#which makes it kind of hard to analyse how he fights by himself
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white flag ✹ ch 4
note: i had to rewrite this chapter TWICE. im sick of it so pls enjoy. also forgot to mention on here that I have been away this week on a little holiday. didn't stop me writing tho lol.
pairing: ghost x gn!reader
wc: 2.3k
no use of y/n
readers callsign is 'stingray'
summary: while you're gone on a mission, ghost has time to ponder your relationship, and comes to a long awaited realisation
warnings: ghost's pov, mentions of blood and injury, lil bit of angst
ao3
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ghost never knew how to feel about you.
at first, he really did hate you; you were the bright-eyed new recruit with seemingly endless optimism, he simply couldn't help but be annoyed by you. honestly, he half expected you to tap out a week into the job. you were just so… normal, he found it hard to believe you were cut out for this line of work.
of course, he trusted price's decision to hire you, and deep down ghost knew he wouldn't have recruited you if he didn't think you could handle it, but he looked down on you anyway. it didn't matter how good price thought you were, you'd have to earn ghost's respect.
it was infuriating, the way you fit so easily into the dynamic of the team. they all liked you right off the bat, even the captain, who was notoriously hard to impress. he observed you from afar, watching how you easily broke down their walls and fell into place next to them like it was nothing.
if he was honest with himself, he might have even called it jealousy. it seemed that everything was so natural to you; everything that he struggled with, you did with such ease you made it look like child's play. he especially hated the way you could just be a person. you didn't lock up every time someone spoke to you, you didn't need to sit with a visual on every available exit, and you didn't need to analyse every person you met in the fear that the second you turn your back they'll stab you in it.
you pissed him off, but what was worse than anything else about you, is that ghost had to fight with himself not to like you too.
it was the first time he got sent on an assignment with you that he began to understand why everyone seemed to get along with you so well. the ruthless efficiency with which you did your job was almost shocking to see. he couldn't have predicted how well the two of you worked together; like a well oiled machine, by the end of the mission he didn't even need to communicate verbally, you could just tell what his next move would be.
he finally understood why price fought so hard to get you on the one-four-one – and he finally found it in himself to respect you.
but that didn't change the way he felt about you beyond the field. you were soft, too kind, and too optimistic, you weren't hardened by the job like him. so he went out of his way to be tougher on you than he was with the others, and he rationalised it by telling himself he was helping you; that without a little toughening up, this world would break you, and for some reason, he couldn't stand the thought of that.
when you started to resent him back, it made his stomach feel heavy in a way he'd never felt before. it was new, and uncomfortable, and it scared him. he wasn't sure when he first noticed it, but it only got worse when he came to the realisation that you didn't care for him like you did for gaz and soap.
you could joke around so easily with them, but you go quiet when he enters the room. you never meet his eyes, and make sure to never be physical with him. when he addresses you over comms, you answer with a quick 'yes sir' and that's the end of it. ghost would never admit it, but the distance between you hurt – even if it was by design.
as he lay awake that night, he thought about what it would be like if you treated him the same way you treated the others. he couldn't stop the tiny smile that pulled at his lips as he imagined laughing with you, sitting next to you, touching you.
he imagined you, taking his calloused hand into your own, so gentle and kind like you always were, and the way his pulse skyrocketed scared him into staying up the rest of the night.
after that, the way he saw you changed. where he used to think you were soft – and therefore weak – instead he saw the way you chose to be kind. when once your constant jokes with the others was an inability to take things seriously, now it was your specialty way to keep up morale, and ghost actually found himself chuckling at a few of your quips.
it was like his entire perspective had shifted, everything about you that used to annoy him gradually became something he appreciated about you.
it took him a while, but he finally came to the conclusion that he… liked you.
but it was bittersweet, because he already knew you didn't want him, and he doubted you ever would. you'd never see him in the same light, he'd ruined his chances before he even knew he wanted one.
maybe it was for the best, though. you deserved better, someone who would treat you right, someone normal. he already knew you didn't want him, and he could never blame you for that. people like you don't fall in love with people like him, that's just the way it is.
so he resigns himself to burying the feelings he harbours for you. you never had to find out, if you did you'd surely be disgusted by someone like him being interested in you. he couldn't handle rejection like that, not from you.
when price told him he'd have to take you in when your house burned down, he was fucking terrified. it shook him to his core, how much he liked the idea of the two of you living under the same roof. he did his best to avoid you, leave you in peace like he assumed you wanted; but you – wonderful, kind you – wouldn't just leave him to his misery.
you were being nice to him, and he couldn't figure out why. he assumed it was because he was doing you a favour by letting you stay with him; he couldn't even trick himself into believing that you might be doing it because you liked him.
every night, he'd go back to that fantasy of existing with you, by your side instead of at arm's length. you were so close, just a single door separating you, his hands started sweating every time he passed by the living room.
he knew he was a goner the morning you woke up before him. he'd scarcely ever seen you in a casual setting, but walking into the kitchen and being greeted by you sitting at the table, the domesticity of it all hit him like a bullet to the chest.
it was exactly what he wanted, and it scared the shit out of him, so he panicked. he needed to stay away from you, for your own good, so he did what the ghost does best.
he ran away.
he didn't even consider what you'd think, he just had to get away, before he said something he'd end up regretting.
when you came through the door, soaking wet, and laid into him – which he knew he deserved – he immediately regretted leaving you behind. seeing you cry, knowing it was because of him, it made him feel sick. he knew he never wanted you to feel that heartache again, especially if it was because of him.
he'd give anything to start again with you, go back to the beginning and do it all right this time, but the only thing he could do was try and make up for what he'd put you through.
the hot chocolate was a peace offering; he knew you loved it – he even knew about the stash you had of it hidden in price's office, away from the other soldiers. he half expected you to just tell him to piss off, but when you accepted it, he felt his heart soar.
it ignited a spark of hope within him. more than anything, he just wanted you to like him, it didn't matter if you never saw him the way he wanted you to.
he intended on waking you up the next evening, before he left for the pub, but when he saw how peaceful you looked while you slept, he couldn't bring himself to disturb you.
you stayed with gaz and soap most of the night, and he spent the night watching you from the bar and dimly lit corners, assuring himself that you were okay. when it came time to drag you home with him, he had never been so nervous. taking care of people was the exact opposite of his strong suit, especially when they started crying at him.
he almost couldn't believe his ears when you said you liked him.
he'd dragged you home with an arm wrapped around your waist, his head feeling light as a feather. by all accounts, he should've been annoyed at having to look after you in your inebriated state, but he found himself smiling under his mask the whole way home – even when you almost threw up on him.
when you rested your head on his shoulder on the bathroom floor, he might've actually short-circuited. all thoughts except for you evacuated his mind, and a wonderfully warm feeling blossomed in his chest that made his stomach flutter like never before.
he came so close to spilling his guts to you, but then he remembered that you were drunk, and you most likely wouldn't remember it if he did. so he resigned himself to tucking you into bed with an uncharacteristically gentle touch.
the next day, sitting on that park bench with you, laughing with you like he'd wanted to for so long – it was everything to him. it sent his pulse through the roof, it was complicated, and it was so pleasantly warm.
the logical part of him knew that this would only end painfully for him, but found himself willing to risk that if it meant more of these moments with you.
but of course, he'd fucked it all up at the first opportunity. he'd screamed in your face and he had yet to even apologise for it – for any of it. he felt immeasurably guilty, but he was so scared he couldn't even force himself to be around you.
even price had yelled at him for how he'd treated you. you were traumatised, you had a very real phobia as a result of the house fire, and he felt like a fucking fool for not noticing. he swore to himself he'd make it up to you, he'd grovel at your feet for the rest of his life if he had to, and if you never forgave him he still wouldn't blame you.
he regretted it – of course he did. he let his fear consume him; the fear of you getting hurt, of losing you, and not being able to do anything to save you.
almost as soon as the words had passed his lips, he realised what he was doing, he heard himself. the anger in his voice, the fearful look in your eyes as they glistened with tears, it was everything he didn't want to be.
he felt just like his–
no. he refused to even entertain that thought. he'd never be… that. you deserved so, so much better than the broken husk of man that he was. no matter what he did, he would never deserve you; and it was selfish, but he still hoped that you could somehow forgive him.
it's only been a few days since you left on that assignment for laswell, but he's found that being alone in his house didn't bring him the same comfort it used to. the silence never bothered him before, in fact he greatly preferred it, but now it just felt empty. like there was something missing, leaving a hole in the space it used to occupy.
deep down, the rational part of simon knows that it's you, of course it is, but you wanted nothing to do with him right now. he knew he had to fix things, he would never get over the hollow feeling in his chest if he didn't. that's why he was currently standing at the edge of the runway in the middle of the night, watching the ramp of the helo lower to reveal you, gaz, and the captain.
you looked shattered, like you hadn't slept for days – which was probably true – and he was suddenly overcome with the urge to gather you into his arms and not let go. he wondered if the remnants of dried blood that were visible on your hands and face were yours.
he felt his heart rate pick up as you made your way closer to him, his icy stare softening when he sees how you drag your feet across the tarmac.
when you were close enough, he reached his hand out to grasp your arm, opening his mouth to speak, but he never makes contact.
you sidestep him, and he feels his heart break in his chest. any words he was planning on saying die on his tongue as he turns to watch you slip through the doors without a hint of acknowledgement to him.
price gives him a rough pat on the shoulder as he and gaz pass by. "fix it, simon." he murmurs, before disappearing through the doors as well, leaving him alone outside the building.
he will fix it – he'd do whatever it takes because simon doesn't just need you, he's come to the alarming conclusion that he loves you – he just has no idea how.
taglist p1: @sofasoap , @siilvan , @mockerycrow , @i-love-ghost , @projectdreamwalker , @achelois-is-here , @adamsloverboy , @thatchickwiththecamera , @chickensandwich69 , @batmanunicorns523 , @tiny-kasper , @dezibou , @pampeop , @cumbermovels , @goth-boi-atlas , @berryjuicyy , @guiltgoreglory , @postmodernrevolutionist , @untoldshortsofthefandoms , @delilah-grimes , @sunflowerqueen1416 , @luvssemma , @ghostslittlegf , @imonmykneessir , @kenz-ee , @eistro-phobia , @rzmarona , @alanalanalanalanalanna ,
@cathnoneofyourbusiness , @madsothree , @geisterfvhrer , @lazyninjaphilosopher , @aliilium , @koi-feish , @chaoticgoblindev , @clear-your-mind-and-dream , @thrivig-n-jiving , @lesterous , @glitterypirateduck , @slu77ym4nw415ts , @livelaugh-light , @trulylavendedarling , @stateofcatatonia , @rivalriotrenegade , @yoichiislovie , @nirvanaaaonly , @ameliaamareeee , @batmanunicorns523 , @sapientiia , @thesecretwriter , @susanmukami , @ryze1113 , @stars-andfreckles , @spya1 , @tunaa-luvchrm , @tzutology , @kuruksenshi
if your name is crossed out, i can't tag you for whatever reason, sorry! ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
#ghost x reader#simon riley x reader#simon ghost riley x reader#mw2 x reader#cod x reader#141 x reader#call of duty x reader#mw2#cod mw2#call of duty#simon ghost riley#mw2 ghost#roosterr writes
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— 𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐲𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐥𝐥-𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐠. (𝐡𝐜𝐬)
INCLUDES: kazutora hanemiya, ken ryuguji, manjiro sano, hajime kokonoi, hanma shuji, keisuke baji, izana kurokawa
CONTENT WARNING: some misogyny
NOTE: I made these into headcanons, hope you don't mind 🤍 your gang is called 'jotei rengou' (literal translation: empress union) idk it sounded cool
— KAZUTORA.
When Kazutora finds out about your gang, he's surprised, to say the least - and not in a good way. To him, women don't belong in the delinquent world and he'll act hostile towards your gang in response, immediately seeing you as an obstacle to overcome, something to get rid of before it can cause too much trouble.
He has some deeply ingrained beliefs about strength and power so he finds it hard to believe that a women-only gang could rival any of the male-dominated gangs of Tokyo anyway.
However, when a fight breaks out between your gangs, Kazutora finds himself intrigued and slightly impressed by your strength. He watches you, analyses your technique, and he eventually recognizes that you are worthy of your title and are obviously not here by mistake.
He ends up developing a strange but genuine sense of respect and admiration for you — though you'll never catch him admitting that out loud.
"So...you're the girl who claims to be leading one of Japan's biggest gangs?" he looks you up and down. "Don't think I'll go easy on you just because you're a woman."
"Ha. I wouldn't expect you to. I've heard a lot about you, Hanemiya. You've got quite the reputation, you know?" you smirked. "But let's see if you can back up that talk with action."
— DRAKEN.
Draken's calm nature leads him to be open-minded and respectful towards you and your gang — doesn't matter if your first encounter is friendly or a little less amicable. He's surprised to see that a gang like yours exist, that's for sure, but he admires your strength and leadership qualities more than he worries about the 'women only' aspect of it.
He probably wouldn't want to get involved with you, though. He's totally against hitting women no matter what, so, with Mikey's approval, he'll try to find a common ground with you and offer compromises that could benefit both sides in order to avoid confrontation.
He might also harbour a tiny crush on you or one of your gang members.... But that's none of anyone's business.
— MIKEY.
Mikey takes you and your gang very seriously right from the start, and he quickly learns that: 1) you're not to be messed with, and 2) underestimating and belittling you would be a huge mistake.
However, just like Draken, fighting and hurting women in any way is a no-no. Not because he doesn't think you're capable of fighting back, far from it, but because keeping women safe has always been one of Toman's top priorities. He'll only fight you if he absolutely has to, that means only if your gang is pure evil or an actual threat to Toman.
On the contrary, if your gangs grow closer over the years, he'll gladly accept a friendly fight with you or your girls.
Although he doesn't really show it, Mikey is very admirative of you — a feeling that only intensifies when he finds out that the Jotei Rengou actually shares most of Toman's beliefs and is really similar to it in multiple aspects. He's also surprised by your strength and strategic thinking, which earns his silent admiration.
It kind of makes him want to welcome women into his own gang.
— KOKONOI.
Koko will treat your gang like any other gang. The fact that you're all women matters very little to him. You know what you got yourself into when you entered the world of street gangs and delinquency, therefore you must know what you're doing and you probably know how to fight back.
Koko immediately sees the power and influence you hold over your gang as you lead and command them, and he soon starts to see you as a valuable ally or potential rival, depending on how your gangs' first interaction unfolds.
He'd be lying if he said he wasn't intrigued by your backstory and your rise to power, because he knows you must've gone through hell and back before people actually started taking you seriously and accepted you as one of Japan's most notorious gangs.
"I don't remember inviting outsiders to my territory."
"I couldn't resist the chance to meet you!You're a hard one to find, you know?" he said, opening his arms and sticking his tongue out. "I've dreamed of this moment, Jotei Rengou."
— HANMA.
The first time Valhalla and Jotei Rengou come face to face, Hanma laughs. He laughs because it's evident to him that you don't belong at the head of a gang, and he makes sure you know how unserious he thinks your 'pathetic little gang' is.
He tries to provoke you by insulting you and your methods, clearly wanting to test your patience. However, he quickly realizes that you're not easily swayed by his manipulation tactics, having no trouble firing back at him.
Hanma finds you intriguing, and although he won't openly admit it, he's secretly impressed by your ability to stay calm and command respect and loyalty from your gang members — who all look extremely hot and badass, he must admit.
Hanma quickly starts thinking about how he could use your influence and power to his own advantage. He sees you as a potential ally or a stepping stone to achieve his goals.
— BAJI.
Baji is absolutely thrilled by the idea of facing such powerful women as opponents.
Though he can't do much without Mikey's approval, he sees this encounter as an opportunity for a great adrenaline-pumping battle. A rival gang is a rival gang, your gender doesn't hold him back in the slightest.
He's heard the rumors and whispers about the Jotei Rengou so he knows how serious you are about this — and although he'll approach you with a his usual cocky attitude, the last thing he'll do is underestimate you. The things he knows only fuels his determination further, and he looks forward to testing his skills against such interesting opponents.
"Well, well, well...what do we have here?" Baji smirks. "The Jotei Rengou and their infamous leader in person. Bold move showing up here, ladies."
"Hey, let's cut the small talk and make this interesting, shall we?" you smirk back, getting off your bike. "I'll show you what my gang's made of, and you boys can try to keep up."
— IZANA.
Izana is intrigued, but he doesn't take your gang seriously. He's heard of you and the damage you've done around Tokyo, but he's convinced that someone else is behind your crimes. He firmly believes that a woman's strength couldn't possibly match up to a man's, let alone his own.
But when you effortlessly take down some of Tenjiku's strongest members, Izana's initial arrogance towards you immediately starts to fade. He finds himself getting more and more frustrated as your fighting style proves to be just as efficient as his own.
Despite being impressed, Izana refuses to let his feelings show. Instead, he starts analyzing your moves, determined to find a weakness to exploit and make you regret ever crossing his path.
#hakkai: ERROR 404#tokyo revengers x reader#tokyo rev x reader#tokyo rev x you#reader insert#x reader#sano manjiro x reader#mikey x reader#manjiro sano x reader#draken x reader#ken ryuguji x reader#hajime kokonoi x reader#kokonoi x reader#kokonoi x y/n#hanma x you#draken x y/n#hanma shuji x reader#hanma x reader#baji keisuke x you#baji keisuke x reader#keisuke baji x reader#baji x reader#izana x reader#izana kurokawa x reader#izana x you
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no but actually it's so sad how like... one scene caused people to declare that infinite is a pathetic, weak and whiny villain. i understand why the infamous "i am not weak" thing first got memed, but whenever i hear these jokes five years later, and i'm reminded this is his legacy... man.
infinite, canonically, was a mercenary captain; he was the leader of his own team and not only that but alledgedly, people refered to him as the ultimate mercenary, which i'm actually inclined to believe. he had a reputation. he had to have trained, built up a lot of skill, and bear in mind, he's also almost inarguably half blind (doesn't need to see out of the blacked out side of his mask, wields sword in left hand-- is he naturally left handed, or was this an adaptation, meaning he could, theoretically, be self-taught ambidextorous?-- and overall facial trauma is referenced and drawn attention to frequently) ... this would imply, for his position, a large amount of dedication in my opinion, as he would have had to adjust his combat strategies and the like to this in order for it not to disadvantage him. he was (is) strong, and capable. this isn't some kind of stretch. and losing one fight to the ultimate lifeform doesn't automatically negate this.
moving foward, if we're to acknowledge that infinite was a well-known, feared mercenary, then it's likely that losing wasn't a common occurance for him; hence the shock, especially when combined with, oh, yeah -- the death of his entire squad. you might believe that infinite was selfish based on his reaction, and how he carries himself, and i really can't say that he's decidedly not selfish... but selfishness doesn't inherently imply his team meant nothing to him. characters can have complexities, and i believe that this is super important for infinite as a whole -- more on that later, but it's ill-advised to take a character who's theme is masking himself at face value.
in further regards to his breakdown, i think that the reason there was so much heavy emphasis on his weakness was because of pre-existing trauma -- or if not outright trauma, then an issue that was apparent prior to his defeat at shadow's hands. there's a decent amount of evidence to support this, and i think it would also serve to explain how he became such a force to be reckoned with as a mercenary -- he was constantly pushing himself to be better, better, better, because weakness wasn't allowed in his eyes, losing wasn't allowed. and then he does. catastrophically. he loses that fight, but he also loses just about everything else. his squad, his entire squad, are dead. all at once, just like that, there then gone in a single night. and, i think, how could he not blame himself? how could someone like that not come to the conclusion that, this is because i was incompetent -- this is because i was weak?
anyhow, i digress lol. all this to say that infinite is a skilled combatant. infinite captured sonic. infinite trapped shadow in virtual reality. infinite's illusions had real world impact. infinite talked back to eggman. and even if the phantom ruby "wasn't his power", that still doesn't mean he's useless without it. i don't think you could achieve these results with just anybody; it's not just about the power itself, it's about who uses it and how it's used.
i genuinely don't think infinite is weak. i understand that he talks big game, and many people walked away from sonic forces feeling underwhelmed by him, but i mean this wholeheartedly. there is so, so much i want to say about him as a character after the past five years i've spent rotating him in my mind and analysing him to my friends haha, but it's hard to formulate my thoughts into something more coherent and... y'know. makes-sensy. doesn't sound totally unhinged. yeah.
i'm gonna just go ahead and post this now as i've been sitting here for far too long (longer than the length might suggest). in conclusion umm. dog. sure that'll do
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BLOOMY!! HI :3
i did end up reading Puzzles on ao3 AND IT WAS AMAZING!! I don’t even know how to put it into words - i finished it and i came straight here to tell you
Honestly bloomy the way you write is so engaging and beautiful! haha i am blanking so hard on what the word is but ya got me hooked from the first chapter - and the way you characterise Eren is so perfect!! It’s like.. its a completely different Eren because its not canon obviously but its also not your typical college au BUT ITS EREN DOWN TO HIS CORE.
i LOVED how you don’t just focus on Eren ; there’s so much quality in your writing of the friendships with the rest of the gang too!! Sasha, Mikasa and Armin especially
Typically the love triangle (sort of) trope doesn’t itch my brain right.. but the way you incorporated it was so smoothly done imo. It wasn’t to stir drama as much as it was to showcase how deep Eren and Jean’s friendship is no matter how much they fight (it felt very true to canon) . It also worked to show character development and growth for all of them and GOD i ate those 24 chapters up so fuckin fast.
And Eren (can you tell i love him so much bloomy?) UGH HE IS JUST SO… SBISBSKDNF BLOOMY I WANT HIM SO BAD
He is so disgustingly and effortlessly charming and it works so well with him and FUCK i would also jumble up my words and become a mess in front of him…ohmtgosh I got sidetracked - what i meant to say was — you showcase Eren’s internal struggles and issues with vulnerability so so so so well.
Like i know that you had to twist it to fit the context but i think the homage to canon Eren is done very nicely and THE LITTLE GLIMPSES TO S4 EREN WHERE HE SHUTS HIMSELF OFF TO EVERYONE AND PUSHES HIS THOUGHTS DOWN DEEP AND HIDES BECAUSE HE WANTS TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE HE LOVES AND SAVE THEM FROM GETTING HURT IM - SOBS
i wrote a whole essay for you and analysed your Eren but i promise i only do that when something is very dear to me (Eren Jaeger..)
i reblog a lot of your work and i know you dont know who i am but bloomy you are honestly so so so fucking talented and (all writers do but) you deserve so much recognition for the effort you put in
ill probably reblog Puzzles with this ask copied and expose myself…HAHAHA
NEWAYS BLOOMY THANK YOU FOR WRITING THIS <33
seriously thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to tell me this!! i actually teared up (i’m sensitive okay) but really this is so incredibly kind, thank you
i started writing puzzles around this time two years ago so i sort of forget it exists tbh but it’s the first fanfic i wrote since maybe middle school and it’ll always hold a place in my heart for getting me back into writing. i was actually thinking about going through and breathing some life into it—which is why i admittedly have been so bad about uploading the rest to tumblr lol
all that’s to say, thank you so much for the kind words but also making me remember it! 🤍🤍🤍
#also writing the friendships was my favorite part i’m glad that came through <3#love love love you sweet angel anon#bloomy asks
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thinkonh SOOOOOOOOOOOOO FCUKING hard aboug hlvrai and how id have it all set up n such💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
OUUGHGGHHGHHHGGHHHH......... my fumnking brainspace is filled
ok so like...
because gordon got actually transported into the game the science team can see what he actually looks like n not as a playermodel of course
i think its a cool thing, itd be also very interesting if there was just the standard model that he was shoved into n him being like 'who tf am i' when lookin in a mirror or something
anyway
im thinking about how there are other users thatve played the game
i imagine that the game/benrey sort of resets dr coomer n bubby n tommys memories so they dont remember the other users but maybe they remember parts of interactions so their ai learns each time? n sometimes get imtense deja vu when something similar happens maybe 'i dont know why i said that' cause something just.. kicks in and theyre like '... oh..'
also thinking about what the users would look like n the kinds of shit theyd do n the points they gave up etc
gotta think up 11 whole scenarios for that...
the later users should be easy cause those are the ones that benrey had became tired with very easily, hed quicken the rate hed kill the players moving onward
ill find some reasons that he didn't do that with gordon, shouldnt be too hard honestly
like hes tired of fighting, just wants a break
a new user, the thought intrigues him so he keeps him around
likes poking fun at him since hes easy to tease
gains a bit of a crush on him perhaps, makes him rethink if he wants to do it
and other shit ive missed since needing to rewatch it
need to analyse it and make notes n jot down what happens but essentially, hes having fun with him around💜and hes conflicted
benrey cant die, we know this, so really he just lets gordon kill him by his own hand along with the help of the science team
he does it as punishment towards himself because he doesnt want to kill gordon and he doesnt want to restart it all over again
once gordon 'wins' he gets transported back out of the game and he takes some time to think about what happened
he wasnt in there too long actually, only a bit longer than the run time of the actual game
joshie is at school so he picks him up n the next day he logs back into the game, being pulled in again
he wants to find a way to get benrey out, and hopefully, the others too
ill figure out a way he does this, itll require him to send joshie to a friends house to babysit for a while, because i want the science team to be able to hang out with gordon regularly
i need to find a way they can
i could probably bend the rules of my own thing so they can also be sort of pulled out of it
OOOOO..... YAKNOW WHAT???????
WHAT IF THE SCIENCE TEAM WERE LIKE... ACTUAL PEOPLE.... they got sucked into the game (probably by benrey) n became part of it all, which then the game started 'rewriting' them
this means they can come out (somehow) but theyre permanently different
benrey is not human... i dont think the same can happen for him unfortunately....
but gordon can take him out of the game and into something else
also idk why benrey wouldntve takem over their bodies if they are to be real people....
an attachment? loneliness? their file corrupted somehow and he couldn't access it?
OH WHAT IF THEY WERE HIS FAILED ATTEMPTS AT TRYING TO AND THATS WHAT CORRUPTED THEM.........
cause though he knows he wants to get put that doesnt mean he knows how to.....
benrey would tell gordon that theyre real people and can leave but gordon would be mortified if he was told why
he didnt mean to do that though... he was desperate........
gotta think about when those happened, what they used to look like too.....
so much to think about!!!!!!!! 💜💜💜
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Broken promises
A/N: so... this is my first story I'm posting, so please don't be so hard on me hahaha... Constructive criticism is of course welcome! I'm working on a masterlist and other stories, so stay tuned if you'd like. I'm sorry if there are some logic and/or grammar mistakes - as I said, this is my first story. I hope you like it, have fun reading! See you soon :)
Pairing:young!Sirius Black x Reader
Genre:a lot of angst, a bit of fluff
Warnings:angst, family problems, relationship problems, jealousy.
Y/N felt bad. Not the kind of bad that makes you want to throw up, more like your stomach was knotting up and that queasy, uncomfortable feeling was getting bigger.
The common room had long been pitch black and only the fire, which was slowly dying away, gave off a small pleasant glow, but it barely reached the sofa where she was curled up.
He had promised. He had promised to be there and yet she had not seen him since lunch in the Great Hall.
Anger and disappointment kept bubbling up inside her, but she tried to ignore those feelings as worry about him grew and slowly took over.
What if something really happened to him?
Before she could think any more about it, she heard a creak and pulled up. The portrait door swung open and the fat lady could be heard cursing behind Sirius, who came stumbling into the common room, but stopped abruptly when he saw his steady girlfriend on the sofa.
"Y/N?" he asked, startled, looking at her with his eyebrows drawn together.
"Damn it, Sirius, where have you been?" she started, realising that the worry was just giving way to the anger that was rising at the sight of him.
"I was at the lake...well...it was someone's birthday from Hufflepuff and I thought...I could go...what did I do wrong, Love?" he told her hesitantly.
"What did you do wrong, Mister? I don't know, everything I think!" Y/N scolded back, theatrically throwing her hands in the air to express her frustration more.
"You said you were coming, Sirius! Hell, YOU even suggested we meet and still said, you’d had a ,,plan’’…I don't know if that was part of your plan, but if it was, I'm sorry, it's a shitty plan! I thought you would have hurt yourself or made it back to Filch's office."
"Y/N, I'm sorry, okay? I forgot, yeah? What do you want me to do? Invent a time reverser just so our ONE date can still happen?!" sneered Sirius, raising his own voice
"The ONE time?! Sirius I don't know if you've been counting, but this is the fourth time in a row you've forgotten or missed it!" now Y/N shouted too, at which Sirius took a step towards her, but she dodged him right back.
,,I know I'm probably overreacting, but I feel like I'm fighting for our relationship all by myself, Sirius. I'm tired of waiting for you all the time, even though I know you won't come and you probably don't even care. It just hurts, okay?" She had started crying completely now and pulled her jumper closer to her.
"Maybe it has something to do with your family problems," he interrupted angrily and raised his hand, which Y/N only looked at defiantly.
"I am who I am and that is how you should accept me, Y/N! I have apologised, what more can I do?!"
Silence.
Grey, angry eyes met e/c, staring at him with anger and disappointment.
,, "Maybe you should change your priorities if some Hufflepuff chick's party is more important than your own girlfriend, Sirius!"
,, "And maybe you should lower your expectations. You're not the most important person to me damn it!"
Ouch. It felt like Sirius had stuck a knife in your back and was very, very slowly turning it around.
"I didn't mean it, Y/N," Sirius said with a roll of his eyes, avoiding Y/N's hurt gaze and focusing more on her shoes.
,, "Yes you did and you know it very well!"
Sirius groaned and you could literally feel the anger bubbling up inside him again and he had to pull himself together very hard not to yell at her again. In the end, however, his temper won out: "You know what? I'm leaving! I'm tired of this kindergarten and this... this kind of you, Y/N."
"Fine!"
"Great!"
,,Fantastic!" sobbed Y/N, but Sirius barely heard it as he stomped up the stairs to his dorm.
Y/N sat back on the couch, exactly in the place where she had been sitting twenty minutes ago and everything was still "fine".
Had he broken up with her?
She didn't know, but she knew it hurt..., it hurt like hell. There was a hole in her heart and it felt like she was losing her boyfriend, who was moving further and further away from her into the mist, so that all she could see was his outline, not even looking back at her. She wanted to reach out to him, to run after him, but something that must have been her own pride pulled her back and tried to convince her that it wasn't her fault.
