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angelisverba · 3 years

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thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number)

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

* * * * * *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter.

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat.

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society.

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’ his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room.

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck.

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin.

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit.

Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips.

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had.

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango.

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion). The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere.

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it.

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough.

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did.

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother.

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat.

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door.

Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be.

And he wasn’t lonely anymore.

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company.

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants, and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel.

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already.

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.”

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like.

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy.

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation.

Right?

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy.

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table.

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon.

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants.

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny.

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could.

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again.

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin.

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class.

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go.

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’.

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence.

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said.

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement.

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.”

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible.

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked.

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t.

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited.

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible.

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another.

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart.

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent.

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.”

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy.

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.”

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully.

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be.

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her.

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer.

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning.

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him.

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked.

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home.

His home.

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture).

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too.

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did.

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number.

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room.

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise.

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her.

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her.

“Oh my god!” She said, “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with. She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’.

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’.

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm. The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow.

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up.

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf.

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.”

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.”

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.”

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three.

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said.

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n.

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her.

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.”

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck. Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements.

Like dropping her card when she piped up again.

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm.

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous.

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing.

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram.

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added.

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?”

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.”

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma.

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time.

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates.

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat.

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store.

***

Harry was having a shitty morning.

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should.

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage.

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead.

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance.

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way.

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day.

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that.

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning.

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart.

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down.

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content.

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.

It’s no use.

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true.

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be.

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him.

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier.

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin.

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible.

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy.

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips.

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay.

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day?

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look.

“Back again so soon, H?”

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop.

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.”

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said.

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal.

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and-

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart.

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?”

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off.

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove.

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.”

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.”

It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence?

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.”

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.”

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out.

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle.

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly.

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice.

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door.

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like.

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.”

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance.

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought.

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.”

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling.

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.”

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!”

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles.

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!”

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all.

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else.

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time,

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-”

Harry and y/n giggle at each other,

“You go first.”

“Y’speak first.”

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.”

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands.

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm?

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.”

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose.

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick.

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.”

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her.

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.”

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum.

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face.

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body.

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything.

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers.

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes.

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay.

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning.

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole.

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum.

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?”

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.”

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-”

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists.

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?”

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.”

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning.

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching.

“Will you text me?” She asked him.

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?”

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center.

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?”

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.”

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent.

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling.

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.

********

Harry can’t stop thinking.

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning.

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom.

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds.

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface.

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves.

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button.

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like.

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut.

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock.

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her.

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself.

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm.

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge.

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base.

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum.

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum.

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out.

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again.

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body.

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads:

y/n <3 : so… dinner?

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name.

He couldn’t be happier.

* * * * * *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

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jaskiers-sweetkiss · 3 years

Text

The 4 Times Luke Got Sick + The 1 Time He Got Julie Sick

Pairing: Julie x Alive!Luke (college AU)

Word Count: 2.9k

Warnings: light swearing, non-fatal illness

Summary: Luke was always getting sick. It was probably the worst things about being roommates with him, Julie decided. That, and when they’d first moved into their dorm Freshman year of college he’d tried to hit on all her friends. It seemed like every year the poor guy went through at least one serious bout of illness that Julie would have to practically nurse him back to health from.

A/N: I got 2 anon requests for sick!Juke this week, one for a College Roommates AU where Luke constantly gets sick and Julie takes care of him and another where they’re friends and neighbors but have crushes on each other that don’t come to light until they both get sick together feat. Mothering Rose. I decided to combine them since they had a similar theme, I hope that’s alright! As per usual, let me know what you think and send me a message if you’d like to be added to my taglist! Also, I am taking requests right now so feel free to send those in!

Masterlist

___

1 - Freshman Year

“Juuuulie,” Luke called from his bedroom.

“Whaaaat?” Julie called back from her own room, making no attempt to get up from her bed.

“Can you come here so we can stop yelling?” He whined and she rolled her eyes but rolled out of her bed unceremoniously.

Given the coed nature of the dorms, they were each provided a small separate bedroom connected with a combined living room space that currently could use a good vacuuming, she noted as she walked through it before pausing at Luke’s door. It was only about three months into the semester and while Luke and Julie had become fast friends through their love of music, she hadn’t really been in his room before.

She raised her fist to give a hesitant knock, not really sure what the protocol was.

“You can come in,” he laughed but for the first time in their conversation, Julie noticed that his voice seemed a little off.

When she stepped into the room she immediately knew why. Luke lay in bed, slightly propped up by his pillow. She immediately noticed how red his face and nose, in particular, looked and the pile of used tissues next to the bed.

“Woah, dude, are you sick?” Julie exclaimed, immediately taking a step back in an attempted to put as much distance between herself and the sick boy as possible.

“Yeah,” he croaked sheepishly, “Sorry, I guess I should’ve warned you.”

“Ya think?” She scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest but smirking to let him know she wasn’t that mad about it. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Um, yeah, actually. I was gonna ask if you could run down to the market and get me some chicken noodle soup?”

Julie nodded, happy to be able to help her sick friend.

“Sure! Is there any medication I can pick up from the pharmacy for you or anything?” She offered but he shook his head, pulling open the top drawer of his bedside table revealing that it was full of various medicines.

“I, uh, came prepared,” he said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “My immune system is pretty shit.”

Julie nodded.

“I better get you that soup then, huh?” She said kindly, starting to feel awkward lingering in the doorway.

“My wallet is in my jacket pocket,” Luke offered, pointing to the coat hanging in his closet.

Julie nodded in silent thanks as she pocketed the piece of leather, closing the door on her way out. Despite the sunshine, it was a short but chilly walk to the campus market, which was fortunately only a couple of blocks away from their residence hall. She located the soup fairly quickly but stopped to look through the tea options, grabbing a box of peppermint and chamomile tea bags. The check-out process was fast and she was back in her dorm only a few minutes later.

Before even taking off her coat or slipping off her shoes, she put the soup in the microwave and started up her electric kettle. While she was waiting she then busied herself with hanging up her coat in her own closet and leaving her shoes in their designated spot by the door.

“What are you doing out there, Molina?” Luke groaned from his room when the kettle started whistling.

She quickly switched it off, bustling around the designated “kitchen” area of their dorm for a mug to start steeping the peppermint tea. No sooner than she placed the teabag into the mug had the microwaved beeped, signaling that the soup was ready. Bowl in one hand and mug in the other, Julie pushed the door open with her shoulder, slowly stepping into the room in an attempt not to spill either of the hot liquids in her hands.

She gingerly set the mug on a cleared space on Luke’s desk before handing him the chicken noodle soup.

“What’s that?” He asked, gesturing to the mug with his spoon before eating some of the soup.

“It’s peppermint tea,” she answered factually. “My mom always makes it for me when I’m sick, it supposed to help with congestion and should soothe your throat.”

“You’re the best, Molina,” Luke said graciously, slurping another mouthful of soup.

“Damn right I am!” Julie laughed, “Let me know if you need anything else, I’ll be in my room.”

___

2 - Sophomore Year

Julie wasn’t entirely sure why she hadn’t anticipated this. Maybe she’d hoped that all the elderberry and echinacea tea she’d made him drink last year had actually helped his immune system, but nope. November had rolled around and with it, cold season and cold season meant that Luke would undoubtedly get sick. He wasn’t lying, his immune system really was shit. This year was worse though. While last year it had been a series of bad colds, this year it was the flu.

She’d found out when he’d vomited in the middle of a rehearsal with the band they’d formed at the end of the previous year with two other guys they’d met in one of their music classes.

She’d been keeping an eye on him all day as he’d been shivering a lot and seemed especially pale but she had figured the boy knew his immune system better than anyone else and would say something if he was feeling sick. Obviously not.

“Oh my gosh, Luke! Are you okay?” She gasped, rushing over to rub his back soothingly as he bent over the trash can in the spare music room they’d occupied for rehearsal.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, waving her off as he stood back up with the intention of picking his guitar back up.

However, Julie stopped him, placing her hand against his forehead with a frown.

“You have a fever.” She said disapprovingly and he sighed.

“It’s fine Molina, we gotta practice.”

“Nuh-uh.” She insisted sternly, sticking out an arm to hold him in place. “You are not gonna get the rest of us sick. I’m driving you to the campus health center and then we’re going home.”

Luke huffed and rolled his eyes but relented, moving to slide his electric into its case and grab his jacket.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

“We’ll see you guys later,” Julie sent Alex and Reggie an exasperated smile before following the boy out.

The campus health center confirmed Julie’s suspicions, it was the flu. They picked up his prescription medicine at the campus pharmacy next door before heading back to their shared dorm.

“Will you make me soup?” Luke pleaded as Julie made sure he was settled comfortably in his bed, his lip stuck out in an irrefutable pout. “And Mama Molina’s special tea?”

Julie smiled at the nickname which Luke had coined last year as Julie often referenced her mother when taking care of the seemingly constantly sick boy. The name had stuck and then been made official when the guys had visited her over the summer break and Luke had accidentally called her mother it. Rose Molina fell in love with it instantly and now Luke, Alex, and Reggie all exclusively referred to her as such.

“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes lightly. There was nothing special about Mama Molina’s tea, it was just a cup of peppermint tea with a little bit of honey but it had seemed to work wonders for Luke last year and he much preferred it to the cocktail of cough syrup and sinus pills he’d normally take.

As she delivered the steaming soup and tea, Julie prayed that her superior immune system and flu shot would keep her safe from contracting her roommate’s illness while she took care of him. Still, she tried her best to keep her distance while keeping an eye on him.

She started him on a new Netflix series in an attempt to keep him from going stir crazy in the dorm while she was in class. She picked up all his missing work and made sure he had plenty of soup and tea (peppermint in the daytime to clear up congestion and soothe his cough, and chamomile in the evening to help him sleep).

“You’re too good for me, Molina.” He said sleepily as she tucked him into bed one night.

“I know,” she responded with a smirk, patting his cheek lightly before leaving, turning off the light as she went.

___

3 - Junior Year

Luke’s annual illness came later the next year. All November and December Julie was on high alert, ready at a moment’s notice to grab a can of chicken noodle soup from their cupboards and start up the kettle, but the moment never came. They’d finally moved out of the dorms this year, now living in an off-campus apartment with Alex and Reggie, which meant they had more room for Julie to store her supply of soup and tea and she had two backup caregivers.

When the new year rolled around and Luke still hadn’t shown any signs of getting sick, Julie had remarked,

“Maybe you’ve finally built up your immune system enough.”

The next week Luke was calling for her from his room across the hall.

It was the flu again but this time it was easier.

Julie, Alex, and Reggie took turns taking care of their sick roommate while the others were in classes, though everyone agreed that Julie had to be in charge of the tea. Despite Julie’s insistence that it was easy to make, Alex and Reggie refused after their first attempts had been scorned by Luke who insisted they did it wrong.

“You are such a drama queen,” she’d said, rolling her eyes at the boy as she delivered the tea.

“You’re the best, Molina.” He’d said as he took a sip, ignoring her comment on his dramatics.

“Shut up and drink your tea.” Julie laughed, brushing off the compliment as she turned on Netflix, taking a seat on the other side of the living room.

