#no quote set for this week bc i had so little time to make it

[sometimes-men-need-help-too]

So this guy posted about how his wife "baby trapped" him, with baby trapped in quotes because he didn't know if it necessarily counted. He said she didn't do it to make him stay, just against his will

They've been together for 8 years, have 2 (5f and 2m) kids and when they talked about having kids, she wanted 2 but he wanted 1. They ended up having 2 because she insisted it was important for a child to have a sibling. After his son was born, OP didn't want to go through all the sleepiness nights and everything again. But when their son was a year old, his wife started mentioning having a 3rd child. I would laugh it off but finally she sat me down and said we have to have a third. I said no, we agreed on two, but she said she wanted four and three is the compromise. I refused and said I wanted one and we have two. She got angry and called me selfish for taking away her dream of wanting a big family.

Few days later, she apologized and they had sex. She was on birth control, he had a condom, so they did it. Then one day, she showed him the positive pregnancy test. When she saw his less than happy expression, she berated him for not being supportive, that he should be grateful, etc. So he apologized, hugged her and told her he was excited.

When she was asleep, I took the condoms out of the cupboard and ran them under water. Holes.

I nabbed her phone and saw she'd set a password. That was odd. Nevertheless, my wife has a terrible memory so I tried her birthday and it opened. Further up were texts with her best friend of my wife complaining how I wouldn't come around. Her best friend suggested "arrange an accident" with a winky face. My wife agreed and said she was going to come off of birth control. It went on for a little while, ending with my wife saying that yes, we were going to have a 3rd.

So he woke her up after that to question her about it. She started crying. Through tears she screamed I had no right to go through her phone and it's her choice whether or not she wants to take BC, the side-effects are bad and she was sick. She also brought up if I really didn't want a third kid, I should have had a vasectomy. She told me to go sleep on the couch, I laughed out loud and said no, I'm sleeping here, you're leaving. So while wailing she packed a bag and left to her parents. When she called the next day I told her I just need some time to myself. She said that's fine but I need to come around for our child. I told her I wasn't sure if it'd be "our child" and she cried more.

It's been two weeks since then. Governments recommended to stay at home and I knew staying home by myself while also working with two kids would not be ideal and she wanted to see our kids. So we're in the same house, she constantly keeps on stopping me and trying to get me excited for our kid and planning the nursery and names and how happy our kids will be to get a younger sibling. I've been ignoring her entirely.

A lot of the comments were in his favor so I was happy to see that. But there were also plenty of other comments that weren't as supportive, even downplaying the wife's actions.

There were a number of people who were against him divorcing her, questioning him why he wants to ruin his marriage and his family over this. I just can't get over that, how they're acting like he's in the wrong here. Would you want to stay with someone who crossed the line severely? Would you want to stay with someone you couldn't trust?

She ruined the marriage on her own. He's reacting how anyone can expect someone to react in that kind of situation. A lot of people were insisting he try to fix his marriage and stay for the kids so he doesn't break up the family but that is, in this case, the worst advice someone can give. I'm not sure there's any coming back from this. How could you trust someone like that again? How do you know she wouldn't do it again in the long run because she'd want a 4th baby?

Not to mention, it's a horrible thing to put the kids through. They're already, according to him in a comment, wondering why he isn't talking to their mother (sidenote: some people expressed disbelief that the kids would notice at that age. I haven't spent much time with super little kids like a 2 year old but 5 year old's can be surprisingly observant. Or the wife might have said something to them). If he were to stay and things worsen, like them fighting more often, that just hurts the kids. And it's not a good lesson for them when they get older. There are limits to keeping a relationship with someone.

And of course, his own mental health and happiness are important too.

What bothers me is the justifications people are pulling out in defense of his wife. They are severely downplaying her actions by saying she just wanted a baby, people aren't perfect, etc. Somebody even compared the situation to...rearranging a room.

And then you have others blaming him because he hasn't had a vasectomy yet. That isn't the point of this. If the wife hadn't done anything and he was complaining that she got pregnant, then I would find him more at fault. But what the wife has done is considered reproductive coercion, which is a form of intimate partner violence.

Sure there was a bit of a chance of pregnancy occurring, but she crossed the line in order to get what she wanted. She is at fault here for the pregnancy. And she should be held accountable for that. I've found conflicting information about whether she could face legal consequences, but at the very least we shouldn't be trying to make excuses for her or downplay it to make it sound like it's something innocent.

Because it definitely isn't

#mens rights #double standards #relationships

[laylakeating]

CREATIONS FROM EVERY MONTH OF 2023! (except october but we're not going to talk abt that !!)

Post your favourite and most popular post from each month this year (it’s okay to skip months).

i was tagged by two of the Most talented girlies in the world !! @saw-x and @taiturner ILYYYYY ty for sharing what your brilliant minds came up with this year !!!

JANUARY

MOST POPULAR: britt + karma !! i had so much fun with this set and it was honestly such a good way to start off the year !! FAVOURITE: probably that same set !! also the glee icons pack i made :D

FEBRUARY

MOST POPULAR: from my blog, britt + mike in 207 shsjhs. from teen dramas, brooke in 207 (one of my fave looks of hers) (this was clearly a month for the seventh episodes in second seasons ??) FAVOURITE: barchie + high infidelity for barchiesource !! something a bit different for me creatively but ugh i love it. also glee 514 for gleesource !! again something a lil different !!

MARCH

MOST POPULAR: riverdale returning to television and proving it takes the cake as the funniest show in the world (another rvd is iconic and beyond reproach set for 701) FAVOURITE: a banger month for creative sets !! basically everything i made for barchie week, this unholy trinity MASTERPIECE i made for gleesource, and this djats set + destiny, choice, chance

APRIL

MOST POPULAR: my favourite scene from djats for djats week in green bc apparently i like to make things hard for myself ?? who knew FAVOURITE: again. SO MANY. another month another appreciation week shsjhs. anyway all the sets i made for djats week, more sets for gleesource including santana + valerie and mercedes and santana + river deep mountain high, my santana lesbian visibility set, hsmtmts + tarot cards which took me wayyyy too long to finish, rvd ladies + barbie posters (50s edition), and barchie in 701 for barchiesource in RED (very proud of how it turned out considering i hate giffing in red)

MAY

MOST POPULAR: quinn + tropes for glee appreciation week !! FAVOURITE: everything i made for glee week (there were quite a few bangers), my 2 9-1-1 sets shjshsj - maddie + you first (a banger) and madney + paper rings (another banger), also the first (and only rip) set in my layla episodes series (layla + 101), and this jordayla + proposal foreshadowing i did over on jordayla gifs !!

JUNE

MOST POPULAR: this halle bailey set <33 FAVOURITE: once again. everything i made for all american appreciation week !!! special shout outs to layla + the eras tour and the layla set i made for day 1 !!

JULY

MOST POPULAR: nancy + the wizard of oz horror (that makes sense i swear) FAVOURITE: the aforementioned nancy set, also stancy + persuasion, the little mermaid live action and the quote that made me insane for a few weeks, layla + the lip pout she does (she's adorable), AND last but certainly not least, this pride and prejudice edit which was just nothing like i have ever done before that i LOVEDDDD

AUGUST

MOST POPULAR: ashlyn + giving maddox mouth to mouth (her delivery of AS A FRIEND still sends me into orbit) FAVOURITE: HSMTMTS MONTH BABEYYYYY !! fave sets include (but are not limited to there are too many) gina for hsmtmts week, fave songs (also for hsmtmts week), rina + maybe this time + motion blur (THIS TOOK ME WAY TOO LONG BTW), this antoine set bc he is an icon, madlyn + daylight (still a serve), rina + invisible string (to this day the most insane thing i have ever made), hsmtmts + a meme summary (just your regularly unhinged content honestly), and this jet/maddox set <33

SEPTEMBER

MOST POPULAR: this cinderella 1950 set in pink/blue <3 FAVOURITE: okay so we have ej playing cupid/being a love prophet HSJHSJ, TWO icon packs, one for olivia rodrigo and one for lexie grey, and also the britt + her love for my headband set bc it was the only other thing i made in september and i was worried it'd get lonely

OCTOBER

MOST POPULAR: apparently you have to post something for it to be popular FAVOURITE: i made many sets in my mind dw

NOVEMBER

MOST POPULAR: blair looking excellent (as always) for teendramas !! FAVOURITE: finn + bigger than the whole sky (part of my glee midnights series) (a true labour of love) (still obsessed with it btw)

DECEMBER

MOST POPULAR: percy !!!! for pjosource FAVOURITE: everything i made for 12 days of rina (there are only 5 days rip), and OF COURSE, to round the year off with a bang, the extraordinarily belated 2k celebration set for justine, AKA dair + midnights !!!!!!!!!

tagging some beloveds <3 @alinaastarkov, @jordanlayla, @katherines, @kayascodelorio, @perccyjackson, @yenvengerberg !!

#this fully took me like. an hour to do HSJSHS #ultimately i am my own biggest fan help #anyway TY AGAIN nat and cj this was FUN #MWAHHHHH EVERYBODY HAPPY NEW YEAR

[moonjxsung]

okay okay we're leaving annoying shit in the past year so i wanna start the new year by asking you *drum roll* what were your favorite fics you wrote last year? you can make a top 5 if you wish, pretend you're in top 5 breakdown by watcher (this reference will not make sense to most ppl probably but i had to make it)

also maybe some of your favorites or The™️ favorite quote you wrote? (maybe this one is impossible to answer bc you wrote like 500k words last year sorry)

can't believe my first ask when you're back is me being like fuckin oprah w you

so happy you're back bestie let's alllll have a good 2024 even if it's only in our silly blogs online

-🐟

Oh my goodness I love this QUESTIONNNN you had me scrolling through my own masterlist and reading my work again for this 🥹🫶

Okay my TOP 5 FAVORITE FICS……. This was simultaneously a hard and an easy question at the same time but:

1. When the Rain Stops

2. Where the Storm Looms

3. Seasons

4. Biker!Minho drabble

5. VOYIS + B&B

I know most people are going to wonder where Lost in Translation is and I LOVE that fic, but weirdly it took me a very short amount of time to write so it never quite stuck with me like the others did! WTRS/WTSL series was my favorite series by far, it was just supposed to be porn with a plot and I literally spun a wheel with some options to determine where the characters would have sex, AND to pick which member it was going to involve 🤫 I was so reluctant when I got Minho bc I really wasn’t familiar with writing him but I think it created a completely new version of him in my mind and the character and world building just wouldn’t stop once I started it. It was also my most highly requested fic for a part 2 considering part 1 had a severe lack of resolution and I just fell in love with the characters (I think I was extremely Minho biased for weeks after finishing it lmao). Seasons was a challenge for me but I always love writing about Felix and I think putting myself in the headspace of that little town was super healing and I was SO sad when I reached the end of it. Biker Minho smut was probably my most self-fulfilling one regarding ✨spiciness✨ and maybe my most requested drabble for a part 2 (highly considering it if you guys want it? 👀) he’s just so FINE….. and last but certainly not least was VOYIS, I actually researched a lot of art techniques and I listened to a lot of classical music while writing this one so it was just an experience! I was immediately intrigued at the request itself, which is why it’s tied with Begged and Borrowed as they were the two I was so interested in I wrote them at the same time, literally switching back and forth between documents 😅

And a few favorite quotes (in no particular order):

1. “How could a higher power accept the felicitations of the same man who’s been fucking you behind the groom’s back? Within the four walls of which transforms hate to love, and sin to virtue? What a waste, Minho concludes again. What a waste to have loved this deeply, and to pacify your fears only for another man to reap the benefits. Try as Jung might, he’ll never know you the way Minho does. And the vast trench that separates you from Jung, one which paints a clear divide of friendship and his superficial love for you- that will remain permanent, too.”

- Begged and Borrowed

2. “And if you were to climb out of your body and paint this exact moment, all you would see are an indistinguishable, amorphous set of limbs that seem to dissolve into each other like hues of paint on a palette. Two colors swirling around to make one, the two of you like primary colors that create endless possibilities when mixed together like this, offspring of a hundred different shades, painting the darkened studio around you with your yearning for one another.”

- Visions of You in Solitude

3. “Except maybe simple wasn’t the solution all along- for once, he’s determined to bask in all your complexities, even if it means sacrificing everything he left the city to pursue.”

- When the Rain Stops

4. “But he feels it- he feels you, in this city, at every corner he turns. He sees traces of you in the people who smile at him when he passes them by. He sees you in the people who hold doors open for him, the baristas who make foam hearts in his lattes every morning, even the businessmen when they catch themselves admiring the beauty of the buildings on a smoke break. He sees you in all things good, when he’s reminded momentarily that the world has more to offer than boxing him in the confines of a dark bar out in the suburbs. And while he’s not completely in love with life all over again, it’s a start.”

- Where the Storm Looms

5. “The phenomenon begs the question- had the fire ever really stopped? Were you ever in the process of mending if not wailing like this, your vulnerability on display for the world to see as your walls are finally let down? Is this what it means to feel?”

- Seasons

Thank you for these questions, it’s good to be back 🫶💫 I love you! Let’s have an amazing 2024 🫶🩷💓

#🐟 anon #ask

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 5/9/2023

i almost never devour a book in one sitting without getting distracted, i rarely scrub back to the beginning of a scene to immediately rewatch it, and i have never force-quit a video game in order to immediately replay the level, but all of those things happened this week. cowboy machine go brrr.

listening

wolf by the yeah yeah yeahs (sextile remix). neo noir movie music, long establishing interior shot as you move through a dim mirrored lounge, making eye contact with all the denizens before the diegetic music cuts back in.

rare remix where i like the remix much better than the original. driving and pleasantly jangly, grooveable with some velocity to it. music to feel like a lone wolf protagonist to. spotify link

the release radar is one of spotify's best features and i wish something as set-and-forget existed for bandcamp

reading

Lone Women by Victor LaValle is a gothic horror western. only part of the gothic horror is due to the familial burden placed upon eldest sisters. this book is largely concerned with inheritance, sisterhood and female friendship (in scare quotes and otherwise) but not in a TERFy way.

Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. (bookshop.org link)

i try to read a couple reviews before writing my own, and there’s been a lot of grumbling that this book is comprised solely of diversity points. to which i say: do you really think interracial lesbians and trans people and autistic kids did not exist in 1915??? this is a pretty typical friend group. the weirdos band together.

i liked this book a great deal and had a good time with it. however, i think the denouement comes together a little too pat. i would have liked this book to be slightly longer than its 306 print pages. there are a lot of characters to juggle and there are two specifically i would have liked to see more so they feel a little less deus ex machina. however x2, i am deeply grateful to LaValle's wife who insisted on this specific ending. there are tragedies that happen in the book, but the book is not a tragedy.

there are in fact a fuck of a lot of threads being carried at all times, despite all these threads coming together somewhat unevenly in the last few chapters. there is a literary sleight of hand so effective (bc you are so relieved a group of characters hasn’t died and THEN so many things immediately happen) that you completely forget to question why the fuck this group left and came back in the first place (although you can come up with a satisfactory answer on your own by like. thinking for a minute). the suspense is sustained and effective as well, i was worried the whole time about something and devoured it in one sitting without getting up (mack, curled up against my side in bed, appreciated this a lot).

how scary is this book? more suspense and dread. there are very few detailed descriptions, there is simply. a lot of blood.

how horny is this book? i do very much like the pair of secondary lesbians (bisexuals? unclear. could be both/either. the distinction would not come for nearly another sixty years anyway). i complain a lot about when women aren’t horny enough, but if you make them both willing to fucking kill in a blink for each other and give me an achingly tender scene like this, im fine with this fairly tame level of horny!

watching

A scruffy garbage boy becomes the pupil of a famed gunfighter, and the stage for confrontation is set when the gunman overruns the boy's town through violence and corruption.

as an orphan with daddy issues, Day of Anger (1967, dir. Valerii) really fuckin hit for me. it's also an a-tier western i would let other people watch, slightly clunky at times but killingly sincere. really fun and unusual jazzy score, good camerawork. i really loved this but am having difficulty explaining why. it's coherent? do you know how rare that is for a spaghetti western???

it also has the best one minute forty-four seconds in any western ever, imo. why the fuck not have a joust!!! i do not watch spaghetti westerns for their restraint or subtlety!!! the HAHAHA SICKOS.meme moments, where it really fucking embraces its genre, are some of the best moments in the film. more FUCK yeah WHY NOT moments in other movies please.

this is one of lee van cleef's three "tutorship" movies (along with Death Rides A Horse and For A Few Dollars More), where he gets paired up with the spaghetti western version of a james bond girl. i don't remember who tagged one of my posts but he really is peak evil dilf here. the way he sets up his own destruction because he as a person cannot do anything else is just. pour it into my open mouth. yes thank you yumyumyum

it is not a complex plot, but thought and care was put into it. scott mary, the van cleef boy in this film, has a real character arc and an ambiguous ending. along with the score and lvc at his evil best, this is a novel example of a spaghetti western. the two-hour cut is here for free on tubi btw.

ty to @pasta-pardner for complaining that no one was talking about this movie, bc apparently that's a really effective hook for me. i love to feel exclusive.

playing

call of juarez: gunslinger, and i have finally determined that it was free on steam a couple two-three years ago and that's how i obtained it. mystery solved.

the conceit of this arcadey episodic first person shooter: you are semi-retired bounty hunter Silas Greaves, telling stories in a saloon to get free drinks out of your audience. the level can rapidly change as Silas' story changes: as he remembers things or as audience members argue with him. this is overall a pretty successful schtick and continues to be silly goofy fun.

i had so much fun with the first train level, where you are scrambling up through a derailed train over a ravine, that i immediately replayed it. i have never ever done this with a video game before. everything feels so precarious, it encourages speed without literally blowing the track up behind you. it is VERY fun to kick down train car doors and go into bullet time. it is VERY fun to defend a tunnel with a gatling gun. imo the sort of gleeful high-velocity gunfights this game wants you to have work best when you are fighting through a fairly contained level like a train-- the maps where you are running and gunning through an entire town can feel a little overwhelming.

the maps are generally the kind of over the top nonsense you expect from a spaghetti western-- in one level you are scrambling around under/on top of/through a giant trestle bridge trying to stay alive and deactivate some dynamite so the bridge and train stay unexploded. you fight through the ricketiest mine you can imagine! you fight on a steamboat beached in a swamp! you fight in a flooded graveyard in the same swamp! this game is not pretty, per se, but it is handsome. it uses vertical space really well.

the level with Indians is both better and worse than i hoped. Silas is after some Apaches who have escaped their reservation, and is sympathetic about them wanting off the reservation, but you sure do have a whole level about shooting guys anyway. this game leans really hard into, like, woo-woo nature medicine man abilities. luckily they are contained to the one level. this is pretty okay for 2013 (a named tribe, a sympathetic portrayal, they are defending instead of attacking or kidnapping) but they could have done better then and they can do better now.

additionally, i have some beef with the duel minigame-- im old. my reflexes are Not Good. there's a mexican standoff where there are three different things to keep track of and i have failed that duel seventeen times. i may be soft-locked due to a skills issue.

making

fallow week. im kind of frozen with fear about moving prep and really need to kick shit into gear despite the fact it is all very expensive and very scary. even when you have local people to look at apartments for you, the mere thought of renting an apartment without like Being There and seeing what the light is like and poking around under cabinets for mold and interrogating the neighbors is deeply uncomfy for me.

but onward! because we have to!

