#but i just needed to tap out a really shitty essay on some things that have been going through my mind lately

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

Y'all wanna hear some tea?

(Very long... under the cut)

There's this guy in my class who's a total Nice Guy (derogatory). Like, I'm talking "All women want are men who are shitty to them" Nice Guy. And I was a fool enough to be nice to him so he didn't idk murder me with an axe or whatever, so I admit that that was my fault there because I'm one of those "be nice to everyone until they give reason for you not to be" you know?

To sum up a long story, I genuinely do not feel comfortable around this guy. At all. Never have all of the red flags in my head flown up at the same time until I met this guy.

Like, he's super nosy, for one. I was feeling really uncomfortable so I made up a fake ex-girlfriend on the spot since from my experience that usually gets Nice Guys to stop but not only did he ask "Gay or bi?" but he also asked how often she and I "did it." Mind you, I just met this guy, like, why did he feel entitled to know that shit? Then, he sits next to me in both class and discussion, and he's super touchy. Like, I'm okay with my friends tapping me or nudging me, but I just met this guy and he's poking me constantly and making the same remarks to me that close friends make, it's really... really off putting. Not to mention, he's kind of... unhygenic. And he's an anti-masker, go figure, he was coughing up a lung next to me in the study room, but that's another thing (my university is still under mask mandate for reference).

And maybe this is me being mean but like, one he called himself goofy unironically, two he calls himself silly unironically, and three he used trolling in today's day and age of 2022, like, what? It's clear that this dude is always on discord too because he's in 30 servers (trust, he showed it to us) and, get this, his favorite thing to say is "I'm lonely, I don't have friends here right now" (yup)

Okay, wait, back track, I met him a year ago in an English class, actually, but we only spoke once because we proofread each other's essays and that is a black hole in and of itself because he would not stop DMing me the creepiest things like lowkey fetishizing my height (p*do much?) and kinda being a literal white savior as soon as I mentioned I was Asian. Like, did I ask? It's nice to hear "I'm sorry you have to go through that" but I don't want to hear the way you want us to deal with our problems, you know? He also made a very inappropriate condom joke to someone who btw only met him because she needed to proofread his essay (thank god this was during online school btw) and, not to mention, he even asked for my body count (in terms of sex). Like? What the fuck??

Needless to say, I obviously cannot forget how much of a creep he is so when I ran into him on the first day of classes in person I was kind of already off put, but I figured, maybe he had some character development or whatever.

He didn't. He's still creepy as hell but only this time he's also a Pick Me Boy. The whole day yesterday he was being really kinda creepy. He's part of our study group so we hang out a lot to study (for reference). But me and my friend (also in the study group, let's call her F) had to drop by the book store really quick to buy some supplies so the three of us left together. The whole time he was like 5-10 steps behind us, ngl, it kinda made him look like a stalker or something, so periodically me and F would ask him why he was so far or to catch up with us (he's significantly taller than us so it'd be easy for him to just take like two or three steps to catch up). He'd say yes then proceed to not do it so like what could I do, you know? We even started walking slower so he could catch up but he didn't so whatever. Anyway, flashforward to the book store, we're buying our materials and we get caught up in conversation with an incoming freshman so we were giving tips and all so she wouldn't feel too overwhelmed and all, and, suddenly, NG goes missing. Like me and F couldn't find him anywhere in the store so we figured he went back to the study room without telling us (rude much?) we couldn't see him outside either so we just did our thing and left.

Anyway, as we're walking out of the book store, we start making our way back to the study room and, get this, NG was literally hiding from us behind a pillar. Like... what the fuck? So F and I were like "hey so that's where you've been! We were looking for you! Let's get to the study room" and he was like "okay sure!" so we did that and we were talking so it sounded like he was okay again and F and I were just like "huh okay?" but, as we're about to enter the study room, I kid you not, this guy goes "sorry for being so mopey today" with the 🥺😒 face like WHAT. So I'm like "It's fine, we all have our days" like what elSE AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY I don't know this guy! And boom he's "mopey" again. And the whole time he was doing long sighs and longing glances, basically the thing people do when they want you to ask them what's wrong but... buddy... we're studying for P-Chem rn and we're all on the verge of failing, not to mention we don't know you, we're not going to ask because it's not one of our concerns rn (as horrible as that sounds-). And, get this, he's older than me.

So, me and F were talking at the end of the day and I was like "hey so what happened to him? did he tell you?" and she was like "yeah, he said he was feeling left out" ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Wait, wait, so his solution was to further leave himself out? Like, I get it, but he's an adult. Every time we did something, he made the active choice not to come along/participate regardless of whether or not F and I encouraged him to come along, so how the fuck is it our problem?

TL;DR, this guy is mentally and emotionally immature, he doesn't know physical and personal boundaries and gets butthurt when you set them, and he thinks he's entitled.

Or maybe I'm being the bitch here, I don't know, all I know is that I don't feel comfortable around him and I would die before being in a room alone with him.

[myaekingheart]

As I approach a very raw and emotional arc in the story that I’m writing, I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort characters, coping mechanisms, and fandom. Specifically in the lens of curating your own fandom experience and trying to navigate other people’s perceptions of your comfort characters. 

Like, one of my favorite things about fandom is the fact that we have this tendency to so often latch onto characters that mean something to us or that we see parts of ourselves in. We get really, really attached to characters and fall in love with them and even create these fabricated narratives (that are sometimes also romances, self-insert or not) as a way to feel some sort of bond with these characters. We feel like we know them and end up feeling like we share some sort of fictional relationship with them and it can be extremely comforting. It can be extremely comforting using that fictional relationship and the stories we weave as a way to cope with things we’re dealing with in our lives, to work through these complex and raw thoughts and emotions in a way that foregoes more dangerous routes. The intrinsic value of hurt/comfort and even whump in transformative works in terms of coping with mental, physical, and emotional pain cannot be ignored. And this is great! The right to take a comfort character and use them as your own personal coping mechanism is truly one of the most wonderful things about fan culture. 

If this was all there was to it, then that would be fine. And if you’re kind of solitary in your fandom endeavors, then that’s likely all there is to it. When you start engaging in fandom and with other people, though, I feel like that’s when things can so easily go awry. Chances are, you are not the only person who takes comfort in a specific character. And you are not the only person who uses that character to cope and process through transformative works. It’s an amazing feeling to find someone who shares the same love for a character that you do, and who is on a similar wavelength as you in terms of using that character as a way to cope, and the things that you each use that character to cope with. But then there’s the darker side, when people use your comfort character to cope with things that make you uncomfortable. Or even just use them as a player in a story that makes you uncomfortable. It can be extremely difficult to be so deeply attached to a character and your own personal solitude in them, the idea of them protecting you from something bigger than yourself, and then so suddenly find someone else using that very character to create stories heavily focused on the very thing you���re trying to combat. The most common reactions, I feel, are typically anger, fear, confusion, hurt, distrust, disgust. A part of you might even begin questioning how well you even know this character to begin with, or if everything you’ve thought you understood about them was way off the mark and you’ve been fabricating this false, out-of-character idea of them. But more than anything, you begin to feel like the one character in which you sought comfort has been turned around to hurt you. And that can be an extremely distressing thing to try to manage. 

It can be even more difficult when the version of this character that is so heavily focused on something that’s harmed you is widely accepted or at least presented in a fandom space. It can feel isolating, like you constantly have to watch your step and vet everyone that reaches out to you or follows you. It can be tiring. It can leave you feeling like you just want to remove yourself from fandom spaces entirely. A personal example: one of my favorite characters is very commonly presented in fandom in a way that feels very close to an incident from when I was younger that traumatized me. And seeing this character presented in this way can be incredibly distressing, disturbing, and disgusting. More often than not, I end up having this very visceral reaction that leaves me nauseous, angry, and self-conscious. Because seeing a character I love occupying a space reminiscent of someone who hurt me is unsettling, and even moreso when it’s so much harder to avoid. 

So that begs the question of what to even do about this, because I’m sure that this experience is universal to anyone engaging in fandom in one capacity or another. There are plenty of options. There is leaving fandom entirely, whether that means detaching yourself from your entire fandom experience or resorting to enjoy fandom quietly, silently, alone. This is an easy and safe option. This is like the abstinence of options. You can’t put yourself in the line of fire if you never engage in the first place, right? But it’s also incredibly isolating. It’s cutting yourself off of the positive experiences in fandom because the negatives seem to outweigh them. It’s throwing the whole thing in the garbage because one piece broke off. Another option is policing other people. This is considered in poor form. This is unhinged and unempathetic. This is the angry child stomping in the grocery store insisting that if you can’t have a piece of candy, then no one can. Because people are going to continue to write and create whatever content they want regardless of whether or not it makes someone else uncomfortable. Sometimes especially if it makes someone else uncomfortable, because that is the point that they are trying to make in their art. But also because so often the very things that make you uncomfortable are the very things are bringing comfort to someone else. It’s their way of coping, just in the exact opposite way as you. And policing them would make them feel the same way as someone policing you. It feels restrictive and hurtful and, again, isolating. So if you can’t stop other people from creating what you don’t want to see, and you can’t bring yourself to remove yourself from the situation, what other options do we have left? 

Managing your fandom experience is like a balancing act. It requires not censorship, necessarily, but well-intentioned warnings. Tagging and unfollowing and blocking and blacklisting. The only reliance this has on other people is for them to maintain courtesy by listing the contents on the front page like the ingredients on a package of food. Not everyone does this, which is another problem entirely, but the ones that do are doing all that’s required of them. The rest is up to you. The rest relies solely on your ability to blacklist your triggers, unfollow people who do share content that triggers you without tagging (which can be difficult when something that triggers you is very niche and vague, like a specific perfume or a woman with blue hair). Block people who follow you that share triggering content, even if you’re not following them, because we know that even them just appearing in your notifications and the temptation of looking at their content can be unnerving--despite how much we all certainly like to believe we have some semblance of self control. Blacklist the tags that bother you so that you can continue engaging with a friend’s content even if they share things that you don’t enjoy or want to see. Tumblr makes this easy with options like Xkit and Tumblr Savior. 

But what about other places? What about on Twitter and Discord and AO3 and deviantART? What about when you run into uncomfortable content that you can’t avoid? When all other options have been exhausted but you still just can’t escape it? What do you do then? I’m still trying to figure that out myself. I’m still trying to find a way to navigate certain unsettling waters in the most balanced and respectful way, while also respecting my own triggers and mental health. And sometimes it’s really fucking hard. Sometimes there’s more to it than just blocking and blacklisting. And I wish I had answers for what to do in those situations, but I don’t. Not yet. And I hope one day I will. 

All of this is just to say: fandom can be a murky and dizzying experience and sometimes you’re bound to run into things that make you uncomfortable, or things that don’t sit well with you. Sometimes you’re bound to run into interpretations of your comfort character that make you sick to your stomach and want to punch a hole in the wall and delete everything you’ve ever written and shot out into the world for reasons you don’t even quite understand. And sometimes all of that can feel really isolating, or like you’re just overexaggerating and being a wimp, or like you’re being a bad participant in fandom spaces. Sometimes it can be really hard to want to stay involved in fandom when curating that experience can feel like so much work. And because as much as you can tag and blacklist and block and unfollow, that doesn’t always completely erase the feelings that running into that triggering content comes with. You can do all of these things and still feel nauseous and angry and uncomfortable and like you desperately need to reach for the eye bleach. And that can be really hard to navigate, especially when seeing that content makes you feel separated from the one character you would turn to to actually cope with this. Sometimes it can begin to feel like the way you see this character or feel about this character has been irrevocably changed for you now, because all you see attached to them now is your trigger, and that really hurts. I wish I had answers for how to manage those feelings, or how to rewire the circuits in your brain and load an old save up, to cut out the moldy part of the cheese and enjoy the rest that hasn’t yet been spoiled in your mind. I wish I had answers for how to cope with those sorts of things, but I don’t. I just hope one day I will. 

[bunnys-babies]

Fatigue

levi x reader

wc: >1k

warning(s): none! not edited

a/n: I’ve surely been in a mood :( tell you what :D anyways have some little levi fluff, I love you guys :)

pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4

If you had to listen to the clicking of your keyboard for another ten minutes you were sure you’d lose it. No matter how loud you blasted the music in your earphones, you felt like you could still hear the muted clack clack clack.

Leaning back in your chair and shaking your hands, cracking and stretching your fingers, you rolled your neck and took in a deep breath in an attempt to relax.

But the mixture of smells in this library wasn’t exactly helping. Cigarettes, eggs, overlapping body sprays, cheese? Who knows.

You really shouldn’t be smelling any edible smells, not that the other uni students cared to pay any mind to the no food rule.

You took one more deep breath through your nostrils before sighing and sitting back up, delving back into the tedious paragraph you’ve surely rewritten approximately 14 times.

…coffee?

A gentle tap on your shoulder and a cup of coffee being placed in front of you nearly made you let out a shriek loud enough to pause all studious efforts in your vicinity.

Yanking your earphones out, you strain to turn in your seat to know who exactly interrupted your dedicated, misery filled study time.

“I know you’re working hard, and I don’t want to interrupt, but I think you might need a break.”

Met with a thermal clad torso, you look up and over your shoulder to follow the sound of the soothing and familiar low voice, the giver of the sweetest gift of coffee, Levi.

He didn’t have a gentle or welcoming smile on his face, there wasn’t an obvious touch of adoration coming from his eyes, and there was no warmth spreading from his touch on your shoulder (although the heat spreading to your cheeks would say otherwise); but yet you could feel in your heart the care and concern he always managed to set aside for you.

Truly, he was one of the greatest things you’ve earned here in college. A friendship like one with Levi was hard to come by, especially from him.

He was routinely cold and closed off and yet here you were, doing nothing but working and having him bring you a coffee without even asking all because he was thinking about you. Somehow you’ve been lucky enough to become close with Levi, someone who doesn’t love often; but when he does he loves to his fullest. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s true.

“Did you really get that for me?” Your mouth spreads into a smile big enough for the ends of your eyes to crinkle and your nose to scrunch up just a little.

“On the condition you close that,” his hand comes up to rest on the top of the screen of your laptop, “and talk about something other than your class for five minutes. Seriously, if I have to listen to one more of your shitty interpretations of that nonsense book you read you’re going to owe me a drink.” Ending his sentence with a sigh, he drags out a chair to sit and dramatically lean back, tired eyes pulling you in for conversation.

“I’ll have you know, those shitty interpretations got me a 97 on my last essay.” Your voice was a little hoarse from your lack of water and conversation for the past four hours.

Has it really been four hours?

Mentally scolding yourself for not taking a break, you reach a hand out to take a much needed sip of caffeine before it’s rudely snatched away from you and pulled into Levi’s chest.

“Excuse me-“

“You only got a 97 because of my editing to make you sound at least somewhat intelligent.”

The hint of a smirk lines his lips as you roll your eyes and cross your arms, getting grumpier by the minute that he’s denying you that sweet, sweet taste.

“And, I said no talking about your class. And whats the first thing you say to me right after I explain this to you? You’re clearly more brain dead than I thought.”

There it is. His way of caring is showing through.

‘You’re clearly more brain dead than I thought.’ See also; ‘Are you really so overworked all you can talk about is school right now? Right after I just tried to pull you away to something else? Let’s take a proper break so you can recharge. I don’t want to see you drained.’

It’s taken you a while to speak Levi, but once you get the hang of it it’s really not so hard.

Sporting a fake pout, you mumble a please and rest your head in your hands. Man, your head was pounding.

“Here, brat.” His hand was outstretched with your prize for good behavior resting between his fingers.

“Thank you.” Drawling out the last syllable, you finally brought the cup up to your lips to take a sip; which was more like a big, warm gulp.

Scoffing to himself, Levi nods his head before resting it on his hand as he watches you smile and set the cup down.

“I really do appreciate you Levi, thank you. I really needed that.” Your eyes softened as you smiled at him sincerely, and you were sure you could see his possibly do the same.

“Now, how much water have you drank today?”

——————

taglist: @d1lfluvr @plutowrites (if you’d like to be added jus lemme know!)

would you guys like a part two or more parts of (y/n) & Levi? Maybe a little friends to lovers development here? Since clearlyyyyy a little smth smth is brewing >;) . Anyways, I love hearing your thoughts & comments so please don’t be shy!!!

[apocalypticgargoyle]

𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝟒. ♡ 𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝

"Hi! I hope u have a lovely day :] I was wondering if I could request an imagine where you're online friends with Gogy and one day you send him a picture wearing his merch and he can't stop thinking about it and finally ends up telling you he has a crush on you?? Thank you in advance :] I really enjoy your writing"

pairing: georgenotfound x reader

warnings: Zoom Video Communications none :)

links: | ao3 | request | masterlist |

⋆ song recommendation: Slowly by Josh Gilligan

(streamer bf gogy brainrot brrr) hello sweet anon! thank you for much for this request :) I love love love all the geo simps and their ideas. also thank you to my dearest LB for helping me with the plot help. happy reading, everyone! ♡ ᵍᵉⁿᵉ

You tapped your fingers on your desk, nails clattering at you waiting to be let into your third Zoom meeting of the day. Usually, you got off with only one lecture, but because of upcoming exams, you were finding yourself in and out of virtual meetings and office hours. Sure, it was better than jogging from building to building, fighting the crowds, and searching for a seat in a packed lecture hall, but it was still wearing you down beyond belief.

You rested your chin in your hand as your window went from white to dark grey, the square with your name getting wedged in beside the professor. Everyone’s cameras were off, a thankful sigh leaving your lips as your head slumped down to lay against your arm, the danger of falling asleep suddenly becoming more prominent.

You jumped slightly as your professor cleared their throat, sharing their screen and beginning to ramble off facts listed on the slideshow. You played with your keyboard, focused on removing a crumb from beneath your spacebar that was almost unreachable. You usually took notes in the class, but today was just one of those days.

“... And with that in mind, I’m going to put you all into breakout rooms…” Your professor trailed off, eyebrows furrowed as they peered at their screen and clicked frantically to assign all of you to rooms. You yawned, smacking your cheeks and sitting up. You were determined not to be a shitty partner, at least. The white box popped up, inviting you to join breakout room four. That’s always lucky, you thought to yourself as you joined.

Once again, you were cursed to look at the buffering wheel of death as your internet struggled to sustain all your opened tabs. Please, just a little longer, you groaned internally, eyes dashing towards the receiver and exhaling in relief as your computer connected to the breakout room. You turned on your camera, eliciting your partner, George, to do the same.

You flashed him a smile as you struggled to open the article from the previous night. “Hi! How’s it going?” You greeted, not yet looking at him.

“I’m good, actually. How are you?” He engaged, his voice deep and tired.

You finally managed to split your screen enough so that you could see him and the article. “Yeah, I’m good too. Thanks,” you chewed the inside of your cheek, eyes skimming some of the notes you’d etched into the margins. “So, did you have any idea what,” you paused, squinting at the author’s name, “Robert A. Schneider means when he discusses how ‘men of letters’ fear the lower class more than anything?” You asked, as your eyes trailed across your screen to finally gauge his reaction, you were taken aback by his appearance.

His soft features and dark eyes made you feel safe. As he smiled softly, running his fingers into his hair, he seemed to be racking his brain for an answer. He opened his mouth to begin, detailing what you had previously thought with better articulation.

The two of you got through the basic questions the professor had scripted for the students, then finding yourself still stuck in the breakout room. On a normal day, your professor would have pulled everyone back into the call after the first few questions.

George swiveled in his chair quietly as he listened to you briefly explain your area of study. His kind smile made your heart flutter slightly. Deep down, you hoped the two of you would be stuck in the room for a while.

Soon your topics blended into what kind of movies you both watched, a debate on where you could buy the cheapest bread on campus, and what kind of party people the two of you were. After an hour, instead of worrying whether or not your professor was dead, you were swapping numbers and planning out how the two of you would turn the Florida Keys into the headquarters of your new cult where the members would all worship a separate bitchy philosopher.

You pulled one of your legs to your chest, resting your cheek against your knee as his laughing died out. “Okay, this might be a weird question, but I need to know why your webcam is so clear. Is it like an OnlyFans thing or…”

He chuckled. “Yeah it’s definitely OnlyFans,” he joked, making you laugh. “I’m actually a ᵐⁱⁿᵉᶜʳᵃᶠᵗ ˢᵗʳᵉᵃᵐᵉʳ” he mumbled.

Your eyebrows perked playfully. “You’re a what?”

He pursed his lips to fit the grin stretching across his face. “ᵃ ᵐⁱⁿᵉᶜʳᵃᶠᵗ ˢᵗʳᵉᵃᵐᵉʳ”

You snorted slightly. “Sorry darling, you’ll have to speak up. What was that?”

He wet his lips, rolling his eyes as he bashfully groaned. “I’m a Minecraft streamer.”

You giggled, him basking in your disbelief. He smiled a bit brighter as he shrugged, leaning back in his chair as you rambled off questions. “There’s no way! Nerd!” you chaffed, making him smile as if he liked it when you playfully teased him. “Are you super popular?” You asked, catching your breath.

He bit his bottom lip swaying his head slightly as if deciding not to answer. “Mmmm. Not really.”

“Well, come on, Georgios! Give me your Twitch user and I’ll be your biggest fan, I promise.” He laughed at your response, digging out his phone to send you a link.

“I’d like to see you try,” he mumbled.

After the class had finally ended, you’d learned that your professor was on the phone with their credit card company. In the following weeks, you and George were in constant contact, even becoming part of each other’s daily routines.

As you studied for finals, you’d turn on his stream, letting his voice alleviate some of the stress of your exams. He knew you were watching and would even drop hints for you in what he was saying, or he’d blatantly just ask what you were talking about in your essay for a certain class. After the stream would end, he’d call you either on Discord or the phone, just so it felt like the two of you were studying together.

Jokingly, you badgered him to send you some of his merch, threatening to buy it from a bootleg online store if he didn’t. He had only brushed it off at the time, but shortly after, you received a hoodie in the mail with his gamer tag printed across it.

It was late at night when you’d received it, the tiredness of your eyes and George’s dulcet tones lulling you towards the idea of a dead sleep. Yet, you were drawn from your pleasant relaxation with the shrilling of your doorbell. You shrugged out of your blanket cocoon, grabbing your phone and trudging down the stairs. As you tore open the bag, your phone buzzed with a text from George asking if you’d seen something that one of his chat members. You chuckled softly and dug your hand into the material, holding it out in front of you.

You snickered to yourself, running your fingers across the red patch in the center. You slipped it over your head, letting the softness of the fabric brush against your skin. You snapped a photo of yourself and stumbled back upstairs before sending it to him.

When you returned, George was focused on something he was crafting. His eyes darted down to one corner of the screen where his phone was probably sitting. His eyes flashed back up with a smug grin on his face as if he knew exactly what you were going to say. Your “Thanks sugar daddy xx,” probably didn’t help either.

“What, chat?” His voice came out slightly uneven as he bit back a smile. You skimmed what people were asking. “It’s not a nude. A friend of mine got something I sent them,” he answered nonchalantly, finishing up what he was doing. The chat began to spam quietly. “No, it’s not a maid costume. Jesus Christ.” He leaned back in his chair, grabbing his phone and opening your message.

A grin spread across his face, alongside the light dusting of rosy pigment settling in his cheeks. He chuckled to himself, quickly replying before getting back to his game. You scoffed at his response.

George (H325) Anything for my silly little baka

You curled up again, putting away your schoolwork and devoting your attention to watching his stream as you drifted off to sleep.

Once again, you found yourself at the mercy of your internet as you attempted to join the breakout room assigned to you. You almost jumped out of your chair when it finally connected and you found George waiting for you. You smiled slightly as he scrolled through his phone. “What are the chances?” You asked, pulling his eyes to you.

He grinned, clicking off whatever he was looking at. “I was just about to raid your inbox.”

You chuckled. “I almost wore your merch to class, just to out you to whoever my partner was,” you joked, making him roll his eyes.

“I’m glad it’s me then,” he responded. You began scrounging around for your article. After a beat of hesitation, George spoke up again. “Hey, I’m glad you like the sweatshirt…” You perked an eyebrow in his direction. “I actually haven’t been able to get that picture out of my head. I know it’s stupid,” he stated lightly, chuckling nervously. You could feel your heart beating in your ears. “It’s so lame, but I think I have a crush on you.”

You sat back in your chair, stunned. “I mean, the feeling’s mutual. Even if it’s lame,” you mirrored, winking at him. “I mean, maybe it’s not lame because I know I like you.”

He smiled to himself at your answer before chuckling, “Should we Zoom date or something?”

[wondersbeyondcompare]

Majid’s School Uniform Story (R)

aka riddle gets to tutor another unfortunate soul

“The library is an ideal place to nap… Just don’t tell Senior Jamil about this, okay?!”

[Location:NRC Library]

Majid: *yawns* Seems like I’ve studied enough Magic History for today. Haah… If only Mr. Trein would lighten up on the homework. So what if that essay had to be 4 pages front AND back? He should’ve been more clear about that in his lecture.

Majid: …Well, not like I was listening in the first place. *yawns* The sunlight there is always so nice in the afternoons… I can’t help but sleep a little while I’m there.

*rustle* *rustle*

Majid: Ah, and the next subject I have to work on is…Math? What a pain of a class. *yawns* If only… if only I could juusst-

*thunk*

Majid: *snoring*

*footsteps*

Riddle: Is that…

*footsteps* *THUD*

Majid: !!!

Riddle: I thought so. You’re a freshman from Scarabia, correct? The one who’s always getting pulled along by your vice dorm leader because you keep dozing off?

Majid: …Sure.

Riddle: The library is not an appropriate place to sleep. If you wanted to take a nap, then hurry back to your dorm room, and do it there.

Majid: Yeah, okay.

Riddle: You… you’ve been acting rather impudent for a while now. I’m a 2nd year, you know? You should speak to your seniors with more respect. AND no one should be using the library as a place to procrastinate like this. Not to mention the way you present yourself in your uniform… You leave me no other choice. State your name.

Majid: What for?

Riddle: Your actions have been deplorable. I need your name to report them to your dorm leader.

Majid: Haha… It’s not like the dorm leader’s gonna care much about something as small as napping. Can’t you just let this slide?

Riddle: Alright, then I’ll talk to your vice dorm leader instead.

Majid: Ah, it’s Sebek Zigvolt, sir.

Riddle: Don’t mess with me!! Sebek Zigvolt is a Diasmonia student!

Majid: Well, I never said that was my name. I was just pointing out that he was walking right behind you at that moment.

Riddle: …Ah, so he was- HOLD ON A MINUTE.

*rustle*

Riddle: AND WHERE EXACTLY DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?

Majid: Tch. And I thought this would be the perfect time to escape too.

Riddle: TELL ME YOUR ACTUAL NAME, OR IT’S OFF WITH YOUR HEAD.

Majid: SH- SHAHIN, MAJID. MY NAME IS SHAHIN, MAJID, SIR;;;

Riddle: *sighs* So, Majid then. Good.

Majid: ‘What the hell’s ‘off with your head’ supposed to mean??? Is it some kind of decapitation spell???? Was I about to die a couple seconds ago??? Do the library workers have to clean up my splattered remains after this guy’s done with me??? Surely that kind of thing wouldn’t be allowed- No… our headmaster is plenty screwed up; he wouldn’t do anything to help me-’

Riddle: Majid.

Majid: !!! Yes.

Riddle: *tap* *tap* Is this a worksheet from your math class? I saw a couple of my underclassmen trying to finish it in our dorm… You should really get started on it. The deadline is tomorrow, correct?

Majid: Uh, yea- yes. I’ll go ahead and do that… sir.

Riddle: Well?

Majid: Wait, right now?

Riddle: Why not? The library is a valuable spot for information, so you could always use as many reference books as you see fit. Besides, I’m pretty sure the second you step foot in your dorm, you’ll collapse onto your bed and leave your work unfinished until the last minute.

Majid: …Are you sure we haven’t met before?

Riddle: *sighs* I was just generalizing based on what I’ve seen some of your peers do… Don’t tell me that the rest of the underclassmen are this prone to procrastination too… *rustle* Here. Start with question 1.

Majid: Fine, fine. *scribble* *scribble*

Riddle: …

Majid: *scribble* *scribble*

Riddle: Ah, that’s wrong.

Majid: Excuse me?

Riddle: That step you took right there. You forgot to distribute the negative sign to both variables.

Majid: Right… okay. Thanks.

