#commissions are 50% off now

[b4kuch1n]

dip pen ink comm batch 4 complete! for Ezechiel, @ohwwhuv, and Leo :]

[8bit-mau5]

TWO spots opened up for my Powdered Sugar Tier if anyone's interested in snagging a rendered bust sketch from me for the low price of $5 👀

[sanctus-ingenium]

we need to talk about Inprnt.com

Following a really good post with more screenshots and evidence by @dynasoar5 i'm going to talk about my own experiences with @inprnt and why I am about to put my shop on indefinite hiatus from Monday the 14th of August.

First of all I'll say that since starting my print shop last year it has been a significant help to me financially - I was able to not worry about affording car insurance or motor tax (together commonly over a thousand euro) when I bought my first car, for example. I am immeasurably grateful to anyone who chose to buy one and I treasure all the pictures I've been sent of my prints hanging up on people's walls. Right now they are displayed in a real (if small) art exhibition in my home town.

(top right print is not from inprnt though)

They're great prints. Never had any complaints about them. But here's what's going on behind the scenes.

Earlier this year, around March or April, Inprnt sales started increasing in regularity. I'd made as much as $600 a week during previous sales when I made proper promo posts here, but with this increase in regularity, I felt that I couldn't make promo posts every single week. And then one day, I'm not sure when tbh, the sale just never ended. It just didn't stop having that "Ending soon! 15% off your order" banner at the top of the site. Right now it says "Final Hours: $5 Worldwide shipping and save up to 35% off your order!" and not even for a second do I believe in this final hours bullshit. It's been 'final hours' for weeks now. Months, even.

Why is this a problem? Well, how tf am I meant to make a promo post for a sale that is always "ending soon!!" and then never ends. One week it'll say "this weekend only!!" and then when the weekend is over, the sale banner just changes its wording and the sale doesn't end. I can't promo this, it makes me look like a liar and a skeevy salesman by association! It makes the site look like it's 1 week from crashing and burning, and the site owners are just scrabbling to suck as much money from artists as possible before they drown.

And they are sucking money from us. To peel back the curtain, Inprnt money can only be transferred to my paypal account 30 days after the sale is made, just in case the order is cancelled and refunded. This means I used to make one withdrawal every couple of months, when there was enough build-up of money to make it worthwhile. It also forbids withdrawing any sum under $50 btw. I would make a withdrawal request and then, after a 10 business day wait, it would reach my Paypal account.

Not anymore! The past few withdrawals have taken over a month to complete. They are straight up keeping my earnings from me for longer the agreed period. This was my last fulfilled withdrawal:

Note the date.

Almost two months.

And here is the latest withdrawal request that still has not been fulfilled.

It's coming up on 1 month and if the pattern continues, it could literally be November or December by the time I fully clear all sales.

So what's going to happen to my print shop? Because my art is currently being exhibited with a QR code linking to the shop, I can't close the shop this week. Instead I will close it on Monday the 14th of August, next week. That means that on the 14th of September, I can withdraw all of the remaining money without having any left over. My account balance will go to 0 and stay there. Although I'll de-list my prints I will leave my account there, because at the end of the day I don't want to leave Inprnt. It still offers the best artist margins and as I'm now unemployed after graduating, the additional support is such a load off my mind. So this is a chance to wait and see - if they improve their services, I'll happily re-open.

It's a big deal to me because selling prints is sort of my ideal life as an artist. I never had the attention span or self-discipline for commission work and I found that it left me creatively stagnant. I always want to try new things, new concepts and ideas, and being able to think "yeah, people will like this as a print" while I experiment is honestly very reassuring. And I know that in going on hiatus, it'll break a lot of "buy a print" links in my circulating posts. Oh well lmao. If you want to buy a print right now - go ahead, it might be your last opportunity. Another way to support me would be to check out my ko-fi for once-off donations or some nice sketchbooks/comics/book samples you can buy, or subscribing to my Patreon.

As of right now, Inprnt owes me $381 (the unfulfilled request submitted above for $186.60 and my current standing balance of $194.80 which takes 30 days from each transaction to clear).

[jonnywaistcoat]

Hi Jonny, if you don't mind I have a question about the TMA TTRPG! So I noticed that on the player's guide there's this guy, who my friends and I assumed is probably Jon. If it is him, is this a canon design, or more like some of the non-canon stuff that's in the merch?

So, I hope you don't mind if i use this ask to go a bit off on one. I'm not specifically dragging you (I'm actualy glad you asked, as I've thinking about posting on the topic), but all the discussion around the RPG art and how "official" or "canon" it might be is, to my mind, slightly silly.

First up, is it "official" art? I mean, yeah, its art for the officially licenced Magnus Archives RPG. This means Monte Cook Games have commissioned someone to do a beatiful illustration broadly based on some aspect, episode or character from the podcast and it goes in the book. But that's kinda all it means. "Official" is a legal distinction, not an artistic one. The fact that it's in an official product doesn't make it any less one artist's cool interpretation of a character that has only been vaguely described in audio.

Second, is it Jonathan Sims the Archivist? I mean, it's probably based on the idea of him, but it's certainly not set in stone. When we were first discussing art with MCG, we advised that character pictures be more vibes-based and not explicitly tied to specific people (ie. a portrait inspired by Tim wouldn't be captioned "This is Tim" and wouldn't be placed opposite a profile for Tim Stoker, archival assistant.) This was mainly because we wanted the artists to have plenty of freedom to interpret and not feel too tied down by the need to know everything about the podcast. But, to be frank, it was also because we know that there are a few fans out there that are kinda Not Chill about what they've personally decided these characters look like and can get a bit defensive over depictions that differ.

It strikes me as particularly strange to be having this discussion about art that's for a roleplying game book. Something that's explicitly and solely designed to give you the ability to play in your version of the Magnus universe. The idea that this is the thing where we'd for some reason try to immutably establish unchangable appearances for these characters would be pretty funny if some folks weren't taking it so seriously. Similarly ridiculous is the idea we could reasonably have said to MCG "We'd love for you to make a huge beautiful RPG book of our setting... Just make sure you don't depict any of the iconic characters or events from it!"

But... is it "canon"? Now, to my mind, this highlights a real weakness in a lot of fandom thinking around "canon", which is that it generally has no idea what to do with adaptations. All adaptation is interpretation, and relies on taking a work and letting new creatives (and sometimes the same ones) have a different take on it. Are the appearances of the Fellowship of the Ring in the LOTR movies "canon"? How much, if at all, does that matter? Neil Gaiman's book Neverwhere was originaly a 90s BBC series made with a budget of 50 pence; is anyone who makes fanart of Mr Croup that doesn't look like the actor Hywel Bennet breaking canon? What about the novel that describes the character differently? Or the officially licenced Neverwhere comic where he looks like neither of them? Which is his "canon appearance"?

Canon is an inherently messy concept, and while it is useful for a creative team trying to keep continuity and consistency within a creative work, for thinking about anything beyond that it tends to be more hinderance than help.

Anyway, all this is to say that the above picture and all the others in the RPG are exactly as canon as every other picture you've ever seen of the Archivist.

[usedpidemo]

Acquainted (Red Velvet Yeri)

(Thank you for the commission! I hope it's to your liking.)

You’re just about ready to head off to sleep when you check the group chat. This is your nightly tradition. These strangers, now your closest friends despite the anonymity, are active and in good spirits, as usual. Outside of your weekday 9-to-5, these few moments are the most interesting parts of your day, and you just so happen to join during a particularly lively conversation:

> [22:48:01] yerimiese: (posts a link to a red velvet album article)

> [22:48:14] flutter mane: :sanapog:

> [22:48:23] silksong sulker: k-pop is saved

> [22:48:33] wonyoung cockjuicer: ew red velvet

> [22:48:37] wonyoung cockjuicer: wonyoung can peg me tbh

> [22:48:39] irene’s tokki: Bae J:floshedjiggle::floshedjiggle:hyun

> [22:49:06] milf hunter: :floshed:

> [22:49:11] milf hunter: gape sugalo

So of course, you chime in as well.

> [22:50:12] You: lets get it, new rv fancams

You’re in no mood to chat for longer than five minutes, but before you head offline, you receive a private message from your closest friend:

> yerimiese: so when are you in korea again?

> You: Next week, why?

> yerimiese: nice. why don’t we meet up, that would be dope as fuck

> You: You’re in Korea? 

> yerimiese: yeaaaah? why wouldn’t i be? 

> You: I thought you’d be doing other schedules abroad

> yerimiese: nah sm definitely won’t fly us out to film an mv. cheap ass bastards ㅋㅋㅋ

Yerimiese then sends you a video link. It’s a Yeri fancam, her weapon of choice. Your conversations began with small, intimate talks about your personal life, soon transpiring into open fapping, degrading, and casual lewdness with each other. Despite the usually depraved nature of your messages, you both continued sharing snippets of your day to day lives. That’s how close you’ve grown as friends.

> You: Well i’m very tired, today was a long day at work, had to work overtime. No time to lewd, sorry

> yerimiese: it's alright. you did well today

Yerimiese sends you a pic this time. It’s an event; the internet can’t load any quicker. You’re hungry, impatient, dying. Whether it’s intentional or not, the photos she sends whenever you’re tired or stressed out are hotter than her usual swimsuit or photoshoot reel. You’ve shared enough about your daily routine to her that a camera crew might as well be recording you.

It’s nothing out of the ordinary; a simple candid pic of herself lying in bed, her face perfectly cropped out of the background, showing nothing but her body on full display in front of the huge mirror, dressed in skimpy black panties and a white shirt  that accentuates her shapely breasts. As usual, she’s not wearing a bra; you can clearly see her hard nipples demanding all of your attention.

> yerimiese: no need to send a dick pic tonight if you don’t feel like doing it 

You can’t help it. Tired as you are, you feel obligated to send her one. Luckily, every pic she sends is more than enough to make you instantly hard. It feels more guilty not to be turned on, rather. 

