Tumgik
#lost literally one of the best friendships of my life yesterday
fleshdyke · 9 months
Text
absnskaisgbsj
#lost literally one of the best friendships of my life yesterday#i mean it’s been gone for a while i just never had the courage to talk to them about it until yesterday. and that basically confirmed it tbh#they didn’t say i did anything wrong but they also didn’t not say i did anything wrong and i’m v paranoid that i did do smth wrong#like i dont want to talk bad abt any of them bc genuinely i had so much fun with these people and im so glad i got to know them#like when i talked to them they were very dry ig? like not like their usual self at all even when talking to someone they dont know#definitely sounded like they were talking to someone they hated. im trying to tell myself taht its just my anxiety but ummm yeah idk i think#im actually right this time#idk. it just sucks man. im trying to think of what i did wrong bc i just dont know what happened#i think im overanalyzing every interaction i can remember having with these ppl bc i dont even want to entertain the idea that they might#have been bad people all along. i dont want to think that and i dont but idk it feels like an observation about myself that ive made from#the outside in yk. like half of me is feeling the emotional response and the other half is just watching from the outside like im someone#else. and i know this is a normal human thing but its just always weird yk#and then theres the whole awful thing of seeing shit that they would find funny or that reminds me of them. and i also dont know what im#supposed to do when school starts back up again bc we took a lot of the same classes and if i end up in a class with them idk if im supposed#to say hi or just pretend they dont exist or not and i dont want to make the wrong decision so they hate me even more yk#whatever man. it fucking sucks but life goes on. my dog is just chilling in my room rn and i’ll always have her and tia and my brother#rambles#vent
6 notes · View notes
mclqren · 4 days
Text
ME AND MY BROKEN HEART ★ CL16 ( & MV33 )
PAIRING ✦ charles leclerc x fem!ex girlfriend!reader ; max verstappen x fem!reader
SUMMARY ✦ when charles leaves you heartbroken, you end up letting a certain red bull driver help mend your broken heart [ SMAU ]
WARNINGS ✦ cursing
REQUESTED ✦ here!
NOTES ✦ reader is a model for dior. for the timeline of this, reader & charles broke up in august 2023 and he got with another woman (choosing to leave her unnamed because there will be NO alex slander) in september 2023. as per request, the fc i've used is hannah harrell, but feel free to picture whoever you want! my requests are closed at the moment.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Tumblr media
liked by yourbsf, anyataylorjoy, and 691,221 others
yourusername had to learn that the hard way 👎
view all comments
user1 THE LAST SLIDE WHAT.
user2 NO WAY ARE HER AND CHARLES BROKEN UP NOOO
user3 MY FAV COUPLE 💔
user4 the way im so upset rn is not healthy.
user5 real like THEY WERE PARENTS
user6 okay but y/n is still glowing??
user7 righttt!! enough about the guy who drives in circles all day, lets talk about HER 😍
user8 he fumbled.
user9 realll!
yourbsf making that cake was wayyy too much fun 😋
yourusername breaking it apart was even better 😉
anyataylorjoy 😍😍
yourusername who needs a man when i have you 🩷
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by yourbsf, maxverstappen1, and 651,212 others
tagged yourbsf
yourusername greek air to cure the breakup blues 🇬🇷💙
view all comments
user14 OKAYYY MISS Y/N YOU ARE SERVING AS PER!!
user15 she's living her best life and im HERE FOR IT
user16 her and her bsf are actually everything to me
user17 so trueee i need a friendship like theirs!!
user18 NOO I WAS JUST IN GREECE I CANT BELIEVE I MISSED YOU
user19 NO I WAS AS WELL I WAS SO UPSET WHEN I SAW THIS
user20 bet charles is missing you rn!!
user21 who cares abt charles? she's literally getting over him rn, he's so yesterday's news 😴
user22 what part did you go to?? im planning on going over the holidays in october, and i desperately need some recs!! 🫶
yourusername crete!! it was so so beautiful, can confirm 🩷
user23 one driver out of her likes, another (max verstappen) in her likes
user24 okay but they'd be such a good couple??
yourbsf GIRLS TRIP WAS THE BESTTT
yourusername NEXT ONE PENDING FOR SUREEE
mariloublg_ absolutely gorgeous gorgeous girlies 😍😍
yourusername MARILOU MY ANGEL 🩷
user25 i came here from the instagram gossip website and can i just say in that interview you SERVED
user26 REALLL
user27 wait what are you guys on about?? im so lost HELP
user26 go on @/f1wagnews and you'll see!
Tumblr media
liked by user28, user29, and 871,291 others
f1wagnews NEW: Y/N L/N breaks her silence on the circulating paparazzi pictures of Charles Leclerc & his apparent new girlfriend. When asked by the media what she thought, she said: "Charles being in a new relationship not even a month later is naturally a shock, seeing as I assumed he would treat me and the times we shared over the past three years with the same dignity and respect that I am treating him. I don't know, I guess these sort of memories aren't as priceless to him as they are to me. Still, I hope he's happy in his new relationship."
view all comments
user28 OKAYY MISS Y/N IS BACKK!!
user29 THIS is what i was waiting for.
user30 she is actually handling this really maturely to be fair to her!!
user31 realll!! i wish i would've been like this with my ex
user32 okay so a lot of the comments are saying she handled this w grace or whatever but is it just me who disagrees? like she's literally being rude to him and his new girlfriend, and you're all hyping her up?? like huh??
user33 honestly this comment makes no sense to me; she didn't say anything rude about charles in this, she simply said that she was shocked to see him in a relationship when they were together for three years, and honestly she's valid for that! i don't think many girls would enjoy seeing their ex boyfriend and his new girlfriend all over the media, and so y/n is honestly handling this so well.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
yourusername
Tumblr media Tumblr media
( caption one: crazy huh 😉 | caption two: compensation acquired ✅ + tags )
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by mariloublg_, maxverstappen1, and 667,891 others
tagged mariloublg_
yourusername america with my girl 🩷 (& her boyfriend...)
view all comments
user37 THE CAPTION LMAOO
user38 Y/N REMAINS HILARIOUS
user39 ASTON MARTIN SWITCH UP HELLOOO??
user40 I KNOWW marilou and her are so cute though i loveee
user41 it's so weird to see her in green after having seen her in red for the past three years
user42 i knowww but she looks like she's happy now and that's all that matters tbh!!
lance_stroll thanks so much for the shoutout y/n, appreciate you too i guess
yourusername listen stroll if you hurt her i'll be at ur doorstep.
lance_stroll im actually sort of scared of you at times y/n.
yourusername good! 😊😊
maxverstappen1 so you liked seeing me win then?
yourusername you've been winning since like the prehistoric ages mate i think ive gotten used to it by now 🙄 (yes)
user43 so like is it just me or is this flirty...
mariloublg_ MY GIRL FOREVERRR 🫶
yourusername 🩷🩷
Tumblr media
liked by yourbsf, maxverstappen1, and 702,192 others
tagged maxverstappen
yourusername second slide is me when i finally manage to get my shit together
view all comments
user44 OKAY BUT ARE MAX AND Y/N DATING ORRR
user45 MAYBEEE!! honestly they'd be so cute i just KNOW he'd treat her right
user46 y/n you are my everything.
user47 the flowersss?? did miss y/n get herself another man?
user48 has to be max.
maxverstappen1 the second slide was uncalled for. ☹️
yourusername I COULDNT STOP LAUGHING IM SO SORRY IT WAS HILARIOUS 😭
maxverstappen1 the flowers 👀👀
yourusername yeah!! wonder who got me those 😍
anyataylorjoy you have a man now? ☹️
yourusername nooo ur the only one i need baby i swear 🩷
Tumblr media
liked by mariloublg_, user49, and 921,933 others
f1wagnews NEW: Y/N L/N is a WAG again...but for a different driver on the grid! In a recent interview during the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Max Verstappen confirmed to the press that he and Y/N had entered a relationship a couple of weeks prior, after pictures circulated of the two in his car in Monaco: "Well obviously she came to the COTA grand prix and I had already known her before and we were good friends, so we fell right back where we left off, and here we are now! [...] Yeah things are going great, she's truly one of the best people I've ever met."
view all comments
user49 Y/NSTAPPEN LETS GOOOO
user50 MY GIRL IS A WAG AGAINNN I LOVE
user51 is it just me who misses charles and y/n ☹️
user52 yeah. 😊
mariloublg_ ❤️❤️
user53 MARILOUUUU?? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!!
user54 ONE OF Y/N'S BEST FRIENDS AND FELLOW WAG COMMENTING OH ITS SERIOUS.
user55 they are seriously adorableee 🫶🫶
Tumblr media Tumblr media
yourusername
Tumblr media Tumblr media
( caption one: third time's the charm? 😬 | caption two: wtf is this man thinking about now. )
Tumblr media
liked by charles_leclerc, maxverstappen1, and 934,219 others
tagged maxverstappen1
yourusername MR WORLD CHAMPPP!! so so proud of you maxie, my winner always 🩷
view all comments
user59 Y/N AWWWW
user60 i have a feeling this one's working out idk
user61 oh absolutely
user62 so happy to see you happy again y/n!! 🫶🫶
user63 lost some race driver and came back with a world champion 🏆🏆
user64 ADORABLEEE
mariloublg_ MY CUTIES
yourusername OUR BIGGEST FAN
mariloublg_ well as your fairy godmother it IS an obligation to be ur biggest fan ever 🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️
maxverstappen1 love you ❤️
yourusername my champ 🏆
charles_leclerc so happy for both of you ❤️
yourusername thank you so much charles, hope ur doing well w ur gf 🩷
user65 charles and y/n are talking again, i can officially sleep in peace.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1K notes · View notes
piastree · 3 months
Text
Take a Chance with Me | OP81
oscar piastri x reader (fc: huh yunjin)
— Part 4
Previous Part
Summary: When things aren't going well, Y/N takes a break for a while and redirects her focus to other things, spending more time with Oscar and her friends. Y/N's friends and Oscar consistently support her, ensuring Y/N is okay, even though she often insists she's fine. Disclamer: This is a story created for fun without any hate towards anyone. This work exists in a realm separate from the original canon. Characters may be divergent from their established personas. So, just enjoy the rollercoaster ride.
oscarpiastri added a story
Tumblr media Tumblr media
landonorris are u proposing mate? oscarpiastri yeah mate, proposing to decide who pays the bill
yourbff
Tumblr media
tagged yourusername
liked by oscarpiastri, user and 29,112 others
yourbff Through thick and thin, we've been laughing side by side for ten fantastic years. Wishing you endless happiness❤️
view comments
user friendship goalsss
user they are so PRETTYYYY
user both of you are not only stunning but also funny😂
oscarpiastri reserving my spot for the next decade😁
yourbff you're claiming to be one of my best friend spot now? i'll ask y/n first for the approval
lilymhe
Tumblr media
liked by oscarpiastri, alexalbon, carmenmmundt and 29,112 others
lilymhe nature therapy🍃💖
view comments
user lily with y/n?????
user lol y/n just casually third-wheeling Lily and Alex😂
user mother, father and their daughter
user isn't y/n outfit too fancy for hiking??😂
lilymhe she thought we were just joking about going hiking😭
alexalbon y/n seemed a bit lost without oscar
oscarpiastri well, she loves being a dork
user MOTHER SLAYING AS USUAL😍
user Y/N is literally everywhere but not on her own Instagram :(
user yeah but we love seeing how people around her being so supportive
f1updates
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by user, user, and 25,865 others
f1updates oscar was seen at a karting track with the young karteers yesterday
view comments
user finally we got new pics of oscar!!
user it's cute seeing the interaction between the kids and oscar
user AH OSCAR I MISS U POOKIE
user this is so lovely<3
user no y/n?
user i guess y/n isn't kind of wags who sticks to her partner all the time🤷‍♀️
user agreed, i've seen her at races only a few times
user when she doesn't need him anymore, she throws him under the bus
user lol wdym she just know what she should prioritize. Even oscar himself said she has her own life
imessage
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
f1wags
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
liked by user, user, and 10,901 others
f1wags After a brief hiatus from social media, y/n makes a cameo on her friend's IG Live today! In today's live, she spilled the beans on some questions about her christmas holiday in Australia and the short getaway in Japan with Oscar. She couldn't help but gush about the incredible experience—her first time in Australia. Oscar played the perfect tour guide, showing her around his hometown and introducing her to his family. He also told us about their short getaway in Japan. Y/N explained that they haven't seen each other for more than two weeks as Oscar is already back to work—busy with meetings, simulator sessions, and prepping for the upcoming F1 season at the McLaren Technology Centre, and she have to return to her work and projects too.
And can we just say, we're glad the couple is still in good terms after the recent not-so-great rumors?
view comments
user OMG, missed seeing you around, Y/N!
user she's talking about christmas in australia and their japan getaway? I need all the details!!
user she said they went to kyoto, disneyland, tried some street foods and traditional tea ceremony🥺
user i'm so happy y/n and oscar are still going strong and just ignore the haters and rumour
user their holiday stories are giving me major FOMO
user you radiate beauty and glow when you are unproblematic<3
twitter
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
yourusername
Tumblr media
liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris, yourbff and 102,999 others
yourusername in 2023, my journey went from ginger to black, mirroring the different stages of my life. It's like a colorful map of my growth and transformation, representing the beautiful journey i've had. Grateful for the lessons, the love, and the incredible people i met along the way❤️
view comments
yourbff always proud of you!!❤️
user you're the sweetest, y/n! please always be happy❤️
landonorris what's wrong with the last photo?
yourusername my reaction when u got pole in Brazil
landonorris really?
yourusername whatever makes u happy🤗
user wish you nothing but the best, y/n❤️
user caption on point💯
yourusername
Tumblr media
tagged oscarpiastri
liked by lilymhe, oscarpiastri, carmenmmundt and 29,954 others
yourusername same with me again next year?
view comments
user would be funny if oscar reacted with no
yourusername DON'T GIVE HIM IDEA
oscarpiastri i'll take that as reference thankyou😁
user adopt me
user the second pic is adorable😭
user this is the cutest photodump ever omfg
lilymhe ❤️❤️
yourusername love u mother, xo
oscarpiastri ready for another journey with me?
yourusername 💑💯
notes: honestly, i really want to put some conflict but i dunnoooo i can't bring myself to do it because i love them so much<///3 i dont want to mess with their lovey-dovey bickering dynamic:((( Maybe in the next part, I'll toss in some drama to keep things interesting hahaha lol. Thankyou for reading this chapter and hope u like it. Anyways, what do you think so far? Share your thoughts and let's have a chitchat with me<3
taglist: @fall-bambi @minkyungseokie @neoivy1
277 notes · View notes
rainiishowers · 5 months
Text
Obey Me Incorrect Quotes
A/N: Haha sleep deprivation go brrrrr
———
MC: So I can either do something dumb that could very well get me injured or I can listen to Simeon and not do the thing,
MC: Well there’s a clear right answer here.
MC: *proceeds to throw five packs of mentos into a barrel full of diet coke*
——
Barbatos’, at Solomon’s “funeral”: I need a moment with them.
Everyone else at the funeral: Of course. *leaves*
Barbatos, leaning over Solomon’s coffin: Okay, listen here you little shit. I know you’re not dead.
Solomon, sitting up in the coffin: Yeah, no shit.
——
Asmodeus: If I'm extra sarcastic with you it probably means I'm flirting with you or you really annoy me and I can't handle your crap... have fun figuring out which one.
——
Satan: ARE YOU-
MC: Fucking.
Satan: KIDDING ME?! YOU-
MC: Fucking.
Satan: IDIOT!
Beelzebub: …What was that?
MC: Lucifer banned Satan from swearing, so I’m helping him out.
——
Simeon: The odds of this happening by coincidence are vanishingly small.
Satan: I would say infinitesimally.
Mammon: And I'd say teenily-weenily. We all know words
——
Leviathan: I lost my fish.. :(
Beelzebub, cooking the fish: …Uhm…
——
Solomon: Protip is you do not feel good about yourself after eating tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce.
Luke: Are you okay???
Solomon: I literally JUST said I ate tomato sauce on iceberg lettuce. Pay attention.
Simeon: No, they mean other than that.
Solomon: Ohhhhhh.
Solomon: I haven't slept in 4 days.
——
Belphegor: Why were you up yesterday until 3am?
Mammon: How did you know I was up until 3am?
Lucifer: We could hear you clapping to the FRIENDS intro every 25 minutes.
——
Mammon: If we don’t get out of this alive… If we’re both about to die… I love you, MC!
*Neither of them die*
MC: …
Mammon: …
MC: So do you wanna talk about somethi-
Mammon: No thank you.
——
MC: How long do you reckon it’ll be until Simeon finally snaps and commits murder?
Solomon: I’ve been going through life assuming it’s already happened at some point and it’s just that no one was ever able to trace it back to them.
——
MC: We’re going to defeat you with the power of friendship!
Mephisto: We’re not friends.
MC, holding an axe: We’re going to defeat you with the power of incredible violence.
——
Asmodeus: Don't break someone's heart, they only have one.
Satan: Break one of their bones instead, they have 206 of them
——
Beelzebub: I’m so jetlagged I can’t even regrender my chorf.
*Everyone stares at Beel*
Beelzebub: …I don’t even know what I was trying to say.
——
Asmodeus: What's worse than a heartbreak?
Satan: Stepping on a cat's tail and not being able to explain that you're sorry.
——
Luke: You know guys, sometimes I feel like Lucifer doesn't take me seriously enough.
Mammon: "Sometimes"?
Solomon: "Enough"?
Luke: …
——
Lucifer: Lord Diavolo? What are you doing here?
Diavolo, wearing a hawaiian shirt, sunglasses and holding a gatorade: My best.
——
Mammn: *is throwing stones at MC’s window*
MC: You have a phone for a reason, Mammon!
*THUD*
MC: DID YOU JUST THROW YOUR PHONE AT MY WINDOW?!
——
Solomon: Guess who just found out the difference between wax paper and parchment paper the hard way?
Asmodeus: Wait, what’s the difference?
Solomon: One you can use in the oven safely, and the other you can also use in the oven... if the thing you are trying to make happens to be fire.
——
Solomon: Wow, they really hate us.
Asmodeus: Yea, perhaps they’re homophobic.
Solomon: But we’re not gay, Asmo.
Asmodeus: We’re not?
134 notes · View notes
thatfeelinwhenyou · 11 months
Text
HANDS ON YOU — 004
IN WHICH; ILAND 2 happened and you debuted first place as the leader of LUMIÉRE. Having been told that your group is involved in a lore crossover with ENHYPEN, you navigate work, friendship, and love while trying to make it in an industry filled with animosity and condemnation. When life throws you lemons, you gotta make lemonades chuck it right back!
smau + written (0.5k words)
❥・• chapter 4 — dog-eater…?
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
"I can't believe you got lost searching for a vending machine," Minjung-unnie hurriedly drags Mai over to where we are in the waiting area. "I'm sorry! I just really need some sugar intake," Mai sheepishly scratches the back of her neck, visibly apologetic for making her members wait. You can tell that everyone is on edge, and rightfully so, considering the intense training that all of you have put into preparing for this moment.
You notice Mai shifting uncomfortably in her stage outfit, presumably affected by the tension that has somehow permeated the atmosphere of the girls. “It’s okay, just don’t run off by yourself again yeah?” You placed a reassuring pat on her shoulder, and Mai gratefully deflates into your touch.
"How do you look... fine? I'm literally about to throw up." Yuna turns to look at you, her voice barely above a whisper but instead of replying to her, you shot Yuna a teasing smile only to have her jokingly roll her eyes at you. You'd be lying if you said you weren't nervous, you dreamt of this moment for as long as you have been training for it, imagining yourself confidently answering questions with poise and charm.
Now, facing the reality of being in the spotlight, a mix of excitement and anxiety consumes you. Even with a meticulously memorised script from yesterday, you can't help but feel the churning in your stomach, finding solace in having skipped lunch that day.
The corridors echo with the hurried footsteps of the production staff, their voices mingling with the hum of electronic equipment. You watch as Sunghoon and Wonyoung meticulously rehearse their lines, ensuring they are well-prepared for any anomalies that may occur.
Your heart nearly drops to the pits of your stomach when the production staff directs you and your group to make your way onto the tiny platform they have squeezed into the box set. Subtly, you share a smile with Sunghoon as you walk past him up the steps. "Nervous?" he asks, noticing your trembling hands. You nod in response.
"Don't be, just stick to the script and you'll do amazing."
"Not if I have the tendency to somehow screw things up."
"You're being dramatic," Ray sarcastically cuts into your conversation but call it leader instincts or whatever, you just know she's probably the most freaked out one among the rest of you. Proven right, when you feel her fingers finding their way up your arm, tugging onto them.
"You got this Ray, no sweat." You jokingly dig your fingers into the sides of her ribcage and you giggle as she shoots you a warning glare, “I'll eat your dog alive." She threatens and you swear you caught an offended gasp escaping from both Sunghoon's and Wonyoung's lips.
"Please excuse her, I swear she's not a dog-eater." Sunghoon laughs as he watches you desperately trying to explain the questionable humour your bandmate held, and Wonyoung subtly giggles behind her cue cards. You mentally curse Ray in your head for once again having no filter when you hear the director signal for all of you to stand by.
With a steady voice, you begin to deliver your lines, relying on the script that you had so diligently memorized. Occasionally, you catch glimpses of the production crew's reactions, their smiles, and nods of approval driving the initial jitters to give way to growing confidence, buoyed by the energy of the moment.
Tumblr media
prev | masterlist | next
♡。·˚˚· ·˚˚·。♡
authors note: i’ll try my best to not include as much written portions in this smau but we’ll see 😁
taglist! open @softiehee @annoyingbitch83 @hoon0logy
244 notes · View notes
alonelyturtle · 10 months
Text
Things I don’t have time to write:
Being crazy busy with work, life, and a wavering hyperfixation means I’ve written quite literally nothing for almost two months I think. But I do have a stockpile of things I wrote and won’t actually be continuing. This snippet just happens to be one of them. Figured I’d post them somewhere as my drive is quickly running out of storage space.
Anakin Skywalker despised waiting. Patience was the weakest link of his personality. It normally benefitted him in the heat of battle. Line after line of droids disintegrated under heat of his blade without hesitation. Without thought. Without question.
But sitting still, awaiting his next mission…he hated that nearly as much as he hated the Separatists. He found ways to occupy his time, sure, namely reports. Page after page of details required to satiate Republic military records. But that was almost as dull as sitting and waiting for new orders.
He was bored.
Obi-Wan would advise him to meditate, refocus his energy on something else entirely. Look from within to calm his hyperactive nature. But that was a lost cause and his old master knew it. Not even as a padawan was meditation ever the perfect remedy to pass hours of the day. Anakin never resented its importance in the life of a Jedi, he just limited how much of his time he partook in the act
Besides, time away from battle wasn’t exactly the same as his free time in the temple. There were other ways to distract him on Coruscant. Other…people. Or, rather, one person in particular. The person who held his heart in the palm of her hand.
Padme.
Padme Naberrie.
Best friend, Jedi, object of his affection. Eh, nix the last one. No one needed to know that, Padme herself in particular. They’d been friends since he arrived at the temple aged five, rescued from the sands of Tatooine by Master Qui-Gon. He refused to let their friendship sour because he developed “feelings.” Attachment wasn’t allowed in the Jedi Order and his emotions resembled something far too close to love than his lessons ever permitted.
Anakin’s head hit his pillow hard. He groaned, rubbing an already sore spot along his scalp. An errant droid got him with the butt of their blaster yesterday, before he’d had a chance to run it through with his saber. “Ergh,” he groaned, sitting up again. His boots brushed the floor of his tent. “I hate this.”
Two weeks. Two whole weeks away from battle, but the Council weren’t granting him leave back on Coruscant. Command wanted the 501st in the Outer Rim, just in case they were needed before the respite ended.
This is just one of many a things hanging out in my docs. Maybe more to come soon?
8 notes · View notes
wack-ashimself · 1 year
Text
I need some perspective from random internet friends.
