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boldlyvoid · 1 year

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Put On The Red Light | Part One

18+ Eddie Munson x Steve Harrington

Summary: When Eddie's long-lost cousin, Roxy, shows up on his doorstep, he must accept that his whole life is changing once again.

Warnings: angst, anxiety, jealous Eddie, sexuality crisis, insecure Eddie, parental issues, implied/referenced parental abuse/neglect, background Vickie/Robin, Will/Gareth, Wayne/Mr. Clarke

word count: 9.9k

masterlist

A few loud knocks on the front door rip him from his slumber, he turns to his alarm clock to see it's after 1 pm, Wayne should be home to get it… But the knocks keep coming, more frequent and needier than ever, forcing him out of bed.

He tumbles down the hall with a groan and his eyes still closed, he rubs his face on the walk to the door and opens it with a sigh, “what?”

He’s expecting it to be Dustin or Max, or Steve maybe… Not a beautiful woman.

“Oh, um, hi,” she waves. “Does Wayne Munson live here by chance?”

He shakes the sleep from his face and blinks at her a few times, registering that she was real, he nods. “Yeah, why?”

“Is he here right now?” She stands on her tiptoes and looks past his shoulder and into the trailer.

“No, he’s not… once again, why?” He steps back so she doesn’t bump into him while trying to get a look inside, and all she does is walk into the trailer through the gap between him and the door. “Hey! You can’t just walk into my house? Who are you?”

“I’m apparently Wayne Munson’s daughter,” she explains, looking around the room at everything, “let me guess, you’re his other kid?”

“Woah, woah, woah,” both his hands go up in defence, he is too tired for this shit. “What are you talking about? Wayne doesn’t have any kids?”

She turns to him with her hand out, ready to shake his, “sorry, I’m Roxy… well, Roxanne but everyone calls me Roxy.”

“Hi… I’m Eddie… Edward,” he takes her hand delicately but she grips his tight. “Munson as well…”

“Nice to meet you,” she gives him a beautiful smile, it’s almost like looking in a mirror.

They shared a lot of similar features, dark curly hair being one of them, which is funny seeing as Wayne is balding. She’s way too pretty to be Wayne’s kid. And if she is, that makes her Eddie’s cousin and now he thinks his cousin is pretty… he drops her hand and pulls away.

“My mom reportedly fucked a man named Wayne Munson back in ’66, she never saw him again and never knew where he lived to even track him down and tell him that she was having his kid. So I’ve tracked him down and now I’m here and I want to meet my dad.”

He laughs at how crazy it is, but it sounds about right, “uh, well, I’m his nephew but he basically raised me so, I mean, I kinda feel like his son?”

“So we’re cousins,” she beams a smile at him, “I’ve always wanted a cousin!”

“Yeah, I suppose so…" he can’t believe it either. “But, uh, Waynes not here as you can see, and I don’t know where he is but you can stay and wait for him?”

“Okay, cool,” she smiles again, turning back towards the wall full of mugs and hats and getting closer to it. She examines it carefully, “so, is it just you two here? He doesn’t have like a wife or anything?”

“Nope, just us… I uh, I’m going to change,” he references down to his bare chest and ripped pyjama bottoms.

“Okay,” she doesn’t mind, she barely pays any attention to him, instead she’s looking through Wayne’s things on the walls.

Back in his room he hops into his jeans like a maniac, throws on some deodorant and a new shirt, brushes his teeth and fixes his hair and then it really hits him. “She’s your fucking cousin dude, chill out.”

He heads back into the main room full of shame, she’s moved on to the tv cabinet to look at all their tapes and movies, “I’m actually late for something, but uh, I guess feel free to stay here? There’s nothing worth stealing so, even if you’re lying I don’t think Wayne will care that I left you here.”

That makes her laugh, “I’ll watch over the place, have fun, cuz!” She gives him a wave and a smile, one that looks a lot like Waynes.

“Thanks…” he gives her a small wave back and all but runs to his van.

He doesn’t care where he’s going, he just needs to drive. His mind was completely warped by the knowledge that he had a secret cousin and she was about to infiltrate his life. Wayne, his Wayne, had a daughter. She was Wayne’s blood and much more so than Eddie is, he’s just Waynes brothers kid. He can’t help but worry that having a daughter is going to change Wayne’s life and Eddie will be slowly replaced by the child of his own that he always wanted…

Somehow he ends up parked at Family video, right beside Steve’s car, like his body knew what to do to make him feel better before his mind did.

He heads inside quickly and makes his way right to Steve, “you’ll never fucking guess what just happened to me.”

“What did you do?” Steve smirks, knowing by the ghostly look on Eddie’s face that it’s something embarrassing that he’s going to get to tease him about.

“This pretty girl showed up at my trailer looking for Wayne and I was like half asleep and half naked and she just barged in and told me she’s my cousin?”

“You have a hot cousin?” Steve exclaims, excited until he sees how Eddie’s not happy about it, “man, sucks to be you… is she still at your place?”

“Hey,” Eddie points at him, “her being hot is not the point, dude, what if Wayne kicks me out so his real kid can come live with him? What if he likes her more than me? What if she moves to town and everyone likes her more than me?”

“That’s a given, bud,” Steve teases him, placing a hand on his shoulder to pull him in for a much-needed hug. “I’m kidding, you’re going to be fine… as long as you don’t mind me hitting on your hot cousin.”

“Can you shut up,” Eddie manages to smile as he hugs him back. Holding Steve with his chin on his shoulder, he felt a lot more relaxed than before. Steve always had this effect on him.

“What's this about?” They hear Robin come barreling towards them from the back room. “I want in on a hug.” She all but tackles them as she joins in, “what’s going on?”

“Eddie has a new hot cousin,” Steve teases, extending an arm around Robin to invite her in.

“Seriously?” She looks up at Eddie from the middle of the hug.

He nods, “apparently Wayne has a real kid.”

“Oh shit,” she feels his pain, “does he know yet?”

Eddie shakes his head and pulls away from the group hug, “she’s just in the trailer, I kinda ran when I realized she’s actually related to me and too pretty for me to talk to, anyway.”

“So, she’s just in your trailer all alone?” Robin can’t help but laugh. “what’s Wayne going to do when he gets there?”

—

Wayne walks into the trailer with his hands full of groceries, Eddie’s van is gone but there’s a figure pacing back and forth in front of the living room window, “hey, I thought you were— who the heck are you?” Wayne places all the bags on the counter and stares at the woman.

“Hi,” she stands still and awkwardly waves at him. “I’m Roxanne, Roxanne Crutchstone, my mom is—

“Janine,” says with a gasp and freezes. His jaw dropped, and his heart beats double-time in his chest as he stares at the daughter of the woman he once loved. Albeit for one night, he felt a lot for her in those few hours they spent alone in the back of his chevy. And now he was seeing why. “You’re mine aren’t you?”

She nods like her head is trapped on a spring, not knowing what else to say as her eyes bubble up with tears. “My mom didn’t know how to find you, she always told me about you, I always knew I had a dad who would probably want me and— and then I saw Eddie Munson on the news and I knew, I knew you’d be here. I knew you’d be my dad.”

He makes his way to her and wraps her up in his arms, he kisses the top of her curly head of hair and that’s when she starts to sob. She’s always wanted a dad. He holds her like a father, he smells like a dad would, and he’s kind and loving and completely hers from now on.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t know about you sooner,” he whispers against her hair. “But you’re welcome here all the time… where are you living? How’d you get here? Are you safe?” He asks as he pulls back, instantly concerned and in full father mode.

“I took the bus into town a few days ago, I’m living at the apartment complex down by the hospital, it’s above the general store and post office…” she explains. “I’m taking a year off before I go to college, I thought I’d come live here and try and get to know you a bit?”

“So you’ve graduated high school?” He beams, knowing she must be the same age as the older two girls Eddie hangs around with.

She nods, “just last month.”

“Damn, you’re a smartie aren’t cha?” He teases, “Eddie didn’t until— wait did you meet Eddie?”

She nods again, “he was here, he let me in, but he said he was late for something and didn’t mind leaving me here alone, knowing that I’m yours.”

“Okay, good. He’s technically my brother's kid but I raised him so he’s mine—

“Eddie said the same thing,” she smiles, a lot like Eddie.

“He’s my boy. And it’s important for you two to get to know each other and get along, he’s very special to me… you might hear some shit about him from the folks in town but I promise you, he is nothing but kind and wonderful,” he can’t help but protect Eddie too. “He was accused of some awful things earlier this year and he’s still getting over it, but I can assure you, you’re safe with him and his friends.”

“He seemed really sweet… he was half asleep but he was nice,” she agrees. “But uh, that’s kinda how I found you? I figured that the Eddie Munson on the news was probably related to the Wayne Munson my mom slept with… and she was worried about me coming out here cause he might actually be a murderer… but, what really happened? Cause he doesn’t seem like he has a vicious bone in his body.”

“I wish I knew it all, honestly, but a girl died in our last trailer and he ran 'cause it was terrifying and so—

“So he looked really guilty,” she sympathizes.

“Extremely guilty… but then more kids from the school died in strange places, there was a huge earthquake, the lab in town took the fall and he was let off the hook,” Wayne simplifies it down to just one sentence.

“That’s unfortunate, but at least he still has some friends, you said?”

“He didn’t graduate on time like you did, so most his friends are still high school age but he has some his own, like Steve… he’s probably going to hit on you, just beware,” Wayne teases. “That boy is a walking flirt. With absolutely everybody.”

“Noted,” she can’t help but smile.

“Gosh, you look so much like your mom but there’s also so much of Eddie,” he gestures to her appearance. “The hair, your big brown eyes, your button nose…” Wayne boops his finger on her nose with a smile. “wow.”

“Mom always said I got my nose from you,” she shares fondly.

“She’s doing okay?” Wayne can’t help but wonder.

“Oh yeah, she’s actually moving in with her boyfriend now that I’m out of the house,” she explains. “I grew up just outside of Chicago, we lived with my nanny and pops the whole time…”

“Right, I remember,” Wayne can recall all the way back to that night, he was visiting Chicago for a concert, and she was having a weekend out with friends, one thing led to another and now here she is. “So, Roxanne? Is that what you prefer to be called?”

She shakes her head, “no, everyone calls me Roxy, I’m more of a Roxy.”

“Yeah,” he takes a look at her with a sweet smile, “come sit,” he moves them over to the couch again and sits right beside her. “Tell me everything, I want to know who you are.”

It feels like a lot of pressure, but he’s so calming and fatherly that she opens up quite easily. “Where should I start, dad?”

“The beginning,” Wayne smiles, tearing up a bit at the name he always wanted to be called. It wasn’t often Eddie called him dad, that was saved for high emotional moments… this was easy and new and everything he wanted.

—

When Eddie gets back to the trailer, Wayne and Roxy are still sitting on the couch, deep into a story about Wayne’s childhood that he’s heard a million times.

“Eds! You’re home,” Wayne extends an arm out to him, drawing Eddie into the living room. “You met Roxy?”

“I did,” he gives her a sweet smile. “I see you’re getting along real well…” it hurts only a little, the way they’re bonding isn’t helping his anxiety that Wayne isn’t going to love him anymore now that he has a real kid.

Wayne just shakes his head, staring at her with amazement, Eddie’s seen that look before when he’s performed with his uncle in the audience. Wayne loved her already like a real good dad should, he took her in instantly and as much as it killed Eddie to see, he knew Roxy deserved this. Every kid deserved a good dad and Wayne was the best.

“Yeah, she’s awesome… you two should hang out when I head to work?”

“I’d love to,” Roxy’s full of smile, more than willing to get to know her new cousin.

“Which I’ve gotta get ready for,” Wayne glances at his watch and stands as soon as he sees the time. “Roxy’s moved to town, she’s living over in the apartments downtown—

“Above the stores?” Eddie asks, he’s well aware of those apartments. He lived in one with his mom before she died. Before he had to move in with Wayne. They’re cheap and gross and he may not remember much from back then, but he remembers he hates it there.

She nods, “yeah, they’ve been remodelled recently, they’re really nice.”

“I’m sure,” he replies, it comes out a lot snarkier than he anticipated. “Uh, if you wanted to hang out, my friends and I have a little pizza party every Friday night, if you don’t mind meeting a few more new people tonight?”

“Yeah, I’m down,” she sounds actually really excited. “Wayne was telling me all about your friends, you have so many?”

He nods, “yeah, been through hell and back together, it’s kinda hard to lose ‘em now.”

Wayne pats his shoulder as he passes him, heading to the bathroom to get ready for work. Now it’s just the two of them.

She stands up with a smile and smooths out her shirt, “is this an okay outfit to wear?”

He nods, “yeah, I’m not going to change either, so…”

“Cool… we’re cool, right?” She asks, she can tell somethings off.

Eddie just nods, pushing the jealousy aside, “yeah, I’m good, it’s just weird for me. Y’know?”

She nods, “yeah, no, I get it, I’m sorry for just barging into your life.”

He shrugs it off and walks to the phone, “it’s cool, really… I’m just going to call Steve and give them the heads up that you’re coming… is there a pizza topping you want?”

She scurries over to him with excitement. She moves like he does, weird and unbalanced, she jumps to him instead of taking a last step and rocks back and forth on her feet, “what do you usually get?”

“Uh,” he’s a bit taken aback by how comfortable she gets with him so quick. He physically steps back too, “we get 3 meat lovers for the boys, a Hawaiian for Argyle, Max and El and a vegetarian one for Robin and Nancy… but we can throw in whatever as long as Argyle gets the order in time…”

“Ooo, okay, I’m good with some Hawaiian, actually,” she smiles, surprised that someone else in his group liked it too. “Your group sounds interesting…”

“They are,” he agrees, picking up the phone and dialling the number of the video store.

She leans against the table and smiles at him before she sits on top of it, kicking her feet, she’s content being there.

He isn’t.

It’s weird having a girl he doesn’t know too well in his trailer after everything that happened last time. It was different when Max, Robin and Nancy were in his trailer after Chrissy… they were in charge and saving the day. They knew what was going on. Now he’s bringing an outsider into their group and she will never know what really happened that week in March. But she feels like family… probably because she is. Something in the way she smiles feels like looking in a mirror but he likes her a little more than his own reflection—

“Family Video Hawkins, Steve speaking.” Eddie hears in his ear, drawing him away from his thoughts.

“Hey, Stevie… Roxy said she’d love to join us tonight and she’s another freak who likes pineapple so tell Argyle to throw in a second Hawaiian,” Eddie can’t help but smile, he too liked pineapple on pizza, occasionally. It must run in the family.

“Ew, okay,” Steve says as if he hates it but he’s smiling too, Eddie can hear it. “I’ll go next door and tell him in a sec.”

“Sounds good, okay, I’ll see you in a few hours,” Eddie says instead of goodbye.

“You will,” Steve doesn’t say goodbye either but they both hang up.

“So… Stevie, huh?”

He nods, “yep.”

“Tell me about him?”

“He’s my friend… one of my best friends,” Eddie says with a completely serious face and then his jaw tightens and he rubs his molars together to stay calm and collected. Steve was special to him. He didn’t have to explain that to anyone if he didn’t want to.

“Okay,” she puts her hands up in defeat and hops off the table, “what are some other names I should know besides Argyle and Stevie?”

“Uh, well,” he runs his fingers through his hair and wonders where to start. “So my 3 closest buddies growing up are Gareth, Jeff and Kevin, they’re in my band…”

“Oh, you’re a musician too?”

Great, he thinks to himself. What else is she taking from me?

He nods, “yeah and then Steve's best friend is Robin she’s cool, not sure if she’s going to bring Vickie or not this time they have a bit of a tumultuous friendship so, watch out for that one.”

“Sounds juicy,” she teases.

He just nods, “and then Nancy and Jonathan are always there 'cause we have it at Jonathan’s parent's place, Joyce and Hop, he’s the chief of police, they have a new house here with a big basement we can use.”

“That’s cute!”

“yeah and Jon's brother Will has a gaggle of friends too, they’re 15, very rambunctious and too many hold on,” he counts on his fingers, “Will, Dustin, Lucas, Erika, Max, Mike, El and… yeah no, that’s it. There’s 7 of them.”

“Holy shit?” She can’t believe it. “And you guys are cool having kids around?”

He shrugs, “they’ve been through some shit, they’re not really as immature as you’d expect a bunch of 15-year-olds to be.”

“Well, I’m excited to meet them,” she beams a smile at him. “Thank you for inviting me, it means a lot to me… I know it must be really strange to just have a cousin all of a sudden when it’s just been you and Wayne for so long, but I think it’ll be nice for us to get to know each other too.”

He nods, “yeah, its no problem, really.”

“Don't let it become a problem,” she whispers, keeping her voice down so it doesn’t get to Wayne. “If you have any issue with me at all, ever, just let me know. Please? You’re special to my dad and I want to have a good relationship with you too.”

He lets his walls down then, he sighs and nods, “okay… yeah, I’m a bit worried that I’ll lose him now that you’re here but I can see you’re pretty cool and normal so—

“You absolutely don’t have to worry,” Roxy assures him. “I’m not taking him from you, I just want to experience what it’s like to have a dad.”

“And who the hell am I to get in the way of that?” Eddie manages to laugh.

She opens her arms and looks at him cautiously as she moves in closer, “are you a hugger?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, opening his arms in return and taking her in for a quick hug. She’s about as tall as he is, she rests her chin on his shoulder and holds him tight.

“I always wanted a brother, too…” she says as she pulls back.

“A sister sounds nice,” he teases. “Just don’t move in and don’t touch my things and we’ll be fine.”

“Deal.”

—

“You know, I’m actually really excited to meet her,” Steve admits to Robin as they’re locking up. He lets her outside first and pulls the door closed to lock it.

“Why? ‘Cause she’s the only girl in Hawkins who doesn’t know you’re a total loser?” Robin teases, waiting at his passenger door for him to unlock it.

“They don’t think that. Only you do and I don’t really think your opinion matches the vast majority of women in this town...” he fights back, rushing to his car to get it because it’s fucking cold out and it only makes him meaner when he’s cold.

He hops in and reaches over to her door to unlock it and push it open from the inside. She hops in and throws her bag in the back. “Mm, well, I like to think I know women better than you do,” she reminds him.

“Whatever,” he grumbles, starting his beamer with a sigh. “But no, it’s not cause she’s new, it’s cause she’s probably a lot like Eddie… and you know, I always thought if Eddie was a girl then I’d date her… or if I was a girl then it would work better cause he wouldn't have to change.”

She stares at him like he’s a complete idiot, “what?”

“You know, if you were a boy there’s a girl you’d want to marry?”

“Steve, I don’t have to be a boy to like girls, you know that?” She says it slowly so that he understands her. “You don’t have to like girls just cause you’re a boy…”

“I know, but I like girls?” He reminds her, “very much I might add…”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she really doesn’t want to hear about all the things he’s gotten to do with pretty girls that she still hasn’t. It’s not fair. “But what I’m saying is, you could like boys at the same time. That’s very much allowed.”

“I don’t think I do,” he purses his lips and shakes his head, making it convincing that he’s thought about it before and he has thought about it. A lot.

He does like men. Just one man in particular piques his interest right now. But he shouldn’t, Harringtons aren’t gay. So he says he doesn’t. Cause he can’t.

“Okay,” she drops it, “whatever you say.”

“Do you think I’m gay?” He looks at her with so much panic, just idling in the parking lot, he’s not moving until he gets an answer. And one that he likes.

She shakes her head, “no. I think you have a crush on Eddie…”

Steve can’t say that she’s wrong so he doesn’t say anything at all. He accepts her answer and nods, “interesting.”

He puts his car in reverse, places his hand behind Robin's headrest and looks behind them, peeling out of the parking lot as quickly as possible. He’s quick to leave downtown, Robin is quiet the whole time, just smirking away cause she knows she’s right and she knows it’s silent in the car right now because Steve is thinking about how she’s right.

“So what if I did?” Steve asks, almost whispering he’s so scared of the words that leave his mouth. “What if I did have a crush on Eddie?”

“Ask him out? It’s really a no-brainer, here, Steve.”

He looks at her and then back to the road a few times, mouth agape and then his voice picks right back up. In that octave, he only uses when he’s stressed out, “really? Thats it? You’re not going to do a deep dive into my brain and find out why I’m crushing on a dude of all fucking people?”

“Sounds like you’re asking yourself enough questions for the both of us inside that big head of yours,” she teases.

He shakes his head with a sigh. “If I tell you the truth are you going to make fun of me?”

“Probably,” she’s honest.

He sighs again, more exaggerated this time. “When we were walking through the upside down, going to Nancy’s, Eddie gave me this speech about how Nancy ran after me so fast so she must be in love with me but… but what he didn’t know is that I also wanted to run the first time. I almost didn’t go back to help Nancy with the Demogorgon but I did because I loved her and—and he came back in for me when he didn’t have to. You two already came down, I would’ve been fine with you guys. He didn’t need to come down but he did.”

Robin just smiles, “do you want him to love you?”

Steve shrugs, “I don’t know… but I remember staring at him and feeling like I wanted to kiss him and then the earthquake happened and you started screaming for Nancy.”

“Yeah it was action-packed down there,” she remembers all too well. “And you know, I think he wanted to kiss you too, especially when he was hot wiring the RV, you know, when he called you ‘big boy’?”

He sucks in a deep breath and nods, “yeah… I remember.”

“So you should kiss him,” Robin suggests again.

“No,” Steve panics a bit. “No. What if I’m just getting confused again like when I thought I was in love with you? I can’t kiss him and ruin everything?”

“I’m sure you won’t… Eddie isn’t straight, there’s no way,” Robin waves her hands out and then smacks then over her knees. “No way.”

“But we don’t know that, do we?”

Robin stares at him. “Really? Really?”

“What?”

“I said the same thing about Vickie and you kept yelling boobies at me!”

“I was right, wasn’t I?” Steve combats, not realizing that it proves her point.

“Which means I’m right, right now! Eddie likes you back!” Robin shouts, “come on, man, you have to know that by now! I literally walked out to find you guys hugging in the middle of the store today? You have sleepovers and share secrets, he’s just as close to you as I am and he actually wants to kiss you, so kiss him!”

“I can’t!” Steve shouts back. “I can’t ruin this and I ruin everything when I date people. I’m not dating him. Look at us! You never dated me and now you’re my best friend in the whole world, I dated Nancy and she felt trapped and lost and sad for a year and I never noticed until it was too late.”

“It wasn’t your fault, you know that,” Robin reminds him. “She was balls deep in her trauma, it was almost a year since her friend died while she was busy sleeping with you and never heard her screaming for help. Thats a hard thing to grapple with but she did love you. You did help her through it, she told me how much it meant to her that you’d go over and cuddle with her all night when she was missing barb and how you went to Barb's parents house for dinner all year when you didn’t need to. You helped her dad around the house and even went to Mrs. Hollands' house for tea on your own… you were a good boyfriend it just wasn’t meant to be and that’s okay.”

“But what if the same is for Eddie? What if it’s just a huge crush and not meant to be and everything changes?” Steve worries. “I love the way things are. If he knew I was crushing on him then everything would change and I don’t want anything to change again.”

“News flash, dingus, but Eddie’s long lost cousin showing up out of nowhere is going to change things,” Robin points out.

He groans as he pulls into her driveway, “I know… can we just drop it? Okay?” He places the car in park and takes his keys out of the ignition. “I’m not ready for things to change a lot again.”

“Okay,” Robin drops it and heads out of the car. “But if Roxy’s anything like Eddie, I’m guessing she’s going to want a date with me before you.”

“Doubt it,” Steve laughs, following her inside.

—

Eddie brings Roxy to the Byer's place a few minutes before the party normally starts. Joyce loves her right away, she fluffs her hair and says “oh, how I’d kill for locks like this.”

Only for Hopper to reply, “you did back in 64.”

She sighs and pats Roxy’s shoulder, “enjoy being young.”

She laughs, “I will now that I might make friends… I never really had any back in Chicago.”

“My boys are really sweet, I’m sure you’ll get along with them real well,” Joyce assures her. “If you like video games and George Lucas movies then you’ll fit right in.”

“I do,” she brightens right up. “I thought they sounded interesting just from their pizza orders, now I know I’m surrounded by other dorks, this is the best day ever.”

She makes Hop laugh from his recliner in the living room, “and we’ve got sports going in here if you get tired of it at any point.”

“Only Steve and Lucas ever take him up on that,” Joyce teases. “He’s dying for more sports fans.”

“I mean, I was on the girls curling team in Chicago…”

“Curling?” Eddie repeats, “like the one where you play shuffleboard on ice?”

She nods, “yeah and I was really good at it. My team was the regional champion.” She wanders into the living room after that and sits on the couch beside Hopper, “what teams do you like?”

Eddie listens in for a second but then he heads more into the kitchen, Argyle is already home with the pizzas, he’s just making a salad to go with it all. Jonathan was on pickup duty, using Argyle's van so they all had a place to sit. El was at Mike's, Will’s down the hall in his room… the house is pretty quiet right now. It wouldn’t be for long.

He stands at the counter beside argyle, “hey…”

“Hey,” argyle gives him a smile. “What’s got you so glum, my dude?”

He shrugs, “it’s been a weird day.”

“Meeting your long-lost twin’ll do that,” Argyle teases. “Seriously, are you sure Wayne isn’t your dad too? You’re like identical.”

Eddie manages to laugh, “yeah, I don’t think so unless Wayne’s taking it to the grave, I’m pretty sure his asshole brother is my father… but yeah, I see it too.”

“I’d love to meet my own doppelgänger,” Argyle says with excitement. “It would be cool to see someone, specifically a girl someone, who looked just like me and now you’ve got that! It’s sick.”

“If you think so,” Eddie huffs, resting his chin in his hand and leaning against the counter. “She’s a prettier, shinier version of me… everyone's gonna end up loving her more and I’m going to be alone again.”

Argyle puts the salad tongs down and places his hand on Eddie’s shoulder instead, “it won’t be like that, man, I promise. You’re very special. What would we do without your songs and your jokes and the way you make everyone smile? Sure, she’s nice to look at but you’re you and that’s why we love you.”

He gives argyle a side hug, “thanks, man, really. That’s very kind of you to say.”

“Meant every word,” Argyle smiles.

Just then the front door opens again and Steve’s familiar, “heey!!” Rings through the house. Both Eddie and Argyle head out to see him and Robin, entering the main room of the house and they see Steve’s jaw drop as he looks at Roxy for the first time. He goes right into Casanova mode, runs his fingers through his hair before he extends his hand to her and smiles, “hi, I’m Steve…”

“Roxy,” she shakes his hand firmly and smiles back. “Nice to meet you… and you,” she turns to Robin and freezes, the same look that was on Steve’s face is now on Roxy’s as she looks at Robin. “Hi?”