It’s a mostly quick and painless affair, powerful enough to put you out of commission within minutes. Even though you’re mentally checked out, Yerimiese’s sexy body is too hot not to crank one out. Taking a pic of your erect cock as you pump yourself to her is second nature; sending it on sticky fingers after you’ve spurted all over your phone and blankets is a different story. There’s no other way to put it, she was the perfect reprieve from the day’s exhaustions—a perfect high note to go out on.

> yerimiese: fuck you’re THROBBING THROBBING tonight :ningasm: your dick looks so damn nice. i can taste your cum through the screen

> You: Happy now? 

> yerimiese: more than, and then some. I wish you were here right now so you could feel how wet I am

> You: Just wait. I can’t wait to fuck you hard. Goodnight

> yerimiese: goodnight

> yerimiese: :tukkwithkiss:

—————

The next time you’re able to communicate with her, you’re one day away from being in Korea. In that period, you’ve been inactive in the group chat because work. What welcomes you back is a barrage of lewd photos and Yeri fancams.

> yerimiese: see you tomorrow :chuupeek:

It’s an open secret that you know she’s Kim Yerim. Yes, that Kim Yerim of Red Velvet fame. It was a giveaway right from the first explicit photo she sent you; those tits in a tight, petite package couldn’t have belonged to anyone other than hers. That, and the fact that her username is the same as her Instagram handle, and that she has a photo of herself in the group as a display pic. How she would end up stumbling into your private K-pop server objectifying her body and her profession is one of life’s biggest mysteries, yet here she is, giving you a very personal look into her shapely figure, better than any fancam and photoshoot could ever provide. To others, she’s merely a casual acquaintance, but to you, she can freely open up herself.

Mainly because you’re one of three people in the group chat that still cares about Red Velvet.

Her latest sent photo is relatively tame; a tight fitting white silk sundress, and the skirt is virtually nonexistent, her panties practically out in the open. Luckily for you, she seems to be sitting down, but not in her usual living room. The notion that this is what welcomes you to Korea, that you’ll be balls deep inside an idol’s pussy right when you land—it ruins you. 

Almost. 

An airport guard manages to break your deep train of thought. “Sir! No phones please,” he sternly commands, saving you from total disaster; you’re inches away from walking straight through a metal detector with your phone in hand, the belt around your pants, and some spare coins lying deep in your pocket after you bought some traditionally expensive bottled water. Luckily, no one manages to see the photo—and even if they did, she’s still smart enough to cut out her face, leaving nothing else to your imagination. 

If there’s one thing you’ve learned about immigration and airport security, it’s that there’s little need for repetition. You go through security four times. At the entrance, after the check-in counter, then within your departure gate, and even before boarding your flight—repetitive. It’s frustrating enough to tell Yerim, to which she responds with more lewd photos of herself. 

> yerimiese: yeah ive been there before ㅋㅋㅋ

> yerimiese: how long’s ur flight?

> You: About 13 hours

> yerimiese: cali?

> You: Yes

> yerimiese: kinda random, but seulgi misses los angeles

> You: How come? 

> yerimiese: something about an ex-boyfriend that i didn’t know about until the other day ㅋㅋㅋ i bet she’ll be jealous when she hears about you coming over just to clap my cheeks ㅋㅋㅋ she’d wish it was her bf instead of you

> You: does she know about this?

> yerimiese: of course not LOL i bet you’d rather fuck her instead of me, so she’ll never know. smh.

> You: That’s not true ur my RV bias since day one!

> yerimiese: stop lying LMAO i don’t blame you tho seulgi has some really toned legs and a nice slappable ass XD anyway, i’m gonna send you something to pass the time while ur onboard

> You: If it’s a masturbating clip i swear to god

> yerimiese: fuck you got me LOL

> You: Goddamit if anyone finds out on a plane of all places…

> yerimiese: i still can’t get over your clip of you jerking to me. i can taste your dick. you’re depriving me by leaving me out to dry for a week ㅋㅋㅋ

> You: You’ve been touching yourself to that clip for a week??

> yerimiese: can’t help myself, album prep has been tiring and i haven’t really found any opportunity to relax in the meantime

> You: I’ll be there soon, just wait a bit longer

> yerimiese: can’t trust me with that, i’m very close to making a huge mess of my hotel room ㅋㅋㅋ

> You: You’re in a hotel?

> yerimiese: just to meet you! I won’t be able to meet you at the airport (duh, idol dating shit), so this is the next best thing. just message me when you’ve landed here, okay?

> You: Sure

—————

It’s ingrained deep within Yerim’s mind. A core memory. If her phone could present count how many times she’s played the clip, it would be over a thousand. 

It’s very straightforward. A 45 second clip of someone masturbating between the sheets, pressing their erect cock against their phone with a brightened image of a scantily clad woman on the screen. But it’s not just any woman, it’s her. She’s pleasuring herself to the idea of a man jerking off to her. She’s following his rhythm, timing the pace her fingers rub her clit to the tempo of the man’s cock pumping to her zoomed-in breasts. 

And she’s mere minutes removed from a conversation with that exact same person.

Slumped against the hotel room walls, her bliss spirals out of control rapidly. Her legs are instinctively spread wide, juices already leaking through her panties and spilling to the floor; that’s how used they are to Yerim’s impulses to pleasure herself. In those brief moments, she imagines how the next few days play out, skipping past the formalities and pleasantries and going straight to the fucking. She moans and shouts as if that very man’s cock is penetrating her pussy hard at this very moment. Her other hand bashes the wall, tongue screaming streams of profanities, as if he’s manhandling her, using her to his personal delight.

“Fuck! Suck those fucking tits!” she screams, slipping one strap of her sundress down to pinch her own tit, enhancing the illusion. Her phone rings; in her mind it's functionally a vibrator. He’s come fully prepared, and she’s riding high knowing that this person is doing exactly what he said in their private messages from the very start.

Yerim drags her fingers along her clit violently, desperate to reach climax, the realization that this is her third orgasm of the day way beyond her. The evidence can be found everywhere: on the soiled bed sheets and in the smell of the shower; she envisions herself getting railed in those parts of the room, and then some—essentially turning the entire hotel room into the backdrop for all of the things he’d do to her: fingers around her throat, sunk into her ass, until it’s red and hurting, the way she’d quiver and cream all over his throbbing cock. Her neediness has no limits; it even breaks past her very own personal quarters, the loudness of her own self-induced pleasure drawing concern from occupants nearby.

Only after the blissful haze of orgasm does everything fall back in place. That repetitive knock on the door is a huge wake up call. Yerim’s eyes widen. 

“Shit.”

She checks her fingers—they’re coated in copious amounts of slick—and after a little further inspection, she realizes the aftermath.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

—————

Being honest about yourself, you couldn’t have asked to feel hornier at a worse time than this. Thirty thousand feet high up in the air, stuck in economy class because you don’t get paid enough to deal with the bullshit back in the office. Using your one of two allowed leaves in the year for a trip to see a girl you’ve mostly known online, and it isn’t even paid. To make things worse, there’s no layovers—just a point-to-point flight from San Francisco to Seoul. 13 hours.

And boy, is the ride absolutely miserable.

By what you might as well call divine intervention, you’re conveniently seated between a nun and a little girl—the two worst kinds of people to be alongside with. No, not because they’re annoying or anything like that; aside from the girl getting up every thirty minutes from her window seat to get something from her parents across the aisle, you’re practically barred access to your glorified archive of lewd Yerim pics. Opening them up with a kid barely in the first grade beside you is openly asking for trouble.

And the few times you get up for a lavatory break, you can’t get yourself going. There’s always someone at the door every five minutes. 

Eight hours deep into the flight, you look over your shoulder, catch one of the male flight attendants sneak inside one of the vacant lavatories with a fellow stewardess while everyone’s fast asleep. Fucking sickening. That should be you with Yerim right now.

When you arrive on the other side of the planet, you’ve gotten only a couple hours’ worth of sleep. You almost fumble your passport at immigration, getting them mixed up with a slew of business and membership cards. Then there’s your forgetfulness working against you, remembering you need some kind of pocket Wi-Fi, and now you have to spend a little more to get back online. It’s a mess, and it wasn’t that long since you were in Europe for a seminar, where these things were merely second nature to you.

At least you remembered that VPNs exist. You message Yerim on the taxi ride out of the airport, unsure of where to begin.

> You: Just got out of immigration

> yerimiese: fuckin finally! 

> yerimiese: you got a place to stay here?

> You: Not yet

> yerimiese: don’t bother, lemme send you my hotel address, you can stay here

Of course you don’t know Korean, despite the constant back and forth with Yerim for months. Learning’s been on the backend of your itinerary, and has never been your top priority, even now. You show the cab driver the address, who merely looks at you and the phone with a particularly vacant and dumbfounded expression, as if you’re stupid for not planning this out—which, in that regard, he’d be correct.

When you finally arrive at the hotel, only one message stands between you and finally meeting Yerimiese, once and for all.

> yerimiese: I’ll be at the poolside, third floor. can’t wait to meet you :P

And that’s exactly where you end up going. Forget that you’re lugging two whole bags and a traveler’s backpack on your shoulders; you drop them off at the front desk, expecting the staff to have a clue of what’s going on and what’s about to happen.

Stepping out into the poolside, it’s a completely barren sight. It’s three in the afternoon on a Tuesday; most people probably aren’t even booked, let alone in this supposed five-star hotel. You don’t really question whether she’s being serious or not, the evidence was in the previously sent photos; you’re dying to meet her at this point. 

And as if perfectly timed for dramatic effect, a woman emerges from beneath the waters, shaking off the wetness from her damp hair.

Yerim casually swims over the deep waters’ edge, without a care in the world, let alone your presence quietly shadowing over the large pool. Even halfway submerged, you can make out the outline of her shapely bust and hourglass figure, tightly hugged by a pink swimsuit. She was sultry and intoxicating to gawk at from candid photos, but seeing Yerimiese herself in the flesh, that’s when the realization hits you: this is happening.

And you can’t move a muscle, let alone react from the actualization that you’re right in front of her. Even as the waves of water splash on your new loafers, you simply observe. It’s creepy, it’s morally dubious, but it’s one in a million. You’re taking in every moment, every second; soak it all in, you’ll never get an experience like this ever again. 