I post a lot about my friends and family on here because none of them are on Tumblr let alone know about this account. So I can vent my frustrations without lashing out. And I've actually tried to get them to join. So it's not my fault.
I've had a friend for most of my life. We've had our ups and downs like any friendship. He's a big guy. Recently he had weight loss surgery. Lost a ton of weight, looks good, is getting healthy. I'm happy and proud of him. Only been supportive.
However there has been a side effect that I did not expect in any form. He's kind of a judgmental prick now.
It started a couple weeks ago when out of nowhere he called me add or adhd. If I'm being fair, it's more than likely undiagnosed but true, but it was not diagnosed, I don't like being labeled, and I specially don't like it being out of nowhere. He literally brought it up in the middle of a conversation, which he's never fucking done before (ever. In any form. We've talked about it, but never 'this is definitely me') and kind of rubbed it in my face. Then when I confronted him on it, he got mad at me for being mad(?) and hung up. Which not only pissed me off but actually confused me. To this day I'm still wondering how he thought he had the balls to pull that off. I was in the right.
Then the other day, him as a super balding guy, he says that I look terrible and need a haircut. Again out of nowhere. Then the next day he says that I look unhealthy, fat, and my head looks fatter than normal.
Then yesterday was a straw that broke the camel's back. He went to another state and visited his family. I've only told 5 people that I'm trying to stop my drinking. Which is a big deal because I've never actually really tried. That's why I don't tell many people. I'm afraid I'll fail. Also it's not anybody's fucking business. He tells his entire fucking family that I'm trying to stop drinking, people I talk to once a decade tops basically, and they all cheer him on essatatically. Which only means one thing. Being that I never really talk or see these people, he MUST be keeping them informed of any drinking I do or any stupid things I do when I'm drinking. Cuz otherwise why would they cheer me on like I'm saving the world? His implication was they said I really needed to do this. Not to mention how boring is my life if this is the only thing you got to talk about me? He's such a fucking gossip. Get a life.
Don't get me wrong. I am not perfect. When I was younger, in my teens not anytime recent, I was kind of a blunt asshole. I may have called him fat a few times. But I can promise you this. I have not made fun of him for his weight in any serious regard in over 15 years. Easily. Don't get me wrong I probably made a fat joke, but only one he either made himself first, or one I know he would not take offense to. I have never used his weight as a reason to judge him or make him feel less in any way since we were children. But part of me feels like this is his retribution. Now he can make fun of me for being the fat one even though he's still fatter. By a lot. Like 150 lbs.
And my drinking is not healthy. I've done it as a means to cope with how much I hate being here. Which is still not healthy. However it is my deal, I don't physically abuse anybody, and I don't mentally abuse anybody. Don't get me wrong I've said and done things that piss people off, but there's genuinely only probably a handful of times in my entire life which I regret doing something or saying something drunk. Because nine times out of 10 when I do or say something, it's something I genuinely wanted to say. And I'm glad I said it. No joke one of my best moments with this asshole was when I finally confronted him drunk because he used his weight as a reason to shut me up anytime we were having a confrontation, and he would threaten to beat me up. Last time I said "let's go. You've been threatening to beat me up for over 20 years. Let's do it. I'll give you the first punch. But I can promise you once you throw that fucking first punch, it's on. There is no stopping me." He actually got intimidated and threatened to call the cops. The guy who threatened me for two decades to beat my ass because he was bigger than me anytime he disagreed with me was intimidated by me. Fuck him.
Okay I gave it all to you. I don't want to look like a saint but I don't want him too either. I just want to know: am I validated in my anger? Him making fun of my looks, my weight, my brain, and now even my drinking habits to his family. Don't get me wrong I definitely worded this so people would agree with me, but if you disagree with me in any way, please let me know. Because I'm trying to be a mature adult about this, but he is terrible with confrontation (see above). So the only option I really have is to ignore him. Because if I would confront him with this, like the conversation about add, he would just hang up. He's done it our entire friendship. I'll hear him out, but he'll never hear me out. He reminds me of my dad and brother. And why I don't have a close relationship with them...
Ugh. Part of me wants just to copy and paste this to him. But I already know his response. 'You're being overly dramatic. Too sensitive. I'm just joking around. Way too embarrass me online.' By the way his sense of humor most times is to say something really really mean, and then say just joking. And then when I confront him on it and say it's not funny, he says you know that's my sense of humor. Yeah and there's bad senses of humor asshole. If you're the only one laughing at a mean joke, it's not a joke. And if you're not the only one, you're probably surrounded by a bunch of assholes.
2 notes · View notes
selamat-linting · 1 year
Text
there was a few things i missed and got wrong on my homestuck liveblog yesterday. first of all, i mistook terezi with kanaya with that morallegiance chat with vriska. makes sense, they used to be roleplay buddies until that mess of an incident. not taking away vriska's responsibility from that clusterfuck but, wonder how much of it is doc scratch influence. good god girl, why are you gambling with a literal god? also WHY rose is trusting that white ball asshole? i dont like him at all. he's basically responsible to a lot of the mess the trolls and beta kids is going through.
anyway, at the last page i left off, terezi and vriska's attitude towards each other is largely shown in the boy-off with dave and john. with karkat screaming in the background (he always screams in the background). so its easy to miss that theyre very much in a weird complicated, frenemy state with each other. that in between space where you're not sure if theyre genuinely fucking hates each other or theyre ribbing on each other like two meanspirited friends do. i've been there sister, i've been there.
speaking of vriska (again, because she is my child who has every disease), oh her relationship/friendship with tavros is very conflicted and, i dare say, delicious? this is something that im sure would hit even harder if tavros wasnt relegated to the butt of ableist jokes more than he's treated as a character but. trust me. imagine youre tavros. your friend(?) is vriska. she crippled you, she saved your life, she berates you at every turn, she kissed you. deep down she only wants best for you. she wanted you to kill her. she wanted you to hate her enough to do it. she doesnt want to bleed to death alone. she's begging you to kill her. she's could have forced you to do it but she doesnt. because this is for you both to grow stronger and survive. thats all she wanted all along. for you both to thrive in a world that eats you alive. she needs you to kill her. oh god *head in hands*
-so its really really sad to see vriska being so lonely after killing tavros. she dug a hole too deep to get out alone and the remaining friends she had that could have accepted her again are all dead or too burned out of her. i wish they both can meet each other again. just to talk and find closure. like, tavros deserves to be angry with vriska and he deserves to have that peace he always wanted from her. and vriska deserves to start being a better person and getting some peace of mind. she deserves a chance, is all im saying. like, its okay if tavros cant give it to her. but some of her friends could. maybe terezi? the worst they ever do to each other in terms of direct harm is the eye injury. or maybe karkat? oh god i dont want to hear them arguing, i would go deaf!
-at least vriska has john! its nice to see them being friends with each other. Tbh john has been a breath of fresh air (hehe) in all the doom and gloom. im not looking forward to him meeting his dead dad but right now, my boy is walking around the village with one of the finest music i heard so far. and then he drive a flying car with WV. its just, he is so positive and amidst a set of characters who lost all of their innocence, he remains as the one guy who tries to enjoy the game and take everything in stride. he felt smug when the salamanders keep referencing in his title, he bought everyone hats and snacks, he gave moral support to vriska. the harley and egbert family is so positive about everything and its so endearing!
-AND JADE! fuck yeah she's starting to show how awesome she is. YES JADE say fuck you to karkat! its been long overdue!!! she also should say fuck you to vriska too as a treat. and fuck you to tavros too. and fuck you to that prince of hope (more like doom lol) who blew up her computer. she deserve monetary compensation to deal with that troll polycruel.
-special mention to dave btw. i dont remember him doing anything particularly exciting lately but i believe he's the one carrying the team. john and jade had to do their quest to be effective in defeating the english demon guy (the brits are all demons lol) and rose had to be their prime researcher and strategist, so he basically did the save everyone's ass part. i cant wait to see him hang out with terezi. Also is it bad of me to want him go godtier? Like, it would be interesting.
-and other time aspect characters i want to appreciate, aradia! babygirl have finally get rid of her hopelessness and come back to life! and now she's bringing the gang back together!!! and putting the pieces on why gamzee suddenly breaks. too bad gamzee never had a chance to show his personality. anyway, im starting to think i was wrong about lil cal. like, i think it was posessed but oh no its just bro moving him around, but somehow that fucking puppet is the one wrapped up in literally everything. aradia finds that shitty doll and somehow its connected to gamzee losing it and the game sgurb and doc scratch and... whats going on????
-in conclusion, timebound kids are always the one carrying the team. they are hard to find but theyre the one who could determine how you win or lose the game.
-but how can i forget? kanaya! she came through. i really thought she was dead! but she is alive, and she kills people with a chainsaw than apply lipstick to her bloodstreak lips. she is trying so hard to be Hinged. final girl behavior fr. i wonder how she's going to meet rose again. i hope she talked rose out of that suicide mission.
-and can we talk about karkat? man, imagine leading an army of kids who did kill and maim each other before the game even starts. imagine being the lowest of the social hierarchy and trying to make the most toxic friendgroup filled with racists and murderers to listen to you. imagine being able to do that despite all the odds, bring them to victory, and have the price right on your hands only for it to be ripped away and your friends devolve into chaos and murder several hours later. its a failure of untold magnitude. no wonder he's so disturbed and angry at himself and everyone.
-okay now that im done with the characters. i want to compliment how good everyone looks. the art and the fashions are all sooo amazing. the talksprite is also wonderful. im inclined to change my pfp into feferi's talksprite because i like her design so much. also because hooray! She's just dead, not corrupted by horrorterrors. in my mind she is laughing at tavros and doomed dave rap battle while surrounded by beautiful scenery
-also, i cant believe infinite stairs are referenced AGAIN with sollux and karkat. and SMUPPET ASS JOKE? on tavros dead body? lmao. okay i need to see smuppet ass on dave again. he was just so funny with it. and karkat shipping craze with jadesprite and jade. the jokes are really good, fr
4 notes · View notes
hey um this is a real fucking vent of a post maybe dont read if ur triggered easily by family/abuse stuff. I just had to get it out im sry. its not too coherent
I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him I hate him. my dad. one second we're having a normal conversation about art. then he's screaming at me to shut the fuck up, swearing at me, telling me how behind everyone else my age I am, telling me that I DON'T deserve respect or to be treated like a human, mock-bowing to me while laughing at me and saying that I think I'm sooooo important "like some kind of fucking princess" bc I said I don't deserve to be treated like I'm not human. yelling at me over and over to "shut my fucking mouth", saying that this is why I have no friends, why I lose every friendship I care about, and that he can throw me out right now if I keep "pushing it" and he won't care and there's nothing I can do about it. that I don't have real friends and can't name them. that I'm only acting how I am because I'm "on my period and a bit wacky".
....what sparked this? I said I wash underwear in hot water after I buy it, and that it didn't matter if that was "logical" or not bc I only buy new undies once every year or two. that's what sparked this whole thing. that and me saying "How dare you.I don't deserve to be treated this way." when he blew up. ...literally just yesterday he was saying how he's so proud of me and loves me. not even 24 hours ago he was saying that he could see how hard I'm working and that he understands if I need a break because I'm doing so well. ten MINUTES AGO we were talking about art, looking at the bedsheet I'd ordered and he was complimenting my choices and saying he'd put me in charge of buying new sheets for the household soon. TEN MINUTES AGO. what HAPPENED.
...and I know he'll just go back to loving & respecting me after (insert length of time here) when he feels like it, and until then I'll be excluded from all family interactions, treated like a literal threat and monster at all times, called "my abuser" instead of "my daughter", and forced to hide. ...and then I'll be his Amazing Smart Hardworking Daughter again, unless I bring ANY of this up in which case it will go from Bad to Worst and I am now "THE abuser". this is how it goes. this is how it's gone for a decade. why do I always forget this part when things are good. Even if I write it down or record it (THAT WAS A BAD IDEA HE GOT SO PISSED) it feels...fake??? like it just doesn't exist. I am fully aware that this is gaslighting.
I am fully aware that he does this and simultaneously presents himself to the community as an example of RECOVERY from abuse and has CONSIDERED BECOMING A THERAPIST. I don't have shit on him bc I have nowhere else to go, and I'm not in physical danger. staying here until I can get into college and/or get a job IS my best bet, bc while this is traumatic and unpredictable he's fully all bark, no bite. the majority-ish of the time, things are good. He does house and support me despite having just lost his job (though I'm paying for a lot of the groceries- no job here either), and he's actually been really amazing & supportive this year in general... except when he does This.
and GOD does This suck
one day I'll figure out how to stealth-record on my phone... idk why. when things are Bad Like This i want some record to release to our community once I get independent, and blow this lie out of the water. Ik it's ungrateful but like... what the fuck dude
I'm really thankful for what he's doing for me
but what the fuck dude
why
it's going to mean NOTHING in a few hours/days. he's obviously letting out some internal thing that he has no idea how to channel appropriately and nobody else he can aim it at who wont fight back (except my little brother, who has never done anything wrong ever in his life and is ALWAYS dad's "son") (and the dog, who he sometimes threatens to scare until she pees if she's barking like a lunatic at the pizza guy or someone, but he's mostly-joking/ never actually does it because she's "the best dog in the world") (...I'm treated less human then the dog)
but its just so mean
(also obviously if i even raise my voice/tone a TINY BIT at him, or say a word in a way that he percieves as mildy passive-aggresive, that's a trigger for things to go from Good to Bad unless I immediately literally grovel.
...if you want to uhhhh please send funny videos, art DIYS, animals, mythology, the worst most cursed music and/or mashups you know. I could rly use it rn. just rec me something. anything. (not fanfic tho- I'm currently writing my college application essay on fandom's role in modern folklore, so for once I Do Not Want To Hear/Read Any More About It)
1 note · View note
irisesand · 2 years
Text
for the last fifteen minutes of friendships day, i just want to talk about a few moments with my friends. these moments truly remind me of just how beautiful friendships are supposed to be.
1. recently, I've been trying to relearn my state's language and I was met in a situation where I had to use my limited knowledge of the language to try communicating with someone. when I got home, the first thing I did was send one of my friends who knows the language a long voice mail speaking IN the language but it was completely battered and bruised. and all she did was tell me how shocked she was about how 'good' I spoke and that's all the validation I needed, that's all the encouragement I needed. i now send that friend voicemails speaking in the language and I don't feel shame about how bad I speak.
2. yesterday, I sent my best friend a big voicemail about some emotional turmoil I was feeling. even though she told me that she's bad at providing people with comfort when they rant to her, she sat through the whole voicemail and tried comforting me. she kept being on my side while I let it all out when it was almost midnight and she had college the next day. she told me she had to go to bed, but would respond to me instantly. and the next day she sent me many words of encouragement before i even woke up.
3. I reconnected with one of my old friends from three years ago, and we instantly fell back into that pattern of talking. recently, I was taking a break from social media (you see i do this often, because I want some sanity in my brain in tact). and when I came back, the first thing I tweeted was "hey, do you have whatsapp?" because I wanted to talk to her more often but didn't want to be on social media much. and not even a second later, she sends me a dm with her number, and asks me if I'm okay and reassures me that things will be fine and that she's here for me.
4. a few months ago, I had been feeling an extreme amount of loneliness. I would often text this one friend of mine that i lost contact with and that once steady flow that ignited our friendship had seemingly disappeared. and it truly broke my heart, and I didn't want to let her know bc I didn't want to concern her. but one day, the sadness was too much to take and I was feeling this overwhelming grief over all the friendships that I lost over the years, and I just texted her a few messages about it. I didn't expect anything at all. but the next time I logged in I saw she sent me a few voicemail and in those she gently explained to me that it's okay and that sometimes friendships can't be the same, but it's no one's fault, and that people just tend to get busy. I will probably never forget that bc I cannot tell you how much I needed that.
5. I have these three friends that are my absolute constant for about three years. my ride or die, my pillars, they constitute so much of my life and my love. no matter how difficult life gets, I can always turn to them. I will always be there for them as they are for me. they mean more to me than the entire world. the gentleness of our friendship.
6. my other friend has had her exams for a whole month now, and I have been absolutely broken bc i missed her sm but i didn't want to disturb her. or give her anything else to worry about. so I would leave a message every now and then asking her to take care and if her exams are over yet. and yesterday, her exams were finally done. and as i was thinking of texting her, she sends me a message in all caps "hi bestie, I'm here" I love her so much.
7. just a few days ago, i was telling my friend recently about something stupid like how I asked my other friend who's studying medical to become a dentist bc of the absolute nightmarish fear of the dentist. and my med student friend literally said that she can't now but never said no. and i told my friend, who's also afraid of the dentist, this and she agreed to this insanity.
8. recently I became friends with the most beautiful and kind souls online. she's from my country, and from the first day I texted her, we never ran out of things to talk about (knock on wood). but I think she's the coolest person ever and I LOVE talking to her because she's able to say the most beautiful and kind things to me. just today, I was responding to her messages from days ago. and she told me that she would love if I had been in her college or atleast find someone like me in her college. she also asked for when my birthday is bc there are too many birthdays in august and she wanted to note mine down in her dairy.
1 note · View note
heejojo · 2 years
Text
confectionery confessions (teaser)
Tumblr media
synopsis: Sunghoon keeps on putting sweets in your locker and dropping printed notes that he makes just for you. As your best friend, you tell him every time the secret person places something there again but Sunghoon never confesses that he's the one who keeps the sweets. What then happens when Jake Sim, someone from your art class comes and says he's the one that places the sweets. Even worse, you believe him and start liking him. Sunghoon hates that but he can't say anything because to you, he's always been Sunghoon. Your best friend Sunghoon, not anonymous admirer Sunghoon.
pairing: park sunghoon x fem!reader
genre: bestfriends to lovers. idiots to lovers. angst. fluff. unrequited turned requited love. slow burn?
warning: sunghoon is a bit of a doofus and yn is also a doofus but they're my doofuses. i will add more as the fic progresses.
wordcount: est 10k
release date: march 1
taglist: send a message or fill out this form
Tumblr media
iii. the time he (indirectly) told you the truth.
“I was going to tell you, I just never had the time. Anyways you know now so let’s get down to business. We have to make an anonymous confession for Sunghoon to Y/N”
“Why anonymous?” Riki asks from on top of the couch he moved to when Sunghoon and Sunoo were having their brawl.
“He doesn’t want to ruin their friendship,” Jay explains and now the two boys attention are caught.
“That is such a teen rom-com move. Why not spice it up since you want to live that Wattpad love interest life? Let’s get you, someone you can fake date to make Y/N jealous,” Sunoo says and Riki bursts out laughing.
“I can’t let her know, that is all I can say. And quite frankly, I feel better doing it this way rather than making her uncomfortable.”
“But wouldn’t Y/N still be uncomfortable either way?” Riki questions and Sunghoon shakes his head.
“This is only a test run, if she doesn’t like it I won’t do it ever again”
“And how exactly is this plan supposed to work?” Sunoo inquires and Jay speaks up this time.
“The notes will be printed and the sweets will be kept in her locker twice or three times weekly. The letter containing a nice message from Sunghoon and the sweets that he’ll bake for her.”
“That’s kind of cute, I guess. A bit pathetic to be honest because you can never find me crying because of someone”
“You literally shed tears because your favourite club still lost their match. What exactly are you saying Sunoo?”
“I’m saying that it will be good, the plan will be successful as long as it’s being played out perfectly,” Sunoo says and shrugs his shoulder.
“How do we make it play out ‘perfectly’?” Sunghoon asks.
Propping his elbows on the table, Sunoo leans foward till his face is right in front of Sunghoon’s own, and then uses his hand to ruffle the dude’s hair. “We just have to ensure that Y/N is never there when you place the notes and sweets. Which sweet or dessert are you giving her first?”
“I baked blondies for the first time yesterday so she doesn’t know how it tastes yet. I was going to make some here today so that they would still taste fresh,” Sunghoon answers and Sunoo’s face lights up.
“You bake!?” Riki exclaims and Sunghoon’s hand goes to the back of his neck as he scratches it awkwardly s he nods in agreement.
“I do,” he admits and the duo start grinning while Jay stands up and points him to the kitchen, “Get cracking, chef”
“I didn’t like you because of your idiot mouth but if what you bake truly is good, I just might send you a note myself,” Sunoo says.
323 notes · View notes
likeshipsonthesea · 3 years
Text
mianmian gets to the lan sect lectures, discovers very quickly that every one of her peers has decided to use this time to figure out how quickly they can get into bed with someone of the opposite sex, and decides almost immediately that she has to pick a suitably unattainable guy to have a crush on.
the thing is, mianmian is lanling jin’s head disciple. she is capable, intelligent, and very very gay. the last of these things she isn’t exactly keen on telling people yet for a variety of reasons up to and including jin zixuan will be so awkward and stubbornly supportive about it and she doesn’t know how to deal with that yet
so when her friends giggle over the other young masters and finally turn to mianmian-- who’s trying to memorize at least some of the fifty-thousand rules before their quiz tomorrow--and they ask her, “who do you like, mianmian?” she says the name that she carefully picked out of a handful of options.
“lan-er-gongzi,” she says, without looking up from her textbook, and she assumes that will be the end of it. 
lan wangji is both incredibly attractive and unrelentingly resistant to all attempts to flirt with him. she, like half the other female cultivators, can moon over him (or pretend to moon over him) all they want and nothing will come of it. it’s perfect. she’s a genius. the worst she’ll have to do now is pretend to be infatuated with him when her friends start gossiping. it’s fool proof.
spoiler: it’s not
it’s not, no, because her friends are horrible and immediately start gossiping about it to everyone, and usually mianmian wouldn’t care but then jin zixuan finds out. jin zixuan, whose marriage complex is being brought to center stage with the forced proximity to his bride-to-be. jin zixuan, who for some reason decided he has to live his stolen crush-addled youth vicariously through his only real friend that isn’t related to him. jin zixuan, who for some godforsaken reason takes it upon himself to contrive situations for mianmian and lan wangji to be alone together incessantly.
it unfortunately takes mianmian longer than she would like to figure out what’s happening. she’d give herself a break for it-- she was being responsible and studying, thank you very much-- but she doesn’t have much sympathy for her own stupidity seeing as she’s currently locked in a section of the lan library with the second jade of lan
and suddenly, suddenly she’s just so fucking tired. of studying, yeah, the tests here are brutal and there’s no one to bribe to make sure she doesn’t lose points on stupid things, but also tired of lying to the people she loves and tired of training this hard and being an amazing cultivator only for people to care more about her eventual marriage-- to a man of all things!-- and also, let’s be real here, she’s been in lectures with beautiful capable intelligent women for like months and she’s losing her gay ass mind
and so maybe, possibly, as she’s locked in a library with a clearly confused and annoyed second jade of lan she kind of, momentarily, loses it and rants all of this at his steadily widening eyes
at the end of it, she realizes with no small amount of panic that she’s just confessed not only her attraction to women but the fact that she’s been letting wen qing’s ears of all things distract her from her studies. if anything, she’s sure lan wangji will fault her for inattention
but the second jade of lan, after a drawn-out moment filled only with mianmian’s labored breathing and rising panic, simply says, “i understand.”
mianmian stops. she squints. she tilts her head. she squints some more. lan wangji’s ears go pink and just like that she realizes -- “you’re a cut-sleeve.”
lan wangji’s ears go even pinker. he doesn’t nod, or agree, or outwardly react in any way, but mianmian is a capable, intelligent cultivator, and she’s sure of it.
mianmian sighs with a relief she didn’t know she could feel. “thank the gods.”
lan wangji doesn’t seem to know what to make of this response, or mianmian’s increasingly frequent trips to the library following their conversation, or mianmian’s staunch determination to befriend the guy, but that’s alright. mianmian is old hat at befriending awkward sect heirs by this point.
it’s not like lan wangji expressed any desire for her friendship, but the prospect of not being the only one with absolutely no interest in the straight shenanigans happening at gusu lan summer camp is enough to let mianmian ignore his obvious confusion. lan wangji is a great listener and only sometimes blushes when mianmian waxes poetic about the beautiful women she’s forced to surround herself with every day
“no but you don’t understand,” mianmian insists, alone in the library with lan wangji, “jiang-guniang asked me to help her with a sword form. i put my hands on her waist. i said something idiotic bc she was so pretty and right there and then she laughed. lan wangji. i’m in love.”
