#and I want that goose sweater so bad

[cheesecakeonthelanai]

The Golden Girls - Favourite Outfits

ROSE NYLUND 💐

Season 2

#i just ADORE the ivory pantsuit #and I want that goose sweater so bad #the golden girls #rose nylund #season 2 #fashion #golden girls #betty white #80s tv shows #80s tv #retro tv #retro tv series #retro television #1980s tv #classic tv series #tv shows #tv #1980s television #80s television #classic television #television #1980s #80s #80s nostalgia #80s fashion #favourite outfits

[ghouljams]

GASP TEAM MANAGER GOOSE I GASPED OUT LOUD WHEN I READ THAT your brain is so big it would scare scientists

Team manager Goose! She knows hockey almost as well as Ghost, knows the team's stats better at least and frequently argues with him about plays and drills. She's got interviews and press releases HANDLED she's honestly doing as much marketing as the actual team marketing manager. It's just that some of the boys are a little, um, bad at interviews (cough Ghost cough) and need a special sort of coaching for it.

She's running drills when Price is out talking to Laswell about trades and contracts, yelling at the boys to move their asses. Everyone teases Ghost about his crush because she's such a hardass but he is eating it up, anything for that shred of praise she gives him. He will be better, faster, hitting harder, than anyone else on the team just when Goose is coaching because God Damn he wants her to tell him he's doing a good job.

Sip n bitch with Laswell as they both bemoan managing a team that gets as many fights as they get Ws(goon team, scrum team, idc what you call it those boys are rough). I mean you want a fuckin gongshow you go to a 141 game, shit is out of hand. No one wants to play them lol

She's got one of Price's old sweaters to wear to practice and Ghost is just fucking dying to see her wear his number. There's something about hearing her talk hockey that just makes him... She calls him a sniper and he rides that high for days. She regularly makes bets with Ghost on how quick Soap will get thrown in the box, and he could not be happier to lose the way she grins at him...

#simon ghost riley #x oc #cod x oc #oc: goose #hockey au #i love them your honor

[naturesfirstgreenisgold]

Winter/ Christmas TGM + TG head cannons

Dagger Squad has Christmas at Icemavs

When goose and Carole was alive Mav had Christmas there

Dagger squad did secret Santa

Hangman got Bob at baby on board sticker for car

Bob got Hangman a cowboy hat with H_ngm_n burned into it.

Hangman felt bad for Baby on board sticker after that

Phoenix got Rooster a “Greatest of the 50s” vinyl

Roo got Phoenix Taylor Swift Midnights vinyl

Javy got Mickey a Star Trek Funko set

Mickey got Javy a coyote plushy

Pete got Rueben a f-18 model

Rueben got Pete a patch for his jacket

Ice got Mav a new beaded chain to pit his ring on

Mav got Ice a yeti that said “I live with Maverick so you can deal with him” to put on his desk

Hangman got Rooster a stuffed Texas to take with him when he’s deployed to remind him of him (to annoy Jake sometimes when Bradley isn’t getting what he wants he calls him Texas)

Rooster got Hangman a stuffed rooster for the same reason

Christmas movies

Pajamas

Ginger beard house comps

Ugly Christmas sweaters

Rooster trades his Hawaiian shirts in for flannels when it gets cold

One time, Bob took them up to his parents house in Wisconsin for Christmas because most of them hadn’t seen snow

Sleeping over a Mav’s and Ices on Christmas Eve

A huge Christmas tree

If anyone is deployed during Christmas Ice will try to get them back for Christmas but if he can’t they will either put off Christmas until they get back if it isn’t long but if they just got deployed they make them a care package with their presents

Baking

Jake will pull Bradley away and give him a promise ring and chain to put it on.

Singing competitions

Stockings (like all 15 of them)

Everyone surprising Ice and Mav with a dog they named Red Barron (he’s a white lab)

Going to look at Christmas lights in roosters bronco (they were very very cramped in there)

Tons of mistletoe

#top gun fandom #icemav #sereshaw #tgm #top gun headcanons #top gun 1986

[tortoisebore]

I just saw your post abt chapter 8 so naturally i have to ask what kind of drunk are the marauders? (Ex: Happy drunk, sad drunk, horny drunk etc..)

i’m finally starting to get caught up on these again eeeeeeeeeeeeeee i love this one 🫶🫶🫶🫶🫶 (just doing remus & sirius or else this would be 5,000 words)

i feel like everyone has four phases of drunk. and every kind of drunk is different like wine drunk does not equal tequila drunk but for consistency’s sake let’s say this is a typical night out, we’re ordering an uber bc we’re all planning on getting fully drunk tn, we’re doing cocktails, we’re having fun

sirius is a party girl & has a pretty decent tolerance but once the third drink hits he’s on a downward spiral. he starts off very excitable—he’s happy to be here, he’s happy you’re here, he’s happy there’s a drink in everyone’s hand. phase two is the dancey phase. if the music is bad he’s just doing a little shimmy at the bar but if it’s good he’s physically dragging ppl onto the dance floor. if there’s not a dance floor he’s making one. remus hasn’t had anywhere close to enough to drink to dance by the time sirius is this phase of drunk so when sirius makes a beeline for him and pulls at his arm he’s all “oh my god sirius stop i’m not going to dance fuck off you’re so embarrassing” but sirius is like “SORRY CANT HEAR U OVER ALL THIS DANCING 🕺🕺🕺 GET UR ASS UP RN 💃💃💃” and sometimes remus gives in then but sometimes he has to be deeper into his own drunk journey to get anywhere near a dance floor.

sirius’ phase 3 is horny bc everyone has a horny phase when they’re drunk. this phase starts at the tail end of his fourth drink—he’s at the bar & takes that last little sip out of the tiny cocktail straw and then he’s getting tunnel vision going “remus remus remus where’s remus oh my god look at him he’s so fuckidnf sexy how does he do it get a load of that sweater holy shit 🫦👹👺🤭😛🥰 hot damn that’s my bb 🤩🥵😳🫠🥴😋.” and remus is only on his second phase of drunk right now & they’re rarely at their own respective horny phases at the same so sirius’ advances are brushed off a bit. like he’s sliding in behind remus & sticking his hands up his shirt and whispering all sorts of shit into his ear like “c’mon let’s go to the bathroom” and “wanna make u feel good” and “i’ll do anything u want pls pls pls need u so bad pls” but remus is very much not on the same planet and he’s like “we’re not gonna fuck in the bathroom u beautiful silly goose!! 😄 that’s crazy!! 😁 omg 😍 ur so so pretty!! 😄 ur my bf & we’re in love 🥰 can u believe it!!”

and sirius is pouty about it for a minute but by the time he finishes his next drink he’s officially in phase four which is the “life is so beautiful i love u all so much” phase. about 50% of the time this involves crying and the other 50% it involves going around the room hanging off everyone’s arm & giving a speech about “you’re all just my favorite people i can’t believe i get to know u all you’re so beautiful i love my life.” and by this point remus is in deep enough to give in when sirius throws himself into his arms and gives him a little smile & says “☺️ do u wanna dance w me 🙂🥰” so they have a song and a dance or four or five before it’s time to go home.

remus’ four phases of drunk are a little more subdued. phase one is the loosey goosey phase, he’s relaxed and not thinking ab all the things that are stressing him out and he’s less snippy after a couple drinks. but phase two is the loud talking phase. he’s feeling good he’s feeling chatty. he wants to tell u in depth all about this documentary he saw the other day about ancient global architecture designed around the summer solstice. he’s gesturing with his hands and his eyes are all big and he’s talking way too fucking loud. like…… way too fucking loud. people are starting to look over remus pls can u lower ur voice just a little this is getting weird

phase three is an extension of phase two. he’s still feeling good feeling chatty but now he’s getting all sappy and sweet and giddy. he’s looking at sirius across the room like 🤩❤️🫶💕🥹🥰💓😘💞✨😍💖💓 and going “oh my god……oh my god. look at him. stunning” and sighing and waxing poetic to whoever’s next to him but there’s a 75% chance that it’s just a stranger at the bar. and then sirius comes over and he’s throwing himself all over remus going “need u so bad bby can we go home” and “i’m wearing that thing u like under here wanna see” but remus is too starry-eyed to take him up on it. like he’s not even rly listening bc he's too busy touching sirius’ face and watching the clips in his hair sparkle under the lights to do anything but gasp and ooh and ahh and be like “wow!! wow!! look!! at you!! oh!! my god!!”

but one more drink in and he’s officially entered his final horny phase, which is definitely less in-your-face than sirius’ but it’s about a hundred times more intense. normally sirius has simmered down a bit by the time remus’ phase four rolls around, but now remus is in deep enough to watch him a little more intently. like he’s giving less 🥰🤩💞✨😍💕 and more 😶🤤😵‍💫🥴🥵😏. and he’s not going to do much other than stare until they’re home (bc he’s absolutely not afraid of some pda but he’s possessive down to his bones & doesn’t want to risk anyone else watching sirius like that) and he always says he’s going to play it cool & keep them both in line until they’re out of there, but a few more sips of the right kind of liquor and it’s game over. so when sirius asks him to dance they’re 100% doing more touching and ogling and grinding than actual dancing bc the second remus gets his hands on sirius’ skin it’s lights out for his big ole brain, he’s running on caveman brain cells & caveman brain cells are just saying “pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty”

they’re probably getting kicked out of the club/bar eventually but like good for them go gays go !!

#u ask tortoise answers #anon #tortoise writes a novel ab an ask for no reason #my four phases of drunk are a mix of both of them #bc these rambles are nothing if not me projecting

[bunni-writing-desk]

hi hi. can you spare some my chem age re drabbles or hcs for this rough evening :( im having a tough night n am trying not to impure regress. i love your writing and keep reading the agere frank n gerard ones to comfort me. you’re the best <3

sure I can, but remember if you can safely regress you should do so even if it doesn't feel great, it's a way of coping and it can help sometimes (also personally think the term "impure regression" is stupid so I'm gonna call it upset or triggered regression, not mad at you I just have a lot of problems with that term)

two drabbles under cut :]

Gerard drabble (hurt/comfort):

today had been rough, the day dragged on and pulled you through the motions until you just couldn't handle it anymore. As you stepped in the door of your small shared apartment, Gerard appeared quickly. Was it quickly or was your time perception messed up? you couldn't tell, but none of it matter much anymore. Gerard was there, hugging you and making sure you were actively dying before taking care of anything else you might need.

"Bad day, hun?" Gerard waited for you response, ever patient as you sniffled against them.

All you could manage out was a small "mhm", muffled by their cozy sweater.

"Alright, come're little one" He gently took one of you hands and led you back to your shared bed room and sat you on the bed. "Just sit here and I'll get things set up for a bath, sound good?" His smile was soft and caring, feeling like a soft blanket.

You watched as he dug through the chest in your closet full of all your regression gear. He pulled out your hooded bath towel with your favorite animal on, custom made just for you with your name on it. They also pulled out a few of your bath toys in case you had the energy to play a little, then they set the hair washing bucket to the side. The bucket was made in a certain way so that they could rinse your hair without getting water in your eyes.

He stood up, scooping some of the things into his arms and headed to the bathroom. "I'll be right back, okay? just starting the water." He reassured you as you continued to sit on the bed. With nothing to look at, you quickly got up and padded over to the box and picked up your favorite comfort plush. It was still soft after all these years and you held it close.

Gerard came back into the bedroom, picking up the hooded towel and holding out a hand for you. "Bath is ready, little one" You nodded along and took his hand and he lead you over to the bathroom.

"Everything will be okay, I promise, there will be lore days, and more stuffies, different people, and same schedules. I'll help you every step of the way, okay?"

Frank + Jamia drabble (fluff):

"Jamia thinks your a silly goose." Frank whispered into your ear while you were watching cartoons, by the smile on his face you could tell he was playing around.

"Well ten tell mama I don' wan' her pancakes anymore!" You shouted then secretly giggled back to frank who smiled at you. Jamia, just in the other room, making breakfast for the two of you, gasped exaggerately.

"Frank what did you do, they always want pancakes!" She turned off the stove and put her hands on her hips, staring at Frank who put his hands up in mock surrender.

"All I did was tell them the truth!" He smiled and shrugged as Jamia obviously struggled to not break character.

"Then it seems neither of you are getting pancakes!" She turned away and started to put the already made pancakes away until both you and Frank jumped up from the couch in protest.

"No No wait we apologize!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

there you go I hope I could provide some comfort and I hope you feel better little one!

#gerard way x reader #frank iero x reader #using x very lightly cause these are more meant to be read as platonic but could be read in any way #sfw age regression #drabble

[forestshadow-wolf]

The 141 + Co. As Brenan Lee Mulligan quotes

Soap: i worked at a L.A.R.P camp, if you're an 11-year old boy, you're like " I am a demon infused mercenary who-" [*everyone laughs*] I literally had an 11-year old boy one time tell me, "my parents were killed and I was raided by wolves and I'm getting vengeance for my slain parents." and I was like, "who killed your human parents?" And he was like "no the wolf parents were killed and that's who I'm getting revenge on." And I was like " so your parents were killed and so were your foster wolf parents, but you're only getting revenge for the wolves?" And this 11-year old was like, "you got it." [Everyone cracking up]

Ghost: I know what's going on here. I know what's going on here. Okay. I do. And if you want me to wander backstage to.. spill the beans [...] it's the final question. These other two are in the loop, so. (Refering to the Sergents; who pranked him) they're in the loop. I am the only one out of the loop it would seem. And if we check my point total here. I don't need to walk to the front, because I know what it is. It's a big 'ol goose egg, gang. It's a fat zero. Hello, a little late addition to the numerical symbol chart, brought to us by our friends in arabia, a little bit of trivia that I happen to know about the history of numbers. That kind of tidbut would serve me well in most trivia games, unless it had been rigged from the beginning. [Gaz: woah, dude] oh, I've only just begun to pull the thread on this sweater, friends. You would think in a game where there are only two possible correct choices, that one would stumble into the right answer every so often, wouldn't you? In fact the possibility of never guessing right in a full game is a statistical wonder, and yet here we are. Introduced at the top of the game as a champion, what do you think that means? Icarus; flying too close to the sun, but it seems daedalus; our little Mastercrafter over here has some wax wings of his own, didn't he? Wanted to see his sun fall. Fall from the sky. Oh how close to the sun he flew. Well I am not having it. I solved your labyrinth, puzzle-master. The minotaur's escaped and you're gonna get the horns, buddy. [Soap: Okay, did we think we were the ones in on it, but actually [Ghost] is the only one in on it and that was rehearsed?] [Roach: that was an incredible monolog, [ghost] what is the rule of the game?] I. CANNOT. WIN.

I just typed that entire thing out by hand...

Price: everyone just get ready for when people come out and start asking you "so if vegetable people start eating vegetables is that cannibalism?" And I have to go to the tallest mountain in los angeles and go "you eat animals made of meat, and you're meat. It's like that"

Gaz: "the devil egg on the windowsill, I don't know how long it's been there, but you should eat that. [Price: [Soap] I think you should listen to the good voice, me, and not eat a big, stinky egg, who know how long that's been there. Who know how long, that's my guy.] Dude, think about it. Why would there be a deviled egg on the windowsill, if you weren't supposed to eat it? [Price: that makes no sense. Okat, typically eggs- okay, so they're gonna spoil in a matter of, I'd give it three hours, if it were in the fridge.] Dude, every second you wait, it gets worse, the safest thing is to eat it now, fast and hard. [Price: please don't eat a deviled egg that's been sitting in the sun. You are smarter than this.] [Soap: smells bad] that means the sun has disinfected it. [Price: that means that the sun has infected it. It has been infested with the raw egg-] [Soap: eats the egg] [...] oh you threw up right away... eat that second deviled egg. [Price: dont do that. Why would there be two deviled eggs on a windowsill? You already had the experience of barfing after the first one] dude it's so wet. It's ready to go.

Laswell: I just want to say, you got to wake up pretty early in the fucking morning to go "oh here's a range extender for your lav, [laswell]. Yeah don't worry, it's not attached in any way to the sound pack"

Ale: [Soap: [Ale], what is your name?] ... my name it Alejandro Vargas. [*machine dings correct*] I'm being fucked with. You understand? This is an indignity.

Rudy: this [hangout] was so fucking great [Gaz: you can't say that while actively dissociating]

Roach: laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It's just a promise of violence that's enacted and police are basicalky an occupying army, ya know what I mean? You guys wanna make some bacon? [*pulls a ski mask over his head and a lit molotov out of his pocket*]

#see also for Ghost: I would do anything to win anything #see also for Soap: I will die on any hill #I typed all of this by hand... #brennan lee mulligan #el rambles #call of duty #cod mw2 #cod #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #kyle gaz garrick #john price #kate laswell #rodolfo rudy parra #alejandro mw2 #incorrect quotes

[vannahfanfics]

Hi! I was wondering if I could have a Naruto matchup, please? <3

Name/pronouns: Paige, she/they

Gender preference: male

Appearance: This might be irrelevant, so feel free to ignore this lol. I’m 5’6 with a curvy hourglass figure. I have black (dyed, naturally it’s dirty blonde) 3a curly hair that is styled into a shag/wolfcut. I have sanpaku eyes that are blue/green (I always look dead inside lmao) with decently long lashes. I have a wide longer nose which I’m incredibly insecure about and I have an oval shaped face. My style I would say is mainly 90s grunge and emo? I usually wear baggy jeans with an oversized hoodie or jacket, I tend to wear black a lot since I feel it’s the color that looks best on me. When it’s warmer out I wear an oversize t shirt normally with a pair of baggy shorts. But I also like wearing oversized grandpa sweaters as well lol. Even though I lean towards the grungy/emo androgynous style I do like wearing leggings or cutesy girly things at times too! I wear makeup as well when I have the time and energy for it, usually just a simple look with eyeliner and such.

Personality: This also may or may not be relevant, but I am a intp, 5w4, gemini sun, scorpio moon, scorpio rising. As my personality goes, I am a very quiet, aloof, and distance person, especially at first glance. Some people would say I can be very intimidating at first glance, but I’m actually just a shy ball of anxiety who is really scared of people and have very low self-esteem. It can take me a hot minute to open up to someone, but once I do feel comfortable with a person I become a silly lil goose who never shuts up. I love talking about anything and everything with those who I’m close to, I joke around a lot and enjoy having philosophical discussions. Once people get to know me, they describe me as eccentric and one of a kind. I’m a big jokester who always messes around with my friends and tease them (in a jokingly way), but I do really care about my friends and I’m pretty intensely loyal when it comes to them. Sometimes I can become quite nurturing when it comes to those who are close to me. People tend to feel very comfortable around me since I’m not really a judgy person and I’m open minded. I have a small circle of friends, but they are all very different kinds of people which I don’t mind at all. But even though I enjoy having friends, I do prefer to be alone at times since I’m a highly introverted person. But I’m always down to spend time with them, just not for a super long time lol.

 I’m a very curious person who loves learning new things and indulging in my interests, if someone mentions any of my interests to me I will geek to them for hours lmao. I’m also full of fun facts as well, I have soooo many random fun facts its almost ridiculous, but hey it’s always a great conversation starter! Even though I am an inquisitive person, I can be an airhead at times. I forget things all the time and I always procrastinate which is one of my biggest weaknesses. I tend to be very lazy and get distracted super easily as well. I’m usually always in my own head and daydreaming. But even though I do things at the last minute, I always get things done as quick as possible. When I’m not off in my own head I can be observant and quick when I want to be, but sometimes it can be hard. I’m very slow to anger as well, it can take a lot to piss me off. Not only do I think being angry is a waste of energy, but I also just don’t like confrontation. I avoid it at all times, which can cause some people to walk over me. It’s definitely not as bad as it used to be, but I do still avoid it as much as I can. When I do get mad though (or just upset in general), I get really quiet at first then I snap, but that’s really really rare.

I am an emotional person, but I’m really bad when it comes to talking about them and showing them, which can be quite frustrating. It can be hard for me to show my vulnerable side to others, but I do feel emotions very deeply. I am very sensitive, especially when it comes to my appearance and personality. I’m always afraid that people are constantly judging me or hate me, which is why I tend to avoid public spaces or being around people in general. I have bad depression and anxiety as well as borderline personality disorder, but I am currently taking medication that helps with that so I’m at least stable. I tend to just put on a mask at times, so I don’t have to show my vulnerable side, but once I trust a person (like a lot) it becomes easier.

Likes/interests/hobbies: animals, cute things (major sanrio girly), fashion, makeup, shopping, astrology, astronomy/astrophysics, forensic psychology (I’m majoring in this!), nature, sleeping, video games (I like open world and rpgs), anime, horror movies, true crime, mysteries, collecting crystals, going to the gym, coffee, thrifting, listening to music (I mostly listen to metal, alternative, indie, and sometimes rap), exploring, reading (mostly fanfiction lmao), poetry, witchcraft, forests, rain, history

Dislikes: prejudice people, toddlers, driving, slow drivers, going out in public, liars, loud noises, country music, todays pop music (if I hear unholy by sam smith one more time I will lose it), myself, the majority of men lmao, not getting enough sleep, mornings, being yelled at, tight restricting clothes, veggies, karens, homework , cold weather and snow

Love languages/what I look for in relationships/what I’m like in relationships: My main love language is quality time and my second would be acts of service. I did say that I like to be alone at times, but I love being alone with the person who I have feelings for. It doesn’t have to always be going out on dates all the time or anything like that, I would just be happy having my person next to me at all times doing whatever. I don’t care if we’re just sitting in a comfortable silence or just sitting across the room doing our own thing, I just enjoy being in their presence. But with that being said, I do have the tendency to be clingy at times, but it’s to an extent. Now with acts of service I mentioned I can be quite nurturing to those I care about, it’s especially the same with my significant other. I can be very motherlike to my partner; always asking them if they drank water today, if they ate a proper meal, reminding them to wear a coat outside if it’s cold, etc. Sometimes I will even nag them at times. I enjoy making food for them, doing chores for them, and anything really. Even if it’s the smallest thing. When I’m in a relationship with someone I still treat them as if they are my best friend, I tend to keep my relationships pretty private and I despise pda. I will always be sassy and still joke or tease them no matter what. Behind close doors I’m a little more affectionate, I enjoy snuggling with my significate other and just being close in general. Though sometimes I like to have some space, I don’t want to be constantly showered with affection. Not gonna lie I’m kinda like a cat when it comes to affection lmao. My significate other is always my go-to when I need advice or just someone to talk/vent to in general, they are like my confidant. Above I said I didn’t like public spaces or being around many people in general, but I don’t mind them as much if I have my significant other with me as they make me feel safe and more confidant. What I look for in a relationship is someone who can make me feel safe, can be myself around, can still joke around with me, protect me, and listen and understand me.

