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#the leaf pattern what!!!!!!

jayslittlejungle · 8 months

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I heard canadian tire was supposed to have gotten in a bunch of Hoya. I hit up two of them with no luck but I did find this pretty little Dracaena goldieana that came home with me which made the trip worth it. I've heard of them before but never seen one in person so I was pretty surprised to find it at canadian tire of all places.

#plantblr #houseplants #rare plants #more uncommon than rare but still #from what little i've read on them i believe their leaf pattern becomes darker and more striking with higher light

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pcktknife · 1 year

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I just saw a monarch(? or smth similar) butterfly with like glistening silver marks and I can't find anything on google cause all that comes up is jewelery 😞

#it was really pretty like it reflected the sunlight #it was only or mostly on the bottom wings i think #and it was like flying really close to us so we got a p nice look #my mom thought it ws dying but i figured it was just an odd color pattern #it was like what is it called gold leaf???#kae.txt

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bucketofbugz · 2 months

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the cutest lil bug is walking across my window right now oh my gosh

#bugposting #from what I can tell I think it's a type of leaf-footed bug #but I can only see the underside of it so I can't see what patterns it has if any

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icewindandboringhorror · 1 year

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Daily Log

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Badly carved an eye into an avocado pit with a nail cuticle tool thing. trying to think of better designs to carve into avocado pits. I don't really have the right tools, maybe should order some carving tools. I hate buying things online eeeeee..

Worked on translating a poem into Avirrekava (my constructed language for one of my fantasy species) so I can paint it onto a tapestry sort of thing I'm making, kind of in the style of medieval illuminated manuscripts? I do not have paintbrushes small enough.

Spent a lot of time thinking more about the story with an investigator tracking a doctor who's doing strange experiments and they eventually become friends(ish) after trying to kill each other a few times, lol (set in my fantasy world though, so magic is involved, etc. It's just interesting to think about testing the limitations of magic and what type of experimentation people would do, especially if you own a hospital or morgue or other scenario where you have access to bodies, or good cover for hiding them, etc. Plus worldbuilding religions in the world, what their ideas of morality would be, what an "investigator" or police force would even look like in that setting, etc. Two jhevona main characters in a city full of elves and the in-world politics of that, class war and royals, pretentious scholar communities and how they'd operate, actual magic combat between two advanced magic users and what that would look like (mixing illusions or higher level spells with minor brute force tactics, evasion, enchantments, shapeshifting, etc.) etc. etc. ).

Organized some of my plants, but still need to replant some fully. Succulents grow SO fast, I think I'll run out of room. Also one has burnt to a crisp during the heat wave last week.. my son.. ToT.

Edited a few costume photos then gave up because my camera is evil and I always have that thing where it looks really cool in the mirror but then the final photos suck, which demotivates me to even do anything with them/feels like a waste.

Still chronic health issue sick stinky as usual, plus it's still warm inside from the heat a few days ago so being hot makes joint pain worse... evil.. no energy. fell asleep on the floor for like 30 minutes.

Tried a new oreo flavor and ranked it on my comprehensive oreo ranking list. Mediocre as usual, but I'm too far in to give up now gghj.. I have to just try them all. A fool's labor.

Notable sights: found one 6 leaf clover, two 5 leaf clovers, and eleven 4 leaf clovers. Saw a rabbit, 3 cats in windows, and 4 ducks. Also at some point I was squishing gum in my hand and pulling it apart and when stretched out it would make these really cool spindly spider web patterns. The sky later in the day was hazy pink, purple, and blue pastel sunset.

Goals moving forward: Wake up on time even if I feel sick when I wake up!!! Focus on more immediate projects, don't get distracted. Actually make room for investing in social time and replying to people even with minimal energy reserves. Stay consistent with physical therapy exercises. Plant nasturtiums. Finish and upload videos, email doctors, edit pictures, post the poll adventure thing that has been sitting in a draft for weeks.

Notable foods: None today, but I have asparagus for later which is exciting... my new favorite vegetable whilst on the stinky Nutritionist Prescribed Special Limited Diet

#I don't know the point of posting this publicly #maybe just makes it feel more like I'm doing somehting or easier to hold myself accountable making a public declarations #of my goals and progress or etc. lol #Weird blog content I think but then also this IS like.. my personal blog so #. technically I can do whatever. It's just an atypical format of personal post ghgj #ALSO the finding so many clovers thing is cool because just last week I also found one 6 leaf clover and a few 5 leaves and a #ton of 4 leaves. I hadn't found a 6 leaf clover in a few years until literally the past few weeks Iv'e found two of them #The most I've ever gotten is a 7 leaf. Maybe just one?? possibly two but I think just one of them.#so I guess the ultimate goal would be 8 leaf. if that's even plausible.#I don't know what to do with them all though. I put them usually in the book with the rest of my pressed flowers and then #move them into a container once they're dried out. I could make more flower arrangement type things (like gluing dried flowers #to a page in a pattern) out of them like I have a few times. Or use them with the wax seal stamps or something #but I have so many.. IF i OWNED AN ACTUal house or somehting it'd be cool to do like.. a Wall #a clover wall where I just post them up everytime I've collected some. and see if I can fill the whole wall over time #One day ... if I can ever be successful at the Game Of Resources And Capitalism enough to have a modest little #home in like.. Scotland or canada or something... I can finally paint walls and do interesting things #REALLY have always wanted to have a cloud mural on the cieling of a room or etc.#aNYWAY....#any other Clover Hunters out there.. tell me what you've found. the mythical 8 leaf?? or anything idk.#avocado pit carving tips. tell me what you thought about the Black Out Cake oreo flavor. etc. etc. hgjhghjb #daily log

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shinybulbasaur · 2 years

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I wish I had been watching Fringe as it was coming out as it was happening live because I have so many THEORIES and THOUGHTS but I can’t exactly google anything to check up on data because then I’ll get the answers and that’s the LAST thing I want but how else am I supposed to get a list of the commercial break cards in the order that they appear short of rewatching everything myself when I haven’t even finished season 2. “danny they’re just title cards they don’t mean anything” then why are they shown in a different order every ep with them being seemingly unrelated to the episode content. why are there nine of them with each one having a little yellow light. (and why do I seem to remember that little yellow light only showing up after 1x14.) WHY ARE THEY SOMETIMES ROTATED. If this was just a placeholder title card, just a straight forward symbol, they wouldn’t be ROTATING THEM and CHANGING THEM UP. I know I know I sound like conspiracy theory central but this is conspiracy theory the show so I feel like I’m justified and also patterns make brain go brrr I love to notice things. peter bishop’s license plate is “1C3PO1”

#i have to end on the joke observation so i only seem about 63% unhinged <3 #jokes on me though i'm just exposing myself as a fucking freak who pays too much attention to license plate patterns #did u kno every state has their own little patterns for assigning license plates. nj is 3 letters 2 numbers 1 letter #er well that's what it used to be but they maxed out and now they're 1 letter 2 numbers 3 letters :)#olivia dunham is my 'pattern seeking brain go brrr' rep and i adore her for that (among other reasons)#oh also i'm gonna bury another observation deep in these tags but. the dual symbol of each title card drives me bonkers yonkers.#apple fetuses. butterfly bones. frog phi. seahorse golden ratio. leaf triangle thing (alchemy perhaps?). flower dragonfly wing.#i haven't figured out the dual symbol for smoke and hand yet so that's been killing me and i'm totally blanking on the ninth card it's fine #i'm pretty sure i counted nine cards at least. nine tests. nine cards #i mean i guess they don't have to be directly related cause like seahorse already has a clear meaning in the show #apples and frogs and butterflies and smoke have all been directly relevant to various cases #but still. why are they rotated. WHY DOES THE LIGHT CHANGE LOCATION. these questions keep me up at night #what does it mean dot jpeg #danny watches fringe

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polarisbear · 29 days

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more dweebs (Very detailed image description below.)

a drawing of grian, ethoslab, tangotek, and smallishbeans. grian is in his season 10 fishing skin and the rest are in different outfits referencing their base themes.

grian is in his fishing skin looking very tired with his fishing rod swung over his shoulder and an ear pierced with a brassy fish hook. he’s a cod hybrid with fin-ears and a stubby tail. behind him blue snail is munching on some leaves.

etho is posing with a neck sheepishly behind his neck and the other resting on his bag. he’s in the postal uniform polo with a green, canadian maple-themed yukata loosely worn and slipping off his shoulder. he has fingerless gloves on under. he is wearing dark red pleated pants and light green heeled crocs. he has a black and red messenger bag with a trellis motif. etho is an arctic fox hybrid with brown legs and streaks through his hair. doodles below show what his paws look like under the crocs and one shows him posing with a note saying “ties up sleeves.” above him another note reads “streaks bc his winter coat is shedding.”

tango is posing confidently with a wrench. he is in the postal uniform polo, with chunky brown and orange gloves and boots, topped off with red, pinstriped overalls. one strap is not around his shoulder, and on the belt around the overalls they carry a small bag, a screwdriver, and a vial of redstone. he has on brown goggles with blue lenses. tango has fire for hair and pointed ears. above him there’s a doodle of the messenger bag that’s secured on his back. it shows how the orange straps tuck over the whole outfit and lead to a dark red and pinstripe blue bag with cog detailing.

joel is giving an indignant pose like he’s complaining. he is wearing a black undershirt that fades out into his light green claws, a pink kimono with only one sleeve of cherry blossom patterns, and a dark grey vest and cherry blossom-patterned obi tie it off. the vest has a cherry blossom crest on the back. joel also has on dark pink pants with a cherry blossom motif on the bottom and on his left arm there’s a bracer with a screen built in. crawling all over the undershirt there are cybernetic patterns connecting joel’s skin through to the undershirt. joel is a tanuki, hence why he has a leaf on his head. around joel are doodles showing the crest on the back of his vest and the pattern on the sleeve.

#hermitcraft #grian #ethoslab #tangotek #smallishbeans #art archive #image id in alt text #LORD okay another set done #i’ll post the mail team together at some point but i wonder if you can figure out what their uniform is :)#uhhhhh tanuki joel is Directly from #melloz heist #maybe i’ll make a doodle comic later #but bc etho is in such a warm biome his winter coat is shedding #so he’s a lil brown #didn’t draw it but the base of his tail is also brown #ik bird grian is popular #but i think a cod fishman fishing is way funnier #oh and the cherry blossom theme with joel is 1) cherry magic mountain and 2) lizzie pink :)

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felixandresims · 1 year

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Let me introduce you to CHATEAU Part 2, a 37-item set for your Chateaus entrance and hallways.

An area that I was always longing to have more items for was a 'grand foyer'. I simply wanted to have proper french stairs but was too afraid of trying out creating them. I pulled myself together and made the stairs plus additional pieces such as curved landings and suitable french fence and railing pieces. Now that I made stone stairs, in the future I will also create a wooden one, the possibilities are endless :D.