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

[butchniqabi]

Okay so for the past week I’ve been meaning to make a list of my current WIPs and I’ve been putting it off so...procrastinating no longer! Most of these stories I started sometime after my last story “A Voice Only Heard in the Dark” (which I posted 6 months ago oops). I didn’t feel like adding to my original WIP list bc it was long and annoyed me to look at. Anyways without further ado:

And How Do the Peasants Die? (Soft SciFi with little technology): Several years after being deposed, the region’s former emperor finds himself reaching the end of his life, living off the charity of a young woman. Though he has concealed his identity from her, he slowly begins to suspect that she knows more than she has let on. (The title is the alleged last words of Tolstoy. Themes center around: relationships between a country and its ruler(s), race and gender dynamics, atonement, and what forgiveness means)

Gethsemane: A Guide to Losing to the One You Love (SciFi, told in 2nd person): Your lover tells you that the planet’s orbital defenses have been shut down. She tells you that she is the one who did it. At the very least she has the decency to look guilty, ashamed of the devastation yet to come. You want to ask how long she had been thinking of this. Why would she deliver a death sentence to her own people? Did she even love you? Outside, satellites and space junk fall to the surface, lighting streaks of red across the sky. (Title refers to that place Isa (as) went to pray before he was...well you know. The title was originally “Sweeter Than Death, a Deception” before just becoming “A Guide to Losing to the One You Love” I heard Gethsemane mentioned on something I watched and, context aside, I loved the name so I wanted an excuse to use it hehe. Themes are: race and class dynamics, betrayal (in both the interpersonal and social sense), imperialism)

The Sea, The Sea, The Open Sea (SciFi): After sustaining heavy damage, the starship Love-In-Winter has lost most of her crew and is unable to use faster-than-light travel. The two survivors set to work repairing as much as they can, attempting to find a way to make it home faster than the projected 97 years. One of the women suggests that they make use of a highly experimental technology to ease them on their way home: a device that risks making them inhuman. (Title is the opening line to Barry Cornwall’s poem “The Sea”, because the sea is space and the vacuum of space is the sea, y’know? Themes revolve around: humanity and identity as a marginalized person, isolation, technology as a means of harm, recognition of the self through the other)

A Mote of Dust (Realistic Fiction, Soft SciFi): Qadira finds herself floundering after the death of her cat proves to be the proverbial straw which breaks the camel’s back. She goes through the motions of life: going to work, calling her dad, going to her appointments, taking her medication, and spending time with her alien spotting group (which devolved into an excuse to smoke weed and watch DS9). However, she slowly finds herself withdrawing from the world as her 28th birthday approaches. She begins to reckon with her own place on Earth and the unaddressed trauma of witnessing her mother’s abduction by extraterrestrials. (Title is from a Carl Sagan quote about Earth, “A mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.” There’s more but I’ll leave that to you to look up. Concept came about while looking into the Fermi Paradox: with the overwhelming evidence pointing to proof of intelligent life outside Earth, why haven’t we come in contact yet? Themes are: what we owe each other, mental health and mental illness, ableism, the “other”, and what makes an alien an alien?)

Special Dreams, in Which You Exist (SciFi, Tragedy): Mercedes Imperial was a figure that haunted the Nor-Am continent, credited with killing politicians, scientists, and wealthy patrons alike. Through discovering and stealing various technology, she was able to extend her life and cause disorder for roughly 200 years. Twenty years after she was caught and executed, archivists revive her by using her cyberorganetic data, hoping that they could interview her and learn the secrets of her resistance. To everyone’s surprise, Mercedes -the old Mercedes- installed a fail-safe in her data, effectively erasing every memory and experience she had past her 23rd birthday. The new Mercedes awakens to a world where she is both folk hero and boogeyman, her person already defined for her. Unsure of what is true, she must discover for herself who she used to be and determine what it means to exist. (Okay I know, I KNOWWWWW, that I’ve been writing this story on and off for 2 years but I’m on again so you’re going to get Mercedes Content damnit. Title is from Harlan Ellison’s “Delusion for a Dragon Slayer,” the quote itself is long so I’m not going to type it all out. Themes include: identity, stories as a form of oppression, stories as a form of idolatry, sacrifices for a greater cause, hauntings, all forms of American Bigotry, and strength through love/connection)

#my writing #i am So sorry i didnt expect this to be so longgggg AH #anyways these are a teensy bit corny but you all get the gist! #any questions or whatever just shoot me an ask bc i honestly only explained like 1/3 of the things i wanted to about each story

[laststandx3]

4th episode of daryl dixon and at least we're too distracted fights and explosion to notice the show is bad. why bad you ask? but because the setup for this episode is that Laurent was taken by Quinn, and people get stabbed and shot to save this fuckin kid when at the end we discover that it was enough for Isabelle to just go there. she doesn't even need to bat her eyelashes, she's in no questions asked.

And once again all of those trouble could have been avoided if daryl dixon wasn't with them. I'm sorry but for how good dd is at killing zombie it's just not worth putting at risk the next messiah. every militia guy in france is looking for daryl. he's just the wrong person for the job. and he got pigeon man killed. ngl he handled hostage guy well bc fuck that guy.

for the rest the episode is just :/ like quinn had this plan to catch dixon and when dixon arrives quinn doesn't know what to do. also the inconsistencies? the other nun, she grew up with laurent, in a way they're siblings: he's kidnapped and she just doesn't give a shit, too busy with her new boyfriend who, quote "wants to fight for freedom" but the oppressing class is zombie my man. there's nobody doing anything to you. there's like 20 people in paris. so anyway girl, same bc that kid is annoying af. another proof little jesus is the worst? well while getting kidnapped he calls for daryl (man he met at best 3 weeks before) instead of Isabelle (his aunt who raised him). he calls for Isabelle but like, after.

but anyway next episode is adnag with a silly hat so yeah i'll watch this show and suffer one more time.

i just feel like the premises for this plot would have made sense in a different context. I get the militia, even if they're not administering anything so it's unclear where they get supplies from. But the vague title of "powerful dude that owns things" doesn't mean shit in the zombie apocalypse, "nightclub owner" doesn't mean anything. because those are titles/characters arcs that work in a society that has a money based economical system and the antagonist is a rich bitch (gn) and can hire lackeys and fighters and stuff. but in the post apocalypse? it's complete anarchy. there's no meaning to money. the only thing that has value is food, water and medicine. and since there are no laws there's no reason to just not kill the hoarder.

For the lack of people on set they shoot this during covid, and i get that. you couldn't have had many people around. but they just didn't set up the society in which is organized. how is it that in a wrold full of zombie nobody walked out with a flame thrower after 12 years and started building something?

and if there's world building in twd that makes up for the plot holes of daryl dixon i'm never going to know anyway

#idk how to tag this i have'nt even talked about adam nagitis #thank god he's him and i knew him before bc the show is giving him nothing to work with character wise #first he's evil then he's crazy now he's evil crazy. but literally that's just the character persoanlity #that hat is so stupid. where are they in the 40's? is he now a new york gangster? #i get back the compliments for the costume designer dept #nobody ever changes clothes i get it they're in the post apocalypse but even the bad guys? hey changed more often in the arctic #adam nagaitis

[joysmercer]

college peddie hcs? (also bc of you im starting to become obsessed with the idea of nina/amber meeting up again in America and falling in love <3)

haha love that <3

as far as headcanons, thank you so much for asking!!! i have a shit ton and this got super ridiculously long so under the cut :D

basic background stuff (details are in the end section):

they go to uni in the US. they don't go to the same school but they're fairly close to each other (≤1hr travel)

ok up until literally yesterday i figured they were on the east coast to be near eddie's mom but then i was like. what if they're in california instead. so idk lmfao but they both do go back to eddie's house for thanksgiving/winter/spring breaks and patricia also spends the breaks she has between summer classes over there as well. nina and amber are both in/near NJ/NY so they hang out during said breaks

piper gets a scholarship to berkelee so she's in the US too

kt's uni is also near-ish to theirs so they see her on long weekends and stuff occasionally, whereas Mick's on a sports team at UCLA (soccer?) and travels across the country with it so when he visits patricia she introduces him to eddie and they immediately hit it off

patricia's a psych major and eddie starts off in psych but switches to education at the end of his first year, but decides his third year to become a firefighter or paramedic

ok on to the fun stuff:

halfway through the summer after grad/before college, they get into a huge fight because they bump into a girl patricia thinks eddie's a little too friendly with while eddie thinks she's overreacting and he says something like "im tired of trying to convince you to trust me"

they almost break up for good but after 3 days of silent-treatment they instead actually have a conversation! and set some actual boundaries and expectations! i wont bore you with the details because they dont fight about this particular issue ever again so it doesn't matter

they have date nights every friday, sometimes in each other's college towns or somewhere halfway between them. obviously if one of them has an exam or something, they reschedule, but this is something they do their absolute best to maintain

patricia lives in a suite like the one in tslocg and her three room/suitemates are stereotypical mean sorority girls who judge her for no reason so she doesn't spend a lot of time there if she doesn't have to.

she made the mistake of mentioning she had a boyfriend to them during their first week (when they were still acting nice) and she has to deal with a lot of snarky comments behind her back about who would possibly want to date her…cue them hitting on eddie when they first meet not realizing who he is lfksjl

eddie's in a tiny triple with a super studious premed roommate and some guy who's on the school football team and almost never there, but all three of them do get on fairly well and occasionally have video game competitions that get so boisterous their RA has to come and tell them to shut up

(eddie absolutely spends the emergency $ his mom gave him for food in case he runs out of swipes on a tv that barely fits in the room)

eddie has a tiny wallet-sized pic of him and patricia at junior prom (which presumably took place after s2) on his desk and his roommates tease him endlessly about it (in a good-natured way)

no but seriously though

maybe depressing but i think patricia ends up with a very low self-esteem after graduation because of how little "help" she perceived herself as being to sibuna during the events of 3b/tor and so she kinda decides to become a "better" student in uni and be "good" at that (quotes because it's not true but that's how she feels about herself, if that makes sense). eddie's a little shocked by this sudden change considering she was never as intense as mara or fabian in high school, and makes sure she's taking breaks and not putting too much pressure on herself

due to her not-nice room situation, patricia's also quite lonely her first year. going from having all your friends literally next door to you to everyone you live with hating you and being stuck in new country is…a lot.

eddie's super worried but she closes herself off until she bursts into tears at some point over thanksgiving break when ms. miller asks something like "how are classes going" and it's just :(

but things get better second semester and its fine

eddie has this (financially not-smart but very cute) habit of randomly showing up at patricia's school to hang out/study/grab dinner in the middle of the week

valentine's day their first year is a friday, when they have a scheduled date anyway, but patricia decides to return the favor and surprise him a little earlier.

his (very single) roommates let her in while he's in class and she decorates it (aka buys a boquet of flowers and puts string lights up) and makes a lil pyramid of burgers and fries from in & out/shake shack bc she knows he hasn’t had breakfast

he comes back from his 10am math class and almost cries

they eat n walk to his next class together

neither of them are particularly into stereotypical valentine's day couples activities so instead he takes her to costco so they can eat their hearts out on samples

they then share a pizza on the beach or a park bench or something

it's such a fun day that they end up doing something similar all four years

she takes classes every summer (to avoid going home). eddie just chills at home the first summer but does random internships the other two because he was so bored. these are the only times they're truly "long distance" while undergraduates, but they still manage to see each other in-person

they both move out of the dorms after a year. eddie gets a 3 bed apartment with his roommates and 2 other guys (so none of them are in a triple anymore lol); patricia shares a 1-bed with a friend from her club soccer team.

facetime study dates become far more common as she joins a lab that takes up a ton of time and he starts his teaching practicum

honestly, they just spend a lot of time on facetime, keeping each other company as they walk to-and-from class or do homework or cook dinner (patricia's spotted a fire in eddie's kitchen before he has more than once)

they both go back to the uk the december of their third-year at sweet's/the williamson's insistances. amber organizes a reunion at a mansion her family owns and all the newly-minted and/or "almost" 21-year-olds (remember, most of them have spent the better part of the last two years in the US and, with the exception of Mick, aren't keen on breaking yet another law more than occasionally) get super drunk for the first time in a while. at some point eddie goes up to fabian and says something like "you were wrong, she is the one, she always has been" and patricia hears and it's cute idk idc

eddie accidentally gets 4 tickets to see waitress on broadway in september of their third year (like 2 weeks after opening) except it's a weekday matinee so he recruits piper (aka bribes her with a date with his rommate) to convince patricia to skip class to see it

(she didn't need convincing; she just wanted to see piper on a date with a football player alksfj)

anyway eddie’s obsessed and patricia’s like eh about it but sees his excitement and buys their cookbook and surprises him with a homemade pie every week for the next six months

anyway piper's never seen patricia's college campus so the three of them go tour around and piper texts joy right after like "how did they get even more annoying together since high school"

like they've never been mushy or into pda but at this point. they just make sense together. piper's a bit shocked tbh

ok that's all iv got for now but yeah!!

ok some details on the background things I wrote above. this might be boring to most of you which is why it's here but i adore this kind of thing so i'm writing it:

while they both apply to both UK and US unis, they both would prefer to go to the US so that's what they do. they don't go to the same one because a) admissions for patricia are already difficult being an intl student without the limitation of both of them getting into the same one, and b) frankly they both need/prefer different school environments so it wouldn't make much sense for them both to choose the same place.

i do think both of them have very good grades from their first two years of hs and sweet helps a little with their last two (as he should tbh) so I would put their unweighted GPAs around 3.7+? they both do fairly well on their SATs/ACTs too so while they certainly aren't shoe-ins to, like, ivy leagues or UC Berkeley or something, they do have some very good options when acceptances come in

(this would be a good time to mention that I'm assuming Frobisher Academy or Amun or whatever it's called is basically an American school following the IB curriculum plopped in liverpool because we never see these guys taking their GCSEs/A levels and they all appear to be in the same classes all throughout the show which wouldn't make sense if they were supposed to be in A-level classes in seasons 2 and 3. also that would just make nina/eddie/kt's school situation a hot mess. plus I'm American and while my school did AP, I'm more comfortable writing with the US school system lol)

that one line about patricia not wanting to become a guidance counselor has made me fall in love with psych major!patricia. i have no idea what career she ends up in tbh but psych is broad enough it doesnt rlly matter

she also takes a ton of summer classes so she doesn't have to go home and ends up being able to graduate in 3 years but stays an extra year to do a minor in business or food studies or something "because why not"

(at least at my college you have to have your minor declared by halfway through third-year and she misses the deadline by 2 days and begs and maybe threatens the counselor until she's admitted afklsj)

she ends up graduating summa cum laude and goes on to do grad school during which she moves across the country from where eddie is

eddie on the other hand maintains a solid 3.6 and is perfectly fine with that

@/yackers came up with the idea of Firefighter Eddie which I absolutely love and am adopting into my own hc but i think he decides to do that only after his pre-med roommate becomes an EMT in third-year. so until then he just kinda follows patricia into a psych major because he has no idea what he wants to do but switches to education his first year after he actually genuinely enjoys his intro bio class due to a truly phenomenal teacher and thinks it might be fun to do that (his mom's the one who tells his dad though). basically he changes his mind a ton of times during uni but really enjoys whatever it is he's doing at the moment lol

#house of anubis #asks #anon #my writing #if you want followups just ask haha #these were just all the ideas floating around in my head atm #peddie #myposts

[doofnoof]

if you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not! Let's get to know the person behind the blog

Ough okay!!!!

Uhhh

1) I have a birthmark on the back of my right leg, it's lighter than everywhere else

2) I'm allergic to apricots!!! Apricot marmalade (or whatever it is. It's like a jam with many orange fruits in it but it's mostly Apricot and Oranges and I eat oranges all the time. Apricots are the only fruit included in the marmalade/jam that I don't eat much of) makes my throat and mouth itchy, which is too bad bc I think it's Delicious. At least I'm still good to eat peaches and nectarines!!! But not Apricots, weirdly enough. My aunt is allergic to peaches, so it Tracks.

3) I LOVE ZOMBIES SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!! The very first horror movie I ever saw was Resident Evil, and I blame it for my current love of zombies to this day. The way my mom has always recalled it to me, I was 4 years old and had seen my parents set up the PS4 to watch movies a few times and decided to try it out myself, and Resident Evil was in the PlayStation from the night before (the adults must've been watching it while I was sleeping) and I sat down and watched it, and then watched it again and again afterwards because I thought Alice was the coolest (most beautiful) woman I'd ever seen, and the Zombies were all super cool too. I was especially fond of the Lickers (the things with the long tongues) and I used to imagine taking one for walkies and scratching it's brain-head-thing like it was a dog. When I was eventually caught my mom was Very Upset but impressed that I'd figured it out all on my own and that I had it all figured out for like a week without anyone noticing, but the very first time I had a zombie themed nightmare Resident Evil was put on the High Up Adult Shelf never to be seen again until I hit double digits. Funny enough, a little while later I was watching my dad play Fallout 3 and when he walked into a bar and started talking to a Zombie Bartender I decided he was the most handsome man I'd ever seen and became Smitten with him. Come to find out, he was a Ghoul (not actually a Zombie) named Gob and he's still one of my most cherished favorite characters of all time. On top of that, when I was like 10 I could quote all of Zombieland word for word, for each and every character, and without even looking up from what I was doing list which zombies were in a scene. My Uncle found it kinda creepy the first time he saw me do it until eventually it became a game to see how long I could quote perfectly without messing up. I was entirely normal and not at all weird or obsessed with Warm Bodies (which absolutely didn't tap into my crush on Gob and my obsession with Romeo and Juliet, which I absolutely didn't read cover to cover in elementary school. /s. The school librarian wouldn't let me take the book I'd wanted home with me because it was Too Advanced so I picked a children's book out of spite, and once I was done reading it I wanted to read some more but had picked a book too far below my reading level, spotted a book abt the same size as the book I'd wanted at school on my grandma's bookshelf, saw the Ye Olde English, and decided I was gonna go for a challenge anyways bc Hecc You I Don't Do What You Tell Me. I didn't understand all of the jokes so I looked them up on the public library's computer later that week and once the stuff I didn't understand was Understood it became a personal favorite. I was insufferable abt it in English Class once I hit Highschool.)

Wow that was long!!! But zombies are super cool; as a metaphor, as a monster, as a marketing ploy, just. Zombies.

#bug barks #thank you for giving me an excuse to be weird on the internet #I super appreciate it /genuine

[starswallowingsea]

Cw for abuse and suicidal ideation and probably a host of other things but

AITA for expecting my roommates to do the chores they said they'd do/ask me for help if they couldn't do them on their own?

AITA for telling my roommates their arguments sent me into a severe panic attack right after the argument happened?

AITA for thinking my roommates should break up?

This is gonna be a long one under the cut

-----

Okay so I know moving in with them without thinking it through entirely was a bad move but I was 20 and everyone else I had asked about moving in with had already gotten arrangements set up so when they asked me it was like fucking fantastic I don't have to worry about this anymore.

