you hated when i cut my hair

The store had been quiet for the most part. Since the muggles had attacked the leaky cauldron, she had found even the regular customers were reluctant to spend much of their time in diagon alley. She didn’t mind so much; she could get through her orders quickly and focus on her own designs.

Kneeling at the foot of a dress she had designed for herself to wear, she used her hands to stitch the fabric together rather than the sewing machine, needing it to be perfect. Tongue between her teeth, she began cutting and tying off the thread when she heard someone clear their throat.

She stood and twisted on the spot at the same time, her voice somewhat breathless as she murmured, “Ben”.

Glancing down at the flowers in surprise, she stepped forward and took them from his hands, noting that her own were shaking a little. She had never been bought flowers before. She brought them up to her nose and sniffed, smiling as the sweet scent filled her nostrils.

“They’re beautiful. I love them. Thank you” she replied, honestly. She quickly turned away to summon a vase and placed them on the counter top. 

She had worried a little about him since their kiss, but his surprise visit and the flowers gave her a little hope that she hadn’t made a mistake even if she had acted impulsively.

Turning back to face him, she drew in a deep breath, pushed herself to ‘be the girl who knows what she wants’ and asked her question. “I was hoping I’d seen you again soon, I wondered… um, would you like to go on a date?” she asked, taking a step forward into his personal space, “with me?”

﹏-｡ 

He felt immense relief over the fact that she liked the gift. He was so unused to this - to trying to woo someone - that he’d been worried that the flowers weren’t a good idea in the first place. 

It was even more of a relief when she asked him on a date. It had been something he’d been trying to figure out how to ask - to have her be the one to bring it up took a weight off his shoulders, somewhat. 

“I’d love that, Nora.” He stepped forward, as well, and his hand moved to settle on her waist. He wanted to pull her closer and kiss her again - but he wasn’t sure if it was the time, nor the place. 

It happened as if in slow-motion. One moment, he’d been sipping at his to-go coffee while he rushed to work, the next it was spilt all over the front of a stranger.

“I’m so sorry!” He stammered, “I’m such a klutz, I should have been watching where I was going.” 

He gestured in the general direction of his clinic, “If you want, I’ve got a spare shirt for you in my office. So sorry, again.”

“we can name the t-rex steve if you want. maybe that’s what the ‘t’ stands for.” poppy attempted to offer as otto pulled her along after him. she always had to scurry to keep up, but really it wasn’t something she minded very much. it wasn’t even something that much crossed her mind anymore. it was probably good exercise, really. she waved goodbye to the kid as they passed.

the pleasant smile remained plastered across her face as they padded through the museum. she looked over the exhibits as they walked by them. her eyes grew wide at the sheer size of some pieces. they were so neat! then they both stopped. “oh!” she looked over her shoulder. “I was just following you so I wasn’t really paying attention.” but now she also did not know where they were which meant that she didn’t know where to go next. “can you see a little mappy thingy?”

⌁⌲⌁

“Steve the t-rex.” He tilted his head as he considered it, “Hm. I like it.” 

The two of them were a bit of a disaster, when left to their own devices. He was surprised they’d made it this far, in all honesty.

“A mappy thingy?” He echoed. He narrowed his eyes and did a rotation, scanning the area for a map that they could use. Eventually, he spotted the board - a colourful thing, made up of interconnected colourful lines that mapped out routes. He walked over to get a better look at it. He considered it for a long moment, squinting as he tried to make sense of it, before finally opening his mouth to ask: 

“Can you read maps, Pops?” 

Rosie had made plenty of people (well, Tris and her boys) knit gifts before. It was the sort of gift her parents had always scoffed at, but as she held the lovely scarf Noah had made her she couldn’t help the way her eyes welled up. He’d made it because she taught him. He had made her a gift. 

“Noah.” She said, hugging the scarf to her chest. Oh goodness she may actually cry. “Noah it’s lovely. Are you sure there’s no occasion ? At least let me make you cookies or something.”

–

۵✦⁗

“No occasion, I swear.” He gave her a gentle smile, “I’m glad you like it.” The scarf was an amateur job - honestly, he wouldn’t have even minded if she didn’t like it - but he could see it made her happy, and that was more than enough.

Rosie deserved good things - many good things. She was one of Noah’s friends that he’d go down swinging for. There was probably no event in which that would be necessary, but still. It was the thought.

“Though, you know what? I’ll never say no to cookies.” He grinned. 

Liza despised being bothered while at work. 

She needed to be able to focus, which required distractions and interruptions to be kept to a minimum. Her secretary knew this - which was why, when the door to Liza’s office swung open to announce someone’s arrival, she made a mental note to find a new assistant.

“What?” She snapped, glancing up from her paperwork to glare at the arrival. 