You should be friends by now, if your definition of friendship means sharing explicit body photos and exchanging devious intentions about how you’ll fuck each other online or how much cum you’ve given to each other. But when she turns in your direction—catching you casually observing her, your hands tucked away in your coat’s pocket, grinning like a little kid— it’s back to square one.

Like the very first time.

Yerim takes all the time in the world to wade over from the other side of the pool, her smile growing closer as she approaches you. She lifts her eyebrows, expecting you to make a first move, to which you barely open your mouth, and ultimately only a deep breath, a stilted sigh, comes out.

Well, this is awkward.

Yerim giggles. You’ve previously heard her loud moans and cries, but a genuine laugh—this was your first. She never hops on calls in your group chat, most likely because idol shit, as she often refers to her line of work. Her laughter, her energetic expression—it’s as perfect of a translation to real life as it is online, and embodies the idol Yeri you know on screen. 

“How long have you been standing there?” she asks, trying—and failing—to suppress more of her laughter.

Your answer is concise, but doesn’t seem quite right. “A while.”

In reality, about five minutes. You probably won’t be there any longer when she props herself out of the water with her strong elbows. Water cascades down her shapely figure, thicker and meatier than it's ever been, more than what the cameras and pictures present. She’s truly the entire package, through and through. 

She walks over to her sunlounger, granting you a nice peek of her ass peeking through her skimpy swimsuit before she wraps herself with a towel. Apart from that, your only other notable observation is that she’s soaking wet, even bundled up. That, and also: she’s barefoot. No sign of slippers or any footwear—she willingly walked on what appears to be scorching cobbled floors.

“I would give you a big hug right now, but you know—” she comments, looking down at her drenched self, pool water endlessly dripping down to her feet. Even if she isn’t soaking wet, you’d still be frozen in place, or even worse, some eagle-eyed stranger or Dispatch reporter catch you in secret and you both end up on national news the very next day.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you say, trying to dodge Yerim’s eyes. “I left my stuff at the front desk. I should probably go and grab them.”

“Smart.” Yerim sizes you up, nodding in amazement at how you’ve managed to get yourself past the entrance. “See you upstairs, then? Room 1015.”

—————

The difference between you and Yerim couldn’t be any more obvious.

Granted, you’re fresh off a 13 hour flight, followed by an hour's travel from the airport to a five-star hotel in the heart of Seoul. Yerim had all the time in the world to prepare, and yet when she emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a modest bathrobe and her dark hair bundled up, she’s never looked better. 

Facing an idol in such a haggard condition, it gives you an underlying feeling of shame. And if you’re being completely honest, if not for your cock, she’d probably be repulsed and call security on you.

But there's no security in sight. Just you, just yeri, the two of you standing in this room - which is, for the most part, quite nice. Multiple bedrooms, a lovely view of the city beneath you, and all sorts of amenities and features you’ll never get to use—you half expect her members to come in later, but perhaps for your sake, you’re better off with just her and her alone.

When Yerim begins to talk, she rambles. She goes on about the status of the next album, discussions about a possible solo debut, her relationships with her members—conversations about topics that you never really had online. It was mostly dirty talk and lewd captions. At best, you knew each other at a surface level, but here she is, sharing everything from her heart like you’ve been lifelong friends since day one.

You let her. She’s as charismatic as what she portrays on screen, and her sass is no different than the private messages she sends you. There’s not a single dull moment whenever Yerim speaks. Though you know her mostly for her body, her personality is what has you sticking around.

You wonder if she feels the same way about you.

“So, how’d you find out about us?” Yerim asks, after blabbering for a while, and you genuinely believe she’d keep going till nightfall. Close enough. Five minutes away from five in the afternoon, and you’d already spent the last hour and a half listening to a personalized podcast from her. You hope she doesn’t notice the plate of bulgogi on the table now completely empty.

“Well, a friend was a K-pop fan and had an extra ticket when you toured here,” you say, casually, slumped on the sofa. “Forgot how long that was—” you pause, “five years ago?”

“Five years? Five years since we went to America?” Yerim appears flabbergasted, face in utter disbelief at the passage of time. The realization causes her to stand from her chair. You’d be too after listening to her drone on endlessly. “Fuck.”

“SM! Give us a fucking world tour already!” she screams, pretending she’s inside the company building and you’re an executive in the room. Watching her snarkiness come to life never ceases to amuse you. You’ll let her go on for as long as she needs to; she’s entertaining in such a unique and charming way that it disarms you.

“Argh, sorry, you know me.” She suddenly stops, faces you, arms crossed, mocking up a pout. “Look at me suddenly losing my shit for no good reason.”

“Are your members used to this?”

That didn’t come out right.

She bats an eyelid. On her face is a mild, blank look of displeasure. That didn’t come out right. 

“Used to what?”

“Well, uh, I—I mean—”

You gulp your throat.

“Stop.”

Then, an air of awkward silence. Her eyes quickly scan you, lazing on the sofa.

“Let’s just get to fucking each other right now.”

—————

It isn’t that you’ve forgotten the one purpose you’re there to begin with, it’s that Yerim is very, very impulsive. One moment, upset at her company for doing the bare minimum for her group and her career, the next she’s using you as an outlet to release her frustrations. It’s a good thing your first impression of her was that she was very busty, because otherwise, the other description you had of her was—simply put—bratty.

You’re on your back, plopped against one of the beds, completely caught off-guard by her show of strength. Eyes rolled to the back of your head, you find Yerim already at the bed’s edge, loosening the belt around her waist, quickly disrobing herself within seconds. It’s nothing new; you’ve seen glimpses of her nude figure in pictures, imagined many scenarios where you’ve got your hands on her, but this—to see her completely bare in the flesh—is new. 

This is different. 

“Just so you know,” you mutter, frantically panting, your heart jumping, as Yerim undresses in front of you, “I haven’t actually had sex before.”

Just like that, the mood instantly changes. She stops. Abruptly.

“What?” 

Her mouth drops—again. Might as well stay agape. 

You consider retracting your statement. It was a joke, you’d say, something to get her even more aroused, fired up. The sex would be wilder, hotter than anything your fantasies would conjure. Then again, you wouldn’t be in this exact situation if you weren’t so chronically online, simping over pop idols like a kid about to enter puberty.

“I guess that’s to be expected,” she comments, snarkily, grabbing the edges of your pants, daring to rip them off you. “That’s fucking life, baby!” 

If you were in her shoes, obsessively waiting for someone with equally unhinged horniness, expressing precisely how you’d get fucked every single time you’d send a remotely lewd photo, you’d feel just as disappointed. You can tell by her partially scornful expression: she’s been fantasizing this moment as much as you have, too. You can’t blame her, but you kind of expected her to anticipate this; after all, you connected in a private group chat that’s been sexualizing her, of all places. 

Surely the signs of virginity were right there.

“At least this is real,” she says, leaning her head forward while cupping your growing bulge poking through your trousers. Your tip, at full mast, mere inches away from her chin, instead of a little phone screen. She’s pushing you around, growing slightly more mischievous and uncontrollable with the prospect of throwing someone like you around instead of the opposite. Something her members may have taught and ingrained in her. 

It isn’t quite the picture you expected from all the erotic snapshots and clips she’s been sending you. Every photo and video, designed to rouse the filthiest and wildest of your thoughts, was an act, a ruse to let your guard down, to give you this fixed headcanon that you can toss her around like she’s your personal plaything and object of pleasure. Instead, she’s using you for her own desires and wants.

It’s not that you don’t want her to use you and fuck you like this, it’s how completely in control she is that has you reeling, leaves you in a dizzy spell.

“I was gonna let you use my pussy and fuck me to ruin,” she says, playfully rolling her eyes, teasing and mocking. Her hand grips around the denim of your bulge, and it fucking stings. You’re sucking on loose air. “But since we have a virgin over here, I’m gonna do whatever I want.”

The implied connotation is what terrifies you, and no, it isn’t the revelation that Yerim isn’t a virgin—you assumed that much—but the notion that you were gonna have free reign over her cunt that has you contemplating some deep, long forgotten life decisions that set you back years. Their consequences are now starting to show.

She releases her ironclad grip on your pants, frees you of your obstructive clothing, both trousers and boxers down to the floor. Your hard cock springs free, terribly aching, already red and sore from her suffocating clench, and already leaking bursts of precum. The last day and a half hasn’t been kind to your cock.

To add insult to injury, she makes this licking motion with her tongue, aimed at your tip, but relents at the last minute. It leaves your throbbing cock aching harder, without any point of relief. The teasing sight almost renders you unconscious, and sends Yerim into a laughing frenzy. 

“Remember when I said I could taste your cock?” she says, chuckling. It’s not playful in the slightest—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s sinister. “I’ll wait a little longer to taste it. Don’t worry.”

Not the most reassuring of words, especially when you’ve got your hands tied—at least, not yet. Actually, you appreciate that she isn’t going to milk your cock dry just yet; when you finally look past the situation at hand, you come to treasure her chest. Her shapely chest, freely bouncing while she bounces her thick body on your lap—keep doing that, you say inside your mind, letting your wandering gaze soak in the unreal scene. 

She notices your intrigued eyes, rising and falling in rhythm with her tits. Subtlety was never your intention, and she probably knows from experience, as she says she does. Fixated attention is how she gets herself off, based on how she seems to respond to the lewd messages you’ve sent her in the past, and it shows when she repeats some choice remarks back to your face:

“I’d kill my boss to fuck those tits right now, you’re so goddamn sexy.”

She grips a hand around your throat, another down to the buttons of your shirt, pulling them apart. 

“Let me be your personal titty towel.”

Halfway there.

“I’d suck on your tits first, go down on your delicious pussy, then fuck that wet hole of yours three times straight.”

Just like that, you’re both even. Equal in nakedness.

You’re unsure whether it’s the sight of Yerim asserting her dominance over you, tits all up in your face with a devious smirk as she bares you down to your essentials that’s leaving you short on air, or if it’s the hand cautiously coiled around your neck. Either option seems sensible enough. This is how she lives in your head rent free, just being her sassy, sexy self. Even repeating some of the same particularly questionable lewd things you’ve written to her sounds hot with her brazen tone. 