Another Area I haven't touched for quite some time is proper historical pieces, but a chateau set can't live without them. I sat down and created a Lous XV console table as a full and quarter version ( actually I found a console table at Hotel de la Marine in Paris and had to recreate it with a twist and incorporated a Plumbob) and a Rococo Mirror inspired by an original from Athena Calderone's apartment. The Mirror comes in three height options. I also made a hanging light and a wall sconce. Two additional items that are less historic but more rustic are a round table, perfect for giant bouquet displays, and a potted Fiddle Leaf tree :)

In this month's set, you will also find a classic Parisian wooden floor, a black and white stone floor, and wallpaper with handpainted patterns( Which I created myself from scratch). I also didn't want to miss out on interior doors :)

This Set is on Early Access now and you can download it here

A little heads up about what's coming next: kitchen month :)

Thank you so so much for all your support and love and I hope you enjoy my new set. Don't worry I didn't forget about the shell building!

Happy Simming!

#ts4cc download #ts4 historical #ts4 finds #ts4 maxis match #france #chateau #provence #parisian #entrance #felixandresims

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cuprohastes · 1 year

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Visit Strange new worlds and… How did you even see that?

So there you have it, your little non-terrestrial Zoological survey, all nicely protected by fences, and ground meshes, with those nifty bite proof suits, and of course that one Human who's assigned to carry stuff and do all the Human related Things.

It's hard. A lot of the little critters have amazing camouflage. You have to hunt them with an infrared camera, or set traps.

Except on the days when they let the Human come along because they have this aggravating habit of going "There's one" and pointing to a patch of leaf litter which suddenly develops eyes and goes 'AARK!' and runs off.

Did you know they do this recreationally? They have this tile pattern. You show it to a human and they stare at it a minute and go 'It's a ship'. It's called a magic eye poster. But it's supposed to be a ship not an eye. Nobody can work out what's going on there.

And they do little squiggles and stick them on the board and other humans look at them and go 'ha, it's Dr Kraant, from Bio-Assay' - Every time! They have this weird edge detection thing going on and they use it to split up pictures into thousands of little pieces... and then put them back together for fun.

And then they go out and just stick their hand out and yank a tree creeper off a branch, tell it that it's a good little lizard and tag it and put it back and like It's no big deal.

Back when they first started assigning humans, Dr Kraant hypothesized that humans had motion-based vision and if you stayed still, they wouldn't be able to see you. Turns out if you stand very still the humans just assume you're thinking and politely ignore you, but hey that's Xenoscience for you

#humans are space orcs #Humans are weird #Humans are deathworlders #Humans being weird little guys

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skelliko · 1 month

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๑-context: a summer activitie with them

๑-featuring: kazutora, chifuyu, Baji, Mikey, inui, shinichiro, Kokonoi, Rindou, ran, mitsuya,

°- kazutora hanemiya

• exploring abandoned places and going so far out into the city, climbing over fences just to get into the buildings and running from the police or other pedestrians that had caught you trespassing in someone else's property even though it's not like you both are doing anything harmful there. your just enjoying each others company whilst getting excitement in exploring new places that may be even a little dangerous but what's a little fun if you don't 'ball it'

°- chifuyu matsuno

• making hand made jewelry is a cute activity, you had to teach chifuyu how to tie the string right otherwise it'd come loose but after he got the jist of it y'all were making many sets of matching bracelets that you wear all the time in different colours and patterns. though sometimes it gets frustrating when it comes to tying the string and you can't seem to get the loop right or when your fingers accidentally let go of one side of the string and then all the beads fall downwards and both of you end up crawling on the floor trying to recollect every lose bead, but that doesn't happen often.

°- Baji Keisuke

• forest walks, not all the time but sometimes he'd suggest wandering around a forest, picking up weird shaped branches to show you, finding a bug on a leaf and if you don't like bugs then he'd be a nuisance about it and chase you around with the it. but if you have a heart with bugs then hed look around trying to find the coolest looking one specifically to show/give you and he'd dedicate to it even if he does occasionally get a little grossed out by them.

°- manjiro sano/ mikey

• constant motorbike rides! if you have your own motorbike then the both of you will be riding till you reach the end of earth and seeing which one can out do the other. but if you don't then you'd be latched on at the back of his bike and going with the flow of the wind to cool off from the heat. mikey would also try teaching you how to ride a motorbike, he's more patient with you than anyone else so you can take your time with taking in the information so that you know how to switch gears and dont attempt in going through a wall.

°- Inui seishu / shinichiro sano (I couldn't decide)

• due to him being in the bike shop and working on fixing some motorbikes here and there, there'd be trips to visit him holding a sweet, cold treat to give him on his lunch breaks. though when you're teasing him a little too much he'd purposely smear his oil grease stained fingers across your skin to leave a large, black mark and it'd cause a small fit of smiles and laughter but also some small annoyance on your side as you have to scrub the mark off from you by the sink.

°- Kokonoi hajime

• perfect time and weather to go visit new towns and enjoy the beautiful scenery that neither of you thought you could see until now. browsing into small business shops that you haven't seen/been into before and if something catches your eyes that you'd die for to have then Koko would buy it for you in a heartbeat because seeing you smile with light in your eyes at an item makes him want to keep you in that gleaming mood.

°- rindou haitani

• spontaneous night outs where you start the night to be all cozy watching a series with a tub of ice cream to then be all dressed up and sparkly after one text or phone call from rindou mentioning a club is doing a certain theme. the both of you may seem to be there for the party but actually it's the attention you both bring, getting all dressed up is the fun part and most of the time you do it together and have matching outfits or accessories, give everyone around a sight to see and only then do you give your all with the drinks and dancing.

°- ran haitani

• constant need to be in the pool or anywhere that has water, especially on hot boiling days when a 5 minute walk would feel like 5 hours. in the day you'd usually go to an outside pool and enjoy yourselves and then at night you'd have to pamper him since he's still affected from the heat, he has no tolerance. you tend to go to public ones but only those that you know are clean and have decency of others, essentially public pools that kids don't go to.

°- mitsuya takashi

• summer is the perfect time for him to work on summer clothes and you always happen to be his muse meaning you're the one who he always dots down your measurements and your always the one that tries the clothes on and half the time you tend to keep the clothing. if you wear dresses then sun dresses are always something that he enjoys sowing for you, you spinning around as the dress flows and spins with you, he doesn't make those basic ones but rather he puts in a lot of detail just for you, making it adorable and flattering. but if you don't wear dresses or such clothing then he always considers what kind of material he uses, that way for the hot days your not melting and instead you feel more free and feel a breeze.

♡----

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headspace-hotel · 9 months

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So growing up I heard these kinds of statements: "X number of species goes extinct every year" and "Most species that go extinct are undescribed/undiscovered"

And I could never really picture what that looked like. What species were going extinct? Where? Why? If they're undiscovered, how do we know about it? It's only recently that I've been able to understand.

This is an example:

Since European colonization, 99% of old growth forest in the eastern United States was cut down.

In Eastern Kentucky, the coal industry led to waste and rubble being dumped in valleys, literally burying countless mountain streams in gravel and toxic sludge.

Colonialism and exploitation moved faster than leaf-sketching and bug-collecting European naturalists did. It's very simple, and very sad. When the coal mines polluted the streams, many species of fish that only lived in one specific stream must have gone extinct. When Native Americans were forced off their lands, we can presume that rare plant species found in meadows, canebrakes and oaks savannas dependent on particular anthropogenic disturbances went extinct. When old-growth tracts were logged, God only knows how many lichens, mosses, ferns and plants went extinct because the trees they lived on were chopped.

We can extrapolate from the diversity in the fragments that remain, and the number of rare endemic species in especially isolated areas, and guess what probably existed in areas that were obliterated early on.

Keep in mind: All is not lost. New species are still being discovered.

The Bluegrass region of Kentucky was once called one of the most peculiar plant communities of the South—an eastern island of oak savanna with an understory of Arundinaria bamboo and legumes. Early European settlers reported that the ground was incredibly rich and covered with knee-high clover and dense thickets of "cane" (bamboo) that made navigation next to impossible.

Some people say the Bluegrass was always a forest and the savanna theory is wrong. Bullshit! I know this because of several reasons:

The earliest records don't mention any sycamores at all in the Bluegrass, whereas river cane (bamboo) was everywhere. Arundinaria bamboos are fire dependent species, whereas sycamore is HIGHLY intolerant of fire. From this we can infer that the area had a history of frequent burning.

Everyone in the Bluegrass knows about the Old Trees. In horse and cattle pastures in the Bluegrass region, you will sometimes see gigantic, twisted old oaks, with great spreading crowns. Nowadays you hardly see an oak that properly merits the term "gnarled," but the gnarl of the Old Trees is crazy. Just look up google images for Kentucky tourism and you'll see one of those huge trees in the background of several of the photos, I bet. Hardly anyone consciously thinks about it, but these are pre-colonization trees. And they are all obviously open-grown—their growth habit over the centuries has spread out, rather than grown straight up as in a forest.

Early colonizers' records report big walnut and cherry trees in the area. Most of the old houses in the area are made of walnut wood. Those are mid-successional species—you wouldn't find them dominating in an area that was heavily disturbed regularly and recently, they're trees, but you wouldn't find them in a forest that had been minimally disturbed forest for centuries either. The fact that they got huge suggests that a regular disturbance pattern of the Bluegrass region was abruptly interrupted and mostly ceased.

It was a pretty special place, a savanna environment with a mix of giant twisted oaks, rolling prairie hills and bamboo thickets, with deep sinkholes connecting the surface to subterranean cave ecosystems. In places the limestone bedrock reached the surface, creating limestone glades—unique desert-like habitats with many rare plants including Opuntia cactus.

It was also one of the first ecosystems west of the Appalachians to be destroyed by settlers.

BUT! Just a few years ago, we discovered Trifolium kentuckiense—Kentucky clover. A unique species of clover that has only been found in two spots in Central Kentucky.

This means the Bluegrass species that probably went extinct because their habitat was ignorantly logged, plowed and grazed before they were studied by European science may not be entirely gone.

We have been able to fund exhaustive inventories of potential holdouts for big flashy animals like the ivory-billed woodpecker, but so many people view the place they live as "boring" and thoroughly explored, when there could be surviving plants hanging out just about anywhere.

But...I don't think most people realize how much of the Holocene extinction has already happened. Most of the losses are plants and bugs that you never knew existed in the first place.

I feel like lots of people are anxiously waiting for the mass extinction to "start" hitting, but that's not quite right. European colonization of the globe WAS and *is* the mass extinction (combined with climate change which is very related). It's actively ongoing in the Global South. In eastern North America, the major wave of extinctions hit between 100 and 300 years ago.

I feel so much grief for all that was almost certainly lost forever, but I also recognize that I live in a unique period of time where the future can still be changed, and in particular, the heavily damaged ecosystems of the Southeast can be restored and used to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and provide resilience to the entire globe. And I strongly suspect at least a few mysterious new plants will start popping up once that happens...because a lot of plants stick around in the soil seed bank for a long, long time, and seeds can happen to be preserved by freak accident and then sprout later.

we (researchers, scientists, people who work in this field) will desperately need to consult tribal nations for this though because from my reading into it, we don't know what the fuck we're doing. The most basic things like controlled burns are still struggling to catch on and in some places just, spraying herbicides willy-nilly on invasive plants without understanding what makes them invasive.

#ecology #plants

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stevebabey · 1 year

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Eddie has a test.

It took some time to formulate, a few too many times with guys careless with his heart, who leave behind more heartache than happiness littered in their memory. It’s fucking hard to tell.