But she didn't trust that voice. If only she had stayed calmer... Maybe she could have talked to Sirius calmly about her feelings and thoughts....
——————————————————
"Y/N, wake up!" a voice called at her ear and Y/N slowly opened her eyes. Lily.
,, Lily, please! Let me sleep..." she muttered and turned around to avoid the red-haired witch.
"Forget it! It's Saturday...Hogsmead day," Lily purred excitedly.
"No!"
„Oh come on, Y/NN. We're going to Honeyduks and stock up on chocolate! James, Sirius, Remus and Peter are coming too, it'll be fun!", Lily tried to convince her, but Y/N just shook her head.
"I don't want to see him." "Who?" "Sirius." Lily furrowed her eyebrows questioningly, but quickly understood, "Did you two have a fight?" Y/N merely nodded her head and buried her face in her pillow.
"What was it about?" asked Lily, stroking soothing circles on Y/N's back to get the young witch to speak.
"He missed another date and was at some Hufflepuff party. I was so mad at him...I said things I didn't mean and so did he...His temper won of course...I don't know, it all just escalated. I don't think he wants to see me either." Y/N reported as she sat up and Lily nodded understandingly.
"That's bullshit. He knows he messed up, Y/N. Sirius isn't that stupid... and of course he wants to see you! Besides, it's Saturday, so if you two don't get along, you'll need some frustration food, Y/NN... chocolate! It'll be alright." Lily tried to persuade Y/N and she had to grin.
"Maybe you're right..." said Y/N hesitantly, "Of course I am!" laughed Lily and started to push Y/N into the bathroom.
,"I'm sure he'll be pleased." Repeated Lily, giving her friend a cheery smile.
Once in the Great Hall, the two girls headed for the Gryffendor table where all the Marauders were already seated. Lily gave Y/N's hand an encouraging squeeze before greeting the boys: "Hey!" she called and sat down next to James, who greeted her with a kiss. Y/N stood next to them a little indecisively before squeezing in between Peter and Remus, who greeted her with a quiet,, Hi."
She could literally feel the looks of the others lingering between her and Sirius and lowered her gaze to her plate to avoid the looks from the others and especially Sirius... unsuccessfully. She couldn't help but squint over at the black-haired boy. He had bags under his eyes and was also keeping his eyes on his plate, which was full.
Instead of chatting to the others, she followed James and Lily's relationship banter, which made her wrinkle her nose more than once... Cheesy as hell!
Fortunately, breakfast was over quickly and the group set off for Hogsmead. Sirius and Y/N were mostly quiet and only said something when asked. They all went to Honeyduks together first, where Y/N stocked up on lots of chocolate, at which Sirius just raised his eyebrows, but she avoided his questioning gaze and slipped unobtrusively over to Lily, who was sneaking a caramel into her mouth.
Are you okay?" she asked with her mouth full, eyeing her friend who was standing in front of her a little indecisively.
"He's not even looking at me, Lils... What if he broke up with me yesterday and I haven't even noticed?" whispered Y/N in panic and Lily quickly shook her head.
"He didn't break up with you... Sirius, even though this sounds weird, loves you... Even Peter can see that! Just go up to him and talk to him. But stop blaming yourself: HE messed up and stood you up, not you." She said urgently, piercing Y/N with her green eyes.
„It's okay, Lily," Y/N said, and moved away from her friend, again walking to the biscuit shelf, which was very close to her boyfriend. She looked over at him cautiously and noticed that he was peering over at her too, whereupon she quickly averted her gaze from Sirius again and pretended to analyse the biscuits on the shelf with interest.
After the group had paid for their things, they went into the Three Broomsticks. By the time they entered the pub, it was busy and noisy, making it difficult to find a table to seat them all. After a few minutes, Sirius waved the friends over, who had apparently found room at a table where two Hufflepuff girls were still sitting, giggling as Sirius sat down next to them as he grinned charmingly at them.
A wave of jealousy and frustration erupted in Y/N and she had to pull herself together not to flee the pub immediately. Instead, she bit the inside of her cheek and sat down next to Remus and James, opposite Sirius and Hannah, who probably considered Sirius's forearm her own. She batted her eyelashes and obviously(!) flirted with Sirius, who happily joined in her game.
Y/N quickly looked away, unable to afford to put up with this fuss any longer. Remus unobtrusively squeezed her hand under the table and, Y/N smiled at him gratefully.
Y/N sat awkwardly at the table, not knowing what to do or say next at the sight of her steady boyfriend apparently having already found a new one. Sighing, Y/N stood up and muttered: "I'm going to get us butterbeers, okay?"
Without waiting for the others to reply, she hurried away from the table. She noticed tears forming in her eyes but immediately wiped them away and made her way to the bar where many teenagers were gathered. Desperately, she tried to make her way through the crowd and eventually managed to do so.
She didn't notice someone squeezing up behind her and pushing in next to her until that person snapped at her.
„Y/N?"
Startled, she pulled up to look into the friendly face of Amos Digorry, who was looking down at her.
Oh! Hey, Amos," she greeted her seatmate in Divination and smiled at him.
"Is everything okay with you?" he asked with his eyebrows drawn together and Y/N nodded quickly as she wiped a few remaining tears from her cheeks.
‚,Everything is great, yes," she replied and was glad when Rosmerta put the buttebeer on the counter. Y/N smiled at her in thanks before turning to Amos, "See you around, Amos." She said goodbye and hurried away.
Arriving back at the table, her eyes immediately fell on Sirius and Hannah, who were still talking to each other. Hannah giggled and Sirius seemed to be perfectly comfortable in the company of the beautiful brunette too.
Y/N knew her, she was her seatmate in Potions. As she took a closer look at her, a wave of insecurity gripped her. She had everything one imagines as 'perfect'. She was tall and thin, with a small waist and an elegant posture. She just fitted into the toxic beauty ideals that existed and Y/N hated so much. And the worst part was that there was actually nothing to not like about her. She was sweet and helpful and super nice.
Even though Y/N knew that your weight, your smile, your general appearance, how many friends you have and whether you get good grades doesn't change your worth as a person, she suddenly felt so small and superfluous that she couldn't take it anymore.
She noticed tears welling up in her eyes and stood up abruptly, causing her to bang her knee against the table.
Pained, she screwed up her face and looked at the questioning faces sitting at the table, staring at her. Great... Embarrassed, she brushed a strand of hair that had fallen into her face behind her ear and smiled consumingly, but it looked more like a 'I'm going to cry' smile.
"I- I think I forgot my... uh my- something in Honeyduks, I think... I have- so yeah... I'll go..." she stuttered awkwardly, though she realised all her friends knew she was lying.
She quickly hurried away from the table and Sirius, unable to suppress the tears in her eyes. Hastily she wiped them away, but more kept coming. She didn't notice how Lily called after her in vain and Remus got up from his seat and tried to run after her, but James pushed him back into the chair, looking hauntingly at Sirius who sat frozen. When she got to the crowded alleyway, Y/N just stumbled through the crowd and was glad when she got behind Honeydukes, where there was a path that led to the howling hut. The path was snowed in and would have been beautiful if Y/N had paid more attention. She trudged along the path until she finally arrived at the howling hut. She just stared at it and stopped in front of it. She focused on the small cracks in the wall that looked like small branches of trees moving in the wind.
She heard footsteps coming closer and closer and turned around. Sirius. His black hair was a mess and he hadn't even zipped up his jacket. He was panting and apparently out of breath when he started to speak: "I'm sorry. I'm so incredibly sorry, yeah? You have to believe me when I say I'm sorry... Please Y/N, you have to believe me."
She said nothing and just looked at him urgently until he began to speak again: "Please say something. You can yell at me too, you can yell at me all year and the years after, but please say something." He pleaded, looking at her pleadingly as he wiped his face.
"You don't know anything, Sirius." , she started and he nodded to get her to talk further.
"You don't know how much it hurts to wait for a person that you- that you seem to love. You do know what it's like to not feel loved and- and to feel insecure... you know exactly what that feels like. And I always get so mad at the person who makes you feel that way because they hurt you! And I think I can say that I'm there for you then!" she gulped and Sirius nodded to agree with her, "But you're never there..." she sobbed, letting her tears fall again.
"I know you love me and I can't compare your family to our relationship. I feel good in your presence and- and that's how it should be... - that's how it should be! But- but it always hurts so much when you stand me up or ignore me and I don't even know what I- what I did wrong...I wasn't the one who stood you up, Sirius. It was you...and so many times!" she continued in exasperation and Sirius wasn't sure whether to let her finish or give her a hug. But before he could make a decision for himself, Y/N continued: "And today was even worse! Lily told me all the time that it wasn't my fault and now I know that it wasn't or isn't mine either. But then when you were flirting with Hannah and you-you were having such a good time, I was so sad! Why can you talk to her and have fun but not with me?! Why are you happy to see her but not me?!" asked Y/N desperately and Sirius opened his mouth to stop her from having those thoughts but she continued with a sad look: "You once promised me you would never make me feel small or insecure. You once promised to always be there for me. You once promised me that I was the "only one" and that you loved me. You promised to be there for me so many times, Sirius. But somehow you broke them all and I don't know what to do with these broken promises. I love you and that's not going to change, but I- I just don't know what to do with it when you- you hurt me so much and make me feel so insecure... So actually, you do know what that feels like...just differently." She confessed to him and completely burst into tears.
Sirius, who had tears in his own eyes, looked at her with a pained smile, which made her cry even more. He broke the distance between them and took her in his arms. He pressed her tightly against him and had to bend down to put his face in the crook of her neck. She clung to his shoulders and pressed her face into his chest to breathe in his familiar scent.
They stood like that for a while. Both crying, holding each other as close as possible. After a few minutes, Sirius slowly detached himself so he could look into her eyes.
"You don't know how sorry I am, Y/N. I don't want to hurt you! Merlin, when I think about the fact that I did it, I want to hurt myself. You're- you're- Damn, I'm not good with words!" he laughed and even Y/N had to smile a little.
,,I love you. For everything you do and for everything you say. I love you for who you are and for those little things you do for others. And I will- will never stand you up or break the promises I made to you ever again. I swear I will do my best, Y/N....and I am so grateful that you love me because I never wanted anything else in my life! You don't have to forgive me now...I understand if you don't, honestly." He said softly so she could just hear.
She smiled slightly at him and said laughing: "So if you kiss me now, it'll make things a bit better."
Sirius grinned and closed the distance between them, placing his warm lips on hers. He kissed her softly and lovingly, as if afraid to scare her away, but she didn't go. She deepened their kiss a little and sighed into his mouth.
As they kissed there like that, in front of the howling hut with dried tears on their cheeks, Y/N knew that everything would be allright again....
#sirius black#sirius black x reader#young sirius imagine#sirius x reader#young sirius black#young sirius black x reader#marauders#marauders x y/n#sirius x you#sirius black x you#sirius black x y/n#sirius x y/n#Harry Potter x Reader#harry potter imagine#sirius orion black#hp#hp marauders#sirius black fic#sirius black fanfiction#marauders fic#x reader#x y/n#x you#angst#oneshot#sirius black one shot#sirius black angst#marauders x reader#harry potter angst#marauders angst
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the love project | jjk
summary: from running to mcdonald’s at 3am after a halloween party where the two of you dressed up as the teletubbies to timing how long it takes for him to drink a cup of monster mixed with mountain dew and iced coffee and then do fifty push-ups, you’re used to your best friend jungkook asking you to do all sorts of crazy things. but, of all the shit the two of you do, letting him follow you around for a week with a camera and take candid photos of you for a photography assignment might just be the craziest of them all.
{college!au, friends to lovers!au}
pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader
genre: fluff, comedy
word count: 12k
warnings: college antics, hopeless pining, slow burn
a/n: me: this fic will be 10k max! also me: actually nevermind
on par for the course of this blog, i hope you enjoy this fic! it was so much fun to write and it definitely got me back into the ~writing mood~. more fics coming soon!
These days, the weeks pass you by like trains on a platform. They whiz past you, the only discernible features being the beginning and the end of them, with the middle nothing but a blur.
At least, that’s how it feels when you’re in college, and the days bleed into weeks bleed into months, and suddenly you’re one year closer to graduating, one year closer to figuring out what next to do with your life, even if you’re still missing that one general education requirement you forgot to take in your first year so now you’re trying to cram it into your schedule at the last minute.
Okay, you’ll admit it. Introduction to Astronomy is kicking your ass. That’s what you get for putting it off until junior year, when you’re supposed to have reached the point in your History major career where you don’t have to look at numbers anymore and the idea of doing basic math is absolutely unfathomable. History majors don’t do math. They just don’t. It vanished from your academic arsenal long before now, alongside your ability to interpret word problems and understand science textbooks.
Perhaps in another universe, you would have actually retained those skills past high school, but that universe is not this one, and so your problem sets can solve themselves or not be solved at all.
Your best friend would have to disagree.
“It’s not even calculus!” Jungkook exclaims over a mouthful of a Starbucks tomato and pesto panini, pointing to your laptop in exasperation, as if the answer has been staring you in the face for the past fifteen minutes. “It’s just algebra! All you’re doing is plugging the numbers into the formula and finding the missing variable!”
“Easy for you to say,” you huff, furiously erasing at the notebook in front of you as you get yet another incorrect answer. Who knew math could be so difficult? Oh, that’s right. You did. “You took that advanced differential equations class for fun last year. It’s not even required for your major. You’re just a masochist.”
“Says the person who convinced their advisor to let them take seven classes because they, and I quote, ‘all seemed so interesting’ and you ‘didn’t want to miss out.’” Jungkook rebukes pointedly. “Because your life would be so terrible if you didn’t take Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe.”
He’s got you there. Seven classes is a lot. In your defense, Economic History of Pre-Industrialized Europe was very interesting and you got a 4.0 that semester. So who is he to judge? Jungkook’s favorite pastime is pretending that taking three different computer science classes in a single semester isn’t going to single-handedly kill him.
Jungkook watches you struggle for a few moments more before he sighs, like he can’t take looking at someone so mathematically incompetent any longer. He stuffs the remaining third of his Starbucks panini into his mouth all at once like the ravenous beast he is before he reaches over the tiny table you’re sat at to look at your problem set himself. He turns your laptop towards him and grabs hold of your notebook, furrowing his eyebrows as he enters Work Jungkook Mode.
Work Jungkook Mode is the mode of him you see most often during finals week or the rare occasions where you meet up to actually try and get work done. Work Jungkook has tunnel vision for whatever assignment is currently in front of him, which he will do either in one sitting or die trying. Work Jungkook lets his coffee get cold and forgets to answer your text messages, even when you’re sat right across from him and you know that he can see the notification on his laptop. Work Jungkook refuses to turn in anything that he hasn’t devoted his entire being to, even if it’s something as simple as a discussion board post. Some of his other friends say that when Jungkook is in Work Jungkook Mode, they won’t even try to contact him, lest their messages get lost in the flurry of his coding assignments.
But you are not “some of his other friends.” You are his best friend. So rules do not apply to you. And Jungkook has long accepted that fact.
“Hey, don’t mess up my work—” You exclaim defensively, grabby hands reaching over the table to retrieve your notebook. “Wait, how did you do that?”
Jungkook scribbles something down in nearly-illegible font, determined to solve the problem in front of him. He thinks for a few more seconds before eventually jotting down an answer, circling it with his pencil. Holding the notebook out so both of you can see, he scoots his chair over to your side of the table, your shoulders pressed together in this tiny corner of the Starbucks, right by the bathroom, and explains, step by step, what he did.
He does that for the following two problems in your set, walking you through the kind of math he was doing in freshman year of high school like it’s nothing, answering all of your stupid questions and giving you tips on how to finesse the system by taking as many shortcuts as possible. Teaching you things you never learned, or possibly had just forgotten. Things that a professor would think is idiotic to re-teach to a junior in university. Things that Jungkook wants you to know because he just wants you to have a little more faith in yourself.
“Does that help?” He asks when he’s finished, still doubting his fantastic teaching abilities despite the fact that he just taught you more in the last thirty minutes than your professor has managed in a month and a half.
“It actually does,” you tell him, pleasantly surprised. Looking back down at your notebook, what was once a shapeless blur of numbers, letters, and formulas is suddenly a clear and organized outline of each and every step to follow. “I didn’t know it was that easy.”
“Anything can be easy if you just commit yourself to learning how to do it,” Jungkook says, one of those random sentences that are too wise for a college student surviving off of RedBull and Starbucks food, the ones that always make you think Jungkook is secretly an immortal sage with life experiences far beyond your own. “Except coding. Which is hard no matter how good you are at it.”
“Aw, you can do it,” you rally, reaching up to pinch his chin in between your fingers and squeeze it tight. “It’s also too late to change your major now, so you’re stuck.”
“Wow, thanks for the encouragement,” Jungkook chides, hand coming up to rub at where you held his jaw, rolling his eyes. “You should let me help you with your Astronomy work more often. Gives me a break from Python.”
“I would have made you help me whether you liked it or not,” you tell him pointedly, because he is your best friend and he doesn’t get out of things as easily as he thinks he can. “But thanks. I’ll definitely take you up on that.”
“Of course,” Jungkook says with a good-natured grin, always so selfless and kind and giving. He practically signed himself up for a semester’s worth of TA-ing for Introduction to Astronomy despite the constant mountain of work he has himself. Just because it’s you.
“My very own personal genius,” you muse, wrapping your hands around his arm and snuggling into his body, a whisper of a language only the two of you share. It’s something the two of you have long gotten used to, pressing your fingers all over each other’s bodies like it’s second nature. One of the things that makes you feel so certain about having Jungkook in your life. About wanting him to stay with you for the rest of time. “I’m never letting you go.”
Jungkook smiles, a warm hand coming to rest atop of your own. He breathes, in and out, chest rising beneath your touch. “Like I’d ever let you,” he says.
There is no question about it. Jungkook is one hundred percent, absolutely, undoubtedly, positively, indisputably smarter than you are. It’s something that the two of you used to jokingly fight about (because Jungkook claims that he’s a bad essay writer, even though he’s not), but at this point it’s cemented in stone—he’s a damn genius. A genius who is inexplicably good at everything. A double threat. Triple, if you count the fact that he’s built beyond belief and could probably chuck you into next week if you really, really ticked him off.
The truth is that, ninety percent of the time it is you who is going to Jungkook for help. Whether it be an assignment you need assistance on (namely Astronomy, because Jungkook probably couldn’t help you on your Mesopotamian artifact and primary source analyses despite his best intentions), a date that was a lot worse than you were hoping it would be, or even just the right coffee to order from that expensive place on the corner. Jungkook knows how to fix everything.
So when Jungkook slides into the seat across from you in the food court after his Mastering Photography class with that I’m in trouble look on his face, you know something is horribly wrong.
“Are you alright?” You ask, concerned as you watch him devour the sushi takeout in front of him, stuffing the spicy tuna rolls into his mouth like they’re Skittles. His camera hangs haphazardly out of his open backpack, like he barely had enough time to stuff it into the pocket while he was making his way here. There’s a worried expression written all over his face as he fumbles with the chopsticks in his hand, losing his grip on them every ten seconds.
It’s not until Jungkook has finished the container of spicy tuna rolls in front of them that he finally seems to work up the courage to answer you.
“My Photography class is gonna be the death of me,” Jungkook exclaims, exasperated.
“I thought you liked it,” you comment unhelpfully. Jungkook had been so excited to be enrolled in it, because you needed a recommendation from a different professor and you had to submit a portfolio in order to join the class, making it one of those exclusive (and thus, much better) courses. Not to mention the fact that Jungkook is basically already a professional photographer if his Instagram is anything to go by. He’s going to walk out of university with a Photography minor whether he realizes it or not.
“I do,” Jungkook insists, even if right now it sounds like the two of you both need convincing of that fact. “But this project is ridiculous. I don’t even know how my professor expects us to have the time to finish it.”
“What do you have to do?”
Jungkook sighs. Just thinking about it seems to stress him out. “I mean, it’s only really a week long. So I guess it’s not too bad. But we’re supposed to compile a portfolio of the same subject, taken over the course of the week, with them in all sorts of different poses and lighting and locations, to express a personal theme.”
You scrunch your nose up in confusion. “I might be wrong, but isn’t that what photography… is?” You ask cluelessly.
“Yes,” Jungkook argues, “but also no. Photography is taking pictures of things just for the hell of it. Not because they necessarily speak to a part of your soul. You just like the look of it. You want to capture the scene. That’s it.”
“Oh,” You say dumbly.
“And our subject can be whoever or whatever we want, but he recommended choosing a person because taking pictures of our water bottles in different places is boring,” Jungkook huffs, though his professor does have a point there. Modern history wasn’t made out of photographs of store windows and miscellaneous items. It was made out of people, out of events in their lives that shaped the rest of the world, out of personal experiences that changed their point of view. “But I don’t even know anybody who would be willing to let me photograph them for a whole week! I’d basically have to follow them around like paparazzi!”
“I’ll do it,” you suggest casually, because it seems like the most obvious choice to you. There’s no one Jungkook spends as much time with as you.
Jungkook’s eyes pop out of his head. “What?”
“I’m serious,” you insist. “Think about it. You need a subject for your project that you can photograph in a wide variety of places and over the course of a week. Who else do you spend that much time with, other than me?”
“Well..” Jungkook begins, trying to fight your reasons with his own. “Would you even be comfortable with something like that? I mean, I’m literally going to constantly be taking photos of you.”
“Like we don’t already do that on our phones,” you tease, having amassed quite the album of terrible Jungkook pictures over the years.
“A camera is different from a phone,” Jungkook protests weakly.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m just saying. It won’t bother me,” you say with a shrug. Why is Jungkook being so… weird about your suggestion? You thought he would be jumping at the offer, especially considering it means he won’t have to go out of his way to find and photograph someone else for this assignment. But he’s being rather hesitant. You watch as he glares down at his empty sushi takeout box, eyebrows furrowed in that thick, nervous way. “But you don’t have to,” you backtrack. “It was just a suggestion.”
He breathes in and breathes out, expression solid. Even from here you can see the cogs whirring in his brain, placing each and every potential result into a pro and con list inside his mind, trying to work out whether the benefits will be greater than the cost.
Quite frankly, you don’t know what all the holdup is about.
“You’re… sure about this?” He asks, looking up at you, determined to ensure your comfort. As if that’s even an issue. “You’re cool with being photographed and everything?”
“Only because it’s you,” you tease lightheartedly, expecting some sort of equally cheesy response. Instead, it makes Jungkook do something weird. He freezes in place, darting his eyes away from your gaze for a split second, collecting thoughts you can’t see. “Yeah,” you say loudly, trying to bring him back. “I’m fine with it.”
He inhales, exhales, closes his eyes, and opens them. “Okay then. I guess it’s settled. You’ll be my subject,” he declares, an almost unnoticeable wobble to his voice. It’s probably nothing, so you don’t think too hard about it.
“Can you at least pretend to be a little more excited about this?” You ask, jabbing him in the chest with a wooden chopstick. “It’s the first time we’ve ever gotten to be part of a project together!”
“Yay,” Jungkook says, lifeless.
“How about a photo to commemorate it?” You suggest, reaching over to pull the camera out of his backpack, pushing it into his hands. “This can be the start of your portfolio.”
“Fine,” he eventually caves, bringing it up to his eye as he turns it on, twisting the lens to perfect the focus. Even caught off guard like this, he looks like a professional, like someone who was born to be behind the camera. He’s a computer science major but you know that photography will always be something special to him.
You strike a dramatic pose, holding your chopsticks out, one in each hand, with a wide, excited smile on your face. “How do I look?” You ask, scrunching your eyes together.
Jungkook’s finger hovers over the silver button. “Perfect,” he tells you, voice soft and honest.
Click.
“So, how many photos are you supposed to take for this portfolio?” You ask as you flop around on Jungkook’s bed, pretending that the open tab on your laptop with your fifty-page reading doesn’t exist. You don’t even know why professors assign readings that long. Do they really expect you to read all of it?
From across his room, you can make out the top of Jungkook’s fluffy brown hair over his sleek gaming chair, one of the ones that look like high-tech airplane seats. “I don’t know,” he says. “He said at least twenty. And no more than fifty. Which really makes me wonder if someone once submitted like, one hundred photos for this project that he had to grade them on. But yeah.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad,” you say. When you’re around a cute animal, you can easily take twenty photographs. Granted, they aren’t exactly award-worthy photographs, but it’s not a physically demanding task.
“Yeah,” Jungkook says. “Hypothetically you could finish it in a day. But it looks really obvious.”
“Well, how many do you have now?”
It’s been a day and a half since Jungkook agreed to let you be his so-called muse, but already you’ve lost track of how many photos he’s taken of you. He loves his camera, you know that, but you didn’t realize exactly how much he loves his camera. And with you as the sole subject for his project, he’s practically letting it hang from his neck all day long, just waiting for the right time to snap a photo of you standing in line at the food court, frowning at your textbook, or waiting to meet up with him. Every time he sees you he snaps a picture, even if the lighting’s bad, even if you haven’t had your morning coffee yet, even if it’s midnight and you look like a zombie. In his mind, there are no bad pictures. Just memories.
You wonder what the hell he sees in you.
“A lot,” Jungkook answers unhelpfully, making no effort to elaborate on that statement.
“Have you counted?” You ask, getting off of his bed to join him at his desk.
Jungkook doesn’t seem to realize what you’re doing until you’re standing right next to him, placing a hand over his shoulders as you lean down next to him. He fumbles around for a second, the mouse slipping through his grip, and you catch a glimpse of one of the photos he’s taken of you, a sliver of your pursed lips, the wrinkles between your eyebrows.
It’s from the library yesterday. You didn’t even know Jungkook had taken a picture of you there. You had a stupid reading to complete last night, one that made no sense and was terribly-written, and you spent an hour just trying to figure out what the damn argument was, and Jungkook captured it. You were there for an hour and Jungkook was there too, watching you like it was nothing, waiting for the perfect moment. He was there, sitting across from you, camera at the ready. You didn’t even hear it click.
He closes it before you get a closer look at the photo, frantically hitting the little red dot at the top corner of the window before you have a chance to ask why.
“What, I’m not allowed to see?” You chide, a little bit hurt but more confused than anything else. Why is Jungkook being so secretive?
“No,” Jungkook spits quickly. making you raise an eyebrow in alarm. “I mean, it’s a surprise. You get to see when it’s finished. I still have to… uh, edit. And stuff.”
“Edit? You think I’m that ugly?” You tease, knowing that he probably means color correction but enjoying the way that he gets all flustered when he hears your voice.
Jungkook’s eyes widen at that, like he just realized he made a wrong turn and is desperately backtracking. “What, no! I don’t—I don’t think you’re ugly.”
You laugh, letting the sound of your voice ease the tension in his shoulders, reveling in the way his big doe eyes seem to soften when he realizes you were just teasing. He looks like a kid caught stealing a candy bar from a gas station, looks like one of those boyfriends in the viral videos where the girl reveals that she got him a present or something instead, all nervous and full of explanations.
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” you assure him, rubbing up and down his arm to soothe him, calm his heart down. “You don’t have to show me. I’m just excited. No one’s ever taken photos of me like this before.”
“I would,” Jungkook speaks up softly. “If you asked. I would.”
“I know,” You say. You’re not sure if there’s a thing in this world Jungkook wouldn’t do for you, and you, him. If he asked, you would pluck the stars from the sky for him. Bring him back a piece of the moon. Stop time. Anything. Everything. Just for him. “I know.”
“What are you doing?” Jungkook asks, changing the topic as he whirls around in his gaming chair.
“Just another reading, like always,” you dismiss, because you’re positive the last thing Jungkook wants to hear about right now is your primary source reading on irrigation techniques in agrarian Europe. You don’t even want to hear about it. “But I could use some help on Astronomy.”
Without another word, Jungkook gets up from his desk and the two of you head over to his bed, where an untouched problem set waits on your computer. He grabs a notebook from his backpack along the way before sitting down next to you on the edge of his bed, bodies pressed together. Slowly, he begins to coach you through each problem, step by step, drawing pictures and diagrams if he has to, until you finish all ten problems.
The truth is, you didn’t really need help with this unit. Astronomy’s gotten a lot easier now that Jungkook has taught you the strategies to tackle it. But Jungkook sometimes feels like a ghost when he works, especially when he’s sitting at his desk, quiet and focused and almost invisible. And call you clingy, but you like it when you can look up and see his face instead of the back of a chair, a little tuft of wavy brown hair. You like it when he’s right beside you, in a place where you know you won’t lose him, where you can hold on if things get rough. Where you can see his stupid brown eyes and his goofy smile and know that he’ll always be there for you.
When he’s finished, Jungkook doesn’t get back up to sit at his desk. He flops down on his back, staring up at the white ceiling of his room, eyes tracing the cracks. You join him, side by side, pretending that there’s something there. Looking up at the sky would be nicer, but it doesn’t really matter, so long as you’re with him.
“I didn’t know you took so many photos,” you say.
“I never want to miss anything.”
“You should give me more warnings, next time. I feel like I look so ugly in some of them.”
“No, you don’t. Don’t say stuff like that.”
“You don’t think I’m ugly?” You ask him, for real this time. It’s not that you think he’s going to say that he does, it’s that you want to know what he really thinks. How he really sees you. You turn your head to him, back pressed against his comforter, barely a foot apart. And he turns back to you, and he’s right there, right there in front of you, big brown eyes wide and blinking. He’s right there, how could you miss him?
“No,” Jungkook says, honest and true. He looks at you, looks right at you, right into you, and he muses to himself, chuckling. “Why would I ever think that?”
At the end of the day, you can’t really be bothered to put on real pants in anticipation of Jungkook’s trigger-happy camera-taking tendencies. He’s seen you spill a boiling hot bowl of tomato soup all over yourself in the dining hall. He’s seen you at four in the morning in the library the night before finals begin, eyebags down to your knees and mismatched shoes on your feet. He’s seen you in the middle of a frat house, sweat dripping down your forehead and smelling of nothing but straight alcohol. Getting dressed up just for him would be antithetical to the very foundation of your friendship.
You have, however, become keenly more cognizant in the last few days of when Jungkook is about to take a photo of you. Mostly because you glance up at your surroundings every three seconds to make sure you aren’t getting sniped from across the food court. Nobody else needs to see a picture of you picking up three pieces of sushi with your chopsticks and stuffing them all into your mouth at once. And, from what you can tell, you’ve been pretty successful, which either means you’ve gotten better at telling when Jungkook might be taking a photo of you, or Jungkook’s gotten better at hiding it.