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she raises an eyebrow, leaning her head close, as if demanding an answer. 

Really, there’s no multiple choice here. Of course you nod.

She rolls her hips upward, inches her body across yours little by little, til her dripping pussy completely shadows your view. Her hand grabs the back of your head, meaty thighs pressing between your face. Now you’re truly suffocating. Even with the rather shameful admission, she rolls her crotch on your lips, expecting you to know what to do. No words, just the expectant grind of her crotch on your face, her wet folds opening up for you to take them.

Then, she begins moaning. 

Admittedly, the closest you’ve had to trying out oral is using your phone as an outlet for your tongue whenever she sends a boob photo. Thankfully, your inexperience doesn’t show when you first dip your tongue inside her folds, getting your first taste of pussy. Saltier than you expected, but fuck, you’d be lying if you think it wasn’t completely intoxicating—everything you hoped for, and more. 

It incites a few expressive reactions from Yerim—some loud, others quieter—with the end result usually a sharper, deeper grind of her waist on your face, splaying her cunt for you to devour. You’ve got one hand pressed on her ass, holding her plump flesh down while the other is at her mercy, pulled by hers, forced to squeeze her breast. You won’t complain. Not when her cries of pleasure motivate you to push yourself harder.

You repeat this addictive cycle, stretch moments into minutes, minutes into hours. Even when you’ve drained her completely, you’ll still be craving for more of her; that’s how hungry she’s made you. Your tongue meets her clit, and it draws out this especially sharp whine that she’s never hit once. Not on a track. Not anywhere. She swears up a storm, juxtaposed between soft, gentle pleas of “yes, more, and you’re so good.” 

In return, you take more of her, soak yourself in the continuous downpour of her slick juices freely flowing all over your mouth and tongue. As her pleasure escalates, her fingers tighten their grasp on your head, grab your tousled hair. You add soft, intimate kisses between streaks of licking her folds, and they send the young idol writhing, shaking atop you. Her words have been reduced to nothing but short, needy bursts of “please.” Even in this uncontrollable state, she gyrates her hips around you, rhythm steady, but more determined than ever to let herself go.

By the way her pussy throbs, you’re certain she’s a few critical points away from climax. It doesn’t change your plans, not one bit. You continue to lap at her sensitive folds, bask in her intoxicating heat, purposefully teasing her clit. She won’t demand that you end her —not this quickly, not when you’ve magically learned the art of giving oral to a woman under short notice.

You slowly work her through it. Your tongue dives into her slick entrance, deeper than it's ever been so far. The overpowering sensations send ripples that reach even the foundations of the bed, unlike anything it’s ever felt. Even in the wild throes of bodily pleasure, Yerim has enough willpower to stay in character, delivering a demand in her usual playful, fast talking tone. “Please do it! I’m going to cum!”

You contemplate the thought, completely drunk in her divine taste yourself, but you oblige. 

Your tongue sticks to her bud, and it causes this instantaneous, elaborate chain reaction. Yerim cries a sharp cry, waves of orgasm washing down all over her body. She stops in her tracks, completely rigid, mouth wide open, and this torrential gush of slick and orgasm swamps you, drowning you so deep that it's nearly fatal. Her thighs involuntarily clench tighter, too, and you’re temporarily trapped in your own pocket dimension, impossible to clean with all the cum left behind, especially on the sheets.

The most surprising observation from her orgasm is how suddenly calm it becomes. Only the sound of your tongue licking her clean can be heard, and it’s nothing but a gentle rustle. She hangs her head up, face completely flushed, catching needed oxygen in her lungs, letting the aftermath of her climax pass over. 

While her breath normalizes, she lifts herself up, moves to the side of the bed. In her wake, she’s left behind a drenched lake of slick around your face, leaking down to the muddled sheets beneath you. 

“Well,” she says, panting and pausing for air. “There goes the other bed.”

It doesn’t take rocket science to figure out what she meant. Even when you’re still mindlessly occupied by the sticky residue around your lips. You let out this muffled exhale, designed to be a laugh, but it backfires in your face. Amused, she giggles on your behalf.

“Not bad.” Yerim smiles at you. Charming and cute, a contrast to what had just transpired. “I thought you said you never had sex?”

It takes you a moment before you answer back, “I haven’t. You just taste really good.”

“You still have some left on the edges of your face,” she comments, her eyes mesmerized by how much she’s cum all over you. “Let me help you clean that up.”

And she helps, but not in a conventional way. She lifts you from the bed by your torso, then submerges you again, this time at the mercy of her bosom. You’ve got your arms wrapped around her waist while you’re kissing and sucking on her Yerim’s  tits, not exactly tidying up, but creating a larger mess that no amount of tongue cleaning can resolve. 

In the meantime, she whispers in your ear some of your more—questionable—comments:

“They need to give her a solo debut with a very sexy concept and trust me, I’ll be the guy who breaks the world record for jerking off if they do that.”

“It must feel heavy to carry them all the time. Let me lend a hand to you.”

“The only thought I had inside my mind when I saw her is every member would milk her 3x a day so that they don’t have to go outside and buy milk to eat cereal to the point they would just drink it from the source.”

You stop. You give her this strange, confused look. Even you couldn’t believe you said that.

“Did I actually say that?”

“Yes!” she replies, quick and straightforward, unable to hide her enthusiasm, while brushing your hair. “Not gonna lie, that sent me to the floor. I was laughing so hard, Irene ran in to check up on me!”

To make things worse, she flashes this wide, toothy grin that makes you regret your life choices. 

“God. I don’t wanna drink anymore.”

“Hey, if there’s any consolation, you wouldn’t be sucking on my tits and eating me out now if you never made that comment,” she says, caressing your chin and giving you a peck on the lips. As if it’s still not one of the most out of pocket comments you’ve ever made about anyone, let alone a celebrity—and you weren’t fully yourself.

“Relax. Don’t think about it too much.” Yerim pushes you back down to the bed, crawls atop you, meeting your lips again for an intimate kiss. Your hard cock, which has been left unattended for quite a while, captures your attention—and especially hers. “Lean back for me, will you?”

You comply. Involuntarily, your legs straighten, but Yerim pushes them apart, places herself at center view, seemingly ready to take you in her mouth. It makes sense; a woman with a mouth that runs like hers probably only stops when there’s cock stuffed inside them. The theory proves to be plausible when she gives your sensitive tip a delicate, yet dangerous lick, her eyes glinting at you with renewed vigor and lust.

“I told you I’d have a taste of that cock,” she says, half smug, half seductive, gloating with her brows. Your tenseness slightly recedes—until you realize your cock’s moving past her lips, in the direction of the space between her cleavage. “I didn’t say I wanted to suck on it.”

And she was right—not once has she ever expressed her desire to choke, gag, deepthroat on it. 

You grit your teeth, watching your cock disappear between her shapely tits, with Yerim personally making sure you comfortably fit like a glove. You fold. It’s snug. Hot. Breathtaking.

“Fuck, Yeri,” you mutter, closing your eyes as her inviting warmth leaves you weak in the knees, trembling. You don’t realize you’ve used her stage name over her real name. “God—”

“Does this feel like everything you wanted?” she asks, tone sultry and triumphant. A little slide up sends you into a frenzy.

You nod—even though there’s no other available options. The erotic image in front of you is permanently seared into your head: Kim Yerim, popular idol and to an extend, your ‘friend with benefits,’ grinning like a maniac, slowly fucking your cock between her tits, coated with your saliva, sweat, and copious amounts of precum. To think your little crude messages on a random forum would have such long term and drastic consequences such as this.

Not that you’d want to make sense of it all, especially when she gets into a rhythm. Sliding her breasts up and down, she’s delicate, intentional, and masochistic; you’re on the receiving end of how she felt when you were slowly eating her out. She’s dangerous, teetering between the line where your cock can be safe between her bosom and where she can break you in half. You’re already falling apart—and fast.

“Holy shit, Yerim. Fuck.” 

Each word you deliver is long and drawn out, especially the profanities. Heavenly music to her ears. She’s out of reach where you can pull by her hair, so you settle for the sheets instead. Your gaze wanders, travels everywhere but in her direction, because you don’t need to see the tortuous scene happening between your legs. Looking at the descending sun, this is probably the last time you’ll see the sun set in your life.

Her eyes challenge you to look at anywhere from her. Panting frantically, you find yourself at the mercy of Yerim’s whims, your cock fading and swelling into view, sticky and wet, gushing cum all over her tits. The sight drives you further mad, has you making sounds that have never been recorded—ever. She takes you in, delights in your suffering, eager for you to say the magic words.

“Ready to cum? I know you want to cum.” 

Even under duress, you’re not ready to fold just yet. There’s a little stubbornness inside you fighting back, pulling all the stops to keep you from surrendering to Yerim’s demands. You close your eyes, grip on the sheets even tighter, control your breathing, but it’s too little too late. You can only do so much with two hands.

“Cum for me.”

You hold onto a particularly deep breath, desperate to cling to whatever dying vestiges of control there is left, but your fate has already been sealed from the moment you’ve allowed your cock to enter her chest.

“Yerim, I—”

The exhale you release is the most relieving and satisfying. With it, comes out a rope of thick, creamy cum splashed all over her neck and chest. The aching, violent sensation doesn’t stop; more seed spills between the warmth of her cleavage. In one fell swoop, you feel all of your energy sapped from you, leaving you completely weak and powerless. 

In the gap between your climax and post-orgasm haze, you wonder if she’ll take some of your cum in her mouth, with the way she looks at your cock as it throbs beneath her chin. No. She lets it drip down her perfect naked body with a sticky white sheen that glows under the natural light piercing through the hotel’s window. 

“Just like that, hm,” she comments, casually flicking the last of your withering orgasm and cum with her wrist. She lathers the slick on her fingers on her shoulder, then places some into her mouth for a taste. 