So lets set the stage. I (at the time, 20 FtM) and some friends D (20NB) and M (20F) moved into an apartment together in 2021 for the 2021-22 school year. Rent was cheap, each of us would only pay like $230 for it and utilities were included (except Wi-Fi) so it was a steal for how big the unit was.

The first few weeks everything was fine. D told me they and M would sometimes have arguments but it wouldn't be big ones or very frequent and we had decided we'd be mostly responsible for cleaning up after ourselves. The chore split changed once classes started obviously and I ended up being the one who did dishes. Every day.

I do not mind doing dishes most of the time especially if it was just the three of us, but they frequently invited people over and cooked for them (I told them when we moved in to try and let me know if people were coming over. They only let me know like three times the entire time we lived together but they had people over like 5 days a week el em ay oh) and often left a mess in the kitchen because it was "too much work to wipe the stove down if [D specifically] spilled something."

Now I was keeping the kitchen as clean as I could. I swept like three times a week and mopped at least twice a week after sweeping, wiped down all appliances. The only thing I didn't really touch was the fridge. I'd get on them to clean it and make sure their food wasn't going moldy (a frequent occurrence which they blamed on their ADHD but never like. Bought less food or tried to set up any sort of management for that problem). I once threw out an entire gallon of milk that had curdled and they had. Interesting reactions to say the least.

But anyway other than the fridge I tried to keep the kitchen pretty clean. I did dishes twice a day most days and during our second semester would more often than not get anxiety about not doing them before I went to work because the sink was full but I was up at 6am and out the door by 6:45 and only really had time to shower, get dressed, and eat. They never did yell at me bc I'd do them after I got home in the afternoon but just for context here.

Anyway they started fighting after about like 6 weeks of us living together. The first time I ignored it but after two or three arguments I tried to intervene with them on the porch. It was the middle of the night in October in Michigan and we were all miserable. D had accused M of being uncaring about their issues and that it had quote "been a big problem recently" and that they absolutely needed M to always be open to talking about D's problems. I sided with M that it was late and everyone should just go to bed and come back with a clear head but D was insistent that they figure it out before going to sleep. It was like 3am. That was the only time I tried to step in and figure out their problems and mediate.

These fights continued to get worse and I started trying to get them to do a little cleaning in the living room which both of them had agreed to take care of but it was such a mess because they almost never cleaned up after themselves (I'd more often than not had to grab dirty dishes from the coffee table for example) and so eventually they invited a friend over to help clean.

I had come home from work and was like oh new person why are you here? And D told me that they were here because someone (me) couldn't be bothered to help us out. They never asked me to help clean and when I did offer they said they had it so I just let them be. I know how it feels when people ignore you when you say you have something and try to help anyway so like. Idk what I was supposed to do? And like I said I kept my part pretty clean for the most part.

Eventually we had an argument (more like D lashed out at me after that I think? My time-line of this period is a bit jumbled) and said that because I was a trans man I was trying to use my masculinity to exert power over them and tower over them (I am a whopping 5'4 and pretty average sized but I guess I carry myself in a way that can make me seem bigger than I really am sometimes). Anyway I was just like whatever and mentally checked out because I'm pretty sure they were gaslighting me about things I had said but I really can't be sure bc like the axe forgets the tree remembers etc but I legit have no memory of when those comments would even had been made because at that point I had taken to just hiding in my room 99% of the time unless I needed to cook something or go to class.

I want to say like two months after this they had another argument. It was like 6pm on a Tuesday and it was winter still so it was dark out. Their argument sent me into a panic attack that caused suicidal ideation. The very few panic attacks I've had never were that bad but D wanted me to drive them to DnD because they didn't have a ride and I said sure. In the car at a red light in town I told them their argument made me have a panic attack and I was riding through it *while driving* and they told me "Our arguments shouldn't be making you react like this. You need to go to therapy." Which just felt like a gut punch. The entire time we had lived together they constantly blamed their issues on past trauma and mental illness so I tried not to get on them too much but that still felt like such a shitty move.

Like D would constantly go on rants about how they'd always accept when they were wrong but then in practice it was always blaming M for their problems. Multiple times I thought about telling M they should break up but by that point I'm pretty sure D had been trying to manipulate M to be against me, just based on the arguments we had.

At one point they left the house and hadn't even been arguing but someone tripped over something and made a loud noise and I was in a call when this happened playing dnd and I literally had to mute myself and calm myself down and ended up not playing the rest of the session.

Anyway AITA for. Any of this?

#shay speaks #long post #well its under a cut but whatever #this i think is most of it. maybe a few specific instances removed #like not telling me they got a second cat until i came home to them playing with it #no text or anything about getting a cat just 'we're going to the cat cafe today' #anyway. #abuse // #abuse cw #abuse tw #suicidal ideation cw #suicidal ideation //

[cuhcuhcuhcory]

bioethics blog 1

Hi deep thinkers and smooth brain babyloves, I'm blogging for posterity now. who knows how long this will keep up <3

Its day 2 of my Bioethics class and I am already ahead of the curve. This is a 2 week 3 credit hour rollercoaster and I started the dang thing front row seats with our arms up. Anyway, I just got done reading the passage in the book about the ethics of Christian Scientists and others who don't believe in medical treatment and how horribly common it is for parents to be providers of maltreatment on religious grounds. I thought the quote from the supreme court ruling about the Prince V. Massachusetts case was incredibly sharp and on point. It said, "Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves"

beautiful logic. brilliantly written. chef's kiss. i just wish it were that simple. cults are so so powerful. belief is terrifying when diametrically opposed to any facts or logical processes of any kind and those people represent the ultimate opposition to logic-- Healing by faith alone bc your wounds and ailments are a symbol of your failing relationship to god, not the reality of being a goofy little delicate meat machine. all systems can be vulnerable! But I digress... We're not going to spiral down that rabbit hole because here i doth present the only conversation I ever *knowingly* had with a Christian Scientist Nurse.

I did hair for about 8 years professionally in my 20s. This is from nearing the middle to end of that 8 year period. I had seen this woman a few times but infrequent, maybe once or twice a year but she alwys came back to me and she was sweet, pretty with lots of freckles and very bright eyes. It was probably 4 or 5 visits before she came out to me as a Christian Scientist Nurse. She was always really sweet but kind of in that guarded yet pleasant way-- Not a moral judgement just an observation based on the premise that people kind of let you know how to they want to be engaged if you let them (and hairdressers who pick up on this make better money). Anyway, she started venting to me about how hard it was to treat with people and work with them with end of life care and that sometimes she wishes she could sneak in some real morphine or some drugs that are more effective than ibuprofen. And i said yeah i cant imagine how painful dying of old age is, I dont think i could do it without hard drugs XD Then I asked her what it was like to provide care like that but not medication and she said that its basically just regular hospice care. sitting talking, helping with the little things. Holding their hand and listening. I was really nice and pleasant but she kept going on about people she was "treating", more elderly and end of life care, more diabetes related complications. I was just floored. flabbergasted. What could I say to her face but holy hell i was upset and confused hearing all of this willful ignorance, failure to comply with practical medical advice, idk what to call it bc faith "healing" implies people get better and they dont. they die.

So thinking about it now years removed seems so strange. Cuz like at what point are you not a monster for pretending to offer treatment but only offering hollow words and hand holds. Its so strange. I still dont understand if that is good or evil. If they truly believe they're doing good, how can we make them see the harm or be responsible for truly setting aside their moral stances for the betterment of their kids when they see it as a complete failure of faith. failure of faith or not, I certainly wouldn't call it moral to withhold medication or to promote the rejection of modern medicine. Plus, by the morphine comment, it felt like she knew that medicine would work in some capacity so i just dont and will never understand the decision to choose to suffer and to choose to witness and support suffering like that.

anyway maybe i'll write my paper on christian scientists and how fucked up they are. religion is a cancer sorry not sorry

[taeminie]

i’m sorry for going off like that. i’m sorry for being impulsive. i actually just wanted people to know that i’m taken. social media is for bragging anyways. keeping it between us can be nice too. don’t you feel uncomfortable hiding it? just because i’m not telling people doesn’t mean i don’t like you. you have a point. i will stop posting anything. it’s fine. just do it. aren’t you afraid people would find out? i am... but i care about you more.

OHM PAWAT as PAT & NANON KORAPAT as PRAN BAD BUDDY 1.08 (2021) – dir. Backaof Noppharnach

#bad buddy #bad buddy the series #bbrecap #ohm pawat #nanon korapat #ohmnanon #pat x pran #patpran #thai dramas #asianlgbtqdramas #lakornet #ali gif #no quote set for this week bc i had so little time to make it #but omg what an EPISODE #everything about them is so healthy and perfect and then their surroundings just absolutely awful #i'm not looking fwd to next episode #but they are SO cute as boyfriends i cant :((( #will never get over them holding hands behind pa's back

[nationalharryleague]

Two for the Show

Summary: Jeff plans for Harry’s new opening act to be more than that. 

Genre: Famous Fake Dating! 

Word Count: 17.1k!

Pinterest Board

A/N: Hey babes!! This is something I’ve been working on since December now and I’m so fucking proud of it and how it turned out!!! It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written and I’m so so so excited to hear what everyone has to say!! Giant thank you’s go out to the incredible soph (@theharriediaries​) and Lu (@meetmymouth​) bc this never would have come to fruition without them and their help!! Please let me know what you think!! More of my writing can be found in my masterlist!! Happy reading y’all :)

***

Keeping appearances in the public eye is a delicate balance.

If Y/N was being honest with herself, everything Full Stop Management had ever suggested to her had worked, and very well. When they suggested her music took a more pop direction, they set her up with a team of fantastic producers and her music sales and popularity skyrocketed. And when they set up an appointment with a celebrity stylist to figure out her signature style, it worked; they turned her into the 1970’s inspired goddess she had always dreamed of being. Even the hours of media training that she had been put through worked, helping her learn how to bob and weave even the most intrusive of interview questions.

But this time, she thought they might be going too far.

“Jeff,” she began with a sigh and a doubtful shake of her head, “I don’t know about this one.”

“It’s just a few months before and during the tour,” explained the man sitting across from her at the long conference table. “You’ll be seen in public a few times to drum up publicity for the tour and your album, maybe do an interview or two together, and some light PDA.”

His expression was honest and earnest. In the time he had represented her, he had never done anything to her that didn’t help her succeed. It was not hard for her to believe that he just wanted what was best for her and her career.

But something kept holding her back.

“I just got my heart broken in the most public way,” she said softly, absentmindedly fiddling with the base of her ring finger where an engagement ring once sat. “Isn’t it a little too soon to be seen jumping back into a whirlwind romance?”

“I don’t think so. If anything, it will make James look even worse than he already does after what he did to you.” She had to admit the idea of a little revenge did perk her ears up a bit. “And it doesn’t hurt that Harry is so universally loved and known for being such a good guy.”

That was another reason she was skeptical of this entire plot. This was Harry Styles they were talking about; Harry fucking Styles. She had only met him once or twice while working out details for her to be the opening act for his upcoming tour, but she had been a big fan of his and idolized him since she was a teen. Just meeting him threw her inner 16 year old self for a loop, let alone trying to pretend she was in love with him.

In all honesty, it probably wouldn’t be too hard on her end once she got over being starstruck; she wasn’t so sure she still wasn’t kind of in love with him, or at least the version the public saw.

“Listen,” Jeff began again, his voice taking on a bluntness, “no one cares about the opening act. No one bought tickets to see you; they’re there to see Harry.” His words stung but she knew it was the truth. “But if they think you are a part of Harry’s life, they care about you too. And they will keep on caring about you after they leave the show.” Her apprehensiveness must have been clear on her face when he put on a gentle smile. “He’s a really nice person. I promise.”

“I know,” she breathed, a small pout finding its way to her lips. “Fine,” she conceded after a moment, throwing her hands up in the air dramatically to signal surrender. “I’m in.”

A triumphant grin spread across his face. “Thank you. I’ll go call Harry and tell him you’re down.” She watched as he got up from his chair and came towards her, pressing a brief and friendly kiss to the top of her head. “You won’t regret this, Y/N.”

“I better not, Azoff,” she chuckled while shaking her head slightly.

Soon she was alone in the conference room, basking in the light from the floor to ceiling windows that sat before her.

“What did I just get myself into?” she mumbled quietly to herself.

***

The answer to that question came two weeks later when she was sitting across a table from the Harry Styles at a small outdoor brunch spot in LA. Their meeting place was strategic, a small restaurant, not too flashy so it didn’t look like they were seeking attention, but outdoors where anyone could see. It was only a matter of time before he was recognized, and the sighting was almost guaranteed to be trending on Twitter only minutes later.

She couldn’t say that she wasn’t nervous. The inside of her mouth had been chewed raw and the bags under her eyes showed she had been having trouble sleeping in the nights leading up to their first appearance together. By the end of the day, she would most likely have countless articles written about her and possibly have millions of angry fangirls coming after her; even though their “relationship” wouldn’t be officially confirmed for a few weeks.

If all went to Jeff’s plan, she would become an A-lister overnight.

She stood in front of her closet for over an hour, trying on and taking off outfits before finally settling on her favorite pair of bright red corduroy flares and a crisp white textured halter top. She paired the outfit with a new pair of heeled leather boots. They were a flashy pair that were split down the middle, bright yellow on one side and white with yellow stars on the other, hoping Harry would appreciate the bold colors.

She meticulously did her makeup, sure to match her lipstick color exactly to the shade of her pants; and spent far too long in front of the mirror fussing with her hair, praying it would lay the way she wanted it to.

She knew that she was going to be photographed in some way shape or form, and with the fashion icon himself. She had to look good. He had been on the cover of Vogue for god’s sake.

When she finally arrived at the cafe, Harry sat quietly across from her. He looked casual, or as casual as Harry Styles gets. A yellow t-shirt, that was tight enough to look as if it was painted on, showed off his muscular chest and arms. His iconic tattoos illustrated his arms and she hoped he wouldn’t notice as she covertly tried to examine closely. He uncomfortably ran his palms down the legs of his high waisted denim flares that had been paired with his signature pearl necklace and ratty, but well loved, white vans.

And she couldn’t forget his rings. His signature gold ‘H’ and ‘S’ looked back at her as he gently grasped his flute filled to the brim with a mimosa, bringing it to his pink lips that were surrounded by the short stubble he had been wearing lately.

The pair sat in a slightly awkward silence, both seeming to down their mimosas quickly just because it was something to do with their hands and could occupy their lips so they didn’t have to talk.

To say she was panicking, wouldn’t be too much of an over exaggeration. She was sitting across from one of the world’s biggest stars, and as one of his biggest closeted fans. The things he could do for her career were astronomical and it was hard to ignore that, but she also had a hard time getting over the way his hair seemed to fall into perfect tousled curls and his dreamy green eyes.

She had been in love with him (or at least the idea of him) since she was 16. She couldn’t help it.

But the bottomless mimosas helped to break her anxiety, and apparently his as well, as they both began to feel a slight buzz.

“So how did Jeff end up talking you into this?” Harry eventually broke the silence, the alcohol lowering his naturally shy inhibitions just enough to kick off their conversation.

She let a playful eye roll take over her face before she began. “Oh Jeff,” she said jokingly, letting out a long sigh. “I was convinced somewhere in between ‘it’ll make your ex look bad’ and a stern ‘no one ever cares about the opening act,’” she chuckled, while sarcastically wagging her finger in the air, dramatically re-enacting his scolds.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth, letting out a dramatic ‘ouch.’ “He’s not always gentle, is he?” matching her chuckle.

“He knows where to hit you where it hurts,” she laughed, while nodding in agreement. “How did he convince you?”

“Coincidently, he also took a low blow involving my ex. I believe his words were ‘You wrote an entire album about her and haven’t dated anyone since and it makes you look kind of pathetic.’” He dramatically used air quotes and did his best impression of Jeff’s American accent. She couldn’t hold back the giggles that erupted from her.

“Oh my goodness,” she let out through slightly buzzed giggles, “you definitely win.”

From that point, their conversation began to flow more easily, easing her anxiety as she learned he was generally easy to talk to. He laughed at her jokes, and she laughed at his. He really did have the calming and disarming quality that people always said he had, like could melt down any walls and convince you to be honest with him, even if you didn’t really want to be. She was shocked to find that she wanted him to genuinely be a friend to her so badly. He was just so nice and such a good listener.

Their conversation took a turn when Harry’s super power of knowing when his picture was being taken kicked in. “Give me your hand,” he said to her, diverting from the pleasant conversation they had been having about their families. “Don’t look but there’s someone across the street taking photos of us.”

His instructions brought her back to the reality that they weren’t really friends and that all of this was for show.

She brought her hand up to meet his, strategically resting on the side of the table that faced the street, giving the camera the best view. The cool metal of his hand full of rings felt good against her skin that had been baking in the hot LA sun and he passed his thumb over her knuckles with faux affection.

She couldn’t help but feel a dishonest weight pulling on her heart. She knew everything was going to plan and this was all for the best, but it also felt slightly wrong. She played with her small heart shaped earring to distract herself from the sinking feeling.

“Harry,” she began, knowing the people across the street were out of ear shot. Her voice brought his attention from her hand back up to her eyes. “Does this feel wrong to you at all?”

“How so?”

“It just feels dishonest, like we’re lying to millions of people, our–well, mostly your fans.” She couldn’t help but correct herself.

His eyes softened at her words, like he was taking in the innocence she still held onto after only being in the industry for a short time, compared to his decade in the spotlight.

“I try not to think of it as lying,” he spoke slowly after a moment of thinking. He nodded along softly to punctuate his words. “When you think about all this as lying, it starts to weigh pretty heavy on you as a person. I try to be as honest as possible in my music and daily life, but that’s not always what people want to see. They want a show that will entertain them, and it is our job to give it to them.”

“I see,” she mused.

They sat together for another hour or so, allowing their small mimosa buzz to wear off enough for them to drive the short distances to their homes. The pair eventually found their way back to a comfortable conversation, but Harry’s comment about being in the public eye still weighed on her.

Suddenly, she wasn’t sure if all of this was worth it. Y/N was a master at dodging a question and turning the charm to 10 when it was needed, but she wasn’t a liar and she definitely wasn’t an actress. She hoped she (or Jeff) hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew with all of this.

Harry eventually walked her back to her car that was parked a few blocks away, and while she was sure he was doing it for the cameras, she didn’t doubt that he would have done it even if they weren’t there. He just seemed like that kind of guy to her; caring and trustworthy.

“Thank you for a very nice date, Harry,” she said, winking and chuckling along with the extra emphasis she put on the last word.

“My pleasure,” he smiled down at her. He moved along with her as she walked to the driver's side door, opening it for her like a perfect gentleman. The two stood close, his body hovering over her’s as they stood inside the open door. Her heart rose to her throat as he leaned down to her and pressed a gentle kiss to her burning cheek.

Y/N  looked back up at him with rosy cheeks and a tightlipped bashful smile. She watched as he walked backward carefully, taking her hand that had been locked with his until he was too far and let it fall back to her body.

She situated herself in her drivers seat and was ready to leave when she heard a knocking on the passenger side window that startled her. Harry had bent himself over and was motioning for her to roll the window down. When she did, he leaned himself in, an honest look in his eyes.

