#last time I checked even the illustrator she worked with had no idea what happened to her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

1800titz · 11 months

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Okay, author's note time, and this one has warnings, so please do read. I had to keep it (somewhat) short and sweet with this one, because the ideas didn't stop flowing and I was worried I'd go overboard in length. This once isn't quite as long as the last one, but it's still a solid 14.8K, so I hope it doesn't disappoint(✿◠‿◠) As I mentioned, this fic is pretty heavily centered on smut, but worry not readers — plot will be there (eventually lol)! Maybe a little blip of a star in a sky of smut, but it'll be there! WARNINGS — this one gets REALLY BDSM-y. Like, honestly, more than the last one, and we're just gonna keep turning up the heat so — be warned. This chapter features fear play and I really, really have to emphasize that although MC has a *dubious* reaction, everything that happens between the characters was previously discussed in depth. If any confusion arises refer back to chap 2 during the negotiation (where they agree to all of this stuff!). I think you'll also be able to gauge that H is pretty thorough about communication. ｡^‿^｡ Okay, warnings done. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, as always, I thrive off of feedback

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Sure enough, Isla lets Eros smack her around the following Friday evening. Also, the Friday after that.

And the one after that one, too.

It becomes a routine for the two of them — she'll show up at her usual time, a little after his own arrival, and he'll reserve the room. The fourth time, Eros books the room in advance, so by the time Isla turns up, a staff member is letting her know within only a handful of steps into the lounge that her room is ready. And the funny thing is, despite the circumstance of Eros arriving to the club before her, Isla always finds herself in the room of the night first, kneeling patiently in waiting for his ceremonial, climactic arrival. He doesn't keep her waiting long. And when he does show, the pair shed their work weeks, the pressures and burdens of the outside world, their clothes.

Well.

Isla discards her own. Sometimes, with his helping hand, if she asks very nicely. The dominant, though, always meticulously stays dressed, clad with his signature mask and his trademark, pleather gloves, (pleather, she'd learned, not authentic leather, when the topic had come up during a touchy, soft session of aftercare), always along with his commonplace, tailored slacks, a dress shirt, lavish shoes. He'll unease the first few buttons of the shirt, where glimpses of inky beaks catch her eye and leave her wondering what other illustrations lay beneath, etched into his skin. But that's as far as he ever goes to disrobe. He does cruel, vicious, filthy things to her, tearing her apart by the seams, and after, he sews her aplomb back together with gentle touches and soft coos. She looks forward to those ravenous Friday nights with her mysterious Eros.

Tonight is still Thursday night. Unfortunately.

Unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately.

It's Thursday night and unfortunately, the self-check out lane is incredibly stalled. The droll sounds of scanners beeping and Katy Perry's TGIF leaking softly from the overhead speakers infiltrate Isla's ears as she zones out. It's like an unpleasant, forced reverie. Under the bright, fluorescent lighting, she can see that the man ahead of her in line showcases a plumber's crack that peeks from skinny jeans that hang a smidge too low. So the young woman looks about, everywhere but ahead. He's wearing a belt, too, is the thing. Grocery stores are truly human zoos.

She's still in work wear — a pencil skirt, heels, and she holds her basket close as she bites into her cheek and waits. A slow step forward.

"That's a lot of cherries."

Isla turns. The man behind her is tall, attractive. She blinks. If his sculpted features, lightly moussed, coiled hair, and striking gaze hadn't already bewitched her into a wordless stare, the way he plucks and eats grapes, straight off the vine, straight from the bag, in the self checkout lane like an absolute maniac, would.

She casts her gaze to her basket. There's a variety of items on her buy-list, like a lone jar of salsa and ...some unsightly, extra absorbent tampons — anyways, why is this stranger ogling the contents of her basket? There are, in fact, three plastic carts of cherries, stacked, which take up the majority of the space.

She clears her throat, "Yeah there was, a, uh. Discount."

"Was there?"

She's still staring obnoxiously, and the man seems to catch on. He swallows the grape his strawberry mouth had closed around, lips curling softly as he expends a vague explanation, "I missed my lunch."

She purses her lips slightly, head tipping forwards in an understanding nod, and attempts to ease her way into politely disengaging back into that aimless stare ahead. She can't do it. She just can't force herself to manually avoid scrutinizing Baldo's crack in the impending foreground. Anyways, the intrusive stranger is certainly easier on the eyes.

"That's a — uh. A lot of grapes," Isla tells him after a beat.

"Is it, really? D'you think?" The attractive stranger moves the back in his obnoxiously large palm as if weighing it contemplatively, "I'd say, 32 ounces, maybe. Well."

The corners of her mouth buckle as he shoots it a sheepish glance and his pillowy mouth quirks in an obvious attempt to bridle a grin, "Less. Now."

The laugh that Isla releases is genuine.

"Probably, like, 31," the man nods and exhales, a laugh catching in the back of his throat at the look she gives him.

"I didn't—" her incredulous laughter bubbles as she pivots to face ahead, "I didn't see anything."

"Yes, well, perhaps you didn't, and I appreciate that, but that lady over there is giving me a horrible look for actively shoplifting grapes," The curly-haired brunette jests, and Isla clamps her mouth together to stifle her amusement.

"Honestly, shoplifting them with your stomach is the best thing you could have done, here."

"You don't reckon she'll ask for them back?"

Isla bites into her cheek, hard, to stop herself from expelling spit all over Baldo ahead in the midst of a wrested raspberry. The stranger laughs softly, and behind her, she hears him say, "No, honestly, I should probably stop eating these things. I think they do charge by weight."

"I think they might, yeah."

"Well, I've saved myself a few good cents."

"And — and," Isla motions with the hand that isn't clasped over the handle of her basket, "Satiated your hunger. Two birds with one stone, honestly."

The man hums in agreement. She hears plastic crinkle as, she assumes, he closes the bag. A comfortable silence falls over them, then. Another slow step forward.

"I'm sorry, I have to ask," she pivots back, a crease working between her brows, "You are just ...oddly familiar. And I can't place it, and if I don't, it's going to bug me for the rest of the night."

The good-looking stranger blinks, then his expression morphs into one of deliberation. His cushiony mouth purses, and he tells her, "Well, I don't do this," he lifts the bag of partly-shoplifted grapes, "often."

He breaks into soft laughter and Isla's face twists.

"If that helps narrow anything down."

"It's just," the young woman motions with her hand jerkily, her tone carrying notes of determination, "Your face. I know your face. I've seen it somewhere."

His features melt into something soft, something telltale, like he knows exactly what she means just off of the vagueness of her reasoning, and the corners of his mouth curl slowly as he supplies, "Probably on a bench."

"Yes!" Isla snaps, tone wildly expressive and pleased to scratch the itch, "A bench! With your face. For..."

"Selling houses," the stranger supplies, once again, helpfully. Another step forward.

"Selling houses! Yes. That's it. I pass a bench with your face on it, like, every morning, on the way to work," Isla waves with her arm, "I see your face all the time," she clears her throat, her voice dying off. The young woman takes a deep breath, then and tells him, with genuine gratitude interlacing the syllables, "Thank you. That was literally going to bug me all night long."

There's mirth weaved in the alluring man's cast, and a haughty tinge, if she's not mistaken, "My pleasure." Before she's taken it upon herself to turn back around, satisfied by simply unearthing the answer, he tells her, "I'm obligated to ask, actually, do you happen to be on the market?"

Isla blinks.

"To buy or sell a house?"

Another step. Baldo moves into the self check-out region from the line, a single cantaloupe wedged between his side and his arm, a pack of triple A batteries in the opposite hand.

"It's," the basket shifts in her grasp, "Actually, it's really funny you ask, because I am looking to buy a house."

"Really?" Isla watches the grin that paints its way over the stranger's mouth — there's hints of mischief, "Hoo-hoo, sorry, I love doing this — let me just give you my business card."

So she waits, basket in hand, as he reaches into his pocket and unearths one of those dainty little business card-holders professional-business-people have. He cradles the bag of grapes with his arm as he uses his opposite hand to retract a sleek little card, and he hands it off to her proudly.

Harry Styles, it reads. There's some contact information, a phone number, an email, a company name, and a rather dashing picture of him, as well.

"Thank you," she tells him, pupils bouncing from the card to his face.

"My pleasure — I think, that check-out's open, now, actually," he prompts, glancing over Isla's shoulder, and she twists.

"Oh! Yes, yeah."

"And I won't be eating any more of these, so y'don't have to babysit me, anymore," he jokes, gesturing with the bag of grapes.

"Yes — Yeah, no — yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yes, I will definitely look into — this," Isla motions with the business card, slipping into an awkward sort of back-walk towards the check out, "Harry Styles."

Dimples create little divots in his cheeks as Harry grins, "Yes, please do..."

"Isla Cleery," the young woman supplies, caught between stalling the rest of the lane with conversation and paying for her ridiculous supply of discounted cherries.

"Isla Cleery," Harry parrots, a rasp to his pleasant cadence. He clears his throat, stuck in the front of the line with his lone bag of dwindled grapes, "Give me a call."

"Let's talk," Eros says, and Isla lets herself be wrangled into his lap.

He didn't even have to waste his breath trying to convince Isla to nurse the beverage he always brought her in their sessions of aftercare — she'd downed half of the little cup in nearly one thirsty swallow. Now, she sits over his thighs, legs curled around him, and his gaze is ironically gentle through the slit in his mask, as it always is post whatever heinous things he does to her on Friday nights.

"What did we like," he tucks a stray bundle of hair behind her ear before Isla tucks her chin over his shoulder, "What didn't we like?"

"We liked ...the vibrator," she starts off easy, the clarity of her words somewhat muffled with the limited ability to move her jaw in the position. She doesn't really care to move, though.

Ever.

She will stay hooked onto him forever, like a little koala, Isla decides.

"Mm. Right, that one seems to be a fan favorite," even with his face out of view, she can make out traces of a smile in the statement.

"Yes," Isla agrees. The trusty vibrator, always a safe bet. Always pleasing. She ponders for a moment, which, honestly, is a little difficult to do given the mushy condition of her brain. The dependability of processing thoughts by the end of a Friday night, for her, always tiptoes into shoddy territory.

"We liked the — when you did the, the thing. With the — your hand, on my neck. The position."

Her explanation is ripply and vague, but it makes enough sense to Eros apparently, because he hums in acknowledgement. She means, of course, the slick little shift they did in the midst of doggy, as he'd grappled her up from the sheets by her arms from the back, until he'd only leaned over her slightly and her back pressed flush to the front of his dress shirt. He'd hammered into her from behind, (she's unsure how he'd managed given the limited range of motion), but whenever he'd slipped his gloved palm to hug over her pulse, cumber over her airway as he'd murmured filth against the shell of her ear, that was something magnificent.

"Did we?" his murmur carries notes of similarity, voice soft and teasing against her ear, and grazes of warm breath send chills running up her arms.

"Mhm."

"What else?" he prods gently.

"We liked ...the tape?" she says slowly, after a moment of reflective pause. He'd utilized bondage tape to restrain her tonight, rounding it over her skin in a handful of orbits rather than opting for their usual route of braided ropes or leather cuffs. It was new and exciting. But with Eros, new and exciting seemed to be a common theme.

"Did we like it, or did we like it?" the male pauses, questioning the questioning of her tone.

Anyways, this is all getting very confusing, Isla decides. She needs to lay under a blanket, get pet like a kitten, and think about nothing.

"Liked it. Loved it. It was good," she promises, voice soft and somewhat moony.

"Didn't get too bunched up?" she feels his hand skim down her side, "You wriggled a lot, tonight."

She answers, after a moment of exhaustive contemplation, "It did ...but I liked it. You're very safe with everything, I wasn't worried about, like, losing circulation, or anything."

The man squeezes the same side his palm had previously caressed over as an emphasis that her answer has pleased him, and Isla doesn't even have the energy in her to jolt at the tickle-inciting motion.

She does tense a bit, and Harry smirks into the yonder knowingly.

"Didn't like waiting to cum," she tells him after a moment, sounding sleepy, but he's well aware that she more than enjoyed the tear away from the precipice each and every time.

He pets her back in response as his mouth quirks, "Mm, why am I not surprised? We are quite impatient."

"Impatient is hardly the word I would use. Sane, maybe," Isla puts on a facade of griping, "You edged me four times,"

"And next time," he squeezes at a love handle sweetly, "I'll make you cum four times." The young woman barely has time to recover from the shudder that slinks down the knobs of her spine and the warmth that coils in her tummy at the ...promise? warning? (four??), before Eros inquires, "What about the strap, how did we feel about that?"

The strap. A window to tease and feign woe to cull more cuddles.

"Ooh — we did not like that," Isla answers decisively, squirming as the pad of his finger traces along her hip, just about around where the skin is heated and flushed. She's well aware, however, that the man is well aware there isn't all that much truth to her statement.

And tinges of this suspicion mingle in his voice as he tells her, a sadistic sort of smile dancing over his lips, "No? Not even a little bit?"

"Well," Harry feels Peitho jerk with laughter, amusement tugging at his own mouth as she admits, "Maybe a little."

They melt into soft laughter, then, with Harry's touch gentle on her skin in contrast and Peitho practically purring over him like a little cat. It's a nice sort of middle ground — personal in the sense of hormone floods and all sorts of happy chemicals that would bring two partners in kink together, but impersonal enough to where there are no breaches of any sort of intimate, privy boundaries of the real world. There's fictitious strings attached, fictitious based on anonymity, and they slow-dance along them like funambulists over tightrope.

"I want to make a contract," Peitho's confession, not the least bit small or vulnerable in its tone, nearly sends Harry flying hundreds of feet off the cord in pleased surprise.

"A contract?" he says after a second, " A just you and me sort of contract?"

"Well," Of course, Peitho wastes no opportunity in giving him good-natured lip, and the window seems to give her some life, "Like a — you, Herc, Cybele, and Faunus type of contract," Harry's sigh is exaggerated, "you can alternate rocking my shit — Oh! We can throw Felix in there too while we're at it. He doesn't say much, but you'd think someone who worked at a fetish club was into fetish, do you think he prefers to dom or sub—"

She squeaks when his fingers dig into sore flesh, a disparity from his priorly soft fondles, and Harry imagines her brows pinching indignantly behind the lace when she pulls back and chastises, whining, "Hey! T-L-C. I am a broken damsel in distress, who, may I remind you, you broke."

"Broken," he scoffs, and instead opts to pinch at her bum and send her jolting forward against him with a helpless gasp, "I think you're far from broken. Didn't fuck you proper enough? What happened to my sweet, quiet girl? Hm?"

Eros just had ...this thing to him. This thing that no other dominant she'd played with had. It was a particular characteristic, an air. It was the way he talked, the way he held her. The way he made her feel unique, like the only. His only.

My girl.

What happened to my sweet, quiet girl? Hm?

She loved when he talked like that — like he was talking down to her, condescension wrapped over the syllables like honey-coated barbed wire. He'd reassure her, promising through touches and words that she was all of the opposites and none of the mean words he'd call her in scenes, and in the same breath, he'd say things that made her feel useless and small in the best way. It made her feel like he had all of the control and all of the answers, and honestly, when she was all melty and mushy post a session, even when she had it in her to be joke-y, all she wanted to do was get cradled and talked down to like a she knew nothing and he knew everything.

"Your touch is truly rejuvenating," Isla tells him simply, feigning deadpan, but the corners of her mouth cave up when he pokes her side.

"Why in the world, darling, would I want a contract with such an incorrigible brat?" he pretends to ponder, but there's teasing to his cadence.

"You like me incorrigible, Sir," her following statement encourages Harry's eyebrows to raise, and she seems to sense the statement would cull a similar reaction, because she heads into it giggling, "So you can keep trying to break me."

The way he contemplates aloud, "Trying?" his tongue sticking to the inside of his cheek, jade eyes narrowed, has her laughter increasing in decibel. After a moment, he smooths his hand down her back, pinky lips curling in soft pleasure.

"I'll draw one out. We'll talk about it next Friday. Unless," Harry rounds his gaze on her, "you've got plans to alternate someone else rocking your shit, of course. Wouldn't want to impose."

Peitho winces, putting up an obvious act of deliberation over her schedule, and his gaze hardens when she jokes, wincing, "Ooh — you might be right, I'll have to check that."

Another pinch incites a squeak and she appeases, quickly, "I'll make room for your appointment."

She makes room. She makes room for him, and he takes up the entirety of Friday night, every Friday night.

"Commandments?" Isla's eyebrows raise.

They're back in the therapist office-esque negotiation room for (ding! ding! ding!) a negotiation. Which is funny, all things considered. They seem to do plenty of negotiating, both in play, with Isla making attempts to top from the bottom (to which, of course, the man never falls victim to), and afterwards when Eros interrogates her with a plethora of questions. But a big, fancy contract (evidently) requires a big, fancy room to sit in and discuss. They would be discussing first, not fucking, Eros had told her (Which Isla had followed up with, "But we already do so much discussing." She'd gotten pinched on the waist for that and was easily enough persuaded, just to stop the Torture by Tickling, which was not a particular fetish she had). So — fancy room, fancy chairs, it is.

God. She loves these chairs. Isla tucks her legs up and sits in the cushion all curled up because she can. She's sure Eros is far past judging.

He is. He was never judging, but.

"Issue?" the dominant returns, sounding vaguely unimpressed.

"No. No issue, just," Isla nods down at the print, "commandments."

"Mm. Learn them, live them, love them," the male returns, the whites of his teeth highlighted by the jet of the latex.

It's a simple list. There are only six; and they're entirely reasonable. In fact, they seem to be sculpted with the entire purpose being to appease her role and her best interests in play.

1. The submissive will endeavor to keep an open mind.

2. The submissive will abide by all rules and requests.

3. The submissive is acting with free will.

4. The submissive will accept discipline.

5. The submissive will communicate honestly, clearly, and respectfully with the dominant, even if this means they do not agree with a rule or request, are unable to abide by rules or perform requests, or otherwise worry about disappointing the dominant.

6. The submissive will utilize a safe word when necessary.

7. The submissive will use preferred honorifics in the presence of the dominant.

"Very fancy of you, Mr. Eros."

His gaze flashes up to her, and, with his tone showing inklings of mirth, he corrects her, "Sir."

"Oh, come on, I said Mister — that's so respectful. Added touch of formality, just for you," Isla pokes at him verbally, and she watches the feigned exasperation leak into his features, even with the majority hidden behind latex.

"Sir."

His voice is considerably harder on the second correction, and she sticks the end of the pen past her lips and shifts, her knees folded and feet planted against the cushion of the armchair, "O-kay, Mr. Eros."

"Number seven," his gloved digits drum over the arm of the chair, "Read number seven for me, aloud."

Isla's mouth purses and her pupils flit. She clears her throat, and ceremoniously reads off, tone ceremoniously exaggerated, "Number Seven; The submissive will use preferred honorifics in the presence of the dominant," the young woman casts her gaze up to him as she addresses, "I got that part."

Eros blinks at her.

"But — look, the thing is, you didn't emphasize whose preferred honorifics, right?" the cheeky loophole has the corners of his mouth jolting, "And maybe Mr. Eros is my preferred honorific in your presence. Fine print is a tricky thing," She tuts, waving her pen at him.

"The wellbeing of your arse is a tricky thing," Eros clears his throat, sitting up a bit, and Isla backtracks, nervous laughter suffusing her cadence.

"Hey, well — no, I think it's pretty simple to keep the wellbeing in the condition of well," the young woman tacks on, "and unbruised."

"You'd think so," the male ruminates aloud, amusement coating his voice, "But you just don't ever seem to learn. And you need reminders, over, and over, and over."

His grin is easygoing enough, but there's a wolfish quality to it, a lewd one, one that's off-color when he tells her, after she offers no response, "S'alright, sweetheart. We're not all quick learners. M'happy to oblige in reminding you," the man adds, pointedly, "Over, and over, and over."

Isla swallows, shifting in the seat. It's quite a comfortable armchair, in all honesty, but the combination of his words and the look he gives her leaves her lungs with difficulty expanding given that her legs are tucked up and she's all sort of smushed. Screw him and his stupid sexiness.

He cocks his head, tone still good-natured despite its implication, "You know I will."