Robin smiles back, “so you’re the lookalike I’ve heard so much about.”

“What?” Roxy doesn’t understand.

“You and Eddie, you’re like twins,” She laughs, “although you are much prettier….”

Roxy blushes and laughs, she tucks her hair behind her ear and stutters on her words, “th-thanks… thank you.”

“No problem,” Robin gives her one last smile and then keeps walking inside. “Is dinner ready? I’m starving!”

“Sure is! follow me,” Argyle leads her back into the kitchen and Roxy follows quickly behind her.

Leaving Steve to walk up to Eddie and wrap his arm around him, “you okay?”

Eddie nods, “yep. Just peachy.”

They grab their plates and load them up with pizza and dipping sauces and salad, they have beers and sodas and chips for later when they’re hungry again. It’s the same every week, Joyce and Argyle will do anything to make sure the party is happy and fed and has a good time… they’re the best moms the party could ask for.

In the basement, there are 4 mismatched couches and an array of other seats. Beanbags, a hanging chair thats secured to one of the log beams in the ceiling and a single plastic lawn chair… getting enough seats for everyone was hard. And now there’s 1 more person in their group.

Robin and Roxy take a seat next to each other, already getting to know each other, it makes Eddie relax a bit as he sits beside Steve. There’s a ruckus above them, meaning the kids have arrived with Jonathan and Nancy, and the party was about to really start.

Steve can’t stop looking at Eddie, “are you sure you’re okay?”

He just nods, “yeah… I just want to eat and say hi to everyone and then go home.”

“Oh,” Steve's face drops. “Are you still feeling anxious? Do you want a hug?”

He looks over to Roxy and Robin, talking just loud enough to be heard by one another and fully absorbed in another world together. Eddie puts his plate down on the coffee table and Steve copies him, opening his arms and letting Eddie in for a quick hug, “you can always talk to me.”

Eddie pulls back a bit too quickly, looking over to Roxy again who didn’t see anything. She was already asking about Steve earlier, she already knew Steve was important to Eddie just by the tone of his voice… Steve’s so, so important to him. He just stares at Steve and it all comes tumbling out, “she lives in the apartments I grew up in… she’s living where my mom died, Steve.”

“Oh,” Steve knows the stories. All of them. They’ve spent many a night awake in Eddie’s trailer, staring up at the ceiling with their shoulders pressed together… sharing a blanket and holding hands while they shared every secret they had. Well, all but one.

“Do you want me to drive her home for you? I can tell her to only call me for rides and shit, you don’t need to go through that—”

“You don’t have to,” Eddie panics more thinking about Roxy and Steve spending a bunch of alone time together too. “Really, don’t. I can do it.”

“But if it's going to bring back your memories then you don’t have to, I’m okay bringing her home, Robin won’t mind… clearly,” he references over to them. “I haven’t seen her flirt like that before?”

“She took a page from your book,” Eddie teases, bumping Steve’s shoulder with his own.

“Yeah, and she knew I wanted to ask her out too…”

“What?” Eddie’s heart breaks right then and there.

“If it’s okay? I just… I thought maybe it would be nice cause she’s new and she doesn’t know me and—

“She has no preconceived notions about you,” Eddie finishes his sentence. “No, I get it. It’s fine.”

It’s not. It’s really fucking not. Because here Eddie was loving every single part of Steve, every story and mistake, every fear and dream and freckle and hair on his stupid fucking head. But, of course, Steve wants something different. He wants to butter her up and embellish the truth about himself and go back to being King Steve… The lover boy of the land, he could have his pick but he still wants something shiny and new and he definitely doesn’t want Eddie back.

He stands up then, “I uh, I forgot some napkins, I’ll be back.”

“Okay…”

Steve watches him leave, taking the steps 2 at a time until he’s back upstairs. He turns down the hallway and heads towards the bedrooms and the bathrooms where he bumps right into Will. He’s already crying, his face is red from trying to hold it in until he gets to the bathroom but he can't. He chokes on a sob as he pushes past Will and into the bathroom.

“Hey, hey, Eddie, what’s wrong?” Will follows him right into the bathroom, shutting the door behind them. “What’s wrong? Is it a memory? A flashback? What is it?”

Eddie just wraps him up in a hug and cries, “it’s Steve…”

“Oh,” Will settles and holds him gently, running his hand over eddies back. “I know…”

Will knows better than anyone in the house, hell better than anyone in the whole town, what it’s like to be in love with your sisters boyfriend. Its the exact reason why Eddie let Will follow him and why he’s able to tell him the truth. “He wants to ask out Roxy.”

“Who?” Will asks, not caught up on everything cause he’s been in his room all day.

Eddie sighs and pulls back, wiping the tears off his cheeks and taking another deep breath. He leans against the sink, “my uncle has a daughter and she showed up today. Her name is Roxy and she’s pretty and a girl and of course Steve wants to date her.”

“Boys are so stupid,” Will just shakes his head. “I was rooting for Steve, too… I thought he’d figure out that he’s in love with you but he’s still being so stupid about it.”

“He’s worse than Mike,” Eddie manages to tease him, bringing a smile back to his own face.

Will just nods along, “I literally confessed all my feelings to him… well, I was pretending that it was what El thought about him and the idiot didn’t see through me at all. He just nodded along and was like ‘oh yeah? Huh, I guess she does always need me’ like no idiot! I do!”

“I ran through a swarm of killer bats for him… I would’ve died so he could make it back to Dustin and he still wants my cousin more than me,” Eddie shares. “I thought we were building something here, I thought he was going to figure it out that what we have is more than just friends… friends don’t sleep in the same bed and share hugs and I know for a fact he kissed my shoulder one night. I didn’t dream that. So why the fuck is he going after my cousin?”

“Does she look like you?”

Eddie nods, “like exactly the same just with tits.”

Will looks at him with a tilt of his head, “oh, Steve’s so dumb… he’s definitely in love with you and thinking this is his chance to be normal if he can just date the girl version of you.”

“You think?”

Will nods, “absolutely… I remember when Steve was dating Nancy she looked so much like Tommy H. they had the same curly hair and freckles but Nancy is a girl, she’s the safe option and then he fell in love with her.”

“How do you know that?” Eddie’s shocked, for a kid 4 years younger than Harrington, he sure knew the drama.

“Jonathan had no friends before Nancy and Argyle so he would tell me everything and we gossiped a lot… he would hear crazy shit while smoking the weed you sold him under the bleachers and then he’d come home and tell me. Like, this one time, Carole was saying that Tommy wanted a threesome with Billy, but before he wanted one with Steve but Steve was never interested and it always made Tommy really angry and then a few weeks later they broke up and she said ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he asks Wheeler and the perv for a threesome next.’ So…”

“Holy shit,” Eddie’s jaw drops and he chuckles slightly, “they weren’t kidding when they called you Will the Wise.”

He shakes his head with a smile, “they weren’t… I get it from my mom.”

“That you do,” Eddie smiles, knowing from Steve that Joyce and Nancy’s knowledge, in the beginning, is the reason they won in the end. “It’s just hard waiting for him to get his head out of his ass… even the thing with your brother was so homosexually charged.”

“What happened with my brother?”

“Did Jonathan leave out the part where he kicked the shit out of Steve so bad he had a concussion?”

“I knew he threw a punch…” Will says, thinking back on it. He was only 13 when he went missing, of course, Jonathan held back on some stuff from that week.

“Oh, no, he kicked his ass,” Eddie smiles but feels bad about it. “Tommy painted Nancy the slut Wheeler on the theatre's matinee and they got in a verbal fight in the alleyway and Jonathan took the first swing and he finished it before the cops rolled in and took Jonathan away.”

“Oh…”

“It was a rough week, Steve egged him on, he deserved it,” Eddie can’t help but side with Jonathan after knowing the whole truth. Including what Steve called Will; it’s something he’s also not going to tell Will about. Everyone wanted to spare Will the hurt of knowing the names he’s been called behind his back.

“Huh,” Will thinks about it a little harder. “Sounds like Steve uses violence to get close to men… didn’t you pin him to a wall and hold a bottle to his throat? Or did Dustin exaggerate that?”

Eddie nods, “oh, yeah, I did that…” he presses his lips together awkwardly, it was a very intense, very hot, moment between them. He thinks about it often.

“Maybe you need to have a fight,” Will suggests. “Not, like, physical, but get your feelings out, raise your voice, get in his face and wait for him to kiss you.”

Eddie laughs again, “okay, alright… that’s not a bad idea?”

“He just needs a push.”

“What about Mike? You’re not actively trying to push him and El apart, are you?”

He shakes his head, “no, no, I’d never do that to her. I love her, she’s my sister… I’m actually trying to get over Mike. I’ll just be single until I meet another gay person my age and then I’ll see where it goes.”

“I know someone,” Eddie proposes. “You know him too… if you’re okay with me telling him about you, maybe he’d want to ask you out?”

“Really?” Will lights right up. “And they’re 16?”

“He’s 17…” Eddie says, not wanting to give away that it’s Gareth. He hasn’t told any of the new Hellfire members, only the band knows.

“Yeah, no, I’d love that,” Will brightens right up. “That would be great.”

“I’ll work on that for you,” he pats Will on the shoulder, “now come on, it’s gonna be weird if they see us leaving together.”

“Here,” Will opens the cupboard behind the sink and grabs a bandaid, “I was just showing you where these are.”

“Smart… and thanks, sorry for breaking down on you, it’s been a weird fuckin day,” Eddie sighs and heads for the door. “I never normally cry.”

“No problem, it’s our secret,” Will really doesn’t mind, he follows Eddie out into the hall and then back into the kitchen unseen.

Eddie pats his shoulder one more time before slipping past him and heading back downstairs to his dinner. His spot beside Steve is still empty, the kids are meeting Roxy and asking her all about how she found Eddie and Wayne after so many years.

“Well, his name being in the news for murder was a big help… I always knew my dad’s name but I had no idea how to track down all the Wayne Munsons who went to some random festival in the mid-60s,” Roxy shares. “But Wayne told me it wasn’t Eddie at all, it was actually the lab here in town and a bunch of kids died? What the heck happened?”

They all look at each other and shrug, playing it off that they had no idea. Dustin says they have no clue what the details are, “we’re just glad he got off the hook 'cause we would’ve been charged with harbouring a wanted criminal if not…”

“And what a great job you did at that,” Eddie teases. “At least in jail I’d get clean clothes and 3 meals a day…”

“We can find something to send you to jail if thats where you want to be,” Steve teases him, reaching out for his hand to tug him back down to the sofa. “Your pizza is getting cold…”

“You wanna warm it up for me, hot stuff?” Eddie whispers, getting in his space and making Steve blush.

He pushes Eddie back, “shut up.”

“Make me…”

Steve picks up Eddie’s slice of pizza and brings it to his mouth, all but shoving the slice in there, forcing him to take a bite. “there.”

Eddie takes a big bite and Steve pulls the rest of the slice away, putting it back on the plate. Eddie watches him intently, he’s so madly in love it makes his stomach turn and flutter up to his throat. He was to look away or he’ll choke on the bite, he places his hand on his chest after, it took a lot to do that without coughing to death in front of him, and Steve noticed too.

He placed his hand on Eddie’s back and patted him a few times like a newborn baby, “you good?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he waves it off, slightly embarrassed.

Steve keeps his hand on Eddie’s back and gently runs his hand up toward his shoulder, he gives him a good squeeze and pulls him into a side hug. Eddie tilts his head toward him and Steve does the same, the bump noggins and smile before turning back to everyone else.

—

The kids usually sleep over in Will’s basement after their pizza parties, sometimes Eddie brings Max home but tonight she’s staying with El. Robin and Roxy are having a blast talking to each other and now Steve has slid into the spot beside her on the couch with his arm around the back of the couch, basically around her.

“I’m going to head out,” Eddie announces, pointing towards the door. “Rox did you want to drive home with Steve? He goes past your apartment anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind,” Steve throws in for good measure, “it would be nice to talk to you, I haven’t been able to get a word in edge wise with Robin here.”

“I would love that,” Roxy gives Steve a smile. “Uh, I’ll see you tomorrow though? Wayne invited me for dinner cause he has the night off.”

“Right,” Eddie clearly had no idea. Steve could see it in his face. “Have a good night… see you guys.”

Everyone cheers goodbye and he gets a few waves before he heads towards the stairs and starts his journey home. Alone. For the first Friday night in a long time.

“I think I’m going to go with him,” Robin announces, “it was lovely to meet you but I don’t want him to leave without me…”

“Oh, okay, bye Robin!” Roxy waves her off and then it’s just her and Steve and a bunch of children. “I guess we shouldn’t stay too much longer, that would be weird…”

“We can go whenever you like?” Steve leaves it completely up to her.

“Let’s go,” she stands up and reaches out a hand to help him to his feet as well.

Steve takes it with a smile, she was just as chivalrous as Eddie… he says goodbye to the kids, Dustin pats his shoulder during their goodbye hug and whispers in his ear, “good luck, she’s cool.”

“Thanks,” he mumbles back, “call me tomorrow if you need a ride home.”

“Will do,” Dustin says, giving Steve and Roxy a smile and a wave. “Drive safe.”

“it was so nice to meet you guys,” Roxy says one last time, “thank you for letting me come.”

“Anytime,” a few of the boys say. “Come back next week,” Dustin adds.

Lucas agrees too, “Yeah, and Max said she loved having another girl at the party now. She wanted me to say bye if she wasn’t down here when you leave, so, Bye from Max…”

“Tell her in the morning I loved meeting her too,” Roxy gives them all a smile and one last wave, “see ya!”

They wave her off and she follows Steve up the stairs, they put their shoes back on by the door and Steve hands her the leather jacket on the hook, expecting it to be hers. “Thanks,” she smiles. “Am I that obvious?”

“You’re just a lot like Eddie,” he admits.

“Which is crazy, honestly, no one at my high school was like me and now I come here and we’re like twins?” She says with a laugh, feeling a bit too loud as she looks over into the living room where Joyce and Hop are cuddling on the couch. “Oh, sorry… thank you for having me tonight, you guys have a lovely family.”

“Oh, anytime sweetheart,” Joyce gives her a sweet smile.

“You be careful on the road,” Hopper points to Steve, “the news is saying there’s a fog rolling in tonight so no dilly-dallying.”

“Sure thing, dad,” Steve rolls his eyes as he opens the front door. “See you later.”

“Bye guys,” Joyce calls back to them as they leave.

Steve leads her outside towards his car and unlocks her passenger door, opening it for her. “Why thank you, kind sir,” she pats Steve on the shoulder and then gets into the seat. Steve closes the door behind her and rushes over to the driver's side.

“So, Eddie said you’re in the apartments above the shops?” Steve double-checks as he starts the engine.

She nods, “yeah, it’s not much but I wanted a place close to my dad, even if he didn’t want me I still wanted to live here and get to know him.”

“Wayne would never not want you,” Steve assures, “believe me, from what I know about Eddie’s childhood, Wayne is meant to be a dad and take care of people, he loves everyone in Eddie’s life just as much, too.”

She smiles, “yeah, he talked very highly of Eddie… I’m still waiting for him to warm up to me.”

“He’s kinda stuck in the mindset that the love people give him is conditional, he’s afraid Wayne will leave him for you,” Steve spills the beans. “Don’t tell him I told you, but, just keep in mind that Wayne has been his whole world for the last like 9 years of his life and he’s been through so much this year that he needs that one aspect of his life to stay the same… he can’t lose Wayne.”

“I don’t plan on taking him,” she reiterates. “I really don’t, I just want to talk to him and celebrate a birthday with him and give him a fathers day present and hear that he’s proud of me… I want to feel like I’m part of a family that loves me for me.”

“I get that,” Steve really gets it, actually. He lets everything go quiet while he backs out of the Byers driveway and heads towards downtown. “I uh… I’ve always known both my parents but I didn’t feel like I had a family before when it was just me and them.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I love my mom and my grandparents but… they don’t get me,” she has to explain for good measure. “They weren’t abusive or anything it just wasn’t fun being there for the last 18 years.”

“Well, you’re here now and there’s lots of love in our little friend group to go around, so,” Steve gives her a smile. “Speaking of… if you ever wanted to hang out just like, me and you, without the rest of them, that would be nice… don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” she lights right up too. “I’m having dinner with Wayne tomorrow but I’m free the next night?”

“Sounds good,” Steve can’t stop the smile on his face. “I uh, I work till 5 but I can get you at 6?”

“That works for me,” she smiles right back. “You’ll have to pick the spot, I don’t know what’s around here.”

“There isn’t much, but Benny’s diner reopened last month so if you like diner food…”

“I have been dying for a good old diner burger,” she assures him. “This’ll be fun, I’ve never had good friends like this.”

“It’s life-changing, believe me.”

—

“and then he asked to ask her out?!” Eddie freaks out more towards the end of his story, parked in front of Robin's house while she listens to his ramble.

Robin just sighs and leans back against the seat. “I never told you he was smart.”

“This is killing me, Rob,” he turns to her with tears in his eyes. “She gets to call Wayne her dad, she gets to date Steve, everyone loved her as soon as she walked into the room… it took me years to get this and she got it all in 10 fucking seconds?”

“I don’t know how to comfort you,” Robin admits. “On one hand I know this is just your anxiety about things changing again but on the other hand… I like her so I’m part of the problem.”

“I don’t want people to not like her,” Eddie says with a sigh, he rubs his face quickly and groans from deep inside himself. “I’m overreacting, I know that, but it hurts. It physically fucking hurts that I have to share her with MY people. Wayne and Steve are my people.”

“Okay, watch yourself,” she gets jealous then. “But Steve does love you, I know that, but he loves me too and he loves Dustin and he loves Max and Lucas and Erika… I’m not sure how he is with Mike honestly, it’s a toss-up, but he loves everyone. He has the room to love people. He’s been waiting to love people like this his whole life.”

“I know…”

“Do you?” Robin questions, staring him down. “Steve loves you so much he let me and Nancy kill vecna alone so he could stay with you two. And thank fucking god he did because I wouldn’t be able to deal with him if he lost you that day, you were being an idiot thinking you could take on those bats alone.”

“He stayed for Dustin…?”

Robin shakes her head, “No. He knows that Dustin knows how to follow orders and make it out fine. He stayed for you.”

A tear tumbles down his cheek and he’s quick to wipe it away with the back of his hand. “I just wanted to win.”

“And we did,” robin reaches out and takes his hand in hers. “We won, Vecna died, the gates are closed and Hop came back to clear your good name. That’s the biggest win we could’ve ever expected…”

“Is it really a win if it brought her here?” Eddie asks, feeling a bit terrible for how much he regrets opening the door for her.

Robin nods, a smirk growing on her face, “what if she’s more like you than you thought?”

“Hm?” His brows go up. “No way…”

“You’re gay, Wayne has that thing with Mr. Clarke that no one wants to talk about… but I see it. I know there’s something fruity going on there, she’s gotta be like us,” Robin rants.

“What thing with Mr. Clarke?”

“Has Steve not told you?” Robin gawks, jaw dropped, “no… really?”

“Clearly, I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Mr. Clarke comes in and gets a movie every Saturday morning and Wayne drops the same VHS tape off Sunday before he goes to work… he brings it right to the desk too like I didn’t check it out to Scott the day before?” She explains. “Like, really…? it’s so clear they’re having dates on Wayne’s only day off.”

“I’m learning way too much today,” Eddie rubs his eyes, shaking his head. “Holy fuck? Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Dustin said their cots were side by side in the gym after the earthquake, he found them talking when you got arrested,” Robin keeps explaining, hoping she’s making it somewhat better the more he knows. “I think it’s either a trauma bond friendship or they’re dating. It’s been 3 months.”

“I’m normally with Steve on Saturdays,” he whispers, realizing why he hasn’t noticed this… it’s cause he’s not home as often as he used to be. “Oh my god, I’m such an ass… here I am scared that I’m going to lose him when I’ve barely talked to him in the last 3 months?”

“So maybe Roxy showing up is a good thing, maybe she’s meant to bring everyone together?” She suggests, eyes full of hope. And maybe she’s right… Robin typically is.

“Okay,” he gives in. “I’ll give her a chance.”

General Taglist

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @babybisexual @marsmunson86

Steddie

@nosaladallowed-ao3 @wifeyreid @girl-with-an-orange-cat @sunshinemunchkin @luna-munson83 @manda-panda-monium @steve-thehair-mamabear

@knightoftheieves @swimmingbirdrunningrock @throwbackthrowaway @sofadofax @currently-steddiebrainrot

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington fanfiction #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #steddie fanfiction

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sophies-junkyard · 9 months

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Seeing the new PJO content has me thinking way too hard about growing up. Its crazy because it’s like…. I think that chapter of my life is over? Which is a BIZARRE feeling. It’s all pretty stupid to write out but I’m drinking coffee and staring out the window and don’t have class for another 6 hours so lemme scribble some thoughts.

I read the Percy Jackson books when I was the same age as the characters, and so whenever I look back on those stories I sort of… remember them as peers? I remember how much I related to them and looked up to them. It was the first story that ever told me my ADHD could be a gift, and that it made me just like my heroes. It was so, SO important to me. I JOINED TUMBLR for the PJO fandom! I made camp t-shirts and painted necklace beads! I learned to draw because the fanart inspired me. Those books were such an escape for a lonely kid. The characters grew up right alongside me, and eventually got older than me. So when I picture our trio I still picture people… more competent than me? People I would aspire to be. But seeing that trailer and remembering like… holy fuck they were kids. I was a kid. This is a faithful adaptation because they were TWELVE… where did the time go?

It’s just strange because if you scroll back through my tumblr you’ll find a kid who camped out for the release of HOH. Who saved her allowance for a year to get an autographed copy of the Blood of Olympus. Whose eyes would glaze over in euphoria at the idea of my favorite thing in the world coming to screen. At the idea of a new BOOK!! And from Percy’s perspective?? That girl would’ve exploded. This was HER blog! Push a few buttons and you’ll find her!

So how odd is it that… it’s simply not for me anymore. When I saw that the book was set in Percy’s senior year of high school, I had a tiny flash of disappointment. Obviously I can’t relate to an 18 year old, and I felt myself frowning. “Why isn’t Percy for ME anymore?” I wondered. And I immediately felt silly. The answer is because… I don’t need that world anymore.

They’re not making this show for me. They’re bringing it back for the next generation of kids who need those role models and those stories. When I watched the trailer I thought “oh that’s cool” instead of “oh my god I can’t wait!!” Because it just doesn’t make my brain light up like it used to. I’m never going to relate to it like I once did. Ever. And that’s okay because I’m not that kid anymore! Insane.

It’s not like the series doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. There’s a copy of The Lightning Thief on the bookshelf directly across from me. Its smooshed between The Secret History and a level 4000 Spanish textbook. It’s yellowed with age and shredded around the corners. The first sentence has been underlined repeatedly in smudgy mechanical pencil. There are about a thousand folded pages and the back cover is missing. I don’t remember the last time I opened it, but it’s moved with me for years now and I have no intention of letting it go.

Those stories and that fandom shaped me into the person I am today. I wanted to be brave like Percy and smart like Annabeth. I believed it was possible because I saw myself in them, and it turned out to be true. So while it’s sad to know those days are behind me, I’m so SO glad that other kids will get to have that experience. I hope these stories live on for decades to come.

I don’t really know what the point of writing this was. I think I just wanted to have these thoughts written out somewhere. A sort of acceptance that time goes on and things change, ya know? And to clarify: this is NOT meant to discourage ANYBODY from watching the new series or reading the new book. People should absolutely go back to the things that bring them joy, should discover new worlds to escape to, etc. live your life baby! Hell, I’ll probably end up liking everything PJO related that floats across my dash. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. If you read this entire post I hope you have a great day lmao.

#percy jackson #PJO #the lightning thief #rick riordan #annabeth chase #this is my life #heroes of olympus #riordanverse #the chalice of the gods #this one’s for the homies who are feeling a bit old #feel free to let me know if y’all feel the same or if you’ve got a different perspective on all this!#adhd

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commenter2 · 5 months

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"Masquerade" review

Angel deals with things.

You could instantly tell this was going to be a porno since Angel never tried to use the 3rd set of arms he hides to escape.

Charlie I think everyone else wouldn’t mind if you had said that Angel’s work was very inappropriate to show. Where was that same courage you had when dealing with Adam?

Again though I’d be okay if one of these problems Charlie has is about her parents, I’m still hoping it’s not on the same level as those with similar problems in Helluva Boss.

So were finally getting the “abusive relationship” story with Angel and Valentino. Nice to see Charlie instantly noticing it.

Admittedly I got a chuckle at the animation of Charlie banging her legs on the floor.

I brought this up in my Charlie and Vaggie “trailer” Tumblr post (link) but I think throughout the series (definitely later this season) we will learn that Charlie sees her royal status as a bit burdensome (maybe it’s also connected how this is related to how she canonically doesn't like wearing dresses XD) like maybe she always just wanted to be treated like everyone else but for her it was hard given she was nicer than most demons and I bet it was even harder to tell who liked her for who she was or if they were doing so out or obligation or using her for fame. That last part could be another good reason why she broke up with Seviathan von Eldritch. Another reason I bring this up is that we will likely see Charlie struggle with doing this until near the end of the season as seen with that makeshift army she makes of her friends and Rosie's people she recruited via singing which does seem to make Charlie a bit confident.

I think what you’re describing their Charlie is getting close to the definition of intimidation. DO IT!

Travis is back, and is an employee of Val’s. Guess the fandom really liked him.

Great first Adam NOW Val, you have the right to defend yourself Charlie! There better be a lot of fan art of Lucifer kicking Val’s ass posted soon.

Val’s robe are his wings. Does this mean if he was in a cold area, he would have to put a jacket over them to actually keep warm XD.

Uh oh here it comes :(

Is that angelic paper Val has or could all contracts look like that?

Since Charlie is the princess of Hell, you think she or someone else could get Angel out of his contract with Val?

That song number was cringy to watch and I hope something is done soon so we don’t see another one like it.

Looks like Charlie was beating herself up all night for causing Angel’s miserable night.

Angel’s extra eyes are out. Oh crap Angel is going crazy! Its Fizz at M’s clown contest all over again!

Wait it’s still the same day? I thought Val told him to work all night?

Charlie seems to have learned her lesson about boundaries.

Were finally going to get some true Husk and Angel interaction time.

Nice throw Husk, The Joker would be proud.