Thank you for doing these! Your writing is absolutely amazing, and I love your blog!! Keep up the good work! <3

(also please feel free to dm if you need anymore info or anything regarding the commission)

This has taken far too long for me to get to, which I apologize for; I've been dealing with some unreal writer's block that I just can't seem to shake :( But, I'm working on it, and better late than never, yes? Also, it would have been done yesterday but I had a little mishap with Ctrl+Z and accidentally deleted the 1,000+ words I'd put into it... which instantly killed my writing mood. :( But, no such mishaps today (if so, I might have lost it ^.^")! Anyways, I hope it was worth the wait!

P.S. Reading your dislikes made me laugh because for so many of them I was just like "LMAO Same" XD

P.P.S. This was the hardest decision between two characters for a match-up that I have ever had to make TT.TT

I match you with...

GIF by justkankuro

Kankuro from Naruto!

As I mentioned, it was a super hard decision to make; it was such a close call between him and Shikamaru! But, in the end, I decided to side with our one and only puppetmaster. Without further ado, let's delve into why!:

First of all, I believe that your aesthetic is one that Kankuro finds attractive! Appearance isn't make-or-break for him, by any means, but most often it is the factor about someone that catches his initial interest. I think he'll find that combo of dark hair and blue-green eyes rather striking! Then, it's obvious that he'll appreciate your fashion sense; he's very much about that grunge/emo look—and the color black, of course! That being said, he definitely doesn't care when you switch gears and wear more cutesy things, too! He thinks it's pretty neat, the fact that you can make such conflicting styles look equally stunning. :)

Appearance may be what draws Kankuro in, but personality it definitely what makes him stick around—and I think yours meshes really well with his own! Kankuro also is slow to open up to someone and grows a little more outgoing as he does so, in comparison to his distant and gruff appearance. He's still very much an introvert overall, though, like yourself; he has his people that he enjoys spending time with and is loyal to, but sometimes he has to step away from even them and recharge his social battery.

Kankuro may not seem like he's interested in anything other than puppets, but actually, he shares your boundless curiosity for anything and everything he can learn! He's 100% the type to ramble on about any random topic to someone who will listen, so the fact that it's an activity you not only indulge but enjoy is a big plus for him. It becomes a little game with you two—finding a topic for the day and accruing as many little facts about it as you can to rave about later! Kankuro very easily finds himself absorbed in things, but, unlike you, he's not a procrastinator—neither in important matters or personal whims. Don't think that's a negative, though! Kankuro doesn't get annoyed by it. He'll give you gentle reminders or pushes when he feels you need it, and you're one to remind him that it's important to go at an even pace. In that way, you balance each other!

Another quality that you and Kankuro share is your difficulty in expressing emotions. Kankuro also feels things deeply and powerfully but has a hard time expressing and sharing them; however, this often leads to frustration on his part, so it's easy for him to lash out. Plus, he's got a good reservoir of it to react almost too readily to confrontation. That being said, it's less of a problem than one would think; he respects your idea that it's not worth wasting energy on being angry, and that's something that he tries to incorporate into his own mindset. Plus, since he thinks similarly to you, he can understand your thought process very well and can therefore recognize when you're having a hard time with your own emotions. Also, like you, Kankuro is hesitant in being vulnerable; it takes him a good long while to trust someone to that degree. So, again, he relates to you and is all too familiar with how you think, so when you trust him enough to be vulnerable yourself, it's a big deal to him!

Now, there is one instance where Kankuro has no trouble expressing how he feels, and that's in encouraging you! Kankuro may not seem the type to be a hype man, but trust me—this guy is in your corner! He doesn't like you downing yourself or feeling judged; it pains him. You're so amazing to him, and he wants you to see all the wonderful things about you that he does! So, the instant he realizes that you're too in your head, a switch flips in him; he is gassing you up like nobody's business. He's a little awkward at it, not being the best with words and articulating his thoughts and feelings, but it's most definitely earnest and heartfelt!

Finally, I think your love languages align a lot, too! Kankuro's primary love language is 100% quality time. To him, there's nothing better to give someone. Everyone only has so much time in the world, after all, and choosing to share it with someone? That's big to him. Admittedly, he's less the nurturing type compared to you, but he still tries his best to do things for you when he can. It really shows when you've had a long day or a trying time. He'll go out of his way to do everything to make your life easier or so that you can just relax and worry about nothing. And, honestly, he appreciates your nurturing side. He's a busybody who can neglect his own health and well-being by being too caught up in what he's doing, so the fact that you care enough to remind him of the little things warms his heart. Also, Kankuro is totally not a PDA guy either. The most he'll do in public is hold your hand, if you allow that. But behind closed doors, he's much more tender and open in showing his affections. :)

So, the fact that one of your hobbies is collecting crystals caught my eye. I pinned it as something that Kankuro would dig, so here's some headcanons about it!:

Before meeting you, Kankuro didn't really get the whole crystals thing. Like, sure, they're nice to look at, but they certainly don't possess any magical properties or anything. He's a very scientific sorta fella, so don't expect him to change his opinion on that LOL

That being said, he respects that it is an interest of yours, enough to let you ramble about it one day. Again, he thinks the whole thing about spiritual properties is hogwash, but he does get pretty intrigued by how symbolic crystals are.

Cue him going down a research rabbit hole. He never realized just how many kinds of gems and crystals were out there! And on top of that, they have so many meanings; some ubiquitous, and some unique to different cultures! It's fascinating stuff to him, and soon enough, he's actually initiating conversations about crystals.

It's not long before he starts collecting them, too. And when Kankuro does something, he does it with 110% effort; he's not just going to specialty shops and buying them off the shelves. No, this man starts researching ways to go find them out in the wild, LOL If you're enough of a nature buff to accompany him on his little mining trips, he'll be the happiest little crystal enthusiast ever! But be warned. This guy will go full-on spelunking if he thinks he can find a badass crystal or gemstone.

In general, he's not a gift-giver, but he does gift you lots of crystals. :) Especially ones he finds. He even takes the time to look up what properties they might have and waits to give them to you until the relevant situation arises; he doesn't believe they have any real power, but if you do, he's crazy enough about you to put aside his own misgivings for your own happiness. ^u^

Finally, for the last part of your commission match-up, the drabble! I think a lot of your interests align with Kankuro's, one of those being mysteries and true crime. He's definitely got that morbid curiosity in wanting to know how murderers tick, and he loves those unsolved mysteries full of conspiracy theories and intrigue (though, when it comes to supernatural things, he's usually one who insists there's a scientific explanation LOL). Anyway, here's a little blurb based around that!:

"I'm tellin' ya, it's the eldest brother," Kankuro insists with a firm point at the television. The two of you had gotten engrossed in the latest popular true crime anthology. The recurring theme of its presented cases was crime within rich and powerful families; naturally, they swam with intrigue and drama, and in some cases (such as this one), it was difficult to predict just which family member orchestrated whatever criminal act had been committed.

"No way!" you refute with an equally emphatic jab of your finger at the flickering screen. "It's totally the youngest brother! He was going to get less in the inheritance than the eldest brother, so he planned to make himself the sole survivor of an armed robbery gone bad. It was just bad luck that the eldest brother lived."

"Ahhhhhhh, that's just what the eldest brother wants everyone to believe," Kankuro tutted with a professorial wag of his finger. "He's resentful of the youngest brother for outshining him all his life, and their parents for thinkin' he's a screw-up. He totally is, but, when do snotty little rich brats ever blame themselves for their problems? Anyway, he set this whole thing up to get rid of all his problems and pin the whole thing on his youngest brother, the so-called golden child."

"That is way too specific... and compelling," you say while squinting suspiciously at him. "You've watched something about this case before, haven't you?" you accuse with a horrified gasp.

Kankuro immediately throws his hands up in surrender.

"Have not!" he protests. Then, with a self-satisfied snicker, he dives a hand into the bowl of popcorn sitting between the two of you to grab a handful and throw it in his mouth. "I'm just thinking on a whooooooole different level, babe. Looking past all the surface stuff and instead figuring out what really makes these people tick. Pretty soon, they'll be callin' me to hunt these jokers down!" he boasted with a broad grin.

"Are you saying I'm dumb?" you pout, sinking into the couch cushions. You know that he doesn't, but, why miss an opportunity to have him pamper you? And, if you were honest, you would feel pretty dumb if Kankuro's theory turned out to be correct.

"What? No!" Kankuro cries immediately. He pauses the show, then lifts up the popcorn bowl to scooch up next to you and throw his arm around your shoulder, tugging you close. "I—jeez, me and my big mouth," he mumbles under his breath and runs a hand through his hair, stressed at the idea of upsetting you. "It makes you feel a little guilty, so you drop the sulky act. "You know I don't think you're dumb, right?"

You shrug. However, you do feel guilty about how panicked he looks, so you make it obvious that you're playing oblivious, exaggerating the roll of your head and letting the playful smile rise to your lip.

"I dunnooooooo, Kankuro," you drawl, and his eyebrow creeps up his forehead at the purposefully sing-song tone. "You sure made it seem like you think I'm just some surface-level thinker and can't see through a ruse..."

"Aw, come on." Kankuro is the one pouting now, his bottom lip jutting out as he props his chin on your shoulder and bats his eyes at you. "You didn't let me finish." However, the smirk forming on his lips informs you that he is on to your game now, and willing to play along.

"Oh?"

"Yeah," he hums. "If you'd let me keep talking, I woulda gone on to say that I'd tell them that I'll only work for them if I can bring along my gorgeous, totally smart-as-a-tack partner."

"Go on," you encourage with a giggle.

"She notices the things I tend to miss. Like the fact that the eldest brother went back into the house instead of calling the cops."

"I did think that was weird," you nodded in consideration. "But I chalked that up to him not thinking straight and being worried about his little brother when he heard him crying out for help."

"Or maybe he ran in there to try and get his hired thugs to finish the job..."

"But was interrupted by the neighbor, who heard the ruckus!" you gasp in realization and slammed your fist down into your palm. "So he had to think on the fly and act like he was running back in to save his brother so the neighbor didn't get suspicious! That's why the neighbor told the cops during his interview that he felt like the eldest brother was over-acting, and never "

"See?" Kankuro grinned. "You think most people would figure that out just based on a little hint like that? You're definitely not dumb, babe."

"Hehe, we'd make quite a team," you giggle and snuggle into him.

"Damn straight," Kankuro smirked back. He snatches up the remote and resumes the show, then drops it to wrap his arms around you, grinning like a little kid about to run into a candy store. "Now, let's find out which one of us was right!"

You really don't care that much, you find yourself thinking. All you care about is the fact that Kankuro is here, spending time with you, thinking the world of you...

But really, it's totally the youngest brother! You're the one who's gonna be right, mark your words!

Interested in a commission? Check out this post!

#naruto #naruto shippuden #naruto matchups #naruto match-ups #matchups #match-ups #commissions #vannahfanfics commissions

[basslinegrave]

everytime i see ling tongs dw9 design i feel like i won in the lottery cuz his design is so good i love it so much. long rant cringe incoming

it has dw5 vibes but more evolved and the colors go so hard too... and i like how its slimmer overall which fits his weapon (much more than 8 fit the 3 section staff, i love that outfit too cuz it looks so cozy and warm and hes toasty in his scarf and sweater paws. but it doesnt fit his move set using his legs it feels too bulky for that like getting in the way?) the other outfit i didnt like much (the colors clash so much like the pink green purple and dark blue? :/ bad palette) but then the samurai armor dlc was so good (and matching with gan nings which added 3 more years to my life. like when i saw the list before the release i was pogging when i saw that they both have a different description from others but same between each another)

i was so worried before the dw9 design reveals cuz theres always some letdowns and i was fully bracing for them to cut his hair short or come up with something not fitting him like the dw7 draft.. but those madmen made his hair twice as long i was winning and the outfit was an instant fave like my most fav was 8 then i just immediately pushed it aside. make room for 9 this is the best

i wonder what they cook up for 10 if its coming, if and when its coming..., i hope they introduce alternates/dlc too cuz more designs more fun.. i just dont know what they could do next so im just gonna hope it wont be shite but like i think i would live if they changed up his hair but its like some characters can go thru big changes but others have a more singular look so its just about lenght here. his ponytail is so cute i want them to keep it 😭 i also think if they changed his weapon they would probably be inclined to go with the armor-y look they drafted before which doesnt fit much imo, id rather have something similar to the current design but maybe with wider sleeves thats cute, and fingerless gloves!!!! please. and the long hair with middle part or side part im praying 🙏🧎

also i gotta mention gan ning here cuz he went thru a few hairstyles and i gotta say it was also a letdown that while they just reused his dw8 hair for 9, they cut off his mullet! which is my most fave thing! especially how its slightly darker at the longest part.. like man... cant have shit in the three kingdoms (i joke that what they cut off they gave to ling tong [insert after surgery meme wheres gan ning? who do you think gave you the extra hair])

but like for him idc what color or style they do, like surprise me but give him a mullet its funney and give him earrings/piercings and more bells. thats my base in the pyramid of needs like idk why they went with just one bell in the final design since the drafts had more (and also a really cool hairstyle) also remove the stupidass feathers (its nice in 8 kinda cuz more subtle and still keeps the feathers included somehow but i also loved how they just pinned them to his butt in 7 and also how over the top it was in 6 though those are like rooster feathers not goose lmaobut also idk where i read about him being connected to crows so its nice theyre black. also thinking about how one artist used to just draw him without them. boss move. and how sometimes they dont load in 9 in game like the console also hates them lmao)

#nobody read this #i would have spammed this to my friend but this is a better dump #thoughts are being thunk #long rant #dw #prompted by some comments i saw that made me compare the designs again #figured out i dont have a single fave for kannei like 8 is the best i guess but its still not it. like on a tierlist its at A but nothing #is at S tier rn #8 and 4 are A tier 9 7 B tier (7 more B+) 5 6 C tier pre-4 are mid so like D or lower #ryoto we got. 9 at S+ tier 5 S tier 8 A+ tier 7 A tier (even tho i used to hate it) 6 B or C tier

[beachbumsfm]

did you see RIVER LEPORT wandering around the island today? they kind of look like HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN from certain angles? i heard around town that the SHADOW EXECUTIVE is CHEERFUL, and UNASSUMING, but also LONELY, and UNSURE. people say that they remind them of HOT CHOCOLATE ON A COZY WINTER’S DAY, A PILE FULL OF HOSPITAL BRACELETS, and THE SUN REFLECTING IN THE WATER ON A SUMMERS DAY, and DONT’ DREAM IT’S OVER by CROWDED HOUSE is definitely their theme song. they seem like a nice enough person, but we all know how hard it is to keep a pristine reputation in a small town. 

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒 … 𝐅𝐔𝐋𝐋 𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄: river radley leport 𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐊𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄(𝐒): rads 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄: March 6, 1995 𝐀𝐆𝐄: 27 years old 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐑: cis male 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐒: he/him/his 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: hetero-romantic 𝐒𝐄𝐗𝐔𝐀𝐋 𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍: heterosexual 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐒: hayden christensen (younger) 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐎𝐑 𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐄𝐃: right 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐌: don’t dream it’s over, moth to a flame, gravy train, stud 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒: fishing + lounging on luxury boats, cable knit sweaters in the winter, hospital bracelets and bills, late night drinks, goose feather down duvets.   𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘… TW: bullying, miscarriage,  The Leport family is a well-known family in King’s Haven, great granddad Leport settled here in many years ago when the town was just starting up. Leport started with a local guide and fishing rental place and a hardware store. Eventually they expanded to a restaurant, an organic local grocery store that sells items citizens make, and a gas station. They are working on trying to set up a little fishing cabin to rent out to tourists. (so they’re very rich...) River is a miracle baby, so to speak. His parents had a very difficult go trying to conceive, which resulted in a few miscarriages and a lot of fertility treatments. They were successful with River, however even he gave them a run. He was born at 32 weeks premature. As a result of this, River had lung complications. He couldn’t breath on his own and his immune system was very weak.  His parents went through a lot with him, but they always made sure he got the very best care. River was released from the NICU 2 months after his birth, with a diagnosis of asthma. Because of River’s complications and the fear of losing him, his mother became very protective and adopted the helicopter parent approach. For most of his childhood he was sheltered, kept at home when he could, and had frequent hospital visits due to his reactive airways.  Essentially; River never got the chance to do much sports, go to birthday parties or sleepovers, and because of his strict medical regiment, he was prevented from making friends often. He was a bubble boy.

He doesn’t know why, but when he turned 10 years old, he became a target for another boy in his grade. It started with name calling, then it escalated to having his friends isolate him, physical aggression during recess. He was a weakling, a loser, a big momma’s boy. 

It went on for the rest of his school career. However he was able to make friends in high school, none of them were particularly close with him, except for one. That person is still his best friend to this day.  In terms of his health, he eventually grew out of the worst of his asthma, and his immune system naturally strengthened over the years. However when he does get sick he does require medical assistance (so like steroids, inhaler, maybe even oxygen from the hospital depending on how bad it is). His mother still tries to coddle him here and there.  River is set to inherit the Leport business, as his father had, however his cousin and his uncle dispute this. And River himself does not know if he actually wants to even run the family business, it’s always just been kind of there for him and he never thought of wanting anything different...until recently.  His job right now is basically bullshit, it’s just a fancy way of saying he’ll be consulted on finalizations before any decisions on the business. 

PERSONALITY River is very balanced, he is not overly positive or overly negative. He is very level-headed, but often finds himself overwhelmed with choices. Like literally for the most part he’s like ‘I don’t know...whatever you think.’ He doesn’t like to dwell on negative things either, very much a “it’s just a momentary feeling.” He kind of feels responsible for his mother, so they definitely have a very close albeit reversed relationship sometimes. River does not like to think of his family’s money as his, but he does have a trust fund. He kind of has the same personality as Nick from Crazy Rich Asians. He is very reserved when meeting new people and that’s just because he still gets a little shy.  𝐀 𝐅𝐄𝐖 𝐖𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐒… his school bully his best friend  anything !

 FUN FACTS -he is a boston bruins fan. -he owns two sport boats.  -he really likes sweets, his life motto is “chocolate makes everything better” -he really enjoys 80s pop culture. -he really likes rock music. -he is family friends with nadya, and being a boy in close proximity to a very beautiful girl, he may or may not have had a crush on and off for her, but of course ! she’s never seen him anything more than a friend. rip. 

#khintro #i gotta make up tags for river #BUT i will probably add more to this

[csmeaner]

Design Shitting: That One Particular Designer Special Edition

Those PalletEclipse designs still haven’t found a sucker yet (the suckers are running late). I think this batch has actually just broken the record for her Crookies. Those sold in about a month and a half and as of this writing the “Varmints” are still awaiting homes. https://deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/Skire-Adopts-Various-Varmints-2-5-OPEN-924580968

another post before about those same adopts

and here originally

The reason I made this a submission instead of an ask is because there’s something fucky about Pallet’s designs and it’s made me respect her a lot less. Follow me here, Mod Shit.

Goose, Goose, Duck? and Fowl Play from palleteclipse(/)art(/)https://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/CCCat-Adopts-Blue-Ribbon-Batch-0-4-CLOSED-850473570 aren't terrible. Overpriced, lower art quality, and not exactly ground-breaking/boundary-pushing? Oh, for-fucking-sure, but just look at the designs on their own. Decent colors, decent use of traits, kind of a nice tail on Fowl Play. Some unity with the themes. And hey, someone else pointed out people don’t really want ground-breaking “unique” designs most of the time. Anyway, these are from two years ago.

https://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/CCCat-Adopts-Holly-Jolly-Times-0-3-CLOSED-863055179 Reindeer Royalty is passable. Overpriced and questionable on the quality of art for price, but passable and people buy for the design anyway. Precious Peppermint is OK for people who like “ugly sweater” holiday designs.

Stitched Creation reminds me of a Rottweiler somehow and I love it. Graveyard Leaves is pretty good, too, though those colors won’t be for everyone. Again, two years ago. The art is decent enough I wonder if someone gave her a base. I also almost thought someone else drew them and she was just hosting them, but one of the comments complimented Pallet specifically and the art has her watermarkhttps://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/CCCat-Adopts-Halloween-Vibes-0-4-CLOSED-854884601

https://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/CCCat-GA-Adopts-Pastel-Cafe-0-4-CLOSED-783954204 Bunny Sprinkles and Piebald Cave are decent, again with all the caveats about pricing, art quality, etc mentioned earlier, back in 2019. (Actually, I really like Piebald Cave.)

Then you have the Crookies from April. palleteclipse/art/https://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/Skire-Adopts-Freshly-Baked-Goods-CLOSED-911093722

And these sad sacks of shit from February. https://www.deviantart.com/palleteclipse/art/Skire-Adopts-Astronomical-Endeavors-CLOSED-906524345

I used to give Pallet the benefit of a doubt. But after seeing that she can do better than she usually does? I think she doesn’t give a flying fuck, and because her art isn’t 100% there yet, it looks that much worse. She’s the Kandy-Kube of Skire. Some sucker always comes along, so why care?

99% of adopt artists would have redesigned the two Varmints that aren’t selling by now. (Or reduced the price.) But Pallet? Nope. I think she’s nicer than a lot of CS staff, so I used to feel a little bad for her, but now I don’t. She has the capacity and she’s had the time.

bitch has stopped fucking trying and it shows

#design shitting #submission #skire

[feminissdragoness]

Smokin' in School Part 1 - Short Story

I squished my cigarette into the cement block, with the ball of my foot.

            Danny was almost done his, as the gray sky above us gave a big Ka-Boom, in the distance. Matt was standing off to the side, rubbing his arms, with his hands, as goose bumps began to rise on his skin.