Riddle: And on number 3, you graphed the wrong system of equations. A slope of 3/4 should be less steeper than that.

Majid: Gotcha.

Riddle: And number 2-

Majid: OKAY, okay! I get it! I did everything wrong! I’ll just erase all my answers, okay?! Jeez, you lecture as much as Jamil…

Riddle: This won’t do… At this rate… Alright.

Majid: And why are you sitting across from me now?

Riddle: It seemed like you were struggling on your own. And I have a few minutes of free time. Don’t worry; I’m at the top of my class in all of my subjects. Teaching algebra is hardly a daunting task.

Majid: But I don’t need any help. And should you really be letting your guard down to tutor someone from another dorm? Scarabia’s test scores are known for rivaling Octavinelle’s, y’know?

Riddle: Well, judging from how you answered those questions, it would be foolish to consider you a threat in the first place. Besides, what’s the point of defeating an opponent if they’re not at their best? Just consider this as a kind offer from your upperclassman to unlock your full potential.

Majid: …I can’t help but feel like I was insulted multiple times in those first two sentences, but thank you.

Riddle: Of course. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you don’t tarnish this school’s good name.

***

[Location: NRC Library (Late Afternoon)]

Riddle: TCH. I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT YOU HAD TO DO THE MULTIPLICATION SECTION FIRST, AND THEN YOU CAN ADD LIKE TERMS.

Majid: …

Riddle: AND HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT THIS FORMULA TO YOU??? IT’S SO SIMPLE. EVEN A JUNIOR HIGH STUDENT COULD HAVE MEMORIZED THIS THE FIRST TIME IT’S TAUGHT TO THEM .

Majid: …….

Riddle: Ah… No, wait… I apologize. I didn’t mean to raise my voice… *sighs* But Majid, it’s been well over an hour now, and we’re not even halfway through your homework. Are you sure you’ve been taking this serio-

Majid: OF COURSE I’VE BEEN TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY!

Riddle: !!!!!

Majid: The teachers, hell, even my own classmates always end up asking me that same question! “If only you put a bit more effort into your studying”,; “You have a lot of potential… if only you could put a little more effort too”! As if I didn’t spend a ton of time already on my homework!! I had a shitty education when I was younger and sometimes I fall asleep in class, so I get that I won’t be as smart as everyone else, but…

Riddle: Majid…

Majid: I thought that I at least had the basics down… I guess no matter how hard I try, it’ll never be enough, huh?

Riddle: That’s not true.

Majid: Are you-

Riddle: I’m not lying to you. We can set aside your homework for now, but in the meantime, let me help you plan out some personalized study techniques. I can’t guarantee you’ll be in the top percentage of your class, but I can definitely save you from hearing those hateful words ever again. We’ll make sure your efforts don’t go to waste.

Majid: Aah… Thank you… Seriously, thank you so much…sir.

Riddle: Heh. Don’t worry about it. This is just another part of my duty as a fellow student of Night Raven College. Also make sure not to yell like that in the library ever again.

Majid: But weren’t you also just… Never mind, I understand.

Riddle: Good.

***

Majid: ‘This guy… what was his name again?’

[kyun-toast]

[MONSTA X] Changkyun - Happy Without Me

word count: 3.8k warnings: alcohol, suggestions of smoking, swearing, suggestions of sex summary: I don't think about you sometimes 'Cause I think about you all the time a/n: I’ve been listening to the All About Luv album a lot recently and Happy Without Me hit a little different the other day. I hope you don’t notice how I slacked off near the end 💜

“Yerim what are you wearing for tonight? I wanna look cute but not like ‘I’ve put effort in’ kinda cute, you know? Like I’m always this cute.”

Yerim laughed as she replied, “You’d look hot wearing a bin bag so shut up and let me know what drinks you want. It’s ‘bring your own booze’ so I was gonna run to the store for extra before we go.”

“Umm, vodka? Tequila? Maybe rum? I’m getting smashed tonight and you’re all going to carry me home, just letting you know.” Soobin winked and blew kisses at the both of you with a coy smile on her face, as some form of ‘thank you in advance’ for the troubles that you would be going through later that night. As much pain she put the both of you through, it was hard not to love her.

“Yeah, you say that as if that’s not what happens every week, you psycho.”

You smiled from the comfort of your sofa as you witnessed the two of your best friends bicker. You were never really one for parties, but you decided to let yourself go after an unfortunate night maybe five? six months ago. You thought that you could vent your frustrations into your notes app and be done with it, but your friends took pity and introduced you to another option. One where you could numb your mind with alcohol and crashing bass, and you figured that it was somewhat more enjoyable than cry-writing shitty poetry on a Friday night. Notes app therapy was now a thing of the past.

Changkyun had become such an integral part of your life that you couldn’t help yourself from unconsciously replaying memories that you had attempted to bury. A simple look at the most irrelevant objects would have him running through your mind before you could even stop yourself. Oh, we bought this mug together. You were surprised he hadn’t taken it with him when he left. It was his favourite mug to drink whiskey out of. Speaking of whiskey, you needed a drink. It had only taken days for him to make himself at home at the forefront of your thoughts but how long was it going to take to rid of him?

As much as you tried to keep those thoughts at bay, no amount of alcohol could ever stop them from crashing back over you whenever you saw that little smiley face appear at the top of your Instagram feed.

imnameim. When had he posted a story? You hadn’t seen the pink circle earlier. Would it be too early to look at it now? You couldn’t risk tapping on it only to see that it had been posted 12 seconds ago, just like you had done the other day. And the day before. And the day before that. Should you just make a burner account? No, that’s too far, we’re not going there today, bitch... Maybe tomorrow.

You hated how much power that tattoo face held over you, looking straight into your eyes - almost mockingly. Oh, did I look like a smiley face to you six months ago? Well, I’m a sad face now and that’s all you’re ever going to see.

“Y/N! Hey! You’re going to stare a hole into your phone.” Soobin clapped in your face, trying to get your attention. You looked up, softening your expression to meet Yerim’s eyes.

“Soobin was asking what you’re going to wear tonight.” Yerim said.

“I don’t know, probably that top I got yesterday?” you shrugged, unbothered by your friends’ question. You weren’t going to parties to impress anyone; you were going to drink the last of your braincells away.

“Y/N, ‘that top’ you got yesterday is a free t-shirt you got from the Domino’s pop-up stall on campus. I’m not letting you do this again.” Yerim dead panned.

“OK and...?” You met both of their concerned faces only to have them grab each of your arms.

“Come on. Up. That’s it.” You made unintelligible noises as they dragged you up off the sofa and into your closet. The thoughts about Changkyun’s story were left on the sofa as your mind was now filling with an excited buzz. “You act like you hate this, but I know you love getting trashed with us, Y/N.” Yerim laughed and you knew it too.

-

Changkyun lay in Jae-in’s bed, with her nestled in his chest as he looked up at the ceiling and sighed. Being careful not to wake her, he slowly squeezed his arm out from under her head to lay on his stomach to scroll through Instagram.

He had posted a story over an hour ago, half hoping that you’d see it – a cover of Dean’s Instagram. How ironic.

He shook his head at how pathetic his efforts seemed, whispering to himself, “What the hell are you doing?” He refreshed his feed for the last time to see that you had posted a video of the three of you dancing to a song in your walk-in closet. Probably drunk. Upon re-watching the video on loop for the third time, he concluded that you were most definitely drunk.

Seeing you having fun like this had him torn between being happy for you, moving on with your life and probably on to other men too. Being attractive plus the endless number of parties you went to now was just the perfect recipe. You were bound to have found someone.

And this is where the hatred washed over him. He despised it. Hated seeing you have fun without him, moving on as if he had never existed. Was it that easy for you to just forget? It seemed unfair that he was still struggling to keep you off his mind while you were out having the time of your life, letting your followers know of that fact too.

Deep down, he knew that he wasn’t happy for you at all. He was just trying to kid himself into thinking that he was. Be mature and everything. That was what both of you had agreed to be when your relationship came to an end. After days of what could probably be called a verbal equivalent of a nuclear war, the two of you had given up.

Crying, shouting, complete silence, you had done it all and there was no end in sight. On day three of radio silence, you felt as if you could do without speaking to Changkyun at all. When you brought it up, he admitted he felt the same. Exhaustion making both of you devoid of any emotion, you agreed to disagree and act like the fight had never happened. You were tired and wanted nothing more to do with it. Or each other. Thinking of yourselves as somewhat grown, you decided to be civil since you were in the same circle of friends, not wanting to burden them with any of your problems.

With so many things left unsaid and ties still loose, there was no way that you could just cut clean. But you never so much as bumped into each other since.

You hadn’t blocked each other though, as you both felt that it was some sign of weakness. Yeah, I’m tough enough to keep them on my socials. They don’t bother me. Not at all. But in the small hours of the morning, you were on each other’s profiles, hoping for a glimpse of what they were up to. Wondering if he had finished that song he was working on. If you were eating well. If he was really seeing Jae-in seriously. If you were well and truly happy.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

Y/N’s doing just fine for themselves, everyone can see that.

“Did you finish that essay?”

No, that’s too random.

“I think about you all the time.”

Shut up Changkyun.

Though you had both agreed to be ‘friends’, there was no easy way in going about messaging one another when you had fought so explosively. Changkyun also felt that he had missed the right timeframe for him to salvage whatever there was left of the relationship. Whether it be platonic or romantic. No matter how much he wanted to message you, his pride falsely masked as maturity stopped him from ever doing more than wish for you to call him and say that everything was going to be ok. That you can start over.

“Do you wanna go to Minhyuk’s house party?” Jae-in’s voice was heavy with sleep, squinting her eyes at the bright screen of her phone. Changkyun was startled from his thoughts, not realising that she had been woken up by a text.

“House party…?” Changkyun was dubious.

“It’s ok if you don’t want to, it’s just that we don’t ever do anything besides fuck, and I thought we could do with a change of scenery.”

“I mean yeah it’s just that we’ve never hung out with other people before. Like together.”

He had met Jae-in at a bar a few months ago. Holed up in his studio after the breakup, Changkyun got to channelling his anger into working on his music until his course mate Minhyuk persuaded him out for drinks. Minhyuk had flirted with the girls from the table over to get them to join in on the pity party. Jae-in had seated herself next to Changkyun and a few drinks later, they had quickly bonded over their childhood obsession with Death Note to which she followed up with an invitation to watch it at her place. Who was Kyun to reject? With all this pent-up energy to spare, music wasn’t quite cutting it.  

“I doubt anyone will care that we arrived together.” Jae-in shrugged. “Let’s go.”

-

“Yeah, I invited Jae-in and I think Changkyun might come with her too.” Minhyuk stated nonchalantly over the phone. You choked on your wine and thanked God that the music in your room was loud enough to cover the unnatural sound you had just made. “Y/N, is that ok? I should have asked you befo-”

“No, I don’t care.” You replied a little too quickly, “It’s been months and we broke up on good terms anyway, remember?”

“MINNIE! I MISS YOU!” Soobin drunkenly shouted across the room as Yerim held her back from throwing herself at the phone.

“I MISS YOUR FACE TOO, BINNIE! I’LL SEE YOU LATER!” Minhyuk chuckled as he didn’t hesitate to match her volume through the phone.

“Ugh, you two make me sick”, Yerim rolled her eyes, “You literally saw each other this morning. Just get together already.”

As Soobin and Minhyuk continued to chat, engulfed in their own little world, you reached to grab another drink. If Minhyuk’s predictions were right, you were going to need something stronger than wine to get you through the night.

-

Stepping into Minhyuk’s apartment, Changkyun could feel the bass rumble underneath his feet already.

“Hey! You made it! I thought you guys weren’t going to come, it’s so late! But we have drinks and snacks in the kitchen. Oh, and Jae-in, the bathrooms just through the hallway on the right…” Minhyuk’s voice trailed off into the loud music. Changkyun followed behind Jae-in as his friend gave the newcomer a guided tour of his place.

Though he was familiar with the apartment, it felt a little weird for him to walk through it with someone else by his side. A pack of cards strewn over the floor jogged his memory back to a particularly warm night in June. With the sun just beginning to rise, you both stood below Minhyuk’s balcony at 4am. You shouted,

“HEY MINHYUK, WE’RE GOING TO PLAY UNO AT YOUR PLACE, D’YOU WANNA JOIN?”

“THOUGHT WE’D ASK IN CASE YOU’D FEEL LEFT OUT.” Changkyun added. You both snickered as Minhyuk opened his window to shout back at you, regretting that he had ever given you two the spare keys to his apartment.

“ARE YOU REALLY INVITING ME TO PLAY CARDS MY OWN HOUSE RIGHT NOW?!” Birds fluttered away startled, as a neighbouring window flashed on a light in annoyance. Your shouting combined could never top the sheer volume of Minhyuk’s voice. Changkyun grabbed your hand as you ran into the building laughing before the neighbour could join in on the screaming match.

With classes finished for the year, you had what felt like an infinite amount of time on your hands. Kyun smiled to himself as he was reminded of those summer nights that he had spent with you. Stargazing, pillow talking, daydreaming on repeat.

“Yeah, so you can get to the outdoor space through the living room but I’m giving you special access to my little balcony through my room because you’re uh, Changkyun’s friend.” Minhyuk grinned as he ended his tour.

Upon entering the actual party in the lounge, Changkyun stopped in his tracks at the sight of you on the other side of the room. For a moment, the smoke in the room seemed to clear as his eyes trained on you throw your head back in laughter at Yerim’s animated storytelling. Hearing your voice so crystal clear made his heart swell with something that he couldn’t quite put into words. Half a year had passed since he had last seen you, sat broken on the floor of your apartment, explaining that it would be best to part ways. You had looked so drained of emotion then; it was such a stark contrast to what he was seeing now. He stood frozen, heart beating hard against his chest like a hammer.

“Kyun! Why are you so late?” Wonho, another friend of Kyun’s appeared out of nowhere with a bottle of tequila in his hand. “You gotta catch up on the drinks now, come on, open your mouth.” Wonho went to grab his face with one hand as he proceeded to try and pour some alcohol into his mouth jokingly. Changkyun chuckled as he play-fought with Wonho only to stop midway when he noticed Jae-in smiling at the sight.

“Oh, this is my friend Jae-in.” Kyun straightened up and brushed off his clothes.

Wonho went to shake her hand as Minhyuk snuck up behind him.

"Yeah, friend.” He giggled as he raised his brows suggestively and left as quickly as he appeared shouting, “Binnie! Where are you? We gotta go make those s’mores you wanted!”

Changkyun rolled his eyes and smiled as he guided Jae-in to the nearest table of drinks and set to introducing her to the rest of his friends, hoping that you wouldn’t notice him.

-

At this point, the three of you were beyond gone. Soobin had already passed out with a s’more in her hand as Minhyuk hauled her over his shoulder to put her to sleep in the guest room.

“And she.. she was telling me to sythensi.. she was telling me thynsenise, no, synsi.. she wanted me to synthesise, there we go, snythi…” Yerim tripped over words, dead set on getting her pronunciation right while Hyungwon sat and nodded with his signature painful smile on his face. She was determined, hand on his shoulder with a grip that let him know he wasn’t going anywhere until she had finished her story.

As for you? You were sat next to Yerim, a vacant smile on your face as you struggled to keep your eyes open. Day drinking followed up with a house party in the evening really wasn’t the best idea for the lightweights that you are but there you were, listening to your friend repeat the same sentence over and over again. An urgent voice in your head piped up, letting you know that you should probably go for a breath of fresh air.

“Yerim, hey, Yerim, I’m.. going for some air… stay with Hyungwon okay? Hyungwon, call me if anything happens?” You stood up, struggling to find your balance and teetered across the room to get to Minhyuk’s balcony.

The thing about you is that you are one of those blessed people that can sober up as quickly as they get smashed. You felt refreshed, taking in a deep breath as if to cleanse your alcohol ridden bloodstreams with the cool evening air. Your head still spun a little but as long as you kept your eyes anchored on the moon, you’d be fine in no time.

As much as your body needed a break from the party, it wasn’t the greatest timing for your mental state. Once you had assumed that Changkyun wasn’t coming to the party, you let go of the anxiety holding you back from enjoying yourself. You had been overstimulated from the alcohol, music, and people, not giving yourself a chance to think about anything else. But once those factors were gone, it was just you, alone with your drunken thoughts on a balcony looking up at the moon. And just like that, those suppressed memories regarding a certain boy couldn’t help but unpack themselves from your unconscious. Oh man, this was going to be such a good cry.

-

Changkyun was beginning to feel a little too tipsy for his liking. Though he was having a great time, it felt as if he wasn’t entirely present at the scene, like he was watching and laughing along through a TV screen. He slipped away from the kitchen island to get a breather.

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t realise anyone was here.” He apologised, going to close the door of Minhyuk’s balcony to a figure hunched over the railing. You looked up from your hands at him and tried to focus on the blurry face.

His movements faltered when your eyes met, door still open. Just one look at you was enough for that knock back into reality Changkyun had needed. God were you a sight for sore eyes. He drank up the way your cheeks and nose were flushed pink, how your eyes were glossy in the moonlight, eyelashes thick with tears, and the way the softly coloured city lights behind you framed your face. With the night air stained with your perfume and the sounds of muted traffic perfecting the scene, he had never felt so in the present until now. He wanted this moment to last a lifetime.

“Changkyun?” You replied, as you wiped your eyes clear of the tears blurring your vision. You could tell that voice apart anywhere, you only questioned in the slight chance that you were just hallucinating, going insane.

“Are you ok? I can leave if you want, I-” He began hurriedly, knowing that you hated having anyone see you cry.

“I’m fine.” You sniffed.

“Bad day?” He asked softly, bringing himself to stand next to you, looking over at the cityscape.

“Yeah, something like that.” You replied, letting out a small laugh as you wiped the last of the tears from your face. 

Tension hung so thick in the air you could feel it weigh down on your shoulders. Changkyun hated that you, the person he had once shared the deepest parts of his mind with, was someone he was now so uncomfortable with.

You both stood there awhile, looking out at the blinking lights of the cityscape. As quiet as it was, you could almost hear the sound of your brains whirring, going back and forth over whether or not you should say something to break the silence. Changkyun had spent months thinking of questions he wanted to ask you for when this moment came, but the alcohol and nerves fogged up his mind. All he could think of doing was holding you in his arms, hoping for you to be able to feel his apologies, sincerity and promises through the beating of his chest.

A heavy pressing in your lungs only intensified, as you thought about how the present situation had become the outcome of those few perfect years. You regulated your breathing, trying to break down the lump from coming up in your throat, on the verge of tears again. Thinking back, you realised that you probably could have been a little more understanding, could have softened your sharp words, could have opened your heart up some more to allow for Changkyun to do so in return. These thoughts and emotions bubbled up inside your chest to spill out of your mouth before you even knew what you wanted to say.

“Changkyun, I-”

“I found a really nice place for nights like this. Y/N.” he cut across with an anxious tremble in his voice. He could feel the apology ready to tumble from your lips, he had to stop you from apologising for things that you really didn’t need to. He hated that your heart was so big and so loving that you were willing to start trying to mend this relationship first. But he hated himself more for not having the courage to try to be even half as loving as you are.

He continued, still looking out over the balcony, worried that he’d start to tear up if he met your eyes again, “you can see the stars so clearly, it’s insane.”

You turned to him, tears welling in your eyes again. Despite having cut each other from your lives for what felt like a lifetime, it broke you how he could still read you like his favourite book.

“Can we go? Y/N? I’ve waited so long to show you.”

Hot tears fell down your cheeks again as Changkyun noticed and turned to you, pulling you into his chest as you cried out the mess of emotions you had amassed. 

The person you had wanted to talk about your breakup with Changkyun the most, was so ironically Changkyun. He’d know how to calm you down, how to sort out your problems with ice cream in bed like any other issue you were facing. But what were you supposed to do when you had cut the one who understood you the most so bluntly from your life? Who were you supposed to turn to when you wanted to talk about that?

Your cries pierced into his heart deeper with every second that passed, feeling the hurt in your voice in the deepest parts of his soul. He replied by holding you tighter, and you could feel all those things he left unsaid that day you left in the warmth of his chest.

“We don’t have to rush,” He whispered into your hair, “I have all the time in the world for you. Let it out.”

He brought a hand up from your shoulders hesitantly, feeling almost undeserving of comforting you after the pain he had caused you. But to you, his hand stroking your hair was where you found your solace.

So, there you stood, in each other’s arms having poured out your hearts to one another without having said a single word. But you both knew that you felt every single one.

[whump-town]

Kittens

I wrote something along these lines as an idea a while ago and I finished it now in-between breaks I’ve allowed myself between an essay I have to write. I figured it’s not my best but no one gets hurt and Hotch talks to a cat for the majority of it so it’s not that bad

The creaking of the old floorboards stops Hotch from going down the hall and checking to make sure Jack is up. He stands for a moment at the mouth of the hallway, listening to Jack curse and mumble under his breath. Most of which, he can’t hear but there are dips in Jack’s voice which allow for only certain words to float their way down to him.

“Where-- that little motherfu-- he’s going to-- shit, shit, shit--”

Hotch huffs a little laugh, a chuckle that makes no more than the whisper of a breath of noise leaving his mouth. Parenting doesn’t make much sense and Hotch is certain he’s probably supposed to say something to Jack about the cursing but to his credit, Jack hasn’t spoken like that in Hotch’s presence. Plus, it would make him a hypocrite to get too frustrated over it. He cursed at sixteen and he still does. He also smoked and got into all kinds of trouble and, as far as he knows, the most Jack gets into on a Saturday night is too many energy drinks and a new book.

As curious as Hotch is about whatever it is that Jack is fussing with, Hotch has to get breakfast ready. He turns and starts to walk to the kitchen. That’s where he’s headed when he sees something small and orange bolts ahead of him. Glancing over his shoulder, in the direction it had come from, Hotch finds nothing. Just the light peeking out from behind Jack’s door.

Hmm. Odd.

Hotch continues down the hall, looking around the floor as he goes. Trying to see what it was and where it went. Until he gets to the kitchen. “Oh,” Hotch raises an eyebrow at the kitten he finds sniffing the floor near the oven. A tiny orange kitten. He picks it up, observing it as he turns it around to inspect the tiny thing.

It looks up and him and gives a little irritated meow.

“You must be motherfucker,” Hotch says, rubbing a finger over its head. “I think Jack is looking for you.” Hotch smiles as the kitten purs, pushing its head under his finger for more. He indulges it and, he has to admit, the thing is cute. He doesn’t mind it. “Are you hungry?”

He goes to the fridge and inspects the findings… slim pickings. “Cats are lactose intolerant, right?” He looks down as the kitten squirms his arms. Rolling over it attacks his fingers but cradled to his chest it’s safe. “I don’t know anything about cats.” He’s never had any pets. Haley had an old dog named Bailey when they first got together. A border collie her father bought for her birthday years before from a farmer in town.

Growing up in the country he’d seen plenty of stray cats and dogs but he’d never had his own. There was a porch cat he used to feed bread to but his father scared it off and kicked it once. Hotch had looked so much like his father that the cat wouldn’t come to him anymore after that incident. That was probably for the best.

“Here,” Hotch finally settles. He pulls the almond milk out of the fridge, setting it on the counter. He adds the container of blueberries beside it. “I’m having oatmeal but I reckon you can probably have almond milk, right?” With a frown, he makes a mental note to ask Emily or Garcia about that. One of them is bound to know. For now, a little almond milk is probably fine. It doesn’t have milk in it but he wants to be certain.

Taking a bowl out of the cupboard, he hums and reaches over for the measuring cups. He’s been making oatmeal for years so he’s mastered the eyeballing it technique. However, the half-cup measuring cup is the perfect size for him to use as a bowl for the kitten.

“Has Jack got you any food?” he asks placing the kitten on the counter. He pours a little almond milk in the half-cup and smirks when the kitten takes to it immediately. “Well… you probably wouldn’t drink that if it wasn’t good for you, right?” Probably… well, maybe.

This feels exactly like when they brought Jack home. He and Haley had been terrified of every little thing. They were constantly calling someone about something. He can easily call Emily or Garcia but… he’s an adult, he can handle a kitten.

“Stay,” he orders stepping away from the counter to grab a pan. The kitten doesn’t move just stands contently where it is drinking the almond milk. Hotch gets the oatmeal going, keeping an eye on the kitten out of the corner of his eye. “You’re hungry,” he notes, with a tilt of his head. And when it looks up at him, almond milk all over its face, there’s no way he can deny how cute it is.

His oatmeal doesn’t take that long to make and distracted with watching the kitten it’s a nice easy pace. Bowl of oatmeal in his palm, angry kitten trying to escape from where it’s tucked between his chest and forearm, and the little cup of almond milk pinched between his fingers he sits down at the kitchen table. “What has he named you?” Hotch asks, settling it all down on the table. It occurs to him it could be a little strange to let the cat on the table but it is a cat so if it sticks around he assumes there will be lots of table sitting.

Hotch can’t remember what book Jack was reading last week-- which is chronologically his best guess at when his little friend here made its way into the house. With hindsight, he can recall Jack having been just a little more distant with him, secretive. Jack is also significant with his decisions so maybe Hotch should think more along the lines of Jack’s favorite books, not his most recent reads. Then again maybe Jack hasn’t named the cat or he chose something out of a song or a movie.

Looking up as he hears Jack’s door creak open, he scowls back down at his lap. The kitten having stretched up at his chest and bats at one of the buttons on his shirt. He taps its little paw warningly, just enough to jar it a little, and judging from the look he receives this little warning tapis nothing something it was expecting.

“Hey, dad.”

Hotch looks up and hums back, nothing unusual because he certainly isn’t going to give up the advantage he has right now. His son is a snarky little shit -- purely Emily’s doing -- and Hotch rarely gets moments where he comes out ahead of whatever jokes Jack (or Emily) can make at his expense.

Jack comes around and nods his head, timidly going about making himself some cereal. Hotch doesn’t comment on his son’s socks -- one is teal with bright, highlighters yellow bananas and the other is beige with pink polka dots. Hotch had given up on Jack and socks. Jack gets a little thrill out of this rebellion and Hotch should just be happy that it’s not worse.

The two of them really have nothing in common. Jack loves science and math (Hotch has to use a calculator for simple multiplication). Hotch prefers for each of his books to look like they have never even been read (Jack has so many sticky notes in his copy that Fahrenheit 451 that it looks silly). Jack refuses to carry around a planner and writes everything down on the back of his hand (Hotch has multiple planners and color codes things in delicate details).

“Oh.” Jack turns with his cereal in his hands and sees the kitten in his father’s lap. That bright orange over his black dress pants. Jack knew his father wouldn’t be mad -- he can count on one hand the number of times he has seen Hotch angry. Though, he knows what he’s done wasn’t the right course to take. He’s not so sure what to do now, he hadn’t planned this far ahead.

Hotch hums again, nodding his head.

Jack looks down at the floor and timidly takes his seat across from his father at the table. Tucking his legs underneath himself to avoid hitting Hotch’s much longer stretched-out legs. Normally, he wouldn’t think twice about hitting his dad’s legs but today he’s sensing he should probably consider his actions a little more. “Am in trouble?”

Hotch raises an eyebrow and looks away from the kitten to his Jack. He’s looking down at his cereal, playing with it so he can avoid looking at Hotch. Jack’s never really been in trouble. Hotch is a little too lenient at times but even Jessica is pretty bad for that. Even so, Jack has turned out pretty okay, he’s still a kid (16 isn’t that grown, despite that being the age Hotch’s father kicked him out at -- well sent him to boarding school but that was only after he spent a month couch surfing and sleeping in a shitty tent he stole).

“No.” It’s a cat and he’s not mad and Hotch doesn’t see just yet where he could make this a learning opportunity so… he’s not going to make it a big deal. It’s hard, in situations like these, to know where normal discipline comes into play. His own father would have beat him senseless or locked him out of the house for a week, maybe longer.

“Oh.”

Hotch frowns, “do you think you should be?” He doesn’t mean it to bait Jack, he means it honestly. There isn’t a right answer.

Jack shrugs, “I mean, I don’t know.” Jack is aware that his father isn’t like most dads but they’re in a unique situation, the two of them. “You should probably lecture me about something, right? I mean, I don’t think I’ll be sneaking in any more cats but that’s not as a result of any lecture. I certainly wouldn’t do it with a dog.”

