ferryboatpeak

still here

2018-12-03T21:52:01Z

just reminding myself (and everyone else) that i'm still here in the event of tumblr apocalypse. basically DW and pillowfort are the mountain bunkers i keep stocked just in case of societal collapse. they are not viable second homes.

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i love one (1) scot

2018-06-13T18:41:04Z

i literally have not read a single item of international news since november 2016 (what the hell do you think i'm doing here) but jack lowden getting all fired up about something related to parliament is hot

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french babysitting au

2018-05-28T20:27:01Z

ok since nicole didn't post more about the french babysitting au to dreamwidth, i am stepping into the breach. I'M SORRY NICOLE, I'M SO SORRY TO GET WINSTYLES ALL UP IN YOUR BEAUTIFUL TOMRRY FRENCH COUNTRYSIDE DREAM.

Don't get me wrong, I mean, even as just tomrry it's a perfect premise. I love Harry getting his nose out of joint that ruby has a NEW FAVORITE BOY, and maybe even facing the CRUSHING REALIZATION that the effortless rapport he's always had with ruby is... not actually very special, lots of people are good with kids. I love pouty Harry flouncing off to his room to read angsty poetry, trying not to sneak glances out the window to where Tom and Ruby are playing on a blanket under a shade tree in the garden, sunlight filtering through the leaves and glinting off Tom's hair.

Buuuuuut, I also want Harry lying awake at night, listening for every creak in the floorboards of old villa. Is that the sound of somebody who's up with Ruby? Or... are those Tom's footsteps on the way to the master suite? Have Ben and Meri adopted another wayward boy???? That's Harry's job!!!! He's supposed to be the only foster son/wanton third around here!!!! How dare they find somebody else younger and prettier and more available than Harry! Ben hasn't made any overtures toward him, but are they just done with that kind of thing now that they have a baby? Or have they MOVED ON to Tom and nobody bothered to tell Harry? He hates the thought of Tom tucked into HARRY'S SPOT in the middle of their bed. ~~(He hates that it's kind of making him hard.)~~

So I want Harry watching all three of them like a hawk, cataloging every time Meri smiles at Tom or Ben casually kneads his shoulder as they pass in the kitchen. And of course I want Harry turning the sex pest vibes up to eleven, walking around in a towel and sunbathing nude by the pool and eating lots of lush summer fruit with his fingers. Is he trying to attract Ben and Meri's attention? Is he trying to seduce Tom? He doesn't even know.

There are a LOT OF DIFFERENT WAYS you could go with this. Epic foursome is one, of course, but I'd take the long driveway there. Maybe Ben plays them against each other for a bit, so Harry's insanely jealous and competitive and extremely motivated to show Ben and Meri that there is NOBODY LIKE HARRY STYLES, GODDAMMIT. I definitely want some good old-fashioned voyeurism, either secretive or intentional. Maybe Harry spies on Ben and Tom? Maybe Ben makes Harry watch? ACTUALLY WAIT, you know what I want, I want Ben to make Harry watch Tom go down on Meri, which Harry has always considered himself to be VERY GOOD AT and Tom is NOT DOING IT RIGHT and it drives Harry CRAZY.

Actually, wait wait wait. you know what I 100 percent want ABOVE ALL ELSE? This is definitely on the path to the happy foursome but early on that path, when Tom and Harry are still jealous of each other and insecure about their respective roles in this situation and each of them is very much trying to make up for that by posturing that he is Very Secure and Beloved By The Winstons. So I want the Winstons to take the baby with them for the day, off to see friends or something, it doesn't really matter, the important thing is that Tom and Harry are left alone for the day and they fuck in Ben and Meri's bed while telling each other terrifically dirty things about everything they've done with Ben and Meri, trying to impress each other and turn each other on but in a very peacocky, condescending, ben-loves-me-best, hate sex kind of way (bonus: furtive bedclothes-sniffing.)

So what I'm saying is that i kind of want threeturn's liam/harry/ben fic crossed with littlecather's taylourry french cottage fic crossed with ymorton's harry/ben/meri series crossed with lots of tgc. I'M REALLY SORRY NICOLE. I'm going to go lie down now.

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i don't like kidfic but

2018-05-22T17:15:13Z

hi i would like an au where gryles are the dads please

in the alternative i would accept tomrry, although that has less potential to end in a happy throuple than gryles + niall does

although you could also make it an au where harry is the one who wrote the tweet and howden are the dads and by the end of the 10-hour flight harry's blown both of them and stolen the baby

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been a long time since i rapped at ya

2018-05-05T06:08:05Z

I have not abandoned the wild dreamwidth frontier, I'm just trying to discipline myself to finish one discrete project before I throw myself into dreamwidth brainstorming an ill-defined and potentially sprawling next big project. (Also my actual adult job is consuming a lot of attention lately.) Here is some meta rambling about what I'm working on:

Stuff that is very close to finished:
1. mpreg jackrry timestamp (maybe this verse will let me go once i finish it???? i have so many thoughts on everything else that happens outside the story... i know it allllll.... i know who says i love you first and how tom and tom get together and what happens with everyone's career and how harry and jeff get to be friends and the first time harry goes down on jack... but i'm not gonna write kidfic and i can't just ramble on about this verse forever without writing more of it and i'm not gonna do something preposterous like write a full-on tom/tom spinoff)
2. two more chapters of parent trap narry

One-offs I want to indulge in:
3. scene from clarz's fionn/tom/barry vampire husbands/werewolf boyfriend verse
4. party slothry and the golden globes

But the iceberg that I keep circling my kayak around is funkirk winter wedding. Reorienting myself toward the loss of Fionn’s mom helped focus this verse. But somehow despite my fondness for orphan Barry it hadn’t occurred to me until his insta post today that Barry specifically also lost his mom, and that shared experience would have some kind of influence on his and Fionn’s friendship. Even if Fionn resolutely doesn’t talk about it. Does Barry talk about it? Barry is maybe in the best position to connect the dots for Fionn, once he sees Fionn with his family, about how grief is manifesting itself in Fionn’s life in ways that Fionn is not recognizing? Or, was Barry’s experience of losing his mom, and of having a mom, so vastly different from Fionn’s that there’s going to be some friction in how they interact around that supposed commonality?

ANYWAY so I chewed on that for a while and then I got distracted and freewrote a high school flashback of tom cheerily coming out to fionn and fionn thinking, great, this is just one more thing that tom’s going to do better than me. I am interested in the challenge of how to write this fic in a way that is not chronological but still treats high school and college events in an immediate, present-tense way! I have no idea how to do that! But that is why it will be an interesting challenge! There are so many reasons why it would be good for me to write this fic! And so many reasons why it is a terrible idea! aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

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mpreg jackrry hangover

2018-04-06T07:14:08Z

you guys i just spent a very pleasant two hours writing fionn's best man speech at barry and niall's wedding

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more funkirk winter wedding SORRY FOR THE SADNESS

2018-03-26T06:28:51Z

hi everybody, do you like to feel sad? because funkirk winter wedding can get sad, it can do that. it is doing that. like, canonically, fionn's mom died when he was in his early 20s. college era. think about that fucking fionn up. think about that also fucking up tom, whose family has been intertwined with fionn's since before either of them can remember. their moms? the best of friends. so tom's got fionn's grief and his mom's grief and his own grief (because It Takes A Village) and there's only so much support he can give and finally after a couple of years he can't give any more, because fionn's not happy and tom can't figure out how to make him happy and he finally realizes it's ok to stop trying, that fionn's happiness is not actually his responsibility.

so that leaves fionn with an awful tangled mess of grief about losing his mom and losing tom and he's not very good about separating those into two different things.

do you wanna know where this comes to a head? tom and harry's wedding, of course, with fionn in his crooked tie and barry in the black suit that fionn had no idea barry even fucking owned, sitting in the back row of the methodist church where tom and fionn grew up scribbling on the back of prayer request slips and sneaking into the bell tower after choir practice. let's start the processional with the wedding party walking in; i think that gemma and molly are up there as maids of honor, at the head of each row of groomsmen (tom's drama school flophouse roommates, maybe, and maybe niall and liam and louis with harry.)

anyway tom escorts his mom in, and then harry escorts anne in, and their moms have obviously coordinated dresses, one of them in navy and the other in a taupe-y blush kind of color, and maybe just before anne sits down she squeezes tom's mom's hand or just smiles at her or something and it it hits fionn that it should have been his mom, should have been his mom going dress shopping with tom's mom and getting escorted down the aisle of their worn-out comfortable church in sparkling heels that she'd take off before the reception even started. and it's never going to be her, fionn is never going to get to do this with her, and his memory seizes like a stuck tape and all he can see over and over again is he and sonny walking his mom down the aisle last time he was in this church, their uncles at the head and foot of the casket and fionn and his brother in the middle.

