I would do anything for him

pairing: lewis hamilton x femalereader

summary: lewis gives you secretly his number. you're hesitant to call him at first, but when you do, things get a little much more interesting.

warning: mentions of sexual activities, cursing words

(a/n): this is part one. Here's part two and part three.

YOU WERE STANDING in the loud crowd of people. Each one of them holding out a shirt, a picture, or a shirt to sign, including you.

You held out a white hat with a Mercedes emblem on it, hoping Lewis would notice it.

When he finally reached you, he looked at you for a few seconds and smiled.

What the...?!

He signed the hat and moved into the next person.

And when you turned around ready to leave, you looked down at your hat, seeing a phone number written on it.

Fuck.

"My best friend is a total idiot," your best friend shouted from the balcony of your apartment.

"Stop calling me an idiot!" You climbed out of bed. "Or at least try to be discreet with your very generous opinions about me and get your ass inside! I've got some deliciously hot neighbors who don't particularly need to know everything about me."

"Have you even been listening to me this whole time that I've been lecturing you about matters of life and death?" She sighed dramatically.

You couldn't help but roll your eyes. "A random guy giving me his number isn't a matter of life a death, if you ask me."

"Did you just call Lewis Hamilton a random guy? My husband of nine years?"

"Oh, stop acting like a blushing schoolgirl," You brought your fingers to your temple and massaged the flesh there as if the movement could erase the brutal headache. "Besides, you dragged me to that race. Maybe it's your chance to hook up with your crush-since-for-ever!"

Your best friend's eyes narrowed. "What are you suggesting, filthy woman?"

"You shoukd call him. I'll give you his number right away." You strolled to find your back, but a habd found your wrist, stopping you.

"You're a mad woman. That's a fact."

You fake smiled. "Stop complimenting me that much. I don't think red suits on my cheeks."

"I swear, you're insane. The only reason I'm still by your side is because until 11th grade, you had my back when I sneaked out for parties, hooking up with whoever had a penis and a 6 pack."

You turned to face your best friend, hands in your hips and lips tightly shut together.

"You're seriously going to turn down this offer?" She asked.

"I wouldn't exactly call it an offer."

Your best friend rolled her eyes. "Yes. I'd call it stupidity, actually!" She waved her hands dramatically in the air. "THE Lewis Hamilton flirted with you, and you didn't even notice. Then he gave you secretly his number, and you're freaking going to ignore it?!"

"And what am I supposed to do about it? He's just a normal guy. Don't make him look like he's some God himself."

"First of all, yeah. Lewis is a God himself. He's mouth-watering hot, almost an 8 times champion, has a very cute dog, an 8 pack to stare at all day long, and much, much money," your best friend explained. "You should definitely call him. At least try to figure out why he gave you his number." She added in a calmer tone.

You exhaled and grabbed the white hat curled up under the sheets of your king sized bed. Gazing at the number, you then bit your lips. "Fine," you gave in. "But I'll call him tomorrow so that I don't seem much desperate, okay?"

"He was the one to make a very, very bold first move, and now you're afraid of embarrassment?!" She growled. "Come on! We only live once. Live some adventure, have some great sex, and experience a true love! I haven't seen you going head over heels for someone except that John guy in college."

"It hasn't been a long time since college," you said, contemplating whether you should count the years or not. You choose the second one. "I'll call him tonight. But don't think I'm doing it because I'm actually interested! I'm doing it exclusively for you." You explained, playing with the hem of your summer blue dress. "He probably is an attention freak who only dates supermodels."

"Baby, I assure you," your best friend came and sat next to you, her hand wrapping around you and caressing your cheek. "Supermodels would kill to look like you."

A smile appeared on your lips, and you gazed at your best friend. She always had a special eay about cheering you up and getting you out of your moody and grumpy vibe.

"Tonight." You said.

This has many potential to go wrong, you thought.

You didn't like wrong. You like safe and steady. But what if your best friend was actually right? (For the very first time of your 20 years old friendship.)

"Tonight." She repeated and smirked.

You turned your head and analyzed the hat with the calligraphic black numbers on it.

This couldn't get any more embarrassing.

***

You let out a long, deep, and shaky breath, then dialed the number.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Three beebs later, a male voice answered the call. "Hello?" The tone was familiar and harsh, but you couldn't be entirely sure that it was him.

"Hey," your voice came out steady, much to your surprise.

"Who is it?" The man replied and now you were sure it was him.

The British accent.

"Um, I noticed a number written on my hat that you signed and--"

"You're the girl from the race?" He interrupted you very much, complicated thoughts that would sooner turn into much more complicated words.

"Yes," you replied hesitantly. "Maybe one of them, at least. In case you gave your number to a few more girls for fun."

A laughter sounded. It was bried but somehow contagious. "I assure you, love, I don't usually spread my number across my fans' hats and shirts."

Your senses kicked in, and the temperature rised in your body.

Love.

"So, why was I the chosen one?" You asked.

"Oh," Lewis growled. "Maybe I could answer that question face to face." He said and then added a few moments later, "Join me for dinner tonight, will you, love?"

You laughed. "Isn't it kind of early for us to meet?"

"I'm not going to kidnap you, I promise." You could basixally hear him smile on the other line. "You can bring a friend of your for more safety." He suggested.

"So that it could be two of us to be kidnapped, right?"

There was a moment of silence. "Not sure about that." He spoke a few seconds later. "I only want you to be honest."

You smiled.

Is he flirting with me?

Of course he's flirting with you, you idiot!

"Are you asking me out on a date?" You asked.

"Yes." He replied instantly. "I couldn't wait another torturing hour, anticipating a call or a text from you."

"Okay. I'm in then."

"What about tonight at 9 pm?" He asked.

It was about 7, so you guessed there was plenty of time to get ready.

"Yes, that'd be great." You smiled.

"Perfect. May I pick you up myself at nine?"

"I'm surely capable of driving my own car, don't you think?" You laughed.

"Maybe," he said. "But why actually do it if I can drive for you? I'll come pick you up myself, I promise."

"No cops, no kidnappers?" You joked.

"I promise."

Lewis Hamilton would drive for you...?

"Okay, then." You spoke. "See you tonight, Lewis. I'll text you the address."

You went to end the call, but he stopped you before tapping the red button. "Wait, wait--"

"Hmm?"

"What's your name, love?"

Your heart roared in your chest and your cheeks reddened.

You adored that nickname.

"Actually, this was the first thing that I would mention to a guy, but love sounds much better, don't you think?"

Lewis laughed. "Tell me your name, and I promise I'll use love every single time instead of it."

"Okay," you said. "I'm (y/n)."

A moment of silence occurred again. "Prettier than love, honestly."

"Maybe, but not when you're the one to say it." You smiled. "You know, that British accent can actually kill."

"Hmm," his voice sounded from the other line. "Weird thing. That is exactly what I could tell about your eyes, as well."

probably gonna delete this later but holy shit i fucking hate dreamwastaken so much especially his stupid new server. fucking listen to me right now. taking into consideration that dream is not copying off qsmp and has been working on this server for some time, its still bullshit.

first off everyone trying to say that theres a difference between bi-lingual and multilingual — quackity has said on stream that hes planning to make qsmp multilingual as well, with ccs that speak other languages being able to join. so shush about that.

secondly, all that aside, announcing united smp so close to qsmp’s start is in incredibly poor taste regardless, without even an acknowledgement of qsmp in the official announcement tweet, especially since dream and quackity are supposed to be friends. if he’d bothered at all to hire a PR team, it could have been done much more tactfully, but as usual, dream has opted to wing it, leading to just being a shitty person (see also: his tantrums during mcc, his inability to ignore cheating accusations).

furthermore, the difference between qsmp and usmp is that qsmp is a passion project — quackity is trying to introduce his culture and language to a wider audience, and create a space where he can play with all his friends, spanish-speaking and english-speaking. dream, on the other hand, is a monolingual white man who is clearly trying to take advantage of the passion people have for language and culture to earn him more clout, and hopefully erase people’s memories of every terrible thing he’s ever done. I understand the concept of a multilingual server is exciting — but seriously, watch qsmp instead. theres more love in it.

finally, all of this aside — dream is still a groomer. its pretty insane how you guys ignored that. in fact, one of his motivations behind united smp is probably to expand to a less english-speaking audience who is less likely to be aware of the accusations. please don’t let this fool you — united smp is not a sign of redemption, its a distraction. dont support it.

tl;dr: watch QSMP, not USMP.

going insane and i need to infodump about severus snape’s patronus being a doe for a second. i personally don’t think it changed, or lily necessarily influenced it- i think it’s always been a doe, casting the charm in dumbledore’s office was meant to show that he and lily were supposed to be viscerally aligned with each other and he knows he fucked it up and that’s why he’s spent almost two decades trying to atone for what he did. on a representative level, the doe symbolizes peace, protection, and innocence, and no three words could possibly represent severus snape more.

all he wants is peace: a peaceful life for himself, a peaceful world, a peaceful school. everything he’s ever done has been to create as much peace as possible. some of it can be considered misguided from a black and white moral standpoint, but it’s what created peace for himself. for example, aligning himself with the purist views of his housemates made him less of a target for bullying- he’s not a pure blood, and they’d know, and having powerful ambitious students on your side instead of alienating yourself from everyone means you have at least a semblance of protection from harm some of the time. he becomes a double agent for dumbledore to help bring about peace from voldemort’s reign. it might not have been peaceful for him per se, but it was still with the intention of peace in some form. he tries to give other people peace- he takes a vow with narcissa to protect her son because she’s crying and scared for him, and it gives her peace. he doesn’t throw draco under the bus to save his skin when voldemort accuses him of being the elder wands owner, giving draco and narcissa peace even if they weren’t aware. it’s either for himself, or for others.

he’s the most protective teacher at the school- would mcgonagall have thrown herself in front of three kids facing a wolfsbane-less werewolf? would flitwick take the burden of an unbreakable vow to protect draco malfoy from voldemort? would any of the DADA teachers have run towards the sound of a screaming woman? he consistently vows to protect everyone and everything he can. and, leading into his innocence, when he realizes he’s only been protecting harry for him to die, it breaks him.

he’s not necessarily innocent in that his hands are clean and he’s never done anything wrong in his life, but he’s innocent in that he’s naive. he trusted voldemort enough to be drawn into the death eaters, he trusted dumbledore enough to be manipulated into his bidding. it feels like he forgets that dumbledore screws him over constantly, dangles things in front of him and takes them away, makes crude assumptions, and has left him to fend for himself essentially their entire relationship. the times that dumbledore abandons him- physically, mentally, metaphorically- he gets very upset. like it’s new information to him that dumbledore treats him like shit. from an abuse perspective, he probably had to spend his childhood mentally erasing what his parents and home were like so he could feel safe and normal, so the constant ebb and flow/back and forth of his and dumbledore’s relationship is familiar to him. when dumbledore draws him back in with whatever method, he’s right back to behaving as dumbledore wants, doing what dumbledore wants, and believing what dumbledore believes. the times that he remembers that dumbledore doesn’t care that he let the guy who’s tried to kill him or assault go, or that dumbledore thinks he wants only lily saved because he desires her romantically or sexually, or that dumbledore has only been using harry and, by extension, him (as he’s been the one protecting harry) to play the long game of destroying voldemort are the times that he’s emotional in the books. he cries, he’s vulnerable, he raises his voice, he begs and he pleads and he defers. he doesn’t do that any other time, other than when he found harry watching his memories. he trusts and he forgives (or he forgets, or he feels safer pretending he doesn’t care what’s been done to him/how he’s been treated.) a doe is perfect for him. reducing it to something like tonk’s patronus being changed as soon as she’s in a relationship with lupin or that it’s only a doe because of lily evans completely erases his entire way of thinking and behaving and being.

also, in a self indulgent addendum, it’s a very feminine animal, and severus is consistently aligned with femininity. hermione calls the half-blood prince’s writing feminine. he wears his mother’s clothes as a child, and lupin encourages neville to dress his boggart as his grandmother. he’s quiet and docile and tries to be non-violent unless he’s pushed to his breaking point, and even then it’s screaming or crying or getting animated. he’s emotional and frequently painted as hysterical. he gets the “woman character treatment”: to the average viewer who doesn’t think about him long enough to understand otherwise, he only desires lily. the consensus is that he chases her, he only thinks about her in the context of attraction. the line about looking at her greedily is constantly understood to be lust, and not a desire for love or a desire for a peaceful relationship for once in his life (and a relationship that only ever seems to be platonic at that). he even backs off and all but disappears from her life when he’s asked to, while james (the one with the stag patronus, the classic triumphant male character) harasses her and pursues her and behaves in a way that makes his son decades later wonder if he forced lily into a relationship. he’s behaviorally aligned with what femininity in the eyes of misogyny is supposed to be. he keeps to himself, he’s quiet, he sacrifices every bit of himself for students and coworkers and superiors and expects nothing in return, he pushes his students to be the best they can. (i’d say nurtures with my whole chest, but as the narrative comes from harry, we can’t really be sure. in my view, his house won the house cup for several years in a row which was only interrupted by dumbledore awarding a fuck ton of points to his gryffindor prize pony, his classes are seen as high performing and advanced by even dolores umbridge of all people, he only tries to punish students albeit a bit violently after several attempts of getting them to understand why what they did was wrong, which seems to be pretty nurturing in comparison to what other teachers allow and do). whether he’s trans, or had been influenced more by eileen, or he was intended to be deeply complex and contradictory and that meant that he had to have these traits, or any other of the multitude of reasons for snape being an inherently feminine character, it’s there. his patronus wouldn’t be a stag, he wouldn’t be anything overbearing and he wouldn’t be anything aggressive. it doesn’t make sense with his soul and his personality and his life. the peaceful protective innocent/naive doe, however, does.

LOVE IN THE DARK

Summary: You can’t continue to love Draco when it’s only shown in a rooms four walls.

Pairings: Draco Malfoy x fem!Reader (friends with benefits)

Word count: 3.5kish

Warnings: Idiots in love, crying, angst.

A/N: Wow! I am seriously SO surprised with the response I got with “Heather”!!! Please read part 1 before this one! I loved that part so much and I’m so happy all of you did as well!! I hope this one lives up to the first 🥺 “Love in the dark,” by Adele is the theme song for this 💚💚 also tumblr is being super glitchy and erasing some sentences and doubling others after i posted this?! I’m so confused !! Sorry about that 🥺

All mistakes are my own. Please do not repost or translate my fics on any other side nor this one.

I appreciate any likes, reblogs, messages, and interactions.

Part 1 | Part 3 | Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

This was your favorite thing to wake up to.

You had woken up maybe five or ten minutes ago, but you couldn’t manage to get out of bed yet.

Not when you were wrapped in your favorite emerald green silk sheets with your favorite person next to you.

Draco laid there, naked underneath the sheets, with one hand under his neck and the other resting on his chest. His eyes were closed, soft snores coming out his lips, his face was relaxed, and he looked beautiful.

But your favorite thing about waking up next to Draco was how his hair looked.

His blonde bed hair, almost white, was your absolute favorite thing to look and play with. His morning hair didn’t have any type of product in it since he always showered before bed. Which let his natural curls come into play. You loved the way his soft hair felt in between your fingers.

You loved the way his curls fell over his face and he looked like an angel.

So insanely beautiful.

“Good morning, my love.”

His deep, raspy morning voice sends goosebumps all over your skin.

His deep, raspy morning voice sends goosebumps all over your skin.

Maybe that’s your favorite thing.

It’s another thing you add to your mental “Favorite things about Draco list.”

“Morning,” you whisper as Draco leans in to kiss your lips.

He slowly kisses your lips and moans into your mouth as he starts to get out of the bed. He pulls himself away from you and winks, “Gotta pee real quick.”

You roll your eyes at him as he rushes into the lavatory that conjoined with his room. You follow him as you both do your business. Both giggling at each other as you both wash your face and brush your teeth. It should feel awkward doing this naked, but you were both so comfortable together... that it wasn’t.

You leave Draco alone as you rush back into the warm bed, you wrap the sheets around yourself and hum in content.

You turn on your back, placing your arms underneath your neck, and ponder something.

“Dray?”

Draco is already coming out of the lavatory, wiping his hands on a clean cloth, and pulls out a pair of sweatpants from his dresser drawer.

“What’s up, love?”

You sit up on his bed and hold the sheets against your body as you wonder if you should ask the question in your head.

Fuck it.