So maybe not a lesson learned but still sounds like there’s no point acknowledged. “Okay,” Hotch reasons. It sounds fair. “Well, next time we talk this sort of thing over, okay? I respect you and your decisions and so I ask for your opinions on things, right? I need you to respect my opinions.”

Jack nods.

“So, any names?”

[wearevillaneve]

Do you actually think Eve would like to have sex with Villanelle? I just can't picture it :/

There’s two responses to that question, Anonymous. The first is, Eve would crawl naked over broken, burning glass to get Villanelle into bed.  That’s the second response is a question posed back atcha and that’s did you stop watching after the first episode?   You can’t be watching the same show I’ve been watching. Go back to Season One and this brief exchange between Konstantin and Eve:

Konstanin:  We just need to give her what she wants.

Eve: Me.

Now even if you want to forget Villanelle saying, “You either” to Eve after telling Konstantin not to break her heart or Eve’s desperate plea to Villanelle to “Come with me. Just you and me,”  you cannot tell me what she tells the amorous assassin in her apartment is anything less than a tacit admission that she’s down to fuck.

“I think about you all the time. I think about what you're wearing and what you're doing and who you're doing it with. I think about what friends you have. I think about what you eat before you work and what shampoo you use and what happened in your family. I think about your eyes and your mouth and what you feel when you kill someone. I think about what you have for breakfast. I just... want to know everything.”

Now that---that there is the true confession of a woman who really wants to make another woman a shitty omelette for her breakfast, but only after they have slept together.   Even after stabbing Villanelle and coming up with one of the dumbest, half-assed plans anyone has ever cooked up to see their girlfriend again,  there’s no playing coy and hard to get from Eve when Villanelle bends her back against a sink and trails a sharp knife down between her heaving breasts. “I'm expensive.”

“I know.”

“Will you give me everything I want?“

“Yes.” There is no reluctance in Eve’s response.  She’s not playing games.  Long, short or otherwise.  She wants Villanelle.  Eve has hurt her terribly and giving in to what they both want is the most logical way to settle matters between them.

But who said Killing Eve was logical? 

Villanelle doesn’t take what she wants from Eve because consent is a big thing for her.  She’s not going to force Eve to do anything she’s not completely ready to do and Eve is desperately clinging to the last small crumbs of her disintegrating heterosexuality.   In the Forest of Dean, Eve reverts back to being a cold and nasty piece of work who can’t even muster up a sincere “thank you” for Villanelle and she pretty much stays in that mode all the way until the end of Season 3. Villanelle’s lust for Eve is overt and she’s done everything she could do except hump her leg to make it plain.   Somebody tells you they masturbate to you a lot and it’s not a reach to suppose they maybe kinda sorta want to break you like a pony.    Eve isn’t where Villanelle already is.   She’s getting there, but any momentum that picked up in Season Two under Emerald Fennell, disappeared in S3 because Suzanne Heathcote had no interest in evolving Eve’s sexuality (or anything else about Eve, but that’s another topic entirely). Other television shows aren’t as timid about getting to the girl-on-girl action as Wynonna Earp proved and that’s on frigging’ SyFy!  Meanwhile the perpetual foreplay of the higher profile and much celebrated Killing Eve looks quaint in comparison, yet even slow burns have to either catch fire or fizzle out.  A 2019 essay by Jill Gutowitz puts it well: I think some queer women have an almost masochistic need for sexual tension; we thrive off of it, and we love to pine and yearn and lust. I often joke that “glances” qualify as a love language of queer women, but I’m somewhat serious. Before a queer person is out, and before being out was at all accepted, one stealthy glance was all we had to communicate sexual desire to another person. And as far as I’m concerned, a series of gay glances is essentially “a relationship.” So much of real queer women’s love lives, my own included, have been defined by will-they-won’t-they’s, chasing women we weren’t sure were queer or not, and taking those small moments — glances, clandestine hand-holds, unspoken tensions — for actual affection. Because to us, those slivers of attention have made us feel wanted or loved, even if it’s not in the healthiest way. So a part of me strongly identifies with Villanelle and Eve’s inability to pull the trigger on an actual, physical relationship, and a large part of me really enjoys watching them stew and simmer in it all. It’s infuriating, it’s uncomfortable, it’s excruciating, and it’s highly lesbian.

In the fifth episode of season two, the “Sisyphean” one, Eve and Villanelle reunite for the first time since last season’s finale, when Eve had stabbed Villanelle in the gut just when they were about to kiss. Eve places a hit on herself in order to lure Villanelle into her home (as if Villanelle needed much pushing). In Eve’s kitchen, Villanelle grabs the MI6 agent by the waist and pulls her in for the second biggest almost-kiss in the series. The gravity of lust in their eyes and mouths is so steamy, it nearly killed me. Ultimately, I knew they wouldn’t actually kiss, but I didn’t need them to. I just wanted more sexual tension. More, more, more. Even in the chaste S3, Heathcote allowed Eve and Villanelle one moment with the world’s most awkward and unseemly kiss since an upside-down Spider-Man kissed Mary Jane in the rain.   The wide-eyed lip lock Eve laid on Villanelle has grown less sexy as time goes by, but after three seasons we were all starved for something--ANYTHING--to give us some hope to cling to by snogging Villanelle,  Eve did indeed want to get horizontal with her. Which brings us to today and everything is still as it was in the first episode of Killing Eve.    Eve is tap-dancing around what she wants and who she is and Villanelle noticeably lost all interest in Eve between E3 and E8 in Season 3, and why fanfics exist in the first fucking place and will only thrive until Season 4. 

Ultimately, we may never get beyond Eve and Villanelle’s long simmering sexual tension to actually having sex and if we don’t I will declare Killing Eve cheated their patient, long-suffering fandom because if this were two hets in the lead, they would have done the deed by now.   Even if E&V never consummate their relationship, it won’t be because they aren’t very much attracted to each other, and yes, it does means Eve wants Villanelle too. 

[mortedeveles]

Perfectionist

SUMMARY: You had been caught up with your art for so long that you forgot about your school duties...but fortunately, your crush and friend Izuku Midoriya comes over to lend you a hand.

TW: nothing tbh? cursing and a bit of suggestive content? 

Genre: fluff, humor? just pining in general

Pairing: Izuku Midoriya x artist!gn!reader.

a/n-please read: i’ve noticed that my activity of likes and reblogs on my content has lowered recently. is there anything you guys would like me to write in particular? please let me know ^^ (i already published an aizawa oneshot and will be doing one for shigaraki later on.) as always, please leave a like, reblog, comment and/or follow me if you enjoyed! xx

If you could describe your art in one word, you'd choose the word perfectionist. It wasn't like you liked being a perfectionist, but that's just how you were. 

While some artists worked for recognition, fame, and others simply enjoyed making art, your case was... a little bit different.

When you did art, you strived for excellence. Perfect. Not one mistake. A smudge of dirt? Unproportional objects? It looks terrible. Think you can do better? You have to make it perfect.  That didn't mean you did art out of obligation. It was your favorite hobby, but your perfectionist tendencies with your art knew no limits. 

Though, you really wished that the perfectionist tendencies you had with your art would translate into your daily routine. Because outside of your art, you were a fucking mess.

You weren't the tidiest person, and your parents had given you hell because of that in your childhood. While you were responsible and kept your word, there were other instances where things slipped from your mind and you felt like the biggest, useless idiot in the world.

Today was one of those days. After a tiring school day from U.A, you retreated into your dorms, determined to spend the rest of your free time into your art.

You had rolled out your mixed media notebook, opened your soft pastel package and opened your laptop with a compile of several reference images, and got to work. 

Your artwork's inspiration was the one and only- Izuku Midoriya-, who happened to be your long term crush and close friend. 

His green hair sparked so many ideas and inspiration in your mind, you had to control yourself and pay attention in class and not drift towards his messy hair. His wide and bright green eyes made your stomach twist like an acrobat, making you feel like so flustered that your face would heat up to no end.

You let out a soft laugh and shook your head, deciding to stop all your endless thoughts of Izuku. It was time to focus on your artwork. You were about two hours or three into your work, blending with your finger and smoothing outlines when your phone rang.

A shocked gasp left you when you noticed the caller ID. It was Tsuyu! 

''Fuck!'' you cursed. You had forgotten that you were going to help Tsuyu out with a school project! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

''Oh my god Tsu, I'm so sorry-'' you began to apologize quickly, feeling shame and regret bubble in your stomach.

''It's okay, Y/N. Ribbit. Don't worry about it, Uraraka came over and she's helping me out. Though, you should start on that school project Aizawa-sensei gave you,''

Panic began to take over your body as your breathing became heavier and slower.

''Um, y-yeah. You're right. Th-thanks for reminding me, I'll see you tomorrow.'' You quickly ended the call and threw your phone on your bed. Muffling a scream, you began to pull at your hair as you walked in circles in your room.

''Oh my fucking god,'' you breathed. ''Why do I screw everything up?'' 

You bitterly stared at the incomplete artwork that sat on your desk, Izuku's bright smile staring up at you. You had been drawing Izuku in a sunflower field, but now it seemed that your project would be paused. 

Your choice had been based on the thought that Izuku was like a sunflower. He was beautiful, warm, and bright, and he would always face the sun. Determined to reach light and happiness. And where there wasn't any sun, he would reach out to those who surrounded them. Izuku was an inspiration- he would always help those in need, no matter who they were or the consequences he would receive. 

A strangled noise of sadness escaped you as you began to close and put away your art supplies. Once your desk was clear, you began to pull out your school materials. You glanced at the time and much to your dismay, it was 9 PM. 

It was so late! And you still had to write down that essay that Aizawa had tasked you with- the history and categories of quirks. 

''Oh god,'' the words left your lips as a weak whimper. ''How am I supposed to finish this and get some sleep?'' you sighed as you rubbed your temple. ''I guess I'll just pull an all-nighter.''

A defeated sigh left your lips as you began to write the essay, feeling your eyebags become deeper and more pronounced with each hour of sleep that you missed. It wasn't until three hours later that you heard a soft knock on your door. You jumped in your seat but made no noise as you approached your door.

''Who is it?'' you called out warily. Who in their right mind would visit your dorm at midnight?

''Oh, it's me, Izuku, Y/N!'' Izuku's cheerful and soft voice called out.

A bright smile took over your lips as you opened the door. ''Hey Izuku! What brings you to my dorm at midnight?'' you cock an eyebrow at him, smiling at his bashful reaction. 

''U-Uh, I just wanted to help you out!'' he stammered. The tip of his ears burned red and you chuckled. ''I thought you might need some help with your essay...?'' he cocked his head to the right and smiled sheepishly.

Eyes widening, you nodded vigorously as you opened the door wider to let him. 

''Of course!'' you exclaimed. ''Thank you so much! I was caught up with my shitty artwork, so I totally forgot about the essay,'' you huffed, shaking your head in disapproval. 

Izuku offered you a small smile and opened his mouth to intervene, but he was too late since you had already sat down and looked at him expectantly. 

''So, I have about a third of the essay done, but I'm not good in this area,'' you scratched the back of your neck sheepishly. ''Do you know about quirks and all that stuff?''

Know about quirks? Izuku nearly scoffed. He was an expert in quirks! His entire life had consisted of writing down notes, rambling like a madman, studying his favorite heroes, and their quirks. Quirks were such an interesting and diverse subject, how could he not know about them?

''Of course!'' he said with a bright smile. ''So we should start with the origin of quirks and that means...'' Izuku continued talking, but the way his eyes shone with passion and how his green curls bounced constantly had you distracted.

How could you focus on what he was saying when the mere sight of him left you speechless? 

''-N? Y/N?'' Izuku's confused expression snapped you out of your trance. You straightened your posture as you blinked and nodded several times.

''Huh? Oh, sorry Izuku,'' you smiled awkwardly. ''I got distracted.''

He nodded and continued to explain and this time, you tried your best to listen to his words and not focus on his bright green eyes. They shone like the most beautiful emeralds-

Stop it! you scolded yourself. Focus.

Once Midoriya finished his explanation, you had a decent grip and idea of the subject and the two of you began to compose the essay. Hours flew by as the two of you chattered and wrote down parts and bits of the essay in your notebook.

''Okay!'' you exclaimed. ''I think we have everything covered...now I just have to glue it all together and make it cleaner...'' your voice trailed off. Staying up late drained the energy out of you, and you could feel your eyelids drooping.

''Y/N?'' Izuku cautiously reached out his hand and tapped you on the shoulder. ''Are you feeling okay?''

You coughed awkwardly as you nodded and began to write down the essay quickly, despite the lack of energy in your body. You refused to meet Izuku's gaze.

''Yeah!'' your voice was unnaturally squeaky. ''I'm just a bit tired, but I'll get this done quickly.'' you offered him a quick smile before returning your gaze to the paper.

Midoriya nodded and stayed at your side as you wrote down the essay, much to your dismay. Now that the two of you were quiet, you became painfully aware of how close Izuku was. Your arms brushed against each other and his warm breath hit the side of your neck. You slightly squirmed in your seat. His breath made you ticklish.

The last thing you remember from that night is writing the essay but the more you wrote, the tired you felt and before you realized, you had fallen asleep on Izuku's shoulder.

The boy frowned when he noticed you had stopped writing only to realize that you had fallen asleep against him. His face reddened and his heart sped up. You were so...so...close to him!

Your body was so warm. With a shaky breath, he inched forward and made sure to not wake you up. Izuku figured that you had worn yourself out today, so he decided that he would finish your essay. He spent another hour sitting next to you, trying his best to replicate your handwriting and carefully choose his words to finish the essay.

Once he was done, Midoriya slumped back as his body relaxed. He carefully maneuvered around you and picked you up. Once he had laid you on your bed, he quickly turned off the lights and ran out of your room. It took him a lot of courage and strength to carry you and now his face was beet red. Izuku sighed loudly as he speedwalk towards his dorm. Your perfume was all over him and now he couldn't think of anything but you!

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

When your phone began to ring with your alarm, the first thing that you noticed is that you were in...your bed?

You groaned as you tried to collect your memories from yesterday. Midoriya was the first thing that came to your mind and a smile tugged at your lips.

The essay! You jumped out of bed and stared at the piece of paper on your desk, only to find it complete? Your eyes widened as you stared at the details of the handwriting. Midoriya must've finished it! you thought as you shoved it inside your backpack. 

''Oh man...'' you mumbled as you raced around in your room, preparing to head out for class. ''I have to thank Midoriya for this! He's so thoughtful...'' 

You raced out of your dorm and picked up your speed when you noticed that nearly everyone had already left for class. Once you reached the U. A building and spotted a familiar green-haired boy, you raced towards him and wrapped him in a tight hug.

''Hey, Izuku! Sorry for dashing in like this, but thank you so, so much for this! I owe you one!'' you continued to blabber and once you finished, you pressed a soft and tender kiss on Izuku's freckled cheek.

You pulled away with a wide smile.  Izuku's jaw had dropped open and he could only stare in you in shock as his entire face bloomed bright red.

''Oh! I'm sorry! Did I make you uncomfortable?'' you mumbled. You wrung your hands together and lowered your gaze to the ground. You felt your once ecstatic heart drop to your stomach. 

''No! No, no that's not it Y/N!'' Izuku's voice was squeakier than usual and you raised your head with a frown. ''Um, I'm very glad,'' he smiled softly. 

''Could you um...'' he scratched his head and lowered his eyes to the ground.

''Could you make it up to me with a-a da-da...'' he stammered several times. You grinned and tilted your head to the side.

''Do you mean a date?'' your grin grew wider when you saw his bashful expression.

''Yeah...'' he mumbled.

You giggled happily and pressed a kiss on his cheek. Izuku's eyes widened and you could sense the waves of heat from his face.

''I'll be glad to go on a date with you, Izuku.''

i hope you guys enjoyed!! have a good day! 

[eury--dice]

history, huh?

chapter 4: proxime

check the notes for links to other chapters and ao3!

(also would like to note a general cw for alcohol and child abuse in this chapter - see ao3/message me for more detail and please be safe and avoid if necessary)

Adam kind of wanted to go back and slap his former self before he could announce anything was “perfect.”

It was only once the turkeys were deposited in his room by blank-faced handlers that he began to regret his decision. The turkeys stared ominously at him, eerily silent for all of five seconds before they started to move and gobble.

And they didn’t stop.

SOS, he texted Ronan simply, receiving a lone question mark in reply. 

  iMessage chat to HRH shitty bird boy

Resumed 28 November, 2019, 12:36 am

  It’s the turkeys. I saved taxpayers needless expense and now they’re going to peck me to death. 

  told you to stop playing the hero, Parrish. 

  NOW IS NOT THE TIME

CORNBREAD IS EYEING ME

Some support would be appreciated here

  i’m going to assume that cornbread is one of the turkeys and not a sentient loaf of cornmeal?

  No, Your Highness, I’ve been performing a complicated experiment involving a snack to see if it can gain intelligence. The crocheted eyes appear to be working.

No shit, Sherlock, good assumption. 

And excuse you, in the South, we make cornbread with real corn. 

  if you’re going to jest don’t include hobbies that seem plausible

  The science experiment or the crocheting?

  both. 

  When would I do either of those?

  fuck if i know, that’s your business. 

  Oh shit oh shit oh shit

Meatloaf is gobbling again.

Is gobbling a precursor to attack? 

Would google it but I’m too afraid to take my eyes off of the dinos.

  gobbling is widely known as a war declaration amongst turkeys 

i’m surprised a smartarse like you wouldn’t know this.

  Oh, fuck it, Adam thought, and before he could talk himself out of it and resign himself to a night of gobbling, the dial icon had been tapped and the glass of his phone felt cool against his hearing ear. 

“Have you ever shared close quarters with a turkey?”

Adam could feel Ronan’s unimpressed silence through the phone. “No, I have not. Why the hell would I?”

“Privileged,” Adam muttered. “You don’t know how sadistic these turkeys are.” 

Cornbread chose that moment to gobble rather loudly and antagonistically. Adam’s eyes snapped to the bird, his muscles freezing in pure fear. “Sorry,” he whispered. 

“Christ,” Ronan said, and his tone had softened somewhat. “Did a turkey make that noise?”

“Yep,” Adam breathed. 

“That is not natural,” he insisted. “What the fuck?”

“I told you!”

A squawk sounded on Ronan’s end, and when Ronan spoke his voice was a great deal gentler than it had been. “Good baby, your noises aren’t demonic…”

“I’ll assume you’re not speaking to me.”

“Fuck no. Every word out of your mouth comes straight from hell.” There was a muffled rustling nose, something that was probably feathers against skin. 

“Your bird?”

“Raven. Keep up, please.”

“Ravens are birds,” Adam said, but it was probably futile. “What’s its name again?”

There was a brief pause on Ronan’s end. “Her name is Chainsaw.”

Adam’s voice fell flat in response. “Chainsaw.”

He heard a kerah. “Something wrong with that?” Ronan said, his accent drawing out the o in ‘wrong’ like it was already a guilty verdict .

“It just doesn’t seem very...royal. Or bird-like.”

“It’s a good cry better than cornbread and stuffing.”

“I didn’t name them,” Adam defended. “Blame the American people.”

“But I already blame them for so much.”

“Add it to the laundry list.” Adam flinched back as the other turkey squawked deafeningly. 

It was the first time he and Ronan had spoken on the phone, and until then, he hadn’t even realized it. All it took was Cornbread’s evil gaze to snap him into reality. 

Silence settled between them for a moment. Adam barely dared to breathe between the awkwardness of his conversation with Ronan and his clearly impending doom at the hands of something only distantly related to dinosaurs. 

“If you get mauled by those turkeys, may I give the eulogy at your funeral?”

Adam snorted, drawn back to the feeling of the phone clenched in his hand. “Ignoring the fact that I’m the son of the President and you’re the Prince of England, absolutely.” 

“Good. I’m already drafting turkey-related jokes.”

“Don’t you dare dishonor me by bringing up the cause of my demise.”

“It’s a good thing Cornbread will have clawed your esophagus out and you’ve no possible way to object.”

“Jesus.” Adam shivered. “Now I have a third part to my nightmare.”

“I would trade you Chainsaw, but she goes for the eyes and I have the feeling you’d rather keep those.”

“Your feeling is correct.”

“Also, I would fucking die for her.”

“...Strong feelings, apparently, for a bird that doesn’t seem royal-approved.”

“That’s half the reason I love her,” Ronan admitted. “Most definitely not approved.”

“Just like your tattoo?”

The line went quiet for a moment. “Yes,” Ronan finally said. “Just like my tattoo.”

That line was back, and Adam inched ever-closer to touching it with his toes.

“No trade, then. I’ll just slowly perish alone in my room. If this causes a fiasco in the press be sure to make fun of me properly.”

“Of course,” Ronan said, just as Stuffing let out a deafening gobble. “Can’t you get Sargent to intimidate them into silence? Or, wait, is it charming them into liking her? I can’t figure her out from your description.”

“Knowing Blue it could be either,” Adam admitted. “And she’s...busy.”

“Busy how?”

“Back in Virginia busy.” Adam stretched out his shoulder, keeping a wary eye on the turkeys. 

“Virginia? With family?”

“Most of her family is Maura, and she’s still here,” Adam hedged, weighing the little he knew about the Sargent family with what he could say to Ronan. “But yeah, of a sort. Thanksgiving’s a rough time of year. She’s trying to help out, even though it’s not technically where she’s from. Raising money, ensuring shelter, I think she’s even got a protest planned.”

“Different shade of Sargent, then.”

“Same shade,” Adam corrected. “Different circumstances.”

Ronan hummed on the other end of the line. Adam scrambled for words, trying to lighten up the air. Stuffing squawked as though to mock his tied tongue.

“She’s been busy for the last few weeks, anyway.”

“What type of busy would this busy be?”

"Just start a new sentence. You sound ridiculous." Ronan stayed silent to his jab, clearly electing to ignore him. “...Date busy.”

“Good for her,” Ronan said, but he must have heard something else in Adam’s silence because he continued. “Wait. No. No fucking way. Not with Gansey?”

“Yes with Gansey.”

“Wow, third wheeling’s gotta be even more fucking awkward, huh?”

“God, I hope not.”

“The way you described them I thought they’d never wake up to it.”

“Me too,” Adam said. “And I’m thrilled for them, but I’m also very offended that their feelings are getting in the way of saving me. Gansey went with her.”

“Oh, you drama queen. Just sleep in Gansey’s room if the gobbling is that bad.”

“They can escape, Ronan, I swear to you. They’re like the raptors-”

“They’re named after fatty foods. You’ll be alright. Go the fuck to sleep.”

“...Yeah, alright. But you need to sleep too.”

“Wouldn't dream of letting you sleep alone,” Roman replied, his tone dry. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

As Adam let his phone fall onto his pillow, Stuffing chose to bash her wings against the cage. After almost falling out of his bed in fright, Adam quickly decided that Ronan might have been onto something about sleeping in Gansey’s room. 

If he made it through the night, he owed Ronan a thank you.

  ***

Christmas rolled around with a mighty fervor.

It felt like one moment, Adam was sitting back down in class after Thanksgiving to crack down on some new essays, and the next he was watching evergreens and pine decorations get thrown up along White House walls in perfect synchrony. 

The normal White House Christmas was an ordeal, one that did its best to stress family but mostly stressed political strategy. Nothing changed that year to make it different, but they did have a smaller affair in addition to all the festivities. Christmas Eve was, in many ways, the eye of the storm. An extreme amount of chaos was behind them, and a deluge to follow come Christmas morning, but Christmas Eve dinner was dependable, private, and blessedly relaxed. Adam, somehow, found himself looking forward to it. 

He sat on one of the staircases - it really didn’t matter which one, as they all blent together, only distinguishable by where they could take him - with the decorations hanging around him and a book in his lap. For once, there wasn’t any work, and even the most work-centered version of himself was forced to concede and enjoy a few hours of pleasure reading. He had grabbed the first book he could find off of his shelf and set off. Apparently, his hand had gravitated towards Fahrenheit 451. Not exactly light enough to match the twinkling reds and golds he spotted in his periphery no matter how he turned, but a personal choice all the same. 

“If you keep sitting on staircases, someone is going to walk into you,” came Gansey’s voice from behind him. 

“It’s their fault for not watching their way,” said Adam. “I’m sitting with my back to them. How am I expected to know?”

“By not sitting on staircases,” Gansey repeated. The air rustled as Gansey lowered to sit on the step next to Adam. “Some nice, light reading?”

“Yes. Everything okay?”

“Grand. Mostly just avoiding Helen unpacking and my parents stressing over napkin rings.”

“Gansey Christmas sounds wonderful,” Adam said dryly. “I assume they’ll all be here tonight?”

“Of course. They’d never miss it.”

“Helen is well?”

“Fantastic, apparently. Primed to get engaged soon, she says, and the helicopter’s got a new paint job.”

Adam could almost forget how much the Ganseys looked like a new Kennedy-like dynasty, but their swarming every year always reminded him. Their Christmas photos, too - always at DC landmarks, bleached teeth and ghost-pale skin and all-American born and bred grins. And the occasional snap stories from Helen of her mid-piloting a flying vessel didn’t help. 

“Glad to hear it,” he said, not surprised to find the words genuine. 

He got to see the Gansey family anxiety for himself only a few hours later, donned in an ugly Christmas sweater Blue had insisted on. Mr. Gansey cast a discerning eye around the room while Mrs. Gansey smiled tightly at his side, dressed pristinely. Helen chatted idly with Blue, though Blue looked prepared to bolt at a moment's notice. 

“Ho-ho-horseshit?” Maura questioned, snapping him away from his reverie and gazing around like a caged animal. Her eyes traced over the pattern on his shirt. 

“Blue’s homemade gift,” he said by way of response, to which Maura only sighed heavily. Her sudden appearance reminded him he had a task to perform, the small handled bag digging into his palm suddenly given a purpose. He held the bag out to Maura with a small grimace, watching one of her eyebrows quirk. “I was told to give you this.”

Maura withdrew an identical sweater from the bag. “Sending you to do her dirty work, hm?”

“I suppose so.”

“Hm,” was all Maura replied, until she lifted her analytical gaze to him. “Thanks, Adam,” she said, and in one of the greatest surprises of the night, slid her arm over his shoulders and drew him into a quick hug. “Now sit down. We’ve gotta start wrangling dinner if we want this to end before midnight.”

Adam took his place next to Gansey at the smaller table, unfolding a napkin and laying it across his lap. The gals at the table slowly began to fill in as Gansey chatted about the recent tabloid conjectures. 

“The youngest is back in the tabloids, you know, trying to get him on drug use again.”

“Oh, really?” Adam muttered, eyes scanning idly over the periphery of the room. His eyes snagged on the Christmas decorations, simpler than the majority of the White House decor. A few string lights here and there, hanging baubles, the occasional pile of fake snow. His finger tapped at the stem of his empty wine glass. 

“Last time he disappeared for public for a while. Heaven knows if that’ll happen again.”

He felt an itch inside his deaf ear, one he knew he wouldn’t be able to reach. “Disappeared?” 

“Yeah, just...gone, no public appearances…”

It was a vague memory, or perhaps a memory of a memory.  Just a snatch of something that made the hairs in the back of his neck stand up. He tried to focus on Gansey’s words, but all at once they started sliding around, unclear and blending with the too-loud noises of dinner being served. A cacophony of clacks and laughs and voices. His head burned. 

Gansey’s voice lowered. “Are you alright, Adam?”

He scooted his chair backward quickly, muttering something like “back in a minute” to Gansey before rushing away. He felt eyes on the back of his head, but he didn’t pause or slow until the door to his bedroom shut firmly behind him and he leaned against it, completely alone. 

“Parrish?” Ronan’s voice said in his ear, low and urgent, and oh. Adam hadn’t even realized his phone was in his hand, much less that he’d managed to press Ronan’s contact or raise it to his ear. He did briefly remember the ringing, but then words were falling out of his mouth and he didn’t waste any more brainpower on how he reached that position.

“I don’t want to…to bother you,” Adam said, and only someone who had known him for a long time would know how much it took Adam to say those words despite the fact that it was a mantra in his head repeating infinitely. Blue, who had known him since the age of five, had heard him say it only a handful of times. Gansey had heard it perhaps a handful more, though that was mostly because Adam felt strangely indebted to Gansey no matter how much he tried to change it. Ronan should not have known, but Adam had a feeling he would anyway. “You hate phones and it’s Christmas Eve and-”

“Adam,” Ronan said abruptly, and the use of his first name stopped him short. “It’s two in the morning. I’m just with Matthew. Talk.”