I think the writers did a good job at describing/showing how self destructive people are like.

Husk being a former Overlord confirmed. Well technically the theory was that he was a still an Overlord but that was being kept secret, no one accounted him losing his title. Hey I guess Overlords can lose titles.

Looks like the Cat in the Hat’s Nobody found his heart! No wait his heart grew 3 times that moment XD

Did Husk just flirt with Angel :3

Angel says because Val has bad eyes he can’t count, but I’m still going to think that it’s because he is so dumb that he can do math.

Aww Angel is starting to change, even making Charlie proud that she cries.

That or, and I hate ending this on a bad note, the crying could be related to something deeper like people never expressed such emotion to her before. PLEASE LET ME BE WRONG, at least when it comes to her mom and dad.

I’m mix on this episode.

Yeah I know this was going to happen eventually but it was still a bit sad to watch Angel go through all of that, yet still deny help from Charlie. At least it looks like Angel had a breakthrough and will likely decide to finally start to heal himself as well as aid Charlie in achieving her dream. It was also nice to see Husk not be the cranky old cat we know and love him for, bet those who ship Angel and Husk are happy too.

The biggest flaw of the episode was that the plot was a bit hard to get into since the shows spinoff series Helluva Boss has pretty much done this 3 times already, so we know how this is (probably) going to end and are just waiting for the inevitable scene where Angel stands up and finally becomes free of Val. Still it could have been worse when it came to the similarities (check out my review of Seeing Stars) and a few points for not having Ange’s character storyline end in just 1 episode.

We are already halfway done with the first season, and I can already tell that the last 4 episodes are going to be the most intense episodes yet, especially since the next one will have Lucifer in it. I hope that one won’t be as cringy as this episode given the franchise’s history with parents (specifically dads) but at least the good news is that this is only the first season so if it is, there is a chance the characters will change.

#hazbin hotel #vivziepop #hazbin hotel angel dust #hazbin hotel husk #hazbin hotel valentino #hazbin hotel charlie

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melodyfics · 2 years

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masterlist and recommendations

this is where i will put the fics i'll write and my recommendations. hope you enjoy them!

my fics

smut

nothing: a movie night with your boyfriend eddie heats up quickly.

series

fridays, part 1: you run into your high school crush, eddie munson, at family video. your surprise turns into excitement when he asks you to come over to his trailer to watch a movie.

fridays, part 2: you had been going to eddie’s house for a couple of fridays now, but it wasn’t until today that things changed.

recs

favorites are marked with a ❤

smut

❤ he’s gentle when he wants to be.: you've never been pleasured properly before, and your boyfriend wants to change that.

I hear you knocking

❤ want: eddie just wants to make sure your first time is perfect. you just want him.

❤ "If you don't like my teasing why are you moaning?": short one shot about eddie teasing you while eating you out.

flannel and lace: Eddie comes home to find you wearing one of his flannel shirts, wearing only his flannel shirt.

untitled: yay request are open! I just love your stuff so much. how about Eddie and reader your mom comes how early and Eddie isn't supposed to be there so he ducks under the table you are sitting at and ends up licking you while you are trying to hold it together talking to your mom standing at the counter. after she leaves again he has you bent over the table.

gentle with me, pt. 1: Reader asks Hawkins High’s favorite freak to deflower her before they graduate. Reader has had a crush on Eddie since forever and only trusts him to do it right. Unbeknownst to her, Eddie has also been crushing hard. He takes extra special care of her ;)

gentle with me, pt. 2: Unable to stop thinking about their night together, Eddie asks reader back to his trailer for round two.

(this one has a lot of plot) nothing else matters: It’s been two weeks since you and Eddie decided to stop sneaking around and start behaving like every other couple at Hawkins High. Only that you’re not. And after overhearing a group of cheerleaders’ especially cruel gossip about your relationship, Eddie’s insecurities, nourished by all those years of bullying, hit home despite all of his attempts not to let people’s vile words get to him. This time though…he feels like they might be right. Because why would a girl like you ever fall for a guy like him? And when Eddie realizes he made a mistake…he can only hope it’s not too late to fix what he broke. Based on this request: Maybe one where reader is a cheerleader and popular but only wants to be with eddie but he is insecure because he’s the school freak and overhears mean gossip? Angst w a happy ending?

wrapped around your finger: when you see something you weren’t supposed to jealously pays you a visit. eddie can’t believe what’s gotten into his usually quiet girlfriend, but he has no problem reminding you that he’s yours.

purity's rapture: Eddie’s been your friend and study partner for a few months now. He’s everything you were raised to hate, but with your faith in the church dwindling, you find yourself drawn to him and the “dark side” he represents.

fluff

❤ In which Eddie drives you crazy: eddie knows y/n is in love with him, but does not make a move because he wants to drive her crazy.

hard to love: Seeing Eddie with the beautifully perfect Chrissy was weighing on your insecure heart. Eddie notices and calls you over.

tornado warnings: out of all the girls Eddie could like, of course he'd pick Jason Carver's girlfriend. He kept ignoring the warnings, and now he's in too deep.

take my breath away: Eddie Munson seems almost incapable of not noticing your presence in any room. Where he is usually confident and cocky, in your presence he is a fumbling mess. So how is he supposed to cope when he's forced to sit next to you in class for a semester?

untitled: BuzzFeed invites Joseph Quinn and his co-star, Y/N L/N, to their studio in LA for a couple of interviews to promote the newest release of Stranger Things season four. One of those interviews is this highly anticipated "Thirst Tweets Interview."

starboy: You're infatuated with Eddie Munson and decide to start leaving him notes in his locker. He doesn't know it's you, does he?

you’ve got me: eddie is jealous after you make a comment about a jock.

I think I’m in love pt.1: you're new at hawkins high, and the hellfire club practically kneel at your feet.

yup, that's my wife: "I think I'm in love" pt.2.

you gonna eat that sandwich?: "I think I'm in love" pt.3.

do you like trees?: "I think I'm in love" pt.4 (final).

A throne doesn't make a man king pt. 1: You are substituting for Lucas, and Eddie figures out that you have no clue about D&D.

happy: Please can I request fluffy Eddie Munson x reader with the prompts “I love seeing you smile. your face just gets so bright and your eyes crinkle, plus your dimples are super adorable.” + “ and right now, i think you should kiss me. “ thank you so much!!

untitled: Hiiii could I possibly get an Eddie fic where you're friends with him and the guys (hellfire) and you're like totally into Eddie and vise versa. You're part of the hellfire club and Dustin keeps trying to get you two together but you're soo dense because "Why would someone as gorgeous and sweet as Eddie like ME" but he does. Wholesome TM with a heaping helping of fluff and confessions please and thank you.

untitled: Hello ♡ if you're taking requests for drabbles then could I please request Eddie and Shy!reader who maybe gets a little anxious around his friends (dustin, mike, lucas, etc) and sorta clings to him? If not then it's totally okay and I love your work!

where in the hell did you find that: you and eddie have secretly been hooking up and of course, dustin and steve get suspicious that you are hiding something and completely invade your privacy to reveal your secret <3

brave boy: eddie gets sick and is clingy to y/n.

silly bet: Gareth bet the kids that they wouldn’t be able to talk to you. And when they win, they bring you to Hellfire to prove it, and that’s when you meet Eddie, the boy you watched from afar who held a place in your day-to-day thoughts since you saw him.

happy birthday, pt. 1: Someone would remember your birthday this year, it just wouldn’t be who you expected it to be.

happy birthday, pt. 2: After Eddie was the only one to remember your birthday, you've set your mind to doing something to thank him.

no one like you: eddie confesses to you while you're sleeping… seems like you're not so asleep.

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dangermousie · 2 years

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So, because I am a totally normal person who obsesses a normal amount, I was rewatching all the trailers from before the drama started airing and found this.

Whatever else is wrong with Lei Chun, I got to admire her consistent lack of interest in BCF. She liked him solely as a friend when she was a nice person and he was a sweetheart and made it clear asap. She was using him without any romantic interest when she went psycho and he remained a sweetheart. Now they are both psycho and she still does not fancy him. One of the things I hate the most in love triangles is when the apex can’t decide who she likes and/or gives mixed signals. Lei Chun knows her mind.

But also! While I don’t think anyone should have a crazy dude pressing you into a relationship you have no interest in, I find myself thinking this is such a wonderful example of “you sow what you reap” in action and so it’s so satisfying to me as a viewer.

Lei Chun is 100% the author of her own predicament. Bai Chou Feng was, whatever his insecurities and ambitions, a bashful worshipper with her who never acted or felt entitled to her affections - once she made it clear early on she was in love with someone else, he accepted it. Sure, he continued to love her but without any hope of requittal. Even after she and SMZ broke up, he assisted her with the Pili Sect and treated her like porcelain but he did not press his feelings on her and left after his assistance was completed with “maybe our paths will cross again, that would be cool” type of comment and that’s it.

She is the one who arrested him to turn him over to the Chancellor for the latter’s lovely drug treatment program because she decided he’d make a great addition to Team Evil. Because he could be useful and because it would torture SMZ to have his brother turn against him. (She may not have known about the drugs specifically previously to her jail visit but she didn’t cavil after and she certainly knew whatever “persuasion” he was going to get in jail was not going to be of a nice kind - she knew he was gonna get tortured to within an inch of his life if not killed.) She watched him be tortured/drugged into insanity with no emotion and gloated at how this was going to hurt SMZ to have his brother suffer; he did her no wrong but she didn’t even have basic compassion for someone suffering or see him as anything but a tool to hurt SMZ.

She is the one who created this current BCF. She is the one who turned the man from “why would I want someone if there is no consent” to “DNGAF what you want or feel, you are gonna be mine” because - surprise surprise - when you scramble someone’s brains like a souffle to turn them into soulless murder machine of insanity it’s gonna affect ALL their personality, not just the convenient parts. He’s not going to turn against his sect and his bro and work for his torturers for power and blood but remain a sweet lovely consent-driven dude in his romantic relationships. You can’t pick and choose which parts of him will stay nice and which ones will go feral. This ain’t how it works.

She was instrumental in creating the violent lunatic who only cares about what he wants - he was literally tortured into existence at her instigation and with her approval. And now she has to live with the consequences and by that I mean she has to live with him and actually I truly truly love that! She denied him his volition and his right to choices and now he’s turning it back on her and the sheer fucked up symmetry of this, of losing control of your creation has me salivating at the narrative.

#cdrama #heroes #liu yuning #meng ziyi

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leonpob · 1 year

Text

I posted 1,200 times in 2022

That's 295 more posts than 2021!

79 posts created (7%)

1,121 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@gunsatthaphan

@machikeita

@smittenskitten

@forever-in-phapundao

@laowen

I tagged 1,166 of my posts in 2022

Only 3% of my posts had no tags

#thai bl - 158 posts

#not me the series - 107 posts

#not me - 99 posts

#seanwhite - 96 posts

#offgun - 94 posts

#off jumpol - 90 posts

#cutie pie the series - 84 posts

#gun attaphan - 77 posts

#vice versa - 73 posts

#zee pruk - 73 posts

Longest Tag: 84 characters

#but like how is the scene with tian looking at phupha drinking not the most replayed

My Top Posts in 2022:

I have had a little time to gather my thoughts after the GMMTV 2023 event. First off, all the couples are back. I can’t not be happy about this. So here are my thoughts.

Hidden Agenda: I am excited for it in the sense that I do like Joongdunk, but if it doesn’t feel like it’s just a more talkative Kluen and a more talkative Dao then what is rain? Lol I am so here for AouBoom though. They looked fantastic and adorable and just yesss. Am I going to watch it? Obviously I always watch everything for at least an episode.

23.5: It’s MILKLOVE. We got our GL. Everyone was manifesting it and I guess it finally came true. How adorable was Milk being all shy. She was reminding me of myself honestly lol. Fourth and Gemini are in it too which awww they’re adorable 🥺. So excited for this one.

A Boss and A Babe: Forcebook are back!!! Yay!!! This looks so funny to me. Force’s character is so stiff. I am so here for it though. Office romance sign me up.

Only Friends: this entire trailer basically gives you whiplash. Jojo came to play. Firstkhao and Forcebook and NeoMark(which apparently I am okay with 3 hours later). It looks super messy and crazy. I am EXCITED!!!

Last Twilight: I have nothing but good things to say about this one. Definitely one of the highlights of the trailers. It’s JimmySea done by P’Aof and a blind storyline. Ugh. It’s just chef’s kiss if it’s done right which I feel like it will be. I have high faith in Sea and P’Aof. This is not grammatically correct, but oh well 🤷🏻‍♀️

Cooking Crush: OffGun clowned us. This looks too cute for words 🥺😍 NeoMark are in it too. Sign me up.

Dangerous Romance: why am I so obsessed with this one?! I have watched the trailer like 3 times. I love perthchimon now. I love enemies to lovers. I am just so excited. It looks so good. So much depth 😍

Cherry Magic: now I have never been a huge fan of TayNew. I watched DBK and I did enjoy it, but I would never choose them as a favorite. However, I am intrigued by this. I know everyone is concerned. My wife is absolutely angry over it. She was like no no no so I guess I’ll be watching this one with @gunsatthaphan 😂 I am interested to see how they do this. It looks like there are new characters.

I’m adding The Jungle because it has some of the favs in it. Lee Krist Off Mix 😍😍 That is all.

Our Skyy 2 is 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 As soon as I heard the jingle I couldn’t believe it. I was like no freaking way and here we are. Thank you P’Aof 😭😭

21 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

Vice Versa is all about the eyes. I freaking love that. JimmmySea are so so good.

21 notes - Posted August 14, 2022

I don’t care anymore. Not Me is such a superior show. The only thing close to it is 1000 Stars. Sorry not sorry. Offgun supremacy. 🔥😍

21 notes - Posted January 30, 2022

Forgot to post my bingo card from yesterday’s event 😂😂

Thanks bestie for making it for me 😍

@gunsatthaphan

Apparently JoJo is directing 3 shows so I have 4 bingos 😂

29 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I very rarely write text posts anymore. I usually just message @gunsatthaphan or @leofiat about my opinions, but today I felt like writing one.

Cutiepie the series may have a weird plot and people may think it’s strange, but I just have to commend everyone working on it.

ZeeNunew have been DELIVERING every week. Max and Nat’s chemistry has improved as well.

I love the production, the writing, the directing. The fact that we get it in 4k ultra hd an hour after it airs on tv with English subtitles. I am so thankful.

I also just need to discuss how beautifully done the scenes for LianKuea were just done in episode 8. The fact that Lian asked Kuea not once, but twice for consent is just…I have no words. That is amazing to see on the screen. The intimacy they portrayed through their actions felt so real to me. I know that sounds naive, but I really felt understood and seen.

This is definitely in my top 5. I know it keeps changing, but all the new stuff just gets better and better. The Korean shows are even coming in hot with Semantic Error and Blueming. It’s nice to see change.

129 notes - Posted April 9, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #The bestie is the bestie for a reason #Well this was fun #I think I was a little teensy bit obsessed with Not Me #I stopped tagging with Thai bl recently lol #Vice Versa making the top 10 #Indeed

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praphit · 2 years

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Beavis and Butt-Head: A proud Fifth Choice

Your eyes do not deceive you. The movie joint I'm rockin, today, is "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe". You might say "They have a movie?" "Why?" "Why would you even watch that mess?" "And why would you review it?" "Are you feeling ok?" "Have you lost your mojo?" "Are you on a bender?" - All valid questions.

I asked myself those questions for a bit. At some point, I'm going to either lose my way (however you'd like to interpret that) or lose my passion to ramble about movies. Perhaps this lapse in judgment is the beginning of the end.

I can't be too hard on myself though; B&B weren't my first choice (sorry, boys). I recently discovered that we have Paramount + (The Arby’s of streaming services). In clicking on it, I then discovered that those mischievous, dumbass boys from the the 90' and 2000's are back (for this new movie, AND the series is back).

I then said to myself "Nope". I never really got them, so... "meh".

I then saw the trailer for "Incantation" (first choice)

YES! Watch this trailer! Do it!

Look how scared she is... she's seen some shit! I'd like to witness the same said shit.

Well, then I watched a lil bit of the actual movie, and within minutes... "meh". It's about...

... wait, it doesn't matter what it's about, it sucks!

You can tell if a movie is gonna suck within the first few minutes. It's kinda like conversations. Now, that I've gotten older (and care way less about certain social things) I just walk away from conversations that have the smell of suck. You know you can do that?? Just say "This convo sucks." and leave :) Some call that rude, but I call it time management.

I then saw the title (only) for "Lou" (second choice). I'll spend some time watching a movie about some dude (or lady) with the cool name of "Lou" The crazy thing is that they had me at the title and lost me with the trailer.

They also look scared, but they look like they're scared of a better movie coming along.

"Barbarian" (third choice) is out there,

but I was too lazy to go see it.

And "Dahmer"(fourth choice).

I thought it might be a two or three parter, but it's like 10 epi's. Even if I wanted to, one can't simply sit down and watch a whole day's worth of blood and cannibalism. That can't be healthy.

So, here we are (fifth choice).

Lemme give the young people a chance.

I normally question young people's tastes in music

Their choices for Tv

(this TikTok was simply someone peeling an egg... that’s it:)

their convo

Wait, that’s Adam Levine talking. He’s my around my age, I think. But, the kids are def talking like that.

And their general decision making

, but why not.

Beavis and Butt-Head set out to do the universe, and it all started with Butt-Head kicking Beavis in the balls. Many, many, many times did he do this. They were at a science fair, and it was thought that a marathon of crotch-kicking to see how long it would take for Beavis to pass out... was their experiment - the trials of human endurance. Nope. They were just doing it to do it.

Beavis's balls lead them into outer space where they found themselves trying to get into the pants of this woman right here. Serena. Up until now, I thought I had made a mistake with this movie, but it was at this point I started to get it.

Beavis and Butt-Head are always trying to "score" Life IS about points isn't it??!: Games as kids. tests as we get older, points with the parents, points with your boss, points when you fly, points when you buy, trying to appear better than someone else as to take points away from them, etc etc... and of course the type of points they're into.

The pursuit of scoring led them into the future (2022) where they continue to look for Serena, simply to score with her. (poor boys, they aren't aware yet of the METOO movement).

She doesn't know that they're trying to score with her - she thinks they're there to ruin her career/life. Meanwhile the government believes these boys to be some sort of threat like aliens or terrorists or something.

It took some time, but I finally saw the light!

These boys have taught me a lot in this movie. I get it now! They're like idiot geniuses. And there's a lot of idiocy: they learn of the iphone and fall in love with Siri, they travel the country covered in feces and nacho cheese, they are told about their white privilege by a room full of feminists (after the boys invite them all to a "slut party") and so use their new found "power" to commit crimes, and we see a reappearance of The Great Cornholio

(real G's know).

But, then it's their simplicity that has enchanted me today. Points and Nachos. Nothing else matters. Everything either is “cool” or it “sucks”. Very simple. Add in some fresh animation, there dedication to slap stick (genius comedy duo btw:), and their witty word play -

"Woodson. You've got wood, son. Boiiiiiinnng"

Fantastic!

All this and more has gained them not only a high grade from me, but it has awakened a call to simplicity for myself, and new hope in our.... well, I was going to say "our youth", but let's not go too far... um... a new hope to learn and laugh at the idiocy of others. Thank you, B&B. I've never been more sure about my movie judgment and mojo.

I've thought long and hard about this - I only wish they went a lil more over the top. Grade: B+

Fine cinema.

huh huh I said "long and hard" huh huh Yes, fine cinema indeed.

#BeavisandButthead #johnpraphit #BeavisandButtheaddotheUniverse #praphitproductions.com #comedy #nachos #Praphit #lifelessons #youth #AdamLevine #animation #ParamountPlus #incantation #dahmer

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vendettaparker · 3 years

Text

Peanut Butter and Extra Jelly [T.H]

Summary: Tom’s long time crush on you becomes painful when you and Harrison are cast as love interests in a movie.

Paring: Tom Holland x Actress!Reader

Word Count: 5.8k

Warning: Suggestive themes, fake smut (very light), jealousy, probably some typos, swearing

a/n: i have no idea how filming a movie, or auditioning for one actually goes so don’t crucify me for this. i’m pretty happy with how this turned out, especially considering that this is the most i’ve ever written for a fic. also, Burt Kreisher is one of my fav comedians in real life, he has 3 shows on neflix and a mini series.

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Tom was not a jealous person. At least, that's what he always told himself. He prided himself in thinking he was a very level headed individual who didn’t let his emotions get the best of him. That worked best for his job anyways; always being able to control his emotions and not get in his own head. That simple, pacifistic mindset seemed to change when it came to you.

You were one of the many actors Tom got the pleasure to help hone their technique and work closely with. You were new to the lifestyle of Hollywood and the only roles you had before were in small indie films that never garnered too much attention. The first major role that you landed, which also happened to help kickstart your career, was in the MCU. You played the secondary villain in the third Spider-man movie.

Meeting the cast was a dream come true; they were all extremely helpful and they provided tons of tips and tricks in navigating the hectic schedule required for such a huge production. By the time filming wrapped up, you were considered part of their little Spider-man family.

Tom was easily the most helpful. Whenever he saw you struggling with anything, he offered to help. You two spent hours upon hours together in his trailer, ordering take out and practicing lines. Some nights you two planned to work through your script, but inevitably ended up falling asleep binge watching The Office, and laughing about crazy shit that happened on set that day.

When the movie wrapped up and you went home for a month before the press tour, you were completely unsure and nervous about what direction your career was going in. You auditioned for a few new movies, but had yet to hear from any of the directors about casting decisions. You kept in touch Tom during the month you were apart and expressed your concerns.

“I don’t know, Tom. I’m just so sick of waiting around and hoping that some director out there throws me a bone, ya know’?” You said on facetime, while making cookies.

“Yeah, I totally understand that, (Y/N/N). I had that issue a couple years ago before the Marvel movies. Trust me, you did outstanding in that role and once it gets noticed I’m positive you’ll have directors calling you, begging for you to audition.” Tom smiled warmly into the camera as he walked around his apartment in London.

“Yeah, easy for you to say, movie-star.” You giggled, turning your face away from the camera in hopes that Tom wouldn’t notice the blush his compliments painted onto your cheeks

“I’m serious! You were outstanding! Like in that one scene where you—”

“Tom! Tessa chewed a hole in my trousers again!” A voice came from outside of the frame, “Mate, you gotta get her to stop doing that somehow.”

Tom sighed, and waved his hand dismissively at the figure, “Okay, sure. I’m busy right now.” Tom looked back to the camera, “anyways, as I was saying, don’t stress about not having a new project yet, (Y/N)—”

“(Y/N)?” The other voice whisper-yelled. “Let me say hi!”, suddenly the phone was yanked out of Tom's hands and the video shook around a bit as Tom wrestled to get it back. Finally, the camera stilled and Harrison was on the other end smiling. “Hi, (Y/N)!”

“Oh, hi Harrison!” You smiled back, laughing. You'd met Harrison a few times when he visited Tom on set. “How are you?”

The camera started moving around more as the background behind Harrsion whizzed past. You assumed Tom must’ve been chasing him to get the phone back.

“I’m good! I just auditioned for a new movie. You should audition too! The main female lead’s description looks just like you.” He exclaimed, running past the kitchen to his room.

“Oi! Give me my phone back you div!” You heard Tom yelling in the background, no doubt in hot pursuit of Harrison.

“I don’t know, I'm not sure I’m prepared for a lead role.” You sighed, “What’s the movie called? I’ll look into it.”

“It’s called ‘Collateral Damage’, it’s a spy movie.” Harrison said, shutting the door to his room, while Tom pounded on it from the other side. “Yeah, it’d be really fun working with you. Tom constantly talks about how much fun you are on set.” Harrison wheezed out, trying to catch his breath.

“Aw, that’s sweet of him.” You laughed. “Well I’ve got to go. Just tell Tom he can call me tomorrow or something.” You waved at the camera. “Bye!”

“Yup, bye.” Harrison said right before the video cut out.

Harrison finally opened the door to a seething Tom. Tom grabbed the phone back from Harrison and noticed that the call had ended.

“Dude! Why would you do that?” Tom whined.

Harrison just patted Tom’s back, “Sorry, mate. She said she had to go, though. I was about to give the phone back.”

Tom huffed and sulked for a moment. “Whatever, I’ll just call her later, I guess.”

Harrison nodded and smirked at how whipped Tom was. “You should just ask her out if you’re so desperate for her attention.” Harrison teased.

“Shut up. I’m not desperate for her attention, I just like her voice and her personality, and the way she talks, and her funny sayings, and how her hair looks when she just woke up.”

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It was only a few days later when you received an email from the director of the movie Harrison told you about, asking for you to audition. You were ecstatic, Harrison must’ve already sent in some things about you since the director seemed adamant that you were of high interest for the role.

You called Tom immediately to share the good news.

He picked up after the third ring, “Hello, darling! How are you?” he beamed when he answered your call. He usually was the one to call you so he felt a sense of pride knowing that you were calling him for once.

“Tom! The director of the movie Harrison auditioned for just emailed me asking for me to audition!” You squealed excitedly.

“Really? That’s wonderful, love! Harrison just got the part of the lead too, so you’d be filming with him if you got it.”

“That’s so exciting, I’m flying to London for the audition in two days. Are you still there?” You pulled the phone away from your ear and switched it to speaker. “I’m booking the flight right now.”

“Yeah, I’ll be in London for another week and a half. Then we have the press tour starting in Japan.” Tom said, also switching to speaker phone to look at his calendar. “You can stay with Harrison and I while you’re here. Since we have to go to Japan together anyways.” Tom offered nervously. He really wanted you to stay in his flat with him. It’d be all cute and domestic, and maybe, just maybe, he’d spend enough time with you to not feel nervous about asking you on a date. If he was lucky, that is, but awaiting your reply he was a jittery ball of nerves.

“Yeah, that sounds wonderful. I won't be intruding though, right?” You said, smiling from ear to ear. Thank god you weren’t on facetime and Tom couldn’t see the stupid smile adoring your features.

“No, of course not. Harry will be so excited to see you. And Tessa too, she really misses you.” Tom shuffled around with his phone, shooting a quick text to Harrison letting him know you were coming to stay for a week.

“Ok, thanks so much, this is really thoughtful of you. I absolutely can’t wait to see you!” You gushed, finalizing your purchase of a one-way ticket to London. “K, the flight is at 2:30 pm here, it’s about 9 and a half hours, but you’re also ahead of me, so I’ll be in around..5?”

