I’ll end there because I don’t want to upset anyone with my opinion, but I definitely think it has been a bungled effort to get fans excited for new material from Paramore. I’ve followed every album rollout since Brand New Eyes and my partner is in marketing, and this album rollout is probably the most disappointing so far.
i mean… i have nothing else to add lol. this is most likely going to piss some people off, but it’s our space for open minded discussion/theories. thanks anon!
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wetbloodworm · 1 year
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i made some family trees for my rescueverse kids using this website! just some of them, like tolys has two brothers but that's the extent of that tree that i've got sorted out w/ no other interesting familial connections to other characters.
edit: the order of the pics gets fucked up on my blog, sorry about that! put '[pic #]' under reach space one of the pics is supposed to be among the text
you have to have a person selected so there's a bold-outlined person in each of these screenshots, which is either done at random or to show the maximum amount of people. also i manually made the nonbinary characters' blocks purple BUT the website does allow for nonbinary family members! those blocks are just white and i thought that was boring. grayed out names indicate deceased family members, thicker lines connecting couples indicate an existing relationship while thinner lines indicate exes.
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[pic one]
starting off with the kotovs! this is the only one containing named grandparents because Lubov is at her base loosely inspired by 1P nyo general winter, so she gets to be there. technically all my russian grandfathers are named at least b/c i've got everyone's patronymics sorted out but god that would've gotten messy.
i tried to keep siblings in order of age but that didn't always work out. maxim IS older than konstantin, but yevgeny is older than asya. there was an option to add birthdays so i'm not sure if that would've shuffled things around but i didn't have the patience for that so it's FINE.
i'm not fully set on zhana and tanya being only children, though they are right now. i've thought about sergey having more cousins on his mom's side of the family before but hm. i don't know.
this tree also gets totally fucked in fallen au because of what i've done to asya's parent situation. here's the fallen au family tree below
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[pic two]
why did i do this to myself. like i love asya's story in fallen and how she has to work on healing her personal relationship with being a changeling but god why did i do this to myself. had to edit this in CSP to get the full tree to show.
debated over making yevgeny maxim's son still in this au or making him [bio dad]'s son; i've drawn him as a changeling before but like is that really a good enough reason to scooch him around. really there's no good reason for any of this, and asya hasn't addressed having a half-brother in fallen, so i finally decided to leave him on the changeling side of the family. THEN i debated making asya and yevgeny full siblings instead of half siblings but. no. i've fucked up things enough as it is.
no idea what sergey's family's surname is in fallen. it can't be kotov/kotova because that'd make no sense. maybe i just make it lebedev/lebedeva and just make it so zhana kept [bio dad]'s surname. i don't know. i don't know!
WHY DID I DO THIS TO MYSELF!!!
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[pic three]
ANYWAY the orlovskys! the lighter line connecting ivan to the belyakovs indicates they're his foster parents, with the rest of that family not showing in this screen. i tried to edit the two trees together but i don't think it was super clear. ivan had a lot of foster families but the belyakovs were the ones he was the closest to, so it felt important to include them in his tree. avdotya and kseniya had some foster families as well, of course, but i haven't thought on them much beyond the fact that the kids didn't stay connected with any of them.
i wanted to include the bryants, another family crucial to ivan's development/backstory, but they only let you add a secondary set of parents, no more. alas. the bryants actually adopt him in at least one AU (doctor horrible au) so i feel bad not having them on here but alas!!
alyona and nikolay being only children is canon, and both of their parents predeceased them. the orlovsky kids didn't have any living relatives after the house fire, aside from each other.
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[pic four]
and then the belyakovs! again, they had several foster kids over the years, but ivan's the only one that reconnected later on in life and stuck around after that, so he gets to be in the tree. he's got complicated feelings about considering himself part of this family tbh but he's ON THE TREE.
idk if klara and ilya are only children, so there might be cousins out there i haven't sorted out. if i do come up with them i'll update this post, but for now it's just them. my parents have three siblings each and i've got uhhh i think. eleven cousins i think? so these trees seem way too small compared to my frame of reference. which is why i'm overthinking the aunts/uncles thing a bit. it's fine. it's fine
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[pic five]
finally, the o'lorcains! and the gibsons i guess. lyle has a surname now.
considered marking eamon as deceased but i think he's only dead in gta au. as a kindness to cian i'm making the decision that eamon's only dead in gta au.
it's an in-joke in this family that after madigan and erin, it's just all boys all the way down. madigan has four sons, erin has one son, shea has two sons. they thought grant broke the streak at first but then lyle came out and order was restored.
lyle is technically cian's first cousin once removed but cian just refers to him as his nephew. i think that's not uncommon for that familial connection? doesn't matter, that's his nephew.
i think flynn might also be married but i know he doesn't have any kids yet so i'm not too pressed to name his spouse. eamon's a mystery to me.
cian's tree can also get fucked up a bit depending on the AU, since there are AUs where arthur is his brother. i don't know how that works out with [gestures at tree] all this but oh well.
okay i stayed up too late doing this, goodnight
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dcviated · 1 year
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@remunporium sent: Shortly after a morning Christmas celebration with Raguna, with plenty of emphasis on Sirin wanting to visit Mizuki before the morning's over, Sirin uses her powers to -- instead of teleporting directly inside the girl's home, appear just in front of her apartment carrying two neatly wrapped boxes (she had Raguna's help with this one, thanks Home Depot).
Knock knock! Your friend is here Mizuki. And she's ready to greet you the second you open the door.
" Mizuki! Merry Christmas! " said she, beaming and glowing after a particularly happy morning. She had a feeling that the other's morning would have started off fairly differently, and so she wanted to get here as soon as possible so that she wouldn't feel so lonely before the day's festivities start proper.
" This one was kinda hard to do, but I think you'll like what I got you. " Two things in particular! The first is one that she got as an idea during their shopping spree. A brand new Nerf gun in a submachine gun style, capable of shooting upwards of multiple darts a second.
The second box's deceptive size betrays the gift inside. An absolutely massive Adorabbit plushie, one that isn't like anything Mizuki has in her current collection, stuffed inside the box and then practically expanding to nearly double or triple its size when it was revealed. Sirin likely used her powers to conceal the true size of the toy -- there was no chance something like that would have ever fit in a box that size.
The door opens into the hall, and Mizuki looks more than happy to see her friend on the other side of it. It's been an emotional year for them both, hasn't it? To say they bonded would be an understatement. To say things were easy would be a lie. To say it was over... well, life had a way of keeping on going. Mizuki wasn't going to hold her breath and simply try to take every moment she could while things were still a vague sense of normal.
Unfortunately or not, normal meant a few other things too. Like Date being inside the room and still working with the bizarre gift Mizuki had given him.
"Who is it?"
"It's Sirin! She brought some presents. Hey. I thought you were going to be with Raguna for a bit longer. Did you wanna come in?" A rhetorical question. It's cold out and neither of them wanted to deal with that if there was the option. "Just get inside. Date's harmless and if he tries anything I'll throw him out the window." She adds with a laugh, to which her guardian simply retorts with how she'd get grounded.
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"So what'd you bring! I got your gift over here too, so you can open it at the same time. Duh I got you something." And what would it be inside Sirin's box? A model figure of Shadow the Hedgehog of course. How cool is that? You can even push a button on the plate and it lights up. No voice box though. She'll have to add in the catchphrases herself.
The glimmer in Mizuki's eyes when she sees the nerf gun is something to be witnessed. A broad smile and devious glance towards Date who couldn't see what the two girls were up to from his position.
"Well? What's that face for? What did you get?"
"Uh. Card stuff. You wouldn't get it.... thanks, Sirin. I know this is gonna be great."
'Aiba?' [It appears to be a toy gun.] 'Oh goddamnit.' Alas, even if Mizuki tried to hide it, her guardian's AI companion was able to scan past her and identify the nature of the gift. She doesn't however, seem able to discern what was in the larger box.
"And in here..." Mizuki opens the second box, which greets her with those hauting eyes of Adorabbit. Then the big floppy ears. Then the head. Wait, what's going on? "Whoa! It's... it's getting bigger! Wow!" Like something from a cartoon the plush expands and gets to the point it looks more like something someone could use as a beanbag rather than a plushy.
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"Where did you get this, Sirin?! It's bigger than I am! Whoaa." She flops against it, sinking into the fluff almost immediately with a giggle. "I loooove it. <3"
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nickgerlich · 2 years
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A Hole In One
I remember when my daughters were still young. One of my fondest memories was our usual Saturday night escapades with another family. We would do church, dinner, and then doughnuts. And since there were kids involved, dinner usually involved very kid-friendly places, like a Chinese buffet.
And doughnuts were, by default, at Krispy Kreme. Because they turned on the neon light and gave away free delicacies in the evening, along with funky oblong paper caps. Score. We were all happy.
Alas, Krispy Kreme, which had expanded far faster than it should, kind of imploded, and the Amarillo location was shuttered, along with many around the country. Contrary to popular local belief, their closing wasn’t just because the homegrown Donut Stop chain had killed them. KK was immensely popular, just overbuilt.
But I digress.
Today, inflation is causing people to dine out less across the board, but when they do, they are focusing on less expensive alternatives, like fast food. And fast food outlets have risen to the occasion, as they have noticed the level of competition increasing. We are thus faced with a plethora of new menu items, returned old ones, and then the odd pairing that finds Krispy Kreme doughnuts going into a market test at nine Kentucky McDonald’s locations.
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I must say that I am scratching my head. McDonald’s has never been big on being a reseller of other people’s merchandise. I am not sure how they view the doughnuts. Are they intended to be an add-on sale, or what retailers call an upsell? Or are they a substitute for mainstay McDonald’s items, like the Egg McMuffin? I can see the usual gaggle of old timers coming in for a coffee and a doughnut, and not paying much tribute to Ronald McDonald.
Selection is limited to three doughnut varietals, and either singly or in six-packs, but they will be available throughout the day. The market test is very different from when KFC did a true mashup menu item two years ago with a fried-chicken-and-doughnut sandwich. And while some could argue that the many restaurants adopting plant-based items from Beyond and Impossible are no different, I will counter by saying those are treated as ingredients to make a finished product, like a burger. The doughnuts are not at all like that in the case of McDonald’s.
While McDonald’s probably sees this co-branding as a quick and easy alternative to the more expensive option of menu development, I am not convinced this is a good move. Fortunately, they are testing in only a very small number of stores, and in a rather remote part of the country. In other words, if it fails, then no harm, no foul. It can just go away quietly.
But if it flies, then you can expect rival chains to start exploring co-branded options. The sky’s the limit. Co-branding is nothing new in retail, having been mastered by travel centers, truck stops, and convenience stores with branded prepared food options under their roofs.
If anything, Krispy Kreme stands to be the winner in this, because they gain additional distribution without having to build. It’s not exactly like an entire doughnut shop, but it gives them valuable distribution nonetheless.
And if Ray Kroc were alive, or his predecessors, the McDonald brothers, I’m pretty sure they would be shaking their heads at this strange partnership. After all, in their time, they were only interested in selling hamburgers, fries, and shakes. If you wanted anything more, you went elsewhere. 

And that’s why we have doughnut shops, just like we went to on Saturday nights.
Dr “I Miss The Little People“ Gerlich
Audio Blog
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aquilinestudios · 2 years
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It never rains in ________ __________...
Back from a one-week trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios Hollywood, and it has been a trip. As expected, we had no rain and almost no clouds the whole time, and daytime highs around 90°F, though the nights didn't cool off as much as I expected, with lows staying stubbornly high around 70°F.
The following ended up being so long that the other two parks will have to wait for a separate post.
My thoughts, in no particular order:
Disneyland Park
Space Mountain
Will someone please inform Ric Flair that this coaster is neither the oldest ride in the park nor the one with the longest lines, either here or in Florida? That said, the Disneyland version of Space Mountain has spoiled me, as it is such a clear step up from the Magic Kingdom's... you can seat two across, the ride is longer and better, and the SOUNDTRACK adds immeasurably to the experience. (Made me yell for joy that one Otakon when one of the Iron Editor videos used it.)
Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters
Another clear upgrade from the Buzz's Space Ranger Spin in the MK, as you can actually lift the laser guns out of their docks, you can line up your eye with a groove on top of the gun to aim better, and the targets AND your gun both light up when you score a hit. It all adds up to a far less frustrating experience.
Disneyland Railroad
Definitely more functional than the MK railroad, as it has *four* stops instead of just three. Also, the Grand Canyon and dinosaur scenes are pretty cool. I just wish all the trains had seats that faced forward (on our first ride, we had one that faced us sideways).
Disneyland Monorail
Unlike in Florida, Disneyland resort has only one monorail line, with only two stops (Tomorrowland and Downtown Disney) and NO air conditioning (the windows were open the whole time). However, I still need to remember it next time, as a possibly faster option for entering the park (shorter lines for bag check and check-in), depending on where my hotel is.
Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage
Not sure it's worth it if the wait is a half hour or longer, but still cute. Now if only the hatch directly over my seat hadn't leaked when we passed under that waterfall...
Pinocchio's Daring Journey
Dark ride you won't find at the MK, about what you'd expect.
Snow White's Enchanted Wish
Surprisingly, far better than the now-defunct Snow White's (Scary) Adventures in Florida. Won't leave you asking "Where the hell is Snow White?".  (Edit: looks like this ride was redesigned in 2021 into its current incarnation, which explains the difference.)
Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
Dark ride no longer present in Florida (it was replaced by the Pooh ride there). AKA Mr. Toad's Bogus Journey.
Peter Pan's Flight
Still consistently popular. A different experience from the MK's, but I'm disappointed at the lack of "FIRE, MR. SMEE! *boom*".
Alice in Wonderland
Dark ride you won't find at the MK, with some delightful effects.
Storybook Land Canal Boats
When you want an outdoor boat ride, this one's here for you. I had forgotten that, due to the miniature storybook scenes the boat floats past, the ride is effectively full of faux bonsai.
Matterhorn Bobsleds
Closed for refurbishment, alas.
"it's a small world" [sic]
The first thing you notice about this one is that, unlike in Florida, its loading area is OUTSIDE. Then you see that the toy parade happens every 15 minutes instead of only on the hour. Once you're actually on the ride, it has a slightly older feel to it, but with noticeably more Disney characters sneaked in (in the same style as the rest of the dolls, of course) and a small room dedicated to North America just before the big all-white finale. Oh, and in said finale, the sun appears to be charging its eye lasers.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance
One of the most elaborate preshows I've seen yet, with at least one point that makes you think you're on the actual ride when you're really not. When you do finally arrive, it's a dark ride with Disney's best technology and the usual exquisite attention to detail, definitely deserving of the long lines.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
This is the interactive simulator-type ride where each ship has two pilots, two gunners, and two engineers. I was a gunner, and I give you the warning I wish I'd had, that you do get penalized for missed shots -- so don't just spray and pray. It's my understanding that the ride experience does change based on how well your crew is doing; in my case, we only secured one load of cargo.
Splash Mountain
Felt just like what I remember from Florida. My shoes got wetter from the *first* (rather small) drop than from anything else. Fortunately, they dried out quickly afterwards.
The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh
Not a clone of Florida, lacking the bouncing scene but adding lots of birthday presents for Pooh. Also, the ride vehicles are beehives rather than Hunny Pots.
Pirates of the Caribbean
Another one you must ride if you're a Disney fan who has only ever done the Florida version. Much longer and more elaborate. Also, for those of you who have seen the Sing-Along Songs video, I regret to inform you that they do NOT actually make the powder kegs explode.
Haunted Mansion
Seemed almost identical to in the MK. Got to ride it just before it went down for its annual The Nightmare Before Christmas re-skinning; it won't re-open until September 2.
Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room
Long in the tooth, but still good to see something that Walt himself worked on directly. Also, they let you eat your Dole Whip in the theatre. (If you haven't had a Dole Whip, that's another thing that's basically an obligatory part of the Disneyland experience.)
Jungle Cruise
Yup, it's still there.
Indiana Jones Adventure
Luckiest timing ever, to get on the line JUST after it had re-opened from one of its many temporary closures -- got through it in something like 15 minutes, which is unheard of (the Jungle Cruise skipper called it "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Three-Hour Wait"). I couldn't hear enough of the voice lines to know what was supposed to be going on plot-wise (had to consult Wikipedia for that afterwards), but it's still a most impressive dark ride that Florida doesn't have. The closest analogue is probably Dinosaur; unlike that one, Indiana Jones lacks jump scares.
Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln
Not nearly as long or impressive as The American Adventure at Epcot Center, but this paved the way for it and for the MK's Hall of Presidents. Also, this explains that one scene in the modern Mickey Mouse cartoon "Potatoland".
Fantasmic!
This has always been a significantly distinct experience from the one in Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida. To begin with, there is no dedicated theatre; the show takes place on Tom Sawyer Island itself and the river around it (including using the Mark Twain and Columbia riverboats!). The segments themselves differ: instead of a Jafar snake, you get Kaa in a Jungle Book scene; instead of Pocahontas, you get formerly Peter Pan and now Pirates of the freaking Caribbean; instead of a whole procession of Disney villains, you get about three in a row; and so on.
But perhaps the most memorable difference is the huge animatronic fire-breathing Maleficent dragon (you can find pictures in my posts from 2013, here and here). Far more impressive than what we get on the East Coast.
Disneyland Forever
Unfortunately I cannot opine on this fireworks show... because it was canceled (due to high winds aloft) both nights I tried to see it!
Mickey's Mix Magic
Instead of the fireworks, we got this projection show, using both Sleeping Beauty Castle AND all the stores along Main Street, USA (since the castle is quite short). It's a dance party with remixed Disney songs -- who knew that "I Wanna Be Like You" (inter alia) worked so well as electro-swing?
Main Street Electrical Parade: 50th Anniversary
(Warning: sap incoming)
The strange thing is that I have zero nostalgia for this parade, as I never saw it as a child (my family usually didn't do the nighttime parades, and when we did, it was Spectromagic). But the first time I saw it, being in the MK as an adult, I was bouncing and whooping right from where the beat hits and the street lights black out.
I cannot explain why this parade has such an effect. I can only describe it as a magical outpouring of joy -- and the California crowd was even more into it than in Florida. It is one of the very few Disney attractions that can bring tears to my eyes.
It even got me to buy the 50th anniversary T-shirt.
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wizeardmanteis · 2 years
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today the strangest thing happened. id been making kandi all day, a long awaited task turned furthermore into a burden as the days dragged on and continued to the sooner end of the summer season. when id found myself soaked in the silk of a conundrum. i needed hot glue because i lacked any type of punctuation mark for the ending to a bracelet i was making. however i had no such exclamation mark. so i had made one of an upside down i, however i needed to glue it to my other letter for this to work. yet no luck, the glue was missing. obviously bewildered by this, i searched and asked around finally leading back to the layer by which my brother bodes his domain. it quickly escalated and got out of hand, as his response to my questioning was that to assume my inquiry implied that of theivery. it did not but he knows not with his young age to listen. so alas i was thrown out to look elsewhere. my parents had gone so i took to it with the free space from the car having vacated the area where the storage bins lay. and i got to work opening and looking into them. i knew of two hot glue vestiges in my home. two documented ones at least, as they both routinely go missing and reappear at random, i knew better than to not take the time to look inside the office storage bins in particular. and as i dug through my first box in particular, i found photos of myself from deep in my very first term growing period to my most recent. i, being the first born was always the most heavily documented on, of my sibling collective. which is fine so to speak as i have proper proof for my experiences and that of my life previously to my most recent years. however i had come upon a pooled amount of dvds at the bottom, after i had divvied out some pictures of myself for the taking to add to my childhood shoebox. many familial events and activities, holidays, school photos, my parents wedding, stuff like that. however there was a dvd entitled “((my name)) photos” i was confused about the title so i set it in the pile with the other things i was certain id never find and left shortly after to make my departure. however when id put the disc into my tv after id arrived in my room. itd made many strange noises. then inexplicably brought me to a picture of a snowy mountain, in what looked to be a tundra climate. i stared at the photo for awhile just pondering the whole thing, before i realised it was a sort of slideshow. i pressed the remote for the next slide and took note that all of the slides were more or less the same thing. the disc being full of pictures of the dreary antarctic. where images of snowy mountains and clusters of strange looking penguin hold themselves a collective. though it continued endlessly, of eerie near perfect looking snowy mountains, surrounded by water and such. the photographer perhaps on a boat. i found it went on forever, me skipping through them for a solid half hour maybe, before i was called to do some chores. id been gone for a long time too, about midnight, as is the curse of leaving my room and stalling my way back to the connecting hallways, always somehow leading back to my door. i got right back to skipping through the slideshow. and the photos did not change, and there was no option to go backward. i took a short video of what i was seeing, to try to picture it better in explanation. but its really short as my phone stopped itself from recording not even 20 seconds in because of low storage-__-
im not very sure what to make of this, what association i am supposed to draw from a cd with my name on it, implying photos of me through its titling. and what the frequent photos of the antarctic imply to me as a person. this is quite the query, is it not? im afraid to take it out of my dvd player as i do not want to lose my place in the sequence of images i have found myself lost in. many of these photos beyond uncanny in a way i cannot pinpoint. perhaps it is the entailment of isolation making me feel this way. as i find myself anxious thinking of the endless artic tundra and pointlessness provided to me in such an environment, leading me to an endless feild of water, all surrounding to my periphery. a true nightmare to be lost to the ice and water beholdent in these photos. how i long to be away from it and yet i am viewing it from beyond that of a distance. i wonder what this is reflective of if not my own fear, is it true that our fears are what make us ourselves? i wonder where i heard that from. maybe in the future, i am these photos. maybe im the one taking them. or maybe these photos are just meant to represent me as an individual being. like finn from adventure time representing a sword when not trapped to that of a flesh corporeal form. regardless, perhaps these images were placed here for me to find when id come the age of understanding. i will ponder this more frequently as it has happened now a time ago, since id started writing this. yesterday to be exact. and i am still unsure if i even want to keep looking through the slideshow, as im not sure if it will ever end and time has not been very generous to me as of late. we will see. for now it is a mystery i will continue to write about.
continuation to this post
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sukirichi · 3 years
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reckless [02.]
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With a lackadaisical playboy as your boss, being reckless wasn’t an option. But on the one time you let loose and made mistakes, your life is shattered, and now you’re playing house with your insufferable boss who is the father of your baby.
✘ cw. angst, toxic situations
✘ note. yes, feel free to scream at me in the asks. but like don’t worry, i promise there’s more to come and there’s more to happen! it’s going to get fluffier as we go hehehehe. ALSO, I can’t help but feel that Zayn’s “Let Me” speaks perfectly to CEO playboy Gojo. hmph.
one  ✘  two  ✘  three 
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One glance at the tall man beside you, and you would’ve thought he would pass out soon.
Satoru had been endlessly fidgety hours before the appointment. Flicking from music stations to another, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel or sighing at the sight of you calmly watching the city go by in a flash – it was clear he was restless. Judging from the dark circles he tried to conceal under a pair of shades, he probably hadn’t slept much last night as well.
Now that you were both inside the clinical room, with you laying back down on the reclined bed, belly exposed and all for him to marvel at, his knee hadn’t stopped bouncing. “Satoru, calm down. It’s just a doctor’s appointment.”
“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly, rubbing his sweaty palms on his pants. “I’m just…excited yet nervous, you know? It feels so real now.”
Real didn’t begin to cover it. Although you masked your nervous quite well, you felt your stomach tighten when a woman came in. Her smile was gentle and comforting enough, talking you both through the process and spilling little fun facts about pregnancy. She applied a cool gel over your belly before turning to a screen, where mixed dots and waves of black and white blurred in front of your visions. Your eyes widened in awe, throat dry from the inability to speak. The baby had always felt real, but seeing it with your own two eyes, a small figure barely even a comprehensible shape in the screen, you couldn’t help but tear up a little.
“That’s mine?” Satoru breathed out, absentmindedly looping his hands through yours. It made you stiffen for a quick second, but your attention was quickly pulled back to the sonogram. “We made that?”
Your heart clenched at his words.
He sounded so happy – like all his dreams came true and you’d just given him a gift that was beyond priceless. You supposed it really was; a baby was always a miracle and joy to have, but this child wasn’t made out of love. How could he have so much fondness for something he didn’t want in the first place?
“The baby is perfectly healthy. This pregnancy doesn’t seem like a high-risk one, but it’s too early to tell so we’ll keep checking in on you,” the doctor pushed her glasses back to her nose, the sound of her cool voice pulling you back from a dangerous path of self-doubt and wariness. “Do you guys want to know the gender?”
Glancing at Satoru, you shook your head. It was amusing that you didn’t need to share words before he got the meaning behind one look, and he squeezed your hand as if to say he understood.
“I’d like that to be more of a surprise. Thank you, doctor.”
“Congratulations on being a father, Sir,” she bowed, and it occurred to you just now she was probably a family doctor. Satoru did end up keeping his promise that your pregnancy be kept private for a while. This little detail made you turn to him with shock written all over your face, though his attention was centred in on the swirling monochrome colours on the screen. Whether the doctor noticed the brewing tension between you two or not, you were still gad when they bowed once more to excuse themselves. “I’ll leave you two to talk now.”
The moment she was gone, you sat up and pushed your blouse down. Satoru’s demeanour had changed as well. His smile was wiped from his face, replaced only by a slight downturn of his lips.
Sighing, you swung your legs over the bed, not minding one bit that he was inches away from resting his chin onto your thighs. “Is there something you’re not telling me? You’ve been so worried since we got here.”
Satoru winced.
“Am I that obvious?”
“Even if you aren’t, it’s not that hard to see through you,” you spoke gently, a spirit possessing you because there would’ve been no other logical reason on why you placed a palm over his. Satoru’s hands were warm and large as he cupped your knee, tracing little patterns over your jeans as he kept his gaze lowered to the floor. It was an odd sight to see; that the Gojo Satoru refused to look a woman in the eye. “Tell me. What’s wrong?”
Satoru’s sigh is painfully drawn out, though his chuckles took the brunt.
“I don’t know what to do – how to be a father, I mean. Don’t you ever get worried…that maybe we might fuck up and ruin someone’s life?”
“Hey,” you cupped his cheek, forcing him to look you in the eyes – which you really wished he didn’t, because you’d never seen such azure this up close before. It was no secret that his eyes alone stole the hearts of people, but you had to remind yourself he broke them as well, so that you pulled away right before he got too close for comfort. It wasn’t what he needed anyway. Satoru simply required reassurance, so you opted for an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Weren’t you the one telling me the other day we’ll work it out?”
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“It’s nothing,” he shook his head, a smile lighting up his features once more. “Are you feeling good? There’s someplace I want to take you, as a celebration for our healthy baby.”
You pursed your lips. As much as you appreciated his enthusiasm, this ‘celebration’ didn’t sound like a good idea. You’ve made mistakes before and now you lived the consequence of it; being reckless was outdated. Caution, wariness, and space were the top three perfect recipes for the complete opposite of a disaster.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Why not?” he challenged, taking your hand in his as he guided you out the clinic. You made no comment on why he led you out the back where he’d parked his car, even going as far to bow for you as he opened your door. “Liven up a little, we got good news today! Plus, we didn’t both take a day for nothing. Come on, you’re going to have fun, I promise you!”
“And where would we go where people won’t recognize you?”
“Somewhere people are too lost in their own world to focus on others,” Satoru announced before sending you a side glance, smooth hands already on their way to rev the engine.
This wouldn’t go down well. Or at least that was what you wanted to believe, because his smile and excitement were too contagious that you couldn’t restrain the smile you wore.
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“A carnival? Really? We’re too old for this.”
“We’re never too old for anything,” he insisted, placing his hands on your shoulders as he maneuvered from stall to stall. Everywhere around you, children and people of all ages milled by, laughter and screams that fading into the distance. One survey at the long, endless lines for the rides and crowded spaces, you grimaced, feeling an uncomfortable weight resting on your shoulders that was beyond Satoru’s hands. “Aw, come on, don’t be such a bore. Day offs like these are rare and think about the baby! Don’t you think they would’ve wanted us to get a long?”
“You’re just using the baby as an excuse to have fun.”
Of course he would – Gojo Satoru was like a man-child. Whether it was someone randomly bringing donuts or puppies into the office, he easily lit up like a firework, seemingly finding joy in every little thing. Being stuck in the office and forced to work his ass off under your supervision must’ve taken a toll on him too.
Add on the fact he hadn’t gone out on dates or parties ever since he found out he was going to be a dad, the desperation to go out and do something was written all over his face.
Satoru pouted. “That’s mean. Take that back.”
“No.”
“And I’m the childish one here?” he snickered. You merely rolled your eyes at him and gave in; too much time spent working and not enough time relaxing (not that being a carnival was your definition or relaxation, but alas, Satoru was dragging you around everywhere like always) wouldn’t be good for the baby.
“You see that bear over there? I’m going to win that for you. It could be my first ever present for our baby.”
There was no stopping him. You didn’t want to, either, because you just stood there, arms crossed against your chest as you let him do whatever he pleased. A literal man-child, a youthful soul stuck in an irritatingly attractive man’s body – these were the thoughts that ran through your head while Satoru kept swinging his arm back and forth. He chose a stall where you had to knock down stacks of cans down with one set of three balls, all because he wanted to win a bear. You would really rather go home than watch him fail four times now, but he wasn’t giving up, only flexing his shoulders before gesturing to the young man.
“Hey man, three more balls please.”
Nothing was funny about it at all. Watching your boss fail miserably even after ten tries shouldn’t have been so hilarious, yet sweat was dripping all over his face and his patience was hanging on a loose thread that you were giggling before you knew it.
His usual confident bravado began to tear down bit by bit, his face flushed from the sounds of your teasing.
“Satoru, stop,” you laughed, “We’ve been here for twenty minutes and your wallet might as well be empty! You can just go buy a bear at the mall.”