“Do you ever think about doing this with someone else?”

Draco’s movements halt, his eyes go wide, and his hands froze as he was typing the strings of the sweats.

“What?” He blurts out and sits in front of you.

You blush at your question. Your hair falls around your face and you avoid his questioning eyes.

“Like… with Heather??”

You look up at him again.

He’s fish mouthing for words as his mouth is agape, his eyebrows fur together, and he lets out a hiss of air.

“I mean…” he starts and you shut your eyes already regretting your curious question.

“I don’t want to know! I don’t even know why I asked,” you rush to say.

Draco’s hand reaches yours, “I have never thought about doing this with anybody else.”

You met his eyes. He’s being sincere.

“But..” now it’s you furring your eyebrows together as you think about his answer.

“Don’t you fancy Heather?”

You see him hesitate with his answer.

“I… yeah. I-I do.”

There it is. The final tug on your heart that makes it fall apart. You sigh as you close your eyes and grip onto the bed sheets.

You suddenly feel cold. No more warmth surrounds you and you start getting out of the bed. You move to your drawer, which yes you had a whole drawer in Draco’s room, and you had more than a whole drawer in here.

You’re favorite baby pink mug that was strawberry themed sat next to Draco’s favorite one on the dresser counter next to the kettle. Draco had actually gotten it for you in one of the shops, he said he thought of you and even wrapped it up for you. Thus it became your favorite mug.

Your favorite green cardigan was hanging on the coat rack with a spare robe of yours. Your cute cow slippers sat on the side of the bed.

Your bra was hanging on the doorknob. Your panties were on the bedroom floor.

A green butterfly clip was on his nightstand table.

Your clothes was mixed with his in the dirty laundry pile. Tomorrow was laundry day for you guys.

You grip onto the dresser drawer as you try to not to try as you suddenly realize how intertwined your life is with Draco’s.

How intertwined it is… in only this room.

You guys didn’t exist like this outside of this room. Or at least not to peering eyes.

You sigh as you hastily pull a clean pair of undies onto your cold body. You suddenly feel exposed in front of Draco.

You never felt this way in front of him. You can see Draco in the corner of your eyesight and he’s just watching you. You snap on your bra as you continue to tug on whatever piece of clothing you see first.

You continue to shove your feet into some shoes and that’s when you feel Draco’s hang on your arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving, Draco. I-I’m going back to my own room and living my own life. I..” you pause and look up at him as his eyebrows are furring in confusion.

“You what, Y/N?” He asks as you both are now staring at each other. His hands are gripping onto your wrists. As if he’s scared you’re going to disappear into thin air if he lets you go.

“I can’t do this anymore, Draco.” You look away from him and down at your feet.

You hear his breathing quiver and he lets go of your wrists when you start to move away. You pick up your bag, shoving things into it as you walk around the room, and you sigh as you feel tears pricking your eyes again.

You look at Draco, you pull on your cardigan, and he’s looking at you in shock. His face is full of despair and he looks absolutely crushed.

“What do you mean you can’t do this anymore?”

“Dray,” you whisper as you wipe away your tears and huff out a bitter laugh. His sad eyes watching your every move.

You do a small twirl around the room and point at him, “This! I can’t do this anymore! I can’t keep us a secret anymore! There.. there isn’t even an us to begin with! We’re just fucking around as friends with benefits and we’ve already reached our end. You want to be with Hannah, then go bloody be with her! I won’t be the body that keeps your bed warm while you picture me as somebody else. This thing between us has gone way too far! I-I can’t let myself be that person, Draco!”

Tears are running down your cheeks as you sniff and wipe them away. Draco’s eyes are filling with tears.

“You’re my best friend. Please don’t do this,” he says with a broken voice.

“But am I anything else?” You spat at him before you think clearly and your hands form fists against your side.

“What?!” Draco half yells at you as he runs a hand through his hair.

“Am I more than just your best friend? Am I more to you than your little secret? Am I more than just this bedroom? More than these four walls that contain us??” You feel as if your are begging him to say something. Your words are begging him.

All Draco had to do was say something. Say something more. If he confessed he loved you or felt the same, you wouldn’t walk out of this room and all would be well. Nothing would change and you could speak about becoming more.

You watch Draco closely as he looks at every inch of your face. He’s so close to you, but somehow feels extremely far away.

“Please, Draco. If I leave this room right now…” you sniff and more tears fall down your cheeks, “Everything changes.”

He hesitates with his answer and he closes his eyes with a sigh. No words leave his mouth and you scoff at him.

There’s your answer. But were you really expecting anything else? No, you truly weren’t.

“I’ll come back for the rest of my things later,” you say as you walk out the door and slam it shut. You wait, for just a second, hoping you’d hear Draco rushing to the door and calling out to you and begging you to come back. Begging you to stay and not leave and that he secretly loved you as well.

No movement was heard from the closed door. No yelling Draco. No rushed footsteps.

Nothing.

You swallow the lump in your throat, tilt your head up, and proceed to walk down the long steps away from his private bedroom. You wonder if you’ll ever come back here again.

Was all this really over between you and Draco?

What about the lifelong friendship you had with him? You doubt you’d ever be able to be only friends with him. Not when you were in love with him.

It was Saturday morning so you knew everybody was going to be off at Hogsmeade today. You continued down the hallway as you wipe away your tears. You debate on going to Hogsmeade and drowning yourself in drinks to forget the aching pain in your chest.

You weren’t even watching where you were going when you suddenly bump into someone and yelp when you feel yourself start to fall down.

You reach out to whoever it was that you bumped into and you feel their arms wrap around your waist to stop your fall. You fall into their arms instead and you hear a deep laugh against your body. You look up to see Cedric Diggory holding you in his arms. You gasp as you quickly fix yourself and get back to your feet.

You start to apologize to him when Cedric brushes you off, “Don’t worry about it.”

He notices your tinted cheeks and red rimmed eyes, his face turns into worry immediately, “Are you alright, y/n?”

You nod at him, “Yes, perfectly fine. Thank you. Just had a rough morning, that’s all.”

He eyes you suspiciously, but doesn’t question you further. He seems a bit nervous as he rocks on his feet. You think he looks a bit cute in his Hufflepuff colored sweater.

“What are you doing right now?” He asks in a quick rush.

“I-I.. what? What am I doing right now?” Your eyes go a bit wide because why is Cedric Diggory even talking to you? You don’t believe you’ve ever had a conversation with him before this moment.

His cheeks start turning red as he smiles at himself, “I’m going to three broomsticks. Meeting up with a couple other friends… and….” He looks at you with a smile and you’re returning the look with a confused one as he continues, “And I was wondering if maybe.. maybe you’d want to join me?”

“Join you and your friends?” You ask in confusion. “You’ve never spoken to me before, Cedric.”

He sputters out an embarrassed laugh and rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve never caught you without Malfoy by your side.”

Your heart tugs a bit and you give Cedric a small smile, “Right.”

“You can invite him if you’d like.”

You have a feeling Cedric wouldn’t like that, but he’s just too nice to not offer. You debate on what to say as you watch Cedric watching you with nerves. You didn’t really feel like spending time with anybody right now, but what else were you going to do other than cry alone in your room? You felt hanging out with Cedric wouldn’t be too horrible.

“Okay,” you say and he breaks out in a big smile. “Awesome,” he says, his eyes crinkling, and you both start to make your way to Hogsmeade.

You two, surprisingly, fall easily into conversation while you walk to the three broomsticks. You both soon meet up with his friends, who are pretty surprised to see you at his side, but are all too nice to question it.

It does surprise you at how easy it felt to have fun with them and you wonder why you hadn’t hanged out with them before today. But you know it’s because most people avoided you because of your friendship with Draco.

After many butterbeers, fire whiskey shots, and some shared platters between all of you.. you feel happy, tipsy, and full. You feel full of warmth again. The sun has already set outside and Draco hasn’t crossed your mind while you continue to laugh at the bickering conversation between the Weasley twins.

That’s until you notice platinum blonde hair walk through the front door.

Draco walks into the bar with Heather Umbridge at his side.

Your laughter dies out quickly as you watch them, all your attention is focused on them, and your mouth feels suddenly dry.

She looks perfect in her lavender colored sweater that contrasts her dark hair and pale skin. She looks beautiful.

“Look who just walked in,” Cho Chang yells at the table. They all look frantically at the door and some of the boys whistle.

You look at them in confusion and Cedric rolls his eyes at the group.

You look at him in curiosity.

“She’s had a thing for Malfoy for a while now. She’s been waiting for the right moment to pounce on him. I guess she finally found it,” he tells you as you turn back to look at Heather and Draco. If looks could kill.

Draco’s eyes are already on you. You see a look flash on his face when he sees Cedric whispering in your ear, his arm laying easily on the back of your booth, and you look too comfortable for his liking. But as soon as you see that expression, it’s gone just as quickly.

Heather spots you all, her hand wraps around Draco’s, you feel green start slithering into you as you clutch your jaw, and you watch them as they come towards you.

Heather smiles at you all, “Room for two more?”

The Weasley twins nod as the scoot more in their side of the booth. Heather sits down and tugs Draco into the spot next to her, her arm still wrapped around his, and she’s smiling so big you think her face might break.

You roll your eyes to yourself, avoiding Draco’s stare, and you continue to sip on your cherry drink. Your favorite.

Conversation easily starts to flow again with the group and nobody notices the awkward tension between you and Draco. You fall into the conversation with your new friends again. You try your best to avoid any interaction with Draco even if you do feel him staring at you the entire time.

You try not to jump when you feel Cedric leaning into your ear, you notice Draco’s hand squeezing his butterbeer too tightly, and you turn your head to Cedric. He smiles a smile that tells you he’s feeling pretty tipsy as well.

“Want to get out of here?” His pretty blue eyes staring at you in wonder.

You ponder if you should or not, but you soon nod at him as you bite your bottom lip. His mouth breaks out into a smile as he looks back at the group. He starts telling them you guys are going to head out already. You allow yourself to look at Draco for the first time tonight.

His eyes are furious as he stares at you, his mouth frowning, and his breathing is picking up slightly.

You slid out of the booth once Cedric gives you a tap.

“You’re leaving already?” Heather pouts at you, you turn to look back at her, she’s leaning her head on Draco’s shoulder, smiling a toothy smile, and Cedric answers her with a wink.

You ignore her and turn back to Cedric until you feel a familiar warm hand grip your wrist. You try to tug it out as you quickly look at him with a scowl and anger fills you.

“Let go,” you tell him as you bare your teeth. You see Heathers face fall when she notices what’s going on. She sits up and it suddenly turns extremely quiet at the table. Even Cedric halts in his steps.

Draco doesn’t let go. Instead he says, “Are we still meeting tonight to study potions?”

You scoff at what he asks you. That was always your secret question to each other when you wanted to ask if you were still on for your nightly sleepover. Sometimes you didn’t even need to ask each other. It was always a given. But right now... the fucking audacity.

You tug hard at your wrist for him to release you and he does. You stare down at him, his eyes wide, and you pout at him. “Fuck you,” you snarl at him as your storm out of the bar. You hear some of the group members gasp lowly.

You and Draco have always been attached to the hip and have never said words like that to each other. Especially never in front of anybody. But you didn’t care anymore. You were too hurt to care.

You start making your way towards the castle, a little wobble because of your state, but you are almost running. Tears are pricking your eyes as you tug on your cardigan since the cold night air wasn’t in your favor.

“Y/N!” You hear a voice yell. You roll your eyes as you can’t believe he followed you. You halt your steps and open your mouth to yell at Draco, but instead you see Cedric.

You gasp a little because you realize that you also ran away from Cedric. Unintentionally.

“Are you alright? Whatever that was back there... was intense,” he stares at you with a questioning gaze.

“We just aren’t getting along right now,” you say. Even if things aren’t right between you two. It still wasn’t anybody’s business.

“Right,” Cedric says as he gives you a smile. You smile back as you watch each other.

“Would you... maybe... wanna go back to my room?”

You bark out a laugh and cover your mouth. You giggle, “A bit forward, aren’t we?”

Cedric blushes. “I swear I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Right,” you say with a teasing smile. Are you flirting with him? You wonder.

“Unless you want something to happen.”

You feel Cedric getting closer to you and you still. You’ve never thought about anybody other than Draco. You’ve never even kissed anybody other than him.

You weren’t sure if it was your broken heart or your tipsy state that lead you to say, “Maybe I do.”

Cedric smiles at your response. He wraps his hand in yours and you both start to walk back to Hogwarts. You wonder if anything will happen in his room tonight.

You soon find yourself at the Hufflepuff side of Hogwarts and he leads you to his room, which surprises you, because turns out he’s head boy. Now your standing in the middle of a yellow theme room with yellow silk sheets and it makes you nervous. You’ve never even laid in a different colored bed before.

You hope you aren’t making a mistake.

While you were in Cedric room, Draco Malfoy was storming into Hogwarts with Heather at his side.

“Stop following me,” Draco snaps at Heather and she halts, but pulls his hand roughly.

“I don’t understand,” she cries out to him as he rolls his eyes at her. He can’t deal with this right now. He needs to find you and explain himself. He’s a bloody idiot.

“What don’t you understand?”

“I thought you liked me!” Her face is beat red in anger while she stares at Draco.

“I don’t! I never have. You must have gotten the wrong impression,” he says carelessly as he turns around and starts speed walking towards the Hufflepuff area of the castle. He hears Heather huff and puff in anger, but he can’t let himself even give her another moment as he races to you.

He hopes he can reach you before he thinks about what might be happening right now with you and Diggory.

Maybe if he wasn’t such a bloody idiot, he wouldn’t be running down the Hogwarts hallways in distress that you might by laying with someone that’s not him.

Letting someone else touch your skin, kiss your lips, and feel you in ways only he ever has.

“Fuck!” He cries out as he feels his heart tearing into pieces at the thoughts and images running through his mind.

He hopes he isn’t too late.

everywhere at the end of time (memoryloss!spiderdads)

I COULDNT GET THIS OUT OF MY HEAD me and my friend were gossiping about memory loss aus and this appeared...

i probably won't write this out but i wanted u guys to see it and scream w me

thank u for the warm reception for paper rings <3 let me finish some stuff up and then I'll get smth out for u

why yes this is post btsv i just wanted miles here

Peter doesn't blame them, really.

When Miguel told him that a Spider-Person had gone insanely rogue and created a memory-erasing gun, Peter wasn't even that surprised. There was plenty he would want to forget as Spider-Man, certain endorsements and franchises that displayed his mask.

Then Miguel told him that this guy saw their entire family killed by the Sinister Six, and was stuck in a Mysterio-induced hallucination of the memory. They relived it over and over again before the Avengers in their universe found them.

And Peter doesn't blame them at all for doing that.

But what he is doing here in Earth-5338 is making sure that this Spider-Person doesn't do this to other Spider-People. There's a decent amount of them here, Gwen, Miles and Jessica. It's a risky mission of course, but it should just be destroy-the-gizmo and extract-them.

This should be easy.

They're in their lab in Earth-5338. A spare suit hangs from a case, light blue with pink and white accents. Spinner, a sign by it reads. On the wall behind it are drawings of the spider in action, drawn in crayon.

It's something Mayday has done, and his chest constricts.

Someone lays a hand on him, ever-cautious, and Peter looks up at Miguel. It's battle time, so his mask is pulled up. But Peter knows that under it, his lips are just-kissed glossy. He grins at the memory of their pre-mission makeout session. He leans forward, careful to keep his voice down.

"Care for a repeat, ninety-nine?" Miguel has the shame to turn away. His cheeks are probably flaring red, and Peter pulls him closer.

Miguel traces two fingers down Peter's arm, stopping at his wrist. "

"Stay safe." Commanding. It's his way of affection.

"Back to you." Peter replies.

The memory cuts off here. The orange hologram freezes, and Miguel is allowed to fixate on the unhidden affection in Peter's eyes. The colour always reminded him of how Peter drank his tea. English breakfast, with enough milk to turn it opaque and turned sweet with an ungodly amount of sugar.

There's a small smile there on him, and Miguel wants to live in this moment again.

"Lyla, again."

"Miguel, this-"

"Again." He growls it this time.

The orange figures reset and all Miguel looks at is Peter. He will always turn to Peter first. He walks up to the costume case, laying his fingers on the sign.

"Is that me?" The memory breaks like shattered glass. Miguel turns around, and about ten feet below him is Peter.