“Yeah, that sounds right to me,” Tom chuckled, “I’ll come pick you up. I’ll wear my incognito disguise.”

“If you mean that stupid t-shirt you got that says ‘I’M NOT A CELEBRITY’, then maybe I’ll ask Harrison to come pick me up…”

“That’s cold (Y/L/N).”

You giggled softly, “I’m sorry, Tommy. If it makes you feel better, that shirt isn’t as bad as that stupid blue beanie that you never wear correctly.”

“How the fuck would that make me feel better? You’re killing me, (Y/N/N).”

You laughed at his over dramatic reaction, “Sorry that you’re a sensitive babe. I gotta go now, see you soon!” You hung up before Tom could respond with a sassy quip. Then immediately after you received a text:

Tommy: The second you get here I’m bout to 👊

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Tom called Harrison up after you got off the phone, he needed to make sure his best friend wouldn’t say or do anything to embarrass him in front of you.

“Tom, don’t you think this is a bit obsessive? I mean, she’s only staying with us for a week and you already know her so well from spending all that time filming with her.” Harrison sighed, sick of listening to Tom ramble about every possible embarrassing situation he could be put in, in the coming week.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. It's no big deal. But don’t mention that time I accidentally shit my pants at the club, or that time I got hit in the head with a golf ball ‘cus I got distracted by a flock of geese, or that time a got chased by a flock of geese, or—”

“Geez, mate. At this point we might as well not even talk to her.” Harrison chuckled, thinking of all the stories he could bring up about Tom around the dinner table with you. Tom really was just a walking ball of embarrassing moments.

“Stoppp ittt,” Tom whined, “when we were on set it was usually just the cast and Harry around, but you? You could do some real fucking damage to my love life, Haz.”

“What love life?” Harrison barked out, laughing.

Tom then hung up and began praying to whatever god was out there that this week could go by without a hitch, and then you and him would be on your way, together, to Japan.

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The whole week spent in London actually went really well, especially the audition. Tom and Harrison both accompanied you for moral support, well Harrison actually had to be there to be your scene partner, but it was still nice knowing he supported you.

The director shook your hand and you went through the normal formalities before beginning your scene with Harrison. It was a quick scene with a monologue in it. The main premise of the movie was all about choosing love over work, especially in dangerous, life-threatening scenarios. The scene you used to audition with Harrison was the scene where the main character, Lincoln, and his lover interest, Mallory, were arguing, trying to push each other away to keep each other safe. The scene had a lot of raw emotion that you were able to tap into, and the directors gave your performance a standing ovation once the scene concluded.

They said that they’d get back to you within the next few days, but they also mentioned how the chemistry between you and Harrison was off the charts, leaving you hopeful. Tom and Harrison both gave you hugs and pats on the back. Tom had watched the whole scene unfold and he was in complete and utter awe of your talent. Part of him was annoyed that he didn’t audition for the movie and a chance as your love interest. But Harrison deserved this big break and so did you, so he was hopeful of the outcome being something that benefitted both of his best friends.

After the audition the rest of the week went by nearly perfectly. The real kicker was when Tom’s family invited you and Harrison to join them for dinner. Tom had not anticipated his mom asking you to come to family dinner, so he wasn’t able to stop the embarrassing anecdotes his mom told on his behalf.

“Tom had the cutest little tush,” Nikki exclaimed, placing the old homemade scrapbook in your lap and flipping through a couple of pages. “See look,” she happily pointed to a picture of Tom as a toddler in a bath, surrounded by bubbles, his little bum poking through them.

Tom sat uncomfortably on the sofa next to you, cringing at the now 21 year old photo of him. He expected you to also cringe along, or worse case scenario, get up and make a flimsy excuse to leave his crazy family, but you just chuckled along with Nikki and continued making your way through the scrapbook, making little comments here and there.

“Oh, and this one,” Nikki said, pointing to a photo of Tom crying and Sam holding up a superhero action figure triumphantly, “that was Tom’s favorite toy, but when Sam saw how much Tom liked it, he made an effort to always be playing with it when Tom came into the room and he wouldn’t share.”

You giggled at the little whiny face Tom made in the picture, and turned to him, replicating it on your face, making fun of him. Tom laughed along and playfully shoved you. He adored how well you seemed to fit in with his family and his feelings for you only multiplied.

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The week in London was one of the best in your life. You didn’t realize how much you missed Tom until you got to the airport and he was there waiting for you, unfortunately in his stupid blue beanie, and no, it wasn’t on right, his big ears poked out of it horrendously.

The last day you had in London before you and Tom went to Japan, you finally received a call about the audition. The director called you to congratulate you on getting the part, and he sent you numerous emails about scheduling, where to be, and when. Harrison was elated to have a familiar face playing his love interest on screen, and Tom was over the moon excited for you, this on top of the Spider-man movie coming out, you were certainly becoming a force to be reckoned with.

You spent the night celebrating at a club, Harry and Sam also showed up to party with you. The night was still young and the club was already packed and in full swing. Tom ordered two shots for each of you to start off the night before he was whisked away by a few fans to sign autographs. When he didn’t return you took it upon yourself to have his shots, giving you an extra edge to help spice up your night.

Harrison found Tom in the corner of the club talking to some fans. But throughout his whole time taking pictures with them, he couldn’t help but glance at you every once and a while. You looked so carefree and beautiful, dancing around in your shiny silver top and leather leggings.

“Tom.” Harrison interrupted Tom’s gawking and directed his attention to the small group of fans Tom was with.

Tom nodded and finished up his pictures and autographs before wishing them all a good and safe night. Once he reached you, you engulfed him in a bone crushing hug.

“Thank you for such a great time in London, Tommy.” you slurred, already feeling the impact of the four shots you took. “I had the best time of my whole life.” You pecked his cheek and pulled him close to dance with you.

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The following month or so on the press tour was a once in a lifetime experience. You travelled to more cities than you even knew the name of and you had all of your friends by your side. More so, you had motivation to remain approachable and well liked by fans considering that you were moving up in the industry. Some interviews were mostly for Tom, Zendaya, and Jacob. Your role in the movie was big enough for you to be needed for some interviews, and most people were genuinely interested in getting to know you, but there were also a handful of press activities that you weren’t included in, which you didn’t mind.

When you didn’t have anything to do for an hour or so, you would text Harrison and send him funny memes. He was quickly becoming one of your closest friends; you had already created a surplus of inside jokes with him just over the phone.

Tom noticed how you were always laughing at your phone or rapid fire texting. Even when you were being interviewed, Tom could faintly hear the buzz of your text message notifications going off.

“Tom,” you snapped in front of his eyes, “did you need something?”

“Huh?” Tom blinked a few times, “Uh—no, sorry.” Tom’s cheeks flushed pink, embarrassed for having been caught staring at you. He couldn’t help it though, you were dressed so pretty that day. You had your hair done up in two bubble braids and you wore his pink sweatshirt over your yellow sundress.

“Okay then.” You smiled at him. You went back to your phone, reading what Harrison had just texted you. “What was the name of that comedian we watched the other night?”

“The one on Netflix?”

You hummed out a yes, tapping away at your phone.

“Burt Kreisher, why?” Tom asked, leaning over to your chair to try and catch a glimpse of who you were texting. When he saw the contact name “Hazzy”, he couldn't stop the little angry pit of jealousy that started in his stomach. Sure, you were here with him now, not with Harrison, but when you two were apart you also texted him nonstop, and the texts seemed to all be inside jokes, which was something you also shared with him that he held near and dear.

“I made a joke referencing him to Harrison and he didn’t get it. Fucking nerd.” You chuckled, texting Harrison a link to the skit you were referring to.

Tom chuckled along, but he couldn’t help but frown slightly at how bright your smile was when Harrison replied.

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The press tour and premiere of the movie seemed to go by lighting fast. You’d never been to a premiere for a production this big, and your nerves for the red carpet were starting to get to you.

You and Zendaya were stuffed into a hotel room with both of your respective teams, both trying to rapidly get both of you ready for the event.

“So when do you start filming for your next project?” Zendaya asked, she sat in front of a broadway-equse mirror, bright bulbs of light giving a luminescent glow to her already near flawless complexion. She hadn’t even finished her makeup yet and she was so pretty.

“In a month, I have to go back to London next week.” You said, sifting through the opinions you brought for dresses. You brought three options, just in case you changed your mind after seeing yourself in the dress. “Harrison and I are going to go over the scripts together and we were also told to go out in public a few times; for press and whatnot.”

“That’s exciting!” Zendaya mused, she glanced at the clock and gave her hairdresser some instructions about how much time she had to do hair. “It’s a good thing you guys are already friends. I remember when I filmed ‘The Greatest Showman’ I didn’t know many of the actors personally, so we had to go out together and do press all while being almost strangers. It was a bit nerve wracking.” Zendaya smiled at you fondly, she was like an older sister to you during this whole movie-making process, she constantly had your back.

“Yeah, I mean I’ll probably be in a situation like that at some point, but for my first lead role it’s nice to be working opposite a friend.” You smiled back, finally deciding on the red, sequined dress.

You both sat and worked through the makeup process in comfortable silence.

“So you and Tom…” Zendaya broke the silence and looked at you with a smirk on her face.

“What?” You looked at her with a dumbfounded look, before nervously laughing, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, (Y/N/N).” She poked your arm and laughed, “He’s literally obsessed with you.”

You laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. A movie star, and very famous movie star at that, obsessed with you? You? Impossible.

“Yeah no, sorry but you got the wrong girl, babe.” You sighed, pulling out your phone to snap and selfie with her for your instagram story. You quickly snapped a pic of the two of you, her kissing your cheek, leaving a small, faint lipstick mark. “I mean it’d be nice,” you back tracked, “but I’m sure that’s just my wishful thinking.”

“What wishful thinking? I thought you were a pessimist?” Zendaya chuckled, taking her own photo with you to post later.

“I am, but I can’t help but indulge a bit.”

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Before you knew it, you were back in London, staying in a rented out flat for the next three to four months. Harrison was kind enough to come over to help you set up a work space, but he also offered you to spend most of your time at his place. Since Tom was in New York, doing interviews about the new Spider-man movie and having meetings with the Marvel Cinematic Universe team to try and gauge his future in the MCU, he wouldn’t be around for almost a month, so Harrison offered up Tom’s office when you needed to go over a scene by yourself and wanted a place that was already set up.

The days of filming seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Most of your scenes were with Harrison, and he was the perfect scene partner. He rarely messed up, but if he did then he was quick to use it as an opportunity to improvise. His skills weren’t as well honed in like Tom’s, but it was obvious that their style ranged from a similar source.

The main thing about this movie that you were excited, but extremely nervous for, were the two sex scenes. The first one is at the beginning, where the two leads give in to each other for a night, then there's some implied stuff in between, and the last one is when the two leads part ways for the final time at the end of the movie. The first one had to be rough, fast, and needy, whereas the second one was direct to be more slow, thought out, and sensual.

Both were extremely stress-inducing to film. Harrison had also never done any scenes like this before, so he was on the same boat as you. Thankfully you had an amazing director and stunt coordinator to work with and with the help of other crew members, the scenes were mapped out so that it wasn’t too much improv or guessing on your part.

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The first intimate scene you shot actually happened to be the one at the end of the movie. That scene was more tame and dealt with more emotional subtexts than physical. Since you filmed that one first, you went into filming the next one with more confidence. It only took a few days to get the first scene down to perfection, so with this newfound confidence, it shouldn’t take too long to get the next one done.

On the days you shot intimate scenes, you only needed to wear the costume you wore before the scene and then you changed into a robe with nude underwear underneath. The bits with the outfit on before were already shot, so the director called a 30 minute break until you could begin shooting the actual sex part.

You were standing by the snack table, eyes scanning the table for any more muffins leftover from breakfast. The robe you wore made your skin prickle whenever a draft came onto set.

Just as you had found the muffin you were looking for, a pair of warm hands covered your eyes.

“Guess who!” An all too familiar warm, British accentuated, voice called.

You turned around in his arms, effectively nudging his hands from your face, and soon you were met with the warmest hazel eyes. Eyes that you missed so much this past month.

“Tommy!” You squealed and thrusted yourself into him in a hug. He immediately reciprocated it and wrapped your body in warmth. “What’re you doing here?” You asked once you let go of him.

“Harrison gave me the location so I could come watch you film. I just got home, like, two days ago.” Tom eyed you up and down, not realizing what little you had on. “Um—are you wearing anything under that?” He pointed up and down your figure.

“Nope, today and tomorrow we’re scheduled to film the sex scene.” You said casually, doing a silly twirl. Tom gulped.

“A s-sex scene?” He choked, “I didn’t know you guys had one.”

“Yup,” you smirked, “two actually, this is my first one ever, Haz’s too, I think. Well actually, we filmed the sex scene at the end of the movie last week.”

“Yeah… t-that’s cool.” Tom smiled weakly.

Right as you were about to continue your conversation with Tom, an arm swung over your shoulder and pulled you close. Harrison smiled at the both of you. He wore a similar robe to yours, except he left the front open. His plaid boxers on full display.

“Don’t listen to her, Tom. She’s a natural.” Harrison pinched your cheeks. Tom clenched his jaw at the comment. He knew Harrison hadn't meant to imply anything with it, but he couldn't help but hear the hidden meaning behind the otherwise innocent compliment.

You giggled and pushed his hand away, “Only ‘cus my scene partner is so darn cute.” You retaliated, poking and tickling his pecs.

This kind of goofy banter was normal between you and Harrison, but Tom hadn’t seen either of you in so long. He also had never seen you two interact so fluently with each other. He watched the interaction with a tight-lipped smile, nodding along and shrugging every once in a while to seem like he was paying attention. In reality though, he couldn’t pry his thoughts away from how close you were to Harrison.

“Ok everyone! Places! Let’s wrap this scene up and put it to rest today!” Your director called. You and Harrison smiled and waved goodbye to Tom. Harrison pointed to a chair in the room that had a nice view of the set where Tom could watch. Tom nodded and walked over to the chair, enthusiasm for watching you work completely dissipating.

The scene started off rough right off the bat. The second the director said ‘Action!’ you and Harrison were practically pouncing on each other. Harrison had you pressed up against the wall and you were both breathing heavily. He was leaving sloppy, wet kisses down your neck, then across your collar bones. Your moans, which Tom always imagined to sound like music to his ears, sounded too real for his liking. But no matter how much he tried to look away, his eyes were glued to the two bodies moving fluidly with one another.

“Cut! Cut!” The director yelled, effectively ending the scene. You and Harrison pulled apart and he gave you a peck on the cheek, as in saying ‘good job’. “That was good, but Harrison,” The blonde nodded, awaiting further instruction. “You gotta be a little rougher, hm?”

Harrison nodded along with the critique. “(Y/N)?” the director moved his attention to you, “would it be okay if Harrison marked you up? Just a few hickeys to really sell the illusion. We can do without, though, if you feel uncomfortable.”

Tom overheard the interaction and internally hoped that you were too uncomfortable for that, but deep down he knew you would do it. You were never the type to stray away from a challenge.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” You nodded, chest still heaving from the scene. You looked at Harrison. “Is that okay with you?”

Harrison nodded, a shy smile tugging at his lips. Yeah, you guys have been working at this scene for days now, but he’d never been rough enough to leave marks. He’d be lying if he said the thought didn’t invigorate him.

So the scene started from the top, you pressed up against the wall, all your weight shoved between the flimsy wall of the set and Harrison’s strong arms. Harrison did exactly as the director required, leaving noticeable dark spots across the top of your chest. Unlike your previous moans, which had just been for show, this new roughness in his actions tore real moans from your lips.

Tom sat uncomfortably in his chair, wishing he picked a different day to visit you on set. He shifted around, watching twin moans pull from both you and Harrison’s throat. He watched as you nipped at Harrison's ear as he faux thrusted into you. The jealousy that had pitted itself in his stomach soon turned to self-loathing. You looked really into the scene, he couldn’t help but feel like he was intruding. He knew you were a great actress, but he couldn’t believe that this was all acting. In his eyes, he believed that some part of you must wish that this was real. And part of you did like this scenario, but you wouldn’t have picked Harrison to be opposite you in this little fantasy.

Your moans and Harrisons both grew louder, leading up to the climax as scripted. Tom, not wanting to watch anymore exited the set quickly before he could watch the scene end.

You and Harrison finished up, gaining applause and praise afterwards from the director and crew members on set.

“Where’s Tom?” You asked, scrambling back into your robe and smoothing out your now roughed up hair.

Harrison, now noticing the absence of his best friend, began to feel a bit guilty. He knew Tom had a thing for you, maybe he should’ve told Tom not to visit set today.

“Um, (Y/N)?” He mumbled, pulling you aside slightly.

“Yeah?” You still looked around for Tom a bit, heart sinking when you realized that he must've left without saying goodbye.

“I shouldn’t be the one telling you this,” Harrison began, drawing your full attention, “but Tom really likes you. He always downplayed it, so I didn’t realize how much, but I think watching this scene might’ve upset him a bit.” Harrison looked towards the exit, no doubtedly where Tom left through, out into the parking lot.

“Oh—oh!” You gasped, feeling terribly for having put Tom in such an awkward position. “I didn’t know he felt the same.” You whispered, smiling softly to yourself. Guess Z was right after all. You pulled away from Harrison, “I’ll go talk to him.”

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Tom didn’t go far. He still wanted to be there to support you; he didn’t want to come off as a jealous prick, but he couldn’t keep watching that intimacy between you and his best friend. He sat on the curb outside of the building the set was built in. A few people passed him going to their designated buildings on the lot, but he didn’t pay any mind to them, too lost in his thoughts. He needed to tell you sooner rather than later how he felt. No time to be a pussy anymore.

“Tom?” You walked up next to his sitting figure, still only in a robe, tightly wrapped around you. He looked up to acknowledge you, mumbling a soft ‘Hey.’ before looking back down, trying to collect his thoughts and courage. It’s now or never.

You sat beside him and rested your head on his shoulder. “Harrison told me something interesting in there,” You paused for a moment before continuing, “about you.”

Tom’s head shot up, and he looked at you with frantic eyes, only imagining the worse. There were too many things Harrison could’ve told you about Tom to sully your image of him.

“Whatever it was, he's a lying prick!” Tom rushed out.

You giggled, lifting your head up to look him in the eyes, his dark hazel eyes boring into yours.

“That’s a shame then,” You shrugged, “considering I like you too.”

Tom breathed out a sigh of relief, before looking back at you, doing a double take.

“Wait, what?”

“Mhm, yeah.” You said casually, standing up. “But since Harrison’s a liar then I suppose he was wrong.” You teased.

“No!” Tom grabbed your wrist and pulled you back next to him, but his aim was a bit off and you ended up in his lap. “He lies about a lot, but not about this.”

You smiled at him, “I should hope not, considering I’m crazy about you.”

Tom couldn’t help the smile that beamed across his face, but then he noticed the marks left on you by Harrison. Remembering why he was insecure in the first place, he looked away.

“What about Harrison?” He asked. You looked at him utterly confused. Tom caught on and explained further. “You looked like you were really into that scene with him.”

You giggled and pinched Tom’s cheek, turning it red. “I’m an actress, you idiot.”

Tom scoffed, “I know that. It’s just— I didn’t realize you could fake that kind of love.”

You looked at Tom’s downcast face. You leaned in and kissed his neck, just under his jaw. You nipped and sucked softly, leaving a nice, dark pink blotch that would go away in a few days under his jaw and he whimpered softly.

“I’d never fake that kind of love with you.” You grabbed his face, holding it gently in your hands. “I’d never have to.” You whispered, pulling him in for a kiss, soft and sweet.

Tom pulled you closer, resting a hand on the small of your back, kissing back fervently.

The short make-out session being cut short by the door to the set bursting opened. Harrison rushing out, now dressed in slacks and a white button up for the next scene you needed to shoot that day.

“(Y/N)! Hair and makeup need you.” You lugged yourself off of Tom’s lap, promising to talk to him after you finished for the day. You went back inside, jokingly blowing a kiss to Harrison on your way.

Harrison stayed outside and sat next to Tom.

“Did she confess first?” He asked after a moment of silence.

“Yup.” Tom smiled happily, licking his lips, tasting the strawberry chapstick he saw you put on earlier.

“You owe me 10 pounds then, you wimp.”

“Oh, fuck off.” Tom groaned, promptly pulling ten pounds out of his wallet and handing it to Haz.

#tom holland x reader #tom holland x actress!reader #tom holland angst #tom holland fluff #tom holland x y/n #tom holland oneshot #tom holland fanfic #tom holland smut #harrison osterfeild fluff #harrison osterfield #platonic!harrison osterfield

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littlemisslipbalm · 3 years

Text

“you make me so angry sometimes”

idk if this gif makes sense, but i feel like it will if you read the story, it just gives me that vibe.

A one shot I cooked up idk, it’s about Harry and a makeup artist on DWD, it’s quite angsty, idk how that happened, it’s also very long, idk how that happened either, maybe i do a part 2, maybe i don’t idk lmk. Feedback is appreciated, not proofread. REBLOGS help writers tremendously and i love reading whatever you write in the tags its my favorite thing!! Love yall and Merry Christmas!

Word Count: 17.7k | Warnings: ENEMIES to LOVERS! swearing, angst!, some anxiety -like self-doubt, yn being mean to harry kind of a lot, i dont remember, nothing too crazy, Nick Kroll?, lots of conversation

When she pictured herself as a makeup artist in Los Angeles, she hadn’t pictured exactly what she was doing right now.

She had expected doing gorgeous makeup for gorgeous actresses or doing wildly fun stuff like in Euphoria. And because of that she had worked her ass off to get where she was today. She had practiced for hours, worked countless hours for free, and networked to the cows came fucking home.

So why the fuck was she using tattoo-strength concealer to cover up the maybe 60 tattoos some asshole musician turned actor had all over?

Don’t Worry Darling was her first major film to work on so she couldn’t complain. She was happy to simply be there. Well she had been. The first day she had showed up 15 minutes early and had worn her favorite power suit she had. It was dark navy with a white lace long sleeve turtleneck underneath. She hoped to look fun but professional.

Hollywood was all about impressions, especially first ones, even when you’re the makeup artist. She had quickly learned that she was one of six makeup artists. One of them being the friend who had helped her get the job, Angie. Angie was like her surrogate mother in Los Angeles that she had met on her first film job for something much less high profile than Olivia Wilde’s second directing project. Her braided grey hair and fabulous jeans had drawn Y/N right in and they had connected instantly.

Since Y/N was deemed the most inexperienced by the head of the makeup department, she was relegated to easier jobs: assisting the other artists on main characters sometimes, mostly dealing with minor characters touch ups (and full make-up if she was lucky), and the job nobody wanted: tattoo coverage.

Harry Styles was one of the leads for the film and besides his minimal acting, everyone knew he was a worldwide rockstar. With the rock and roll life starting off as a popstar life at the ripe age of 16, he had amassed around 60 tattoos in the past decade. Impressive by her standard normally. She usually counted herself as an appreciator of tattoos and their art, finding them similar to makeup and the self expression that came with both forms. Especially since she had a few of her own, but when she walked into Trailer #6 and saw a good amount of Harry’s tattoos, she wanted to murder every artist he’d ever been to.

She had to make an inventory the first day of all of his visible tattoos when he was just wearing boxers. He had been friendly, trying to make conversation, but as the time wore on, they both grew tired and silent. She had to write down the location and a description of every tattoo and as he took off everything but boxers she grew more and more annoyed with his random and dumb tattoos. Some of them were amazing, the eagle, the anchor, the butterfly, and the ferns were probably her favorites. But some of them, she couldn't hold back her rolling eyes and annoyed expressions. The “Big” on his right big toe, a miniscule lock, almost everything on his inner left arm (the packers logo, Pingu, etc.)

She traces at the rose and the ship and then flips his arm out to reveal his inner arm to her gaze. “That is a big fucking bee.”

He snickers, “Y’like it?”

She ignores his question. “For god’s sake, someone is needle happy,” she said as she examined his left arm, taking note of every permanent drawing.

He shrugs his right shoulder, uninhibited by her prodding. “Dunno, beginning to regret some of them.”

“I would hope,” she mutters, scribbling on her paper the various ones she had just seen on his arm. Next was his ribcage ones.

He scoffs, “Oi, it’s not like you haven’t got any.”

“How would you-” She looks at him wide eyed.

“Right…” he takes his right hand and pushes her hair past her ear to reveal three little red line butterflies following the curve of her ear, “There. At least.”

She huffs and knocks his hand away from her. Her hair falling back into its place.

“Maybe some located in a few more intimate places I’m guessing from the red rushing to your cheeks right now.”

“Can you just let me do my job,” she says, not giving in to his teasing or sparing him a glance as she feels his intense gaze on her face. She was studying his left rib cage where a few cool tattoos happened to be.

“You at least have some taste or persuasive artists because not all of these are shit,” she speaks again after just the sound of her pen on the paper filled the trailer.

“Gee, thanks,” he laughs unamused and rolls his large green eyes.

She thought he had some of the biggest eyes she’d ever seen. But she also knew to keep that to herself because he’d either take it as a compliment and think she was noticing him too much or he’d take it as a massive insult and get her fired.

His right hand taps at his thigh, tapping a rhythm she didn’t care to pay any attention too. She just wanted to finish the stupid inventory of the stupid tattoos on this stupid man.

“Take those off,” she says to Harry, looking back at her clipboard again, filling up quickly with her notes.

He stands there, staring at her stubbornly. He was entirely bored with this exercise, especially since his company was some of the worst he’s ever had. She spares him a glance when she doesn’t notice any slipping off of the colorful sweatpants he’s wearing.

She arches a brow at him, her pen tapping impatiently against the paper. “Go on. Can’t imagine you want this to go on longer than it already has.”

He rolls his eyes again, slipping his thumbs into the waistline of the pants and tugging down. Simultaneously, he toes off the dirty vans he seemed to wear everywhere. The fabric pools easily and he steps out of them and discards them on the couch behind him. He’s actually wearing black briefs. She chooses not to notice anything further than that.

“Socks...can stay on,” She tries to say as he begins to peel one off. He stops midway and nods.

She flings his shirt to him, not needing to see his naked torso for another moment, “I know you’ve got some feet and ankle tats, but I also know that you won’t be wearing anything that will expose them. Thank your lucky stars that I don’t have to makeup your feet.”

He catches the shirt easily and slips his arms inside before tugging it quickly over his head and over his expansive shoulders. The ferns disappear out of sight.

“Well then we’re almost done then. Just got the knee ones -”

“And the tiger. That’s gonna be one son of a bitch,” she sighs and examines his legs, not bothering to crouch.

