#i dunno where the green came from i was just thinking of what eye color to give him and i thought “yes green what an amazing choice”

[paradoxgoggles]

I call this one fishbowl, because whoever this is looks so much like water in a fishbowl it's weird.

#my artwork #digital artwork #dragon #dragon art #flowers #i guess #i dunno where the green came from i was just thinking of what eye color to give him and i thought “yes green what an amazing choice”

[moralesmilesanhour]

Hi! May I request a small fic where miles 42 dates a male reader who's very bubbly, glittery, fashionista, and dresses in very bright colors or pastels. Maybe Rio and Aaron finally get to meet him and try their best not to tease or laugh at how ironic it is?

They find it even funnier knowing he's the who's been stickers all of his jackets or just anything that came out of his room.

Got carried away with this one oopsie

take it or leave it.

Miles peeled off his dark green puffer jacket, brushing off stray rain drops that hadn’t evaporated yet. In doing so his fingers ran over something smooth like plastic. Already knowing what it was, he took his forefinger and thumb and removed it.

The face of a rabbit with an ‘x’ for a mouth stared blankly at him. Miles held it up to the light and smiled to himself as little dots of color shifted from orange to green, having a good idea who it was from.

You liked to slap these things everywhere–anywhere–that you could reach. Though you never explained yourself to him, Miles suspected that your reason was the same as his when he spray-painted the walls of abandoned buildings: to make your presence known in a world that seemed set on ignoring you.

Your bleach-blonde curls, pastel shirts and flared pants made you quite difficult to ignore in the first place.

Even Miles, who hid beneath his hoodies and oversized jackets, couldn’t take his eyes off of you from across the basketball court that fateful day as you sat on a bench crowded with your friends. They were dressed just as elaborately, but not with nearly as much variety of color.

One girl draped head-to-toe in black lace and silver jewelry leaned over to whisper something to you. Whatever was said made you turn and meet his eyes just as he caught the basketball that had just sunk through the net above him. 

He froze momentarily and could’ve sworn he saw you grinning at him before he started dribbling again.

You were too far away for Miles to commit the details of your face to memory, but he recognized the blonde sitting at the top of your head when you rammed into him in the middle of the hallway the very next day.

Now in full uniform–save for the fashionably-loosened tie–his eyes were drawn to the row of helix piercings lining your right ear, and the faint glow of metallic eyeshadow swiped across your lids with lashes that curled sharply upwards like–

“Yo,” your voice brought him back to reality. “Are you okay? I said ‘my bad’.”

Miles blinked.

“Oh,” he replied dimly.

You laughed good-naturedly.

“Just ‘oh’?”

“I-I mean,” Miles stumbled over his words, “You’re…good. I guess.”

“That’s…good,” you parroted with a teasing smile. “See you around!”

You pulled the strap of your book bag further over your shoulder, causing the cluster of charms and trinkets hanging from it to click-clack together with every bouncy step you took as you weaved through the stream of oncoming students.

That was how it began.

“I think he likes you.”

Sela took a bite of her french fry, which she then pointed towards the next table ahead of her. You followed her line of vision right back to the mismatched eyes that had burned two holes into the back of your skull in the hallway. 

And P.E. 

And A.P. Bio. 

The more you thought about it, the more your friend’s hypothesis began to sound believable.

Still, you shook your head and chuckled.

“He’s definitely straight, first of all.”

“You don’t know that! What happened to not assuming?”

“Hm, I dunno…”

You looked again. This time, Miles was fiddling with the sleeves of his uniform, avoiding eye contact. Presentation aside, you’d never really seen him running with the sort of boy that said “Pause!” every five minutes, so that was a plus.

…Then again, you’d never seen him running with anyone. He even hooped alone. You recalled him making several lay-ups in a row as clean as the twin braids that brushed his shoulders. No team required.

Sela interrupted your quiet deliberation.

“Go talk to him and find out, then. Not like he’s gonna kill you if you ask.”

She tapped her long black coffin nails on the lunch table, awaiting your answer. 

“I don’t feel like getting up,” you groaned lazily. 

“Fine, I’ll call him over.”

“Hey, wait–”

“Aye, Morales! Miles Morales!”

Miles looked startled. “Huh?”

Sela waved at him while you ran your palm over your face.

“C’mere!”

He eyed her suspiciously, but slowly got up and shuffled over to your table.

“Do you…” he looked around. “Need something?”

The girl gestured enthusiastically towards you, and you rolled your eyes mentally before replacing the irritation with a smile and taking the lead.

“You looked lonely over there, man. Come sit with us!”

Miles bit his bottom lip once you spoke up, appearing to take in a sharp breath before taking the empty seat across from you.

“So do you have any, like, actual friends–? Ow!”

Sela rubbed her arm after you gave her a good smack.

“Sorry about her. She meant to ask if you were doing alright. You seemed kinda out of it.”

“I’m…fine,” he answered slowly. 

“Well, that’s good. You were staring at me somethin’ fierce, I thought I had done something to you.”

Miles felt a rush of heat travel straight to his cheeks.

“N-nah, it’s just that–well, I saw you at the basketball court, and…” he trailed off and began messing with the end of one of his braids.

You leaned in closer to hear him better, which didn’t help his situation.

“One more time?”

“I saw you. At the basketball court.”

The teasing grin returned to your face.

“Yeah, I saw you too. What about it?”

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, trying to piece the right words together. Then he tried again.

“I liked your ‘fit.”

You held back an obnoxious snort of laughter. 

“That’s it?”

“Yeah, you have…good…fashion sense.”

Miles wrinkled his nose. He didn’t even believe his own lie. Why would you?

Mercifully, you narrowed your eyes but didn’t say anything. 

“Thanks. You got good taste in sneakers.”

You paused, then added, “Meet me at the basketball court after school and I’ll show you how I put my outfits together. How's that sound?”

The offer hung in the air. Miles considered the possibility that you were just pulling his leg and that he’d wind up standing alone in an empty court, but there was no sign of a joke in your expression. 

He shrugged in a fake show of nonchalance.

“Sure.”

The two of you went on like that for two long months. Meeting each other on the court, sitting on the bench and making light conversation while shooting compliments at each other that always just missed the mark of what you really meant to say, until one day you finally got tired of meandering.

“Miles, can I ask you something?”

“I dunno,” he answered, sipping on a pouch of Capri-Sun. “Can you?”

“You promise that if I ask, you’re gonna give me an honest answer?”

“If it won’t get me arrested, sure.”

“Miles, I’m serious.”

Your gaze intensified, making his heart rate quicken.

“Alright.”

“Are you into me?”

His blood ran hot and icy cold at the same time. 

The thumping in his chest whenever you got close and he could smell what soap you used, the absent-minded doodles in his sketchbook, and finally, the staring, had been given a name. And in being named, it took on a physical form - something blinding and liquid that shot through his bloodstream.

Miles wanted to be able to say no. Give a straight answer, and move on to a more comfortable topic. But you’d read him like a book the last time he tried to lie to your face.

You noticed his hesitation, and the vice grip he had on his now-empty Capri-Sun.

“It won’t change anything, I just wanna be sure.”

He looked unconvinced. How do you just go back to normal knowing that your friend is in love with you? They could pretend nothing had changed for maybe a couple weeks, maximum, before conversations became clipped greetings in the hallway, then fizzled out into nothing. Impossible.

But again, it was no use lying.

He avoided your eyes as he answered, “I think so.”

Cold, delicate fingers suddenly found themselves beneath his chin, and his eyes widened as you turned his face towards yours.

“Miles, look at me. You either do or you don’t.”

His heartbeat was in his ears now, making his breaths shallow and the veins in his eyes pulse. The setting sun cast a sentimental glow over everything that filtered through your hair. No one else was around, save for the warm breeze.

“Miles, are you good–?”

He pressed his lips against yours before he could stop himself. Your lips were smoother than he’d expected, just slightly tacky with mentholated lip balm.

And, more importantly, they kissed him back. 

-

Miles grabbed his sketchbook from his desk drawer and opened it to a page filled with tiny sketches of your outfits. Carefully, he placed the sticker next to the baby blue puffer you’d worn yesterday so that the two of you could be “twins”.

He should really call you, he thought.

-

You sighed, leaning your head back on the couch beneath the cool air-conditioning of Miles’ uncle Aaron’s apartment. The tall, lean man that you’d guessed Miles had probably gotten his accent from (and sayings that could only come out of the mouth of an older man) had gone out momentarily to grab food for all three of you. 

Feeling his eyes on you, you turned to your now-sort-of-official boyfriend with a questioning look.

“What?”

Miles was holding back a laugh.

“Why’d you switch up like that in front of my uncle?”

“I didn’t ‘switch up’ anything.”

“I have never heard you talk like that in my life.”

You copied his pose, slouching and man-spreading with your hands resting on your thighs. You flattened and lowered your voice into the boring monotone that teenage boys liked to adopt when they wanted to be taken seriously.

“You mean like this?”

This earned a snicker from Miles, whose expression then became earnest.

“Seriously, though, you don’t gotta do the whole act around my unc. He’s not like that.”

“Then why do you do it?”

The boy paused. 

Your observation was correct - Miles tended to lengthen and smooth out his stride when he walked next to Aaron on their ‘grocery runs’. He would remove the playful lilt in his voice, like when you strain freshly-brewed tea, leaving only the mellow liquid behind. 

“That’s…different.”

We’re trying to impress him for two different reasons.

You let it go. 

“Whatever you say. You are gonna tell him about us, though, right? Since he’s ‘not like that’.”

Miles scoffed, “You’re the one that introduced yourself as ‘a close friend of mine’. I ain’t tell you to say any of that.”

“I wasn’t sure if you felt safe!” you laughed.

“We were holding hands before he even opened the door, he definitely saw that shit.”

“Alright, alright, you win. We’ll both tell him, then. Sound good?”

“Sounds great.”

-

“Miles! Tu novio!”

“Coming!”

Miles padded over to the living room, where you stood in a bright yellow jacket covered in vibrant patchwork, and those jeans with the spray-painted stars all over them. Your hair was hidden beneath a red beanie you had stolen from his closet.

Aaron sipped on a fresh cup of coffee in the kitchen, well-within earshot as Miles greeted you.

“Hey.” The boy smiled, awkwardly sticking his hands in the pockets of his plain, dark-wash jeans.

His mother Rio shut the door and looked on in amusement at the two boys standing in front of her. You would think her son would add some more color to his wardrobe, being with someone that looked like that. But the all-black ensemble wasn’t going anywhere.

“¿Ustedes dos siguen fingiendo ser amigos?” the woman teased. “I’m not sensing any affection over here, guys!”

Miles gave his mom a blank stare, while you laughed. Even months later, the other boy wasn’t one for PDA.

“Oh they real affectionate, alright,” Aaron chimed in. 

“Here we go…”

“I go out to get these boys some Domino’s one time, right? I come back up, and these two are cuddling on my damn couch after they told me they were ‘just good friends’. Now mind you, I ain’t believe ‘em for a second–”

“That’s great, unc,” Miles was already tugging you in the direction of his room, “We’re leaving now!”

“Don’t get too touchy in there!”

Once inside, he shut the door behind him. You struggled to suppress a laugh at the weary look on his face as you sat on the edge of his bed.

“She’s kinda right, y’know.”

“About?”

“It wouldn’t kill you to spare me a hug or something, once in a while.”

He said nothing.

You scanned Miles’ bedroom. All of his manga had been cleared off of his desk, and his swivel chair was no longer burdened with a pile of clothes. He just cleaned his room, you think.

The only thing left sitting there was his notorious sketchbook, a ballpoint pen, and a couple of Tombow markers scattered about. 

And of course, your stickers. 

You got up to take a closer look at the loose sketches and hummed in satisfaction.

“You’re really good at getting clothing folds right. You sure you never wanna study fashion design?”

He smiled, and shook his head.

“I’ll leave the fashion shit to you.”

“We could go to F.I.T. together, you and me.”

Without so much as making a peep, Miles and his long legs had snuck up behind you to wrap his equally-long arms around your waist.

“I’ll visit you.”

“What are you doing?”

“You asked for a hug.”

“That’s not what I mea–”

“Take it or leave it.”

The smell of paint and Jergens lotion enveloped you as you pulled him closer. You inhaled deeply, then sighed.

“You’re real stubborn, you know that?”

His chest shakes as he laughs.

“One of us has to be.”

#miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles morales #miles morales x male reader #miles morales x black!reader #miles morales x you #requests #moralesanhour #earth 42 miles morales x male reader

[katsukiizmoon]

╰┈➤ ꒰🍓💌🥛 ┊boba time ┊Mama’s Harvest ꒱

『♡』 pregnancy

Your fingers fiddle with the little flower bud in your hands and you use the back of your hand to wipe sweat from your forehead. The sun is beginning to beat down on you, drenching your skin in rays.

“Almost done?” Katsuki startles you, leaning over from behind where you kneel.

You bounce, dropping the flower and turning around to give him a glare.

“Yeah, jus’ gotta finish pollinating the squash or it’ll produce less..” You remind, returning to the task at hand.

He chuckles, rolling his eyes and begins making his way through the garden with a basket in hand. Leaves rustle and the tell-tale sound of stuff flopping to the ground let’s you know he’s harvesting.

“Babe..” He calls and you glance over in his direction.

“Hmmm?” You wonder, nearly finished with your chores.

“How many peppers did you plant?” Katsuki inquires and you freeze.

“Uhhh..” Your mind races for an answer and you begin counting on your fingers. Whispering to yourself and naming off varieties.

“We’re gonna drown in peppers, holy shit.” He jokes, rounding one of the rows with a massive basket filled with different pepper varieties.

Katsuki rushes you inside, complaining that you shouldn’t be in the heat for too long and you pout. Still, you do as told and go inside to make lunch and relax.

There’s a lot of pros to your husband being a pro hero. One, you don’t need to work. You can if you want to but you don’t. Katsuki gives you all the money you want and more, no questions asked.

He doesn’t push unrealistic expectations on you, either. You had a career for years of your relationship and for the first two years of being married.

But when Katsuki came behind you with red cheeks and shy eyes, saying he wanted s little one, it was time for a change. Pregnancy is hard on the body and both of you thought it would be best to have you home for at least the first three years of the little melons life.

You aren’t far along, either. But your husband is persistent.

You watch from the kitchen window as he grabs another basket and scissors, only to come back with an abundance of herbs and fruits. Nothing in life rivals these moments.

You turn, grabbing s large knife and a cutting board to begin slicing a bunch of green onion. The knife hits the bamboo with a satisfying “knock knock knock” and you sigh in content.

Nausea bubbles in your throat and you push it down, thinking about all good things.

The door creaks open and Katsuki places the woven baskets on the table. You hear footsteps before his large hands are on your lower tummy. His head comes to rest on top of yours, where the places a kiss and sighs.

“So, when should we tell ma?” He ponders.

The cutting stops and you set down the metal utensil, turning to face him. Your arms wrap around his shoulders where they lay purchase, tugging your body closer to his own.

“Mmm.. not sure m’ love. Whadd’you think?” You mirror his mindset, unsure of what the best option would be.

“Well you’re the one growing the baby, so I thought you’d wanna do it a certain way- I dunno people get sentimental about this shit.” Katsuki’s damp lips come to rest on your forehead for a moment.

“Well I can’t hide it much longer- fuck it why don we just invite them over for dinner to get some of these peppers? We can tell em then!” You propose, shooting a look at all the excess fruit and vegetables.

“Yeah, we can do that, I’ll tell ‘em. What time?”

Katsuki’s breaking away, using his hip to bump you over so he can take over cooking. You smack his shoulder and he flinches. It stings even when he’s got a dark grey shirt on, no match for your mood.

You scowl and grab another cutting board and a bell pepper. He opens his mouth to say something but you cut him off.

“Baby I’m pregnant not dying. I’m cutting the damn bell pepper. And mm eight, we’ll do that.”

Before long, all the colorful foods are cut and turned into a large dinner. Sitting in front of you is chicken legs smothered in seasonings and drizzled in gravy over mashed potatoes. Your stomach grumbles and you nearly sigh in relief when his parents walk in.

The conversation continues as normal until you’re met with a wave of nausea. Your face scrunches and despite attempting to hide it- his mother notices. His father isn’t paying any mind, looking at the massive side salad you’ve prepared.

Her eyes narrow and her mouth opens.

“So, uh-“ Katsuki begins, cherry eyes flicking over to meet your own.

“I’m pregnant.” You reveal and his mother slaps the shit out of katsuki on instinct.

It isn’t malicious, she’s practically bouncing. A wide grin wipes across her face and she looks toward her husband with a giggle.

“Fucking FINALLY!” She yells and katsuki looks at her incredulously.

“Don’t look at me like that Katsuki! I’ve been wanting grand babies for years now!” His mother scolds, looking at you with a bright smile.

Katsuki takes a breath, nice and slow to steady himself, while your mother prods with questions. You’re eating, talking about the ins and outs of pregnancy while his father pitches in warmly.

He grumbles in the corner, telling his mom to shut up, and makes faces at some of the things he didn’t expect.

“Yunno, with this asshole, I really craved sweets. But the hardest part of being pregnant with him was probably the hemorrhoids and kicking. God- the kicking was horrible.” His mother explains, stuffing a last bite of mashed potato in her mouth.

You giggle at your husbands angry and confused face from the side. He seems almost offended that pregnancy could be so horrible.

“Why was the kicking so bad?” He pokes, much more gentle than usual.

“Ahh.. it feels like butterflies at first, yunno? But you moved a lot-“ she grabs a sip of water, tilting her head towards him, and places the glass back down.

“-that’s fine and all at first. But you got stronger and it hurt, at one point you had your foot pressed against my ribs for two hours! You’d just kick and it was a constant mild uncomfortable feeling..”

The blonde to your right furrows his brows and takes a sip of his own water. The metal fork he was once using placed on the side of his dish.

“Well, that… makes sense.” Katsuki thinks out loud and looks over towards you.

The dinner ends with kisses and hugs. His mother says she’s coming over in a few days with a couple pregnancy life savers and demands to have copies of the ultrasounds.

Katsuki takes his time that night while you bathe. He massages your shoulders and back, up your ankles and thighs and kisses your tummy. You catch him whispering for the little melon to be sweet to you and nearly coo at the man.

The next day, he brings in a large notebook and grabs a pen. “Baby Food” is messily written at the top and you smile.

A kiss is placed to the top of his head, then a kiss to your lower stomach, like it’s becoming routine.

There’s something fond, simple, and beautiful about the way he falls into fatherhood without question.

#pregnancy #bakugou x reader #bakugou #bakugou x you #bakugou fluff #strawberry cake #boba time #boba series: garden

[lovingastory]

Sakura collaboration story

Back in 2020, Kadokawa published a volume titled Sakura collaboration, which included a number of short stories (more like drabbles, really) related to several light novel series, including The Slayers. "Cherry blossoms" (sakura) was the common theme.

I recently got my hands on one copy of the volume, and the story Hajime Kanzaka wrote for The Slayers (set sometime after novel 17 and paired with a lovely illustration by Araizumi of Lina and Gourry under a cherry tree, which has been circulating on its own for a while) is so cute and quietly poetic that I thought it was a shame not to share it with everyone. So under the cut you can find my tentative translation.

It looked like falling snow.

It filled up the sky, filled up our field of vision – swaying, drifting white, white, white.

Except, it wasn’t cold. If anything, it reminded of warmth, perhaps simply because it was warm, or perhaps because there was also some red among all the dancing, falling white.

The open blossoms fell among the lined trees, splendid, and ephemeral at the same time.  

“Wow,” I couldn’t help but say in admiration, unconsciously stopping as soon as I fixed my eyes on that spectacle.  

“Amazing,” commented Gourry, my travel companion. He stopped too, enthralled by the dancing blossoms. “Say, Lina, what kind of flowers are those?”

“Dunno. I’ve never seen them back where we come from,” I replied.

A little while before, for a number of reasons, Gourry and I had been sent away to an unknown, faraway land. We’d found ourselves under this sky as we were trying and get back where we came from, on a clueless and unsuccessful journey.

I’d travelled here and there in the land I used to live in before, but I’d never seen those flowers. Meaning they probably only blossomed here.

“Cherry blossoms!” The girl called Ran, who’d become our travel companion ever since we got here, suddenly blurted out, in a strange voice.

She often used weird expressions, which, according to her, were in her hometown’s dialect.

“Huh? What, now?”

“The name of the flowers – cherry blossoms.”

“Ah. They are called ‘cherry blossoms’.” I looked at them again.

The mountains stretching out in front of us were green. However, at their foot, the colors of what appeared to be ‘cherry blossoms’ trees lining along the highway formed a long streak of white, continuing as far as we could see.

The fact that they were only along the highway and not on the mountains made me think that they hadn’t grown naturally, and had been planted. But why on earth were hundreds – heck, thousands of trees planted like that?

“To have grown so many trees… must have been some sophisticated and eccentric king or lord!”

“Wrong!”

“What’s wrong?”

“It wasn’t a king who grew them, just one common person.”

“Huh?!” As the meaning of her words struck me, I couldn’t help but raise my voice. “Wait, wait, wait! A single person, growing these many trees on their own? That shouldn’t be possible!”

“They were not on their own.”

“Didn’t you just say it was just one person?”

“After they’d started working hard to grow them, the people around here came to help too.”

“… Right.” Her way of expressing things was always a bit confusing.   

“Still, why did those people feel the need to grow that many trees? Are their fruits edible, by any chance?”

It wasn’t elegant of Gourry to ask, but truth is, it did happen sometimes that trees that bore edible fruits were planted along highways, in order to lower the chance of travelers collapsing from hunger or thirst.

When asked that, Ran furrowed her brow. “Mmm… they do bear fruits and those fruits are edible, but… they are not that good?”

Judging by her words, she had tried them before. Perhaps, they were extremely bitter or sour.

Gourry, probably anticipating that he, too, wouldn’t enjoy the taste, wore a dejected expression. “Not good? Why, getting plenty of delicious fruit like that would have been perfect…”

“What are you talking about?” I said, still enthralled by the white. “This scene itself is perfect, isn’t it?” A particularly strong gust of wind made the petals dance.

“Perhaps, the person who started to plant the trees did it because he wanted to see something like this, too.”

That one scope. Perhaps, he’d kept on with that one scope in mind. Perhaps, that person had seen something like this in his past, and burned with desire for seeing it again.

Perhaps, the people around that person had been moved by that love and enthusiasm, and decided to lend a hand.

The earth-moving passion and effort of one person, stirring up other people… that wasn’t common, but it did happen, sometimes. And as a result…

… as a result, now, we were in that place, surrounded by blooming white.

Perhaps, one day, Gourry and I would be back where we came from, far away from there. And still, we wouldn’t forget the scene we’d seen that day.

The three of us stopped there for a while yet, surrounded by dancing flowers.

#slayers #the slayers #lina inverse #gourry gabriev #ran #slayers novels #lina x gourry #gourry x lina

[zarvasace]

Ok Random question but if The Colors lived in a time when Hyrule had trains i.e. the Spirit Tracks era, what do you think each Link's relationship with the trains would be. Like would they all end up engineers, maybe Shadow gets spooked by the trains since nothing like that existed in the dark world. I dunno this is just a random thought that has gotten itself lodged in my brain

Okay, so Tumblr didn't show me this came in until now. XD sorry!

I don't know much about Spirit Tracks but I can imagine an early industrial revolution AU with some magic just fine!! :) let's come up with a train-centric steampunky AU:

Kingdom of Hyrule, less of a political kingdom these days, specializing in innovation. They've expanded their rail lines within their borders and have been making deals with other countries to build outward. There is one main rail line sponsored by the government, and universities and a few smaller ones trying to break into the growing industry.

Green, Red, Blue, and Vio are all new graduates of the kingdom's university, each specializing in something different. They're all in minor competition for The Title of Royal Engineer, but otherwise good friends with each other and the dean's daughter Zelda.

Using a steampunky mad science/occult ritual, the most relevant bad guy summons Shadow and, I assume, kicks off the plot.

Green would be kind of an officer—I don't know how train hierarchy works but I can pretend it's something like a ship. He's advancing through the ranks toward captain conductor and took officer classes at school. He's considerate but a little snobbish, coming from a rich family and knowing he's on track to be in charge someday.

Blue clashes the most with him, though Blue doesn't have any intention of being conductor (anymore.) He's well-acquainted with heavy machinery, the real greasy bolts and wheels of it all, and not just for trains. His standards of cleanliness and organization are legendary, and Green consults with him about the condition of the train as a whole.

Red is concerned, of course, with the whole steam-power part of it all. He's intimately familiar with several methods of propulsion, and enjoys trying to come up with more and more efficient engines. He knows exactly how much fuel they need and how to portion it out. He got into some trouble in school for several explosions and usually has soot on his clothes. Where Blue is concerned with every wheel and cog, Red knows the locomotive and tender car like the back of his hand. Better, probably, since his hands are usually blackened or gloved.

Vio's more about the logistics, the theoretical, the communication. He keeps the timetables, the financial records, and telegrams. He's a chronic overworker, and it isn't uncommon to find him napping in his tiny little office chair, several drained cups of coffee rattling on the desk. He's often first off the train at a stop, though he prefers to get back to the office as fast as he can.

Shadow is the ghost in the train. He's the silhouette against the oil lamps, the rippling reflection in the windows, the thing out the corner of your eye. He's the false telegram message, the broken face of the temperature gauge, the bell ringing in an empty compartment.

Okay well that was fun XD got a little more Aesthetic than Conceptual there at the end but hey fun times!

#my writing #i guess #four swords #steampunk

[lewis-winters]

22, 25, and 40 for Winnix? - Nathan

22. What reminds each of their partner?

Nix sees anything or anyone ginger and he's like a puppy like Oh!! Dick!! Richard!! I must tell my favorite red head that I saw another red head today!! be it a fox or a red panda or somebody else or, hell, Nix will be reading Anne of Green Gables and calling Dick carrots for weeks because he thinks he's funny. And also ice cream. He'll see an ice cream shop and wonder if maybe they'll let him buy a pint and some ice so he can bring it home to Dick. Sometimes, he'll hear a joke that's just the right amount of dry that he'll remember Dick instantly, and vow to tell him, because maybe he'd get a good laugh out of it.

Dick, on the other hand, has a myriad of things that remind him of Lew. Chocolate, because it's the color of Lew's eyes. A tie in a particular material, because Lew loves the texture. This particular color, because that's the most prevalent color in Lew's wardrobe. This song, because every time it came on the radio, Lew would turn the volume up and listen to it all the way through. He hums it sometimes. The cold, because it reminds him of their time in Bastogne. The smell of whiskey. The smell of nicotine. So many things!

25. Do they have any hobbies they share?

Hmmmm... I dunno, ya know? They're the kind of couple to value their alone time away from each other? It's my headcanon that Lew went back into model ship building as a hobby, that later turned into miniature making/tiny doll making. Dick thinks this hobby is adorable, but I don't think he himself participates in it.

Similarly, Dick, in my mind, has old man hobbies. He fishes. He bird watches. He would be the kind to whittle, but maybe not as much, since he does a lot of repairs around their farm house so I think he'd look at any kind of wordworking as more an extension of his typical job than a relaxing hobby. I do think, at one point, he learns how to knit! He's not good at it, but Lew wears his shoddy creations anyway.

40. Who has an insatiable appetite? And what does the other do to help?

They're BOTH absolutely insatiable. Dick, with his all American, Central Pennsylvanian stomach that loves anything dairy or fried in pork fat; and Lew, who grew up eating gormand and the finest dishes his family private chef has to offer? Please, they're growing boys. They must eat!

But neither of them know how to cook, so there WAS a period in time where they just ate out a lot. But after leaving New Jersey for the farmhouse, they had less options to eat out and had to learn to fend for themselves. Author BristlingBassoon in one of their fics on ao3 (oh please read their fics, guys, they're so good) has this really sweet image of Dick collecting sears catalogues and trying out the recipes there. I think he'd do that, then Lew would be interested in it too and start trying the recipes on the back of boxes and cans?