More than once, there’s been a dude who promises between kisses i’m not going anywhere and takes more than his fill during a night which Eddie desperately hopes is passion and not some misguided lust. Only to wake a familiar empty side of the bed, them gone — skipping town, back in the arms of their parent-approved girlfriend, or back to spitting his name out with the word freak.

It’s what the test is for.

It’s specific, purposeful, all intending to weed out the straight boys who liked to dip their toes in the pool of queerness and leave Eddie to any consequences of the heart. Eddie doesn’t want to turn cruel, to be too jaded after feeling used too many times. It’s what the test is for. Protect the heart, see what interest is genuine.

Right now, he’s putting the test on Jared. New in town and in Eddie’s life, he’d captured the metalhead’s gaze from the glint of his pierced ear and light eyes that lingered. Kissed a little mean, and with too much teeth, but Eddie chalked it up to excitement. Jared seemed good. Nodded and smiled when Eddie found himself wrapped up in yet another DnD spiel. Said he found it endearing.

The test is simple.

A bid, a nudge, for attention. Never anything big or too exciting— that always got him specifically warped smirks designed to lead him along. Just something minuscule, like will you come take a look at my notes? or can i play you that riff once more? to see if it gave.

The pattern runs deep in Eddie’s dating history; same ol’ jerks who couldn’t bother to come and look at his new DnD sketches are always the ones who are only leasing a new sexuality for a month. It’s like setting a minefield and seeing who stumbles on a landmine, the bids getting ignored is as early as a warning sign he’ll ever get.

He tries the test on Jared.

It’s a Thursday night and Jared’s round at the trailer, lounging on Eddie’s sheets and still a little flushed from the night’s earlier activities. Usually it’s a good sign when the guys stick around after sex, not flying out the door once they’ve got what they want. By now, Eddie has drifted away from his bed, skittish thoughts already off and away with new campaign ideas.

He’s scrawling in a character design, some new boss, half troll, half hellhound, that requires a lot of finicky details worked out. The page is covered in scribbles, nothing in any semblance of lines and a crude first sketch is in the middle. It’s not quite the vision he had in mind but it took him an hour, so he’s hardly going to erase it. Besides, it looks pretty fucking metal to him.

“Hey,” Eddie calls out, a bit soft. No pet-names used— most of the time boys didn’t like them and wrinkled their nose. Those that didn’t mind, never returned them. “Can I show you the sketch I’ve been working on?”

He pauses, then launches into an explanation without waiting for a response, “It’s for the new campaign I’ve been planning, one of the bosses, and honestly, those little shrimps have no idea what’s coming for them.”

Jared, still slouched on the bed, peeks up a bit at the noise. He hadn’t really been doing much, just leafing through some of the junk beside Eddie’s bed. If Eddie let himself hold any hope, he would say it’s because he wants to know more about Eddie.

“Huh?” Jared asks, genuine enough that Eddie thinks maybe he didn’t hear him.

“A DnD boss?” Eddie says, eyebrows raising. He barrels on, thinking about how Dustin had helped propose the new boss, with a grin spreading across Eddie’s face. “Dustin, the little twerp, challenged me to pick a random combination of creatures and mash em’ together- see what crazy abilities come from it.”

“Who’s Dustin?” Jared asks, failing to sound like he cares. His eyes have wandered elsewhere, head falling back on the pillow and Eddie’s initial question about the sketch is long, long gone.

Oof. And that’s like 3 failed bids at one time because Eddie talks about Dustin all the time. Jared clearly isn’t interested in Eddie Munson, just what he can offer. Eddie’s heart grows a little colder.

“Look, I think I’m gonna get going, yeah?” Jared says, maybe sensing Eddie’s mood change as he begins to sit up and tug his shirt back over his bare skin. His sticks his feet in his shoes, laces them up. Eddie nods, tucks his notebook behind him and walks him out, plastering on a smile the whole time.

After ambling down the stairs to the trailer, Jared turns back, after searching the surrounding area for leering eyes, and he reaches out and gives Eddie’s hand a squeeze. Just a split second, before it flies back to his side.

Eddie would like to believe that he’s at least worthy of a goodbye kiss. Even if some wicked part of his brain says he’s not, that boys like Eddie Munson don’t get sweet goodbye kisses. Don’t get good relationships, just mindless flings.

The thought makes hurt flares in his gut, Eddie so desperately trying to protect his hope, and so before Jared can say anything, some pitiful goodbye, Eddie leans out the doorway and says, “Don’t call me.” then slams the trailer door.

It follows him around for the next week, his own personal storm-cloud to keep his head grey even when it’s sunny out. He mopes to Robin about it during her shift, probably the only other person he can talk to about it.

“So, you tested him? What does that even mean? Is there a gay test you know about that you haven’t told me about? That would be so uncool, man.”

She’s talking as she types, half paying attention to the computer. Steve is out in between the shelves, putting out a new batch of films— Eddie knows because he’d instinctively sought him out when he came in. Harrington was a pretty boy, sue him for wanting to enjoy the view.

Didn’t help he was also decidedly declared not-a-douchebag by Eddie during the whole upside down spiel and had the duality of biting off that bat’s head and somehow being the world’s biggest sweetheart for his friends. Friends that now included Eddie.

What can you say? Going through that much together, including killing a death wizard and getting dragged out of an alternate dimension certainly forms some strong bonds. Plus, Steve was hot.

(Eddie denies the crush on the basis that would. never. happen.)

At the reminder of Vecna, Eddie winces and supposes he should be lucky he gets any sort of attention after that whole scandal. But it doesn’t stop him from draping himself across the front counter, laying pathetically with a pout on his lips. He shakes his head fervently at her question.

“Not a gay test, Robin.” He stresses. “It’s the Eddie-Munson-is-this-boy-gonna-stick-around-test.”

He rolls up onto his elbows and props his head into his waiting palms. “Gotta make sure I’m not being treated like some common whore.”

It’s meant to be a joke, a usual joking lilt to his voice, but the end of the sentences comes out a bit too bitter to land that way.

Robin’s sympathetic expression makes Eddie’s chest twinge in a way he doesn’t like. He waves her off. Slumps back down a bit before deciding he’s done enough wallowing in the public eye.

Robin doesn’t say anything as he pulls out his usual notebook, pages weathered and filled. Eddie usually hangs around the store on days without plans, flits between Robin and Steve, and scribbles in his notebook. She bites her lip, gaze moving between the book and the resigned expression on Eddie’s face as he turns to the latest page— the strange hellhound troll mashed up boss.

“Okay, I’ll bite—what’s the test involve?” She asks, pausing in her typing for a moment. Her hands don’t stop moving, still stressing the fabric of her pants twitchily. Eddie perks his head up, clutching his pencil a bit tighter and rolls right into it.

“It’s not even really a test, technically, but doesn’t matter- that’s just what I call it - it’s like a bid?”

Robin raises her brows and they disappear under her fringe. “A bid?”

“Yeah! A bid!” He waves his arms around as he speaks, gesticulating a bit wildly. “It’s like— like asking them to come look at something stupid and small, just to see if they’ll give your interests time of the day, yanno?”

He punches a finger down into his sketchbook. “A guy who can’t even be bothered to look at a sketch I worked on for an hour? Douchebag.”

Eddie’s tone turns a bit sing-song as he continues, like it’ll somehow distract from the bleakness of them. “Ergo, not sticking around.”

Robin’s hands finally stop their messing, becoming completely still against her legs. She finally swivels her body to face Eddie, a furrow between her brows. Her lips are quirked up, just a bit, like she knows something Eddie doesn’t. He feels his apprehension grow as he slumps his chin back into his hands.

“You mean, like how Steve is with you?”

Eddie stands a bit straighter at that, some flushed combination of disbelief mixing with delight flooded his body.

“What?” It comes out a bit more squeaky than intended. Eddie clears his throat, waves his hands, anything to stop that smirk from spreading across Robin’s face — he can feel his cheeks glow a bit warmer at the mere idea. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Robin smiles a bit and nods over to where Steve is. “Try it, test him.”

Eddie follows her nod, casting his eyes across the store to find Steve. He finds him situated in the romance section, a pile of cardboard box stacked beside him, the top box open and ready to be unpacked.

But Steve’s clearly been distracted by the first film in the box — he’s sunk deep into his mom-stance with one hip popped, one hand on his hip, the other holding the film as he reads the back cover of it very intently.

Eddie watches for just a moment, watches Steve squint and pull the case just a bit closer, wrinkle his nose adorably, snort a little laugh at whatever he’s reading — and dammit, this is just a fast track to insanity if Eddie watches him any longer.

“Steve,” he calls, too hesitant and too quiet. Steve’s head doesn’t move, he just flips the cover back over, marveling at the front. Eddie tries again. “Harrington!”

Steve’s head pops up, eyes skirting about to see who’s calling him. He doesn’t move when he sees it’s Eddie calling, just raises his brows. “Yeah?”

Eddie swallows, tries not to think of Robin paying close attention to both him and Steve. He grips his notebook a bit tighter even though he’s not entirely convinced Robin’s right. Steve Harrington doesn’t like DnD — not even for Dustin who has self-proclaimed himself Steve’s ‘adorable little brother that he never had’. Steve is hardly going to care if it’s Eddie asking.

“Do you wanna take a look at this sketch I’m working on?” He asks, as casual as he can.

Steve’s features give away just a hint of surprise, a blink as he comprehends what’s been said. Eddie holds his breath, ready to turn to Robin and say ‘I told you so!’ and to pretend that he’s not secretly hoping Steve will say yes.

“Sure,” Steve says, slotting the film back into the cardboard box and beginning to meander between the shelves towards the front desk. Eddie doesn’t even get time to be surprised because Steve’s suddenly there, in front of him, all expectant.

Eddie opens his mouth, thinks the better of it, and snaps it back closed. Instead, he thrusts the notebook to the side along the countertop, opened to the page of the sketch and doesn’t say anything. In the background, Robin snorts lightly. Eddie shoots her a glare.

If Eddie could look at Steve, he’d see the lightly amused expression on his face, but Eddie only focuses on the book. Really focuses. God, if he looks at Steve he’ll probably get some stupid mooned expression on his face that would totally give away his tiny stupid not-a-crush.

In his peripheral, he can see Steve sidle a little closer and lean over to peer at the page. And while he looks over it intently, Eddie let’s his eyes drift up, taking in the side of his face.

Curses his stupid handsome face. Then curses it some more when Steve lights up in recognition, turning to Eddie, excited to have a sliver of an idea what Eddie’s showing him. Normally, it’s all mumbo-jumbo to Steve. Not that he hasn’t tried to keep up but those kids are ahead of the curve and Steve wasn’t about to embarrass himself asking them to slow down their explanations.

“Woah, is this that one that Dustin was talking about?” Eddie thinks there might be a bit of genuine excitement leaking into Steve’s words.

“The weird like, mashed up, uh, what’s the word? Hyp- hypb—“

“Hybrid,” Eddie supplies, voice cool. His heart is not feeling so cool. Jesus Christ, Steve wasn’t supposed to pass Eddie’s test— he wasn’t even supposed to be tested. In order for that happen, they’d have to even be fooling around and Eddie blames his building blush on that mere suggestion.

“Yeah!” Steve raps his knuckles against the countertop and takes a second look at the drawing, closer this time. He looks back up at Eddie, so he knows he’s completely sincere when he says, “This is really cool, man.”