            “Jeez, it’s flippin’ cold out here!” Matt said, bitterly, as Danny flicked the butt of his cigarette onto the cement pad, and squished it with his foot.

            “You are quite the complainer,” Danny said, smoothing back his hair with his hand. “Besides, why didn’t you bring a sweater?”

            “Jase didn’t bring a sweater,” Matt argued.

            “Yeah, but I’m always warm. I don’t find it cold out here.” I replied, a grin from ear to ear, across my face.

            “You two are a pain, you know that?” Danny said, rolling his eyes, as his teeth began to chatter.

            Matt and I laughed, as Danny began to rub his arms faster.

            The wind had begun to pick up, and even I was beginning to feel the chill that mother nature brought to the school grounds.

            Smoking was stupid, and I knew that. So were drugs, and alcohol before you were nineteen. Not that I did either of those. I was willing to give smoking a try, but drugs and alcohol were off limits. Even I made that boundary.

            Matt and Danny understood that. And they never tried to push it on me, to come out with them, if they knew for a fact that both-or even one-would be involved.

            Brent on the other hand, was the schools bad boy. He did everything he could get his hands on. And you knew when he was low, or hadn’t had any for a while. He would become a ticking time bomb. Fighting almost everyone in school, and becoming the biggest jerk on the block. A wise ass, yes, sure. That I can live with. A homicidal maniac…I cannot.

            I’m a fairly tough guy. I can generally hold my own in a fight. But I don’t go around picking fights with guys twice my size, unless I’m given no choice. But I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it at school. Brent is. He’s brought bourbon to school, and thought he would get away with it. Hell, that boy invented the words, “hung over” and “happy hour”.

            “C’mon, we should be getting to class. Before the bell rings, and we all get in trouble.” Matt said, putting his pack back in his pocket, along with his lighter, and cell.

            “Yeah,” I said, sucking in the cold, bitter air, that practically froze my lungs. “I don’t want another detention. My father will kill me.”

            “Jase, your father would kill you if he found out you smoked.” Matt said. “Let alone the detention. And God forbid he found out why.”

            “Don’t remind me,” I said. I shook my head, and began to walk back to the school entrance, opening the cold, metal door, and holding it for Matt and Danny.

            Today would be fun. From what I heard, Brent hasn’t had anything serious to get high on, in about three weeks. Today would be a first, if he wasn’t extremely edgy.

            Inside the school, was fairly ordinary. Six rows of six-foot lockers stood straight up, in straight lines. Each painted in a school colour. My locker row was black, Matt’s was red. Danny and I’s lockers were side by side, while Matt was a row over. I twisted my fingers around the dial, finding all three numbers, before pulling it open.

            I grabbed my binder, and my pencil case, as the bell for first, of four periods, rang. Danny looked at me skittishly.

            “Chill, dude, it’s only first bell. You’ve got five minutes to get to class.” I said, shutting my locker door, and firmly putting the lock back on.

#short story #smoking #teen fiction #wattpad #books

[phantom-ellie]

Black Pandather: WaPandas Forever

Challenge: Slowvember 2022 Prompt: Pandas Modern AU: The Art of (Smashing) Crockery by me.

"Which one are you?"

"I'll be that one."

"That one? The other one is cooler."

"Which is which?"

"Fuck if I know mate, I don't mean to sound racist but they all look the same to me." Ed squints into the panda habitat. "Seriously, they could be clones. Clone pandas."

"Ed! Shush! They'll hear you!"

"They don't speak English, mate. If anything, they speak Japanese."

Stede huffs and holds up his phone to take pictures of Ri Ri and Shin Shin... or is it Shin Shin and Ri Ri? Ed has a point. They may be the most popular attraction at the Ueno zoo in Tokyo, but there is still a dearth of labels around to give tourists more info.

Stede nudges Ed with his shoulder and smiles. "I never thought I'd get to see a panda in real life. This is amazing!"

"You think everything in Japan is amazing." Ed chuckles.

"And you don't? Ed, there's actual vegetation here, the foliage is insane! And the flowers! And people actually pick up trash! And the food!"

"Yeah Stede, I noticed you liked the food. I thought the chef at the restaurant was going to clobber you if you said 'oishii desu' one more fuckin' time."

"It's a compliment! It's the only thing I know how to say." Stede pouts, but it isn't a real pout, just one of those fake ones he does because he knows Ed finds it cute.

Ed puts his hands in his pockets. "It's too bad pandas are so bad at having babies. Would be nice to see some baby pandas out and about."

Stede squints at Ed. "Why can't they have babies?"

"I dunno, something about shrinking habitat, the pandas just don't do it with each other. Probably because they look alike, who wants to fuck someone who looks just like you? Narcissists, I bet. I bet pandas aren't narcissists."

Stede crouches down with determination and calls into the habitat.

"Hey, you two! Why don't you get to know each other? Oi! Hey! Hey panda!"

Ed covers his face with his arm, giggling.

"Go and have a chat to that guy! Hey you two... get hot and heavy tonight! See what happens. See what goes down."

"Stop, mate, you're gonna get us kicked out," Ed laughs, pulling Stede into a standing position.

Stede shrugs. "It was worth a shot? I don't seem to have problems getting laid lately, thought they could use some encouragement."

Ed pulls Stede in for a side-hug. His stomach growls.

"Well, this is great and all, but I think I need to get some lunch before the hanger sets in." He looks around for a food stand. Stede tugs on his arm gently.

"Hey, Ed?"

"Yeah, love?"

"Is there another way to say 'delicious' in Japanese?"

"I don't fuckin' know, do I look like I speak-" he jumps as Stede gooses the fuck out of him in public.

"Stede, what was that for-"

"Oishii desu," Stede replies, flinging his sweater over his shoulder and marching off to embarrass Ed in some other way in the near future.

#ofmd fanfic #our flag means death fanfic #ofmd fluff #slowvember #stede x ed #ofmd modern au #modern alternate universe #phantom ellie ofmd #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #ellie modern au #cross posted on ao3 #ellie aosc

[feelingofcontent]

DNP Rewatch: Something we want to tell you!

Date video was published: 01/04/2021 (X)

DNP Main Channel Rewatch: 434

The first true joint video since PINOF 10. When Phil announced Dan as the final Stereo guest (1, 2), it really shouldn’t have been that much of a shock, but I didn’t actually believe he would be until it happened.

0:06 - just seeing Dan’s huge smile in the preview bit... 😭

0:30 -  the ‘afterparty’ show! that one was really fun too. they must have made bank from the first one to do this additional one so quickly, and then to end up planning even more with Stereo

0:38 - the classic Phil hide-the-guest thing

0:43 - Phil immediately looks so happy to have Dan there

1:18 - and Dan has sweater paws right away

1:26 - Phil forgets about looking at the camera a lot in this video and looks more comfortable then in any of the other Stereo shows, even the one with Martyn

1:53 - why did Dan think ‘penis’ was a swear?! Phil does not bleep that usually

2:09 - Phil left in a lot more full-frame clips without the Stereo sidebar in this one than in the other Stereo shows

2:32 - less than ideal circumstances for sure, but this was the first time DNP had ever spent Christmas Day together. and Dan had shared a couple of photos (1, 2) 😭

2:37 - still not over Phil getting Dan this bear jumper. that also goes with the branding of YWGTTN

3:07 - Phil liked the long hair!

3:41 - I had missed Dan’s facial expression reactions so much

3:48 - “Danny” the first of a couple just in this

3:52 - “this is how well I know Phil” Dan is still so proud that he knows Phil the best...Phil trash #1 indeed

4:28 - I remember having bath pearls as a child!

4:40 - why did Dan lick his lips and raise an eyebrow there

5:00 -  Dan is trying so hard to not be amused but failing. it was indeed one of Phil’s draft tweets

5:45 - that does sound exactly like something Phil would do...to be fair, I was wiping down packages with disinfectant too. although not fresh fruit...

6:11 - Phil has no idea where this is going. Dan must have been saving up this story for YEARS

6:16 - ...and then Phil realizes 😂 and the Dan eyebrow raise

6:44 - sees the look on Dan’s face and can’t hold it together

6:50 - oh Phil 😂 I bet when this happened Phil immediately came from getting the delivery at the door and told Dan this story

7:08 - the zoom in on the editing so we can’t miss the “top that...literally” from Dan

8:04 - “lick me” alrighty there Dan...I’m not sure Phil’s made it any better with the goose thing

8:34 - Dan’s exaggerated sad face but then his real one right after...this must have been so hard for Phil

8:48 - even back in April 2020, Dan’s projects were already being shuffled around 😕

9:04 - Phil is so excited for Dan! he wants to spoil things so bad

9:21 - it really seemed like Dan could not wait to get to this announcement. they were so excited!

9:36 - Phil’s smile is so big! 🥺

9:46 - hmmm, Phil talked about this story in The Scary Reason I Didn’t Buy A House, but he made it sound like they were thinking of buying a house to flip, not live in

10:01 - SO long working on the house. but now they’re in it and they seem so happy and any talk of the forever home still just makes me 😭

10:12 - and the first new house picture they showed!

10:34 - still can’t believe their original plan was to both move and come out in the middle of the tour. though I wonder if those two things were somewhat tied together for them, and when they found out they weren’t moving that year, it took off some of the pressure to come out then

10:46 - that is a lot of boxes and not a lot of space to live with for what ended up being 6-ish months

10:52 - ah, candid Dan photo!

11:13 - I’m glad they want their privacy, but I would still love love love to know some of the design decisions they made. I’m with Dan on the reasons for liking house tours

12:17 - Dan’s mind has gone...somewhere 👀

12:22 - Dan had talked about this D&D game in a live show in 2017, actually. minus the gay bit

13:18 - Phil pulling his sleeves down into sweater paws too

13:28 - we still haven’t seen much of the green wall! a bit in some Phil shorts and this picture shortly after they moved in

13:34 - “a desk” way to share something exciting Dan 😂

13:50 - of course Dan was attached to Steve and Scraggy too

14:03 - and apparently they are getting updates from the person who lives there now!

14:23 - they’re not seeing Steve at this point even though they haven’t fully moved, since they were just living in the ‘filming’ flat

14:39 - still don’t know exactly where Dan was going here but it was a lot. pretty sure his general point may have been ‘don’t expect our lives to move that fast’

15:19 - they didn’t announce that Norman had died until later in January, but it’s hard to tell if he was still alive at this point or not

15:44 - “you can’t be afraid to live and love” Dan 😭

15:57 - I can’t believe they almost did this and got a dog! Dog when?! they mentioned dogs so much in 2021, especially towards the end of the year

16:30 - clips from the last moving video 🥺 god every time I think about how many times they’ve moved together and everything I can’t handle it

17:07 - they really were giving all the updates at once here

17:29 - Phil does not want to share his plans! also he definitely almost said “everyone’s more worried about you” but switched it to “wondering”

17:56 - Phil just watching Dan fondly as he talks about all this

18:30 - unplanned segment! good on Phil for coming up with that one

18:40 - I am still obsessed with this clip of Dan dabbing on their balcony. just...why?! neither of them are normal (fond)

19:01 - Dan is just so nice and appreciative in this video

19:20 - Phil editing the “sexy” music over the picture...what even. and then saying “it’s a very sexy pose” 👀

19:29 - still cannot believe they discussed this photo. and Phil cut out some of the discussion for the video! it was even longer in the live show.  I mean, they succeeded with the nipple coverage I guess

19:39 - “this was not a sexy moment” jesus christ this whole bit

20:29 - laughing at them using separate bathrooms in that flat and wondering who had to climb over the boxes down the hallway of the gaming room to get to that one

21:05 - Dan’s reaction to Phil starting a sentence with “we tried to...” right after the pee discussion...WHAT did he think Phil was going to say?! 😳

21:40 - love that Phil included art for this!

21:48 - Dan did not have to do that look there

22:05 - “I like playing video games with you” and the eye contact, help 🥺

22:37 - little did we know we would get two months of “this” very soon!

23:33 - love Phil’s gentle teasing of Dan for this

23:49 - little punches from Phil. he’s excited about this story

24:33 - “Dan ass reveal” is really not a sentence I was expecting 

24:44 - both of them HATE not having full control of things. but Dan looks great with the pink background...do wish we had gotten to see the full jumpsuit though

25:14 - the contradiction of that to literally less than a minute ago when he wanted horny DMs...

25:44 - I can’t believe Phil was there because of pandemic restrictions and everything, but he’s telling this bit of the story as if he was

26:44 - that was hilarious that the had to take off the logo in that photo

27:03 - I’m so sad for Dan and for us that we still haven’t gotten this content, whatever it is

27:36 - oh Phil 🙁 he looks so disappointed talking about this. I want to see a creative solo Phil project so much!

28:20 - I’m so glad Dan at least fixed it a bit after that disaster. I would have loved to have seen Dan’s reaction to seeing it after that

28:53 - “crisis twink” Phil era when?!

29:29 - “in the Dan and Phil house” is so casual but so much

29:32 - Phil’s face as Dan puts his arm behind him...Phil definitely thought he was doing something other than fixing the cushion

30:00 - “it’s not suitable for YouTube” christ, Phil

30:10 - YouTube content, tour?, book!

30:42 - the seem to have such fond memoires of TABINOF and TATINOF

31:10 - Dan smiling so fondly at Phil doing promo for him...and the start of the majority of Dan’s 2021 promo of things being in videos on Phil’s channel 😂

31:14 - and a “this guy”

32:29 - Phil is so excited about that too! him saying “I’m the first person to read it” has the same proud energy of Dan saying “this is how well I know Phil” towards the start of this video

33:36 - “I’m hyped for you Danny” 🥺

34:13 - the full audio version is also available on YouTube thanks to In Depth Bants! (they did have some audio issues at the start since they were sitting right next to each other, but they fixed it fairly quickly)

It was just so nice to see them on camera together again. And for them to want to tell us this big news about their lives. 🥺 I don’t rewatch this video as much as the other joint videos from 2021, but it still makes me so happy.

The live show was on December 29, but it took Phil a bit of time to edit and post this one (likely because of the audio issues at the beginning). In between there, for New Year’s, they had a quiet evening at home, apparently including texting memes to each other.

#dan and phil #dnp #dnpRewatch #amazingphil #daniel howell #phil lester #danisnotonfire #amazingphil videos #Something we want to tell you!

[mercy-burning]

To Be Near

Part of Mercy’s 1k Celebration: A collection of Spencer Reid x Reader requests to celebrate 1,000 followers.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader

Summary: It’s Spencer and Reader’s first night together since he got out of prison.

Category: FLUFF/SMUT (18+), and a ‘lil bit of angst in there too (it’s mostly just kinda sad tbh)

Warnings: Mild language, Smut (oral sex- female receiving, penetrative sex, unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk)

Word Count: 4.9k

Full Requests:

+ “...ahhh okay what about like a fluff&smut about seeing spencer after he got out of prison? like he’s all soft and “i wanna make love to you” ???” — @shatteredlovesick 

+ “...First, congratulations on 1k! absolutely loved you “I’ve Got You” fic and was wondering if you could make something similar that has fluffy smut.” — @onesstop 

MASTERLIST | 1K MASTERLIST

***

Usually you loved the cold. Feeling the cool breeze on your face and cuddling up with blankets and cardigans and sweaters was just about the most comforting feeling in the world.

But no amount of blankets and cardigans and sweaters could have shaken the devastating chill that settled in your bones when Spencer was gone. And wearing his clothes only strengthened the loneliness that plagued you. It was a blaring reminder that he was spending his days actually behind bars and not with you, cuddled on the couch like you'd done a million times over. Like he should have been.

Sure enough, about a week went by and you barely saw him. The first time you'd seen him since he was released from prison was brief, right before he had to go back to work to get his mom back and safe to him. You held him close, breathing in as much of him as you could before he would be ripped away from you again, making sure he knew just how much you loved him and cared for him.

And what added salt to injury was the fact that even after he was released, he was incredibly busy. It seemed like bad thing after bad thing just kept happening, like a domino effect of evil that left you feeling colder. Because now you were plain scared. And alone.

Penelope was kind enough to text you with updates, and even though Spencer might have been physically okay, you knew that all of this stress and constant danger was probably eating away at him from the inside.

Eventually he'd called to let you know that everything was okay again, he and his mom on their way to a motel to recuperate in for a little while. Hearing his weary voice, broken and completely drenched in exhaustion was the only thing that kept you from begging him to come home to you— As much as you desperately needed him, wanted to comfort him, you knew that he needed time alone with his mom. So yet again, you'd told him how much you loved him and held on to the way he said it back, his soft voice humming low in your heart long after he hung up.

He texted you occasionally, little updates to let you know he was okay. And he rarely ever texted at all. Whenever he did it made your heart sing, seeing his naively adorable attempts at using emoticons coupled together with declarations of love or sometimes even stupid little jokes designed to put a smile on your face. You liked to imagine he sent them so he could picture your laugh in his mind, ringing out softly and sweetly as he read back your usual Lol, I love you, silly goose, or something along those lines.

When you finally did see him face-to-face again, it was days later. He briefly mentioned over text that his team was in trouble, but that it would be taken care of and that his mom was safe somewhere. Again your stomach twisted with nerves, hoping and praying that he would come back to you safely. It was always a possibility with his job that something bad would happen, as you've unfortunately witnessed a few times over, but the so-called comfort in knowing that truth didn't help ease your anxieties at all. Maybe they had once upon a time, but after the last few months, and even the last few days, you weren't sure you'd ever know true comfort until Spencer was safely in your arms for eternity.

He'd texted to say he was on his way over in the early morning, and your heart skipped several beats. And in attempt to make yourself look less disheveled and sleep-deprived, you put on a clean pair of clothes—sweats and a tank top with one of Spencer's cardigans—and brushed your hair. To make it all feel a little more real, you splashed cool water on your face and rubbed at your eyes to wake yourself up a bit.

You were patiently sitting on the couch, two warm cups of tea laid out in front of you on the low table when there was a knock on your door, followed by a soft, "It's me," ad you were to the door in an instant.

As always, the sight of him drove you half wild. He looked exhausted, his hair particularly messy and his clothing hung loosely around him. His eyes softened when he saw you, like he was finally in the one place he truly wanted to be, like he was home, and the sight of his bottom lip wobbling every so slightly was enough to have you pull him inside by the shirt and into your arms.

The bag slung over his shoulder dropped with a heavy thud to the ground, and both of his arms snuck to the back of your waist as you leaned up on your tip-toes and squeezed yourself into his body. Your arms clung to his neck, and the big sigh of relief that you felt leave his body utterly wrecked you.

The door to your apartment remained wide open as you stood there in the doorway and hugged each other, silently reuniting in a way that conveyed exhaustion and relief and comfort. There was a tinge of sadness there, too, and you knew it most likely stemmed from the self-deprecation you'd come to know Spencer was prone to. After all he'd been through in the past few months, you knew in your gut that feeling would most likely be very strong in his heart.

So you did your best to quell it, shoving your face further into his neck and running your hands through his hair as he squeezed you tight. Your heart pulled apart at the seams at the way he shook against you, low, shaky breaths that you knew to be cries expelling from his system at last. Deep down it was obvious that he hadn't taken the time to let it all out... Now that he was there with you, safe and out of harm's way, he had the freedom to let go in any way he chose, any way that would be easiest without any judgement or shame.

With you, Spencer was well and truly safe.

"I've got you," you breathed into his neck, your fingers gently massaging the back of his head. "I love you.

He tried to say it back, but when his throat willed to finally make a sound, all that came out was a choked sob.

You held him tighter and let him cry against you, his body going half-limp in your arms.

***

By the time Spencer had finished crying enough for you to move inside, drink your tea in silence, take a well-needed and soothing shower together, and get into bed, it was only noon. He was snuggled into your side, his head resting on your chest as you combed through his damp curls with your fingers. His own fingers drew mindless patterns over the expanse of your stomach, his whole hand shoved up under your shirt and basking in the warmth you provided.

"I don't know about you, but I'm getting kinda hungry," you mumbled loud enough for him to hear. You'd been in silence for so long now, it almost felt too loud, even though you barely used your voice at all.

"I'd ask you to make your mac and cheese, but I don't want to leave the bed... I don't want to leave you."

You laughed a little, his head slightly bobbing at the motion. "I can order some Thai if you want. It won't be here for another half hour maybe, and we can stay in bed a little while longer."

"Okay."

You reached over to your bedside table, grabbing your phone and placing an order for delivery from your favorite Thai place. Just the thought of the food, saying the words out loud and feeling Spencer mutter soft Mmms into your skin at the thought of food made your stomach growl. You honestly weren't sure how long it'd been since you ate anything substantial, and Spencer was probably in the same boat.

Just as you promised, the both of you laid in bed for around thirty-five minutes before the food got there. He grumbled as you got up to answer the door, but you promised him you wouldn't be long and that after eating, you could stay in bed as long as you wanted to.

And that's what you did. You tried your hardest not to scarf everything down, not truly realizing just how hungry you were until the food was right in front of you, smelling as delicious as ever and ready to be consumed.

Spencer sat across from you at the table, though it was obvious in the way he kept looking up at you that all he wanted was to be touching you, to be enveloped in your warmth again. Your heart ached for him as you set your fork down and scooped more of the food onto it. Hoping to somewhat satiate his need to be near you, you reached your leg out under the table, dragging your bare foot over his calf. He smiled softly at you, his entire body seeming to relax again at your touch.

For the next ten minutes you ate in comfortable silence, your foot gently sliding up ad down his lower leg.

And when you were both finally done, he clung to you as you navigated the kitchen, throwing out garbage, putting dishes in the sink, and boxing up leftovers. His arms wrapped around your stomach as he stood behind you, his head resting on your shoulder and his hair tickling your cheek.

At one point you brought one of your hands up to brush his cheek, and your head careened to the side to give him a small kiss on the corner of the mouth. His hands slipped under your shirt then, fingers spreading and engulfing the surface area of your lower stomach. Their gentleness and warmth made you sigh as you slumped back against him, using your hand to cup his cheek as best as you could.

"I missed you so much, baby," you whispered, your thumb lightly stroking his bottom lip. Your wrist was cramping a little from the angle, but you didn't care.