“You’re too functional. Where would be the meaning behind it if I just bought a random bear?” he huffed, pushing the sleeves of his denim jacket up to his elbows. Determined now more than ever, he even stretched his long arms side to the side with a shake of his hips. You could tell the young man manning the stall was hiding his amusement by whistling to himself, but Satoru really was such a ridiculous sight you couldn’t blame him. “No, I’m going to get that for you, then I’ll brag to my baby how cool their dad was when he knocked those cans down.”
“You mean, if you knock those cans down.”
His shoulders deflated. “Support me a little bit, will you?”
“Hmm, I don’t know, it might just inflate your ego and you’ll be too distracted by yourself to ever actually knock those cans down,” He threw a ball with a force so strong it hit the curtain above the cans, and it bounced back somewhere below the tables. It didn’t even touch the can by a smidge, and you snorted. “See what I mean?”
Expecting that Satoru would take insult to heart (as his ego was easily wounded, this much you knew when he refused to talk to anyone at the office for a whole day because one of his directors forgot his name) you smirked at him, but that smirk immediately dropped when he grinned back at you. He was no longer wimpy like before, an aura of confidence brimming from him. “That’s like the second time you’ve told me I was distracting,” he mused, leaving you baffled because he was right. “On the contrary, I think you’rea lot more distracting, so I take that back. Just stand there and watch me win.”
“Okay,” you drawled out in faux disinterest, thankful for the corny carnival music and chatter from the crowd that he couldn’t hear your poor beating heart.
You were too focused on pretending to be unbothered by him that you failed to see how the cans were knocked down. The counter guy was already picking them up as Satoru pumped his fists in the air, way too much like a child high on sugar.
Was this really the father of your baby?
“I won! I fucking won! That huge brown bear, please!”Satoru’s smile from holding the bear that was half his size couldn’t even compare to the city lights and sparklers. Even his eyes were lit up in joy as he skipped back to you, happily waving the doe-eyed bear in front of you. At your lack of reaction, he sighed before jutting his cheek out to you. “No congratulations kiss?”
“How about a slap?”
“Kinky,” he teased, sending your brain to overheat when he tapped his chin in thought. “Well, you did make my back bleed so I kind of got the idea you’re sort of extreme in bed – ow! Would you please stop hitting me? I just won you a wonderful prize and your first reaction is to hit me! This arm is exhausted from swinging endlessly, you know.”
“Maybe if you aimed better, you wouldn’t have had to exhaust yourself. Like I said, you could’ve just bought a bear,” you scolded, raising your arm threateningly when he opened his mouth again. Idiot. “Give me that.”
Satoru effortlessly swung the bear until it was under your chins, his white lashes ethereal as he peeked at you through them. He was close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath dusting on your cheeks, that same warmth that had been mixing with yours in a sloppy, heated kiss just weeks ago. “And who said I was letting you carry this?” he taunted, thoroughly enjoying how for once, you weren’t hitting him.“I’m supposed to wave this around proudly then place it in our baby’s room when we get home. Besides, your hand looks heavy already.”
“My hands? Wait, what do you mean our baby’s room?”
At your words and questioning gaze, Satoru did a quick turn, trying to use the bear as a shield.
“Yeah, I forgot to tell you,” he scratched the back of his head awkwardly, “I may or may not have had my parents’ guest room renovated as a baby room, although if you ask me, I think moving somewhere else would be much better. Raising a child in a penthouse doesn’t seem like such a great idea if you ask me,” opening your mouth to scold him, Satoru stopped you by placing a finger on your lips, noses grazing against each other. “Don’t scold me right now; I know that look on your face and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, okay? We can still decorate it ourselves. I just had the beds removed and the space cleaned out. Now stop over thinking and let me help you with your problem.”
You pushed his face away for the sake of your heart. In fact, you should be paid for your acting skills for looking so unaffected.
“What problem?”
“Your hands look heavy,” he beamed, long fingers looping through yours as he swayed them side to side. “So let me carry it for you.”
“Satoru, I—”
“Don’t get me wrong,” he blinked innocently while surrendering his free hand, “I’m not doing this for you, it’s for the baby. Did you know oxytocin is released and makes you feel good and reduces pain, maybe even stress? We can pump your oxytocin levels through touch. It also lowers your blood pressure, and we want you at your happiest and healthiest for this pregnancy, right?”
“Since when were you an expert on this?”
“Since I found out I’m becoming a dad,” his words struck you speechless, mouth pressed into a flat line as you stared him openly. You hadn’t mean to come off as rude in that moment; you were just trying to gauge the sincerity behind his words, to explore the depth in his eyes, but Satoru must’ve took it wrong as he cleared his throat, “I can let go if you really want me to.”
“N-no! It’s fine…can we move? We’ve been standing here for ten minutes now,” Embarrassed, you pointed to the closest thing in your sight – a photo booth. “How about there? That looks fun.”
Satoru followed where your arm was pointed, laughing when a couple exited the red curtains while giggling amongst themselves. The guy even leaned down to steal a long kiss from his lover, and if you were embarrassed before, you wanted to crawl into a hole and never come back again right now. “You know, if you wanted me to be stuck in a cramped space next to you, you could’ve just said so. I didn’t bring the limo with me, but the Audi could be pretty small for us, I guess…”
You hissed at him in warning, “God, you never shut up do you?”
“It made you smile.”
“I wasn’t smiling!”
“Sure, mommy, whatever you say,” bumping his hip with yours, Satoru led you inside the cube. There were a plethora of filters to choose from; ranging from heart frames and ones that placed shades on your face. Not really thinking of what to pick, you reached out to press the frog hats one, but Satoru was swatting your hands away for the effect with heart emojis everywhere. “This is cute. We can show this to our baby once they’re born.”
“They won’t really know what a Polaroid is, Satoru.”
“It’s still sentimental!” he grumbled before clicking the camera icon, a huge smile already on his face until he saw you squished on the other side of the booth. Only one side of your ear could be seen, and Satoru furrowed his brows at you. “Come closer, you’ll be cropped from the frame.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Jesus, Y/N, don’t act shy now, I already fucked a baby into you,” mouth falling open at the vulgarity of his words, Satoru took the chance to drag you beside him. “Relax, you’re always so stiff. Our baby might come out frowning if you keep huffing like that.”
“You’re too close for comfort.”
“My apologies, I’ll try not to be included in the photo when you’re the one who suggested this in the first place,” he muttered playfully, booping your nose before he wrapped an arm around your shoulder. He was close, too close, that his musky perfume filled the close space. You wanted to lean closer to his warmth and sturdiness of his broad shoulders; his mere presence bringing about a sense of tranquillity despite your words. You told yourself it shouldn’t be too bad to lean into him for just a little while, absentmindedly following him as he cheers, “Smile!”
One photo turned into two, and Satoru ended up inserting a few more bills into the slot to take more. He tried out as many filters as he wanted, acting as if you two had been long time friends from how easy it was for him to be around you like that.
You supposed it came from his heavy experience with women. You were so unlike; while he was open to touch and didn’t care too much about space, you craved it deliriously.
It was obvious none of this meant anything to Satoru. You were probably just another woman in his life, with the exception that you had a kid, but you couldn’t mean something more. If anything, he treated you more like an old friend than a lover. He’d said it himself before that you weren’t his type and you didn’t mind, so why did it hurt the longer you mulled about it? Sure, you may not be as attractive or luxurious as his previous lovers, but did you really not even have charismatic pull? Is it because you weren’t his type that he was so casual with you, while you on the other hand, felt like you would lose your mind at every little thing he did?
You watched as Satoru pulled out his wallet and kept the Polaroid of you both grinning at the camera, forming a silly heart shape with your hands per his request. It was silly and platonic – yet the gesture confused you to no end.
“Why’d you do that?”
Satoru’s hand paused. “Am I not allowed to…?”
“We’re not lovers. You can’t just put a photo of us in your wallet.”
As if to prove a point, Satoru pulled out more photos of his wallet and showed it to you. There were several more wallet-sized photos, mostly of his white cat with black shades, another of him and his best friend, Shoko, and the last photo was of him skiing. They were all placed in his wallet along with a small, faded out photograph of what seemed to be his parents from the younger days. You couldn’t understand why he was showing you this, much less how patient he was as he smiled softly at you. “It’s memorabilia. I keep photos of everyone I care about everywhere with me,” he said, pocketing his wallet back before gazing up at the night sky. “I like to think we’re friends, at least. We’re definitely not just boss and employee anymore.”
Then what are we?
There were so many things you wanted to ask. You always knew he was always this overly friendly and nice, but what did make you? What did a friend mean to him? Other than Shoko, who was his lesbian friend who was also the company’s resident doctor, you’d never seen him be platonic with another female before.
The realization made your mood drop.
Maybe you were right. He probably didn’t even see you as a woman, but what did it matter? You didn’t like him. You shouldn’tlike him. Even if he had no intentions of wooing you, Gojo Satoru was far too appealing for his own good. Being around him was dangerous for your heart.
“Wanna ride the ferris wheel? The night city always looks beautiful.”
He was just your boss...and you were just a friend. Things were going to be alright as long as no feelings were involved. You survived seven years of working with him with not a single moment where your heart fluttered when he spoke your name; a baby made between you shouldn’t change anything now. At the end of the day, you were both only doing this out of responsibility. Satoru was trying his best to become a supportive co-parent to you, and that was all it ever would be. Strictly business – purely professional – as it always had been and always will be.
Foolish girl, you could hear a voice whisper at the back of your head, don’t get too lost in his eyes.
“Y/N, are you tired? Do you want to go home now? We can just order dinner to be delivered if you’re exhausted,” Satoru tugged at your sleeve to get your attention, and you chuckled awkwardly, not meaning to have spaced out the whole time. Worry was written all over his face from the way his brows dipped, stunning blue eyes darkening like the night sky you both made memories under.
Don’t look at me like that...
“Are you okay? Do you wanna go home?”
“Yeah,” you chirped far too brightly than you would’ve liked. Right now, it was more of a mission of fake it til you make it. You would just have to keep exerting the same amount of effort into making this work for the baby’s sake. And if that meant pushing aside any budding desire for this to last any longer to focus on your ‘friendship’, then you would do it. Taking Satoru’s hand for the first time since the baby ordeal, you flashed him a genuine smile. “The ferris wheel sounds nice. Let’s do some sightseeing before the night ends.”
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Neither of you speak inside the cab. Beautiful the night was as the city shone into awakening illumination beneath you, comforting you with the thought that in the grand scheme of it all, you were small. Insignificant. That somehow everything you worried about wouldn’t matter when there was a much bigger world out there, and you were but a fickle dot in the middle of its entirety. But that was you, and Gojo lived in a much different world than you did. For somewhere in the city, you could recognize several of the sky towers, buildings, and establishments owned by his family. He mattered in the grand scheme; you were a small factor in his world.
Glancing back at the man who’d been silent the whole ride, you smiled upon seeing that he was doing the same. Satoru was practically bouncing in his seat as he snapped several photos of the city, mumbling something about he’d never seen this view before.
He was so innocent yet so out there, igniting within you an urge to take care of him and wanting to be taken care of by him.
You’d already accepted that you may just never have him that way. That small, fleeting crush was like a butterfly – pretty look at, but damn near impossible to catch. You’d already stopped crying yourself to sleep over the new changes brought about in your body, that in a few months’ time, you’d look back into everything and see that everything had changed. The mistakes you made that night were still something you regretted because you wished you could’ve done better, but seeing him right in front of you now, there was only gratefulness blooming within. Grateful that he was right by your side, grateful that at least the father of your child was more than capable of giving them a comfortable life, grateful that he didn’t push you away like you expected.
Acting more on impulse than logic, you leaned over to press your lips on his cheek.“Thank you,” you mumbled, eyes closed as you let your lips stay there for a few more seconds.
His skin was warm underneath your touch, and when you opened your eyes, Satoru was gazing up at you with stars twinkling in the vast galaxy he called his eyes. You smiled at his reaction, watching as he reached a palm out to caress that spot your lips had landed.“For what?”
“For everything,” you crumbled,“You’re not a bad person, Satoru, I know that,” with shuddered breaths, tears sprung at the back of your eyes again. “I’m sorry for being so difficult. I just need time to adjust to…well, all of this.” Your voice cracked at the last sentence and you were crying before you knew it, face hidden behind your palms in fear he’d look at you differently. In his eyes, you were always his stoic secretary who didn’t even bat an eye when people gave you backlash after Satoru hired you despite the lack of a college degree.
This all felt new – to cry, to trust, to rely on someone – and there was a flurry of emotions you couldn’t quite place yet.
Scooping you into his arms, Satoru patted your back as your cries grew louder. “Take all the time you need. We don’t have to rush into anything at all.”
In the harsh world of conglomerates where the laws of business blurred thinner and thinner with each day, it was hard to believe that not rushing into anything would be possible. It was always a flurry of hurried phone calls, frantic preparations for emergency meetings, anxiety over presenting new proposals and hoping that your superiors would sign your documents so you could go about your way. Time was as imperative as money was to them, but Satoru had proved he could be beyond that.
From the moment you met him, he never treated time as if it was something that slipped through his fingertips. He enjoyed every second he had of his life, and perhaps that was why you hated him so much in the first place.
You thought he took everything for granted, when in reality, all he did was bask in the little things life offered.
This much, at least, you trusted him with. If he said there would be no need to rush and you could both take it slow, he meant it. Around him, time felt more like a secret whisper than a treasure you both had to seize to protect. The night drifted off until it was already midnight and the crew was ushering all visitors out. You and Satoru made it home safely and quietly, hands linked together as if it was the most natural thing ever. No rush, you kept telling yourself, and you plopped down on the couch heavily as you let your muscles relax from such a long, eventful day.
You stayed there for a solid minute or so when you felt warm hands take your heels off. Opening your eyes, Satoru kneeled before you, his fingers expertly rubbing and pushing against the sore muscles of your feet. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“Your feet must be tired from all that walking,” he mumbled, looking up briefly to meet your eyes and tease your shoulder back. “Lean back for me. I’ll take care of you.”
Judging by the sentiment behind his smile, you figured it wouldn’t be harmful to enjoy this at least once. You’ve never gotten foot massages before but his hands kneading yours felt heavenly. You knew from experience beforehand that Satoru was quite godly when it came to the skills and magic his fingers brought, though this one was on a different level, and you were sinking deeper into the couch from the bliss. He was right; you were tired, and if having your boss massage you like this every night after dragging you wherever he pleased, then you wouldn’t complain.
The ringing of your phone made you sit up abruptly, surprising Satoru whose head you almost knocked into. “Sorry,” you croaked out sheepishly, “It’s my dad. I need to take this.”
“Do you need me to leave you alone?”
“Uh, no, you’re fine.”
Satoru gestured to your foot as you took the call, mouthing, “Should I continue?”
“Yes, please,” you answered back, palm pressed over the mic before you answered. “Hey, Dad!” Your father greeted you back with much enthusiasm, his energy heard even by Satoru who sent you small smiles and curious glances every now and then. A part of you wanted to ask if he was fine kneeling on the floor like that, but his knees were on the fur carpet anyway that it shouldn’t hurt him. He extended your leg and trailed up your calves, pulling a soft moan from you when he kneaded the flesh and rid it of its knots. His ministrations distracted you until you were nodding absentmindedly to your Dad every now and then, not really paying attention to what he was saying.
Then the call ended, and his last words kept ringing back into your head ominously. Satoru took quick notice of this as he tapped your knee, bringing your attention back to him. “Is something wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I...” you started, helplessly fumbling around Satoru. “My dad is in Tokyo. He said he wants to have dinner with me.”
“You don’t look particularly happy about that. Do you not want to meet your father?”
“I do but...”
“But?”
“I have to tell him about this,” you shivered, refracting your legs back to the couch until his touch disappeared from your skin. For a moment, you had the urge to crawl back to his heat, but you were restless, agitated. “About us. He’s going to want to meet you and I don’t want to hide the pregnancy from him either,” Satoru remained unmoving as you rambled, and you hid your face behind your arms again as you remembered the rules you asked him to follow. “Listen, I’m sorry if I sound unfair right now, I know I said I didn’t want anyone else knowing—”
Warm lips brushed over your knuckles, large hands peeling your wrists to reveal your face. “Hey, it’s fine. He’s family and you can tell him. It’s not like your Dad would ruin your image or something like you expected to happen.”
“He won’t but...” you frowned, “My dad isn’t going to like this. I can’t guarantee he’ll be civil the whole time, especially towards you.”
“You told him about me?”
“A few years ago, yeah, when I still couldn’t tolerate you.”
“So you can tolerate me now?”
“Only a little bit,” you corrected, pushing his hands away as you opened your phone to check your schedule. It was mostly Satoru’s schedule, truth be told, but you were free for the most part tomorrow. Satoru could just longue back in his office while you clocked out early to meet your dad. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. On second thought, he doesn’t have to know at all. I’m only a few weeks in and it’s not like he’ll notice—”
“Y/N,” Satoru interrupted you, rudely snatching his phone from your shaking fingers. You would’ve scolded him had he not sounded so worried. “I did promise I would take responsibility for you, right? I want to meet your dad and introduce myself properly. As a father-to-be, I think I can somewhat understand that he might react strongly to this, but I also need to reassure him you’re in safe hands,” taking your hand in his, Satoru leaned into your palm, the smile he wore way too charming than what your heart could handle. “As long as you’re okay with it, I would like to meet him.”
“I’m sorry if he does something stupid.”
“Don’t be,” he reassured with a chuckle. “I’m sure everything will go well.”
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It didn’t go well. Your father wasn’t throwing a fit or causing a scene like you originally feared, but the current situation wasn’t any better either. He looked like he was on the verge of tearing Satoru’s head apart, his grip on the bread knife so tight his knuckles flashed white. Your father was the literal definition of unpredictable and out of nervousness, you held Satoru’s hand under the table for comfort.
In complete opposition of yours, Satoru handled it with class and composure. His head was ducked down in respect, making sure to be curt and precise in counters to your father’s harsh accusations.
“I’m really sorry for everything, Sir.”
“Did you ruin my daughter’s life?”
Satoru finally tilted his head back up to look your father in the eye, both your hands turning cold and sweaty in between the seats. “Pardon?”
“I asked if you ruined my daughter’s life by getting her pregnant.”
“I would never intend for that to happen, Sir,” Satoru straightened up. From your perspective, he looked every bit the man parents would want their children to be with – handsome, elegant, educated, polite, respectful and well-off – but your father was no ordinary parent. He sized Satoru up like a predator hunting his prey even as the latter acted cool about it. “Granted, it was an accident and neither of us are prepared for this, but I promise I’ll take care of her. I take responsibility as the father and you have nothing to worry about.”
Your dad slammed his palms down on the table, the loud smack catching the attention of nearby tables. “How dare you tell me I have nothing to worry about?”
“Dad, please don’t do this.”
“No, he needs to know,” he snapped. Unable to help it, you groaned inwardly and scooted closer to Satoru, knowing where this was leading. “I lost her mother right after she was born; raised her by myself when I was barely out from high school. Rich men like you may never understand the struggles of taking care of a baby all by yourself, but I did everything I could to make sure she grew up well. My daughter had a happy, comfortable life. When she told me she wanted to follow her dreams in Tokyo, I supported her, and then you go take everything away from her because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself? You dare defile her like that?”
“Dad!” you roared, clutching Satoru’s hand who’d gone limp. “It was equally my responsibility as it is his! I wanted this; we both got carried away but we’re doing our best, so please stop being difficult to us.”
“You wanted this?” he laughed dryly, “A child with this man you kept moaning to me about; the same man who went to clubs every night while he left you all by yourself to work, to clean up his mess from him? You wanted him?”
“Dad,” you gritted your teeth, nails sinking down onto your thigh. Satoru remained silent between you both, although you could feel his burning gaze penetrating through the back of your skull. “It’s both our mistake. But this child...we don’t see it as that. We like to view it as a blessing. It may be true we harbour no affection for one another, but we want to be good parents. That’s all you need to know and I find no reason to explain myself to you. If you have nothing else to say, you can go back home. I’ll pay for your ride,” slamming down a few bills his way, you glared at your father, who shrunk back at the anger radiating off of you. “You’re not welcome here, Dad. Just go back home.”
“I’m just worried for you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m not a little kid anymore.”
“I never said you were,” he sighed, rubbing the sides of his temples. “But he just took all your opportunities away from you! What about your dreams? What about your plan of having your own career once you have enough experience? What about—”
“Are you implying that because I’m pregnant, suddenly I’m not qualified to fulfil my goals?”
“Sir,” Satoru cut you off, releasing your hands as he leaned forwards on the table, becoming more and more like the CEO he was trained to be – all authority and gentle command that won the hearts of multiple investors. “I assure you that I won’t be holding your daughter back from the things she wants to achieve. As her co-parent, I’m perfectly capable of supporting her in the dreams she wishes to achieve. I’ve worked with her for years; I know she can reach for the stars if she wanted.”
Your mind blanked.
“Young man, don’t talk to me as if you know my daughter better than I do,” your father scorned, “I’m not questioning your capability to support her, but what about your credibility? How can you assure me you’ll really be there for her? How can you assure me you won’t leave my daughter stranded in the middle of nowhere? How can you assure me you can protect her from the harsh criticism of society? Money can’t provide nor does it solve anything,” your father copied his gesture by leaning forward, but it was to poke Satoru’s chest. “From what I’ve heard about you, I suppose you understand perfectly well why I don’t trust you.”
“Sir, I do plan on marrying your daughter and to give her the life she deserves,” Satoru confessed, effectively stealing from you the ability to speak as he glimpsed your way. “If she lets me.”
“You’ll marry her? Be faithful to her as your wife and have a family? Are you sure you can do that?”
“Yes, Sir, I’m highly confident I can. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Then that’s all I need to know,” your father leaned back in your seat, arms crossed against his chest and a stern expression on his face. “And if I find out you hurt or make my daughter cry in any way, I’ll beat up that pretty face of yours. I have two more sons that’re willing to do the same, if you don’t watch your actions.”
Satoru beamed at your father’s ‘approval.’ “I’ll face any consequence if I fall short on my duties, Sir, but I assure you, it will never have come to that.”
“So we’ve come to an agreement?”
The two men linked and shook hands across the table, completely disregarding the fact you were right beside him. You were beyond appalled, but mostly hurt that you’d been reduced to this way. And they were unaware of it, too, sickening and satisfied yet tense smiles were masked on their faces as they decided your future.
You stood up and left the restaurant.
You kept walking as fast as you could in the cold night, hands shoved into the coat of your pockets. Thousands of pin needles pricked at your heart and your skin the more you replayed the memory in your head. How stupid were you to think that Satoru would be different? And marriage? Was he serious? It all made you sick to the core to the point you wanted to throw up and disappear, until a heavy set of footsteps echoed behind you and tugged your wrist.
“Y/N, wait!” Satoru panted, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. “What’s wrong with you? You just up and left—”
“Seriously, Satoru, you’re asking me that?” your face fell flat at his cluelessness, “What’s wrong with you? You men are sickening; planning my entire future like that right in front of me as if I don’t have a say in what I want. None of you asked if I’m okay with this. You really went ahead deciding we’ll get married when I told you already, I don’t want to marry you and I never will!”
Satoru brushed a hand over his hair, a hand on his hip. You could tell his patience was being tested – after being verbally harassed by your father and now with you pushing back in the same heat, it was only a matter of time before he lost his cool. Surprisingly enough, however, his voice remained levelled as he sighed. “What did you expect me to do back there? Tell your father that we’re just going to be roommates and raise a child together as if we’re not already family?” he defended, words slow and pronounced with a hint of hurt behind them. “I respect you and I truly do want to be with you, that’s why I wanted us to get married.”
“You respect me?” you laughed incredulously, “Are you hearing yourself right now? No person respects another by deciding what happens to my life without my consent!”
“I’m sorry I didn’t ask, okay? I apologize for it and I acknowledge my mistake that I didn’t give you much of a choice. Me being cornered and pressured isn’t a good excuse, but I wasn’t lying when I said I want to take care of you and—”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why do you want to be with me?” you demanded, “Why do you want to take care of me so badly? How did you even take this so well? You weren’t even that angry when I told you I was pregnant.”
Satoru paled. “Was I supposed to be? Should I have pushed you away and kicked you out my life? Is that what you wanted me to do, or is that what you expected from me, considering you’ve made it extremely clear I’m nothing but your airheaded boss and a man who always wants his dick wet, right?” the sting of his words pricked you both – you with your guilt, and him with his pride crushed. But he didn’t let on, didn’t waver and didn’t match your anger as his chest shook with impatience. “I’m trying to be good to you; I want to be good for you and the baby because despite what you think of me, I’m not the devil the tabloids make me out to be. I sleep around, yeah, but I wouldn’t go so far to turn someone away especially when I know I’m supposed to be there.”
“Satoru, if you’re only doing this out of obligation, you can be a good father without marrying me. Marriage is not a requirement; I don’t care what people say that I got pregnant without getting married. That’s the least of my concern, I just want the baby to grow up healthy but I don’t want to be involved with you.”
With how stunned Satoru looked, one would’ve thought you slapped him right in the face. That mere sight of seeing your boss tear his walls down in front of you almost made you feel bad, but you had to be strong.
You had to be firm with what you stood for.
“I really don’t want to be with you, Satoru. I’m so sorry.”
“What do you want me to do?” his voice cracked, begging and pleading as he stood before you, looking every bit of a man lost in uncharted territory. “I don’t know what you want me to do, Y/N. One moment, you’re telling me you want me to be a good father, and then the next you’re pushing me away. People are so sure that I’m a man who can never settle down because they believe I have commitment issues, but I’m telling you I can commit to you right now,” he held your hand, rubbing some of his warmth at your comparably cold ones. You didn’t fail to notice that he was trembling, but what about what you couldn’t decipher. “Are you really sure I’m the one here who isn’t capable of that? What are you so scared of that you can’t trust me?”
“Because you’re you! Because you’re a fucking asshole who’s been treating me like I’m an overworking machine and always expects me to undo your shit for you! Because you make me sick and I don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t know what love means!” Exploded. You exploded. “I regret everything that happened between us that night. No, in fact, I regret ever meeting you at all.”
Satoru took a step back.
All the light and joy that fit so perfectly with him had now disappeared.
“I’m sorry,” he demurred, “I’m sorry that I’d been so repulsive that you’ve felt miserable for all this time. I’m sorry I haven’t been a decent boss and I’m sorry I’m not good enough for you.”
“Gojo, stop. Stop doing that; stop apologizing!”
“Then tell me what you want me to do,” he barked desperately. “Because I can’t read your mind and I just want to be good for you.”
“What if I don’t want you to? I don’t want you to be good to me, I don’t want you to care about me. Be there for the baby, but don’t involve yourself too much in my personal life. Stop asking me to marry you because you and I would never work out. We’re impossible, okay?”
“How do you know we’ll never work out when we haven’t even tried?” he pushed, “You never even gave me a chance.”
“You’re not worth that chance.”
If someone could receive an award for effortlessly trampling over someone repeatedly, you would’ve been crowned winner a long time ago. You had no idea what came over you as you spat all those hurtful words to Satoru, but did your words bear no truth? The fact that he no longer defended himself meant he also knew that he wasn’t worth it – that he wasn’t someone to be trusted. It wasn’t that you were completely unfair too; of course you considered it. Weeks of living under the same roof as him and you most definitely considered it. Say you did get married and became a real family – what then? It wasn’t a marriage out of love, but rather out of responsibility and obligation.
As much as you loved your child, you couldn’t imagine throwing away your future and living miserable for the rest of your life like that.
A life built on lies wasn’t a life worth living.
“I would never hurt you.”
Your heart cracked. After everything you said, after all your efforts to keep him away from your own safety, after all the hurtful things you’ve done to him, and he was still apologizing? Why did he have to make it so hard to let go? You were tired, so tired that you could no longer refrain your lip from quivering as tears caked your face.
“Gojo, please, don’t—”
“So if me stepping away from your life is what would really make you happy, then I’ll respect it. But there’s one thing I have to ask,” Satoru swiped a thumb under your eye to catch the tear. His smile was forlorn, his touch cold and words melancholic. “Do you want the baby? Do you...want to keep the baby and be a mother? You don’t have to do anything for me, I just want to know if the mother of my child even wants to be one. And please be honest, because everything you say right now are words that I’ll mark seriously.”
The word left your mouth before you could stop it.
“No.”
“No what?”
“I don’t want to be a mother,” you admitted, hands trailing over your belly. It felt like you were betraying your own child, but you hadn’t planned this. “I’m too young, Satoru, I-I’m not ready for this. With you there beside me or not, I really don’t want this.”
“Then,” he cleared his throat, turning his head to the side to catch a moment. You swore you saw his eyes shine under the city lights with tears, but it was gone so soon that you might’ve just fooled yourself with it. Once he deemed himself ready to talk, Satoru took a deep breath. “Do I have your consent that once the baby is born...it’ll be under my care? Would you prefer to reach your own dreams, then? You’ll never have to be a part of the Gojo family if it’s really not what you want, even though I could support you as much as you need me to.”
Your eyes widened at his proposition. “You’ll take care of our baby?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Can I...can I visit them, at least, once in a while?” It was more than just your heart that broke that night. There was no telling whether you’d hurt yourself in the long run with this decision. It was no easy choice to make – to actively pursue your dreams somewhere else more than being a mother. You wanted to do your best, of course you did, but it wasn’t that easy. Gojo didn’t have to tell you for you to understand that once you married him, you’d be expected to run the business with him and be involved in his family and their dramas. Now that wasn’t a life you wanted.
“You’re free to visit them whenever,” he promised, voice fading even lower into the background. “So is this it? We’ll just be living under the same roof until the baby is born and once they’re here...”
“We’ll part ways.”
