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didhewinkback · 1 year

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Something Old: Part Five

word count: 20k (omfg); story page

warnings: smut smut smut

---

“No - mum - you’ve gotta tilt the - I can’t see - can you get Archie to help you?”

“Oi, I’m not a bloody senior citizen, I can handle a bit of tech.”

“Okay, but the way you’ve got the camera angled, I’m looking up your nostrils right now.” you say, watching as she tries to angle the camera differently, only making your view worse.

“Oh bugger it all…” she mutters before shouting: “Archie!!!” almost right into the microphone, making you cringe.

“Right in my ear, mum.”

“Sorry, love.” she says, before bringing the phone closer to her face, bringing you impossibly closer to her nose hairs. “You alright, bug? Looking a bit peaky.”

“Yeah, you look like shit.” Archie says as he snatches your mum’s phone out of her hand, making a face at you on the screen.

“Hello to you too, dickhead.” you shoot back.

“Language!!” your mum clucks.

“Mum, he literally started it.” you say as Archie snickers on the other end, flipping you off, before passing the phone back to your mum with a “it’s this button here”, and then suddenly you’re staring at her new garden, fresh azaleas that she and Anne planted fully in bloom.

“Oh, it looks great!”

“Changing the subject, I see,” she muses, before stage whispering, “Don’t worry, I won’t mention the H word.”

“Mummmm,” you groan, Archie’s laugh echoing as he heads back into the house. “I’m fine, honestly. Just haven’t been sleeping well, been a weird few days.”

“Yeah, gotta be a tough month, huh?” she says, quickly speaking over you when she sees you open your mouth. “I know, I know, we’re not talking about it. Let’s check out these pansies…”

Right. That. It had been one month since you last saw Harry. One month since you last spoke to him, since he last held your hand, since he last kissed you, since he last pressed you into the mattress…okay, best not think about that when you’re on the phone with your mum.

It’s been an adjustment, to say the least. Once you touched back down in London, you realized you had no plan for what you were going to tell the people in your life about what went down. The ones who knew you and Harry, the ones who were at the wedding, the ones who would have about 18 billion questions for you. Like your mum who was about to have your head if you didn’t give her some sort of update. Or your schoolmates from home, who were blowing up the group chat with their 8th conspiracy theory about what really went down by now. Or your roommate Roxy, who knew you like the back of her hand, and was the first to steer you towards the bar the first night you met Erin and was the one who held you while you cried when they announced their engagement. You trusted her with your life, but could you trust her with Harry’s?

To even question that made you ill. You had been so caught up in your Italian lovenest that you hadn’t taken any time to think about the reality you were coming back to. A wedding was supposed to happen but didn’t because of you. No matter how many times Harry tried to take the blame, you know your confession was the catalyst, the impetus for him calling it off. And now you had to face the consequences alone. Did you pretend you knew just about as much as everyone else, which you’re hoping is not much? Lie to the people you’re closest to? For two months?! That sounded insane but you also knew you couldn’t go around telling everyone the whole truth. Jesus Christ.

You hid in your room for a day or two, slowly digging your way out of the hole you found yourself in, taking it one step at a time, wishing you could talk this over with him, but knowing you couldn’t. You decided to operate on a strict need to know basis, which means your mates from out were out. You left the group chat alone, there were enough messages in there that maybe they won’t realize you never responded and it’d be far too suspicious to join the conversation now. Johnny definitely knew something was up, he had sent you a separate but simple “hope he went and got you x” that made your head spin a bit, as you realized he’s probably known something was up for years but you could deal with that later.

You called your mum to assure her you were alright, back safe in your flat, that you would come home to visit soon and explain everything when you could. She was not satisfied with that answer, you could practically feel her rolling her eyes at you through the phone, but she let you off the hook, this time. And, now that you think about it, you couldn’t go home because that would mean seeing Anne and who knows what she knows and what you could tell her and what Harry doesn’t want her to know quite yet -

Okay. No. You couldn’t live like this.

You had still been ruminating on what to do about Roxy as you snuck out to grab a glass of water, wondering how to approach this. You needed someone to talk to, you couldn’t just keep this all bottled up on your own and this was one of your best friends, and your newer, closer proximity to Harry wasn’t going to change that.

“Okay I let you have one day to mope but you had about two hours before I was going to stage an intervention.”

The sound of her voice made you jump in the air, so caught in your head you didn’t even hear her approach.

“Jesus Christ, Rox. Scared the shit out of me.” you said, turning to face her.

“I’m serious, babe. You’ve been like a little recluse.” she said, propping herself up to sit on the counter. “How bad was it? Didn’t hear from you all weekend and you haven’t left your room…so I’m assuming, pretty bad.”

Moment of truth. You could lie and pretend for the next two months or you could tell the truth. Have someone to confide in. She had been on this journey with you for years and she would absolutely kill you if she learned you were hiding this from her.

“Um. Actually. He didn’t get married.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“I’m serious.”

“Is it because…” her eyes searched your face, widening when she realized. “Holy shit. Did you? Oh my god - I’m actually going to cry. Did you tell him?”

You nod.

“That’s my girl!!” she screamed before tackling you to the ground, the two of you cracking up the whole way as she demanded details.

After you swore her to secrecy, to which she scoffed “Mildly insulted you even had to ask, babe.” you told her everything. From the confession in the courtyard, to him asking you to leave with him, to a first date in Italy, to where you are now, on pause. It feels insane to say it all out loud, in disbelief that this is your life, that that whirlwind 72 hours actually happened.

“You’re going to make me believe in love again.” Roxy said, still laying on the kitchen floor with you.

“Shut up.” you said, rolling your eyes, unable to stop the blush on your cheeks.

“I’m serious. So happy for you. And proud of you. ” she said, reaching out her hand for you to hold on to. “I know this next bit is gonna be rough, but you got through all that shit to get here. And you got me. Yeah?”

So you thought, yeah, okay, maybe you could do this. You threw yourself into work and catching up with friends, doing anything you could to distract yourself, ignoring headlines and social media at all cost. Some weeks were easier than others, with Roxy always there to drag you out with your friends when you were getting too overwhelmed by it all.

You went home, which was awkward at first, until you assured your family that everything was good but complicated, that you were figuring things out and it would be easier not to talk about it. To which your parents reluctantly agreed, both looking chuffed and a bit red around the eyes as they squeezed you a little tighter. Archie tried his luck later at the pub when it was just the two of you, only dropping it after being sure you knew “if he hurts you, I’ll kill him” in a way only younger brothers can.

You could do this. As long as you were distracted with work, family, friends. As long as you didn’t let your mind wander, as long as you kept busy, as long as you didn’t think about Harry or Erin or the wedding you ruined or the relationship you were maybe in that was on pause. It was then you began to falter. Late nights where you found yourself seconds away from googling him, wanting to be sure that both teams held up their end of the bargain, before shutting off your phone, knowing if something changed, he would tell you.

You could drive yourself crazy wondering what he was up to, if he was happy, if he’d want this break to go on for longer, if the time away made him change his mind. As the weeks went on, you began missing him more than ever, his absence weighing more heavily on you than it ever had in years before. It felt different, this time.

You had never felt like this before, in a relationship. Like you needed the other person. Not even in any sort of way, just needed to hear their voice or see their face. You missed him so viscerally it was shocking to you, and made you question everything. Why were you missing him so much? Was it just because you loved him or was it because you were so insecure you couldn’t believe the relationship would work unless you had eyes on him? What type of person does that make you? Erin would be able to handle a two month pause. Doubts crept into your mind, as you tossed and turned on your bed in the late hours, unable to quiet your racing mind. Insecurity wove its way into your brain, feeling pathetic in a way you hadn’t in years.

So yeah, you hadn’t been getting much sleep.

“Is Roxy there, love? Would love to say hi.” your mum said, pulling you out of your thoughts and bringing you back to the present.

“Do a wellness check on me, you mean?” you ask ruefully as you get up to head to Roxy’s room, knocking softly before entering as she leaps up to take the phone from your hands, almost immediately closing the door on you, to have the conversation away from your prying ears.

“Mama Ang!!” you heard her crow before her voice dropped down to a whisper. “You know, babe, I know just about as much as you do. The girl won’t tell me anything…”

You rolled your eyes, though it was hardly annoying to be this looked after. You had a great support system to get you through this. You were fine. You could handle sleepless nights and moments of doubt, you had great people in your life there to support you and fill the gaping hole you were beginning to feel in his absence.

It was about a week and a half later when it all fell apart.

The distractions were becoming less effective, the questions and doubts rattling around in your brain more often than not. And then…it was just one of those days. You slept past your alarm, the line at the cafe down the street was too long to stop at before work and you were almost positive you were about to get your period, if the way you teared up watching a girl and her grandma reading together on the tube was any indication.

Then, you hadn’t been paying close attention at work and had missed an entire section on a grant proposal that had been sent in earlier that day. Your boss called you into her office and reamed you out, making you feel like a proper idiot. You never make mistakes like this but that didn’t seem to matter. You spent several hours on the phone before the board agreed to accept the edited proposal, which you stayed after hours to write up and send in. It was late when you arrived home, exhausted and wrung out, just looking forward to taking a hot shower and getting into bed when you saw a note from Roxy on the coffee table saying the hot water was off and the landlord couldn’t come until tomorrow to fix it.

And that was it.

You collapsed on the couch, tears immediately pouring out of your eyes in frustration, stress, exhaustion, all the emotions you had been trying to keep at bay the past month rushing forward. You were dialing your phone before you realized what you were doing, eyes flying open when you heard the first few rings and immediately hanging up. You couldn’t do that, not yet. There were still a few weeks until the end date and this hardly constituted an emergency, just a bad day you could get over by yourself despite how badly you wanted to hear his voice. Feeling so sorry for yourself another fresh round of tears sprung to your eyes.

He probably wouldn’t even notice the missed call but maybe you should text him just in case? Like a “please ignore, that was an accident”? You didn’t want to double down when you weren’t supposed to be in communication at all. You hated this feeling of overwhelming doubt, questioning yourself at every turn, resistant to even slightly overstep the boundaries he had asked for. You hadn’t been thinking. Why did you dial his number?!

Your phone started to vibrate in your hands.

Shit.

It was him.

You wiped your face, clearing your throat in an attempt to sound like you hadn’t in fact been having a mental breakdown, adjusting your airpods before you answered.

“Hi,” he said breathlessly, as if he ran to pick up the phone. “Just saw you called - wouldn’t have missed it if I saw.”

“Oh you could have missed it. It’s not important.” Your words were flying out of your mouth, tripping over your tongue in embarrassment. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean -”

“Whoa, hey. ‘S alright.” he says gently. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” you say, your voice coming out choked, a bit strained, completely unconvincing. You clear your throat. “Just a shit day and wasn’t thinking and called your number on instinct. Wasn’t trying - I didn’t mean to break the pause.”

“Fuck the pause. We started it, we can break it.”

“It’s really not important –”

“Sounds like y’ crying, that sounds important to me –”

“But H, you asked for space –”

“Yeah space to sort my life out, not to leave you alone when you’re upset.” he says adamantly. “Know what I asked for but y’called me crying and I don’t care if it was an accident or not, ‘m not going anywhere until you talk to me.”

“But I’m not gonna just barrel all over the boundaries we set and the space you needed because I had a bad day.”

“I appreciate that and I promise I’d tell you if I thought this was crossing a line that I didn’t want to. But ‘s not. Want you to talk to me.”

“If you’re sure - ”

“Dead sure. Quite flattered that I’m your go-to call.”

“Okay,” you say, snorting a laugh as you roll your eyes. “Now I’m gonna hang up.”

“Heeey. Talk to me. Please?”

And you do. You catch him up on your day, your boss being an asshole but also you feeling so stupid because you did in fact mess up and it wasn't like you were getting yelled at for nothing. He responds in all the right places, each hum, gasp or “fuck them” he utters making your heart warm, the feeling of talking to him for the first time in weeks settling something in you, tears long forgotten.

“Shit day,” he says emphatically once you finish as you hum in response. “Know I don’t know much about that world but I do know that you’re brilliant at that job. And there are very few people who would own up to a mistake and stay late to make it even better than before. They’re lucky to have you and they better bloody know it.”

You snort out a laugh.

“‘M serious.”

“I know you are.” you say softly, playing with the pillow on your lap, fingers scratching over the patterns. “Thank you for listening.”

“Course.” he says, just as soft. “I miss you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” he says, scoffing a laugh. ‘Why do y’sound surprised?”

“I’m not, I just was getting so in my head the last few weeks, it’s been nice to hear your voice.”

“Getting in your head about what?”

“Oh, no, it’s going to sound so stupid -”

“Try me.”

You heave a sigh, feeling your cheeks warm. He says your name gently, pleadingly.

“I’m not sure I even know how to articulate it.”

“Take your time, love. ‘S just me. Not going anywhere.”

You pause, listening to the sounds of him breathing on the other end, the silence helping you focus.

“I just think I…” you pause, taking a breath. “I’ve been surprised by how different this feels? Like I’ve gone this long without seeing you or talking to you before and it’s been fine but the last two weeks I’ve felt like, needy for you in a way I’ve not felt before.”

He hums in surprise, you can practically see the way his eyebrows shoot up, can hear the smile growing on his face.

“Okay, you arse, not like that.” you say, laughing when he does. “Okay - not entirely like that. I just think… I didn’t expect to miss you this much. Like I miss you more than I ever have. And the stakes are different this time, I just –”

You pause, every thought you’ve had these past few days rattling around in your brain as you try to sort them out. He stays silent on the other end, patient. Not pushing you into speaking before you’re ready.

“I think I didn’t realize how much I was affected by what happened the last time we saw each other. To go from not having you to having you to suddenly not having you again...it scares me that something like that could happen again.”

You hear him inhale sharply on the other end, every self conscious fiber of your being telling you to be quiet, to tell him you’re fine, it’s all good and you’ll see him in a month. It’s what you’ve always done with him, it’s what you did all those years ago, scrubbing at dishes in the sink at Christmas when he looked so confused and lost, wanting to scream all your emotions at the top of your lungs but instead swallowing them down and hiding yourself away. It’s not like that anymore, things are different and you’re different. You have to plow through.

“And I know that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, why we’re on pause, to sort everything out which was necessary and I don’t regret it at all. And I know this pause isn’t how our relationship will feel, like a pause is different, in the future we’ll be talking more often and seeing each other. I just think I wasn’t expecting to feel all this much.”

“It’s never felt like this before, for me. A relationship, I mean. I got so self conscious about why I was missing you so much that I started to doubt things and feel insecure but talking to you now I think I just…”

“You just what?” he asks gently.

“Just…really love you?” You say with an embarrassed laugh, hearing the almost startled sound he makes, like his emotions got caught in his throat. “I've not felt like this before about anyone. Not even you. Which is amazing and scary and… I’m so used to closing parts of myself off to you in order to hide my true feelings for you which aren’t a secret anymore. So it's an adjustment, to fight against the instinct to keep things to myself, not to show all my cards. Because I want you to know all of me, all the cards, I'm just not used to knowing that can happen.”

“Makes sense. I think there’s definitely going to be adjustments as we’re entering new territory. But I’m here for all of it. I don’t want you keeping your feelings from me.”

“I know, I’m still getting used to it, I guess.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I love when you need me.”

“Yeah, I’m well aware –”

“Oiii you didn’t let me finish,” he all but whines. “Just mean you can be kind of a closed book–”

“Hmm, sound familiar?”

“Y’keep interrupting me and ‘m gonna hang up.”

“No, you won’t.”

He pauses.

“No, I won’t. You’re lucky you’re hot.”

That startles a laugh out of you, his chuckles on the other end warming you down to your toes.

“If you would let me finish - my sentence you numpty -” he says quickly the second he hears your intake of breath, effectively cutting off the sexual innuendo he somehow knew you were gearing up to say. “Y’ always encourage me to tell you what’s on my mind, but so rarely do the same for yourself. And I…I want all of it, with you. All of the mess and the ugly feelings. Think we got ourselves into this mess by keeping too much to ourselves and that’s the last thing I want. When it comes to you, I want it all.”

“And it goes both ways, ‘ve gotta be letting you in too. Like..” he takes a deep breath, letting out a sheepish laugh at himself. “I almost called you about 8 times that first week, convinced y’ were going to realize I’m more trouble than I’m worth.”

“What?”

“We were in so many meetings about when I would first be photographed again, how long I should stay away from the public for ‘nd I was just like why would anyone sign up for a lifetime of this if they didn’t have to?”

“Harry - “

“I know it’s crazy and we can talk about it more when we see each other again - just wanted you to know that the doubts are happening to me, too. And then I talk to you and it’s exactly as you said.” he says and you can practically hear the smile in his voice. God, you miss him. “‘S never felt like this for me, either. And it’s nice to know that all the bullshit and fears don’t come close to how I feel about you. Really love you too, you know.”

You can’t explain the noise you make at that, gripping your phone a bit tighter, feeling butterflies erupt in your stomach. This was real. All the anxiety fueled doubts couldn’t come close to the reality. He was yours. You were his.

“I miss you.” you say, the words barely scratching the surface of all you want to say to him.

“Ah, now she says it -”

“Oh my god -”

“Couldn’t be bothered earlier but she hears three little words and suddenly –”

“I’m actually going to kill you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“No, I won’t.” you agree. “Turns out I’m not so keen on doing life without you.”

“Me either,” he says softly.

You sit there in silence, a small grin on your face, as your fingers scratch the pillow on your lap.

“Can I ask how things are going over there? Or would you rather wait?”

“No y’ can, it’s –” There’s a loud crashing sound on his end, followed by laughter. “Shit - hang on.”

“Are you with people right now? You didn’t have to -”

“Wanted to.” he says, not even entertaining your argument for a second. “‘S just Tom and Tyler. Came out a few days ago to write with me. Was writing a bit like mad on my own. Turns out I had quite the inspirational weekend a month ago.”

“I mean you did experience about every emotion on the spectrum.”

“Nah, think it was just being with you.”

“Oh yeah? Writing songs about me?”

“Mmm, wouldn’t be the first time.” he says, your mouth dropping open in shock. “Got lots of lines written about those eyes of yours…the way you get a little dimple when you’re smiling really hard, the look on your face when you tell me you love me…”

He pauses, inhaling deeply, his voice coming out like gravel when he says the next bit:

“How you feel wrapped around me.”

Your mouth goes completely dry, hands tightening on the pillow, heart racing.

“How you look when you’re about to –”

“Gonna cut you off before we get in trouble.” you say shakily.

“Don’t mind a bit of trouble, me.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar. But feel like that would absolutely fracture the rules of the pause.”

“Fuck the pause. Throw the pause in the bin –”

“I should let you go back to your friends.”

“I’ll get new friends.”

“Harry!” you say with a laugh, hearing him chuckle on the other end. “I’ll see slash talk to you in like 3 weeks yeah?

“Okay,” he grumbles. “But y’ can call me any time before then, if you need.”

“Appreciate that. You can too. Going to try to get through these next few weeks on my own, though.” He hums in response. “Aaaand pause resumed.”

“You’re so stupid.” he says laughing. “Talk to you in three weeks, baby.”

“Didn’t mean to cut you off I just … I’ve dreamt about our reunion sex so much the last place I want to have it is over the phone.” you say, hearing him splutter on the other end. “See you in three weeks love you bye.”

He practically squawks in protest as you giggle and hang up, feeling ages better than you had before you called him. You’ve never had that before in a relationship. You feel lighter, freer. And loved.

Your phone buzzes with a text.

That was just mean.

Love you. Just 3 weeks xxx

Yeah, you were loved.

—-

You were absolutely about to jump out of your skin, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning as you woke up hours before your first alarm. You grabbed your phone, immediately reading over the flight details he had sent you a few days earlier with several “xxxxx” in tow.

Today. He was coming back to you today. Holy shit.

You had taken a far healthier approach this past month, letting the bad feelings happen instead of trying to ignore them with distractions, getting back in touch with your therapist to explore those fears of letting yourself be fully seen, and being Roxy’s ultimate wingwoman, though she did see right through you when you kept encouraging her to see that guy from the bar again tonight. What you were calling being a supportive friend, she was calling a blatant attempt to not get cockblocked. Tomato, tomahto.

You had been sleeping better, feeling better and were more than ready to see Harry again. It was nerve wracking, heading into this new chapter, knowing there were no planned pauses, no other people entering the chat, it was just going to be you and him. After all this time. Holy. Shit.

You were cleaning your living room for the umpteenth time, still having a few hours to go before Harry’s plane was supposed to land and there was a knock on your door. Roxy had just left, swearing she would not return, flying out the door with a tight squeeze and kiss on your cheek.

“Forgot your keys again —?” you say, swinging the door open and absolutely stopping in your tracks. There he was. After two months. Right in front of you. You could cry. You might cry.

“Thought you were Roxy.”

“‘S it okay that I’m not?”

“Jury’s still out.” you say breathlessly as he snorts. “You’re early.”

“Changed my flight. Couldn’t wait.” he says with a glint in his eye. You quickly scan him, noting the deep tan, the longer strands of curls falling out of his hat, the sweatshirt and joggers combo that makes you want to eat him, the facial hair. Hold on.

“You’ve got facial hair.” you say, rather stupidly, as he tilts his head back in laughter.

“Yeah I do.”

“Like a proper beard. You’ve never been able to grow facial hair.”

“Times are changing, babe. You gonna let me in anytime soon or keep staring at me?”

“Gonna keep staring for a bit, I think.”

“Get the fuck over here.” he says, practically plowing you over as he wraps his arms tightly around your waist, all but carrying you into the flat as the door closes behind him. You wrap your arms around him, knocking off his hat in the process, and hold on tight. He’s murmuring something into your hair but you’re not paying attention, too overwhelmed by the feeling of his body against yours, his arms holding you close, his new beard scratching against your cheek.

You stand there, holding so tight, feeling like you’re taking the first real breath you’ve taken in months, a part of you setting into place. You’ve got no idea how long you stand there and don’t care, refusing to let go even for a moment.

You pull your head back slightly, bringing your hands up to his face, fingers scratching at the beard.

“Not gonna get over this.”

“You like it?”

“Looks good. Really good. You look good.” you say, your hands coming down to rest on his chest, playing with the strings of his hoodie.

“Yeah?” he says, his eyes scanning down your body. “So do you.”

You lock eyes, staring at each other for a moment, smiles fighting their way onto your faces.

“Hi.”

“Missed you.”

“Me too.” he says, nudging his nose against your cheek before planting a kiss there, inhaling deeply. Eyes flicking up to yours before his gaze falls to your lips, he licks his own before leaning in, pressing his lips to yours for the first time in two months.

Yes.

It’s like coming home, like the first day of spring after a long cold winter, a lemonade on a hot summer day. You practically melt into him, his hands coming up to cup your face as he presses another tender kiss to your mouth. He’s holding you so delicately, his thumb gently brushing against your cheek like you’re made of glass. You’ve never been kissed like this. You grip his sweatshirt, pulling him closer to you, not wanting even a centimeter of space between you. He sighs into your mouth, pressing another sweet kiss against your lips before pulling away, never straying too far as he kisses your jaw, your temple, your hairline before ducking in and placing another soft kiss on your lips.

He pulls back slightly, his arms dropping to wrap around your waist once more, looking down at you with a small smile on his face.

“Missed that.” he says, pressing his lips to yours before dragging them down your jaw, nuzzling into your neck, tightening his grip around you. “Missed you so much, baby.”

“Can’t believe you’re here. In my flat. Kissing me.” you say, as he hums, planting a kiss on your neck before pulling back to look at you, soft eyes grazing over your features as a grin grows on your face. “You’re kissing me in my flat.”

“Planning on doing a whole lot more in this flat if you let me.” he says.

“Yeah, I’m counting on it.” you say, as his grip on your waist tightens. “Just mean like…so much of Italy felt like a fever dream. But you’re here. This is real. It’s… overwhelming.”

“In a good way or a bad way?”

“In the best way.” you say, emotion clogging your throat as you look back at him, the way he’s softly staring back at you. You’d feel silly getting this emotional about something so mundane, but it felt monumental. This wasn’t a special occasion, spur of the moment fling. This was who you’d get to see after a long day of work, who you’d go grocery shopping with, spend your weekends with, clean the bathroom with. He was your person. Even in your wildest teenage fantasies you could never imagine it feeling like this. Like home. Tears spring to your eyes, as he gently brings his thumb up to wipe them away, emotion clouding over his own features.

“I just - I got so excited at the idea of doing laundry with you. Like the mundane, everyday, kissing in my flat stuff. Running errands, doing chores...”

“Just wait until we load the dishwasher together,” he says, kissing your cheek. “Get the groceries…”

“You’re gonna rile me up.” you say as he huffs a laugh against your skin, before pulling back to look at you, his own eyes glassy, lips quirking up in a small smile.

“I’m so ready for it. All of it. I’ve never…” he says, taking a deep breath, glimmering eyes never straying from your face. “Never been more ready for anything in my life, I don’t think. Life with you, ‘s the dream.”

You stand there, letting his words wash over you, warmth flowing through you in waves as you bite your lip and try in vain to blink back tears, not sure you could ever find the words to articulate how you feel right now. You open your mouth and promptly close it, not even sure where to begin.

“Got y’ speechless, have I?” he asks with a soft smile.

You shake your head, trying in vain to bite down your smile, before leaning up and kissing him, hoping every drag of your lips can begin to express what words are failing to. He hums into the kiss as you slide your hands into his hair, bringing one arm up to wrap around your upper back, holding you as close as possible.

He kisses you slowly, gently, the exact way you want to be kissed, his tongue sweeping over yours in smooth passes. You sigh into his mouth as his hold tightens and you’re content to stay there forever, wrapped up in his arms, being taken apart with every soft drag of his lips.

“For me too.” you frantically mumble in between kisses, hands grasping tighter. “It’s –”

“I know, baby. I know.” he says, his hand coming up to settle around the back of your neck, tightening his grip as he pulls you in. “Come here.”

Time passes but you’re not aware of it, too caught up in the feel of his body against yours, the grip of his hands, the curl of his tongue. He eventually pulls away with a gentle suck to your bottom lip, kissing a line across your jaw before burying his head into your neck.

You stand there, breathing each other in, holding on to each other, your brain trying to process the fact that the person you always dreamed would be yours is, in fact, yours. And wants you back just as much. It makes you tighten your hold, your breath catching in your throat as his hand starts to rub soothing circles on your back, instinctively knowing what you need without you ever saying it.

“How was your flight?” you mumble against his shoulder. He huffs a laugh against your skin, pressing a kiss on your jaw before pulling back, his hands sliding down your back to hold your waist.

“Was fine. Long. Just wanted to get here.” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “Left all my stuff in the car. Just needed to see you.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Thought you might,” he says, kissing your temple, his thumbs drawing small circles on your hips.

“Probably should have our big chat about our feelings, yeah? Talk about our time apart…how we’ve grown as individuals…” you say as he hums against your skin. “You could sing me those songs you wrote about me…”

“Yeah that’s not happening.” he says, snorting out a laugh, grazing his finger against your cheek, his tone softening when he says: “Not yet.”

The look on his face makes your heart flutter, his whispered words combined with that smile of his making you weak at the knees. You could get lost in his eyes if you stand here too long but you have a mission. You were meant to be responsible.

“Talking.” you say and he smirks at you, amused by your absolute lack of eloquence. “We- we should talk.

“Right. Let’s talk, baby. Wanna hear what you’ve been up to.” he says, his eyes roaming over your body. “Because once I get you in bed, I’m not planning on letting you out of it.”

“Is that a promise?” you ask, your pulse skyrocketing as he licks his lips, eyes darkening as he nods, his grip on your waist tightening, making your brain go a bit hazy before you snap yourself out of it. “Responsible. We’re going to be responsible. I got snacks.”

You take a step away from him and try to turn towards your kitchen and out of his hold, though he doesn’t let you get very far, his arm winding over your shoulder and across your chest to pull you back against him.

“Harry. Snacks.”

“Wherever you go, I go, baby.” he says as you snort. You can feel his laughter on your neck as he plants a kiss on your jaw, his thumb rubbing along your shoulder before you start to move.