Spencer leaned into your palm and kissed it gently, mumbling, "I missed you, too, sweetheart."

The relief and comfort that seeped out of his words made your heart swell, so much so that you couldn't stand it any longer. You turned around and hugged him again, your arms wrapping around his neck as his pressed firmly to your lower back. You squeezed him tight, peppering tiny kisses along his neck and shoulder blade. Eventually your kisses shifted along his jaw, then his cheek, and then you pressed the gentlest of kisses to his lips before moving to the other side and continuing your adventure along the other side of his neck.

He always loved when you kissed him like that, softly praising every inch of his skin through gentle lips and whispered I love yous in between.

You pulled back for a moment, smiling softly at him as your fingers interlocked behind his head, just at the nape of his neck.

"I... I don't know what I did to deserve you," he said with a slight crack in his voice. "I constantly put you through danger and worry, a—and somehow you still... still manage to make me feel like I deserve your love."

Your throat tightened, threatening to spill choked sobs. But you swallowed and pushed through, one of your hands sliding down over his neck and up to his cheek again. "Spencer, ever since I met you, all you've done is shower me with unconditional love and understanding. You... You teach me new things and you have this natural habit of making me feel like the only woman in the world. Every day, you show me how much you care about other people, and at the end of the day, that's all that matters. It's... The bad days are hard, sure, but when I see your face for the first time in days, sometimes weeks? God... Spencer, there's nothing that compares to that feeling."

You were teary-eyed now, and Spencer was full-on silently crying, tears streaming down his cheeks, and you wiped them all away as you spoke to him.

"So yes, of course you deserve my love... You deserve every ounce of love the world has to offer."

You leaned up and kissed him then, tasting the faint saltiness of tears combined with the food you'd just eaten. If it meant seeing him smile, making him feel comfort and love, you would have kissed away all his tears.

And you were going to, moving to pepper more kisses along his cheeks where the water had fallen, but he brought his hands to your face and kissed you deeper, his body sinking into yours and daring you to never leave him.

You wouldn't, as long as you lived.

You stood higher on your tip-toes and clung to his neck as he kissed you, lips sliding over yours perfectly. And though everything about the way he kissed you was a declaration of love and gratitude for your affections and undying support, you'd have be lying if you said your belly didn't pool with a low-burning heat, reminiscent of a pot of boiling water. His hands on your face, the way his thumbs brushed over your cheek and his tongue barely probed your lips open, all of it was more than enough to make you dizzy.

Eventually he moved to kiss your jaw, goosebumps forming over your skin as he whispered against you. "I love you so much, Y/N..." His lips pressed to your neck. "So..." Your jawline. "...damn..." Under your ear. "...much..."

You couldn't help the choked whimper that fell from your lips as he gently nibbled on your earlobe, right before he spoke again. His hands slid down over your arms and interlocked themselves with yours, his breath hot next to your ear. "Let me show you... Please..." He started kissing your neck again, just as one of his hands migrated to the hem of your shirt, slipping under the fabric and tracing featherlight lines into your side. You whined again as he mumbled against your neck.

"Let me make love to you..."

Those six simple words were more than enough to push you off the edge, unable to take any more of this low-boiling heat in your stomach. You hummed low in your throat as your hands grabbed his wrists and placed them at your hips, daring them to firmly grip you— And they did. Spencer's lips dragged up your neck before finding your lips once more, and the whine that escaped you was nothing if not desperate.

He continued kissing you all the way back to your bedroom. Once your legs it the end of the bed, you buckled and sat down, too weak in the knees to stay upright any longer. He wasn't rough with you in the slightest, his lips still passionate but oh so slow and intoxicating, like sweet, thick honey. That alone made your limbs weak and your heartbeat as quick and loud as a drum roll. His hands roamed carefully over your body, up and under your shirt, over your arms, every so lightly between your thighs as he slipped between them to lay you down.

And once you were leaned all the way back, he brought his hands to your face, caressing your cheek the same way you'd caressed his.

He pulled back, looking into your eyes with his, their golden color almost completely swallowed by his pupils. His breath fanned gently over your mouth, and you smiled, resting one of your hands atop his on your cheek. You leaned into his touch and wrapped your legs around his waist, drawing him near and hoping you could stay with him forever.

"I love you," you whispered.

He leaned down and kissed you again, mumbling, "I love you," into your mouth as he did so. His lips migrated down your skin again, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses all over. "I missed you... Missed your warmth..."

He shifted down your body then, his kisses starting up again at your stomach where your shirt had ridden up. When his tongue licked a thin stripe across your lower stomach, you whimpered and trembled underneath him, feeling wetness already dampening your panties. He laughed against your skin, pressing another kiss to your stomach. "Missed all your little whimpers..." He slid downwards, trailing his fingers along the waistband of your pants before slowly tugging them down, his lips following the trail through each new centimeter of exposed skin. "...and how squirmy you get when I touch you like this..."

Your pants were off quicker than you thought, but he left your underwear on as he kissed up your legs, starting at your ankle and slowly making his way up to your thighs. Your hands fisted the sheets when his breath blew out over the crease of your thigh, eliciting another desperate whine from your throat. And though it was hard to hear over the blood rushing in your ears, thrumming nearly as loudly as your heart, you were still able to hear Spencer's low laugh at your reaction, a sound that made you even wetter.

"I missed teasing you like this," he continued, running his middle finger over your opening through the thin panties you had on. You squirmed again, hips jolting at his touch— a touch you hadn't felt in months. You were utterly wrecked, and he barely even did anything to you, a fact he picked up on pretty quickly.

"You missed it, too, haven't you, sweetheart? Hmm?" His finger pressed harder into you, no doubt feeling how wet, how warm and ready for him you were. "My poor, pretty girl, haven't been touched in months. It must have been so lonely..." Though his words were teasing, a means to get you hot and bothered, there was also an underlying tone of truth to them— of this aching pity and sadness and regret... His words were apologetic as much as they were teasing, and everything all at once was making you ache for him more.

"Y—Yes, baby," you choked out as best as you could, opening your eyes to see how thoroughly wrecked he was. "Fuck, I missed you so much... No... No one touches me li—ike you do."

"I'm so sorry for leaving you all alone, baby," he whispers, kissing your thighs once more before moving to where you were already craving his full attention. "Let me make it up to you..."

He replaced his finger with his tongue, warm and wet as it firmly pressed over your clothed cunt. A loud sigh escaped you as he kept it pressed there, ever so slightly curling the tip of it to reach further inside you. He pulled back after a few moments, pressing kiss after kiss all around the seams of your underwear until he reached your center again. He tugged the fabric down until it was off, kissing up your leg again.

"I can't wait to get reacquainted..." His lips moved softly against the skin on your inner thighs, moving closer to where you ached for him with every passing second. And then his face was right there, millimeters away from it when he spoke, his lips ever so lightly dancing over the slick flesh. "...with this pretty little pussy."

When his tongue darted out, you shattered beneath him immediately. It was only the tiniest of touches, the very tip of his tongue coming in contact just below your clit, and still it was enough to ruin you. Among the many lonely nights you'd had over the course of the last few months, you were met with dreams of this exact moment, Spencer's head between your legs as he unraveled you, and it always left you feeling even more lonely when you woke up.

But this was no dream. He was really there, in front of you, making up for lost time. And that's what made you lose control.

He kitten-licked your clit through your first orgasm of the night, and as you came down, you couldn't help but feel embarrassed at how quickly it took for you to fall apart.

"Oh, sweetheart... That was so damn beautiful." He brought his tongue out to lick through your folds again, humming lowly in he back of his throat. You watched him intently, trying not to shake, and noticed his eyes roll into the back of his head with a flutter as he delved further into you. The sight, accompanied by his tongue now plunging itself into you, made you cry out, your head hitting the bed and your hands clenching the sheets even harder.

He reacquainted himself with your pussy just fine, spending almost an hour alone exploring every way to make you come as if he'd never done it before. Each time you came down, he'd pull away and start off slow again, gently probing his fingers inside of you while his tongue massaged your clit every which way. It was like pure velvet, each stroke of his tongue and each curl of his fingers inside of you causing you to crash and burn over and over again. In between your high-pitched moans and cries, Spencer would occasionally mumble words of praise against your skin, a particular favorite of yours being the, "Perfect fucking cunt, princess..." right before gently sucking at your clit.

By the time he was finished, your three slow-building orgasms and the one quick one under his belt, his hair was absolutely wild as he looked up at you. He moved up your body, the wetness on his face glistening in the sunlight that poured through the bedroom window, and the hungry look in his eyes dissolved into absolute adoration and wonder as he took in your appearance.

Your mouth was partway open, your middle finger tucked between your teeth as you recovered from your highs. Sweat glittered over your brow and your chest heaved deeply, a smile forming on your lips when he bit his bottom lip and studied you.

"You sure you're okay to keep going?" he asked you gently, using a thumb to brush over your cheek.

The deep rasp in his voice after having been... occupied for the past hour sent a wave of pleasure coursing through your veins. So you nodded, removing your finger from your mouth and bringing his face down to meet yours in a deep, loving kiss that had you both weak in the knees.

You slid up to the head of the bed, your legs resting wide open as Spencer removed himself of his clothes. You rid your shirt as well, the two of you never losing eye contact as you bared yourselves to each other for the first time in months. The air between you two was utterly electric, all this time apart coming to an end at last. Your bodies practically buzzed with the nearness, your veins going numb each time he brushed up against you as he settled out of his clothes and in between your legs.

When he leaned forward, the head of his cock gliding up through your folds to ready himself, you sighed out, reaching up to grab his face with both of your hands. Your fingers gently brushed away stray strands of hair from his eyes, and you smiled, hoping to convey to him just how much you truly loved him. Sure enough, his eyes softened once again under your gaze, and mostly, almost entirely gone was the insecurity and sorrow that had plagued them.

"I love you, Spencer," you told him, bringing his face down so your noses were touching. You brushed your nose against his and then pressed a gentle kiss to it, right as he started to push into you. You captured each others' shaky, relieved sighs as he bottomed out, holding himself deep inside you and pulling your legs up to wrap around his arms. Your tongue licked up into his mouth as you whined, already so relieved to have him in your arms (and quite frankly your pussy) once again.

He started to move ever so slowly, never fully retreating all the way before pressing his hips back into yours, and the groan that left his throat as he felt you clamping around him wrecked you all all over again. "So tight and warm," he mused softly against your lips, accepting and returning every kiss you gave him as he continued a slow, searing pace inside of you. "I've missed you so much, pretty girl... Dreamt... about you almost every night..."

"Me, too," you admitted, softly moaning out at the burning between your legs. "Missed... feeling you inside me. You always... Ohhh... always f—fill me up so g—good." Pressure was already building between your hips again, threatening to pop like a balloon at any given moment. But you wanted to hold on, to revel in this moment as long as you could.

Your hands grazed over his shoulders, lightly digging your nails into the skin as he drove into you a little harder. His pace was still tantalizingly slow, though the force with which he showed you how much he loved you, accented with a sharp, loud slap of skin each time, more than made up for it.

It didn't help that you could hear how wet you were with each movement, how aroused he made you and how loved he made you feel. It was something he obviously knew, but being able to hear it, every wet and delicious sound that came from your body as he made love to you like that, praised him better than any words could possibly dream.

Still, he asked you anyway, a means of dirty talk if nothing else. "You hear that, princess? You hear how good I make you feel?"

You buried your face into his neck, incoherently moaning and grumbling out curses as he shifted his hips and angled himself deeper inside you. Your legs were burning from being bent and wrapped around his arms, but somehow that burn only added to the pressure building in your belly. You couldn't help clenching around him, an action which made him groan into your neck.

"Go ahead and come for me, pretty girl," he stuttered out. "I... I know you have to. Let go for me... Give me all you got..."

His words, strained and raspy, coupled with hot kisses to your neck certainly helped you get there, but you wanted more. "But I want you to come with me," you whimpered out, clutching onto his shoulders. "I wanna... be... together again."

To help him out, you clenched around him over and over, giving him a tighter space to work with, and a guttural groan escaped him as his hips started to stutter. "Together..." is all he could coherently get out.

As soon as the word left his lips, you both shattered, trembling and sparking to life with pleasure. He spilled over inside of you, white hot and thick. It was a feeling you missed dearly, the dreams of it never able to fully satiate your need for him. In turn your walls fluttered around him and you whined into his shoulder, bringing your hands up to grip his hair as his cock twitched inside of you and gave you everything he had to offer. You clung to the feeling as long as you could, rolling your hips up to keep it all in and ride out your high to the fullest extent.

In fact, you were pretty sure that even by the end, when he'd slumped over on top of you and loosened your legs, you were still orgasming, a low burn settling in your stomach as you kept clenching around him, almost like you were trying to drink him up into you like a milkshake through straw.

"B—Baby, I'm gonna... come again if you keep that up," Spencer stuttered, his hands combing through your hair now as his lips pressed into your neck.

You only hummed in response, wrapping your legs around his waist and hooking your ankles over his ass. You kept contracting slowly around him, rolling your hips upwards, even as his warm cum started to spill out of you. Soon enough, he was doing it again, filling you up with warmth and love, his mouth open and hot on the skin of your neck as he did so, muttering your name over and over.

Eventually you loosened your hold on him, every muscle in your body relaxing and falling to the bed with a low tingle of numbness. With Spencer kissing softly over your neck and up to your mouth, you were the most content you'd been in months.

You must have stayed in bed for hours, even though he tried to tell you that you should probably clean up. You only grumbled in response, holding him tighter to you and burying your face into his neck. Still, he laid there, rubbing your head and clinging to you anyways, finally glad to be home.

And even though you were technically home, it never really felt that way when he was gone— To be home was to be near him. And you never wanted to leave his side again, even though realistically you knew you'd need to be separated eventually.

But for now, you could be near him like he was never going to leave, reveling in the warmth and comfort that his arms provided.

And with you he could do the same.

***

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#mercy 1k celebration #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds #spencer reid #criminal minds fanfiction

[miekasa]

break up with your boyfriend, i’m bored

+ pairings: um… armin x reader…. but, spotlight on jean—just... read it to understand, please

+ genres and warnings: college au what’s new, fluff… you’re just going to have to work with me and trust me on this one alright

+ notes: free colt he ain’t do nothing wrong i just needed someone outside of their immediate friend group to blame i am so sorry justice for my boy colt and falco too

+ more notes: longer levi fic still in progress, so have jean thee comedian in the meantime

“I think I have a crush on someone.”

Jean crosses his arms and makes it a point to huff even louder than before so that you can accurately assess his annoyance at moment; going so far as to slump back into your not so comfortable couch to really sell it.

“And that is why you manhandled me all the way to your apartment on a Tuesday afternoon?” he asks, voice flat and eyes hooded.

You groan and roll your eyes. Jean’s eyebrows are pinched together with more judgement than confusion at your current state of distress when you sit next to him on the sofa, a knee bent in his direction.

“Jeanie, I don’t think you’re understanding the severity of my issue.”

“You’re right, I’m not,” he drawls, “But, please, do enlighten me. It’s not like I have an essay to write or anything.”

“I have a crush,” you reiterate, hands mapping out every syllable in your sentence, “On someone who is not my boyfriend.”

“I see,” he nods, but his voice remains flat, “And, pray tell, what exactly is my role in all of this?”

“You’re supposed to use your philosophical psychoanalytical bullshit to tell me what’s wrong with me and how to fix it.”

“Philosophy and psychology are two different disciplines.”

“They sound the same to me.”

“That’s because you’re a single-celled chem major.”

“I think it takes more than a single cell to study chem.”

“Oh, is that what they tell you guys, now?”

“You’re not fucking helping.”

“Yes, I am,” he tuts, “It’s called talk therapy.”

“It sounds like you’re just taking shots at me.”

“Best friend talk therapy allows for a few digs here and there.”

“Jean,” you pinch his arm. He flinches, and yelps loudly, immediately raising the affected arm to counter with a flick to the center of your forehead. You glare, the palm of your left hand covering the sting on your skin, but concede, “Well played.”

“Thank you,” he nods, “I learned from the best.”

“Okay, now that you’ve gotten your ego boost for the day, can we worry about my problem, please.”

He shrugs, crossing resting his left ankle atop his right knee, “Sure.”

“Thank you.”

“What exactly is the problem, again?”

You sigh, and lean your head on Jean’s shoulder, “I have a boyfriend—”

“We’ve been over that.”

“—and the person I have a crush on is not my boyfriend.”

“Okay,” he pauses, “Are you going to do anything about this crush?”

“Well, I… no,” you ponder, “I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” he repeats, “So, then why are you so worked up about it?”

“Because!... Because… I don’t know, it’s… wrong? I’m in a relationship with someone else—isn’t this, like, emotional cheating?”

“Maybe,” he says, “I don’t know a whole lot about relationship psychology.”

“Come on, Jean.”

He sighs, “I’m serious, I don’t know, (_____).”

You whine, sounds muffled by the fabric of Jean’s sweater where your cheek lay pressed against his shoulder. “I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?”

“You’re not, stop it,” Jean answers firmly, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, “You’re not horrible for having emotions that are difficult to work through.”

“Okay, then, I’m just a horrible girlfriend.”

“Maybe.”

“Jean.”

“Sorry,” he winces, patting your head for extra encouragement. It’s meant to be comforting, but it makes you feel like a patronized six-year-old, at best. It’s quiet for a while, with you mulling over Jean’s words, and him trying to pull you into the worst side hug in all of existence.

“Do you think,” you break the silence, “Maybe I should I break up with him?”

“Yes,” his answer comes too quickly, and much too enthusiastically.

You lift your head from his shoulder, unamused, but Jean doesn’t even try to hide the glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like him.”

“No,” he pauses when he catches glimpse of the disbelief on your face, “Okay, yes, I don’t like him. At all.”

“Jean—”

“But maybe this is your subconscious telling you that you don’t like him either, and that you should, instead, go after your crush.”

“Oh, so now you want to use your psychobullshit on me?”

“If it means I don’t have to pretend to like Colt anymore, then yes,” he replies, a stupid, shit-eating grin on his lips.

You scoff, arms crossed against your chest, “You don’t even pretend to like him now.”

Jean shrugs, “I pretend to like him to his face.”

“No, you don’t,” you insist, “You’re probably the worst at it, in fact.”

“I’m not worse than Connie.”

“You called him an asshole. To his face.”

“Connie poured tequila on him.”

“Connie was drunk. You were completely sober.”

“Connie would have done it sober and you know it.”

You open your mouth to refuse, but the words fall silent in your throat. Connie probably would have done it sober. “Okay, fine, whatever, you don’t like him,” you wave away the subject, “Do you really think this crush is my subconscious telling me to break up with him, though? I mean—it’s just, crushes are kind of fleeting right?”

“Sure, but—”

“What if I break up with him, and then I get over my crush, and realize I made a mistake.”

“Then you learn and grow, and find a new crush.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I,” he insists, “You’re beating yourself up pretty bad over this mystery guy—”

“—It could be a girl.”

“Is it a girl? Oh, is it Mikasa? Are you still hung up over her—you know I’m sure she’d make out with you asked. I think you both could relieve a lot of tension that way, actually.”

“You’re the worst person to walk this planet, you know that?” you sneer, annoyed by the smug grin on Jean’s face. So what if you had a tiny crush on Mikasa? Most people did, Jean included.

“Look,” Jean continues, “You and I both know you’re not a cheater, but you and I also know you’re just like Eren when it comes to things like this.”

“Just like Eren?”

“Falls too fast, too hard,” he clarifies, “I get the feeling you’ve had these feelings for a while, and that they’re not fleeting.”

You pout, and Jean knows that he’s right. “Okay, so say I do break up with Colt—”

“Which you should do, regardless.”

“—If we break up, then what? I still won’t know what to do with my left over grief. It’s not like I can just... go ask this guy out right away.”

“Yes, you can,” Jean presses, “In fact, you should.”

“No, I can’t,” you insist.

“Why not?”

“Well for one, I’ll look like a heartless whore.”

“You’re not a heartless whore for asking a guy out.”

“I am if I do it right after breaking up with my boyfriend.”

“Your internalized misogyny is showing,” he sing-songs, “Come on, you’re not a whore for doing what you want with a guy, you know that.”

“Okay, fine, not a whore, whatever,” you roll your eyes, “But I still couldn’t ask him out.”

“It’s the twenty first century, just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you can’t ask him—”

“Not because of that, dumb goose,” you glare, “I meant because—it’s, well, it’d be really sudden and kind of… awkward?”

“It’s not like he’d know you just broke up with someone, unless that’s one of your conversation starters.”

You sigh, a hand on your forehead. “Yes, he would, Jean.”

“How could he possibly—oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” you mock, a heavy sigh leaving your chest as you resume your previous sulking position, head leaning against his shoulder with your right cheek squished against his sweater.

“(_____), I’m honored, but you’re not really my type. I’d be willing to help you get over him though.”

“It’s not you, you fucking long-necked pigeon, it’s Arm—,” you cut yourself short, hands clamped over your own mouth.

“Oh my god!” Jean all but screams, propelling his body away from you with just enough distance to extend his arm, finger pointing directly at your chest, “You like Armin!”

“Shut up!”

“You have a crush on Armin!”

“Shut up, Jean!”

“You have a big, fat crush on Armin!”

“Shut up! I said shut up, you pasty fucking giraffe looking ass bitch!”

“Oh my—okay, you have to break up with Colt, immediately,” Jean rushes, “I can’t believe this—if you think Armin wouldn’t go out with you, then you really do have the intelligence of a single celled organism.”

“What in the ever loving fuck are you talking about.”

“We’re talking about the same Armin, right? Armin Arlert, about this tall,” Jean raises his hand significantly lower than Armin’s actual height, “Studies astrophysics, follows you around like a lap dog—”

“He does not,” you scoff.

Jean guffaws, “Didn’t he take you on a tour of, like… the NASA museum for your birthday? With the super high-tech planetarium that people die to get into?”  

“Actually, it was their headquarters, but it’s only because he gets special privileges for being an intern.”

“Didn’t he name a star after you?”

“Anyone can name a star after anyone,” you roll your eyes, “It’s really not that hard.”

“People do not fucking go to NASA and ask for stars for just anyone!” Jean screeches, hands flailing wildly.