“Hi, Adam,” came a cheerful voice, somehow sounding like an even better picture-perfect British monarchy member than Ronan or Declan. “Ronan’s told me everything about how he-”

Adam missed Ronan’s ensuing muttered comment, something that most likely resembled a threat, but soon the voice that Adam assumed to be Mathew let out a trailing laugh, the sound growing fainter as he likely moved away from the phone.

“And fuck you!” Ronan called, with his mouth moved away from the receiver, before his attention returned to Adam. “He’s gone now.”

“It’s okay,” Adam said. “I didn’t mind.”

“I know,” Ronan said simply. “But I thought it might be easier. Now go.”

“I-I just,” Adam fumbled with his words for a moment, his free hand curling into a fist on his thigh. He felt, strangely, like he was back in Aglionby PE class trying to participate in a football scrimmage. He’d always come just short of catching the ball. He’d known what he was supposed to do, where his hands were supposed to go, the sequence of events following the initial contact, even the proper footwork. But whenever the ball reached him, he felt the disconcerting motion of closing his arms around nothing, always a second too early or too late, leather slipping from his arms like butter in a hot pan. “Couldn’t be at that dinner any longer.”

“Why?” Ronan asked, and it was a good question, a good question that Adam had avoided so many times over he barely knew how to respond. He almost deflected like he always did, but Ronan asked the question differently than everyone else. There was no expectation in the question, no real drive to know the answer other than making Adam feel better, no guarantee of hearing the full truth or any version of the truth at all. Why. Why respond now?

“I was little,” he said, and fuck why did he go down this road at all? “And everything was overwhelming when I was little, and everything is overwhelming now, but it’s even more overwhelming at Christmas.” Ronan didn’t say it again, but still, it traveled across an ocean to hover over Adam uncertainly. Why?

“I don’t remember a lot about it. I don’t know if that’s because of...how it was, or just because I was so small. Younger than three, I think.”

“I barely remember anything from then,” Ronan said, the closest thing to reassurance Adam had received from him.

“Yeah,” Adam said. “Yeah. I guess. But I remember...I remember the double-wide. The great American double-wide in the great American trailer park with the great American alcohol and the great, raging American father.”

Ronan’s breath shifted ever so slightly.

Adan screwed his eyes shut. “I don’t...my mother wasn’t there. But she was the one who put the Christmas lights up. I couldn’t stop staring at them. I can still remember...they made the tan wall look almost golden. Just where the lights touched it, of course.” His voice trailed off, realizing how tangential it sounded. Softly, he added “I don’t know why I remember those lights.”

“Our minds remember random things,” Ronan said, perhaps to bring Adam back to the story.

“Yeah,” Adam agreed, blinking quickly. “Yeah. He didn’t...he didn’t like that. Me looking at them, I mean. So he...he took them down.”

The silence pressed in at his ears, threatening to close in on him just like walls. 

“I see,” Ronan said. 

“And he…” Adam swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple scratch tightly against his neck. He pressed his free hand to his deaf ear. “I don’t remember a lot after that, either. But the bulbs were...hot. It was freezing inside, so they should have been, too, but they were lightbulbs, I guess, and so they were hot. At some point, I fell into a railing. It burst my left eardrum.” At that moment, he could feel that second in startling clarity - pinpricks and needles and blood vessels dancing on his skin, sharp, pointed, wild attacks, and the loudest noise he’s ever heard in his life, making him collapse to the ground and forget everything else. Pain, bright and white and flashing and throbbing in time with his heartbeat until he wanted to melt into the floor. Adam was the better part of two decades removed from it, and still, the thought of that moment made his stomach turn over and over.

Adam knew he didn’t imagine Ronan’s intake of breath then.

“And my mother got home, and when she saw we left and never came back.”

The walls pressed closer to him until Ronan said “Well, shit. Fuck. Jesus.”

Adam brought his hand to his mouth, pressing it until the pressure began to ease up in his gut. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, muffled against his fingers.

“No, shit, Parrish. Don’t you dare apologize.” There was a quick exhale, something that sounded like leather sliding down a headboard. “That’s what you remember of Christmas?’

“Yeah. I don’t - I don’t remember a whole lot.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

Not even Blue and Gansey knew that story. They knew the vague details, of course, how his smiles turned tight around the White House decorations and he preferred to slip into his room early on holidays. And that Robert was the reason for his being deaf in one ear. He could just never get the entire story out around them.

Telling Ronan about it was easy, though, in a way that it shouldn’t have been. He was supposed to hate Ronan, even if it became more clear with every passing day that he was far from hatred. 

“I guess I should. It’s not like I’ve done any of that in a long time.”

“You don’t have to.” A slight pause. “I can.”

Adam tried to keep the doubt out of his voice. “You can?”

For a brief moment, Adam thought Ronan might hang up on him. But then he said, “Can I tell you a secret, Parrish?”

After everything I just put on you, you could tell me a thousand secrets. You know I’ll keep every single one. I’m trusting you with a story that no one else knows, that no one else will ever know. I could do nothing less than keep your secret. 

All he said was “Of course.”

“You know my Irish father? My Irish storytelling father? My Irish-Catholic father?”

“Right.”

“He passed down more to me than just his Irish stories.”

It took Adam’s brain a moment to catch up. “I...see.”

“All three of us...well, behind closed doors, that’s what we practice. Believe. Whatever shit you want.”

“Right. So no… C of E.”

“On the record, of course. Off the record...no. None at all.”

Adam hummed in response. He couldn’t think of what else to say. 

“So...I will. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah. Of course.” A knock sounded on the door, sounding suspiciously like Gansey’s familiar tapping. He rose slowly, crossing to fall onto his bed. “I should probably let you go. Don’t want you to have too prolonged contact with any screens.”

“Disgusting,” Ronan said. A beat passed. “Are you a bit better?”

Adam shut his eyes, feeling the tension coiled in his chest ease up slightly. The line between the two of them materialized at his feet, on the backs of his lids, and he could nearly touch it with the toe of his shoes. “Yes,” he admitted. “Thank you.” And of all the words for Adam to say, they were the easiest and hardest to accomplish.

“Thank you,” Ronan said, and if Adam didn’t know any better he would think the words sounded harder to say for Ronan than Adam. But the line clicked and fell dead before Adam could say anything. He stared at the phone for a moment until the screen switched off from disuse, leaving him in the dark. Only then did he stand and cross the room to perch on the edge of his bed.

Gansey’s head poked through his doorway. He hesitated as though asking for permission, and Adam nodded. 

“I didn’t mean to interrupt anything."

“It’s fine,” Adam hedged. “We were wrapping up.”

Gansey fell heavily into Adam’s desk chair just as he always did. “Everything alright?”

“Now it is, yeah.”

He seemed to be trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. “That wasn’t Noah, was it?”

“No, of course not.”

Gansey nodded once. “So it was Ronan.”

“What?” Adam sat up a little too quickly, blood rushing to his head. “Why would you say - how do you-?”

“You don’t exactly have a wide circle of friends. Guessing is easy.”

“I hate your knowledge of my loneliness.” He swallowed roughly. “And we’re not... friends.” 

Gansey cocked one eyebrow. His thumb raised to run over his lower lip. “Really?” He challenged.

And, well. No. Not really. Adam thought of their strings of messages, the trade of information between them so easy and simple. He couldn’t pretend that they were enemies anymore, or that their general feelings weren’t positive.

“Really,” He said, launching himself up off of his bed. Smoothing out the wrinkles in his pants, he glanced back over to his friend. Gansey was studying him with a distantly memorable expression, as though trying to discern a difficult Latin translation but determined not to ask for help. 

“Well,” Gansey said, blinking once, twice. He stood abruptly, noting Adam moving towards the door. “Let’s off, then.” “You’re not British, Gansey, don’t say that.”

“Mm, you’d know all about their phrases, wouldn’t you?”

“Do not.”

Before Adam reached the door, Gasney stopped him, saying his name so lowly Adam almost missed it. He turned and waited for Gansey to speak.

“Are you sure you can go back?” Adam mustered a smile. No, he thought, but Ronan’s voice echoed in his head. Don’t apologize. Maybe he could make it through after all, have a slightly better memory of Christmas. “Yeah, I am.” And he turned the doorknob to let them spill out into the hallway.

  ***

iMessage chat to HRH shitty bird boy

Resumed 29 December, 2019, 5:17 pm

  Look. I’m just saying.

Ignoring the fact that bearer bonds haven’t been legally in use since 1982

That henchman says that they’re valued at $100,000 USD

(£75,700 for your British ass)

and then Alan Rickman says they earn 20%

When the interest rate on corporate bonds was 9% when Die Hard came out??

And also there’s never been a US bond worth more than $10,000??

  stop letting sargent force you to watch die hard

for the love of god stop

it’s a MOVIE

  It’s not Blue, actually.

It’s your best friend.

  henry??? how??

  Netflix party

He got my number (thanks for that)

And wouldn’t stop texting insisting we watch it

Or he (as threatened) will “release the bees??”

I’m not sure what he meant but here I am. 

Accidentally desecrating Alan Rickman’s legacy.

Blue’s here too but it’s not her fault, at least.

  that asshole

how dare i not be included in everything he does

  “Why the hell is Ronan on the guest list?” Adam demanded, casting his eyes over their virtual list for what felt like the hundredth time. Planning for their New Year’s Eve fundraising event/PR dream/blowout party had been well underway since before Christmas, but crucial developments always occurred in the weeklong stretch between Christmas and New Year’s. Like the inclusion of the Prince of England on their exclusive invitation list of all the most famous and powerful twenty-somethings from around the planet.

Blue, seated sideways in an armchair and eating a container of strawberry yogurt at a glacial pace, said “I thought you added him?” 

Adam wouldn’t put it past her to add him and feign innocence - she had some hidden agenda with him and Ronan, anyway, one he wasn’t quite sure of - but her ignorance seemed genuine. At once, they both turned to Gansey. He kept his face blank.

“Good question, Adam,” he said, refusing to back down under their stares. “But the real question is why didn’t you invite him?”

Adam, too, did his best to look passive. “Why would I?”

“He’s your only friend that’s not currently in this room?”

“Plus he’s great for the press,” Blue chimed in.

Adam just looked between them, and Gansey sighed.

“Look, Adam, it’s - it’s great that you actually get along with him. Like him.”

“Do not,” Adam retorted automatically. His phone buzzed, and he felt his cheeks darken a little with the knowledge that it was probably Ronan. Gansey and Blue were probably staring at each other and having one of their silent conversations, but he didn’t trust himself to look at them without giving anything away. Not that there was anything to give away. “You invited Cheng too, right? Ronan won’t come if he doesn’t.” “Thought you didn’t care?” Blue asked, and he shrugged.

“They’ve both RSVP’d yes, Adam, so I’m sure your best friend will be there.”

“Lovely,” Adam muttered, ushering them along the rest of their planning.

Just before eight PM on the thirty-first of December, Adam curled into his desk chair with a textbook perched on his bent knees. Blue, already dressed and made up while laying spread-eagle on his bed, fiddled with the hem of her shirt. She’d managed to convince PR that a self-designed outfit would make a splash, and Adam had to agree with her - she really did have a knack for design and upcycling. 

Technically, they should have been heading down to play host to all types of young, influential people, buttering them up for cash and future favors. But much as the media loved their wild parties, none of the White House Trio were particularly fond of them. They preferred a quieter scene, but quiet didn’t raise money and make headlines. 

That didn’t mean they couldn’t hole up and enjoy the peace and quiet before then.

Gansey, who by far had the greatest social battery, was therefore left to field early attendants and the press on the lawn. He’d come and drag them out of Adam’s room soon enough, of course, but before that time came there was relative peace.

“I guess we’ll get one more of these,” Blue said. “At least.”

Adam lifted his eyes from the book and looked at her. “Yes,” he said softly. “I think I’ll miss them?”

She laughed, a deep laugh that eased a bit of the pre-party anxiety in his chest. “I won’t. I hate this party.”

“But don’t you like flirting with all the daughters of Oscar-winning actresses?”

Blue hummed. “That is fun. They’re never ready for it.”

“They never are.”

“I’ll be doing less of that this year, though.”

“And hopefully forever?” Adam teased. The sudden air of wistfulness descending around Blue gave him a hint of pause. She took a moment to respond.

”Maybe,” she muttered. “Shut up.”

Adam let it go for then, sensing genuine distress in Blue’s stiffened shoulders.

“They wouldn’t be so bad if everyone didn’t get so blacked out.”

“Well, we have liability waivers now. And I think you mean it would be worse.”

Adam sighed. “I guess no one would show up without the promise of alcohol.”

“Exactly.”

Contrary to how Blue and Gansey made him live, Adam really didn’t enjoy drinking that much. When he did, he preferred to do so quietly - sitting in the music room with the rest of the trio, celebrating a good grade with his family, breaking out something to make a night-in a little more exciting. Events like the Royal Wedding were a one-off, where he needed distraction and alcohol presented itself. 

He didn’t want to think about the need for distraction just then, with Ronan and Henry Cheng most likely en route to the White House.

A few quick, precise knocks came at the door. Gansey. He popped his head in.

“You two need to show up soon or it’s going to look suspicious,” he greeted. Blue made a tiny noise of discontent and made to turn her face into Adam’s pillow, but must have remembered her makeup and decided otherwise.

Adam heaved a sigh and stood, smoothing one hand over his hair. He’d straightened and smoothed it down for the event, knowing the cameras preferred him in all of his polished glory. He glanced between Blue and Gansey, but their gazes didn’t flicker from each other. Something about the hunger in their eyes made Adam ache, a tight knot settled in his chest. Gansey moved into the room and Adam out of it. He cast a glance through the doorway over his shoulder, trying to gauge if he should wait for them. By the low, urgent whispers carrying between them and Gansey’s hands rested on Blue’s elbows as they stood nearly flush, his presence was no longer necessary. 

Adam trailed down the hallowed halls until he reached the mingling mass of people in the East Room. He turned on his smile, trying his best to become invisible. It didn’t work. At every turn, another person grabbed his shoulder to catch up, another drink pressed into his hand, another question hurled his way. At some point, he started to feel a bit numb in the fingers, tiredness and giddiness from the schmoozing seeping into his bones.

Blue appeared at his side. Her smile had dampened somewhat, but he could tell she was enjoying herself from the set of her brows. Something, however, was off at just that moment. She inclined her head behind her, and that was all the explanation Adam needed. 

Ronan often had that upsetting effect on people. 

Adam took a moment to observe the scene. Ronan and Henry Cheng stood several feet away, engaged in conversation with Gansey, who walked backwards tidily through the crowd as though herding them towards Adam. Ronan’s face remained passive, clad in his black-leather best. Adam’s skin felt hot and itchy under his shirt, and he looked instead to Cheng. In his Madonna t-shirt, Cheng drew attention to himself in waves. Between his eccentric origin story and absently friendly expression, not to mention the excited manner in which he partook in whatever Gansey was saying, Cheng would surely be the hot commodity of the party. 

“Making friends?” Adam asked Blue, pulling a face at the same time she did. 

“He’s your best friend,” she replied just as Gansey reached them. Blue reached out a hand to stop him from colliding with them, stretching her arm so that it was almost straight, and he caught her hand easily with a squeeze.

From what Adam could tell, their conversation centered around some vague school memory from Eton, but it dissolved as soon as Blue and Adam broke their circle. The brief silence was broken quickly by Henry Cheng, who announced, “Well, if it isn’t the man with the worst opinions about Die Hard.” 

Against his will, Adam felt the corners of his lips twitch. “And the man who cried over Alan Rickman dying in Die Hard.”

Henry shrugged. “I wear my emotions proudly.”

“We fucking know,” Ronan said, breaking his silence. Adam hated how nicely the tight leather jacket accented his pale skin and high cheekbones, looking almost regal in his rebellion. “You monologued about the unbridled joy in your heart over the Madonna song playing when we first arrived.”

Henry grinned. “I will not apologize for being stable in my masculinity, Ronan, unlike all you repressed British types.”

“I need a drink,” Ronan declared loudly, plucking one from the closest tray and downing it in one graceful motion as one might serve a tennis ball. Henry did not appear phased by the sudden dramatics. 

“Now, let’s see if I get everyone.” He turned his head to Gansey, moving around the circle. “We’ve got King Ganseyman, of course. Adam Parrish, the least valid person I can think of for purely petty reasons. And of course our dear Periwinkle.”

Adam cocked a brow and subtly shifted his eyes to look at Blue. She looked fit to claw out someone’s eye even though her own eye scars were obscured in makeup; her hand had tightened significantly around Gansey’s, and he gave no indication of pain from the movement beyond the barest twitch of his mouth. 

“Clever,” she said at last, sparing him a tight, sarcastic smile. “I’ve also read the labels on nail polish to pick up a few new words. It’s nice to know you can read.”

“Yes, well, you have to start your journey to literacy somewhere,” Henry said grandly. “I appreciate your support, of course.”

Adam caught a flicker of amusement pass of Blue’s face. He had a sinking suspicion that maybe Blue wasn’t as averse to Cheng as she put on a show of. 

“Are you literate enough to read off a drink order?” she said. 

Henry grinned, white teeth lining in rows in his mouth. “I suppose I can string a few words together.”

Without letting go of Gansey, Blue surged forward, looping her other arm in Henry’s. The three of them trailed off towards the drinks, Blue and Henry moving determinedly and Gansey, bemused and grinning at their sudden acquaintanceship, lagging a step or so behind. Adam gazed after them for a moment, but Ronan took a step closer to be heard over the music and he turned his head to look at him. 

“She’s gonna have them wrapped up all night.”

Adam raised a brow. “You can read her that well?”

Ronan gave his head the tiniest, nearly imperceptible shake. “No. I know Cheng and Gansey.”

The heat of the room was starting to cling to Adam’s skin; he rolled one shoulder uncomfortably. “Of course. Eton gang’s reunited.”

“For better or worse,” Ronan agreed lowly. 

Adam meant to ask what he meant by that, but he never received the chance. A hand tapped Ronan firmly on the shoulder, and Adam watched as he turned automatically. His face broke into an uncharacteristic grin at the sight of the person behind him. Adam felt his forehead crease as the figure wrapped their arms around Ronan’s shoulders and he hugged them back almost as enthusiastically. For a moment, the only sight was the overlapping of pale and dark skin, the stranger’s feather-pink jacket contrasting with the black leather Ronan wore. 

Then the two separated, and between the black bralette, exuberant eyeshadow, and tight-coiled hair shining under the strobe lighting, Adam recognized Hennessy - up-and-coming London artist, an occasional nuisance. and precisely the type of person that thrived at these parties. 

“You bastard,” she said to Ronan. “I didn’t know you were gonna be here.”

“Henry was live-tweeting the whole flight.” 

She scoffed lightly, rubbing at an invisible spot of dirt on Ronan’s cheek. “I've had him muted since uni.”

“Don’t let him hear that you haven’t been keeping up on his page.”

“Aww, it’s sweet you worry for me, little fox, but I can take that pissant any day of the week.”

Ronan pulled back slightly. “Of course you could, but Henry goes more for psychological violence.”

“Yes, well, I can get him in that too.” Neither acknowledged Adam standing nearby. Hennessy shook her head, curls bouncing with the movement and picking up all kinds of strobe lighting. “Where is he, that shadow of yours?”

“Cheng could never be anyone’s shadow. He’s too out there.”

“And you’re the one he chooses not to abandon, hm? How sweet.” When she smiled, she looked very much like a painting, striking and set and venomous enough to burn at the slightest brush. Ronan appeared impervious.

“He’s making friends.”

“Hm. How boring.”

Ronan’s voice lowered, but Adam thought he could hear him say “Jordan’s not here?” 

Hennessy’s lips, the same vibrant shade as her lids, pulled a little tighter. “Nah,” she replied, casual enough. “Working on some deadlines, poor thing.” Her eyes flitted away from Ronan’s face for the first time, landing squarely on Adam instead. Her grin widened. “Well, there’s our treasured host. Late to your own party?”

“I have learned a few things from you over the years, Hennessy,” Adam replied, slipping a hand into his pocket in an attempt to appear more casual than he felt. 

“Fuck, I guess you have,” she admitted. Compared to Ronan’s accent, her voice sounded slipperier and rounder, sliding through the air until it reached his ears. She lifted a hand to land one last pat to Ronan’s cheek before gliding on to land a similar one to Adam. She paused briefly in front of him, lowering her hand. 

“You look happy,” she noted. Waggling her fingers in a wave, she turned back so both Adam and Ronan could see her. “I need a drink to get through all these boring political types. Ta, darlings,” she said, before disappearing back into the crowd as quickly as she had arrived. 

Adam exchanged a look with Ronan. “So you know Hennessy?”

“I’d hope so, yeah,” Ronan said, but he didn’t elaborate. “You?”

“We've met a few times.” 

“Pity,” Ronan said, standing like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. 

Adam rolled a few words around on his tongue - questions, mostly, infused with the sudden jealousy he felt simmering low in his gut - but instead all he said, so out of character, was “Do you want a drink?”

His shoulders seemed to soften slightly. “Can’t let Sargent have all the good ideas, I guess.”

“I’ll tell her you thought it was a good idea.”

“Fuck off.”

Ronan appeared a little more at ease with a drink in hand, and eventually, Adam lost him to the crowd. He stood stranded for the briefest of moments before Henry Cheng appeared, for the second time that night, at his side.

“Adam Parrish,” he said, handing off a drink that looked clear and deadly. It took his fingers a moment to remember to grab it rather than letting it splash to the ground. 

“Cheng,” Adam said, letting the déja vû wash over himself. “Thought we already had our introductions.”

“Of course,” Henry replied, tone too even and pleasant for the chaos around them. “Just wanted a chat with the movie critic, is all.”

Adam cast a skeptical eye around the room. “You’re sure this is the best place?”

“No time like the present, my friend.” Henry threw an arm around his shoulders, guiding Adam towards the dance floor and obscuring his own voice further. “How about you down that there drink and enjoy yourself? You look positively coiled and ready to strike.”

“I’d really rather not. What is it you wanted to talk about?”

“Well, if you’re so connected to sobriety, so be it,” Henry said, stealing the drink back. He nodded over Adam’s shoulder as he lowered his head back down from the drink, and when Adam glanced he saw a flash of Ronan’s leather among the crowd. “Our Ronan is looking fit, no? I’m proud of him for getting out of the house.”

“Some house,” Adam muttered, not expecting Henry to hear. All the same, his companion let out a startled laugh.

“Could say the same to you. But yes,” he said, leaning closer, “between you and me, the palace is always quite disarming.” Straightening and throwing a wave over his shoulder, Henry added, “Perhaps you have more reason to get used to it than I do, however.”

“More reason?”

Henry smiled, then, and somehow it appeared as menacing as Hennessy’s had earlier. Maybe he’d learned from her. “Friends of the royals make quite frequent trips, I’m afraid.”

“What, you’re not approved enough?”

“‘Fraid not. Heir to a fortune is not the same as First Son, Parrish, and I believe you’ve a wonderful slip of parchment ensuring just how approved you are.”

“I can’t find it in myself to be surprised you know.”

“Well, imagine being me if I didn’t!” Henry exclaimed, drawing the attention of a few popular influencers as he splashed a drink in their direction with his aggressive gesturing. “I was only on the receiving end of the HRH’s rants for three bloody years before you wrestled each other in frosting at the greatest wedding of the decade-”

“We didn’t wrestle-”

“And then you turn up a week later, acting all buddy-buddy for every camera you find - well, it would look suspicious had I not known!”

“Mhm,” Adam drawled, cutting his eyes back to Henry. “I bet Ronan can’t keep a secret from you.”

Henry grinned again, baring his teeth. “You’ve read him so well, McClane.” He sighed theatrically barely a moment later. “And debunked my argument succinctly.”

“That’s the price to pay for knowing all of Ronan’s thoughts, I suppose, Gruber.”

“Among many others. I’d expect his Niamh to know that well enough, though.”

Adam felt himself freeze as Henry’s hand came in contact with his shoulder, a friendly pat. His Niamh. As if that meant anything, as if those words fit together in any logical pattern. His Niamh, and his mother’s voice - almost golden. 

“Or you will soon enough, mate,” Henry said. “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

And Henry Cheng disappeared into the crowd, popping up laughing with Blue a few feet away.

Adam surrendered gaining any grip on this night right then.

At some point, Hennessy found him, pressing a drink into his palm - what was with all his friends and acquaintances plying him with alcohol? - and said, “Well, I’d think you were avoiding me as you have at the last two of these parties.”

“Never avoiding,” Adam defended, mustering a smile as he lifted the drink to his lips without thinking. “Just generally indisposed at events.”

“You’re making some good choices, then.”

“What’s done must be done.”

She raised a single eyebrow. “Rather defeatist of you, Golden Boy. Don’t remember that from your time on the campaign trail.”

Adam grinned. “I’m a fully realized creation. I have the capacity to change.” “There he is, bringing out the philosophy at parties.” She nodded to something that might have been Ronan if Adam focused his eyes and squinted enough. “Don’t remember him, either.”

“Have I mentioned you look fantastic?”

“I know, darling, and I note your deflection.”

“My point stands.”

“And it’s valued.” She slid an arm over his shoulders, uncomfortably warm, to lean closer to his ear. “But we’re gonna have a conversation when you’re not overwhelmed at a party you don’t want to throw. I’m serious about the ignoring.”

“I know you are.”

“Mhm. And if I were you, I’d go check on your boy. But I’m not you, so I’m going to enjoy myself.”

As quickly as she’d appeared, she slid off into the crowd, joining the numbers of people Adam had completely lost to the mob. Everyone seemed able to navigate it but him.

As the clock neared midnight and another drink disappeared from Adam’s hand, leaving his blood buzzing pleasantly through his veins, he slipped out one of the ornate double doors. He breathed in fresh air like a man coming across water in the desert, the haze around his mind clearing with every breath. He ambled to a free bench, his legs still stiff and straight from overuse. The stone bit into his long fingers as he curled his hand around the bench seat, but he welcomed the feeling because it was so far from the thriving mass of bodies indoors.

At some point, he opened his eyes again. His eyes had briefly registered another figure outdoors by the statue when he first exited. Only once his eyes were open and scanning did he recognize the figure, a silhouette of black leather cut harshly from the ethereal white exterior of the Residence.

“Everything okay?” He called to Ronan.

“Yeah,” Ronan replied without turning to face him. “Just...getting some air.”

It was easier to associate this Ronan with the one he heard on the phone - so far from that royal persona projected everywhere, a voice in a face with no expectations on it. Ronan could have been anyone, his accent lax and his posture eerily straight in a contrast that made Adam feel a bit winded. 

“It’s loud in there,” he admitted.

Ronan didn’t respond, but Adam’s statement wasn’t one that required response. 

“I thought this would be more your scene,” Adam finally said, challenge creeping into his voice. He wasn’t sure if it was a genuine challenge or if he was just falling back on old habits instead of saying something he might regret.

“And I didn’t think it would be yours.”

“Fair enough, since it’s not.”

Ronan threw him a glance over one shoulder at that. “Makes perfect sense to throw this function, then.”

“Well, the media doesn’t exactly eat up overpriced textbooks and econ calculations, so I do what I can.”

“Mm,” Ronan hummed in something that sounded like agreement. “They do love the sex, drugs, and rock and roll, even in places it’s not happening.”

Adam stood, placing his hands on his knees like he had bad joints. “Unless if you actually went to 239 parties last year, I’d guess you know all about that exaggeration.”

“Do you stalk my tabloids, Parrish? The fuck?”

“No, Gansey does. With everybody. He just reads all his findings to me.”

“Terrifying,” Ronan muttered. “If I die of mysterious circumstances, you’ll both be on the shortlist of suspects.” “What?” Adam challenged. “You’ll keep it in the breast pocket of your blazer?”

“Sure,” Ronan replied. “I have to keep it folded up close to my heart, of course. Keep your lovers close but enemies closer.”

Ronan tilted his head in the direction of the statue, silently beckoning Adam to stand by him. It felt a bit like a confession, like his permission implied passing some silent test.

Briefly, in his buzzing brain, he wondered what side of that spectrum he fell on. 

“Did you get sick of watching Blue and Gansey?”

Adam shrugged, pulling to a stop just next to Ronan. He kicked absently at the ground with his toe. “A bit.”

“That has to have been a weird development to get used to.”

“A bit,” Adam repeated.