“Fancy a cuppa?” you ask, making your way over to the kitchen counter, doing your best to gather supplies with this oaf attached to your back.

“Please.”

“I went to that bakery you like and got those rank profiteroles you love.” you say, relaxing back into him. “The woman behind the counter was like ‘oh no one ever orders these, the owners will be so pleased and i was like ‘yeah, well my boyfriend’s obsessed with them -”

You immediately freeze. It’s the first time you’ve ever said it out loud, ever called him that, and by the way he stiffens against your back, barely breathing, you know he knows.

“Your who?” he whispers against your neck.

“You heard me.” you say quietly, hoping the low volume will hide the waver in your voice.

“Yeah, but I want to hear y’ say it again.” he says, hooking his chin over your shoulder, squeezing your arm, you can hear the grin in his voice. “Who is obsessed with them?”

“Are you 12?”

“Baby.” he says, planting a kiss behind your ear. “Please. What did y’ call me?”

“My boyfriend.” you say softly. “I called you my boyfriend –”

He spins you in his hold, bringing his hands up to cup your face as he kisses you so thoroughly it makes your head spin. His tongue glides over yours smoothly as his thumb softly strokes your face. A man of multitudes. He pulls back slowly, planting one more chaste kiss to your mouth, his hands not leaving your face.

“Is that – “ you say, still trying to catch your breath. “Is that okay?”

His brow furrows in disbelief, not letting you move out of his grip. “Just told you a minute ago I wanna do life with you.”

“I know, but this is putting an official label on it. Which feels different. It feels right but it’s, like, official. For real..”

“Are y’ asking me to go steady with you?”

“Oh my god I don’t know why I even bother –”

“Hey, heeey. None of that.” he says with a laugh, pinning you to the counter with his hips while his lips kiss a pattern across your face before he gently bites at your cheek and pulls away.

He just looks at you, that soft, just for you smile on his face as he takes a deep breath, looking like he’s about to burst with the love radiating off of him. It’s contagious, making a wide grin spread on your face as you feel like you’re buzzing from the inside out.

“Let’s make it official, baby. ‘M your boyfriend. And you’re my girlfriend. And we’re…” he says, taking a deep breath, a small blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blush growing across his cheeks. “And we’re in a relationship. ”

You’re suddenly 15 again trying to slow your galloping heart rate any time Harry hugs you hello, you’re 18 trying not to stare too hard at your best mate’s bare chest as he does a cannonball into the ocean, you’re 22 trying to steady the shake in your hands as you cut his ponytail because he insisted you be the one to chop it, you’re 25 going on 26, in your kitchen, with your best mate who’s now your boyfriend. A fantasy you used to write about in your journal, used to cry yourself to sleep over.

If you could grin any wider, your face would split in half, heat rushing to your cheeks as you look up at him. The two of you standing there, big smiles on your faces, looking at each other in joy, in awe. It feels a bit juvenile to be getting so worked up over a label but you can’t help it. It’s different with him. Everything’s different with him.

Your face crumples slightly, overwhelmed by the love flowing through you, the love you’ve always felt for the man looking back at you.

“I know, I know.” he mutters, pulling you closer. “Long time coming, huh?”

“You could say that,” you whisper back as he wraps his arms around you, planting a kiss on your temple.

“Thank you for waiting for me to catch up.” he whispers, smiling down at you as butterflies erupt in your stomach, your heart feeling on the cusp of bursting.

You gently wind your arms around his neck, pushing your hand up into his hair as he closes his eyes briefly at the feeling of your nails against his scalp. He opens his eyes, those green irises focusing right on you, looking at you like you’re the only person on the planet, his expression so sincere it all but bowls you over.

“Would’ve waited my whole life for you, I think.”

You can see the words hit him as his eyes go glassy, blinking a few times while looking back at you. He lets out a sheepish laugh when you bring a hand up to gently wipe away the tears pooling in his eyes, biting his lip as he grins at you before planting a kiss on your palm. His index finger brushes down the side of your face gently as he looks at you in awe, in wonder and you feel like you’re on fire.

You’re not sure who closes the gap first but you know it doesn’t matter, clutching each other so tight that you feel his groan before you hear it as you swipe your tongue over his. He kisses you deeply, reverently, his tongue licking into your mouth in languid, all encompassing passes that make you feel like you’re going to explode. He pulls away slowly, kisses trailing down your neck as he takes his time licking and biting at the skin there.

“Do you -” you gasp out, sparks flying through you with each drag of his lips. “Would it be alright if we -”

“Being so polite. You trying ask me to tea or ask me to take y’ to bed?” he mumbles, mouth not straying far from its spot on your neck, laughing against your skin when you smack him.

“You know,” you say with a huff of frustration, “I’m usually quite good at this but but you’ve got me flustered -”

“Promise y’ you’re still good,” he mumbles, kissing his way across your throat and taking his time on the other side, letting out a deep breath. “So good.”

“I just - I know I said we should talk but I -” you breathe out, the mindless patterns of his hands against your sides making it impossible to finish a sentence. The way he’s dragging his hands up and down, giving you an occasional squeeze. Those big hands. Jesus. “I want -”

“What do y’ want? Need you to tell me.”

“Want you.” you say as he bites down on your neck, hands squeezing you tight.

He groans, leaning his head against your collarbone, his palms clutching your hips.

“Do y’ have any idea what y’ do to me -” he grunts out. “Calling me up to say you’re needy, that you’ve dreamt of –”

He cuts himself off as he leans up, his lips claiming yours. This kiss is not like the others, it's deep from the start, as he licks into your mouth with a groan. His hands can’t seem to find a place to settle, roaming from your hips, your sides, your breasts, your arse. His breaths are ragged as he bites your lower lip before diving in for more, nothing gentle or sweet about the way he’s making you moan into his mouth, each drag of his tongue driving you mad.

“Bedroom,” he says, wrenching his mouth away from yours. “Let’s – bedroom. Unless you want your boyfriend to fuck you on the counter.”

You choke on air, your nails digging into the muscles on his shoulders.

“Need you horizontal c’mon baby -” he mutters, already pulling you back from the counter as you grab his hand and take off down the hallway towards your bedroom, faltering only slightly when you look back to see him lacing your hands together and pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

You both practically trip over yourselves in eagerness once your door is closed, laughing into each other’s mouths. His hands fall to your waist, sliding up your skin as he pulls your shirt up and over your head, mouths disconnecting before crashing together again. He kisses his way down your neck, making quick work of your bra as he kisses across your chest, mouth wrapping around your nipple as his hands slide further down, pausing at the waistband of your jeans. He pulls his head back to look at you, leaning in to kiss you softly.

“Can I?” he mumbles against your lips, kissing you when you nod, hands slipping on your skin. “Sorry, my palms are sweaty.”

“Mine too,” you whisper as you both laugh sheepishly.

“We’ve done this bit before.”

“Yeah, but it still feels new. It always …everything feels new with you.”

He nods once, marveling at you for a second before pressing his lips to yours, sweet in contrast with the way his hand keeps inching closer to where you need him most. You fist his sweatshirt, pulling at it in frustration.

“Can we get this off please?” you huff, trying in vain to start to push it up when he simply won’t budge.

“Patience is a virtue, darling” he says, taking his sweet time unbuttoning your jeans as he kisses along your jaw, heat spreading through every ounce of your body and you want to kill him.

“Yeah but I’m practically naked while you’re fully dressed.”

“Cause I got my priorities straight,” he says, hands finally sliding past your waistband into your underwear, biting down on your lip when you gasp at his fingers pushing past your folds, feeling the wetness there. “Fuck, baby. Did I get y’ this wet?”

He kisses you before you can respond, licking hotly into your mouth as he pulls his hand away, shushing you when you whine. He uses both hands to pull your jeans and underwear off, helping you balance when you kick them to the ground.

“On the bed,” he mumbles, “need y’ on the bed.”

He walks you backwards until your legs hit the mattress and you lie back, pushing yourself up with your arms until you’re in the middle of the bed, propped up on your elbows, eyes never leaving his.

His eyes roam all over your body, jaw set as his intent gaze sweeps over you, making every inch of you feel like it’s burning up from the inside out. He reaches behind his head to pull his sweatshirt and t-shirt up and over in one fell swoop, throwing them to the ground before clamoring onto the bed as he kneels between your legs, jogger-clad thighs nudging yours further apart.

You barely have time to take in the expanse of skin before he’s ducking down to kiss you again, getting temporarily lost in the mind-numbing drag of his lips, the soft moans he lets out when you push your hand up into his hair and tug it every so often.

He pulls away slowly, eyes sweeping up and down your body as he puffs out a big breath and shakes his head.

“You’re so beautiful,” he says, pressing one more kiss to your lips before slowly making his way down your body, his tongue against your skin mixed with the deep timbre of his voice making you grip the bed sheets tighter, your breath coming in shorter bursts, hand falling away from his head as he makes his way down to your core.

“So sexy,” he mumbles, tongue sweeping along your stomach before he pauses to suck a mark into the skin. “All mine.”

A soft moan leaves your lips, his words and mouth against your skin proving to be a deadly combination, as arousal pools between your thighs. You shift on the sheets, deep desire flowing into restless anticipation.

“I know, baby, I know.” he says, kissing a line along your thigh, inching ever so close. “Gonna give y’ what y’ need.”

Your brain barely has time to catch up before his mouth is on you, humming as he licks a stripe up your slit, the sensation making you gasp. His hands slide up your legs to hold your hips down as he sucks your clit into his mouth, your eyes roll into the back of your head as heat sears through you.

He’s good at this and he knows it, eyes never wavering from your face as he watches the way you react to his tongue, moaning into you when your hand slides into his hair. You look down at him and almost come on the spot, the way his back muscles strain as he expertly moves his head, the image of him headfirst into you with his joggers still on doing something to you that you could never explain. Like he was so eager to get his mouth on you he didn’t stop to pull his sweats off. Fuck.

“Dreamt of this.” he mumbles, kissing a line up your stomach, your arousal already evident in that new 'stache of his. “Dreamt of you.”

“H-” you can’t do anything beyond moaning his name at this point, already gone past the point of coherence, using your hand in his hair to guide his head back down.

“Alright, needy girl, ‘m going” he says, kissing his way back down before biting down on the skin of your thigh, groaning out: “love you like this.”

He dives in tongue first, licking his way down to your entrance before dragging his tongue up to your clit, sucking it into his mouth in steady pulls. He’s getting sloppy with it, the feeling of his beard against your skin making you pull at his hair, while he kisses, licks and sucks. You’re so wet you can hear it, it would embarrass you if not for the way he clearly loves it, his eyes closed tight with his brow furrowed in concentration, nose nudging against your center as his tongue curls over you, grunting and groaning into you in a way that has you seeing stars.

“Want you to come like this. Want it in my mouth.” he mumbles, hooded eyes opening to look at you, take you in. “Can y’ do that for me?”

“Fuck - please I -” you’re cut off by your own moan, as he gets his mouth back on you. His hands on your hips no longer hold you down but encourage you to buck up into him. It’s overwhelming, heat searing through you and you can’t keep your eyes open, feeling yourself hurdle towards your orgasm with every slurp, lick, and suck. His grip tightens, nails making crescent marks into your skin as he latches onto your clit once more and sucks, hard.

And that’s it, your eyes roll back in your head as you come, so intense that you can’t hear the praise he’s mumbling, can feel nothing but endless heat, pleasure rolling through you, hand gripping his hair so tight as his mouth works you through your orgasm, only pulling away when you whimper from the overstimulation.

He plants one kiss against your core before kissing his way up your body, self-satisfied smirk on his face when his head hovers over yours, evidence of how hard you just came present in his beard. You look up at him, panting, sentences still jumbling in your brain as he settles next to you, laying a possessive hand on your stomach, thumb drawing mindless patterns on your skin.

“That good, huh?”

“Like you didn’t know.” you breathe out, thumb coming up to wipe his bottom lip, heat swirling through you when he grabs your wrist and sucks your thumb into his mouth, never once breaking eye contact.

“Christ.”

He hums, releasing your thumb with a pop before leaning in to kiss you, both of you moaning when your tongue swipes over his. Your hand drags down his chest, damp with sweat from the exertion of his efforts, and falls to the waistband of his joggers.

“I can’t believe you still have these on.” you say snapping the waistband against his abs as he moves to pull them off.

“Had you naked on your bed, time was of the essence,” he says, as you snort, watching as he successfully pulls his joggers and briefs all the way off and throws them on the ground, his hard cock slapping against his belly. Did he get that hard just from getting you off?

“Took your shirt off, though.” you say, voice wavering at how affected you are at the sight in front of you. This gorgeous man in all his naked glory.

“Yeah, well, I know how you feel about my arms. Wanted to give you a proper show.” he says with a shrug, hand sliding up your neck to grip at the nape, pulling you in for a deep kiss.

Your hand slides further down his abs, wrapping around him as he moans into your mouth. You pull away from him slowly, making full eye contact as you lick your palm, his eyes widening at the sight, before wrapping around him again. He moans, his grip on you tightening as he bites at your jaw.

“Got this hard from eating me out?”

“Y’ have no idea what you look like.” he says, pulling back to look at you, eyes roaming all over your face. “What you taste like.”

He captures your lips once more, breaths more ragged than before the more you play with him, your thumb swiping over the head as he bites your lip.

“Gotta stop -” he pants out. “Unless you don’t want -”

“No, I do.” you say, letting go of his cock in favor of straddling him. He sits up, trying to get close to your mouth but you shake your head and push him back down. He goes easily, eyes flickering all over your body, unable to settle on just one spot before looking back into your eyes, his own pupils blown wide.

“What’ve y’ got planned, love?”

“Wanna ride you.” you say, your hands staying planted on his chest.

“Fuck - yes please.” he groans, hands coming to rest on your thighs. “You have stuff?”

You falter. You do, you know exactly where it is but that’s not what you want tonight. You curse yourself, knowing you should’ve brought this up earlier, and not when you’re straddling him on your bed. The hesitation must be written on your face because he sits up quickly - damn those ab muscles - his hand coming up to cup your face, thumb rubbing on your cheek.

“What’s up? Do you not have any? Need me to pop to the -”

You shake your head. “Uh - no. I have stuff. I just - sorry I should have brought this up before -”

“‘S okay.” he says gently, patiently, as if you both can’t feel how hard he is against your thighs.

“I just - I got tested and I’m clean,” you say, his eyebrows shooting up before he schools his expression into something more neutral, though the sudden clamminess of his palm against your face gives him away. “And I’m on the pill. I have condoms and totally understand if that makes you more comfortable but I want this, with you. I want to feel –”

“Me too.” he says gruffly, a mix of emotions passing over his face as he stares back at you, so intently it makes your head spin. “I got tested a few weeks ago and I’m also clean - if you want that -”

“I do.”

He crushes his lips against yours, kissing you deeply as you clutch at his shoulders, giving it back just as good. His tongue passes over yours as he tightens his hold on your face, his other arm coming to wrap around your waist. You lose track of how long you stay there, kissing each other until your lips go numb, but he pulls back slowly, emotion clouding over his eyes as he looks at you, taking a few moments just to stare before he clears his throat.

“I know my reputation precedes me with this sort of thing-”

“That doesn’t matter to me.” you say, the look on his face making your heart clench. “At all.”

“I know I just - I want you to know that I don’t take this lightly. You trusting me like this. Me trusting you the same.” he says, with a shake of his head, looking at you with glassy eyes. “It’s - I haven’t done this very often and to get to do it with you is…”

“Yeah. For me, too.” you whisper, emotion caught in your throat, as the two of you just look at each other, biting down smiles.

You lean in to kiss him slowly, hands sliding up into his hair as he sighs into your mouth.

“I love you.” you say softly, the words almost getting caught in your throat as you look at him, hold him tight.

“Oh, angel.” he breathes out. “I love you too.”

You lean in at the same time, soft kisses slowly devolving into pure heat, tongues curling as you moan into each other’s mouths.

“Wanna make you feel good.” you mumble against his mouth.

“Yeah?” he says, kissing you once before kissing a line down your jaw. “Gonna take care of me?”

You nod, leaning in to slowly kiss at his neck as his hand slides down your body and rests on your thigh, squeezing once. You reach down to stroke him slowly as he groans, your tongue darting out to suck at the skin, leaving a mark in its wake.

You bring a hand down to balance on his shoulder as you line him up with your center, and slowly start to sink down, both of you moaning almost instantly at the sensation.

“Slow - baby, slow” he grits out, hands sliding up to your hips to hold on, to ease you down. Once you're fully seated, his hands come up to rub your back, his jaw set as he exhales through his nose, his eyes fluttering closed as he tries to maintain eye contact. “Shit.”

“Okay?” you whisper, not doing much better yourself, being able to feel all of him like this makes your mouth hang open, sparks of arousal shooting up your spine.

“Yeah,” he mutters, huffing out a laugh. “Feel so good.”

He brings one hand around to massage at your breast as the other slides down to knead your ass as he leans in to kiss you deeply, both groaning when your tongues meet. You slowly lift up and back down, a sharp grunt leaving his chest as you start to find your rhythm, his hands gripping tightly at your hips. You find your pace slowly, the look on his face guiding every twist, turn and bounce of your hips.

He’s usually talkative during sex, a never ending stream of praise falling from his lips but you seem to have stunned him into silence as he sits there, grasping you tightly, mouth never moving far from yours. For a while, the only noise in the room is the sound of skin slapping against skin, your moans, grunts and groans mixing together as you find a delicious rhythm that has left you both speechless, panting against each other's mouths.

You lose all sense of time, getting lost in the look on his face, the way he swallows harshly, his breath coming out shallow when you swivel your hips just so. It’s sweltering, it’s heady, overwhelming. The two of you losing yourselves to the pleasure as you ride him into the mattress, his hooded eyes watching your every move.

“‘S like a dream.” he mumbles against your lips. “Jesus.”

He kisses at your neck, the sensation making you clench around him, as he groans and bites down. Your hand slips on his sweaty chest, overwhelmed at the sight of him, jaw set, teeth gritted, eyes wild. He looks wrecked in a way you’ve never seen him, eyes squeezing shut and a deep exhale leaving his lips at a particularly tight swivel of your hips. Knowing you did that, that you’re making him feel this way, causes a fire in your belly unlike you’ve ever experienced before. You place your hand on his cheek and he opens his eyes to look at you, the look of pure ecstasy making you moan his name as you lean in to kiss him, gasping into his mouth when his grip on your hips tightens and he plants his feet, starting to thrust up into you.

Your rhythm falters, having lost any sense of control as he takes over, each drive of his hips hitting you just right. His face now steeled in determination, brow furrowed as he expertly guides his hips into yours, the bliss from before replaced by desperate need.

“Fucking me so good, baby.” he mumbles. “Couldn’t do anything but sit here and take it - y’ feel so -.”

“H-”

“Does it feel good?” he grunts, “Fucking yourself on my cock?”

“‘M close I -” you gasp out, nails digging into his scalp at a particularly hard thrust.

“Need to feel you come around me.” he mumbles, kissing along your collarbone. “What’s gonna get y’ there?”

“Want you on top.” you say, your legs all but turned to jelly as you try to keep up with his relenting pace.

“Give y’ anything.” he groans, “Anything y’ need. Hold on.”

He slows down his hips, holding you in place on top of him as you wrap your arms around his neck. He slides his arms up your back, warm palm sliding up to grip the back of your neck as he holds you tightly to him, leaning forward to lay you back on the mattress, never once disconnecting himself from you. He hovers over you, both groaning at the new angle. He slides his other hand down your body, grabbing the outer edge of your thigh to wrap around his hip as you bring your other leg up to do the same.

He leans in to kiss you deeply, grip tightening on the back of your neck as he starts to slowly grind his hips. You gasp into his mouth as you drag your nails down his back, his grinds turning into slow, deep thrusts that have both of you moaning.

“Y’ so wet,” he groans out. “Can feel all of it. All for me. Christ -”

His pace picks up, thrusting so hard you can hear the bed frame against the wall at the other end. Your hand falls to the bed, grasping at the bedsheets as he keeps driving his hips into yours, mumbling incoherently against your cheek, the feeling of his abs sliding against your skin sending sparks through you. You can see how hard he’s working, arms and thighs bulging as he works to give it to you as good as he can.

He squeezes your neck once, before sliding his hand over to where yours is gripping the sheets, lacing your fingers together and holding tight and you just about lose your mind.

“Y’ close? Squeezing me like y’ close.”

“Harry -”

“Love when you say my name like that.” he mumbles and you do it again just to see the look on his face. You slide your hand not holding his down your body to flick at your clit, watching his eyes go impossibly darker as you clench down on him.

“That’s it. Be my good girl and go after it.” he grunts, thrusting even harder than before. “Want y’ to soak me.”

It only takes a few more tight circles from your fingers and one perfectly timed thrust and then you’re coming, stars in your eyes as you shake with aftershocks, clenching down so hard his rhythm falters, a series of expletives falling from his lips.

“So good. That’s it. Y’ gonna make me come - fuck”

“Please - want you to.” you say, trying in vain to catch your breath as you clench down on him once more, overstimulation be damned. “Come inside me.”

“Jesus - fuck” he grunts out, brows furrowed, eyes focused on you, hips driving into yours once, twice, and then that’s it, a guttural groan punches out of him as strings of his come paint your walls, the sensation making you squeeze his hand tightly as he shakes through it, a look of utter bliss on his face.

He buries his head into your neck, panting heavily. You slowly lower your legs down to the mattress, sliding your hand out from in between your bodies and threading it through his sweaty hair, scratching at his scalp as your heart rates start to slow down and sync up.

You lay there for a few moments, just breathing each other in. He grunts wordlessly into your neck, the sound making you laugh, feeling of your bodies shaking against each other setting the two of you off.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, kissing your neck as he squeezes your hand once before pulling away, planting his hands on the bed to pull out, murmuring apologies into your skin when you hiss at the feeling before plopping on the bed next to you.

You turn your head to face him as he props himself up on his elbow, an indescribable glow on his features as he smiles softly at you, his arm splaying across you to wrap around your waist.

“It’s a good look on you.”

“What?”

“Satisfaction.” you say with a grin. He honks out a laugh, pulling you closer to him to kiss your face.

“Ah, a bit cheeky after riding my brains out, are ya?” he asks, kissing a line down your neck. “After fucking me bare?”

“That’s me. Cheeky and full of your cum.” you say, giggling when he tightens his grip on your waist, his breath leaving him in one big exhale.

“Can’t say shit like that, baby.” he mutters against your neck, tongue darting out to lick at the skin. “Gonna turn me into a bloody neanderthal. C’mere.”

He slides his hand up your body to grip at your jaw, pulling you towards him as he captures your lips with his, letting out a soft moan into your mouth when your tongue passes over his.

“You’re unreal.” he murmurs against your mouth. “So good to me.”

He kisses you again, somehow deeper this time as you sigh into his mouth, his hand gripping you tighter as you slide your hand across his chest. He pulls away slowly, kissing your cheek and temple before leaning back to look at you, soft smile on his face as he brushes a strand of hair away from your face.

“And it was good for you, yeah?”

“Think you could feel that it was.”

“I could, yeah. Came pretty hard, didn’t you?” he says with a smirk. “Soaked me.”

“What was that you were saying earlier? About being a neanderthal?”

“Ah, so she can dish it out but can’t take it.”

“I can take it!” you scoff in indignation.

“Yeah, you can.” he all but growls, wiggling his eyebrows at you.

“Oh my god -” you say, trying in vain to suppress the giggles escaping you as he laughs along with you, wrapping his arm around your waist again, nuzzling into your neck as you try to catch your breath before you both crack up again, laughing at nothing and everything, at this feeling of lightness, of love, effervescent joy.

Your laughter slowly subsides, just the occasional giggle coming out as you smile at each other. He kisses your cheek, your jaw and presses one soft, sweet kiss to your lips before pulling back. You shift your hips a bit, the reality of the no condom situation leaking out of you and you grimace slightly as his eyes track the moment.

“Not exactly comfortable, is it?”

“Can’t say it is, no. Loved it when it happened but now - ”

“Yeah. Hang on a sec.” he smacks a kiss to your forehead before pushing himself up and off the bed and jogging out of the room, you try in vain to tilt your head back to follow his movement but can only go so far. You hear the sounds of the sink turning on and promptly shutting off, his shuffle footsteps re-entering the room as he hops back on the bed next to you, wet washcloth in hand.

“May I?” he asks, holding up the washcloth.

“Not exactly sexy, is it?”

“Yeah, but I put it there.” he says with a shrug as he crawls between your thighs. “Least I can do is help clean it out.”

“Thank you.” you whisper, affection flowing through you as you prop yourself up on your elbows, planting your feet on the mattress. He presses a kiss to your knee as he starts to clean you up. There's a lot to be said about praising men for doing the bare minimum, how women should have higher standards but this isn’t common practice, something you’ve usually had to do on your own, grabbing a spare t-shirt or something for a quick fix. And this, letting him take care of you like this, makes you feel open and trusting in a way you’re not sure you’ve ever felt. You’re not sure you’ve ever been this cared for, a thought that makes tears spring to your eyes.

You quickly blink them away though when he looks up at you, you know he sees them, a gentle shake of his head as if to say “it’s nothing”, as if to say “you’re welcome”, as if to say “i’ll always take care of you”. He throws the washcloth into the laundry bin and crawls back up your body to plank over you, leaning down to give you a sweet kiss. You bring your hand up into his hair, kissing him back before pulling away and nudging your nose against his.

“Do you want to shower with me?” you ask.

“Yes please.”

You head to the washroom hand in hand, exchanging lazy kisses in front of the shower as you wait for it to heat up before squeezing in and attempting to be productive. You manage to completely wash your body and get most of your hair when he pulls you against him with a hand on your hip, planting deadly kisses along your neck as his hands roam your body, squeezing your breasts, drawing circles on your belly before sliding down in between your thighs.

He waits until you’re ready and takes you right there, one hand splaying out across your stomach with the other is pressed against yours on the shower wall, his mouth pressed to your shoulder, hips driving into yours over and over with in a way that has you moaning out so loud you’re sure your neighbors can hear but you don’t care. Content to just lean back and lean into the pleasure until you’re both shaking with orgasms faster than you expected.

After snogging under the spray long after the hot water has run out, you get dried off and changed, throwing him an old pair of sweats and hoodie of his that you’ve kept all these years as you pass your phone back and forth to order from the local thai place you both love.

Once the food arrives you set up camp on the couch, laughing and reminiscing, though tactfully avoiding any discussion of the past two months, as you share plates, both eating more of what the other ordered than you’d ever admit. Once you’ve had your fill, the empty boxes stacked on the coffee table, you settle back on the couch, he grabs your feet and pulls them into his lap, resting a warm palm on your ankles as you lean back against the pillows.

“I really like this,” he says softly, a light squeeze on your ankle when you smile over at him. “Just like… everything about this day.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Nothing we’re running away from, nothing looming over our heads.” he says as you hum in agreement. “‘S all I could think about getting to these last few weeks and ‘s better than I imagined.”

“I know. Felt like it wasn’t gonna happen some days.”

“Yeah.” he says, looking down in his lap, small frown on his face. “Did it - y’never called me so I assumed but - how were the last few weeks for you? Better or just as shit as the first?”

“Better. Talking to you really helped and then I decided to, you know, actually feel my feelings instead of ignoring them? A novel concept.” you say, as he huffs out a laugh, attentive eyes on you. “Also started talking to my therapist again about, like all the guilt and weirdness from the wedding and my hesitation to be completely open and vulnerable with you, which is a bit of a work in progress.”

“Meant what I said on the phone, you know.” he says, hand sliding up to your calf, thumb moving soothing circles. “When I say I love you, I mean all of you. Nothing’s gonna scare me off or make me feel differently about you.”

You just look at him for a moment, his eyes full of warm, open affection staring back at you as you nod, biting your lip at the onset of emotions running through you. He squeezes your calf gently.

“Did your boss ever apologize?” he asks, frowning when you shake your head. “Wanker.”

You snort. “It’s alright. She’ll be groveling once the grant comes through. It’s not confirmed but have heard whispers that it’s likely going to us.”