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tomrry supermodel dog hotel

2018-02-21T04:13:27Z

So I was perusing the swimsuit edition tonight (don't ask) and all of the supermodels have profound quotes about what their ambitions in life used to be before they found fame and fortune mostly naked in the swimsuit edition. The following quote caught my eye:

"I've always loved dogs. I wanted to have my own dog hotel, so people could go on vacation and give me their pets to look after."

I mean, obviously SUPERMODEL DOG HOTEL is a tomrry au waiting to happen. Supermodels Harry and Tom decide to semi-retire and open a high-end dog hotel. They are endearingly terrible at running a business, but have only the best intentions of providing luxury relaxation for dogs. Who are our dog guests? Clifford and Bruce, obviously. Pig and Stinky, of course. Ben Winston's dog. Most importantly, the howden terrier we've previously discussed around here. There's no plot, really, I just wanted to say TOMRRY SUPERMODEL DOG HOTEL.

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mpreg jackrry, camping

2018-02-20T18:05:54Z

this takes place fourth of july weekend. idk how aneurin acquired a dog, it just happened.

--

Any day that starts with waking in the clean grey light inside a tent is going to be a good day, and this one has already delivered. Jack’s already had an early morning swim and an egg sandwich from the camp stove. With the first beer of the day in one hand, he shakes open his camp chair with the other and digs the legs into the gritty sand at the edge of the lake. He stretches his feet into the water, situates his can of Budweiser in the pocket on the arm of the chair, and closes his eyes to bask in the morning sunshine.
He opens them when something heavy lands in his lap. It’s a roll of duct tape. Jack looks up at Barry, who’s situating himself on a log next to Jack’s chair. “What’s this for?”
“Sparkler bomb.” Barry pulls a box of sparklers out of a plastic bag that Jack can see contains many, many more boxes of sparklers. He remembers the roadside fireworks stand they passed at the turnoff to the lake yesterday. He and Tom hadn’t stopped. Clearly, Barry and Fionn had. The two of them had left the city first thing in the morning to secure Barry’s preferred campsite, the one at the far side of the lake with no other sites in earshot.
Barry empties the first box into his hand and bunches the sparklers together. “Hand me the tape.”
Jack does. This is probably a terrible idea, but he’s interested to see where it goes. Barry pulls out a length of tape and winds it around the sparklers. He rests them in his lap, still attached to the roll of duct tape, and opens a second box of sparklers. By the time Barry’s got three boxes taped together, Jack realizes this is going to go on for a while, and closes his eyes again.
He doesn’t bother to open them when he hears Tom splash out of the water and spread his towel out next to him. “Great day,” Tom says.
“Yeah.” The lake laps gently at Jack’s ankles. A heron squawks somewhere on the far side of the water. The duct tape unspools with a sticky ripping sound as Barry adds box after box of sparklers to his project.
Jack’s lazily considering whether to get another beer or give in to a midmorning nap in the sun when a car crunches up the gravel road behind them. The engine cuts off, and a moment later furious barking announces Gibson’s arrival. The German Shepherd tears down the beach and splashes into the shallows, waiting until Aneurin throws a toy out into the lake for him to retrieve.
“How was the drive?” Jack doesn’t bother to lift up his head from the back of his chair, just rolls it to the side to look at Aneurin.
“Just fine.” Gibson plunges toward the toy with great galumphing splashes until he hits depth and starts to paddle. “Was yesterday a bitch?”
“Fine for us,” Barry says. “These guys got the traffic, though.”
“We left too late.” Tom closes his book, keeping a finger in his place. “Took us five hours.”
Aneurin makes a sympathetic noise. Gibson turns back toward the beach, toy in his mouth. “Where’s Fionn?”
“Think he’s walking around the lake.” Barry abandons his sparkler bomb on the log and wades into the lake to catch Gibson’s attention. “Looking good, wolfdog.” When Gibson reaches shallow water, Barry catches the rope end of the toy dangling out of his mouth. He tugs it back and forth as the dog growls and splashes.
“Hey, Barry, keep him occupied while we unload?” Aneurin turns back toward his car when Barry gives him a thumbs-up, his other hand still engaged in tug-of-war with Gibson.
Jack follows Aneurin up to the campsite and retrieves a beer from the cooler. Barry’s Kiss Me, I’m Irish koozie is sitting unused at the end of the picnic table, so Jack appropriates it. He climbs up to sit on top of the table, feet on the bench, and watches as Lucy spreads out their tent.
“Mallet, babe?” Lucy turns around. “Oh, hi, Jack.”
“Hi, Luce.” Jack waves. “Want a beer?”
“After I get the tent up, thanks.” She slides a hair tie off her wrist and wraps her hair up in a bun.
“Mallet’s in my bag.” Aneurin shoves their cooler into the shade under the picnic table. Maybe Lucy brought deviled eggs. She usually brings deviled eggs. Jack can’t think of a polite way to ask without making it too obvious that he would like a deviled egg now, please.
Lucy unzips a duffle bag sitting to the side of the collapsed tent and digs through the contents, coming up with a rubber-headed mallet. She efficiently stakes down the corners of the tent while Aneurin sets up two more camp chairs and adds a bundle of firewood to the supply by the firepit. As she starts snapping the tent poles together, he joins her. “I think the orange one goes next.”
“No,” Lucy says. “They match the pockets, see?”
“But it’s orange on top.”
“OK,” Lucy says tolerantly. “Give it a try.” She steps back a pace and watches with her arms crossed.
Jack suspects that Lucy’s right, but things seem to be moving along fine without his input, so he keeps his mouth shut. Aneurin’s trying to flex one of the poles into a clip on the side of the tent. He bends it far enough that it looks in danger of snapping, and then the entire pole assembly twists over itself and smacks Aneurin in the face.
Jack holds back laughter, but Lucy’s got no reason to show any restraint; she laughs so hard she has to sit down. Aneurin walks over to her, trying to maintain some dignity, and offers her a hand up. As soon as she meets his eyes, he’s laughing too. Lucy pulls herself to her feet and kisses him.
From his spot on the picnic table, Jack thinks -- unaccountably -- of Harry. Which is stupid. It’s been more than a month, and he’s got no reason to think he’ll ever see Harry again. But when he thinks about him, which he probably does too much of, it’s mostly not even about the sex. (Mostly.) It’s more about the rest of the night, the sense of possibility, how much they laughed. That’s what he wants. Somebody to laugh with all the time. Somebody to be that fucking delighted with.
Aneurin and Lucy are on opposite sides of the tent now, slotting the poles neatly into place. Jack reminds himself that Harry left, that Harry doesn’t have any interest in him. He got his test results last week, confirming that he doesn’t have any unpleasant reasons to remember Harry. It’s time to move on. He needs to stop thinking about Harry. He needs to stop looking for Harry in every bar he walks into. And he definitely needs to stop jacking off in the shower to the memory of Harry’s gravel and molasses voice saying “I want you to fuck me.”

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ferryboatpeak @ 2018-02-10T22:12:00

2018-02-11T07:21:31Z

So the funkirk winter wedding au intruded on my run today, so i thought I'd talk a little about it, because maybe it will be like mpreg jackrry in that if i ramble enough about it on dreamwidth eventually it will grow a plot.