“Master of seduction, hm? We’ll see” he smirked, picking up his glass of wine and taking a few sips, before pushing it carefully out of reach. He didn’t trust himself not to knock it with his elbows.

“Oh, so this is like the blind leading the blind then?” he teased, moving over to Oliver’s side and eying up the ingredients and various utensils that had been laid out. He assured himself that it couldn’t be that difficult. He was a Ravenclaw; he needed to act like one.

He pulled the recipe a little towards them so that they could both read it, deliberately leaning into Oliver’s personal space to do so. “It doesn’t look too complicated” he mumbled, noting that Oliver looped certain letters in the same way that he did, before cringing at himself.

Logan felt he had never laughed or smiled so much in someone’s presence before, especially not since… certain personal tragedies. When the flour exploded, he’d almost doubled over at the expression of shock on his face.

“Here, let me…” he grabbed a tea towel, still chuckling, and wiped the flour from the other mans face. “Better”.

He hesitated for a moment before he placed the tea towel back on to the kitchen counter. He was so cute it was painful to stand so close to him and not start something that would be unlikely to end in cake. Dating recently had been uninteresting. He’d counted down the minutes. He’d barely been with Oliver more than an hour and he hated that the clock might be his enemy this time. 

“I’ll measure out these ingredients, if you just want to stand there and look cute” he teased, “it’ll be like potions class all over again, but with a far more interesting partner”.

✧*ﾟ 

Having Logan in his space, gently wiping the flour from his face, was nice. Really nice.

“Thank you.” He murmured, letting his eyes linger for a moment on the other man’s. Not for the first time, Oliver found himself fighting the urge to lean in and kiss him.

Then, Logan pulled back, and Oliver had to bite back a disappointed sigh. 

“Now, standing around and looking cute is definitely something I can do.” He cocked his hip as he leaned against the counter, watching Logan work. He smiled to himself, “Were you particularly good at potions? Because I definitely wasn’t.” 

He wondered if things would have been different, if they’d met while at Hogwarts. Would they have been friends? Would they have liked each other? Oliver wasn’t sure about Logan, but he wasn’t the same person now as he was when he was a teenager - thankfully. 

He was glad they met, even if it was only recently, in any case. 

“the water is safe.” echo said with absolute resolution. she plunged her hands underneath the surface of the water and brought small pools in her palms up to her face. the cold was instantly relieving. she let it run down over her. echo tried to breath in again, but her chest refused to fill entirely. it felt like she’d dived far too deep and the pressure was crushing her lungs.

she took his hand. then pulled it under the water too. echo began to wash off his knuckle, humming quietly. the water crept up his forearm and washed away any shallow nicks and cuts on his skin. her eyes cut up sharply. “don’t do that.”

∿ ☾ ∿

Henrick watched with quiet astonishment as he watched the water curl around his wrist and smoothed over the cuts in his skin, made them vanish like they’d never been there. The display of power left him reeling for a moment. He knew of healing magic, of course, but had never seen a variant of it quite like this.

“How are you doing that?” He murmured. Then, realising it didn’t matter, he shook his head.

“I won’t have to do it if you’ll just come with me.” He insisted. He gave her an imploring look, one that added a quiet ‘please’ to the end of his sentence.

“Statistics.” Laure confirmed as their hands shook. “When did France become a republic? Who was our first elected president?”

They had more questions queuing in their mind, all the sorts of things René knew but hated studying. Laure would make him recite them all for hours if they had to. First they had to get this wound clean, and find the others. Get René cleaned up, then Devereaux. Other things could wait.

Only— René’s shirt pooled on Laure’s arms now and they could see René’s pale arms and—

The pit of Laure’s stomach bottomed out. They wanted to throw up.

The Dark Mark swam on René’s arm.

That explained how he’d gotten hurt, then, Laure reasoned distantly.

Only, Devereaux was hurt too and Devereaux never let René make horrible decisions alone.

Wordless, Laure stood up and let their hand fall from René’s face. They walked over to Devereaux on the stairs. Laure had no idea what emotions played over their face as they gently took hold of Dev’s left sleeve, pushed it up.

The same Mark, swimming on pale skin.

What had they done?

What had they done?

–

Laure’s hand leaving his face was like a bucket of cold water being dumped over his head. He felt the icy dread settle in when he realised what she’d seen.

The Mark.

“Laure, please,” René choked out, words slurred with panic and blood loss, “Please, understand. I’m sorry.” 

He was saying that word a lot. Sorry. 

His hands were shaking, his vision was blurring. He only realised he was crying when he felt the warmth of tears rolling down his cheeks. 

He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. He never wanted to disappoint Laure - they were the only person who’d ever mattered. He’d suspected they would find out eventually - he hated hiding things from them - but not like this. Never like this.

“I hate this.” Connie threw her quill down and stared at what she’d written so far - which was a big, fat load of nothing. 

