#this fic is qd

[writingsfromhome]

If you Love Something

A/N: this has been an idea sitting in my drafts for a while. You and Harry had a brief but intense relationship as teenagers, were forced to make a serious decision then, and it’s aftereffects have lingered for the rest of your lives. It deals with some heavier topics so read with caution (alcoholism, depression, unwanted pregnancy etc). I’d describe it as sad but hopeful.

Part 2

—————————————

Age 17.

It started in secret. We’d found each other on the roof of a house party. Truth be told, I saw him sneak out of the window where people were crowded around the TV watching some controversial music video I hadn’t heard about. And I’d followed.

I knew who Harry was. Had him in English, Maths, and Biology last year. He was well spoken, thoughtful, and silly. I never spoke to him once though. Only admired him from afar.

Tonight I had my first drink and then another. I was feeling buzzed and despite being painfully shy for most of the time I’d known everyone here, I was suddenly gripped by the realization that we were approaching the last year we would all be together. Why had I waited this long to pursue someone I thought was cute?

I snuck out after him, when my friends weren’t looking. I even tilted the window more closed than usual so no one would suspect anything; I had the attic room at home so I knew how to maneuver the angled roof to get comfortable.

“You need any help?” Harry’s voice is clear in the silence.

“I’m alright.” I stand up to peer at him. He’s climbed near the top.

“Sure? You don’t seem steady.”

“Oh I’m steady,” I prove it to him by climbing up to where he was. “See?”

“I’m mistaken. My bad.” He holds out a hand to help me sit beside him and the night sky flashes brighter for an instant when I grasp his hand. My stomach is in knots.

“Harry. Styles.” I don’t know why I say his full name but I was nervous.

He repeats my full name back to me. I don’t know why I’m surprised he knows it. It’s not like we went to a big school.

“What brings you out here?”

I try to be bold about it, “You?”

“Party was getting too much.” He says. I stare at him in confusion while he complains about something his friends had gotten up to.

I replay my answer and realized it sounded like I’d skipped answering his question and asked the question back. Bugger.

“You know my name.” I interrupt him, forgetting he was telling me a story. Awkward.

“Yeah? Of course I do.”

“We’ve never talked.”

“We talked. Once in Maths. We had to grade each other’s answers.”

Oh yeah. I burn when I remember the 4/10 he’d given me with a smiley face saying that maths was masochistic.

“Barely.”

“I know you though,” he says with a softness that makes my heart stutter.

“Do you?” I look to him, resting my chin on my shoulder. He gazes down at me and I swear I could taste the colours around us.

His eyes draw me deeper as he inches closer. Was he going to kiss me? Oh my god.

I look back out to the roof and he jerks away. Omg.

“I do.”

“Oh,” I don’t know what to do after that awkward moment.

“I know you’re really quiet and shy but your smile is so loud you can see it from across the room.” He says and my breath catches as he continues. “You’re yourself with your friends, you really like Harry Potter and field hockey. You would kill Mal Adams if you could get away with it and you hate Maths just as much as you love art. You’re dating Oli Graves but your smile is only ever shining half as bright when you’re around him. Can I go on?”

I stop breathing completely halfway through his declaration of knowing me. All this time I had my eye on him, I didn’t know he was watching me too.

“I didn’t ask you for your opinion on my relationship.”

“You didn’t. I didn’t give you one either.”

I glare at him. He was right. He smiles knowing he was. I’m mad that I’m not mad at him. That he was right.

“What are you doing with a guy like that?”

Oli and I had been dating for 7 months now. He was loud and fun in a way I wish I could be. That’s why I liked him so much. That’s why I was at a party like this to begin with.

“He’s a good guy.”

“That’s all?” He asks. I look over but he’s looking up at the sky. I follow his gaze and get lost in the great expanse of nighttime.

“I think you deserve someone who sees you. Don’t you?”

“Did Ally see you?” I ask with a hint of aggression I didn’t mean to have.

“Ally and I broke up during Easter. So there’s your answer.” He’s unbothered.

“Well what do you want?” I ask.

“Right now? Or in life?”

I shrug. “Both?”

“I want to explore the world and meet all kinds of people. I wanna make the world a better place by being in it. It’s cheesy as shit so if you ever said I said this I’ll deny it and you’ll look like-“

“My lips are sealed.” I turn his way to promise him that. It makes me laugh at how serious he looks saying it all and when I do his face relaxes.

“You laugh is nice too. I forgot to mention that.”

That quiets me very quickly.

“And right now,” he continues. “I’d really like to kiss you.”

My ears ring. Did I hear him right? Could you get so drunk you hallucinate? I swear the cold air had sobered me-

“Did you hear what I said?” Harry’s moved in closer to me. Did I? I don’t know.

“What d-“

“I’d like to kiss you.”

I nod, afraid to talk and realize I’d hallucinated him saying that.

The world melts away when he kisses me. It’s tender, nothing like Oli and his jagged pushy kissing. In the nighttime air it’s warm, and soft, and easy.

“I know you,” Harry says when we part. I’d nearly climbed into his lap and I try to edge away, embarrassed, but he keeps a hand firm on my thigh.

“I know you too Harry,” I breathe. He smiles and it crinkles his luscious eyes.

I think I was falling.

***

We keep it a secret after I break up with Oli. For months, until mid-August when I invite him over for dinner after my mom insists on meeting “the boy I was all doe-eyed over”. The night with my family goes so well—Harry is the picture of a courteous gentleman that even my sister is swayed by him despite saying boys were gross. I ask him to hang out, in public, the next day. He doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

That’s what I love about Harry—yes love. He’s not pushy, he lets me go at my own pace. He respects me and sees me for everything I am and loves me anyway. I wanted to spend my whole life with him.

It was so intense and relaxed at the same time. It felt like no relationship I’d been in before. I felt different being with him, even my friends noticed.

When final year started, Harry and I were official but we didn’t flaunt it. We didn’t need to. My friends knew about us and they were happy for us, they told me I was more me. Whatever that meant.

Life was phenomenal and I was living in a dusky haze. Nothing could touch us.

Until one day in February. I was out with my sister, mum didn’t want to take her out and since I recently got my driver’s license with plenty of lessons from Harry, I was driving her to the mall. She needed Valentine’s Day cards.

“I thought you said love is stupid.” I remind her on the way.

“It is.”

“So why the hell am I driving you to buy cards for a made up holiday?”

“Because!” She crosses her arms and stares out the window. I flick her arm at a red light.

“You have a crush.”

“I do not!”

“Do too. Who is it? James? Mattie? Hamid?”

“Ew! They’re freaks.” My sister continues staring out the window.

“Why do you want to buy cards so bad!?”

“I just want them! For my friends!”

“Okay then,” I didn’t believe her. But I couldn’t bring her home crying or mum would ground me.

A lot of places have slim pickings. Wandering the aisle of Waterstones I catch sight of a family friend. She was my dad’s uni friend’s daughter, a few years older than me but by the time I got to secondary she had dropped out after getting pregnant. I remember the buzz when everyone found out.

I avoid her and find an aisle to occupy myself.

Harry and I were always careful, mum had already given me the talk and he never pressured me to do anything I didn’t. I imagine Harry as a dad. He would make a good one I think.

As one thought leads to another I go cold as I realize something. My last period was during the holidays.

I feel like I’m walking in a swarm of locusts as I walk to the edge of the aisle, scanning for my sister. Maybe I can pop into a pharmacy before she’s done. Maybe…

This was crazy. It was probably just a missed period.

But if it isn’t, another voice asks. I felt it in my gut. I had to do this.

I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember anything about the rest of that day except two faint lines, and then two faint lines again, and a third time. I fall asleep before dinner that night and shut the world out.

***

“I know something’s wrong.” Harry’s walking me home after school. It’s Valentine’s Day and he’d been nothing but sweet. He bought me chocolates, flowers, and we planned to cook dinner together after school. I had bought him chocolates too, and had written him a heartfelt note with a bunch of photos of us weeks ago. The box was in my room, waiting for tonight. “Do you not like the flowers? Or is it dinner? We can go out somewhere instead?”

“No everything’s lovely.” I’d never heard Harry this desperate before. It gets under my skin even though part of me knows that’s not really it. But having him hover over me all week trying to figure out what was wrong was too much.

I’d spent every night this week with a hand over my belly. Thinking about it. I hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. All I can think of was Jenny and I didn’t want that life. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be a mother.

“Please. What’s the matter.” Harry asks again, tugging at my hands but I pull them away.

“I just need some space!” I shout and he flinches. “I’m sorry Harry. I just need space right now.”

“Right now like…” he scratches his head. “I don’t get you. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve been talking about this day for weeks what do you mean you want space?”

“I can’t do this right now. Please.”

“Are you-are we…”

“I’m not breaking up with you.” I look at Harry with tears in my eyes, I didn’t want to cry out here. But every time I look at him I remember the reality. What’s growing inside me. I can’t take it. “I just can’t do today.”

I go inside my house. Leave him without further explanation. I feel awful, I can’t hold the tears in long enough to get to my room.

***

“Hey love?” My mum and dad knock on my door at half past 5. I lay in the dark, having cried myself dry. “We’re worried about you. Can we talk.”

“I can’t.” I say, voice stuffy.

“I thought you and that boyfriend of yours had plans,” dad says. He liked Harry but he rarely called him by his name. “Did something happen?”

“No!” I wanted them to leave me alone. “I just. I had to cancel. I’m fine.”

“Don’t sound fine to me love,” I feel the mattress dip as mum sits down. Dad strokes my hair. They whisper something I can’t hear and a pair of footsteps pad out of my room.

“Mum just leave me alone.” I try again.

“I’m not.” She pushes me further into my bed and leans down, tugging my blanket down. When I finally look at her she smiles kindly and kisses my forehead. That fills me up enough to start wailing again. “Oh love, what’s wrong?”

“Everything!” I sob into my blanket. Mom lays down beside me and I let myself be cradled like a child. God, I had a child. This was so fucked.

“Talk to me. We can figure it out together.”

I don’t know how my parents would react. They were never particularly strict, especially after what happened with Jenny I remember them always being sympathetic. We even visited her in hospital with a gift.

Mum strokes my hair and whispers that it’ll be okay. Slowly my sobbing eases into light sniffles. I had to tell her. She would know what to do. And if she hated me for it, I would just have to deal with it.

“Mum don’t be mad-“

“I won’t honey I-“

“No. Mum.” I cut her off. She moves back on the pillow so she can see my whole face, moving a strand of hair so I couldn’t hide. “Something…messed up. Happened. And…I was careful. We were always careful I don’t know what happened but I-“

I watch her face changed. Like she knew. She knew what was coming but she waits patiently as I muster up the courage to say the words that felt too real once I said them.

“Mum I’m…I’m pregnant.”

Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lip. What was she thinking? Was she crying for me or with me? Why wasn’t she saying anything!?

“Mum-“

“C’mere.” She wraps me in her embrace again and kisses the top of my head. My body feels drained and limp. I finally told somebody. It was real. This living thing inside of me was real.

“What happened?” She asks next. And I tell her what I think happened. When. How I found out. She listens, holding my hand in hers. When I’m done and it’s poured out of me she smiles supportively. “This isn’t a bad thing okay? It’s okay. Any decision you make is up to you. I’ll talk to your dad but just know you call the shots okay? I love you.”

This is what carries me. The love.

She asks me it I told Harry yet and I tell her the truth. She urges me to tell him. I tell her I wanted to so bad but I was scared.

She leaves shortly after that, I hear her talking softly outside my room. Nobody calls me for dinner until 7, a soft knock on my door. My sister would never be so soft, I assume it’s dad so I tell him to come in. I was scared to face him.

It’s Harry instead.

“Harry!” I cover my splotchy face with my blanket, why was he here? Did mum invite him? This was soo embarrassing.

My heart pounds and Harry is silent until he takes a seat where mum had previously been.

“I came over, your mum invited me. She explained.”

She did what? For a moment I feel betrayed.

“She said you weren’t doing so well. Stressed? I could make you some tea if you’d like. But I told you y/n, you’ll get into unis. You don’t have to worry so…”

I sigh. Mum had told him a half-truth. But he had come. Of course he had.

I couldn’t even think about uni right now because that lead me down a road of what if I couldn’t go because I had a baby. And that life felt so bleak it made me depressed.

“Harry.” I inch my blanket down a little and his eyes go round when he looks at me.

“You look…awful.”

“I know.” I cover my face with my hair but he brushes it away and kisses my forehead.

“No. I’m worried about you. I brought dinner-“

“Oh Harry.” I spot the bag he brought with him.

“I made it all for us. With my mum’s help but mostly me. I packed it to bring to you.”

I didn’t deserve him. And I had to tell him. And he was going to break up with me. What high school boy wanted a child?

“Harry it’s not uni.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I was carrying another living thing. It was the size of a seed but I was carrying it inside me. Like a living breathing pot. I was a potted plant.

“Then what is it?” His brows crinkle. “Is it us?”

“No!” I rush to tell him. “I…I don’t know how to say this. And I don’t know how you’re going to react but it’s okay either way.”

“What are you talking about?” His hands slide up my lap. “What is it?”

“Harry. I’m um, I’m pregnant.”

I watch him freeze and stay exactly how he is, his brows pinch ever so slightly. I knew this look. He looked still on the outside but his mind was racing. And I was scared what was racing through it.

“Pregnant?”

“Yeah. From…the holidays.”

