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harryforvogue · 1 year

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YASMINE & HARRY

okay!

***

Yasmine drags herself out of bed in morning expecting a boring Monday. Physical therapy on Saturday kicked her ass and all she wants to do is cry when she forces herself into the shower, barely able to stand up. She somehow manages to get through most of the day, eat a meal, and then head back home to change into her formal attire.

She would love to crawl back into her bed, but at 7pm that night, she has to be at an event at her graduate school. Some of the graduate students have presentations to make regarding their thesis. To formally announce them. She and the other graduate students in her program are invited and highly recommended to join them for the convention and dinner to show support.

Yasmine, out of her mind with pain on Saturday, for some reason decided to RSVP for that event.

It's supposed to be a big thing. But when Yasmine gets there, she doesn't feel all that spectacular. Sitting there listening to her fellow students drone on and on about their projects on a Monday night is not the ideal evening for her. Especially since her back aches so bad. She considers hiding in the bathroom for a moment just to cry a little bit.

The graduate program she’s in has been surprising. She’s surprised herself by making friends with the other teacher’s assistants, by enjoying her classes, and by being a pretty decent TA.

But the one thing that surprises her the most that night is Harry.

The thing is: Yasmine isn’t blind. She sees the way people whisper when Harry’s in the room, about how he looks, his voice, his accent. And she knows exactly why they act like that, especially when he shows up to events looking…the way he does tonight.

Yasmine and Harry have attended several graduate programs where formal wear is required by their university. She’s seen him in slacks and cashmere sweaters, and occasionally a tie. He always looks well dressed, even when he’s in his normal jeans and Vans, but something about tonight makes her pause.

And alarm bells ring in her head.

She has her glass of water by her lips when Harry’s presentation slides illuminate the screen and when Harry is announced, Yasmine has to put the glass down or she will choke on the water.

Because, yeah, it’s no big secret that Harry is attractive. But the way he looks tonight…it’s indescribable.

Yasmine’s known Harry for a few months now. He’s infuriating, much more liked amongst his students, and very intelligent. They don’t always seem to get along, and the memos he sends through his emails are ridiculously arrogant at times. She likes to avoid him to make her day better.

Harry walks across the stage casually, one hand tucked in his pocket, the other holding a clicker that he’ll use to work the presentation. He stands at the podium, half leaning, grinning at the people sitting around the tables under him.

His low voice booms across the speakers. “Good evening. My name is Harry. I’m a second year graduate student, TA in the Literature department, and I’ll be talking to you this evening about my thesis proposal.”

Yasmine looks up at him without blinking for several long seconds. He’s dressed in all black, the material of his suit no doubt soft and expensive. His button down shirt is also dark, but a few of the buttons are left unfastened to expose his collarbones, pale skin, and a variety of tattoos that Yasmine’s (unfortunately) too far to make out. His hair is neatly pushed off his forehead and tucked around his ears. Some of the strands near the front are too short, so they keep falling into his eyes as he animatedly talks about his project and what it means to him.

Yasmine is lying if she says she’s listening to a single word he’s saying. With every few movements, Harry blinks at the disruption of those strands, and his hand fusses with pushing the dark curls away. His curls are a lot more defined than they usually are in the mornings when they have class together. They look tousled, lightly coated with product, and well maintained.

Harry moves around the stage a lot, barely looking down at his notes as he goes into some artful topic that his thesis revolves around, but it’s all going in one of Yasmine’s ears and out the other. Because occasionally, he’ll walk over to her side of the room, and he’ll look around at nearly everyone’s face. He doesn't appear nervous at all, and he keeps one hand tucked into his pants pocket as if this is the easiest thing he’s ever had to do. He looks effortless, expensive.

She’s horrified when she realizes it: he looks hot.

And in response, her body feels hot.

As soon as she thinks about it, Harry’s sparkling eyes (that are totally from the overhead light, and maybe from the excitement he feels about his thesis) fall down to hers. She swallows when he holds her eye contact for more than a few seconds, and then a dimple indents his cheek before he moves away and continues to speak to the other side of the room.

Her heart thunders in her chest just from looking at him.

