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animalexperienceinternational · 9 months

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Flight cancelations and hummingbirds.

Classic story of a girl meeting a guy, falling in love, girl living in a new country for 6 years then having him break up with her over facetime when she is in another country, during a pandemic after they buy a house together.

This is how I found myself back in Birmingham, England after being away and struggling through life for three years. A beautiful and wonderful friend was marrying her beloved and they had asked me to officiate the wedding. I had previously considered the whole country of England to be dead to me but one can not say no to love. I packed my things and wrote one heck of a sermon for the wedding. While writing it I saw a hummingbird. I asked a Qu'wutsun friend of mine if hummingbirds meant anything special on this land. He said it was good luck before a trip. I felt like I had my ancestors on my side and took off to England. The trip was wonderful. Re-connecting with so many people and visiting these old places that felt like they were taken from me- it gave me the closure I didn't think I needed and didn't expect was waiting for me in the west midlands.

Leaving was a bit trickier. There are no hummingbirds in England.

I am no stranger to airport struggles so I try to go into a travel day without too much stress, I know there will be enough coming my way! My generous and gracious friend drove me to the Manchester airport, a 90 minute drive from her lovely river side home in Yorkshire and I have to admit I was sleepy. Tired because we went mountain biking and had a BBQ the day before and it was 8am but also because the two week trip was emotionally exhausting. Connecting with some of my most precious friends for two weeks really was a dream but it had left my social and emotional battery completely flat. I had no charge nor did I have anything left in the tank to even try to start... clearly I don't know how engines work. We talked in the car, soaking up the last little bit of in-person connection that we would get for the next while and in the middle of the ride I got a message from Air Canada saying my flight was 30 minutes delayed. No problem, I thought, gives me just a bit more time for security and a coffee. We hugged good bye and I said farewell to the English sun- something that had JUST come out in my last departing days. Manchester security was a thing to behold. New signs were up around x-rays explaining all the things that were considered liquid: hair gel, lotion, mascara, solid lip balms, solid deodorant.. wait... I have my travel packing to an art and travelled only carry on for this two weeks, but that was only possible because most of my traditionally liquid things are now solid- shampoo, deodorant, moisturizer- and really if something is a solid, how can it be considered a liquid? I was too far in line to change anything and I didn't have enough room in my 1L bag anyway. I assumed secondary screening would be inevitable. But then I noticed a video screen that showed off how many other people either didn't understand the rules or were hoping to get by with a cheeky "whoops!, didn't understand that a solid was a liquid, mate!" The screen said that 90% of bags going through this queues x rays were failing and needing secondary inspection. I looked past the human metal detector and saw lines and lines and lines of bags waiting for security to go through them under the watchful eye of the less than patient Manchester travellers. 35 minutes later I waved to the security agent who lifted up my bag and asked who it belonged to, I went over and he asked if I could open it. I opened up the pocket that kept my solid deodorant and he told me they consider this a liquid. I said, I was sorry and didn't realise that. My purse had also been flagged and he asked if I had a laptop in it. I did not but I did trave with a small collapsible keyboard. I often didn't even take it out anymore at airports because no one seemed to care when I showed them. I took it out of my purse, and he wiggled it, jiggled it, tested it for explosives and said it was fine. I was then allowed on my way. I was still about 90 minutes early for the flight so I went to get a coffee. While in line I heard our Air Canada flight was delayed another hour. Hmm, guess I will get this coffee for here, I thought. Another announcement said it would be delayed another 2 hours. There was really nothing else to do but have a cookie with my coffee so I did that. I then walked to a comfy chair in front of a screen and had a sit down. Listening to a podcast and playing some silly phone game, I glanced up at the screen and apparently the flight was delayed another hour. I took out an ear phone and heard an announcement saying my Air Canada flight had been cancelled and we should make our way to an info desk. A woman beside me remarked to her travel partner that she would be 'fumin!!' if this happened to her. I glanced over and said: jeez, it's annoying, eh? She asked if I was on that flight, I said yes and she sat their stunned that I wasn't melting down. I told her there wasn't much to do, may as well see what they have to say. I walked off and joined a few hundred people standing in line that presumably started at an Air Canada desk. Another announcement told us they had no information but they would in 40 minutes. We looked at each other confused. So do we stand here? or sit down? Or something completely different. I updated friends in England that their country was obsessed with me and it looked like I would be here for a bit longer. 40(ish) minutes later we were told to go to gate 208 to disembark and eventually get our baggage. We didn't really know what that meant but we walked towards gate 208. Some people brushed past each other, racing to who knows what. This got rolled eyes and a few heavy sighs until one woman slipped past the wrong couple. The Northerners had no time for this nonsense and told her there was no point in rushing, we weren't going anywhere. She had no time or his antics and told him to piss off. He told her to piss off even louder. I looked at a stranger beside me and laughed: this is great! We got to the gate and were told to sit and wait. We twiddled our thumbs, muttered under our breathes and generally zoned out. Suddenly an Air Canada agent said we could collect our bags. After that? Who knows. We went to baggage and I promptly left since I didn't have any to wait for. There were no agents waiting for us so I thought maybe going to Departures would make sense? Perhaps there was an Air Canada desk that could help. The Air Canada check-in desk was about to be a ghost town as the agents hurried away, I quickly asked where their info desk was. They told me there wasn't one. ... okay. They said maybe ask a Tui Agent? I waited for the mass of stranded passengers to come upstairs, feeling very accomplished and cool that I would be the first person in line when they got there. I found the Tui desk and honestly I have no idea what was happening but a woman was angrily counting out pence and handing them over to the agent. It was taking ages and I was seeing no stranded passengers so I went to a different desk and asked if maybe it made sense I was up in Departures if my flight was cancelled. Bless Virgin Atlantic because the agent told me she had no idea but if this happened to Virgin they would put us on coaches to bring us to a hotel and those would pick us up downstairs at Arrivals. As I walked back to Arrivals and recognized someone who also came upstairs. She had a cute tattoo of a dog with hearts around it, I decided she would be a safe person to ask wtf. She told me someone told her to come up here and find an agent. We both went back to Tui where the strange interaction was STILL happening and waited in line. We continued to be the only people waiting and I said it was questionable we were the only people who got this right and we should go downstairs. We went downstairs and some Air Canada agents were standing in a circle. "Hi! I don't know what I'm doing" I figured acting like a complete boob would help me get as much information as possible. They asked if I was a stranded passenger and I tried not to be sarcastic. They pointed to two coaches and said we could get on. Where are we going? I asked. They did not know. I went to the first coach and asked if we just get on. The driver asked what hotel I was going to. I said I didn't know. He laughed at me and said I really should know. I pointed to the AC agent and said they told me to come here. He yelled to them that we really should know what hotel we were going to. My mood was wearing thin. Should we just get on? I asked. He walked away to make fun of the situation with the other driver. We got on the coach. England was in it's first full day of a heat wave so the bus was approximately 1000 degrees. As we all settled into the bus we remarked how we didn't know anything other than it was very warm. Would we be paying for the hotel? For food? For the coach even? Who knows?! We start to drive around airport city, past a few okay hotels and stop in the middle of a traffic circle outside the parking lot and hedge around the Delta Marriot. The coach driver opens the door. Someone says- are we here? He says, yes, and gets out to open up the baggage compartment. We all look around at each other most of us letting out exasperated laughter. This is amazing I laugh as I look around at the traffic trying to get navigate around us. We exit while being parked in the middle of this traffic circle and walk through a hole in the hedgerow, through the parking lot and into the lobby. We are welcomed by the staff and told that dinner would be from 6 to 8. I quickly head to my room to lay down and have some alone time. I turn on the TV to find either a reno show or a baking show- the only things one can watch in a hotel room- unless its morning then breakfast news or 24 hour news networks are permissible. I unpack some of my bag and find liquid eye drops, two gel lip sticks, mascara and moisturiser. All things more liquid than my solid deodorant. My phone buzzes and it's a text from Air Canada. I have a new flight! In two days. I laugh out loud.. now people will be fumin! I go to dinner and see my tattooed friend, she has made another friend and we eat together. Burgers for them, curry for me. And a complimentary glass of wine! Spare no expenses, they did! People are on their phones with baby sitters, dog sitters, cruise lines, hotels, spouses, travel agent and anyone else who will hear their pleas. I sip my wine and tell my new friends about my time in England. One is Canadian just coming from from a cruise and the other is English just going to Canada for a visit. We all feel we can take it as it is. A free night in a hotel isn't the worst thing. The next morning I wake up for breakfast, stuff myself to the gills with beans, toast, marmite and coffee. I then go back to sleep for a few hours. This two weeks had taken so much out of me, I didn’t mind this stop in purgatory. I meet my friends for lunch and we discuss our plans for the day. I am happy enough to sleep, read and use the hotel gym. None of us are particularly interested in spending 40 quid to get into city centre. I am so exhausted from my trip I really see this as a nice sleepy get away. I check out the prices in the mini bar. A can of wine is 10 quid, about 20 Canadian dollars. I stick with my free drink with dinner. Wednesday comes and we find out some passengers were sent earlier to Dublin, Europe and America so they could get to their final destinations without clogging up one flight path. It does seem that two nights in a hotel continues to be not a hardship, just weird. I ask the front desk if a coach will pick us up again or if we take the airport shuttle, I'm told a bus at 9am will pick us up for our 12:05 flight. There is a lot of chatter amongst all us stranded passengers about how bad communication is with the airline. No one knows anything unless we talk to the front desk. information trickles down like wealth is meant to. 9am comes and there is no bus. 9:10 we see a bus but it's not coming in, it's idling down the road. While it's not in a traffic circle, it's just as goofy. I go down to see if it's ours. It is. I wave to everyone and say: follow me! There is less frustration in the air but no one seems to trust we will be making it out. At every step we have been confused, left in the dark and forced to ask the poor front desk staff if they know anything. They have been so kind and added the times of the meals at the end of every single one of my queries, clearly they know my heart. My new travel friends both seem nervous about security and timing. I assure them it will be annoying but we will not miss this flight. I pack as well I as I can but my deodorant won't fit in my small clear plastic litre bag so I again am okay with waiting, this time the screen tells me that only 5% of bags are going through secondary screening. The agent asks me to open my bag, I make the same joke about my solid being more solid than liquid and apologise again. This one is as impervious to my charm as the last. Me and my stranded friends are on our way. We get a coffee and head to the gate. We are told our plane is having some issues and will be delayed 30 minutes. Then we are told there is a longer delay. There is then an announcement that anyone who is a stranded passenger should go to another gate as there is another Air Canada flight leaving just after ours. Bewildered, 50 of us walk to the other gate and ask what is going on. The gate agents tell us we are at the wrong gate. We tell them we know, but were told to come here. They tell us we were not. I tell them it's improbable that 50 of us misheard the announcement. They get on a walkie talkie and confirm with our original gate. We wait 5 minutes as there is rapid fire walkie talkie conversations. Then an agent from this new gate stomps to our original gate. After another 5 minutes of what looks like some emotional conversation he comes back and said there was never an announcement we need to go back. We go back and the gate agent loudly tells another passenger she never said that. There are a few remarks about gaslighting but we sit back down. The maintenance something something gets resolved and we start boarding. We all hold our breathes and after another 20 minute delay, the doors close and we start to head to Canada.

And that is the story of why I slept for three days after visiting the United Kingdom in September and why I think we should introduce hummingbirds to every country in the world.