"Yes. We are aware," Isla drums the pen over her mouth, then, once she's cast her gaze up at him and caught the expectant look he gives her, she gives in and tacks on, "Sir."

He sits back then, seemingly pleased, yummy arms draped over the back of the chair in a way that has her yearning to cut the middleman of conversation in lieu of getting bent at a ninety-degree angle over the back of her own and getting railed into next week to do it all over again. It's heinous, honestly, that he does these things to her. Just from ogling him, too. She wants to scrub her brain with a loofah to tame the untimely impurity of her thoughts.

Focus.

Her focus is interrupted by the dominant speaking, "I wanted to add some things on, clear some things up. How d'you feel about facials?"

Dear, Holy, Mother of Christ.

"Facials?" her toes curl and uncurl in her shoes.

"Facials — cum on your face," he tilts his head and jabs lightheartedly, "I'd hope you're not new to the concept."

"Yes," she clears her throat, unperturbed by his sarcastic dig, "Please."

"Lovely."

"I will return your question with a follow up," Isla shifts, intrigued by the topic, "Creampies?"

Eros purses his mouth, like he's pondering on the topic of creampies, and Isla can only blink blankly, somewhat stupefied, when he answers, with a rasp to his tantalizing voice, "Depends on the flavor, I guess. But generally, too sweet."

Once his joke clicks, like a plug stuffing into a slot, she kicks out with her foot in an impressive show of grace, "Come on, I answer," she glances to the paperwork, "'clearly and respectfully,' why don't you do the same, you—"

Upon witnessing the subtle warning dancing in his rises, Isla tucks her foot back against her, and the look he gives her seems to morph with each word, "You — you — very nice, Mr. Eros — Sir."

The great thing about Indulge, amongst a series of great things regarding Indulge, was that all members were subjected to varying series of STD testing throughout their memberships. It made the club exclusive, in a sense, but it was also safe in that it discouraged the club from becoming a petri dish stuffed full of chains and gags and HIV. Which was great. It was great for Indulge. Very safe sex of Indulge.

And It is a valid question. He hadn't listed it as a limit, initially, and hadn't brought it up during the first negotiation simply because it hadn't come up — the young woman hadn't expressed interest, and he hadn't felt the need to convey a limit that was unlikely to come up, until it came up.

So, it comes up. And Harry expresses.

"S'a limit. It's too ...personal," the man tells her.

Which, that's totally fair, Isla thinks. Coming in someone — that's, perhaps, as personal as it gets. Her limits involved kissing on the mouth, which, arguably, was a much more impersonal option than coming in someone. She nods in uninhibited understanding. His thighs are splayed, and Isla imagines herself between them, his cum painted over her face. A little droplet smudging over the hem of the lace—

Fuck. Focus. She steers her sight onto the contract in hopes of staving off the hyperfixation. Eventually, a crease works in between her brows.

"There's no dates here," Isla points out, blinking up at him, "For date effective and date of termination."

"Reading truly is a wonderful skill to possess," the man responds after a moment, good-natured in his sarcastic jab, "I'm glad we know how to do that."

Upon her tight smile and, Harry imagines, the bitterly narrowed gaze behind the lace, his bark of laughter catches in the back of his throat. It escapes him as a cut-off sound before he clears his throat and tells her, with a soft note to his statement, "That's a two-to-tango decision, pet."

They all are, really, but a time frame — that's something he can't just guesstimate, fathom, and print up. Harry can do loads of things. He can juggle, he can stay quite well in the lines when he paints his nails, he can charm just about everyone he's ever met out of a frown, he can sell just about anything with a few words and a showcase of dimples, and he can utilize a flogger just right, just enough, gauging that sweet spot expertly. He can do loads and loads and loads of things, but unfortunately, he can't read minds. He can't read her mind. He can't guess whether she'd requested a contract in hopes of pursuing a year of play with him, or a month, and he can only sort of hope that her intentions are closer to the former. Despite his own wants, numbers for time frames are a fragment he'd entirely left out of the document; too short would disappoint, and too long — well, that would perhaps be worse.

Peitho just sticks the end of the pen between her lips like she's contemplating, as if, maybe, she's having the same dilemma. His suspicions ring true when she withdraws the writing utensil and says, like she needs his guidance, his approval before she answers, "What do you think?"

The chair creaks as Harry shifts. He thinks six months, at least, and then more, because the play with her tastes too good to have a last bite. Regardless of what he thinks, he volleys the ball back into her court with a soft voice full of sincerity, fully intent on drawing her own interests into the spotlight of the topic, "S'up to you, really, darling. Just throw out a number, we can always alter it, if it comes down to it."

That seems to do the trick, because the young woman pauses as if in reflection, and then settles, "What about a month?"

A month.

A month is, generally, a generous hunk of time. It's an entire moon cycle, from new moon to waning crescent, all encompassed. It's a third of a season. A month is a plentiful time frame.

But really, it's not, Harry thinks.

Because they'd just done a month, and that month had flown by like a view driving through a rural landscape, of individual little pickets in a fence barring an endless grass plain from a car window, flying by at sixty miles per hour. Blurred and dissipated in a blink. A month is a ridiculously short hunk of time — it's four Fridays, which means four scenes, and if he's being entirely candid, four scenes cut far shorter than he's intrigued to explore with Peitho. Something coils dimly in Harry's chest, something like faint traces of disappointment, but he swallows whatever the sensation is down and clears his throat. A month is plenty reasonable to share time.

A month.

Isla could do far more than a month, she thinks. In fact, she could probably spend the rest of eternity wrapped about his finger, her hunger satiated by his touch and only his, but something within her bucks her to curb the enthusiasm. At least a smidge. She doesn't know him. She doesn't know this man beyond Eros, beyond a latex mask and whatever inches of skin she's managed to catch sight of in a strike of luck, so to have thoughts like the fact that she'd be satisfied with serving to his every command for the rest of eternity is beyond jarring.

"We can — like you said,'' the submissive, (who, more often than not, fights the actual submission part tooth and nail), gestures with her hand, "change it, if we want to. But I think that's a good place to start, right?"

A flicker of hope emerges from the heart of the fizzle at her expansion, and Harry tries not to let it show in his tone when he tells her, "Sure, darling. A month."

Just as he lifts his own respective pen in to scribble the dates over the lines of his copy, Peitho shifts, her voice obnoxiously loud, given that the space they're in is only a few square feet roomier than a broom closet, "Wait."

Harry blinks up at her, pen frozen comically, mid air.

"Can we—" she bites into her bottom lip, "Can we do, like, a month and two weeks? Or something?"

The bizarre request has the pillowy, muted berry of his lips curling up, "A month and two weeks?"

"Yeah, you know," the young woman shrugs, sinking down in her seat now that she'd grappled his attention and the ink is not near the papers, "A month is just so ...I don't know. It goes by fast. It's only four Fridays, but a month and two weeks would give us six."

His mouth twitches and he shakes his head down at the papers a bit, pen poised, "Okay. A month and two weeks."

A month and two weeks.

"Actually, I do have a question for you, regarding the scene tonight," he casts his gaze up to her, tone brimming with seriousness.

Isla looks up and listens. She discovers traces of a smile in his question, though.

"D'you have a particular attachment to the knickers you have on right now?"

"S'nice and easy with you, we can just put a blindfold on," he secures it snugly over her mask and clicks the buckle in below her ponytail to prevent sliding, "over this. Convenient, innit?"

The young woman can tell that he draws closer because hears his voice louder against her eardrums, a quality she notes because she has to focus on utilizing other senses, "Nice and snug? Can you see anything?"

Isla's mouth parts on an inhale as her sense of sight, typically already somewhat opaque through lace detailing, is veiled by dense darkness. It's nothingness, like staring up at a sky with no stars, and she's sure her own lacey mask aids in the total disconnect of light, even when she tests the theory and strains her irises around. "No."

So far, the extent of the scene hadn't gone far. They play in all different rooms, and she knows nearly all of them well from prior experience. Last week, they'd held a scene in the Neon Room, which Isla had deemed a limit all on its own, afterwards, solely based on its headache inducing qualities. The week before that had been the Red room (pretty literal title, it was like a Fifty-Shades-esque replication suffused with red from ceiling to floor). Each room harbored its own unique touches and pieces of equipment, from X crosses, to cages, to those that simply mirrored hotel room decors with a bed and an eyesore of tacky wallpaper.

They're playing in The Dungeon tonight, which Isla has fondly, internally dubbed the Torture Chamber — which isn't a tag with all that much individualism. Eros finds a way to uphold the moniker for every room they play in, but The Dungeon has these innate Torture Chamber qualities. The kind of character to a room that, upon first glance, sends a shudder prickling over your shoulders and slinking down your neck.

It's a set, is the thing, and Isla knows that. A really, very accurately handcrafted set, comprised of an eerie palette garnering neutral tones, from the scuffed concrete, to the marred brick along the walls, to the rusted detailing over the door (that looks as if it was taken straight off of an abandoned bar restroom door frame, after a lengthy lifespan enduring insobriety-spurred violence). It's as if screenshots of the infamous Armory featured on kink-dot-com were the primary basis in the design process. The ludicrously uncomfortable-in-appearance, twin-size spring mattress atop a metal bed frame (centered in the room) doesn't have sheets, and the seedy detailing of stains over the ticking are definitely, probably, she hopes fabric paint and dyes. There's all sorts of cleaning and sanitation protocols for these things, and Indulge is really thorough, so she knows they're not real stains. Despite this, the prospect of laying over a dubious, unsheeted mattress in a room made up to entirely incite fear and suspicion definitely spurs the unease. She's half-convinced she'll hear water dripping onto the floor from a stray, leaky pipe, at some point in the evening.

Regardless of the Torture Chamber, Eros hasn't taken part in much torture thus far — the only torture being in that he's afflictively knotted her ponytail and strung it up with a rope to one of the metal bars caging the headboard (evil, he's fucking evil for that one). The rest of the bindings are secured onto limbs in ways that don't otherwise incite discomfort (besides a raw, exciting sensation of anticipation and the commonplace humiliation that always comes along with having her legs tucked up), and she knows that he's deliberately tied in these ways so that she is comfortable for the duration of the scene. That fact soothes something unnerved in her chest.

"Good," he hears his voice, satisfied, and then makes out the sound of shoes over the floor as he walks ...away? Around? She's unsure.

Harry's outdone himself with the ropework, honestly.

Shibari is amazing. Intricate artworks of cords criss-crossing over skin are incredibly fun to tie and look at, and the way she's showcased, contorted by the ties he's created, is art. She looks like fucking art, and if he could save a picture of her tied like this and store it in his wallet, he fucking would.

He's opted for a simple enough crab tie, anchoring her calves behind her stretched forearms, and her legs are tucked up with the intent of exposing all the fun bits. The true pièce de résistance of the ensemble, though, he'd probably carve up to be the harness over her chest. It's composed of simple columns and patterns — simple, being that he's worked on knots for years — but they hug her body in such a way that emphasizes her tits, as if the body part is the star of the show. It's not meant to be, tonight, but he does quite enjoy looking at those, so he's pleased with the touch. And because he's such a gentleman, he's graciously allowed the panties to stay on, for now, particularly because it allows her to wallow in anticipation based on his question back in the negotiation room. He's sure she has her suspicions for what he plans, though.

Harry kneels ahead of his duffel against the wall on the opposite side of the room, tugs open the zipper, and rummages through for a flogger from his personal collection, unworried about the safety distance that would otherwise be required had she been standing with her arms tied. The male culls a wonderful elk option, running his fingers through the tendrils, partly to diffuse the tanglement situation, (which distresses him beyond words — he always hangs these things up on hooks at home as soon as he gets home — but he bites that back), and partly in consideration. He always preferred floggers from his personal collection. The play was definitely worth the sanitation process in his own time. Indulge offered a broad variety of implements, from paddles to crops to gags, which were always heavily sanitized after each usage, and getting away with a paddle was easy enough. Floggers, though — they were a tricky thing. An entirely different animal, altogether, because the options for variations essentially created entirely different toys, almost fabricated for entirely differing sensations.

The thing with the Indulge community catalog of toys was that the options were always the easiest to sanitize. And with floggers, easiest to sanitize didn't always entail the best fitting. Because floggers were — well, there were so many types. Thinner tails generally stung worse, and stiffer, leathery materials had a more brutal kick. Smaller, rubber floggers were ideal for more intimate areas, and Indulge offered plenty of those — rubbers, and silicones, easy to sanitize. But sometimes, perhaps, those didn't allow for a fitting warm up, nor did they allow to further work up the staircase of pain. Leathers — like elk, deer, moose (a personal, heavier favorite to throw), buffalo, all offered varying degrees of pain, but unfortunately were not so simple to disinfect. The cut of the tails, of course, played a part in the level of bite; V angles like forked tongues and flat cuts generally had a more intense effect, and nicely rounded falls carried that thuddier sensation. As he contemplates the rounded edges of the elk falls, he finds it suited. It's a reliable option for a warm up. Buttery enough for what he plans for her.

Once the toy's been culled and proper deliberated over, he gleans a few other objects for the night from various spots around the room; a dark, leather paddle, a cordless wand (he'd come in and manually changed the batteries himself prior to her arrival to avoid the unfortunate mood-killer of a vibrator dying mid-scene), a pair of safety scissors, a handful of condoms. Finally, he makes his way back to the bed. Harry sets the toys onto the floor and the flogger down beside her, just out of touch. He runs his fingers over various areas where the ropes dig into her flesh.

"Anything too tight? Anything uncomfortable?"

Slowly, Peitho shakes her head no in response, the motion within a limited range given that he's tied her hair to one of the metal bars, and a smirk plays at his mouth with the notion. He runs his digits over the ropes on her hips almost absent-mindedly.

Harry clears his throat, coaxing for a verbal response, "Pardon?"

"No, Sir."

Good. Very good. Great, even. He leans over her and his hand traces the binding over her ponytail thoughtfully, "Let me know if your neck starts cramping at all, yeah?"

"Will do," Isla tells him, but there's a degree of anticipation that comes with a blindfold in a Big Scary Torture Room that dampers her typical cheek, "Sir."

When the bed dips and nearly instantly bounces back, she assumes he's plucked something off the mattress.

"What are you planning?" she questions after a moment, adding on a tentative, "Sir."

Silence. She gets silence at first, which she doesn't think is all that fair considering he always expects a response from her, but then she makes out what vaguely resembles a wry huff of amusement, like he's enjoying her anticipation, because he is, and that makes her squirm.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Eros tuts, and there's amusement garbling his low cadence.

"I would," she tells him, bridling a laugh at her own brazen words, considering her vulnerability in the circumstances, "It's why I asked."

He sighs, then, as if to ward the mirth off, and his next words nearly have incredulous laughter bubbling from her, despite her anxiety that crowds her chest, "Want to guess what I'm holding?"

It's a ridiculous thing to make an attempt to guess with no sight, no sensation, no sound, no scent. He could be holding a riding crop or a fucking ice cream cone, so Isla tells him, the bizarre statement flooding her with some form of her usual sarcasm, "An ice cream cone, Sir."

"She's a comedian. We'll see how long that lasts," is not exactly the response she hopes for, but expects. There's some mirth to his tone, though, still, which she thinks must be a good sign, "I'll give you a hint."

When a strike falls onto the back of one of her exposed thighs, it doesn't hurt, but it does startle her enough to jolt a smidge. Whatever it was, he certainly went light on it. Her toes curl as she contemplates perceptively.

"A flogger?" Peitho hypothesizes after a moment, tentatively.

"Good girl," Harry praises, his voice brimming with pride and his mouth tinged at the corners with a playful beam, "It is a flogger. S'nice and easy, I think. Elk. The tails, here," he pauses to drag the ends of the toy over her stomach, and the motion siphons a soft gasp from her, "are about a centimeter thick. So it's nice and thuddy. Soft hits. It's not a stiff leather and the tails aren't thin and stingy. This one's good for warm ups, usually — why are you smiling like that?"

"Well aren't you just a lovely, little pamphlet on impact play?"

The self-satisfaction in her voice fizzles out into a laughter-infused grunt when he bunches at the tails from the root, drawing the tails through the U-shaped dale of his fingers, and rolls his wrist in a way that makes the falls snap against her skin in, considerably, a far more stingy sensation than the first had been. Because, despite the buttery sensation the elk tends to dominate with, he can make it sting with the proper technique. His lips curl smugly in response.

"Better be nice to the mean man with the flogger," Harry sing-songs, and he watches her fingers flex and unflex in their bindings uselessly, as if yearning to rub over the afflicted area. When she doesn't formulate an immediate response, he hooks the root of the falls between his thumb and forefinger and focuses on another bite, this one aimed on the opposite thigh. Again, Peitho jolts, but the motion is futile in her restraints.

"Right? We should be nice?"

Her head falls back a bit, though that movement is also limited and causes the rope wrapping her hair to bundle, and the concurrence slips through cracks of gritted teeth, "Yes! We'll be nice! Jesus Christ."

"Fantastic. Glad we can be on the same page," Harry tells her, before stepping around to wander against the side of the bed and drag the tails of the toy over her skin slowly, from the back of her thigh, to her stomach, over her exposed breasts. Under the softness of that sensation, Peitho seems to melt, jerking slightly only when encountering particularly ticklish areas. The corners of Harry's mouth buckle.

He does that for a short while, just letting the tresses caress her, before he takes a knee ahead of the foot of the bed, which is footboard-less, mind you — a nice touch, and Harry thinks it works wonderfully for his intentions. When he sticks the end knot between his middle and ring finger, and starts drawing pretty, little figure 8's all over her ass, just letting his wrist work off the momentum, the young woman's breathing grows shallower as the sensation fails to abate.

"So, did we have a good day today, love?"

His cadence is airy and entirely nonchalant, and the inquiry has her nails gnawing into her fisted palms. Only a question Eros would ask her mid flogger warm-up. And the thing is, he's not just gliding the ends of the tresses over her backside — it's her cunt, too. The sensation is muffled by the underwear that cling to her, somewhat, but on each figure 8, the tails just manage to graze. That probably coaxes her soft, "Oh," far more than the rest does.

"No?" Harry's tongue digs against the inside of his cheek. There's thorough amusement to be had at his own jokes, sometimes. Especially when it entails Peitho mewling helplessly.

As the figure 8's slow, Isla finds that he hones the sensation exactly where she dreaded he would. At first, it comes as a tantalizing, fuck, this sucks snap against her inner thigh, too close, and then again, another, on the opposite, to mirror the first. Apparently, her hiss incites amusement, because, through the thick blood rush crowding her eardrums, she picks up that he's chuckling. And then the flogger falls against her panty-clad core — not nearly as stingy as it'd been against the bare skin of her most inner thighs, but it certainly causes her to jolt and squeal.

"That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Her teeth dig into her bottom lip, and she feels another snap between her legs, a prod from Eros, "Hm?"

"What do you mean?" Isla squawks incredulously, her abs aching from the consistent core workout of the position, "You're whipping my cunt!"

She hears a hum, and her irises loll back when she feels his fingers kiss her skin, as opposed to the bite of the flogger. The young woman feels him pull her underwear taut before he tuts, and states, deviously, "Peitho, Peitho, Peitho. I'm whipping your cunt, and you're sopping through."

There's truth to his words, and she doesn't exactly need her sense of sight to confirm it. She squirms under his scrutiny — she's warm, ludicrously, and the heat is only heightened by the light blows. Speaking of which, his touch retracts, and it's not long before another comes, this one sharper. Isla groans, her jaw clenched, and the male's enjoyment is devious. For a little while, the flogger focuses back on the globes of her presented backside, just skimming over her core with its biting caress, and then there's another snap against her thigh, and then comes the bloom of delectable pain!pain!pain! that satiates something deep within her. She braces for the next impact, but it doesn't come. Instead she feels gloved pads of fingers brush over the same area where the last strike had landed.

"You're already welting," his voice comes through low and almost focused, as if he's admiring the marks he's created, as if she's just something for him to mar and admire, and the tone sends something delicious wracking through her. The man tacks on, after a second, "Fuck. S'pretty," and gives the skin a final swipe before he withdraws.

