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unsolvedrubixscube · 1 year

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Don't Let Me Get Me

Ch 9 All the Things I Couldn't Say

Sasha strolls up the sidewalk towards the studio at the perfectly reasonable hour of eight o'clock in the morning enjoying the brisk air. The last signs of the freak cold front that had washed over LA had completely vanished and the weather had returned to its overly warm self.

Three flashes going off in quick succession made Sasha’s head snap around in time to see a man, his face covered by sunglasses and a scarf, duck behind a parked car when she turns. She catches a glimpse of his camera before he gets it completely out of view. Paparazzi , Sasha identifies, unlocking the door to the studio and stepping inside.

That one is a bit late on the uptake considering it’s been two months since the leak. He’s not going to get any good pics of her crying or screaming now. The album that Bog tried to sabotage is done and ready to be released but there’s no way the cameraman could have known that. Not even Marcy or Boonchuy knows she’s planning on making the album live today. Sasha drums her fingers on her arm thinking. She wonders if something else happened this morning. Maybe the mega pastor called her a demon spawn again.

Sasha says good morning to Percy, Fen, and Toadie and actually means it as she makes her way through the tiny studio. Amazing what sleeping for forty-eight hours could. Finding Marcy working on her laptop on the breakroom’s very ugly plaid couch Sasha plops down beside her. Marcy jumps revealing how deep in concentration she was. Sasha snickers.

“Morning, nerd,” Sasha greets and hands her a pastry bag.

“Scaring people is rude, Sasha,” Marcy chides, opening the bag and pulling out a croissant.

Marcy lights up as she bites into the croissant and discovers the chocolate center. Then a look of panic appears on her face and she starts fanning her mouth. “Ah! Hot! Hot!”

Sasha laughs again, tearing off a piece of her own croissant and washing it down with a drink of protein shake. The door creaks open and Anne steps in. She takes in the scene, sighs, and hands Marcy her water bottle before taking her own pastry bag. Marcy gups down the water and gasps in relief. Anne seats herself on the other side of Marcy.

“There’s a dude hiding out by the building taking pictures.” Anne says chewing then she makes a puzzled expression and exclaims, “Ooo! Chocolate!”

“Paparazzi,” Sasha confirms, “Just cover your face and ignore him. They’ll be trying to get a cheap shot of me looking stupid to sell to the tabloids.”

Anne frowns but doesn’t argue.

“Anyways,” Sasha says, “Photos came back so we have everything we need to launch the album. I’d like to aim for the end of this week.”

“Really! They’re done?” Marcy asks, vibrating in her seat. “So it’s time to pick the cover art?”

“Yep, just sent everything over to you.”

Marcy opens her email and finds the various files from Sasha. Within seconds a number of photographs fill the screen. The first section is profile pictures of everyone for the website. Simple shots with white backgrounds focused on capturing the professionally dressed head and neck of whoever is in the frame. Percy and Boonchuy are smiling in their shots, Sasha looks bored, Bog menacing, while Marcy looks like she'd swallowed something sour but is still trying to smile.

Then comes the bright pink banners and posters for the band; energetic shots of Sasha and her bandmates with their instruments in the middle of jumping, smashing, or kicking the surroundings. For someone who knows how to look for it, it’s painfully obvious someone else had been on the bass before Marcy had been added in over them but it’s the best the photography studio could do on such short notice. Rumors will fly when someone finally catches it but it will have to do.

Lastly are the contenders for the album cover. A handful of purely artistic shots of Sasha’s electric guitar, a mic stand holding a knife, and spike-covered platform boots but the real final contenders are all shots of her crouching over the camera in a very revealing outfit.

Sasha’s barely wearing a tiny pair of jean shorts, she’s not wearing a shirt, and she’s got two push-up bras underneath the sports bra she’s aiming at the camera like a weapon. The triple bra had been uncomfortable as hell but sports bras make her flatter than a pancake so sacrifices had to be made. She’s also holding the camera at knifepoint with the expression that says she will cut you. The overall effect is sexy but fierce which is better than she normally gets so she’s pleased with it.

As the Will Cut You photo slides into view Marcy makes a choking noise while Anne sighs, again. Sasha glances over in time to see Marcy’s face trying to make several expressions at once. She feels kinda bad for springing this on Marcy. She didn’t even think to ask if Marcy was comfortable with more risque images.

“Sashaaa,” Anne groans, throwing her head back, “We talked about this. You are a role model for hundreds of thousands of little girls-”

“A position I never asked for,” Sasha snaps, “Besides, you know as well as I do, using one of these images for my album will double if not triple sales.”

“Using provocative art is a solid marketing technique,” Marcy adds, recovered enough to shift into nerd mode. “It’s eye-catching and appeals to the viewers’ base instincts creating a lasting impression.”

“Horney tax,” Sasha adds nodding in agreement.

“Fine, I get it,” Anne says with a shake of her head, “Profit is king, right? Let's just move on and figure out the fonts and cropping.”

Sasha feels the argument she had prepared die in her throat as the conversation moves on and Marcy places the various photos on a website template. Anne is strictly professional for the rest of the impromptu meeting and despite the huge success of putting the final touches on her album Sasha can’t help but feel she just missed something important.

***

Sasha lounges on her couch scrolling through the various spam, hate mail, and totally legal offers cluttering up her inboxes public and private. Behind her, Grime has taken over her apartment’s kitchen determined to make a fantastic steak dinner even without a grill insight. They are also celebrating the launch of her album but Sasha opened her big mouth and now Grime has a point to prove.

With a swipe, she deletes two messages without even opening them; a far too detailed sexual fantasy staring at her and a rant from some lady about her being pro-vaccination. Sasha is totally pro-vaccination but she can’t recall ever speaking publicly about it so she had no idea what this lady is on about. God, she can’t wait until she can hire people to filter her mail again.

The next email is actually important, a reply from Bog’s legal representative. Bog, or more likely Bog’s lawyer, had accepted Sasha’s offer to settle the affair out of court, agreeing to forfeit Bog’s earnings from the album and stay far away from all of Sasha’s future projects in exchange for Sasha keeping quiet. No one would want to hire an upstart with a history of sabotage no matter their musical skills. She’s a little sad Bog is actually being smart about this but what she gets out of the agreement is more than enough compensation.

Bog agreed to reveal if any outside parties influenced his decision to leak her album. Turns out there was. Bog had been contacted by a Levithan Label’s rep who offered to pay him a lot of money to derail Sasha’s project. Oh, the rep tried to hide it and the label’s name never came up but Bog was confident and the money trail supported his suspicions.

The rep was low enough on the totem pole that the company could claim he was working independently without upper’s knowledge or approval but the fact that the rep had been fired soon after the money was in Bog’s account was telling.

Sasha toys with the idea that Marcy might have been involved in the scheme but quickly dismisses it. Marcy just wasn’t that good of an actor and if she had wanted Sasha to fail she could have just bailed instead of helping. It was simpler and more likely that being unable to stop Sasha or Marcy Mr. Leviathan moved to target the album itself.

Her mother’s warning about Sasha not having what it takes to make it own her own and that she’d see just how much she shielded Sasha from drifts out of her memories.

Sasha scowls. Like she’d been the one needing protection when she gave that boy-band-wanna-be a black eye at thirteen for kissing her and exposed her sound director plagiarizing his work at sixteen. She’s always been a menace and it was high time the world knew it.

The next email is from a real address and has actual words in the subject line. It’s an invitation to her as a “rising star” to the upcoming Nighthawk Gala being held this spring. Nighthawk events are fancy parties for the who’s who of the American Pop Artist scene, giving them a chance to show off their success on camera and promote their next big project.

Getting an invite before her first album is even released is a big deal. It is also suspicious as hell. At least she knows why the photographer was hanging outside the studio.

Her musings are interrupted by Grime popping his head over the back of the couch and exclaiming in a very bad French accent, “Le madame’s dinner is served.”

Grime frowns down at her and says in his normal voice, “Sasha, get your shoes off the couch.”

“It’s my couch,” Sasha complains, dragging herself into a sitting position.

“You should treat your furniture with more respect,” Grime says, guiding her to the table.

“It’s a Ted’s List second-hand couch that already has stains on it. It’s not even pleather.”

Sasha slumps over her kitchen table swiping through her private email deleting junk and totally legal offers cluttering up her inbox. Across from her Grime sits crouched over his laptop probably working on something boring, like taxes.

“I need a stage name,” Sasha says

“Why?”

Because she can barely handle being called Ms. Waybright by the few people she is working with right now. Several thousand would cause her to murder somebody.

“Rebranding. Also to be cool.”

Grime grunts.

“Come ooooonnn, I need help choosing a good one. What about Bitch?”

Grime looks up. “Like the swear word?”

“Yeah, people are going to call me that anyways might as well own it.”

“The radio would have to censor it every time.”

Sasha rolls her eyes. “Well, then I’ll censor it myself and replace the I with an astrict.”

“Then they’d have to spell it every time or call you the B word.”

Sasha frowns.

“Besides, people would be weird about it.”

She sighs knowing Grime is right.

“What about Silvertongue?”

“That’s too long, besides it belongs in a fantasy novel.

“Lioness?”

“You're setting yourself up to be called the Cougar in a few decades.”

Sasha gives Grime a flat look. “That’s not helpful.”

“The Sharp?”

“Sharp what?”

“No, it's a music term.” Sasha sighs. “Forget it.”

Drumming her fingers on the table Sasha grumbles to herself trying to think of something not terrible. Some of her growing fringes droop down tickling her eyelashes. She combs it out of the way using her fingers. She needs to get her hair styled and re-dyed before she goes back into the public eye. Pausing, she stares at the bright pink strands in her fingers.

“What about pink?”

“Pink?”

“Yeah, pink, like the color.”

She likes it, simple, short, nothing obviously problematic.

“I still gotta make it cool,” Sasha muses. “Add a symbol or something like an exclamation point at the end like Shout!AtTheParty.”

Grabbing one of Grime's documents she flips it over and scrawls the word a few times. It doesn’t look quite right. Then she replaces the I with the exclamation point.

P!nk

Short, unique, and most importantly marketable.

Sasha grins.

***

Her album, her full album, goes live and Sasha buries herself in a mound of blankets with her laptop and a cup of spiked hot chocolate and stares. Sasha stares at the mostly white webpage accented with crisp letters and sharp corners of her bank account, watching the row of little red numbers as the seconds tick by. Watching as she refreshes the page over fifteen times in a minute. Watching as the little screen says she’s been inactive too long she will soon be logged out pops up. Watching as deposits come in, a scant few at first, then clusters, then dozens, then overwhelming waves. Watches as the little red numbers shrink a few digits and the tightness in her chest loosens a few notches.

Her album sells well, extremely well, hitting a million downloads within hours of the official release and Top of Pop in a matter of days. The sudden appearance and then removal of her first eight songs had thrown the music world into a frenzy and the magic word ‘free’ had spread her name further than she could have ever with paid marketing.

Censored , based on a beat designed to get stuck in one’s skull and full of forbidden words, becomes her top seller with the Fuck You Trilogy and All the Things I Couldn’t Say tailing closely behind. Sasha’s prayers that ATTICS would die a quiet death being too sad to be punk and too deep to be pop go unanswered.

To celebrate (and capitalize) on Censored’s success she makes an official music video. It’s nothing fancy, she and her band in a reputable video studio rocking out on a white backdrop in silly costumes. Percy arrives in a generic medieval jester's costume complete with a floppy hat with bells. Fen shows up in a black tee over black long sleeves, ripped black jeans, converses colored in by a marker (black) and topped off by so much eyeliner she looks like a raccoon. Marcy dresses up as an astronaut, the white fluffy suit and bubble helmet so precise Sasha wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually space worthy. Sasha is just as unsurprised that Marcy’s helmet is reflective and hides every inch of her face. Sasha comes in what she’s dubbed her Viking outfit. An absolutely not historically accurate combination of various impulse buys (leather skirt, red motorcycle boots, cape, spiked belt, and crimson scalemail) that make her feel like a Viking even if she doesn’t actually look it.

The cameras roll and they “play” their way through the song interspersed with various stunts to keep the video interesting. Percy pulls out some bean bags and manages to juggle three of them long enough to be caught on camera. Marcy initiates a wiggly impromptu dance party in the middle of the set. Fen produces a skateboard from somewhere and does a few kickflips, nearly taking out a light. Not to be outdone, Sasha does some of the kick routine she learned for Staying Popular’s cheer episodes and drops into a front split. She may or may not have immediately regretted this action.

It’s childish, it’s dumb, and everyone ends up with new scrapes and bruises, but it’s unmistakably fun.

It’s also the last project her current team tackles together. With the launch of Sasha's album also comes the end of contracts, a good number of her technicians, publistics, and musicians all choose to check out, including some Sasha knows well at this point. Fen opts to take her cut and leave. There’s no yelling or dramatic standoff this time, the keyboard player simply decides the rapid highs and lows of such a tremulous job isn’t for her. She heads off, amidst awkward well wishes and a Mexican lunch party Sasha foots the bill for.

But Fen won’t be the last to leave either and while Sasha worked very well with Marcy that’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to collaborate again. Marcy’s inbox has been flooded with requests for collaborations and commissions since the album’s official launch, to Marcy’s utter shock. Sasha had suspected that Levithan had been sitting on Marcy, hiding her name under the generic moniker of Levithan writer , using her only with internal artists. Sasha, on the other hand, had made sure Marcy’s name was plastered all over her album and marketing material, where it deserved to be.

Marcy is excited by all the attention, stressed but excited. Sasha has no doubt that she’ll get over her fears soon enough and have ample patrons to pursue whatever projects she wants, which probably won’t include her. It’s also clear that Anne will also be stepping away soon now that Sasha’s new career is clearly no longer on the brink of imploding. Which means if Sasha is going to do this she’s going to have to do it now.

Sasha reminds herself of this fact over and over as she marches through her tiny studio now cluttered with moving boxes and cleaning supplies until she reaches the office that Marcy had slowly taken over. The door is slightly ajar so that she can hear bits of a soft conversation between Marcy and Anne from inside.

Sasha realizes she’s stalling and swears at herself. God damn it, she’s going to do something nice for once in her life. Forcing down nerves, Sasha pushes the door open wide.

“Sasha!” Marcy says, a broad smile breaking across her face. Sasha can’t help but to smile back.

Anne looks up from her laptop, grins, and waves her in. There’s no hidden frustration or suspicion in the movement which is a nice change. Sasha steps in and closes the door behind her.

“What are you doing back here?” Marcy asks from where she’s sprawled over one of the arms of one of the cheap office chairs in a way that can not be comfortable. “I thought your office was all packed up? I didn’t forget to give you the hard copies of the recording, didn't I?

“Chill Marce, I got everything,” Sasha assures her. “Actually, I stopped by because I have something I needed to give you guys.”

“Oooh!” Marcy sits upright. “A gift?”

“Lunch?” Anne asks hopefully.

Sasha ignores how her heart rate kicks up a notch at Marcy’s guess.

“No, uh, it’s something specifically for you two, not the office.” Sasha takes a deep breath and is glad she practiced this little speech.“The album would have never gone this well without you two. Hell, it probably would have never happened. You’ve both been invaluable, and I wanted to properly thank you for that.”

She pulls the envelope and single ticket out of her purse and hands the first to Marcy and the second to Anne. Marcy starts tearing into the envelope after a nod of encouragement from Sasha while Anne puzzles over the ticket in her hand, reading it.

“Around two weeks ago I was invited to the Nighthawk Spring Gala. I accepted. Marcy, as a member of the band you were officially invited as well. Anne, I’m giving you my guest ticket.”

Anne looks up at her, still confused. “But that was before the album launched. Why would they invite you before they knew if it was a success?”

“Oh,” Sasha shrugs, “because of the leak I’m a hot topic, if my album did well it would be a major faux pas not to invite me. But if I flopped I’d have to show up to save face and the gala would have someone to point and laugh at.”

Anne frowns at that.

“I had to go to a lot of events like this with Andrias when I was a teen,” Marcy says, running her thumb over the glossy black and gold cardstock, her expression melancholy.

Shit. Sasha didn’t even consider that Anne or Marcy might not want to go to a gala.

“You don’t have to go,” Sasha rushes to say, “I know you can get a good chunk of change for the tickets on the internet, and even if you do go it doesn't have to go with me. But I would like you too! That’s what I'm doing. I’m inviting you to go with me.”

Sasha shuts up before she can say anything else.

“Oh,” Anne says, blinking down at the ticket like she’s seeing it in a new light.

“That could be fun,” Marcy says slowly. “To have someone to gossip and judge the crazy outfits with.”

“It’s no fun to judge alone,” Sasha agrees.

“You know,” Anne starts, “when I was a kid I always wanted to go to one of those big balls that you saw in the movies, with all the lights and dresses and dance numbers.” She gives them a hesitant smile. “This would be pretty close.”

“The event itself is going to be really shallow,” Sasha warns.

“But pretty?” Anne asks.

“But pretty,” Sasha agrees, ignoring the hope rising in her chest. “So you’ll come?”

Marcy and Anne look at each other. Marcy shrugs, Anne smiles.

“Yeah,” Anne says

“Yeah?” Sasha repeats.

“Yeah!” Marcy cheers.

***

Fen dressed up as her high school Goth self. Sasha is dressed up in her Amphibia armor.

#amphibia au #DLMGM AU #Don't Let Me Get Me AU #amphibia fanfic #my writing #sasha waybright #marcy wu #anne boonchuy

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wild-aloof-rebel · 5 years

Photo

😍 David looking at Patrick 😍

#schitt's creek #schitts creek #david x patrick #david rose #patrick brewer #patvid #i had to do one for each of them obviously #trying to pick just one open mic pic was A Time #it's the episode of 800 looks in the course of like 3 mins #this was def harder than patrick's though not just because of open mic #but also because of dan's penchant for making insane faces lolol #rebel made

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inagetawaycarxo · 3 years

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All the kink prompts w/ tom holland but a headcanon.🥺

WARNINGS: smut, sex, oral, nsfw, 18+, errors I missed

1. mirror sex;

Mirror sex often happens when Tom is in a possessive or jealous mood.

He while takes you from behind, either doggy style or taking you while the both of you stand up.

He will either press your face flush up against the mirror or fuck you on the bed making you look at the mirror as he fucks you.

Or both of you have sex in the bathroom. While you stare at the mirror while he fucks you.

“I want you to keep those pretty [e/c] eyes of yours open, I want you to look in the mirror as I fuck you,”

“Watch me fuck you,”

“Only I can fuck you like this,”

He will pull your hair back, pressing his mouth against your ear. Looking in the mirror as he fucks you.

Sometimes he will take photos of him fucking you, for masturbation inspiration when he is away from you.

2. thigh riding;

Thigh riding happens when Tom isn’t paying attention to you, and you are extremely sexually frustrated.

Normally happens when he is playing video games.

You will straddle one of his thighs and humping his thigh. Creating friction. Letting out small moans.

Tom would quickly disconnect his mic and exit the game or pause it.

“Babe, I’m in the middle of playing a game,” Tom whined. Pouting at you. as you continued to hump his thigh.

“And I’m horny,” You whined. Making Tom gulp, as he felt his erection grow.

He will quickly exit the game. Giving you his full attention.

Or he will continue to play the game, occasionally glazing at you, or seeing you ride his thigh from the corner of his eyes. His bulge growing by the second. Doing his best to avoid you till he can’t anymore.

3. dry humping;

Dry humping happens when Tom and you make out heavily. Grinding against each other.

Or when you ride his thigh.

4. voice kink;

You get turned on when Tom speaks in an American accent. Though you don’t mind his British accent. It’s the American accent that gets you turned on. Biting your lower lip, as your eyes darken with lust.

5. handcuffs;

Handcuffs are a rare occurrence. Mostly happens when Tom is anger or beyond jealous.

He will either handcuff you to the bedpost or put your wrists behind your back and handcuff you, with your hands behind your back.

Or you take the lead and put handcuffs on him. Handcuffing him to the bed. Where he begs you to take them off so he can touch you.

6. Overstimulation;

Tom likes to overstimulated you to the point you either squirt or blackout.

He will always have a smirk on his lips as he overstimulates you.

You will always beg him to stop, or at least let you have a rest.

7. choking;

He does choke you but only lightly.

Not hard enough to cut circulation on you.

He mostly does it when he is having angry sex with you or rough sex.

8. edging;

Tom loves teasing you.

He loves bringing you close to your release, then pull out, or slowly build you up to your orgasm but will never let you reach your orgasm.

He does this every time the both of you have sex. Which makes you whine and whimper. Begging him to let you cum.

9. praise kink;

Tom likes it when you praise him while he is either giving you oral, making love to you or fucking you.

He loves it when you compliment him on his size, and how he makes you feel.

Though you also like being praised as well. You love it when he praises you as you give him a blowjob or ride him.

10. spanking;

Spanking happens when you have disobeyed him, or he is jealous.

“Lay on my lap,” He commanded. Making you comply.

He will then proceed to spank you telling you to count the smacks.

11. biting;

Biting occurs a lot, mostly its love bites left on each other’s bodies.

Biting each other’s lips when it gets heated.

12. masturbation;

Both of you only really masturbate when he is away.

It is either facetime sex or skype sex or phone sex.

Both of you getting off in front of each other on a screen.

Or if you don’t answer and you are asleep or he is unable to reach you, he will go into his phone. Going into the locked photos. Choosing an explicit photo of you or video of you and jerking off to the pic/video of you.

13. face sitting;

Tom loves giving you oral.

He loves it when you sit on his face. your wet heat hovering above his mouth.

Grabbing a hold of your waist, as you press your wet heat against his mouth, as he eats you out.

Gliding his tongue up your folds or tongue fucking you.

14. begging;

Begging happens all the time.

It’s not you that just begs it’s Tom as well.

Whether it's for him to let you come.

Or for him to please you.

He likes to tease you with the head of his cock. Teasing your entrance before he puts it in.

When you take control Tom will beg you to suck him off.

15. shower sex;

Shower sex happens a lot.

Tom likes to say, “Save water, show together,”

Which often leads to sex.

Both of you giving each other oral.

He will either push you against the wall, and take you from behind, or doggy style, or pick you up and press your back against the shower wall.

The water makes it more pleasurable, as it hits his and your skin.

16. striptease;

Tom loves it when you striptease.

Slowly taking your clothes off in front of him, as he stares at you hungrily. Eyes darkening with lust. Biting his lower lips. Whistling at you.

“You look so hot,” He moaned out. Taking his lower lip in between his teeth.

17. against the wall;

It is either the shower wall, a wall in the bedroom or a wall in any room.

Your front pressed against the wall or your back.

If it is your back, then he will pick you up. Your legs wrapping around his waist. Holding onto his shoulders for dear life.

18. body worship;

Tom loves every single part of your body, down to freckles, stretch marks, scars, etc. he will kiss them softly.

Just like Tom, you love every single part and feature of his body. making sure you pay attention to his freckles and features.

19. eating out;

Tom enjoys eating you out.

He gets turned on and has a huge ego boost when you moan his name.

He finds your reaction to getting eating out hot.

The way you tremble at his touch.

He has to hold your hips down.

Swirling his tongue around your clit. Or his thumb.

Sucking and licking.

Kitten licks, quick flicks, zigzag, sucking and gliding up while still sucking, weaving his tongue between your folds, long licks and circling the clit.

Holding onto his hair tightly. Tugging his hair. As moans escape your mouth. Head tossed back.

You wrap your legs around his head. Or if he is eating you up while you are standing you hook one of your legs around his shoulder.