#blog #flight cancellation #humminbirds

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boyfhee · 1 year

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OKAY IM BACK 🤩🤩 ( after some self reflection on my attachment to take two ) NGL I DIDNT EXPECT YOU TO GIVE ME A SHOUTOUT OR EVEN FOR ME TO HELP PLAY A PART ( even if its a teeny tiny bit ) IN THE ENDING ??? you can literally imagine my surprise when i opened the app after a goodnight sleep to see a new update and mentions of me in the a/n 😭😭 the ending was so fhdjsnjsnsks BITTERSWEET. it was so nice to know that they all found comfort in each other ultimately ( despite it not turning into something romantic wise at that moment ) and being such good friends ?? it really shows their growth as characters which behaved selfishly to ones that were willing to accept each others shortcomings whole heartedly ( at least imo ) . although yn doesnt have an endgame (cries cos my imaginations were running wild at the slightly open but not so open ending if you get what i mean ) , it feels very realistic that wonki hasnt moved on yet — especially since this happens a lot irl ( i never experienced it before but ive seen my friends go through it ! ). i think it was a very well written ending considering how you couldnt make everyones wishes come through ( talking about the readers choice of endgame ) but yet still delivered one of satisfactory level. it was such a wild ride watching ynki make every mistake we as humans could make. miya was truly a test - she was testing my patience half the time 💀💀💀. but miya also serves as a reminder to everyone of how easily it is to unknowingly cheat on your partner without having to lay a single hand or even touch the person. emotional cheating is JUST AS BAD AS PHYSICALLY CHEATING IF NOT WORST ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ i kinda feel bad (?) for wonki though because even though they were given closure and time to heal, it always felt more like a right person wrong time kind of thing so they will never be able to properly move on imo. IT MAKES ME EVEN SADDER THAT IT FEELS LIKE YN GETS THE HAPPY ENDING AND WONKI GOT A HAPPY ENDING TOO BUT IT COMES WITH A CHANCE THAT THEY MIGHT NEVER BE ABLE TO GET ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED WITH YN EVER AGAIN. its really giving “ feels like we have matching wounds but mines still black and bruised and yours is perfectly fine “ < the exit - conan gray >

okay i feel like i should stop here before i get carried away and keep repeating the same points but more aggressively with each sentence 🥶🥶 i was actually a pure literature student before i graduated from school and its been a while since i had graduated so it was really fun to be able to make analysis on characters again as well as figure out plots through diction 🤩🤩 i cant thank you enough for writing take two because it gave me a chance to put my literature to good use, it wouldve been a real shame if i studied so hard just for me to never use it ever again. thank you thank you thank you thank you.

please have a good rest and all the best for your studies ! i had national exams last year and it absolutely beat the crap out of my brain 😭😭 had me tearing at every math question and feeling hella defeated. its going to be tough but you can do it !! take as long as you need for your break ! you absolutely deserve it after dropping that bombass smau 😩😩😩😩 i will look forward to your return with full excitement ! take care ~

- 🎐 ( its been a pleasure being one of take twos biggest fans - self proclaimed )

WINDCHIME ANON HEHE HELLO 💗💗 no bc a shoutout was a must bc ur ask helped me pick the direction i wanted to go with the ending. and i was so scared bc ppl were hoping for a ynwon ending but i gave them kind of nothing i was like 'what if they dont like' BUT FUCK IT BC IN MY EYES YN DOESNT DESERVE A HAPPY ENDING JUST YET . tbh the whole point of the friends part was that they were willing to give their relationship another try despite the mistakes, call that character development. and miya was created solely to tell people how important communication is. none of this would've happened if riki told yn about miya, if yn told him ab meeting miya, if riki told yn ab his plan, the communication was gone on so many levels. the thing that ruined ynki, if you ask me, was the lack of communications. not miya, not jungwon, not media, not fans, but yn and riki themselves. SO CHIYUV NATION, COMMUNICATION IS THE KEY. ALWAYS. take it from me i love clearing things out and it always ends well unless u start phrasing things wrong ( dont do it )

AND ANON WE R GETTING A PART TWO WITH SEPARATE ENDINGS let ur imagination run wild again ☝️☝️ that conan gray lyrics r so ksdjfhhs fits so well fr. AND OMG HI FELLOW LIT. STUDENT i had science but also had eng on the side, spent my youth editing drafts and analysing proses and poetry it was fun . everyday i think about ur asks ab take two and it makes miso happy (sunghoon hi) bc they rlly made my day U ARE THE BIGGEST TAKE TWO FAN i will give u that medal 🥇

#—🎐anon.#@ : tt

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daechwitatamic · 1 year

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I'm so sad MFFMHH is over, but man did I love it!

Firstly, I love that this whole experience gave her an unexpected chance to get closer with Lin. I think that the reader having that realization that she never knew Lin felt that way connected the whole emotional arc she went through to understand how she's maybe been pushing love and family away in more than one form. And that her overall healing is not a matter of just swapping Namjoon out for Taehyung. "For the first time, you’re starting to see family as something you have to build." That line will stay with me! I thought it was so well-crafted to include this subplot as part of the story.

I definitely feel like we got the Taehyung redemption arc I was looking for! I'm so glad they had this conversation. Without putting the actual term to it, I think they were both able to realize that their relationship was a bit co-dependent, which is completely understandable given that they bonded through trauma, but wasn't healthy to sustain. I also really appreciated that while at the beginning of the story it felt a little bit like the reader was the one who clung to Taehyung, he ended up realizing how much he relied on her to cling to him right back. He was relying on her for his emotional needs, and neglecting his chance at finding love just as much! And I think it was really important for reader's closure to be able to hear him admit this. I also appreciated how realistic it was that after they made up, they didn't easily fall back into a regular pattern of friendship and things remained a bit distanced and awkward. Especially because these two really don't share a lot of common interests like Namjoon and reader, they don't have a lot to fall back on and have to rebuild their friendship from scratch. I love that we got to see a few moments of them navigating this new way of being, and that it was left a bit open-ended whether or not they will ever be able to be "best" friends again.

And finally... not Namjoon casually having a whole plan, founded on extensive research, inside of his head for their future that he just assumed they were on the same page about. If that isn't the most Namjoon behavior.

Congrats on completing another great series, Jo! I know you have some other small things in WIP, but hope you enjoy a much-deserved break for a bit. I'm sure Bangtan will give us plenty of things to scream together about in the meantime.

(Ok but also what Christmas movie was reader watching with Mr. Kim? I desperately need this information to complete my mental picture.)

🌴

I~~ am sad it's over!! what am i supposed to do now? my JOB??? no thank you!!!

I'm so glad the stuff with Lin hit - if I could redo the series now I'd give more time to this plotline earlier in the story. oh well!

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees i'm so glad you found the resolution with tae satisfying!!!! he DOES love her, he DOES need her, and they both needed to address what the boundaries of that should be!! what they had was beautiful when they were young and needed each other but it's not sustainable as adults with their own lives!

odjkahfskjshflkajh ISN'T THAT PEAK NAMJOON like oh i researched all this last week, you didn't know???? bro???? the rest of us live OUTSIDE that big brain???? i love him :') so much :')

bangtan will give us NOTHING to scream about because they are ALL!!!!! going to put their SHIRTS BACK ON and LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!

(Christmas movie..... insert your fave..... In my head there are muppets and a song that says "no cheese for us meeses" >_> but honestly even hallmark shit will do, i LOVE the dumbest dumbest dumbest christmas films, the dumber they are the more christmas cheer i get lmfaoooo)

#🌴 anon #my heart to reply #answered

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3nbyblogg3r · 1 year

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Struggles

Welcome, everyone, to the mess I call my life. I'm glad to have you here on the adventure. It makes this all less lonely. Strap in, today and last night was crazy.

So, I had a crush on my coworker at my last job. She has been out of work due to surgery and showed up at the holiday party last night. I was going to shoot my shot since I was leaving anyway, but she was hanging all over our other co-worker who got promoted up the ladder. I was crushed. I had another plan (another cute coworker)... they pulled a no-show. I text a sorta cute/lonely text. To my surprise, I get a text back, but It's distant and friendly. *sigh* well... I want to confront Sophie (the one who is with our coworker), but Idk if she'll tell me, or tell me to piss off... I just want some sort of closure I guess...

I woke up relatively early today to get ready for my doctor's appointment. This appointment has been, quite literally, keeping me alive for the past two weeks (at least). It has been the light at the end of the tunnel, the sign saying, "Everything is going to be ok if you can make it here." I was starting T this morning, or so I thought. The phone rings, it's my doctor's receptionist... calling to cancel the appointment. They had both their nurses out today, which meant no one to do shots. I wept for the first time today. I asked to see if I really needed to go back. I had already been there once and knew what I was doing. Did I need someone to watch me the first time? Hold music for a solid 5 minutes. The receptionist comes back on and I dry my tears. I can still come in. I still ended up getting my first dose of T. I've made it.

I decided to go to the local hockey team's pride night tonight because, well, I like hockey and I'm as gay as they come. I had to use the bathroom so I used the family bathroom (there wasn't any other kind of gender-neutral bathrooms, and I've done this song and dance a million times before). This time on my departure, I had a bathroom police. Great. This employee assumed a whole about me by telling me where I could and couldn't go to the bathroom. I tried explaining how I'm non-binary, and there aren't any gender-neutral bathrooms. Brian walked away. Yes, that is his real name. I'm not protecting the identity of transphobes. I tried going up to him and demanding an apology. Nothing. He walked away. I cried for the second time today. The company I was there with went to guest services about it. They gave them an apology for Brian's actions and told them he would be reprimanded for it. That's it. Nothing else... Happy pride night to me. I cried internally over my hockey nachos and tried to be as small as possible the rest of the night. I tried blending into the crowd. Tried enjoying the game.

I wrote a letter to the venue's management on their website. I won't post the whole thing here. It is to the effect of, "... this is rainbow marketing... felt like I didn't belong... his name was Brian... never returning... told all my gay friends". There's the spark notes version *nervous laugh*

Here I am now, writing in bed and wondering if I even should've sent that email... wondering if anything I'm even doing is making a fucking difference at all...

#trans #transition #nonbinary #lgbtq #lgbtqplus #queer #hockey #transphobes #hypocrite #sad boi hours

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ace-wangxian · 4 years

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*pats my OCs gently on the head* these bad bitches can fit so many headcanons in them

#and trauma #listen I am just lazy at this point #i have ao many thigs to do and so many ideas that i want to see but never create #Mo Xuanyu's friends have almost as much drama going into their lives as him and that's just how it is #it started off with me thinking about Mo Xuanyu and what would have happened if he had a childhood friend and they lost touch #around the time that he left for Koi Tower #before or after idk abt details don't ask me about that but yeah the idea was that I wanted it to be a woman because we need more of those #ANYWAYS i was like wouldn't it be funny if WWX not only had to deal with everything that happened in canon #but was also being tracked down by a woman who thinks he's her deceased friend because I felt sad that MXY didn't get anyone to mourn him #but then she needed some closure so I gave them another friend because i felt bad if she had to suffer alone #then i thought what if Madam Lan had a sister? What if Wei Changze had other non-cultivator family?#like the Wen did any other Wei families out there get killed by resentful cultivators?#anyway that's how my half-finished au was born and these OCs were put together with a bunch of tape and love and chaos #i made two and the other one is when mxy is alive and thriving and feral

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clanwarrior-tumbly · 3 years

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HELLO! I'm here with a TWF request! Fully platonic fic, but a fic where a close friend and employee of Jack Walters finds him as Bon and recognizes him after they spent months looking for him when he went missing. Maybe it could be a Angst/Comfort fic as well! - moss

Closure.

The one thing you thought you'll never get.