Either way, he’s got a lot more pictures of you reflexively flashing a peace-sign in his direction when you hear the telltale sound of his camera lens focusing, so you’re not really sure what that means for the fate of his portfolio.
Besides your newfound hyper-awareness of the sound of a camera lens adjusting, the strangest part of you and Jungkook’s little project is how quickly the rest of your friends adjusted to this brand new dynamic.
This is not to say this assignment is the weirdest thing you and Jungkook have done together, because there was once one week where you and Jungkook challenged each other to only eat bananas for every meal to see if anything would happen to either of you. Nothing did, but after that week you swore off bananas for the rest of your life and have had little appetite for them since.
It’s more that your other friends have just accepted the fact that ridiculous, extravagant shenanigans are a necessary part of you and Jungkook’s relationship and have simply chosen not to question them anymore. At least, most of them have.
“So, how’s you and Jungkook’s little photography fling going?” Maisie asks, and even through the phone you can hear the way she’s wiggling her eyebrows.
“It’s not a fling, and it’s fine,” you hiss back, trying to keep your voice down as you pack up your belongings, phone pressed between your ear and your shoulder. “Stop speaking so loudly, everyone else in the library can probably hear you.”
“Good, because they’ve all probably noticed the way Jungkook’s been following you around like an unrestrained fanboy for the past four days taking pictures of you,” Maisie says pointedly, voice so sharp it causes you to look around at the other tables to make sure no one’s listening in.
You frown, hoping your deadpan expression is audible through the phone. “It’s not like that and you know it.”
“Don’t you think it’s even a little strange that you’ve given Jungkook full permission to take photos of you like you’re a model and he’s some sort of weird, professional paparazzi?” You can practically see Maisie’s face in front of you, all wide eyes and raised eyebrows as she makes her point.
“No, it’s what we agreed on,” you remind her for the umpteenth time. There’s nothing weird about this. You’re helping him with a project, what more could it be? “Jungkook needed someone to take pictures of for his photography project and I thought it would be a good idea if I was that someone.”
“Hmm… wonder why…” Maisie trails off, deliberately vague and suggestive all at once.
“You’ve been going on about this ever since Jungkook and I met, Maise,” you say with a roll of your eyes, tossing your backpack over your shoulder. “You know that Jungkook and I are just friends. Like we have always been.”
“Friends that take candid photos of each other under the guise of a project,” Maisie adds, and you can see the air quotes around the word “project” right in front of you.
“Friends that help each other out because that’s what friends do,” you correct. “You’re just going to have to accept the fact that Jungkook and I are always going to be just friends and nothing more. No matter how much money you’ve bet on us getting together.”
Maisie gasps. “I have not bet money on such a thing! This is slander!”
“Don’t think I don’t see you and Jimin’s damn Venmo history.” You pull up to the front desk of the library to check out a primary source book needed for one of your classes. It’s the first edition, and it’s battered beyond belief, but it’s better than paying for it. “Just this, thanks.”
“The only way you could convince me that you and Jungkook are just friends is if you go on a date or something,” Maisie comments snidely. “I don’t think I’ve seen either of you romantically interested in someone else the entire time you’ve known each other. Isn’t that proof enough?”
“You want me to go on a date with someone?” You demand, determined to get Maisie to hop off your ass about this.
You and Jungkook are just friends. If swiping right with someone on Tinder and getting dinner and a movie with them is what will convince Maisie of that, then that is what you will do. It’s not as if being friends with Jungkook is mutually exclusive with you going out with other people. Should be easy, right?
The boy behind the counter tells you your book is due back at the end of the semester, and you nod your thanks before heading out of the library.
“Fine, I’ll go on a date with someone. If it’ll get you to stop trying to convince me that Jungkook and I are gonna get married and have babies,” you declare, pushing your body against the door handles as you leave, five minutes to spare before your next class begins.
“You guys would have really cute babies, I’m just saying,” Maisie points out like it’s nothing.
You roll your eyes, taking the phone away from your ear as your finger hovers over the red button. “See you, Maise.”
You’re barely three steps out of the library, still rolling your eyes at the Call Ended screen on your phone when a voice catches your attention.
“Y/N!”
You turn your head just in time to see Jungkook’s devilish grin disappear behind his camera, and you don’t even have time to blink before he begins snapping away, finger mashing the silver button at the top as your expression morphs from surprise to defeat, unable to counter his sniping abilities with a signature peace sign. Even from twenty feet away, you can hear Jungkook laughing as you take the opportunity to pose for a few moments, like you really are a model and he really is your personal photographer. The sound of his giggles fills the air, music to your ears, lingering between you like dandelion wisps, blown by the wind.
Another voice breaks you from your trance.
“And here we have our resident celebrity and her paparazzi,” Jimin says, motioning to the two of you as he speaks to an enormous tour group of potential applicants and their parents. Caught in front of them, the heat suddenly rushes to your cheeks as you instinctively cover your face, embarrassed to have been pointed out by Jimin, whose amicable, lovable personality is both a blessing and a curse when it comes to his part-time job as a tour guide.
The worst part is how some of the parents and students seem to believe him for a second, that you really are famous and that Jungkook really is your photographer, looking at the two of you inquisitively as you shrink beneath their gazes.
“I’m kidding,” Jimin quickly continues as Jungkook joins you where you stand, laughing at the way you look like a deer caught in headlights. “They’re just some friends of mine who we happened to catch outside the library, which is our next stop. But don’t they look so cute together?”
“Are you guys dating?” One of the students pipes up, asking what no one else dared to.
Your eyes widen at the notion, wondering if you and Jungkook really are cursed to always be mistaken for a couple when you two have never been, and most likely will never be one. Shaking your head, you force out a laugh, “No, we’re just friends.” Beside you, Jungkook is noticeably silent. You suppose he’s gotten just as sick of explaining as you.
“Bummer, right?” Jimin asks his group, earning a couple of disappointed nods from innocent high-schoolers that still believe in love. “But I’m working on that, so don’t worry. Anyway, this library will be your main destination for studying, book-reading, and everything in between, and is conveniently located two minutes away from the freshman dorms…”
The conversation finally drawn away from you and Jungkook, you let out a breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in. “Weird, right? Even high-schoolers think we’re together.”
Jungkook doesn’t meet your eyes, fiddling with the settings on his camera just to keep his hands busy. The quiet makes you wonder what is going on up inside his head, makes you wonder what it is he’s thinking about, what it is you’re not seeing. Lately, it’s felt like there’s something on Jungkook’s mind you wish he felt comfortable telling you.
“Hey, you alright?” You ask, giving him a little nudge with your side. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Jungkook says, voice soft, barely audible. It doesn’t make you feel any better. “No, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Don’t you have class soon?”
“Oh, shit, you’re right, fuck,” you say, checking your phone only to find you have barely a minute to get to your next class. Guess you’ll be using one of your allotted absences today. “Thanks for reminding me. Dinner tonight?”
“I’ll text you,” Jungkook promises, and you nod your agreement as you dash off, determined to turn a five-minute walk into a one-minute one with the power of exercise. As you leave, you watch as Jungkook flounders outside the library, staring down at his camera and scrolling through his photos, and you still find yourself feeling like you’re missing something. What is Jungkook not telling you?
What do you not know?
By the time you reach your class, two minutes late and completely out of breath, tardiness is the last thing on your mind.
This project was just meant to be a friend helping out a friend. So why does it feel like you and Jungkook are losing each other?
Using Tinder is easy. Dangerously so.
You’re no expert in app design, but its simplified “yes or no” mechanic has you swiping through people like it’s an extreme sport, barely giving some of them a second glance if their Tinder profile description doesn’t make you laugh within the first sentence.
Tinder was, admittedly, not your first choice of potential date-finding methods. Call you old-fashioned, but whatever happened to asking someone in person if they wanted to get a meal with you? To showing up at their doorstep with a rose bouquet and a toothy white grin? Perhaps all of those old-timey movies you and Jungkook always watched have given you unrealistic expectations. But can you blame them?
Even if Tinder wasn’t your first choice, it was certainly the fastest. It takes a second to look at someone’s designated Tinder thumbnail, two to read their description, and three to decide if they’re worth a swipe right. Compare that to actively meeting up with someone, getting their contact information, and then continuing to dance around each other until you finally decide to get dinner together. That’s the sort of thing that could take weeks. Maybe months. And in some cases, years.
Besides, it’s not like you had very many options at your disposal. You don’t trust Maisie to set you up with someone because she’ll probably just choose one of the many boys from her management class and call it a day. Asking someone yourself is absolutely out of the question. And, for some strange, unknown reason, the idea of getting Jungkook to hook you up with one of his friends just doesn’t sit right with you.
So, Tinder it is. And as it turns out, chivalry isn’t dead. It’s just archaic.
An hour into your mindless swiping, you get a message notification. Two hours after that, you’ve got plans with a nice senior boy whom you’ve never met.
And for the first time in a very long time, there’s something to mark on your calendar for Saturday night.
The little blue block on your Google Calendar tab stares back at you from where your open laptop sits on your desk, the red line that signifies your current time slowly inching towards it as you fumble around in front of your mirror, more dressed up than you have been in weeks. Maisie was right. It’s been so long since you’ve gone out with someone that you’ve completely forgotten what the dress code is for something like this. A dress? Heels? Makeup?
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you will anyway. What if he’s wearing a hoodie and sweats while you look like you’re about to attend the goddamn Academy Awards? Maybe the eyeshadow was a little too much.
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks it’s inevitable that you do. The door to your apartment swings open, and you can hear heavy footsteps making their way to your bedroom, that easy gait of his familiar as always.
“Hey, do you think we can just get some take-out and watch a stupid old noir movie, or something? I’ve had a day,” he shouts out, the sigh audible in his voice.
You don’t want to overshoot it, but part of you thinks you definitely have when you turn around to see Jungkook standing right outside your bedroom in the floppiest sweater you’ve ever seen and jeans with holes in the knees, mouth agape as he stares straight at you. It’s impossible not to notice the way his eyes are blown wide at the sight of you, at the way they rake up and down your figure, like he can’t even believe what he’s seeing. It’s impossible not to notice how he seems to flounder at the sight of you.
The only thing that breaks the both of you out of your stupors, frozen in place like two criminals caught red-handed, is the sound of his hulking black backpack thudding to the floor.
“Whoa.”
“Do you think it’s too much?” You ask, voice wobbly. God, why are you so nervous? It’s just Jungkook.
“Too much for what?” Jungkook blinks, deliberate and slow, as if he’s determined to make sure his eyes aren’t deceiving him. “Where are you going?”
“I think we’ll have to do a raincheck for the noir movie and takeout,” you say sheepishly, pursing your lips together in fright as you force out a small, tense smile. “I’m… going out. With someone.”
“Like,” Jungkook begins, and even from here you can hear the way he stops himself, hear him breathe out every word, thick on his tongue. “On a date?”
“Yeah.”
It’s a one-syllable word and yet it takes nearly all of your willpower just to say it. Just to confirm what Jungkook’s already thinking. Just to tell him, your best friend, your ride or die, your number one, that you’re going out on a date.
“Oh.” Jungkook’s voice is lifeless. “Do I know them?”
“No, uh, it’s just some guy I met on Tinder. I don’t know, I just wanted to see what all the hype was about, I guess. And I haven’t really been on a date in a while, so I figured I might just take up the opportunity, so we’re probably just going to go out to a restaurant and maybe go to a club afterwards if we’re still in the mood, and—” You cut yourself off, so nervous that you’ve resorted to your terrible habit of rambling to try and ease the tension. “Why? Do you think it’s too much?”
“You use Tinder?” Jungkook asks instead. It sounds like he’s shocked to hear this.
“Yeah…” you trail off. “Why?”
Jungkook freezes at the question, but it’s not because it seems like he doesn’t have an answer. It’s because it seems like he does. Only it’s an answer he doesn’t want to share.
“Nothing, it’s nothing,” he eventually settles on, shaking his head. “You, uh, you look good.”
“You think? I feel like it’s a lot. I don’t know how to dress appropriately for stuff like this anymore,” you ask, palms sweaty as you furiously straighten out the skirt of your dress. “Should I change into pants, or anything?”
“No, no, I think that’s fine,” Jungkook says with an honest smile. “You look nice like this.”
“It’s probably been like, a year since you last saw me in a dress,” you comment mindlessly, turning back to face the mirror as you fiddle with your makeup, finger wiping away a bit of smudged lipstick or a stray bit of mascara. “I miss my sweats. Hey, whoa, wait, what are you doing—?”
You whip around to find Jungkook slowly fishing out the camera from his backpack, hand gripping it tightly as he brandishes it in front of you.
“I, um, I just wanted to see if I could maybe take a photo of you,” Jungkook says, a small, little grin decorating his features. “Since you’re all dressed up.”
“Seriously?” You ask in disbelief.
Jungkook nods, holding the camera out in front of him. “Just one.”
He looks so small, standing across your bedroom. He looks so small and delicate and intimate, body curled in on itself ever so slightly as he looks at you, the yellow glow of your ceiling light reflected in his hazelnut eyes, drowning beneath his clothes. He looks like he has never seen a moment more perfect, never seen an opportunity as clear, looks like he thinks that if he blinks he’ll miss it.
Looks as if a photo will be the only way to remember it.
And you nod. Because he is your best friend, and who are you to deny him of something so simple? Of a press of a button? It doesn’t feel like a project anymore. It just feels like a memory.
Jungkook brings the camera to his eye, and you smile at him, soft and gentle and warm. He grins back, focusing the camera lens before snapping away.
You wonder what he sees.
(You wonder if it’s as beautiful as what you see.)
“Have fun tonight, okay?” Jungkook asks of you as your Google Calendar notification sounds, letting you know you have approximately two minutes before he’s supposed to pick you up outside your apartment.
You nod. “I will. And if I don’t, then I’ll come over afterwards. And we can watch that stupid noir film.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes, a shrug of his shoulders.
“But I want to. So I will. Okay? I’ll text you,” you promise. “Don’t think I’ll forget about you.”
Jungkook smiles at your little tease, at the way you cup the side of his jaw with your hand as you head towards your front door.
“Wait, Y/N,” Jungkook sputters out, running after you. He reaches you right as you get to the door, hand grasping the doorknob. You turn to look at him, blinking. “I hope tonight is everything you dreamed of.”
There is something so distinctly sad in his voice. It makes you wonder who has broken his heart. Makes you wonder what you can do to fix it.
“Even if it’s not,” you say to him, taking his hand in your own and squeezing it tight, reminding him that, no matter what, you’re still here. “I know you’ll always be there to take care of me afterwards.”
Your phone buzzes with a message from your date, and you scurry out the door.
For some reason, there’s a part of you that wishes you never even left.
The date is okay. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. By the time you finished eating, it was obvious neither of you had any interest in continuing the night elsewhere, whether it be a club or a karaoke bar. He pays for your meal despite your insistence that you can handle the check perfectly fine on your own, thanks you for a nice night, and drops you right back at your apartment. And so goes your one and only Tinder experience, blowing away like a leaf in the wind.
You look down at your phone. It isn’t even nine o’clock yet.
[November 7th, 8:48PM]
You: you still game for that movie?
[November 7th, 8:50PM]
Jungkook: you finished your date already?
You: is that a yes or a no
Jungkook: my door is always open, you know that
You: you’re gonna get robbed one day and it’s gonna be by me
You: i’m coming over
The walk from your apartment to Jungkook’s is six minutes and thirty seconds on a good day, and seven minutes and fifteen seconds on a bad day, which is usually dependent on if the traffic light over the main road has decided to be extra slow or not. You could walk the damn route in your sleep if you really wanted, having done it so many times in the last year and a half, ever since he moved out of on-campus housing and into his own place.
Tonight, it takes you nearly eight minutes to get to his apartment, but you mostly chalk that up to the heels you’re wearing. If you cared any less about your dignity, you’d probably take them off and walk barefoot like a defeated heroine in a romance movie, shoes dangling from your fingers as they hang low by your side.
But you aren’t defeated. You didn’t have the world’s most spectacular date, but the night isn’t over just yet.
Jungkook’s waiting at his front door by the time you arrive.
“Eight minutes, huh? You’re getting old,” he asks snidely, looking down at the invisible watch on his wrist.
“Your counting is just off,” you retort easily, falling into that same friendly rhythm, that familiar little beat that the two of you share. You push past him and into his apartment, instantly feeling more at home, shoulders sinking and heartbeat soothing as you soak in the scent of his room, of his home, of him.
“How’d it go?” Jungkook asks, eyes hopeful as they watch you tug off your heels. They were hardly three inches tall and yet you still want nothing to do with them.
You shrug. “Eh. It was okay.”
“Just okay?” Jungkook asks, sounding seriously upset for you. Upset that you didn’t have a good night even after you promised him that you would. Upset that it didn’t turn out to be everything you wanted.
“I don’t know,” you admit, looking over at him, dejected. “It just—I just had this feeling that it wasn’t going to work out.”
Jungkook scowls to himself, eyebrows furrowing like he’s trying to figure out what exactly you mean by that. And the truth is, you’re not sure either. The date was fine, and he was nice, but even when you first met it felt like you weren’t going to get what you wanted from him. Like you were just going on the date to go on the date. Like you already knew that it would mean nothing.
Jungkook was going to be waiting for you at the end of the night whether it went amazingly well or terribly bad. And knowing that, strangely enough, almost made you want the date to be horrible. Like it would make seeing Jungkook afterwards that much sweeter.
“Oh,” Jungkook says lamely. “Well, I’m sorry. It seemed like you were really looking forward to it.”
“It’s alright,” you assure him. “Can we just watch this movie now and make fun of how sexist it is? Please?”
To that, Jungkook easily agrees. As he’s queueing up the movie, you raid his closet for a hoodie and sweatpants, desperate to strip yourself of your dress and tights and cozy up in clothes that are much more appropriate for your comfort level. At this point in your friendship, Jungkook doesn’t even question it when he sees you march into his room, fishing through his closet and drawers for your favorite matching set of his, this grey pair that he’s worn so much it still smells like him even after it’s come right out of the wash.
He only stares back in awe when he sees you emerge from his bedroom wearing them.
“Ready?” You ask, breaking him from his resolve.
Jungkook blinks wildly from where he’s seated on his dinky old couch, as if to clear his vision. “What? Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Then hurry it up, Mister,” you demand, sitting down next to him and curling into his body. It’s instinctual, at this point, wanting to be close to him. To feel the warmth of his body radiate upon your own. To feel his chest beneath the palm of your hands, his arm wrapped around your side. “All good?” You ask, looking up at him.
Jungkook looks down at you, and you swear, you’ve never seen him more at home. “Always, when I’m with you.”
The movie is predictably good and predictably sexist, but your favorite part by far is when Jungkook reaches around on the coffee table in front of you for his camera, holding it up to his eye and snatching a picture of the television, the film grainy like an old polaroid, faded like an antique photograph. He clicks away at the scene in front of him before turning on you, the lens so close to your face you’re almost certain all he’ll manage to capture is your nose. You laugh, pushing yourself away from him as he snaps, and snaps, and snaps, image after image after image, until his camera battery has died and there’s no more room left on his card.
“Guess I’ll have to charge this thing, then,” Jungkook sighs as he declares his camera dead, screen black.
“You aren’t going to include any of those, are you?” You ask, an eyebrow raised.
Jungkook shrugs. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Don’t you have enough?” You deadpan, thinking back to the hundreds of photos Jungkook must have taken of you over the past week, and even more that you don’t know about. There’s certainly no shortage of them in his current camera inventory. That’s for sure.
“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. He stretches out an open arm, and you don’t have to think twice about falling into it, letting him wrap you up in his hold, curling into his body.
The black television screen crackles before you, DVD player waiting for Jungkook to turn it off. There’s no need for either of you to look up at each other. Not when you’re strung together like this. Not when you already know exactly where he is.
“It’s due on Monday, right?” You inquire softly, fatigue slowly overtaking you.
“Yeah. I’m almost finished, just have to do some curating and editing.”
“I want to see it.”
“What? My project?”
“What else?”
“It’s just a project, it’s not that exciting.”
You pull away from him at that, looking up at him with furrowed brows and scrunched-up nose. “What do you mean ‘it’s not that exciting’? It’s your photography project. You’ve spent a whole week working on it.”
“Yeah, but it’s just you, you know?” Jungkook objects. “Like, you know what you look like. It’s just going to be a bunch of photos of you, like I said it’d be.”
“That’s exactly why I want to see it,” you say like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You took pictures of me for a whole week. Don’t you want to share them with me?”
“If you really want some of the photos, I’ll send you some, but you don’t need to see the whole portfolio, you know? It’s just for my professor,” Jungkook says stiffly, surprisingly resistant. What’s the big deal? It’s not like there will suddenly be new information about you that you didn’t know before. You want to see what Jungkook has been working tirelessly on this entire week. Where’s the harm in that?
“Why are you getting so hung up on this? It’s just photos,” you say with a frown.
“Why are you getting so hung up on this?” Jungkook challenges back.
You sigh, sinking back into him, defeated. Even a little disagreement like that is enough to knock the wind out of the both of you, so you decide not to push it much further.
“Do you promise to show me eventually?” You ask, hopeful.
Jungkook pauses for a moment, and you almost expect him to say no, considering how protective of his work he’s being. “One day,” he declares. “One day, I will.”
And that’s good enough for you.
You lose track of how much time passes after that, feeling your eyelids getting heavy as the warmth of his body envelopes you, drowsiness settling in. There’s just something about this moment, right here, right now, that makes you want to fall asleep.
You’re on the verge of slumber when Jungkook’s voice breaks through.
“Why didn’t you think your date would work out?”
“I don’t know,” you respond sleepily, barely even opening your eyes. “It just felt wrong.”
“How do you know what feels right?”
Good question. Perhaps if you had the energy, you’d answer it. But right now, all you can think about is how cozy you feel in Jungkook’s hoodie and sweatpants, how the scent of him surrounds you, that indescribable, boyish aroma that can’t be replicated. Right now, all you can think about is how easily your body molds into his, like two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together. Right now, all you can think about is him.
The worst part about each and every week is when it ends. Because the end of one week signifies the beginning of the next, and when you’re in university, the beginning of the next week means a whole new batch of assignments that you have to complete and a whole new batch of due dates to meet.
So, yeah. The weeks have been blurring together for you lately. But what else could you expect?
Sunday evening, as per usual, finds you right back where you always are: Jungkook’s apartment.
The two of you have been regularly getting together on Sundays to study, ever since you both realized you work significantly harder when motivated by the other, determined to finish all of your work on time so you can spend the rest of the night fooling around by mixing Monster with as many unhealthy drinks that you can possibly think of. And it’s been working out well for the both of you so far. Jungkook powers through his coding assignments and you whiz through your readings, intent on keeping up to date with your tasks so they don’t all come crashing down on you at the end of the semester.
Studying with Jungkook has always been easy, largely due to the fact that it’s the one allotted time during your friendship where the both of you deem it best to not speak to each other for the sake of your work. The moment one of you opens your mouth it’s over, so you sit on opposite ends of the room and pretend that the other person isn’t even there.
Jungkook told you earlier today that he had already finished his photography portfolio, so there would unfortunately be no sneaky glances over his shoulder to see if you can catch a glimpse of one of the pictures. Which is fine by you, you’re just a little embarrassed that Jungkook had told you this outright. Not that you were planning to do exactly that, but you were planning to do exactly that.
Part of you. more than anything, wants to know why Jungkook won’t just show you himself. Why he’s being so secretive, so protective of his photography project when you both know already exactly what’s in it. For God’s sake, he just spent the entire week taking photos of you non-stop. It’s like not as if any part of this is a mystery to either of you. What more could he have done?
Whatever. You aren’t going to force it if he doesn’t want you to. You suppose that maybe one day, far into the future, he’ll finally decide that the time is right.
“I’m so fucking tired,” Jungkook declares lifelessly as he gets up from where he’s sitting on your bed, dead inside. “I need a break.”
“Are you going to the kitchen? Can you make me some tea, please?” You ask him, looking up from the laptop on your desk.
Jungkook nods wordlessly before disappearing out of the room.
You and Jungkook’s best study practice to maximize productivity is the taking of each other’s cell phones so that the other cannot be tempted to look at it. It’s worked plenty of times before and will probably work plenty of times again, because as they say, out of sight, out of mind.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to pretend that your phone is out of sight when it’s been buzzing on your bedside table for the past five minutes, and your fingers have been itching to get over there and answer your damn notifications. So, while Jungkook is out of the room, you decide to cheat a little by dashing over there just to see what the heck is going on in the rest of the world.
As it turns out, nothing much. Just Maisie texting you as she binges yet another television show, giving spoiler-free updates anytime anything remotely dramatic happens. You have a couple of new emails as well.
The thing that actually catches your attention the most, is Jungkook’s laptop screen.
There’s just a Word document open on it, but a Word document is a far cry from his usual coding program or Photoshop. Because you can’t help yourself, you peer over to see what he’s written.
What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?
Hard to say that I have. I don’t think I learned something about myself so much as I confirmed what I already knew, cementing it as a real thought in my brain, rather than just a daydream. Nothing changed in the way that my best friend and I interacted, and I can almost confirm that nothing changed in the way that she feels about me, just as nothing changed in the way I feel about her. I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.
What?
Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?
Yes. Not as a reference but to remind myself of this very moment in my life—a single week over the course of my life that I felt was worth saving. I imagine that there will come a time, far in the future, where my best friend and I have separated a little bit, found our own lives and created our own families with our own people. And when that happens, I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.
This feels personal. Maybe you should stop reading. But there’s just one more question left on the page…
This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?
Yes. If it meant getting to spend more time with her, take more photos of her, see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.
“Y/N?”
You hadn’t even heard the kettle whistling.
“Jungkook,” you say, breathless, caught red-handed.
“What are you doing?” He asks, placing your steaming cup of tea down on the desk as he stares back at you in horror, in surprise, in worry, in something. Something that gives you this imminent sense of impending doom.
“Uh—”
“Were you reading my computer screen?”
It’s not like you could say you were doing anything else.
“I couldn’t help myself, I came over here to check my phone since it’s been buzzing like crazy and your computer was right there and I just…” you sputter out, thoughts swirling inside your head.
(I will look back on this project to remind myself of who we used to be. How we used to feel about each other. Maybe, by that point in time, it won’t hurt as much as it does now.
If it meant getting to see her smile once more, I would do it a thousand times over.
I guess you could say I learned that I don’t think anything could ever change the way I feel about her.)
“What do you mean, how you feel about me?” You ask, because you can’t help yourself. Because the sound of his voices echoes in your head like the beat of a drum, over and over and over. Because you’re staring back at him and even if he just caught you snooping through his computer you can never be worried when it comes to him. Because everything he has ever done puts you at ease.
“Y/N, that is private, why would you read something like that?” He asks, each word a sucker punch into your heart.
“Because I just had to know, okay?” You shout back. “I had to know what you were hiding from me.”
“So you decided to snoop through my computer to see if you could figure it out yourself?” He demands, storming over to you.
“So you are hiding something?”
“That’s not the point, the point is that—”
“What are you not telling me, Jungkook?” You cry out, watching as he approaches you, dark eyes piercing your gaze. “Why won’t you show me your goddamn portfolio? If there’s really nothing to be afraid of, why are you keeping it from me? I’m your best friend, I’m the fucking subject of your project? Don’t I deserve to see it? Why won’t you show me?”
“Because then you’d know!” Jungkook shouts back, leaving deafening silence in his wake. You look up at him, blinking. In front of you, Jungkook is out of breath, chest heaving.
He looks so strained. So tired. Like he’s been carrying around this secret for months now, maybe even years, and this is the final straw. This is what has sent the both of you crashing down upon each other. This stupid fucking project. You’ve known Jungkook ever since the beginning of your freshman year, and never before have you seen him so hopeless.
“Jungkook—?”
“You’d know, goddamnit,” Jungkook says, hand coming up to rub at his forehead, dragging down his cheek. “And I wasn’t sure if I was ready for that.”
“Know what? What would I know?”
Jungkook closes his eyes. Takes a deep breath. Opens them again. “That I’m in love with you.”
The words drift in between the two of you, hovering in the air like feathers. You see them, clear as day, in front of you, hear them echoing in your head, over and over and over again. Feel the way your blood is pumping, the way your heart is beating.
“You’re in love with me?” You ask him.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way,” Jungkook admits. “Or at all, really. But I have been, for a while now.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid that I’d lose you.”
You chuckle, a small, little thing from the back of your throat. “You must have known I’d never let that happen, hmm?”
Jungkook smiles softly. “I was scared. Can you blame me? You’re my best friend.”
“And you are mine,” you remind him.
“It’s just—” Jungkook begins, like the gates of a dam are opening up. “We’d known each other for so long, and we have such a good thing going as is, always texting and calling and hanging out together, studying together on Sunday nights and seeing each other during the week, and I didn’t want to ruin anything. And then my professor assigned this project, and the only person I could think of to take photos was you, but I didn’t want to ask that of you in case you thought it was weird, but you suggested it anyway so I said yes, but I knew. I knew then that the moment I took one goddamn photo of you it would be obvious, and that if you ever saw you would just know. Stuff like that is easy to pick up in pictures, because a camera is like, tunnel vision for whatever it is you want to focus on most, and that’s you, that’s always been you, so I—”
“Jungkook,” you interrupt, reaching out to him, pressing a soft hand to his cheek. “Just, shut up, okay?”
And then you cup his head in both of your hands, and press a kiss to his lips. A small one, if nothing else, but a kiss nonetheless. You press your lips against his own and immediately you feel the sparks rush through you, this flash of heat that settles into something softer, something sweeter. It ignites and soothes you all at once, like a stray lightning bolt out on the open ocean. Like a single clap of thunder and the pitter patter of rain.
You press a kiss to his lips and when you pull away, Jungkook’s eyes are closed, lips parted ever so slightly. And for a moment there, you almost think you did the wrong thing.
But barely a second more passes before he’s scooping you up in his arms and pulling you in close to him, his lips finding yours like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. He holds you tight, hands pressed against the small of your back as he kisses you, warm and fiery and full, as if he can’t get enough, as if this is his only chance. You gasp into it before relaxing in his hold, cold hands on his warm cheeks, body melting at the feeling of him, of him all over you, of his hands and his mouth and his chest, this perfect, solid figure.