20. blowjob;

Like any guy, he loves it when you give him a blowjob.

He loves it when your warm wet mouth wraps around his cock. Slowly bobbing your head. All the while looking at him.

Or when you lick your tongue up the base of his shaft to his head.

Swirling your tongue around the head of his cock.

Tom’s fingers raking through your hair. Gripping it into a ponytail, as he watched you bob your head up and down.

He likes to praise you, moaning your name.

Tossing his head back as pleasure coursed through his body.

21. early morning sex;

Early morning sex does happen if both of you wake up in the morning early enough.

It’s either lazy sex in bed or sex in the shower.

Being quiet as possible. Tom will cup his hand over your mouth muffling your moans and gasps.

22. marking;

Both Tom and you like marking each other’s bodies.

Leaving a litter of love bites on each other’s bodies.

Tom does not attempt to cover them up. Unless he is in public.

You however try and cover them up, but they still show up no matter how much makeup you use.

Tom just shrugs his shoulders and gives you an innocent look, obviously not that bothered you can’t cover them up.

23. possessiveness;

Tom tries to suppress his possessiveness, but it fails. He doesn’t like it when other males or females look at you like you are single.

You are his and his only.

They can look but they can’t touch. Though he prefers them not to lust over you.

It definitely shows.

Whenever he is possessive it leads to rough sex.

24. size kink;

You lust over his muscles all the time. grabbing a hold of them. Gripping them, touching them. Just plain out staring at them as your mind wanders to dirty thoughts.

25. public/semi-public;

He does it discreetly. Normally either he or you give a signal or he gives you a signal, or one of you sneaks off and the other one follows.

It’s happened in the club a lot, both of you sneaking off to have sex in the bathroom stall. Or somewhere private.

If it’s not the club then it's some other event he and you go to then the both of you will sneak off somewhere to do the dirty deed.

26. watching the other get off;

Tom likes to watch you get off.

Especially during phone sex [facetime sex].

Both of you getting turned on as he and you watch each other masturbate.

Moans motivating each other.

He wishes it were his fingers inside of you, and your mouth around his cock instead of his hand but unfortunately his far away and watching each other get off was the only option.

Talking dirty to each other.

Coaxing each other into orgasming.

#tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #tom holland headcanon #tom holland

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takenbyheartstrings · 4 years

Text

Burden | corpse x reader

Summary: You and Corpse get into a nasty fight, which ends in broken hearts.

Pairing: Corpse x Fem!reader

Warnings: Swearing, Angst, Fluff

Authors Note: cried, laughed and cried again during this lmao. i just wanna give him a hug 🥺

requests are open!! <3

You groaned loudly, you and Corpse were in a heated fight, his symptoms started to flare, but he didn’t care, and neither did you.

You groaned loudly, your frustration bubbling, “Babe! I don’t care that you don’t wanna take pictures with me, I don’t fucking care that we can’t go outside, I don’t fucking care if I can’t show you off, because I love you.”

“Y/N YOU’RE NOT GETTING IT,” Corpse sighs, “Every fucking day I feel like I’m a burden to you. I feel like you can do so much better than me. BECAUSE YOU CAN. I FEEL LIKE I’M A FUCKING BURDEN.”

“I DON’T WANT BETTER THAN YOU. THERE IS NO BETTER THAN YOU AND YOU ARE NOT A BURDEN.” Pools of clear, salty water filled your eyes.

Corpse groaned, matching your frustration, “I’m just worried that I can’t give you the life you want, and I want you to have better. No, fuck that I need you to have better.”

“What does that mean for us then. I want you and you want me to have better than you.”

“I STILL WANT YOU Y/N, but I can’t fucking live with the fact that I couldn’t give you want you need. That I never can.”

You were in shock and you knew what was coming for the two of you, you just didn’t want to believe it at all and it was so fucked up and terrible and you knew you wouldn’t be able to live without this man. Your anxiety wouldn’t be able to handle that you weren’t with him anymore. Your breath became heavy, as you felt a weight on your heart. Your stomach shrunk and you felt so constricted by yourself. You shook your head at him, from the opposite side of the bed as both of you were on either side.

“We’re over, we’re done. Live a better life without me in it, y/n. As long as you’re happy, I won’t regret it.” Tears ran down the boy’s skin.

You weren’t angry anymore, you were anxious, you were in sobs, “Fine,” Corpse face fell when the word came out of your mouth.

You turned around and opened the closet that held the both of your clothes. Taking off Corpe’s sweater that you were currently wearing, throwing it at him, taking all your clothes out of the closet, opening a duffle bag shoving everything inside of it. Putting on another shirt to cover up the bra that covered your chest. You couldn’t believe he would end things with you. After all you guys have been through.

You convinced him to move out to L.A. when most of your friends had made the same exact transition. You got him to open up to you without even trying in the first two weeks of knowing him. You were the first person he showed his face before he showed the rest of your friends. He said I love you first and was okay with it when you were hesitant about saying it back, even though you said it three days later without even knowing you had. You were both sat in bed and he said “You said it back.” “Said what back?” “I love you. You said it, this morning when you hung up the phone.”.

After throwing the duffle bag over your shoulder, you looked at him once more, “I’ll be back tomorrow to get the rest of my things, my PC, my set up, all of it. You can keep the TV, you can keep everything else, I just need my set up.”

“Done. See you tomorrow.” Corpse sighed, taking a seat on what had been a shared bed, was now his. He couldn’t believe he was sleeping in the king bed the two of you had bought because you were one of the biggest bed hog’s he had ever met. You walked out and he looked down at the f/c coloured bed sheets you had convinced him to let you put on, even though he preferred the black ones, but you let him have the wall behind the two of you black and helped him painted the room. As well as painting the walls of his gaming room black too.

You got into your little Honda Civic, as you drove for around 15 minutes finally reaching Rae’s house. You told yourself you wouldn’t break down in front of her, but you knew that you would. You got out of your car, and closed the door as you walked up to Rae’s front door. Knocking on it, she didn’t answer at first but you looked down at the clock on your phone, noticing that it was 12:00am. Although she might’ve been sleeping, she could’ve been streaming.

So you knocked again, and she opened the door, her bedroom room was lit up from what you could see, and she was streaming. She noticed the duffle bag and let you in, placing a finger to her lips telling you to whisper. Running back to her stream room.

“Well guys! I’m getting tired so, I’m gonna end it here, goodnight!” She said cheerily. Before shutting off her PC and ending the stream walking back out into her living room to see you sitting on the couch. You were in sobs.

“He ended it, Rae, he ended things with me and I can’t br-breath.” You said taking a deep breath as she sat down next to you pulling you close to her. “How am I supposed to go and get my things tomorrow, I can’t even think about him without crying and picturing his smile and hearing his laugh and crying. What hurts even worse is the fact that he didn’t even want to end it, he ended it because he said I could do better. When I can’t get better than him.”

“What makes him say that?” She asks.

“He thinks he’s holding me back. He thinks because he doesn’t show his face online, he doesn’t want to leave the house, he thinks he’s holding me back and he’s not because that’s not what people do when they love eachother, when people love eachother, they walk through life together. They experience things together. We loved eachother.”

“Y/n, it’s gonna be okay, you just need to talk to him, you both clearly still want to be together, so you just need to tell him what you told me - he’s loosing his mind if he’s letting you out of all the people go. So when you go pick up your things, talk to him.”

You nodded, “Yeah. You’re right. I’ll just talk to him.”

Well, talking to him was harder than you thought. You texted him five minutes before you got there to give him a heads up. You walked upto the front door the next morning, seeing a yellow post-it note on the front door.

Pick up your things, text me when you leave.

You sighed, calling Rae, “Rae, can you come help me get my stuff, Corpse isn’t here,,, he left.”

“On my way.” She sighs.

With the two of you getting your set up, it didn’t take long before it was dismantled and in both of your cars. Your pc, mic and monitor and your now broken desk chair in your car, and your desk in Raes.

Gone <3

Was what you texted Corpse after you left. You thought the little heart was cute, but you knew it wasn’t needed and so did you. You didn’t set your stuff up at Rae’s knowing it would only be temporary. You told your fans you were visiting your parents and wouldn’t be streaming for a little bit. Though they knew something was up, you hadn’t responded to any of Corpse’s tweets or hadn’t commented on the fact that he posted another hand pic, usually a cute remark like “that’s one sexy hand ^-^” or something like that would be in the comments.

Every night that week without him, you cried yourself to sleep, every night the next week, you did the same, and the week after that, you did it again. It had been almost a month since you guys had ended things and you still cried. You would keep crying. Corpse knew you were staying with Rae, and made sure to ask her if you were okay. Short answer, Rae told him every time: No.

It was raining one night, fit the mood, as you sat in bed on your laptop watching streams of him play, missing his laugh and his voice. You frequently went back to the stream where he couldn’t do admin swipe, because that was the hardest he had laughed on camera. The hardest he had ever laughed was when you two had fallen off of the bed, when you had surprised him with a kiss. A heavy thump echoed through the house as the both of you fell into a fit of laughter, you had calmed down, but he was still going - couldn’t look at you without bursting into a laughing fit - he tried to stop the laughter, because it was making his stomach hurt like 30,000 knifes, but he couldn’t. That admin swipe didn’t even come close. But it was close enough for you as you cried watching them. You opened your camera roll to which you found lots of photos of him. You cried.

You got up out of Rae’s guest bed. She was streaming so you just shot her a text careful not to give your location away. She shot you a simple text back as you left the house in your little black honda civic, you looked at the little plastic bag he had set up for your gum wrappers and used gum.

Tears ran down your face as the rain followed. You sighed getting out of the car standing in the rain contemplating if you should go and knock on the door or not. You knew he wouldn’t be doing okay. Or maybe he was, but you just knew him too well to know he wouldn’t be hurting.

“Fuck it.” You muttered under your breath.

You walked up to the front door, knocking on it furiously as the porch light turned on. He opened the door. You looked at his face, his eyes were bloodshot red like yours, and you could hear tiny sniffles coming from his nose. You could see the couch behind him had been pulled out into the bed, but there was nobody staying over. He couldn’t sleep in the bed the two of you shared. But you knew you had to give the sappy ass speech because you were both hurting.

“When I started streaming in 2015, I didn’t think it would be like this. Y’know. I knew I’d be meeting people left and right, but I didn’t know I would meet you. Until I did. Then we started to talk outside of the group and streams and, everything else. Then you opened up to me about everything you possibly could and we knew each other for two months. But that felt like years. Then you asked me to come to San Fransisco and thank god i said yes. Then we went on two dates on your balcony and they were perfect, and thennnn you asked me to be your girlfriend and of course I said yes. One year later, I convince you to move to L.A. with me, you say yes. We move here, buy a house, everything was perfect. Two years later, I’m sitting in bed for one month, crying over you, because we both want each other, you just wanna give me better. But that’s not how it works. How it works is we go through life together and I’m fine waiting for you, because I can’t live without you. I can’t function without you and people who love eachother go through life together and we loved eachother. I still love you.” By the end of it, your words were unintelligible to anyone but him.

He just looked at you, the same tears running down his face as you, he sighs of relief, “Thank fuck. I tried to call you everyday, but I couldn’t. Not after I was a coward like that. It was so fucking shitty of me to do that to you - I just wanted you to have better. I needed you to have better.” He cried as you pulled him close, your foreheads touching.

“It’s okay,” You said hugging his head.

“Please take me back, please.” He choked.

Your foreheads touched, “Of course I’ll take you back, I need you back.”

Your soft lips pressed onto his as you both smiled against it. You could taste the salty water between your lips. Although Corpse’s eyes were now dried. He smiled down at you pulling you back into a hug. Rae texted you as you heard the familiar ding of your phone.

Pulling away from Corpse and pulling your phone out, a screenshot of both you and Corpse’s bitmoji’s showed up on Rae’s snap maps. A message sat underneath it.

this you? 🤭

You chuckled showing Corpse as he let out a laugh with you.

yeah SDFJHDKFSJDNG spending the night here :)

i knew you guys could get through this! see you tomorrow, come pick up your shit 😐

SDJFKDJF all jokes aside - thank you so much Rae, i wouldn’t have been okay without you. i hope i wasn’t a burden on you.

of course you weren’t! now remember, i’ll see you tomorrow 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

So that night, you lay in your bed with your boyfriend. Your boyfriend. God, it felt nice to say that again. It was warm and soft and you liked the way his chest fell up and down as you lay on it. His strong arms around you. Careful never to let you go again.

People don’t believe in soulmates, but you knew you had found yours, as when you thought he was asleep, he intertwined your fingers together, as you both fell asleep entangled in between each other.

#corpse husband #corpse husband x reader #corpse x reader #corpse x reader fluff #corpse x reader imagines #corpse husband x reader fluff #corpse husband fluff #corpse x reader angst #corpse husband x reader angst #corpse #valkyrae #valkyrae x reader

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monsterenergysimp · 4 years

Text

Permanence

corpse husband x fem!reader

summary: you meet corpse on a stream and you’re surprised when he reaches out to you

warnings: cursing, mentions of tattooing

word count: 1.9k

notes: This is proof read but could have missed some stuff. This is my first corpse fic and my first time writing fanfic since I posted that super cringey book on wattpad when I was like 12 or something. I’d appreciate feed back so please reach out to me :)

main blog @itsmysleepover

read part 2 here!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You were cleaning up your station so you can get home and stream. You loved your day job as a tattoo artist but you also really enjoyed streaming. It started as a way to promote yourself as an artist and the shop you worked at but it eventually became a really fun way to destress at the end of the week (or day if you were really itching to stream). “Hey Y/N was that your last client?” your boss, KC, asked as she walked to the front of the shop and put new flash drawings on the walls.

“Yes ma’am!” You said back excitedly. You finished cleaning your station and tossed your black gloves in the trash. “And you can’t trick me into staying and taking walk-ins,” you joked with her. She rolled her eyes and walked back into her office “It was one time,” she said as you slid on your jacket. As you walked out your phone buzzed in your pocket and you checked to see who had texted you. It was a message from Sean asking if you were free to play Among Us with him and some other streamers. You replied that you were on your way home right now and totally down. You were excited to see who was playing this time around since their Among Us streams are super entertaining and have gotten really popular.

On your way back you tweeted and posted to your Instagram story that you’d be streaming soon and set up all your stuff once you made it home. After a few minutes, you had a couple of thousand people watching. You entered the discord chat and Sean spoke up. “Everyone this is Y/N she’s sensitive so be gentle.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you guys and I’m not gentle, I'm ruthless,” You say into your mic and notice the chat calling you a liar. Everyone was in the lobby waiting for the game to start. “You sound way too sweet to be ruthless,” Corpse said. The countdown started and you were imposter with Charlie.

“This should be fun,” you told the stream. Yout tried playing strategically but after such a long shift your brain was mush. You saw Poki in nav and killed her then vented into shields. Not long after the body was reported and you were sure you were going to get voted out or at least sussed.

“Where was the body?” Felix asked. “Nav and I didn’t see anyone near there so whoever is imposter must have vented,” Corpse responded. Felix spoke up again. “I think I saw Y/N walk that way and I haven’t seen her since.”

Shit, shit, shit shit. “I’m in shield right now so-” you said trying to defend yourself but Charlie spoke up. “I was doing tasks with her earlier and I saw her walk into shields so she’s safe but I’m still not sure about Rae.” Everyone discussed a bit more and some people, including Corpse, voted for you but Rae got the majority vote and was ejected. You released your breath and kept playing being extra careful.

“Okay, guys that was super close. Corpse knows and is out to get me,” you said to the chat. You were eventually voted off but one round later victory was written across your screen with your ghost and Charlie’s avatar. “Good game guys,” Corpse said.

“I told you guys I was ruthless!”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You sat at your station doing nothing because a client had canceled a four-hour session. You were listening to music and sketching some stuff but you were bored out of your mind and you didn’t want to leave in case you got a walk-in. The music got quiet as you received a twitter notification saying someone had messaged you. You reached for your phone and saw you had gotten a dm from Corpse.

C: hey :)

You didn’t know what to respond. You were mostly confused as to why he decided to message you out of the blue. Did he want something? But what would he want?

Y: Hii! This is sudden

C: was i bothering you?

shit sorry!

Y: Youre fine I wasn’t doing anything rn

C: how has your day been

i dont usually do stuff like this

Y: Im glad you did im doing better now I was so bored

C: what were you doing that was so terrible

Y: NOTHING! thats the problem :(

C: im sure youll find something to do

You stared at his message. Unsure what to respond.

Y: Im gonna give myself a tattoo

C: what?

NO!

You tossed the needles you used for your tattoo into the sharps box. “Oh my god you didn’t,” KC said. She noticed the wrap on your calve from the tattoo you just gave yourself out of boredom. “It’s not my fault I didn’t have anything else to do!” You said trying to defend yourself. She sighed and just shook her head. “Just go home business is slow today.” It was raining so the shop probably wasn’t going to get a walk-in anyway and you didn’t have any more clients for the day. It was only 2 pm but you drove home and after making lunch for yourself decided to stream. You weren’t expecting too many people so it was bound to be super chill. Your leg felt sore reminding you of the tattoo. You snapped a quick pic of the fresh jack-o-lantern on the side of your calve and messaged it to Corpse.

Y: [image] it came out nice!

C: thats super cool actually

i was concerned why you would just give yourself a tattoo but i found your instagram and youre super talented

Y: Thank you!

For some reason, it felt strange to just have that be the end of your response.

Y: Im about to start streaming if you wanted to watch

[link]

C: ill be watching ;)

What’s that supposed to mean?

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You sat in your apartment watching tv, hand lost in a bag of Doritos, and scrolling through twitter. You had stopped paying attention to the anime playing on the screen since you’ve watched it a hundred times and knew you wouldn’t miss anything. It was Saturday and you usually take those days off. Take the time to do chores or meet up with some friends but today you felt like not doing any of those things. As you continue your endless scroll (not helping the twitter addiction you told yourself you’d try to get a handle on) you got a message from Corpse.

C: wanna talk?

You looked down at the message unsure of how to answer. It was a simple yes or no and the obvious answer was yes. You and Corpse had started talking more regularly. You still didn’t have each other’s phone numbers but it was fine. Your conversations weren’t too big-- just you sending him memes, tiktoks, and telling him how much you liked the songs he would drop. Or him complimenting a tattoo you did. Sometimes he’d message you during streams telling you funny stuff his fans would say in the chat and you’d do the same. You learned a bit about each other but nothing too deep or serious. Like how you two lived a few cities away and you both really liked Donnie Darko. When Sean first invited you to that game out of everyone else there you were most excited to meet Corpse. He’s just so sweet and funny. Of course, you’d love to talk to him but you were also itching to talk to him and the last thing you’d ever want to do was make him uncomfortable.

Y: Yeah id love to talk

Here goes nothing.

Y: Wanna facetime or something?

No pressure or anything it could even be a regular call

I think facetime is just my default lol

You sent those last two messages quickly after you had sent the first. You wished you could know what he was thinking. It was killing you to think you had turned him off from talking to you completely. You put your phone down on the couch and went to wash your hand of Dorito dust. When you got back from the kitchen you turned off the tv and tossed yourself onto the couch.

Still no message.

Why am I so fucking stupid?

Just as you were standing up to stretch from sitting on the couch all day your phone buzzed. You reached for it fast and looked to see that it was him. You became super excited still not even knowing what the message said. It could have told you to never talk to him again for all you knew.

C: sure lets facetime

xxx-xxx-xxxx

You had his phone number. You added him to your small but growing contact list and called. You sat on your couch waiting for a response when he finally picked up the screen was black. It didn’t upset you; you kind of expected it and didn’t care what he had to do to make himself more comfortable during this call.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was raspier than usual.

“Did you just wake up?” You asked and looked at the time. It was about a little past noon and you had only eaten Doritos all day. Shit, you should probably make a decent meal.

“Not that long ago but yeah,” he responded and giggled. That giggle.

“Well, I’ve eaten nothing but Doritos all day while rewatching Ouran High School Host Club, so you’re welcome to join me as I make myself something to eat.”

“Sounds like fun; what are we eating?”

“I don’t know yet,” You said as you stood up and made your way to the kitchen. You opened the pantry and looked. You noticed a can of diced tomatoes and reached for it then checked the expiration date. It was still good. On your counter were some onions and garlic. “How about some tomato soup?”

“Sounds delicious.” you smiled at Corpse and your phone screen not knowing if he was also looking at his screen or not. “You’re really pretty-- you know that?”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to--”

“I’ve already told you what an incredible artist you are so many times I bet you’re tired of hearing it, but you already know what a talented artist you are.”

“That is very kind of you Corpse,” you said to him bashfully as you chopped the onion and opened the can of tomatoes. “But once again you don’t have to reach so far to compliment me.”

“I’m not reaching you are talented and beautiful and--”

“I thought I was pretty.” You could hear him chuckle with a smile on his face. “You’re both,” he said. You could feel your face getting warm from blushing.

“Fuck you you’re making me blush. My face is all hot and stuff.”

He laughed at how flustered you got. “That’s the cutest thing ever.”

You didn’t know how to respond so you just put some olive oil in a pot and tossed in your onions. It became silent but it was a comfortable silence. You turned the stove on and watched the flame for a few seconds. “If it was dark we could pretend we were together and having a bonfire or something,” you said to the phone as you turned the camera to show him the flame (still not 100 percent sure if he was looking at you or not).

“I’ll put it on the list of things to do when you visit me someday.”

#corpse husband #corpse husband x reader #corpse husband imagine #corpse husband imagines #corpse husband x y/n #youtubers #caffeinated ramblings

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domsbabydoll · 2 years

Text

Babydoll, Pt 3

Looking in the mirror you think ‘damn, I actually look hot’ after spending HOURS picking out the right outfit for your date with Elliot tonight.

You’ve always had a hard time with clothes. That’s reality when you’re not-thin; it’s hard to find things that really fit and flatter your body.

But alas— somehow, you managed to put together something sexy and chic— a fitted, yellow cropped cami to top a black, flared mini skirt over knee high tights with chunky black boots.

You snap a pic and send it to Maddy— you promised you would while she was doing your makeup earlier— canary yellow eye shadow, winged liner, and a few silver face crystals paired with glossy pink lips. You were skeptical at first, but Maddy reminded you: ‘the thing about confidence is that nobody knows if it’s real or not.’ So, yea, it’s okay to feel some bad bitch energy. Your confidence was already boosted after what happened a couple days ago… you blush just thinking about it and your heart feels somehow light and heavy at the same time, warm and beating fiercely.

Your remember…

His warrrrrm, soft tongue…

The heat of his breath and vibration of his voice, tickling and tingling…

Your phone vibrates. ‘OMG you look hot. That punk wannabe is gonna lose his shit.’ You smile and check the time- 5:59. He should be here soon, he said he would pick you up at si— the doorbell rings, your heart lurches forward. You head downstairs.

‘Oh it’s so nice to meet you!’ You hear your mother exclaim. You can hear the smile in Elliot’s voice as he exchanges niceties with your mom. You get to the bottom of the stairs, Elliot turns from his conversation and you see his breath catch, his smile fading into a look of amazement. ‘You look— wow… you look,’ his voice turns to an almost-whisper ‘beautiful. You look beautiful.’ You try not to blush as your mom beams from the corner, hand on her chest. ‘These are for you.’ Flowers, he brought you sunflowers, your favorite, how did he know, you wonder. You take them, smiling and giving your thanks. They smell divine. Your mother offers to put them in a vase that she’ll leave in your room while you’re gone. You thank your mother and head out.