Oh, look at that, I just answered the last question. Cooking. I think they both take up cooking as a hobby together.

Obligatory OTP Asks

#ask #ask game #band of brothers #winnix #bob hcs

[huffle-dork]

Swap into the CrystalVerse Chapter 10: SepticHeroes

Co-written with @crystalninjaphoenix 

Read Swapboys | Read Septicheroes | AO3 Link

Prologue | Switch | Stitched | PNPT Taglist: @brokentimewatch @di-diwata  

For the third time, Alt falls through nothing and ends up in a different dimension. And for the second time, he is immediately met with a, shall we say, intense reaction. He blinks into existence in a living room. Probably the most generic living room possible, with white wallpaper and furniture that looks like it could be from a store showroom. It's empty at first, but just a second later he hears a gasp from behind him. Before he can turn around someone grabs him and holds a knife close to--but not quite up to--his throat. "How did you find this place?" a voice asks--no, demands.

Alt jolts and quickly glitches out of the hold and in front of the figure to get a good look at them- but he holds up his hands in a gesture of peace. “Woulddd you believe if I told you I just jumped from another universe or-?”

The figure is wearing something--weird. It's like the color of the fabric is constantly shifting to match what's behind it, making it hard to discern any details of the outfit or the man's build. The man also quickly pulls a cloth mask over his face, hiding everything but his brown hair and bright blue eyes. He laughs, keeping the switchblade pointed at Alt. "What proof do you have? I may consider it," he drawls, mostly sarcastic.

Alt blinks a bit and lets his body fizzle and pop with glitches. “…did the glitching not do it for you? Cuz I can do it again-“

"All that proves is you are a super," the man says. "Not where you came from. Stop making up stories. Tell me who told you about this place."

Alt looks very confused, “a… super?” He backs up some, “Listen dude, I dunno where this place is cuz it’s clearly not home like I was hoping. I just pressed a button on this thing and ended up here!” He briefly pulls out the TRVLR to flash it at the man before putting it back away.

Footsteps. The man stiffens and turns towards a hallway entrance. "Jamie, nein! Bleib sicher! Hier ist ein Mann, er hat sich direkt hineinteleportiert." The footsteps stop. They sound like they're just out of sight.

Alt stiffens too as he shouts out in German. Oh- okay.

“Here I have proof. Your name is Henrik, right?”

The man stiffens, and turns back to him. "How do you know that? And what is that?" He reaches out and--somehow--manages to take the TRVLR out of Alt's pocket without even reaching in through the opening.

Alt jumps as he suddenly has the TRVLR, “Hey what the hell!? Fucking- careful with that!”

"Fascinating." He turns it over in his hands. "I do not recognize this style. Smooth, but also a block. It is definitely not SepTech. And I do not think there is a tech like this in the underground." He glances back at Alt. "Either this is something made by a new coming villain who you work for... or you are telling the truth. But do you have anything more?"

Alt stiffens at the accusation and his eyes flash green as he snarls. “I don’t work for villains. …not anymore. Also- the fuck is Septech??” He takes another breath and then glances at the doorway he heard the footsteps from.

“Okay. More proof- the man you told to stop. He’s Jameson Jackson. Am I right, Schneeplestein?”

Alt sees the man--Henrik, as he so correctly guessed--tighten his grip on the device. "Knowing our names does not prove as much as you think," he says slowly. Then he laughs. "It is fun, your attitude to villains and genuine question about SepTech proves more. Here." He hands the TRVLR back to Alt.

Alt blinks and looks surprised to be handed the TRVLR back. He takes it and pockets it before glitching a bit farther back, watching him warily.

Then Henrik turns to the hallway entrance. "What do you think?" A man steps into view. As Alt expected, the face (and mustache) give away that it is Jameson Jackson. He's wearing what looks like an oversized T-shirt and pajama pants with socks. Clearly, not expecting to go anywhere.

He seems genuine, JJ signs.

"Do you want to...check?" Schneep trails off.

JJ quickly shakes his head. I told you, we're not doing that. I'M not doing that.

"Okay, okay."

“…what do you mean, check?” Alt asks with a raised eyebrow.

Schneep pulls his mask down and presses a hand to his lapel. The strange shifting color of the outfit disappears, settling into shades of purple.

All of Alt’s questions disappear as he watches Schneep’s outfit change. “Woahhh what the fuck?? That’s sick as hell! Is that like- real time camouflage??”

Schneep avoids the question about ‘checking’ and chuckles when Alt is surprised. “Maybe you really are from another world if you are a super who hasn’t heard of chameleon cloth,” he mutters. "Who are you, then?" he asks, giving Alt a once-over.

Alt coughs back some of his excitement and sticks his hands in his pockets. “M’name’s Alt Brody. I’m a magician/rookie crime fighter from another universe- a parallel one. Cuz I have friends who look just like you- and I’ve met so many others now… but- I dunno where I am now. Some place with rad future tech- cuz last I checked we don’t have stuff that does that.” He gestures back at Schneep’s outfit. “…or how you just reached into my pocket- but… that could be magic so?” He shrugs.

He and JJ go quiet as Alt explains who he is. They both have a visible reaction to his name, with Schneep narrowing his eyes and JJ raising an eyebrow. When he’s done, they look at each other.

I have never heard magic mentioned so much out of the context of stage shows and stories, JJ says

“Yes, that is strange, isn’t it?” Schneep says. He looks at Alt and smiles. “I am flattered that you think it was magic, it means I am very good with my powers. Look.” He leans over and sticks his hand inside the sofa. Inside. Passing through it like it’s not there at all. “This is what I can do. I can become intangible, like a ghost. And I can make small objects the same.” He pulls his hand back out.

Alt’s eyes widen and he glitches closer to look at what Schneep’s doing. “Woahhh-“ But then he backs up and shakes his head and hands, “wait wait okay- you guys keep saying ‘supers’! Like- like supernaturals or… or superheroes?”

Schneep bursts into laughter. JJ doesn’t make a sound but he smiles wide, finding whatever Alt just said funny as well.

“Supernatural!” Schneep wheezes. “Alright, I am convinced. No one is that good an actor.” He collects himself, then puts his knife away, flipping it closed and sliding it into a pocket on his leg. “Yes, like superheroes. And supervillains. The catch term is superhuman but that is so long that it is shortened to just super.” He gestures to JJ and himself. “We are supers. You would be called one too, with your teleporting glitch powers.”

Alt’s mouth falls open and he looks between the two with wide eyes, “…Both of you?? JJ too?” Alt slowly makes a face, “…man- Chase is gonna love it here….”

The lighthearted mood suddenly sobers up.

I do, JJ signs slowly. But I don’t like to use them anymore. I must be honest, I’ve done some terrible things.

“It was not your fault, Jamie,” Schneep insists.

I would argue it was, but this is not the time to discuss it.

Alt’s expression seems to soften, though he seems confused- that a person so closely resembling Dr. J… would ever do terrible things. “…I… I get that.”

JJ looks at Alt. You mentioned Chase just now. Do you have one too? Are you related?

Alt messes with his hair and nods, “Yeah- Chase, my Chase. He’s my older brother… and he’s a hero in my world. Calls himself ‘Bro Fantastic’ ” Alt raises an eyebrow at them, “…is your Chase a hero too?”

Schneep gives him a small smile. "I think it is the opposite here. Chase is the only one of our little group who has no powers."

He is a hero in our hearts, JJ says fondly.

Alt seems surprised by this. I mean- he’s known Chase with and without powers- but now his powers were just as much a part of Bro as Alt’s glitching was.

"He also does not have any family. Definitely not a brother, that would have shown up in his records." Schneep sighs, a bit sad. "We have two others who are close. Jackie Skye and Marvin Nedra. Perhaps you have them in your world, too."

Alt hums, “Close as in friends or- wait they have powers too then??”

"Yes, close as in friends... in Jackie's case. Marvin is a newer addition."

He can be a bit of an ass, but his heart's in the right place, JJ adds. And he's very powerful.

Alt’s flabbergasted again. His Jackie would be so fucking jealous. And even though Jackie Mann was a good fighter and parkourist… he was wayyyy too clumsy to ever be a hero. He frowns at the mention of Marvin. Hm- a powered Mag already means they’re in trouble but… Mag hasn’t been able to drain Chase as far as he remembers…

Hold on a tick, is YOUR Chase here? JJ asks. Your brother? In this universe? Or is it just you?

Alt blinks at JJ’s question and then nods, “Yeah he’s here- I don’t know where but he jumped with me. And… someone else too. A villain named Magnificent.”

"Sounds like a fucking drama queen," Schneep mutters, and JJ laughs silently.

Alt bursts into giggles, “You’re not far off-“

But back to your brother and that villain. JJ makes a big show of looking around the living room. I'm guessing you don't appear in the same place.

The glitch shakes his head. “No I… I don’t know why but when we jump- we end up separated. I guess- it’s the multiverse pulling us towards related people? I haven’t figured it quite out yet…” he sighs, “but that usually means I need to find Chase hopefully before Mag does anything… he’s the reason we’re even entering these other worlds. He’s a power hungry maniac looking for new unique magic- or I guess in this place.. power. And then trying to crush versions of himself. Because he’s crazy.”

"We can let Jackie know to keep a lookout for those two, if you would like," Schneep offers. "We cannot guarantee he'll find them. And we probably will not know if he does." He pauses, pursing his lips. "The two of us are a bit... off-the-grid right now. For a couple reasons. We can get messages out, but we have no phones or computers here to get an instant reply."

Alt blinks and then laughs a little, shaking his head. “man- you make Jackie sound like he’s a leader or something.”

"It is funny you say Jackie is a leader." Schneep laughs. "He would deny it, but he is the only Hero in the group. Ah, Hero as an official term, indicating someone who is a member of the League. He can go out without suspicion. That means we have to default to him for a couple things. Such as looking for people like your brother and... Magnificent." He rolls his eyes at the name.

Alt nods slowly, “okay… huh- heroes being commonplace is blowing my mind a bit… Chase- Ah, Bro. He told me he’s lucky now the police work with him but he… he had to work a while to get them to accept him….”

  Then he frowns and tilts his head, “You said you’re off the grid…? No phones or computers? God that sounds like a nightmare- what gotcha guys hiding out?”

Schneep hisses, inhaling sharply through his teeth. "A couple things." He glances at JJ. "Do you want to tell or should I?"

I will, JJ says. For one, do you remember those terrible things I mentioned? Well, we are now hiding from the police because of that. And the League of Heroes, who are sort of... an organization of superheroes. And then there is... someone. JJ pauses.

Alt knits his eyebrows in something close to sympathy. He remembers being in hiding for a while after he stopped being Impulse… “…superheroes are so common here they have a whole organization?? Huh… kinda like the magic circle then i guess…” he muses.

We don't know anything about them, but we know they are probably a-- he makes an unfamiliar sign, like he's typing on a computer and then pressing both hands against his temples.

"Ah, wait, if you are from another universe, you would not know what that is," Schneep says. "A technopath is a super who can control technology. Whoever is after us now can use cameras and the Internet to spy on us. Therefore, none of that."

We did consider getting an old flip phone or a landline, but calls can still be traced, JJ says.

Alt’s eyes widen as Schneep explains the unfamiliar term. “…a technopath…? Is that what it’s called…?” Alt slowly reaches into his pocket and then pulls out his phone. He opens up his palm and then the phone starts to float- then in a quick fizzle of static and green blue magic, the phone gets taken apart and then reassembled. Then, while it’s still floating- Alt glitches into phone, completely disappearing for a second before glitching back out and then catching the phone as it drops out of the magic. He looks a bit sheepish but he answers quietly. “I guess… I’m kinda that…? Never had a word for it… but I can’t like- use the internet or anything- I just… exist in the circuitry. Electric… powers and stuff.”

The two of them gasp as they see Alt disassemble the phone and then disappear into it. "What?!" Schneep gasps. "You can teleport and you are a technopath?!"

Oh, oh, I understand, it's like he is made of electricity! JJ says.

"Ahhh, okay, that makes more sense." Schneep nods, understanding.”"Well, it sounds more strange to us to hear about a world where supers are rare. There will be at least one in every town--and you get a lot in a big city like where we are now.”

Alt finds himself blushing, “…I mean- I can do… lots of things. But electric stuff is… easier. Think it’s cuz my magic is like- a current of electricity in my blood or something…” He messes with his hair self consciously. “I can… glitch, and use sound waves, and electricity. And tech stuff- but that’s… just what comes easiest to me. Other things I need help with like- spells or circles or…” He seems almost embarrassed that he can’t do more.

"How can you do so many different things?!" It looks like Alt just listing his powers is breaking Schneep's brain. "They are--they are different?"

You can two two different things, Henrik, JJ points out.

"No, mine are related, I have the ghost powers," Schneep says. "And spell circles? Spell circles?! You can do things with technology and spell circles?!"

Don't mind my cousin losing his mind, JJ says to Alt. It's just... so many unrelated things is not... possible here.

Alt blinks at Schneep's mind being blown and then can't help but laugh. "Oh! Well... where I'm from- the fact that I have magic makes me a magician- but I got my powers really late in life... I could glitch for a long time but I had no idea I could use electricity or even use magic at all! But... people who know magic- they know like... basic spells for lots of different things. Like how to heal or summon fire, or turn into animals... whichicankindadobutthat'salongstory." He coughs and then waves his hand, "Point is... im- kinda stunted magically... so... I should be... able to do more but I'm... I'm still learning..."

Alt sighs, “I guess… it might be good for me to just get out there and look- how off the grid are we right now?”

“... well." Schneep walks over to the window, which has its curtains drawn, and throws it open for a moment. Outside is a sunny day in the middle of a suburb. Taller skyscrapers are visible in the distance. "Not too much."

I still say it is foolish to stay in the city, JJ says.

"People never suspect that we would come back here," Schneep says defensively, quickly closing the curtains again. "And we came in through that secret passage so they never saw us inside here. It also makes it easier to contact Chase and Jackie and Marvin. But, yes, no internet devices of any kind. We cannot leave without covering our faces, but you should be okay to, you look different enough."

Alt blinks at the sight of the city in the distance. He thinks. “…I wouldn’t want to draw attention to you two though… if you’re trying to hide.” He fidgets with his phone and then looks at something on it. “…would disguising myself like… like a hero- would that help? I wouldn’t want to you know- get arrested for using magic or whatever-“

You wouldn't get arrested simply for using powers, you would need to cause trouble with them. But most heroes and villains do have masks and secret identities, it WOULD be strange for someone unmasked to be using powers. If you have a mask you can use, it would help.

Alt hums in thought and looks back at his phone. He blushes a bit and then mutters, "Chase is never gonna let me live this down..." Then, he sighs and summons some blue magic and waves it over his face. A red mask that looks like its made of paint blooms around Alt's eyes and the ends of his hair turns a bright green and blue like it's covered in glowing paint. He looks sheepishly at the others and then looks away. "... ive been wanting to help my brother back at home and... I've been thinking of a costume... I just need a face mask but... i-I haven't even shown Chase yet..."

Schneep gives up on thinking about how impossible Alt’s powers are and smiles supportively at his appearance changing. “I think it looks quite nice! You have a very clear sense of style.”

If your Chase is like our Chase, he’ll love it, JJ says. And if he’s a good brother he’ll be supportive.

Schneep nods and puts a hand on JJ’s shoulder. “We will still tell Jackie about all this, it would be better to have help in this big city. Good luck yourself.”

Alt slowly smiles through his reddening cheeks and nods, “Thanks…” He takes a deep breath and stands up taller, trying to channel his brother in his mind. “Alright well… it was nice to meet you too. Good luck out here… I hope things get better for you.” He then gives a tiny two finger salute before glitching away, making his way towards the city.

"Goodbye!" Schneep says.

And thank you, JJ adds, just before Alt disappears.

Schneep sighs. "This has been very strange. I hope we did not make a mistake."

I doubt so. JJ shrugs. I'll contact the others now.

-----------

Bro falls through darkness for a split second--and then keeps falling. And falling. He is in midair above a city scape, passing by skyscrapers, the asphalt street getting closer with every second--

Bro blinks open his eyes and is met with wind strong enough to make them water. But, he knows this feeling well enough. He grins and then pushes to fall faster for a second before pulling up and flying back up into the air, doing a couple twists. He giggles as he rights himself in the air and then adjusts his cap as he observes the city. "Well- that was new! Good to get back in the air though~" He says as he starts to shrug off his jacket and tie it around his waist. It was way warmer here already so he quickly pulls off little Chase’s jumper. Then, he fumbles to try to slip his jacket back on and wrap the jumper around him as he looks at the city below. He instantly recognizes this isn't Brighton- he knew his city now like the back of his hand. He sighs and shakes his head. "Wrong again- bummer but- least I didn't scare the shit out of anyone this time-"

As soon as he says that, a voice shouts "Hey!" When Bro turns to the side he sees a man... also flying. He's wearing a red and blue suit, and has a mask with white glass covering his eyes. The man stops a few feet away from Bro. "Oh you're fine," he says. Bro startles and then stares at the other man with wide but excited eyes. "Oh my god! You're a hero too! omgggg how cool!! I mean Volt was one but! Its been a hot second!"

"You were falling there so I thought--WAIT YOU'RE INJURED--No, no, wrong again, you just have a rip in your shirt, sorry." The man laughs.

Bro blinks and looks down at his shirt then laughs, "Oh yeah i keep forgetting about that- such a bummer... this was a prototype!" He pouts.

"What're you doing here? Anything I can help with? I don't recognize you." The man looks Bro up and down. Bro sees surprise behind the mask once he gets a good look at Bro's face. "Uh... yeah. I-I don't. Always cool to meet another flyer, though."

Bro blinks and adjusts himself in the air, and gives Jackie a raised eyebrow. He smirks slightly, "You're not a very good liar, fellow hero bro~!" He laughs, Then he pauses and feels his face before cursing and fishing out his mask to put it back on, his hair flaring to bright yellow green. "Though ha- I don't really look like a hero without my mask on!" He laughs. "Anyways uhhh what im doing here is kinda a long story- you on a patrol or something?"

The man laughs. "Am I not? Shit. Sorry, you just look like someone I know. Anyway yeah, I'm out of patrol. I don't know if you've ever heard of me, but I'm Windstorm. I mean, if you're with the League they'd have to let you know about me when you came into the city, but they didn't tell me about you so I'm guessing you're still freelance?"

Bro grins, "Sick name! I'm Bro Fantastic- though... sounds kinda silly next to your name." He says with a blush, messing with his hair. Bro then blinks rapidly, "... the league? huh- I've never heard of them... that sounds so official- wait... are heroes like a regular government thing here?" he says, his eyes sparkling like the nerd he is.

Windstorm looks confused. "What d'you mean you've never heard of the League? I mean, I know there are some places they don't reach but... I mean, I don't want to assume, but you don't look or sound like you'd be from there. And they're not... government..." His voice drops to a mutter, "As much as they pretend to be."He looks down at the street below. "Hmm. Pedestrians are looking. You wanna land to talk or are you good to hover? In my experience it's harder to talk while actively flying."

"Oh and uh- it's whatever you want! I can talk and fly, s'no issue. I do it without meaning to sometimes, actually." Bro laughs.

"Haha yeah, I do that too sometimes, but for extended periods I need to concentrate so let's put down somewhere." Windstorm scans the area. "There, they have a flat roof." He points at a building not too far away. "Follow me," he says, and flies off.

Bro blinks in confusion, knitting his eyebrows together. But when Windstorm says to follow him, he nods and follows right behind him. When they get to the roof, Bro drops out of the sky and does a tiny nose dive before slowing down at the last second before he does a cool parkour roll onto the roof and jumps back up to his feet. He laughs and whoops, "God! I've been holding back in these last couple jumps goddd it feels good to do shit again without worrying~!" He turns back around towards Windstorm and crosses his arms behind his head, grinning like a dork.

Windstorm laughs. "You got some fancy moves, man. Must've had a lot of practice." Then Bro's words register and he looks confused. "Jumps? That sounds like... like you're teleporting places. Or, being teleported. Is that it?"

Bro beams, looking proud of himself. He- feels like such a fuck up sometimes back at home but- this is awesome already. Seeing other heroes. Then he blinks and nods, putting his hands in his pockets. "Uh- kinda. It's... a bit more complicated and...you might think im insane but- if this is a world where supers have an entire league then... maybe not."

He braces himself and then looks back at Windstorm, "I'm... from a parallel universe. Me and my brother have been tracking down a villain from our world whos trying to hop to other dimensions for power. And- other shit i think. I think Alt gets that better than i do. I just know he's crazy and... dangerous. Anyways- we've been trying to get home with this guy- but we keep ending up in the wrong universe- cuz i guess we're supposed to know our universe's zip code to travel to it?" He tries to laugh and shakes his head. "It's... confusing. Honestly, im just glad im here to keep my brother and innocents safe from Magnificent."

Windstorm blinks, processing all this. Then a slow grin spreads over his face. "You mean it's real?" he says. "Other universes, travel between worlds?! I-I thought the comics about Heroes having adventures in other worlds were exaggerations! If not completely made up for the press, but it's real?!"

Bro's entire expression lights up and he stims a bit, giving off some sparks of blue energy as he nods, "Yeah! It's real dude!! Ive been to like- god... 4 now?? no- 5! It's... it's insane- but really cool."

The wind around them on the roof seems to pick up a little. "Oh I should've guessed! That's why you look so much like Chase! I mean, I guess you could be a shapeshifter but that wouldn't explain the flying--wait, are you Chase? Chase Brody from another universe?!"

Bro laughs as he feels the wind pick up and then grins wide and does a little dance, "Yes! That's me!! i-I guess you're friends with this world's chase then!" He then makes a thinking face, "My brother technically can shapeshift but uh- that's a sore spot for him..." He shakes his head and can't help but stim more. "Dude!! It's so nice to have someone who gets it like right away!! This is AWESOME!!"

Windstorm giggles excitedly. "Dude, this is so exciting! God, you must've seen so much. Yeah, Chase is my roommate. I don't think he has a brother, and he definitely doesn't have powers like you, but you're for sure the same guy. Do you--I probably shouldn't give away my secret identity to some guy, but I already gave the roommate bit away so let's go all in--Do you know a Jackie where you come from? Jackie Skye? Cause that's me!" He wiggles his fingers, stimming.

Chase's smile lights up even more and he zips over to Windstorm and grabs his hands, sparks practically coming off of him. "You're Jackie?! Oh my god! Oh my god- my Jackie- he's Jackie Mann actually but!! He's my best friend!! And he's the biggest hero nerd I know oh my god he would die knowing I met a hero version of him! But- you- you have to be like my Jackie!! That's why we're just like like-" He lets go and makes rapid pointing motions between the two of them, "clicking so well! Dude!! This is soooo cool!!"

"Yeah I clicked so well with Chase when I moved in! I could actually introduce you to him if you want we're not too far from where I live--ah, but I probably shouldn't take you inside, that's probably going a bit too far with the identity thing." He laughs. "He'd love you, dude!" Chase grins, "He sounds like a chill dude! I'd love to meet him!"

Then Windstorm shakes his head. "Okay. Okay. Serious time now. This is great, but, uh, what was it you said? There's some villain who came with you, and... your brother? My Chase doesn't have a brother. Probably, he might've forgotten--that's a long story, don't ask me about it now. The point is. Villain. What was it? Mag... Magna... Magnificent?"

Bro calms down too and nods, trying to get back to business. "Yeah Yeah right- my brother... his name is Alt. He's- he's magic. I dunno if you guys have that too but- if you see someone like- zipping around but he looks like he's straight out of a computer game? That's him. Anddd yeah- Magnificent... he's an evil magician looking to gain power from the worlds he visits... I dunno what's he's gonna try to find here but... it won't be good most likely. So... god- I guess i better get moving to find them..." He sighs loudly. "Mannn! I wanna vibe just for second! Why does Mag gotta be such a douche!!"

Jackie shakes his head. "Villains suck sometimes don't they? I, uh... don't think we have magic here. Well, no one knows where superpowers come from, or why some people just have them but others have to gain them. I guess that could be magic? Hmm" He pauses, thinking. "I haven't seen anyone who looks like a computer game around. And I've never met an Alt in this world to compare him to.”

Bro laughs a bit, "Yeah... you probably wouldn't know him as Alt if he has a counterpart here- he likes Alt better but it seems like in most other worlds he's known as Anti." Bro shakes his head laughing, "Alt says that all the time! That powers and magic are the same but! I don't get it cuz they feel different to me! But he says its all just energy we can utilize and shit like that-" He rolls his eyes, "He started becoming such a know-it-all once he started learning magic better, I swear."

“He would've just got here? Well, we can look around together, if you want? I know the city really well." He laughs. "You probably get it, you get really familiar with your city."

Bro brightens up as Jackie offers to help him look, "Oh yeah! That'd be great! Alt is easy to spot once you know what you're looking for! Just a bright green blue blip of light and like- the sound of glitching. An extra pair of eyes would be super helpful!"

"Glitching? So he really is like computer stuff." Jackie chuckles. "I've never met anyone called Anti, but it's always possible I will eventually." He pauses. "Maybe that's who... well, I've been looking for a villain recently, a technopath. We can't find anything about them, maybe they're this Anti guy? Like...Anti-Virus or something, that'd be a cool super name." He shakes his head. "Nevermind. Priorities. Okay, we can fly around, sounds like we'll need to be closer to the surface." He steps back off the edge of the roof, the air catching him. "Coming?"

Bro can't help but be relieved. So far the Antis they've met besides Anti Mcloughlin had been bad news. He almost expected Jackie to react badly to hearing Alt's name but he's glad they don't have to worry about that for now. "A technopath? Huh- no but wait Anti-Virus is a metal as fuck name!! Dude- wonder if Alt should use that," He laughs. Bro blinks as Jackie steps back off the roof then he grins and runs to take off next to him. "Yeah! Let's go!"

"Whoo!" Jackie grins--it feels good to have someone to fly with, he's never had that before. "Come on, we'll go down Wonder to start with."

But they're not flying for long before-- 🎶 Dadada da dadada da dadada daa daa 🎶

"Ah fuck, hang on, man." Jackie stops midair. He looks around, then flies over to a nearby building and stands on the stone decorations sticking out from the facade. He pulls a phone out of a pouch on his belt and presses a button, not minding his gloves or his precarious position or the chance of dropping the phone. "Hey, Chase!" he says, laughing. "This is both the worst and best time to FaceTime."

Bro blinks in confusion and follows after Jackie. When he hears who it is, he grins mischievously and then pops up behind Jackie, floating upside down over his shoulder and waves. "HELLOOOO OTHER ME!!"

"Whoa what the fuck?!" The screen jolts as someone seemingly drops the phone on the other end. Then it recovers, and Bro sees a version of himself with brown, slightly longer hair. "Who the hell is that?!"

Jackie laughs. "That's you from another dimension!"

"Oh. Oh! Okay, this message makes a lot more sense now." The phone is placed on a flat surface, giving a wider view of Chase... and the dog who is peeking over the surface. Bro laughs, very pleased with that reaction. He rights himself to float over Jackie's shoulder as he listens. He awws when he sees the dog and whispers, "Omg pubby-"

"Message? From JJ?" Jackie asks.

"Yep." Chase holds something in view of the camera. It's a small wooden doll, like something an artist would use to reference poses. Except one arm has a yellow string wrapped around it, and the other ends in a wooden ring that holds a pen. "Crazy to see this little guy just moving out of nowhere." He puts the doll out of view again. "Anyway, it wrote something about a guy from another universe popping into the safe house. Something about glitches? The handwriting isn't the greatest. Apparently they went out to look for you and their brother."

Bro brightens up and grins, "Hey! That's my brother! They definitely met Alt!"

"Oh! Okay so that's you." Chase looks surprised. "Do I have a brother, then?"