“That’s my girl. Proud of you.”

“Thanks, H.” you say with a soft smile. “What about you? How has it been? Not gonna let you do that thing where you ask me loads of questions and be such a good listener that we never talk about you.”

“Ah, she knows my tricks.”

“Ah, yes she does.” you say as he laughs, looking down at his lap with a smile, thumb rubbing circles on your leg as he takes his time to find the words.

“It was…a lot. There was loads of bullshit in the first few weeks, meetings where I felt like I was back in the band again, all this talk about my image and how to best preserve it, not a lot about how I was doing or feeling.”

“That’s fucked.”

“Yeah. Didn’t feel good. It got better…once I drew my lines in the sand, established what was necessary for me to know and what wasn’t. Like if Erin’s team goes rogue and tries to talk about you or if anyone who was working the wedding comes forward - they can’t and they won’t.” he says quickly. “They signed some pretty ironclad NDAs.”

“Oh.” you say, not sure how to process that.

“Yeah. Now y’ know why I almost called you 8 times.” he says, pausing as a deep frown falls over his face. “I know I - last time we saw each other, I was angry and scared and snapped but…there was some truth to what I said. This bullshit never goes away with me. Not entirely. We can get good at tuning it out, but it’s always gonna be there. And I know it’s selfish of me to ask you to subject yourself -”

“Harry-”

“Just let me say this bit.” he says gently, cutting you off. “I know being with me has a price, however big or small you may think it is, it’s there. ‘nd I know you’ve experienced it as my friend but it’s…much different for who I’m dating, no matter how private we are. And I just want you to know that if it ever gets to be too much, I understand. I won’t hold it against you.”

“This is a legitimate fear of yours? That I’ll leave if the attention gets to be too much?”

“I know you don’t pay attention to any of it - it’s one of the things that makes me feel so lucky with all of this, that you really couldn’t give a shit about that. That you just love me for me. But… it can seep into every aspect of your life and force you to make sacrifices you never planned on making.”

“And I think a part of me is scared that ‘m not worth all that.” he says. “That I won’t be good enough to you or for you to make up for how difficult I may make parts of your life. You deserve privacy and normalcy in a way I can’t provide. At least not all of the time. And I just need you to know that you always have an out.”

You stare at him for a moment, the determined, slightly defeated look in his eyes before you sit up, pulling your legs off his lap and crossing them in front of you on the couch, knees bumping against his thigh. You take his hand, holding it between both of yours.

“And I just need you to know that I’m never going to use it.” you say, rushing to keep talking when he opens his mouth. “I know I don’t know the full extent of what your world can feel like, being involved in it in this new way, but I can say for sure it’s never going to make me want to give you up. Or like, run away when the scrutiny gets too intense. This isn’t conditional, for me. I’d do a lot worse and sacrifice a lot more to get to have you like this. We’re in this together. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to want to.”

He stares at you, blinking rapidly as he takes a deep breath, squeezing your hand.

“Thank you.” he says softly, brow furrowing as his lip twitches, trying to hold his emotions in. “I don’t take that lightly, you know. And you can change your mind at any -”

“I’m not going to. Not about that. Not about you. I don’t want you constantly worrying that if something goes wrong with your public life, I’m gonna go. I won’t. That’s not going to happen. Those are easy sacrifices to make.”

He closes the distance between you before you even realize what’s happening, kissing you deeply as his hand cups your jaw. He gently pulls his other hand from yours, bringing it up to frame your face, thumbs brushing over your cheek when you sigh into his mouth.

“Thank you.” he mumbles in between kisses. “Don’t know what I did to deserve…”

He shakes his head, eyes darting over your face before pressing his lips to yours once more, humming into the kiss. You just sit there and let yourself be kissed, head reeling from how good this all feels, how right, when he pulls back suddenly.

“I don’t want it to be just you giving things up or changing things for me.” he says sincerely, eyes not wavering from yours. “Like y’ said, we’re in this together. I want to make sacrifices for you, too. I want to be meeting you in the middle.”

“That’s really good to hear.” you say solemnly, taking a deep breath. “Because the paps surrounding the nonprofit world can be vultures.”

“Alright,” he says, rolling his eyes as he pinches your cheek before you swat his hand away. “Little jokester are ya?”

“It’s just so refreshing to finally be with someone willing to make those life changes for me.” you say, placing your hand on his shoulder.

Your sincere facade lasts all of two seconds, shrieking as his hands fall to your sides, trying to jab the most ticklish spots he’s learned over the years.

“The intense scrutiny that comes from being - ah! - with someone who sits at a desk for 8 hours writing proposals—”

“Are y' done?”

“I’ve got about 5 more minutes of material –”

He honks out a laugh, pulling you across his lap with minimal struggle from you lying you flat on your back on the other end of the couch as he plants his hands on either side of your head.

“Here I am, baring my soul… telling y’ my deepest fears,” he says one hand coming to tickle at your side as you try to dodge him. “And you’re just taking the piss -”

“Oh my god -”

“I’m afraid I’ll never be able to be vulnerable again…”

“Gonna nominate you for a BAFTA for this performance.”

“I’d like to thank the academy –”

“Alright, pal,” you laugh as you grab his wrist and pull, effectively knocking him off balance and he collapses onto you with a big “oof”, both of you giggling as you try to catch your breath.

“I can’t believe you tickled me.” you say, as he laughs against your neck.

“Ah, but in a battle of wits against you, darling, I’m guaranteed to lose. I needed backup.” he says, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “All hands on deck.”

You sputter out a laugh at that, warmth rushing through you as you look over at him, the wide grin on his face, the crinkles around his eyes as he laughs with you. It wasn’t even that funny, it was just so stupid, so him, said with such sincerity it makes your heart race. You can’t stop replaying his line delivery as another wave of laughter rolls through you.

“You are such an idiot.” you laugh, shaking your head at him.

“Yeah, might be.” he says with a shrug, eyes twinkling as he looks at you. “But I think I’d say just about anything to make y’ laugh like that.”

You can’t stop the smile that grows on your face, his words rendering you speechless, warmth blooming on your cheeks as the laughter all but dies in your throat when you take in the way he’s looking back at you.

“‘S my favorite sound.” he says, so softly it’s almost to himself as he leans in, eyes locked on your mouth before they drift up, smiling when you lock eyes. You lean up to close the distance between you, running your fingers through his hair as he hums into the kiss, his hand slowly sliding up and down your arm as your lips slide against each other. It’s soft, warm, reverential, this kiss.

You pull back slowly as his hand comes up to cup your jaw, pulling you back to him, mumbling “‘m not done yet” against your mouth.

He kisses you slowly, his hand a steady presence against your jaw as his lips drag against yours, smiling against your lips with you let out a little sigh, tilting his head to get the angle right. You’re practically melting against the couch, every kiss feeling better than the last.

He pulls away, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth before pulling back to look at you, warm eyes slowly passing over your features.

“That got ya to stop teasing me, didn’t it?” he says, leaning back in to plant kisses along your cheek.

“Mm, much more effective than tickling.”

“Mutually beneficial as well.” he says, laughing when you do before pulling back to grin at you.

You shake your head at him, a mumbled “idiot” leaving your lips though your smile detracts any potential sting of your words.

“Yours.” he murmurs, kissing you softly.

He presses a kiss to your cheek before scootching down the couch a little, getting comfortable as he lays his head on your chest, arms wrapping around you as his legs intertwine with yours. Your hand comes up to play with his hair, scratching at his scalp as he hums.

“This couch is kinda small for those long legs of yours.”

“Nah, I like it.” he says, wiggling his hips for emphasis, making you snort. “‘S cozy. ”

“It’s nice, innit?” you say, as he hums, hand squeezing your waist.

You lay there for a bit, playing with his hair in comfortable silence. It’s so nice, being with him like this, two of you able to just enjoy each other's company, having each other close after all this time. You don’t want to disturb the peace, but curiosity is gnawing at you.

“Could you tell me more about what you’ve been up to?” you ask softly. “Gonna depress me if I keep thinking about you being stuck in those bloody meetings. Did it ever ease up or am I going to have to beat someone up?”

“Defending my honor, are ya?”

“Always.”

“My girl.” he says with a grin, before taking a deep breath, squinting off into space as he thinks through his next words. “It definitely got better… especially when Jeff and Sadie took over that side of things, knowing to only contact me if things got bad, which they didn’t. Let me deal with the aftermath of the wedding and breakup like a human ‘nd not a machine.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah, was nice to finally realize that I - I can’t be everything to everyone all the time. To, like release that standard I always held myself to felt really good.” he says, the look on his face making your heart clench. “Was able to really think about what I want and who I want to be for the first time in ages.”

“That's what you deserve, you know.” you say softly. “A life lived for you and not for anyone else. It’s what you’ve always deserved.”

You can see the emotion pass over his face as he clears his throat, propping himself up on an elbow and leaning back against the couch cushions to get a good look at your face. He takes your hand in his, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss your knuckles.

“Thanks, baby.” he says, taking a deep breath as he runs his thumb over your knuckles. “Was good to finally have the time to realize that. To start to figure out how to do that… I didn’t have to work at all - I had taken that time off for the wedding and um, honeymoon and haven’t had that much time off in about a decade - to just like be with myself for any amount of time longer than a couple of hours was a bit of a mindfuck. Lasted about a week before I called Tom up.” he says with a sheepish laugh, leaning into your hand when you run it through his hair.

“Some things never change.” you say as he hums in agreement, before his brow furrows as he thinks through what he’s going to say next.

“I just - I spent my time working on myself in a way I’ve never had time to do before. Working on being a better friend, going to therapy to really unpack everything I’ve been through. Was definitely scary and challenging in a way I hadn’t expected, to face the truth of everything and really reflect on the past year I had, all the things I’d been running from. Got more in touch with myself than I have in years and it…” he pauses, looking up at you, eyes flitting over your features as he inhales deeply through his nose.

“It made me so grateful for the present moment and for the people I have in my life, my relationships with my family ‘nd friends ‘nd…you. Especially you. I really needed that time to get closure on a lot of things. Still a work in progress, like y’ said, but it was a good start. Made it easier to deal with the logistics stuff - like moving out of the place Erin and I had in Kensington.”

“Oh shit. How was that?”

“Was… okay.” he says. “Erin really wants nothing to do with me right now, which I understand, so it was mostly handled by our assistants, as mad as that sounds. So Joanna really did most of the work and I was able to stay out of it. Was weird but… it never felt like home, that place. None of that really did. Or it did for the beginning but stopped feeling like it far earlier than I was willing to admit.”

“So you haven’t talked with Erin at all?”

“No, not directly, just through our teams and stuff.” he says. “I would’ve loved to have a chat about everything but when she tried to go after you that changed things for me. But… I also know that what I did really hurt her and she doesn’t owe me her forgiveness or anything. I think how we’ve been doing things - just through our teams - is the best way for now.”

“Right. That makes sense”

“How’s all that been for you?” he asks. “I know it was rough for both of us to come to terms with, starting this relationship like that.”

“Yeah it … I don’t know, it’s definitely easier than it was. Think the amount of time that’s passed since that weekend really helped,” you say. “Like the nagging guilt that was there for that first month has mostly faded. Think I’ve gotten better at coming to terms with the fact that what’s done is done and I can’t change the past or rewrite our history. And now it doesn’t feel like a shadow over this, or something holding us back. It feels more like we can just be us. Which just feels… so good and right and ….”

You cut yourself off, nose scrunching as you try to hold your emotions in, his hand squeezing yours in encouragement.

“Feels like everything I’ve ever wanted.” you say softly, voice cracking with emotion as a wide smile grows across your face. He just looks at you, his own eyes filled with emotion as they graze over your features carefully, reverently.

“‘M coming over there.”

“Over where?! You are already on top of me -”

“Not all the way give me a mo -” he says, sliding over you until his head is right above yours, bringing one hand up to cup your face, open emotion on his face.

“I… I feel so ready to be in this with you ‘nd ‘m so grateful you chose me. Don’t really know what I did to deserve any of it but I … thank you for giving me that time and space and sticking with me through this.”

“H, I was never gonna go anywhere.”

“No, I know I just… Being with you feels different than anything I’ve never experienced before ‘nd I am just…” he cuts himself off, taking a shaky breath before shaking his head, leaning in to kiss you.

“Bloody in love with you.” he says against your mouth, diving in to capture your lips once more before you can even respond. His thumb brushes along your cheek as he drags his lips against your, kissing you reverently while holding you tight against him.

He pulls back slowly, his lips kissing a line up your face before resting his forehead against yours and closing his eyes, lightly panting against your mouth.

“Love you, too.” you whisper, the words hardly capturing how this moment feels or how you feel about him. The love flowing through you stronger than you’ve ever felt it before. Heartbeats syncing up as you hold each other close. Finally.

“Alright, your turn.” he says after a while, settling back down with his head on your chest.

“My turn? H, I already –”

“C’mon love I just talked for ages, ‘m sure you still got some stories for me.”

“Pressure is on, okay…oh !” you say, smiling at the eager look on his face as you start to tell him about a particularly wild night out you had with your mates a few weeks back, that almost ended with Jenna getting a few stitches at the A&E, living for how along for the ride he is, reacting at all the right spots. He’s always been your favorite person to tell stories to; no one listens with quite the same intensity as he does, no pay off feels better than shocking a laugh out of him.

You swap stories from there, him telling you the hijinks that him, Tom and Tyler got up to, his long phone calls he had with his mum, you tell him how you parents cried even when you gave them the bare minimum about what was going on with you two, how Roxy tackled you to the ground when she found out, how Archie threatened him. He starts to launch into a story about a very stoned writing session him and Tyler had and you’re listening, you swear you are…it’s just you hadn’t really slept very well last night and his voice is so soothing, his body so warm, you can feel the vibrations of his voice and you try to stay awake, you do, but you can feel your eye drift shut…

“Falling asleep on me?” he asks, hand brushing through your hair as you quickly blink your eyes open.

“No, no I’m not -”

“Baby -”

“‘S just … you’re so warm and your voice is so nice.” your words were slurring a bit but you were too tired to fix it. “Just didn’t sleep a lot last night. Was too excited.”

“To see me?”

“Felt like Christmas.” you mumble, your exhaustion erasing any possible brain to mouth filter.

“Oh angel,” he says, kissing your forehead as his hands draw up and down your arms. “Want to go to bed?”

“Noo, want to stay right here. Keep talking, I’m listening..”

“Okay,” he says with a chuckle, “Hang on, then.”

He wraps one arm around you and plants the other on the couch, gently flipping the two of you over so you’re laying on his chest as he lays against the pillows. You sigh sleepily, nuzzling your head into his chest. He’s got one arm behind his head and the other brushing up and down your back. “‘S better, isn’t it?”

“Mmmf” you mumble, words failing you at this point, your attempt at being awake slipping through your fingers.

He kisses your forehead, picking up right where he left off in the story. You think. You could feel yourself start to nod off again, trying to shake yourself out of it but everything felt so comfortable, so right…

When you open your eyes, it’s morning. And you’re in bed. How did you…?

You slowly shift, trying to get more oriented to the day as you squint into the early light, looking over to see him sound asleep, stretched out next to you and - oh.

Hazy memories of last night fill your head, of him softly telling you to go back to sleep as he carried you - he carried you?! - from the couch to the bed, strong arms looped under your knees and back, holding you tight against his chest as his lips brushed against your hairline. Memories of him whispering “I love you” as he slid next to you in bed, memories of you grunting back at him, his soft laughter against your neck as he pulled you closer.

It makes you flush, warmth flowing through every fiber of your being. You quietly slip out from under the covers, careful not to wake him as you slip out of your room and into the washroom to quickly brush your teeth, heart fluttering as the memories from last night swirl around in your head. You head back to your room and lean against the doorframe for a moment, just watching him. The man you love, the boy you’ve always loved, asleep in your bed. Your boyfriend. Heat rushes to your cheeks as you bite down on the wide smile growing across your face. God, you love him. You really, really love him.

You pad over to the bed, quickly and quietly pulling off your joggers and tossing them on the floor. You slide a knee up and over the bed until you’re straddling him, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Good morning,” you whisper and he snuffles sleepily, one arm instinctively coming up to wrap around your waist as he grunts. You stretch out so you’re laying on top of him, kissing a line up his neck, his arm sliding up to hold you close as he turns his head into the pillow, eyes still closed.

“H.” you whisper and he grunts and you laugh against his skin, kissing along his jaw. “Did you carry me to bed last night?”

He peeks one eye open at you, a faint blush blooming on his cheeks that makes your heart skip a beat, his hand coming up to rub his eyes as he shrugs.

“Yeah. You were dead to the world, love.”

“So you carried me?”

“Should’ve left you out there if I knew you were gonna tease me about it –”

“No no no” you say quickly, grabbing his face in both hands, as he blinks sleepily back at you, thumb brushing over his bottom lip, leaning in as you whisper: “Thank you.”

You kiss him softly, his hand around your back pulling you impossibly closer as you drag your lips against his. You’re murmuring thank yous, love yous in between kisses, feeling delirious with how much you want him. How much you need him. You rake your hands into his hair as you deepen the kiss, heat searing through you when he groans into your mouth.

“It's so crazy,” you say when you pull away, relishing the dazed look in his eyes, the way his gaze keeps falling back to your lips. “That you just look like this and it isn’t even the best thing about you.”

“Baby - “

“I’m serious, it's like… I fell in love with your heart and your mind and your stupid sense of humor and how patient you are, how kind,” you say, your fingers running through his hair, heart clenching when he leans into your touch. “And then you had to go and grow up like this with a six pack and these bloody arms and that face - it’s my favorite face. God, you’re maddening.”

You drag your hands down from his hair to his chest, resting on the muscles there, drawing mindless patterns, stomach twisting when his eyes darken. His hand slides up your back and rests on the back of your neck.

“C’mere.” his voice comes out as deep as gravel, pulling you towards him and kissing you hard. You feel overwhelmed with your love for him, each slide of his lips against yours making you dig your hands into his chest as you slowly rock your hips against his, consumed by need.

“What’s gotten into y’ this morning?” he pants out when you pull away, kissing along his neck down to his shoulders, tongue darting out to taste the skin.

“Woke up with you in my bed,” you say, lips dragging against his skin, your words reminiscent of his that first morning in Italy. “Looking this good. Driving me mental.”

“Yeah? Tell me.” he rasps out, hand sliding up into your hair as you start to kiss along his tattoos, stopping amongst your favorites to suck a mark into the skin. “Love hearing what I do t’ you.”

“Just keep remembering how it felt to be wrapped up in your arms yesterday,” you say, lips dragging across his skin. “Felt so nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhmm, but it’s… nothing compared to how it feels when you grab a hold of me with your hands.” you say, “Know it's archaic but something about you getting possessive gets me so hot.”

“Gets you wet, doesn’t it?” he rumbles out, his hands sliding up and down your body, squeezing at all the right places as you gasp against his skin. “‘S cause I like taking hold of what’s mine.”

You can’t help the moan that escapes you at that, rocking your hips down against his, feeling him get hard for you. His hands slide down to grab your ass, smirking at you when you lock eyes and you just want to wreck him.

“And your tattoos…thought they were so stupid at first,” you say, focusing back on the task at hand as he huffs a laugh, his hand sliding up into your hair and pulling as you bite down on a cluster on his arm, tongue smoothing over the skin. “And now…”

“Now?” he says, his breath coming in a bit more ragged, the audible effect you’re having on him making heat surge through you as you look up at him.

“Wanna get my mouth on all of them.”

A groan punches out of him as he pulls your head back up to his to kiss you deeply. It’s rough and messy from the start, his other hand sliding up your legs to your hips, encouraging their rolls against his. You moan into his mouth as his tongue sweeps over yours. You know you could get lost in this sensation, the way his breath stutters against your mouth when you grind your hips just so, how he pulls a bit harder on your hair when you kiss him deep, the feeling of his big, warm hands on you. But you’re a woman on a mission here.

You pull back slowly, kissing a line down his jaw, hands drawing mindless circles against his chest, feeling the way it’s warming under your touch, the way his heart is racing. You slide down his body, taking the sheet with you as your lips drag against his chest, taking your time to stop and suck a mark on each tattoo that adorns his chest, stopping when you get to the laurels on his hips, lips dancing against his skin as you wrap your hand around his cock, already halfway hard and waiting for you.

He inhales deeply the second your hand makes contact, a hissed “fuck” leaving his lips as you slide further down the bed, settling between his thighs, lips dragging from his hips to kiss a line up his cock. You look up at him as you pump your hand, taking in the flush crawling up his neck, the way his chest is heaving, how he bites at his lip, his hooded eyes never leaving your face.

You kiss the tip, tongue splaying out to take him into your mouth. His head slams back against the pillows, long neck straining as he inhales sharply through his nose. From this angle, you can see your handiwork, the bruises starting to bloom on his skin, proof that you were there. That he’s yours for the taking. The thought makes you moan around his cock as you suck more of him into your mouth, a trail of expletives leaving his mouth at the sensation as his arm falls over his eyes.

You pull off with a louder than intended slurp, keeping your eyes on him as you drag kisses up and down his length.

“Don’t you want to watch me?” you ask, as your tongue darts out to lick along his vein. A groan punches out of his chest as his arm falls to his side, other hand coming up to slide your hair away from your face and stays there, a steady presence on the back of your head, never pushing down, just holding tight.

“Fuck, baby” he grunts out. “Look so good -”

He cuts himself off with a moan as you take him in your mouth again, his blown eyes locking with yours, flitting down to your mouth and back again. You watch him watch you before you have to close your eyes, getting lost in the taste of him, the sounds he’s making, how he feels in your hands, your mouth. Heat sears through you and you can feel how wet you’re getting, just at having him like this, like putty in your hands, every flick of your tongue drawing a new sound out of him.

You keep one hand on him as you close your eyes, working him further down into your mouth, gagging slightly when he hits the back of your throat, his hand tightening in your hair as he grunts, tongue flicking along the vein running up the underside of his cock, other hand falling to gently cup his balls.

“Oh shit - angel, just like that -”

You open your eyes, blinking away the tears, taking him into the back of your throat again just to watch the way his face crumples, flush spreading across his cheeks as he looks back at you, eyes the darkest you’ve ever seen them, chest heaving.

You pull off again, tongue flicking up and down his cock as you catch your breath, continuing to pump him as his head falls back to the pillow, mouth open as he pants for air.

“Can y’ get back on me, love? ‘M so close - gonna - yes.” he moans when you take him down once more, sucking hard and pumping your hand once and that’s all it takes for him to shoot off into your mouth, lips tightening as you swallow it down, feeling his eyes on you as you close your eyes and give one final suck, pulling off slowly.

You sit back on your heels, licking your lips before wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. You hear a soft groan and look up to see his eyes peeking at you from where he had thrown his arm over his head, his chest moving rapidly up and down as he tried to catch his breath. He looks wrecked, something that fills you with pride even as you absolutely ache for him. You shift a bit, able to feel yourself dripping through your underwear as you rub your hands up and down his legs.

“Y’ got me good. Fuck.” he says, making you snort. His arm falls to his side, eyes taking you in fully as he slowly gathers his bearings. “Where did that come from?”

You shrug, squeezing his thigh. “Missed you. Was a long two months”

“Gonna have me leaving more often if that’s how you welcome me home.”

“Noooo,” you say, crawling your way back up his body and planking over him, his dark eyes gazing up at you, the flush on his cheeks not yet faded. You did that. His hand comes up to brush your hair away from your face, his thumb dragging down your cheek. “Please don’t.”

“Not going anywhere, not gonna leave you again,” he says, muttering utter nonsense as he wraps his hand around the back of your neck, pulling you down for a kiss, “C’mere.”

It’s rough and wet from the start, his tongue swiping over yours, moaning the second he can taste himself on your tongue.

“Fuck you’re so fit,” he says, pulling back to kiss any part of your face he could touch as he sits up, wrapping an arm around your waist to help you sit in his lap. He grabs the hem of your shirt, shaking it in frustration, “Get this off.”

You reach down and pull your shirt off, his eyes immediately falling to your chest, hands sliding up your back as he kisses down your chest, one hand squeezing your breast while he sucks your other nipple into his mouth, biting down lightly when you moan. He switches sides, each drag of his tongue hurtling you towards the edge. You’ve been on fire since you first put your mouth on him, feeling closer to your high than ever.

“These too.” he says, hand sliding down to snap the waistband of your underwear, helping you lean back to pull them off, settling you back on his lap once they’re gone.

“Said you liked my tattoos, yeah?” he says, kissing a line down your neck, sucking at the skin as you nod. He pulls back to look at your face, leaning in to kiss you before biting your lip and pulling away, hands squeezing your arse. “Sit on my tiger, love.”

He shifts you onto his thigh, flexing the muscle, both of you moaning when you’re seated. You are soaked, moreso than you thought, and the feeling of his hairy thigh right against your dripping core sends heat down your spine. His hands fall to your hips, encouraging you to roll against him.

“Tha’s it. Ride my thigh, baby.” he says, one hand sliding down to grip at your ass as his lips fall to your neck. “Did y’ like having me in your mouth? Looked like y’ did…feels like y’ did.”

“H, I -” you gasped out, hands digging into his shoulders as you found your rhythm, each drag of your hips sending you closer to the edge. “‘M so wet -”

“Know y’ are, can feel it -” he groans, “Gonna make a mess on me?”

“Fucking - shit.” you moan, one hand sliding up into his hair and pulling at the strands as you grind down hard, stomach twisting as a wave of pleasure rolls through you.

“Feels good, yeah?” he mumbles against your skin, biting down when you gasp. “Y’ can push down a little harder, love - yeah tha’s it, baby. Go after it for me.”

Your mind is hazy, the movement of your hips getting sloppy as you get closer to the edge. You pulled his head up to yours, kissing him deeply, moaning into his mouth when both of his hands slid down to grip your bum, heat flowing through every part of your body as you pant against his lips.

“I’m close - I-”

“C’mon angel, come for me. Soak that tiger -”

“Fuck -” you moan, hands pulling on his hair as you come, feeling him groan against you as you rode out your high. You slump into him once you’re done, breathing heavily onto his neck. He shifts you so you’re sat fully in his lap, hands sliding up your back, rubbing soothing patterns as he kisses along your hairline, mumbling praise into your hair.

He kisses down the side of your face and you pull back to stare at him, both of you smiling when you lock eyes. He holds your chin in between his pointer finger and thumb, pulling you into him as he kisses you. You wrap your arms around his neck as he pulls kiss after kiss from you, the two of you getting lost in each other as you come back down to earth.

You pull back slowly, his lips drifting to your cheek, your temple, your nose, as he pulls his head back to look at you, soft smile on his face, light sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Love you,” you whisper.

“Love you so much,” he says, planting a kiss to the corner of your mouth, to your cheek before pulling away, emotion clouding over his face.

“Y’ missed a spot,” he says softly, eyes widening when you thumb at the corner of your mouth. “No - Jesus - i didn’t mean -”

He cuts himself off with a shake of his head, looking down at his lap before looking back at you, his expression almost unreadable. He seems nervous, though you’ve got no clue why. You slide a hand up into his hair, lightly scratching at his scalp while he gathers his thoughts.

“Meant with the um, tattoos.” he says, rubbing at his nose with his knuckle as he clears his throat. “Y’ missed one.”

“Pretty sure I got all of them.”

“Nah,” he says with a light shake of his head. “Got a new one.”

“What?!” you say, mouth dropping in shock, both hands immediately grabbing his arm, poring over the countless tattoos to see how you missed one. “Where? Oh shit - am I like, sat on it?”

“Nooo,” he says, laughter punching through his words, though his eyes remain focused on you, soft and full of love, you’re so busy trying to find the new tattoo you’re barely paying attention. “Other arm, love.”

“You barely have any on that arm - how did I miss it?” you say, already grabbing for that other arm, looking up at him when he doesn’t move it towards you.

“‘M mean, it’s quite small and a bit hidden -”

“Oh my god,” you say, swatting at his chest, “Let me see it!”

He slowly lifts his arm up and there, right on his inner bicep, is his new tattoo.