For several long months you've been searching for Jack, wondering where he could have gone. Of course Rosemary was just as fretful, but she searched the restaurant nonstop in a hopeless struggle until one day...

She went missing, too.

The number of friends and coworkers who've gone missing without a trace left you paranoid that you'll be the next victim.

But to who?

You didn't know, although when you visited the restaurant when it was open..Bon always gave you odd stares. Like he was watching and waiting for you to make one wrong move.

Fortunately he never lunged off the stage or did anything more than stare.

Even so, it was kinda creepy. You couldn't help but felt like there was some....unusual connection between him and Jack. Like anytime you mentioned his name, Bon would turn his head.

You've been afraid to confront him alone until now.

Recently you received word from Felix that a new storage facility--called K-9--had been established in the heart of Saint Juana's forest. A temporary place for the animatronics until he could finish the paperwork for some "Relocate Project".

You thought he'd be more concerned about Jack and everyone else who went missing, but he seemed obsessed with keeping the franchise alive.

Although you were close to giving up hope, you believed this facility was the last clue.

Your last chance at finding Jack.

..........

"K-9..wonder if that pun was intended.." You mused as you arrived at the storage facility.

After watching the training tapes, you got everything you needed, including a set of keys for the main entrance and the rooms within it. Once inside, it took you a while to find the animatronics.

Plus it was so dark and cramped, even with your flashlight guiding you. It made you feel more uneasy by the second.

Still..you took a deep breath and pushed forward, determined to finish your mission.

At some point you finally arrived at one of the rooms mentioned in the tape--a room that hid the animatronics and their spare parts.

Your eyes immediately landed on Bon, who was laying against the wall. The poor rabbit looked like he's seen better days. The fabric casing around his lower arms and legs had been removed, and his teeth had chipped away into sharp points.

In a way they looked like old dentures, which didn't help the creepiness of his overall appearance.

"There's gotta be some light in here.." You grumbled as you shook the flashlight, seeing it was growing dimmer, before deciding to look for a switch.

Though when you finally found one, that's when your flashlight decided to die. "Huh?" With a frown you shook it again, confused.

But you froze when you heard the sounds of mechanical clunking, briefly glancing back at the darkness. "B-Bon..?"

Silence answered you.

'Maybe something fell...just relax, [y/n].' Sighing, you turned on the switch, which illuminated the room only slightly.

But hey, it was better than nothing.

Though you heard heavy breathing noises--which sounded awfully organic--and nervously turned around to see Bon towering over you. You jumped a little as he cackled, clearly taking delight in your fright.

"J-Jeez..you're fast, huh?"

As his clawed hand reached out to you, he hesitated and tilted his eyes, confused at your lack of terror.

Not only that but..something about you seemed familiar..

While he remained still, you seized the opportunity to do something that would most likely be the death of you.

You stepped forward and embraced him.

Yes. You were hugging the tall decrepit rabbit animatronic. Now he was more tense than ever before, wondering what on earth you were doing. "Wh-Wh-What's this now? A hug-g-g?" His voice was choppy and warped, but still held that snarky tone he was known for.

"Yeah, I missed you." You sighed and stepped away, gazing up at him. "And I..really miss Jack. Maybe I was a fool to think he'd be here. But if you ever see him, Bon..tell him I'm sorry about his children, Ed and Molly."

Bon just stared at you. You couldn't tell what he was thinking, but it seemed your efforts were in vain.

What were you thinking? He probably didn't even know Jack since he was still being built by Susan when he vanished.

"Well, I'll see how your other friends are doing, I guess. See you around, Bon." Forcing a smile, you turned around in disappointment and heartache.

'Damnit, another dead end. Maybe he IS gone and I haven't-'

"Wait..[y/n]..."

With wide eyes, you slowly looked back at him, shocked.

Bon spoke yet again, but his voice sounded...deeper yet softer. It had the same kind of distorted undertones, though you could easily recognize the all-too-familiar voice of-

"Are you..mimicking him, Bon? Because this isn't funny-"

"It's easier to show than explain. I'm sorry.."

You fell silent as he reached up to grip his mask. He seemed to struggle a bit, but he slowly peeled it off and lowered it so you could finally see the man you've been searching for.

Your colleague, boss, and best friend:

Jack Walten, and his rotten decayed face.

His hair was somehow still there, but far more matted and sticking to the bloody wounds on his skin. Through the black tuffs you could make out his teeth--the lips ripped off and forming a permanent smile that mirrored the rabbit's.

The mechanical parts to the animatronic eyes were practically shoved into his empty sockets. As if...Jack was forced to see the world through Bon's eyes.

It was such a nauseating sight, but instead of being terrified all you could wonder was:

Did he do this to himself?

No...he wouldn't have. This couldn't have been an accident or some suicide. The Jack you knew wouldn't have done something like this to himself.

But what sick bastard would shove him into this suit and leave him here to rot?

"J-Jack...who did this to you?" Your voice wavered with anger. "Tell me, please. I wanna know who killed you."

Jack didn't answer. Instead he put the mask back on; it seemed Bon was crying now, his eyes leaking an oily substance as his hands trembled. "E-Ed...Molly...Rose....S-Sophie...Felix...Felix-x..." His voice became more warped and distorted, merged with his creation's.

Loud mechanical grinding from inside him was making him twitch violently as he clutched his snout.

"Jack."

Bon froze and looked down at you, tilting his head.

"I know you want your family back..trust me, I know how much you loved them. You used to show me Ed's and Molly's concepts of the Showstoppers and..you said they'd grow up to be amazing artists." You smiled, wiping the tears from your eyes. "They would've loved them..they would've loved Bon. They basically brought him to life."

His green eyes glowed a bit brighter and he giggled as he crouched down slightly. "E-Eddie and Molly would'a loved me? Of course..wh-who wouldn't love me-e-e-e?"

Now you saw that Bon was back in control; it was clear that he and Jack were at war with each other. Sadly that might be the last you'll probably hear of your friend's voice for a while.

But...it's safe to say that he had been found.

#clanask #the walten files x reader #walten files x reader #twf x reader #twf bon x reader #jack walten x reader #angst

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mypoisonedvine · 3 years

Text

vignettes of a bond || alpha!bucky barnes x omega!reader

I originally wrote this in two parts for my sleepover but after I realized how long it accidentally became, I've reformatted it, added/changed a few things, and made into a oneshot!

word count: 3.1k

warnings: smut, angst, knotting, violence

June 2nd, 1943, 11:43 p.m., James Barnes’ bedroom

“I wanna do it, before I go,” he whispered against your skin. “But I know it’s wrong. It’s too cruel.”

“No, please,” you whimpered, “I want it. I want your mark.”

Bucky pulled back for a moment and you examined your Alpha’s face carefully, knowing it might be the last time for a long time. “I couldn’t bond to you and then leave you. It wouldn’t be fair… you deserve to find somebody who can stay, and be with you, and protect you.”

“All I want is you,” you whispered. “Please, Alpha… bite me.”

You saw him hesitate for a moment before he leaned in and sucked at your neck, building the anticipation before he finally sunk his teeth into your skin and you cried out, one single tear rolling down your cheek. “Mine,” he growled against your skin as he lapped at the healing wound, “my Omega. Forever.”

“Yours, only yours,” you agreed eagerly.

It wasn’t the first time Bucky had taken you, but that night he really and truly claimed you, left you a desperate begging mess, stretched out over his knot as he filled you over and over.

The next morning, you were still sore between your legs as well as on your new mark, and it took everything in you to be strong as you saw him off at the train station, waving goodbye and praying that your Alpha would return to you soon.

November 9th, 1943, 2:24 p.m., undercover SHIELD facility

“You promised Bucky you’d take care of me,” you reminded him with a little smile, wiping a tear from your cheek.

“I know,” Steve relented, “but we both know I can’t do that. Not in this state. But maybe I can protect you if I do this. Maybe I can protect my country. I owe it to everyone, especially Bucky, to try.”

You nodded. “But I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too. Come see me before I ship out for good, alright?”

“Of course,” you agreed.

December 27th, 1943, 8:32 a.m., your front porch

“You’re lying,” you gasped as you shook your head. “You’re wrong, no, it’s not true.”

“It is,” Steve promised as tears welled in his eyes, “I’m so so sorry, I saw it myself, I had to watch him fall…”

“It’s not true! He’s not dead!”

“I know he loved you so much. He talked about every day, he couldn’t wait to come home to you,” Steve remembered, choking up noticeably. “But he won’t. He’s gone.”

“You don’t understand, I know, okay? I know.”

“You’re in shock, I understand, it’s hard to lose your mate—”

“You’re a beta, you wouldn’t understand,” you dismissed; sure, he looked like an alpha now, but it didn’t make a difference. “Omegas, we know when our Alpha dies, we feel it, it kills us. He’s far away, but he’s still there, I still feel him!”

Steve held you as you sobbed, your body crumpling into his arms. Sometimes you thought maybe he held you too tight on accident because he was still getting used to his new strength; other times you thought he did it on purpose.

February 3rd, 1944, 12:00 p.m., undercover SHIELD facility

“Even when I had nothing, I had Steve,” you recalled shakily, “and now he’s gone too.”

“Is that why you’re volunteering?” Agent Carter asked you. “Because you’d rather sleep for a hundred years than live without your mate and your best friend?”

“I’m volunteering because my mate and my best friend died for SHIELD,” you corrected firmly, “and if I’m not willing to also, then I’m admitting I think they went to waste.”

“Steve told me you didn’t think Bucky was dead,” Peggy remembered.

You winced. “I’m not sure. But I know he’s not coming home again. I came here to give whatever I could to help find him… I was asked to participate in a cryogenics research study. If it helps him, then I’ll do it.”

She was about to get up, apparently satisfied with your final interview, but you stopped her.

“On one condition,” you added. “If James Barnes is found, alive or dead, wake me up to see him.”

She nodded, stepping out of the room and leaving you alone again.

May 8th, 2012, SHIELD headquarters

“Can you hear me?”

You slowly blinked awake, your vision taking a moment to catch up with your mind. You saw tubes coming out of your arms; you saw Steve above you, looking like the day you saw him last.

“Did you find Bucky?” you asked instantly. Why else would they wake you up?

“No,” Steve answered, seemingly a bit disappointed that that was your first and only question.

“Then put me back to sleep,” you demanded.

“It’s been 68 years,” he told you. “You’ve slept for 68 years. It’s time to wake up.”

And you did, more than you ever wanted to, because you realized you couldn’t feel him anymore. Your Alpha was gone. Worse, he probably died while you were asleep; he probably died alone.

One more time, like he had 68 years ago, Steve held you while you sobbed.

August 1st, 2014, 2:11 a.m., Avengers compound, Steve Rogers’ quarters

You ran into Steve’s room barefoot and still in your pajamas, barreling through the door and right into his bed.

“Steve, I feel him!” you rushed.

“What?” he groaned sleepily, looking up at you as he blinked in confusion.

“I feel him again, he’s alive,” you explained. “I know it. He’s weak… he’s hurting… but he’s there.”

“That’s impossible,” Steve shook his head. “It’s been too long, he would’ve died of old age anyways.”

“Don’t you want to believe it? Don’t you want to think he’s out there?”

“Do I want to think he’s alone and I didn’t save him?” Steve hissed. “No, I can’t say that I particularly do!”

“But we still can, Steve, we just have to find h—”

But before you could finish, the feeling left you, and you were just half of something again.

“Oh,” you breathed.

“He’s gone again?” Steve realized.

You nodded, biting your lip as it started to quiver. He sighed and pulled you into a hug. “If I could just see his body, and know it was over,” you whispered, “if I could just bury him, have a funeral…”

“We’ll have one,” Steve decided, “after this mission. We’ll put him to rest. He deserves that, and so do you.”