___

4 - Senior Year

After what all their friends had insisted was years of tension and pining, Luke and Julie got together just in time for Luke to catch pneumonia. It was the worst virus Luke had caught yet and Julie was silently glad that their relationship was new enough that they hadn’t kissed yet. Judging by Luke’s state, she hoped she never got pneumonia.

He had a fever for the first few days and Julie, Alex, and Reggie did their best to keep their distance, only coming into his room to deliver soup, tea, water, and medicine. Once the fever had disappeared, Luke was allowed to rejoin the rest, though only from a distance. The four roommates spending the afternoons in the living room together to keep the boy company as he laid on the couch. Still, even with the fever gone Luke spent the next week and a half nearly hacking up his lungs every time he coughed and with stabbing chest pains.

“You’re not eating your soup,” Julie noticed one afternoon as she did her homework on the opposite side of the living room, Alex and Reggie both in class.

“I’m not hungry,” Luke whined, pushing the bowl farther away on the coffee table.

Julie frowned, getting up from her armchair to perch across from him on the coffee table, picking up the bowl.

“Babe, you’ve gotta eat,” Julie said pointedly and Luke frowned at the term of endearment, knowing she was using it to convince him to do what she said. “The doctor said you’d have a loss of appetite, but you need to eat.”

“C’mon, open up,” she instructed, holding out a spoonful of soup.

Luke huffed, glaring at his girlfriend but opening his mouth anyway, allowing her to spoon-feed him.

“Wow, I did not think Luke could get any needier,” Reggie remarked as he stepped into the apartment, Alex coming in behind him.

“Don’t get used to that,” he added, “Cause I will not feed you while Julie’s in class.”

Julie laughed, ruffling her boyfriend’s hair affectionately before feeding him another spoonful.

“I don’t deserve you, Molina,” he said affectionately between bites.

“Don’t you forget it, Patterson,” she smiled.

___

+ 1 Year Later

After graduation in May, Julie and the Phantoms released their first full album and began their first tour in the fall thanks to the large following they’d accrued through their posts on YouTube since sophomore year and the success of their album. They’d had been touring for a couple of months before they finally took a break, just in time for Christmas.

Alex, Reggie, and Julie had all made plans to spend the break with their families, Reggie staying with his older sister and their family and Alex and Julie with their respective parents. However, Luke’s parents had found themselves on a business trip out of the country which is how the boy ended up spending his first Christmas at the Molina’s. Ray and Rose had been more than happy to have the boy stay with them when Julie explained the situation, though Ray had insisted on a strict policy of the two never being alone in the same room before Rose reminded him that Julie and Luke had been living together for five years and were grown adults.

The Molinas and Luke had a lovely Christmas together but when Julie woke up two days later she wished they had instituted her dad’s No Alone Time policy. She groggily made her way to the kitchen, rifling through the pantry for the peppermint tea to soothe her sore throat and hopefully clear up her sinuses. Before she could get very far though, her mom walked into the kitchen, immediately catching on to what she was doing. Julie rarely reached for tea on her own, hot chocolate being her hot beverage of preference, so Rose knew something must be up when she found her daughter rifling through the tea shelf.

“Go lay on the couch, Niña,” she insisted, ushering her daughter out of the kitchen, “I’ll take care of this.”

Julie did as she said, finding her favorite blanket from the basket in the corner and cuddling up on the couch. Her mom came in a few minutes later with her favorite mug in hand, setting it down on the coffee table in front of Julie.

“Don’t burn yourself, it’s hot,” Rose warned, placing a soft kiss on the top of her daughter’s head and patting her shoulder gently before returning to the kitchen to start on breakfast for the family.

It was only a couple of minutes later that Luke stumbled down the stairs calling her name.

“Juuuulie?” he pouted as he made his way into the living room. “Will you make me some tea?”

Her eyes went wide with the realization of how she’d gotten sick as she clutched her own mug of tea in her hands.

“So this is your fault,” she gasped, voice thick due to the congestion.

“What?” Luke asked, tilting his head in confusion, the fogginess in his brain from having just woken up and being sick preventing him from connecting the dots quickly.

“You got me sick.” She accused, narrowing her eyes at her boyfriend who’s eyes widened in response.

“Oh my gosh, seriously?” He asked, concern immediately filling his voice. “I’m sorry Jules.”

“I haven’t gotten sick in over four years and all it takes is one germy kiss from you,” she whined and Luke barked out a laugh before wincing at the pain it caused his throat.

“Well, the good news is we can recover together,” he said, plopping down on the couch and snuggling into her side.

“Luke, honey, do you need a blanket?” Rose asked as she returned to the living room, another cup of tea in hand, the woman obviously having overheard them from the kitchen. Luke nodded sheepishly and Rose smiled, setting the tea down in front of him and crossing the room to grab a blanket.

“Thank you, Mama Molina,” he said graciously, wrapping himself in the fleece material and picking up his tea.

“Anything to get the two of you better before you have to go back on tour,” she said, patting both their shoulders lovingly before going back to her cooking.

Julie groaned at the reminder. They were supposed to start back on the road in a week, but with Luke’s track record of illnesses, there was no knowing how long either of them would be sick this time.

Fortunately, thanks to a diet of Rose’s homemade chicken noodle soup and tea remedy as well as medication, Julie and Luke were feeling better in a couple of days.

“I’d always known, but now I really see where you got your nursing skills from,” Luke remarked on the first morning he’d woken up able to breathe through his nose.

Julie grinned.

“You sure are lucky to have the Molina women in your life,” she teased.

“Damn right.” He nodded sincerely.

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayennefertyrell

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fic #juke #juke fic #julie x luke #julie molina x luke patterson #julie molina #luke patterson #alive!luke patterson #alive!rose molina #rose molina #ray molina #alex mercer #reggie peters

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stxrrywildflower · 4 years

Text

carolina

pairing - emily prentiss x reader

summary - you meet emily in a bar, she doesn’t realize who you are until she hears a song about her on the radio

warnings - nsfw mentions (nothing graphic), cursing

series masterlist

the second emily layed eyes on you, she was instantly captivated.

you sat at the bar, your back pressed against the counter. a drink was in your hand, your cherry red lips occasionally taking a sip. you were observing the crowd, a slightly smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

and then came your outfit. tight black jeans and heels, a silver sparkly cropped tank as your top. a gold necklace was around your neck and hair in your natural style, or what she assumed was.

while emily could have stayed in her spot sneaking glances ever so often, a gentle shove to her back made her tear away her gaze. “emily come on, i need a drink,” j.j. teased.

the three girls pushed further into the venue, already buzzing about their night out.

penelope had been raving about a bar she had discovered. it wasn’t downtown, further away from everything in location. it was a more formal bar in details such as a taxi service and places to drop of coats and accessories if needed.

with no case being presented, they had all agreed to go out. after heading home and getting changed, they all met up to inevitably get drunk.

while j.j. and penelope quickly got drinks and headed out to socialize on the floor, emily decided to head over to the counter.

you shot a smile at the woman who slid into the seat beside you. she cooly ordered a drink, spinning around to face the same direction as you.

“going with a daiquiri? i can’t blame you, they’re my favorite,” you smiled, figuring you might as well introduce yourself to the woman beside you.

“i’m y/n,” you greeted.

“emily,” she replied.

you never really fell hard for someone, let alone a stranger. but something about emily was different. maybe it was her looks, her raven hair and dark brown eyes were nothing short of beautiful. or the way she spoke, her name flowing easily as she introduced herself.

maybe it was a combination of the two and her personality already begining to make an appearance. all the times you rolled your eyes at people mentioning love at first sight were really contradicting themselves. maybe not love yet but you knew emily was special.

“who are you watching?” emily asked, being the first one to initiate small talk.

you raised your drink in the general sea of people dancing. “alice and mel,” as you spoke, you pointed towards the two girls, each occupied with others. “you?”

“penelope and j.j. can’t believe we’re both the designated sober friends.”

“oh i’m not, i would just much rather be here talking to you,” the flirty remark rolled off your tongue easily. a blush passed across her cheeks, a smile tugging at her lips.

you ordered a second drink, offering to get emily something if she wanted a second. after shaking her head ‘no,’ you shrugged and leaned back against the counter.

“so what brings you to this bar?” emily questioned.

“night off from the public eye. figured i would spend one of last days in the city out with my friends.”

the alcohol clouded emily’s thinking process a bit, not allowing her to process the first part of the question. “last day?”

you nodded, “i live in d.c. most of the time but i have some work which involves traveling. i’ll be back soon, you can definitely find me here at least once.”

another drink was ordered for the both of you, your attention focusing on emily.

“so what do you do for a living?” conversation flowed easily.

“not sure if i want to reveal it so easily. any guesses?” emily replied.

you leaned close to her face. “well,” you started, eyes flickering down to her waist. “i’m going to go with something in law enforcement.”

a brief shocked look passed over emily’s face letting you know you were right.

emily chuckled. “i’m a profiler for the fbi. though with your guess i’m not so sure you aren’t. how’d you know?”

“well you have an imprint of some clip on your side. adding on your pant pocket is stretched out, probably from some badge. i just put the two and two together and guessed,” you answered, taking another sip of your drink.

“alright, how about you? i’ll be honest, i have absolutely no idea what you do and have no clues.”

your heart fluttered at that. “it’s not important. it’s not anything bad, i promise. just would like to enjoy this night without having to think about work,” you answered truthfully.

talk went on, mostly about your mutual interests and introductory questions.

you were only interrupted when some guy took the now empty seat on your right. he opened his mouth to talk, probably some dumb pickup like, but you caught him off. “don’t even try, i don’t play for your team.” both for you were thankfully he left you alone.

emily grinned into her drink. “sorry about that. i really hate men sometimes,” you apologized. “no it’s okay i promise. i’ve had to deal with people like that for so long with my work. you think they would just realize that we just aren’t into them.”

maybe you did internally smile when you realized you may actually have a chance with her.

flirty remarks were tossed around after that, both of you completely forgetting about your friends who came with you.

“come with me to grab my coat?”

emily nodded, leaving her drink at the counter and following you back.

the two of you couldn’t have been away from the center room of the building for more than a few moments before your lips were on hers.

“already undressing me here? thought you’d be more classy than that y/n,” emily groaned as you pushed her jacket back. you hummed against her neck, moving to the pulse point along her jawline.

“come back to mine?” you mumbled in between kisses. emily nodded, “call a cab.”

the entire ride back, the tension was almost unbearable.

you tired to be quiet for the sake of the driver but emily’s occasionally kisses to your neck made it quite difficult. to add on to that, she kept her hand on your thigh, it trailing higher and higher up as you neared your location.

after paying your ride fee (with a pretty hefty tip), you pulled emily out of the cab and towards your apartment bulding. you could tell she was in slight awe just from the outside. but with one quick tug of her hand, she was following you once more.

you fumbled with your key trying to open your door after waving to those at the front and heading up the elevator.

when the door was pushed open, you waisted no time pushing emily in. the two of you moved as quick as possible, kicking off your shoes and slowly moving towards your bedroom.

“you sure you want to do this?”

the question made you grin, “absolutely.”

____

you woke up to the weight on your chest being lifted, the sound of sheets shifting as well. your eyes struggled to open, fighting with tiredness, especially from the night before.

it was easily one of the best experiences ever.

your eyes slid open, head lolling to the side to find the creator of the noise.

emily was sitting up, sheets pooled around her waist. her raven hair fell down her back, covering up the top half of her body.