"That probably would've come up in your records," Jackie says.

"True." Chase sighs, but then quickly recovers. "Oh, Frosty's in frame? Hang on, lemme show you a better look at him." He grabs the phone and flips the camera around, filming a very cute Samoyed sitting next to him. "This is Frosty, other me. He's my good good boy. Aren't you?" He reaches out and gives Frosty some pets on the head. Frosty enjoys it very much, shifting position slightly. Now Bro can see the harness, with the words --"rvice Dog Do Not P"-- printed down the side. "We just got back from our walk."

Bro awwws even more, leaning in, "Oh my god!! Frostyyy hi! What a good boy! Oh! And he's a service dog!! My friend Henrik has one too! Her name is Sahne and she's the best!"

Chase blinks, surprised. Then he laughs. "Henrik? Like, Henrik von Schneeplestein? What is this, reversed life? He's my doctor. Or, uh, was, shit's been complicated recently. Tell your Henrik that his dog sounds cute. Sahne must be German but I don't remember if I've heard it before."

Bro laughs, "yeah i think we're all swapped around or something! My schneep is an actor! Oh and deaf- and Sahne means cream!"

"Thanks for letting me know about the message, by the way," Jackie says. "I'll stop by the safehouse next chance I get to check on them."

"No problem." Chase nods. "Well. I can see you're on a building, so I'll head out. You have got to bring other-me round so we can see each other in person."

"I can talk to you on a building!" Jackie protests. "Without dropping your phone? I don't want to be responsible for that, haha. Besides, we should keep this short anyway, in case it attracts, you know, attention."

"Right." Jackie nods. "We're going to look for other-you's brother and this villain that showed up with them. I'll call you or stop by the apartment to update you when needed." "Thanks, bro. And hey, nice meeting you, other-me." Chase laughs. "Even if it's fucking bizarre. Bye."

"Yeah it's weird but cool! Hope we can meet up soon, other-me!"

"Bye." Jackie says.

After the call ends, Bro grins, "He's neat. I like him- and he has a cute dog so extra bonus points! Man i want a doggg but we have Glitches- ... she gets along fine with Sahne though hmmmm"

"Glitches? If it's not a dog, I'm guessing that's a cat, then." Jackie laughs. "Cats are nice. Usually." He pauses. "I was going to make a joke about a cat that's not very friendly, but you don't have the context. Basically, there's a guy I know who's a super who has a cat theme. And he's sometimes an asshole. Pretend I made a funny joke." He pockets the phone and steps back into the air. Bro snickers, "Nah I get it- that's exactly like my brother~ He's a prickly asshole sometimes too. But fun to make fun of~"

"Schneep as an actor, huh...? Can't picture it. Can't picture any of us as actors, really... though I guess JJ can be alright. I didn't know they had service dogs for deaf people. The more you know." Jackie continues.

The other hero beams, getting to talk about his friends. "Yeah! Schneep is great- he's a big ol' goof ball- ray of sunshine kinda guy! And i didnt know they had hearing dogs till I met him either! It's pretty cool~"

"Aw, he sounds great!" Jackie grins. "Maybe our Schneeps can meet each other one day, that'll be a sight to see. The Schneep I know is kinda grumpy but he really cares. And he hangs out with Chase, who is a great ray of sunshine if you ask me, so clearly he gets along with the sunshines."

"Yeah! Dude, If we can figure this shit out my Jackie neeeds to meet you!"

Jackie stretches. "Anyway. Let's see if we can find your brother. I'd like to meet him."

Bro laughs and stretches as well and nods, "yeah! Let's rock it~!"

"Alright! Here we go!" Jackie grins and zooms off.

Bro beams and laughs and he races after Jackie.

-----------

Magnificent appears in some sort of office space, the sort lined with boring cubicles and desks. The lights are off, the blinds are drawn, and there are no computers or decorations on the desks. Clearly, this place hasn't been used for a while. He lies there for a couple minutes before regaining consciousness.

Magnificent groans as he’s brought back painfully into wakefulness. He sits up stiffly and clutches at his bruised face- then clutches at his injured hand as it buckles trying to keep him up. “Fucking brat!” He growls to himself as he struggles up to his feet and lights a green flame in his hand. “Hm… now where have I been brought to now…?”

There is nothing especially unusual about the unused office. But the door is slightly ajar, light pouring in from a hallway beyond. There are... footsteps? It's hard to tell, they're light, like someone is being carefully quiet.

Magnificent stiffens, and-not wanting to run into more trouble, teleports to hide behind some of the desks. He extinguishes the flames and settles in to listen.

A moment passes. Then the door slowly creaks open. A thin beam of red light shoots from the doorway to a camera hanging in the corner of the room. Then a man slips into the room. He's wearing a red, orange, and white costume, with a black cape and belt...and a cat-shaped mask. He glances around, then goes for the nearest desk and starts checking drawers. "Of fucking course not," he mutters to himself.

Magnificent sends out some of his magic to see who had entered and... is confused by what he sees. But, he recognizes the cat mask and he smirks. He teleports behind the man and chuckles darkly, "Well well... what do we have here?"

"Motherfuck--!" The man slams the drawer shut and spins around, raising his hands. Orange light appears before him, forming a shield. He glances over Magnificent. "Who the fuck are you supposed to be?! Why are you here?"

Magnificent grins sinisterly and prowls around the man with a purred chuckle. "Well~! What a unique power you have, kitten! Who are you supposed to be, hm?"

"Wha--That's what I just asked you!" The man eyes him warily.

"Oh forgive me then- sometimes I tune out the words of little worms who don't matter~" The mad magician laughs smoothly.

"Look, I don't have time for this right now. If you want to take whatever, go ahead, as long as it's not what I want." But if this stranger (he has to be a villain, no one else would dress like that, but he doesn't recognize which one he is) is planning to harm innocents in the building... well, that'd be a different matter.

Mag loops around the man's back, giggling. "oh? you're but a lowly thief with power like that? what a waste..." He says disapprovingly. He tries to lash out to grab the man's wrist.

The cat-masked man slowly spins around, keeping the shield in between him and the strange man--but he's not expecting him to reach around the shield and grab him anyway. And why would he? Who would expect someone to willingly get close to something giving off as much heat as the shield does?! "Let me go you crazy bitch!"

Maybe its because the villain hardly feels it- his mad thirst for power overpowering all his other senses. He digs his claws into him, grinning madly. "I don't think so, kitten. I think you'll be a great little snack for me~!" Anddd he tries to drain the man- not even realizing he might not even be able to.

The power--oh, Magnificent, you have held fire in your hands, but now you are trying to touch a star. Can you handle it? Or will it burn you?

It is searing, like drinking boiling water, but it shudders into Magnificent where it sits, converting much slower than his drained power usually does.

Magnificent yells out and crashes halfway to the ground, holding his wrist as the magic burns inside him. And it keeps burning- blaring orange searing in his blood, taking forever to mesh with his own.

The man yanks his wrist free of Magnificent's grip, stumbling backwards, looking at the spot of contact with wide eyes. He seems a bit tired, but not as much as his usual victims would be by this point. "Wh-what.... what the hell...?" the man whispers, shaken. He stares for a second--and then turns and bolts for the door.

Mag sees the man running and growls in anger, soon pushing himself to run after him- trying to teleport in front of him to cut off his path.

The man shouts in surprise when Magnificent appears before him. What?! HOW?! Did he absorb teleportation from someone?! No time to think about it! He shoves him aside, metal claws on the end of his gloves scraping against the man's skin, and runs out into the hallway.

Magnificent bites back a scream of pain as he's hit with the claws and staggers back into a wall. The man turns and blasts the ceiling above the doorway with white-hot energy, sending debris crashing down over it. That won't stall a teleporter for long, but maybe it'll be long enough to get out of here!

Mag shouts in surprise as the ceiling caves in on top of him and blocks off his path. He yells in rage and quickly teleports back down the hall, trying to find the little brat. "Get back here!"

The man laughs as he runs down the hall. "Fuck no!" He glances over his shoulder and throws a ball of red-orange light.

The ball clips Mag's side, burning right through his clothes and leaving a perfect singed hole in his cape. Pain laces from the spot of contact as Mag is pushed to the side. It leaves a burn behind.

Magnificent screams bloody murder as the light screeches across his side. He curls up on the ground, writhing in agony as the power burns him. It doesn't look like he can pursue the escaping super any further.

The man glances back, wondering if he feels bad about that...no, probably not. He keeps running, turning around the corner of the hall and jumping out through the unlocked window he came in from. Back in the hallway, a camera that he missed on his first go-round points at Magnificent. (It is not his fault he missed it. It was too small and too well hidden.)

Magnificent curses up a storm, trying to figure out how the hell he can fix this- fuck! It fucking burns- maybe he can...? He mutters a quick spell to summon some water to push against the wound. He can't notice anything else besides the searing pain.

Nothing happens for now. But there is clearly movement elsewhere in this building, even if the hallway is currently empty. There is the murmur of voices and footsteps through thin walls and floors. They may be coming to see what caused the crashing sound of the still-smoking debris. Outside, something activates.

Magnificent now starts to realize even if the office was empty, clearly the building isn’t. He feels a bit of panic before something occurs to him. In a fizzle of static, he dons his civilian disguise and then pulls out his best acting. Though- most of it isn’t acting at this point. “H-Help…! Someone please h-help me-!”

It takes a moment. Then a group of people come rushing around the corner.

"Oh my god!"

"Who is that?"

"He's hurt!"

A man in a white lab coat pushes past the others, with brown hair and two different colored eyes: blue left, green right. He looks a bit confused as he sees Mag's disguised face but pushes past it. A small... robot?... flies next to him, a softball-sized green circle with a blue ring around a camera in the center and a metallic peripheral of some kind coming from the back. "Holy shit, are you alright?" he asks. "What happened?! S-some of our cameras went down--are you alright?"

Mag grits his teeth then looks up at the man with a pained expression. "I… I'm not sure-! I was just walking and i ran into some- some freak in an orange suit and cat mask! I t-tried to stop him... i-i think he was stealing something but then h-he burned me..! He jumped out the window-" He then curls up as a wave of pain washes over him, but- it does help his performance.

"Spitfire Cat was here?" the man says, surprised. "H-hold on a second. Jeanne, can you call an ambulance? Get the SDER here immediately. And the police! Paul, talk to security and see if we can catch him." The man steps to the side, pulling out a remote with one red button on it. As the others mill about, he speaks into it, his exact words covered up by other voices. The flying robot stays where it is. The camera is pointed at Magnificent's face.

Magnificent stays where he is, trying not to pass out. But, now he notices the robot. He narrows his eyes, looking at it curiously. ...was this purely tech or was some magic involved...?

He senses no magic from it. None that he recognizes, at least.

He frowns and bares his teeth at it, pressing his face back against the floor. This place was strange... none of the power he's seen so far is making any sense... but at least it was something he could take. Even if the cat's burned... surely he can find another... better suited source.

The group of people hovers about, slowly growing in size. They reassure him that an ambulance is on the way.

"I can't stick around for long, but I hope you're okay," says the man in the white coat. "If you need anything don't hesitate to reach out, okay?" He doesn't explain who he is. It's like he's expecting Magnificent to already know. He must be someone important in this world.

Magnificent almost wants to ask who the man is- but he can't give himself away. "yes... t-thank you-" He tries to say. It's mortifying having to defer to mortals to heal him but... he doesn't really have a choice with his wound. Guess it'll make for a more fun game as his prey recovers as well... And he'd find that cat and string him up like a carcass. It's not long before the ambulance arrives.

#swap into the crystalverse #SITCV Septicheroes #Septicheroes #swapboys #bro fantastic #alt anti #swap magnificent #i love being able to see bro so happy and excited here #and mag getting wrecked ajghbak #sorry im late imma edit so hard so im on time tomorrow ;A;

[day0walker]

I’m indulging myself with writing more Ghost x Xavier because it makes me happy and I can do whatever I want!! I dunno, read if you like Ghost being kinda mean but also In Love or whatever with a very dumb guy

“You dyin’, rookie?”

Xavier pulls in heavy gasps, sucks in the air like he’s a drowning fish tossed on a dock to die a miserable death. He’s got a gloved hand flat to his side, the other still grasping hold of his rifle—trigger discipline even when he’s shaking head to toe in what Ghost imagines is a lot of fucking pain.

“Broke,” he wheezes. There’s a lick of blood from his lip upward, scoring across his cheek like a cut. He’s so pale it looks neon against his skin, light up by the flashlight on Ghost’s chest. The helmet he’d started this night with is halfway across the cobblestone pavement; it’s got a dent in it that speaks to life saving. “Broken rib.” Xavier’s face drains of more color, makes him appear downright translucent.

“Forgot your lucky rabbit’s foot at home, then?”

“T-Tucked it in your vest instead this t-time,” Xavier still manages a grin and it looks manic, his green eyes wet and shiny against the pain. Ghost bends, grabs hold of the younger mans arm. He’s thinking about that blood in his mouth. Could be punctured lung, but then he wouldn’t be grinding words out the way he is. Stomach lining torn, maybe. Long, painful death, that is.

“Gonna hurt.” He’s lucky he even gets that warning—Xavier has to get out the gunfire now. Can’t be compromised like this. Easy pickings if someone came by and aimed one pistol to his forehead. Maybe, anyway. Ghost has seen Xavier slip death more than once—and use that big booted foot of his to crack death in the jaw. “In three. One.” And then he doesn’t count to three at all, just hauls Xavier up.

The hand he’d been keeping at his side shoots to his mouth, fist crashing into his own teeth, eyes nearly popping free of the orbital socket. He’s got real nice eyes, this rookie. They’re the kind of green that’s more muted, desaturated. They’re ringed red, frantic as they slide Ghost’s way.

“Said it would hurt, didn’t I?”

Understatement. Try getting a rib broken and then being pulled upright. Probably, Xavier feels like he’s going to snap in half like a twig at any moment but Ghost can’t give him the luxury of feeling anything. Has to get him to extract, get him somewhere safe where he can maybe die of a punctured stomach in relative peace. Or maybe he’ll live—that would be nice too.

Ghost’s got his arm around his injured middle, the other hauling Xavier’s over his shoulder. He can’t be soft with the kid, can’t move slow and gentle. They’re nearly running and Xavier’s boots are only dragging a little.

“Nice of you not to faint yet,” Ghost comments, sliding around a corner. “Pain tolerance like a fuckin’ mule, yeah?” Xavier’s wet laugh is musical to him and it mingles a little with gunfire popping in the distance.

“You should test it sometime,” he wheezes. Xavier’s hand slides around Ghost’s wrist, holding it, trembling hard. Might be going into shock any moment. Need to get him warm, Ghost thinks. Need a shock blanket, pain killers. Anything. “In the—Fuck, shit,” he draws in a ragged gasp that’s moist and pathetic. “In the bedroom.” They crest around another corner. Heli in sight. Ghost tightens his grip on Xavier’s slowly slackening form.

He depresses the comm on his chest, barks something—medical ready.

“Ghost,” Xavier whispers through clenched teeth. “I’m—I’m gonna throw up.”

“No you fuckin’ aren’t—tilt the other way. Don’t—”

But he does. And just a little bit of it gets on Ghost’s boot.

—

The heart monitor shows that Xavier does in fact, survive. It’s beeping away softly, attached to his finger. Ghost watches the jumping line on the monitor with mute fascination. There it is, huh? Xavier’s heartbeat is a solid little thing. Personified line of it looks strange, and somehow familiar. He can remember the heartbeat underneath his palm when he’s shoving Xavier down onto a bed, thinks of it fondly under his teeth when he’s tugging at the skin of his throat. Pulse point hot, warm, throbbing for him.

Well, he didn’t die, which is nice. Not that Ghost had been worried. Hadn’t been at all.

“Turns out,” Ghost says, leaning over the gurney to look at Xavier. “You just bit your fuckin’ tongue is all. Nothing punctured at all. Lucky rabbits foot, eh?” The rookie smiles a little, doped from the painkillers that are slipping through his circulatory system. The IV drips, steady and nourishing.

“You want to kiss me so bad right now,” Xavier mumbles, lidded green eyes glazed over and pleasant.

Ghost takes Xavier’s chin. Thinks for a solid moment or two that he should shake his head like a fucking rag doll and tell him to shut up. Just be quiet. Stop speaking the truth and stop getting shot and stop being frustrating all the time. Makes Ghost feel as anxious as he does warm and tender and annoyed.

Instead, his other hand slips the mask up a little. Just enough so he can put his lips to Xavier’s. He doesn’t taste good—a little like painkillers, that dull tangy taste disgusting. But his weak and clumsy hand lifts and hooks Ghost’s dog tags to hold onto and Ghost decides, sure. This is a good kiss.

#xavier #ghost #xavier x ghost #i smash xavier on the floor with my herculean strength

[roxannarambles]

title: second chances (chapter five)

ship: goldenlight (luz x hunter)

notes: takes place sometime after ‘reaching out’ but before ‘hollow mind.’ (set in my standard canon-divergent AU where everything’s the same except no L*mity)

other chapters: chapter one chapter two  chapter three  chapter four

The next day, it seemed that Hunter’s lunch break had rarely coincided with a reasonable hour for lunchtime, because Luz sent him a photo of what she was eating that day. (It appeared to be a mud grub sandwich, which she didn’t look especially thrilled about eating.) He sent back a photo of his cafeteria food. She responded with some emoji.

Luzura_Warrior:

... 🤢🤢🤢

Rulerzreachf4n:

what do those even mean

Luzura_Warrior:

whatdo you mean? theyre sick faces

Luzura_Warrior:

can't you tell? they're green

Rulerzreachf4n:

why does green mean they're sick?

Rulerzreachf4n:

the only thing I think of that turns you colors when you're sick is the rainbow fever but that's all the colors

Luzura_Warrior:

no it. it's metaphorical, not literal.although. rainbow fever sounds kinda fun ngl

Rulerzreachf4n:

it's not, trust me. you spend most of your time violently expelling fluids from both ends

Rulerzreachf4n:

the fluids are also rainbow colored

Luzura_Warrior:

okay, yeah, nevermind, I don't wanna catch that.

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what's this one mean by the way? 🥺 I see it sometimes

Luzura_Warrior:

that's supposed to be puppydog eyes, you know, when you're begging somebody for something

Luzura_Warrior:

pleeeeease hunter come visit me sometime so we can make pancakes 🥺🥺

Luzura_Warrior:

like that!

Rulerzreachf4n:

oh

Luzura_Warrior:

I promise my real puppydog eyes are way more effective then the emoji, though

Hunter began to type a reply out, feeling unsure of what exactly to say, but another message came through before he could finish.

Luzura_Warrior:

any other emojis you want me to translate?

Ah. All right. That subject was a little easier to deal with. He scrolled through the list of little faces.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what about this? 😑

Luzura_Warrior:

uhh . . . hm. I dunno I never use that one, I guess it's like ... dead?

Luzura_Warrior:

oh wait, I think I've seen some people use it to mean annoyed. like really fed up with something.

Rulerzreachf4n:

ok. I guess that makes sense.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what about this one? 😤

Luzura_Warrior:

that one's like 'determined.' stubborn.

Luzura_Warrior:

oh but it also can mean really angry. depends on the situation.

Rulerzreachf4n:

oh, I was way off, I thought it was maybe a sneeze?

Luzura_Warrior:

lolol no this is the sneeze emoji 🤧

Rulerzreachf4n:

... 🤔

Luzura_Warrior:

that's for when you're thinking

Rulerzreachf4n:

... 🧐

Luzura_Warrior:

that's for when you're thinking but you're also FANCY

Rulerzreachf4n:

okay there are WAY too many of these

Luzura_Warrior:

lol, don't worry, you'll learn them eventually

Rulerzreachf4n:

I'm not so sure. I feel like this is an entire language.

Rulerzreachf4n:

and like what even is this one??? 🥴

Luzura_Warrior:

I...have no idea actually. I never understood that one.

Luzura_Warrior:

I guess it's . . . uhhh . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

god I don't have a clue. let's invent a new emotion for it

Rulerzreachf4n:

what

Luzura_Warrior:

hey hunter, just finished my lunch and I'm feeling so snorflimppet 🥴

Luzura_Warrior:

you know TFW you're hella gasterplastecked 🥴

Rulerzreachf4n:

no.

Rulerzreachf4n:

stop.

Luzura_Warrior:

yknow we should teach you about memes too if you're gonna be on penstagram

Rulerzreachf4n:

oh, yeah. willow and gus have shown me a few of those. I think I saved one. hold on . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

I . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

I've become a MEME??

Rulerzreachf4n:

is that . . . bad?

Rulerzreachf4n:

I thought it was a good thing

Luzura_Warrior:

it's . . .uhh well I don't know if I'd call it good or bad, really, it's just . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

hmm, honestly I'm not sure how to feel about it. guess I feel 🥴🥴

Rulerzreachf4n:

well if you don't like it, I can delete it

Luzura_Warrior:

nah, it's fine, no need

Luzura_Warrior:

tbh it's kinda neat.

Luzura_Warrior:

so the meme you have saved to your scroll was the one that had me in it . . . interesting 😏

What was that one? They hadn't discussed that emoji yet. This texting thing was stressful sometimes.

Rulerzreachf4n:

I saved it because it was about flyer derby

Rulerzreachf4n:

it just happened to have you in it

Luzura_Warrior:

mmm ok. if you say so.

Luzura_Warrior:

oh hey, before I forget, you wanna help me start a new meme on penstagram?

Rulerzreachf4n:

how?

Luzura_Warrior:

it's easy! just choose a basic format first . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

like, say, mmm, the old bait-n-switch . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

choose a video . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

and voila!

A link popped up. Hunter followed it to see it led to Luz's Penstagram page, to her newest public post. 

You know, it’s not often that I’m impressed by speeches, but the statements that one of the Coven’s top officials has recently released are really worth checking out. Find it here:

It was a link that led away from Penstagram. When Hunter clicked on it, it brought him to the video of Kikimora falling flat on her face and then wriggling around to dance music. Hunter had already seen this video many, many times, but he laughed again anyway.

Rulerzreachf4n:

ok, if that’s how you make a meme, then I’m a fan

Luzura_Warrior:

great! so all you need to do is post something on your penstagram that claims you’re linking a particular thing . . . but link to this video instead

Rulerzreachf4n:

that’s honestly kind of childish

He paused on his Penstagram page, thinking about it.

Rulerzreachf4n:

…but, she acts very childish anyway, so turnabout’s fair play

Luzura_Warrior:

haha, there ya go.

 Late afternoon, Hunter was in the middle of his usual patrol through Bonesborough, keeping an eye out for troublemakers or any civil unrest. It was a very slow day, though, and hardly anyone was around. He’d gone out to one of the massive demonic appendanges that existed in the town (this one was called ‘Dead Hand’ because it was unusually still compared to the other, twitchier hands). There had been a minor complaint lodged that somebody was trying to paint graffiti on the huge, scaly hand. When he got there, though, he found it was just a couple of kids that looked hardly older than toddlers, and they didn’t even know how to operate a spray paint can. He chased the kids away and then was left standing there in the silent streets of Bonesborough, sighing. Sometimes he felt like most of the duties he did for the Coven was just busywork.

Pulling out his scroll, he logged onto Penstagram and scrolled idly. Luz had ‘shared’ his Kikimora meme post and so it had a fair number of ‘likes’ and a few replies. This kept him amused for a few minutes, but eventually he grew bored. 

His scroll buzzed with a new message.

Luzura_Warrior:

look at themmmmm 😍

A picture was included, and it had King curled up on the couch, with the Owl Lady’s palisman snuggled into his fur, both fast asleep.

Rulerzreachf4n:

nice

Rulerzreachf4n:

this is what I’m doing

He pointed the scroll at the Dead Hand and took a photo to send to Luz.

Luzura_Warrior:

on patrol? cool, I’ve never actually gotten that close to that thing before

Luzura_Warrior:

eda, uh, told me they grab people sometimes, so I’m a little careful

Rulerzreachf4n:

they can sometimes but only when they’re cranky. dead hand doesn’t though, it’s very docile.

Luzura_Warrior:

huh. good to know!

Luzura_Warrior:

hey, I have a question, how come you never send any selfies? I don’t think I’ve seen a single one from you yet

Luzura_Warrior:

you even changed your pfp, it used to be you and now it’s flapjack. 

Luzura_Warrior:

obviously I ADORE flapjack but, well. I dunno, I guess I’m just curious if there’s a reason

Luzura_Warrior:

sorry if that’s prying too much

He thought about when he first made his Penstagram account and all the time he spent trying to get a photo to use for his profile. He probably spent over an hour doing it, only to later decide it looked awful anyway and took it down.

Rulerzreachf4n:

not sure if there’s really a reason

Rulerzreachf4n:

I just don’t feel the desire to, I guess.

Rulerzreachf4n:

I..don’t really like how I look.

Luzura_Warrior:

wait, really? 

He hesitated as he read her message, but she didn’t seem to be teasing him. He decided to take a chance and tell her the truth.

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah. that’s part of why I like my mask. better to cover it up when people would rather not see it anyway, you know?

He waited as the dots on the scroll indicated Luz was typing.

Luzura_Warrior:

okay, so, I guess it kind of makes sense you wouldn’t realize this, since you probably don’t talk to a lot of people. 

He frowned, confused.

Rulerzreachf4n:

realize what?

Luzura_Warrior:

that you’re actually really cute

He froze, his heart leaping at the blunt reply. Staring at the message in shock, he tried to make sense of it. What? She really thought-- she--

Wait, no. That couldn’t be right. His skepticism returning fast, he typed,

Rulerzreachf4n:

that’s not a nice thing to joke about

At the same moment he’d entered that text,  Luz entered one as well;

Luzura_Warrior:

I mean, objectively speaking. you know?

He narrowed his eyes, confused. She quickly followed up with more texts.

Luzura_Warrior:

what? I wouldn’t joke about that. I’m serious.

Luzura_Warrior:

did somebody tell you that you weren’t?

Luzura_Warrior:

because that’s wrong, you’re definitely. yknow, teenage heartthrob material. 

Luzura_Warrior:

honestly I’m surprised you don’t know this? when I first met you, you were so confident, it seemed like you were all ,’i’m sexy and I know it’

Luzura_Warrior:

uh I, mean, you know. like. objectively! haha.

In an intensely short amount of time Hunter felt like his head was going to possibly explode, the phrase ‘teenage heartthrob’ on repeat in his mind. Flustered, he tried to type out a reply.

Rulerzreachf4n:

you’re really serious? I. but. 

This didn’t make sense. But it really did seem like she was being sincere.

Luzura_Warrior:

ok, you gotta tell me who told you all this BS about how you look, because they’re not only a jerk, theyre apparently blind

Starting to feel a bit warm, he confessed,

Rulerzreachf4n:

nobody really told me that, I just. it’s what I’ve always kinda thought.

Luzura_Warrior:

oh.

Rulerzreachf4n:

but. now that I have your perspective, I. 

He struggled to figure out how to reply.

Rulerzreachf4n:

well it’s.

Rulerzreachf4n:

 good to know

Luzura_Warrior:

okay well great glad i could clarify that!

Luzura_Warrior:

annnnyway

Luzura_Warrior:

anythgig  ecxiti ng ever happen onyour patrols???

Hunter glanced up as he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. It turned out to be a Coven scout, carrying a spear, also out on patrol. Not really a surprise; it seemed the only people out today were Coven members.

The scout waved as he approached. 

“Hello, sir! Run into any problems today?”

Ah, it was Steve. There were a great many coven scouts in their ranks, and Hunter admittedly didn’t recognize them all by name, but he recognized Steve. He had a rather decent . . . well, “friendship” was not the word. He had a rather decent acquaintanceship with him. It mostly consisted of Steve sitting next to him sometimes during lunch and rambling about whatever random things were rattling about in his head, while Steve in turn would listen to Hunter rant about Kikimora. It hadn’t ever gone beyond that, but still, it made Hunter feel slightly more at ease to be around a semi-familiar face. Well. A semi-familiar voice. He’d never actually seen any of the scouts maskless. 