Then comes the next several. Harry brushes the trails through the valley, keeping them straight and together, and then snaps the toy forward against her inner thigh, making her jerk in the intricately braided ties. He does it again, and then one more time until Peitho's whining and her thighs are trembling. The dominant follows through with a final strike for good measure, and her fingers spasm in the binds as her head thrashes. The young woman's breaths escape her as labored puffs. He gives her minimal cool down time before, with his free palm, he grapples for one of her bound feet, squeezing at the centermost region, and, in response, she thrashes more.

"No, no! Stop! Please!" Peitho's desperate pleas escape as waves through laughter, and as she flails at his touch, Harry's mouth crooks wickedly.

"Stop? I don't think I'm going to do that," amusement lingers over his words, and his digits digs into her with purpose.

He's never had a particular fetish for feet, but he can appreciate that hers are nice. They're pretty feet, just like the rest of her is pretty to him, and a neat, cutesy pedicure in a pinky-coral shade satisfyingly matches the hues blooming over her skin.

"Stop! Tickling is not one of my kinks! Pl— please!"

"No?" his tongue peeks out through plush strawberry, and his breath catches on a subdued laugh, "Maybe I just like seeing you writhe. All helpless," his cadence increases in volume as she squeals, "All tied up. Maybe I just like that I can do whatever I want to you, and you just have to take it."

"PLEASE!"

Finally, the horrid sensation ceases, and Isla's able to suck in some breaths for composure. Her heart hammers away behind her ribcage, and just as she feels herself regaining some form of stability over the sketchy semblance of her nervous system, she feels the flogger lick out over her clothed core.

"Shit!"

Two more times. It happens two more times, and then her toes curl and uncurl feebly as the man's gloved digits curl over her foot. She nearly shrieks. Another blow.

"What's worse?" she makes out over her involuntary laughter, "The feet, or your cunt?"

And she can't exactly form a steady response given that her nerve endings are under assault. She just screeches and does her very best to kick his hand off.

"What's worse?" he prods for a verbal response, "The feet—" he winds the flogger with his wrist, just letting it fall, fall, fall, over, and over, and over, "Stop trying to kick me off — or your cunt? Hm?"

"My — the — fuck! The feet!" Isla just barely manages to make out before the alternate sensations subside altogether. She blows out a breath, heart hammering away.

"The feet?" Eros parrots, a surprised sort of mischief to his tone, "Really?" He taps the back of her thigh with the neck of the flogger, where the tails are rooted, and then twists the handle around, just letting the tresses dance over her florid, whip-kissed skin.

Isla breathes, deep and wheeze-y, when he stops tickling her. Instead, her breath catches and stalls in her lungs when he tuts and swings the flogger harder, "Seems I haven't been doing a proper job with the flogger, then."

Her eyes screw shut further, if it's possible, behind the press her mask and the blindfold atop it, her brows pinch together, and the young woman's fingers spread, stiff and straining in their bindings. She blows out another breath through a puckered 'o' over her mouth when the onslaught ceases.

Harry lets her just breathe for a second, but it's moreso for her anticipation to spiral and skyrocket, because he's a horrible, devious, mean man. He's not exactly complaining over the view of her chest rolling with shudders beneath the designs of the rope, either. Then, he grips her knickers by the hem over the top, and just tugs up a bit.

"Look at that," Isla hears him say, tone low and lewd, before she feels him hook his forefinger and middle into her panties and tug away. The 'hngh' that the action plies out of her nearly leaves her simmering in as much humiliation as she feels with the knowledge that he's just ogling her cunt.

The sound causes Harry to raise a brow, and, in a playful feat of absolute evil, he leans forward a smidge and blows. The way she jerks in response provokes soft laughter from him, and the chuckle melts into a hum when he fixes his sight between her legs.

"You're so wet," he drawls, opting to spread her lips with his thumb and forefinger, while his other hand keeps the crotch of the cotton bikini-cut hooked to the side. The left corner of his mouth curves up smugly, his eyes cast down to her cunt, "Aren't you? Poor baby's wet just from being whipped?"

Peitho whines at his statement, and in response, he levels the knickers with her core and lets the crotch snap back into place lightly. She gasps. There's something delicious about those soft sounds she makes. Harry reaches for the wand beside him, tears open a condom wrapper and wrenches the rubber over the head, as he always does, because it's the polite thing to do. Peitho seems to be curiously drinking in the subtle hints, trying to decipher what's going on, but she doesn't have to do the sensory-based detective operation for long. Harry presses the head against her clothed cunt, coaxing another soft gasp as he toggles it to life.

"How long d'you think it'll take to soak these all the way through?" he ponders, thumbing at the hem of her knickers, and Peitho sinks back against the mattress, like the sensation is too much to bear when he shifts the setting to a higher one without warning.

"Oh..."

"Not too long, it seems," the man feels a cocky curve overtaking his mouth as he watches moisture rapidly over the fabric upon the assault of the rumbling.

Isla feels that familiar warmth slinking down through to the trench of her tummy, sinking, coiling, and as pleasure pulses through her at an increasingly alarming pace, she can only hope that he doesn't plan to reenact the Edging Fiasco from the prior week. Surely, he won't let her reach her peak so early in the night. Despite her best efforts, the pleasure swells and overtakes her, and with her voice lacking any sort of stability, the pleads spit off her tongue on their own accord, "Oh — Sir — I'm gonna—"

"No. Don't tell me. Ask me."

Regardless of any hankering to fight him and the rapturous sensation (he won't let her have the orgasm, anyways, she thinks, he won't), the craving to restrict his opportunity to shut her down with self-satisfaction, Isla feels her body giving in before her mind. She rocks in the ropes, tensed.

"Please, may I cum, Sir?" the young woman grits out, fully expecting to be shut down.

"Sure, darling. Cum."

The unbridled permission catches Isla so off guard that, for a moment, her jaw just unhinges in a mesh of a moan and a balk. Her nerve endings catch up quickly enough, though, and after only a short moment encompassing a buzzing and an otherwise patient lull from the dominant, her lips tremble and a crease works its way over her brow bone.

"Oh, fuck," she whines through it, frozen up, and then rocks and spasms as the tide ebbs. The toy shuts off, and she takes the break to breathe. Those seem to be sporadic and a generosity.

She had an inkling, is the thing; when he'd inquired whether she had a particular attachment to the panties she had on for the night. It implied one of two potentialities — that he was interested in tearing them off, or that he was interested in cutting them off. Regardless, as he'd tied her, winding ropes over flesh with cautious expertise, he'd left the underwear on — which had only further confirmed her suspicions.

He hammers the nail into the coffin when she feels the crotch of her fabric become tugged back, and she hears a low, "I think s'about time for these to come off, don't you?"

Her ears pick up a snip, and then another tug, this one to, she assumes, get access closer to the side. A second snip comes, and following that is an unceremonious yank that leaves Isla scrabbling for purchase in the ropes. He's just cut her panties off with safety scissors.

Self-satisfied, Harry discards the flimsy, tattered remains of the article. Well. It'd been an article. Now, it's just sort of a rag sullied with arousal. He can't curb the cocky smirk that snakes its way over his mouth. The thought of her fixing on the dress she'd worn to the club, disrobing her mask, and settling into the driver's side of her vehicle, pantiless and forced to recollect the night because she's pantiless, makes his libido stir.

"Much better," he smooths a palm over the right globe of her ass, and her toes twitch. Then, he removes his touch altogether and picks up the pretty, jet, leather paddle that he'd set beside him with his left hand, grasps the wand with the opposite, and stands to amble around to loom over her, behind the metal headboard.

Peitho seems to search for him with the senses she does have availability to, shifting and listening carefully. He allows for himself to indulge in her apprehension for a moment, and then clears his throat to cue that he's behind her.

"This is the fun part," his cadence is bright, but anything implied to be fun by Eros could suggest all sorts of cruelties, so Isla bites into her cheek, "You get two choices. Sort of a choose-your-own-fate type of thing."

The corners of his mouth jolt wickedly as she squirms, and then he lifts the paddle in his left grip, eyeing over the neat stitching, "Left—"

Isla's lips tremble at the sound of a whoosh and a deafening clang against the metal. It's not against her, but she jumps as if she bears the blow.

"Or," a pause, then. Nothing.

"Or?" Isla prods, ashamed that her voice comes out so small.

"Or ...right. Exciting, innit? You get to pick."

Isla contemplates his game, then tells him, after a second, "Can I hear what's behind door number two?"

"Nope," the dominant overhead tells her definitively, popping the 'p', "Wouldn't be fun if I made it so easy, pet. Come on."

Isla scoffs. A clang or nothingness. Those are her hints. He's a wicked, evil menace. She deliberates. The clang — surely it'd been an implement of some sort. He wouldn't just bash a vibrator against a headboard, and a set of clamps, or a gag — those wouldn't cause that clang. She ruminates over the potentiality of the implement — a paddle, a strap, a ...cane. The prospects wallop about her skull. Surely, not a cane. The opposite option was an animal she couldn't begin to decipher.

"Tick-tock," Harry goads, basking in her sharp inhale, "F'course, I could always choose for you. Just thought I'd be nice."

Her hands form into fists, and as he leans over her, his cadence is soft, "So what are we going with, sweetheart? Left or right?"

"The — the second one," Peitho tells him finally, shaking her head.

"The...?" the male raised an eyebrow for clarification.

"The right," her mouth sets into a line, and Harry eyes the vibrator, his gloved, right palm wrapped over the stem.

"The right. Very adventurous. S'that your final choice?" his tongue digs into his cheek when Peitho doesn't forge an immediate response, as if his teasing has dug her back into deliberation, and Harry's half-certain she'll appeal to swap choices when her mouth does open.

Instead, what he gets is a determined, "Yes, Sir."

So he winds around her, back to the foot of the bed, and sets the paddle onto the floor before settling into a criss-cross sit ahead of her cunt.

"Right it is."

Slowly, he trails a fingertip down the center of one of her feet. His mouth quirks. Her toes twitch. And then they tense and curl when he reintroduces the vibrator, already buzzing before it reaches her skin.

Helplessly, just the way Harry likes to see, Peitho writhes. For a little bit, he just pets over her backside, the backs of her thighs, keeping the wand pressed flush to her core, just reveling in the little sounds she makes. Occasionally, he'll grab out at a foot, teasingly, and he'll revel in the way she attempts to kick him off and fails, too. He watches the build of her pleasure, the climb up the staircase, imbibing in the subtle shifts of her body language; the way her breathing grows shallower, the way her feet twitch, the way her fingers scrunch. It's not long before her mouth falls open.

All that escapes is a breathy question harboring nearly no spaces in between words, as if she's held it in and simply no longer can, "MayIcumSir?"

"Cum," he responds, dominance coating the word.

Almost instantly, Peitho contorts, her back arching seemingly as much as it can in a limited range, and Harry watches veins strain divinely behind the skin of her neck. She's got a pleasant flush glowing all over her, he notes, then. Matchy-matchy, from the redness down her chest, to her backside, to the shade of polish on her toes. It's wonderful.

As the wand buzzes incessantly and doesn't let up over her cunt, Isla has difficulty herding a coherent strain of thoughts together. It's a ludicrously arduous task, all things considered. But the first thing she wonders, on the come-down of the crest, are the motives behind his uncharacteristic generosity. She flinches in the ropes, biting back a whine at the overstimulation.

"Stay still," Eros instructs, and though his tone carries no hardness in the command, there's certainly a patronizing air to it, "Know you've got another in you. We're not giving up already, are we, darling?"

And then it hits her.

And next time, I'll make you cum four times.

A shudder rolls down the knobs of her spine as it clicks, and, like he's recognized the recognition written over her face, Isla hears the dominant say, "Promised you four, didn't I? And, y'know, follow-through is so important."

Four? Isla shifts in the restraints, rocking and writhing.

"Stay still," his tone is harder as he repeats himself, but Isla just continues to writhe. When he pulls the vibrator away, only to tug up the hood of her clit, reintroduce the vibrator, and tells her, low and tantalizing and filthy, "Show me that little clit," she nearly rolls off the bed. She doesn't, partly because her hair is tied to the headboard, and mostly because he removes the hand that'd tucked up the hood of her clit in lieu of steadying her and making sure she doesn't roll off the bed and rip her hair out.

"No," she struggles, hips canting, and laughter tails her shriek as he smacks out at her inner thigh harshly.

"No? You're telling me no?" he shuts the vibrator off, and his voice is deceptively mirthy, "Y'don't wanna do it the nice way?"

"Not particularly," Isla chortles, and when he sighs, feigning exasperation, Isla laughs harder, her eyes squeezing shut even as he unclasps the blindfold, removes it, and winds about her to the other side of the room. When she does open her eyes, the buttery lightbulbs are near-blinding.

"Don't wanna just lay there and cum?" his voice carries from a distance, and Isla tries to twist in her restraints to see what he's doing, her attempt proving futile, "I've made it so easy for you, too. S'quite a simple task."

"I'm overstimulated!" the young woman reasons. All she gets, for a moment, is a hum of faux understanding in response.

"You," Harry's pupils rake over the wall of implements, "are such a brat. Honestly."

Even with an inkling of dread starting its flourish in her chest, Isla forces a smile, "You know, I've heard that one before. But it's no fun to just do things your way."

"No? No fun to be a good girl?" the racket of implements scraping and budging as he makes a selection makes her shoulders tense, "How about we make it miserable to be a brat? How's that sound?"

"That doesn't sound fun, either," she bites into her lip.

Another sigh that siphons a soft laugh to mask her anxiety, even as he winds about her, "Well there's no satisfying you, it seems, then."

Isla purses her lips. She thinks, maybe, he's wearing a grin, but it's impossible to tell from the angle and the haze her eyes have succumbed to in the expanse of time they'd spent blinded.

"What is," he leans over her, upside down through her perspective, just as she to him, "your fourth commandment of submission?"

That, she has an easy answer for. Isla blinks up through the lace, and then answers, cheekily, "Enjoy pleasures."

His head tilts in a way that daunts her, "Maybe that's your fourth commandment, but it's certainly not on the list that I gave you."

"I suppose it's not — but I follow my own commandments. They're my commandments to follow anyways, aren't they?"

The third sigh. The charm. He rounds the bed, to her side, and her pupils follow his figure.

"I think," when she watches Eros withdraw a long, thin cane from beside the bed, in mortified recognition, all composure crumbles, and she thrashes in the restraints, "this will help you remember."

The young woman attempts to kick out with one of her feet to ward the horrid object away, but the motion only jostles the rest of her slightly, and she stays woefully restrained.

"Right? This'll," Harry pauses to press the cane to her backside, siphoning a squeal from Peitho and another bout of hopeless writhing, "jog your memory? Won't it?"

She starts crying then, he thinks, just as she'd warned she would, if the jolt and tremble of her shoulders and her ribcage is any indication, and soft, pretty words finally spill from her typically insolent mouth, "Please, please, please."

"Please? Please, what? That's not your fourth commandment," the man laughs.

"Ple— please," Isla pauses to take a breath, her cadence shuddery, and she tenses as he presses the cane back against her skin, crying out, "Please don't use that!"

There's a wry mirth that curls and snakes around the syllables as they roll off his tongue. Eros tuts, "We're already begging? I've not done anything to you, yet."

Yet. The notion makes her groan and erupt in sobs that are only cut short only by a shriek in response to him feigning to draw the cane back and to only settle it back gently against the crease on the backs of her thighs. As he rubs a line with it, back and forth, her feet shake in their bindings. That does something for him — something for the dark, twisted, ugly part that rears itself only in play, that all-consuming fragment that just hungers for it.

"All I do is take out a big stick, and you're crying?" Harry speaks over her sobs, cocking his head and huffing a short laugh out through the unzipped slit over his lips, "Really? I haven't given you anything to cry about."

When she's unable to stifle her cries, whining and whimpering, he just gives her an incredulous look full of mockery, "Oh, come on, darling. It's not even the long one, s'the easy, short one, and you don't remember?"

She just whines, frozen up. So, naturally, the man tuts and slams the cane onto the mattress with a frightful whoosh, just in front of where she's on display for him. Isla shrieks. He leans over her, hovering over her side, and cradles her jawline in his palm, squeezing her cheeks.

And despite it all, that rush of adrenaline that shoots through her veins is only chased by want.

"Do you remember now, your fourth commandment?" Eros questions, tone hard and brimming with dominance.

His timbre is sharp and biting, but it doesn't coax her to melt under his touch as much as the reminder of the cane nestled to her skin does.

"I'm — I'm sorry, I don't — I don't..."

Eros tuts again (it's like a bad omen, honestly), and she shies away as best she can in her binds when he straightens up and reintroduces that mortifying implement, "Still don't remember? S'shame. Should I hit you with this four times?"

Isla sobs.

"Four times for your fourth commandment? You'll remember this as a lesson if I do."

"No!" the young woman thrashes, writhes, and she nearly slips off the edge in the process, "No! Don't — please, please!"

Instantly, his hand is on her leg to stabilize her, but the grip only incites her to flail further, so Harry tells her, with no jesting to his tone, "Stop. You're going to fall off the bed."

After a moment, once she's regulated her breathing into somewhat controlled hiccups, and her limbs have ceased in their attempts to thrash, Harry lets go of the back of her thigh.

"I'll help you out — discipline," he tilts his head a smidge, squishing her cheeks, "'The submissive will accept discipline.' Repeat it, so it sticks."

"The submissive will accept d-discipline," Isla blows out a shuddery breath.

"And do you accept your discipline, love?" he digs his thumb below her cheekbone harshly and the young woman keens.

"I — I..." she sort of melts into another bout of sobs at the prospect of accepting her discipline with a cane in order to please him.

What a shoddy commandment. She can feel herself seeping, is the thing, though — amidst the fear, amidst the panic, fiery warmth pulsing between her sweaty thighs. The link between her brain and her horny hormones is, like, beyond fucking broken or something, she decides.

For a second, Harry pauses. She's absolutely glistening, and she doesn't make any cues that she's inclined to safe, but the way she's opted to nearly flail off the bed and rip her hair out in the process is ...an intense reaction, to say the least. Fear play was a tricky thing — as all intense aspects of kink seemed to be (tricky). It was all about trust, it was all about acknowledging that the fear thing wouldn't inflict terror beyond the initial fear, right? But the way she just sort of ...succumbs to it, that leaves room for him to pause. She knows that they follow the limits, she should know, Harry thinks, and he's sure she does — that she recognizes that nothing goes beyond priorly negotiated play. But the reaction she has, although setting his libido ablaze, is a pretty fucking intense one, and given that fear play is intense, he figures being soft to check in on their first go-round won't kill the scene.

When he sets the cane down again, he does it quietly, and his touch is as gentle as his cadence, "Breathe. In and out." He strokes his thumb over her bottom lip, smearing her drool, "You're okay. In and out. M'not gonna hurt you." The sentiment is unsaid but there; do you need to safe out? He doesn't say it, because being soft is checking in enough, breaking character enough.

It's the right move, evidently, because she seems to focus on his words then, and him, taking on the task of regulating her breaths. He coaxes her to calm down, and after a little while, he withdraws, blowing out his own exhale for semblance, and runs his palm over the back of her nude thigh. Fuck. The way he's rock hard is proper evil.

"Are you going to be a good, sweet girl for me? Because," Eros pauses his manipulations, casting his gaze back and retrieving the cane to press it against her backside. Isla cries out. "If you're going to keep being a brat — and, darling, I didn't want it to come to this, but I can use the cane," he pretends to ponder over her pitiful, drawn out nooooo, "if that's what you're interested in."

"I'll be good, I'll be good," Isla promises, chest heaving, her nods jerky and small, "I'll be a good girl," she amends, taking a deep, shuddery breath as he pauses in contemplation.

"Then we don't need to use the cane."

Isla's eyes slip shut in a wave of relief beneath the veil of the mask. Eros palms over her jawline for a moment, and she melts into it. His grip is sturdy, but his tone is soft and alleviating. Then, his thumb grazes across her bottom lip, and he pats her cheek as he withdraws, "Do we?"

Peitho shakes her head slowly at him, sniffling, her voice small, "No, we don't, Sir."