He kisses you and it sends heat shooting through your body, filling you up from the inside out, like your heart has burst and filled your bloodstream with fire, with sparks of warmth that tingle all over. He kisses you, and everywhere his hands press is another sizzle to your skin, an electric shock that makes you giggle into his mouth.
He kisses you and it feels like a storm has settled, feels like gentle rain after a hurricane, feels like waves crashing against the shore. He kisses you and it is the only thing you can think about.
By the time you part once more, you don’t think you’ve ever seen Jungkook so blissed out.
“See?” You point out softly. “Nothing to be afraid of.”
Jungkook looks positively dazed. “I think I need to lie down.”
“Ooh, was I that good?” You tease.
“I’m dreaming.” He shakes his head. “I’m definitely fucking dreaming.”
Jungkook sinks onto your bed, hitting the mattress with a thud. He stares mindlessly in front of him, like his brain needs time to process.
You smile to yourself. He can have all the time in the world.
“Is this real?” He mumbles when you sit down next to him, press another kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Are you real?”
“Just like you,” you promise him. “I didn’t know this is what we had been missing, all this time.”
“It wasn’t missing,” Jungkook assures you. “It was just hidden.”
“I love you,” you whisper, watching him swallow the words like a glass of wine. “I think I always have. You just needed to say it first.”
“Oblivious as always.” Jungkook grins, smiling against your lips. “But I’m glad. If this is what it would take, then I’m glad.”
“You wouldn’t change anything?” You ask him, eyes wide and curious.
It’s hard to know how long you and Jungkook have been secretly pining over each other. Hard to know how long Jungkook has known that he’s loved you, how long it’s been since you started to feel the same, even if subconsciously. It’s hard to know how long you would have kept going if not for this project. It might have been months. Years. Years that Jungkook was willing to spend holding back, if only it meant keeping you by his side.
“No,” Jungkook says like it’s the easiest answer in the world. “I have you now. Why would I?”
What did you learn about yourself through this assignment? How do you think you’ve changed?
Previously, I had responded to this question by saying that I hadn’t learned anything, and felt that nothing changed in my life. Then, some things happened. And after those things, I learned that I am the luckiest man alive. To know my best friend is one thing. To love her is a privilege. To have her love me back is nothing less than a miracle.
Do you think you’ll ever look back on this project, whether it be as a reference or a memory?
Yes. Every day for the rest of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful to receive a homework assignment as I am, right now. I owe everything to this project. It is the reason I have her.
This assignment forced you to create an entire portfolio, from scratch, using a subject you would have to regularly schedule time with. It was demanding. But, that said, would you ever do this again?
Yes. I want to take photos of her for the rest of my life. I want to save every memory we ever share together. So that far into the future, we can look back on them together and say, “Remember that?”
↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!
#jungkook fluff#jungkook angst#bts fluff#bts angst#bts scenario#jungkook scenario#bts imagine#jungkook imagine#bts au#jungkook au#jungkook x reader#bts x reader#w: the love project#yes i am finishing this at 6am on the day its meant to be posted... MIND UR OWN BUSINESS
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*hands you an AU dump to hoard like a little goblin handing a small coin to a dragon*
OKAY so basically: after the doctor's visit where Izuku learns he's quirkless (I hc that they went when he was about five n' a half), Inko does a little bit of research on quirks and more specifically on her son's notebooks, learns that he's even more brilliant at quirk analysis than she originally suspected, and (after looking at some not great quirkless statistics) she instead informs Izuku that no, he's had a quirk all along! It's an analysis quirk!
So she updates the quirk registry, and Izuku goes through his life believing he has an analysis quirk, albeit teased for being a late bloomer, but he still can't shake the insecurity being quirkless for that one and a half year gave him.
He does research on all sorts of things, hacking, knife throwing, first aid, and building his own support gear and takes to all of it like a duck to water. He also does research on UA's policy for support gear in the entrance exam (cause surely they've gotta have a policy for non-offensive quirks like Koda and Hagakure) and finds that he can take one with him if he builds it himself. He goes fuckin bonkers.
Anyways: he trains with Katsuki, cause they're relationship is pretty good since Izuku has a 'quirk.' They both demolish the entrance exam. (Also Izuku kinda swears a lot because Katsuki rubs off on him)
Aizawa doesn't notice a goddamn thing is amiss until the battle trials on the second day (he decides to shadow All Might that day), where when he was using his quirk to silence his students while Izuku was rambling, he just didn't stop, as if he didn't notice anything was wrong. It happens again during the USJ.
So at some point during the sports festival, Nedzu (who is now intrigued because of Aizawa's complaining) invites Izuku into his office during a free period and lets him go ham on analysis, all while Aizawa is secretly there erasing Izuku's 'quirk.' Nedzu invites Izuku to be his personal student (making Aizawa go grey), he says yes, and then Nedzu drops the absolute BOMBSHELL that Izuku is actually quirkless. Cue an existential crisis.
(Also Izuku gets captured at the training camp alongside Katsuki because of his "analysis quirk," wonder how well that goes for him~)
- Goblin anon (sorry this one was kinda long)
GOBLIN?? DUDE???? HOLY SHIT I KNEW YOUR AUS ARE ALWAYS PHENOMENAL BUT THIS RIGHT HERE??? D U D E
i misunderstood the prompt a bit but i genuinely don’t know how to backtrack, so here you go goblin. sorry again o(TヘTo)
ok first of, inko taking on a stronger stance to support her son? love that of her. like, she doesn’t say sorry when izuku turned to look at her and cried that he can’t be like all might. instead, she took him in her arms and assures him that he will be a great hero. at first, of course half of it is lip service because she doesn’t know how to help her quirkless boy be a hero, since, you know, heroes need quirks.. (or do they)
and then she comes across a quirkless self help group which rang many many warning bells in her head. what kind of life do quirkless people live when a google research of them resulted in subsequent pages of results like how to stay safe when quirkless, or how to find jobs when quirkless, or quirkless mortality rates?
she fears for izuku, until she notices that her son’s smart. too smart for his age, but inko thought she’s just being biased. but izuku’s wit is something many people notice, for an instance, when izuku goes to the park to play and his friends’ (the few ones who stayed) parents tell her that her son’s smart for a quirkless person, she realizes that izuku’s wit is far more vast than normal.
then a thought worms into her head but wouldn’t it be bad to lie…but also, no one would be any the wiser.
further pushed by all the statistics she keeps seeing, or the lack thereof, about quirkless people, she makes the decision and pours it to izuku.
izuku who’s far smarter than his age and understood what his mom is asking from him. izuku who already saw the disparities between quirked and quirkless people at the tender age of five. izuku who knows what it means to lie about something as personal as a quirk, but realizes that it’s necessary for him to do so if he wants to live a “normal” life.
so he agrees; he tells inko that he’ll work even harder to sharpen his mind, and to keep expanding his knowledge.
when izuku’s quirk file is officially updated, he watches how his peers and teachers revert back into treating him as izuku. he regains his old friends, but he chose to drop them because he doesn’t want to surround himself with people who thought he was less for being quirkless.
katsuki stayed, surprisingly. katsuki stayed and everyday he kept bothering izuku to “get your quirk already!” katsuki stayed because he can’t fathom that the smartest boy in their class (of course not as smart as him, psshh) is quirkless. deku couldn’t be quirkless. (but if he found out that izuku, indeed, is, i wonder what would happen…)
katsuki was one of the loudest to celebrate when izuku announced that his quirk arrived.
“finally!” he screams and bothers izuku about the semantics of his quirk. he really wasn’t surprised to find out that izuku has an analysis quirk because he thought that nothing else would better be suited for izuku.
he doesn’t know that izuku pours so much of his time into learning and studying, often bypassing basics and intros to take more of the developed courses that are usually recommended for older ages. he doesn’t know that izuku is just a naturally smart kid with the ability to fill the gaps of his young mind with knowledge upon knowledge, storing and stacking them until he feels that he’s laid a sturdy foundation for his fake quirk.
then izuku began threading into different areas. he learns how to get into cyberspaces; hacking into accounts and delving more into how to access private information. he doesn’t thread too close lest he gets caught, but he learns the logistics of maneuvering around the web and burrowing in empty spaces to branch out his own. he creates and designs web algorithms for himself, just so he doesn’t trigger anyone who is looking into the web movements. he hones this and uses it to access more information.
then when he deems it enough, he turns his attention to something more tangible and something more physical. he learns other ways to be a hero; how to fight without a physical quirk, how to win against bigger opponents, how to use analysis quirk in fights.
izuku becomes more than a fake analysis quirk user; he creates it.
mental quirks are hard to describe, more so to compress, thus he creates new definitions of an analysis quirk. what used to be a silly lie is now a tangible fact that izuku believes in. because what makes a quirk? because what makes analysis a quirk? he learns these semantics (often political) and uses it to his advantage.
then he finally threads to hero analysis. at first it were classmates he analyzed; eyes running quickly at their forms and watching with great interest before calculating everything he’s seen and transversing it with the things he learned, and bridges these two facts together to create an analysis. it was a struggle at first: he didn’t know which to put emphasis on until he realizes, he doesn’t need to. he weaves them together and lets his analysis run long and watches how his hobby comes into fruition.
following his classmates are current heroes. these were more tough and more fun, and any of the information is less shared. he doesn’t tell his classmates or teachers about his analyses, only katsuki. and katsuki’s breath hitch every damn time at izuku’s talent quirk.
it is in their second year of middle school that midoriya begins to incorporate the facts with himself to create physical performances. the issues and things he learned through observing are now practiced by himself. he calculates the best way to fight with a body as petite as his, often taking examples from pro-hero hawks and other women heroes. their agilities and physicality suit izuku’s young body; he doesn’t see the merit in punching his way through things when he physically cannot.
so he learns ways to ease his muscles. he learns ballet and gymnastics; lets his muscles contort and mend themselves anew. he finds his balance and roots himself firmly, and learns to calculate his actions so he doesn’t waste his energy. katsuki doesn’t say anything, but he sees izuku’s dance and falls in love.
then in the spring of their third year of middle school, izuku learns how to build and handle weapons.
this is the easiest. izuku learns that weapons aren’t tools, but extensions of his arms and hands. they are not to be revered and not to be depended on because they can fail. instead, he learns to wield weapons as though they are parts of his bodies. he learns how to use swords and often narrowing to wooden sticks that can be picked up anywhere; he learns how to fire guns and how to hide daggers in his uniform. he learns that his body is the best weapon to use and that tools are just arsenal to help him win.
then he learns how to build them.
by summer, izuku begins reaching into UA’s servers. they are hard codes to crack, but not impossible. it takes him five days to access old entrance exam videos. the next day, the videos are snuffed and he is left to try digging deeper into UA.
he fails.
nezu must have caught onto his codes and proceeded to build walls against it.
so he slithers out. but a five minute video of last year’s entrance exam is enough for izuku because he learns two things: one, heroes must defeat villains and two, heroes must save others.
izuku prepares for this. unknowingly, katsuki is taught these same principles. katsuki would grumble and tell him that he knows what heroes must do, but izuku continues to hammer it down to him.
by the time of the UA entrance exam, izuku falls into the ease of having a fake quirk. he passes the written exam with flying colours and although it took three teachers to approve his support gears (present mic had to pull in powerloader, midnight, and hound dog to ensure that the well designed support gears are made by the hero student examinee and not by a support student examinee. majima saw the works and begged nezu to allow izuku to be his student.), izuku still succeeds and dominates the entrance exam.
when the zero pointer was released, he had flung himself towards the girl crushed by debris and yanks her out. he doesn’t waste a modified grenade to explode the zero pointer because through his calculations, doing so would not only create more collateral damage, but would also endanger the examinee in his arms because she still would be caught in the crossfire.
nezu hums in appreciation from the screening room, after all, smart minds always do think alike.
izuku gets a whopping 92 in the physical aspects of the entrance exam.
katsuki gets 85.
aizawa gleefully takes them in.
izuku thinks that no one will ever know of his and inko’s secret, but one look at nezu’s beady eyes and he knew that the stoat knew. it became a game to them, then. a game to see who else would realize.
and while izuku is smart, he doesn’t realize that nezu has basically taken him as his personal student the moment he and izuku had created a bet.
it takes two months for aizawa to figure things out. surprisingly, he is the only one to do so and he only realizes due to the many untimely attacks of LoV.
——
how angst would it be if katsuki realizes that izuku’s always been quirkless during their captivity in the LoV’s hideout.
#goblin anon#my BELOVED#ask#this ones such a damn good au#bamf midoriya >>>#head empty just fake anslysis quirk user midoriya#bakugou going fish eyed at the realization that izukus always been quirkless#bakugou: so u lied to me#midoriya: and to everyone yeah#no bc bkg falling in love w midos hard work#n thinking that he would love midoriya no matter what then ‘no matter what’ happens to be midoriya being quirkless n now hes confused#bnha#midoriya izuku#bakugou katsuki#slight#bakudeku#aizawa shouta#nezu#long post#like long
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bad buddy ep 5 (thoughts)
i was just gonna keep all my feelings inside of me (like pran) but i caved bc i’ve been rewatching ep 5 for DAYS and i know everyone and their mother has already talked about it and analysed it to pieces so this is just me being self-indulgent bc i just want to ramble (write?) about the things that i loved so much about this ep for my own wellbeing...and bc i can’t stop thinking about this show ;;; i prob should have done this earlier considering we’re like less than 24 hours away from ep 6 but oh well.
i’ve seen some people question how pran seemed totally fine in the morning after ep 4, but it makes total sense to me. i don’t think there was ever really a moment where pran thought pat could like him back in the same way...maybe there was some inkling of hope, but i don’t think he ever really believed it. in their high school flashback, pran mentions that pat’s always ended up with whoever he likes, so we know that pran’s seen pat with other love interests in high school (and we know how pran’s had feelings for pat since high school too). so pat liking ink, although heartbreaking for pran, isn’t really that much a of a surprise for him? he prob feels like it’s inevitable. he’s been dealing with these feelings for YEARS at this point, so it’s become easy enough to just bury what he feels and pretend like everything’s normal. he’s done it all this time already so it’s nothing new. he resigned himself to pat never liking him back a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean that pat still can’t get to him bc in the breakfast scene you can literally see this poor boy struggle so hard to be mad at pat and fail bc he’s just too soft for him. even when he’s being annoying, pat’s too cute. pran builds up all these defences, but pat always has this way of slipping through the cracks in his walls bc he’s in love with him and he just can’t help it no matter how hard he tries (or pretends) to be annoyed/mad at pat.
pran’s sketchbook full of drawings relating to pat is ADORABLE.
pat and paa’s relationship is the cutest!! they really feel like siblings, and i love all their scenes together.
i know the paa’s love guru checklist isn’t anything new for a romance drama, but i absolutely love the way they executed it in this. from the embarrassment of pat getting absolutely NO response that ink likes him in any way whatsoever (like, she very clearly showed much more interest in paa...so inkpaa when??), to meeting pran at the music shop and then it registering for him that he can tick off every single thing paa’s told him when it comes to pran (you see the way he almost involuntarily started smiling when he was watching pran with that guitar????? he’s got it bad). they killed two birds with one stone with this trope. we now know ink is not interested in him at all, but HE’s starting to realise that his feelings for pran aren’t just platonic. it was very heart fluttery rom com type stuff and i loved it.
also, pat might be confused, but it’s telling that he immediately ditched ink and paa to go pick up his drumsticks on their ‘date’. you think he would have ditched pran like that?? there’s no way whatsoever 😂 not when all pat ever does is think up ways he can spend more time with pran.
it’s actually so cute to me how, once pat’s realised that he might actually have feelings for pran, he constantly tries to confirm whether it’s really true or not. he might be kind of dense when it comes to his love life, but he’s not afraid to feel what he feels. he’s not afraid to explore (or better understand) his feelings as soon as realises he might have them. he’s just such a straightforward, sincere character.
compare what pat said in ep 1 about how pran’s mum would blame him for pran getting into a fight with how pran talks about how much his mum loves wai though :((( he knows he’ll never win against wai when it comes to pran’s parents but pat just wants to feel special to pran in some way. which is why he asks whether wai’s slept over before...and he can’t even have that. it’s also why the song they wrote together is such a big deal to him later on.
god, i adore their high school flashback scenes SO MUCH. there’s such a sense of innocence there...they’re just these two kids that want to be around each other, that want to be FRIENDS, but they can’t bc of their families. like this will obviously take on a whole new meaning later on, but for now it’s just sad bc it’s such a pure, simple wish for the both of them that that can’t have. yet, they’re still drawn to each other. and it’s cute how it’s always music that’s bringing them together. back then when they were in the school band, and again in the present to compete in the freshy day concert (and when pat gave pran back his guitar). it’s music, specifically their song, that ties them together.
i’m also in love with the way that we keep getting these little glimpses of the past with the flashbacks. like each new ep, we get another puzzle piece to put into place as we slowly piece together what happened back then. why pran ended up having to transfer (bc i think we all know that it’s more than just pat and pran being in the same band together), and just how close they really were.
i also love how perceptive paa is when it comes to her brother. it’s so sweet.
the concert performance where pran plays their song and pat starts realising that all his past memories hold a much deeper meaning to him than he originally thought is just a+++ i love the way he starts out remembering all these happy, fond memories (them writing the song together, them playing together in their music room), but as SOON as pran turns to wai and they start smiling and playing their instruments at each other, he remembers that pran used to look at HIM that way (the flashback where you see pran looking down at pat and smiling at him from pat’s pov where he’s playing the drums DEVASTATED me), and his memories take a darker turn (pran’s parents arriving and pran leaving the stage so they can’t even finish their song together, the last time they saw each other before pran got transferred). of course it’s jealousy, but it runs so much deeper than that.
ink is the BEST. the female characters on this show are absolutely wonderful. from the teaser, i had always assumed that pat would ‘confess’ to her earlier in the ep, but i kind of love that he did it here bc it shows that he didn’t just move on/rebound with pran after being rejected. he’s been harbouring these feelings for pran for so long without realising, but now it’s all hitting him like a ton of bricks and he’s just so confused. esp when all this time he thought it was INK that he had feelings for (and maybe he even kind of did in high school, but that’s clearly not the case anymore). i love that ink just gets it. understands poor pat is going through it rn, needs to offload, and it’s not really her that he’s actually into. i also really love that pat apologises to her after she rejects him since he really could have played with her feelings too had she liked him back in that way. their friendship is just so wholesome :’)
one of my fave things about this ep is how it escalates. it starts of cute and light (esp after the angst of the ep 4 ending), but then gets progressively more angsty and tension heavy as pat slowly realises and comes to terms with his feelings. the last 16 mins of this ep are a work of ART. everything that’s happened in this ep was all for this confrontation and it gives me goosebumps just thinking about how amazingly executed everything is.
so let’s talk about the fight scene!! what gets me about this is that pat wasn’t even waiting for pran to fight him. he wouldn’t have bought the condensed milk for pran if he was there to fight. he literally just wanted to be with him. after losing the contest to the architecture faculty (to the song THEY wrote together), seeing pran and wai performing to completion all happy, having to back down from the previous fight at wai’s bar, getting drunk, and the steady realisation that he actually has feelings for pran...ALL HE WANTS is to spend time with pran. he’s even trying to sober himself up while he waits.
but then he checks his phone and sees the ig story and it’s another reminder of everything that he can’t have with pran. he can’t hang out with him like that in public like wai can, let alone post about it on ig for everyone to see. and i think this is where it really starts to hit pat just how unfair all of this really is. he’s bitterly jealous of wai, but that jealousy isn’t just bc he’s possessive, or thinks that pran is his in any way. it’s bc wai gets to have all these simple moments with pran. gets to go over to his house, have pran’s mum love him, sing their song together, hang out with him in public, post about their relationship on ig, etc.
so when he sees wai driving pran back home, it’s like the last straw for him. in his eyes, wai is encroaching on pat/pran’s territory (the dorms). the one place where pat and pran can be themselves without worrying about anybody else. where they don’t have to pretend that they hate each other. these feelings have been festering inside of him, and though it’s taken him much longer to realise his feelings than pran, pat can’t sit on them or hide them away the way that pran can. he’s ready to explode. so the only trigger he needs is pran putting up the act again in front of wai, pretending like there’s nothing between them. it’s the one thing that pat’s most insecure about. pat’s such a confident person in everything else that it must be kind of unsettling for him to feel inferior like this bc they have to keep their relationship a secret. he didn’t come to fight but bc wai’s there, pran expects them to play their roles, but pat’s no longer following the script. he’s so far gone, so angry and jealous, that he can’t hold it inside anymore.
the tension in this scene is fantastic. the first time i watched it, i was SO worried that pat was gonna do something stupid bc he seemed crazed (ohm is soooooo good in this scene wow), but i’m glad that it didn’t turn out the way i was thinking. despite how mad he is, pat’s generally on the defensive with pran. he literally put his hands up in front of him when pran grabs shirt (he really doesn’t want to fight/hurt pran), and he only punches wai when wai punches him first.
then when it’s all said and done, the tension melts away, and the reality of what happens hits in and it hurts. it hurts bc pat has never truly wanted to fight pran/make pran angry. when he takes out the condensed milk, it’s like another reminder of why he even waited for pran in the first place. the thing is, pat is constantly doing these nice gestures for pran all bc he just wants to see him (and care for him), but he always needs an excuse. he can’t just go over to pran’s place bc he WANTS to like any of pran’s other friends. it always has to be under the guise of something else (eg. bruise cream, makeup remover, earphones, medicine, lost keys, condensed milk, etc.). and the realisation of that, esp knowing now that he has romantic feelings for pran, stings.
it’s also why the song is as important to him as it is. it’s the one piece of the two of them that he could say was theirs. the one thing that they created together, all by themselves, untouched by their family rivalry. but pran sang it (uninterrupted this time) with wai. replaced him with wai, who already gets all the perks of being in pran’s life that pat can never have bc of every external force pulling them apart.
i love that he really tries to sober himself up after this. that he has the presence of mind to take a shower to clear his head and heart (and prob to smell nice for pran too 😭), and to figure out what to say to pran after what happened. pat thinks and acts with his heart, but he also knows when he needs to calm down and reevaluate himself. he doesn’t want this to end in a fight.
what can i even say about the infamous rooftop scene at this point that hasn’t already been said a millions times over?? i have watched this scene so many times that it’s a wonder it hasn’t been tattooed into the folds of my brain yet. it’s just so BEAUTIFUL.
when he brings up the song, we know it’s important and he means it, but when he says “i hate to see you play it with someone else”, he’s clearly talking about more than just the song. it’s a coded way of saying that he doesn’t like seeing pran with other people in the way that he can’t be with pran. but it’s like he’s still not daring to say what he really means out loud and pran knows it. pran sees it as another one of the jokes/misdirects that he’s so used to from pat, and he calls him out on it with the “pat, you’ve got to stop doing this to me, we’re not a thing, we’re not even friends” line.
not to mention, he thinks that pat’s still courting ink at this point. pat’s been so strange this whole ep, it must have been so confusing for pran since he had no idea about any of the inner turmoil pat’s been going through the past few days.
when pat starts with the “when you’re away, i was so damn happy” you can see the heartbreak in pran and it’s so painful. how he looks away when pat starts listing the reasons he was happy pran wasn’t there...but then he hits him with the “it was so depressingly lonely” and you see the look in pran’s eyes change as he looks back at pat, like he’s only now realising it wasn’t just him that was hurting this whole time (nanon is PHENOMENAL). honestly, this line holds so much more meaning when you rewatch ep 1 again and see the expressions on their faces when they see each other again for the first time in years. i love when shows do this. when they introduce something later down the line that gives a significance to an interaction that didn’t hold as much meaning initially, or that you brushed past previously. i also love that the way he goes from “i was so damn happy” to “i was depressingly lonely” is the opposite of pat’s usual jokes/misdirects. instead of taking the hope away from pran at the end, he gives it back to him this time.
i think it’s safe to say that he’s always been in love/had feelings for pran, but never really given himself the chance to think about those feelings deeply until he started seeing all his past interactions with pran under a different lens. but they’ve likely always been there, which is why it hits him so hard JUST how much pran means to him, and just how lonely and devoid of pran he’s been over the years they weren’t together.
ALSO, if you think about it, it’s really their parents fault that they became so obsessed with each other in the first place?? imagine constantly having to compete and keep up to date with the boy next door. you’d have to know just about everything about him. they were essentially brainwashed by their parents to hate each other, but bc they’re decent human beings who grew up and realised that there was no substance behind that hatred (esp after pran saved paa), they started to get to know each other better. they just got caught in the crossfire of their parents’ war with one another. it breaks my heart that their parents have given them so much trauma that they’re so afraid (esp pran) that someone will find out about their relationship.
when i watched this the first time, i thought pran was the first to cry...but on closer inspection it was actually pat and that makes me feel some kind of way :(
“why, do you want us to be friends?” “no”. i will NEVER be over this. ever ever ever.
the hesitancy before the kiss ties back to their whole conversation in that high school flashback about the nervousness and insecurity of not knowing whether it’ll turn out good or bad and it adds so much more depth to this already stunning scene. the hesitation shows that they KNOW what this means. they’re crossing this invisible line that they’ve been toeing all this time, and they can’t take it back once it’s done. pat can’t joke/flirt like it doesn’t mean anything after this. pran might try to hide his feelings away, but he can’t deny that he ever gave in (pat won’t ever let him). once it’s done, it’s done. but nothing can stop the full force of their feelings at this point, even if they know it’s impossible. pran can’t push this feeling down anymore bc it’s too overwhelming. he’s wanted this for so long. like in ep 4 where he lets himself have this one moment of vulnerability (to cry), he pulls pat back into the kiss...just this one moment where he can give in to his feelings properly before everything comes crashing down to earth. but pran kissing pat back immediately also shows pat just how much pran wants it too even if he won’t say it out loud.
i love that their kiss suits their dynamic perfectly. it’s always this give and take between them. pat acts first (as he always does)...and his intention is slightly different bc he’s testing the waters, confirming that his feelings for pran are really what he thinks they are. pran already knows how he feels so he takes action bc he’s never been a passive participant in their relationship either. it’s genuinely one of the reasons that i love the both of them so much. everything is on an equal footing with them. it’s my fave kind of relationship dynamic.
the rock score they used for this scene is also so perfect bc the drums and guitar playing represents the both of them coming together, and it echoes back to how music is always the thing that brings them back together again in some way.
notice how after pat kisses pran (before pran pulls him back again), his eyes are still closed, but pran opens his first. it’s like it symbolises that he’s the one that’s more aware of the reality of their situation.
they’re just at such different stages at this point. pat has JUST woken up to his feelings, so the kiss is everything clicking into place for him. him realising that THIS is how it’s supposed to feel...and that his feelings are reciprocated!! pran, on the other hand, has known how he’s felt about pat for so long now that he’s had all the time in the world to think about the consequences of what would happen if they were hypothetically in a relationship (since i don’t think he ever truly believed they would ever be in one until this moment). esp since pran was the one that was hurt the most from those consequences when he was transferred in high school.
it’s the heartbreak of pran finally having what his heart wants, but knowing realistically that it’s not enough. he’d likely made peace with pat never feeling anything back for him years ago only for this to happen. but it’s so much worse when you’ve gotten a taste of something that you can’t have bc now you know what it’s like. to someone like pran, who cares so much about the people around him (always trying to please his family and friends), unrequited love is better than reciprocated love. if it’s unrequited, he’s the only one that’s suffering. but if the both of them have feelings for each other, if they’re both in love, then the future is only going to bring them both misery. pran’s been though this once before, and he can’t go through it again. he esp doesn’t want PAT to have to go through it too. so he walks away, pushing the feelings down again bc he can’t let anyone else find out.
pat and pran are the perfect example of an ‘opposites attract’ relationship done well. pran is a perpetual worrier. he’s constantly thinking about the future. constantly assessing the pros and cons of a situation. which is also why it’s not exactly surprising that he realised his feelings for pat so early on. he’s the type of person that thinks about all types of possibilities and outcomes (i’m sure he catastrophizes a lot too) in any given situation. and he’s introspective. but he hides that all inside himself. pat, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. he goes with the flow. lives in the moment. is extremely easygoing. he only thinks about problems when they happen, and doesn’t dwell in ‘what ifs’. i think a great example of their different mindsets is in ep 3 when they find out that their sponsorship will only cover half of the budget for the bus stop. pran’s immediately worried about how they’re gonna get the rest of the funding, whilst pat cracks jokes and is all “don’t worry, you’ll figure something out soon” to him. it’s why their expressions in the kiss scene esp make so much sense. pat, living in the present, sees the potential of the two of them. pran, living in the future, sees the end of them bc of all the external factors he knows will keep them apart.
anyway, my chest is still aching about it now and it’s almost been a whole week since this ep. but the first time i watched it, i absolutely bawled my eyes out like a BABY as soon as the ep was over. no kiss scene has ever gotten to me like that but this was so exquisitely crafted...and the build up was so exceptional, it was always gonna make me cry. and the ACTING...don’t even get me started on the acting bc i could rave about their performances for days ;;;
nanon’s so expressive. he breathes so much life into pran as a character. i love every little quirk of his, and i just love how he acts with such clarity. pran’s intentions and feelings are always so clear. it never feels like acting.
and ohm!! my fave thing about ohm is his line delivery. he has this way of making his voice softer with certain lines, or his voice waver, and it gives the lines he emphasises such impact (like ”come here” or “i was depressingly lonely” or “no”).
it still kind of blows my mind sometimes that we really got these two award winning actors, with insanely good chemistry to act in a bl helmed by p’aof. and the fact that it’s been so incredible so far?? we’ve been blessed.
i’m so excited for ep 6, although i know that we have more angst to come (but hopefully at least a bit more fluff in the next few eps or so with the bet coming into play)!! of course they’d make a bet like that. all they know is how to compete with one another, so it seems very much in character for the two of them to play this game (and fail lbr). it’s wild to me that so much has already happened and we’re still only 5 eps in...