But somehow, it isn't his Peter.

Miguel turns away again and breathes. He does it slow and quiet, unlike how his heart sounds like in his ears.

"I asked for you when I woke up again. I called you the scary big one, and people seemed to know who you were," Peter's joking, of course he's joking, but it's the way his voice sounds. The way his smile, his stupid grin is so evident in his voice that makes Miguel grip his table, until his claws are leaving marks.

"You know who I am, don't you?" Peter asks. "Who I was or whatever?"

Peter woke up with Miguel holding his hand. Peter pushed him away and asked for Aunt May. When rebuffed, he asked for Uncle Ben. He was scared of Miguel, eyes going wide at the talons on his suit.

The doctor eventually got him sedated and asleep again, but he pulled Miguel aside after. "He might not get his memories back. But we'll play our odds. We'll take it slow. "

Miguel nods. He didn't have to have the Spider-Sense, to know that Miles and Gwen were listening behind the wall. He could hear them whispering. He plans to scold them later, so he doesn't have to picture his future without his Peter.

"We have to keep memory dumps slow, so he won't get overwhelmed." Is there anything else other than being Spider-Man that might shock 616-B, something very different from what he knew before he became Spider-Man?"

"You were beside my bed. You know me, don't you?" Peter asks again.

Miguel breathes in. Breathes out. He closes his eyes.

"No."

-

<3

Bold of these people to assume Kali wouldn't be Henry if she had the same level of power, and I think it has a lot to do with Kali fans feeling some strange need to morally grandstand over people. I didn't mind her character at first but her fans are quickly starting to irritate me. They just hear the name Henry, and go off like his character actually did something to her- and it causes them to froth at the maw the moment they see people talking about him, even though they don't know a goddamn thing about the topic...and just dive into the convo, and diverge it because they don't know how to talk about their favorite without having some sort of tantrum.

By bold I think you mean "really stupid". She is literally his counterpart character, that's literal canon. The entire point is that Henry would be VERY MUCH like her if he escaped the lab and indeed Kali would be VERY MUCH like Henry if she was in his particular position. Its tragic because they're doing such a disservice to Kali by representing her that way because that's not her and I'll be real with you white folks will always do this because A) Feminism and B) White guilt. Female characters can simply DO NO WRONG and that goes extra when they're a WOC and if there is a male character in sight to compare, particularly if he's white, he is the devil. End of. This is how white folks in fandom show how woke and awesome they are, being performative and shallow. Like I said the Billy vs Kali issue is very relevant and does actually highlight actual fandom racism and misogyny but the shit with Henry doesn't because he does not have NEAR the fanbase Billy has as a pretty cishet white boy, Henry is considered an acceptable target in the fandom for so much ableism and homophobia its unreal.

But yeah Kali is Henry with a gun. They both have supernatural powers but Kali's aren't offensive, which has severely limited her. Henry's on the other hand are extremely offensive so he doesn't need human weapons to hurt and kill people. He is the human weapon. That means while, yes, Henry was a lot more dangerous than Kali, he was not necessarily more evil or blood thirsty. He could just do more.

Like the way this fandom treats Henry is kind of insane. I've been in a lot of fandoms and a villain stan and monster lover in all of them and I can tell you with 100% certainty I have NEVER seen a character like Henry so misrepresented and hated by the fandom. And the only difference I can see between a lot of those beloved "complex" and "tragic villains/monsters" and Henry is that Henry is super heavily ND coded. Thats the one difference I can spot.

And its so hard not to be insanely bitter about that. How this fandom is soooo desperate to not only erase that explicit canon fact about Henry but to also portray him as the most horrific anti-queer stereotypes they can possibly imagine, which is the only reason they care about any potential queer coding in the character in the first place... And I admit MAYBE Im a little attached to him personally but NONE THE LESS I am NOT the one misreading the canon here. Not even fucking close.

modern christianity’s ideals of heaven are insanely depressing.

okay so only 0.1% of the world’s population is going to make it into a big white room empty of free will and fun for literally all of eternity

…and you WANT this? bro that’s fucking boring as shit.

if god is a pedantic asshole who will only allow people into his special club if they follow an absurdly strict set of arbitrary rules, I will gladly poledance into hell and ride satan’s dick like I’m lil nas x. but less talented. and white.

I mean… you only want the white people or the brown people who act white, you only want the straight people or the gay people who act straight, you only want the neurotypical people or the ones who can mask it, you only want the able bodied people or the ones who are rich and privileged enough to prevent that from being a problem, you only want the dfabs to be subservient and sexless but also be baby factories always on hand to physically please the dmabs, and you want all of the jews (and muslims and everyone else) to die in a fire… buddy. I think that your version of god is a literal actual fascist. and you worship that motherfucker? go fuck yourself.

my god loves everyone equally. my god would try his damnedest to make sure every single one of his precious beloved children comes home to him. my god wouldn’t just stand idly by and watch 90% of his babies that he handstitched in the womb perish in eternal hellfire just because of circumstances in the world putting them in unfortunate positions of being denied salvation for whatever reason. oh, young child, you were beaten and abused by your religious parents for a 18 years and thus were psychologically traumatized and terrified of ever becoming anything like those monsters and rejected jesus, then got hit by a car? FUCK YOU, BURN IN HELL YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT, SUFFER FOR YOUR BAD LUCK. oh, veteran soldier, you were lied to by the US government propaganda machine and your body was used to oil the gears of war and you were sent home a broken traumatized mess, given no recompense, left to be homeless and disabled and alone on the streets, and ultimately shove a gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger? FUCK YOU, BURN IN HELL YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT, SUFFER FOR YOUR BAD LUCK. and so on. that isn’t god. if you think that’s god, you perform the sin of idolatry, and purgatory is your destination if not hell. the true hell. an eternity free of pleasure or pain, a life forever of being a lobotomized worker bee, existence for time immemorial of dead-eyed slavery with shackles upon your mind until your consciousness shrivels into nothingness, unable to make a single choice for yourself. no art, no love, no life. either that or an exact copy of this world, with you in a dead end 9-5 job serving a trillion copies of the exact same personality, an army of barbie dolls, eating away at your sanity until it eventually just fucking devolves into don hertzveldt meets salvador dali nothingness defying reality itself. FOR FUCKING EVER. you wanna sit in a movie theater watching veggie tales reruns over and over and over again until the last few vestiges of what makes you human shrivel, disappearing like a grain of sand in an endless dune, a drop of water in an endless ocean, fading away like the memories you have today right now from your infancy. oh, you don’t even remember 10% of your childhood? if you lived an extra hundred years you wouldn’t remember 10% of age 1-60. and extra thousand you wouldn’t remember 1% of your entire lifetime. everything that makes you YOU is destined to be erased by the passage of time under this absurd ruleset. your idea of heaven is a worse torture than any hell that man can devise or even conceive.

if your god relishes in delight at mass omnicide, then your god is a piece of shit and you should be doing everything in your power to reject him. getting down on your knees and licking his boots and begging him not to include you in the murder makes you more of a sniveling and pathetic worm than even the slimiest and scuzziest of hell’s more spineless and disgusting demons. satan’s rebellion was therefore morally and ethically correct.

and besides. claiming that any human is going to hell for any reason spits directly in the face of jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. forgive them father, they know now what they do. I believe that is what he said. did god seriously look at the entire state of the world in 30 AD and say, you know what, every single human who has ever lived is fucked, every single human who is alive now and literally cannot know christ in enough time because it takes time for word to travel, every single human on continents that the roman empire isn’t even AWARE OF (or vice versa) is just straight fucked? fucked fucked fucked, all humanity is predestined for hell in a handbasket. that’s bullshit.

god is a being of love and you have perverted him into a twisted and warped inhuman ungodly disgusting THING unworthy of praise or even attention. your god is dead and you killed him with your own 2 bloodstained hands.

christians dni

dearest diary,

today is starting off strong- lingering dreams and matching horoscopes and tarot readings, plans with friends and full body anxiety.

letting your mother talk to lawyers for you is definitely a cowards way out, the action of a youngest child who needs to grow tf up, but its easy to do bad things when you hate yourself alr-

OH. THATS THE POINT OF BOJACK HORSEMAN.

great show but its a horrible sign that I relate most to the fucking horse. if I were a man...well, thank the universe for that one small concession. im annoying enough as a woman, id be utterly insufferable (and even more off putting) as a man living rent free in- okay okay. im a mess. this is well established. there is no magic cure that's going to fix my shit by tomorrow. there's nothing I can do to erase the past few years of drowning in my own depression. the past few critical years where I was unable to hold it together or to even move forward. dammit, the teachers were right. though, given my...everything. personality, upbringing, mental illnesses plural, I think it might have always ended up this way. and there's no point on lingering on everything I have down wrong ever because there's so much of it jfc please don't cue the war flashbacks now. at 25 years old I must start from scratch except I was handed one of those shitty whiteboards that are never 100% clean. or, I guess this metaphor works better if im the one who waited too long and all the good white boards were taken first.

well, I overthink things and never take action (classic infp amiright?) but I also have adhd so sometimes im also impulsive. and im not patholgizing myself, truly im not, its just that I do weird things and its comforting to know that there's a reason why I am the way that I am. everyone else gets to go along life knowing why they do things that they do because their minds are so straightforward, even when they're overwhelmed by emotion they know which emotion it is that they're feeling. and we're all humans who act irrationally at times and have moments of "why did I do that" but not everyone is like " I don't understand why I can't just be normal."

anyways I think if I just stopped overthinking things but also spent more time in my own body it would, and I quote, "fix all my shit okay, maybe not all my shit, but definitely more." slow down, think, act.

right now I am forced to lean on my parents. I feel guilty that they're doing me a huge favor, but a more productive use of that emotion is showing my gratefulness. getting a job and helping them around the house, having a more normal sleep schedule, and taking a more active role with the gremlins will show how thankful I am. I need to prioritize getting a job and getting into a groove with cleaning. hoarder mess is theirs to deal with, everyday cleaning tasks I can help with. to work off my frustration, im going to start taking walks on the trail.

eat healthier. no diets cause they drive me insane.

look into hormone supplements specifically for PCOS, and make sure to actually take my thyroid meds.

its not all or nothing. no more procrastinating. a little bit each day.

I gotta like, romanticize my life though, or else its just not as fun. or worth it? I don't want to just go through the motions and I need to find motivation from something, somewhere.

"all that is done in love is done well" okay Vincent go off. when you're a mentally ill piece of shit I think doing things with love is the only thing you can do right. no, thats not it. sometimes all you can do is sit back and realize, there's no point in doing things out of hatred- no, thats not the point either. ah, well. its still a good motto to have.

I lost large chunks of myself haven't I? the passion, the interests, trying to cater towards everyone else but then being led by my own anger and darkness. but I've always admired the weirdos and the eccentrics, and especially the free spirits. I've seen the dark sides of everything I have loved, but its like yin and yang yeah? just because there's some darkness doesn't mean the whole thing is horrible now. there's still things left to love about it. im not going to find the perfect solution, god knows im going to make a million more mistakes, but=im gonna try harder. im going to do things out of love again. fuck toxic positivity though. lets bring emotions back! stop rationalizing everything! feel what you feel THEN make decisions about it. I need a little more optimism in my life, but I don't wanna fake it either. not everything has to be a big deal;!

todays goals are to get my clearances set up (for the most part). the room to clean of the day is the bathroom. the fun bits are going to be...creating a capsule wardrobe for work. I need ballet flats-wide-for interviews. but first, food for fuel.

this journey is going to kick me in my ass, but its been kicking me in the face the whole time so if you think about it, this is a vast improvement. and fuck! I really don't wanna fucking do this! I wish I didn't have to!! but it's all going to work out all right in the end so help me god-or-whoerver-pr-whatever-is-in-charge-if- anything-at-all.

*cue better son/daughter playing in the background*

We sacrifice children at the altar of the 2nd amendment so Americans can have military grade weapons.

We sacrifice children at the altar of the 2nd amendment so Americans can have military grade weapons and the gun makers and NRA can get richer

It is that simple.

Instead of preserving and protecting and upholding life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (especially for children), we allow a cockamamie band of NRA infused, faux patriots with little understanding of the Constitution to rule by minority fiat.

Let us remember that the Constitution is a living breathing document, not carved into holy stone by people appointed by God to do Her bidding on earth.

They were men who wrote a document for their time.  Yes, they wrote great words, all aimed at white land holders.

It has taken decades to get the original words into an interpretation that addressed today’s issues and values.  

With the 2nd Amendment, everyone has fallen short of bringing that amendment into today.

Back in the 18th Century, America didn’t have a standing army and militias were for the common defense.

Most colonial militias didn’t have enough guns to go around.  In the run up to the Revolutionary War, colonial leaders had to bring firearms into the country, not because the British banned them, because most Americans had no need for guns.

Remember too that a smooth bore musket (wildly inaccurate) in the hands of a professional, were able to shoot no more than three rounds a minute if everything worked.

One of the big tasks during the Revolution and Civil Was was to train men how to shoot.

Today, any incompetent person can shoot upwards of 100 rounds per minute with an AR15 style weapon, no training required.  While the NRA and 2nd Amendment crowd tried to enhance the myth of an always armed populace, it’s just not true.

It’s all a myth so the gun makers and NRA can get your money.

There were plenty of armed law enforcement officers at the Uvalde. They didn’t go inside to stop the carnage, they waited until the killing was over to confront the lone gunman.

So much for the idea that the more guns and armed people wandering the streets we have, the safer everyone can be.

It’s a lie and we all know it’s a lie.

Ted Cruz and his ilk are claiming to need more armed people in schools.

Why?  So kids can grow up in a prison like school?  You think Covid hurt kids education?  Imagine what happens when kids go to prison school, razor wire surrounding the parapets and military garbed hall monitors everywhere and teachers spending more time training to shoot than working on lesson plane.

There are 120 guns for every 100 Americans.

Gun sales are off the wall.

It’s time to stop the insanity of guns in the US.  

Otherwise, we will continue to sacrifice our children at the altar of the 2nd Amendment and the liars and money grubber who want you to be afraid so you will give them more pieces of silver.

One day someone will release the photos of kids dead in a classroom, bodies ripped apart by a hail of automatic weapons fire.

I think that should be soon.  

The pro-gun at any cost people need to see the results of their efforts to make sure every American can have any weapon, any time without restrictions.

Parents and citizens need to see these pictures too.  Perhaps the classroom video of kids being gunned down will motivate them to demand changes in gun laws.

We hear the numbers of the dead, we see their photos, we hear their stories.

We are far past the time for “prayers and condolences.”

Now it’s time to see the results of America’s gun sickness.

Perhaps the horror of a bloody classroom will finally get past the bullshit pro-gun people are spreading.

Until then, we will say prayers for the dead, cry out to God for a solution and go on about our business secure in the knowledge that another shooting will soon erase the memory of this one from our memory.