…

You two arrive at a small cafe you’ve seen but never have been to. ‘Hold on’ he says as you exit the car and start towards the entrance. You pause as he heads to his trunk. He returns with an acoustic guitar. You raise your eyebrows. ‘It’s open mic night’ he says and you smile from ear to ear “I get to watch you perform!?” He shyly looks away, rubbing the back of his neck- so cute- ‘uh, yeah’ he manages with a crooked smile.

You enjoy chai lattes and light conversation between acts— there was poetry, piano playing, one kid even rapped (if you can call what he did “rapping.”). You were thoroughly enjoying yourself and felt like you and Elliot had a deepening chemistry as you chatted so effortlessly all night long.

‘Up next is a regular. He’s got a voice like an Angel and is an incredible guitar player.’ You see him blush. ‘Everybody give a warm welcome for Elliot!’ You clap along, fiercely as he makes his way to the stage.

‘Um, this is a cover of a song that I just can’t get out of my head lately.. yea… this is Love Like This by Jessica Andrea.’ He starts:

🎼 “You could make my heart beat

Stronger than a drum beat

Drown by the screams when the show starts

You cover me in goosebumps just thinking about us

Kinda makes me want to take it too far”

Your breath is quickening as you hang on to every word… wow he can really sing, and these lyrics have you blushing, wondering if he’s singing to you…

“You're where I go in my head

I'm living for the good, feels like a highlight reel

I knew the moment we met

You started as a good time, you came at the right time

But you should know that I don't always love like this”

He was looking right at you, his sultry eyes filled with emotion. A warmth rushing through you, you just want to run to him, to kiss him with every ounce of passion you can muster.

“Laying in my bed always thinking about it

Don't believe in heaven but I think I just found it

You say my name, that's the best that it sounded

I never knew I could love like this

Didn't mean to fall but baby it happened

You kissed my lips and it tastes just like magic

Ooh, you should know that I don't always love like this…”

🎼🎼🎼

When he finishes, you clap and whoop the loudest, standing to greet him as he returns to your table. You fling your arms around his neck, his hands find your hips. “You were amazing” you softly say as you look, longingly, into his eyes. ‘Well, I had the perfect muse.’ He bites his bottom lip. Everything freezes as you lean in to kiss him, gently at first, and then more passionately. His hands run up your back, yours play with his curls on the back of his head. “Meet me in the all gender bathroom in 2 minutes. Knock three times so I know it’s you” you whisper seductively.

You feel like you’re moving in slow motion as you make your way to the bathroom. You spy a couple of thin girls about your age gawking at you. You unmistakably hear one loudly whisper ‘can you believe that HE’S with HER!?’ You glance back at Elliot, he’s slack jawed with a half smile. You see a bulge near the button of his jeans. You smirk over at the girls and wink as you breeze on past them.

You close the bathroom door, your heart racing. You can’t believe you just did that. You’re breathing fast as you wait for Elliot. You wonder if those girls will see him walk by. The thought makes you laugh out loud.

*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK— it’s him.

You take a deep, settling breath and open the door. ‘Hey’ he says, breathlessly, as you let him in and lock the door behind him.

You engage him in a deep, long kiss, leading him till his back is against the wall. You pull away from the kiss, feeling him still leaning his lips towards you, wanting more.

You slide your hand down to the bulge in his pants, feeling what you could see earlier— he was rock hard.

You stroke the length of him through his jeans. He closes his eyes and moans.

You unfasten his jeans, pulling them down along with his boxer briefs. You gently run the tip of your finger from the base to the tip of his penis. His eyes shoot open and he gazes right into your soul. You bring your hand to your mouth, licking it, slowly, till it is wet with saliva. Keeping your eyes on Elliot, you return your hand to his member and grasp it with a gentle firmness. ‘Oh my god’ he whispers as you begin you stroke every inch of him. Some pre-cum shines on the tip of his penis. You run the pad of your thumb across it- he shivers in pleasure. You lick and bite your lips before pursing them, allowing a small stream of saliva to drip right on to his throbbing flesh as you lean, slightly forward.

He was panting now, as you stroked faster, harder, softer, and slower in turns.

Still holding him in your hand, you made your way to your knees, kissing down his front all the while. His eyes were glued to you, brows furrowed and mouth slightly open. When your lips found the tip of him, he leaned his head back, face tightening into a look that mimicked pain but you knew to be pleasure. Widening your mouth around him, moving your head back and forth while still stroking the base with your hand, you moaned, turned on by seeing him be turned on. You felt the warm, familiar throbbing in your clit. But this, this was about him right now. You pulled back, sucking as you went, letting your tongue slip out until the tip of your tongue and the tip of him were the last two bits of your combined flesh touching. You leaned back in, slightly, to kiss where your tongue just was. Lips still pressed against him, his body shivering under the vibration of every word, you said “I want to make you feel as good as you made me feel the other day, Elliot, as good as I felt when you were singing me that song. Is that okay?” He looked down at you, face still scrunched in pleasure ‘yes’ he said in a breathless whisper, nodding rapidly. He stroked your hair and gazed into your eyes.

You returned to your work- stroking and licking and sucking every inch of his throbbing, wet cock. You felt the tension building in his body and saw it in his eyes too. Guttural sex sounds escaped his lips all the while. You giggled, his penis happily flinching at the vibration. ‘You’re gonna- you’re gonna make me cum’ he gasped. You moved more quickly, never breaking eye contact with him when you suddenly felt it, the warm stickiness erupting from him. ‘I’m fucking cumming, oh my god, I’m cumming so hard.’

You swallow his seed and slide your mouth off of him. His face is gleaming with a thin layer of sweat, his chest rapidly rising and falling with fast breathing. He smiled and said ‘you’re amazing, Babydoll, you know that?’ “So are you, Elliot. So are you.”

You two exit the bathroom, holding hands. The judgy girls are still there and still looking incredulous. Elliot frowns at them, looks at you and stops. You stop too, looking up in slight confusion. He puts a hand on each side of your face, gently stroking your hair and features. He gazes deep into your eyes and leans in to give you a kiss as sweet and soft as a rose petal. He takes your hand again and leads you back to your table.

You spend the rest of your night laughing and getting to know more about each other. It almost seems too fast, too soon, him pulling up outside your house to drop you off.

He walks you to the door, gives you a hug and a kiss. You’re floating on air as you walk upstairs to your room, the smell of his cologne clinging to you. You open your bedroom door and instantly smile, seeing the sunflowers perched on your nightstand.

Your phone buzzes, it’s Elliot. ‘I had an incredible time tonight.’

“Me too 💗 I had such a lovely time with you 🌻🎼🧡🧡 text me when you get home, okay?”

‘Will do 😉 I’ll be thinking of you the whole way home, Babydoll’

#dominic fike #elliot #elliot smut #euphoria #euphoria high #fan fiction #reader + elliot #plus size #fat girl #plus size fantasy #Jessica Andrea #love like this

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goddesswritings · 3 years

Text

“Can I slap her for you?” - Corpse Husband | Part One

Title: “Can I slap her for you?” – Part One

Pairing: Corpse Husband x Reader

Summary: Being stuck living with the queen of YouTube drama and partying during the pandemic has seriously worn down your patience. Meeting Pokimane has changed your life for the better, making Among Us a pivotal part of your life.

Word Count: 5.3k

I’m always writing so much plot! I hope you like it. Part Two is in the works.

********

Credit to PIC owner!

This pandemic was hell for you. Being stuck in this apartment with your bitch of a sister was not something you would wish on even your enemy.

When you first moved to LA with her, things were fine, and you got along. She had a budding YouTube career, and you were working a good job. Pretty quickly, she’d hired you as her editor since that was a daily part of your real job, you happily agreed because it meant you could get money on the side and still work.

Your sister was mainly a beauty YouTuber but last year she gained over 3 million followers when she started a series where she would interview people in other lines of entertainment and then test it out. Since then, she’d become a horror to live with.

Now with the pandemic, you’d been furloughed from you day job and working full time for your diva of a sister. She had only been getting worse and worse. Being stuck with her was crap, especially since she was selfish and still went out to party and do collabs with people like there wasn’t a massive virus out there.

“I hope you finished the editing I needed done.” Olivia, your sister, asked as she shut the front door.

You were just finishing up the edits from your spot on the couch. “Yeah, I did it while you were out risking lives.”

“Shut the hell up. I’m an adult and I can do what I want.” She flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“Even when it’s killing hundreds of thousands of people?” You were so sick of her attitude. She has no care in the world for anyone but herself. In the last month, her name had been posted all over the commentary YouTubers channels. Slamming her for partying while the world dealt with Covid.

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Those people are not my problem at all. If they are so afraid, they should just stay home.”

“Why are you so selfish?” Her behavior was completely out of hands these days.

“Do I need to remind you that I pay you?” She sent you a glare before heading off to her room. You grumbled and threw your head back. There was no way you could handle her.

Stressing out over her was no good, so you decided to take your laptop back to your room and play some games to calm yourself down. Among Us was one of those games that allowed to you just play and forget the stress. You booted up the game and joined some random lobbies. It was hard to find good games because you usually ran into some sour players who couldn’t just play the game without causing drama.

A few rounds in, your phone buzzed, indicating a text. You exited the current game, one of the imposters had already killed you anyway, and picked up the phone. There was a text from Poki. The two of you had become quick friends when she appeared on your sisters series but she clicked more with you since you were more of a gamer.

P: Hey Y/n, what are you doing currently?

It was an unexpected text because you had been fairly sure Poki had a stream tonight.

Y/n: Nothing since I just finished editing my selfish sisters video. What’s up?

She knew very well how horrible Olivia was and she’d been the one person who you could talk to about it. You appreciated her for it.

Poki: Damn, did she go to another party?

Y/n: Yup, she sure did. Then threatened my job when I called her out on it.

Poki: Wow, not cool. Hey, so you know how I’m streaming tonight?

Y/n: Yeah.

Poki: So I had everyone set up for the game but last minute someone dropped out. We need one more person and I know you’re amazing in Among Us. Would you join our game?

This was a surprise. You weren’t a YouTuber or a streamer, so for her to ask you, meant she really was desperate.

Y/n: Sure, I’m free. Who’s playing tonight?

Poki: Rae, Lily, Ethan, Mark, Felix, Toast, Sykkuno, and Corpse.

Wow, that was a packed game full of some pretty big names. Your nerves kicked up at the thought of being in a game with these amazing people.

Y/n: Sweet!

Poki: I will send you the discord so you can join the chat and the game code.

Y/n: Thanks.

She instantly sent you the links and you got your self set up with your headphones. Poki connected you into the discord call.

“Hey, everyone welcome my good friend, Y/n. She’s the one who will fill in on the open spot tonight.” She introduced you to the group.

A chorus of hello’s was heard. You knew Rae, so she jumped right into welcoming you.

Pushing the nerves away, you managed to little hello. Your voice was softer than you’d intended. Damn nerves.

“Guys! Y/n is so good in Among Us. Her skills rival Corpse’s.” Rae gushed. You’d played a game with Rae and Poki and a few of the other girls, but no one had been streaming.

“Whaddup baby.” The deep voice of Corpse said. His voice was something else.

“Don’t make her too nervous there, man.” Felix commented which made the other guys laugh.

“Oh no worries, I’m not nervous.” You said even though you really were nervous. You switched into the game and typed in the code Poki had sent you. Immediately the game lobby popped up, filled with everyone who was on the call. Your character popped onto the screen and took the white color.

“Good to know. I look forward to being an imposter with you.” Corpse said making your cheeks heat up just a little.

“You really need to watch out for her.” Lily said making you giggle. She was right. You were a deceitful imposter.

You quickly changed your hat to the halo, making you match your chosen username, Angel.

“Look how fitting her character is.” Mark commented. “Is that an indication of how you will be?”

“Perhaps.” You were starting to calm your nerves. “You will just have to find out.”

“Okay, let’s get started.” Poki said as the countdown started on screen. You muted your mic. The screen flashed the crew-mate title, and you felt a little more relieved. You hated starting as an imposter.

The map you were in was Polus, your favorite. The first thing you did, was the navigation task before also doing keys. Nearly everyone was there, which meant the two imposters were faking the tasks. After that, you ran off entering the building that housed electrical and o2. You looked around for tasks.

“I have my eye on you, Angel.” Felix said as he came into o2.

You unmuted your mic. “Good, then you can watch me teach you how to do tasks.” You sassed, making the group laugh.

“Damn, I already like her.” Ethan said, getting sounds of approval from Sykkuno, Mark, and Corpse.

“Stop simping and play the game.” Poki commented, making you laugh.

Leaving o2, you ran outside to check the weather nodes. Felix was still following you closely. He was convinced you were an Imposter.

“Why is this guy following me around?” You asked, trying to run from him.

“Felix, what are you doing?” Rae asked as she popped up beside you.

“Making sure she’s not an imposter.” He sounded innocent.

“Well I’m not. Now go do your tasks.” Once again you ran from his character and entered the office. You passed Corpse’s black character before heading in, to do card swipe.

Suddenly a body was reported. Felix’s body.

“Whoa, okay, Y/n did you kill Felix?” Toast asked.

“What? No? I left him to go do my tasks.” You defended.

“I can confirm she was in office with me. I watched her do card swipe.” Corpse added.

The thing was, you passed him as he was leaving the office, and he definitely didn’t stay to watch you. He was headed in the direction you had left Felix and Rae. So, both were sus.

“Okay, then Rae where were you?” Sykkuno questioned.

“I left Felix by weapons. I was headed to lab.” You couldn’t decipher a lie from her.

“Hmmm, okay. Skip then?” Ethan offered. The group agreed.

Once back in the game, you decided to head to labs to find the rest of your tasks. Sykkuno followed you but broke off to go through decontamination. You did your scan in peace before another body was reported. This time it had been both Mark and Lily.

“Any sus?” Ethan asked.

“No, I was in electrical.” Toast said.

“I went to o2.” Poki added.

“Y/n, where were you?” Toast questioned. You were sure he thought you were an imposter.

“I was in the lab doing my scan, which I never got to finish.” You hated being interrupted mid-task.

“Anyone see her go there?”

“I passed her while I headed to decontamination.” Sykkuno vouched for you.

“Sure but the body was right outside the lab. She could have gone back to kill Mark after you were gone.”

“But I didn’t. I was doing my task.” You repeated with a little smile. You loved this game.

“Sure. I don’t believe you.” Toast was a hard one to convince.

“She didn’t do it. I entered lab and she was doing her scan.” Corpse spoke up. Again he was covering for you when you know he was not in Lab with you.

“Okay. I guess we skip?” Poki said. Everyone agreed but when it was done, you had two votes but three had skipped, so you had been spared luckily. Toast for sure voted for you, you had no clue who else did but it didn’t matter.

Back in the game, you headed back to lab to finish your scan. Once done, you headed to decontamination, then to the specimen room for a task. As you entered, you found Corpse.

“Hey Corpse, having fun with your tasks?” You asked as you went to your own task.

“I sure am.” He stated before his character was running out of the room and up to the lab. Once your task was done, you had finished all your tasks and headed back to Admin. You entered office to find a dead Sykkuno, so you hit report.

��That was for sure a self-report.” Toast quickly said.

“It wasn’t, but okay.” You said shaking your head. Toast was so sus on you all game.

“I’m sus of Toast.” Rae said while Corpse and Poki agreed with her.

“Wait, Ethan is dead too. Damn, these Imposters got around.” Toast commented. “By the way, I am not an Imposter. Y/n is.”

“She’s not. I have seen her do her tasks all game.” Corpse was quick to come to your rescue. It was sweet how he was vouching for you all game.

“Sure, I’m voting Y/n.” Toast said as his ‘I Voted’ badge popped up.

You decided you were going to vote off Toast because he was getting on your nerves. Apparently the others were feeling the same because everyone else voted off Toast as well. His character was launched into the Lava. Toast was NOT an Imposter.

Back in the game, you ran around, just seeing if you could spot anyone being sus before Poki was killed. Straight after the defeat title showed, and the Imposters were revealed to be none other than Rae and Corpse.

Everyone dropped back into the lobby.

“I told you I wasn’t an Imposter.” You boasted.

“Sorry Y/n, I should have believed you.” Toast said.

“No worries. But hey, Corpse and Rae had plenty of chances to kill me, but they didn’t. Why?” It was interesting to you.

Rae laughed. “I didn’t want to kill you right in the beginning of your first game with us. You deserved to have some fun before you got killed.”

“Well thank you.” It was sweet of Rae to do that.

“I didn’t want to kill an Angel. It wouldn’t be right.” Corpse stated with a cute laugh afterwards.

Felix groaned. “But you have no issue killing anyone else.”

“It be like that sometimes.” Ethan stated which had you in stitches, as well as the rest of the group. “Okay, let’s begin another round.” He added.

The next few games were fun and interesting. You were always a crew member, but someone was always sus on you. But no matter what, Corpse would vouch for you. Sometimes his character would follow you around, do tasks with you. It was pretty freaking cute and clear to see the man with the alluring deep voice had taken a liking to you. It was sweet.

“One more game?” Poki asked after a slew of other games. Everyone agreed. She started the game and after the countdown, the screen flashed that you were finally an Imposter. Your fellow Imposter was of course Corpse. It was only natural.

You and he teamed up and killed many of the others. Starting with Rae and Lily, moving onto Toast and Sykkuno. Then someone finally reported the bodies.

“Four bodies already?” Mark stated as the red x’s showed up on their icons.

“Damn, someone is having fun.” You said, pretending like it wasn’t you who had done half of the killing.

“I saw Poki headed into Electrical where Lily and Rae were.” Corpse said, sounding genuine as always. He was so good at Imposter. His ability to lie was excellent.

“Sure I went to Electrical, but I left after fixing the lights.” Poki said.

“I don’t know. You seem sus.” Ethan said. “I saw you enter lab, and after I saw Sykunno’s body right before someone reported Lily and Rae’s.”

“I swear, it’s not me. I was just doing my tasks. How could I kill four people in that short amount of time?”

“It’s possible. You could have vented.” Corpse was right too.

“Guys, please.” She pleaded as everyone put in their votes. Nearly everyone had voted for Poki and her character was launched into the lava, only to show she was not an Imposter.

“Sorry Poki.” Ethan said before everyone hopped back into the game.

Once again, you and Corpse were teamed up, but you saw Mark head one way while Ethan was going another. Almost silently, the two of you decided to split up and take them. You followed Mark into O2, trailing him into the tree. No one was around, so you killed him before quickly venting away from there. Making sure no one was around when you resurfaced. Corpse must have killed Ethan because the Victory screen popped up for the two of you.

“Damn, I should have known this was a team effort between Corpse and the Angel. You’re far from an Angel when you’re an imposter.” Mark complained.

“That’s part of the thrill.” It really was. You loved being able to shock people that way.

“Good job, partner. You’re a great Imposter like me. We need to team up more often.” Corpse’s words made you feel all warm. It was insanely fun being Imposter with him. Your combined skills made things that much better.

“Okay, I think it’s time to call it a night. Thank you so much for joining us, Y/n.” Poki yawned to show it was getting late.

“Of course. I loved playing with all of you. It was much better than playing with randoms.”

“I get that. Randoms can be very annoying.” Sykkuno agreed. “It was so good to meet you, Y/n. I hope you join more games so I can be an Imposter with you!”

You loved how excited he sounded. “I guess we all want a chance to be Imposter with her.” Felix stated what everyone else was thinking.

“Hey, no one steals my Imposter buddy.” Corpse spoke up, which once again had you feeling some kind of good way.

“Corpse, you’re being such a simp.” Rae laughed, which made everyone else go nuts.

You all bid your goodbyes before you exited the game and the discord call. You found there was a huge smile on your face after that fun you had just had with Poki and her friends. They were all super welcoming of you, despite not knowing a thing about you.

Poki: Thank you for playing with us. I hope you had fun! You didn’t mind being on my stream?

Y/n: I had so much fun, everyone was so good to me. Also, not at all!

Poki: Good because my chat loved you! They couldn’t stop gushing about how much they loved you. It was so cute.

This was not something you had expected. Her stream had never met you, so for them to like you playing a game with the group, that was nice.

Y/n: Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting that. That’s so sweet!

Poki: You also seemed to get Corpse simping for you. Sykkuno is super jealous.

You laughed when you read that.

Y/n: Sykkuno doesn’t have to be jealous. It was a one-time thing, and he can have Corpse back in the next game.

Sure, you wanted it to be more than a one-time thing, but you weren’t going to let your hopes get too high. Poki had many streamer friends, who would get their streams way more viewers than you ever could.

Poki: I wouldn’t count on that. We’re definitely going to use you for more games. You’re one of us now, even if you don’t stream.

Her words warmed your heard. Poki had been one of the very few people you had made friends with when you moved to Cali with your sister and your friendship was only 10 months old. It was nice to have someone who wanted to include you in on the things she was doing.

Y/n: Are you sure? Because I would hate to be taking someone more interesting’s spot.

Poki: You shut that mouth. The group loved you and we’re all looking forward to playing with you again.

Y/n: Okay if that’s what they want.

Poki: They do, now get some sleep. I know you’ve been overworking yourself for your sister.

Y/n: You would be right. Thank you for the fun night, Poki. You get some sleep as well.

Poki: 😊

You liked her message before deciding it was indeed time for bed. Editing those videos did take energy out of you, especially since your sister would review and have you re-edit the things she didn’t like. Not fun at all.

****

The next month passed by with Poki inviting you to more games with her and her friends. Most of those games included Corpse, who’d taken a liking to you. The last few games, he’d been bugging you to tell him who you were and how you met Poki, but you were keeping that a secret. You really didn’t want him or the others knowing you were the older sister of selfish party girl Olivia Bella.

Your sister had found out you’d been playing the game with Poki and her friends and decided she was going to say some shit.

“How did you get Poki to let you play with her and the other streamers?” Olivia said with clear distaste towards you.

You shrugged. “She just asked me to step in for someone one day and now they enjoy playing with me.”

She laughed obnoxiously. “That such a joke. I needed that laugh, thank you.”

You clenched your fists, trying to contain your anger against your sister. She was really grating on your nerves these days.

“Damn, I would do anything to play with Corpse. His voice is so hot.” She muttered looking deranged.

“He’s much more than his voice you know.”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s whatever I want him to be. God, I bet he’s so sexy behind that screen.”

“Please stop, he’s my friend and talk like that is uncomfortable.”

She cackled. “Corpse is not your friend, you loser. He just tolerates you like the rest of that group. I bet Poki only asked you to join out of pity.”

Her words slapped you in the face and threatened to strangle you. It was unbelievable that your younger sister was really acting like this to you.

“Why are you like this to me?” You questioned in all seriousness.

“Because you annoy me. Isn’t it obvious. I meant if I had the money, I would have moved here without you. Living with you is the worst. You know you’re like the most boring person in the world?”

The insults just kept on coming. She truly didn’t like you and it felt horrible. Family wasn’t supposed to be like this. “I get it, thank you.” You walked away before she could say anything else, she was horrible to you.

Her words made you sad. The only thing that could cheer you up was the fact that Poki had invited you to another game. It was something you needed after that conversation with your sister.

Poki: Hey girl, this kills me to do but Sean invited someone else to play tonight. Someone he said was eager to play with us. I’m so sorry.

This was simply perfect. The one time you craved interaction with the Among Us crew, they added someone else to the game. Of course it was always a possibility, but it didn’t stop from making you upset.

A couple of tears streamed down your face before you wiped them away. You wouldn’t let this get to you.

Y/n: No, please don’t worry. I understand it is always a possibility. Have a good stream!