“what’s up?” you asked, pulling the covers up over your bare chest.

“i need to get going if i want to shower and be at work on time,” emily rushed out, standing up to grab her clothing strewn across the room. “shit,” she mumbled upon seeing her very revealing shirt she wore last night. there was no way to could go home in that.

“just borrow one of mine,” you offered, keeping a pillow over your eyes to block out all of the light.

she mumbled a quiet ‘thank you’ and was out the door without another word.

you later smiled to yourself at the shirt she chose.

____

neither of you could stop thinking about the night at the bar, well more the night after.

the bruises littering your neck served as a lasting reminder. the amount of concealer used in the days following was definitely a new record.

but, as always, life had to go on.

just like you had told emily, you had flown to los angeles the next day for work. well in your case, it meant photoshoots, writing music, and recording new songs.

with your hookup still in your mind, you channeled all your feelings about it into the best way you could.

emily went to work as normal, pounding through paperwork as no new case had been presented to the group.

j.j. and penelope has cornered her in the break room, already gushing out their girls night before bombarding her with questions. “where did you go that night? we looked around and one of the bartenders said you had already left.

“i know,” emily confirmed. “i saw your text.”

she grabbed her freshly made mug of coffee, already turning around to leave. j.j. followed, not quite done with figuring out where her friend went. “you met someone,” she concluded. “maybe i did j.j., i guess it’s a mystery.”

the conversation was done after that.

after work, everyone went their separate ways. the team all bid their goodbyes, each happy that they would be home on time.

emily grabbed her bag before heading out to her car, sitting in the drivers side for a few minutes before she could head out.

a text from penelope made her phone buzz. emily picked the device up before looking down at the screen and focusing on the message.

‘have you heard y/n y/l/n’s new song? oh my god it’s so good. i know you don’t really follow her but it sounds like your vibe. here’s a link with the cover art if you want to listen. i’m sure it’s playing on the radio too :)’ -p.g.

emily sucked in her breath as she read your name, mind already wandering back to the night at the bar. your words slowly pieced together in her mind, “night off, public eye, last day.” all were related to your status as a celebrity.

the first half of the song went by in a blur, emily only partially listening.

“she feels so good. i met her once and wrote a song about her, i wanna scream yeah i wanna shout it out, and i hope she hears me now,” your voice played out of the speakers.

there was absolutely no way those lyrics were about anyone else.

she examined the cover after listening to the entire song. it was fairly simple, having a more vintage vibe. you were seated on the end of a couch, arms resting on your knees and looking directly at the counter.

what initially caught her eye was your shirt. plastered across the white fabric was a band logo, the exact same one sitting in her drawer. even the small tear along the left shoulder stitching. it was the exact same one she had worn out of your apartment.

there were way to many factors for it to be a coincidence.

the lyrics. the shirt. your one night stand. it all just connected.

she was carolina.

☆ ☆ ☆

tags - @sapphicspence @itsmyblogandillreblogifiwantto @kissessforharryyy @garcias-batcave @zoseph @kissessfordraco @ogmilkis @cm-is-kinda-cool @matthewgublerswife @guessthatswhyiliveinhell @babyangellee @agentshortstacc

#criminal #criminal minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x oc #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #emily prentiss #emily prentiss x reader #jennifer jareau #david rossi #penelope garcia #luke alvez #matt simmons #tara lewis

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noonaduck · 4 years

Text

In the eye of storm pt.2

Pairing: reader x Hoseok /OT7 Genre: Superhero &super villain AU, Smut, fluff, angst. series. Warnings: angst, gore themes Words: 4055

Summary: You lived in a world where superhuman abilities were reality. Around 15% of world population went through a mutations in their mother’s womb that scientists weren’t able to explain. These people with supernatural abilities were called meta-humans. Some of meta people decided to serve the world as superheroes whose job was to keep everyone safe. Like every coin people gaining superpowers had its down side. Because there wasn’t choosing who would born with extraordinary abilities sometimes the powers ended up manifesting in wrong people. Those people used their abilities for their own gain and the counter force for the superheroes was born. A/N: At first I’m sorry for the wait. i have been lacking the motivation to write so that’s why publishing the second part took so long. I wanna give big shout out and thanks to my new beta @s0seo . I don’t know where I would be without her patience to fix my grammar mistakes and her suggestions on how the plot should proceed.

1. < 2. > 3. coming soon.

[GIF belongs to it’s rightful owner ]

9 years ago in Scarlet City

Min Yoongi was proud to call himself super. Even though he hadn’t gained his superhuman abilities through a mutation like other super humans, he didn't mind. His father was one of the leading scientists in the field of gene research following the discovery of the first superhuman. Their home was filled with articles detailing the accomplishments and crimes of these super humans. Many of them were decorated with scribbles from both yoongi as well as his father. You could say that he was obsessed in figuring out the secrets of supernatural abilities. That was the main reason that he had spent most of his time in his laboratory focusing on his work. Yoongi's mother died in a car crash when Yoongi was only two. Although Yoongi couldn’t remember much about his mother, he could vaguely recall the comforting scent of her hair and how patient and kind she was always with him unlike his father. Following his mother’s funeral Yoongi’s father buried himself even deeper into his work than he had before, and Yoongi found himself spending most of the time with his father in his cold, desolate laboratory playing with empty test tubes and befriending the lab rats his father used for his experiments. Dr. Min looked like a real life mad scientist with his too big lab coat, messy black hair, and half moon glasses that he kept pushing up his crooked nose. He didn’t ignore his child on purpose; it was just that he was always so focused on his work that he sometimes forgot that he even had a son. The lack of other kids' presence in Yoongi's early years robbed him of any potential social skills and later caused him to become an outcast. When Yoongi was old enough he was sent to one of the strictest boarding schools in the country. He was often punished harshly for insubordination and was often misunderstood, because he struggled with expressing himself in ways that didn’t make him seem rude. He spent countless hours scrubbing dishes and mopping the halls as punishment. However, kitchen duty had its own benefits, and it was through those countless hours that he learned how to make basic meals, and was able to sustain himself and his father during school holidays when he was sent back home.During his free time Yoongi often buried his head in his comic books and closely followed the news about his favorite heroes while continuously finding himself wondering if he was one of them would his father finally notice him? Yoongi had always had mixed feelings towards his father. He wanted his father to see him as someone who was worthy of his love and attention. At the same time Yoongi found himself becoming more and more frustrated with his father. The only things he seemed to care about were the super humans he was studying and the powers that they processed.

The city was covered in a heavy blanket of snow, and Yoongi tried desperately to make his way through the buzzing city. Christmas was already knocking on the door, and panicked shoppers were running around like headless chickens hunting for their last minute Christmas presents. As he got close to the large building, he felt a shoulder ram into him from the side almost causing him to drop the plastic bag which carried a christmas gift of his own.

After glancing angrily towards the stranger only to find him already walking away with his phone glued to his ear, Yoongi let out a heavy sigh and watched a cold puff of air escape from his lips. He didn’t know what had come over him when he had decided to visit his father while he was working. When Yoongi finally reached the wide glass two story building he frowned and felt snow begin to fall from the sky. It was getting dark, and the only lights in the building were coming out from the second floor where he knew his father's laboratory was located. Yoongi knocked on the front glass doors and a few seconds later a security guard appeared from his booth to unlock the door for him.

‘’Merry Christmas Yoongi.’’ The familiar old mad man greeted him while flashing a toothy grin. ‘’Merry Christmas to you too.’’ Yoongi answered back, his lips in a straight line. He had always hated the holiday season. ‘’Is your father expecting you?’’ ‘’No. I bought him food.’’ Yoongi raised his arm holding his plastic bag to show the guard. ‘’Ah that's good. I don’t believe your father’s been eating enough. He didn’t even leave for his break.’’ ‘’I see.’’ Yoongi nodded as the guard stepped to the side. ‘’Say hi for your father from me.’’ ‘’Will do.’’ Yoongi nodded as he headed towards the main hall and ascended the stairs leading to the second floor. He walked quietly through the dimly lit hallway, stopping just outside of his father’s door. He hesitantly reached for the handle and released a deep breath before raising his arm and knocking on the locked door. After a few minutes, and a bit more knocking, his father finally appeared in the doorway looking surprised to see his son standing in front of him.

‘’What are you doing here, shouldn’t you be at school?’’ Dr. Min asked, confused, his mind already returning to his current experiment. Yoongi looked at his father and took note of his disheveled state

“He looks like a mess’’, Yoongi thought to himself. The stains on his shirt, his messy hair, and the bags under his eyes spoke volumes. Not to mention one of his lenses was missing from his glasses. ‘’Christmas is in two days.’’ He responded dully. ‘’Really? I didn’t even notice. Well, come in since you’re already here.’’ Dr. Min said, stepping away and letting his son in. Yoongi wasn’t surprised at how unorganized his father's workplace was. ‘’I bought you soup.’’ Yoongi told him reaching his arm out to hand the bag to his father. ‘’I see, thank you.’’ Mr. Min said, his mind elsewhere as he put the bag down near a metal table. ‘’Follow me I want to show you something.’’ he called over his shoulder already walking away, his face, lighting up and his hand gesturing to Yoongi to follow.

Mr. Min led Yoongi towards the tables where the cages containing the test animals were held. He saw a white rabbit with red eyes and three mice sleeping in the cage next to it. ‘’Animals. Why we are looking at your test subjects?’’ Yoongi asked his father with a raised eyebrow. I might have figured out a way to extract the DNA from one species, dissect it, and place it into another species to expand their traits. ‘’Seeing only confusion on his son’s face he continued. ‘’For example those three mice are paired with the DNA of snakes. I’m waiting for results now. I hope that I’m able to implant the ability to produce venom for these small creatures’’ ‘’Don’t you think that what you are doing is unethical. We shouldn’t mess with nature?’’ Yoongi questioned. Despite all he has been through he had high morals.

‘’Don’t you see son?! If this works we can soon create real life hybrids! Human’s with reflex like a boa and sight like a hawk! With enough time we could even create super humans of our own. just think about it, no more worrying about being too slow or too weak, we could make ourselves gods" Dr. Min’s face looked almost lunatic. ‘’Do the higher ups know what you are doing?’’ ‘’They wouldn’t understand! just think of the possibilities! I’m sure you understand after all you know how much this means to me! Before Yoongi could respond, one of the mice woke up and started coughing up blood. Soon the other two started coughing up blood as well. Yoongi saw that one of them had already begun to bleed from its eyes. ‘’The mice are rejecting the combination of the dna chains!’’ dr. Min yelled and pulled at his his hair in panic. ‘’What I did wrong!’’ Yoongi took a few steps back and turned away ,barely managing to reach a bin before emptying his stomach. Dr. Min, not even noticing his son’s distress hurried to open the cage of the now dead mice.Yoongi glanced towards the rabbit whose breathing had started to hitch, and in the spur of moment pulled the cage door open and picked up the shaking animal. The next thing he knew, he was running down the hallway holding the rabbit to his chest as he faintly heard his father yelling after him.. The only thought in his mind was saving the rabbit from the same fate that the mice had experienced at his father’s hands. However, what Yoongi didn’t know was that the bunny had already received an injection of something that would change both of their lives. ~

You knock on Yoongi’s bedroom door quietly and step in. Heavy black curtains are pulled in front of the long glass windows and only light in the room is coming from the slightly ajar door of the ensuite bathroom. You walk next to Yoongi’s double bed and look at him with worry covering your face.