After all, it’s just another day in America.

review - kobeha graphilo notebook, A5 blank

the graphilo notebook has only one conceivable flaw and that's entirely based on how I'm using it (which is not as a notebook).

let's start with the statement that I'm an artist who LOVES inky pens—adores them, ruins them with sumi ink, drenches pages with them, it's bad. when I went looking for my next sketchbook—that's right, sketchbook—I went into the search with an eye out for something that would be a step up from standard rhodia paper.

why? for a few finicky reasons to do with certain supplies out muscling the weight of the paper but mostly because rhodia doesn't have the decency to make a blank, softback, staple-bound, travel friendly notebook for me to use. for my last sketchbook I had to bind it myself out of pages that were falling out of my A4 pad. workable? yes; it's my favorite sketchbook I've had so far. tedious to do yourself and almost more trouble than it's worth? absolutely. (rhodia? make a lightweight A5 bound notebook with blank white paper please!)

anyway, I went on the hunt looking for a notebook that would be a step up from the rhodia because I really wanted to be able to use the pilot shunpitsu pocket brush pen (soft) without it going straight through the page (I'll do a review of it some time, it's a fantastic pen but my LORD does it like to bleed onto the next page if you're not careful). now, normal people would get a thicker paper to help solve that problem but I'm testy about anything over 100 gsm for my general use sketchbook (rhodia standard is 80).

the kobeha graphilo notebook does not have that problem when it comes to the shunpitsu soft. the graphilo says bleeding is for mortal sucker chumps who need to go home crying to their mommies. for a paper just over 80 gsm? that's INSANE. the only materials I could get to bleed through was a papermate W10 permanent marker (HUGE chisel tip on this bad boy) and the freaking brush side of a copic sketch.

a quick summary of media I tried that didn't even try to bleed through: noodlers eel ink, pentel pocket brush pen ink, shunpitsu brush pen ink, frixion markers, higgens acrylic ink, j. herbin rusty anchor ink, zebra mildliners (gold/grey/dark grey), sumi ink, kuretake bitmoji brush pen ink, walnut ink, sharpies, and more.

the only ink that didn't perform well was my noodler's pasternak ink and even then all I did was get light feathering as the dyes in the bulletproof ink separated slightly. I will admit that my gel pens didn't work as well (the inks had a tendency to railroad around the ball tip) but this paper isn't made for them. even my ballpoints looked nice, though I wouldn't recommend them as the force needed to write dents the paper slightly. pencils go on smoothly and erase cleanly, even colored leads.

okay, yes, this paper is a joy to write on, you guys get it, now what about that flaw I mentioned?

ah, yes. well.

the ink doesn't freaking dry. the shunpitsu especially took forever to dry and it's branded as a quick dry pen! almost everything I used took ages to not be a wet puddle on the page and smeared or smudged even when looking dry. it's a serious turn off but also a problem of my own making. did I know the dry times would be longer? yes, but this is downright absurd! for a notebook this would be a hassle but not impossible to deal with for a right handed person. but as a sketchbook it's almost prohibitive to use without taking huge breaks.

unfortunately it looks like this is gonna stay as a test notebook for me. that's it for now but I'll update with any discoveries I may have later. in the meantime though wish me luck in my sketchbook search! ヾ(*'▽'*)

Best Friends My Ass (one-shot)

Synopsis: Being in love with your best friend whom you’ve had since childhood can be tough. Being in love and being dumb can make it tougher. Meet the Reader and Harry. They’re the latter. And everyone’s fed up.

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!Reader

Genre: fluff, maybe little bit of angst, tiny bit smutty, but not a lot

Warnings: swearing, two idiots pining for one another

Word count: 7524

Even when Harry was little, he’d known he’d have an odd path in life. Just because it was odd, didn’t mean it’d be bad, but it would make him absolutely stand out in the crowd.        When Y/N was young she didn’t see herself having any extraordinary adventures. Sure, she’d travel and explore the world with its secrets, but she didn’t have any plans to draw the attention of the masses. That was until Harry’d come into her life.        They were both young, still kids in that tender age where childhood crossed into teenage years, when they met. For Harry, it was like one of those scenes in the movies where the pretty girl walks into a room and a billion fans make her hair look like the wind is sweeping through it, and her eyes glisten like gemstones. Also known as the 'love at first sight' scene.        For Y/N, it was hard to keep her breakfast down as she walked inside the classroom, twenty pairs of scrutinous eyes on her, trying to figure out if the new girl was a predator or prey.        Luckily for Y/N, the biology teacher wasn’t a total witch and didn’t make her present herself to the class, and just pointed to the free seat next to a curly-haired boy. Luckily for Harry, that free seat was right next to him.        With a sigh, she dropped her heavy backpack beside the chair, giving the boy a shy glance, and was surprised to see a genuine and large grin right back at her. It wasn’t the kind people gave when they had bad thoughts. It was the kind people gave when they were truly excited and wanted to give a good impression. Y/N’s chest grew warm at the thought she might actually make a friend that day. And she did.        “I’m Harry.” He extended his hand for her to take, the grin never leaving his face.        She gave him a big, relieved smile. “I’m Y/N.”        Ever since then they were not only lab partners in classes they shared (which was biology, physics and math), but also in mischief. Together they managed to enrage Anne, annoy Gemma and absolutely horrify Y/M/N, and whenever one went down, the other made sure to go down as well.        So when a few years down the line, Harry had told Y/N about his idea to audition for X-factor she wasn’t surprised one bit.        “I mean, as long as you don’t trip and break your nose on stage, you’ll be fine.”        For that, she received a slap on her arm from him.        “I’m just saying!” Y/N defended herself. “You’re great at singing, Mrs Aberdeen certainly thinks so, you don’t have two complete left feet, and you’re alright to look at.”        That for the first time since the decision and application had been submitted, made Harry smile. He loved how easily Y/N was able to lighten the mood, to take his thoughts away from the bad, and just erase them with her wit and smile.