--Tom and Fionn backstory! childhood best friends turned high school boyfriends, partly out of that solid foundation of best friendship, partly out of that small town belief that they are the only two gay people in the entire world. (Question: do small town queer kids still believe this? or in this age of the internet does every teenage not-straight kid come of age with the understanding that there is a wide world of gender identities and sexual preferences out there and there is a vast community to which they belong? i encourage anyone younger than me to correct me if i'm showing my age here, although i have tentative faith that even with the internet every teenager continues to believe that it is a tremendous burden that they are The Only Person In The World who has ever had to deal with anything, and continues to assume that the first same-sex person they snog is The Only Other Person Who Will Ever Be Like Them.)

-- Tom has always, always been the golden boy, which Fionn was completely fine with in high school, but it gets a lot harder when they both move to the city for college and it turns out they are not, in fact, the only two gay people in the entire world. Fionn is insecure and jealous, and eventually Tom gets sick of it and breaks up with him, which is no more than what Fionn expected because deep down he always kind of thought Tom could do better.

--In the wake of their post-collegiate breakup, Fionn moves across the country. He works in the finance department of a small city in suburban Sacramento or something. Barry is in the public works department, not hands-on labor, more like a project engineer or responsible for dispatching crews to deal with clogged sewers or something. As in all my barry/fionn headcanons, Barry just starts treating Fionn like they're friends and eventually it's true.

--It was a very good and responsible thing for Fionn to start fresh someplace else, but he's gone a bit overboard with it. Because everything about his hometown and even his family is all tied up with Tom -- every aspect of growing up, their families are friends, their siblings are friends (HELP, NICOLE, DOES TGC HAVE ANY SIBLINGS I CAN BEND TO MY PURPOSES???), there's not a single block in his hometown that doesn't have Tom associated with it somehow -- Fionn's pretty much gone ghost. Barely talks to his parents, hasn't been home in three years, has at least one niece/nephew that he's never met. In his mind he ceded custody of the hometown to Tom, basically.

--SO, on top of all the emotions of going back to the hometown for Tom's wedding, Fionn's got a lot of family shit to deal with. His siblings are an uncomfortable combination of happy to see him but mad at him for dropping off the map, and his parents are super emotional that he's come home but very tentative about everything because they're scared of accidentally saying the wrong thing and prompting Fionn to cut them off again. But the rest of the town has NO IDEA about any of this tension, because MIDWEST (i.e. for three years Fionn's parents have just been telling everyone he's doing great on the west coast and he's just too busy with his important government job to visit home.)

--Tom is an architect and Harry is a struggling actor who has a nannying gig to make ends meet. Maybe they live together in the same Chicago apartment that Fionn moved out of when he and Tom broke up.

--The whole fake dating thing comes up when Fionn and Barry show up to the rehearsal dinner and somebody (possibly high school physics teacher/ drama director/fellow church choir member Christopher Nolan, because this is small town USA and everyone fits into everyone else's life in more than one way) assumes they're dating.

--I have NO IDEA what the plot is. All I know is three things: (1) after Fionn diligently dodges any 1:1 conversation with Tom, Tom finally corners him in the tenor section during the singalong Messiah; (2) Harry Styles goes ice skating at some point; (3) orphan Barry falls flat out in love with small town USA and everything about Fionn's family -- the wraparound porch, the gingerbread baking, the caroling, the fact that it seems like there's this entire village that has raised Fionn and is happy just to see him -- and he can't believe that Fionn's so resentful/dismissive of all of it, and the climatic scene involves Barry saying to Fionn, somehow, "You have everything, and you don't appreciate any of it," and Fionn completely misses the layers to that statement.

HAHA there it is, i sort of hoped that if i typed that all out i would magically have a plot by the end of it but OH WELL, maybe someday.

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probably will delete this later

2018-01-28T06:40:17Z

HI EVERYBODY i've had just enough wine to write and post an mpreg jackrry smut excerpt. By clicking read more you solemnly promise to point out every flaw, because it definitely needs work. This is from this post-holiday party sex referenced in this part and this part of the plot summary. Maybe kind of spoilery idk? anwyay

( Read more... )

Jack stretches up the bed and leans over the edge to snag the supplies on the floor. When he surfaces with lube and a condom in hand, Harry’s rolled onto his side, looking at him. “Do we have to?” Harry asks.
“No, sorry, no, no of course not.” Jack starts to sit up, wondering how he could have completely misread this.
“You idiot, not that.” Harry grabs his shoulder and tugs him back down, laughing. “I just meant…” Harry voice trails off and he touches a finger to the condom wrapper in Jack's hand.
Oh. “Well, yeah,” Jack says, defensively, slumping back onto his side to face Harry. This is the right thing to do. He’s going to get it right this time.

Harry arches his back and pushes the side of his head into the pillow, looking up at Jack with one half-lidded eye.. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“I dunno,” Jack says, “I just thought… are you sure?”
Harry taps his fingers on the side of his belly, right where the laurel leaves start to distort. “It’s not like I’m gonna get pregnant.”
“If you want to…” Jack leaves the question in his tone. He reaches out to cover Harry’s hand with his own. Maybe this is a different kind of second chance. Not another shot at getting it right, just the possibility of getting back what he missed.
Harry smirks at him and laces their fingers together. “You didn’t mind last time.”
“I don’t even remember last time.” It eats at him, how he doesn’t know what happened on what was maybe the most important night of his life. Doesn’t remember making the biggest decision he ever made.
“I’m offended.” Harry kicks at Jack’s ankles.
“Was it good?” Jack scoots closer, up against Harry’s belly, and drops Harry’s hand so he can trace his own down Harry’s back.
“Yeah.” Harry closes his eyes, the corners of his lips curving up in a smile. “Yeah, it was good.”
It only seems fair, that Harry gets to know. He’s the one who’s carrying the physical manifestation of that night, so maybe it’s fitting that he gets to carry the memory too. Jack’s only ever going to get the story on Harry’s terms, only have what Harry’s willing to share. “Tell me,” he says, as he flips open the cap to the lube and nudges his knee between Harry’s. “Tell me about it.”
Harry slings an arm over him and and pushes his face into Jack’s neck, humming contentedly when Jack slides his first finger inside him. He whispers it low and filthy against the skin just below Jack’s ear, broken by gasps and whines when Jack adds another finger or curls them just right, telling Jack how their first time was so good, so hard, so deep, and by the time he trails off with a breathy moan at “...so close to you,” Harry’s slick and open and Jack’s so hard he could cry.
He pushes at Harry’s hip, trying to roll him back onto his knees, and Harry looks at him with dark eyes as he maneuvers awkwardly up and over. “Do you remember what you said, after?”
“No, tell me.” It’s uncanny, from this angle, how Harry doesn’t look pregnant. Jack drags a hand down the long bare line of his back, feeling each knob of Harry’s spine under his thumb.
“Not now,” Harry says. Jack can hear the soft scratchy sounds of his fingernails digging into the sheets as Jack slides between the tops of his thighs. Harry”s breath catches. “C’mon and fuck me.”
The words twist somewhere between Jack’s hipbones, He’s going to remember it all this time, every single sublime and agonizing second of the tight hot push inside Harry, every noise that Harry makes, every pull of his hand along Harry’s cock in the close space under his swollen belly. He’s focusing so hard on holding every bit of it secure that it’s not until after that he remembers, not until he’s stretched out on his back with the last traces of his orgasm burning and fading in his joints and Harry’s head on his chest. Harry’s breath is evening out, and Jack’s just on the edge of sleep when he pulls himself back. “Hey,” he murmurs to the top of Harry’s head, “hey, what did I say last time?”

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me to the next old white guy i see:

2018-01-24T19:13:57Z

tell me all about rory mcilroy, but definitely not because i am in any way considering writing fic in which he shoves niall up against a country club wall and expertly undoes the buckle of his trim blue golf shorts

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funkirk oscar nom tweets

2018-01-23T17:42:43Z

Aneurin's faves are clear (Jack first and he doesn't even know Fionn has a nominal twitter):

https://twitter.com/aneurinBarnard/status/955803440654974978

Barry uses the fuckin wolf emoji OF COURSE:

https://twitter.com/BarryKeoghan/status/955818791308492800

Tom remains lovely and apostrophe-challenged:

https://twitter.com/TGlynnCarney/status/955844529873137664

Jack is in Paris and Harry's already forgotten he was in a movie. He's gonna do some rom com a decade from now and in all the promo interviews he's going to tell everyone this is his first movie and he's so lucky to have the opportunity to try something new outside his comfort zone.