“Before you go,” he said gently. “A word of advice from someone who had been in the public eye for a long time,” he spoke with a tender yet serious tone, eyes locking with hers. “When you go home today, don’t go on social media. People are mean, and it’s just going to hurt.” She nodded along with his words and watched as he pinched his bottom lip. “And when you inevitably can’t resist, text me if you need to talk about it.”

***

They must have done a good job putting on their show because within an hour of her returning home to her apartment, they were all anyone was talking about. Their names were trending worldwide #1 on Twitter. Streams of Y/N’s debut album were up by 800%, and even Harry’s streams had taken a considerable jump. Y/N had gained 40,ooo new followers and views on every interview she had ever done were steadily rising.

All was going according to Jeff’s plan.

Harry’s words circled her brain for hours. “Don’t go on social media,” she heard him say over and over again as she paced her apartment, only stopping to look at the phone sitting on the kitchen counter every so often.

She had taken a shower, done her hair, tried to watch TV, cooked herself dinner, and even tried to sit down and write a song; it all got her nowhere fast. The unknown was eating at her inside.

Y/N broke when she heard the small ding signaling she had gotten a text message. She had all but sprinted to see who it was, reunited with the outside world through her touch screen. Unsurprisingly, it was from Jeff; the message sent to her and an unknown number she assumed to be Harry’s.

Good job, kiddos., was all it read but there was a photo attached to the message. Her heart stopped while she waited for the photo to load, cursing her slow wifi in the process. After a few breathless moments, the photo came through.

It was a screenshot from the website of one of the biggest entertainment magazines in the country. A picture of him kissing her cheek was the front page of the website.

Harry Styles and Y/N Y/L/N Rumored To Be Music’s New Power Couple Ahead of Tour

She was honestly speechless. This was huge.

She would like to say the sheer shock blurred her judgement, but the curiosity just got the better of her. Harry’s words repeated over and over again in her head, telling her not to, even as her finger connected with the icon of the little blue bird.

She was the most talked about topic in the entire world, her name hovering in bold letters on the trending page. She did everything she could to not click on her name, but her fingers did it all on her own.

The first few tweets were nice. Someone said they liked her style and that they looked cute together as a couple. Another said that they had always enjoyed her music and that they were happy for them.

But as she scrolled, it became harsher and just mean. People commented on her weight, said she couldn’t sing, and criticized her personality as seeming fake and forced. Her eyes were locked on the screen, unable to look away, as her heart began to break and few tears began to roll.

It took one final, and the most painful, tweet for her to consider deleting her account completely. She swiped out of the app fast, but the words were still burned into her brain.

Y/N is using Harry, just like she used James before he got rid of her and found someone better.

The words knocked the wind out of her, pouring salt on an open wound that had yet to heal.

She also had the little blue bird for that heartbreak as well. When she opened the app two months ago, the first thing she saw was pictures of her (former) fiance, James, with his tongue down some girl’s throat. At the time she had been devastated, her heart broken beyond repair.

It felt like no one else in the world could understand the way she was feeling. If she was in this position because of another person, they must get it too. The text to Harry was already sent before she had time to think it over.

I looked and I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry that I didn’t listen.

His response came only seconds later.

Don’t be sorry. It’s hard not to. Are you alright?

She had to think about his question, unsure if she knew the answer. Tears were still running down her face and she felt like she was a target the entire world had decided it was open season on. Logically, she knew these people never thought she would see these awful things, but it didn’t excuse the hurt she felt when she did.

I don’t know. I just don’t understand how people can be so cruel.

She felt like she was bothering him, even though he had offered to be there for her. He wasn’t her best friend, or a close confidant; he was her fake publicity boyfriend. He had real friends he wanted to talk to or maybe even a real girlfriend underwraps somewhere. Her body was wracked with guilt as she thought it over.

People are just mean on the internet, okay? They think they can say whatever they want without repercussions. I’m so sorry that you are being targeted because of me.

Before she got a chance to think through a proper response to him, her phone dinged with another text. It was from Jeff again.

Really good job, kiddos.

Y/N was confused. They hadn’t done anything else but be seen together today. Her sick sense of curiosity got her again before she opened Twitter again and looked up Harry’s name. He had tweeted for the first time in six months only a few moments ago.

@Harry_Styles: We treat people with kindness.

***

The next time she saw him was two days later at yet another public meet up Jeff had arranged for them. Unfortunately this time, she had become just as famous as Harry seemingly overnight, the flames of her new found fame growing even larger after he had sent that tweet.

While the fame had grown, the hate had calmed since his statement, which most had taken as an official declaration of their relationship. Now, that was not to Jeff’s plans.

She had to fight her way out of her apartment complex, wearing a pair of massive dark sunglasses with circular lenses and shielding her face with her hands the best she could. But she did have to admit that the electric orange fabric of her jumpsuit probably didn’t do much to help her blend in and avoid the attention of the paparazzi that had now found out where she lived.

Harry was sitting at the table by himself facing the back of the cafe when she arrived, two cups of coffee waiting before him to be drank together placed delicately on the table. He had his head down, buried in a book, before she startled him with a hug from behind. Her cheek connected with his warm neck where she buried her head into him and she took in his dizzying cologne.

She felt him jump beneath her as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing a dramatic and cheesy kiss to his cheek, feeling his light stubble prick her chapsticked lips. “My hero,” she joked, trying to bring at least a little humor to the man who had just about jumped out of his skin at her touch.

It felt like she was crossing a boundary, and she was pretty sure she was, but she just needed to thank him and a hug felt like the best way to do that while in a semi-crowded coffee shop. Also, playing up that they were madly in love didn’t hurt.

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, a hand flying over his chest in surprise to feel his racing heartbeat. “You scared the shit out of me.” Once he settled for a moment, his arm moved across his chest to rest on her arm. His touch was gentle and soft, holding her there gently like he didn’t want her to release him from her grasp. She tried not to think about it too much as she slipped her arms off of him, making her way to the seat that was clearly meant for her across from him.

“I’m sorry that I scared you. A little jumpy today?” she teasingly questioned.

“Hey, watch it,” he playfully threatened. “I believe you called me your hero about thirty seconds ago.”

“I guess I did,” she quipped over the mug she was bringing to her lips. It was sweet but not too sweet, with cream but not too much, and still piping hot; just the way she liked it. “I don’t think it’s too far off,” she smiled before turning back to the coffee. “Good coffee,” she mused. “Just the way I like it.”

“Good. I texted Jeff for your order,” he informed her, the gesture being so thoughtful and sweet she could have melted into a puddle right there and then. “And I think ‘hero’ might be a bit much,” he tacked on.

“Don’t be humble, Harry.” While her voice was still light and held a jesting tone, she meant her words. “You made the entire internet leave me alone, for the most part,” she clarified as there were definitely some nasty messages still floating around Twitter, “in five words.”

“It was the least I could do,” he said while shaking his head slightly, seeming to deflect her words.

“You could have done absolutely nothing.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hand in hers like they had staged at the cafe a few days earlier; but this time, it was an honest gesture, not one for a role they were both meant to be playing. Her words were serious, punctuating each with a gentle nod of her head. “I mean it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His eyes held the same truthfulness and honesty she hoped she was mirroring in her own. “I know all of this,” he paused and gestured between them with his free hand, “is for publicity, but I consider you a friend. It was hard to watch it all go down like that. You’re a good person and you didn’t deserve all that. I had to do something.”

There was a warmth that flooded her chest. He called me his friend, she thought to herself, fighting back a big toothy grin. She had been under the impression that all of this was just work for him, something he was doing just to drum up publicity, with no personal connections at all. But him calling her a friend meant so much to her. It meant she was not alone in all this terrifying and overwhelming attention.

“I’m glad you think of me as a friend,” she said, still holding back her smile. “You’re my friend too.” He matched her close-lipped smile that had fought its way onto her face at her words.

They sat in silence together for a few moments. Harry returned to his book and Y/N answered emails; but their hands stayed connected across the small table. This silence was very different from the silence on the day they first met. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence that sat on your tongue, begging you to break the quiet; it was peaceful and safe.

Their silence was broken when a young woman wearing a jittery smile and nervous eyes approached their table. Her voice squeaked out a mouse-like “Hi,” towards the both of them, bringing their eyes up to meet hers and instinctively breaking their hands away from each other.

“I’m so so sorry to be a bother,” she began, cheeks red and hot. “But I’m a really big fan of both of you and I would never forgive myself if I didn’t say hello.” She rambled excitedly, mostly looking at Harry, as she held her slightly shaky hands up to her chest.

“Hello,” Harry said with one of his million dollar smiles. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Emma,” she breathed.

“Well, it’s so nice to meet you Emma.” He spoke gently with her, clearly sensing her anxiety, extending his hand for her to shake. “Thank you for all of your support.”

Y/N watched closely as he spoke with her. He spoke to her like she was the only person in the room, giving her his whole undivided attention, and repeatedly thanking her as she flooded him with compliments about how his music and message of kindness meant so much to her. She was so entranced that she nearly didn’t hear her own name being said as the girl turned towards her.

“I love your music as well,” she grinned, clearly more comfortable after her short conversation with Harry. “And your jumpsuit is just incredible.” Her nervous giggle was contagious, Y/N releasing one as well at the compliment as her cheeks heated slightly. She was shocked she even knew any of her music, clearly being the less popular of the pair.  

“Thank you so much, Emma. It means a lot.”

Emma took a few quick selfies with the both of them (that would be everywhere within a few hours), said goodbye and went to leave the two, but not before she paid them one last compliment. “You two are really cute together. I’m rooting for you.”

Both of their cheeks warmed as they looked back at each other. They were quiet for a moment, unsure how to respond, before Harry turned his attention back to the girl with a coy smile. “I am too,” was all he said.

***

The next three weeks passed in a blur of tour rehearsals, fittings, and public meetings with Harry. And then all of a sudden, it was the night of the first show.

Y/N had never been so nervous in her entire life. She would be the first face seen by just over 19,000 people, tasked to warm up the crowd and prepare them for Harry, which was enough pressure. And then there was the chance that they all hated her guts.

She stood behind the curtain, listening to the loud and inpatient crowd as she paced back and forth. She white-knuckeld her guitar, trying to keep her violently shaking hands from being too visible to the crew around her. Her stomach swirled and her palms were clammy, constantly having to rub them on the pants of her icey blue jumpsuit. It fit her like a glove, the wide legged pants and slight shoulder pads, creating a perfect hourglass silhouette; the only thing she was confident in at the moment was how good she looked in it.

Her heart leapt out of her chest and she almost hit the ceiling when a small voice appeared over her shoulder, whispering “You’re going to do great,” in her ear. If her heart wasn’t about to give out before, it was now. She swung around to face him, almost hitting Harry with her guitar, letting out a small breath of relief when her eyes met his own. They always seemed to calm her down a bit.

“I’m kinda freaking out, H,” she anxiously babbled, using the nickname he had told her to call him. “This is the biggest crowd I’ve ever played in front of, and they probably all hate me because they think I’m dating you, and I have to make sure I do a good job so they start listening to my music; and I just…” she trailed off for a second, uncomfortably scratching the back of her neck, “I just can’t let you down.”

His face softened at her words, seeming to take pity on her. “Y/N,” he began, resting his hands on her shoulders and looking so deep into her eyes she felt like he could probably see her soul. “We picked you to open because people love your music and the way that you perform. You just have to go out there and do what you do best: sing your heart out and put on a good show. It’s only 25 minutes. I know you can do it.”

Every word that left his lips was laced with honesty and encouragement; just enough for Y/N to relax her furrowed brow and give her lip a break from her constant chewing. “I can do it,” she softly repeated back to him, still not breaking contact with his striking green eyes.

A stage manager passed by them, running to some other important task, but not before tapping her shoulder. “You’re on in 30 seconds,” he spoke, just as she heard the roar of the crowd begin, signalling the dimming of the lights in the arena.

“Go kick some ass,” he winked, stepping backwards from her and releasing her from his grasp. “I’ll be watching.”

Walking on stage, she wasn’t met with ‘boo’s that had plagued her nightmares, or mean looks from the audience, or rotten tomatoes thrown from the crowd.

They were screaming in excitement, screaming for her.

From the second she started playing, the crowd had her back; the ones that knew the words to her songs sang them along with her, and the ones that didn’t, happily danced to her voice. Before long, the smile she had forced onto her face was genuine, and her set passed by with ease. When her 25 minutes were up, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to get off the stage.

She took her final bow as the crowd roared, running off of the stage into the wings, looking for one person in particular. And when she found him, she threw herself into Harry’s open and waiting arms. “I told you that you were going to do great!” He spoke excitedly into her ear and he held her close to his body, his arms wrapped around her waist tight.

She liked the way it felt to be in his arms.

Pulling away from him, she saw the massive grin that he wore for her, noting how adorable his dimples were and how the excited look in his eyes made him look like a little kid. But there was more to his face than excitement, he looked proud.

“They were so nice to me, and they knew my songs, and they were screaming so loud for me, and it just went so well. I can’t believe it!” Her previous anxious chatter had become an exhilarated rambling and she felt on top of the world.

“I can,” he grinned, looking down at his watch quickly. “I have to go get changed.” If she wasn’t so amped up, she might have noticed the disappointment that flashed over his features. “Promise me you’ll watch the show?”

“Pinky swear?” She stuck up her little finger in the air.

“Pinky swear.” He kept their pinkies locked for a moment too long, then released her hand and ran backstage to get dressed.

She kept her promise and watched with excitement as the building shook when Harry took the stage.

She had never heard something quite so loud, sure her ears would be ringing when she snuggled into her bunk on the tour bus that night. Watching him perform was mesmerizing; he knew how to work a stage in every way and make every person in the arena feel like he was singing just for them. He was larger than life while performing and his little dances and mannerisms only got more pronounced the more comfortable he got on stage. He messed with Mitch, who she had only met a few hours ago (he was very nice), and constantly praised Sarah on the drums behind him, while he looked over to Adam and sent him smiles often.

Everyone in the building came for a show, and boy, did he give them one. It was amazing to watch. There was a reason she was a fan.

Bouncing off the stage, full of adrenaline and in a post-show high, he came to find her. It wasn’t hard, as she had never left her spot on the side of the stage, unable to rip her eyes away from the man before her.

“Oh my god, Harry! That was incredible!” she said with delighted amazement.

“I’m glad you liked it.” He was smiling down at her with a big toothy grin, a hand running through his sweaty hair and pushing it off his forehead. “They only get better from here.”

***

He was telling the truth. The shows only got crazier and more exciting as the tour went on, and so did their “relationship.”

About five shows in, Jeff had Harry given her his “H” ring to start wearing. Harry didn’t seem too phased by it all even though she thought it might be too much, saying “it’s like a friendship bracelet.” But it was too big for her fingers, not because she had small hands, but because Harry’s were absolutely massive. She wore it on a chain around her neck from then on and made sure to always be seen playing with it.

Fans took notice and loved it.

A little after that, Jeff sent them off to get matching manicures. Both had a melting rainbow of oranges, pinks, and browns on their fingertips, which looked amazing in the paparazzi photos of them walking around with their fingers intertwined.

The fans loved that too.

But when she “accidentally” posted a photo of Harry on her story, the entire world lost it’s shit. In the photo, he laid sprawled across a bed in only a white hotel robe that was creeping dangerously high up his thigh. He looked sleepy and slightly sweaty, in a post-fuck haze, and clothes that looked very similar to ones she had been seen wearing in public only days before were strewn across the floor. The caption read “I love getting to love you.”

The photo had strategically only been up for about 30 seconds, but by the time it was deleted thousands of people had seen it and screenshots had been taken. They quickly circulated the internet, creating a bit of scandal. But more than anything, people began to love the two of them together even more. Harry looked genuinely happy in the photo, and for most of his fans, that was all that mattered.  

They were creating a fairytale love story for an audience, but she would be lying if she said she wasn’t enjoying her role. She quite liked being his “girlfriend.”

Harry and Y/N had a way of clicking as they grew closer–quite literally as they were crammed together on a tour bus most of the time. They seemed to be able to finish each other’s sentences and always beat the other to the punchline of a joke. The pair had begun to pick up on the other’s mannerisms and habits; Y/N always teasing that Harry was going to rub his nose off one day if he kept rubbing it while he was thinking and Harry always knowing when she got enough sleep by whether or not she had put on eyeliner that morning. They swapped playlists back and forth in their bunks as they tried to doze off and always grabbed a cup of coffee for whoever had decided to sleep in the next day, now knowing the other’s order by heart.

There was only one thing she didn’t know about him that she longed to discover: what his lips felt like against her own. She could never think too hard about it though, or she may just explode.

He had become a calming presence and was currently helping her keep her cool, even though she knew the pair of interviewers across the table were getting ready to grill the pair for every detail they could get. His hand had settled on top of her knee to quell it’s nervous bouncing, but remained after she had stopped, even though no one could see his touch under the table. She watched as his thumb ran itself back and forth along the leg of her flashy orange and yellow patterned overalls and she had a hard time pulling her gaze away when the radio host across the large table began to speak.

“So Harry,” the bald man began. “Fine Line has been one of the biggest albums of the year and I just have to say I love it. It’s truly incredible.” She listened as the man continued on to sing Harry’s praises, going on to list his grammy nominations, sold out world tour, and other accolades. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched his cheeks tinge pink with the praise. She knew anyone watching would pick up on her adoring look and people fawn over it, but she knew her gaze was nothing but truthful.

“Thank you very much,” he said shyly, shaking his head slightly as he spoke into the microphone suspended in front of his face. “You’re too kind.”

“Stop being humble,” she teased him, playfully tapping him on the arm. “All of his music is fantastic,” she said turning her attention back to the man across from them, “especially Fine Line.”

“And there’s Y/N, being the supportive girlfriend,” the man chuckled.

“I support him in everything he does,” she smiled back, not having to embellish the truth at all. “He is an amazing talent and I think Fine Line shows that.”

It wasn’t hard for her to gush about him. It was actually quite easy. She absolutely adored him, as an artist, a friend, and the focus of her affection. She felt an equal warmth in her cheeks as she watched his get even pinker with her compliments.

“That’s actually something we wanted to ask you about,” the blonde woman sitting next to him piped up, a mischievous glint in her eyes that sent nervous butterflies flying around Y/N’s stomach. “One of the songs on Fine Line, Cherry to be specific, actually features the voice of Harry’s ex, Camille. How does that make you feel as his new girl?”

Y/N did her best not to gag at the woman’s question, gritting her teeth as she plastered on a polite smile. “Well, I think Cherry is a really great song and her voice at the end adds a lot,” she spoke as smoothly as she could, refusing to let on that the question rattled her. Harry’s light squeeze on her knee signalled to her that she had answered the question well.

“It’s also been three years since the song was written,” Harry cut in. “Things are obviously a lot different now.” He connected their eyes for a second while he was leaning back into his seat, sending her a short smile, but she knew him well enough to know it was genuine.

“Oh, definitely,” the woman eagerly agreed. “You’re in a great new relationship with a beautiful girl on your arm.”

“Y/N,” he emphasized her name as the woman had referred to her as a possession of his for a second time, “and I are very happy. Thank you.” To an onlooker, he was calm. To her, he was visibly uncomfortable by her words.