Yoongi is moving restlessly in his sleep and sweating heavily. ‘’Yoongi wake up.’’ You shake Yoongi’s shoulder and he wakes up with a loud gasp, his hand reaching around your neck in reflex to defend himself. ‘’Yoongi it’s me.’’ You rasp as you feel the growing pressure on your neck. Yoongi’s gaze is wild and unfocused until his eyes finally make their way to your face. ‘’Y/N! I’m so sorry.’’ Yoongi cries out letting go of your neck, and you see a mixture of shock and guilt covering his face.

‘’It’s okay. It was just a dream.’’ You tell him as you take a seat on the bed next to him and take his still raised hands into yours. ‘’I could’ve hurt you.’’ Yoongi whispers quietly with an ashamed voice. ‘’Please,I was never in real danger. If I thought I was you would be on the floor right now suffering from literal and metaphorical shock.’’ You assure him as you rub his hands gently and ask. ‘’Do you want to talk about your dream?’’ ‘’I don’t remember it anymore.’’ Yoongi says, looking into your eyes. Even though his face doesn’t expose anything, something in his voice makes you feel that he isn’t being honest, but you won’t push it. ‘’Okay then, we need you in the meeting room. Namjoon wants to go through today's plan one more time. ‘’ ‘’I will be there in a bit. Can you give me maybe like fifteen minutes to shower?’’ Yoongi asks and pulls his hands away from yours. ‘’Sure. Come downstairs whenever you’re ready.’’ You get up from Yoongi’s bed flashing him an assuring smile and exit his room closing the door quietly. Your home was a penthouse located on the top two floors of one of the highest skyscrapers in the city. On the first floor was the kitchen, living room, one smaller bathroom, and Namjoon’s bedroom which sat next to a small home library (not by coincidence). The second floor was made of a balcony that opened over the living area granting clear view to the space. On the second floor were 4 other rooms, three of them being bedrooms in use paired with an ensuite bathroom in each and the fourth unused room had been turned into a gaming room. Even villains needed to let loose sometimes. You start walking down the stairs leading to the living room when you hear a door open behind you. ‘’Y/N wait!’’ Jimin hurries after you and stops you on the halfway point of the stairs. ‘’Yes?’’ You turn to look at him over your shoulder already prepared to hear bad news. ‘’Nothing, I just wanted to go to the meeting room with you.’’ Jimin grins and you roll your eyes in response. ‘’Let’s go then.’’ You say with a little sigh and lead Jimin towards a wall where a huge painting hangs. The painting wasn’t anything extraordinary. In fact the huge size of it was the only thing worthy of any attention. The picture was a abstract mix of red, blue and yellow lines and shapes. You touch the right side of the painting gently and a small hatch slides out of the wall next to the picture and reveals a small keypad. You type in the code, and the painting swings open like a door revealing the small hallway behind it containing three doors. On the left side of the hallway is a door that leads into the room where you keep your gear, your suits, weapons and other objects used for combat. On the right side of the hall is your practice room where you have some basic gym equipment and a large area to train your skills. You walk straight past the doors on both sides of the hallway and stop in front of the final door resting at the end of the hallway which leads to your meeting room. You push the door open and are greeted by the familiar space. The walls of the room are cluttered with multiple monitors displaying data, police reports, diagrams and other classified information.. what pulls your attention though is the big round glass table placed right in the center of it.you look across the room to find the all too familiar half moon shaped work desk thankful that it's placed right across the entrance.This table has even more monitors than the wall and is the place where Yoongi spends most of his free time. The table is faced towards the door so Yoongi can see whoever enters the room. However, this time it's not Yoongi who you spot behind the table. Namjoon is standing up and leaning over the work desk rapidly typing something into the keyboard while mumbling to himself. You sit in one of the( many chairs surrounding the round table, and Jimin takes a seat right next to you. Noticing that Namjoon is still unaware of your arrival, you raise your brows at Jimin in amusement , and he puts his finger to his lips to signal you to keep quiet. A wicked grin makes its way to his face but is quickly replaced with a focused frown and furrowed eyebrows. You watch as the half empty water glass on the spot where Namjoon usually sits at the table makes its way towards Namjoon. You can hardly keep yourself from giggling when Jimin stops the glass in the air right above Namjoon and begins to tilt it forward. Just as Jimin pours the glass of water on top of Namjoon's head Yoongi arrives, causing Namjoon to look up and instead feel the liquid pour down his face. Yoongi only smirks, quietly amused from the sight and takes his seat next to Jimin. Namjoon’s shocked face is hilarious, and a burst of giggles escapes your lips followed by Jimin’s cheerful laugh. ‘’Jimin!’’ Namjoon grunts angrily and wipes his face on his hand. ‘’Are you twelve or something?’’ Instead of answering Jimin answers between his laugh. ‘’You should have seen your face. It's usually so hard to catch you off guard with your hearing and all, but this is hilarious. The mighty RM completely misses me and Y/N entering the room and finally falls victim to a prank.’’ Jimin wipes his eyes, breathing heavily.

Namjoon sighs and shakes his head in annoyance. ‘’Well, since we’re all here, let's start our meeting.’’ He continues and comes to sit on the edge of the table across from everyone. Your giggles dry, and your faces turn serious as you all straighten your posture. You knew when it was time to focus on the situation at hand, and although Jimin liked to play around; he did too. Yoongi continues sitting quietly in his seat taps the glass table with his nails causing small clicking noises to erupt through the sudden silence. Namjoon clears his throat and the meeting begins. ‘’Thanks to Yoongi we have gained information about the whereabouts of the key. An armored convoy escorted by the Big hit’s private agents will be arriving in our city on the tomorrow night. At first Yoongi and i tried figuring out how to break into the van, but then we figured out that the van is just a decoy.’’ ‘’Are you saying that we were going after a false lead again?’’ You ask frustrated and squeeze your hand into a fist already feeling your temper rising. ‘’No, but we almost did.’’ It's the first time Yoongi speaks since his arrival. ‘’The real key will be arriving to the city on the 8:15 pm train from Sunside City escorted by three agents dressed as civilians. Isn't that the same time as the decoy?’’ Namjoon points one of the bigger screens on the wall with a remote, and a picture of a train car seating system comes into view. ‘’The problem is that we don’t know what the agents look like or where they are going to sit, but luckily we know its the fifth cart from the engine.’’ Namjoon circles the picture with a laser pointer and you arch your brows deep in thought.

‘’So how are we gonna find the key? Are we just supposed to raid the whole cart?’’ Jimin asks tilting his head on the side. ‘’No, that would draw r too much attention. We have came up with a better plan. Y/N and I will board the train in our civil clothes and pretend to be young couple.’’ Namjoon says, smirking. ‘’I have few ideas in mind how to get the key without being detected but I will return to them in private with Y/N’’ ‘’Are you sure that it's safe to show our faces in front of the agents?” you ask.

You know that you are capable no matter what you do, but you’ve never committed a crime without some form of disguise. Even when you were just a teenager breaking into stores in the middle of night you used a mask that you had stolen from a Halloween store. The irony of that was it was that the mask was shaped like a bat to represent a fictional superhero. ‘’I know that you aren’t the fan of putting your face out there but it's our best option.’’ Namjoon tries to assure you. ‘’Wait, won’t the guards notice that the key is missing?’’ Jimin asks. ‘’What's the point of revealing your faces if they are going to notice anyway that the key was stolen?’’ he adds frustrated. ‘’I was getting to that, but I’m being interrupted constantly.’’ Namjoon sighs brushing his damp hair backwards. ‘’I had to pay a long penny but I got JB to forge a replica of the key for us.’’ Namjoon reaches for his pocket and pulls out a small package from his jean pocket. You had heard of JB. He was the leader of a group called GOT7. Even though none of the seven members of the group had powers, they were highly respected in the business when it came to possessing items or information you weren’t supposed to have. The group runs a blackmarket tightly connected to the spiderweb. Some people believed that their gang was the one who ran the organization on the spider web, but no one could say for sure. There was a saying that if you didn’t find what you were looking for in their hands; it probably didn’t exist. ‘’He made a copy?’’ You ask, surprised. ‘’Yes, Jackson told me once that when JB was a teen he was a forger. He was skilled with art, passports, and money. If there was something that would make money he would learn to copy.’’ Namjoon confirms. Jackson was one of the members of GOT7 as well as one of the few people Namjoon could call his friend, and in this business that was rare. ‘’So let me get this straight. We are going to sneak on to the train as civilians, somehow switch the real key with fake one, get out and pray that nothing goes wrong and leaves us exposed?’’ You repeat slowly to understand everything. ‘’That sounds wonderful, I just have one small question.’’ ‘’Which is?’’ ‘’How we are sure that the BTS won’t be disturbing our plans?’’ ‘’I’m glad that you asked.’’ Yoongi answers instead of Namjoon. ‘’Jimin and I will attack the fake convoy escorting the decoy key and cause the attention to fall on us.’’ Yoongi’s eyes flash with excitement. ‘’We are going to be a decoy?’’ Jimin smirks pleased. ‘’Indeed.they went through all the trouble just to fool us, it's only fair that we have a decoy of our we should return the favor.’’

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wildlydeliciouspainter · 3 years

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VI - the nighttrain part I

Hi! Been a bit busy lately but here is the next chapter of my stardew fanfic :D This time I added a bit more drama and tension for our adventurers. Hope you’ll like it!

Only a few mornings back Daya stood on the perron with Elliott. Now, she was leaving the valley with Sebastian on her side. It being well into autumn the days were short and nights long. So they waited for their train to arrive under the stars. To Daya it felt so fitting. The autumn sun that made her husbands hair glow fiery red, and now the moons soft light on Sebastians dark hair. The men and their characters could not have been more different from each other, and still each had been important parts of her life in their own way. While Sebastian leaned against a pillar and texted with Sam, Daya texted Elliott. “I miss you.” Almost immediately she gets a heart emoji back. “And I you dear. Can’t wait to come home, this hotelroom feels empty without you.” Daya smiles but her heart sinks when she thinks about the task ahead. She didn’t want to worry Elliott so just never mentioned her plans to help Sebastian in saving Abigail. And with keeping him in the dark, it felt like she was doing something wrong. It would have been so much different if he were home... “The train is here, Dy.”