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mpreg jackrry excerpt: crib

2018-01-15T00:50:26Z

[james corden's family decided to make up for being written out of the werewolf carpool karaoke verse by popping up in mpreg jackrry. here, have a bit of jack and harry picking up a crib from harry's coworker jules.]

Harry rings the doorbell. It doesn’t make a sound. Jack recognizes the lens above the smart doorbell button and realizes he’s probably being inspected on an iPad somewhere inside the house.

A pretty blonde in yoga pants opens the door and greets Harry with a hug. “I’m so glad you brought somebody with you,” she says, looking over at Jack. “I know it’s not that heavy, but why risk it, right?” She holds out her hand. “I’m Julia.”

“Jack.” He shakes her hand, realizing too late that he should have asked Harry in the car if Julia’s aware of his role in the proceedings. At the hospital last week, Harry hadn’t told anyone that Jack was the father. Maybe Harry doesn’t want anyone to know. Especially his coworkers. It’s not like anybody wants their coworkers to know who they’ve fucked. But if she does know, he can’t come off like he’s pretending it’s not his. This is shaping up to be one of the most awkward interactions he’s ever had.

Harry peels off through an archway into a room with a leather couch and a large flatscreen that suggest it was once supposed to be a living room. At the moment, the trampoline and the hopping balls and the train tracks winding across the floor make it look much more like a playroom. A blonde boy is bent over the coffee table, a mess of colorful Legos spread out in front of him. Jack has no idea how old he is. He looks like he’s not tall enough to ride a roller coaster, but maybe tall enough for the bumper cars.

“Hi, Max. Harry sits down on the couch next to him. “Are those Minecraft Legos?”

Julia’s asking Jack about how big his car is and whether the back seat folds down. Jack has a hard time holding eye contact when he wants to glance past her at Harry, who’s holding his palm level as Max fills it with Lego figurines and explains the backstory behind each one. A girl, smaller than Max, abandons the toy garbage truck she’s been pushing around on the floor and advances on the coffee table. “You must be Carey,” Harry says to her. She ducks her head and grabs for a half-constructed Lego device.

Julia motions for Jack to follow her up the stairs. “The crib’s in Carey’s room,” she says over her shoulder.

Behind them, Max screeches at his sister to give back his Legos and Carey dashes past the foot of the stairs in escape. “Should we…” Jack asks, looking down the stairs.

“Oh, no, Harry can handle that,” Julia says, breezily confident, which is all the more impressive because Jack doubts that he personally could handle the Lego-related altercation that’s breaking out.

The stairway opens up to a wide upstairs hall with another couch and television. The double doors at the end of the hallway signify a master suite. A door closer to the stairs has several signs in marker-scrawled child’s handwriting taped to it, presumably Max’s room.

A large cardboard box sits on its side next to another door. “There’s the big girl bed,” Julia says. “You can see why we needed the crib out of here today.” Jack can’t see, exactly. There’s plenty of space. He’s never really thought about what parenthood would look like, but he realizes that unconsciously he’s assumed it would be something like this. Four bedrooms. A backyard. Probably an SUV in one of the three garages.

He follows Julia into Carey’s room. Everything is so small. A little pink armchair. A dollhouse on a play table that doesn’t even come up to Jack’s knee. Small bundles of socks on top of the dark wood dresser.

On the opposite side of the room from the dresser, there’s a crib in the same wood. It looks heavy and expensive. The carved details on the side that’s up against the wall make it look like it could be a headboard for an actual bed. Julia tugs the bare mattress out of the crib and onto the rainbow rug in the center of the room. ”This rolls up,” she says. “I can do that if you want to start breaking down the crib. There should be an Allen wrench on the windowsill over there.” She points at a long window high on the wall, the windowsill well above kid height.

The window looks out over a large backyard. As Jack reaches for the tool, he sees Max run out of the house toward an elaborate play structure. Harry follows, running on his tiptoes to stay just out of reach of Carey, who is determinedly chasing him. He dodges her hand and pokes her in the stomach and she shrieks with laughter. Something claws at Jack’s throat, equal parts want and terror.

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harry styles's secret harley weir photobook

2018-01-12T06:32:39Z

Hi, hello, today this post prompted me to dash off this anon (which owes all credit to Maddy, the originator of the theory that there is an extensive Harley Weir photo set of nudes that Harry is dying to leak), and I realized too late that there is more to be said on the topic of dark Harley's presumed pink water nudes.

Namely, I believe with all my heart that Harry has a large-format photobook of said nudes, tastefully covered in black leather, and that he was too busy to actually put the photobook together so he made Jeff come up with several layout options for Harry to choose from, a task which was pretty standard for Help Me Jeffery and yet also extremely awkward.

I believe that said black leather photobook lives under Harry's bedside table for easy access. I also firmly believe that after the Brits or whatever other London-based awards show the funkirk boys FINALLY FUCKING REUNITE FOR they all end up at Harry's place (obviously superior to Tom's drama school flophouse or Fionn's modest flat) and Barry shamelessly snoops and discovers it.

Barry would immediately buttonhole Jack to come check it out, and Jack would text Aneurin that there's something in Harry's bedroom he has to see and the three of them would page through the photobook absolutely cackling at the sight of Harry climbing out of the pink garbage flower water bare ass naked. Tom comes along eventually and halfheartedly tries to convince them that this is invasive and rude, but his persuasiveness is impaired by how he's discreetly craning his neck to see over Barry's shoulder.

Meanwhile Fionn has been left alone with Harry for what he feels is an unacceptably long amount of time (insofar as it has consisted of any time at all), and he convinces Harry they should go look for the others, who of course are found sprawled on Harry's bed perusing his nudes. Jack and Barry unapologetically drag Harry, Tom is completely embarrassed, and Fionn uses the uproar as cover to sneak out and call a car. Harry is unfazed ("Oh, that old thing?"), because of course he's secretly dying for his artsy nudes to be discovered and admired. Which Tom is more than happy to do after the others all clear out, the end.

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ferryboatpeak @ 2018-01-02T11:37:00

2018-01-02T19:40:49Z

are we all aware of jack's family dog? aka the most scottish dog to ever dog? have we yet considered the possibility of jack and tom and their terriers hanging out? because multiple terriers is a great detail for my favorite established couple sidepair.

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tumblr explains me to me

2018-01-02T18:31:26Z

YOU GUYS

"fanfic has to be animated by possibility, not nostalgia"

...that's it, that's why funkirk is so much more compelling than 1D these days, that's exactly the right way to put it. I FEEL THE HAPPY SIGH THAT CAN ONLY COME FROM SOMEONE ELSE ARTICULATING MY EMOTIONS MORE EFFECTIVELY THAN I EVER CAN.

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new year tomrry

2018-01-02T01:07:17Z

HAPPY NEW YEAR NICOLE I WROTE YOU SOME FLUFFY HARRY AND TOM KISSING AT MIDNIGHT:

Tom’s parents think he’s spending the night at Barry’s, which is exactly the impression he intended to convey when he told them -- truthfully -- that he’s "spending New Year's Eve with Barry." Barry’s grandma doesn’t care when Barry tells her they’re going to a party with Jack. Tom’s not even sure she remembers that Jack graduated last year, and that Tom and Barry are therefore headed an hour and a half down the interstate to his college town.

They spend the early part of the night at Jack’s apartment, mixing whiskey with his stash of Diet Coke. Jack’s roommate Aneurin seems pretty cool. After 11pm they walk to the party, a few blocks away. Tom shivers in his hoodie; none of his coats had seemed like the right thing to wear to a college party.

They can hear the music halfway down the block. It’s coming from a ramshackle rental house with a plaid couch on the porch and a clutch of smokers tossing butts into an empty paint can. A lanky guy in a leather jacket leans against the side of the front door, lit by the dim yellow bulb of the porch light. He’s holding a coffee can with a slit cut into the lid.

“Five dollar cover,” he tells them, after they thump their way up the wooden stairs.

“Seriously?”

The guy looks down his nose at Barry. “The band’s worth it.”

