#yeah these are loosely redesigns might do a reference for them...

[k4saneterritory]

eimiko is something that can be so special to me...

art taglist/ loyal fans: @appreciatingtokrev @b4ll4d33r-06 @ineshapanda @cxlrose

(lmk if you want to be added to/ removed from this list :3)

[a-secondhand-sorrow]

dream about that casual touch

just some nice Astrid/McAfee fluff to calm down your Sunday.

read on ao3

McAfee wasn’t ready to listen to James and Alice chatter (or argue) on. It was too early for that. She’d woken up before eight for three years straight without a single exception at Columbia, and she thought she was ambitious and ready enough that she wanted to keep on her streak of four hours of sleep a night into her working life. But the longer she worked with Payton’s campaign, the more she longed for a few hours of silence and calm without the constant debates around which subway station more voters could be swayed in.

If Payton and Skye would just return to the NYU dorm room where they were all awaiting their return from whatever convoluted errand the two of them were running, at least the conversation would be productive. But as it was, James and Alice had decided to rehash the ad campaign that McAfee had been up until three redesigning the night before. She and Astrid met eyes and sighed right as the two began discussing the specifics of the ad placements. McAfee slid down the wall she was leaning against, always too dramatic to ever just sit down on a chair or a bed in her impeccably coordinated pantsuits, and silently gave herself permission to mentally check out of the conversation. She’d designed the campaign, anyway; they could figure it out from there.

She folded her legs under herself, pulling her phone out from an inner pocket of her blazer. She considered her options, choosing to open up Instagram. She rarely used her personal account, as she spent most of her social media time managing Payton’s image and campaign, but opening it made her feel almost odd. It always felt so polished and professional, much as she tried to be herself, but she didn’t trust herself much with her own account. Her only two posts were with her and her dog from high school and a photo with her parents at Columbia graduation. She was always afraid she’d post the wrong thing, but scrolling through other’s posts couldn’t do much damage.

Rather unceremoniously, Astrid threw herself down onto the ground next to her. McAfee nearly dropped her phone from the suddenness of it, her thumb still poised over Payton’s newest photo with his mother, ready to double click. Suddenly she couldn’t think of anything else besides the place where Astrid’s shoulder pushed against her upper arm, and the little bit of blond hair that had flown loose from her ponytail and now was sticking to her own shoulder, or the slight heat coming from Astrid’s ankle as it strayed closer to hers, and the way something in her throat seemed to constrict as Astrid caught her eye and the corners of her mouth quirked up, uncharacteristically sweet.

McAfee tried to smile back without forcing that feeling in her throat to bubble up any more before looking away, back to her phone. James and Alice’s conversation presented itself to her in the form of a distraction (it was a sad day when that became the distraction) while her thumb continued its scrolling. Another good post of a good, round, fluffy dog.

“-posters may be more effective, but only along the student-heavy routes-”

“Which are those? Sure, there’s the designated ‘student’ ones, but since you’re actually a student-”

Another book promo for a comic artist she’d once found mildly amusing.

“It’s not quite that clear-cut, Alice, in a city with this many students. They all have vastly different routes and places where they’re commuting to.”

Astrid didn’t seem to mind that her stray hairs were now resting on McAfee’s shoulder; in fact, she seemed like she wanted her head to follow suit with the hairs and drop onto McAfee’s shoulder.

Which it did, a moment later.

Oh no.

In some futile attempt to stop her body from doing its normal human contact initiated, engage awkward tensing of entire body so as not to disturb the other person dear Lord do not move a single centimeter routine, McAfee attempted to keep her thumb moving, scrolling, going. Past the rows of aesthetic note-taking sets, high school acquaintances’ senior college photos, a few people from her dorm at Columbia, all the way past something that might have been a teaser for a new season of a Netflix show she’d watched in one sitting over the summer.

“I hated that show,” Astrid said offhandedly, angling her head to yawn into McAfee’s shoulder.

Truthfully, she was not offended that anyone wouldn’t like the show, but her brain was malfunctioning with the surprisingly cool feel of Astrid on her shoulder, and besides, as McAfee Westbrook, she had an image to uphold as an obnoxiously opinionated person. Some part of her brain registered Alice refer to her experience in the campaign office, but she ignored it in favor of blurting out a “how could you not like it?”

Astrid shrugged, a gesture that McAfee felt rather than saw. “I don’t know. It’s just, like, kids doing shit with their minds. We all do shit with our minds, it’s just not special.”

McAfee shook her head. “Of course you would belittle superpowers to being ‘not special.’”

The pressure against her shoulder changed at that and Astrid looked up towards McAfee. Their faces were closer together than she could ever recall them being. “Well, yeah, they’re not real, silly.”

For some reason, the word silly coming out of Astrid Sloane’s mouth like that when their mouths were only (maybe) six inches apart was too much for McAfee’s brain to handle. She started laughing before she could put a cap on the thought, her head turning away from Astrid. A moment later, Astrid’s giggles mingled with hers, warm and bright and deeper than she would have expected. She was afraid to look at Astrid’s face for fear of what she might feel, but she could feel Astrid’s shoulder shake against hers, and that was enough.

When their laughter died off, Astrid, without even looking at McAfee’s face, dropped her head to the place where McAfee’s thigh and knee met in an uncoordinated but endearingly fluid movement. Almost without thinking, McAfee dropped her hand that wasn’t holding her now-dark phone to Astrid’s hair. It was newly short, and she froze as soon as her fingertips brush the tips of her blond hair. She was glad Astrid couldn’t see her since she was sure that all the blood that had previously been in her brain and allowing her to function as a human being had rushed to her cheeks. She withdrew her hand, but Astrid grabbed her wrist before she fully could and guided it back to her hair. Hesitantly, McAfee twined her fingers through Astrid’s hair, watching the way her eyes flickered shut with a warming feeling in her chest.