“How did-I thought we-“

“I guess it’s not foolproof.” I whisper. Mum had told me to go on the pill, and I hadn’t listened because all my friends told me it made them gain weight. If only I had listened. Now I was gaining weight anyway.

“What are we going to do?” He asks next. And I never realized six little words could weigh the world. If I could cut those words out and surgically implant them into my heart I would. Just to remind me the equal parts relieved and comforted they made me.

I hold his face in my hands, new tears springing to my eyes. He was in this. With me.

He kisses me and pulls me into a hug. I cry into his shirt again and he holds me so tight I swear I could break.

“I don’t know if I can keep it Harry,” I finally whisper to him.

His hands fist in my shirt, he holds his breath and after a long minute he lets me go with it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Was he really okay with all this?

“It’s…I can’t make you keep it.”

“You’d want to keep it?” I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s…” he swallows his sentence and keeps his gaze on my stomach. I tug his hand and lay it over it. When his eyes meet mine I see a hint of heartbreak. We were going to break our hearts either way I think.

Not once did I think he might want to keep it.

“It’s okay.” Harry finally says. “We’re so young right? How would we keep a baby and go to school, and do everything we always talk about?”

“Yeah I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I love you.” He says with such a sudden passion. I wrap my arms around his and return the sentiment.

Eventually we lay down and just talk about everything. Truthfully, my head was telling me not to keep the baby but everything else felt dead thinking about it.

Maybe that’s why it took me until April to finally make a decision. It was the size of a plum by then, and a tiny bump was starting to show but only when I stood naked in front of the mirror. With clothes on, nobody was the wiser. But the longer I kept it, I think the more Harry fell in love with it. The idea of it.

We have a long talk during our Easter holiday. We talked in my bedroom until the sun comes up. I tell him I was sure of my decision.

I’d gotten accepted to Cambridge by then. Harry was staying in London. We knew it wasn’t feasible. To live the life we always wanted, we had to get rid of this new life we never knew could happen.

I don’t know why but I don’t tell him the day I go to do it. I go with my mum. Mum drops my sister off at school—she didn’t know. Mum said she had a big mouth.

We drive in silence. When we park mum asks how I feel.

“Sad.” It was the truth. I knew this was right. But it felt like shite.

“Yeah.” She rubs my hands. “Want to go in?”

“I just want to sit here for a bit.” I tell her.

“Okay. I’ll go sign you in.”

She takes my purse and hers and leaves me there. I take the moment to ground myself. Say goodbye to the other future.

When mum knocks on my window I jump.

“Yn? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah yeah I’m coming in.” I open the door.

“You know you’ve been sitting here half hour?”

I pause, one leg out the door and one still in. “I…I must have got lost in my head. Sorry mum-“

“Look. Do you want to do this?”

“I don’t know…I have to.”

“There are other options love-“

“But how can I give it up and live my whole life like that?”

“We can help raise her. You can go on and live your life-“

“I’d be a horrible mother.” Mum and I had this row so many times before. It always ended in me storming away but I couldn’t here.

“You don’t need to make the decision today.”

“But I do.” I tell her. “Otherwise it’ll drive me insane.”

I tuck both feet back into the car and rest my hand on my belly. I’d allowed myself to do that only in my room, when I was alone. Doing it out here made it feel even more real. Suddenly I couldn’t imagine going through with the decision.

“I can’t do this.” I tell my mum.

She smooths my hair down and kisses my temple. My door closes and a few seconds later she climbs in beside me.

“Think about it.”

“I can’t. But I can’t keep it either.”

“Okay.” Mum pulls me into her and I think I should cry but I can’t. I’m calm, maybe I know I’d made the right decision. Or just a decision. I was going to stick to this.

“I can’t raise it. I’m just a child I…maybe someone out there wants a baby and can’t have one maybe-“

“I’ll look into it for you.” Mum promises. “You set the rules remember?”

And that’s how it goes. Mum looks into it, we decide to go for adoption. We go to the hospital on the first warm day of the year. By then I’d taken to wearing jumpers over flowy dresses and been thankful for the first time in my life that I wasn’t skinny like other girls. At most angles you couldn’t tell my belly was so perfectly round.

By then too, Harry had accepted the decision. He seemed relieved. Thinking aloud he’d said maybe he could raise it, but quickly turned around when I asked him what he’d do about uni.

“Someone out there can take care of it better than us. Someone will love the baby like we do.”

During the summer, I tell all my friends I was staying with family in midlands. And I do go up there, that’s where the couple who was adopting lived. Harry and I meet them with my mum and his. It’s awkward, we run out of conversation fast. But their house is big and they already have a 2 year old from an adoption last year. My baby was going to be loved here. And have a sibling.

“We did want to discuss one last thing,” they’d said before we left. We all listen intently. “We…find it best when it’s a no contact adoption. We’ve had a lot of friends who keep contact open and it gets messy-“

“What?” I hadn’t really thought about this until now. Hearing I’d have to give the baby up and go on like it didn’t exist felt wrong. Harry’s hand slips into mine.

“This is typical,” Harry’s mum says from his side. “Let’s hear it out.”

“Right. So just to prevent future complications, we do no contact. Of course when baby’s older and wants to seek out the real parents we can’t stop them. But until then…”

“Thank you.” My mum steps in when it goes silent. I could hardly wrap my head around what they were saying. When it gets older?

Pretty soon mum is ushering me out and Harry’s hand is still clutching mine. We don’t let go until we reach my Uncle’s where we were staying until August. The baby was due in September. I was going to miss the first week of class.

“I can’t do this.” I tell them later. “How can we just have no contact.”

“I thought you knew.” Mum says. “I explained that some parents want this when they adopt.”

She might have. Ever since I hit the third trimester like my doctor said, I’ve had a hard time listening and understanding what someone was saying after they spoke too long. I was glad school was done—for obvious reasons, but also for not having to sit in a class and learn.

“We have no other choice.” Harry says from beside me. He rubs my back and slowly, I zone back into the conversation. “We can find another family but they might want the same thing.”

“What if the baby never looks for us?” I turn to him, our heads press against the other’s. “What if we go our whole lives just wondering?”

“What’s the other option?” Harry whispers. He was right. I just didn’t want to get it.

Acceptance slowly creeps into me over the course of the summer. It was always hot carrying another person around, I was always hungry and thirsty, and very cranky. Harry came up to see me every other weekend when he could, mum stayed with me and that summer was one I could never forget.

It was September 1st, a particularly hot day. Rain fell in the afternoon and by the time the unforgiving sun set, the cool air was heavenly.

I sat by the bedroom window, moisturizing my belly like mum had shown me, talking to the baby. I wrote it a letter last week all about me, that I loved them and hoped the best for them. I told the baby about my family, how Harry and I met, and then I sealed it in an envelope with a picture of Harry and me. It was taken last Halloween when we’d both dressed up as each other. I tell mum to give it to the new parents. In case the day came the baby wondered about who we were.

As I spoke softly, I felt a gush of something wet down my leg.

“What?” I stand up, confused. “I…”

It takes me a second. I was going into labour.

“Mum!” I shout. “Mum! Come here!”

She rushes in and confirms it. It was happening.

“But it’s supposed to be next week!” I try not to panic but that’s all I can do as mum grabs our things and my aunt rushes to the car. “Does this mean something’s wrong? Is the baby o-“

I freeze as a contraction forces me to fold. I’d felt the kicking and the nausea and everything in between but these. These were a bitch.

Somehow we make it to hospital. Somehow I lay on a bed and push when the doctor tells me to. I nearly pass out. I just wanted Harry here with me. He didn’t know his kid was being born.

With a final push that felt like I was ascending my body and leaving it behind, I hear a wail and I cry. The baby was out, they cried and everything was okay.

“Okay congratulations mummy,” a nurse crouches down to me. “We’re going to clean you and baby up. She’s healthy and looks okay.”

“What?” I can barely see with my hair in my face and the nurses around me. It was a she? I had a baby girl?

We were never told the gender, so we wouldn’t get attached. But I had a baby girl. The nurse just called me mum.

I feel the tears on my cheeks, I was crying too. I try to look around me but a new nurse is talking in hushed voices to the doctor.

“…outside…call…adoption…shouldn’t or….contact-“

“What’s going on?” I can barely get the words out. “What?”

“Oh my love,” suddenly mum’s in the room and things are a bit better. A bit better.

“Mum what’s going on?”

“The baby’s born. The parents are outside they’re going to meet her soon.”

“What?” I look at mum’s face and it’s shining with tears. Why was she crying?

“Oh she’s beautiful love, she’s perfect. But your job’s done now. You should rest.”

“Mum,” I cry. “Where is she? Can’t I hold her?”

“No love,” mum moves my hair out of my face. I feel something break in half inside of me. I couldn’t even hold the baby? The baby girl? Mine and Harry’s baby girl?

“Why? Mum why? I just want to see her-“

“I’m sorry,” mum says through tears. “It’s just the way it is. She’s going to a loving home okay? She’s good. You’re okay.”

I can’t stop crying. I was going to lose her last April and I stopped that but I lost her anyway. My baby, I was never going to see her.

I remember when my sister was born. I was 5 and I was angry she’d taken the attention away. But when I saw her with her perfect toes and angel face I was obsessed with her. I even remember her first steps, she’d taken them at a park with mum and dad and me together. I was never going to know these things about my own baby. I was never going to know her.

I must pass out soon after. I remember waking up to the nurses instructing me about something. I’m half asleep and barely remember what I did when I get up. When I do wake it’s morning and there’s a figure on the chair beside me.

“You’re up.”

Harry. Relief washes over me knowing he’s here.

“Harry they took her,” I tell him.

“I know. I know yn.”

I move aside and he crawls into bed with me. I must look disgusting but he watches me with love brimming in his eyes. I can tell he’s been crying.

“I feel empty,” I whisper. Like someone had carved me out like a pumpkin. Something I’d had with me all year was gone. “How can I just move on? Start uni and all that when I…they just took her.”

“I keep thinking that.” Harry says. “Khalil invited me to a party to meet some blokes from uni and I just sat in my car the whole time. I couldn’t even go in. She…she was never going to be ours.”

“I feel awful.” I burrow into his neck as he strokes my hair. “A baby girl.”

“A baby girl,” Harry echoes.

***

I head to uni a week later. My body still feels like it fought a war and lost. It’s like it still thinks there’s a baby there. I produce milk for a few days, continue to have contractions, my belly is saggier than usual and I can’t stop crying about everything.

My dad drops me off to uni. He tells me he was proud of me, that I was always his baby girl. I cry then just like I cried at home when I said bye to mum, or when my sister hugged me which she never does. I can’t stop crying.

When I move into my dorm I feel like a completely different person than I thought I was going to be. My dormmate fills me in on everything she’s learned, complains about a boy and a party and it just feels so irrelevant to me. Did I used to care about those things? I had a baby. And now I didn’t.

By October, Harry and I are in different worlds. We hadn’t broken up but we talk weekly. Each week there’s less to talk about. When I visit home in October, being around him just makes me sad. He tries to cheer me up, make it like old times, but I know he’s hurting inside too.

I decide to do the breaking up. And at first he’s angry, insisting we could make it work. He actually refuses and walks away. We don’t talk for a whole day.

But at a house party in South where his uni mates were from, he accepts the end.

Through tears we kiss each other one final time, we whisper sweet nothings, we pour into each other all the hopes and wishes we had for each other.

When he hugs me for the last time I leave something behind. It’s similar to waking up the morning after my delivery and knowing something was gone. I really feel the shape of the loss. It sits in my sternum, a hole that grows smaller with time, but not just yet.

I fall into a depressed state for most of my first semester but my dormmate doesn’t give up on me and eventually I go to my first uni party. Eventually my brain fog clears and I actually go to all my classes. Eventually my life, on the outside, looks like it could be back to normal but inside I ache with the loss. So much that it becomes part of me. I don’t know where it ends, and I begin. It lives in me.

Age 23.

“The first of many hey?” Mal clinks his bottle to mine. I barely knew Mal but we were both friends with Khalil and therefore both at his stag.

“Before you know it we’re all going down,” one of Khalil’s friends joins in. “Stag after stag, suit after suit, it’s gonna be a blur man.”

“Let’s enjoy it while we can!” Someone cheers and everyone raises their beers. I toast with a smile; blokes loved to act like being in a relationship was the last thing they wanted when I knew most of them were mush in their girlfriend’s hands.

I also smile knowing I bought an engagement ring a few weeks back. I wanted to propose to Shannon, we met on her 22 when a friend invited me along. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the birthday girl. We’d been together since.

“Who do you think’s next?” The bets start going and nobody bets on me. Everyone always thought Shan was too good for me, they were counting on us breaking up. I was going to prove them all wrong.

The night gets sloppier until we all head back to the air bnb we’d rented for this. Tomorrow we were all supposed to go play golf like we were cosplaying old money bastards when we all knew we were just broke blokes from East. But I guaranteed they’d all be too hungover. We would get to the club and just drink the hangovers away.

And I’m right. I update Shan that I’m right when the boys stay in the dining area of the club. They decide on lunch and I step out to talk to my girlfriend.

“No birds allowed this weekend,” someone pipes in when I excuse myself.

“That’s just cuz you’re miserable Eli.” I brush past as the boys laugh. At me. And him.

I catch up with Shan. It was a bright day for September and I stay a little longer after the phone ends. Shan was in med school, she was always stressed or sleep deprived. I tried to support her the best I could—right now she needed moral support that she was going to get an internship she was applying for.