“Okay.” Eddie breathes, sounding a bit stupid. He remembers himself, remembers Robin watching him essentially bluescreen at the praise from Steve and wrenches his awed smile into a familiar smug type of grin.

“Of course it is, Steve-o,” He quickly amends, reaching back and tugging the notebook back. It’s closes with a quick snap, like Eddie’s afraid Steve will take another look. “She’s not finished yet, of course.”

Eddie had to bite his tongue to keep it from either taking an insanely egotistical route to pretend Steve’s praise hadn’t had a profound effect on him, or even worse, start trying to suddenly be humble — oh this ol’ thing? it’s nothing really, just threw it together quickly— Eddie nearly melts against the counter in relief when the bell on the front door saves him.

A customer enters the store, instantly taking Steve’s attention and he bounds off to help them, an easy smile on his face.

Eddie waits until Steve and the customer wandered off into the aisles to release his breath. He doesn’t look at Robin, just turns and presses his forehead down against the countertop. Then raises it just a bit, and thunks it back down, a couple of times for good measure.

“Okay, okay—“ Robin’s gone a bit wide eyed and she waves her hands at Eddie’s pathetic form, his head still bonking against the counter. “Stop doing that. Jesus, Eddie, are the dramatics always necessary?”

His motions stop at Robin’s words and Eddie’s whips his head up. He narrows his eyes at her, and as if to prove his point, exaggeratedly jabs a finger at her.

“Hey! Never deny my right to be a drama queen. It is my god given right as an American citizen—”

“He passed.” Robin says, cutting off what was about to be a very long rant about god knows what. Eddie just didn’t want her to say what she was about to. “Your test. He passed, didn’t he?“

That. He didn’t want her to say that.

“He’s being a good friend! A very good nice friend!” Eddie counters, only sounding a little bit whiny which takes half the conviction out of his words. He slams his hands down against the wood. “That test is for— it’s not for him! It’s for—”

An annoyed noise comes out of Eddie’s throat and he aims for one more thunk of his head against the counter before tugging it back up and meeting Robin’s smug expression. She’s too smug. Her whole face is smug smug smug and Eddie scowls. He points a deliberate finger at her again.

“Different context, alright? That—” He waves an arm behind him, in the direction of Steve carelessly. “—doesn’t count. Nope. Not- that’s not how the test works.”

Robin sighs, as if she realises how fruitless it is to keep chucking this argument between the two of them. Her hands finally resume their typing and Eddie lets his head drop again, this time resting it against the wood a tad more gentle. He slumps, blowing a pointless raspberry as he tries to evacuate every thought that’s entertaining Steve as more. Or Steve wanting more of Eddie.

“Look,” Robin says suddenly, halting her typing once more. Eddie rolls his head so he can see her but doesn’t bother to lift it. She’s sideways in his vision, but still barreling on in that Robin way. “One last thing and then I swear, I’ll leave it.”

Eddie raises his brows. Says nothing.

“Have you considered,” She pauses, and appears to be trying to pick her words carefully. “whether anyone else is putting their bids on you?”

Eddie wrinkles his nose, knowing exactly what she’s hinting at. Subtlety has never been Robin’s strong suit. It’s even more obvious when her eyes dart across the store — Eddie seriously doubts she’s talking about the random customer that had just entered.

“Just think about it?” She pleads, and Eddie feels his annoyance at how easily he can feel his heart roll over. “See if you notice any bids from... anyone! Anyone at all.”

Eddie picks his head up, chances a glance towards Steve and admits, there’s no harm in trying. Even though, Steve had surprised him today Eddie can find a dozen reasons to chalk that up to. A dozen reasons that don’t include mutual feelings.

Eddie mulls it over, because because what are the chances really? Steve putting bids out to him? To specifically Eddie? The chances are slim to none.

So the answer he gives is, “Sure.”

He’ll get to tell Robin later she can stuff it and wipe her smug expression off with the most righteous i told you so on the planet. There was no way she was right about this, right?

Part two. Part three.

#this is not nearly as edited as most things that come out this blog #but i was going for those rambly posts i see of them all da time #<3 #steddie my beloved #ruby writes steddie #steddie #steve x eddie #steddie ficlet #steddie fic #posting this at an odd time bcos it’s not what da usual followers expect #anyways i trust the gay ppl…… they will find this

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jawllines · 4 months

Text

So on a Tuesday, Y/N wakes up from a fitful rest and leaves Harry’s bed to find him in the kitchen. Leaf is cradled to his chest while he speaks to someone on the phone – a designer, she thinks, they’re talking about a pattern of something, but Y/N isn’t sure. She doesn’t get to know either because as soon as Harry sees that she’s awake, he smiles, then hovers his finger over the end button, “Mael, I’ll call you a little later, yeah?” He hangs up without a second thought, and Y/N’s eyes go wide.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand.

“Nah, s’boring shit anyway. Chevron is a thing of the fucking past and it’s not coming back any time soon on my watch.” He turned on his stool, stretching out his legs and waving her forward, and when she got close enough, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, until she was standing between his thighs, “You take forever to get up. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were still a human.”

Harry and Y/N like being around each other maybe too much

part 1

part 2

part 3

iv.

Y/N wondered how many vampires she’d seen in her lifetime.

Unlike the stories and movies, they didn’t lurk in the night and meld into the shadows all of the time. Their skin was pale, but no more pale than someone living in the mountains with very little sun. Their eyes weren’t red, or golden brown, or pools of black – they were just normal irises, no different than humans, the color encrypted in their DNA from conception. They were gorgeous, sometimes eerily so, but not in a way that you could easily group them by their features. It was comparable to being backstage on a runway – the people surrounding you were models, you knew that, and they were all beautiful in their own way with their own unique features. The difference is that instead of only finding them pretty in passing, it’s mesmerizing, almost hard to fathom, alluring in an almost unignorable way.

But Y/N can’t remember ever being out in public and seeing a vampire, even if she didn’t know what they were called at the time. Clearly she didn’t, if one was able to ask her on a date and she’d just presumed she’d lucked out with an attractive man who didn’t mind dating below his league. Otherwise, they were masters of camouflage, or Y/N was just less observant than she thought.

Because right now, even to the untrained eye, Y/N is almost positive that she looks like a vampire. Or at least that something is off with her. It’s in the way her posture is almost too correct, ramrod straight like someone straightened out her back and put her in a brace to keep her unmoving. Her chest did not rise and fall with each breath – not because the need to use her lungs had not been completely eradicated yet, but for the fact she’s taking a ton of shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid smelling anything, or anyone. The way she holds her fork looks weird to her – she hadn’t held a fork in so long it was an unfamiliar weight between her fingers. She gave terse replies to questions, and could barely hold a conversation longer than small talk.

To anyone looking or interacting with her, they must think she’d grown up in a basement and just recently ventured out into the world. To Harry, who sits across from her with an amused look dancing across his features, he knew she was just attempting to reacclimate into society.

They had been out before, but normally that was at night, or early during cloudy weekdays when most of the city population is stuck in their stuffy office buildings. When the amount of humans is sparse and Y/N could amble away if being around them became too much. She’d never been forced to sit among them for longer than a couple minutes at a time, maybe waiting in a long line, or patiently off to the side when a human woman was interested in the same earrings that she was.

That had been her toeing the water; Harry held her hand at the edge of a dock while she dipped her feet into the pool of being a productive member of society again. She would have to return to work at some point, and she would need to be able to attend social events or see her family, or her friends back home without wanting to eat them. Harry was surrounded by humans all day nearly every day and he hasn’t lashed out and ended up in a tabloid for sinking his teeth into a designer. It was possible, though it would take time, and a lot of practice – at some point she would be able to integrate seamlessly back into the human world.

At some point – right now, it was fucking hard.

Harry took her out for lunch, at a small deli a couple blocks from his flat. It was a day when the sky was heavy with clouds and would be for the majority of the afternoon, so they were able to venture out with no fear that Y/N would get all rashy again. All of Y/N’s fear lay within being in closed quarters with humans and pretending that the scent of their blood doesn’t affect her in the slightest. Or that the leaves of the salad she was stuffing into her mouth tasted more than just bland, rubbery nothing to a palate now keen on something metallic and sweet. And in that fear, and her overexerting her effort trying to look normal, she thinks she’s making herself look uncanny, unapproachable, and too much like she doesn’t belong. Like someone clipped her out of a comic book and pasted her in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

“Relax your shoulders,” Harry spoke from across the table, having already eaten half his sandwich, tucking the straw of his soda at the corner of his lips and sipping, “It looks like I just brought you out of a boarding school.”

“Shut up.” Y/N had been saying that a lot to him today because it was two simple words that didn’t require as much effort as trying not to eat someone.

Harry smiled, all too relaxed for what Y/N would think are pretty serious circumstances but she guesses he’s been through this so often he isn’t worried about a thing. Harry never seemed worried when they did something new, always promising her that he would know if she was going to do something stupid, because he knows her. And if the need to subdue her were to arise, then he could do so easily, or so he tells her every time she’s stressed about it.

“You had plenty to eat before we came,” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, his brows raising slightly, “Even if you take a small little breath through your nose, you won’t feel like you need to do anything.”

It’s difficult to talk inconspicuously about it, in case someone nosy was listening into their conversation (because Y/N is fucking nosy, so she knows someone else is bound to match her), but Harry does it easily. Y/N did eat a considerable amount before they did this, from the baggies, and even a little treat from Harry just before they’d left the flat. She was full, blood-drunk, and hazy up to the point that they were about to walk inside the shop and she’d worked herself up.

“Mind over matter,” Harry slid his leg to her and locked their ankles together – he was resting his chin and cheek in his palm, watching her carefully, drinking her in, “Just take a small little breath through your nose, hm? You’ll see it’s not as bad as you think.”

Y/N blinks at him, gripping her fork a little too hard, and she feels the stainless steel give beneath her grip, “I – okay,” she nodded, slow, steady – the whole point of this excursion was to start working on being able to smell humans without wanting to desperately sink her teeth into them. Before she could start utilizing feeders, she needed to be completely in control of how her body responds and reacts to stimuli like this. At least that’s what Harry tells her, and she’s inclined to believe him since there isn’t anyone to bounce off of his ideas anymore. She isn’t sure if they’re still on the pathway he used for all the new vampires he mentored or if he’d toggled it based on their situation. She could message Christopher and Naomi about it but every time she messages them, her heart yearns and aches in her chest.

“You’ll stop me if anything happens?” She knows he will, but she feels better when he’s all cocky and sure of himself. One of them needed complete faith in the situation, and it usually was Harry.

Harry, who had been treating her all soft and tender lately. His words could still be harsh and he rolls his eyes and rumples his lips at her when she says something he thinks is stupid, and he’s patient, but even that patience runs out relatively quickly – but every interaction has a much softer edge to it. With every harsh critique of her technique or skill, (“How many times are you going to listen to the neighbor’s conversation and not me outside, downstairs, when you’re on the balcony? It shouldn’t matter how many flights up you are, this is baby stuff we’re trying to accomplish now!”) there is a gentle caress of her skin. His fingers will dance along her wrist, and he’ll slide his fingers between the slots of hers, and squeeze, before murmuring, “Let’s try again.”