It’s like all the air got sucked out of the room, your eyes hardly believing what they’re seeing, your heart skipping a beat. It’s a single letter, just your first initial like the ones he has for his mum and sister but this one is different…the font is different. It’s - oh.

It’s in your handwriting.

“Know it’s not much -” he starts to say before you blindly cover his mouth with your hand, refusing to take your eyes off the tattoo for one second. He huffs a laugh against your palm, pressing a kiss to it and keeping his mouth shut. His eyes are burning holes in the side of your face but you can’t look away from his arm. From your initial on his arm. A permanent tattoo of your initial on his arm.

There’s no redness, no raised skin, so he must have had it for a while, a thought that sends butterflies through your stomach.

“When did you get this?”

“‘Bout a month ago. Two hours after you called me, give or take.” he says, and you look over at him, the open affection on his face knocking the wind out of you, tears pricking your eyes.

“Is that -” you say, swallowing heavily against the wave of emotion flowing through you, “That’s my handwriting, yeah?”

He nods. “From a birthday card y’ wrote me ages ago. Always loved how you signed your name.”

You just look at him and back at his arm, biting down on your lip. It’s not to say that any of this felt temporary, you had no doubts you were both in this for the long haul, there is just something about the permanence of a tattoo for you on his skin that is making your head whirl in the best possible way.

“D’ you like it?” he asks quietly and you pull your eyes away to face him once again, his thumb coming up to brush away the tears that start to fall from your eyes. “Are y’ crying because it’s ugly and y’ hate it?”

You shake your head, biting at your lip as any words you try to come up with to describe this feeling inside you feel utterly inadequate.

“Know it’s small but I wanted to have something just for me, that only I could see most of th’ time. To remind me of you, to have with me wherever I go.”

“On your skin. Forever.”

“Yeah,” he says, huffing a laugh. “Forever. After that conversation we had … think I’ve always been a bit scared of permanence, feeling trapped in something, always thinking of what else is out there. There’s none of that, with you. No fear. Just feel so bloody excited, to get to be with you and know and love you in this new way.”

“Me too.” you say, heart racing at the smile that grows on his face. “I love the tattoo.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” you say, wrapping your arms around his neck, sliding one hand up into his hair, taking a deep breath, wanting to get this right. You have time to tell him how you feel now. There’s no looming party guests, nothing you’re hiding from, nothing you’re rushing to. It’s you and him, with all the time in the world.

“When I confessed my feelings the first time, felt like I rushed it a bit. Didn’t mean to say it out loud and just told you you’re my favorite person about eight times.”

“No complaints here,” he says, his shining eyes not once drifting away from yours.

“Yeah but I want to say more this time. You are my best friend and my favorite person.” you say, heart fluttering when he smiles so wide his dimple pops out. “And… I’ve spent most of my life loving you and thought I had a pretty good handle on what that felt like, what it meant to be utterly in love with you. But after these last few months… turns out I’ve been barely scratching the surface. I can’t believe the amount of love I feel for you - I’ve never felt like this with anyone before and to have it be with you…not sure there are words for it, really. I think you’re the best thing to ever happen to me.”

You see the way your words hit him, tears clouding his eyes as he tightens his mouth in an attempt to hold it all in, looking at you in awe, in love. Nothing but love.

You lean in at the same time, mouths connecting in a sweet kiss, arms holding each other tight, as close as you can possibly be. In disbelief that you’re here, marveling at how far you’ve come from that courtyard, reveling in the feeling of his mouth on yours, his hands sliding over your skin. Thinking back to those two kids dancing together in the school gym, the two 22 year old best friends fighting in the pub for reasons you couldn’t decipher, stares lingering at his mum’s birthday years later for reasons you refused to admit.

The one who tried to be your first kiss when you were thirteen but got too nervous, who held you when your granddad died, who called you from across an ocean when the pressure got too much, who cried in the courtyard when you told him you loved him the night before his wedding, who knocked on your hotel room door at four in the morning to say, “‘m leaving and I want you to come with me.”, the one who made love to you in his bedroom in Italy, the one who held you in your tiny kitchen and made your relationship official, the one who has a tattoo for you on his arm, permanent. Yours. Yours. Yours.

You pull away slowly, wide smiles and tear tracks covering both of your faces, cheeks flushed and eyes full of love. He nudges his nose against yours, pressing a kiss to your lips before pulling back.

“You and me, yeah?” he whispers, arms holding you so carefully, strongly, tightly.

“Yeah,” you say, leaning in to kiss him again and again and again. “You and me.”

----

a/n: holy fucking shit can we believe it?! man how deeeply i appreciate all of you who have waited this long for this part, i worked on it for months and truly cant believe its here, lots of days felt like it was never going to come together. endless gratitude for everyone who reads and loves them like i do and was nagging me to keep working on it. there is still more of their story to tell that i wasnt possibly going to add on too this 20k saga so ill see u at the epilogue <3. never spent more time on a piece of writing in my life, pleease let me know what you think. ily ily ily.

taglist: @tobesolovelysstuff, @louyoursins, @daydreamingofmatilda, @jojo-blog53, @marzhshaim, @devilsqueen722, @just-happiness-only,@lomlhstyles, @feestyles, @spock4presidnet, @sunshinemoonsposts, @indierockgirrl, @jerseygirlinca, @kissitnhekitchen,

#something old #something old part five #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles smut #best friends to lovers #lol can we BELIEVE WE ARE HERE

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callofdudes · 1 year

Note

Hey hey

Thank you so much on the last two request i loved them so much, now I wanna give you a challenge. A story, so here’s the scenario/idea

Can I please get A Platonic GN reader gets kidnapped on a mission and ghost would scour the earth to find his best friend to make sure their safe.

Again ghost is like a best friend to my mind I always think of scenarios

But I look forward to reading this when you get to it 😊😊

This one took me a bit longer than I expected. A lot of rewriting but In the end I'm kind of happy with it

I hope you enjoy it though!

Hold up | Platonic! Ghost x Reader.

Summary: Reader is kidnapped on a sweep job and Ghost is a little more than pissed off.

CW: Blood, slight gore? Violence (ofc), Ghost getting upset. Code name Cobra because my brain can't think of anything better rn. And best friendification.

Word Count: 4K+

"Cobra, status?"

"Breaching."

"Be careful."

You heeded Ghost's words and kicked in the front door of the decoy house. Your gun came up in front of your chest and the sight scanned the living area with your eyes.

"Clear."

You moved into the house and searched the rooms one by one. But by the end of the house you found nothing. You lowered your gun for a moment in defeat and sighed.

"Negative Lieutenant."

You moved back through the house and across the open dirt road into the bushes. "They must have heard we were coming."

"How?" Ghost asked.

"Not too sure. The network is probably well informed of our position if they're working with the shadows." You tucked your gun over your shoulder and turned the corner out onto the country road. It was dark and no one else was on the road at this hour. No one would notice you which was a good thing.

You pulled down your mask and breathed in the cool night air.

"Return to the truck. Soap has been notified, once you've returned we'll move from there." Ghost's deep voice trailed over you like a calming wave. A presence that comforted you in the darkness. The pale moonlight washed over you. Your heavy gear rubbed together with each step and clunked as you walked.

And then you heard it. The bushes rustling. You paused and your gun instinctively flew into your hands. You looked down into the dark ditch for any sign of life, but everything seemed to still once again.

Your gaze hardened on the darkness but you eventually convinced yourself it was just your mind. "Whatever." You pressed down on your comm device and alerted Ghost you were on your way.

Suddenly there was more rustling. You whipped around, expecting to see an animal but the familiar sound of boots on the rock trail hit your ears. You made for your gun when a hand grabbed your wrist. You looked up just as a figure knocked into you and sent you sprawling to the ground. You threw your fist at him and made solid contact with his visor. "Bugger!" He growled and suddenly more footsteps surrounded you. The moonlight illuminated the solid figures of three more men who converged on you. You kicked the first man with your boot and scrambled back across the ground. You pulled out your pistol and shot one of them clean through the chest. Two of them came around your rear and while the one on the left grabbed your gun and ripped it from your hand the other slammed his hand over your mouth. The third man grabbed your legs and together they managed to strangle you to the ground.

When the man to your right removed his hand from your mouth you started to yell. Maybe Soap would be able to hear you if you yelled loud enough.

The man on your left raised his hand to his comm. Device and radioed someone. "We've got the target. Permission to proceed?"

On the other line came a single reply from a voice you swore you knew. "Granted."

You looked up at the man and before you knew it he raised his fist and when he brought it down your lights were out.

⊙⁠﹏⁠⊙

Soap jumped from the truck and frantically ran for the small unnamed outpost the 141 had claimed base. He was panting when he reached the door and stumbled inside. Fresh light illuminated his red cheeks and flushed expression.

"Soap!" Gaz exclaimed.

Price was already rounding the table to steady the sergeant from falling over. "Son?"

"What's wrong Johnny?" Ghost stood from the couch and grabbed his pistol from his vest.

"Gone, they didn't return-"

"Calm down son, what happened?"

Gaz looked out the window for anyone who could have followed and worriedly looked back at Johnny who finally found his words. "Y/N, the shadows- I don't know who but they got them. They didn't return to the truck and when I went to check there was a shadow shot dead and their tracker and vest had been tossed in the ditch-"

Ghost rounded the couch in a second. His eyes held a new intensity.

Price moved away and Ghost cornered Johnny against the wall. "Where did they go?"

"I don't know!" Johnny looked down nervously and dug in his bag. He pulled out what was very much your vest and handed it over. Ghost examined the leather and his eyes narrowed on the smears of blood across the chest and sleeve.

Johnny watched his entire body tensed up. But it didn't look like fear. No. Ghost doesn't fear. Ghost was angry. His brows tightened and his irises darkened.

"You said it was a shadow who you saw?"

"Yes sir." Johnny replied.

Ghost growled. "Then I suggest we pay Graves a visit. We will move up our scheduled raid up to tomorrow."

"Ghost. While I understand the situation, we cannot rush into that-" Ghost twitched. He turned around and glared at Price. He was not having it. He walked Price back until he was against the table. Price stared back.

"We will move on it tomorrow. If Graves wants to play dirty. I will too."

He moved away from Price and back to the couch. He grabbed his bag and tucked your vest into the back pocket. "I'll be getting some sleep."

Johnny sighed in relief when he heard the bunker door shut. "Who knew you could push Lt.'s buttons like that eh?"

Price relaxed himself and pulled out a cigar from his bag. "They're close. I think those two have grown the closest since joining, I understand why he is upset. Who knows what happened to them."

"So we won't do anything?" Soap asked a little more desperately. "I never said that. Ghost is as worried as I am. He just shows it differently. And as much as I'd like to track them down there is no way I can risk overstepping and under-calculating this raid."

Johnny sighed heavily and shook out his muscles. "I guess I should get some sleep too." He moved away from the door and went into his shared room with Gaz. The other sergeant nodded silently and followed after Johnny.

Price sighed and looked back out the window at the parked truck outside. He closed the window and turned off the lights in the house. He placed his unlit cigar on the table. He could have it in the morning, now wasn't the time. "Goodnight." Price said loudly as he passed the two rooms along the hallway and retreated to his bed. He slipped under the blanket and sighed. The thought of you was heavy on his mind, but his eyelids won over and pulled him into an uncomfortable sleep.

Ghost however couldn't close his eyes. You had been fine over the comm. Line. If you needed help you could have alerted him.

You had no time to react except for shooting that soldier. They had jumped you. However many they were. They had put their grimy hands on you and probably hurt you. When he finally registered himself blinking he looked over at the clock to see it was four in the morning. His body was so used to the ungodly hour he didn't feel an ounce of withdrawal. He sat up in bed and opened his backpack and took out your vest. He ran his gloved thumb over the now dried blood streak and felt a deep seeded anger rose from the pit of his stomach. He felt impatient and unable to sit still. His knee started to bounce when he stared at your blood.

He'd seen you get a nose bleed before and scuff marks from training but this was different. He always got angry when you came back from missions and he saw your blood and the open wounds you would receive. You were his friend and he would do everything to keep you from harm if he could. But now you were hurt and out of his sights. He clutched your clothing and shoved it back into his bag. He pulled on his gear and strapped in his knives. He grabbed his pistol and moved out into the hallway. He didn't care to be quiet. He snatched the keys off the counter and unlocked the front door.

The cool early morning air stung the little specks of skin it could reach. He hopped into the truck and slammed the door shut. The engine roared to life and the headlights flickered on. Simon has a rudimentary knowledge on how to drive, will this stop him? No.

The car lurched forward before he could put it in reverse and back out onto the empty road. He spun the tires and drove back down the road. He examined each passing and going until he saw an object hurriedly and very sloppily thrown in the ditch. He stopped the truck and jumped out. When he turned on his flashlight he could see the Shadow presumably Johnny had attempted to hide.

Ghost approached him and kicked his cold hand still sticking out of the grass hedges. He examined the ditch but didn't find any more bodies. The rocks didn't give away signs of a struggle. That was until he moved further down the road and saw drag marks on the road. Too small to be tires. They were reminiscent of your boot heels digging and sliding. And blood. There was blood on a nearby pile of rocks.

Ghost growled. A predatory snarl. He pulled out his gun and whipped around. Angrily he unloaded his entire clip into the limp body in the ditch.

He would find you. Whatever Graves thought he was doing was only going to seal his fate. For whatever blood they drew from you, Ghost would draw ten gallons more from them.

He hopped back in the truck and grabbed the steering wheel. Why had he sent you out on your own??

Fuck.

He slammed his head down on the wheel and slumped his shoulders. He turned the truck back on and sat up with a deep breath. He needed a plan. Which means he needed to take it moment by moment. But each moment they sat around Graves only got closer to you. And he could not let that happen.

⊙⁠﹏⁠⊙

Everything hurt. Your brain hurt. Your face hurt. You instinctively scrunched your nose and were met with intense pain. You hissed and lolled your head. You slowly opened your eyes and it took your vision a moment to adjust to the light around you. You looked down at your knees. You blinked and just stared down at your tattered pants and the scuff marks where red, irritated skin could be seen where the fabric had ripped.

You flexed your hands and attempted to move, that was also met with a whiplash of pain. Your muscles burned and cried angrily, forcing your brain to full stop.

"Look who's awake."

Instinctively you lifted your head and focused your gaze on a figure across the room. Ah. The ever punchable Philip Graves.

"I'll take that as a compliment." He smirked and approached you. This gave you the invitation to check your surroundings. You were in an empty room. Gray walls, gray floor, and a single security camera on the upper left corner of the room.

You focused back on Graves and glared at him.

The man only laughed and bent down to look at you. "There's a look I know. He's been teaching you I see."

You raised your head and hissed when your shoulder popped and flexed.

"Looks like my men did a little more than knock you out. I apologize."

"See if you can apologize when I shove my foot up your ass!" You snapped.

Graves stood and moved back. He only laughed at you. "Cut the bullshit, Cobra. If they're still calling you that ridiculous name. Or would you prefer L/N?" You opened your mouth but he continued before you could say anything. "You're probably so confused and desperately thinking in your head, "why am I here? What would dear ol' Phillip Graves want from me?" He batted his eyelashes and looked back at you with glee. "Right?"

"I was actually quite liking not having you around." You replied.

He only huffed. "Well. Considering how close you are to Ghost, I decided that, "Huh. Ghost is the 141's best man. Probably the best thing the British invested in since herbal tea. And guess who spends most of their time with him~?" He chuckled and kneeled down in front of you.

"And Soap?"

"Oh he'd never cooperate."

"And I will?" You scoffed, offended.

Graves took your chin in his hand and nodded. "Yes you will. Because you're a good little military pet. Aren't you? Hanging around like Simon's submissive lapdog."

Your mouth fell open, then quickly tightened into a growl. "Fuck you! I am no such thing! Ghost will make you pay for this!"

"Sure you aren't." Graves stood and rounded you stuck in your chair. "Here's how it's going to work. I was trying so hard during my time with those imbeciles to crack that man. To get a sliver of info out of him. But I never could. Now that you have, I'll just use you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." You spat.

"Oh of course you don't. I hear that all the time Y/N. You are going to give me what I want."

"No."

Graves moved and you'd barely gotten the word out before his fist connected harshly with your jaw. You grunted at the pain and lolled your head to the side and hid.

"Apologies. Now. Where were we?"

⊙⁠﹏⁠⊙

When Ghost returned with the truck he could see the house lights on. They were awake. Good. The quicker they could move the quicker he could secure your safety.

He stepped out just as the door opened and Price stood there with his arms crossed. "And where did you find yourself off too?"

"Collecting evidence." Ghost replied. He pushed passed and looked around. Gaz was drinking some coffee and Soap was fiddling with his armor.

"Let's go. This isn't a fucking vacation!" Ghost barked.

"Soldier!" Price turned Ghost around and sat the larger man down into a nearby chair. "I know you are anxious but we must use our heads. So sit down and wait for us to catch up."

Ghost gulped. He looked over at Gaz who looked barely awake, his head still nodding downward every few seconds. Soap's hands were shaking meaning he was probably anxious with no sleep either.

Price didn't remove his hands until Ghost forced a deep breath to try and calm himself. But his mind raced. When his heart started to calm down his mind rushed with made up memories and thoughts. The blood. You were thrown to the ground. You had tried to fight. The cowards had jumped you. His fists tightened and his jaw clenched. He tried to take another breath and fought against Price's hands.

He jerked his shoulders and Price dug his fingers into his soldier's uniform. "Deep breath Simon."

What had they done to you!? They had you tied up somewhere probably. He prayed that Graves didn't hand you over to one of those shitty terrorist groups for ransom. He'd be lucky if you weren't dismembered by the time they found you.

Why the hell would they want you though? There wasn't much to you. A sergeant like any other.

His eyes opened and he was met with the blurry image of Price. He realized he was crying. He pushed and kicked against Price in a panic. They were after you because of him. Graves was using you for information. He breathed in and shoved Price to the side. He rushed to his room and clawed off his mask.

It was his fault. He should have been there. He should have sent Gaz with you to inspect the decoy house. He covered his face and bit the skin of his palm until he could taste the metallic sting of blood.

He knew you were strong. Incredibly strong. But Ghost had been kidnapped before. He'd been through torture. He'd been burned, beaten and broken. He couldn't let that happen to you. You were his friend, he was tasked with protecting you.

The ache in his chest was a new feeling. Every time he saw you hurt his stomach would twist. He would kill Graves and each man who attempted to put his hands on you. You were stubborn and strong.

There was a knock on the door and Soap's hesitant voice. "Ghost? Want to come look at the map. Price has a plan."

Ghost looked down at his bleeding palm and cursed under his breath. He pulled his gloves and mask back on before standing and opening the door. Johnny didn't say anything and hugged Ghost's back on the way to the table.

Ghost looked down at the map and then up at Price. "Apologies for earlier sir."

"You're alright Ghost. We're all a team here."

Ghost nodded and Price started to talk through their plan. They knew where Graves was hiding. His men were spotted unloading dozens of trucks near an old warehouse on the edge of town. It was secluded and fenced off in all directions.

"Alright. Everyone understand?" Price looked up.

"Ghost will lead our breach. Find Graves, find the weapons, find Y/N."

⊙⁠﹏⁠⊙

Your head lolled back. Your vision swam as the ceiling distantly split into two mirror images. Your throat was dry except for the occasional taste of copper on your tongue. You breathed in shock as more blood dripped down your uniform.

The soldier above you grabbed your shoulder and yanked you forward. You groaned, your head hitting his with your inability to freeze your muscles.

"Tell me where I can find Lieutenant Ghost Riley."

You choked on the blood in your mouth. You were surprised they hadn't broken your nose yet. "I won't tell you shit." You growled. The soldier punched you across the jaw and sent the chair you sat in to the ground with a thud. It pinned your right arm under the weight and made you cry in pain. "You aren't making this any easier for us. Trust me. This is fun, we could go all day."

You raised your head, about to respond when there was a piercingly loud noise from outside your cell. "What the-" The soldier in your cell opened the door. Outside you could see the walls flashing a bright red and the constant sound was a triggered alarm. You smirked.

Here he comes.

You could hear yelling down the halls as soldiers formed and blocked the doors. "The gates were broken into. Three hostiles spotted by the front gates, eight at the back!" One soldier shouted.

"Only three?" The door to your cell slammed shut and closed with a lock. You rested your head back against the cold tile and smiled. Thank goodness. You weren't going to be able to take much more. You focused on your breathing as the sounds of chaos and screaming were heard from outside. Bodies were shoved into walls and clips of bullets were unloaded on the enemies.

(⁠╯⁠ರ⁠ ⁠~⁠ ⁠ರ⁠)⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Ghost shoved two men into the wall and slashed their throats. He turned and threw said knife into another man's stomach before he could shoot. He grabbed another guy by the collar and lifted him off his feet with ease. "Where are they!?" He snarled. The man attempted to kick Simon away but his larger mass kept the small guy pinned. "Tell me what cell to search and will you live." The man whined. He shakily pointed down the hallway at a door near the end of the aisle. "F-four nineteen." Ghost huffed. He dropped the man and grabbed his pistol. He unloaded a bullet in the man's face and pulled out a bottle of tear gas. When he threw it there were screams and cries of pain as the canister released its contents.

⊙⁠﹏⁠⊙

It wasn't long before whatever happened outside picked up. Four men burst down your cell door and ran inside in a panic. They shut the door and started to fiddle with their gas masks. They cursed and spat until they finally had their gear on. One man motioned to the other two to open the door.

Bang.

The first man was flattened against the wall when the door was forced open with incredible strength. The behemoth of a man emptied his gun into the other two. He closed the door and shot the guy against the wall in the head as his body slumped.

"Graves is heading for the exit." A familiar voice crackled over his comm.link.

Ghost looked up and you could see the relief in his body. He rushed over to you and pulled off his gas mask.

"Miss me?" You smiled and Ghost could see the distinct hole where one of your bottom teeth was missing.

"You're a wreck." He cut the ropes from your body and pulled you into his arms. "Are you alright?"

"Eh, bruised guts here. Broken ribs there. I'm dandy." You replied.

When Ghost attempted to move you whined in pain and clung to him with what little strength you had left.

"Just relax. I've got you. I won't let anything happen to you."

Ghost took off his gas mask and gently placed it around your head. He secured it to your head with a foreign gentleness. Your eyes fluttered tiredly. He was the first source of warmth in what felt like forever. "I'm glad we got here when we did." You hummed. "Me too."

Ghost picked you up and positioned you carefully in his arms. "Cobra has been located. We're on your position." Ghost said into his comm.line.

"Copy that Ghost. Soap and Gaz are merging on your position. Graves in custody."

You sighed and relaxed into his neck. "Being friends with you is so convenient."

He scoffed. "Well at least you gave 'em hell. Only I can stand that spitfire personality."

"Mm, can you now?"

You sighed and closed your eyes. And you were off to sleep with your breaths steadily filtered through the mask. Ghost examined the blood staining your uniform and the blood the seeped into your hair. He was angry. And upset. He was relieved to have you almost to safety but they had already done their damage. It made him sick.

Ghost opened the door and stepped out over the limp bodies of shadow soldiers. What a shame.

Ghost stepped on one of the men's heads and made an extra effort to lean his weight on the man's skull as he passed. That's for hurting you.

When Ghost returned to the truck with Soap and Gaz, you were still soundly asleep. "Be careful. Don't want to wake them." Ghost sat in the back while Soap and Gaz drove. Price and a few other men called in for backup would bring Graves back to the main base.

Ghost saw you to the hospital and stayed there a couple of days while you were fixed up. When you opened your eyes for the first time in three days he was overwhelmed like never before.

"Awe, are you doing homework on my hospital bed?" You coughed weakly.

Ghost looked up from the reports he was signing and scoffed. "It's the only thing you're good for."

"Thanks dip shit."

"You're welcome numb nuts."

You gave him the finger. And he returned it.

You laughed softly. "How long have I been out?" You asked as your hand came up to feel the neck brace you were wearing.

"A couple days. Doctor said you should take it easy while you heal so Price and I are sending you on medical leave for five weeks."

"Weeks?" You wheezed.

"Affirmative."

"Awe. Who will kick your ass on the training ring for me?"

"You'll have to wait." Ghost hesitated but placed his hand on top of yours. ",Y/N. I'm… I apologize for what happened. I should have sent Gaz with the two of you so you wouldn't be alone. I shouldn't have told Johnny to watch the truck-"

"It's ok."

"Maybe if I had planned well then you-"

"Simon. You big goon. It's not your fault. You got me back right?"

He scoffed. His eyes lit up under the mask and his lips quivered in a smirk. "It's all your clumsy fault." He teased.

"Excuse me? I did not just hear the dollar store James Bond speak."

"I'll let that one slide Sergeant. Only because I think you've been hit enough times this week."

You smiled. "Where's Graves?"

"In our holding cell. I'm going to go talk to him in a few minutes."

"Give him hell, lieutenant."

"I plan to…"

⊙⁠﹏��⊙

Graves groaned. He looked up and squinted his eyes when he caught the gaze of a figure ensnared in the bright light. He smirked.

"well well, if it isn't Simon "Ghost" Riley."

Ghost snapped the baton in his hand and the end lengthened. He didn't say a word as he approached the man and lifted the weapon high.

This is looked over by me and there may be missed spelling mistakes or accidental use of gender. Feel free to comment if you spot either of these two errors :)

#simon ghost riley #call of duty headcanons #i guess?#sort of #call of duty #ghost x reader #platonic ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x you #im half happy with it

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aesopsharpmybeloved · 2 months

Text

Tess' Sharpuary - 20. Hogsmeade

It's the first day of school, and professor Sharp enjoys a few final hours of peace before starting the term off.

chapter specific tags: slice of life

relationships: aesop sharp & parry pippins, aesop sharp & matilda weasley

20. Hogsmeade (1k)

tw: nothing i think? drinking before noon? 😅

“Ah, professor Sharp! It has been a while, hasn’t it?” came Parry Pippin’s accented voice the moment the Hogwarts potions master entered the small shop. “Good day to you, Pippin,” the tall man replied, grimacing slightly as his leg gave a painful throb. He didn’t usually walk all the way here, and instead relied on correspondence and deliveries by owls. It wasn’t every day he felt up to the task of dragging his sorry leg all over to and through Hogsmeade, and when he did, it was more common for him to enjoy a drink or two in either The Three Broomsticks or Hog’s Head Inn, rather than peruse the shops from which he could simply order by mail.

Well, perhaps Honeydukes was an exception…

However, today was different. Yesterday’s events left Aesop Sharp incredibly confused and disturbed, and instead of using this morning to sleep in and relax before having to teach his first class of the term in the afternoon like he planned to, he set out to take a walk through Hogsmeade, clear his head, visit Pippin’s shop and such. Matilda, having heard his new plan, approached him just outside the Great Hall and pressed a couple of galleons into his hand.

“You know, I did ask for a raise, but I imagined the money would be transferred to my vault at Gringotts as always,” he said dryly. Matilda merely smiled: “Good to know you’re in the mood for jokes on the first day of school, I’m certain your students will appreciate it. Seeing as you’ll be going to Pippin’s anyway, perhaps you could deposit the money for our new Fifth year’s items. I managed to convince Phineas that the school should replace the items lost during the dragon attack.”

Aesop whistled. It took a special kind of person to be able to talk Phineas Nigellus Black into dropping a few coins. Correction, it took a special kind of person to be able to talk the bugger into dropping a few coins for a Muggleborn… Maybe he should ask Matilda to also convince the Headmaster to finally replace that one potion station in his classroom. It was still working well enough, but Aesop knew that the heating was getting a bit uneven, which could soon become a problem for whatever unfortunate student was stationed there. But he digressed.

“Besides, while you’re there, you can also see whether there is something else the girl might find useful in her studies,” Matilda Weasley finished cheerfully. Aesop gave a little wince: “Liquid luck then, because the poor girl’s going to need a lot of it to be able to handle all of this... And I don’t think you gave me enough money for that.” The Deputy Headmistress clicked her tongue. “She seems a very sensible, clever young woman, I’m certain she’ll be alright,” said the astute woman, and pretty much shooed him off.