“Mummy doesn’t like when I have sweets,” a small voice says to my left. I look at a father with his daughter. He’s crouched down zipping her sweater up while she rambles on.

“Well it’s going to be our secret.” The dad says. “Sundays are for sweets aren’t they?”

“I love sweets.” She responds.

The father catches my eye and I shoot him a smile.

“Her mum’s going to hear every detail when we get home,” he says as he stands. “Can’t keep a secret to save her life.”

I laugh. The way she was rambling on, I didn’t think so. “How old’s she?”

“6.” He says, smiling down at her fondly. My heart aches.

“Almost 7.” She corrects her dad.

“Birthday’s in the spring.” He says more to me. “But almost 7 sure.”

I see them leave with one more shared smile, like we’re in on something. I imagine that’s how it would feel to be a parent. Always knowing something your kid doesn’t.

My daughter was 6. Wherever she was.

Thinking about the daughter I never had, the girl I lost always leaves me a little winded. Today’s no different.

Yn and I both made an agreement and it had been the hardest thing I’d done. Letting her go. It took me a proper year to even think about moving on.

I liked to think about yn, doing everything she wanted to do. But when I thought about the baby I spiralled into a dark pit. Sometimes when I drank too much, it pulled me in too deep to get out of. That’s what Shan liked to call my depressive drinking. She’s limited me to 3 drinks since.

Before I go in I take a minute to think about yn, where she might be. I hear from friends in high school random facts about her life. But I wonder how she’s doing. If she thinks about our baby like I do. How life would have been if I’d been here, calling her on the phone instead, asking if our baby girl was doing alright.

Age 29.

I stare at the nape of the man in front of me. It couldn’t be, but I’d memorized the back of his head—amongst other things, nearly 2 decades ago and I would bet £1000 I knew who this was. But I continue staring until the cashier rings him up.

In the same voice I remember, the one from my memories and my fantasies, I hear him say: “debit.”

I wait for him to pay before saying, “Harry?”

He turns so quickly he drops his card, wallet, and keys.

“Hi!” I laugh awkwardly and crouch down to help him pick his things up. There’s an awareness that the people in the queue behind me are witness to a moment that feels more intimate than a grocery store chat and it makes me shrink a little in my shell like a spooked turtle.

“Hi I-uh,” Harry short-circuits in front of me as the bored cashier holds his receipt out and stares at him with eyes that have worked one shift too many.

“I’ll just bag-“

“Yeah we can talk later.” I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile but it feels watery. I couldn’t believe of all the places I’d run into him, it was a grocery queue. How intense in such a mundane place.

As I watch my total rise on screen I risk a glance at Harry. His hand hovers over a white reusable bag, I wonder if that was his. Or his wife’s. If they did their weekly shop in a mismatch of bags that looked like that or they were the type of couple to have a set.

His eyes are on me though, somehow here and not here. I feel the same way.

I look back to the cashier asking me how I was paying. She glances between Harry and I. I don’t look back at him. Or the growing queue a few feet away.

I take my groceries—just some items my mum asked me to pick up, and stuff them into the tote I’m wearing. Harry waits for me by the exit.

“Hi.” He says as his eyes scan my face. I do the same, taking in all the ways time had spent with him. It must have been good—he looked good. “I can’t believe-“

“A Whole Foods of all places.” I laugh. A grin splits his face but his eyes stay on me.

“That smile, that laugh. God I’ve missed you.”

“I…missed you too.” How I could miss someone I’d known for one year and then never again for nearly two decades…I didn’t realize it was possible until now.

“Are you busy?” He asks. “Maybe we can grab a drink or?”

“I don’t…drink.” I hated that I had to announce it to people. I was still at the stage where I was figuring out how to say it confidently, or find a way around saying it.

“Oh.” Harry glances down at my belly and I realize he’d misunderstood but it’s too unspoken to correct him. “Cafe?”

“Yeah. That sounds lovely.” Honestly going anywhere with him sounded lovely right now. I wanted to cancel all my plans for the day and just sit with him. Stare at him and catch up. I couldn’t believe he was here.

We walk in a comfortable but waiting silence, like taking a cold drink out to a park with the anticipation it’s going to be good , and no desperation to open it as soon as you get it.

“Usual? Tea?” Harry asks when we step into a nearby cafe. It’s big for a cafe but has enough students working on laptops to not feel empty. I nod, unsure how to feel that Harry still knows what I order at a cafe. Or that my order hasn’t changed since 17.

I find us a booth and pretty soon he’s sliding into the seat across from me. The two of us can’t stop smiling.

“Hi,” he says again.

“Hi…”

“You look good, the same but better.”

“I was going to say the same thing about you!” I exclaim. More smiling.

“How’s…I mean, how are you? How is everything? What-“

“There’s so much to ask-“

“I don’t even know how to ask what I want to know!” Harry laughs and I’m warmed from the inside out at the sound of it.

“This shouldn’t be hard!”

“No.” He scrubs his face. “I’m really buzzing that we’ve run into each other.”

“Me too. It’s a bit unbelievable.”

“I know.” He continues gripping his cup and not taking his eyes off of me. It’s the exact way he used to look at me when we were teenagers. It nearly takes my breath away. “You look good—but I already said that. Sorry.”

“No,” I laugh. “That’s all that’s running through my head.”

“Oh—I remember hearing you were engaged a few years ago-“

“Yeah.” I turn my hand so he can see the ring. “Married now. You?”

“Yeah,” he looks down at his own hand. He had so many rings on I couldn’t tell from a glance. “Coming up to 5 years now.”

“Wow. It’s only 1.5 for me but Tatum and I—my husband, we’d been since uni.”

“Took him a while.”

“Mhm,” it had been a sore subject way back then. Harry says it casually but he studies my face. I know he wants to ask more but he’ll politely maneuver around it.

“Are you happy?”

I let out a breath. “That’s more complicated than anything else you could ask!”

“Is it?”

“Yeah I-“ I shrug. “I don’t know if I am. But I also have no idea what I could do about it. So. There’s that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” My stomach curdles with his words. I didn’t want pity, least of all from Harry. Harry. I can’t believe he was here. “I get it though. Everyone says your 30s are even more glorious than your 20s. We’ll see soon enough if they’re right.”

I meet his eye, they always intimidated me to look too long into. Even now, I glance back down at my drink. When I look up again he has a wry smile twisting his lips. He knew.

I was sorry to hear life hadn’t been as good for him. And then I understand, it wasn’t pity he was giving me. He truly was sorry like I.

I thought about Harry often. Of course I did. I liked to imagine him living out his dreams like he always talked about. I liked to imagine him happy and thriving.

“Do you ever think about us?” I have to ask. “If we did it all differently?”

“We would have had a 12 year old with us.”

Hearing him say it feels like someone had taken a screwdriver and opened me up. Raw and exposed. But looking at him I know he thought about her as much as I had. Both of us were apparently mourning a future neither of us had fought for.

“Yeah,” I breathe but I just sound winded.

“We were trying, at one point—Shan and I.” Harry fiddles with his ring. “Did all the tests and the trials and the shite. But no kids. It put a real strain on my relationship. I think we cracked instead of bending. And I don’t think either of us know how to make it right again.”

I grasp his hand and squeeze. “I know what that’s like. It’s hard. I…a couple years ago. I lost a baby. A baby boy. I felt like it was a punishment for-“

“Don’t.”

We hold onto each other, our drinks long forgotten. He holds my hand and it feels like being known again, like I wasn’t such an awful person. That someone could see everything I’ve done and still choose to have love for me.

“I’m sorry.” He tells me.

“Me too.” I bite my lip. With a sigh I let him go and lean back. Here we’d been so excited to bump into each other but we’d both been carrying sorrow and grief. It wasn’t very hopeful.

“So I guess you’re not drinking because you’re-“

“No.” I say, surprisingly without feeling awkward. “I’m just sober right now. Trying to figure out life without a drink.”

“Sounds like torture but I respect that. Sounds hard.”

“It was at first. I like the feeling now of thinking clearly. But I miss a glass of wine I do sometimes.”

We smile at each other.

“So do you live around here?” Harry broaches talking again after both of us had lapsed into silence for a while. I blink away the fog of the past.

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. Shan’s out of town and I was feeling lonely. Came over to visit my sister. I’m just staying with her for the week.”

“Lucky me then.” I smile.

“Lucky me too.” He smiles back. It’s soft. We’re soft. It felt impossible to me after all this time the tenderness was still the strongest thing between us.

We chat a bit more, much about nothing. What we did for a job, anyone we still kept in touch with from school. Nothing that meant a lot.

“I need to head off now,” I say when my phone buzzes for a second time. “I was on my way to my mum’s. She keeps calling me.”

“Yeah. Don’t want to keep you.” Harry says but he stays seated. So do I.

We continue just studying the other until my phone rings again and I laugh. “It was…I really loved seeing you.”

I slide out and Harry mirrors me. I still come to his chest, he still smells the same and stands the same and looks just as handsome.

“How about uhm, how about dinner some time?” Harry asks. I knew it was coming, it’s still painful saying no.

“I…can’t. I…we can’t just do dinner, can we?”

“No,” Harry bows his head. We had too much history to just do dinner. From what he said—and I knew, both our lives were too complicated to add the allure of each other into the mix. I couldn’t do that to my life as tempted as I was. Especially not sober.

“Yeah.” He stands straight again and gives me space to head to the door. “Good seeing you. Give your mum my best if she doesn’t hate me.”

“She doesn’t.” I assure him. We stand awkwardly not sure if a kiss, a hug, or a wave was appropriate. We settle for a hug.

I remember the last time I was enveloped in his arms, tucked away into his tall frame. When we said goodbye forever, agreed to live our best lives separately. We’d both been too scarred to be anything together. Too much grief.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other again.” Harry smiles at me when we part.

“Maybe,” I say knowing full well I wouldn’t do groceries on the weekend anymore.

With a final wave we both part ways again, this time it doesn’t feel as much like closure.

Age 35.

“Graduation’s graduating, what a mouthful.” I say to Andie. We sit in the parking lot of a local pub back home. Both of us had avoided reunions after going to the first one 10 years ago and being reminded of how much people liked to remind you of who you used to be. But this year Andie found out an old flame was going and single. And this is the first year I saw that Harry had checked off going. So we’d decided to go together.

I could have easily reached out to him. Asked him about meeting up there. But I didn’t want to come across any way. I remember our run-in 6 years ago. We felt the same way—we would do anything for each other, and I didn’t want any affect over him coming. Last I heard he was still in a relationship. Just cuz I was didn’t mean I had to ruin another.

“Okay. We going in?” Andie passes me her flask.

I’d taken to drinking again. Originally I stopped after a particularly bad night when I was 28. It nearly cost me my wedding back then.

I stopped to get sober. To feel what it felt like not to rely on alcohol to keep from feeling my emotions. I had a lot of grief I never processed. And unfortunately being sober, and processing the grief and depression, had ultimately cost me my marriage. But I was better for it. I knew what unconditional love and support was. I didn’t want to settle for someone who only loved me at my best.

Now I felt in control when I drank. I knew when to stop.

“Let’s go!”

“Do you think he’ll remember me?” Andie asks as we walk up to the place.

“You comment on so many of his posts. I think he does.” I tease.

“Gah. It would have saved me so much heartbreak if I just told him back 18 years ago how I felt.”

“Maybe,” I think about my confessed love 18 years ago and the heartbreak that ensued.

“Well at least I would have gotten him outta my system. Oh god I see him-“

“Hi ladies,” we’re stopped near the front and given name tags, making small talk with the girls working the booth. I vaguely remember them from a club but I have to read their name tags to pretend I remembered them at all.

Andie ditches me pretty quickly but I don’t mind. I find some friends I saw a couple times a year. Guess this was the couple time this year.

The whole time my eyes scan the room. People had brought their partners and I wondered if Harry would do the same. Deep down, I prayed he didn’t. I just wanted to see him.

I spot him halfway through the night. He’s leaning against the bar talking to Khalil. I remembered they used to be friends, he was always nice to me while Harry and I dated.

I watch him talk and drink. I lose him for a bit and then catch him leaving. Shite.

I excuse myself and rush out but nearly trip over myself slowing down. He was just outside for a smoke break.

“When did that habit start?” I ask. He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Fu-y/n you scared me.” He shakes his face dramatically, like he’s getting something off of it. I bite back a smile, he was pretty drunk. “When did you get here? I didn’t know you came to these things?”

“I don’t.” I correct him. I couldn’t tell him I came for him. “It was just the name of this reunion, Graduation’s graduating. How could I pass it up?”

This earns a laugh. Eases the air between us. “Did you see Oli in there? He’s gotten bald.”

“He looks like his dad actually,” I remember his dad was always coming to Oli’s football matches, screaming at his son to run faster.

“Glad you didn’t end up with him?” Harry smirks.

“Oh yeah. I heard last reunion he just kept going up for the karaoke sober. If I want my bloke to embarrass me, at least give him the excuse of being drunk.”

“Shit,” Harry laughs. “I remember that! I remember! Wish I could forget!”

I laugh with him. “Harry you’re getting pretty close to drunk yourself.”

“Ah yeah. More than 3 drinks that, I’m being naughty tonight.”

I scrunch my nose, no idea what he’s talking about.

“I can’t believe you’re here tonight,” Harry says again. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again for another 12 years after our last time.”

“Thought I’d halve the time.” I watch Harry squash out the butt.

“Glad you did.” He looks at me and I’m 17 again. Why couldn’t we both be single? Why did I come here knowing I couldn’t have him.

Maybe I was as masochistic as the person who invented maths.