And indeed, as she looks up a modern looking train silently glides over the tracks towards them. Its colors are peculiar, turquoise windows and a purple body, the exact combination of a piece of iridium. When it stops, a low hissing sound from its engine make it sound like a living breathing creature. “So this monster is going to take us where we need to be?” Sebastian looks at the vehicle with apprehension. He mentioned his preference for his motorcycle multiple times, even though they where both set on following Rasmodius instructions to the letter. When the purple doors open to show a cozy coupé, Sebastian gently pushes Daya inside and follows her closely. The interior of the train is completely different from the exterior. Retro cubicles with gold and wood finish, dark red velvet chairs and blood red wallpaper give the train a classical look. Wall sconces and ornaments on every wall add to the mysterious atmosphere as does the faint smell of cinnamon. “Madam, Sir.” An employee in a spotless purple uniform with golden trimming takes them to their places. When they are seated the man gives Sebastian a golden key with a tag. “This is for the sleep cabin, we are here if you need anything. We hope you’ll have a pleasant journey!” After that the man disappears into another coupe. Sebastian whistles between his teeth. “Rasmodius didn’t spare any expense.” “Its important to him we succeed.” “True, and the rest of our journey will probably be less comfortable.” Daya nodds and picks up her phone again to text with Elliott. When Sebastian notices he scoffs. Daya tenses immediately and looks him straight in the eye. “What is it?” “I don’t suppose you told your husband about this adventure of ours?” “No.” Daya admits, blushing. Sebastian scoffs harder now. “Do you think he wouldn’t approve?” “I can make my own choices, its not that. Though you made sure it would be hard for him to trust you, didn’t you Sebastian?” “What is that supposed to mean?” Sebastian mumbles, his face pointed towards the window instead of her. “I meant what happened in the bar..” thinking back on what happened in the bar the night before the wedding still makes Sebastian cringe. It was a beautiful autumn night, and a lot of the villagers gathered in the saloon to cheer to the engaged couple. Sebastian happened to be in town to hang out with Sam and visit his mother. At first he was set on staying inside, moping and playing videogames with Sam and a couple of beers . It sounded like the perfect way to forget. But he didn’t forget, and the more hours past the more angry he got at everything that happened between him and Daya. And that anger redirected itself towards Elliott as always. He still though if the handsome poet hadn’t shown up he would be in her life. They would be getting married. “Hey, if you feel that way. Why don’t you tell her? Maybe she feels the same?” Sam said. Sam was sweet and supportive as always, and slightly slurring after three beers. Sebastian decided he would do just that. Tell her. Which he did, in front of everyone in the saloon. In the middle of Elliotts ode to his love he walked up to her and started to tell her everything he didn’t say before. The alcohol gave him the courage but the words where his. How sorry he was, and how much he loved her. All she did was sit there, frozen. Elliott stopped talking, everybody did. And then, well, he picked a fight. It wasn’t pretty, and it ended fairly quick. Elliott trew him off and when sebastian tried to lunge at him again Daya smashed a beerglass on the counter so hard that it made the whole of the valley shudder.

“You already up your mind that night.” He said, when his mind moved back to the train and the present, and turned to look at her. How furious she was that night. But now a sadness showed in her eyes. “I did.” She nodded, tears glistening in her eyes. “Then why are you crying?” “Because I loved you. I did, so so much. But you didn’t open up to me, and I couldn’t deal with your silence anymore... I was just never really sure how you felt about me.” Sebastian stayed silent but nodded. He wanted to touch her hand, but wasn’t sure that was appropriate. So he just listened. “And I waited for you to do the right thing for so long. Even after we broke up and you left for Zuzu. I was sad for weeks... But eventually I picked up the pieces, and focused on the farm. I healed for a year and that was when I connected with Elliott.” A smile glistened through her tears. “He was very passionate about his writing, and as soon as we became closer he started showing that same passion for me. We connected in a way you and I never did Sebastian, I can say that even though I missed your company.”

Daya stares past Sebastian, at the scenery thats moving past the window. Afraid to look him in the eyes. “And right now, I just don’t want him to worry, thats all...Elliott’s bookdeal is important to him, and I want this tour to go well instead of him worrying over me wrestling shadowbrutes.” “I get that.” When Daya refuses to look at him Sebastian decides to stare out the window as well. They sit in silence for another hour when Daya asks for the keys. “I want to go to bed.” “Sure.” He puts the key in her hands but holds on to them. “Am I allowed to join you later? Or do you want me to sleep here?” Daya looks at the small bench and prays the cabin is spacious. “Sure, I won’t force you to sleep on the floor or this uncomfortably small bench.” “Thanks, I appreciate that. I won’t be late, just need to process this day a bit.” Daya nodds. “Take your time, I’ll leave the door open.”

The corridor with the sleeping cabins is long and small. On Daya’s left the rooms and her right windows that now show the vague outlines of the mountains, shrouded by the night. “Found it.” She turns the key of the cabin and then texted Sebastian the location before she closed the door behind her, leaving the lock off. She takes in the room and curses. Its as she feared. The room is as cozy and romantic as the rest of the train, and one big matras stuffed in between two wall closets. There even is a fairy rose positioned on the bedspread. Her favorite flower. There is a little space between bed and door to walk and on both sides of the door a small rack for shoes. Above the door the luggage space, and thats it. Daya quickly stores her bag and takes of her shoes and clothes to get into her sleeping t shirt and leggings.

After that she seats herself on the bed, leaving the curtains open and a bedlight on. She picks up the fairy rose and smiles. The blue variation is her favorite, and even in de dim lamplight its extraordinary aray of blue tintes shine through. It takes her back to the time she would visit her Grandpa’s farm in autumn. There would be fields filled with them, and she was allowed to pick one to keep in a vase in her bedroom during her stay. She always picked a blue one. Gently Daya puts the flower in the open closet space behind her head. Her phone is lying besides it, and shows a new message. Its from Elliott “Traveling gave me new inspiration. I’m thinking of a story inspired by a train. There is an idea for a chapter in the link under this message. I can’t wait to talk through concepts again from the comfort of our home. Missing you, mind and body.” Daya smiles softly, and let’s her feelings for Elliott wash over her as she reads the chapter he send. She falls asleep with the memory of his face and the low rumbling sound of the train engine, dreaming of the day of their reunion.

Meanwhile, a few coupes back, Sebastians night is less peaceful. He’s a nightowl, used to writing and programming till deep in the night, fueled by caffeine and sushi. It pushed his sleeping schedule to an, as his mother would call it, ungodly 3 am. That combined with the excitement of this journey made him sit on the train bench with a restless mind. His eyes wander off to the mountains outside. It started to snow, and ice crystals would get pressed onto the glass before melting and forming tears on the window. Sebastians mind is wavering between rescuing Abigail and a deeply uncomfortable set of feelings towards Daya. He knows she is the most skilled swordswoman in the whole valley, and if anyone could help him succeed its her. But he felt frustration when he saw her again after years apart. Living in Elliott’s cabin, content with harvesting snails and living in the shadow of the writer. He knew her as a fierce warrior that would stay in the mine till late and defeat monster after monster, gaining the respect of the adventurers guild and the rest of the valley. She used to approach Sebastian with a similar attitude, passionate about their relationship and doing whatever it took to remove the obstacles in their path. It still feels like a stab to the heart to realize he couldn’t keep that flame awake. All she needed was for him to open up, and let go of that shroud of anger he used to shield him. But he couldn’t see it, and it drifted them apart. He moved to Zuzu city and only kept contact with Abigail and Sam, while Daya got closer to Elliott every day. Elliott wasn’t particularly brave or outspoken, but his love for Daya was unquestionable and it made her bloom in ways Sebastian could not achieve. Staring at the pattern of melting snow he clenches his wrist and pushes it against the cold glass. As it hits him harder than ever before he mutters “I’m still in love with her.” “Sir?” The employee with the purple costume is back, a notebook in hand. Sebastians bewildered look doesnt scare him off in the least, and set on giving travelers the best experience possible he repeats his question. “Would you like something to drink sir?” Sebastian eyes the cart behind him, filled with bottles and glasses. It would be nice to turn of his thoughts for a bit.. but he shakes his head “No thank you.” Alcohol wouldn’t help him, he learned that the hard way. He just had to be brave. Brave in rescuing Abigail, and brave in allowing himself to have feelings for both her and Daya. He had to allow them to exist untill they faded. His feelings for Daya where eventually going to fade he reassured himself. Sebastian sights and checks his phone for the time. 1.30 pm.

As his eyes move from the window to his phone he notices a glimpse of a shadow by the door but when he looks again its gone. It could have been the shadow of the man with the cart, but he wasn’t sure. “Yes, time for bed. I’m starting to hallucinate.” He mutters, and gets up to find the sleep cabin.

All the coupes Sebastian passes on his way are empty. The other passengers retired to their sleeping cabins, and he tries to find his own with Daya’s text as his guide. “Number 230, okay, that should be the next corridor.” As he moves into the corridor something immediately feels off. He notices movement in the back of the wagon, but can’t make up if there is someone standing in the shadows or if it looks like that because of the movement of the train itself. Cabin 230 is in the middle of the wagon and the door is slightly opened. “Daya?” Silence. He pushes the door open and feels something crush beneath his boot. As he bents over to pick it up and hold it to the light it seems to be a fairy rose, only its petals aren’t any of the usual colors. Instead of its vibrant blue or purple the flowers are black as coal. A sense of dread fills him when he touches the rosebuds. Its a feeling he remembers from some of Rasmodius relics, magic.. He walks back into the corridor, all the way to the end. There is no one there... when he returns to the cabin he locks the door behind him. Then he notices Daya’s, lying still on one side of the matras. “Daya, are you okay?”

He moves onto the matras and turns her around, positioning her head on his lap. When she stays silent he slides one hand into her neck to support her head and holds the other in front of her mouth. The soft pulsating motion of her heart is noticeable in the veins in her neck and her breath is warm on his fingertips. “Yes, dear.” She murmurs in a sleepy voice and wraps her arms around his body, burrowing her face into his lap. “Oh thank Yoba.” Sebastian whispers with shaking breath. He strokes her head gently. She tightens her grip around him in her sleep, unaware of the tenderness in Sebastians voice. Unaware she his touching him instead of her husband. “Well, your grip is still firm as ever.” He jokes, looking down on the sleeping woman. Its tempting to let her sleep like this, but apart from all the moral reasons not to, he also realizes he can’t get any sleep this way. Especially with all his clothes still on. So he softly wriggles her arms loose to take of his jacket and his shoes. His jeans he quickly switches for his sweatpants and climbs back into the bed. In the meantime Daya is still talking in her sleep. When he lays next to her she is murmuring about shadows. She reaches out to him with her hand and touches his chest right above the neckline of his t-shirt, resting her fingers there. “Saw one on the station today. A friend from the shadows. Linus...” That didn’t make any sense, why would Linus follow them? “Don’t worry about him now.” He whispered, as much to Daya as to himself, because the dark rose is still on his mind. “I think he is in the cabin with the blue ones, Elliott.” She then continued her riddle. In the back of his mind Sebastian had hoped she knew it was him when she held him close, and would have wispered his name but he pushes back that though and tries to go to sleep instead.

#fanfic #stardew valley #stardew sebastian #adventure stories #night train #love #dramatic scene

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marvinswriting · 4 years

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Gut feeling

Prompt: no prompt in this one buddies, just check out bear's borrower!janis au. Like my g/t mg au its something i thought about a lot but never officially put down anywhere, but she did and you fucking bet im gonna write it

This is a long one boys, and there's still more i wanna write lmfao

Think about everything you know about borrowers-

-and throw it out the fucking window.

Yep, fuck your stereotypes. I'm Janis, and yeah I guess your right about the whole tiny-people-who-live-in-walls-and-steal. You're also creepily accurate with your borrower's code (so I wanna know who blabbed. Probably Gretchen, god. I always wonder where she was before this house). I'm sidetracked. Other then that, you guys got it all wrong.

We are very much aware of the concept of not all humans wanna kill or harm borrowers. Thank you very much.

We just know most of them do.