“What the actual fuck dude?” Her tone is exasperate and like she would rather be anywhere else than here.

“I’m sorry?” He sputters, hands on his hips and eyes bewildered.

“Yes. No. Oui. Non. Who are you?” She rubs at her eyes and shakers her head.

“S’a little rude.”

“You’re right,” she semi-rushes out at his serious tone, ready to apologize. When a grin spreads over his face and he chuckles under his breath she really wants to smack him upside the head. He was exhausting. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thought it was funny at the time. Kind of think it’s even funnier now since it’s got you all mad.” He leans over her shoulder to look at her notes and when she glances at him unhappily he just looks smug.

“Alright,” she finishes the scribble of a description and clicks the end of her pen, “All done. You can get dressed. I’ll see you bright and early for tattoo makeup. It’s gonna take about an hour to do all this, just so you can mentally prepare for that.”

“It was nice to meet you,” he attempts at a friendly and professional farewell. “See you tomorrow…” he trails off as he watches her turn on her heel and walk out of the trailer door swiftly. The door swung shut and bounced a little bit in her wake.

Harry sighed and adjusted his clothes and hair in the mirror. After a moment he shakes his head, an even louder sigh escaping him.

“Good morning!” She greets happily, walking into the trailer without a knock. Well-rested and happy at least that she doesn’t have to just inspect a body, she looks around the trailer.

She realizes no one is there and she’s taken aback. First of all, if Harry wasn’t there then he shouldn’t have left his trailer unlocked. And second, he was fucking late, the fucking twat.

She grumbles, setting her coffee on the countertop. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “In through the nose, out through the mouth” she mutters. She knew this was a big opportunity and having a big star like Harry in her corner could make her career. She needed them to get off on a better foot today.

“Good form, I’d say relax the shoulders a little more,” the door swings open carrying the California twang-British accent that she would soon become all too accustomed to.

Harry points at her shoulders and narrows his eyes regarding her in the trailer. She offers a strained smile through the mirror and Harry sets down his personal things on the couch.

“Alright, well let’s get started shall we,” she smiles and turns to him, gesturing to the swivel chair next to her.

He nods, a twinkle in his eye as he regards her. He’s unsure of the tone and attitude she’s giving him today. She had been feisty yesterday, cordial at times, but mostly biting and witty. He had liked it. It had made the whole ordeal bearable whereas now she seemed to be laying it on a little thick.

“Just your hands and neck today,” she says, pulling out the makeup materials needed and a checklist of the tattoos she needed to make sure were invisible.

“Should only take..a little under an hour today. Just gonna remind you now though, other days we won’t be so lucky.”

Harry chuckles under his breath and rolls his head around his shoulders before sitting in the chair. “Were you tired yesterday?” He inquires.

“Why do you ask?” She throws a glance over her shoulder at Harry. He’s begun slipping off his sweatshirt and yawns as he does it.

“You seem different from yesterday and I’m just wondering which one is the real you.”

She continues working about the room and rolls her eyes to herself, “I’m always the real me. I come no other way, but this morning I woke up and thought ‘this is the job you’ve fucking wanted for ages, so stop being such a bitch so you don’t get fired, you prick’.” She pauses and turns to face Harry. “The ‘you prick’ was directed at me, that was still part of my thought,” she adds.

He throws his head back and laughs. Then he nods, still laughing lightly, “I get that. Sometimes I’m just so in my head and yesterday I was just so fuckin’ bored. Sorry if I got on your nerves.”

“Don’t mention it.” She waves her hand at him nonchalantly.

Then she moves to inspect his hands and notices the lack of rings, unlike yesterday when she had to make him take them off.

“You have amazing cuticles,” she notices and mentions without any pretences. Harry mutters his thanks, pursing his lips as he watches her work.

She stops her inspection and places the clipboard on the countertop in front of them.

“Could you take your necklaces off? I need to cover up half of the swallows and the years, for when you unbutton your shirt a bit.”

He wets his lips and nods, hands going to fiddle with the clasps behind his neck. He slips off one of the necklaces with ease, a yellow eye beaded necklace that he lays gently on the countertop next to the clipboard. Then he takes his cross and pulls it over his head, no clasp needed.

“Could I put some music on?” Harry asks after five minutes of Y/N working in silence and Harry only being able to stare either at himself, her work, or nowhere.

“I can,” she stops her work for a moment, “Can’t have you messing up the makeup before it sets. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.” Harry can’t be sure if she’s joking or not. Therefore, he was intent on not messing it up.

“Any requests?” She stands at the counter now, instead of seated on a stool working on Harry's left hand.

He shrugs, like he hasn’t got the faintest idea about good music. She refrains from rolling her eyes once again because she feels herself in a test. She wets her lips, sifting through different things in her Spotify and then lands on her playlist titled “it’s your song” named after Elton John’s song. It had some other musicians, a mix of Queen, Bowie, and more and she was sure she would pass the test.

She presses shuffle and She’s Always A Woman by Billy Joel begins to play over her laptop. Harry nods pleased and she wants to shake her head at him.

She can’t hold back the scoff though after a moment of going back to finishing his hand.

“What?” His British accent thickens with his annoyance growing.

“Nothing,” she chirps, intently putting the final touches on his wrist.

“Seriously. What?”

She stands and sets down the makeup. “Can you unbutton your shirt?” She made a note to herself that from now on she’d have to have him take his shirt off before setting to work because if his hands got messed up she’d have to start over. Thankfully he was already wearing a button up this morning.

He stares at her, offering no movement, just inquisitively waiting for her to respond to his original question.

She shuts her eyes, taking another deep breath and then bites at her lower lip. “It’s just...you’re so easy to read.” She fears adding anything else and moves towards him with the makeup hoping to encourage him to unbutton his shirt.

His right hand deftly pulls at the buttons as he regards her. His eyes are intent on her, she can see him clearly calculating her. Her green paisley button up tucked up into the back of her bra leaving a splay of her stomach. The semi-balloon sleeves cinched at the wrists leading to her slightly ringed hands. The oversized blue jeans that have no holes, just a tiny patch right next to the left pocket. The frayed ends of the pants laying over her rather pristine white old skool vans.

The Boxer fades in as she waits for him to finish the unbuttoning of the shirt. He’s still staring at her.

“Am I?” He finally inquires, voice pitched higher like he doesn’t believe her.

She gives him a serious stare and leans over him and adjusts the collar of his shirt. She adds paper towels to avoid makeup on his clothes.

“Yes!” She laughs, “And you don’t even think so, which is like...of course.”

He hums, tilting his head back as she sets to work on covering up the swallows. He wiggles his hands that now both rest on the arm chairs.

“I don’t see it.”

“Of course you don’t,” she glances at his face, their eyes meeting for a moment. “You’re Harry Styles. Everyone is in love with this image you created for yourself and it has just enough of your true self that people feel like they really know you, but you also maintain the illusion. So you think you’re this mysteriously amazing, not like the rest guy, but you are just like the rest of them. Obsessed with yourself and rich so you’re deemed eccentric rather than crazy for all the extravagant shit you do. So when you want me to play music and don’t offer any suggestions I know exactly what music I need to play for you to like me.”

“I feel like that last part says more about you than it does me,” he quirks a brow at her, straining his neck to look at her face as she continues to work.

She flushes, his response both better and worse than she expected. She had gotten a little carried away in her response and she had no idea why. She truly wasn’t one to go off on people so easily and especially not with someone she hardly knew, but something about Harry had her on edge. She was just thankful he hadn’t gotten mad at her response, instead he took it in stride. Further proving her point that he was extremely smart and did things purposefully and she saw right through it all.

She grumbles, “It says that all anyone has to do to get close to you is understand the smallest bit about you and you’ll let them in.”

“That is just so completely wrong, Y/N, I hate to break it to you.” It’s Harry rolling his eyes now, unable to move much more of his body as she continues painting on the concealer to remove his tattoos for the movie.

“Fine. Enlighten me on what I got wrong.”

Their argument had all but drowned out their music. They both did love this music and ironically if they would just shut their mouths, they’d probably like each other a lot more.

“Might as well,” he sighs. “First of all, my image is authentic and of course I don’t want to give myself all away. I enjoy my privacy and for everyone to truly know me I’d have to give that up. Which I’m not keen on. So, I regret to inform you but I am the same guy everyone is “in love with”. Second, I know I am a little self-involved, how else would I get here if I wasn’t constantly taking inventory of myself and reevaluating who I am. As a musician, I want to give as much of myself as possible or else it just feels inauthentic. And the extravagant thing, I can’t help that I like nice things and my job has allowed me to afford those things.”

He stops to take a deep breath and she’s working in stunned silence, in disbelief that Harry is even telling her any of this or that he’s spoken that much and so quickly. Wasn’t he notorious for speaking slowly with barely even a sentence worth of actual information. He sounds tired and frustrated, but also, surprisingly, sincere.

He continues, “The music thing. Maybe it was a test, but still it doesn’t mean I give everyone a mile when they say their favorite musicians match up with mine or something. I note that they either did their homework or might be an interesting person to get to know.”

“So which am I?” She widens her eyes.

“Obviously the second even if you’re also making it painfully clear that you don’t like me.”

“You’re smarter than I thought, Harry. I’ll give you that,” she smirks slyly, finishing up the bird coverage now.

He laughs. “Thanks,” he drawls out.

“And I admit that maybe you aren’t as easy to read as I made out, but I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about the whole being your authentic self. I just don’t buy it. I can see your mind working constantly, you’re not one to just let yourself be free in public. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying, you shouldn’t pretend like that’s not what you’re doing.”

Her final thought leaves Harry silent. She pays no attention to his silence or at least she’s actively ignoring it. Instead she tunes back into the music that had gotten them back onto the wrong foot. This was going to be a long few months.

When she’s satisfied with her work, she has them sit there for thirty minutes to give it all time to set before Harry is off to hair and other makeup. They sit there listening to music. Neither of them have spoken again, except instructions from her and Harry’s hums of approval of songs.

Harry stands up after thirty minutes as she stays behind to pack up some items. Just as he’s about to step out of the door, he turns and calls her name.

“For the record, I don’t think you’re giving me a fair shot. You said yourself that you’re different every day. That every version of you, is you. So I hope you’ll give me the same allowance, every version of me is me. In this trailer, in my music videos, on tv, in interviews, in my free time. It’s all truly me.”

She bites her inner cheek as he ducks his head and exits the trailer, not allowing her any response.

“You’re late!”

“Meeting ran over with Nick and Olivia. Sorry,” Harry says as he begins to undress.

It’s the first day she has to cover all of his tattoos. It was going to take forever by all accounts. It had been two weeks since shooting had begun and she had gotten the simple hands and neck down to 45 minutes so she could only dread what his entire body would take.

“It’s fine,” she grumbles, knowing there wasn’t really anything else she could say about him coming late from a meeting with the director and producer.

Over the last two weeks, they hadn’t grown any fonder of one another. Not at all. They at least had gotten into a system though and she was grateful for that at least.

They showed up, Harry got in his chair, she set up the music, and they got to work. Harry would practice lines on some days and he’d tell her that before she turned on the music so there were no interruptions. Sometimes they talked about stuff on set or music or she’d give Harry his line when he was trying to be off script and forgot one. She wouldn’t classify it as pleasant, but they weren’t at each other throats like they were originally.

Trailer 6 had gotten a little homier as the weeks went by, too. Harry began leaving some of his stuff there and he started putting up silly drawings he would make while on set or polaroids people had taken with him while he was there. He tacked up napkins of restaurants that catered the set and wrote funny jokes and quotes on post it notes. His personal assistants sometimes brought in snacks while Y/N was still working and Harry always offered her some. They were usually healthy, but sometimes she’d eat some. Jeff, his manager, had also stopped by on occasion during his tattoo touch-ups that had become a thing after shooting days had grown longer.

On first meeting, Jeff had said, “Y/N? Harry mentioned you.”

She had turned to Harry with an arched brow and he had shrugged. When she looked back at Jeff she didn’t see Harry give Jeff one of the deadliest looks he could muster. She had grimaced and said “Well we spend enough time together for him to know my name. So thank god for that at least.”

They had all laughed and she had gotten back to work on Harry’s wrist.

Today, she needed Harry in his shorts. It was the first day of shooting where his character would be only in his boxers so she had to cover up all his visible tattoos. Olivia had told the makeup department they actually had to cover up his feet tattoos as well. She wanted him sockless in the scene and Y/N had groaned immediately when she made it to the trailer and Harry wasn’t already there.

“But please, for the sake of my job, strip, dude.” She says, arms crossed over her chest and leaning against the counter as she watched Harry set his things down. Her soft green striped cardigan is open, exposing the white tank top sitting underneath. Her bright green shorts hang loose on her, cinched at the waist and folded over once. Her white high top nike’s tap impatiently on the floor, waiting for Harry to get moving.

He nodded, truly feeling sorry for his tardiness, knowing today was a long day. He was anxious and tired. Acting was a different experience to music and he just was really trying his best.

As he began to take off his shirt, he laughed. His arms pulled the shirt over his head and when it popped out from beneath it, he repeated, “Strip, dude,” attempting to mimic her American accent.

He had practiced his American accent in front of her while running lines, but it had a 50’s drawl to it. His acting coach had been drilling him for weeks before shooting and he still liked to practice. The accent he had just down was far off from that and far off from hers too.

“Do not,” she warned.

“What?” He asks innocently and flutters his eyelashes.

She knows his game by now and she knows she should just ignore him. She knows this after fourteen days. She knows this after hours with him. She knows this, but then she’s opening her mouth and playing into his teases.

“Sorry, what’s a word you would know? Mate?” She tries for a British accent with the last word, knowing she can’t win this.

Harry snickers and scratches at his nose with his index finger before starting on taking off his pants. “You’re so Californian.”

“Thank you,” she chirps, moving to sit beside him now that he had settled.

“I like your shorts,” he muses, crossing his legs, likely a little cold.

She glances down at her cotton shorts that showed more of her thighs when she sat for a moment before returning her gaze to his left arm. The longest task of the day was this damn arm.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, “Wanted to be comfortable today. Knew it was gonna be long.”

A smile bubbles onto his face, his pink lips parting to reveal his shiny white teeth behind them. “So true.”

The music is low today. She had chosen Joni Mitchel’s Blue album for the first pick of the day. She had quickly learned Harry preferred listening to albums in order. It tended to make him less jumpy when the same artist came on multiple times like an album. So when she tried to play just an album one day, she found him more cooperative and less irritable.

After thirty minutes of work, she can’t stop noticing how shivery Harry is. It was late October in LA, so it was still warm, but admittedly the mornings could be a little chilly. His shivering was concerning for many reasons. Mainly he was messing up her work and concentration, but she also didn’t want him to get sick or something.

“Do you want me to see if they have a blanket and slippers or something? You look like you’re turning blue.”

Harry turns his attention to her. He had been reading over the script for today again. “That’d be great. I can call…” He trails off trying to think of the name of one of his assistants, but apparently he’s too scatterbrained for it. She assumed it was the hypothermia traveling to his brain already.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll walkie someone.” She says as she grabs the walkie talkie, flicking to the personal assistants channel.

“Hey,” she chirps happily. Harry noted how she talked to other people. So sweet, yet sincere. With him, it was serious and sincere but more biting, callous at times. Less so lately, but she definitely was sharper with him. He didn’t know if it even bothered him anymore. She was engaging if nothing else.

“Is someone free to bring two blankets and men’s slippers over to Trailer 6? I’ve got a naked Jack and I don’t want him freezing before I’m done covering up his tattoos.” She takes her finger off the talking button and glances sideways at him, “Who knows, maybe that would improve his acting. Y’know on second-thought-”

“Alright, alright,” Harry tries to grab for the walkie talkie, but she turns from him holding a finger up signalling him to wait as she listens for a response.

Someone says a simple “On it” and she turns off the walkie talkie and gets back to work.

“I took my finger off the speaker before I said the thing about your acting. Relax, Harry.” She says when he’s still glaring at her. “Just love to see you squirm.”

He shakes out his short chestnut hair, some of it falling over his forehead. Instinctively, she reaches up without even looking and smooths it back. Like she was tucking her own hair out of her eyes, but instead it was Harry’s. She decided to say nothing and was relieved when Harry didn’t say anything either.

She finishes his forearm and moves to his outer upper arm. The rose holds her attention when the PA knocks on the door and she has to race to get it. Nothing could stop her from moving on this work. It was already an hour in and she wanted to scream.

She swings open the door and she wants to die. It was Autumn. Her least favorite PA, of course. She was insufferable and obsessed with Harry. Which was not why Y/N found Autumn insufferable. There were so many more reasons. So many. But that particular character flaw didn’t help her case either. Y/N tried to just take the blankets and slippers from Autumn, but the woman insisted that she come in.

“I’ve got it,” Y/N says.

“No, don’t want you to get makeup on anything,” Autumn’s saccharine voice grinds at her ears and she contemplates cutting them off.

Harry sat in his chair, legs crossed, nodding along to the music, his script discarded on the counter in front of him.

“Hi Harry!” Autumn practically yells, walking right up to him.

Y/N takes a deep breath at the door, letting it swing shut. She bites her lower lip as an attempt to bite her tongue as she walks back to her set-up. The set-up Autumn was conveniently blocking.

“Hello, Autumn,” Harry says kindly, making eye contact with her. “How’re you today?”

“So great! So great! Thanks for asking. How are you?” She points a finger at him like she might poke him and Harry squirms away from her a bit. She, of course, doesn’t notice this.

“Well, thanks.” His eyes flicker to Y/N, who is standing behind Autumn, hands on her hips and attempting not to tap her foot. His tone is clearly dismissive, but Autumn must ignore it. Y/N knows Autumn isn’t as helpless as she tries to come off.

Autumn asks, “Where do you want these?”, gesturing to the two blankets and slippers stacked on top.

“Just on the counter is fine, thanks,” Harry says.

Autumn does as he says and then stands there with baited breath. Y/N’s not sure what she’s expecting. For Harry to ask for her hand in marriage or something? But he just glances between the two women. His own foot begins wiggling in impatience.

“Busy day,” He attempts at dismissing her once again - with kindness.

“Oh my gosh, totally!” Autumn gushes, starting to go off on all of the tasks she has to do. She stands so close to Harry, Y/N genuinely thinks she’s going to sit in his lap. Y/N stares up to the ceiling, begging god or whoever to end her misery right there and then.

Harry sees Y/N’s expression and tries to maintain the neutral expression he’s had for the entirely too long interaction. A smile threatens at his rosey lips that had chapped from the morning air.

“Right, well,” he cuts off Autumn, “Y/N needs to get back to tattoo coverage, I think. So...have a nice day.”

Autumn’s eyes widen like she forgot that there was anyone else in the room and steps back from Harry. Y/N nods, a grimace clear on her face. Autumn gives her the same small she used to get from the popular girls in high school when she happened to be talking to their cool guy friend that they wanted to be more than friends with. Sickeningly sweet and completely fake. She could see the contempt in Autumn’s eyes that swirled just beneath the surface of her perfectly outlined green-ish eyes.

“Okay! You too, Harry!” She begins walking to the door and Y/N takes her seat again, closing her eyes and counting to ten. “And Y/N,” Autumn adds as an afterthought.

“Oh my fucking god,” Y/N sighs, her hands going to rub over her face and through her hair. “That was exhausting. Jesus Christ.”

“What? She’s nice. Maybe a little clueless,” Harry counters. “But she was so nice,” he confirms again, seemingly trying to convince himself of it as well.

She grabs the slippers and slips them on the ground so Harry can put them on easily. Then one of the blankets that she drapes over Harry’s bottom half. He smiles at the gesture, a ‘thank you’ said in a whisper.

“Please, she knows what she’s doing,” Y/N scoffs, “And she’s obsessed with you!” She grabs the concealer to get back to work, “She was all over you and never took her eyes off of your body. It was like she wanted to touch you or something. It was icky.”

“You touch me,” Harry adds cheekily, adjusting beneath the warm blanket.

She laughs, a smile gracing her lips as she gives Harry a look. He was clever.

“It’s my job to touch you, Harry.”

Harry had really tried to not laugh, but it was just so funny. They both snicker, their eyes meeting for a moment longer than usual.

“Speaking of my job,” she adds after controlling her laughter, “Does she not realize just how long it takes to cover all of your bloody tattoos with this shit to make it look like you’re a pristine skinned 50’s psycho killer?”

She finishes the rose coverup and moves to the ship. Harry nods solemnly.

“It’s true...And it doesn’t help that you’re terrible at it, so it takes a thousand years longer than it should.” He adds, laughter overtaking his serious tone at the end.

“Oh my god!” She shrieks in delight, trying not to mess up her work, “That is so rude! I messed up one time - mostly because of you, by the way. And give me a break, this is so not what I thought I’d be doing as a makeup artist for movies.”

He nods again, muttering “Fair, fair.”

They grow silent, enjoying Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the album that she had queued after Joni’s.

“The body thing, I just learned to ignore it, I think.” Harry mutters, eventually, but it’s thoughtless, like he’s not revealing anything about himself with the statement. But it kind of shocks her. Her eyes widen and she stops her work to stare at his face.

“Harry,” she waits till his eyes meet hers, “That’s, like, not normal. Are you serious?”

“I mean, I’m very comfortable with my body, like I haven’t minded the last 45 minutes of sitting practically nude in front of you. And I have plenty of revealing photos out in the world. I just don’t notice staring anymore, it’s not, I don’t think it’s what you’re thinking,” he tries to reassure her. His eyes are intent on hers, full of seriousness that hadn’t been there a few moments ago.

“It’s one thing to be comfortable in your skin and another to be desensitized to objectification,” she insists.

He nods. “I know. Thank you. I would let you know if what she had done had bothered me, so don’t worry. I felt completely safe the whole time.”

“Good,” she nods back and concentrates again. “Good,” she repeats once more under her breath. There had been way too many distractions already today and she wasn’t even done with his arm yet.

As she continues to work up his arm, Harry sings along to some of the songs on Elton’s album. He happily taps his feet to the different beats, now safely tucked in soft fluffy slippers. She would never admit just how amazing it is to be in the same room as Harry’s singing. It was truly special to be less than a foot from him and hear him sing just under the unique voice of Elton - who was someone he actually knew, which was equally as cool.

He hit every note and knew every word. She was impressed. How could she not be when a literal rockstar sat before her? This was the first time she was truly starstruck by her charge, Mr. Harry Styles.

By two hours, they had moved onto an album by Dolly Parton and they were both singing. They strangely had no fights today, maybe some snarky comments from both of them, but no outright mean-spirited words were exchanged.

She stood in front of Harry, finishing up the swallows. She had finished both arms and the birds, all she had left was moving down his body. Up next, the butterfly.

“I love this tattoo,” she mumbles, twisting Harry’s standing body to face her and taking her seat again. This left her eye to eye with the butterfly on his stomach.

He makes a surprised face and raises his recently plucked eyebrow at his counterpart. “Oh really?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I told you day one that not all of them are rubbish and honestly they’re all pretty cool. I just was so annoyed that I had gotten tattoo coverage as my job and then I had to go and index them all.” She flicks her eyes up to his sculpted face and sees he’s watching her work. “Plus, I have some butterflies of my own, remember?” She grins.

“Yeah,” he ponders her words, “I don’t think that’d put me in a good mood either.”

He pauses again and she continues to work silently.

“So what’s your excuse for the second day then?”

“You provoked me,” she doesn’t spare him a glance, shrugging like it was the simplest answer in the world.

“Pardon?”

“Let’s not go down this road again, Harry.” She sighs, smoothing over the freshly covered butterfly tattoo. His sternum looked so naked, it was unnerving. Now the ferns.

Harry involuntarily shivered when her fingers traced over the ferns lightly, taking note of the expanse of skin she’d have to cover.

“You’re right,” he agrees, “But agree to disagree on the provocation.”

“Sure,” she says curtly, focusing on his skin and her job.

The expanse of skin that the ferns inhabited was slightly fleshy and especially soft. It bordered where his boxers began and she ignored that part of his body completely. It was of no importance to her and she really had no issue blocking it from her vision, even when it was right in front of her. She finishes one fern with Harry jumping only twice from her cold hands. He couldn’t put his robe on until the makeup had all set for half an hour so he’d have to be cold for possibly another hour still.

She traces the fern that is still visible and Harry shivers. She instinctively shushes him softly and his body quiets. As she works, her hair splays around her shoulders and Harry looks down at her working and doesn’t realize what his hand is doing until it’s too late. His right hand runs over her hair, smoothing it out of her face. It was rarely ever down, so it must have been the novelty of it.

“Sorry, I-” he chokes out when he jerks his hand back.

She sits back, slightly taken aback. Her body flushes just from their positioning and what a hair caress would mean normally in this position, but she’s a professional and she shakes it off.

“It’s fine. We’re even.” She assures him, breaking eye contact with his own wide eyes. “Seems like we’re both hair touchers.”

“It’s just so soothing,” Harry muses. “I think it’s human instinct to touch other people’s hair since it’s so enjoyable for yourself.”

“Possibly,” her voice raises, his thought was definitely plausible. Or maybe they were just two touch starved people who were very much in each other’s personal space 24/7.

At the two and a half hour marker, she gets a walkie message from Olivia’s assistant asking when they’d be done. She had just finished the tiger tattoo, which had been surprisingly easy. It took a while, but Harry didn’t shiver once and neither of them pet each other’s hair.

“Probably 40 minutes, sorry. He has a lot of tattoos and the makeup needs to set.” She says seriously and gets back to work, barely regarding the response of “Yeah it’s fine, just wanted an estimate”.

“Jesus,” Harry moans as she covers up his knee tattoos.

She groans in veiled disgust, “Did I just hit a secret erogenous zone? Is that why you have ‘oui’ there, you creep?” There’s a teasing tone behind the nickname she uses.

Harry laughs and runs his hand over his face, pulling at his jaw and lower lip. His jaw is so sharp, she watches him adjust it. “No, no. I’m just so goddamn tired of this.”

“And it’s not your fault,” he adds, feeling bad immediately after he said it. “It’s actually been nice today, but I’m feeling antsy, like I need to move. I don’t like to sit still.”

“I know,” she says under her breath. She simply nods in agreement.

Finally, the tattoos are all covered up and set. They had talked about George Michael when she got to his ankle tattoos that she hadn’t seen before and they laugh about the tattoos and chat a bit more. She helps him slip on his robe that he keeps in his closet in the trailer and then follows him out of it. They had decided they were hungry and he had been pushed back an hour since he had taken so long, so he had a free half-hour.