Poki: I think you should know the person joining us is your sister. I tried to tell them it was a bad idea, but they didn’t really believe me. I’m so sorry.

Your sister was the reason you have been replaced for tonight. Perfect. Of course it was her. She always took the things you liked, away from you.

Y/n: Please stop apologizing, I completely understand.

Poki: Should I tell them she’s your sister?

Y/n: No, please don’t let them know that.

Poki: Okay, please know we will miss you in tonights stream.

Doubt filled you. After reading those words. There was no way they would miss you in the game tonight. It was clear you didn’t bring in viewers for the streams, but your sister would be able to do that without any issues. Now your night was truly ruined. Thankfully, you could just lay in bed and sulk all you wanted.

The bedroom door burst open. “Hey, can you set up this game for me? I assume you know I’m playing Among Us with the crew tonight. Told you they didn’t care if you were there or not.” Did she ever stop this shit?

“Why should I help you?” You grumbled, glaring up at your blonde-haired sister. She looked like she was dressed for another party, not an off the cuff stream.

“Well, I pay you and if you want that to continue, you will help me set up the game and stream.” Her hanging your only source of income over your head was really shitty.

You growled but got out of bed, passing by her in a haste. You entered her office and quickly got to work setting up the stream and discord. Then you showed her how to load the game. She just nodded, not looking happy at all.

“Have fun.” You sounded bitter but at this point, you couldn’t hide it.

“Oh I’m going to have so much fun with them. It’s going to be so good, and maybe they will ask me to join them more often and they can stop faking their friendships with you.”

“Cool, good for you.” The audacity of this bitch. You left once you were sure it was set up correctly. She didn’t see, but you shot her the finger as you left. She was a bitch through and through.

You retreated to your room to sulk some more. This day was such a let down for you. Over the last month, you had really clicked with the Among Us group. Meeting more streamers as Poki had more games. They all seemed to like you, but your sister was probably right, they were just being nice because they could.

As you stared at your ceiling, you heard your sister talking and knew the stream had started. Groaning, you threw on some headphones and put on your playlist that was saved strictly for when you were sad. It helped to take your thoughts from the stressor at hand? And ease your mind.

****

Meanwhile, the stream was hell. Sean majorly regretted inviting Olivia onto it. To be fair, he was only being nice because the girl had been begging to join the game for a while now in his DM’s. But it was a huge regret with the way this woman was acting. She couldn’t even be Imposter without outing herself and the second Imposter.

“You guys know Y/n is my sister right?” She said offhandedly as they were waiting in the lobby for the next game.

“Wait what? Is that true?” Ludwig asked in disbelief. This woman was nothing like Y/n. She was a total ditz compared to Y/n.

“Of course it is. I have lived with her for twenty years now, I know a lot of dirt about her.” Hearing her say this angered Poki.

“Don’t go there, Olivia. Just play the game.” Poki didn’t want her to spill anything about her friend. It was messy that she would even want to.

Olivia sighed. “Awe but you would love this.”

“No, let’s just play the game.” Corpse was quick to cut her off.

“Come on Corpse, are you sure you don’t want to hear all the embarrassing things I know about her?” Everyone was quickly realizing just how messed up in the brain Olivia was.

“You do realize most of us are streaming this live?” Rae stated, sounding just as frustrated as Corpse felt.

“Please, let’s start the game.” He all but growled, wanting to shut this woman up. The game started and he pulled out his phone. He was going to finally get Poki to tell him Y/n’s instagram.

Corpse: I know you told me you couldn’t tell me what Y/n’s instagram is but please, can I get it now? Her sister is a fucking bitch.

He has so much more he wanted to say about Olivia and entitled attitude but making sure Y/n was okay was his number one priority.

Poki: She’s going to hate me if I do it.

Corpse: Please, this is important to me.

Poki: You owe me. Here’s her insta.

She sent him a link that led to a private instagram under the name Y/nY/l/n96. He requested to follow her.

Corpse: Thank you, let me know when to pay up.

Poki: Will do, now get into the game or Olivia is going to kill you. She’s imposter.

He got back into the game, hoping Y/n would accept his request.

****

After an hour of ‘sad girl hours’. You decided to do something that could help you not to focus on Olivia streaming in the other room.

Clicking instagram, you saw a notification. corpse_husband has requested to follow you. This was interesting. Either he’s smart enough to figure out who you are or Poki told him.

You accepted his follow and followed him back. He only had seven pictures, and of course there weren’t face pics. You admired him for keeping himself faceless to his fans. Now you hoped he wouldn’t bend to their pressure and reveal his face. Being faceless was good for him and his anxiety. The latest pics were his hand reveals he did for the fans, they made you giggle.

Corpse was good at keeping himself secret and you liked that. You did what you could to stay secret as well. Your Instagram profile picture was not even you, so no one would be able to point you out even if they knew your face. Also, you have hidden the account from Olivia, so she couldn’t send her fans to torment you.

As you scrolled Instagram, you received a DM. It was from the one and only Corpse Husband.

Corpse: This stream is hell without you tonight. Why did Sean have to invite her?

It made you feel a little better to see that Corpse was missing you in the stream tonight.

Y/n: That’s a question you will have to ask Sean. I was looking forward to playing Among Us with the group as well, but hey, it looks like they found someone who will bring in the views.

Corpse: Nope. She’s chasing away everyone’s viewers. Your sister is the worst. I see why you didn’t want us to know the two of you were related.

Your blood ran cold. How did he know that?

Y/n: How did you know she was my sister?

Corpse: She won’t shut up about it. No one can get her to stop. I’m sorry if you didn’t want us to know about this.

Of course, you should have known that Olivia was going to tell everyone that. She was also probably opening her mouth about so much other stuff.

Y/n: Well fuck. This sucks.

Corpse: Hey, don’t worry about it. No one is judging you for this, but we are wondering how you manage to handle her.

A soft giggle left your mouth.

Y/n: It’s not easy. I mean sure I’m the older sister, but she acts like the queen around here.

Corpse: Damn. Here we go again. Your sister is trying to start some drama.

Hearing this, you realized you had to do something about this. There was no way you could let her sit there and continue to mouth off about you or anyone else in her life.

Y/n: Brace yourself, I’m about to ruin her stream.

Corpse: Good luck!

It was time to put her in her place, you got up and headed to the utility closet by the front door of the apartment. The fuse box was located there. You opened it and found the switch for her office and clicked it off. It was half a second before a loud scream was heard.

In less than thirty seconds she was running out of the office with a livid look upon her face. “What the fuck have you done?” She screamed while stomping up to you.

“I heard you were talking shit about me and decided to end it.” You crossed your arms in front of your chest.

“I can say whatever I want. The group was enjoying it.” She tried to act smug.

You laughed in her face. “Do you ever not lie?”

“Do you ever stop being a bitter bitch?” The anger was clear, but you didn’t care.

“Oh fuck off. You were annoying them with your ridiculous bullshit. I completely saved your ass from making a fool of yourself.”

“I fucking hate you!” She stepped up to you. “I’m kicking you out. Pack your shit and get the fuck out of my apartment.” The look on her face, showed she was serious about this.

“Fine.” Was all you said before you turned around and went back to your room, well your former room now. Pulling some bags out, you stuffed some clothes and important items into them. Once filled, you pulled on shoes and made sure you had what you needed until you could come get the rest of your stuff. Currently, you didn’t know how to feel about any of this, but you did need to get away from her.

PART TWO >>

740 notes · View notes

copias-thrall · 3 years

Note

How would Mary goore react to hurting someone he genuinely cares about? I absolutely Love your writing!💕

Hello, nonny! Thank you, I love this ask!

This was going to be alist, but it got away from me! 😅

Enjoy 😘

It wasn’t anything big.

Just a few of Mary’s favorite beers (the craft kind—not the shitty beer he drank on his shoestring budget), some of that chronic shit you’d scored and have been saving for a special occasion, and a VHS box set of horror movie classics.

***

Mary comes in and out of your life at will, and that was something you accepted—knowing he was As Is or not at all. And honestly—no, really—you liked that. You had your own shit going on, and being Mary’s expected caregiver was NOT something you wanted to add to that list.

(If someone else wanted to try to tame him and pick up after him, well…kudos to them. Less work for you.)

Mary showed up on your pivotal days and he rubbed your feet and always invited you out to trivia. You'd held him when he was coming down from a bad trip and listened to his grievances and gave him a place to stay when he was persona non grata at his own. And in a way, that made you always feel like #1 in Mary’s world…and that was good enough for you.

***

A few months ago, Mary had been lying on your couch, picking the label off his beer bottle.

“I’m gonna be away for a bit,” he’d said.

“Oh?” you’d responded as you’d mashed the controls on your gaming controller.

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll be around…but I got some shit going on.”

You’d paused your game.

“Bad shit?”

He’d waved you off.

“Neg. Just tryna get myself out there. Signed up for open mics and shit.”

He’d shifted, his long legs receding from around you and folding under him.

“So, like…I got my job at the bowling alley…but nights and weekends are kinda shot.”

You’d tried not to let the disappointment show on your face. You supported Mary’s dreams, and that meant not making an issue that he was finally trying to do something about them.

This wasn’t against you. It was for him.

When you’d taken too long to respond, his face had scrunched.

“But if you want—”

“It’s fine, Mare,” you’d said as you’d made yourself smile. “This is important to you, so it’s important to me.”

You’d unpaused your game.

“Just don’t expect me to not beat this game without you.”

He’d grabbed the controller out of your hands with a snarl, causing you to cry out when you died.

“Fuck the game.” His hand had fisted your shirt. “Give me a night to remember.”

You had. Twice.

***

Mary had texted you occasionally over the next few weeks—a few memes, a few drunken key-smashes, a dick pic, and 2 grainy videos of his performances for critique—but such contact was sporadic, and you’d never seen him in real-time.

He’d blown in one night, five weeks in, with a box of pizza just as you'd been heading out to meet your crew. When you’d told him you’d made plans, he’d looked so crestfallen that you’d caved and canceled on them.

While he’d been there, he’d given you a date in 3 weeks.

“That Saturday I have nowhere to be,” he’d said as he’d chewed. “I can spend the whole day with you.”

You’d been careful not to seem too eager.

“Oh yeah? Should I plan shit?”

He’d crammed the whole crust into his mouth and had given you a doughy grin.

“Why ’’ya think I told you?”

You didn’t know what you’d expected, but when he’d had to bounce 90min later, you were still surprised. (That was hardly enough time to digest!)

“Sorry,” he’d winced. “I gotta be on a bus in 45min.”

He’d left, and you’d been too embarrassed to join your friends who were only just going to the second bar.

Having fun with your man ;) ? one of your friends had texted.

What do you think? You’d texted back before changing into your pjs and turning on Netflix.

***

So maybe you were low-key excited about your day with Mary.

Perhaps you’d spent those 3 weeks figuring out the perfect date—something that said, “I missed you,” without saying “But in a clingy way.”

Beer and horror were two things the both of you were totally into, and you knew he’d be exhausted, so it seemed perfect. You’d bought the boxed set off of eBay and splurged for expedited shipping; you’d borrowed your brother’s old dual TV/VCR from his college days; and you’d forgone your weekly Chinese takeout for the craft beer funds. (And if things got steamy, well…even better.)

***

A few days before The Date, you’d run into Mary on the bus. You were coming home from a shift, and he was going to his.

He’d brightened and waved you over—as if you weren’t already on your way—and you’d plopped down beside him with a tired grin. You’d told him of the latest entitled asshole, and he’d showed you another clip of him on guitar.

Before your stop had come up, you’d tentatively placed your hand over his.

“We still on for Saturday?”

He’d blinked at you a few moments before grinning.

“Yeah.”

“Should I plan a whole day for us, then?”

His arm had crept around your shoulders before pulling you into him to kiss your temple.

“Yeah, why not.”

***

That morning, you wake up happy.

Mary will be over soon.

You roll over and grab your phone.

When should I expect you? :-*

It takes him an hour to respond. You aren’t surprised—Mary isn’t known for being a morning person—so when your phone dings, you grab it up excitedly.

An excitement that dies when you read his text. And reread. And re-reread.

not 2day

goin upste 2 show

You blink.

What show? Didn’t we confirm?

yeah. got me thinkin

why no show?

so i chked

i missed one

gotta do it

Rage blooms hot, then cold behind your eyes and down your cheeks.

But you said we had the whole day. I made plans.

save em

ths is impt 2 me

We’ve had this planned for weeks.

i thot u suprted me

on a bus cnt tlk

You send a few more irate texts, but he doesn’t respond, and you toss your phone across the room with a shout of frustration. You scrub the hot tears from your eyes before they can fall.

And…on paper, Mary isn’t wrong. Nothing you had planned won’t keep: movies, beer, takeout.

But…

It gives you a stark look at what you mean to Mary. He gave you this date and confirmed it. He knew you were making plans.

How long was he going to wait to tell you he wasn’t even in the city anymore?

You fight the urge to kick the VHS tapes across the floor, but you open the fridge and grab a beer. If Queen Elizabeth could have beer for breakfast, then it was good enough for you.

Once you’ve downed all eight, you move on to the jug of vodka you keep for cleaning.

When you empty only liquid from your stomach into the toilet, you grab your frozen fries out of the freezer. You roll a handful of the cold ones in your mouth as you wait for the others to crisp in the oven, and once you’ve consumed the cooked ones, you go right back to the vodka.

***

Opening your eyes the next morning is a mistake, so you take a few deep breaths and go back to sleep.

When you wake again, your heart is fluttering, your stomach turns, and it feels like there’s an ice pick behind one eye. Shuffling slowly, you make your way out to your kitchen where you take some painkillers, drink some pickle juice, and eat two slices of plain bread.

The sense that you did something awful stays with you, but you’re in no condition to find your phone and see what you’ve done. Instead, you go back to bed. It takes more deep breathing to settle yourself, but once you do fall asleep, you’re out for hours.

You don’t feel amazing when you swim to consciousness again, but you feel at least like a human being.

Your phone is dead when you find it under the sink, and waiting the 5 or so minutes for it to charge feels like waiting to face the executioner.

It’s both better and worse than you expected.

You breathe a sigh of relief to see that there are no vague social media posts, and you didn’t drunk dial any of your friends, but…

The texts to and from Mary are ugly.

Apparently, you’d managed not to send him angry texts until he’d sent you another clip of his performing. But then the floodgates had opened.

You’d started with telling him you didn’t give a shit about the show, how he was an inconsiderate ass, and then you'd devolved into incomprehensible, typo-ridden texts that accused him of using you, that you were only something to do when he didn’t have anything better to do, that he was an entitled man-child and if he didn’t apologize, you were done.

Mary’s texts in response range from him being angry at your disregard, to heated retorts you were blowing this out of proportion (and he didn’t appreciate your “ad hominem” attacks), to a cool detachment that this wasn’t working over text and he’d finish this in person.

You put your head in your hands but are too dehydrated to cry.

***

Mary doesn’t text you again during his self-imposed time frame.

You don’t text him either, but that’s more out of self-preservation than pride. There’s no point exacerbating the situation…and you’re pretty sure there’s no coming back from this, so why speed up the inevitable?

The horror tapes taunt you every time you walk by them, and you wonder if you can return them (you can’t). You give the TV back to your brother, and when he asks you how it went, you plaster a smile on your face and say, “Great!” with forced enthusiasm you hope comes across as genuine.

The primo weed goes over to your friend’s house, and the two of you wax poetic all night about existential claptrap as you devour two cheese pizzas and a bag of bbq chips. You talk about Mary without talking about Mary, and you get a heartfelt, “Sorry, dude.”

You beat the video game anyway, but it’s mostly because you needed something to occupy your mind and less out of spite (though that’s there as well).

***

Despite waiting on tenterhooks to hear anything from Mary, you truly don’t really expect to. You know you’d been atrocious, even if it had been prompted by his careless disregard, and you know Mary isn’t really the kind of guy that troubles himself with relationships that are hard.

Not that you’re in a relationship.

So when there’s a knock on your door a week later and Mary’s behind it, you’re genuinely surprised.

You gape through the peephole in shock.

“Fuck. If you’re there, just let me in, ok?”

Fumbling with the chain, you unlock the door and crack it open.

“Mary?”

“You gonna let me in?” he rasps.

You shrug and step away from the door, and he shuffles inside. He looks around like you’ve changed anything (you haven’t), before turning around to face you.

You close the door and stare back.

He folds his arms. “Breaking up with someone over text is tacky.”

What you think is, So you’ve come to do it in person, but what you say is, “Can’t break up if you’re not together.”

He winces and runs his fingers through his hair.

“Yeah…apparently I’ve ‘taken advantage' of you.”

This…isn’t what you’re expecting.

“I…what?”

“Can we sit down?”

You nod, and Mary sits rigidly on the edge of your couch. You curl up in the chair on the opposite side.

He rubs his palms down his greasy jeans before he speaks.

“I mean…you pissed me off, ok?”

You nod.

“But, like—you weren’t wrong, ok? I kinda knew that deep down, but I’m a dumbass, you know?”

You don’t nod.

“And I kinda bitched about the whole thing…but the resounding response was that I was the asshole.”

He angles his body toward you.

“I guess I’ve kinda been treating you like my best friend that I fuck sometimes.”

Your entire face flushes—you’d always thought you’d maybe ranked a little higher than that—and you duck your head so he can’t see the tears that you blink back.

There’s a swish of fabric, and you startle hard when Mary’s hand is at your chin. He jerks back with a Sorry.

“Shit—that’s not what I…” he blows out a breath and puts his hands behind his head before looking back up at you.

“But you aren’t, and…fuck this is harder than I thought.”

So this is it.

Waiting for him to do the deed is clearly going to be excruciating, so you take charge of this whole shit-show.

“I understand,” you say flatly.

“You do?”

“It’s ok, Mare-Mary. It’s my own fault for reading too much into it. I just…I saw what I wanted to see, I guess. I know you don’t need…” you look down into your lap, “…my shit in your life.

He makes a noise low in his throat, and then he’s squatting in front of you, his hot hands planting on your knees.

“But I want your shit in my life.”

You squint your eyes at him.

“But what I said…”

He grasps your hands in his.

“Pissed me off, yeah…cuz I wasn’t fucking thinking, ok? You’re like one of the only people who gives a crap about what’s important to me. And all I could see was you suddenly…not.”

Anger wells up in you again, and you yank away your hands.

“Weeks, Mary…weeks of you all over the tri-state area, and you thought I didn’t care because of one night?! A night you promised to me?”

He sits back on his heels. “I know…fuck. Ok? At the time, it just felt…like the show couldn’t be rescheduled. Our night could.”

Because you’re what he does when he’s bored.

You curl in on yourself.

“Shit.” He leans forward again. “Fuck, I’m sorry, ok? I’m fucking on my knees here.”

You blink at him.

What?

“Please, please don’t break—say we’re done.”

“What?”

“Look, we can go into my shitty fucking psychological profile on why I fuck around later…but right now I need you to know that I knew it was you before I fucking knew it was you.”

You uncurl.

“That…’what’ was me?”

He knees forward and presses your hands to his face.

“The one I wanna spend my free time with. The one whose opinion means the most. The one who was the first person I wanted to share all my good shit with. You’re the one I missed, and—after that awful fucking night—everything felt pointless because I knew I couldn’t come over and jam about it.”

“Mare—what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I’m a fucking dumbass. I’m saying I thought I was pissed at you, but I was pissed at myself for fucking it up.” He sighs. “I’m saying no fucking one was on my side and they all told me to get my shit together.”

He looks up at you with wide eyes, and for the first time, you can see how they’re outlined in red, his subtle crow’s feet more pronounced.

“So, you’re not done with me? I’m not…too much trouble?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “What? Shit, no. I’m asking you to not be done with me. I’ll give you all the nights you want. Fucking text me, and my ass’ll be here posthaste.” He shifts up, and his thumb ghosts over your lips. “Anything to get you to give me that secret smile again.”

“Secret smile?” you ask while trying to perform the action.

Mary actually blushes.

“Uh…yeah. You get this…” he makes a motion across his face, “…when you’re giving it back to me.” His fingers shove back through his hair as he casts his eyes down. “You don’t give it to anyone else.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve made a study of it.”

You’re a swirl of emotions. Mary’s apologized—has admitted he was wrong and has asked for…more—but you’re still hurt. And embarrassed.

But he’s looking up at you with wet, hopeful eyes.

“Do you…” you start carefully, “…do you know why I got so mad?”

That statement was clearly not what he was expecting, and he blinks at you a few times before nodding and looking down at the floor.

“I made a…uh, commitment…to you. And I treated it like it didn’t mean anything.”

He gives you a look like, Did I get it right? and that’s close enough—even if he’s missing some of the nuance.

You nod. “And I know I…wasn’t…the best.”

His face contorts, and your heart sinks.

“You…” he shakes his head. “You said some awful things…some hurtful shit—and it really got in my head.”

Mary gives you a complicated look.

“Shit that you’d been pissed about for a while.” He traces your knee. “Shit you could’ve said to me…but shit I should have noticed. Fuck.” He presses his forehead into your knees, and you can’t stop yourself from sinking your fingers into his hair.

He takes it as encouragement and presses into you before looking up again.

“I just kinda wanna put that whole night behind us. It feels like a fucking ouroboros of fault. And like maybe I created it. But let’s agree to like…not do that again.”

You look down at him, and his eyes search your face.

“Ok…but what does all this mean, Mare? I can’t…I need to be something to you, ok? More than just your friend.”

Mary nods emphatically, and he takes your hand and curls his into it.

“No more fuck-ups, and no one else…can we start there?”

He’s saying all the right words, but you’re still trepidatious—you know Mary, and he doesn’t like constraints.

“I…just…how can I believe you?”

He shakes his head like he can’t believe you even have to ask. He rises and awkwardly reaches out to touch your face before drawing his hand back.

“Cuz you’re important to me. I care about you, and I don’t want to lose you. Ever.”

And yeah. Ok.

#asks #mary goore #gender neutral #hurt/comfort #my writing #original post

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sleepy-moons · 3 years

Text

Lock Screens

Description: what your s/o’s lock screen is, hero edition !

Warnings: pure fluff. little bit of explicit language. fem, black reader.

let me know what you think, and who I should do next!

Shouta Aizawa | Eraserhead

It’s a picture of you asleep on the couch with Sushi napping on your stomach.

you had the day off so you decided to come over to his apartment while shouta worked. you straightened up a bit, got yummy takeout for the two of you, and brought out the huge, fluffy blanket so you both could cuddle on the couch once he got home. you definitely got a bit too comfy though, because once he opened the door to his apartment a few hours later, you were dead asleep with an arm thrown over your eyes to block out any light.

he figured you must’ve forgotten or ran out of your allergy medicine because your face is scrunched up in slight discomfort and you kept sniffling in your sleep. before he moved Sushi (who you affectionately called the devil™️) and woke you up so you can take some meds (he always stocked up bc you were so forgetful and would ‘happily die if it meant you could pet a cat’), he had to take a picture. (It’s been years since this happened yet it’s still his lock screen. he refuses to change it) (this is definitely not a self insert and i am definitely not allergic to cats)

Hizashi Yamada | Present Mic

it’s a picture he took of you while y’all were on FaceTime, while his radio show was on a commercial break. you had the show playing on your laptop as you lay in your bed, FaceTiming Hizashi.

he said something so stupid that you rolled your eyes and gave him the finger. why is this Lock Screen worthy you may ask? well, here’s how the conversation went; “you know, I think I’d look really good walking down the aisle in a banana suit.” “boy...what are you on?” “I dunno, I just think it would be really a-peeling.” “...” you tried so hard not to laugh at his corny ass joke as you gave him the finger.

after a good minute of shared laughter, there was a comfortable silence before Hizashi spoke up again. “...I love you.”

yeah. a minute or so after this pic, he confessed his love for you. before you could give a proper response, he was back on air. you immediately text him “come to my place when ur done” to which he said to his audience “I just told my girl I loved her for the first time and she asked me to come to her place. should I be worried, listeners?” you text him again saying “no!!!! I love you idiot!!! I just didn't want to say it through fuckin text!!”

he yelled so loud he blew out your laptop speakers.