And we aren't as rare as you may think. Lots of humans know about borrowers, and you all think we're a dying species or a myth. No. We're just good at what we do, thank you. The goal is to live undetected. It's safer that way.

We also don't live totally alone, isolated in walls. Well, some of us do, and some of us wish we did. (Me, it's me, I hate my roommates.)

I live with Gretchen and Kevin. Won't call them friends, because they're not. We aren't close enough. We keep each other around because we'd go insane without the interaction from others. A borrowers life can be boring and isolated.

Its the total opposite of a human's. When the owners of the house sleep, we're awake doing food runs. When the owners of the house are awake, we're hiding away, tucked in bed.

And for a long time that worked. But then something changed. I think the owners of the house called it 'the school year ended'? Now the boy, Damian- from what we've gathered he's our age. But who knows, it's not like we can just go up and meet him. He definitely seems to be the most sympathetic one of the family.

The dad kills any fucking bug without even getting a good look, so like- don't get caught with him (not that you wanna get caught with any of them).

The mom watches a lot of gory sci-fi shows that always end up with the main character in some type of experimental facility so we don't trust her.

Damian just hides in his room, playing music and singing along. I like it, its harder for us to be heard that way.

The final member of the household is the fucking cat. Her name is Ariel which is supposedly a reference to some princess, but the only royal she is is a royal pain. Little bitch almost killed me once.

I'm so off track though.

Apparently, this 'school year' is over, and now Damian is home all the time. He doesn't have to get up early to leave so he's opted to not sleeping at night at all. Which is just great for us. He doesn't often leave his room, but Gretch, Kevin, and I have to be a lot more careful often resulting in us grabbing a lot less.

I glance around my 'bedroom'. Through the years I like to think it's grown to be decorated nicely. Unlike my two roommates, I pride myself in my living space. I spend most of my time here, so why not. Yeah, I have the necessities, but I also have other things like plants and makeshift art supplies. In the corner of my room is what you could call a bed and a bottle cap nightstand. There's a piece of a mirror hanging. We all found mirror shards and took them, and might I say life hasn't quite been the same since.

We don't really look at ourselves that often, there aren't many reflective surfaces to do so. Yeah, I'd catch my face staring back at me in my water, or on a shiny surface, but it was never as clear as the mirror. As I look right now, I just look stressed.

Pretty accurate.

I've got a weird feeling about tonight.

"We need food."

"No shit Gretchen."

Gretchen and I are sitting in our combined space, waiting for Kevin. I'm hesitant to call it a living room because it hardly looks lived in. There are four beer cap chairs (and three of us, it's fucking stupid- I know) a pizza saver as a table, and a bunch of miscellaneous items that haven't found a home yet.

"Hubbards are asleep." Kevin walks out from where he was keeping watch. "The kids light is still on and I couldn't locate the cat, are we sure we want to go out tonight."

"We need food," Gretchen repeats herself.

"We don't have much of a choice," I say, shoving makeshift grappling hooks and double-sided tape into my satchel, and grabbing another bad for food. "We gotta make a big run tonight. We can't guarantee a day by day flow anymore, Damian has to unpredictable of a sleep schedule."

Gretchen makes a noise of agreement, packing up her own things.

Kevin is still peaking out of the exit into the household, worriedly.

"Janis are you down for that trip tonight? You look stressed as fuck."

I bitterly. "Yeah, I'm just- tired. And hungry. And quite frankly I may be coming down with something."

"They stay away from me," Gretchen says, swinging her bag over her shoulder. "Ready?"

"Let's just grab food and go," Kevin says before spinning around to look at me. "Only food, Janis."

I nod. No point in trying to defend myself when he's not wrong. I have an awful habit of finding something I could use for art and going out of my way to grab it.

But we have priorities tonight.

We file out into the household, all pressing against the wall. The exit we used lead right to the floor. Its a debate on which was riskier, but I for one, preferred to be higher. Further from the cat and a better view of everything. Kevin mumbled something about keeping watch and made his way over to the island table the Hubbard had. He pulled out his climbing supplies and made his way up as Gretchen and I continued our trek across the floor, waiting to reach the kitchen to get to higher grounds.

"It hasn't been this hard since we all moved here." Gretchen says quietly, but I understand.

"Yeah." I whisper.

We all moved into this house together maybe two ago. We tell time by the day and the decor around the house. Humans often put of decorations for holidays and it's like marking points though the year. My least favorite holiday happens during the summer. I don't know the name but everything turns red white and blue and there's tons of loud booms and explosions. It kills my ears and sends me into sensory overload every time.

We've pasted two Christmases. I don't know much about the holiday, but its the most decorated, with fancy trees and cookie crumbs everywhere. A borrower's dream. But it wasn't like that now. It was hot and sticky, food got left out on the counter less. We haven't eaten anything more then the minimum to survive, if you don't count yesterday where we didn't eat at all.

I was so lost in my thought for food, I almost didn't hear it. Kevin calling out, the patter of paws on the floor-

-oh shit.

I whirl around just in time to have a paw whacked with my side.

Cat.

There was no claw, Ariel is here for a game of cat and mouse obviously. Roles already clear.

That didn't make it hurt less though.

I groan skidding across the floor, curled into myself.

Gretchen shrieks and runs away, the cat's interest on me.

She left me for fucking dead.

Wow.

Rude, but unsurprising.

I'd fucking bolt too. I wonder if Kevin ran as well.

My heart stops as the truth of the statement catches up to me.

I'm gonna die.

I'd like to say there's so much I still haven't done, or that my life had only just begun. But that wasn't true. I live to borrow another day and borrow to live another day. But I was content like that, I don't wanna die.

Ariel stalks towards me again. I sit up and push my self backward, only to find a wall.

Fuck.

I can see Gretchen duck back into the wall out of the corner of my eye, Kevin with her.

To be fair, I'd do the same. I can't bring myself to be too mad.

"Hey, kitty," I say softly, holding my hands out in defense. The cat sits down in front of me, eyes wide and pupils dilated, ready to play. "Ariel, right? Good kitty. I'm not a toy."

Ariel doesn't seem to get the message as she lifts her paw.

No!

"Hey, whatcha got there girl?" A voice comes from behind the cat.

My blood runs colder than it already was.

That was to loud to be Gretchen or Kevin, to masculine to be the mom, not deep enough to be the dad-

Hands pull Ariel away despite a mew of protest, leaving me totally exposed in the open.

Put the cat back I'd rather die that way.

My eyes connect with the boy of the household- Damian. His gaze travels up and down my small form and he lets out breathy 'what?'.

Once again, I know not all humans are bad, but you try not even being four inches call, curled up against a wall with a full ass living moving human standing there. It's a lot.

Damian kneels down so he isn't towering over me but it doesn't feel any better. I push myself closer to the wall, ignoring the pain in my side.

"Are- I uh-" Damian seems as equally at a loss as I am.

Don't worry buddy, I didn't think I'd be getting caught tonight either.

"Are you okay?"

I can't exactly say I've been caught before, so I don't exactly know the 'this is a bad guy' red flags, but asking about my well being probably isn't one of them.

"Yeah." I say, shakily. My voice is weak and seems a lot quieter in contrast to the boy's in front of me.

"I'm sorry about her." Damian said, placing the cat down. Ariel glares at me before walking away, clearly bored.

I could tell we were dancing around the important questions. What are you? Why are you so small? What are you doing here?

"My name's Damian."

I almost say 'I know' but believe it or not- I do have manners and hey, this human hasn't killed you yet, don't be rude and give him a reason to.

"Janis." I say, giving a small wave.

"Janis," Damian repeats like he's testing the name in his mouth. "It's pretty."

"Thank you." I glance around but as I suspected, my roommates did not even attempt to come back.

"You're a borrower." Damian states. It wasn't a question and his voice sounded sure, but his raised eyebrow told a different story.

"Yeah, we're real, just-" I take a breath. "Uncommon?"

Damian nods. He knew what I was right off the bat which probably means I'll have less explaining to do. It also made me feel safer in a way. It meant he's less curious. Not to mention he has yet to move any closer or invade my space, so I felt okay. I push myself off the wall a bit, trying to ignore how my head spins a bit from lack of nutrients.

"I'm sorry if I interrupted whatever you were doing. We'll leave if you don't want us here or-"

"No, it's okay. I honestly am glad I stepped in then I did- wait, we?"

Shit.

It was one thing to expose myself, but not I'm mentally hitting myself for exposing Gretchen and Kevin too.

"There are multiple of you?"

"Nonono forget I said anything." I wave my hand as if waving away nonexistent flies.

Damian looks like he wants to press more but doesn't. "What are you doing out here? It's like, four am."

"It's still early for me. We- I need food."

Damian's eyes light up. "Of course! Oh my god, I'm so sorry then. Do you-" He pauses. "Do you need help?"

My instinct is to decline but- there hasn't been much food out and Damian seems genuine. Its either die by cat or human. "Yeah, help would be nice."

Damian smiles softly. "Can I pick you up?"

What?

Oh.

Yeah.

Riiiight.

"Yeah, you can." I smile, trying to seem brave about this, but I've never been picked up before. The only time I'm off the ground is with my climbing tools with my fate in my own hands.

Damian places his hand down next to me, it's huge. The sheer size difference doesn't sink in when somebody is crouched a couple of human feet away from you.

I step onto his hand regardless, trying not to concentrate on how weird it feels.

"You ready?" Damian's voice asked from above.

Was I ready?

Why did I think this was a good idea?

I could die right here right now.

I don't know anything about this kid other than his name and his favorite musical soundtrack.

What if he's bad news?

"Yeah, I'm good." I say, despite my inner turmoil.

The ground beneath me shifts and as much as I like to think I was mentally prepared, physically I was not as I ungracefully fall backward into Damian's palms.

"You okay?" He asks, freezing.

He was as nervous as I was.

This sudden realization gave me a bit more confidence in the situation.

"Mhmm," I say, patting the hand beneath me gently. "Thanks."

"Of course." Damian says, and we're moving again. Its a significantly shorter trip from here to the kitchen for Damian. He holds me close to his chest, his fingers curled around me slightly. Its comforting, and contrary to what I expected, I don't feel ready to drop. I can see Ariel curled up contently on the couch, and the entrance to my home from here. One of them at least. I wonder if my roommates are watching or if they're already cleaning out my room.

Damian places his hand on the table and I get off on my own.

It feels better up here, to be further up. I don't feel as small when Damian steps away.

"You've made it clear it's just you," He does air quotes. "But how many people do you take food for."

The lie of 'it is only me' is the first thing on my tongue, but I hold it. Damian has done nothing but help me so far and he already knows there's multiple of us. No harm in giving exact numbers.

"Three," I say. "One with a big appetite." I smile as Kevin comes to mind.

Damian grins. "What do you normally take?"

"Whatever is out." I shrug, glancing around at the table. Just like the past couple of times, the tables were empty.

Damian notices this and is silent for a bit. "I'll have to conveniently forget to put stuff back then." He says quietly. I can't tell if he was talking to me or himself but I smile nonetheless.

"So, you've never had options?"

"No." I say. It feels weird to admit that. Damian grins.

"Guess you're in luck. Wait here." He turns around and walks over to a cabinet. Where am I supposed to even go?