Matilda Weasley was a Gryffindor through and through, but she did have a few Slytherin traits.

Still, as he stood in the small shop, he had to admit this wasn’t the worst idea. He wanted to discuss a few things with the owner apart from the new student anyway. First things first, however.

“A girl will come to pick out these items, here is the money for it,” he limped over to the counter and placed the galleons upon it, along with a roll of parchment containing the list of items needed. Pippin gave him a curious look: “Surely I could have that sent to her? Who is this girl, anyway, to get such special treatment? You usually don’t even come all the way here for your own goods.” Aesop leaned against the counter to take some weight off his leg: “She’s only now starting Hogwarts - in her fifth year if you can believe it. She already had the things needed, but they got destroyed en route. Don’t ask, you wouldn’t believe me anyway…” Pippin unrolled the parchment, studying its contents.

“Simple enough, and I’ve got all of these in my stock.” Pippin walked further into his shop, presumably to begin gathering the recipes as well as a few ingredients to have them on hand for the girl to pick up later, while Aesop peered down on the parchment: “Actually, maybe the recipe for Edurus would be useful too. I’ll try her out in class. The coins should be able to still cover that.”

While Pippin still busied himself with preparing the necessities, Aesop adjusted his position to be more comfortable: “Have we already discussed the potential healing and curse-binding powers of aconite?”

They spent the following half an hour discussing the properties of various ingredients and their usefulness in a possible cure for his leg. “Whatever you do, don’t forget to inform me. I too am curious as to what you figure out,” Pippin finished. Aesop gave a wry grin: “But not enough to also try to make something new, hm?” “I think my father would rise from his grave and come to kill me if I blew up the shop,” was the older man’s only answer.

And with that, Aesop bid his farewells and left the shop. The village was rather empty, which of course made sense - classes were in session, people were at work. The day was quite nice, the lingering warmth of the dying summer’s sun gently embraced his skin and the cool breeze blew through his hair.

He was happy nobody seemed to pay him any mind as he slowly dragged himself over to the Three Broomsticks – Sirona’s cooking wasn’t that of the house elves, but her company and conversation weren’t exactly a punishment. Besides, he might as well get himself a glass of Firewhisky, or a pint of ale to go with his meal and help him digest.

Happy with his little plan, Aesop smiled momentarily before entering the pub.

---

Thank you for reading! ❤

[AO3] - [Sharpuary 2024] - [Masterlist]

#aesop sharp #professor sharp #hogwarts legacy #my art #fanfiction #drawing #hogwarts legacy fanart #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #sharpuary #sharpuary 2024 #digital art #artists on tumblr #illustration

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muzaktomyears · 7 months

Text

Inspired by the remarkable Astrid, John and Paul had returned from Germany with two new items in their baggage – cameras, which they had bought there. Their original intention may have been to try and capture in Liverpool some of the vividly contrasting studies in light and shade in which the artistic Astrid had specialized, but it didn’t exactly work out like that. At the Cavern they set themselves up as glamour cameramen – with distinctly sexual overtones.

John started the ball rolling, or rather the shutter clicking. He would single out a fan at one of our lunchtime sessions, chat her up and proposition her about posing for some pictures. Afterwards he would regale us with the intimate details. “Got her with her briefs on!” he would chuckle. “Couldn’t get her bra off – but cooooo!”

After this Paul decided to jump on the bandwagon. After the Cavern appearances out would come the cameras from their leather jackets and then the search for talent would begin. The pair of them were not yet advanced enough in photography to develop or print themselves so the films would go to a chemist – who frequently blacked out the more meaty poses and sent back only the decent ones. Those that escaped censorship usually showed girls straddling chairs, girls showing a leg or two, girls with a leg in the air, girls minus some of their clothing. One girl named Pat became so hooked that she went into business as a model, taking it all really seriously, which John and Paul certainly didn’t.

Although George and I didn’t take up the hobby we had the same sexual appetites and enjoyed the results of their endeavours which we all crowded round to see. John, who didn’t mind describing himself as ‘a great wanker from way back’ was highly delighted with some of his efforts. “I’ve had a great session,” he would tell us, “I pulled a couple of birds – but not a word to Cyn!”

Cynthia would often arrive at Mathew Street for our evening appearances – and so perhaps would a girl who had been posing for John in the afternoon. When the girl beamed a knowing smile his way he would switch off, as if he had never seen her before in his life or, if near enough, give a quick innocuous ‘Hello’, for fear of Cynthia stumbling on to his secret.

To us he would enthuse about the poses, with descriptive phrases such as: “When we started off she just sat on the stool. Then I got her to show a bit more leg, then a bit more. And then she took her sweater off. Fantastic afternoon – I’m buggered!”

“But you’ve only been taking photographs!” George or I would comment, mock-innocently.

A chemist who handed back only a few prints would be quickly upbraided with: “Where’s the rest of the reel?”

“Sir,” he would be told, “we do not print this kind of pornography.”

“What about the negatives?” John wanted to know.

“We’ve confiscated them.”

“Bloody prude,” was how John dismissed him.

He was convinced that these offending chemists were perverts at heart who spent most of their time ‘out back wanking themselves off’ over his labours in the cause of art.

“And what do I get out of it?” John would lament. “Just a bunch of these rotten stills!”

George and I would rib him: “But it’s the other ones we want to see – not these.”

“So do I,” he would grunt. “Sod off!”

We also used to send up some of the girls who posed for these budding David Baileys.

“Had your photographs taken then, have you?” we would wink.

“How’d you know?”

“Been looking at a couple of snaps. Still wearing black drawers?”

It was all in good humour and the girls knew damn well that the ‘art studies’ of them weren’t going to be kept under lock and key somewhere. These glamour sessions were usually held in accommodation provided by the girls. I doubt Paul’s dad would have stood for it at his home, or John’s Aunt Mimi at hers.

Beatle! The Pete Best Story, Pete Best and Patrick Doncaster (1985)

#such entrepreneurs!#john lennon #paul mccartney #pete best

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holybatgirlz · 2 months

Text

but only far from home | Accidents, 1836 (Part I)

read here on ao3

Words: 6.3

Note: it should be noted this is a part of my benophie babies one-shot collection fic I have on Ao3. This took forever to complete, and I kept going back and forth about putting this idea with this fic collection or putting it as a new work.

----

“Charles, it’s going to be alright.”

“Miles, if you say that one more time I will strike you,” Charles grounded out at his cousin while the carriage they sat in jostled and jerked about on the uneven country road.

But Miles took no offense. He only sighed. “I’m just trying to help.”

The knot of guilt in Charles’ stomach only tightened.

“I know,” he replied, wincing at how his tone was harsher than he wanted. He tried to take a deep breath, to calm his nerves. Relax.

How could he relax? When the worst that could happen was about to befall him and his family. Could already have while he was traveling.

Gritting his teeth. “I just–”

I have to get home. Before it’s too late.

The words stuttered in his throat, clawing at his vocal cords in an effort to silence him. His breathing hitched, choking him. His throat was swelling up. His heart started racing as he began to panic over all that had been left unsaid. Every little mistake he’d made before leaving for Cambridge. It was all too much.

“Just breathe, alright?” Miles told him gently. “We’ll be there soon.”

Charles took another deep breath. They would. Thank God.

My Cottage. They were on route back to Wiltshire, as quickly as they could. Charles returned from morning classes to find Mr. Crabtree, the closest person he had to a grandfather, standing outside his lodgings. The older man had a concerned and serious look, which was not normal for the usually jovial groundskeeper, that had put Charles immediately on edge. Something was wrong. Something had happened.

There was an accident. Your father. They don’t know how bad it is–

He’d come to take him home, it was faster than sending another letter, like the ones sent to London and Scotland. To his Uncle Anthony, who could get Alexander and William from school, and to his grandmother who was visiting his aunt up north. But it would still take them a day or two before they arrived, his grandmother longer. Being at Cambridge, Charles had been the closest to home and Miles, who was in his second to last year at the university, had come with him when he’d found him panicking outside the dorms, Mr. Crabtree desperately trying to keep him from driving the carriage home himself.

His knee bounced up and down as the carriage continued its path into Wiltshire. A nervous habit he’d picked up from his father that he did whenever he was stressed. The ‘what ifs’ had taken over, controlling every thought he had. What if they were too late? What if he never got to apologize? What if he hadn’t been so stupid before he left? What if he’d just apologized? He couldn’t focus on anything except the guilt chewing on his insides.

You’re an arrogant ass who thinks he knows what's best for me. I hate you.

What the hell was wrong with him? The last conversation they’d had was an argument. The last thing he’d said to his father was to bugger off out of his life. That he was a grown man now and he didn’t need his father coming to his rescue. Didn’t need his father making decisions for him.

That he wished he would just die.

And over a girl. He had a vitriol fight with his father over a stupid girl the old man hadn’t approved of. A girl who Charles now knew didn’t even love him. Had never loved him. Had only been using him for her own selfish purposes. Something his father had warned him about, had been trying to warn him about when their fight had started.

Why had he been so stupid?

Passing by a field of apple trees, Charles recognized where they were. Realizing that they were close to home only increased his desperation to get there quicker.

He practically flew out of the carriage when it pulled up in front of the door. Miles hadn’t even had the chance to move from his seat. Mr. Crabtree was still climbing down from the driver’s box as Charles barreled into the foyer of his family home, running over the pebbled path and to the front door as fast as he could.

And straight into chaos.

He found the home filled with family members, the Cranes and Woodsons had already arrived due to proximity. His Uncle Hugh and Uncle Philip were down the hall in front of him, whispering to another man Charles recognized as the local physician, Dr. Wilkes. What they were saying, he couldn’t hear over the chatter going on around him. Too many voices were speaking at once.

Mrs. Crabtree was who he spotted next. He caught her moving around upstairs with one of the maids, carrying white sheet Charles saw had red stains on them as she ordered the servants about.

He quickly swallowed the bile he felt coming up his throat. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.

Glancing around the doorways of the rooms, he finally spotted someone from his immediate family.

Violet, his baby sister, was sitting quietly on the settee in the front parlor, clutching her old, stuffed, rabbit teddy on her lap and sniffling, eyes rimmed red and dried up streaks of tears on her cheeks. Their older cousin Amanda had an arm wrapped around her, rubbing her shoulder and whispering to her, while his fourteen-year-old cousin Sophia clutched her small wrist, trying to assist in comforting his sister even though he could see she was shaking. Georgiana and little Penelope were sitting on the opposite settee, watching in quiet discomfort what was transpiring in front of them, his usually chatty cousins suddenly at a loss for words. And Georgette and John were sitting on the floor, keeping the toddlers Fredrick and Minty distracted. His younger cousins seemed unaware of the chaos going on around them as they quietly played.

“Charles?” he looked over and saw his Aunt Eloise come towards him.

“Auntie El,” he replied, quickly being embraced by his aunt in a hug.

His aunt gave him a tight desperate squeeze. “How are you?”

“I-I’m alright,” Charles answered hastily. “I-Where’s father? What happened?”

“There was an accident,” Eloise explained, shakily, beginning to tell him more than what Mr. Crabtree had although she seemed to look conflicted. “Your father was tending to one of the oak trees out back when one of the branches collapsed. He must have hit his head on the way down. The physician says his leg was crushed. Violet was with him and–”

“Violet saw it? I…What the hell was he even doing up there?” Charles asked in disbelief.

His question only set something off in Violet, who immediately burst into tears behind him, leaning forward and covering her face with her hands as she began wailing again. Amanda gently shushed her, pulling her closer and rubbing her hand up and down Violet’s arm, whispering to her that she was alright. That everything was alright. And Sophia began rubbing her back, whispering similar words as she tried to help Amanda calm his sister down.

Eloise put her hand on his arm, gently leading him out of the room.

“One of the kittens got up there,” she whispered. “Lettie said it had gotten stuck and your father went up to rescue it.”

Charles closed his eyes and took a deep breath, understanding immediately what had happened. Why it had happened.

Their barn cat, that lived out in the stables and had been nicknamed Beezelbub or Bee by Charles and his brothers (due to the cat's petulance for violence) had gotten pregnant by a local stray and given birth to five little kittens before he’d left for Cambridge. Kittens his sister had immediately fallen in love with and had decided to assist Bee in raising, much to the cat’s begrudging acceptance. Charles knew his sister would have been distressed if something had happened to one of them.

But his father shouldn’t have gone up to handle it, and not without help. If he was right about the tree his aunt was speaking about, the old twisted oak that barely got any leaves during the spring, his father should have never even dared go near it.

“That tree was old. Uncle Philip said the damn thing was rotted inside,” Charles told her, his nails digging into his palms. “He was supposed to have it cut down-”

“I know. I know,” Eloise gently cut him off. “But there is nothing we can do about it now.”

“Where’s mother?” he asked, realizing he had yet to spot her in the crowd of relatives. He had to find her. Had to find out if she was alright.

“She’s upstairs with your father,” his aunt answered.

With that knowledge, Charles immediately moved towards the stairs but Eloise grabbed the sleeve of his jacket, stopping him.

“Before you go up there, Charles. I want you to know, your father told me what happened between you two. Before you left.”

He swallowed, tensing, preparing for the judgment. He knew his father and aunt had always had a close relationship, and he expected her to side with her brother, to scold him for arguing with him, disobeying him, for saying what he said.

“It’s not your fault. None of this is,” his aunt said instead, giving his arm a squeeze. “We all say stupid things when we’re upset. No matter how this ends – and I pray this does not end horribly – don’t let yourself be haunted by it, alright?”

Charles dug his nails deeper into his palms, with enough force he was certain he’d break skin, but it was the only thing stopping him from breakdown right then and there. The words got lost in his throat again. All he could do was nod shakily to his Aunt Eloise, before fleeing upstairs to find his mother.

But he slowed down the closer he got to his parents room. The door was opened, light shining out into the hallway as Charles crept closer and closer towards it. He needed to check on his mother, but part of him did not want to go into that room. His father was in there as well and Charles couldn’t deny the fear that came over him, of seeing his father, in whatever state he was in.

His mother was the first one he saw, as he stopped in the doorway. Her back was turned to him, and she was sitting next to the bed in a chair leaning forward, her hand clutching one of her father’s and a handkerchief held tightly in the other. She was rubbing her thumb over his knuckles.

And his father was a sight. Paler than he remembered his mother being after she had Violet, when he snuck into his parents’ room one night to check on her while everyone slept. She’d looked like she was disappearing, fading away from sight. Her skin had taken a gray hue, beads of sweat rolling down as she’d fought off a fever that had almost taken her, while her honey golden curls were dull and flat. Her breaths coming out in short, pained puffs as if her lungs refused to take air. It had terrified Charles as a child, seeing his mother like that. Watching her groan in pain, with death itself hovering over her form.

But his father somehow looked worse.

The blankets weren’t covering one of his legs. He saw the exposed leg was wrapped tightly in bandages and pieces of cloth; wooden sticks placed around to keep the limb straight so it could heal properly. More bandages covered his head, a thick folded square of cloth against the area he assumed was where his father struck his head.

He looked halfway into a grave. Unmoving and eyes closed, he might as well have been laying in a coffin. Looking like his mother had all those years ago. The image of her had haunted him at times when he’d been growing and now he could only add this sight to it.

Charles suddenly felt like he was seven again. A terrified little boy who wanted his mother.

“Mama?” he asked quietly as he gripped the wood doorframe, trying to keep himself standing.

He didn’t think she’d hear him, his voice had barely been over a whisper, but his mother whipped around almost immediately, spotting him standing in the doorway. She blinked in surprise.

“Charles, hi,” she said softly, voice tired and horse. She got up quickly, moving slowly towards him.

He stepped towards her, seeking to give comfort but to also receive it, wrapping his arms around her as she did the same to him, smelling the lavender and vanilla soap his mother always used. The smell of home and comfort, of safety, as his mother clutched him tightly.

She was almost a foot shorter than him now, Charles had shot up like a beanstalk right before he finished at Westminster, as tall as his father now, and now he could rest his chin on her head, keeping her tucked against him protectively.

“Are you alright, darling?” she asked as she pulled away, giving him a once over.

“I’m fine,” he quickly assured her. “How’s father?”

His mother turned to look at their father, still laying on the bed, unconscious. “The doctor says we won’t know how bad it is until he wakes,” she told him with a disheartened sigh.

“How are you?” he asked next, noticing the blonde strands that had come loose from her pinned bun and the redness around her eyes.

“Oh, I’m alright,” she lied, forcing a smile as she patted his arm. “No need to worry about me.”

She stepped away from him, drifting slowly back to his father’s side and took her seat again, taking his father’s limp hand in hers once more, clutching it tightly. But his father remained undisturbed. His chest continued rising and falling. The only sign Charles had that the man was still alive.

“Alexander and William should be here soon,” he told her, not knowing what else to say. His mother hummed in understanding back to him, but her eyes never left his father. “Amanda and Sophia are keeping an eye on Lettie right now.”

She sighed. “Oh, Lettie,” she practically whispered as she moved to stand again. “I need to go speak with your sister. I need to check on her.”

Charles blocked her quickly, gently grasping her arms as he moved her back into the chair. “I’ll take care of that. Do you need anything? Food? Water? I can have Mrs. Crabtree prepare some tea? Do you want me to grab your shawl? You're knitting?”

His mother moved a hand to grasp his arms, giving it a squeeze. “You’re far too good to me,” she teased lovingly.

“Because you deserve only the best,” he told her.

She gave him another sad smile. Her eyes were shining with tears.

Then she sighed. “Charles, darling, we need to–”

Charles stepped away from her, before he could even tell himself not to. She looked like she wanted to have that conversation with him. The conversation he’d never thought he’d have, but he knew his mother well enough that even in her state she needed to talk about what would come next now. Needed to prepare him – prepare herself – for what might come.

For what she thought was coming.

But Charles didn’t want to have that conversation. He couldn’t.

“I’ll be right back,” he told her quickly.

“Charles, wait. We need to–” she started.

“Won’t be a minute,” he lied, before fleeing the room. His heart beating a panicked rhythm into his sternum.

He’d walked out of this house months ago, days after his blow up with his father, thinking he was a man. Believing himself ready for the world and all it had to offer, that he didn’t need to rely on his parents anymore. Didn’t need their guidance and aid. That he could take care of himself. But his father was right. He was still too green. Too arrogant. Cambridge had already told him that but now–

You think you can run a house? Take care of a family and manage income? You’re a boy. You’re not a man. Never had any hardship thrown at you the way your mother and I have. We both made sure you never would!

Benedict, please. Stop. Both of you, just stop!

What the fuck would you even know anyway!? You weren’t the heir father, just the second born with nothing to prove and nothing to do. Dropping out of the Royal Academy must have been so easy when you’ve got no expectations hanging over your head! No need to make a name for yourself when your family already did it for you.

Charles!

You think my life wasn’t impacted when my father died? You think things didn’t change for me because I wasn’t first in line like your uncle? That I didn’t have to grow up and cast aside my own dreams and desires for the sake of my family? You have no idea what that was like for me. No idea!

Gripping the banister, Charles took a deep breath, trying to shake the memory.

You’re an arrogant ass who thinks he knows what’s best for me. I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate–

“Charles? Is everything alright?” his Aunt Posy called up, snapping him out of his spiral. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at him from where he was at the banister. Her hazel eyes wide with sympathy and concern.

No. No, he was not alright.

But he couldn’t break. Not now. Not ever.

It took him a moment to respond, swallowing down his fears before he could shakily answer back. “I’m fine, Aunt Posy. I…I’ll be down in a moment.”

—

It still took him a few minutes to compose himself before Charles forced himself back downstairs, taking each step one at a time. And the moment he was at the bottom, he was ushered into the kitchen by Mrs. Crabtree, forced to sit at the table and eat some of the stew she’d prepared. The old housekeeper fussed over him, talking about how he needed to keep his strength up and not be running around on an empty stomach. Wouldn’t do anyone any good if he got himself ill.

But Charles’ stomach was nothing but a tight knot of guilt. His appetite nonexistent as he sat at the table, pushing a spoon around the bowl. He’d been able to swallow a few spoonful’s before the nausea became too much for him to continue eating.

“Where’s Lettie?” he asked, as he rose from the table.

“She went outside to get some air,” his Aunt Posy told him gently as she helped Mrs. Crabtree with cleaning the dishes.

Without another word, Charles stepped out of the room and headed out towards the back door. It was open and he could see Violet a short distance away, sitting on one of the two swings their father had tied to the large oak trees close to the house. A matching set to the aged pair at the family home in London, of which one of the ropes had finally snapped and his uncle had yet to replace, leaving just the one hanging there now (much to his father’s and aunt’s annoyance).

Violet sat quietly, with the tips of her shoes pressing into the grass as she pushed herself sadly back and forth, head hanging forward as clutched the ropes and she stared quietly at the ground in front of her.

“Hey, cabbage,” he said gently as he stepped closer to the swing. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m alright,” Violet whispered, not looking up at him.

The rotted tree was ahead of them, right at the edge of the property, where it had always been, leading away from the small lake behind their house and to the wooded area that fenced the property. The tree had practically splintered apart from the collapse, as if it had been struck by lightning. The trunk brutally ripped open and exposed. The large branch his father must have been on when it collapsed was still ominously laying where it had landed on the ground. Mocking him.

And all he wanted to go was over and kick the damn thing until it was nothing but splinters, but he knew his sister was more important.

Even though he didn’t know what to say to her.

He slowly sat on the available swing. “Alexander and William should hopefully be here in the morning,” he said, absently. “I doubt Uncle Anthony and Aunt Kate will make any stops. They’ll probably try to come here straight away.”

Violet only hummed back her response, continuing her slow swings back and forth.

“Are you alright, Lettie?” he asked, hesitantly. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to but–”

“Why did you tell Papa you hated him?” Violet snapped at him suddenly.

Charles froze in surprise. “What?”

The arrow between his sister’s brows deepened as she glowered at him. She was furious at him, but her eyes were red rimmed and beginning to build with water once more.

“You said you hated him,” she repeated, voice cracking as she spoke. “Before you left. You said you hated him and wanted him dead. Why would you say that to him?”

You’re a fucking bastard of a father. I wish you would just die.

Charles was taken aback by his sister’s sudden anger, the furious accusatory tone she shot towards him. He’d thought it had only been him and his parents in the house that day. Violet had been an hour away at Romney Hall with William, since his parents had wanted to approach the subject with him privately.

But Alexander had been home that day, outside sketching where he’d stayed as the argument escalated. And given the row Charles had had with his father had turned into a shouting match, his brother had most likely heard all of it. Meaning his siblings had found in the aftermath, either directly from Alexander or from something as simple as overhearing their parents.

“I-I-” Charles stuttered, unsure what to say.

She was on him suddenly. Having left from the swing at his hesitation, Violet jumped up and gave him a harsh shove. She might have been half his size and only twelve, barely moving him, just enough for him to swing a few centimeters, but the force of the shove told him she was furious.

“Why would you say that?” she shouted in frustration, pushing at him again. Then again.

“Violet–” he started, reaching to stop her.

This time she whacked him, smacking her open palm against his shoulder. Charles was taken aback by her action, as was Violet, who had never gotten violent towards him before. She seemed surprised momentarily by what she’d done but had also realized it made her feel better.

So, she whacked him on the shoulder again.

“Why?” she was crying now. “Why would you be so cruel?”

He grabbed her wrists, and she grew even angrier, fighting against his grip as she yelled at him. But Charles held on, knowing he had to help his sister regardless of how painful her words were. Like little daggers into his already bleeding heart, but she was in just as much pain as he was, and he wouldn’t allow that to stop him from comforting her.

“Come here,” he told her, dragging her closer.

“No!” Violet shouted back, still struggling.

But Charles had no difficulty pulling her closer, wrapping his arms around her small frame and holding her close. Violet struggled against him, wriggling aggressively in his grasp, but slowly, very slowly, she began to relax and stop fighting him.

Keeping her tightly held in his grip, hugging her, Charles let her cry into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Lettie.”

“Why would you?” she cried, voice muffled and weak. “I don’t want him to die. I don’t want Papa to die.”

“I know, shh,” he told her, rubbing her back. “I’m sorry, Lettie. I'm sorry.”

She wasn’t fighting him anymore. Instead, clutching his jacket as she stood between his legs, leaning against while he held her tightly. Every cry, every weak, shaky breath, only sent a ripple of agony through him, that he only continued to suppress.

This was a nightmare. A nightmare he was praying he could just wake from.

—

There had been the briefest moment of hope that evening, after they’d all gone to sleep, that the nightmare would end. Without tragedy.

He’d woken, Charles’ father, for the briefest of moments. His uncle Phillip had been tending to him while the others slept, remaining by his vigil, when his father had suddenly jolted back to consciousness, confused and delirious, mumbling and moaning as he tried to move from the bed. He had no idea where he was or what had happened and while Phillip had tried to assist him, trying to get him to calm down so he could get Charles’ mother, his father had slipped back into unconsciousness in a matter of seconds.

There was nothing by the next morning. His father was still laying silently in the bed, eyes closed, body unmoving. They’d tried to rouse him but with no success.

And Dr. Wilkes had made it clear if he did not wake soon, to eat and drink, there would not be much any of them could do.

A dark cloud lingered over My Cottage, the mood somber and cold. No one knew what to say or do. No one spoke. And a literal dark cloud passed over outside too, as it had rained most of the day. Charles had spent most of the morning looking out over the fields behind their home as the rain pelted the windows. He confined himself to the library or his room, trying to stay away from his mother. Trying to avoid having that conversation.

And Lettie no longer seemed to be blaming him. She had yet to apologize for it though. Instead, she’d remained by his side, as if stuck to his hip. Her arms wrapped around him like she’d been glued to him, but Charles didn't mind. They kept each other company, even if they barely said anything.

His uncle Anthony and aunt Kate arrived with his younger cousins and brothers after lunch. And upon his arrival, his uncle immediately entered his mother’s study, with Philip, without saying a word of greeting to the rest of them. A severe expression on his face as he disappeared into the office. Both began pouring over the ledgers, rental agreements, and accounts, checking over the copy of the will kept in the house.

Preparing for the worst.

That evening, Anthony had taken him into the office. His mother was still upstairs, Eloise and Posy had been taking turns checking on her. With Kate now here helping as well, the three rotated from being by his mother’s side to watching the children and back again to his mother. But Hugh was taking his cousins back home, planning to return the next morning, and Amanda had taken her siblings back to Romney Hall, with Phillip planning to follow later that night.

“I know your mother has been keeping you up to date on all these matters,” Anthony told him as they sat in the office. Alexander was present as well, sitting in a chair next to Charles as their uncle stood before them in front of the desk, tense and terrified as he continued. “Frankly, she’s done a better job with handling all of these accounts than I ever had with my own.”

Charles couldn't help the slight smile that formed over the pride he felt towards his mother, but it dropped away quickly with what his uncle said next.

“There is nothing I can say that will make this easier, but if — and I say if — the worst befalls us in the next few days, I do not believe your mother will be in a position to handle these accounts for some time,” Anthony told him directly, swallowing down his own anxieties and fears as he spoke. “Your father and mother both stipulate in the will that if anything was to happen to them, I would handle My Cottage’s finances for the next few years. Something I’ve discussed with them before. And if something happens to your father I will handle these matters for the time being, with your mother, until you finish at Cambridge.”

Charles nodded.

Then, his uncle sighed. “Alexander, do you mind stepping out? I need to speak with your brother about something. Privately.”

Alexander nodded, looking rather unsure of it though, but saying nothing as he rose from his chair and left the room. Their uncle waited for him to close the door, taking a few additional seconds before he spoke.

“I’ve heard you and your father fought recently?” he finally remarked, a stern edge in his tone. His dark eyes bearing down on him.

Charles sighed. “Yes. We did.”

His uncle hummed. “About a woman?”

“Grace Beauchamp. She’s Baron Beauchamp’s daughter. She and I…” Charles took a deep breath. “We had a short courtship before I left. I…I planned to ask her to marry me, but my parents talked me out of it.”

“Alexander informed me your father did not approve of her,” Anthony commented, and Charles nodded. “He also said some curt words were exchanged between you two before you left.”