And the softness of his touch, the way his tone contrasts against his words in such a provocative way, has her breath catching in her throat, "Fuck. Wish I could see those pretty tears."

When he sets the cane against the headboard, though, she's still squirming, so he raises a brow and leans over to roll it beneath the bed. That seems to do the trick. Out of sight, out of mind.

They're definitely going to talk about it, Harry decides.

For now, he works on unraveling the wrapping over her ponytail. Once that's freed, he tugs her hair tie off, mindful to grip at the base to avoid afflictive yanking, and he runs his fingers through the newly-loose tendrils to curb discomfort. She shakes her head. Next are her limbs, and he gets to work on the knots braided over her calves and her forearms. Peitho lets him, though he's sure she's bemused by the task, and he tugs the ropes off carefully, setting them beside her onto the mattress.

"Are we," Peitho clears her throat. There's no crying to her tone, anymore, but the statement still comes out with a bit of a rasp, "Are we done? Sir?"

If he's not mistaken, there's definitely a tinge of disappointment to her cadence. He looks up to her pointedly.

"No. You still owe me two more."

Despite the havoc the scene has reaped on her thus far, of course, arousal courses through her veins with each and every decision Eros makes, and his definitive words send thrilling want sparking through her.

"Unless you'd like to be done, pet?"

"No," her tongue peeks out to swipe over her pouty, raspberry lips, "No, Sir."

He pats her thigh and orders, "All fours."

So she clambers into the instructed position, earning a helping hand in the form of a smack (it's not nearly as hard as he can deliver, she's well aware) to the back of her thigh when she stalls.

"Put your arms down," she hears from behind, and then she feels his palm glide between her shoulder blades in coaxing, "Arch your back. Beautiful. And," he taps onto her tricep, "straighten your arms out, next to your legs."

Once she's done that, he gets to work with binding the ropes onto her wrists, joining them with her ankles, and securing knots deftly. And once that's wrapped up, he tests the knots, asking about her comfort, and knees his way off the bed to gather some more supplies. This time, he culls a roll of onyx bondage tape and a bottle of lubricant (from his own duffel).

"Having a good time, love?" he half-jests once he's kneed his way back onto the mattress behind her.

He expects a hum, or silence, or a jab back, but the "Yes, Sir," and the dreamy sigh he receives carries so much earnest sincerity that he can't help but to fondle over her backside fondly. Alas, he must break the caress to find the wand, and when he does, she whines.

"Be quiet," the dominant tells her, though there's no true chastising to his cadence, "Desperate, little thing."

Isla shivers in the restraints. Her ears pick up on the sound of tape unsticking (she presumes he uses his teeth to rip it off). Then, the head of the wand presses up between her splayed thighs, and she hears a click before it buzzes alive.

"S'good there?" Eros prods, but she's sure he can tell from her muscles melting that, yes, it's good.

"Mm-Mhm," is all she can manage, and a sliver of tape begins to wind over her thigh, fastening the stimulation of the toy. This time, when he withdraws, it's easier to focus her attention onto the buzzing against her cunt and not his lack of attention on her. When he comes back, Isla vaguely picks up on another click, a pause, a second click. And then something cold unfamiliarly presses to her hole. Her entire body twitches.

The motion doesn't seem to discourage Eros, though, because he just grips over her hip with his pleather-clad hand and grazes her skin with his thumb as whatever the other thing is strokes between her cheeks. It's his digit, Isla discovers — eventually, the stroking goes to prodding, and the prodding goes to dipping, and he dips the tip of his digit into her.

Helplessly, she squeaks, and the sensation from the vibrator swallows the initial discomfort of the stretch. As his finger delves deeper, however, she bites into her lip and attempts to stretch away. That he has a different reaction to.

"Excuse me?" the man pauses, and then smacks her with the hand that'd been holding onto her hip so sweetly only moments prior, "Don't move."

She's pretty good from there. She sighs into it as Harry lets his middle finger venture, sliding carefully and withdrawing slowly. It's a sight. This is the wallet picture, it's this one, he decides. Her hands bound to her ankles, her back arched beautifully, her hair cascading to one side of the mattress and the other showcasing a gorgeous view of her side-profile, her parted, swollen-from-teeth mouth. The gem of the image is, perhaps, the way her ass swallows his finger like it was fucking made for it.

"Christ, baby," he says after a little while, almost in awe, "F'you could just see the way your arse takes me."

Peitho moans. And it doesn't take long, not with the rumbling against her core, not with his finger prodding into her, for her to start absolutely mewling.

"Sir! Sir!"

"Mm?" he digs his digit in, to the hilt, and she groans.

"May I— may I cum?"

"Yes, you may," he tells her, cadence casual, and he fucks in and out slowly as the orgasm rips through her. Harry bridles a groan of his own at the way her muscles spasm over his digit. As her wave of pleasure ebbs, and she jerks, crying out softly from the instant overstimulation, he pulls the finger out carefully, and gets to work on his zipper.

"Oh— oh, Sir, it's a lot, it's, it's—"

"That's okay," he grunts, and her jaw unhinges, grappling for air as his tip tucks into her cunt, "You can give me four, sweetheart. I know you can do it."

He's devious, Isla thinks. He's the fucking devil — he's flayed at her nerve endings, both with the flogger and the vibrator, he's threatened her with a cane (all warranted and welcomed, of course), and now he expects her to give him a fourth climax? Around his dick? Isla thinks of plenty of not-so-nice things to call him, which would, more than likely, necessitate the reintroduction of that horrid, God awful cane, but she can't quite make her mouth move when her system is entirely on overdrive, pumping endorphins and adrenaline.

"Sir!" is the only thing that comes out, choppy and girlish.

The young woman hears his breathy chuckle, and she feels his palm splay over the small of her back as he rocks forward into her. Her lashes flutter behind lace — swirls and patterns turn to indecipherable, dark blurs. The man punches a soft unph when he plunges in, to the hilt, and Isla's thighs tremble pathetically.

She's divine, Harry decides. A fucking angel — taking any and everything he throws her way. The way she imbibes all of his whims and succumbs to him, even post fighting for the upper hand with such moxie, attests to it. Her mouth is a sharp vestibule that softens to his ministrations, and the softness of the sounds he's able to coax are pure fucking heaven. Even her hair seems to curl over the top of her head against the mattress in a makeshift halo, tufts of strands sloping like ethereal interweavings.

Christ, her cunt is pure bliss.

She's so wet around him, is the thing, he can feel her slick arousal seeping down his balls, he can hear it, and with each squishy plunge forward, he feels his resolve chipping away. When he grips onto her hips and starts to really hammer into her, that's when he feels the chips turn to the beginnings of crumbles.

"Christ— you're a nasty, little thing," Harry affirms, breaths jagged and jerky through his filthy, open-mouthed grin, "Aren't you? Let me," his tongue flicks out and sticks to the ends of his front teeth in focus as he hits something within her that incites a loud moan, "tie you up, whip you, let me make you cum, and cum, and cum, cried for me, and you're still begging for more, aren't you?"

In response to her, "yesyesyes," Harry leans forward and abandons one hip in lieu of pursuing a harsh grasp at the hair just above her nape, fingers wedging against her scalp. He jerks her head back so that her neck cranes and the muscles strain, and he plucks a garbled sound from her vocal chords, in the process, that has his balls tightening.

"Say it. Tell me. Tell me you're my dirty, little thing," the man hisses, a vulgar, vile demon overtaking any fragment of his tone that was formerly gentle.

"I'm— yours, your dirty— your dirty, little thing," Isla groans out, eyes unfocused and lazing back through fluttery eyelashes as his hips snap and the wand buzzes against her core.

"You are," the male punctuates his words with his thrusts, his thrusts with his words, "an absolute," an obscene slew of dialogue that has her toes curling and her cunt doing kegels over his cock, "bloody wet dream."

"Oh, God!" she sobs, and he digs the pads of his fingers back into her love handles as he drives his own hips to slam his balls against her.

"Eros, actually," Harry can't even manage a laugh at his own joke, just clinging to the rope over the formidable wave of rapture that wreaks havoc just below, "Eros is making you feel so good, isn't he?"

"Yes, shit, fuck — Eros!"

"I know, baby, I know — tell me how good that cock makes you feel, tell me how good I make you feel."

The way the young woman below him only manages a string of incoherent grunts and squeaks just leaves him breathlessly pummeling into her harder, harsher, faster.

"M'close, baby," he blows out a breath, grunting behind her, and like clockwork, Isla feels her own toes dipping into the waters beneath the precipice. They crash in waves and douse her until all she can accomplish are soft sounds and soft pleas. She's buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, much like the toy taped to her thigh, and vaguely, she recognizes that she's started to drift.

As her warmth spasms over him, Harry digs the pads of his fingers into her flesh, and when she whines out, begging, "May I," he doesn't even wait for her to finish the statement before he tips forward and beckons, "Cum, baby, come on. Give me one more."

When her climax hits her for the fourth and final time in the night, she sounds as if he's fucking murdering her. While she's tangled in the string of her curses and cries, Harry feels his own resolve stutter.

"Good fucking girl," are his final words before his abdomen clenches and the muscles ripple. His balls pulse, and he empties into the condom, groaning. As his hips stagnate falteringly, over the crowding of blood rushing against his eardrums, he vaguely makes out that she's still whimpering like she's being flayed. Carefully, the man withdraws himself and leans over to thumb at the buttons on the wand.

As the toy shuts off, Peitho doesn't seem to regain any semblance of resolve, just whimpering breathily against the mattress, and while he tugs the condom off carefully with one hand, the other occupies itself by petting sweetly over the small of her back, down her hip.

"Sh, sh," he coos as sob rips free at the retraction of his touch, "M'right here, sweetheart. Just cleaning up a bit. S'improper to just leave you like this, and chivalry's not dead, afterall."

His jest doesn't even cull a sniffle that demonstrates she's heard him, and instead she seems to wallow in the aftermath. So, he doesn't bother making it to the bin, and instead opts to tuck the condom into its tattered wrapper before getting to work on her. The first thing that comes off is the wand, and he unwinds the tapes delicately. The next to go are the ropes over her joints, and he discards those onto the floor beside her. She doesn't even slump as he removes the restraints, unwinding the harness over her chest. The young woman just lays there, pitifully, like she's stuck, and he stands to squat beside the bed and rake his fingers through her sweaty hair.

His mouth brushes against her ear and he presses to her and praises, "My sweet girl. M'so proud of you, pet." He lets his hand slip from her hair to her back, just petting down her spine, "Took everything I gave you so well, just like you always do. Such a good girl."

She melts beneath his touch, sighing softly, and he croons, "Need you to do one more thing for me, sweetheart. Need you to sit up a bit so I can hold you. Can you do that for me?"

Isla decides she absolutely cannot do anything. She'll always find herself sort of slipping with a particularly good scene, but for some reason or another, fear play always seems to do the trick. It sends her spiraling out into open ocean with nothing but a raft, where she basks in the sunlight thoughtlessly, until inevitably, she's tugged back to shore.

Peitho just hums.

She's always a mushy, dulcet mess once the toys go away, but Harry can sense that something has shifted ...further, tonight. Slowly, he presses a kiss to her temple and stands to sit her up manually. She goes easily enough, letting him steer her up and practically falls back against his chest once he's sat behind her. She's not dead weight for long, though, because the more he croons against the shell of her ear, the more inclined she seems to become to cling to him, and eventually, the submissive turns on her own accord and burrows into his chest.

"Wasn't too rough with my girl, was I?" he presses his chin to the top of her head, and she sticks her fingers past the space where a few buttons on his collar have gone loose. She holds onto his shirt like a lifeline, and for a moment, Harry's heart stutters in his chest. Then, she shakes her head. It's a minute movement, just barely, pressed against him, but it's an answer.

She needs water, Harry decides, and she needs to stretch. He needs to massage her neck, her shoulders, run soft touches over the areas of her skin where pretty rope tracks have imprinted. He needs to make her promise that she'll sit in a hot bath once she gets home. But that'll come later. For a little while, he just lets her burrow into him and he runs his fingers through her hair and whispers nice things to her, like he always does. For now, he settles for wordless clinging, familiarizing himself with the bridge.

Because he knows that with each passing week, he'll just keep ruining her.

TDIAG MASTERLIST HERE

#dom harry styles #harry styles #harry styles dirty fanfiction #harry styles dirty one shot #harry styles edit #harry styles edits #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles one shot #harry styles smut #harry styles wattpad #harry styles x oc #harry styles writing #domharry #dom!harry #harry styles angst #1800titz #1-800-tits #TDIAG

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merlieve · 2 years

Note

For your bridgerton requests, do you write dark obsessive/possessive stuff? If so, can I get a dark!anthony bridgerton x innocent naive!reader and jealousy? (If not, you can just ignore me 🙈 sorry)

training wheels I :: anthony bridgerton x reader

CHAPTER ONE. WHEELS AREN’T EVEN TOUCHING THE GROUND. Fem! Reader. (She/Her). 2k words.

[ Note: I have too many ideas with this prompt, so I made it a series! NEW LAYOUT UPDATED]

Warning/s: Possessive Anthony, Friendzone-d Anthony

I do not allow my works to be published on another site, so please check in with me, or at least give credit!

Anthony and [Name] have been friends for as long as they can recall, their fathers met at Oxford, where they finished their studies. When Edmund passed away, [Father’s Name] didn’t take it nicely, he fled the country, but that didn’t stop Anthony and [Name] from writing letters to each other, they always kept in touch. Though this season, [Name] didn’t write back to Anthony.

[Name]’s at the ripe age of eighteen, her family thought she was ready to debut, so her family voyaged back to London to find a husband for her. She was a daughter of a duke and duchess, so she had no problem with rank. She was nervous, her mother had been teaching her about the fine arts and learning different languages to entertain her husband, she didn’t like how she was doing all of this, not for herself, but for her future husband. And because of all of this, [Name] didn’t have the time to exchange regards with friends, whether it’d be Anthony or not.

“[Name], wake up! We’re here,” Beamed [Sister’s Name] as she practically yelled at [Name]’s poor ear. “How long was I asleep for?! I certainly didn’t expect we’d be here so early,” Yawned [Name] while getting off of the black carriage. Her sister and she took a moment to take in the London air that had bestowed upon them. The housekeepers and maids stood on the stairs as they greeted their employers.

“I want to thank you, Eliza, for taking care of our house after all these years!” Gasped [Father’s Name], “Do not thank me, Your Grace, for it is simply my job to take care of your fine home,” Smiled Eliza, the head housekeeper.

“I haven’t seen this house in years! The Deja vû I got,” Sighed [Mother’s Name] as she reflected on her memories when she was a young woman in London. “Hurry up, I can’t wait!” Spoke [Sister’s Name] as she opened the door to reveal their old home, the entryway filled with flowers, and the family colours. “It’s marvellous!” Stated [Sister’s Name], as she smelled the flower next to her, resulting in her sneezing in the process.

“When you were a baby, you always drew on the wall! Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again,” Winked Eliza to [Sister’s Name]. Eliza was like a second mother to them, she helped [Mother’s Name] put them to sleep, eat, and keep them entertained when their parents aren’t home, [Sister’s Name] may not remember it but [Name] did, she kept in touch with Eliza whenever her mother sends a letter out to the housekeepers.

[Name] ran up to her room in excitement, when she walked in she froze up, remembering the times Anthony and her would play with her dolls while their mothers watch them. Oh, God, she forgot to tell Anthony she was back in London nor did she have the time to. But [Name] decided to surprise him at Lady Danbury’s ball.

The Bridgerton household stayed the same. Hyacinth and Gregory playing in the corridors, Francesca and Eloise minding their own business, Anthony writing on his notepad and Benedict illustrating his future masterpiece. Eloise was reading the new issue of Whistledown that came out this forenoon, sharing her comments to Francesca as rolled her eyes at her sister, though a particular paragraph had caught her eye.

“The [Last Name]’s are in London!” Beamed Francesca, a smile smeared on her face. Her outburst made everyone stop what their doing. “Oh! How wonderful, we should pay them a visit shall we?” Clapped Violet, “We haven’t seen them in so long,” Everyone started making plans, but Anthony didn’t care for a word they said, he missed [Name] truly, though why didn’t she tell him they were coming back to Mayfair? Did she not want him to know? All these questions flooded Anthony’s mind. “Anthony, may you clear tomorrow for us? I shall write a letter to Daphne to tell her the great news!” Smiled Violet, as she looked at everyone with delight.

Anthony didn’t know why he was angry that she didn’t tell him she was going back to London. He was worried for her that’s all… “Err - yes, mama, I shall,” He nodded in his mother’s direction and left to go to his study, which was filled with notepads and stacks of paper waiting to be signed. He walks over to his desk, showing an unfinished letter he was going to give to [Name], as he looked at it longer he felt pathetic, and Anthony hated that. [Full Name] had Anthony Bridgerton wrapped around her finger and she never knew it.

[Name] was innocent and sinless, so Anthony had no reason to think of her at night. His feelings for [Name] grew each time they wrote to each other. Hell, he forgot what she looked like, and that made him eager to see her again. When Colin was off on his travels, he stopped by to see the [Last Name]’s, and that made Anthony wish he came when Colin offered him to visit [Country Name]. Colin described [Name] was more mature than before, well, it was obvious it had been YEARS since they saw each other. He could only picture her as what Colin described, which made him yearn to see her.

In honour of the first ball of the reason, Lady Danbury embellished the ballroom with flowers of all sorts, and her decorating was divine. Even the Queen commented on this floral set-up. The orchestra prepared an exquisite song as people started dancing in the centre.

After the song ended, the Bridgertons finally arrived at the venue, Eloise holding on to her dear mama’s arm for her life. She looked very uncomfortable wearing the dress, as she started moving around to find a less itchy spot. “Stop fussing with your dress,” Ordered Anthony, his mind plagued seeing [Name] tonight. “You look lovely, dear,” Complimented Violet, while she looked around smiling. “I look like a prize calf trussed up for auction!” Fumed Eloise stubbornly, Benedict thought it was funny to moo at Eloise in the process.

“Even Daphne thought most apprehensive at her first official ball and look how well her season turned out,” Scolded Violet, making Eloise change her mind a little… It didn't last long until a gentleman started to approach Eloise, Benedict made an excuse about cakes and left with Eloise, making the gentleman feel disappointed.

It was only Violet and Anthony left. “It truly is a sparse crop,” Complained Anthony, as he looked around the room. “Well, I’m sure there is someone here who would charm you, maybe a specific [Last Name]” Smirked Violet. Anthony looked at her with shocking eyes.

“After all this is the season the Viscount intends to find a wife!” Giggled Violet, emphasizing the wife part, making mamas and debutants look in their direction. “You honestly just did that?!” Whisper shouted Anthony, as he looked at his mother in disbelief. “I believe I did,” Teased Violet as mamas find their way to approach him with their daughters, practically begging for him to dance with them.

“-The Viscount intends to find a wife!” A voice all too acquainted echoed along with the gallery. “My, my, could it be?” Gasped [Mother’s Name], looking at where the noise came from. Aside from the hoard of suitor hungry mamas, she found the right person she was looking for.

“Well, if it isn’t Violet Bridgerton!” Smiled [Mother’s Name] as she dragged the rest of the family behind her. “Lady [Last Name],what a surprise! I’ve heard about your arrival yesterday, I trust you have settled in?” Chattered Violet, delighted seeing the [Last Name]’s after years. “Why, yes, we have,” - “What brings you back to London? Getting little [Name] out to society I hope?” Inquired Violet, looking at [Name] as she smiled at the young girl.

“My, how you have grown! The last time I saw you, you were as short as a cotton ball, and [Sister’s Name] you were just a baby when I first saw you!” Sighed Violet, remembering the good memories. “You must be eager to see Anthony again, are you? You two were like two peas in a pod! However, he is quite busy,” The [Last Name]’s followed Violet’s gaze on Anthony, looking too overwhelmed with the various ladies beseeching him to dance with them, their mamas following with ‘You must get to know her, she is a great dancer!’.

Accepting his fate, almost every woman’s dance card is filled with his name on it. Anthony looked around, trying to find a familiar face when he saw someone he knew all too well. He practically rushed, he waited his whole life for this moment. Anthony didn’t care if he hit a person or two, he just had to see her again, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, dreaming about her, and reminiscing about her. There it was… the spark, he knew he had met her.