“There’s no way I’m going to be able to write a new script in time for Halloween.” She ran her hands over her face. “Maybe I’ll just submit one of my old films to the festival.” She mumbled through her fingers.

“I have a confession.” 

They were already careening down the open road at an alarming speed when she spoke, glancing over at her passenger with a wicked grin. 

“I’ve never driven a car before.” 

The automobile was enchanted, which meant she didn’t have to worry about things like gears and pedals and what-not. All she really had to do was steer the thing. So far, she was doing a surprisingly alright job of it. 

The impulsive idea to take one of her parents’ cars for a joyride had been like a siren’s song - as soon as the thought had entered her head, she’d been hard-pressed to ignore it. The car was just sitting in the garage of her parents’ holiday home, anyway, gathering dust - she was probably doing them a favour by taking it out for a spin.

“It’s okay. I work out here. Gardener” she replied, holding up a pair of thick, dirty leather gloves. She was more than that, but she found that most times after explaining everything she did for work, saying gardener was just easier.

The snort of laughter that escaped the other woman made her giggle, though she tried her best to hide it. Mona found it oddly adorable when colour rose on the other woman’s cheeks and she asked her to ignore sound.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, wondering what had caused the other to need to let off steam in such a manner, in the first place. 

“I would love too, except… this is technically private property” she pointed out, smiling sadly. “The owners don’t mind the public taking walks, but they won’t like this if they find it. Or me, if they find me over here socialising instead of doing my job”.

She bit her lip thoughtfully, hating to be the destroyer of fun. “There is, however, a field… over there” she nodded behind her, “we could try”.

⋔⋈⋞ 

 A gardener. Something about that was impossibly endearing to Sigrid, who’d never been able to keep a plant alive in her life. 

“It’s really no big deal,” Sigrid assured her, “Just... been a bit tired, lately. You know how it is.” She shrugged, like the incredibly vague answer was enough. She really didn’t want to scare this girl off in the first five minutes by listing all of her problems. 

“A field, you say?” She gave the woman a bright smile, “Lead the way, then.”

Sigrid retrieved her golf club and they headed towards the field, walking side by side. Sigrid turned her head to glance at the woman, considering her for a moment.

“I’m Sigrid, by the way.”  

prompt: ok hear me out. Lonnie/Liza on the spicy prompts. Kitten/Puppy reversed, tie reversed, beg normal. Maybe humiliate/degrade/praise reversed too. A lot of these prompts are fun to mix into one scene.

(your wish is my command)

The little man had guts, Whitney would give him that. Even if he’d completely misunderstood the situation.

He didn’t like fighting against innocents. It would’ve been so easy to cast a spell and stun the man, but it also would’ve felt like a jerk move. Maybe the guy would see sense. “This little one ain’t never seen its natural habitat. It was likely born in captivity ta be sold off to some rich jerk as a trophy piece. If I let it go, it will die.” His words were blunt, but it was the truth. “It lacks the foraging skills it needs to survive, and it lacks the habitat. This species is from Africa and I doubt any authorities ya’re thinking of know how ta take care of it. If they take it, it will die.”

He leaned back a bit, trying to neutralise the conversation. “I know it’s a big ask, trusting a stranger whose word has no merit ta it. But please, trust me when I say that I know how ta help this creature.” He took his hand off the door. A show of trust. “This is what I do.”

🕊

Tiago’s anger melted into something more akin to sadness at the man’s words. He knew about the practice of animals being born into captivity, of course, knew that people did it, that there were plenty of creatures who would never know their natural habitat - but it didn’t make it any less sad. He took a step back, himself, and cleared his throat awkwardly. The tension of the moment seemed to dissipate all at once. He wasn’t sure why, but he believed that this stranger actually did have the best intentions. After that impassioned speech, how could he not?

“Oh,” he said, “That’s... I didn’t realise. Sorry.”  

The man was close enough now that Tiago could get a better look at the bird in question. It was not any species that he recognised, he realised with a start. He blinked and adjusted his glasses, squinted to try get a better look at it.

“Um. Look, I know my birds as well as the next guy - I’m a vet,” He clarified, “But I’ve never seen one quite like this. What is it?”

prompt: [hickey]; the sender gives the receiver a hickey somewhere on their body who: logan and oliver

prompt: [beg]; the sender begs the receiver to touch them (did i reverse the order again? yes don’t @ me)  who: nora and ben

prompt: [PIN]; sender pins receiver against a wall (did i technically reverse the order? maybe) who: isolde and nik

“Ah ah,” Nik gripped the woman’s wrists and spun her around, pinning her against the wall. He had her hands above her head, his large, calloused hand keeping both of her wrists pinned with relative ease.

He grinned down at her, playful, “Where do you think you’re going?”

prompt: [masturbate]; the sender catches the receiver masturbating  who: noah and melinda