“We’ll part ways,” he nodded in agreement, sniffling for a brief second before fixing his tie. The Gojo Satoru you got to know for a few weeks had now disappeared. Not even the goofy boss you spent seven years with could be found in the coldness of his eyes, almost as if he’d put up such impenetrable walls around him and nothing could pass through. The sudden shift in aura made your heart clench as he offered his hand to shake. “Okay. Let’s stay professional until then?”
“Yeah, Sir, I can do that,” your hands shook as you enclosed it around his, but now all the warmth had disappeared – from his eyes, his touch, his soul. It hurt, but this was necessary. It was what felt right. “Thank you – for everything.”
“You’re welcome. Anything for you and the baby,” Satoru proclaimed, perplexing you both when he suddenly pulled you in his arms. Just like that, the dam broke, and you were staining his precious suit before you could stop it. His arms rubbed up and down your back the longer he held you there, almost like a final moment to lean on one another before you had to say goodbye eventually. Beneath your palm, his heart beat exuberantly loud, so much so that you might’ve heard the prayers it whispered. “Stop crying now. The baby might feel sad too. We’ll both be alright – we just have to get through this.”
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taglist OPEN: @sixeyesgojo @bongofrito @7tsumurai @aphnyoturkey​ @stuckindreamland06​ @dogsarenyspiritanimal​ @thebeardedmoon​ @lildreamer93​ @pizzaspirits​ @q-the-rockaholic​ @rogueofbullshit​ @ladywaifuuwrites​ @flochsgirl​ @hamsa-mage @sonic-and-songs​ @vsvwi @misslovingpearl | bolded users can’t be tagged 
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venenatd · 3 years
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just friends; eren jaegar x reader
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summary: you and eren are best pals and have both recently be dumped. so, a plan to get over your exes is needed! what’s better than going out on the town trying to find quick fucks >:) also eren is a smug bastard but kinda has a heart of gold??
content: smut / nsfw 18+. minors dni. (choking, unprotected sex, creampie drinking, drunk sex, possessiveness ig? dirty talk, both of them want to be dominant tbh. slight size kink, oral both m and f receiving. female bodied reader) 
i am new to this pls let me know if i should add anything!!
word count: 5.8k words of unedited content 
a/n: uh so i never thought i’d be back on my tumblr bullshit at 23 but hey after years without the app i’m back. i needed to get out the h-word and this is what happened. enjoy and i’m sorry if it’s terrible lmao
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“You look different” 
Frowning at the man waiting ever so patiently for you on the sofa, you look a little defeated. “Is that meant to be a compliment, Eren?”. He sighed, raising his eyebrows at you. To be fair, maybe you did. Wearing a figure hugging black dress, that definitely just hid your ass cheeks, hair styled and sprayed in place, dark lipstick and makeup on your face. Usually Eren would have seen you in sweats, always running a little late for class, snack in hand. 
“Different isn’t bad,” he offered, checking the watch that lay on his wrist, “are we ever going to get to the bar? Your plan will fall through if you’re not careful.”
Ah, the plan. Both you and Eren were newly single. In your final year at university, having managed to keep each relationship going until almost the end. Ironic. Weren’t most meant to fail in the first year? But alas, your partners had decided it was the end within a couple of weeks each other, and as you and Eren had been close since you met on orientation day, you each took to the other for comfort. You had done the crying first, going to him the minute your call with the ex had ended. Leaving wet splotches on his shirt, he had calmed you, only for you to do the same to him later. Now the crying was done, it was time to move on, and what better advice to follow than getting under someone to get over another?
“I just need to look hot enough for a guy to fuck me.”
“What a romantic you are.”
“Shut up Er-”
Eren shifted from the couch, interrupting your usual sass, “and what about me, y/n? Do I look beautiful?”. He threw in a wink with his comment, his aura of cockiness always radiating. You rolled your eyes, before studying his figure. His dark hair half pulled back into a bun, the rest draping his neck and onto a deep emerald green silk shirt, with the top few buttons loose, tucked into dark pants. A ring on each hand, fingers with chipping black nail polish, and to top it off, a thin chain on his neck. You hated to admit it and add to his smug demeanour but... the man did look good. 
“Gorgeous as always Eren,” you said sarcastically, even if it was truthful, “I’m sure there will be a queue of women who are wanting to jump on you.”
“Not if they aren’t all taken already,” he taps at his watch. Whilst the two of you had already been drinking as he waited for you to get ready, it was definitely on the later side.
“Order the uber, and we can go.”
Walking over to him and adding shoes to your outfit, you present yourself before him, a cute little smile playing on your lips. He’s staring down at his phone, quickly going through the motions for the ride. Finally, he looks up to catch your eyes. His jade pupils flick down slightly, and he hopes you miss that they land at the cleavage you’re sporting in your current get up. He flicks your nose, earning a scowl from you and a smile from him.
“You look perfect”
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The club is far fuller than you both expected, dance floor and tables taken up and crowded round. Luckily, you had managed to secure you and Eren a pair of seats at the bar, and you were currently on your third..? Fourth drink of the evening. Green eyes watch your lips carefully, as you finish the vodka and lemonade. 
“So, anyone take your fancy?” he prompts, looking around at the mess of people.
Humming, you scan the area. There’s some people you recognise from class, but plenty more you don’t know. Fucking friends seems like a bad move, even in your tipsy state, so you look to the strangers faces. They don’t look like him. Ugh. 
There’s a few options though, and as you point them out to Eren they come with brief descriptors: dark hair and stubble, wide set blonde. He tuts at the options, sarcastically letting out a “sure sure, I see the appeal”. 
“And how about you, anyone you like the look of?” you ask with a sigh.
Christ, Eren thinks to himself. It’s been long enough that he hasn’t had to look for someone else. Sure there were attractive people in the world, but with her around, he hadn’t needed to give anyone else a second look. His palm moves to the back of his neck, stretching out behind him with a huff. “Let’s look on the dance floor?” he offers, clearly not as eager as you were tonight. Moving his hand back down, he holds it out for you, pulling towards the throng of people.
He looks effervescently cool like this. Shirt open, hair starting to fall from his bun. Eren is looking around at the people surrounding the two of you. The two of you had been working in circles, allowing each other an eyeful as the club goers move around the space. As a group of guys push their way from the dance floor to the bar, you get shoved towards Eren. Heels were never quite your forte, and you stumble against him, hands on either side of his chest. Grinning down at you with that smug little smile that annoyed you so much, Eren brought large hands to your waist, pushing you away a little. But his hands stay there as he continues to sway to the music, making no effort to break the contact. And so you bring your arms up to his neck, allowing his movements to carry you on time to the song. For the first time in the past couple of weeks, you feel light. Your chest isn’t constricted by some foreign weight. It’s just you and your best friend, buzzed and free.
Colours change above you, as you look up to Eren, him down to you. A playful grin takes his lips as he pulls you a little closer, you so easily accepting the narrowing distance. Your black silk meets his deep green, chest pushing into his. You carefully analyse his features, seeing if he attempts to check you out like earlier. 
Was it the alcohol making your cheeks so warm? Lit up by a purple hue, you watch his eyes return to exploring the crowd, his hand still holding on to you. His smirk falters, his eyebrows creasing together. You’re not moving in circles anymore, Eren pausing in his movements as he thinks about what to do next. He shouldn’t lie to you, but seeing your ex at the bar would really harsh the night. Under his fingers, he can feel your body tense, suddenly unsure at how close the contact between you was. 
But Eren doesn’t want you to know, he doesn’t want you to be distracted by your ex tonight. He doesn’t want to see your hurt little face anymore. The way your eyes would be red and puffy the next day. The way he would feel your shoulders heaving under his arms. You don’t deserve that. Hell, you didn’t deserve the huge amount of shit your ex had put you through over the years he’d known you. Eren would sit back and listen to you rant, support you where he could. But fuck that guy. And he wasn’t sure what sparked in his chest, but Eren’s jade orbs are trained straight back on you. His eyebrows calm, tension releasing from them. As you can turn to scope out whatever had changed his body language so suddenly, he catches your jaw. 
Beginning to slowly move again, his eyes have narrowed, taking in the way the dress hugs you, the shine on your skin from the hot dance floor. Eren couldn’t quite figure out what was intoxicating him right now. Definitely a lot of alcohol, but also a sudden… possessiveness. He didn’t want you in pain anymore. Eren wanted you in pleasure. His breath is suddenly on your neck, making your hair raise. 
“I’ve only seen one person I’m interested in tonight.” 
“Oh?” you squeak, before clearing your throat a little. The new deep notes in his voice catch you off guard. It almost sounds like he’s… No. He’s your best friend. The little looks you’d been giving each other all night were just two people looking out for one another, two people seeing each other happy for the first time in a while. Your voice is calmer as you ask light-heartedly, “and who would that be?” 
His lips are so close to your ear. 
“You.” 
“Eren-” your hands move from behind his neck, resting on his shoulders. You need to see your best friend's face, you need to know if he’s joking right now. If he’s mocking you. When you draw back, you see his face. Smug, as always. Fuck you’ve always wanted to knock that cockiness down a peg. Cheshire smile showing his teeth and his eyes looking down at you. Half lidded eyes, pupils blown. He’s not joking. Fuck.
“Can I kiss you?” 
Your breath is caught in your throat. All too aware suddenly of each of his finger pads pressing into your skin, the contact feeling like fire with the added alcohol. But, you find yourself nodding, the yes just escaping your lips before he’s pressed into them.
Large hands travel to your hip, and up your back, pressing you into him. You can feel his body, tense in exhilaration against you, hands back around his neck. One travels up to the nape of his back, tangling into his hair and pulling him deeper into you. The music is all consuming, you can feel the bass in your body, you can feel Eren against you, you can feel the adrenaline coursing through your veins. 
Eren’s hand on your back travels up, echoing your placement on him, to hold the back of your neck. He doesn’t want you to go, you feel too good. The heat between your bodies could suffocate him. His thumb puts pressure under your jaw, he isn’t even sure you can feel it. But he can, measuring your pulse racing underneath the pad. He’s smiling into this kiss, this all consuming kiss.
His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, and you’re all too eager to allow him into your mouth. Tasting the whisky from your home, tasting the coke from the club. His teeth take your lip nipping slightly, before sucking the plump of it into his mouth. You both come up for air, eyes meeting in acknowledgment of the situation.
“Wanna get out of here?”
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The drive home had only served to heap tension between you. As clearly that it was that you wanted each other, you would have to wait a while longer. Your thighs pressed together, slowly inhaling and exhaling. Going through your mind was whether this was a good idea, staring out at the city passing by you. Eren was your friend. You were dating another man two weeks ago. The same man that had previously asked you if he needed to be worried about Eren. You’d laughed it off, because it was Eren. You were brought out of your thoughts when you felt him grip your leg, a little too harshly at first, before settling, leaving a gentle pattern of circles and lines on your inner thigh. It was Eren.
Just one hallway. You had to make it one hallway to get into your apartment. One hallway left to come to your senses. And just like he read your mind, Eren is once again touching you, just his hand on yours pulling you backwards. You twist just in time, his hands instantly cupping your cheeks as he kisses you, deeply and intensely. Pushing you back into the wall, you pray a neighbour doesn’t walk out now. His knee is pressing gently between your legs, and you allow it. Your fingers sink into Eren’s arms, lightly covered by the fabric yet you can still feel the muscle underneath, relaxing and tensing as he pulls you closer. 
His lips are making their way to your jaw, lifting your chin upwards, tentatively licking the bone before moving downwards still, sucking and nipping and licking your neck. A whimper breaks through. You really need to get inside. Gripping his hair, you sharply pull backwards.
“Not going to play nice, huh?” 
When did he speak like this? The playful and shit-eating grin your friend Eren always wore was replaced by something darker, his words laced with intent. 
“Don’t challenge me.” 
You were off, finally at your door, making quick work with the lock, moving in first before he followed. The door shut as you pushed Eren against it, usual doe eyes being taken over with a deep lust. Your hands are instantly at his belt, as his hands find your face once again. This time he’s grabbing your hair, making you look up at him as he glares down at you. You’re constantly challenging one another in conversation, and it’s translating to the bedroom far too easily. 
Lips are on one another again, as you leave the belt and start towards his shirt. You bite down on his bottom lip, earning a hiss from him, and you feel his hand being brought around your throat. He doesn’t add too much pressure, checking if this turn is indeed okay with you. When you push against the weight, he takes the gleam in your eye as a yes, and uses the force to push you against the next wall, finally moving off the front door. 
It’s a constant battle to get to the bedroom, both of you taking control for short bursts. Eren pulling the thin straps of your dress down, you untucking his shirt. His muscular torso is on full display, and you had never viewed it in this light before. 
Finally he pushes you onto the bed, situating himself between your legs. Your kisses are sloppy and infused with alcohol. Hands are desperate with one another, both of you needing to be closer. Are you scared if the contact ends your thoughts will return to sanity? 
Eren’s hot and heavy over you, his hands seem everywhere at once. Smoothing up your thigh, digging in slightly to the flesh when you grind against one another. His hands rest at your hips for a moment, and he’s looking down at you, still fucking smiling. All at once, he’s flipped you over his prominent hard on pressing into your ass. He’s whispering in your ear, leaving wet kisses along your neck, to your shoulder blades. Fingers take the zip at the back of your dress, slowly and carefully pulling it down, leaving licks and pecks as he goes. It’s torturous. 
You attempt to speed things up by rutting your ass against his crotch, and you think you hear a quiet moan, before his hand is brought down to the fabric, smacking your cheek. You gasp, turning your head to look at him. Eren is too occupied in taking in all of your body, his green eyes are darkened with authority and lust. His nimble fingers play with the short hem of your dress, thumb dipping beneath, before he pushes the silk up. 
You both let out soft fuck’s, as his hands grab at the plump of your ass. It’s like he’s testing the softness, the way your flesh responds to his touch so easily. He slaps at you again, earning a sharp moan from you. Eren’s leaning down, his mouth once again trailing across the apex of your behind, leaving trails of saliva as he goes. Before you can even register the new sensations you can feel a soft pressure against your clothed cunt, just enough to let you know the presence of his hand, but not enough for you to get off on. You’re mewling, once again trying to get closer to him. This time he allows it, eagerly pressing his ring and middle finger to your clit, allowing you to grind upon them. 
Seeing you underneath him like this… it’s new and strange and so fucking hot. He’s watching you desperately try and fill the need building in your core, and he can only feel his cock twitch in his pants as he sees you coming undone. If you wanted more, he could definitely give it to you. Bringing his large hands away, to the flimsy fabric that was covering you, he pulls it down, exposing you to him. His heart and dick fucking jump. His hands return to your ass, watching the jiggle as you move and whimper. Spreading you, he brings his face down, breath tingling on your most sensitive areas.
Your breath catches in your throat as his tongue, gentle at first, licks between your folds. He’s tasting you, he’s moaning into your pussy, as you write beneath him. Eren’s hands are squeezing your ass cheeks, holding you still as you try to grind against his face. 
“Patience, y/n”, he says, with a slap on your behind again. 
“Fuck you,” you hiss. 
“You will be in a minute, baby girl, don’t worry.”
You go to make a retort but he’s instantly back, licking up your slit and a deep moan escapes you. Jesus you can feel the smile on his lips as he’s back on your pussy. Eren is so proud of the sounds he can draw from you. He wonders if your ex could make you come undone so easily. 
You taste sweet and saccharine on him, and he doesn’t hold back the groan as he further works his way into you. Hardened tongue moving it’s way from your entrance down to your clit. He swipes at it, before moving away again. Kissing your thighs, kissing the skin between your holes. Every now and then he’ll move back to your clit, allowing you a moment of pleasure before he’s teasing again. “Fuck, please”. Your whines are being smothered by the sheets, and Eren wants nothing more than to hear them, loud and clear.
Eren’s ringed fingers make their way to your hair, his face lifting from between your legs. He pulls you back round, and holy shit you can see how wet you are on his face. There’s a sheen to his lips and chin, and instinctively you reach up to his neck, pulling him back on top of you. Your tongue meets his, tasting your tartness on his mouth. A hand makes it way back down in between your thighs, playing and parting your folds. Your hand in turn reaches up his neck, pulling sharply at his hair once again. “Eren. More- please” you get out in between staggered breaths. 
“Aw, since you asked so nicely” his eyes watch your expression closely as his thumb rests on your clit, his finger swiftly moving inside you. Your eyebrows raise and knot, eyes wide and lips parted. But he keeps it still as your legs shaked around his arm. “Eren, move” you demand this time. 
“Oh, that’s not so nice. I liked it when you were polite.” He starts to retract his finger, thumb gently swabbing your clit so you’ll know what you miss.
“Please, please, please, Eren, please” you speak before he even gets the first knuckle out. All the teasing was creating a tightness in your lower stomach. 
“Much better.”
You whine as he continues to pull his finger from you, until he pushes it back in, curling his solitary finger up. Your fingernails are pressing deep into the muscle of his bicep, feeling how it moves as he finger fucks you. He’s hitting that perfect spot inside you again and again, and his thumb is swiping eagerly on your clit. 
Eren can feel you fluttering around his finger, desperate for more, desperate to release on him. He adds another finger, your wetness allowing him entrance easily. He wants to fuck you so bad, his cock so hard it felt like it was about to burst. 
He pushes your hands off him, leaving crescent moon indents deep in his skin, he works his way back down. He brings the black silk with him this time, fully being able to take in your body as you’re left naked before him. Holy shit you’re beautiful. He doesn’t want to stare too long and make you shy. But he still kisses his way down, before he’s back at your pussy. 
This time he allows you more movement, letting your fingers work their way back into his hair, letting you roll your hips against his tongue and stubble. 
With his spare hand he pulls out his cock, slowly pulling at it, before he realises he can’t do that for too long without cumming before the main event. Instead he reaches up, rolling your perked nipples in between his fingers. There are so many sensations on your body, and Eren can feel your cunt beginning to tighten around his fingers. You hold your breath before letting out little moans, building towards reaching your height.
“You want to cum on my fingers?
Your back is arching, whispering “yes, yes, yes, please” as your walls are tightening around him. He quickens the pace, making sure to hit that spot inside you over and over. Thighs around his face, he can feel your slick pooling in his mouth, and coating his chin once again. 
Your gummy walls are so tight around his thick fingers, he needs you to finish, watch you fully unravel below him. Sucking and licking at your clit, he’s pushing you towards the edge. 
“Eren-” his name is strangled coming out of you, and then your moaning, undulating your cunt against his mouth, riding out your orgasm. 
His jade eyes look up at you, watching as you pull your head up to look at him, before another wave of pleasure hits you and you have to arch your neck and look back up. He waits for you to come down, letting you fuck his face and fingers. Grinding against his stubble and tongue as you let out pitiful and beautiful moans. You’re so fucking wet, the sounds coming from between the two of you should be forbidden, as you release onto him. 
Finally he withdraws, using his forearm to wipe his face. He lies next to you, allowing you a moment as he draws little circles on your stomach. Eren has never quite looked at you in this light. Sure, you were pretty, and the two of you were obviously close. But now you’d walked a line that couldn’t be undone. You weren’t over your ex, and as okay as Eren was with what had happened between you, he didn’t want you to run. He’s overcome with thoughts, looking down to your chest and the heavy breaths you were taking. All he could pray was that you weren’t pretending he was someone else. 
But as Eren is getting caught up in his own mind, you’re twisting, hand reaching to his crotch, cock having been recaptured by his boxers. Palming him, you feel how big he really is for the first time. Fingers trace the edge of his pants and underwear, and he lifts his hips, allowing you to pull them down. Shit. His dick slapped back to his stomach, precum leaking from the top of his pink head. He was bigger than you’d imagined, because of course you’d imagined it a couple of times.
Your hand looks so small around his cock, but you slowly tease him, his deep green orbs following your movements. Bringing your head down to him, you kitten lick the precum from the top of his dick. He hisses gently, and you look up at him with these big doe eyes, so fucking eager to please.
You push your lips around him, hollowing your cheeks and flattening your tongue as you begin working along his shaft. He moans just at the sight of you, your eyes peeking up through dark lashes. His hand goes through your hair, eagerly pushing you deeper around him. 
He lets out a hoarse, “is this okay?” before you put your own hand on his pushing it for the both of you. You don’t even want to come up for air, you just want him close to you, inside you. 
You were learning far more about each other than you had expected, as Eren takes back over. He pushes himself further into you, muttering a good girl that has you whining. The vibrations around his cock make his hips buck, and now you’re gagging as his length hits the back of your throat. He holds you there instead of letting you off, and your nails are sharp against his thighs.
His head lolls back as he starts to move his hips under you, moving you in turn with your hair. He picks up the pace quickly, allowing saliva to drool from you and straight to his cock. 
Your eyes prick, big fat tears forming at the corners. But you’re enjoying this way too much, the moans and gasps he gives make you moan, pressing your thighs together for some kind of friction. 
He takes your jaw in his grasp, allowing you a moment to catch your breath. Your tongue sits out your mouth, him smacking the head of his dick on it. He notices your tears then, the mascara that’s running a little. He swipes at the corner of your eyes, leaning down to press a kiss into your forehead. 
Bringing you up to him, your dripping folds sliding across his length. His lips are on your cheeks, across your jaw, licking up your neck before reclaiming your plush lips once again. You continue grinding against one another, tongues slipping in and out of each other's mouths. Eventually Eren brings his hands to your hips, lifting you up as you hold his shaft up.
Your foreheads are pressed together as he slowly pushes inside you. The stretch is burning and all-consuming, eyes pricking up again as you feel him hit your furthest wall. Eren breathes out heavily, “So fucking tight”
You roll your hips, allowing some friction from him on your clit. It helps your muscles relax a little, and balancing your hands on his shoulders you push yourself up and down, using his length for your own pleasure. Eren’s eyes don’t leave your form, watching your breasts bounce and how your eyes flutter close as he fills you entirely.
“You really did want to be fucked, huh? Look at you” he teases you, watching as you go to talk back before he thrusts his hips up. It leaves the words caught in your throat.
His pace maintains, holding you in place as he fucks up into you, feeling your cunt clench around him. There are long moments where you hold your breath, holding his cock tight within you. Then you’ll release and moan, before holding it in again. Well, Eren is all too happy to help you with that. 
One hand grabbing the flesh of your hip, the other wrapping around your throat, he pushes into you at a punishing rate. Your eyes go wide at the sudden restriction of your throat, feeling the cold metal of his ring against your pulse. 
“Who knew this about you? That you were such a slut?”
As much as he knows you want to deny it, you want to smack the smugness from his voice, he can feel your pussy tighten around him. He sees your eyes roll back a little. 
“You’re getting tighter.” 
The hand on your hip moves down, attempting to hold you in place whilst letting his thumb press over your clit. The sounds of him slapping against your wetness is obscene, and he’s only distracted from it as you whimper out pathetic yes’s and please’s. 
“You wanna cum?” he’s grunting, trying to keep the pace going until you can reach your peak.
You nod against his wide hand, still tight around your neck. “Oh you can do better than that. I already know how bad you want it, slut.”
“Please Eren, please make me cum. I want to cum, please, please, please” you can barely make out the words, your head going light and body tightening.
“Cum for me.” 
You release, and as he can feel the fluttering of your walls around him, he lets go of your throat. The sudden oxygen as you cum leaves you overwhelmed. Burying yourself in his shoulder, he fucks you through it. Cock slapping up into your cunt over and over, somehow being sucked deeper in as you coat his length with more of your own slick. He can feel your nails breaking the flesh of his back as you’re holding on for dear life, moaning his name and even a fucking thank you into his ear.
As you begin to slow, legs shake as you stay straddled over him. He flips you, Eren now firmly on top, slowly moving in and out of you. The stimulation is intense, your cunt sparking at any sensation. 
Caged between his forearms, his hair is a mess thanks to you. You push tendrils back past his ears as he leans down to kiss you once again. This kiss is different. It feels… less desperate. It feels deep and meaningful, caring even.
Your eyes meet in acknowledgment, both of you too worried to speak about the shift in tone. 
He reaches down instead, pulling your leg up and splitting you on his cock. A tongue swipes at your nipple, biting and playing with each as he gradually picks up pace again. You’re still so fucking wet it’s easy for him to thrust into you at a dizzying pace. You can feel all of him against your gummy walls. Each time he passes that special spot inside you, you moan and gasp, and it’s the best sound he’s ever heard.
His thrusts were becoming more primal, holding your thighs close around his hips. Letting your sweaty bodies collide again and again, his balls slapping against you. The grunts and moans coming from his lips were so infuriatingly erotic. Eren just wanted one more from you, and then he’d let himself finish. If this was to be a drunken mistake, so be it, but he would at least make it memorable. 
Those jade eyes were on you once again, the power and dominance radiating from the immeasurable. He can see you barely being able to hold on, completely fucked out beneath him. You’re moaning and whining, hands moving over the swell of your breasts and playing with your nipples as if it’s going to keep you grounded. 
He sits up, eyes flicking down to where you were conjoined. It took so much restraint not to cum inside you right then and there. Your glistening sex was so tight around him, the wet slapping noises echo again and again. You’re pulling and sucking him in, cream pooling around his length. 
“Give me one more, y/n. I want to feel you cum on my cock.”  
You try to look up at him through heavy lids. Your friend Eren saying this is so taboo. The words he’s said tonight so far from normal for the both of you. You flutter around him, somehow your pussy still wants to be fucked, still wants to push you off the edge one more time. You can feel the coil inside your stomach tightening. 
Eyes rolling back, you can barely keep it together anymore. He’s pounding into you at a startling rate, fingers flicking over your clit again and again and again. 
“P - please, it’s s-so good.” 
Your breaths between words were quick, “you’re so big-”
“Yeah you like that? You like being so full of my cock? Such a pretty face you make when you’re all fucked out.” 
Holy shit.
Eren could tell how much words affected you, your back arching and legs pulling him somehow closer into you.
“Come on, baby. I wanna hear those moans.” he’s grunting, getting so fucking close to losing himself in your cunt. He knows what he wants to hear most though, “say my name. Tell me who’s treating you how you should be”
With that, you’re losing yourself around him again. Writing on the bed, gripping sheets in tightly balled fists. White light taking over your sight as you clench around Eren. This orgasm was the most intense, taking your body by surprise in its overstimulated state. You weren’t even making a noise, just holding on to the high for as long as possible. 
And then you shattered, whining and moaning, whispering his name over and over again. 
As you moved underneath him, Eren kept his punishing pace up until he watched you expel the last of your energy. Name forming on your lips over and over again he falters, releasing inside you. You can feel the stickiness inside you, the sensation of being filled up. Eren watches for a moment as he sees the white pearls forming around your stretched out pussy.
His chest is back on yours as he kisses your neck, shoulders, whatever skin he can. Thrusting back into you a couple of times, he finally pulls out. You feel his cum dripping out of you, but you’re too spent to do anything about it.
Eren lies next to you, both of your bodies attempting to regulate from that. 
“You okay?” 
He’s checking in, making sure he didn’t go too far with someone he genuinely cares for. 
You nod, turning to meet his stare. Giving him a drowsy smile, you’re not sure what comes next. But for now, you’re happy. Curling into his side, he puts an arm round you and lets you rest for a while. As he notices your breathing become deeper, he nestles into you, muttering something about clean up. 
Moving away from you, you can make out some noises of a tap, drawers opening and closing. In your sleepy state you feel him gently wiping at you, two glasses of water being put on the bedside table. Finally he makes his way back to you, and Eren notes how cute you look. Hot and completely fucked out, yes. But also gentle and at peace, allowing the heaviness of sleep taking over.
He rests behind you, wanting to be back in your warmth. He pulls you in closer, wrapping an arm around your waist. The fragrance of you takes over his nostrils, and he’s all too eager to move closer to your hair, pressing one last kiss at the nape of your neck. Whatever tomorrow brings, he hopes it’s not the last time he gets to be this close to you.
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buttercupsbitch · 2 years
Text
The World Turned Upside Down
secret santa gift for @jumpingjoy82
(sorry abt the hamilton reference it seemed like a good title)
Marinette was seven years old when her maman and papa sat her down at the dinner table and flipped her world view on its head.
“It doesn’t mean we love you any less. We wanted you so badly, cherie.” 
The sentiment was there, she could tell, but it didn’t make her feel better. Firstly, for her to be adopted, she had to have been given up. Someone somewhere looked at baby Marinette and decided they couldn’t raise her. Was it a financial issue? Were they young? Was she a difficult baby? These were questions she wanted answered so badly but would never know.
Turns out, private adoptions are ironclad. Even if her biological parents wanted to find her, it would be nearly impossible. Her parents, adoptive ones that is, chose it that way on purpose. They wanted to be in control of any contact Marinette had with her biological parents and decided the best way to do that would be to insure no contact.
Marinette’s second problem with being adopted was why did her parents adopt her? They confessed it was after many years of trying to have their own. To have a biological baby that would be theirs, through law and blood. That meant Marinette was a backup plan. The second option. If they hadn’t had fertility issues, they never would have looked her way, so somehow, being chosen didn’t make her feel better. The thing was, Marinette wasn’t sure they were meant to be parents. Sure, they supported her. When they remembered they had a daughter.
The bakery took up the majority of their time with early mornings to make pastries and late nights doing clean up and prep for the next day. Sometimes, Marinette didn’t see either one for weeks, other than passing them in the bakery, until there was a slow day for business, and they finished early enough to decide to have a family dinner.
Marinette decided if she could come up with all of these awful things about being adopted by herself, she didn’t need any bullies at school to add to her list. So, no one else knew that Marinette Dupain-Cheng was adopted.
——————————————————
         She kept her secret for seven more years. ‘A lucky number, Marinette. Good for relationships. It means to rise,’ she could hear her maman saying. It was during Biology with Mademoiselle Mendeleiev while she was in collége that it finally got out.
Punnett squares had been her worst enemy ever since.
“Okay, I’m going to draw an example on the board and you guys will help me fill it out. If the top of the square is brown eyes, which is two dominant genes, and the side is brown eyes, two dominant genes, what are the possible offsprings?”