Barry nudges Tom. “I left my wallet at Jack’s, can you spot me?”

The noise coming from the house swells with a moment of commotion. “Nick!” someone hollers. “We’ve got a problem.”

The doorman -- Nick, apparently -- shoves the coffee can into Jack’s hands. “Man the gate for five minutes and I’ll let you in free.” He disappears into the house, elbowing people out of the way.

Tom drapes his hoodie over the porch railing while they wait. It’s going to be hot inside, plus his black t-shirt is neutral enough to blend in, to let him be whoever he wants to. He’s already feeling self-conscious about his plaid trousers, cuffed above his Doc Martens. He tells himself that it’s crowded enough inside that probably no one will even notice them.

Nick returns a few minutes later and reclaims the coffee can. “Keg’s in the kitchen,” he tells them, waving them through the door into a packed room. Tom realizes that there’s no furniture in the house, and yet it’s still barely possible to make their way through the crush of people.

In the kitchen Tom can feel the drums coming up through the soles of his feet, aligning with his heartbeat. While Barry and Jack wait in line at the keg, he drifts over to the open door that leads to the basement. The music gets louder, more insistent, and Tom ducks down the stairs.

The basement’s one big low-ceilinged space, with the band at the far end. They’re elevated somehow, just enough that the bass player’s almost hitting his head every time he bounces on his toes. From his vantage point on the stairs, Tom can see that the lead singer’s on his knees, fists clenched, begging the crowd for something that the crowd’s doing its best to give him. His body’s a lean line from his thighs to his throat, his head thrown back and his mouth open in a howl. Tom stares until someone jostles him the rest of the way down the stairway and into the mass of jumping, thrashing bodies.

The crowd’s in such constant motion that it’s not hard to squirm his way through the crush of bodies toward the makeshift stage. He stops before he’s all the way to the front, needing a buffer. The lead singer’s obviously there to be stared at, prancing and kicking and demanding everyone’s attention, but Tom still feels like his own gaze is too obvious.

He tries to watch the drummer instead. She has a weird hat and is unquestionably the coolest girl Tom has ever seen. It’s no use trying to distract himself, though; the singer stumbles over his microphone cord and Tom instinctively throws up his hands, like he’s in any position to catch him. The singer catches his eye, and smirks, and sings “It’s none of your business” straight at him, and Tom’s face burns.

That song seems to be the peak of the set. The band finishes with a crashing chord, and the singer rakes his hand back through his hair. “I’m Harry, and I’m from England,” he announces. “It’s almost midnight.” He leans down to grab a water bottle, drinking deeply before he starts the countdown. Tom should go back upstairs, Barry and Jack are probably wondering where he is, but he feels part of an organism here, one atom vibrating with the rest of the particles. At midnight the singer slashes his water bottle in an arc over the crowd, spraying water everywhere and sending the bottle flying. “Happy New Year!” He poses with his arms thrown upward, a tattooed hip peeking out from under the hem of his shirt.

Tom wipes droplets of water off his forehead. Someone tosses a handful of confetti into the air, and it drifts down over everyone around him kissing and cheering. He stands transfixed as Harry struts over to his long-haired guitarist and kisses him full on the mouth. For a split second it’s the hottest thing Tom has ever seen, and then the guitarist good-naturedly shoves Harry away.

Harry, unfazed, looks over the crowd again. His gaze meets Tom’s. Tom jerks his head away, embarrassed to be caught watching, and studies the drummer again. She’s kissing the guitarist now.
In his peripheral vision, he sees Harry stepping off the layers of pallets and plywood that form the makeshift stage. He’s definitely not coming toward Tom, he’s not, he’s not, and Tom is not going to look at him because that will make it totally embarrassing when Harry passes him by. But suddenly he’s close enough that Tom has to look, look at the sweaty lock of hair falling over his forehead and the mole to the side of his lips and the profusion of tattoos on his arm and how his hand’s heavy with rings when he brings it up to cup the side of Tom’s face.

His thumb presses gently against Tom’s cheek and his knuckle brushes Tom’s earring. Tom already can’t breathe, even before Harry’s wide mouth is on his in a lazy, searching kiss.

Harry’s tongue flicks against his lips. Tom opens his mouth, or maybe his jaw drops. He’s not going to live to see the new year, he’s going to die in this basement, burnt up by Harry’s kiss, a soft pile of ashes mingling with the confetti on the floor.

Harry breaks the kiss and smiles at him crookedly. “Happy New Year.”

Tom resists the urge to press his hand over his mouth, like the memory is something that’ll evaporate if he doesn’t trap it there. “Starts like that, reckon it’s going to be a good one.”

“Begin as you wish to continue,” Harry says, and kisses him again.

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2017 graveyard: reeses spread nouis

2018-01-01T00:13:55Z

another abandoned WIP. this was supposed to be some chocolate peanut butter PWP inspired by this gifset. it died its death because I could never figure out what the emotions were supposed to be, although maybe also because i just got bored with the 1D ships.

***

Of all the stupid questions they have to answer, choosing between food is the worst. Niall would rather make up celebrity crushes all day than declare his loyalties between Nutella and peanut butter.

Thank god there’s some middle ground here. Louis’s eyes go wide when Niall brings up Reese’s peanut butter cups. Something curls in Niall’s stomach, not hunger.

“Imagine a Reeses’ spread,” Louis enunciates, in that way that means he either thinks he’s got a brilliant idea or he’s trying to get an American interviewer to focus on his accent instead of the bullshit that’s coming out of his mouth.

Niall suspects this is the former, because Louis is still going. “Like, almost a chocolatey…” He clenches his fingertips and draws them slowly downward from his mouth. His hand pauses in front of his stomach, the same place Niall feels it.

He’s got to break eye contact. “Please, stop, please,” Niall insists, turning away. He hopes it looks like he’s overwhelmed by the genius of Louis’s idea, as opposed to overwhelmed by the sight of Louis getting as wound up over food as Niall does.

Niall turns back to the interviewer when they move on to the next question. But the idea’s taken hold; later in the interview, Louis brings up chocolate again, unprompted. In fact, he doesn’t shut up about Nutella and peanut butter for the rest of the night. Which makes it hard for Niall to forget the tension in Louis’s hand during the interview and the way he’d locked his eyes on Niall’s, or the face Louis made when he blew out a breath afterwards.

**

Louis seeks Niall out at the afterparty, both of them several drinks in. He sways in close enough for Niall to see tiny beads of sweat on his forehead, on his cheekbones, from dancing or maybe just from the perpetual motion of being Louis. “This girl just told me that Reeses’ spread actually exists,” Louis shouts above the music, grabbing Niall by the shoulder.

“Sick!” All Niall can think about is thumbing a stripe of chocolate along the damp line of Louis’s throat and chasing it with his tongue. “I wonder where you get it?”

“I’m gonna find out!” Louis squeezes Niall’s shoulder hard and lets go, flinging himself back at the dance floor.

**

The texts come an hour after they’ve gotten back to the hotel, when the adrenaline of the evening has settled and Niall’s finally thinking about going to sleep.

its an actual thing i got some
come over
nowwwww

Niall pads down the hallway barefoot to Louis’s room. Louis flings open the door, shirtless and in track bottoms. He’s brandishing a jar with an orange lid.

“Wow,” Niall says. “It’s really a thing? What’s it taste like?”

“Dunno, I waited for you.” Niall feels oddly touched by such courtesy. Delayed gratification has never been a strength for Louis.

Louis unscrews the lid and drops it on the floor. There’s a seal underneath, which Louis scrabbles at with his fingernails, swearing. Niall finally takes it from him, finds the tab, and rips the seal off in one swipe. He offers the jar back to Louis, open top tilted toward him.

Instead of taking it, Louis dips two fingers in and comes up with a gob of the spread. He holds it up toward Niall, eyebrows raised in a question. Niall’s lips part by way of an answer.

When Louis’s fingertips touch his tongue, Niall sinks his teeth in just enough to keep them there. He takes his time licking off the spread, circling with his tongue and pushing it into the crevice between Louis’s fingers. If he’s sucking at them a little too hard, well, it’s because he really doesn’t want chocolate-tinged drool to escape around the edges.