“Yn?” A voice calls out to me. “Oi! It is you I thought I was dreaming you up! What a sight!”

I’d been avoiding Oli all night. Not anymore.

I glance at Harry and he hides a smirk. Oli notices Harry then and his face hardens a little.

“Oli! Long time!” I go in for the hug he’s reaching for, unsure why he was so sweaty on an autumn night. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he grins at me. “You look good! Not a day over 25.”

“Don’t flatter me Oli,” I roll my eyes. “It’s not going to get you anything.”

“I’m not looking! I swear it!” He says earnestly. “I’m just paying you a compliment. It’s good to see you. Hey, I’m actually in a good relationship. Gonna propose to her.”

“Are you? What’s she like?”

I stand in the brisk evening as Oli tells me about his girlfriend. I’m happy for him, what we had in high school wasn’t really a relationship but I never wished him bad. He was a good guy, I was glad he found his person.

I change the subject when he asks about my love life, tell him I was getting cold. We head back in and I tell him I’d catch up to him later. I’d lost Harry and wanted to find him again. I had more I wanted to talk about.

“Khalil,” I interrupt him playing pool. He goes in for a hug and I engage in polite small talk until I tire of it. “I’m looking for Harry.”

“Of course you are,” he wags a finger at me. “I saw him leaving ten minutes ago?”

“Jeez really?” I couldn’t believe I missed him! After coming here just for him. Maybe he had to get home, maybe he had a kid by now. Had to tuck him in.

“He’s not doing so well since the divorce-“

“What?” I stare at Khalil like he’s spoken gibberish. Why hadn’t I heard about that?

“Ehm yeah. He’s pretty private about it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. He’s been separated a few years now but he just signed the papers a couple weeks ago. I dunno. He gets kinda depressed around this time of year. Probably the weather.”

It was September. It wasn’t the weather.

I had to find him.

I brush past the people I went to school with. I followed Harry outside to a roof 17 years ago and today I follow him out to find him again. We needed to talk.

I look both ways, hoping for a miracle.

I spot a figure slumped on the far end of the road. I recognize the church, it was where we went every Easter and Christmas growing up.

I walk towards the figure until I can make out the hair. It was Harry. Thank god.

“Why’d you leave?” I ask him when he looks up to my approaching footsteps.

“I drank too much,” he hangs his head again. I sit beside him.

“I heard about the divorce. I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugs. “We separated a while ago. It was coming for a long time.”

“Yeah. Still.” I say.

We sit in silence, the only sound is our breathing and the faint noises from the pub down the road.

“She’s in her last year by now.” I say without further explanation. I know he’d know.

“Our baby’s 17.”

Our baby? I feel choked up. All these years we’d been apart, built our own lives, and there was still an our even when there hadn’t been.

“It’s always been us hasn’t it?” Harry says. “Nobody understands.”

“They couldn’t. We were so young, making such a big decision.”

“Oh y/n.” He leans into me and I wrap my arm around his shoulder. He’s cold, his jacket pooled on the steps around him. I gather it to spread over his shoulder but he stops me. “How much heartbreak can you have in one lifetime?”

I sit, aching for the pain Harry was going through. Knowing it was mirrored in me.

“I’ve had enough for a lifetime. I know that.”

“Me too.” Harry sighs. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here.” I intertwine our hands. They still fit the exact same, all these years later. I examine them, but they looked the same too. I wonder if our baby girl ever looked at her hands, wondered who she inherited them from.

“D’you think she thinks about us?” Harry asks what I’m thinking.

“Maybe.” I say. “I like to think so. I just hope she doesn’t hate us for giving her up.”

“Yeah me too I think…” he hangs his head. I hear him sniffle. Seems like Harry hit the point of drinking where all you could feel is regret. I remember those days. I knew where he was.

When he doesn’t finish his sentence I fill the silence; “Me and Tatum split uh…four years ago now.” I update him. “You probably heard something about it. I remember my mum saying she ran into yours when it was happening. They probably talked all about it.”

I wait for Harry to give confirmation but he stays the way he is.

“I went sober a few years before then. Almost ruined our wedding cuz I was exactly where you were. Unprocessed grief and all I could do was drink about it. I’d given up a baby at 18, then lost a baby a decade later. It feels silly to say out loud, that something that never really came into this world—something the size of a fruit could act like the rock you push up the hill every morning. The grief you fight at your darkest times. How could we be haunted by something that didn’t even exist—not technically. But that’s just the way it was. And that’s the way it had to be when we were 18. I’m not always sure I made the right decision overall but I know it was a decision we had to make at the time. I’ve had to find my peace. So do you Harry.”

“Yeah. I-I have to. Y’know? Sometimes I wonder if I would have made her proud.” Harry sniffles. I had similar thoughts. My throat feels tight remembering. “I don’t think, right now, I would be.”

“She’s so loved. She is so loved Harry. Whatever…wherever she is.”

“I love you.” Harry turns to me. His face is raw with grief and emotion. “Never stopped loving you. But I don’t want to give you this version of me.”

“I’ll take any version of you Harry.” I reassure him. “I think we’ve seen too much of each other to be able to hide anything away.”

He tips forward slowly until his head rests on my chest. I hold him there, just like he’d done for me so many years ago. I tell him the type of thing that meant everything to me back then and I hope it helps him to hear it: “We’ll get through this Harry.”

***

“I don’t remember getting here.”

I look up from my book, Harry stands in my kitchen with a confused look on his face. It was weird seeing him here in my flat. But it was so right too.

“We walked home. I thought you sobered up.”

“Nuh-uh.” He takes a few steps towards me, hesitant.

“Coffee?”

“Maybe I’ll take a shower first?”

“First door on your right. Extra towels in the cupboard.”

“Thanks.”

We look at one another for a beat before he moves back. I make another pot of coffee and clean up from breakfast while he showers.

Next time he walks back in he looks a lot better. Smells nice too.

“Black please.” He says when I hold the coffee up.

I pour him a cup and watch him sip it.

“Thank you for last night.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell him.

“I remember what you said to me. You’re right of course. I think I knew it, I just didn’t have anyone to talk to about it with. Nobody knew about us…”

“You didn’t have to keep it a secret ‘til this day Harry.” I was surprised he had. “You didn’t even tell any of your friends?”

“The only people who knew were my family, a-and Shan. But. Year after year it didn’t mean the same thing to her. I stopped talking to her about it pretty quickly. Think it made it worse because her and I couldn’t actually…”

“Yeah.” I understood.

“But I realized. I think it was losing both of you. I feel like you were taken away too. We just went from being around each other all the time to cold turkey. That was a loss too so…”

“Yeah.” Again, I understood.

“I’m 35. I’ve gotta…get my head on straight.”

I examine him. “Looks okay to me?”

He smiles and puts his cup down.

“I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”

“Meh that was years ago. Hard then. Fine now. For the best.”

“I agree,” Harry moves around the table to stand where I am. My heart pulses just like it always does around him. He rests a hand on my hip, dragging it up to wrap around my waist. He must feel how hard my heart’s beating. “Did I tell you? That I love you?”

“Maybe?” I feel myself growing more present. The hole that always lived inside of me growing even smaller in this moment. It allows me to settle on the floor better; less air, more weight.

“Well I do. I love you. At 17, or at 35.” He says this with a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth.

“Well. I love you.” I return the kiss, relish in the way his hand grips my tank. “At 17, or 35.”

“Sometimes I wish I held on tighter at 17. But I look at you now and I’m excited to get to know you again.”

His words pour over me like honey. It was sweet we were still on the same page.

“I’m not letting you go this time.” Harry whispers in my ear. He pulls me in tight, swaying from side to side. “I want to spend 41 and 50 with you. I want all of you, every side.”

“Perfect,” I peer up at him. “That’s exactly what I want too.”

“And maybe one day,” he continues in a hush voice. “We’ll get a call from a young girl. She’ll tell us all about her life in a town up north. About a picture she has of her mother dressed like her father and her father dressed like her mother.”

“She’ll tell us she’s had a good life, and she’s thought about the people in the picture. She’d tell us she wants to meet them.”

“We would be able to show her the love we kept for her. Our love’s like a venn diagram, the bit in the middle is just for her. She’d know why she was born in the first place.”

“Closure,” I whisper to him. “We would know closure.”

I remember the day she was taken, how the loss of not even being able to see her felt bigger than the loss of her itself back then.

I think of a 17 year old girl, with green eyes and brown hair. With my smile and Harry’s dimples. My hands, and Harry’s height. She was loved by people, families, that she didn’t even know existed yet.

They say if you love something, let it go. If it’s meant to be it’ll come back.

As Harry and I stay intertwined in the kitchen of my flat, I send out a wish into the universe for her like I did most days. That she was healthy, happy, and one day curious enough to seek us out. That one day, she would come back.

Right now I focus on the man in my arms. The one I never thought I’d get to hold again. For now this was all I needed. I’d loved him, let him go, and after so many years apart, we were back.

#harry styles fic #writingsfromhome #harry styles x reader #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #fic #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry stylesxreader #read with caution #sad but hopeful #kinda nervous to post #this fic is qd

[mariana-oconnor]

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Best used for fics with at least a little humour in them.

Option 5 - The Rule of Three:

Three is a magic number. Find three key moments in your fic and just list them. That's it. Often ends with 'not necessarily in that order' if used for comic effect. If it's an AU, establish that quickly (i.e. 'Star NHL player Blorbo…').

Example: "Blorbo makes a friend, falls in love, and almost burns to death, not necessarily in that order."

Best used for anything, really. Three is a magic number. The human brain loves things that come in threes.

Option 6 - The Trope Lure:

Why bother describing the plot? We all know AO3 readers are here for the tropes. Similar to The Sitcom One-Liner just using tropes instead of plot. Often followed by the phrase 'that nobody asked for'.

Example: "The Space western / A/B/O / Mail Order Bride fic that nobody asked for."

Often tacked on to the end of The Hook or The Excerpt as a tl;dr.

Best used for fic that plays its tropes straight with no shame or second guessing.

Option 7 - The Pre-emptive Strike:

(Not recommended) You just wrote this fic, the self doubt is consuming you. You feel the need to apologise profusely for your existence for no apparently reason. You feel cringe, you think the fic is cringe, you want everyone to know that you think the fic is cringe in case they don't like it and judge you for it.

Example: "So I fell in love with this pairing and had to write this. It's weird and terrible. Lol! I suck at summaries! Sorry!"

Best used for no fics ever. I cannot stress this enough.

(Seriously, I am begging you, don't do this. If you're planning to use this option, rethink it and do one of the others. I guarantee you more people will want to read your fic.)

Sometimes added on to any other summary as a strange disclaimer. (srsly. don't.)

Option 8 - The Unapology:

Embrace the mayhem, embrace the deep dark depths of your soul. The opposite of The Pre-emptive Strike. A combination of The No Frills and The Trope Lure that truly gives no fucks.

You have committed crimes and you are proud of them. You know what your USP is and you're going to make sure your target market finds you. Look upon my works, ye readers, and despair!

Example: "There aren't enough tentacle fics in this pairing, so I had to write one myself!"

Best used for fics with controversial/polarising tropes with all relevant details already clearly stated in the tags.

Option 9 - The Interrogation:

What if you wrote a summary entirely in questions? What if your readers had to read the fic to discover the answers? Who knows what will happen if you do this?

Example: "What happens when Blorbo McBlorbo gets his wish and Daisy doesn't make it to the plane on time? What happens when Obrolb finds out? How will this change Daisy and Blorbo's friendship?"

Best used for... I honestly don't know. This style of summary does not vibe with me. Mystery fic maybe? Sorry guys.

Option 10 - The Multipack:

Got a bunch of shorter fics in one work? No way of summarising them all without a wall of text larger than the Great Wall of China? This one is similar to The No Frills in that you're not describing the plots themselves and similar to The Trope Lure in that often broader genres and tropes are mentioned. What links those fics? Are they all in the same fandom? The same pairing? The same challenge? Just slap that right in the summary. A chapter list with 1-2 word trope/pairing summaries can be included or not.

Example: "A collection of Blorbo/Daisy/Obrolb fics based on Tumblr prompts. Chapter 1: Regency AU Chapter 2: Werewolves vs vampires Chapter 3: Ghost!Daisy Chapter 4: Space pirates!"

Best used for (obviously) works that are compilations of fic.

Option ? - The Void:

I said The Excerpt was the quickest and easiest summary to do. I lied, well... I didn't exactly lie. What is quicker and easier than not having a summary at all? After all, that's what the tags are for.

Example:

Best used for... nothing? Write a summary, guys. Please?

#AO3 #fandom #on writing #clearing out my drafts #long post #Qd #This list is intended for entertainment purposes only #I just came across a lot of fic summaries that followed similar rules #so I decided to post this about it #I'm sure other options are available #If you've ever used number 7 that's not bad of you #But my advice would be to not do that

[shokopan]

𝐜𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐲  .  𝐤. 𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐚𝐬𝐡𝐢

genre: fluff  -  pairing: akaashi x gn!reader  -  wc: 1.3k  -  cw: mentions of food + cursing

note: the way i finally finished one of my anime wips? that is so good ugh round of applause everyone

“dude that’s like the fifth time cafe boy came in this week” atsumu comments, watching as the dark-haired man enters the coffee shop. the man is dressed in a white shirt layered with a beige long-sleeve button-up and olive slacks, paired with a brown messenger bag and dark black frames.

“maybe he just likes the coffee?” you suggest as you discreetly peek at the man.