After you regain a semblance of normalcy—after Yerim’s finished entertaining herself with your cum, staring at her coated body and fingers with curious interest—she rests her elbows on your knees, in the process of relearning how to bend. You sink back against the headrest, watch as the fading sun glimmers on an idol like her, destined to shine for every occasion possible—on the stage and under the afterglow of sex. She smiles, bright and wide, taking you in, as you are.

There’s something brewing, especially in the tender few minutes that follow. Something special, something more than just a spark. 

“So—” Yerim runs a sticky finger on your knee, dangerously close to stirring up your cock again. “You wanna try anal with me next?”

You pause. Widening your eyes, staring back with a look of disbelief. Just when you’re about to open your mouth to reply, she adds:

“Kidding. You do know that you’re gonna have to delete those tweets and comments, right? If they find out you’re here, you’re fucked. And I mean, a thousand times worse than now.”

—————

(A/N: This was an absolute joy to write. The nature of the request meant I could go very meta with it. About time we get a proper Red Velvet full album, so perfect timing! If you're able to figure out some of the references and easter eggs, then you, my friend, are too engrossed in the Tumblr K-pop male reader smut lore. Thank you for reading!)

(P.S. If you want to have your own story/idol written, you can ask for a commission :D)

[xxxamerican-psychoxxx]

I know I always make posts like this, but I need to make this one. Desperately.

I have a place to go. I need $2.5k by April. I am in desperate need. My commissions are now 50% off until the end of the year. If you don't want to commission and just wanna help out a little, please do! Here's my PayPal, My Venmo, and my CashApp right below.

•https://www.paypal.me/WastelandCatArt

•https://venmo.com/u/WastelandCatArt

•https://cash.app/$WastelandCatArtist

If you want to use Zelle, that's also acceptable, just DM me and I'll share my Zelle with you.

Please help me out of my abusive parents house. I can't do another year of this.

[fantasyinallforms]

I want to say thank you to @mysandwichranaway for this absolutely stunning and jaw dropping commission. It genuinely blew away all of my expectations. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This piece was commissioned for my bagginshield fic Sparks & Gardens. Here is an excerpt of what this scene was commissioned for.

“Bofur! Turns out I needed a second bag of the potting soil after all! I think I’ll just buy the 50-pound bag if I can manage to get it home!” Thorin resisted the urge to look behind him as he felt Bilbo walk by him and around to the back of the shop. He failed to resist the urge again when Bilbo came back around the corner, struggling to carry a large bag of potting soil. It wasn't so much that it was too heavy for the man but more that Bilbo wasn’t a very big man, so the bag was incredibly cumbersome. It was an almost comical sight, and Thorin couldn't help but cheer his determination.  Soon, however, Bilbo’s tenuous grip on the bag faltered, and it started to slip from his arms. Thorin reflexively caught the bag before it could take the smaller man with it. He easily hoisted the bag onto his shoulder and used his other hand to steady Mr. Baggins.  “I’m so sorry about that. Thank you very mu- Thorin?” Bilbo’s face split into a genuine smile of recognition. “I didn't realise you were a patron of this shop?” There was that cute smile again. Thorin cleared his throat. “I’m not; Fili works for the owner as a runner. I was dropping him off,” he explained. Bilbo’s smile wavered a little, but he recovered quickly.  “Well, It would seem I was quite lucky you were here,” Bilbo beamed.  “How exactly did you plan on getting this home?” Thorin asked, “I had intended to see if I could carry it, but if I couldn't, I was going to hire a runner and a cart.” Bilbo didn't quite meet his eyes, and he realised now why his news of Fili had been so strained. It would be Fili pulling that cart. It warmed Thorin’s heart a little to see Bilbo seem so genuinely apologetic, so the next sentence left him almost involuntarily.  “Let me carry it home for you.” Bilbo's eyes shot up, and a smile passed over his face before it was clouded by worry.              “That’s very kind of you, but are you sure you're okay too? It’s been a week since your ribs took a beating. I’ve broken a rib or two before. Surely your doctor said no heavy lifting!” Bilbo moved like he would try to take the bag back, but Thorin moved, so it was slightly out of reach. Thorin raised his eyebrow in curiosity.  “50 lbs is hardly heavy lifting to me, Master Baggins. You can always tell me the story of how you managed to break a rib while we walk if you want to help pass the time.” Thorin gave a satisfied smile as Bilbo's face flushed.

[the-phantom-peach]

Hi folks!

I wanna thank everyone whose submitted asks so far! It’s always nice to chat with you guys and see your wonderful ideas. I just wanted to announce some new rules to prevent overfilling the ask box, preventing some asks from our friends getting answered~^^:

1) Please Refrain from Submitting Off -Topic Drawing Requests (unless explicitly asked) Most requests I’ve gotten so far are totally fine! Topics relating to Persona and Zelda (or other fandoms I’ve previously stated I’m interested in) are all I’m willing to accept for now. I’m so sorry for those that have already submitted some requests. I’d love to do them but my schedule is too full to fulfill all of them fairly, specially for fandoms I have no experience in.

2) Please also refrain from sending overly detailed requests. The reason is obvious, but if you’d really like to have your request drawn, you can request a slot for a commission and I’ll gladly work together with you on it!

3) Please Be Patient! Please do not resend a request or ask if I don’t get to your submission quickly. I have 50+ submissions at a time and it will take a minute to get yours! :)

These rules apply for the time being until I get more time or specifically ask for other requests. Thank you so much for all your sweet submissions thus far! I hope this isn’t taken the wrong way, I just hope to commit the appropriate amount of time to interact with everyone <3

[mamayan]

☆彡CHOMP★彡

KNY HASHIRA HEADCANONS

BITE FACTOR!

What they do if you randomly bite them♡

FLAME HASHIRA! Kyojuro Rengoku

Awareness: Zero, he doesn’t expect the chomp. He doesn’t react violently though, so don’t worry too much.

Bite Factor: He’s very muscular but when relaxed he’s got a 8/10 on the chew factor. Only a 4/10 if he flexes (which he will if he thinks you’re going to bite, he wants you to think he’s strong).

Best Nibble Points: Bicep (he wants you to), pectorals (tiddies), his ass—

Reaction: He’s gonna either laugh or pop hard, sometimes both. Pick your location wisely. If you bite his ass he’s smacking yours.

SOUND HASHIRA! Tengen Uzui

Awareness: God level. You snuck up on no one. 100% knows what you’re up to, he can hear you licking your teeth. Your ability to chomp will be solely dependent on his mood to allow it.

Bite Factor: Also a very muscular man, jewelry limits chomp, 6/10 not flexing and 3/10 flexing.

Best Nibble Points: Fingers (be gentle he and his wives need all of them), forearm, cheek—

Reaction: He allowed the bite in the first place, so 100% hard. Probably hard before you even bit. If you nibble very gently, he may pat your head.

Bonus! His wives all enjoy this game too, and will play with you and invite you to play with them. They are all 10/10 on bite factor, but vary on awareness and reactions.

STONE HASHIRA! Gyomei Himejima

Awareness: He knows your there, but 100% doesn’t know your intention is to chomp he’s fucking blind. Be careful! He might accidentally pull you off, and that might take your teeth out.

Bite Factor: He’s jacked but has a good soft layer of fluff for a whopping bite factor of 9/10! If he’s flexing, 4/10.

Best Nibble Points: Lips (be gentle and don’t be mean), inner thigh, tummy—

Reaction: If you’re smart and don’t try and take a chunk out of him, he is just curious what you’re up to. Might squish your cheeks and tease you. Might cry. If you chomp too hard and he isn’t prepared, he might push you throw you across the earth.

WIND HASHIRA! Sanemi Shinazugawa

Awareness: I’d say 50/50 he’ll see it coming. If it’s the first chomp, he’s unaware, but he learns quick. You’ll need to start adding in feints to trick him. He will avoid any chomps he thinks are coming his way. He gets embarrassed and then angry.

Bite Factor: Fucking terrible, he squirms and squeals, but he does have good squish… 6/10. Flexing is a given because he tenses up like you’ve put a knife to his throat right when teeth touch flesh.

Best Nibble Points: Love handles (he’s ticklish and it’s funny to hear him shout), hamstring (easier sneak factor), ears—

Reaction: He is .2 seconds away from screaming for mommy Ubuyashiki to tattle on you. He won’t tell you his dick is hard nor will he admit he wants to bite you back. His reactions are genuine and honest, what you see is what you get. 10/10 for cuteness and flushed face when you do get him.

WATER HASHIRA! GIYUU TOMIOKA

Awareness: …none. He’s absolutely defenseless like a newborn kitten. He’s so damn startled and shocked it may leave him out of commission for a little while give him time okay.

Bite Factor: He may look cold but he actually is cold. He’s made of steel. Awful chomps but don’t tell him it’ll hurt his feelings. 5/10 and I’m being generous.

Best Nibble Points: Triceps, palm of hands, neck— (he’ll go feral watch out).

Reaction: What he lacks in chomp factor he makes up for in reaction. Just go ahead and pull your pants down now, it’ll save time. He gets shockingly turned on! Feel free to really sink your teeth into him, he might moan.

SERPENT HASHIRA! Obanai Iguro

Awareness: Low! He doesn’t expect the chomp even when you’ve chomped him before! He might be cautious around you for a few days after but he’ll forget.

Bite Factor: He’s lean and pretty tough sadly, even worse of a chomp than Giyuu. 4/10. I don’t make the rules, oh wait I do.

Best Nibble Points: Shoulders (easy), clavicle, hips— why you down there?!

Reaction: Either comical and you receive a lecture on discipline or he’s melting like butter in a hot pan. He might tie you up and leave you dangling for a while don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

MIST HASHIRA! Muichiro Tokito

100% platonic, he is a child!

Awareness: Where did he go? He’s gone before you get the chance to chomp ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡ If you manage a lucky chomp, count your blessings the kid is quick.

Bite Factor: Lowest on this list! 1/10, he’s got no more baby fat but not enough weight yet to qualify a good chomp factor. Baby Muichiro though would be 100/10 cuz baby cheeks.