“Nah. Just told a couple of kids to go home before their mothers worry about them. Truly a test of my skills and training, I know, but somehow I prevailed.”

Steve laughed. It was strangely nice to have another person actually laugh at his snarky comments.

“Hey, at least it wasn’t one of those days where we had to clear out a sligguth infestation, right? I’d relish a little boredom in comparison.”

Hunter frowned.

“I guess so.”

The coven scout leaned casually against the Dead Hand’s wrist as he began to ramble idly.

“This job’s not quite what I expected, I’ll tell you that, but it does give me a lot of time to think, you know? It’s kind of nice on these slow days when nobody’s around to bother me and I can just do my own thing.”

Hunter raised a brow, even though his face was covered by his mask.

“You mean goof off?”

Steve chuckled again.

“I know I’m not the only one, weren’t you just looking at your scroll?”

Hunter jolted a little, even though he still had the scroll in his hand and it wasn’t a surprise the scout had seen. Accepting that he’d been caught out, he lifted the scroll back up and glanced at it. He answered wryly,

“As far as you’re concerned I was just monitoring social media for any potential rabblerousers.”

The scout nodded.

“Of course, sir.”

Hunter looked at his scroll thoughtfully for a few moments, considering the human he’d just been conversing with. He was struck with a sudden impulse. It was pretty out of character for him, but there was something about the human that seemed to make him do strange things. And in the moment, he didn’t really care.

“Hey, um, Steve? You wanna help me take, uh . . . a ‘selfie’?”

He handed his scroll to Steve. The scout shrugged.

“Sure. Although I don’t think it’s technically a selfie unless you take it yourself.”

Hunter hopped on his artificial staff and quickly flew up to the top of Dead Hand.

“All right, well whatever it’s called.”

He landed on the open palm of the giant hand and set his staff down. After a moment of hesitation, he reached up and pulled his Golden Guard mask off.

From below, Steve was pointing the scroll at him, fiddling with settings.

“Hmm, why don’t you try something a little more dynamic, sir?”

Hesitantly, he asked, 

“Dynamic?” 

“Yeah! Pose or something.”

He thought about that a moment, his mind casting back to when he’d first met Luz on the airship. Oh. Sure, he could do that.

He got down and sprawled casually on his side, leaning his chin into a palm, propping it up with an elbow. He held his mask in his other hand loosely against his waist and fixed the scroll with a steady gaze.

“Oh, that’s perfect, sir! Hold that. Hmm, the angle is a bit weird down here. Maybe if I backed up a little. . .”

Hunter had a better idea. He grabbed his staff and sent it down to the ground.

“Here, just ride that.”

“Oh, that’s genius, sir.”

Steve seemed unperturbed about this taking a little work, and he rode the staff up around Hunter’s hight and carefully adjusted his position.

“All right, good, now smile for the camera?”

Ugh, this felt kinda weird. He really did hate pictures. But he was determined to do it.

All right, just imagine it was Luz floating there. She wanted a selfie, he’d give her one.

He quirked his brow a little and slipped into a cheeky grin, gazing intensely into the scroll as if she was right there in front of him. He heard the scroll snap a few pictures.

“Wow, you’re a natural, sir. I feel like this would make a great recruitment poster! The old one is a little plain, you know?”

Hunter stood back up and shook his head as Steve returned the scroll to him.

“Nah, this is only for friends.”

He sat down on the hand, his feet dangling off the edge as he fiddled with his scroll. Steve landed and sat down beside him, humming,

“Of course, you need to keep the mystery of the original poster. People respect and fear the mask.”

Hunter nodded.

“Exactly.”

He hesitated as he looked at his picture. Did it look stupid? Should he actually send it, or maybe retake it? Was it too weird? Too . . . much? Maybe he should–

Oh, screw it.

He sent the photo to Luz before he could question it any further and chicken out. After that was a tense wait, but it didn’t last for very long.

Luzura_Warrior:

ohmygod 

Luzura_Warrior:

asafdjh;lgfju

Luzura_Warrior:

what have I done, I never should have told you the truth 

It was unclear what exactly that meant, but Hunter had hoped it was positive. He answered cautiously. 

Rulerzreachf4n:

you said you wanted a selfie

Luzura_Warrior:

hahaha I did, it’s true

Luzura_Warrior:

but boy, you REALLY delivered 

Rulerzreachf4n:

is that a good thing?

Luzura_Warrior:

yeah uhh 

Luzura_Warrior:

definitely a good thing.

Luzura_Warrior:

it 

Luzura_Warrior:

it’s really good, haha.

He started to type out a reply, but she followed up with more texts before he could.

Luzura_Warrior:

jeez, that look you’re giving is smokin’

Luzura_Warrior:

do you practice that in the mirror or

Luzura_Warrior:

hey wait, who took the picture?

Rulerzreachf4n:

thats not important

Luzura_Warrior:

you actually enlisted somebody’s help to take this for me?

Luzura_Warrior:

I feel so special :3 Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah, yeah, just don’t show it to anyone else alright

Luzura_Warrior:

whuh wait

Luzura_Warrior:

this really was just for me??

Luzura_Warrior:

 so i really AM special :3c

Growing uncomfortable with how perceptive Luz was being, he tried to derail.

Rulerzreachf4n:

I don’t know what that emoji means

Luzura_Warrior:

oh sorry. it’s like…. a kittycat smile? there isn’t really a good official emoji for it.

Rulerzreachf4n:

a cat smile?

He wasn’t sure how a cat could smile and what the heck that would even indicate.

Luzura_Warrior:

yeah it’s like . . .

Luzura_Warrior:

hold on a sec

Luzura_Warrior:

Luzura_Warrior:

like that!

Hunter studied the picture, which you’d think would help clarify things, but really all it did was confuse the issue even further.

Rulerzreachf4n:

what exactly is that look supposed to mean though

Luzura_Warrior:

:3c hehehehehe

Rulerzreachf4n:

luz that doesnt help

“So does your friend like the picture?”

Hunter jumped in surprise, having entirely forgotten that Steve was even sitting there.

“Uhh.”

His scroll buzzed and spammed him with indecipherable emoji.

Luzura_Warrior:

😏😏 😼😼🦦🦦😈😇

“. . . I think so? Yeah.”

 The rest of patrol was just as stunningly uneventful, so Hunter spent the rest of it walking his route and talking with Steve. Honestly, it wasn’t so terrible a way to finish out the afternoon, which mostly was just letting Steve ramble on about his little brother and his newfound interest in Illusion magic. When Hunter returned to the castle, he had some very boring tasks that included taking stock of some new supplies (again, he found himself wondering if Belos just assigned him duties as mere busywork, but it wasn’t his place to question things). It took him several hours to complete and then he had a cold, unpleasant dinner at the cafeteria, but for some reason, none of it fazed him much, and he spent the whole time humming to himself, a little smile on his face.

When the evening came and he was finally free to return to his room, he gratefully collapsed onto his bed and stuck his face into the nearest book. It was a pleasant diversion for about an hour, and then his scroll buzzed. Eagerly, he grabbed it and found that it was Luz asking if he could help her with a few questions on her Beast Keeping homework. He agreed to help. 

What had started out as just a few questions quickly grew into a much larger discussion.

Luzura_Warrior:

I just am having a hard time because I had no idea there were so many kinds of dragons

Luzura_Warrior:

in the human realm I only really heard of the basic ones

Luzura_Warrior:

not all these weird wingless dragons and the legless dragons and the dragons with only two legs and all that

Rulerzreachf4n:

well they’re not really dragons. 

Luzura_Warrior:

what?? what do you mean.

Rulerzreachf4n:

the common ancestor species is a wyrm, which eventually evolved into lindwyrms and loongs over time. the ones living at higher elevations developed into drakes. and then potentially dragons arose from the drakes. 

Rulerzreachf4n:

they’re all in the wyrm family, though, a dragon is just a kind of wyrm

Luzura_Warrior:

seriously? I thought a wyrm was just . . . a legless and wingless dragon?

Rulerzreachf4n:

no, it’s the other way around. a dragon is a wyrm with legs and wings. 

Luzura_Warrior:

man, this is weird. so what exactly is a wyrm then? 

Rulerzreachf4n:

well, wyrms branch off from the sea serpents because of their scales, regenerative abilities and pyrorespiration. sea serpents of course belonging to the larger family of serpents, which in turn of course branch off from the true worms

Luzura_Warrior:

hold on, slow down a little. not sure if I’m getting you because it seems like you’re saying that . . . dragons evolved from snakes and that snakes evolved from worms?

Rulerzreachf4n:

snakes are a smaller sub-family of serpents, really

Rulerzreachf4n:

but your statement is mostly correct, yeah.

Luzura_Warrior:

snakes evolved from worms??

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah? didn’t they cover this already?

Rulerzreachf4n:

everything evolved from worms, they’re nature’s ideal form

Luzura_Warrior:

buhhuhuwhaaa? 

Rulerzreachf4n:

you haven’t covered the Great Ancestral Worm yet??

Luzura_Warrior:

um, well. I kind of haven’t had one of the pre-reqs for this class. I begged the teacher to let me take it anyway . . . 

Luzura_Warrior:

but please, I gotta know about anything called ‘the Great Ancestral Worm,’ because this is getting wild

Rulerzreachf4n:

okay, well. 

Rulerzreachf4n:

in the beginning, when the Titan first fell, the first creature to immerge from the decomposing muck was a worm

Rulerzreachf4n:

the Great Ancestral Worm, from which all beasts sprang. the ratworms, the trash slugs, the giraffes, the sea serpents, all that

Rulerzreachf4n:

and from the beasts, branched off the bug demons and the bipedal demons

Rulerzreachf4n:

many bug demons still retaining body forms quite close to the original ancestral worms, but developing sentience alongside the bipedal demons

Rulerzreachf4n:

bipedal demons of course ended up quite distant from the ancestral design, and needed to compensate for it, develop bile sacs for their own magic

Luzura_Warrior:

okay hold on 

Luzura_Warrior:

so you’re saying EVERYTHING is based off worms

Luzura_Warrior:

what about, uhh. echo mice?

Rulerzreachf4n:

they evolved from the ratworms.

Luzura_Warrior:

okay, how about the selkiedomuses.

Rulerzreachf4n:

sea serpents that developed fins and blubber.

Luzura_Warrior:

what about birds??

Rulerzreachf4n:

they came from the wyverns and feathered serpents.

Luzura_Warrior:

there’s feathered serpents too?? oh god

Luzura_Warrior:

this is getting a little overwhelming

Rulerzreachf4n:

let’s just focus on wyrms for now. you said you only needed to know the basic groups for now, right?

Luzura_Warrior:

yeah. yeah, ok.

Rulerzreachf4n:

So we have the Wyrms, and then the Lindwyrms which evolved front limbs to help a little with traction, but still move with a serpentine body motion. And next are the Loongs, with four limbs which can walk awkwardly on land but who mostly prefer to swim or fly. 

Luzura_Warrior:

wait. fly? I thought Loongs don’t have wings?

Rulerzreachf4n:

that’s correct, they don’t.

Luzura_Warrior:

asdgrsrjyyj

Luzura_Warrior:

THEN HOW

Rulerzreachf4n:

they fly via magic. loong’s magic is fairly potent, they also have some control over weather and can shapeshift.

Luzura_Warrior:

oh, right, magic is a thing. haha . . .

Rulerzreachf4n:

next are the drakes

Luzura_Warrior:

those are the wingless dragons! right? they first found them at the knee

Rulerzreachf4n:

well, ‘wingless dragons’ is... not very descriptive. 

Rulerzreachf4n:

but yes, the drakes evolved at higher elevations and had stockier bodies, sturdier limbs that made for good walking and climbing, and stronger fire breath.

Luzura_Warrior:

can THEY magically fly?

Rulerzreachf4n:

that’s a good question! no, the drakes lost the ability to fly, as well as their shapeshifting and weather control

Luzura_Warrior:

okay, gotcha

Rulerzreachf4n:

then we have the dragons, which fly with the help of their leathery wings. and then wyverns

Luzura_Warrior:

hold on a sec one time I heard Hooty say HE’S A WORM

Luzura_Warrior:

does that mean hooty’s a bug demon???

Rulerzreachf4n:

uh… do you mean your house demon?

Luzura_Warrior:

yeah!

Rulerzreachf4n:

yes, house demons are a type of parasitic worm. 

Luzura_Warrior:

holy crap this makes so much sense now. now that I think about it, he was saying something one time about an ancestral worm

Rulerzreachf4n:

uh yeah so, anyway

Luzura_Warrior:

wait did you say PARASITIC??

Luzura_Warrior:

he’s a parasite???

Rulerzreachf4n:

yes, house demons parasitize living houses 

Luzura_Warrior:

I thought hooty WAS the house!!! that’s not his body??

Rulerzreachf4n:

it’s technically not. once a house demon attaches to a house, they gain some control and nerve sensation, but it’s technically their host.

Luzura_Warrior:

oh my god. this is blowing my mind

Rulerzreachf4n:

ok, I think we’re getting a bit off track here

Luzura_Warrior:

right, sorry, sorry

Luzura_Warrior:

back to dragons. I mean, wyrms, back to wyrms and not house worms. I’m listening.

Hunter did his best to get Luz back on track and explain the basic wyrm families, as well as the two competing theories on whether drakes evolved into dragons, or ampitheres evolved into wyverns and then some wyverns developed into dragons. Although Luz was a bit distractable at times and prone to chit-chat, she was also very enthusiastic and seemed genuinely interested in the subject. She also seemed to pick up the information fairly quickly. When they’d finished, she thanked him profusely and said she was going to spend another hour studying to make sure it was solidified in her head for tomorrow’s quiz. He bid her a goodnight and returned to his reading.

He continued to read until it grew very late, at an hour when his mind was very fuzzy and his thoughts were disjointed. He browsed Pentsagram a little, very amused to find Darius had shared his Kikimora meme, and it seemed to be spreading rapidly. He giggled at that for a bit and then his thoughts started to turn slowly along the memories of his day, over the discussions he’d had with Luz. There was a very pleasant feeling that flickered through him as he pondered things, like the bright little embers that popped off a crackling fire. 

When his scroll buzzed, he sleepily picked it up and checked it.

Luzura_Warrior:

hunteeerrrrrr

Luzura_Warrior:

I’m booorrreddddd

He chuckled outloud and typed a response.

Rulerzreachf4n:

thought you were studying

Luzura_Warrior:

yeah it got boring

Luzura_Warrior:

whatre you doin?

Rulerzreachf4n:

well I WAS reading peacefully

Luzura_Warrior:

awhjyyhd why are you even still up it’s like almost 2am

Rulerzreachf4n:

why are YOU still up

Luzura_Warrior:

that’s evading the question, I asked u first

Rulerzreachf4n:

im always up this late

Rulerzreachf4n:

it’s the only time to myself i really get, so. thats why.

Luzura_Warrior:

that makes sense.

Rulerzreachf4n:

k so now you

Luzura_Warrior:

well I was just cramming for the quiz

Luzura_Warrior:

I am bad at time management, I admit it

Luzura_Warrior:

but I’m in bed now like a good girl, I swear

Luzura_Warrior:

see look

A picture popped up, showing a dimmed bedroom. Hunter squinted at it. Luz seemed to be on the floor, sitting inside a strange fabric . . . cocoon? 

Rulerzreachf4n:

what. the heck is that, that’s not a bed.

Luzura_Warrior:

it’s a sleeping bag. 

Rulerzreachf4n:

that doesn’t seem very comfortable.

Luzura_Warrior:

no, it’s okay! it’s not so bad. not as good as a bed, I admit, but eda didn’t have any spare mattresses, so I’ve just been using this.

Rulerzreachf4n:

huh. she should get you a bed.

Luzura_Warrior:

well moneys not exactly pouring in right now

Luzura_Warrior:

I know you probably have a nice fancy bed at the castle but not everyone can be so luxurious, ya know

Hunter frowned, considering his bed and his room.

Rulerzreachf4n:

actually my bed’s really not fancy

Rulerzreachf4n:

or my room. belos gave me quarters that are the same size and furnishings as any other scout

Rulerzreachf4n:

said that i shouldn’t grow soft or complacent

Luzura_Warrior:

oh

Luzura_Warrior:

whoa I didn’t realize that.

Luzura_Warrior:

ok now I’m curious. whats it look like?

Luzura_Warrior:

send me a picture?? 😃

Hunter aimed his scroll, trying to get a shot, then grumbled because it didn’t look like much from his angle. He got out of bed and snapped a photo so she could actually see things.

Luzura_Warrior:

oooh okay, it’s not so bad. seems cozy. that pillowcase looks pretty ratty tho lol

Luzura_Warrior:

oh my god wait, you have a PLUSHIE?? I see that lil head poking out there!

Hunter quickly re-checked the photo, and to his horror, you could in fact see the hot pink head of his goofy little frog plushie sticking out behind a pillow.

Rulerzreachf4n:

please pretend you didnt see that

Luzura_Warrior:

no way, oh my god hunter this is adorable. I love this. you like plushies too!! I wanna get a better look, send me a pic! 😃

Rulerzreachf4n:

no way you’ll just make fun of me

Luzura_Warrior:

no I won’t!! I swear. pleeeeease?? 

Luzura_Warrior:

do you actually sleep with it too? aaaaa thatd be so CUTE

Hunter grunted, dropping back down onto his bed with a defeated sigh. There was no way she was gonna drop this, he knew her well enough by now for that. Gruhhh.

He reached over and pulled the plushie out from behind the pillow. Wrapping an arm around it, he hugged it tight against his chest and aimed the scroll at himself, sticking his tongue out and snapping a photo. 

When he sent it, Luz nearly combusted.

Luzura_Warrior:

saftrrerghewyhrw

Luzura_Warrior:

aaaaaaa  hutner!!!!

Luzura_Warrior:

SO CUTE

Luzura_Warrior:

you giant dork i LOVE it

Luzura_Warrior:

look at youuuu aaaaa!! 😍

Rulerzreachf4n:

you show that to anybody and I will hunt you down

Luzura_Warrior:

hehehehehee

Luzura_Warrior:

hunt me down. cos you’re hunter

Rulerzreachf4n:

yes. you don’t want  that, trust me

Luzura_Warrior:

heeehee, but maybe I do 😉

Hunter’s thoughts halted, stalling at Luz’s text as he struggled to form a coherent response. Fortunately, Luz just continued to ramble.

Luzura_Warrior:

ughh I should get to sleep 

Luzura_Warrior:

i have a really busy day tomorrow

Luzura_Warrior:

all these quizzes and exams at once, I swear the teachers do it on purpose

He had to focus to type out a reply that sounded normal.

Rulerzreachf4n:

yeah, I should sleep too

Luzura_Warrior:

ok you might not hear from me tomorrow until real late, i got a lot going on

Luzura_Warrior:

but i’ll say bye for now!

Rulerzreachf4n:

okay

Luzura_Warrior:

so gnnnighty night for now, my goldie dork boy~~ 😘

Luzura_Warrior:

talk to you later 💖💗💜

Rulerzreachf4n:

bye

Hunter stared dumbly at the scroll for a while after she’d logged off, his fuzzy sleepy thoughts rolling about in his mind like a tangled ball of yarn. Letting the scroll drop down onto his bed, he fell asleep before even bothering to get changed for the night.

#toh #the owl house #goldenlight #lunter #huntceda #goldenluz #luz x hunter #hunter x luz #goldenlight fanfic

[nihils-trolls]

Of Gold and Shadows

context here

“C’mon, Ria. It’s just some old hive that got left to rot. Telling me you’re scared all of a sudden?”

“Shut up, Gaz. If I was scared, I wouldn’t’ve followed you out here, dumbass.”

A young troll prods his friend as they walk along a cobbled path lined with planted trees, long since forgotten and overgrown. It’s a windy- but otherwise quiet- night, moons high in the sky and peeking through the clouds overhead. A rather large piece of property once- this small valley appears thick with weeds and brambles; any other buildings that were here now drowned out in green and falling apart.

The two had heard tales of this derelict estate that was tucked deep into the mountain pass to the north, and that it was haunted by the lingering spirit of the old staff and its last owner. Fate unknown, body never found.  But of course, those are just rumors. 

“Oh, okay then. I’ll believe that. One hundred percent.” Gazram says with a sarcastic tone, to which Rianne replies with a slug to his shoulder.

In all honesty, neither of them thought there was going to be anything out here. But just a short way back, they’d found an old trail that led to where they are now. Visible just through the trees ahead lies a stately manor. Or, what would have been one maybe several hundred sweeps prior. 

The building is still standing despite the disrepair it’s in; the porch in front is falling to pieces, windows broken in, a large hole in the roof- the list goes on. From the outside, the inside seems to be in just as bad of shape. Empty for who knows how long, boarded doors and slanting floors.

“Yeesh, this place has seen better nights,” Gazram states plainly. “So what. You thinkin’ we just… march right in, yeah? See if we can catch anything weird?”

“I mean. What else are we gonna do? I still don’t know why I even came out here with you.” 

“I dunno. To leave that stuffy hive of yours and live a little? No harm in exploring.”

Rianne steps around broken boards on her way to the main entrance, Gazram following close behind. Unlike others they’ve seen, this door remains unbarred. A quick jiggle of the handle reveals it to be locked; however, the motion causes the door to swing inside slowly, revealing a moth-eaten foyer. Large, golden colored draperies line the walls, black rugs line the once elaborate wooden floors- stained with mildew and rot.

The both of them step inside, Gaz closing the door behind them. The vast room is intersected by a stretching hall spanning left to right, with two staircases at the back. Both lead to a balcony on the floor above that overlooks the space below. A chandelier sits fallen in the center- shattered glass scattered everywhere. 

“What do you think happened?” Rianne asks.

“What, to the owner?” Gaz pauses for a moment, ambling into the room further before answering back. “I don’t know. From what I heard, it was some sort of feud between rivals- and not  the romantic kind. Rich highbloods get into all sorts of weird dramatic bullshit, don’t they?

Oooh! Do you think there’s anything cool left behind? Or do y’ think looters got to this place already?”

Rianne just rolls her eyes, following and continuing to look around. “You told me this place is old n’ well known already, so I doubt it. But… look around. Don’t you think it’s weird that there’s no blues or purples? Anything even remotely on that end of the spectrum?”

He stops in his tracks for a moment before continuing. “A little, but that doesn’t mean anything- shit could’ve gotten stolen already… Maybe the guy just had a weird sense of style.”

“... You’ve got me there. I probably wouldn’t’ve built my hive like this…”

Rianne trails off, looking down a hall to her right. Gazram follows her gaze, and looks just as bewildered as she does. The hall is devoid of light other than moonlight filtering through the windows. It seems to stretch on much further than expected; almost seems as if the corridor itself skews and twists towards the end.

“... ‘specially not like this. You seeing that too?”

“Wish I could say I’m not.” he replies simply.

She peers into the shadows further down, hesitating to speak again. “I think I saw something else down there. I… I don’t know. Maybe we should leave?”

Gazram looks dumbfoundedly at her. “Ria, we just got here. You really gonna leave because a creepy abandoned hive is starting to get to you?”

“I just might.” she says.

“C’mon, there’s nothing here. This place is just falling apart at the seams… you really think there’s ghosts here?” he teases. Next thing he knows, she’ll be telling him she believes in magic, too.

Ria puts her hands on her hips, giving her ‘friend’ an unamused look. “No, but I don’t like this either way, asshole.  Y’know what? Have fun by yourself, getting injured in a shoddy building. I’m gonna go wait outside for you to be done with all this.”

Rianne then heads for the door- Gazram deciding to meander towards the twisting hall. “Fine, be that way. Just so you know, you might be waiting awhile.”

“Uh huh. And if I wait more than an hour, I’m leaving your sorry ass here.”

Jiggling the handle again, she remembers that the door is locked- and Gazram shut it the rest of the way. Sighing, she looks down to find that there’s no bolt keeping the door shut- no lock on this side either.

“... Gaz, did you do something to this door? If so, this isn’t funny.”

Turning on his heel to face her again, he gives Rianne a puzzled look. “No?”

The olive walks back over to the entrance, pushing her aside and attempting to open the door- and does so without issue. “See? It’s not even locked. I dunno what your problem is-”

Just as soon as it opens, Gazram is cut off by the door slamming shut of its own accord. The two turn to stare at it, shocked, and Gaz grasps at the handle to try and open it again. Unfortunately for him, it doesn’t budge.

“You cannot tell me that was ‘just the wind’-” Ria says, before being interrupted by her friend.

“I’m sor-ry, what do you want me to say? I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’m not about to because a door slammed shut spookily.” He quickly gives up the vain attempts to open it and walks away in a huff. “If the door won’t open, just bust open one of these windows and climb out. The rest are broken anyway.”

“... I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? You’re not that weak, I know that for a fact-”

“I mean I can’t!” Rianne yells, surprising even herself. After a moment’s pause, she sighs and looks out the window. “I won’t do it. I just… listen. I’m getting a really bad feeling- if we break anything in here, it’s not gonna end well.”

Gazram stares at the cerulean, now returning the unamused look from earlier. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Dead serious,” she hisses, turning to look back at him. “Let’s just… find another way out. There’s bound to be a back door, or hole in the wall somewhere. Fast, preferably.”

“Fine, but we’re going the way I was going to go before you called me over.” 

… Both move down the skewed hall at a slowed pace. The floorboards creak and groan underneath their steps, the sounds echoing throughout the corridor. Out of the several doors they’ve passed, only one was unlocked- leading to an empty room infested with roaches and black mold. 

“You’d think…” Gazram starts, “That with all the time and number of trolls that had to have been here, these doors would be busted open, wouldn’t you?”

Rianne thinks for a moment, putting a hand to her chin. “Yeah, actually. It’s kinda weird, isn’t it? I kinda expected this place to be in worse condition. And this hallway…”

“What about it?”

“Dude, we’ve been walking down it for at least five minutes. It didn’t look that long before, did it? This doesn’t even match what it looked like from the outside.” After saying that, she stops to look behind her.

The hallway stretches on for quite the distance. Back where they had started, Rianne notices a tall, pale troll standing in a long, white dress. After staring a moment, she notices darkened, mustard colored splatters on the dress- and that the figure is staring right back.

Stopping in her tracks, she grabs a hold of her friend’s arm. Whispering for him to look too. Glancing back to see the same, he immediately regrets not believing Ria sooner.

They don’t have a moment to react before a wall springs upwards from the floor and slams against the ceiling, blocking the hall off from the foyer. They jolt from the sudden ‘thud,’ and the first is followed by more as the very corridor itself seems to fold in on itself and shrink.

Still holding his arm, Rianne begins sprinting down the hall dragging Gazram behind her. Despite the collapsing happening behind them, the end never seems to be getting any closer to them. Gasping for breath, the two continue racing onwards- not having any other option.

Finally, she sees a bend to the left. Pulling the olive around the corner, the wall continues advancing- until it slams against the end in an abrupt stop. Ria collapses to the floor, attempting to catch her breath.

“What… the actual fuck… was that??” she says, exasperated. “Suuuure Gaz, tell me the place isn’t fucking haunted! Oooooh, ghosts aren’t real,” Ria continues mockingly, “Then you mind telling me what the hell happened?

And do not tell me we’re hallucinating from… from.. mold spores or any other shitty explanation. I feel pretty sober right now, and I hate it.”

“-Alright! Fine! I don’t know! What do you want, for me to say this was a stupid idea? Then yeah! I agree, this was a fucking stupid idea.” he argues. “How was I supposed to know that there would be fucking… supernatural bullshit happening here?”

Rianne holds her head in her hands, too frustrated and too scared to say anything back to that. Or, anything for a few long moments. But finally, she steels herself- getting off of the floor to stand.