“sure, five times already this week but it’s only a tuesday,” atsumu rolls his eyes, nudging you forward as the man begins nearing the register, “go get your cafe boy’s order and number, jesus stop making eyes at him. i think i'm going to gag,”

“shut the fuck up, i’m not making eyes, i just think cafe boy’s got really nice style and i want to know where he got his jacket,” you hiss, glaring at your coworker before walking over to greet the man.

“good afternoon! welcome to morning brew! what can i get for you today?” you beam, tapping your fingers along the screen of the cash register.

“hi, can i get a large cappuccino and an almond croissant?” he asks, smiling politely as he waits for you to input his order.

“alright, here is your total,” you point at the screen. he nods, pulls out his wallet, and hands you the bill, cheeks flushing as his fingers graze your own.

for a moment you’re stunned, noting how soft his hands seemed until you snap yourself out of the trance and him his change.

“your order will be out soon! i can help the next customer in line,” you smile at him, nodding as the person behind the man stepped up to the register.

a line had formed behind him as you were taking his order, and you couldn’t help but feel a bit bummed about not being able to hand the man his drink due to being stationed at the register.

meanwhile, akaashi was silently praying that his drink would take a little longer to make, hoping that universe would somehow will the two of you to interact beyond the few exchanged words at the cash register. he pulls out a book from the messenger bag that sits on his lap, busying himself with reading while briefly pausing between paragraphs to catch a glimpse of your unwavering smile.

atsumu begrudgingly takes notice of the two of you sneaking periodic glances at one another, heaving a sigh as he catches sight of akaashi glancing up again to look at you as atsumu motions for the man to maneuver over to the counter on the side.

“hey, yer into em right?” atsumu whispers, keeping his volume low to avoid letting you overhear. the man’s eyes widen, darting over to where you stood before turning back as atsumu continues, “tell ya what, they’re gonna take their break soon, so talk to them or something, i dunno, i’m just sick of ya both making eyes at each other, it’s getting old,”

“um yeah, i was ah, i was planning on asking them out today,” akaashi’s in pure shock, cheeks heating up at the realization of his lack of discretion, praying that the little glances he throws your way don’t make you uncomfortable. 

“good! that’s good! go, go do that!” atsumu bobs his head furiously, giving akaashi a thumbs up as akaashi nods slowly, scurrying back as soon as atsumu shoos him away.

just as atsumu promised, you came out from behind the counter, cappuccino and almond croissant in hand as you place the two down by the table.

“here’s your large cappuccino and almond croissant sir, please enjoy!” you smile as akaashi dips his head in thanks as he sweats bullets trying to figure out something to ask to get you to stay at his table.

“how’s the book you’re reading?” you ask to akaashi’s relief. he’s nearly ready to kiss your feet in gratitude, but he instead shifts his efforts to being a decent conversationalist to keep you intrigued.

“it’s quite nice actually, the writing style is incredibly vivid and poetic. i really enjoy the protagonist’s internal dialogue and how the author has- oh” akaashi stops as he glances at the empty seat across from him and how you’ve been swaying side by side, making subtle and hesitant glances at the chair, “do you want to sit? if you’re free and it’s okay of course,”

“yeah, and please! go on, i’m interested in hearing what you have to say about the book,” you nod, gesturing for him to continue as you pull out the chair and seat yourself down, “i’m l/n y/n, by the way,”

“akaashi keiji, it’s nice to finally talk to you,” akaashi’s cheeks flush, a sheepish smile and downturned eyebrows replacing his former expression.

“finally?” you ask, tilting your head in curiosity as akaashi’s breath halts for a brief moment before he shyly nods.

“yeah, i’ve um, i’ve been wanting to talk to you for a bit now, but i just didn’t know how until your coworker helped,” akaashi sheepishly responds. your eyebrows furrow and you glance over at atsumu, who’s inconspicuously watching the two of you, quickly turns away when you hold eye contact with him.

“so that’s why atsumu insisted on me bringing your order to you,” you slowly nod, a coy smile forming as you lower your eyes at akaashi, pleased that there was an indication of some mutual attraction between the two of you, “i guess i should thank him later then,”

akaashi’s slowly gaining confidence as he listens to you speak, his hands now resting on his lap comfortably as his attention remains trained on you, “maybe,”

he glances over at atsumu once again and averts his eyes immediately upon seeing the blond’s smug grin and thumbs up as his attention settle back on you.

“are you free this saturday?”

your eyes blink for a moment, giving up on stifling your grin as you nod, “yeah, i’m free after 5,”

“good, i’ll tell you more about the book on our date,” akaashi beams, relieved by how you reciprocate as his cheeks flush red, “i do have to go though, but i look forward to seeing you again,”

akaashi hurriedly packs his belongings and downs the coffee, which if he’s being honest, he didn’t really need.

“want me to pack up your almond croissant?” you offer, watching his rushed shuffles as you stand up.

“you can have it, i think atsumu said that it was your favorite. ordering it was just so i had an excuse to see you and to stay a little longer,” akaashi hums, striding confidently to the door as he rides the high of scoring a date with you.

once he disappears, your head whips toward atsumu, who’s brimming with excitement as he rushes over to you, “you got a date! you’re going on a date with your cute cafe boy! you're welcome by the way, this happened all because of me,”

the door swings open as you and atsumu glance at the entrance, stunned to see akaashi out of breath as he rushes back in, “sorry, could i get your number? you know, so i can send you the details and get your address,”

you laugh and nod, taking his phone in your hand and entering your number as he nods gratefully, “sorry, i got a bit uh- too excited and forgot to ask earlier,”

“it’s fine,” you reassure him, waving as akaashi returns to the doorway. atsumu hides his snickers from behind you, yelping in pain once your heel stomps on his foot to get him to stop, “i’ll see you soon keiji,”

“i’ll see you then, i’m excited for you to see what i plan for the date,” he grins and waves goodbye for the second time, feeling satisfied as he catches the shy smile spreading on your face.

“whipped,” atsumu whispers in your ear, yelping again as you stomp harder on his foot.

“shut the fuck up atsumu,”

#aya's fics ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭ #qd !! #akaashi x reader #akaashi fluff #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu x reader #akaashi keiji #akaashi x you #akaashi x y/n #akaashi imagine #akaashi scenarios #akaashi oneshot #akaashi x gender neutral reader #akaashi x gn!reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x self insert #haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu oneshot #hq fluff #hq x reader #hq x you #hq x y/n #hq imagines

[jasipereo]

Something Left Ajar | AO3 Link

Pairing: Leo Valdez & Piper Mclean, Leo Valdez/Piper McLean

Rating: T // Tags: Friendship, Missing Scenes, Slow Burn, Getting Together, Canon Divergence, Post-Canon, Fluff and Angst

Summary: I have GOT to start locking doors, is all Leo can think when the bathroom door bursts open in the middle of his nightly shower, his voice dying mid-solo as Piper waltzes in like nothing’s wrong and she’s the Greek goddess of bathrooms.

Or: Six times Piper forgot to knock, and the few times she didn’t.

CHAPTERS:

CHAPTER 1 - CHAPTER 2 - CHAPTER 3

Currently ongoing!

#liper #leo valdez #piper mclean #hoo #the heroes of olympus #lpost #fic: sla verse #qd #my fics #percy jackon and the olympians

[kbirbpods]

My @fandomtrumpshate gift for my highest bidder! I offered a podfic up to 10k and MusicSoul1982 told me to pick any of her fics that interested me to record. I wound up finally deciding on a JangObi Soulmate AU!

Rating: Mature

Tags: Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Cuddling & Snuggling, Mand'alor Jango Fett, Single Dad Jango Fett, Good Parent Jango Fett, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

Audio Length: 1 hour, 5 minutes, & 12 seconds

Summary:

Jango Fett's soulmate is long dead. The soulmark on his wrist has been faded for almost as long as he's had it and the standard print is a painful reminder that his soulmate never even managed to write his own name before he died. After a one-night stand, Jango ends up with a son to care for, a planet to watch over, and a hole in his chest that he spends every waking day ignoring. Obi-Wan Kenobi is an anomaly, an interest that Jango is sure won't go anywhere. Until it does. And Jango learns that the name on his arm isn't the only thing that matters.

#musicsoul1982 #jangobi podfic #jangobi fan fic #jangobi fic #jangobi au #soulmate identifying marks #soulmate au #jango x obi wan #jango fett #jango fett x obi wan kenobi #fandom trumps hate #fth 2023 #this was posted in time!!! just crossposting everything over #so this was a wee bit further down the list #it's been A Year tm tm tm #qd

[rayshippouuchiha]

Looking for a bnha fic where quirkless people are segregated from the rest of society from their diagnosis into a separate quirkless district that is locked away from quirked society. Izuku is sent there as a kid, but after the LOV get up to some shady shit in the qd, he teams up with all might to help him find info. Lots of good angst and dadmight, and it also has a cute baku and deku friendship/reconciliation arc

I'll put it out there

#RayRambles #BnHA #MHA #Fic Find

[kromer]

Parker sent Shin. I send Sheffy

Overall opinion of them: Obviously I can't act like I didn't go apeshit over him when I was a couple years younger, but a lot of his appeal has been lost on me after delving into QDS. I feel that every aspect of Shin's character was better executed. Still, I love seeing how fans interpret him

Gender/sexuality headcanons: Bi trans man

Favorite moment in canon: :^)

Favorite moment in a fanwork: Not really sure because there's a crazy amount of good fics involving him (at least, proportionally to the amount of fics that he's written in). Everything by pantherophis on AO3 is a favorite of mine, and it's an honor to own a bound copy of one of his fics.

Favorite line, in canon or otherwise: Something from TC22... The title drop, perhaps?

Characters I love seeing them interact with: O'Brien, obviously :^)

Last thing before sleeping headcanons: He's a voracious nighttime reader when he has an hour or two to spare. If not, just like Shin, he wades through his research before turning in.

Sleeping habits headcanons: For TC22? Typical overworked college student sleeping patterns. Lives in a dorm on campus, though he stays over at O'Brien's apartment more often than not. For DDS, roughly the same as what I said for Shin.

First thing after waking up headcanons: Similar to Shin. Probably a chronic early bird as well.

Favorite locations headcanon: Enjoys open outdoor areas — specifically, well-kept parks and anywhere with a lot of walking space. Libraries and museums as well...

Thank you! [source]

#inbox #pobopolybius

[carriesz]

i wld bring fic qd back if i thought i could handle it but

#writing for that many ocs that arent mine was .......... smth else......... #respect to yall who can finish smth like that but that is not me #god bless!

[fluffyprettykitty]

Definitely science bros with lab partner, I love this dynamic, like, the reader has a huge crush on both of them and of course they notice it and one day they decide to have a little fun on the lab 😏

I'm gonna save this post to ask on your sleepover then

Oooooooooh this is juicy maybe we could even give a slight age gap too? Like she just graduated college and she's on a college internship 🤔 and she's so excited for getting to work with her idols and you know tony notices!!!!!!! Maybe how she shies away from conversation 🥺 He gets it so he tells Bruce and the next time they see her 😇 shenanigans ☺️

😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃😃

Ehehhesjdk you should and also I got qd two fics for tomorrow and Saturday with Bruce 😊

#mailbox #nonnie time

[writingsfromhome]

Shedding Memories

A/N: just a quick fic of running into Harry when you both need a friend. I wrote this p quickly so ignore any mistakes. Happy holidays everyone :)

———————————

The part I liked about getting the closing shift was that I could put on my music and completely zone out.

Dealing with the public was a shitty job, no matter the capacity, and zoning out let me compose myself before heading home.

But tonight, a customer stays hunched in the corner seat. I had called out to everyone 15 minutes ago that we were closing in a half hour and by now nearly everyone was gone. The last few people pack up, yet corner guy remains.

“Hi,” I say from behind him. “We’re closing very soon just wanted to let you know.”

“Yep. I’ll be off soon,” he says. His voice is rough and low, a slight accent to it. But he kinda mumbles so I could be imagining it.

But he’s not off soon. I put up all the chairs, lock the doors to anyone new, and wipe down the tables. It’s officially 10pm but the guy’s ass is as glued as it was when he first sat down.

I don’t know how long he’d been here for actually. I got in at 5 and he’d been there with a steaming cup of something. But he just stayed there save for one refill, all evening.

Was he homeless? I examine his hoodie and baggy jeans. They seemed more stylish than survival.

“Hi s’cuse me sir,” I drop the customer service voice a notch and stand next to him. He was really putting a wrench in my evening plans. “I’m sorry to kick you out but it is 10 which is when we close. So I do have to ask you to leave.”

God I hated this shit. Why couldn’t he just leave like a normal person!? And tonight of all nights I’d told my closing partner he could leave early for a date night. I wish I hadn’t. It would’ve felt safer kicking this guy out with another dude around.

“Sorry,” the guy says. His face is mostly covered by his hoodie and he turns away to pull something from his pocket. I watch wearily but it’s just his phone. He sighs and puts it face down. “Is there any chance I can stay here while you clean up?”

“I’m sorry no.” I wasn’t allowed to do that. “Is your phone dead? You can use ours if you need to call for someone?”

He sighs again, like he alone was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and I just wasn’t being understanding enough.

Stop judging so much, I chide myself. Maybe he has a tough life.

“Look, I…” I stop mid-sentence and my mouth stays in the shape of the vowel as he lifts his head up. Is it just me or did he look like global pop-sensation and former boy band member Harry Styles!?

He notices my expression and grimaces.