Keigo Takami | Hawks

a pic of you in your bonnet and one of his t-shirts. it was late at night and you two were both in the kitchen, looking for something to snack on. you were standing on the tip of your toes looking for something in the cabinets when you hear the all too obvious sound of his phone’s camera. “did you just-” you nearly had to wrestle him for his phone before you can finally see the picture. You can see just a sliver of your lacey underwear, the cusp of your ass. after looking at the pic for a bit longer, you had to admit it was pretty decent. Not to him, though.

“don’t make that your lock screen or anything, birdbrain.” "but you look so beautiful. divine, even.” “fuck off and help me look for snacks, dork.”

you had to turn away from him to hide the smile on your face. he knew you all too well, though.

Enji Todoroki | Endeavor

he absolutely does not know how to use a phone. One day you were making faces at him while he was trying to figure out how to work his new iPhone 11 x max ultra whatever the fucks that he just had to get when he accidentally took a couple pictures of you and somehow managed to make one his Lock Screen. Neither of you noticed until you picked up his phone a couple hours later and you saw yourself in a bra and his your favorite Endeavor pajama pants, sticking your tongue out. The same outfit you were wearing now (it was a lazy day, no judgement). The same pose you had just a couple hours ago.

“Omg babe !” “mm.” “You made me your lock screen!” “my what.” “You know, that’s actually pretty tech savvy of you, old man.” “Huh????”

whenever you take his phone you take another selfie and make it his lockscreen. it actually melts his heart every time he sees a new picture of you, and he starts expecting it. (that night you took a pic of you kissing his cheek and made it his Home Screen. He said he hates it but never changes it. He’s getting soft.)

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hearteyes-for-killmonger · 3 years

Text

HER

I was rollin' around and in my mind it occurred. What if God was a HER?

Quick lil one-shot. Erik is onstage at a poetry night.

The words Urban Fever flashed neon above the familiar stage that Erik had seen countless nights through Open Mics and jazzy blues. Erik took the stage for the former, a first time poet created by the woes of heartbreak. He'd been through a lifetime in under a year.

A packed house sat before him as he adjusted the mic making it taller from the last poet who was 5'6 in her clunky platforms. Lights blinded him from the faces of the crowd and he squinted as the liquor in his system along with the vibe of the room made his mind run backward with reminiscing. His tongue was loose recounting his too brief time with.. Her.

"I swear I lost my train of thought when I passed her, fro godly like a pastor, skin like brown alabaster.

Astral choirs sing jagged edge cause shorty done walked right out of heaven a vision fulfledged."

NINE MONTHS BACK

"E, What you doing," Diamond's irritation cut into his sinful and lustful thoughts. For a minute he forgot he was in a relationship. He couldn't say he was in love but neither could most people. Diamond was down for him at least, he knew that for sure. "E!!"

"Hm?" His mind blanked so bad he missed the turn to take Diamond to work which meant he'd be late meeting his other bitch once he dropped her off. She sighed throwing her arms.

"Really E?" Diamond cut with a look that could kill. She was visibly sick of his shit but still there.. "You gone check this bitch out right in front of me when I'm in the car? Beside you?" She pushed the wheel causing the car to drift slightly into the left lane nearly hitting the car there before he righted it. "You that bold?"

He took a low look at her from the side of his eye as he kept driving. He'd passed the girl because Diamond made him gas the car so not to get hit.

"You trippin."

"Don't do that," she groaned. "Don't LIE. You want the bitch, go get the bitch." Impulsively she grabbed for the wheel again but he blocked her. "Let me out."

"You extra right now, chill out."

"Don't tell me to chill," she grit pushing the side of his head. He gave her another side eye as he contemplated pulling over.

"Just let me turn around.. Okay?"

She groaned as her head hit back on the headrest. "I don't know why I fuck with you, you ain't shit, never gonna be shit, make me feel like shit over your shit. It's just shit."

"So leave then Diamond! I don't need to hear that shit."

"I really should.. I'm not dumb, I know you cheating! I don't know why I stay with you when I know better."

"You know why."

Eight thick inches explained exactly why. He purposely missed the next turn hoping to find that girl walking again before she disappeared.

"I swear to-," she jumped suddenly, "LET ME OUT. I'M DONE, LET ME OUT!"

"Aye, chill. I'm a get you to work."

"NO. FUCK YOU," she pointed popping her door open before the car could make a full stop. He didn't stop and she either had to roll out or shut the door. She slammed it. She was finna be late as hell.. Meanwhile he was circling the area tryna go back to find that mystery woman he'd spotted before. Diamond wasn't dumb. She was shaking with anger, talking to herself.

The tall drink of hot chocolate with the god tier afro stood gracefully at the crosswalk looking like she'd flewn right out of heaven and into Stockton. Erik didn't know what the hell he was thinking.. he wasn't.. but he was damn near leaning on Diamond while steering the car closer to the sidewalk, rolling at a crawl to match this new woman's pace as his current sat fuming in the seat, shoving him off of her.

This new woman was divine. There were diamonds dusted in her skin like he'd never seen on a woman who wasn't on a TV screen. When she walked down the sidewalk, the world became chopped and screwed. That's how fixated he was. Not even Diamond slapping at him or shoving him could break his focus on that woman and her walk as he cruised beside her as though the surrounding traffic didn't exist.

"LET ME OUT," Diamond yelled smacking his face. She'd been trying the break the passenger door handle.. like he wouldn't make her pay for it. He finally stopped the car to let her noisy ass walk.

"Bye," he muttered pulling off to catch up with the fro'd up goddess.

"DON'T TALK TO HIM, HE'S TRASH," Diamond yelled from afar, her voice carrying faster than she could physically catch up. Erik wasn't bothered or embarrassed.

He had to think carefully of what to say. How could he impress this girl without her thinking he was a creep? Following her probably wasn't helping. Luckily she dropped something. It looked like money. Seizing his opportunity, he quickly parked in a no parking zone and dashed to snatch up what he discovered to be a twenty dollar bill.

"AYE.." he called ahead to no avail. He had to jog to catch up and when he reached her side, he noticed she had in earbuds. He waved for her attention and she fixed her eyes cautiously. Her almond eyes lined in jet black were just as black. She gritted on him hard. Even her disgusted face attracted him. She turned her nose up until she saw the twenty in his hand folded the same way the one in her pocket had been. He had her. "You dropped this.."

His hand smoothly ghosted hers as she took it. She felt like velvet to the touch.

"Thanks.."

She gave him a second look and he bit his lip as he met her eyes wondering how to make his next move.

"Ok.. so that's it?"

Her question caught him off guard.

"You do all that, follow me for damn near three blocks and now you've got nothing to say? That was anticlimactic."

Erik's jaw dropped slightly before he caught it.

"Wanna ride?"

She turned her nose up and he presented his key fob watching her deliberate on whether or not to trust him.

"Might as well.. before you get towed. Goofy ass," she mumbled with humor. There was something about her voice that was familiar and calming, the deep timbre. He rushed to retrieve the car. His face said it all as he opened the car door for her. It wasn't something he'd been in a habit of doing.

"Why thank you," she smirked.

"Of course... Why walk when you can be chauffeured," he commented when he was in.

"I like my woman black as the heart of an Aryan. Black as the back of a diabetic's neck. Black as coffee with no cream. My girl looks like 2 AM in a blackout."

Erik glanced wistfully to his memories ignorant to the soulful groans, snaps, and hums from the crowd. Of course his woman was no more, but he carried her still regardless..

Erik was stuck. He couldn't be away from his peace especially in the quiet moments when neither of them had anywhere they'd rather be than side by side doing whatever. Nail shop? He was in the pedicure massage chair right beside her with a drink and his feet up. Bank? They'd hit the BB&T and the SunTrust in one trip. They paid bills together.

"E, hand me my debit."

"You tryna pay it?"

"Yeah, I gotta pay today."

"I already did that."

"You paid mine?"

She seemed pleasantly shocked which was what Erik wanted.. to make her happy. Especially considering the pushback she got for their relationship. There were a lot of hating ass bitches.

"I heard you talked to Bianca.." He watched for any sign that she was omitting details to spare him. He didn't need to be spared. She took a deep breath and he knew without her speaking that some choice words had been exchanged. Afterall, he was playing Bianca with a whole girlfriend before leaving them both for this new flame. Bianca hadn't reacted well when she found out. "What she say," he inquired with faux calm. He had every intention of cussing out all his exes.. every one of them who had a problem with him moving on. It was the side effect of dating crazy bitches. They were too passionate. They couldn't just let shit rock, they had to harass him and his girl.

"I ain't worried about her, she can try me if she wants.. I'll knock her ass out that's for sure."

"Aight then," Erik smirked. He still planned to say something. "What she say though," he pressed.

"Same shit. She can't comment on anything but my skin because she knows I look better then her."

Erik was disappointed every time he thought of the fact that he'd unknowingly fucked a self hating colorist. He hadn't seen it before but now that he was serious about this new girl, true colors were showing.. and it wasn't just Bianca.

In a moment of fuck it after a sweaty quickie in the post office parking lot, Erik uploaded a chest-up pic of him and his cutie glowing from within with smiles white enough to rival the purest coke. She clung to him, laughing from the gut with crinkled eyes about something they'd both previously witnessed and he was grinning full force. That was the shot. Very pure. It'd brought him joy just looking at it, but others ain't feel what he felt and they had words about it. He cut off a childhood friend over a conversation where the guy'd said something casually insulting.

"How you ain't mean it when it came outta your mouth," Erik challenged. His friend was a damn coon.

Even worse was witnessing the treatment of her when it wasn't immediately clear they were together. She stood firm and held her own with class and dignity but it was work she didn't deserve to have to do. He couldn't be there for it all and even before he'd entered her life these problems were there.. but still..

"You know you perfect?" Erik asked this question at least once every other day to uplift his woman.

"Erik I need you to pick me up from work today," she said one day and when he asked why, she stated that her tire was flat. There was a nail in it. He sighed rubbing roughly through the fuzzy growout at the base of his locs. It had Evil Ex written all over it.

"I'll take take of it," he ensured. "I'll meet you for lunch too, wait for me."

His dedication knew no bounds. His loyalty had never before existed. His feelings for this woman were like nothing he'd ever felt.

Five months in.. he felt the same way. He'd never lived with a woman.. He'd never been faithful in his life, but then he'd never been in love.

Eight months.. she was still perfection through the good and bad and he'd do anything. He saw it all. The attitude, the dookie braids, the subtle insecurities, the slight messiness around the house, the flaws.. and all he could think of was that... he had his eye on a ring.. one with diamonds that matched the diamonds he saw in her soft rich deep brown skin.

"I'm casting all my game hoping she bite. Told her ass: You got that air that I like. Derriere sky high bite down I like to hit it from the bike. She say she love when daddy cum and fill it up just right."

The ring was still in Erik's pocket. It flipped absentmindedly through his fingers as he spoke. Unfortunately she'd never gotten it.

26 DAYS PRIOR

Erik gave backshots through the hour of 5 PM. Both he and his girl had arrived home around the same time and it was on sight.

"Hey.. Bae.. Get up and fix me something to eat," he whispered in her ear as she was laid out and half asleep. He was laid out as well with little energy after emptying himself of everything. He nudged her and she groaned but sat up.

"You can't fix it? I don't wanna move," she snickered.

"Pleaaaase," he begged watching her give in as she stretched. He smacked her ass as she rose. Then he rolled over and closed his eyes, hungry but ready to sleep. He inhaled her fresh scent left over on the pillow. It reminded him of oceans.

The doorbell rang.

He figured it was a package, something else she'd ordered. The closet was full. He drifted off.

When a half hour passed he opened his eyes and she still hadn't returned, she had to be cooking something. The thought hit him to surprise her in the kitchen by taking her as she cooked. It would be sexy..

When he walked out to the kitchen, he immediately entered a state of shock. Not only was she not cooking or coming back.. She had left a note that amounted to this:

Erik.. I'm leaving you for my ex.

Apparently her ex had showed which meant they'd been in contact... she even let him in.

Turned out he'd been a rebound all along.

"I should've known better..," Erik's head dropped in dark humor as his story came to a close. "When a goddess says her name is Karma that means misery. Better run if you got a history. I guess if she's God then God's testing me. Cuz she sure left with the best of me."

@soufcakmistress @itsiesha @ju5tp34chy @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade @blackpantherimagines @blackpinup22 @muse-of-mbaku @goddessofthundathighs @panthergoddessbast @thadelightfulone @misspooh @marvelmaree @youreadthatright @forbeautyandlife @theunsweetenedtruth @bidibidibombaclaat @myboyfriendgiriboy @dameshaemonique @hidden-treasures21 @mysidefanting @hold-me-like-a-heart-beat @syndrlla97 @winteroflife @thotyana-in-this-hoe @texasbama @gingerylimonte @princessstevens @magic-madness-heavensin @wawakanda-btch @wakanda-inspired @blackgirloneshots @thegucciwaffle @thiccdaddy-mbaku @purplehairgawdess @indigoxsummers @dynastylnoire @iamrheaspeaks @blowmymbackout @they-call-me-le @theblulife @raysunshine78 @sheisexcellent-blog

#original #erik killmonger #killmonger #erik stevens #erik killmonger fanfiction #erik stevens au #black panther killmonger #black panther fanfiction #her

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felassan · 4 years

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Mass Effect development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

This is the Mass Effect version of this post.

[In case you can’t read it the subtitle in the bottom left logo above is “Guardians of the Citadel”]

Note: Drug use is mentioned.

Cut for length.

Mass Effect 1

ME began its life in a vision document in fall 2003

Codenamed “SFX”

Conceived of by Casey Hudson and a core team from KotOR. Its genesis was the intention to create an epic sci-fi RPG in an original setting that BioWare owned (so they could have full creative control), and in a setting that was conceived of first and foremost as a video game

Initially players could control any squadmate, but they wanted it to be about Shep and for players to be focused on Shep being a battlefield commander, rather than on switching bodies

By the start of 2004 its story was shaping up. Initially humans landed on Mars in 2250 and discovered evidence of an ancient alien race and a powerful substance, Black Sand, which rapidly advanced tech to the point that FTL travel was possible. (My note: obviously now the Prothean artifacts on Mars & associated mass effect force tech enabled this in the final canon, but I wonder if aspects of the ‘Black Sand’ naming-type & powerful substance stuff was rolled into red sand from final canon) Humans were suddenly capable of travel to multiple star systems and made contact with a multitude of other species. At the start of the first game, these species together with humans had a fragile peace, with focus placed on the political center of the galaxy, a hub known as Star City, later renamed the Citadel

Multiplayer was a vision for the series as far back as 2003. The plan was for ME1, an Xbox exclusive at launch, to take advantage of the platform’s online components. Early designs saw players meeting in one of the central hubs to interact and trade items in their otherwise SP adventures

By 2006 it had the name ME and the story was more specific, with the theme of conflict between organic and synthetic lifeforms. The story’s scope now stretched across 3 games and included scope for full co-op MP

They tried to do MP in every game, discussing it from the get-go, but it always just fell by the wayside. “When you’re trying to build something that is a new IP, on a new platform, with a new engine, you’ve got to really focus on the core elements of the game.”

The conversation system prototype was made in Jade Empire, and some of ME’s earliest writing was done in an old JE build. At first there was no conversation wheel. Paragon was “Friendly” and Renegade “Hostile”. In the prototype Shep was a silent unnamed Spectre. Many conversations in the prototype about the player’s choice in smuggling a weapon through Noveria made it into the game

In said prototype a merchant referred to themselves as “this one”, though the word hanar never appeared. The PC in it also had the option to end a conversation with “I should go”. In the prototype also, Harkin was voiced by Mark Meer

An early version of the Mako got used as the krogan truck in ME2

Early concepts of the Citadel were drawn in pencil by CH. A piece of concept art of its final design was painted based on a photo of a sculpture near Aswan, Egypt

As with any new IP naming it was a struggle. They put out a call to all staff for ideas, did polls, made a name generator that combined words that they liked in random ways and made pretend logos of ones they liked in Photoshop to see if they could make themselves love the name or find visual potential in it. (Some of these names are in the pic at the top of this post.) CH liked “Unearthed” as it was a reference to Prothean ruins dug up on Mars and humanity’s ascendance going away from Earth. They knew the game would have a central space station featuring prominently so some of the ideas were based on that - “The Citadel”, “The Optigon”, “The Oculon”. “Element” was another one they had in mind due to the rare substance in the game

CH: “I was a big fan of John Harris’ book Mass, which had epic-scaled sci-fi ideas, so that was a word that came up often. Many of the names came from the idea that the IP featured a fifth fundamental physical force (in addition to the known four of gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear and weak nuclear) so the word ‘effect’ came up pretty often.” Ultimately none of the ideas really felt right. One Monday morning they were going over the names and Greg Zeschuk said he had an idea on the weekend: “Mass Effect!” CH: “I said, ‘I don’t hate it’, which in the naming process is a high compliment. And it stuck!”

CH on Shep’s Prothean vision from the beacon: “It was hard to imagine how we would do this. CG was - and is - really expensive. Instead I wanted to try doing it through photography and video editing. So I went to a local grocery store and bought a few packages of the weirdest looking meat that I could find. Then I set up a little photoshoot in my basement, complete with some electronics parts and some red wine for juicyness.” He used these props to create a video sequence where the photos were rapidly cycled and blurred, along with production paintings, to create the scary vision an organic/machine experiment on the Protheans. These mashups were also used as inspiration for concept artists and level designers who were working on these themes

Tali used to be called Talsi

On the licensing side they often joke that they’re licensing N7 not “Mass Effect” due to N7′s popularity

There was a confidential internal guide to the IP in 2007 to help devs along and summarize/synthesize the vision etc. Some excerpts from it are shown in the book and this is the first time the public have ever seen them

Early versions of Asari had hair

Asari were designed as a nod to classic TV sci-fi (with human actors wearing obvious makeup and prosthetics to play aliens)

The turian design guideline was “we want them to be birds of prey”. They also wanted a range of alien types, some close to human like Asari, while others were to be a lot further away, like turians

BioWare patented the conversation wheel, which was a first for them. CH had been frustrated with reviews of Jade Empire that said that the actioncentric game was too wordy [with its list dialogue]. “I’m like, story is words. [...] What is it about our games that is making people feel like they’re wordy?” Then he thought “In a game you kind of need to feel like you’re continuing to play it. Maybe you should continue feeling like you’re playing it actively into the dialogue.” “[The wheel] kind of gave a new experience with dialogue when you did start to react based on emotion, and that’s ultimately what we’re trying to bring out in our games”

The original krogan concept was based on a bat “with a really wide squidgy face. We just used its face on top of this weird body and it kinda worked”

Geth musculature was based on fiber-optic cables, with flexible plates of armor attached

The vision for the IP was 80s sci-fi inspired space opera

The concept art of Saren lifting Shep by the throat inspired a similar scene in-game. The staging wasn’t planned til designers saw that art

A squadmate with Shepard on the way to meet Ash in an old storyboard was called Carter. Early name of Kaidan or Jenkins?

Bono from U2 was kinda instrumental in bringing us ME lol

Finding the right cover art for ME1 was notably tricky

Matt Rhodes got his start drawing helmets for ME1, including one which would become Shep’s “second face”. He estimates he drew between 250-270 different ones

Some of the sounds in-game were people smashing watermelons with sledgehammers and sticking fists into various goos

The audio team had fun trying to slip the iconic main theme into unexpected places throughout the MET. “We were very aware of how powerful that track was for the fans and it was tempting to overuse it for any moment we wanted to make really emotional”.

The theme was creatively repurposed in ME3: slowed down and reworked as the ambient sound for the SR-2. “If you listen to it for a really long time, just stand in the Normandy and listen, you’ll actually hear the notes change slowly. It doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like a background ambiance, but it’s there.” (My note: Well no wonder the Normandy feels so much like home?? 😭 sneaky..)

Bug report: “Mako Tornado”. There wasn’t enough friction between the tires and the ground, causing testers to lose control of the vehicle and send it spinning into the air like a tornado. “As it turns, the front end comes up, and then it starts spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning faster and faster and faster until it just flies up in the sky” (My note: Sounds like a regular day in the Mako to me)

Cerberus originally had a bigger role in this game. It was cut but they had a whole explorable outpost. “I called it Misery,” says Mac Walters, “It was this planet with a little outpost that said ‘Welcome to Misery’”. Everything on the outpost was shit - dirty worn stuff, no windows, no kitchen, the vehicle bay was open to the elements etc

The Reaper sound is literal garbage. Some audio designers went on a recording trip to a national park. One of them got fixated on a garbage can, “a metal bear-proof receptacle with a heavy lid that creaked horribly when opened”. “It was like, ominous, spooky, tonal and almost musical. I decided to throw a mic into the garbage and record it moving. I didn’t know what it was going to be until later”

They were making lots of noises to record like throwing logs and rocks around. An old couple peered at them through the window of their camper van in the woods and must have called the cops because then the cops showed up, pulled them over and told them to stop. The cops towed their car (the driver’s plates were Cali plates and expired), drove them to Edmonton outskirts and then the audio producer Shauna got a call and had to go pick them up “like three little boys”. “We got a stern talking to”. Once back they were playing around with the garbage sound, editing it etc. Casey heard it and proclaimed “That’s the sound of the Reapers”

Preston Watamaniuk: “There are things I could have done to Mass 1 to make it an infinitely better game with better UIs” and some simple cuts and changes. “But when you’re living with it, it’s very hard to see those things”

BioWare Labs

As social media and smartphone games exploded, BioWare dedicated a small team dedicated to exploring opportunities here - BioWare Labs

Mass Effect: Galaxy used a unique graphic art style and static visual presentation common in visual novels. It has the distinction of being the only iOS game BW have made during their first 25 years

Scrapped ideas were a 3rd person space shooter called Mass Effect: Corsair and 2 DA titles - a strategy game and a top-down dungeon crawler starring young Wynne. (My note: Maybe the corsairs stuff was rolled into Jacob’s backstory in 2, the Alliance Corsairs)

Corsair was a very short-lived project that never got its feet under it. It was a spin-off on Nintendo DS featuring a behind-the-ship perspective and branching dialogue. At one point it had MP. The idea behind it was basically “ME: Freelancer” - fly your ship around, do missions, get credits. It had a limited branching story but was a gameplay-centered experience intended to fill the gap between ME1 and 2. That gap ended up being filled by Galaxy

Galaxy and Corsair’s smaller screen allowed concept artists to use bold colors and a simplistic character design style to help those games stand out from Shep’s story

Nick Thornborrow did some art for Corsair but was worried his art style didn’t fit ME. He moved to DA where he feels his art style fits better

Lots of BioWare VAs and even a lead writer and the VO director are drawn from Edmonton’s local community theater scene, which is vibrant. Think this is how Mark Meer got involved

Mass Effect 2

Player choices carrying over was a first for BW

Dirty Dozen-inspired plot

Its plot is a web of conditionals (see Suicide Mission)

Was more of a shooter than anything BW had made since Shattered Steel

There was 2 camps on the team, those who wanted to push combat and systems forward and redefine the ME experience and those who wanted to make a true sequel, with the same gameplay and systems but a new story. Karin Weekes: “I think it ended up being a good push-pull. It felt like a pretty healthy creative conflict”

“ME2 was a game you could hold up to someone who argues that games aren’t a serious medium and go ‘Oh yeah, then why is Martin Sheen in this?’” Sheen was their first pick for TIM

The idea for TIM came from a mash-up of concepts CH had collected over the years. The name “Illusive” originally came from his pitch for naming DAO’s Eclipse engine, a word inspired by Obi-Wan’s line “It’s not about the mission, Master. It’s something... elsewhere. Elusive”. “I thought, what if we called our next engine 'Elusive', but used an ‘I’, and then it’s like ‘Illusion’. [...] I still really like the word with an ‘I’ and what it conjures”

When ME1 DLC was in production, CH had been watching a lot of CNN, specifically Anderson Cooper. “How is one guy travelling to all these places and never looking tired and always being able to speak with clarity?” CH says it seemed almost superhuman. “What if there was someone who is the absolute maximum of the things you would aspire to be, but also the worst of humanity?” Cooper, though not evil, became an inspiration for TIM down to the gray hair and piercing blue eyes

Inspiration for TIM’s behind-the-scenes role pulling political strings came from Jack Bauer’s brother Graem in 24. Graem “can call up the president and tell him what to do and hang up, because he’s so connected and so influential”. Sheen had played a president and his performance brought gravitas and wisdom to the role. He had quit smoking, but the character smokes. He didn’t want to fake it, but he also didn’t want to smoke, “so he actually asked for a cigarette” to hold so he could stop his words to take drags with natural cadence

Writing was still pushing to write and revise lines hours before VO started. A series of problems like injury and some writers leaving for other opportunities left it so that Karin, Lukas Kristjanson and editor Cookie Everman hand to land the story safely, with PW helping where they could. Lukas: “We took over the writing bug and task list, and I can’t stress enough how much [Karin and Cookie] did to get ME2 out the door. There’s no part of that thing we didn’t touch”. Karin: “That was the most dramatic 2 weeks of my life”

Initial fan reaction when they started promo-ing ME2 was very negative because people didn’t want to know about new chars like Jack and Mordin. “[fans were like] ‘Get them out of here. We want our characters from the first game’. But then when they played them, those became some of the most popular chars [of the series]”

Concept art of Thane has an idea annotation saying “Face can shapeshift?”