Marinette isn’t sure how the questions made the gears turn but before she knew it, Alya was throwing her hand up next to her. 
“Yes, Alya, you know the answer?”
“Well. Sort of. If there’s only one possible outcome, how could two people with brown eyes have a child with blue eyes?”
Marinette was beginning to wish she had skipped school that morning. She knew the biology unit was beginning that day and she could have at least postponed the revelations her class would surely have.
Alas. ‘Twas not to be.
“Alya, that wouldn’t happen unless one of the parents had a close relative, such as one of their parents, with that recessive gene. So, the answer would be brown for the most part. As Alya pointed out, there are outside factors that can change the possible outcomes but for the sake of simplicity, we’re going to assume normal factors.”
At least Alya waited until lunch to question her.
“Hey, Mari, is your phone background still you and your parents,” Alya asked in a way Marinette was sure she believed was casual.
Marinette nodded. “Yeah, it’s us at the movie premiere since it was such a big event for the bakery. Why?”
“Oh, no reason. I was just curious. Do you mind if I look at it?”
Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Marinette handed the phone over. Alya quickly scanned the photo until she had made up her mind.
“So, what’d you think of the lesson in Biology today? Pretty interesting stuff, huh?”
“Alya. I know I’m adopted,” Marinette said, not wanting the conversation to drag on longer than necessary.
“Why didn’t you tell me? How long have you known? How’d it happen? Who are your parents? How old wer-”
Marinette quickly cut her off. “I was a baby, it wasn’t your business, and you’ve met my parents. Tom Dupain and Sabine Cheng. That’s all I know. I was seven when they told me.”
In Alya’s defense, she looked shameful towards her outburst at least. 
“I’m so sorry, Marinette, I should've thought about how you felt before I pressed into this.”
Marinette had to resist the urge to roll her eyes, but she managed. “It’s fine, Alya, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention this to anyone. I don’t think anyone else put it together and I don’t want to deal with the millions of questions I am sure to get. I really don’t have answers for most of them.”
Alya didn’t look like she wanted to agree but she didn’t have much of a choice and she knew it. Luckily, no one else brought it up to her. 
-------------------------------------------------
After that fiasco, Marinette was sure that her parents would understand her questions about her biological parents. Of course, Marinette was very grateful for what they had done for her but a part of her wanted to know. Were they designers? Did they both have the same color eyes as her? Was she even French? Or Italian like her Papa? Or Chinese like her Maman?
They didn’t. Every time she brought up the idea of contact of some sort, but she was shut down and asked why she wanted to get away from them so badly. Because of course that's the only reason she could be curious about her biological family. Totally not because they are literally her blood, and she wants to know about her heritage. 
A few months after the biology unit, Alix came into class with an interesting side project.
“I just spit in a tube and they could tell me all about where my family is from. We knew most of it, of course, but some of it was new. Evidently, one of our cousins is Irish and did the same test so we got to connect with them and everything.”
If anyone noticed how many questions Marinette asked about how to purchase the kit, it wasn’t mentioned to her face. 
------------------------------------------------------------
Two weeks later, Marinette was sending her own kit off, without her parent’s knowledge. She had made sure to have the results sent to her email address only and not to mark the box that informed any blood relations. She didn’t want any of them to come looking before she could tell her parents what she had done. All she wanted to know was her ethnicities. Where did she come from?
Three weeks after that, Marinette had all but forgotten about the test. What had seemed like a monumental decision had turned into a waiting game that she quickly grew bored of. Checking her email became disappointing so she stopped. She figured nothing important was in it, that was why there was such a hold up on her results. Marinette had never been more wrong in her life. 
It was after school one day that she found out. She had been walking home when she passed one of the two alleyways between her house and Francois DuPont only to be pulled into said alley. When she had yanked her arm away and whirled around to look at her attacker, assuming it was an akuma, but instead was met with a boy. Not even someone her age, he was a few years older if his height was anything to account for.
“Uh, excuse me, monsieur,” she asked. 
“Marinette Cheng-Wayne are you aware of who I am,” he questioned in nearly accent less French.
“No, and that is not my name. I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Wayne is not one of my surnames. Who are you?”
“I am Damian Wayne.”
Marinette waited for him to tell her what that meant but clearly the boy was waiting for a reaction. Assumingly to his name. “Okay, but why am I to know you? You stopped me on my way home. I did not seek you out.”
The boy, Damian, looked a little offended at her insistence. “You mean to tell you sent for the DNA test with no knowledge of what it would bring?”
“DNA test? What do you hav-'' Marinette stopped herself mid-sentence. She was sure she had asked that relatives were not informed. How could this have happened? She was so careful; she hadn’t even seen the results herself. She wanted no names, just places. She was so careful. The results must have come in but she hadn’t checked her email in a few days. Oh, how could she have let this happen. Damian, her relative, cut her spiraling thoughts off by clearing his throat with a Tt sound. 
“Oh, pardon me. I did not expect any contact considering I asked the company not to inform my relatives and not to include names. I am adopted and my parents did not want me to meet my biological family but I wished to know my heritage so I was going around them in the only way I could find. I have not even looked at the results,” Marinette rambled to this stranger while standing in an alleyway. 
“Be that as it may, the company had no choice but to inform us. I was the one to find the email, but I am sure the rest of our family will soon find it as well. Should you decide you wish to stay out of it, you will have a much more difficult time than you think. Our siblings are rather…insistent.”
“Our- I’m sorry did you say siblings? As in you are my brother and I have at least one more and a sister? Was this in the results?” The panic Marinette had felt before returned tenfold and she was having a hard time concentrating her thoughts on the situation at hand and not on everything else that could happen. 
“Yes and no. I am the youngest and your only brother. The rest are adopted by our father so they claim the titles but have no real stakes.”
“Oh, yes, please tell me how adoption isn’t a real family bond after the only topic of our conversation being how I am adopted and don’t know my biological family.”
Damian cringed. “I am sorry for that. I should have thought before I spoke. Truthfully, they are as much your siblings as I am but if they were to hear me say that I would never be left alone again.”
Marinette rolled her eyes at him. “Yes, normally, thinking is important to do before you speak. Now, if you don’t mind, I will be going home, the place I was supposed to already be. Would you like to accompany me?”
Damian seemed hesitant but nodded anyway, following her out of the alley and into the nearby bakery.
“Maman, Papa, this is my friend, Damian. He’s a friend of Luka’s and is going to help me with his birthday present Juleka asked me to make for him,” Marinette called to her parents as they went up the stairs but the pair in the bakery did not seem to notice at all other than her mother shouting an “Okay!” as they passed. Neither looked up to see what strange boy was following their daughter into their home. Damian furrowed his brows at that but said nothing. Marinette noticed anyway. 
“They’re just busy. When the crowd dies down, Maman will come up and ask me about it. Though, she will accept whatever I tell her.”
Damian clearly didn’t like the response, but he left it alone anyway.
“So, you’re the youngest? That means all of you are older than me, huh?”
“I am sixteen, so yes. The oldest is Grayson and he is twenty-nine years old. Next is Todd at twenty-two, Cass is also twenty-two. Drake is nineteen and Brown is not adopted officially but she is eighteen. Gordon is also not officially adopted as her father is still alive and is a decent parent but she is thirty, though she will likely tell you she is twenty-eight just to make fun of Grayson, who did not realize she was older than him for about two years.”
Marinette could not keep up with the names or ages of the siblings that were supposedly hers but she did catch that they must not be their first names. Brown would be a strange last name for a person, she thought. Perhaps not where they were from. Where are they from?
“That is a lot of siblings. They are all adopted? If our father took in all of these children who had no homes, how did I end up at an agency?” Marinette regretted asking as soon as she finished her question. This was not a crisis to put on her brother. She could save the issues until she could properly speak to her father. “I am sorry, I should not ask that of you. I don’t expect you to answer for his actions. I am just very surprised. I always assumed I was given up because they couldn’t care for me or did not want children but clearly that was not an issue.”
“Truthfully, I am unsure of how this happened but I can assure you that our father was not aware of your existence. If he was, you would not have been adopted. He cares deeply for his children, even if he cannot seem to tell any of us. I was not in his care until I was twelve years old because my mother did not inform him of my conception. He still took me in when I needed it and kept me even though I was a lot more trouble than I was worth.”
“I am sure that is not true. Family is almost always worth the trouble, especially if it wasn’t your fault. Though, one could argue that secretly meeting your sister would count as trouble,” Marinette teased. 
Damian laughed. “Yes, that is true. When Father discovers I took his plane without permission, he will not be happy. Too little, too late, Todd would say.”
“You took his plane? He has a plane? You live far enough away to need a plane to meet me? You give me more questions than answers, Damian.”
“I suppose I do. Yes, our father is fairly wealthy, which is why I assumed you knew who he was. I assumed you were doing this for the money, but clearly, you have no idea who he is much less his fortune. We live in Gotham, New Jersey.”
“Gotham? Isn’t that like the most dangerous place in America? A successful man lives there and isn’t consistently robbed blind? My favorite artist is from there and he admitted that he has to have multiple high end security features to keep his apartment safe in the best part of town there is.”
“I don’t suppose you are talking about Jagged Stone, are you?” At Marinette’s nod, he continued. “I saw that article as well. Our brothers are rather fond of his music since he grew up with our father and regularly visits the manor for dinners.”
Her number one client and supporter regularly had dinner with her biological father and she had never known. She couldn’t help but laugh at the realization and the laughter quickly turned to tears, despite her best efforts to remain composed. 
“I am so sorry. This is a lot of information. My favorite rockstar casually has dinner with my biological family. I don’t really know how to react to that,” she said as tears rolled down her face.
Damian nodded, though he seemed much more uncomfortable than he had a few moments before. “Understandable. Why don’t you take a few days to read over the results and let me know what you plan to do? I can leave my number for your response. If you do not want contact, I will erase the company’s email and make sure your relation stays buried. No matter what your decision, I wish for you to keep my contact in case you ever need it. However, I do believe that you should at least attempt a relationship before you cut ties. As overbearing as they can be, our family means well. They love very deeply and with their entire hearts. It is something I was not prepared for when I was thrust into their dynamic but I would not trade them for anything.”
Marinette nodded and he left her to her thoughts. She had noticed how he referred to them as ‘theirs’ even though they had never met her. He was so sure they would just accept her into their family that she wanted to believe him, but the idea that they might want nothing to do with her prevented her from doing anything else. In one afternoon, her entire life view was changed again. But this time, it was expanded. What if they did want her? What if her mother had done the same thing as Damian’s and hidden her from their father? Marinette knew better than to bank on a particular outcome but, nevertheless, she realized she wanted to know her family. 
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harrys-titties · 3 years
Text
Y/N and Harry hate each other, until they don’t. 
29K+
Warnings: Asshole Harry, A LOT of swearing (I’m sorry,) mentions of anxiety, a questionable game of drink or truth & smut 
(A/N FINALLY I FINISHED!!  Blood, sweat and tears has been put into this one, so I hope you all enjoy! Love you all <3 Also you may have to open in your web browser bc she is big af xx) 
-masterlist-
It wasn't that Y/N didn't like Harry, in all honesty, she didn't know him well enough to come to that conclusion. But from what she'd seen so far, she wasn't too impressed. She had never found it too challenging to make new friends, often finding herself able to get along with even the oddest of characters, but with Harry, it was a different story.
Perhaps if they weren’t forced to stay in the same house during quarantine, having to spend days on end with only each other and their housemates to cure their boredom, things would be different. Maybe, just maybe Harry wouldn’t have come across as so disagreeable and overbearing. 
However, at this rate, Y/N was led to believe it was just who he was. An asshole who had somehow tricked the entire planet into believing he was the epitome of the ‘boy next door’ stereotype. 
Sarah, Y/N’s cousin, had called her sometime around July, asking her if she wanted to quarantine with her, her boyfriend, Mitch and a few mates rather than alone in her somewhat dingy apartment. Y/N had immediately jumped at the opportunity. Quarantining by herself had already proved to be somewhat tricky and incredibly depressing. While she loved her charming little abode, she was certainly not prepared to spend the next few months stuck inside it, alone, watching ‘Friends’ reruns with a bottle of wine and only her three potted cacti to keep her company. 
So, naturally, that led her to the doorstep of Sarah and Mitch's huge shared house with butterflies in her stomach, imagining what her new housemates would be like. 
Sarah had told Y/N all about Mitch, Jeff and Harry, exclaiming how funny, kind and welcoming they would be, and well, Y/N was excited, she needed some new friends. After her last break up about a year ago, had lost her a boyfriend and subsequently the mutual friends of his that she thought had become hers too, she felt slightly lonely. For Y/N the chance to cure isolation boredom blues and make some new friends was an offer she wouldn't dream of refusing. 
Upon arrival, Y/N noticed that Sarah's description fit Jeff and Mitch to a tee, but Harry? Well, he barely managed to squeeze into it. When she'd walked through the door, Mitch had immediately offered to take her bags and even offered her some of his favourite tea to help her relax after her relatively stressful journey. Jeff gave her a huge hug and asked what her favourite snacks were so he could add them to the shopping list. And Harry? He sat in silence with his head practically glued to his phone, hardly even sparing a glance in her direction. 
Y/N didn't let this discourage her. She prided herself on being friendly and often easy to get along with and so approached him readily. However, greeting him with a cheerful, "it's nice to meet you!" and her renowned smile had only earned her a grunt and a disinterested look. Maybe he was just having a bad day?
On the drive to Sarah’s house, Y/N had been thinking about how exciting it was to be able to meet him. While she’d never been an avid fan of his music, she wasn’t blind to the enormous impact he had on the industry. He seemed kind and beyond charming, and well, Y/N had a working pair of eyes, she knew how handsome he was. She had only ever heard good things and was excited to get to know the man who had made her cousin's dreams come true. 
However, Harry's blase and borderline rude personality really rubbed her the wrong way. Y/N could understand having a rough day, even she could get a bit grumpy the days leading up to her period, but Harry's impertinence surpassed a simple 'bad day' or two. He was impossible! He would hardly even acknowledge her existence, and on the rare occasion when he did, he was insolent and passive-aggressive. He would nitpick everything Y/N did, from the way she would dress to something as simple as how much soy sauce she had on her sushi! Y/N didn't know how she would survive another week with him, let alone the whole of isolation. 
Maybe loneliness, copious amounts of alcohol and friends reruns would’ve been the better option. 
——
It wasn't that Harry didn't like Y/N, in all honesty, he didn't know her well enough to come to that conclusion. There was just something about her that grated on his nerves. It could possibly be the fact that Sarah had insisted she was his type before he'd even met her. While Harry had countered, unless she looked exactly like the ex he was still very much pining over he doubted it to be true, Sarah had insisted. She showed him picture after picture from their trip to Europe together, pointing out how pretty Y/N's hair looked, or how dazzling her smile was.
While there was a resemblance to the girl on his mind, Harry doubted it was enough to remind him of the heartbreak she had instilled upon him. Alas, Harry was wrong. When Y/N had floated through the door without a care in the world, Harry had frozen. While Y/N did kind of resemble his past girlfriend Elle, it was the way she acted that frustrated Harry more. She had the same air about her, carried herself in the same way that Elle did, with humble confidence and poise.  
Harry hated it. The more he got to know Y/N, the more he realised that she was somehow simultaneously similar and completely different from the girl he was still in love with, and he hated it. She was a constant reminder of what he could no longer have, and he didn't know if he wished Y/N were more like Elle so he could have a part of her back, or if he wished she was a completely different person altogether.
Either way, Harry could hardly hold in the frustration he felt around her, snapping at anything she said and nit-picking her every move. 
While he knew he was acting unreasonably, he barely had a cause to stop it. 
——
Y/N was usually self-confident and relatively sure of herself, but she was also stubborn, and for some reason was bothered by Harry's opinion of her more than she cared to admit. 
So, over the first few days of her staying at the house, Y/N had tried her hardest to get Harry to like her, but her endeavours only seemed to further annoy him. She baked him carrot cake because she'd heard it was his favourite, but with a screwed up nose, Harry had swiped his finger through the icing to taste it and grumbled, "way too sweet," before retreating back to his room. Y/N was embarrassed as Sarah had given her a sympathetic look and insisted "everyone else will love it!" 
When doing her washing, she added Harry's whites with hers and even went so far as to dry and fold them too. But when she woke the next day, the clothes had been taken from the laundry, and Y/N was not given a spare glance.
 Harry had insisted they watch a horror movie during their weekly movie night, and Y/N didn't say a word of opposition, even though she knew she would have nightmares that night. Sarah had even tried to say something on her behalf, but Y/N quickly hushed her, not wanting to cause a scene and have Harry hate her even more than he already did. 
But Y/N's quick agreeance to watch 'Halloween' disagreed with her a lot more than she thought it would. She had hardly slept at all, jumping at the smallest of sounds and debating the probability of a murderous man being able to break into the house. When she turns again for what seemed like the fiftieth time that night, only to be met with the glaring '3:30' from the mickey mouse alarm clock she had nearly forgotten to pack, she gives up. 
In an attempt to calm herself down from the numerous haunting images flashing through her mind, Y/N begins her trek to the kitchen. A cool glass of water and perhaps one of the cupcakes Sarah and herself had baked the day before, would surely put her overworked mind at ease. 
As Y/N begins to walk down the stairs, she can't help but imagine behind every door a murderer with a knife, that each step in the pitch black was one closer to her death. The eerie silence of the house full of sleeping people only made her feel worse. 
Scolding herself for ever agreeing to watch the stupid movie in the first place, she turns around to flick on the lights to the hallway and stairway. Feeling slightly more comfortable now that she could see, she walked downstairs only to repeat the process in the kitchen, dining room and living room until the whole house, bar upstairs, was flooded with light.
Standing in the fully lit kitchen with a mug of hot chocolate she had found in the cupboard and munching away at the sweet treat, Y/N finally begins to feel somewhat safe. That is until a dark figure suddenly emerges from the hallway.
 "Harry! What the fuck? You scared the shit out of me," she exclaims while clutching at her rapidly beating chest. With his chestnut curls in a tangled heap upon his head, one sock on and clad in only a white shirt and boxers, he looks slightly worse for wear. "What the fuck are you doing, making such a racket at four in the fucking morning?" His voice sounds strained as if he'd just woken up and his face is screwed in annoyance as he points at the provincial-style clock hanging on the wall for emphasis. 
Y/N hesitates, she knew telling Harry his movie choice had kept her awake would not end well, "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you or anything." At this, he scoffs, "didn't mean to wake me, huh? Turning on every fuckin’ light and slammin’ cupboards will usually do that to a person." 
Now Harry knows he's being mean, can hear the way his accent thickens with annoyance and can see how she flinches with every raised decibel, and it makes him pause some. He realises there’s more than likely a reasonable explanation as to why she’s awake at such an hour. He's a dick, but he's not a bloody monster, and as he sees her eyes well up with tears, he decides his anger can be put on the backburner.
 "Why are you even awake?" At the softened tone in his voice, Y/N seems to visibly relax some but still remains tense. "I, um, I really hate horror movies, and I was scared, and I couldn't sleep." He sighs, and his voice lowers even more, "Is that why all the lights are on?" She nod's sheepishly, "why didn't you say anythin'? You were the first to bloody agree to watch the movie." 
"You already hate me enough, I didn't want to give you another reason!" Harry's not sure why his chest slightly aches at that, because if he's honest, she's right, he doesn't really like her at all. As soon as she’d walked through the door and up the stairs to get sorted in her new room, he'd approached Mitch. He'd even made a proper scene, asking why she had to quarantine with them. Mitch had defended her, pointing out that everyone else liked her perfectly fine so far, which Harry supposes was a part of his problem with her. He had made sure she knew of his distaste too, barely even paying her mind, and only doing so to mock her. 
So why it felt like his heart was cracking just slightly, he'll never know, but it does lead him to walk towards her slowly, "I can't really sleep either, did you want to watch tv with me until you can?" If Harry was truthful, he'd actually been sleeping like a baby before he heard the cupboard doors shut slightly above acceptable volume considering the time. However, the way her mouth pouted somewhat, and her eyes misted as she acknowledged his dislike for her made him feel awful. 
So as he sits on the couch with her, now donned with his own steaming cup of hot chocolate, he leaves the lights on and gives her his favourite blanket to wrap herself in. He sits on the opposite side of the couch and tries his hardest not to fall asleep, so Y/N could feel somewhat protected.
After a few episodes of 'SpongeBob' had played he looks over to the other side of the sofa and sees Y/N fast asleep, snoring with her head tilted at a slightly unnatural angle. He can't help the smile that finds its way onto his face, as he turns off the television and settles himself further into the couch to hopefully catch a few hours of sleep too. 
——
To say Y/N is confused would be an understatement. While she wasn't expecting to wake up to Harry presenting a friendship bracelet and a new found love for her, she was expecting him to at least stop hating her.
She was surprised at his kindness last night. She knows Harry gave her his favourite blanket. Jeff was always griping on movie nights because Harry manages to nab it before Jeff has the chance and although he claimed he couldn't sleep, Harry's croaky voice and dishevelled hair led her to believe he was in fact lying.
She definitely hadn't expected him to offer to watch cartoons with her. She also definitely had not expected to wake in the middle of the night to find herself pressed against him with his arms tightly wrapped around her.
 Y/N briefly considered moving back to her side of the couch, but if she was being entirely truthful, she missed cuddling. It was one of her favourite things about being in a relationship, and ever since her last one had crashed and burned, she missed the simple feeling of being held. So in her sleep-muddled state, she decided to stay put and hope Harry was as avid a cuddler as she was.  
To be honest, after all that, she thought he'd at least start to acknowledge her existence, or at least not act as if it was the bane of his. However, when Y/N awakes the next day, Harry is in the kitchen with Jeff and Sarah, debating on where to start their tour when quarantine ends. He moves animatedly and is clearly laughing and joking about as he usually does with the other occupants of the house. But when she enters, he instantly stops talking and instead puts his head down, seemingly very focused on shovelling his pancakes into his mouth. 
Y/N hopes, with every part of her being, that he didn't wake up feeling disgusted by her unconscious affection, but she knew it was a real possibility. And suddenly it feels like she had taken one step forward and two giant steps back.
So yes, Y/N is understandably confused. 
——
When Harry had woken up overheated, and with a stifling sense of claustrophobia, he was understandably confused. As he opens his eyes, he recognises the living room's shaggy carpet and cream walls; however, it takes him a few seconds to process why he was actually here rather than in his own bedroom.
The pressure against his chest causes him to startle some, and when he looks down to see Y/N still huddled under his favourite blanket but now pressed against him rather than the opposite end of the couch, the feeling doesn't fade but instead escalates.
How did they end up in this position? Harry knew he was a cuddler, any past lover would be able to tell you that, but that was usually with people he... liked? Why the fuck was she on top of him?
He can just see the side of her face, while the other looks to be uncomfortably pressed against him. Her hair no longer resembles the bun she usually goes to sleep with but a nest upon her head, and what looks like dried drool is smeared across the corner of her rosy lips. 
Harry can admit she's cute. In a puppy that's just been kicked kind of way. He feels compelled to brush the strands of hair away from her face and wipe the spit away with the hem of his shirt, but Y/N moving in her sleep draws his focus away. He sees his lanky legs tangled with hers and for the first time notices his arms also wrapped around her, keeping her close. 
While a half-asleep Y/N is clearly trying to change her position, his gangly limbs keep her from doing so. And Harry panics. He should not be cuddling with Y/N of all people. Instantly and as gently as possible, he rolls her off him and stands from the couch, only to hear a muffled groan of opposition from the sleeping girl. 
Harry was confused, to say the least. He knows it's not a big deal. Two, friends? No. Acquaintances? Hm nope, 'roommates?'... had fallen asleep next to each other on the couch and woken up slightly tangled. It wouldn't be that much of an issue if the last person Harry had woken up next to hadn't been the ex-girlfriend he was very much still broken-hearted because of. Don't get him wrong, it had felt nice to be close to someone again, but perhaps that's the reason why Harry begins to panic even more. 
So, Harry folds up the blanket he had been using, walks to the toilet and convinces himself not to think of it again. And it's also for this reason, that Harry can't seem to look Y/N in the eye as she walks into the kitchen. He knows she's looking at him in confusion, and he feels slightly guilty, but what was he supposed to do? Greet her with a cuddle and ask if she'd slept as well as he did? No, Harry would act like nothing had happened, and pray that a problem wouldn't arise from that.
But of course, Harry should have known better. 
——
Y/N was quite the baker. She had worked a few summers in her Aunties little bakery and had loved it, but even with her passion and keen eye for icing cakes, there was only so much sweet treat making she could do. She was more participating in copious amounts of isolation baking to please poor Sarah, who was struggling with boredom, and who also happened to love sweets. 
So, whenever Sarah would run into her room with a new suggestion, or send her a link to a 'totally awesome' muffin recipe, Y/N would simply bite her tongue and help gather the ingredients. They had already managed to make cupcakes, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake. So when a new recipe comes through while Y/N reads her book in front of the pool, she wonders what other baked goods could even possibly exist for them to make. 
Alas, macarons. Y/N sighed and walked to the kitchen, where she knew Sarah would be preparing their ingredients. "Hey bug, ready to bake the best macarons ever?" On the inside, Y/N started dramatically weeping, but on the outside, she exclaims, "sure am! These might be a bit more difficult than anything we've tried though." Sarah scoffs, "oh please, we're up for the challenge." 
It's then Y/N notices Harry sitting at the island bench, and he catches her staring, "what? 'M bored." She only nods in response, not really one for conflict. "Are you helping us cook? We could use an extra hand." Y/N kind of hopes he'd say yes, maybe a bit of cooperative, team bonding would mend whatever weird rift they had between them. 
However, Harry screws up his nose at her suggestion as if what she had said was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. Before he has the chance to snarkily reply to her, Sarah butts in, "Harry actually used to be a baker! Didn't you H." Harry can see Y/N's eyes light up and knows that whatever comes out of her mouth next, he was more than likely going to despise. "I used to work in a bakery too!"
Now, if there was an award for sarcasm, Y/N's sure Harry would probably win it. When he pulls his lips into an over-exaggerated smile and says, "twinnies!" with such derision that it burns, Y/N's smile falls. She didn't know what his problem was. Had it really bothered him that much that they'd accidentally cuddled in their sleep? Who had hurt the poor guy so much that a simple night-time spoon was the be-all or end-all? 
She really hadn't meant it, guessed she'd missed sleeping next to a warm body and naturally gravitated towards him. She liked a good cuddle, for fuck's sake, who didn't? If she could turn back time, she would've stayed in bed, wracked with fear if it meant she wouldn't have to deal with Harry's bullshit.
Rather than responding, Y/N puts her head down and begins to read the instructions Sarah had helpfully printed out. Harry is about to make a snide comment, praying that her baking abilities have improved since the carrot cake she had attempted to make, but he gets distracted by the way the afternoon sun is hitting her skin. 
Was Y/N kind of attractive? For the first time, he notices that while she had similar features to his ex, Y/N was pretty on her own accord. 
While often messy, her hair looked so soft, and her eyes were wide and held a sense of innocence. If Harry looked close enough, he could see the tiny acne spots she hadn't bothered to cover and the small bags under her eyes. He briefly wonders if she'd been getting enough sleep and if he had any of the 'sleepy-time' tea left that had worked so well for him before he realises what he was thinking. 
This was Y/N, not Elle, not some chick he'd been fucking, it was Y/N. Maybe he was just confused about his feelings. That was the first time he'd slept next to someone in a while. And well, Y/N was an admittedly pretty girl, and Harry was an admittedly lonely guy who was attracted to pretty girls…
Yeh, there was nothing for him to worry about. 
Y/N mistakes Harry's staring as a glare and does her best to avoid looking at him. She didn't want him to see the well of tears in her eyes and give him the satisfaction. By now, she knew he had meant to upset her, and he had succeeded. 
It was a shame, he really was an attractive guy. Y/N is fully aware that if she'd seen him at a bar, acting the way he did with Sarah and the guys, she'd be instantly in love. She imagines him at school years ago, he probably would’ve been the guy that everyone developed a crush on at least once, boys and girls alike, and has no doubt he probably knew it too. 
Unfortunately, Y/N had not met him in a way akin to a romantic novel. No, she only knew him as an ass who tended to treat her like the dirt stuck to the treads of his overpriced shoes. The only thing Y/N could do was just try her best to ignore him. 
——
As it turns out, Y/N was right, macarons were a lot harder than anything Sarah, and she had previously tried to make. Y/N was tired, frustrated and too sweaty for simply baking glorified cookies. The macarons had taken so long to make, and worst of all, the first batch had come out of the oven flat and stiff as a board. Sarah had pulled out the tray as Y/N was beginning to wash the bowls with a hesitant, "are they supposed to be flat?" 
Turns out they were not supposed to be flat at all. Y/N tried to hide her distaste as she chewed through one of the shells, but when she saw Sarah's face mirroring hers, she giggled. Harry, who had been sitting at the bench, completing a crossword puzzle, also laughed, "guess you aren't as good at baking as you thought you were." 
Y/N would be offended, but notices he's mainly talking to Sarah, and his jesting tone suggests he's not even acknowledging her. "Here, try one. They aren't that bad," Sarah hands him one and he huffs before taking a bite, "better not poison me. You'll have millions of fans to answer to." 
As he chews, it’s apparent that he's not particularly enjoying it. After a hefty swallow, he tugs at his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger as if in deep thought. "These are single-handedly the worst macarons I've ever had in my entire life. And I say that with absolute confidence." 
While Sarah scoffs and laughs, admonishing Harry with a gentle slap on his arm, Y/N is entirely distracted. She had never seen anyone else with the same habit as her ex. Ben would tug at his bottom lip when deep in thought, and there Harry was, exhibiting the exact same habit. She was astonished, and she hates to admit it, but small butterflies form in the pit of her stomach. She always had, for some unknown reason found it an oddly attractive trait.