#bad buddy#i didn't plan on this being so long??#i'm not really intending to do recaps the way that i did with itsay/ipytm but i just had so much building up inside of me to say about ep 5#so i'm treating this as my form of therapy...like a diary entry of sorts bc i kept writing notes on my phone about this ep#i needed an outlet#anyway i'm gonna sleep now and not think about how we still have so many hours to go before ep 6 i just want it now ;;;#text#finally getting off this rooftop and going to the beach i guess??
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Hello, can I request one where Levi's fem s/o is getting threatened by some scouts who think she becomes a squad leader only because she is Levi's girlfriend? The reader refuses to talk about it to Levi but he gets suspicious of her behaviour. One day he sees her coming to their room hurt. When he asks her to tell him what happened the reader tries to lie but Levi doesn't believe her and she with some hesitation tells him the truth. Thank you so much, I love your works❤️
(a/n: tysm for the request and kind words, love! i hope you like it <3 also, sorry that i took so long to write it)
Levi x Reader Let Me Be There For You
Salty moisture fell from your eyes when the door to your office closed behind you with the click of the lock. This was something you wouldn’t allow anyone to see because one: that would mean those that caused your tears would know that their words do affect you. And two: you don’t want to seem weak and vulnerable, especially not in front of your boyfriend.
Their words echoed in your ears, etching themselves into your brain to be trapped there.
“If I sleep with him, will I become a squad leader?”
“She doesn’t even deserve to be one. She’s one of the weakest.”
“I bet she’s only with him so she can be a squad leader.”
“She acts like she’s everything just because she’s dating the Corporal. I doubt she even loves him.”
Every sentence, word, letter caused a piece of your heart to crack and fall apart. And it would only happen in the safety of your office, where no one could say anything to you, or witness your breakdowns.
How could they say you don’t love him?
He’s the reason you work so hard. So you can live as long as he will. So he’s proud of you. So you can prove that he has nothing to worry about when out on expeditions or any other missions.
There have been times when you wanted to break up with him. Not because you don’t love him, but because you just wanted all these people to leave you alone. However, you won’t break up with him because that would mean those people will get what they want. And you don’t want to part from him for something irrelevant and petty. Especially when he cares so much about you that it would definitely hurt him if you broke up with him.
After calming yourself down, you rid your cheeks of your tears and made a start on your work. Paperwork was one of the only ways to distract yourself. It was almost like your comfort. Because nothing can happen to you while your pen scratches against the paper and your mind is only focused on the words before you. And with your door locked, no one can burst into the office.
“(Y/N),” the familiar voice of your lover called softly from the other side of the door, knocking quietly. “Unlock the door.”
“I want to be alone right now,” you replied.
“(Y/N), let me in. Let me help you.”
“There’s nothing to help me with.”
“Then, let me listen to you. I’ll try to do whatever I can to make sure that you aren’t upset anymore.”
“What makes you think I was crying?”
“... I didn’t say that. But now, I do know that you were crying... Did... did I do something to make you upset?”
“No, no. No, you didn’t, Levi. Don’t worry. You haven’t done anything wrong, my love.”
“Open the door, please.”
After some consideration, you huffed and stood up to open the door for your boyfriend as you stood there, keeping your gaze away from him. His eyes immediately ran over your face, noticing the puffiness and slight tinge of red around your eyes. An expression of concern scribbled itself over his visage before he took hold of your forearm and stepped further into your office, shutting the door. He led you to the sofa in your office, sitting you down and crouching in front of you.
“What happened?” he inquired, in a tone so gentle and caring that made your heart melt.
“Nothing...”
“Tch. Tell me what happened. Who made you cry? Just... tell me who hurt you. You know I never like to see you upset. So, tell me who did this and I’ll kick their asses.”
“And you know I would tell you if there’s something wrong, and I’d let you kick their ass. But you don’t need to,” you smiled, but the raven saw right through that fake-ass smile. He wanted to see your sweet, genuine smile spread across your soft lips.
Cupping your cheeks, he spoke up, “Don’t give this bullshit. Don’t force a smile. All I want is to help, or do whatever I can.”
“You aren’t my knight in shining armour,” you scoffed. “I’m a soldier, I can fight my own fights.”
“I know that. It’s just that I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“Levi, I’m fine, okay? Let me finish off my paperwork.”
“... Fine,” he sighed, standing from his crouching position as you got up and went back to your desk. “If you’re going to spend a long time doing paperwork, do you want me to bring your dinner?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go down and get it myself. Thank you, baby.”
“Don’t work yourself too hard.”
“Same goes to you,” you told him as he left your office.
After a couple of hours, the paperwork was done and it was just in time for dinner. Though, before you went to the mess hall, you had to drop it off to Erwin, so you quickly made your way there, hoping that you wouldn’t bump into anyone.
Your fists hit the wood twice before you heard a ‘come in’, so you opened the door and offered a small smile to your Commander, but he could tell that something was wrong as you were placing the pile of papers onto his desk.
“Thank you, (Y/N),” he said as you gave a mere nod and turned around to leave. “Wait, before you go... Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“You just seem off.”
“Nope, I’m fine. Anyway, I’m hungry, so I’m going to go eat. What about you?”
“I’ll come in a bit.”
With an ‘okay’, you left his office, shutting the door behind you and making your way to the mess hall. Relief washed over you when there was no one around to say insulting words. And once you got to the mess hall, there was nothing to worry about because Levi and your friends were there, so no one would dare to say anything to you.
When you took a seat, you felt a few pairs of eyes on you, however, you ignored them since if you looked up, you knew they would be able to see that something was wrong. And you didn’t want to burden them with your problems. Which is another one of the reasons you refuse to tell your boyfriend.
~/~
You wished that the reason you woke up was because of the soft kisses pressed to your head and the soothing hand that drifted over your tresses. But it wasn’t because of that. It was because of an unpleasant dream. The same people, saying the same rude things, accusing you of false things, mentally destroying you.
But, once you lifted your head off of Levi’s chest, (E/C) met grey that swirled with love and affection and care.
“Good morning,” you hummed, earning a mutter of the same words from him while he pecked your forehead.
Normally, he would get out of bed straight away, but now, he was simply gazing at you, admiring you as you laid your head back onto his chest, closing your eyes for a few more moments. Soon, his gaze felt less loving and it felt like he was just staring at you to analyse your behaviour since you wouldn’t tell him what’s wrong.
Finally, after about five minutes, he let out a defeated huff. “... I can’t believe I can’t figure out what’s wrong,” he mumbled.
“Maybe because there isn’t?” you retorted. “Stop looking at me like that. I’d rather start my day with something nice, rather than being scrutinised.”
“And you would be able to have that if you just told me.”
“Tell you what?”
“... I hate you,” he sighed before leaving the warmth of your shared bed, stretching his limbs.
“Love you, too,” you teased, deciding to stay in bed for longer because you weren’t ready to leave the comfort and go outside, where people would terrorise you.
Once Levi had changed into his uniform, he had told you to get out of bed prior to leaving the room. That’s when you begrudgingly slithered out from under the covers and into the chilly air, freshening up and chucking on a fresh uniform.
When you arrived at the door of the room, your fingers lingered on the knob when you hesitated to leave the room.
You couldn’t stay strong forever. Something just felt off today, and you felt like it would be a terrible idea if you exposed yourself to the outside. Maybe it would be better if you just stayed inside and asked Levi to get you breakfast.
It was almost certain that you would break down if someone said anything. Only one thing would break you. You had that feeling. And that would mean Levi, and your friends, knowing that you aren’t as strong as they think.
But it would also have pros, right? Like if they found out, they would help you and try to prevent it from continuing.
But you didn’t want to push your problems onto other people. You wanted to deal with this yourself. Though, it’s probably inevitable since you doubt you will be able to carry on staying strong for much longer.
Without your permission, tears fell from your eyes and sobs racked your body.
What did you do to deserve this? All you want is to love Levi without anyone getting in the way.
Your legs gave out and you dropped to your knees, hiding your face in your hands as liquid seeped through your fingers and dropped with a patter.
Unbeknownst to you, Levi had been waiting for you outside the room. So, that meant he heard you crying.
The door quietly opened and he stepped inside, closing the door behind himself and locking it. He kneeled down in front of you, deciding not to question your tears, and instead, give you comfort by gently tugging you into his arms. You rested your head on his shoulder as he soothingly hushed you, stroking your back and pressing small pecks all over your head.
You didn’t care if he knew anymore because no matter what, he will always think of you the same. He wouldn’t think you’re weak, or that you’re a burden. He will help you, support you, and kick those people’s asses for you.
After some time, when you had calmed down, the raven brushed your tears away and kissed your forehead.
“(Y/N), I never beg. But, I’m begging you to tell me what’s going on. Please. Do you think that I like to see you this upset?” he spoke, voice laced with concern and slight pain. Quietly, you shook your head and he cupped your face, tilting your head up to face him. “Then, tell me. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
After some reluctance, you gave in and told him about what people said, and how much it affected you, and why you never mentioned it to anyone. And you could tell he was a little angry that you didn’t tell him earlier, but he was also understanding and he did his best to comfort you and he promised to help you.
His arms invited you for another embrace and you happily accepted, relief flowing through you since you finally got it off your chest and you don’t have to suffer in silence anymore.
“You can stay here, while I get us some breakfast, okay?” he told you quietly.
“Okay.”
“And after that, you tell me the specific people that said those things, so I can kick their asses.”
You let out a small giggle and nodded, slightly parting from the hug to mould your lips with his.
“Thank you, my love,” you murmured in between kisses.
#levi ackerman#levi x reader#levi ackerman x reader#aot#aot fanfiction#aot imagines#snk#snk fanfiction#snk imagines#attack on titan#shingeki no kyoujin#x reader#reader insert#anime#your wish is my command#hazel's angels#im acc not that proud of this :/#sorry
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Rekindled
A/N: Firstly, I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who nominated me as November Author of the Month. I wasn’t expecting that at all and it was a lovely surprise! Secondly, here is Rekindled. Hope you all enjoy it!
This was originally meant to be for @majorharry‘s 20k challenge, but I failed on that front. It’s a long one so grab yourself a brew / beverage of choice and get comfy!
I’m about to disappear again as I usually do and start working on my Christmas fic, as well as those Quarantine Harry updates.
Tonight had started out like any other Saturday evening.
You had been out with friends. Cosy little pub off a cobbled backstreet, in a secluded corner. Very British. Very cramped. All old wood and leather bound seats. The slight smell of stale beer in the air and plenty of chatter that sometimes had you shouting to ensure the friend sitting two people away from you was able to hear.
This was a pub that you frequented for quite a while now. A pub that made it so some in your friendship group could grab a proper ale, while others opted for more of a fruity alcoholic beverage. A real all rounder. Did a nice roast on Sunday - eat in or takeout, choice was yours - for a reasonable price by London’s standards.
The minute he had walked in, you had noticed him. You could recognise his hunched shoulders anywhere. Forever silently willing him to stand up straight and embrace the way his height made him tower over some of his friends. Rather than have him try and make himself smaller. Part of you believed it was to buy him time so he wouldn’t get noticed whenever he knew he was going to be in particular place for longer than an hour.
He had been joined by a male friend. Someone you also knew quite well. Someone who you had seen quite recently actually. An art showing over at Cob Gallery being the reason for your meeting which hadn’t happened too long ago. You remembered the invite being shoved through your letterbox, a far cry from when he used to shunt you a quick text and write your name at the bottom of the guest list using Sam’s kohl eyeliner on the evening of the event itself.
You’d taken the piss out of him that afternoon, a quick phone call telling him that he was “no longer the Tomo Campbell I know”.
That had been two weeks ago. So, you knew it would be rude of either you, or him, to not acknowledge the other. And you knew he would be the one to cave in.
And you were right.
Tomo’s friendly brown eyes had glanced at you one too many times, over Harry’s shoulder for him to not give you - or anyone else who may have made the meeting slightly awkward - away.
The continuous trailing of his gaze had in fact caused Harry to chuckle awkwardly, joking at how he wouldn’t let Sam know of his wandering eye as they shared a night on the town. The joke fell short though, as did his chuckle, when at the last glance over Harry twisted his body around to see what all the fuss was about as he leaned against the bar and let his eyes fall onto yours.
You broke his gaze, reaching forward for your balloon glass full of gin and pressed your face as far into it as possible. A feeling filled you that made you hope the hot flush you felt underneath your skin hadn’t started to give away your unnecessary panic.
See things with you and Harry hadn’t ended badly. In fact, it was more like a fizzle. A bit like the sweet that pops against your tongue. Sometimes you enjoyed it and other times it was unfulfilling, some would say annoying. The latter explained the ending.
No big fights. No fat, hot tears rolling down cheeks. No loss of voices from slanging matches and screaming until the early hours. It just... Ended.
That fizzle was what made it amicable. You both breaking it off to go and do your own thing. Neither openly keeping up to date with the other, but still absolutely aware of what was going on. In your case that was a lot easier, in his not so much. However, Harry somehow managed to master the art of leading questions without seeming too much of a beg with mutual friends.
As he looked on at you taking the longest sip from your drink, he had smiled awkwardly before he allowed his eyes to roam the scene of your group of friends and tried to analyse what met his gaze. A group of eight, men heavily outweighing the women with their five to your genders three.
He would definitely class himself a liar if he was asked about where his mind had gone, and he said that it hadn’t gone to queries around relationship statuses and potential partnerships with any of the men around the table.
He eyed them, all five of them. Definitely wasn’t the guy three people away, neither was it the guy sat diagonally opposite you. They were blonde, definitely not your type. Well, blondes hadn’t been your type the last time he had been between your legs.
His eyes had been zoned in on the guy that had his back facing him, he wasn’t sitting directly opposite you. Instead he was seated in the opposite seat, but one. Better positioning for someone who wanted to obtain a cheeky glance and still be inconspicuous to the group around him.
“I’m gonna have to go and say hello,” Tomo pulled Harry out of his trance, his eyes lifting up from the beer mat that he had been tapping agitatedly against the bar top once he’d turned away from the scene.
“‘S fine wi’me, mate,” Harry softly smiled, reaching for his drink and taking a large sip.
“Come an’ get it over with, H.”
Harry had quietly eyed Tomo after his open ended suggestion of joining him. His eyes slightly sceptical at the proposal but somehow his legs took over his decision making as he trudged behind his artist friend and got introduced to those faces he didn’t know and acknowledged the ones that he did.
Pulling up a pew at the table had been a lot easier for Harry than he had expected. Dragging the wooden stool to sit himself in between you and the guy to his right, who he now knew to be Conor and the person he really wanted to know the name of was Joe. Joe was a wanker- well, banker. Same difference, right?
Conversation wasn’t always smooth sailing. The larger group helped however. Also helped him get his moments with you and you with him. Moments that neither of you had known you needed before being sat with his knee brushing yours, due to how cramped your table had suddenly become.
And it was sweltering now. The bare knee of your ripped jeans, knocking against Harry’s bare knee from his ripped jeans as he edged himself closer to the table wanting to catch what the topic of conversation was down at the easily the “laddier” end of the table.
Harry had fit right in. Of course his demeanour changed with certain people. Those he had already been in the presence of those years previous were immediately hit with morbid delivery and sarcastic humour, while others were met with his sometimes hard to crack shell.
And like always as the night had gone on the crowd had tapered off. Some had decided to go onto a club, an offering your declined not wanting to spend the night with people rubbing up against you and feeling like one of the oldest people in the room.
Some of your friends had gone back to their other commitments, like Tomo who made it quite clear he didn’t want to miss his “curfew” that Sam had given him considering he was the one on swimming lesson duty in the morning.
That ended up leaving you and Harry. Surprisingly a pairing that you hadn’t expected to happen that evening and even more surprising, one that you weren’t particularly dreading.
You knew it had something to do with the gin, and definitely had something to do with the tequila.
Part of you was thankful for the less than responsible drinking habits you had taken that evening. It allowed you to remain calm as your ex-boyfriend sat across from you looking like time was on his side and aging was being kind to him.
It was definitely being kinder to him than it was to you, anyway.
Bastard.
Conversation had been a mixture of light and heavy. Harry showing you a series of different pictures he had taken on his travels as he jetset around the world with his album and his modelling contract (that he adamantly assured you wasn’t a modelling contract), and basically just his very healthy bank balance.
The heavy had been you bitching about the contract project you had been working on and asking him if he would be willing to potentially commit a serious crime with you against one of your colleagues. He’d quipped he probably wasn’t suitable but he was sure he knew a guy.
At one point, his eyes had dropped down to your pedicured toes in your black strappy heels. When he managed to drag his eyes away for your feet, and rested his chin on the inside heel of his palm, you knew he wanted to say something.
“‘M pretty sure we have matching pedis,” he groused, voice so low that if you hadn’t been watching his mouth you wouldn’t have caught a word of what he had just said.
Eyes flicking up to his green gaze, you saw the light shimmering through them. Clearly he was amused by your expression of shock and potential bemusement from his statement.
“Sod off,” you chided, pushing gently at his arm. “You’re joking.”
“‘M not darl-“ he cut himself off with a clear of his throat. “‘M not, an’ if yer lucky later I might take m’socks off to prove it an’all.”
“Not sure if I like the insinuation of there being a later.” You paused for a small amount of time, before adding, “Nor the confidence in how you said it.”
“God loves a trier and so did you, once.”
He eyed you from the corner of his vision, mouth wrapped around the lip of his glass as he knocked back what was left of the alcoholic contents inside.
You were sure he hadn’t meant to let that one slip but there was no way he was going to let his expression give him away and silently confirm with you that thought.
How had the two of you picked up as if you hadn’t missed a beat?
“You never did mind me keeping them on though, did yer?”
That was enough to break his gaze. To cause a silence you didn’t know how to fill. To suddenly make you feel incredibly parched as if you hadn’t been necking gin after gin, all evening.
“How yer getting ‘ome?”
His question cut through it all. His voice of concern, matching his watchful gaze as he looked up at you from the empty glass he had begun twirling on the mahogany wood.
“Was just gonna Uber it back.”
“‘M a fifteen minute walk from ‘ere, d’ya know tha’?”
“I do know that,” you acknowledged, eyes looking over at him and seeing the way his hair had begun to curl close to his temples from the way he perspired in the heat of the pub.
“‘Course you do. Done that walk a fair few times ain’t we?”
You hummed. The feeling of your lips lifting into a soft smile at the memories of the two of you walking hand in hand through the dark London streets. Harry with his head down, trying to look inconspicuous. Also, so he could watch his feet and try his best not to trip up over them.
The times he’d done that thing you loved. Where he would forgo holding your hand and instead walk slightly behind you with his arm wrapped around your shoulder and across the top of your chest. His lips heavy against your hair as he hid his face and chuckled breathily against the shell of your ear when he hadn’t been watching his feet and indeed, tripped. It was always inevitable.
“So wha’s another nigh’?”
And really what was another night? Other than potentially a messy morning.
Not before long you were wrapping the chain handle of your bag across your body and tottering out of the booth you had occupied all night.
Silently you had battled with yourself as to whether you should use the bathroom, but didn’t think you needed it considering how you hadn’t had the rush of pressure usually felt when you were really desperate to relieve yourself.
Shame the feeling didn’t last as you felt a huge gust of cold wind, thanks to London autumn air, washing over you.
With your arms folded around your body as you walked, you tried your best to shield yourself as the lights of passing cars hurt your tired eyes. Harry had been talking to you about all sorts of rubbish, filling in the gaps of dead air that weren’t taken up by the noise around your both.
“My shoes are going to be fucking ruined,” you grumbled, hearing the sound of muddy stones clacking and crunching underneath your heels.
Harry chuckled at your obvious disdain, keeping himself close to you in the dimly lit area. The stride to his walk was confident, a little more power behind it than unsteady. He had consumed drinks, but not enough that he didn’t realise how close both he and you were to his home.
As you walked, your eyes surveyed the area. A group of people were getting closer, a few hoods lifted making it hard for you to figure out their make up.
Before you could give yourself time to think, you unravelled your folded arms and reached down for Harry’s hand.
“Think we could cross here,” you spoke, a chatter to your voice both from the cold and this unusual anxious feeling. Your eyes darted over the road, left and right before you turned as the group approached you.
A boisterous boom of laughter left one of the groups mouth, causing you to sharply look back down the street. The grip of Harry’s hand against yours changed, his fingers taking your traditional hand hold to one of interlocking digits.
He felt moved by the way you appeared to still hold the desire to be protective over him.
“‘M alrigh’,” he pulled you to him, using his hand and causing you to turn your front and press into his side. “Jus’ let ‘em pass us.”
You silently nodded.
“‘S just a couple’a lads walking ‘ome after a night out,” he mumbled. “‘S all it is. You’re alright.”
This feeling felt foreign as you felt a tightness in your chest while you stood still with him in the middle of the street. You hadn’t expected to feel any sort of hesitation but you, like everyone else, had heard about the incident which had taken place with him. Virtually on the doorstep of his own home too.
Harry offering you comfort and reassurance just as quick as you were to do so for him, had you finding a weird source of strength and confidence. He welcomed the pressing of your forehead to his cheek, knowing if he tilted his head slightly his lips could brush so tenderly against your forehead, your temple. He would most likely get a smell of your shampoo, wondering if you still used the same as before.
The grip of his hand loosened against yours, his clammy palm, which felt soothingly warm, ran up against the long sleeve of your top. It curled around your neck, holding you securely to him, before he wrapped his arm around you.
Then he dropped his lips, them pressing to your temple and then lower to your cheekbone. He lingered, his breathing slightly quivered as the noise from the group got louder.
You lifted your head slightly, Harry rearing up just in time to ensure you didn’t headbutt him. His chin was soft as he looked down at you; it took the edge off. His eyes were manic as they moved, there was no mistaking it but everything else about him came off so calm.
He blew out his shaky sigh, causing you to dart your eyes over his and gently push up onto your tiptoes in your heels to softly kiss his lips. You knew he wasn’t expecting it, you didn’t even know what you were doing before you did it. Yet, you relaxed the minute he drew you even closer using the arm he had curled around your upper back to hold you close.
A wolf whistle caused you to smile against his lips, as he did the same. His gentle breathy laugh bouncing against your lips as he chanced it and pressed pecks against your lips in quick succession.
“Evening lads,” Harry nodded his head once he came up for air, making sure he got a good look of two of them and making sure they knew that he had. They cheered in praise at the two of you and your public display, threw out a couple of slightly lewd and alcohol fused comments at the scene. One even going as far as to take the red and white striped scarf from around his neck and whip it furiously above his head. “Someone’s ‘appy. The Arsenal must’ve ‘ad a win.”
You nodded as you eyed them, completely embarrassed by the way you had misread a group of loud football fans for violent thugs. You weren’t necessarily far wrong, but still.
Chattering teeth caused Harry to pull you close to him. “Let's get you in before you catch your death.”
***
Shoes had been left at the door.
The aching balls of your feet grateful for the cool wooden flooring and curling into the luxurious fabric of the rugs currently beneath them.
You’d watched as Harry toed off his obscenely dirty Vans, and walked ahead of you towards the back of the house. The place where his envious lounge and open plan kitchen could be found.
Harry’s home had this way of being welcoming, no matter how long it had been since you had last graced its presence. You assumed he’d made it this way for a reason, especially when that reason was his way of life. Leaving for long periods of time to then return again, to pick right up where he had left off.
And in many ways, that was how you felt about the current situation.
Handbag now discarded at your feet, you sat with your side resting against the back of Harry’s teal velvet couch. Surrounded by expensive scatter cushion after expensive scatter cushion, a collection he had amassed during your time apart.
He was playing the playlist. Not just any playlist, the playlist. The one he would always turn on, volume low, so it was more of a hum than anything else after you’d gotten back from a night on the tiles and fancied a night cap.
You didn’t need to zone in on the sounds. It so happened that you had heard the playlist so many times before that you didn’t need to have it blasting through the speakers to know the track list. It was burned into your brain and would be for a very long time.
The worst thing of all was that he knew. He just knew.
His lips had taken on this quirk. Slightly upturned more so on one side of his face than another as he stood at the kitchen island, feeling your eyes watch him as he put together his perfected cheese on toast supper.
It was an offer you couldn’t refuse. A large glass of Cabernet Sauvignon held loosely in your hand as you whispered along to the song playing in the background, mouth watering at the thought of the carby goodness Harry was preparing for you both under the grill of his oven.
The smell that filled your senses was delightful and exactly what you needed to soak up the alcohol you had previously consumed, never mind the alcohol you were about to.
“Do you want any brown sauce on yours, or ketchup?” You heard him talk louder as the tray he’d been cooking on clattered against his oven hob.
You stayed silent as you watched him, tea towel over his shoulder as he plated up your toast while his mouth barely sang along to the playlist. Gently lifting the bread off the grill before letting it drop quickly from his grip to the plate because of how hot it was.
He looked up at you from under his brow, hair fallen into a middle part around his face. His eyes enjoyed the way your legs had curled up beneath you as you rested your right cheek onto your hand and fondly watched him.
You seemed relaxed to him, albeit amused.
“Don’t even think about laughing at me when ‘m cooking for you.”
You smiled - cheese on toast was hardly cooking - pulling your glass of wine to your lips and taking a sip. “Don’t know why you don’t just get a knife and fork, you numpty.”
“Saves on the washing up doing it this way,” he winced as he dropped another slice to the second plate.
“And makes you lose your fingerprints in the process.
Harry shook his head as he pressed his thumb to his lips and licked the sore burn, before he gently blew against it. “Never did answer my question,” he reminded, wiping his hands on the towel thrown over his shoulder.
“Ketchup’s fine. Ta.”
Watching him reach across for the bottle of Heinz, you saw him squirt the sauce onto your plate and then saw him do the same to his own.
Seemingly happy with his work, he whipped the towel off his shoulder and to the side, before scooping up the two plates and striding over to you with ease.
“Voila,” he spoke, offering you the answer to your predicted hangover prayers, in cheese on toast form.
Reaching forward, you gently took the plate off his hands with both of yours and let your eyes drop down to the melted goodness. Keeping your eyes down you took in the decoration that Harry had added. He’d taken to drawing a smiley face onto the top of the cheese using the ketchup.
“You’re such a silly sod sometimes,” you spoke, lifting your eyes as you watched him drop down onto the couch next to you and get himself comfortable.
Legs up on the coffee table in front of him, almost horizontal with his plate gently resting atop his rounded stomach. Head tipped back and vision lazy, his lips tilted up into a crooked smile as he looked over at you.
“‘S it okay?”
“Looks it,” you replied, lifting up the toast and taking the biggest bite you could muster. Your nose came into contact with some sauce from your hunger-driven vigour. “Proof is in the tasting though, I s’pose,” you continued, mouth full and covered by your hand to avoid him seeing the chewed up contents.
You hummed as you closed your eyes, enjoying the taste of the simplistic home cooked food and melted goodness. So simple in taste, but so effective.
From where Harry lounged, he softly watched you. All relaxed, closed eyes, with a drop of tomato ketchup decorating the end of your nose.
Before you had the chance, and he couldn’t fight himself, Harry reached up to gently swipe at the sauce and remove it from your skin.
You opened your eyes, blinking over at him as he pressed his thumb between his lips and licked away the sauce he had retrieved. His eyes were mischievous as they glanced at you before he took a bite out of his own food and savoured the taste.
The groan that left his throat as he chewed was a sound familiar to you in other capacities, causing you to squeeze your legs together and forcefully take another bite of your own toast.
“Tell you what? If there’s one thing I do, ‘s make a bloody good cheese on toast.”
You smirked, amused by his boasting. “Nothing like a slice of conceited-ness as a platter cleanser, for afters.”
“Summat much more appealing for afters, don’t worry about tha’, darling. Got you sorted.”
***
Bellies full and content, you slipped further down onto Harry’s couch. The two of you finding yourself closer together ask you basked in the warmth of Harry’s home.
“You weren’t lying when you said your nails matched mine,” your voice was sleepy as you spoke, right foot hitting Harry’s left slightly as you brought up your earlier conversation at the pub.
He chuckled into your hair, watching you lift your foot and gently place it atop of his. He made a space for it, moving his right leg so that there was an even bigger gap between his feet to slot yours between.
“I think mine's a bit lighter to be honest,” you continued, eyes scrutinising his painted nails as much as they could from down the length of your body and his.
“That’s some bullshit,” Harry groused, rubbing his feet gently against yours to warm them, his voice causing his chest to vibrate against your head as it rested there “I even had it on m’ hands but I’ve been picking at it. Look.”
Harry obnoxiously held his hand in front of your vision, wiggling his fingers causing you to reach for his fingers and hold his hand still. Sure enough, he was true to his word, presenting you with chipped nail polish that was nothing more than the odd tiny dot against his clean nails.
You smirked when he pushed them slightly closer to your face than intended, “Alright, think you’ve proven your point.”
Hand knocked back he brought it forward again, “‘M not so sure, try again.”
The only response you could muster up was a giggle fit for a schoolgirl, Harry’s response to pull you even closer as he softly smiled.
A silence overtook you both, as you closed your eyes and let yourself become more intune with the music playing around you.
Your face was pressed into the side of his neck able to inhale his worn in aftershave and the soft startings of stubble down the side of his throat.
The silence was heavy and you knew exactly why. Listening to the base of the song across his speakers mixing with your staggered breathing and rising pulse.
You knew you shouldn’t but you couldn’t help yourself. It wasn’t like it needed attention drawn to it. Yet, the words were tumbling off your lips regardless.
“This song always makes me…you know.”
The words were mumbled but of course he caught them because he did know. But it was whether he wanted to go there.
The thought of talking about sex and the sex you had together in a coherent state wasn’t ideal. He wouldn’t have anything to blame his honesty on, if he wasn’t more inebriated than he currently found himself.
“Think we need some more wine for tha’,” he mumbled, lips pressed to your forehead as you hummed in agreement and felt him begin to shift to raise himself from the couch to retrieve a bottle.
***
More wine wasn’t a good idea and you knew it. From the way your tongue was much looser and your lips a lot more numb now.
The two of you had begun to dance on a weird ledge after he’d refilled your glass. The kind where you were openly flirting and backbiting against the other to try and see who could inflict the moment that had the two of you wincing.
“Who caught your eye while I was out of the picture?”
“Who didn’t catch yours?”
Harry was sitting on the couch, side pressed into the back of the couch. Leaning with his elbow and allowing his face to rest in the palm of his hand as he looked at you.
“Alright,” he stressed with a raise to his eyebrows and a quirk to his lips.