“[Name]...” Whispered Anthony, his heart was beating fast and his palms were getting sweaty, he waited for this moment to come, hell, he even IMAGINED it, [Name] would be lying if she didn’t say she did the same. “A-Anthony?!” Exclaimed [Name], her eyes couldn’t believe her, they both wish they could hug each other without society turning it into a scandal. Anthony looked mature… and deadly attractive, but we don’t talk about that. Anthony swore this was the first genuine smile he made, words couldn’t explain how happy he was. He felt comfortable around her, and she felt the same. Their eyes were filled with tears they refused to let go,

Anthony had to contain himself from embracing her, [Name] almost fainted, she felt her glass slipping away from her fingers, she didn’t have the time to process what was happening. The sound of glass shattering made people look their way, [Name] felt embarrassed. “O-Oh… I didn’t mean to,” - “No worries, I’ll get it,” Anthony interrupted, he grabbed the shards of glass with the protection of his gloves. He gave the rest to a nearby butler. “Thank you, Anthony,” Smiled [Name], still feeling small after her incident. “You’re very welcome, [Name]. It is good - GREAT to see you again,” Laughed Anthony, making [Name] laugh with him. “Can’t you believe it’s been years since we saw each other?! You look so… Viscount-y?”

“Ah, yes, Viscount-y… my favourite word! I make people use it instead of Viscount since it’s too bland and Viscount-y feels very lively,” Anthony jokes, [Name] was glad he never changed over these years. “Should I call you Viscount now?” Asked [Name], she didn’t want to be disrespectful to Anthony’s name, she was used to calling him Anthony all these years. “No need, you are my dearest friend, you deserve calling me by my first name after all the burden that is me that YOU put up with,” Exclaimed Anthony, taking a sip from the champagne the waiter served.

“Enough about my title, how have you been?” Inquired Anthony, focusing on [Name]. “Life has been great, my mama’s pretty excited with me coming out into society,” Smiled [Name], Anthony felt a ping, ‘so she’s a debutante?’ Anthony thought this was his chance.. but the thought of other people considering her as an eligible bachelorette bothered him, he didn’t know why.

“Are you alright, Anthony? You look lost in thought,” Commented [Name], looking at Anthony with worried eyes, Oh, don’t get him started with her eyes, her eyes were pure, innocent, angelic like. “S-sorry, I remembered I have to dance with a few ladies…” Anthony excused, his excuse was true, he forgot everything after he saw [Name], he wanted nothing but to be with her, he wanted to protect her, and he wanted her to trust him enough to let him in. “Oh… alright! Have a great night, Anthony,” She sounded disappointed, she WAS disappointed, but she shoved it down, knowing they had to part in some time of the night. Anthony hesitantly walked away, looking back at [Name], he didn’t want to leave her, her presence made him comfortable, her scent was lustrous, and she was absolutely delicate.

Anthony went to one of the women he signed up to dance with, and before the music started, he saw [Name]… dancing with another man. He didn’t know why he was jealous, or why he cared, but nonetheless, the thought of her marrying another man made him sick to his stomach. He thought he was the perfect fit for [Name], they fit together like a glove, not the mention they have been friends when they were both as small as a biscuit.

Anthony wanted her, she only thought of him as a brother. He knew that she told him before that he was her older brother she never had, and he wanted to change that.

#bridgerton #anthony bridgerton #anthony bridgerton x reader #dark!anthony bridgerton x reader #requested #bridgerton netflix #anthony bridgerton x you #anthony bridgerton x female reader #jonathan bailey #anthony bridgerton fic #anthony bridgerton drabble #merlieve’s fics ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

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burnwater13 · 5 months

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Grogu Illustration from the Mandalorian a Day Calendar 2023, December 9/10

Concept art by Ryan Church

Grogu looked at the calendar and sighed. The year was almost over. Time was running out. What was he supposed to do? How could he meet his resolutions for the year if he ran out of time? It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t right! It wasn’t like he hadn’t asked his dad a thousand times to let him find out what happened to the Trexler Marauder that Cara Dune and Greef Karga had taken from the Imp base.

His dad had no sympathy for his dilemma. He said that resolving to get an operator’s authorization for the Marauder wasn’t a real resolution. Grogu had argued that it was real and it made sense and that he was deeply disappointed in the Mandalorian for being such a stubborn gundark. His dad had shrugged and told him he was being redundant. Huh? Whatever. No sympathy. That was the point. No sympathy.

Sure, when you read the list of Grogu’s resolutions for the year you could argue that they had been pretty easy to meet. Eat more frogs. Eat more gorgs. Try new things to eat. Learn to knit. Make Fennec laugh. Make Peli Motto cry. Have Greef Karga apologize for all the times he called on Grogu to do the ‘magic hand thing’. Get his dad to spit out his food because he was laughing so hard (that had happened when Grogu made Peli cry. It was a pretty good two-for). And finally, obtain an operator’s authorization for a mark five Trexler Marauder.

He had placed little check marks by everything but that last item and it vexed him.

His dad had gotten him an umbrella instead and while Grogu really liked the umbrella; it was pretty; the colors of the rainbow covered it and it also had all sorts of critters on it in silhouette and it smelled like sunshine and sand (he had no idea how that worked, he just accepted it as a truth and moved on).

His dad thought the only reason he wanted to operate the Marauder was to avoid getting clunked on the head by acorns should they ever visit Endor again. Like that was going to happen any time soon if Grogu had anything to say about it. But that wasn’t the actual reason Grogu had put that on his resolutions list 344 days ago, not a couple of months ago. Grogu had given his dad a copy of his resolution list at the beginning the year, but of course the Mandalorian hadn’t read it. He claimed he did but then he also claimed that Grogu’s handwriting was indecipherable.

Apparently when the Mandalorian had a meeting with Daimyo Fett and Administrator Shand before the new year, Fennec had commented that you had to have a plan to get what you wanted or words to that affect. Grogu thought she actually said ‘you can’t hit what you don’t aim at’ which seemed a lot more in character for her. Anyway, after that meeting, Din Djarin suggested that they both develop a list of resolutions about things they wanted to do or learn or stop doing. That had seemed simple enough.

Until his dad started giving him suggestions on what to put on his list. Things like, stop waking the Mandalorian up in the middle of the night to ask for a story, a cup of broth, or to return to wherever they had last been to retrieve his silver ball because he was pretty sure that he had left it there even after the bounty hunter had reminded him to make sure he had it and Grogu had said ‘Yes, of course I have it, why wouldn’t I have it? You don’t trust me.’ And other things a lot like that. It was a disappointing list to say the least.

Grogu had handed his dad a list of things to include on his own list based on that exchange. Number one on that list was ‘Don’t wear your helmet all the time’. Number two on that list was ‘Eat something other than rations once in a while’. Also making the top ten were: don’t make caf if you won’t share it; telling Grogu how armor polish was made did not qualify as a bedtime story; if Grogu had to put things back where he found them, so did Mr. Mandalorian snoop who took the hidden snacks from the N-1 whenever he found them; only sing in the ‘fresher after putting his helmet on mute; don’t ask Grogu to do the ‘magic hand thing’ on Greef Karga’s behalf; and accept that Jedi were just better at certain things than Mandalorians.

It was that last one that Grogu was certain had fouled up his quest for Marauder authorization. Grogu had explained to his dad that the Jedi took vehicle operations very seriously and were good and careful operators at all times. It was just the way they were.

The Mandalorian had laughed and asked Grogu if he had noticed all the ways Ahsoka Tano’s ship had been damaged and repaired. Grogu had reminded his dad that he was the one who needed Mon Calamari to repair the Razor Crest after he crashed it on Maldo Kreis. Din Djarin had argued it hadn’t been a crash at all. Technically it was known as a ‘hard landing’ and that wasn’t the same as a crash at all. Grogu said they could agree to disagree and his dad said that he would only agree that Jedi were better at operating vehicles when Grogu could operate the Marauder!

That had convinced Grogu to put the authorization on his resolution list. He would learn to do it and then show his dad he was a great vehicle operator. Of course he hadn’t counted on his dad’s consistent refusal to teach him how to operate the vehicle.

Sure, the first half of the year, neither one of them had any idea what had happened to huge armorer transport. Then, when they had come back from a trip to Mandalore, they discovered that IG-11-M had been using it to haul materials out of the old Imp base because the droid had reasoned that fewer criminal elements would show up on Nevarro looking for the stuff if Greef Karga had already re-purposed it all. Grogu was sure that made sense to someone.

IG-11-M mentioned that it would be available for training missions when that task was complete. Grogu was glad about that. It meant that he still had time. Shortly after that conversation with the Marshal his dad agreed to go to Endor and the whole mess with the critters happened. That just doubled Grogu’s resolve. He needed that authorization for a very practical reason now. (And yes, he understood that there was no way to take the Marauder to Endor in the N-1. But the authorization could be added to his chain code and he could use that kind of equipment anywhere!)

But no matter what he did or said or begged his dad, the Mandalorian, Din Djarin, Bounty Hunter, First of his line, leader of Clan Mudhorn, said ‘No’. If his dad didn’t change his mind soon Grogu would be a failure and that would make him sad and he would cry and then his dad would feel bad. Imagine if Imps showed up on Nevarro again and the only way to save the Mandalorian who had discovered with IG-11-M that a lot of beskar had been stashed away on the Imp base, so Moff Gideon could go back and get whenever he wanted it. What if Grogu was the only person available to operate the Marauder and had to shrug and let the Imps take the beskar, harming foundlings all over the known galaxy?

“You could do the magic hand thing, buddy.”

Dank Farrik!

He hated it when his dad did that.

No, not the surprising him thing. The being right thing. Grogu was going to have come up with an even better story and he knew he was running out of time.

Anyone want to give him a hand? Help him convince his dad that he should be able to operate that Marauder? Please. He’s begging you. He’ll give you all the frog eggs you care to eat…

#calendar prompt a day #the mandalorian #grogu #din djarin

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illustratorintheprocess · 1 year

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Week 11: Monday - Tutor Group Meeting!! Yaaay!

Diving straight into week 11 because week 10 is a blurr. After last Wednesday I know I did some chores and stuff off my to-do list but it's all a blur now and then I worked over the weekend. So Monday usually hits like a truck.

What I do remember from last week is ordering Tracing Paper and Carbon Paper on Ebay to make the transfer from sketch to Lino plate easier. I also ordered and collected 5 A3 lino boards from lcc at some point last week. It was heavy carrying it all the way back.

Alright so Monday and week 11 have come!

At the beginning of this group meeting we talked through the brief of the major project already, just so we've heard it officially at least once before the winter break. I had already printed and read the brief at the beginning of the year so this was just a nice refresher + some extra notes from Maisie, our group tutor, who has seen multiple years work on the major projects. So she has good tips and insights for us.

After that we were left to work on our projects while 3 people at a time would talk to Maisie about the progress we made with our projects. I was really nervous because with a lot of doctor and dentist visits + covid booster sickness + recent crying at the crit + last weeks crazy Tuesday night....it's just so much. And it left me feeling like a total useless slacker who doesn't even deserve to be here.

So yeah. I was anxious.

Maisie called Mia, myself and another member of our group who I don't know by name up first. Honestly the best thing that could have happened because if I was left alone with my thoughts again I would have probably freaked out again. So, the guy in our little group went first and I remembered him because of the presentation all of us gave a whiiiiile back on our project ideas. He is working on a single player table top game for people with severe social anxiety. I can somewhat relate. He has designed 15 cards already and the illustrations looked super good and the characters were very endearing! I would love to purchase his finished game honestly. You can tell he has spent a lot of time and love in developing every detail of it and it blows my mind he made a whole game by himself for this project! Truly original and amazing.

I also knew about Mia's project. Packaging design that caters to the blind consumer. Again, very original and out of the box thinking. I don't remember her showing any samples of her work but she was talking about doing lino cut instead of screen printing. She is also Route B in CTS which means instead of a loooong dissertation like me, she is working on yet another physical project and a shorter essay.

Then it came to me showing my progress and I was really nervous so I can't even remember half the stuff I said but Maisie was really nice and agreed with my work plan of finishing over winter break and printing first thing in January. She said that for the Lino cut prints I have to figure out how to make the characters stand out and pop. That was good feedback and I'm thinking about it a lot. I told her about thermo powders, Ellen mentioned to me, those could be applied to the ink after printing and give the whole image a nice shimmer.

Maisie also encouraged me to check out the 3D workshop area to make a quick wooden board I could put my lino board on while cutting. A little corner in the top of the board would hold the board in place, making the whole process safer.

After the group session Mia and I showed the guy (I REALLY WITH I KNEW HIS NAME AAAH) where the digital print and print finishing area is. Then I showed Mia our common room because turns out she never went there before. I delivered all zines, posters and post cards for the winter art fair here and Mia and I went to the 3D workshop together. Since we both are doing lino cut each of us needed a wooden board like Maisie suggested.

The technician was really nice and had a very calm demeanor. He cut some scraps for us and let us glue the corners to the boards. It took 30 minutes for the glue to dry during which Mia and I took a little lunch break in the cafeteria. It was nice catching up with her again.

The boards turned out nicely so we thanked the man who helped us and headed back home just as it got dark.

All in all a day full of productive and surprising turns.

Oh and I have bought new planner for 2023 and it's all blue and pretty!!

Things are looking up.

#student life #ual #university of the arts london #london college of communication #studyblr #illustration and visual media #lcc #uni life

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madsotc · 3 years

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hey I know twist and shout was the popular spn fic but does anybody remember point pleasant. what happened with all that.

#this is the things that is going to torment me until the day I die #I looooved that fic #I bought the book when the author self published it #a beautiful illustrated edition (I still have it ofc)#and I was looking forward to more of her novels #then she disappeared into thin air #last time I checked even the illustrator she worked with had no idea what happened to her #it was like.. This amazing horror fic about childhood friends to strangers to messed up adults to lovers destiel #and it was creepy and it was lovely #I think this was back in 2013-14 #burbles.txt

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felassan · 3 years

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Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

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

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greysfall · 3 years

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My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

- Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

- The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

- The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

- Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

- The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

- Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

- Still good music

- Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

- Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

- The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

- The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

- Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

- Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

- The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.

- I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

- The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

- The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

- Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

- Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

- Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

- Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

- Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild. Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.

#neotwewy #neotwewyspoilers #ntwewy #ntwewy spoilers #neo the world ends with you #twewy #review #meta #neo twewy #shoka sakurane #rindo kanade #tsugumi matsunae

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buttterknifeee · 3 years

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How long is forever? - Teen Titans x Aquagirl!Reader

Masterlist

Request: "Hello, May I request an episode insert in the Teen Titans episode 'How Long Is Forever?'"

Summary: Starfire takes a trip to the future... only to find out that you and the other Titans have disbanded. Will she find a way back to the present, or will you live an unfulfilling life forever?? (from S2 EP1)

Pairings: None

Word Count: 3919

A/N: Hey!!! sorry this took a while, it was super hard to write it due to most of it being in Starfire's POV. Most of the episodes in the series are centered around specific titans, so if you have an idea for an Aquagirl centered episode, feel free to send it in!!! (theres also a grand total of one cuss word in there)

Aquagirl’s Room - 2004

“Where is it? Where is it?” you mumble, tearing your room apart. You were looking for one of your CDs that you were in the mood for listening to. You threw your clothes into the air, looked under your bed, and even checked inside of your fish tank, holding the water containing a few tropical fish above you until you gave up. You sighed, finally checking the clock. You realized that you’ve been in your room for an hour and you haven’t even said hello to the other titans. You quickly change into your suit and head to the living room.

You stretched as you walked in. “Hey guys-” you stop in confusion at the scene in front of you. Starfire was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, holding a bunch of necklaces and boxes and babbling something about “Blorthorg”, Beast Boy and Cyborg were brawling for a video game remote, Raven was reading silently and holding up a pair of nail clippers (?) telepathically, and Robin….

Anger bubbles up inside of you as you realize that he was in front of the stereo, blasting music. From your CD. You cross your arms as you march up to the Boy Wonder.

“Hey Rob, whatcha doing with my CD?” You say. “What, was Kelly Clarkson too quiet for you?”

Raven adds, “Yeah Robin, could the music be a little louder? I can still hear myself think.”

He glares at the two of you “I don’t listen- I only turned the music up to DROWN OUT ALL THE YELLING!!” He refers to the two boys. Cyborg now had Beast Boy in a headlock, holding the controller triumphantly.

“Whose turn is it now, tough guy? Whose turn is it now?” Cyborg taunts the green teen.

“Knock it off! I can't work with you two acting like idiots!” Robin yells.

“Work?? The only “work” I see you doing is stealing my stuff!” You snap.

“Great. More yelling will definitely stop the yelling.” Raven says, a sarcastic smirk on her face.

The three of you glared at each other, Cyborg and Beast Boy were still fighting, and one of Starfire’s necklaces broke, its beads tumbling onto the ground.

“STTTOOOOPPPPP!” the alien princess screamed. You stared at her in surprise. She took a deep breath and recomposed herself.

“ Friends must never behave this way, and especially not on Blorthog! Do you wish to invite the Rekmas?” she said.

“Gesundheit?” Beast Boy said, confused by her vocabulary.

“On my world, ‘Rekmas’ means ‘the Drifting.’” she explains. “The point at which close friends begin to drift apart, and their friendship begins to die.” She frowned. You immediately felt bad for all the yelling you did.

“Aw, come on, Starfire.” Cyborg comes to her side.

“We are so not Rek-whatever-ing.” Beast Boy reassures her.

“We're getting on each other's nerves a little. Big deal.” Raven says.

“Fighting’s just a part of life. As long as we resolve it, we’ll be fine.” You say.

“Yeah. This is just typical roommate stuff. We're not going to drift apart, Star. I promise. We'll all be friends forever.” Robin declares

“Forever?” Starfire asks. Before you could answer, Robin’s T-communicator beeped. The communicator was flashing red, and he turned to you and the others.

“Titans! Trouble!” he says. You all rush out of the Tower and into the city.

You find the “trouble” in the Jump City museum. It was a man wearing black and gold armor and a goatee: Warp. He was monologuing to a bunch of guards that he had frozen.

“I didn't journey back in time one hundred years to squabble, I came to steal.” You see him reaching for one of the clocks. “The Clock of Eternity. Valuable in the past, priceless in the future.” Robin steppeds forward, throwing his birdirang to knock Warp’s hand back.

“But for the present...you'll keep your filthy hands off it.” He says, announcing the Titans’ entrance. The man turns to the six of you.

"The Teen Titans. This is a treat. I read all about you in the historical archives. And now, you're all history!” He fires his laser at you all.

“Titans! Go!” Robin yells as you scramble to dodge his rays. He blocks Warp’s rays with his staff, but at the last shot the staff breaks, and he backed up. Starfire blasts her starbolts at him, but the bolts ricochet off of him and hits her, sending her to the ground. You and Beast Boy attack him now, a stream of water lifting you into the air by your feet. You put your hands in front of you and a jet of water blasts out of your hands, heading straight for Warp. He held his hand us as the water made contact with him, and froze the water. The ice traveled up the jet of water and onto your hands, encasing them in the long shard of ice. You fell, the weight of the ice dragging you down. You winced as you saw Beast Boy meet a similar fate, his animal form frozen in ice next to you. You struggled to free your hands as Cyborg and Raven both went down. Robin gives one last attempt to take Warp down, running towards him.

“You cannot defeat Warp. I am from the future.” He says, throwing disks towards Robin. He dove to the side as the projectiles exploded. “And your relics are one hundred years out of date." He grabs the clock and presses a blue lens from his armor. Suddenly, a blinding white portal forms in front of him. Your hands were still stuck so you had to squint.

“Ta-ta, Titans. I have enjoyed our time together, but I've got a very bright future ahead of me.” He sneers, stepping through the portal. You finally pull your hands out of the chunk of ice just in time to see Starfire slam into Warp, sending the two of them into the portal.

“Starfire!” Robin yells, trying to dive in after her, only for the portal to close and him to fall on the floor. You pull him up from the ground and look around. Starfire was gone.