       “Besides.” She nudged his shoulder with hers and then intertwined their fingers. “I, Gem and our Mums will be right there for you. Won’t even blink until the end of the performance.”        With how her insides trembled in excitement and fear for her best friend, it truly seemed to Y/N she hadn’t blinked at all on that fateful day. Her breath hitched when the judges were talking. She couldn’t even remember what they said, all of it turning into white noise.        And then he got through, and Y/N screamed so much she was sure she’d blown out Anne’s eardrums, and had hugged Harry so tightly she was afraid she’d broken a rib. But with his victory also came a fear, because, for the first time in Y/N’s life, she was terrified as to where she’d stand in Harry’s. Since day one it’d been secure, but now, with the newfound fame of X-factor and who knows what kind of an amazing future, she didn’t know if he’d throw her to the curb, simply forget about the mundane friend from high school or maybe use her for something.        But it wasn’t like that. Not one bit. After insane hours of rehearsals, Y/N was one of the three people he always called. It was her, his Mum and Gem. Always. And he loved to listen to her speaking of what was happening at school, how the lessons were, which teacher turned out to be hooking up with which. As much as Harry knew he was made for the extraordinary, he loved the ordinary Y/N brought in his life. She was his safe harbour. But what he never agreed with were her own thoughts she was meant for a simple life, so he took it upon himself to bring a little bit of eccentricity in hers, as he explained how he’d gotten united into a band with four other boys, now going by ‘One Direction’, and it was his mission to join his newfound friends with the most important friend he'd had.        “This is Y/N,” Harry introduced her to the guys after one of their late-night practices, one where they weren’t being filmed. “If you do anything that even mildly upsets her, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”        The slap against his arm made him let out an ‘Ow!’ while the rest of the boys laughed and welcomed her with open arms.        In a weird way, Y/N became part of the band. She didn’t sing or play any instruments, but she was always around, gave her input on songs and setlists. That kind of closeness made all of the fears and doubts about losing a place in Harry’s life disappear. She was his personal hype-man while at the same time knocked him down a few pegs whenever the fame started to get to his head.        She was there for his highs and lows, for the break-ups and break-off in the band, and watched as he ventured into a solo career as much as she could with school and all, but when summer break rolled around it was like Harry couldn't get rid of her even if he tried. Not that he wanted. Sharing the success and happiness with his best friend was one of the biggest rewards he could have.        And Y/N would never admit it because it’d boost Harry’s already elephant-like ego, at least that’s what she said, but she kind of liked the attention she received because of him, especially because most of it was pleasant.        Had she been terrified that being known as Harry Styles best friend would make people think she was just a gold-digger, seeking fame and leeching it off from him? Yes. And there were people like that. But ninety-five percent of what people said on her social media accounts was actually nice, some even said ‘thank you’ that there was a person like her in Harry’s life to keep things real, and most importantly – cared about him through it all.        Harry also saw those comments; he loved to read about how people saw just how much Y/N cared, and it kind of stirred something in him. He didn’t know when exactly, but it was around the age of twenty-four for him and twenty-three for Y/N when he started looking at his friend in a different light. And it bloody terrified him. He didn’t know if she felt the same, and the thought of putting his heart on the line like that only for the possibility of it being crushed was the scariest thing ever.        He did, however, have an inclination as to what incident had prompted them to surface. The feelings that were. It was a night after a party. Y/N was on winter break from her master’s at uni, which meant he used every opportunity to spend time with her.        The hangover was real, I mean it’s what you got by mixing vodka, tequila and beer into an empty Sprite bottle and chugging it. Harry stumbled over sleeping bodies on his way to the kitchen in search for some leftover pizza he was sure he and Y/N in their drunkenness had ordered, as well as to make two cups of black coffee. He knew she hated the taste, but cold junk food and bitter coffee always did the trick with her. That was when he’d found her.        Although he’d woken up in Y/N’s room, she hadn’t been next to him. Instead, as it turned out, she’d gone on a food search sometime before him and had passed out on the couch, a Cookie Monster onesie on her body, but most importantly his signature pearls around her neck. And one of her hands even rested against her collarbone, as if scared someone would take them away from her.        That’d been the first time his heart had flipped in his chest at the sight of her, but most definitely not the last.        He did however keep this change in his emotions to himself. He wasn’t really sure what it was, so it would be unfair to dump that on Y/N and have her figure it out for him because he didn’t know where she stood on her own, let alone do the work for him.        Luckily, despite the tornado of feelings, their friendship didn’t falter, and when his Vogue cover came out, he was incredibly nervous for people to see it, but especially for those who mattered the most to him, like his Mum, sister and Y/N. Especially Y/N, for her opinion had become the most important one outside his blood relatives. After all, all his thoughts went to – if we dated, would she be as proud of me as she was of me as a friend?        Her support meant the most because he was away in the middle of filming; he had no way of getting physical comfort, so all of the messages, calls, social media posts and FaceTimes was the world to him, especially when Y/N sent a picture of herself with three copies of the magazine, two beside her head as she laid on her bed and one clutched to her chest, which she also posted on Instagram with the caption ‘Can’t hug you for real right now, so this will have to do. When I do get to you @harrystyles, I’ll crush your ribs with my love. And that is a threat.’        Then the comments came in from the rest, and one stood out more than the others.        Bring Back Manly Men.        At first, he felt odd about it. It didn’t really bother him, but at the same time, it made him sad. He knew that he was seen as somewhat of a controversial figure, as he painted nails, wore frilly blouses and now full-on dresses, which were all typically categorized as feminine things, but he never understood why a nail colour or the shape of a shirt suddenly became exclusively for just one gender. Which is why he was so grateful to have Y/N in his life.        “I mean, anatomically speaking, men should be wearing dresses and women trousers. It’s you who have all the dangly bits,” she said through a bite of food. “The Scots have been onto it since the beginning.”        Harry threw his head back in a laugh, shifting an arm behind his head. “So I assume your favourite pic is the one in the kilt?”        “Well, it did remind me of that awful punk phase I had back in school with all those safety pins, only in a more tasteful way, but no. My favourite one is you in that brown, grey off-shoulder jacket thing.”        “Why?”        Y/N wiggled her brows at him. “Shows enough of your cleavage but leaves enough for imagination.”        “Of fucking course.” Harry snorted, shaking his head. “Objectifying much?”        “What? I’m not going to deny that my best friend is a sexy beast.”        He wouldn’t say it out loud, but when she called him her friend, it made his heart clench in a painful way. Harry had been trying to be a bit flirtier around her, but given his open nature as it was, Y/N hadn’t seemed to notice it, nor had she seemed to notice how he looked at her while she was frowning at her computer screen.        Harry’d had relationships with some women who could be considered the most beautiful in the world, but if he’d had to say, in his opinion, who’d receive that title, it’d be Y/N. The way she snorted when she laughed too hard, the way small crow lines had already appeared next to her eyes from how much she smiled and the way her forehead creased when she was concentrating. It enthralled him to no end. He could read her life’s story on her face, how she’d lived and thought and experienced, unlike so many people he met who couldn’t move a muscle.        Though the reason she was so concentrated in that moment was because thousands of people had tagged her in a tweet of a woman, she’d heard of for the first time in her life (because Harry had been trying to keep that one off her radar), and what she saw made all the blood boil in her body more than any other hate comment had.        Without hesitation, Y/N atted her and tweeted “Bring back manly men. Please! Millions of people would let him raw them WHILE WEARING THE DRESS. I mean you tried, so I’ll give you the gold star you so desperately want, but that was pathetic.”        At that same moment, a notification popped up on the screen of Harry’s phone. He only had notifications on for one person, and when he saw what was written, he gasped, looking at Y/N. “You did not just do that!”        “What?” Y/N shrugged biting down on the chocolate bar she’d been savouring for the last half hour of their conversation. “I just said what everyone was thinking. Besides what the fuck does ‘bring back manly men’ even mean? Go chop some wood? Fight a bear in the Siberian woods? Have your ‘friends’ stab you to death at a political meeting?”        “You’re a menace.”        Y/N winked popping the last bit of the chocolate in her mouth. “Only to those who dare go for the people I love.”        His heart fluttered at the last word, but all he could do was mask it with a large grin and shake of his head.        For another hour they spent talking, Y/N kept hyping Harry up, tried to get as many plot details of the movie he was filming, while he avoided as many spoilers as possible and attempted to steer the conversation somewhere else, but when that happened, Y/N jumped onto his music, which he had told her all about. In fact, there wasn’t a music video made without her approval, and neither would his next one be. “You’ll fly out to see me film for ‘Treat People With Kindness’, right?”        Y/N sighed, giving him a sad smile. She hated disappointing Harry. “I’d love to. But you know with everything going on, I don’t think I’ll be able to.”        “Phoebe Waller-Bridge will be in it.”        She gasped, in real excitement. “Well, why didn’t you say so from the start?!”        “So that’s what this friendship has come to. I’m just your gateway to celebrities?”        “Harry you’ve always been just my gateway to the people living in LaLa Land.” But she let out a small breath much like she’d done before. “I really do want to come, Harry. You know that; I miss you like crazy. But Phoebe or no Phoebe, I don’t think I can.”        Harry bit his lip nodding, but he still needed to try one more time. “Is there anything I can say or do to get you here?”        “Get me a private jet and a quarantine mansion?”        “Deal.”        “Woah! Wait!” Y/N pretty much jumped up from her position in bed. “That was a joke! Harry Edward Styles, I swear to God, if you try an –“        But with a giant grin, he just blew Y/N a kiss and ended the call.        She was quite terrified if she was being honest, that Harry would do what she’d asked. He already had once. It'd been around Christmas time while she was still in First Year at uni, and she’d seen a glistening necklace at a jewellery store display. She hadn’t said anything, hadn’t even uttered a word, but just seeing the sparkle in Y/N’s eyes, was enough for Harry to make the decision and gift it for her.        When the next day, around five AM her time, she got a call from Harry’s manager Jeff, she was ready to rip both of them a new one, an e-mail with a plane ticket popping up in her inbox.        “I swear I’ll poison your drinks when I see you,” she’d grumbled, but couldn’t hide the excitement as she threw everything she could in the suitcase. “And no one will find your bodies, mark my words, Azoff.”        He snorted. “Yeah, tell that to the FBI agent listening in on this call.”        “Fuck. Gave myself away,” she said softly, giggling right after.        “You know he’s stoked beyond belief.” Jeff piped up. “He literally jumped out of the bed this morning, and during the dance rehearsals he didn’t miss a step.”        That made Y/N’s heart warm. “Well, you can tell him to curb it a bit. Otherwise, I’ll just stay at the fucking mansion – which, by the way, it was a joke, Jeff! I’m pissed enough he’s spending money on me as it is, let alone such a chunk on the plane, you didn't have to get me an actual mansion.”        “You know, for you, he’d give away all of it.”        “Yes, well, he might need it for his funeral, if he keeps spending it on me and on shit like this.”        The man shook his head but didn’t say anything else. He wasn’t the only one trying to drop hints to Y/N that Harry felt something more, but he’d leave it to the man himself. He didn’t need to possibly ruin everything, and have her decide not to come. His client was nightmare enough without her around, because Harry was like day and night when Y/N finally arrived on set for ‘Treat People With Kindness’.        To say he enveloped her in a hug would be an understatement as he didn’t let go of her for ten solid minutes, having grabbed her by the underside of the thighs and sat down on the ground just so he could prolong the feeling of being with Y/N.        The fact that she’d actually gone for it and hadn’t scolded Harry too much for spending that insane amount of money, for having brought a small piece of home to LA with herself where they were filming, made him now fully acknowledge the true extent of his feelings, especially as she didn’t pull away from their embrace, rather hid her face in the crook of his neck.        I mean, in the end, he did have to let her go because everyone had to get back to shooting, but not before Y/N had stripped the meticulous jacket from him, and went to have a glance at herself in the large mirror, one of the costume designers playing along and adjusting the clothing on her body, as if she was going to be the one performing.        Harry felt someone slide up to him and he looked over to his left, a smiling Phoebe standing there. She nudged his shoulder with hers. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”        He nodded, looking back over to where Y/N was still looking at herself in the mirror, wearing the heavy jacket as if it was nothing like it was made for her. “I’m a cliché, I know. But I can’t help it.”        “Of course, you can.” She squeezed his side. “All you gotta do is tell her.”        But it wasn’t that easy. Comparatively, getting Y/N to appear in the video was easier than coming to terms with the fact, all they’d ever remain would be friends if he didn’t do anything.        Yet the shoot for the video ended as quickly as it had started, and Y/N needed to fly back to the UK to defend her PhD paper, and Harry had to go back to filming ‘Don’t Worry Darling’, thousands of miles stretching between them once more. And Harry was a romantic, he couldn’t confess over FaceTime. Besides, he wanted to make it a special evening for her, plan something out, rather than risk a shitty connection cutting him off mid-word.        He hated it though. It’d been almost four years since Harry had realised his feelings had developed from just friendly into romantic, and still, he hadn’t said anything. Even the people who’d never met Y/N in person like Florence Pugh saw what was going on.        But unlike the cast and crew of ‘Treat People With Kindness’ who had to deal with his pining for maybe a couple of weeks, it’d been almost half a year for her at that point. Did she just want to call Y/N and tell her how Harry felt? Sure. She’d had enough of him coming into her trailer only to fall down onto her pillow and whine. But it wasn’t her place. So instead, she was going to figure out a way to get Y/N to the set and make him tell her himself.        Getting Harry’s phone away from him should’ve been the inspiration to the next ‘Mission Impossible’ script though, because it took her literally a whole day to fish it out from his coat's pocket, and she only had about ten seconds to find Y/N’s number (which wasn’t that hard given how it was the number with literally hundreds of calls next to it) and put it in her own phone.        Once their filming was done for the day, Florence rebutted Harry’s invitation to a movie night, saying a massive headache was coming on, so he wished her a good night and with slumped shoulders went to sulk on his own. Which is why she practically sprinted to her own trailer to finally call Y/N        An unsure ‘hello?’ greeted her ears before she responded. “Hey, this is Florence… Pugh.”        That stunned Y/N into silence for a few seconds before she spluttered out a greeting and said ‘hi’ as well. “Not to be rude, but how did you get my number?”        “Stole it from Harry’s phone. Look, he’s miserable. Keeps moping around, and I can’t take it anymore. Last night I found him crying in his pillow with your shirt over it.”        “What? Why?”        “Because it didn’t smell like you anymore.”        Y/N’s heart broke. “Why didn’t he tell me anything? We just talked, and he said he was fine. God, that man is so dumb sometimes.”        “Is there any way you could find a way to get here?” Florence asked biting down her lip.        She heard Y/N sigh at the other end of the line. “I’ll – I’ll try and figure something out. Have to know what’s going on at work, I mean it has been like two months since the video, so maybe…” She was more so talking to herself, but then remembered about Florence. “Listen, can I give you a message when I find out if my boss will let me?”        “Of course!” The actress was excited about the possibility of Y/N getting here, as long as it got Harry out of his depressive mood.        “Oh, and I’ll need to know what kind of restrictions are on set. I’ll figure something out with flights and quarantine, but I have zero clue as to what’s it like where you’re filming.”        Florence waved her off, even though she couldn’t see the motion. “Leave that to me. Just get your ass over here before the guy cries himself dry.”        It was a struggle though on all three ends – Harry was still moping, because not only had Y/N’s shirt lost its smell of her, but homesickness was hitting full force, Florence was getting more and more desperate as she attempted to take his mind off of things, but nothing seemed to work, and Y/N was trying to get on any possible flight to Harry while arranging two tests and an AirBnB she could self-isolate in for two weeks while attempting to set up her work from afar at the same time.        Two days after Florence’s call, Y/N sent her a message ‘Flying in tomorrow at 4 AM. Don’t tell Harry. He’ll feel even shittier cause I have to stay alone in quarantine. First test came back negative.”        She sighed in relief at the message and immediately texted back ‘i’ve got you a set pass ready, just need a picture. selfie will do. also, masks are mandatory on the lot, so bring those.’        Immediately Y/N sent a thumbs up, and a picture of herself she didn’t absolutely despise to be used on the ID card. All that was left was to pack. And spend two weeks in an attempt of not going crazy with anticipation before seeing Harry.        Those two weeks turned out to be worse than the two months between the music video shoot and going to the filming lot. Because throughout then, Y/N knew her only access to him would be through FaceTime, but to be about twenty minutes away from the man without the ability to touch him was pure torture, but at least Harry seemed completely oblivious to the change in her surroundings.        As they still continued on with their calls, not once did he mention her background, or how the paintings suddenly had managed to switch positions or the fact that Y/N didn’t even own paintings. She was sure she could’ve been missing an arm, and he wouldn’t have mentioned it with how tired he looked.        “Have you even slept, Har?”        “Not really,” he groaned, getting more comfortable in his bed. “We’ve had a bunch of early shoots and then late nights, ‘cause we need to get the continuity for the scenes, and then the day’s full of Zoom calls, and well, I can’t not call you.”        Y/N scoffed, scolding him. “You know damn well I won’t be offended if we sacrifice a couple of calls for you to get some proper sleep.”        “I know, but I will.”        Y/N sighed, knowing in a way it was her fault. She could tell him she no longer was hours of time zones away, but rather watched the same sunset and sunrise as him, but she also knew Harry, and he would be unable to stay away from her until her quarantine was over.        She was quite happy she’d sat through the fourteen mandatory days, because when she got on set, even though Harry was usually good at keeping his composure during a scene, despite the mask, he’d recognise Y/N anywhere, and all of the lines flew out of his head.        “Jack?” Florence’s hand came to cup Harry’s cheek, trying to bring him back on track. “You alright?”        But he didn’t even care about improvising to get out of the flub as his lips were split apart by a grin, and he dashed away, a loud ‘CUT!’ ringing throughout the set, but Harry already had Y/N in his arms, spinning the girl around.        “Best friends my ass,” Florence murmured as she went to the two.        Harry was speechless, Y/N’s face in between his hands as he looked her up and down. “How are you here? What? Why?”        “Thank Florence.” Y/N gave an attempt at motioning to the actress with her head. She set the whole thing up.”        Harry’s head whipped to his scene partner. “You knew Y/N was here for two weeks and told me nothing?”        “Your brain short-circuited when you saw her! You wouldn’t be of no use on set at all if I had.”        Harry scoffed, throwing an arm over Y/N’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s get away from this meanie.” But as he walked away, he looked over his shoulder and mouthed a grateful ‘thank you’ to her.        All Florence could hope for was that he’d get it together and confess, but it didn’t seem like he was in any sort of a rush. Y/N was set to be there for three weeks, but the thought of the woman leaving without knowing how Harry felt, leaving him in a sea of his own heartache, made her miserable, especially after a night they’d all spent together.        Harry really wanted Y/N to get to know the people he worked with so he invited the ones closest to him for a movie night, during which he himself had been the first one to actually fall asleep, of course.        For most of it, as ‘Westworld’ ran on in the background, he spent curled up in Y/N’s lap, his head resting against her chest with her fingers weaving through the shortened locks. She had to get used to the length, motion automatically wanting to go on longer than it was possible to. Soon enough, the soothing motions lulled her to sleep as well, their bodies leaning into one another and perfectly fitting together.        As tired as Florence was of seeing Harry, a person who’d become her friend now pine for someone so hard, it was absolutely heart-melting to watch the two interact. Everyone could see Y/N had the same feelings as Harry did for her, only she hid them a bit better. A little, but not by a lot.        No friends acted the way those two did around one another. Sure, people could be touchy, but not like that, not with such intimacy behind the motions. She felt like she was being a little creepy as she pulled out her phone to take a picture, but it was too cute not to.        A loud noise from somewhere outside set made Y/N shoot up straight, and Florence held her breath as she clutched onto her phone, having swiped it accidentally into video mode and filming the whole thing.        “No,” Harry whined, a hand reaching up for Y/N and grabbing at her elbow. “Come back. ‘S too early.”        She just nodded, grumbling something unintelligible but possibly along the lines of ‘don’t make me throw hands’ before laying down and snuggling into Harry’s chest.        Florence let out a large sigh of relief and decided to get some sleep as well before their annoying four AM alarm woke them up for set.        This time it was the other way around, as Y/N whined for Harry to ‘come back and keep her warm’.        Florence watched as Harry slipped out of Y/N’s grasp, but not before pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead and a whispered a promise to ‘see her when the Sun’s up’. The second the trailer door was closed, she slapped his shoulder, and Harry gasped in shock. “What'dya do that for?”        “Stop that! Stop that stupid dance!” She stomped her foot on the ground. “I’m sick and tired of watching you watch her with that dumb longing expression on your face. I can’t take it anymore. Why do you think I went through all that trouble to get her here?”        “I told you I would!”        She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Look, I know it’s not my place or anything, but she does like you. A lot.”        Harry threw her an uncertain gaze. “And how do you know?”        “Because that woman spent two weeks in self-isolation just to see you! She’s gone through how many of those awful Covid tests just to go and visit you! She’s dropped everything for you, has supported you through so much, and never fails to boost you up.”        “That’s what friends do.”        “No.” Florence shook her head. “That kind of loyalty… that’s what people in love give. I haven’t talked to my best friend in like a month. What’s the longest you’ve gone without speaking to Y/N?”        And with that question, she left Harry to ponder not only his feelings but the girl’s he was in love with as well. Because if he had to be honest, the reason he’d been dragging everything out, the reason he’d stayed pining for Y/N for years on end was that he tried to write everything she did off as something a childhood best friend would do.        The truth was more terrifying than anything because once that came to light, it’d change everything, and Harry didn’t know if he was ready. He wanted it, desperately so if it meant Y/N becoming someone he could love freely and openly, but not if by the end of it, she'd disappear from his life, leaving a hole the size of his heart in his chest.        His thoughts were cut short as someone knocked on the ‘Hair&Make-up’ door, and an assistant let in a pouting Y/N. Well, he couldn’t’ see the pout behind the mask, but he definitely knew it was there, making a smile come on his own face.        She plopped down in an empty sofa and crossed her arms. “I was cold.”        Harry snorted, wanting to shake his head, but didn't as to not ruin the hair stylist’s work. “You’re always cold.”        “And you’re a living furnace.”        “ ‘S that why you like cuddling? Leeching off my warmth?”        The same assistant who’d let Y/N in handed her a cup of coffee, which she was ready to kiss the woman for, but opted for a ‘thank you’. “We’ve established I only use you to get to other celebs. What makes you think I wouldn’t use you for those sort of things.”        For a moment, the trailer settled into silence, as Y/N enjoyed her morning coffee while the crew kept doing their own work.        “It’s so weird,” Y/N piped up, eyes racking up and down Harry’s body. “Don’t even wanna really look at you like that.”        He let out a mock gasp of hurt. “What d’ya mean? Am I suddenly repulsive to you?”        “No!” she let out a laugh. “It’s just odd seeing you without the tattoos. They’re such a huge part of you, even the dumb ones. Can’t really imagine you any differently.”        “Would you love me any differently without them?” The question was bold, even though he knew she did love him, he had to start making moves.        “No,” Y/N shook her head. “I don’t think so. I believe I’d be a different person then as well, but I’d love you all the same. As long as you’d do the same with me.”        Harry nodded looking down at his hands then back up at her, catching her eyes through the reflection in the mirror. “Don’t think there’s a dimension out there where I don’t love you.”        “I mean that is a bold statement,” Y/N said, sipping on the remnants of her coffee. “What if I’m like a weird, cat-skinning psychopath in one dimension? Would you love me even then?”        “Jesus Christ, Y/L/N, do you just normally come up with those gruesome scenarios or is it a hobby?”        She wiggled her eyebrows, standing up and throwing away the paper cup. “There’s a reason I have a VPN and clean my search history. I’ll see you in your trailer?”        “Yeah.” Harry nodded and smiled. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”        The next half-hour he kept hyping himself up, about how he was actually going to do it, but Florence intercepted him right as he was turning down the way his trailer stood. “How are you gonna do it?”        “I – “ Harry huffed and placed his hands on his hips. “In the beginning, I had like a whole romantic outing planned, but… I’ve dragged this on long enough, so I think I’ll just tell her.”        “Okay, good.” Florence nodded and slapped his shoulder in approval. “And if I don’t hear that trailer rocking, I will throw you in a ditch.”        Harry’s eyes widened at the statement, fully knowing she meant her words, but she was already half-way down the track, blond hair swishing behind her back.        It was then or never.        Slowly he opened his own trailer door as if it was Y/N’s place not his, but by the looks of how she’d sprawled out on his bed, she had made herself right at home. Just like she’d done it on the first day of school, but just with his heart.        “Hey!” She smiled looking at him. “You ready to film?”        “Yeah, but umm… I kind of wanted to talk to you beforehand.”        Y/N’s brows furrowed at Harry’s serious tone, so she sat up, nodding. “Sure. Is everything alright?” “It’s nothing bad, at least I hope you won’t take it in a bad way... I’ve actually been wanting to tell you this since that winter’s break party you had while doing your masters...” He let out a small chuckle but seeing Y/N’s eyes widen in a panic he stopped. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “You have a kid! Oh my God.” “What? No!” Harry spluttered. “Why the hell is the first thing you assume that I have a kid?” “I don’t know!” She was now standing facing him completely. “We’ve never had secrets between us, especially for as long as you’ve apparently kept them, what am I supposed to think? Maybe one of the girls you hooked up with got pregnant, and you’ve been hiding the fact you’re a baby daddy because you know I wouldn’t be able to keep the fact I can be the cool drunk aunt to myself.” All of that came out as is she’d prepared it ages ago. “Well, no.” Harry shook his head stepping closer so he could be chest to chest with Y/N. “I’m not anyone’s baby daddy. At least I don’t think so, but umm... when that moment would come... when I have a kid...” He looked up at the ceiling and sighed before lifting a gentle hand to cup her cheek. I wouldn’t want you to be the drunk aunt. I um...” There goes nothing. “I’d kinda like if you were the mom.” “Of course, I’ll be the Godmother!” Both of them said at the same time, making the other’s brain stumble over the words said. “Wait, mom?” Y/N’s question was breathless. “Like donate my eggs or some shit?” “No like, I’ve been in love with you for close to four years, and I wanna try and build a future with you, where you’re more than just my best friend.”        “Oh.”        That was all that managed to escape her mouth as he fully opened his heart, and Harry couldn’t lie – it shattered. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it was more than that. “That’s...” Y/N huffed sitting down on the bed. “That’s a lot to take in Harry. Like a lot.” “I know.” He sighed and sat down next to her. “Which is why I’ve been pushing this away for as long as I could, but... it was time. It wasn’t fair to you or me to keep on living like that. Look.” Harry took her palm in his. “Whatever you want us to be, we’ll be that. I - I mean I’ll be heartbroken if you say you don’t feel the same, but no matter what you tell me now, I won’t let you leave my life. I love you, and I’m in love with you. This is your choice which way you chose to go with.” Y/N shook her head, interlacing their fingers and finally looking up at him. “I don’t want you to be heartbroken. It’s the last thing, I’d ever want to see you like. And umm well, if it takes me using the pair of ovaries I have to admit I’ve been in love with you too to change that, I guess I’ll have to say it. I’m in love with you too.” Harry’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears of happiness, as he looked at Y/N like she’d hung the stars in the sky. Not that it mattered. He always looked at her like that. “You mean it?” “Yeah,” she chuckled, wiping away a few stray pearls from her own cheeks. “I guess I always thought I’d end up the drunk aunt in your life, so that’s why I thought you’d ask me to be whatever future child’s Godmother. But I love you, and I’m in love with you too.” “Can I – “ Fuck, Harry was too giddy for his own good. “Can I kiss you?” And when Y/N chuckled, nodding he swore he already was in heaven. “Yes, please.”        At first, the touch of his lips was gentle, almost afraid, but the second he pressed them to Y/N’s, and she gasped at the sensation, it became full of lust as passion, years of pent-up pining and angst and just plain old stupidity surfacing and morphing itself into a steamy make-out session.        In a split second, she was sprawled out on Harry’s bed, his toned body leaning over hers and teasing hands moving along her sides, making her squirm and ache for more of his touch, but she wasn’t the only one who wanted to explore a body with a new mindset of what was possible.        As Y/N moaned from Harry’s tongue invading her mouth, her hand couldn’t help itself as it slid down his chest, and her finger flicked against the button of his trousers.        “Can I touch you there?” Y/N whispered against his mouth, and Harry eagerly nodded.        “Please. Been dreaming about this for literally years.”        Smiling, she allowed him to continue and explore her mouth with his tongue, intoxicated on one another’s taste. In fact, Y/N was so far gone just from the kiss, she forgot how a fly worked and needed Harry’s help to open it.        “Get back here,” she grumbled as he chuckled, having leaned up a bit to make it easier for her to get the offensive piece of clothing off. “We’ll see how you fare with a bra.”        “Oh, I’m an expert.” His hands trailed to her shoulder where he snapped one of the straps against her skin, making her yelp.        “You do not want to do that when my hand is an inch away from your dick.”        But the threat had no merit to it, as she dipped her palm behind Harry’s boxers while his mouth went to soothe the sting and leave a little mark on her skin, which he’d get to admire later on.        The second, Y/N wrapped her hand around his cock an involuntary moan escaped into the air, as she gripped him. Fuck, she couldn’t wait until he was inside her, because, and it might sound a little cliché given how they were best friends who’d fallen in love with one another, but she was one hundred percent sure, he was made exactly for her.        But no matter how much she twisted her hand or how gently or roughly she rubbed the tip, he couldn’t get hard, and Harry was on the verge of tears, which Y/N saw and instantly pulled away, cupping his face.        “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “Fuck, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”        “Hey!” Y/N cooed. “None of that. It’s alright. Shit happens.”        Harry nodded understanding that she was right, but he still felt shitty and well, he felt insecure about it. “I just. Fuck. Usually, when I think of you, I’m hard in like a second.”        And although all Y/N wanted to do was smirk and tease him about the fact that he thought of her while wanking himself off, that wasn’t the right moment.        “I promise, you turn me on, you do." He sniffled. "This had never happened before.” But Y/N wasn’t offended or sad, and her laugh wasn’t mocking or trying to hurt him.        “Harry you’re dead tired.” She cupped his cheek with one of her hands, and if he’d been ice cream he would’ve literally melted. “You had to wake up at four in the fucking morning and won’t go to sleep until two the next day. Let yourself rest a bit.”        “But,” he whined and then huffed. “But I wanna love on you. Wanna show you just how crazy I am about you.”        “And you will. You know I’ll always hold you to your word. But this won’t be fun for either of us if mid-fuck you suddenly collapse on me asleep. I don’t need to go to the A and E and explain the broken nose is because my boyfriend decided to take a nap while shagging. A nap on my face.”        But Harry hadn’t really heard anything she’d said after Y/N mentioned the b-word, a dopey smile on his face. “I’m your boyfriend? You really want me like that?”        “I mean I would prefer if you were Phoebe…”        Harry pinched her side, making her squeal before tackling her in a hug. “Shut up!”        And that’s how the two fell asleep (and were woken up twenty minutes later by an assistant in a panic given how Harry was supposed to be on set in five minutes)  – wrapped up in one another’s arms, smiles on their faces, and no longer best friends, but lovers.