Gazram continues while she does so. “Look. I won’t bother you about superstitious stuff anymore. So let’s just… keep going. Ignore any other weird shit unless it’s actually gonna hurt us, since it looks like our only way out is through.”

Scrubbing her face, Ria sighs and nods. “Yeah. Fine.”

The duo continues along, the end of the corridor being marked with a large set of heavy-looking double doors. More rooms lie along this stretch, with most of them being locked like the rest. Sobbing echoed out quietly from behind them, and neither Rianne or Gazram dared to look back. Not again.

Instead, they both push open the doors at the end, revealing a ruined grand ballroom with a high, vaulted ceiling. Stairs along either side of the wall lead up to another balcony, decorated pillars holding it aloft. It’s mostly empty, save for an old grand piano and a small orchestral stage off to the side. The back wall contains an enormous, elaborate window with two glass doors leading outside- their escape, hopefully.

Not wasting any time, Rianne begins making her way over to the back wall with Gazram following close behind. Upon their entering of the room, music begins playing from the grand piano- despite there being no one there to play. The sudden disturbance only hastens their steps.

Before the cerulean can open the door, both trolls feel a presence directly behind them. No longer off in the distance, stifled weeping can be heard- a voice softly speaking to them.

“Why can’t you just leave me be?”

Ria dares to turn her head back, ever so slowly. She is face to face with a ghastly figure, pale as bone with long, frazzled white hair to match. Her wide, haunted eyes were black like voids with golden irises. Yellow blood streaks and drips from her eyes down her face, stains covering the entirety of the elaborate, yet ruined dress she’s wearing.

“Get out.” the figure finally commands, a forceful gust of wind knocking the patio doors open and shattering them.

No longer frozen with fear, Gazram grabs a hold of Ria’s arm- dragging her with him as he hastily retreats out the open door. Now free of the manor’s walls, the two scramble around and back towards the path that led them here. 

Neither of them really felt like exploring 'haunted buildings' anymore. Or, ever again for that matter.

#nihil writes #eidwyn manor #nyxtra eidwyn #man for characters that are random and will likely never show up again #these two sure did talk a lot lmao.

[bloodenjoyer]

tagged by @mircallasgrave thank youu ^____^

1. are you named after anyone? nope!! my deadname took SOME inspiration from a girl in the 60s who had some connection to a band (<thats all ill say) baz is just short for basil which came from nowhere particular...i DO also go by judy though and that definitely is partly inspired by judy from the secret history

2. when was the last time you cried?

maybe a few days ago i kept thinking of doomsday/rose tyler in general and was getting really emotional about it . my actual problems im more inclined to repress though

3. do you have kids?

nope!

4. do you use sarcasm a lot?

yes but also no. the answer is no but yes. I am always being completely honest and completeyl joking. i am never entirely sincere but ever joke i make secretly rings true at its core

5. what is the first thing you notice about people?

man idk

6. what color are your eyes?

green or hazel im not sure

7. scary movies or happy endings?

silly question

8. any special talents?

i dunno i can do this weird thing with my right shoulder that makes it look dislocated

9. where were you born?

california!

10. what are your hobbies?

media consumption LOL movies books music etc...like...idk. sometimes i try to play instruments (i did play flute for years but im a bit rusty now, and i play bad guitar sometimes), same w drawing im j not very good at it. and writing. Whatever. im a bit of a jack of all trades useless creative type tbh

11. do you have any pets?

dogy i love her so much

12. what sports did/have you played?

violently hated sports growing up and im pretty physically ....unfit so i never did sports. i guess i do like swimming though and im decent at it

13. how tall are you?

same height as rod serling

14. favorite subjects in school?

history philosophy literature english. Oh anything humanities i suppose

15. dream job?

actor LOL but genuinely nothing at all

tagging @bivampires @gingersnapsunleashed @frankiecorleone <3

#it always takes me a bit to get around to doing these oopsy

[cartridgeconverter]

Made a post like yesterday about how I wanted to draw theatre characters without them being associated with any specific actor, so I've drawn some of The Girls without using any reference. These don't really match my view of the characters in my head, but it was a fun exercise.

Zerlina:

I've seen a few Asian Zerlina/Black Masetto pairs, (Met 2023 with Ying Fang, the Peter Sellars gangster Giovanni with Ai Lan Zhu) and while I don't particularly like the stereotypical implications of the submissive/promiscuous Asian girl and the jealous, violent Black guy, Ying Fang Zerlina like rearranged my braincells, so I kind of had to

I keep on thinking this character looks more Japanese than Chinese, which wasn't my intention (I based part of the features on myself, and I am Chinese), but what can you do

Shoutout to the Aix-en-Provence 2017 production and tumblr user @/leporellian for their objectively correct flower crown Zerlinas. Perfect, no notes.

I didn't do a full crown but this is a plum blossom, which is a common flower depicted in East Asian art and according to Wikipedia represents purity? I have never heard that, but I am also not super well-versed in East Asian cultures other than my own. So.

Every time I try and draw characters from this show it always starts with Zerlina. I love her she's so silly

Elvira:

Yeah I'll admit this isn't really my best work

The lines are pretty crusty but at a certain point I didn't feel like cleaning it up anymore

Anyway enough excuses this is both not very clean and not a particularly inspired design

The green-ish eyes are from when I got really bored and came up with eye color headcanons for all the characters? Green eyes obviously represent jealousy but I also just like the vibes

Man I dunno. I haven't thought enough about Elvira I gotta think more and then maybe I'll redo this one

This is the one that I feel least resembles the way I see the character in my head, as I feel like she'd be on the older side - around 10-15 years older than Zerlina and Masetto and 5-10 years older than Anna and Ottavio

Anna:

MY FAVORITE GIRL.

I said no references but I did look at one (1) picture of Federica Lombardi, I'm really sorry guys

Not sure how I feel about this drawing either, I like the expression and the shading but there's nothing particularly interesting about this design

Every time I think about giving Anna different colors I think about that one Rachel Willis Sorensen in-character post where she's like "but do you have this in black?" So. Black.

#sigh #don giovanni #content that i'm like 50/50 on

[flirting-with-psychology]

Do you have a bad reputation?

Maybe a little bit in college as someone who hooks up at parties but that wasn’t necessarily bad

Have you ever gone through a bad breakup?

It was bad for me even though it was small

Do you believe in Jesus?

Not as a religious figure, but I believe there was probably a man or a few men who inspired people

Has anyone ever used a cheesy pickup line on you?

Only over dating apps

Are you hard of hearing?

Don’t think so, but maybe a tiny bit

Would you ever want a statue made of you?

Only if it was flattering

When did you last go for a run?

Who knows, I don’t like running

What is something that gives you good vibes?

Dogs

How many bones have you broken in your life?

None

What did you last search for?

Water quality in my town

What color are your lampshades?

They vary

Where are you currently?

My dad’s house

Has anyone ever called you dumb?

Probably

Do you have any cats?

Not currently, but I used to

What were you doing last time 3am came around?

Sleeping

What’s your favorite love song?

In A Crowd of Thousands from Anastasia

What all did you do last night?

Just chilled

What last let you down?

Covid

How many lights do you have on?

Several

Have you ever had vertigo?

A little

Has your house ever been robbed?

Yes, twice

Are you currently tired?

Yeah

When did you last get a haircut?

like a month ago

Do you ever use the slang “sheesh”?

Occasionally

Have you done a breathing exercise recently?

No

What food/drink did you last waste?

Cheese that got moldy

Have you ever had collard greens?

No

Do you or would you ever live on a coast?

Maybe if the rent wasn’t so damn high

Are you a cry baby?

Depends

If you have a partner, do you have a song?

Not really

Have you ever dug a hole? What for?

Probably just for fun as a kid

Do you spend too much time in your room?

No

Have you ever fainted? What from?

No

What is something that is “just like heaven” to you?

Dunno

Who is someone you know who is gorgeous?

One of my friends

Do you know a Chelsea?

Yes

Would you rather kill or be killed?

Fuck I wish I could say be killed but in all honesty probably kill

What’s a good habit you have?

Drinking water

Would you rather have 12 fingers or 12 toes?

Toes

What’s the sweetest, best pie you’ve ever had?

Strawberry rhubarb

What did you last try to do?

Watch hockey

Have you broken anyone’s heart?

probably

Do you have brown eyes?

Yes

Are you currently barefoot?

Yes

#survey

[eristic-kaleidoscope]

HyperextENDing | E.N.D. | Trial 5-5 | RE: Jae-min, Akito, Adrik

"First of all, you're not killing any of those three right now,"

END just glares at Jae-min from across the bullpen, apparently taking the threat a lot more seriously than Akito himself is.

"I may not be able to stop the sisters from executing a killer, but I can still hold my own in a fight if I have to, and I'm not letting you murder someone because you're too damn impatient to find out if you're right. And that goes for everyone else, too--if you start throwing fists or whatever, I'm stepping in. Shit's already tense enough as is, we don't need a lot more of that.

If it turns out it is him? Then go hog wild, I don't give a shit. Just keep your ass sat down until we're sure."

She bounces her leg, checking her tablet with one hand as the other rests on the bump in the coat she's wearing for a moment, as if she's trying to double check the positioning. This is all so confusing, and she hates it. Why couldn't the problem be as simple as a mechanical issue? If an engine starts having errors, she can simply follow the parts that aren't firing quickly and figure out what needs to be done. This is all so much more complicated, and it's very outside her wheelhouse. 

"Even if the taser only has one charge, the charger was with it too, yeah."

To prove her point, END brings the charging cord out of her pocket to show it off as well.

"I dunno a reason for the pillow to have been burned by the taser aside as possibly a test yeah, as Erik A suggested. Either way--Any idea of how long it takes for this thing to charge, Erik A? An also already showed off the spot where she was tased, unless you have some other reason to think of checking An, who I assume is the 'certain someone else' unless you're being cagey for some reason.... I dunno. They're not a huge brick shithouse of a person like Jae-min, they're gonna go down pretty effectively, if I had to guess.

As for the thermos.... I would like to point out, that it's not the first time we've seen it, either. Maybe not everyone did, but-- It was left in the 'A' office once that floor was opened up. Not only that, but I know that that wasn't just something stolen from Akito's apartment as a clue because Byrne was able to identify it as belonging to Akito. That investigation is also what led to it being dented, so sorry for that. I will say, when we left it there, it was missing when we came back. I assumed that Akito's group came back for it, but I guess one of our hosts could've swiped it then--but the point is, it was at least already in play as it were, before this whole frame job."

She rubs at her face a bit, thinking things over. It feels like they're spinning their wheels at this point, making no progress. Akito, no it's Erisu, no back to Akito, no back to Erisu.....

"I guess with Jae-min's vouching, I could be more inclined to think that Erisu was Az-8, sure. I'm still not one hundred percent sold, because I do have to wonder a few things-- If Az-8's mother ran from the program, taking the time to get rid of anything that could be used to follow her easily.... Why would she let her child still be easily recognized as Az-8? It's not like hair color is a hard thing to change, and while Erika names are a dime a dozen these days, why would she keep it instead of changing it when running away? There's also the receipt that was mentioned, for hair dye and eye drops to make your hair blonde and eyes green. So I guess what I really want to know there is what possible reason would you have to keep that up in a fucked up experiment where people are dying?"

Dimly, she's aware there's the distinct possibility that it's a false item, and Akito doesn't use them, but she's not going to voice that and give him an out. 

"To Jae-min's point as well--ultimately, while I do think we need to take this chance to figure out as much as we can, at the end of the day someone murdered Erisu. An was taken out with a taser, and I don't think it was Calluna--she could tase Erisu remotely if she'd been watching, as was said, and beyond that could have just gotten AION to intervene if need be. On top of that, if she did do it and got found out, by her own experiment rules she'd be killed, and I don't think she's dumb enough to risk that when they're so close to what they need.

So that leaves someone else, who had access to the red floor. And bud, you're still looking pretty guilty, since as far as I can tell, no one has any evidence that can point to a single other person involved in this. Sure, it'd be a tight window for you to go from the library, to the red floor, to Erisu, back to the library.... But that only assumes you started in the library in the first place. I'm not really sure I buy that you were there? If you're investigating this whole thing, and that alarm wakes us all up at six am, you're just going back to looking at files? And then just take pictures of them, when the place wasn't locked off, so you could just show Adrik later in person?

But Calluna wasn't watching cameras, so someone else was. If you did, and you saw the start of the fight, then it just means you had to grab the curtain, find something that could feasibly prove your innocence, such as pictures that conveniently put you on either side of the murder, and then run out to get Erisu. Erisu wasn't killed in the lobby, there was a clear amount of time between her assault on An and her ending by the elevator doors.

Also, I don't really get your logic--you wanna say that this morning's events spooked them into making this false flag operation, but like.... That's really not a lot of time to do it. So either they would've had to have planned to kill their own sibling from a while ago, which An is clearly adamantly against, or else this caught them off guard." 

END drums her fingers along the top of her ruined podium. She doesn't like sitting still, so this is a fine excuse--

"Calluna, An, mind if I get up to come and check that tablet of his for those pictures? If someone else wants to check they can too, I guess, but I wanna see them for my own eyes instead of relying on just a testimony from his partner."

Calluna gives a nod to that! "

"You may for that purpose, though anyone else who feels the need to leave their spot to check would require their own permission."

END nods in return, and steps from around her podium to go and check Akito's tablet--or phone, as the case actually is. She gives a few glances to it, before heading back to her own spot. The whole time, she is carefully watching all three of the people in that section of the circle for any signs of danger.

"Okay, so Akito does have pictures of files on his phone, and they are marked for 12 PM and 12:30 PM, respectively. However, they're of Kaguya's satellite and facial research, and our host's collab efforts on the VR tech... Absolutely neither of which is remotely new information, so I can't imagine why he'd save them to share with Adrik, when especially Kaguya's stuff was openly discussed a while back. Do with that what you will, I guess."

#END #chapter5 #trial5 #submission

[cyberloveza]

Tale of the Green Beast | A Shreklock Story

It was a quiet day. I would've loved to chat more with Holmes, but the movie we had just watched left me… off. As if Holmes and I had just cuddled by the fire, him regaling me with his crime novels as he'd come to do often recently, knowing that if I was ever murdered, he would dismember his sole to kill the man responsible… but he was the one that killed me in the first place?

Holmes and I strolled down the hallway, him with his arm around my shoulder, and stopped at our flat.

I dug into my pockets for the key.

Holmes tapped his foot as he waited. His usual impatience. A few moments passed, and he stopped. His eyebrows furrowed as his gaze fell into his thoughts. His nose scrunched.

"Is that coffee?" He looked up at the door.

"Coffee?" I sniffed the air. The scent had come from through the door. "Wait- yes. It's coming from inside!"

Holmes grabbed the doorknob and turned it, but it wouldn't budge.

"This doesn't make sense. We don't drink coffee, we drink tea! Watson, unlock the door."

I jammed the key into the hole and pushed open the door. The smell of coffee packed the room and flooded into the hallway. Its potency burned my throat. Along with tears from… onions?

Holmes studied the room, as he could find the most miniscule of things that were displaced. And as always, he saw it. But…his jaw dropped.

I followed his thousand-yard-stare to the couch. My lord…

Lightning shocked my heart as I saw the green, panic-inducing hand pick up his coffee mug and an onion in the other.

"Shrek?!" We said at the same time.

"Gitoud o' me flat, will ya?"

Holmes raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me, sir but with all due respect, leave. This isn't your house."

"Yuud messan' wit the wroöng ogre."

My knees shook as my whole body paralyzed in fear. I heaved out every breath, and let not one in. My eyes flickered. A cold shock crawled up my skin. Soon, all I could see was the green in front of me, and as always, black.

My brain was working overtime, making sure I only got the most horrific dreams, like Shrek breaking my fingers one by one and stabbing my head while Holmes wasn’t looking. I didn’t even want to think about what could’ve happened while I was out. In the dark void that was my closed eyes, warm colors began to peak through.

The warm sheets were blurry as they caressed my palm, becoming clear and solid as the static cleared from my sleeping body. I opened my eyes.

Holmes. He leaned over me, looking directly into my eyes.

“Holmes…? Wha…” I said as my lips fruitlessly delivered my words.

“Watson, are you okay?”

I groaned as the side of my neck burned. I must’ve slept in a strange position.

“I’m… I’m fine, Holmes. I just- I dunno…”

“Easy, my friend,” he touched my forehead, as if to check I wasn't running a cold. “Dinner will be done in a few minutes. Lay back until then.”

He touched my arm as I eased again into the warm bed.

I wanted to clear my head of him. That green monstrosity…

The bed weakly rumbled as the sound of heavy footsteps approached the door. The noise that shook my core.

I broke into a sweat.

"Eh Sherlœk, dinne's readi!"

A devil's cry pierced up my skin. It was still here. Not only that. I had to share a table with him.

Dammit. No no no no no no no no…

We already set the plates and forks. Holmes waited calmly as his bowl was being prepared. I… well I couldn't. My mind was lightning. I cringed at the thought of his giant fingers touching anything near my food.

A thud came from the kitchen. I flinched.

Holmes looked over at the kitchen entrance. "What was that?"

"Nuthan!" The monster said back. I hoped he didn't think that was reassuring somehow. I knew what he was doing.

I stood up from my chair.

Holmes impatiently tapped his fork on the cream white plate. He met my gaze.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

The truth grobbled in my throat, but I kept it in.

"The food smells so delicious, Holmes," I said shamelessly. "I just have to see it now."

His face brightened up. "Oh, eggers!"

Eggers? Eggers? That Shrek got to him. Holmes's mind was on its way to a slow, green rot and I had to stop it.

I turned into the kitchen, the savory smell of tomatoes and chicken drowned me in its deliciousness, unfortunately. In front of the stove was the demon himself.

He reached into his pocket. Something clacked inside as he pulled out a small red… salt shaker? Strange red flakes floated into the soup, his big hands still choking the entire bottle.

I stood straight. I couldn't make it obvious that my knees trembled.

He looked at me.

"I jost gõtte put i in de bowls. Be paeshent."

"No worries. Why don't I handle it? I said, holding my hand out as I walked closer to the monster.

"I gott it. If ya wonderin about the shaker, it's only pepper. Not de spicy kind."

Lies.

"Sure. I bet Holmes will love it."

Shrek nodded, and dumped the soup from the ladle into the bowl. Gross. Disgusting. I'd rather die than eat that. My head ached just standing there. Slowly, I stepped back and left the kitchen.

Silence. I didn't dare let a word escape my mouth. I took a sip of my wine as Holmes and the demon talked their hearts out.

"Ur a verrie smaot man, Mr. Holmes." It said.

Holmes playfully extended out his hand, blushing like a teenage girl.

"Awww- I- ha ha" he chuckled over his sentence. "Stop, you're embarrassing me."

Holmes glanced at me, then back at Shrek. He didn't talk to me like that. He never talked to me like that. What the hell is this?

I idly stirred my soup, paying close attention to the broccolis. To the red specks that lay on their heads.

Holmes ate his seconds with the speed of a starving prisoner. I knew all the red specks were in his soup too. A love potion perhaps. Or maybe just poison.

Holmes coughed. His eyes shot wide open.

I looked at him. "Is everything alright?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he held his neck, and coughed his lungs out. I panicked.

"Holmes! Are you okay? Answer me!" I rushed out of my seat and over to him. I held his shoulders.

"Gggghhhhaaaa!" He responded.

Drats! He can't talk.

I tugged at his arm and pulled him out of his seat. Wrapping my arms around his torso, I put my hands under his ribcage and did the proper Heimlich maneuver.

A piece of pepper flake shot from his mouth. Holmes heaved as he loosened his grip from his neck. I cupped his hand in mine.

"Oh my god, are you okay?"

He stared at the bowl, emptiness was behind his eyes.

He laughed.

He roared. "I'm fine, John. It was just a flake of pepper. More soup will wash it down."

What.

I flared hot inside. Not from anger, but from how awkward I felt at the moment. Standing there, my face probably iron red. Yes, I saved his life, but it was still awkward.

I sat back down in my seat, still as a statue, watching Shrek and my partner gossip and chatter for the rest of dinner.

"Yoø drawin li'il pictures?"

I snapped cold. The satanic heat radiated in front of me as I slowly looked up. It wasn't a hallucination. That ogre was still here.

I set my pencil and journal down next to me. Quiet time on the couch was over.

I spoke. "I am. Why?"

He grinned, and from behind his back, pulled out five big books.

"Were we're goin', we don't gætt nou pictures."

My eyes widened.

---

After a few minutes, we successfully moved the table to the front door, leaving a clear spot on the floor for us to sit. I couldn't see the use, but that would hopefully be explained to me in due time.

Holmes's bedroom door opened, with the man himself emerging. He wore his dark red dressing robe and slippers.

He came to the sitting spot.

"This is the activity you've been raving to me about?" He looked at the demon.

"Ye, I gotte de buuks. Sit down."

Shrek patted the spot next to him. Holmes clapped his hands together and sat down next to him.

Five books sat in the center of us: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Great Gatsby, The Bible, Moby Dick, and the 1999 original book Can of Worms by Kathy Mackel.

I furrowed my eyebrows. "What exactly are we doing?"

Shrek leaned forward and grabbed the Harry Potter book. He opened it.

"Yu pik a böok, and ask eech of us one queschon about it, then we rotate. We only gott three peopl and fyve books, but we'll still rotate the other two."

I blanked. I couldn't for the life of me understand the rules, but Holmes probably knew them well, so I could just copy him.

Holmes grabbed the 1999 original book Can of Worms by Kathy Mackel. I took The Bible.

---

Holmes had asked me to write the scores down in my journal, and I told him I'd do anything for him, so I obliged. Here's how it was looking:

I was dead last, but I took solace in that Holmes was doing so well. Though, my hands burned at the thought that it was only because of that demon's doing. Holmes didn't need him to win, but I couldn't do anything as it was his game.

My stomach roared inside me as I sat there with the Bible in hand. I hadn't eaten dinner. Shrek and Holmes watched me intently as I turned a couple pages.

I cleared my throat.

"This is your question, Holmes. What verse does David find Bath-seed-ba bathing?"

"2 Samuel 11:2!" Holmes declared loudly.

Shrek looked at him. "Again, smaot mann, Sherlock."

Holmes blushed again, the fangirl in him never truly leaving since dinner. Shrek picked up the Harry Potter book. A smile spread across his face, but his eyes… they flickered… with rage. His eyebrows pinched.

Shrek pulled his arm back like a baseball pitcher. Holmes's attention was on the pages of his book. The walls chanted at me, their voices rang in my ear. They knew. I knew. My heart beated in my chest as the smell of blood conjured in my head.

His arm swung forward, launching the book past Holmes's head and crashing it into the wall.

Another book sliced past Holmes's shoulder and banged on the floor behind him, making him fall over. My chest was twenty pounds heavy. Holmes trembled with terror in his eyes.

Shrek smirked.

"I gess gaem tyme's over." he stood up. "Time for bed, doncha think?"

He held a hand out for Holmes. He was reduced to a scared kitten, but he slowly reached out his paw to the demon's.

Shrek helped Holmes up from the floor. He snatched his hand away from the ogre.

"I-I'm going to take a shower now. I'll…" he trailed off, and walked away.

In a few seconds, he locked himself in the bathroom, probably sobbing at the thought of this ogre. Poor Holmes.

My blood boiled. I shot up from my seat.

“What the hell was that?” I shouted.

Shrek looked at me with a knowing stare.

He knows what he’s doing. He’s trying to piss me off.

I raised my fist at him. “You lay a hand on my friend, you’re dead. Dead!”

“I think yu fale too consider, who will really be dead.”

A smirk spread across his face. That evil grin… chilled my bones. I stood my ground and kept a fearless expression. Muffled shower noises leaked from the bathroom. Shrek turned his head towards it.

“Wach ouut, Doctor.”

I whispered angrily. “How did you know I was a doctor?”

He pointed at the door. Why would Holmes tell this beast my occupation? He was probably forced to do so.

Surrounded by near silence, Shrek stepped closer to the bathroom, his thunderous footsteps shaking my core. He knelt down at the door. One could only be so scared for someone else’s life before they should start fearing for theirs. What I’m saying is, I should've prayed that my heart could take whatever might happen next.

The demon pulled something out of his pockets. Something black and squirmy. I squinted at them, and it was awful. They were spiders.

One by one, the spiders crawled down Shrek’s green skin and onto the floor, sneaking under the space of the door and into the bathroom. Holmes had the worst surprise coming. I gasped as I knelt down to view the spiders.

“No.” I mumbled.

“Yez.” The devil replied.

“No!” I said as I leaped forward to the doorknob.

He raised a finger to his mouth and shushed me. The rings of the shower curtains clanged against the bar as they whooshed to the side.

“Watson?” A quite voice said through the showering water. “Watson!”

My heart ached. Holmes was saying my name. He needed me, but I couldn’t respond, less I wanted the ogre to hurt him more.

“Noble False Widows,” he said. “Moste poizunous in Englande. I don’t thank heez gonna mak it.”

“WATSON!!” Holmes screamed. His blood curdling pleads stung my ears.

As I gazed shocked at the door in disbelief, a shadow formed from mine. It was ogre-shaped. And from the side of my head, a baseball bat shape emerged. I froze. I was ice. My vision blotched black as I waited… and waited…

BAM.

Dark.

A dark room, furnished only by silhouettes. That's where I lay. My head burned with pulses against my pillow from the blunt force blow I was dealt sometime earlier.

I groaned. The covers caressed me as I pushed myself up.

What happened…

A creak sounded. I froze and became sober again.

"I was knocked out," I mumbled to myself. My heart blasted, racing on, breaking me into a cold sweat as the thought hit me. "Where's Holmes?"

My eyes widened in panic. My breaths were too quick to be considered breathing. I shakily hopped out of bed and scrambled to the nightstand for the lamp.

With one click, it flicked on. My room was a hurricane's path of debris. Though this time, it wasn't the green beast's fault.

I approached the door, my legs trembling at what could be behind it. I held the cold doorknob and turned it, and as I tugged, it didn't budge.

I tugged again. Nothing.

Was I trapped?

I glanced around the room, at the bed, at the dresser, at the floor. Nothing of note. I held my chest as I cooled down. I had to think:

Who put me here? And why?

The answer to the first one was obvious. It was Shrek. My answer to the second question would be confirmed for sure after I figured out my third question:

How do I get out of here?

Think, John. What did you do with the demon today?

I tapped my foot as I pondered. Shrek had made us dinner with dubiously edible pepper flakes, played a book game with us, and possibly mortally wounded Holmes with a spider. Aha, it was all connected!

I grabbed the 1999 original book Can of Worms by Kathy Mackel off the dresser. Next to where the book was, was a conveniently placed pepper shaker.

A spider crawled on the floor. Perfect. I knew how to get out.

In a few minutes, I sprinkled the pepper onto a blank page in the book, then recited the previous page's text backwards. I shut it immediately. Using the same book, I slammed it on the spider, threw it at the window and finally, unlocked the door.

That's what living with Sherlock Holmes does to your brain. You become smarter from his mere presence.

The door creaked open. I peeked through. No lights were on, leaving the flat in total darkness.

I blindly tiptoed out my bedroom. Despite my probable head injury, I was doing well navigating the few feet I traveled. However…

I touched the couch, and it felt… off. Tiny buzzes filled my ear, colors I shouldn't see in the dark blotted my vision, and dark red plagued my senses. The smell of blood.

I took a finger to a different part of the couch. My fingers dipped into a wet, squishy, warm patch of fabric, the substance leaking onto my hands. I pressed more, and panicked.

My hands shook as my breathing grew louder.

"Blood… blood…" I whispered. I quietly called for my friend. "Holmes… Holmes? Sherlock?"

A thunderous step sounded behind me. A familiar sound. I trembled again.

"Yuu finaly laerned wot I meant. You tők your sweet thyme, Doctor."

Beads of tears loomed around my eyes. My throat scratched on every word.