While others might be attracted to muscles or deep dimples, Y/N found the little quirks of others most captivating. She loved the drunken ramblings and the uncontrollable tears during sad films. She loved watching people discover their favourite song and the way they would sing under their breath. She loved the unmade beds, dust-covered books, and overwatered plants. She loved the way people would stutter on certain words or adopt weird nicknames they had heard in their favourite movies. She loved pet peeves and the stories behind them and the routines that they followed. Y/N had always loved people. She loved the things that made individuals uniquely them, and this quirk that Harry shared with Ben, was no different. 
If he notices her staring, he doesn't draw attention to it, only continues to banter with Sarah, while Y/N stands in the middle of the kitchen, lost in thought. It’s Sarah's voice that draws her out of her reverie, "c'mon Y/N let's try another batch. I want to surprise Mitch for movie night, he loves these things."
——
This movie-night, Y/N wanted to make sure she would be able to sleep at the end of it, and for that reason, horror movies were off the table- much to Harry's dismay. Sarah, Mitch and Jeff, readily agreed, and after some pushing from Jeff and the girls, everyone agreed to watch a rom-com. The question was which one. 
As Sarah scrolls through the movie selections, 'Clueless' catches Y/N’s eye, and she immediately yells out the suggestion with vivid excitement and is promptly met with... silence. "Guys? Clueless is icon-" Y/N starts, only to be interrupted by none other than Harry, "'s a shit movie, we aren't watching it." Before Y/N can object, Sarah comes to her defence, "oi H, don't be an asshole. We know it was Elle's favourite, don't need to take it out on poor Y/N."
While Y/N prides herself on being understanding and kind, she knows she can be a tad oblivious to what's going on around her at times. She had tried to pick up on it when she noticed it and improve because it had indeed gotten her into some awful situations. And if only Y/N had paid a bit more attention to the situation around her, she may not have spat out her next words. She may have noticed Harry's misty eyes and pursed lips, Sarah's empathetic gaze towards him, Mitch's awkward glance in Harry's direction and Jeff's head buried in his hands. Alas, she didn't.
 "Who's Elle?"  
Silence. Y/N is met with nothing but silence. After a while, she can vaguely hear Jeff letting out the breath of air he had clearly been holding in, and Mitch's mumbled "oh god" under his breath, but she was much too focused on Harry's gaze that was now piercing into hers. "None of your business," he gets out through gritted teeth. 
Y/N is somewhat taken aback, she can clearly see that whoever Elle was, she was a sensitive topic for Harry and immediately tries to backtrack. "Oh, um I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" For the second time that night, Harry interrupts her. "Does anyone want popcorn? We forgot to get some." He stands from the couch, now avoiding Y/N's gaze altogether, and she looks around the room to try and gauge the situation. 
The only one in the room paying her any notice is Sarah, who shares the same empathetic look with her that she had given Harry not two minutes ago. Sarah mouths ‘ex-girlfriend' at Y/N, and it's safe to say she feels awful. While she didn't particularly like Harry, she would never intentionally hurt anyone, and she makes the snap decision to follow him, in order to apologise to him properly. 
When she enters the kitchen, Harry is leaning on the counter facing away from her. His shoulders seem tense, and his hair is dishevelled as if he'd been continuously running his fingers through it.
"Harry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up such a sensitive topic." At her voice, Harry's shoulders seem to hunch further, and he turns around while taking a deep breath, "just drop it yeah? Think you've done enough." 
Y/N didn't think that was fair. She really hadn't known, and if she had, she wouldn't have even thought of mentioning it. "I didn't know Harry. I won't bring her up again." Y/N had grown familiar with the way Harry's accent thickened sometimes. It happened when he was tired or bored. It was most frequently when he was angry, which seemed to be a common occurrence when she was concerned, and now was no exception. "No shit, stop stickin' your nose into other people's business." 
In any other circumstance, Harry might have noticed the way Y/N's eyes instantly started to water, or how she'd retreated and hunched slightly into herself in submission. Harry had noted she was a sensitive little thing, and while he often tried to get on her nerves, when he saw her nose twitch and eyes mist up, he knew to back off. But currently, he could only see red, and the fact Y/N had made no attempt to move, made his fury run even more rampant through his veins. “Fuck off Y/N, I'm not kiddin'. Go back to the living room." 
"But Harry, I-" Y/N attempts to get out, but Harry's raised voice causes her to immediately stop. "I said, fuck off!" At that, Y/N snaps. For weeks, she had been doing nothing but try to please Harry, but there was just no pleasing him. He was arrogant, apathetic to everyone around him, pretentious, stubborn and worst of all, just plain rude. 
"You're a real asshole, you know that. I understand you're upset, and I'm sorry I caused it, but you don't need to treat me like shit,” she sniffles. “I have tried so fucking hard to get on your good side, but I'm done trying. It's time for you to wake up and realise not everyone is going to hurt you like precious Elle clearly did." Y/N expects Harry to do many different things, she prepares for him to begin screaming, perhaps start crying? She briefly wonders if he would go so far as to push her out of the way and storm out of the room. 
Although, one prospect she didn’t consider was for him to start laughing. "Oh Jesus pet, you think you're that special? You think you can even begin to be compared to her? Think I'm scared you'll.. what? Break my heart?" As he continued to speak, the sound of his voice grew as did his rage. The veins on the side of his neck only became more pronounced, and the crease in his brow caused his whole face to contort. 
The increase in volume had caused an audience to gather. Jeff, Sarah and Mitch stand in the kitchen entrance helplessly watching the two rip into each other. Mitch is the first to step in, "Harry c'mon, that's enough." 
"Fuck off Mitch, stay out of it." He turns back to Y/N, "please, sweetheart, save yourself the heartbreak. Have you ever considered that maybe I just don't like you? You're fucking annoying, and your pathetic attempts to get me to like you are even more so. What were you hoping would come from it? I'd ignore the fact you grate on my nerves 24/7 and pay you a bit of attention? Maybe even get you off once or twice? Is that it?"
Sarah is next to attempt to break up the fight, "Y/N don't bother, Harry's just upset."
It took a lot to get Y/N mad. She was usually calm, maybe a bit emotional, but very rarely did she raise her voice. But Harry, with his constant grouching and aggressive nature, had pushed her well and truly past that point. "Save it, Sarah. Are you fucking serious Harry? I was just trying to be a nice person. I'm not sure how to tell you this, but not everybody is trying to get into your pants. Guess you'd be so used to girls throwing themselves at you until they have a fucking conversation with you and see what a dick you actually are." 
He snarls at that, "trust me pet, they're proper gaggin' for it." Y/N scrunches her nose in disgust, "You're fucking disgus-" The quietest of the group is the next to interrupt. "Oh for fucks sake, both of you, shut up!" 
Jeff was usually quietly spoken and hardly ever lost his temper, he was similar to Y/N in that regard. As Harry's manager, he had formed a close relationship with the green-eyed boy over the past few years, and not once had Harry ever heard Jeff raise his voice. So when Jeff yells, even Harry knows it's time to back off. He stays quiet and instead gives Y/N one last lingering glare before retreating upstairs to the safety of his room. 
Y/N can't help but burst into tears. She hated conflict, and would usually avoid it at all costs, but Harry deserved to be put in his place a bit. Immediately, Sarah is at her side, attempting to console her, but it only makes her cry harder. Y/N feels pathetic, she hated crying in front of people, and Jeff and Mitch's lost stares were not helping the situation. Sarah follows Y/N's eye line, "can you both get out for a bit?" Both boys all but run out of the kitchen. Now that they were alone, Y/N allows herself to really cry, hoping a good sobbing session would clear her thoughts and emotions from the situation. 
——
Harry was sad. He was not going to say he was always sad, because, in actual fact, Harry was happy a lot of the time. He could admit he had a good life, filled with love, happiness and fun, but there were some times when joy felt more like a mirage to him, something unattainable. 
And maybe it just wasn’t for him, maybe true happiness wasn’t in his cards. 
He was someone who quickly became obsessed, found solace and comfort in certain things. Sometimes so much so it became a flaw, something he felt he would die if he lived without, and one of those was Elle. 
It used to be his mum, then music, then Niall, then Mitch, then Elle and then... nothing. Harry hadn’t found something or someone he felt he could rely on entirely since her. It seemed now he only had himself, and in his mind, that was a potentially dangerous thing. His mum was miles away, Mitch found his own solace with Sarah, Elle had left him, and Harry had never felt so alone. 
Isolation made it worse, he couldn’t distract himself with performing anymore, with drinking his body weight in alcohol or finding pretty girls who looked eerily similar to his ex, to spend a few hours with. So often he found himself uncontrollably crying, alone in bed. Harry never felt shame in crying, but there was something particularly mortifying about being loved by millions of people worldwide, yet still sobbing into his pillow because his girlfriend had broken up with him. Not only dumped him but had cheated on, destroyed him and ripped his heart into little shreds. 
And that’s where Harry was now. Lying in bed, his pillowcase wet with tears, eyes stinging and red, his cheeks stained and raw from his constant rubbing at them, and his back aching from the occasional sob pulling at the already taut muscles. 
Harry just needed a hug. He needed someone to tell him it was okay, that things would work out because at this point he honestly didn’t know himself. 
——
The next few days in the house are hell. Not just for Harry and Y/N but for everyone stuck isolating in the space. Y/N and Harry refused to talk to each other, only sharing pointed glares. Harry does all he can to piss her off, without ever having to say a word. While out for his regular morning walk to buy coffee, he purposely 'forgets' Y/N's. When it was his night to cook, he plays the English rap that he knew she hated at full volume, while making prawn pasta. Which really wouldn't have been an issue, if Y/N wasn't bloody allergic to seafood. While he claimed to not know, Y/N saw through him. Just the week before she had refused to eat lunch when Jeff had made tuna sandwiches and had clearly explained why. 
Y/N tried not to let it bother her and instead did everything she could to avoid him. When he'd come home with everyone's regular coffee order but hers, she exclaimed she "preferred homemade!" and brewed her own cup. She put in headphones and shut her door in an attempt to drown out the crap he called music. And when Harry had placed a massive bowl of steaming pasta that she couldn't fucking eat in front of her, Y/N smiled and ordered pizza instead. 
Mitch struggled through the week, staying as quiet as he usually was. If he was honest, he wished he was just quarantining with Sarah. He loved Harry but also knew that he could be a dick when he wanted to be. So despite Harry's constant prodding for him to join in on shit-talking Y/N, Mitch tried to stay out of it. 
Sarah spent the days keeping Y/N company. She felt slightly guilty that she had invited her to spend isolation stuck in a house with what happened to be the only person Sarah had ever met, who hated Y/N. Instead, she listened to her rant when Harry couldn't overhear. She baked cookies with her, and they sang shitty pop music at the top of their lungs whenever Harry decided to blast his music.  
Once again, Jeff surprised everyone. While they were used to his calming and genuine presence by now, no one expected him to play peacekeeper. Harry supposes he should've seen it coming, being his manager for four years, meant the guy had to have some kind of problem-solving skills. So Harry promptly nicknames Jeff, 'Switzerland' and despite his denials, Harry knew Jeff secretly loved it. 
Jeff spends the next few days quietly talking to all the other house members like some sort of pseudo spy. And finally, after three long days of combat, by some miracle, convinces both Harry and Y/N to talk out their issues and apologise. 
At first, both Y/N and Jeff agreed he should be in the room to mediate, but upon the request of Harry, he was waiting just outside the door, waiting for any sign of a fight, to run in and play referee. 
So that led them here, with Harry sitting on one end of the couch, oozing with confidence while actually being a mess on the inside, and Y/N on the other, nervously picking at the hem of her jumper. 
Harry is the first to speak, "look Y/N I'm sorry. You were right, Elle's a bit of a sore spot for me, and I overreacted." She nods in acknowledgement before speaking herself, "yeh, I'm sorry too. I shouldn't have pried like I did.” He nods along, still somewhat convinced he wasn’t entirely in the wrong. 
It’s the next question that makes Harry’s blood turn cold, “I just… I just need to ask why? What did I do for you to not like me? It started before last night. Before I mentioned… her.” Y/N scoots around the heartbreaker’s name.  
She watches as Harry bites his lip in what looked like deliberation before he replies, a deep sigh sitting on his pretty lips. “I don’t know. I know that’s a shitty thing to say, I treated you like shit for weeks, but it’s true. I just don’t know.” 
Y/N’s taken aback. Weeks of torture, hatred and tears and he couldn’t even tell her why he’d acted the way he did. “Harry, you can’t be serious. There must be something! You... you were so mean.” 
Y/N watches as tears well in his eyes, and she briefly wonders if she shouldn’t have pushed the topic. “I don’t know, I don’t fuckin’ know.” He lashes out, once again, his anger getting the best of him. 
Y/N throws her hands up in defeat, “I don’t know what you want from me, Harry. I’m trying here I really am, but you won’t give me anything. What do you want me to do?” 
“I know you are,” he all but chokes out. Harry didn’t know how to express himself, a million thoughts were running rampant through his mind, and he felt like if he were to try and speak, he’d have to spend hours detangling each thought from the other like shitty Christmas lights. He takes another deep sigh. He had to try, he knew it wasn’t fair to Y/N. And well, Harry wasn’t exactly happy either, maybe it would help to tell someone how he felt. 
“It’s just when I look at you... I see her. I see her in the clothes you wear and the way you laugh. You look the same for fucks sake, give me the same doe-eyed look and.. she never apologised. Never said a word, I found her in bed with my… with my best mate, and she just fucking left,” he cries out. “And when I first saw you, and you gave me that fuckin’ look I just... I just got so angry.” Harry’s face briefly scrunches in frustration, but it’s quickly overcome with grief. 
He begins to cry harder, his shoulders racking with sobs and Y/N doesn’t know what to do. She sits helplessly, watching the man she very much despised breaking down in front of her, crying previously unshed tears with his head in his hands. 
What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t going to say it was alright because it wasn’t. But god, he looks so pitiful, and Y/N knows what it’s like to have a shitty ex. She knows how painful it is to see them again after they’ve just broken your heart, knows how hard it can be to feel completely, totally and 100% betrayed by someone you loved. 
It wasn’t okay, and Y/N doesn’t know if it ever will be, but seeing Harry, the stubborn, prideful man she’d come to know, breaking down in front of her, well Y/N can hardly stand it. 
So she does the first thing she can think of, the one thing that made her feel better after her own breakup. 
She hugs him. 
She feels him tense up in her arms and for a brief second, Y/N wonders if he’s going to push her away, but instead, he relaxes. Even goes so far as to push into her slightly, allowing himself to rest his head against her chest, with her arms around him like a tantrum-throwing toddler. 
Harry can’t remember the last time he was hugged. Maybe by his mum before the pandemic, probably in a similar situation, crying over Elle in a pathetic attempt to find comfort in anything that wasn’t her arms. 
Harry had returned to LA to record three songs, “it would be two to three weeks max,” Jeff had assured him. But now he was fucking stuck here, in the same place he lived with her, heartbroken in a house with people he loved, but unfortunately would never talk about Elle with. 
Harry missed London. He missed him mum, his sister, the pubs and the tube. He missed hanging out with more mates than he could count, his little writing studio and his cat. Harry missed his own bedroom, his candles that he forgot to pack and his own record collection. Harry missed walking to the little cafe a few streets from his house, he missed the snow. 
But Harry especially missed Elle. 
He missed her cuddles and her sweet little kisses. He missed the way her nose scrunched when he tried to kiss her in public. He missed her laugh and her awful cooking. He missed her book recommendations and her screaming to pop music on the radio. Fuck, he even missed her screaming at him. 
And what a way to make his longing worse, being stuck with the dead ringer of his ex-girlfriend, only to find she was nothing like Elle, which Harry almost hated more. 
Y/N wouldn’t yell at him when he got angry but rather cry, her tears always sending a sharp pain to his chest. And Y/N didn’t pretend nothing worried her or upset her, she was open and honest. When Harry hurt her, he knew, not because she ignored him or called him a prat. No, he knew because she told him, even if it was with tears streaming down her face and a few “assholes” mixed in there. Y/N didn’t call Harry’s hobbies stupid, she liked them too, even had her own silly ones herself. She enjoyed baking, doing puzzles, and reading out loud to herself. She liked Disney movies and hated horror and loved cider but not beer. 
And Harry found himself not hating her at all, but rather himself. Because somehow, within his heartbreak, he had managed to become attracted to someone who looked and acted exactly like his ex on the surface but was someone completely different in every other way. He couldn’t treat her like Elle, couldn’t pretend she’d hurt him just as bad, and he knew that.
No, Y/N was a completely new risk and a new potential heartbreak. Harry was terrified, and this new territory that at first felt so familiar, made his chest ache and his tummy flutter, so he avoided it altogether. Pushed her away before anything could even happen at all, for his own good, to protect a heart that couldn’t take being broken again.
The two of them sat there for what felt like hours. Until Harry’s sobs slowed themselves down, and he was only shivering and sniffling quietly. Y/N continued to hold him, it seemed like he just really needed to be held.
Elle had clearly broken his heart, and Y/N knew that a part of healing was letting this anger and emotion run rampant. So she stayed put, allowing him to just sit in the sadness, and allow himself to feel a little bit of hope that everything would work out eventually. 
“It’s okay Harry. It’s going to be okay.” 
——
Y/N wasn’t sure this was a good idea. How could it be? Not even a few days ago, she and Harry couldn’t stand being in the same room as each other, and now they were alone in a car, on their way to the grocery store. It all felt too domestic.
But this was Harry, and she definitely shouldn’t be worried about the state of her car, or how to subtly remove the McDonalds wrapping on the floor in front of his feet. Just as Harry, after being handed the aux cord, probably shouldn’t have spent half the journey wondering if she liked the song that was playing and looking out of the corner of his eye to judge whether he should skip it or not. 
But here they were, walking on eggshells around each other. Hoping they both wouldn’t do something to accidentally piss off the other. 
If you’d told Harry a week ago that he would be on the way to the grocery store with Y/N by his side, he probably would’ve laughed and faked a gag. But Harry was actually the one who had suggested the trip, much to the surprise of not only Y/N but the rest of the housemates. 
They hadn’t exactly addressed his breakdown, but it seemed they’d both come to a mutual understanding to try and put the past behind them. Harry considered himself lucky, he knew he had caused and furthered the rift in their friendship, and it was because of this he knew he had to put more effort into building the trust between them back up. 
So, when Y/N was recounting the ingredients for the dinner she was planning on making, Harry had asked if she’d just come to save him remembering the long list. Y/N’s first thought was she could probably just write it down for him before she realised he was actually trying to be nice. And that was more than she could say for the last month of her living with him, so she agreed.
The grocery store was busy, filled with impatient mothers and fun-drunk teens, and Y/N was having trouble pushing the cart through the throngs of people. Harry was walking ahead of her, too preoccupied with his list (and she supposes himself) to notice her struggle and she’s never been one to ask for help. So instead tries her best to avoid the ankles of other shoppers and attempts to keep up with the cracking pace Harry had set. 
It’s only when he turns around to find her ten feet behind him, does Harry acknowledge her, his eyebrows pinched in annoyance, “what’s taking you so bloody long?” To say Y/N was taken aback would be an understatement. After everything, he’d manage to stay friendly for what, half a day?
“Excuse me? Doing so well at being friendly Harry, might want to pull it back, before I get the wrong impression.” 
Maybe it was Y/N’s sarcastic words that pulled Harry back, or perhaps he realised himself, but he really hadn't meant to be rude. At first, it was more of a joke, but he guessed that he’d become so accustomed to being snarky with Y/N, it’d come out a lot more maliciously than he’d intended.
“Fuck, what? No- I didn’t mean it like that. I was tryin’ to joke, but it came out wron- Fuck! I’m sorry, okay?” Somewhere in the middle of Harry’s rambling, Y/N starts to giggle. While she had taken it the wrong way, she was mature enough to understand she’d simply interpreted it wrong. 
“Harry relax, look like you're about to pass out. Sorry I took it the wrong way,” she shrugs, “now, where are the pickles? I’ve been craving them for weeks.” Harry’s slightly taken aback, he’d never met someone who could put an extremely valid argument behind them with such ease. 
Harry wouldn’t have blamed Y/N if she’d gotten angry with him, stomped her feet, made a fuss and yelled in his face, after all, he had spoken to her like a prick. But just like that, she had defused the argument and made Harry feel better instantly, even though he was in the wrong. Nonetheless, he follows her through the isles, making sure to help her steer the trolley when the crowd was busiest. 
Harry had actually started to enjoy himself on this trip, he wasn’t going to lie. Y/N had an easy going way about her that he hadn’t really bothered to notice before. It made it easy to chat about nonsensical things, including Harry’s first dog and his preferred brand of nail polish while they peruse the aisles. He was doing all he could to make sure the rest of the trip didn’t contain any silly arguments like the one that had almost sparked just ten minutes before, and he believes he was doing a good job. 
After stopping by the fruit aisle for some cherries (they were in season, and there was no way Y/N was missing out on the tiny period they were in season for, even if they were ridiculously overpriced,) they reach the aisle that contains pickles. Finally, Y/N had been craving them for weeks, and nothing could stop her now, not even the fact that they were on the top shelf. Y/N’s brows pinch in annoyance, who put pickles that high up anyway? 
She halfheartedly sticks her hand in the air, her fingers barely brushing against the bottom of the jar before looking behind her, watching Harry laughing at her struggle. “Are you going to help me or just keep that smug smile on your face?” 
This makes Harry’s smirk upturn even more, turning into a full boyish grin, dimples and all. “Say please sweetheart, and I might just consider it.” 
Y/N rolls her eyes, “please,” and although it is sarcastic and hardly genuine Harry takes it, walking over and reaching for the last jar of pickles. 
What happens next could be blamed on many different factors; the humidity in the supermarket being higher than the average store, it could be blamed on Harry’s sweaty fingers or maybe even the worker who decided to put them on the top shelf in the first place. 
Whatever the fault, Harry grabs the container and almost delivers it safely to the cart, until it slips from his grip and instead ends in a puddle of shattered glass, stray pickles and dripping juice. And of fucking course it’s the last jar, and of fucking course it’s Harry who drops it, right in front of the girl who’s been craving them for so long. 
Harry is almost scared to look up at Y/N’s face, knowing he was more than likely going to be met with a pouting, red, furious mix. She really had been talking about the fucking pickles for weeks, and after both Jeff and Sarah had forgotten to get them in the last two shopping trips, he can imagine her desperation.
It’s as if time was working in slow motion, Harry sees the residue pickle juice dripping from the handle of the shopping trolley, can feel his sock getting progressively wetter as the liquid seeps into his canvas sneaker. And Harry immediately starts to apologise, “fuck I’m so sorr-“ but is interrupted by Y/N manically laughing. Well, he had expected a lot of different reactions, but he hadn’t expected… laughter?
“How did that even happen,” she gets out through her laughter, “you’re an idiot!” Harry can’t help but join in. He was covered in pickle juice, and in hindsight, the situation was pretty funny. “Oi, ‘s not my fault the jar was more slippery than the average.” This only makes Y/N cackle harder, holding her stomach as though it was hurting. 
“Hold on, I’ll get something to clean it up.” As Harry watches Y/N walk away, probably to find a worker, he can’t help but think again how different Y/N was from Elle. Harry distinctly remembers shopping with her one Christmas and accidentally dropping the last box of red and white candy canes (what can he say, he can be a right clutz.) She had been shaking with fury, voice dripping with poison as she asked Harry why he was “such a fucking idiot?” He guesses she was stressed because of the time of the year, but Harry had always hated her vicious temper, which Y/N apparently lacked. 
Harry had only really seen Y/N angry or upset until now, but he could safely assume that was of his own doing. When they were getting along, she seemed to make him feel better without even trying. She could laugh despite herself, and poke fun at Harry without feeling like she was actually reprimanding him for something, and Harry, well he hadn’t really experienced that before.
Harry sees Y/N returning, with what looks to be a less than impressed worker following behind her. That is until she sees Harry standing there in all his six-foot glory, covered in pickle juice. 
She seemed to be around 20, with blonde hair braided into two plaits that sat around her neck. She had bright green eyes, and if she was a little older, Harry probably would have said she was cute. And by the looks of it, she would’ve revelled in such treatment, when she approaches Harry with a, “I’m so sorry, Mr Styles!” Harry waves off the apology, he had been the one to drop the pickles anyway. “No worries love, ‘m sorry bout’ the mess.” 
It’s like her eyes brighten two shades at the pet name as she begins to sweep up the broken glass, blushing as she does, “oh don’t even worry! Can see you made a mess of yourself as well.” Y/N can’t help but laugh, was she actually trying to flirt with a pickle stained Harry? He catches Y/N laughing behind the worker and grins, “sure did. I’m a bit of a clutz sometimes.” 
Now, Harry knew that his personality was very likeable, he was easy to talk to, and he wasn’t exactly bad to look at, so he was somewhat used to casual flirting. Who was he to pull up someone trying to shoot their shot? Usually, he preferred to go along with it, stay polite and at the end of the interaction, cut the conversation before anything serious came of it. And the girl (Hannah, according to her name tag) standing in front of him, cleaning his mess, was no exception. 
“Can see that,” she winks. Actually, fucking winks and Harry can’t help but feel slightly smug, his presumption had clearly been correct. He doesn’t see the harm in playing along, “oh can you? Thought customer service was all about being nice to the customer,” he teases lightly. Hannah giggles flirtatiously and if Harry thought she was blushing before, his effect on her is multiplied. “I’m nice, I promise!” 
Y/N almost gags, she hated PDA at the best of times, but to see them both drooling over each other made her feel sick to her stomach. Harry’s smooth reply does nothing to quell her nausea, “mhm, I bet.” Y/N would literally rather walk home than be subjected to this torture any longer. “Okay! Thanks again for being so understanding, c’mon Harry, we better get going.” 
Harry thanks the server again, giving her a small wave and a cheeky grin as he follows Y/N to the counter to check out their items. “Really, Harry? She looked about 15 years younger than you.” Harry scoffs, “fifteen years?! You think she was twelve, do you? How old do you think I am?” 
Y/N doesn’t hesitate to respond, “old enough to know better than to flirt with someone so young.” 
He couldn’t believe she was pulling this. Harry was a flirty person naturally! He never meant anything by it, and very well knew when it was appropriate and when it definitely wasn’t. He didn’t see how a little friendly conversation could hurt in this situation. “Oh please, she was at least twenty, and I was hardly flirtin’” As the worker is scanning their items, Y/N is packing them into the reusable shopping bags. “Still gross.” 
Was Y/N jealous? For a second, Harry felt the frustration swim through his veins like poison, but the knowledge of Y/N potentially acting out of envy acts as an antidote. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous lovey.” It was Y/N’s turn to scoff. If she’s honest, she’s not sure why the sight of Harry flirting with the server annoyed her so much. She was young, but Harry was right, she was very clearly of age and also stunning. 
Maybe it was the fact she hadn’t acknowledged Y/N with more than an eye roll but readily grovelled at Harry’s feet. It could’ve been leftover frustration from the pickles she would have to hold out from for another week. Or maybe it was that she didn’t like him calling someone else ‘love.’ Perhaps she was just frustrated that it had taken her months for Harry to be civil with her, but had taken ‘Hannah’ all but five minutes. Whatever the reason, she didn’t like the pit in her stomach or the tingling in the tips of her fingers. “Not a chance, Harry.” 
Harry just smiled in response, while Y/N felt waves of negative emotions rolling through her, he felt butterflies erupting from the pit of his tummy, a small fluttering reaching all the way to his heart. Harry was ready to admit, Y/N’s jealousy made him happy. He was a narcissist; that he knew, and a pretty girl getting frustrated that his attention wasn’t purely focused on her, made his vain little heart soar. 
This little shopping expedition had given both of them huge revelations. Harry realised, the thought of Y/N being jealous over him made him extremely happy, and maybe even gave him some new spank bank material? Y/N realised that while she and Harry could be civil, it didn’t mean they didn’t know the exact places to poke and prod at each other to cause a reaction. 
——
It was Y/N's turn to pick a card, and although she'd initially been hesitant to play this game, she could admit she was having fun. When Harry had first pulled out 'Truth, Dare or Drink,' her first instinct was to ridicule him and say, "I didn't realise we were still in eighth grade," but she bit her tongue. After the supermarket, she still felt like she was continually filtering everything she said, worried a single word may be the negative turning point for their relationship. 
And well, after a few rounds, Y/N realised the game was much too risky for a bunch of eighth-graders and found some questions too intrusive even for her adult self to answer. However, with the help of at least half a bottle of chardonnay, she found herself managing just fine. Jeff had called it a night a few rounds ago, claiming he was "getting too old for this shit," but it didn't stop the rest of the group from playing.  
"Okay, ask the player to your left what their favourite sex position is. If they can't answer- both of you drink four sips." Immediately, Y/N turns to Sarah, who happens to be sitting on her left and also happens to be bright red. With a quick, "come on babe, all friends here," from Harry, Sarah buries her head in her hands before mumbling, "from behind." The answer causes an eruption of giggles and hollers from the very tipsy group and a sly smirk from Mitch, making Y/N laugh harder. 
"Alright shut up you lot," Sarah grumbles before picking up her own card. "Dare one player to share their best and worst hookup, or both of you finish your drinks. Okay, well the only one mean enough to name and shame would be Harry, so off you go H." This is met with a disgruntled, "oi" from the man in question and a casual "not wrong," from Mitch. While Harry huffs, he seems to have no issue and responds immediately, almost like he had the answer on the tip of his tongue. 
"Best was Elle, obviously. And worst, um," he deliberates for a few seconds before continuing, "was this guy I met in Brazil, he was awful! Didn't even prep my poor arse, just went straight in for the kill. Was scarred for months." He's met with roaring laughter, and at first, he tries to look pissed but ends up giggling along with them. While his poor bum really had taken a beating that night, in hindsight it was a funny sex horror story for a drunken night. "C'mon Mitchy boy, your turn." 