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64​ @supernaturalbaesduh​ @breezy1415​ @crazy--me​ @thatawkwardlittlefangirl​ @sea040561​ @staryeyedgirl​ @deathbyarabbit​ @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91​ @dalilx​ @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns​ @averyrogers83​ @in-the-end-im-still-trash​ @gallifreyansass​ @dewy-biitch​ @avxgers​ @unlikelygalaxygiver​ @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees​ @bnhvrdy​ @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl​ @sj-thefan​ @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue​ @im-squished​

Harry Styles tags: @sarcasticallywitty15​ @breezykpop​ @girlboss99​ @harrystylesdoesntknowiexist​ @alliyjane​ @sirtommyholland​

A/N: I loved writing this so much :)

P.S. my tags are always open

P.S.S. I don’t take requests, sorry. Also, please don’t repost my story on other platforms (wattpad etc) without specific written permission. 

Surprise Conversations

Pairing: 10th Doctor x reader (intended as platonic)

Pronouns used: They/them (gender neutral reader)

Summary: When life isn’t great for you, a strange man talks to you when you’re at your lowest. 

Word count: 2,345 (edited)

Warnings: Intrusive thoughts, mentions of self harm, suicidal thoughts/tendencies, self deprecation

(A/N): Wrote this as a sort of vent/comfort within the span of 3ish hours and it’s currently 6:30 in the morning. This takes place sometime between Martha and Donna. Enjoy and ignore the awful title and writing pls

    ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　　 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

It was always behind you, looming over your shoulder and breathing down your neck with saccharine addled air. You breathed in that oxygen against your will; sometimes that was the only way you could get through the day. Other times, it was the thing that ruined your perfect day. 

It whispered in your ear whenever you made a mistake, no matter how small. It only started yelling whenever you started to decline, escalating to screaming when you were at your worst. You could swear that your eardrums were tattered beyond belief and that you could hear the remnants of the voice in the back of your mind whenever it wasn’t there, but you just chalked it up to the pains of growing up and becoming an adult. 

You listened to it sometimes. You listened to it when it told you that you were a failure for getting anything besides a perfect score on a test. You listened to it when it told you that you were incapable of love when you and your childhood best friend started to drift apart. You listened to it when it told you that slashing at your skin with the razor blade you had unscrewed from a handheld pencil sharpener would solve your problems. And for the most part, you felt as if it was best that you listened to it. 

There were times that you ignored it, though; this was usually whenever it’s ideas were too drastic for the situation. It called for you to jump when you came across ledges and bridges. It beckoned you towards the knife block and commanded you to stick them all in your abdomen. It wants you to jump onto the rails whenever you are boarding a train. 

Ignoring it was hard, but doable when you didn’t have anything to stress out about. A couple of cuts and you’d be good to go for the day. It would be silent. 

That was until things started to pile up. Bill due dates were getting closer and closer, friends were increasingly leaving, your debts were growing larger and larger, and your family was basically nonexistent in helping you with your problems. So you decided to finally give in and listen to everything the voice told you to do. 

You found yourself at your favorite part of the city you lived in: the bridge overlooking the ocean. It had a perfect view of the moon and it’s beams glistening on the ever moving waves. It gave you some comfort that things would continue after you would be at your end. It was beautiful and you’d be damned if you didn’t at least have something to see before you died. 

You were sitting on the ledge, feeling the salty sea breeze raise the goosebumps on your skin. Your grip on the metal bars was tight, almost as steely as the beam itself. Your feet dangled over the abyss limply. 

“Hey.” A voice broke through the quiet, making you jump out of your skin and almost lose your grip on the bars. “Sorry,” they awkwardly coughed. A figure came to a seated position next to you, dragging your eyes off from the waves below. 

The first thing you registered about him was the gravity-defying hair slightly being shifted by the breeze. In the back of your mind, you wondered how much gel he had to use to get it to stick up like that. The second thing you noticed was the way he looked at you. His eyes were expressive, probably more so than the average person. They were a deep brown color, the pupil almost blending in with his iris. 

“So, I assume you aren’t out here for a little stroll?” He glanced at you out of the corner of his eyes and gave you a sliver of a smile. You shook your head and returned to looking over at the ocean. He sat with you in silence for a moment before he spoke up, “what’s your name?” 

“Why do you need to know?” 

“I like meeting new people,” he shrugged. “If it makes it easier, I’ll tell you mine: I’m the Doctor.” 

“Doctor who?” You asked skeptically.

“Just the Doctor,” he grinned widely. 

“Well Doctor, it’s strange that you’re making small talk with someone sitting on the ledge.” 

“Like I said, I like meeting new people… Nice day outside, isn’t it? Or should I say night?”

“Yeah,” you hummed quietly. Silence enveloped you both once more, only the sounds of each other’s breathing and the occasional shuffle being heard whenever one of you moved. It was starting to unnerve you, so you decided that telling him your name wasn’t going to do any harm. “(Y/n).”

“What?” He asked quietly.

“(Y/n). That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” you sighed out the last phrase. Normally, you would’ve said it with a large grin and happiness exuding from your every feature but you just felt numb. 

“(Y/n),” he said slowly, as if getting a feel for your name, “that’s a lovely name. It suits you, you know. Nice to meet you,” he stuck a hand out towards you and gave you a smile that almost melted the numbness that froze you. You stared at it for a moment before slowly moving to grasp his hand in yours and give it a firm little shake.

“Likewise,” you mumbled. He jumped slightly when your cold skin met his warm hand, looking at you in alarm. 

“You’re freezing,” he said before shrugging off his trench coat and laying it across your shoulders. An instant warmth enveloped you, making you unconsciously lean into the warmth. He was warm, incredibly warm. When your nose brushed against the collar, you caught a slight whiff of cologne and… something that you couldn’t place your finger on. Maybe apples or grass? Or a mixture of the two, you didn’t ponder on it. The Doctor was warm and he smelled good. 

“Well being cold is the least of my worries right now, Doc,” a small chuckle left you. You gestured at the water below you wordlessly. It was then that you noticed his slightly beaten up off white converse shoes. “Nice shoes by the way. Not my definition of dress shoes, but at least you aren’t running around barefoot. I respect it.” 

“Thanks,” he grinned, wiggling his feet in the air slightly, “they’re my lucky pair, haven’t failed me yet.”

“You know, you could use a magic eraser or something to get those dirt stains off from them.”

“Why would I do that? These stains are memories,” he pointed to a slightly purple spot. “This is when R- an old friend accidentally ran into trouble with some nasty things.” He pointed to a small grass stain, “this is when I was running with Martha.” 

He had a fond smile on his face as he started to tell you stories about his adventures with his friends. There was Martha, the brilliant doctor (also a doctor, interesting) that almost matched his intelligence. Then there was Sarah Jane, a gifted journalist with a knack for discovering and defending the truth. K-9. Romanas I and II. Peri. Grace. Susan. Kamelion. It was as if this man had lived several lifetimes. 

“It sounds like someone’s lived quite the life,” you mused when the conversation fizzled out. 

“I have,” he nodded, an almost hidden wistfulness in his tone. “Now what about you? I feel like I’ve been hogging the conversation.”

“No, you’re fine; I liked hearing about your friends. As for me, well my life’s just not important.”

“Not important,” he scoffed. “Impossible. I’ve never met anybody who’s life wasn’t important. Everybody has a story, what’s yours?” 

You were silent for a moment before you took a deep breath. What’s one more hour of conversation? It wasn’t like you had any time constraints. You diverged into sharing some aspects of your life, just the small things that wouldn’t normally make any normal person bat an eye at. 

But the Doctor wasn’t a normal person.

You didn’t mean that in a negative way, no far from it. He actually was invested in what you had to say, not just politely nodding along. He asked you questions about what you were talking about, subtly pushing you to elaborate further. Soon enough you both were laughing like you were old friends catching up with each other. If anybody drove past you both, they probably would have thought you both were insane. 

“You actually did that?” He asked incredulously through his snickering. 

“Yes, I was a gullible kid. Not my fault that I’d do anything for a quarter and a cool looking rock,” you smiled and leaned your head against the metal bar behind you. “Everyone thought I was going to become a geologist when I got older with how much I’d hoard rocks in my room like there was no tomorrow. Made Mum cross with me for bringing dirty things into the house, but she never found the stash I had in the basement. I actually think that they’re still there, hidden in a box collecting dust.” You sighed and tightened your grip on the bars, “there’s no appeal in rocks when you grow up and see that the little sparkles and colors in them are just… imperfections that should be ignored.” 

“The little imperfections I see in rocks,” he began, pinching a small bit of loose concrete between his pointer finger and thumb and brought it up to his face to examine it. “Are the things I refuse to ignore. They’re charming and separate it from being just a hunk of slate you find in a rock garden.”

“I feel like that’s some sort of analogy.” 

“That… wasn’t what I was intending, but I do suppose that it could be one.” He turned to squint at you, placing the rock back onto the ledge next to his thigh. You squinted back at him, wondering what was going through his head. A smile ghosted across his face before he laughed to himself. 

“What?” You asked him.

“Nothing,” he chuckled, “it’s just that we’ve talked all night.” He jutted his chin towards the sun rising over the horizon casting oranges and pinks onto the water in place of the moonlight that resided there previously. 

“We have,” you said in surprise. The sun’s rays warmed you slightly, but you didn’t want to move away from the shelter of the trench coat. It gave you a strange sense of comfort. You both watched the sun rise out of the ocean and take its place high in the sky. Traffic started to bustle as people started their morning commute to work, some craning their necks in their cars as they drove by to look at you and the Doctor. None stopped to talk to you. 

“Say, (N/n),” he started.

“(N/n)?” You asked as the corners of your lips quirked upwards. The nickname made you feel warm inside, it felt nice. 

“Yes, (N/n); I think it suits you well. Anyways (N/n), if you were to choose a time and place in all of time and space, where would you like to visit the most?” 

“Anywhere? Like, even on a planet trillions of light years from Earth?” You asked him, watching him nod curtly. “Yes, but there are some rules. You can’t interact with your past self or change a point that was destined to happen. Wars, deaths, births, things like that.”

“Ah, so the general movie rules of time travel?” He grumbled to himself (something along the lines of ‘those are wildly inaccurate’) before he nodded once more. 

After a bit of contemplation, you supplied him with your answer. A spark in his eye appeared, similar to the spark he got when he talked about his friends but slightly different. He slowly got up and stretched his lanky limbs out, cracks coming from the joints and small groans leaving him whenever the stretch was apparently good. 

He looked down at you and, with a grin, extended his hand to you. “(Y/n), would you like to come with me? See that place you wanted to see?” 

You found yourself staring at his hand for the second time that night. Thoughts of stranger danger circulated through your mind before you realized that if he wanted to harm you in any way, he would have done it by now. He wouldn’t have talked to you for hours on end, making you feel like you had a small sliver of yourself back again. 

Why not? One little detour couldn’t hurt; you had a good feeling about going along with him. 

You grabbed his hand and allowed him to pull you up to a standing position. He gave you a small lift so that you could hop over the barrier before he catapulted his body over it. With an arm wrapped around your shoulders, he led you away from the bridge. You both got strange looks from the people driving past, but you managed to ignore it when you burrowed yourself deeper into the trench coat and he brought you closer to him. He led you to an old navy blue police box, much to your confusion. 

“Well, Mx…”

“(L/n),” you supplied.

“Well, Mx. (L/n), welcome to the TARDIS.” 

One trip turned to two. Then three. Then four. Then several more. It became normal to come home from work to see the man waiting for you comfortably in your small apartment, brightening up whenever you walked through the door and asking you excitedly about what you had in mind for your next adventure. 

Soon enough, the voice became something that would only come to you on your bad days, becoming largely dormant in your mind. Whenever you had a bad day, you finally had someone to confide in. Someone that wouldn’t judge you, someone that wouldn’t tell you that you were being overly dramatic. 

The Doctor was different from the normal person; he was the Doctor and you wouldn’t want to have it any other way. 

Again | Bucky x Reader

Warnings: fingering, oral, mentions of anal sex, vaginal sex, language

“You’re joking, right?”

Bucky looked at you like you had to be lying. There was absolutely no way that was possible. You were beautiful. Stunning. Sexy as hell in his eyes. It just didn’t seem possible at all to him. He couldn’t wrap his brain around it.

“Jesus, Bucky,” you groaned, head in your hands. This was why you didn’t like getting drunk with him. It always got way too personal. “It’s not like I don’t feel like shit about it enough. Gotta rub it in, too? Put salt on the wound?”

“That’s not what I meant, Y/N. It’s just...it seems unlikely. How long were you with him and he never made you come even once? What in the fuck was he doing?”

“Nearly a year,” you groaned again, taking a deep sip of your wine. One fucking year and not one orgasm. Not one.

“A year?! Are you fucking kidding me?”

“You know what?,” he whispered, looking up at you, “I’m gonna help you out.”

****

And that’s how you ended up underneath Bucky Barnes.

****

“Come on, baby. You can do it. You can give it to me, can’t you? Hmm? I wanna feel it. Taste it on my tongue. Gotta let go for me, Kitten. Can you do it? Can you come for me? Come all over my fingers. Do it.”

You were writhing. Body trembling. Sweat poured down your neck. Your body was on absolute fire. Panting. Almost in tears. The coil tightened. You could feel it ready to burst out of you. It had been too long since anyone had made you come besides yourself. His fingers were driving you insane.