You nodded into his shoulder. It shattered you into a million pieces but it was still the better option, to try to let him go in whatever small way you could. He would always, always, always be your Alpha, nothing could change that, but a funeral would at least bring some closure.

That would have to wait until after your next mission though… and it was going to be a big one: tracking the elusive Winter Soldier.

August 3rd, 2014, 1:14 p.m., Lower East side

You were a few blocks away, helping civilians escape the firefight, when you felt it.

For one impossibly brief moment, you felt him, stronger than you had in nearly 80 years. He was here.

You instantly got up and ran like you’d never run before, finding the Soldier and Steve locked in a brutal showdown— but his mask was gone now, and you nearly fell to your knees at the sight of him.

“Bucky!” you yelped, but you knew he wasn’t there or you would’ve felt his presence. Your Alpha was somewhere underneath the shell that wore his face, and you needed to find him.

You ran forward just as Steve made a break for it, getting to him just in time to stand between the Soldier and his mission.

“Alpha, please,” you whimpered, clutching at his chest. A metal hand backhanded you to the ground.

“Out of my way, Omega,” he growled, stepping over you, but you grabbed at his ankles even when he tried to kick you away.

“My mark,” you explained hastily, pulling your shirt down some to make sure it was visible. “It’s yours. Do you remember? You gave me this. This is your mark on me.”

He stared down at you, seeming to be contemplating it, and you scrambled back to your feet and faced him.

“I still feel you,” you whispered. “I knew you were alive, I knew you’d come back to me. I could feel you, right here,” you explained as you took his hand and placed it on your chest. “Could you feel me? Did you know I was waiting for you all this time?”

His eyes were watering but he still seemed confused— stunned, more specifically, as you placed your hand on his chest.

“I’ll always be yours, Bucky. I’ll always be your Omega, no matter where you are.”

A stun gun took you down, an array of masked men appeared, and before he could really see you for what you were, he was dragged away and taken to be erased again.

August 3rd, 2014, 9:04 p.m., Avengers compound, medical bay

“I can’t believe we let them get away,” Steve lamented, resting his face in his hands. “I can’t believe they took him again…”

“They’ll be back,” you promised sternly. “They’re going to figure out what I am to him. They’re going to realize I could break his programming. And they’re going to come for me.”

“And when they do?” Steve pressed.

“We’ll be ready. And I’ll get my Alpha back.”

August 3rd, 2014, 9:04 p.m., temporary HYDRA operations facility

"The woman on the bridge... the Omega..." Bucky mumbled. "She knew me... she had my mark."

"No she didn't."

He furrowed his brow. "She showed me..."

Pierce sighed, glancing over to the HYDRA scientist who looked back at him sternly.

"She's too dangerous to be left alive," the man sighed, shrugging in his lab coat. "We can't deprogram a bond like that."

"We'll take care of her," Pierce promised.

Bucky launched from the chair, snapping his restraints like paper. "Touch her and I'll fucking kill you!" he bellowed, tackling his handler to the ground.

Pierce just laughed as another scientist jabbed Bucky with a needle, dosing him with something strong enough to kill any other man but just enough to knock out a super soldier. Pierce stood up and dusted himself off as he watched Bucky go limp and be lifted back into his chair.

"I can see the fight in your eyes, Soldier," he taunted as he leaned into his face. "I know you really would kill me, if you could. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, right? But don't worry about your mate, we'll make it quick and painless. Hey, maybe beforehand me and a few of the other Alphas will show her a good time, poor thing's been without her mate for 70 years... I bet she's raring to go."

Bucky's arm twitched as his eyes started to fall shut, a tear falling down his blank and motionless face.

"Wipe him," Pierce instructed to the scientist, turning and walking away as the electric whirr of the machine charging up filled the room.

August 11th, 2014, 3:53 p.m., SHIELD headquarters

Steve was impressed with how accurate and imminent your prediction was; HYDRA was hot on your trail and desperate to eliminate the biggest threat to their Asset. Knowing they were coming made it easier, but it was still a brutal fight.

You and Steve tried to stay together, but they were smart, they used the perfect bait to lure you away.

"Tell me where he is," you demanded from the HYDRA agent as you held a blade to his neck, "then I'll kill you."

"Isn't it supposed to be 'or I'll kill you'?" he frowned.

You shook your head. "Not the way I operate."

Opposite to the reaction you were expecting, he grinned widely. "He's here."

Your heart stopped.

"On the roof. He's here to kill you."

You dropped the knife and ran straight for the stairwell, ascending them like they were nothing and calling out for your Alpha.

You found him there, waiting, gun trained on you. Raising your hands in surrender, you yelled to him again.

"Bucky," you called across the windy roof, eyes nearly blinded by the bright afternoon sun. "Alpha."

"I'm not who you think I am," he yelled back. "I'm not your Alpha."

It hurt to hear it in his voice, but you knew it wasn't him. Cautiously, you stepped closer. "Before you left, you told me you didn't want to mark me and leave me behind," you recalled. "But I wanted it. I wanted to be bonded to you more than I'd ever wanted anything."

He could clearly see you were coming closer, he even tightened his finger over the trigger of his weapon, but he was waiting. You kept walking to him, slowly.

"I've never regretted it," you continued, "not even when I thought you were dead, not even when I had to spent a lifetime-- more than that-- apart from you."

Finally you were face to face, and you stepped closer until his gun was pressed right into your chest.

"You can shoot me now and I still won't regret it," you promised. "I love you."

Shakily, he lowered his weapon. "Omega..." he breathed.

"Your Omega."

He pulled you into him and you sobbed as you felt him come to life in your arms-- the real him, your Alpha, your Bucky. He held you close and breathed against the top of your head and it was like a dream coming true decades after you'd forced yourself to let it go.

But you'd never given up. And now you had found him again.

Agents started to come onto the roof and Bucky spun the two of you around, firing with his right hand and using the left, metal arm as a shield for you.

He carried you and you didn't even know where he was taking you, but it didn't matter. In his arms, you were home.

August 12th, 1:03 a.m., Avengers compound, your quarters

You hadn't stopped coming or crying for at least an hour. Bucky had all but split you open on his knot all night and he didn't show any signs of stopping.

He apparently intended to make up for lost time. And you'd lost a lot of time.

"Just one more, I know you can give me one more," he groaned furiously rubbing your clit as his knot began to swell again.

You could give him anything, as long as he asked for it like that.

You'd lost count of how many times he'd told you to come for him, and how many times you did it immediately.

"I can see how full you are," he whispered as he rubbed your stomach gently. "So much seed in you that your body can't hold it all."

You looked down and yep, you were distinctly bloated from his come alone; it made you a little dizzy to even look at it.

"The idea of you alone during your heats, no one to protect you, it kills me," he explained with a growl. "I won't let you go again. I can't."

"Then don't," you sighed. "Never leave this bed, fill me with everything you have."

"Did anybody ever help you through them? The heats?" he asked. "I wouldn't blame you, they can be so painful... I just need to know so I can make sure you forget about them."

"No, Bucky, never— I never let anyone touch me."

"Steve could've helped you, at least some..."

"He wouldn't have, he loves you too much. And I wouldn't accept anything less than you, ever. You're my Alpha. We're bonded. There's never anyone else."

That didn't seem to satisfy him, his eyes darting away as he swallowed. Your gut sank with the realization he probably wasn't being totally honest about why he asked.

"Your ruts," you gasped. "Were you alone for all of them?"

He shut his lips tighter.

"Bucky, it's okay, just tell me. I was asleep for 70 years, I skipped most of them, but you... you had to live through them all."

"They gave me betas, and omegas," he mumbled, "but I don't... I don't really remember. I know they wanted me to. They threatened to hurt me if I didn't, because they knew I'd go crazy after so many ruts alone, but I can't remember if I really did it. I remember... I remember crying, and begging for you."

"Alpha," you breathed as you felt new tears run over the stains of your old ones. "It's okay. Whatever happened, it's okay now. We're together again. Everything's okay."

You wiped his tear away with your thumb, holding his face tightly, weaving your fingers into his long hair.

"I'll always be your Omega," you promised.

He leaned in closer to you, kissing your cheek before pulling back a little. "It's faded," he whispered as he ran his thumb over the mark on your neck. "The last time I saw it, it was still fresh."

"It's older, sure, but it's stronger than ever, Bucky."

August 14th, 10:12 a.m., Avengers compound, residential area kitchen

Steve's eyes went wide when he came into the kitchen for breakfast and found you there, steeping your tea. "Surprised to see you out of the love nest so soon," he smirked.

"It's been three days, I don't think that counts as soon," you scoffed.

"It does to him," Steve frowned. "He's asleep, isn't he?"

"Yep."

"I know he wouldn't let you out of his sights if he was conscious," Steve chuckled.

At that moment, you heard Bucky call your name and run out into the hall, only a bedsheet covering his groin as he appeared in the doorway. You spun around and smiled when you saw him come running towards you, embracing you with his free arm.

"You should've told me you were leaving, I got scared when I woke up without you," he admitted weakly.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you worry!"

He pulled back and clutched your face in both his hands. "I'm waking up next to you every morning for the rest of my life, you understand?"

You nodded dutifully. "Yes, Alpha."

"One hand on the sheet, please, Buck?" Steve winced, looking away.

“Whoops,” Bucky groaned, reaching to cover himself as you laughed softly.

“Let’s go back to bed, baby,” you decided quietly, taking Bucky’s (free) hand in yours and waving goodbye to Steve, who was already making his way as far out of earshot as possible.

#alpha!bucky barnes x omega!reader #alpha!bucky barnes smut

2K notes · View notes

parkersroses · 3 years

Text

champagne problems. | harry styles.

summary: Harry and Y/N meet again after things fell out for them.

pairing: harry styles x fem!reader

word count: 7.3k words

trigger warnings: mentions of mental health issues and attempt of self harm, angst. if these are triggering to you, pls do not read this.

a/n: (gif credits to @letsmakesomeonehappytoday) i’m super nervous about this, also this is definitely the longest i’ve written. i began writing this last december bc i absolutely love the context of the song and i felt like writing something that touches important issues like mental health. i read and did research on how i could write this properly without having it look like i was romanticising the topic. if you do find it that way, pls feel free to leave constructive criticism so i can further improve and amend on my writing. don’t feel obligated to read this if it is triggering to you. here is a link to some mental health hotlines, i might add some more in another if i find any that are reliable. don’t be afraid to ask for help or even help others if you know they might be struggling.

reblog, comment if you like it or not, or even start a conversation. donate to my kofi if you’d like to support me further. i love you all.

The relaxing and sensual sound of jazz music filled the room. The chandeliers hanging above casted a golden glow over it, making the room more elegant than it did. People were dressed in nice clothing for the new year celebration.

Harry was not one for New Year’s eve parties, having to prefer sitting in the comfort of his home, sipping on some champagne as he tries to ignore the loud fireworks going off. But considering it was one of his old friends that was hosting this particular party, there was no way he would deny it. He enjoyed having to see his old friends again after a busy year of filming a movie for the world to see one day.

He stands with his friend, Jake, as he holds a champagne flute in one hand. Talia, his recently girlfriend-turned-fiancée, standing next to him with an arm wrapped around his waist. It had been two weeks since he proposed and two weeks since she said yes to marrying him. It was a joyous time for them after nearly a year of dating. Some might think they rushed but Harry ignored them. He knew if the time was right, then it would be bound to happen eventually.