His back isn't turned long enough to let me figure that out, because he soon comes back with two things. "So I brought this because I want you to try it," Its a cookie, I know that much from Christmas, but instead of decorative frosting and sprinkles its dotted with splotches of brown. "It's a chocolate chip cookie. And I brought this for practical reasons." He lifts up a bag. "Its granola and it comes in these little chunks- well for you they'd be big, but you can just break them off as you need!"

I smile at the thoughtfulness. Maybe this kid isn't all bad news.

He opens the bag and pours a bit into his hand before placing one on the table. Sure enough, a cluster of granola is just big enough to fit maybe two into my bag. I can break off a piece and it will last days (assuming Kevin doesn't go to town).

"Woah." I say softly, picking it up. This is the most food I've ever even been near in one place.

Damian chuckles as I carefully place the granola into my bag miraculously fitting three. One for each of us. Damian watches me silently, I guess we're both still stying to wrap our heads around the situation.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" He picks up the cookie breaking off a piece and handing it to me. It's the size of my head but I can just save what's left for later. Damian takes the rest for himself, watching as I silently break a piece off to eat.

It's grainy but smooth a the same time. Sweet and salty. It's-

"Woah."

Damian laughs, its loud and sudden, but also contagious.

I giggle a bit as I feel my face flush. I know he's not laughing at me maliciously.

"They're good right?"

"Yeah."

We fall into silence, and I look around. I've been up on the counters before, but I've always been in a rush, get food, and get out. I've never been this relaxed in the open and certainly never so close to a human.

I look up at Damian and he smiles. "What are you gonna do now?"

"Huh?"

"I don't know how true the stories are but isn't this where you leave and never come back because you've been caught? I won't tell anyone if you don't want to leave."

He had a point. But- the borrower's code wasn't law. More like- recommended guidelines? I mean, not true at all, but it's not written in stone or anything. Borrower police aren't gonna break in and arrest me or anything.

I think.

Besides, I didn't want to leave. I liked my room and my roommates (not that I'd admit that to them). They don't need to know I met a human. And Damian said he wouldn't tell anyone-

"How do I know I can trust you?"

The question had a lot more of an edge then I expected, but Damian didn't seem to take offense.

"You don't. But, follow your instincts. I'm not trying to trick you or anything if that's what your thinking."

He did help me get food. Which saved my life. He also saved me from the cat, which saved my life too. Even before he knew I existed, he always seemed to be the nicest Hubbard. Something tells me his word is good.

"I think I'm gonna stay," I say after a while. "I'll just- never tell my roommates about this. One of them flips over everything. She'd pack in an instant if she knew."

Damian smiled. "I understand if you hope to never see me again and if you wanna just walk away like this never happened, but I'll be sure to leave granola out every once in a while."

I grin. "Thanks, Damian." It felt weird to be so close to a human and already trust them so much. Something deep inside told me that this wasn't the last time we'd see each other, and that's okay.

"I figure you can get down on your own? You don't want me to know where you live or anything."

I shook my head, patting my climbing tools. "I got this from here. Thank you so much for your help."

"Of course, Janis. I'll take Ariel to my room to make sure she doesn't cause any trouble. Maybe I'll see you around, hopefully not under any life or death circumstances though." Damian grins before walking away, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I can hear him call out to the cat followed by padding of paws as a door closes. I almost feel as if I've hallucinated the whole thing, but the weight of the granola in my bag proves to me otherwise.

I begin to take out a hook and rope while I think of what I'm gonna tell my roommates. Gretchen will flip either way and I don't think Kevin will believe me that I was able to fend off a cat alone, but it's what I have to do if I don't want to move. Besides, deep down I feel like I can trust the teen of the Hubbard household.

Let's just hope my gut isn't wrong.

alt title: how borrower janis got hooked on granola tag list!!! @realmisspolarbear @musicallygt @smallsoysauce @sourishlemons

#you dont need to know jack shit about mean girls to read this one boys #borrower janis #tiny janis #giant damian #g/t mean girls #mg borrower au #g/t #Giant/tiny #giant tiny #g/t writing

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malecftw · 5 years

Text

The one where everyone celebrates - Tom Holland

A/N: So this is a little teaser I wrote for something I’m willing to put a lot of time and effort in, BUT I’m not gonna go through with it if I don’t get feedback from you guys. The 2 definitions are basically the big lines for the plot and I was wondering if you guys would wanna read something like this. I’ve been struggling a lot with really pushing through on writing so I’m not gonna write something no one wants to read. ;) Anywho hmu darlings. xx

Update: this teaser has basically turned into a fluff imagine what is my life.

Requests are open!

Masterlist.

Pre-eclampsia (PE) is a disorder of pregnancy characterized by the onset of high blood pressure. When it arises, the condition begins after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In severe disease, there may be red blood cell breakdown, a low blood platelet count, impaired liver function, kidney dysfunction, swelling, shortness of breath due to fluid in the lungs, or visual disturbances. Pre-eclampsia increases the risk of poor outcomes for both the mother and the baby. If left untreated, it may result in seizures at which point it is known as eclampsia.

Eclampsia is the onset of seizures (convulsions) in a woman with pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a disorder of pregnancy in which there are high blood pressure and either large amounts of protein in the urine or other organ dysfunction. Onset may be before, during, or after delivery. Most often it is during the second half of pregnancy. Following the seizure, there is typically either a period of confusion or coma. Complications include aspiration pneumonia, cerebral hemorrhage, kidney failure, and cardiac arrest.

Prologue - The one where everyone celebrates

‘Tom are you almost ready?’ You shout from the bottom of the mahogany stairs. ‘Yes darling, stop stressing!’ He says as he appears from your shared bedroom, which is located right at the top of the stairs to the right. He slowly makes his way down the stairs and stops on the last step. He’s directly in front of you and you feel his arms snaking their way around your waist. He gently pulls you into his chest and you sigh in subconscious relief. ‘You shouldn’t worry so much. It’s not good for the baby.’ He mumbles into your hair. You squeeze your arms around him. ‘I know, I just want everything to be perfect.’ ‘And it will be.’

A couple of hours later the doorbell rings and you start getting up from the couch. Tom puts a hand on your knee, silently telling you he got it. As he makes his way towards the front door you get up to welcome your guests. You straighten out your summer dress and clasp your hands in each other in anticipation.

First up are Nikki and Paddy. They both hug you and you look at Tom when Paddy doesn’t give you time to crouch down. You had the slightest bump that was barely noticeable but it would just be your luck that Paddy would just feel it at the front door. Thankfully he didn’t realize a thing and you moved closer to the twins who were talking to Tom while waiting for Paddy to release you so they could greet you as well.

‘Wassup sis!’ Sam says in your ear as he hugs you tightly. ‘Nothing much lil bro.’ You squeal as he ruffles your hair during the hug. ‘Hun please I’m taller than you.’ He says as-a-matter-of-factly while he pulls away. ‘Is Sam annoying my favorite sister already?’ Harry says cheekily as he comes up behind Sam. You laugh and walk towards him, embracing him just like everyone else. ‘I’m your only sister Harry. And not even officially yet.’ He pulls away and touches the tip of your nose lightly with his index finger. ‘Exactly.’ ‘Guys guys, give her some space will ya.’ Tom shouts jokingly, closing the front door after Dom makes his way in. You could see the happy lights in his eyes. His entire family together to celebrate. Not that anyone else besides you and Tom knew already. Although that was going to change within the next couple of hours.

Dominic struts over to you and gives you a long warm hug. ‘How are you darling?’ ‘I’m so good Dom, thank you for coming.’ You say smiling into his shoulder. He rubs your back before he pulls back, giving you a warm, gentle smile just like his wife did a couple of minutes prior.

After everyone has gotten their drinks before dinner the living room is filled with cozy chatter. The warmth of the fireplace is dialed down yet still pleasant and you feel completely content. After a little bit of catching up, you and Tom share a look and you stand up figuring it’d be too obvious if you both spoke up. ‘Okay guys, I have a game for you. There’s an object in this house, that leads to a surprise for everyone. Everyone gets to have one guess to which room it’s in and we’ll go from there.’

After a lot of laughs and discussions later Sam had guessed the right room. The kitchen. Tom follows behind everyone knowing not to get involved until the right time. You immediately go to stand next to the working oven and start talking again, everyone looking at you eagerly to find out the next step in the game. ‘Now, I’m very very close to the object. Once you’ve figured out the object there’s going to be some wordplay involved.

After a good amount of guesses, it becomes clear they’re not gonna figure it out without some help so Tom steps out from behind the family and stands next to you. On the other side of the oven. ‘Okay, guys so I’m super close to the object as well. You basically can’t miss it.’ Tom says as he intertwines your fingers. Sam and Harry looked at each other with a confused look, Paddy’s distracted by petting Tessa and Dominic and Nikki both look at the both of you.

All of a sudden Nikki speaks up. ‘You’re both next to the oven? Has it got something to do with our dinner.’ Tom laughs, a mixture of nerves and excitement filling his heart. You smile and put a strand of hair behind your ear. ‘Very close mum.’ Tom answers, and he looks at you to lead the surprise again. ‘Okay, so what are we having for dinner?’ Harry crouches down at this to look through the glass of the oven, not being able to get too close cause of the heat. ‘What the... What the hell is that Tom?’ He asks, now even more confused than before. Paddy walks closer towards the oven and Tom puts a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t get too close Pads it’s hot.’ Paddy ignores him and looks straight into the oven.

‘Is that a bun?’ Paddy questions. The entire room is silent, you and Tom don’t know whether to clarify or to let them figure it out on there own. ‘We’re having one bun for dinner?’ Sam exclaims confusion written all over his face. ‘Well, could be two really. Not sure.’ Tom looks at you with horror in his eyes. ‘Please no, y/n. Can you not, one is enough right now.’ You laugh out loud and everyone looks at your exchange. Nikki’s face begins to change and her hands fly up to her mouth while the twins, Paddy and Dom are still confused.

‘Guys come on. What is this?’ You say calmly as you point to the bun. ‘A bun.’ Sam stated. Tom continues. ‘And what’s this?’ He asks as he points to the oven. ‘An oven?’ Dom says hesitantly. Nikki looks towards you as you see tears filling her eyes and you blush, tears filling your eyes as well. Touched by her reaction to the news the boys find so hard to figure out. You try to snap out of it and focus on the guys. ‘So what’s that combined?’ ‘A bun in the oven.’ Paddy exclaims proudly for figuring out the game.

Everyone except for Nikki looks at the both of you dumbfounded so you decide to make it even more obvious and put both of your hands on your tummy. Tom is still holding your right hand so he shuffles closer to you and puts one hand on your tummy as well. ‘Shut the fuck up.’ Sam says, arms dropping from his waist to his sides. Harry just looks like he’s seen a ghost and Dominic turns to Nikki who now has a couple of tears running down her cheek. ‘We’re getting old. Grandpa and grandma.’ Dom says and Nikki laughs. Paddy turns his head, realization finally sinking in. ‘YOU’RE HAVING A BABY?!?!’ He breaks the comfortable, shock-filled silence and everyone laughs. This also makes everyone snap out of the shock and before you know it you’re being surrounded by the twins first. ‘If it’s two buns you better name them Sam and Harry Jr.’ Harry says while fist bumping Tom before hugging you again, although this time tighter. Tom smiles but shakes his head while Harry’s not looking, making you giggle.