You were a bit flustered due to the way your back bite to him revealed how you were actually caught up in his business of seeing other people when you tried to act like you didn’t care.
Clearing his throat Harry adopted a soft tone to break you out of your fluster.
“There was one girl. Took her to dinner two times.”
You held his eyes with yours, watching the way he slowly smirked, “But you already know that don’t ya?”
Before you could stop yourself, you threw the throw cushion sitting to the right of you, at him.
“Watch the wine,” he said around a laugh, as he raised his wine glass into the air and pushed the cushion to the floor before it had a chance of creating him a cleaning catastrophe in the early hours.
“Hate you,” you mumbled, turning to your right to look at him from where you had reached forward to put your wine glass down to the table. Before you sat back you ran your index finger against the rim of your wine glass and tapped your nail gently against the base.
“‘s tha’ why you’re sat eating cheese on toast and drinking wine on my sofa at almost 2am,” he spoke against the rim of his glass, knocking back what was remaining inside.
“I’ve been coerced to be here,” you replied, watching him reach forward, raising his eyebrows at your false suggestion. When he sat back against the couch he was biting back his smile, his eyes shining and crinkles deeply set in the corners.
“Know where the door is,” he goaded, raising his eyebrows again, arm raising to point in the direction of his hallway. He waited for your response and in that time leaned forward towards the coffee table once more, grabbing the wine bottle and topping you up before moving onto refilling his own.
Your eyes dropped down to the rich red liquid as it sloshed against the clear glass. While his words were telling you to leave, his actions were doing the complete opposite.
Filling the silence he asked, “So, how many dinners am I competing with?”
“Three” you mumbled as you lifted your drink and took a sip for courage.
Harry’s head titled as he surveyed you, “Bloody hell you didn’t hang around!”
“I have no more cushions left,” you spoke to his cheeky comment with a light hearted threat of throwing something at him for his brazen clap back. “Only my wine.”
He smiled at your warning to throw it all over him before he drawled, “And we wouldn’t wanna waste tha’”
You hummed in agreement, freely taking yet another sip. Finally, something you agreed on.
Harry kept his eyes on you, waiting. The two of you almost seeing who would cave in first to try and dig for more information on the relations of the other while you were apart. What he really wanted to know was how many men he was competing against. Was it one man three times, or three separate men?
With all the questions buzzing around his head, he knew it would be him who would give in.
He was correct.
“Gonna let me ‘ave a look then? Pull ‘em up on your phone. ‘S only fair. Mine was taken out of my hands.”
His ambiguous comment alluded to the paparazzi pictures of him that had been splashed all over the tabloid online outlets, as well as every other social media platform known to man.
You didn’t hesitate, the alcohol in your bloodstream almost encouraged you as you reached for your bag at your feet and took out your phone. Said liquid confidence even helped in your handing over of the phone. “Pass codes the same,” you said, as Harry stared at you before he dropped his eyes down to the screen and tried the first code that came to his mind, your birthday.
The screen shook at him, causing a sheepish smile to pull up onto his lips as he thought about his second guess. He punched in the code of your mother’s birthday and unlocked the phone within a short five seconds.
You did notice the stall to his movements, clearly realising how part of this was wrong. It wasn’t his, or your, business to know everything in such detail.
Sensing his hesitancy also, you told him where to find a photograph if he was so desperate for a nose; on your private Instagram page. He took that as a small victory cause he knew you still had pictures of him on your profile that hadn’t been taken down.
You gave him names, knowing that it was an invasion of privacy for the men in question but equally not caring. His thumb was fast as it typed and spelt out the name into the search bar. Harry also not caring at how desperate he was to see his competition.
“Hold this for me,” he said, passing over his wine glass so that he could cup your phone in both his hands, his undivided attention firmly on his foe. You looked on as you saw him zoom in on the picture of guy number two, who had the chance of a third date.
He was silent as he looked and swiped and read comments. He didn’t know if this was the type of man he was expecting. Had he even been expecting anyone at all?
Running his eyes over the pictures he was greeted with what he could only describe to be your average City man. All overcoats and expensive suits.
Looks wise, he understood. Perfect five o’clock shadow. Seemed tall enough in photos. Obviously liked a gym session or two. However there was one thing about him that just looked so out of place-
Breaking the silence, he said, “Can’t even do a tie properly can he?”
“Neither can you,” you shot back.
“Don’t have to when you have someone willing to help.”
He looked at you from under his brow to see if you were going to correct him. When he realised you weren’t, he continued, “Never been tempted to fix his,” he asked, swiping across to look at another picture.
“He hasn’t worn a tie on a date yet,” you responded.
Harry zoned in on the use of the word yet.
“What’s he drive?” He asked randomly, continuing the swipe through the pictures with his right thumb.
“Range Rover Sport.”
“Probably on finance,” he spoke his comeback quickly, expressing his true feelings. It wasn’t going to be on finance but no one could blame him on wanting to throw a cheap shot in some way. “Doesn’t really seem the type to be blessed with the big dick energy. Overcompensating somehow.”
You found yourself biting down against your lips, trying to stifle a laugh. His pettiness has reared itself in less than ten minutes and you could see the way it wove through his features, with a quirk to his eyebrows and a scrunch of his nose. He was dismissive and you supposed he had every reason to be, you were after all sat on his couch.
“Why do you really think I’m giving you another try,” you smirked, nails tapping at your glass again.
He held your gaze, “You planning on testing me out, seeing if it still works?”
“Might do,” you took another sip of your drink. “Depends if I have the energy.”
“Why do you think I gave you summat to eat?”
You breathed out a laugh as your mouth fell, right hand reaching up to slap him across the top of his arm. He seemed pleased with himself as he locked your phone and loosely held it out to you.
“‘S enough of looking at tha’,'' he hummed, licking gently at his lips. “How did you meet him?”
Again a breathy laugh left your lips as you stared at him, incredulously. Harry’s eyes easily held yours as he waited on your answer.
“You aren’t in the least bit interested,” you licked your lips, the taste coating them slightly bitter from the lingering wine residue. “Don’t know why you’re trying to make it seem as if you are.”
“Humour me, darling,” he mused, lips softly lifting. “Or humour him, whichever you prefer.”
And you know you shouldn’t be doing this, laughing at the expense of someone else in such a way. You saw the larger swallow from Harry too and you knew he was feeling the same.
However, here you were, giving eyes to a man that you didn’t think would get to see you in such a way again.
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Cause at least one of us would make it worth your while.”
You felt your breathing quicken as you held Harry’s eyes. He did nothing to deter you from holding his gaze.
“You have to stop being so nice,” he added. “If he isn't doing anything for you, that’s okay.”
Reaching forward you rid your hands of your phone, letting it slide against his coffee table. “And do you not think you slightly have an unfair advantage?”
“I think,” he paused, his eyes looking at you. “I think we had something good.”
“Had being the operative word-“
“And I think we could have something good again. In fact I know we could.”
You stalled at his words. The confidence behind them. It was admirable how he was shooting his shot. Especially given you knew how inside he was most likely quaking with nerves.
“Tell him no.”
His words made you chest feel tight, his hand reaching across the distance between the two of you on the sofa. His palm facing up, you slowly lifted your hands to sit in his.
No sooner had your skin come in contact, Harry clasped his hand around yours and softly stroked his thumb to the back of it. He dipped down, lips meeting your knuckles before he tugged at you so softly you almost felt you had imagined it.
He wanted you closer, the arms length distance now too much as he started to show himself to you. His pettiness and his affection, they strangely won you over. Stoked something within you that had you edging further towards him.
Hand unlatching from yours, he lifted his left arm and wrapped it loosely around the back of your neck. With little persuasion you dropped your forehead against his jaw again.
Harry’s swallow was audible as his fingertips softly stroked at your shoulder. His breath softly fanned against the skin of your temple, his lips turning to press the faintest kiss to your hairline.
“Tell him to piss off.”
You chuckled, breathily, head knocking itself back to look up at him. Eyes light with a sense of joyous infatuation at the moment you found yourself in.
Harry shifted, his right hand quickly discarding both your wine glasses before it placed itself against your hot cheek. The coolness of his slender fingers soothing and welcomed.
“Tell him no,” he breathed, as his lips hovered close to yours, as he tilted your face upwards to meet his.
With your eyes closed you felt a sense of guilt, for some unknown reason. It wasn’t like you were committed to anyone outside of the situation that you found yourself in, but you felt slightly wrong for what you were doing. Harry sensed it, able to read the downturn of your lips for what it was. He nudged his nose gently against yours, allowing his eyes to take their time in admiring your expressions and waited on the unnecessary internal conflict to ease.
“Want me to tell him?” He asked, leaving breathy and wet kisses down your cheek, and along your jawline as you tilted your head back. “‘S not a problem.”
Your mind was swimming as you found yourself sinking back into the couch beneath you. Harry’s voice melting you as he continued talking, “Really get him to take the hint that you’re not interested.”
He kept his face buried against the underside of your chin as it pointed up at the ceiling, hands tracing down your arms and cupping at your hands to press them into his hair as he sucked at your skin.
“I know what you’re doing,” you hummed, scratching at the back of his head, enjoying the feel of his soft locks beneath your touch.
Harry deeply groaned as you pulled at the strands, “What’s that?”
“Trying to have your way with me when I’m under the influence,” you joked, quirk to your lips. “Always was that little bit more placid that way.”
You felt the way his lips moved from underneath your chin, finding the corner of your mouth, before he pulled up to look at you. He eyed you, all heavy lidded and messy lips. “You’re not tha’ pissed are ya?”
“No.”
“Then I’m definitely more than jus’ trying.” He reached for your face, lifting your chin and angling it how he wanted. “‘M taking, ‘m begging,” he spoke confidently, unashamed.
His lips were dominant as they engulfed yours, a groan leaving your throat as your kiss was messy from the offset. His lips puckered and pulled, drawing you closer to him as he breathed through his nose and gave you his tongue.
Your chest was heaving as he skimmed his lips against your face, mouth finding the sensitive skin of your neck once more as you bit down on your bottom lip and tried not to laugh.
“Charming of you to want your way with me on your couch.”
Harry chuckled against your neck, face lifting shortly to look at you. His pupils were blown out already, as his skin took on more of a rosy flush from the beginnings of his exertion. That or you’d embarrassed him.
“Sorry, I should’ve asked,” he mused. ”Where’d you want it?”
Legs curled gently around the backs of his thigh, still covered by the denim of his jeans, you pressed against them with the heel of your foot.
“Where’d you think?”
He knew exactly where. You were a simple creature. You liked simple things. Sex was always fun to have all over the house, but depending on the level of intimacy you craved, depended on where you were willing to open your legs.
Tonight was a weird one for you to decide upon. The fumble on the couch, while it was exciting and showed you Harry’s desperation to have you once more, it would be over before you knew it. Also it would most likely leave you with a horrible crick in your neck as your keepsake.
You didn’t want that. You wanted your keepsake to be the ache in your thighs from how he had taken you in different positions because while a bed was boring for some, it allowed you the option to roll around for as long as your bodies permitted. Bending in all different shapes and ways that sometimes neither of you would’ve been able to imagine.
He broke you from your thoughts once more, hand gently finding your bum and tapping against it. “Up yer get,” he spoke, starting to push himself up knowing you wanted to go upstairs.
With your legs curled around his, Harry couldn’t go too far. He chuckled with amusement as he dropped his eyes down to his legs and yours, before looking back up. He didn’t need to even ask as he looked at you, leaning forward he inhaled through his nose as he kissed sweetly at your lips and lifted you.
A smile pulled onto your face, causing difficulty to continue kissing. “Stop tha’,” he mouthed against the corner of your lips, as he hoisted your legs. “‘M trying to take charge here.”
“Why do that when you’re still so good at taking direction?” The lilt to your voice was one of glee, you had easily gotten your own way.
Tousling your hair and flicking it away, behind your shoulders, you rolled your lips into your mouth as you felt the slight bruising from his expressions of desire. He was watching you as you looked at him, doe-eyes sparkling with intrigue and adoration.
“Give us a kiss,” his deep voice ignited a warm fire within, as he still tried to assert himself while he walked the two of you away from his open plan lounge and closer to his kitchen.
You continued to eye him, enjoying the way he wasn’t going to back down. You just needed to stand your ground just as much.
As your bum hit the work surface, your hands traced over Harry’s cheeks, cupping his face before moving to grip at the counter. Head tilted slightly, he looked down the bridge of his nose at you through hooded, dark eyes.
He stepped in between your wide open legs and enjoyed the closeness that they brought when you brought them together to keep him to you. Heavy breathing filled the silent air as you both traced each other's features with touch and sight. Taste could wait, but it would get here soon enough.
He gulped as he swallowed.
“Please.”
At first it was gritty. His voice tight and throat dry. His lips forming the word confidently.
Again he swallowed. “Please, gimme a kiss. You kiss me, like before.”
The victorious hum that left his lips was one that you would let slide, as his hands ran down the length of your arms and reached up to wrap around your own. He placed them back onto his face, mouth breaking away as he left open mouthed kisses to your left palm, nose nudging at the end of your long sleeve top where he inhaled your worn away perfume.
He could feel your pulse as he curled his fingers around your wrist. It was strong and rhythmic, inviting to his primal desire which caused him to gently nip at your flesh with his front teeth.
Turning his eyes back to yours, you silently asked him for another kiss with your soft and slow blinking gaze, knowing he wanted to get just as reacquainted as you did.
He obliged, pressing closer to the counter and letting his lips meet yours quickly. His quick change in motion caused you to reach behind you to steady yourself, your hand coming into contact with an item you couldn’t identify until you gasped and pulled away thanks to the smashing sound.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” you whispered quickly, trying to catch your breath. Harry’s eyes turned to take a look at one of the daintier wine glasses he had pulled down from the rack earlier but chose not to use. The item now lay broken against the flooring of his kitchen.
“Really should tidy up before we go up,” he groaned, mouth pressed into the side of your cheek as you surveyed the mess made on his coffee table over the other side of the room. He reluctantly pulled away from you, walking the short distance to the broken glass.
“Watch yourself,” you said, meaning his bare feet around the glass.
Crouching down, Harry started to collate the bigger shards of glass together, stacking them up against the tiles of his kitchen floor. As you peered down, still sitting on his kitchen island, he looked up at you.
“Couldn’t do me a favour? Go an’ grab the dustpan and brush.”
You blinked. Was he alluding that he kept everything in the same place? Given how he’d asked so vaguely, knowing you would understand.
Softly, he smiled up at you and chuckled around his words, “Same place as last time, yes.”
Taking a while to kick into action, you slowly slid off the work surface and let your feet softly pad over to the other side of the kitchen. The third cupboard from the right, on the lower half of the kitchen was where Harry kept items that Anne had brought him. You know, the things that Mum’s knew would be important but somehow never crossed their children’s minds. Regardless of whether their children were grown adults.
Sure enough, there sat the same blue dustpan and brush. The item was as vibrant as the last time you had seen it, in similar fashion. Leaning down you grabbed at it, shutting the cupboard gently using your foot and walked back to Harry.
You handed it off and heard his whispered thanks, as you rested the side of your hip against his cupboards.
“Don’t think I’ve had this out since the last time you so elegantly broke one of my favourite glasses.”
You knew he was messing with you but that didn’t stop the blush of embarrassment, hitting your skin, and filling you with warmth. “I’ll replace it.”
“‘M jokin’, ‘s fine. Only a bit o’ glass-“
His sentence was cut short as the two of you jumped, the sound of a phone filling Harry’s space.
“‘S not mine,” he jutted his lips out, as he pushed himself up from his crouched position and carefully walked towards the bin with his broken glass.
You turned towards the noise that was your phone and how it blared from Harry’s coffee table, where you had placed it earlier. Walking the short distance, you reached for it and was met with a familiar male name.
Biting your bottom lip, you swiped across the phone and pressed it to your ear. His soothing voice greeted you, slightly worried in tone as he breathed a sigh of relief.
Letting your feet take you to the kitchen island again, you responded telling him you were fine and how sorry you were that you hadn’t let him know you had gotten home okay.
From over the other side of the room, you watched as Harry quirked a brow at you while he picked up the empty bottle of wine and wine stained glasses from the coffee table in his lounge.
You weren’t home. You were far from home.
“Who is it?” He mouthed as he got closer, glasses clinking as he placed them onto the work surface of the kitchen island, after discarding the bottle of wine as loudly as possible into the bin.
You pulled the phone away from your ear showing him the name that he had earlier been typing into your Instagram search bar. Under the dim light you could see the slight squint to his eyes and the way his nostrils flared.
He darted his eyes from the phone screen and back to yours, watching as you put the phone back to your ear.
“Yeah I had a great night, ‘m just tired.”
Harry dropped his head, a smirk forming on his lips. You were far from tired and this was nothing more than a moodkill. With his hands pressed to the worktop, he looked up at you as you stood diagonally opposite him.
Eyes glancing down to your left hand that was spread against the work surface, Harry reached for it. The tips of his fingers running gently between the divots of your knuckles, before his hand slipped underneath your fingers and tugged you towards him.
You slowly obliged him, as your eyes moved to his face. “Come to bed,” he mouthed, watching as your top teeth worried at your bottom lip. His right hand moved to slip around to your lower back as you arched, pulling your chest away from his trying to keep his mouth away from the phone.
“Come to bed wi’me,” his voice was a whisper now, not quite loud enough for the person on the other end of the line to hear but a next step up from how he was previously just mouthing his words to you.
As he tried to distract you, he dipped in and out of your conversation which was the most monotonous thing he had ever found himself eavesdropping into.
With your chest open to him, he nosed his way along your skin, head nudging at your hand that held the phone. His lips pulled into a smile as you faked a yawn, clearly trying to politely give the man on the other end a hint that you were done.
Still he heard the drone of this guy, who was now even repeating things he had previously said to try and keep you on the line with him. You weren’t interested though, too preoccupied by the way that Harry was once again pressing kissing to the skin that he could get too.
Before you knew what was happening Harry had clearly had enough.
“We’re tired, pal. Take the hint,” he spoke into the phone that still rested against your ear, his lips finding the bottom end of the receiver. “‘S time for bed.”
You had to pull the handset away from your ear, not wanting to hear his reaction from the sound of Harry's voice. You blindly ended the call, keeping your eyes on your ex-boyfriend, whose green-eyed monster had made itself known.
He helped guide your phone down to his marble countertop and watched as the phone was brought to life with a call. The same name appearing on your screen as he tried to call you back.
Harry didn’t take long to decline the call, quickly turning the phone to silent and placing it face up once he’d finished. Again, it lit to life, this time buzzing against his work surface rather than omitting a jarring noise into the silence the two of you shared.
“‘S a bit creepy in’t it?”
His question lingered as his eyes moved between the phone and you, watching another call ring out. “If he rings again, ‘m gonna answer.”
As expected the phone lit up for the fourth time. However, before Harry could reach for the item you pushed it, causing it to slide against the work surface and away, just enough that it was out of his reach.
Harry clenched his jaw, his muscle pulsing as he looked at you. “‘S he always like tha’?”
“He’s just realised the girl he was dating is in the company of some other bloke.”
“Dating or taken on dates? There’s a difference,” he raised his eyebrows. “‘S a huge difference an’all.”
You stared at him, watching him lower his body to lean against the counter with his elbows and wipe down his face in frustration. Unwarranted at that.
“I don’t like ‘im.”
“Of course you don’t,” you hummed.
Sharply he turned his neck to look at you, “‘s tha’ supposed to mean?”
“That I agree.”
“No,” he frowned. “It was how you said it.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I’m not-“ he cut himself off, sigh heavy. “I’m not saying you can’t.”
He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, thinking of how to navigate his way out of this.
“‘M saying that you don’t always have to,” he dropped his voice, slowly standing and letting his itching hands reach for you.
With his hand resting against your ribs, you stayed still. He didn’t guide you anywhere, he waited. Waited on your next move. When he felt your stoic figure relax underneath his touch, his tight chest expanded. Maybe he could talk himself out of this one.
“When we tried this before,” he softly spoke, pulling his hand away from you to motion between you both, “We shared the load, started to become a team.”
“Yeah and look where that got us.”
He felt his lips twitch from your negative deadpan. “‘S got you back ‘ere again tonight so ‘m doing summat right.”
Shaking your head at him, he rolled his lips into his mouth trying to fight his pleased smile. He dropped his eyes to the counter below him as he mumbled his sorry.
“If you were to ask me, I think we did alrigh’.”
“You would say that.”’
You watched as he jutted out his lips, before running his hand down his mouth and facial hair. He leaned on his palm, his eyes taking you in and wishing you would speak.
“My Mum talks about you all the fucking time,”
“Say tha’ like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is when you’re trying to get over someone,” you glanced at him from the corner of your vision.
“Now why would you want to do that?”
“You didn’t seem to have a problem with it,” you were scornful. He shook his head, clearly amused.
“I’ve still got half of your belongings upstairs, if you wan’ ‘em. You have no idea.”
You squinted your eyes at him. Trying to read him. “Appearances aren’t always what they seem. Don’t know how many more times I’ll have to tell you about papers and social media, ‘s all a load of bollocks.”
Standing once more, Harry rolled his shoulders and brushed his hair off his face. Once his hands were at the back of his head, he linked his fingers and turned to look at you. Head resting back on his hands, the two of you held each other’s eyes. Him from the corner of his vision, you dead on. No words passed between the two of you.
“‘M going to bed,” he sighed, dropping his arms and tapping gently against the kitchen counter twice before pushing away.
His body screamed dejected as he walked away, his shoulders sagged and head down as he walked through his home, towards the second floor and his bedroom.
Swallowing thickly, you rolled your lips into your mouth again before you spoke his name. The way you called for him caused Harry to stop his movement, back continuing to face you as he silently waited for your next move after you voiced your plea.
You let your feet take you to him, abandoning your phone on the kitchen island and trying your hardest to ignore the white hot anxiety that overtook your being.
Close enough to touch now, you looked on at your shaking fingers as they gently reached out for him. Your feet took you as close as they could, arm wrapping gently around his abdomen and feeling it quiver with a nervous exhale.
Lips against the linen of his shirt collar as you pushed onto your tiptoes, hoping that the wine stain upon them wouldn’t attach itself to the cream garment. His head dropped forward, exposing the curvature of his neck to you as his hand gently slid over yours and he rested his fingers between the splayed gaps of your own.
Gentle squeeze. Reassuring reminder.
Take your time.
“Come show me this stuff.”
***
There was always something exhilarating about someone leading you upstairs. The different ways in which it could play out. Playful with a swing to your hands, sensual with a gentle tug to keep your close.
The feel of Harry’s hand in yours was always wanted. Every stroke of his thumb against your knuckles or the back of your hand, a reminder of the affection you had been missing.
His eyes looking over his shoulder at you as he came to the bottom step of the second set of stairs. A silent reminder that you could back out at any time.
The floorboards still creaked in the same place as always and part of you hated that you didn’t need him to lead you down the hallway because you knew exactly where his room was.
However, taking yourself to bed never possessed the same majestic undertone as when someone else did.
You were now sitting with your legs tucked underneath you at the end of his bed, rummaging through the box of things that he had neatly packed together for you so they were ready for you to have back if you ever came to collect them.
Every so often you would pull something out to him, showing it and either sharing a story or laughing. As you looked up at him now, showing a tequila shot glass and shaking it suggestively at him, he looked every inch ready to sleep.
Harry was stretched out straight on his bed, his linen shirt still covering his upper body but the buttons were all undone, revealing his chest and stomach to you. Tattoos on display to your eyes that you hadn’t seen for what felt like forever.
The top button of his jeans had been undone as he got comfortable and his ankles were crossed, with his right leg over his left. His eyes were heavily lidded and blinking slower and slower each time you presented him with a new item.
Double chin forming from the way his head was propped up, he spoke deeply in acknowledgement of the glass with the less than elegant design on the side.
“Remember getting through a whole bottle of tequila with that,” he drawled, hands clasping on top of his stomach. “Don’t know why we didn’t just pass the bottle between the two of us.”
“That’s because someone insisted that if we were gonna do it, we had to do it proper.”
“Haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
“That’s convenient,” you deadpanned knowing that there was probably some truth behind his words given how inebriated you had both been at the time.
Thoughts aside you continued looking into the box to see a worn slogan shirt peering up at you. Pushing aside the half empty bottle of perfume that was once your favourite, you silently admired the tee that you knew didn’t belong to you.
A soft smile pulled itself onto your lips. Sometimes nice boy Harry was unbearable. He’d taken to folding the shirt that you adored as if it were on a shelf in a posh(er) department store than usual. Think more John Lewis than Debenhams.
Slowly you pulled the item from the box and enjoyed the feel of the soft cotton against your fingers. You loved that the shirt’s collar was slightly saggy, a sign of how loved it had been.
Your voice left your throat as more of a dreamy sigh than you imagined. “I loved this shirt,” you spoke as you held it up in front of your face, eyes tracing over the blue slogan of ‘Enjoy health. Eat your honey.” and the cheeky looking bee that was drawn within the circle.
Who didn’t love an innuendo?
Without a second thought, you let the item fall into your lap, hands quickly turning to pull at your black v-neck top and reveal your matching black lace bra underneath.
Harry slapped his hand against his eyes, quickly covering them. The sound caused you to look up at him. “Don’t be so daft, Harry,” you spoke, fighting your smile by rolling your lips into your mouth as you saw him splinter his fingers and look at you through the gap he had created.
“Could give a guy a little warning,” he groaned, continuing to peek over at you.
Shaking your head, you enjoyed the way the cool fabric fell down the skin of your stomach as you covered yourself once more. You knew if you were to turn your head slightly and press your nose to the collar, a mixture of your perfume and his cologne would remain.
You fought the urge however, as you pulled your hair out from underneath the collar and quickly pushed your hand up the back of the shirt to undo your bra.
It was almost second nature for you to remove your underwear to get comfy within your comfier clothes and the sagging of your bra cups away from boobs was always a delightful feeling at the end of any night. Drunk or otherwise.
You pulled at the straps of your bra from underneath the sleeves of your shirt, before diving your hand under the hemline and dropping the item less than gracefully into the box that held your other items.
“Think you’re forgetting who that actually belongs to,” he drawled, head resting against the pillows beneath him now and watching you rummage once more.
“I think you gave up the privilege of wearing this item the minute you dropped it inside this box all neatly folded like you worked a shift at Topshop rather than Manderville’s every Saturday.”
He cackled, head tilted back as he enjoyed your self-righteous indignation and absolute pisstake.
“All Saints was more my thing.”
“That’s because you’re fake indie.”
He was amused as he shook his head over at you with a silent smile. “And being fake indie is exactly why you decided to live on the edge of Camden and not in the thick of Camden itself.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t once tell me that you’d want to raise a family in Hampstead.”
You felt your face heat up at the way he’d completely called your bluff. “That was when I was young and naive.”
“As opposed to us now? Being old and decrepit.”
Again you were silent as you started to put the items around you back into the worn cardboard box.
“Why’re still fuckin’ around wi’that box?”
Your eyes snapped up at him as he kept your eyes. “The only thing you should be fuckin’ around with, is me.”
Raising your eyebrows, you said, “Now who sounds young and naive. Anyway, what happened to you just taking.”
Harry was silent as he took in your words, his body slowly rising from his lounged position and he sat up to approach you. You dropped your gaze down his chest and to his stomach, enjoying the slight rolls of his abdomen as he adopted his new seated position.
His eyes were focused as your gaze found his once more. A soft determination. This sheen to his skin in the lamp lighting of his bedroom, causing him to naturally glow.
Once he was secure in his upright position, closer to you, Harry snatched at the box with one hand and picked it up to sit it down on the floor at his side of the bed.
He then swooped suddenly, hand scooping around your waist and drawing you to him with squealed laughter. His lips fell against your cheek as he shushed you, aiding you as you moved position to get comfortable.
“Remember the first time I had you in this bed?” He asked, chest to chest with you. Your mouth was agape with your quickened breathing, as his lips puckered slightly at the corner of your mouth and he gently leant his nose to yours.
You both watched each other through heavy eyelids, breathing mixed in rising anticipation. A soft nudge of his nose as he asked, “Do yer?”
A nod was all you could muster.
“Was good sex,” he husked, hoodied eyes holding yours. “Was always good sex.”
You hummed in agreement. Feeling the way your nerve endings came alight as you pushed your fingers through the hair at his temple.
Heat flowed through your body, circling in your stomach as his words echoed.
“Still gonna be good sex, ‘f you’ll let me. Better even.”
The faintest smile pulled at your lips, causing your eyes to glisten.
“Eh,” he nudged. “You gonna let me, or tell me otherwise?”
“Personally, think you’re just talking a good game.”
“You know ‘m fucking not.”
Harry pulled you to him, his mouth claiming yours easily. So hungry and intense. Lips that were desperate to show you what you had been missing. Lips that were desperate to wipe away the touch of another, asking you what the fuck you were even thinking in trying it with some other bloke?
Gone was the brushing of lips, faint and fleeting. Harry’s liquid confidence started to come into play as his lips formed into a smile when he gave you his tongue and hummed as he did.
Harry cupped your face as he slanted his mouth over yours, soft moans leaving your throat as you kept him close.
Lips were coaxing, as he groaned between quiet wet smacking sounds that otherwise would have had you cringing.
Now he had you however, how could he part? Your smell was intoxicating to him, as was the touch of your fingers in his hair and nails gently scratching at his scalp. His mewls were catlike when he pressed his wet lips to your skin.
Breathing now more like a pant, it puffed against your elongated neck as he pulled away and made a beeline for your clavicle and then chest, movements slower. Chestnut hair tickled the underside of your chin and caused the faintest of smiles to ghost across your lips from the way it felt.
His nose nudged the collar of his shirt that sat against your body enticingly. The smell of your perfume everywhere to him.
Now lower down you found his forehead was pressed to your clavicle as you felt his teeth playfully tug the cotton between them. A puff of air left your nose as you bit down onto your bottom lip to try and suppressed your giggle.
“Smells like us,” he hummed, mouth breathing hot and heavy against the shirt that sat directly above your nipples. “‘S tha’ good.”
Your only response was the tipping back of your head, fingers carding heavily through the hair at the nape of his neck.
Had he always been this skilful? Vocal, sure. But it never quite hit you like it was doing tonight. His deep hums and moans, his hands spreading so confidently across your back to hold you to him.