They are much closer now – Y/N doesn’t know if they’re dating, or if vampires even date, but she knows that Harry treats her like they might be. Harry pushes his nose into her neck and breathes in deeply like she’s the best thing he’s ever smelled. He entertains her musings about code and work despite not having a clue what she’s talking about or saying. At the end of the night (early in the morning) when she is thinking about lying down, Harry offers his room to her, his bed.

“You can always sleep in here,” he’d told her, “Even if I’m not here, yeah? Just don’t stain the sheets or anything, because to keep them this pristine even with a kitten has been hell.”

Shit, he’s even referred to Leaf as their baby a couple of times, whereas previously he’s only called her his own. “What are you doing to my baby?” Is what he would say before when Leaf is playing with one of the many feathered string toys that Harry bought her and Y/N accidentally makes her jump right into the wall. Now it’s things like, “Our baby is so happy,” when she comes up to them on the sofa, purring and kneading at Y/N’s thighs before snuggling in her lap and falling asleep.

Things with him were soft. This certainly felt like a relationship, sometimes, but Y/N knew better than to get ahead of herself. Last time she did that she ran away from her hometown and then got bitten by a fucking vampire, so it was better to just take things a step at a time.

“What, you think I’m g’na let you eat someone and make me look bad?” He speaks low enough that only she could hear, helped by the loud chatter of voices around them, and stretches one arm across the table, looping his fingers around her forearm, and dragging the blunt tip of his nail along her skin, “Of course I’ll stop you, dummy.”

Y/N shivers but feels safe; he’s got a leg wrapped around hers, and a hand on her. If she tried to move, he would stop her immediately. Harry doesn’t say aloud that that’s what he’s doing, but they both know it makes her feel better when he’s got his hands on her in some way. She’d told him as much in the past when she’d looped her arm in the gap between his and his body when they first went into the grocery store.

“Hm, is this a ploy to make me touch you in public? You’re a filthy exhibitionist.” He’d teased her at the time, but now he keeps his hand on her when they’re out. An arm wrapped around her shoulder, a hand at the nape of her neck, his fingers looped around her wrist.

She lets herself breathe in, just a little bit, a tiny inhale through her nose. The scents weren’t overwhelming like she’d thought – there’s plenty to sift through, it wasn’t just an onslaught of the blood pumping through the veins surrounding them. Fresh bread, the fabric softener on people’s clothes, the cleaner used to wipe down tables when they were emptied – she smelled all of that too. All a mix, like when she was a human, only she could smell and separate them just a note better than she could before. And the blood – she couldn’t smell blood before, but with a belly full, it wasn’t as hard. It still made her mouth water, and there was an itch beneath her skin that wanted to be plucked at, but nothing she couldn’t handle.

Harry drags his nails back and forth on her forearm lazily, “See?” His relaxed posture stays, leaning on his palm, “You’re not a monster, are you, baby?”

She swallowed thickly, shaking her head, “No, I’m not,” she cleared her throat a little, “We need to – um – we need to get Leaf chicken treats, she likes those best.” Y/N wanted to practice being normal, talking about normal things, and thinking about something else than how she’s trying not to breathe in too deeply. She didn’t necessarily explain this to Harry beforehand but he doesn’t seem confused either, just goes along with it.

“Really? I kind of thought she liked the shrimp ones better.”

Y/N focuses more on Harry’s scent – he smells good. He always smells so good, that whenever she does sleep in his bed, she dips her nose into the blankets and stuffs her face into the pillows (obviously when he’s not there, she would never live that down). If she could shove her nose in the base of his throat and not stuff her teeth into his neck then she would do it all of the time. Harry does it to her, unprovoked and unannounced, burrowing the cold tip of his nose against her carotid. She used to squirm, her ear meeting her shoulder as she pulled away from him, but now she’s gotten used to it – now, she almost expects it when he comes home from work, and if he doesn’t, she’s a little disappointed.

It’s easy to forget why she’s at Harry’s in the first place if she’s just focusing on her and Harry’s dynamic. It’s also easy to forget that she would eventually face the music when she has to confront her feelings – Niall. There was a heavy weight on her shoulders like she wore a helmet of cast iron everywhere she went; sometimes she would forget about it, it’d been so long that it was easy to let it slip her mind, but then her shoulders would feel the pressure of it periodically.

Like when you wear glasses for the first time. At first, it is all you can think about, how it rests on the bridge of your nose, the way the frames outline your field of view. But a couple of hours in they’re merely an extension of you, you forget they’re on your face until you reach up to rub your eye and something is in the way.

The helmet was heavy, the look in Niall’s eyes as he told her, the cold feeling that had flushed through her veins when he’d admitted it. She wondered if it felt like his own helmet had been lifted, the weight of his guilt eased by the admission. Did he know he was going to transfer it to her? Take the helmet off and plop it onto her head?

Her heart was torn in two. Y/N wanted to hate him for it, she really did – want to cuss him out, scratch him, and spit on him – how did vampires fight? Did they bite each other? Do they punch each other? Kick, slap? Was it still below the belt to kick him in the balls or was that an appropriate fighting tactic? Harry had never taught her how to fight – she thought maybe some sort of combat training would be important down the line, but vampires don’t usually do that. Movies and books make it seem like it was a constant battle, always something going on that they needed to defeat. Vampires typically coexist peacefully, is the thing, and their only true threat are hunters but it’s often better to avoid them or flee the situation than to fight, at least when you’re new. As long as she doesn’t act recklessly then she wouldn’t have to worry.

And in the same breath that she hated him, she owed him her life. It was a new one – a flawed one, no more flawed than her old life, but still a new life. She would have to change how she lives, eats, exists, and it’s scary – it’s so scary! But she was alive. She was still walking around, she could still work toward goals she’d set for herself, and she could find a place for herself in this world instead of bleeding out in an alley, still feeling lost and alone.

Would she have walked away from someone in need how she expected Niall to? If she’d stumbled upon the same scene, would she have been able to ignore it? She couldn’t even ignore a fucking kitten meowing! So it was hard – her feelings were difficult to work through and that was only worsened by her not seeing him. Playing house at Harry’s flat and ignoring what happened.

“Where’d you go?” Harry pulls her out of her reverie, and she realizes she’d been digging her fingers into the croissant she was holding, her eyes dazed. He drags his fingers along her skin again, tenderly, gently, “Hmm? Where’d my girl go?”

Y/N feels warm and bubbly and allows herself to revel in the giddiness that comes with Harry treating her like something special. If there was one single benefit from this whole mess, it would be Harry – experiencing this homely side of him. Whether it be the connection through their blood, or their time spent together, she felt at complete, and total ease in Harry’s presence. If she was starting to spiral, he pulled her out of it just as quickly.

“Sorry,” she murmured, swallowing, ripping a piece of the flaky pastry and laying it on her tongue – it tasted like nothing, chalky and bland, “I. . .need to figure things out with Niall soon. I can’t keep burdening you.”

“You’re no burden,” he answered without a second thought, “Not even a little bit, but I understand needing to sort things out for your peace of mind.” He reaches forward, thumbing at the apple of her cheek, and pinching playfully, “But you don’t need to leave just for that, hm? You’re no burden to me.”

Y/N rests on the palm of his cheek, sighing, and the smell of all the other humans in the place pales in comparison to Harry, “Mm,” she nuzzles – it’s embarrassing, how easy she is for him, but he doesn’t tease her like he probably could, “I just. . .I think, how I’m seeing it, is I would have done the same.” She explained, “If I’d seen someone, I would have done the same, you know?” Her gaze flickered toward him, “Would you?”

“I have,” he shrugged, “You know, it’s something that you never really know what you’ll do at the moment but when it’s presented in front of you – that’s when you’ll know. You act off instinct,” he squeezes her shoulder, slipping down to her bicep, “Just how you ran to go save Leaf with no concern of the sun. This isn’t me trying to sway you either,” he shook his head, “If you decided you fucking hated him and never wanted to see him again, I would endorse it. If you decide that you’ll forgive him, then I’ll accept that – whatever you want to do.”

Y/N nodded, “Yeah,” she ripped another piece of croissant, “Yeah, okay.”

. . .

Despite coming to terms with what she wanted to do, it still took her a week to gain the courage to see him. Harry doesn’t push the issue, merely enjoys his time with her and Leaf until she tells him she is ready. Honestly, there were a couple of times when Y/N wondered if she should just start ignoring it again and live life peacefully with Harry, or as peacefully as she could. But still, it weighed on her, like a Niall-shaped force that stretched himself over her and smothered her in her sleep. She had dreams of confronting him, some heartwarming and with a good outcome, some horrible that left her with tears bearding her eyes.

She needed to do it. If she did, then she could better focus on whatever the hell is going on between her and Harry. And being a vampire. . .big, important things like that.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand.

She laid her hands on his thighs, “I need to do it today,” she told him, and she didn’t have to be descriptive for Harry to know what she was talking about, “It’s gotta be today or I won’t.”

His gaze softened, the pale skin of his face smoothed over into something contemplative and understanding. There’s a soft sound that pulls from his throat, and his legs squeeze around her as he nods, “Okay,” he answered easily, “Do you want to ambush him or should I give him a heads up?”

“Will he run away if he knows I’m coming?”

Harry pursed his lips in thought, “You know, Niall isn’t one to run away,” he started, “But he also isn’t one to admit when he’s in the wrong either, and he’s done that, so I reckon some of the things I knew about him fundamentally might be wrong. He may flee from guilt alone or he’ll respect you enough to want to hear what you have to say.”

“Then you can let him know,” she took Leaf, scratching the soft, short furs beneath her chin, “If this is a friendship worth salvaging, then he’ll wait for me.”

The drive, which typically felt like an hour-long adventure out to the secluded space in which Mitch’s house resided, felt far quicker than it ever had before. Y/N thought it was because this time, she actually wanted it to go by slowly so that she had the chance to collect her thoughts and plan out exactly what she was going to say, and how she was going to say it. She needed the full forty-ish minutes (accounting rush hour) to develop her script, but Harry must be pressing the gas pedal right down to the floorboards because they zip through the roads in record time.

There’s a hazy, orange glow casting over the trees while the sun sank beyond the horizon, the other half of the sky blotching the inky black sky of a winter night. She wondered if there would be stars later on – there hadn’t been for the last couple of days because of clouds heavy with snow, that’s now freckling the earth and freezing up the soil. Y/N missed them – she feels like she hasn’t seen them in a while.

They roll up in front of the house, and Y/N thinks all of three seconds go by before a pouting Naomi rips the passenger door open, “Shame on Harry for keeping you all to himself,” she whined, and she unbuckling Y/N before Y/N could even gather her bearings, pulling her out of the car and into her arms. Naomi looks a bit frail but she’s got the strength of someone who’s prepared for war, and she gives Y/N a bone-crushing hug. “I’ve missed you!”

Y/N laughed lightly, squeezing her arms out from where they’d been trapped between their bodies so she could reciprocate the show of affection, “I missed you too,” she replied.

“Oi,” he grumbled, “I wasn’t keeping her to myself, I gave her a haven in a rough time.”

“You never let any of us come over besides Christopher!”

Harry crossed his arms, after pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, “Why would I want you heathens in my flat? The lot of you would trash the place or steal from me.”