Y/N began to notice a clear pattern as the interview went on. Harry was asked exclusively about his music and the tour, while Y/N only became relevant to their interviewers when they wanted to mention their relationship.

When the man asked Y/N if she felt uncomfortable playing to Harry’s mainly female fanbase every night that are “so obviously jealous of her,” something snapped inside of her, sending all her hours of media training out the window. “I’m not uncomfortable at all,” she said curtly. “His music is great and he puts on an awesome show. I don’t think the audience’s gender really has anything to do with the music.” She watched the man’s face fall before she decided to go on. “And I would like to think that at least a few of them are there for me too. You do know I make music too, right?”

An indignant smirk found its way to her lips as the man stammered out, “yes, of course.”

“Okay. I was just wondering since you have only asked me questions about our relationship since we got here.”

She knew Jeff wouldn’t be happy, but at the moment, she couldn’t care less. They may not have really been dating, but the interviewers didn’t know that. All of their dismissal of her and her career was 100% real.

She had been so worked up that she didn’t even realize Harry’s hand had left her knee until it found its way to rest on her back. She leaned into his touch as he rubbed her back softly while she crossed her arms in front of her.

The interviewers looked at the two of them across the table, jaws both lying on the floor. It was quiet until Harry nonchalantly spoke. “She has a point.”

The last few minutes of the interview passed in an awkward blur that felt suffocating. She felt like she could finally take in a deep breath once they were in the back of a massive SUV being driven away from the studio.

“Jeff is going to have my head,” she mumbled under her breath, nose stuck into her phone as she scrolled Twitter to see what people were saying about her outburst. But before she could read any opinions, Harry's tattooed arm blocked her view as he gently pushed her phone down onto her lap.

“Look at me,” he murmured, beckoning her attention to the other side of the back seat. When she connected her eyes with his, his usual calming aura took over her, softening the stressed crease between her brows. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Harry, I just blew my career up into smoke because I couldn’t deal with a rude interviewer,” she huffed at him.

“No,” he disagreed softly, moving the hand that rested on her arms to interlock his fingers with one of hers. “You stuck up for yourself to people who were ignoring your work and whittling you down to your relationship.”

“But it was rude.”

“It was necessary.”

The car ride to the venue for that night’s concert was quiet, but Harry never let go of her hand, brushing his thumb over her knuckles in a comforting touch. She wasn’t sure if she ever wanted him to let go.

***

It was the early hours of the morning by the time the pair returned to their tour bus and went to crawl into their bunks.

Her performance had gone well and Harry was mesmerizing (as always). He was truly hypnotizing to watch while he performed and she hadn’t missed watching him yet, even as they drew close to the end of the tour. It was the best part of her day and she would miss it dearly after the last show.

She was almost asleep, curtain drawn and cuddled under a pile of blankets, when her cell began to ring. Her heart sank, knowing only one person who would know when she had a sliver of free time (even though it’s debatable if sleeping counts as free time). She was going to get scolded like she was a little kid in the principal's office and she knew it.

“Hi Jeff,” she answered with a sigh as she pulled the curtain back and slid from the bunk, the cold air of the tour bus nipping at her legs.

Her gaze was met by a snuggled up Harry wearing a concerned face across from her in his own bed. He never closed the curtain, not even when she asked politely to muffle his snores, always saying something about how it made him claustrophobic. He sent her a tired smile and mouthed “good luck,” extending a hand for a fist bump as she passed. Knocking their knuckles together put a brief smile on her face before she buckled in for the chewing out she was about to get.

Harry watched her intently as she paced up and down the front of the tour bus as she spoke to Jeff, too far away for him to listen in. Her face gradually turned from anxious, to surprised, to something that would have probably been happiness if she wasn’t so tired.

“Alright, thank you for everything.” She spoke softly when she finally returned to be within earshot for him. “Goodnight Jeff.”

“So?” he murmured groggily at her, brows raised in question at her.

“People loved it,” she said shocked, like she didn’t fully believe it herself. “They think I’m some kind of badass for shutting down a sexist. Which is, like, a lot,” she spoke with a disbelieving chuckle, unable to find the right words in her groggy state. “I don’t really know what to make of it.”

Harry seemed to spring up from his spot in his bed, smacking his head on the top of the bunk in the process, prompting them both to dissolve into a puddle of giggles.

“Don’t get too excited for me,” she laughed. “I cannot be the reason that you hurt yourself and have to cancel a show.”

“I was just too excited to say ‘I told you so,’” he smirked, now rubbing the side of his head through his curls.

“Cocky bastard,” she sarcastically murmured under her breath while dramatically rolling her eyes.

She watched with confusion as Harry left his bed, and after a short and frantic search for his pajama pants so he wouldn’t “offend her eyes,” he moved towards the front of the bus. Her eyes trailed him as he bent down to the small mini fridge and pulled out two beers.

“We have to celebrate.”

It was 2 AM and she had been so ready for bed after a long day. But she knew she could never say no to him. She thanked god that they had a day off tomorrow.

After retrieving her massive and lovingly worn Grateful Dead sweatshirt to protect her from the chilly air, she nearly ran to the front of the bus. His painted pink fingers moved with skill as he popped the bottle caps off with one of his rings, handing it to her and gently nudging his bottle against hers.

“Cheers,” he murmured softly as he looked down at her with a kindhearted smile.

“Cheers,” she seemed to whisper back to him, a flutter in her stomach reminding her how badly she wanted to reach out and connect her lips to his. Instead she slid into the small booth across from him, taking a long sip from the bottle as she watched him do the same.

“I want you to know that I was really proud of you today,” he said as he put his beer down on the table. “Rude interviewers are never easy and you handled it like a champ.”

“Thank you, H,” she nodded, suddenly bashful and unable to make eye contact with him. Her cheeks burned hot as she put all her focus into tracing the rim of the bottle with her finger tip.

“Hey,” he called for her attention and her eyes snapped up to meet his. “I mean it, Y/N.”

“I know you do,” she gently nodded at him. “I’m just really happy they didn’t ask about my ex,” she chuckled as she took another sip. “That would have gone very poorly.”

“Oh yeah, I was a little annoyed they brought up my ex but not yours,” he teased. “Not fair if you ask me.”

“Well, then I’m glad no one asked you.”

“Can I ask you?”

“What?”

“About your ex.”

She should have been prepared to talk about it with Harry at some point. Half of this plan had been devised to get back at James anyway. She should be able to talk about it by now, especially with someone she had grown so close to.

“I guess so,” she shrugged, trying to seem casual like the mere mention of him didn’t still hurt her heart a little bit. “What do you want to know?”

“As much as you’re willing to tell me.”

He looked soft like this, eyes slightly sleepy with a tenderness in them as he looked back at her. His hair was unruly and puffy and he was wrapped in the powder blue blanket that lived on the tour bus’ couch. She would have told him anything that he ever wanted to hear if he kept looking like this.

With a deep breath, she began to recount everything that went down.

“I met James while I was still working as a waitress. I recognized him from his movies and started a conversation, and then–to my surprise–he asked me out on a date. I had been in LA for three weeks and this insanely famous actor is asking me to go out with him, so I obviously said yes.” She paused to take a swig of her beer, before mumbling under her breath, “I should have said ‘fuck no’ to that.”

A smile ghosted over her lips as she listened to Harry’s laugh across the table. She swore that laugh could cure cancer.

“But I didn’t,” she continued. “He introduced me to the right people and helped me make the right connections in the industry, which I guess made me feel indebted to him. Does that make sense?”

“Of course,” Harry nodded, eyebrows furrowed and listening intently.

“I should have broken up with him after I signed with Jeff and the label, however awful that sounds. But he just always knew the right things to say to make me feel special and like I was the most important person in the world. Even after I found out he was talking to other girls, he was somehow able to talk himself out of it.” She shook her head as she recalled it. “You wanna hear something fucked up?”

“Always,” he said with a gentle smirk.

“He proposed to me using lines from a romcom he was working on.”

Harry nearly spit out his drink. “Holy shit, you’re kidding!”

“I wish. I didn’t find out until I went with him to the premier a few months later and the proposal scene sounded surprisingly familiar.”

“What a dirtbag.”

“I know, right?” she laughed. “Then a few weeks after that, he got papped with his tongue down another girl’s throat. That finally knocked some sense into me and I ran for the hills.”

“Fuck,” he sighed as he finished his beer. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she breathed. “I don’t even feel hurt by him anymore, ya know? I just feel angry at myself for trusting him.”

“I understand but it’s not your fault he was a piece of shit,” he said as he rose from his seat and traveled to the mini fridge once again. “Another?” he asked, holding the bottle up about his head.

“Fuck it,” she shrugged. “Sure.”

She watched him skillfully pop off the tops again using just his rings, making a mental note to make him teach her how he did that, before he flopped back down in his seat.  

“At the risk of sounding like a Facebook mom, ‘you grow through what you go through,’” she chuckled, taking another long sip as she finished her first. He matched her high pitched giggle across the table and she nearly drooled beer down her front from smiling so wide.

“Amen, sister,” he agreed, raising his beer in the air.

“Oh, that was awful.” She shook her head as she descended into giggles. “Please never say that again.”

“Noted.”

“Anyway,” she began again after another sip of her drink, “I was well prepared to get my heartbroken by untrustworthy men after you, Styles.”

“I’m offended–tell me more,” he spoke quickly, his signature narcissistic smirk settling onto his features.

“I need you to know that Zayn leaving was my first real heartbreak.”

“Were the rest of us chopped liver?”

“You weren’t Zayn, I can tell you that.”

“Ouch!” He let out a loud belly laugh.

“Put yourself in my shoes for a minute, H. So first, the hottest-”

“Rude-”

“-I’m speaking. So the hottest one leaves, and then the rest of you are all like ‘we’ll be back in 18 months,’” she mocked him in a high pitched impersonation with a wave, “and then 6 months later you all mysteriously have solo careers.”

“I do not see you complaining about my solo career now, ya fame leetch.” He spoke with such humor and charisma, she couldn’t have even wished to be offended by his joke.

“Absolutely not, sir,” she said sternly, giving him a dramatic salute. “Deepest apologies from the fame leetch.” The two collapsed into giggles, laughing until their sides began to ache.

“Wait, I have a question for mega superstar Mr. Harry Styles of former One Direction fame,” she announced.

“I believe that’s me,” he bowed his head and raised his hand into the hair. “Shoot.”

She barely could get the question out, laughing too hard at her own joke. “Is Taylor Swift a good kisser?”

“Oh god,” he exasperatedly threw his hands in the air, chuckling while rolling his eyes dramatically before grinning wide as he thought over his answer. “I don’t kiss and tell,” he finally smirked.

“Wait, I have another!”

“Watch it, smart ass.”

“You think I’m smart?” she teased as she feigned flattery. “Have you ever heard of a song called ‘English Love Affair?’” He narrowed his eyes at her, a knowing smirk crossing his lips as he shook his head at her. “Also, when do I get to meet Gemma?”

“I’ll consider it when you stop bringing up her sex life, perv.”

“We’ve been dating for a few months now,” she teased as she continued to prod, emboldened by the liquid courage running through her veins as she was now half way through her next beer. “I think I should be allowed to meet the family soon. They seem delightful.”

“They would love how you have decided to rip into me like this,” he said with a cheeky smile, dimples on full display.

“Rockstars have to get knocked down a peg every once in a while.” She sarcastically shrugged. “Consider it a favor.”

She couldn’t help but think about how right this felt. Their back and forth flowed so smoothly, the banter falling from their lips without effort. Their laughter joined together in a delightful melody and she imagined they could go on this way all night.

Spending any amount of time with him made her so fucking happy; and time spent teasing each other over beers caused her to nearly explode with joy. How much she was enjoying herself was too hard to put into words.

He was safe and he was kind and he made her laugh no matter how bad his jokes were.

He was her best friend.

And for the first time, she was willing to admit that she was in love with him.

“Harry,” she hummed softly as their laughter died down to a comfortable silence. “Thank you for everything. You’ve changed my life forever and I can never repay you.”

“Just remember me when you get famous.”

“Oh shut up, I’m being serious,” she playfully scolded before letting her tone drop back into honesty. “You’re a very good person and I’m eternally grateful for you letting me be your opening act and then agreeing to this whole relationship charade.”

“I didn’t ‘let’ you be anything, Y/N. I picked you myself.”

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I listened to your album when it came out and fell in love with it,” he shrugged, his casual tone contradicting the surprised raise of her pulse. “When I found out Jeff also managed you, I knew I had to have you on the tour.”

Y/N was honestly stunned. She had always assumed that the tour was Jeff’s doing, a careful arrangement pairing Full Stop’s new up-and-comer with their most famous and established talent. Being offered the tour had been the biggest opportunity and honor she had ever been presented with; but she had never considered Harry himself being behind it.

“Oh,” was all she could manage to get out.

It was now his turn to be confused. “What’s so surprising about that?” he asked, reading the shock on her face like she was an open book.

“I just,” she stammered, trying to find the words in her slightly hazy state. “I never would have thought you knew who I was or listened to my music.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” she trailed off. “You’re you, and I’m just... me, I guess.”

He didn’t respond right away, just looking at her intently and slightly amused, sea glass eyes boring into her with a pink lip held between his teeth.

He scanned her frame, from the way her hair sat messily on top of her head and the way the massive sweatshirt swallowed her body enough to where she had pulled her knees up to her chest underneath it. Her shoulders were slumped slightly, making her appear smaller as she held her legs close to her torso and her eyebrows were knitted together in worry, slightly nervous under his intense gaze.

She downed the rest of her beer in an attempt to forget his intense attention. It didn’t work.

“You really don’t know how incredible you are, do you?” he finally asked, the corner of his lips twitching into a small smile.

She felt her whole body burn with his compliment, wanting to shrink into herself and disappear completely from his view. She finally shook her head slightly in an attempt to deflect his words, breathing his name under her breath as if to scold him for being too kind.

“You are,” he insisted, ignoring her objection. “You’re so talented and your music deserves all the attention that it gets. I am honored that I get to play a part in helping expose the world to you and what you have to offer.”

“Thank you.” Her words came out as a whisper.

“You’re welcome, love.”

His pet name made her stomach turn in a nervous excitement and a wide grin involuntarily came to her lips.

“I like it when I make you smile like that.” His words only made her beam further. “You look very pretty when you smile.”

“Stop it,” she said softly, cheeks burning hot and having a hard time making eye contact with him.

“Stop what?” He feigned innocence as he lightly teased her, smirk still prominent on his features.

“Are you flirting with me, Styles?”

“Just practicing.”

His words rang through her mind long after they had left the table and crawled back into their bunks for the night. She wished she could see inside his head to understand whatever thoughts were running around his brain.

But for now she could just peak at him through the gap she had purposely left in her curtain, wondering if she ever popped into his dreams as he slept.

He was always in hers.

***

There was a sadness mixed in with her usually thrilled mood as she took the stage for the last show of the tour. While there was an element of relief as she looked forward to some well needed rest, the adrenaline and joy of being in front of a crowd was something that she would miss dearly. She had grown into a real performer over the last two months as they zig-zagged across the US and this period of time would have a special place in her heart long after it had ended.

But there was another reason why she was so sad to see this chapter come to an end. As far as she knew, a staged breakup was not far away and the thought of being without Harry was heartbreaking. He had become her person and soon their feux falling out would be on the front page of every magazine. She wanted nothing more in the world than for their relationship to be real, but it would be forced to end before it had even truely started.

She got choked up as she sang her final song that night, letting a few tears escape as she took in the thousands of people singing her lyrics back to her, flashlights swaying in the air to the beat of the music. Taking a move from Harry’s own playbook, she took her mic and directed it to the crowd to sing as she cried. The vibrations of the drums and bass behind her nestled it’s way into her bones and the chorus of singing voices in the crowd surrounded her in a bittersweet melody.

The past two months she had been on top of the world, and as soon as this song finished, it was the beginning of the end.

She took her final bow, watching as the small tears fell forward onto the dusty stage below her. She waved and blew kisses to the crowd, then nearly ran off the stage looking for the only person she wanted to see.

Harry was right where he always was, just out of view behind the curtain, holding his arms out for her to fall into.

“Awe, babe,” he hummed sympathetically when she settled her head onto his chest, surely ruining his crisp white t-shirt with her now wet makeup. “It’s okay. Final shows are always tough.” He rubbed her back gently, in a soothing rhythm.

He smelled so good. He smelled like home.

She tilted her head up to connect her glassy eyes with his. “I just don’t want this all to end.” She knew she wasn’t just talking about the tour.

“Neither do I,” he said as his lips curved into a devilish smirk that sent her heart into palpitations. “That’s why I have one last surprise for you.”

“Oh, Harry,” she sighed while wiping the remaining tears off her cheeks. “What have you done?”

“You said you liked surprises!” he defended.

“Not surprises in front of 20,000 people!”

“I promise you’re going to love this one, okay?” His voice was softer now, encouraging and supportive. “You’re going to come out and sing an extra song with me during my set,” he revealed.

“Sing what?”

“That’s the surprise.”

“Do I even know the words?”

“You definitely know the words,” he chuckled.

“I just finished sobbing. I can’t go out there like this.”

“You can fix your makeup. I believe in you.”

“What am I going to wear?” she asked, grasping at straws at this point, doing anything she could to get out of this.

“I had Lambert put something together for you.”

“Of course you did.”

She peppered him with a few more questions, but he had a smooth and charming answer to every single one. He had thought every detail out, and as always, she couldn’t say no to him.

“Fine,” she finally exasperatedly agreed, immediately met with his excited and dimpled smile that she had fallen head over heels for.

“Perfect,” he breathed. “I have to go get ready and so do you. I already put everything you need in your dressing room, okay?” She nodded, still biting her lip anxiously. He held her by her shoulders, lowering his head to match their eye level as he leaned in close, before he spoke. “You’re going to have fun. I promise.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Pinky swear.”

Seconds after they locked their little fingers together, he pressed a quick and protective kiss to her forehead that set her whole body ablaze before running off in the direction of his dressing room. She remained stunned and frozen in her spot for a few moments trying to process what it felt like to have his lips on her for the first time since that very first day they had met.

There was no audience to perform it for or an act to keep up behind the curtain. He kissed her because he wanted to.

She was finally snapped out of her daze when a stagehand bumped into her by accident, prompting her to begin the short walk back to her dressing room. But the ghost of his lips remained on her forehead, an incessant tingle placed there by his touch.

The dress she found waiting for her was one of the most beautiful gowns she had ever set her eyes on. Made of a light purple chiffon, the wrap dress’ long sleeves and floor length skirt flowed freely. A belt cinched the wispy fabric close to her waist and a deep-v exposed her neck and chest. But the most dazzling part of the dress were the red sequined hearts that dotted the fabric and reflected the light of the dressing room like a million little mirrors.

Slipping into it, the light fabric was soft against her skin, opaque enough but still slightly sheer to let light through and show off her legs and the bright red shiny pumps Lambert had left for her. She felt the most beautiful she had ever felt in this dress, boosting her confidence and quelling her nerves about whatever the hell Harry was planning.

“One minute to curtain,” was announced in an ominous voice over the arena’s backstage speakers as she finished fixing her makeup and she all but ran to make it back to the stage in time. She only had one more chance to watch him perform and she refused to miss a second of it.