It’s safe to say that she does not retain any knowledge of Harry’s presentation. She’s too busy thinking about other things – such as what the material of his collar must feel like, how well pressed his black button down is, and whether Harry walks around in just his dress pants while ironing his shirt and blazer. What if he had a tie on? It would absolutely be black as well, and knowing Harry, it would be casually loosened to look somewhere in the middle of trying hard and not trying at all.

And he would make it work so well.

His presentation lasts only 15 minutes, and yet Yasmine is left reeling once he smiles and leaves the stage. He walks confidently. He doesn’t take any questions, but judging by the students’ applause, the presentation is well received.

Yasmine thinks she claps. She doesn’t remember. Harry comes out from behind the stage when the next presentation is being set up for another graduate student, and to her dismay (and shock at herself), Harry doesn’t sit at her table, though it has space. He sits elsewhere, at a table in front of hers. She has a view of the back of his neck where his hair elegantly curls against his skin.

She stares at his neck for a long time, absently thinking about how it would be like to be held in his arms tightly as she kisses that spot. Her body isn’t aching in the way that it was before. It’s experiencing a different type of ache now.

Later when all the presentations are completed, Yasmine gathers her belongings and gets ready to leave. There’s dinner being provided, but she thinks she’s had a weird enough night and its’ time to head home.

Harry stops her when she stands up, putting her coat on. He’s right behind her as she pushes her chair out, turning to another TA to say goodbye.

Harry’s hand is on the back of her chair, and the smile on his face is small, but present. She is very aware of it.

And oh fuck. To make matters worse, he’s also lost the blazer. He’s left in his thin black button down shirt (that looks slightly see-through? Double fuck.) and dress pants. Yasmine’s hand balls into a fist.

“Hi,” Harry greets. “I thought I saw your name on the RSVP’d list. You don’t come out very often so it was a pleasant surprise.”

“Yes,” she replies, looping her bag over her body. “Congratulations on the successful presentation.”

What she wants to say is something along the lines of, “Why the hell do you look and smell so good?”

Harry leans against the back of her chair. He's chewing gum.

Triple fuck.

“Thank you. Maybe you’ve got some good competition now, hm?”

“Sorry?” She blinks.

“You know,” he says, crossing his arms. Yasmine absolutely does not look at the way his biceps fill out the shirt. She does not. “Everyone loved your presentation a few weeks back. I heard department heads and professors talking about the chance of making it into a full blown research paper. I’m thinking maybe we’ve sparked a little friendly competition between us.” He’s grinning now, holding her eye contact. “It could be fun to work against each other, you know? Work on our thesis so we can use the competition to make ourselves better.”

“I don’t have any plans of working against you,” she says, looking at his neck. “I’m sure we’ll do great individually.”

Yasmine’s eyes drag down over the tattoos on his skin. They’re birds of some kind, and a silver pendant rests between his collar bones. His suit looks neatly pressed and steamed, not a single line in sight.

He looks… so good. That’s not even the right word. He looks enticing, open and enthralling. It’s like he’s playing with her, knowing just how much she’s attracted to him right now. He knows how good he looks. She feels her jaw tense. Why do her fingers ache to run over the soft skin of his jugular? That vein that’s protruding from under his jaw mesmerizes her. She vaguely registers their closeness and how his chest rises and falls quickly. Why does she want to reach over and brush her lips against the slight stubble on his cheeks, just enough to scratch comfortably at her skin. Not coarse enough to sting, but to make her think about his face against her own for several days on.

It’s pitiful how she’s a literature student and yet she cannot find a single word to describe him right now. It’s angering, frustrating. It’s just Harry after all.

Harry stands up straighter. “Careful, Yasmine,” he murmurs, his hands in his pockets now. His eyes are intense, darker. He’s no longer smiling, and his own shoulders are more tense. He bites on the inside of his cheek, and her heart jumps when his eyes dip lower as well, just for a fraction of a second before he’s focused on her eyes again.

“Are you leaving?” he asks when she doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah. It’s kind of late.”

Harry nods, rubbing the side of his jaw. “You don’t want to stay for dinner?”