“yesterday you were in love with wen-guniang,” lan wangji says as he impassively turns a page in his book. “has this changed?”
“no, i’m in love with both of them. all of them. lan wangji. they’re all so pretty all the time. it’s horrible.”
lan wangji presses his lips into a firmer line, which mianmian’s come to understand means he’s repressing a smile. “i’m sorry to hear it brings luo-guniang such trouble.”
mianmian groans, fairly undignified, but that’s a lost cause with lan wangji at this point anyway. “i swear, if jin zixuan says one more bad thing about her i’m going to punch him and marry her myself.”
lan wangji says, “mn,” which mianmian takes to mean that he supports her in this line of thinking, which she finds both quite sweet and ridiculously funny.
grinning, she teases, “lan-er-gongzi, if i do end up marrying jiang-guniang, will you bear witness to our elopement?”
lan wangji’s lips press again, this time in the way that means he’s repressing a frown. “jiang-guniang’s brothers wouldn’t allow for an elopement,” he says.
mianmian huffs. “as if yunmeng or lanling will deign to host our wedding.”
lan wangji appears to ponder this for a moment before he says, “gusu will host it,” and it’s at that moment that mianmian realizes she’s actually gone and fucking befriended the second jade of lan.
what is her life.
of course, it’s not long after that that she goes to find jin zixuan and explain that she can’t make their weekly sparring match today because she has plans with lan wangji (jiang yanli tenderly brushed some of mianmian’s hair away from her forehead while they were working on sword forms and if mianmian doesn’t tell someone about it she’s literally going to explode) and she’s trying to be as polite as possible only for jin zixuan to scoff and pout (”i don’t pout”) and say, “i never took you for one of those women who throw themselves so wantonly at a man”
it’s only for having been friends with this absolutely horrible communicator for most of her life that she doesn’t immediately punch him in the face. “what did you just say to me,” she demands, but jin zixuan just sets his jaw and looks away, flushing down his neck in the way his mother describes as unbecoming and--
and mianmian suddenly realizes that her ridiculous best friend is jealous of lan wangji. 
(in a friend way, of course, he’s like her brother, the one time his mother implied that he ought not get too close to women in case it jeopardizes his betrothal to jiang yanli, he insisted he didn’t have any female friends repeatedly as his mother delicately danced around outright saying mianmian’s name until finally she broke and jin zixuan was basically like huh?? mianmian doesn’t count?? she made me eat dirt like six times when we were kids)
the sheer ridiculousness of jin zixuan, to set her up with a guy and then get jealous when she spends all her time with him
and fuck her, but she loves her stupid awkward ridiculous sect heir best friend and she doesn’t want him to think she’s gone and left him for someone else (gods know jin zixuan’s loyalty complex rivals his marriage one (on second thought the two might be connected)) and so, after making a few quick decisions, mianmian grabs her stupid best friend by the wrist and pulls him to the library
he protests all the way there, but he’s been letting her drag him wherever she wants since they were five and it isn’t as if he’s going to break the pattern now. she drags him to the library and sits him down across a startled lan wangji and then finally breaks and gushes about jiang-guniang’s fingertips brushing her forehead and doesn’t look at jin zixuan once the whole time
lan wangji, on the other hand, sends jin zixuan frequent glances, as if worried on mianmian’s behalf, which is super sweet and also how the fuck did mianmian get two awkward sect heirs to care about her platonically wtf. she spares a thought for her poor auntie, who would’ve loved to have a sect heir care about her niece in much less platonic ways.
at the end of mianmian’s rant, jin zixuan is blinking quite a lot. “you like women?” he asks. he’s always been a bit slow on the uptake. mianmian nods. “you like jiang-guniang?”
mianmian shrugs. “more or less. she’s just really pretty and i’m dying about it. it’s fine.”
lan wangji says, “mn,” sympathetically and jin zixuan continues to gape.
mianmian winces. “you’re not going to be weird about this, are you?”
jin zixuan shakes his head quickly. “no, no-- of course not, i--you know that i--you’re my best friend, i don’t care--what does it matter to me, who you want to--to touch your hair.”
it’s probably the most awkward sentence he’s said to her in years, but possibly more articulate than she’d been expecting. it makes her tear up regardless and she punches him in the shoulder to hide it, and that’s basically how the three of them start hanging out in the library nearly every day after lecture.
sometimes they go to the sparring ground, bc who’s better sparring practice than the second jade of lan? and sometimes (once or twice) mianmian manages to convince lan wangji to join her and jin zixuan for lunch in caiyi town when they don’t have lecture, but mostly they meet in a secluded part of the library where mianmian can rant about how pretty all the women at lectures are, jin zixuan can turn pink whenever she mentions jiang-guniang, and lan wangji can “mn” and nod sympathetically at all the right parts
and mianmian thinks that’s going to be the end of it, they’re just going to be friends now and everything else will move on as usual, bc by some ridiculous trick of fate lan wangji and jin zixuan seem to like each other. which makes sense in hindsight bc they’re both awkward sect heirs who care about cultivation and people a lot even if they’re not great at showing it 
(and he’d never say it but mianmian thinks jin zixuan’s easy acceptance of her liking women is probably the first time lan wangji’s ever seen someone accept that kind of thing before (maybe, possibly, other than his brother, lan xichen seems really cool, even if he does smile kind of intensely at mianmian whenever he happens upon her hanging out with his little brother.))
so they’re friends, they’re unexpected friends, and sometimes lan wangji even makes jokes in that dry deadpan way of his and sometimes jin zixuan doesn’t completely trip over his own words and manages to act like a normal human being and mianmian gets two idiots to care about and a perfect place to vent her womanly frustrations, and she thinks that’s the end of it and then wei wuxian accosts her after lectures one day
“do you like lan zhan?” he asks accusingly, eyes narrowed to slits. “what am i even asking, of course you like lan zhan, but do you like-like him?”
mianmian thinks sadly to herself that she’s much too into women to be dealing with all these men’s emotional problems. “lan wangji is my friend,” she says, carefully sidestepping wei wuxian, who continues to squint at her suspiciously. really, he’d been amusing when he flirted with her, but this? this is just ridiculous.
“does he know that?” wei wuxian asks. “because if he doesn’t, that’s just leading him on, and it’s really not nice to--”
“lan wangji knows we’re friends,” she says, trying to enunciate to get her point across clearly. “you can ask him, if you don’t believe me.”
wei wuxian squints a moment longer before he turns and flounces off. mianmian thinks this is the end of it until she’s accosted again after dinner with, “he said you were friends!”
for some reason, wei wuxian seems even more troubled by this than earlier. mianmian tries to suppress her eyeroll. “i told you he would?”
“but how,” wei wuxian says, suddenly whining. “i’ve been trying to be his friend for months and he refuses to acknowledge me.”
oh, mianmian realizes with a quickly dawning horror. she and lan wangji are not the only cut-sleeves at cloud recesses this summer. (she has suspicions, of course, but no confirmations on any of the others, but this. wow.)
she also realizes, decides really, that she has enough repressed sect heirs in her life and she cannot deal with wei wuxian’s cut-sleeve crisis or his evidently large attachment to lan wangji right now. she turns decisively and walks the fuck away. not her problem.
the lectures end eventually, of course, and mianmian and jin zixuan return to lanling with a horde of golden robed disciples, freshly deflowered and not all together more learned. it’s what, she thinks grimly, their sect leader would want.
the first few weeks go by and she realizes that she’s missed unloading about her frequent and fast falling-in-loves. jin zixuan just doesn’t sympathize right, bless him, and so mianmian takes to writing letters. she sends two without receiving a reply and just starts to write the third when a letter with the gusu symbol is delivered to her room.
she’s almost expecting to find a single mn written on the page-- she would’ve been delighted with just that, actually, the sheer hilarity of such a thing-- but instead she finds several pages filled with lan wangji’s perfect calligraphy.
it’s more than he’s ever spoken out loud, but it seems that propriety dictated that he return mianmian’s extensive letter with one of his own and he’s done so admirably. he responds to the events mianmian detailed in her letters-- most succinctly summarized as, woman are gorgeous and i’m dying-- and then writes about his own life in cloud recesses. apparently, he went on a little night hunt with wei wuxian and also nie huaisang and jiang cheng were involved? seriously, mianmian misses out on all the fun.
he’s also apparently taken in some rabbits, which mianmian immediately decides she needs to see. lan wangji, sitting prim and proper, with a bunch of rabbits in his lap? amazing. wei wuxian would die on sight, she’s sure of it.
he also ends his letter with a warning about qishan wen that has mianmian frowning. she takes it to jin zixuan who reads the paragraph and frowns. “i’ll talk to my father about it,” he says, which she can tell by his hunched shoulders he doesn’t expect to do much.
“talk to your father’s general too,” she suggests, because that man at least thinks with his head and not his dick.
jin zixuan nods but doesn’t hand back the letter. he skims it instead with a barely concealed surprise at lan wangji’s previously hidden expansive vocabulary. mianmian snorts and grabs the letter back. “you can write to him yourself, you know.”
jin zixuan flushes down his neck. “i know!” he insists and then turns and runs away because he’s a coward. mianmian shakes her head, smiling. what an idiot.
still, another week goes by and a letter arrives from gusu and, when mianmian takes it, assuming it’s for her, she finds it addressed to jin zixuan in lan wangji’s impeccable calligraphy and she grins to herself like an idiot. look at jin zixuan, making friends
(she suddenly understands why lan xichen gave her all those intense smiles during the lan lectures)
they go on in this way, writing letters to lan wangji from lanling. sometimes mianmian steals jin zixuan’s letters before he sends them so she can squeeze in some ranting in the post script without wasting a whole second thing of paper, and lan wangji replies dutifully, more verbose than he ever was in person, and it’s nice okay, like. she and jin zixuan have been best friends since they were kids but neither of them has ever been any good at listening and lan wangji is just so honest and earnest in everything, like they didn’t realize that people outside of lanling were actually not always plotting your downfall??? who woulda thunk
and then of course the wens go and ruin everything. they go to the wen lectures bc jin guangshan doesn’t want to “anger our trading partner” like the guy isn’t obviously going to burn carp tower to the ground the first chance he gets, and mostly mianmian and jin zixuan are just vaguely annoyed and put out about it
then lan wangji shows up with a broken leg and a burned sect and they are ready to murder some dudes
after years of breaking in and out of carp tower she and jin zixuan are old hats at this breaking and entering stuff and they manage to sneak into lan wangji’s guest quarters and tend to his wounds, ignoring all his silent glares and ranting furiously about how they’re going to murder wen chao by making him choke on his own dick (mianmian) and how they’re going to war with the wen sect even if he has to threaten his father with acknowledging all of his bastards as proper siblings in public to do it (jin zixuan)
lan wangji just says “mn” and makes various muted, distressed expressions, but mianmian thinks he’s touched.
“are your brother and uncle alright?” she asks, when she’s set his broken leg and forced pain medication down his throat.
“brother escaped with our sacred texts,” lan wangji says. “uncle is... unwell.”
mianmian knows lan wangji hates touch but the way he says it, with this horrible little frown, emoting more than she’s ever seen him, his barely suppressed anger and grief literally making his hands shake into fists, mianmian can’t help it, she hugs him. “we’ll make them pay,” she swears into his shoulder, ruining the lines of his robes with how she clutches at them. “i promise you.”
jin zixuan awkwardly pats lan wangji’s shoulder, which is a lot for him and mianmian spares a moment to be proud of his growth.
unfortunately, wen chao seems to delight in torturing lan wangji on his injured leg and lan wangji refuses to show weakness, which both impresses mianmian and pisses her the fuck off. she approaches wen qing (and her still gorgeous ears, sigh) and asks her to tend to lan wangji, since she’s like actually a doctor. wen qing does bc she’s beautiful, intelligent, and kind and mianmian spends most of that night sighing deeply as she relates this to a significantly drugged lan wangji
the cave of the xuanwu goes about the same as you’d expect. wei wuxian saving her from getting her face branded off is pretty rad of him, though he could’ve just like knocked the brand away instead of throwing himself in front of it but whatever, you do you boo. when lan wangji gets left behind the two of them don’t even have to wait for jiang cheng to grumble and ask for their help, they’re already on their way to carp tower for an army, thank you very much
when they rescue wei wuxian and lan wangji and lan wangji immediately turns to walk back to cloud recesses on a broken leg mianmian says, “fuck no, that’s not happening, you’re getting medical attention and then someone will fly you back home, okay, wtf wangji, sit down.”
and lan wangji is a stubborn bitch so obvs he’s like no but he’s also severely starved, dehydrated, and injured, so it’s not like he can just shake off mianmian holding him down and this goes on long enough for wei wuxian to wake up and see mianmian touching lan wangji, and something in his poor little brain just like breaks and he demands says, “lan zhan, come back to lotus pier with us.”
his argument, as he explains it, is that lotus pier is closer (it’s not; they’re just as close to carp tower as lotus pier) and that it’s closer to gusu for when lan wangji has to return home (it’s not; same deal) but then jiang cheng starts yelling, possibly in support possibly not mianmian’s not sure, and jin zixuan starts getting awkward, probably about the whole golden army behind him bc he’s a nerd and hates being overdressed at functions (this is basically the same thing), and mianmian looks at lan wangji and she sees--
something. she isn’t sure what exactly, but lan wangji looks at wei wuxian as he argues with his brother and he presses his lips into a thin line in the way that means he wants to smile and mianmian thinks, oh. maybe wei wuxian isn’t completely unrequited in his lan wangji obsession.
growing up in lanling, she knows how to use information to her advantage, so she immediately says, “young masters wei and jiang, what a great idea. lanling’s disciples would be pleased to accompany you and second young master lan to lotus pier to ensure everyone’s safe arrival.”
everyone splutters, indignant, confused, awkward (jiang cheng, wei wuxian, and jin zixuan, respectively) but lan wangji narrows his eyes at mianmian and doesn’t try to convince her to let him walk to gusu again, so she counts it as a win.
sect leader jiang and his wife seem surprised and annoyed, respectively, to be taking in so many guests, but sect leader jiang merely smiles pleasantly and directs them to some guest quarters and mianmian and wei wuxian ask, simultaneously, for doctors to tend to lan wangji and wei wuxian makes a face at her and mianmian sighs to herself that she really is too gay to be in the middle of his thing with lan wangji.
turns out, walking a lot and fighting a cannibalistic turtle on a broken leg doesn’t do wonders for healing. lan wangji is also the worst patient ever, he keeps trying to sneak out and get up even though word came from his brother that he’s safe and alright and that cloud recesses is starting to rebuild after qinghe nie and lanling jin came to its aid and pushed out the wen
but with the combined efforts of mianmian, jin zixuan, and wei wuxian (and even jiang yanli at one point, bc who could say no to her soup??) they manage to get lan wangji to just rest for a fucking second, really which results in the jin disciples and lan wangji staying in lotus pier for longer than anyone could’ve expected
mianmian spends most of her time (when she isn’t forcing lan wangji to just fucking stay in bed) working with the jiang disciples, practicing archery, sword forms, and mooning after all the beautiful women here.
(”lan wangji, i know she’s scary, but have you seen madam yu? she could whip me with zidian and i’d thank her” “luo-guniang, please don’t ask madam yu to whip you” OR “lan wangji, i’m almost positive madam yu’s maids are a thing, do you think they’d let me join them just like once” “luo-guniang, could you please pass me my sword?” “why” “i’d like to put myself out of this misery” OR “she made me soup. lan wangji. lan wangji, i know you’re not sleeping, wake up, you have to listen to me, this soup”)
they end up staying so long that when wang lingjiao shows up threatening a child about a kite while sect leader jiang is away, she has a lot more to deal with than madam yu. since none of this had been a “sanctioned visit” no one actually knew that there was nearly an entire troop of jin disciples staying at lotus pier, so when the wens attack they are sorely unprepared for what they’re going to face.
(and ofc lan wangji breaks out of bed heroically and keeps madam yu from whipping wei wuxian, which means they aren’t down one of their most powerful fighters and mianmian has to suffer through the moon eyes they’re making at one another in the middle of a battle no less, she knew wei wuxian had no shame but she’d been hoping lan wangji would have some)
after the wen attack (and defeat) on lotus pier and the jin’s inarguable part in it, the war starts in earnest. lan wangji, after his long rest, heals fine and goes back to gusu to help rebuild his sect and plan for war, and mianmian and jin zixuan return to carp tower to plan as well, ignoring jin guangshan and focusing instead on his general to ensure lanling supplies necessary aid in the war effort
and war is always shitty, of course, and mianmian hates watching her sect family die on the battlefield, hates waiting for updates after every battle to see who’s still alive, hates the politics and jin guangshan trying to wheedle his way out of fighting when there’s fucking lives on the line
(and she could never know, how much easier it is, with yunmeng jiang at its full strength, with one of the brightest minds of their generation there to plot and help, with two of the best fighters not out searching for someone and instead focused on the front)
they reach nightless city after months of fighting and mianmian is ready to just fucking stab wen ruohan herself when they’re suddenly trapped. blocked in on all sides by puppets, their fallen soldiers rising again to turn on them, and it--it looks like they’re gonna die.
“this sucks,” she says to lan wangji, stifling her fear and choking it down. “i never even got to kiss a girl.”
lan wangji just says “mn.”
jin zixuan, beside them, says, “i was an idiot about jiang-guniang.”
lan wangji just says, “mn.”
then wei wuxian pulls out a fucking flute and a-- floating piece of metal?  the army of puppets and corpses stops advancing, held in place by-- music, apparently? and wen ruohan emerges from his lair, black energy falling off him in waves, wei wuxian the idiot flies forward to meet him, gets wen ruohan’s hand around his throat for his trouble.
lan wangji yells, “wei ying!” and mianmian thinks, really not fair that lan wangji is gonna get a boyfriend before i get a girlfriend
and then wen ruohan gets stabbed by jin zixuan’s half brother of all people. wen ruohan, along with his puppets and wei wuxian, fall to the ground. lan wangji rushes forward to catch wei wuxian, mianmian runs after him, finds herself in company with jin zixuan and jiang cheng. when they get there, wei wuxian is barely conscious but he’s-- he’s fucking grinning up at lan wangji from the cradle of lan wangji’s arms
“lan zhan,” he says, “you caught me.”
lan wangji nods, says, “mn,” which is basically his equivalent of i’ll always catch you, wei ying.
“really,” mianmian says aloud, “it’s so unfair.”
the aftermath of the war is more annoying than the war itself, what with all the politics and in-fighting and jin guangshan trying to be the biggest dick there ever was. jin guangshan tries to name himself chief cultivator in wen ruohan’s stead but nie mingjue suggests jiang fengmian instead and the lan sect backs him. jin guangshan tries to demonize the wens but at wei wuxian’s loud rebuttal and sect leader jiang’s backing (which is then backed by both gusu lan and qinghe nie) he’s once again shouted down. and then jin guangshan tries to propose to jiang-guniang for his son and the poor woman just seems so awkward and her father doesn’t seem to know what to say and--
mianmian elbows jin zixuan whose eyes widen ridiculously but, after another, harder hit, he suddenly stands. all eyes go to him, which mianmian knows he hates, but he bows to his father, then jiang yanli, and says, “jiang-guniang, forgive my father’s impertinence. this is not the time or place to be making such an offer, but he--” jin zixuan winces visibly. “--he knows of my feelings and wishes to make his foolish son happy. please, do not feel the need to respond.”
then he promptly sits down, flushing down to his neck, and mianmian shares a disbelieving glance with lan wangji from across the horrible nightless city palace room.
she’d really only meant for him to suggest jiang yanli answer privately, at a later time, but wow, jin zixuan really went for it. also no way jin guangshan knows his son has fallen in love with jiang yanli, so nice save face there. maybe he has been paying attention in all of their etiquette and political espionage classes.
jiang yanli flushes way prettier than jin zixuan and nods politely, stands and bows and thanks the jin clan for being considerate in this time of turmoil, perhaps they can discuss this matter at a later date (jin zixuan looks like he nearly faints at this, and mianmian feels vindicated in all her forlorn ranting. overreacting her ass)
when everything has been settled, wen qing has been appointed the new sect leader of qishan wen with promises to return land to those who lost it and pay reparations to the hurt civilians, as well as have the yin iron destroyed for good. during the final ceremony where all the sects have tea and pledge to be loyal to one another (until the next great war, of course) mianmian leans close to lan wangji and sighs, “her ears look even lovelier with her hair tied back by her new sect leader hairpiece.”
lan wangji says “mn” because he’s a cut sleeve in love with wei wuxian and has nothing even closely resembling taste.
mianmian, on her own, decides to make them both happy. before the jin clan departs from nightless city, she goes up to wei wuxian and asks for a moment of his time. wei wuxian seems confused but follows and, once they’re alone, he says, “mianmian, are you about to get me into bed, because i must tell you that i am a respectable young cultivator and you’ll need to marry me before--”
mianmian gives him her best unimpressed look (she’s had much practice with it, thank you jin zixuan) and cuts him off with, “i like women.” 
wei wuxian’s eyes go wide. “but you and lan zhan--”
she cuts him off again before he can say something so stupid she has to stop talking to him to refrain from breaking all laws of propriety. “look,” she says, “you’re friends with wen qing. now that she’s sect leader, your brother can’t go after her. i, on the other hand, very much can. if you promise to figure out a way for me and her to get close, i’ll tell you a secret you’ll like very much.”
wei wuxian seems hesitant for all of half a second before he breaks. “tell me.”
“do you promise?”
wei wuxian raises three fingers. “promise.”
“on your sister’s life?”
begrudgingly, wei wuxian nods.
“on her soup?”
“just get on with it!”
mianmian smirks, pushes onto her tiptoes, and whispers the secret into wei wuxian’s ear. with that, she returns to the pavilion where all the sects mingle as they wait to depart, wei wuxian trailing behind her in a daze, his mouth hanging open.
lan wangji, who had been watching since mianmian asked wei wuxian for a moment to talk, frowns nearly imperceptibly. mianmian grins at him and his frown grows.
ah, whatever. she walks over to him, unbothered by the quickly growing alarm in his eyes. once next to him, she turns around to see wei wuxian staring unabashedly. her smile only widens.
“you’re going to thank me for this,” she says.
wei wuxian shakes himself, his eyes focusing, and immediately starts walking towards them.
lan wangji, voice flat but wavering, asks, “luo-guniang, what did you do?”
mianmian laughs, says, “i get to give a speech at your wedding,” and walks away just as wei wuxian reaches them.
(she does, actually, give a speech at their wedding. she may or may not be drunk during it, jin zixuan gets embarrassed for her, and she starts tearing up and has to hide it in the shoulder of her wife’s lovely well-tailored robes. it’s alright, though, wen qing doesn’t mind)
EDIT: now on AO3 with a real fic version from lwj’s pov!
3K notes · View notes
poguestvff · 3 years
Text
Used To The Cold — S. Cameron
In which Sarah Cameron comes to a realization after her girlfriend moves across the country.
taglist | main masterlist | 2.0k words
warning(s): none, fluff, i heart sarah <33
Tumblr media
Have you ever lost something that held either so many memories or brought a sort of happiness that just warmed you immediately even at the sight of it? Most people have something like that. Such as for children when it comes to losing stuffed animals or action figures that were a source of comfort, they missed it like hell. Said children grow up and look for a new source of comfort. Some teenagers found it in weed and alchohol, others in sports. For Sarah Cameron, she grew out of the beautiful pink blanket her father had gotten her as a toddler. As she grew into a teenager, she found a new solace.
Her girlfriend.
Sarah made it very apparent to show her love to her girlfriend who, at one point, was just her best friend who she could hardly even bare to be away from. Sarah had known she'd loved Y/n before they even got together by the way Sarah had never felt claustrophobic in the friendship that she held with the other girl. She said the three words within the first six months of being with her, words she had never spoken to another being other than her family. It was a word she, personally, took seriously. For her to say it to Y/n showed the amount of trust she held within her. Trust to not feel so closed off with Y/n.