“God, beautiful,” he praised, “look at you. Fuckin’ goddess in my bed. Dripping down on my sheets. Bet you taste like honey, don’t you? Fuck, I gotta get my mouth on that dripping cunt. Gotta bury my face. Wanna hear you screamin’ my name.”

And that did it.

A scream ripped from your lungs. Entire body tensed up. Shaking, convulsing. Seeing white behind your eyelids. Completely soaking his entire hand, coming harder than you had in ages, overstimulated. Sweating, panting. Nearly weeping.

Before you could even come down, his head was between your legs. Tongue going crazy on your clit. Circling, nipping, sucking. Lewd, filthy noises fell from his absolutely perfect lips. Tongue flattened. Cunt to clit. Pushing his tongue in and out of your aching entrance.

“Got another for me?,” he groaned against you. No words would come so you just nodded furiously. Hands gripping the sweat drenched sheets. Dirty, pornagraphic moans slipping from your lips. Writhing, begging for more. For less. For, fuck, anything. Something.

Desperate.

“Oh baby,” he moaned, spreading you wider. His tongue pressed against the tight ring of muscle. Your back arched and you dug your fingers in his hair, pulling harshly and earning the dirtiest sound you’d ever heard. Somewhere between a moan and a growl.

Feral. Primal. Achingly beautiful.

He switched his tongue for his middle finger. Pressing against you as he went back to work on your pussy. Pushing a bit harder with every suck of your clit. Pain and pleasure. Absolute bliss. Heaven underneath him. “Like that, huh?,” he chuckled low, vibrating against you. Making you impossibly wet.

“Filthy dame.”

“Should I fuck it?,” he teased, the tip of his finger now inside your ass. “Would you like that? Did he do that to you? Fuck this tight asshole? Hmm? Did you let him inside?”

“No!,” you cried out, voice absolutely wrecked. Strained. Tears streamed down your cheeks. God, you fucking needed it. Desperately. It was almost painful. Sobs broke through once he was knuckle deep. It was too much. Too damn much. You knew you’d make an absolute mess.

“Jesus, fuck!,” he groaned, his beard now dripping with your wetness. And he wanted more. All of it. All of you. His cock was painful. Pressed against his pants. Aching to get wet, too. To be consumed by your heat. He knew you’d be like fire. He knew you’d drip down his length.

****

“Oh my god,” he breathed. Jaw clenched so he wouldn’t blow his load. Moving at a slow pace. Feeling every inch of your velvety walls. Pure fire. Hot. Scorching. And so goddamned wet. Flowing down your thighs. His sheets would smell like you and it made him harder.

He was addicted. Plain and simple.

He couldn’t just have you once. Not now that he knew how you felt, he’d never be able to erase it from his brain. It would be etched forever. The way you hugged him so tightly. Clenched around his dick. Walls pulsating. You’d come again and soon.

“So close,” he whined, picking up the pace just enough to make him wince. You squeezed him even tighter. How was that possible? “Baby, oh god!,” his voice was broken. He wanted to weep. Nothing has ever come close to this. Never. And it never would.

You were made for him.

“Come,” you panted, lips pressed to his ear and he nearly cried. Beautiful. Perfect. His legs shook. Stomach muscles tensed, brow furrowed. Eyes screwed shut. Heat in his belly. Pure fire. About to blow. He ached for it.

“Let me feel you, Bucky.”

He roared with his release. Head thrown back, whimpering. Whining. Sheer pleasure. Euphoria. Heaven. He was sure this was what heaven was like. Here with you. He needed more. More of you.

****

Bliss.

Tangled limbs. Soft kisses. You hadn’t expected this from him. Friends to lovers. That’s what this was, wasn’t it? Not just one time. You knew it wouldn’t be enough for either of you. Never enough.

He was still buried inside you as you laid together. Felt just too good to pull away. Bodies close. Heat between you. His lips trailed across your shoulder. Neck. Ear. Leaving little love bites in his wake. Marks showing the world you now belonged to him.

Him.

“Can I stay inside?,” he asked softly, his lips now pressed against your jaw. Corner of your mouth. It was so perfect. Filled with love. Love for you. Did Bucky love you? Was that possible? Or was this just post-sex bliss? But you nodded, loving the connection.

He hummed softly, metal hand down your side. Cold vibranium making you shiver. You traced the golden veins with your index finger. You felt his smile against your neck. You accepted all of him. Every part. Maybe you loved him, too. Your best friend.

He rolled over you, caging you in. He kissed you. Passionately, filled with need. He needed you. You felt him grow hard inside you. Filling you again. Completely. His hips stuttered, starting a slow pace. Thrusting deeper, making sure you felt everything.

“Again?,” he whispered. You nodded, lips on his neck.

“Again.”

Lady Dimitrescu x Reader, Teacher AU (WIP)

 because I have no self control or shame apparently

Your pen works over the previous day's homework as the clock ticks on the wall. Periodically you'll look up and see Cassandra with her brow furrowed as she erases something. She asked for the first ten minutes to work on the math problems on her own before you helped her. That hadn't been your initial plan but the twelve year old made a convincing argument so you let her work. Although it didn't look like it was going too well. Since there were five more minutes left you still respected her wishes.

"This is stupid!" The sudden outburst nearly makes you jump as you look up from your papers.

"What's wrong Cassandra?" You ask, moving from around your desk.

"Bela and Dani get to go do fun things after school and I'm stuck here because I'm too dumb to do math." Cassandra sits back in her chair glaring down at the worksheet as if it's taunting her. There are frustrated tears brimming in her eyes.

You squat down next to the desk. Her pencil is gripped so tightly you think it might break. You slowly take it from her hand and gently put it down.

"Cassandra, look at me." You say softly but firm enough that she eventually looks up at you with watery eyes.

"You are not dumb. Everyone struggles with something and that's perfectly normal. Okay?"

"Okay." She replies, still sounding sad.

"Can I tell you a secret?" You offer and she brightens a little.

"Yes."

"I struggled with math all the way until college." Your admission has her giving you a suspicious expression.

"You did? But you're a math teacher?" She says a little confused, still looking as if she didn't believe you.

"It's true." You laugh lightly at the questioning gaze. "I finally fell in love with it my first year of college and knew I wanted to teach by my second."

"I don't get people that like math." She looks back to the paper on the desk.

"How about we work through this first problem together?" You test and she chews on her lip before nodding.

"Alright." There's a smile that returns to her face as you start going over the problem.

The rest of your time together goes smoothly and Cassandra is actually able to do the rest on her own by the time you go through the first few together.

"Cass!!" A voice calls and you both look up seeing Daniela come bounding into the room with Bela trailing behind her. "Time to go. Mother is picking us up today." Her words make Cassandra beam. You stand from your seat as she quickly packs all of her things. Once she swings her book bag over her shoulder you grab the keys to your room and motion to the door.

"Come on girls, I'll walk you out." You go down the hallways with the chattering girls in tow, holding open the main door as they file past you. There's a car waiting out front. A woman is leaning against it and your mouth goes dry at the sight of her.

Your mind hadn't even registered that you'd be meeting Lady Dimitrescu right now. The other teachers had mentioned her a few times, always sounding a little fearful. You thought it was ridiculous you had to add 'Lady' to her name, but they urged you that it was a necessity. Now that you're looking at her you couldn't imagine calling her anything else.

She slides the sunglasses off her face and makes eye contact with you. All thoughts leave your mind when that enchanting gaze is on you. Her face is partially shadowed by the hat on her head and you swear it looks like her eyes were glowing for a moment but as soon as you blink it's gone.

"Mother!" Bela shouts, the three girls dash towards her. Lady Dimitrescu smiles fondly at them as they crash into her.

"Hello girls. How was your day?" She greets and is immediately bombarded with three voices talking at once. "Alright alright, I can only listen to one story at a time. We can chat on the way home." She says kissing each of them on the cheek before the girls gleefully pile into the back of the car.

Her eyes look to you again and she comes over. It strikes you how insanely tall she is. She has to be the tallest woman...no person you've ever met. You actually have to tilt your head up to meet her eyes when she's in front of you. It takes all of you to not outright stare at the perfectly tailored white pants suit she's wearing.

"Thank you for walking them out." She says with a smile.

"It wasn't a problem." You reply, surprised at how flustered you are. By the smirk on her lips you know she notices but she doesn't comment on it. Instead her eyes scan over your own attire and you shift a little under that piercing gaze. Something flashes in her eyes but it's gone so quickly you can't figure out what it was.

"Are you new? I don't believe we've met." She meets your eyes again.

"I started a few weeks ago." It's taking all your brain power to remember how to speak.

"You did now?" The velvety smooth tone of her voice has your mind going places it really shouldn't be right now. "What is your name?" She asks.

"Ms...Ms…" You practically forget your own last name when the scent of her floral perfume fills your nose. Eventually the name tumbles out of you. She repeats it, the sound makes your heart flutter a bit.

"Ah, so that's you. It's lovely to finally meet you. I'm Lady Dimitrescu. My girls have spoken fondly of you." She holds out her hand and you pray yours isn't sweating as you take it.

"I'm glad. They're wonderful to have in class." You reply trying to keep your voice steady.

"That's good to hear." She looks down at her watch and frowns slightly as if annoyed to have to leave. "Well I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

"Me too." You reply almost too quickly, mentally kicking yourself. She smirks at you again before placing her sunglasses back on. Wordlessly she walks back around the car and elegantly slides into the front seat.

You didn't know it was possible to be elegant doing something so simple.

She gives you another nod, the girls waving happily at you from the backseat. You smile and wave back as they pull off.

"Holy shit." You finally let out a breath.

Any more interactions with Lady Dimitrescu might actually kill you.

(This is actually out now if y’all are interested)

Pulse Point

A/N: Requested by anonymous. Warning for canon-typical violence; minor character death, nightmares, and post-traumatic stress. Also: borrowed Dr. Sweets from the show Bones.

Summary: A near-death experience leaves you with recurrent nightmares. Neal offers some comfort.

Word Count: 5,154

The steady beeping of hospital equipment was driving you insane. It had been hours now of nothing except the monotonous noise of your own heartbeat. If it didn’t shut up soon, you would claw your ears off. With a stiff body and an ache that penetrated down to your bones, you forced your body upright and pinched open the pulse monitor on your right hand.

You let out a relieved sigh as the equipment went silent and dropped yourself back onto the well-padded pillows behind you. The pulse monitor clattered to the floor on its long white cord and you settled down for a nap. The ache in your bones made you feel heavy, like lead. There was nothing quite like a well-deserved nap.

In mere seconds after you had closed your eyes, the equipment started acting up again, this time blaring one long, constant shriek. The surprise made your heart skip a beat, but your eyelids were too heavy to look and see what had happened. Then your heart kept skipping, and your throat tightened. You couldn’t breathe. Your chest burned. It wasn’t a heartbeat; it was a flatline.

You were dying.

The leaden feeling in your body doubled. Your muscles didn’t respond to trying to move and you couldn’t force your lungs to take in a breath. Footsteps pounded around you, incoherent shouts going in one ear and out the other. You were desperate for your paralyzed eyes to open. Was this what you’d have for the rest of your life? Nothing but darkness and unintelligible, mind-numbing noise, punctuated by electrical humming and the pain of a vice clamping itself again to your finger?

The flatline paused for a second. Your ears rang and you thought, for a moment, that you were safe, your heart was beating again. Instead, your stomach twisted and you realized you were losing feeling in your toes. No blood. No life. When the screech of your flatline came back again, it was louder, more piercing. The shrillness reminded you of screaming.

As soon as you remembered it, it was there – the same screaming as before, somewhere in your room, echoing from every corner. In the next pause of the flatline, it turned into a hoarse shriek and a plea. “No! Please!”

You couldn’t hear anything underneath it, no more overlapping voices, and your panic increased. Where were the doctors? Did they think you were gone? Help me!

Your eyes opened with a sudden snap, the droning of your alarm clock replacing the flatlining of the monitor.

As you stared at your ceiling, you panted for breath. Rationally, you knew, you had probably never stopped breathing, but in the panic of your nightmare, it felt like you’d been smothered. Terror powered your desperate gasps and convinced you that your feet and hands were numb, even as you could feel that one foot was poking out from the end of your blanket. After a long moment, you dared to move your arm, ready to scream if you weren’t dreaming after all and still couldn’t move. You turned your alarm off easily.

Soft rain pattered against the glass windows, creating shiny-looking streaks as droplets collected and streamed down the side of the building. It was much more soothing than the silence that usually reigned in Dr. Sweets’ office when he was waiting for you to talk. Maybe he should invest in one of those noise machines with rain as an option. You thought about making the suggestion, but knowing him, he would probably call you out on the procrastination, or deflection, or whatever else he wanted to call it.

You broke the silence. “I’m certain I can wait you out for the next…” You checked the clock. “Twenty-seven minutes.”

Dr. Sweets raised his eyebrows, still leaning his head on a closed fist, propped on the arm of his chair. “I’m equally certain I can recommend you remain on desk duty for the next…” He pretended to check his watch. “Twenty-seven weeks.”

You scowled.

Psychological clearance was a bureau mandate after something traumatic occurred during the course of the job. You’d been lucky enough not to need it up to this point, but after… that, you hadn’t been given a choice. Dr. Sweets was a highly qualified psychotherapist, and you were sure that he did amazing things to help a lot of people, but so far you felt neither amazed nor helped.

“Agent L/N, you went through something incredibly harrowing that you were very close to not walking away from.” The psychologist finally took his head off his fist and put his arm down in his lap. At least he’d taken the bait and you weren’t the one starting the discussion. “You were a half-inch or couple minutes from bleeding out.” He pinched his fingers to demonstrate as if you didn’t have a scar on your body that distance from your femoral artery. You’d never be able to forget what half an inch looked like.

“But I did walk away, and the person who did that to me is in prison for the rest of his life.” You crossed your legs, trying to look more comfortable than you felt. You weren’t sure how effective you were going to be at convincing a therapist that you didn’t need therapy, but it was worth the try.

He looked utterly unconvinced. Actually, the jerk looked like he knew exactly what you were trying for and thought it was cute that you thought you could trick him. “Justice, or even retribution, which it feels like you’re leaning towards, doesn’t erase a wrongdoing or its associated harm.”

“I didn’t erase it, I healed from it. I took medical leave, now I’m back.”

“Physically, you healed. It takes a lot longer to heal mentally from those kinds of wounds.”

“Does it?” You challenged.

“I think your nightmares speak for themselves,” Dr. Sweets said pointedly.

You glared at him, at a loss for a quick comeback. You knew you didn’t look like a million bucks, but you hadn’t thought it was that obvious you were losing sleep. If he knew, then the coworkers who spent a lot of time with you must know, too. Especially Neal – nothing got past him. Oh, that was embarrassing.

The nightmares had been recurring for weeks now. They had started once you had a return date to the office, but after actually resuming your work, they had increased in frequency and intensity. They weren’t identical, but they did all share some similarities: some fatal injury had you dying, alone, in the dark, like you almost had in real life. You never got to the point of actually dying in your dreams, you didn’t think, but you were just fine with that. They were bad enough as they were. Yes, they were a sign of trauma and anxiety. But if your mind didn’t heal itself from weeks safe at home, then you knew returning to normal as fast as possible was probably your best bet at getting over what had happened.

“I’m not your enemy here,” the therapist said to you more gently. You couldn’t say he was heartless, even if you didn’t enjoy the half-hour sessions where he tried to talk about your feelings whether you wanted to or not. “My goal is the same as yours. I want you back at work, safely, able to sleep through a night so you don’t jeopardize yourself or the people around you.”

You let out a deep sigh. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me about the affect this has had on you.” Dr. Sweets encouraged, not for the first time. “You’ve accepted what happened. I can see that. But the next step is processing what it means for you, as an agent, as a person… maybe both.”

You felt helpless. What was that supposed to mean? You couldn’t very well tell him you were terrified your job was going to actually get you killed or cost more lives on your watch. When your employer paid your therapist’s bills, you couldn’t fully trust doctor-patient confidentiality. Maybe it was just paranoia, but you couldn’t bring yourself to risk it.

“I can’t sleep,” you admitted. Your tone sounded mournful. In a way, you were mourning for a time when you could sleep through the night and enjoy your days at work. It wasn’t like white-collar crime was your passion, but you did like puzzles, and you did like being around the people you worked with, especially a certain blue-eyed felon. “I keep having nightmares that I’m… injured, and I’m alone.”