“Armin does!”

“Yeah, for you!” Jean emphasizes, “Come on, do you think if anybody else called him right now and asked him to get a star in their name, or even just fucking take them to headquarters of the most renowned space organization in the country, that he would actually do it?”

“I mean, maybe, if like… Eren asked.”

Jean opens his mouth to refute, but freezes half way with a head-tilt and pursed lips. “Okay, yeah, maybe—whatever, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to tell him.”

“I don’t need to tell him shit.”

“You’re seriously choosing Colt over Armin? Who willingly stays with some greasy prick with the world’s most annoying younger brother, over a handsome, straight-A astrophysics student with a penchant for marine biology, and, like, really clear skin.”

“Oh, wow. I didn’t know Bertholdt was studying astro.”

“I wasn’t talking about Bertholdt.”

“It sounded like you were talking about Bertholdt.”

“I mean, Bertholdt’s got great skin, but it’s no where near as clear as Armin’s. He glows.”

It’s quiet again, as you eye Jean with a raised brow that’s all too familiar. “Are we sure that you’re not the one with the crush on Armin?”

“Shut up, you’re avoiding the point.”

“What’s the point, exactly?”

“That you’re in love with Armin, who is miles better than your current boy toy, so you should ask him out immediately.”

“I have a boyfriend, not a boy toy.”

“Ah ha!” he yells, “You didn’t deny that you’re in love with him—oh my god, you’re in love with Armin!”

He’s standing now, practically bouncing off the the walls at the revelation. You take to smacking him with the nearest pillow. “I’m not in love with him! I just—just really like him, okay!”

“Very convincing.”

“Shut the hell up, you’ve been pining after you know who for seven eons at this point.”

“You bitch,” he growls, “We’re not supposed to bring him up.”

“Well, you keep bringing up Armin!”

“We never established that Armin was on the list of he’s who shall not be named.”

“Well I vote that he should be.”

“Your vote has been vetoed,” he grins, “Look, I’m completely serious when I say that Armin is just as in love with you as you deny you are with him.”

“That sentence hurt my head,” you pout, resuming your signature brooding position.

“It’s okay, your single brain cell has been through a lot in the past fifteen minutes,” he pats your head again, earning him a glare that he simply chuckles at, “All it means is that you love Armin, and I assure you that he’s equally, if not more, in love with you.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so. Now, up, up, up,” he tuts, pulling at your biceps until you’re standing, only to immediately start ushering you to the door, “You have a shitty boyfriend to go break up with.”

“What—Jean, come on, I didn’t mean right now!” you exclaim; but he’s stronger than he looks, and continues to propel your body out of the open door.

“No time to waste!” he insists, “Every hour you stay with Colt you lose another brain cell.”

“I thought I only had one to begin with,” you say, sarcasm evident in your tone.

It makes Jean’s grin triple, “Exactly, so go, not another hour to waste!”

“Jean, wait, I—,” you begin, only to be silenced by the silver door shutting in your face. The lock clicks soon after, and it’s only then you realized what he’s done.

“You knobby kneed bitch, this is my apartment!”

#aot x reader #snk x reader #jean x reader #jean kirstein x reader #armin x reader #armin arlet x reader #jean smut #eren smut #armin smut #eren x reader #aot imagines #snk imagines

[jawllines]

“You’re really gonna go in there?” Y/N queries gently, and Harry only nods his head in response, reaching for the door handle. An urgent, delicate touch of Y/N’s hand startles him, looping around his wrist and dragging his attention toward her, “Shouldn’t we have a game plan if something is behind the door?” She asks, her hold on him tightening just a little, and Harry notes how soft her palm feels against his skin, “Like, let’s say we open the door and a behemoth is standing there, what do we do?”

“The only behemoth that could fit in this tiny room is the band from Poland, Babe, and I reckon they have better things to do on a Thursday night,” he retorts, clenching around the knob and tilting it down, “Now unless you want to hold hands in there. . .”

She lets go before he can finish, and he doesn’t have to look back at her face to know she’s irate. A small smile quirks at his mouth as he pushes his shoulder against the heavy door to aid him opening it, bracing himself to see something potentially horrid. . .

And there’s nothing.

or

Harry and Y/N are witches, they hate each other, and something’s coming

19K+ words

(A/N: Hiii!! So, I’ll be honest I know absolutely nothing about real witches at all, so what is in this story is not fact! it’s just an AU and doesn’t speak toward any of my real witches out there unless i accidentally got some things right. Happy reading, I really liked writing these guys I hope you like them just as much!!)

i.

It was dark. 

Both in the state of the sky and the feeling that slithered through Y/N’s body while she tended to the Brugmansia finally flowering in her garden. The shift in the air could have easily been inculpated by the cool breeze that blew past her face, shepherding clouds thick and heavy with autumn rain, but Y/N knew better than that. Those feelings typically bring her peace; the rattle of thunder soothes her aching bones while fat drops paint the pavement, wet the dirt to mud, and feed the drying grass.

This feeling made her bones rattle. It crawled beneath her skin like billions of tiny beetles unearthed within her vessels; her stomach churned, her shoulders were weighed down, there was a gnawing pain at her temples, so fierce she held her hand to them. The cold brass of her ring cools her heated skin. This feeling was vile, it was awful, for fuck sake what was causing it? 

She stood from her crouched position and slid back into her store. Technically, she’d closed about three hours prior so she should have been home well by now, but when she’d finally gathered her things in her duffle at 12, she looked out the back window and noticed some of her moonflowers had begun to bloom. There was a small part of her that had been reluctant to step outside at all, but she needed to greet them and water them, no matter the odd, unfamiliar troubling sense that had initially confused her. She ignored it -- she thought maybe she was just nervous to say hi to them, sometimes she was. 

(Flowers and plants hold a special connection with their caretaker, from a tiny seed to a flourishing garden, they place their lives in the care of the earth or a human. If not properly nursed, their wilted petals appear so quickly, a silent plea for water, or sun, or even a little attention -- Y/N found that plants liked a little attention. That’s why she spoke to them, she cooed and gave them well-wishes when she left them alone. They felt just a part of her family as any blood relative had, from the moment she had sliced the tip of her finger in a torn brush and the petal she’d touched afterward fused together her tiny wound. Her nan had always told her that maybe she was a bit closer to plants than others were, so she probably shouldn’t share this with kids in her class because they might be jealous of her (Y/N knows now her nan just didn’t want her getting picked on.) 

It was clear to her now that this feeling was a bit more than that when her goose pimples sunk back into her skin after stepping into the warmth of her store. Though it was not just because she had been keeping her shop pleasantly warm as the nights grow colder and longer; she kept herself protected in here. In between these walls lied a sanctitude that kept all evil out, in all manners, of all species, besides two. 

One of which is her bunny, Thumper, who in all ways but emotionally was her familiar. He was a ghostly white Holland lop, with big dopey ears that she slid her fingers beneath and flipped up and down in spare moments. She accuses him of being evil because he’s always nipping at her fingertips, demanding food with a stomp of his foot, and gives the silent threat that he’ll nibble on her plants if she really pisses him off (he stands by them, twitches his little nose and shows his two front teeth until she gives him what he wants -- it’s usually more hay). He’s nothing but a little, greedy nuisance that showed up on her step one day and hadn’t left since.

The other. . .well, the other was Harry Styles. 

Y/N liked most witches, no matter their point of interest. She knew that there could be a certain level of distrust amongst the syndicate -- hexes, and curses placed upon one another, but she tried to stay out of that -- she held no disfavor toward most of the others either. Everyone connected with things very differently, what she may connect with might not be that of what her neighbor connected with and that was okay. Her nan’s emotions had been in accord with the sea, and even though Y/N spent most of her life fearing water, she bore no judgment. 

What she does is done in the mind of good favor, of bettering oneself with the world around them in a way that would beneficial to not only them but the people in their lives. Open up otherwise closed eyes to the beauty of the spirit and soul they possess, and the beauty and soul that the world around them held. The town she had moved to at 20 was so rich in natural beauty, ponderosa pine and hemlock trees grew tall in an extensive, juniper green forest almost always clouded with thick fog, the soil was soft and fertile, the air was crisp and clean. She felt happy here and wanted the others around her to recognize how lucky they were to be in an area so free of sordidity. 

There was an empty shop up the brick road of the older part of town, that had been crowded in cobwebs, leaves that had blown in from the broken window, and animal droppings. Her nan came to help her clean it up (her mum had too, but she was dog tired after her workweek so spent most of the visit asleep on Y/N’s couch), and did something short of absolving the land so that she could grow a garden behind the store, in the clearing of 200 or so meters before it meets the mouth of the forest. She sold herbs, people came to her for intricate, meaningful bouquets with flowers that could not be found in just any store (and she was good to her plants, so if she asked very kindly, and sent them with a packet that produced a very special brew when dumped in the water, they would live very, very, suspiciously long), plants that would liberate people of their aches and pains so long as they tended to them, journals of reused paper, scrubs, oils. . .there were many things. She offered classes too, to help people learn how to better cater to their flowers.

That had been a year ago, so she was still finding her footing, but not six months into this happy reality she had created for herself, Harry Styles had come to town. It took nothing but a few minutes of coming to contact with him that he was a bad apple, and when the once sweet-tempered town had begun mottling with dark splotches, she knew for sure. Harry was like her, but his book of shadows had pages filled with wicked words of revenge, conjuring demons and letting them wreak havoc. His business was more under the cuff -- he posed as a writer who needed a scenery change for his work, but Y/N knew it had to be more than that -- but he did his bidding in the night, seeding through clubs, in alleyways, in the forest. . .if someone knew about Harry, it was because they knew a guy who knows a guy. 

And for some reason, unbeknownst to her, he refused to leave her be. 

This is why it almost makes sense that the bell of her store would jingle brightly no matter the fact she’d locked the doors hours ago, and her attention would be brought to the pest himself. He wore a sweater that threatened to swallow him whole, and baggy, holey jeans he rolled at the cuff showing off his bat printed socks, stuffed into grandpa-Esque loafers. The necklace he always wears around his neck (a small pendant that she had never gotten close enough to make out) is sat atop of his sweater today rather than hidden beneath it as it usually is. His hair is getting longer, more unruly with his warm brown curls than it had been when she first met him -- she really hadn’t known he’d had curly hair until the more recent months when it had started growing out. 

His eyes were always the same soft, crystal green that matched his character none, and a pawky smirk on his mouth as he dragged his fingers along the lavender jars placed on her shelves, “Shouldn’t you be home by now? I figure it’s past your bedtime.” He leans down like he is about to pick something up, and when Y/N peers over the counter, she sees him slide his hand beneath Thumper’s soft white belly and pull him up to his chest. That was another indicator that Harry was just no good -- he was the only human that he liked, and the little creatine didn’t even like her. 

“Shouldn’t you?” She flips it, continuing to gather her things so she could head home for the night.

“You know these are my typical hours, Babe -- everyone wants to curse someone at 1 AM, there was a study done in the east end.” He pets between Thumper’s ears as he sets him down on the counter beside the cash register, before he reaches out for the wooden crafted incense burners, “Have these cheap little things been selling any?” 

“Piss off,” she stuffs her phone into her purse, then flips through her things to make sure her wallet was tucked in there as well, “What do you want, Harry? I’m about to go home, if you wanted to come around to bother me you should have hours ago.”

Harry feigns a gasp like he does any time she curses, “Thought good little witches didn’t have such foul tongues?” He flicks the candle jar on her counter, an apple scent had been melting around the wick for the better half of the day, “I don’t want anything in particular, just passing through. You know you’re right in the way of the forest, don’t you? S’kinda of obnoxious when you’re trying to summon imps at the cave -- they hate the bloody “stench” of the flowers.” 

“Good,” she retorts, “You shouldn’t be summoning around here anyway, this area’s off-limits.”

It was barely an agreement but still an agreement nonetheless -- if Harry left her be, she would leave him be because Y/N wasn’t an idiot. If he wanted a fight, Harry could start one and he would fight dirty. All she asks him is to stay away from her store and her flat, and to keep away from certain areas of the forest where the soil was always soft -- in return, he would do his activities, sometimes he would need her flowers for different spells and she would turn a blind eye to what he was doing. She does a few gentle protection spells here and there but otherwise, he’s a free man to do as he pleases, just so long as he respects her request. He’d seemed perturbed by the conditions none -- had even chuckled and said as long as he let her keep her “pretty little flowers” he could get away with murder. 

A heavy, weary sigh leaves him, “Yes, I’m well aware,” he rolled his eyes before crossing his arms on top of the counter and tucking his face in his elbow,  “Gimme a moment though, it’s warm in here and I was freezing outside.” He muffles into his sweater. 

Y/N had almost forgotten what she had felt prior to coming back inside, but his words bring it clearly to the forefront of her mind once more. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, hearing the floorboards creak beneath her as she wondered if he’d felt it too. It couldn’t have been him -- no, he was powerful but by no means powerful enough to conjure up something like that. And she’d like to ask him, but Harry has never been someone who took her seriously -- he would just make a joke of it, probably, or tease her. It wouldn’t be worth asking. 

But the feeling that she’d gotten is chewing on her memory, so she asks anyway, “Hey,” she began and the only indication that he was listening to her is the fact his fingers stopped tapping against the wood beneath them, “Did you. . .when you were outside, did you feel that?” 

He picks his head up from the crevice of his arm, “You’re gonna have to be a bit more descriptive than ‘that’,” his brows are raised as he continues, “Are you talking about the new pleasant but cold breeze we’ve gained for autumn, or the gut-twisting odious one?” 

Y/N looks at him impassively, “The latter, idiot.” 

“Yeah, I felt it,” he ignores her insult, “What about it?” 

The skin between her brows pinches, “Are you not concerned? It felt. . .bad,” she couldn’t think of a better word to describe it, “I didn’t like it at all.” 

“Are you scared?” There is delight swimming in Harry’s gaze as he stands up straighter, “Don’t tell me Glinda the Good Witch herself is scared of a little frightening feeling? I thought you were tough as nails and all that, hm?” 

“Never mind, forget I even brought it up,” she tried to dismiss it, as she slings her purse over her shoulder and plucks Thumper up to sit him in the cradle of her arms -- she knew better than to ask him like she might get any comfort at all from his words. 

He steps up and in front of her before she could start toward the door, “Oi, listen scaredy-cat, I don’t know if you’re aware but I deal with shite like this all the time, which means I’ve got a few banishments spells up my sleeve. If it’s really something that awful, I’ll cast it back to hell, easy as that.” Harry follows close behind her as she exits the door, feeling the same shiver of fear slither through her body, “I do want to see what it wants first though.” 

“Of course you do,” she utters in disappointment, “Just keep it away from my garden, please.” 

“I’ll try,” he tells her just as she reaches her car before he dips into his pocket and reveals that he’d stolen a baggy of chamomile, “If I didn’t keep your precious garden safe, then I wouldn’t have anywhere to get enchanted chamomile, and it works lovely in a sleepy time tea, I’ll tell you that -- your lavender is shit though. Never puts me to sleep like it ought to.” 

She pops open her car door, “Stop taking stuff from the store, or I’ll start lacing it with laxatives.” 

“While you’re doing that, won’t you plant them Clathrus mushrooms? I reckon the imps would prefer them way more than the mums.” He looks serious -- not a trace of a joke laced in his features and somehow that leaves Y/N more irritated than if he were laughing at her as he spoke. 

Her response is blunt, “No.” 

“Listen --”

“Harry, I’m not going to plant mushrooms for the damn imps!” 

                                                         .                             .                          .

When Y/N had met Harry, she was angry. 

She had never been a very angry person. Seldom has someone or something truly has gotten so deeply beneath her skin that she felt the need to yell or grump about it -- mild irritation was never off the table, but true, unadulterated wrath and resentment? It was rare she ever felt the need to even make a snide comment. And that wasn’t to say she was better than anyone else, she was just mild-tempered and forbearing. . .it took a little more than a remark or two to make her angry.

But when she was angry, she was an amalgamation of vexation and fire, and there was no surer way to disrupt her peaceful demeanor than to compromise her flowers. 

The day had been uneventful up to that point. It’d been a week since Harry had moved into town and Y/N was surely feeling the negativity that followed in his wake, but she was focusing on maintaining the tranquil, idyllic environment that she had around her previous. As much as she would have loved to seek him out, ready to squabble, tell him off for bringing any dark energy into such a calm place -- she had to come at it pragmatically. She and her friend Niall (who wasn’t a witch but knew about her) had both agreed that while it was aggravating, they didn’t know him. They did not understand the depth of his power, or what he was here for, nor had they understood wholly what he was capable of. Y/N had felt his presence, but Niall had confirmed it after hearing the underground chatter of a dark witch who made promises to turn glitter to gold. 

She was on her way to her store. Though she was closed on weekends, she always went by to check on the flowers, water them, tell them about her day, and with her was Thumper who would be hopping around the grassy field and gnawing on the blades. It was very peaceful -- the time she spent with her plants -- so she always looked forward to it, but that day she was filled with trepidation as she parked her car. Something was off. . .not in the air, but with her flowers -- she could feel it deep in her marrow that they were in pain. 

So she huffed it to the back of the store, and there she found Harry, two of her purple vervains nestled against his palm. He noticed her before she could even think to say anything, and something short of relief had flushed through him, “Oh thank fuck, you’re here,” he sighs, referencing her garden with a wave of his hands, “I cannot for the life of me remember what hazel looks like.” 

“What the hell are you doing?” Y/N demanded, stomping toward him, but instead of shoving him to the ground like she wanted to, she dropped to her knees and caressed the remaining vervain, “Why would you pluck them like that? They aren’t ready!” 

“Ready? They’ve flowered haven’t they?” His brows had been tilted while his mouth dipped in a frown, “I need them for an incantation, figured you wouldn’t mind if I borrowed these two. Aren’t we meant to help each other out?”

 “You should have asked, you prick,” she pointed up at him, “And even if you had, I would have said no. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’re really disturbing an otherwise pleasant place. I wish you would leave.’ 

Harry feigned hurt, placing a hand to his chest, “You wound me,” he mocks her, “Listen Glinda Good Witch, we all gotta get by somehow, yeah? Not all of us talk to plants or whatever it is you do. So do you want me to pay or --” 

“Those won’t work for whatever it is you’re trying to do,” she cut him off, “If it’s something with cruel intent, it won’t happen -- they were grown to do good.” 

“Which is exactly why I needed them from you,” he wiggles them in her direction, “Well, I need to get going. You’re awful in particular about a garden that is subpar at best. Wish you well, see you later.” 

Then he left. No guilt, no apology -- he just up and left, and Y/N was livid. 

(Later that night when she had explained the situation to Niall, he was nothing short of outraged, so they had tried to find out more about Harry. Anything about him, really, but he leaves a very little paper trail in his endeavors -- from public records they find that he’s 25 and from Holmes Chapel, and from a google search they find he has two books out, published online, and doing decently well. There was nothing else apart from that, he kept his socials pretty dry, and what he did post was nonsensical drivel.)

Y/N thinks about this, as she sinks into her tub, the burning water scalding against her skin. Harry had always driven her mad but he has never seemed half as angry as she was -- hell if anything he always seemed like he enjoyed it. 

He was just absolutely rotten. 

                                                           .                                  .                           .

Harry thinks Y/N is just absolutely rotten. 

There were many reasons that he had classified her as such, but namely what he was concerned about now was how she kept her shop closed on the weekends. 

Who kept their store closed the entire bloody weekend?

It wasn’t so much that he wanted to see her -- Harry actually found the girl quite plaguy. Her opinions on his practice were priggish, not unlike the others like them he had met in the past. There has always been an unfaltering stigma that was carried with what he did, one that was quite hard to shake within the factions of other witches that are sprinkled across the world. He’s seen as careless, cruel, greedy, and selfish -- he doesn’t practice magic for the love of the world around him, to feel a deeper, spiritual connection with the fecund soil that covered the earth, or with the water gently slipping past rocks along a stream bank. They look at him and see someone who shakes hands with the devil and ruins lives for a cookie. 

Harry lets them think as they wish, he has no patience to attempt correcting them. If they’d bothered to learn an inch about him at all before passing their judgment then they would have a clue about his true character, but the jury had already made the decision before Harry even realized he was on trial. They never really wanted to give Harry a chance, so he knew he would be hated no matter where he decided to reside. The pack mentality that they carry is the reason he has to move around so often though (more than any 25 years old was typically doing) he gets run out of a lot of areas because a group of soft witches decides he’s no good. 

That’s what drew him to this place -- there was practically nobody. He could sense when there were more like him loitering around an area, and made an effort to keep a decently low profile so that he could stay around longer (but they always managed to find him), but here, he only sensed one. That had been good enough for him to know this was the right move -- the beautiful scenery surrounding them; the soft bed of dirt that Harry’s feet would sink into easily; the dense, damp fog that covered the forest floor in the early mornings; the lush, green trees and how life seemed to remain there when it was meant to be waning in the colder months -- all of that, had only been a plus. 

When he’d met Y/N, he knew that she disliked him, but Harry had expected as much so it disturbed him none. If anything, he was delighted to have a purer witch than himself around, all things considered. There were no others that she could develop a hive mind with to drive him out of town, but she was no competition to the businesses that he provided, and when a decoction called for an obscure plant or an unsullied petal -- well, a Garden witch was not the worst kind to have nearby. She may be devout in her notions that Harry was a disagreeable, repugnant being, but she was good at what she did. Anything done with her plants was twice as effective as any other person’s flowers he’d used in the past, so it was necessary he bothered her often. 

She refused to sell to him -- something about her doing business with a demon, or whatever she’d said -- but so long as he doesn’t go and cut them from the stem himself, she helps him out. Will give him the plants he needs, and in return, he doesn’t taint certain areas of the town and the forest that she declared were off-limits. It was a spoken commercial agreement that both of them went by and because of it, their lives near to one another were comparatively peaceful to any other situation Harry has found him in prior. 

That didn’t come without its faults. They butt heads often, their bickering is nonstop, and Harry could think of many things he would rather do than have to stay in a room with her for longer than the ten minutes it takes him to get what he needs. It was fun to fluster her -- getting beneath her skin was an easy feat that he found a lot of joy in, and sometimes she gave him a run for his money. He always kind of liked making a normally mild-tempered person grump at him a little, if not for his impish ways, then so he could get to know them as their full self. 