As they walked to craft services, they talked about actual things besides work. She was pleasantly surprised by what Harry talked about. It was more than music or the movie. It was the tv show he was currently obsessed with and how he hated LA’s traffic the most out of all of his dislikes for the city. She couldn’t help but grin at his Los Angeles slander. She loved this side of him.

Breakfast together after finishing his tattoo coverage became their regular thing. He would come into the trailer, racing from his morning meeting accompanied with tea for two, they’d get his tattoos covered as quickly as possible, and then they’d eat together.

They’d save their “in-depth” chats for breakfast. In early November, he joked about No Nut November and insisted he really wouldn’t have a problem with it - which had made her laugh. They worried together over the U.S. presidential election and meditated together in his trailer to Fleetwood Mac.

Around late November, Harry had requested that Y/N just do his face makeup as well, just to simplify his life a little more and the department had agreed easily. She had to spend extra time on set getting lectured on how to properly do Harry’s makeup, but after two days she stopped getting notes about it. She was so extremely proud and thankful to Harry for doing that.

All he said was: “I mean, you’re extremely talented so I’m not scared of you fucking up my face. Plus, it does make my life easier. Two birds with one stone.”

In late November, he told her about his favorite holiday drinks at Starbucks and what he was getting his mother for Christmas.

When the Vogue cover came out, he laughed over that woman who responded to his cover saying the world needed to bring back manly men. He joked that he was going to really push that from now on, that he was a manly man, and he would sputter with laughter every time he tried to say it with a straight face.

He hand delivered her a special ‘Treat People With Kindness’ sweatshirt that he only had for the cast and crew of the film. Most everyone got them from a PA, but Harry decided since you saw him first in the morning, why not.

He told her about him winning Hitmaker of the Year from Variety when he had left the award sitting in Trailer 6 and about how weird it was to film acceptance speeches in an empty room. His smile had lit up the entire set that day and the day he did his interview on set. He was so smiley she had to bump him with her elbow because he wouldn’t stop smiling at her and it was unnerving.

“Stop that,” She muttered.

“Stop what?” He smiles wider.

“That!” She squeaked, her head shaking as she ducked it to regard his anchor tattoo. “You’re smiling too much.”

“Oh no,” he says sarcastically, “God forbid I be happy.”

“It’s not that,” she bumps his thigh with her elbow, trying to keep her own smile off her face, “Your face is just so intense when you smile. Feels like you’re gonna burn a hole through me.”

He laughs, completely unconvinced, “You just don’t want me to be happy is what I’m hearing.”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, dude.”

She saw he was serious about the ‘manly men’ references when the Variety photos came out and everyone and their mom posted the pictures with some variation of that comment as their caption.

She still found that she rolled her eyes at some of the things Harry did, but she genuinely counted him as a friend by the time December had rolled around.

Over three hours, almost always completely alone, doing work for a job you both care deeply about can really make or break a relationship. And that first full-body coverage day had made them stronger together. After that, Harry and her would banter with one another, but there was never anything intentionally cruel. Just friends giving each other shit sometimes. Harry had been right, he had changed her mind about him. And she had realized that that was who Harry was. He was a deliverer. If you didn’t like him at first, he would try and try again until you did, but he did it in a way that wasn’t weasley or anything. It was terribly genuine and she saw it in every relationship he had on set.

On several occasions she had witnessed his friendship with Nick Kroll. A man she had regarded with dislike before the film. She had quickly realized that dislike was misplaced, but she maintained that it was just because she hated adult cartoons - citing that she literally refused to be friends with any person who willingly watched the Simpsons, Family Guy, and/or American Dad and all of those similar shows.

Nick was far nicer and less weird than she had realized. So she quickly shot her friend from high school an apology text for all the Nick Kroll slander she had spouted back in the day. Her friend had rejoiced but also said how jealous she was that Y/N got to see him regularly on set.

Nick and Harry got along great. Harry generally got along better with older people, she noticed when she was introduced to his friends on the somewhat frequent occasion. Trailer 6 was where Y/N saw most of these reactions take place. She would be introduced in the first minute and then she would smile politely and get back to the work of covering up Harry’s numerous tattoos.

Harry would say something simple and Nick, the literal famous comedian, would laugh. In the beginning she’d raise a brow, confused because it truly wasn’t that funny, but as Harry’s friend now, she kept her mouth shut.

Nick would come and sit on the couch while she’d work and eventually all three of them would chat. Sometimes she would get up to go to the bathroom during those morning chats and she would look in the mirror and think to herself “How are you casually talking to these two men right now” and then she’d think “Because you are a boss ass bitch, you got this” and go back out there with a smile on her face.

“Y/N, what are you doing tonight?” Nick asked on the first Friday morning of December.

She looks up from Harry’s cross tattoo that was half covered. Harry was reading, a book casually propped in his right hand and glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the other two in the room. Nick had been getting some work done before he had spoken.

“No plans,” she states simply before getting back to work. It wasn’t full body today, but it was arms and torso, so kind of a lot still.

“You should come over for dinner at my place with Harry,” Nick smiles kindly. His scruff was really coming in today. “To celebrate us almost wrapping the first half of the movie.”

Harry had thankfully freshly shaved before he sat down. It was her least favorite part of her new job. Whenever he came in for touch ups and she had to shave his afternoon shadow. She was terrified she’d cut him and never live it down from her department or Harry. She had no idea which would be worse.

“My wife will be there too, of course,” he adds, hoping to entice her to say yes.

Harry glances between Y/N and Nick again before focusing on his book again.

She purses her lips, finishing Harry’s hand and moving onto the anchor tattoo. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know why I’d say no. As long as I’m not intruding on the throuple,” she grins up at Harry.

He stares at her with his big green eyes, slightly obscured behind his prescription glasses. He raises his brows and wiggles them a little bit, teasingly.

Nick laughs and slyly winks at Harry through the mirror. Y/N none the wiser as she removes all traces of Harry’s tattoos.

“Great!” He claps his hands and stands up. “We’ll talk or I’ll make sure Harry gets you the info or something. I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. My wife’s been wanting to meet you,” he smiles again and walks out of the trailer.

She tilts her head at the last part. He talked about her to his wife. Did he really count her as that close of a friend? She was just a makeup artist and he was a producer… She glances at Harry and he gives away nothing. His jaw looks extra prominent and she knows it’s because he’s clenching it. He did that when he was focused or angry, remembering it bulging on the first day they met and how clenched it had been then.

“Unclench your jaw,” she mutters, “It’s not good for you.”

Harry hums and unclenches it.

He stretches his neck by rolling his head around his shoulders and she glances at the movement. His skin is still beautifully sun-kissed and his pores look so soft, only his moles change the texture of his skin. She loves his moles though, they make him especially unique in her eyes. Not that he needed anything else to set him apart from the crowd. Still, she loved them. His collarbone is prominent as he sits there shirtless and she wishes she could reach out and brush at it. But she gets back to work, knowing the only time she’s gonna be brushing near that part of him is when she’s covering dates in those dips behind his collarbones.

“Y’know, I could just drive you to Nick’s tonight,” Harry says, putting his book down and taking off his glasses. He rubs at his eye with his free hand.

“You’re blind and British, how do I know you can even drive yourself?” She asks sillily, pointing to his glasses.

He shakes his head, “I’m serious, Y/N. Aren’t you staying in the same area as me?”

He asks because they had relocated to Palm Springs a little while ago and everyone had gotten rentals and it was hard to remember where everyone was holed up when they weren’t on set.

“Yeah, think so. But you don’t need to pick me up. I have a car.”

“Nonsense. I’ve been to his place before, don’t want you to have to deal with directions, that’s just silly.”

“I guess...” she resigns relatively easily. She had never hung out with Harry off the set or Nick for that matter. It felt surreal, but she knew the right answer was usually just say yes in these situations. So that’s what she says. “Yes, that’d be great, thank you,” she confirms and watches as Harry’s eyes glimmer softly before turning back to his book. A triumphant soft smirk rests on his face.

The words die out between the two of them as she works on. He hums along to the music and continues reading his book. When she’s done with his tattoo coverage and his face makeup, she sends him off to hair and the rest of his day. He gives a flirty wink as he walks out the door and she rolls her eyes in response. She tidies up her kit and then goes to do some other makeup work.

When she wasn’t working with Harry, she was assigned to some of the minor characters and doing their makeup. They were always her second concern, especially now that she did Harry’s makeup as well as his tattoos. As she works on them, she can feel her mind drifting to Harry. Harry and how they were friends now. She was pretty sure, right? They were friends. He had never really said a mean thing to her if she really thought about it. It was her… She had been rude and mean-spirited and he had just taken it. He rarely had even thrown it back at her. He was so good to her and patient and she realized that he had proven to her that he was good. He was better than good, he was kind and loving. Considerate. Wonderful. All of those positive superlatives, Harry filled them. And she had the audacity to be mean to him.

She paused the brush that was adding blush to an actresses cheek.

Lisa, the actress, looks at Y/N confusedly, “What’s wrong?”

Y/N twitches her head, refocusing on her task at hand. The realization of her pausing her work becomes clear as she looks between her hand and the cheek that has not enough blush on it. “Oh,” she breathes. “...I just realized that I was terrible to someone who doesn’t have a mean bone in their body.”

Lisa nods, “Apologize.”

“Yeah, I mean...We’ve kind of moved past the phase where we don’t get along. Like now we’re friends, but the realization just really hit me.” She sighs, picking up where she left off on Lisa’s makeup. “I’ll make sure to apologize next time I see them.”

Lisa smiles.

At the end of the day, Y/N realizes she left her tattoo coverage kit in Harry’s room after their touch-up session halfway through the day. She had run off to help with a makeup emergency for a tiny cut on a minor character’s face and forgotten to go back and grab her things. Another roll of her eyes and a huff of breath and then she’s walking back to Trailer 6, a place that seemed like a home away from home now. She knocks, patiently waiting at the bottom of the steps.

Harry swings open the door and props it with his hip. He’s got a toothbrush held in his mouth, slowly scrubbing back and forth with his left hand. His costume is somewhat taken off, he’s still got the pants on with suspenders hanging down, his chest was completely bare and he looked funny with some of his tattoos only being half covered based on what parts of his skin had been showing today. Her work. His skin looked half silky smooth and half tattooed like usual.

His naked skin seemingly left her breathless because as her eyes returned to Harry’s face, she breathed a soft, “Hi.”

“Hey,” a smirk twists onto his face. “Forget something?”

“Yes,” she nods, coming back to her senses and entering the trailer at Harry’s gesture.

She begins to pack up the kit that had been left haphazardly strewn around on his counter. “I’m sorry I left a mess like this, I got called over to something else and forgot.”

“Don’t worry darling,” Harry grins at his joke.

She looks up from her work and sees Harry in the reflection of the mirror. He’s wiping off the makeup from his chest and his beautiful tattoos reemerge as entire images.

She laughs humorlessly, “It gets less funny each time you use that.”

“That’s not true,” he looks at her through the mirror now, his green eyes trained on her face, “Everyone else still thinks it’s hilarious.”

“They’re humoring you and your fragile ego,” she winks and watches as Harry’s smirk twitches from his perfect face.

“You’ve got a very mean disposition, you know that?” He asks.

He finishes his chest and moves to remove the makeup from his left arm, glancing at the mirror every so often to check himself and to flicker his eyes over Y/N’s face.

She genuinely laughs at that, but scolds herself internally for being mean when she had planned to apologize the next time she saw Harry. This was the next time so why was she doing this instead?

“Rewrite sweet disposition for me?” Her voice honeyed. Clearly stubborn and terrible at saying sorry...maybe her and Harry were a better match than she realized.

Harry twists his lips as he slips on his t-shirt he was wearing today.

“Pick you up at 6:30?” He says as his head pops out from beneath the rainbow striped sweatshirt he slipped on top of the shirt. His chestnut hair had been toweled out and was flopping over his forehead slightly.

She sighs and zips close the kit, standing from the seat she had taken at his counter and turning to face him now.

“6:30 is perfect. Thanks again for doing this. I just can’t believe Nick Kroll is inviting me over for dinner!” She smiles, shifting to lean against the counter as she waits for Harry to finish up. She didn’t have to but for some reason she felt like she was in no rush.

“Are you serious?” He’s moved on to changing his pants now and he’s slipping on black sweatpants.

“Yeah…” She blinks and her eyes widen as Harry appraises her expression.

He straightens up after fixing a cuff on the pants and he can’t tell if she’s being genuine or sarcastic. It was always so hard to tell with her.

“I mean, Nick Kroll is like a huge celebrity and I know in the entertainment business you’re not supposed to get starstruck but when I was in college my sister thought he was weirdly hot and my friends and I would shit talk him. I don’t know, it’s just kind of surreal to be having dinner at his place. Like I’ve watched him on tv and now I’ll be eating with him...so weird.”

He shakes his head, beginning on his dirty vans now. A small laugh escapes his mouth and he glances between her and his shoe, scratching his head quickly. “I still can’t tell… It feels like you’re fucking with me right now.”

“I’m not!” She insists, her hands coming out in front of her in a confused fashion. “I used to watch that guy’s tv show then he’s my boss now he’s inviting me over for food? It’s a lot to process.”

“How come it’s not surreal to be having dinner with me then?” He asks semi-joking, a hint of offense tinged within it. It’s visible only in his knitted brow and twisted lip.

“Careful there, sailor. Venturing into some dangerously self-absorbed waters.” Her eyes light up, a quick raise of her brows accompany the shine, and she decides now is her time to head out. Especially as she thinks about getting ready for this soiree tonight. She needed to shower and pick out an outfit with less than two hours to prepare.

Harry sputters at her response and fumbles with his pink shoelace. “That’s not...that is - You’re being unfair. My question is valid.”

She shrugs her shoulders and skirts Harry’s attempt at grabbing at her arm to stop her from leaving. “Okay, Mr. Big Man On Campus. I promise you you’re the most popular boy in school.”

She blows him a kiss and walks out the door as he attempts to get her to come back by calling her name a few times and slightly shouting “C’mon! I wasn’t being insecure. That was a reasonable ask…”

He sighs and shakes his head again. Every interaction would end with one of them either rolling their eyes or shaking their head and usually a sigh on both of their lips. It was exhausting, but exhilarating too.

20 minutes later, Harry receives a text from Y/N: “You’re still picking me up right :))) ?”

He’s in his car, getting ready to finally leave after getting held up with last minute schedule changes that he had to be informed about by some PA that he had forgotten the name of. His lip quirks to the right and he closes his eyes for a second enjoying seeing her name on his phone screen for a moment.

He types back: “Of courseeee”.

“Fab.” She sends back, immediately followed by: “Fanks BMOC ;)”

A full smile rolls onto Harry’s face after he swipes his tongue over his lower lip. “Yeah, yeah, save it for the next guy” he types out quickly before throwing his phone gently beside him and driving back to his apartment. She made him feel young, not that he wasn’t young, but generally his friends didn’t text like she did.

At 6:28, she receives a text from Harry Styles - his name in her phone. A name she had never expected to see in her phone unless her Spotify was on shuffle. Yet, instead, his name popped up under messages and it read “Here!” followed by a quick “I think” and then a phone call coming through from the apparently anxious man himself.

“Hello Harry.” Her tone even. She throws little items into her purse, making sure everything she needs is there.

“Could you peek out your window? I’m not quite sure I’m at the right place and people are staring…” nerves laced in his rushed tone.

She ambles to the window and opens up the shade she had closed to change. Below her, she sees a sleek black Range Rover with a slightly disarrayed hairdo and big dark glasses peeking below the windshield. She ignored the instinct to retch at the sight of the Range Rover and peered at the lamp lit sight below her. It was definitely Harry, but she searched for the prying eyes he was worried about and saw none. Well, maybe a few, but it wasn’t a lot.

“I see you, I’ll be right out, dude. Just deep breaths, it’s mostly crew staying here right now so they’re just seeing that it’s you, another guy they work with. They won’t come up for pictures...I would hope.”

She hangs up with no farewell, snatches her purse from its place on the bed and races out the door. Harry smiles anxiously at her when she stands next to the passenger’s door and he unlocks it. She bites her lip and raises her brows, waiting to hear if anything terrible happened in the minute and a half it took her to come downstairs and out to the car.

“Hi,” he exhales.

A smirk crawls onto her features and her eyes sparkle with a bit of a childish glee that normally she didn’t exhibit as she glances at him. “Hi.” She says quietly. “Alright big boy?”

“‘M fine.” He huffs but balks at her smile that she maintains while she stares at him. “What?”

“Just happy to see you, I guess,” her smile returns after speaking and Harry glances between her face and the windshield in front of him.

He can’t tell if she’s being serious or not once again. But he fears that conversation of her either ridiculing him for thinking she is serious or being offended that he still can’t tell. Instead, he will keep his mouth shut. For the most part.

“Happy to see you, too,” his lips create a closed mouth smile quickly before turning out of the parking lot.

She watches him. Their first time together outside of work. And they were friends. She needed to get used to simply thinking that. He picked her up to take her to dinner with her other friend and his wife. This was normal life, just with big names behind those terms of relation. Jesus, she always said it didn’t bother her to be around celebrities so why did she think about it so damn much?

She twitches her head and refocuses on Harry and his driving. His jaw is clenched again and she wants to reach out and sooth it herself. Instead she starts to open her mouth to correct him, but stops herself from that as well. They weren’t at work and it didn’t feel like something just a friend would say right now. She refocuses on the view of his eyes that are barely visible while he regards the road. His large eyes that she had grown acquainted to are surveying what he’s doing, every so often drifting to the right side of the road to check out the lane beside him. But then, always back to right in front of him, leaving a crescent of green visible to her.

“Can feel you staring at me…” His voice sounds like it’s rolled around in gravel after the long work day. It makes her wonder if he’s supposed to have a vocal rest when he’s not at work, but then again it’s the weekend now so maybe it was fine. Maybe she should ask him. Or maybe she should stop worrying so much about him.

“Have I got something on my face?” His low register bumps her from her racing thoughts. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but she can see he’s widened his eyes in wonder.

“No! Of course not, I just was...making sure you weren’t going to crash us or something.” She grasps at straws, desperate to not be caught by Harry.

A low chuckle bubbles from his chest and he spares a small glance over at her bundled up in his passenger seat. She matches his gaze with something of distrust hidden behind her eyes. She hopes to convey that she’s being silly and when Harry turns back to look at the road unassumingly, she feels like she has won. The harmonies of the beginning of a Queen song take over the silence, Harry’s spindly fingers thrumming against the wheel.

They arrive at the Kroll’s Palm Springs residence at 6:50. 10 minutes early and the two twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes, trying to pass the time and not intrude earlier than they were supposed to. She appreciated that Harry liked to be timely but not early, similar to how she was.

“So what is the fascination with Range Rovers?” She queries, leaning against the door’s armrest. The back of her head touches against the semi-tinted window.

Harry shifts in his seat, seat belt no longer constricting him and no road requiring his attention as they sit in the driveway. He rushes a hand through his hair and lets a single strand of hair fall over his prominent forehead.

“Dunno,” he shrugs his shoulders and allows a hand to fall onto the steering wheel absentmindedly. “I don’t really prefer them anymore, but when I’m in LA and doing work, it makes things easier. My other cars are a little flashier...have more privacy in this.”

“Yet the effect is similar,” she muses.

Her head tilts to take in Harry’s appearance, sharp black silky button-up and dark green plaid slacks, and she rubs a hand over her jaw. His eyes flicker to the movement and attempt to really take it in, even in the dim glow of the lamp light outside barely peeking into the dark interior of the car.

“Effect?”

“Y’know…” She arches her brow at him. He feigns innocence or possibly the expression is genuine. She’s begun to realize Harry was as genuine as they came, but she just didn’t think he was that unaware. An assumption that was likely correct, but even Harry liked to pretend he was a completely unassuming individual.

“Forget it,” she finishes when he gives no indication that he knows what she is hinting at. She doesn’t want to get into it with him again. Especially when he plays at this game where he has no idea what she’s talking about. It made her feel like she was crazy for thinking he made these calculated decisions to get his desired outcomes.

They move on, neither of them quite sure what the other was getting at in that conversation. The two of them walk into the house a minute before their expected arrival time side by side and are greeted happily with Nick and his wife. They’re ushered in and Y/N is happily received by the happy couple.

“So, Y/N, how’s it been for you working with these two? I know they can be more than a handful - especially together,” Nick’s wife, Lily, asks after a sip of wine.

The group of four had been eating for a while with Nick and Harry bantering for quite a bit at the beginning about whether or not Harry would be willing to hand feed Nick. The answer was settled at “another time”.

Harry seems to have a very specific habit of watching whoever is speaking - no matter what. So after Lily has finished speaking, his gaze flickers to Y/N, the person his brain expects to speak next. He watches her attentively as she wipes her mouth on her napkin before speaking.

Her hair was styled differently tonight than it usually was on set, she had it down rather than up in a ponytail or braids. He hadn’t had time to really look at her when they had been in the car, his mind occupied with stress and exhaustion that he refocused into driving and deep breathing. Now, in the comfort of a trusted friend’s home, he was far more relaxed and able to truly take in her appearance, which he couldn’t help but think was beautiful. He’d have to tell her that at some point. That he thought she was beautiful. Not that he didn’t see her on set and think she was beautiful...he just hadn’t really thought about it before. She was his wily makeup artist who was critical of him most times, but occasionally sweet, who had an amazing taste in music and good aesthetic style. The beauty part of it all, he guessed wasn’t something integral to their relationship before.

But now he was sitting beside her at the Kroll’s nice dining table and she had her hair splayed in front and behind her shoulders with one side tucked behind her ear and her outfit fit her impeccably. The top she had on had capped sleeves that cinched with buttons at her delicate wrists and a severe drop to create a small sweetheart neckline just above the curve of her breasts. It was silky and shiny, a blush pink that complemented the high waisted dark grey slacks that flared over shiny black boots that he wasn’t sure where they ended beneath the pants.

“Well,” she starts, chuckling under her breath when she meets Harry’s stare, “Harry and I spend a lot of time together, covering up all his tattoos, and he yaps a lot. So, it’s actually pretty refreshing when Nick comes in, because Harry’s then talking half the normal amount.”

He huffs a scoff, while Lily and Nick laugh happily. Nick interjects an “ouch” for the bite she just took out of Harry, but she thought it was fine, he can take it.

Harry thought to himself that if she can serve it, then she can definitely take it. His eyes remain on her as he opens his mouth to speak, but then look at Lily when words actually come out. “Well, Y/N, she thinks she can read people really well, but it’s actually quite the opposite. She had me completely wrong when we first met, so I talk now in hopes that she’ll really understand me.”

His head tilts to her when he mentions her name, but otherwise doesn’t glance her way away again. He scrunches his nose at the end of his comment, implying he converses with her out of pity.

It’s her turn to scoff and stare at him unamused. Nick and Lily share a look, unsure of what was going on, they had concocted this dinner date idea in hopes to set the two up but the way this conversation was going, they seemed to be pushing each other further and further away from one another.

“That’s simply not true,” she says curtly and takes a sip of her quickly emptying wine glass.

“Which part?”

“Almost all of it, I’d say,” her eyes glaring back at him, fiery with a disdain he hadn’t seen in awhile. “You’re proving my original perception of you with every passing second,” she adds.

“Care to elaborate exactly what the original perception of me was for the class,” his eyes are wide and wild, any extra adoration he had started to feel towards her slipping away just as quickly as it had come, like a wave along the beach.

“You know, so why don’t you?”

“I want to hear you say it,” he grits out the command.

She shifts in her seat, glancing at Nick and Lily who are watching on and she has a feeling she won’t be getting an invitation again anytime soon. Lily gives her a semi-reassuring smile like she was sorry to have asked the question at all, but Y/N knows this is kind of her fault, not that she would ever admit that. Her comment could have been taken innocuously, but Harry’s pride wouldn’t let it slide. Like she said, she should have known better, the weeks of friendship were flying out the window and she was helping them along.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Have fun calling an uber at this time of night,” he shrugs, malice dripping in his tone.

She truly was taken aback at this. A slight sound of shock leaving her mouth. Harry was many things, impatient and anxious usually, but downright cruel with her, she had yet to see it. Arrogant and pompous, definitely, but this wickedness that was starting to creep from the shadows worried her. But the little fiery demon within her wasn’t going anywhere either - yet she might back down to save herself some money and hassle.

“Fine,” she raises her brows in a challenge to him and restates her original take on him - possibly adding a bit extra malice in her phrasing, “You are a shell of a man, held up by the people around you, creating the illusion of a completely genuine and down to earth rocker who dabbles in acting, philanthropy and all around goodness. No one’s ever had a bad experience because no one’s ever truly met you. Not the real you.” She takes a deep breath as she shakes her head in disbelief now, a sarcastic laugh leaving her mouth, “And I thought, I really thought, that I had been wrong. Because these past months you really fooled me with your sweet smile and deep eyes. But when it comes down to it, you tricked me just like everyone else.”

Harry stares at her blankly and she shakes her head once more, feeling foolish. For thinking Harry was someone he wasn’t. For thinking the past few months had been real. For thinking that tonight would go off without a hitch. And the shit part of it was that she had really hoped that all of it was true. She wanted this to be her life, but her instincts had been right. Beware of the picture perfect because it always is just a mirage of deceit and lies.

“All I’ve got to say is you’re a damn good actor Harry, so at least you’ve got that going for you.” Then she pushes back from the table and stands, turning to Nick and Lily. “I really am so sorry, I understand that you probably want me to leave, so I’ll just be going,” her voice faltering at the end, she wasn’t as strong as she liked to pretend and she was pretty sure she just ruined her chances of working again in Hollywood. You’d have to be an idiot to be an enemy of Harry Styles and she feels like she just became his first.

“No!” Nick says quickly, standing too, “I think things just escalated really quickly and some things were said that both of you didn’t mean. Um...just, let’s take a few minutes to cool off. Harry could you and Lily deal with the dishes and I’m going to talk with Y/N alone.”

Everyone nods and Y/N follows Nick down a hallway, a little confused but following after he beckons her with his hand. They go out a side door and end up on a porch in the backyard. He stoops down and opens a little sitting mailbox she didn’t see and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He places one between his teeth and then offers one to her. She accepts, not usually a regular smoker, but right now seemed like a fair time to indulge in the bad habit. She needed to calm her rapidly beating heart.

He lights the cigarette for her when he sees her shaking hands and then in turn lights his own. They stand on the porch beside each other and stare out into the dark night sky.

“Well, this wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go,” Nick starts, after a few exhales of smoke.