“Still, it hasn’t been too long.”

“I think they’ve been a thing for longer,” Adam admitted.

Ronan turned his head, and suddenly Adam felt the icy cool of his eyes trained on Adam’s face. “Why?”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems obvious, looking back. They’ve clearly been together for a while. August, at least.” He crossed his arms over his chest, the December-January chill suddenly settling over him. “I think they were...protecting me.”

Ronan snorted, the gesture not a bit princely. “Protecting you?”

Adam fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt.

“I’m damaged goods, Highness,” he said at length. “I’m fragile.”

Even though Adam didn’t turn to him, he felt Ronan’s eyes probe deeper as though imploring Adam to look back to him. “That’s a fucking lie,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.

Adam snorted, but Ronan was not deterred.

“You’re not fragile,” he repeated. “If you’re fragile, the world is being held up by - by dental floss and craft glue. No, a weak person couldn’t do what you do. Bullshit for the cameras at least once a week, keep up your grades, work on policy with Czerny, keep up your ratings so that they never dip - that’s too much for someone who is fragile.”

“Oh, then you must be superhuman, with all the bullshitting you do.”

“Of course I am, Parrish,” Ronan said, turning his eyes up and away from Adam.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, elbows rested on the cold metal fence guarding the statue. The night sky hung above them, pale in all of the light pollution of the city, but if Adam strained he could see the faint points carving themselves into the sky and drawing themselves into pictures and promises. Ronan’s heat radiated next to him, leather almost snagging on cotton. The fact that this was their first time seeing each other in person since the hospital photo-op did not escape Adam’s notice, but neither did the easy way in which they managed to coexist despite the time and distance removing them from that point.

When the moment grew too heavy, he said, “Did you look at my Wikipedia page?”

“No.”

Adam arched an eyebrow.

“...Matthew may have done some light Googling.”

Adam laughed. It wasn’t his carefree camera laugh, the ones that kept up his ratings, but it was a laugh nonetheless, one that dispersed through the air as though worried it could be stolen away at any moment. Ronan’s face shuttered abruptly. His expression became inscrutable, and Adam didn’t realize he’d looked happy until he no longer did.

All at once, Adam remembered the line separating them, and he felt certain they were touching it with their feet almost overlapping, face to face and chest to chest.

“You didn’t have to come,” Adam said softly, his normal voice suddenly feeling far too loud for the little bubble forming around them, devoid of anyone else. “Not if you didn’t want to.”

Ronan didn’t speak for a moment, by choice or to gather his words, Adam didn’t know. “I did.”

Adam just shook his head, choosing to stand in comfortable silence. A star winked in the sky.

“Non est ad astra mollis e terris via,” Ronan whispered, his lips barely movin g. There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.

“Itaque imus ad astra, per aspera,” Adam replied, barely thinking about it. So we go through hardships to the stars.

Ronan visibly started at his use of Latin. Adam smirked as if you say you’re not the only one with a posh education.

“Shooting for the stars, Highness?”

Rona turned his eyes back to the sole bright star. “I might as well be.”

“I’d doubt whatever it is that’s bothering you is as hopeless as that.”

Adam couldn’t take his eyes off of Ronan, noting the way his lips thinned. “Oh, but it is. In my position. In my life.”

“Non ergo qui in vobis sunt terminum tibi.”

Ronan turned his head toward Adam again, and Adam felt a spark of fear over what he might do if he turned his head to meet Ronan’s eyes, blue as a never-ending lake stretching on and on until he drowned against the sand.

He turned his head anyway. The stars suspended above them, the leaves ceasing to rustle and shuffle, the party inside fading away until everyone disappeared into nothingness. Ronan lifted one hand from the railing and slid it along Adam’s cheek, his skin heating and jolting at the touch like Ronan himself was made of electricity and stardust, like the galaxies that Adam had once been were meeting their long lost particles in Ronan’s hand. In Ronan’s eyes, he could have sworn he heard words turning over and over.

Adam heard him whisper, then, the words that must have been bouncing in his head. “Pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death,” he muttered, the tail-end of something Adam couldn’t quite place. He parted his lips to speak just before Ronan kissed him.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not, he didn’t worry that he was kissing someone - kissing Ronan . For once in his life, he forgot about everything else. He didn’t worry about anyone inside or what anyone might think. That would come later.

Ronan’s lips pressed to his, and he tried to string a coherent thought together but was instead met with abstract, overjoyed ideas floating aimlessly in his brain instead. 

The press of Ronan against him was hard, sharp lines and corners poking into his chest and his hips and his legs, but his lips were soft and Adam tasted whiskey and powdered sugar on Ronan’s tongue and Ronan’s teeth flashed against his lip and he thought he might die, that the feeling may kill him if he did that again.

He didn’t have a chance to test that hypothesis, because Ronan pulled back and stepped away so quickly Adam almost fell forward onto his face. And then he hurried away, leaving Adam standing like an idiot outside of the White House ballroom at a party he was supposed to be hosting after just kissing a male member of the monarchy.

His only thought was, absently, if they’d kissed at midnight.

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Flatbush & Atlantic: part iv

And here’s part iv! I’d love it if y’all would reblog, this is a work I’m really proud of and the more people it’s shared with the better! My inbox is always open, and I’d love to hear your thoughts, even if it’s just “AAAAAH.” Enjoy!

part i part ii part iii

part iv

December 12

Cass grimaced, looking over at the tab on her laptop that had the Islanders game open. They were down 3-1 late in the third, and it didn’t look like they were going to be able to pull it off. It was the last game of a ten day roadie, and they had lost all but one against the Red Wings right at the beginning. And the Wings were 10-21, so it wasn’t even a confidence booster. To make matters worse, Mat was on a points drought; he hadn’t gotten an assist, let alone scored, since the first game of the trip, a 4-1 loss to the Blue Jackets. They also were playing a few players down, an MCL sprain and the ever-vague “lower body injury” kept the team from being at full strength. 

As the game came to a close, she didn’t even know if Mat wanted to talk to her. His relentless dedication was one of her favorite things about him, but it also led him to take things way too personally and be way too hard on himself even when  — especially when  — the situation didn’t call for it. He was probably beating himself up as the boys headed back into the locker room, being short with his teammates and trainers and whatever poor sports reporter had been sent to ask “how they planned on snapping this unfortunate streak” in the post-game interviews. He’d never be deliberately mean or unkind to anyone, but just like anyone, her boyfriend got stressed and overwhelmed and didn’t always know how to deal with it. I saw the game, she texted him, I’m proud of you. Call me if you want. 

Dec. 15 (wed)

Mat had barely spoken to her since the return from the roadie, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Texts were responded with single words, if they were answered at all. They were supposed to have visited the Met yesterday , but that hadn’t happened either. He had cancelled, saying that “some team thing came up” and he wouldn’t be able to make it. Barely apologized. And what pissed Cass of more than almost anything was that she wanted to help, she wanted so badly for him to just talk to her, she wouldn’t judge him or make him feel like he was a shitty player or a shitty person, but she couldn’t do that if he wasn’t even picking up her damn calls. Who do you talk to when there’s almost nobody in the world who understands the position you’re in? 

Maybe that was just it. She’d go to the people who did understand. Paige had added her to the WAGs Whatsapp group the week prior, and from everything she had gathered so far, it was exactly the sort of place to go for advice. Cass pulled up the chat, torn between not wanting to seem like she was oversharing but not really sure what else she could do. Hey, guys, she started. Mat’s been taking the losing streak pretty personally (as I’m sure a lot of your guys are) and seems to be pulling away. Any advice? I don’t want to push him but I know it’ll get worse if he just keeps it all bottled inside. Clicking send, Cass sighed, leaning back in her desk chair and trying desperately to study for her Environmental Law final. 

At some point after midnight, she closed her books and laptop with frustration. The test wasn’t until next week, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to study as distracted as she was. She grabbed her phone, heading to the bathroom to brush her teeth and check the group chat. No fewer than six of the women had written back, some of whom she hadn’t even met, with long, sympathetic paragraphs overflowing with advice. She read them all, touched by the time, effort, and care that everyone has put into making her feel just a little less anxious. But the overwhelming message was clear. Find balance, but don’t let him blow you off. Be a support system, but you’re not his therapist. And repeated again and again, Talk to him. 

She tapped out a message before she turned her bedside lamp off, hoping that with morning would finally come a proper response from Mat. Can we meet for coffee tomorrow morning? You know as well as I do that we need to talk. I’ll be at Donahue’s at 8. 

Read: 12:23 AM

Dec. 16 (thurs)

Her foot tapped nervously, hands clasped tightly around the cup in front of her and beanie pulled over her head, curls poking out from under. He had read the text, but Cass had no clue if Mat was actually going to show up or not. He hadn’t responded. It was ten past eight, and Cass was just about ready to give up and head to school early. She had just put her laptop back in her bag when she caught Mat out of the corner of her eye. He gave her a small smile, equal parts nervous and almost  — bothered? “Hey,” he said softly, unzipping his puffer coat and sliding into the chair opposite her. “You said you wanted to talk?”

Suddenly, the whole elaborate speech Cass had prepared, about letting her in and supporting him and communication, left her mind. “Yeah.”

“So, talk,” Mat said, with a slight edge to his voice. 

She looked down at her cup. “I get that you’re disappointed about the losing streak. I get it and I’m sorry that you’re not doing as well as you hoped —”

“I don’t think you do get it, Cassidy —”

She cut him off. “Let me finish, Mathew. I’m sorry that you’re not doing as well as you hoped, and I do get how shitty it is when you know you’re putting in the time and effort and practice and it doesn’t seem like anything’s working, but you’ve barely talked to be about any of it.”

“‘Cause I don’t want to,” Mat mumbled. 

Cass leaned back in her chair. “And I get that. I get if you don’t want to talk to me. But you’re not talking to anyone. You’re not talking to Tito, I asked him and he said you’ve been just as closed-off with the team. You’re not talking to any of the other guys. And I’d bet you’re not talking to your parents or your sister either.”

No one gets it!” Mat said in frustration, a little louder than was necessary. “I go through so much shit and have so much pressure on me and…” He trailed off for a minute. “I don’t want to disappoint the team, I don’t want to disappoint the fans. I don’t want to disappoint my family. I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“Everyone had their ups and downs,” Cass started.

“And I get that,” Mat said, holding his head in his hands and looking down at her coffee cup. The same white-and-blue one he had gotten her two months earlier. “But it’s hard. It’s hard when I’m feeling like the fans aren’t getting what they deserve when they come to games, and like I’m not worth what they’re paying me right now. I know you want to, but you don’t get it.”

Cass looked away, turning her eyes to the street. The sidewalk was dusted in white, turning to slush every time someone walked past. It was the first snow of the year. “Then help me to.”

He breathed out, finally relaxing a little. “It’s not that easy.”

“I want to help you,” Cass said, leaning over the table and clasping his hands in hers. “But you can’t keep freezing me out like this, chou. It’s not fair to you and it’s not fair to me.”

Mat closed his eyes, leaning into her touch. “I just don’t want this to become your thing too. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. I know right now kind of sucks for me but that’s just how it is sometimes, you know? It’s just how it is and I have to get over it. I have to get over myself.”

“Mat, your well-being and mental health isn’t something you can just ‘get over.’ Or even something you should. I’m not a professional, and if you need one that’s something we can find,” Mat wrinkled his face, and Cass was pointedly reminded how often men’s mental health was ignored, “but I’m here for you to talk to. Whatever you need, I’m here for you.”

He ran his thumb over her hand. “But you didn’t sign up for this.”

Cas shook her head. “Mathew Barzal. This is exactly what I signed up for. I’m pretty smart,” he cracked a smile, “and I knew what I was getting myself into. Dating someone with such an unconventional job and schedule can be stressful, and frustrating, and confusing for everyone involved. But I chose it, Mat. I chose you.”

Dec. 21 (mon)

For once, Cass wasn’t headed straight home after work, or headed to a game, or — God forbid — back to the library to study. Her last final had been that morning, and she was free for three blessed weeks until the New Year. Which meant that she didn’t have to worry about turning in another essay or memorizing another case, which meant that she was more than free to go to the team Christmas party with Mat later that night. He had somehow been coerced into hosting, and Cass had promised to get to his apartment early to help set up. He was mostly done by the time she got there, so “setting up” turned out to mean setting up the bar and putting out snacks, Cass mixing up an enormous pitcher of her favorite sangria, a signature standby from her sorority’s Wine Wednesdays. 

Mat had even put up a proper Christmas tree, and Cass smiled at the piney scent as she headed down the hallway, bag in hand. “Cool if I change in your room?” She shouted down the hall at Mat, who was currently engrossed in pouring a bowl full of chocolate-covered pretzels. “Yeah, go for it,” he called back. Cass didn’t have a lot of excuses to dress up, but liked taking advantage when the occasion called for it. Her dress was short, red satin with a slit on one side and silver embellishment on the other. She used his bathroom to touch up her makeup, swiping her burgundy lipstick on and double-checking her brows. Cass shoved her work clothes back into her backpack, tossing it onto the plush armchair in the corner of his room. 

She walked down the hallway, which was pretty much bare save for a few pictures of his friends from home and one with his family on the day he was drafted. She was kind of surprised that Mat owned a single picture frame. Cass sat on the couch in his living room, looking at the Christmas tree. There were one or two Islanders ornaments, a paper Santa that she assumed had been a kindergarten art project, a photo of his family around the fireplace that looked like it had been taken a year or two earlier. Mat wrapped his arms around her, hugging her from behind. “Whatcha looking at, babe?” 

She smiled. “Your ornaments. They’re really pretty.”

“Not  as pretty as you.”

The door rang, Mat kissing her quickly before walking across the room to open it. A group of the younger players piled in, mostly rookies and call-ups from Bridgeport. One of them had brought along a keg of beer, and Cass had to fight back a laugh while showing him to the kitchen and setting it on the counter. He was just out of college, she’d stake her life on it. By the time she’d secured the keg and started getting people set up with drinks, the living room had started to fill up. “What can I get you?” She asked Paige, who had left Tito with the boys by the tree and made her way over to Cass. 

“What are my chances of getting a Moscow mule?” Paige asked. “I don’t want to be a difficult guest, but,”

“Very good,” Cass said, turning around and grabbing the vodka and ginger ale. “We don’t have the proper mugs though, so don’t be complaining.” One shot of vodka. Half a can of ginger ale. Squeeze a lime. She had bartended for a little over a year when she first moved to New York, and it was still one of her favorite things to do for friends. Mixing herself a whiskey sour, Cass wandered back over to Mat and Tito. 

---

It was well past eleven and the party was nowhere near stopping. While everyone was conscious of the noise level — for the most part, she had seen a few of the guys being reminded to use their inside voices — the conversations were still going and the drinks were still flowing. Cass had passed the tipsy point somewhere around 10:30, though she was nowhere near as hammered as some of the team. Or their dates, for that matter. She was cuddled up against Mat on the couch, heels long having since been abandoned and nursing what she was pretty sure was a vodka sprite with way too much vodka and way too little sprite. Whatever, Cass thought ruefully as she tipped the last of it back. It gets the job done. 

Mat was a touchy drunk, Cass had learned, and one hand seemed to have taken up permanent residence at her waist while he sipped a beer with the other. “What do you think Christmas will be like for you?” Cass asked softly, tilting up her head to look at him. “Since you won’t be with your family.” Mat knew it was a possibility, but he was still pretty upset when he looked at the schedule and realized that his family wasn’t going to be able to fly out to spend the holidays with him, and he didn’t have enough time to go back out to Vancouver. 

Her parents had extended the invitation for Mat to spend Christmas with them when she had been back up for Thanksgiving; he couldn’t make Christmas Day, but was able to carve out two days to visit. He smiled at her, leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “You’re cute when you’re worried, y’know that?” Cass scrunched up her nose. “It’s not like I’m going to be alone. I’m doing Christmas with Beau, since Paige’ll be out of town too, and some of the guys usually plan a nice dinner thing for anyone who’s not with family.”

“That sounds nice,” Cass noted, still feeling a pang of guilt. 

“Hey,” Mat said, noticing her distraction. He sat up, turning her face to look towards him. “I’ll be fine. I’m a grown-ass man.” 

Cass cocked an eyebrow. “Sure about that?”

Mat giggled. “Okay, okay, fine. Point taken. But yeah, it would be nice to have my family, but I kind of do, y’know?” He said, nodding around to the guys. Cass could have sworn that in that moment, her heart melted. “And I want you to spend time with yours. I’d be kind of a shitty boyfriend if I didn’t want you to.” Mat leaned in, and his lips brushed against hers so that they were almost touching but not quite, hesitantly. Cass pressed against him, her fingers finding purchase in the baby hairs at the nape of his neck. She loved that he was letting his hair grow out. He tasted like whiskey and tequila and some cheap beer that she was pretty sure was Natty Light, but she couldn’t have cared less, just like she ignored the not-so-subtle wolf-whistles from the teammates. 

Everyone started clearing out around midnight, a few staying to help stuff cans and bottles into trash bags that were left unceremoniously in the kitchen to be dealt with the next morning. Cass yawned, rubbing her eyes. She had sobered up some, but was still well past the legal limit. “Whatcha doing?” Mat asked, seeing her about to order an Uber.

“Calling a ride?” Cass questioned.

“Why don’t you just stay?” Mat asked haltingly. “If you want.” Cass had obviously been over to his place before, multiple times, but hadn’t stayed the night yet. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, because she did, but it was something that was a big step for her. That meant a lot to her. But it was late, and she was sleepy, and Mat did make a really good pillow. “Okay,” she conceded. 

Mat smiled, taking her hand and leading her back to his bedroom. He rummaged through his dresser, grabbing an old Thunderbirds t-shirt and athletic shorts and handing them to her as she walked into his ensuite. “I don’t have stuff to get your makeup off, but there is soap?” He offered. 

Cass laughed. “I brought some wipes, but thank you. That’s really sweet.” She changed and took her makeup off, finding a spare toothbrush in one of the drawers and brushing her teeth. She popped out after a few minutes. Mat was already changed, dressed in pyjama pants and a comfy-looking heathered grey top. “The red toothbrush is mine now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, cracking a smile. A few minutes later, she had claimed the left side of the bed and he had come back from the bathroom. They were lazily kissing, Mat’s hand just barely brushing the skin on her waist from where the shirt had ridden up. Cass was still tipsy and she knew Mat wouldn’t try anything, not like this, but God, it was nice just to feel close to him. After a few minutes he pulled back, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear that had fallen out of the loose messy bun she had thrown together. “What’s running through your head, babe?” He murmured. 

Cass looked down, biting her lip. She was usually good with emotions, good with communication, but something about Mat made her heart skip a beat and brain go into overdrive all at once, and somehow she was convinced that it was the best feeling in the world. “I’m just really happy right now,” she breathed. “It’s Christmas, with our friends, and you...It’s everything I could want.” 

Mat gave the softest smile. “You, with me, right now? That’s all I could want, Cass.”

Dec 22. (wed)

Cass zipped her suitcase shut, double-checking that she had everything she’d need for her two weeks in Connecticut. It wasn’t a big deal if she forgot something, there was probably some stuff left in her old dresser, and her little sister Eliana was about the same size. Mat had just texted that he was almost there. Cass grabbed her backpack and suitcase, stopping for a moment to pop out the final few chocolates on the Advent calendar her mom had sent down. She closed her bedroom door, wishing a harried goodbye to Ryanne and Stella, and ambled down the stairs as fast as her bags would allow her. She didn’t want Mat to have to double-park and risk getting a ticket. 

True to his word, Mat was just pulling up when she came out of the building, waving one hand and double-checking the street was clear before flipping his hazards on and hopping out to help her put her bags in the trunk. Kissing him on the cheek in thanks, Cass slid into the passenger’s side, giving Mat a very pointed look when she saw that the first song on his playlist was Justin Bieber. “Don’t make fun of me,” he mumbled, blushing. 

“Who said I’m making fun of you?” Cass said lightly, trying and failing to hide her smile. 

They had decided that Mat would make the drive, since he was only staying two nights they had figured it would make more sense. The directions had been plugged into the Bluetooth system, and they had just made it out of the city when Mat looked over at the passenger’s seat, furrowing his brow when he saw Cass’s expression. Something was bothering her. “What’s up, babe?”

She bit her lip. “Nothing.”

“C’mon, we both decided we weren’t going to do this anymore. You don’t have to tell me if you really don’t want to, but I think you want to talk.”

Cass looked down at her lap. “I got a letter from the company that’s handling my student loans.”

“I thought you didn’t have any debt?” Mat asked quizzically.

She let out a single, humorless laugh. “That was for undergrad, and that was only because I was really, really lucky. I got some money from the school and I worked some, but that only covered about half of my costs? A little less?” 

“Which leaves you with how much?”

“A hundred and ten thousand dollars, give or take. They were sending me the payment schedule, I have to start paying it back late next year.” 

Mat breathed out. He knew that Cass didn’t come from money, but being from Canada and not having gone to college himself, he wasn’t really aware of just how debilitating student debt could get. “Do your parents know?” He asked gently.

Cass picked at a loose thread on her scarf. “Yeah. They helped as much as they could, but there’s three of us and they’re not made of money. “I, uh,” she paused briefly, “I told you I went to private school, yeah?” Mat nodded. “Catholic school doesn’t come cheap, so I was actually on work-study at my high school, which helped a lot. But I hated it.”

“Your school?” He questioned. 

She shook her head. “No, I loved my school. It was great. I just hated feeling like a charity case. My school’s in a pretty well-off neighborhood, so most of the families there had money, and some were like proper ‘old money’ New Englanders. I had some great friends and nobody ever really outwardly was an ass about it if they knew, but still…” She trailed off.

“You felt like you never quite fit in.” Mat finished.

She nodded. “It was hard and it sucked sometimes, but that’s just how it is, I guess,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. 

Two hours later, Mat pulled into Manchester, following Cass’s directions down the winding roads and corners of her hometown. “Do you think they’ll like me?” He asked nervously, eyes flitting between Cass and the road in front of him. 

Her brow furrowed. “Who? My family?” Mat nodded. “My family’s going to love you. You’re kind and you treat me with respect. That’s all they’ve ever wanted for me. And my brother already worships the ground you walk on, practically,” she added with a smile. 

“He’s a junior, yeah?” 

“Mhm,” she responded. Cass’s younger brother Noah was a junior in high school, and one of the best players on his club hockey team. Hockey didn’t run cheap and he had been lifeguarding the past few summers to pay for it, but it was all starting to pay off and he was having some interest shown by college scouts. 

Mat pulled up beside the curb in front of her house, killing the engine and shoving the keys back into his pocket. Cass popped the trunk and took her backpack, while Mat got his duffel and her suitcase. She reached for his hand as they walked up the driveway, giving it a reassuring squeeze as she rang the doorbell. 

“Cass!” Eliana squealed, hugging as much of her sister as she could manage around the bags. “Put your bags by the door, Dad’s grilling out back and I think Mom’s making your bed.” Mat had had an afternoon game and the two had left not long after, so it was dinnertime and Cass was ravenous. “Grilling in December?” She questioned. 

Eliana shrugged, closing the door behind them. “You know Patrick, you go be the one to tell the man he can’t make burgers in the winter.” She turned to Mat, also greeting him with a hug. “You must be Mat, Cass talks about you a lot.” 

Cass swatted her. “El!”

Mat chuckled. “Yeah. Mat Barzal, nice to meet you. Good things, I hope?”

“Only the best,” Eliana said, leading them through to the back porch, where her dad was grilling on the patio while Noah was doing sprints up and down the lawn. He almost fell when he spotted Cass and Mat, causing Mat to have to hide a laugh behind his hand. Her dad turned around, setting the spatula down when he saw them. Mat swallowed, sticking out his hand for a shake. “Mat Barzal, sir.”

“Call me Patrick. Good to meet you Mat, go get settled and we should have dinner ready in a few, okay?” Mat nodded. “Noah, pick your jaw up off the floor and go help them with their things, okay?” Noah ducked his head, brushing the dirt off his shorts before jogging over to where Mat and his sisters were on the porch. 

“Do I hear my Cassidy?” Cass could hear her mom inside, walking down the hallway with Noah and Mat before she ran into her by her old bedroom. “It’s me, Mom!” Cass said excitedly, hugging her mom. Mat initially went for another handshake, but she shooed it away, embracing him. “We’re huggers in this family,” she said by way of explanation, pulling away after a moment. “Ysabel Cabrera, so nice to finally meet you, Mat.” 

Mat smiled. “It’s great to finally meet you too.”

Ysabel pointed down the hall. “Noah’s got bunk beds, so you’ll be with him in there, it’s the last door on the left. Cass, I trust you still can find your room.”

“Yes, mamá,” Cass said, rolling her eyes. “See you in a few, chou.” He kissed her on the cheek, under the watchful eye of her mom, and followed Noah down the hall. 

---

Two hour later, Mat and Cass were cuddled together on the living room couch, his arm slung around her as they half-watched reruns of Parks & Rec. “D’you just want to do presents now?” He asked, looking down at her. “Because I know we’ve got plans tomorrow, and I don’t see how it really matters if we’re not going to be together Christmas Day.”

Cass looked up. “Uh, sure, if you want?” 

“Meet you back in a minute,” Mat said, hopping off of the couch and disappearing down the hall. Cass rolled her eyes, walking into her room, grabbing the envelope, and returning to the living room. Mat got up when she entered, proudly handing her a surprisingly well-wrapped present. 

“You look very pleased with your work,” Cass noted, laughing. 

“I watched a Youtube tutorial,” Mat admitted, “but did you know that there’s so much that goes into folding neat corners? It’s practically an art!”

“I’ll take you word for it,” Cass said, handing him his envelope. “Open yours first.”

Mat sat back down, running his thumb through the flap and pulling out a coupon. He looked at it quizzically for a minute. “Beer delivery?”

“Craft beer delivery,” Cass corrected pointedly. “Because I don’t want you to have to resort to Natty Light ever again. I saw your fridge, it’s actually the worst. You need taste, babe.” Mat snorted. “And they deliver to Canada, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on the offseason.” 

“I love it, pretty girl,” Mat said, kissing her. “Now open yours.” Cass carefully popped the corners open, unfolding the wrapping paper. My Beloved World - Sonia Sotomayor. “You said once that you really admire her, and I didn’t see it on your bookshelf, so I thought you’d like it.”

“I do, I love it. I love that you remembered even more,” Cass added. 

But Mat wasn’t done. “Open it,” he said expectantly.

Confused though she was, Cass opened the cover of the book. “It’s...signed? She said softly, reverently tracing her fingers over the inscription. 

“Yeah.” Mat went on, explaining, “I found it in this little bookstore in Brooklyn, and knew I had to get it for you. Knew what it would mean to you.”

“It’s incredible. You’re incredible. I can’t believe you’d do something like that for me.” 

Their foreheads touched. “Why wouldn’t I?” Mat whispered. “It’s for you.” 

And in that moment, there was nothing anyone could do to take away how happy that made her feel. How happy he made her feel. 

[almondharry]

the pages of summer

Prompt: Romance 101: Y/N is participating in a study abroad program for school when she meets Harry; who is in the same place writing his new album.

This is prompt 12 of @always-jackedup Sarah’s 25 days of summer challenge. This is my first time writing a y/n blurb! Here is what I came up with! Do give a click to the other prompts done by the talented authors who are apart of this!

word count: 9k

————

Studying abroad for a semester was Alice’s idea. She was the loud-mouthed girl who had taken the empty seat beside you in your freshman Intro to Asian Civilization course. You’ve been super glued at the hip for as long as you can remember; she’s the first number on your speed dial, the only one who can make sense of your nervous ramblings. The building blocks of this friendship stacked up one after the other, from stressing over impending midterms to complaining about shitty boys, and of course, empty tequila bottles.

She was the type of girl who thought going to the movies alone was embarrassing, so it wasn’t a surprise when she claimed she needed someone to go halfway across the world with.

“Think of it as a grad trip!” she exclaims with arms thrown in the air, her eyebrows almost touching her hairline.

The carpet on the floor is itchy against your bare thighs from where you’re sitting on her bedroom floor, legs pretzled. Your finger twirls the loose fray of your denim shorts.