Titan’s Tower-2024

Starfire couldn’t believe what was going on. After tackling Warp, she ripped off the lens on his suit and ended up in Jump City, 20 years into the future. She found Cyborg alone in the rotting Titans Tower, hooked up to a large battery. He explained that the day she left, the Titans fell apart, and disbanded soon after. He told her that the others can help her get back to the present, telling her where to find you, Beast Boy, and Raven.

She found herself at a circus whilst looking for Beast Boy. There in a cage, sat Beast Boy, changing into various animals. She approached the cage as he turned back into his human form. He was now a pudgy old man, with a great deal of hair loss. He looked at her with wide eyes through the bars.

“No way! It's you. But how?” he asked, peering at her with his wrinkled eyes.

“I require your help.” Starfire said.

“What kinda help?” Beast Boy asked.

“The future is not as it should be. We must find Warp. I will free you from this--” Beast Boy stopped Starfire from continuing her sentence.

“This cage isn't to keep me in! It's to keep those maniacs out!” he explained in a panicked tone, referring to a group of kids. “Look. After the Titans broke up, I tried the whole solo-hero thing. Got my butt kicked, a lot. So now, well…”

He turned into a chicken briefly to illustrate his point. “ Besides, I'm in the showbiz now.” Starfire could tell he wasn’t happy with where he was, but there was nothing she could do. She left Beast Boy and went to find Raven.

She found Raven in a room in a broken down building. She was standing in a pure white room, wearing a white cloak to match. Her back was facing Starfire when she arrived.

“Raven?” she squeaked, inching into the room. “Raven, it is Starfire, your friend”

“No such thing.” she groaned, her back still facing Starfire. Starfire’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Please, Raven I-”

“Just another figment. Don’t even look.”

“You must listen! I am here because-” she pleads, but Raven stops her.

“I’m never coming back! Go away!” she yells, Starfire backing up in fear. “It has to go away. Just like before. Just like all the others.” Starfire frowns in realization. She must not think I’m real; she thinks it's all in her head.

“Your mind.” she says softly, approaching the cloaked woman. “Without friends, you must have--” Starfire was about to touch Raven, but her familiar dark shield formed around her. She gasps, then eventually leaves the room in defeat. There was one last person she could try talking to. You.

She walked by the Jump City beach, the same place where you got your powers all those years ago. Suddenly, you rose out of the ocean, the water around you carrying you onto shore. Your face was stuck in a permanent glare, different to your constant smiles as a teen. You were taller, definitely had a few wrinkles, and you were wearing Atlantean clothing. Starfire flinched at your sudden arrival.

“Aquagirl! how-”

“I don’t go by Aquagirl anymore. I am Queen (y/n), ruler of Atlantis. And word gets around when one of your old teammates who had disappeared 20 years ago is roaming Jump City again, even at the bottom of the ocean.” You say coldly, eyeing her as she shrunk at the sight of you.

“What had happened to you, my friend?” she asked.

You sigh, recalling your memories. “After you disappeared and the team disbanded, I vowed to never be as soft and vulnerable as I was then. I moved to Atlantis, and was eventually appointed ruler.”

“Oh my, that sounds terrible!” Starfire exclaimed. “I need your help my friend-”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. It’s not terrible, I am quite fine just the way I am. And we were friends 20 years ago; things have changed.” You turn your back to her. “I must get going; there’s much I need to do.” Starfire stares at you in sadness as you walk back into the ocean, the water swallowing you up and the waves lapping like normal.

Starfire trudges through the snow-covered city, when a laser blast knocks her back. Her eyes raise to meet with Warp’s, his weapon aimed at her.

“What’s the matter, dear? Have I come at a bad time?” he snarls, opening fire once more. She dodges his shots and fires back, but the starbolts simply bounce off his modern armor. She tried to hit him close up but he held up his hand and ice formed around her midair. The large chunk of ice containing Starfire drops and shatters, leaving Starfire on the ground, shivering. She glares at Warp, who now has deeper wrinkles on his face.

“You have become so old,” she notes, still on the ground.

“That's what happens when someone steals my vortex regulator.” he says, holding out his hand. “The regulator, if you please. I really must get back to my future.” She stands up and takes the lens out from her belt. She couldn’t let him leave, especially when she’s stuck in a future like this. She held the disk next to her and warmed up a starbolt, as if to hold it hostage.

“If you ever wish to see your future you will repair the damage you have done to my past!” she yelled, anger bubbling up inside her. The villain laughed.

“Damage? Silly girl. There's nothing wrong with your past. One cannot damage history, because history cannot be changed.” He held up the clock and continued. “I went back in time to steal this because history says it disappeared. And history says it disappeared because I went back to steal it. Past, present, future. It's all written in stone, my dear.”

Starfire stood in disbelief dropping her glowing hand. No… this can't be the future we’re destined to live. Such terrible lives… she thought. Warp walked up to her shocked state and took the lens out of her hand.

“And nothing you do can ever change it.” he scoffed. Warp prepared to blast her when he was knocked into the alleyway by an unknown figure. Starfire snapped back into reality and looked around for you had knocked the villain back. A dark silhouette lept forward and threw Warp against the end wall of the alley. They threw disks at the villain, the area around him exploding. When the smoke cleared, Starfire could see that Warp had used a force field. He released his shield only to be met with the mysterious figure dropping down towards him. He stared straight at Starfire.

“Another time, perhaps.” he said. Before the shadowed person could reached him, he dropped into the ground. The person who had tried to fight him landed right where Warp had been, and as they straightened up, Starfire inched forward to see who it was.

“It’s good to see you again.” the person said. Starfire could recognize that voice from anywhere, and apparently, anytime.

“Robin?” she asked.

“I haven’t used that name in a long time.” he said, finally stepping out of the shadows. He looked nothing like the Boy Wonder she knew. His traffic-light esque uniform was replaced by a black suit with a blue bird on the front. He still wore a mask and he now had long, black hair.

“Call me… Nightwing.”

Starfire found herself in Robin’s (or Nightwing’s) base. She looked at a glass case of his old uniform, a feeling of melancholy washing over her. She was glad that he was ok, but the Robin she once knew was now nothing more than a mannequin display. Nightwing wrapped a blanket around her with a small smile.

Nightwing finally spoke. “So I’ve heard you’ve been looking for help.”

Starfire sighed. “There is nothing you can do. There is nothing anyone can do. The past cannot be repaired, the future cannot be altered, no matter how wrong it seems.”

“So it’s impossible.” Nightwing determined from her rant, walking towards a bunch of computers. “Good. If memory serves, we've done the impossible before.”

Nightwing’s words had surprised Starfire. None of the others had said anything as hopeful since she’d arrived here. A small fire of hope blossomed inside of her.

“I held on to this,” Nightwing says, pressing a button from a device. “...just in case.” Starfire’s eyes widened, realizing that it was a T-communicator. The communicator began to flash red, and to Starfire’s delight, so did her neck piece and wrist guard.

At the bottom of the ocean, you sat on a throne, talking to your advisers. As they left, your seashell necklace began to flash red. You looked at it in surprise, recognizing what it meant: it was an emergency signal that Robin had put in your necklace while you were still in a team. Even after 20 years, he had never used it until now. You began to get up from your throne when a group of your advisors came back, swarming you with scrolls and questions. You sat back down, a bitter feeling in your throat.

Beast Boy’s belt had flashed red whilst he was performing a trick in his animal form. He quickly jumped back into human form. He observed his belt for a moment before stepping back, hanging his head.

Cyborg's robotic eye flashed red as he sat alone in the Titans Tower. He immediately got up and started towards the door, only to be stopped by the wires keeping him alive and stuck inside the tower. He looks back at the power source.

Raven still stands alone in the room, her back facing the door. The brooch of her cloak flashes red, and without looking at it, she covers it with her hand.

Starfire and Nightwing venture to Jump City museum, where they find Warp, fixing his time travel suit. He wields the lens that he took from Starfire to his suit, whilst talking to himself.

“Tick-tock.” he laughs. “Just a few more seconds, and I shall finally--” his sentence was cut off by Nightwing knocking the tool out of his hand, revealing him and Starfire’s position.

“The future will have to wait.” Nightwing says, extending his staff. “You just ran out of time.”

Warp growls and fires laser beams at them, causing them to split up to avoid getting hit. Starfire shoots her starbolts at Warp again, despite them getting deflected by his force field. Nightwing however, jumped down on him again, using his staff to crush one of his lasers. He turns to face Nightwing, but Starfire lands a hit on his back with her starbolt. He tries to laser Starfire but has to dodge Nightwing’s staff attacks that barely strike him. He fights quickly and with fury, eventually knocking Warp flat on his back. The two heroes step close to him to inspect him. But Warp grins, and uses his second laser to blow a hole through the roof, snow and rubble falling onto Starfire.

“Star!” Nightwing yells, but Warp blasts him back with his laser. Warp runs over to the tool he dropped and started repairing his suit again as Nightwing helped Starfire up. Suddenly, he was blasted back by a familiar blue ray. Starfire and Nightwing turn to see Cyborg, his arm cannon smoking, but being able to function without any wires.

“Boo-yah” he says with a grimace.

“Cyborg!” Starfire exclaims, flying over to the half robot. “You are repaired!”

“Glad you could make it,” Nightwing says, joining them.

“Wouldn't have missed it. Now who said y'all could start without me?” Cyborg said as Warp stood back up.

“So sorry,” Warp said, holding up another device. “Perhaps I should finish you first!” Before he could use the device, he was attacked by a green lion, Beast Boy. Warp looked at the lens he was repairing, now crackling with electricity. In anger, he pointed a laser at him, but a jet of water shot up from the floor. You ran into view, a trident now in your hand.

“Heard you guys needed help!” you yell, a hint of a smile peeking out from your stoic face.

Before Warp could fall to the ground again, he is overtaken by magic, and thrown into the side of the wall. Raven materializes, still wearing a white cloak.

“Nobody hurts my friends,” she said, reminiscent of the first time you met her.

“Dude, that is so unfair,” Beast Boy whines, comparing his bald head to Nightwing’s flowing hair. The six Titans turn to see Warp, who has managed to create a wormhole, despite his suit being damaged.

“It seems my time has come,” Warp said, preparing to walk through the wormhole. Nightwing threw a birdarang at Warp, Warp throwing his own disk to intercept it. Starfire watched in awe as the birdirang sliced through Warp’s disk and hit him in the chest, right where the lens sat.

“Uh?! No! NOOOOO!” the six of you watched in horror as Warp regressed in age until he was nothing more than a screaming infant.

“Ok, I am not changing any diapers.” Beast Boy said, staring at the baby.

Cyborg looked at Starfire. “We gotta get you home. Come on!” he pointed at the wormhole, which was shrinking. He took the lens from the suit and put it in his arm cannon. He fired at the wormhole, making it bigger.

“Im redirecting the wormhole.” Cyborg said, turning to Starfire. “Starfire! Go!” She steps towards the portal and looks back at her friends. Their lives seemed so lonely and.. dissatisfying. Is this life they were destined to live?

“Please, must this really be our future?” She asked. The rest of you looked at her silently, sadness in your eyes. “Is there nothing I can do to change it?” Nightwing stepped up and looked directly into her eyes.

“I'm sorry, Star. There isn't time.” Nightwing said. He placed the clock that Warp had stolen in her hand and his other hand on her shoulder. He gives her one last smile before stepping back towards the other Titans, beckoning her to enter the portal. Starfire took a deep breath, and walked into the portal.

Jump City Museum - 2004

“Starfire!” Robin yells, trying to dive in after her, only for the portal to close and him to fall on the floor. You pull him up from the ground and look around. Starfire was gone.

“Oh my god,” you whispered.

Beast Boy stared at the place the portal was. “Um, where did she-?”

Another portal opens with a brilliant flash between Beast Boy and Cyborg. Starfire falls out, curled around an item. You all rushed towards her.

“Dude!”

“Whoa!”

“Star! What happened?” Robin asked as the portal behind her closed.

“History said it disappeared.” Starfire said, straightening and revealing the clock warp had just stolen. “But history was wrong!”

The boys stared at her dumbstruck but you laughed, diving in for a hug.

You stood with the other titans as Starfire recounted her story. You covered your mouth in awe to find out what happened to you and the others in the future.

“Then Nightwing handed me the clock and I entered the vortex.” she finished.

“Woah,” Raven said, shocked by the recount of Starfire’s story.

“Bald?!” Beast Boy yells, grabbing at his hair. “You're telling me I'm going to be bald?!”

“Gosh, Star, all of our lives seem so terrible,” you say, thinking about what Starfire had said about you. You were a queen (which was cool), but you were also a cold hearted bitch (super uncool). You didn’t want that to happen, and more importantly for you to no longer be friends with the other Titans.

“Guess you were right about all that Rekmas stuff,” Cyborg said, slightly concerned.

“I don't want us to drift apart. Does it all have to happen? Isn't there anything we can-” Robin worries out loud, but Starfire stops him.

“Our friendship has already changed Warp's past. I believe it can also change our future.” Starfire says with a smile.

“Yeah I mean, the original reason we “broke up” was because of Starfire disappearing, and since she’s here now, we aren’t breaking up!” You chimed in, grinning at the other Titans.

Raven picks up the broken necklace with her telekinesis, stringing them back together.

“So… is it too late to do this festival-of-friendship thing?” she asks.

Starfire’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, it’s never too late!”

You all put on the bulbous necklaces Starfire brought in the morning.

“HAPPY BORTHOG!!!” Cyborg cheers.

“I thought it was Blort-Hog,” Beast Boy wondered.

“Okay, I feel like a wind-chime.” Raven groans.

“A very cool wind-chime,” you winked.

Starfire put the last necklace on Robin. He raises an eyebrow at her.

“So… Nightwing, huh?” he asked.

“Don’t even think about it bird brain,” you yelled from across the room, causing him to blush. You all burst out into laughter. The tower stayed cheerful the rest of the night.

201 notes · View notes

astranva · 4 years

Text

Not One of Them.

// masterlist //

Word Count: 9.9k

Category: Fluff, single mom!Y/N

Warning: Some strong language. Slight mention of abortion. Not proof-read.

Note: time-skip to when covid-19 is dead ok

Summary: Harry is lyrically stuck, Y/N is the new big songwriter. She’s also a single mom to a 4-year-old girl.

Early italics are flashbacks.

When you’re a young mother, the world isn’t always the kindest, especially when no partner is in the picture.

While you were young, having had baby Faith when you were only 21, you applauded yourself for years for the effort you poured into raising a child alone – with the help of family and friends, and too many books and videos, but you get the point.

Faith wasn’t a mistake, you hate it when anyone even dares to imply so, but she was unplanned. You were in a toxic on-and-off relationship for 3 years, at some point believing that it might have been an open relationship because of the amount of times you caught your ex-boyfriend flirting with women and men right in front of you.

You had done your part after knowing that you were pregnant after one drunken night that led to a rough make-up session. You approached your ex, sat him down and broke the news;

“I’m pregnant.”

“Whose is it?” He had asked, face falling.

Yours scrunched up in anger, almost disgust at the implication. “Yours, you dumb-fuck! I don’t sleep around while I’m in a relationship like some people.” You had emphasized.

He ignored your comment, releasing a sigh. “You aren’t keeping it, are you?”

You were never against abortion. You were never against planned pregnancy. You had freaked out alright on your own when you were confirmed pregnant, but something inside you told you to hold on to the human inside of you, to that little bundle of oblivion – a little bundle of faith.

It was when he asked you that one question, his tone almost sure that you would abort the child, that you felt angry tears pool your eyes. “I am.”

He wasn’t ready to hear it and his wide eyes showed that, “Wh-What do you mean you are? I can’t have a fucking baby! This wasn’t supposed to get this real!”

“This real?” You had chuckled bitterly, “You stay with me for 3 years, fuck me over more than I can count then you always come crying for me, then tell me it wasn’t supposed to get this real?” You stood up, draping your bag over your shoulder, “I’m having the kid, Will. It’s over between us and-“ you gulped, swallowing back the tears as you pointed at him, “I never want to see you again.”

“You bet your fucking ass you won’t.” He had grumbled, tearing eye contact to look somewhere else but your death glare before you left.

Besides the university halls, Will had managed to stay out of your sight and you were grateful for that. Pregnancy was a roller-coaster, one you definitely screamed during all ride of, but nothing and nobody prepared you for the moment when you gave birth to your little love.

Your roommate and best friend, Cece, had driven you to the hospital and notified the rest of your family and friends, and you were glad that during that very period of time, you had someone beside you.

It was when you held your little love that it all faded away; the pain, the loss, the confusion, the fright – everything faded away the moment your skin made contact with your daughter’s, watching her with pure love and admiration.

You hadn’t picked a name before that moment, only nodding and smiling to the showering of recommendation from people, but one name wasn’t recommended, not even mentioned.

“Faith. You’re my little Faith.”

“You’re looking a little sick, honey. Have you been eating well? You overwork yourself-”

“Mom, mom,” you laughed quietly, tearing your eyes from watching your daughter play with her cousins before looking at your mom beside you, “I’m alright. Last project was challenging, that’s all.”

“Who were you writing for this time?” your mom asked with pride and excitement, curious to know the name of yet another big celebrity her daughter had been working with.

“Adele.” You smirked as you sipped your juice, hearing your mom gasp with a hand to her heart before letting out a small squeal.

In her dungarees and sandals, Faith ran towards you, making you set your juice aside to welcome your daughter in your arms. “Mommy, did you see me win Tag?”

“Yes! You were amazing!” You hyped your daughter up, pressing a sloppy kiss on her cheek, making Faith giggle.

With Faith standing between your legs, talking to her grandma, you checked your watch. “Ah, shoot. I better get going.”

“Will you be here for bedtime story?” Faith asked, looking up at you as you slung on your tote bag and held your car key in one hand before kneeling in front of your daughter.

“I will be, baby. Don’t give Nana a hard time, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

“I love you.” With one last hug and a kiss on her cheek, you smiled at your daughter who clung to your neck, pressing a sweet kiss on her cheek.

“I love you.” Faith replied, moving to stand with her nephew after waving at you as you left.

“Call me at any time if anything happens or if you need anything, Mom, yeah?” You said as you walked towards the door, your mother following behind.

“Wouldn’t want to disturb your wo-”

“Mom.” You stressed, turning to look at your mom, “Nothing like that. I’ll get going. Thank you for watching her.”

“Oh, don’t thank me. You know I love spending time with little Faith more than anything. Drive safely, honey.”

“Hey, Andrew, got you a donut.” You beamed as you approached the studio’s receptionist, a 19-year-old intern.

“You’re an angel.” Andrew sighed in contentment as he opened the box containing his donut before looking at you, “Just adopt me. I guarantee I’ll be the best brother to Faith.”

You laughed, “Think having a 19-year-old son will make me feel old. I’ll pass.”

“Dammit.” Andrew shook his head jokingly. “Meeting with Jeffery Azoff, huh?”

“Yeah, do you know if he got here yet?”

“Like 3 minutes ago.”

You checked your watch again, finding that it was just on time for your scheduled meeting, feeling glad that you weren’t late.

“Alright, I’ll see you on the way out.” You waved at Andrew who nodded at you while raising his donut before you set off down the hall and into the elevator.

Walking out and down the hallway, you approached the room you had agreed to meet Jeffrey in before knocking softly, hearing a distant “come in!”

Gently opening the door and sticking your head inside, your eyes moved to the couch where 2 men looked up at you; one was Jeffrey – you had seen pictures of him from when you worked once with his father – and the other was, undoubtedly in your mind, none other than Harry Styles.

“Y/N?” Jeff asked, him and Harry standing as you walked in and closed the door behind you, approaching them.

“Yes,” you smiled, reaching for a handshake which he had happily accepted, “It’s great meeting you.”

Harry’s eyes were set on you, a small smile on his face that did everything but mirror the surprise he felt. He wasn’t sure why; he didn’t have any expectations but he certainly didn’t expect to see someone as radiant as you were.

You looked at him next with a polite smile as you reached for a handshake, “Pleasure meeting you. I’m a huge fan of your work.”

And God, his stomach flipped and his face flushed at the comment, feeling shy under your gaze as he shook your hand, “Thank you so much. Can say the same about your work, you’re very talented.”