At the beginning of the relationship, Sarah was glad that not much had changed between the two of them. That Y/n let her have her space whenever she needed it without the dependent need to be together all day though it quickly became backwards. Sarah grew even more clingy to Y/n, hardly able to deal without her hands being stuck to her girlfriend like glue. Whenever they went out to lunch, Sarah played a one sided game of footsies that only brought a smile upon Y/n’s features, one of Sarah’s favorite traits about her. Sarah loved the idea of always having a person to call her own, Y/n seeming to be the one person who could bring out her newfound touchiness. Though, sometimes she pondered on whether Y/n herself was even handling it or if she just ‘put up’ with it. If she did have an indifference towards Sarah’s actions, she surely never showed her disinterest in it.
Though the last time Sarah had held on to her girlfriend felt soul crushing and gut wrenching. As the two of them stood on the creaky, wooden dock just before the ferry, Sarah felt drained. Between the amount of crying she’d done in just the past few days had been enough to make her want to sleep forever and the comfort of her girlfriends arms around her hadn’t helped that feeling. Tears held a steady stream down both of their faces though Sarah was the one who was unable to contain her sobs. People passed around them, solemn looks given to the two of them as they listened in on the sniffles and soft wails.
Y/n didn’t need to be a genius to understand that this was twice as hard for Sarah as it would be for her. Y/n was leaving, miles away that Sarah couldn’t even pin on when the next time she’d being able to hold on to her would be. All she knew was that this embrace that Y/n held on her would be the last one for months and there wasn’t a thing that would be able to make up for it between now and then.
It evoked an indescribable sort of fear within Sarah but she knew it was immutable. If Sarah could, she'd even drop her whole life within Outer Banks to follow her girlfriend across the world. There wasn't much Sarah wouldn't do and there wasn't much Y/n wouldn't do for Sarah either, including the moving date having already been pushed back a month because of Y/n's several arguments with her parents.
"I don't want you to go." sarah whispered as y/n kissed her neck. She could hear the blonde's pained and wavering voice, how affected she already was even as Y/n hadn't even stood on the boat yet.
"I know, lover." the y/h/c girl spoke in a low tone, only sarah able to hear her words of affirmation. Y/n was first to pull back, placing her hands on Sarah's cheeks. The sight of Sarah with puffy eyes and a quivering lip made y/n's heart throb and a guilty feeling blanket over her like a raising tide. "i'll visit. Every chance I get, you know I will."
"It won't be the same." she lamented. Y/n placed her lips against Sarah’s, delicately as if the blonde were made of porcelain. When Y/n's parents had called for her and Ward and Rose had called Sarah away from the dock, Sarah only seemed to want to cling further, fingers pressing further into the thin jacket Y/n worse, but their time had finally run out. Even after weeks of pretending that they had all the time in the world, like nothing could pull the two of them apart, it had happened.
The first few weeks, the whole Cameron house had known Sarah spent most of her nights crying herself to sleep and the entire Y/l/n house knew Y/n was not going to be speaking to them for a little while due to their newest decision. Both groups of parents hadn't known that pulling the duo away from one another would become such a quagmire for each of them.
When Y/n did finally decide to talk to her parents, it was usually to say she was leaving to explore the area in which she refused to get to know the first few days. With a driver license, it gave her just a bit of freedom from her parents who's impromptu decisions had still caused for a tearing in their familial relationship.
Y/n sat in her parked car, a hot beverage in hand to adjust to the cold in which she'd just stood in for five minutes. All of it for a drink that wasn't even that good in her opinion but she dealt with it. With the hand not holding the steaming drink, she opened her phone, smiling immediately at the photo of her and sarah as her background. She unlocked it, scrolling around to find Sarah's contact and setting her phone up against the dashboard. While it began to ring, Y/n situated herself to begin to drive. "Hi, Y/n/n!" Sarah shouted excitedly the second she'd answered.
At her tone of voice did Y/n laugh. The enthusiasm was no surprise but it was funny to Y/n every time. "Hi, baby." She replied, fhe smile remaining on her face as she looked towards the screen. Sarah sat at her desk, her hands under her jaw though a pencil between her fingers. She had focused all of her attention from the papers in front of her to the driver on the other end of the phone. "What are you doing?"
The sound of whizzing paper had made Y/n glance to the phone seeing a math sheet now replacing Sarah's face before she placed it back down, a frown appearing on her features. "Math."
"Didn't you just start like two days ago?" Y/n asked, taking a sip from her drink.
"Yes and this teacher is an absolute bitch. You're just lucky you don't start for another week. You would hate Mr. Henley."
Y/n let out an awfully dramatic gasp. "Um, hello, Mr. Henley was literally my home room teacher last year, I'll have you know. Show some respect." She said, almost missing Sarah's chagrined look as she smiled.
"You're supposed to be on my side here."
"Sorry, i don't believe in biases, Sar." She joked for sarah to let out a small snicker.
"So tell me, how's minnesota?" Sarah asked, trying to spark up a conversation even if the distance was the same thing she wanted to keep her mind off of.
"Oh, it's so great. So many hot people." she remarked.
"You're not funny, no one has ever found you funny." Sarah replied though unable to hold in her laugh along with her girlfriend. "I'm serious. we haven't talked much about it and i don't want to like... avoid your new life now."
Y/n sighed, looking towards the phone to see Sarah looking back down at her work in front of her. "Fine. Well, it doesn't particularly suck. The no surfing part definitely does, though, but what can you do. And the coffee here... no, its just so bad, babe. granted, i only had one, and it's in my cup holder right now but it's gross."
"My coffee making is better, right?" Sarah asked as Y/n gave a hefty nod.
"So much better, even if it is the only thing you're good at making." Y/n laughed and Sarah attempted to refuse a smile, her cheeks quivering from trying to keep it down. "But the weather dropped today, randomly. It was seventy yesterday, fifty today but i think i'm getting used to the cold."
Sarah lifted her head back to the phone, watching Y/n focus on driving, her eyes diverting on places away from the screen. Sarah but at her inner cheek, drumming her fingers against the white wood that rested under her forearms. "Used to it?" Sarah asked. She knew Y/n's move was permanent at least until she was eighteen but something about those words made it seem more realistic. She was getting used to a place that wasn't home.
Y/n hummed. "Yeah, i'm probably being dramatic. I saw a guy walking around in a tank top and shorts while i'm wearing double pair of socks right now." she grinned at her own comment though picking up on Sarah's sudden discomfort when she replied with a small 'wow'. "Lover?"
"Yeah?"
"What's going on?" Y/n asked, the car slowing to a stop at a red light.
Sarah quickly shook her head. "No, it's nothing. Just... the work. Keep your eye on the road."
"Sarah." The blond recognized the tone of voice quickly.
"Just... I just fully realized how permanent this is. I won't see you until, what? December? That's a long time, Y/n! And, i get it, it's your home now and i can't do anything about it but—"
Y/n was quick to cut her off. "I never said this is home. Sure I live here but it's just a couple walls and a roof. It's not home, Sarah." Y/n began. "Home is you. And trust me, i've been missing home the second i got on that ferry."
Despite them having to look at one another through a glass screen the feeling—the connection between the two of them was still felt. Sarah could feel the normal warm feeling she would've gotten whenever Y/n would simply hold her hand or brush her hair over her ear. she held that much of an effect on Sarah in person and somehow even thousands of miles away.
Sarah hadn't even realized she had been staring for a total of twenty seconds until a singular tear fell down her blushing cheeks. she quickly sniffled, recomposing herself as she wiped it away. "Are you seriously making me cry right now?" She muttered with the way the atmosphere had become though relishing in the way Y/n laughed in response.
"Yes, thank you for ignoring everything i just said, lover." Y/n put the car back in drive as the light went green. Due to the steets being relatively empty in her new small town, she took the time to look back over at the phone to Sarah. "I love you."
Sarah's smile widened in thag very moment, pursing her lips before pushing them out. "I love you more."
"And don't worry. I won't get to used to it. I'll be back home, to you, before you even know it." Y/n took a small glance to the phone, enjoying Sarah's gaze that showed even with the distance put between the two of them, they'd be fine.
183 notes · View notes
oreoambitions · 3 years
Note
I think we're alone now for supercorp! :)
If you'd asked Lena this time yesterday whether there was anything she wasn't prepared to do for friendship, she'd have said no. Certainly there was nothing she wasn't prepared to do for Andrea, best friend and roommate, social mentor, fellow genius entrepreneur-to-be. But if you ask Lena today, she'll tell you there's precisely one thing she's not willing to do for friendship, no not even for Andrea, not even if the fate of the world depends on it, and that's hiking.
Specifically backpacking. More specifically, multi day backpacking trips with a gaggle of fellow undergraduates who want to behave like they're hiking the PCT and not trundling down some 60 miles of backwater footpaths just a few hours away from NCU in what was allegedly supposed to be an attempt to form long lasting social bonds but which appears to be in fact a thinly disguised mating ritual. This, in retrospect, is something that Lena should have seen coming. But she was blinded by friendship -  or perhaps by Andrea's pouty face - and so here they are some 16 miles from civilization and Lena has come to the conclusion that hiking is in fact literal hell.
By which she means that everything is burning. Her legs are burning. Her lungs are burning. Her throat is burning. Her lips are chapped and there is a distinctly red tinge to her cheeks which is either going to be a whole new generation of freckles or else it's the beginning of a skin cancer which will lead her to an untimely death and leave the Luthor legacy in Lex's questionably capable hands.
But more than any of those things it's Lena's pride which feels burnt to crisp, and it's the fault of the woman marching along in front of her like none of this is the slightest physical inconvenience. The woman who turns around and, walking backwards without missing a step, fixes Lena with a goofy smile.
"Hey Grumpy," she says, "You doing okay?"
Lena doesn't have the breath in her lungs to protest that Grumpy isn't her name, so she fixes the energetic woman in front of her with a deadpan stare and hopes that's going to do the trick. Ahead of them, Tech Support is talking too loudly about something that would be mildly interesting to Lena if they were, say, chatting over beers in a building with air conditioning and not courting death and mosquitos in the middle of nowhere and calling it fun.
"You need to take a break?"
Potsticker. That's the name Lena knows this woman by. Because everyone agreed ahead of time to go by trail names, and it's ridiculous, and Lena hates it, not only because she somehow got saddled with Grumpy, but because her eyes fall to those lips, those shoulders, and she wants to think some kind of semi-horny thought, and here's the thing: it's difficult to have semi-horny thoughts about someone whose name evokes the image of Chinese takeout. Lena tears her eyes away from long fingers wrapped securely around a backpack strap and tries to arrange her expression into something other than pure exhausted despair.
"I'm good," she gets out. "It's just. A lot."
And it is. Tech Support and Playboy are both vying for Andrea's attention, which is not in and of itself particularly strange since Andrea always seems to have a half dozen boys wrapped around her finger, but it is... annoying. Annoying because Andrea's trail name is Blowjob and it makes Lena uncomfortable in a way she can't quite put her finger on. And Potsticker's sister, Shades, has been falling all over a woman who has been unironically going by Daddy since she met up with them at the trailhead yesterday. Lena isn't sure if that's a sex thing or a gender thing and at this point she's afraid to ask.
Potsticker squints up the trail at their gaggle of hikers and smiles. Somewhere ahead, Dreamer is shouting about stopping to crack a beer, and Short Stuff is shouting something back about needing to check the GPS. 
"They're a little... rowdy," Potsticker admits. "Probably not what you picture when you think of a wilderness trip. But they'll grow on you."
Privately Lena thinks not. "Undergrad is where you make the best friends of your life, that's what Andrea told me," Lena huffs.
"Blowjob?"
"I spend all my time in the lab. Trying to graduate early. Two degrees. Lot of ground to cover. World isn't going to change itself. Not for the better, anyway. So we thought. Join a hiking group. NCU has a. Group for-"
Lena almost smacks into Potsticker where she's halted right in the middle of the trail. "I think we should take a break," Potsticker says.
"But the others-"
"Do you trust me?"
The answer to that question is an easy and obvious no. Lena didn't know any of these people a week ago and they're all going by assumed and frankly borderline obscene names and now that she thinks of it there's no way to be sure that any of these people actually attend NCU in the first place. But Potsticker is standing there in that tanktop with those deep blue eyes and her head cocked to the side and "no" doesn't feel like an appropriate answer.
So Lena says, "Of course."
"You want me to get your water off your pack for you?"
They stand together wordlessly in the middle of the trail, Lena taking sips from the HydroFlask she's schlepped all the way out there and Potsticker nibbling on the water valve looped through her pack straps. After a long moment, Potsticker cocks her head to one side again.
"You hear that?" she asks.
Lena listens. The wind brushes through the tops of the trees and nearby an insect is buzzing. The roar of the river they followed for some time this morning has long since faded into nothingness. "I don't hear anything," Lena says.
Posticker nods. "Exactly. I think we're alone now." And then, hastily, "I know where we're going though; we aren't lost. Alex - Shades - and I, we've done this trail a hundred times. Usually just us. But she's got this thing going with Sam, and Sam likes to do the hiking groups, so. What I'm saying is, it's a lot for me too. I come out here for the quiet. The group is nice; they really do grow on you. But it's... they're out here for something else. It's a more social experience."
"We were looking for a social experience," Lena says. Her eyes are drawn suddenly, intensely, to the rim of her water bottle. "Just not... just..."
"You weren't looking for 60 miles of frat party."
"That's a little on the nose."
"Look me in the eye and tell me that I'm wrong."
Lena looks her in the eye. No words come out. Potsticker is suddenly very close, or maybe Lena is suddenly too aware of her proximity.
"That might be what Andrea came out here for," Lena says. "And there's no shame in that. But I think if I had known I would have stayed home. I'm not- I don't think Andrea and I are looking for the same things."
"And what are you looking for?"
Lena is definitely not imagining it; Potsticker is absolutely getting closer to her and it's absolutely on purpose. And those deep blue eyes have fallen to Lena's mouth and Lena, who has spent the last 24hrs annoyed with her best friend for flirting with everything on the trail with a male pronoun, who is out here actively complaining about how she came looking for community and found a wilderness matchmaking service, is seriously considering whether it's hygienic or legal to rail someone right here in the middle of the trail.
Lena clears her throat. "I am, against my better judgment, going to kiss you now," she announces. "And I'd really like it if before I did you could give me something to call you that isn't so... greasy."
Potsticker laughs. She ducks her head to capture Lena's mouth and for a long, glorious moment, grease is the furthest thing from Lena's mind. It's a clumsy kiss, and the backpacks are not conducive to really holding one another, and it mostly hurts when Potsticker brushes a thumb over Lena's cheek because of that damn sunburn. But Lena smiles anyway.
It’s another 6 miles before she realizes that Potsticker never gave up her name.
///
Thank you for the prompt, Anon! 
Shout-out to @mrsluthordanvers for Sam's trail name
299 notes · View notes
hopelesshawks · 3 years
Text
History of Us Part 39- Future Sister-in-law
Summary: Once upon a time Todoroki and (y/n) were best friends. Now they haven’t spoken in years. When (y/n) is forced to transfer to UA, will she and Shoto reconnect or will their troubled past keep them apart? A childhood friends to enemies to lovers hybrid fic.
If you don’t want to see History of Us content blacklist #hopelesshou
Masterlist Kofi
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
You open the door with a fond yet exasperated smile on your face to find your boyfriend waiting with a bouquet of white roses. “I told you you don’t have to walk me to your house when it’s literally down the street,” you tell him. “I told you I would ignore you saying that,” he shrugs. Before you can reply your mom comes up behind you, eyes widening at the flowers. “Oh Shoto they’re beautiful,” she gushes, quickly plucking them from Shoto’s arms to go find a vase. “She adores you you know?” you tell him. “I missed her,” he agrees. “She missed you too. We both did,” you reply. “You both did?” he asks curiously and you confirm with a nod. “Even when I ‘hated’ you,” you say using air quotes, “I still missed you like crazy.” “I missed you like crazy too.” “Then it’s a good thing we’re never leaving each other again,” you smile. He reaches over to lace your fingers together when suddenly you both notice a flash from behind you. You turn to the source to find your mother slightly teary-eyed, phone camera raised. “If you wanted a photo you could’ve just told us,” you tell her fondly. “No, the magic only happens when they’re candid. Now come on before we’re late,” your mom replies. “Wait can I at least see the photo?” you ask but your mom has already started walking. “Nope. You’ll see it in the montage I make for you two’s wedding,” your mom sing songs. “Mom!” you groan scandalized. All Shoto can do is watch on fondly as you drag him along back to his place.
Dinner at the Todoroki’s is even better than you anticipated. Fuyumi and Natsuo had both welcomed you back like a long lost sister, Natsu in particular trying to get you in on a plan to mess with Enji almost immediately, to Shoto’s delight and Fuyumi’s chagrin. Seeing your mother reconnect with Rei had also warmed your heart. It was an emotional reunion, especially since they hadn’t seen each other since before Rei’s hospitalization, but the two slipped back into their friendship with ease and delight. As everyone sits around the table eating you can’t help but feel warmth and fondness bloom in your chest. You never thought you’d have something like a normal family dinner and yet here you are. It’s not perfect: Endeavor is still awkward, still trying to figure out how to slot himself back into his family’s life, and your mom still has to work three times harder than you’d like; but it’s so much better than you ever thought you’d be able to have.
“So you and Shoto will be starting your last semester soon,” Rei points out. “Ah they grow up so fast,” your mom laments playfully. “Yea, I was a little worried they’d make me retake the semester since I missed finals and stuff but apparently Aizawa and some unnamed, big deal pro hero had my back, argued that what I did was way more difficult than a final exam and should count,” you reveal. Immediately heads swivel to where Endeavor sits. “What?” he asks gruffly, clearly uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” you ask with a teasing grin. “I’m sure whoever it was just felt they were doing the right thing,” Enji huffs, focusing a little too intently on his food. “Sho-Chan I think your dad is turning into an Eclipsa simp,” you tease. “A what?” Enji asks, confusion clear as Natsuo guffaws on the other side of the table. “I guess even a broken clock is right twice a day,” Shoto scoffs. “Twice is probably being generous,” Natsuo chimes in. “Boys stop bullying your father,” Rei chides, although her smile betrays her amusement.
After dinner you and Shoto are shooed off when you attempt to help clean up so instead you decide to go into the backyard and appreciate the night together. It reminds you of the night of the third year hang when the two of you had found respite outside away from the noise. You rest your head on his shoulder again and he wraps an arm around you just like he did then, but there will be no interruption this time. “Hey (y/n)-chan?” Shoto asks quietly. You hum in acknowledgment of his question. “Let’s open an agency together after graduation,” he offers. “Yea?” you ask. “Yea,” he confirms. “You really think we could pull that off?” “You just took out one of the most infamous villains since All for One and Shigaraki.” “And you caught the only remaining member of the league of villains.” “Exactly. I think we’ll be just fine.” “As long as we have each other,” you tell him.
“Yea. As long as we have each other.”
A/N: And that’s it guys.... the end of the line. Thank you so much for going on this journey with me. The response has been incredible and I love and appreciate all of the support you guys have given me. Every like, reply, and reblog has been so much serotonin I seriously can’t thank y’all enough. I actually got my second dose of the covid vaccine yesterday and have had really bad side effects and didn’t know if I’d be able to finish this in time. But writing this chapter and thinking about y’all’s response helped me push through and now here it is! You guys have no idea how much you mean to me ❤️
Taglist: @sorrythatspussynal @miss-bakugo-writes @pixelwisp @larkspyrr @sokkaandzukosimp @akkaso @sunaispretty @shot0stea @todoplusultra @oliviasslut @lapysllazuly @immah0e4fictionalmen @cinnamonruts @koifishq
109 notes · View notes
ediths · 4 years
Text
The View From Both Sides of The Mirror
Tumblr media
Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader
Word Count: 23.5k
Summary: Who would have thought that being stuck on a boat with your worst enemy would be a good thing?
Warning(s): Cursing, some mentions of yachtrry, Harry being a softie, Harry also being a dick, reader being down on herself
A/N: So this is my submission for @stylesharrys​ 10k follower celebration! I chose the picture above, the trope enemies to lovers, prompt “That’s not what I meant, I swear. I know I can be an asshole but I'm not that heartless.”  I’ve been working on this for quite a while and I really debated deleting the entire thing a few times, but here she is, all finished and ready to be enjoyed!!
Masterlist
Add yourself to my taglist here
Request anything here but be sure to read my guidelines first!
As always, if you enjoy this piece, reblog to share with your friends :))
*
Harry Styles is a lot of things. Annoying, over the top, self obsessed, judgmental, self indulgent, careless, overly flamboyant, rude, narcissistic. He’s a lot of things, but perfect is not one of them.
The media continuously had a lot of ridiculous ideas about him, most of which were laughable. You’d often scroll through your social media and snort at the things that people would post about him. You had seen some things that were quite funny, but nothing compared to the article that your best friend, Lexi, had shown you. You full body cackled after reading the title, and who could blame you? “The Perfect Man the World Didn’t Know It Was Missing” was top tier comedy.
There were a plethora of things wrong with the title that the up and coming news station had so foolishly chosen.
The most obvious of which being the fact that he was literally 26, and he’s been in the spotlight for over ten years. The world hadn’t been missing him at all. He’s been shoved in everyone’s face for over a decade and they find a new reason to act like he’s the best thing that ever happened to the universe. They over exaggerate everything, make it seem like he was either born an hour ago or just discovered yesterday. Which was definitely not the case, as you had been told numerous times by the man himself. 
The second being that they all acted like they knew him when really they had absolutely no idea who he is. The ones that covered the stories acted like they knew him as well as his childhood best friend when really they had taken a statement, at most. They had no clue who he actually was. They couldn’t tell you his favorite number, or how he fixes his toast. They don’t know the reason why he no longer wears skinny jeans. They don’t know why he’s so open with who he is and how he presents himself. None of them know anything about any of that, and it’s more bothersome than you’d like to admit. But it’s not just the people that praise him that rub you the wrong way. No, it’s even the ones that say bad things about him, that claim that he’s Satan's spawn. It was still exasperating to hear them say things about him. They acted like they knew him well enough to hate him, to paint him as the villain in their article.
Yeah, sure, you and Harry didn’t get along, but at least you had a reason. Most of the people that didn’t like him were just upset because basically everyone wanted something to do with him, and they were all mad because he was seemingly perfect. He never lost his temper (he definitely did, just not in public), he was nice to everyone (yeah, besides you), and he would never turn down a picture with a fan if it was safe to do so and he had time (that one was true. The one part of him that you don’t absolutely hate is the love that he has for his fans. He’d be nowhere without them, and he realizes that. And, although he’s not appreciative of a lot of things, he is of them).
And the final thing about the article, the one that irked your nerves the most, was that they were yet another news group to paint the picture that he was perfect, that he was the golden boy. That he had never once done something that could be seen as wrong. Which, yet again, goes to show that they don’t really know anything about him, at least not personally.
Sure, Harry Styles came off as perfect. He had to. He’s in the public eye, spotted everywhere that he goes by at least one person. He had been coached from the ripe old age of 16 to come across in that way. In his career, there has never been any room for error. One mistake could have brought down everything that the managers of One Direction were trying to accomplish.
He was conditioned into media perfection long ago. He had been told how to speak, how to act, what to wear, what to sing. Anything that could possibly cause an upset in the fandom was immediately changed, edited to make it look better. He was shaped into the boy that the world had come to love. 
But Harry, the guy that you spent the majority of your waking hours with, due to the numerous mutual friends that you had, was annoying at best. Most of the time, though, he was a complete prick.
There was nothing about the man he was behind closed doors that was perfect. He was utterly and completely himself. Most people would think that’s a good thing, him being comfortable enough to himself to the fullest extent. But you? You absolutely hated those times. He was much easier to deal with when you were out in public, when he was too worried about keeping up appearances to do anything particularly shitty. 