“Not really. I’m pretty tired. And I’ve got plans for tomorrow.”

The last part is a lie, but it usually works when getting out of stuff. Instead of making Harry give it up, it makes him frown. “What kind of plans?”

“Just…plans. I’ll see you in class.”

“Right.” He steps out of the way to let her go. But at the last moment, his warm hand grabs her wrist. “Hey.”

She looks over her shoulder. He releases her arm lightning quick. “Yeah?”

He smiles faintly. “You look nice.”

I’m going to jump this man, Yasmine thinks to herself. No, I’m going to jump on him. But what she makes herself say is, “Thanks. You, too.”

Later that night, she’ll think about Harry. The way his hair curls beautifully, around his ears. The way he moves. The way he throws his head back and laughs. The way he hugs all the other students and shakes everyone’s hand. Except hers. He’s never gone in for a hug with her. He’s shaken her hand a few times.

Yasmine repeatedly tells herself that this Harry is the same annoying one that likes to push her buttons and make her feel like he’s better than her.

But then why can’t she stop thinking about him? About his dimples and his bright eyes and his tattoos. His hands, the casualness about the way he carries himself, his confidence. She imagines the press of his firm body against hers. The warmth he gives off making the ache in her body lessen.

She goes to sleep that night thinking she’ll forget all about him in the morning.

She ends up being very wrong. Because from then on, she can’t ever stop thinking about Harry.

#harry and yasmine #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x oc #harry styles x ofc #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles blurb #one down

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lily-drake · 2 years

Text

The Demon’s Queen

Chapter Four

First <> Previous

Damian didn’t know what to think of the girl. She was a lot fiercer than she’d shown to others in her normal life. It made one think what else she was hiding about herself. It didn’t really matter though, either it would help them, or her trainers would know how to deal with it.

Damian set his pen down as he stared at the doodle he had created. It was an accident, but when he let his mind wonder, his hands did things that were out of his control. He had drawn the girl, her eyes furrowed in a deep scowl, lips turned down, giving away her frustration. He had drawn her hair up in a tight ponytail with her bangs shifting right as if the winds were blowing past her. It didn’t matter too much,

he could simply dispose of the drawing, it wasn’t like he had drawn on an important document.

Slowly, he rose from his desk, carefully took off his crown, setting it in its cushioned box, before he turned and walked towards the windows. The view of the snowy mountains soothed a part of him that had been itching inside of him since he had shown Marientte where her room was. He had made sure that her room especially had nothing she could fully utilize as a weapon like the others as they had all come here willingly. Still though, there was this itch that she would be able to somehow escape, and that she would die in the mountains before anyone realized she was gone. He stared out at the landscape, noticing the first few rays of the sun peaking past the hills. It was time.

__________

Marinette couldn’t sleep that night, in fact she refused to sleep. Once the boy had finished explaining everything that would happen and what was “expected of her”, he led her through a long hallway till they stopped in front of a large single oak door.

“This will be your room.”

Was all he said before he turned and left her. Slowly she opened the door to see a decent sized room, smaller than her one at home, but definitely larger than she had been expecting. There was a simple desk in the top left of the room, completely bare of anything. In the top right corner of the room was a simple cot with a single thin pillow and a thin sheet-like blanket. Atop the bed were one pair of black flats, two pairs of loose black fabric that must have been her shirt and pants, a single emerald green ribbon, and a black face covering. Right next to the cot was a small two drawer dresser, and when she opened the bottom drawer she found a few pairs of generic undergarments. She honestly wasn’t sure if they would fit her as they looked a bit too big for her. Strangely enough, the fact that they might not fit her put her at ease as it implied he didn’t care about her in that way. It may not have been him that put them here, maybe it was one of his maids or something, because there was no way he didn’t have any when he was wearing that kind of crown.