At one point when designing Thane concept artists sent multiple variations of him to the team asking them to vote on which was the most attractive

Most of the Normandy crew was written by lead level designer Dusty Everman. Lukas gave him advice in the evenings between bugs

BioWare Montreal made ME2 and 3 cinematics

CC for Shep was based on tools used by char designers to create in-game chars. Under the hood similar tools existed to create aliens

Aliens were much easier to animate than humans. When something is human it’s very difficult to make it look realistic and you can see all the mistakes and everything

Over the holiday period in 2007 CH worked out a diagram on a single piece of paper that would define the entire scope and structure of the game. The diagram is included in the book

Bug report: “I shot a krogan so hard that his textures fell off”. At one point shotgun blast damage was applied to each of the pellets fired, and shot enemies ended up with just the default checkerboard Unreal texture on them after their textures got blown off

Blasto was meant to be 1 step above an Easter egg but his fan popularity prompted them to bring him back in ME3

They rewrote chunks of Jack 2 days before she went to VO. She was the only one they could change because all the other NPCs were recorded. They redesigned her mission by juggling locked NPC lines and changing Shep’s reactions by rewriting text paraphrases to change the context of the already-recorded VO

Lukas snuck obscure nods ito ME2′s distress calls. In the general distress call for the Hugo Gernsback, there’s BW’s initial’s and Edmonton’s phone number backwards. In a fault in a beacon protocol there’s the initials and backward phone number from Tommy Tutone’s “Jenny”. In 2 other general distress calls there’s initials and numbers from Glenn Miller Orchestra’s “Pennsylvania 6-5000″ and initials and numbers from Geddy Lee and Rush’s “2112″ respectively

Mass Effect 3

“The end of an era marks the beginning of another”

ME3 “marked the end of Shep’s story”

Saying bye to Shep was as difficult for devs as it was for players

JHale’s final VO session included Anderson’s death and romanced Garrus’ goodbye. “We were in the session and we both just started crying”, Caroline says. “I couldn’t come on the line to give her notes because I was crying, and she was crying. And so there was just this minute-long pause of like, nothing, nothing, nothing - just silence through the airwaves. And then I came on and just told her that I was crying and she said ‘I’m crying!’” They talked about these anecdotes also here on the N7 Day reunion panel

The Microsoft Kinect voice support required devs to teach Kinect hundreds of commands in a variety of accents across multiple languages. The result was useful but made for some awkward moments. Numerous players accidentally said “geth” or “quarian” while making a particular decision and accidentally killed Tali

MP chars were voiced by cops and military people

The helmet on one of the MP chars was originally designed for cancelled project Revolver

The payload device at the end needed to attach to the Citadel while essentially serving as a giant trigger. “It ended up becoming quite the engineering feet just to visualize how this thing would move and connect to the Citadel”

Concept artists explored creating an anti-team, where Kai Leng was almost an anti-Shepard essentially, with an elite squad to counteract your team. This idea never went beyond concept phase

ME3 Special Edition was released on Nintendo Wii U exclusively. This exclusive version of the game includes Genesis 2 (a sequel to the original Genesis comic) and unique gameplay features that took advantage of the touchscreen GamePad. For years Sonic Chronicles: Dark Brotherhood had had the honor of being BW’s only game made for a Nintendo console

FemShep regrettably didn’t feature in major ME marketing til ME3. Later releases like DAI, MEA and Anthem have taken increasing care not to gender their protagonists in cover art

To capture combat sounds they took a trip to CFB Wainwright, a military base southeast of Edmonton. They got a big tour of it and were allowed to record anything they could find. The tour ended with them getting to drive and shoot tanks (real shells). The force of doing that sent waves through Joel Green, he felt his whole chest compress when it went off; the perfect sound for the Black Widow! After the trip the soldiers let him keep the shell he fired and it’s been passed on like a torch to various devs since

Kakliosaurs began life as a joke in the writers’ room after John Dombrow placed a Grunt figure on a t-rex toy he had on his desk. Lore was brainstormed to justify the mash-up before someone asked, “Why don’t we put this in the game?” They loved it so much Karin had custom coffee mugs made

Bug report: For a while Tali’s final romance scene would fire when she was supposed to be dead

“Balancing combat: how designers in ME3 entered an ‘arms race’” - the solution to players feeling OP vs players feeling frustrated by really strong enemies is to find a good middle ground, but for designers Corey Gaspur and Brenon Holmes, it was war. Brenon designed enemies, Corey designed guns. Corey “was obsessed with bigger, heavier guns. We had this sort of informal competition where he’d make this crazy overturned gun that would just murder all the enemies, and then I tuned some stuff up to compensate”

Brenon had to invent new ways to “stop Corey” and this led to the Phantoms. Corey had in turn designed consumable rockets that could wipe out entire waves of enemies. He must’ve figured this would make short work of Brenon’s space ninjas, but Brenon had other plans: “I had just added the ability for her to cut rockets [when Corey was playing MP and he was watching]. She cut the rocket in half... Corey just turns and looks at me and is like: ‘Really dude? I just shot a rocket at this Phantom and she’s fine? Not even damaged? Zero damage?’”

This friendly rivalry helped elevate ME3′s gameplay. Corey had a knack for making a gun feel so good to fire it had his fellow designers scrambling to keep up. It was his version of balancing. Before Corey sadly passed away he mentored Boldwin Li in all things weapon design and the arms race continued

Corey designed the Arc Pistol. It was causing problems for enemies because it was too powerful. It seemed hell bent on staying that way, Boldwin would tune down all its stats and it was still doing 3x the damage it should have been doing. “I was like ‘What the hell?’, and then I looked closer. It secretly fired 3 bullets for every pull of the trigger! Corey, you sneaky jerk”

The day it launched there were midnight launch parties across North America including one near the BW building. Numerous devs sat at long tables greeting fans and signing autographs as the fans picked up preorders. When midnight struck the line was long enough that it took several hours for some fans to get their game. One particular fan is remembered: “It was 3am. Some guy drove up from Calgary with his friends. He was like one of the last people in line. I think he was sort of tired-drunk. He threw himself across the tables, pulled up his shirt and shouted ‘Guys, sign my abs!’ And like I did, because he waited so long. It felt impolite not to. So I hope he enjoyed his copy of ME3″

For designing Protheans concept artists had free reign to design something that read as ancient

Before the concept art team had the story of the game to work toward, they explored wild ideas of their own including an image of the crew stealing back the Normandy to go after the Reapers

Jen Cheverie was testing scenes and was initially excited to be testing Mordin scenes, til she saw she was testing the Renegade version of his death. “This is even before like all of the audio and everything was in, so you didn’t even have the sad music. I remember sitting at my desk and my hands just went to my face when I saw that the gun Shep pulls on Mordin is the gun he gives Shep in ME2. I burst into tears and was crying for the rest of the day. People are waving to me as they walk by and I’m like, ‘It’s ok, I’m just killing my best friend’”

There’s a segment called “Shepard’s story ends”. Casey on the ending: “There’s a whole bunch of things that come together to make it incredibly tense and emotional for players. I think the biggest one was the sense of finality, that whatever it was that happened in that very last moment... was it.”

Wrapping up the story was a massive feat. In a way all of ME3 is an ending. Its final moments were the players’ last with a char they’d been with all the way from Eden Prime

“And while the critical reception of the game was extremely positive, many fans were unsatisfied with the ending, which became one of the most controversial in the history of games.” CH: “We were, on one hand, at the end of a marathon trying to finish the game and the series. But as devs we also knew that there would be more. We knew that we would continue to tell the story. In retrospect, we didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous sense of finality that it would have for people”. He envisioned an ending that posed new questions, something in the tradition of high sci-fi that left players dreaming about what that particular galaxy’s future could hold. “Frankly, there’s a lot more that we could have and should have done to honor the work players put in, to give them a stronger sense of reward and closure”

AAA games are massive undertakings with a million moving parts. Somehow they come together but even the best-planned projects don’t turn out quite like devs hope. From start to end video game production is a series of compromises. It’s rare if not impossible for devs to ship a game they’re entirely happy with. “I think that people imagine that when you finish a game, it’s exactly the way you wanted it to be. But whether people end up loving or hating the final result, we work hard to finish it the best we can, knowing that there’s a lot we would have wanted to do better. I think that’s true of any creative work”

As the dust settled after the initial reaction to the ending and later its epilogue, meant to show the wide-reaching ripple effects of Shep’s final choice, “players emerged mostly asking for one thing”. CH: “Now, most of what we hear, after both ME3 and MEA, is ‘Hey, just go make more Mass Effect’. And that to me is the most important thing. Knowing that players want to return to the ME universe is what inspires us to press on and imagine what comes next”

Mass Effect: Andromeda

By creating a new ME in a new galaxy the team was challenged to put their own visual stamp on the game while keeping it true to the franchise

Being the first ME game on a new gen of consoles meant for more detail

“Massive transport ships called arks populated with salarians, turians, humans, asari and quarians” made the risky jump to the Cluster

MEA was the first time BW had truly codeveloped across 3 studios: Edmonton, Montreal and Austin. The bulk of the work especially early on was done in Montreal, which was composed of a handful of Edmonton expats and heaps of experienced devs who joined from elsewhere specifically to bring a new ME experience to life. Series vets in Edmonton then came on to contribute writing, cinematics, design and QA, along with leadership from creative director Mac Walters and the core Production team. Austin writers and level designers also joined the fray

“It took a new team to take ME beyond the Milky Way”

Mac: “A lot of people in Montreal joined BW as fans of the franchise, so they just had this passion, and it felt like it was more like the days of Jade Empire, where a smaller younger team gets to do something for the first time. Even though it wasn’t necessarily a new IP for me, it felt fresh and new because of that. The team was just super excited to be working on it”

Early plans had the player exploring hundreds of worlds, procedurally generated, allowing for a nearly infinite variety of experiences. But as development wore on, it became clear that the game narrative required more specific, hand-touched level design on each world to keep the story focused and the experience engaging. “The plan was to give players numerous uncharted worlds to explore. Designers worked hard to come up with procedural elements that would make such planets special. Eventually the team made the difficult decision to abandon procedural planets in favor of more memorable hand-touched alien worlds, each with a specific story to tell”

One challenge was defining what ME meant without Shep. Care was given to include many of the MET’s key species. “Ryder recruited turian, asari, krogan and salarian followers”. Like Shep Ryder represents humanity’s hope for a peaceful coexistence among aliens who had long operated without human contact

Beginning with MEA the team decided that with few exceptions vehicles in ME have 6 wheels. Early Nomad concepts were bulkier. Later ones focused on its ability to move over its ability to protect itself from hostile fire, underlining the themes of exploration

German concept designer and auto-motive futurist Daniel Simon was contracted to create the Nomad and Tempest. The Tempest’s final design took inspo from the Concorde

Concepts for angaran fighter ships have the following notes: “Two doors swing open, wings rotate down to function as landing struts, the landing struts split open. It has a spinning turbine engine

Despite being set a galaxy away and some 600 years after Mordin’s death, there was a time when he had a cameo. It wasn’t cut due to running out of time however, it was cut due to drug references. John Dombrow explains: “One day I had to write a small quest for Kadara. I thought it’d be amusing if these 2 guys living way out on the fringes in a shack were growing plants for uh, medicinal purposes, and needed Ryder’s help with it. It occurred to me, wouldn’t it be amusing if Ryder had the option of actually trying ‘the medicine’ to see what would happen? And I thought, what if it turned into some hallucination that somehow involved SAM - like maybe SAM would sing? But why? How could I motivate that? Then it hit me. Who else in the ME game sings unexpectedly? MORDIN. As a nod to him I wrote SAM singing Modern Major-General. It got even better when our cine designer John Ebenger wanted to take it even further. Bless him, he came in on a Saturday to do a special hallucination showing Mordin himself. It was great. Til the fateful day we were told MEA had already been submitted to the ratings board. That’s when you declare things like drug references in your game. Mordin fell under that category which meant it was a no-go. We were too late”

Ryder’s white AI armor contrasts Shep’s iconic dark armor (intentional design)

Concept art for Ryder involved experiments with cloth (cloaks, ponchos, capes - “Pull here to release cloak”) and asymmetrical design elements

For alien design, there’s a few exceptions but humanoid figures are the ME standard and this persisted into MEA

Kett and angara concepts explored striking lines and textures

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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eloquent--asshole · 3 years

Text

My Date With the President’s Son

a/n: I’ve been getting a lot of anons recently letting me know they couldn’t find this piece. Well... I found out it was deleted. So, here is a repost of My Date With the President’s Son! I was so sad when I found out it was gone :( BUT IT’S BACK!!! :) And much love to all of you that let me know it was missing! Come talk to me about this, future ideas, or anything! --PJ

hey, hi, hello! this is my submission for the Pick Your Poison fic challenge! I went with a good ole fake dating piece. Also, sidenote: this is the first pic i’ve actually decided to post! Please feel free to message me with any comments, questions, or concern. Also, an absolutely MASSIVE shoutout to @for-fucks-sake-h, @oh-honey-styles, and @andwhenshesays for creating this and letting me be a part of it! I’m so happy I decided to do this even though I was an absolute mess about it! Buckle up kids, it’s about to get messy!

read the other challenge pieces here!!!!! and support them!

"Miss. Y/L/N, I don't think you understand the immense pressure we're under with this mission." My boss, Mr. Thompson, was staring at me from across the conference table. The room was bright. Almost too bright from the fluorescent lights beaming on us.

I looked at my hands resting on my thighs under the table before returning to his gaze. "Well, Mr. Thompson, I don’t think you understand that this goes against not only our ethical codes but my moral beliefs as well.”

Mr. Thompson spoke as he got up and came around the table, taking a seat on the glass two feet to my left. "Miss. Y/L/N, you are obligated to serve your country. However the circumstances may seem. If you do not take this mission, I will be suggesting your employment for termination."

I ran a hand down my cheek. "What –“ I ran the options through my head. Get fired or help the President’s son. Easy decision, really. “How could this even work? Does he know?"

"No, he doesn’t know. Don't worry about the details of that. We will take care of it. Nevertheless, on your part, it must seem as authentic as possible." I looked at him in disbelief.

How could this be happening? What did I do to deserve the position to role play as the President’s slutty son’s romantic interest? I let out a heavy sigh before nodding at Mr. Thompson. He let a small smile break through his tough demeanor.

“Very well, we’ve set up for you two to ‘meet’ tomorrow.” Mr. Thompson got up to open the door at the end of the room. “Oh,” he paused turning to look at me one last time, “And don’t worry, if anything goes off course, you’ll be wearing an earpiece and a mic. So we’ll know and figure it out as we go along. Remember Y/N. We’re all in this together.”

But were we?

I sat in position, waiting for the signal. I was outside a quaint coffee shop where my target was currently buying a coffee.

As I got my cue from the team, I got up and started walking in the direction of the van that was watching our every move. The door to the coffee shop flew open and I felt a heavy weight rush into me "Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even see you there," came rushing out of the stranger’s mouth. I looked down at the spilled coffee on the ground between us.

"No, no. It's okay, I should have been paying more attention." I said, letting an embarrassed blush creep onto my cheeks. Why did he have to actually run into me?

"Can I buy you another coffee?” He offered.

"Oh, you don't have to do that"

"No, I insist. Really." He said, reopening the door to the café.

"Okay," I hesitated. “I’m Y/N, by the way.”

"Nice to meet you, Y/N, I’m Harry. What do you like to drink?”

I heard Thompson in my ear immediately, "Vanilla soy latte,” he basically shouted.

"Vanilla soy latte, please" I offered a smile to the barista, hiding my wince. “A grande.”

"You're joking." Harry smiled down at me. He was taller than I expected. Standing about 6”1. His curls cut into the frame of his sunglasses. Cute. I thought to myself.

"Why?" I asked, letting a giggle escape my lips.

"That's what I drink" He chuckled. Okay. I see what you’re doing, Thompson.

We smiled at each other and finished ordering. The drinks were up almost instantly. We sat at a table I chose outside. Purposely, so the team could continue watching.

"So, tell me about yourself," He started, taking a sip of his latte.

"I-" I paused briefly, waiting for instruction from Thompson.

"You work as the marketing director for Accent" Accent is a huge professional services firm. There’s no way I’m getting away with this.

"I work as a marketing director.” I took a breath, “For Accent."

"That's cool, I have some friends who work over there." Is he onto me? "Do you know Rich?”

"Rich Charleston. Operations Manager. 5"5. Auburn hair. Brown eyes.” Thompson barked in my ear.

"Oh yeah. The operations manager? He's not that tall. Auburn hair?" I questioned, a coy smile playing at my lips.

"Yeah! That's him! Funny, I've been to a few work parties with them. I've never seen you around." He looked at his coffee and came back to me. I felt my cheeks tinge pink yet again. No way I’m making it through this.

"Y/N, you're doing great. Just go with it. You started at Accent three months ago. They haven't had a company party in five months.” Thompson stated. It’s weird. Almost as if playing detective. Wait. I am a detective. A very…high end detective.

"Oh, yeah. I only started a few months ago, so that would make sense." I giggled, taking a sip of my latte.

Harry’s phone started ringing in his pocket. He slipped it out to check the notification. "Shit, sorry. I actually have to get going. I'm late for a meeting. Could I get your number?" He asked, handing over his phone.

"Yeah, that'd be nice." I took his phone where the ‘add new contact’ was already on his screen. I entered my information and handed it back. "Great, I'll see you around then."

"Gladly." He was off, hopping into the back seat of an awaiting SUV across the street. As it pulled away, I noticed it was in a no-parking zone. Of course, it would be. He's the president's son.

It has been three weeks since my ‘run in’ with Harry. He texted me an hour later asking if he could see me again. We had seen each other twice over the course of three weeks. Each time in a public setting to ensure the FBI could have an eye on us at all times.

We talked mostly about my work. He had finally let it slide through text that he was the President’s son. It was easy to act surprised through text. It would be harder to act as if I didn’t know my coworkers if it ever got to the point that I would be seeing him in a more intimate setting.

I was starting to realize why so many women were swooning for him. Not only was he handsome – he was charming, sweet, and extremely articulate.

I sat in Mr. Thompson’s office discussing plans for the upcoming benefit. The benefit that Harry had yet to ask me to.

"Mr. Thompson, he has no idea this plan is underway. Like what happens if he tries to make advances on me. I did not sign up to be this boy's actual girlfriend.” I borderline complained.

"Miss. Y/L/N. This is your duty for the time being. We're trying to keep him safe and clean up his image. This is the best way we can do that.”

"Mr. Thompson, with all due respect, what if he actually starts to have feelings for me. What if he asks me to be his girlfriend? What if – "

Mr. Thompson raised a hand to interrupt me. "Miss Y/L/N, if that happens, we will handle it. Mr. Styles will never know. Now for the upcoming benefit. You will attend with Mr. Styles. As always, you will wear an earpiece. Members of the secret service will be aware of your presence. If something comes up, I will be in your ear warning you to get Mr. Styles out of there. Understood?"

"Yes sir,” I agreed, sulking into the chair. “But sir, he hasn’t even asked me.” Thompson’s hands brushed through the air - almost as to dismiss my thoughts.

“Oh, don’t worry, kid.” He snickered. “Mr. Horan, the head of his security, has intel that he will be asking you.”

As predicted, Harry did ask me to join him at the benefit. Giving me a two-day notice. Scratch that. Harry said he wanted me to come to a “party” and ‘wear something suited for a ball’ I recounted the statement as he was dropping me off from our brunch “date” on Thursday.

I stared at myself in the champagne-colored gown in my full-length mirror. I let out a frustrated sigh. This was so wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this to him. He’s actually really sweet. How can I untangle myself from this mess? I could commit treason, leave the country, and lay under the radar. One part of my brain told me. Or be put to death. The other part reminded me. I gave myself one last look-over and decided it was time to head to the lobby.

My roommate, Ashley, whistled at me as I walked out of my bedroom into the kitchen. “Going somewhere nice?” she asked.

“Work event,” I brushed off. I hadn’t told her anything. Specifically, because of the confidentiality behind the mission.

“With Harry Styles?” I froze in my tracks, taking a deep breath.

“How did you know that?”

“Sweetheart. You are all over the magazine covers. Do you think no one has cameras in public? I was speechless. How could I be so naïve that journalists who have such a strong eye on Harry’s personal, party lifestyle wouldn’t spot us out?

“Honey,” I heard our third roommate, Summer, call from the couch. “Did you really think you could be so slick?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ashlie chimed in.

Before I could answer, a call from Harry popped up on my phone. “I’m sorry, I have to go. He’s here.” I said turning on my heel to exit our apartment.

“Wait – “ Summer stopped me – “Can you please give us some juicy details on the man-who – I mean your new fling when you get home?”

I laughed at her response with a nod and started my trek to the lobby.

He was waiting outside the SUV, dressed in a black suit and a matching champagne tie. “Well don’t you look lovely.”

I blushed at his compliment. The security guard driving us gave me a curt nod as he opened the door for us. “Thank you. You look quite handsome yourself.”

When I dodged his kiss, he pulled me in for a hug before gesturing for me to get in first. “Thanks.” Despite the disappointment in his eyes, Harry’s smile was beaming. He looked absolutely adora – Y/N stop. This is strictly for work.