Okay, it had to be him. And I was acting like a total freak right now.

“Sorry.” I take a step back and bump into the broom I’d balanced on the chair behind me. It clatters to the floor and I jump.

“It’s alright,” he leans down and picks it up for me. Harry Styles was handing me the broom I was meant to close with. I was dreaming. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.”

“Are you…in trouble?” I couldn’t wrap my head around why a guy like him would spend the whole evening in the corner of a coffee shop, staring at the wall. And then ask to stay while I closed.

He looks at me for a beat, his eyes are every bit intense as I assumed they would be. In real life, his beauty is a lot more breathtaking than photos. Or maybe I was just having some sort of breakdown. And he’s at least 7 inches taller than me, so he towers over me and I feel nothing but intimidated.

“Fuck. Sorry. Wait.” I shake my head. I have to look away from him. I had to clear my head!

I walk with the broom to the register. “Stop acting like a weirdo!” I whisper to myself.

Harry Styles was in my coffee shop. I was alone with Harry Styles in my coffee shop. What the hell was this? Wattpad?

I turn back around, but he’s looking out the window.

“Sorry. I’m being super weird right now but I wasn’t expecting…you. To be the guy I’m trying to kick out!”

“It’s fine.” He turns back to me.

“I don’t want to be nosy and pry but um, is everything okay? Did you need…help?”

His face loosens a bit with a small smile. I look past him so I can continue having this conversation and not require an inhaler for the first time in my life.

“It would help if I can stay here while you clean up actually.”

“Yeah! Okay…I mean I’m not supposed to but you’re like, Harry Styles? I’m sure my manager would not mind a single bit. She plays your songs all the time it’s basically part of onboarding. By the time we know all the drinks on the menu we also know all your lyrics and I….I’m gonna shut up.”

I turn back with the broom and start sweeping. Was I too awkward? Was I even sweeping like a normal person? Oh god was I being too stiff. Did I forget how to sweep???

I pause.

Maybe I should ask him another question. Maybe-

“I don’t want to get you in trouble uhm-,” I turn and he’s speaking to me 10 feet away. He squints at my name tag.

“Y/N.” I say it for him.

“Y/N. I can leave if I’m gonna get you in trouble-“

“No. No it’s okay! Seriously just sit wherever. But I will put on my own music while I close up, and you’ll have to suffer through it.”

“I don’t consider listening to music suffering.” He jokes. He makes a joke! With me!

“Well then you’ll love Baby Shark,” I joke back. He tilts his head—the joke doesn’t land. “Bad joke. Nevermind. I’m a Phoebe Bridgers fan so just prepare to be in your feelings!”

“I love her,” Harry nods approvingly. “Play on.”

As Phoebe’s distinct voice plays through the speakers I find myself relaxing, mouthing the words, and getting lost in the closing up routine. Of course, I never forget Harry Styles was sitting in the corner. If I did I would be belting the songs out loud. But it starts to feels less dreamy and the randomness begins to flatline to normal.

“Okay, I’m just gonna toss these out.” I shake the unglamorous bags of trash in my hands a half hour later. “And then I’m kicking both of us out.”

“Let me give you a hand.” Before I could protest Harry freaking Styles takes the trashbag from my hand and walks to the back door.

“Whaaaat,” I whisper to myself before scurrying behind him.

He tosses it with ease. I’m sure he had amazing arms under that baggy hoodie of his. He could probably toss me as easily—

I needed to chill.

“Do you have a ride?” I ask as we wash hands. “I can give you a lift somewhere? Unless your car’s outside? Um. Yeah. You probably have your own car nevermind.”

He’s silent, maybe I needed to shut up and stop blabbering.

“I take it you haven’t seen the news.” He leans back against the counter, drying his hands.

“News? Do people still watch that?” Bad joke. Stop talking.

“Uh,” his eyes crinkle slightly. “Social media. Whatever.”

“Nope. Been a busy day.”

“Right…”

“Something happened right? That’s why you’re hiding out here.”

“Yep,” he nods.

“Did your nudes leak or something?”

He looks at me, one brow raised. Fuck! I feel the blood rush to my face.

“Sorry! I am so out of my depth right now and I don’t know why I said that! That was bad. It’s just the worst thing that came to mind I-“

I register his shoulders shaking at first and then he’s doubling over laughing. I stare at first but then I chuckle with him. I’m too nervous to actually laugh at whatever’s happening even though I know looking back I definitely will.

“That’s alright,” he’s grinning when he looks back up. I would be mesmerized by it if his hood hadn’t slipped back to reveal no fucking hair.

“What…is that…?”

“What?” When I point to his head he touches it. He seems to remember himself. “Oh. I forgot I’d done that.”

“That’s new? Is that what’s out there? Is that why you’re hiding?”

“It’s not really new. I cut it all off yesterday-“

“I think you did more than cut it.” It was basically buzzed.

He laughs again and I feel bubbly inside. The bubbles fill me with a weird energy—just as long as it didn’t bubble up out of my mouth and come out in babbling I didn’t have to worry. I cover my mouth to contain any nervous words just in case.

“Why are you covering your mouth? Is it that bad?”

He looks into the warped reflection on the coffee machine. It didn’t look bad.

“It’s different. You’re known for your hair y’know? It’s not bad…just wow. Different.”

“Different’s not bad?”

“No! We’ll just need to get used to it. Honestly you kind of pull the whole buzzed look off. I bet if you grew out like a proper moustache it could be really…”

Thank god I stop myself this time. Because I was going to say a word I would definitely be mortified by.

“Really?” He smirks.

“Cool.” I finish lamely. “So um. Anyway. Are you good or should I drive you somewhere? Are you in trouble with the police or something?”

“I could use a ride…” He says with a slight cringe. “Is that something you’re alright doing?”

“Yeah! I was just gonna go home and stuff my face with leftovers before falling asleep in front of like, Gilmore Girls or something.”

“That’s a good show. That sounds like a nice time actually.”

“Does it? Because I regretted saying it as soon as it came out of my mouth.”

“Do you have a filter?” He asks but he smiles, he wasn’t annoyed. Not yet at least.

“Usually. But I also don’t normally have casual conversations with people I only ever see on the news or on my phone.”

“Do people still watch the news?”

It dawns on me slowly, he was making fun of me and repeating the question I asked earlier. I cover my face with my hands and he laughs. It’s such an intoxicating sound. And I really want to stop feeling like an idiot.

“I’m just bothering you,” hands come down on my wrist and oh my fuck he was touching me! He tugs at my hands and I drop them, still unable to meet his eyes.

I stuff my hands in my pocket. “I know. I’m probably going to lie awake for hours tonight thinking about every embarrassing thing that’s come out of my mouth.”

“No look,” he steps in front of me. He puts his hands on his chest and I notice the rings on his fingers, his tattoos. This was really Harry Styles in front of me.

“No look at me.” He tries to get my attention again. “See, I’m just a person. Just like you. Yeah I sing and shit but I’m just a guy.”

“You say that like I don’t have the world’s worst history with guys.” I finally make the push to look up into his face. I had an even worse history with attractive guys. “But I understand what you’re trying to achieve. And I appreciate it. You’re just shmegular and I can stop being a weirdo.”

“My phone works.” He says suddenly. “I just turned it off because I have a million people calling and texting me for some sort of response.”

I don’t reply, unsure where he was going.

He didn’t really have to make all this effort to make me comfortable but I recognize why he’s doing it; trying to bring himself down to earth for me. And it’s sweet and endearing and I want to tell him he didn’t have to do that. That I would help him out even if he wrote me a note, simply because he was Harry freaking Styles. But I just stay quiet for the first time tonight.

“Someone leaked pap photos of my girlfriend cheating on me.”

I gasp, I can’t help it. “I’m sorry. Harry. I-That’s an awful fucking way to find out.”

“It…” he glances around as if we weren’t the only two people around. “I shouldn’t be saying this but. It was just for show. The relationship, I mean. The guy in the photo’s her actual boyfriend so I don’t really care. Never wanted to do this fake shite in the first place but I was kinda forced to by my management. It promoted my new single, and her new show or whatever.”

“Oh.” I guess that’s the way his world worked. My world was begging my coworker to change shifts with me so I could have my weekly mental breakdown in private.

“Yep. So everyone is expecting me to give a statement, play the part of jilted boyfriend, but I can’t be arsed by any of it. I just want everyone to leave me alone.”

“So you holed up in the corner of this coffee shop, and stared at that wall for the last like…how many hours?”

“I lost count.” He shrugs. “And I did have a book I was reading. I wasn’t just staring at the wall.”

I shrug, “I’m not judging. I stare at the wall a lot. Especially on my breaks.”

He laughs again, and it breaks the serious air around his story.

“So where am I taking you if you’re avoiding everyone? Do you have a hotel room or?”

“It’s probably swimming in paps.” He sighs.

“So wild idea. I have a couple roommates who are supposed to be out tonight. Do you want to stay at my place until you feel like answering your phone?”

His face looks so hopeful for a second. “No. I can’t do that to you.”

“Remember when I detailed my evening plans? It’s honestly nothing.”

He gets all broody as he shakes his head. “No. I don’t want to drag you into it-“

“Look you’re in disguise. I live far away from whatever hotel you can afford that no one will see you. And I can drop you off on a street corner tomorrow morning whenever you want.”

“Like a hooker?”

“Yeah. We can play reverse pretty woman.”

He smiles. I stare.

“Fine. Yeah. Alright.”

“Alright! Let me turn out the light and we’ll go.”

So that’s how I find myself driving Harry Styles to my apartment, realizing the closer we get to home how filthy I had left my room.

“Don’t judge please,” I say in the elevator up. “But our apartment is not magazine worthy. It’s just home.”

“Home sounds nice,” he says. His hoodie’s back up and covering most of his face. It feels silly talking to him like this.

“Stay here,” I instruct him when we walk in. I zip into my room, it’s not as bad as it could be but I move all the dirty laundry to the hamper, gather the papers on my desk in one pile, shove my makeup back into a drawer, and gather as many empty cans and glasses into my hands to take back to the kitchen.

When I go back to him he’s standing exactly where I left him.

“Okay. So I only have leftovers. Chinese. Are you hungry? I can order us something else or-“

“No that sounds perfect.”

“Does it?” I tell him to come in and he follows me to the kitchen, sitting down at the island as I pull plates and containers out. “Okay just fill your plate and I’ll heat it up. Are you sure this is alright?”

“You’ll be surprised at my diet when I’m on tour. It starts out good but by the end of it I want to get my stomach pumped for all the shite I put into it. This looks delicious.”

I dish out dinner for us and decline his request to help. I try not to be hyperaware of him watching me move around our small kitchen, and focus on thinking of him as a guest. That’s it.

“So um, why the haircut?” I ask as I carry the plates to my room. I had the biggest room in the house and by biggest that simply meant I could afford a queen sized bed and my closet could fit all my clothes. I’d been living here for the last year and a half with my two roommates.

“Eh,” he runs his hand over his head. I was really tempted to do it, see what it felt like. But I refrain. Obviously. “Turning over a new leaf? In a lot of cultures, hair symbolizes a lot. I felt like starting fresh, and getting rid of all of it would just help.”

“Yeah I’ve heard of that. Like the hair that’s grown has witnessed everything over the last few years—at least if you grow it long enough to last a few years.”

“Hm yeah,” he says between bites. I can’t believe Harry Styles was eating last night’s leftovers with me. “Exactly.”

“Maybe I should chop most of my hair off.” I muse. “I could use that new leaf shit.”

“Why?” Harry asks bluntly. I nearly choke on a piece of broccoli. “Sorry. I’m being the nosy one aren’t I?”

“No,” I clear my throat. “Just wasn’t expecting it.”

“You don’t have to answer.” He smiles, god did he have to look so charming? “But I’d love to know what memories your hair holds.”

Damn. He had a way with words.

He’s an artist, I think. Duh.

“Let’s see.” I hold the bottom few inches. “Quitting my fancy job because I was burnt out and going through an existential crisis.” I climb higher and hold the next few inches. “Traumatic breakup with my long-term guy. How could a lawyer date a barista after she’d been a doctor y’know? A power couple can’t include a lowly job like a barista.” I roll my eyes like I wasn’t going to cry all over again, and hold another inch. “And this here is me grieving everything I thought my life was going to be.”

He’s silent for a bit. I think I’ve actually shocked him into silence. I almost laugh.

He puts his plate down and leans over, topping the top of my head. “This?”

The spot where he touched my head thrums. I think about the last year of my life. “Realizing my identity isn’t my career. And that for the first time in my life I can pursue my passions.”

“Hm.” He nods. “That’s a good realization.”

“Yeah, it really was for me.”

“I don’t have any boundaries between my identity and my life…” he goes silent again. I know he’s thinking so it doesn’t feel awkward. I go back to my dinner.

“So what’s the passion you’re pursuing?” He asks. Probably to change the subject.

“Well…” I put my plate down and walk to my closet, sliding open the door. I point to the floor. His face scrunches and he gets up to get a closer look.

“Do you sing or something?” He asks.

“God no!” I laugh. I guess he would think that seeing the blanket, laptop table, and microphone. “I started a podcast and it’s soundproof in here. I love this little space actually.”

“A podcast?!” He looks at me, impressed. I try not to blush. “What about?”

“Um, well I do know my medical shit—studied it for years and all. But it’s about taking care of ourselves, giving advice to people, burnout, identities, everything I learned leaving my job. All that.”

“Wow.” He nods thoughtfully. “That’s amazing.”