“You’re just no good at sharing, you –”

Their voices fade into the background as Y/N leaves them to bicker, a tiny quirk at her lips like the muscles in her face want to smile but are thinking better than to. It was nice, sort of, to be back; to smell all the familiar scents, like she was returning home. This felt more like home than her flat did now, just from the sheer amount of time she’d spent here. She walked the familiar map from the front door, to her room, and nearly made a pitstop to give herself more time but muscled through the desire to. Y/N took the four more steps she needed to before knocking on Niall’s door – she could smell him in there.

“Come in.” His voice sounds stiff, and when she opens the door, the position he’s sitting in matches it. He must have heard her coming because he isn’t in the lax state he normally is – his legs are off the end of the mattress, feet firm on the floor. He sits straight, his face serious, stern. She’s so used to the nonchalant way he goes about that this is the most uncanny and makes her feel like an agent sent to question him, or a judge to sentence him. Y/N hated that, she doesn’t want it to be like that – she wants it to be normal between them. Or, normal-ish, at least.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her cat paw chair sitting at the foot of his bed. Niall followed her gaze and answered before she could even question it, “I – um – promise I wasn’t stealing that,” he replied, “I missed. . .you know – having it in here made me feel a little better. Which I know, I don’t deserve to feel good about what happened.”

Y/N ignored him, closed the door behind her, and then plopped down in the chair, resting her back on the pink, plush toe beans, “Get on the floor,” she ordered, patting the empty spot in front of her with her foot, “Please stop sitting so straight, it’s freaking me out.”

Niall is quick to crawl down on the floor in front of her, he relaxes his shoulders so they slump just a little, and he kicks his left leg out how he usually did when he was sprawled out on the floor of her room and they were talking. It brings some normalcy to the situation that Y/N desperately needs. She bites the inside of her bottom lip for a second before giving an unneeded clear of her throat (it was just a habit at this point, she wondered how long it would take for it to break).

“I’m just gonna come right out with it because I don’t want to beat around the bush, and if I do, I’ll just talk myself in circles until I don’t make any sense,” she started, “At first I was so mad at you I could have slapped you and spit on you and called you names. I was pretty sure that I never wanted to see you again and that I would be fine if you were completely wiped from my life,” he grimaces at the description but does nothing to refute it, “But you couldn’t have been wiped from my life, if I wasn’t living to begin with, which – I know, it gets a little confusing and convoluted. This life I have now is. . .odd, and different, and I’m not human anymore, and maybe by all technicalities I’m not alive, but I feel like I am.” She runs her thumbnail along the inside of her other palm, following the lines in them she’s had since birth, “I feel the world around me, and I can love, and I can talk, and laugh, and work, and cry. I can do all the things that I did before and then some, so even if it is different. . .I’m still alive. And I wouldn’t be had it not been for you.”

Niall is following along, motionless, soaking in every word, “I’m more upset that you kept it from me. It would have just been nice to know, right? What exactly had happened that night, it’d been plaguing my mind and you would ask every so often, and now I’m realizing it was less from a place of care and more you covering your tail.” She shrugged her shoulders when Niall’s face scrunched with shame, “But I can’t sit here and act like I would do something different. I don’t know what I would do, in a situation like that – I think, if I came across someone in my position, then I would have changed them too. I don’t really know how at this point, but I would have tried to figure it out. And I would have been scared, afterward, I don’t know if I would have told anyone either. But I thought we were close enough. . .at least a month in, I feel like you could have told me,” she sighed, “That’s what makes me angriest. I thought we were friends but you were just being nice to me because you felt bad.”

“That’s not true.” It was the first time he’d uttered a word since she began, “You – maybe at the start, I was a little more protective of you because I felt bad, but the rest of it – I truly felt friendship with you. Not all of it was a lie,” he shook his head, “I wanted to tell you, I did, but it never seemed like an opportune time to. And the one chance I did get, I chickened out. But I get it, if – if you need to be angry, be angry, I honestly wish you would just slap me or hit me or something, so it felt like I was getting punished for it.”

“I wanted to, believe me, but Harry was pretty convinced that you were punishing yourself enough for it. Listen, what I’m saying is,” she crawled off the cat paw, and took his hands in her own – they were smooth and ice cold – he probably hasn’t been eating well, “My feelings are very conflicted and confusing, and I don’t know if I forgive you entirely, but forgiveness isn’t out of the question. Do you get what I mean?” Niall hums his assent, “I know things can’t go back to the way they were entirely, but I’d like it if we could get somewhere close to it. And – and if you think about it, we’ll probably be around for decades, won’t we? I’m bound to get over it eventually.”

Niall and Y/N don’t really hug – Naomi is the touchy-feely type, and Y/N can be when she wants to be, but Niall is much more reserved with his affections. So that’s why she is tentative and a little hesitant in embracing him, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck, but she’s pleasantly surprised to feel him hug her back tightly, “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and his words vibrated through her throat, “I’m so sorry, thank you for even coming back to talk to me. I thought surely with Harry at your side, you would’ve hated my guts.”

“You would be surprised by this, but Harry went to bat for you pretty hard,” she peeled back just a little bit, “I mean, he didn’t try to change my opinion but his of you never faltered.”

Niall frowned, “Ugh, it’s so hard to keep up with hating him sometimes,” Y/N laughed, “Seriously, he’ll be the worst prick alive and then he does something unreasonably kind and it’s like. . .either be a dick, or be nice, I hate the mix-up.” He gently let his arms slip away from her but he remained close, “Speaking of, I’ve been eavesdropping on him and Mitch – they never hear me coming so I can always get away with knowing shite I shouldn’t – has he told you yet? About the whole blood thing?”

Y/N shook her head, and part of her was worried that Niall would save it for Harry to tell her, but she forgot that Niall is Niall, and through and through, he loved causing trouble for Harry at any given notice, “After Mitch’s initial displeasure that he’d been keeping it from him, he said there was something called ‘fated pairs’ or something like that. Your bodies call out to each other on a molecular level, something that was – predetermined the day you were both born. There was a lot of vampiric folklore nonsense that he spouted off, but he seemed pretty convinced. I don’t know why it affects you both in the way that it would make you horny, but, yeah. He said that it would’ve been the same if you were human – even if you were both humans, actually. That it was like a soul bond.”

It was a lot to take in; Y/N is relieved of one stress and then immediately another is placed on top of her. Was it stress though? She doesn’t feel stressed at the thought of them being bonded together by their souls – she doesn’t mind that – but she is stressed that maybe he minded that. Because as far as Harry was concerned, there was no rhyme or reason for their reaction to one another’s blood. Y/N hadn’t even known he’d spoken to Mitch about it, and so to find out he has and he didn’t even express the findings to her. . .worries her, a bit. Did he not like it? Was the thought of being tied to her horrible? But if it was then he wouldn’t have been so doting and cuddly these last few weeks, right?

“You look stressed,” he noted, “I would be too if I was bonded to that fucker, so I understand.”

Breathlessly, she laughs again, “He’s not so bad.”

. . .

Harry gets pretty clingy when Y/N goes back.

Though he’d promised that she wasn’t a bother, she still felt guilty to be inhabiting his home when he was at work. She’d been hearing him postpone different trips too, a couple of days in Italy, a fashion show in France – things that he always went to before, and she had a feeling it was because he didn’t want to leave her alone. It was sweet, but it made her feel guilty, so she decided it was okay to go back for a little while and reacclimate to the house.

It wasn’t so bad – going from Harry’s modern, high-tech flat to Mitch’s Victorian-style mansion was different but it isn’t horrible. Y/N liked being surrounded by people when Harry was at work or attending some smarmy event, instead of being alone. The only downside was there was a little Leaf-shaped hollow in her heart, but Harry describes shared custody and drops her off with Y/N when he knows he’s going to be out all day or if he does have to leave for one of those week-long trips.

The others act like she never left. She goes to the movie nights and nobody mentions what happened. Christopher gives her a big, long hug when he sees that she’s returned, then promptly warms her two mugs of “the sweetest blood” as a welcome home present. Naomi comes to inhabit Y/N’s bed and talks about pop culture and how Samuel is fucking someone who isn’t Theodore so that had been a lot of drama while she was away. Delphine starts to visit her room for Leaf – apparently, she’d grown up with a lot of barn cats, so she was very fond of them, and they find their shared love for animals as a link to start speaking more comfortably with each other. And wherever Delphine was, Saskia was close behind. Her past with cats was checkered because she had an allergy to them before, but being a vampire meant eradicating all allergies, so she hesitantly gave Leaf a pet or two.

Leaf, all tiny and soft, loves the extra attention.

Niall still comes to her room but not without being invited first. Y/N thinks eventually this will change, but it seems like he doesn’t want to smother her with his presence, though Y/N wouldn’t find it smothering at all. He’s still hesitant, and she gets it – Y/N liked that he respected her enough to let her decide if she was in the right headspace to see him that day or not.

The only person who takes it hard and acts like it is the worst thing in the world is Harry. He never goes three days without coming to see her, and when he isn’t with her, he’s messaging her and calling her, asking if she wants to FaceTime in between flights. When he does come, he poses a strict, “Nobody bothers us” rule where he threatens to move her dresser in front of the door to ward off “unwanted” intruders (though they could all probably move the dresser anyway, they’re very strong). He crawled into her bed and pulled her into his body, dragging the blankets over them, “You smell too much like the others,” he’d grumble, resting his chin on the top of her head, “Hate it.”

“You’re silly,” she’d respond but soaked in the snuggling happily — it used to be something they merely indulged in while she was asleep; before, Harry would only ever kind of curl around her or pet her or hold her when she was all blood drunk and full, seconds from slumber. Now he’s much more open and willing to do it whenever – when they were watching the telly, when they were on the ground and Y/N was painting her nails (“I should sit behind you, yeah? You can sit between my legs, and when you’re done with one hand, I’ll blow on your fingers to dry them,”) if they were outside on the deck, practicing whatever Harry had come up with for the day.He crowds her space like he was made to. If Harry was there, they’re glued at the hip, and that was just normal now.

Y/N wondered if he would ever bring up the whole bond thing, but he seemed content not to. Still, it didn’t seem to deter him from letting her snack on his blood, which she sure only furthers the whole thing. So maybe he wasn’t concerned with it – maybe he was just seeing where it went. Y/N isn’t sure, but she’s usually good at ignoring things. If the other party didn’t want to talk about it then she wouldn’t either, it was never in her nature to press for answers.

. . .when she was a human, at least. Being a vampire hasn’t changed her at a fundamental level, she doesn’t believe, but it has given her a new outlook on life, and a different perspective on some things. It was better to ask and get an answer that she didn’t want rather than continue not knowing something for sure. If she’d lived by that rule in the past it would have probably saved her a lot of trouble.

So Y/N asks him outright, Leaf curled in her lap in a tiny furry heap, and Harry with his arms curled around Y/N’s body protectively. Nobody else was in the den – they were either in their rooms or out and about (with a strict curfew now, because of the whole thing between her and Niall – Mitch blamed himself for giving them a little too much freedom being newly presented). Harry suggested they utilize the tv then, instead of trying to watch it on her laptop screen. Harry tells her they should be at his flat, but since he was supposed to go three hours away for a photoshoot tomorrow, he didn’t want to leave her alone (it turns out he’d been postponing more than she had initially thought so now he was playing catch up – something about Spring deadlines and all of that).