The two of you had never gotten along. From the very moment that the two of you had met, there was a tension. It was like there was an immediate distaste for one another. All of your friends could tell that the two of you would never get along, but they tried to force it anyway.
That night, he had seemed completely uninterested, like he’d rather be at some party that only had A-List celebrities on the guest list than there meeting you. At first, you had been hurt. But then you came to accept it. Came to accept the fact that you just weren’t good enough for him. You weren’t like the rest of your friends. All you did was work in photography, and you weren’t even one of the well off photographers. Sure, you didn’t struggle, but you weren’t on the same level as the rest of the people that you had formed friendships with.
Your mutual friends had tried their best to ease the tension between the two of you. They had done everything in their power to force the friendship. You had to give them props, they pulled all the stops, but there was nothing that anyone could do that would make you not loathe the mere thought of him. Maybe it was the fact that he made you doubt who you were. Maybe it was the fact that he gave off the asshole vibe. Or maybe, it was just because he seemed to not like you, but from that day forward, you weren’t on good terms with him.
Things had gotten so bad with Harry that you had even tried to find a new group of friends. You were tired of feeling like you were the odd man out, feeling like you had ruined every outing because you couldn’t just suck it up and get along with him. There had come a time when you didn’t even feel like you had belonged. All of the people that you had surrounded yourself with were extremely successful. Most of them were CEOs of something. But when Harry had met them, he had introduced the singers, writers, and musicians into the group. You weren’t any of those things. Sure, a lot of people saw you as an artist, but you could barely be seen as anything compared to the others, and that haunted you until you began to believe that your occupation as a photographer wasn’t valid.
So, you searched for new friends. You tried to find people that would make you feel like you belonged, like you were their equal. You just wanted some people that you could relate to. You hadn’t felt that in way too long, and being around Harry and his super successful, extremely famous friends wasn’t helping any.
You tried for a few weeks before realizing that it was pointless. He found a way to weasel himself into that aspect of your life as well. 
Every single time you met someone new, the same thing happened. You’d talk to them for a few minutes, get to know each other a little. But each time, without fail, they’d ask “Hey, aren’t you that chick that’s friends with Harry Styles?” And each time, you’d immediately walk away, never looking back.
Nobody cared about making friends with you, they just wanted to have a way to Harry. Every cell in your body was filled with regret. You had made the decision to openly be in the same friend group as him. You hadn’t taken into consideration that once you were spotted with him repeatedly, your life would never be the same.
It left you wanting to rip your hair out. Or at least go back in time so that you never had to meet him, never had to be in public with him. It sucked that no matter how hard you tried, he wouldn’t stay out of your life. He was present even when he physically wasn’t, and it was aggravating beyond belief.
It was safe to say that you hate Harry Styles.
It was also safe to say that Harry Styles hates you.
You were so uptight, always sticking up your nose at everything that he did. You had done it since the moment that you had met him and it seemed as if you had never stopped.
You had given him a look that could only be described as one filled with disdain the moment that you met him, and from that moment on he had tried his best to distance himself from you. With the both of you running in the same circle, though, that was pretty hard.
So, he had just tried his best to ignore you. That didn’t work very well either, seeing as you always had a reaction to everything that he did. And none of those reactions were ever positive.
You acted like there was something wrong with him spending the money that he earned. It got on his nerves more than just about anything. What was he supposed to do with it? Was he just supposed to let it sit in his bank account for the rest of his life? He donates a large chunk of everything that he earns every year, it wasn’t like he was just blowing his money on meaningless things. He had his priorities straight.
He had come to despise nights out, knowing that you would be there. You always had something to say. Or not say, rather. You’d never tell him that it was exactly that made you so upset with him. Every time you would send him a look, he’d ask why, but you’d simply turn on your heel or slip out of the booth, heading to the dance floor to be as far away from him as possible.
He was a simple man, really. He just wanted to go out with his friends, buy something strong off the top shelf, and drink until he was in the cuddly mood that his mind automatically switched into when there was enough alcohol running through his veins.
But with you there? Oh, he couldn’t do that. God forbid he buys something expensive like that. God forbid that he spend his money on what he wanted to. Every time he’d order his drink, you’d curl your nose up, as if you were completely disgusted by his choice. And every time that he would get overly touchy and want to cuddle someone, he would automatically seek you out. He didn’t know why, and he despised his brain for thinking of no one else but you. 
He knew that the fact that he never chose someone else to agitate probably made you hate him even more than you already did, and he went home every weekend feeling awful about it. He never meant to annoy you. Sure, he hated you, couldn’t stand the way you acted like you were better than him, like you were higher up than him even though he saw the two  of you as equals, but he never meant to purposefully get on your nerves. He never went out of his way to cause you to hate him even more. 
However, that didn’t stop you from thinking that he did. Didn’t stop you from thinking that he’d do anything in his power to pester you. It didn’t stop you from hating him more and more every day.
*
When your friends had called you and told you that they wanted to go on vacation, you were excited. You could use a break, a bit of time to forget about all the stress and just relax on a boat with your friends. Plus, you had never been to Brighton, so there was no way you were going to say no to that experience.
However, the initial glory of the idea wore off the moment that you realize Harry’s the only one with any kind of boat. Which means in order to have the relaxing getaway that you want, you'll have to deal with him for at least a few hours every day, if not every moment that the sun is up. If you’re completely honest, you don’t even understand how he’s going to get the yacht to Brighton when it’s kept in the States. You didn’t question it, though, because that’s the reason that Lexi gave you. Which means that has to be the reason that he has to go.
To top it off, it won’t even be like it normally is. If he gets you worked up enough, you can’t even just walk away and leave, you’ll be stuck on his boat in the middle of a body of water, with no way to swim to land without risking something bad happening.
You had already paid the deposit for the house, but you were fully willing to let someone else take your place on the trip. Were fully willing to give up the vacation because there’s no way in the world that you could spend an entire week with Harry without something terrible happening. Plus, there was only room for four people and there were many more than just that in your friend group. They could easily find a replacement.
When you had called back to tell Lexi and Sam that you weren’t going to be attending, they all but guilt tripped you into coming along, saying that they had invited you for a reason and that they would be really bummed out if you decided to stay behind and give someone your spot.They also gave you the look, the one they always hit you with when you back out of something just because of Harry. 
You felt bad, always ruining plans because you were in a constant argument with him, so you tried to put your pride to the side for a moment and at least listen to what they had to say.
Against your better judgement, you agree to go, but only because you would have your own room with a private bathroom attached, and your friends confirmed that they wouldn't say anything about you hiding away from Harry if he got to be too much. They also assured you that you and Harry would be separated for the majority of the trip. 
They knew that the both of you need a vacation, but neither of you can stand the other, so they promised that you would have an adequate amount of alone time to have the relaxation that vacations are supposed to bring.
After doing your shoot that night, you go home and pack the suitcases you'll need for the week that the four of you plan on staying there. You don’t pack much, just a single suitcase and a carry on. You check to make sure that you have your passport and that it’s valid, and that you have all the items from around the house that you’ll need.
Once everything is settled and put together, you flop down on your bed, switching on a random Netflix show that you’d been obsessed with lately and allowing yourself to drift off to sleep..
*
You’ll never know how your friends had let them talk you into letting them plan the entire trip. The only thing that you were told was how much your portion of the bills were and when they were due. It has annoyed you to no end, seeing that you are the type of person that likes to know every detail of what’s  going on. You had been on more than enough trips that had absolutely everything that could go wrong do exactly that, leading to ruined trip after ruined trip, that you’d rather know all the plans, maybe even make a list or two so that there are no missteps or slip ups when it comes to the actual vacation.
You texted Lexi a few hours before you had to leave to board the flight to ask if you could scan over the plans and the details of the trip, not to change anything, just to double check. Of course, she said no immediately, not understanding that you just wanted to look over it and make sure that everything was in order to calm your nerves. You didn’t want to explain this to her, though, knowing that she would begin to feel guilty for not letting you see it immediately, and that’s not what you wanted to happen.
If you had talked to her and she had actually allowed you to check literally anything for the trip, though, the first thing you would have ensured was that you wouldn’t be stuck on a plane right next to Harry for hours. You’ll never understand how she could put you in this situation, making you sit next to the most loathsome person in this world, who she knows that you can’t even be in the same room as for more than a few hours.
By the time the situation registers in your mind, however, he’s already loaded his carry on and sat down in the seat. Which means that it's definitely too late to do anything about it. Yeah, you’d rather not sit next to him for hours on end, but you’re definitely not going to cause a scene on an airplane full of people. Especially not when half of them already have their phones out, trying to discreetly take pictures of Harry.
Besides, the flight attendant is already coming around checking belts and the pilot is introducing himself and spouting out information that seemingly no one is paying attention to. This flight will be over in no time. At least that’s what you tell yourself to get through the next ten hours.
You groan, rolling your eyes at the irony of the situation. Of course something like this would happen. You had only agreed to a vacation because you needed relaxation. You needed a break from all the stress. But here you were, stuck right next to one of the biggest stress inducers in your life. Yeah, Lexi had promised you that you’d have plenty of time away from Harry at the rental house, but you were definitely making up for all the time that would be lost right now.
If you didn’t know better, you would think that Lexi and Sam were plotting against you. But that’s crazy, right? They wouldn’t do something like this on purpose, would they?
You lightly shake your head, pushing the thought from your mind. They wouldn’t do that.
You pull out your phone, queuing up the playlists you had downloaded prior to boarding. You knew that you’d want to shut yourself off from the world for the duration of the trip there, so you prepared accordingly.
You take one final glance around the cabin, seeing that everyone else has begun settling in and nobody else is announcing something important. You slip your headphones in your ears, ready to relax as much as possible throughout the flight. You know that the only way to completely avoid being pestered by Harry is to completely block him out.
The first song that comes on makes you want to laugh. You obviously don’t do such a thing, knowing that the outburst would cause every single person on the plane to look at you like you’re crazy. 
You couldn’t catch a break today. Of course one of his songs would be playing in your ears while your face was less than a foot from his. Of course it would actually be one of your favorites. You had never once in your life pressed the skip button on this song, but knowing that he’s as close to you as he is, you’re hesitant to even listen to the opening chords of the song.
“Carolina” blared through your headphones for a split second before you made up your mind and hit skip. You couldn’t risk being caught by him. There’s no way you would survive this if he found out that you listened to his music, especially since you have it saved to your playlist. There’s no way that you’d be able to play that off as you simply listening to it so that you could make fun of him for it later (which you wouldn’t do in general, you know how important his music is for him, and you’d never dampen the light that appears in his eyes when he talks about it. You’re not that cruel.).
It was quite frustrating, really. His music is fantastic, a perfect blend of the basic attributes that hook audiences that hear songs on the radio and a uniqueness that you can’t find anywhere else. His music was absolutely amazing, but the man that sang it… he was a different story.
You didn’t like to judge his tracks based on how fond of him you were when you first heard them. If you did that, you’d never listen to them in general. 
You’d never admit it to him, but every song of his, even the covers, was scattered throughout your playlists. And every once in a while, when nobody was around, you would listen to them and genuinely enjoy them. Sometimes you’d even dance along, and that’s a secret that you’ll take to the grave.
You wanted to drift off to sleep, but didn’t want to risk him hearing if one of his songs came on. Lord knows that he doesn’t need the ego boost. So, you turned the volume down until you were confident that nobody else could hear it. You lean your head back against the rest and let your eyes slip shut, finding sleep in seconds.
*
What seems like moments later, you’re being awoken by someone. You think that maybe it’s Lexi at first, but then you feel them, the rings that he never seems to take off. You jerk your body away from him, not wanting his hands to be on you. 
“Hey, it’s time to wake up. We’ve landed.” You open your eyes and glare at him, taking your headphones out. You can tell that he’s holding in a laugh and it makes you want to punch him right in the jaw. You choose not to do such a thing, however, because you’d rather not cause a scene on an airplane. So, you settle for flipping him off.
He chuckles before mimicking your action. You roll your eyes, standing up from the seat and grabbing your carry on. Harry steps back, letting you walk ahead of him. You think nothing of it until he pushes at the back of your knee, almost making you fall to the ground. What is he? A middle schooler? 
You can already tell that this is going to be a long trip, regardless of what Lexi and Sam had assured you. So far, what they had said had turned out to mean absolutely nothing to you. Not for the first time since you woke up this morning, you find yourself wishing that you hadn’t given in. That you had just said no and not let them talk you into it.
You walk with a bit more speed after you step off of the airplane, trying to get as far away from him as possible. You don’t want to have to add falling over in the middle of the airport to the list of reasons why you despise flying. You had only agreed to get on the plane this time because it was absolutely necessary in getting to Brighton.
You meet up with Sam and Lexi by the luggage pick up and all of you wait for your bags. You put all your effort into ignoring Harry, only looking in his direction or humming an approval when the conversation called for it.
“Alright, well. We need to get to the car rental service and then I have to go rent the yacht.” Harry says, making you snap your head up, looking straight at him. After a second, you turn to Lexi and Sam, looking between the two.
“Oh, no, no, no. Tell me you’re fucking joking.” You spit. “Harry just had to come, huh? And you wouldn’t let me back out? Harry’s the only one with a yacht? Yeah, he’s the only one with a yacht but he’s fucking renting one.” You can’t believe this. “Look, if I had known that me being stuck in a foreign country with him wasn’t completely necessary, I would have given someone else this vacation in a heartbeat.”
“Y/N come on…” Sam starts, but you cut him off.
“What, Sam? Want me to hold my tongue yet again so I don’t hurt Harry’s feelings?” You scoff. Why did they care about his feelings when he had never once taken yours into consideration? “Well, you know what? Fuck Harry’s feelings. He’s rude to me for absolutely no goddamn reason and I’m tired of it. I wanted to come on this god forsaken trip so that I could relax. Both of you,” you point back and forth between Sam and Lexi, “promised me that I would get to relax, that I would only be around Harry on the boat. But it seems like your word is bullshit, doesn’t it?”
Your luggage rolls around and you yank it off the conveyor. “Let’s go get the stupid ass cars. And Harry?” You turn to him, pointing your finger at him and tapping his chest. You ignore the way that the contact sends shivers up and down your spine. “Don’t you dare fucking say a word to me on the way there. Don’t touch me, for any reason. You know what? Just don’t even look at me. That should make everything a little more bearable, got that?” 
He nods, and with that, you walk towards the exit of the airport, knowing that there was no way you could continue that argument without bursting into tears. You weren’t upset in that way, you just had the habit to start crying when you were pissed off at someone to this point. They had really lied to your face. You know Lexi though, she’ll use the fact that she ‘technically didn’t lie because Harry is the only one with a yacht.’ 
You wait outside, knowing that they have the address to the car rental place, and there’s no way that you want to get lost here. You don’t look at any of them once they come out the doors, and they don’t make any effort to talk to you. 
The entire walk to the shop, you stay a few feet behind them, not wanting to be too close to any of them. It’s not even so much so that you were mad anymore, that had subsided. You were hurt. The fact that they lied to you? That was something that all of you had promised to never do to one another, even you and Harry. And what hurt even worse was the fact that the people that did lie to you weren’t who you expected to ever lie to you. If anyone was going to do something like that, you expected that it would have been Harry that did it, not them. It probably wouldn’t have hurt as much if it had been Harry, but only because you had mentally prepared yourself for him to betray you, had kept your walls up against him since the moment that he showed you who he was around you.
The walk to the rental store was a short one, leaving you barely any time alone with your thoughts, which you were completely fine with. You didn’t really want to be in your head right now.
Lexi walks in, leaving the three of you outside. She comes out a moment later with two sets of keys. “Alright, who’s riding with who?”
“I’ll ride with Sam, give Y/N some time away from me.” If he hadn’t said it with the hint of sarcasm that he did, his words could have been mistaken for sweetness. But you know how he is. He makes everyone else think that he’s such a sweetheart when really he’s a prick.
*
The house is nice. Really nice, actually. The moment you walk in, you’re met with the high ceilings of the entryway. You must admit that Lexi and Sam did a great job on picking the house that you’d be staying in for the week. You walk through the entryway and see a kitchen off to the side, it’s really modern, looks like it was just redone. There’s a sitting room directly adjacent to where you’re standing. And you can see multiple doors and a hallway that leads to other rooms, which you assume are bedrooms and the half bath that would be used for guests.
You immediately go to pick a room, knowing that nobody else really plans on being in their rooms at all, so it’s not like they’ll mind. You venture down the hallway and see a few art pieces. You smile to yourself. The house is really cute. You wouldn’t mind living somewhere like this when you find someone and settle down.
You look through all the rooms before choosing the one at the very end of the hallway. There’s a large four poster bed sitting in the middle of the room. There’s a bookshelf to the right of the bed and a nightstand with a cute little lamp on it to the left. Upon walking further into the room and scanning the entirety of it, you see that there’s a dresser against the wall opposite the bed. There’s a tv sat upon the dresser. To the right of that, there’s a door that leads to the bathroom.
Even if Harry does get on your nerves during this trip, you can always come in here and escape from it all. You smile at the thought. That was truly the first thing that had been seen as a positive since you had left your house that morning. 
Since it was already pretty late, you decided to hop in the shower. Grabbing your clothes for the night and walking into the bathroom. As soon as the door is closed, you begin peeling off your clothes. Just doing that puts you in a better mood, you had been wearing those clothes for far too long. They probably didn’t smell the best, having sat on your body for an entire plane ride.
You fiddle with the temperature settings on the shower for a moment before stepping in. The moment that the hot water hits your skin, you let out a sigh of relief. You can feel the muscles that had tensed up throughout the day start to relax.
After spending what feels like an adequate amount of time in the shower, you towel off and get dressed, making your way to the bed. You crawl under the plush comforter and immediately feel the exhaustion rack your body. You turn off the lamp and roll onto your stomach, letting sleep pull you into the blissful state where nothing bothers you
*
Lexi busted into your room early the next morning, shaking you awake until you turned to face her.
“Do you need Sam and me to get you anything from the store?” She chirped, far too giddy for any normal person to be this early in the morning.
That makes sense, though, because Lexi is far from normal. She has this electric personality, usually bringing out the absolute best in everybody.
She has been your best friend since high school. She took you under her wing during your sophomore year, her junior year.
Since then, you have been through a lot together. Crushes, relationships, heartbreaks, you and her yelling at the guy or girl that broke the other’s heart. You helped each other pick up the pieces when nobody else was there to help do so.
You had been through dozens of friendships since sophomore year, but the only one that has been a constant is her.
Sure, the both of you had changed. But you had changed together and supported one another through every decision.
You had seen her cycle through different haircuts - she had chopped off her brown curls during her senior year and instantly hated them, choosing to let them grow back out to their rightful place, right below her shoulders - and hair colors - when she cut her hair, she also dyed it a bright red, which you’re still convinced is the real reason she hated the length of it as well. You had also experienced her ever changing sense of style, which was actually a plus for you most times, because when she changed her taste and cleaned out her closet, she’d give you all of the clothes that no longer satisfied her, leaving you with a new wardrobe at least once a year.
And she had been there for you too, sticking with you through your ‘whore phase.’ Which really just consisted of you dating the ‘hottest guy in school’ - he wasn’t really that hot - and then rumors spread the next year that you were messing around with the ‘hottest girl in school’ - that one was the one that got you the label, all the guys being mad that they couldn’t get with her, seeing as she was strictly into girls. 
Lexi had also dealt with your late night calls, riddled with anxiety, not knowing what it is that you could possibly do with your future. She had calmed you down multiple times, talking through options with you. She was the reason that you came to realize that you wanted to be in the fashion industry in some way. 
She had already known what she wanted to do, had been aware of her dreams since before she even made it into high school. She used to tell you all the time, “Y/N, one of these days, I’m going to own a Fortune 500 company.” And that’s exactly what she had done. 
Which is the only reason that you got to be friends with all the people that you do. She’s also the one who introduced you to Harry, starting the rivalry between the two of you.
“No, I’m fine.” You groaned, rolling back over.
“Alright, sleepy head.” She chuckled, walking back out of your room and latching the door.
Once she’s gone, you reach over and grab your phone, checking the time. Seven A.M. You groan. Was she crazy? 
You’re definitely not pleased that you’re up this early. However, you decided to go ahead and stay up. Your alarm would be going off in two hours, and you know that you’ll be grumpy if you go back to sleep just to wake up then.
You pull yourself out of bed, trudging to the bathroom. You run through all the steps of your morning routine and emerge from the bathroom, ready to take on the day.
Your way of taking on the day is going to be picking a book from the bookshelf and laying in bed until around ten, when you’re scheduled to go out to the water for the day.
*
It’s almost ten when you get the text from Sam.
We’re running late, you and H go ahead and get on the water, we’ll rent jet skis to get out there. X
You roll your eyes, of course they’d be late. And of course they’d leave you to fend for yourself with Harry.
You quickly get dressed in your dark blue bikini, the one that accentuates all your curves perfectly. You then throw an oversized band tee over your head, making sure that you’re covered enough before walking out and making sure that Harry's ready and has everything that he’ll need for the day. You’re really not in the mood to have him forget something and have to come all the way back to the house.
When you reach the living room, he’s already by the door, dressed in a pair of yellow swimming trunks and a cream colored tee. He has the yacht keys in hand, along with his phone. He already has the cooler and the bag Lexi had packed with supplies for the day (sunscreen, portable chargers, etc.). 
You just stand there for a moment, looking him over, trying to ignore the feeling that you got in your stomach. You couldn’t place exactly what it was, but it had to be one of disgust, right? You couldn’t stand being around him, he was unnecessarily rude to you and you can’t tolerate him. That feeling couldn’t be anything good, it had to be disgust, or maybe it was resentment. Either way, it stopped you in your tracks.
“You coming or what, loser? It’s enough that it’s just us, do I need to hold your hand too?” He smirks.
You push down the rising feeling in your chest, and push past him, walking over to the passenger side of the suv that he had rented for the week. 
He takes his sweet time strolling over, popping the trunk and placing the bag and cooler in before slamming it shut again. He unlocks the doors and you slide in, buckling your seat. You refuse to look at him, knowing that if you make eye contact with him, he’ll be more inclined to say something dickish to you.
The ride to the water is mostly quiet, the only sound in the car being the music from the radio. Some top 40s song that you haven't heard yet was filling the air, causing the silence between you and Harry to be slightly less awkward. 
“What’re you gonna do when we get there?” He asks. You’re taken aback for a moment. Why was he even talking to you, let alone asking what your plans were for the day? Why was he being weird? “Because, honestly, you should probably tan, you look like a ghost.” There it is, the snide remark that was missing.
You scoff. “Harry, maybe don’t check me out every two seconds and you won’t notice.” You joke, knowing that he’s the last person on the planet that would ever check you out.
You expect him to hurl an insult back at you, tell you that he’d never check out someone as ugly as you, or tell you that he was only scanning to see what he could make fun of, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t say a word, and when you turn to him, you see that the tips of his ears are red and there’s a blush creeping up his neck. Was it really that embarrassing to be accused of checking you out? 
You don’t push him, thankful for the returning silence. It only takes a few more moments to get to the docks anyway, so it’s not like the silence is stretched out for too long.
You grab the cooler and the bag this time, knowing that he’ll have to drive the yacht, and you don’t feel like hearing about how lazy you are because you didn’t do enough.
The walk to the boat is silent and filled with tension. It’s like both of you want to say something, are dying to talk to the other, but you won’t. You don’t want to talk to him, you just want to talk to someone. It’s not the same. 
Once Harry gets everything ready, you climb onto the boat, setting everything down and pulling out the sunglasses that you had decided to bring at the last moment.
“So, where do you think we should go?” You ask, knowing that he’s been here before. He’ll know how far out you can go while still being able to anchor the yacht.
“Out on the water, duh.” His words are laced with sarcasm and it makes you want to throw him overboard. Too bad he’s the only person on this vacation that’s ever had enough down time to actually learn how to handle one of these things.
“You know what the fuck I meant, stop being an idiot.” You spit, hating how easily he got a rise out of you.
He chuckles before waving you off with a, “I know what I’m doing, darling, don’t worry about it.” 