Harry’s eyes scan through the sea of people while Jake and Talia are discussing animatedly about something he probably isn’t paying attention to all that much. His eyes wander around until they fall on a familiar figure. He blinks his eyes hard enough to make sure they aren’t playing tricks on him, and they aren’t. The person who he knew and loved before. The person whom he intended to spend the rest of his life with. The person who left him, not giving him a reason as to why.

Y/N stands with Natalia, occasionally sipping on her champagne as they talk. He should have known that their group of friends would stay in touch with her, even after they broke up years ago. She wears her casual dark jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt and heeled boots. A contrast to those around them, wearing fancy dresses and suits. She always stood out in her own way. It was why he loved her then.

Harry let out a breath, seemingly couldn’t believe that his ex lover is here in the same room as him. Talia notices this and questions, “Babe, you alright?” Harry breaks away his gaze from Y/N before smiling at his dear fiancée. “Yeah, m’fine. Just saw an old friend, s’all,” he assures her as he sips on his drink.

“Oh, d’you want to talk to her?” She asks, and Harry shakes his head because if he did, he wouldn’t know how to act or say to her. “No worries. Maybe later,” he says.

As time passes, Harry finds himself focused on Y/N numerous times. In his mind, he is already thinking of ways to talk to her. What would he say to her? Would she even want to talk to him? Or were they going to pretend everything was fine before she left him?

When he looks around for her again, he freezes as he sees her eyes staring right back at her, almost looking in shock as he is there too. There is a glimmer in her eyes that he always noticed. She gives him a small yet timid smile from across the room before breaking away from the eye contact.

Harry decides to pick up what’s left of his courage in his body to walk over and greet her. He leans into Talia’s ear, whispering to her. “I’m just going to meet an old friend. You’ll be okay here?” He says. Talia looks up at him and nods. She assures him that she’ll be alright, saying that she’ll talk to some other of their friends.

As he leaves her side, he walks through the sea of people to look for the person he hadn’t seen in a long time. Harry finds her grabbing another glass of champagne from a nearby tray and he smiles at this. He always knew she liked champagne. She doesn’t notice him walking up to her until he clears his throat. She turns around and her breath hitches as she sees him. Harry’s mouth dries up instantly as his eyes gazes upon her. Despite years of knowing her, he still found her beautiful.

The corner of his lips curls up slightly. “Hi,” he says quietly, his breath slightly shaking as he spoke. He isn’t sure whether she heard him, but her reply seems to answer that. “Hi,” she replies, with the same nervousness in her voice.

“Fancy seeing yeh here,” he chuckles. Y/N smiles at this; while it was awkward to have seen her ex in a long while, he never fails to make the situation comfortable for them. “Y-Yeah, you too,” she stutters.

She is not going to admit it aloud, but she misses the sound of his voice. How deep and raspy it could get. She misses his voice being the first thing she hears when she wakes up, or the hums she would hear in her ear as they would dance with no music on. She misses his touch whenever he holds her close, warmth and protection radiating from his body onto hers. She misses everything about him despite them not being together anymore for a long time, she admits but never out loud.

Silence fills the gap between as they both figure out what to say. On one hand, they can pretend everything is alright and converse like old friends. On the other, they can push their fears aside and talk about what is actually in their minds that seem to have an affect on their current relationship.

“So, how’ve yeh been?” He hesitates to ask. He’s not sure whether she would lie to him or give him the proper answer he needs. The answer he wishes he knew. Y/N doesn’t know how to answer that without making it sound as depressing as it is. There had been many times she wanted to give him a reason why she left him, to give him a little bit of closure that he deserves. Perhaps it is her pride that prevented her from doing so.

“I’m alright,” she says with a small smile on her lips. Her answer could be a lie or the truth. “And, you?”

He nods slightly at her answer. “I’ve been alright,” He gives her tight smile back. “Been a while since I last saw you,” he says and she nods. “Y-Yeah, way too long,” she says quietly. It’s hard to ignore how insincere the smile he gave her is. Y/N knows him all too well, even when they were no longer together. She knows by that smile that there’s something on his mind, something he wants to say. But she doesn’t question it.

Harry is aching to ask her. To ask what happened between them, why she left him without a warning, why she had to break his heart the way she did.

It’s almost like she senses what he is thinking because she then suggests to him. “Want to go outside for a bit?” She gestures to the backyard with her head.

“Yeah, absolutely,” Harry breathes out. He almost cringes at how desperate he sounds. “Um, after you,” he says, gesturing his hand towards the door. She softly thanks him and Harry follows right behind her outside.

“So-”

“I-”

The pair speak simultaneously as they walk and they both laugh at it. “Sorry,” she says. Harry dismisses this. “No worries.”

“You look great, by the way,” she says. Harry smiles at her compliment. “Thank you. You look amazing too,” he returns the compliment. She blushes a bit before muttering a soft ‘thank you’ under her breath.

The cold air wraps around the two bodies that once knew each other’s intimately. The stars look brighter that night and Y/N takes a deep breath as she stares up at the sky. She doesn’t realise how Harry looks at the small breath she let out, or how he admires her side profile like he used to when she sleeps. He stares at her for a bit more, like he’s remembering again what she looks like, before averting his eyes to the night sky.

“Saw you had a date back there. Someone special I assume?” She asks out of the blue. Harry freezes in his place. “Y-Yeah, she is,” he blurts out and clears his throat. “My fiancée, actually,” he says and he looks at her to see her reaction.

Y/N is surprised at first, feeling her whole body tense up before she relaxes. But Harry catches it. “That’s great. Congratulations, Harry,” she smiles at him before turning back the stars. She promises she is genuine about it. But maybe she’s just telling herself that. “How long have you both been together?”

“Nearly a year now,” he says. Y/N lets his answer sink in her head. A year, she thought. We were together longer than that for you to propo-

“Seems like a short time, huh?” She jokes, but Harry only gives a small smile. “Is it though? Too soon to ask if we’re both ready?” He says, as if he’s mocking her and something. And that sent a shard through her chest. Harry curses at himself, he shouldn’t be saying things like that despite them not being together anymore. She looks down at the ground like it was suddenly the most interesting thing and shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, Harry,” she apologises. Harry is quick to shake his head at her. “No, no. I’m sorry for how I said it. You did nothing,” he says. Y/N is silent for a bit before saying back to him.

“No, really. I didn’t mean to make things weird or uncomfortable between us. I’m just.. Sorry,” she says.

“How are you, Y/N?” He asks genuinely. Y/N is confused at first, wondering why he is asking the same question again. “I already told you, Harry. I’m alri-,”

“I mean, how actually are you?”

She turns to him, seeing as Harry is already looking at her with a solemn expression. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he says softly, almost sounding like he doesn’t want to scare her. And she knows what he meant and what he wants to know.

Y/N suddenly feels a lump forming in her throat and breathes in deeply. She clears her throat, hoping her voice doesn’t waver when she speaks. “I promise I’m okay, Harry. I just,” she sighs and closes her eyes.

“I don’t know. I’ve been getting by on my own. Trying to work on myself, you know, since,” her words falter, but Harry knows what she means. Since she left him without an answer to one of the most important questions in life. He nods his head slightly even though she doesn’t see it.

He lets out a sigh as he looks up at the starry night. “You know, it’s… kind of surreal. Us being here I mean,” he says. Y/N looks at him again with confusion written all over her face. “I’ve been wondering where you’ve been. I called but you never seem to answer. I just wanted to see how’ve yeh been, you know?” He confesses, throwing this big weight out in the open.

Y/N has her head hung low, like a child being scolded for stealing the last cookie from the cookie jar. But she knows he means well. And she hates how not only she caused problems for herself, but the person she once loved.

“I just… I miss my best friend, Y/N. I miss having her around,” he says, and he doesn’t realise how his words hit her like a truck. She breathes in sharply, feeling a slight pain in her throat. “And you don’t think I felt the same way then?” She asks softly, her voice already wavering.

Harry shakes his head. “No, love, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry,” He’s quick to apologise but she dismisses it while ignoring the fact that he called her a very familiar pet name he used to use on her. “It’s fine,” she says, and her voice is almost quiet enough for you to not hear her.

“It’s just,” she breathes out and she looks up hoping that tears won’t escape her eyes. “I wanted to let you in. I could’ve answered the phone. But I didn’t. I know how bad I left things between us, H.” Harry’s heart jumped a bit at hearing her say ‘H’ again. She used to always call him that. It still sounds lovely as it leaves her lips.

“I wish I could’ve told you why I left you kneeling with the ring still in your hand. I couldn’t, though. Maybe I wasn’t ready that time, or never was.” It hurts for her to say this because she has imagined spending the rest of her life with him countless times. “I’ve had this constant battle in my mind for so long. I thought that maybe if I ignore it, it’d be like it never was there and we’d be alright. But it got worse and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I held it on for so long and I couldn’t say anything because I knew I’d somehow ruin everything. Well, I did in the end.” And she feels tears streaming down her face.

Harry feels his tears escaping his eyes too, but doesn’t make the effort to wipe them away. As if he’s paralyzed in where he stands. “A-And, what happened after that?” he asks ever so gently.

Y/N wipes her tears away and takes a deep breath before continuing the sad story they’re on. “I lived with it and the thoughts consumed my mind. S-Sometimes, they can get dark.” She confesses but not all at once. She won’t tell him how she felt herself crumbling down and how her mother found her unconscious in the bathroom, overdosing on some pills she found. She won’t tell him how hard she cried in her hospital bed over the pain she was in. It felt like a shard puncturing through Harry’s heart. The fact that she had been struggling all this while and he never noticed it, it kills him.

“Then, one day, I just decided to find help. I knew I needed help. And I’ve been having sessions with a psychiatrist for a few months now.” And she smiles through her tears. “I’ve been working a lot on myself, been on medication and all. Then, maybe one day, when I feel ready for it, I’d come find you, apologise for the problems I caused between us. Didn’t think it’d be tonight, though.” She jokes and hangs her head low again, like she’s scared to see what Harry thinks of her now. Just a girl who’s sick in the head.

There is an uncomfortable silence between them and Harry speaks up again. “You infuriate me sometimes, you know?” Y/N looks at him and his eyebrows are pressed together like he’s mad. She is once again confused at what he meant. “I would’ve listened. I would’ve helped you. I would’ve,” he pauses and runs his fingers through his brown curls, taking a breather so he won’t actually lose his temper. But for Y/N, it’s like she wanted him to scream at her. Yell at her for leaving him behind for her own selfish needs.

“I would’ve looked after you,” he says softly, and it’s heartbreaking to hear the pain in his voice. “I didn’t want to burden you, H. I wouldn’t do that to you,” she says gently and Harry shakes his head at her. “Is that what you thought? That you’d burden me?” She only shrugs at him with a sad smile.

“I heard it before.” She says, and it makes Harry furious that anyone would toss aside the state of her mental health. “It’s not because of your job, Harry. Or your fans,” she assures him. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you with what I’ve been going through. You deserve someone who isn’t as fucked in the head as I am,” she says.

Harry now has tears running down his cheeks. He now wishes he could go back and actually pay more attention to her, instead of being ignorant to it. He remembers when she left, the neighbourhood had quite a bit to say about the rejection, particularly on her. They often talked about how insane she was to deny his proposal because marriage is what every woman needs, right? Granted, he told them off not to speak about Y/N so poorly ever again, but he still wishes he could’ve seen the signs when it got worse for her.