Harry dazzled as the lights focused in on him, his deep blue and fully sequined suit reflecting the light and turning him into a human disco ball. He stood close to the edge of the stage as the beginning notes of the first song began being played by the band, but he made no move towards his mic stand to sing. His eyes were closed and his arms were outstretched to the audience, taking in every scream, every tear, and the thunderous shake of the building; but also giving himself to them.

Then the show began. As usual, he was electric, but tonight was like he had turned himself up to eleven. Every note he sang was full of his heart and every dance move was done with his entire body, even his bad jokes seemed funnier tonight.

She was so mesmerized she almost forgot about his ‘surprise.’ Almost.

“Since tonight is unfortunately our last show,” he pouted. “I thought I would do something special,” he spoke to the crowd as they roared, but quickly connected his eyes with her’s in the wings. By the smirk plastered on his face, she knew she was in for it.

“I recently found out that someone very close to me was a very big fan of…” he trailed off as he dramatically pretended to search for the right words, “my previous work.” He finished with a smirk and his words prompted the loudest reaction since he had been on stage.

“Now, I told her that she would be coming on stage to join me tonight, but I didn’t exactly tell her what we would be singing and I haven’t performed this song in a very long time, so cut us some slack if we mess up. This is very unrehearsed.” He kept sneaking glances back to her, as her eyes grew wider at the stunt he was currently pulling. “But I know for a fact that she knows all the words. I listen to her sing them in the shower quite often.” He wore a cheeky dimpled grin as he looked back at her once again.

The building was shaking due to the suspense he was creating, and looking down at her hands, she realized she was to. She gripped hard onto the mic a stagehand had just shoved at her, pleading with her hands to stop their tremors.

“Now, I would love it if you could all give another warm welcome to one of my favorite people on the planet, Y/N Y/L/N!” He turned his body to her for a final time, extending his hand out for her to take. Her legs felt like jello as she walked out into the bright lights towards him, interlocking her fingers with his as a way to keep her on her feet.

The audience’s screams were deafening at seeing the two of them together and she thanked god she had her earpieces in to protect her ear drums or they would have surely burst. She could only imagine the articles that would be written about this and the thousands of tweets that were probably already being sent.

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” she mouthed at him threateningly, but she couldn’t even get through the sentence before his dazzling smile began to quell her anxiety.

“The look on your face is 100% worth getting my ass kicked,” he answered smoothly before turning his attention back to the audience. “Everyone, sing along if you know the words,” he commanded their attention. “This is Ready to Run.”

Her jaw dropped and the crowd roared as the band behind her began to play the first few chords of the song she loved and knew so well. She had admitted it a few days ago that it was one of her favorites of his ‘previous work,’ but apparently he already knew that from the few showers she had taken on the tour bus.

“There’s a lightning in your eyes I can’t deny,” he began by himself, her brain still too shocked to jump in yet. He sang the first few lines to her with a giant grin plastered on his face, hand still holding tight to hers. His eyes had a playful glint in them that seemed to say ‘just have fun.’

“There’s a devil in your smile, it’s chasing me,” she finally began to sing, Harry fading his voice out so she could take the next few lines by herself as he admired her.

He did have a devilish smile, but it was one she loved with her entire heart. As she began to sing, she felt her muscles begin to relax into the song she had sung to herself so many times before, letting her body begin to bounce to the growing rhythm as her dress flowed around her.

The stage vibrated as Sarah beat her drums to introduce the chorus. “This time I’m ready to run, escape from the city and follow the sun,” the pair sang together, eyes still locked as their voices combined into the most perfect tune. “Cause I wanna be yours, don’t you wanna be mine?” they continued the lyrics. She felt herself meaning the words leaving her mouth more and more as they went on. She did want to be his, she couldn’t deny that. “I don’t wanna get lost in the dark of the night.”

Her apprehensiveness eased further as the music picked up and the hook went on, finally allowing herself to have a bit of fun. “Wherever you are is the place I belong,” they insisted towards each other, leaning in close before Harry grabbed her hand to dramatically spin her, the beautiful shining fabric of her dress splaying out around her. The next line was mumbled through giggles by both of them, but their laughter only added to the perfect moment they were having.

They danced across the stage together like there weren’t 20,ooo pairs of eyes watching them, both singing their hearts out to each other. It began to feel like they weren’t even there. It was just Y/N and Harry, serenading each other to one of her favorite songs.

“There’s a future in my eyes I can’t foresee,” she sang to him to start the second verse.

“Unless, of course, I stay on course and keep you next to me.” Harry grabbed her by her waist and pulled her into his side as he sang the words, prompting more giggles from her. She loved the way he smiled so wide as he sang, never breaking his eye contact with her and emitting pure joy. His eyes looked honest as he sang, like he meant every word just as much as she did.

The pair made their way through the rest of the verse and second chorus, flawlessly moving around the stage like they owned it. Y/N selfishly decided to let him have the bridge all to himself, needing to hear the way his beautiful voice hit the high notes. “This time I’m ready to run,” he sang passionately, executing the downward moving riff perfectly. “I’d give everything that I got for your love,” he pointed across the stage towards her, beckoning her back close to him. She quickly skipped to him at his request.

Like she had blinked, the song was already nearing its end.

“Cause I wanna be free and I wanna be young, I’ll never look back now I’m ready to run,” they belted the last lines out to each other. The band fell quiet on their last chord and the crowd exploded, but their noise fell on deaf ears as the pair stood so close their heaving chests were almost pressed up against each other. His eyes stared down into hers and she watched as his eyes flickered quickly down to her lips.

The world ceased to exist when he pressed his mouth to hers, even if it only lasted a second. It was nothing more than a peck, but it was everything to her. Her body igniting with heat and eyes full of shock, she looked back at him in simultaneous confusion and adoration, before realizing they had been staring at each other for too long. She needed to get off the stage so he could continue with his show. She walked back slowly towards the wings, letting the hand he had still been holding fall to her side. She waved and smiled to the crowd the best she could in her clouded mind.

“Thank you everyone!” she shouted into her mic as she moved out of their view. She shoved her mic into the first set of hands that would take it as she wobbled her way over to a table with water bottles. She nearly choked as she tried to suck one down, hoping it would ease the dizzy feeling he had created with his lips. Her lips burned just as her forehead had earlier in the night.

He had kissed her. He had sang a love song with her and then he had kissed her. She couldn’t decipher if that kiss was a confirmation that he shared the same feelings for her or if it was just another act for the cameras. But his mouth felt so right against hers. They fit together like a pair of puzzle pieces. She tried to suppress the optimistic hope that rose in her chest, but it began to swallow her whole.

When she heard his next song begin, she made her way back to the spot that had become hers at the side of the stage. She watched him perform the rest of the show in a loving haze, doe eyed and hypnotized, lips still buzzing from his contact.

He gave it his all. By the last song he was out of breath, drenched in sweat, and looked like he was about to pass out at any second. The crowd applauded for minutes after he left the stage and they were still cheering when she finally caught sight of him again. His curls were stuck to his forehead and his skin was shiny and flushed. He was panting, still trying to recover from his workout of a finale show; but he was beaming. His smile seemed to turn him into a beacon, emitting a light and positive energy that drew everyone backstage towards him.

She was so transfixed on Harry as he thanked the crew and accepted congratulations from all around that she just about jumped out of her skin when Jeff slinked up behind her and whispered ‘boo’ in her ear.

“What the fuck, Jeff,” she chuckled as she caught her breath, resting her hand on her chest and feeling her racing heartbeat.

“I just wanted to congratulate you on being half of the best fake couple out there,” he teased. “That kiss was perfect. People are losing their minds over it.”

“Oh,” she said softly, feeling every emotion she was distracted from while watching Harry rush back into her. Her heart sank as she remembered all the questions that continued to haunt her since she got off stage. “Thanks,” she murmured, plastering a smile onto her face. “I’m glad we could make you proud.”

“If you two could convince me, you can convince anyone.” Jeff walked off moments later, leaving her to sit in her confused thoughts as he disappeared into the hoards of bodies waiting for their minute with Harry.

She knew that she didn’t ‘convince’ Jeff of anything on her part. Everything she did with Harry was authentic and truthful. Including the thrilled grin that appeared on her face when she finally made eye contact with the exhausted man across the room. She gave him a shy wave that he sheepishly returned, biting back a shy smile. He pointed in the direction of his dressing room and mouthed “meet me in 15.”

She could never say no to him.

Fifteen minutes later, she was knocking on the large wooden door that had a single piece of paper that read STYLES haphazardly taped onto it. When it finally flew open, she was met by a soaking wet Harry with a towel hanging dangerously low on his hips. Her eyes trailed down his body without permission, taking in the toned torso that was decorated with his beautiful tattoos. Her eyes hovered over the two ferns that sat on his pelvis, too fascinated with the dark ink to pull her eyes away just yet.

She had obviously seen him in various states of undress before. They lived together on a tour bus without much space to exist with privacy, but this was different. He wasn’t rushing to get dressed or quickly changing his outfit. And he wasn’t moving away from her gaze at all.

If she hadn’t been so entranced by him, she would have noticed he was looking her up and down in the exact same manner.

She had changed since she had seen him last. The skin-tight black velvet romper she had brought along for the afterparty now fit her snuggly and held her every curve. The dark fabric was tight and appeared almost painted on, a rainbow racing stripe making its way down either side of her chest. The short shorts of the outfit exposed nearly all of her legs and the deep neckline put much of her chest on display as well. It’s long sleeves were her favorite part, as a strip of fringe dangled from below her arms any time she moved.

“You look great,” Harry finally choked out, his voice pulling their eyes back up to the other’s face.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, slightly awkwardly. “You too.”

“Well, I’m hopefully not going to the after party dressed like this,” he chuckled before stepping aside and ushering her into the room.

His dressing room was much larger than hers and she settled herself on the brown leather couch in the corner as she waited for him to get ready, sneaking glances up from her phone often. She chuckled as she watched him spend far too long fussing with his curls in the mirror, but was quickly distracted by the way his back and arms flexed when he reached up to muse his hair. Once he was satisfied with the way it fell, he disappeared into the bathroom at the back of the room. When he emerged, he was finally dressed, allowing her to take a deep breath and to focus on something other than his bare skin for the first time since he had opened the door.

The black satin suit was simple for him, but the tight white tank top that sat underneath hugged every muscle in his torso. She knew as soon as he got in the hot club, he would lose the jacket, and she would be devastatingly distracted once again.

The narcissist took one final look at himself in the mirror before turning to her and extending a hand. “Ready, darling?”

“You just spent 15 minutes exclusively on your hair and you’re asking me if I’m ready?” she teased as she took his hand, weaving her fingers between his as they exited the room together.

He leaned down close to her ear as they walked down the now mostly empty hallway, lips brushing over the hollow of her ear as he spoke. “I could have done it faster, but you were so obviously enjoying the show.”

“Relax yourself, Magic Mike,” she muttered indignantly, but hung her head in a way she hoped he couldn’t see how flustered he made her. Was she really that obvious?

They walked hand in hand out to the parking garage, now caught in a back and forth about whether or not Harry could be a male stripper. He said yes. She said no, although she did admit at one point that he worked his mic stand like a pole.

“Hey Jeff,” he called when they finally reached the parking garage where Jeff and Glenne had been waiting for them to head to the club. “Do you think I could be a stripper?”

“I think people would pay a lot to see it, but they may be disappointed in your dancing skills.”

“Come on,” he playfully whined. “I have some moves.”

“You have one move,” Y/N cut in with a chuckle, “and it’s the wiggle.” She brought her hands up near her chest, tilted her head back while dramatically biting her lip, and swayed her arms by her sides, earning a chorus of laughter from the people around her.

She hadn’t even realized she had done the move without releasing Harry’s hand first, dragging his arm into her dance as well, until their manager commented on it. “You know, you two don’t have to be holding hands all the time and keeping the show up back here,” he said with a slightly suspicious quirk in his eyebrows.

Her smile had been in the process of fading, like they had been caught doing something wrong, before Harry answered smoothly. “We know. Just practicing.”

There were those words again. Just practicing, she thought over to herself. But was he practicing anymore? How many flirty comments, heartfelt compliments, and warm touches did it take to cross the line of practicing to the real thing?

She wasn’t sure about Harry, but she knew that she wasn’t just practicing anymore.

She knew that the way they sat nearly on top of each other in the large SUV on the way to the club felt more than friendly. And the way he hadn’t stopped touching her in some way since they left his dressing room insinuated far more than something with business-like intentions. And the way he looked at her everytime he caught her eye the entire way to the club, always with a bright smile and adoring gaze that she always returned, pulled at her heartstrings far more than they should have if this was all an act.

A sloppy and cheeky grin settled almost permanently on his features after he had a few drinks in him, his arms moving in a lazy and fluid manner as she took in his many tattoos that he had exposed when he ditched his jacket (just like she knew he would). His butterfly was visible through the tight ribbed fabric of the white tank top and the little birds that peaked out from underneath seemed to be inviting her even closer to him in her now inebriated state.

All she wanted to do was to connect her lips with his as she watched him make conversation with someone from his management, entranced by the way his perfect mouth moved as he spoke. She once again craved the shocks of electricity that were created between them at the contact and could not stop thinking about it no matter how hard she tried. The protective hand that had settled onto her hip and continued to hold her close to his body just wasn’t enough anymore.

The pair had been drinking far too much; martinis turning into vodka sodas that had turned into straight tequila shots. She believed it was tequila shot four that did her in. The last thing she remembered was licking the line of salt off the back of her hand, downing the shot, and being entranced by Harry’s eyes as she bit down on the slice of lime he held carefully with his jeweled fingers.  

***

The next morning, Y/N woke up in a hotel room that she didn’t recognize with a pounding headache and a swirling gut. It felt like she had been hit with a truck and she could barely pick her head up off the pillow.

She had so many questions about what had happened the night before. Where was she? Who let her drink that much? Whose clothes was she wearing? But most of all, what the hell happened after that fourth shot?

But she realized the worst was yet to come when she heard soft snoring coming from beside her. She knew that snoring well. It was the snoring that kept her up half the night for the last two months and the one that had almost driven her to suffocating her bus-mate in his sleep; the snoring that matched the crumbled black suit she just noticed in a ball on the floor.

It took every ounce of strength in her body to pull herself from the pillow and turn around in the bed to have her suspicions confirmed.

There he was.

His dark long eyelashes were fluttered down across the tops of his cheeks and his hair was going in every direction, skin clammy like his body was trying to rid itself of all the poison he had ingested the night before. The crumpled comforter was pushed down his stomach, his bare skin holding a sheen that helped define every dip or curve of his muscles and the tiniest bit of the band of his boxers peaked out to assure her that he at least wasn’t fully naked next to her.

Why were they in bed together? And why did he look so good? Oh my god, she thought as a possibility dawned on her. Did we sleep together?

“Harry,” she murmured softer than she intended, voice scratchy and mouth dry. The soreness at the back of her throat clued her into the copious amounts of screaming she must have done last night. He didn’t stir at her gentle coaxing, the light streaming through the windows making him look angelic as it covered him in a blanket of soft light while he continued to sleep.

It was a hard nudge to his chest that finally made him open his eyes, immediately releasing a groan she was sure she made when she regained consciousness too. He looked at her puzzled, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes as he propped himself up on his elbows. He took an equally confused look around the hotel room before looking back at her. She watched as the gears slowly turned in his head until his eyes opened wide and he spring up into a sitting position to mirror hers.

“We didn’t,” he whispered hopefully. “Oh my god, did we?” he asked, a look of horror crossing his face that matched her own.

“I have no idea,” she anxiously replied. “I was hoping you would know!”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“The last thing I remember was doing tequila shots with you.”

“I remember those.” He rubbed his eyes hard like it would somehow jog his memory. His eyebrows knit together, buried in thought as he searched his brain for a timeline. “I can follow the night up until we did karaoke.”

“We did karaoke?” she repeated incredulously and was met with a somber nod. “Do I even want to know what we sang?”

He shook his head slowly, shame clear on his face, before he finally mumbled. “We did ‘It’s Raining Men.’”

“Oh my god, no,” she whined, holding her head in her hands and rubbing her temples. There were surely videos of them sloppily singing on top of a bar circulating online and she wasn’t sure how Jeff would be able to spin that one in a positive light.

“Where’s your phone?” he asked, a hopeful glint in his eye as he reached for his own. “Maybe there’s something on there that can clue us in.” It took her a moment but she finally spotted it on the ground in the corner of the room. She said a silent prayer that it wasn’t dead or broken.

Forcing her heavy limbs out from under the covers she made her way towards the device, but not before she heard a confused sound coming from Harry. “How did you get my clothes?”

Looking down at herself and taking in the red lettering that read But Daddy I Love Him across her chest, it clicked that the t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts were his. But how they hell did she get into them?

“I think we’ve established at this point that I don’t know anything that happened after about midnight, Harry.” Her words came out laced with slight frustration. She hoped he knew she wasn’t annoyed with him, just their situation.

“Just a question, princess.”

She ignored his quip and began to search through her texts, call history, and photos, hoping to find anything at all that could help trace their steps through the night. She found nothing but a few selfies of them still at the club. One was the pair casually smiling, the next was one of him kissing her on the cheek that made her skin warm, but the final one made her snort out a laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I have a picture on my phone of you with two martini olives shoved up your nose,” she spoke through hysterical laughter. “Definitely birthday post material if you ask me.”

“Let me see,” he demanded with an adorable scowl.

She passed her phone over to him, still letting a few chuckles fall past her lips. “I’m gonna change your name in my phone to ‘Olive Nose Styles.”

“You're cruel.”

“You’re the one that put olives up his nose and then posed for a picture!”

“Whatever,” he grumbled, turning attention back to his own screen to continue his investigation. “There’s nothing of use on my phone either.”

The two flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling in the frustrated confusion. There was so much of their night that had gone up into smoke, completely unaccounted for with no clues as to what they did. Each traced their steps over and over again in their heads as they hoped desperately for a single detail that would lead them down a path to bigger memories, but it never came.

“Are we going to have to call Jeff and ask him what happened?” she finally murmured.

“I think so.”

“He’s going to put us both in client timeout, isn’t he?”

“We’re probably already there,” he groaned as he picked up his phone and hit Jefe Jeff-e in his contact list, putting the call on speaker and resting it on his still bare chest. The man on the other end picked up almost immediately.

“Morning Sleeping Beauty, I was wondering when I was going to hear from you.”

“Hi Jeff,” he groggily started then stopped, searching for the words that would make this all less uncomfortable. “Y/N and I have some questions about last night.”

Jeff let out a strained chuckle. “Yeah, that doesn’t really surprise me after last night’s bar bill.”

“Um,” Harry hummed, stammering but unable to form any real words.

“You sing about sex for a living,” she hissed at the man next to her before yanking the phone off his chest. “Jeff,” she started, taking over the conversation for them both. “Do you know if we slept together?”

“Probably not. You both were pretty unconscious when I put you in the hotel room.” His words prompted a massive sigh from both of them, looking to each other to share a relieved smile.

“Oh thank god,” they mumbled in unison.

“Jinx,” he smirked under his breath, prompting a ‘shut up’ from her.

“How did I get into Harry’s clothes?”