So he wasn’t mad that she was closed because he particularly wanted to see her, no, he was mad because he was exhausted. Absolutely drained. The business was incredible when you’re the only dark witch willing to do some questionable, immoral things, but that also meant long nights and incredible emotional toil -- it wasn’t a walk in the park to conjure up a bloody demon! 

Ever since Harry had started this path, he’d had immense trouble sleeping at appropriate times, if he could fall asleep at all. He guesses this was what he gets in return for what he practices, and it could be worse so he doesn’t mind it too much, but it was still a hassle. It had been a good four years since Harry just had a good, peaceful night of sleep. 

Up until he had moved here, of course, because the same little garden witch that thought he was the devil incarnate, made a tea he could brew that set him right to sleep. Kept him asleep the entire night too, which had always been an impossible endeavor spanning back to when he was a child, but there was something about her chamomile -- hell, it really knocked him out. 

He tested his theory -- part of him thought that maybe chamomile was suddenly working for him, but no matter the brand that he tried, or the amount of tea he drank, none of it could compare to what Y/N’s did. When he visited her store, he took what he could to hold him off to the next time he came by. He hadn’t realized how low he was though when he had seen her last and she threatened to lace it with laxatives -- he should have taken two because he used his last bit the night prior to the one he’s suffering through right now. 

And he could have gotten more this morning if she didn’t close her stupid shop on weekends!

If Harry were not positive that he needed to rest, he wouldn’t bother to be trying. There was nothing worse to him than the laying in his bed and waiting for sleep that refused to come...it felt like he was being stood up by a date. It hasn’t happened often, but enough that Harry could match the feeling low in his stomach, indicative of discontent and sadness while he waited. . . . .and waited. . . .and waited. . . .and waited. 

It was useless -- the universe’s retribution for summoning spirits to the living world left him with what a doctor might diagnose as chronic insomnia, but none of the treatments did him any good. No mortal medicinal could soothe him of this ailment. So one would think he would be smarter about keeping a hearty stock of it at his disposal rather than one at a time, but Harry never claimed to be the best at planning ahead. 

And now here he was, staring at his ceiling fan whirl, his cat at his side while he contemplated if breaking and entering her shop was against his morals (he had a few left, surprisingly). 

God, she was so rotten! 

                                               .                                     .                                 .

“Have you felt weird lately?” 

“Hm?” Niall’s face scrunches up in confusion, his mouth stuffed full of noodles he just slurpped into his mouth, “Wha’ d’ya mean?” He muffles out, reaching over to her side of the table for a napkin to dab at the corners of his mouth.

The record store that Niall worked at wasn’t too far from Y/N’s shop so if her day wasn’t too busy, she would step away from the store for her lunch break and seek him out. It was never a planned ordeal; Y/N would stop off somewhere to get them something to eat and appear at his storefront, the sharp ding of the bell knotted on the door alerted him of her presence. He was always one of two places: in the back, tuning the old guitars the owner would bid on different websites, or he was in the front thumbing through the record baskets, organizing and reorganizing them by name. Sometimes he would be sat behind the counter, with his feet kicked up just beside the register but Y/N scolds him for that (he’s always wearing a dingy, scuffed pair of shoes that have no business seeing the light of day, let alone be shown off to others). 

His head would perk up, he would look toward the door, and his face would bloom into one of sheer delight as he would call over to her, “Oh, thank fuck! Thought I would go crazy if I had to listen to myself think for one more second.” 

Today was no different. She brought him ramen from the place three buildings down from his own, where she bends down a street that feels more like an alleyway and the door is hidden beneath a brassy fire escape. The owners were always very kind to her, and since she came often and tipped well, they would give her free bowls if they were in the mood. Y/N never liked the idea of a one-sided relationship with a business, so she always brought them herbs, and gardenias to plant at home (they were the husband’s favorite). She takes their fliers and posts them up in high traffic areas too, and when they have their business cards made and an extra hundred or so, she slips them in the paper baggies that she gathers her customer’s things in before sending them on their way. 

Niall was grateful. He did a little cheer, left his spot from behind the counter, and urged her to follow him to the back where the break room was located (if a customer came around he would hear the bell and duck his head out to greet them, but for the most part their Tuesdays were pretty uneventful). He told her he had sensed her coming so he already had two stools set out for them to sit on, and napkins placed in the middle of the table, but she’s almost a hundred percent sure they had been left like that last time she was here. 

Try as she might to let her mind flee from the dark, hazed feeling that had overcome her last week, she couldn’t. Even as she listened to Niall prattle about some Gibson Les Paul custom that the owner purchased a while back, she struggled not to wonder what it was that was worming itself into her brain; slick tendrils of dismay overcame her. The true, unadulterated, execrable feeling only truly hits her in the night if she is outside the safety of her home or her shop, but otherwise, it was memories of this haunting aura that struck her throughout the day.

She couldn’t place her finger on it though, what it could be. There are feelings she garners when Harry summons certain spirits, but she can typically tell when he’s doing that, and they’ve never felt so. . .evil, before. What Harry deals with is evil, sure, but this was so smothered in turpitude that she couldn’t make it out. Like spilling black ink over a letter written in blue. 

That’s why she asks Niall -- it feels too strong for it to be something only felt by her and Harry. It would also soothe her mind if someone had felt it as horribly and heavily as she did, considering it wasn’t affecting Harry enough that he would try to banish the damn thing before things went sour. 

“Like, do things just not feel. . .off, to you?” She didn’t want to feed him any impressions of what she might be speaking about -- she would like to know if it were true to him. Niall is sweet as he could be, but not always when it was appropriate; he would tell her he did just to spare her from feeling foolish. It’s why she thought berets were her thing for about a month when really she looked like a washed-up indie artist trying too hard (Niall had agreed they weren’t her best fashion venture, but he certainly didn’t think they were that bad). 

His face contorts in a pout as he mulls it over in his head, stabbing his fork into the noodles and catching a bit of pork on two of the pronks, “Hm, let’s see. . .” he looks like he’s spinning through a Rolodex, “I have not for the life of me mustered enough energy to have a wank in about a week, that’s some cause for concern,” when she responds with a blank stare, he holds his hands up, “Okay, fine -- Butternut was biting at the air when I took him on his walk the other night -- like. . .chomping at it, I was actually gonna ask you what that might be about.”  

Now, don’t get Y/N wrong, any other time Niall would have told her that his great Pyrenees puppy was yapping and chomping at the wind, she would have brushed it off. “Niall, you’re just going to have to accept that he’s going to be a big, sweet dummy when he’s older.” But she was so desperate for something, anything -- because if something felt it other than she and Harry, then she wouldn’t feel quite as crazy. 

“Sometimes it feels a bit like something’s watching me,” he tacks on at the end, taking the brown napkin from the stack in between them and dabs roughly at his mouth, “At night, when I’m walking Butternut, I get these chills but there’s no wind around.” 

Y/N leans forward, thankful, “Yeah?” she presses, “Is it like -- describe it. What does it feel like?” 

“Y’know, I do forget you’re a witch until times like these,” he leans back in his chair, a heavy sigh slides from his lips before he closes his eyes like he’s trying to place himself back at the moment, “I’ll tell ya what, it’s fuckin’ -- it’s a bit like I feel it right down to my bones, but then --” he opens his eyes, raises his closed fists and flicks his fingers out at her, “Poof, s’gone as quick as it came and I forget about it. My nan used to tell me that was the devil patting your shoulder, but if it went away quick s’because an angel kicked his arse out of there.” 

It’s enough, Y/N decides, so she nods and relaxes back in her seat, “Okay, good.” 

“Good?” His brows furrow, as he reaches for his can of soda and the aluminum can crinkles beneath his fingers, “Tell you that I get chills and you’re relieved? Should I be relieved too, or worried?” 

“It isn’t anything to concern over, I don’t think,” she explains to him, “If anything changes I’ll let you know.” 

Niall uses one of his fingernails to dig the dirt from beneath the other, “Did that Harry bloke muster some horrible demon up again?” His voice is laced with vexation. Niall wasn’t a hard guy to get along with -- he was loud and Irish, could chat up a storm about anything and everything, and while he could be scrappy at times, it was for all the right reasons. He was equanimous in most situations, even-tempered to a fair degree; if Y/N were in a situation where a cool, calm collected head would be the best approach then Niall was definitely the person she wanted on her side. 

(Like when they had to drive home from a day trip to the massive lake just north of them, but the roads hadn’t been pretreated for the icy sleet that gripped the pavement. He drove them the whole way on the windy roads with little traction from the tires to the road, and was still bobbing his head and singing along to Ed Sheeran on the radio). 

But Harry Styles? Oh, the mention of his name could dig right beneath Niall’s skin. Y/N would like to think that it was because he was so cruel to her, but she knows that there are two main reasons Niall is not too fond of him nor his craft. One of which is the fact that he slept with Liana (she happened to be one of Niall’s flings at the time -- there were plenty, but Y/N only remembered this one’s name because she shared it with a woody stem rooted to the forest soil that made for easy climbing), and the other, the fact that he had helped the captain of the opposing summer footie team with one of his enchantments to make them win. There are few things Niall cares for so deeply that he would dislike someone, but his sex life and his footie were two things a person just couldn’t mess up for him. 

“No, it wasn’t him this time,” she clears her throat, pushing the rest of her ramen around idly, “It’s a bit too strong to be his doing -- more sinister too. He conjures mostly petty demons; the little ones that don’t have much better to do anyway. This is something. . .I don’t know, it just feels different.” 

Niall sighs heavily, “Well, thanks for that, reckon I won’t be sleeping tonight,” he pushes the container away from himself to signify he’s done and when she takes a peek inside and sees nothing but a few noodles limp along the sides, “I like that you keep me in the loop, but sometimes I wish you would let me live in ignorance.” 

“You know, I would apologize, but you’ve gone into an in-depth description of your arsehole to me so I thought any boundaries and forms of secrecy were long gone by now.” 

His brows furrow features contorting into that of the same desperation he had come to her with two months ago, “Ugh, c’mon! You’re practically like a witch doctor or somethin’, I thought you would have a cream or something for it.” 

“You had a hemorrhoid, Niall, for fuck sake! Even if I were a “witch doctor” then I would never let you put anything that came from my plants on your filthy bum.” 

Niall stands, gathering their trash from the break room table but using his free hand as he passes her, he swats her shoulder, “You better be nice to me, or you’re gonna have to start eating lunch with Styles.” He steps on the level for the waste bin, throwing the trash in the bag, “Though I think you two would just end up hate fucking and the food would go cold.” 

“No,” she rolls her eyes, “I would never let that Gremlin near my naked body.” 

“Listen, I’m not saying I want the guy anywhere near your naked body,” he plops back down in his seat, “What I am saying is that you lot have such unbridled sexual tension it is practically palpable when I’m at the shop with the both of you. Maybe it’s ‘cos the two of you are the only witches, and opposites at that.” 

Y/N snorts, “Maybe if we were in some enemies to lovers film, sure.” 

   After they finish their break, and Y/N realizes that she’s been with him for a little over an hour, they make plans to meet up tomorrow for a movie and she heads out. The air was cool -- when she had made her way over here the sun had been glittering rays down that bathed the world in gold, but it was now hidden beneath an overcast of thick clouds. Rain always carried a familiar scent just before it started to pour and Y/N had forgone a jacket, so she huffed her way back, breathless by the time she made it up the hill and saw Harry leaning against her door. 

The sight of him makes her exhausted, but not in the usual way it does. He looks awful -- and typically he doesn’t! Y/N could admit that Harry was gorgeous; his hair always appeared soft, loose curls dispersed along the brunette strands, his eyes are a sea green, tender in his gaze when he wasn’t being an absolute prick and always bright (even when he was). His lips were pink, shaped perfectly, and his skin is typically smooth but even when he grows out his facial hair it still manages to look good. He had dimples. . .hell, Y/N would place a bet that he’d made a deal with the devil to look like that. 

But today, he just looked worn down, and exhausted, like he might not have slept the entire weekend. His eyes were closed, his hands were in his pockets and his chin was tilted down towards his chest. If not for the way his head perked up immediately when her foot crunched into the gravel pathway leading up to her store from the small parking area (that was more so a beaten down, once grassy area now just dirt with tire tracks in it), she would have thought he was asleep standing up. There’s relief in his eyes when they meet her own, which she isn’t used to seeing from him, “Thank fuck.” 

“You look horrible,” Y/N slides her hand into her pocket, pulling out her keys so she could unlock the door, “Budge over.” 

“I feel it,” he rubs tiredly at his eyes, “Go on and open up quickly then. Why the hell do you keep your store closed on weekends?” 

Y/N fits her hand over the knob, twisting it and shoving the door open with her shoulder. Thumper greets them at the door, nudging the top of his head against her ankle, “Do you work every night?” 

“No --” 

“I keep it closed on weekends for the same reason why you don’t work every night,” she heads toward the counter, settling her things down and reaching in for Thumper’s hay stash so that she could give him some, “What’re you here for? You usually come around to bother me later.” She chances petting at Thumper’s head for a moment, and since he was preoccupied with his hay he would allow it.

“Fuck!” Y/N startles, popping up from behind the counter, looking back up only to see Harry with wide, disgruntled eyes, “Where’s your chamomile?” 

Her brows dip, “I’m out right now, so --” 

“How the hell did you run out? Shit, what am I going to do now, hm? Shouldn’t you keep up with shite like this?” He’s going a mile a minute, he’s walking closer to her, distress was written all over his face and Y/N is alarmed to a fair degree -- Harry’s always seemed very collected and calm, it was seldom she ever seen him have more emotion than pure elation to fuck with her or displeased with her presence. 

“ -- so I’m going to make more today. What’s going on with you? Why are you so pissy over it?” She finishes her previous thought, watching as he leans against the counter, propping his face up with his hand and she could now more clearly make out the bags beneath his eyes.

He rubs at his temple with the finger closest to it, “The only way I can sleep is with your bloody tea,” he grumbled, “That’s why I come around all the time -- well, that and to fuck with you, but mostly the tea.” 

“Oh?” She reaches down, plucking Thumper from where he’d been positioned by her feet and setting him on the counter. He thumps his foot at her once but eventually makes his way over to Harry, sniffing at his chin before resting right before him. Y/N wasn’t necessarily doing it to be nice, but the energy he was exuding could really dampen the growth rate of her plants, and Thumper had a soothing way about him that drew all that negativity out. It was one of those odd little familiar powers that went unexplained for the most part. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” 

“Dunno,” he shrugged his shoulders, but the tension in them begins to dissipate as Thumper snuggles beneath his chin, “Reckon I pissed off some demon or summat -- usually it isn’t this bad. Without your tea, I can at least get to bed for three hours before waking up and catch cat naps during the day, but nothing was working this weekend. I think I’ve slept a total of two hours?” 

“Christ,” she tuts her tongue, but her brain starts churning, “Do you think it has anything to do with that. . .with that thing, that’s around? That feeling?” 

Harry huffs a sigh, “Fuck, here you go again -- Babe, listen, I can barely keep a coherent thought, so why don’t I just give you some money and you make that tea for me, alright?” 

“That’s no way to ask,” Y/N chastises him, and though she is already beginning to gather the supplies she needs so she could go out and harvest her leaves, she taunts him, “You’ll have to say please, or I might just decide to wait on this batch.” 

“Please,” he wastes no time in saying, “Pretty please harvest the chamomile so that I can sleep and I promise I’ll sit and theorize with you over whatever the fuck thing you’re feeling.” 

Y/N could go through the trouble of doing a blood binding with him to ensure that he wasn’t lying to her, but she felt that was a little on the extreme side so she took his word for it. She could easily harvest her chamomile here at the shop -- she had two doors behind the counter, one that led to her garden, the field, and the forest outside while the other led to a backroom that was made into a little kitchen area. It was easier for her to do things here rather than at home and have to risk tainting them in transport; for the best results to any enchanted item, one has to seal it immediately and it should only be reopened prior to use. 

She wouldn’t allow Harry to hover over her while she worked, so she sat him behind the counter and told him to not speak to any customers if they come through (“Wasn’t planning to,”) while she went to work. Y/N gave Thumper a look when he had started to follow her, and with a small thump of his foot (his way of saying Fine!) he hops himself into Harry’s lap and settles there. The tension once again eases from Harry’s features, soothing the pinch in his brow and the way his lips had been pursed in a frown. 

It was silent as she set to work, and save for a few customers who filtered in and out (at least a dozen of them, only eight purchased something but her Mondays were always pretty slow so that was expected), there wasn’t much to disturb what appeared to be a dozing Harry. He looked much more peaceful than she’s ever seen him, and for a brief moment she contemplates sending Thumper back home with him, but she shakes her head physically as if to expel the thought from her brain. What was she going on about? She would give him his tea and send the heathen on his way. No matter how empathetic she felt for him (she had struggled with issues sleeping when she was a lot younger), there was no need to go out of her way. . .even if she could admit that the sight of him cuddling with a bunny was a little too sweet not to be documented somewhere. 

She’s finished drying the leaves and carefully stirring them in the fine powder that she still had leftover from her last batch (there were many flowers from her garden ground up and enchanted with an incantation, which sounds like a simple enough task but the entire process took a little over a week -- the magic had to be purified several times, and the potential adverse effects had to be mollified. . . if she didn’t, instead of pleasant dreams of floating in clouds, her customers would be in an unsolicited astral projection) in a little over an hour. Y/N takes care to bag them delicately, adding a little extra in the two bags she would be giving Harry so that he would bother her less over it. 

By the time she’s retreated from the back preparation room, she finds that Harry is awake now, eyeballing her Intimacy and Romance section. When he sees that she’s returned to the front, he holds up the small, cardboard parcel, “I didn’t know you doubled as a Pulse and Cocktails.” 

“That’s a natural aphrodisiac,” she tells him, walking over to her empty chamomile shelf before she begins to fill it,  “You might want to take some so your partners will actually desire you for once.” 

“Oh, Honey,” he shakes his head, a look on his face almost like he pities her, “Don’ know a thing about how people desire me. Barely have to take my cock out for them to be gagging for it -- kind of how you are, but won’t admit it to yourself.” 

Y/N kisses her teeth, “Alright lecher, come and get your chamomile then,” she plucks the two remaining bags from the box she brought them in and holds them out for him, “You should look into some spells to combat that though -- if a demon is purloining your sleep, then it’s probably still hanging around and like deluging your flat with negative energy.” 

“Dunno’ if you know this, but I work with demons often, I’m always surrounded by negative energy,” he plucks the chamomile from her grasp, before reaching in his pocket and producing a small wad of cash that he places in her palm-- Y/N opens her mouth to decline it (she felt that his money was earned in a dishonest way and would not accept it for her flowers, because it felt as if she were disrespecting them. . .she would much rather give it to him for free), but he cuts her off, “Oh, hush and take the money. This is from a care package my Nan sent me, so it wasn’t earned in any rotten way, you spoiled brat.” 

She sighs, clutching the money in her hands, “You still better keep your end of the deal,” Y/N tells him, “I want to talk about this. . .whatever that feeling is, around here lately. And I want you to be serious about it!” 

Harry was already retreating, waving his hand up at her, “Yeah, sure thing, I’ll have my secretary get in contact with you --” 

“Harry --” 

“M’only joking. I’ll come around Friday.” 

                                                                     .                       .                         .

Later that night, with Thumper snuggled in her lap snoozing, Y/N looks into purging a home of sleep stealing spirits. 

She’s only curious. 

                                                             .                         .                        . 

Sleep comes gradually, then all at once, like the shift between summer and fall. 

Wind whistles past window sills singing shallow songs of change, while red apples ripen on their branches in the orchard during harvest season. The air grows colder in the mornings and at night, the day is still steeped in the sun’s benevolent kisses of heat at first until even that begins to wane. An aesthetic of reds, oranges, forest greens and golden hues occupy the minds of many as the leaves start to stain with color. Everyone waits with bated breath for true autumn to come around the corner. 

And when it does, it’s with a cold slap of air against the face when they step outside. The air carries that distinct autumn smell, the world is chilly enough for thicker jackets and long socks, rain comes in sheets during the evenings, and the colorful leaves that had drooped from the trees adhere to the concrete, or in matted piles on the forest floor.  Suddenly, the warm drink in everyone’s hand is a little less for the excitement and impatience for fall to begin, and more so to warm their cold palms from the onslaught of biting wind. 

It isn’t autumn, and then it is -- just like sleep. Harry’s awake one minute, and then he’s passed right out. 

Well, with Y/N’s help, bless her. Sure, she had been rotten before, but she made him a new batch and sent him off with two hearty bags full of tea that would soothe his worries and put his arse to bed. Plus, he had cuddled with her sweet little bunny Thumper for a while and he had a feeling the little bugger was exuding some sort of her soft magic unto him in the form of calming waves. When the rabbit sat in his lap, all the tension eased from his muscles and he sank into an otherwise uncomfortable chair like it was the softest mattress he’d ever been privy to. So by the time he came home, started the kettle, drank a mug full, and hot tailed it to his bed, he was asleep before his head could even quite hit the pillow. 

It was so good. His dreams were pleasant, his sleep was heavy, and deep, and lasted around fifteen hours -- which in the grand scheme of things, made him feel a bit like a sloth, but he knew he needed it. He still couldn’t quite pinpoint what had happened that he just couldn’t sleep even a little bit, but he has no interest in investigating now that he had a full night’s (and partially day’s) rest. Plus, there was no time to do any exploring when he needed to make up for the work he’d missed in his time exhausted -- his powers are nowhere near as strong if he is tired, and it’s incredibly dangerous to be working with little sleep. He could mess up, and a mess-up could mean someone would likely end up possessed and -- albeit how interesting they are -- Harry’s intrigue with exorcisms ended after the seventh one he performed. 

After he woke up, showered off, and ate brekkie, he sat down with his kitten and they cleaned his crystals and a few amulets before he set on preparing some of his finer elixirs, that he always waited until he was down to the last drop to begin making more canisters of considering how extensive the process was. It would be easier if he had someone else to help out, but the only other witch within 160 kilometers of him, he wouldn’t label as the type all too willing to help him break into a blood bank. 