A muscle in his jaw tightened as Charles clenched his teeth together.

You don’t know a damn thing about the world, you immature, little git.

And you’re a fucking bastard of a father. I wish you would just die.

“Yes,” he replied, through gritted teeth.

“And this Miss Beauchamp? I take it she has since moved on? Quite quickly from what I’ve heard,” Anthony returned.

Married to a lord’s son. From what Lettie had told him in the letter she’d sent a month after he’d left for Cambridge. It was when Charles finally realized he’d been played. That she’d been stringing him along as a backup if her courtship with Gordon Hammershine didn’t work out. Not just as a backup, but to make Hammershine jealous too.

After he’d asked her to wait it out while he'd figure something out. While he got his parents to accept the match. He hadn’t even been gone long before the engagement was announced. The banns had been read and Grace was long gone now. Off on her honeymoon in Bath apparently before she and her new husband moved to London.

He should have known it would fail. If he’d asked her to marry him the last time he saw her, she would have said no.

And the signs had been there. The entire time.

Lettie had been the first to make her concerns known, telling him she thought Grace was cruel and insincere, that she did not like her. Her reasoning for her dislike being that she'd once seen Grace whack one of Farmer Joseph’s dogs after it had excitedly run into her path, but Charles dismissed it as his sister over exaggerating what she’d seen and heard.

While unsure at first about Charles’ relationship with Grace, Alexander hadn’t kept his feelings to himself after a local picnic they’d attended at the start of the summer, before Grace had left for the social season in London. He wouldn’t tell Charles what had been said, but he’d been upset about remarks Grace had apparently made about their mother to some of her friends. If he hadn’t been so lovestruck, Charles probably would have ended it there and then, but his brother could be a mummy’s boy at times. Fiercely protective of their mother, especially after both he and Charles had been made aware of the truth regarding their maternal grandparents, their true identities. Alexander disliked anyone who did not treat their mother with the respect he believed she deserved, and he could make assumptions too quickly about others because of it.

But when Charles looked back on it, Grace had made remarks about his mother to him as well. Pointed ones. Ones that had always irked him a way, made him feel like he was constantly defending his mother, no matter how many times Grace said she was only joking or that he’d taken her words out of turn.

She was once a maid? Well, she must have been incredibly lucky your father noticed her then.

Charles, I know your mother and father are happy. Your mother’s looks and charm play quite a role in that, I’m sure.

She’s quite the parvenu. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I meant it as a compliment. It’s quite impressive her jump up in society. Don’t you think?

Even William hadn’t liked her. And if the fourteen-year-old, laid back, devil-may-care William Bridgerton did not like someone, that was a sign something was wrong.

And Charles was certain Alexander had been the reason his father had gone against the match in the end. But his father had not liked the Beauchamps to begin with.

With four out of five of his relatives being against the match, his mother had done quite a good job at staying neutral for the majority of his courtship with Grace, trying to be supportive and telling him she would stand by him regardless of the decision he made. But after the fight with his father, she’d finally made her true opinion. The night before he left.

I know you love her, darling, but I do not believe she loves you the way you do her. Nor do I think you are your true self when you’re with her. A relationship built with love also needs honesty and trust, and while change always occurs with time, you should be changing for the better. Not because you have to appease someone.

She’d been the ones to sow the seeds of doubt in him. And Lettie’s letter had been the final nail in the coffin. Not that Grace had done anything to convince him to stay. She never wrote to him and had told him not to write to her lest they be caught. Said she’d wait for him as long as she could (which had been a week from what Lettie’s letter implied).

Charles had been heartbroken, but also ashamed. He felt like a fool and the realization that he had been wrong, that his father had been right, was tough to swallow.

“Yes. She did,” Charles admitted, tensely.

His uncle said nothing, only watched him with his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the desk. While his face remained neutral and impassive, Charles knew his uncle was disappointed.

In him.

“There is no benefit in kicking a man when he’s already down,” his uncle told him. “I will assume you have since realized your errors.”

Charles nodded; jaw clenched tightly.

“I have,” he replied, keeping his eyes trained down.

Anthony looked as though he wanted to say something else, but no words came out. There was a sadness in his eyes now as he put his hand on Charles’ shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze before telling them he had to go help Phillip with another matter, leaving Charles alone in the room.

It wasn’t for long though. Alexander slipped into the room after his uncle departed, taking a seat next to him.

“What do we do?” he hesitantly asked after a few moments. Charles looked towards him. “What are we supposed to do if father dies?”

“He’s not going to die,” Charles told him.

“It’s been two days now, Charlie,” Alexander retorted, his face serious but his eyes revealing his panic. “You just started at Cambridge. I still have two years left at Westminster and William’s got six more. Mother and Lettie shouldn’t be out here on their own if-”

“He’s not. Going. To die,” Charles repeated, harsher this time.

Alexander watched him, quietly, but Charles couldn’t look him in the eye right now, not without seeing their father’s eyes staring back at him.

“You don’t know that,” his brother whispered.

Charles stared up at the wedding portrait hanging behind the desk. The one his father’s friends had done for his parents after they married. Unknown to most, his mother had been pregnant with him at the time, his parents having convinced him quite quickly after their marriage, but the painter had hidden the growing bump. She sat with her hands on her lap in the portrait, wearing a pale sage green gown with daisies pinned in her hair, as their father stood directly behind her, his left hand rested on her shoulder, proudly showing off the wedding band on his ring finger. Both were smiling. Almost twenty years younger than they were now. Happy and content with no idea where their life would go after the painting was done.

No idea it might end this week.

God, she was so happy. His mother. After everything she’d endured in her life, she was finally happy. His father too.

And now she might become a widow.

And his father might lose his life.

And the rest of them, fatherless.

Why the fuck had he said all those things to his father?

He sighed, leaning back in his chair forlornly as he continued staring at the portrait. Defeated by this point.

“No,” he admitted softly with despair. “No, I don’t.”

#benophie #benophie babies #my fics.#bridgerton #taking the little benophie babies and hitting em with the angst fly swatter #benophie babies fic #Charles bridgerton #my fic.

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misswifi · 15 days

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Okay soo I wanna try and make a story with polls!

Soo you guys choose the choice which you like the most and were gonna go on till we get an ending!!!(and maybe I'll post it on ao3...)

Soo lets start!

☆▪︎☆▪︎☆▪︎☆▪︎☆▪︎☆▪︎☆

Your at a fair with a bunch of friends and played one of the games to win a grand prize!

But you end up being soo bad that the poor person in charge of the game felt sorry and gave you a small unicorn teddy.🥲

You return home in you cramped little apartment totally forgetting about the lil teddy and get went to sleep. Only to wake up the next day with the teddy laying next to you... and it's speaking!?!?!

His name is Stormy. He said he is from another world and was forced fully change into this teddy that was sent to earth. Your the only way he can get back to his world.

#polls #my polls #tumblr polls #random polls #poll #story based #story based poll #short story #lol #idk what life is any more #misswifi lols #misswifi.polls #story #misswifi stories #??? i think

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homomenhommes · 16 days

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THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … April 8

1898 – C.M. Bowra, (Sir Cecil Maurice Bowra), English scholar, born (d.1971); was an English classical scholar and academic, known for his wit. He was Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, from 1938 to 1970, and served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1951 to 1954. His many books include A Book of Russian Verse, The Creative Experiment, Classical Greek and The Oxford Book of Greek Verse. Given his appearances in A.L. Rowse's Homosexuals in History, the title of Bowra's most famous book, The Greek Experience, takes on new meaning.

Born in China of English parents, Bowra travelled extensively during his childhod and teen years, and won a scholarship to Oxford. Bowra trained with the OTC in Oxford, before being called up and sent to the Royal Army Cadet School in March 1917.

Bowra served in the Royal Field Artillery, on active service in France from September 1917. In 1917, he saw action at Passchendaele and Cambrai, and in 1918 participated in resistance to the Ludendorff Offensive and the following allied counter-offensive. During this time he continued to read widely, including Greek and Latin authors.

Bowra was left with a lifelong hatred of war and military strategists, to an extent that he seldom mentioned the war afterwards. Bowra later told Cyril Connolly, "Whatever you hear about the war, remember it was far worse: inconceivably bloody - nobody who wasn't there can imagine what it was like."

Anthony Powell wrote that Bowra's wartime experiences "played a profound part in his thoughts and inner life", and records that when a cruise ship on which they were travelling held a ceremony to place a wreath in the sea as it passed the Dardanelles, Bowra was so affected that he retired to his cabin. Following the Second World War he would be accommodating to returning servicemen who wished to study at Oxford, telling one applicant who was worried about his deficiency in Latin, "No matter, War Service counts as Latin."

As an undergraduate in 1920s Oxford, Bowra was fashionably homosexual, and was known to cruise for sex. He used the term 'the Homintern' (see below) applying it to himself and his circle of friends, and privately referred to his leading position in that, or 'The Immoral Front' or 'the 69th International'.

In 1922, he was elected a Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, with the support of the Professor of Greek, Gilbert Murray. When Murray vacated his chair in 1936, believed that he was most likely to succeed his patron. Murray however, recommended another. Some believed that the reason was a whispering campaign over Bowra's "real or imagined homosexuality".

In 1938 the Wardenship of Wadham fell vacant and Bowra was elected to the post, keeping it until 1970. In his long career as an Oxford don, Bowra had contact with a considerable portion of the English literary world, either as students or as colleagues. The character of Mr Samgrass in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited is said to be modelled on Bowra.

Bowra retired in 1970, but continued to live in rooms in the college, which were granted to him in exchange for a house he owned. He died of a sudden heart attack the following year,

The wit of C.M. Bowra:

"My dear, buggers can't be choosers." (explaining his engagement to Audrey Beecham, a "plain girl" niece of the conductor)

"Buggery was invented to fill that awkward hour between evensong and cocktails."

"I expect to pass through this world but once and therefore if there is anybody I want to kick in the crotch I had better kick them in the crotch now, for I do not expect to pass this way again."

"With one or two exceptions, colleges expect their players of games to be reasonably literate."

"Splendid couple - slept with both of them", (on hearing of the marriage of a well-known literary pair).

"My dear, in Oxford I am known by my face", (allegedly after being caught skinny-dipping in the River Cherwell and placing his hands over his face rather than his privates)

c.1928* – Fred Ebb was a musical theatre lyricist (d.2004) who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander.

Born in Manhattan to a Jewish family, Ebb worked during the early 1950s bronzing baby shoes and as a trucker's assistant, and he also was employed in a department store credit office and at a hosiery company while trying his hand at several musicals, mostly unsuccessfully.

Music publisher Tommy Valando introduced Ebb to Kander in 1962. After a few songs such as My Coloring Book, Kander and Ebb wrote a stage musical, Golden Gate, that was never produced. However, Harold Prince hired them for their first professional production, the musical Flora the Red Menace. Although it won star Liza Minnelli a Tony Award, the show closed quickly.

Their second collaboration, Cabaret, was considerably more successful, running for nearly three years. Based on the John Van Druten play I Am a Camera (which, in turn, was based on the writing of Christopher Isherwood), the musical won eight of the 11 Tony Awards for which it was nominated, including Best Musical and Best Score. Adapted into a film by Bob Fosse, it won numerous Academy Awards, though not Best Picture.

Chicago (1975) had mixed reviews but ran for more than two years. The show did not seriously resurface until 1996, when it was revived as part of the Encores! series. A huge hit, the minimalist production transferred to Broadway and is still running. Chicago has also been running in the West End for ten years. A film version was eventually produced (in 2002) and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

In 1977, Kander and Ebb worked again with Liza Minnelli and Martin Scorsese in the film New York, New York, which had them write what is perhaps their best-known song, the title track. The team's musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman opened in 1993, starring Chita Rivera. The show ran for more than two years and won them their third and last Tony Award for best score.

Ebb died of a heart attack at his home in New York City on September 11, 2004.

Despite the 'polymorphous perverse' nature of their shows, both Kander and Ebb were reticent about discussing their homosexuality, preferring to let the songs speak for themselves but in 2003, Kander (who has lived for 26 years with one man, a choreographer and teacher) implicitly addressed rumours concerning the nature of his non-professional relations with Ebb by describing the latter to interviewer Jeffrey Tallmer as 'his 40-year partner in creativity but never in domesticity, much less romance.'

*Fred Ebb's actual birth year is a source of mystery and confusion but is somewhere between 1928 and 1936.

1943 – Michael Bennett (d.1987) was an American musical theater director, writer, choreographer, and dancer. He won seven Tony Awards for his choreography and direction of Broadway shows and was nominated for an additional eleven.

Bennett choreographed Promises, Promises, Follies and Company. In 1976, he won the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical and the Tony Award for Best Choreography for the Pulitzer Prize-winning phenomenon A Chorus Line. Bennett, under the aegis of producer Joseph Papp, created A Chorus Line based on a precedent-setting workshop process which he pioneered. He also directed and co-choreographed Dreamgirls with Michael Peters.James Kirkwood, co-author of A Chorus Line, lashed out at the show's creator, director, and choreographer: "Michael would do anything--anything--to get a show on. The cruelty was extensive. And not just in his professional life. He was amoral."

The charismatic Bennett was a lover of men and women; his two primary heterosexual relationships were stormy, first with wife Donna McKechnie (wed December 1976, divorced four months later) then with Sabine Cassel, whom he promised to wed but did not.

His relationships with men were less publicized, but they included long relationships with dancers Larry Fuller, Scott Pearson, Richard Christopher, and Gene Pruitt, his last lover.

Born Michael Bennett DiFiglia in Buffalo, New York, young Mickey was a child prodigy of dance. He dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to join a touring company of Jerome Robbins' West Side Story. Robbins was to become one of his principal influences.

Bennett made his Broadway debut as a dancer in Subways Are for Sleeping (1961), but he soon realized that he had a greater talent for choreography than for dancing. Bennett's first solo assignment as a choreographer was on A Joyful Noise (1966).

Working with Harold Prince on Stephen Sondheim's Company (1970) and Follies (1971) led him to decide that he wanted to be a director as well as a choreographer.

Bennett's dream was realized when he was called in to save Seesaw (1973). He agreed to take over the show on the condition that he would have creative control of the production. He ultimately received credit (and Tony nominations) as librettist, director and co-choreographer.

The process of taking over this ailing show on the road, just six months before it was scheduled to open, convinced Bennett that the standard way of developing musicals—rehearsals, out-of-town tryouts, previews, and opening—was no longer efficient. He came up with a better plan.

Bennett decided to do a show about the lives of dancers, but rather than commission a script he let the story-line evolve from the experiences of real dancers. After conducting hours of interviews with Broadway gypsies, Bennett began an unprecedented year of workshops at Joseph Papp's Public Theatre.

The result was A Chorus Line (1975). A risk all the way around, the show opened without stars and ran two hours and 10 minutes without an intermission. Bennett received credit as director, co-producer, co-author, and co-choreographer.

While Applause (1970) is considered the first Broadway musical to introduce an openly gay character, Bennett is responsible for the second and third appearances of homosexual characters. Seesaw features David, a gay choreographer, and A Chorus Line introduced audiences to Paul and Greg, gay dancers. Many have criticized the bisexual Bennett for the fact that neither character is finally chosen for the chorus line, thus maintaining the myth that all working actors are heterosexual.

Inadvertently, Bennett was to provide the New York Shakespeare Festival with the bulk of its income for many years. As one of the producers of A Chorus Line, the Public Theatre earned approximately $37,800,000 from Bennett's landmark production.

In January 1985 Bennett abandoned the almost completed musical Scandal, which he had been evolving through an extended series of workshops. Many observers felt this to be Bennett's strongest work, with few understanding the toll that alcohol, drugs, and a weakened immune system had taken on this genius of the theater.

When Michael Bennett died on July 2, 1987 at the age of 44 of AIDS-related lymphoma, he left a sizable portion of his estate to funding research to fight the AIDS epidemic.

1945 – Dennis Peron, born in the Bronx, New York, is a gay American medical cannabis and LGBT activist and businessman who was the figurehead for the legality of cannabis throughout the 1990s influencing many in California and thus changing the political debate of marijuana in the United States.

He grew up on Long Island, served in the Air Force in Vietnam and moved to The Castro, San Francisco, where he sold cannabis, cofounded the Cannabis Buyers Club, and coauthored California Proposition 215. His marijuana business was busted by authorities in 1978 and 1990. In 1996, Dan Lungren, state attorney general, ordered another bust of Peron's club. Proposition 215 was passed soon thereafter, which allowed the club to reopen. Later in 1996 The Grassroots Party of Minnesota fielded Dennis Peron, as their first Presidential nominee, in the U.S. presidential election. Peron received 5,400 votes. In 1998, Peron ran in the Republican primary for California governor against his rival Lungren (who won the primary and lost the election to Gray Davis).

Peron has voiced support for decriminalization of all marijuana use as he believes the herb is medicinal just as food is and thus should be available to those who want to benefit from it. However it should be noted he did not believe medical use for marijuana was acceptable for kids. Peron opposed California Proposition 19 (2010) because he does not believe that recreational use of marijuana exists and that all people who use marijuana are using it medicinally.

1952 – Clyde Hall is an internationally recognized and acknowledged authority of Native American culture, dance ritual and folkways. Clyde was born and raised in Fort Hall, Idaho and is a Native American of Shoshone/Metis descent.

Clyde was born and raised traditionally by his grandmother, Hazel Truchot, in a one-room log cabin in Fort Hall, Idaho, and has lived on the Reservation most of his life.

During the 1970s and 1980s he was an early-day Native American activist and member of Gay American Indians (GAI) in San Francisco, California–the first Native American group of its kind. He was one of the founders of the contemporary "Two Spirit Movement" of Native American LGBT people. In 1987 he was honored as the first speaker on the Ellipse during the Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. OUT Magazine named Hall one of the OUT 100 in 1999 and, in the year 2000, as one of he 1,000 most influential gay individuals in the U.S. in the 20th century.

In the past, as a career, he served as a park ranger/naturalist in Grand Teton National Park and as a high school teacher and public defender. He served as a Tribal Magistrate Judge (for 19 years) and worked extensively with developing substance abuse programming for the tribe and rewriting the Law and Order Code for the tribe. He specialized in probates during his tenure. He was in private practice as an attorney until 2007.

Hall toured Europe, South America and the U.S. with his dance troupe in the 1970's-1990's as well as speaking engagements and lectures at major universities in the U.S. on Native American traditions and culture. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Naraya Cultural Preservation Council, (NCPC), a non-profit that is devoted to the preservation of Great Basin/Plateau Tribal cultures, language and sacred sites.

His work has appeared in numerous books including Gay Soul, Living the Spirit, Two Spirit People, and international publications including the German GEO, Der Grüne Zweig and in the U.S. in White Crane Journal among others. He has served as a consultant for many authors and filmmakers including Tom Spanbauer, Will Roscoe, Win Blevins and Kirby Jonas and is a technical advisor on Native American culture for numerous movies and TV programs.

Mr. Hall is one of the ceremonial leaders of the Naraya: A Dance For All People. It's danced for renewal of the People and the Earth, perpetuating the vision of the Dance that people of all races and religions come together to dance under the Tree of Life. He considers the Dance for All People his greatest "life work".

1990 – Died: Ryan White (b.December 6, 1971), an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana, who became a national poster child for HIV/AIDS in the United States, after being expelled from middle school because of his infection.

Born a hemophiliac, he became infected with HIV from a contaminated blood treatment and, when diagnosed in December 1984, was given six months to live. Doctors said he posed no risk to other students, but AIDS was poorly understood at the time, and when White tried to return to school, many parents and teachers in Kokomo rallied against his attendance.

A lengthy legal battle with the school system ensued, and media coverage of the case made White into a national celebrity and spokesman for AIDS research and public education. He appeared frequently in the media with celebrities such as Elton John, Michael Jackson and Phil Donahue. Surprising his doctors, White lived five years longer than predicted and died in April 1990, one month prior to his high school graduation.

Before White, AIDS was a disease widely associated with the male gay community, because it was first diagnosed among gay men. That perception shifted as White and other prominent HIV-infected people, such as Magic Johnson, the Ray brothers and Kimberly Bergalis, appeared in the media to advocate for more AIDS research and public education to address the epidemic. The U.S. Congress passed a major piece of AIDS legislation, the Ryan White Care Act, shortly after White's death. The Act has been reauthorized twice; Ryan White Programs are the largest provider of services for people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States.

TODAY'S GAY WISDOM:

The Homintern and the Gay Agenda

Homintern was an early term for a supposed conspiracy of gay elites who allegedly controlled the art world. The word is a play on Comintern. What was termed the "homintern" in the mid-twentieth century is now more often described as a "Gay Mafia".

"All the 'artists' with a capital A, the parlor pinks, and the soprano-voiced men are banded together ... I am afraid they are a sabotage front for Uncle Joe Stalin." —Harry S. Truman 1946 "Homosexuality, dope ... immorality in general: these are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and left-wingers are pushing it." —Richard M. Nixon Watergate tapes 1971

"Homintern" was used in the 1940s and 1950s and appeared in number of popular mass-circulation magazine articles during the 1960s to refer to what was believed by many to be an international cabal of influential gays who, it was asserted, controlled the arts and culture. These magazine articles were often illustrated with the color lavender; sometimes the Homintern was called the lavender conspiracy. It was claimed that there was a secret worldwide network of gay art gallery owners, ballet directors, movie producers, record label executives, and photographers who, behind the scenes, determined who would become successful artists, dancers, actors, and models.

In the 1960s, the majority of gay people had not publicly discussed their sexuality, so homophiles had to use what we today call gaydar to determine who was gay. Since this was sometimes difficult, anyone could potentially be part of "the conspiracy," and even many gay people believed in its existence. It was widely thought among young people that the members of the Homintern all had casting couches, and that it was necessary to sexually submit to the Homintern on these casting couches in order to have a successful career in the arts. It was taken for granted that the Homintern had absolute control of the Hollywood film industry.

It was believed that the Homintern had secret meetings at which they decided on women's fashion design for the coming year.

The term "Homintern" was used in articles even in liberal magazines such as Ramparts. It was frequently used in the conservative magazine National Review. William F. Buckley, Jr. sometimes warned of the machinations of the Homintern on his talk show Firing Line.

It was believed by conservatives that the Homintern deliberately manipulated the culture to encourage homosexuality by promoting camp programs like the popular 1960s TV series Batman.

The tiny minority of influential people who publicly discussed their homosexuality in 1960s - such as Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, John Rechy, and Andy Warhol – were automatically regarded as part of the Homintern.

After the emergence of gay liberation in 1969, belief in the Homintern faded because after the Stonewall riots, many gay people came out of the closet so it was more difficult to postulate this conspiracy theory.

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i-did-not-mean-to · 9 months

Text

Bed & Bugger!

Ah, my dearest @lordoftherazzles has sent in another prompt.

After getting this lovely story, it's my special pleasure to return the favour.

Ladies and gentlemen (and everyone in-between and beyond), Bagginshield!

AU Prompt: There was only one bed

Dialogue Prompt: Oh, I love how dramatic this is!

Words: 1551

Characters: Thorin x Bilbo

Warnings: A storm, 1 bed, a dinner

At exactly the time indicated on his reservation form, Bilbo Baggins entered a cosy bed and breakfast in a picturesque little village at the edge of a vast forest confidently.

He prided himself on his punctuality and the overall efficiency of his travel plans, grinning from ear to ear.

It was true that the thunderstorm, raging across the region, had given him pause for a minute, but the sturdy local means of transport were clearly used to the changeful weather, and thus there had been only minimal delay.

"Ah, Mister Baggins," the innkeeper mumbled, a sheepish expression on his broad, friendly face, "welcome! We are ever so sorry to inform you that there has been an... emergency."

Raising his eyebrows inquisitively, Bilbo waited for the explanation that was surely to follow.

"Well, see," the man went on slowly, "a foreign gentleman has been stranded in our establishment, due to the inclement weather."

Throwing a quick glance at the darkness outside the windows, slashed every so often by a thunderbolt, Bilbo nodded slowly.

"He was in a pitiful state, you have to understand," his poor host said imploringly, "and so we have given him your room to warm up. We were convinced that you'd also arrive later than expected. Let me reiterate, I am so sorry for the inconvenience."

At this point, Bilbo couldn't help grimacing in dismay—he had been looking forward to a hot bath to wash away the dust of the road.

"You've booked a double room," the innkeeper went on cajolingly. "I am sure that this, at least, will be a comfort."

"Is someone going to retrieve this stranger soon?" Bilbo asked pointedly, fiddling with the strap of his travel bag nervously.

"I've called the local handyman," came the placid answer, "and I've been assured that he'll come as soon as the tempest has abated sufficiently."

"So, no timeline?" Bilbo grunted and extended his hand for the key.

"I am afraid we only have the one key—with us being a small family business, really—and, as I've intimated, your roommate for the foreseeable time is already inside."

Again, Bilbo made a face—he could not bear the indignity of having to knock to gain entry into a room he had paid for.

"We'll send you complimentary dinner," the apologetic man called after him as he turned towards the old, creaking stairs in a huff. "To make up for the discomfort, you see. It was the charitable thing to do, surely you agree?"

Nodding grimly, Bilbo gave another shockingly impolite snort and dragged his bag to the first floor.

In his overactive mind—nourished by outrageous romantic novels—he conjured up the image of a proper ogre, ready to make his first night in this wonderful inn a nightmare to be remembered.

As his fist met the beautifully lacquered wood of the door though, the face that appeared almost instantly was of a breath-taking beauty.

"Hello, you must be the actual patron," the stranger said in a charmingly grumbly voice. "I did not mean to impose upon you or the innkeeper, but my vehicle got stuck in a sudden flood of mud and water and broke an axle."

Lifting a hand to stay the torrent of apologies of which he was already growing tired, Bilbo pushed into the room.

"I am not a monster," he said. "If someone requires help, I am the last person to object." His voice sounded a tad strained at this point because he had been travelling through the same storm and had been looking forward to a quiet first evening.

“My name is Thorin,” the handsome stranger said, and Bilbo noticed how blue his eyes really were. “And I sincerely hope that the storm will let up soon, so I’m out of your hair.”

Upon closer inspection of the strong jaw and the patrician nose of his surprise roommate, the weary holidaymaker realised that he would not have objected overmuch to having that particular stranger literally in his hair—if possible, with all of those ten strong fingers now kneading a freshly pressed towel.

“I’ll let you have the bathroom first,” Thorin offered. “Seeing as it is your room. I’ll just relax on the bed a little.”

With a small grumble of discomfort and a disapproving twitch of his nose, Bilbo heaved his bag onto said bed and froze. There was one bed—it was big enough to take up over half of the room, but the sturdy oaken frame left no doubt as to the fact that it was, indeed, one massive piece of furniture.

“Double room,” he muttered mirthlessly under his breath. No doubt, the innkeeper had meant well by giving him the room usually occupied by couples on their honeymoon, but—as the tides had changed—the tantalisingly indecent thought of having to share his bed with a stranger was impossible to ignore.

“Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” Thorin said, healthy curiosity and a tinge of amusement colouring his deep, rich voice.

“Never mind,” Bilbo snapped, grabbed his toiletries, a change of clothes, and his book out of his bag, and finally snatched the towel from Thorin’s hands. “I trust you will be able to keep yourself occupied. Maybe, you can go down and tell the good man at the desk that he can send up that complimentary dinner in about an hour.”

“Will do.”

Shutting the door with a clangourous bang and slamming the bolt home for good measure, Bilbo discarded his clothes without much ceremony while hot water slowly filled the wonderfully old-fashioned bathtub.

He still felt a little awkward about the mysterious castaway just outside the door, but—as his tired body sank into the blessedly fragrant water—he was also relieved beyond words.

As time went on, all the tension and suppressed dismay gnawing at his nerves eased up, and Bilbo even managed to read a few pages of the novel he had brought for that purpose.

By the time he had dried himself off and dragged a comb through his damp curls, his hazel eyes were gleaming with good cheer and ravenous hunger, and he was almost looking forward to having company for this first meal, heralding his glorious holidays.