Alice has a huge rectangular cardboard display in front of her, the type students used for science fairs, but without the flaps on the right and left. It’s no longer the plain white that you remember it being when she bought it from the dollar store years ago. Instead, it’s full of cut outs in all different shapes and sizes; you particularly like the tiny airplane stickers dotted at the right corner. Your eyes catch a magazine article clipping—Travel on a budget now!—and a picture of some exotic beach; the highly saturated water meant she pulled it off of google images. This moodboard has been a work in process for as long as can be.

Alice started it as a motivator to get her through the times where she desperately wanted to drop out of university. She’d always said that she would reward herself with a trip at the end of her studies.

“We’re not graduating for another semester, Alice.”

“So what? Let’s call it a pre-grad trip! We owe it to ourselves!” She gathers her pin straight hair an inch below the crown of her head before fastening the shiny black strands with an elastic from around her wrist. “You’ll be off to law school and I’ll be starting a full-time job. We can’t really push it to after graduation now, can we?”

A gust of air leaves your lungs in a sigh. She’s right, there is no denying it. Who knows what flexibility your schedules will allow if you delay this into the future. You recall back to the relentless hours you spent in preparations of your LSAT exams. You had deprived yourself from a social life for months, studying for the most important test in your life did take off some years of your life span. Now that your acceptance letter came in you think you can treat yourself to jetting away for a semester with a great friend. You’ve earned it, you tell yourself.

Alice is looking at you with expecting eyes. The anticipation that gleams in her eyes is childlike, the look is enormously similar to a little kid about to open a christmas present they’ve been yearning for.

As a smile slowly crawls on your lips, her eyes double with realization. You agree. The rate at which she jumps up and throws her lanky arms around your neck suggests someone lit a round of firecrackers under her. Her high pitched squeals leave your left ear ringing.

You roll your eyes and laugh into her bony shoulder. “Alright, alright! Let’s bring the globe.”

***

The reason why Alice and you get along so well is because you agree on the same things. You’ve decided to stray away from common study abroad places such as London, New York, Toronto, for your semester. You want to experience life somewhere completely different. Also the fact that those placements have already been snatched up by other students narrows down your pool of options by quite a bit.

You both settle on the city of Tariz. It is a secluded area with a decent population, not large enough to be a well known staple city, but enough to have a bustling sense of community. Their language is a mix of Turkish and broken English.

The brochure you are given and the exploratory google searches here and there only feed your excitement.

Most of the architecture of the city is ancient. High arches and intricate stones decorate multiple streets. The streets are more like tight valleys, the rusted bricked walls of neighboring houses and stores transport you into another time period completely. There is even a dated sculpture planted in the middle of the town circle, it’s details are so well preserved that it seems life like—you’re dying to feel the smooth stone under your fingertips.

Your laptop displays all the potential flight times and costs. With a tap of your finger, the plane ticket is confirmed.

***

The first words you learn are Kirree and Poffasa.

Kirree is local drink of Tariz. It’s a bitter coffee with a splash of milk and two drops of essence that smells like roses. You prefer to sweeten it with honey, rather than sugar. Poffasa translates to please. The combination of these words are used every time you step into the corner shop located on Cardin Street.

The bell clanks above you and signals the worker behind the counter of your arrival. A welcoming grin pulls at his lips, you’ve come in enough times for him to remember your name. He knows to talk to you with more hand gestures and use short words.

You found this family owned cafe on your second week here. It’s situated beside a book store and a florist. There is an open patio outside which you take advantage of every once in a while when the humidity won’t poof up your hair. When the wind blows your way, it carries a strong scent of light florals—it’s quite poetic. It’s also only a ten minute walk from the university you are taking your courses at and two streets down from the apartment Alice and you rent.

“Kirree?” The man behind the counter—Amjad—inquires with a raised brow.

“Poffasa.” You smile.

He taps your order into the system and you drop some copper coins in the cup of his palm. Amjad moves with ease behind the counter, his fancy coffee machine makes a churning sound as he holds the rim of a cup to its long narrow mouth. He stirs milk and essence in a way you’ve seen him do countless times. Although you miss seeing a Starbucks within every ten steps, you’re grateful that you are able to experience a sip of someone else’s culture.

Amjad passes you the drink, it’s a simple latte cup with a bleach white plate at the bottom. Another smile is exchanged between you two, this is usually where the conversation stops.

“Tib tu,” you say. It’s a casual thanks people say to one another, you had picked it up recently.

Amjad’s eyes brighten up instantly. His smile becomes impossibly wide in a way that tells you he’s proud of your slowly developing ability to communicate. You can’t hold a fluent conversation just yet, but enough to keep a casual one going.

“Tib tu!” He laughs and wipes the counter with the rag previously rested on his shoulder.

You are engrossed into your course review settled at a circular table. Your laptop informs you of the requirements for the essay due next week, you crack open the novel and highlight potential quotes to help support your thesis. It is a simple Wednesday afternoon, business is slow, which is ideal because it doesn’t interrupt your concentration.

Hours pass by and you bob your head every once in a while to the soft radio filling the small shop. Neon yellow ink bleeds over a particular line you find interesting when the bells above the door chime and bring in a gust of humid air. Your upper lip curls in disdain momentarily because of the thick sticky air cuts through the coolness of the AC. You lick the pad of your index finger and flip the page.

The steady thump of boots against the floor gets louder as the person nears the counter to your right. Amjad had ducked in the back a moment ago so the customer waits patiently. This would’ve been fine, but then they begin to whistle a tune under their breath. Your focus on the essay in front of you shatters like delicate china.

You look up to see the artist behind this pesky noise. From your position, you are granted the view of his side profile and your eyes widen gradually. Sharp jaw, wavy hair, high cheekbones. He is cute. Something about him screams so familiar; maybe it’s because he has the same build as your ex or maybe the tattoo on his arm is close to the one Alice has. Your brain tells you you’ve seen him before, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

Amjad comes out from behind swinging doors and your head drops back to your books.

“Zerki! Tim tu ga?”

“I’m sorry—English only.” It’s a British accent, the words are timid and he blends the first two together.

“Ah!” Amjad nods quickly with a wide, understanding smile. You can tell he is excited because this is a new customer. Although this cafe isn’t a tourist location, the university located near it brings in countless study abroad students. You assume he is another student somewhere from Britain.

Amjad swipes a plastic menu from behind him before placing it in front of the customer. You remember him showing you this on your first day here. The descriptions didn’t help much because it wasn’t in English, but the corresponding pictures did clarify some fog.

He puckers his lips and the deep frown between his brows is enough to say he hasn’t been in this city for more than a couple days. His index finger taps a picture and he looks up expectantly to Amjad. You pick up bits and pieces of the conversation. He is trying to ask a question about an ingredient, but Amjad thinks that’s what he wants to order. There is a lot of hand gestures and frowns and crumpled brows as they try to understand each other. This goes on for about five minutes until Amjad looks around the shop with a sigh. His eyes land on you and he instantly brightens up.

He calls your name and your head shoots up. “English? You English speak?”

You remember giving this information when telling Amjad what you’re studying in uni. Your eyes bounce back from the customer to Amjad before slowly nodding. He wants you to briefly translate something for him. The legs of your chair screech against the tiles as you get up and walk towards them.

When you come to stand beside the customer, you can smell the shampoo he uses. The citrus wafts into the air and when mixed with the smell of fresh brew, it is an odd yet pleasant scent. “What are you trying to ask?”

“I just want him to take the sweetener and milk out of this.” He points to the image on the laminated menu.

You raise a brow. “You sure? The Kirree is going to be really bitter, like worse than black coffee.”

“Yeah, that’s what I like.”

You give him an odd look but turn towards Amjad. “Kirree, na sarr, na dou.”

“Ah!” Amjad nods right away, plucking a cup from a tall stack before grabbing a marker. “Nama?”

You meet the green of his eyes. “He’s asking for your name.”

There is a pregnant pause in the air. It lasts long enough for you to second guess if you said your sentence loud enough. Then you see the beginnings of a smile ghosting his lips, the corners are upturned, but barely. Like he knows something you don’t.

He brings his index finger to rub horizontally below his nose. “It’s um, Harry.”

The scratchy sound of Amjad scribbling letters on the cup fills the silence. He turns his back to prepare the drink at the counter.

“Thank you,” Harry says.

“‘Course, it’s no problem.”

You occupy your previous spot and get lost in developing the arguments for your body paragraphs.

***

It’s childish. A part of you prides yourself on the fact that you are a regular at the cafe. You come here so often that you can find your way even if you were left blindfolded on the street. Amjad and you have gotten to know each other so well that he doesn’t have to ask for your order anymore. Hell, the table that you religiously sit at probably has your name neatly engraved on it. It is your quiet cafe.

Then you see Harry. You don’t think much of it when you see him after a week. Then he comes once again, four days later. Then again, two days after that. The days between his visits get shorter and shorter to the point that he is here everyday. You feel the crown that you’ve titled yourself with slowly slipping off your head.

He doesn’t make much noise because he reads—a lot. His designated place is at the table on the other end of the shop, you catch yourself stealing glimpses of him. Sure, it’s attractive that he’s a cute boy who likes to read, but what really gets you are his expressions when he finds a specific line or passage interesting. You’ve seen his brows draw in when he is upset. You know the two deep dimples that poke his cheeks when he finds something witty. You’ve witnessed his lips part slowly when he reads something poetic.

Right now, his chest vibrates and the corner of his eyes crinkle as he shakes his head. He is wearing a plain black sweater. A string of planets coloured in pink, blue and yellow, start from one shoulder and end at the other. You want to drag your finger over the knit material.

It’s slow. The swirls begin in the pit of your stomach and gradually increase in size. The last time you felt something develop this quickly was when you were in grade school, toes hidden in hot playground sand and eyes fixed on to your crush. You could’ve sworn he had an ever present halo hovering above his head. You still have one thing in common with your eight year old self, you both admire from afar and never build up the courage to go after what you really want. One sided pining and yearning is all you know.

Your attention gravitates towards the window when you become numb to the words on your laptop screen. You allow yourself these little breaks to lessen the stabbing strain your eyes develop. You lean back into the chair, from this angle you have a perfect view of the fountain outside. A butterfly flaps its wings insistently to keep its little body afloat, it circles the pointy tip of the structure. The water sparkles under the setting sun, it looks like a picture cut and pasted out of paradise. You wonder what it would be like to thread your fingers in its ripples rather than gripping a pen to your notepad.

You entertain this daydream for a moment longer. Then something pricks your skin, like a million tiny thumbtacks. The feeling of being observed passes over you; it’s silent and formless. You tear your eyes away from the scenery and your line of sight reflexively falls on soft green eyes. They are already focused on you, imploring and bated. A jet of warmth shoots down your spine.

You bite the inside of your cheek and deliberate looking away, but there is something magnetic about holding his stare. It’s playful, yet holds a pulling weight. He isn’t giving up either, hasn’t made one effort to try to blink away. It’s like you both hold one end of a rope, challenging tugs are given from each side to see who will break first.

A smile spreads across his lips, it’s slow like dripping molasses, and suddenly the butterfly isn’t circling the peak of the fountain. It has made a home in the pit of your stomach, thrashing wildly against your ribcage.

The bells clank above the door as a new customer walks in, and like a delicate twig under a heavy stomp, the moment is broken. It’s a middle aged woman with a toddler balanced on her hip. You blink away quickly and pretend to type a sentence on your keyboard. An Indian summer heat bites at your cheeks.

The sigh you release is deep rooted in your belly. The moment you shared was like clutching a fistful of sand. The grains quickly slipped from your hold and before you know it, you’re left with dry, empty hands.

***

A bead of sweat drips down the nape of your neck and trickles down your spine. Your cheeks are splotched red and baby hairs are matted to your forehead. The humidity levels are sky high today. The short walk from your lecture to the cafe is equivalent to a small marathon. You take a right at the intersection and the figure walking in front of you looks disgustingly familiar.

It’s Harry, and he is also walking towards the cafe.

He wears a simple black cotton t-shirt which shouldn’t make your heart skip like a stone over water, but it does. His shoulders slope in humble curves, but hold strength. The material moves with each step he takes and clings to his shoulder blades. Your mouth goes dry from the way his muscles flex under the fabric.

Your gaze flickers down to his left arm, it’s covered in detailed ink whereas his right arm is more sparse. A particular floral tattoo grabs your attention, the petals of the expansive rose begging to be traced. In his palm he clutches a worn leather journal, a long tie of the same material wraps around it multiple times. You’ve seen him spend hours with hunched shoulders and a pen pressed tightly to the papers, you wonder what secrets it wraps. In the same hand, he holds some sort of novel, you see a dog ear folded near the first few pages. You don’t have the opportunity to analyze a title because he is pulling the heavy glass door of the cafe.

The door doesn’t open fully, it stops awkwardly at a forty-five degree angle when he catches your image reflected in the glass. You don’t miss the slight jump of his brows when he first notices that it’s you.

He shuffles to the side with his fingers still wrapped around the handle of the door. With his movements, the door opens wider. The crisp, conditioned air flutters from inside the cafe and goosebumps pimple the skin on your forearms. It takes you a second to realize he is holding the door open expectantly.

“You first.” He cocks his head towards the shop.

You press your lips together to hide a budding smile.

It’s just a door, you tell yourself. People hold open doors for others all the time. It’s a common courtesy. Nothing extravagant. As you step in the space, you can’t help the warmth that slowly spreads in your chest—like a drop of watercolour staining a white sheet.

You don’t have time to overthink this simple act of kindness, you take in the shop you notice it is brimming with people. Kids and teens sip colourful refreshers and lemonades and almost everyone has an iced drink to combat the heatwave passing over today. As you notice most of the tables are being taken up, your eyes immediately pull towards your designated table. A relieved breath escapes your lips as you see that it is the only vacant spot. Your feet rush to it in a hurry and you drop your bag on the chair to stake claim.

You make eye contact with Amjad and gives you a nod, as if saying he’s already in the middle of preparing your drink. Harry is the second person in line and browses the pastry options while scratching the scruff on his face. You take this time to get situated by pulling out your agenda, laptop, and a textbook.

You’ve opened up your last draft and skim over some lines to jog your memory of what you left behind. You had grown accustomed to the quietness of the cafe, but today, the lack of it makes it harder for you to focus on the words in front of you.

The wave of light citrus in the air causes you to halt your typing. Your eyes catch the plaid printed trousers that taper in at the ankles from the corner of your eye. You lift your line of sight to see a simple blank shirt tucked in at the waist. Higher are the ringed fingers which grip two plates that are topped with Kirree cups. Finally, you look up to see it’s Harry, a journal and novel is tucked under his armpit.

His eyes are a muted green, framed with thick lashes. Reading glasses are perched on his head, they keep the few disobedient curls from sweeping over his forehead. You know he gets annoyed by them when he reads or writes, especially when they poke his left eye.

He releases his bottom lip from behind his teeth. “Amjad sent this over.” The Kirree in his right arm raises towards you.

You quickly reach forward to take hold of the plate, making extra sure you don’t let the steaming liquid trickle over the rim, or even worse, accidentally brush your skin against his. You’re positive the latter would leave a deeper burn. “Great, thank you. You didn’t have to bring it over.”

“S’alright. I was headed here anyway.”

You tilt your head to one side, silently urging him to continue.

He scratches the back of his neck, the curls at the nape of his neck shift. Harry’s neck cranes as he looks around the shop. His jawline sharpens when he looks completely to the left. Today everything is bustling. A kid pulls the hem of his mother’s dress with a deep frown to get her attention. Two little girls with matching pigtails fight over a specific coloured crayon two tables down from you. A group of students fill up the remaining tables; from their flashcards, it seems as though they’re conducting a study group. The whole town has chosen this cafe to seek refuge from the brutal heat.

The time he takes to analyze the buzzing environment, you press the rim of your drink to your lips.

“The only other empty chair is this one.” His eyes flicker to the simple white plastic from across you. The tips of his ears are impossibly red. “Mind if I sit?”

You almost choke on your sip, but you contain the liquid from spluttering out by downing the scalding gulp. “‘Course.” The urgency behind your immediate reply makes your face hot.

He lifts the chair slightly before pulling it from the table. The small courteous act of avoiding the ugly screech against the floor sends your heart flooring.

You think your heart would tire eventually, but the annoying thing continues to jackrabbit even after a solid ten minutes of him being seated across from you. Your palms are sweaty and your brain is firing up with a thousand different thoughts every second. How long had you wanted him to sit across from you? How long had you wanted him to exchange more than a smile with you? You’re getting words from him. He’s actually talking to you. It’s all a bit overwhelming.

Hours later, you’re fed up with the mundane reading. You had set a goal to read 800 pages, but you can make it barely through the 200 mark. It stares back at you from your laptop screen, challenging and daunting. A deep defeated sigh leaves your lips and your shoulders sink.

“What are you reading?” He asks, his eyes trained on the novel in front of him.

“It’s a reading for my modernism course. I rather individually pluck my eyelashes out.” He purses his lips to suppress a smile; A candlelight flame dances in your chest. You squint at the cover shielded behind his fingers, but you can’t quite make out the picture or title. “You?”

“Bukowski.”

Your lips part slowly. “Oh.” His eyes follow your movements when you raise a hand to gently tuck a lock of hair behind your ear. “Sorry.”

“No, no it’s okay—it’s hard to see because the cover is well loved.”

“No, I meant I’m sorry that you have shit taste in books.”

His face is blank for a minute, not giving away anything as he mulls your words over in his head. Then the corners of his lips poke up. When you see the dimple is more prominent on his left cheek, you almost let a strangled, breathless Fuck slip out. “You think so?”

You scrunch your nose and nod.

“You should try something by Murakami.” Multiple titles run through your mind and you purse your lips as you mentally browse which one to offer. Something about recommending a book, a song, or another piece of art, can be so vulnerable because people only like things they can see themselves reflected in. You pray to whatever higher powers that exist that Harry won’t think twice about it. “Have you read Norwegian Wood?”

He wets his lips with his tongue. They become a vivid pink, like fresh peonies or a sickening sweet birthday cake frosting. “I’m afraid I have not.”

Your fingers dip into the slit of your bag and before you can register what is happening. Your copy of the novel is slightly curving at the corners and feels more weighted from when you first bought it. This is because countless sticky notes and page markers you’ve stuffed in between the front and back cover. You can’t believe you’re freely handing over your annotated book, it’s full of all your thoughts and views and it seems intimate to give him access to that. You think to take a moment to rip out all your work, but your arm is already extended and he clutches the other end of the book.

***

“He held a door for you,” Alice notes.

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“He sat with you. For hours.”

“—Because the place was full.”

“You caught him staring at you! This sounds exactly like a dreamy movie!”

“It’s not, it’s just—” Your palm gestures vaguely in the air. You’re at a loss for words because if you’re being honest with yourself, you don’t know what this is. What you do know, is the childlike glee you get around him and the stolen glances you pocket away and the shy smiles you exchange. “—Harry from the coffee shop.”

Alice stresses your name in a pointed tone. “Please.” She drags a tiny brush over the sparse area of her toe nail, the fushia pink compliments her newly tanned skin. The smell of polish and acetone is poignant in the living room. “We both know you’re clueless as can be about these things.”

Your jaw meets the floor as you prop up your weight on the cushion of the sofa. “Am not!”

“Are so!” Alice twists the cap on the nail polish tightly. She flips the small bottle and shakes it to insure it won’t drip. “You need people to literally spell out if they like you or not!”

“Being clear is a good thing!”

“But… where’s the romance in that?” You should’ve known telling Alice about Harry would get twisted into something. Alice is adamant that he has a thing for you, but you can’t connect the dots. You thought asking for an unbiased perspective on this situation would bring some clarity, but all Alice knows are the countless rom coms on Netflix and the wall full of cheesy lovey dovey novels she collects. “From where I see it, you both are longing from a distance. How long has this been going on for?”

“Like almost two months.”

Her eyes double in size. “Jesus!”

“I know, I know.” A palm comes to rub over your face to hide the red colouring your cheeks.

“Before we leave you need to do something about him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Find a moment, grab him by the shoulders and lay one on him. It’s not like he’ll see you again.”

You roll your eyes.

***

Harry doesn’t sit alone at his table like he previously used to do. After that day you gave him the novel, he has glued himself to the seat across from yours. It’s nice. You both work in amicable silence together with occasional conversation; you switch between your laptop and novel and he scribbles some words in his journal. It’s not a stream of consistent thought, the words are broken and spaced out and formatted differently. You assume he writes poetry.

It’s an unspoken rule that you’ve both made together. Every week you pick something new off the chalked menu items and alternate buying. Today you pick a slice of carrot cake. You remember him saying in passing that he was fond of it and wondered how different it would be from traditional American or European cake.

The plate sits dead center of the table, a fork at each end. You dig the metal to the pointy end of the cake and cup your palm underneath the utensil when you bring it to your mouth. Harry does the same except he doesn’t use his palm. It’s endearing that a crumb is stuck to the left corner of his top lip. You make deliberate eye contact while you both chew slowly. A rating becomes more clear in your mind as time passes and you see the same behind his eyes.

“Love it,” he concludes.

You continue chewing your bite for a little longer, he’s waiting, expecting to keep this conversation going. Harry scans your features as you derive your final thoughts. He doesn’t realize this, but his eyes have a weighted tenacity that you find yourself squirming under. It’s not uncomfortable, more so intense—He makes you feel like you’re an exceptionally important person. You run a tongue over your teeth before letting yourself speak.

“It’s good.”

“Just good?”

“Good,” you confirm.

He has gotten a sense of your rating scale without you defining it for him. He remembers the coconut slice was mind blowing. The strawberry was amazing. The peanut butter, nutella and banana was exceptional. He recalls you closing your eyes briefly because they rolled back in bliss. The indulgent moan you let slip through made his brain short circuit. The high points of his cheek were the same colour as the cherry drizzle that topped the rhubarb cake.

He digs his fork once more to grab another bite. You refrain.

A sweet smile dances on your face as you tuck your chin in the palm of you hand, your elbow anchors your weight on the table. You don’t know when to tell him that with each bite he takes, he adds on a couple more crumbs to his face. A part of you doesn’t want to tell him at all because it’s so adorable.

“What?” He prompts when he sees you observing him.

“You’ve...” You trail off, but then roll your eyes last minute, deciding not to let him in on it. It’s a miniscule thing. “Nevermind.”

“Now you’ve got to tell me.”

“It’s fine.”

The sinking feeling in his stomach knots his intestines together. A plunging fear of his identity being revealed is something he doesn’t know that he’s ready for. You had asked him what his name was for Amjad to write on the cup. You clearly didn’t know anything about him. He wanted to see how long the cloak of invisibility spell would last on him. There’s something about meeting someone without them having preconceived notions set about him. It’s rare and refreshing for him and he wants to prolong this with you. He gnaws at his lip momentarily, do you know?

“Did you google something?”

You splutter a confused laugh. “What?”

“It’s—I” He threads his fingers through his hair. A panic bounces in his eye. He knows the inevitable, you will find out sooner or later. Should he just tell you now? “Did you—”

Before he gets a chance to finish his sentence you crumple a napkin in your hand and lean slightly across the table.

He is taken aback by your sudden closeness, but relaxes his tense shoulders when the floral notes of your perfume floats around him.

You drag the napkin at the corner of his mouth and collect the persistent crumbs. You feel his eyes trained on one side of your face. There is a charged intimacy in the air that both of you don’t acknowledge. This innocent act speaks louder than any words between you two could. You tell yourself that maybe this feeling is one sided, a complete travesty, but then you see his adam’s apple rise and fall has he swallows a nervous gulp. It’s enough to let you know he feels it too. To keep yourself from doing something you might regret, you pour all your focus to the task at hand. This moment lasts for a couple seconds at most, but the fervor behind it could outlive even the oldest stars.

“There,” you say, your back meets your chair once again. “That was all.”

***

“How much have you gotten through?”

“I’m at the halfway mark. A few scenes have stuck out to me.”

“Oh, yeah?” Your eyes immediately flick up meet his. Curiosity and anticipation pull at each end of your lips to form a smile. Your wrist finishes jotting down the last of correction on your essay, the red pen in your grasp moves on autopilot because Harry has once again captured all your attention. He’s done it numerous times before, it’s just something he is good at. “Which ones?”

There is a soft grin on his lips. “When Toru lets go of the firefly on the roof.”

“Why did you like it?”

“It was such a simple act, but probably meant so much more.”

“You’re right, it did.” You nod. Red ink strikes out two sentences, but your ears are still perked up. “What else?”

“Naoko’s birthday.”

“Really?” The pitch of this word is higher than your previous ones, you’re surprised. You once had a conversation with someone who passionately claimed the scene should’ve been ripped out Norwegian Wood. You stop writing completely and give him your utmost undivided attention. You elbows press to the surface of the table as you lean it slightly and drop your volume to an octave lower. “Is it because they fucked?”

“Yeah,” he nods after a moment of contemplation. You shoot him a look, not because of his scene choice, but his lack of explanation, and he backtracks immediately. It would be awfully disheartening if that is all he had to say about that. “No, no, no. It’s not what you’re thinking. It was just so sad and lonely and—” He takes a deep breath and his nostrils flare. “I really felt for Naoko. It’s an oddly relatable thing—being in that state of mind, feeling that, all while giving yourself to someone. I don’t know, it’s just—”

His words hang in the air, but from the crumpled look on his face, you know exactly what he wants to communicate. The impervious silence between you two stays for a moment.

Talking about books with him was something you look forward to. He likes when you push him to read certain books. He admits once with a bashful look that he was intimidated by you. Your list of recommended books—it only went up to five, ink scratches on tissue you handed him one night before parting—made you seem very well read in his eyes. You dismissed it quickly with a wave.

A smile quirks your lips. “That was one of my favourites too.”

The praise balloons a feeling in your chest that would only contribute to one-sided feelings. You told him your list is no match to what is really out there; your goal isn’t to be a pretentious well-read girl, but it’s to find more titles that make you feel a spectrum of emotions.

He takes a minute to absorb your words. With an understanding nod he goes back to writing in his journal. You think you pick up on a musical note or chord, but you can’t be sure.

***

The blanket of humidity suffocating the town finally breaks on a Friday. In the wee hours of the early morning, you hear the clap of thunder rip through the clouds and pour down a bucket of water. It transitions into a romantic drizzle as noon rolls around.

It was one of those odd days where you are at the cafe before Harry. Your plain black umbrella sits in his chair, drops of water fall off the pointy tip and splatter against the floor.

“What’s this?” Harry grips the hooked handle of the umbrella as he lifts it up. The folded flaps of the fabric move like the arms of a ceiling fan before hitting against each other. “You’ve replaced me already?”

He has a pleased look on his face, clearly too proud of his joke.

You drop all traces of expression from your face and force your eyebrows to curl in a deep, confused frown. The slight tilt of your head to the left completes the faux look. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

He rolls his eyes, pinching his lips to on side in an effort to subdue the smile you both know is about to flourish. “Funny.”

You laugh under your breath. He wipes away the remaining droplets of water on the chair before taking his seat. Fingers comb back his hair, you notice it is a darker brown, a wet curl curves at the shell of his hair in a perfect swoop.

Like always, hours go by without you noticing. The sun has long bid its farewell. You’ve shared casual conversation, another slice of cake, and another book recommendation.

Amjad begins to flip the stools upside down on their respective table, the sound makes you look up. The lights are toned into a dim buttery yellow rather than the stark white you’re used to. He’s closing up for the night. It’s just you and Harry in the space, both of you begin to collect your belongings. You tuck your laptop into its sleeve before plucking your highlighter and pen into your bag. The novel you used is carefully bookmarked and pressed into your tote bag.

“Shit,” Harry hisses. Through the glass window you see the sky is an angry black, flashes of white remind you of when you had taken your high school graduation pictures. The rain is no longer a shy drizzle, it’s a wrath coming down so hard as though it seeks age old revenge.

You are thankful that you’ve brought your umbrella, but Harry can’t say the same for he is looking at the scene in front of you while scratching the back of his head. As he turns to you, you can see the same thought floating in his head.

“It’s alright, I’ve got one.” You wave the umbrella in your hand as you hike up the straps of your bag to your shoulder.

“You sure?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “We’re headed the same way anyways.” You know your stop comes before Harry’s, it’s only a short walk from the cafe, you plan to pass the umbrella to him so he can continue his path back home.

As you near the door, you call out a farewell to Amjad. “Ta ra!”

“Ta ra!”

The sound of rain drowns out the clanking of the bells as the door shuts behind you. You quickly press a hidden button and the metal arms of the umbrella spread wide open. You shelter yourself under it and shuffle so Harry has enough room under it.