But he did have his kitten Oat. He was his little miracle -- Harry had been so sad when he learned that witches could have familiars, but the animal would come to him and he was supposed to just know. At that point, he’d been practicing for three years and the only feelings he could sense from any animal around him were fear and disdain, so he had thought that maybe he just wasn’t meant to have one. Which felt horrible. . .he loved animals. 

One day, when the chill in the air rosied his cheeks and the cardigan he sported did little to shield him from the cold, he was taking a walk in the forest nearby. He’d left the trail, but not because he was working. . .if he were honest, he thought that the garden that Y/N kept out there was quite magnificent. It flourished even in the winter, a meadow of flowers that’s petals never frost, and the ground never grew hard. There was an air around it that made him feel warm and pleasant, so he visited often without letting her know. Which was what he was doing, walking through the small path that she had created so that she could tend to them (he’d seen her water them once when he’d come unknowing that she was there to cater to them). 

And one moment he was looking at what he believed to be an oat grass, he heard a rustle from the bushes to his left that he looked toward (it was a bird flying away), and when his gaze returned to where it had once been, there a small kitten was laying. She was the kind of small that made his heart ache, with her eyes barely open as she yawned and stretched very wide -- she wasn’t there, and then she was. Harry always liked to say she was born from the soft soil of Y/N’s garden which was why her grey fur felt like clouds and she always smelled sweet as heliotrope. . .and, well, she smelled a lot like Y/N too. He may not be all too fond of the girl, but she did always smell nice. 

She hadn’t grown bigger than one of his boots, the tiny little thing, but not because she was malnourished in any way (Harry always made sure she was well-fed), he just thinks she’s finished growing. He couldn’t tell her breed, but if he had to guess she was some mix between a munchkin and a ragamuffin cat. Harry knows all familiars have their duties and special abilities, but he wasn’t quite sure what hers was -- he just knew that he loved her to bits and pieces, and couldn’t ask for a better little ball of fur to sit on his shoulder while he made coffee in the morning. 

What Harry did know, was that none of the demon’s he had ever conjured had ever bothered her, and she loved to be rubbed behind her ears. 

So Thursday night, when the town grew quiet and the air was still, Harry ventured out with his tote bag slung over his shoulder. It was easy to move about relatively unseen in a place like this, that wasn’t so big there were people constantly looming around the corners of every nook and cranny, but wasn’t so small that everybody knew everyone’s business. It was a pleasant in between, where he could snake through the mouth of the forest, walk a trail and end up on the other side of town without having been seen by more than a few critters. He typically made this journey relatively late, without a worry or stressor in sight -- it only took him about an hour and a half to get everything done. 

Today though -- today, he felt off. It hadn’t been immediately when he’d stepped outside, but after some time in his walk, goosebumps prickled his skin and the hair at the back of his neck stood on end. He couldn’t quite decipher what was making him feel like this when the wind hadn’t rustled the trees in a few minutes, but it put him on guard. He disliked the feeling and had only truly sensed it to this degree that night Y/N had originally questioned him about it. It was an unsavory sensation, and for it to even make him feel uneasy was saying something tremendous. 

He attempts to ignore it, even though it only grew stronger the closer he was to his destination. He weaves through the trees, stepping over the thick roots, crunching over fallen leaves, and appreciating the scent of autumn as he goes. It was a nice night, despite the chill that ran just beneath his skin. . .it was the kind of night that he might go out on his balcony and sip on his tea until he grew weary enough to step inside. Oat liked to sit outside with him, curled peacefully in his lap and resting without a care in the world (she made him feel not so lonely all the time, which he appreciated immensely). 

Harry was thinking about how that was precisely what he was going to do as soon as he returned home after he had emerged from the trees and walked through an expansive field, toward an old road that led him back into town and entered the blood bank (after melting the lock with one of his crystals). Though he sensed something strong when he was walking down the cold, dark hall. . .or someone that is, who --  before he could register their presence -- ran straight into him as they were peeling around the corner and nearly knocked him on his arse (but definitely knocked them on theirs). 

“Fuck sake!” He cried out, steadying himself, looking down at the assailant, “Watch where you’re going, mate, or you’ll -- oh, Y/N?” He pauses, confusion laces through his brain as he recognizes her, “What’re you doing here so late?” 

Y/N was on her bum, scowling at him as she gathered herself before flattening her palms to the cold, white tiled floor and pressing up to a stand, “I could ask you the same question.” 

“It would be a silly one if you did, ‘cos you and I both know what I’m doing for a living,” he watches as she swipes her bum of the dust adhering to her sweatpants -- he had never seen her so dressed down before, in a dark-colored hoodie that just about swallowed her whole. She appeared much less ferocious this way -- not that she appeared very ferocious before, but he is always intrigued to see typically put together people in their sleep clothes. . .he thinks it says a lot about a person. From Y/N’s choice of pajamas, he could tell that she probably kept her flat on the side of too cold because she liked to bundle up. . .she felt safe that way, he would guess, and he would bet 50 quid that there was bunny hair all over it because -- despite his grumpy tendencies -- Thumper loved a good cuddle.

“I felt it again,” she says after a moment, her voice only above a whisper, though there was no security here -- or anyone, for that matter since the place closes at 7 PM, but her eyes still shift around like she’s a high schooler ditching class and the headmaster's down the hall, “. . .that thing, y’know, while I was getting ready for bed, so I followed where it felt grossest and came to check it out to see if it led me anywhere.” 

Harry’s brows furrowed, “Well that was stupid,” he derides her, fixing the tote around his shoulder and shifting weight from one heel to the other, “What were you going to do if you found something, hm? Fight it off with your bunny and rose petals?”

Her scowl returns, “Piss off,” she utters before her gaze flickers to his tote and the reason he’s here becomes clearer to her than it had been before, “You shouldn’t be stealing blood. Isn’t that unethical?” 

“It’s either this or siphoning it from a live vein, Babe, and while I’m aces at plenty of things, I have not been properly trained to set up an IV. I only take the blood that’s about to expire anyway,” He nods down the hallway, toward the refrigeration where they kept all of the baggies, “You might as well continue investigating while we’re here because it’s coming from that way -- plus you can make yourself useful by keeping the door propped open for me.”

In all honesty, Harry expects more fight than he was given considering how often she seems to object to every move he makes, but she merely rolls her eyes and starts ahead of him. The feeling does grow stronger the further they descend into the hallway and he knows Y/N can feel it too, from the way she shuffles just a little closer to him, and he can hear her breathing hitch to a small halt as they stood before the door and it felt like it had all been focused just behind the door. As strong as the taste of frozen orange juice concentrate, it made his face pucker just slightly as he raised his fingers toward the keypad and began punching in the code. 

“You’re really gonna go in there?” Y/N queries gently, and Harry only nods his head in response, reaching for the door handle. An urgent, delicate touch of Y/N’s hand startles him, looping around his wrist and dragging his attention toward her, “Shouldn’t we have a game plan if something is behind the door?” She asks, her hold on him tightening just a little, and Harry notes how soft her palm feels against his skin, “Like, let’s say we open the door and a behemoth is standing there, what do we do?” 

“The only behemoth that could fit in this tiny room is the band from Poland, Babe, and I reckon they have better things to do on a Thursday night,” he retorts, clenching around the knob and tilting it down, “Now unless you want to hold hands in there. . .” 

She lets go before he can finish, and he doesn’t have to look back at her face to know she’s irate. A small smile quirks at his mouth as he pushes his shoulder against the heavy door to aid him opening it, bracing himself to see something potentially horrid. . .

And there’s nothing. 

Actually, as soon as they open the door, the dark, odious feeling that had been encompassing both of them disappears entirely. “Whoa,” Y/N pushes her hand against the door and keeps it open, taking one step inside of the room, “There’s a lot of blood in here.” His gaze flickers back at her, as she looks around, looking more intrigued than disgusted -- there was a lot of blood, 8 by 5-meter room just filled with it, so he could understand some of the awe. The more he returns, the less awe he feels, but he reckons that was to be expected. 

“There are about five other refrigerators in this building too,” he tells her as he lowers to his knees, cracking open his tote, “This one’s computers are easier to get into though, and doesn’t say the date and time the amount was changed so nobody knows anything is missing. Easy peasy.” 

Y/N nods, “Right. Stealing blood -- easy peasy,” she leans against the door, “What is it that you use it for?” 

“It really depends,” he murmurs as he pulls out a rack, counting out the baggies he needed, “Some demons like blood more than ash, so they come when called and are more willing to help you out when given a little gift. There are a few spells that call for it, and elixirs are twice as potent — sometimes I have to drink it, which is...unpleasant,” he hears her shiver, “—but it makes the outcome better. All in a day's work.”

“Oh wow,” Y/N hummed, “That’s...different. I think the weirdest thing I’ve had to drink for a spell was doe milk and I felt guilty the whole time. Like I was taking it from a fawn that needed it.”

Harry huffed out a laugh — Y/N was a soft little thing, comparing drinking blood to milk — sometimes he forgets how sheltered her world of magic is compared to his own.  It was easy to forget with all the spiteful words she could throw his way, but to see her out of her comfort zone. . .it’s refreshing. Not because she is less confident in her surroundings, but because she is more open to his own If someone would have told Harry they would be even remotely civil with one another in a room full of blood, he would have snorted before asking what they were snorting. 

“I oughta call you Bambi then.” 

He was on his last baggy of blood, checking the expiration date, and logging it into the computer when the dreadful feeling returned. Like a fly to rotting meat, it clings back to the room they were in tenfold. From behind him, a sharp clatter and Y/N’s squeal startles him to look back at her, “Harry!” She cried, pointing ahead of her, “The walls! L-look at the walls!”  

Harry follows her finger, watching as a thick, black substance oozes from the wall’s coving. When Y/N had noticed as much, she knocked down a stray IV pole that had been left in here, and it lay at her feet where the same black ooze had begun seeping up from the trim of the floors. In all his time doing what he does, Harry had never seen something so odd, nor had he ever felt something this grotesque overcome his being. It makes him act quickly, and while he doesn’t speak, he does fix his tote over his shoulder and practically jog the short distance to Y/N, knocking her out of the room, grabbing the door by the handle, and swinging it shut. He had hoped to seal it in there, whatever it was, but when they look down at the floor, the goo bleeds beneath the door and they both take a startled step back, “Oh fuck me,” Harry mutters to himself, shaking his head. 

“What the hell is this?” Y/N is panicked -- it’s very clear in her voice, and while Harry was a tad thankful not to be dealing with this alone, he can’t say that a soft which, who planted pretty flowers and made sleepy time tea was necessarily the backing he wanted in the event he had to exorcise a demon. He didn’t even have the proper tools for it. . .he didn’t know what he was exorcising, fuck sake --  “Harry, shouldn’t we --” 

“We need to leave,” he states, pivoting on his heel and hustling down the hall, Y/N was quick to scurry behind him, though she still murmurs some protest. 

“We shouldn’t just --” 

“Listen, unless you have any idea what that is and how to clean it, let alone banish it to hell, I saw we have a better chance through those doors than we do staying in here for even a second more,” he told her, holding out his hands to the crash bar, shoving the heavy door open, only looking back to make sure that Y/N had made it through, seeing that the black ooze had been following them before he promptly slammed the door shut. 

This was one of the back doors, so it spits them out to the graveled employee parking lot that dances along one of the many mouths of the forest that surrounded them. They’re both out of breath, adrenalin zipping through their veins in a tidal wave as their chests heave and they stare at the door. They wait for it to crawl beneath these doors. . .they wait for the building to either be overcome by sludge or combust from whatever sinister being had decided to preoccupy this space. 

But nothing happens. 

The wind picks up, the leaves rustle against the branches, and as if it were a gift from the Earth, the sordid feeling blew right away with it. 

“What the hell was that?” Y/N asks for the second time. 

Harry straightens out from where he’d been crouched, inhaling the cool air, appreciative to be in it. 

“Do you think for a second, with my reaction, that I have any fucking clue?” 

                                                        .                             .                              .

Y/N doesn’t have people at her flat often. 

Actually, apart from Niall and a few maintenance men, nobody had ever really come over. Not for any particular reason, really, and not because she didn’t want them to necessarily -- the opportunity just rarely arose, or more so, she didn’t often allow it to. If she were going to meet someone then she would meet them somewhere else, and they would part ways after they were finished (again, apart from Niall, who would simply follow her home, kick his trainers off, and head toward her couch which he had told her was simply the comfiest he’d ever been on). Her home was her humble abode. . .it was where she came to destress after a long day, and where Thumper sometimes waited for her debating whether or not he wanted to nibble her bathroom rug to shreds.

Not to mention she had plants growing here too, and flowers that she held dear to her, and while people are more reluctant to go touching what isn’t their business at a store, they are much less disinclined to give that same respect to her plants. Once Y/N had a maintenance man over to fix her faucet and she’d walked out from her room to see that he was caressing her snake plant’s leaves. She couldn’t blame him -- the plant had a very encompassing presence about it and had a way of drawing people in if they weren’t careful. . .hypnotized by the way it made them feel. All of Y/N’s soil and seeds are charmed with special incantations and concoctions that took her years to perfect, she would be disappointed if they weren’t causing people to leave all semblance of professionalism to even for a moment feel as if they were in a room with such clear air, their lungs felt renewed and they deemed it necessary to get closer. 

But then she had to apologize to her snake plant for nearly two days after! It had been so upset with her, she could feel it, so she started being even more careful about who she let in.  If she was going to go out of her way to have someone over, then there was a good reason for it. . .or it was Niall. 

And a demonic, gooey substance sweating from the walls of a blood bank, was well enough a good reason to have Harry over. 

It took some coaxing on her part -- he was convinced that they needed to just go back to their respective flats and go to bed, but Y/N was adamant in vetoing the idea. “We’re supposed to talk tomorrow anyway, so we might as well just go ahead and do it tonight -- and you are not leaving me alone after whatever the fuck that was!” 

After a good ten minutes, he finally relented as long as they could stop by his flat so he could get his kitten. Y/N hadn’t known that he had a kitten and thought maybe he would bring out some ragged-looking thing, but she was surprised to see through her windshield window that Harry was approaching her car with a small grey kitten. Her face contorts in the way everyone’s face might when they see something small and cute, “Look at her,” she coos once Harry opens his door, “What’s her name?” 

“This is Oat,” he answered, holding her out for Y/N to pet, “Be careful, she’s vicious.” 

Y/N pet at her head and Oat’s eyes shut as she nuzzled into her palm, “Oh yeah, what a panther.”

 Apart from the nerves that had already materialized from what they had seen in the blood bank, she was a little worried about inviting him into her home. When she visualized her safe space, Harry was not typically who she saw sitting on her couch when she came in from the kitchen, holding mugs of warm tea. Yet there he was, introducing Thumper and Oat to one another (who merely sniffed each other, then immediately cozied against her olive throw blanket on the end of the couch), and Y/N is handing him his steamy mug. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, immediately nursing the mug between his palms and lifting it up to his mouth for a small sip -- the steam disperses around his face in plumes, “And it wouldn’t make sense for. . .for whatever that is to just be a demon.” 

“What?” She inquires, taking her seat beside him on the couch, her body twisted so she was facing him entirely. Y/N had adjusted the temperature to something that would be a bit more suited toward having a guest -- when she’s alone, she keeps it ungodly cold so she has an excuse to bundle up in her clothes and blankets. There’s nothing like feeling safe in a cocoon of various fabrics with Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the telly. 

Harry strategically places the mug between his knitted socked feet, steadying it there as he begins to play with the thick, brassy tiger ring on his index finger, “Demons are strong, sure, but if they’re gonna be that strong there’s typically two reasons for it: they have already inhabited that area, or someone is controlling them behind the scenes. I would be more inclined to believe the prior, but I’ve been going to this blood blank for about a year now and unless there were some pentagrams I’ve missed or a gruesome ordeal that never made the papers in the past two weeks -- then there’s no reason for that to have happened at the hands of a spirit. Even a blood demon isn’t strong enough to make what happened in there happen, and they literally feed off the substance in the room.” 

“So you think someone summoned it or something? I thought you were the only one around here that did that?” Y/N probes, trying to look in his eyes but she keeps getting distracted by his rings -- how many did he have? She thinks he nearly has one on each finger, and he’s plucking them off and placing them on different knuckles as he speaks. Y/N wonders if it’s something he does in response to a stressor, like how she picks at her nails. 

“I’m the only witch that summons things around here, but not even I could conjure something that feels that vile.” He explained, fitting the last ring against his knuckle before he pops the bones in his fingers, and Y/N watches as the skin stretches and moves around the muscles in his hands,  “I think someone is trying to manifest something without the proper safeguards in place. . .the lack of protection charms, crystals, and spells can invite much more heinous creatures to the living world. They feed off shite like that -- naivety. . .thinking that any person could decide they’ll have a demon carry out a job for them. It’s easier for them to take advantage of them that way.” Harry exhales, running the pad of his thumb around the rim of the mug— she’s given him the one that has intricate, realistic drawings of beluga whales on it, not for any other reason apart from that one was her favorite and she liked to see it in use, “And with a full moon coming up? Recipe for disaster.”

“Oh shit,” Y/N holds her tea closer to her being, “That’s why the feeling is so profuse and disagreeable in the air then, ‘cos they aren’t containing it right? When I was looking into a little bit of what you do, I read that there are containment spells so the demon or spirit doesn’t have free range to do as it pleases, but the spell is dependent on the demon in question and the severity of its power.” 

Harry looked pleasantly surprised, “Yeah, that’s right -- what’re ya looking up what I’m doing for?” He settles into her couch, “Have you got a crush on me or summat?” 

If Y/N rolled her eyes any further back, she thinks they would have done a 360 in her eye sockets, “I fell down a rabbit hole the other night when I was trying to figure out why you couldn’t sleep,” an impish grin slides onto his mouth, “And not because I’m “in love with you” -- I just thought it would be interesting to know if your insomnia was the reason of a demon because that would mean one of my items combats against that and wins. My. . .most of my magic is based on prevention when it comes to dark things like that, not really to fight what’s already there.” 

“So your flowers don’t like -- I dunno, Little Shop of Horrors it?” He teases, motioning to her Hoya plant that had just begun to bloom for her, “I reckon when I think of plant magic, I think of you snapping your fingers and thorned ivy whipping around to slow assailants.” 

“No, none of that,” she laughs lightly, shaking her head, “They’re much too nice and gentle. . .they only want to help. And I’m rarely in a situation where I would need thorned ivy whipping around.” Y/N locks eyes with Oat for a moment, whose eyes close nice and slow before she reopens them and Y/N thinks she might just melt, “What do we do then? How do we stop it?” 

He slides a ring with teddy bears from his pinky and spins it between his forefinger and thumb, “There’s nothing to do -- if we don’t know who the problem is, then we can’t fix anything.” Harry shrugs his shoulders, and the action makes his already loose cardigan slide down his arms, revealing more of the cream-colored shirt he wore with Smokey the Bear on the front reading Only YOU! can prevent forest fires, “All we can do is wait for the next fucked feeling and hopefully run into the person causing -- oh,” Harry pauses, motioning toward her, “You’ve got a new friend.” 

Y/N’s confused, brows knitted until she feels a paw press against her shoulder and the telltale purr of a happy kitty. When she turns her head, she finds that Oat has snuck her way up to her, and is now attempting to perch on Y/N’s shoulder. She presses closer to the back of the couch so that she had a better footing, and in return Oat bumps at her cheek with the top of her head, “You’re so cute, stop it,” she murmurs, and when she takes a breath through her nose, she smiles, “She smells like my heliotrope flowers too! How are you the familiar of such a grumpy, cruel lug, huh?” 

“Oi,” Harry mutters, “I resent that. I’m not grumpy or cruel, you’re just rotten.” 

A retort plays at Y/N’s mouth but her phone screen lights up from where it’s sat on the coffee table and strays her attention. She’s confused -- the only person who would be messaging her this late was Niall but she’s almost a hundred percent certain that he was supposed to be out at the bar tonight. It is him though. 

Fuck me, have ya looked at the news? Is this that thing we were talkin bout? 

Harry is a nosy bugger, and after reading the message with her he reaches for her remote, “You told him about it?” He turns on her telly, quick to open her TV guide, “So he knows about you?” 

“Yeah, he knows -- turn to 3,” she tells him, and soon enough the local news is playing out, big bold letters on the blue band stretched across the bottom of the screen. 

MAN TO BE CHARGED WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER ON GIRLFRIEND 

He turned the volume up, so they could hear the news reporter who was on site. There was yellow caution tape stripped around a house, police lights, cops walking around in the back, and frightened neighbors who had left the comfort of their homes to investigate what was happening. The woman on screen had long blonde hair that whipped when the wind blew and muffled her microphone feed, her face set stony as she recounted the events as the police had told her, “. . .has no recollection of the event, and is claiming the “walls” were dripping in blood and demanding that he do it. Jacobs is being taken in for further questioning and pending a psychiatric evaluation -- his girlfriend Amanda Wilson is being rushed to hospital that’s all anyone knows right now. Back to you Tom...” 

“Oh, fuck sake,” Harry groaned, shaking his head, “Now this is a problem, problem innit?” 

“Was it not before?” Y/N takes the remote from him, turning the volume down, “Do you -- does that sound like anything you’ve dealt with? That would try hurting someone like that?” 

He presses his knuckles to his eyes, sighing, “Not that I remember -- I’ll have to do some digging. . .this is bollocks, you know how bad this is for business? Nobody wants to mess with dark magic when shit like this is going on.”

“Aish, don’t think so selfishly. People are in danger,” she tsks at him, “And we’ll need to -- what are you doing?” She asks as he removes his feet from where they had been on the couch, reaching down for his loafers like he was about to put them on. 

“S’getting late,” he responded, “I was g’na head home --” 

“No you’re not,” she told him, her face dropping in borderline disgust as he seemed genuinely confused with her, his face twisting, “We experience something like that, then see the news, and you not only want to separate, but you want to walk all the way home, alone, in the dark? No way, that’s too stupid, you’re staying here.” 