‘You guys I can’t believe I’m going to be an uncle at 20. You little rascals!’ Sam says, grinning from ear to ear. He envelops you into one of many hugs and cups your head. ‘I’m going to be the cool uncle. Don’t worry about Harry I’ll keep him in check.’ ‘I don’t doubt you will Sam.’ You whisper, wrapping your arms around his waist tightly for a second.

Whilst Paddy is hugging your leg, Dominic comes up to hug you as well. After he pulls away he looks you straight in the eyes, sighing before speaking. ‘You’re making me feel very old here y/n. But you’re going to be the most stunning mum and this little wonder is going to be loved no matter what.’ You chuckled and wiped away a stray tear. ‘Gosh, Dominic you’re making me cry.’ After giving you a few more words of encouragement he moves towards Tom so now Nikki is in front of you. Her hug is different. It’s a hug from one mother to another. Her arms are wrapped around your neck and she kisses your cheek. ‘I just want you to know darling that no matter what happens, whenever you need our help we are completely here for you. Me and my boys have adored you from the moment Tom brought you home for your first Christmas and we haven’t stopped adoring you. Tom’s not the only lucky one to have you in his life and we all love you so much. Thank you for giving us this gift.’ You nod beaming with happiness and pride, too choked up to say anything.

After a lot more baby talk it’s finally time for dinner. Under the bun, there was a fully prepared casserole cause let’s be real, no one wants just a bun for dinner. While you look over at the entire family sat at your dinner table you sigh in content and Tom notices, putting a hand on your thigh and stealing a kiss.

The start of an adventure surrounded by the people you love the most.

#tom holland imagine #tom holland imagines #tom holland x reader #harry holland #sam holland #paddy holland #dom holland #nikki holland #tessa holland #fluff #angst #pregnancy #pregnant

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gavinstrashbag · 5 years

Text

Guess You Can Call Me Daddy

Pairing: Elijah Kamski x Gavin Reed (Gavski)

Warning: swearing (Gavin, obviously), references to sexual activities

Description: basically the origin story of androids, from my prospective.

———————————

Together, Gavin, Hank, Niles and Connor sat around the table in the break room of the DPD. It was a slow afternoon on a Wednesday - hump day, sheesh - and amazingly, for what feels like the first time in months, they’d all been given a break at the same time.

Usually, if they where a few of them off duty, bored on patrol or just at their desks they would chat. Through messages or verbally - or “telepathically like some freaky alien shit” as Gavin would so politely put it. They’d exchange stupid stories or make up dumb shit to pass the time that couldn’t be spent doing something else.

That’s how they ended up here, at the coffee table, chatting away about relationships.

Since they’d become close after the successful android revolution, talking about relationships didn’t seem so bad anymore. Connor and Hank had... well lord knows what they had, technically speaking they had each other and they where happy. Nines had his deviancy, and from what Gavin could pick up, a whole lot of android ass. And Gavin? Well, they all knew that Gavin had Elijah Kamski, to some extent at least.

The billionaire and Gavin had been a thing since they where 16, which is when Elijah had started the Cyberlife company. This is what Gavin was trying to explain to the Lieutenant and two androids.

————

In their teenage years, Elijah and Gavin where really really close. Spent as much time together as a A+ student would in class and at the library combined. They’d stay round each others’ house pretty much every night, gaming, chatting and play fighting. They’d walk to high school together, then college when they were older. They’d confide in each other when something went tits up, and stay until the other was well again.

Gavin was openly bisexual, Elijah knew that he himself was gay but was too shy to tell anybody. Elijah had the biggest crush on Gavin but would never admit it. He knew in his mind that he just wanted to be selfish, wanted to ruin their perfect friendship in pursuit of something more; at the same time, he was scared of just ruining the perfect friendship because he pursued something that was never going to happen.

Elijah was in an AI & Robotics course when he started experimenting with android creation - Gavin had seen a few of his early creations (like a robot head connected to a laptop that could automate responses). It was difficult, Elijah new that, but he was never one to not keep his head down, not someone that gave up. On the other side of the coin, Gavin was fascinated by Elijah creations, because he never understood how they worked, because he ignored his teachers in class, because he always gave up.

A few months go by and Elijah gets better and better at his creations - a lot of it trial and error - and eventually, after nights gone restless, days spent poking and prodding and waiting, he creates his first android.

This android was a secret. No one knew about it but Elijah. Not even Gavin.

Because it was Gavin.

Elijah had seen Gavin go through boyfriend after boyfriend, girlfriend after girlfriend. He had noticed that Gavin has a type, mostly punk girls or some jock-like I’ve got a silver spoon up my arse type of guy. The relationships always ended the same way - Elijah comforting a broken, distraught, crying Gavin, who was laying face down on his bed.

So, after months Elijah came to the conclusion that Gavin would never lower himself to a nerd like Elijah. Elijah would never be Gavins boyfriend.

But Elijah wanted him. To himself. He was selfish, always had been when it came to Gavin. Selfish with the amount of time they spent together.

That’s why he created another Gavin, one he could keep, have to himself, one he could fuck. Strange thought at first, fucking a robot... but after seeing how lifelike it was, how it spoke just like Gavin would, how it’s eyes where just the right colour to match the real thing. It was Gavin, but it wasn’t. It wanted him, when Gavin didn’t.

It was his secret.

Until it wasn’t.

Now, Elijah had tried his best to hide this new Gavin, he really had. Gavin often visited his house during the time that this “GV” model existed, Gavin was always polite and arranged his visits - since Elijah moved out of his parents house Gavin also kept his wandering limited to the kitchen, living room, bathroom and Elijah’s bedroom - he didn’t want to be unwelcome. During the time that Gavin was visiting, Elijah shutdown the GV model and kept it in his garage in one of the storage cupboards he has. It seemed cruel at first, but it was a risk to keep the android awake when its unbeknownst clone was upstairs.

However, on this particular day, for a reason that not even Gavin knows, he showed up at Elijah’s house unannounced.

Like always, Elijah’s door was unlocked, giving Gavin full access to the wonders of Elijah’s home. He stood in the living room, listening out to where Elijah might be hiding.

Lucid ideas of ways that he could scare the shy nerd popped into Gavin’s mind, a smirk painted his face as he stood, stark still in the living room. He waited for a noise, and indication of where Elijah was in his clean, quaint house.

Scuffling, short footsteps, quiet shuffles from the garage. Gavin heard them.

“Back at work again, Eli?” Gavin whispered to no one, “what are you inventing this time?” He continued.

As fast and as quiet as he could, he made his way to the threshold in the living room- separating the quaint house from the wide spans of the creators garage.

Gavin’s hand fell on the silver door handle, cold to the touch and smooth. He was gentle as he pulled the metal down, slow. The door clicked open softly, barely audible. Gavin pushed the door open a crack, peeking inside.

A car, old, deep blue. A few shelves, storage cupboards, one of them open. A table and chair, computer and electronics. The shuffling of feet again, out of sight, and the sound of another set of foot steps. The second set of footsteps sounded distant, light on heavy, old, dark wood. Stairs?

Confused, Gavin opened the door fully, but peered over his shoulder to locate who ever else it was that could be approaching.

“Gavin?” Elijah’s voice, it came from the stairs.

So if that was Elijah, who was this?

Gavin turned, looked in the direction his body was still facing. He was inches away from butting heads with the other occupant of the house. Gavin was quick to take a large step back, giving him more of a view of-

Himself?

A mirror? No. Couldn’t be, it was a doorway. Twin? No, he was an only child. Drugs? Absolutely not.

The other footsteps stopped. Then started again, quicker. As quick as lightning, Elijah had taken his clones place - or more, stood between them.

Elijah was a beetroot, well, as red a one. His glasses where crooked, hair a messy bun, and his shirt pinched around his stomach were the garage clone - intruder, in Gavin’s eyes - pulled on it, trying to peer round at Gavin.

“Eli...” Gavin started, it was tough to get the name out, to form the words on his tongue, to use the oxygen to say them. “What... who is that?”

“It’s- he’s...you.”

“How?” Gavin shook his head, god, he definitely had to have been drugged, right?

“I made him.” Elijah avoided Gavin’s eye contact when he said this, afraid of what Gavin’s reaction would be.

“Why?”

“Because...” Elijah paused, GV’s hand tugging on his waist to let him see his “twin” became to much, so he stepped aside, letting the two see each other. “Because I knew that I could never have the real thing.”

There was silence.

GV knew this fact of course. Elijah never actually hid the fact that he was based off of a human from the GV model, but then again, he’d never shown him the real deal. And this was it, the worse scenario Elijah could have dreamt up; alas he was letting the truth tumble out of his mouth like sea water into a broken boat.

“Since whe- no, who the fuck told you you couldn’t have the real thing?” Gavin stumbled over his words, utterly baffled that this was the same Elijah saying this shit.

“No one did.” Elijah said softly, “I guess I just needed you...” A sigh, eyes shifting behind black block glasses, quietly spoken, “more than you needed me, apparently.”

Another sigh, from Gavin this time. Long and with a hint of sadness.

“That’s not true Eli.” Gavin’s voice was the softest Elijah had ever heard it. It was the same tone that Elijah himself would use each time Gavin split from one of his significant others. It was careful and kind. Full of love.

A second set of hands had place themselves on Elijah’s torso, warm and soft. Red blood instead of blue.

Gavin had taken a step forward, hands brushing and soothing out wrinkles in Elijah’s shirt. They made their way up to cup his face, gentle, brushing stray hairs that had fallen from the messy bun and scratching through Elijah’s scruff that dusted his jawline. Gavin’s hands stopped, cupping Elijah’s cheeks, thumbs rubbing his cheek bones soothingly.

“You should have told me Eli...” Gavin stood on the tips of his toes, face so, so close to Elijah’s but yet they didn’t move closer. Gavin could feel Elijah’s hot breath on his lips, warm and inviting.

He gave in.

It was quick, clumsy, Elijah’s lack of experience combined with Gavin’s... well, decent amount of experience, resulted in a awkward, teethy kiss; Elijah wouldn’t have it any other way.

Gavin groaned, back clicking in what felt like a million different places as he stretched, before he settled down in a more comfortable position - arms wrapped around his pillow, legs drawn up towards his stomach- oh... oh god. There was definitely something running down his thighs...

Falling out of bed was a lot less graceful than Gavin thought, and Elijah laughed at his clumsiness from his spot on his bed.

“Shut the fuck up...” was Gavin’s response.

—————

Back at the table, Gavin chuckled, hand wrapped round his coffee possessively - being this close to Connor and Niles while drinking his coffee gave him the heebie-yeebies.

“What I’m trying to say boys,” another chuckle escaped his lips, “Kamski created an entire new species because he wanted to bone me so badly.”

The androids turned abruptly to stare at him, LEDs flashing a constant red. The detective smirks, swirling the last of his coffee in the bottom of his cup and continues speaking.

“I guess you can call me Daddy.” Gavin laughs, winks, downs the lukewarm remains of his coffee, haphazardly throws the cup in the sink and walks back to his desk.

Hank and Connor have to carry Niles back to his desk that lunch time, poor sod couldn’t even blink he was still in shock. Connor is still debating ripping out his audio processors if he has to hear that sentence ever again.

Pa-ting!

Gavin looked at this computer, a pop-up message from Connor was on his screen.

RK8myass: so what happened to the GV model?