“Thanks!” You beamed before motioning towards the couch, the 3 of you sitting down; Harry and Jeff on the couch, you on a chair across from them. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“No, thanks. Had the biggest cup of coffee just before coming here.” Jeff replied.

You turned to look at Harry, smiling and nodding when he raised his bottle of water.

“Alright, let’s get into it,” you leaned forward, “How can I help you?”

Jeff looked at Harry, signaling for him to talk.

“I know it hasn’t been a year since I released Fine Line,” Harry moved his hands as he talked, looking at the carpeted floor underneath him before looking up at you, “But I’ve been writing ever since but- something is missing. Something is wrong. I wrote 9 tracks so far, all of them are unfinished because I just feel like they’re missing something. I have the idea, have the concepts, sometimes I have the tunes,” he counted on his fingers, “But I can’t finish one song. It’s like I’m, like,” he shrugged, trying to find the right word.

“Stuck?” You suggested, staring at him with an assuring expression which he found soothing.

Harry’s body slumped, tilting his head slightly as he looked back at you and a soft, small smile made its way to his face at how you understood. “Yeah,” he nodded, “Yeah, stuck. That’s the word.”

“I get you,” you assured him, “Do you guys have any sort of deadline?”

“No, not really, no. Not yet.” Jeff shook his head.

“Great,” you clapped, your eyebrows going up, “Do you have any of these tracks’ lyrics now?”

“Yeah, lemme just-“ Harry reached beside him, holding his tote bag to take out his journal.

“Hey!” You grinned, grabbing his attention and making him look at you, seeing you holding out your tote bag to him.

You matched; right on the fabric in the middle was an illustrated design of a small cactus plant pot.

“I have the same one!” You looked down at yours before looking at him, Harry mirroring your actions before a grin broke out on his face.

“Well then, Y/N, it’s set. These will be the best songwriting sessions of the century. It’s fate.” He said dramatically in a joking manner, making you laugh quietly as you set your bag aside and he fished out his journal.

Flipping through the pages, he handed you his journal so you can see one of the songs he had half-written, watching as leaned back on the comfy chair, holding the journal in your hands and reading.

It was excruciating. Harry grew nervous, feeling funny in his stomach and he tried to convince himself that it might be the salad he had eaten prior to that meeting, and not that he was nervous you’d think he was the worst songwriter to-date.

He watched your eyes, taking notice of how you didn’t skim through the words, but read them carefully and taking your time to do so.

“This is really beautiful, Harry.” You said softly, eyes still on the page before looking up at him, oblivious to the breath Harry let out, “Really beautiful.”

“Thank you.” He smiled, discreetly wiping his sweaty hands on his pants.

“Not much damage really. The concept is clear. Post-breakup song.” You said, handing him his journal.

Harry nodded, confirming.

“Are the rest like that, too?”

“Not really,” Harry shook his head, “Figured that the last album had too many of that.”

You nodded, “Yeah, I understand. Just- I say take your time, honestly. I’ll help you with the songs you have, maybe we’d get inspired along the way to write new stuff, too, but you don’t want to force anything, you know? Sometimes some lyrics just aren’t meant to be, you know?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He nodded.

“Don’t you worry,” you gave him a smile, “It’ll all work out.”

“Well, so do we have a deal?” Jeff asked with a smile, opening his arms.

“I’m in.”

Maybe it was because you said that as you looked at him, or maybe it was because he knew of how crazy talented you were – he had spoken to his good friend Ed Sheeran a week prior and Ed had sworn up and down on your talent and how “bloody lovely! Like a little bird” you were – or maybe it your smile – hell, it might be a combination of all that, but Harry was ecstatic to work with you.

“I’m very excited to work with you, Y/N.” Harry had said with a smile of his own.

“Likewise, Harry. It isn’t that common to find artists as real as you are.”

God, what was with your compliments that had him blushing?

“It’s a pleasure, Y/N,” Jeff, too, had said. “Let’s talk busi-”

“Let’s do that over lunch.” You pointed at him, standing up, “My treat.”

“You always this friendly with clients?” Harry joked with an amused smile, staring up at you.

But your smile dropped and instead, your face twisted to worry. “Oh God, I hope I’m not stepping boundaries. It’s just always a good idea to warm up to each other and- I’m sorry, you probably think this is unpro-”

“Hey, hey, no,” Harry was quick to stand, holding his hands out, “I didn’t mean it like that. I genuinely think you’re friendly. Half of the songwriters I worked with were strict and- Shit, no. Lunch sounds wonderful. Really wonderful.”

He felt like an ass. A proper one. He hadn’t meant to make you feel like you were too friendly but that didn’t turn out as well as he had thought.

“We’d love to, really. Besides, it’s probably a great idea that you and Harry know each other so the sessions can go smooth.” Jeff added, standing up.

At this, Harry found himself smiling when the smile returned to your face. “In that case, there’s a place nearby that makes amazing sandwiches and desserts.”

Jeff’s mind was squeaking from its gears working. There weren’t many people on this planet who were purely kind, and it was something he admired in Harry. But at that moment, Jeff knew he had met one more person who was genuinely kind, just like his best friend and “client” – he hated calling Harry that – and it was proof when you insisted that you could give them a ride to and from the place instead of them following behind you or using the GPS, Jeff sitting in the passenger seat during the ride to the place while Harry sat at the back.

The place was a 5-tabeled one, nothing big. One wall was decorated with polaroids of customers, the waiters and waitresses, the chefs, and another with colorful stick-notes with messages from customers. It was a lowkey place, one that Harry hadn’t visited during all his trips to the studio until that moment.

“Hey, Y/N!” The woman behind the counter beamed as she waved.

“Hi, Soph! How are you?”

Soph stood from the chair she was sitting on, taking a few steps back to show her pregnant bump, putting one hand to it, “Ready to pop!”

You had motioned towards a table to Harry and Jeff who were quietly watching the interaction.

You gasped, “Look at you! And you’re still coming to work? What a queen.”

Soph shrugged, sitting back down, “Got mouths to feed and a self to pamper.” She said before waving at Harry and Jeff, “Hello, gentlemen.”

Jeff waved with a smile while Harry added, “Hello! Congratulations on your pregnancy.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Styles.” Soph replied.

Harry liked it. The no-freaking-out. How homey it all felt.

“Rick will be with you in a sec.” Soph said.

You, Harry, and Jeff sat on the circular table, both Harry and you hanging your tote bags on their chairs.

“You come here often, huh?” Harry started the conversation, crossing his arms on the table and leaning forward.

“You have no idea. You’d think I don’t know anywhere else.” You chuckled, “Been coming here ever since I was in college.”

Harry’s eyebrows went up in surprise, “Really? How long ago was that?”

“Graduated 3 years ago, first came when I was 19 so that’s about 6 years.”

“True loyal customer you are.” Harry said.

“What did you study, Y/N?” Jeff asked.

“Music composition. Was the disgrace of the family.” You joked, “Definitely had no idea the entire time if I would actually work or not.”

“But look at you now, one of the best.” Harry motioned towards you.

You waved him off with a bashful smile, “None of that. I still have no idea what I’m doing most of the time, I just get paid now.”

“Who even knows what they’re doing now?” Harry rhetorically asked, “We’re just, going with the flow.”

“Word, sir. Word.” They heard, the 3 of them turning to see the waiter – Rick – by their table.

Harry laughed, “Right?”

“Absolutely. I don’t remember the last time my plans didn’t get fucked. Just riding now.” Rick shrugged.

Harry raised his fist up for a bump, Rick bumping his fist into Harry’s.

Time seemed to pass as Harry and Jeff let you order for them, talking about the music industry and sharing funny stories while at it, as well as you had discussed your own business as you ate the club sandwiches and sipped on the iced tea.

“What are you doing?” You asked with a funny face as Harry took out his wallet after you had asked for the check.

“Paying?”

“Yeah, no. Said it’d be my treat.” You pointed at him, raising one eyebrow with a smile.

“Come on, I can’t just let you pay for us on the first day we meet.”

“Let’s at least split the bill.” Jeff suggested, watching as you shook your head.

“Absolutely not.” And with that, you stood up and walked towards Soph, paying for the food.

“How much do you want to bet that something will happen between the both of you?” Jeff asked quickly with a smirk, looking at Harry with a knowing look.

Harry’s eyes widened, tearing his gaze from being on you to his friend and manager, “What?”

“How much?”

“I just met her.” Harry tried to reason with him, finding Jeff to be bizarre and irrational. Hopeful, but irrational.

Jeff only gave him a shrug, “That’s a first.”

“That’s enough rom-coms at night for you, Jeffrey.”

At the sight of you walking back towards them, they both stopped talking and instead, smiled. “All sorted.”

“Thank you so much, Y/N. You really didn’t have to.” Harry stood, slinging his tote bag on his shoulder.

“I wanted to. Please don’t mention it.” You had smiled as you replied, the 3 of you putting back your chairs. “Bye, Soph!”

“Bye, sweetie!”

“Congratulations again on your pregnancy and good luck.” Harry put both hands together, pursing his lips into a polite smile at the woman behind the counter.

“You’re a sweetheart. Thank you, kind sir.” Soph joked, tipping an imaginary hat at him to which Harry responded to by holding up the tips of his imaginary skirt, putting one foot behind the other in a curtsy making you giggle.

With no spoken words, Jeff was quick to get into the backseat, pursing his lips to stifle his laughter at Harry’s face, who looked at him with wide eyes and an expression that screamed “What the fuck are you doing?” but he got into the passenger seat nonetheless, oblivious to the light shade of red that visited his cheeks but aware of the heat his face seemed to radiate.

The ride back to the studio wasn’t quiet. The radio was on for some background music but you and Harry were too engaged in a conversation to take notice of the songs playing. Anyone could have asked you what even started the conversation of French toast and you wouldn’t know how to reply because none of you knew how you suddenly began talking about French toast.

“Have you tried soaking the toast in lemon?” You asked, tone excited and face breaking into an eager smile.

Harry’s eyebrows furrowed, “Haven’t, no. How good is it?”

“God, it’s,” you shook your head, almost closing your eyes in delight as if you tasted the toast that moment but refrained because you were driving, “It’s so good.”

So what Harry secretly wished the ride was longer? He wanted to talk about French toast. That was definitely why.

“Y/N, it’s a pleasure working with you.” Jeff said, “Thank you for the food.”

“It’s no problem.” You smiled at him, turning around to look at him once you were parked.

“I’ll wait for you in the car.” Jeff said, patting Harry’s shoulder before getting out of the car.

Harry took a breath, slapping his hands against his thighs, “Well, that was fun.”

You nodded, looking back at him with a bashful smile that you mentally scolded yourself for; why were you getting bashful?

“Is it alright if I take your number from Jeff?” Harry asked quickly, “Uh, so we can schedule meeting up for the sessions.” He quickly added, “The writing sessions.” He nearly cringed at his addition and he guessed you caught on because you giggled quietly before straightening your posture.

“Actually, Jeff has my business number. Maybe you can just, take my personal one so I can reply faster. You know, the sooner the better.” You cleared your throat, nodding to yourself.

Harry’s lips stretched into a side smile as he looked at you before he coughed and nodded, “Definitely. The sooner you reply, the sooner we meet. For the writing sessions.”

“Yeah and I can give you the lemon toast recipe.” You said before your eyebrows rose up, “For business purposes, of course.”

Harry’s smile widened at that, holding out his phone for you to take after he unlocked it. “I’d love that.”

You typed in your number before handing his phone back to him, watching as Harry glanced down at it before your phone began ringing, “And that’s mine.” He said, watching you unlock you phone and type before you locked it back.

“Then it’s settled.”

“I’ll text you.” He smiled before opening the door and standing out, ducking to look at you, “Next time, lunch is on me.” And with that, Harry gave you a wave before closing the door and walking away, only giving you a smile over your shoulder and another wave before getting into the car with Jeff.

After getting some snacks from the grocery’s with a shit-eating grin on your face, you drove back to your mom’s to pick Faith up.

You stood on the other side of your car, watching the door open before you saw Faith, her backpack on her back with her grandma standing behind her.

At the sight of her Mommy, Faith was quick to grin before running to you and into you arms as if she hadn’t seen you 4 hours ago.

You hugged your daughter, pressing a kiss to her hair as you did. “Did you have fun?”

Faith nodded before she pulled away from the hug, still keeping her arms around you, “What about you? Did you have fun, Mommy?”

You almost blushed as you remembered, opting to reply a simple reply instead of getting into details. “I did. Ready to go?”

After giving Faith a shower and giving yourself one, too, you and Faith were sat in the comfort of your cozy apartment, sitting on the couch and watching The Greatest Showman for the umpteenth time seen as it was Faith’s favorite. With her cheddar cheese and lettuce sandwich in her right hand and favorite dinosaur toy in the other – a “Megalosaurus not a T-Rex, Mommy” – Faith was cuddling into your side while one hand of yours played with her wild hair as the other tapped absentmindedly on your phone’s screen, eyes set on the television.

“And if it’s crazy, live a little crazy.” Faith sang along with Hugh Jackman, eyes wide as if she was seeing the movie for the first time.

“You can play it sensible, a king of conventional.” You joined her, peppering kisses on her cheek causing her to squeal and giggle.

As Faith sang along with the song, you opened your phone’s camera before switching it to video, flipping the camera so that it was the front one. You started recording, the screen showing you your face as you smiled with pride, tilting it so Faith was shown as she sang, unaware of you recording.

Only 12 seconds into the video, a message pop-up had your eyes traveling to it, falling on a text preview from none other than the young man you were with that day – Harry.

‘Hey, Y/N. Sorry to bother but would you be able to send me that lemon toast recipe? Might treat myself to it tomorrow morning. Sorry for the bother. :) Harry’

After stopping the video and opening the text and reading it, if it weren’t for Faith, you wouldn’t have known that you had a grin on your face.

“Why are you smiling so big? Did Auntie Cece send a picture of her cat?” She had asked, looking up at you with curiosity.

Looking down at her, you laughed slightly at yourself. “No, she didn’t.”

“You look happy.”

There were many things you loved about your daughter, many things you were in awe at. As only a kid, Faith was one of the most empathetic people in your life and that moment as you both cuddled on the couch was proof.

With a matching grin, Faith’s eyes twinkled with glee at the sight of her smiling mom, curious to know the reason.

“They aren’t singing This Is Me yet!” Faith added, knowing that the both of you usually laughed and giggled while singing that song, only because you always sang it so dramatically and at the top of your lungs.

“Just happy you’re finally done with the sandwich because now I can do this!” And with that, you tickled her, Faith breaking into laughter and giggles as she tried to stop you.

5 minutes later, Faith was back to watching the movie while you typed a reply.

‘hey, harry! it isn’t a bother 😊 i’ll write it down and send it in a moment :))’

‘Thank you! x’

And you wrote it down and sent it to him, adding little notes, too just to make sure that he perfected the toast.

‘let me know how that goes for you :) x’

‘Will do, love. Talk to you soon. Goodnight :) x’

‘goodnight, harry x’

As if your little love took that as a sign, you looked down at her as you felt her body grow heavier against you and noticed her breath get steady, seeing her eyes closed as she snoozed.

Carefully, you turned off the television before holding her with your arm so she didn’t fall down as you stood, bending to carry her before kneeling a little to grab her fallen dinosaur, letting out a tiny groan as your back ached.

Tucking her in her bed, you sat beside her for a moment, brushing her hair back softly before bending to kiss her forehead.

“Story?” She sleepily asked, struggling to open her eyes.

You chuckled, “You’re already asleep, nugget.”

She hummed, still struggling to open her eyes, “Okay. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” You smiled before standing up, walking towards her small vanity and turning on her star light lamp.

Just as you were out of the door, you lingered, turning to look back at your daughter, “Was I really smiling big?”

In her sleepy state, Faith managed to reply. “Very big, Mommy.”

You chuckled to yourself and shook your head before walking out and towards your own room.

Harry felt like a kid. He was too excited that morning to get up and get on with his breakfast, wanting to deny that it wasn’t because he wanted a reason to text you, but who was he trying to lie to? No one, he was alone.

He followed the recipe, chuckling and laughing to himself during some moments when he was about to fall for some mistakes before reading your notes and saving his toasts, as if you were sitting right there and monitoring him.

His playlist was playing from his phone that he held in his hand, and he was humming along as he placed the two toasts on a plate before adding some powdered sugar to them and grabbing his juice.

Before eating, Harry had taken his time in taking a picture of his breakfast, thankful for the natural light his kitchen window was giving for his little photoshoot.

He was just as much nervous as excited as he sliced up a piece before taking a bite, taking his time to taste his work and his eyebrows shot up and he blinked twice in surprise.

It was so good.

While eating another slice, Harry held his phone and opened his messages app, going to your contact.

Attaching the best picture from his breakfast photoshoot, he added a text with it,

‘Tastes incredible! Would have burned it to coal if it weren’t for your notes hahah x’

And he put his phone back on the table, open at your messages as he continued eating while listening to music.

He was mid-sip of his juice when you replied and Harry hated how excited he got because the next thing he knew, he was having a coughing fit that had him go tearful before finally calming down.

‘looks incredible, too! oh trust me, i know. burned a fair amount of toasts on my own so i decided to spare you the damage. you’re a quick learner :)) x’

That morning, you and Harry exchanged multiple texts, drifting from his breakfast to how you both wished to have dogs.

It was around 4 when you were driving back with Faith from her gymnastics practice when Harry called, thankfully just as you were unlocking the door to your apartment.

“Hey.” You smiled to yourself as you answered, taking off your shoes by the door beside Faith’s before closing the door behind you, watching as Faith went to the bathroom to wash her hands.

“Hi,” Harry, too, was smiling to himself as he held the phone close to his ear, “I was walking around and I found this tiny restaurant that reminded me of where you took us yesterday and, apparently they make the best Italian pizza. Was wondering if you wanted to grab pizza with me and we can talk about, you know,” he chuckled, “The sessions.”

You thought, mind instantly going to who would watch Faith as you went before your eyes fell on your daughter who came back, whispering to you if she should wait for you in the bathroom seen as you were on the phone.

“One second,” you said to Harry before moving the phone from your ear and muting the sound, “Yeah, baby, do that. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

You unmuted, “Hey, sorry about that.”

“No worries.”

He was growing nervous at how you were yet to reply to his suggestion, having already had been nervous enough to suggest and call in the first place.

“Pizza and talking sound lovely.”

He released a breath, smiling to himself. “Great, great! Pick you up at 6?”

“Sure, yeah. 6 is great. I’ll go now. See you soon, Harry.”

“See you soon, Y/N.”

You didn’t trust strangers to watch your daughter, didn’t exactly trust strangers in your house unattended, too. It’s why at times when you couldn’t drive the 40-minute drive to your mom’s, your best friend, Cece, was always your go-to and that was especially nice because she also lived two buildings away.

Cece’s job was one from her home, making food and delivering it to people while she managed her business on her own through social media and it was why most of the time, she was home and always happy to have her goddaughter keep her company.

After calling Cece to make sure she was okay with babysitting Faith for some time and her assuring you that she was, you prepared dinner for your daughter after giving her a shower.

“Are you sure you’re okay with me leaving, baby?” You asked as you sat with Faith while she ate the pasta you made her.

It wasn’t frequent of you to leave Faith for anything but work. Maybe for a night out with some friends every now and then but you always went out with them for 3 hours tops before you began feeling guilty for leaving your daughter and going back to get her so you can spend time together instead.

And it wasn’t like you were frequently going on dates either. Cece had pushed you into it when Faith was 2, and you did go out a few times with different people, all whom you never heard of whenever they knew that you had a daughter and then you decided that maybe the single mom life was just too welcoming of you.

Hell, you didn’t know whether you should call having pizza with Harry a date. It wasn’t, was it? Not that you’d mind but it was for business, wasn’t it? Strictly business. Or maybe it wasn’t and that was fine by you- and now you were beginning to feel like a teenager again. Great.

“Mommy,” Your 4-year-old huffed, rolling her eyes, “I’m a big girl. You should have more fun.”

You couldn’t believe that you were getting advice from a 4-year-old, especially your daughter, but you deserved that.