Best Nibble Points: NONE don’t bite him weirdos. BABY CHEEKS— I totally bite my nieces cheeks lol

Reaction: If you get a cheek chomp, he’s letting it happen. Be appreciative he’s allowing you near him, be polite to the cats napping and keep your voice down. 2/10 cuz he’s straight faced and not very cute about it.

LOVE HASHIRA! Mitsuri Kanroji

Awareness: She’s actually very aware! All chomps are welcome and adored please bite her.

Bite Factor: ekekekekEKEKEKEKEMEKEEKEKEKEKEKEKEK ♾️/10 like the perfect chomp every time no matter where you chomp. She’s so damn soft but she’s also fairly muscular too, it’s the perfect combination she’s got memory foam thighs.

Best Nibble Points: THIGHS (she’s a little ticklish too, points for the cute giggles), Chest (I said what I said), coochie— (I SAID WHAT I SAID)

Reaction: No cute surprises but she’s very cuddly and sweet. She will nibble back~ ♡

INSECT HASHIRA! Shinobu Kocho

Awareness: Woman has eyes in the back of her head I swear, no surprises for her. Any and all chomps are proofed and vetted. Good luck.

Bite Factor: A perfect 10/10! No surprises though, she’s small and soft, perfect bite material get it like wife.

Best Nibble Points: Anywhere. Literally, I’m not joking. If she lets a nibble through, she’s got plans for you.

Reaction: Just go ahead and put the collar on already, you’ve initiated play at this point. That sweet smile :3

[rebirthgarments]

Go to GiveButter.com/mogaza to support a disabled teen and his family! 

Two generous donors have offered to do matching donations for Mohammed Hammad and his family for up to a total of $3,000 if people contribute $3k to his give butter by May 15! Truly double your contribution

One of the donors already got us started with $1k just because they are so confident we will meet the goal, so that means we are only $8k away from him being able to register his whole family for evacuation. Even though the border is currently closed, registration is still open. I follow a telegram channel with real time updates about the border, and the updates are hopeful that the border will open again soon. 

Even if the border were not to open back up, anyone who is fundraising for evacuations still gets their money, and it would just go towards the high survival costs that just get higher everyday!

We hope to be able to get him to meet his goal ASAP so that he can register as soon as the border opens again. If we meet this goal from the matching donors, then we will only be $3k away! 

Mohammed told us a while ago that his Give Butter needs $50k for him to be able to evacuate along with his mother and 5 younger siblings. The amount is more than we thought initially because of the high commissions  that the merchants who control the cash flow take out. Moha says that where he is, the commission is 50%. You can read more about this in my post titled “can people in Gah-zah receive money?”

Check out Mohammed’s updates and stay connected with him at @moh.2090727 on IG

[image description: a pink ombre text graphic that reads: “$3k matching donation! Donate to 17yo disabled Mohammed Hammad + his family from now until May 15 and two generous donors will match everyone’s donations up to $3k! givebutter.com/mogaza “ there is a QR code that goes to the link on the right, the most recent photo of Mohammed using crutches from the day he got his fixator taken off in the center, and the queercrip symbol with a Palestinian flag filling it in on the left. There are little black sparkles around the graphic.]

[transforming]

For those requesting to see my stories from my previous tumblr account as reference for commissions, I'll be posting them here now!

To start off, here's one of my favorite stories of mine, which I wrote for Thanksgiving three years ago...

The House on Oak Street

There’s been some rumors spreading about the old grey house at the end of Oak Street. Built in the Victorian style of architecture, it’s been left in ruins for, say, 50 years? The deed to the house was never given up by the family who used to live in there, though the house has been for sale for some time. Apparently, it couldn’t be sold to anyone after what had happened to their friends, relatives, even the robbers or strangers that ever set foot inside…

Finn was tired. He’s at his breaking point. University is stressful enough, but add jocks and frats into it made it even worse. He was just walking home from class with his friends Peter and Ned, the three of them happen sharing an apartment far from campus since they couldn’t afford to stay in the dorms.They all shared the same interests - their studies, D&D, and architecture, all of them studying in the field.

The trio of friends were trying to avoid the Pi Kappa Alpha house, which was on the route they frequently took, when they passed by Oak Street that fateful day. As they passed by the line of houses, Finn stopped at one - an abandoned Victorian.

“Guys, look!” Finn said, pointing towards the empty house, intrigued.

“Finneas, it’s just an abandoned house,” Peter responded painfully, looking down at his shiny black school shoes.

“Not just any abandoned house Peter, it’s the Creepy Vic of Oak Street,” Ned added as he adjusted his thick glasses.

The three eighteen-year-olds looked at each other. According to urban legend, this very house on Oak Street had a reputation of endless trespassers, all of whom never reappeared once they entered the front door, some say having been pulled into another dimension or being eaten alive by a monster. 

“But those are just silly rumors, right? Does anyone actually believe that?” Finn asked as he took a step towards the porch.

“I do, Finneas. Do you want to disappear? And it’s just basic morals to never trespass someone else’s property,” Ned asked concerned.

Finneas nodded, and followed his friends, but something caught his eye, something he didn’t notice there before. A FOR SALE sign posted at the front of the yard. Finneas felt a connection with the house, but he couldn’t place a finger on it, so he quickly took a picture of the sign, making sure to get the realtor’s number, and sped towards Ned and Pete.

From the corner of the street, the trio could hear the speeding vroom of a sports car. 

“Yo, ‘Lex, Chad! it’s the poor faggy nerd trio!” Leo jeered from the driver’s seat.

“Park the car, dude!” Alex said grinning, getting off and standing toe-to-toe with Finn.

“What do you want, Alex?” Ned replied angrily.

Chad pushed him to the ground. “No one talks to us like that that, lil’ pussy ass dweeb. Why’re you here, anyway? Didn���t wanna get your asses kicked?”

Peter helped Ned up and pulled Finn close to them.

“Leave us alone, don’t you guys have trainings to go to?” Peter retorted.

The jocks chuckled as they harrassed the three students, punching their faces and breaking Peter’s glasses.

“I’m bored, bro, let’s just go, they got nothing today,” Leo chuckled. The three frat jocks jumped into the Maserati and sped away, while the three nerds trudged home. They dropped their bags and headed for the kitchen, starving. Ned took out a box of corn flakes and poured milk into a bowl first.

“Milk first, Ned?” Peter asked, shocked.

“What? I’m hungry,” he replied frustrated.

“I know, but that’s just weird!”

As they argued over how to eat cereal, Finn opened his phone and stared at the picture of the sign. A weird feeling of need came over him and he felt like the house was calling to him, though obviously a house has no such power. He typed up the number of the realtor, and pressed call.

“Mike Philipps for Century 21, how may I help?”

“Uh– hi, I… I wanted to inquire about the house for sale on Oak Street?”

“1324 Oak Street, the old Victorian?” Mike asked.

“Y-yes… it says it’s for sale?”

“Well, yes… but the family hasn’t been cooperative with our previous interested buyers.”

“How come?”

“Some weird rumors spreading about it, nothing of substance, really. How would you like to arrange an appointment to see the place?”

“Sure, sir! H-how’s…” Finn fumbled as he checked his calendar and schedule. “How’s tomorrow, Mr. Philipps?”

“Perfect. I’ll inform Mr. Thomas of your interest in the place.”

——–

After a few weeks of negotiating, and talking it out with Ned and Pete, the three friends somehow managed to buy the place at a real low price. Mr. Thomas was an odd man, for sure, and seemed interested in the boys. As the boys headed out of the tour, Alex, Leo and Chad harrassed them again, and Mr. Thomas watched silently. He may not have wanted what happened to the people in this house, but these three kids needed it.

Ned’s dad and his brother Colin came over to help renovate the place. New walls needed to be installed, new windows, new pipes (which Pete took care of with his uncle’s plumbing company), new roofing, all being supervised by Finn, who among the three was the best architect. The three painted the house and about a few months later, they moved in. 

“Can’t believe we got this place cheap,” Ned laughed as he carried his stash of comic books in. 

“Mind you, this being the Creepy Old Vic, it’s not so creepy now!” Pete added, starting the fire.

“Yeah, guys. We have a place now,” Finn said. 

Outside, the three douchebag jocks peered into the window. They’ve made some messes before, but this was gonna be the biggest prank they’ve pulled. Alex ran and switched off the house’s power. All the lights went out. The TV died. Silence and darkness, save the fire.

“Finn, what happened? I thought the electrical stuff was dealt with,” Peter shouted.

“They were-”

“Yo nerds! Need help?” shouted a voice, the sound of smug laughter coming from outside the front door.

“FUCK, it was them!” Ned whispered.

Finn cautiously unlocked and opened the door. Alex pushed him to the ground. 

“’Sup, nerd?” Alex grinned, “We wanna play!”

Ned and Pete hid, but they were pulled by the back of their t-shirts, their skinny frames revealed.

“LET US GO!” Peter screamed, trying to break free from Chad.

“What have WE ever done to YOU?” Ned squirmed in Leo’s arms.

“Oh, nothing,” Alex snapped, “Just being nerds is enough.”

As the trio of athletes tied and gagged the three trapped friends, the front door banged shut and locked itself.

“The fuck?” Chad said, running over and trying to open the door.

“We can go through the back bro,” Leo replied. He walked through the kitchen and tried to open the door as well, but it was bolted. 

“Bolted here as well?” he asked, as the curtains suddenly moved and closed. Pete spat out the cloth in his mouth.

“It’s the Creepy Old Vic. What did I tell you, Finn?!” he cried.

Finn’s eyes welled up, frightened. Ned was still moving about restlessly. As the three realized they could lose their lives, the fire died out, keeping them all in darkness. Suddenly, Chad felt a punch to the face as he fell to the floor, suddenly getting absorbed into the hardwood as if it were deep water. Leo heard Chad’s fall and ran towards the door, his phone’s torch on.

“Chad? Bro, where you…” his voice trailed off as he saw Chad’s hand sinking into the floor. Alex gasped in horror.

“Chad?”