Now, she stands in front of him, and it might be wrong to admit this, but she still looks just as beautiful as the day he lost her. Her eyes still have the same shine and her smile still has the same warmth to it. He lets out a small laugh. “This is not how I actually planned to spend my New Year’s eve,” he says jokingly and they both laugh, almost like the entire sad conversation did not occur. “I know,” she says, smiling at him. She doesn’t realise how her words took him back to when they would get drunk on wine while watching romantic comedies together on their couch.

“This is quite an interesting relationship you and I have,” he says smiling as he looks up at the starry night. She smiles at him too before doing the same. It’s the comfortable silence filling the gaps between them now. Just two people under the stars, one has it all figured out while the other has champagne problems.

She looks back at the building, gold lights still shining as people are getting drunk and ready for the countdown. “You should probably go back to your fiancée, H,” she says. Harry sighs as their time together has come to an end and nods. “Um, it was really great seeing you, Harry,” she says as her feet fidgets against the ground. She feels like a teenager talking to her crush again.

Before he even thinks, Harry has his hand up, brushing off the piece of hair of face, and his thumb lightly brushes over her cheeks a bit. “You too, Y/N,” he says, and he means it. Y/N feels her face warm up, before nodding her head at him and leaving. “Where’re yeh going?” He calls out to her. Without looking back, she calls back to him. “Home!”

He only looks at her leaving for a moment before calling out to her again. “Y/N, wait!”

Y/N stops in her tracks and looks back at him. “Um,” he fumbles on his words. “If I call you, not tonight, or tomorrow, just if any day after this, because we’re on good terms, uh,” he blurts out his words as she watches him, amused by what he wants to ask. “If I call, will you answer? Like I said before, I miss my best friend,” he shrugs and has almost a pleading look. Y/N’s heart melts at him and she smiles.

“I will, H,”

❊

Since their last meeting, a lot of things have been on his mind and one of them was Y/N. He hasn’t been able to stop thinking about her and the conversation they had. He knew now that it must’ve taken a lot of bravery to speak up about what she was going through. And he was proud of her. He really was.

He has been thinking about calling her for a while. He just doesn’t know what he’ll say. He wants to know how she’s feeling even though he’ll never know what it felt like for her to go through the dark times she went. But he could try to understand. He owes her that, at least. He spends some of his time off reading about mental health issues and educating himself more now.

Talia wanted to start planning their wedding, which makes Harry fill up his schedule more between wedding plans and music plans. He tries his best to accommodate whatever Talia wants for their special day. Though, sometimes he finds himself not focusing on the shades of white she suggested for her dress.

Sometimes, Talia would get mad at him for not prioritizing their wedding, seemingly as it was a very important thing for them, well, more for her. She gets mad at him for not focusing on their plans instead of hiding in his studio. She once told him to get his act together because if he wasn’t serious about this, he never would have asked her to marry him. That knocked a nail on the head as she stormed out of the room after another small argument.

Part of him thinks it's the thought of marriage finally sinking in his head. He has the girl, he got a ‘yes’, it should be as exciting as when he asked her. But he finds himself in and out of planning, always reverting his focus back to music, like he’s stalling. He still hasn’t told Talia about Y/N, but there was no need to since he’s with her and not Y/N. When Talia asked about his slightly red eyes at the party, he lied and said something was in his eyes. She believed it, of course.

Now, he’s thinking back to the situation with Talia. He admits he hadn't been paying attention to her as much as he should or helping out with their wedding. But her words now stuck with him. If he wasn’t serious about marrying Talia, he wouldn’t have asked her. He tells himself that he really does love her and he knows she loves him. So why is he hesitating almost at the thought of marriage? Why does it feel like he’s leading her on? He was so sure he wanted her. Unless he only asked her for the hell of it and to not be lonely.

He sits quietly in his little studio with his thoughts as his company. What is he really doing? He really doesn’t know.

❊

She’s laying down on her sofa, staring up at the ceiling again. She does this a lot, having nothing much to do at home other than rereading the books on her shelf or following a recipe for a delicious meal. Instead, she lays down staring at the blank ceiling thinking of how her life went. And in the state of all nothingness, she thinks of him.

Meeting Harry again opened up a whole jar of emotions she kept hidden. It was no doubt that she still cared for him. She was still in love with him and if they were in another universe, she’d tell him that. She’ll do whatever it takes to make it up to him, for causing so much hurt to him. But she couldn’t. He belongs to someone else now. Someone who is more worthy of his love and time. And she’s happy for him, genuinely she is.

As she thinks about him, she recalls back to the days before it all went wrong. She remembers being scared. She had found his mother’s ring in between his clothes as she was putting away their laundry. She remembers being terrified of the commitment Harry was in. She knew for certain that he would ask her sooner or later. But for her, she still doesn’t know. She wants to marry him, but is she ready for it? Is she worthy of him devoting his love and time to her for the rest of his life?

That’s when the doubts came in. She was always battling the thoughts in her head more often after finding out that he might propose to her. She keeps a disguise up, pretending she’s not screaming for help or suffering, hoping that maybe it’ll go away and when he asks, she’ll say the answer he wants to hear. But she didn’t keep the disguise up for long.

When they arrived at Harry’s family home, she was overwhelmed. She saw the bottle of expensive champagne on the kitchen table. Their friends were there too. She was told they were just having a family gathering along with their friends, but she knew what was about to happen.

Nothing could prepare her for when Harry pulled her out the backyard, kneeling down in front of her with his mother’s ring in hand. She could still remember the look on his face, so bright and in love, then having to see it all disappear and his expression drop. He was speechless, so speechless that it took him a minute to snap out of it and run after her as she exited the house. She passed by the living room and had a glance of how everyone was rather to celebrate; no applause or cheers of congratulations were made.

She felt a lot of things that day. Pain, embarrassment, guilt, regret.

Now, a year later, she likes to think she’s doing better, not only for her family or Harry, but for myself. It’s safe to say it was going well for her, she definitely felt better. That dark part of her life was always going to be a part of her, but she was glad she did something about it.

She had struggled a lot before asking for help. She always had trouble sleeping and always felt herself drained to the core. She took some sleeping pills in hopes to feel better. Until one day, she just decided to down the whole bottle like she was downing a bottle of alcohol. She was lucky enough that her mother was around when she found her, her father too was quick enough to call an ambulance. It was too hazy for her to remember precisely what happened after. When she got admitted, she cried to her mother of how much pain she was in, and it killed her. She thinks of how selfish and stupid it was for her to do something like that. That’s when she decided she needed help, like really needed help.

It’s funny how life works sometimes. A few months ago, she was found nearly dead. She has been recovering now. It took a while to open up during her psychiatry sessions and her mother monitored her to make sure she was doing alright. She lives alone now, but still has her mother check up on her. She didn’t find it annoying, in fact she asked her mother to watch over her a bit because she doesn’t trust herself.

She’s healthier now, keeping herself busy to reflect and work on herself. And it did cross her mind a few times before to find Harry, to maybe apologise to him. But she thought that perhaps he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore. And that’s okay for her. Plus, she always hoped that he would find someone else that’ll love him just as much as she did him.

He hasn’t contacted her since they last met and she wonders whether he’s scared of doing so. Then again, she hasn’t made the effort to contact him too. Maybe they’re both scared.

She was about to get up and make herself some coffee after feeling a bit thirsty. She takes out a mug and sets it on the counter before she hears a knock on her door. She freezes in her place, her face scrunches up in confusion. She doesn’t remember having anyone making plans to come by. She hasn’t contacted her friends in a while and her parents would have told her that they would visit.

Knocks on her door snaps her out of her trance as she realises she is still in the kitchen. She slowly walks up to the door and looks through the peephole. To her surprise, she sees Harry standing right before her door. She pulls herself back from the door and thinks for a moment. How did he know where she lived now? Why is he here when he could have just called her?

Realising that he’s probably waiting outside for too long, she takes deep breaths and opens the door. There he is. Standing in his usual white t-shirt where you could see his tattoos through it, his black joggers hugging his muscular legs with some sneakers on his feet. His hair is a bit disheveled and she could imagine him running his fingers through it in a nervous and stressful manner.

“Hi,” he says breathily. His expression is somewhat hopeful, she thinks. “Hey,” she replies, giving a small smile. He’s fidgeting on his feet, something she knows he does when he’s nervous. So why is he nervous? She’s trying to come up with different theories in her head.

“Um, may I come in?” Harry asks. Y/N snaps out of her thoughts again and nods quickly, opening the door wider for him to walk through, hearing him mumbling a small ‘thanks’ under his breath. Harry looks around the small new apartment she now lives in, smiling at how it is very much her character the way she put things together.

She locks the door behind her and clears her throat as she faces him. “Sorry for showing up out of the blue like this,” he apologises. She only smiles and shakes her head. “No, no worries. I was just... wondering how you found where I live. I don’t think I ever told you that,” she says questionably.

The corner of his lips lift up just slightly. “Your mother, actually,” he says. She rolls her eyes playfully at this and lets out a small laugh. Of course, her mother would let him know where she lived. Her parents always loved Harry and treated him as family. Even when they fell apart, they still cared about him. After all, he was one of the only good things in her life that she cherished.

“Of course, she would. She still loves you for all I know,” she says with a sheepish smile. Harry throws his back in laughter and it makes her smile even more. “Well, I guess I might have to visit them again some time,” he says, smiling cheekily at her.

For a moment, it feels like everything was normal between them.

She shakes her head at him as she plays with her fingers, something he knows she does when she is nervous. “Um, I guess you’re here to talk about something else?” She asks, and she sees how his smile falters just a bit. “Yeah, actually,” he mumbles under his breath, but she hears him.

She nods with a tight smile on her face, seemingly trying to mask her anxiousness behind it. “Okay. Uh, just, make yourself comfortable. I’ll get you a glass of water,” she says, hurrying off to the kitchen before Harry could say anything. She sets a glass down and gets a jug of water. Her hands are shaking just a bit and she tells herself to calm down. It’s just Harry, she thinks. Whatever he wants to say couldn’t be that bad. Right?

She comes back to the living room where Harry is. He hasn’t sat down on the couch, instead he’s just standing in the middle of the room, looking around and admiring the little touches she put like the indoor plants and the paintings on the wall. She gently sets the glass down on the coffee table, the glass making a ‘clink’ sound on the surface. Harry turns around to face her and smiles, his little dimple making an appearance on the corner of his lips. She smiles back at him before clearing her throat.

“You had something you wanna say?” She asks, fiddling with her fingers. Harry nods slightly. “Yeah, I do. Um,” he begins as he rubs the back of his neck lightly.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to say, been practicing the words in my head. So, I’m sorry if it ends up a mess,” he says, letting out a small laugh. She laughs a bit with him too. Nodding as she gestures for him to continue, he breathes in deeply before letting his words out.

“After we met last time, I, uh,” he begins and she swears she could hear how loud and fast her heart is beating. “I’ve just been reflecting on how we left things off. And I promise I meant to call you sooner, but I just didn’t know what I’d say that won’t make things weird and awkward,” he stops to look at her for a moment and the expression on his face is almost so familiar to her.

“When you told me your story, I felt a lot of things. I felt… upset and angry that I couldn’t read the signs that were so evidently there. I thought maybe I realised it sooner, or tried harder to help, I could’ve helped you and you wouldn’t have felt to have gone through it alone. I hated how you were alone in this and how you helped like you couldn’t talk to me about,” His breaths are shaky, like he might break any minute. She wants to caress his face so badly, comfort him, but she knows it wouldn’t be appropriate. He’s still engaged to someone else after all.

She looks down at her floor, taking a gulp in her throat. “Harry, what are you saying?” She asks ever so softly.