“Your wire was jammed and your team didn’t hear you signal for backup.” Dr. Sweets talked slowly, patient and pragmatic as he validated your nightly anxieties. “You expected help, but they didn’t know to come.”

“They did come,” you said with a shrug. “It just… almost wasn’t in time. I know it wasn’t their fault.”

Your words about time felt glued into your ears. Yours had come really close to running out. And for what? Insurance fraud? No amount of money justified murder, and you likewise couldn’t put a price tag on a life. So why were you so eager to leap back into the same job that almost cost you yours?

It was something you had been mulling over since it happened. Your job was dangerous. You had always known that. You’d been shot at, been near explosives… your partner had been abducted by a murderer not that long ago, and your best friend had had guns in his face so often that, honestly, you’d lost count a while ago. Somehow it just hadn’t clicked, you supposed, that you could legitimately die. You were protected by the bureau and your body armor, until that wasn’t enough. Other agents had learned that lesson in a much harder way; being confronted with that was hard to simply get over.

Apparently, your use of the word “fault” led Dr. Sweets to talk to you about guilt and anger around the incident. You didn’t blame your partner or feel angry, except at the man who shot you, but you let him continue around your noncommittal, half-assed answers. You knew he at least suspected you were putting him on again, but you also knew you hadn’t given him much to work with. Then again, he didn’t call you on your bullshit replies, either, so you weren’t quite sure what he thought.

While Dr. Sweets had yet to approve you for field duty, there was still plenty to do at your desk. You pretended not to notice the itch in your legs to go somewhere while you kept yourself busy, preparing documents, performing research, helping delegate and manage case files, and topping off your team’s coffee whenever they got low. You had become even more of a desk jockey than Neal; at least he got to go out with Peter when given the green light. You missed outings with your partner, or really with any other agent.

Comparing yourself to a caged tiger was likely on the dramatic side, so you put it out of your mind and refused to feel sorry for yourself. You understood the protocols and the routines and they were for your benefit as much as the bureau’s. Besides, your team wasn’t treating you like you were fragile or demoted. They leaned on you to help just as much as they ever did, the assignment of duties just went a little differently.

You doodled a cat on your notepad during a meeting. Everyone had great ideas and you tossed in some ways you could contribute when you’d been quiet for a while. Peter’s proposed field op was going to go smoothly. Odds were high that any hiccups could be taken care of by Diana’s swift running of interference. Neal was raring to go and Jones was a little too excited to play the part of an intimidating brute, in your opinion, and Peter was appropriately apprehensive (someone ought to be, after what had happened to you).

“Let’s sleep on it,” Peter decided after looking out the window and seeing how low the sun had sunk. “If we’re all still in agreement in the morning, we’ll set the ball in motion.”

Jones graciously commented, “Good idea. We can all think on it.” He was probably the most cautious of all of you.

“Y/N?” Neal asked. You immediately looked up from your (admittedly lopsided) cat drawing. The forger was still in his chair, even while the others were pulling on their coats and blazers. “You’ve been quiet. Do you have any concerns?”

You shook your head, but not too quickly that it raised suspicion. You could get away with doodling – Peter often turned a blind eye to it; after several years, he’d developed a soft spot for you – but only if you were still paying attention and participating, so you didn’t want to give him a reason to suspect you weren’t.

Peter, Diana, and Jones all said their goodbyes. The two younger agents left the room, but Peter lingered at the doorway.

“Neal, do you want a ride?” He offered.

Neal looked from you to Peter, and then shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll find my way. You don’t want to be late for roast,” he added when Peter looked unconvinced. After glancing at you, your partner decided that he really didn’t want to be late for roast and left without another look over his shoulder.

Now that you were alone, Neal softened his expression. “Seriously, Y/N, what’s going on?”

“I told you, I’m not worried. We’ve thought of just about everything we can predict.” You said with a straight face, pretending not to know that Neal wasn’t just talking about this specific case anymore.

He wasn’t having it. “Don’t lie to a conman, Y/N,” he chided you with a small, fond smile. “Come on. It’s not just today, you’ve been quiet ever since you came back. It’s not like you.” You raised an eyebrow and pursed your lips, uninterested in talking. Neal reached partway across the table for you but stopped there. It was an invitation but not a command. “I’m worried about you.”

The thing about your history with Neal was that it was a close one. You went from strangers when Peter got him out of Sing Sing to best friends within the span of two years. You trusted him more than you trusted just about anyone, and there hadn’t been a time when one of you needed the other and was turned away. He didn’t come to you when he was upset – seeking out reassurance and comfort was not Neal’s strength, because it involved professing vulnerability – but he never turned you away when you came to offer it, either. Now it seemed to be his turn to do the offering, as he had realized over the last few weeks that you weren’t going to ask.

You reached for his hand and silently sighed in relief at how solid and warm it was to the touch, so unlike the few dreams where you screamed and cried for someone to help and found yourself grasping at tricks that weren’t there. Neal turned his hand to hold yours and gave it a squeeze.

“It’s been so hard, Neal,” you told him reluctantly. “I have no idea how you do it. How you just walk away from all the close calls.”

Neal frowned a little. “I don’t just walk away,” he objected. “I have bad nights. I have bad days. Sometimes I have a whole bad week, or a few bad months.” You knew the latter was a reference to losing Kate, and you sympathetically gripped his hand tighter. “But, you know… there’s always something I can find to focus on instead, and after a while, the things go in the past. I let go.”

That advice was entirely unhelpful. “I’ve been trying to let go,” you said sourly. It wasn’t directed at him, exactly, but moreso at your brain, which was failing in its task of moving past what happened. “It’s not working. I can’t sleep. Sometimes I don’t think I can breathe.”

“It’s not easy,” Neal agreed, stroking the back of your hand with his thumb. It was an intimately affectionate gesture that comforted and eased the nerves beginning to bubble in your stomach. “Company helps. The reminder that I have backup, even when it doesn’t come right away. I’ve got Peter, Moz. You.” He met your eyes with a small smile and raised your hand to his lips, gently kissing your knuckles.

“Company?” You echoed uncertainly. If you were unconscious, how was company going to make a difference to what you dreamed about? Then you remembered what you had said to Dr. Sweets about your nightmares always ending with being alone. If you knew, on some level, that you weren’t alone, maybe you would feel safer. “Like, overnight?”

His expression didn’t change to give away whether you were right or wrong. Instead, he just asked, evenly, “Is that what you need?” The way he looked at you then, without judgment in his eyes, but with determination in the set of his jaw, you just knew that whatever you said you needed, Neal would move a mountain to give it to you.

“I’m not sure, but… maybe?” You hesitantly guessed. If it worked, it would be worth the awkwardness. Even just one night of solid sleep would do wonders for how you felt, and it wasn’t like it would be the first time you had stayed with Neal overnight. Long marathons on slow weekends, and the less pleasant nights after Kate’s death, meant he kept an extra toothbrush and a set of your pajamas in his penthouse.

“Okay,” he said right away with nothing but quiet matter-of-factness. It was so comforting to be proven right that you could rely on him to help you with what you needed. His tone just said, you need this, so we’re doing it, full-stop. You just hoped you were right, both so you could finally go eight hours without fearing for your life and so you weren’t inconveniencing him for no reason. “Let’s get dinner on the way. We don’t have to talk about it,” he quickly said, seeing your face. “Whatever you need.”

Everyone should have a friend like Neal, but everyone should find their own, because this one was all yours. If it weren’t for the table in the way, you would’ve launched yourself at him in a tight hug. As it was, you settled for a squeeze of his hand and a grin as wide as you could muster. “Dinner sounds great.”

The stickiness of your pants along your thigh made your hands shake, unable to bring yourself to look at your palms. You knew what you would see all over them. The fire lancing up your thigh told you what you already knew. So did the weakness in your body and the fog in your mind. It was done. The hourglass on the desk was trickling through the last of its sand. Moretti was nowhere to be seen. You couldn’t even die in the presence of a murderer.

There was screaming coming from another room. It was the desperate wail of another agent begging for their life. “No! Please!”

“No,” you mumbled, using all of your energy to turn your head to the doorway. He couldn’t… not now that you were down… you couldn’t even raise your voice to cry for help. You were completely helpless. You couldn’t save him.

Your chest burned with the effort of your heart, ironically helping you to bleed out faster. Your breaths came labored, and then they couldn’t come at all as your vision faded. The dark carpet blurred from a mass of pilled fibers into a solid navy sea. The pain in your leg was excruciating, it was all you could feel; the idea of feeling peace ever again slipping away.

Screaming. Banging. Footsteps. More screaming. Pounding. Shouting. It was all indistinguishable, a mess of men’s voices and loud gunshots. Then, you heard it. Just your name, barely audible above the rest, in a voice that made you strain to see past the blackness.

“Y/N!”

You’d give the rest of your precious seconds away just to see him one last time, just to know he was beside you and you weren’t alone.

“Y/N!”

Footsteps came closer and the pressure on your chest intensified. The blood loss made you dizzy and your body shook.

“Y/N!”

You jolted awake, eyes snapping open in time to see Neal leaning out of the way just in time to avoid your hand flying at his face. You processed slowly that his hands were on your shoulders – had he shaken you? – and it was still dark. You could barely see his face, but his figure was lit from behind by the lamp next to his bed. You could tell from his messy hair that he had been sleeping not long ago, and you felt awful for waking him up.

After cursing, you sat up and gripped the warm blanket on your lap tightly. “I’m sorry,” you said remorsefully, feeling like a fool. Not only hadn’t you been able to sleep through the night, but now you’d ruined his rest, too. You cussed again. “I really hoped being close… just not being at my apartment, alone…”

It had felt like a safe bet off to a good start. You had gotten dinner together near Gramercy Park, then watched a lighthearted movie before turning in for bed. Neal offered to let you take his mattress, but you didn’t want to put him out and you had slept over enough that he didn’t feel like a bad host for letting you insist on the sofa. You’d been out by ten, but now you could guess it had been less than four hours. Your heart was still racing, your leg still tense with an imagined pain.

“It’s okay,” Neal said, sounding unsettled. He kept his hands on your shoulders like he was keeping you grounded on the earth. “Don’t worry about it. It’s okay.”

Neal’s eyes must have already adjusted to the low light, because his aim was spot-on when he lifted a hand from your shoulder to cup your neck instead. His profile ducked and you felt his lips land on your forehead, checking your temperature, signalling forgiveness, and administering reassurance all at once. He rubbed his thumb across your jaw as he stood up straight, releasing you, and walked away around the couch.

You put your legs down in front of you and rubbed your face, exhausted mentally and physically. Helplessness made you want to cry. Time wasn’t healing. Sleeping pills just made it harder to wake up, letting the nightmares ravage your psyche for longer. Not even the proximity of someone you trusted and adored was enough to let go of the past.

The light in the kitchen came on, bright enough to illuminate the studio but far enough away not to be blinding. Neal came back to the couch holding a bottle of water and offered it to you before sitting down. He looked so adorable, still sleepy and with a bit of pink in the side of his face from sleeping with his arm under his pillow. You scolded yourself for even thinking about how cute he was when you were the one who had woken him up.

You sipped at the water. It was so nice and smooth on your throat. You felt fine, now that you were awake, but the vividness of your nightmares always left you feeling parched and you always expected swallowing to hurt as if you had strep. Neal leaned into the back of the couch and put his arm up along the cushions. You capped the water, bent your knees to pull your feet back up onto the furniture, and let yourself lean into his side. Neal dropped his arm softly on your shoulders, holding you in a tender sideways hug.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized again after a couple of minutes. You felt much better, much faster than you usually did, thanks to him, and if you were being fully honest, you were not ready for him to get up and go back to bed, but it wasn’t fair to ask him to stay up cuddling you at god-knows-what-time just because you were a wreck.

“I told you, it’s okay,” Neal said, his voice firm. If you apologized again, you figured he would start scolding you for it, so you let it go.

“I just – I should’ve expected this,” you said with frustration, feeling like you were confessing to knowingly bothering him. “I haven’t been able to sleep well in ages. I keep having these nightmares, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Neal was quiet for a few seconds, making sure you had said all you were inclined to. Then, knowingly, he asked, “This is about the Moretti case, isn’t it?”

“I can’t let it go,” you said with a whimper. “It won’t leave me alone. Every night, it’s a little bit different, but at its core it’s always the same.”

Neal’s voice cutting through the fog of your nightmare had been a saving grace, giving you peace even in your unconscious, but now that you were awake, you realized with clarity that his voice saying your name wasn’t the only voice you could make out. In fact, you always heard the same thing, every night, no matter what else changed.

“What’s the same, Y/N?” Neal asked you, trying to help. He stroked your upper arm with his open hand. You were already shaking your head. Neal could comfort you all he liked, but he couldn’t bring back the dead. In grief and shame, you turned your head and bent your neck to bury your face in his shoulder. Neal tilted his head so his cheek was resting gently on your hair. “Tell me, darling,” he coaxed in a whisper.

You felt like someone’s hands were wrapped around your throat, strangling your reply. “Agent Flynn,” you answered dryly, barely more than mouthing his name. “In every nightmare, I hear… I hear his last words. Begging Moretti not to take the shot.”

Neal was quiet for a long time, but never pushed you away. He held you closer when you started to shake, crying against him as quietly as you could manage. The artist rubbed your arm and periodically kissed your head, but he knew that there was nothing he could say to erase the horror of what you had heard or take away the guilt that you had survived because Moretti was distracted by taking out the other agent.

Moretti was part of a family gang, often in conflict with the Barellis, who, interestingly, paid a little deference to the white-collar division ever since you and Peter had recovered a stolen Book of Hours. The Morettis had no such connection or gratitude, so their response to the FBI sticking their nose into an embezzling scam was violent and bloody. Moretti shot you in the leg and intended to finish you off, but one of his own men had reported you came with someone. He left you to bleed out, and only a few rooms over, you had heard Flynn’s pleas – and the subsequent gunshot. Your team, wising up to the dead signal, arrived for a takedown before Moretti could make his way back to you, but it was too late for your teammate.

Neal shifted after what felt like forever, only to pull you closer to his chest and wrap both arms around you. You trembled in his embrace, but that just made him hold you closer, like you were delicate and breakable. When he next talked, his low voice was quivering, just like your body.

“I thought we lost you,” he said, cupping the back of your head in a gentle hand. He massaged his fingers into your scalp, even as he kept you cuddled in his lap. “I thought I lost you, Y/N. Two gunshots. I thought…” He struggled to find his words and you hiccuped, trying to stop crying. “I was the one who found you, and I was so scared I was too late.”

You sniffled and uncrossed your arms to melt against his chest and hug him tightly around his waist instead. “I didn’t know you…”

“We found him first, but you weren’t there and I needed to find you.” Neal now sounded equal parts frightened and furious. “If he had taken you away, I would’ve…” He shook his head and pressed his forehead to yours, as desperate to be close to you as you felt to be close to him. “I would’ve shattered. I can’t lose you, Y/N. I just can’t lose you, too.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t die,” you blurted, almost in a sob. You felt so safe with him, but now you knew for a fact that your own safety wasn’t what had been tormenting you. It was a nearly debilitating case of survivor’s guilt. “I just wish I hadn’t been the only one who survived.”

“No one wants that,” Neal promised you, untangling his hand from your hair and stroking it down instead. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could fix this and take it away, but all I can do is be here and hold you and tell you it’s going to be alright. It wasn’t your fault.”

You sniffed. Neal’s words were more of a comfort than you had thought they would be. They changed nothing about the situation, but… you weren’t alone. You hadn’t been alone since you met him. You just agonized that Flynn had been. “Neal, I can’t lose you, either. I love you, you’re… you’re who I’m going to heal for.” You had to find a way.

Neal seized your lips with his in a searing kiss. It wasn’t as sexy or patient as you may have imagined, but you gripped his shirt and gave as good as you got, and wow, the man gave verygood. It was a desperate kiss, needing to bring you together and reaffirm your life. To you, it was the seal of a promise that you wouldn’t let the past crush your spirit. When you could sleep through the night and had a handle on your post-traumatic stress… if he would just be patient, you would be his the way you wanted him to be yours.

He released you to breathe, eyes opening wide as if he only just realized what he had done. Before he could pull away, you pressed your forehead to his again, urging him to stay close. Your breaths mingled between you and you were sure you could feel his heart beating through his chest.

“I love you, too,” he said once he had caught his breath.