He seems to catch what he says as soon as it slips out of his mouth, his eyes widening and the blush coming back to his features. You choose to ignore it. You’d rather just go up to the deck and tan.
For a split second, you debate on whether or not you should lay out, knowing that he would think you were doing it because of the comment that he made. But then you realize that you don’t actually give a fuck about what he has to say or what he thinks with his final two brain cells. 
So, you head up to the upper deck, stripping yourself of your shirt and laying out a towel for you to rest on.
You stay in that position, only moving to flip over so that each side gets an even amount of sun, until you hear jet skis approaching.
You push yourself up, wandering down to where Harry has set up his towel. Apparently he decided to sunbathe as well. It’s not like he needed it though, he has a tan that any woman would absolutely die for. 
You quickly give him a once over, halting when you realize that he’s put a stupid hat on his head. And not even just that, he has it on backwards. What was he trying to do, absolutely kill you? 
Here’s the thing, you hate Harry, sure. But you aren’t blind. You can see how attractive he is, how his tattoos run over his tanned skin, making you want to trace each detail with the tip of your finger, or more honestly, your tongue. His muscles always accentuate everything that he wears, regardless of whether it’s one of the custom Gucci suits or a random Nike tank that he threw on to go on a run. His face is damn near perfect, so much so that it makes you want to throw up. His cheekbones are high, jawline sharp. He was blessed with the dimples, which are only made even better by his eye crinkles. And God, his hands. His hands that are constantly adorned with rings, all of which could probably pay your rent for at least a year.
It’s really not fair. In all honesty, him being as completely flawless his physical attributes seem to be is absolutely not fair. You used to scoff at the fact that people were blessed with good looks. It was all genes, right? Wrong. Sure, Anne’s gorgeous and you’re sure that Desmond had to have had something going for him when Anne met him, but Harry? He came out to be a whole lot more attractive than anyone you had ever seen. And just to add on to everything, he was the person that you hated the most in the world.
You’re broken out of your thoughts by Lexi pulling up to the side of the boat and climbing in. She doesn’t even look at you, just walks farther into the yacht. You don’t think to question her, she’s probably annoyed by something that Sam said. But then you notice that Sam isn’t getting off his jet ski, does he plan on just not taking his shirt off the entire time?
Lexi comes bounding back to where you and Harry are standing, but she again doesn’t stop. She just keeps walking, clambering back onto her abandoned vehicle. You’re confused for a second, what’s going on? But then you see them, the keys dangling in her fist. You’d know those keys anywhere. They were put on Harry’s keychain the moment that he had picked them up. She has the yacht keys.
Before you can say anything about it, she’s driving off, yelling, “Have fun!” into the wind.
“They did not just-” You start, only to be cut off by Harry. Usually, you’d be annoyed by him, but this time, you have another source of irritation.
“Yeah, they just pulled an Outer Banks on us.” He sighs, walking back to where he had originally been laying. 
“Are you not mad?” You try to stop your eyes from tracing the expanse of his back, but it seems to be impossible.  The way that his muscles are flexing under the expanse of skin drawing you in.
“No, are you?” He sounds like he couldn’t care less, which is odd. Shouldn’t he be upset that he’s forced to spend an entire day alone with the person that he hates?
“Um, yeah.” You groan. Of course you’re mad, you don’t want to be here. How can he seem so calm?
“Why are you so fucking uptight all the time?” He blurts, catching you off guard. The words hit you like a train, knocking all the air out of your lungs. So this is why he hated you. You just thought that you gave him the wrong vibes or something, he seemed like the kind of person to judge based on that type of thing.
“What do you mean?” He looks over at you and rolls his eyes.
“I mean, why are you so uptight all the time?” For some reason, your chest tightens up and you feel like you’re going to cry. You’d known that he couldn’t stand you, that he’d rather not be around you, but hearing the real reason? Hearing what he really hates about you? That fucking hurts.
“Is that why you hate me?” At most, you had thought that maybe he just looked down on you, thought that you weren’t good enough to be part of the friend group because you didn’t own a fortune 500 company, or sell houses for the richest people in America, or sing to thousands upon thousands of adoring fans. But apparently not. Apparently he had an actual, legitimate reason, and for some reason, that stings.
“I don’t hate you.” You scoff and roll your eyes at him. Did he really think you’d believe that? “I just think that you’re uptight and you get on my last nerve.” 
“You hate me, Harry. Don’t try to lie about it.” He can say what he wants, but people that don’t hate you don’t act the way that he does.
“I don’t hate you, I just strongly dislike you.” This makes you snicker. He’s such an idiot sometimes.
“That’s literally just you saying that you hate me with a different word choice.” He looks over at you, and you see the little tufts of curls sticking out from the side of his hat. The sight makes your chest ache, why does he have to be so fucking cute? Why couldn’t you be blessed with an ugly enemy?
“Whatever.” He sighs, brushing the conversation to the side.
You want to continue, but you’re almost scared to. You could just walk back up to the upper deck and continue tanning, or you could even go for a swim, but instead, you stay right where you are. You subconsciously start to play with a loose string on the shirt that you had slipped back on before coming down to Harry.
“I’m not uptight, by the way.” You say after a few moments of silence. 
He scoffs, “Yes you are.”
“How so?” You’d love to hear him explain this one, even though it’ll probably either hurt you even more or infuriate you. But you’d like to know why he thinks you’re so uptight,
“You think you’re better than everyone, especially your friends. You have the money to do what you want but you turn your nose up at the finer things in life and give all of us dirty looks when we drink from the top shelf or buy something super expensive.” You’re speechless for a moment, but he doesn’t seem to be done, so it doesn’t really matter. “You act like there’s something better about you getting cheap tequila and wearing the same clothes over and over again. Well, think about it this way, yeah, I buy from the top shelf and I wear a lot of new clothes, but most of those clothes, I get sent. Most of them I don’t even pay for. Which honestly, you’ll probably find to be worse. But yeah, you’re uptight.”
After a moment, the words ignite a fire in you. “First of all, that shows how little you know about me, Styles. I don’t have the money to do what I want. I have money, sure. But not that much. I have enough money from my job to pay for rent, bills, food, and then have a little bit to splurge on myself.” You really don’t want to have this conversation with him, you don’t like to talk about your financial situation with anyone, let alone him. “But nowhere near enough to spend excessive amounts on alcohol or drop almost a grand on a striped t-shirt with a pig on it that’s literally the size of my fingernail. Not all of us can be big shot CEO’s or superstars.”
He looks shocked by your words, which just further added to your point. He didn’t know you, not at all. He pretended to know you, made assumptions about you, all of which seemed to make him hate you more and more.
“Well you still give us dirty looks.” You almost snort at his feeble attempt to save his argument.
“I literally don’t but okay. I don’t really care what you think about me. Hate me if you want to. You’ll be annoying either way.” You turn on your heel to get as far away from his as possible, but he stops you with his words.
“I’m not annoying.” This time, you actually do let out a chuckle. Him thinking that he’s not an annoying little prick is honestly better comedy than the specials they try to run on TV.
“The fuck you aren’t, Harry. All you do is make snide comments.” Who did he think he was? A saint?
“I do not. Don’t start your shit, Y/N.” He glares at you, but his looks don’t have the effect that he wishes this time, they just add fuel to the fire still burning bright inside of you.
“Don’t start my shit?” You snicker. He has to be fucking kidding. “You tell me how trashy I look in outfits that I think I look great in. You tell me my makeup looks like shit and that if I was trying to impress someone, I failed, even though all I do is put it on for myself. You tell me to stop trying so hard to get attention when I’m literally trying to blend in as much as possible.” You’re trying to hold the emotion back, to not cry in front of him, because you’ve already spent enough time crying over the things that he’s said. “You call me a slut when I have a one night stand like you don’t literally bring a different girl hom every fucking night. So I don’t wanna hear it, Harry.”
If looks could kill, the one that he’s giving you at the moment would have you six feet under. “You don’t fucking know me. I don’t bring a new girl home every night, you make me sound like a fuckboy.” 
You roll your eyes. “I could make you sound a lot worse. And maybe there’s not one every night, but there’s at least one a week, and I have a one night stand what, maybe once every couple months? If even that?” You let out a shaky breath. “Yeah, maybe I don’t know you, but that’s not my fault. I didn’t make the choice to not know you. You pushed me away the second you met me, even though I did nothing to you. You didn’t let me know you. But you don’t know me either.” The tears are gathering in your eyes and threatening to spill onto your cheeks. You look up towards the sky, trying to make them subside. Once you feel confident enough in the fact that they won’t drop, you look back at him. “You’re not just annoying, you’re a dick. The shit you say? God, if you knew how much that shit can hurt someone.”
“Don’t come at me and say that any of that hurts you. You fire right back and then go on with your day.” The smirk that he has plastered on his face makes you want to knock him into a new dimension, but you compose yourself. He isn’t worth it.
“Yeah, of course I just let it roll off my shoulders while I’m around you. Have you ever thought about why that is? About why I seem to not care?” Your voice has slowly but surely become louder. “It’s because I’m not going to cry my eyes out and let myself wonder if maybe you’re right, that maybe I do look like shit and should cover up as much of my body as possible, right in front of you!” By the end, you’re screaming, and you don’t even care. 
You take a deep breath and continue, “I can’t give you the fucking satisfaction. Because Lord knows that you’ll just hold that over my head too.”
That seems to have some sort of effect on him. His face falls almost immediately, that god awful smirk disappearing. His eyes seem to get softer, and a part of you wants to walk over and hug him. But you don’t. Of course you don’t. He’s the guy you hate the most.
“I didn’t know you felt that way.” He mumbles as you’re getting ready to head back to the upper deck.
“I’m sorry.” He tries, but you’re not going to let him off the hook that easy.
“Sorry doesn’t fucking cut it, Harry. It’s not like you're even sorry anyway. You don’t care about me, so don’t start acting like you do now.” With that, you turn on your heel and make your way back up to continue tanning.
Once you get back to your towel, you let the few stray tears fall. You hate that he has the power to make you cry, but you can’t help it. He just gets to you, regardless of how hard you try to guard yourself from him.
He comes up after a few minutes and you look over at him, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m going for a swim. If you need anything, I’ll be in the water.” He states, and you turn back around.
“Have fun.” You spit, the words laced with sarcasm. 
He doesn’t reply. You hear his footsteps receding and then a splash signaling that he’s jumped off of the boat.
For some reason, you have a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. At first, you ignore it, but then you stop hearing the sloshing of the water. You can’t help but let yourself get a little panicked. You may not be the biggest fan of the guy, but you can’t just let him drown.
You stand up from your spot on the towel and walk over to the side of the boat that you heard the initial splash come from.
You make your way back down to where you and Harry had fought. You grimace at the thought. Had that really been one of the last things he ever heard? No, you can’t think like that. 
You look to your right and notice that all four life jackets are still hooked on the railing. Of course he didn’t take a life jacket. Anything could have happened to him and now you wouldn’t even be able to float. He could be sinking to the bottom, never to be found again.
Yeah, he can swim. He’s actually a really good swimmer, but he could have hit his head on the boat when he jumped in. Or he could have dove down under the water and ended up getting caught on something. 
You rush over to slip one of the life jackets and grab an extra. The last thing that you needed was to find him and not be able to drag him back to the boat because he’s too heavy.
You jump in, the life jacket keeping you afloat. With there being no need to concentrate on not drowning, you focus all your efforts on finding Harry. You can’t see him anywhere in the general vicinity, so you start looking under the water as long as you’re able to.
You’re trying your hardest, but you can’t find him. 
You start to panic. Suddenly you find it hard to breathe and the tears are streaming down your face. You immediately blame yourself. You should have just stopped earlier, should’ve realized that there’s a better time to argue with him. Maybe if you had just been a little nicer, the two of you could have gotten along for the day. Why didn’t you just stop? Why didn’t you at least accept his apology?
You’re pulled out of your thoughts by a strong pair of arms wrapping around you. You scream, not knowing who it could possibly be. You twist in their arm, realizing that it was only Harry.
You push away from him. “What the fuck, Harry? I thought you died!”
“Really? And you came out here to look for me?” He asks, and for a moment, you think he might be grateful, but you can already see the smirk forming on his lips. You choose to ignore it for the moment, though.
“Yeah, I couldn’t hear you swimming around anymore and I thought maybe you had hit your head on something or gotten pulled under or something like that. Where were you?” You’re trying to wipe the tears off of your face, but your hands are just as soaked as your face, so it does absolutely no use.
“The other side of the boat, why didn’t you just check over there?” His smirk is present in full force now.
“I don’t know, slipped my mind, I guess.” You mumble, knowing that this could have all been avoided if you had just looked on the other side of the boat.
“Seems pretty fucking stupid of you.” He chuckles.
You push even further away from him, throwing the life jacket you had brought for him in his face. “You’re such a fucking dick! Sorry that I cared too fucking much about your life to check the entire perimeter of the boat before trying to save you!”
You can’t believe him. You didn’t think of one thing, in the heat of the moment, and now you’re stupid? Wow. Okay, next time you’ll just let him drown.
You start to swim back towards the boat. He’s following you, but you don’t care enough to acknowledge it.
“I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant, I swear. I know I can be an asshole but I'm not that heartless.” You don’t even turn back to him.
“Problem is, Styles, you really are that heartless.” You spit, climbing back onto the boat, trying to get as far away from him as possible.
He clambers up after you, trying to get your attention. You actively ignore him, though.
He grabs your wrist, wrapping his fingers around the joint. You spin on your heel.
“Let me go, Harry.” you demand.
“Y/N, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” His eyes are pleading with you, but you genuinely can’t care any less. 
“Seems pretty fucking stupid of you.” You throw his words back at him.
His face immediately falls, not liking how the words hurt him. He deserves it though. All you were trying to do was help him and he was an absolute prick. 
You storm back up to your towel, laying down and trying to dry yourself off. 
Not too long after you head back up, he brings you a sandwich that he made with the supplies he had packed in the cooler.
“Thought you might be hungry.” He mumbles when he sits the plate down. He doesn’t wait for you to respond, just turns back and heads to where he came from.
You wait until he’s gone to eat, only doing so because it’s already made and you wouldn’t want the food to go to waste.
*
What seems like eons later, but was definitely only hours, Lexi and Sam get dropped off at the boat by a random couple you’ve never seen before.
You rush down to where they are.
“Did you guys get any closer?” Sam asks. 
You just roll your eyes and stick your hand out. “If you don’t hand the keys back this fucking instant, I will not hesitate to jump off this boat and swim back to the docks.”
Lexi looks at you with wide eyes and hands over the keys. The moment that you have them in your hands, you stomp over to Harry and chuck them at him.
“Drive this stupid ass boat back to the docks, and don’t you dare fuck around or you’ll get thrown overboard and I won’t bother to come looking for you.” He doesn’t argue with you, just picks up the keys and makes his way to the wheel.
“What happened?” Lexi questions, but you just brush her off.
“Ask him, he’ll tell you with a fucking smirk on his face.” You walk over to the bench and sit down, not wanting to talk to anyone else throughout the trip back.
*
It only registers with you that you’ll have to ride back to the house with Harry after you get to the docks.
“I’m walking home.” You announce, knowing that it’ll only take fifteen minutes tops to get back to the rental.
“What are you talking about?” Harry and Sam ask at the same time.
You ignore Harry, turning back to Sam. “I’m walking back to the house. It shouldn’t take me long, and there’s no way in hell I’m riding with him.”
With that, you turn and start walking. The road is secluded, lined by trees.
After a few minutes, they drive up to you. Harry rolls down his window. “Y/N, come on, I’ll walk if it’s that big of a deal.”
You raise your hand, flipping him off. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your Gucci shoes.”
He sighs, rolling the window back up and continuing to drive. He knows better than to argue with you right now. There’s no way that he’ll win.
You slow your stride, wanting to prolong the walk as long as possible. You only speed back up when the clouds start to turn into a viscous shade of gray.
The one thing that could bother you more than Harry is thunderstorms. And you can tell by the state of the sky that a bad one’s coming.
*
You sneak back into the house, pushing the door open as quietly as possible. Thankfully, there’s nobody in the living room. Everyone seems to have retired to their rooms. 
As you’re creeping down the hallway, you hear Harry talking to Lexi. Her door is slightly ajar and you can’t help but stop and listen.
“No, no. Lexi, I know. I fucked up. I shouldn’t have called her stupid. All she was trying to do was help me. God, I’m such a fucking idiot.” You can hear his voice waiver and you think for a moment that he might be crying. You quickly push the thought from your mind. Why would Harry be crying over you?
“Yeah, you did fuck up. Harry, this isn’t how you treat people that you care about.” Every trace of air leaves your lungs at that. Since when does Harry care about you? You want to blame it on him lying, but why would he? It’s just Lexi. And they have no way of knowing that you’re here. He must be telling the truth. 
“I know, I know. We were arguing before then, She told me about how shitty I make her feel and it absolutely tore my heart into pieces. I don’t mean to make her feel that way.” You can’t deny that he’s crying, hearing the sob come less than a millisecond after he finishes.
“I know that, H. But she doesn’t, She thinks you get a kick out of hurting her. She really thinks you hate her.” You can visualize what she’s doing, knowing how she comforts like the back of your hand. She’s running her hand over Harry’s back, trying to soothe him. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll push his hair back and wipe the tears from his face, tell him that it’ll all be okay.
“I’m aware. But I don’t, I hate hurting her. That’s what I hate, not her.” If he doesn't hate you, then why does he act the way that he does?
“Then go show her.” You smile, Lexi knows you so well. She knows that you judge people off their actions. And that you don’t believe a word anyone says until they show you that their words actually mean something.
“Alright. I will when she gets home.” The determination in his voice makes your heart swell. 
You hear him get off of his bed and you scurry to your room, not wanting to face him, and really not wanting to get caught eavesdropping. You slip inside and close your door just in the nick of time. Half a second after you’re out of sight, you hear his feet padding along the hallway to his room.
You sigh, a million thoughts running through your head. 
Could he really care about you?
If he does, why is he so rude to you all the time?
How does he expect to make this up to you?
You decided to take a shower. Not only to get clean, but also to clear your head. The second the water hits your skin, you know that there’s no way this shower is going to be as quick as you had planned. For a long time, you just stand under the stream of water, letting your mind run rampant with the thoughts of Harry. 
Is it a good thing that he could care about you? Sure, you see how he is with everyone else, and you’ve always craved to have that with him. And hating him is absolutely exhausting, most of the time you’d rather just fall into the easy conversation that he’s able to have with the rest of his friends. 
But would it be that easy? Probably not. Nothing was ever that easy when it came to him.
Are you willing to work for it? If Harry takes the initiative and tries to show you that he does care, then yes.
Once you come to that conclusion, you realize just how long that you’ve been in the shower. Your body is starting to prune, and the water has gotten significantly cooler.
You step out and throw on the shirt that you slept in the night before, but not slipping on the shorts.
You open the bathroom door and trudge over to the bed, flopping down and switching the lamp off. 
Usually, you could never fall asleep comfortably during storms, but after the day that you’ve had, your eyes are shut and sleep is overtaking you in mere moments.
*
Far too soon, you’re being shaken awake. 
The first thing you notice is that it’s dark outside. Who in their right minds is waking you up before sunrise, you don’t know.
The second thing you notice is the chill of someone’s cold rings on your skin. The contact makes a shiver run down your spine. 
You immediately roll over and face him. The sight of him is not great. He’s soaked from head to toe, water dripping on the floor. You almost have the nerve to scold him for not drying off, but then you realize that he has no reason to be wet. What did he do? What happened to him?
“When did you get home?” He asks, voice sticking in his throat.
“Earlier. Why are you wet?” Your voice is hoarse from sleep and you pray that you don’t sound revolting.
“Went out in the storm.” He shrugs. “None of us heard you come home. I guess when I checked in here earlier you were in the shower or something.”
“Why did you guys go looking? You could’ve just called or texted.” You say, then realize that you may have seemed ungrateful. “Not that I’m complaining, thanks for worrying about me.”
“Well, you see, Sam and Lexi thought you’d be fine. You know the way home, after all. They just thought you had stopped somewhere to cool off and wait out the storm. I went looking though, I was really worried. And I didn’t text or call because I, um, don’t exactly have your phone number.” He lets out a dry chuckle, running his hands through his hair.
Your heart swells. Harry went looking for you. He walked right out into a thunderstorm because he was worried that you were stuck out there by yourself.
“Hey, um, so I didn’t mean to eavesdrop or anything, but I heard a snippet of your conversation with Lexi earlier while I was walking to my room.” You gulp, hoping he doesn’t think you’re creepy or anything. “Did you really mean what you said?”
“Which part did you hear?” His question is laced with anxiety and he looks like he’s seconds away from passing out.
“Um, from the part where you said you fucked up and didn’t really hate me.” You mumble.
“Yeah, I meant every word. I also meant it when I said I was gonna show you that I care about you.” He looks up, meeting your eyes. You can’t help the feeling you get in your chest. This man just went out into the pouring rain, lightning falling all around him, just to look for you.
“I think you already did, H.” Regardless of how he treated you in the past. Hell, how he treated you in the past twenty four hours, you can’t help but see tha the really does care about you. Lexi and Sam, the two people in the house who were supposed to not hate you in the slightest didn’t even go looking, but the one person who was supposed to not give a fuck about whether you’re breathing or not did.
“Did you- you just called me H?” He stumbles, and a smile comes to your face.
“Yeah? So?” He said it like it was a good thing, but you could never be too sure with him.
“So, you’ve never done that before.” His expression is unreadable. Usually you can tell exactly what he’s thinking, but right now you’re coming up blank.
“Do you not want me to? I can stop saying it.” You wouldn’t ever want to do something that he’s uncomfortable with, you just thought that’s what everyone called him.
“No!” he blurts. “No, please don’t stop. I like the way it sounds coming from you.”
“Alright.” you grin “H.”
The smile that breaks out over his face is the biggest that you’ve ever seen. “Wait, what did you mean I already did?” He wonders. 
 “You just risked getting sick to go out in the pouring rain to try to find me.” Which reminds you, if he doesn’t get in a warm shower and some dry clothes soon, he’s going to catch something.
“It’s the least I could do.” His cheeks are turning a light shade of pink, and you really hope that it’s a blush and not him being cold.
“Yeah, but that shows me that you care, H.” You say, getting up from the bed and checking to see if you had brought the extra sweatpants and sweatshirt. Unfortunately, you hadn’t. 
“I’m sorry, by the way. Like really sorry. I hate myself for what I said. I’m so stupid. You were just trying to save me and I was a dick.” You appreciate the sentiment, you really do, but right now, that’s not your concern.
“It’s fine.” You mumble, because, really, it is.
“No, it’s not.” He doesn’t want to believe it, but it really is. You wouldn’t be letting him drip excessive amounts of water on the floor if you were still mad at him. 
“Yes, H, it is. Now come on, let me go get you some clean clothes. Go get in the shower, there are towels in the bathroom.” You’ve come to the realization that you’d have to retrieve his clothes, seeing as you hadn’t exactly planned for something like this.
“Y/n, it’s fine. I can just go take a shower in my room.” He tries, but you immediately refuse.
“No. You can take one in here so I know that you take one and don’t just change into dry clothes.” The look he gives you lets you know that was exactly what he was planning to do.
“I’m not gonna win this, am I?” You chuckle, pleased that he knows well enough to not argue with you any further on this.
“Not a chance, now get your ass in there.” You put your hands on his shoulders and nudge him towards the bathroom. You try your hardest to not think about the way his muscles ripple underneath your digits.
“Alright, alright. I’m going.” He concedes, trodding into the bathroom.
You wait until you hear the water running before you exit the room to find his clothes. You make the journey to his room, grabbing boxers and a pair of sweatpants from his bag. You don’t bother trying to find a shirt, knowing from the countless times that he’s stripped out of one to take a nap at a friends house that he never wears them to bed.
You make your way back to your room, sitting the clothes down on the small table sat outside the bathroom door.
His vast collection of rings is placed on the table as well. He must have taken them off and sat them there after you left. 