The screen clears as the next episode of the show they’re watching loads up, and maybe it isn’t the best timing or the best place to do it, but she has to ask before she loses her nerve.

“Are we a. . .fated pair? Is that what it’s called?”

She feels Harry stiffen behind her, his hold around her arms tightening only slightly as he processes what she’d just inquired. There aren’t a lot of things that could stun Harry, as long as he’s been around he normally has a response to anything and everything within a couple of seconds – but he sits with this for a little longer. His fingers, where they’d rested on her waist, began to play with the fabric of her shirt, plucking at the hem and fiddling with the stitches. The tension in the air is palpable, but it isn’t a horrible tension. Not something she wanted to run away from, at least.

“Niall,” Harry finally muttered, like he’d been spending half of the time he was silent, trying to figure out how Y/N would have heard that, “That fucker is too good at masking his presence.”

“Harry –”

“I know,” he exhales, and Y/N thinks it’s funny that he does things like this not because he’s releasing a breath, but to express how he’s feeling. He nudges the side of her head with his own and dips his nose into the curve of her throat, his favorite spot, “With you at my flat, and with how you’d been eating from me still, the – how I felt for you was becoming concerning and a little obsessive. Not in like an obsessive “I’m going to kill her so nobody else can have her” way, more like a “I want to be near her and I’m forgoing responsibilities to spend time with her” kind of way. I don’t do that, for people, I’m not. . .so giving with my time, which makes me sound like a dick, but it’s the truth. I have my time and they have theirs, even if it’s someone that I’m interested in,” he slides his fingers beneath her shirt’s fabric, his nails tracing circles into her skin, “But with you, I just. . .wanted to be around you. To be with you makes me feel calm; it soothes me like putting ice on a sprain. And for you to drink from my vein and our bodies react so intensely to it. . .well, it had to be something.”

“I was glad to ignore it and just continue enjoying myself with you, but I was getting curious. And I knew you and Niall would make up soon, and you’re so concerned about being a burden all of the time, I knew you wouldn’t take me up on my offer to stay with me. This meant I was going to be coming around her, and being way more possessive and clingy than I ever have before and Mitch always knows what’s going on in the house. He would ask me about it eventually, so I just beat him to it.” He lifted his head, and his words were less muffled when he coaxes her to lean back against his chest more, “He went into the most intricate, convoluted discussion about molecules, and vampiric folklore, and I’ll be honest most of it went right over my fucking head, except for him saying that we were bound together by our souls. That whether we had met like this, or centuries ago in my village, while I was running from war, or had I just been some random UNI student sitting beside you in class – we would always have this kind of connection. It’s rare,” he squeezes her hips, “It’s a rare thing, a really rare thing, and it used to happen more often back in the 1600s but that doesn’t mean it never happens now.”

Y/N cranes her neck to face him, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her brows pinched toward the center, and Harry reached out, using his thumb to press at the crinkle in her skin and smooth it out.

“I wanted to, but – I don’t know. I kind of wanted you to conclude for yourself, if you liked me or not. I didn’t want it to feel forced because you knew about this. Other than my blood making you a filthy, horny little thing, I don’t know exactly what your feelings are for me. And I know – you told me you feel whole after you drink from me, but again, outside of that – outside of the blood, I don’t know how you feel.”

Y/N thinks, that if she’d eaten recently, blood would be roaring in her ears and her heart would be thudding something fierce in her chest. It was one thing to have Niall tell her on a whim, it was another thing for Harry to admit it to her, all shy, avoiding her gaze and pressing tight and close to her body. It was another thing to hear him feel insecure about not knowing how she felt about him.

Because for Y/N, she’d thought she’d been incredibly obvious. She wanted to be around him always, she recognized his scent out of everyone anywhere, she felt safe when his hands were on her in some way, or even when he was just nearby. Even when he was short with her, or grumpy, Y/N had felt endlessly at ease. After what happened at the club, he was the only person she wanted to be around. The way her heart lights up when he calls her sweet names, or when she sees him for the first time in a while. How her whole mind swam at the prospect of him rather hurting his hands than letting anyone else see her vulnerable when she’d been in the sun. No matter when he lost his patience, or when he seemed upset, or even when he swore up and down that he shouldn’t be a mentor – he was supportive, tender, and made her head feel melty and her insides gossamer soft.

“I have plenty of reason to like you, outside of some bond,” she finally replied, wiggling in his arms to face him again – Leaf got up, stumbled out of her lap, then stretched with a silent yawn, “And it wasn’t just after eating. Just being with you makes me feel. . .complete, just as I said before. I thought it was just the blood, but when you leave for work and we’re separated, there’s a – it’s noticeable, the gape I feel in your absence.” Y/N curled her fingers up in his shirt, “I mean, how I feel for you, surpasses how I ever felt for Daniel, my old friend. As dramatic as it is, I’d thought I would never be able to love again –”

“Oh, you humans and your theatrics,” he murmured with a laugh and Y/N smiled shyly, looking away.

“-- but the way I’ve felt about you lately, I just don’t think whatever puppy love crush I had on him scratches the surface. Sorry, I wasn’t clear about it. I’d been so focused on trying to figure out my place in this world again and how to live life like this, that I hadn’t given myself a chance to sit and sort through my emotions. But they’re there – they’re real and scary.”

Harry kisses her – she wasn’t expecting it, but she’d completely turned around in his lap by then so at least the angle wasn’t horrible. His lips are soft, and without the preface of something lewd, it is saccharine and chaste. Y/N shivered, her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned into him, practically molding herself into the shape of his body. It was good – Harry’s been treating her delicately for a while now, but this was different. Like he was kissing something important to him. Something that he wanted to handle with softhearted gloves.

When they part, Harry kisses the corner of her mouth, then her right cheek, her temple, over her forehead, and down the other side of her face. They’re feather-light and ticklish but his arms cage her in so she couldn’t wiggle away, helpless but to giggle. Once he finishes, he hums low and their eyes meet.

“I’ll be keeping you, so get used to this.” He admitted, and if he’d eaten recently, then his cheeks would have flushed pink the way they do anytime he’s sentimental.

Y/N nodded and hid herself in his chest.

She didn’t mind that at all.

. . .

Harry couldn’t wait to see her.

He used to take great pleasure in his week to two-week-long trips out of the country for work, whether he was going to Dubai, Milan, Paris, or other places like it. Harry would gorge on international feeders and sex and all the adoration from people who question his otherworldly beauty and get lost in his sharp gaze. It was nice to be sought after, admired, to get his fill of all the blood he wanted. He thought it was a fair trade, for all those years ago, when he’d been scrawny and worthless to everyone.

However, now? He just can’t wait to get home. Without the sex and the gorging, there actually wasn’t a whole lot to do in any of those spots that he hadn’t done thousands and thousands of times before. It was work, strictly work, and there was no sort of pleasure, apart from the gratification of seeing one of his looks trek down the runway. Besides that, there was only one person he wanted to sleep with now, one person he wanted to be adored by, and only one person he wished to get lost in his gaze.

And she was thousands of kilometers away from him, probably coding some program that made no sense to his brain, in his sweatshirt that he made her promise to wear and those horrific (and endearingly cute) slippers shaped like cats that she picked up from the store in honor of Leaf (who liked to chew on them when Y/N wiggled her toes). Even on the plane ride back home, he wondered how he could make it quicker – if there was a way to travel even faster than a plane. He supposes he could run, his legs are quite fast, but if someone spotted him going a little too fast to be human, then that would be a whole other list of shit to deal with instead of just tucking himself into Y/N’s side.

So as soon as he was finished up, the models had gone home, he’d given his statement for editorials, and he’d shared one glass of wine with a designer he really couldn’t be arsed to learn the name of (he’d drank with types like Chanel and Dior in the past, so the glitz and glamor of it now are easily lost on him) – Harry was on a plane and headed home. He used the in-flight wifi to watch a movie Y/N had suggested to him, but he was barely paying attention. How could he, when he was so excited to get home to her?

It was crazy to think this was where their relationship had ended up. She used to be nothing but an obnoxious little thorn in his side and now all he wants to do is smother her with affection and give her his blood. Y/N was so important to him, it made his heart feel heavy and full for the first time in. . .well, he isn’t sure it’s ever felt this heavy and full before. The weight in his chest is unfamiliar, and at first, it had been unwelcomed, but he likes it now. It’s as if she’d curled her body around it and took residence there. She’s always with him, in that sense of it.

The others had gotten used to it far quicker than he’d imagined they would. He expected more teasing as well, but they all like Y/N a lot, so he guesses to tease him is to tease her indirectly and they don’t want to. The most he gets is scolded that he isn’t good at sharing, and why should he be? Harry feels like he’d spent centuries waiting for her, now that he has her – doesn’t he deserve to be a little selfish? Especially after a week of not seeing her, Harry just wants her all to himself. That’s why he suggested that she come to his flat the first day he’s back, so they could be alone.

So he’s more than happy, after the flight, after getting his shit from baggage claim and finding his car in the mass of other vehicles parked for overnight trips, and the 30-minute long drive from the airport to his flat – to see her just as he’d envisioned her. Only with a few additions; she wore the sweatshirt, and she had on these little shorts that were filthy (but she swore up and down she wore them because they were comfortable and not to taunt him with how little it would take before her bum was out), but tucked under her thigh was Leaf’s feather toy. Whenever Y/N was working, Leaf could go from sleeping peacefully at her side to the zoomies in all of three seconds, so this was her way of keeping her preoccupied – the stick was placed just precisely so that the feather and the string hung off the side of the couch for Leaf to jump and pull at. Y/N has pretty decent thigh muscles so she’s able to keep it in place without letting it move around too much.

She has those horrible little booties on, but she’s wrapped up in the throw blanket that Harry usually has wrapped around him – not for warmth, of course, but the way soft fibers feel against his skin is nice. He knows Y/N is not using it for that purpose because it touches nowhere that her skin shows, besides a little bit of her face. Y/N has it so close to her so that she can smell him, and Harry is just. . .so endeared by that he could scream.

When he walked through the door, Y/N turned to face him with a big grin. She slid her computer out of her lap, and Leaf’s toy fell to the ground once she stood, carefully stepping over the kitten, and getting up on the other sofa so she could climb over it. She gets to him quicker this way, and her arms slink around his neck, and she holds him close, “Finally,” she murmured, “A week is too long.”

“You could always come with me.” He smiled into her hair, letting his eyes close – it was good to have her in his arms again, “I don’t think they’d mind a puppy backstage.”

Y/N peeled away from him, flicking him in the center of his chest, “Shut up,” she threw at him, but it held no real spite, and her eyes were dripping in mirth, “Should I dress myself then show up?”

“Oh, baby, please don’t – let me be the one to dress you.”

It was nice, that back and forth, and had Harry not felt so keyed up then he probably would have started a load of laundry, showered, gotten in more comfortable clothes and they could have just hung out for the night.

But Harry was keyed up – a week away from Y/N meant a week away from not only her beautiful brain, but her beautiful body as well, and he was missing the sounds she’d make when his fingers slid against her. How easy she was to rile up, the way she tasted on his tongue, how dripping wet she got from even just a little bit of Harry’s blood in her. It’s precisely why he’d eaten so much before leaving, and he’s sure she could tell he’d just eaten recently, with how warm his cheeks felt they must be rosy. And that flush on his pale skin is clear as day, especially how it slithers down his throat, and if he’s really worked up, it might splotch his chest.