I shrug and go back to sitting on my bed, taking another bite of my dinner.

“Do you get a lot of listens?”

“I have a couple hundred listeners.” I tell him. “Actually. At first I was obsessive over the numbers. I’d spent the last couple decades obsessed over numbers—grades and all that. It was a habit.”

“And now?”

“Well I had to force myself to never look at my numbers for the first while and it helped me focus on the content itself. Make sure I was making something I put my heart behind, not just something I thought would do well. It’s been half a year now, and I’m just starting to look at them again.”

“Wow. Half a year that’s amazing. Good for you. I know we barely know each other but…I’m proud of you for figuring that all out. It’s inspiring.”

He was right, we barely knew each other. Yet somehow I knew he was genuine about what he was saying. I feel a warm tingling sensation in my stomach. “Thank you Harry.”

“Yeah. Wow.” His eyes flicker over my hair. “There is a lot of memories in that hair of yours.”

“Yeah it’s like, was it Mean Girls? My hair isn’t big, but it’s so long because it’s filled with secrets.”

“Yeah,” he smiles. “That’s a good line.”

“Maybe I should cut it off,” the more I thought about it the more I liked the idea. Why was I keeping it this long? “I should cut it off.”

“Uh I don’t know…”

“No!” I get up again, firm in what I wanted. The only reason my hair was always long was because my ex had told me once he liked it long. And now that I thought about it, I’d unconsciously kept it that way since. Fuck that! I wanted to get rid of these memories, “I want to turn a new leaf and all that bullshit.”

“I feel like I’ve been a bad influence.” Harry says softly.

“You’re cutting my hair Styles-“

“I don’t know how to!”

“C’mon we’ll watch a youtube video. You play guitar I’m sure you’re good with your hands.”

An awkward silence stretches and he coughs out a laugh.

“Oh my god not like that!” I take his hand and try not to think of whatever image he had just thought of. “Bathroom, scissors, phone. Let’s go.”

I queue up a video as he follows me. I shut the door and shove the video in his hands. Meanwhile, I turn the bathtub tap on and dunk my hair in it to get it wet so it would be easier to cut. Like the video said.

“Y/N,” Harry says wearily. Hearing my name out of his mouth is weird.

“Did you watch it?” I rummage through the drawers and come up with a pair. “Here.”

“They use an electric-“

“Just do it with the scissors!” I encourage him. “If it’s uneven that’s okay! I can get it fixed later in the week.”

I turn back to the mirror and everything slows down as I take the scene in. Harry Styles in my bathroom, standing behind me and eyeing me nervously. Me, with my too-long hair, flushed and determined to get this all over with, to shed the memories I’d been holding on for too long.

“Are you sure?” He asks, looking me dead in the eye through the mirror.

“Yep! I’m 100% sure.”

“Don’t kill me if you wake up tomorrow and regret this.”

“Just cut it.”

“So bossy,” he smiles and begins combing my hair down like the video had. I watch him, it’s endearing how much concentration he has as he perfects my strands and begins to measure. He’s slow, and deliberate, and I know I picked the right dude because I’d guessed correctly—he was a perfectionist.

When the first big chunk is removed and he deposits it in the sink I tear up. I feel the weight of it removed and it makes me think of everything it witnessed.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No!” I reach out and touch the hair that was attached to me seconds ago. It was just hair, but it also wasn’t. “Continue.”

His hand brushes my neck again and I try not to lean into his touch. Try not to think about how close we were. This was Harry Styles, not just a random dude. Get it together. Nothing was going to happen here as intoxicating as his touch was and whatever cologne he wore.

When he finishes my hair, it barely brushes my shoulders.

“I.” I turn around and face him. “Love it!”

“Really?”

“Really!” I turn back to look at myself again and I see his shoulder settle down. He watches me turn my head every way in the mirror.

“It looks good on you. The short hair.”

It did. My ex never saw me with short hair. It was like I was a new woman.

“I feel brand new.”

He smiles behind me. “That’s how I felt yesterday”

I turn back to face him, forcing myself not to think too hard about the foot of space between us. “Thank you. I know this isn’t how you thought your evening was going to go. But I needed this. So…thank you.”

Something flickers past his face. His smile grows smaller. “Yeah. This actually made me forget all about what’s waiting for me. So I should say thank you for distracting me.”

“No moping,” I open the door to the bathroom, grateful to get more space. “There are drinks in the fridge if you’d like. I’m going to wash out my hair quickly and then you and I are watching Gilmore Girls.

“I’ve only watched the first season.” He backs out into the hall.

“Perfect. We’ll start at season 2!”

When I get back to my room, jammies on and ready for a cozy night in, Harry’s already looking half asleep.

I tell him where to sit—I’d set up my room so that my bed is against the wall and the set of pillows turns it into a day bed. On the opposite wall I’d left it blank to allow my projector to play anything from my laptop. He settles onto one side and I sit beside him, making sure to leave a foot of space between us.

As I navigate my laptop to pull up the show, I feel fingers on my hair. I turn to him.

“It actually suits you. Look really nice.”

He rubs a strand between his fingers.

“I feel lighter.”

He drops his hand and rubs it over his own head.

“Me too.”

We smile at each other, a bond tying me to him. I hoped doing this could be like a last step before I can fully move on from the last chapter of my life. I’d already done so much of my healing but I still found myself crying at 2ams and staring at my bedroom ceiling at 2pms. I needed this—talking to a stranger about it all, and shedding the weight physically.

Now all that was left was to cozy up and watch my favourite show.

“So how many Gilmore girls are there?” Harry whispers as I press play.

“You did not just ask that question. Are you sure you watched season 1?”

“A couple years ago yeah.”

“Then just watch.” I pull my blanket up and feel Harry shift slightly, our shoulders touch.

“Thanks Y/N,” he whispers after a while.

“Thank you,” I tell him. Whatever we did for each other tonight felt like fate had put us in a blender and pressed power. I mean, me and Harry freaking Styles were together on my bed at 1am, watching Gilmore Girls and falling asleep halfway. I guess we’d both needed a fresh perspective and a friend, and this was a good a way as any to make some new memories.

#harry styles fic #writingsfromhome #harry styles x reader #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles one shot #harry styles hair #this fic is qd #baldrry #lmao at these being tags

[mariana-oconnor]

Fanfiction is so fucking wild sometimes. Like, you'll go from a fic where someone's just 'I put all my favourite tropes in this because NO ONE CAN STOP ME' to 'Look, guys, it's 10k of pure porn, I have no regrets' to 'I wrote this to process the grief of losing my mother' and it's all so different. And people just group it all together like it's all the same. And it is, but it isn't. And it's kind of beautiful.

#fandom #idek #Cleaning out my drafts #Qd #And yes all three of those things can be the same fic #and that is also beautiful

[roaldseth]

Some light Greg/Roland fic of the Quantum Devil Saga variety.

Originally published in @quantum-saga Nisshoku: A QDS Anthology Zine.

READ IT VIA THE LINK ABOVE.

#digital devil saga #quantum devil saga #Greg/Roland #fic #fanfic #fanfiction #Roland Seth #Greg Woyzeck

[halaboyz]

19 | anti-romantic.

anti-romantic ༺ ch. 18 | ch. 19 | ch. 20

–––

PAIRING: the boyz’ kim younghoon x fem! reader | featuring q, new, eric, juyeon and dreamcatcher’s dami and siyeon GENRE: social media au, fluff, angst, attempt at humor and flirting WARNINGS: profanities, drinking NOTES: i am trying

–––

SUMMARY: flirting was one of the facades you put up to shield yourself with what they called love. you loved playing with people’s feelings, especially those who shook you off their shoulders. apparently, that’s what younghoon did.

–––

taglist: @nyujjan @jichanqz @propollis @ilovechanhee @winterbeartaehyungbestboy @heyimkay @diestheticu @rikisluv

permanent taglist: @deputyjuyeon @sunlightwoo @90s-belladonna @grassbutneo @cosmiclele @flrtwoo @jaerisdiction @zvae @karsohn @moonieric @softforqiankun @changmin-wrlds @cloudykyu @kurosism @mavericsohn @enhacolor @yunkiwii @allorysayshi @defjcm @nyangjjunie @joshuaseyes @nycol-ie @fluffyju @icedcoffeesunwoo @sunwoahkim @woobly @deobibu @onlyticket-home

#the boyz #kim younghoon #younghoon #the boyz smau #tbz smau #kim younghoon smau #younghoon smau #the boyz x reader #the boyz scenarios #the boyz imagines #younghoon x reader #kim younghoon x reader #tbz x reader #qd ! #the boyz social media au #tbz social media au #kim younghoon social media au #younghoon social media au #the boyz fics #the boyz fic #the boyz oneshot #the boyz oneshots #the boyz younghoon #the boyz younghoon x reader #the boyz reactions #the boyz scenario #the boyz imagine #the boyz drabbles #the boyz timestamps

[animatedrapture]

on a scale of 1 to 10 how much will this angst arc hurt :(

a solid three.

#this is an as friends reference but honestly idk #i was crying while writing earlier and idk if it was bc of the fic or bc i was listening to music #;bubble #smau ; as friends #qd

[chocolatemillkk]

Party (JS)

I put the final bottle of champagne behind the mini bar and adjust the cocktail bowl slightly to the left. I look around the living room, the grand Christmas tree was still up as it usually was until after New Year’s. The whole place was covered in string lights, outlining the furniture and hanging from the ceiling. This was the famous New Year’s Eve party my parents have been throwing since before I was even born and this year was the last one I’d be attending for a while, I realise sadly. This time next year I would be living in LA, in my first year of university and my parents planned to come down for Christmas and be back here for New Year’s. I wouldn’t come along. I always looked forward to this, guess I’d have to savour it the best I could.

Both my mom and dad were only children which meant growing up they made a lot of friends along the way and each year our parties got a little bit bigger, more and more families coming together for their New Year’s eve party. I always looked forward to two though, the Michaels and the Suggs.

“Are you done daydreaming?” My sister comes up from behind me. “Because there should be appetizers that need rearranging or something according to mom.”

“I’m on it,” I say mock-seriously. My mom really went all out with the food and my sister and I always teased her about it. My sister, Liz, had started uni this year but luckily she was only in London. A lot of our friends her age weren’t though, so we were missing a lot of people this year. But at least Joe would be around, I think. And Zoe.

“Put these near the piano,” my mom hands me a plate as I make my way to the kitchen. “Don’t drop them!” I pretend to struggle under the tray which earns me a stern look. “You should get ready,” my mom reminds me. “There’s only an hour before guests start coming!”

I run up to my room after gently placing the tray where my mom wanted it and put on the dress I had bought for the occasion. It was deep green satin with a plunging neckline and a leg slit that went up to my hips—a shorter skirt lay underneath so I wasn’t flashing the whole party. I usually wasn’t this risky but I figured the occasion called for it. The sleeves are almost bell-like, and I do a twirl before the mirror, excited to see how people liked it.

Who was I kidding, I wanted Joe to see me in it.

It was silly, there was half a year before I was leaving this place, but more than half my life that I’d been crushing on Joe Sugg. Sometimes, I thought he knew how I felt, I thought I was quite obvious as a kid. For a second, I thought maybe the feeling was mutual. But after truth or dare in the seventh grade, I’d tried my hardest to hide whatever feelings I had for him. I wondered if he’d noticed.

“Truth or Dare,” Olivia asks my sister, Olivia Michaels was our neighbour growing up and the one who introduced my sister and I to the world of beer and rock and roll. My sister and I were good friends with her and her younger brother Felix.

My sister choses dare and Olivia has her eat one of the gross drink concoctions we made earlier. A few rounds later, my sisters asks me.

“Dare,” I say, feeling brave.

“I dare you to kiss either Joe or Felix,” my sister says smugly.

“What? I-“

“It’s a dare!” Zoe laughs and I look at Felix, he was a couple years younger than me-he was a child...and Joe was my huge crush. There was no way I was going to have my first kiss with him like this; with popcorn in my teeth and my lips stained with popsicles.

“Unless you’d like to kiss them both,” my sister teases.

Not wanting any more pressure, I lean over and peck Felix on the lips. I can’t help but sneak a glance at Joe as I go back to my seat and everyone laughs at Felix’s flushing cheeks. But he looks uninterested.

A few rounds later, Felix asks Joe and Joe picks Truth.

“Who would you date from this circle?” Felix asks. My heart plummets into my stomach. Joe looks around, avoiding my eyes and that makes my heart race faster. He had to know how much I would die to date him. To call him anything more than my best friend.

“Liz,” Joe says my sister’s name and I felt sick. Of course he liked her better than me, she was smarter and prettier than me. I was just his best friend.

“Aw you’re cute,” my sister pinches Joe’s cheeks and his sister joins in. I excuse myself but I didn’t think anyone even noticed.

A knock at my door reminds me there was a party about to go down, or already going down, I realise as I hear voices already. “How long are you going to take? Mom wants you downstairs to greet everyone!” Liz calls through the door.

“I’ll be a minute!” I say. I take my new christmas present-an eyeshadow kit my mom had given, and the lipstick my sister gave after I used most of hers, and put on my makeup, feeling like a grown up already. So much was changing and I was buzzing with excitement.

I skip downstairs and greet everyone the way I usually did every year. This year everyone asks about school, I tell them my LA plan and they wish me luck. Over and over. Until Joe walks in with a bottle of something in his hand and I run to him, nearly knocking him down as I throw my arms around him. He smelled like the cologne he reserved for special occasions, and the soap he always used. I could never tire of it, of him.