“When did you get so big?” You rhetorically asked, “Thank you for being understanding, Nugget.”

Faith smiled at you, kicking her legs as she ate. “Where are you going?”

Now that question you weren’t prepared for, as much as you thought about it.

You couldn’t risk telling too much to Faith, knowing that she got excited over new people and couldn’t risk disappointing her if Harry ended up being, well, not one to stick or friendly to kids of single moms.

But at the same time, your daughter was your best friend. It was because of your honesty with her and how you acknowledge her and treat her that she was an understanding and empathetic person who could hold a conversation.

“Well, you know Harry Styles? The man who sings Canyon Moon?” You asked, knowing that that song was on her top favorite songs list after she had heard it once on the radio as you were driving her to her practice.

She nodded, “The pretty man with drawings?”

She had been curious to see the face behind her favorite song and once you showed her a picture, her smile got big and she had said that he was “very pretty” and had “nice drawings that she wanted to color in” meaning his tattoos.

You chuckled, “Yes, that one.” Again, Faith nodded. “Well, I’m helping him with his songs and I’m going to have dinner with him tonight.” You said, crossing your arms on the table.

Faith dropped her fork, looking at you with wide eyes and an open mouth, causing you to laugh heartfully at your daughter. “Mommy, really?!”

You nodded, opening your phone’s camera to record her, Faith not caring.

“Mommy you’re meeting Harry Styles!”

“I am,” you laughed, “Are you happy?”

“Very happy I’m going to cry!” She gasped, “Can I see him? Please, Mommy, please!”

“I don’t know, Nugget. I might have to ask him.”

“Do you think he’ll say no?” She frowned, “I can wear my Harry dress!”

And by her Harry dress, she meant the Fine Line black tee you had bought her, and even though it was sized small, she was only a toddler so you had resulted for her to wear it as a dress after you had trimmed it and its sleeves and had your mom fit it as tight as she could without damaging it. Needless to say, whenever your daughter wore the oversized tee dress, you had to snap multiple pictures of her because she always looked too adorable and fashionable in it.

“I don’t know what he’ll say but I’ll ask him. And yes, you can. You always look adorable in it.” You smiled, still recording her.

“Can you tell him I love his songs? I love Canyon Moon so much an-Oh! And Sunflower, too!” She grinned, “Are you going to show him this video?” Faith asked as she looked at you.

You shrugged, “You want me to?”

She nodded excitedly before looking at the camera, “Mr. Harry, I love you very much, sir. I hope I can see you but Mommy said she’ll ask you so please say yes. Make Mommy happy, not sad. Goodnight, sir.”

Your heart might have as well exploded that moment as she waved before you ended the video.

As if he was waiting for you to finish, your phone began ringing the moment you stopped recording, finding Harry calling you which made you instantly pick up the moment Faith began eating again.

“Hey, do you like strawberries?” He asked, the moment you picked up.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion but a silly smile took over your face nonetheless, “Uh, yes?”

“Alright, great. I’ll see you soon. Bye!”

To make matters easier, once Harry had texted you that he was 2 minutes away, you grabbed your bag and left your apartment and into the elevator before walking outside your building, just in time to see a yellow Ferrari Dino pull up.

You smiled at him, watching as he parked before getting out, “Did I keep you waiting for long?” He asked as he approached you.

“No, just came down.” You answered, watching as he reluctantly slightly opened his arms. He was a hugger.

You wrapped your arms around him in a greeting hug, taking notice of how good he smelled. Just as good as he looked; he was in off-white textured knit Wales Bonner polo, paired with his Gucci flared denim pants and off-white Converse. Nobody should be allowed to look that good in casual clothes.

It wasn’t like Harry’s mind wasn’t doing flips at that moment, too. Instead of smelling like overpriced perfume, you smelled like coconut and roses; a refreshing smell that made Harry’s smile deepen enough for his dimple to make appearance. You, too, were in casual clothes; violet colored cropped culottes, a white tee tucked inside, white sneakers on, a black and white cross-bag and your hair was up in a messy ponytail that was kept by a hairband but you wrapped a black and white head bandana around the band just for the looks.

You looked effortlessly beautiful.

You both walked to his car, Harry opening the door for you before grabbing something from the passenger seat before you sat – a bouquet of strawberries.

“Didn’t know what type of flowers you like so,” he said before extending the bouquet towards you with sweetest and giddiest smile, “Hope that’s okay.”

You almost melted, your face changing to a pout as your head tilted to look at him while you accepted the bouquet, “This is so nice of you. Thank you, I love it.”

Alright so you don’t get strawberry bouquets to people you aren’t going on dates with, right?

The ride to the little pizzeria was nice – comfortably nice. You had shared the strawberries there and your stomach did a thousand flips when you offered Harry one only to have him open his mouth,

“I’m driving.”

And then he opened his mouth again, biting the strawberry you offered with your hand, laughing when it was about to drip on him if it weren’t for your fast reflexes – thank motherhood for that – as you held out your other hand beneath his chin.

By sharing strawberries, you mean you ate some as well as fed Harry some.

You both mentally took notice of how conversations flowed so effortlessly between you, as if you had met years ago and not just a day. Hell, even the texts were random and messy as well as entertaining and fun.

The drive wasn’t a long one, only about 20 minutes before Harry was parking in front of a place called ‘La Pizza’.

You both went outside the car, you waiting for Harry by your side as he walked towards you.

You might as well have melted right there and then when you felt Harry’s hand, very gently, on your back. It was very gentle, you almost didn’t notice and you felt that he was just making sure that he wasn’t making you uncomfortable but it was a reflex action of his. Nonetheless, you appreciated the concern and decided to show him that it was okay to touch you when you touched his arm as you both walked through the door.

Harry gulped, feeling hot as you touched him and he almost scolded himself because it only lasted for a second, yet there he was, getting flustered already. What the fuck was going on with him?

A waitress greeted the both of you, smiling widely as she motioned for you to follow her inside the place.

“There are more tables on the roof, would you want to check that?”

Harry looked at you the same moment you did at him, both of you nodding to each other to say that you wouldn’t mind.

“That would be great, thank you.” Harry said, smiling politely at the waitress who nodded and walked in front of you with the both of you following her up the stairs, Harry’s hand now more comfortably on your back as he walked behind you.

The roof was beautiful; cliché but beautiful fairy lights of small globe bulbs hung above the place, only 3 tables there, each at a good amount of distance from each other.

“Would you want to sit here or downstairs?”

Harry looked at you, you giving him a nod. “Here would be fine.”

The waitress nodded before guiding you towards a 2-chaired table. Harry had sat you down first before moving to his chair.

“Thank you.” You both said in unison as the waiter placed 2 menus in front of the both of you.

“I’ll be back to take your orders.” She smiled before leaving.

“Looks good.” You smiled at him before looking down at the menu.

“Didn’t know they had a roof.” Harry said, “This saved me.” He chuckled.

You looked up with confusion, “Saved you from what?”

Harry shrugged, now growing nervous. “Uh, wasn’t sure if taking you out for the first time here was chivalrous enough because it felt too casual, like a friends thing and not a date but now here seems right.”

He wished the ground he was on would split and swallow him whole. Wished to crawl up a hole and cry.

There were things he was practicing on on the way to you; like how he would hide that he was a nervous wreck, how he was excited to spend time with you, how he knew almost every single song you worked on, and finally, how he wouldn’t spill that he thought that was a date, no matter how much he wanted it to be.

You were amused. Contrary to how Harry truly felt, you thought it was nice that he was straightforward.

“Figured this wasn’t too casual the moment you gave me the strawberry bouquet, Harry.” You smiled, assuring him that you were okay with this being a date.

Looks like it wasn’t business after all.

Harry chuckled, raising an eyebrow, “That was nice, wasn’t it?”

You laughed, “Yes. Don’t think I was ever given a bouquet of fruit so yeah. Really nice.”

You both went through the menu, commenting on some plates and ingredients as you did and contemplating together.

“Maybe we should just get two pizzas and share, so we can try more than one option.” You suggested.

“Good idea.” He agreed, “What do you think of Quattro Formaggi?”

“Ooo, yes.” You then pointed on another topping, “Pizza Melanzane?”

“Yes.” Harry closed his menu with a nod.

Shortly after, your waitress came back and took your order before leaving.

“Finished a song yesterday.”

Your eyes widened as you took a sip of water before putting the glass back down, “Really?”

Harry nodded, “Yeah. A new one.”

“You mean you wrote a new one? Not finished writing one you already had?”

Again, he nodded, putting his arms on the table. “New. Very much new.”

You grinned at him, “That’s amazing. What is it about?”

Alright maybe he didn’t think that one through. He did write a song the previous night and he was proud of it and his gut did tell him that it would make it to the list of his next album, but telling you about it on your first – and he hoped it wasn’t the last – date? Well, not so ideal.

“It’s about opening up to someone new. Trying love again and unraveling yourself to the other person.”

Maybe it was because of your situation, but your breath hitched in your throat.

“You know when you get fucked from an ex and love as whole and you think that you don’t want to go through that again and you, like, close off,” Harry explained, “And it’s like you’re immune to feeling any sort of love or interest in anyone after that. Sure, maybe some sexual attraction here and there, but never something wholesome, you know?” He motioned with one of his rings clad hands as he talked, “But then you meet someone and you feel like a teenager or something,” he chuckled, “And it’s a nice feeling, it’s wonderful, that you start thinking that, hey,” he tilted his head, “Maybe I can do this again.”

You were speechless.

You were a woman of words, hell, you worked with words, but right then, you barely remembered the alphabets.

“You- You get me, right?” Harry asked.

You broke out of your trance, nodding absentmindedly, “Yeah, yeah, I,” you paused, an airy chuckle leaving your throat, “Man do I get you.”

He smiled in amusement, “Relatable?”

“Too much, you had me by surprise.” You answered honestly, releasing a breath.

It wasn’t a surprise to Harry that somebody broke your heart; it was always the good ones who got their hearts broken and got fucked over, always the givers.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling of shock at who would possibly have you at arm’s length, with the ability to kiss and cuddle you, and decide to break your heart?

See, maybe Harry had just met you but you know when you meet someone good. Someone kind. Especially when you’re in an industry that is full of shitty people and too many cold snobs.

“When was it?”

You understood his question, understanding that he meant to ask you about when your heart got broken – when somebody fucked you over.

“5 years ago.” You answered, “You?”

“2.”

“Cheers.” You joked, raising your glass of water to clink it to his, chuckling when he did clink them.

“5 years is a long time.” He commented, gentle with his tone as were his eyes.

“It is,” you agreed, “Got over him, really.”

“You met someone after?”

His question made you think again of your answer, causing you to giggle before correcting yourself, “Got over him as a person but not over the whole thing.”

Harry chuckled, “So no.”

You shook your head, “No. Didn’t have the heart to.” And even though your sentence carried double meanings, you took a mental note of that same sentence just for future songwriting sessions. “What about you? Met anyone after it?”

“Not really,” he shook his head, “Friends set me up with some people but it never went further than a day.”

“You don’t click?”

“No,” Harry answered before a small smile made its way to his face, “I didn’t.”

Your face grew hot, breaking eye contact to glance beside you for a moment.

“How long did it take to write that song yesterday?” You asked, turning back to look at him, growing more flustered to see that he was already looking at you with the same smile.

“Think 25 minutes.”

Your eyes widened, “Inspiration really did hit you, Harry, huh?”

“Grabbed the journal and guitar and I just ran to the studio at home, and it just,” he shrugged, “Happened.”

“Let it keep hitting you like that and we won’t be working together.” You said with a smirk.

“Then I’ll purposely distract myself whenever it hits me so I can see you.” Harry was quick to reply, a smug smile of his own on his face.

“Oh my God.” You whispered under your breath, shaking your head as you covered your face, hearing Harry laugh before feeling his hands on yours, guiding them down.

Shortly after, your waitress was back with your orders; both pizzas looking mouthwatering.

You and Harry decided against utensils, exchanging slices with your hands and granted, as Harry had said, they did make the best Italian pizza.

After the pizza and paying, you and Harry had grabbed ice cream from the parlor right next to the pizzeria before sitting in the car, remaining parked as you laughed about everything and anything.

“And I had no idea that Paul McCartney was right behind me the entire time. It was awful!” You finished, laughing more at how hard Harry was laughing at your story.

“Would’ve changed my name and moved out of this planet if I were you.” He teased you as he regained his breath.

“Oh, shut up!” You laughed, rolling your eyes at him.

Harry laughed, reaching out to place a hand on yours, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Embarrassing shit happens to me everyday, too. On stage is the worst.”

You tried to ignore the tingly feeling that rushed within you at his hand over yours, but good heavens, you were a goner. “The falls?”

“At some point I thought it was good my tour got postponed because I see myself falling during most of the songs. Imagine Watermelon Sugar, I’d be a clown.”

You laughed, “Probably so,” you teased him, batting your eyelashes jokingly when he feigned shock, “But really, you’re an amazing performer. I actually have been to one of your shows once.”

Harry’s eyes widened and as did his smile, “No way.”

You nodded, “The one in Glasgow in November.”

“You’re telling me that we were in the same room and-“ Harry paused, shaking his heads as he let out a chuckle of disbelief, “Wow. Alright. Did you have anyone with you?”

“Was just me and Faith.” You answered nonchalantly, only realizing once you did before your looked intently at Harry.

“Is that a best friend?” He asked, “Did they enjoy the show?”

“She did, yeah. Very actually,” You chuckled, remember how surprised you were at how 2-year-old Faith at the time was actually very interested and was dancing in your arms the entire time. “And she is my best friend at some point but she’s my daughter.”

You didn’t know what you were expecting but you definitely weren’t expecting Harry to grin excitedly.

“You have a daughter?”

“Uh, yeah,” you nodded, a small smile on your face as you inspected him, “I do. She turns 5 in December.”

Harry only seemed to get more excited at the news, which made your heart flutter at the sight of.

“Do you have a picture?”

“Yeah, of course,” you smiled more then, eager to show him your beautiful girl before unlocking your phone and opening your photos album, only to find the most recent addition to it – the video. “Hey, actually, she wanted me to show you something.”

You gave Harry the phone to watch better, most of the time keeping your eyes on him. Harry’s cheeks sported a shade of red at how highly your daughter spoke of him, laughing and giggling to himself as he watched.

“Nooo, I won’t say no. I’d love to meet her.” He cooed, continuing to watch.

As the video ended, Harry handed you back the phone, “Please let me meet her. And what’s that Harry dress?”

And so you told him about your adventure with the tee, to which his heart seemed to grow a thousand times more at.

“I wasn’t aware kids loved me, I’m sorry you couldn’t find her size.” Harry frowned, feeling genuinely bad.

“Hey, no,” you assured him, putting your other hand on his – that was still resting on yours – “Don’t worry about it. You don’t exactly sing the alphabetics, Mr. sex-inspired-my-last-album-and-I-made-it-on-shrooms.”

Harry giggled, shrugging at you.

You both talked some more, only about Faith. Harry’s eyes were wide with admiration when you told him about how you raised her alone – also assured when he realized that the father wasn’t exactly in the picture even though his heart broke at that – and he showered you with compliments of how brave you were to raise a kid alone.

“Think I should head back now. I still need to pick Faye up from my best friend’s.” You said, leaning your head on the headrest as your body was turned towards Harry, his hand sandwiched between yours on your thigh.

“Can I help?” He asked, “Only if that’s okay. I don’t want to be crossing my limits.”

Your eyes searched his, growing emotional at the man in front of you. “Are you sure?”

Again with the double meanings.

That time, Harry noticed, his face softening as he looked back at you. Softly and ever-so-gently, he leaned to press a soft kiss on your cheek, “I’m sure.”

As he drove, you and Harry held hands on your thigh, the both of you singing along to Fleetwood Mac on your way.

As you gave Harry directions, he was absentmindedly rubbing your hand with his thumb. If you would have told him that he was doing that, he would have denied it; not because he wanted to deny it, but because it felt too natural that he didn’t realize he was doing it.

“Right here.” You pointed at a building, “She’s two buildings away. You can go, it’s a short walk.”

“I’ll wait for you here.” Harry said, parking before turning to look at you.

“Harry, seriously, you can leave if you want. I’m right there.” You pointed at your building.

“Nonsense, love. I’ll wait here.”

You sighed in contentment, giving his hand a squeeze before getting out of the car and into the building.

“Why did you not tell me that you were on a date with Harry fucking Styles?” Cece whisper shouted as soon as she opened the door, “Knew from Faith, you shit.”

“Because you’d overr-“

“He could be the one!”

“-react. You’d overreact and plan our wedding.” You teased your best friend, “Where’s Faye?”

“Won’t you come in for a drink?” She asked before turning, “Faith, it’s your mom!”

“Can’t. Uh,” you cleared your throat, “Someone’s waiting for me.”

“Some- No fucking way!” She exclaimed, muttering a “sorry” when you hushed her, “He-Harry is downstairs? Are you shitting me?” Cece excitedly asked.

You couldn’t stifle the smile on your face as you nodded.

Cece was about to talk some more before Faith appeared beside her, her backpack hung on one shoulder as she rubbed her eyes.

You knelt down, hugging her. “Hey, Nugget. You sleepy?”

Faith only nodded, wrapping her arms around you as you carried her, feeling her rest her head on your shoulder and you instantly knew that she slept.

“I’ll text you, alright?” You whispered to Cece.

“You better.”

Carrying Faith as well as having her backpack in one hand, once Harry saw you, he was out of the car and rushing towards you, taking the bag from your hand.

“Thank you.” You smiled thankfully, noticing how he walked beside you and guided you to the car, opening the door for you and sleeping Faith before closing it as gently as he could.

The lack of backseats made Harry place the purple backpack on his lap as he drove towards your building, a seconds drive.

He stopped the car and was out of his seat the moment he parked, slinging the bag on his shoulder before helping you out, taking your bag for you, to which you quietly thanked him for.

“Um, you can place the bags on my shoulders or something.”

“I can help you upstairs, come on. It’s no problem.”

You knew he was set on it and you let him, mostly because of how surprised you were that there were people who didn’t cringe and run the moment they knew the other person had a kid.

Harry did all the work; opened the building’s door for you, pressed for the elevator, pressed your floor number and had even taken out your keys once you told him to to unlock the door.

“Come in, come in.” You whispered.

Unsure of what to do, Harry walked inside and mirrored your actions by taking off his shoes before lingering.

“You can follow me.” You whispered again, turning around for a moment to look at him with a smile.

A quick take of the apartment was what Harry could do as he followed you, feeling an emotion of comfort and coziness engulf him as he did.

You were never less thankful for yourself for every time you changed Faith into pajamas before taking her to Cece’s, because it only made the process of tucking her in easier.

Harry had helped you by moving the covers so you could place Faith in bed before he stepped back, letting you tuck her in.

He smiled, watching how you seemed to shift around her or even when you just talked about her, like she was the most important person in your life and he knew that she was exactly that.

Faith was beautiful, and more often than not, you were glad that she got most of your looks and not her biological father’s because it only meant that he really was out of your life.

Harry noticed it, too. She had your nose, your lips, your facial outline, and your hair color. And from what he had seen in the video from when Faith was awake, she had your eye color.

You placed a kiss to her forehead before turning around, your eyes falling on Harry whose eyes were set on Faith with a ghost of a smile on his face.

His eyes came up to you and you noticed that he was still holding on to Faith’s backpack and was wearing your crossbag across his own chest.

You smiled as you grabbed the backpack from him and putting it aside on the floor before looking at him.

The only light in the room was from the hallway, making the room dimmed and making the both of you in a much more sentimental moment.

“They usually run away when they find about Faith.” You whispered, stepping closer to him, “Now is your cue.”

Harry’s eyes were on yours until they glanced at your lips, and butterflies erupted in your stomach at that.

“Thank God I’m not one of them, then.” He replied gently in a low whisper before he leaned closer, shamelessly looking at your lips.

It was you who took the final step, closing the minimal space between you by placing your lips on his.

His hands went to your waist as yours went to his neck, feeling him kiss you back softly but eagerly before pulling away from less than a second to tilt his head, getting a better angle before his lips were back on yours.

“Mommy?”

Pt. 2

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