Niall tries to make eye contact, but Louis is focused on Niall’s mouth. His eyes look dark in the dim light from the lamp on the bedside table.

It’s hard to focus on tasting and swallowing the chocolate peanut butter with the distraction of Louis in his mouth. Niall finally opens up, scraping his teeth just a little along Louis’s fingers as he withdraws them.

Louis sucks in a breath. He points at Niall’s face and then indicates a spot below his own lower lip. “You’ve got…”

Niall moves to wipe his face, but Louis’s tongue gets there first and keeps going, sliding into Niall’s mouth. So that’s how this is going to go. Niall’s not sure whether Louis is more interested in kissing him or chasing the chocolate peanut butter taste, but Louis didn’t need to call Niall up at all, did he, could have stayed in his room all by himself eating peanut butter out of the jar like the raccoon king he is.

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2017 graveyard: rush week ziall

2017-12-31T07:43:24Z

per jes's suggestion, i'm closing out 2017 by posting a couple of abandoned WIPs over here on the wild frontier of dreamwidth. these are my only two WIPs that are officially deader than doornails, as opposed to dormant with a faint hope of resurrection. rush week ziall died because i conceived it as a bittersweet little friendship story, and then i went and tried to cram a blowjob in there and it just didn't work. revisiting my tag did remind me of a cute lil ficlet that went with the original idea, though. anyway, here's the corpse, rip:

***

They’ve been drinking since the vodka and gallon jugs of Sunny D came out at breakfast, chasing away the hangovers from Friday night before they even really took hold. Zayn had looked down the row of cereal bins and poured himself a mixture of Froot Loops and Grape Nuts in an attempt to make at least half of one good choice this weekend.

The screwdrivers kept coming throughout a morning of Xbox and shooting pool. That bled into a beer-soaked afternoon spent on and around the front porch, a few of the guys kicking a soccer ball around the disreputable lawn, the constant threat of someone being shoved into the inflatable kiddie pool sprawled half over the sidewalk. Zayn could hear Niall swear every time a ball rolled wide of the hole in the front hallway, where someone had unfurled a ragged putting green. As evening set in, the music got louder and someone started charring burgers on a filthy grill.

It’s exactly what Zayn expected of fraternity rush. Exactly what he wanted. He’s been drinking for twelve hours straight, steady and constant. He’s not wasted, not like everybody was last night, but the edges of everything are soft and there’s a little too much give in his legs and his chest and his tongue.

The bigger challenge than twelve hours of drinking has been twelve hours of socialization. It’s impossible to escape people here, always a group of guys in the common room or the TV room or the kitchen or just sprawled in the hallway outside the doors to their rooms. Zayn can’t even go out for a smoke without enduring small talk around the coffee can of old butts.

A couple hours after sunset, the sleeping porch occurs to him. It’s still too early for anybody to be up there sleeping. And he remembers Liam telling them about how the windows are always open because of some kind of health code thing. He’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to smoke anywhere in the house, but maybe he can lean out a window and hope for the best.

Zayn climbs two flights of stairs, dodging conversations while tipping his keg cup to acknowledge the guys he passes. He shoulder-checks the door frame as he rounds the corner at the bottom of the narrow stairway to the house’s top story, the fuzz of alcohol making every surface seem welcoming.

At the top, it’s quiet and dark in the room full of double and triple bunks. Windows at regular intervals are opened wide to the night. Zayn picks his way through the shadows on the floor to the window in the farthest corner. He lights up and leans outside, elbows on the sill, breathing in the solitude as much as the nicotine.

Zayn’s bag is on the sleeping porch somewhere, but he hadn’t made it up here last night. If Saturday’s been a marathon, an exercise in maintaining a buzz without tipping over the edge, Friday night was a sprint, all of them arriving on campus and trying to be first to go sprawling past the finish line. He’d passed out in the common room with a few other soon-to-be freshmen just before sunrise, because going upstairs to their beds would have meant admitting that the night was over.

In the scuffle to strip the couch of cushions, Zayn had grabbed the last pillow one step ahead of Niall. Niall made a swipe for it with one scrawny arm, and Zayn held it above his head out of reach. Niall punched him in the stomach, without much conviction, and Zayn stretched out on the floor at the end of the couch, tucking the pillow securely under his head.

“Fuck you, you’re my pillow now,” Niall told him, dropping to the floor and rolling onto his back. His head landed heavily on Zayn’s stomach. Zayn tried to extricate his hand from where Niall’s head was pinning it down, but his elbow was already up against the couch, so it wasn’t his fault, really, that his fingers ended up half in Niall’s hair.

Niall was the only other person who’d looked as out of place as Zayn felt when they arrived with the other freshmen for rush weekend. Niall had too many shirts on and bracelets made of memories looped around both wrists, like cheerful armor. Zayn prefers his armor inked on, his collarbone and wrist barely done smarting from the first of it, but he didn’t miss the parallel.

Niall’s presence made more sense after he told Zayn he’s spending the summer mowing lawns and adjusting sprinklers at the municipal course in his town so he can play 18 holes every day. That seemed fratty enough.

He’d asked Niall if he golfed for his high school team. “Yeah,” Niall said, and tipped his head back to drain his half-full keg cup. Zayn watched his throat as he swallowed once, twice, three times. Niall wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned to head back inside. “Fuck high school, right? I need a refill.”

Zayn wasn’t looking to flee high school so much as he was looking for the people he never quite met in high school, the ones he belonged with. Brothers, right? He’s never had a brother, blood or otherwise.

He’d started to think he might be in the right place when he saw the graffiti wall in the basement TV room, a messy palimpsest of spray paint and permanent marker. He hadn’t wanted to look too eager about it, but after a couple of games of Madden that morning he’d relinquished his controller and walked over to take a look. He’d ended up bending in pretty close. It’s hard to tell the difference between an artistic statement and a poorly drawn dick.

Louis, the junior whose leadership role in the rush proceedings is undefined but unmistakable, punched Zayn in the shoulder as he walked by. “Paint’s under the sink,” he told Zayn, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the wet bar in the corner.

“That OK?” Zayn had asked, surprised.

“Yeah, go for it.”

The cupboard under the sink held a disreputable assortment of half-empty cans. Zayn picked up one with a red cap and rolled his wrist to hear the familiar clatter of the pea inside. He looked back at the wall, considering what to add to it. After a few minutes he put the can back under the sink. It was enough, right then, to know that he could. Felt like something inside him was settling and expanding at the same time, dough rising to fill a warmed bowl.

Footsteps thump up the sleeping porch stairs. When the door opens, Zayn sees bottle-blonde hair in the light from the hallway. “Zayn?” Niall asks, his eyes probably still adjusting.

“Over here.” Zayn extends his cigarette hand further out the window.

The floorboards creak as Niall walks toward him. “Louis said to tell you not to smoke up here.”

“Shit.” Zayn stubs his cigarette out against the exterior brick. He flicks the butt toward the garbage bins three stories down. “How did he know?”

“Seems like he knows everything,” says Niall cheerfully, apparently not as bothered by that prospect as Zayn is.

“Is he mad?”

“Looks like you’ll have to find another house to rush.” Niall grins.

Zayn can’t quite manage to laugh. He’s already thinking about what it would be like to claim a space here, to pile one of these bunks with his own blankets instead of a temporary sleeping bag. He’d Sharpie a twining design up one of the raw wood supports so he could wake up to it every morning.

Zayn turns back to the window, and Niall recognizes that the joke didn’t land. “Nah, said you should come smoke with him again tonight.”

And that’s a relief. Last night, when Louis had beckoned Zayn with a lighter and the swirl of a glass pipe tucked together against his palm, was when Zayn had started to think he could belong here. It wasn’t the weed so much as it was the time they spent in Louis’s room smoking it. Louis didn’t act as if he was trying to impress Zayn, but as if he’d already decided Zayn was someone to be trusted.

“Okay, give me another minute.” Even without the excuse of a cigarette any more, Zayn’s not quite ready to plunge back into the party.