“No,” she laughs nervously, her foot toeing at the wooden slate on the porch. “I shouldn’t have tried to make a joke.”

“No one’s to blame,” Nick says quickly, glancing at her, “You and Harry...you both have really strong personalities and I don’t think either of you are used to being challenged.”

She nods along, she definitely had to agree after the argument they had both willingly gotten into in front of other people.

“I think that can be a really good thing, challenging each other, because then you two can both grow. But what happened in there was more of a battle to the death rather than a friendly spar.”

“Yeah,” she exhales, flicking at the burning cigarette between her fingers, “I don’t know why he gets under my skin sometimes in a way I’ve never dealt with and it’s kind of uncomfortable so I lash out, I guess.”

Nick stays quiet, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Ugh,” she groans, “I wish I hadn’t done that. We were doing so well, it’s like I don’t even really know what I’m saying, it’s like I can’t handle a friendly spar, I always end up going in for the kill - as you put it.”

She rubs at her face with her free hand and then takes a drag herself. Nick bites at his lower lip, trying to think of a solution.

“Y’know? Lily and I had concocted this plan to try and set you and Harry up tonight,” he says slowly, revealing the plan that had clearly been taken off the table as they just needed to attempt to salvage cordiality.

“Really?!” She’s in complete disbelief and slight dismay that the plan was seemingly ruined.

“Well,” he sputters, “When the two of you aren’t throwing verbal fireballs at each other, you’re actually quite sweet to one another. Those fond little glances you hope no one sees, well he does that too, and you both fail miserably because I see it all the time. I’m sure plenty of people do too.”

“Oh,” she states, visibly deflating. She looks to the ashtray conveniently on a table behind her and presses out the rest of the cigarette. “Should probably talk to him, huh?”

Nick nods, stamping out his nub of a cigarette as well. They go back inside and into the kitchen where Lily and Harry have plated dessert. Harry looks a little sheepish, likely having a similar conversation with Lily and she wouldn’t be surprised if her expression looks similar, if not a bit more flushed from the outdoor chill.

Lily murmurs that she and Nick are going to eat their dessert in the living room, a fair bit away from the kitchen and the two now deflated counterparts nod and then stare at each other, knowing what they need to do.

“Can we talk?” Harry rasps out, his voice even lower as he speaks softly, a mere foot away from her in the kitchen.

She nods, but moves further from him to lean against the counter and tuck her hands behind her. She’s lost her appetite and doesn’t want Harry to see her shaking digits.

He’s ducked his head and a stray curl falls over his forehead, laying there softly. He doesn’t move to fix it, just stares at his feet until she begins to talk. He can’t not look at her face when she speaks.

“So…” She slowly starts, not enjoying the tension in the room. Her eyes can’t meet his though, his stare dark and unnerving like usual, but almost painfully so now. “I can start.” She kicks at the tiling on the floor like she had done outside as well, trying to not think about the eyes trained on her right now. “I’m sorry I lashed out on you, Harry. I didn’t mean what I said, it was just a heat of the moment response.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Harry says immediately once she finishes speaking, “I shouldn’t have gotten upset over a silly joke and brought up a sensitive subject. Then it escalated…”

“Yeah, I really liked the friendship we’ve garnered these past few months and I just can’t believe I almost ruined everything - including my career…” she squeaks at the end and tears start to roll from her eyes. “Oh god,” she is hit with the gravity of all that she almost ruined as Harry stares at her again. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I really am. Do you forgive me? I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t.”

She stands there and feels sobs wrack through her and her hands go to cover her face out of embarrassment. She had caused a scene and now she was making another one. In front of Harry.

In an instant his arms are wrapped around her frame and he’s hushing her cries. They had never hugged before, but now seemed like as good a time as ever. His arms were strong around her and she pressed her face into his chest, not caring at all about how she looked or whether this was worse than getting in a fight and running off.

“Of course I forgive you,” he says and then begins repeating her name over and over, trying to soothe her. He definitely had been hurt by her words, but it seemed like she was more upset about the whole situation than he was and he didn’t think bringing up what specifically had hurt him would help her frame of mind.

She settles after some time, her whimpers and tears subsiding after being rocked into a more peaceful mindset with the help of Harry’s calming voice and reassuring embrace.

“I really am sorry,” she whispers again.

Harry pulls his neck back and his head off the top of her head to look at her face. It was tear stained and her eyes were glassy, lips slightly puffy. He gave her a soft tight-lipped smile. “No more apologies,” he states sternly and then softens again at the slight quiver in her lip. He pulls from her a little more, leaving her at arm's length, with his hands still attached to her hips, fingers slipping over the plaid fabric. “I meant to tell you this earlier, before things…” he stares at her face again and she holds it this time, “You look beautiful tonight.”

She scoffs and her eyes immediately drop to her feet, “Definitely not anymore.” She doesn’t believe Harry.

“‘M serious,” he insists. His right index finger goes to rest beneath her chin and brings her face up to look back at him.

“Sure,” she says, still not convinced but not sure how else to respond. She feels herself warming at all the positive attention he’s pouring into her.

His gaze won’t falter from her face, he’s intent upon making her understand him. He whispers her name, “Accept the compliment.”

“You’re stubborn,” she notes.

“So are you,” he counters quickly.

“Fine, thank you,” she sighs when he won’t stop giving her that look of his. That look that makes her want to melt into the ground because it feels like she’s the only person in the world. “Though you looked especially good tonight, too,” she adds, her hands rubbing over his shoulders softly.

“Thank you,” Harry states lowly, the words only traveling to her ears. His hands fiddle with the sides of her top, thinking about the night and where they were now. Her eyes were red from crying and overall she looked tired beyond her years. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“That’d be nice.”

They make a quiet farewell to Nick and Lily, as well as apologies from both her and Harry. They don’t speak in the car and the music plays loud enough for it to not seem unreasonable for them to be silent. Harry’s hands don’t tap against the steering wheel, they sit in their spots stoically doing their job and nothing more. She watches the window, legs crossed and hands clasped in her lap. She’s thankful for the music because she knows that even though they had talked, it wasn’t enough. What she had said was hurtful and one apology wasn’t enough for how she had behaved. She didn’t think her and Harry would be the same after tonight, but the silence made it possible for her to pretend none of it had happened.

Just as Harry’s car is pulling up the apartment complex that is far darker now, the harsh splatter of rain begins to fall on the pavement and the sleek black car the two are still sat in.

“Oh,” she comments offhandedly, just responding to what she had noticed.

The rain grows louder when Harry parks and then turns off the car. He glances at her for the first time since they got into the car. She registers the look out of the corner of her eye, her face still looking out at the rain. She loved the rain, but there wasn’t always a lot in Southern California, especially not in Palm Springs. It seemed that tonight was different.

“Well,” Harry breaks his silence, she thinks that’s her cue to leave and unbuckles her seatbelt, but he continues. “This certainly wasn’t how I expected this night to go.”

She stops moving, her hand hovering over the handle of the door. She sits back and settles into the seat, feeling her teeth bite into the plush of her bottom lip.

“That’s what people keep saying,” her eyes remain on the rain hitting the front of the car, the splatters of seemingly black liquid that form when the clear rain touches the onyx hood of the car.

“Huh?” Harry grows perplexed at the rather wistful tone of her and how she won’t look at him again. He was still hurt, but he had hoped them talking in the kitchen had straightened some things out. During the car ride he hadn’t wanted to talk, but it didn’t mean he was still angry with her. Just confused, and growing further confused by the second.

“Oh,” she repeats, “Didn’t Lily say? Her and Nick concocted that dinner in hopes to set us up.”

Harry hums, knowing that because Nick had left out a little part of that plan. That he had been a part of it. He had been talking with Nick about getting to know her better outside of work and how Nick had thought it’d be a good idea to have dinner so he had told Lily and they set it up like a casual dinner party. Harry didn’t know how to respond because her knowing that he was in on the plan might just make matters worse. He really didn’t think things could get much worse, but it seemed that they always managed to make it happen so in the end he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“I don’t know if we’d ever be able to work out differences out for that,” she decides to continue, when Harry stays quiet. She scans the interior of the car and watches Harry for the briefest moment before going back to looking out the window. “Nick said that we challenge each other to grow, but all I see us do is hurt each other.”

Her voice is just above the rain pattering outside the car and Harry thinks it sounds almost melodic if it weren’t for the sadness laced in every word.

“I disagree,” he states before wetting his lips.

“Of course you do,” she laughs in spite of herself.

“Even after all these months together and you still don’t get it. I like you.”

“You don’t like me, I don’t know how you could ever like me,” she shakes her head. “We just...we get under each other’s skin. You can make me so angry sometimes and I know I make you angry too. And when we’re not angry, we’re focussed on something that doesn’t have to do with ourselves.”

“I don’t think what you feel for me is anger,” Harry insists, “Just because something feels burning and fiery, frustrating even, doesn’t mean it’s anger.”

His body shifts closer to the center divide and she turns to face him finally. His eyes are extra dark in this lighting, which is barely there from a streetlamp a ways off. She longs for the comfort of his light green eyes, the soft pale glow of the moss that seems to have been trapped within his iris. Maybe for that reason she unknowingly leans closer to him.

“Then what is it?” She whispers, eyes blinking slowly as her breathing grows strained.

“Passion.”

Immediately, her head is tilting to meet his lips. Her mind knows one thing, she needs to be kissing Harry right now. And then she is. His left hand goes to cup her cheek as his lips attach themselves to hers. His soft lips press to hers in a long searing kiss. They stay there for a moment, pressing all of that passion and frustration into the kiss.

She presses impatiently forward, her lips starting to move more, wanting to kiss him deeper. Harry obliges, parting his lips and kissing her more vigorously. He licks into her open mouth and smiles at the sound she makes in appreciation for his actions.

She’s shifted to have herself kneeling on the leather seat and she’s leaning over the console. One of her hands finds purchase on Harry’s thigh and grasps tightly, her other at the back of his neck, pressing him closer if it were possible.

His chest is pressing against hers as he pulls her closer. He kisses her and his fingertips rub softly at the apple of her cheek. Eventually they run behind the shell of her ear and trail down her neck.

Eventually, she pulls away and stares at Harry. She watches as his eyes flutter open gently. His soft eyelashes dust his cheeks before moving away, allowing his eyes to peer at her in the dark.

Her breathing feels a little irregular after the kissing and she’s sure she is heaving her chest slightly, likely mirroring Harry’s chest as well.

“So, where to now?” She inquires, lips quirked up at her suggestion.

Harry giggles and scratches his nose against his index finger.

Harry doesn’t stay the night, he walks her up to her apartment door though. He kisses her chastley in front of her door and wraps an arm around her waist as he does so. He bids her a goodnight and a promise of seeing her soon.

They don’t see each other for a month. Both of them had been so blissful after the endorphins of kissing their person that they had forgotten that filming had wrapped. They weren’t set to work for a month. Harry texted her the next morning informing her that he’d be in England until filming resumed. She was still going to be in California, filming was moving back to Los Angeles, so she’d be back in her place there. Her family knew she was working, so they had sent her presents ahead to her place instead. Angie, her only true friend in the area, was spending her time with her actual family and Y/N didn’t want to intrude.

So the holidays were going to be spent alone. Those four weeks alone passed surprisingly quickly. She practiced techniques on herself, bought a tiny Christmas tree like the one in A Charlie Brown Christmas, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and just about every other holiday movie possible. She fell in love with young Hugh Grant and Colin Firth for the thousandth time. She sang carols to herself and decorated her place with decorations from Target. She jammed out to the new Miley Cyrus album and held dance parties for herself in the house. She baked cookies and even attempted a trifle after watching a Great British Bake Off episode. She did and she did all in hopes that her mind wouldn’t wander to the guy who hadn’t called.

Harry texted occasionally, but it was infrequent at best. He was a busy person, she knew that. She knew who he was. And she didn’t want her mind to have enough time to feel sorry for herself. For her to think that she was just somebody to pass the time with while at work, because if she stopped doing things that’s where her mind would wander. Why did her mind spiral like it did? She had no idea, she’d always been like that.

His absence, their separation, made her question if her own feelings were even true. She wondered if when she saw him he would act as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t said their relationship was passionate and she had kissed him until she couldn’t breath.

Too much time alone, she needed some fresh air. On January 2nd, after an uneventful night at home and a lackluster countdown washed down with cheap champagne, she decided to go and walk around near her place. There was a coffee shop that wasn’t extremely expensive that she also liked that she figured she would get coffee from. After a brisk walk, she walked through the store's doors and ordered an iced green tea. As she waited, she watched the other customers around her, wishing to see a friendly face, someone she knew. And seconds later, she was met with half of that wish. Someone she knew, not necessarily a friendly face.

“Autumn.” She states with a grimace when someone taps her on the shoulder and she spins around.

“Y/N? It is you!” Autumn, one of the PA’s from Don’t Worry Darling who was especially in Harry’s business, exclaims overly happy as per usual.

Y/N bites the inside of her cheek and gives a tight lipped smile, trying her best to be cordial.

“How’s your holiday been!” Autumn asks.

“Great. You?”

“So great!” She’s quick to lean closer and say in a hushed tone, “But I miss working on set, especially getting to see that Harry everyday. He’s just so gorgeous.”

A breath gets stuck in Y/N’s chest at the mention of Harry’s name. Her brows can’t help but raise a bit at Autumn’s comment. Even lowering her voice didn’t make it feel alright to talk about Harry like this. He was her friend after all.

“Sure.” Y/N nods abruptly, realizing Autumn wants some recognition of what she’s just said. Y/N’s eyes glance around the room, hoping for an out like her drink is ready or something - no such luck.

“I mean,” Autumn keeps talking, of course, “You’re so lucky. You get to see him shirtless, like what? Everyday practically? Don’t tell me you don’t miss that just a little bit!”

“I miss working,” Y/N says, avoiding what Autumn is trying to get her to say. “And Harry’s my friend, could you maybe not talk about him like that with me?”

Autumn’s eyes widened in shock, her lips parted dumbfounded by her co-worker's response. Y/N’s name is called for her drink and she’s thankful for the serendipitous nature of that sound getting her out of the awkward situation she had just been in.

When she gets back to her apartment, she surprisingly has a text from Harry himself. She’s always telling everyone; speak of the devil and he will appear, in one way or another. It’s a Happy New Year well wish followed by a separate text asking how she was.

It was sent a minute ago so she decides to try and give him a call. She preferred talking on the phone over texting.

It rings a few times and then, again surprisingly, he picks up.

“‘Lo?” His voice is nice and deep and sounding extra British after his weeks surrounded by family and such.

“Harry,” she sighs contentedly.

“Happy to hear your voice,” he says her name and she can tell he’s smiling just like she is, from ear to ear.

She bites at her lip, hearing him say her name.

“I’m well, thanks,” she says after a moment of happy silence.

“What?” Harry laughs, confused.

“You texted asking me how I was and I called to respond.”

“Got it,” Harry chuckles, and she hears him shuffling around, likely sitting down on something.

“How are you?” She continues.

“Good, starting to wind down for the day,” he lists off the things he’s been doing over the past few days. Some of it work related, some of it family activities. All of it fun, he insists. “What did you do today?” He finishes, knowing she was an avid activity doer based off of the snaps she had sent him over the past few weeks.

“Tidied my place, went to the coffee shop and got iced tea…” she tries to think and then she gasps, “Oh! And I saw Autumn, one of the Don’t Worry Darling PA’s -”

“The one who’s obsessed with me?”

“Exactly!” She laughs, “And I may have kind of told her off… accidentally.”

“Accidentally told her off?” Harry repeats, incredulous. “How’d you do that?”

“Well,” she doesn’t want to tell him the rest, but there’s also a tiny part of her that really does, “She was gushing about you, which, ew. And then she asked if I missed seeing you shirtless everyday.”

“Well do you miss seeing me shirtless?” Harry smirks.

“Oh shut up!” She’s quick to reply.

“So you do?”

“If I really wanted to see you shirtless, all I’d have to do is type in “Harry Styles sh” and it would come up,” she rolls her eyes even though she knows he can’t see them. “Wouldn’t even need the whole word. Guaranteed.”

“Uh-huh?” Harry questions still, “If you want me to send you shirtless pictures that the rest of the world hasn’t seen, Y/N, all you have to do is ask.”

“I do not want you to send me shirtless pictures of yourself!” She exclaims. She feels like jumping out of a window right now. This conversation had escalated so quickly and she felt herself flushing, maybe even perspiring a little bit. And she also knew that she also would probably like it if he sent her shirtless pictures, which made this whole thing worse.

“Offer stands,” he says, smug as he normally was, happy he got to banter with her again. It had been dull without her, if he was honest with himself. “If you ever find yourself in need, just send a cheeky text and I’ll whip one out for you, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.”

“See this sounds like you’re saying something sincere, but really you’re just telling me you’ll send me nudes at any time.”

“No one said anything about nudes!”

“Shirtless, nude, sounds like you’re getting too caught up in the details, hon.”

“No!” He protests, “You’re the one who’s supposed to be flustered right now, not me!”

“Aww, you’re flustered,” She coos.

Harry groans. “Whatever. I’ll be back on the 8th, be ready to go out on the 9th. I’m taking you on a proper date.”

“How do you know I’m going to say yes?” She bite her lip again, she’s really sweating now. She couldn’t believe he had just asked her out on a date out of nowhere. Out of them just joking about nudes. Maybe she didn’t know Harry as well as she thought.

“Because you called me,” he says confidently.

“I call everyone.”

“But I don’t offer shirtless pictures to everyone.”

“That has nothing to do with me saying yes to this date.”

“Or does it?”

She laughs at his words, at how his voice still manages to convey every facial expression and quirk of his lips. She knows there’s a smile on his lips as he stares in the distance, imagining her face just as she is his.

“Yes.” She smiles.

“Yes!” He repeats happily.

She hears him stand up and spin around possibly and she chuckles slightly, amused at the silly man across the world who had seemed to have stolen her heart.

“See you soon, Harry.”

“Not soon enough.”

On the Saturday of their date, Harry insists on picking her up. He meets her at her door and winks at her after pulling away from their short hug. He laces his hand in hers and she follows behind him as he all but drags her to his car that is downstairs. He seems giddy. His hair has grown out in the month he’s been gone and she knows they’ll cut it when filming resumes. He’s wearing Gucci flared blue jeans - she knows from the big logo on the bottom left pant leg - a ‘Waiting for Sunset’ graphic tee beneath a black cardigan with little animals and items knitted in it. And of course, his dirty ass vans. She had hoped that maybe Christmas would bring him a fresh pair from someone, but it seemed there was no such luck.

Either way, he looked good and upon scanning his outfit, she was pleased that she had dressed correctly for the occasion, knowing one of the sins of Los Angeles was being improperly dressed wherever you might go. Harry had said casual, but casual can always mean so many different things. She got it right with light wash high-waisted levi’s, a brown cream rib-knit long sleeve that buttoned like it could be a cardigan, and some fun chunky boots that added some height to her normal stature. She had contemplated between this and possibly twenty other tops and a few other bottoms. Landing on this felt right, plus it didn’t clash with Harry, the color of her shoes actually matched the color of the snake on the cardigan.

They both compliment each other on the way out to his car and she giggles when he stops and twirls her around. He says he didn’t get a “proper look” before for him to compliment her adequately. After the twirl, he nods and starts them off again, complimenting the specific pieces of her clothes and says she looks beautiful again. His giddiness was contagious.

“No Range tonight,” she muses when Harry stops them in front of a Mercedes-Benz cream convertible, top up.

“Not working,” he replies, unlocking the car with the key into the passenger’s side door handle.

She smiles and slides into the car and watches him jog around to his side and unlock it as well.

“Tonight is going to be fantastic,” he says, leaning over the console and kissing her cheek, just beside her lips.

And when he pulls away with that smug smile of his, she knows he kissed her there on purpose. But the little tease only makes her smile more. He was good at this. And he was right.

The night was fantastic. As was every night after. And she learned that Harry was so much more than anything she ever thought. She counted herself lucky to be loved by a man like him.

#harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fan fic #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles one shot #harry styles oneshot #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #enemies to lovers #dwd!harry #idk I always feel like theres more I need to put in here but idk #pls leave feedback and reblog

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mustyrosewater · 3 years

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• 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙨 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙣 𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙚𝙧 || 𝙣𝙞𝙠𝙞 𝙡𝙖𝙪𝙙𝙖 𝙭 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 ↠ NSFW

warnings ↠ swearing, bratiness, nsfw activites, s e x, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it kids) niki being a bit rough

word count ↠ 8,045 (i know right?)

synopsis ↠ after being caught in a restricted area during a race by niki lauda, he intends to make your life a living hell

your body flops onto the couch of your fathers study, your father who despite clicking away on his typewriter, still manages to look up at you and scrunch his face up at the sight of what you'd chosen to wear. even if he didn't say anything, you could tell by the look on his face that your clothing of choice was the reason.

looking up at the ceiling of your fathers study, delicate patterns painted into the white surface, providing a rather beautiful picture for you to stare at as you waited for her father to finally finish whatever work he was doing; eager to get on to the activities your family had planned. with little to no warning last night, your mother had poked her head into your room to let you know that you were being dragged along with your father and mother to the races tomorrow, the formula three out in london to be precise. being given little to no choice as to whether or not you'd be accompanying them, you thought it only fair you ignite your own small personal resistance by making sure to wear an outfit you know your father and mother would detest to no end. a lovely minidress, with earthy tones and patterns, accompanied with a dark brown of leather knee high boots, all topped with one of her most favorite fur coats. with an outfit like this, you knew your parents would be embarrassed to no end. they'd long given up on trying to control your behavior, quickly realizing that their daughter's continuous spouts of acting out were something they'd rather ignore than put effort into; a mindset that seemed to encourage you, while your parents only ignored you more. you'd be lying if you said that races didn't bring you a sense of wicked anticipation; it wasn't the sport that excited you in of itself, but the people you would encounter. you knew you had little interest in watching cars speed around in a circle over 70 times, you did however, have a very keen interest in racers and the people they encountered. it had not taken much longer of annoying your father before he caved and picked up his coat, eliciting an excited grin from his daughters face as you jumped up from the couch and practically skipped out to the car where your mother was already waiting for you both, applying powder to her face. perhaps in another world, a world where your parents weren't socialites who cared for nothing but the way they appeared to others, you wouldn't have been swept under the rug as the disappointment. maybe you would have gotten the attention you so craved as a child. swept out of your own thoughts as the car's engine sprung to life, it was not long before you were driving out of the painfully long driveway of the estate and in the direction of the location of the formula three race track. - the moment you opened the car door and exited, you could hear the sound of conversations and laughter within the crowds, accompanied by the sound of drills and tools in the background, no doubt racers making any last minute adjustments to their cars before it was time to go out onto the track. it hadn't taken long for your mother and father to begin mingling with friends of theirs, all while you stood on the sidelines, occasionally smiling politely and shaking hands of people who insisted they'd met you before at one of your parents many dinner parties, yet there were too many for you yourself to keep up with, especially when you normally spent them hulled up in your room desperately trying to escape any and all interactions. it was drawing on and on, slowly driving you crazy, you hadn't even been able to go to your seat yet, purely because your father was constantly getting distracted by people he knew, that or business partners. surprisingly enough, it was easier than you thought to slip away from your parents radar, simply taking a skillful hard left turn as they continued walking further into the crowd of people for them to converse with. a fate you were more than happy to avoid. looking around, you adjusted the brown tinted sunglasses hanging on your nose bridge, pushing them slightly further down so that you could scope out the area you'd managed to find yourself in. to be fair, you hadn't exactly known where you were going when you took that sudden left turn, only that you wanted to disappear from your parents view, a goal you had succeeded in, only to be set with another. find out where exactly you'd ended up. continuing further, you very quickly realized you'd turned directly into the racers area, hearing the sound of drills and tools in the distance, as well as the occasional chatter as men walked past you, offering no investigation as to who you were and why you were in this area. this didn't exactly surprise you, seeing as it was nowhere near abnormal for racers to gain a plethora of groupies. walking around all of the trailers, you couldn't help but peer your head around to stare at the cars within, your curiosity getting the better of you. it didn't take much longer before your snooping led you to a particularly interesting sight, a beautiful red formula vee, an expensive one at that. whoever it was who owned this machine most certainly did not spare any expense when it came to upgrades. reaching your hand forward, you hesitated, taking a moment to look left and right, ensuring that there was nobody around before you threw all caution to the wind, biting back a borderline shit eating grin before leaning forward to run your fingertips on the cars smooth surface. though expensive, you had to admire it, it was indeed a beautiful car, very well looked after. every gear was polished to perfection, it was clean as a whistle and every part of it was up to date; whoever owned this car wasn't just well off, they knew about what made a good working car. you were prepared to have the question of the cars owner remain one that was unanswered, you should have gone back sooner, even if your parents most certainly weren't missing you, the race was bound to start soon. "would you mind telling me what you're doing?" you never truly understood the phrase 'scared half to death' until now, feeling your heart jump to life, beating rapidly as you spun around to see the culprit to your near heart attack. quickly trying to gain your composure, you reached a hand to pull some of the hair that fell forward out of your face, steadying yourself and raising your eyebrows in some poor attempt to appear cool and collected despite the fact that the smirk this stranger wore most certainly met that he knew he had scared you and found it amusing. already drawn in by the appeal of the challenge her was proposing, you tilted your head and only mirrored his smirk; letting your head turn back down to the car, only just now noticing the name written on the middle in white writing. "niki lauda i'm guessing?" his response was only to raise his eyebrows, tilting his head and raising his arms out to gesture to himself in a way before crossing them promptly, only returning to the vaguely unimpressed look he was first wearing. you couldn't stand that look, it reminded you far too much of your father. "i can't imagine how you could have guessed." sarcasm dripped from his voice, along with an accent you couldn't quite pinpoint, you knew it was german, but you were unable to guess exactly where in germany. you wanted to pretend you were surprised that the person with one of the most well looked after cars was in fact german, yet you just couldn't. the fact that you'd been near his car without his permission or knowledge was definitely the main reason he seemed annoyed by your presence, however, it probably didn't help that you only let out a small chuckle and shrugged your shoulders, only seeming to antagonize him more. letting out a sigh, you took a moment to push your sunglasses back in front of your eyes, looking out back in the direction you came from before back at lauda, smirking and turning around without another word, making sure you made a show of flipping your hair back around. "where do you think you're going?" his tone didn't so much give off the vibes of authority, it was more of an actual question, as if he were in disbelief that after being caught red handed touching his car, you would just walk off. not bothering to turn around, your grin remained unseen by lauda as you held your hand up in a wave. "i'm going to watch the race." you said it as if it were a fact he was too ignorant to be aware of, stating it as if it were the obvious all in an attempt to annoy him more. "good luck out there!" you called, disappearing back around the corner before he could even have time to make up some smart comment. your quest to annoy lauda had very much succeeded, probably more so than expected as he shook his head watching you leave. and yet, the one other thing you'd done without even meaning to, was peak lauda's curiousity. - it wasn't difficult to find your parents again, they had finally made their way to their seats, and despite the amount of time you'd spent away, they didn't even seem to acknowledge you as you sat down beside them, eager to watch the race, which was only now beginning to get underway. you hadn't meant to, yet you found yourself looking out for that same red formula vee that you knew was lauda's. some weird interest you'd found in the man, especially the way he'd reacted to the way in you more than purposefully had been annoying him previously. it hadn't been much longer before the race had officially started; with a wave of the checkered flag, the cars were immediately off, speeding around with sharp sounds invading your ears each time they passed you and your family. by the time the fifth lap had gone by, you were well and truly bored. reaching into your pocket, you pulled out your saving grace, your packet of marlborough cigarettes; opening said packet and pulling one out to place it between your lips, reaching into your pocket to search for the lighter you were almost certain you'd placed in your pocket earlier. to your surprise, it was strangely absent from your pocket, only producing an annoyed sigh as you rolled your eyes. without a word, you reached for your fathers pocket, who either didn't notice you pulling out his lighter, or simply refused to acknowledge you; either way, you didn't complain as you finally lit up your cigarette, sucking in the ashy taste and holding it within your mouth as you pulled the cylinder away from your lips, blowing the smoke out in a small cloud in front of you which soon drifted off. - despite a major incident involving spinning cars and a few very close calls, you'd managed to sit through the rest of the race without any other distractions. you hoped that your wish of good luck to lauda was not the cause for him spinning out of control and ultimately losing to james hunt, yet you could never be too sure; though you hated to admit that the thought brought a chuckle out of you. even though you'd had fun teasing lauda, you were more than grateful that the race was finally over and that people were beginning to leave, meaning that hopefully soon, you would be as well. once again you found yourself standing behind your parents, taking little care to be subtle with your boredom, openly sighing and tapping your boot against the gravel in the hopes that this would speed them up; though this proved to be futile and frankly, you should have known better seeing as they had become impressively adept at ignoring your presence. the noise of their conversation seemed to slowly fade into nothing but muffled sounds in the background as you crossed your arms and looked around, taking the moment to begin people watching, even noticing as james hunt celebrated his win, briefly passing by just as him and his group popped open a bottle of champagne. as much as you saw the lifestyle racers seem to lead as a novelty, the accident that occurred today only reminded how dangerous of a sport it really was, men choosing to put their lives on the line for the sake of peoples entertainment? it was hard not to admire them, there was no arguing that they were good at what they did. you definitely didn't regret not seeing said accident produce any gruesome results; you'd only ever heard what had happened to racers in the past, men that were considered lucky to make it out with crippling injuries, because surely that was better than losing your own life right? that was a point that could be argued profusely; was the loss of quality of life really better the loss of a life all together? while you would have been happy to continue this solo conversation of ethics and virtues of life in your own head, you were ripped out of your own thoughts by the sound of your father once again noticing somebody he knew, yet this time, you could very proudly say it was somebody you yourself also knew, albeit you'd only known him for around three hours. "niki lauda! look at you! still going strong after a spin!"

your first instinct was to immediately turn your head sideways, hoping that he wouldn’t notice it was you, a feeble attempt to be honest, now you were suddenly finding reason to regret wearing such an eye catching outfit.

you could only just see out of the corner of your eye as lauda greeted your father fondly with a handshake, so far not looking over to you much to your relief.

continuing to watch as he also greeted your mother, any and all hopes of getting away from this without greeting lauda was squashed the moment your father gripped your upper arm, yanking you forward to come face to face with lauda.