The ends of her hair felt smooth and soft under her fingertips, and she allowed herself to smile. Even though her leg was starting to fall asleep, she didn’t dare move when Astrid looked so calm and relaxed in her presence. Almost every other time, she felt an edge of something sharp and bitter and unrelenting in Astrid’s actions; with a history as weird as theirs was, it seemed inevitable. But this was a different type of Astrid. This wasn’t the girl who had picked up a stupid campaign she didn’t even care about to spite someone she didn’t know that well. This was someone who had hardened in order to learn how to live and had softened to learn how to be around other people. She seemed indescribably gentle and breakable when she was close to sleep in McAfee’s lap, but she much preferred this new Astrid to the cutthroat but unimpassioned one of high school. Her heart was in her throat, but her hand continued its pattern of stroking through her hair.

She heard someone clear their throat across the room. McAfee tore her eyes up and away from the corner of Astrid’s jaw, her eyes locking with James’ automatically. Out of her periphery, she saw Alice quickly look away from her and Astrid and back at her phone unconvincingly, her lipstick-lined mouth curving into a smile. James cocked his head to one side, eyebrows raised. They’d known each other so long that McAfee could read his expression easily. She channeled every bit of intimidation she could (which was quite a lot) into a single raised eyebrow, mimicking his posture. He smirked at her, and she felt even more heat flare into her cheeks but ignored it for pride’s sake. James had the decency to finally turn his head away, but she knew the damage was already done.

She didn’t really care, however. The feeling in her chest was large and expansive enough that she didn’t think even James’ teasing could ruin her mood.

In a sudden burst of confidence, McAfee reached for Astrid’s hand with her free hand. Astrid handed it over willingly, and she rested their now-entwined fingers on her other knee. Her heart nudged the base of her throat at all of their contact. Even though it was just their hands, their entwined fingers felt more intimate to her than any real physical experiences she’d had with any other girls. She was all too aware of James and Alice’s presences before, but with Astrid’s palm against hers and her thumb tracing invisible patterns over her knuckles, the room narrowed until her world was just a golden and white and brown blur, only the detail of Astrid’s eyelashes and her sparse freckles holding any kind of sharp quality to them. She was sure she’d be able to see them when she closed her eyes, and she did. They were all she could see. She tilted her head backward and let it rest against the wall, content to lie there with Astrid’s head on one knee and their hands on her other.

Of course, Payton and Skye returned soon after - she wasn’t exactly sure when, as her sense of time was never great - and Astrid forced herself up and away from McAfee, stretching and yawning before finally standing up. But she winked quickly in McAfee’s direction, and she couldn’t stop smiling as Payton directed the conversation somewhere campaign-related. Later, at dinner, when the two sat next to each other, she’d feel Astrid’s foot tap hers, and she’d tap Astrid’s back. And when the rest of their group huddled around Skye’s phone on the walk back home, Astrid would reach over and grab McAfee’s hand again with her smaller one.

Under the faded sky, Astrid would smile and tug McAfee back, sparing one glance towards their friends. McAfee would think James saw them leave, but he’d just smile and turn his attention back to the group, claiming ignorance of their missing friend’s whereabouts when questioned. They’d stop under the relative privacy of a tree, away from the normal traffic flow.

“Oh, finally. We can’t hear them talking,” Astrid would say, eyes gleaming in the half-light. New York was never dark, but McAfee was particularly partial to the nighttime anyway. Or maybe she would simply be drawn to the way that Astrid looked, her short hair seeming to soak up the light and her blue eyes bright in contrast to the dark circles under her eyes. She had never noticed before, but in that light, she would see the flecks of amber and green that buried themselves deep in her eyes, and she’d look at Astrid’s lips, pursed against laughter, and the gentle way Astrid’s thumb rubbed against the back of her hand, and she’d look back up at Astrid’s face.

“Thank God,” she said finally.

Before she could even think about it, she would kiss her, and Astrid would kiss her back, soft at first, exploring, hesitant. It’d transform into something deeper and imploring, something a little more desperate, something that was rushing out of them all at once. Astrid’s other hand would rope around her neck to pull her even closer and her own hand would find its way into Astrid’s short, soft hair. Their bodies would fit flush together, and as the cool air fell on their cheeks, they’d have no other thoughts than that moment. Astrid’s lips drove away any doubts McAfee had had before, and she would savor the overwhelming waves of affection she felt, pulling back for the barest breaths between kisses before diving back in headfirst.

Eventually, they would succumb to laughter that built between kisses, laughing close to each other as they had that morning. Her heart and chest ached from the force of all of it, the laughing and the kiss. And as Astrid’s giggles finally faded off, she would press a kiss to her cheek, feeling a bit lightheaded with affection. They’d still be pulled close together so that it was difficult to tell where one began and the other ended, but neither cared, simply too wrapped up in their shared bubble of joy to notice anything else.

(Even James and Alice walking up just behind them, with Alice groaning and slipping James five dollars before both retreated again, bickering good-naturedly to each other.)

Astrid would shake her head and withdraw her arm from around McAfee’s shoulders, choosing to instead cup her cheek with one hand. She’ll smile again and press one last kiss to McAfee’s lips, soft and radiant and happy. And McAfee would return the smile and the kiss and the happiness. She’d probably give her anything she could, anything she ever wanted, just to see that smile again, just to feel her lips on hers.