"Where's… where's Sherlock? Where's my friend?" I cried. I looked hopelessly in the darkness, unable to see the evil green beast.

A ray of light rose from behind and hit the floor beside me. It was from a torch. The light slithered past my feet, illuminating a slipper in front of me.

It kept going, then slowed. A drop of blood glimmered in the light. And more. And lingering, was a pool of dark blood gathering under a man wearing a robe.

"..."

I froze.

The beast came closer, letting his torchlight leak over the rest of the body and his face. The pale face of Sherlock Holmes.

I covered my mouth as I knelt down, his blood soaking my clothes.

"Sherlock? I-..." My voice wobbled. Tears flowed down my face.

I went cold. I knew.

Like a bomb, I exploded. The chaos, my tears and shrieks of fear bursted out of me. Sobbing and pure screams fought each other for my heart. My body went numb as my legs gave out. I coughed on the tears that flooded my face.

"Sherlock! SHERLOCK!" I yelled. The green beast grabbed me from behind. "No! No! You MONSTER! Bring him back! SHERLO-"

I coughed from my torn throat. My breath heightened as I finally ran out of tears to cry.

I stood there, unable to move from his arms. I didn't have it in me. Not anymore.

"Please… bring him back." I said quietly.

The monster squeezed me harder.

"No cann do, Doctor. I'm not-"

"Please… please…" I begged as I lost my voice.

The monster's grip loosened. Silence retook its place as I struggled to make a noise. He let go entirely and I could kneel to my friend one more time. The monster stepped back.

"Comm on, Sherlock. Partyz ovar."

Wh-wha…

Bells tolled far in the distance as I Iooked on at my friend.

Sherlock’s hand twitched. He shook as he pushed himself up off the floor, his eyes opening like a miracle itself had taken him. Was he undead?

The lights flicked on, and my partner stood tall once again. His gaze pierced through me, heating me like a fireplace. My mouth quivered.

"Sh-Sher…"

"Good evening to you too, Watson." He said with a smile.

I snapped cold.

"You're… You're a zombie!" I cried.

He chuckled. "Of course not, Watson. It's just me. I'm very much alive."

All senses flowed from me. I fell into a euphoric haze as I leaped forward to embrace him. Blood smeared across my clothes.

I looked at his wound, though there wasn't anything obvious.

"Sherlock, you're hurt."

"Oh no, this is fake." He took his finger to the blood and held it up at me.

My eyes widened. I slowly let go of Sherlock, and stepped back. It didn't make sense.

"S-so, this was all a prank? A joke?" I asked. The euphoria faded away.

Sherlock crosses his arms, then pointed at the blood-stained carpet.

"Well it's obvious, Watson. There is no trail of blood outside this puddle, suggesting no murder weapon was carried beyond this point, and it's too clean for a supposed surpised attack. Plus, there's no wound." He explained.

Sherlock glanced up at Shrek, smirking. Why?

"It was sloppy. Not a convincing crime scene."

"Yuu wont sum eggs wit that ham?" The demon said.

My relief morphed into confusion. Here I was, standing over a pool of fake blood and, what should've been, a white chalk outline. Sherlock and Shrek stood on either side of me. It was probably past midnight, and I was here instead.

What was happening?

"Why? Why would you do that?" Tears emerged from my eyes again.

Sherlock glared at me.

"It was for a very good reason. When we got back from the cinema, I could tell you were frightened, even more so when we saw our unexpected guest in our home. I was concerned when you passed out, but believed your fear to be unfounded, so me and Shrek decided to humor you. If you thought he was going to kill me, then he would 'kill' me."

"What-"

"I wasn't gonna really kill him. I woz tryin' to proove to you that' I woudn't." The ogre said.

I stared blankly at Shrek. My hands heated up and I turned my attention back to Sherlock. Worry spread across his face as I slowly stepped closer.

Standing in front of him now, I slapped him hard. My need to yell was less than dormant. I grabbed his robe.

"This was the dumbest plan you've ever conceived." I said gravely.

I let go of him and went to Shrek. I slapped him too. It wouldn't sting as bad though. I blame Sherlock for planning this in the first place. Shrek did absolutely nothing wrong.

I walked past the couch, intending to go back to bed. Intentionally this time.

"Watson, comm watch a movie wit us." Shrek said.

I smiled smugly, and turned around to face the green beast.

"Get out of my flat."

 

~The End~

#shreklock #sherlock holmes #shrek #original sherlock holmes #kind of #johnlock #like my little pictures? #idk #idk even know when this takes place #could be 1889 might be 1989 its timeless

[littlemisslipbalm]

“you make me so angry sometimes”

idk if this gif makes sense, but i feel like it will if you read the story, it just gives me that vibe. 

A one shot I cooked up idk, it’s about Harry and a makeup artist on DWD, it’s quite angsty, idk how that happened, it’s also very long, idk how that happened either, maybe i do a part 2, maybe i don’t idk lmk. Feedback is appreciated, not proofread. REBLOGS help writers tremendously and i love reading whatever you write in the tags its my favorite thing!! Love yall and Merry Christmas!

Word Count: 17.7k | Warnings: ENEMIES to LOVERS! swearing, angst!, some anxiety -like self-doubt, yn being mean to harry kind of a lot, i dont remember, nothing too crazy, Nick Kroll?, lots of conversation

-

When she pictured herself as a makeup artist in Los Angeles, she hadn’t pictured exactly what she was doing right now.

She had expected doing gorgeous makeup for gorgeous actresses or doing wildly fun stuff like in Euphoria. And because of that she had worked her ass off to get where she was today. She had practiced for hours, worked countless hours for free, and networked to the cows came fucking home.

So why the fuck was she using tattoo-strength concealer to cover up the maybe 60 tattoos some asshole musician turned actor had all over?

Don’t Worry Darling was her first major film to work on so she couldn’t complain. She was happy to simply be there. Well she had been. The first day she had showed up 15 minutes early and had worn her favorite power suit she had. It was dark navy with a white lace long sleeve turtleneck underneath. She hoped to look fun but professional.

Hollywood was all about impressions, especially first ones, even when you’re the makeup artist. She had quickly learned that she was one of six makeup artists. One of them being the friend who had helped her get the job, Angie. Angie was like her surrogate mother in Los Angeles that she had met on her first film job for something much less high profile than Olivia Wilde’s second directing project. Her braided grey hair and fabulous jeans had drawn Y/N right in and they had connected instantly.

Since Y/N was deemed the most inexperienced by the head of the makeup department, she was relegated to easier jobs: assisting the other artists on main characters sometimes, mostly dealing with minor characters touch ups (and full make-up if she was lucky), and the job nobody wanted: tattoo coverage.

Harry Styles was one of the leads for the film and besides his minimal acting, everyone knew he was a worldwide rockstar. With the rock and roll life starting off as a popstar life at the ripe age of 16, he had amassed around 60 tattoos in the past decade. Impressive by her standard normally. She usually counted herself as an appreciator of tattoos and their art, finding them similar to makeup and the self expression that came with both forms. Especially since she had a few of her own, but when she walked into Trailer #6 and saw a good amount of Harry’s tattoos, she wanted to murder every artist he’d ever been to.

She had to make an inventory the first day of all of his visible tattoos when he was just wearing boxers. He had been friendly, trying to make conversation, but as the time wore on, they both grew tired and silent. She had to write down the location and a description of every tattoo and as he took off everything but boxers she grew more and more annoyed with his random and dumb tattoos. Some of them were amazing, the eagle, the anchor, the butterfly, and the ferns were probably her favorites. But some of them, she couldn't hold back her rolling eyes and annoyed expressions. The “Big” on his right big toe, a miniscule lock, almost everything on his inner left arm (the packers logo, Pingu, etc.)

She traces at the rose and the ship and then flips his arm out to reveal his inner arm to her gaze. “That is a big fucking bee.”

He snickers, “Y’like it?”

She ignores his question. “For god’s sake, someone is needle happy,” she said as she examined his left arm, taking note of every permanent drawing.

He shrugs his right shoulder, uninhibited by her prodding. “Dunno, beginning to regret some of them.”

“I would hope,” she mutters, scribbling on her paper the various ones she had just seen on his arm. Next was his ribcage ones.

He scoffs, “Oi, it’s not like you haven’t got any.”

“How would you-” She looks at him wide eyed.

“Right…” he takes his right hand and pushes her hair past her ear to reveal three little red line butterflies following the curve of her ear, “There. At least.”

She huffs and knocks his hand away from her. Her hair falling back into its place.

“Maybe some located in a few more intimate places I’m guessing from the red rushing to your cheeks right now.”

“Can you just let me do my job,” she says, not giving in to his teasing or sparing him a glance as she feels his intense gaze on her face. She was studying his left rib cage where a few cool tattoos happened to be.

“You at least have some taste or persuasive artists because not all of these are shit,” she speaks again after just the sound of her pen on the paper filled the trailer.

“Gee, thanks,” he laughs unamused and rolls his large green eyes.

She thought he had some of the biggest eyes she’d ever seen. But she also knew to keep that to herself because he’d either take it as a compliment and think she was noticing him too much or he’d take it as a massive insult and get her fired.

His right hand taps at his thigh, tapping a rhythm she didn’t care to pay any attention too. She just wanted to finish the stupid inventory of the stupid tattoos on this stupid man.

“Take those off,” she says to Harry, looking back at her clipboard again, filling up quickly with her notes.

He stands there, staring at her stubbornly. He was entirely bored with this exercise, especially since his company was some of the worst he’s ever had. She spares him a glance when she doesn’t notice any slipping off of the colorful sweatpants he’s wearing.

She arches a brow at him, her pen tapping impatiently against the paper. “Go on. Can’t imagine you want this to go on longer than it already has.”

He rolls his eyes again, slipping his thumbs into the waistline of the pants and tugging down. Simultaneously, he toes off the dirty vans he seemed to wear everywhere. The fabric pools easily and he steps out of them and discards them on the couch behind him. He’s actually wearing black briefs. She chooses not to notice anything further than that.

“Socks...can stay on,” She tries to say as he begins to peel one off. He stops midway and nods.

She flings his shirt to him, not needing to see his naked torso for another moment, “I know you’ve got some feet and ankle tats, but I also know that you won’t be wearing anything that will expose them. Thank your lucky stars that I don’t have to makeup your feet.”

He catches the shirt easily and slips his arms inside before tugging it quickly over his head and over his expansive shoulders. The ferns disappear out of sight.

“Well then we’re almost done then. Just got the knee ones -”

“And the tiger. That’s gonna be one son of a bitch,” she sighs and examines his legs, not bothering to crouch.

“What the actual fuck dude?” Her tone is exasperate and like she would rather be anywhere else than here.

“I’m sorry?” He sputters, hands on his hips and eyes bewildered.

“Yes. No. Oui. Non. Who are you?” She rubs at her eyes and shakers her head.

“S’a little rude.”

“You’re right,” she semi-rushes out at his serious tone, ready to apologize. When a grin spreads over his face and he chuckles under his breath she really wants to smack him upside the head. He was exhausting. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thought it was funny at the time. Kind of think it’s even funnier now since it’s got you all mad.” He leans over her shoulder to look at her notes and when she glances at him unhappily he just looks smug.

“Alright,” she finishes the scribble of a description and clicks the end of her pen, “All done. You can get dressed. I’ll see you bright and early for tattoo makeup. It’s gonna take about an hour to do all this, just so you can mentally prepare for that.”

“It was nice to meet you,” he attempts at a friendly and professional farewell. “See you tomorrow…” he trails off as he watches her turn on her heel and walk out of the trailer door swiftly. The door swung shut and bounced a little bit in her wake.

Harry sighed and adjusted his clothes and hair in the mirror. After a moment he shakes his head, an even louder sigh escaping him.

-

“Good morning!” She greets happily, walking into the trailer without a knock. Well-rested and happy at least that she doesn’t have to just inspect a body, she looks around the trailer.

She realizes no one is there and she’s taken aback. First of all, if Harry wasn’t there then he shouldn’t have left his trailer unlocked. And second, he was fucking late, the fucking twat.

She grumbles, setting her coffee on the countertop. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “In through the nose, out through the mouth” she mutters. She knew this was a big opportunity and having a big star like Harry in her corner could make her career. She needed them to get off on a better foot today.

“Good form, I’d say relax the shoulders a little more,” the door swings open carrying the California twang-British accent that she would soon become all too accustomed to.

Harry points at her shoulders and narrows his eyes regarding her in the trailer. She offers a strained smile through the mirror and Harry sets down his personal things on the couch.  

“Alright, well let’s get started shall we,” she smiles and turns to him, gesturing to the swivel chair next to her.

He nods, a twinkle in his eye as he regards her. He’s unsure of the tone and attitude she’s giving him today. She had been feisty yesterday, cordial at times, but mostly biting and witty. He had liked it. It had made the whole ordeal bearable whereas now she seemed to be laying it on a little thick.

“Just your hands and neck today,” she says, pulling out the makeup materials needed and a checklist of the tattoos she needed to make sure were invisible.

“Should only take..a little under an hour today. Just gonna remind you now though, other days we won’t be so lucky.”

Harry chuckles under his breath and rolls his head around his shoulders before sitting in the chair. “Were you tired yesterday?” He inquires.

“Why do you ask?” She throws a glance over her shoulder at Harry. He’s begun slipping off his sweatshirt and yawns as he does it.

“You seem different from yesterday and I’m just wondering which one is the real you.”

She continues working about the room and rolls her eyes to herself, “I’m always the real me. I come no other way, but this morning I woke up and thought ‘this is the job you’ve fucking wanted for ages, so stop being such a bitch so you don’t get fired, you prick’.” She pauses and turns to face Harry. “The ‘you prick’ was directed at me, that was still part of my thought,” she adds.

He throws his head back and laughs. Then he nods, still laughing lightly, “I get that. Sometimes I’m just so in my head and yesterday I was just so fuckin’ bored. Sorry if I got on your nerves.”

“Don’t mention it.” She waves her hand at him nonchalantly.  

Then she moves to inspect his hands and notices the lack of rings, unlike yesterday when she had to make him take them off.

“You have amazing cuticles,” she notices and mentions without any pretences. Harry mutters his thanks, pursing his lips as he watches her work.

She stops her inspection and places the clipboard on the countertop in front of them.

“Could you take your necklaces off? I need to cover up half of the swallows and the years, for when you unbutton your shirt a bit.”

He wets his lips and nods, hands going to fiddle with the clasps behind his neck. He slips off one of the necklaces with ease, a yellow eye beaded necklace that he lays gently on the countertop next to the clipboard. Then he takes his cross and pulls it over his head, no clasp needed.

“Could I put some music on?” Harry asks after five minutes of Y/N working in silence and Harry only being able to stare either at himself, her work, or nowhere.

“I can,” she stops her work for a moment, “Can’t have you messing up the makeup before it sets. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.” Harry can’t be sure if she’s joking or not. Therefore, he was intent on not messing it up.

“Any requests?” She stands at the counter now, instead of seated on a stool working on Harry's left hand.

He shrugs, like he hasn’t got the faintest idea about good music. She refrains from rolling her eyes once again because she feels herself in a test. She wets her lips, sifting through different things in her Spotify and then lands on her playlist titled “it’s your song” named after Elton John’s song. It had some other musicians, a mix of Queen, Bowie, and more and she was sure she would pass the test.

She presses shuffle and She’s Always A Woman by Billy Joel begins to play over her laptop. Harry nods pleased and she wants to shake her head at him.

She can’t hold back the scoff though after a moment of going back to finishing his hand.

“What?” His British accent thickens with his annoyance growing.

“Nothing,” she chirps, intently putting the final touches on his wrist.

“Seriously. What?”

She stands and sets down the makeup. “Can you unbutton your shirt?” She made a note to herself that from now on she’d have to have him take his shirt off before setting to work because if his hands got messed up she’d have to start over. Thankfully he was already wearing a button up this morning.

He stares at her, offering no movement, just inquisitively waiting for her to respond to his original question.

She shuts her eyes, taking another deep breath and then bites at her lower lip. “It’s just...you’re so easy to read.” She fears adding anything else and moves towards him with the makeup hoping to encourage him to unbutton his shirt.  

His right hand deftly pulls at the buttons as he regards her. His eyes are intent on her, she can see him clearly calculating her. Her green paisley button up tucked up into the back of her bra leaving a splay of her stomach. The semi-balloon sleeves cinched at the wrists leading to her slightly ringed hands. The oversized blue jeans that have no holes, just a tiny patch right next to the left pocket. The frayed ends of the pants laying over her rather pristine white old skool vans.

The Boxer fades in as she waits for him to finish the unbuttoning of the shirt. He’s still staring at her.

“Am I?” He finally inquires, voice pitched higher like he doesn’t believe her.

She gives him a serious stare and leans over him and adjusts the collar of his shirt. She adds paper towels to avoid makeup on his clothes.  

“Yes!” She laughs, “And you don’t even think so, which is like...of course.”

He hums, tilting his head back as she sets to work on covering up the swallows. He wiggles his hands that now both rest on the arm chairs.

“I don’t see it.”

“Of course you don’t,” she glances at his face, their eyes meeting for a moment. “You’re Harry Styles. Everyone is in love with this image you created for yourself and it has just enough of your true self that people feel like they really know you, but you also maintain the illusion. So you think you’re this mysteriously amazing, not like the rest guy, but you are just like the rest of them. Obsessed with yourself and rich so you’re deemed eccentric rather than crazy for all the extravagant shit you do. So when you want me to play music and don’t offer any suggestions I know exactly what music I need to play for you to like me.”

“I feel like that last part says more about you than it does me,” he quirks a brow at her, straining his neck to look at her face as she continues to work.

She flushes, his response both better and worse than she expected. She had gotten a little carried away in her response and she had no idea why. She truly wasn’t one to go off on people so easily and especially not with someone she hardly knew, but something about Harry had her on edge. She was just thankful he hadn’t gotten mad at her response, instead he took it in stride. Further proving her point that he was extremely smart and did things purposefully and she saw right through it all.

She grumbles, “It says that all anyone has to do to get close to you is understand the smallest bit about you and you’ll let them in.”

“That is just so completely wrong, Y/N, I hate to break it to you.” It’s Harry rolling his eyes now, unable to move much more of his body as she continues painting on the concealer to remove his tattoos for the movie.

“Fine. Enlighten me on what I got wrong.”

Their argument had all but drowned out their music. They both did love this music and ironically if they would just shut their mouths, they’d probably like each other a lot more.

“Might as well,” he sighs. “First of all, my image is authentic and of course I don’t want to give myself all away. I enjoy my privacy and for everyone to truly know me I’d have to give that up. Which I’m not keen on. So, I regret to inform you but I am the same guy everyone is “in love with”. Second, I know I am a little self-involved, how else would I get here if I wasn’t constantly taking inventory of myself and reevaluating who I am. As a musician, I want to give as much of myself as possible or else it just feels inauthentic. And the extravagant thing, I can’t help that I like nice things and my job has allowed me to afford those things.”

He stops to take a deep breath and she’s working in stunned silence, in disbelief that Harry is even telling her any of this or that he’s spoken that much and so quickly. Wasn’t he notorious for speaking slowly with barely even a sentence worth of actual information. He sounds tired and frustrated, but also, surprisingly, sincere.

He continues, “The music thing. Maybe it was a test, but still it doesn’t mean I give everyone a mile when they say their favorite musicians match up with mine or something. I note that they either did their homework or might be an interesting person to get to know.”

“So which am I?” She widens her eyes.

“Obviously the second even if you’re also making it painfully clear that you don’t like me.”

“You’re smarter than I thought, Harry. I’ll give you that,” she smirks slyly, finishing up the bird coverage now.

He laughs. “Thanks,” he drawls out.

“And I admit that maybe you aren’t as easy to read as I made out, but I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about the whole being your authentic self. I just don’t buy it. I can see your mind working constantly, you’re not one to just let yourself be free in public. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying, you shouldn’t pretend like that’s not what you’re doing.”

Her final thought leaves Harry silent. She pays no attention to his silence or at least she’s actively ignoring it. Instead she tunes back into the music that had gotten them back onto the wrong foot. This was going to be a long few months.

When she’s satisfied with her work, she has them sit there for thirty minutes to give it all time to set before Harry is off to hair and other makeup. They sit there listening to music. Neither of them have spoken again, except instructions from her and Harry’s hums of approval of songs.  

Harry stands up after thirty minutes as she stays behind to pack up some items. Just as he’s about to step out of the door, he turns and calls her name.

“For the record, I don’t think you’re giving me a fair shot. You said yourself that you’re different every day. That every version of you, is you. So I hope you’ll give me the same allowance, every version of me is me. In this trailer, in my music videos, on tv, in interviews, in my free time. It’s all truly me.”

She bites her inner cheek as he ducks his head and exits the trailer, not allowing her any response.

-

“You’re late!”

“Meeting ran over with Nick and Olivia. Sorry,” Harry says as he begins to undress.

It’s the first day she has to cover all of his tattoos. It was going to take forever by all accounts. It had been two weeks since shooting had begun and she had gotten the simple hands and neck down to 45 minutes so she could only dread what his entire body would take.

“It’s fine,” she grumbles, knowing there wasn’t really anything else she could say about him coming late from a meeting with the director and producer.

Over the last two weeks, they hadn’t grown any fonder of one another. Not at all. They at least had gotten into a system though and she was grateful for that at least.

They showed up, Harry got in his chair, she set up the music, and they got to work. Harry would practice lines on some days and he’d tell her that before she turned on the music so there were no interruptions. Sometimes they talked about stuff on set or music or she’d give Harry his line when he was trying to be off script and forgot one. She wouldn’t classify it as pleasant, but they weren’t at each other throats like they were originally.

Trailer 6 had gotten a little homier as the weeks went by, too. Harry began leaving some of his stuff there and he started putting up silly drawings he would make while on set or polaroids people had taken with him while he was there. He tacked up napkins of restaurants that catered the set and wrote funny jokes and quotes on post it notes. His personal assistants sometimes brought in snacks while Y/N was still working and Harry always offered her some. They were usually healthy, but sometimes she’d eat some. Jeff, his manager, had also stopped by on occasion during his tattoo touch-ups that had become a thing after shooting days had grown longer.

On first meeting, Jeff had said, “Y/N? Harry mentioned you.”

She had turned to Harry with an arched brow and he had shrugged. When she looked back at Jeff she didn’t see Harry give Jeff one of the deadliest looks he could muster. She had grimaced and said “Well we spend enough time together for him to know my name. So thank god for that at least.”

They had all laughed and she had gotten back to work on Harry’s wrist.

Today, she needed Harry in his shorts. It was the first day of shooting where his character would be only in his boxers so she had to cover up all his visible tattoos. Olivia had told the makeup department they actually had to cover up his feet tattoos as well. She wanted him sockless in the scene and Y/N had groaned immediately when she made it to the trailer and Harry wasn’t already there.

“But please, for the sake of my job, strip, dude.” She says, arms crossed over her chest and leaning against the counter as she watched Harry set his things down. Her soft green striped cardigan is open, exposing the white tank top sitting underneath. Her bright green shorts hang loose on her, cinched at the waist and folded over once. Her white high top nike’s tap impatiently on the floor, waiting for Harry to get moving.

He nodded, truly feeling sorry for his tardiness, knowing today was a long day. He was anxious and tired. Acting was a different experience to music and he just was really trying his best.

As he began to take off his shirt, he laughed. His arms pulled the shirt over his head and when it popped out from beneath it, he repeated, “Strip, dude,” attempting to mimic her American accent.

He had practiced his American accent in front of her while running lines, but it had a 50’s drawl to it. His acting coach had been drilling him for weeks before shooting and he still liked to practice. The accent he had just down was far off from that and far off from hers too.

“Do not,” she warned.

“What?” He asks innocently and flutters his eyelashes.

She knows his game by now and she knows she should just ignore him. She knows this after fourteen days. She knows this after hours with him. She knows this, but then she’s opening her mouth and playing into his teases.

“Sorry, what’s a word you would know? Mate?” She tries for a British accent with the last word, knowing she can’t win this.

Harry snickers and scratches at his nose with his index finger before starting on taking off his pants. “You’re so Californian.”

“Thank you,” she chirps, moving to sit beside him now that he had settled.

“I like your shorts,” he muses, crossing his legs, likely a little cold.

She glances down at her cotton shorts that showed more of her thighs when she sat for a moment before returning her gaze to his left arm. The longest task of the day was this damn arm.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, “Wanted to be comfortable today. Knew it was gonna be long.”

A smile bubbles onto his face, his pink lips parting to reveal his shiny white teeth behind them. “So true.”

The music is low today. She had chosen Joni Mitchel’s Blue album for the first pick of the day. She had quickly learned Harry preferred listening to albums in order. It tended to make him less jumpy when the same artist came on multiple times like an album. So when she tried to play just an album one day, she found him more cooperative and less irritable.

After thirty minutes of work, she can’t stop noticing how shivery Harry is. It was late October in LA, so it was still warm, but admittedly the mornings could be a little chilly. His shivering was concerning for many reasons. Mainly he was messing up her work and concentration, but she also didn’t want him to get sick or something.

“Do you want me to see if they have a blanket and slippers or something? You look like you’re turning blue.”

Harry turns his attention to her. He had been reading over the script for today again. “That’d be great. I can call…” He trails off trying to think of the name of one of his assistants, but apparently he’s too scatterbrained for it. She assumed it was the hypothermia traveling to his brain already.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll walkie someone.” She says as she grabs the walkie talkie, flicking to the personal assistants channel.

“Hey,” she chirps happily. Harry noted how she talked to other people. So sweet, yet sincere. With him, it was serious and sincere but more biting, callous at times. Less so lately, but she definitely was sharper with him. He didn’t know if it even bothered him anymore. She was engaging if nothing else.

“Is someone free to bring two blankets and men’s slippers over to Trailer 6? I’ve got a naked Jack and I don’t want him freezing before I’m done covering up his tattoos.” She takes her finger off the talking button and glances sideways at him, “Who knows, maybe that would improve his acting. Y’know on second-thought-”

“Alright, alright,” Harry tries to grab for the walkie talkie, but she turns from him holding a finger up signalling him to wait as she listens for a response.

Someone says a simple “On it” and she turns off the walkie talkie and gets back to work.

“I took my finger off the speaker before I said the thing about your acting. Relax, Harry.” She says when he’s still glaring at her. “Just love to see you squirm.”

He shakes out his short chestnut hair, some of it falling over his forehead. Instinctively, she reaches up without even looking and smooths it back. Like she was tucking her own hair out of her eyes, but instead it was Harry’s. She decided to say nothing and was relieved when Harry didn’t say anything either.

She finishes his forearm and moves to his outer upper arm. The rose holds her attention when the PA knocks on the door and she has to race to get it. Nothing could stop her from moving on this work. It was already an hour in and she wanted to scream.

She swings open the door and she wants to die. It was Autumn. Her least favorite PA, of course. She was insufferable and obsessed with Harry. Which was not why Y/N found Autumn insufferable. There were so many more reasons. So many. But that particular character flaw didn’t help her case either. Y/N tried to just take the blankets and slippers from Autumn, but the woman insisted that she come in.

“I’ve got it,” Y/N says.

“No, don’t want you to get makeup on anything,” Autumn’s saccharine voice grinds at her ears and she contemplates cutting them off.

Harry sat in his chair, legs crossed, nodding along to the music, his script discarded on the counter in front of him.

“Hi Harry!” Autumn practically yells, walking right up to him.

Y/N takes a deep breath at the door, letting it swing shut. She bites her lower lip as an attempt to bite her tongue as she walks back to her set-up. The set-up Autumn was conveniently blocking.

“Hello, Autumn,” Harry says kindly, making eye contact with her. “How’re you today?”

“So great! So great! Thanks for asking. How are you?” She points a finger at him like she might poke him and Harry squirms away from her a bit. She, of course, doesn’t notice this.