“Alex–” Leo replied, but he was cut off. He felt the wall grab him, pulling him in, hands gagging his mouth as they dragged him in. The four college students could only stare as Chad’s eyes drowned in the blue concrete. Alex ran and pulled out a knife from the kitchen. 

“I’m not afraid of this house!” he shouted as he walked towards the living room, only to find the nerds he tied up missing, the rope and gags strewn around the room. 

Alex looked up and saw two green eyes. He was petrified.

“NO!” he screamed as the eyes formed a mouth and swallowed him whole, the three jocks never to be seen again.

——–

The next morning, Ned woke up lying on the floor, in front of the front door. His body ached.

Meanwhile, Peter was in the attic experiencing the same as Ned. Muscles everywhere. 

“Woah,” he chuckled, pinching himself as if he was dreaming, but nothing. The muscle didn’t fade. 

“I’m a handsome muscular guy?” he mumbled in his… super sexy voice. He stepped out of the tub and admired himself in the mirror. He looked so different, as if he was mixed with Leo. He certainly felt different, and was surprised when he looked down and saw his new, way heftier package.

He grinned.

The bathroom door opened, and two other handsome, well-built guys stood, hands on their hips.

“N-Ned? Peter?”

“Dude, what happened to us?” Pete flexed his arms, smirking and posing the handsome devil he was.

“I dunno, bro, Ned?” Finn replied, and realized he just said bro as if he always said it.

“I told ya it’s the house!” Ned’s voice boomed. “Didn’t you guys see when Chad and Leo were just… absorbed by the house?”

The lights turned back on. The three boys, well, men now, felt a sharp pain in their heads as knowledge of sports, fitness, working out and eating healthily, along with some knowledge of sex and a boost of confidence, filled into their minds, not completely altering who they were, but adapting them to their new physiques.

As they looked at each other, grinning with their new confidence, screams came from the basement. Pete ran down to check what was going on, when he saw a hooded figure surrounding three skinny boys, who were crying for help until the hood transformed into a blanket and covered the trio, the blanket absorbing them into the ground below.

Chad and Finn watched from behind Pete, as he closed the door.

——–

a few days later…

“What now?” Pete asked

“We’re still the same… somewhat. Inside, at least,” Ned responed as he made his pecs dance.

“And our families and classmates?” Pete added.

Ned had an idea. “We need to change names.”

“True,” Pete replied, smiling. “I’m… now Alex.”

“And I’m guessing Ned’s now Chad?” Finn asked, smirking.

Ned nodded.

“Cool, bro, then I’m Leo now,” Finn chuckled. 

It felt weird, but it also felt right. Like this was their destiny. Finn’s connection to the house finally made sense, but he had another idea come into his mind too.

“Why don’t we… start our own frat?” Leo beamed.

“A frat?” the two studs looked surprised.

“I mean, why not? We’re hot now, and plus, the house helped us become this,” he smiled as he demonstrated with their bodies. “We could help others just like us.”

Alex nodded, “You’ve got a point, but what would we be called?”

Chad pondered for a moment, thinking through the Greek alphabet. “How about Delta Beta Alpha?”

“Delta Beta Alpha,” Leo repeated. “The change of betas, like who we were, into Alpha men, like who we are now?”

Chad smirked and nodded.

Leo and Alex grinned as well. The house was gonna make some more changes to others like them.

Mr Thomas would be pleased if he ever knew.

[strawberryoverlordart]

UPDATE 12/25/23: thank you everyone for your support! I'll still be open for commissions and am always looking for help but it's slightly less urgent now and I do deeply appreciate everyone who helped out

Please help me pay my rent

Hi everyone, I've been agonizing over posting this for a couple days now because I don't feel comfortable e-begging, and honestly If i keep thinking to hard about it I'm just never gonna be able to make it so I'm going to jump in.

My name is Ruby, I'm a mentally ill queer women living in TX, and am currently unemployed. I had a new job lined up and was even told when to come in for training, only to receive an email the day off my first day of training telling me they were no longer interested in hiring me. My roommates and I were supposed to move in February but I still have to cover rent for this month, and due to allot of factors both within myself and outside myself I've been too mentally unstable to maintain a job. My only options are food service and retail and I feel trapped because of it.

I'm only asking for $700 to cover my rent for the month and I would appreciate any help I can get to cover it.

I'm available for commissions and am offering %50 off all my prices to make rent money even if it kills me. I also have a ko-fi and a Patreon. Literally any amount of money will help me right now, and if you can't help out re-blogging wold be helpful.

$830/700

Commission Information

[bloodyodyssey]

COMM POST IS BACK UP YAYYYY 🎉🎉🎉 This time with up to 8 slots at a time, 3 for busts, 3 for half body, and 2 for full body! Each listing also allows for up to one extra character to be added on at half price!

***If you don't want to commission me that's also fine i'd apreciate just a regular kofi dono or just sharing this around bc my finances are maybe extremely worrying right now. i will also be considering opening a google doc or some other order form to allow payments via cashapp. Anyways heres a general breakdown of the pricing system and my will's/wont's under the cut:

So how do I (you, the buyer) choose what I want?

SO when you open up the request form it should look something like this!

We're using the bust order as our example here. At its base price, $15, it is set for the black and white option. If this is what you would like, then you don't have to worry about the add ons at all and you go straight to submitting your request! Now, if you're choosing add ons, it'll look something like these:

The first would be an example of an order of a flat color bust + an extra character bust with flat coloring as well. The color option adds the extra $10 (to match the listed price on the poster for $25), and the extra character with flat coloring adds half of that $25 to the order (well a little less bc i knocked off the .50 cents) which is why it comes out to $37.

The second would be an example of a black and white bust order with an added black and white bust character. This just adds an extra $7 to the price totaling $22.

What will you (the artist, me Brutus) draw?

If you want me to draw your oc or fanart of your favorite character I GOT U!!!

I'm also comfortable drawing blood and gore though I'll have to keep it on the lighter side (I enjoy blood if it isnt obvious by my url though so depending on what you want we might be able to go a little further with that).

I can do characters with armor as well, however I will require a reference of some sort from you, the client, as I'm frankly not going to attempt armor off the dome. I won't design armor myself either.

Pinups (not full nsfw due to how much of a struggle it is to navigate different site policies) and other suggestive works are also a-ok! a tity does not bother me if that wasn't made clear by my commission card 👍🏽

What will you (the artist, me Brutus) NOT draw?

Im not comfortable trying to draw real people as of right now sorry! I'd hate to mess that up and have somebody clown me for messing up their beloved's features so that is off the table right now but it's subject to change.

I also won't do furry/anthro just because that isn't my forte as I haven't practiced drawing animalistic characters. There r plenty of talented furry artists for you to choose from and I could talk to someone to guide you to a few

(I can do more humanoid fantasy characters however. like mermaids, satyrs, etc)

More extreme gore and body horror is also off the table.

I may love mecha but as it is like armor and a bit more extreme, I'm not drawing it sorry. And also as stated above I'm not drawing armor regardless without a good reference.

Certain fandoms are a no-go for me due to my own comfort. A quick list would be: mogeko games, omori, south park, hetalia, attack on titan, mcyt, hazbin hotel/helluva boss. if you're not sure just ask!

I reserve the right to decline any comission request for any reason. Getting paid is nice but my comfort is nicer yknow.

And that should cover everything! If you still need to ask me anything, my main is @odysseys-blood (since you cant recieve messages on a side blog). Thank you so much for reading and a little extra thank you if you decide to commission me ❤️

[2dmax]

2dmax commissions info spring 2024

last updated april 12th

to place an order for a commission, you may PM me; if you prefer, you can also fill out this form or commission me through fiverr.

text and additional info below the readmore.

thanks for reblogging, even if you aren't interest right now!

Packages

These are excellent starting off points for most common commission types. Additional specificity and complexity can be purchased. All basic packages are artist's medium of choice, include simple backgrounds, minimal/no props. All include full color, fully finished works.

Standard Illustration - $80

Artistic and expressive "full body" illustration (roughly 75-100% of figure).

Mini Illustration - $50

Chibi, portrait, half body, icons, and the like.

Couple's Illustration - $100

A duo version of the above styles. Doesn't have to be romantic couples - friends, enemies, family, pet & owner, or other pairs and duos OK.

Multipose, Reference, and Group Lineups - $120+

For commissions that require either multiple poses of the same character, groups, more than two characters generally. Reference pages can include close-ups and detailed shots.

Experimental Commissions

18"x24" Handmade Poster - $200

artist’s choice of medium only. typically acrylic/mixed media. always on extra large poster sized paper. great way to celebrate your favorite OCs or canon characters!

paper clay figurine - $100

chibi humanoids/animals/ferals/anthros only. between 2"-3" cubed, give or take. armature wire, paper clay, paint, and varnish. these are delicate art items, not toys; not suitable for children. includes a photoset at no additional cost.

standalone comics page - $200

2-5 panels, 1-2 characters, 1 location. artist’s choice of medium only. can be OCs or canon characters.

wildcard commission - $???

submit your request and your budget; results are up to the artist.

pay what you want means get what you get!

here’s what to expect when you order:

Send me a PM with basic info; what you would like me to draw, your budget, and if you have a deadline.

I will ask a few questions to be able to build up the concept. I will also give you my e-mail, where you can send me further info and any references you’d like to share!

Your sketch is typically ready within a week; I’ll always update you on my progress. After we agree on the sketch, payment will be due. After it’s paid, I will give you an estimate for when I will be finished with your piece.

Your finished artwork will be e-mailed to you. I am also happy to mail physical art at cost!

terms and conditions:

Your commission is for personal use; icons, roleplaying, in your blog theme, as a wallpaper, or to print out and tape to your fridge. Commercial use can be negotiated.

You must credit me on the platform used if reposted. Always OK to post to ToyHouse; my username is 2dmax there. On instagram and all other platforms where I don’t have an account, please credit my instagram @/maximumgroove.

You may not use my art to promote anything hateful or illegal. You may not claim it as anyone else’s creation. You may not use it for commercial uses, or to edit, adapt, trace, or directly reference, without getting permission. I may use my art in my own promotional material.