“Move over,” Niall demands, ignoring Zayn’s dismissal. He pushes his way in to claim half the window, loose-limbed and at least as alcohol-fogged as Zayn, and Zayn’s surprised to find that he doesn’t mind after all.

Niall rests his elbows on the sill next to Zayn’s, shoulder pressing in warm. “Hey, you can see the quad from here.”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Zayn agrees, meaning it every which way. This house is nice, college is nice, standing shoulder to shoulder with Niall and leaning out over the summer night is nice. A heavy moon is coming up behind the library and yellow circles of streetlight dot the sidewalk stretching toward main campus. The thump of the bass from downstairs is still audible, but he can hear the rasping of cicadas outside too.

Niall sighs happily, and Zayn continues to be fascinated by Niall’s transparency. Nervousness radiated off of him when they’d all arrived Friday afternoon. As they settled into the weekend, Niall’s happiness mirrored his own, Niall’s all on the surface and Zayn’s held tight like a secret. Held all the tighter the harder it got to conceal.

Maybe it’s that sense of Zayn’s emotions playing out on Niall’s face that prompts Zayn to lean a little closer, nosing into Niall’s space in a way that Zayn could pass off as drunk and unsteady if Niall flinched or laughed or worse. But Niall doesn’t, he stays right there against Zayn, eyes serious when he turns the slightest bit toward Zayn’s face. Zayn takes a breath of summer night and cheap beer. He leans harder into Niall’s shoulder and brings their lips together.

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why can't we have both: christmas edition

2017-12-25T20:46:24Z

So having now pitched a keoghead i-need-a-wedding-date fic, and a keoghead fake boyfriend for christmas fic, it occurred to me today that perhaps these two should be combined, and also we can have tom in a christmas sweater? because it's CHRISTMAS and I want an ugly sweater party and harry styles ice skating and harry and tom having a disgustingly lovely small town winter wedding and barry and fionn getting drunk in a disreputable small town tavern. LET'S GO:

Fionn dumps the mail on the table, determined to ignore the thick navy blue envelope in the middle of the stack. A glimpse of a flowered stamp and his address in gold ink was enough to convince him that he might not open it ever, or at least not until his mom calls to ask what he's going to do about it.

But as soon as Fionn turns his back to put the six-pack in the fridge, Barry's rifling through the stack like a scavenger dog. "Fancy," he comments, and Fionn turns around to see him balancing the blue envelope on his fingertips.

"Pretentious." Fionn cracks a beer. It's not actually pretentious. It's perfectly tasteful. Just like the rest of the wedding will be.

"Who's getting married?" Barry asks.

Fionn takes a gulp of beer, and then another, because this warrants it. "My ex."

Barry whistles and flips the envelope over, looking for the return address. "Which is your ex, Harry or Tom?"

So they're living together. Fine, whatever. They're getting married. That's not a surprise. "Tom."

"How long ago did you break up?"

"Two, three years." Long enough that a wedding invitation shouldn't make Fionn want to scream and throw his beer across the room. "Before I moved here." He'd had to move, to get out of the city where Tom was, to put half the country between him and his hometown and everyone who remembered Tom and Fionn singing solos in church and competing for the lead in the high school musical and getting voted cutest couple in their graduating class. Fionn had always thought of them as a split ticket for that election: Tom, the prom king, and Fionn, the average guy brought along to appeal to the base.

"And you're not over it." It's a statement, not a question.

"Doesn't matter either way." Barry had been in the next cubicle over the week Fionn started his new job. The first friend he made out here, the first friend who'd never known Tom. Who'd never known Fionn as half of Fionn and Tom.

"But he sends you a wedding invite?" Barry reaches around Fionn to grab a beer from the fridge. "Seems like kind of a dick move."

"Not really." Fionn leans back against the counter. "It's kind of a family thing. Our folks are friends. Everybody I grew up with will be there."

"Are you gonna go?"

"Fuck." Fionn rubs his eyes. "I don't know. It'll be weird if I don't." It was nice, Barry not knowing any of this shit. Fionn's going to miss that.

"Hey, you get a plus-one." Barry holds the envelope up. Fionn Whitehead and guest, it says.

"Lot of good that does me." It may actually be the worst part, knowing that Tom made the address list, probably called his folks to confirm that there's not any name he should put next to Fionn's. And then he stamped his and Harry's names on the back side of the envelope.

Fionn takes the invitation from Barry and flips it over. He hasn't seen the name Harry Styles in print since six months after the breakup, when Tom started liking things on Harry's instagram and Fionn cut himself off social media for the sake of his own sanity.

Now it's stacked on top of Tom's name on the envelope flap, above a Chicago address. It's a cool name. Fionn tortures himself for a moment by wondering whether they'll hyphenate. Tom Glynn-Styles sounds better than Tom Glynn-Whitehead ever did.

"I'll go with you," Barry says suddenly. He's hoisted himself up to sit on the opposite counter in Fionn's tiny galley kitchen, heels kicking against the cabinet below him.

"You don't have to do that." Fionn sticks the toe of his sneaker between Barry's foot and the cabinet, interrupting his rhythm. "I'll be fine." It might be nice to have Barry there, though. Somebody else to make fun of their small-town country club. Somebody to sneak out of the reception with him to go drink at whatever tavern Fionn’s high school friends don’t go to.

"You will obviously not be fine." Barry kicks Fionn's toe out of the way and goes back to battering the cabinet door with his heels. "You look like you're going to drown yourself in the chocolate fountain."

"You don't even know when it is." Fionn slides a finger under the envelope flap and pulls out several thick squares of paper, separated by layers of tissue. He ignores the map and the lodging advice, useless to him in his hometown, and looks for the date on the invitation. It's letterpressed in gold on eggnog-colored paper. "There's no way," Fionn tells Barry. "It's December 23." Fuck, he realizes, this means he’s going to have to go home for Christmas.

Barry's unfazed. "It's not like I've got other plans."

Fionn immediately feels guilty. His own reluctance to talk about anything connected with Tom – necessarily including his hometown and his family -- means he hasn't asked Barry too much about his own background. But he does know Barry's parents aren't in the picture and the grandmother who raised him is gone. “Well, you can spend Christmas with us, if you’re up for it.”

“Sure,” Barry says. He’s got a strange expression on his face. “If you’re up for it.”

Fionn half-laughs. “Oh, you have no fucking idea what you’re in for.”

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mpreg jackrry excerpt: christmas tree

2017-12-19T04:43:16Z

“I can’t tomorrow,” Harry says. “I’ve got to get the tree up.”

“Christmas tree?” Jack asks, surprised. “Tell me you’re not planning on carrying a tree up to your apartment.”

Harry sighs and sinks further into the couch. He runs his hands over his belly. “Christmas trees aren’t heavy, they’re just… awkward.”

“Yeah, so are you.” Jack pokes Harry somewhere in the vicinity of the baby’s foot. “I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be carrying a fucking tree.”

Harry looks smug. “I was going to make Zayn do that part, but if you’re offering…”

Jack rolls his eyes. “You could have just asked.” All Harry ever has to do is ask. Jack can’t believe Harry hasn’t figured that out yet.

“Thanks.” Harry kisses him on the cheek, with an exaggerated smack. “I’ll buy you a hot chocolate.”

“There better be booze in it.”

When Jack picks Harry up the next evening, Harry directs him to a Boy Scout tree lot a few blocks from his apartment. He’s wearing a beanie and a giant plaid scarf. Jack can’t tell if it’s seasonal or if it’s an attempt to fill in the gap now that his coat doesn’t even come close to zipping.

Jack follows Harry up and down every row of trees, listening to Harry assess each candidate against an elaborate set of criteria. Height, width, density, branch strength, fragrance… Jack tunes out the specifics and just enjoys Harry’s enthusiasm, his face glowing under the strings of round-bulb lights that line the boundaries of the tree lot.

Harry finally circles back to a tree in the first row. He studies it with his chin propped in one hand. “I think this one’s the winner,” he says, looking at Jack for concurrence.

The tree looks exactly like the rest of them. “Looks great,” Jack says, trying to sound convincing.