After all, travelling—interesting and enriching as it could be—tended to be a lonely affair at night. At home, Bilbo had many kinsmen and friends who’d drop in for a short chat or a tankard of ale, but in these remote lands, he knew nobody who’d want to spend some time making idle chitchat with him.

When he re-entered the main chamber though, he found the other man spread out across the sole bed, snoring lightly.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Bilbo muttered and sat down gingerly on the edge of the soft mattress.

A discreet knock at the door had him dashing over and accepting the two trays in a hushed voice—he knew not why exactly, but for some reason, he did not want anyone else to see or learn how worn out Thorin really was.

“Thank you,” he whispered softly. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow.”

As a loud crash of thunder and creaking trees resounded, Bilbo was surer than ever that nobody in their right mind would set out tonight to get Thorin—especially not if he was safe and warm. He had a roof over his head and a bed under him, so there really was no need to put anyone else in danger.

“Thorin?” Bilbo called softly, settling a warm hand on the broad, muscular shoulder of the sleeping man. “Thorin? The food has arrived, come on, wake up.”

It took him an astonishingly long time to shake Thorin awake but, after some moaning and nonsensical babbling, they were finally both seated at the small table by the window.

The lights flickered as if they were made to react to atmosphere and—due to Thorin’s inability to dispel his sleepiness in a timely manner—their food was but lukewarm, but Bilbo couldn’t deny that the whole situation was rather cosy and charming.

Outside, the world seemed to be ending, but from where he sat, safe and warm, it all struck him as rather fascinating. Truly, he didn’t want for anything, and thus he gave a satisfied sigh while sliding deeper into his chair.

“Oh, I love how dramatic this is!” Bilbo said good-humouredly as Thorin’s sharp nose and noble profile were illuminated by the ferocious celestial light show.

“I wonder…” Thorin muttered softly, throwing another worried glance out of the window as if he was scanning the horizon for the arrival of the company that would retrieve him.

“They will not come tonight,” Bilbo commented casually as he carried the empty trays back to the door to leave them outside for the cleaning staff to take away. “The day is over, and we are obviously both very tired. Let’s go to bed.”

When he turned around, he met Thorin’s blank stare.

“But…” the bearded man said sheepishly and waved his arms at the monstrosity that still bore the faint impression of his body.

“We’ll make do,” Bilbo said resolutely and raised his chin challengingly. “I quite enjoy your voice by the way—as you’ve already taken a nap, you might want to read to me a little bit?”

@fellowshipofthefics: Here's another one for this month!!!

Thank you, @lordoftherazzles for being such a perfectly lovely friend to me!

#og post #FOTFICS AU-gust #fotfics august challenge #Bagginshield #Thorin x Bilbo #there was only one bed #Oh #I love how dramatic this is #IDNMT writes #fanfiction #writing #tolkien writing #jrrt

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shadowmonkstone · 2 months

Text

Fuck. Fuck fuckety fuck fuck fuck.

It’s all kicked off. Or, it’s about to. If this is my last one, tell Prim that Jayce is a massive bellend, she’s better off without him and she was right. I should never have taken that gig.

So why am I saying all that? Well, because the four of us are about to go an take on an entire bloody goblin camp.

It all started when we found our way to this Drow commander, Minthara. I swear she’s got the same lust for lopping off heads as Lae’zel but with this extra cruel streak that sends a fucking chill down my spine. While she was talking about glory to the Absolute and finding a weapon our minds connected, tadpole to tadpole. This Drow has one of the Absolute’s three top brass whispering directly in her ear so no matter how things pan out from here, we’re fucked.

But you know how I said the artefact Shadowheart had was protecting us? Mate, this time I could feel it was afraid. In a way that says ‘keep me the bloody fuck away from the Absolute’s hands’.

The Drow asked me to join her, to obey. I played the game and said I’d think about it before buggering off. The four of us needed to find somewhere to work out our next move.

Problem was, after we’d walked over a death pit full of spiders (because of course there’s a death pit full of fucking spiders) we stumbled straight into a big fuck-off hobgoblin trying to cast a speak to the dead spell on a Mindflayer corpse.

And he fucking pulled it off!

Which then threw another spanner in our plans because the stupid fucking squid recognised my stupid fucking face!

Thankfully, the hobgoblin had used up all his brainpower on casting the spell so I was able to convince him I was a True Soul and the dead squid was a lying toerag.

After that he was a bit more friendly and sent us to speak to Minthara. We took that as a good opportunity to fuck off somewhere else to work out what we had to do next.

“Where was that somewhere else?” I hear you ask. Well, it was the prison, where the goblin bastards were keeping a bear. A bear we freed and a bear that just happened to be the fucking Druid chief!

I swear this all happened and I’m not making it up.

Anyway Halsin, Druid chief who is built like a fucking oak trunk by the way, when he wasn’t talking about how wonderful it is to hug trees told us that he doesn’t know a cure. What he did know is that we have to go to a place called Moonrise Towers to find the answers, because people go in and tadpoled worshippers come out. He thinks there’s magic at work here and those towers have the answer.

Lae’zel was so fucking smug about all this. She took great delight in telling us (and Halsin) that her crèche would cure us all and Githyanki were the best blah blah blah… honestly, Kay looked like she was about to tear Lae’zel in two and I probably wouldn’t have stopped her.

Anyway, Halsin can help us but only if we help him. And we help him by killing the priestess, the Drow and the Hobgoblin. Which means the four of us taking on the whole Goblin camp together.

Lae’zel and Kay are well fucking up for this.

Wyll has his reservations.

And me? Fuck it, I’m in.

Let’s go!

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 act 1 #bg3 rp #bg3 tav #d&d 5e #lae'zel #bg3 oc rp #minthara #shadowheart #dror ragzlin #halsin #karlach #wyll ravengard

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justforbooks · 3 months

Text

Michael Caine wears two watches: an analogue for the time and an Apple for everything else. It even knows his pulse, he says, impressed. Right now, it’s telling him his flat is 26C: warm enough for his wife, Shakira, to pour iced coffee into his flask, but not hot enough for those balcony doors to be open: “It’s blowing a bloody gale in here!”

I slide them shut slightly. Is that OK? A bit more. Enough? Bit more. I close them completely. He’s happy now.

Caine lives in Chelsea Harbour: posh 80s condos and Princess Diana’s gym. He likes the security and tolerates the helicopters. His London penthouse has caramel carpets, 360-degree views, two Oscars and 5,000 photos of his grandchildren.

Below us lies Battersea Bridge, tide low, shore glittering. No, he shudders, he’s never mudlarked. Why not? After all, his first novel, out in November, is about binmen who find uranium down at the dump. “Well,” he says darkly, “other people do things and it goes all right. I do them and bad things happen.”

He looks at me. We’re waiting for his co-star, John Standing, who is stuck in traffic. Caine is a big man with whom to make small talk. It’s not just that your brain short-circuits each time he speaks (Michael Caine?!?!), it’s that at 90, he’s still 6ft 2in, undiminished and simply intimidating.

In 1987, he gave an acting masterclass in which he revealed the secret to being forceful on screen was a) don’t blink and b) mascara. It works face-to-face, too. The first one, anyway.

During the Blitz, says Caine, he watched the city get flattened from his dormer in Camberwell; from here, he’s seen it rise up again. He loves new-build and soft furnishings with the passion of a man raised in an attic with no hot water, one outdoor loo and rickets. Every time a bomb fell, the mattresses doiiinged. “Me and my brother would laugh all through the bleedin’ air raids!”

An update: Standing will be here shortly. I praise the pot-plants and Caine mourns his garden. He was evacuated to Berkshire, where he was fed a tin of pilchards a day and locked in a cupboard for the weekends, and then to rural Norfolk, where he discovered a love of horticulture – later energetically indulged at his own places in Oxfordshire and Surrey.

Less so in Hollywood. He sold up there after someone told him that if he wanted to grow daffodils he’d need to put the bulbs in the fridge for a fortnight. “That was it! Final straw!” But did he do it? “Oh yeah. It worked.”

In comes Standing, 89 but nimble as a debutante, all polish and apologies. They settle down, discuss the weather and a window is discreetly opened. Caine goggles at my iPad, which he mistakes for a phone: “Blimey, that’s a big one!”

The Great Escaper is brilliant, I say. Caine is surprised I’ve seen it, let alone enjoyed it. Didn’t he? “Yeah. But I’ve had films where I liked it but other people didn’t agree with me.”

No wonder it tempted them from retirement: meaty roles dry up as you approach 100. Caine plays Bernard Jordan, a real-life Royal Navy veteran who made headlines in 2014 when he travelled alone from his care home in Hove, East Sussex, to Normandy for the 70th D-day anniversary. The film – flintier than you might think, and very moving – fictionalises a friendship with Arthur, a former RAF pilot (Standing) he meets on the ferry.

Both actors did national service in Berlin after the war; Caine was then drafted to Korea – “a bugger”, he says (his memoir suggests this is understatement). “When we got there they said: the Chinese have just sent a million troops. What? But they were just young kids and old men to take all our ammunition. You shoot at them and then the real fighters come. And that was the Chinese in a nutshell.”

In the film, the pair make a pilgrimage to the war cemetery at Bayeux in Normandy. “What a waste,” cries Bernard as the camera zooms out to show the rows and rows of headstones. Caine doesn’t agree. “You had to have full cemeteries because you’d had to fight the German army, which was not a load of idiots. And the Germans had to be stopped.”

And Korea? Well, communism is “perfectly frightful”, says Standing. Caine nods. “It doesn’t take care of the working class quite the way they say. My father was a fishmonger in Billingsgate, so I knew when I saw the communists, they had no idea what it was all about. Do any working-class people want to live in North Korea?”

They both think national service should be reintroduced. “It gives you a whole new realisation of life,” says Caine. “I notice how different young people are today. They’re so free with everything. Military training makes you think about helping other people. My grandsons – all they do is play football.” (Still, he adds later, they’re also “incredible, unbelievable, and they worry about other people – which is handy”.)

Standing chips in: one of his daughters is “a bit woke” and cautions him about getting cancelled. “It’s horrible! We’re not allowed to say anything. I loathe it. My God, you’re not allowed to have mother-in-law jokes! It’s sort of barking.”

Then again, “things were far less complicated” 70 years ago. He smiles benignly. “Your telephone alone is the most complex thing anybody’s ever dreamed of. You’ve got all the information you ever want. You can chat to Henry VIII. Have you seen the man made of wood and iron playing the most immaculate game of ping-pong and thrashing the ordinary Briton at the other end?”

I haven’t. Caine confesses some concern over robots – that’s partly what his novel, a thriller, is about. “But I’m 90. I don’t worry about the future. I worry if I’m gonna make it to lunch.”

Caine and Standing first met on another hot day, in the summer of 1976, shooting another war movie, The Eagle Has Landed. Caine played a Nazi eager to assassinate Churchill; Standing a rather flaky vicar. Memories of the shoot seem thin on the ground, but they agree moviemaking hasn’t changed much.

“I make my own world,” says Caine. “And if they employ me, they gotta leave me to do it my way. Otherwise I screw it up. And even if I do it my way, I screw it up as well.”

They both chuckle. “Michael, darling!” says Standing.

Have they changed?

Standing sighs. “We’re just so bloody old.”

“And we’re still here,” says Caine.

“Which is incredible! All my mates are brown bread.”

“Oh, mine and all. Sean Connery, Roger Moore. Everybody’s dead. It’s amazing.”

How does that feel?

“Lonely,” says Caine. “I had dinner last night here with eight women. Shakira gets ’em. I don’t get ’em. They’re the wives of my friends. I’m often sitting with a table full of widows.”

Standing empathises. “Hundreds of women round one all the time. And you sit there thinking: give us a break! Ask me something, anything you like!”

Caine nods. “Ask me a question about football! But I’m perfectly happy with all the girls. I love them.”

Again: consult his memoir for more details, but this is putting it mildly. Caine spent the 50s, 60s and early 70s hoovering up hotties across the continents, pausing only for relationships with Natalie Wood and Nancy Sinatra and to refuel on vodka with Terence Stamp and Peter O’Toole.

So when he says he was tired of bachelor life by 1972, you can believe it – he must have been exhausted. He had a night in, saw a Maxwell House ad on telly and resolved to fly to Brazil the next morning to marry the woman with the maracas. No need, said a pal: she was Indian, not Brazilian, and lived on the Fulham Road in west London.

This is one of Caine’s regular chatshow yarns and he duly does it for us today: “I tracked her down! Incredible!” Caine is a bit of an anecdote jukebox – tales triggered by the briefest mention of Cary or Larry or Frank – but with material like his, it’s hard to object. Though charming, he also dominates conversation in general – about which Standing is a gent. Does he miss the 60s? “I don’t miss it, but I love having done it. I used to get into trouble all over the place.”

He and Shakira have been married more than 50 years. Ageing is less awful, he advises, “if you’re married to someone really beautiful who doesn’t grow old. I wake up every morning and there she is!” It’s true: Shakira, 76, does seem preternaturally patient and gorgeous. “What is great about her is that she’s very bright. She was the secretary in the … I forget which country she comes from [Shakira was born in British Guiana, now Guyana], but she was the secretary of the American embassy, so she’s a great secretary for me. She runs everything. It’s unbelievable.”

At the heart of The Great Escaper is another enduring marriage, between Bernie and Irene, played by Glenda Jackson in her final film. She and Caine first worked together 48 years ago. “She was very young and pretty,” he says. “Very attractive. Bloody good actress. But a left-wing socialist and I’m all for making money because I come from a very poor background.” They never talked politics – bit busy making the movies. He saw her five days before she died in June: “She seemed fine.” He’s relieved it was quick.

Bernie and Irene are a devoted couple who, though the film doesn’t discuss it, didn’t have children. Might that have changed their dynamic? “Oh, tremendously,” says Caine. “You don’t have any other separate thing to talk about. You talk about each other. And you don’t have to judge how people feel about someone else. Only you.”

It’s a sharp insight, particularly given that he’s personally “always had children around me like wildfire”. His eldest daughter, Dominique, was born when he was 23, during a brief marriage to the actor Patricia Haines; he and Shakira have another daughter, Natasha. Picking up his eldest grandson from the school is, Shakira tells me later, the highlight of his week. “I love kids,” he says, a bit wistfully.

Standing murmurs agreement. He’s also been married for yonks. The secret, he says, is “laughing with each other”.

Caine is less on-message: “Don’t argue. Don’t try to prove it with arguments or a row. Let ’em do it.”

“Women are No 1 anyway,” says Standing.

“It’s the only place you can get babies,” nods Caine.

“But I gotta say this, Michael: have you seen what women do now?” says Standing. A dramatic pause. He’s a West End veteran, light comedies a specialty. “Cage fighting!” He turns to me. “What possessed your sex to do something like that? For men to cage fight is unthinkable. For women – boom, boom, boom, on each other’s faces! Deranged! But that’s modern life.”

Has Caine seen that? “Oh yeah,” he says blithely. “On television.” And? “I was stunned.” Why? “I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Even if I didn’t like them. I’d just knock ’em out and walk away.”

The real theme of The Great Escaper is – perhaps not one for the poster – that the only escape from old age is death. Yet Caine and Standing continue to produce work that will live on after they’re gone. Caine wrote his first novel bedridden during lockdown, and is now writing a second. Standing is a professional painter. They have six children between them. Are any of these enterprises better or worse as stabs at immortality? There’s only really one, says Caine: “Kindness.” And maybe Alfie. And The Muppet Christmas Carol.

“Michael, darling,” says Standing, “I said to someone the other day: ‘Have you heard of Peter O’Toole?’ She said: ‘Well, I know the name.’ Once you are dead, you are dead. You think of Bogart! But young people only know Goose. What’s he called? Gosling. Big names in the theatre – Gielgud – mean nothing.”

That craft and that class is history, they reckon. When I ask Caine who today’s version of him is, he agrees there isn’t one.

“Because you don’t get young people now who are that far back in society. That had to come forward in great leaps. I think my type of person is extinct. I can’t think of anybody who had a life like mine.”

It wasn’t just the poverty, he says, it was Korea and then, six months later, malaria (he nearly died). “And so it never stopped, you know? Until it did.”

And yet it sort of hasn’t. Caine remains an icon of a time and an energy that feel increasingly exotic. He still calls himself working class and frets over any potential betrayal of his roots. The fate of his brother, Stanley, troubles him. “He just stood there and watched me become a millionaire when he didn’t even have a job. I turned him into someone who couldn’t move. I should have gone and moved him.”

Once, Caine was shopping for a sofa and Stanley – who’d been awol for a while – appeared as part of the team lugging it in from the back. “I grabbed him. I said, ‘You are outta here.’ Oh, it was terrible. I didn’t know where he was.

“He became an alcoholic. So I bought him two houses: one to live in and one to rent so he could have some money to buy some booze.” Caine’s eyes are rheumy. “He’s three years younger than me. And he’s been dead for five years.”

There was an older brother, too, David, born with severe epilepsy and confined to an institution. Caine only found out about him after their mother’s death – though she had visited David secretly each week. Caine then made him as comfortable as possible. His mother spent her final years living in one of the houses he’d bought her with a carer and her two young sons, “who loved my mum like a grandma. I was very happy with that. I did everything for everybody. So that’s it. I’m sitting here, I’ve done it. I can’t do any more.”

The Great Escaper has been widely described as Caine’s final film, just as Harry Brown was in 2009, and then – 24 films later – Best Sellers in 2021. It’s not. He’s shooting another in January: “It’s about someone who is so famous I’d never heard of him. Charles, Charles …”

“ … Darwin,” says Standing.

“Yeah. I play Charles Darwin. And that’ll be it. I won’t do another one after.”

He’s sure?

“No! But the point is, can you do it? Can you remember all the lines? I’ve got used to not working and staying in bed till 11am and staying out late at night. I love it.”

In The Great Escaper, Jackson has a line about life being fun when you’re young, but once you hit her age, “you’re basically buggered”. Present company queers that pitch. “Oh blimey,” says Caine. “I have a great time.” Standing nods. His one concession to old age has been to give up tap-dancing – though you suspect he might oblige in an emergency.

Neither man can think of a single instance in which they’ve been ill-treated because of their age.

“Nobody patronises me,” says Caine.

“We don’t look like we need help,” says Standing.

In Caine’s case, that’s not entirely true. His skin is smooth, his cheeks full – “I’m very lucky the whole face has not collapsed” – and The Great Escaper showcases them with loads of fantastic closeups. Yet he does use a walker and wheelchair. Never had qualms about being seen with them, he says. “Nope. It’s my life and I do what I want.”

“I think you are bloody brave,” says Standing. “Michael, man-to-man, it was an admirable thing to say: ‘Bollocks, I will do the film’, in spite of all those things.’”

I think he’s right. For someone with an image as familiar – and cultivated – as Caine’s, to visibly concede frailty feels courageous. It’s a shame, I say, that “mobility issues” were given as the reason the Queen didn’t attend various events near the end – as if being seen in a wheelchair was inconceivable.

Caine opts not to criticise the Queen. Instead he cues up the story of the first time they met, at a dinner, when she asked him to tell her a joke. He couldn’t think of a clean one. “She pointed to the man on her other side and said: ‘I’m gonna talk to him now. In five minutes I’ll be back and I want a joke.’”

I don’t know what I’d imagined Michael Caine’s Queen impression to sound like, but it’s definitely a lot more mobster. That was quite frightening, I tell him, once he’s finished the joke (long, about a chicken). Does he see any similarities between them?

“I think everyone sees a similarity between themselves and the Queen.”

Even Standing, an actual baronet, demurs at that one. But the fact Caine believes it adds weight to the idea they do share something – the ability, perhaps, to unsettle others through their presence alone. The Great Escaper taps that, too. Bernie prompts in people – Arthur included – profound reckonings, without really trying. Can Caine relate?

“I don’t know,” he says. “A bit, probably, yes. But it could be quite unpleasant. I don’t do things that are unpleasant.”

But you feel you have that power?

“Yeah, oh yeah.”

And what’s that like?

He grins. “Great.”

Our time is up. Caine checks his watch. “28C,” he says, “and that’s with the bloody windows open.”

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1920sladydectective · 10 months

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A Table for Two (Part One) 7.5K

She had to orchestrate them seeing each other again, and the best way to do that was force him to collect books for her.

Aesop Sharp's fifteen year old daughter tries matchmaking her father with the new Bookseller in Hogsmeade to distract him from the news that she's dating Garreth Weasley

There were many things that Aesop Sharp struggled with, an entire list in fact, including a lame leg, career pivot and endlessly idiotic adolescents. The thing he struggled with most though, you ask? Parenting his fifteen year old daughter, who unfortunately for him, was a perfect amalgamation of all of his most cunning and mischievous traits, paired with her mother’s beauty and charm. Every day felt like an invisible battle he couldn’t quite understand and though he had been doing it for a decade and a half, walking around with his heart outside of his chest, placing all of his love with her was a fearful feeling.

Edelyn Vanora Sharp was his pride and joy. He was also quite certain she was sent from some kind of warped Hell to torment him.

Ever since she was very young, she had been daring and adventurous. Crawling across floors away from her parents, only to be scooped up, or climbing so far into a tree that she was unsure of how to get down, it only became harder for him to monitor her as she aged, especially since the death of her mother. She wasn’t old enough to remember her, a gentle and soft woman with her same emerald eyes and boisterous laugh, but she knew that she was a mixture of her parents and though he was rarely open about things, he would always share stories of her mother with her.

Edelyn Sharp was in a truly awful predicament. She was in love, which in all honesty was rather lovely, but it was who she loved that posed the problem. After years of bickering and easy friendship, she had had the misfortune of falling in love with Garreth Weasley. This wasn’t a bad thing at all, he was just a tad reckless, until she considered her father and then her life seemed to be neatly engulfed in flames.

She was certain that she should have been overjoyed when Garreth asked her on a date, she accepted after all, but now as she lay in her bedroom next to her father’s staring at the dark blue ceiling, she could only fathom the damage control needed for the boy to survive to the end of the term, she didn’t have the mental capacity to think beyond then. There were nine days before the date, due to thankfully busy schedules and Edelyn estimated that she had perhaps a month after that before her father would notice something amiss. That estimate was incredibly generous, and relied on everyone keeping their bloody mouths shut.

Having not slept a wink, she sat tugging roughly on her hair as she debated what to do with herself. It was Friday, she had Charms and Defence, then a free afternoon. Poppy had been yammering about a new bookshop that had opened in Hogsmeade a few days ago, and she had a hankering to see it. Donning her blue robes, Edelyn rushed down to the Great Hall, where her friends and father already sat eating breakfast.

“Tough night?” Natty asked, passing her the eggs as Edelyn stared dazedly at them.

“Didn’t sleep at all, considering you know what,” She grunted, fistfuls of food hovering around her mouth but never quite making it in.

Natty snorted, as Poppy just smiled, both girls fully aware of the ridiculousness of her life. They had been there when Garreth asked her out, in the Transfiguration Courtyard last week as the little group of girls had sat studying in the tentative sunshine.

“Anyway,” Edelyn said, hanging on the word for a few beats too long, “Do you want to come to that new bookstore with me today, Pops?”

“Ugh, Bugger, I can't. I've already agreed to help Howin later,” The Hufflepuff grunted.

“Books or Beasts, who will win?” Natty mumbled as both girls reached out to flick her ear.

“Fuck you then,” Edelyn groaned.

“Take your Dad, might make him chill out around you for a bit,” Poppy suggested with a bright beam, as the words turned over in Edelyn’s head.

That actually wasn’t the worst idea, books were her main connection point with her father and it might mellow him enough that she could add another few days to her doomageddon timeline. Standing with a sudden purpose, she waved away her friends and glided over to where her father miserably sat attempting to avoid breakfast small talk with Ronen.

“Professor Ronen,” Edelyn smiled gently down at her Charms Professor, though he acted more like a well meaning Grandfather, incredibly invested in the every rise and fall of her life.

“Eda,” He bellowed happily, “What news do you bring, Dear girl?”

She let out a little snort, “No news, I was just coming to ask Dad if he fancied scoping out the new bookshop in Hogsmeade this afternoon, as you don’t have the Seventh Years today,”

Sharp let out an indecisive little groan, pausing in his ordered mouthfuls, “Come to my classroom around two thirty, I shall let you know then,”

She nodded, giving Ronen another smile as he stood, “We may as well walk together, considering,”

Ronen nodded back, grasping a small pile of parchment she recognised as their essays, and gestured for her to lead the way, as they each mumbled goodbyes to her father.

Charms and Defence passed with very little fanfare. She scored excellently on both subject’s essays, which brought her a subtle sort of joy at the knowledge that she was succeeding as much as was expected of her, which would also make her father more lenient in the number of books she could buy later. Luckily for her, Garreth was nowhere near her, as their delicate situation would have fizzled under Hecat’s sharp gaze.

Aesop found himself surprised by his daughter’s offer, yet touched all the same. Spending time with Edelyn at this age was tricky, he always felt like he was on the back foot when it came to remembering how she wished to be treated. She had a ferocious temper, one of the unfortunate traits she had inherited from him, and their arguments were legendary. All that to be said, in the quiet of their shared chambers they would bond over books and chess, both avidly researching new theories and publications. Some of his fondest memories were of her proving him wrong, which was an odd feeling to have. Above all else, she seemed completely unphased by his leg beyond a deep sadness that he felt pain. Where shame and anger sat with him, only unyielding love rested in her. Despite their differences, Aesop felt it important that he try as hard as she was, so despite the niggling burn in his thigh, he would venture to the bookshop.

Soon enough, two thirty came and Edelyn stumbled into the Potions classroom, blowing frizzy black waves out of her eyes with a frustrated grunt.

“Papa?” She called quietly, as the man emerged from his office with a light smile.

“Shall we get going then, Edie?” Aesop said, gathering his possessions and a small pouch of powder, “You don’t mind if we take the Floo?”

“Course not, Pa,” She said, excitement fraying her movements as she took a pinch and firmly stated the Hogsmeade Square, suddenly engulfed in fiery green shimmers.

Aesop followed after, his wand locking the classroom room firmly behind him.

Hogsmeade was always a hub of activity, but in the sunshine that early spring brought, people were out in droves to buy new clothes, explore the surrounding fields or indulge in a nice Butterbeer. There was a slight buzz surrounding the new bookshop too, a large shop painted a stunning burnt orange, with visibly hand painted books and flowers covering the wood, a few even on the glass of the display window. Above the artwork the sign simply read ‘Once’ which seemed to amuse her father for reasons she didn’t quite understand. Storming ahead, she allowed her father to move at his own pace, as she rushed towards the shiny new Muggle novels.

Aesop regarded the shop quizzically, almost baffled by such an affronting colour, though a minor artist himself he could not argue with the painting’s beauty. Stepping in, he realised they must have come at a lull, as other than himself and Edelyn there was only one another patron, and a woman behind an ornate wooden till with her back to him. Her hair was a similar colour to the paint and it made him snort, as he took in the eclectic selection on offer. Sunlight fractured into tinted colours through the window as the woman turned, her eye catching his, as his breath caught in his throat.

Eliza Fisher wasn’t quite sure what had come over her when she decided three months ago to pack up her job as a Cursebreaker and move to Hogsmeade to open a bookshop, but she had done it now and there was no going back. Her parents were long since dead, something she had sat with as well as a young woman could, and she was lucky for the freedom her situation afforded her. It had always been a girlhood dream, but feeling it actualised as she finished the tender brush strokes of forgetmenots and daisies, made her feel a fizzy melancholy. Though she had never been here before, her parents choosing to home educate her for reasons she never quite understood, she felt a familiarness, an ease she had been chasing her whole life. Here, in a quaint wizarding village, she was quite certain she had found purpose in the form of bound pages and happy faces.