“I stopped by the tour bus when I realized you two probably shouldn’t be trusted not to roll out of your top bunks. I got you some clothes to sleep in before we took you guys to the hotel.”

“But why Harry’s?”

It was Jeff’s term to get squirmy. “I felt weird going through your things.”

“But you were perfectly fine with going through mine?” Harry asked, only half joking.

“Absolutely,” he deadpanned. They were all quiet for a moment before Jeff began again. “You two really don’t remember anything else that happened?”

“Everything after about two is unaccounted for,” she confessed.

“Oh,” Jeff chuckled. “So, you don’t remember when you stuck your tongues down each other’s throats on the ride home?”

Fuck.

Her eyes raced up to Harry’s from the phone she had been staring at like it held all the secrets of the night before. His easily readable features displayed all his emotions that surely matched hers. His pupils had grown in surprise, taking over nearly all the green in his wide eyes, and an embarrassed blush tinted his cheeks in a red hot flush that had reached the tips of his ears. His eyes flashed to the blank wall in front of them, running a stressed hand through his curls, like if he wasn’t looking at her, he would be able to focus better on the newly revealed information.

She couldn’t say that she didn’t relate. Her mind often went blank when she looked at him too. But right now, it was racing, occupied by anxious thoughts and intense emotions she couldn’t quite place, but felt with her entire being.

Her inevitable downward spiral was interrupted when Harry stiffly cleared his throat. “Uh,” he started, scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably. “We’ll see you later.”

“Sounds good, love birds,” Jeff replied, a clear snark apparent in his voice. Neither of the pair dignified his teasing with a response, Y/N quickly ending the call.

Silence hung heavy in the air and she let her eyes hover over the phone for too long when she settled it down on the bed, unwilling to connect her eyes with his just yet. Harry always had a way of staring into her and revealing all her cards to him before she even knew them herself. She wanted to hold them close to her chest for a moment, protecting the heart that longed for him more than anything else in the world.

There were no words exchanged between the two for a while as they silently took turns in the bathroom and occupied their hands and thoughts by their phones. They walked on eggshells anytime one neared the other. A tension like this hadn’t existed since the very first day they met, the first day they had begun to pretend.

Maybe that's why Harry was being so quiet. Maybe he never wanted to cross that line of pretending like she did. Maybe she had been blinded by his generally friendly personality and tricked herself into thinking there was anything more than a charade between them. Maybe last night really was just a drunken mistake, no matter how much she wanted it to be more.

“Maybe it’s a good thing that we don’t remember what happened last night,” she finally murmured from the opposite end of the room. She rested the side of her still heavy head and muscles against the wall, arms crossed in front of her as if they could keep her safe from the tension they had created. Her fingers nervously played with the hem of his t-shirt she was still dressed in.

“Why is it a good thing?” he almost immediately responded from the chair on the other side of the room he had settled himself into, running his hands along the satin pants of last night’s outfit he had put back on during their awkward shuffling around the room. He had even put physical space between them since they found out what happened, causing her heart to feel as if it was teetering on the edge of disintegrating.

“Well,” she stuttered, refusing to look at him and continuing to pick at her nail polish. “We’re just pretending so it would be weird if we really remembered it.”

“I don’t think it would be weird.”

“I don’t know,” she tried to maneuver her way around his response. “It might just be embarrassing to think about it.”

He let out a long and frustrated sigh, running his hands down his face. There was so much going on behind his eyes and she wished he would say something, anything, to break down the wall that hadn’t existed between them in months that was slowly reappearing.

“Do you regret it?” he asked bluntly, the abrupt question shocking her body to attention. “Do you regret any of this? Any of us?”

Did she regret drinking too much? Yes. Did she regret making out with him in front of their manager? Yes. Did she regret denying her feelings and pretending they didn’t exist for so long? Of course. But, did she regret falling in love with him? Never, not even for a second.

“No, I don’t,” she let out with a gentle shake of her head, no louder than a whisper.

“Neither do I.”

The words had barely left his lips before he crossed the room and crashed them into hers. The same fire she had felt on stage returned ten times over as his lips moved smoothly over hers, every neuron in her body lighting up like a switchboard. Her fingers reached up to curl into his hair and pull his lips impossibly closer to hers as her heart hammered in her chest with a passionate love she had kept under wraps for so long.

He tasted like the spicy peppermint toothpaste the hotel stocked in the bathroom and smelled like the tiny bottles of shampoo that rested on the side of the bathtub; but there was so much else about him that was completely unique–wholly irreplaceable and indescribable. He was just Harry.

Teeth clashed, lips were bitten, and hair was pulled as they took in every sensation the other created. His lips had been the only thought that captivated her mind since they were on stage the night before and her return to them did not disappoint. If her head wasn’t dizzy and her lungs not screaming at her for air, she would have stayed in that moment forever

When they finally disconnected, they stood against each other in a heaving and disheveled mess of heavy breathing and adoringly dazed smiles. She swore she could feel the pounding of his heart under her fingertips that rested on his chest.

“That was nice,” he eventually murmured down at her through heavy breaths, a love drunk grin finding its way onto his swollen lips.

“Yeah, I agree,” she hummed breathlessly, her anxious thoughts quiet and calm for the first time she could remember since she met him.

“I’m kind of disappointed I don’t remember doing that the first time,” he chuckled softly at her, shaking his head lightly in embarrassment with his pink tinged cheeks on full display.

“That’s okay. We were ‘just practicing’ then, right?” A giggle left her lips as she used the words against him. The same words he had used every time they let a glimpse of their true affections for each other slip past their guarded and friendly facade.

His dimples were exposed when he smiled a giant grin and let out a knowing huff, piecing together that she had caught onto his trail of excuses. “Yeah, just practicing,” he repeated softly, before his tone turned sincere and genuine. “I don’t want us to pretend anymore.”

“Good,” she said softly as her fingers slid up his neck to beckon his lips back down to hers. “I never was.”

“Neither was I.” She watched a soft smirk appear on his lips as they hovered over hers. “Do you want to keep not practicing?”

“Depends,” she quipped, lips brushing over his as she spoke. “Am I better kisser than Taylor Swift?

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!! REBLOGS AND FEEDBACK MEAN THE WORLD!!! 

An extra for our babies can be found here!

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles au #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #harry styles reader insert #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles drabble #harry styles blurb #harry styles fic #one direction #one direction fanfic #nationalharryleague #mine #harry styles slow burn #harry styles friends to lovers

[halcyon-writings]

this isn’t a request but more like a concept but just the idea of childe whaling for your banner is very funny

— i love how this was meant to be just a small snippet but now i have written more for it

good luck to whoever is pulling for childe in his banner rerun!!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

so let’s set the scene, Childe’s definitely a popular streamer for 2 reasons

He’s pretty and he knows it, his viewers know it, everyone does

He spends so much money on this game it’s not even funny. And people are either jealous of all the gear he’s gotten or just in plain awe of it all

this mf probably has fancams made of him every stream, so he purposefully poses, a popular pose is the lip bite

he usually doesn’t get so hyped over a lot of characters, except for maybe the geo archon, but that all changes when your character trailer drops. like, literally everyone can tell the difference. and it’s really funny and also just scary bc everyone knows this man spends too much on this game and they’re just guessing how much he’ll spend.

as soon as he’s able he starts the grind for everything.

from talent materials, ascension materials, artifacts, even to your weapon’s ascension materials. man is on a mission to make you the strongest character he has.

even if you’re some form of a support/healer, guess what; you’re now a dps. and you’re gonna be a damn good one if childe’s got anything to say about it. he’s a very unorthodox player, he would build barbara as a dps if he could.

“Man is dedicated,” One comment reads on his stream.

Childe looks up at the camera with a grin, “You bet I am.”

The particularly clip is a popular one with all the fancams for weeks.

He will also preemptively buy whatever the summoning materials are, and a lot of them. It’s at this point where he now is getting many questions as to where his money comes from. sure he gets a good amount from streams, but where tf is he getting the rest. but no one gets an answer. it’s better that way.

literally when you’re banner drops, everyone is waiting with bated breathes for his steam. and when he does, he’s got a whole audience.

first it’s a bit of normal playing to catch up with the viewers, and then he does a few single pulls. a four star but then mostly threes. he does a multi.

a gold light.

the chat is going wild.

it’s a different 5* from the pool. That means you’re guaranteed for him right?

wrong

he pulls again, 3 stars.

again, a 4 star weapon. again, all 3 star weapons. again, a 4 star character.

but no gold.

“We are not losing hope yet folks,” He says, a day later, “____’s coming home, I just know it.”

But the same happens again. Only 3-4 stars.

and again.

Man is spending so much that he could at this point be the main reason why you’re banner is at one of the top spots of who’s spending the most on which banner. It’s all him.

But imagine you’re banner is the shorter runs, so now he’s getting desperate. He does every little ritual he can think of. From sacrificing characters to waiting until a certain time. But nothing.

And then it’s the last day. If it were possible every single character that he could get has arrived. But not you.

“Folks if it’s not meant to be i’m quitting.” And he does one last single pull for the hell of it. He won’t actually quit but still. It’ll hurt a lot. And the feelsbadman emotes he’s getting only add salt to the wound.

Gold.

He’s awed.

And then your splash art appears.

The comments are going wild and Childe is just sitting back, head in hands like “finally.”

He gets you all the artifacts he set aside for you, your weapon. By the time the stream is over you’re at full ascension. And with really good stats.

“We’ve had a miracle on this day.” Childe says. You can see the joy in his eyes.

And literally the rest of the video is him just listening to the voice lines he’s got so far, doing different domains and whatever he can to get your friendship higher. Man’s has you as his icon, a quote from your voice lines as his signature, the whole shebang.

Makes his twitter bio “Whaled for _____. Worth it.” and it does not change.

#small warning for gambling pls spend any money wisely yall and only do so if you’re financially comfortable to do so!! #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact imagine #childe x reader #childe imagines #tartaglia x reader #tartaglia imagines #mine #concept. #help this was supposed to be short hdkdhdjd

[peace-for-levi]

Just You [Levi x GN!Reader]

this is just snapshots or a countdown of sorts of Levi and reader celebrating the festive season. Tagging @anlian-aishang for this to go in her December Prompts List! I know it is a bit early but here is a christmassy oneshot for those who celebrate it! also tagging @maries-gallery bc... idk you wanted to be.

content warnings: none. purely sfw apart from Levi grieving and having self-depricating thoughts, but i chose not to expand too much on it.

w/c: 3,891

~~

“Levi!” you pestered. Levi didn't even have the time to let out a groan for he was tugged away to the end of the aisle. "Look at these ones, aren't they beautiful?"

You were pointing towards a large set of fairy lights that would run along the outside of one's house. They shone a very light shade of yellow. They were the "shitty kind of lights that makes anything look like Christmas has shat on your doorstep" type of lights, according to Levi.

“[F/n], Christmas is four weeks away,” he reminded, suppressing a groan. He picked up the lights and stared at the price before gaping at you. “And I'm not spending that much money on some stupid lights.”

“Yes, but we're the only people on our avenue who haven't put up a Christmas tree.” She complained. She stuck out her bottom lip like a child.

“Stop acting like a six year old, please.”

You huffed a sigh and walked back to your shopping cart. You wrapped your way-too-thick scarf around your neck and brought the cart up to him before stepping beside him.

He noticed you looked pretty down over his lack of enthusiasm and the way he just shot you down. Shit, he said to himself, it's just hard for me to get that excited so--

He lost his train of thought upon feeling an impact in the side. Nothing too hard or that would cause severe pain, but he couldn't ignore it either. He had to admit, you had a good punch (or good aim with a shopping cart.)

He grimaced a small bit before rubbing it. “Care to explain why you did that, you idiot.”

“If you’re going to be a grinch, you’re going to get hit.” You declared with a cocky smirk.

~~

The fire sparked a few embers in the background while Levi sat with his elbows hitched to his knees, flicking through the channels on your television. He was also trying to read the newspaper, but the blaring television didn't help. Once he heard a familiar film being advertised, he knew he had to call you to come in.

"[F/n], one of your favourite Christmas movies is on."

A few seconds later, he heard the familiar pair of footsteps scuffle against the living room's carpet. Your hair had been pulled from the clips it was in and now fell down haphazardly. You also had a bathrobe on, adorable, pink bunny slippers and some hot chocolate that was topped with mini marshmallows (that you unknowingly had spilled on the floor.) You had also come in with a cup of spicy mulled wine for Levi who wasn’t fond of something as sugary as hot chocolate.

“Don't tell me you came prepared.”

“Well, luckily, I had seen this on the television guide last week so I knew it was going to be on. I had to be prepared!” you chimed. “I am very flattered that you remembered, too, Levi.”

“What a kid," Levi smirked, but there was a genuine smile glossing over his pale lips. “Only because you say it every damn year.”

Levi sat down on the couch and patted the empty space beside him. Your face lit up like the Christmas tree (the tree that had yet to be put up) and you shuffled up to him and sat down. You felt his arm snake around your neck and immediately felt much more cozy and protected.

Of course, a very famous quote from the movie soon repeated itself: “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” It always made you smile giddily to yourself.

“Do not start singing,” Levi whispered. “Please.”

You pouted. “But it's almost here, it really is this time.”

“I know, darling, but we're only eight days into December,” he said. He smirked again. “Try to contain yourself.”

After a little while, all chatter ceased between you two and Levi felt your muscles slacken a bit. He leaned over and noticed that you had fallen asleep against his chest. Has the excitement worn you out already?

He quirked a brow before noticing the half-empty mug in her hands. Careful to not wake you up - or spill hot chocolate on you either - he leaned over and placed the mug on the table.

I guess I'm going to be stuck here for a while, he said to himself, resting himself into the fluffed cushion beneath his neck. He eventually found himself succumbing to a deep slumber, arms still wrapped around you.

~~

“Levi, don't move the ladder.” You warned as you leaned over the tree. You just had to put the finishing touch on the Christmas tree: the golden star. As you descended the ladder, the two of you stepped back and marvelled at the tree.

The main room’s lights were off as the fairy lights illuminated the room entirely with their pale gold. Every ornament was where it was supposed to be and the red and gold complemented each other perfectly.

“It's... lovely.”

Naturally, you were very pleased with that breathy response from your boyfriend. Christmas was a hard time of year for the short man, for it brought back some upsetting memories when he was small. It took ages for him to tell her exactly why.

"I've never heard those two words escape your mouth, ever," you remarked. He shrugged in response. "Come on, I want this year to be great! And I still have Christmas shopping to do... oops."

No need to make a fuss over me, it’s fine every year.

~~

The bell for the school rang, letting everyone know that school was over. You were busy zipping up the coats of a few of your students.

All of the children - around six years old - were buzzing with excitement, talking away to their friends about what they hoped to get. Not only that, Christmas break was approaching.

Once you were finished with their coats, you got busy hanging up a few vibrant decorations that they made. Some were of snowmen, some were of presents and other things associated with the festive season. Kids poured out of the classroom once they saw their parents standing, waving at their child to get them to come over. You, in the meantime, had lots of cleaning up.

A few minutes passed by and you were lost in all the cleaning up you had to do.

“Looks like you're spreading your excitement to your students as well... I have to say, I feel sorry for them.” A familiar voice came.

You pivoted around and flashed him a smile, very happy to see him. “You're finished early today?" you asked, surprise lacing your tone.

Levi sauntered up to you, his footsteps echoing throughout the spacious classroom. He pressed his lips to your cheek for an ephemeral kiss. "More like my holidays start today and I said I'd drive down to you."

“You lucky bastard,” you replied. “I guess I'm happy to see that you came down to meet me. This never happens, what's the occasion?”

“Tch, can’t a man come drive his girlfriend home?” He cocked his head to the side. “I guess that your students are looking forward to Christmas as well?” He asked, gesturing towards the Christmas decorations you had hung up.

Levi turned around and noticed a bag by your desk. He didn't remember you carrying that out this morning. He was about to walk over to it, but she grabbed his arm and tugged him back.

“Nope, those are your Christmas presents that I got you today.”

Levi froze for a bit in shock. He truly was flattered, a part of him felt undeserving of these gifts given that he had been such a grump so far. He had his reasons and maybe it had drifted from your mind, but you had only the kindest of intentions in mind. He cleared his throat before speaking. "[F/n], you didn't have to get me anything."

You faked a gasp and chuckled. “But your gifts are always so wonderful, ugh, and I don't know... But, whatever you do, please don't carry that bag. I didn’t get to wrap them during my lunch break."

Levi shook his head. “Stop making a fuss about gifts, [F/n]. I honestly don’t need much.”

Your head fell forward as she traipsed back to Levi. Levi, puzzled, eyed you for a moment before you looped your hands around his neck. "I know that it sounds very bad, but you're so hard to shop for."

"What, why?" he replied, genuinely surprised by your comment. You gave a roll of your eyes and let out a groan. “I don't mind, dammit…” he added before letting out a sigh. “Come on, let's go home.”

~~

“No, you're not meant to lick the batter.” He scolded.

Surprisingly, when he walked into the kitchen a few minutes ago, he was not greeted with flour that topped every surface, egg shells lying on the kitchen table or any carton of milk lying haphazardly or leaking out onto the floor. The kitchen was practically… spotless.

He did spot his girlfriend licking the spoon of the mixture used to bake a pie or cupcakes or something.

"...Are you telling me you've never licked the spoon?" you asked incredulously

“I never baked when I was younger. And I don't want to go into the hospital when you get salmonella.” He barked with annoyance.

"Firstly, chances of that are stupidly rare. Second of all… You never baked anything for Christm-". He sighed heavily and was about to walk out of the kitchen when you hailed for him again. "I need you to keep an eye on the oven, alright? I really need to pee."

Levi sighed and nodded while you dashed out of the kitchen and into the bathroom upstairs. Levi leaned against the oven, 'keeping an eye on it.' He opened up the window to allow the kitchen to air out. He stepped away once you walked back in.

Your enthusiasm was infectious. He loved you more than anything in the world - he was sure of it. He was also sure that your child-like self was never going to leave. Maybe your excitement annoyed him because Christmas wasn't a big deal to him when he was younger after what had happened. But he can momentarily forget that his words can be too harsh or there is too much of a bite in his tone.

He undoubtedly needs you more than you probably perceive. It was clear to everyone that he had a hard time showing it.

You walked up to the short man and gave him a pat on the back as a way of saying 'thank you.'

He smiled softly at the gesture.

~~

You and Levi were bundled up with scarves, gloves and thick winter coats. Levi stood closely beside you as you gripped onto the railings as if your life depended on it.

Levi shook his head, a tiny smile curling at his lips. "You can trust me, I won't let anyone slice your fingers off,” he joked. “Though I have seen the way you hold a knife at times, I think you pose the biggest danger to yourself.”

The two of you decided - (okay, maybe it was more your decision) - were ice-skating in the rink that was set up for the festive month. It wasn't too packed considering how popular it usually is. But it just so happened you were having some trouble with... not letting go. Levi seemed to be a natural at this, having done a few laps and the odd spin here and there.

"Easy for you to say, you're good at everything!" you retorted. Levi held out his hand for her, growing more impatient.

"Come on, you dragged me out here and it's pissing raining outside as well. Just take my hand." He gestured, slowly advancing towards you. He grabbed your forearm and tugged you away from the wall. "Well done," he commented, sarcastically as he clapped slowly, "you're a staggering two feet away from the railing, how do you feel?"