Mitch picks up the card and immediately scoffs, "This one's to all players, take two sips if you have ever been attracted to someone else currently playing this game." Unsurprisingly both Mitch and Sarah drink, sending cheeky winks over their cups to each other. But what shocks every player at the table is both Y/N and Harry lifting their glasses. They make eye contact with each other as they are sipping and Harry raises a questioning eyebrow towards her. 
Y/N quickly looks over to Sarah, to see her sitting with her own bewildered look, glancing between them. She had known Y/N enjoyed Harry's music, but maybe didn't know how much she also fancied him- that is until she had a conversation with him. 
"So you've either had the hots for me, my girlfriend or the chick you hate, nice H," a very inebriated Mitch says with a laugh. If Y/N hadn't already been watching him, she might have missed the flash of guilt that flickers through Harry's eyes. He looks over at her with an apologetic look, "I never said I hated-" 
"It's fine, Harry. Just pick a card, it's your turn." Y/N interrupts him, she wasn’t going to lie and say that it didn’t sting. However, while she knew they'd come to a newfound understanding, Y/N was well aware that it had initially come from Harry's resentment of her. He sighs but picks up a card anyway, pausing some, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks, before reading it aloud. "Uh... give the person to your left a hickey, or finish your drink." At first, Y/N laughs until she realises that the person sitting to his left would be her. 
In an attempt to lighten the situation, Y/N spits out, "go on, start drinking then." Mitch and Sarah start to laugh, "I could've called that one," Sarah chuckles, but Harry looks rather unimpressed. While she actually didn't care if Harry were to give her a hickey, (let's be real he was a dick, but a hot one at that!) she knew he would be thoroughly put out by it. They had become civil, not ‘drunkenly-give-one-another-a-hickey’ level friends.
"I'm not the one with the problem. I doubt he'd wanna kiss on the girl he hates." Y/N had meant it to be a joke, she really had! But the underlying biting tone would be almost impossible to miss. She was definitely playing with fire here, knowing Harry could snap at any moment. She watches as Harry's nostrils flare slightly before he bites back, "no problem here, you're just scared you'd enjoy it too much sweetheart." At that Y/N scoffs, his arrogance never ceased to amaze her, "oh please, don't give yourself so much credit, Harry."  
He laughs, "are you saying you wouldn't?"
"Almost certain of it," she quickly retaliates. Now, Harry knew he was a dick. He knew he could be impatient and rude. Was aware of his short temper and sometimes biting passive-aggressiveness. Had been well informed of his bad habit of sometimes oversharing and even bragging too much. Even knew how annoying his constant discussion of the superiority of salads to veggies could get on the nerves of those around him. 
But the one thing Harry knew for sure, was that he was good at fucking. He loved to see the person he was with, shaking with pleasure below him. Thoroughly enjoyed giving his partner everything he had, to hear them screaming his name with their eyes rolled back in pleasure. Harry liked having sex, and on account of others, Harry was fucking good at it. So Y/N sitting there, doubting he could make her feel all amazing and jittery, probably pissed him off more than it should have. 
"Fucking c' mere then." While Harry had merely said that in the heat of the moment (and possibly to get a rise out of Y/N) he was beyond shocked when she actually got up and stood before him. "I'm here. Now what smartass?" His jaw ticks and he raises an eyebrow, silently questioning Y/N's challenge. Did she really want to get involved in this? Surely she knew Harry would come out victorious. Apparently not, because she crosses her arms and scoffs, "knew you were all talk." 
Now Y/N doesn't want to admit she's intimidated because god this was Harry she was thinking about. However, when he grips her arms, flips her around and pushes her back into the chair he was just occupying, Y/N can't exactly say she's fine and dandy. 
Harry was much taller than her when they were both standing up, but with her sitting down, he towers above her, and she can't help but feel childlike and demure. His shit-eating grin only grows when he sees that, and he slowly bends down until his cologne infiltrates Y/N's nostrils and fills her head with a fog she can't quite get rid of. "What was that, darling?" 
Y/N is willing herself to say anything, literally anything that wouldn't fuel his already raging ego. If she's honest the barely mumbled, "um, nothing," doesn't really cut it, but what was she to do? Before she'd met Harry, Y/N probably would've considered his looks to be something akin to her ‘dream guy.' So, when he places his hands on each armrest beside her, essentially trapping her, it doesn't exactly help to calm her nerves. Harry oozed sex, and if the look in his eye was anything to go off, he knew it. 
As his face becomes level with hers, Y/N can smell the sweet apple cider he had been drinking and can feel the bottom of his unbuttoned shirt brushing against the tops of her thighs. And for the second time that month, Y/N wonders if she should move away from the compromising position she and Harry had found themselves in, but she once again decides against it. Harry places his hand against the side of her neck, hooking his thumb under her jaw. He encourages her to move her head further to the side with some gentle pressure, which she happily obliges to. 
Y/N can't help but inhale sharply when she feels his slightly chilled lips gently brush against her earlobe, before placing a tender kiss behind her ear. "Is this okay?" If Y/N were in a better headspace, she might have tried to play this whole thing off with an indifferent nod. Instead, she feels herself nodding rapidly, and takes a moment to curse herself as she feels Harry's lips curl into a grin at her eagerness. 
Harry allows his lips to run down the side of Y/N's neck so lightly he knew it must be tickling her. Once he reaches her collarbone, he places a quick peck against it before once again trailing his lips up her soft skin, leaving light kisses in his wake. Y/N's breathing stops as she feels Harry's tongue touching her skin as he begins his ascent, leaving a chilling trail that sends shivers through her whole body. 
She feels herself slipping into a hazy state, in which all control was given to Harry, and while her first instinct is to break it, her second is to bask in it. Her decision is hastily rewarded when Harry starts to suction his lips against her. 
Y/N actively silences the whimper that arises from her throat as Harry continues to bruise the skin he kisses, and she briefly wonders if he had heard the beginnings of her mewl as he chuckles, sending a gust of cold hair down her neck. Harry gently bites down on Y/N's throat, which causes a small sting, the aftershocks travelling all the way down to her toes. But his tongue laving over the mark works to quickly soothe the ache. 
While she felt as if she had sat feeling the effect of Harry's mouth for hours, it had only been about ten seconds in reality. But the familiar pull in Y/N's lower stomach screams at her to ignore time, grab his shirt and push her mouth against his. However, the cough heard from behind her, quells these dirtier thoughts almost immediately. And just like that, as quickly as it had come, the pleasuring warmth Harry provided was gone. 
Y/N struggles to flutter her eyes back open, that she hadn't realised had even closed in the first place. 
Well, she wasn't expecting that, and while she assumed Harry would feel the same, his deep smirk tells her something different. He looks at her with a hunger in his eyes, and she briefly wonders if he felt the same pull towards her. Y/N was fighting the urge to drag him to the nearest bedroom and instead clears her throat and looks behind her to assess Mitch and Sarah's reactions. 
Safe to say, they were as shocked as she was, with gaping mouths and wide eyes, everyone sits in silence for what feels like far too long. Y/N was embarrassed. Usually, she hated PDA, yet she'd just let Harry suck on her neck like some kind of B-grade vampire in front of her cousin and her boyfriend. 
Y/N stands back up to move around to her own chair, but with her head down, she misses Harry reaching to brush his knuckles against her own, but only feels the comforting touch. Harry watches as she refuses to meet his eye, and while he enjoyed himself, he hoped he hadn't gone too far with her. But when Sarah grabs her head and pulls it to the side to see the blooming mark on Y/N's skin, Harry can't help but smirk and feel slightly proud. Y/N had said she was okay with him touching her, maybe she was just flustered, and if her bright red cheeks were anything to go by, that's Harry's safest guess. "Jesus H, you really did a number on her." 
Y/N refused to acknowledge the effect Harry had instilled upon her, but she can feel her cheeks radiating a cherry-red heat, and she can only pray no one else notices. "Uh, it's my turn," she manages to choke out, and a quick glance at Harry shows she's not hiding her flustered state as well as she'd hoped. His dimples are on full display, decorated with his complacent grin, and he's sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over one another. 
"Pick the most attractive player, both of you take three sips," you've got to be fucking joking, she was pretty sure everyone knew her answer to that, but she refused to give him the satisfaction. "It's Sarah. Who's next?" Sarah cheers' Y/N's glass and takes her sips as she grabs the next card. 
Y/N can see Harry's disgruntled look and can vaguely hear his murmured, "bullshit," but she only sends him a glare as she takes her three sips. 
——
Harry was drunk. No cut that, he was fucked. It was approximately six ciders ago that he began to feel light and giggly. And then maybe two or so ciders ago he began to have trouble walking in a straight line and was genuinely considering shaving his head. And now, he was here. Planted on the couch watching Y/N and Sarah sing some song he definitely knew but couldn't name, Taylor Swift maybe? 
His head felt heavy, and if he was honest, thoughts were entering his head and then leaving it before he could even acknowledge what they were. He can vaguely recognise Mitch's voice, talking about something that Harry, no matter how hard he tried, could actually listen to. So he sits on the couch and watches Y/N. She looked pretty with her hair down and messy, and Harry wishes he could stop her from dancing and ask if she could just sit next to him instead. But he thinks he's probably just drunk and maybe a bit lonely, so he doesn't. 
He's not sure if he was calling Y/N's name and hadn't realised or if she had noticed how not okay he seemed, but she approaches him anyway. "Harry, are you alright?" She looks worried, and Harry hates that he's made her feel that. He's tempted to use his thumb to mould the lines in her forehead back out like cheap clay, but he's not sure she'd want him to touch her. So he nods lightly, attempting a smile, but she doesn't return it. 
"Sarah, I'm gonna take Harry up to bed, he seems pretty gone." Harry doesn't hear Sarah's response because he's too busy focusing on Y/N's lips and how pretty and puffy they are. He briefly wonders what they'd feel like around the head of his cock, but he's drawn out of those thoughts when he realises she's calling his name. 
"Harry, c'mon, come upstairs to bed with me." Um, had Harry missed something? He doesn't really mind, truthfully he'd quite like to take Y/N upstairs and have his way with her, but, Y/N must see the look on his face because she laughs, "not like that you lecher! God, you really are pissed." 
Harry smiles and takes the hand she's giving him, wrapping his arm around her shoulders for stability. The group had experienced quite a few drunken nights during isolation, but Y/N had never seen Harry this intoxicated before and while she's quite enjoying him acting kind of goofy, she's just praying he doesn't vomit on her during their climb upstairs. 
Y/N does her best to guide Harry to his room, who provides absolutely no help, only giggling to himself as she struggles to hold him up. Finally, she makes it, only realising once she had stepped inside, that she had never actually seen Harry's room before. 
Similarly to Y/N’s, his room has the shell of a guest bedroom, the art on the walls a little too unpersonalised and the furniture stark and white. The bones of the room are fleshed out with Harry’s belongings, clearly in random places that were not permanent, as if he’d placed his records and guitar down the first day he got there, and left them in those exact same places. There are dirty clothes strewn upon the floor, and books sitting next to glasses stacked neatly on the bedside table. Next to them, is a candle that Y/N can’t read the scent of from her position in the doorway, something sweet from the smell permeating through the room, mixing intoxicatingly with Harry’s telltale sandalwood like cologne. 
Harry stands in the middle of the room, clearly having forgotten his purpose as he turns to look back at Y/N with a slightly lost expression. "Want to get into bed Harry?" He nods and stumbles over to his mattress, falling rather than laying in it. As Y/N's about to turn around to go back downstairs, she hears Harry's voice, much quieter than it usually is, "I'm sorry." She's not sure if she heard him correctly. 
"What did you say, Harry?"
"I'm sorry." He whispers. 
"For what?" Y/N knows what he could be sorry for, he did treat her like shit for weeks, but they’d already apologised and somewhat buried the hatchet. "For bein' a dick. You don't deserve it, never did." She walks closer to him, until she stands about a foot from the bed, and can see Harry's eyes full of sorrow and close to tears in the dark. 
"Come on, you're just drunk. If you want to talk about it more in the morning, we can." Y/N knows he'll forget by then, she's not sure he even remembers what he just said. He holds his hand out to her, and she hesitantly takes it, "ya just look so much like her, you know? Act like her too." Harry repeats the same words he’d told you yesterday. 
"Who, Harry?" 
He looks at her with his big green eyes, and she knows he's drunk, and she knows he'll forget this all in the morning, but she can't help but sit down beside him on the bed. 
"Elle." 
Y/N didn’t know what to say to that. She didn’t want Harry to burst into tears again, the topic clearly sensitive, let alone in his intoxicated state. So she stays silent, watches as Harry shuts his eyes, and Y/N nearly thinks he’s fallen asleep, until he reopens them again, "nicer than her though. Prettier too." 
Y/N's not going to lie, hearing Harry talk about her in a way that wasn't entirely negative for once was flattering, but she couldn't help but feel it was more the cider talking. She knew how much he missed Elle, that much was obvious, and she had thought that was what had made him hate her so much. She was worried he would wake up angry that he had told her things he hadn't intended to, or even worse, something he hadn't meant. 
So she leans over him to grab the side of the bedsheet he had torn away, but his freezing hand on her neck causes her to pause. His thumb is lightly brushing over the mark he left on her earlier, and Y/N audibly swallows. He was close enough that he could lean in slightly and press his lips against the same spot once more, but he doesn't, only whispers, "looks so good on you." Y/N feels his warm breath against her bare neck as he speaks, causing that pull to return to her lower stomach once more, "H, I don't think we should do this right now." 
Y/N didn’t know what exactly ‘this’ was, she just knew she didn’t want either of them to be intoxicated when it happened. The Harry Y/N knew, would pull back, laugh and ask if she really thought he'd ever want to do 'this' with her, but this intoxicated and unpredictable Harry presses his lips softly to her neck once, before pulling back and sighing. "I know." 
He studies her face carefully before speaking again. "You've never called me H before, I like it." Y/N sighs, "honestly I didn't think we were on that level. Thought you'd get mad at me," she laughs lightly although what she said was true. 
She had thought about adopting the same nickname everyone else in the house used but was too scared he would make fun of her or ask her why she felt she had the right to call him that. So she played it safe, only calling him Harry, but she guessed the nickname slipped out while he was very much inebriated and very much unlikely to say any word of opposition. 
If Y/N didn't know any better, she'd think Harry looked almost hopeful as he whispered, "so we are now?" but the expression is fleeting. She wants to feed into it but isn't sure if it's more her mind playing tricks on her. Showing her things she desperately wants to be true, only to turn around a reveal it was fake the whole time. So she shrugs, "I don't know Harry." 
He nods slowly but doesn't say anything else. "Try to get some sleep." He nods again, "night." 
"Night H." 
——
Harry doesn't know what happened. Had he been drugged? Used as a voodoo doll? Abducted by aliens? Something had happened, because when he woke up with a pounding head, his first feeling was disappointment. But not disappointment about having to nurse a shocking hangover, no, it was disappointing that Y/N wasn't in bed with him. He could’ve sworn she had come upstairs with him. 
Harry was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he didn't hate her and perhaps, just maybe had developed a small crush towards her. But wishing she was cuddling him after a drunken night? That was too close to something serious, something that Harry was definitely not ready for. Not after Elle. 
Walking down the stairs, he wonders if there's a reason for his sudden desperation? He vaguely remembers giving her a hickey, but that was a part of the game. He remembers Y/N walking into his room and sitting on his bed, but can’t recall what was actually said. 
Stepping into the kitchen, feels the same as usual, maybe with added head pain. Mitch is doing the dishes from the breakfast sitting on the table in front of Y/N and Sarah. Everything seems painfully familiar. Except, looking at Y/N now, with sober goggles and daylight, Harry completely understands why drunk him was so enamoured. She looks beautiful, with an oversized tee-shirt barely covering her smooth legs, her hair in a messy bun atop her head, and the striking hickey against her neck painfully obvious. Seeing Y/N with his mark against her neck makes Harry have to will his stiffy away. She hadn't even tried to hide it.
Harry doesn't know how long he'd been standing in the entrance of the kitchen, staring at Y/N like a creep, but she catches his eye and sends him a shy smile. "Mornin' H, brekkies on the table," Mitch states, as Harry quickly returns the smile Y/N gave him and sits across from her, "looks good, man. Thanks for cooking." 
Harry is slightly shocked when Y/N speaks up from the other side of the table, he had been expecting her to ignore him like she had after he’d given her the mark that was causing a tingle in his lower tummy. "How's your head?" She says softly. 
He gives her a small grin, "it's been better if'm honest." She laughs, "yeh, you were pretty fucked last night." Harry can't tell if she's genuinely just making conversation or if she's trying to figure out if he remembered the events that occurred. "Was I? Not too drunk to remember giving you that," he points at her neck with his syrup covered fork. His words have their desired effect as Y/N turns bright red, "really does look good on you love." 
Harry's not sure what he's doing, he's aware of how flirty he is being. While they were now able to be around each other and have a conversation without biting each other’s heads off, hitting on each other was a whole different ball game. All he knows is that the more he looks at Y/N, the more he wants to get on his knees before her. 
Harry had never flirted so openly with Y/N before. What the fuck was he playing at? Y/N had assumed that Harry became a tad clingy and loving with a few drinks in his system. So as he sits across from her, dead sober, and continues to flirt with her, Y/N is confused. Maybe he was still drunk? Had he taken something she wasn't aware of? Been probed in the middle of the night? She wasn't sure, but she couldn't say she didn't like it. 
She also didn't want to get too comfortable, only for him to turn around and treat her as horribly as he had when she first got here. So she gives him a small smile and continues to eat her breakfast, merely listening to the conversations happening around her. 
——
No matter how hard she tried, Y/N could not get the thought of Harry off her mind. Could still feel the ghost of his lips trailing along her neck, and the way his hand brushed along hers. She couldn’t help but imagine the way his lips would feel pressing softly against her own, his tongue licking into her mouth. She imagines his hands to be soft but still firm as they held her hips, her neck, her own fingers laced in his. His voice replays in her head, and she wonders how his accent would twirl and twist around filthy words, whispered into the shell or her ear. 
 She can't forget how she felt hearing the lilt of his voice when it was flirting with someone else. Can’t get away from the pit in her stomach, the aching head and chest. She had laid awake for so many nights trying to figure out why exactly it had bothered her so much. 
She could only amount it all to a certain type of jealousy, but what was she jealous of? Harry had never shown her any sort of romantic attention before, that is until he was suckling at her neck and calling her sweetheart. But what did it all mean? Did he feel the same pull towards her, or was she just imagining his sudden fondness of her? Did she actually like him, or just the idea of his lips pressed against hers rather than her neck. She needed to talk to someone, and thank goodness for her, Sarah was home. 
Ever since they were little Sarah and Y/N had been ridiculously close. They had experienced each stage of their lives together, from playing at the local playground to trying their first cigarette in the bathroom of Sarah’s family home. Sarah was the big sister that Y/N had never had, always there for advice or a bit of fun. Teaching her about sex and drinking, what it was like to kiss another person or drive a car for the first time. Sarah explained everything with practiced expertise that looking back on, Y/N could see she definitely didn’t have at the time.  
Their family homes were only a road apart, and every day either Y/N or Sarah would make the small trek to each other’s house and spend hours discussing nothing and everything. Sarah was the closest thing Y/N had ever had to a sibling, and after Sarah had left for tour with Harry and the band, Y/N had felt a Sarah sized hole in her heart. Honestly, for Y/N, quarantine felt like a blessing in disguise, she felt like they could make up for the months of lost time and distance between them. 
In search of her cousin, Y/N only comes across Mitch reading in the living room, “hey, do you know where Sarah is?” He glances at Y/N from above his book, owlishly blinking as if he was confused, and maybe he was. Mitch is well known for getting lost in anything he loves, from books and movies and especially in his music. “Um, the shower… I think?” 
Bidding him thanks, Y/N heads towards the downstairs toilet where she could hear the water running. While they all had bathrooms in their rooms, they’d found the downstairs communal shower particularly helpful. It was easy to slip into after they’d just come back from swimming at the beach or a run, without mucking salt water or sweat through the whole house. Y/N knew Sarah had gone out for a jog about an hour ago, so had no doubt she was having a quick wash before dinner. 
If it were anybody else, Y/N would’ve waited until they had finished, but ever since they were thirteen or so, Y/N and Sarah had an odd tradition of having intense conversations while one of them was showering. Y/N still remembers the week Sarah’s parents had decided to split up, she had spent every night sitting on the closed toilet seat crying and ranting while Y/N stood under the hot water, listening and trying her best to comfort her. It was a weird habit of theirs, but for them, the chance to chat with someone without having to look them in the eye was therapeutic, almost like a church confessional. 
Although Y/N was relatively happy, she wasn’t about to enter a religious confessional. When it came to Harry, she had definitely committed at least four of the seven mortal sins. No, it was just Sarah, and Y/N knew that no matter what she admitted, it would be received with love and unconditional support. So she charges through the bathroom door, eager to spill all that was muddling up her mind, “Sarah! We need to talk about Harry, I need your help.” 
Y/N expects Sarah’s tinkling laugh, soothing cooing, maybe even a big sigh and her calming voice asking her what was wrong. Instead, she is met with the deep and drawling laugh of Harry himself. 
Looking back now, Y/N wishes she could say she dealt with her mistake with careful grace and poise, but instead she lets out a bloodcurdling scream, and as she sees the shower curtain drawn to the left she slaps her hands over her eyes. The melodic laugh of Harry’s continues as he clearly notices her current predicament, “can look if you want babe.” 
Y/N whines, “I- um, no. I don’t- I thought you were Sarah. What the fuck is happening.” Y/N can hear the smirk in Harry’s voice as he answers, “yeh Y/N, I got that. Seriously, I’m covered up.” 
And maybe, it would’ve been better for Y/N to stay standing with her hands over her eyes like a petulant child because as she drops them, the sight she’s met with is one to behold and one Y/N’s not sure she can handle. Harry is covered with the shower curtain pulled across his bottom half, but Y/N trails her eyes upwards, sees the small trail of slightly damp hair leading down to the white curtain, and her eyes widen comically, he looks like a wet dream and Y/N’s not sure how to react. 
His curls are stuck to his neck and forehead, matted against the soft wet skin. His naturally tanned chest is on display, dripping with water, and covered in his tattoos. Y/N can’t help but notice the inked swallows along his chest, drawing attention to his collarbones, the skin taught against the bone, and Y/N wants to kiss along it and taste the mix of salt and sweetness of his neck. The butterfly covering his abs ripples as he clears his throat, drawing Y/N’s attention away from his body. 
“So what did you need to talk to Sarah about, hm?” Anything I can help you with?” Y/N can feel the blood rush to her cheeks, fully aware that Harry had caught her ogling at his partially naked body. Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth, and she’s not sure whether it’s from the sight in front of her or the embarrassment of being caught staring at it. 
Y/N stutters, trying to force herself to say something, anything at all that would make this situation less unnerving “um, I-no?” Which comes out more like a question than anything, and Y/N curses herself for her weak resolve. Harry smirks, “Cat got your tongue pet?” Y/N hates how easily he can get her worked up, and hates it even more how obvious it is to him. “Stop teasing me! I can’t, you know, I don’t-... you’re naked okay!” 
Harry’s dimples deepen, and a smirk takes over a little less than half of his face, “don’t pretend you don’t love my teasing, darlin’.” It’s at this point that Y/N realises that she had been in this situation much longer than appropriate, standing flustered and hot from Harry being so close to her while nude. 
“I need to go,” it comes out as more of a whisper, her voice rough with lust. She coughs as if to clear her throat, but from what she’s unsure. The intense desire she feels for a man she despised a month ago, perhaps? “Relax Y/N, no big deal. I think Sarah’s in the shower upstairs though if you’re still looking.”
She nods in response, slowly backing out of the room before turning around and quickly shutting the door behind her. She feels her breath heaving in and out of her lungs. Feels her throat tighten and her head dizzy, and an intense tingling feeling starts at her toes and spreads all the way to her lower tummy. The familiar pull of lust and need brings an ache to her core, and she feels the sticky heat between her legs. 
While Y/N may not know it, Harry is affected by her as much as she is by him. He stands in the shower, a stupid grin across his face, dimples indenting his cheek. Harry could pretend he didn’t see Y/N blatantly ogling him, or her cheeks burn a delicious crimson when she had gotten caught. Could even pretend he didn’t see her subconsciously squeezing her thighs together while she stood in front of him, like she was so desperate for Harry she couldn’t even wait to relieve the tension building inside of her. 
Harry could pretend not to notice, but as he felt a tingle zap down his spine, and the accustomed rush of blood to his lower half, Harry realised he didn't want to. Would rather explore this unnerving territory, and see what it had in store for him. 
——
Harry had reached a new level of boredom. So much so, he had resorted to doing a puzzle.
Harry was notorious for always being busy, was constantly on tour, playing shows and promoting his music. The quietest periods in Harry’s life were the months of writing he’d participate in, where his mind was anything but still. He wasn’t used to doing nothing all day, and while he had tried to write during isolation, the months of doing fuck all made inspiration hard to come by. 
So it led Harry to his current situation, trying to complete a challenging puzzle at the dining table. Sarah and Mitch were napping the late afternoon away, Jeff was playing Xbox games in the living room, and Y/N had gone for a walk, right after she had brought the puzzle out from her room after Harry had asked her to. He had heard her talking to Sarah about how much she loved puzzles a few months ago and had even shown her the one she had brought to quarantine; however, she hadn’t gotten the chance to start it yet. 
Harry had been doing nothing all day, and he was sick of sitting in bed, refreshing his Instagram feed every ten minutes. To be honest, a puzzle wouldn’t have been Harry’s first choice of a relaxing pastime activity, but there was only so much social media and movie marathons Harry could take. 
He was nervous at first to ask Y/N. Over the last few days, it seemed like there was a certain tension between them, as if they were both aware of the lust that had been swirling throughout the bathroom as thick as the steam from Harry’s shower, but didn’t want to admit it. They were testing the waters, sometimes stumbling through amorous conversations, while still attempting to maintain their indifference. 
However, he was slightly remorseful of his decision for a different reason, when he asked Y/N if he could borrow it from her, she had squealed in excitement, telling him her ‘top tips’ for completing a jigsaw for at least ten minutes. He guesses her passion and love for the shitty quarantine past time, overrode her awkward feelings towards their situation. If he was honest, Harry didn’t give a fuck about “making sure to find the corners first!” but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he nodded along and pretended to listen. 
But Harry had really come to regret his decision when he hadn’t found a piece in over an hour. He was frustrated and the stifling temperature Sarah insisted on keeping the house at, wasn’t helping. He had completed a small section at the top right corner, five or six pieces on the left, and a few random bits he had stuck together and somehow happened to get correct. He was slightly embarrassed when Y/N returned from her walk, to find him with his head in his hands, looking more than sorry for himself. Her tinkling laughter doesn’t make him feel any better, either. 
“Having trouble H?” 
He looks up to her standing in the doorway, attempting to plaster his award-winning grin upon his face, “if I’d known it was this hard I never would have asked if I could do it.” She grins back, and walks over to the table, looking down at the pieces with a concentrated focus. “Hm I never said it was going to be easy, thought my tips would help, but I guess not.” 
Harry tries yet another piece that doesn’t fit with the ones surrounding it, and sighs, “if the puzzle master wants to help, that would be lovely,” he lilts. She picks up the segment Harry had just dropped and places into the correct position on the opposite side of the puzzle that Harry had placed it in. “You’re flattering me now.” She hesitates for a tick, “lucky for you, I like it.” 
Harry loved this new dynamic between them, it was light and teasing, something he hadn’t had with her before. He’s not going to lie and say that he didn’t slightly enjoy the biting exchanges they had previously shared, but this flirty air between them was exciting.  
“I’ll keep that in mind pet. Now, what were those tips again?” 
It’s safe to say Harry was impressed with Y/N’s skill, he had never thought puzzles were that difficult until he actually tried to complete one. Y/N however, was fast, seemed to pick up pieces and instantly be able to connect to where they should go, and quickly finished at least ninety percent of the puzzle. Harry fit the odd part in place, which Y/N praised each time, with a small cheer and a “well done!” each time. Finally, the puzzle was almost complete with only one gap in the picture of golden retriever puppies climbing on one another. 
Y/N looks at Harry and hands him the last puzzle piece, “you should put the last bit in.” Harry can’t explain the warm glow that emits from his heart, he doesn’t know why it makes him so happy. She was kind and considerate, and Harry wasn’t used to people always putting him first, usually being doubtful of anyone he hadn’t known for a while, worried about what their true intentions were. “You sure? You did most of it.” She giggles, “nah, we did it together!” Harry takes the bit of cardboard from her and places it in the last empty spot. 
He looks up at Y/N who’s grinning at him stupidly, and he can’t help but smile back. It’s then that Harry starts to really look at Y/N. He notices the dusting of freckles on the top of her nose, her eyes laced with pride and happiness and her lips, the bottom one stuck between her two front teeth, but both looking so soft and sweet. Y/N must catch Harry staring at her lips because she releases the supple flesh from between her bite. 
“Did you have fun?” She whispers. 
Harry tries to reply, but his voice dies in his throat. All he can manage is a small nod, his gaze dropping back to Y/N’s mouth. He lifts his hand to her face, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear, and she leans into the touch slightly. Unknowingly, they had gotten even closer, and Harry can feel her small puffs of air against his lips, could brush them against hers if he leaned an inch forward. 
“Harry, what do you want to do for dinner?” Mitch yells from the room one over, scaring both Y/N and Harry, who instantly pull away from each other. Harry coughs, “um, I don’t know man.” 
Mitch walks into the room, Sarah in tow, who sees the completed puzzle on the table and runs over, “you finally did it Y/N!” Harry looks over to the girl in question. Her cheeks a cherry red as she looks over to Harry, “uh yeah, Harry and I did it together.” Sarah looks between them, with an impish look on her face mixed with slight disbelief, “oh, that’s… nice.” 