Harry’s brows dipped in, irritated, however, he did stop reaching for his loafers,  “But --” 

“Listen, we may not be fond of each other but I’m not letting you put yourself in danger,” she tells him, before adding quickly, “And you are fucking not going to leave me alone after that! Are you mad?” 

“I’m sorry, I thought I’d be doing you a favor without bothering ya with my presence. Never thought Miss. Good Witch of the North would want me breathing her air for too long.” He ripostes and it reinvigorates any distaste for Harry that had been easing throughout the night the more they spoke. He always did that -- always made her feel like she was some stuck up prick who never gave him a chance, but she would have if he hadn’t started out being such an arse to her. Sure, the circumstances they had met under weren’t fantastic. . .she snapped at him for taking her flowers without asking, but he could have just apologized -- could have said sorry, and they could have started over but he was immediately put off by her she presumes, because ever since he’d been nothing but cruel to her. His knocking her out of the room in the blood bank was probably the first kind thing he’d ever done for her, and she isn’t a hundred percent certain that she wasn’t just in his way while he was trying to get out. 

So she glowers at him as she pushes from her couch, “Sod off. I’ll get you some blankets.”

He almost immediately replaces the spot that her body had been with his legs, stretching out as far as he could and his feet flop on the arm of the sofa, “Reckon you should make me some of that tea though, so I can sleep.” He called after her. Thumper hops off and follows after her, while Oat finds her spot at Harry’s side and cuddles into where his cardigan’s extra fabric bundles. Y/N goes to the closet in the hall that leads to her bedroom, pries it open, and reaches to the top shelf where she keeps her extra blankets and pillows. Despite how irritated he makes her, she grabs him one of her heavier quilts, because even with her heat kicked up higher than normal her flat has very poor insulation, and the night’s into early mornings get pretty cold. She’s about to grumble at him that he better thank her for this and the bloody tea, but when she returns to the living room. . .he’s asleep. 

Harry just fell right to sleep. 

She’s confused -- understandably, she thinks, because she remembers how much of a fit he’d thrown about her tea and how she was closed on weekends so he couldn’t have any of it. Had whined how he wasn’t able to sleep without the tea, and she had only given him peppermint tea tonight, so there was no reason that should have put him to bed. 

Yet there he was, fast asleep with his arms crossed over his chest. 

 Tutting her tongue quietly, she unrolls the blanket she had chosen for him and strategically places it over his legs. She is careful to move Oat so that she doesn’t suffocate under the covers as she pulls them over, up to Harry’s chest before replacing her in the spot she had snuggled prior. She pauses for a moment before she leaves them, taking in a completely relaxed Harry -- not that he doesn’t seem relaxed all the time, but he’s just. . .calm. His muscles have melted against her couch cushions, his brow has soothed and his amaranth pink lips are soft and parted. Gentle, easy breaths slip through his mouth. . .Y/N thinks that she likes him like this. Not spiteful, or crass -- this Harry doesn’t seem to hate her. This Harry is warm and comfortable enough to just fall asleep on her couch. 

Thumper thumps his foot against the floor, his not-so-silent request that they go to bed and Y/N snaps out of whatever hypnotic state she’d been in watching him rest. She feels creepy but shakes it off, reaching down to pick up Thumper by his belly and cradling him to her chest as she leaves the living room, keeping her lamp on for him in case he wakes up to have a wee or anything. 

It’s when she goes to the kitchen to grab him a bottle of water to leave at the coffee table for him, that she can feel Thumper judging her. This is only confirmed by the way he is looking up at her when she looks down at him, his small, pink nose twitching, and she can just sense him repeating Harry’s tease of have you got a crush on me or summat? -- it’s not like he hasn’t questioned her before. She reckons if Thumper could actually speak and not just implant little thoughts of his in her head through whatever little bond they have, he would be very free with his accusations about who she might have feelings for. 

Y/N rolls her eyes. 

“No, I don’t,” she disagrees with him quietly, “What do you know about crushes, hm? You’re just a bunny.” 

                                                         .                               .                              .

It had been a while since Harry had worked. 

Though he was always hesitant to call it work, all things considered. Y/N had once described to him that what he did was lurk around seedy clubs and wait to be recognized by a sorry sap that wanted something they didn’t want to put much effort towards, and Harry can’t necessarily say she’s wrong.  He preyed on the lazy; men and women who couldn’t be arsed to obtain a goal without the help of a little magic no matter how negative, and Harry couldn’t really fault them for it. One, because sometimes goals are unattainable with literally anything other than a demon's help, and two because he gets a hefty wad of cash in his pocket for his trouble. How hypocritical could he be to deprecate their usage of dark magic when he is doing the same thing. . .when he relies on that more than anything, even the silly little romance novels he writes so that nobody questions where his money’s coming from. 

It was a Friday night, and since he was no longer tied to the commitment of meeting Y/N to discuss the horrible, no good, terrible thing that was slithering its way through town and apparently spurring bouts of attempted murder -- he was able to visit a club. Though Y/N had made him lock pinkies with her that morning, telling him to keep his eye out for anything suspicious that may or may not have led to the events from the night prior. 

Promise me that you’ll keep informed on what’s going on there, okay? And promise me that you’ll tell me about it. 

The club he’d visited was one of the more popular of the four he frequented, and within the walls, amongst the gyrating bodies in scant clothing and sweat-drenched skin, were many of his regular clients. One of which had been blowing up his phone for the past week telling him how he desperately needed help, and he needed it ASAP. Harry finally replied to his message with a simple time that he would meet him, and that they would discuss the cost once he’s explained what is being asked of him. This guy, in particular, wanted many frivolous things, and typically his requests revolved around wealth, though Harry thought he had more than enough. And while Harry could do a few simple spells that would bring the money gradually and don’t come with the dangers that a demon will, he refuses. Harry has always told each of his clients that a spell and a demon could do the same thing, but demons brought faster results, albeit potentially precarious consequences.

And when it comes to summoning, things can get a bit tricky. If the person who is summoning is the person who will benefit from the demon’s will directly, then it may come with a price, and that price may or may not be hidden between the lines. Especially when it is someone who has no clue about the actual process, offerings that could be made without including their soul for the taking, and spells that could be done that would protect them. After doing this for so long, Harry had developed and harnessed enough power that it was rare a spell every backfired or a demon ever bested him, but if Bradley Evans tried this himself, he’d be good as dead. 

This is why, no matter how this man grates every open end of his nerves with a dull blade, he continues to help him. Again, Harry gets paid an obscene amount of money for what he does, so he sucks it right up -- and it’s not as if this money is just for him. He has people to take care of, his own personal gripes with the smarmy, rich, meat-headed pricks that want him to summon Clauneck for a trip to the Bahamas matter very little in the grand scheme of things. 

He’s leaning against the far back corner, at a table that he’d claimed for the night and a cherry mango cocktail that wets his lips and stains them red. He really isn’t scouting for suspicious behavior like he had promised to, only because his mind had floated elsewhere entirely. Like how, after so long of only ever being able to rest with help of Y/N’s chamomile, he was able to fall asleep without the help of anything. He had asked her about the tea that she and he drank prior to him passing out unprompted on her couch, but she told him it was just a store-bought strawberry tea that was a guilty pleasure. 

It perplexed him greatly. He only remembers her demanding him to stay the night because she didn’t want to be alone (and if he’s honest, neither had he after the night they had), he remembers her standing and him stretching out on her couch, and he remembers asking her for the tea that would help him sleep. 

And then he remembers waking, feeling refreshed, and renewed. Confused, but reinvigorated, he had a wee before poking around in her kitchen for something to satiate his grumbly stomach. Y/N was still asleep -- he’d peeked his head into her cracked open door only to find her dreaming peacefully, relaxed, and content. As creepy as it felt to stare at her as she slept, he did watch for a moment. It was different to see her without the accompanied scowl he usually coaxed upon her face -- the blissful gleam that exudes from her now is the same that he sees when she’s tending to one of her gardens. 

He brewed two chai lattes in her Keurig with Oat on his shoulder like a bird and she woke as he was taking the second mug, setting it on her kitchen counter, “G’morning,” she yawned, Thumper hopping behind her, looking just as sleepy, “Did you sleep through the night? I made you a cuppa and kept it in the microwave in case you woke up.” 

His heart had lurched. . .a genuine clench that Harry had not felt in a while.

“Oh,” he blinked at her owlishly, “I slept just fine, but thank you.” 

“Mm, good,” she was so sleepy still, Harry remembers wondering if she was even fully awake speaking to him, “I  have sliced fruit in the fridge if you want, for brekkie.” 

It was a domesticated scenario that Harry had not been privy to.  

Had it been her flat? Maybe the plants that she had strewn about the room were all enchanted, singing sweet songs of sleep that lulled him to sleep without him knowing. All he could recall was feeling so unbelievably comforted and no matter how cold it was in that damn flat, he felt so warm. . .so warm, and it smelled so good, and Oat was snoozing happily at his side. Plus she had wrapped him in this quilt that was heavy and smelled nice -- he thinks, in that moment, he finally understood why babies liked feeling contained in a swaddle blanket. Regardless of what happened at the blood bank, and what they found out on the news, Harry felt safe in her flat. And he probably wouldn’t have left either, if he didn’t have to work. 

He’s so caught in his reverie, that Bradley’s arrival truly startled him. A clearing of his throat catches his attention, dragging his unfocused gaze from the crowd of dancers to Bradly, dressed in a Lacoste polo that thought was ugly but he would never say it aloud, “Oh,” he straightened up, bringing the rim of his glass to his mouth and taking a small sip of it, “Right then, what can I do for you? Another trip to Barbados?” 

Bradley shakes his head a little frantically, and it's only then that Harry takes in the actual appearance of him, that surpasses the Lacoste and zeros in on the panic that decorates his face, “I need like -- like a demon protector or some kinda spell or -- I don’t fucking know, or something.” 

“Oh --” his brows dip, “What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?” 

He starts to nod, then switches it to a shake of his head, and that morphs into a shrug of his shoulders, “I don’t know man, I just don’t feel -- I don’t feel safe. I wondered if one of those demons from before were like. . .after my soul or summat.” 

“Not possible,” Harry dismisses the idea, setting his glass down on the high round table, “When I work with them we make a spiritual, contractual agreement that they are bound to. If your soul was not on the table, then it will never be on the table -- it must be something else,” he thinks for a moment before a slither of realization stokes the fire in his brain, that sets the coals aflame and heats the cogs to a churn, “What -- explain to me what you’re feeling?” 

“Like something is watching me,” he blinked, crossing his arms on top of the table and leaning most of his weight onto it, the scent of liquor wafts over Harry’s face when Bradly breathes, “It’s heavy and. . .it’s like swimming in ink. It’s horrible and frightening, and I’ve never -- I’ve never been one to rely on vibes, but mate, they were bad. . .they were like -- vile. Vile vibes, man.” 

Harry thinks, while his description is repugnant, he knows exactly what he’s talking about, but there wasn’t much he could do. Harry can make protection spells that are generalized but he doesn’t believe that any of them are strong enough to fend off whatever this thing is. In cases like this one, sometimes dark magic is not good to fight dark magic, it can only make it grow and fester like a nasty, infected wound. He really did not want to try that out on Bradley. . .he may not be fond of the guy, but he didn’t wish anything ill on him. 

“You wouldn’t come to me for a protection spell, for something like that,” Harry begins, “You would need --” You would need Y/N -- is what is about to leave his lips, but it drops away. As much as it’s true -- as much as Harry knows that the reason he felt the safest he’s ever had in Y/N’s presence was whatever protection spells she had put in place and strengthened -- he couldn’t. The thought of sending someone like Bradley to someone like Y/N, makes him feel sick. “Give me one second, yeah? Stay here.” 

Y/N gave him her number that morning, telling him that it was silly for them to be unable to contact one another. Harry saved it into his phone and sent her a picture of Oat so that she would have his, but left it at that -- he had assumed, until this moment, that he would never have a reason to have her number. If he ever wanted anything from her he would just show up at her store. 

But here he was, scrolling through his contact list to find her, pressing her number and holding his phone up to his ear. It only rings twice before she’s answered it, “Hello? Is everything okay Harry, did you get a lead?” 

Harry laughs in disbelief, “What’re you, a detective?” He cleared his throat so he could speak over the music clearly, “I need you for something, and I’ll give you half. And before you get all high and mighty, it isn’t for anything bad -- one of my regulars is experiencing the same fucked thing we have only it’s more vile vibes opposed to blood seeping from the walls. Need a protection spell -- whatever you use for your flat and store.” 

She’s quiet for a moment, long enough that Harry questions if his service dropped, but her voice reappears.

 “Where are you?” 

Fifteen minutes later, Harry is flagging Y/N down to his spot in the club where he stood next to Bradley whose friends kept coming around wondering if Harry was his pull for the night. Her jumper with a printed bunny right in the center made him chuckle to himself -- it was more than clear that she had not planned on coming out tonight, and if not for Harry, he thinks she would have spent three more hours at her store tending to the garden there if not for him. When she sees him, noticeable relief makes her shoulders slump, and as she gets closer, she reaches into her pocket, “Thank god,” she called over the music, “I’ve been in here for three minutes and if I got knocked into one more time I was going to lose it.” 

She produces two things -- one is a tiny vial, with an unidentified green liquid, and the other is a small baggie of her tea. Harry takes both from her hand, “Thank you,” he murmurs, before dipping down closer to her ear, “Go over to that empty table near the bar, I don’t want this guy seeing you clear enough that he could ask you for anything ever again.” 

Though she was confused, she listened to him, slinking her way over to the table while Harry turned to Bradley who had been looking at his phone, before both were placed in front of them, “Thank you,” he tells him, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. How much?” 

“850,” Harry says without batting an eyelash. Typically his business runs closer to the thousands but he cuts the guy a break since he’s scared.

“Each or what?” Bradley asks as he fishes his wallet from his pocket, flipping the leather open and beginning to thumb through his bills. 

“No, just 850,” he takes the bills from him, folding it between his fingers, “I shipped your crystals last week, did they come?” 

Bradley nods, a big grin on his face, “Oh, fuck yeah dude, I almost forgot! I already transferred you the money for them right?” 

Harry thinks it’s a shame that he doesn’t keep track -- he could really scam him if he wanted to, with these black crystals bathed in the water of Asmodeus (they increases stamina and aids them in not being shit in bed; it was a fucking full-day event to get Asmodeus to recognize the clear stream water, in an incubator that he checks every 15 minutes or so to see if the water has been touched red)  “Yeah, you sent double the amount ‘cos your buddy wanted some too, right?” 

“He loved them, mate,  he’s way less narky too now that he’s getting his dick wet.” 

Harry holds back a grimace, “Alright then, stay safe. You know how to contact me if you need anything.” 

Bradley bids his goodbye and Harry seeks out Y/N, who is picking idly at her fingernails and bobbing her head slightly to the music. When he gets close enough to her, he starts on his spiel as he waves the money toward her,

“Listen, Babe, you used your plants to help him, honestly you deserve way more than this -- a fucking Nobel Prize probably,” he holds it out to her, “Here.” 

She shakes her head, but not in the way she would if she were refusing it because she was disgusted by him -- no, instead she closes his hand around it again and presses it closer to his body, “No, no, you keep it, he’s your guy or whatever.” 

Harry tilts his head, brows knitted, “But they’re your plants.” 

“Yeah, but I would just feel guilty taking it from you so --” 

He sighs, counting out 450 of it, taking her hand, opening her fingers, and sliding the bills into her palm, “Even split then. If you’re going to utilize something precious to you to help someone like that fucker, you deserve a little compensation for it. “ 

Y/N must realize that he wasn’t going to let it go, because she finally folds it in her hands, slipping it into her pocket, “What’s with that guy then? Why do you not like him?” 

Harry can see it clearly; the image of his childhood self, his family struggling to make ends meet but going to primary school with the wealthier kids. The ones who laughed at his faded shirts, and holed winter coats -- who would ask him to their birthday parties and talk shit about the gift he’d scraped up coins for doing miscellaneous work around the neighborhood. He thinks about how he knew they would go home to kitchens full of food, and bountiful dinners that they would never appreciate, while Harry never took seconds because no matter how hungry he was, he made sure their bellies were as full as they could be. And Harry remembers how the headmaster did nothing to quell his worries because those kid’s parents could buy out the school if they wanted to. 

He sees it all, and he hears it all, and for a moment -- selfishly -- it makes Harry wish he had never given Bradley the protection spell at all. 

But he only shakes his head, “He’s just a prick,” he answers simply, before nodding his head toward the door, “Reckon we should get out of here, it smells like piss.” 

It’s always a little easier to leave the club than it is to enter it, so they’re out in the cool air soon enough. A small line had formed outside since Harry had been in there last, and as they step out, a group of three is let in through the rope chain that the bouncer is policing. This part of town is always bustling late into the night, so neither feel the cold brush of fear they have been when they’re out in the dark -- or at least the relaxed way Y/N is looking around tells him that she’s pretty content. 

“Do you want to get something to eat?” She asks him, pointing at the 24-hour diner right across the street, that had been strategically placed there because people who are drunk and high who just sweat out half their body weight love greasy food, “I skipped dinner today.” 

“What a coincidence -- so did I.” 

They got a booth in the far back corner, where the white and maroon tilted floor glistened wet from a recent scrub from the mop, and the air smells of lemon pine-sol. This along with the fact that the black leather seats were dusted of the crumbs that usually mottles them, Harry would assume that they had come just in time for their 12 AM clean up, where the first batch of besotted clubbers had left a mess and they were waiting for the second wave to come through. He didn’t miss the eye that the waitress had given them, looking them up and down like she was trying to decipher what state they were both in, but when neither of them wobbles in their stance, or slur through their words asking for a table, she relaxes and asks them where they’d like to sit. 

After they get settled and order their food (Harry convinces her to get one of their malted milkshakes with him -- his favorite was strawberry and after she confessed that she never had their strawberry malt, he was insistent on her trying it), Harry’s curiosity is suddenly piqued as he thinks of something he hadn’t thought of before, “How did you make it over to the club so fast, hm? Do you just have jars of this stuff made laying around?” 

Y/N sticks her clear straw in the icy glass of water she’d been poured, stirring it like there was anything to mix, and the ice cubes clink together soundly, “No, no, I actually don’t make protection spells unless I’m asked directly -- or usually that’s the case, but I was already in the middle of making some for you and me, so I had a little leftover.” 

“For me too?” Harry inquires, genuinely surprised by the concept that she would make him something to keep him safe. She nods though, like it was silly that he thought she wouldn’t have, only this time she reaches into her purse and retrieves two much larger vials with little cork tops, and one bigger bag of the dried leaves, accompanied by a smaller one tied with red ribbon. 

“I was doing some research while I was at work --” 

“You do a lot of research, don’t you?” He cuts her off and she nods. 

“Mhm -- and there’s this like. . .there’s this elder witch who lives an hour or so drive away from us who I think might be immortal, but that’s beside the point. She has this blog that I was scrolling through and she linked her email, so I messaged her and she sent me her number and told me to call her immediately.” She slides one of the vials over to him, along with the tree leaves, “When I did, she told us that we were in a little more danger than everyone else ‘cos like -- whatever this thing is could start trying to feed off of us, especially you. Said that we needed a potent protection spell, and I told her about mine. You feel safe in my store and in my flat right? Like -- like whatever that thing is couldn’t get to us?” He nodded, eyes fixed on hers, “So this is a version of that suitable for our bodies. The tea leaves are for your flat, and then this little bag here --” she points at the one tied closed with the small strip of red ribbon, “-- this is a tea version of it safe for Oat to drink.” 

Not only had she made him some, but she also made Oat some too? As much as he disliked her before, he can’t help how this warms his heart, zipping through his body and makes him feel just as safe as he did when he was wrapped in her quilt snug on her couch. Harry wonders if this is what she’s like all the time with her friends. . .he wonders if this side of her, that researches and makes protection goodies, brews him a cuppa just in case he woke up in the middle of the night and comes out in the depth of night to the seedy clubs she despises just because he called and asked -- if that’s what they get to see. If that’s what he would have seen had their meeting been any different. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, taking the vial and the bags, looking at them against his palm, “A lot. You didn’t have to do this for me.” 

“I did though,” she takes a drink of the water through her straw, “I may not agree with what you do but we’re the only two witches here and there is power in unity, even if our versions of magic are different. We have to be there for each other -- Thumper agrees, and that’s a lot coming from him because he doesn’t like much of anybody. . .he barely likes me,” she holds her hand up, the index finger of her other going from finger to finger as she lists off the ingredients, “So we’ve got fern, anise, leaves from the ash tree in the forest, fennel -- the nice old woman told me to hold off on the mugwort unless we’re planning on astral projecting or doing anything with divination, but if we felt that it was necessary we could wear a wreath of it around her necks. That’s an old wives tale though, I’m pretty sure.” She wiggles her fingers, “All that and a little bit of moon water, and we have ourselves a little protection spell! I dipped my finger in for a taste test and I’ll be honest, it’s awful and plant-y but I reckon we can toss them back like a shot and chase it with a sweet drink like juice or something.” 

It hits Harry that he gave Y/N very little credit for what she did, but now as he’s looking at something that she’d made specifically with him in mind, that wasn’t just a glorified sleepy time tea, it puts some things in perspective for him. Sure, she’s been a dick to him in the past, but he was a dick too, about her magic. While he isn’t going to start kissing the ground she walks on, he decides then that he’ll be more mindful of her craft. Plus, from the amount of time that they’ve had to spend together in the past two days, she’s tolerable when she isn’t on her high horse about him summoning spirits and ruining the town. She’s even helpful. 

“Thank you,” he repeats, “I really mean it, I appreciate this a lot.” 

Y/N smiles at him and it’s a smile that he’s never been gifted before. A smile that makes him smile back, as she places her elbow on the table and holds out her pinky toward him -- she’s big on pinky swears, he’s finding. 

“We’re looking out for each other, okay? I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine. . .I swear it.” 

Harry locks his pinky with hers without a second thought. 

#WRITING #WOOOOOOOOO #SPOOKY #YAHTZEE #I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT BECAUSE I LOVE IT LOADDS #AND I LOVE YOU LOADS #HAPPY READING :D #HARRY STYLES