He was as handsome as ever, a clean white button up tucked into black trousers. He’d cut his hair recently but I sort of liked the way he styled it, the soft layers looked bouncy.

“You look handsome! Where’s Zoe?” I ask.

“Food poisoning,” he hands me the bottle and I take it from him, stepping a bit back so he could see my outfit but he continues on without comment. “Mum’s stayed home with her, the bottle’s from her.”

“Duh, as if you could afford this,” I tease, pretending like my heart wasn’t just stabbed by his nonchalance. He follows me in as I sneak the bottle past my mom and hide it in the kitchen, it was a tradition for us kids to get drunk on our own stash we steal throughout the night.

“Where’s everyone else?” Joe asks. “Your sister?”

I ignore the ache I get in my chest, “Oh doing her rounds probably. Pretending she’s an intellectual because she’s done one semester at uni.”

Joe laughs and I love the sound, especially when he laughs at a joke I make.

“You-“

“Y/N! There you are!” Felix and Olivia pop in, interrupting Joe, and I give them both hugs. Olivia had brought her boyfriend this year so we get introductions and a quick catch-up before Olivia goes to find Liz and I’m left with Felix and Joe. Felix had grown to be surprisingly handsome, in a nerd chic sort of way. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was younger than me, I could have even considered dating him.

“So Y/N you look really amazing tonight,” Felix says.

“Aw thank you,” I say. “You look quite chic tonight too, is that suspenders you’re wearing under your jacket?” I tease Felix until he’s pink in the face before I turn to Joe who looks bored. I loop my arm through his, “Want to get something to eat? I’m craving some shortbread cookies.”

“Yeah. If we’re having our own party later on we don’t want a repeat of ‘09,” Joe jokes. That was the first year we had all snuck a bottle of wine from the party and drank it on an empty stomach. None of us had a good time.

“Don’t remind me,” I shudder before I call behind me. “Felix you coming?”

Joe stiffens beside me but we walk on.

•••

After a dozen devilled eggs and shrimp cocktails, I lose everyone to the crowd and find myself alone near the stairs. I watch the crowd and bask in the togetherness the holidays brought on, I would miss this a lot. I almost didn’t want to go when I was in moments like these, but I knew what I wanted from life and I knew I couldn’t stay in dreary UK for it.

As I look around with the room so full of lights, the corners of my vision suddenly warp and distort into a blurry mass. I blink a few times but it remains. This was so not happening.

I sit myself on the step and close my eyes, placing my head on my knees but as I do that, the nause creeps in. This was getting serious. Perfect.

I go up to my bedroom quickly and close the blinds, shutting the room in darkness. I unzip the side of my dress to give my room to breathe and lay down.

Of course I had to get a migraine the day of new year’s eve. My last party for a while. I groan and turn to the side, blindly groping for any pill bottle, not wanting to risk turning on my phone light.

I lay in the dark, I don’t know how long. Time passed slowly in the dark, the only thing I could hear is the muffled sound of the party downstairs. My phone vibrates a few times but I don’t dare look at it. I wanted to nip this migraine before it could come full force. I couldn’t believe this was how my year was going to end, I think. And without meaning to, the tears leak out from my eyes. Stupid migraines and stupid Joe Sugg! He hadn’t even noticed what I was wearing, he didn’t even care. He fancied Liz more than I and I was still crushing on him like an idiot. I wasted my high school years waiting for him. And now I was going to graduate soon, with no history of a relationship and no...

A soft knock interrupts my pity party. I wait again as the knock sounds, just to make sure I wasn’t hearing it.

“Y/N,” it was Joe.

I swipe at my face, pulling my blanket over my face. “I’m here,” I say. “You can come in.”

I hear the door creak open, the noise from downstairs flooding through before the closed door muffles it again.

“Migraine?” Joe asks. We’d been friends long enough that he knew exactly what was going down. I sense him standing at the edge of my bed, the room still in darkness.

“Yeah,” I inch the blanket off my face. It’s not like he could see my makeup streaks in the dark. “Great timing right?”

“Can I do anything?” Joe asks. God, I scoff, I thought I could just turn my feelings off for him but him just asking that brings them back full force. “Maybe some water...”

“I’ve got water,” I say. I sense him shifting around the room.

“Didn’t you used to have those ice packs?” Joe knows his way around my room, he often came over when we did homework, or in the summer before we would go out with our other friends. He locates where I kept the freeze packs and he cracks them, walking towards my bed and sitting on my sheets. “Here.”

He places one on my neck and I flinch at the cold.

“Sorry,” he mumbles before putting it back on.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, the cold already numbing the throbbing in my neck. “Thanks Joe.”

“It’s nothing,” Joe whispers back. I take the pack from where his hands hold it and hold it myself as I gently turn in bed, the little light streaming in outlines his sitting figure.

“You don’t have to stay here,” I let him know. “Go back to the party.”

“It’s no fun if you’re not there,” Joe says. He slowly inches himself down beside me and the smell of him invades my nose. Oh no.

“Joe your cologne-“ I say and he quickly gets up.

“Oh shit right,” Joe stands and I see the shape of him pace away from the bed. “Uh, I can go home and change-“

“Oh my god,” I let out a laugh and cut it short as my head throbs. “You’ve left so many shirts here when we go swimming in the summer. Just put one on if you want to stay here so bad.”

“I’m just here to avoid everyone asking what my plans after school are,” he jokes. “Are they in the bottom drawer?”

“Yeah,” I respond. “Tell them you’re still figuring it out.”

“Everyone here has kids who are doctors or some shit,” I can hear the Joe changing and I try to keep the inappropriate thoughts at bay. “That’s not an acceptable answer.”

“Who cares what they think though,” I say. Joe joins me back in bed, laying down to stare at the ceiling as I look at his profile, barely illuminated by the light peaking through my blinds.

“Sometimes I do,” he says quietly.

I find his hand and squeeze it. He squeezes back and then turns to me. “So are you going to tell me why you were crying before I came in?”

“I was not crying,” I lie.

“You so were.”

“Was not.”

“Was too,” fingers graze my jaw and I’m busted. “Your face is still wet.”

“Fine,” I sigh. “I was just upset I was missing the party.”

“And?”

“I dunno, it’s my last party for a while!”

“Oh yeah,” Joe quiets down. A moment passes. Then another. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“We still have like 7 months together, don’t cry for me just yet.”

“You’re the one that was crying,” Joe shoots back.

“Shut up!” I joke. “Can’t you let me win? I have a migraine!”

“How is it?” Concern creeps back into his voice.

“The usual, I just have to tone down my senses. It’ll get better.”

Joe’s hand moves up to my face and cups it, my heart fluttering, the blood rushing to my face and joining the dance my migraine was putting on in my head.

His hand creeps up into my hair and suddenly his hand is plucking out the pins from my hair, and putting it on my bedside. Of course he was just being helpful while I was getting all bothered. “Do you want to get into something more comfortable?” He asks. I try to ignore the way I felt with his body hovering over mine in the dark but my mind blanks for a moment. “Y/N?”

“Oh I have every intention to go back to the party later,” I say. “This dress stays on.”

“It’s a great dress,” Joe says.

“It is isn’t it,” I say, noticing how uncomfortable Joe was getting. He actually noticed. Why didn’t he say anything earlier?

“I mean,” he clears his throat. “You looked...beautiful.”

I pause, pure joy rushing through me. Joe noticed me, he said I was beautiful. And oh god, all these things happening in my body were not helping my migraine. But I wasn’t about to tell Joe that.

“Thank you,” I say softly, too afraid to break the moment.

“It’s nothing new though,” he says just as softly. “You always look beautiful.”

I look at him, squint in the dark to try to read his face but it’s hard to. Was he saying this because I was having a shitty time or did he actually mean it?

“Not as beautiful as Liz though,” I deflect, deciding he was just taking pity on me. “She’s the one with the looks in the family.”

There’s a deafening silence around us, I can hear my heart beating in it. He wasn’t denying it, I want to cry.

“She is...beautiful sure, but you’re something different Y/N. You bloody take my breath away every time I see you.”

I want to cry for other reasons now. Was this really happening?

“Sorry,” Joe interprets my silence as rejection and begins sitting up to go. “The dark’s just made me stupid, I said way too much and-

“Joe,” I try to cut through.

“You obviously just, you need to rest and I’m-“

“Joe Sugg,” I say again and grab his hand. “Lay back down you big idiot, your blabbering is making my head pulse.”

“Right,” Joe lays back down but I can hear his quick breathing. I was glad to know he was just as nervous. I still have hold of his hand and I place it around my waist, inching closer to him.

“When?” I have to ask.

“Do you remember when we had our second friendiversary?” He asks. I did. We met when we were both 7 after our parents had set up a play date and we got along so well we knew we would be friends instantly. We’d spit on our hands and shaken them, declaring that day our friend anniversary, and we’d celebrated most years since. “You had your parents drop you off on your way home from your nana’s because it was our friendiversary and we didn’t see each other all summer. And your nana gave you cookies for the ride home, and you saved me the peanut butter ones? I don’t know, when you came in that day I just took a look at you and I had butterflies in my stomach. You were there ever since school let out and I’d missed playing with you for so long. I think I realised I missed you more than just a friend that summer. And when I saw you-“

“I actually remember.” I join. “Because you had just stared at me with your mouth open. And I just put the cookies in your open mouth. I was angry I thought you were looking at me like that because Liz had put gum in my hair a week before and my nana had to cut a lot off.”

“Yeah,” Joe chuckles. “I remember that too.”

“And since then?”

“Yeah,” Joe’s hand curls around my waist.

“What about the seventh grade? Truth or dare?”

“You bloody kissed Felix!” Joe exclaims.

“I...you picked my sister because I kissed Felix? He was like 10!”

“I was stupid.”

“Was? If I was feeling better I would be slapping you right now.”

“Good thing you’re not,” Joe tugs me closer. Our faces are inches apart, and I want to lean over and just kiss him so bad.

“What’s taken you so long,” I whisper, my fingers resting on his face.

“Scared I would ruin our friendship. You’re so much better than me, I thought you would laugh if I told you.”

“You are so ridic-“

“Shh,” Joe shushes me. “Do you hear that?”

I quiet down and listen as the party downstairs begins counting down to New Year’s. Suddenly my hands are clammy, this was it. I was going to kiss Joe Sugg once and for all.

“5...4...3...” Joe whispers between us.

“2...” I get out before Joe closes the space and kisses me, his lips so soft, my head feeling like it would explode. And not just because of the migraine.

“Wow-“ Joe gets out before I go in for a second kiss, the cheering downstairs drowns out as I pull Joe closer to me, closer, finally the love of my life was in my arms.

We’re moving too quickly, a wave of nausea hits me and I pull away.

“Sorry was that too quick?” Joe panics.

“Head,” I say as I squeeze my eyes shut.

“Shit,” I feel him sitting up and hovering over me, probably looking for the ice pack because soon the cold feeling returns to my temples.

“Thank you,” I whisper. He places a kiss on my lips as I stay still, trying to ease my nause. I feel a kiss on my jaw, then my neck. “Do you have to go home?” I ask.

“Nope,” Joe shifts beside me, I feel him get under the blanket, and he pulls me close to him. He lays his hand gently over me and I settle in beside him. What a New Year’s.

•••

“Y/N!” My sister’s voice wakes me and my eyes fly open. She stands in my doorway with her jaw open and I realise she’s staring at the weight on my right side. Joe.

“What?” Joe mumbles, awakened by my sister barging in.

“Oh my god!” My sister squeals. “It’s happening!” She runs out my door. “It’s happening!” She yells out to whoever was awake. And if they weren’t awake, her commotion sure woke them.

“She’s crazy,” I mumble before turning to Joe, the evening rushing to catch me up. He’s still only half asleep. When I call his name, he only groans and pulls me closer to him, hiding his face into my neck. My heart flutters, it felt like we’d always been together like this.

I allow myself the small pleasure of running my hands up into his hair and he groans into my neck, lifting his face up to look at me. Suddenly he starts laughing.

“Way to make a girl feel confident,” I’m suddenly self conscious as I get up.

“You do realise you’re in yesterday’s outfit? Including your makeup?” Joe asks, his voice hoarse.

“Shit!” I run to my mirror and laugh at what I see. “I’ll be back!”

I grab a spare shirt and move to the bathroom where I clean up and brush my teeth. My skin looked awful having slept in makeup but the glow I felt from waking up next to Joe kills any issue I might have had with it.

When I get back to my room he’s already up, the bed is made, and he’s folding his clothes from yesterday.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” I say as I walk to him. Immediately he catches my hand and pulls me in.

“Your head?” He asks.

“Great. Yours?”

“Clear as day. Glad it listened to my heart this one time.”

A smile creeps onto my face as the realisation of what he said settles in but pulls me in and kisses it off.

“Happy new year Joe,” I whisper when we part, pulling him in for a tight hug.

“Happy new year Y/N,” Joe whispers back. “I think it’s going to be the best one yet.”

#joe sugg #thatcherjoe #joe sugg imagines #joe sugg imagine #buttercream imagines #buttercreams #youtube imagines #jack maynard #caspar lee #fic #new year imagine #qd

[mad-dreamer]

#kaamelott #kt fic #read the tags ig #leodagan #bohort #le nom de bohort est même pas mentionné mais tkt c’est lui #le fait qu’il y ait 666 mots indique probablement que cette fiche est maudite ptdr #*fic #c’est le genre de choses qui arrivent qd jsuis triste