“I’m saying that… you don’t have to go through it alone, darling. I’m saying that I wanna be there for you now. Albeit it has been months, but,” he pauses to take a breath. “If you give me a chance, to let me in, I promise to always be there for you and to be by your side all the time. Whenever you need me.”

Y/N takes a moment to process what he had just said, shaking her head at him. “Harry, I,” she takes in a sharp breath. “I don’t think you need to do that.” Harry’s face scrunches up in confusion. “Why not?”

“I just, I don’t want to burden you. I’ve already made it hard for my parents enough,” she says, trying to convince him even though all she wants is for him to be by her side. He shakes his head, chuckling a bit. “You’ll never be a burden to me, love. I want to be there for you always. It’s my choice to do this,”

“What about your fiancée? What’s she gonna think about her fiancé or husband soon when he’s out there looking after some girl, Harry?”

“You’re not just some girl, Y/N. You’re my best friend. And I,” he pauses in his words again and takes a deep breath. “What?” She asks nervously.

The corner of his lips lift up just slightly and his expression almost looks guilty. “And I’m in love with you,” he says and that’s when she feels that her heart stops. He loves me, she thinks. All the time, she thinks the feelings would have gone away but here he is, in her living room, telling her he’s in love with her.

“No,” she says. Harry is surprised by her response. “No?” He repeats.

“You’re not in love with me anymore, Harry,” she says, almost like she’s trying to convince herself that. “Yes, I am, love. I’m still in love with you, even after all this time,” he says desperately to her.

“Don’t do this to me, Harry. It’s not funny,” she says as her voice starts to waver. “It’s not fair to your fiancée for you to say this.” It’s funny to her how she still doesn’t know her name, but maybe she doesn’t know hers either. Harry steps closer to her and his heart breaks a little when she steps back.

“Darling,”

“Don’t, Harry! Please,” she practically begs him. “Just go back to her. It’s been a good talk and it’s good to see you again but you have to leave,”

“I don’t want to leave you, Y/N,” he says and it’s surprising how calm he is at this moment.

“Harry, I,”

“I’m not engaged anymore,” he says, cutting her off. She stares at him in shock and disbelief. “What do you mean?” She asks. He sighs as he runs his fingers through his hair. “I broke it off with Talia. There won’t be any wedding,” he confesses.

“So what? You broke up with her just to look out for me? Are you insane!?” She exclaims. She doesn’t want to believe that he broke up with her because of her. She thinks back if she would’ve hid from him during the party, he’d still be in a happy relationship with Talia with no problems. Once again, she’s thinking it’s all her fault.

“I’m as sane as I can be,” He says, raising his voice slightly to match her tone. She shakes her head, paces in her place, muttering ‘no’s to herself. “Darling, look at me,” Harry says gently as he steps closer to her. “No, this isn’t happening,” She’s now muttering words to herself and it breaks him even more to think she might think this is her fault when it’s not.

“Look at me, Y/N,” he says as he tries to get her to look at him, but to no avail, she keeps her eyes away from him. “No, Harry. We can’t,” she says and she realises now how tears are starting to fall from her eyes. “Yes, we can, darling! Just listen to me,” he tries to convince her.

“You belong with Talia, Harry! Someone who has her life put together, a-and, someone who’s not fucked in the head as I am! She’ll make you happy!” She tells him, almost trying to convince him to go back and fix his relationship.

“She won’t make me as happy as I was with you. It wouldn’t be fair to her,” Harry says to her as he tries to cup her face and wipe her tears. “What wouldn’t be fair to her? Huh?”

“It wouldn’t be fair to lead her on when I’m in love with you!”

And then, everything stops. Silence fills the room and all you could hear are the heavy breaths between them. Harry runs his hand over his face before speaking again. “I tell myself that I’ll be able to love again after you. But the love I’ll have for any other will never amount to the love I have for you. It wouldn’t be fair to move on with Talia when all I could think about is you. When I know I’ll always be madly in love with you,” he tells her, his voice wavering with every word he says.

She breathes in shakily, feeling the painful lump in throat. “Maybe if we hadn’t met that night, you wouldn’t have to think like that,” she says so softly under her breath, like she was ashamed. She looks down like a child being scolded by a parent.

She hears him stepping closer to her and this time, she doesn’t step back away from him. She feels his hand under her chin, lifting her head up so she has no choice but to look at her. His forest-green eyes, ever so beautiful, are glossy with the tears he holds. “I wish you’d stop thinking that this is your fault when it’s not, darling,” he says gently to her.

She realises how close their faces are together, feeling his breath hitting her face as they stare at each other with the same look. She sees it in his eyes. Love. And maybe it’s because she’s emotionally exhausted or she realises how there is still love in his eyes for her and only her.

She gently yet hesitantly puts her hand on his cheek, seeing as how he leans into her touch with his eyes closed, as if he misses her touch all this time. She doesn’t waste another second before pulling his face closer and letting their lips crash against each other. Harry is quick enough to reciprocate the action. His hand that is not on her hand wraps itself around her torso so move her closer to her. All he wants is to be close to her.

She whimpers into the kiss as she feels tears streaming down her face again. She misses this. She misses his kisses, how soft and plump his lips feel against hers and how they taste. She misses the way he pulls her closer to him because he doesn’t want any space in between them. She misses him.

They don’t know long they have been kissing until they break apart to catch their breath. She feels dizzy after the kiss while he feels like he’s on cloud nine. Their lips still brush against each other and Harry pecks her lips softly as she whimpers at the action.

“I love you,” she finally tells him. And it feels so good to say it again to him. Harry sighs shakily, almost in disbelief that she said those three words, and his lips break out into the biggest smile. “Really?” He asks. She giggles as her hands cup his face.

Harry sighs and leans his head back with his eyes closed, looking so bliss in the moment. “I’m sorry. Can you say that again? I wasn’t paying attention,” he says teasingly with a smug smile on his face. Y/N gasps and playfully punches his shoulder a bit, making him laugh.

“I love you, you handsome idiot,” she says laughing at him. Harry shakes his head with a wide stupid grin on his face. He rests his forehead on hers, their noses brushing against each other’s. “Again, please. Just so I know I’m not dreaming this,” he says, his eyes closed as he savours in the moment.

She grabs his face in her hands and pulls him away so she could look at him. He notes how soft yet small her hands felt as caresses his face. “I love you,” she says again, more gently but having more love and passion in her words. And she loves saying it because she does.

She has always loved him and always will love him. Her beats for him as his does for her. Her thoughts are filled with nothing but him. Looking at him now, he feels just as lovely and beautiful as the days they were together before. She knows that she’ll never love another as much as she loves him. She’ll fully admit that she is crazy, stupidly, madly and truly in love with him.

Harry smiles ever so lovingly at her as his large hands cup her face. At this moment, it feels right, like they belong together. Despite the odds and struggles she had to go through, he promises to never leave her side, to always be around, to always be the shoulder she needed to cry on, to lend her his arms to give her the warmth and comfort she deserves. And he admits that he is truly, madly and deeply in love with her too.

“I love you too,” he says as he brings their faces closer to each other, enclosing the gap between their lips again. He misses the way her lips gelt and how sweet they taste against his. He swears he’ll never get tired of loving her. Their lips move against each other slowly and gently as they try to savour in the moment. A moment that just felt right to them. For a moment, her champagne problems are forgotten, even though it’s still something that will always be a part of her.

They part away soon after, now staring into the eyes they fell in love with. Their smiles are permanently inked on their faces as the two lovers look at each other with the only things they have on their mind that will get them through.

Love and hope.

And somehow, that was everything.

#harry styles #harry styles imagine #harry styles x reader #harry styles angst #harry styles imagines #harry styles writing #parkersroses writing #parkersroses masterlist

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thebigoblin · 3 years

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about 5.07

yes this is about 9 1 1 show, and yes I did write this in a reblog to one post that was one more too many (the post I am talking about), but I just wanted to reiterate my love for this episode, even if most people did not like it.

This is an exact copy/paste of what I said in the reblog:

Buck and Eddie are not the only characters in the show.

Listen. I, too, kept wondering where Eddie was (most probably with Chris, after Bobby/his therapist forced Eddie to just take a day for himself, given his history), and felt rather bereft without that weekly dose of Buddie DumbSassery, but it isn’t a Wrong Move on the show’s part. It’s pretty clever actually to focus on the other characters, other plots (like the Jeffery one) while still moving forward in the most in-character way they can manage.

We see May handle her own, without Claudette coming to her “rescue”.

We see Harry’s trauma get resolved, and in a rather satisfactory way as well. Harry believes no one else has gone through what he has, that no one understands him, but the Detective talks to him, and wow I hadn’t thought of that parallel before, but that makes so much sense. Harry getting to see the Detective be at work again is the inspiration for him choosing to go back to his childhood home.

Honestly, I loved the Grant Family moments this episode. (Not adding Nash because tbh Bobby was just… there, this episode, nothing more).

Hen and Eva’s storyline got wrapped up. Yes, it seemed so out of the blue, but Eva has been a ghost to Hen and Karen for years now, in fact through Karen’s own admission Eva’s very existence haunted her. Confronting that fact this episode was a pretty neat, the theme fit, plus now we can be 99% sure Eva won’t be back! Plus this gives closure to them all.

We also see Chimney talking to Hen, and we get the confirmation that Chimney has forgiven Buck to some degree—"Buck said [Maddie’s location]“ is a clear indication that they talked to each other, that Chimney chose to finally answer Buck’s calls, was ready to face his friend after their last meeting (even if that was through a call).

Chimney is still connected to the 118, even as he chases after a ghost—Maddie. He hasn’t gone "off the rails” in his pursuit (which is a Very Real thing that can happen, and is a somewhat famous trope I believe, except Chimney has Jee-Yun, (and distantly Hen) to ground him) and is very much capable of logical thinking (proven by the fact that Chimney saved that baby).

What I’m trying to get to is this: We see Chimney’s progress in his goal. Literally. The show gave us Chimney’s progress in his own sub-plot. (And the ghost theme worked well with a blast from the past, aka Chimney’s former mentor, Eli).

Then there’s Maddie. She’s making progress, too, even if it’s off-screen. But we learn another vital thing here: she is where she had been once, with Doug, arguably her biggest demon (I’d say her Postpartum Depression is an even bigger demon, because this is internal, she has to get better and that is all she can do here, she can’t run away from her demon this time) and that just, again, fits with the theme. She’s chasing her worst memories to remind herself that she has faced worse before, that she has come up on top even then.

I’m sorry, but despite Buddie being one of my favorite ships too—because of the fandom, really, and the amazing metas I get to see, because let’s be honest there is a lot of jumping jacks of the brain needed when it comes to this show—I can’t get over how the fandom has been after this episode. 5×07 is definitely not a filler episode (unless your sole purpose for watching the show is Buddie only), it has great substance if you look for it, if you can get past your vehement need of having your OTP be in all the episodes. Season 1 wasn’t so bad, was it?

And oh, lest I forget, Taylor Kelly. We seem to be heading towards a “Taykay Begins” sort of episode, and I’m excited. She’s going to be given some backstory, something other than a “Career Focused Individual” and “Buck’s Red-Headed Hot Girlfriend.” Remember when y'all complained about Ana Flores just being a prop? Yeah, I think the show writers heard you. (Actually not, since changing scripts so fast would be hard I imagine, but still, you know what I mean).

So, yeah. 5×07 wasn’t a bad episode, it wasn’t a filler episode, and it wasn’t a flop. It just focused more on the other people on the show, and I for one loved it. 9 1 1 show is about humans and their path to healing and contentment even after the worst of tragedies have hit, it’s not a Romance show, even though romance does weave itself beautifully in the narrative that is the 9 1 1. So yeah. Good Episode.