Harry’s attention is drawn away from Y/N when Mitch pipes up again, “I was thinking tacos, so we could make frozen margaritas for game night.” Harry is grateful for the change in topic, knowing Sarah was more than likely to make a comment that Harry was not ready to address. Particularly if Y/N had indeed continued the conversation she had planned to have with Sarah a few days ago when she’d walked in on Harry in the shower. 
“You know I’m always down for a margarita.” 
—— 
Y/N was slightly buzzed. She hated feeling entirely out of control when she drank, and she’d found the perfect point between dead sober and sloppy. She felt a warm feeling in her fingertips and toes, felt slightly light-headed and was just a tad obnoxiously giggly. The group had been playing monopoly, and while Y/N usually hated the game, she was thoroughly enjoying it tonight. 
Sarah had been helping Y/N, so she wasn’t so lost in terms of properties and the differences between houses and hotels. Jeff was as quiet as usual, but somehow had a secret talent for swindling properties and hoard money. Mitch had prioritised his margarita over the game, buying random properties when he felt like it, and fucking up everyone else’s plans of winning. And Harry had made it his mission to beat Y/N. If he was honest, he just loved seeing her pout every time he would buy whatever spaces were left of the colours she was aiming for, or teasing her every time she got a smaller roll than him. 
As Harry bought another green property that Y/N was gunning for, she realised she was nursing an empty glass. “Does anyone want another margarita?” Agreements come from all around the table, so Y/N gets up, grabbing a few empty glasses. As she stands, she feels the blood rush to her head, a slight dizziness tingling through her body, and she giggles as she stumbles towards the kitchen. 
Harry and Mitch had made the previous rounds, Y/N watching the first couple be made. Which meant she probably should remember the ingredients, but if she’s honest, the copious amount of alcohol running through her bloodstream has caused a lapse in her memory. Was she supposed to put one or two cups of ice in? Y/N curses herself and her shitty memory under her breath, realising she will definitely need help. She was clearly too tipsy to think coherently. 
“Oi, how much tequila do I put in? And is it Cointreau or triple sec? And how much ice do I use” She yells into the adjacent room, sighing slightly, hoping someone would come and help her. And she can’t explain her excitement when Harry rounds the corner, maybe because the pressure of making the drinks had been lifted, but more likely because it was simply him. He comes in with a smiling face, his hair slightly messed and his eyes filled with the misty happiness of someone who is perfectly buzzed. 
Y/N couldn’t quite describe the shiver that travels down her spine or the tension she feels in her stomach, all she knows is in the last few days, the intense feeling had begun to grow stronger whenever Harry was around. There was something about him, the way he carried himself, the shy smirks he’d give her, or the gentle touches he’d provide as he walked passed her. 
In every touch, every look and every feeling she got from Harry, Y/N could sense the tension growing stronger. She was amazed the rest of the group hadn’t picked up on it, other than Sarah of course, who was watching from the sidelines, waiting for one of them to crack. 
“What’s the problem bunny?” His eyes soft as he walks over to a defeated Y/N. He watches as her eyes crinkled slightly as she giggles despite herself, “I wanted to make everyone drinks, but I realised I don’t actually know how to.” She sheepishly watches Harry’s face mirror her own with a small grin, “well that just won’t do, will it? Sit on the counter n’ I’ll show you again.” 
She jumps on the kitchen bench, the surface cold against her otherwise alcohol flushed skin. She watches Harry gather the ingredients from around the kitchen, noticing the way his back strains against the white and yellow t-shirt he was wearing, the arch of his back clear and his shoulders strong and broad.
Over the past week or so, Y/N had started to see the funny and charming personality that the rest of the household had previously been privy to. His witty and sweet persona had shone through, and it had done nothing to curb the intense sexual feelings she felt towards him, instead they were only growing, especially with each pet name that his puffy pink lips shaped around. 
Harry begins to place the ingredients in the blender, and Y/N is confident he’s giving her instructions as he does so, but she is just so distracted by his strong fingers adorned by his shiny rings, each one a different shape and size. “Are y’listening?” 
She snaps her eyes back to his face, to see one side of his pretty mouth tugging upwards, suggesting he already knew the answer to his own question. “What are you lookin’ at my hands for?” She feels the warmth rush to the apples of her cheeks, sheepishly replying, “I was just looking at your rings, they’re very pretty.” 
He smiles and jokingly holds his hand up to her face, wiggling his fingers. Y/N chuckles and grabs his pointer finger, pulling it towards her to get a better look. She holds his hand while looking at the silver band wrapped around his digit, eyeing the small red ruby shining brightly in the centre of it, “like this one,” she whispers. He matches her volume, stepping closer in order to hear her, “it was my mums, she gave it to me after my first concert sold out. Her mum gave it to her after she got married.” She runs her finger over it gently, noticing the worn edges, and tries to imagine the many stories it had experienced in the hands of three generations. “It’s beautiful.” 
This felt like a moment for both of them. Obviously, Harry and Y/N had experienced many conversations and experiences before, but none quite like this. Harry feels the warmth from her body radiating into his, can feel the sweat from her hands as she holds his own. He can hear her calm breathing, the slow rise and fall of her chest. Of course, Harry had felt lust before, but he doesn’t think he’s ever wanted to kiss someone as badly as he does right now.
He can’t explain how desperately he wants to inch forward, hold her pretty face in his hands and press his lips against hers. Instead, he makes do, moving closer to her and feeling a bloom of happiness in his chest when she opens her legs for him to stand between with no hesitation. 
She smiles, his hand still nestled into hers, although her focus had moved far beyond his rings. It now laid solely on his face and the way he was looking at her. He rests his free hand on the counter beside her, close enough that she could feel the outside of his thumb brushing against her upper leg. 
Harry bites his tongue, he wants to say ‘so are you,’ but even he knows that’s cheesy. Plus he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries, he knows Y/N is attracted to him but is also fully aware that doesn’t equal consent. He settles for lightly brushing his thumb against her leg and watches as a shiver racks through her body. With a slight giggle, she grabs his other hand, that’s causing the mildly uncomfortable sensation, with her free one, “that tickles.” 
And Harry’s not a mind reader, but now they’re just holding hands, plain and simple. He doesn’t know if she feels the same heat and tension settling between their lips, but the way she leans in slightly, tilting her head to the left gives him an indication she does. It’s subtle, and if Harry hadn’t been sitting between her legs praying she’d do exactly that, he might not have picked up on it. But he does. 
He leans in too, leaving a slight gap between them. Y/N can feel the tiny puffs of air, leaving Harry’s mouth and drawing into hers and can feel the little tufts of hair tickling her forehead. 
She brushes her lips against his gently, testing the waters. He feels as soft and warm against her as she’d imagined. Y/N retracts slightly, unsure if she had overstepped a boundary. The only reaction she could read was a sharp inhale on his part, and she was worried that it wasn’t a positive sign. 
But she couldn’t have been more wrong. 
He lifts his hand from hers and places it against her neck, his hands big enough to tuck his thumb under her jaw, while still using the rest of his fingers to gently push her back against him.
She tasted so much better than he would’ve thought, sour from the margaritas with an underlying sweetness that he couldn’t put his finger on. Harry can barely hold in his groan when her tongue slides against his lower lip, and he gladly opens up further. He feels her whimper against his thumb before he hears it, the rumbling sending vibrations up his arm, leading him to feel dizzy. 
He feels Y/N rest her hands against his shoulders, sliding them over his neck and resting her forearms behind his head. She leans further into the kiss, somehow opening her legs further, her hips slightly bucking towards his own in a silent plea for friction. Harry doesn’t hesitate to give it to her, pressing himself against her and instantly feeling the effect of his actions. She runs one hand through the curls sitting at the back of his head, tugging gently and pushing her own hips back with as much vigour as he had.
That is until the click of heeled boots is heard echoing against the kitchen tiles. 
The speed at which Harry jumps away from his position between Y/N’s legs is comical, and she almost wishes she could see it from an outsiders perspective. However, not as much as she wishes Harry’s lips were back on her own. 
Y/N looks between the boy she had been kissing with his hair messy and fluffy, and the apparent growing bulge in his pants to the shocked Mitch standing in the entrance of the kitchen. His mouth hangs open comically, and his hands hang loosely by his sides. 
The silence is too much for both Harry and Y/N to bear and looking at Y/N’s face, now bright red, and brimming with embarrassment and stress Harry feels it’s his responsibility to put her slightly at ease. “Mitch… um look-” 
“What the fuck is going on here?” Harry doesn’t even get the chance to finish his sentence before Mitch is interrupting. Harry pipes up again, “it’s nothing!” Y/N can feel her brows turning downwards and the corner of her lips curling in annoyance. She knows Harry is more than likely trying to cover their asses, but Mitch had seen them kissing, and it didn’t make Harry downplaying everything hurt any less. 
Harry sees her face and quickly tries to backtrack, “well I mean not nothing… it’s something!” 
“No shit it’s something! How long have you guys been fucking for?” This time Y/N is the first to speak up, “we are not fucking! We haven’t even-“ she starts, completely flustered, her face somehow becoming even redder, “we just kissed!” Mitch bursts out laughing, as Y/N and Harry stay completely still, both absolutely mortified. 
“Alright mate, fuck off,” Harry grumbles, praying that Mitch would just leave the uncomfortable situation alone. And he does, still laughing as he finds his way back to the living room. Y/N has no doubt that he would go straight to Sarah and Jeff to share what he’d just seen. Harry turns to 
Y/N and while he tries to maintain a serious face for her sake, he can’t help but let out a small chuckle. 
It wasn’t the first time Mitch had walked in on him during a ‘private’ moment, some a lot worse than what he’d just witnessed. But Harry doubts any would be more shocking than the kiss Mitch had just seen. According to him, Y/N and Harry were at most on civil terms. So to see them, in a more than compromising position must have been a considerable shock to the system. 
“Why are you laughing, you ass?” While Y/N’s words are anything but kind, her face gives away her true feelings, a small grin peeking through. She wasn’t too concerned, Sarah already knew the current situation Harry and Y/N had found themselves in, as well as Y/N’s feelings on it. She was probably waiting for this very scenario to occur.
However, she was worried about where Harry and her would go from here. 
She knew he was attracted to her, he wouldn’t have kissed her otherwise. Y/N couldn’t help but think that maybe Harry had done it in the moment, and didn’t feel that same attraction all the time. What if he saw her leaning in and was pitying her? Y/N was terrified that now that Mitch knew, Harry would be too embarrassed to kiss her again. 
But Y/N’s worry is immediately put to hold when Harry grabs her hand again, “you’ve got to admit it’s funny.” He rubs his thumb against her knuckles, hoping to soothe any worry still running through her veins, “are you okay though?” Y/N smiles and squeezes his hand, “yeh, more than.” 
Harry leans in slowly, making sure that even though Y/N had claimed she was fine, that she would still be okay with him kissing her again. She doesn’t move away, instead moves closer and he smiles and presses a soft kiss against her lips. 
“We should probably get back out there,” he mumbles against her plush lips. She nods in response, squeezing his hand once more before jumping off the counter. “I’ll see you in the living room.” 
—— 
Harry didn’t regret kissing Y/N, not by a long shot. What he did regret, however, is two things. The first was agreeing to continue drinking with Mitch after everyone else had gone to sleep, and the second, kissing Y/N while intoxicated. 
He had enjoyed it, he knew that much. But he’s fully aware that he may not have gotten the chance to absorb every detail of the moment. He couldn’t forget the feeling of her lips against his or the way she bucked up against him. However, he is struggling to recall the way her hips felt under his fingertips, or whether or not he could smell the strawberry scented shampoo she used, that previously, he had only caught gusts of. 
Harry needs to know, when they kissed, did her eyebrows furrow the same way they do when she bites into a warm jam donut? Or when he slotted his hips against hers, did her mouth hang open, eyes shut tightly like when Sarah dug into the knots in her back? Did she make the same sounds Harry had already heard? Or were there some privy only to moments of privacy like the one her and Harry shared? He didn’t think to notice if the skin on her cheeks was as soft as it looked, or even if her hands held onto him as firmly as they had grasped onto the chair, the night Harry had first gotten so close to Y/N. 
Harry couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow hiked up mountainous terrain, dodged every jagged edge Y/N initially threw at him, stumbled through open conversations and insinuations. Felt he had somehow navigated overwhelming selfishness and every mixed feeling, to finally reach the top and for some stupid reason just close his eyes. He was only just able to smell the mountainside air and feel the rocky surface but was utterly blind to the magnificent sight in front of him. 
Harry was also worried that Y/N was too intoxicated to know what she was doing. Harry was big on consent, always had been, and he knew the chances of drunk him doing something Y/N wasn’t okay with was very unlikely, but what if? What if for some reason he couldn’t read the body language of the girl he had spent months admiring? Or what if she had said something of opposition and he hadn’t heard her? 
Harry was stressed, and the pounding headache beating through his head was definitely not helping. 
He knew the only way to make sure what happened last night was okay and enjoyable for both parties, was simply asking Y/N. So after going to the bathroom, splashing some cold water on his face and changing into some sweatpants, Harry makes the trek downstairs. 
He’s met with an interesting site. Mitch is sitting at the kitchen counter, head in his hands and shaking his head. Jeff is doing dishes and looks to be purposely clanging noisy dishes in front of Mitch and then laughing at each flinch racking from the man's body. While Y/N is standing at the stove, cooking something that Harry can’t decipher, in her cloud pyjama pants and a sweatshirt that looks suspiciously like his.
If Harry listens intently enough, he can hear her humming under her breath, a soft tune that lifts all the features of Harry’s handsome face upwards. 
Harry starts by walking over to Mitch, placing his hands on both of his shoulders and squeezing lightly, “c’mon Jeff, lay off the poor guy!” Jeff only laughs in response jokingly swatting at Mitch's head, still buried within his hands. 
At the joking tone within the kitchen, and the fact that Jeff had not immediately berated Harry about his relationship with Y/N, Harry realised Mitch had decided not to tell the rest of the house. Or at least not Jeff. Harry couldn’t have been more thankful for Mitch's undying loyalty and bizarre talent of somehow knowing exactly what Harry wanted or needed. With Y/N’s relaxed manner, he assumed she had come to the same conclusion.  
At the sound of Harry’s voice, Y/N whips around, her face lighting up at the sight of the man she had kissed not 12 hours ago. And the look of delight and need on Y/N’s face works wonders to calm Harry’s nerves, while Y/N’s were skyrocketing. He looked as handsome as ever with sleep still gracing his features, his chestnut hair in a mess on top of his head and eyes slightly puffy and red. In all honesty, Y/N couldn’t get over how it felt to kiss him, and while it had happened, she couldn’t help but feel thirteen again, with a crush on the cute boy in class. 
It was like he knew exactly what she was thinking, his tongue darting out from between his lips, leaving them wet and glistening in the early morning sun. And Y/N just can’t seem to draw her attention away from them, can’t stop the image of him pressed against her replaying over and over in her mind.
Maybe it was the way her eyes drooped slightly, her nostrils flaring ever so subtly, but Y/N gets the feeling that he knows exactly what she’s thinking, his left eye dropping in a wink that leaves Y/N’s tummy fluttering. 
“Mornin’ love.” His voice is hoarse and deep with residue drowsiness, and it does nothing to ease Y/N’s churning stomach. She coughs lightly before replying, “morning H.” Her voice is uncharacteristically quiet and manner docile, as she tries to hide the less than appropriate thoughts running through her head. 
He walks over to the stove, leaving Jeff and Mitch behind in the presence of someone far more interesting. “Smells good, what are you cookin’?” 
Y/N giggles, the sound unnecessarily loud and she cringes at herself before replying, “um, pancakes. Made some more just in case you guys wanted some.” In truth, Y/N knew Mitch didn’t like pancakes, Sarah wasn’t even awake yet, and Jeff had just started a very strict ‘no sugar’ diet, and so those extra pancakes were specifically for Harry after she had heard his sink running upstairs. And well, Harry knew all of that too. He feels a certain spaciousness in his chest one can only attribute to gratitude, and it makes him want to draw her close to him and kiss her cheek in thanks. 
Instead, Harry grabs her small hand in his and squeezes it lightly, before walking over to the fridge to get the maple syrup. “What’d you want on yours, babe? Nutella?” 
Y/N smiles and nods her head, giddy with the tingling feeling travelling through her hands and the prospect of spending more time with Harry. 
—— 
The day had been quiet. Y/N felt as if she had been wading through water all afternoon, sluggish and slow but somehow using more energy than walking on land required. The whole house felt slow-moving, most of its inhabitants spending the day in front of the TV, reading books or napping. And so it made sense for their daily activity to be a movie night. 
The housemates had decided a Disney marathon would be a perfect end to a hungover day, and with Jeff’s only condition being that they watched ‘Bambi’, everyone was in agreeance. 
Y/N had offered to organise the snacks and drinks while everyone else brought down pillows and blankets from upstairs, the room looking cozier then she had seen it in the past few months, and at the centre of it, Harry.
In the same position, he had been in the night they had sat watching cartoons in the early morning together, only to fall asleep and wake up in each other’s arms. It felt like so long ago now, but Y/N knows in reality, not that much time had passed. She found herself feeling thankful for how their relationship had evolved, and the effect a little time had given them. 
It was funny how far they had come. Y/N was so worried Harry had hated her after that, she now wonders if he’d always felt some type of draw towards her, or if he really had hated her as much as he made out. She briefly wonders if he’s thinking the same thing as she is, as he looks at her questioningly, standing in the doorway of the living room, unmoving. 
Y/N smiles lightly, and begins to move towards the couch, realising that there were three blankets in total, one being used by Mitch and Sarah, seemingly very close underneath the cover, one thrown over Jeff and the other sitting across Harry’s legs. She hesitates for a moment, the obvious choice being Harry, but she isn’t sure where their relationship stood, and more importantly, how much the rest of the housemates knew about it. 
Harry quickly provides a solution, “y’can just share my blanket if you want pet.” Y/N’s tummy flips, but the blank stare she gives him as she runs through all the repercussions (good and bad) coming from her doing that, comes off more as confusion. Did he forget that Jeff didn’t know about the kiss? 
Harry sits uncomfortably in the silence. “Or not, whatever you want.” Silence again, and with each passing second, Harry’s facial expression becomes more and more exasperated. 
Mitch is smirking, giving Harry a knowing glance. Sarah is looking at Mitch confused, obviously trying to figure out her boyfriend's cryptic facial expression. Jeff was the most bewildered of all, clearly completely lost. 
“Fine, fuckin’ forget it. Y’can share a blanket with Jeff ‘Mcvomit’ Aezzof. Or maybe you can jack Mitch off under the blanket with Sarah, and all of us will pretend we don’t know. How bout that hm?” Harry knows he’s being slightly unfair to all those just mentioned. 
A month ago, during a game night, Jeff had consumed slightly too much alcohol and subsequently vomited all over the living room carpet and Harry’s rainbow Gucci boots. Safe to say, Harry was not impressed and hadn’t let Jeff forget it either. 
He also knows he’s being unfair to Sarah and Mitch, although, he’s not exactly wrong. Harry had no proof anything was happening under Sarah’s unicorn blanket but they always sat suspiciously close, and some strange movements had definitely been observed during movie nights, particularly when the crew had binged ‘50 Shades of Grey.’
No one had mentioned it to each other, until one night, Y/N had tried to subtly ask Jeff and Harry if they had noticed too. The two boys immediately agreed, admitting they both had their own suspicions. However, this was the first time anyone had brought it up with the couple in question. 
He’s instantly met with outcry from both Sarah and Mitch.
“Oh for fucks sake H.” 
“You’re so crude.” 
“We do not do that.” 
Jeff also looks unamused, mumbling under his breath, although the shouts from the couple drown his reply out, “you have too much to drink one time, and no one lets you forget it.” 
But Y/N, in true Y/N style laughs, and all of a sudden Harry doesn’t feel nearly as bad for his accusations or his teasing of Jeff. “Alright bug, alright. You made your point, scoot over.” 
Y/N settles under the blanket with Harry, tucking her legs underneath her, trying to maintain a healthy distance from him. She hadn’t really been so consciously close to Harry before, only ever being asleep, drunk or… busy. Y/N noticed his signature scent was present, a warm cedarwood cologne that somehow made her nostrils tickle and insides feel slightly warmer, like a shot of whiskey travelling down her throat and spreading through her tummy. 
Maybe it was the man the smell lingered to that made her feel so comfortable and warm, or perhaps it was the blanket and heat radiating from him, but either way, Y/N loved it. She revelled in the comfort and feeling of safety that she didn’t often bask in, and it was Harry of all people who made her feel like this. 
She briefly wonders what this movie night would entail. She was happy they were already close to each other, stealing glances. Each bout of eye contact bringing a tingle through her spine, a shiver wracking through her shoulders when she noticed him glancing at her with his signature smirk and bright look. 
She was aware that they were slowly moving closer to each other with each passing second of the film playing in front of them. When she had initially sat down next to Harry, she could feel the warmth radiating from him, but now she could feel his side pressed against her, and his leg slightly crossed over hers.
If she’s honest, she was much more focused on the handsome individual sitting next to her than on the movie anyway, and consequently, she missed the first twenty minutes. 
What she cannot miss, however, is Harry’s hand coming to rest gently on her thigh. His palm flat against the plush flesh and his nails lightly scratching at the skin lying over it. 
She looks over at him, his strong jaw and cheekbone highlighted by the dim light of the TV screen, his nose slightly pointed at the end and his long eyelashes fluttering against his skin. She watches as his pink lips tug upwards, bringing a smirk and deep dimple to his handsome face. With that smile, she realises he knows she’s looking at him, and probably knows the effect his touch is having on her. The only acknowledgement she receives is a small squeeze of her thigh. 
She can’t help but scoff, his lax attitude directly opposed her own, if she was honest, she often felt on a different plane than him. Y/N tried to deny it, but she could be highly strung. When she was in a situation where she felt comfortable and safe, she was easygoing, a delight to get along with, and was often confused as someone who was undoubtedly more affable than she really was. 
It was one of the first days of year ten at school when Y/N had experienced her first panic attack. She can still remember the way her hands shook like healthy green leaves in a summer storm, could never forget the tightness in her chest, the closing feeling of her throat, and the tears that blinded her. While the panic attacks had become less frequent as she aged, the underlying symptoms that bubbled into the panic she experienced still tended to rear their ugly heads. 
Harry, on the other hand, seemed endlessly relaxed. While Y/N had initially only seen a more uptight and priggish side of him, it was almost like he enjoyed those negative interactions between them, for the sole reason that he could skillfully get under Y/N’s skin, watch her squirm and burn red. Any other time she witnessed Harry he was almost always equanimous and the voice of reason in the odd little group that found themselves quarantining together. 
He was so comfortable, seemingly so unaffected by her, while she felt his presence made her head spin and heart race. 
He leans closer to her, his curls tickling her collarbone, “are you watchin’ the film?” 
She nods, the action sending a wave of her perfume to invade his nose, the smell somehow so addicting and familiar to Harry now. “Yeh, the sad part is coming soon, though.” 
It’s his turn to scoff, “don’t tell me you’re gonna cry on me.” 
Y/N looks up at him, watching as his bunny-like front teeth capture his bottom lip, “and what if I do, hm?” 
Harry’s first thought is to say he’d get her some tissues and embrace her until the tears seeped into her sullen soaked skin, but he knows that’s even too corny for him. Instead, he looks around the room to find everyone too focused on the movie to pay attention to them, and chuckles lightly, kissing the top of her cheekbone. “Might cry with you love. Poor Bambi, never knew what was comin’.” 
While Y/N looks around the room, she quickly relaxes as she realises no one was paying enough attention to notice Harry’s affectionate action. She stifles a laugh, “we’re in this together then, aren’t we?” 
Harry can’t help but feel like she’s not just referring to a sad Disney movie, but instead the situation they had found themselves in. It was confusing, both of them not entirely over their exes, but both seemingly enamoured with the other, something that felt like it had happened overnight. 
He didn’t know if she felt the same way he did. He simultaneously wanted to fuck the shit out of her and cuddle with her on the couch, for god's sake he wanted to comfort her when she was crying over fucking ‘Bambi.’ Harry was confused. 
He hasn’t felt like this about anyone since Elle, and while Y/N hadn’t spoken about her ex with Harry directly, he had overheard a few snippets of conversation between Sarah and herself. 
Before Y/N had come to stay with the group, Sarah had briefly explained the situation, the fact she had put all her effort into a three-year relationship that had ended brutally, with the asshole showing no remorse towards Y/N or her feelings. Harry didn’t want to push her or himself, but he felt a draw towards her that he couldn’t ignore. 
The way she placed her hand gently on top of his, still laying on her thigh, and tangled their fingers together made his heart swell, and it was at that moment he decided he didn’t care about Elle. For the first time since they broke up, Harry didn’t wish the person he was with was his cheery faced ex-girlfriend. He wanted Y/N, and he hoped with all his heart, she wanted him too. 
He looked over at her, her soft skin and red cheeks glowing gently from the light of the TV screen. 
Harry’s feelings are only confirmed, when he hears the gunshot sounding through the room from the movie, hears a small sniffle coming from the girl next to him, and feels her fingers tightening around his own. Harry knows that somehow, through everything, he wanted Y/N to be there next to him at the end of it. 
—— 
Harry sat stewing in his feelings as the night progressed, each member of the house slowly abandoning the marathon, opting for the warmth of their beds instead. 
If he was honest, Harry was exhausted, but he couldn’t bear to leave Y/N alone. She had waited patiently through everyone else’s choices, sung along with Sarah through ‘The Little Mermaid.’ She had gushed with Mitch over the fantastic visuals in ‘Hercules’ and watched carefully for Harry’s reactions to ‘The Beauty and the Beast,’ squeezing his hand when the last petal fell, and Belle professed her love for the Beast. 
Harry didn’t think it was fair that everyone had chosen bed over watching Y/N’s movie, over singing along to ‘Tangled’ with her. Chosen to sleep instead of talking about how good the animation was and squeezing her hand every time Flynn and Rapunzel were close to kissing. 
So Harry does the best he can. He listens to how excited she gets through the fighting scenes, does his best to sing along to songs he’d never heard before, and listens to her speak about how mean she thought Mother Gothel was. Each scene, he watches her eyes widen in comical child-like glee, and her cheeks flush as she laughs at Harry’s impersonation of Flynn Rider. 
It’s as Mother Gothel is falling out of the window that Harry realises Y/N’s grip on his hand has loosened and that she is resting against his shoulder, asleep. He smiles, bringing his knuckle to brush against her cheek, gently waking her up. As she slightly startles, he kisses her nose, “y’ fell asleep bug.” 
She looks surprised, immediately looking to the screen, “oh shoot. Missed my favourite part too.” Harry can’t help but kiss the small pout that graced her lips as she realises this, which she quickly returns. Harry’s lips tingle as she hums in contentment, causing them to pull apart slightly, Harry touching his lips and giggling. 
It was all so domestic and sweet, a kiss leading to nothing in particular, and Harry loved it. Revelled in the idea of kissing Y/N for the pure pleasure of feeling her soft lips against his own, and for nothing else. As Y/N speaks her lips brush against his, still flush against each other, “we should get to bed.” 
As they both make their way upstairs, hand in hand, they dawdle as if to stall their inevitable parting, and as Y/N prepares to speak their goodbye into existence Harry decides he doesn’t want this night to end. Didn’t want to part from the warmth Y/N provided, to lose the feeling of her face pressed against him or the way her hand felt nestled in his. So Harry does the one thing he can think of, something he may come to regret later, 
“Do you want t’ sleep in my bed tonight? You don’ have to if you don’t want to, of course.” 
Harry observes Y/N’s face, and he feels as if he goes through the same range of emotions as she does. First surprise, then apprehension, her head tilting as she thinks through her decision.
Harry thinks maybe she’s misinterpreting his intentions. Don’t get him wrong, he would jump at the chance to have sex with someone as lovely as her, but he really just wasn’t ready to leave her. Wanted to feel her asleep in his arms, hear the small snores he’s sure she would make and brush her hair away from her face when it looked to be tickling her in the middle of the night. 
“No funny business dove, I promise.” 
Finally, a small smirk graces the young girl's face, her top teeth hooking into her lower lip, a little giggle erupting from her mouth while she nods her head. 
Harry’s face subconsciously matches Y/N’s, a replica giggle floating through his mouth and into the air between them, “yeh?” 
She nods once again, “yeh.” Harry feels nothing but relief, a giddy bubbling feeling erupting from his chest, rushing through to his fingertips. He almost believes she feels the exact same burst of emotion when she squeezes his hand as he pulls her into his bedroom. 
It smells the same as the last time she was in his room, except this time, there was a sense of certainty in the air. While Y/N had previously tiptoed into his private space, terrified of crossing a line both physically and metaphorically, she no longer felt that same apprehension.
She entered the room with confident footsteps, aware that they had already entered a territory in which they would struggle to backtrack from. Aware that Harry would more than likely revel in the fact she was in a space he considered sacred, rather than feel uneasy.
She was correct in her assumption. He watches the way she looks perfectly placed in a room he previously hated anyone else entering, her energy already matching his own, but somehow adding an exuberant light into a space that, before her, had represented his despondency. 
Harry begins getting ready for bed, takes off his pants and shirt, left in only boxers. As the cotton of his top slides over his mass of curls, he catches Y/N staring, her mouth slightly parted, pupils dilated and cheeks pink. 
The cocky boy smirks slightly, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion ever so subtly, and a gust of wind passing through his nose as a form of laughter. “Would you prefer me to keep my pants on babe?” 
His cheeky tone works to bring Y/N from her stupor. She stumbles over her words, clearly embarrassed Harry had caught her ogling at his body, again. “Uh.. no, no whatever’s comfortable, I guess. Do you want to keep your pants on? You can, of course, I just…” 
“Teasing Y/N,” his smirk grows into a grin, his dimple flashing her once again, “I’m only teasing.” She visibly relaxes, her shoulders returning to the normal position, and her eyes closed, trying to shake the remaining embarrassment from her system. 