The room had no windows, and was completely bare of anything that could be considered a personal touch. She quickly closed the door, and upon closer examination, there was no lock. That didn’t fit well with her, but it would be fine. She glanced at the clothes on the bed one more time before deciding that no, she wasn’t going to wear them. She would not give him the luxury of believing that he had won or she was giving into his sick games. She was going to escape from here if it was the last thing she did. And from the way he spoke, it might be. Unsure of what to do now, her nerves still live and active, she began to pace the room, gnawing at her right thumb’s cuticle. How was she supposed to know what time she would be expected if she had no windows! She glanced at the bed, the clothes, this had to be some sort of sick nightmare. There was no way this was real! What was she to do about Paris? What if there was an Akuma attack right now?! Chat could be in trouble, the city might be permanently destroyed, all while she’s playing captured princess in a tower.

Frustrated tears began to build up along with a pounding headache. She lifted one of her hands to finger the smooth stone of her earrings, but only felt her skin instead. She wanted to cry, wanted to wake up from this nightmare, wanted to find a way out! But she couldn’t. She couldn’t hear anything, but she could feel the presence of people passing her room, a side effect from the miraculous. Did that mean that she would need to leave to find her first instructor then? Only a few of them speak English or French, and she didn’t know any Arabic, which she had brought up. He replied that he would make that one of her courses. She looked back on the clothes on her bed, took a deep breath, and even though she wanted to tear the fabric to shreds, she put it on.

__________

“You are early, though that is not a bad thing, for me at least.”

Marinette turned, looking for where the voice came from, but she couldn’t see anyone.

“What’s so special about you? I wasn’t able to see for myself like some of the others, so I will have to find out for myself. I like it better that way anyways.”

It was like the voice was echoing, an almost sweet lilt in the strangely accented voice. But she couldn’t find the person it belonged to, at least not until they slithered out of the shadows.

“You have not earned your name yet, but once you begin training here, you lose your old name. So what should we call you?”

The woman asked as she began to circle her, a predator studying its prey. She was tall, about half a foot taller than her. She had a lithe frame, her skin a light tan with inky black hair. Her eyes were a cold, hungry brown that seemed to be looking right through her. Her face was all sharp angles, cheekbones pointing out in a way that looked both delicate and dangerous. Her shoulders were rolled back showing off her defined upper body and exposing a large tattoo that covered the entirety of the left side of her neck.

“I’d rather not give up my name.”

She snapped. She had lost so much already, and there was no way in Kwamii’s name that she would let them take her name away from her as well. The woman looked at her, raising a delicate brow before she was a flurry of movement. Marinette nearly tripped over herself, as she moved away. The woman was swift, her moves fierce and deadly as she attacked, it was almost like a dance. It only took maybe thirty seconds before Marinette was flat on her back, the woman’s foot flat against her chest in a place that made it difficult to breathe. As Marinette lay flat on her back it was only then that she noticed the ribbon on the woman’s right bicep, the same emerald green as her own.

“Again.”

Was all she said as she removed her foot and waited for Marinette to regain her footing before she attacked once again.

__________

Damian stared at the city before him, it was in pure chaos. The Eiffel Tower was knocked over, buildings destroyed, blood and bodies lined the streets, and all for what. Damian stared down at the earrings in his palm, wondering whether or not it would be worth it. The sound of a child’s cry broke through his thoughts causing him to turn and watch as the small child cried in front of the crushed remains of who was no doubt their mother. With that scene in mind he calmly stood up and put on the cursed jewels of the creation. When the Kwamii fully formed he called on the transformation he had her tell him earlier, letting it overcome him in a magical protection he had never fully felt before. Once the transformation was finished he began his hunt starting with the creature that had taken so many innocent lives before he moved on to the real monster that allowed this to happen in the first place.

Taglist:

@sinoffalsejudgement @peachmuses @myazael @snnoww26 @dur55 @tip-tap-tired @ledalasombra @jennifer-rose123 @kylamai @plz-excuse-my-inner-gay @stella17luna @meduarts @toodaloo-kangaroo @valeks-star @crazylittlemunchkin @achaoticmess1 @queenz-z @doll246 @aespades @liquid-luck-00 @a-slytherinish-gryffindor @kashlyn @demigraceling-blog @castle-bookworms-world @a-classic-bookworm

Thank you @cyber-geist for these glorious designs!

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