“Well, thanks.” His eyes flicker to Y/N, who is standing behind Autumn, hands on her hips and attempting not to tap her foot. His tone is clearly dismissive, but Autumn must ignore it. Y/N knows Autumn isn’t as helpless as she tries to come off.

Autumn asks, “Where do you want these?”, gesturing to the two blankets and slippers stacked on top.

“Just on the counter is fine, thanks,” Harry says.

Autumn does as he says and then stands there with baited breath. Y/N’s not sure what she’s expecting. For Harry to ask for her hand in marriage or something? But he just glances between the two women. His own foot begins wiggling in impatience.

“Busy day,” He attempts at dismissing her once again - with kindness.

“Oh my gosh, totally!” Autumn gushes, starting to go off on all of the tasks she has to do. She stands so close to Harry, Y/N genuinely thinks she’s going to sit in his lap. Y/N stares up to the ceiling, begging god or whoever to end her misery right there and then.

Harry sees Y/N’s expression and tries to maintain the neutral expression he’s had for the entirely too long interaction. A smile threatens at his rosey lips that had chapped from the morning air.

“Right, well,” he cuts off Autumn, “Y/N needs to get back to tattoo coverage, I think. So...have a nice day.”

Autumn’s eyes widen like she forgot that there was anyone else in the room and steps back from Harry. Y/N nods, a grimace clear on her face. Autumn gives her the same small she used to get from the popular girls in high school when she happened to be talking to their cool guy friend that they wanted to be more than friends with. Sickeningly sweet and completely fake. She could see the contempt in Autumn’s eyes that swirled just beneath the surface of her perfectly outlined green-ish eyes.

“Okay! You too, Harry!” She begins walking to the door and Y/N takes her seat again, closing her eyes and counting to ten. “And Y/N,” Autumn adds as an afterthought.

“Oh my fucking god,” Y/N sighs, her hands going to rub over her face and through her hair. “That was exhausting. Jesus Christ.”

“What? She’s nice. Maybe a little clueless,” Harry counters. “But she was so nice,” he confirms again, seemingly trying to convince himself of it as well.  

She grabs the slippers and slips them on the ground so Harry can put them on easily. Then one of the blankets that she drapes over Harry’s bottom half. He smiles at the gesture, a ‘thank you’ said in a whisper.

“Please, she knows what she’s doing,” Y/N scoffs, “And she’s obsessed with you!” She grabs the concealer to get back to work, “She was all over you and never took her eyes off of your body. It was like she wanted to touch you or something. It was icky.”

“You touch me,” Harry adds cheekily, adjusting beneath the warm blanket.

She laughs, a smile gracing her lips as she gives Harry a look. He was clever.

“It’s my job to touch you, Harry.”

Harry had really tried to not laugh, but it was just so funny. They both snicker, their eyes meeting for a moment longer than usual.

“Speaking of my job,” she adds after controlling her laughter, “Does she not realize just how long it takes to cover all of your bloody tattoos with this shit to make it look like you’re a pristine skinned 50’s psycho killer?”

She finishes the rose coverup and moves to the ship. Harry nods solemnly.

“It’s true...And it doesn’t help that you’re terrible at it, so it takes a thousand years longer than it should.” He adds, laughter overtaking his serious tone at the end.

“Oh my god!” She shrieks in delight, trying not to mess up her work, “That is so rude! I messed up one time - mostly because of you, by the way. And give me a break, this is so not what I thought I’d be doing as a makeup artist for movies.”

He nods again, muttering “Fair, fair.”

They grow silent, enjoying Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the album that she had queued after Joni’s.

“The body thing, I just learned to ignore it, I think.” Harry mutters, eventually, but it’s thoughtless, like he’s not revealing anything about himself with the statement. But it kind of shocks her. Her eyes widen and she stops her work to stare at his face.

“Harry,” she waits till his eyes meet hers, “That’s, like, not normal. Are you serious?”

“I mean, I’m very comfortable with my body, like I haven’t minded the last 45 minutes of sitting practically nude in front of you. And I have plenty of revealing photos out in the world. I just don’t notice staring anymore, it’s not, I don’t think it’s what you’re thinking,” he tries to reassure her. His eyes are intent on hers, full of seriousness that hadn’t been there a few moments ago.

“It’s one thing to be comfortable in your skin and another to be desensitized to objectification,” she insists.

He nods. “I know. Thank you. I would let you know if what she had done had bothered me, so don’t worry. I felt completely safe the whole time.”

“Good,” she nods back and concentrates again. “Good,” she repeats once more under her breath. There had been way too many distractions already today and she wasn’t even done with his arm yet.

As she continues to work up his arm, Harry sings along to some of the songs on Elton’s album. He happily taps his feet to the different beats, now safely tucked in soft fluffy slippers. She would never admit just how amazing it is to be in the same room as Harry’s singing. It was truly special to be less than a foot from him and hear him sing just under the unique voice of Elton - who was someone he actually knew, which was equally as cool.

He hit every note and knew every word. She was impressed. How could she not be when a literal rockstar sat before her? This was the first time she was truly starstruck by her charge, Mr. Harry Styles.

By two hours, they had moved onto an album by Dolly Parton and they were both singing. They strangely had no fights today, maybe some snarky comments from both of them, but no outright mean-spirited words were exchanged.

She stood in front of Harry, finishing up the swallows. She had finished both arms and the birds, all she had left was moving down his body. Up next, the butterfly.

“I love this tattoo,” she mumbles, twisting Harry’s standing body to face her and taking her seat again. This left her eye to eye with the butterfly on his stomach.

He makes a surprised face and raises his recently plucked eyebrow at his counterpart. “Oh really?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I told you day one that not all of them are rubbish and honestly they’re all pretty cool. I just was so annoyed that I had gotten tattoo coverage as my job and then I had to go and index them all.” She flicks her eyes up to his sculpted face and sees he’s watching her work. “Plus, I have some butterflies of my own, remember?” She grins.

“Yeah,” he ponders her words, “I don’t think that’d put me in a good mood either.”

He pauses again and she continues to work silently.

“So what’s your excuse for the second day then?”

“You provoked me,” she doesn’t spare him a glance, shrugging like it was the simplest answer in the world.

“Pardon?”

“Let’s not go down this road again, Harry.” She sighs, smoothing over the freshly covered butterfly tattoo. His sternum looked so naked, it was unnerving. Now the ferns.

Harry involuntarily shivered when her fingers traced over the ferns lightly, taking note of the expanse of skin she’d have to cover.

“You’re right,” he agrees, “But agree to disagree on the provocation.”

“Sure,” she says curtly, focusing on his skin and her job.

The expanse of skin that the ferns inhabited was slightly fleshy and especially soft. It bordered where his boxers began and she ignored that part of his body completely. It was of no importance to her and she really had no issue blocking it from her vision, even when it was right in front of her. She finishes one fern with Harry jumping only twice from her cold hands. He couldn’t put his robe on until the makeup had all set for half an hour so he’d have to be cold for possibly another hour still.

She traces the fern that is still visible and Harry shivers. She instinctively shushes him softly and his body quiets. As she works, her hair splays around her shoulders and Harry looks down at her working and doesn’t realize what his hand is doing until it’s too late. His right hand runs over her hair, smoothing it out of her face. It was rarely ever down, so it must have been the novelty of it.

“Sorry, I-” he chokes out when he jerks his hand back.

She sits back, slightly taken aback. Her body flushes just from their positioning and what a hair caress would mean normally in this position, but she’s a professional and she shakes it off.

“It’s fine. We’re even.” She assures him, breaking eye contact with his own wide eyes. “Seems like we’re both hair touchers.”

“It’s just so soothing,” Harry muses. “I think it’s human instinct to touch other people’s hair since it’s so enjoyable for yourself.”

“Possibly,” her voice raises, his thought was definitely plausible. Or maybe they were just two touch starved people who were very much in each other’s personal space 24/7.

At the two and a half hour marker, she gets a walkie message from Olivia’s assistant asking when they’d be done. She had just finished the tiger tattoo, which had been surprisingly easy. It took a while, but Harry didn’t shiver once and neither of them pet each other’s hair.

“Probably 40 minutes, sorry. He has a lot of tattoos and the makeup needs to set.” She says seriously and gets back to work, barely regarding the response of “Yeah it’s fine, just wanted an estimate”.

“Jesus,” Harry moans as she covers up his knee tattoos.

She groans in veiled disgust, “Did I just hit a secret erogenous zone? Is that why you have ‘oui’ there, you creep?” There’s a teasing tone behind the nickname she uses.

Harry laughs and runs his hand over his face, pulling at his jaw and lower lip. His jaw is so sharp, she watches him adjust it. “No, no. I’m just so goddamn tired of this.”

“And it’s not your fault,” he adds, feeling bad immediately after he said it. “It’s actually been nice today, but I’m feeling antsy, like I need to move. I don’t like to sit still.”

“I know,” she says under her breath. She simply nods in agreement.

Finally, the tattoos are all covered up and set. They had talked about George Michael when she got to his ankle tattoos that she hadn’t seen before and they laugh about the tattoos and chat a bit more. She helps him slip on his robe that he keeps in his closet in the trailer and then follows him out of it. They had decided they were hungry and he had been pushed back an hour since he had taken so long, so he had a free half-hour.

As they walked to craft services, they talked about actual things besides work. She was pleasantly surprised by what Harry talked about. It was more than music or the movie. It was the tv show he was currently obsessed with and how he hated LA’s traffic the most out of all of his dislikes for the city. She couldn’t help but grin at his Los Angeles slander. She loved this side of him.

-

Breakfast together after finishing his tattoo coverage became their regular thing. He would come into the trailer, racing from his morning meeting accompanied with tea for two, they’d get his tattoos covered as quickly as possible, and then they’d eat together.

They’d save their “in-depth” chats for breakfast. In early November, he joked about No Nut November and insisted he really wouldn’t have a problem with it - which had made her laugh. They worried together over the U.S. presidential election and meditated together in his trailer to Fleetwood Mac.

Around late November, Harry had requested that Y/N just do his face makeup as well, just to simplify his life a little more and the department had agreed easily. She had to spend extra time on set getting lectured on how to properly do Harry’s makeup, but after two days she stopped getting notes about it. She was so extremely proud and thankful to Harry for doing that.

All he said was: “I mean, you’re extremely talented so I’m not scared of you fucking up my face. Plus, it does make my life easier. Two birds with one stone.”

In late November, he told her about his favorite holiday drinks at Starbucks and what he was getting his mother for Christmas.

When the Vogue cover came out, he laughed over that woman who responded to his cover saying the world needed to bring back manly men. He joked that he was going to really push that from now on, that he was a manly man, and he would sputter with laughter every time he tried to say it with a straight face.

He hand delivered her a special ‘Treat People With Kindness’ sweatshirt that he only had for the cast and crew of the film. Most everyone got them from a PA, but Harry decided since you saw him first in the morning, why not.

He told her about him winning Hitmaker of the Year from Variety when he had left the award sitting in Trailer 6 and about how weird it was to film acceptance speeches in an empty room. His smile had lit up the entire set that day and the day he did his interview on set. He was so smiley she had to bump him with her elbow because he wouldn’t stop smiling at her and it was unnerving.

“Stop that,” She muttered.

“Stop what?” He smiles wider.

“That!” She squeaked, her head shaking as she ducked it to regard his anchor tattoo. “You’re smiling too much.”

“Oh no,” he says sarcastically, “God forbid I be happy.”

“It’s not that,” she bumps his thigh with her elbow, trying to keep her own smile off her face, “Your face is just so intense when you smile. Feels like you’re gonna burn a hole through me.”

He laughs, completely unconvinced, “You just don’t want me to be happy is what I’m hearing.”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, dude.”

She saw he was serious about the ‘manly men’ references when the Variety photos came out and everyone and their mom posted the pictures with some variation of that comment as their caption.

She still found that she rolled her eyes at some of the things Harry did, but she genuinely counted him as a friend by the time December had rolled around.

Over three hours, almost always completely alone, doing work for a job you both care deeply about can really make or break a relationship. And that first full-body coverage day had made them stronger together. After that, Harry and her would banter with one another, but there was never anything intentionally cruel. Just friends giving each other shit sometimes. Harry had been right, he had changed her mind about him. And she had realized that that was who Harry was. He was a deliverer. If you didn’t like him at first, he would try and try again until you did, but he did it in a way that wasn’t weasley or anything. It was terribly genuine and she saw it in every relationship he had on set.

On several occasions she had witnessed his friendship with Nick Kroll. A man she had regarded with dislike before the film. She had quickly realized that dislike was misplaced, but she maintained that it was just because she hated adult cartoons - citing that she literally refused to be friends with any person who willingly watched the Simpsons, Family Guy, and/or American Dad and all of those similar shows.

Nick was far nicer and less weird than she had realized. So she quickly shot her friend from high school an apology text for all the Nick Kroll slander she had spouted back in the day. Her friend had rejoiced but also said how jealous she was that Y/N got to see him regularly on set.

Nick and Harry got along great. Harry generally got along better with older people, she noticed when she was introduced to his friends on the somewhat frequent occasion. Trailer 6 was where Y/N saw most of these reactions take place. She would be introduced in the first minute and then she would smile politely and get back to the work of covering up Harry’s numerous tattoos.

Harry would say something simple and Nick, the literal famous comedian, would laugh. In the beginning she’d raise a brow, confused because it truly wasn’t that funny, but as Harry’s friend now, she kept her mouth shut.

Nick would come and sit on the couch while she’d work and eventually all three of them would chat. Sometimes she would get up to go to the bathroom during those morning chats and she would look in the mirror and think to herself “How are you casually talking to these two men right now” and then she’d think “Because you are a boss ass bitch, you got this” and go back out there with a smile on her face.

“Y/N, what are you doing tonight?” Nick asked on the first Friday morning of December.

She looks up from Harry’s cross tattoo that was half covered. Harry was reading, a book casually propped in his right hand and glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the other two in the room. Nick had been getting some work done before he had spoken.

“No plans,” she states simply before getting back to work. It wasn’t full body today, but it was arms and torso, so kind of a lot still.

“You should come over for dinner at my place with Harry,” Nick smiles kindly. His scruff was really coming in today. “To celebrate us almost wrapping the first half of the movie.”

Harry had thankfully freshly shaved before he sat down. It was her least favorite part of her new job. Whenever he came in for touch ups and she had to shave his afternoon shadow. She was terrified she’d cut him and never live it down from her department or Harry. She had no idea which would be worse.

“My wife will be there too, of course,” he adds, hoping to entice her to say yes.

Harry glances between Y/N and Nick again before focusing on his book again.

She purses her lips, finishing Harry’s hand and moving onto the anchor tattoo. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know why I’d say no. As long as I’m not intruding on the throuple,” she grins up at Harry.

He stares at her with his big green eyes, slightly obscured behind his prescription glasses. He raises his brows and wiggles them a little bit, teasingly.

Nick laughs and slyly winks at Harry through the mirror. Y/N none the wiser as she removes all traces of Harry’s tattoos.

“Great!” He claps his hands and stands up. “We’ll talk or I’ll make sure Harry gets you the info or something. I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. My wife’s been wanting to meet you,” he smiles again and walks out of the trailer.

She tilts her head at the last part. He talked about her to his wife. Did he really count her as that close of a friend? She was just a makeup artist and he was a producer… She glances at Harry and he gives away nothing. His jaw looks extra prominent and she knows it’s because he’s clenching it. He did that when he was focused or angry, remembering it bulging on the first day they met and how clenched it had been then.

“Unclench your jaw,” she mutters, “It’s not good for you.”

Harry hums and unclenches it.

He stretches his neck by rolling his head around his shoulders and she glances at the movement. His skin is still beautifully sun-kissed and his pores look so soft, only his moles change the texture of his skin. She loves his moles though, they make him especially unique in her eyes. Not that he needed anything else to set him apart from the crowd. Still, she loved them. His collarbone is prominent as he sits there shirtless and she wishes she could reach out and brush at it. But she gets back to work, knowing the only time she’s gonna be brushing near that part of him is when she’s covering dates in those dips behind his collarbones.

“Y’know, I could just drive you to Nick’s tonight,” Harry says, putting his book down and taking off his glasses. He rubs at his eye with his free hand.

“You’re blind and British, how do I know you can even drive yourself?” She asks sillily, pointing to his glasses.

He shakes his head, “I’m serious, Y/N. Aren’t you staying in the same area as me?”

He asks because they had relocated to Palm Springs a little while ago and everyone had gotten rentals and it was hard to remember where everyone was holed up when they weren’t on set.

“Yeah, think so. But you don’t need to pick me up. I have a car.”

“Nonsense. I’ve been to his place before, don’t want you to have to deal with directions, that’s just silly.”

“I guess...” she resigns relatively easily. She had never hung out with Harry off the set or Nick for that matter. It felt surreal, but she knew the right answer was usually just say yes in these situations. So that’s what she says. “Yes, that’d be great, thank you,” she confirms and watches as Harry’s eyes glimmer softly before turning back to his book. A triumphant soft smirk rests on his face.

The words die out between the two of them as she works on. He hums along to the music and continues reading his book. When she’s done with his tattoo coverage and his face makeup, she sends him off to hair and the rest of his day. He gives a flirty wink as he walks out the door and she rolls her eyes in response. She tidies up her kit and then goes to do some other makeup work.

When she wasn’t working with Harry, she was assigned to some of the minor characters and doing their makeup. They were always her second concern, especially now that she did Harry’s makeup as well as his tattoos. As she works on them, she can feel her mind drifting to Harry. Harry and how they were friends now. She was pretty sure, right? They were friends. He had never really said a mean thing to her if she really thought about it. It was her… She had been rude and mean-spirited and he had just taken it. He rarely had even thrown it back at her. He was so good to her and patient and she realized that he had proven to her that he was good. He was better than good, he was kind and loving. Considerate. Wonderful. All of those positive superlatives, Harry filled them. And she had the audacity to be mean to him.

She paused the brush that was adding blush to an actresses cheek.

Lisa, the actress, looks at Y/N confusedly, “What’s wrong?”

Y/N twitches her head, refocusing on her task at hand. The realization of her pausing her work becomes clear as she looks between her hand and the cheek that has not enough blush on it. “Oh,” she breathes. “...I just realized that I was terrible to someone who doesn’t have a mean bone in their body.”

Lisa nods, “Apologize.”

“Yeah, I mean...We’ve kind of moved past the phase where we don’t get along. Like now we’re friends, but the realization just really hit me.” She sighs, picking up where she left off on Lisa’s makeup. “I’ll make sure to apologize next time I see them.”

Lisa smiles.

-

At the end of the day, Y/N realizes she left her tattoo coverage kit in Harry’s room after their touch-up session halfway through the day. She had run off to help with a makeup emergency for a tiny cut on a minor character’s face and forgotten to go back and grab her things. Another roll of her eyes and a huff of breath and then she’s walking back to Trailer 6, a place that seemed like a home away from home now. She knocks, patiently waiting at the bottom of the steps.

Harry swings open the door and props it with his hip. He’s got a toothbrush held in his mouth, slowly scrubbing back and forth with his left hand. His costume is somewhat taken off, he’s still got the pants on with suspenders hanging down, his chest was completely bare and he looked funny with some of his tattoos only being half covered based on what parts of his skin had been showing today. Her work. His skin looked half silky smooth and half tattooed like usual.

His naked skin seemingly left her breathless because as her eyes returned to Harry’s face, she breathed a soft, “Hi.”

“Hey,” a smirk twists onto his face. “Forget something?”

“Yes,” she nods, coming back to her senses and entering the trailer at Harry’s gesture.

She begins to pack up the kit that had been left haphazardly strewn around on his counter. “I’m sorry I left a mess like this, I got called over to something else and forgot.”

“Don’t worry darling,” Harry grins at his joke.

She looks up from her work and sees Harry in the reflection of the mirror. He’s wiping off the makeup from his chest and his beautiful tattoos reemerge as entire images.

She laughs humorlessly, “It gets less funny each time you use that.”

“That’s not true,” he looks at her through the mirror now, his green eyes trained on her face, “Everyone else still thinks it’s hilarious.”

“They’re humoring you and your fragile ego,” she winks and watches as Harry’s smirk twitches from his perfect face.

“You’ve got a very mean disposition, you know that?” He asks.

He finishes his chest and moves to remove the makeup from his left arm, glancing at the mirror every so often to check himself and to flicker his eyes over Y/N’s face.

She genuinely laughs at that, but scolds herself internally for being mean when she had planned to apologize the next time she saw Harry. This was the next time so why was she doing this instead?

“Rewrite sweet disposition for me?” Her voice honeyed. Clearly stubborn and terrible at saying sorry...maybe her and Harry were a better match than she realized.

Harry twists his lips as he slips on his t-shirt he was wearing today.

“Pick you up at 6:30?” He says as his head pops out from beneath the rainbow striped sweatshirt he slipped on top of the shirt. His chestnut hair had been toweled out and was flopping over his forehead slightly.

She sighs and zips close the kit, standing from the seat she had taken at his counter and turning to face him now.

“6:30 is perfect. Thanks again for doing this. I just can’t believe Nick Kroll is inviting me over for dinner!” She smiles, shifting to lean against the counter as she waits for Harry to finish up. She didn’t have to but for some reason she felt like she was in no rush.

“Are you serious?” He’s moved on to changing his pants now and he’s slipping on black sweatpants.

“Yeah…” She blinks and her eyes widen as Harry appraises her expression.

He straightens up after fixing a cuff on the pants and he can’t tell if she’s being genuine or sarcastic. It was always so hard to tell with her.

“I mean, Nick Kroll is like a huge celebrity and I know in the entertainment business you’re not supposed to get starstruck but when I was in college my sister thought he was weirdly hot and my friends and I would shit talk him. I don’t know, it’s just kind of surreal to be having dinner at his place. Like I’ve watched him on tv and now I’ll be eating with him...so weird.”

He shakes his head, beginning on his dirty vans now. A small laugh escapes his mouth and he glances between her and his shoe, scratching his head quickly. “I still can’t tell… It feels like you’re fucking with me right now.”

“I’m not!” She insists, her hands coming out in front of her in a confused fashion. “I used to watch that guy’s tv show then he’s my boss now he’s inviting me over for food? It’s a lot to process.”

“How come it’s not surreal to be having dinner with me then?” He asks semi-joking, a hint of offense tinged within it. It’s visible only in his knitted brow and twisted lip.

“Careful there, sailor. Venturing into some dangerously self-absorbed waters.” Her eyes light up, a quick raise of her brows accompany the shine, and she decides now is her time to head out. Especially as she thinks about getting ready for this soiree tonight. She needed to shower and pick out an outfit with less than two hours to prepare.

Harry sputters at her response and fumbles with his pink shoelace. “That’s not...that is - You’re being unfair. My question is valid.”

She shrugs her shoulders and skirts Harry’s attempt at grabbing at her arm to stop her from leaving. “Okay, Mr. Big Man On Campus. I promise you you’re the most popular boy in school.”

She blows him a kiss and walks out the door as he attempts to get her to come back by calling her name a few times and slightly shouting “C’mon! I wasn’t being insecure. That was a reasonable ask…”

He sighs and shakes his head again. Every interaction would end with one of them either rolling their eyes or shaking their head and usually a sigh on both of their lips. It was exhausting, but exhilarating too.

20 minutes later, Harry receives a text from Y/N: “You’re still picking me up right :))) ?”

He’s in his car, getting ready to finally leave after getting held up with last minute schedule changes that he had to be informed about by some PA that he had forgotten the name of. His lip quirks to the right and he closes his eyes for a second enjoying seeing her name on his phone screen for a moment.

He types back: “Of courseeee”.

“Fab.” She sends back, immediately followed by: “Fanks BMOC ;)”

A full smile rolls onto Harry’s face after he swipes his tongue over his lower lip. “Yeah, yeah, save it for the next guy” he types out quickly before throwing his phone gently beside him and driving back to his apartment. She made him feel young, not that he wasn’t young, but generally his friends didn’t text like she did.

-

At 6:28, she receives a text from Harry Styles - his name in her phone. A name she had never expected to see in her phone unless her Spotify was on shuffle. Yet, instead, his name popped up under messages and it read “Here!” followed by a quick “I think” and then a phone call coming through from the apparently anxious man himself.

“Hello Harry.” Her tone even. She throws little items into her purse, making sure everything she needs is there.

“Could you peek out your window? I’m not quite sure I’m at the right place and people are staring…” nerves laced in his rushed tone.

She ambles to the window and opens up the shade she had closed to change. Below her, she sees a sleek black Range Rover with a slightly disarrayed hairdo and big dark glasses peeking below the windshield. She ignored the instinct to retch at the sight of the Range Rover and peered at the lamp lit sight below her. It was definitely Harry, but she searched for the prying eyes he was worried about and saw none. Well, maybe a few, but it wasn’t a lot.

“I see you, I’ll be right out, dude. Just deep breaths, it’s mostly crew staying here right now so they’re just seeing that it’s you, another guy they work with. They won’t come up for pictures...I would hope.”

She hangs up with no farewell, snatches her purse from its place on the bed and races out the door. Harry smiles anxiously at her when she stands next to the passenger’s door and he unlocks it. She bites her lip and raises her brows, waiting to hear if anything terrible happened in the minute and a half it took her to come downstairs and out to the car.

“Hi,” he exhales.

A smirk crawls onto her features and her eyes sparkle with a bit of a childish glee that normally she didn’t exhibit as she glances at him. “Hi.” She says quietly. “Alright big boy?”

“‘M fine.” He huffs but balks at her smile that she maintains while she stares at him. “What?”

“Just happy to see you, I guess,” her smile returns after speaking and Harry glances between her face and the windshield in front of him.

He can’t tell if she’s being serious or not once again. But he fears that conversation of her either ridiculing him for thinking she is serious or being offended that he still can’t tell. Instead, he will keep his mouth shut. For the most part.

“Happy to see you, too,” his lips create a closed mouth smile quickly before turning out of the parking lot.

She watches him. Their first time together outside of work. And they were friends. She needed to get used to simply thinking that. He picked her up to take her to dinner with her other friend and his wife. This was normal life, just with big names behind those terms of relation. Jesus, she always said it didn’t bother her to be around celebrities so why did she think about it so damn much?

She twitches her head and refocuses on Harry and his driving. His jaw is clenched again and she wants to reach out and sooth it herself. Instead she starts to open her mouth to correct him, but stops herself from that as well. They weren’t at work and it didn’t feel like something just a friend would say right now. She refocuses on the view of his eyes that are barely visible while he regards the road. His large eyes that she had grown acquainted to are surveying what he’s doing, every so often drifting to the right side of the road to check out the lane beside him. But then, always back to right in front of him, leaving a crescent of green visible to her.

“Can feel you staring at me…” His voice sounds like it’s rolled around in gravel after the long work day. It makes her wonder if he’s supposed to have a vocal rest when he’s not at work, but then again it’s the weekend now so maybe it was fine. Maybe she should ask him. Or maybe she should stop worrying so much about him.

“Have I got something on my face?” His low register bumps her from her racing thoughts. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but she can see he’s widened his eyes in wonder.

“No! Of course not, I just was...making sure you weren’t going to crash us or something.” She grasps at straws, desperate to not be caught by Harry.

A low chuckle bubbles from his chest and he spares a small glance over at her bundled up in his passenger seat. She matches his gaze with something of distrust hidden behind her eyes. She hopes to convey that she’s being silly and when Harry turns back to look at the road unassumingly, she feels like she has won. The harmonies of the beginning of a Queen song take over the silence, Harry’s spindly fingers thrumming against the wheel.

They arrive at the Kroll’s Palm Springs residence at 6:50. 10 minutes early and the two twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes, trying to pass the time and not intrude earlier than they were supposed to. She appreciated that Harry liked to be timely but not early, similar to how she was.

“So what is the fascination with Range Rovers?” She queries, leaning against the door’s armrest. The back of her head touches against the semi-tinted window.