He didn't give you a chance to answer as he pulled you along. If he wasn't, well, himself, he would have burst into laughter. That didn't mean he wasn't laughing on the inside. Your face had wrinkled up so much and you didn't contribute to the movement at all; you weren’t even skating, Levi was tugging you along.

“You're heavy when I have to pull you about as if you're some two year old.” He remarked.

“I could die and that's what you say to me?”

He shook his head, letting out a chuckle as you quieted down a bit. Slowly but surely, you relaxed to the point where Levi felt you were comfortable enough for him to let go. He continued to skate slowly behind you.

“You big baby, you're doing it now, aren't you?”

Your lips were clamped shut as you skated with extreme caution. Your eyes were wide as plates with fear. As he sensed you losing your balance and were about to topple over, he was quickly behind you again and had his arms around her shoulders.

“There, see? I have you.” He reassured you

He must have jinxed himself though as he felt himself losing his balance also before the two of you fell on top of each other, earning a loud thud against the ice. You had burst into laughter, finding this utterly hilarious and poked his pallid cheeks.

“You brat, that was your fault.”

~~

The two of you were sitting at a table in the corner of a cozy café. It certainly provided great comfort since you both almost injured yourselves and then had no way of helping the other. You were very pleased with your hot chocolate that had far too many marshmallows and an ungodly amount of cream on top. It didn't matter to you of course - that was the last thing on your mind. Levi was sitting cross-legged, drinking a cup of black coffee and sighed once he felt the sensation return to his fingers.

You went through the pictures on your phone. A steward offered to take photos of you two but Levi wouldn't really cooperate. Although, you did manage to get a picture of Levi assisting you off the ground after falling over, and there was a tiny smile on your face. There was also a bit of a smile on Levi’s face as he was probably laughing at your clumsiness.

“Look at this one, that's a nice photo.” Levi leaned over and grabbed the phone and smiled a small bit as he flicked through all of the photos. “I almost twisted my ankle by the time she took that one!”

"Why are you so happy about that?" he asked, a small smirk tugging at his lips. “There would be nothing fun about going to A&E on Christmas Eve.”

“You're such a downer.”

He deadpanned before huffing a sigh. “So, you're saying that you would be alright if you had to wait - not me, by the way, just you - for six hours before a doctor sees you?”

That shut you up. He let out a light chuckle when he looked at you again. He picked up a napkin and began to clean her upper lip. "As much as you might love that frothy moustache, you just look a little bit ridiculous," he told her. She smiled sheepishly. “Come on, you said you still have shopping to do because you left it to 'til the last minute again. Plus, we need to get moving. I want to get there before midnight at least.”

~~

Within half an hour, you parked the car at a cemetery while Levi walked in his lonesome to a tombstone before you followed him after a couple of minutes. You didn't talk to one another on the way here; neither of you felt it was uncomfortable.

You waited for him to say something once he left the lilies at his mother's grave. They were his, and coincidentally, her favourite flowers. According to Levi, after his mother developed some complications, she died shortly after he was born and the poor man blamed himself ever since. His father was never the same and Christmas was simply never a happy time for them, hardly ever celebrated.

He never wanted to celebrate it, but he met you and his opinions changed. But that never meant Christmas was easy for him either. You had long accepted that he was gonna be a grump or be sad about Christmas and his birthday.

But once, you wanted a year where he could be happy for everything around him in his life. And maybe… that's why you pulled out all the stops this year. Your childish and infectious enthusiasm was cranked up a notch this year for the purpose: to distract him. You knew it wouldn’t work, but if it meant he’d one day stop blaming himself, then perhaps it was worth it.

So you’d be childish again, and again, and again. You’d be stupidly enthusiastic again, and again, and again.

He may have hidden his emotions away from most people, or at least tried to. But when it comes to moments like these, one could see the flickering emotions in his eyes.

The right thing was to just let him stay there for a minute or two. You took a hold of his hand and offered him a reassuring squeeze. He looked at you for a second before frowning and shook her hand away.

“Levi…” you tried.

“Just... shut up for a second.” He whispered.

You took your scarf and wrapped it around his neck. Levi clasped the scarf for a moment but his hands dropped in almost a hopeless, exhausted manner. He seemed to look desolate and almost regretful. Regret was the last thing he should feel. If he did feel regret, whatever for? For not living up to her expectations? Simply for living and being born? It was something he should never feel nor was it his fault that she passed at such an untimely age.

If you were going to say something, it would need to be planned and constructed carefully. What phrase or few words would work or not cause any more heartbreak?

“Levi,” you beckoned. It took a while but he eventually acknowledged you with a hum and a glance in your general direction. “She'd be proud of you. You're quite the selfless man who can also be kind to... certain people... so just get rid of whatever bad thoughts you're thinking because deep down, you know it's not true.” She whispered.

As if he was going to crumble before her, you grabbed his hands once again.

“Let's go back, it's hardly good for you to sit out in the cold.” She whispered, softly. “And if you don’t believe what I said to you there, then I’ll just have to try harder to convince you.”

The two of you walked back to the car and sat inside. You looked over at him and noticed that he was trying to warm up by rubbing his hands together and so you turned on the heating.

Silence seemed to be the most appropriate thing right now. No speaking, no music. No driving. You sat by as you allowed him to work through whatever thoughts and feelings he was dealing with.

"[f/n], can we just go home?" he asked, sounding utterly exhausted.

“Of course, Levi.”

~~

Once you arrived home, the two of you began to lay out the Christmas presents you had for each other and for other family members who may be visiting tomorrow. You two began to change into your sleepwear and that was when he had you cornered. He had you walking backwards until you collapsed onto your side of the bed, with him towering over you.

“Did you... go ice-skating, got me my damn coffee and paid for everything, just to cheer me up?” he asked. He knew the answer, he was just waiting for you to admit it.

"I might have... You're always so glum though and... I probably made you feel even crappier since we almost broke a leg or arm while ice-skating.”

“Correction: you almost broke a leg or an arm,” he pointed out. He glanced at the side of her face, noticing that she was trying to pay attention to him and the movie. “As much as I appreciate the effort, none of that crap really matters to me. You're here, just you and no one else, and that's all I care about.” He saw her quirk a brow. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry, you’re never so… vocal about things like this.”

He snuffed at this and his fingers came under your chin and he bent his knees as his lips caressed yours. You snaked your hands around his back and leaned into his kiss more, fingers unwrapping to tug at his pajama top to pull him down on top of you.

“You’re right,” he chuckled, “I’m not vocal about these things and perhaps I should be… I should always attempt to show you how much I appreciate you.”

You cupped his cheek and swept your thumb under his gunmetal eyes, admiring their beauty.

His beauty.

He was beautifully kind in his own way. You didn’t need his words.

“Thank you.” He whispered, planting a final kiss on your lips for the night.

~~

When Christmas morning finally rolled around, it took a great effort for you to coax Levi out of bed. You were ecstatic; he was moodier than normal. However, the gift-opening could not begin right away because Levi insisted on having coffee for he would not function without it.

Finally the short man was ready and he sauntered into the living room, rubbing his eye with his palm's heel. He walked over and plugged in the extension and the blinking, colourful lights brought a more gleeful glow to the room.

Levi sat down beside you when you gestured to him to come over. You had a shopping bag filled with wrapped goods. “Merry Christmas, my little grinch.” You murmured softly.

“You seem a lot more relaxed today, I guess the build up to Christmas has gone,” he noted. He leaned over and placed a soft kiss on your temple. “You'll be getting your present later, I didn't forget.”

"Oh, stop it," you chuckled.

Before he could begin to unwrap anything, he stiffened when he felt a pair of lips against his, a pair which he could only melt towards. She pulled away and whispered, “Happy birthday. I know you don’t like your birthday but it did give me you. So I love it so much, I’ll love it for you.”

~~

Levi got down on one knee, presenting her a beautiful ring with a triad of diamonds on top.

“Wait, are you serious?! Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?!” she exclaimed as her eyes welled up. That might have been a yes?

Levi let out a groan and rolled his eyes. “I can't fucking believe you.”

Of course I'm serious,

Merry Christmas, and thanks for putting up with a grinch like me.

#cece; writing #husbando tag <3 #levi ackerman #levi #aot #snk #levi x reader #levi x you #levi x y/n #levi ackerman x reader smut #cece; levi #anlian-aishang #december prompts #aot x reader #snk x reader #aot x you

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/31/23

month started on a sunday, ended on a tuesday, very satisfying

listening

Toxic Las Vegas (Jamieson Shaw Remix). this has been on my "silly little walk for my silly little mental health" playlist for three weeks so it's time for its place in the tuesdaypost. part of the appeal is that it's two songs i already like but this remix does something where i go "whoa is that the james bond chord" every time even though it is NOT.

-

reading

Bullet Train, a black humor thriller set on a train full of asssassins by Kōtarō Isaka. i have been having... mmmmmmmm. a time. let us say. and i have been clinging to things that i have lost my mind about (mostly cowboys) in order to get through the agonies. so it is weird, now that i am branching out a bit more bc things are on a slightly different tack, to be like "yeah i liked this a normal amount and i agree with the 3.8 goodreads average. i will not remember this in three months." npr said basically: fun little genre piece with no real depth! i don't completely agree with this, bc the book is not action-scene focused! the very few fights are short, blunt, quick affairs. there's a lot of focus on personal ethics and legacies, and a great deal of terror derived from random chance. but yeah it's not really a literary novel.

this was a fast, fun read. a rare example where i liked the adaptation (the recent movie which is a VERY loose adaptation) much more than the original work.

i try not to be picky about sentence structure or work choice in a translated work, bc translation is a tricky business at best, but there were some funky choices here and there that did throw me out of my groove. it's written in present tense, which is fine, but i cannot remember the last time i read a professionally published non-romance book written in present tense. i described the movies as "really wants you to know it took AP English", and the book is similar in an interesting way-- book!tangerine is constantly quoting English literary-canon novels.

the book (and movie) have a very dry sense of humor that clicked with me. "it's not clear why the man is naming fruits". at LEAST two sensible chuckles.

the biggest book/movie divergence is with the character of the Prince: a fourteen-year-old serial killer, who we spend a great deal of the book with, who asks nearly every grownup on this train "why is it bad to kill people?". a rare book in which i actively wanted a child to die. i think this character is much improved in the movie, since the character is both aged up (a young teen boy in the book, an older teen girl in the movie), and given clearer ties to the rest of the cast. however, this adaptational choice does lose almost all of the terror of the random chance the book makes you sit with. in the movie, the prince has a motive. in the book, that kid just ain't right.

had a fun time but not enough of a fun time that i will be seeking out the other novels in the series on purpose. perhaps if i come across physical copies cheap it will ping my memory and i'll grab them, which is how i acquire a lot of my physical books. this feels like im damning with faint phrase, but i did have a fun time reading this! it's just that my brain is a sieve and lately anything that doesn't completely possess me is immediately forgotten.

-

watching

fallow week bc i have been #gaming. i need to literally put on my to-do list "rewatch The Big Sleep for febslash feb research" maybe that'll get me to actually do it. im going to take this opportunity to complain about how much fucking work it is to write smut. not even the technical stuff bc i do like to write smut that's threesomes where everyone is the same gender and has the same color hair. the hard part is going "okay what's sexy" and then like storyboarding out the sequence of events to make sure everyone's having fun and it CONSISTENTLY stays sexy the whole time. i have never had irl sex with a narrative throughline. difficult difficult lemon difficult

-

playing

still running around in wolfenstein: the new order making this big beefy boy do jumps and slides. went to the moon. came back from the moon. hit a very fun bug as i try to fight my way out of the london nautica where i crash landed, bc i died, the level spat me out at the last checkpoint, and there were no health or ammo or armor pickups anywhere. just what i could scavenge off the fallen. very unpleasant to fight through a room with 20 health but i did do one whole room before realizing this was a bug. i would not like to play the entire game like this. very stressful. the big boss at the end of the level was also extremely stressful.

but let's talk about the moon, the moon in the fucking sky. how was the moon? was the moon fun? no it was full of nazis. it was also jammed full of sixties computer banks tho. many instruments and dials as well.

as i write this on sunday night i am going to attempt Again to finish the second to last chapter in this game. i am So Close to finishing this game in under 20 hours [ed note, monday night: lmao still have not finished this game]. look at some more computer banks there aren't enough pictures to break up this post.

not sure if this is a side effect of the next-location action movie disease, but wolfenstein is very interested in how areas link together. lots of temporary facilities that have grown ad-hoc roots, lots of trains planes and automobiles. we drive a lot of trucks. we’re in helicopters and subs and moon rockets. we blow up a bridge and scramble through several trains, blowing one of them up. we fuck on a train also can't forget that cutscene. we live in the sewers. we scuttle around in vents. we are in some very far-flung locations but they all look the fucking same bc they are encased in brutalist concrete. i'm sure this is bc it's fun to have a gun battle on a train and on the fucking moon and bc like u only have so many guys actually modelling things for your levels.

this is a very half-baked observation bc i think i am beginning to get a migraine (as i finish writng this on monday night) but let's get this out of the way first: all buildings are political. something something things invented and built for war never actually go away, something something transportation infrastructure to ease conquest continues to keep the colonies within easy reach of the imperial core, wartime infrastructure like highways and bridges as a tool of empire, fascism is a constant state of war which in this game is partly represented by constant shooting and also constant building. something something the unsustainability of not only constant building things but constant growth. something something long linked history of fascist architects who love brutalism. this video game has great visual design and visual shorthands is what im trying to get at. i think.

the london nautica museum/labs/spaceport is a big gun. this is not a subtle game.

-

making

here's a peek behind the curtain: i talk about cooking when i don't have anything else to report on. but i genuinely did not have anything else going on this weekend bc this took all my fucking literal and metaphorical spoons. this represents like three weeks worth of soup lunch (the red lentil previously discussed on this series) plus two quiches.

why so many quiches lately? i bought two dozen eggs before christmas and thought i would do more baking than i did, which was zero. tried this dal palak recipe, majorly fucked up the proportions of the spinach bc i cannot read the back of a package, and by the time i corrected my mistake i had a fuck of a lot of the spinach/onion/spices. unfortunately i fucking hate the texture of rice plus lentils plus this mixture all together, but felt bad about wasting so much food, so the lentils went into the soup (which i needed to make more of anyway) the spinach mixture went into some quiche (bc i needed to use up those eggs anyway) and uhhh idk what will happen with the rice yet. maybe fried rice to finish off the last three eggs in the carton. this entire debacle used all my spoons for the weekend.

there's also a pork shoulder defrosting (and after that marinating[from last summer's Father's Day Meat Sale i also wish i was making this up]) but that's not very photogenic. i desperately need freezer space and it's been a fucking minute since i had some meat.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem

[the-witch-of-one-piece]

Hello boss! This idea just came up bcs it happened but can I request a hc with Marco during his young days of still adjusting to his full Zoan form?

I imagine him learning how to fly yet don't know how to land and just dove straight into someone (rip to the pigeon that didn't know how to pigeon and landed straight into my pool, don't worry the lil birdie is safe). And that someone is s/o who is always ready to save him unknowing that this unfortunate day she will be the receiving end of the burning turkey pineapple. You can make it as funny or fluff as you want, thank you!

Hey Boss Anon!!!! OMG THIS IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA!!!!!!! Omg Im excited to write this! So let's base this right around the time before he joins whiteboards crew. The quote referred on her was by Anne Baxter I hope you enjoy!

Marco x Fem reader: Still new to this

"Okay okay here we go again." he said. Taking a collective breath he began to form into the phoenix. No problem forming the bird but it was flying he was trying to nail it. Taking one leap in the air he began to sore into the sky. His arms were a bit wobbly, as he flapped his wings soaring higher and higher peaking down to to see the green hills and the homes below, the walk path as people looked up seeing the blue bird in the sky. Some people looked in amazed seeing the creature pass pointing as he flew by.. He was feeling very confident about his flying as he continued to soar through the sky.

Sure he got the flying down now but how to get down would be a challenge. He was looking for a place to settle down on the ground paying too much attention he didn't see the birds coming towards him. Last mins paying attention they startled him jerk down so he wouldn't clash into them.He couldn't control his flight anymore he was falling fast.

You were sitting down under a tree trying to finished a book. But something caught your eyes as you looked up. Seeing this blue creature falling from the sky almost like it was injured. You closed you book. It was too big to be a hawk or any kind of bird you seen before. Seeing it crashing into you pool. You immediately ran to the pool seen the creature struggling up you dove in.

Marco was stressing unable to breath feeling his body becoming heavy. Who the hell has a 8ft deep pool in their back yard. Is this how he was really going to die? Crap there was so much more he wanted to do with his life. Underneath the water his vision a bit blurry the chlorine from the water slightly burning his eyes . Feeling a pair of arms lifting him up. The first gasp of air was all he could think of. Feeling a bit light headed as he was looking up at the sky feeling himself being pulling out of the pool and laid on the floor. "Hey you are you okay?" your hands were on his cheeks peeking down at him the worried expression on your face. His vision was a bit blurry till his eyes settled the vision becoming clear his eyes looking back at yours. The slight bit a pink tinting covering his cheeks seeing the dewy wide eye girl looking back at him. Did she just jump in the pool and recuse me?

He sat up quickly turning his head to the side, blushing as he was scratch the back of his head. "thank you yoi"

"I could have sworn I seen a creature like bird falling from the sky." you looked at him.

"Well it was me too. Sorry still trying to figure out how to control it."

"Control it? Wait are you part bird?" cocking your brow at him. He let out a little laugh. As he explain he ate a devil fruit zoan type mythical creatures. You were rather intrigued how he was trying to control it but he was having the issues of landing.

"Why not slowing down the speed enough to start off." you suggested to him. He should have thought of that too.

"You might be onto something. I didn't get you name yoi." He looked at you pinning your hair up.

"Its _______. how about you bird man?" slightly teasing him.

"Bird man you have jokes I like that.... Marco."

"Before you fell into my pool I actually was reading mythical story. Maybe it was fate you may need to hear it the quote stated It's best to have failure happen early in life. It wakes up the Phoenix bird in you so you rise from the ashes"

~~~~~~~~~~

Once Marco finally mastered his flying and landing abilities it took weeks for him to do. You cheered him on throughout the whole way. He was pretty cute too maybe a crush developing. Hearing his dreams how he wanted to see the world. You knew he could do he had a lot of determination when his mind was set on something he was going to do it. When a prominent pirate by the name of Whitebeard came to the island he join his crew as an apprentice. Now you hear seeing him set off. You were going to miss the afternoons you both spent together. "I promise to write to you yoi." You rubbed your upper arm looking down. You didn't want to say goodbye yet. "what's with the long face?"

"Well you know I'm not going to see you anymore. You will see other people and forget about me." you avoided the eye contact with him.

"I won't forget about about you I promise that." he cradle you in his hands he kiss the tip of your nose then a small kiss on the lip. "Keep an eye for for my letters I will be back for you promise yoi."

#op marco #marco imagine #marco one piece #one piece marco x reader #op marco x reader #marco the phoenix x reader #marco the phoenix #phoenix marco #marco x reader #op marco imagine #thatbadbruja #valerieswriting #request