“You’re good at it, you know?” He says as you both begin the trek. The raindrops make a muted pattering against the material of your umbrella.

You face him and raise a brow. “What?”

“Just—living here, communicating, and all that sort. I would’ve never guessed you weren’t from here until I heard you speak English.”

“Yeah?” You breath in the smell of fresh rain, the wind mists some water on your face and a calmness seeps into your bones.

Harry shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers, his shoulders cave inwards. “Would’ve probably just sat at my table like a fool and wonder why you come here so religiously.”

A smile pulls at your lips. “You would wonder about me?”

“Maybe.”

You laugh at his reluctance to say a proper yes. You know it’s a solid yes. Your eyes focus on the potholes in the sidewalk, rain water creates puddles and you strategically place your steps. “I would too—about you.”

“Now, you’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“Sure,” he hums.

A cool breeze circles the lonely streets, the thin hair on your arms stand up tall. The silence that makes itself prominent is comfortable. You decide this a perfect moment to tell him. You can’t begin to imagine the hurt on his face when he steps foot into the cafe and you’re not there. You’ve been practicing a speech in your bathroom mirror for two weeks now, trying all sorts of combinations to find the right words. Nothing has stuck so you bite the bullet and blurt the first thing that comes to mind.

“I’m going home.” Your heart is in your throat. Your voice is no where near bold and sure as you’d like it to be. It’s a timid whisper and you’re just thankful you haven't stuttered from the bundle of nerves in your gut.

He doesn’t reply immediately, you begin to ponder if the sound of rain submerged your sentence.

“We both are.” He gives you a weird look.

“No—I mean, I’m leaving Tariz. My semester here is ending, for the study abroad thing.”

Though the humidity in the air is long gone, you feel a thick heaviness in it.

“Oh.” The tone of the word suggests that he wasn’t expecting this. Harry scratches the back of his neck looking down at the pavement. “When’s your last day?”

The silence speaks for you.

His eyebrows jump. “Really?”

You roll your lips together before replying. “I’m afraid so.”

“Well, did you like it? The experience.”

You grin. Of course he could ask you this. You haven’t given much thought to this question up until now. You know when you go back home this will be the first thing people ask you, you take the opportunity as a way to practice an answer.

“Loved it,” you say without a shadow of doubt. “It went beyond my expectations.”

Harry gives your hand that fists the umbrella stem a push from below, urging you to raise it slightly higher. When you look up to see him, you realize the material grazes the top of his head. You mumble a quiet sorry before complying, he ignores your apology by prompting another question. “Favourite part?”

“There are loads. But the Kirree, the culture—”you take a brief pause, it builds the anticipation. “Amjad.”

“Amjad?”

“Amjad,” you confirm. It takes so much from you to not laugh at his ridiculous tone. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” The shrug of his shoulders is anything but casual. “I just thought, nevermind.”

You chuckle, shaking your head while trying to keep your smile at bay. “You’re so obvious.”

Wet hair strands glue to your face with the help of the rain. Your fingers peel them from your skin before tucking them behind your ear.

A deep sigh leaves him.

“I am, aren’t I?”

You both stop at the abandoned intersection. A red palm glows from the other side of the road, halting you from taking a step. You both could make a run for it because no cars are zooming the streets at this time, but you don’t. You feel the heat lift off Harry’s shoulder, there is something so intimate about being under the same umbrella on an empty street with him.

A sigh slips through your lips. You’re going to miss him the most. The routine, the secretive smiles, the tension. Alice’s words inject into your skin like a long needle. Do something.

“I liked meeting you too, for the record,” you say after a moment.

“Yeah?” His nose scrunches up as he looks to you. The traffic light above waves from the wind, a colourful glow lights up his profile emphasizing the sharp cut of his cheekbone and jaw. “It was good, seeing you every day at the cafe. Liked it—quite a lot actually.”

The sentence would’ve been fine as is, but the last four words he tacks on the end adds a double meaning. They put a tangible definition to the feeling that you both had been dancing around since day one. A painful silence settles between you two, it’s razor sharp and so prominent. You both know that it’s something you can’t avoid for any longer.

It’s a brush of fingers at first. Innocent enough to be an accident between strangers on the subway or two people walking in opposite directions on the same side walk. Then it happens again. This time his fingers slot between yours. The silver metal of his rings are frigid against your heated skin. You hope the relentless pattering of rain against pavement masks the boistourius thumping of your heart.

You think you’re imagining it all, but then he shifts his body towards you. His towering height looms over you and he leans in slightly. His breath is warm as it puffs on your cheek, a dizzying contrast against the cool drops of water that rest on your skin. Your lips slowly part in awe and his eyes immediately flicker to them.

The sharp tug he gives your hand is enough to pull you in a step closer, chests press against one another. The touch makes you tighten the grip on the handle of your umbrella, your knuckles become a snow white.

“This okay?” He asks softly. It’s a whisper, silvery and light, but flares a torrid heat in the pit of your stomach.

A stated latency is introduced into the wet atmosphere around you, it traps your bodies into a secluded bubble. His thumb brushes a long stroke from the diviot where your thumb and index meet all the way up to the tip of your pointer finger. The slow, tender pace of it almost makes you whimper.

Only when he sees your chin move in a nod does he press the tip of his nose to the skin of your cheek. You almost cry then. It’s a cruel, calculated torture for him to drag his nose from your cheek to your temple. Your fingers slip from his in favour to clutch the fabric of his sweater. You pull the threads closer to you, a silent plea to move his lips near yours. You feel his smile press against your temple. His palm rests on your hip then gradually slides to your lower back. Your lashes flutter momentarily before resting on your flaming cheeks.

His lips brush the smooth, thin skin of your eyelid twice, he plants a gentle kiss at the corner of your eye. He moves down to the apples of your cheek, the cupid bow of his lips lovingly traces the skin there. Your fingers crawl up from his chest and rest where his shoulder and neck meet. As he continues his innocent torment, the pad of your thumb traces the bump of his adam’s apple.

He brings his free hand to tilt your chin up, he aligns his forehead with yours. You both stay there for a moment while taking calming breaths. You notice his skin his warm under your fingertips and the rise and fall of his chest isn’t steady. You never put sugar in your Kirree, it’s always been honey for you. This is because the grains don’t fully dissolve and sit stubbornly at the bottom of your drink. As you crack your eyes slightly open, you see he has something golden on his lips. Shiny, sticky, inviting.

“Please,” you breathe.

His lips are warm, slick, and sweet against yours. You’d seen them quirked up in a smirk, in bashful smiles, in teasing grins. You wonder what they look like pressed so delicately against yours. The pads of his fingers dig into your flesh as he pulls your bottom lip between his teeth. His tongue laps in just the right way—slow, with the tiniest bit of pressure. You cradle his cheek and follow the line of his jaw with your finger.

When you sigh into his mouth, he lets out a tremulous whimper. Harry was like a cup of freshly brewed coffee; scalding hot and tempting. The steam dancing above the rim would blister your mouth, but you took a sip of him anyway. You know when weighed, all the benefits surpass the costs. You’d rather feel him on the roof of your mouth all day than never at all.

His arms snake around your waist and hold you in place. Your lips part for the length of a blink, the glistening of his mouth is mesmerizing under the light of the lamp post hovering above. You can only draw half a breath before he’s leaning in once more. This time his lips are ferocious. The iron grip you have around the nape of his neck pulls tightly at the curls resting there.

Every nerve ending in your body is screaming, ablaze with the same intensity of molten lava. Your mind is swimming with too many emotions, you don’t begin to label what they are, it will be useless in your dazed state. Your palm presses flat against his chest, you feel his heart jackrabbit through his sweater. There is a tingling sensation in your palms that shoots sparks up your arms.

When you both finally pull away, he doesn’t let go of you. He keeps you close to resume his light brushes; his lips against your cheek, chin, temple. It’s when the tip of his nose bristles against the bridge of yours, your shoulders sag with a deep sigh.

“We...” the word wavers when you say it.

“Yeah?”

You gulp. “We missed our walking signal.”

The slow grin that crawls on his face says he is willing to miss a million more.

***

“Aww,” Alice coos towards her laptop screen. A dopey grin splits her face in half. It tells you she’s either looking at the current royal wedding pictures or reading another one of her romance novels. “That’s so cute, she must be so lucky.”

“What are you on about?” You inquire from your position on your bed. Although you had no complains while studying abroad, you firmly believe there is something so delicious about sleep in your own bed.

“I’m reading the Rolling Stone article about Harry Styles’ new album,” she says without turning back. He is her newest celeb obsession, you think it will pass over in a month. Alice has her laptop situated on your work desk that you’ve placed in the corner. From her position, her back hides the screen she is reading. “He said he wrote a song about a girl who he met in Tariz when working on his new album. Isn’t it crazy how small the world is, like we were there just last year.”

“We were,” you agree from behind a parted novel. It’s another Murakami novel. You woke up today and your fingers had a mind of their own when they plucked him off your reading shelf. Something in your bones was begging you to read it. “I’m glad you took me.”

Alice ignores what you say, she’s too busy gushing over the guy on her screen. She is speaking way too fast and going off in a million different tangents all fueled from her excitement. You think you hear her say something about psychedelics and sex. You shoot her a worried look and before you know it, she’s pushing the device onto your lap.

“Here, just look!”

The fans of the laptop start up and blow a gust of heat on your thighs. As you blink to the article pictures in front of you, your heart drops to your stomach.

“Alice,” you say breathlessly as if you’ve just seen a ghost. You blink quickly to help clear the image, maybe you’re seeing things. But the longer you stare at it, you become more and more sure of the face staring back at you.

“What?”

Sharp jaw, wavy hair, high cheekbones.

“Oh my God.” Your mouth is dry. “Oh my God.”

“What! What is it?”

You point an accusatory finger in the direction of the webpage. “It’s him! That’s him!”

Alice’s forehead wrinkles. “I don’t follow.”

“The guy I snogged from the cafe in Tariz!”

Her eyes become the size of Saturn. “No...”

“Yes...”

As the confirmation is uttered in the air, a stillness floods in. You both stare at each other, blinking slowly with blank faces. The suspended silence makes it harder for you to draw a breath. You see the gears turning and locking in place behind her eyes as she grasps onto this new piece of information.

The high pitch squeal that comes from her wind pipes can be easily mistaken for a hyena sound effect. “Fuck!”

“I’m—” Your face is burning and your palms have a sheet of sweat, but your neck and chest is like ice. You fan yourself with your palms. “—I think I’m having hot flashes.”

“I would too if I snogged Harry fucking Styles.”

Blood rushes to your face. “I didn’t know!”

“How did you not know?!”

“Because I live under a rock, you know this. I just thought he was another study abroad student like us!”

“This is so fucking funny.” Alice is howling with laughter. She clutches her stomach and leans forward without any shame. You can’t blame her though, if the tables were turned you doubt you’d react differently than her.

“Fuck, he wasn’t writing poetry.” The inside of your palm slaps your forehead. You feel a sharp throbbing pain pulse at your temples, so you clutch your head and clamp your eyes shut. “Those were probably songs, oh my God, I am so stupid!”

“Babes, babes.” Alice drags the pad of her thumb under her eyes to catch fallen tears. “We’re buying tickets.”

The pillow you throw at Alice lands with a loud smack.

“There is no fucking way I’m going to another study abroad thing with you—ever again.” Your arms limply flail about. “Look what this first one made me do.”

Alice scoffs. “You made out with a rockstar.”

The pointed look you shoot has enough strength to bring down civilizations. “Not the point.”

“Well, I wasn’t insinuating buying a ticket to another place.”

Your lips part with confusion. “Then what?”

“We’re going to catch his show.”

————

Don’t ask me where the city of Tariz is in the world, I made it up. Also all of the language is made up. So is the drink. Lol. Can you tell I didn’t want to do research? My mc is dumb, that scene in NW was ass. Anyway, let me know your thoughts? 

Thank you for amina @harrysdodgyankles for editing the moodboard

My wonderful betas are the best. Thank you so so so much to @drivingmekiwi @midnightcities @shelvesandwhelves @fireawaynjh

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

oohohoho you just opened the deepest can of worms on the planet

-mod dave, who wrote a fucking ten mile essay

first off, addressing the second anon, no theyre all humans. h., half humans at least. cause yall know me i fucking love my humanstuck aus off my ASS

(that would be funny as hell though. a troll from space walking into a camp on earth going “I AM THE SON OF ONE OF YOUR EARTH GODS. BITCH” like... holy shit)

so first things first their parents. im gonna lay this out, the beta kids and trolls are all greek (EXCEPT sollux hes roman cause his parent has no greek equivalent), and all the alpha kids and trolls are those gods roman equivalents (,,EXCEPT dirk cause he kinda balances sollux being roman out). i havent figured out how thatd happen like 16+ times yet cause in the percy jackson books theres only ever been one instance of two siblings of the same godly descent being greek and roman respectively in HISTORY so like.. i guess th. i guess thats just not a problem in this au

anyway this gets really long so im gonna talk about the beta kids and trolls cause i havent elaborated on the alphas at all ((peep the tags if you wanna see their parents though))

johns the son of zeus, rose is the daughter of athena, dave is the son of apollo, and jade is the daughter of demeter. they were all raised in their respective states, all had to come to new york for various reasons. jades been there the longest, shes been there 9 years and shes been on a couple quests. her biggest accomplishment so far is how she protected the camp from this big vicious angry hellhound that got past the barrier. naturally the girls fluent in Dog Training, so she steps up and instead of trying to kill this thing, she reaches out and tames it as fast as she can. it ends up actually working, and ever since that day she, her cabin, and the camp have a whole bodyguard sleeping right outside the demeter cabin! hes her steed in battle and hes a Very Good Boy. and his name is becquerel

johns the newest kid at camp, he has no idea who he is or why the fuck his school got attacked or why in the hell those anemoi thuellai were so fixated on him or HOW in the hell he absorbed the lightning one threw at him and ended up fine,,, hes just a big mess right now. a big enough mess that when he got claimed by literally zeus, no one else was around, he shrugged it off as some basic magical happening, and he stayed in the hermes cabin far longer than he should have cause no one! fucking knew he got claimed! by zeus of all people! dumbass. he ends up figuring it out though. like an off-hand mention about how this “weird lightning thing appeared above my head a couple weeks ago, haha weird right?” once he figures it out he realizes “hey i might be able to fly” so he sneaks off into the woods to try it. he succeeds fairly quickly but god almighty everyones face the one day the dude just yote himself off a small cliff without warning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

dave and rose are really tight, theyve been there roughly the same time length, and since their cabins are across from each other they just bother each other all the time. daves the resident Doctor even though he really doesnt look it cause hes got the apollo powers. apollo is the medicine god. so if you wound your stupid ass in battle daves in the ER room patching you up with his glowy hands. rose on the other hand is a very good strategist. shes one of the only athena kids ever recorded to actually have a power - telekinesis. she has no idea how she developed it, she thinks its from birth, but it freaks her out. shes training it though.

so the beta trolls, are also all human(ish). aradias hades kid. but i pulled a pjo trope on her based on one of my favorite characters (im not saying for spoilers, but if you recognize the situation, You Probably Know Who Its Based Off) and aradia died. her mom, the handmaid, had been pulling some Shady Ass Shit and ended up getting herself killed, but aradia tried saving her and ended up going down with her.

so handmaid gets sentenced to the fields of punishment in the underworld, and aradia gets sentenced to elysium, heroes paradise. shes like “no i want my mom to be okay” so they take that away from aradia and they put them both in the fields of asphodel, the neverending grey space for Not So Good But Not So Bad people. her mom becomes a shade (shadow spirit, no human resemblance), as all people do, but aradia. doesnt? and she gets dunked in the fucking river lethe and if you dont know what that does it erases your memory. so she just. comes out of the river like “hello? wgat tae fukc goin on??” but she still remembers one thing. there was an “a” in her name.

tavros is the son of hermes, hes just kinda taken on the role of backup counselor for when the actual cabin counselor is out. hes in a wheelchair, but he also has prosthetic legs for when he needs to actually stand up and fight. hes really good at it too. also catch him in winged converse cause he Owns Those and Uses Them To His Advantage. hes trying his best to keep focused on the camp, cause aradia was his childhood friend, he misses her a whole lot, she never got to camp in the first place. and to his knowledge, shes still dead.

sollux is a janus kid. thats a problem cause janus is roman, and this is a greek camp. he grew up with dave, he showed up with dave, hes been at camp as long as dave. but hes been unclaimed since he showed up so he thinks hes unwanted by whatever parent he has. he knows hes a demigod, he got through the camp barriers, so what the fuck is wrong with him? he also feels shitty cause hes shit at the greek lessons, he cant read a lick of it which literally every demigod without exception should be able to do, he cant name any gods- well, he can, but.. he gets their names mixed up. why does he keep calling poseidon “neptune”? and he has a much, much different way of natural fighting than other kids. they slice, he jabs. he wasnt taught to jab. 

karkat is an aphrodite kid with vitiligo, and to make matters worse, hes ace and on the aro spectrum. to make matters WORSE, the aphrodite kids are kinda notorious for being really shallow, really materialistic, and really mean. karkats been dubbed the “runt” of the cabin, he gets made fun of for his spots to the point where he uses make up and magic to conceal them. worst of all? hes the kid of the goddess of love, for fucks sake. being reminded that “loveless people shouldnt be able to stay in this cabin, mom must have made a mistake claiming you” is kind of.. a blow to the self esteem. long story short he hates aphrodite for claiming him, and would have rather stayed in the hermes cabin. but he eventually goes on this big quest thats vague as fuck right now but Its The Main Plot, he ends up proving to himself that hes worth something and that his siblings are wrong, and my FAVORITE LINE IN THE WHOLE THING i came up with is HIS when he deals a final blow to some big monster: “REMEMBER MY FACE THE NEXT TIME YOU REINCARNATE. MY NAME IS KARKAT VANTAS, I’M THE SON OF APHRODITE, AND LOOKS CAN KILL.”

nepeta isnt anywhere near developed as others are unfortunately, shes a daughter of ares and shes really really good at hand to hand combat. shes small but she leads groups of people in things ranging from camp volleyball games to actual literal wars. shes a tough little shit

kanaya isnt really developed either, i have yet to figure out most of her powers too actually, shes a daughter of iris, the rainbow goddess though. (blatant reference to both kanayas vampirism and. h. her. sh. es ga. gay) ONE THING SHE CAN DO THOUGH is iris message at will without water or drachmas so really shes just everyones go to cell phone and its fucking hilarious cause people just come into the cabin like “KANAYA I NEED TO TALK TO [X]” and shes like “You Better Fucking Pay Me I Am Not Your Personal Cell Phone”

terezi is the daughter of nemesis and she has this really peculiar power she hasnt really gotten the hang of yet. she has synesthesia, so while she cant see she can smell and taste the colors of her surroundings and its really helpful. sometimes though she gets messages from her mom. they dont even come as dreams half the time, they come as almost a different plane altogether. tez has the power to literally tip the scales, pretty much. and when she gets like that, she can see. shes not on earth though, shit on earth stops when shes like that. shes just kinda In Her Own Head, i guess? and in her head she holds the two scales in her hands. she is the arms of the scale. and depending on which one she lifts up, she can literally alter the fate of the battle or happening thats going on By Herself. once she chooses she just whooshes back to real life though and nothing has changed. the only downside? it takes a LOT of energy and cant be exploited for little things. her one thing on her bucket list is to tap into said powers while getting something from a vending machine so like three things will fall out but it hasnt happened yet and shes upset

vriskas a daughter of tyche, the luck goddess, come the fuck on you knew i was gonna, i havent really elaborated on her either and im upset about that. but hey now you get a break from all those fucking paragraphs

equius is a hephaestus kid, and he kinda stays in the background. hes a range fighter, he spends a lot of time in the forge, and even though its been a project looooong since forgotten, hes been excavating the tunnels under cabin nine for years. by himself. he has no idea where they lead, but dammit hes gonna find out where. he has no idea about a certain bunker in the woods though...

gamzees just there for a fucking laugh tbh hes a son of dionysus and i love that cause hes the god of wine and parties and insanity. usually gamzees just zoning out somewhere hes Not supposed to be, and hes not affected by the maenads FUCKED UP BULLSHIT that goes down the forest sometimes. also hes so fucking scared of tavroses wing shoes he tried them on once while he was high and JESUS CHRIST

eridan is the son of kymopoleia, a SUPER obscure goddess. lets just say dont fuck with eridan cause his mom is the goddess of violent sea storms,

and naturally, feferi is the daughter of poseidon. cause who the FUCK else would she be the daughter of. WHO. NAME ONE GOD

OH AND JUST CAUSE I FORGOT CALLIE AND CALIBORN ARE SATYRS IN THIS AU. CALLIE HAS PAN PIPES. and caliborn still has a gun

[letsbenditlikebennett]

A Medium Tree-t || Ariana & Blanche

TIMING: Present. Shortly after this (x)  PARTIES: @letsbenditlikebennett & @harlowhaunted SUMMARY: After her messages to Winn not going through, Ariana realizes he’s deactivated his social media. She goes to Winn’s to check on him and discovers Blanche passed out in her car outside of Winn’s home. 

When Ariana sent Winn a message and it didn’t go through because his account was apparently deactivated, she had a brief moment of “what the fuck, dude,” before she texted him. When the message remained undelivered, she grumbled and threw on a pair of running shoes. She hoped it was nothing, but she was still going to run over there and check on him. After all, they were supposed to look out for each other and Winn’s life was a lot more important to her than an essay on Othello. She ran towards Winn’s with her backpack in tow, keeping a close ear and nose out for anything out of the ordinary. It smelled more like Winn as she approached his home, but there was something else familiar. The answer became clear when she saw Blanche’s car and felt another pang of worry hit her. Oh god, did someone hurt both of them? As she approached, she could see Blanche’s form asleep in the back hatch of her car. Some relief washed over her, but it was still strange she was asleep in her car and not in the house. Not wanting to scare Blanche, she very lightly wrapped on the window and called, “Blanche, it’s Ari. Are you okay?”

When Blanche realized that she hadn’t been absolutely clawed to bits, she had dragged her sorry ass back through the woods, grabbing her keys and phone along the way, and stumbled back to her Jeep. She was in no state to drive or think or do anything, so she didn’t. Instead, she texted Nell that she would be home later, and curled up in the trunk of her car to pass out. She needed work on the telekinesis thing, she couldn’t just keep throwing people out of her way when she was in danger - or when she thought she was in danger. It took a toll on her body, and it was getting harder and harder to control the energy that burst from her when she thought she was going to die. But she didn’t need that now. Blanche sank into a deep, dreamless sleep until some irritating tapping woke her up. Blanche groaned, turned on her side, not remembering where she was. Her car was a lot more comfortable than the Nell’s Greenhouse - wait. Was she in her car? Blanche tiredly rose, blinking sleep from her eyes as she stared at Ariana looking at her through the Jeep’s back window. “Ari?” Blanche mumbled, tiredly. What the - oh. OH shit. Winn had tried to attack her. She was still outside his house. Crap. Blanche let out a loud groan, running her hands down her face as she signaled to Ari to give her a minute, shifting forward to open up the trunk. “Ari? What’s - What’s happening? What time is it? Are you okay?”

As she watched her friend wake up, Ariana felt her eyebrows knit up with concern. Given it wasn’t the lightest wake up call, but still, Blanche did not look great. Everything about her screamed exhausted and like she may have been upset. Plus, being asleep in her Jeep was weird. Something had to have happened here and she had every intention of finding out what it was so she could make sure both her friends would be okay. She took a step back from the car, giving Blanche a moment to get oriented. It was hard not to leap forward and look her friend over the moment the trunk door opened, but she managed to keep her heels firmly planted in their place. Her face was puzzled for a moment, she was the one checking on her. Ariana was quickly learning that Blanche was definitely the mom-friend. “I’m fine,” she explained, “Winn’s account was deactivated and his phone’s not receiving texts, so I came over to make sure everything’s alright. The real question is are you okay?”

“Winn’s what?” Blanche asked, slowly, running a hand through her fading pink hair. She didn’t comprehend it, not really, before she ran her hands down her face in realization. “Fuck. He attacked me.” Wait. “But not like that!” Blanche said, quickly looking at Ariana, slightly panicked. “Uh so - okay. Let me just - Okay, I’m going to Info dump on you, right now.” Blanche siad, shoulders slumping. She didn’t have the energy to hide, and besides, Blanche knew what Ariana was. “Background info: I’m a medium. That means I see dead people. Ghosts. Spirits. Sometimes a rare power they have is telekinesis. I’ve frequently used it to throw people away from me when in trouble, and it makes me really exhausted because I don’t practice with it - I think, at least.” Blanche shrugged slightly. “Anyway, Winn wanted to spar while he was in wolf form, so I said okay, but it wasn’t going well, so I said I wanted to stop. But then he -” Blanche ran a hand down her face again, trying to make sense of exactly what happened. “He got in my face with the teeth and the claws and - He scared me and I accidentally threw him into a tree. And then he really tried to attack me. I think.” Blanche fornwed, finally looking at Ariana as she leaned against the side of her car, exhausted. “It’s kind of fuzzy. Winn was heavy, and… It wasn’t great.”

Ariana stared at Blanche blinking slowly as she tried to process everything Blanche had just said. Blanche was a medium, okay cool. That was chill and good to know. Then she got to the part where she was sparring with Winn while he was in wolf form. Who the fuck had that dumbass idea? Ariana had been born a wolf and considered herself pretty balanced with both forms, but even she knew that if provoked and felt like she was truly in danger, her survival instincts would become more dominant. She threw Winn into a tree and he lost control, made sense, and was exactly why this whole setup had to be one of the worst ideas she’d heard literally ever. Even if it was the world's stupidest plan ever, her friend was still clearly shaken up and she’d refrain from being too mad at her. Winn should have known better. He was older and knew what they were capable of in wolf form. Her jaw was practically on the floor and she shook her head incredulously. “Okay, okay, that’s a lot, but it’s okay,” Ariana assured, keeping her tone level and calm even though internally she was freaking out a little bit, “One, I will kick Winn’s ass later for thinking this was a good idea. Two, cool on the medium thing. Three, it sounds like you passed out. Have you had anything to eat or drink since?”

She sucked in a deep breath and nodded, “Yeah, that’s all… fair. I didn’t pass out completely until I staggered back here, thankfully,” Blanche said, tiredly. Thank god she hadn’t passed out in the middle of the woods. Poor Ariana, out here to check on Winn who was god knows where doing god knows what. She didn’t know if his phone was broken or if he deactivated his blog or what, but that meant he had shifted back into human form at some point while she was passed out into the back of her jeep. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s partly my own fault, I knew it was a shitty idea but I wanted to blow off some steam and it just made things worse.” Blanche winced, rolling her shoulders back before she shook her head. “No. I probably should. I usually just sleep a lot after I yeet someone,” Blanche mumbled, but her stomach growled and her throat felt dry, and she had already been dehydrated enough this past weekend, so her roaring headache aws killing her. “Look, I - do you have water on you? I don’t know where Winn is, but it’s probably not in the house considering I woke in my car, but…” Blanche let out a low sigh, examining Ariana. “But I can’t -” Blanche’s throat closed up, a lump forming in her throat. Shit, was she crying? She took a minute. Ariana was eighteen, and she absolutely didn’t have to deal with this shit. “I can’t do this today. I’m sorry. I - I need to get back to the Vural house.”

“I’m glad you made it back to safety,” Ariana responded seriously. Passing out in the woods, especially in White Crest of all places, was far from safe. She still looked over Blanche worriedly. It was clear using telekinesis and her fight with Winn had left her physically and emotionally drained. She shook her head, “That might be true, but trust me, I’ve been a wolf my whole life and have considerably good control and I wouldn’t even dream of sparring with someone in wolf form that I didn’t intend to actually hurt. Instincts are a powerful thing. He should have known better. I’m just glad it wasn’t worse.” She fumbled through her backpack as Blanche mentioned she should probably have something. Ariana was glad she had the foresight to grab it, though she tried to avoid going deep into the woods or for a longer trek without it. She pulled out a water bottle and a Clif bar, “Here,” she said, handing them over to her, “Do you need an Advil? Do you have any cuts?” Concern etched further across her features when she realized Blanche was crying. It was valid as fuck, but it still broke her heart to see. She opened her arms and wrapped them around Blanche, “Hey, it’s gonna be okay. If you don’t feel up for it, I can drive you back home in your car and run back here to make sure Winn’s okay, too.”