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skullsandwineglasses · 2 years

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Someday or One Day (2019) - Final Review

I told myself that I wouldn’t cry. And yet, here I am bawling. The ending made sense. It was logical. It was appropriate. There was closure. No regrets. And yet here I am crying. Because even though it’s implied that LZW and HYX might meet and fall in love again in the future (since there’s only a 10-year age gap between them), I’m just sad that everything they’ve gone through in the original timeline is erased. In the new timeline they’ll have a normal, mundane life, and no one will remember how much pain and suffering they went through in another lifetime. LZW freakin waited 16 years to be reunited with HYX only to be killed. But that’s lost to time. All the memories and all that they’ve done for each other are gone.

But overall, the drama was very intense, but very tightly woven. Never a dull moment. Every episode reveals something about the characters and the plot. You have to pay close attention to what the characters say and the objects around them in order to clue in on hints. Just when you think you have the full picture, the curtain pulls back some more.

This drama should have a ton of trigger warnings attached to it though. Murder, animal abuse, sexual assault, depression, suicide. A lot of heavy topics.

The time travel and body switching aspects were handled elegantly, and there were minimal glaring plot holes. There are many layers to the time traveling plot, but it’s not unnecessary convoluted.

The plot admits that you can’t change the time travel loop. Like Rainless Love in a Godless Land, SOOD deals with the issue of the characters’ (lack of) agency to change the trajectory of a pre-destined fate. And if you do try to change time (which is near impossible), then everything changes in a cascading effect. The drama doesn’t sugarcoat that, like how it doesn’t sugarcoat any of the other topics that it explores. HYX managed to change the course of history and prevent CYR from committing suicide, but she’s also accepted that in doing so, she’ll have to sacrifice the relationship she’ll have with LZW. It’s a zero-sum game.

A lot of the characters embrace death because they realize it’s necessary in order for the next part of fate to unfold. It’s almost futile to resist because no matter how much you try, you still end up where you were destined to be. It’s quite morbid. LZW (in WQS’ body) accepts that he needs to get on the doomed plane in order to be able to return to his 2003 body in order to guide the events.

But at the same time, both dramas seem to say that agency isn’t dependent on outcome. It’s dependent on awareness and choice. When you’re presented with the truth and all possible outcomes, what do you choose? LZW/WQS ultimately chooses to get on the plane even though he knows what will happen. But he still wants to make that choice.

At the beginning of the drama, you’re led to believe that there are two parallel couples. But really, there’s only one couple all along: LZW and HYX. They just inhabit different bodies and take on different identities.

The acting is superb from the whole cast. Yan Yu Lin played such an endearing best friend in RLiaGL, but he’s such a creep here. I have to applaud him for being such a chameleon.

Greg Hsu and Alice Ke both gave incredible performances. Greg played 1) a bubbly and rebellious high school student (LZW), 2) a closeted high school student (the real WQS), 3) a college student (22-year-old LZW in WQS’ body), 4) grown-up LZW/WQS, and 5) mid-30s LZW with glasses, a cane, and greying hair. He played off the nuances of these 5 characters perfectly. You can feel the age difference between the various versions of LZW, and WQS felt like a completely different character. From his posture, the way he rode his bike, the way he held his head, and the way he he held people’s gaze. In that short 5-minute montage of WQS, Greg brought an entirely different character to life.

Alice was amazing playing the 17-year-old depressed CYR and the confident 27-year-old HYX. HYX has incredible chemistry with LZW, but whenever CYR had scenes with LZW, I was tempted to fastforward those scenes. The difference between CYR and HYX was that palpable. They truly felt like different people to me, even though it’s all Alice.

And you can tell that the drama put in a lot of thought and effort to emphasize those behavioural differences, because these are the differences that LZW picks up on. From the way CYR walks to the way she holds her head to her microexpressions, LZW can tell that she isn’t HYX. It’s just such a great;y portrayed love triangle.

While LZW and HYX have an epic romance, WQS and CYR are tragic characters. CYR gets a redemption arc at the end, but WQS doesn’t deserve what happened to him. He commits suicide, LZW takes over his body for 7 years, and then his body goes down in a plane crash.

I just feel that the story is a bit unfair to CYR and WQS. Both have their bodies taken over and their consciousness displaced. I keep saying body switching, but really, there was no switching. LZW and HYX just invaded their bodies and took over. CYR manages to regain control at the end, only to be told that everyone preferred when HYX was the one controlling her body. That is definitely traumatic to hear.

You could write so many essays analyzing the creative choices for the plot direction, but I just want to summarize what happened here. I had to pause the drama every so often in order to update my timeline map.

I’d say the first arc is about HYX travelling back to past, learning about CYR’s murder, and trying to figure out who the murderer is. This first arc ends when she gets confirmation that LZW is WQS. This happens when she sees the drawing of her in his room, which is the same drawing that WQS hung in his office. As the audience, we’ve already seen multiple hints that LZW is WQS, the very first one being when he kneed her the same way that WQS kneed her. We just aren’t sure how exactly LZW becomes WQS.

When HYX learns this, she reawakes in the present and runs to confront the uncle at the cafe. LZW finally reveals himself to tell his side of the story. In 2003, when LZW returns to Taiwan from Canada, he tries to visit MJJ in jail, but MJJ refuses to see him. LZW drives down the mountain while listening to the Last Dance song. He cries we he remembers their high school days, and crashes the car. He spends 2 weeks in a coma, but during those 2 weeks, his soul or consciousness or whatever is transported into WQS’ body in 2010. WQS has just tried to commit suicide by drowning in the ocean after being bullied for his sexual orientation. WQS’ true consciousness is never mentioned again, so we assumed that his consciousness has just completely disappeared. In WQS’ body, LZW remembers what HYX told him back in 1998, and so he decides to find the present-day HYX and pursue her, in order to fulfil the story about the future that she told him about. LZW/WQS spends a blissful 7 years with HYX until the 2017 accident.

Right before getting on the plane, he’s approached by his true self. He realizes that he’ll return to his true body in 2003, and knows that he needs to get on the plane in order to be able to give HYX the walkman that will allow her to go back in time so that he’d fall in love with her.

LZW’s consciousness then returns to his comatose body in 2003. He spends the next 16 years (until 2019) keeping to the shadows, secretly keeping tabs on LZW/WQS and HYX. At some point, which we’re not shown, he makes contact with the uncle. That’s why in 2010, he calls the uncle to make sure that LZW/WQS has successfully been accepted to the same uni as HYX.

In 2008, MJJ is released from jail. After MJJ’s gradmother dies, he commits suicide at the same spot where CYR was killed. LZW tried to stop this from happening, but there was no use. Fate still charged ahead.

After LZW explains what happened, he and HYX are finally reunited in the present, both now having the same memories, and not one person having more than the other. They are finally on the same page. HYX waited 2 years to be reunited with LZW, but he’s waited 16 years. The scene where he returns home to their apartment was so emotional. For HYX, his absence was recent. But for him, he hadn’t set foot in this home for 16 years.

The next segment is about the revelation of the true villain, Xie Zhi Qi. By gaining HYX’s trust, he was able to gain access to the walkman and travel back in time to attack CYR, which is the event which caused HYX to go back and inhabit her body. (In the new timeline, CYR gets hit by a car but isn’t attacked).

When LZW gets home, he chases XZQ out of the house, but XZQ ends up killing LZW.

The fourth and final segment is HYX trying to change the past in order to bring LZW back to life. She travels back in time, but she’s now stuck in the sunken place in CYR’s subconsciousness. She no longer has control of CYR’s body, and she watches helplessly as CYR tries to pretend to be her.

But no one is fooled, especially LZW. The timelines plays out as it always has. HYX is unable to prevent the events from unfolding, CYR commits suicide, and MJJ takes the blame.

HYX is transported back to the present. There was no way to change to the past. One day, she drives to the sea. The walkman is broken, so she plays the cassette using the car stereo. She’s transported back once again, to the pivotal moment right before CYR fell. MJJ is now able to successfully pull her back. History has now completely changed.

HYX and LZW’s relationship no longer exists. But CYR now gets a chance at life, and she and MJJ have a chance to be together.

HYX and LZW may not have their memories, but the feelings are still there (similar to how XTD’s feelings still linger in RLiaGL even after her memories are erased). They’re also fated to be together, so they’ll always find each other. The one interaction between that the new timeline didn’t take away was LZW meeting the 6-year old HYX.

It’s left to the audience’s imagination to wonder how LZW and HYX might meet again and fall in love as adults (under what circumstances do they meet since it can’t be at school because they’re 10 years apart), but it gives us hope nonetheless.

I think one thing that I’ll bring up is that the characters don’t realize that CYR’s death is what causes LZW to become WQS to pursue HYX. If CYR doesn’t die, LZW doesn’t drive while grieving about the past, and he doesn’t get into the accident. It’s noble of LZW to want to save CYR and prevent her death, but I feel like the drama doesn’t explore this moral dilemma. LZW knows the cascading effect that CYR’s death has, but he still tells HYX to try to stop the death. Perhaps LZW knows that if CYR survives, he and HYX’s romance wouldn’t exist, but he doesn’t mention that to her.

One other criticism would be how conveniently HYX managaed to travel back in time again and ended up at the pivotal moment to help prevent CYR’s death. It felt a little too easy, when the entire drama had avoided taking the easy way out.

I also feel that there are a lot of symbols and metaphors that went over my head. It wasn’t until I read MDL reviews that I realized how the use of technology at the beginning foreshadowed what to expect (e.g., finding a doppleganger, using VR to simulate and relive an out-of-body experience). Also, the red ear buds to symbolize the red string of fate linking LZW and HYX.

Was rain a symbol? I remember in English class we talked about rain and water as being symbols of birth and rebirth in novels. Also, WQS drowned in the ocean and LZW’s plane fell into the ocean. Meanwhile, HYX and CYR and linked by their birthdays, but also, LZW was able to differentiate them by how they looked in the rain. It rained on the night of CYR’s death and it rained the night when HYX thought she saw LZW. Not sure if the drama just wanted to be moody or if it was intentional.

Writing and photographs are big motifs (i.e., how you are reflected in your hand writing and your expressions that are captured on camera).

Objects introduced at the beginning take on new significance as the story unfolds.

For instance, HYX was drumming on an object on the psychologist’s desk. We later see him brushing that object and realize that it’s a rock, and we wonder if it’s the same rock that was used to attack CYR.

Also, the large tree where they laid under and whispers secrets into seemed by spiritual and biblical. That whole park seemed very...heavenly? Like their own Eden.

LZW meeting the 6-year-old HYX was significant in 2 ways: HYX dated her first bf because he reminded her of the “older brother” who helped her find her way home and gave her a sense of security, and the interaction was also immune to the time change and so it was brought back again in the final scene.

Every object and scene just keeps giving. They have multiple utilities.

This drama is like a masterclass in storytelling. On MDL, someone wrote that the romance is a hero’s journey. I’ll have to unpack that analysis, but I’m guessing they mean that the romance leaves the familiar world into the unfamiliar, encounters obstacles, gains an object, etc., and the returns to the familiar world changed. If this is the case, then I’d argue that the romance goes through the hero’s journey twice because the relationship between LZW and HYX is transformed at least twice.

I’m just in awe. What an intricate, detailed, and thoughtful drama. It’s a great romance, suspense, and mystery drama. I also love that the humour isn’t just for the sake of having comedic relief, but what’s being said actually has significance later in the story.

#someday or one day #greg hsu #twdrama #想見你 #cdrama #alice ke #taiwanese drama #cdrama review

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