Grateful for such a wealthy inheritance, Eliza had spent the month since purchasing the huge premises renovating it and decorating her modest two bedroom flat above. With each lick of colour and fully itemised shelf, the space came alive. For weeks, the shop’s name had plagued her, until she settled on ‘Once; a calm and slightly amusing adage to the structure of all classic fables and stories. The opening had been hectic, filled with bustling curiosity as she attempted to greet everyone with kindness, ready to answer any question or bundle any books in parchment. Sales had been fantastic, with a slight lull in the afternoons afforting her a chance to re catalogue. It was an all consuming hobby, and though she felt safe, there was a slight anxiousness that she would not be able to make friends with so little free time. She had bonded well with Sirona, the proprietor of the Three Broomsticks, but had struggled to meet people beyond the etched carvings of her desk.

The bell rang with three cheery hums, as she carefully made her dissent down the ladder with a pile of books in her grasp, pivoting on her heel. Looking up, her eyes caught a warm brown gaze, as the inquisitive look of the most attractive man she had ever seen made her mind blank.

Eyes locked, air heavy, thousands of questions.

The door slammed and Eliza startled, her neatly catalogued books tumbling to the ground.

Equally shocked from his reprieve, Sharp found himself rushing forward to help despite his leg’s protests, as muddled hands entwined around a now slightly damaged copy of Pride and Prejudice.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Eliza said, words threatening to bubble out of her as her cheeks burned, “I really am too clumsy for my own good,”

“No, of course not,” Aesop replied, voice firm, “I startled you, please let me purchase those as an apology,”

“You’d read Pride and Prejudice?” She asked, slightly incredulous as she relinquished her grip on the pile to him, nervously brushing back her hair as she hazarded a glance at him. As handsome as her initial assessment then, an expanse of broad lines smoothed by the soft tufts of brown hair and patchy stubble lining his jaw, his eyes crinkled in the sunlight.

“I’m sure my daughter would,” He said noncommittally, focused intently on her rosy, freckles cheeks as she stammered and smiled. The slight burn in his ribs caught him by surprise, as rushes of interest and attraction stirred, long since dormant and confusing.

Amidst the commotion, Edelyn had turned, watching the interaction with an odd kind of fascination as something began to spin in the back of her mind.

As they stabilised from the startled introduction of names and Aesop insisting he buy the damaged books, he got to make the quip he’d been sitting on for five minutes, “Once?”

“Upon a time,” Eliza finished, a grin etched on her face, making her glow.

“Ran out of paint to finish the sign?” His smirk deepened, as she scowled goodnaturedly, shaking her head in fabricated frustration.

“I think we both know the answer to that, Mr Fables,” She let out a delightful giggle.

His eyes widened, though he supposed it was the most obvious thing in the entire world that he was named after the fables, especially to someone in her profession, “Professor Fables, if you will,”

It was her turn to be surprised, “A Hogwarts man, what do you teach?”

“Potions,”

“Ah, that’ll explain it then,”

“What?”

“The foreboding aura of a man constantly brewing trouble,”

Aesop couldn’t help but laugh, utterly disarmed by this bumbling, sarcastic witch with a toothy grin and hair like fire. Remembering himself, he glanced away and caught Edelyn’s passive gaze.

The chemistry was palpable and as she observed, Edelyn felt a candle light spontaneously in her brain. The best way to distract her father from her love life was to stimulate his own and the pretty bookseller had presented herself as the perfect candidate, delivered on a silver tray. Despite the convenience of it, seeing her father flustered and captivated by a woman was completely new territory. The Ex-Auror who taught her how to defend herself at seven or screeched at people’s foolhardiness in Potion brewing did not blush or twitch. Fighting through the befuddlement of such a sight, she considered her next course of action. All that was left for her to do was get Garreth on board with her plan, as she continued to survey the two adults, slowly moving towards them.

Aesop regarded his daughter, as she came to stand next to him with a pile as tall as her arms length of books, nodding to Eliza.

“Hello,” Her voice was calm and pointed, “I’m Edelyn Sharp, I see you’ve met my father,”

“Pleasure to meet you, you have quite the selection there,” Eliza said, nodding to the younger girl as her eyes scanned the spines for titles, “Is there anything else you’re searching for?”

“I think that’s certainly more than enough,” Aesop answered for Edelyn, raising a brow towards the girl as she sheepishly grinned.

Eliza stifled a laugh, taking the piles of books and wrapping them with precision, moving fluidly as she took the handful of galleons Aesop offered her.

The interaction simmered out from there, with a few loaded glances and murmurs, as Edelyn dragged her father out of the shop.

“Well, it was very nice in there,” Aesop said, mind far away as they stumbled towards Honeydukes.

“You certainly seemed to get something out of it,” Edelyn said, hugging the books to her chest as she basked in the sun, following him down the path.

Not wanting to rock the boat with too much probing, Edelyn allowed him to drag her around the sweetshop as she picked a few sweets here and there. He gathered all the usual suspects, toffees and jellybeans, a sherbet or two and some licorice. She could never understand his particular proclivity to the sweet, sour and pungent, but his mood seemed more risen than she ever could have hoped.

After a surprisingly pleasant afternoon together, Edelyn found herself searching for Garreth in the throng of people messily eating in the Great Hall. The ginger haired young man sat eating corn, as Edelyn flicked a piece of parchment to him with a time and place, causing the Gryffindor to raise his eyebrows in surprise.

For twenty minutes she sat gnawing on food, as she waited for the population to thin slightly, each minute dragging more slowly than the last. Finally, in an alcove in the Astronomy Tower, the pair sat whispering to each other.

“Sorry, Edie, What?” Garreth frowned, trying to grapple with the Ravenclaw’s words, “We’re setting up your Dad?”

“It’s ingenious, Garreth,” She rambled, “He won’t be able to focus on scrutinising us when he’s dating himself, so we’ll be able to interact in peace,”

“I wasn’t quite aware it would be this complex, love,” he licked his lips, contemplating her ideas, “Will he really mind that much?”

“Yes,” Edelyn said, gripping his hands, “Yes he will, you are the very bane of his existence, Gar,”

“That’s a fair summary, I suppose, though in my defence I am just a master Potioneer in the making,”

Edelyn rolled her eyes, shaking his shoulders in order to hold his attention, “I need that plotting mind to help me do this, but we have to be subtle Garreth, do you know what that word means?”

“I’ll try, for you,” He huffed, smiling down at her, “On that note, I’ve got to go and do some homework before I get stuck in Detention again and am unable to help,”

Edelyn grinned at that, standing on stiff legs as she squeezed his shoulder and then rushed off to the Faculty Tower.

Though it had appeared odd to her year group for the first few months of First Year that she stayed in the adult quarters with her father, the novelty had long since passed and just became fact, for which she was grateful. The first few nights she had spent in her assigned Ravenclaw dormitory had not been pretty, and by the week’s end she had moved back into her bedroom. It felt wrong to be removed from her father, despite the fact that they rarely had the chance to interact, and she desperately craved the comfort of her deep navy walls. As she opened the door into their little living room, her eyes fixed to the few empty spots on the bookshelf by her father’s desk.

She had to orchestrate them seeing each other again, and the best way to do that was force him to collect books for her. Plan cemented, she curled into her bed and began to read the slightly dented copy of Pride and Prejudice, curious to see what this Muggle book could hold.

Saturday was a new day, one which yielded the possibility of progress, as Edelyn haphazardly dressed and made sloppy note of the books her father was missing. Stealing toast from her father’s abandoned plate by the fire, she grabbed her hat and slipped out of the chambers, humming a slight tune as her feet slammed rhythmically onto the creaking wood.

Hogsmeade was in a similar state as the day before, though the calmness of the slightly colder morning still clung to the air, as she marched with purpose towards the shining, orange beacon. Again, the bell chimed, as Edelyn surveyed the books again, feeling a joy stir in her chest.

Eliza stood chatting quietly with an older witch, as she handed her piles of books on herbs and cooking, the thought making her stomach growl as she glanced up at the noise, slight panic stirring in her as she recognised the customer as the daughter of the handsome Professor from yesterday. Eliza fiddled with her hands, mind bringing forth the image of the tall man (not that it took much recollection, she could think of little else) as she pretended to dust the stock behind her.

“Miss Eliza?” Edelyn said, voice hesitant as she found herself in front of the desk, staring at the woman’s back. She really did have the most magnificent hair, tumbling curls of auburn and gold.

Eliza turned slowly, glancing down at the raven haired girl, “Oh, hello again! H-How,” a cough, “How can I help you?”

“I have a list of books for my father,” She murmured, “Some you’ll have to order in I think,”

“Yes of course,” Nervous flittering as she unintentionally snatched the paper from the younger girl, eyes scanning the list as her mind thought quickly, “I have two of them here, as for the others, your assessment was correct, they will probably take up to a week as I doubt I’ll be able to source them from the same place,”

“That’s fine,” a few moments as she stared at the older woman, “Is it alright to pay half and settle the bill when I come to collect?”

More overly enthusiastic nodding as Eliza noted everything down, slotting it into quite possibly the largest filing system Edelyn had even seen. Handing Edelyn the two thick Potioneers books, she grinned at the small girl, “Hope he likes them, send your father my love,”

Edelyn nodded back, giggling slightly as she rushed out of the shop.

Eliza was as red as beetroot, biting her cheeks and mumbling all manner of foul language under her breath as her anxiousness took hold. What had possessed her to say something so ridiculous? She’d only met the man the once for Merlin’s sake.

Later that evening, as Aesop prepared the weekly meal for the two of them and she finished some Arithmancy homework, Edelyn kept glancing at the small parcel obscured by her feet as he plated up and seasoned with the usual precision with which he brewed. The meal was lovely as usual and he couldn’t help but smile at his daughter’s vulgar mouth compared with her perfect posture and table manners. It had been many a moon since he had tried to dissuade swearing in their private chambers, considering how often he was prone to using them himself and he despised being a hypocrite.

After she had washed the plates with a flick of her wrist, Edelyn and Aesop retired to their respective armchairs, with tea and firewhisky placed on the shared end table, as she gripped the brown package paper and handed him the lump without a word.

His brow furrowed, as he tugged on the soft twine, “More books Edie, really?”

She waited until he had scanned the spines, eyes wide, before giggling, “For you, Papa, as you were a tad preoccupied...with me yesterday,” a long beat, “I had her reserve another three for you, Miss Eliza sends her love to you,”

“She did?” It was too fast for him to stop it, as visions of blue eyes and rosy cheeks battered his warm and tired mind.

“Yes, she said she’d keep them behind the counter for you, and that she’d look forward to seeing you,” Edelyn realised she was laying it on a tad thick, but her father’s dazed expression seemed encouraging.

“Me?” He asked quietly, “But you ordered them, Edie-girl, why would I be collecting them?”

“I have all these O.W.L.s mock examinations remember Papa, I’ll be far too busy revising,”

“Oh, of course,” Aesop was murmuring to himself, as she bit back a laugh, flicking through the pages as more images of the bright, enchanting bookseller bore themselves to him, “I’ll collect them whenever necessary,”

Their evening progressed as most Saturday’s did, both buried in books as drinks flowed and they would occasionally read a passage to each other, laughing at similar jokes until the yawns would interrupt them and they crawled to bed, after a tender kiss to the head and a warm embrace.

A few days later, on the coldest day of the week, Aesop found himself grumpily trudging through the town, uncharacteristic nervousness fizzling in his fingertips as he shoved the orange door open, eyes darting in search of his target. She was in a royal blue gown today that made her look like a running waterfall, flowing and ethereal as he choked on air once again. He was almost certain that she must use a fair share of products from someone such as Snelling to receive such an effect, yet her face was not shrouded by the appearance of such lacquer, as he gazed into her eyes.

“Professor,” “Miss Eliza,” They rambled over each other, bridging the gap as they both tried to take hold of the situation.

“You’re here for the books your daughter ordered? She said it would be her collecting,” Eliza said, sending him a smirk as she bent over to search through the crates.

“Y-yes,” a grumble as his eyes tried to look anywhere else than the round, suppl-”She delegated to me, lots of school this time of year, she’s a very hard working girl,”

“I’ve heard that is the general nature of Ravenclaws. Are you also that way inclined?” Somehow she was still bent over, words mumbled, tugging aggressively on a particularly heavy tome.

“No, I am a Slytherin myself, though she has a ridiculously keen mind much like her mother did,” Sharp gulped slightly, eyes betraying him as he looked, body hot as she stood up oblivious to his struggle, eyes bright as ever, “y-You?”.

“Oh, I was educated at home by my mother, but if I were to guess I’d say I would have been a Hufflepuff,” She answered, slamming the books down on the wood as the air made her hair bounce upwards slightly.

“I second that conclusion,” He said, leaning against the carved wood as he grinned down at her, some sense returning to his mind. Aesop refused to let an innocent bookseller get the better of him.

“So Edelyn’s mother is a Ravenclaw, does that make you always outnumbered by intelligent women?”

“Christine passed away before Edelyn was four, so I did not have the fortune of seeing them together,” Aesop said, voice light as he gently delivered the words. For all his faults and misunderstandings, he knew how to communicate death and grief.

“I see,” Eliza said, voice measured and soft, as she pondered her conflicting feelings of the man paired with the new information, “I’m sorry for your loss, and I am sure you are doing a wonderful job with her, she is a delight,”

He laughed, crackling and warm, “She has her moments, but she is a teenager after all,”

Eliza blushed, unable to keep his gaze as she fingered the twine bow, “Indeed,” she handed the books to him, “There you are. Can I sort anything else for you?”

Aesop paused, licking his bottom lip lightly, “Thank you very much,” He took the books and tucked them under his arm, “Speaking of teenagers, I was hoping to order some textbooks for my Seventh years and perhaps a new book for Edie?”

Eliza jotted the name of the textbook and the quantity needed, before scanning her shelves, “Anything specific in mind for Edie?”

“She devoured that Prejudice book, so perhaps more by the same author or a similar ilk?” He said, following her gaze.

“Bold of a father to let a daughter read something so romantic, I admire that, Pride and Prejudice is a favourite of mine too,”

Aesop didn’t exactly want to explain that he hadn’t known the book’s content and was now reticent to purchase more, so instead adopted a different angle, “I’ve heard it’s a favourite amongst many, what exactly makes it so special?”

As she floated from shelf to shelf, Eliza laughed into her chest, fingers brushing across a cover of the aforementioned book as she pinched two of its companions, “What isn’t special about a tall, handsome man admitting his faults and changing them to marry a girl? I daresay that is what most women long for, with varying success,” her eyes had come to rest on his frizzy hair, smile settling.

“I see,” a hasty drag of air, “Reflects poorly on us gentlemen, understandably,”

“Do something to change it then,” Eliza’s voice held an edge, a sword wrapped in cotton as she jabbed it at him, eyes shining as she confirmed her selections, “We have a few here, but if she enjoyed P&P, I recommend Emma,”

“Emma sounds suitable, thank you,” Aesop’s answer was a daze, his mind trying to keep up with the onslaught of new information the women seemed to present without even realising it.

“Marvellous, now school books are discounted for Staff, so that’s a little bit of joy for your day,” She said, applying the lessened fee to his new Potions books and Edelyn’s gift, even as he attempted to stop her, resulting in a momentary staring contest which he promptly lost.

“You’re too kind, Miss Eliza,” Aesop said, “You are definitely ensuring mine and my daughter’s business,”

She blushed at that, without a response as he took his items and left, his gait slow and hesitant, wanting to stay in her presence for longer, to talk to her until she rested in the silence she found herself in.

Aesop was aware he was in trouble, as he limped through the biting air towards the floo point, his mind playing her words on repeat as he found himself back in his classroom with very little recollection of the events in between.

Hours later, after the bookshop closed, Eliza found herself in the Three Broomsticks.

To say that Sirona noticed the behaviour of the bookseller was an understatement. They had met on the evening Eliza had moved to Hogsmeade, sharing a Butterbeer and one too many stories for simple acquaintances. Since then the pair had remained friends and customers to each other’s services in equal measure. A book for a beer was always a pretty arrangement, but now as Eliza sat fiddling with the foam atop her glass with distant eyes and warm cheeks, Sirona found herself sighing into a tea towel.

“Who’s the gentleman?”

“What?” Eliza startled, firmly grasping her pint glass to stop it tumbling all over the bar.

“We aren’t twelve, Fisher. Who’s the man that has you all dreamy eyed and vacant?” Sirona’s hand rested on her hip as she bore down on the redhead with single minded focus.

Her friend’s stare triggered a gulp from Eliza as she avoided the woman’s gaze, “Well, it’s awkward and I am certain you’ll know him so I’m not telling you,”

“Is this the same woman who told me exactly why her ex-partner was awful in bed after half a drink?”

“You said you wouldn’t bring that up, Sirona,” Eliza said, voice shrill as she swatted at the barmaid, before shushing her voice to a whisper, “But since you asked so nicely, it’s Professor Sharp,”

Loud, disruptive laughter echoed as Eliza shrank away from her, frowning, “Oh holy hells, you are buggered,”

“Don’t say that, stop,” Eliza whined, gulping back her drink as she looked away.

Sirona did not stop, instead she spent several minutes relaying parts of Sharp’s personality to further solidify Eliza’s anxiousness around the man, “You said he smiled at you? I don’t think he’s smiled at me in years and we’re friends,” a pause, “So, perhaps we might deduce from that, that you aren’t doomed, maybe your affections are returned,”

“It’s all complicated, I am making a mountain out of a molehill,” Eliza said to herself, tracing shapes in the spillage on the bar Sirona had yet to mop up, “I’ve met him twice and he has been lovely, but I do not involve myself with men anymore, especially ones with daughters,”

“Edelyn is lovely, Eliza,” Sirona answered, slightly puzzled by her friend’s train of thought.

“Exactly,” She replied, stress leaking out of her voice, “I don’t want to disturb their relationship or become attached to her and then have things with her father end badly!” another pause as she drained her glass, “What the fuck am I even rambling about? There is no ‘thing with her father’”

Sirona simply refilled the glass and stroked back her friend’s hair, a gentle smile on her usually dull face, before going off to tidy the mess around the pub.

Eliza’s forehead met the sticky wooden slab of the bar, as she let out a distressed groan.

Aesop was not faring much better, staring at the flames of his fireplace as he forlornly realised he had barely done any marking and it wasn’t likely any would be completed soon. Edelyn had loved her gift, disappearing into her bedroom to devour it, leaving him trapped with her.

Eliza seemed to dance across his mind as easily as the fire did in its hearth, her words sticking into him. She seemed almost otherworldly, her beauty and gentleness captivating, as he tried to recite potion ingredients. He barely knew her, had only shared two hasty conversations and yet he was so desperate to hear more. He wanted her perspective on everything and he wanted to see her like he had before, bent over beneath him but with very little cloth-

“Papa?” Edelyn had slipped out of her room, holding her book with an odd glint in her eyes.

“E-Edie,” The image of a naked Eliza slipped away from him, cheeks aching with heat as he beckoned his daughter forward, “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to check on you, see if you fancied a game of Chess,”

“Of course, though you are becoming a tad too good for my tastes,” He said, attempting to recover.

Edelyn snorted as she gathered all the pieces and placed them onto the end table with a simple Accio, “You’re just getting too comfortable, Old man,”

He absolutely thrashed her in retaliation to that comment, though she did not make it easy, constantly bringing up the one thing he hoped to avoid.

“I’m surprised you managed to pick such a good book, Papa, doesn’t seem like your genre,” Edelyn said, brows raised as she placed a pawn forward.

“I do admit I had help from Miss Eliza,” He blinked back her smile, “She seemed excited that you enjoyed the previous novel,”

“She’s ever so helpful,” Knight stole his pawn, he did not flinch, “She seems to get on well with you,”

“What does that mean, Edie?” He murmured back, stealing her bishop.

Panic flared slightly as she retreated, not wanting to reveal her hand too soon, “You just seem to like chatting to her, Papa, she’s knowledgeable,”

“That she is, she also seems to always have a view on everything,” Aesop replied, smirking slightly as snippets of her voice echoed in his head, “But I am glad to see her bookshop thriving, it is a sweet little addition to Hogsmeade,”

Edelyn nodded along with her father’s words, frowning at the shambles the board as in as she attempted to work around him, both in Chess and real life, “She seems a tad lonely though, from what I’ve seen and heard,”

“Oh?”

“Pops was saying she’s there all by herself all day every day, never another helper and that she lives above the shop by herself, Edelyn said, twirling her Rook between her fingertips, “I do hope she’s making friends,”

“I suppose I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Her father replied, picturing the bubbly bookseller lonely and bored, “Though I can’t imagine her friendless Edie, she’s far too kind,”

“Might be nice for you to try to talk to her more often though, you’re not exactly overwhelmed with friends,”

“Edelyn!” His voice resounded out slightly harsher than he’d intended, eyes snapping up to his daughter.

“I’m sorry, Papa,” The girl said meekly, admitting defeat in both areas for now.

There was a heavy silence before he spoke again, tone softer, “I’ll consider it, now to bed with you,”

Though he doubted his daughter was aware of his internal romantic battle, her words had spurred his thoughts all the same, as he lay in his bed running it through in his head. His dreams were filled with Eliza.

Somehow, much to Edelyn’s surprise, Sunday had arrived. Garreth was scheduled to meet her by the school gates at noon and they were going to head off for a stroll and then perhaps a pint or two at The Three Broomsticks. She told herself she wasn’t nervous, as she pinned back waves and shined her boots, but the tremor in her hand and her jumbled thoughts spoke volumes. Evading her father, she slipped to the meeting spot, bouncing on her heels as he walked up to her looking as dashing as ever.

Gripping her hand, Garreth tugged her towards the floo point and with mumbled words they were gone. Landing in the plush fields of Upper Hogsfield, they grinned at one another as they anxiously began their date.

Aesop’s supply room was receiving a much needed overhaul and to his chagrin, it was missing things for no discernible reason. Or rather, the reason was a certain ginger fifth year who he would eventually take great pleasure in gutting like a fish. Unable to do such a thing yet, the Potions Master realised that he instead would have to venture to Pippins for the extra ingredients. Gathering his possessions and shopping list, he locked everything back up and made his way to Hogsmeade.

Garreth let out a loud sneeze half way through a sentence, as they climbed over a short stole wall, letting out a quip that made Edelyn giggle, “Must have been your dad cursing me somewhere,”

“He wouldn’t curse you if you stopped stealing from him,”

“I am innocent on all charges, Miss Sharp,”

Laughter mingled as they continued their walk, arms linked.

Pippins was in sight as he forced his leg to stop whining, the door swinging open as Aesop found himself staring at a back that he recognised all too quickly.

Pippin glanced up at him from behind the counter, “Just a second, Sharp,”

Aesop gulped as Eliza’s head whipped around, their eyes meeting as she bit her lip ever so slightly, “Professor, Hello!”

“He might be the person to ask actually, Miss,” Pippin interjected their meagre greeting, turning to the man, "She is in need of a pain salve, but I am out, I don’t suppose you have any?”

Aesop rolled his eyes at the older man’s heavy handed wink, hand diving into his pocket until he felt the coolness of the small circular tin, tugging it out and offering it to the bookseller, “Of course I do, Perry, as you well know! I do hope you’re alright, Miss Eliza?”

She took the offer gratefully, reaching for a handful of galleons, “I am well, just a victim of my own clumsiness, how much will I owe you?”

Aesop couldn’t resist a scoff at that, “Nothing at all,”

“But,”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” He said, fixing her with a stare that disarmed her, warm blossoming in her stomach, “You have been more than kind and I am in bountiful supply of the stuff, take it,”

She nodded, eyes wide as she rubbed a small amount of the salve on her wrist, stepping to the side to allow him to step towards Pippin, “I shall take my leave then gentlemen, I hope to see you soon, Professor, thank you for trying, Pippin,”

As she slid past him and out of the door, Aesop was hit with a blast of flowers and old parchment, his eyes fluttering slightly as he fought the urge to chase the smell, swallowing roughly as he placed the order with a robotic voice, mind reeling.

If Pippin had noticed, he said nothing, though his smirk seemed a tad wider that day.

Feeling the spring breeze on his face as he stepped out of the Potions apply shop, he couldn’t shake the concern in his chest. Edelyn had said that Eliza was all alone in the bookshop, and he wanted to ensure that she was safe. No other motivations were pulling him towards the shop, none at all.

Eliza sat at the tall stool behind the counter, curled in on herself as she winced and groaned, attempting to contort to reach all of the injuries she’d acquired from falling from the ladders twice the day before. Though she had flipped her sign to closed for the moment, the high pitched chime showed that she hadn’t thought to lock the door, as the object of most of her thoughts strided in.

Aesop was surprised at the sight of her, skin paler than usual, as she murmured to herself.

“Are you alright, Eliza?”

“Not really,” She laughed humourlessly, “I’m not open at the moment, Professor, I’m sorry,”

“That’s perfectly alright, I came to check on you,” His voice was sweet, washing over her as her body seemed to calm slightly.

“You did?”

“You seem to have gotten yourself into a bit of a predicament, can I help?” Part of him was aware that he was overstepping, but seeing her contorted in pain with her hair and skirts a mess, made his heart clench as he inched closer.

“Yes, please,” She said, barely aware of her response, as he moved behind the desk, his body close enough that she could smell the dark scent of his hair mixed with the dampness of the outside.

With his calloused hand, he lifted her fingers from her wound at her collarbone, taking a swipe of the salve and replacing them with his own, his skin on fire as he made contact with her soft flesh. Both seemed to be holding their breath, as she melted into his touch, the pain fading away the more he worked it into her skin.

“Anywhere else?” He croaked, eyes drinking in as much of her as they could, watching as she hesitantly raised her skirts, revealing the worst of the injuries, a scrape to the back of her knee and upper thigh.

The silence grew thicker, as his hands worked with quick efficiency, his mind supplying him with images of her wrapped around him or beneath him, her flesh soft and hot for other reasons, as her chest huffed in a similar way, as he resisted a groan at her slight murmur of relieved pleasure.

Eliza was struggling to stay composed, aware he was just offering her medical assistance, and yet his every move felt so sensual, calculated and rough, his ministrations mixed with the salve removing all of her pain as her mind drifted slightly, eyes flickering shut as a happy whimper left her.

Shocked by herself, Eliza’s eyes opened to find him staring into hers, the warm brown now a dark molten that seemed to eat at her, as he removed his hand from the back of her thigh.

“Better?” Aesop asked, well aware of the answer, as he fought back the dark smugness growing in his chest. Two voices battled now in his mind, one insisting he just ask her to dinner in that very second for it was obvious that she felt the same, the other wanting to be a tad more tactful and reserved.

Eliza sucked in her bottom lip, trying to calm the thoughts of him shoving her against the desk and kissing her senseless, the blush spreading down her face to where his fingers had rested on her collarbone, trying pitifully to respond, only to nod slightly.

The thoughts were overwhelming him, as he tried to wade through them, mumbling responses in his head. A Dinner date would be nice, he supposed.

“I agree,” Eliza said, a smirk forming at his shocked expression.

Aesop realised a second too late that he had spoken aloud, but her immediate answer was what threw him off, panic and euphoria were at war in him as he let out a small laugh, his grin eating up all the space on his face, “Truly?”

“Of course, Professor,”

“Aesop,”

“Of course, Aesop,” She quipped, tongue poking out, as she felt the heady rush of lust and joy flood through her, despite her previous attempts to ignore it.

“Uh, Um,” He was grasping at straws, the first part done as he tried to follow through, “Does next Friday evening work for you?”

“It does,” She said, brushing back the tuft of hair that had stuck to his face, sending him a dainty smile that melted him.

“I’m afraid Hogsmeade isn’t too exotic, but I could host you if you like?” His offer sounded rather boring as he said it, mind distracted by her fingers grazing his cheek.

Eliza jumped at the possibility of seeing Hogwarts and more importantly into seeing more of his life, since hers was so readily available to him, “That sounds perfect, Aesop, I shall arrive at the gates at seven,”

He smiled back, apprehension and excitement building as she dropped her hand, turning at the sound of the bell chiming with several witches who had missed the sign. Aesop fought the urge to curse at them, as she hopped up and offered her assistance.

The interaction firmly ended, he sighed and made his way towards the door, shocked as he felt himself being pulled, as smooth lips made contact with his cheek and the echo of a giggle sounded in his ear. It happened in mere seconds, her skirts already swishing away by the time he could respond, as the breeze tugged the door open and he found himself stepping out.

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