“When’s the last time you ate, Sweetheart?” He inquired – the icy little tip of her nose was enough to tell him it had been a while.

“Mm, I had some earlier, when I woke up,” she explained, “But I got distracted with work, so I haven’t since.”

Normally, Harry might chide her for that, but he’s all too excited to offer his throat, “I have a treat for you then,” he placed his hands on her hips, walking her backward, “Get on the couch.”

Where Y/N used to start on the side of his body and eventually make her way into his lap while she ate, she just crawled into his lap now to cut out the unnecessary jostling around. The weight of her in his lap is familiar, nice, and something he didn’t realize that he missed until he was away from her. She stretches her thighs on either side of him and scoots in very close; Harry is already half hard, and he isn’t sure if he’d been like this since he saw her, or on the plane when he’d even just thought about her. Whatever it was and whenever it was, he was definitely already getting hard just from the anticipation of her teeth in his neck. It felt like young adulthood all over again, when it wasn’t “mind over matter”, and Harry couldn’t help but get hard in three seconds from one thought.

“I missed you,” she tells him, pressing her chest up against his, her nipples were already hard and Harry felt dizzy with the want burgeoning up from deep in his belly, “So much, and you were only gone for a week. It’s a little embarrassing.”

“I miss you when I leave you alone for an hour,” he slides his hand on the nape of her neck and brings her closer, “Isn’t embarrassing. I’m flattered that you like me enough to miss me, even. Now take what you need, baby, I ate enough to fill you up.”

The slide of her teeth into his skin never gets old, especially when it’s his throat. There’s a bite of pain, immediately soothed over by the euphoric feeling of it not only being a vampire bite, but a Y/N bite. The way she goes about it is still so tentative to start, and unsure, like she’s worried about hurting him – but the moment she tastes his blood on her tongue, all that vanishes. She moaned against his neck like she’d been starving for months and he’d finally come to save her, her fingers digging into his body wherever her hands lie. Harry can feel her inhibitions leave her, the way she gulps, drinks him down, and takes her fill how he wants her to.

It’s always after a minute that Y/N’s body starts to move out of tandem with her. She hates that she starts rutting against him like an overexcited puppy, but that doesn’t stop the way her hips twitch and push closer to him while she’s eating. Harry’s hand slid from her neck, to meet his other at her hips, holding her still as she rolled her hips into him greedily. “Mm, it feels good, doesn’t it, baby? Especially after not having it for so long,” Harry shuddered, closing his eyes as he melted into the feeling, “I bet your pussy is already soaked.”

Y/N whines, and he can only imagine how debauched the scene must look from an outsider's perspective. Her hands slip under his shirt, fingers tracing along his stomach and when the muscles in his abdomen tense up, his cock throbs to match. Harry’s fully hard now, and he thinks he’s already leaking, dripping into the inside of his trousers because he was always one to forgo underwear when it caused lines in his pants. Y/N lines herself up with him, tucking him into the folds because her pussy just swallows these shorts up, and rolls into him, “That’s it,” he whispered, “Such a good girl, you can have anything you want.”

The times she bites his throat aren’t always for pleasure. Harry still tries to prepare her for the first time she will meet with a feeder, so each time Y/N eats she gets better and better. She’s learned to stop when she’s full and to not overstuff herself just because it tastes good. She also has learned to read the queues of the other person, that she might have had too much – it’d be different for a human, but she can tell by the way Harry might start feeling even a degree less warm than he began as.

He isn’t sure what coaxes her to stop today. She pulled away from his neck and lulled her tongue over the little puncture wounds in his skin, before moving so she faced him. Y/N made a pretty sight with her hazy eyes and her mouth stained red. Before he could spend too much time admiring her, she fixes her lips against his, slips her tongue into his mouth, and oh fuck.

She’d kept some of his blood in her mouth, so it filled his own when she kissed him, and his eyes all but rolled up to the back of his head. Who had taught her something so filthy? His cock throbs so hard in his pants and he’s leaking so much precum he’s wondered if he’s cum already – he’s sure it’s sticky and webby beyond belief around the head of his cock, and Y/N isn’t helping the matter, she’s just making it worse.

Harry takes her by the chin, parts her lips, and makes sure they stay open. Without having to instruct her, she presses the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip, waiting patiently – normally Harry places a couple of fingers on her tongue for her to suck and bite at, so he presumes that’s what she was expecting. But Harry couldn’t help himself, and if Y/N was going to be filthy, then he was going to be filthier, so he encased her tongue and her bottom lip with his mouth and suckled at it. When Y/N mewls, he takes more of her in, sucking the taste of him off her tongue while he pries at her little shorts. He was in no mood for her to get off his lap to wiggle them down, so he tore them, shredding the fabric.

She makes a startled sound, mixed with a moan when Harry slips his tongue back into her mouth to kiss her properly again. Harry’s head spins when he backs away from her – they could kiss forever without needing to take a single breath (or they would be able to one day when Y/N really didn’t need to use her lungs anymore), but Harry wanted to look at her. Want to see her with lips bitten red and swollen, filled with blood that Harry kind of wants to knick with his tooth and drink from. He presses at her chest just a little so she stretches back, and he gathers the fabric at the bottom of her shirt in between his thumb and index finger, pressing it up her quivering belly.

Her pussy is puffy and swollen and soaking wet, he would’ve thought she’d been touching herself before he’d come home. He can’t tell if he wants to bury his face or his cock into it more, but another hard throb suggests he’d better do the latter or he would cum hard in his pants. He uses his fingers to spread her open, showing off the engorged bud of her clit, chuckling brightly when it pulses beneath his attention. Harry is unsure what drives him to sink his fingers lower, get three of them wet then return to her clit to slap it, but he does, and the payoff is Y/N trying to close her legs around him with the most wanton of sounds. He does it again, a little harder, and Y/N’s hand comes to grab his wrist, “I’ll cum,” she whines like that was supposed to deter him, “I’ll cum if you keep going.”

“Isn’t that the point?” He murmured, sliding his fingers through her juices and tucking them up inside of her, petting at her g-spot for a second before slipping them back out and licking her off his hand, “Want you to cum.”

“I wanna cum with you in me,” she sounded like she was pleading with him, and Harry had always been a sucker for pretty girls begging, “Please?”

Harry’s quick to work the button of his trousers open, pulling the zip and removing his cock from the oppressive confines of it. He’s harder than he’d even thought, but he was right to assume that he’d leaked so much precum it looked like he’d cum. The clear fluid oozes from the tip in a long, sticky line, filling up the dip of his hip bone. Y/N ogles him with awe-filled eyes, “Whoa,” she swallowed thickly, her fingers tracing up the underside from his balls to the tip, in a move he doesn’t think she means to be as teasing as it is, “You’re really hard.”

“I know,” he bites down hard on his bottom lip as he throbs again, under her attention, in the coolness of the air.

“Like, harder than I’ve ever seen you,” she states, and now her palm slides against his shaft, and she squeezes experimentally, looking between him and his cock, “And you’re so wet –”

“Y/N,” he just barely holds back from whimpering, “No teasing, Darling, I need to fuck this into you or I’ll cum all over myself. You don’t want to waste it, do you?” He inquired, and Y/N shook her head, scooting closer, “Yeah, let me fill you up, Baby, want to watch it fucking drip out of you when we’re done.”

She visibly shivered again, and Harry helped her lift and slide his cock inside of her. Y/N moans, her face pinches up from the pressure of him against her walls but she slips right on down like he belonged inside of her. Harry thinks Y/N likes the stretch – the burn of it, as long as it doesn’t border on too painful. She bottoms out, her arms wrapped around his neck, and she smushes their lips together. The kiss is brief before she nips at his plush bottom lip and sucks it into her mouth. While she does that, Harry presses his upper lip just above hers, his fingers digging into her thighs as she squeezes around him, accommodating his size. Her walls were velvety soft and smooth as they contract around him, the ridges and bumps something he’s set on memorizing.

Her ministrations with her mouth go to his chin, she kisses then bites her way down his jaw, to his ear, laving her tongue over the little wounds that were no doubt closing and healing over by now. Harry offers her his hand when he realizes that she must want to bite something, and he’d made the right assumption when she fits his knuckles between her teeth and chews on him. Harry laughs as she starts to lift her hips, then drops back down onto him, “You’re so fucking cute,” he chuckled, “Should we get you a chew toy? A little bone for a puppy like you?”

“Shut up,” her words are muffled around his fingers in her mouth but she’s riding him well. It feels so fucking good, Harry is holding onto every last bit of strength not to cum before her. A damning feat to accomplish when she finds the angle that hits that bundle of nerves inside of her just right – she clamps down on him, her eyes bead with tears as she fucks down onto him, and nibbles at his fingers.

“Do you feel good, Baby? S’my cock stretching you out nice?” Y/N nodded, whining, “You can cum for me. Don’t you want that? Cum on me and I’ll fill this little pussy right up.”

Harry shoves the sweatshirt up so it rests just above her bare tits, or at least enough that he can visualize them and then get one into his mouth. Her nipples are still hard, so pert and sensitive for him when he pulls them between his teeth and lulls his tongue in big circles around them. Harry alternates between sucking hard and flicking his tongue, and Y/N goes from chewing on his knuckles to holding them uselessly in her mouth and moaning around them. Harry feels her start to cum before she can even tell him through these breathy little whines.

He isn’t ashamed to say he starts cumming before she could finish – he makes sure to work her through it still, fucking through the point of overstimulation, his thumb lulling on her clit when he raised his feet onto the coffee table and started to fuck into her. Harry fills her up, his orgasm splinters through him so intensely that he thinks his vision whites out for a second. He’s throbbing so hard inside of her, he knows she could feel it each time, and in response to each one, she mewls and sighs as she finally starts to come down from her own high.

Harry untucks his face from her chest just as Y/N drops his fingers from her mouth. He’s still tucked inside of her but his cum slicks out from around where his cock is plugging her up, too much of it to even keep inside. The feeling is a little atrocious as it cools, but the thought of what it must look like almost has him stiffening up again.

Y/N all but collapsed onto him, and Harry oofs! dramatically, before wrapping her up in his arms. Her arms moved to hug around his waist this time, and she murmured something on his shoulder that he couldn’t quite make out. She turns her head, so her cheek rests against his shoulder instead, “I said I really missed you,” she repeated, “I’m happy you’re back home.”

A lot of responses run through Harry’s head, including, but not limited to I’m happy you’re here with me, I’m happy you’re in my life, I’m happy my cum is dripping out of you right now, I’m happy that our fates matched in this way, I’m happy that we have a kitten name Leaf, I’m happy our souls are bound together.

Harry doesn’t though. He thinks them, and he smiles to himself when he replies with something that he’s pretty sure covers all of that.

“I’m happy too.”

#WOOOOOOO #OKAY YAY #SORRY IT TOOK LONG #I HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE IT!#I REMEMBERED THE TONGUE SUCKING!!!#WRITING #HARRY STYLES SMUT #HARRY SMUT #YAHTZEEE #OKAY #HOPE YOU LOVE IT #LOVE YOU

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