And when you cradled the back of his head and pressed that was when you found yourself moaning his name deep from the back of your throat as his mouth gently sucked at your hardened nipples through his beloved shirt.
His name left your lips again, this time in the softest gasp as a small frown hit your eyebrows and your hips started to faintly roll atop his. He moaned gratefully into your chest, his tongue wetting the fabric of his shirt so it clung to your raised nipple.
As he nosed along the cotton, he found your second nipple, his hand quick to raise to the first and squeeze at your breast that had not been forgotten. His touch wanted - you and it - to know that.
This is what you’d been missing so long. A sense of feeling you had buried somewhere else. Blocking out the way he managed to make you feel more alive than anyone else had.
With cheeks hollowed as he suckled, you whispered, “That’s nice.”
His hum of agreement vibrated through your chest as he kept his face pressed against you.
Everything about him became deliberate and slow, his hands now moving underneath your shirt and fingertips gently grazing at soft, warm skin prickling goosebumps in their wake.
Sliding lower his left hand palmed against the back pocket of your jeans, fingers catching against the thick and sewed seams. Hand pressed heavy to aid the soft rock to your hips, tapping lightly to the top of your bum.
“‘M gonna take these off,” he hummed, looking up at you from where his face was still pressed into your chest.
“Are you?”
It felt as if the room spun before you could even comprehend what was happening, a squealed laugh leaving your lips next as your arms tightened around Harry’s shoulders. He lightly lifted and rolled you, your back landing against his mattress gently as your laughter tapered off.
His lips were sponging kisses to your jawline and cheeks, as you felt the backs of his fingers slide gingerly against the exposed skin of your stomach. Slowly you felt the fabric pull away and fall slack against your stomach when he managed to twist the button with one hand, as your arms fell against the mattress and into the pillows that were slightly pressed higher against the headboard.
“Took you long enough,” you goaded, a smirk lacing your lips as you felt Harry pull away and watched him kneel sitting back with his feet against his bum.
His face was a picture, clearly amused, as he swiftly pulled his own shirt away and threw it behind him. Hands slowly trailed back up to the waistband of your jeans as he lightly hovered over you.
His head found your stomach, the soft skin on show from where the tee had ridden up. Soft puckered kiss, he lifted his head and pressed his chin into your stomach.
“Last chance,” he voiced, soft. While he wasn’t willing to forget about it all, regardless of the ache he had between his own legs, you had to be in this with him as much as he was.
Blinking down at him, you moved your hand up to gently push through his hair and without words raised your hips off the bed enough for him to get the message.
The smile that pulled at his lips, was so triumphant you had to knock your head back to stop yourself from chastising him for being full of himself.
Your hands however couldn’t help themselves as they joined Harry while he pulled your trousers down your legs and watched goosebumps rise upon your skin from their exposure to the cold.
Now he was at the end of the bed, you dropped your head to the side to look at him. The way he looked as he carelessly threw your item of clothing over to the chair that sat in the corner of his room.
His eyes slowly came back to you, as he followed his own motion and saw the faintest of smiles dance across your features.
“What yer thinking?”
You were thinking a lot of things. Mainly more so how mystical he looked in the soft glow of the London evening that was creeping in through the haphazard way he had drawn his curtains. Your smile only deepend at how it was more so from the street lamp lights than any full moon, but he didn’t have to know that.
Of course he would want to though, because your smile was more so on show now thanks to the thought in your mind.
Harry shook his head as he fought his own smile, dropping his face slightly to watch his hands as he fiddled with his own jeans.
“Whatever’s got you smiling, ‘s doing nothing for my ego as ‘m undressing m’self in front of yer.”
You knew he wouldn’t be able to help himself, which is why you lightly laughed.
He spoke your name in a pretend warning.
“‘S doin’ everythin’ for you,” you spoke sultry, “Don’t even try it. Got a girl half naked and waiting for you.”
At those words he looked up at you, through his curtains of thick waves that had fallen into his line of vision.
You breathed deeply, eyes unable to move from his captivating stare even though you knew he was practically naked from the waist down. You knew from the way his upper body moved as he pushed down his jeans; you knew from the sound of the clothes bunching around his ankles.
Now you found yourself wondering again. Wondering if he still kept his condoms where he had done last time. Sometimes in the bedside table drawer, other times hidden in the top of his wardrobe.
Were you going to see him twist and turn, get him showing you how white his bum cheeks were in comparison to his infuriatingly evenly tanned thighs and legs? Or was he going to hold your eyes, dip his knee into the bottom of his bed and crawl up you once more so he could grab one from the bedside table.
“Not just any girl,” he finally replied, his knee dipping into the bottom of the bed. You supposed that answered your question.
“No?”
A small shake of his head.
“The girl.”
Harry chuckled, giving himself away as he watched the way you relaxed deeper into the mattress as he found your legs easy to accommodate him.
“I’ve never been the anything,” you emphasised.
With his lips against your cheek, you felt his puffed breath as he responded, “Yea, you fuckin’ have.”
You kept him to you with a hand against the back of his head, fingers woven through his hand unable to not enjoy the feel of his silky locks beneath your touch. Reacquainting yourself with everything that you thought you had lost.
His lips unlatched from yours with a soft, wet sound as your eyes rolled back into your head when he started to trail kisses down your cheek, down your neck once more.
There was no mistaking how greedy they were, his chin knocking yours and his teeth scraping against your skin as he held your jaw with a steady hand in hope of keeping you still beneath him.
Legs moved from where they were open, softly brushing at his sides so your calves wrapped and touched the back of his thighs. The feel of his hairs against your smooth legs becoming a weirdly exhilarating reminder of your closeness once more.
Head buried in your chest, you felt him locate the wet patch against the cotton from his previous play and quickly enclose his mouth once more. Warm hands pushed beneath your body and the mattress, sliding underneath and raising your chest further to his face.
Your mouth fell open as you felt the pressure of his lips and tongue, enclosed around your nipple again, grow stronger. With a hand in his hair once more, you wondered if he was going to take you out of this shirt, or fuck you in it.
As the pressure lessened, with your head pressed into the bed beneath you, you heard the rustling of his nose and face against the shirt. He rubbed his face against you, inhaling and moving his hands closer to your lower back.
Hands in contact with your underwear, you felt him smooth over the fabric of your bum. He pulled at your thigh, before pushing at your knees with a gentle but assured touch.
“If I remember correctly,” he started, voice muffled as his face was still pressed to your breast. “This leg needs to go here, like this. Mm?”
Clammy hand splayed against your thigh, you felt him direct your other leg, “And this one needs to be a bit lower, otherwise you get cramp.”
There was a pause, and you could feel the way his lips were twitching atop the cotton of the tee. Matching yours at the flippant comment that was only funny because it was true.
Humming again, he added, “Keep ‘em like this. Keep me here like this.”
Doing what he asked, you bit back a moan when he moved to fit his palm over you through your underwear. The warmth from it radiating through you, making your throb and giving you the urge to fold your legs in on it.
Tentative strokes were what you received, at first. Up and down, coaxing you and drawing you into him. Then his fingers became more confident, certain in their touch, moving with a sense of familiarity you had been missing.
“‘S this okay?”
His voice was soft, hard to hear over your breathing and the blood starting to rush around your ears. You found yourself nodding, however. Giving him the permission he desired, making his next movement the easiest.
His fingers hooked, slipped underneath the thin piece of fabric and the quiet groan that left his lips only had you moving your legs that bit higher.
“‘S it nice.”
Harry was enticing. From his oozing velvety voice to his careful, barely there touch. You were lost to him. Finding it hard to breath as your body begged for you to be actually - really - touched.
With a heavy swallow, you felt your eyes fall shut with your slow, deep breath and let your head turn to the side, finding the edge of a propped up pillow to shield your torture expression.
“Don’t hide from me,” his voice lazily made itself known, as he looked up from under his brow at you and caused your eyes to drop as you looked down your body. He descended lower and lower, hands pushing up at his tee against your stomach, to reveal your bare skin to him.
Spongy kisses, encased by stubble, pressed into your skin. His fingers never once let up in their tease, touch opening you up for him. The soft twitch of your legs when his fingers landed on your clit, sliding over it.
“Relax for me,” he hummed. “You good… s’it feel good?”
Confident nod, you swallowed again. Tongue pushing between your lips to lick away the dryness.
“Okay wi’this?”
Another nod.
The press of his fingers onto your clit caused you to breathe deeply. A hiss of ‘yes’ as you exhaled.
“Tell me if it’s changed.”
And you knew what he meant. His desire to know if you still liked things the same as before important to him.
You couldn’t help the low and long moan that left your throat. Neither could you stop the lift of your hips from the bed as you twisted your body as he stroked at your clit.
Heavenly ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ were pulled from you. Encased by ‘yeses’ of various pitches. Harry’s nose was buried into the skin of your ribs, having managed to push the tee you still wore to underneath your boobs and in the process expose more of your skin to him.
His mouth sucked against your skin on the inside of your left boob, just at the underside, and from the groan he omitted you knew you were going to be left with an almighty love bite.
“Oh,” you sighed, as you felt his tongue lave at the mark, again nudging upwards and taking the shirt with him. Tongue over your exposed nipple, alert from the cold and due to your aroused state.
Your lower half was warm, fire stoked while he stroked at your clit. A sharply exhaled ‘fuck’ from you had him smiling around your nipple. The last time you had found yourself getting this wet - soaked and slick, the kind that meant your walls were smooth and would pull him right in - had been with him.
A laugh left you from underneath your breath, one not noticed by Harry who was too lost in the feel of you beneath him. The thought of anyone being able to get you this way from an act so virginal was unknown. Of course, he was the exception. Of course.
“Hear tha’?”
So lazy he couldn’t even ask you properly.
“Nice an’ wet.”
The slip of his fingers moving lower had you humming delightfully, legs falling open a bit more as his fingers danced at your entrance. The contrast of the heel of his palm to your clit was welcomed, warm but dry in comparison to heavily wet fingers.
You could feel yourself pulsing as his palm gently rubbed you again, nervous energy had you teetering. Fingers at your center. You wanted them, you wanted him in anyway he would give you himself.
Quiet, apart from staggered breathing, he smiled to himself when he felt your walls give way to him and his two fingers with ease. Your moan was voracious, a clear need apparent as the edges of it died against your dry throat.
He knew it was his name. He had heard it like that before. Plenty of times. Said in the same tone too. Sprinkled with incoherent desire.
“‘S that want you wanted?” He found himself asking. “Should’a just said.”
And you would’ve if you could. But instead your head was tossed back and your toes were curling into the sheets.
These were the moments he has missed. When he really thought about your time apart. The moments where the two of you were so lost in each other that the nonsense that slipped from each of your lips was met with no judgement but rather embraced.
Reacquainting after time apart. Rekindling your desires and unspoken love for one another.
Eyes on your face, he couldn’t quite see you how he would’ve liked but he did nothing to change it. His own want went out of the window in favour of you getting and keeping yours.
The smell of you was everywhere as he dropped his eyes and pushed his face against your boobs once more. A man quite willing to suffocate in his need to want more.
He could feel your falling apart under his experienced touch, relentless and unfleeting now. His fingers curled and with each ‘come hither’ your breathy moans only drove him on.
“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he spoke through gritted teeth, the tension in his arm burning at his wrist. Mutters of desperate mantras - ‘come on, come on’ - mouthed to your skin.
And you could - like this - you could. But did you want to?
While you were feverishly hot, everywhere, for him - body unable to stop rolling with each pull of his fingers - your head knocked back and softly shook from side to side.
“No,” you moaned lightly, “Not yet… Harry.”
“No?”
His questioning had you dropping your eyes, head still lolled to the side with pouted expression.
Mind still slightly hazy, you stared at him. He was still in his underwear, very obviously hard. Head nudging slightly, you breathed, “Come here.”
Empty. That’s how you felt when he slowly moved his fingers and left you clenching around nothing but the cold air of his bedroom.
His right hand was against your skin, middle and third finger slightly hovering away as they were coated in you and he selfishly didn’t want to lose that to your flesh but rather his tongue.
Legs welcomed him, smoothing around the backs of his thighs once before lifting and using your feet to try to push his underwear down.
Harry let out a noise you hadn’t heard in a while, a mix between a grunt and chuckle. The kind that created an aggravated fire within you.
“‘S not gonna work,” he mumbled, eyes closing as he felt the warmth of you against his clothes bulge. Your one thigh lifting to encourage him to roll onto his back.
And he did, taking him with you. A mess of awkward limbs tangling. With shaky knees you climbed over him, eyes down and taking in his underwear.
A pair of black briefs fit him just right, hugged him and holding his straining cock.
Your eyes slowly rose up his body, his chest lifting and falling with heavy breathing as his chin softened while he looked down at you with his fingers just about leaving his mouth from where he’d cleaned your arousal off of them.
You felt his eyes peering at you as you lowered down, nose first teasing against the waistband of his underwear before you found your lips pressed kisses to the tops of his thighs. Enjoying a little bit too much the feel of his leg hair against your nose and lips.
Hand lifted, it blindly sought out the waistline of his pants and allowed fingers to slip inside to pull down the material.
Just about past his thighs, you locked eyes with Harry. His soft blinking gaze and content smile had you grinning impishly, knowing in the faintly lit room he would most likely be able to make out the blush upon your skin.
You’d saw but more arousingly heard his cock move as the briefs which encased it gave way and it fell back, heavy, against Harry’s lower abdomen. And that was where it lay, next to the hair in Harry’s stomach and down to his pubic region.
Small crawl to get you better situated, you flipped some of your hair over to your opposite shoulder and felt him touch the back of your head with a barely there graze as you licked up the underside of his cock.
“Shit, darling,” he breathed, voice blissful above you but filled with a rawness only brought on by sexual vulnerability.
Looking up his body, you could see the grin that had made its way to his lips. His teeth quick to bite it away, with little to no avail.
You licked again, mouth moving lower to delicately suck one of his balls into your mouth.
The groan that left him was husky, right from the back of his throat. The kind that gave you shivers from how unguarded it was. His legs widened against the bed, your eyes diverted to his thighs from his movement. How thick they looked as they flattened beneath you on his bed.
Wrapping your hand around him, you ran your thumb over the head of his cock. Up and down. Slowly taking in every movement and what it did to him. Just like you remembered.
“‘S this right?” You asked, hand and mouth working him and his balls over. Looking up once more you watched him hum, with the smallest of nods. His lips were rolled into his mouth, dimples prominent as they dipped into his cheeks.
His nostrils flared as he breathed and his hair had started to fall across his forehead from how he’d been dipping his head back into the pillows beneath him.
“Squeeze me ‘ere,” he reminded you, voice holding a slight tremble, his hand encasing yours and encouraging a tighter hold as he leisurely dragged both his and your hand up and down his cock. “Slowly- tha’s it.”
You pulsed between your thighs as you watched him moving your hand with his, each downward pull showing his glistening head more and more. Heavy swallow, you knew he was holding back and you would be lying if you said the visual wasn’t encouraging you to take him in your mouth properly.
Almost like second nature you did exactly that. Licking at your lips as you lifted up and wrapped your lips around his exposed tip. When his hand faltered from the pleased sound you voiced now you were on him, you were able to slip from under his grip and felt him continue to wank as you suckled so teasingly.
With each bob of your head, you felt his hand pull away more, as your mouth and jaw stretched around his hard cock.
“Yea’,” he groused, deeply when his hand fell to give way to your mouth and move to shift your curtaining hair. Harry rolled his hips up gently, eager to get the last bit of him down your throat. Old him would’ve voiced it too, but he felt this moment didn’t call for that.
He softly fucked your face, if there were such a thing. The nudges of his cock warming through your core as the throbbing sensation that had been lingering between your legs only grew.
Harry fought against himself to make you gag, teetering on it with each raise of his hips as his glassy eyes barely focused on you. Too engrossed in the filth he wished to voice.
“God, look at you,” he dropped his head back. Ironic really. Unable to continue looking as he said it. It was tame in comparison to how he wanted to speak.
So, he laughed. Breathy at first, before becoming a little bit louder. You lips twitching into a smile as you lifted off of him and gently tugged before letting it fall and bounce proudly erect. Kissing up his stomach and placing your knees either side of his hips.
He had almost forgotten you weren’t completely naked until you sat on top of him covered up. Eyes too taken by your face to care, as you blinked down at him with a doe-eyed expression that made him want to lap you up in any way he could have you.
His right hand pulled you down to him, lips greedy against yours as his left hand found the top of your bum cheek, trying to blindly find his cock and guide him into you regardless of knowing it wouldn’t work.
“Like this?” He asked as his lips hovered at the corner of yours, wanting to know if you wanted it this way. “How’d you wan’ it?”
“On top.”
“Me?”
Your voices were breathy as you spoke around the faintest of kisses. Both eager to start from the feel of you both so close to each other.
The faintest of nods was given to him and it was all it took for him to roll the both of you, further continuing to ruckle up the bedsheet beneath you.
“Do I need one?”
And you knew you should be responsible and not shake your head no at his ambiguous mention of protection. All rushed and breathy, chest heavy as he exhaled in a nervous rush, but you just wanted him. Bare and in you.
Underwear was quickly removed before you’re resumed your position.
He watched you softly as you shook your head no, Harry pushing the shirt up under your boobs, your arms wrapping around his neck as he continued to kiss at your jaw and cheeks.
“Planning on staying over?”
Feeling him shift up and jar his head back, just enough to get a good look at you, you stared at him not knowing how to respond. It was practically morning now, so hadn’t you already?
His hands moved your legs as you thought, his one holding you where he needed you to be.
“Don’t think ‘bout it for too long, darling,” he joked nudging his nose gently against you as he watched the way your lips went against you, smiling at his words.
“Let me know how long we can go for,” he added, gently taking his cock that was sprung and bobbing between you into his hand. He looked down and tapped it to your wetness, sliding it down with a press of his fingers to the topside of his shiny cock to line himself up.
“Gonna let me have you all night.”
Your breathing picked up, chest trembling slightly at how much more of a statement those words sounded than a question. An amorous glance looked back at him, slow blinking and head lolled gently to the side.
“Eh? Sleep in the mornin’?”
A deep and shaky breath had your mouth falling, your eyes slowly shutting as you felt him push in. You were right when you thought about how easily you would take him earlier. Body crying out for a good fuck.
“Fuck me,” he groaned deeply, head dropping forward and hair hanging down. You reached for him, wanting to see his face.
Harry obliged you, his face turning to find your wrist and pressing a chaste kiss to your skin. “Missed havin’ you like this,” he breathed. Quick bite down to his bottom lips, nostrils flared.
“‘S tight.”
He knew the remark was boyish. Unable to stop himself as he eased out and rolled his hips back into yours. Each push and pull giving you a little more of him. Deep frown etched between his eyebrows as his breath caught in his throat, mouth slightly fallen and lips starting to dry.
“Haven’t-“ your voice croaked, head dipping into the pillow beneath you.
Haven’t slept with anyone in a while. Haven’t slept with anyone since you last slept with him. Haven’t had the desire to.
He hummed in agreement as the two of you felt the words fall away from you both. Harry’s concentration firmly on each roll of his hips as he gave you more of him. The rhythm he set being one that you could only describe as intimate. Familiar.
He was warm on top of you as he alternated between grinding dips of his hips, thrusts that were tantalisingly slow, making your hips roll up to meet him and causing him to smile at how you wanted it.
He had to voice it. “You want it, don’t you?”
He only knew so easily because he did too. He had done the minute he fucked the whole thing up and let you slip away with his dwindling text messages in response and shorter phone calls every time you had a chance.
Your hand glided to the back of his head, the other down to his bum as you encouraged him to give you his entire weight. He was close but you want him closer. Close was never close enough.
Was that enough to answer his question of wanting it, wanting him?
Squeezing at his bum, you fought the urge you had to give him a slap, too caught up into the heavy groan that moulded into your face as he pressed his nose to your skin.
“You make me good,” he lowly gruffed against your cheek, his hand trailing down to take yours from his bum.
Fingers laced and pressed against the mattress upon which you lay, you tilted your head back and pressed it harder into the pillow beneath you. You keened and mewled beneath him, breathy noises of indecipherable words as the head of his cock bumps your spot inside.
“You make me feel good.”
You were taken by his gasp, how desperate he sounded as he hiked your leg higher, wanting you to spread yourself open for him. His hips don’t give you much choice other than to play along as he moved with an assiduity you had never found with any other man.
He allowed you to feel every inch of him going in, pulling out and going back in. Teasing himself and you with a slow and measured pace that had you passionately panting underneath him.
“No one gets it like this.”
Looking at him with heavy-lidded vision, you wove your fingers through his hair and tugged. His face contorted blissfully, breath catching in his throat before it heaved out of his mouth as his chest forced him to exhale.
You were nodding, agreeing with him. No one had you like this. Him like this. It like this. Sweltering and sticky.
Teeth gritted, he grunted as he thrusts grew heavier now with more conviction behind their motion.
“Deeper,” you gasped, “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
His pelvis was heavy against yours now, making it difficult for you to lift and roll your hips to meet his thrusts. And he knew you loved it like this, he still knew that.
Legs practically pushed to your chest, held there by your own fruition as they rocked and rubbed up against his fleshy sides cradling him to you, feet bobbing in the air with toes curled.
The sensual roll he was giving you caused the grip of your fingers to go slack against his head. You could feel him smiling against your skin, as your breath hitched in your throat and your hand squeezed at his.
“Touch my arse,” he moaned, sliding his hand out of yours and breathing in quick succession until your hand met his bum cheek once more.
This time you didn’t falter, gently tapping and feeling the tension to his thrusts as he clenched. Quick squeeze and nails digging in creating crescent moons against his white bits. “Yeah darlin’, know I like it like tha’.”
Head turned to the side, you messily brought your mouths together. He chuckled as you broke away, probably from the words he’d just spoken. Laughter dying down into a hum as your feet wrapped around his lower back.
His lips were dry as they met yours, too caught up in how his mouth hung open, to make them wet and inviting, as his need to breathe was evident.
“No ones like you,” you admitted. “No one comes close.”
He revelled in the whine of your last word, how it had your back arching and allowed him to wind his hand around you to lift your bum slightly to encourage your hips to continue meeting his.
He knew you were tired, the breathy whines that were spoken up towards the ceiling were not lost on him. And he knew he had to keep going, to give it to you how you deserved. To make up for the lost time, to say sorry for ‘being a bit of a dick’. A lot of a dick.
When you knocked your head back, your eyes were unable to concentrate and he was mesmerised by the visual of complete, unadulterated lust that was present on your features. Hair sticking to your temples from your exertion and face void of any concern.
“Make me come,” you whispered your plea, feeling him bury his face into your neck and drop himself down flush to you. With one hand woven through the hair on the back of his head, your other stayed at him bum feeling the grind of his groin against yours as he lay on you.
He was sensual now, if not a little tired himself, as his breathing left his mouth in hot pants against the side of your neck. You could feel yourself beginning to flush from the heaviness of his body as you both rocked from the force of his motions and the fullness of him above you.
With rustling sheets and sounds of grunts, your cooed ‘oh’ left you, as you felt the motion of Harry’s hips pickup pace. Your fingers clawed into his hair, lifting the strands and softly pulling as your body ached in the most delectable way.
Harry groaned around a smile, muffled by your skin as he could feel his stomach start to tighten; his orgasm impending. He tried to hold off as much as he could, eager to watch you come undone first in the best way he could as he was rendered speechless and breathless alongside it.
Instead you were both a mess of tangled limbs, with rocking motions so vigorous that you felt yourself moving up the bed. A symphony of noises - slapping skin, feeble grunts and creaking bed.
Harry wheezed, knowing he sounded pathetic by too caught up to care. Through hooded eyes you caught sight of his mouth falling agape before he ground his teeth together as his thrusts heavily rolled into you, nudging your entire body.
Your mouth fell as his name unashamedly fell from your lips. Demandingly, but in a juxtaposed whisper, you told him to give it to you.
“I am,” he whispered. “Oh, I am, darling- Mmhm.“
You whimpered, feeling each breath get harder to produce as your abdomen began to tighten and your chest heave. “I’m coming,” you hastily whispered. Voice nothing more than a pant.
Looking up at Harry, you watched his bottom lip become captive to his teeth, as his nostrils flared while he breathed. His thrusts were at their heaviest now, wetter and sloppier but getting the job done.
“Gonna- oh.”
This was the loudest you’d been in a while. Moans long and dying off into wordless bliss as your muscles tensed and your orgasm rolled through you. Leaving you as nothing more than cloudy thoughts, and a warm, floaty body.
You felt the bounce of his laugh against his skin from his breath, as he continued to move above you and moulded you into nothing but a high-pitched mess as he wouldn’t stop.
Body falling slightly slack, relaxed and pliant to the bed, you felt Harry move his face into your neck and nudge his hips once more. His ruts were less rhythmic, rough grunts and indecipherable slurring only matching his pending euphoria.
With his final, heavily thrust, his hips slammed to a stop against yours. Your breathing stuttered as you held him to you, hands moving over his shuddering shoulders and ears listening to his muffled groans which vibrated through you.
“Yea’,” he drawled. Low from the back of his throat. “Yes.”
***
Sunday mornings were made to be slow. To bask in the stillness. To hear nothing but the blood that was rushing through your ears.
It was far too bright to be considered early morning. Not with the winter months looming.
You stretched your limbs, listening for the crack of your back as your hands reached for the t-shirt that was still awkwardly bunched up to your armpits.
Rolling your body slightly you reached for the hem and pulled it down, letting your head fall to the side to see an empty bed which allowed a sense of regret to creep into your morning thoughts. Blinking slowly, you almost missed the sound of the bedroom door gently bouncing against the wall.
A hushed, “bollocks” spat out for the other side of the wood causing your lips to twitch upwards in a smile.
A pause came to Harry’s movements as he caught your eye in nothing more than a pair of fresh underwear and mismatched mugs in each hand.
“Stayed the night,” he hummed, eyes softly shining.
A soft smile pulled onto your lips as he left a cup of tea closer to your side of the bed and you watched him start to blow gently at the lip of his own mug. With his mouth about to take a sip, he asked, “Fancy staying another?”
#harry styles#harry styles smut#rekindled fic#harry styles fluff#harry styles fanfic#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles one shot#harry styles fic#harry fic#Harry x reader#harry styles x reader#harry styles x you
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Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^
I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.
.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance
Anyway! onto the actual content!
- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.
- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.
- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.
- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.
- Lets talk about killing.
- During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master
..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first...
do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"
-
Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it.
- the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen.
- it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."
- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.
a couple character story quotes:
-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins.
The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat."
-"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory.
No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time.
Xiao has spent many long years alone.
But his battles have never been in vain."
-"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield."
-"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage."
-"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end."
-"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."
i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him.
- until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute.
- and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.
and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"
...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should.
to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.
^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.
idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go-
Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.
anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.
but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...
He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.
- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts
One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:
A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can.
Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it.
both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory:
Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did
And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t
Xiao’s power coming from himself
and Venti’s from others
And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes
both have killed a lot of people during the archon war
Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control
and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself
and this is where we meet out balance
Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty
Venti on the other hand-
See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game
Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-
whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows.
however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-
Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over-
they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.
GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING
I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.
anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason
Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much
Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously
Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of-
Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included
Xiao: Then why me above others?
Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right]
Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]
it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings.
I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is.
I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other-
Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it
within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely
so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action.
and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways.
-Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay
-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though.
-Messages whispered on the wind
-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips.
- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.
- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them.
- And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself.
- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change
- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those
- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you:
- Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt.
- turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing.
- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”
- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)
- “How long have you been together?”
“Adepti have no need for-”
“1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love”
“O///O our...? ...useless”
- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics-
- so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard-
- uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-
- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth.
- Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced.
- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute
- just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh
- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports
- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.
- and because i just had to.... love languages
- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so-
- Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”
- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service
- its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that.
-
- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead.
#genshin impact#genshin xiao#genshin venti#xiao#venti#xiaoven#genshin analysis#genshin headcanons#xiaoven headcanons#xiaoven analysis#this is a mess i really shouldnt be putting all these tags but oh well#oh wow the grammar and spelling here is truly repulsive#sorry to all my english teachers i have failed you all
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21-tbrm
I really love outsider pov, so I love imagining what other people think of like tbrm being a total bamf.like his jutsu inventions,his ration sword,his prettiness,just him in general.
Hello there! 😄
Hmm I gotta admit I don't really like reading/writing BAMF. I like characters to be badass, yes, but not in the way BAMF usually handles it. In a lot of cases, the character's core traits are completely erased or so overblown they stop resembling themselves and instead read very OOC to me. In case of Tobirama specifically, I find it kind of hilarious how a lot of writers make him into this superhuman being that can do everything and never makes mistakes, and is just this perfect robot with no emotions. It makes him seem so fake that I can't take it seriously or find much enjoyment in reading such stories.
For Tobirama, I like it when he is aware of his own limitations and I really like it when he sucks at doing things. In my fics, he can barely do any healing and has zero talent for cooking, he fails regularly at inventing stuff (because guess what, experimenting is a process and sometimes you don't succeed at it despite working on a project for years), he is mouthy and too honest for his own good, he is shit at taking care of himself, he doesn't always win or come out of the fights unscratched... These are just a few of the most prominent characteristics that I like to include to make him seem human.
And no, I'm not saying I'm the best at writing him the way I like to read him or that the way I write him is better than how others do it. It's just an example to illustrate my point.
Seriously, from a literature major here: Characters need flaws to be likeable and feel real, people. Actual flaws. Not just quirky traits that only emphasise how strong and awesome they are. Make your characters too proud, make them reckless, make them selfish, make them self-absorbed, make them mean, make them blunt, make them assholes, make them struggle and fight. I don't want to see more and more of this "can do no wrong" approach. I'm honestly tired of it.
I hope it doesn't come off as mean or too aggressive. I just have an Opinion about this (in case you couldn't tell lol). Also, my mind just works this way. I’ve studied literature for way too long and spent way too much time analysing the shit out of things to be able to read stories without going into Editor Mode. Which is a shame, honestly... 😞
One thing I have to totally agree with you on is his prettiness. Though his character design is very inconsistent imo, it's hard to argue that he's a very pretty man, which is part of the reason why I love drawing him so damn much 🥰
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Character ask meme
#tobirama#senju tobirama#tobirama headcanons#i guess#don't @ me people#i said what i said#and i stand by it#character ask meme#character ask#ask game
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May I request for headcanons with the dorm leader and a f!reader who’s scared of people and always have her guards up? How would they win her over? (I’m so sorry if this is way too much and if this is the wrong place to ask for requests)
It’s not too much and it’s a good place to ask for requests. Hope you will like it~!