Without thinking, your hand reaches out and picks up the rose ring that adorns his hand more often than not. It’s gorgeous, and you can’t stop your fingertips from running across the designs. The band is etched with leaves and vines, and upon further inspection, you feel that there’s a little caterpillar seemingly hidden on the inner part of the ring.
It’s heavy in your hand and you can't help but wonder just how much metal was used to make this ring. It’s obvious that it was hand etched, so your mind tries to picture how big the piece was before the carving started.
After a few moments, you place it back on the table, picking up his Cartier ring. You wonder for a moment how something so simple could cost the ridiculous price that it did. Sure, it’s absolutely gorgeous, but the price tag that you know it carries is enough to make the appeal fade. You don’t have the luxury of dropping thousands on a ring.
He opens the door and you immediately drop the ring, cheeks burning from being caught. You know how much he adores his rings, and you’re scared for a split second that you’ve overstepped, crossed a boundary that he wouldn’t be comfortable with.
All your worries are washed away, though, when he says, “Wear it.” He reaches over for his clothes, a towel wrapped around his waist.
You gawk at him. Was he serious? “H, I can’t do that.” You go to scramble away, before your eyes get caught on the way that the water droplets from the shower cling to him, the sheen making his tattoos even more vivid. God, what you would do to trace every line and seemingly miniscule detail.
He gives you a soft smile, and your heart speeds up to a rate that has to be unhealthy, especially since you’re sitting still, your back rimrod straight. “Yes you can. Go ahead, put it on.” He urges.
You sigh, picking up the Cartier ring that you had been admiring moments prior and slip it on your ring finger, that being the one you wear all rings on. You glance up at him through your lashes and you can see the way that his eyes seem to have lit up. You try to ignore the way your stomach flutters, the butterflies going absolutely wild.
He chuckles, looking down at your finger, where the ring sits, looking about five sizes too small. You join along, letting a lighthearted laugh slip through your lips. It truly was ginormous on you, but you expected no less. He does have large hands, after all.
“I’ve got a chain around here somewhere, keep the ring.” He says nonchalantly, like he’s not gifting you a fucking Cartier ring.
“Harry, no, it’s too expensive.” You can’t possibly accept this ring, so you really hope that he doesn’t fight you on it. You’re pretty sure you’d say yes to just about anything if he keeps looking at you like he’s just seen the most precious thing in the world.
“If you don’t keep it and wear it, I’ll never wear it again, so it might as well be worn by you.” He argues, giving you the stern look that you know well. It’s always the one that says not to argue back, that he’ll just continue pestering you if you do.
Knowing that the argument would go on for hours on end if you didn’t, you reluctantly agree.
He gives a triumphant smile before returning to the bathroom, clothes in hand.
A moment later, he comes back out into your room and your ability to breathe is gone. You swear he’s the most perfect person you’ve ever seen. Sure, you’ve seen how pretty he is before, but you’ve never let yourself truly see how perfect he is. Maybe you prematurely judged that article. Maybe they had a point. 
The muscles in his upper body ripple under his tan skin, making your mouth damn near water. You avert your eyes from his shoulders to his chest, admiring the butterfly inked onto his abdomen. You had always adored that tattoo, at times you even wished that you had thought of the idea before he had. You see the way that the ferns underneath trace his lower stomach, the endings leading a trail right to the band of his sweatpants. 
God, why would you get him gray sweatpants? At this view, your mouth actually does water, wondering how good he would look with even less on.
Him shuffling over to pick up his rings is what breaks you out of your trance, your cheeks heating up from the thoughts that had been running through your mind.
He places each of the rings carefully back on his hands, sans the Cartier ring. He left that one on the table, looking up at you with a smirk.
He begins to make his way out the door, but you stop him.
“H,” you give him your best puppy eyes when he stops and looks over his shoulder at you, “Will you stay with me? I’m scared of thunderstorms.”
“Are you really?” He doesn’t say it in a mocking way, it’s more in a perplexed way. You’re not confused by this in the slightest, as far as he used to be concerned, you’re not scared of anything.
“Yeah,” you admit, “but I also want to get to know you. Feel like we’ve missed a lot while hating each other.”
He sighs, “Never hated you.”
You smile, “I know, I know, but I thought you did. Made me not able to get to know you very well.”
“Alright.” He agrees. “Let me go put my rings up and get that chain for you and then I’ll stay.”
You wait patiently as he does just that, wondering why you had never just taken the time to talk to him before. Would it really have been that simple? 
“Here you are.” He speaks when he reenters the room, walking over to the stand and placing the ring on the chain. Once he’s done, he gently sets it back down, ensuring that the chain doesn’t get tangled, and then trudges over to you.
He sits on the edge of the bed, probably just intending to stay until you fall asleep, and at first you’re fine with that. But then you start to get progressively more tired, and your clinginess starts kicking in, that fact that you’re touch starved not helping.
“H.” you groan, making his ears perk up and his eyes snap to yours.
“Hmm?” he wonders.
You make grabby hands at him. “Come cuddle with me.”
A smile breaks out on his face and your stomach does the flippy thing that makes your heart race.
He slowly crawls towards you, as if he’s giving you enough time to take back your words, to give him any sign that you regret ever asking him to come up to you. Once he’s right beside you and you’ve made no move to stop him, he slips under the covers and pulls you close.
You immediately sigh in content and place your head on his chest, the sleepiness taking over more and more as you listen to his heartbeat against your ear.
RIght before you completely drift off, you mumble, “You’re not as bad as I thought you were.” You hope he hears you, but you don’t have the time to check, sleep overtaking your body and pulling you under.
*
When you wake up the next morning, you let your eyes stay shut, not wanting to be greeted with the sunlight just yet.
You shift slightly and realize that you’re still laying with Harry. You can feel his solid chest under your head, your legs are tangled with his. 
After a moment, you can feel him looking at you, “It’s rude to stare, H.” You joke, expecting him to laugh.
He doesn’t, though, instead he just whispers, “Can’t help it. You’re beautiful.” 
You immediately blush, burning under the compliment. You’re still not used to being this close to Harry in general, but receiving compliments from him is even weirder.
“Can I tell you something?” You look up at him, waiting for him to accept your question.
“Yeah, anything.” He holds eye contact with you, your faces mere inches apart. You could very easily push yourself up and attach your lips to his, but you refrain, not wanting to push too far. You had just started really talking to each other last night.
“I never hated you either.” You say, the words barely audible. You’re ashamed of it, of the fact that you pretended to hate him, probably making everything worse than it had to be.
“Really?” He looks hopeful, like he’s praying that you’re not joking with him. 
“Really. I just thought that you hated me. Figured that we should at least balance each other out.” You let out a humorless laugh, trying to make light of the situation, but you still can’t shake the guilt. You probably could have been lying in bed with him a long time ago had you just made it clear that you didn’t hate him.
“So all this time, neither one of us hated the other, but we both thought we did?” He has a smirk etched on his face, and a very large part of you wants to close the space between the two of you. You can’t handle the smirk right now, not when his chestnut curls are framing his face the way that they are. Not when his bare chest is still pressed against you, warming you up in the most delightful way.
“Basically.” You can’t help but giggle. The situation really is quite ridiculous.
You move to get up and he pouts, holding onto you and trying to get you to stay in his arms, he’s enjoying the warmth that you’re radiating. 
“Where are you going?” He whines, making your throat constrict. He sounds so pretty when he whines.
“I’ve gotta pee, I’ll be right back.” You promise, knowing that the words will soothe him.
“Don’t go…” He tries giving you puppy dog eyes, but they won’t work this time, not when you can feel the urge to use the bathroom growing.
“I have to pee, but I promise I’ll come back to exactly where I was when I’m done.” You reach over to him and push a stray curl behind his ears, reveling in how soft that his hair is.
“Good, I wanna keep cuddling.” He mumbles, and you can’t help but feel the butterflies return yet again. You can’t believe that Harry was just begging you to stay curled up in bed with him.
It all seems a little off, having him in your bed, cuddling with you. Less than twenty four hours prior, you were screaming at each other on a boat about how much you can’t stand each other, and now neither of you do? You come to find out that the both of you were faking it this entire time? The entire situation is a little confusing, but you’re a lot happier with it than you were with being at each other's throats all the time.
Now that the two of you are being more honest with each other, you figure it’s probably time to start being more honest with yourself. And that starts with admitting the feelings that you’ve been suppressing for him. 
You had seen how attractive he was the moment that you had even laid eyes on one of the numerous articles about him. You aren’t shallow though, that’s not what made you have the feelings that you had developed for him. You could also see just how nice he was to everyone else, how he lit up every room that he walked into. How everyone was always put into a better mood just by his presence. You began to fall for that version of himself, the one that he was with everyone else. You had caught feelings before he even said a word to you. There were times when you had been at the same party or event, and you’d be able to feel the effect he had on everyone else. And at first, that was intimidating, but then you felt a pull to him. Like the two of you were magnets and were destined to be together.
But then you actually talked to him, and everything went south.
Now, though, you’ve realized that he’s only like he is with you because he thought that you hated him. Which is absurd to you, but you were quite distant that night. You had been overwhelmed, thinking that you were inferior to him in every way that night. Maybe that’s why he thought that you hated him, because you didn’t show that much interest, because you seemed like you didn’t want to get to know him.
You don’t really know how to process that information. This entire thing had initially been your fault, had you just gotten over yourself and realized that you’re good enough to talk to him, all of this could have been avoided.
As you wash your hands and get ready to exit the bathroom, you can’t help but wonder what everything’s going to be like. How are you going to act around each other? Is it gonna change? Are you still going to bicker or are you going to act like everything’s perfectly fine? 
You scoff at yourself, of course you’re still going to bicker, that’s who you are. Plus, nobody’s perfect, all friends argue about something at points.
When you come out of the bathroom he’s sitting on the end of the bed. You raise your eyebrows in question. “Thought we were gonna keep cuddling?” 
He quickly rises when he sees you. “Had a slightly better idea.” He holds out his hand and waits for you to take it.
“I’m more of a touchy kind of person.” He starts after you take his hand. “I show that I care about people by physical touches.” He pulls you closer to him, wrapping his arms around your waist. “If we’re gonna tell them that we don’t hate each other, we’ve got to at least make it believable.”
“Stop making it sound like we’re pretending.” You laugh. “You just cuddled with me throughout the night. There’s no way in hell we hate each other. But yeah, I’m that way too, so I don't mind the touches.” You assure, pulling back and reconnecting your hands.
He gives you a reassuring look as you walk out of your room and into the sitting room. Sam and Lexi stop the conversation they were having immediately and look over at the two of you. Their jaws are on the floor within moments, obviously not believing what they're seeing. 
“Why are you holding hands?” Sam blurts, breaking the silence that had blanketed the room.
“H, you only do that with girls you’re dating or girls that you’re friends with. What’s happening?” Lexi adds, a hopeful glimmer in her eyes.
“Wanna explain?” Harry asks, squeezing your hand.
“Sure.” You say.
You begin to explain it to them, making sure to get all the details. Harry’s mostly quiet beside you, only inputting anything when you forget something.
For a moment after you finish, the silence is back. Lexi and Sam look at you like you’re absolutely insane. After a minute of letting their brains process the information, they finally let smiles break out on their faces, jumping up from the couch to hug the both of you, excited that you guys can finally get along.
*
After a little while of the four of you sitting around and talking, it’s decided that everyone should go out on the yacht. This time, though, nobody will be stealing any keys.
Once you get out to the desired spot on the water and anchor the boat, you turn to Harry. “Hey, H?” 
“Yeah, love?” He used the term like it’s no big deal, but it makes your stomach churn in the best way possible.
“Wanna go swimming? Promise not to think you’ve drowned again.” You chuckle.
Harry doesn’t seem as amused though, still feeling guilty about how he treated you. “Sure, promise not to be a dick again.”
You walk over to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pressing your head into his chest. “I told you it was alright, H. Stop beating yourself up over it.”
He sighs, nodding his head. You grab his hand, pulling him along the deck to the edge of the boat.
“Wanna jump together?” You look over at him and see the smile break out across his face, the dimples and eye crinkles out in full force.
“Yeah, love, let’s do it.” Before you can think too much about the second use of the word, he’s counting down from three and then you’re jumping, body submerging into the crystal water.
If you had been paying more attention to anyone besides Harry, you would have seen the way that Lexi and Sam were caught up in watching you, wondering how in the world the two of you had done a full one eighty in less that twenty four hours. Sure, they wanted the two of you to get along, but they never expected you to get this close as fast as you did.
After a while of swimming around with Harry, you decide to get out and try to tan, seeing as not everyone can be actors that get paid to go swimming and get tans.
As you do so, you can feel Harry’s eyes on your body, but you choose not to acknowledge it. For a moment, you want to invite him to come tan with you, but you don’t want to make your feelings too obvious to him.
*
When it starts to get dark, Lexi proposes that everyone head back to the deck. You agree, ready to go home and get out of your bikini. 
Harry tries to get you to drive the yacht, even trying to teach you, but to no avail, you have absolutely no skill when it comes to driving boats.
Once you get to the docks and clamber off the yacht, the group splits up, Lexi and Sam going towards their car while you and Harry head towards his.
“Are you hungry, darling?” He ponders once you’re settled in the car.
“I mean a little bit, why?” You reach over to turn on the radio, letting the soft sounds of music play through the car.
“I saw this cute little diner when I was looking for you last night.” He says, handing you his phone. “Plug up the aux cord and play something from Spotify.”
You scroll through his spotify, seeing that his work out playlist is just One Direction songs. You almost snort, but don’t want to give away the song you’re going to choose.
After another moment of scrolling, you turn the volume on the speakers all the way up, clicking on “What Makes You Beautiful” and letting the opening chords play through the car.
He smirks, looking over at you. “I hope you know that you’re expected to scream this with me.”
Your features mirror his, “Oh, trust me, I planned on it.”
*
When you reach the diner, you see just how cute it really is. But then you realize that the two of you had been in the car for almost twenty minutes, which arguably isn’t a long time, but to walk this far it would have taken forever.
“H, you walked this far looking for me?” You ask, although you already know the answer.
“Yeah. Well, technically, I walked further.” He blushes at his words and your heart melts in your chest. You can’t help but feel a little guilty, though. It had been storming, full on thunder and lightning every few seconds. He could have gotten hurt, yet he put his safety to the side because he thought that you hadn’t come home yet. If only you had put aside your pettiness and just let everyone know that you had arrived home safely, he wouldn’t have had to walk out in the storm at all.
You walk into the diner, shaking the thoughts from your head. Harry leads you to a booth near the back, one that’s placed right next to a window with a wonderful view.
Moments after you’re settled into your seat, a waiter comes up to you and takes your order. You notice that he’s paying special attention to you, and it makes you slightly uncomfortable, so you turn to Harry after reciting your order. “What do you want, baby?”
He gives you a questioning look but ultimately goes along with it, not even missing a beat. He gives his order to the waiter and waits until he walks away to turn back to you. “What was that about?”
“He was staring at me, looking me up and down, it made me really uncomfortable.” You say, looking down at your hands. “Thought if he believed we were together that he’d stop, which he didn’t.” You scoff at the audacity of the waiter. “Sorry if I ended up just making you uncomfortable too.”
He reaches over the table, taking your hands in his. “Hey, it’s alright. I wasn’t uncomfortable, just took me by surprise, is all.” He gives your hands a gentle squeeze. “If he comes back over and makes eyes at you, I’ll put him in his place, okay?”
You chuckle, nodding at him. Hopefully, the waiter would get caught up with other customers or would learn some manners so that he didn’t say anything, but either way, you knew you’d be okay.
“So, anyways, how can you be so bad at driving the yacht? It’s just a boat.” Harry asks, obviously trying to hold in a laugh.
“It’s really not that hard to be bad at it.” You defend. “I know plenty of people that can’t drive a boat.”
“Have they ever tried?” His eyebrows raise.
“No.” You mumble, flicking your eyes from his gaze.
“Well that explains that.” He pauses until you meet his gaze again. “No, but seriously, it’s way easier to drive than a car.”
You clear your throat. “I’m not that good at that either, H.” 
“Really?” He looks embarrassed, sorry to have pushed you, like he was worried that he had gone too far. 
You really didn’t mind, though, it’s not something you’re ashamed of, you just don’t really like driving. “Really. Ever noticed how I don’t drive anywhere?”
His eyes widen in realization. “Yeah, actually. If nobody else is available, I used to drive you places.” 
“Yeah, well, that’s because I suck at driving.” You say, looking down at your hands, which you realize are still being held by his. “I just feel more comfortable with other people driving me around.”
You feel him squeeze your hands again, the rings biting into your skin slightly. “I thought maybe you just didn’t have a car.”
Your head snaps up, eyes meeting his. You flash him a dirty look and go to pull your hands from his. Before you can, though, he squeezes tighter, making you stop for a moment.
“Not like that! It’s just that everything you do is in close proximity to your house.” Your hateful look subsides. You had seemed to forget for a moment that you weren’t enemies anymore. You were… friends? “There’s not really a need for you to have a car unless you were to drive somewhere far away, but usually that’s only for work and you fly.” He continues.
“Well, yeah, that’s true. But I do have a car, I just prefer not to drive it myself.” He nods his head, seeming to understand enough to let it slide.
You fall into a comfortable silence, his hands still clutching yours. You let your eyes scan over his face before wandering back to his seafoam green eyes. God, his eyes are beautiful. Everything about him is beautiful, honestly.
You’re broken out of your examination of him by the waiter coming back with your food and beverage choices. He sits Harry’s down first, and then places yours down. He doesn’t look at Harry again, just looking at you as he asks if there’s anything else that’s needed. You see his eyes trail downwards, and you give Harry’s hand a squeeze, causing him to clear his throat at the manager.
“Excuse me, sir?” This catches the waiter’s attention, making him turn back to Harry. “Could you maybe not eye fuck my girlfriend right in front of me?”
The waiter balks at him, and then tries to deny it. “I- I wasn’t!”
“Let’s not lie about it, you definitely were.” His voice is raspy and it makes your heart rate pick up. “And you were making her uncomfortable, so how about you explain to one of your coworkers why you need to switch them tables, yeah?”
The waiter just nods, walking away without so much as a glance back.
“Thank you, H.” He doesn’t reply, just squeezes your hands to let you know you’re alright. He lets go to eat, but you can see the way that his jaw is clenched.
“Hey, what’s up, you’re tense.” You try to meet his eyes, but he won’t look at you.
“I just don’t like the way he was looking at you.” He mumbles. 
You make the split second decision to walk over to his side of the booth and slide in next to him. He immediately makes room for you, lifting up his arm so you can crawl into his side.
“I’m alright, you know. I just don’t like being looked at like an object.” You whisper into his side.
“I know, love. I know you’re alright, you’re strong.” He squeezes you closer to him and you feel a smile come to your face. “And I don’t like it either. I’ll punch him next time he looks at you like that.”
You reach up and run your hand through his hair, smiling at him. He leans into your touch, and that’s when you realize just how close you are. He’s got you pulled into his side, one of your thighs is slung over his, and your faces are what seems to be only a few millimeters apart.
Every part of you wants to close the difference, to press your lips to his. Every fiber of your being wants to know what his lips feel like, wants to know how they taste. You don’t lean in, though, not wanting to ruin what the two of you have going on.
You look back down, pulling your food over to you and finishing your meal.
After the check is paid, he drives you home, the only sounds in the car being the radio and the tap of his fingers against the steering wheel. 
*
The next day flows by smoothly, everyone just chilling on the yacht and going for a swim.
When you get back to the house that night, though, Sam and Lexi come to your room to tell you that they’ll be leaving early, babbling on about some really good sale on jeans or something. They ask if you want to go with them but you politely decline, having absolutely no interest in jeans that, even when on sale, probably cost thousands of dollars.
They bid you a goodnight and let you know that they’ll be leaving early in the morning, most likely before you get up.
You wish them a safe trip and then roll over in bed, thinking about what this would mean. It would just be you and Harry for a few days. Would you spend a bunch of time together? Would you even talk that much? 
You don’t know how to spend that much alone time with Harry, mostly because you’ve only been close enough to spend any amount of time with him for a few days.
You’re anxious, probably more than you have been in a while. You can feel your hands sweating and your breath getting caught in your throat.
Suddenly, a knock comes at your door and you immediately yell, “Come in!”
You expect it to be Lexi or Sam, but it’s Harry.
“Hey, don't you mind if I hang with you?” He asks, fiddling with his fingers. “I’m kinda bored, plus the other night I saw that mini puzzle you brought so I was thinking maybe we could do that?”
You smile at his observational skills. “Yeah, it’s no problem. Come on, I’ll get the puzzle.”
You walk over to the carry on that you had packed and grabbed the puzzle. It’s only a hundred pieces, but each one is so small and oddly shaped that you had never been able to get the placement right. You had figured you’d try to do so on this trip, but you hadn’t seemed to have the time.
You trudge back over to the bed, sitting down a piece of cardboard that you had found in a storage closet when exploring the closet a few days prior, and spread out the pieces.
You immediately get to work, him doing the same. Every time he would reach to grab a piece, his rings clack together, and you can’t help but gaze at them. You love the way that the rings look on him.
He looks over at you, catching you staring at his hands. He chuckles, before hopping off the bed, seeming to remember something.
“I’ll be right back.” He promises, not waiting for your response before coming back with one hand behind his back.
“Hold out your hand.” He demands, and you do so, holding out your right hand. “No, no, palm side down.” You flip your hand over and then he slides a ring onto your right hand. 
After it’s placed on your hand, you look down, realizing that it’s a replica of his rose ring, but this one actually fits you, which means that he would have to have bought it specifically for you.
You can feel your chest tightening and your eyes begin to get a little blurry. His gesture is so cute and all you want to do is wrap him up in your arms.
“H, when did you even get this?” You say, gesturing to the ring.
“The other day after everyone went to bed, I drove to London and got it.” He says, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly. “I saw you looking at it the other day, figured I’d get one that would fit you so that we could match.”
“Thank you, H. That’s so sweet of you.” You wrap your arms around him, and without thinking, you crawl into his lap, straddling him. “How do you even think of things like this?”
He doesn’t say anything about the way that you're sitting, just wraps his arms around your back and pulls you impossibly closer.
“When I’m not pretending to hate people, I’m actually pretty smart.” he chuckles, and you can feel the vibration of the action throughout your body.
“Don’t get too ahead of yourself, Styles.” You mumble into his neck. “You’re still an idiot.”
“Hey!” He whines, pushing you off of him only to tackle you into the mattress, tucking his head into the crook of your neck.
Subconsciously, you raise your hand up, digging into his hair and beginning to play with it. Neither of you say anything, just enjoying each other’s presence. After a while, you start to feel Harry getting heavier and heavier, his breathing getting more even. 
You try to stay in that position, loving the feeling of him wrapped up on you, but he’s a lot bigger than you and all the muscle he’s put on makes him a lot heavier than you can handle, the weight being too much on your chest and making you feel like you can’t breathe.
You roll him off of you, trying to be as gentle as possible so that you don’t wake him up, but you fail epicly. The second that you’ve got him completely off of you, he grabs your waist, pulling you over to lay on him like he was on you moments prior. Your legs are tucked between his, your face pressed into his neck. His warmth is radiating into your skin and his scent is swirling around you.
“Night, love.” He mumbles, angling his face down to kiss the top of your head.
“Night, H.” You murmur back, pulling the blanket over the two of you.
You focus on the way that his chest feels rising and falling underneath yours. You can feel his heartbeat, the way that it seems to be slightly faster than usual. You don’t think too much of it, though, he’s probably just hot.
Slowly, your thoughts begin to slow down, the prospect of a good night’s sleep pulling you further and further under until you’re dreaming about Harry.
*
When you wake up the next morning, you’re sweating. At first, you don’t think much of it, you were sandwiched between Harry and a wool blanket, after all. But then you realize that there’s something off with the way that Harry feels.
He’s radiating more heat than he normally does, which is already more than most people do.
You’re worried that he could be sick, so you scurry to the bathroom to find the thermometer that you saw when you first started staying in the house.