The door shut behind us and in half a second we were whizzing down the street to the banquet hall where the Benefit was being held.

“I’m really happy you agreed to be my date tonight,” Harry commented, not breaking his gaze from the window. “You can meet my parents.”

Parents? As in, the President and first lady of the United States? My body shivered at the thought. I have been in the same room as them before, yes. But meeting them as not an employee – but their son’s date, friend or whatever you want to call it – is terrifying.

“Wow, that would be – “ I tried to find the right words – “nice.”

“Really?” His eyes wandered to mine. “Most people would about shit themselves right about now.”

Well I’m damn near close, Styles.

When we pulled up to the entrance of the venue, our driver – Niall, I learned – hopped out and got the door for us. My eyes were blinded by the flashing lights. Harry grabbed my hand and helped me onto the ground. As we made our ascent, paparazzi were flooding him with questions. “Harry, Harry! Who’s this?” “New flame of the week kid?” “I heard you were bringing Kendall Jenner” could be heard from every angle.

Harry apologized as soon as the doors shut behind us. I shook my head to let him know it was okay.

“I am way too sober for this,” Harry mentioned before we walked into the noisy room. “And it hasn’t even started.” I let out a quiet giggle as he smiled at me.

The benefit passed with ease. As Harry walked us around making small talk and thanking people for coming, Thompson was in my ear telling me who people were and how they got invited. Harry and I kept making trips back to the bar. While I nursed two glasses of wine, Harry had drank 4 rum and cokes. It was becoming clear that Harry was feeling good. Almost too good for him to continue being at this event.

As a last stop around the room, we walked towards his parents.

“Harry, my boy. Thanks for being here tonight,” President Styles pulled Harry in for a hug.

“Like I had a choice?” He rolled his eyes. President Styles gave a laugh, one Harry didn’t reciprocate.

“Who’s this?” His mother asked as her gaze moved to me. Her eyes were kind. They matched Harry’s, I noticed.

“Mom, dad.” Harry said as he wrapped an arm around my waist, “This is my date, Y/N.”

“Hi,” I offered my hand to shake, “It’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for having me tonight.”

“The pleasures all ours, sweetie.” His mother affirmed. I felt a smile creep onto my lips. His parents were sweet - partly informal.

As we were making our way to a table, we were stopped by a friend of Harry’s – Louis. Apparently, they had been long time friends. As they grew up, Louis had started a media company, one which Harry happily invested in to help him out.

“Harry, this your date?” He asked curiously.

“Yes, this is my future girlfriend, Y/N.” His words slurred, I felt the wind knock out of me. Girlfriend? FUTURE girlfriend?

“How about a kiss for the camera?” Louis interrupted my thoughts. “For a piece I’m working on?”

“Why not?” This boy was definitely drunk. Without having time to react, Harry grabbed my waist and quickly, yet gently, pressed his lips to mine. It lasted only about half a second and I found myself wanting more.

Harry chatted with Louis for a few more minutes before bidding goodbye and continuing our walk to a table in the back. I brought my fingers to brush against my lips, still feeling his burning into my memory.

The next hour passed quickly. Harry had downed another two drinks because “I’ve already talked to everyone I need to and now I can relax.” I could see why the media calls him a party boy. He’s 0 – 100 real quick.

Our conversation flowed easily and I found myself enjoying his presence.

“I’m having a really good time,” Harry slurred into my ear. He snuck an arm around my shoulders at some point, and I didn’t really care.

“So am I.”

“Good, I was really nervous to ask you.” His admission took me by surprise. The entire three weeks I’ve known him, he never seemed shy. He was always respectful. I’ve learned so much about the party boy that always seemed to be judged. If it were me, no one would care if I went out with my friends every weekend and brought a different guy home. But because he’s, well, Harry Styles. It matters. The presidential family is supposed to be clean, polished, not having any dirty laundry. But the media loves to air his.

I learned Harry had a – what most would call – normal upbringing. Small home in the outskirts of NYC. He went to public school up until high school, when his father had decided to run for congress and got in. His favorite color is yellow – because it’s happy. He loves music from the 70’s and 80’s because it reminds him of his childhood. He knows about his party-boy persona and absolutely loathes it – but continues to live it because it’s the only way he can let go of the stress from being the President’s son.

“Why were you nervous?”

“Well, it’s always intimidating to meet a beautiful woman who knows what she wants in life and won’t settle for less. I was especially nervous because I thought not only my reputation, but my status would scare you off.” My chest felt tight. If only he knew that everything, well half of everything, I told him were lines being fed to me from the Director of the FBI. “And I’m sorry it took so long for me to tell you. I didn’t want to lie. But I felt like it would be easier for us to get to know each other before I told you.”

There’s that word. Lie. I hate that word but yet, it’s what I was doing almost every time we were together.

“I don’t want you to ever feel nervous or feel like you have something to hide from me.” I took the hand he had draped around me in my own. “I just want you to be yourself. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you. I don’t care about your status or the fact that your parents are the President and First Lady. That’s not something you should feel ashamed of.”

For the first time, Harry’s smile met his eyes. He’s smiled plenty when we’re together, but this was different. He tugged me closer and placed his lips on my cheek. They burned from his touch. My body temperature must have risen 10 degrees.

Did Thompson see that? Of course, he did. Wait, where is he? My smile dropped as I looked across the room, hoping for a sign of Thompson. He hadn’t been in my ear for a while. I wonder if everything’s okay.

“Everything’s fine,” I moved my eyes around the room once more, confused. “I can see that look on your face. I know that look. You were getting worried.”

Where the heck is Thompson and how can he see my face.

“Niall is about to grab you to take you both home. So, I’m off for the night. You’re on your own kid.” I heard the familiar static as they shut my earpiece off. So, they had heard that entire conversation, wonderful.

I smiled, reaching for my ear to take the piece out, but halting my movements when I remembered Harry was still sat next to me.

“Mr. Styles, the car is here.” Niall leaned down to whisper to Harry.

“Alright, love. Off we go.” Harry let his arm fall from my shoulder. I stood to grab my clutch off the table. I paused when I noticed Harry guzzling the rest of his drink before setting the glass on the table. “What?” he asked innocently. “I wasn’t going to just leave it there. Someone could try to sell that since my lips have touched it!” I smirked at him before linking my arm with his.

The drive home was filled with Harry trying to be touchy feely and a bit too flirtatious. Between him keeping trying to rest his hand on my knee, and the many compliments he spewed out in a drunken slur, I felt myself loosening up and enjoying his drunken, flirty presence. Niall made eye contact with me in the mirror one too many times for me to be comfortable with.

He knows.

When we pulled up to my building, I opened the door only to feel a tug on my wrist. I craned my neck to look at Harry, who didn’t let go of my arm.

“Will you kiss me?” His glazed eyes bore into mine as he leaned over to my half of the seat, “For real this time?” I contemplated for a second. Yes, I would like to kiss you again. Will I? I can’t.

I giggled at his lazy smile and glanced to the mirror at Niall who seemed to be minding his own business, “You’re drunk Harry.”

“Would you reconsider if I was sober?”

“Goodnight, Harry” I said, hopping out of the SUV.

“I’ll take that as a maybe!” He called as I shut the door.

What is this boy doing to me?

It’s been three days since the benefit. I hadn’t heard from Harry much, maybe a text or two over the last two days. I wish I could say I didn’t care. But I did. Yes, what I was doing was wrong. But after seeing him in a vulnerable state being drunk at the benefit, he grew on me. A lot more than I’d like to admit. Even though I hadn’t heard from him, I still had the inside scoop from Thompson. Apparently, Mr. Horan was keeping a tight leash on him. No parties or clubs recently.

One thing that should’ve been noticed a lot sooner on my part was that every time I was with Harry or Harry was out, he had Niall maybe 5 feet away. So why the hell would they need me?

Oh right – clean up the image.

“Y/N!” Ashlie screamed from the kitchen. I came to a screeching halt in front of her at the counter. “Have you seen these?” I furrowed my brows as she angled her laptop screen towards me. Right on the landing page of the most popular magazine’s website was Harry’s picture. Stumbling out of a club with none-other than Kendall Jenner, hand in hand.

My brows furrowed even closer when I grabbed the laptop from the counter. I quietly walked to the couch and sat down. ‘Eligible bachelor, Harry Styles couldn’t seem to get enough of the model as they were seen being cozy all night at popular night club, Avalon Nightclub downtown Washington, D.C.’

Would this jeopardize my mission? How would Thompson handle this? What now? Was he really done with me just like that?

With too many thoughts to process, I sat the computer next to me and stared at the blank TV. The weight of the couch shifted next to me. Ashlie slid her arms around my torso and rested her head on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” She was trying to be empathetic; I know. But I also didn’t want her pity.

“It’s okay,” I tilted my head to rest on top of hers. “Who needs him anyways?”

Wait, I do.

I stared out the window behind Mr. Thompson. He tapped his fingers in pattern on his desk, other hand resting on his cheek.

“Miss. Y/L/N.” He started, stopping his fingers from tapping. I flicked my eyes to his. “I knew this would be hard, having the type of personality he does. He doesn’t – doesn’t have a long attention span when it comes to women.”

I looked back to the window, admiring the cars streaming by on the 695. I already knew that. We all knew it. You thought one of your agents could change him? People don’t change because you want them to. They change because they want to.

When I didn’t offer a response, Thompson continued. “Did something happen after the benefit? After we unplugged you?”

I thought back to that night. Our drive home was filled mainly with his giggles and slurred pick-up lines.

“I don’t think – “ I didn’t kiss him. He wanted to kiss me, and I didn’t. “He wanted to kiss me, Mr. Thompson.”

“You didn’t kiss him, right?”

“Yes.” He quirked an eyebrow. “No, I mean – yes, I didn’t kiss him.” I clarified. I wanted to though.

“Miss. Y/L/N, we’ve brought in Mr. Horan. Head of his security. ”Thompson waved to Mr. Horan through the window. The screech from the chair next to me as it slid across the tile floor. My eyes flashed to the man next to me. Niall. Now it makes sense.

“Miss. Y/L/N,” Niall cleared his throat, “Nice to see you again.”

“You as well, Mr. Horan.”

“As you know, Mr. Horan here is the head of Mr. Styles’ security and has been keeping an eye on him since the beginning of President Styles’ term. He’s here to shed some insight and help us through this obstacle. He knows Harry the best, so we will have his assistance for matters like this.” Mr. Thompson gestured to Niall to start speaking about what he knows.

“Yeah, so” Niall shifted in his seat and crossed his ankle at the knee. “Harry’s a bit frustrated. He feels like, I don’t know. That you – “ I caught his eyes drift to mine – “aren’t ‘interested’ in him anymore”

I scoffed at the remark, earning a glare from Mr. Thompson. “Miss. Y/L/N, a problem?”

“Sorry it’s just – “ I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, resting my palms on my thighs – “He feels like I’m not interested? When three days after the benefit he’s out gallivanting around D.C? That’s ridiculous.”

“See,” Niall turned towards me, “That’s just it. That’s how Harry copes. He doesn’t have healthy coping mechanisms. He thinks the best way to get around his issues is to drink them away. It’s why he drank so much at the benefit. It’s why he drinks so much in general.”

It explains a lot. He had told me that he’s been under stress, and I can only imagine how much stress he feels from having to live up to a perfect image that he can’t attain with his reputation.

“So, what do I do?”

“I’ve tried to knock some sense into him. I may protect Harry for a living, but he is my friend, and I care about him and his feelings.”

The Saturday sun was warm on my skin. I stared at the clouds in the sky, listened to the kids playing about 50 feet away, and the ducks in the pond. I should be at the gym, I reminded myself. Or at least running.

It’d been a week since I last saw Harry, part of me missed him. Thompson said he was going to work with Niall and how to get the boy back on track. Why me out of all people? There were so many young women in the FBI at this point, so why me? ‘Because we see the most potential in you. Half these women won’t make it another 6 months.’ Thompson’s voice rang in my ears from our conversation yesterday afternoon.

The bright darkness dimmed behind my eyelids. I opened one to see a figure standing above me. I jolted out of my comfort.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” I said sitting up and criss crossing my legs.

“Uh – “ raising a hand to the back of their neck – “Can we talk?”

“Yeah Summer, what’s up?” She sat opposite of me in the grass and looked around the park.

“It’s a nice day today, isn’t it?” Her eyes never settled on mine. She’s being cautious.

“Yeah, great day to be outside.” I looked over to the swimming ducks, still quacking at each other.

What I would give to be a duck right now. Not having any worries about whether or not my job was still intact. If my friends hated me for lying to them. If the boy I liked was done with me before even having a chance to know me, and really me.

“So,” Summer started after a few minutes of silence. I looked at her expectantly. “Someone dropped by today to see you.” My heart jumped; my palms started to sweat. Was Harry at my apartment?

“Harry?”

“Uh – “ she faltered – “No, Louis?” I scrunched my brows, confused. I wracked my brain trying to figure out who Louis was. “He said he’s a friend. You apparently met him at the Benefit? I told him you were out and didn’t know when you’d be back. He said to call him and left his number.” I looked at my crossed ankles. Oh, Louis. Wait, Louis took that picture of me and Harry. What does he want? “Do you know him?”

I looked back at Summer. “Yeah, he’s… he’s one of Harry’s friends.”

“You should probably call him, he looked in a rush.” I lifted my head in a nod, letting my eyes fall to the grass between us. A comfortable silence took over. “Y/N, it’s okay if you don’t want to talk about whatever happened between you and… him. But I’m here for you if you do.”

“I know that, Summer. Thank you.”

I took a few steps into my room and tossed my purse onto my bed. I decided I should give Louis a call to see what’s going on.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Louis. It’s Y/N. I heard you stopped by today.”

“Oh!” He sounds surprised. His tone quickly hushed. “Y/N, thanks for calling. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Okay,” I sat in my desk chair with one leg tucked under me. “What’s going on?”

“Can you meet me?” There was a long pause.

“Wh – “

“In an hour, at the park by the white house.” Before I could respond, I heard the click of him hanging up.

What?

I didn’t take much time to get ready to meet Louis. I threw a gray zip up sweatshirt over my tank top and slipped on my flare jeans with converse and was on my way. Louis texted me to say he wanted to ask me a few questions about the benefit – for a promotion he was working on for his company.

The sun had set on my way over, the purple, black sky taking over the D.C air. I glanced at the sky as I stood by the lamp post in the park. The stars look beautiful tonight. My eyes kept traveling around the park. Something I was trained to do. Have your eyes everywhere at all times.

I heard him before I saw him. The heavy footsteps, deep breathing. He sounds troubled. I whipped my head in the opposite direction.

“Y/N?” He asked, pulling the hood off his head. I could only nod. “What are you doing here?”

“I – “ I was off the script. No earpiece with Thompson telling me what to do, who to be, anything. “Just out for a stroll.” Harry stared at me as if he wasn’t really seeing me. He shook his head, his long locks falling in front of his face. He ran his hand through his hair, pulling the pieces that had fallen from his face.

“By… the white house?” He asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I love this park. Very peaceful with some great views.” I concluded. Louis sent me here, he knows what he’s doing. He and Harry are longtime friends. They must’ve talked.

“Right…” He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking around.

“I wanted to talk.” “We should talk.” We spoke at the same time. Our eyes locked before breaking into giggles and looking at our feet.

“You go ahead,” Harry encouraged.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked.

“I –“ He rubbed the back of his neck. “How drunk was I that night?”

I blinked harshly, not expecting him to ask that. “What?”

“I don’t remember much after slamming my drink right before we left and…” He took a step away from me. “I was a little embarrassed and I wasn’t sure if I said or did anything wrong and… I thought if I held off for a bit then it wouldn’t be a big deal…”

“So why still didn’t you call?” Harry shook his head, wrapping his arms around his waist.

“You didn’t get my voicemail?” He quirked his head.

“What voicemail?”

“Y/N, I called you like three times.”

“What?” Then it hit me. Thompson. Thompson tapped my phone when starting the mission to have all the details. But why?

“I just kinda thought you were done with us and I had done something after the benefit.”

“Harry, I had no idea. Honest… Is that why you went out with Kendall?”

He laughed at my question. “I haven’t gone out with Kendall. I haven’t seen her in months. Those pictures are from like… November.” I was bewildered.

I composed myself before speaking, “I’m sorry to have assumed the worst…”

“It’s okay,” he stepped closer. “Can I come to your place?”

“Right now?”

He glanced at his feet and back to me, “Yeah.” He murmured. Only meaning to be heard between us two.

“Are you okay?” I tucked some stray hair behind my ear, shifting my weight from my left foot to my right.

“I just – I just don’t want to go back yet. I had to sneak out and I just need some time away.” Running one hand through his hair, he grabbed my hand with the other.

“Okay.”

The ride to my apartment was quiet. Harry didn’t say much about what was going on within the White House walls, although I’m sure I would find out come Monday, if not sooner. I was trying to read his moving eyes, but there wasn’t much to tell. His eyes told a completely different story than his lips.

His lips spoke of stress and hardship. His eyes shine like the moon over a Georgia river in the dead of night.

When I finally parked my car in the lot, Harry slid out of my car with grace, taking my hand as each of us rounded the back of my car.

“This is it,” I sighed when opening the door to my apartment.

“Wow,” He looked from the kitchen to the living room before turning to face me, “Cute.”

“Oh my gosh,” I whipped my head to see Ashlie coming into the entrance in a towel from the hallway – clearly not expecting company.

“Uh – Hi.” Harry awkwardly waved.

“Hi, wow. Wasn’t expecting you.” She gave a small smile and gestured to her attire.

“It’s not a problem. Nice to meet you,” Harry extended his hand for her, which she gladly took, “I’m Harry.”

“Oh, I know who you are. I’m Ashlie.” Ashlie let out a flirty giggle. You know, the kind you hear at a bar when a girl is trying too hard to let a man know his jokes are ‘funny’.

“We’ll uh – be in my room.” I remarked, breaking up the awkwardness I could feel radiating through the room.

Harry trailed behind me, telling me he thought Ashlie seemed nice.

“How many roommates do you have?” He questioned, taking a seat on the foot of my bed.

“Two. My other roommate, Summer, is probably at her boyfriend’s.” I hung my hoodie over the back of my desk chair and took a seat on it backwards so I could face him. Harry nodded his head before letting his body fall back onto my bed. “So, what’s going on? At home?”

“It’s nothing,” He groaned, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles.

“It’s obviously something if you’re sneaking out and wandering parks at night without guards. How’d you even get away with that anyways?”

“The White House has many escape routes that can’t be seen by the control room. I’ve found them all.” He stated, putting his hands behind his head.

“Interesting.” The silence that filled the room was deafening. “Harry,” I paused waiting for him to look at me. His eyes gradually found mine. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just tired of my family and the security telling me my behavior is ‘unacceptable’ because I’m the President’s son. I can’t go out with my friends. I can’t be seen with girls who are friends. I can’t have a drink in a bar.” He stood from my bed and started pacing around my room like his life depended on it. “When I’m in the White House, all I have is people barking orders in my ear, telling me what I can and can’t do. What I can and can’t wear. Who I can and can’t see? So, I guess,” Harry brought his hands to his head and started pulling his hair at the roots, “When I do get to go out with friends, I get carried away. Unfortunately, every time.”

I didn’t know what to say. What I want to say? I can relate. What can I say? Nothing.

When he moved to sit back on my bed, I joined him. He brought his chest between his knees and bowed his head, taking the stance of looking like he was about to vomit. I rested my hand on his back and tried my best to rub soothing circles between his shoulder blades, still looking for the right words. “Harry, I’m sorry. I had no idea that was something you had to deal with.”

“I know, because I don’t share that part of my life. Not with anyone. The only one who really knows is Niall. But that’s only because he’s with me when I’m out and that’s when it all comes out.” He lifted his head and turned to look at me. “He’s the only person I really trust. He’s my best friend and I trust him with my life. I know it’s his job to be there. But, he’s the only one I really have.”

“That’s not true. You have loads of friends. I’ve seen them in the pictures with you.”

“No, those people – while they’re nice to hang out with – they only care about my status. They care about Harry Styles, President’s son. Not Harry.”

“I – I don’t know what to say.” And I truly didn’t. Here he is, spilling his heart to me again, and I can’t even reciprocate without blowing my cover.

“You don’t have to say anything. I thought Niall was the only person that actually cared about me. As in Harry, the person. And then I met you.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry sat up and turned his body towards mine, grabbing both my hands in his.

“Y/N, I know you would never do anything to hurt me. You care about me. You ask me about me, not what my family is doing, or what bills are going through congress. Or even try to advance your career through me.”

My mouth got dry, but I felt like I was drowning. How can he not see through this act? When will I give it up? When will Thompson have it cut? His eyes bore into mine.

“I really like you, Y/N.”

“I – I like you too Harry.” I have to tell him; I have to tell him the girl he thinks he knows is not who she says she is. I have to tell him; this was all part of my job. But this isn’t. It’s not your job to be here with him right now.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” The proposition tore me from my thoughts. I got up and headed for the door, gesturing for him to follow me down the hall.

I plopped on the couch flipping the TV on. Harry sat next to me and flung his arm to the back of the couch behind me.

“Should we just search romantic comedies on Netflix and see what we find?” He looked over to me, nodding excitedly.

We flipped through Netflix for 10 minutes before finally deciding on 27 Dresses. The movie was the only thing that could be heard in the living room. At whatever point, Harry let his arm fall onto my shoulders and pulled me into him. I let my head rest on his shoulder as we continued watching.

“Hey Y/N?” I looked up at him, humming in response. “I’m sober now.” I scrunched my eyebrows and opened my mouth to speak, “Can I kiss you now?” My heart sped up, and my cheeks warmed with the blood rushing to them.

“I - I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” I let my head dip so I wasn’t looking at him.

“Why’s that?” He asked, confusion taking over his tone. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, but... I would really like to.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to, I do. It’s just - “ I thought of all the things that could possibly go wrong - the FBI busting into my apartment to have me arrested, me starting what feels like a real relationship based on lies, breaking his heart after he let me in.

“Then let me,” Harry cupped my cheek and brought our gazes together. I stared at him for a moment before lightly nodding.

His lips ghosted over mine before gently pressing together. I swear I could hear his heartbeat. Or maybe it was mine. I rested my hand on his cheek and his hand moved to my waist, pulling me as close as possible. It wasn’t heavy, and it wasn’t quick. It was soft and sweet, like him.

He pulled away and leaned back into the couch. A smile graced his face. I nuzzled back into him and pulled my feet up on the couch.

I woke up to the room completely dark, the only light coming from the dim light above the oven. I was still laying on Harry. I sat up, removing his arms from my waist. I grabbed my phone from the table to check the time. 2:36am. Oh shit, I turned back to wake Harry.

“Harry, Harry wake up. You have to go.” I shook him out of his sleep.

“What why?” He stirred, rubbing his eyes, barely coming out of his sleep.

“It’s 2:36AM.”

“Mmmmm comfy.” He closed his eyes again and rested further into the couch.

“Harry, no. You’re gonna get into trouble.” I stood up and grabbed his hands trying to pull him off the couch.

“No, I won’t”

“Harry,” I insisted. When he wouldn’t budge, I gave up. Flopping back into the couch.

“Can I just stay – you won’t even know I was here.”

I woke up in my bed. I looked at my clock next to me. 9:22am. Was it a dream? I sat up, same tank top. Same jeans. I searched for my phone to find it under my pillow with a sticky note.