Harry waves to the closest Scout, who scurries over with two of his friends. They efficiently untether the tree and haul it toward the gate with Jack and Harry following in their wake. Two troop moms are running the cashier’s tent, bopping along to the Christmas radio station on a portable speaker. Jack wonders if this is what’s in store for them, if their kid’s going to be a Boy Scout, whether they’ll ever have to work any weird fundraisers for him. The Scouts argue over whose turn it is to use the tree shaker while a parent measures the tree and announces the total.

“And two hot chocolates,” Harry adds, handing over a couple of twenties. He smirks at Jack. “Told you I’d get you one.” Mariah Carey sings in the background as a Boy Scout fills two paper cups with hot water from an urn and carefully splits a packet of hot chocolate mix between them. After stirring them with a plastic spoon, he hooks a candy cane over the rim of each cup and hands them to Jack and Harry.

“Cheers,” Harry says, touching his cup to Jack’s. Granules of powder float on top of the liquid. Jack tries to stir it together with the candy cane, which melts stickily on his fingers. Harry watches him over the rim of his cup, holding it in both hands, blowing at the steam. He’s got hot chocolate at the edges of his lips. Jack’s never wanted to kiss him more.

***

“Careful of the top,” Harry warns from the landing as Jack trudges up the stairs behind him, tree balanced on his shoulder. Harry was right, it’s not that heavy, but Jack’s still behaving as if he’s performing a great service.

Zayn’s on the couch when Jack hauls the tree through the door Harry’s holding open. “Thanks for sparing me.” He pauses the Xbox to watch Jack deposit the tree in the center of the room. “Are you gonna get it in the stand, too? That’s the worst part.”

Jack looks at Harry. Harry looks hopeful. “Would you mind?”

Jack does not mind. Harry disappears into his room and returns with a tree stand and two shoeboxes. He positions the tree stand in the corner of the room and directs Jack to lift the tree into the stand and tighten the bolts while Harry holds the trunk in place. After an extensive calibration process (“Tighten the one on the left… no, your left… no, the next one over… now loosen the one closest to you… a little bit more…”), during which Zayn offers unhelpful commentary from the couch, Harry finally approves.

Harry’s already uncoiling a string of lights when Jack squirms out from under the tree and brushes the needles off of his shoulders. He wraps the lights around the tree with practiced technique, passing them off to Jack on every rotation, and then settles on the couch with one of the shoeboxes on his lap. He pulls out a tissue-wrapped bundle and unrolls it carefully as Jack watches. It’s an ornament, a reindeer made out of clothespins. Harry slips an ornament hook through its string and offers it to Jack, dangling by its hook from his index finger. “Hang it up?”

Zayn’s watching. It feels like a test. Jack gingerly slides the ornament off Harry’s finger and hooks it over a branch, choosing the spot at random. He looks over his shoulder at Harry, waiting for his approval. Harry smiles contentedly. He unwraps another tissue paper bundle to reveal a stuffed cat made of blue calico. “Oh, the cat,” Harry says, as if the reveal has delighted him. “Gemma’s got a matching one, only hers is pink.”

“Are they all family ornaments?” Jack asks.

“Yeah, my mom packed them up for me after college.” Harry keeps unwrapping, lining ornaments up on the coffee table. “All the ornaments we got when we were kids.” He nudges the box of hooks closer to Jack and Jack picks up the ornament closest to him, a metal silhouette of a guitar. “That was from the year I took guitar lessons,” Harry says. “I have a lot of childhood awkwardness commemorated as ornaments.”

“Why the piano?” Jack points at a different ornament.

Harry’s trying to slide a hook onto the thin wire of a glass pickle ornament. “That was a different year.”

“The basketball?” Jack grabs a hook for that one.

“Like I said, a lot of childhood awkwardness.”

They finish decorating the tree together, Harry explaining the backstory behind each ornament. So many of them seem to have come in pairs: Gemma has a mouse with a red scarf, and Harry has one in green. Gemma has the Big Bird ornament to Harry’s Cookie Monster. Gemma has a matching seashell with googly eyes from some childhood beachcombing expedition.

One of the last ornaments out of the boxes is a crude felt wreath with a photo glued crookedly in the center, almost certainly by a very young Harry. Jack snatches it out of Harry’s hands. “Well, look at you,” he says, studying the two towheaded children in the photo. The girl has a Christmas dress and mary janes, and the boy has a holiday sweater vest and wide-set eyes that are unmistakably Harry’s.

Harry makes a grab for the ornament, but Jack’s taller and also not seven months pregnant. He dangles it just out of Harry’s reach. “You were so blonde!” Jack says. “You and Gemma?”

Harry lunges and grabs the ornament. “Yup,” he says, hanging it on the back of the tree, close to the floor.”

“Come on.” Jack rescues it. “You were adorable. This needs a place of pride.”

“It’s awful,” Harry says. “I made it in kindergarten. I only keep it because my mom would never forgive me otherwise.”

“Is our kid going to look like this? Because I’d be fine with that.” Jack positions the ornament front and center, moving a painted pine cone out of the way.

Harry crosses his arms. “Move that ornament, or I’m buying him the same sweater vest.”

“You’d never.” Jack relocates the pine cone to the back of the tree and adjusts the strand of lights so there’s a bulb directly above the photo wreath.

Zayn’s disappeared into his bedroom. After a half-hour of listening to Harry’s family history told via Christmas ornaments, Jack ventures a question. “What does your family think about all of this?” He waves his hand at Harry’s belly.

“Actually…” Harry’s got a can-you-believe-this expression on his face. He walks over to the table, where there’s a messy stack of mail, and pulls out a bubble envelope with the end already ripped open. He tips the contents into his hand. “My mom sent this last week.” Jack takes a few steps closer, looking down at the Christmas ornament balanced in Harry’s open palm.

It’s a pottery star, painted blue and white. Something’s stamped in the center in typewriter lettering. Jack peers at it. Baby Boy 2017, it says.

“So I guess you could say she’s excited.” Harry slips a finger through the ornament string, dangling it toward Jack.

“Okay,” Jack says. He swallows. “Okay.” The baby suddenly feels very real, a person whose life has already started to be quantified in Christmas ornaments, just like Harry’s has been. Jack takes a step back toward the coffee table and fumbles for an ornament hook. Harry takes it from him and moves toward the tree.

“They’re actually going to be in town this weekend.” Harry’s got his back to Jack, focused on hanging the star ornament toward the top of the tree. “My mom and Gemma and my stepdad.”

“That’s nice,” Jack says, absently, making a mental note that this’ll be a good weekend to watch football with the guys. He starts to gather up the pieces of tissue Harry scattered in his enthusiasm to get to each ornament.

“They’re kind of curious about you.” Harry turns toward him. He’s lined in the colored light from the Christmas tree. The star ornament dangles just above his shoulder. “Do you want to have dinner with us Saturday?”

This is all hopelessly out of order. They’re having a baby and the baby has a Christmas ornament and he’s got no idea where he stands with Harry and now he’s supposed to meet the parents. He’s never going to get this straightened out; everything is his fault and Harry’s family’s probably going to hate him for it. But Harry’s looking at him, waiting for an answer, and it’s never going to be anything but yes.

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sorry i've been neglecting dreamwidth

2017-12-19T01:01:31Z

so in exchange does anybody want a probably pointless out of context but nevertheless very christmassy mpreg jackrry excerpt?

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from the debris pile

2017-12-02T18:53:58Z

I feel like i’ve been neglecting dreamwidth while pouring all my energy into mpreg jackrry and/or my actual adult human job, but i’m also getting all reflective at the end of the year, so maybe I should divvy my 2017 retrospective posts between here and tumblr.

To that end, it is becoming increasingly less likely that I will ever write anything 1D canon-compliant. I was saving descriptions of each of their singing voices to use for that purpose, and rather than let those go to waste, here they are:

Zayn: smoke and velvet and crystal
Louis: a scuffed silver arrow
Harry: a honeygold nectarine
Niall: sunshine on cedar

I got nothin’ for you Liam, sorry.

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING

2017-11-23T23:30:01Z

Edited to fix bad link Hi, hello, I have carefully calibrated my thanksgiving wine consumption all day with the goal of being at exactly the right level of blurry to write Jack and Harry home from the bar and into bed! Let's see if it worked!

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