“You are the worst.” 
He only laughs, “and you take yourself too seriously. Now, do you want a shirt to sleep in?” 
While Y/N might usually be offended by him saying something like that, she knows he’s not wrong. In fact, he’s entirely correct. He just knew exactly how to wind her up, what buttons to push to make a flush rise to her cheeks and for her sentences to become stuttered. 
“That would be nice, thank you.” 
Harry only nods, walking over to the dresser in the corner and rummaging through, pulling out a white shirt with the phrase “enjoy health, eat your honey” on the front. He holds it up in front of his body, waiting for Y/N’s approval, which he quickly receives, throwing it over to her in response. 
She looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to give her the courtesy of changing in private. “Do y’ mind, you lecher?” 
He startles, “oh uh sorry.” Y/N watches as a blush spreads from his cheeks to his neck, a clear sign of his humiliation, and he quickly turns around. 
She changes, giving a soft cough when it’s safe for him to turn around. Harry can hardly believe his eyes, he knew she was beautiful, but fucking hell, it was like an angel had been sent to him from heaven. 
Her legs were soft, and Harry wanted nothing more than to trail kisses up her thighs, past the dotting of stretch marks, patches of missed hair, and the hem of the shirt that sat loosely against her. He could see her nipples poking through the fabric, firm, surrounded by supple flesh, that Harry had trouble to stop imagining. Her face was soft, a pleasant but embarrassed smile pulling along half her face, smoothed by the leftover makeup she hadn’t bothered to remove. 
She was fucking beautiful. 
“Stop looking at me like that you…” 
“Lecher. I know. It’s hard not to be when you look like that.” Her cheeks turn an even darker shade of crimson, and her eyebrows draw up in surprise. Harry didn’t know at what, she was his very own wet dream, and he had trouble imagining that she didn’t know that. 
Unsure of what to say she patters towards the bed, lifting the covers and lying beneath them, facing the side he usually slept on, waiting for Harry to lay in her line of sight. He does, his cheek getting gently squished against the silk pillow, his hair billowing out from his head, creating an unruly mess around his face. 
“I don’t…” she sighs, clearly struggling to string together whatever was going through her mind. Harry grabs the hand laying between them, and gives it a gentle squeeze of encouragement. He had been vulnerable in front of her weeks before they had even shown interest in each other, and he wanted to give her the same comfortable space to talk through what she was feeling. 
She lets out another breath and continues, “I like when you call me beautiful. I just don’t know how to respond, I’m not all that used to it.” She snorts despite herself, “isn’t that sad?” While she’s laughing, Harry can see the sadness set behind her eyes, and so he doesn’t laugh. Only squeezes her hand once more and replies as steadily as he can, “it’s not sad. I understand.” 
Her laugh turns more genuine, “oh so even the Greek god gets self-conscious? Thank god for that.” He quickly matches her jesting tone, “for sure, need to be humbled somehow.” He pulls her closer and rests his head in the crook of her neck, listening as the giggles she emits, vibrate through her body, and he can’t help but smile too. 
He was happy and at peace. And for the first time in a long time, both he and Y/N slept through the night, relief and giddiness seeping through their pores. 
——
Harry awoke in a daze. His arm was numb, his head slightly dizzy and body just a tad too hot. Then he sees Y/N asleep in front of him, head resting on his bicep, hair a mess, and her hand resting on his, placed on the pillow in front of her face, and all of a sudden none of it mattered.
She was beautiful. It makes Harry wonder about the last time they’d woken up together. He remembers feeling scared, denying any comfort he had found within her in his arms, and he wonders if his subconscious had always known she was right for him. 
They seemed to fit together so seamlessly, for a couple who couldn’t stand the sight of each other months prior. 
Harry uses his free hand to sweep her hair away from her neck, leaving a space for him to press his lips against. Her skin was warm, slightly tacky from sweat, and he breathed her in, dragging his nose up and down the nape of her neck. 
He hears her begin to wake, repositioning her legs under the covers and her breath beginning to quicken from the lull of sleep. A small hum of contentment leaves her lips as she feels Harry’s mouth kissing on her skin. 
“Mornin’ sunshine,” he whispers, his breath tickling her. She lets out a laugh, her voice heavy with drowsiness, “morning H.” 
The hand that was already resting loosely in his tightens as she loops their fingers together, “how’d you sleep?” 
He squeezes back, “better than I have in months. What ‘bout you?” 
She leans further back into him and exhales, “so good.” Harry hears the relief in her voice, and he feels it too. Was this all it took to stop his own self wallowing? Being pressed against her? It was like she brought her own kind of calmness to his unstable mind, and while he knew she would disagree with him in saying it, she was a source of purity, a way for him to feel carefree. 
He wanted to tell her, but something was stopping him. What if she wasn’t quite as committed to whatever they were as he was? Harry had never been good with his feelings, preferring to write his emotions into his music. Fuck, sometimes even selling his songs to others to avoid the message coming from his own mouth directly. 
But as Y/N turns around, her mouth inches from his, her eyes wide and doe-like, Harry thinks he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t tell her how he felt. The words creep up his throat, and he tastes them on his tongue, sweet and rich. “I... I really like you. I’m not sure how you feel about everything. I just know I haven’t felt like this since… well for a while, and that’s kind of scary.” 
Harry closes his eyes, not wanting to see Y/N laugh in his face, as well as hear it. Instead, he feels a soft hand on the side of his face, her thumb gently brushing against his temple, and then softly against his eyelid, coming to rest just below it. “Open your eyes, dummy.” 
He flutters his eyes open, met with Y/N’s gaze, revering and sweet, “I like you too, Harry. Thought I made it pretty obvious.” While Harry loved Y/N calling him ‘H,’ the slow drawl of ‘Harry’ made a shiver roll up his spine.  
He can hardly contain the smile that slips upon his mouth, leaning up slightly and kissing the thumb resting against his skin. Harry feels his heart beat a little harder in his chest, the relief freeing the worry from his lungs, his muscles finally relaxing, no longer having to uphold the weight of stress upon them. 
If he was candid, Harry had never had to fight for anyone’s affection before. As narcissistic as it sounded, people usually gravitated towards him, whether for the right or wrong intentions. But Y/N had stood her ground, immediately unimpressed by his blase and borderline rude attitude and had reverberated his energy right back at him. If Harry was honest, at first he hated that about her, but it had come to represent her honesty. It made the affection she showed him now that much more special. 
Harry felt as if he had earnt her respect and affection, because he deserved it, not the ‘Harry Styles’ found in the tabloids. He had found someone who made him feel like a real person, and a good one at that, someone who deserved the love she so readily gave him. Harry was lucky enough to be lying next to that someone. 
“You’re right… you did drool over me in the shower. Remember that?” And just like that, the moment of vulnerability is over. 
Y/N lightly slaps Harry’s arm and lets out a disgruntled sound, “aish, you really are a lecher.” He laughs and grabs the hand that just hit him, bringing it back up to his face and kisses her palm gently. He looks back at her face, all traces of aggravation wiped from it like cheap lipstick, replaced with contentment instead. She slips her hand back to the side of his neck, her fingertips trailing through the baby hairs laying against his skin and kisses him. Her lips feel slightly chapped but still so warm, and Harry let’s out a relieved exhale. 
He couldn’t explain why, but this kiss felt different from any other he’d experienced with Y/N, hell any other he’d shared with anyone. It had all the intensity and lust of their kiss in the kitchen, added with a sense of emotion that Harry couldn’t quite place. Each press of her mouth, each swipe of her tongue or gentle nibble of his lower lip felt like she was desperately trying to convey every feeling Harry previously doubted existed. 
Harry remembers the night of their first kiss, recalls thinking he had never felt lust like that before, never wanted to kiss someone so badly, but now laying in this bed with Y/N running her hand through his hair and her hips lightly bucking towards him, Harry feels as if he’s surpassed the way he had felt then. 
He feels pure unadulterated need flowing through his veins, can’t even begin to explain how much he wanted Y/N. She turned to fully face him, tangling their feet together and pressing herself further into the kiss. Harry wishes he could give her more, wants to bring every drop of pleasure to her he possibly could, wants to touch and kiss each part of her. It felt as if a spark had lit within his body, beginning at his chest, travelling all the way through to his fingertips, and straight to his groin. 
Harry brings his thigh between her legs, and she takes advantage of it instantly, rubbing against him. He groans as he feels her warmth pressed against his leg, and he can tell she is suppressing her moans of pleasure as she pushes down harder with each gyration of her hips. 
“Tha’s it baby, get what you need.” 
At this, she leans her head back, a mewl erupting from her throat. Harry kisses down her exposed neck, sucking and nipping a love bite into the skin below him. Bringing his hands to her waist lightly, he helps to guide her in grinding against the thick muscle of his leg. 
She grabs one of his hands grappling at her hip and brings it to her chest, where he feels her hard nipple poking through the thin material of her top. He squeezes and pinches gently, hearing her breath hitch directly in his ear, bringing goosebumps to the skin along his arms, her hands grabbing his broad shoulders and neck. 
With his other hand, he slowly slips his thumb past the hem of her sweatpants, running it along the soft skin there. The tickling sensation completely contradicts the harsh action of her hips rubbing against him, causing a shiver to trickle down her spine. Y/N whines into his ear so quietly, Harry wonders if he actually heard her at all. “Please.” 
“What do you need, hm? Tell me.” 
A bated breath parts her lips, “fuck…anything.” She knows it’s not enough, knows Harry wants to hear exactly what she wants from him, but she’s embarrassed. Isn’t quite used to anyone asking her what she wanted and needed, and Harry’s filthy tongue only brings her more unnecessary shame. 
“C’mon Y/N, use your words. I’ll give you whatever you want, just use your word’s for me.” 
Her hands dig into his shoulders, “fingers, please!”
He kisses her temple and murmurs a quick, “good girl,” before dipping his hand completely into the front of her pants, still only teasing along the line of her underwear. 
Y/N’s not sure how much she can take. Every move, every touch is goading and light, clearly trying to provoke her, and as much as she loves it, she needs relief. She grabs at his arm that is currently so close to the place she needs him to be and tries to force it closer to her, harder against her, anything other than what he’s doing now. “Harry… c’mon, please,” she all but cries. 
He chuckles before slipping into her underwear, feeling her wet heat against his fingertips, she was already dripping for him before he’d even touched her. He presses her clit gently while he kisses against her neck, flicking his tongue against the ghost of the hickey he had given her earlier, the pain mixing so deliciously with the pleasure. 
While he had stopped his teasing touches, it didn’t stop him from using his teasing words. 
“This the first time you’ve gotten so wet for me, pet?” She furrows her eyebrows, shaking her head side to side, attempting to hide her face into his neck. He feigns surprise, “no? Filthy girl. Ever touched yourself thinking about me?” She whines, picking up on his teasing, further burrowing her face away from him, trying to hide the very obvious flush that had risen to her cheeks. 
He laughs, nudging her head with his nose, trying to encourage her to show her face again. She mewls once more, the only indication she heard him was the bucking of her hips against his fingers, now inside of her and stroking against her g-spot. 
“Next time, just ask for my help instead,” he murmurs into her ear, biting at her earlobe. She hisses, attempting to press against him even harder, get even closer to him, although it was almost impossible, being pressed flush against each other with his fingers knuckle deep in her cunt. 
He licks against her jaw, feeling the strong bone under the tender flesh, the warmth of his breath blowing against the damp skin of her neck causes her to shiver, “can I taste you?” Y/N doesn’t think she’s ever nodded her head harder, her eyes rolling back into her head, merely thinking about Harry tonguing the sensitive skin between her legs. 
He continues to kiss down her neck, taking extra time to lick against the dip in her collarbones, revelling in the tangy taste of sweat invading his mouth. He sucks her nipples through her shirt, the material clearly wet and spit-soaked once he pulls away, the air surrounding them, making the outline of her areola obvious. 
He presses a few chaste kisses against the swell of her tummy, finally reaching where she needed him most. He slowly pulls her pants down her legs, trailing the hem with pecks against each inch of newly exposed skin. Grabbing each ankle, he pulls the cuffing over her feet, playfully biting at the bone on her ankle, causing a shriek and a giggle to erupt from her and a playful press against his cheek, imitating a kick to his jaw. 
He laughs, batting her foot away from his face. “Oi don’t damage the money-maker!” 
 Y/N bursts out laughing, shaking her head. He was an idiot, but she loved that they can switch between moods so quickly. While she’s still laughing, he’s pushing her legs apart, his hand nearly fitting over the whole surface of her inner thigh. “C’mon love, spread your legs fo’ me.” 
And with that, Y/N stops laughing. 
While continuing to push against her leg, he presses an open mouth kiss against the front of her underwear, already able to taste the heady flavour. Harry can’t help but let out a deep groan, every nerve ending set alight at his mouth finally around her cunt. The tip of Y/N’s tongue tingles with a beg for him to take off her underwear, but Harry acts on his own accord, almost ripping the garment off in his haste. 
If Harry thought the taste of her was mouthwatering through the cotton, the taste of her without it was even better. 
He had meant to tease her, he really had, but he can’t help but lick straight into her weeping hole, moaning at the taste and the smooth feeling of her smeared against his mouth. Spreading her lips with his pointer and ring finger, Harry continues to explore, flicking his tongue against the swollen bud underneath her pubic bone, causing a loud moan to erupt from her mouth. 
“Holy fuck Harry! Feels so good.” 
Harry tucks two of his fingers into her while sucking at her clit, Y/N tugging at his curls harshly in response. 
It feels so good, but Y/N needs more. The feeling of Harry’s fingers is making her skin tingle, and her legs shake, but she wants nothing more than to be stretched out by him. She wants him to give her everything, push into her slowly, stretch her pussy, and finally feel his cum spurting into her. 
So she pulls him up, one hand still intertwined in his hair and the other on his shoulder, scratching and pulling as a hint to bring his mouth to hers. At first, he’s hesitant, grumbling slightly in annoyance, not wanting to part from her, “Harry please, want to kiss you.” 
He gives her one more harsh suck, before sliding back up her body, where Y/N is waiting with her mouth open and her eyes on him. Harry smirks, slipping the two fingers that had just been inside of her against her tongue, feeling more blood rushing between his legs at the feeling of her licking and sucking them as if it were his cock. 
She bites gently, causing a hiss to escape from his mouth as he drags them back out slowly, quickly replacing his fingers with his lips, licking into her mouth.
The tangy taste of her own cum slips past her tastebuds again, and Y/N had never been one to find it hot, but with the salty flavour transferring from Harry’s fingers and tongue, she’d never been more attracted to her own taste. 
Y/N desperately wants to mix his cum with hers, wants to swallow around his cock and feel the intoxicating mixture slide down her throat, “I wanna taste you now.” 
He breathes through his nose heavily and shakes his head, “just want to feel you. ‘M not gonna last long if you suck me off as well.” Y/N whines, but by the longing look Harry gives her pouting lips, it seems he’s not entirely content with his decision either. 
He reaches over her shoulder, digging into the set of drawers next to the bed, giving Y/N the perfect view of his broad chest, littered with tattoos. He looks so tan, his muscles rippling under the smooth skin, and she wants nothing more than to litter it with love bites and scratches. She teasingly licks at his nipple, and he startles, an uncharacteristic giggle leaving his lips as he comes back to lie in front of her, in his hand a condom. 
Suddenly his eyes clear, the lust caused fog fading, “you still okay with this? We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.” 
Her heart swells, how was it possible that this Adonis-like man was also so sweet? There was nothing she wanted more than to be with Harry in every way and right now, she needed him inside of her, “yes Harry. Do you?” 
He scoffs some, “fuck yes,” he mumbles his next statement as he tucks his head under her jaw, putting the condom on at the same time, “feel like my dicks gonna fall off, I’m that hard.” 
She laughs, wrapping her arms around him, she’d never felt so happy and complete, so overwhelmed. Every positive emotion was combining within her, creating a whirlwind of passion and love, causing each feeling to increase tenfold. 
The head of Harry’s cock slips through her folds, sending a zap of pleasure through her each time it nudges her clit, and he smirks each time she twitches, unconsciously arching up towards him. “Y’ ready?” 
She nods, moving her hips closer, making her own attempt to be filled by him. 
Slowly, Harry enters her, each inch causing the delicious burn from him stretching her walls increasing. Y/N almost chokes on her own moans, can hardly stand how good he feels or the way her muscles spasm attempting to adjust to the intrusion. It feels as if each ridge and curve was being simulated, each nerve ending firing again and making her head feel dizzy. 
Harry almost looks like he’s in pain with his eyes shut so tightly, Y/N can see the wrinkles surrounding them. His mouth is parted with sharp breaths entering and leaving his mouth, his head hung back, and his jawline sharp enough to cut glass. 
“Holy fuck. You feel so fucking good.” 
At the sound of his voice, Y/N clenches, making Harry cry out. “Move H. Fuck me, please.” 
He begins slowly, pulling out before slamming back into her, reaching so far Y/N can feel him in her tummy. 
He intertwines their fingers and holds them against the pillow her head rests on. She squeezes them, and he leans his forehead against hers, the tender action contradicting the harsh snaps of his hips. “How do you feel so good?” He whimpers. She nudges his chin with her nose, pushing his lips closer to hers, each thrust smearing them closer together. 
“You’re so good to me H,” she whispers back as she wraps one of her hands behind his head, his neck in the crook of her elbow. Using leverage from her other hand against the bed, she pushes her hips upwards, creating double the amount of friction between them. The actions causing both of them to cry out, Harry seeming to be pushed impossibly further inside of her, the head of him nudging against her cervix. 
“Fuck that’s it. Look at you, usin’ me to get yourself off.”
While the new angle felt so good, it was quickly tiring. Harry could see Y/N fatiguing after a few minutes, knowing the burn in her legs would be almost unbearable at this point. So he tucks his arms under her outstretched ones, laying his torso against hers and tucking his head into her neck, kissing lightly as he completely slows down his movements. He stops the whine that leaves her throat with a quick, “shh, it’s okay. Just wanna take my time with you, never want this to end.” 
While running her hand through his curls and holding the back of his neck closer to her chest, she replies, “me either baby.” 
They spend some time like this, just enjoying each other’s company and the feel of being so close to one another. Y/N breathes deeply, the smell of sex in the room mixing with Harry’s cologne, making her relax and let out a contented sigh. She had never felt more full and so satisfied, with a hint of an orgasm sparking between her hip bones, the dull ember just waiting to be fully ignited by his movements. 
As if sensing this, he speeds up once again. The burn that stretches through her legs as Harry pulls them over his shoulders, mixes with the pleasure of his thrusts, the head of his cock nudging her g-spot with each deep drive of his hips. 
Y/N cries out, grabbing at his shoulders, her nails unintentionally digging into the skin, creating small red crescents along the tense muscles connecting his neck to his scapula. 
He just feels so good. Every movement of his hips, each inhale and exhale, each brush of their lips and dig of his fingers brings Y/N even closer to her orgasm. She can’t tell if Harry plans each of these things with her pleasure in regard or if it’s the chemistry between them that’s causing every sensation to be felt tenfold. All she knows is that she would happily lie under Harry for the rest of her life if it meant she always felt this weightless. 
Harry’s balls make a sharp ‘thwack’ against her ass each time he thrusts, the sound of her arousal echoing through the room, in such a crude fashion, Y/N almost has time to feel embarrassed. On the other hand, Harry revels in the sound, loves the fact he can see, hear, touch every part of her arousal, surrounding them in their own cocoon of sex and pleasure. 
“C’mon Y/N, please. Cum on my cock.” While Y/N had already been feeling the building pressure of her impending orgasm, Harry’s words only work to bring it faster. “Please Y/N,” she bucks up against him, chasing the feeling of his pubic bone rubbing against her already sensitive clit. “Good girl. Fuck, you’re my good fucking girl, aren’t you?” She whines a response, the noise high pitched and hoarse. Harry sees Y/N’s desperate search for her finish, and brings two fingers down, rubbing at her clit. 
“Fuck, yes, Harry!” Y/N can’t describe how overwhelmed she is with pleasure and feeling. Her face feels flushed and sticky with sweat, her legs are slightly cramped from her constant strain to get closer to Harry and his cock buried in her cunt, and when Harry brings one of his ring adorned hands to wrap comfortably around her neck, suddenly Y/N feels weightless. She feels the burst of pleasure from between her legs, a zip running up her spine, leaving her limbs with a tingle. 
Harry hears her cum before he sees it, the moans dripping from her mouth, her eyes widening before she’s squeezing them tightly together. Harry knew he would play that exact moment on replay for the rest of his fucking life. 
He watches as she brings her hand up to his that’s still spread around her neck, and Harry almost can’t stand it when he feels her squeezing it tighter, begging for Harry to give her more. If he wasn’t so close to cumming, Harry might’ve teased her, loosened his grip on purpose to watch her squirm and whine, whisper in her ear how hot it was to see how desperate she was for Harry to simply touch her, alas he’s too close. Can barely form a coherent thought, let alone tease her. So instead he appeases her, tightens his grips and begins to pound into her harder, searching for his own release.
Finally, it comes, Harry releasing a deep groan, grabbing onto the pillow next to her head, letting out a deep moan. Both of them can feel each rope of cum, as Y/N’s own orgasm works to milk each drop from him. 
His movements slowly come to a stop, leaving him tucked inside of her as his length softens. Wrapping his arms around her once again, he revels in the warmth and comfort she brings, his lips pressing against hers gently. “Fuckin’ hell.” 
Y/N giggles and nods in agreement. How had they spent so long fighting when this was the result of them getting along. She still feels Harry shifting above her, the aftershocks of her orgasm, creating an increase in sensitivity, each movement from the handsome boy above her sending a jolt through her whole body. 
“Fuck you’re still squeezin’ me pet.” She hugs into him tighter as yet another twitch is brought from his prick still buried deep within her, “mhm, still sensitive but you feel so good.” 
He kisses her soft temple, “lucky for you, in about fifteen minutes, we can go again.” Y/N scoffs, her head leaving the crook of his neck to give him a dirty look only to be met with his deep smirk. His famous dimples indented next to his smile, as he giggles and brushes his nose against the swell of her cheek. 
“You really are…” his giggle is joined by her own. 
“A lecher,” they finish together. 
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fairlyabookie · 2 years
Text
Fatigue
They have worked hard, yet not many appreciate their efforts.. until you stumble upon their sleeping forms.
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The Octavinelle Dorm Leader never showed any signs of weakness, fatigue, or vulnerability when dealing with students and clients; a professional must maintain airs in order to hear out his customers and satisfy them. Stopping was not an option, only the urge to receive and help as many clients as they can.
He dared not to show vulnerability in front of the twins; if anything, this may incite them to take over, and he’d have nothing to do. I must do everything myself. They’ll do what they’re told, and I shall do what I do best. Some say his dedication to his work is admirable, but one can say that his productivity can be toxic. At the end of each day, the twins can note on how exhausted he was, often staying behind to check on profits and add more burdens to the responsibilities he carried. Floyd was even more concerned, contemplating whether if he should intervene in this increasingly concerning predicament.
One day, Jade met up with [Reader], hoping that they could help with Azul’s predicament if he asked for a favor. “Why, good day, [Reader], if you don’t mind me asking, are you available for a quick chat?” Noting this out-of-character confrontation, [Reader] feared the worst. They quickly accept, only to be irked by the genuine look of concern by the Leech twin’s features.
You let him state his case: Azul had been overworking himself for the last couple of weeks and hasn’t been showing any signs of slowing down. Jade worried if Azul had something troubling his mind, but the dorm leader didn’t express any comment. On the contrary, it seemed as if Azul didn’t want to be bothered. This was enough to spur the second year to ask [Reader] for some assistance. The fact that Jade had come to ask them for help seemed a bit out of character for him, but if it meant helping Azul..
Upon [Reader]’s agreement, the two head to Mostro Lounge where they find Azul calculating profits during closing hours. The café was empty save for him and the paperwork of the shop. With his disheveled appearance and dark bags under his eyes, it was clear that Azul was overworking himself to the bone.
“How may I help you, Jade?” Irritation tinges the dorm leader’s voice when you approach him. “Pardon me, Azul, I hope you don’t mind [reader] accompanying you in your work. I hope they prove not to be too much trouble.” Before Azul could utter another word, Jade had already left.
“Pardon the intrusion, Azul..” [reader] shyly mumbles as they settle next to him. “Is there anything I can help you with?” A sincere question from [Reader] and a brief glance were enough for Azul to look up from his work. Why would someone ask him about his well-being? He continued on with his work, replying half-heartedly. [Reader], in their best efforts, helped him with paperwork, keeping an open ear if he needed to rant, and eventually helping him clean the desk.
Although Azul spoke little, talking to him did wonders to his troubled expression as time went on. Just some time and space was enough for him to open up about his troubles, but not enough to warrant any help. “I ought to thank you and Jade for this..” He mutters under his breath after he locks up the shop, yet what could [Reader] do more to help Azul relieve his burden?
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The Pomefiore Dorm Leader toiled immensely on many activities, activities that relied on excruciating effort for people to recognize. He didn’t care if he had earned praise for his work, but rather, he preferred to know if his hard work was worth the effort. In order to achieve beauty, he must instill a standard that only he could do - a standard that may seem difficult to others but challenging for him to do. Alas, the young man overworked himself, often sleeping a few minutes after his curfew and feeling fatigued during his work. He couldn’t let his manager know about this; any change to his demeanor or health would mean detrimental effects to his career and value. If anyone didn’t notice, Rook would immediately pick up on it.
“Vil, are you okay?” The Vice Dorm Leader pried the question one particular morning. Vil couldn’t simply answer Rook’s question - if anything was wrong with Vil, Rook could easily detect something amiss, for his hunting senses never failed him. Silence answers Rook’s question as Vil pardons himself to his room. Even if Vil was quiet about this, Rook knew. He shouldn’t coax an answer from him; rather, he’ll keep an eye on Vil in case he falters. If anything, Rook would come in and help Vil if needed. For now, this situation prompted a different approach: a summoning of a good friend, [reader].
“Good day, [Reader]!” Rook’s sudden entrance startled the poor student from their stupor. They suppress the urge to silence the Chaser of Love since he was in a library out of all places, but he places a finger to his lips, his perception on point as always. “I have a favor for you, my friend.” It was rare to hear such a thing from him, but you bid him continue.
Rook’s favor turned out to be a welfare check for Vil; you found it strange that he didn’t usually come in and talk to him, but perhaps he thought talking to someone else besides Rook would help in some way.. Was it really okay to talk to Vil at the moment? [Reader] worries. “Non, you’ll be alright!” Rook smiles lightheartedly, taking [Reader] along to the Pomefiore Dorm.
“Vil, mon étoile! I see you’re doing well! Do you mind if I bring a good friend to accompany you?” The ever so beautiful Vil nods gracefully, his flawless posture and sultry gaze enough for [Reader] to freeze in place. The Vil before them was not the vulnerable Vil Rook had claimed him to be; rather, it was the beauteous and absolute Vil who adhered to meticulous methods to follow the true value of beauty. Was Rook certain that [reader] could alleviate his troubles?
“I must be on my way then, Vil. I’ll leave you two!” With Rook’s spirited departure, [reader] and Vil is left alone. Vil was aware of Rook’s eccentricities, but this was somewhat unexpected. When [Reader] expected a protest, Vil didn’t say anything; rather, he allowed it and beckoned the student to his side. Whatever Rook had done, Vil mustn’t refuse it and take advantage of it..
With a shy nod, [Reader] complies, sitting next to Vil as they watch the mask of enduring strength melt away to exhaustion. Rook’s judgment was sound: Vil had a lot on his shoulders and all he needed was a breather from it all, a talk or two to quell down the stressors of his daily life.
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The fae had lived a long, arduous life, years of warfare, pain, and many behind him as he enters an era of peacetime. He mustn’t dull his blade yet - peacetime was a farce when the conflict could arise at any moment. Raising the children proved a challenging task as preparing for war, although a unique struggle, he must raise them properly in order to become guardsmen to Malleus. A task-specific to him, as he long suffered enough from years of war that almost lacked any form of sympathy or kindness.
Despite the fact that he had raised the children well, it didn’t necessitate that everything about him was fixed; on the contrary, the burden and trauma still lingered, and he must felt uneasy. The fae tried to busy himself, cultivating new habits and practicing old ones to busy himself from these thoughts. He couldn’t bring himself to the intrusive thoughts, voices of the past that came to haunt him. He may be living comfortably, but sometimes, he needed a breather from it all.
Not many know about the mental exhaustion the fae experienced here and there in his lifetime - even the indestructible can falter. He never let the smile fall from his lips whenever the others ask for him, a mask he commonly wore to ensure that he was doing alright. The children mustn’t know of his pain and he mustn’t let it show lest he would create more worry about all of them.
Yet, he had no idea that one would know of his predicament one night. Occasionally, the fae would join Malleus in his little strolls outside Ramshackle Dorm, an activity he found calming in a day of activity. He had some knowledge of [Reader] residing there, so the two made sure to stay out of range, just in case the student would prefer not to have trespassers by the property. Sometimes, he’d come alone without Malleus, sometimes he’d be accompanied by a student; however, most of the time, he’d prefer to be alone with his thoughts, reconciling with the past and contemplating about the future for the time being.
“Good evening, Lilia. Didn’t expect to see you here.” A friendly [Reader] approaches him once upon a fine evening. “Why, good evening, my friend! Care for a walk?” The fae responds with a smile of his own. An unexpected development to see his own classmate outside the classroom, but an accompaniment for a stroll wouldn’t be so bad. Although it may be just for a brief moment, the accompaniment meant a tremendous amount to Lilia. Even if the stroll had been riddled with silence, he felt relieved to have someone by his side, unique burdens on his shoulders, but a pain he can share with [Reader]..
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