Left around 5. Carried you to bed and didn’t want to wake you. Call me. – Harry

Sticking my phone in my back pocket, I pulled myself out of bed and let my feet guide me to the bathroom. What did I do? Why did I have to do that?

After staring at myself for almost two minutes, I decided to call Harry.

“Hello?” his voice was chipper.

“How’d you get home?” I asked, putting the call on speaker so I could wash my face.

“I took an Uber. I woke up to one missed call and one text from Niall asking if I was in my room from around 2. I figured it’d be best if I was back in the house before sunrise and not let anyone get suspicious.” At least he was thoughtful of other peoples’ sleep schedules.

“Ah, alright.”

“Yeah.”

“So, you wanted me to call you?” I stated, remembering his note.

“Oh, yeah! I’m picking you up for breakfast.” He said, I could feel his smile through the phone. Man does this boy get right back on the love train; I swear.

“You? Or Niall?” I teased, breaking into a smile. I grabbed my washcloth and wet it to begin washing my face.

“Ha ha. Funny. No, me. Just you, me, and some delicious breakfast.” He clarified. Should I tell Thompson? Probably.

“Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up in 30 minutes.” We said goodbye and felt my heart beating faster. I quickly texted Thompson to let him know what was happening. I started the shower and dropped my clothes. Washing everything quickly, I felt my nerves beginning to settle in. Should I even have said yes? What if Thompson doesn’t want me to? Too late.

When I got out, I checked my phone for a response.

Thompson – 9:37am: Earpiece.

He really was a man of few words. Powerful words, but few. I quickly blew dry my hair and changed into some leggings and a ¾ sleeve blouse. Finishing putting on some light makeup, I heard a knock on the front door.

“Harry!” Ashlie exclaimed, “Good to see you again.”

I walked out to see Harry looking awkwardly at her. She was asking how everything was going for him, to which he politely smiled and said “Fine, Thanks.” His eyes lit up when they connected with mine.

“Hey, you.” He smiled, pulling me in for a hug

“Hi,” I greeted, returning his smile and accepting his arms around me.

“Ready?”

‘Let me just grab my purse,” I said, backing away down the hallway towards my room. I quickly grabbed the earpiece from my drawer and inserted it into my ear. I grabbed my purse from my desk and started heading back to our entryway. I paused in the doorway, glancing at my open drawer with my pistol sticking out. I slipped it into my purse before returning to Harry. “Okay, let’s go.”

Ashlie moved to the kitchen to make herself some breakfast, taking peeks over her shoulder at Harry. She shot me a wink as Harry opened the front door to lead us out.

When we were settled in the car, Harry turned to me. “First things first, I wanted to say thank you to you. For last night. And I’m sorry if I was intruding.”

“You weren’t,” I reassured him, “You never are.” As I finished my sentence, I heard the static in my earpiece. Thompson’s on.

“Morning superstar. I don’t know what happened last night, but good job getting him back.” If only he knew.

Harry turned on the radio for our drive. As we drove further out of the city, he told me how he loved some of the neighborhoods we were driving by. Mostly because he had friends living there that he made when we were in high school because Mr. Styles would often bring him to D.C., and he would meet other congressmen’s children.

I laughed at his jokes, and when he sang. Frankly, he can’t sing. But he does a very nice job trying.

When we pulled up to the café, I noticed it was quite small. Niall hadn’t brought us here on our previous brunch meetings.

“Where are we?” I questioned.

“Oh, my dad used to take me here in high school. I don’t get to come too often anymore. Ya know, security and everything.”

Right.

Breakfast went exactly how I thought it would. Harry talked about his life, asked me about mine, and Thompson fed me lines that apparently “Niall had done ‘research’, and this is what Harry wants to hear.”

But this time, when I laughed with Harry, I felt more genuine. My feelings were too. I really liked him. He was kind, generous, thoughtful. Everything a good man acted like.

When he dropped me off, Harry walked me to my door. I didn’t hesitate to kiss his cheek. Harry grabbed my hands and squeezed them.

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” He glanced at his feet, letting a grin bless his features with his dimples showing perfectly. I nodded, squeezing his hands back. He pulled me into him for a hug. I wrapped my arms around his waist, not wanting to let go.

“Bye, Harry.” I opened the door when he let go of me.

“Bye, Y/N.”

The next week felt like it flew by. I would see Harry after work, either for dinner, a drink, a movie, a walk, really anything he could think of to see me.

Thompson would be in my ear, encouraging me. Sometimes he wasn’t, those were my favorite nights with Harry. I could be myself without having to worry about if Thompson thought ‘Well that wasn’t the right thing to say.”

My phone ringing brought me out of my sleep. I looked at the caller ID and immediately answered.

“Hello?” I greeted, rubbing the sleep from my left eye.

“Can you come over?” Harry asked, his voice cracking near the end. I pulled the phone away from my ear. 1:11am. After a pause he added, “Please?” The desperation in his voice was almost tangible. A shiver ran down my spine just hearing his broken voice.

“Yeah, of course.” I threw my covers off of me and grabbed my nearest pair of jeans. I pulled them on and picked up one of Harry’s long sleeve t-shirts and ripped it over my head. “I’ll be there in 15.”

“Thank you,” he sobbed. “I can let you in by the east garden.” I hung up my phone and hesitated to grab my keys. I should take an Uber. Guards would see my car parked near the White House. I opened the Uber app and ordered a car.

“Morning ma’am.” Said Andrew, the driver.

“Morning,” I grumbled, climbing in the backseat.

“How was your night?” he asked, smiling at me through the rearview mirror.

“Could be better,” I sighed, rubbing my fingers into my temples.

“Oh, I totally get it,” he started. Andrew talked almost the entire way about his night. When he dropped me on the corner a block away from the White House, he concluded his rant with “And that’s when I kicked him out. Well, I hope your night gets better! Life’s too short to have bad sex.” I gave him the best smile I could muster and got out of his car.

I walked up the street and crossed through an alley to get to the East garden. I saw a sliver of light coming from a shrub. The sliver of light grew bigger, giving away that it was actually a door. A disheveled Harry appeared in the light. As I got closer, I noticed his eyes were red and puffy. He’s been crying. When I was close enough, he instantly crashed his body into mine, holding me so tight I might combust.

“Harry, what’s wrong?” I asked, cuddling him closer. He let out a choked weep. “Come on, let’s go.” I said, pulling away. He grabbed my hand and led us through the tunnels.

When we got to the halls, Harry looked around every corner, checking for guards before sneaking us to his room. The door clicked shut and the only thing I could hear were his soft sniffles. I took in the room before me. It was large and decorated for a king. There were items scattered, a chair tipped over, and a lamp lay broken on the floor next to his bed.

He took a seat on the edge of his bed, lowering his head with his hands covering his face. I walked over and took a seat next to him. I placed my hand on his shoulder and took another look around.

“Harry,” I whispered. “What happened?”

“He’s so disappointed in me.” He mumbled, barely audible. His body shook with sobs, soft enough to go unnoticed by anyone passing by.

“Who? Your dad?”

“He said his approval rate has barely gone up, and when he asked the cabinet about it, they – they told him it was my fault.” My heart broke at his words.

“Harry, I’m so – “

“He doesn’t get it. No one does,” he ripped himself from my grasp and stood in front of me, facing the door. “I have him, his cabinet, members of the staff, media, friends, everyone constantly yelling at me. Just because I want to go out and be normal. Live a normal life.” He was facing me now, arms flailing around to get his point across. “And as soon as I get something right, it’s not good enough!”

“What do you mean?” I inquired. I stood up and placed my hands on his shoulders, leading him back to sit down. “Talk to me.”

“You,” he stated as if it was obvious. When I didn’t respond, he continued. “Ever since I met you, I’ve been trying to better myself. Not go out as much, get away from the crowd that only talked to me because they want something. I haven’t had any interest in doing that because – well. I want to be the best man I can. For you.”

I stood straight at his confession. I was left speechless. I took a deep breath before kneeling on the ground in front of him. I opened my mouth and closed it again, not knowing what to say.

“Harry, I – I’m proud of you for doing all of that.”

“Well I’m glad someone is,” he exclaimed. He threw himself back onto his bed and covered his face with his hands.

I got up and sat next to him, criss crossing my legs. I grabbed his hands from his face and held them.

“I’m sure your dad is proud of you too. He just doesn’t know how to say it.” I tried to assure him.

“Yeah because ‘if you would’ve kept the clean image like I told you to’ screams ‘I’m proud of you.” He groaned. He grasped my hands and brought them to his chest.

“Well, let’s think about this. Your dad is the President. He has a lot of people to answer to, and I’m sure he’s under a lot of stress.” I explained to him, rubbing circles on the backs of his hands

“I know, I know. But like, there’s a way to talk to your kids.”

“Yeah, and I’m not saying how he handled it was correct. I’m just saying, from his perspective, he’s probably not mad. Just frustrated. And I’m sure he’s proud of you for trying to better yourself.” I paused, glancing at the door. “Maybe you should just talk to him about how this experience has been for you. I know you haven’t and that might help him to better understand where you’re coming from.” I concluded.

“You’re right. I should probably try to talk to him in private.”

“Wanna hear a joke?” He nodded, cracking a small smile. “What did the drummer name his daughters? Anna one, anna two!” His giggle filled the quiet room, a chuckle left my own lips. He pulled me down, so my head was resting on his chest.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” He tucked my hair behind my ear and caressed his hand down my cheek.

“I’ve been told,” I joked, returning the smile he gave me.

“No, I’m serious,” He looked at the ceiling before continuing, “You give really good advice that makes me think from another perspective, and you can make me laugh even when it feels like my world is crashing - not even two minutes ago.” He glanced back down at me. My eyes never leaving his face.

We stayed like this for a while. Talking about life, things we believed in, conspiracy theories, the best type of pasta (Tortellini was unanimously voted), everything.

Harry walked me back to the East Garden entrance around 3:00am.

“Are you sure you can’t stay the night? Niall can just drop you off in the morning.” He tried one last time.

“I’m sure, Harry.” I let out a quiet laugh. “But hey – maybe we should just keep this between us two? I don’t want to get any weird looks from m –“ I stopped myself before the words ‘my coworkers’ escaped my lips, “your guards.”

“Of course, don’t worry.” He kissed my forehead and watched as I waited for my Uber. Occasionally throwing out pick-up lines. My favorite being ‘Are you a time traveler? Because I can see you in my future’ I casually waved as the Uber pulled up.

“Y/N?” She asked. I nodded and opened the door. I took one last look towards the entrance, seeing just the crack of light, knowing Harry was watching through it.

The next few weeks continued like this. Harry sneaking out to my house, and me to his. Each time learning new secret passages that brings me to his wing, or his room. It got to be exciting, really. Seeing Harry without Thompson in my ear. I had somehow convinced him to keep Niall out of the loop of our late-night meetings. But, of course, going on public outings was a different story. Niall would be waiting in a blacked-out SUV, I had my earpiece in, and I had to give Harry lines fed from Thompson every other sentence.

Sitting in Thompson’s office was something I should be used to by now. However, ever since Harry and I began having our midnight rendezvous, I had been anxious every time Thompson was even so much as in the same building. Although Harry and I haven’t so much as kissed since that night in my apartment, every time I saw him, I could feel the sexual tension radiating off him like I was standing next to a bonfire. He was waiting for me to make the first move, which I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. It would put so much more confusion into this already sticky situation.

Harry has grown into my friend. Of course, there was romantic interest. But I couldn’t jeopardize my cover. To him, I was Y/N Y/L/N. Marketing director for Accent. Small town girl from Carolina. I went to college for Business. I have my mom and two younger brothers back home who encouraged me to follow my dreams and move to D.C. If he knew who I really was. We could never have a relationship. If he knew I was being paid to play his romantic interest, things would never be real for us.

“Miss. Y/L/N,” Thompson’s serious tone tore me from my thoughts, “We’re aware that things have gone swimmingly since Mr. Styles had picked you up for breakfast a couple weeks ago. But how are you?”

“Yes, sir,” I agreed. “I’m well. He seems to be just fine. Hasn’t been as much in the spotlight. And the press - ”

“Miss. Y/L/N,” His tone lightened a bit. Thompson clasped his hands on his desk and softened his eyes toward me. I locked eyes with him as he continued. “Y/N, how are you doing?” His question took me by surprise. Thompson is always business. Hard-core authoritarian and never cares about sick days, let alone mental health days. He didn’t care if you were vomiting on the curb, you better show up for duty.

“I – What?” I asked, bewildered. My jaw fell slack, and I prayed he couldn’t hear my thoughts.

“Y/N, I know this must be extremely hard on you. I know I asked a lot of you when I assigned you to this. I want to be sure you’re doing okay. You two spend a lot of time together and I know how charming he is. I’ve met him on several occasions.” He chuckled, pushing his chair back and coming to sit next to me.

I turned toward him and put on a poker face. “Mr. Thompson, I know the longevity of this mission, and I know what a great deal of stress this is putting on everyone involved as well.” I couldn’t help it, I let my face fall into one of agitation. “But when I’m with him, I can’t help but think of how real it is for him. How would he feel if he knew that my interest is just a hoax? That it’s part of my job description to play this part?”

Thompson moved out of his chair and moved to the windows that looked out into the office. He took his time shutting the blinds before he came to sit in front of me on his desk.

“Y/N,” He started, the unease in his voice was something new. “I know your concern for his emotions is genuine. It’s part of why I hired you. You fully invest in what you’re doing. And that’s a trait that’s hard to come by nowadays. But I also hired you because I know how tough you are. You don’t let people push you around. You’ve truly shown your character with this.”

He took a long glance out the window at the cars driving down the 695. Did he have children? I never asked. We weren’t supposed to ask our superiors about their personal lives. The office and field were strictly professional.

“The unfortunate part of our jobs, is the mere fact that everyone we interact with, is part of our job. Whether it’s a civilian on the street, or the Queen of England. We’re on guard the whole time. Take Niall for instance.” He finally brought his gaze back to mine. “Niall is the closest we have to getting inside Mr. Styles head. To understand his motives and how he may be putting a risk to himself. That’s where we come in.”

“I don’t under – “

“Like Niall, we have Joe. Joe is the head of security for President Styles. President Styles may not understand what we’re doing at the time. But always comes to thank us later.”

“Mr. Thompson,” I let the confusion slide onto my face. “With all due respect, I don’t understand how this relates.”

“What I’m saying Y/N, is that, even though it may not seem like it, we do have Mr. Styles’ best interest at heart. But to do that, we need to be on the inside as well.”

I left Thompson’s office feeling even more anxious than before I entered. The phone ringing in my pocket halted my movements. Harry was trying to FaceTime me. I took a sharp right and entered the nearest bathroom, locking the door behind me.

“Hey,” I greeted him through the screen. He was in a car, driving. His sunglasses were pulled onto his head, pushing his chocolate locks out of his face.

“Hi! Oh – I’m sorry. You’re at work, aren’t you?” He apologized.

“Oh – yeah,” I fibbed. I hated this. I wanted to scream how I didn’t work at Accent and haven’t the slightest clue what marketing strategies were. You’re in too deep at this point, slick.

“How about I come pick you up for lunch? I can say hi to Rich.” He excitedly proposed.

“I can’t today, I’m sorry. I – uh” Think Y/N, think. “I’m actually in a business meeting with a prospect. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah, that sounds good. What’re you doing tonight?” He didn’t even seem fazed. He had grown used to my typical 9-5 day. That was actually midnight to midnight and being on call over the weekends. I, technically, was always working.

“I think Ashlie was cooking some homemade eggplant Parmesan. What’s up?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to come over tonight. Maybe watch a movie with some popcorn?” He gave a light smirk, before turning it into a full grin.

“I could be up for that. After dinner?”

“Do you want me to send a car to get you? Or would you like to sneak in as usual?” There was a hint of annoyance laced in his voice. He seemed to be getting tired of sneaking around.

“I can get myself there,” I stifled a laugh, trying to lighten his mood. “East Garden?”

“Yeah, okay.” I felt bad, that I couldn’t just stroll up to the main doors of the white house. But what security didn’t know didn’t hurt us. Well, me.

I arrived at the East Garden at 8:58, Harry was waiting with the door slightly cracked, as he had continuously done throughout our little meetings.

“Hey, ninja,” He smirked.

“Ninja?” I giggled as he pulled me into a hug. He rested his head atop mine, arms around my waist.

“Yeah, I think it suits you.” He snickered.

“If only you knew,” I whispered. I pulled away, “Shall we?” He reached for my hand, interlocking our fingers. Something I had grown accustomed to.

We settled in his room, laying back on the pillows. He pulled me into his chest as The Notebook started.

“Hey Y/N?” He gingerly murmured into my hair. Feeling the day weigh on my eyelids, I offered a hum in response. “How much do you. Ya know, like me?”

My eyes flew open at the question. My heart shook my toes with how hard it was beating. “What do you mean?” Trying to keep my voice even, I tilted my head to look up at him.

“Like, we’ve been seeing each other for a bit now, so I was just wondering like.” He grabbed my left hand and gave it a squeeze, “What are we doing?”

“Harry I – “ I took a deep breath. You knew it was coming. Play stupid. “I don’t follow.”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

I sat up and turned to him, criss crossing my legs. “Harry, as much as I care about you,” The words were harder to get out than anticipated. “I really enjoy what we have going on. And, I mean, with your status. I’m nervous about it … blowing up. Does that make sense?” I shook my head at his disapproving eyes. My voice started to waver as I continued, “I’m sorry, I just. I know how nasty the media can be and…”

Harry bolted up, grabbing my face ready to wipe any tears that could fall. “Hey, I don’t want you to apologize. I just, I don’t know. I feel like you don’t want to be seen with me or something. Even around my own house…” his voice trailed as he looked down at his own legs.

I took the opportunity to grab his hands, rubbing circles into their backs. “Harry, I promise that I really care about you. I just, I’m not ready for something like that.”

“Okay, I understand.” His gaze peered back up to me. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to pressure you. I would just really love to show off the woman that has stolen my heart.” I stole his heart and felt mine drop. “Will you let me know when you are?” I could only nod. “Come on, let’s lay back down. I love this movie.”

I don’t know when Harry fell asleep. His soft snores filled the room long before the movie ended. I couldn’t move, but I had to get out of here. I had to tell Thompson I couldn’t do it anymore. I checked my phone for the time. 4:27. I have to go home. I carefully unhooked Harry’s hand from mine. I gathered my things from his desk before spotting a notepad. I glanced over at the sleeping boy. You at least owe him the courtesy to write him a note that you were leaving. He’s done the same before.

I scribbled a simple “Couldn’t sleep, call me tomorrow. - Y/N” On the paper before putting it next to him on the bed.

I cracked the door open as quietly as possible and stuck my head through the crack, looking for any potential sign of life. I slid my body through the door and shut it as lightly as possible. I ran my hands down my face and started down the hall.

“Y/N?” I froze as I was about to round the corner. I slowly turned around to find a confused Niall standing at the other end of the hall. He took several glances between me and Harry’s door. “What are you doing here?” His tone was cold.

“Niall, I – I didn’t think you’d be roaming the halls this early in the morning.” I tried to laugh it off while taking several strides towards him.

He stared at me dumbfounded. “Does Thompson know you’re here?” He took my blank expression as an answer. “So how long has this been going on?”

“Niall, it’s not what it seems.” I defended.

“No, you’re just sneaking over to the WHITE HOUSE in the middle of the night for no reason. Not to hook up with Harry?”

“Niall, it’s really not like that!” I raised my voice slightly.

“Then tell me what it’s like Y/N. You know this could jeopardize the mission!” Niall raised his voice higher than mine. Not seeming to care if other guards heard him.

“I’m being his friend, Niall!” I cried. ‘That’s all.”

“Being his friend?” He asked bemused. “I don’t think FRIENDS do what you’re doing, Y/N.” His voice lower this time.

“Niall, I’m just trying to do the best I can! There’s no precedent for stuff like this! He calls, I answer. If he asks me to be there for him, I am. Like three weeks ago when he had an all-out meltdown!” My hands swung from my sides, to cover my face.

“That’s my job Y/N, not yours. I’m the one he calls to handle situations like that.” He stated the obvious, raising his eyebrows. He spoke almost as if he was telling a three-year-old that they couldn’t jump off the monkey bars because they could get hurt.

“Yeah, Niall. I know it’s your job. But have you been doing it? Are you really his friend and have you been handling it?” I countered his argument. If Niall was the one to handle situations like that, then why did Harry call me instead?

“Y/N, I leave him alone when he gets like that. When he’s ready to talk, he does. I think I know him a little better than you.” Niall crossed his arms over his chest, his eyebrows furrowed, and his voice was ear-piercingly serious.

“Do you, Niall? Do you really? You may know about everything he’s going through professionally, but –“ I took a deep breath, composing myself so my voice was even. “Do you even know the real him? The sensitive Harry that talks about how hard this life is?” I paused taking in Niall’s cold expression

“How about the Harry that’s favorite color is yellow, or that he loves rom coms because they always end happily? Or what about the Harry that’s just trying to cope because this isn’t the lifestyle he planned or hoped for? Do you even know him Niall?” My voice crippled as I finished my rant.

Niall doesn’t know him. Niall knows what he needs to know so he can report to Thompson at the end of the week. Trouble he got into, bars he went to, where the paparazzi who photographed his every move worked so they can get the pictures back from his blacked-out adventures.

“Miss. Y/L/N,” Niall’s voice was too evenly keeled. “At least I know my place, when it comes to my job. Unlike you, who has no issues crossing clear boundaries. I will be pleased to inform Mr. Thompson of your little rendezvous with Mr. Styles this evening.” He turned his back before flicking his face over his shoulder, “And I’m sure we can find out about all the others as well.”

“What?” Niall froze in his tracks; I was too afraid to turn around. “What’s going on?”

I turned to find a red-faced Harry standing in the doorway to his bedroom.

“Harry,” our voices came in unison.

“You – Niall. Mr. Thompson?” The confusion took its rightful place on his face. “This,” Harry glanced at his sock clad feet. “This was a set up?” I couldn’t find the words to defend myself. “How did you – when were you – “ The unfinished questions never left his lips.

“Harry, I can explain.” My voice was thick. It almost hurt to get the words out. If I didn’t vomit when explaining to him why I like the privacy, it was sure about to come up now.

“You both… you both…” another unfinished question. He shut his door behind him and started walking in the opposite direction of both Niall and me. I gave a desperate glance to Niall, who quickly motioned for me to follow him.

“Go, you should talk to him.” His voice was soft. We both knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to play out. “Better you than me right now.”

I jogged to catch up to Harry. “Harry wait,” I called reaching out for his hand. He quickly swiped it from my grip and quickened his pace. “Harry, please let me explain!” I cried.

“Explain what?” He growled, stopping in his tracks. I stopped just before I crashed into him and took a step back. “Explain how you can go about your day just - just lying to me? About everything? Making me feel these things for you?” His voice was exceptionally hard, barely able to detect the hurt laced through.

“Harry, I’m sorry,” I whispered. ”I – “

“Sorry for what.” He barked, whipping around to face me. “Sorry for making me trust you, or sorry for getting caught in your big scheme.” His words rifled through me like he took an AR-15 to my heart. You should’ve known this could be the outcome. “Whatever you’re sorry for, I don’t want to hear it. See yourself out, I’m done.”

His shoulder bumped me as he walked past. I turned to watch him go back down the hall and around the corner back to his room. I remained motionless when I heard his door slam shut. I felt the wetness of a single tear rolling down my cheek and quickly raised my hand to wipe it away.

How could you have been so stupid, Y/N?

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