Harry shifts in his seat, seat belt no longer constricting him and no road requiring his attention as they sit in the driveway. He rushes a hand through his hair and lets a single strand of hair fall over his prominent forehead.

“Dunno,” he shrugs his shoulders and allows a hand to fall onto the steering wheel absentmindedly. “I don’t really prefer them anymore, but when I’m in LA and doing work, it makes things easier. My other cars are a little flashier...have more privacy in this.”

“Yet the effect is similar,” she muses.

Her head tilts to take in Harry’s appearance, sharp black silky button-up and dark green plaid slacks, and she rubs a hand over her jaw. His eyes flicker to the movement and attempt to really take it in, even in the dim glow of the lamp light outside barely peeking into the dark interior of the car.

“Effect?”

“Y’know…” She arches her brow at him. He feigns innocence or possibly the expression is genuine. She’s begun to realize Harry was as genuine as they came, but she just didn’t think he was that unaware. An assumption that was likely correct, but even Harry liked to pretend he was a completely unassuming individual.

“Forget it,” she finishes when he gives no indication that he knows what she is hinting at. She doesn’t want to get into it with him again. Especially when he plays at this game where he has no idea what she’s talking about. It made her feel like she was crazy for thinking he made these calculated decisions to get his desired outcomes.

They move on, neither of them quite sure what the other was getting at in that conversation. The two of them walk into the house a minute before their expected arrival time side by side and are greeted happily with Nick and his wife. They’re ushered in and Y/N is happily received by the happy couple.  

“So, Y/N, how’s it been for you working with these two? I know they can be more than a handful - especially together,” Nick’s wife, Lily, asks after a sip of wine.

The group of four had been eating for a while with Nick and Harry bantering for quite a bit at the beginning about whether or not Harry would be willing to hand feed Nick. The answer was settled at “another time”.  

Harry seems to have a very specific habit of watching whoever is speaking - no matter what. So after Lily has finished speaking, his gaze flickers to Y/N, the person his brain expects to speak next. He watches her attentively as she wipes her mouth on her napkin before speaking.

Her hair was styled differently tonight than it usually was on set, she had it down rather than up in a ponytail or braids. He hadn’t had time to really look at her when they had been in the car, his mind occupied with stress and exhaustion that he refocused into driving and deep breathing. Now, in the comfort of a trusted friend’s home, he was far more relaxed and able to truly take in her appearance, which he couldn’t help but think was beautiful. He’d have to tell her that at some point. That he thought she was beautiful. Not that he didn’t see her on set and think she was beautiful...he just hadn’t really thought about it before. She was his wily makeup artist who was critical of him most times, but occasionally sweet, who had an amazing taste in music and good aesthetic style. The beauty part of it all, he guessed wasn’t something integral to their relationship before.

But now he was sitting beside her at the Kroll’s nice dining table and she had her hair splayed in front and behind her shoulders with one side tucked behind her ear and her outfit fit her impeccably. The top she had on had capped sleeves that cinched with buttons at her delicate wrists and a severe drop to create a small sweetheart neckline just above the curve of her breasts. It was silky and shiny, a blush pink that complemented the high waisted dark grey slacks that flared over shiny black boots that he wasn’t sure where they ended beneath the pants.

“Well,” she starts, chuckling under her breath when she meets Harry’s stare, “Harry and I spend a lot of time together, covering up all his tattoos, and he yaps a lot. So, it’s actually pretty refreshing when Nick comes in, because Harry’s then talking half the normal amount.”

He huffs a scoff, while Lily and Nick laugh happily. Nick interjects an “ouch” for the bite she just took out of Harry, but she thought it was fine, he can take it.

Harry thought to himself that if she can serve it, then she can definitely take it. His eyes remain on her as he opens his mouth to speak, but then look at Lily when words actually come out. “Well, Y/N, she thinks she can read people really well, but it’s actually quite the opposite. She had me completely wrong when we first met, so I talk now in hopes that she’ll really understand me.”

His head tilts to her when he mentions her name, but otherwise doesn’t glance her way away again. He scrunches his nose at the end of his comment, implying he converses with her out of pity.

It’s her turn to scoff and stare at him unamused. Nick and Lily share a look, unsure of what was going on, they had concocted this dinner date idea in hopes to set the two up but the way this conversation was going, they seemed to be pushing each other further and further away from one another.

“That’s simply not true,” she says curtly and takes a sip of her quickly emptying wine glass.

“Which part?”

“Almost all of it, I’d say,” her eyes glaring back at him, fiery with a disdain he hadn’t seen in awhile. “You’re proving my original perception of you with every passing second,” she adds.

“Care to elaborate exactly what the original perception of me was for the class,” his eyes are wide and wild, any extra adoration he had started to feel towards her slipping away just as quickly as it had come, like a wave along the beach.

“You know, so why don’t you?”

“I want to hear you say it,” he grits out the command.

She shifts in her seat, glancing at Nick and Lily who are watching on and she has a feeling she won’t be getting an invitation again anytime soon. Lily gives her a semi-reassuring smile like she was sorry to have asked the question at all, but Y/N knows this is kind of her fault, not that she would ever admit that. Her comment could have been taken innocuously, but Harry’s pride wouldn’t let it slide. Like she said, she should have known better, the weeks of friendship were flying out the window and she was helping them along.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Have fun calling an uber at this time of night,” he shrugs, malice dripping in his tone.

She truly was taken aback at this. A slight sound of shock leaving her mouth. Harry was many things, impatient and anxious usually, but downright cruel with her, she had yet to see it. Arrogant and pompous, definitely, but this wickedness that was starting to creep from the shadows worried her. But the little fiery demon within her wasn’t going anywhere either - yet she might back down to save herself some money and hassle.

“Fine,” she raises her brows in a challenge to him and restates her original take on him - possibly adding a bit extra malice in her phrasing, “You are a shell of a man, held up by the people around you, creating the illusion of a completely genuine and down to earth rocker who dabbles in acting, philanthropy and all around goodness. No one’s ever had a bad experience because no one’s ever truly met you. Not the real you.” She takes a deep breath as she shakes her head in disbelief now, a sarcastic laugh leaving her mouth, “And I thought, I really thought, that I had been wrong. Because these past months you really fooled me with your sweet smile and deep eyes. But when it comes down to it, you tricked me just like everyone else.”

Harry stares at her blankly and she shakes her head once more, feeling foolish. For thinking Harry was someone he wasn’t. For thinking the past few months had been real. For thinking that tonight would go off without a hitch. And the shit part of it was that she had really hoped that all of it was true. She wanted this to be her life, but her instincts had been right. Beware of the picture perfect because it always is just a mirage of deceit and lies.

“All I’ve got to say is you’re a damn good actor Harry, so at least you’ve got that going for you.” Then she pushes back from the table and stands, turning to Nick and Lily. “I really am so sorry, I understand that you probably want me to leave, so I’ll just be going,” her voice faltering at the end, she wasn’t as strong as she liked to pretend and she was pretty sure she just ruined her chances of working again in Hollywood. You’d have to be an idiot to be an enemy of Harry Styles and she feels like she just became his first.

“No!” Nick says quickly, standing too, “I think things just escalated really quickly and some things were said that both of you didn’t mean. Um...just, let’s take a few minutes to cool off. Harry could you and Lily deal with the dishes and I’m going to talk with Y/N alone.”

Everyone nods and Y/N follows Nick down a hallway, a little confused but following after he beckons her with his hand. They go out a side door and end up on a porch in the backyard. He stoops down and opens a little sitting mailbox she didn’t see and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He places one between his teeth and then offers one to her. She accepts, not usually a regular smoker, but right now seemed like a fair time to indulge in the bad habit. She needed to calm her rapidly beating heart.

He lights the cigarette for her when he sees her shaking hands and then in turn lights his own. They stand on the porch beside each other and stare out into the dark night sky.

“Well, this wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go,” Nick starts, after a few exhales of smoke.

“No,” she laughs nervously, her foot toeing at the wooden slate on the porch. “I shouldn’t have tried to make a joke.”

“No one’s to blame,” Nick says quickly, glancing at her, “You and Harry...you both have really strong personalities and I don’t think either of you are used to being challenged.”

She nods along, she definitely had to agree after the argument they had both willingly gotten into in front of other people.

“I think that can be a really good thing, challenging each other, because then you two can both grow. But what happened in there was more of a battle to the death rather than a friendly spar.”

“Yeah,” she exhales, flicking at the burning cigarette between her fingers, “I don’t know why he gets under my skin sometimes in a way I’ve never dealt with and it’s kind of uncomfortable so I lash out, I guess.”

Nick stays quiet, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Ugh,” she groans, “I wish I hadn’t done that. We were doing so well, it’s like I don’t even really know what I’m saying, it’s like I can’t handle a friendly spar, I always end up going in for the kill - as you put it.”

She rubs at her face with her free hand and then takes a drag herself. Nick bites at his lower lip, trying to think of a solution.

“Y’know? Lily and I had concocted this plan to try and set you and Harry up tonight,” he says slowly, revealing the plan that had clearly been taken off the table as they just needed to attempt to salvage cordiality.

“Really?!” She’s in complete disbelief and slight dismay that the plan was seemingly ruined.

“Well,” he sputters, “When the two of you aren’t throwing verbal fireballs at each other, you’re actually quite sweet to one another. Those fond little glances you hope no one sees, well he does that too, and you both fail miserably because I see it all the time. I’m sure plenty of people do too.”

“Oh,” she states, visibly deflating. She looks to the ashtray conveniently on a table behind her and presses out the rest of the cigarette. “Should probably talk to him, huh?”

Nick nods, stamping out his nub of a cigarette as well. They go back inside and into the kitchen where Lily and Harry have plated dessert. Harry looks a little sheepish, likely having a similar conversation with Lily and she wouldn’t be surprised if her expression looks similar, if not a bit more flushed from the outdoor chill.

Lily murmurs that she and Nick are going to eat their dessert in the living room, a fair bit away from the kitchen and the two now deflated counterparts nod and then stare at each other, knowing what they need to do.

“Can we talk?” Harry rasps out, his voice even lower as he speaks softly, a mere foot away from her in the kitchen.

She nods, but moves further from him to lean against the counter and tuck her hands behind her. She’s lost her appetite and doesn’t want Harry to see her shaking digits.

He’s ducked his head and a stray curl falls over his forehead, laying there softly. He doesn’t move to fix it, just stares at his feet until she begins to talk. He can’t not look at her face when she speaks.

“So…” She slowly starts, not enjoying the tension in the room. Her eyes can’t meet his though, his stare dark and unnerving like usual, but almost painfully so now. “I can start.” She kicks at the tiling on the floor like she had done outside as well, trying to not think about the eyes trained on her right now. “I’m sorry I lashed out on you, Harry. I didn’t mean what I said, it was just a heat of the moment response.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Harry says immediately once she finishes speaking, “I shouldn’t have gotten upset over a silly joke and brought up a sensitive subject. Then it escalated…”

“Yeah, I really liked the friendship we’ve garnered these past few months and I just can’t believe I almost ruined everything - including my career…” she squeaks at the end and tears start to roll from her eyes. “Oh god,” she is hit with the gravity of all that she almost ruined as Harry stares at her again. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I really am. Do you forgive me? I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t.”

She stands there and feels sobs wrack through her and her hands go to cover her face out of embarrassment. She had caused a scene and now she was making another one. In front of Harry.

In an instant his arms are wrapped around her frame and he’s hushing her cries. They had never hugged before, but now seemed like as good a time as ever. His arms were strong around her and she pressed her face into his chest, not caring at all about how she looked or whether this was worse than getting in a fight and running off.

“Of course I forgive you,” he says and then begins repeating her name over and over, trying to soothe her. He definitely had been hurt by her words, but it seemed like she was more upset about the whole situation than he was and he didn’t think bringing up what specifically had hurt him would help her frame of mind.

She settles after some time, her whimpers and tears subsiding after being rocked into a more peaceful mindset with the help of Harry’s calming voice and reassuring embrace.

“I really am sorry,” she whispers again.

Harry pulls his neck back and his head off the top of her head to look at her face. It was tear stained and her eyes were glassy, lips slightly puffy. He gave her a soft tight-lipped smile. “No more apologies,” he states sternly and then softens again at the slight quiver in her lip. He pulls from her a little more, leaving her at arm's length, with his hands still attached to her hips, fingers slipping over the plaid fabric. “I meant to tell you this earlier, before things…” he stares at her face again and she holds it this time, “You look beautiful tonight.”

She scoffs and her eyes immediately drop to her feet, “Definitely not anymore.” She doesn’t believe Harry.

“‘M serious,” he insists. His right index finger goes to rest beneath her chin and brings her face up to look back at him.

“Sure,” she says, still not convinced but not sure how else to respond. She feels herself warming at all the positive attention he’s pouring into her.

His gaze won’t falter from her face, he’s intent upon making her understand him. He whispers her name, “Accept the compliment.”

“You’re stubborn,” she notes.

“So are you,” he counters quickly.  

“Fine, thank you,” she sighs when he won’t stop giving her that look of his. That look that makes her want to melt into the ground because it feels like she’s the only person in the world. “Though you looked especially good tonight, too,” she adds, her hands rubbing over his shoulders softly.

“Thank you,” Harry states lowly, the words only traveling to her ears. His hands fiddle with the sides of her top, thinking about the night and where they were now. Her eyes were red from crying and overall she looked tired beyond her years. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“That’d be nice.”

They make a quiet farewell to Nick and Lily, as well as apologies from both her and Harry. They don’t speak in the car and the music plays loud enough for it to not seem unreasonable for them to be silent. Harry’s hands don’t tap against the steering wheel, they sit in their spots stoically doing their job and nothing more. She watches the window, legs crossed and hands clasped in her lap. She’s thankful for the music because she knows that even though they had talked, it wasn’t enough. What she had said was hurtful and one apology wasn’t enough for how she had behaved. She didn’t think her and Harry would be the same after tonight, but the silence made it possible for her to pretend none of it had happened.

Just as Harry’s car is pulling up the apartment complex that is far darker now, the harsh splatter of rain begins to fall on the pavement and the sleek black car the two are still sat in.

“Oh,” she comments offhandedly, just responding to what she had noticed.

The rain grows louder when Harry parks and then turns off the car. He glances at her for the first time since they got into the car. She registers the look out of the corner of her eye, her face still looking out at the rain. She loved the rain, but there wasn’t always a lot in Southern California, especially not in Palm Springs. It seemed that tonight was different.

“Well,” Harry breaks his silence, she thinks that’s her cue to leave and unbuckles her seatbelt, but he continues. “This certainly wasn’t how I expected this night to go.”

She stops moving, her hand hovering over the handle of the door. She sits back and settles into the seat, feeling her teeth bite into the plush of her bottom lip.

“That’s what people keep saying,” her eyes remain on the rain hitting the front of the car, the splatters of seemingly black liquid that form when the clear rain touches the onyx hood of the car.

“Huh?” Harry grows perplexed at the rather wistful tone of her and how she won’t look at him again. He was still hurt, but he had hoped them talking in the kitchen had straightened some things out. During the car ride he hadn’t wanted to talk, but it didn’t mean he was still angry with her. Just confused, and growing further confused by the second.

“Oh,” she repeats, “Didn’t Lily say? Her and Nick concocted that dinner in hopes to set us up.”

Harry hums, knowing that because Nick had left out a little part of that plan. That he had been a part of it. He had been talking with Nick about getting to know her better outside of work and how Nick had thought it’d be a good idea to have dinner so he had told Lily and they set it up like a casual dinner party. Harry didn’t know how to respond because her knowing that he was in on the plan might just make matters worse. He really didn’t think things could get much worse, but it seemed that they always managed to make it happen so in the end he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“I don’t know if we’d ever be able to work out differences out for that,” she decides to continue, when Harry stays quiet. She scans the interior of the car and watches Harry for the briefest moment before going back to looking out the window. “Nick said that we challenge each other to grow, but all I see us do is hurt each other.”

Her voice is just above the rain pattering outside the car and Harry thinks it sounds almost melodic if it weren’t for the sadness laced in every word.

“I disagree,” he states before wetting his lips.

“Of course you do,” she laughs in spite of herself.

“Even after all these months together and you still don’t get it. I like you.”

“You don’t like me, I don’t know how you could ever like me,” she shakes her head. “We just...we get under each other’s skin. You can make me so angry sometimes and I know I make you angry too. And when we’re not angry, we’re focussed on something that doesn’t have to do with ourselves.”

“I don’t think what you feel for me is anger,” Harry insists, “Just because something feels burning and fiery, frustrating even, doesn’t mean it’s anger.”

His body shifts closer to the center divide and she turns to face him finally. His eyes are extra dark in this lighting, which is barely there from a streetlamp a ways off. She longs for the comfort of his light green eyes, the soft pale glow of the moss that seems to have been trapped within his iris. Maybe for that reason she unknowingly leans closer to him.

“Then what is it?” She whispers, eyes blinking slowly as her breathing grows strained.

“Passion.”

Immediately, her head is tilting to meet his lips. Her mind knows one thing, she needs to be kissing Harry right now. And then she is. His left hand goes to cup her cheek as his lips attach themselves to hers. His soft lips press to hers in a long searing kiss. They stay there for a moment, pressing all of that passion and frustration into the kiss.

She presses impatiently forward, her lips starting to move more, wanting to kiss him deeper. Harry obliges, parting his lips and kissing her more vigorously. He licks into her open mouth and smiles at the sound she makes in appreciation for his actions.

She’s shifted to have herself kneeling on the leather seat and she’s leaning over the console. One of her hands finds purchase on Harry’s thigh and grasps tightly, her other at the back of his neck, pressing him closer if it were possible.

His chest is pressing against hers as he pulls her closer. He kisses her and his fingertips rub softly at the apple of her cheek. Eventually they run behind the shell of her ear and trail down her neck.

Eventually, she pulls away and stares at Harry. She watches as his eyes flutter open gently. His soft eyelashes dust his cheeks before moving away, allowing his eyes to peer at her in the dark.

Her breathing feels a little irregular after the kissing and she’s sure she is heaving her chest slightly, likely mirroring Harry’s chest as well.

“So, where to now?” She inquires, lips quirked up at her suggestion.

Harry giggles and scratches his nose against his index finger.

-

Harry doesn’t stay the night, he walks her up to her apartment door though. He kisses her chastley in front of her door and wraps an arm around her waist as he does so. He bids her a goodnight and a promise of seeing her soon.

They don’t see each other for a month. Both of them had been so blissful after the endorphins of kissing their person that they had forgotten that filming had wrapped. They weren’t set to work for a month. Harry texted her the next morning informing her that he’d be in England until filming resumed. She was still going to be in California, filming was moving back to Los Angeles, so she’d be back in her place there. Her family knew she was working, so they had sent her presents ahead to her place instead. Angie, her only true friend in the area, was spending her time with her actual family and Y/N didn’t want to intrude.

So the holidays were going to be spent alone. Those four weeks alone passed surprisingly quickly. She practiced techniques on herself, bought a tiny Christmas tree like the one in A Charlie Brown Christmas, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and just about every other holiday movie possible. She fell in love with young Hugh Grant and Colin Firth for the thousandth time. She sang carols to herself and decorated her place with decorations from Target. She jammed out to the new Miley Cyrus album and held dance parties for herself in the house. She baked cookies and even attempted a trifle after watching a Great British Bake Off episode. She did and she did all in hopes that her mind wouldn’t wander to the guy who hadn’t called.

Harry texted occasionally, but it was infrequent at best. He was a busy person, she knew that. She knew who he was. And she didn’t want her mind to have enough time to feel sorry for herself. For her to think that she was just somebody to pass the time with while at work, because if she stopped doing things that’s where her mind would wander. Why did her mind spiral like it did? She had no idea, she’d always been like that.

His absence, their separation, made her question if her own feelings were even true. She wondered if when she saw him he would act as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t said their relationship was passionate and she had kissed him until she couldn’t breath.

Too much time alone, she needed some fresh air. On January 2nd, after an uneventful night at home and a lackluster countdown washed down with cheap champagne, she decided to go and walk around near her place. There was a coffee shop that wasn’t extremely expensive that she also liked that she figured she would get coffee from. After a brisk walk, she walked through the store's doors and ordered an iced green tea. As she waited, she watched the other customers around her, wishing to see a friendly face, someone she knew. And seconds later, she was met with half of that wish. Someone she knew, not necessarily a friendly face.

“Autumn.” She states with a grimace when someone taps her on the shoulder and she spins around.

“Y/N? It is you!” Autumn, one of the PA’s from Don’t Worry Darling who was especially in Harry’s business, exclaims overly happy as per usual.

Y/N bites the inside of her cheek and gives a tight lipped smile, trying her best to be cordial.

“How’s your holiday been!” Autumn asks.

“Great. You?”

“So great!” She’s quick to lean closer and say in a hushed tone, “But I miss working on set, especially getting to see that Harry everyday. He’s just so gorgeous.”

A breath gets stuck in Y/N’s chest at the mention of Harry’s name. Her brows can’t help but raise a bit at Autumn’s comment. Even lowering her voice didn’t make it feel alright to talk about Harry like this. He was her friend after all.

“Sure.” Y/N nods abruptly, realizing Autumn wants some recognition of what she’s just said. Y/N’s eyes glance around the room, hoping for an out like her drink is ready or something - no such luck.

“I mean,” Autumn keeps talking, of course, “You’re so lucky. You get to see him shirtless, like what? Everyday practically? Don’t tell me you don’t miss that just a little bit!”

“I miss working,” Y/N says, avoiding what Autumn is trying to get her to say. “And Harry’s my friend, could you maybe not talk about him like that with me?”

Autumn’s eyes widened in shock, her lips parted dumbfounded by her co-worker's response. Y/N’s name is called for her drink and she’s thankful for the serendipitous nature of that sound getting her out of the awkward situation she had just been in.

When she gets back to her apartment, she surprisingly has a text from Harry himself. She’s always telling everyone; speak of the devil and he will appear, in one way or another. It’s a Happy New Year well wish followed by a separate text asking how she was.

It was sent a minute ago so she decides to try and give him a call. She preferred talking on the phone over texting.

It rings a few times and then, again surprisingly, he picks up.  

“‘Lo?” His voice is nice and deep and sounding extra British after his weeks surrounded by family and such.

“Harry,” she sighs contentedly.

“Happy to hear your voice,” he says her name and she can tell he’s smiling just like she is, from ear to ear.

She bites at her lip, hearing him say her name.

“I’m well, thanks,” she says after a moment of happy silence.

“What?” Harry laughs, confused.

“You texted asking me how I was and I called to respond.”

“Got it,” Harry chuckles, and she hears him shuffling around, likely sitting down on something.

“How are you?” She continues.

“Good, starting to wind down for the day,” he lists off the things he’s been doing over the past few days. Some of it work related, some of it family activities. All of it fun, he insists. “What did you do today?” He finishes, knowing she was an avid activity doer based off of the snaps she had sent him over the past few weeks.

“Tidied my place, went to the coffee shop and got iced tea…” she tries to think and then she gasps, “Oh! And I saw Autumn, one of the Don’t Worry Darling PA’s -”

“The one who’s obsessed with me?”

“Exactly!” She laughs, “And I may have kind of told her off… accidentally.”

“Accidentally told her off?” Harry repeats, incredulous. “How’d you do that?”

“Well,” she doesn’t want to tell him the rest, but there’s also a tiny part of her that really does, “She was gushing about you, which, ew. And then she asked if I missed seeing you shirtless everyday.”

“Well do you miss seeing me shirtless?” Harry smirks.

“Oh shut up!” She’s quick to reply.

“So you do?”

“If I really wanted to see you shirtless, all I’d have to do is type in “Harry Styles sh” and it would come up,” she rolls her eyes even though she knows he can’t see them. “Wouldn’t even need the whole word. Guaranteed.”

“Uh-huh?” Harry questions still, “If you want me to send you shirtless pictures that the rest of the world hasn’t seen, Y/N, all you have to do is ask.”

“I do not want you to send me shirtless pictures of yourself!” She exclaims. She feels like jumping out of a window right now. This conversation had escalated so quickly and she felt herself flushing, maybe even perspiring a little bit. And she also knew that she also would probably like it if he sent her shirtless pictures, which made this whole thing worse.

“Offer stands,” he says, smug as he normally was, happy he got to banter with her again. It had been dull without her, if he was honest with himself. “If you ever find yourself in need, just send a cheeky text and I’ll whip one out for you, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.”

“See this sounds like you’re saying something sincere, but really you’re just telling me you’ll send me nudes at any time.”

“No one said anything about nudes!”

“Shirtless, nude, sounds like you’re getting too caught up in the details, hon.”

“No!” He protests, “You’re the one who’s supposed to be flustered right now, not me!”

“Aww, you’re flustered,” She coos.

Harry groans. “Whatever. I’ll be back on the 8th, be ready to go out on the 9th. I’m taking you on a proper date.”

“How do you know I’m going to say yes?” She bite her lip again, she’s really sweating now. She couldn’t believe he had just asked her out on a date out of nowhere. Out of them just joking about nudes. Maybe she didn’t know Harry as well as she thought.

“Because you called me,” he says confidently.

“I call everyone.”

“But I don’t offer shirtless pictures to everyone.”

“That has nothing to do with me saying yes to this date.”

“Or does it?”

She laughs at his words, at how his voice still manages to convey every facial expression and quirk of his lips. She knows there’s a smile on his lips as he stares in the distance, imagining her face just as she is his.

“Yes.” She smiles.

“Yes!” He repeats happily.

She hears him stand up and spin around possibly and she chuckles slightly, amused at the silly man across the world who had seemed to have stolen her heart.

“See you soon, Harry.”

“Not soon enough.”

-

On the Saturday of their date, Harry insists on picking her up. He meets her at her door and winks at her after pulling away from their short hug. He laces his hand in hers and she follows behind him as he all but drags her to his car that is downstairs. He seems giddy. His hair has grown out in the month he’s been gone and she knows they’ll cut it when filming resumes. He’s wearing Gucci flared blue jeans - she knows from the big logo on the bottom left pant leg - a ‘Waiting for Sunset’ graphic tee beneath a black cardigan with little animals and items knitted in it. And of course, his dirty ass vans. She had hoped that maybe Christmas would bring him a fresh pair from someone, but it seemed there was no such luck.

Either way, he looked good and upon scanning his outfit, she was pleased that she had dressed correctly for the occasion, knowing one of the sins of Los Angeles was being improperly dressed wherever you might go. Harry had said casual, but casual can always mean so many different things. She got it right with light wash high-waisted levi’s, a brown cream rib-knit long sleeve that buttoned like it could be a cardigan, and some fun chunky boots that added some height to her normal stature. She had contemplated between this and possibly twenty other tops and a few other bottoms. Landing on this felt right, plus it didn’t clash with Harry, the color of her shoes actually matched the color of the snake on the cardigan.

They both compliment each other on the way out to his car and she giggles when he stops and twirls her around. He says he didn’t get a “proper look” before for him to compliment her adequately. After the twirl, he nods and starts them off again, complimenting the specific pieces of her clothes and says she looks beautiful again. His giddiness was contagious.

“No Range tonight,” she muses when Harry stops them in front of a Mercedes-Benz cream convertible, top up.

“Not working,” he replies, unlocking the car with the key into the passenger’s side door handle.

She smiles and slides into the car and watches him jog around to his side and unlock it as well.

“Tonight is going to be fantastic,” he says, leaning over the console and kissing her cheek, just beside her lips.

And when he pulls away with that smug smile of his, she knows he kissed her there on purpose. But the little tease only makes her smile more. He was good at this. And he was right.

The night was fantastic. As was every night after. And she learned that Harry was so much more than anything she ever thought. She counted herself lucky to be loved by a man like him.

#harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles oneshot #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #enemies to lovers #dwd!harry #idk I always feel like theres more I need to put in here but idk #pls leave feedback and reblog