You make quick work of cleaning it off with an alcohol wipe, not wanting to risk him getting anything worse than he possibly already could have.
You shake him awake, ignoring his groans of protest, and make him put the thermometer under his tongue. You press the button and wait for it to beep, signifying that it’s done. 
You feel like you’re going to be sick when you look at the digital number that’s being presented to you. 102 degrees. That’s not ideal. 
“Hospital, H. Now.” You demand, not giving any room to argue on this. There’s no way that you’re going to let him lay in bed with a fever when you don’t even know what’s causing it. Maybe some people would, but you refuse. There are countless reasons why he could have this high of a fever, and each of them had different recommended treatments. You weren’t going to risk it and treat him for the wrong thing, only to make something worse.
He grumbles a “no” and you shake your head. Of course he would fight you on this.
“I’m not risking your life, H. Get the fuck up.” You wait for a moment, watching him shake his head no again. Once you know he won’t get up, you wrap your forearms underneath his arms and lift, dragging his lanky figure out of bed. 
Once he’s completely off the bed and standing next to you, you lift his arm, wrapping it around your shoulders so that you can support his weight. You grunt from the added stress on your shoulders.
You begin to make your way out to the car, making sure to stop on the way out the door to grab the keys from the hook and a water bottle from the fridge for him.
You unlock his car and all but shove him into the passenger seat, leaning across him and buckling his seatbelt for him.
Once that’s completed, you rush around the car and slip into the driver’s side, buckling your own seatbelt before inserting the key in the ignition and turning the car on.
“You hate driving, you can’t get me there.” He tries to argue, and you just laugh.
“You couldn’t drive even if you wanted to. Plus, I can get you there. I’ll be fine.” There’s no way that you were going to chicken out of this. Sure, you hated driving, but you hated the idea of something happening to him even more.
“No, y/n, it’s fine, if you don’t like driving you shouldn’t have to drive me.” The fact that he’s thinking of you right now, of all times, makes your heart rate quicken. How was he always so sweet? “I’ll be alright. I’ll just sweat it out.”
“No, Harry, you will not just sweat it out.” You say, rubbing a hand over your face. “You could die if it gets too much worse. There could be something seriously wrong. And you’re probably like this because you went out in the rain looking for me.” Sure, it’s been a few days, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t from that. The symptoms could have just not been showing up until now. “And trust me when I say that I am most definitely not letting you die.” You give him a look when he starts to protest again.
The drive to the hospital is shaky. There’s a few times where you think you’re going to freak out, but each time, Harry reaches his hand over and squeezes your knee in reassurance and you instantly feel your breathing even out again. 
Thankfully, you make it there safely. Throughout the trip he had drank the entire water bottle and he seemed to be more alert than he was when you woke him up. You still come over to his side of the car and help him hobble into the hospital, though, not wanting him to accidentally fall and break anything.
You sit him down in one of the chairs and walk to the counter to check him in. You come back with the paperwork that the lady handed you, and you’re surprised to know that you know the majority of the answers. You only have to pester him when you get to the section about his family’s medical history and when you need him to sign the paperwork.
You quickly go back to the counter to give her the pages back. She smiles and assures you that she’ll get everything entered and that the doctor will be right with him.
The doctor comes out and calls his name. He takes one glance in her direction and then grabs your hand. “Y/N, can you come back with me?” He gives you the best puppy dog eyes that he can manage.
You chuckle, agreeing immediately. How could you ever say no to that face?
Once you get to the room that the doctor led you too, she begins to ask a few questions. After answering them, she takes Harry’s temperature, the thermometer that she uses reading the same as the one at the house did. She decided to do a few tests, some of which nearly make Harry throw up, and then comes back with the results a little while later.
“It seems like he has the flu. Nothing too serious as of right now, though. I’ll give you a prescription to get filled for him since it doesn’t seem like he’ll be doing much for himself until his fever goes down, at least.
You smile, thanking her for letting you know, and gather Harry and the prescription paper. On the way back to the house, you drop off the prescription and wait for it to be filled. 
“Can I go in and get some candy?” He asks as you get out of the car to go pick up the medicine.
“No, H,” You see him pout at you, so you quickly continue, “but I can go in and get it for you.”
The smile that he gives you makes your world slow. All you want to do for the remainder of time is just make him smile and bask in the light that it gives off. But you can’t focus on that right now, you have to go in and get his candy and his medicine and then get him back home.
He tells you what he wants, whining about how it’s his absolute favorite candy. You go buy it for him, deciding to get a few of them so that he’ll have some for later, hopefully for when after he feels better. You also get him another water bottle, knowing that he’ll have to take his medicine once you get back to the car.
You quickly go to the counter, giving them his information and then walking back out to the car. 
After paying for everything, you rush back to the car and give him his medicine. After he’s taken it, he begins to munch on his candy as you drive the both of you back to the rental.
Once you reach the rental, the ride back goes much smoother than the one there, you take him back to your room and lay him on the bed.
“I can’t sleep in here.” You frown, wondering why he’s had the sudden change of heart. “You’ll get the flu too.”
You roll your eyes at him. “I’ve slept in the same bed as you already.” You sit on the bed next to him, reaching up and combing your hair through the sweaty tendrils. “I literally woke up on top of you, if I’m going to get it, I’ll get it whether you sleep in here tonight or not.”
He grumbles, but ultimately doesn’t put up that big of a fight, knowing that if he doesn, he’ll lose. 
“Do you wanna take a shower?” You mumble, still letting your digits card through his hair.
“Are you trying to tell me I stink?” He tries to laugh but it comes out more as a cough and you can’t help but want to wrap him up in your arms and take any and all of the pain that he could be feeling away.
“No, you actually smell really good for being sick, but you have a lot of dried sweat on you from your fever.” You smile down at him, seeing him give you a lazy, lopsided grin in return.
“Can I take a bath?” He asks, eyes lighting up at the prospect of being able to sit down but still get the sweat off of him.
“Yeah, that’ll work, bubs.” You don’t even think about the pet name until it slips out of your mouth. You want to take it back, scared that he’ll hate it.
All your worries, along with any trace of regret, washes away when you see his smile grow, the dimples popping deep into his cheeks.
“If I put bubbles in the water so that you can’t see anything, will you wash my hair?” He questions, and there’s no way that you’re going to say no to him. And you realize that it’s not just because he’s sick. It’s because it’s just so easy to give into him, to want to give him everything that he asks for, just about no matter what it is.
You’re not going to let him know just how easily that you want to agree with him, though, so you drag it out just a little longer. :You’re really milking this for all it’s worth aren’t you?”
“I mean, I guess. I don’t know.” He sighs, looking like he’s trying to find the right words. You stay quiet, waiting for him to find the ones that he’s searching for. “I just really like it when you play with my hair, and I’m assuming that it’ll feel even better if you were to wash my hair.” His cheeks flush crimson. “Just really like having your hands in my hair, I guess.”
You feel like you’re going to explode with the overflow of emotions that you’re currently experiencing, so you decide not to drag it out any more than you already have, knowing that you’ll regret it if you do. “Fine, yeah, H. I’ll wash your hair for you.”
The way that his eyes light up makes it all the more worth it. You’d do anything to see him have that look on his face more often. You used to see a lot more of that, before things started happening that scared him. You found yourself wishing, more often than not, that he had never had someone find his address, and that he had never had people hold him at knife point. He had been slightly less open after that, kind of like he didn’t trust that many people anymore. And, even though you hadn’t admitted it since you were pretending to hate everything about him, you had missed the way that his eyes would sparkle at the simplest things, and how he would be the first to jump at the idea of a night out.
“Thank you!” He lunges up from his spot on the bed to hug you, wrapping you in his arms and not letting go for a moment.
After letting him keep you in his embrace for what you deem is long enough, you push him towards the bathroom.
“Go get the bath ready, I’ll go get you some clothes.” You nudge him, but then realize something. Before you walk out, you take his hands in yours, sliding his rings off this nimble fingers one by one until they’re all in your palms. “I’ll take these to your room and put them up, alright?”
“Yeah, do you still have yours?” You nod, pointing to the rose ring on the dresser, sitting right next to his Cartier ring on the chain. He smiles, then waddles into the bathroom.
You make your way to his room and rifle through his suitcase, trying to find something that isn’t another pair of sweatpants or swimming trunks. You want him to be comfortable but not too hot, and you don’t know if he’d be comfortable in just boxers. 
You end up finding a pair of shorts at the very bottom. You grab those and some boxers, along with a hoodie of his for yourself, before heading back to your room.
You don’t hear the water running when you enter/ “Are you ready, H?” 
“Yeah, you’re good!” You slip on the hoodie before entering the bathroom. You place his clothes on the counter, out of the way from everything, and come sit on the floor next to the tub. 
The water and the bubbles come up to the bottom of his butterfly tattoo. You trace it with your eyes, and before you can even think about what in the world you’re doing, your hand is reaching out to trace it. You stop yourself halfway there and look up at him, your cheeks aflame.
“Go ahead.” He urges. “You can touch.”
You let your hand travel the distance to his abdomen. You begin to trace the lines of the butterfly. The wings, the patterns, the antenna. You can feel the muscles in his stomach clench as you venture towards the bottom of the wings, so you travel back upwards with your hand. 
After you finish tracing what seems to be every line in the tattoo, you look up at him, slowly moving your hand north, but stopping slightly above the butterfly. Once he gives his nod of approval, you move up to the swallows, loving how they look on him. 
Before you’re even done with those, he nods again, urging you to continue. So, you do just that, tracing the lettering on his body and moving down his arm to run over the ship, the rose, the hands. You trace everything that you can, ending at the little cross tattooed on his hand. 
“You missed a few.” He rasps, and you quirk your brow in confusion. The only ones that you know of that could have been missed are the ones submerged under the water. 
He doesn’t say anything, just lifts up his arm to show you the tattoos. You immediately reach back out, tracing over the bird cage and the masks, along with the lettering there. You can feel his body shiver at your touch, and you can’t help but mimic the action. The feeling of his skin under your own is electrifying.
“They’re all so beautiful, H.” You whisper, not completely trusting your voice yet.
“Thank you.” His voice isn’t much higher than yours.
You shake your head, trying to rid your head of the thoughts of him. You clear your throat and reach for the shampoo bottle. You pour a generous amount into your hand and begin to lather it into his hair, massaging his scalp with your fingers as you do so.
He lets out a sound that’s a mix between a pleased sigh and a moan and you almost choke on the air that you’re filling your lungs with.
“Feels so good.” He mumbles, letting his eyes slip shut. You can’t help but smile at him, the way that he looks so peaceful, so relaxed and utterly himself that all you can do is grin at him.
“Does it?” You inquire, knowing for a fact that it does, just wanting to keep the conversation going for a little longer. There’s something about the raspiness in his voice that makes you never want to stop hearing it.
“Yeah, feels better than just about anything else I’ve ever experienced.” This time, he lets out a groan that’s so close to a growl that you have to take a moment to breathe.
“I’m glad.” You all but squeak.
After you rinse his hair out and begin to apply the conditioner to his hair, he looks up at you. “Hey, mind if I tell you something?”
“Yeah, go ahead, bubs. You can tell me anything.”
He seems to mull it over in his head for a moment and then speaks up again. “Promise not to get weird or anything?”
You’re beginning to get slightly worried. Part of you is scared that he’s going to tell you that he killed someone and now he needs help hiding the body or something extreme like that. Although, if he asked, you definitely would help him, that’s just the kind of friend that you are. “Yeah, I promise.”
He looks up at you through his lashes, making sure that he’s holding eye contact with you. “I kinda, um, like you.”
You smile, he’s so dramatic for no reason. “I kinda like you, too. You’re not as awful as I thought you were.”
“Thank you, but that’s not really what I meant by that.” He has a slight grimace on his face, like he’s scared that what comes out of his mouth next will hurt him in some way.
“What did you mean then?” He still seems hesitant, scared even. “You can tell me, bubs. I don’t bite.”
He takes a deep breath, settling himself. “I meant, I have feelings. For you.” You feel like your heart stops. All the breath is sucked from your lungs. Harry Styles? Likes you? “I don’t know for sure when they turned from ‘oh, she’s pretty and seems sweet’ to ‘I Wish that she didn’t hate me so maybe I’d have a chance’, but they did.” You feel him reach out and take your hand in yours, and all the emotions running through your body threaten to spill out. “And, trust me, I know that I treated you like shit and I don’t deserve you or your love but I just had to tell you.”
“Are you telling me that Harry Styles has a crush on me?” You ask, slightly chuckling.
“If that’s what you wanna call it, yeah.” He says, cheeks getting more and more red by the second.
You shake your head, not wanting to get too excited. He had a fever. Fevers can cause confusion and can make people think things that they don’t mean. “You don’t mean that. You have a fever, you'll feel different when you wake up in the morning.”
His face falls, and you immediately want to take back what you said. “I promise you that I won’t.”
“How do you know that?” You don’t think you could just forget the words that he’s saying to you.
“Because I didn’t just start feeling this way.” Relief surges through your body, and you can feel the tears start to prick at your eyes.
“Really?” You really won’t be able to handle it if this is all a side effect of the fever.
“Really.” He assures, brushing his thumb in soothing circles on your hand.
“Well, lucky for you, I happen to understand why you acted like you did and I think that you deserve me. I’m the one that doesn’t deserve you.” You had never thought that Harry would like you as any more than a friend, even before you actually met. All your friends had told you that you guys would be great together, you just had to meet him. You always had your doubts, though.
He scoffs, “Yeah, alright, we can pretend that’s true. You’re literally perfect.”
Your heart expands at his words, how does he always seem to know exactly what to say? “So are you, H. I’ve seen it for a long time, just didn’t wanna be the girl that loved you even though you hated me.”
HIs eyes widen and a smile covers his face. “You love me?”
“I’m getting there.” You admit.
“Come here.” He gestures for you to get closer.
You scramble towards him, getting as close as possible without physically climbing into the tub.
He leans in, closing the gap between the two of you, letting his lips ghost over yours for a moment before you pull back.
“Let’s rinse out your hair and then finish up and I’ll kiss you for real, alright?” There’s no way that you’ll be able to kiss him the way that you want to while he’s still sitting in the bathtub.
He nods and lets you continue. You rinse the conditioner out of his hair, then get up to leave the bathroom so that he can get dressed. Before you can walk away though, he grabs your hand and pulls you back. He makes a kissy face and you lean down to peck his lips, knowing that he’ll just pout until you give in.
Moments after you exit the bathroom, he walks out looking completely perfect. You can see the tiger tattoo on his thigh, and you make the mental note to kiss over it later.
“Kissy?” He asks, coming towards you and wrapping his arms around your waist.
You sling your arms around his neck, slotting your hands into your hair. You nod, leaning in to kiss him, for real this time.
He wastes no time in kissing you back, this one holding a lot more passion than you ever thought a kiss could hold.
Your lips are molding with his, fitting together like they’re the missing piece that you needed to complete your puzzle.
His tongue slides over your bottom lip, asking permission, which you gladly give, opening your mouth and letting his tongue explore.
You pull away after a moment to catch your breath. Looking up at him, you see everything that you had been missing. “Promise me this doesn’t change when we go back to our real lives.”
He brings his hand up, cupping your cheek. You lean into your touch. “I promise you that, as long as you’ll have me,” he kisses your forehead,  “I’ll always be right here to tell you that you’re beautiful,” your temples, “that you’re all I can think about.” your cheeks. “And, as long as you’ll let me, I’ll kiss you over and over again.” He finally lets his lips glide over yours again.
After he pulls away, you breathe, “Good, because I don;t think I’d be able to go back to normal after that.”
“Neither could I.” He assures you. “Come on, love, let’s go lay down.”
With that, you crawl into bed next to Harry, cuddling into his side. After a moment, he decides you're not close enough, pulling you in until your head is on his chest and your leg is thrown over his thighs. 
You smile in content as he kisses your forehead. Who would have thought that you’d be in this place, with him? Never in a million years could you have dreamed this up for yourself. And honestly, if someone had told you a mere weeks ago that you would be kissing Harry and falling asleep next to him, you would have laughed in their face, probably even asked them if they had gone mental.
But now, here you were, laying cuddled up with the man that makes your entire world seem to light up, and you couldn’t be happier. It had been a rocky road getting here, but you would go through that day on the yacht a million times as long as you ended up back here, held tightly in his arms.
Listening to the beat of his heart, to the way that his breaths are evening out die to the comfort that having you near him brings, you drift off to sleep
*
You’re being shaken awake much too earlier, and you turn to gripe at whoever chose to wake you up. But then you realize that it’s Harry, and your face immediately softens.
“Hey, you.” He says, pecking your nose.
“Hey, why are we up so early?” You grumble.
He chuckles. “We’ve got a plane to catch.” You audibly groan, probably a lot more dramatic than it has to be. “Come on, it’s time to get out stuff together. Gotta go back to the real world.”
You sigh, not wanting to go, but you know that you have to, so you stumble out of bed and get all your stuff together. 
You scramble to ensure that everything’s ready, even making sure that you clasp your new necklace on your neck and slide the new ring on your finger.
Once you zip up your bag and stand up, wracking your brain to make sure that everything is in order, Harry comes up behind you and wraps his arms around you. You immediately lean into his embrace.
“You look really fucking cute in my clothes.” He mumbles, pressing his face into your hair.
“Why thank you, never got your tour hoodie, thought I’d see how it looked.” You smirk, knowing that you had, in fact, received a tour hoodie, you just hadn’t worn it yet.
He says nothing about that, though, just groaning, “It looks fantastic.” before pushing away from your body.
“Are you ready?” He asks, looking over all the packed bags, and then over to you. HIs eyes stop at the ring around your neck, heart swelling in pride that you’re wearing his ring.
“Yeah, don’t wanna go, but I know I have to. I’ve gotta go back to work.” You groan.
“I meant what I said last night, you know?” He blurts, and you can’t help but feel relieved. He had been acting like he meant it, but the verbal confirmation made you feel even better.
“Which part?” You say, playing coy.
“All of it.” He promises. “Every single word.”
You hum in content, walking back into his arms and pressing into his chest. “I mean what I said too.”
You pull away after a moment, walking to pack your stuff into the car.
After dropping off the rental car and going through the motions of getting ready and boarding the plane, you finally sit down, right next to Harry. This time, though, you aren’t dreading the plane ride.
*
After the plane lands, Harry throws you his keys, telling you that Sam and Lexi were supposed to have dropped the car off with his extra set an hour prior. He assures you that he’ll get your luggage.
“I can tell you’re tired, sweets, go on to the car, okay?” You nod in agreement before heading out to the parking lot to find his car.
On the ride back to your apartment, you doze off in the passenger seat, his hand on your knee and fingers tracing random patterns lulling you to sleep.
He wakes you up by kissing all over your face, and you must admit that it’s probably the best way for someone to wake you up. Well, not just anyone, just him.
He gets your bags from the trunk, walking you to the door. As you’re about to go inside, he kisses your cheek, letting his mouth linger there for a moment. “Can I come over later? Gotta put up my stuff and check the mail, but I wanna see you again.”
You smile. You’d like to see him again, too. “Yeah, sure. Just come over whenever.” 
He leans down and gives you a quick peck on the corner of your mouth before heading home.
In the time that you’re alone, you put everything away that you ended up not wearing and throw the dirty clothes in the wash.
As you’re fixing yourself dinner (which is arguably enough for two, but that’s just a coincidence...maybe), you hear a knock on your door. 
You rush over, checking through the hole to make sure that it’s Harry. When you open the door, he immediately sweeps you up into a hug. “God, I missed you.”
“You were gone for less that three hours, H.” You breathe.
“I know, but I still missed you.” He pulls back from you slightly, still keeping his arms wrapped around your waist. “Am I not allowed to miss my girl?”
Your heart skips a beat. “Your girl?”
“Um, fuck, I- you don’t have to- don’t feel pressured.” You cut him off by placing your lips on his.
“Calm down, H.” You urge.
“It’s just, I don’t know, do you want to be my girlfriend?” He asks, eyes looking down between the two of you at his shoes. 
“God, yes.” You clear your throat, realizing how desperate you probably sounded. “I mean, yeah. But I’m not gonna be able to be like all your other girlfriends were.”
“What do you mean by that?” He wonders.
“I can’t just drop everything and come with you while you’re on tour.” You give him an apologetic look. You know how much he loves having his girl with him while he’s performing. “I can’t go on excessive vacations with you, and by excessive I mean for months at a time. I don’t get paid to stand around and look pretty like the rest of them did.”
“I don’t want you to be like the rest of them were. I want you to be you.” He says, stroking your cheek with his hand. “Plus, I mean, you could technically come on tour with me as part of my crew if you wanted.” He suggests. “Be one of the photographers, or help me get everything ready. That could be your new job if you were interested.”
“Harry, I couldn’t ask you to do that.” You argue. “That’s just another person that’ll have to be paid. I didn’t do anything to get those positions anyway.” You know that all of the people on his crew were exceptionally talented, and that just wasn’t you.
“You let me see how wonderful you are at photography, that’s what you did.” You’re surprised that he remembers that. You had only shown him your work once. And it was the only time when the two of you were enemies that he didn’t have anything rude to say.
“H…” You’re still not sure about the idea. Of course, it would be fun, but you really have no business being there.
“Please? I don’t think I can go months on end without seeing you.” He whines. “I could barely go three hours.”
“Fine.” You give in. “But only if I get to stand in the audience and watch the show at least a couple times.” You had always wanted to see one of his shows from the audience, to see how well he interacted with everyone.
“Deal.” He says without hesitation.
“Alright, fine. I’ll go.” You concede. He does a mini celebration, shimmying his body slightly.
“You wanna go tell our friends after dinner, baby?” You suggest.
“Baby? I like it.” He says, blushing because of the pet name.
“I mean, you are my boyfriend now.” You reason, but also just liking the way that it sounds coming out of your mouth.
“That’s true, love. And yeah, let’s go tell our friends after dinner.” He leads you to the kitchen, fixing the both of you a plate and sitting down with you to eat.
*
After you clean up from dinner, you head out to the bar that your friends told you to meet them at.
You walk into the bar hand in hand with Harry. He sits in the booth first, dragging you in after him. 
“Do you wanna tell them?” You lean in and whisper into Harry’s ear.
He just nods, turning to Lexi and Sam. “Um, guys, we’re kinda, um, dating.” 
“Okay.” Sam says. Lexi nods, looking completely unfazed.
“What?” How are they being so calm about this?
“We figured it would happen. The chemistry between the two of you is impeccable. You had more passion towards each other when being dickheads than either of you have for anything else. It was just a matter of time.” Lexi explains, as if it’s completely obvious.
How they knew it was going to happen, you have no clue. You couldn’t even see yourself ending up with him. But maybe it was because you didn’t have the outside perspective. 
*
A few months later, you’re on a tour bus to the first venue, and you can already feel the adrenaline running through your veins. 
The very first show, you watch from the audience, taking in the scene. Seeing how his fans react, how he works the audience.It was good to study the subject before photographing them. 
Also, though, getting to watch your man live his dream is pretty exhilarating. And getting to go along for the ride with him is even better.
*
Thank you for reading!! You can come discuss with me here!!
Permanent Taglist - @spidey-reids-2003​, @jackiehollanderr​, @scarletsoldierrr​, @thewayilookatbacon​, @parker-barnes-af​, @lost-in-the-stars03​, @kisses-holland​, @josiemara​, @god-knows-what-am-i-doing​, @fanficscuziranout​,  @akila-stilinski​ @babebenhardy​ @write-from-the-heart​, @slytherinambitious​, @miraclesoflove​ @tomshufflepuff​, @quaksonhehe​, @a-different-brand-of-beans​, @dummiesshort​, @sleepybesson​, @sunshine96love​, @itstaskeen​, @wotamelonsugar​ 
Harry Styles Taglist - @alwayshave-faith​, @hufflepuff-always-and-forever​, @sucker-09​ @just-chillin-out-in-me-box​, @macksmedicine @wendaiii​, @theresthingsthatwellneverknow​,
(If you’re crossed out it’s because it wouldn’t let me tag you)
731 notes · View notes