I swear I don’t know why Vil and Azul are so long..
♥️ probably scared you with his tantrums and quick temper
♥️ and probably scared you even more with strict rules imposed on students,
♥️ at first Riddle had absolutely no clue how to approach you, you always seemed rather anxious and cautious around him and he didn’t like it at all. Eventually, he asks Trey for some advices on how to get closer to you,
♥️ now he’s making sure you’re not near before he ruthlessly scolds and punishes students or has an outburst of anger,
♥️ Riddle tries to control his emotions around you and talk in rather pleasant voice, sometimes may turn a blind eye if you break one, seemingly insignificant rule, even though he’s screaming internally,
♥️ asks you, how was your day and oftne starts small talks with you. Riddle even offers to help you with subjects you don’t excel at, which slowly makes you warm up to him and gradually builds your trust,
♥️ when you feel more comfortable in his company, he invites you for tea parties where just the two of you eat strawberry tarts and talk in pleasant ambiance (Riddle shamelessly denies it being a date and refers to it as friendly meeting, keep telling that to yourself)
♥️ Riddle is the listener and he tries hard not to push your barriers, he’s always there to listen to your problems and is more than willing to offer you a solution,
💛 he certainly enjoys a good chase and is up for the challenge, he’s not the type to easily give up. Leona is a predator after all and you happened to be considered a prey,
💛 since you always have your guard up around others, he finds your mysterious and unapproachable aura completely endearing, Leona wants to be the only one to whom you will open up
💛 he acts more than he talks, so at first expect that lazy lion to actually put some effort – he will intimidate people you’re scared of, will carry your bag if you happen to walk in the same direction as him without even asking for your permission or he would invite you to his table in canteen,
💛 when he realises his approach doesn’t work that well and you’re still slightly intimidated by him, Leona will change his strategy,
💛 since you don’t want to be open, then he won’t be forcing you. Leona decides to show you an example. He opens up to you, tells you his honest thoughts without beating around the bush – which actually works and makes you gradually trust him more and more,
💛 Leona is not rushing you or putting any pressure on you, after all hunts are not supposed to be easy and end so rapidly,
💙 his tentacle senses began tingling when he spotted you. His greedy and calculating self was looking for a perfect moment to get you to sign a contract. You had heard rumours about his fishy deals and after Floyd personally and brutally invaded your comfort zone, you swore to yourself your feet would never step in Mostro Lounge again. It led to you having absolutely no trust in him and basically running away at a mere sight of the twins,
💙 if you were scared of people before, now you were terrified and your guards were even higher than always. You promised yourself to be extra cautious around Azul,
💙 Azul can partially understand you, he doesn’t like feeling vulnerable either and usually has hard time opening to others and prefers to keep things to himself, yet it doesn’t mean he will go easy on you,
💙 after your brief meeting when you politely refused a contract, Azul actually gives you time, he doesn’t seem pushy or overbearing. You don’t see him or Leech twins for extended period of time. After a while you began to feel less anxious and your body isn’t in constant “fight or flight” mode, that’s when Azul steps in.
💙 gets paired with you in poison class, completely accidentally, much to your discontent. Azul leaves you surprised by how respectful he is, not putting any pressure on you and helping you with task. He gently asks about your opinion and listens to you, which leaves you stunned,
💙 you don’t warm that easily to him, having at the back of your mind all the horrible rumours about him. Azul is a great manipulator. While he was seemingly giving you time, Leech twins were busy collecting any information about you, which could be helpful in the future. Soon, Azul adapts his responses to your reactions, slowly making you lower your guard in his company,
💙 offers you a small favour, without any contract and wants nothing in return. You were suspicious, he keeps his promise, which makes you slightly warm up to him, Azul views that as investment in the future and he is more than willing to make another favour,
💙 just one day Azul will return to collect your outstanding debt,
💙 if he doesn’t manage to woo you with his manners, clever tricks, then surely, he can do it through a contract, right?
🧡he is open and friendly with everyone and his bright and energetic personality scared you a bit at first. His presence was a bit overbearing to you and you couldn’t believe you would find such a kind soul in this school,
🧡 Jamil had to explain to him, why you may not want to open up to new people and have trust issues, after that he would change his approach,
🧡 Kalim wants to gain your trust and become your friend, before he would try to woo you, he doesn’t want to blow his chances with you, so he takes things slow,
🧡 soon you learn that he’s genuinely friendly and cheerful and he’s not trying to be someone he isn’t,
🧡 Kalim talks openly with you, doesn’t hide anything about himself and is more than happy to share some histories about his past with you
🧡 often tells you that he appreciates time you spend with him and how this relationship is important to him,
🧡 gradually, your conversations began to flow more easily and naturally and you find yourself opening a little,
🧡 eventually, his bright personality wins you over
💜 Vil thinks highly of himself and is sure that making you fall for him would be easy-peasy. After all, who wouldn’t want to date him? Isn’t he such a perfect lover? He knows, it’s just a matter of time before you let your guard down and fall head over heels for him,
💜 sends Rook to discreetly gather some crucial information about you, he wants to understand why are you cautious and don’t you want to trust others. After finding a cause, Vil is more than happy to impose the best (in his opinion) solution and solve your issues. You won’t even notice his attempts,
💜 Vil is an excellent actor. After learning more about you and analysing your personality with Rook, he will adjust his words, gestures to your reactions. He always creates a perfect ambiance for your talks and seems to be empathizing with you. But you will never know which sugar-coated word was his true self.
💜 makes you believe that he leads the conversations with you, while having the intention of fully listening to you. Soon, you’re convinced that he’s a reliable person in whose company you can speak without feeling judged or embarrassed. After all, doesn’t he seek to understand you?
💜 Vil judges you internally, although in your eyes, he’s a very encouraging and supportive person. He helps you adjust in this completely new word and initially he isn’t harsh to you, as he is with Epel. He showers you in compliments, builds your self-esteem and makes you feel appreciated in his company. After all, Vil is going to fix your any imperfection after you eventually becomes his.
💜 if you reject him despite his relentless efforts, special addition to your apple or an old-fashioned love potion should make you fall for him,
🖤 oh boy, he is rather scared of people, often avoiding them at all cost and now he wants to overcome your barriers you had set around you and win you over?
🖤 it’s going to be a tough challenge, Idia himself is not sure whether he can overcome it,
🖤 feels very awkward whenever he tries to get out of his comfort zone and approach you, so he practically doesn’t leave it. You’re not sure how many times you had seen him leaving his dorm, yet alone his room,
🖤 you both share a lot in common, so he perfectly understands why you may have trust issues and don’t want to open up so easily,
🖤 Idia gives you (and mostly himself) quite a lot of time and if he finally gathers lasting remains of his practically non-existing courage, he will message you,
🖤 most of your conversations would be online. Surprisingly to you, they don’t feel awkward or forced, you both enjoy them, slowly warming up to each other,
🖤 eventually you would take your relationship from Internet to real life,
💚 he is a patient fae, so he gives you as much time as you need to warm up to him. Your mistrust and fear of people, as well as having your guards up all the time is understandable to him.
💚 Malleus is not exactly an open person with a vast circle of friends. Besides, most of Diasomnia students are also cautious and discreet, so he is rather accustomed to it and doesn’t find you weird,
💚 He doesn’t mind walking in the forest with you in complete silence and doesn’t even find it awkward,
💚 Malleus is elated when you gradually become more comfortable in his company, he always makes sure you’re feeling alright and is a great listener. You could spend hours rabbiting on how your day was awful and he would be there to hear it. You have his full and undivided attention,
💚 always tells you how much he appreciates time spent with you and how much this relationship means to him,
💚 appreciates every piece of information you share about yourself and in return does the same. Generally sooner or later, you both help subconsciously help each other open up and before you even realise, you start to develop feelings for your kind Tsunotarou,
#twisted wonderland#disney twst#twst#twst wonderland#twst writing#twst x reader#twisted wonderland scenarios#twst headcanons#malleus draconia#leona kingscholar#vil schoenheit#riddle rosehearts#idia shroud#kalim al asim#azul ashengrotto#malleus x reader#leona x reader#vil x reader#idia x reader#riddle x reader#kalim x reader#azul x reader#twst x mc#twst hc#requested#female reader
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Shiramine Nokia, and her role in Cyber Sleuth’s narrative
This one’s on request! Cyber Sleuth is quite the interesting game and a rather landmark entry in the franchise, mainly for being a love letter to the franchise and its long history itself, and for being the franchise’s very first work exclusively aimed at adults, meaning that it can explore different topics that wouldn’t normally be Sunday morning timeslot material, while also being a little more willing to assume that the people playing this are familiar with a lot of older parts of the franchise (not that it’s advisable to have complete lockout, but the game benefits greatly by not needing to assume lockout by default).
One of the ways Cyber Sleuth exhibits its “franchise love letter” status is by starting off the game all the way back at the franchise’s roots, before Digimon Adventure changed the game and everyone’s perception of Digimon and Digimon partnership, when the V-Pet lore was intertwined with Digimon as elements of hard sci-fi. As the game proceeds, the atmosphere slowly starts to resemble the more fantasy-like version of the franchise established by Digimon Adventure and its follower entries -- and that change is represented in none other than Nokia herself.
Before we begin: As anyone who follows my meta work has probably noticed, I generally prefer to have my analyses use tons of references and screenshots so that it’s easy to follow and the evidence is concrete, but Cyber Sleuth is a game, and it’s much harder to get those things without replaying the entire game, so I hope this won’t be too hard to follow despite being mostly text.
Nokia’s background and personality
If we want to apply the producer’s statements on Twitter, Nokia is 17 years old at the time of Cyber Sleuth, and has a backstory of having originally been a shy, bullied child who broke out of her shell thanks to the influence of her cousin (who, of all people, happens to be none other than Date Makiko). The flashback we get with Nokia in chapter 18, however, portrays her as just a fairly cheerful, go-getter child, but (although we only get to see her hair) she’s not quite as “flashy” or in-your-face as the description entails.
A possible hypothesis for rationalizing this all together comes from a what we learn about the process of memory wiping in Cyber Sleuth chapter 14: even if memories are extracted from the person, there’s some kind of residual memory left behind (the producer’s above statement also states that the same thing had even happened to Suedou). In Hacker’s Memory chapter 16, Arata confesses to Ryuji that the first Under Zero incident and Jude's loss to the Knightmon had re-triggered his trauma from having lost Yuugo years prior -- “not the memory, but the feeling.” So in other words, there was some feeling of loss that came after the loss of Yuugo that impacted those involved -- and it’s very possible that this deeply impacted and traumatized Nokia as well.
Assuming we’re still following this line of thought (since, again, this background point wasn’t actually in the game proper), Nokia eventually decided to break out of her shell thanks to Makiko’s influence, and become eccentric and assertive, and thus, the game begins.
While we’re here, I also want to point out that Nokia is also voiced by Han Megumi, possibly the Digimon franchise’s most notorious “promoted fangirl” who freaked out after getting to meet her childhood characters’ voice actors while cast as Airu in the Xros Wars crossover and ended up casted in a handful of major Digimon roles thereafter as a result. Which is not to say that her voice performance wasn’t also absolutely perfect for the bright and aggressive Nokia, but, you know...considering the below analysis, food for thought.
Nokia as a representative of “the conventional franchise”
Cyber Sleuth opens on a world where Digimon are largely seen as hacker programs, and even the hackers themselves only see them as non-sentient programs; there are ones like Chitose who treat them with empathy, but his attitude seems to be kindness towards them in a way not entirely unlike a family would treat a Roomba. Although he doesn’t admit to it at first, Arata himself also comes from this “world” of hackers, and we later learn that Yuuko herself is as well (via her “Yuugo” persona), meaning that, other than the playable protagonist, Nokia is the only “outside-context” person -- a completely ordinary civilian who’s gotten dragged into all of this.
Much like, say, the protagonists of Digimon Adventure.
With this background behind her, once she’s thrown into the world of hackers, she immediately has a “fateful encounter” with Agumon and Gabumon, instantly recognizable as two of the franchise’s most prominent Digimon (and complete with their Adventure voice actors, too). And I do especially bring up Adventure specifically, because while Nokia’s position in the game does end up taking in certain elements that roughly came around that era and possibly slightly predated it (mostly Digimon World and V-Tamer), Agumon and Gabumon weren’t particular mascots of the franchise until Adventure basically blew everything to pieces.
Right off the bat, Nokia does not have a single shred of doubt that Agumon and Gabumon are living beings and should be treated as such (again, much like the protagonists of Digimon Adventure; even Taichi in his “is this a game?” mode never doubted this). And they open up their meeting with this conversation:
Agumon: Umm, who are you?
Nokia: It... It can talk?! It's so... so... so adoooooorable! M-M-M-M-My name's Nokia. What're your names?
Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon!
Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon.
Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names!
Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird!
Agumon: You're the one with the weird name!
Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!
And on top of that, Agumon refers to Nokia as having a “familiar” scent. Remember this for later.
Nokia’s second encounter with Agumon and Gabumon in Cyber Sleuth chapter 3 involves her properly partnering herself with Agumon and Gabumon, and learning about the existence of the “Digital World”. Note that, for all intents and purposes, EDEN had been treated like the functional equivalent of the Digital World in this narrative up until this point -- cyberspace with hackers, coming from the network, it’s basically a “digital world” from top to bottom, and yet here Agumon and Gabumon are introducing the concept of a more fantasy-esque incarnation of a digital world. (And, in fact, despite EDEN being right there, many long-time Digimon fans playing this game often complained about how little you get to see the “Digital World” in this game, because of how associated that term is with something more fantasy-like.) So, again: here we have Nokia, who’s forming a partnership with Agumon and Gabumon as equals instead of recruiting them as hacker tools (even the protagonist wasn’t immune to this method), and being indirectly responsible for introducing the more fantasy-like concept of the Digital World that the modern franchise is currently associated with.
Nokia embarks on the conventional shounen anime character arc of starting off cowardly, but eventually learning to have her own inner strength, with her Digimon evolving in accordance to her emotions. And, eventually, in Cyber Sleuth chapter 8, she decides to form her own hacker team, called the “Rebels”. She ostensibly bases it off the old creed of Jude, having heard that they were a team that never caused trouble for others, but we later learn via Arata turning out to have been its former leader, and the even later portrayal in Hacker’s Memory of its spiritual successor Hudie, that this is an extremely rose-colored image of them -- Jude (and Hudie) was not a well-intentioned team by any means, but rather a sort of mercenary group meant to enforce the “freedom” of EDEN, often taking on shady jobs and “punishing” entities they considered to be causing chaos. But in this case, Nokia forms her team under the idea of legitimately fighting for justice and good will -- again, much like a Digimon Adventure protagonist.
In case the metaphor weren’t clear enough, Nokia decides that the members of her group will not be called “hackers”, but “Tamers” -- the same lingo used by the franchise to refer to a human who partners alongside a Digimon to help them get stronger -- and that she wants to promote the idea of humans and Digimon working in tandem (complete with emotional bonding exercises). For this, everyone looks at her weird, and yet her methodology, initially naive as it seems, keeps working, because Nokia’s natural charisma starts bringing people from different places together and making quite the formidable team. Everyone is perplexed by this, but perhaps it’s only natural, because Nokia has just independently invented the modern concept of Digimon partnership in a world where it did not exist. And this is eventually solidified by the Under Zero invasion in Cyber Sleuth chapter 10, in which Omegamon is finally formed (from sheer guts on her part).
Omegamon is yet another symbol of the modern franchise, but it’s important to remember that he hasn’t always been so; even his appearance in V-Tamer was as more of a tactical piece than any kind of game-breaker, but the impact of Our War Game! has led him to constantly make a resurgence in major franchise roles (maybe a little too much these days). However, on top of Nokia basically embodying the modern franchise itself by doing this, Nokia and Arata’s positions are an obvious reference to Our War Game! in particular, being Omegamon and Diablomon Tamers -- but they’re not seen directly fighting each other. In fact, Arata’s partner only ever reaches Diablomon when he’s at the highest point of his morality, so the reference is more ideological; Nokia represents the more idealistic and heroic side of Digimon, whereas Arata represents the more dirty-playing and cynical hard sci-fi side of it (remember that Diablomon himself was rather detached from the fantasy conflict of Adventure, being a mysterious entity that sprouted out of nowhere on the Internet and wreaked havoc). Moreover, Nokia’s usage of Omegamon embodies a theme that’s central to both Our War Game! and Cyber Sleuth itself as a whole -- while most people associate Omegamon with Taichi and Yamato these days, the original method of formation back in Our War Game! came from “bringing people from different places together”. Nokia managed to bring together a formidable army in a place where everyone else in the hacker world was trying to promote a dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the sense of cooperation is arguably making her stronger than anyone else.
(I should also point out that Nokia’s name is, obviously, a reference to the Finnish telephone communications company, and this has a lot of relevance to the game’s theme of connection, along with her phone Digivice...and, also, the method used to bring everyone’s powers together in Our War Game!’s spiritual successor, Diablomon Strikes Back. Feels a bit too on-the-nose here.)
In the second half of the game, when the world starts falling apart due to the Digital World portal opening, Nokia becomes one of most important people holding everything together as Arata goes off the deep end and Yuuko starts fixating on her own personal problems and revenge -- because she’s the one most in tune with treating Digimon as the living beings they are, she’s most active in advocating for them and helping them bond with humans, and and she’s the one making the chaos be a little less chaotic. The second half is basically the more fantasy-esque version of Digimon leaking into the sci-fi, with the sidequests progressively resembling your average Digimon anime monster-of-the-week episode, and holding that all together is Nokia, who becomes a vital figure in maintaining that fellowship by being in tune with the modern franchise’s philosophy.
Through all of this, Nokia ends up taking a role rather similar to a Digimon protagonist, which is highlighted very strongly in Cyber Sleuth chapter 18 when she ends up literally becoming the player character while the main protagonist is out of commission. During that time, Yuuko and Nokia learn the truth of what happened during the EDEN incident eight years prior -- and we also learn that the five children involved had an extremely conventional “first meeting in the Digital World” experience that could have been pulled right out of the first episode of a Digimon anime, with them having a lovely adventure meeting new creatures. And at the center of that “first contact” was none other than Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon themselves:
Agumon: Um... who are you?
Nokia: Ahem! I am Nokia! And just who are you?
Agumon: Me? My name is Agumon!
Gabumon: I... I'm Gabumon.
Nokia: Agumon and Gabumon? Hee hee! What weird names!
Gabumon: Hey, they're not weird!
Agumon: You're the one with the weird name!
Nokia: As if! My name's not weird! Hee hee!
Nokia, Agumon, and Gabumon’s meeting at the beginning of the game had been an (accidental) reenactment of their first meeting in the Digital World eight years prior -- and, in the flashback, Nokia invites them to go on an “adventure” with them. So in other words, Nokia getting involved in the hacker conflict at the beginning of the game was, unknown to all of them, her attempting to restore that beauty and idealism of the Digimon Adventure-esque philosophy and fun in a world where the Eaters had torn it away and EDEN had turned into a haven of cynicism and hacker battle royale.
In the end, the game’s conflict is only resolved by bringing everyone together; Arata has to be retrieved from the deep end, and Yuuko has to settle her deep-seated personal grievances. Everyone makes a promise to return together, in the sense of making things right and repairing the connections between them that had been cut in that incident. The final battle (momentarily) causes the playable protagonist to literally fall apart, and the one reaching out to them and sending her message to them at the end of the game is none other than Nokia herself -- again, in the absence of the game’s protagonist, Nokia is the one with the closest role, because in the face of the new world going forward, she was the one who contributed most to restoring its idealism.
Ultimately, all of this is especially because Cyber Sleuth works under one of the most terrifying imaginable premises for a fan of a kids’ franchise: “we made an entry for this, but for adults.” Many of us can testify that this kind of premise can go very well, or very badly -- the latter especially in the case of things that decide “taking the opportunity to do things that you can’t do on a Sunday morning kids’ timeslot” means “going out of your way to put edgy violence and sexy things and cynicism just because you can”, or, in other words, looking down condescendingly on its kids’ franchise roots with malice and deciding that something for adults means “more suffering” and not “issues that require more life experience to understand”. The reason the game ended up getting as much acclaim among longtime Digimon fans as it did was that despite being the franchise’s first venture into this territory, it did end up setting itself up as something that took that opportunity to do something new and unique that would have never made it into any of the prior entries (holy hell the doll quest) and yet never gave up on the idealism and themes of connection that make up the franchise at its core, and paid respect to everything that had contributed to all of that while it was at it.
And at the center of that is Shiramine Nokia, who is effectively the spirit of Digimon Adventure, condensed into a single character.
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Undercover Reunion | Bucky Barnes
Summary; walking home had been one thing, which lead to you inviting him, which lead to another and another and so on.
Warnings; includes smut (tiny bit of praise kink, oral sex (both receiving), penetrative sex) bit of angst, swearing, fluff, badly written smut
If anyone were to ask what you would be doing on a Saturday evening, you’d have probably assumed that you would be walking from work all by your lonesome, it would be raining, and there’d be no chance at grabbing a taxi.
Two out of three of those predictions had been true, one was false. It occurred to be that you were not by your lonesome, you had stumbled into a familiar face that used to cause a rush of emotions to swirl in your stomach.
He was an ex, somebody that you had feelings for in the past. But clearly, the relationship did not go to plan, seeing as the pair of you were split, and had been for some time. Just hearing his name had you aching, kicking yourself for not fighting for him, but alas, it was torture for you, just as much as it had been for him.
James Buchanan Barnes. “Undercover, huh?” You asked him once you had reached your doorstep, the pair of you completely drenched from the outpour. It was still hammering it down, and as someone who still cared about Barnes, you opened your door, him blindly following after you.
“Yeah, work.” He bluntly responded, once the pair of you were within the vicinity of your home, the tension was far too obvious. It felt like a physical force between you, it was strange to be back in the claws of it.
“Some things never change.” You lightly spoke, remembering that his loyalty to the team was the reason for your break up in the first place.
And perhaps that was where it belonged, you could hold no grudge against him for being so invested in doing the right thing. It was his penance for all the crimes that he had done under a forced hand and corrupt manipulation.
None of it had truly been his fault, he was the body for an experiment, the mind in question had not been his own. It too, had been in a cell, shut off from the rest of his body, and prohibited from the driver’s seat.
“Y/n/n-“
“Don’t, it’s fine Bucky.” He winced at the name, you had always, if speaking his name directly, say James. “Really.” You reassured him, going to the closet in the hall and bringing out a towel for him to dry himself with.
“It looks like it’s gonna storm outside.” He changed the question, running the white fabric through his hair first, seeing as the long strands were making the absorbed water drip onto your floor.
“Will you get back in time?” You asked him, viewing how the rainfall pounded relentlessly against the window. It had its own rhythm, and as the silence parted your conversation, it was all that you could hear.
“Back where? I’m still undercover.” Sure, he could definitely try and find a motel or some kind of shelter. Yeah, he’d do that.
“I mean, if it’s not awkward, you could stay here.” Was your suggestion, and so Bucky looked up, his blue eyes analysing you, as though he were trying to decipher if you were being completely serious or not.
“Okay.” He nodded, slowly. You told him to go to the bathroom, setting some of his old clothes in there that you had kept, so that he could warm up.
Bucky fluffed his hair with a dry towel, walking out of the room once he was done. However he was met by you entangled in your own shirt, it stuck up over your head, as you had clearly tried to remove it. Once it had been clinging to your skin, but now it was lodged around your neck, the bra that you had chosen that morning on full display for your guest to see.
“Need a hand there doll?” Of course, he had to see you in this position, it was not embarrassing at all. But nevertheless, you sighed into the material of your damp shirt, supplying him with a mumbled yes.
And so, Bucky found the point where you had gotten caught by, and unravelled the material, effortlessly sliding your shirt over your head, like he used to. “All good?”
“No.” You answered him, crossing your arms over your chest, pushing your breasts up without noticing. The action caused Bucky to gulp as he inwardly fought with himself to keep his gaze locked onto your face, oh your beautiful face. It rested perfectly onto your neck, which curved onto your shoulders, and then- no, he couldn’t think like that.
“What’s wrong?” He asked, biting back his male impulses to cast his eyes down, and towards your cleavage. As you spoke, he hardly listened, it was something regarding your job, but he couldn’t focus on it, instead he paid attention to your lips and how they moved with each syllable that left them.
It was hard to restrain himself, so he was thoughtless to pressing his lips upon yours. They felt the same as the last time that you had kissed, and it only further fuelled his hunger to devour you. A frown settled on your face, but instead of questioning him on his actions, you melted into the contact until you had to pull away for air.
“Were you even listening to me?” You lightly laughed, quickly noticing how Bucky’s face gave away the answer. “Never mind, I mean we can continue, if that’s what you want?”
“Thought you’d never ask doll.” A squeal rippled from your mouth as Bucky instantly picked you up into his arms, your legs naturally wrapping around his waist. You ground against him as he walked towards your room, obviously remembering where it was, and you could feel him begin to grow hard within the sweats he had left.
As soon as he entered your room, not bothering to shut the door, he laid you upon the bed, removing your bra and moved to suckle on your nipples. From that touch alone, it was clear that he was a man starved; he was desperate to have contact with you, anyway that he could.
“James.” He grinned against your breast, travelling his lips lower, and sliding them against your bare stomach. “I’ve missed you.” It was nothing more than a whisper, but you knew that he heard it. Those blue eyes glanced up at you whilst he pressed tentative kisses to your flesh, his hands, both vibranium and flesh removing your lower layers, leaving you nude and at his mercy.
“I’ve missed you too dollface.” He gruffly spoke, meaning every word. “And I think this tight cunt has missed me too, she’s clenching like crazy and I haven’t even touched her yet.”
It was true, your pussy was half spasming as it awaited for him to do something; anything! The circumstances didn’t help, he was so close to it, and he had yet to touch it in any way, it had you squirming, and the super soldier chuckling in light amusement.
“Please.” That was enough to get the man going, he lurched forward, burying his mouth into your centre, his tongue running up your slit multiple times until he came to your clit. The sensitive nub became a target to him, he suckled upon it as he pushed a digit into your opening, making you relish and relax under the pleasure.
“Such a good girl.” At his praise, you whined, bucking your hips into his face, only for him to hold them down with his spare hand. “Taste so good.” His words only pushed you closer to the edge, and just when you were about to fall over it, he pulled away, leaving you empty and wanting.
There was sweat beading upon your forehead, and your juices covering the hairs of Bucky’s scruff; the pair of you were indeed a hot mess. “Why’d you stop?”
“I want to be inside you.” He stated, his pupils directed on your face as he slithered up your body, pressing his lips upon your own again. You moaned at the taste of yourself on his mouth, even more satisfied as he threw the tight shirt that you had handed him off and somewhere onto the floor.
Your hand snuck down as the two of you made out, fishing into his joggers, only to find that he had taken his underwear off. presumably because they had been wet. But now, you were the one who was wet as you grasped onto his cock, which caused him to bite your lip with a hum.
Bucky shimmied out of the fabric, his breath heavy as you tugged on his cock. But he batted your hand away, taking a hold of himself, and pressing his tip through your folds, slowly sinking into you, as the pair of you panted against one another.
“So big.” Your eyes rolled back as he was fully inside of you, and as he began to move, your moans filled the air. “Fuck.”
His hips kept up a medium pace, and James grasped your ankles, raising them to rest over his shoulders. The new angle dragged grunts out from his chest, as your moans became higher pitched. Lovingly, Buck kissed your right ankle, as his left hand abandoned its twin, and snuck down to your nub, pressing upon it, and dragging you significantly closer to your orgasm.
“Cum for me baby.” He gritted out, pounding harsher inside of you until he hit your g spot. And that was all it took for you to finish, and he pulled out of you, watching as you crawled against the mattress, so you were in front of where he rested on his knees.
You grasped his cock that was coated in your slick, suckling on the tip, his head falling back at the notion. Humming around him, you sent vibrations through his whole body, which made him see white, and paint the insides of your mouth with the same colour.
Swallowing his load, your eyes flickered tiredly, Bucky grasped you, pulling the pair of you under the covers, and kissing your forehead. “I had a really good day.”
“Are you just saying that because of the sex?” He asked you, which ended with him getting a slap on the chest.
“No. I really have missed you James.” It was true, you thought about him and his absence every day. You regretted ever ending things, you should have appreciated the time you had with him instead of wanting more.
“Then how about we have more days like this; me and you.” He asked, tickling your neck with his scruff as he hugged you closely.
“I could work with that.” You toyed with the ends of his brown locks, pulling him closer for another kiss.
As the sun began to rise, you awoke to an empty bed. Thoughts of abandonment rushed to your mind, and so, pulling on a shirt that had been tossed onto the floor through the sexual gaze, you trudged through your apartment, only to see a bare back at the stove.
It was his back. He had stayed, and was now in your kitchen, going about his morning routine just like he used to. Bucky plucked up the frying pan, tossing its contents into the air as it landed perfectly back in place.
“Morning.” You spoke softly, only for him to turn around with a grin.
“How’d you sleep?” He asked, abandoning his task, and walking over to you. James greeted you with a supple and meaningful kiss, you could even mistake the hours of restlessness and passion as a dream.
But he was here and he was real. “Better with you by my side.” You told him, your fingertips brushing over the naked skin of his back, watching a small yet powerful grin make an appearance on his face.
“That’s good to hear.” He kissed you once more, picki you up and putting you onto the side, as he returned to his cooking.
“I didn’t expect you to go undercover and become a chef.”
“Well, many unexpected things happened lady night, and I’m not going to complain about them.” He picked up the spatula once more, glancing between you and the food that he was preparing.
You could get used to this, you thought. It was peaceful, and if it only happened every now and then, it was better than nothing.
“So..” you began.
“So.” He repeated, pushing the food onto a plate and coming to stand between your legs, his hands running up your bare thighs as he bit his lip. “Is this a second chance?”
“That’s supposed to be my line.” You swatted his arm, but only to end up pulling him closer. “But yes, I think we have a second chance James.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” He leant down towards your face, forgetting about the breakfast that he had made for you.
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