“have you met my daughter, lauda?”

finally looking back ahead slowly, your eyes, covered by sunglasses thankfully, made facing lauda only slightly less intimidating.

in a moment of silence, the look on lauda’s face gave away the fact that he re’d recognized you instantly, the slight smirk on his face only you were able to catch as he looked at you as if to say “caught you.”

and yet, you had no idea why he suddenly looked back to your father, shaking his head and smiling.

“i can’t say i have.”

looking back at you, he leaned forward to grip your hand firmly, shaking it and stepping back as if you were poisonous to the touch. to be fair, you didn’t exactly blame him.

it seemed you weren’t the only one itching to end the interaction between the two of you, you father quickly grabbing lauda’s attention once more with a satisified hum, beginning to walk alongside lauda.

“you should come to my estate tonight for a drink, celebrate your close call eh?”

even you had to cringe at your fathers poor excuse to invite lauda over, you doubted he was feelign particularly good after that loss, yet any excuse for your father to mingle with those that could held him climb the social ladder.

once again trying your best to tune out the conversation as you walked behind them, your hearing still managed to pick up the result of your father pestering lauda despite his first three kind refusals.

with a sigh, seeming to actually put an effort into hiding his distaste with your fathers attitude, lauda offered a thin lipped smile.

“i suppose there’s no refusing this, is there.”

with an outright lack of awareness to lauda’s tone and even the way he was already treating this invitation like a chore, your father grinned and patted lauda on the back firmly with a laugh.

“no there is not my boy.”

as desperate as lauda seemed to get away from the conversation, he still took a moment to turn around, offering you and your mother an awkward smile, only to turn his attention briefly towards you and only you.

the look on his face couldn’t be described as anything but smug as he offered you a polite nod before walking off in the other direction without another word, leaving you standing there in an almost stunned state.

only to be taken out of said state as your father ordered you to get back in the car so that you could head back and be certain that the estate and ensure that i was prepared for lauda’s arrival.

as much as you’d protested against your father and begged your mother to let you just stay in your room for the rest of the night, you ultimately failed.

not even trying to hide the sour look on your face as you stood beside your mother at the entrance of your large home, you watched as the gate was opened for lauda’s car, which came running into the driveway slightly faster than you thought was reasonable.

you would have been content for the incident with the car to be and you and niki lauda’s interactions, if you had known you would be forced to sit in his company with your parents, you most definitely would not have been so snarky about touching his car. especially not walking off without a word.

no doubt firm on keeping their image at least slightly reasonable, your previous outfit had quickly been abandoned, instead being forced to change into a simple mini dress with black stockings and shoes. a painfully simple outfit. and an uncomfortable one at that.

this was made clear by the way that you were constantly shifting in the dress, attempting to roll your shoulders and cringing when the fabric allowed little to no movement. this was only responded to by your mother scolding you under her breath as lauda exited his car.

no longer in his baby blue racing suit you’d seen him in up to this point, he had abandoned it for a smart looking button up shirt and blazer, paired with jeans and dress shoes.

it was admittedly an odd sight, not just for lauda, but in general it was an odd sight seeing racers in normal clothes compared to the suits they so often wore.

watching as your father greeted lauda enthusiastically, then your mother, you could hardly hide the fake nature of your smile as you once again extended your hand to lauda without a word.

in some odd way, lauda seemed to be amused with your nature towards him. after all, he knew full well that he’d well and truly caught you out. now it was the two of you playing a waiting game to see who was going to break first.

the drink that your father mentioned passed by smoothly enough, all four of you in your fathers study as lauda and your father sipped at scotch and spoke about a multitude of boring topics that you couldn’t bother to engage yourself apart from the occasional hum of acknowledgment when your father briefly included your opinion into the conversation.

choosing instead to actively depart yourself from their presence, you pretended to be enthralled in a book as you sat across from lauda, a large coffee table separating the couches you sat on.

every now and then, your curiosity would gain the upper hand as you found your eyes flashing upwards to try and catch a not so sneaky glance at lauda.

every single time without failure, lauda’s eyes were on you, staring you down as if you were a deer in headlights.

his stare was similar to the feeling you got when sitting in front of a fire for a little bit too long, uncomfortable and making you feel far too warm. it was as piercing as the rest of his personality was.

you had thought yourself to be a tough person, you’d gotten in scuffles with other kids as a child in school, and you’d been the type to graze your knees and get up as if it were nothing; but niki’s stare glaring upon you constantly eventually proved to be too much for even you to handle.

finally unable to take it any longer, you stood up without a word, seemingly alerting niki as you could see his eyes widen slightly before maintaining his poker face.

your parents were also visibly surprised as your mother jumped softly, placing a hand daintily over her heart as your father turned away from niki to look at you, a brief warning expression lacing his features, as if to say

“don’t you dare ruin this for us.”

you seemed to almost relieve him with your next question, not being able to bring yourself to look over at niki as you held your arms firmly to your sides.

“may i be please be excused, i’m tired.”

the warning previously on your father shifted into an odd look of surprise as his brows furrowed; you had no doubt this was due to the fact that not only did you ask something politely, but that your tone had no inch of sarcasm whatsoever.

the shock seemed to take his voice away as he only nodded, watching as you turned and began to walk out of the study.

“don’t be rude, aren’t you going to say goodnight to our guest?”

you wouldn’t be surprised if the way you tensed up at the sound of your fathers words was visible to all in the room; this was confirmed even more so when you turned slowly and saw niki’s expression as he still sat on the couch smirking once more.

only nodding your head, you took a few steps and held out your hand awkwardly for him to shake.

“goodnight, mr lauda.”

the stiffness of your voice only made the interaction more awkward as you stood there waiting for him to shake your hand.

you were unable to see your parents in the corner of your eye, but you held little doubt that they were cringing as if at any moment your real personality was going to jump out and ruin any chances they had of getting into lauda’s good books and they would have lost an influential friend.

rather, they, your mother especially were shocked, yourself included when rather than simply shake your hand, niki gripped it softly, bringing it towards his lips to kiss the back of your hand softly, his eyes never leaving your own.

you were unsure if this was his odd version of rubbing it in, or he simply wanted to embarrass you in front of your parents as he pulled his lips away, running his thumb along your knuckles slowly as he smirked up at you.

though anybody not aware of your current little game (if you could even call it that) would perceive it as a friendly smile of niki’s part.

“please, call me niki.”

you could strangle him right in that moment, god you wanted to, wipe that stupid little smirk off of his face if your parents were not watching your every move.

as soon as you felt his grip loosen, you were unable to stop yourself from ripping your hand from his own. god his hands were warm.

“goodnight.. niki..”

you hadn’t meant for your voice to shake, but it still did, and it annoyed you to end as his smirk only widened at this. you'd be lying if you said that the moment you turned you hadn't looked like you were practically running away. even as if walked down the hall and up the stairs towards your bedroom, you could hear your father apologizing profusely for your rudeness, only to hear niki brushing it off politely. - that had happened a week ago, and as much as you wished you could say that was the last you'd seen of niki lauda for a long while; that was hardly the case. in fact, it was the polar opposite. you couldn't tell whether or not he was doing it to annoy you or because he actually enjoyed the company of your father, but if you weren't aware enough of your fathers skill when it came to hosting guests, you would have actually been dumb enough to say that it was indeed the latter. it was in fact painfully obvious to you that lauda's continued appearances within your household as a guest of your father were done with nothing other than the intention to spite you. though what was finally the cherry on top, what was starting to make you wonder if he actually did find genuine enjoyment in spending time with your parents or if he just really, really enjoyed making you suffer. he had invited your parents to a party to celebrate one his most recent wins which they had also dragged you along to come and watch. and of course, he made sure to extend the invitation to you. "should she wish to come along." he'd said, as if he didn't know that your parents were going to drag you along anyway. it was for that reason now you were sitting in front of your vanity, trying not to cringe as your mother pulled and teased your hair, styling it into a small beehive, seemingly at the request of your father, no doubt wanting all of you to look your very best, considering this was yet another chance to mingle and make new, rich friends. sat in a mini dress with long bell sleeves, its paisley patterns reminding you of so many other items in your wardrobe; all finely paired with a pair of brown platfrom knee high boots and a fur coat. it was fucking uncomfortable. your feet were already hurting, and the length made you second guess how much of your ass could be seen every second and this hairstyle was going to be a bitch to take out later. as much as you would have been more than happy to outwardly complain, you were simply too sick of it to even try. sick sick of your parents, sick of it all. maybe tonight you could even do the mature thing and finally apologize to lauda; yet, you couldn't tell whether or not it was actually going to bring an end to lauda's games with you, he seemed to be enjoying it too much. - after a vaguely long car ride, you finally arrived at what you quickly realized was lauda's house, you could already see people on the balcony chatting away and you could hear music playing from inside. exiting the car and shutting the door behind you, you quickly trotted to catch up with your parents who were already walking over the door by the time you'd gotten out; in the back of your mind, you gave a silent prayer that you'd be able to sneak away at some point and find your own space, hopefully even get a chance to have a smoke if you found a quiet enough corner. opening the door and heading inside, your parents were instantly enthralled with the music and sheer amount of people in lauda's house, all nursing champagne and chatting away; already you could tell they couldn't wait to join. keeping your eyes peeled for lauda, it didn't take long for your parents to lose you in the crowd; you would have laughed if it didn't happen so often, and you couldn't exactly say you minded anyway. it only took another minute or so of moving through people to find the balcony you had seen upon exiting the car. making a beeline for it, you stepped out and enjoyed the slightly fresher air, breathing a sigh of relief as you were no longer squished in between groups of people to such an intense degree. reaching for your packet of cigarettes and taking one out to place in between your lips, you had only just begun to reach for your new lighter when you had to cut your relief short. "that's quite a sour face to wear at a party, no?" you didn't even hide the disappointment on your face as you turned to face lauda, rolling your eyes. you were well past hiding your distaste for him. now you'd had more than enough time to realize it was very much your own fault, you'd given him a reason to annoy you when you'd not only leaned on his car and then given him an attitude, but had you known that wasn't the only time you'd see him, you would have at least been nicer about it. noticing your expression, he placed a hand over his heart mockingly and let out a hurt sound. "if looks could kill." his smirk was ever present, digging into your nerves like nails against a chalkboard as you placed your hands in your pockets, not saying anything as you kept your cigarette placed between your lips, hoping that just maybe, you'd have a break from him, obviously a stupid hope. only raising his hand, you quickly noticed the lighter in his hand, ignited and placed at the end of your cigarette. out of reflex, you inhaled, reaching up to place the paper cylinder between your fingers and pulling it away from your lips, blowing the smoke out of the side of your mouth. it wasn't until you took a slightly closer look at the lighter that you realised. your lighter. he had your lighter, the one you'd lost the first time you met. you wanted to mentally slap a hand on your forehead then and there, of course you'd left it, only for him to find. holding out your hand expectantly, he pulled it away before you could grasp your lighter, going so far as to mock you as if you were a child with a small "ah ah ah" painfully reminded of your time in school as a small child, you huffed and rolled your eyes, reaching for it once more only for it to be pulled from your gasp once more. "come now, you know the magic word, yes? you learn this in school, little girl?" his mocking toned was worsened as he leaned down slightly to talk to your at your level, only resulting in you placing a hand on your hip an glaring up at him. this look only worsened his stupid grin as he raised his eyes brows, waiting for you to say said magic word. putting on your best sarcastic smile, you made your voice as annoying as you could possibly muster, shaking your head as you spoke. "please?" you extended it slightly, as if you were a child asking for their toy back. and as laced with sarcasm as it was, he still responded with a loud "wunderbar!" raising his arms up slightly as if he were celebrating. finally handing you your lighter, you snatched at it, placing it back in your pocket and reaching up to take another inhale of your cigarette as you glared up at him. shaking his head, lauda's gaze paired with that signature smirk stared down at you as he looked at you almost in an odd sort of admiration. "you're a real brat, you know this?" you most definitely couldn't lie, that was not the first time you'd been given that title; countless times actually, school teachers, your parents, relatives, even ex partners. it was now your turn to wear a smirk as you raised your eyebrows, raising your hands up in defense. "i can't lie." you spoke, tilting your head and shrugging your shoulders. your response, for the first time, seemed to catch lauda off guard, possibly expecting you to have defended yourself rather than embrace the title. "maybe i like being a brat, lauda." you narrowed your eyes, proud of yourself for finally seeming to put a chip in this mans ego. his eyes only narrowed in return, his face taking on a new expression that couldn't quite be place as you took another drag of your cigarette, really nailing in your point hard as you blew the smoke right in his face with no hesitation and a smirk as you placed your thumb between your teeth, grinning. "how many times have i told you to call me niki?" his tone was darker this time, more authority slipping against his words. you wanted to blame being caught up in the moment or finally being able to break this mans cocky exterior, but something about the tone of his voice and the way he spoke to you, it produced butterflies within your stomach that you tried with all of your might to ignore. tilting your head, you took a step forward to ensure he would hear you over the music as you lowered your voice, leaning in slightly. "or what?" even if somebody were unable to hear your expression, they'd be able to hear the smile in your voice. shifting your weight from foot to foot, you kept eye contact with niki as you leaned back, his eyes not leaving yours for one moment, narrowed at you, making you think for a solid moment of two that he was genuinely angry at you. without any sort of warning or sign, lauda's hand lurched forward, gripping your wrist, not so tightly that it hurt, but most certainly enough to get your attention as he pulled you towards him, so close that your chests were touching as he looked down at you. "watch that tone with me." his growling voice was most certainly affecting you as he seemed to recognize that the both of you were getting very invested in whatever the fuck dynamic you had created. as invested as he was, in an odd way, you could still see in his eyes he was watching for any signs of making you uncomfortable, almost as if he was telling you he'd stop the moment you were uncomfortable. "and if i dont? are you going to bend me over your knee?" you leaned in slightly as you teased him, so much so that you bet he could smell the smoke on your breath as neither of you broke eye contact. whether it was the image of you bent over his knee or the fact that you had only continued to tease him you didn't know; what you did know however, was that that was the last straw for him as he kept his grip on your wrist. wasting no time leading you back inside, barely giving you time to flick your cigarette off of his balcony before you were weaving through crowds of people, almost tripping over your own platform boots as you were led wherever he was planning on taking you. obviously knowing his own house like the back of his hand, it didn't take long for the two of you to arrive where you were heading. his bedroom. quickly opening the door and shoving you in lightly, he shut it behind him, not even hiding the slam as he turned to face you, his eyes still dark as you stood there, still smirking and biting your lip. "wasn't sure whether or not i'd be able to get a rise out of you, glad i know no-" your words were cut up by him quickly walking towards you and gripping your chin with his large hand, squeezing your cheeks together slightly as he other hand gripped your wrist once more. "you've been nothing but a little brat since the moment i met you, it seems to me you must like pissing me off. is that it? you like knowing how much you make my cock hard when you prance around in those little skirts and give me backchat?" his tone alone was already enough to only widen your grin, but the things he was saying were adding to the butterflies in your stomach. determined not to give up your attitude just yet, you let go of any and all control you'd been holding onto, reaching forward to clamp your hand onto his thigh, dangerously close to where you could already see an outline forming. his only response to your touch was a sharp intake as his eyes closed momentarily, only to snap back open as he shoved you backwards, briefly scaring you before you fell back onto his bed. looking up at him as he stood above you, his legs touching your knees, you could see how his chest rose and fell with every deep breath he took. his eyes raked over your body, observing every part of where your dress rode up, and then back up to meet your gaze, only to begin undoing the statement buckle on his belt, once again watching you for any signs of being uncomfortable as he continued. only widening your smirk, he seemed to get the message as he completely discarded the belt on his rug floor. as he began to fiddle with the button and zipper on his jeans, he leaned forward to land on his knees on the bed, above you and staring you down. "as much i'd love to play with you until your crying and screaming my name, i need to bury myself in that pretty little pussy of yours." his voice was breathy as he leaned forward, using his knee to push your legs apart, your mini skirt already riding up enough for him to get a full view of your underwear. you couldn't find it in yourself to say anything else, already convincing yourself that this was all some sick dream of yours and now you were going to wake up no longer able to look niki in the eye. his lower half disappeared from your view as he finally put weight on top of you, through you could still hear the fabric of his jeans shifting as he settled in between your legs. even through the fabric separating the two of you, you both shivered when you felt your hips make contact, letting out shaky breaths as you looked up at him and he looked down at you. as much as you expected him to take things at least slightly slow, he did the opposite, wasting no time as he moved your own fabric to the side, only sliding his tip along your entrance softly in order to brace yourself and give you another chance to stop him if you had changed your mind. only placing a hand on his cheek and nodding quickly, did he respond with a similar nod before entering you quickly and with little no mercy. you were unable to stop yourself from leaning for head back and crying out loudly, only for niki's hand to clasp over your mouth as he looked down at you. "i know the music is loud, but i need you to, oh sheibe-" he cut himself off by inhaling sharply, groaning softly and shutting his eyes as he began to move inside you, his hips rotating ever so slightly as they moved back and fourth, only resulting in you moaning into his hand. "i know the music is loud, but i need you to be quiet for me, can you do that?" his voice was so low it was almost coming out as a growl as he continued to thrust into you as he spoke, trying not to keep groaning in between his words as he shut his eyes tightly and cursed in german once more. you couldn't like, he was a stretch for you, there was pain at first but it had quickly begun shifting into pleasure as he continued and you became more used to the way he felt inside you. you knew there was an element of time involved lest he be missed at his own party, god forbid one of the guests go looking for him especially seeing as you were almost certain that door hadn't been locked. continued to thrust, his hands found there way on your back as he rose to his knees, taking you with him and sitting you on his lap, forcing you to wrap your arms around his neck for support as he effectively began to bounce you on his cock. the only thing you were able to do to stop your whimpers and moans from being heard was to bury your head in his neck, his head turning slightly to the side to bury itself in your hair. beginning to help him out slightly by bouncing yourself on his lap, you felt your hips beginning to cramp and ache but brought yourself to ignore the pain as it was currently outweighed by the sheer amount of pleasure you felt as he fucked you. growling into your hair, you felt his head move back so that he could begin leaving love bites on the parts of your neck that weren't covered by your dress; you couldn't even pay attention to the fact that you would have to walk back out into that party with love bites for all to see, your parents especially. part of you just hoped there would be no way to link them back to niki. picking up speed, you began to bounce faster on niki's lap as he too began to go faster, feeling the muscles within your stomach starting to tighten as rationality left your body and adrenaline took over. in that moment, nothing felt more important than chasing your high, knowing it was only on the horizon. it seemed niki was feeling the same way as he growled deeply, pulling his head away to look into your eyes as he gripped your hips and slammed them against his own with little to no mercy, caring little for the bruising that would no doubt be left over the next day. it hadn't taken much more of this for you be a whimpering mess, feeling yourself tighten quickly around niki's cock, only to begin hearing the sloppy sounds of your wetness slapping while niki still continued to essentially jackhammer into you, still chasing his own high. as you began to come down from your orgasm, the sensitivity of niki still fucking you relentlessly had you whimpering and panting as you once again buried your head in his shoulder, trying to remain as quiet as you could, though this was proving to be a difficult task. it wasn't long before you felt niki twitching from inside you, only to followed by the hot feeling of him cumming deeply inside you, his own deep and guttural moans releasing from his throat, cutting themselves off occasionally as he twitched and leaned his head back, his mouth hanging open as he shut his eyes. collapsing backwards, niki fell on top of you, panting with his brown curly locks sticking to his forehead as he laid his head on your chest. post orgasm high, you both seemed to let reality hit you as you looked at each other, realizing you'd both been missing from the party for longer than you thought, exchanging no words apart from a few worried sounds of alertness as you scrambled off of one another, quickly righting yourselves. it had only taken another two minutes or so to appear semi inconspicuous as you finally made your way back to his door, bracing yourselves before opening it and stepping out, only to see your parents walking towards you, quickly spotting you and calling your name. "where have you been? we've been looking for you everywhere, have you seen niki? he went missing an-" before you could even try to find a valid explanation, through they hadn't seemed very concerned for you and more so for niki's whereabouts, you felt niki walk up behind you, leaning against the door frame and greeting your parents. "she got lost." he began, placing a hand on your shoulder, cool as ever, as if minutes ago he hadn't just been fucking your brains out. "i was showing her photos from past races. lets get a drink, yes?" quickly deflecting from any questions they may have as to why you both just exited his bedroom, niki began to lead them to where they could get a drink, leaving you, shaking your head at the fact that they actually fucking bought that. - it was hours later that the party was actually beginning to wrap up, drunken people being led back to taxi's and niki saying goodbye to guests as the music had now stopped and there had been one to many neighbourly complaints. you were unsure whether or not you should try to go and say goodbye to niki, post sex clarity was no proposing a very awkward question as to where the fuck that had left the two of you now; you weren't even afraid to admit that the idea of having any other interaction with niki from this point forward scared the fuck out of you. one could argue that it was all spur of the moment, and you hadn't really had time to communicate whatsoever afterwards, distracted by the fact that you were scrambling to get your clothes back on. you weren't even sure yourself what you wanted it to be, it felt more like a situation of you didn't want to find out. and yet, once again, your wishes were ignored by whatever higher power was controlling things, because as you were walking back to the car with your parents, still trying to make any sort of sense of what had transpired, you heard the voice behind you calling after your parents. turning, you placed your hands in your pockets as you watched niki wish your parents a goodnight, letting your mother kiss him on the cheek as well as let your father give him a firm handshake as thanks occurred. he looked over at you only briefly, his eyes and expression next to unreadable as he quickly looked back at your parents, offering to walk them to their car. turning around quickly, you began to walk quickly to the car, unfortunately slowed down by your boots as your parents soon overtook you, leaving you and niki almost side by side behind them. though neither of you said anything, your eyes widened when you felt his hand fall on your lower back, then soon to your backside, giving it a squeeze that made you jump slightly, turning your head to look at him with an annoyed and wide eyed look, only to once again be met with that same fucking smirk. as you finally caught up with your parents, they only turned as niki pulled his hand away, thankfully missing the fact that he'd done that as they thanked him for a good night. opening the car door, you were immediately met with a sharp look from your father. "maybe you should say goodnight to niki, seeing as he was so generous as to extend the invitation to you." your father said slightly under his breath in a warning tone, only to turn back to niki. "sorry, she can be such a little brat sometimes." by the look on niki's face, you could see him holding in a smirk as he shook his head dismissively and waving his hand. "ah, its fine. i don't mind at all." he finished his sentence by wishing you a goodnight, only now extending the smirk to you as you stared back at him for a moment, slightly still in shock that your parents could be just that clueless. "goodnight, niki." you finally said, wasting no time getting in your seat and shutting the door.

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