“Me too,” Blanche mumbled. Shit, she felt terrible for making Ariana have to deal with this bullshit. She should be at home doing her homework or worrying prom or whatever it was teenager werewolves did these days. Blanche just wanted to get home - get back to Nell so she could curl up onto the mattress she had dragged into the greenhouse for Nell. It was easier than sleeping on the cold ground every night. Bea’s death left poor Nell in shambles and Blanche needed to go home and pick up the pieces, not go off somewhere blowing off steam doing something fucking dangerous. Blanche took the bottle of water and the Cliff bar. “I could use an Advil,” Blanche admitted, before Ariana hugged her. Blanche stiffened for only a moment, before she wrapped her arms around her for just a moment, swallowing any more tears down, “No, no. It’s - I’ll be fine. I’ll drink water and eat this, and…” She closed shook her head, forcing her voice not to shake. “I just want to get out of here. Will you text me when you get home safe? And tell me what you’ve found or whatever?”

Without hesitation, Ariana grabbed a couple of Advil from her bag and handed them to Blanche and said, “Here you go.” Whatever she had that could help would be happily provided. Going face to face with a werewolf had to have been terrifying for Blanche and she wished she could go back in time and knock some sense into both of them. At least she was okay, and hopefully she could find Winn to make sure he was as well. It was clear Blanche was ready to be out of here and she didn’t want to keep her, but she still worried. “Okay, finish that and you can go. Just text me when you get back, alright? I’m worried about you driving after passing out.” She nodded along with Blanche’s request. It’d be easy enough to keep her in the loop. “I’ll keep you posted, for sure. Just,” she trailed off, “Please be safe, okay?”

Blanche opened her water bottle, popping the Advil back immediately with a healthy chug of water. Obediently, she opened her cliff bar and took a healthy chunk out of it. IT was hard to swallow, not because she didn’t like it, but more because the thought of eating right about now wasn’t working with her, even if she was hungry. “Thanks Ari,” Blanche said, rubbing the back of her neck a little sheepishly. “I’ll be okay, this has happened before.” Well, except she had called Kaden to pick her up the first time, and Rio was already with her the second time, so no, this hadn’t exactly happened before. Blanche pushed herself out of her trunk, stretching her tired limbs. “I’ll text you, I promise.” Blanche said, giving her a wry smile. She had to get home, everything else could be dealt with later. This was just a momentary distraction for what mattered. As Blanche closed her trunk and rounded to the driver’s side, she paused. “Be careful, okay? And don’t you forget to text me too.”

[caligobeltrao]

I for one would love 2 hear ur thoughts on the hannibal novel 👀👀 - bloodybrahms ☺

ahhh thank you BB!! <3 I’m gonna throw it under a cut bc I know people aren’t gonna want my ramblings clogging up their dash lol. 

Edit after I’ve written it: Holy shit this turned into a monster but tbf I did say I was going to rant. I think I miss writing college essays...

Also, I would like to note bc I’m about to bitch, I do still love Hannibal and Clarice and all of the franchise. Hell, I even love book Hannibal because I’m garbage and want to be special. So yeah. It’s a fond bitching. 

Okay where to fuckin begin man... This novel was a fucking Shit Show, my dudes. It was like baby’s first fanfiction. 

Let’s just jump in, shall we? 

So by now, having read both Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, I know Harris injects of lot of sexual shit into his novels, fine whatever, but the amount of pedophilia is insane. Like, Red Dragon with the grandmother threatening to cut his dick off by holding it in between scissors????? And then we have Mason Verger, worst human on the planet. Like jfc I’ll go into him specifically more later but just. Men. Why does it always have to be sexual. 

Like that time Clarice wasn’t wearing a bra and she wanted to prove to Paul Krendler she wasn’t wearing a wire so she flashed him her tits?? Unnecessary, Harris. Bullshit on all counts. 

Next, poor Ardelia Mapp. So he clearly wrote out her accent in Silence, which frankly reads racist since to me it seemed like he did it every time a character of color was met but he didn’t for Clarice’s Southern accent except for this book when she was talking to Ardelia. Now, that’d be a cool way to show how close they are, sure, but it just... She didn’t show up enough to warrant that reaction from me, plus all the other casually racist shit he throws in. 

Ardelia’s literally there as the wise Black best friend to help Clarice along. She doesn’t feel like her own character, she’s only there in conjunction with her, or doing something for her. She was the fucking valedictorian for Christ fucking sake, she also works at the Bureau but if her department was mentioned it was only once in passing. She was not a full character which fucking blows because she could’ve been so cool. 

And real quick before I forget, I hate how she’s treated in the end. I do like she gets a reference and that brainwashed Clarice sent her an emerald ring and a note saying she was okay, but Ardelia was abandoned by her best friend (that she had lived with) with not even a phone call and they will never see each other again and I think Ardelia knows it. It sucks and I’m heartbroken for this woman. 

I’m gonna touch a little bit on the racism too. Now I’m white and not the most qualified to talk about this shit, but I do wanna mention it because it makes me mad. There’s just so many unnecessary slurs, any POC is more of a background helper character to Clarice than anything or a foil. 

For example, Evelda Drumgo. She starts us off. Badass Black woman who runs a drug cartel. She chooses to shoot at Clarice and risk her baby’s life, and we have Clarice wash the baby off and save his life. Then Evelda’s mother is written as irrational when she slaps Clarice for visiting the baby in the hospital; I get Clarice’s impulse, but that woman just lost her daughter because Clarice killed her. I would’ve slapped Clarice too, even if it was a totally justifiable shot. 

The baby himself is used as a foil throughout other parts, most notably to me when Clarice goes to visit Mason the first time. There are two Black boys from a foster home playing in a room with a camera so Mason can watch them, and it shakes Clarice up a lil bit because of the baby, but it says she’s getting more used to it.

Now this is half and half well written and shoddy to me. It’d be a cool moment, if the whole incident wasn’t nearly completely forgotten for the rest of the book shortly afterword. It could show growth, if Clarice had any growth to show. 

And then the Romani people who are literally just used and thrown away. Sickening. Also very broadly used the stereotypes we hear which Sucks; the three we meet in any sort of depth are pickpockets, one was already in jail and Pazzi used his leverage as a police officer to get her to do what he wanted and threatened to have her baby taken away from her permanently, like it was just bad. And then the man got killed. Pazzi let him bleed out. Asshole. 

The slurs. I could take out all of them and pretty much have the same damn thing. Like I get showing negative aspects of characters and just because a character’s racist doesn’t mean the author is, but with the characters already being as shitty as they are, fully didn’t need it to make them worse. Entirely unnecessary. Racism or the character being racist has no impact on the plot is the major thing, I think. And you can replace that with anything along those lines, like sexist, homophobic, transphobic. It didn’t impact the plot, they can still be shitty, you just don’t need to use them. 

This also goes in reference to Margot being a lesbian. And the transphobia holy shit, it was disgusting. Harris had Clarice think something so cruel and unnecessary it’s like my guy why was that even remotely something we needed to hear. We didn’t. I wanted to stop reading because that’s not my Clarice, first and foremost, and second, this is supposed to be the character we LIKE. And now I don’t like ANYBODY in this damn book. 

And he treats Margot like shit too, and Barney. 

Their friendship was beautiful and great and finally for once something nice was happening in Margot’s life and I was happy reading it, and then FOR SOME REASON Margot goes to shower in the same room as Barney after a workout, which makes no sense, and then Barney tries to force a kiss on her (and he was hard, Harris made that very clear) and she had been sexually assaulted by Mason her brother and ruin the whole damn thing and none of it would have changed any other piece of the novel if you removed it!!!!!!!!! Entirely unnecessary!!!!!! And Barney had the gall to say well I couldn’t help myself like none of that was realistic in the slightest, she never would have went in the same room to shower with him. 

Something you need to do is basically get some suspension of disbelief from your reader and maintain and stretch that as you go, right? Well mine was gone at that moment.

Also side note Margot is basically just there to show how shitty Mason is for the umpteenth time. Her whole thing is lesbian sexual assault victim.

Also heavily implied she was a lesbian because of the sexual assault. And we rarely see Judy, her girlfriend, so. Bad. Bad all around. 

Circling back around to Clarice and how disappointing she is in the books as compared to the movies. Well, Clarice is also a poorly written character. She’s 1000x better in the movie. Hell, she’s even better in this book than she was in Silence, but that’s not fucking hard. 

Pretty much all the characters are so flat they don’t even classify as two dimensional. 

Like sure, maybe we wanna say Clarice didn’t really solve much in the first book and was just handed everything because she was a trainee and that’s what Hannibal wanted. 

Like if you remember the John Mulaney sketch of Delta Airlines where he’s just going “Okay!” and running to the next place he’s told, that’s Clarice. 

Okay so why does she get goaded into all this shit now? She should know better. She should know how to handle herself better. Like she messes up basic fucking shit like clearing a room before untying Hannibal, which was stupid, she seems oblivious to some of the politics at work even though she’s been in the FBI for like 7 years now, she would at least have more fucking contacts than Brigham who died in the beginning and Jack Crawford who died at the end by rolling over in his bed to his dead wife’s side and Ardelia who would be near the same level as Clarice I guess but I still don’t know her damn department???? Like you fucking network. 

Plus after her final fall from grace with the FBI, we meet or are told of random side characters that go no where and do nothing just to say “hey look at my special little girl, everyone likes her and looks up to her!!” Why? Because she caught Buffalo Bill 7 years ago and then never got a promotion or even worked with the BAU? Again, it does not make sense. People may pity her? But a random girl in the lab wouldn’t be fangirling. Starling herself said her career had gone nowhere because of the politics and not sleeping with Paul. You need to show me why she’s likable in her actions not others words. 

We spend more time away from her than with her anyways but Jesus. 

AND HER IN THE ENDING. She was fucking BRAINWASHED????? Bull FUCKING SHIT. He completely ruined anything he even remotely might’ve had in this cluster fuck of a novel. 

Case in point, difference from the movie, Hannibal spends weeks (possibly? it’s left purposefully vague and I’m guessing that’s because Harris didn’t know the ins and outs and wanted his novel done) meticulously brainwashing Clarice, he had stolen her father’s bones and she’s so far gone at that point she doesn’t care, and the whole scene where Paul is getting his brain eaten? Yeah, she happily indulges and when he insults her, she asks Hannibal for more. Fuck you, Thomas Harris. 

And Hannibal’s a Gary Stu, fucking fight me. 

In the movie he either is or he’s tap dancing on that line, don’t get me wrong, but in the novels it’s insufferable because it doesn’t seem earned. The pigs didn’t attack him because they didn’t smell fear on him. No. He’s easily able to drug and brainwash Clarice and take her as his lover. No. Go away. He’s so smart and one step ahead and can manipulate anyone and everyone into doing what he wants and blah blah blah shut up! A character being perfect isn’t interesting even if he’s evil!! We all know he’s never truly in danger because of how Harris writes him and that’s boring!! 

And I personally have a pet peeve where the villain is described as a monster or unstoppable. That’s boring and I no longer care about your story. I know 9 times out of 10 your main character is going to find a bullshit way around the impossible and kill it. Or it’s just like a default personality and nothing else is added to it. And that’s Hannibal. 

I’m on Hannibal Rising now and, spoiler alert, he’s very bland as a character. (Also Harris switched some details in the novel which kinda annoys me like get your own canon right my man but whatever.) The plot itself is pretty fun? I guess? Like there’s action and stuff and I’m enjoying that. But it’s the same set up where Harris’s Gary Stu always wins, like he was 13 in the book when he killed the butcher. Let. Your. Characters. Lose. 

Also even more racist shit but what did I expect really. 

Anyways, I have no idea who I’m supposed to root for in the novel because all the characters are just kinda shitty. It really just boils down to Harris not showing any redeeming qualities or actions from any of his characters. I liked Margot for a while out of spite but she never really went anywhere and the way she killed Mason (btw she sodomized him with a cattle prod to get his semen bc side plot and then stuffed his Moray eel down his throat and somehow I still don’t think that’s the worst part of the novel) just. No thanks really. 

All the random little side plots were also pretty not great. How many time does Harris have to say Pazzi of the Pazzis? Like I fucking get what you’re going for, even if I hadn’t watched the movie I’d be like, “Oh this dude’s gonna get hung outta that window, dope,” the literal first time. Stop treating your readers like idiots. 

And then Margot’s side plot was that the will their father left said she needed a biological heir to inherit because he was pissed she’s gay and we needed the homophobia I guess, so Mason got everything, and she was helping him with the Hannibal shit because he’s pretty incapacitated duh, and in return he would give her his jizz so Judy could be artificially inseminated and they could have a child and get some of her inheritance. I don’t care. It was all very gross, and Mason kept saying shit like suck me off you’ve done it before, I won’t be able to feel it anyway, maybe Judy’ll suck me off you think she’d like that. It’s all gross. 

And I guess this is a good a time as any to finally start on Mason. So a great rule of writing to make everything work better and give your story more depth is to give everyone both positive and negative traits right, even and especially the bad guys? Like, rules can always be broken if you’re a good enough writer, but I believe I have established that Harris isn’t quite there yet, to put it nicer than I have. 

Mason is one bad trait after another. It’s like when Harris was bored of constantly writing about plain ole pedophilia, he threw a dart at a board of horrible things and landed on topics such as: pedophilia but make it incest, extreme sadism, sadism but against children now, and good old fashioned racism! Fucking Cordell was supposed to collect the children’s tears after Mason would make them cry and put them in martinis for him. Realism went out the goddamn door real fast with this novel y’all. Like a fucking Scooby Doo villain over here. 

And he loves talking about being a sadistic pedophile, he will literally not shut up about it to Clarice when she first gets there telling her about his trip to Africa and this portable guillotine he has and just. I get it was probably like trying to make her uncomfortable on purpose because he’s a Freak, but it went way too far if only because it was annoying, not even uncomfortable for me as a reader. I was bored real quick. Get to the shit I actually wanna know. 

And it sucks because of the weird, over-the-top way of how he died, I got zero satisfaction from his death. I couldn’t even be like, “Well at least Margot got her revenge,” because that’s not how she originally wanted to kill him!!! She wanted someone else to extract his semen for the insemination but couldn’t find anybody to do it for her, and then Hannibal, whilst tied up, said use a cattle prod and you won’t have to touch him and when you kill him you can blame it on me, and I’m pretty sure even if she hit his prostate right every time and he COULD cum from that alone in addition to how his body is Fucked Up now, it would’ve been a lengthy, gross, and re-traumatizing experience for her because all she wanted to do was avoid seeing and touching her brother’s private parts again, which I think is a totally fair and rational desire. 

So I have to live with the fact that she was desperate enough to not lose the house and business because of her homophobic father to go through her childhood trauma again. There’s no place in this book that has a somewhat positive conclusion. 

Even the very last bit where Barney has a girlfriend and a ton of cash from Margot, all he wants to do is see every Vermeer in the world right? Well, because Hannibal and Clarice are in Buenos Aires where one of them is on display, Barney gets spooked and has him and his girlfriend leave before he can see it and it ends that bit with he never got to see it ever so he didn’t even complete his dream!!! 

Also for good measure, Harris throws in that Hannibal and Clarice enjoy having sex regularly. For no reason. Just letting us know. 

I know this seemed like just a bitch fest, because it was, but I kinda sorta enjoyed it? It kept my attention at the very least. It’s really disappointing because like I said, I love the movies, all of them, and have since I was little. To see the original not stand up to that image in my mind is a little heartbreaking. Especially Clarice. She was a strong female role model to me, but turns out she’s... just kinda there. And her ending is that of her no longer being herself and getting that agency taken away from her. 

There is a reference to her waking up from a sleep, if she is asleep (that’s kind of how he worded it), that kinda let us draw our conclusions on whether she was just brainwashed into being good for him or if she was willingly going along with this and was in love with him I guess and it felt like a slap in the face. She turned from a hardworking, modest country girl working her way up to the FBI into a female Hannibal. Which on the surface sounds kinda cool because we love luxe serial killers, but that’s not what she wanted or who she was set up to be. And to insinuate that she would even remotely consider choosing that path for herself is at its best an insult to her and at its worst a complete erasure of her background, what little character Harris did set up. It also completely erases my own connections to her, as a girl from a small town myself who has bigger dreams than this and also... a good, strong set of morals. He just tossed that out the window. 

Obviously if you’re on this blog, you like slasher x reader shit, and this is a novel with a slasher x a person, right? So why am I so mad about it? Because the whole point of this blog and reader insert fanfiction in general is that you are taken as you are and loved wholly as yourself and that you are worthy of that love (in a fictional setting, not really loving people who are like this, which I think we understand but I want to clarify). She was not taken as she was. He is not in love with her, she is not in love with him. She was transformed into what he wanted out of her. He couldn’t get her to be Mischa, his first plan, so he made her like himself. And the fact that he was so easily able to do it makes me upset, and even more so is that it’s not written like it’s weird or wrong. It’s written like they’re in love and this is a good thing. 

He may have been going for the classic “everyone is capable of doing bad things” stuff we see a lot, but we got that from Margot already. And Barney, for stealing Lecter’s stuff and selling it. And Paul, and the entire FBI for turning on Clarice, and the kidnappers, and Pazzi, and random shitty side characters. And none of it was particularly well written or made some sort of strong statement. It just was. And that’s not a good enough basis for a novel. 

Anyways, if you made it this far holy shit you’re a saint and I love you, let’s be friends?? <3 Have a good day y’all, thank you BB for giving me permission to ramble. 

[sope-and-shine]

Christmas Special: Day 3

-> Pairing: Namjoon x Reader -> Roommate!AU // Best Friend!AU // Fluff // Non-Existent Angst ->Word Count: 2.3k ->Summary: Bedding, Blizzards, and Namtiddies? Oh my! -> Warning(s): None???

A/N: I guess now is a good time to mention that all of these were randomly generated and randomly put into order. There was too much planning and effort that went into this for me to not mention any Namtiddies.

When you agreed to stay home with your roommate and life-long best friend this Christmas and spend Christmas together, it was more of a bonding thing you were going for. You still expected to wrap yourself up in your blankets, sit by your window with a cup of hot chocolate in your hands, and watch the city below you get covered in snow. You agreed to binge watch every crummy Christmas movie you could find and make shitty cookies from the package together in your very tiny kitchen. You agreed to wake up early - but not too early - on Christmas morning to open the presents family and friends had been sending to your apartment together.

What you did not agree to was your best friend dumping his stupid science project all over your bed and forcing you to clean your only bedding, quite possibly staining it and the clothes you were wearing. Why was he in your room? Well, he had a question. Why did he have his nasty science project in his hands? Well, that’s a great question he hasn’t answered yet. Why did he dump it on your bed? 

He got a cold chill and lost his grip on it.

Were you angry? Absolutely. You weren’t just mad. You were big mad. Of all the clumsy things this man has done, this had to take the cake. And that’s saying something considering he literally wore Jin’s birthday cake when you celebrated the other week. Yeah, he was never bringing the cake out ever again. Nor would he be allowed in a three legged race again either, but that’s for another time. 

The only thing you could focus on right now, was the loss of you favorite and only bedding. The sounds of your mother nagging you about taking more than one set of bedding with you was clouding you thoughts, “You should take it with you. Don’t come crying back to me when you realize that one set of bedding won’t work! Your sister regretted it and so will you.” 

Oh, how right she was. And you should’ve known better with a roommate like Namjoon. He was nicknamed the god of destruction back in middle school when he tripped over a chair and broke an entire desk. Of course at the time it was the funniest thing in the world, but being on the other side of the destruction felt like karma for all the times you watched him demolish something and enjoyed it. 

You were so mad that Namjoon didn’t just see it. He was feeling it. He felt it the minute his liquidated project landed on top of your plush sheets. The look you gave him as you sat up covered in green and purple slime - at least you hoped it was just slime - as well as the silence that followed you, screamed how much trouble he was in. Now, you’re not an angry person, and you very rarely hold grudges, but you had your moods just like any other person and this definitely pushed your buttons to the limit. It pushed you enough to go through with the one punishment you always promise to give him.

The silent treatment.

Another thing about you: You’re not exactly the shy type. Not with him anyways. You act like he’s barely even there sometimes, allowing yourself to be embarrassing or to sit right next to him on the couch and cling onto him. You were just a tiny koala that demanded food for compensation and he gave it to you every time you asked, and he’s felt your rage plenty of times. But you never went through with your promise of not speaking to him. Until now that is. But Namjoon is a determined guy. He won’t back down from a fight, especially not with you. He’d get you to talk one way or another.

Sitting on the couch with his laptop resting on his lap, glasses slightly low on his nose from working on his paper and looking up to you, he can’t help but be amused. You were trying to make a show of your anger with him, and he could tell instantly. You would walk by him every 5 minutes, make noise in the kitchen, sigh heavily as you say by the window with no comfy blanket. You deserved an Oscar for most dramatic at this point, staring out at the blizzard raging outside with your arms and legs crossed like a child.

“They say the storm is only going to get worse. We could be seeing power outages across town.” Namjoon says, typing away at his essay. You don’t move, continuing your little game of ignoring his entire existence. He shakes his head, “We should watch The Polar Express now in case ours goes out later tonight.”

You don't exactly respond to him, but The Polar Express is your favorite movie, and it was almost impossible for you to ignore his offer to watch it. You hesitate at first, but you do eventually slide off the windowsill of your apartment window and shuffle across the wood floors in your fluffy green socks to the shelf that holds all of your movies and games. Namjoon has to do everything he can to not laugh at you, pretending to be mad even though he can see you bouncing in excitement. If he was right, then you’d be yourself again in no time.

Unfortunately, Namjoon wasn’t aware of how determined you actually were. As soon as you put the movie in, you were sitting on the opposite side of the couch from him with your knees pulled into your chest, acting like his existence meant nothing to you. It caught him off guard, but it didn't totally convince him. You’ve always turned into a child the minute this movie turned on, and there was no way you’d be able to hold out through the whole film. He’d play your game, but he wouldn't lose. You - on the other hand - were having a very hard time. You were still mad with Namjoon, you didn't want to forgive him yet. Everything this week had gone wrong for you, and his accident was just the icing on the cake. But at the same time, you know it was an accident, and he apologized for the first 30 minutes until he realized you really weren't going to say anything. A part of you felt bad knowing deep down that he didn’t deserve this, but a part of you just needed to let it out. 

Or keep it in, in this case.

You both sit quietly on the couch watching the movie, Namjoon tapping away on his keyboard in between dialogue. He’d add in his own thoughts about the movie in between to get you to talk, sometimes asking about your family or even trying to talk about the weather outside. But just like you, it only seemed to rage on.

“C’mon, (Y/n)! I know you’re not talking, but you can’t keep quiet when you know this song slaps! Could you imagine if there was a rap?!” He faces you on the couch and starts bouncing on the couch to a new rhythm, “Hot!Hot! Hey! Break it down now. I know the chocolate is hot, but you’ll like it a lot! Never sip, never drip, never set it down like-“ As much fun as he seemed to be having in his own little world, you were not as amused as he was. He could tell by the look on your face that he only had one option in this situation, “Yeah, I didn’t think it was that great either.”

He let the movie continue on without interruption for a while longer, letting you enjoy the movie playing. It was nice and comforting to enjoy it, at least until you hear a loud popping noise followed by the room going almost completely dark besides Namjoon’s laptop. His prediction of the power going out came a lot sooner than you both expected.

“Well, it looks like the power finally went out.” He says, trying to lighten the mood. Your lack of response wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for though. He sets his laptop aside on the couch and stands up, “We should probably check how much water and food we have so we can decide where we may need to go tomorrow, if at all.”

You follow behind Namjoon quietly, not ready to speak but not yet ready to be alone. Your apartment is an older one, so the darkness wasn’t as inviting as it would be in other houses - but darkness isn’t all that inviting anyways so-

“Did your bedding finish drying?” Your eyes go wide, the realization hitting you. You just put your bedding into the dryer for the first time run before the movie, and it always took at least three for it to actually be nice and fluffy for bedtime. But knowing how well your dryer worked, there was no way it wouldn’t be a sopping mess when you pulled it out. 

“Damnit...” You sigh.

“Ah, so you’re back to talking to me now?” He asks, his knowing smirk being hidden away in the darkness.

“Yeah, well I can’t glare at the darkness and get the same reaction, now can I?” You scoff. He was right in the end just like always, only now it was more unpleasant with the cold weather seeping into your older apartment, “It’s already cold in here, Joonie.”

“Hey, don’t worry. Go put on some extra layers and I’ll figure everything else out.” No matter what situation, Namjoon always knew how to keep you calm and feel a little better - even if you were ignoring him harder than the plague. He remained level-headed even if you were at your worst.

A few minutes later, after much shuffling around with only your phone light, you managed to pull on some sweatpants and a sweater. Not the best options, but they were the best you could do at the moment with your really warm clothes being tucked in the dryer with your sopping wet blankets. You meet Namjoon back in the living room only to find him sitting on the couch with his laptop wearing a hoodie instead of his NASA shirt from earlier. 

You approach him from behind the couch and rest your chin on top of his head, taking a peak at the screen with his English essay on it, “Did you figure something out?”

“Yeah, you can sleep on my bed for the night and I’ll just wing it on the couch tonight.” He says, continuing to type away like that wasn’t what he’d been doing all night anyways. You weren’t as unbothered as he was though. “Namjoon I-” “Don’t start with me, (Y/n). It’s my fault that you don’t have any bedding, so I get to suffer the consequences.” His typing slowly fills the room again as you stand behind him in silence. You were annoyed with him, but making him sleep on the couch with no blankets when it was only getting colder? Not happening. 

You hesitantly wrap your arms over his shoulders, tucking your head into his neck, “But I don’t want you to suffer. What if I wake up to a Namjoon-Pop? I can’t count on anyone buying you in this weather.”

“Wow, you’re really heartbroken over this.” He says with his voice laced in sarcasm.

“Can we just share the bed?” You ask. You lift your head and press the side of your face into the side his, rubbing very softly against it like a cat, “It’s already below freezing outside right now, and it’s only supposed to get colder. I’d feel better if I knew you weren’t freezing...and if I could steal your body heat.”

He shoves you away, “You, Vixen. You just want me for my body.”

“Body heat, there’s a difference.” You say.

“So, you don’t want my cuddles?” He asks, turning his head ever so slightly to look at you. Thinking about it, he wasn’t that far off. His cuddles were the best, and you really can’t help but to agree with him, “Okay, so maybe I do want your body. Who could resist those Namtiddies?”

“Forget it, you can sleep on the couch.” He returns to his laptop, not fond of the name you’d given to his pectorals after he started showing results from hitting the gym.

Eventually - after convincing him you’re not going to speak of the ‘Namtiddies’ for the rest of the night - you both end up lying in his bed, facing his desk chair where he’d placed his laptop with The Polar Express running. His chest is pressed into your back, his warm covers that smell like his Old Spice: Original body products tucked all the way up under your chin. His arms wrap around your waist to keep you as close to him as possible, and you can feel his breath on the back of your neck. It’s intimate, but it’s nothing that’s really new for either one of you. Cuddling like this really wasn’t new, and it actually felt natural for you to be wrapped in his arms. You felt safe with him, and it just made you feel even worse for treating him the way you had today.

“Hey, Joonie?” You ask quietly, unsure if he had fallen asleep yet. He grunts in response with a slight tug to pull you closer, a small ‘hm?’ leaving him. You shrink back into his warmth and grab onto his hand laying in front of your face to play with his fingers out of nervousness, “I’m really sorry for acting like a kid earlier and ignoring you. Even though I was really angry and I’m still not really over it, you didn’t deserve that.”

“(Y/n), you and I both know that you weren’t and still aren’t mad at me.” He mumbles, grasping onto your hand to keep it still and nuzzling his face into your neck to get more comfortable. 

“Okay, but that wasn’t my point.”

He lets out a sigh and pulls at your waist to get you to turn, pulling you into his chest as soon as you turn over enough. He fixes the blanket covering the both of you and holds you against him in hopes to get you to settle into sleep instead of your thoughts. “You forgive me. I forgive you. Can you just listen to The Polar Express so we can go to sleep before it gets colder?” 

And that’s how you fall asleep, your head resting on Namjoon’s chest wrapped up in blankets and his comforting scent. No snow to look at, no hot chocolate in your hands, but at least you have his heartbeat drumming next to your ear to keep you at peace.