➽ navigation desktop view ★ F.A.Q. browse my finished art ★ sketches ★ other media look at buyables & adoptables fan art ★ ttrpg art ★ flight rising art ask me a question ★ browse my archive visit my toyhou.se ★ follow me on instagram

[cosmignon]

VALENTINES COMMISSION SALE + NEW GAME PLUS

If you've noticed the sale got cheaper since the last time you checked this post, good news, you're right!

WELCOME TO... MY VALENTINES EXTRA COMMISSION SALE, IN HONOR OF RAGTIME, MY CAT, AND HIS EXPENSIVE TUMMY ACHE

$50 gets you a half body drawing of two characters being sappy/romantic!! I'll draw them in fun little romantic themed clothes or just what they usually wear, it's all up to you baby.

+$25 per extra character: unlock polyamory in this exciting DLC!!

+$25 for suggestive themes: I'm not going to draw straight up sex but this is for the ppl who wanna have characters posed or dressed sexily, doing sloppy make outs, being a little horny, ect. It's an add on bc I don't usually take this kind of commission, and I can reject anything I'm not comfortable with! Thank you for understanding 🤗

Sale lasts until February 29th! If you want something drawn by that date now's the time to reach me at cosmignon.info@gmail.com!! I use paypal for all commission work, and I have a 1-2 week turn around!

In addition, for the duration of this month I'm also offering a broad 15% discount on my NORMAL COMMISSIONS. Same instructions apply, help me reach my current goal of $757 to pay off a vet bill!

❤️❤️❤️

[deadboyfriendd]

Stains in the Granite

Summary: Throughout the years, Steve has undergone multiple head traumas. You knew this much when you were together. The migraines, the forgetfulness, moderate hearing loss in one ear, vertigo. The list was expansive. When you were together. It’s been over a year since you had last spoken to him, but an unexpected call from Hawkins Regional sends you reeling back to him. A forgotten emergency contact, he probably just never bothered to update it. You would let Robin know and be back to your regularly scheduled activities, sans Steve. A dead line turns the spigot, worry plugs the drain, and your inability to let him go drowns you in the tub. When he wakes up, he falls in love with you again. And again the next day. And again the day after that. They say he’ll regain his long-term memory storage eventually. They say the amnesia will wear off soon, but, for now, this is who he would have to be. He may only have to live through losing you once, but you’re not sure if you could handle losing him again every day until he regains his memory. You wouldn’t have the heart to tell him.

Content Warning: My content is 18+, Minors DNI, head trauma, mentions of hospitals and the things that go in them, smut, fluff, angst, exes to lovers, hurt/comfort, alcohol

Word Count: 14.2k

Author’s Note: This is dedicated completely to @dr-aculaaa I have had this piece in the works for months before getting it to the version that you are getting. Drac has tirelessly loomed over my docs like God beta reading, helping out with dialogue, and brainstorming these characters with me. This is as much her baby as it is mine, and I love her very very much.

Drac, I love you.

Find the Playlist Here!

Granite, noun, gran·​ite ˈgra-nət 

: a very hard natural igneous rock formation of visibly crystalline texture formed essentially of quartz and orthoclase or microcline and used especially for building and for monuments

: unyielding firmness or endurance

the cold granite of Puritan formalism.

the cold granite of your heart.

You were sullen, eyes unable to focus on any one speckle of the countertop in front of you. You ran your hands over it in a grounding motion, forcing tired eyes upon skin instead of stone. You blinked and it settled. The warmth of your palm could feel the slight unevenness of the surface, where the natural stone had been polished down just slightly too much. You watched it catch the light, glitter beneath your fingers snuffed out by the shadows of your touch. You watched the way the light cast a glowing square onto the ground in its early-morning iridescence. You had not slept, only watched the sunrise before you went to sleep. 

You missed the nonchalance of high school, when being sad was not an inconvenience, in the same way you missed the grandeur of college, where being sad was an art. Now, though you took comfort in the blanket of sadness, it was more obnoxious than anything. Your sighs held a certain bitchiness to them now, less sad than they were unimpressed. 

But you couldn’t help the way the hogs-hair bristles from your years-old, overused brushes stuck in the too-thick paint. You couldn't help the frustration that bubbled through when the linseed oil seeped through too thick and thinned the pigment of your paint so thin the underpainting shone through. It was hard enough to paint your heartbreak, without the added interruption of frustration and all of its woes. You wanted to pick at the scabs of old wounds, reopen them and let the blood drip down onto self-stretched canvases with ragged edges. You wanted your art to feel as raw as your heart did. 

Sometimes you wish you could go back, study something practical like education, be something stupid like an art teacher and talk about fulfillment with dead eyes, but you were too ceremoniously tortured for that. You thought about easy, but you didn’t want it. You craved goddamned difficult. You were goddamned difficult. 

But people bought it. Commissioned it to hang in their ugly suburban sprawls. Ugly art in ugly homes. Maybe people liked the subjectivity, felt like they could see their own heartbreak in it. You weren't so pretentious that you felt like the only person in the world to experience it. You certainly weren’t. Maybe there were people that were introspective, that wanted to feel the heartbreak when they dissociated into the white walls of their cookie-cutter homes. Maybe heartbreak was the only emotion they could force themselves to feel. 

Maybe they took comfort in it, too. 

You didn’t exactly know who you were anymore. Yes, at whatever bullshit ice breaker you could define yourself as an artist. An even more bullshit mediocre descriptor that served as a face to the sacrifice of self you went through for the sake of it all. That was usual, it just came with the territory. It was your only redeeming personality trait. You traded your sense of self for an established style that put cans in your cupboard and secondhand clothes on your back. 

Everything was covered in a wax sheen, the desensitization taking over your personage and casting a vignette across everything you saw. Not even sex was good anymore. It hadn’t been for a while. It had reduced itself to nothing more than another school of art— another subject of  heartbreak. Another thought process and another complication. Your entire sense of self came from academic validation. You were a bachelor of fine art, consistently praised by professors and featured in student exhibitions, graduated magna cum laude from your university. But now? You were lost in a vapid attempt to redefine yourself outside of the college community. This was the real world now, and sucked even worse than college had. 

Your studio apartment overlooked the heart of the historic downtown district of Hawkins, Indiana. It was gray this time of year, rain a near-constant promise over the thick smattering of clouds overhead. You paid entirely too much to live in eight-hundred square feet, but you could justify the cost with the stone hearth and floor-to-ceiling windows, even if that meant sleeping in a twin-sized mattress sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room. Your clothes hung messily on mismatched hangers over a laundry rack beside it. Your few enamel dishes cast drip-drying across the countertops in their own choreography. The rest of the place was barren, save for paint splatters over tarps, stacked canvases, and easels. Maybe it was too indulgent to live in-studio, but poverty would argue and win nearly every time. 

The tortured artist persona was trendy while you were in college, but you were just plain insufferable now. You didn’t even want to associate with yourself. You guessed that’s why you had Robin. She was just as insufferable as you were. 

She was the embodiment of everything you hated, a humbling experience in a flesh box wrapped with a short bob and a beret and adorned with a nose ring. You had met her in an Art: History of the French Renaissance class. She was a linguistics major with all of the subtlety of a clapped-out Honda Civic. She heavily romanticized the greater works of Van Gogh and made her brief year in a study-abroad program in Paris a personality trait. Though, you supposed, her redeemable feature was that she was loyal to a fault, albeit mean. Like a small, white dog that haunted your home instead of offering companionship and happiness. 

Though you, for the most part, kept it to yourself, you had made it known in the past that the Italian Renaissance was far superior to the French. You didn’t understand how she could so  heavily romanticize the ritzy portraits of those aristocratic jerk-offs when she had the Arnolfini Wedding Portrait directly in front of her. Maybe you just didn’t think Van Gogh was all that great. Maybe you hated him altogether. Maybe you hated yourself and you were just projecting– or you were jealous that he could be a tortured artist and people left and right seemed to romanticize his work but when you did it, you were just annoying. You knew, for a fact, that you hated yellow. And she sure liked to wear a lot of it.

The weathered oak was hard and uneven against the curvature of your spine, but you refused to move, the numbness in your fingers happening were the beginnings of the best high you had gotten in ages. There was a resonant patriarchal tenor shrill in your ears as you attempted to focus on the beams and exposed plumbing on the ceiling above you. She spoke it again, louder this time, 

“What are you gonna do with an art degree? Be a tortured artist forever?” You could hear her arm slap coldly against the ground next to yours and echo throughout the emptiness of your apartment. 

You groaned, though it was only proving her point, “I don't know, what are you gonna do with a linguistics degree? Be super fucking annoying?”

“At least I have a job.” 

And she did. She was a translator who rotated on call-circuit to Indianapolis for international business meetings, sometimes they even paid her fare to other countries, in essence getting to vacation on some company’s dime between meetings. The grandeur of it all was sickening. 

The ring from your land-line was shrill and echoing, shattering the silence of your own discontent like tempered glass, fragmenting and exploding into millions of little pieces. No one called here ever, and the suddenness of the tone made both Robin and yourself jump. You gave her a shove to the shoulder, a wordless gesture meaning, go get that. 

Her Hello was tepid, in the same meek demeanor she twirled the line around her finger. Her face registered from confusion to concern, a quick contortion that took place over the course of seconds, “Is he okay? What do you mean you can’t disclose that?” 

You sat up, propping your arms underneath you like the kickstands on a bike, brows knit together in question. She looks to you, holding the receiver out towards you, 

“For you.” She says, then silently and exaggeratingly mouths, About Steve.

What? You mouthed back.

Just– Pick. It. Up. She insisted in silent accuse, shaking the receiver towards you once again, 

You took the plastic receiver from her, fingers drawing the skin of your temples back and rubbing your eyes, “Hello?”

You don’t recognize the voice on the phone. A woman you know is older than yourself by the way she sounds, officiating and knowledgeable, but carrying a certain morosity with her. She held the kind of tone you know brought bad news. 

It feels like a fog, hearing his name again. Hearing that he is a person who is alive and living a life separate from you. It wasn’t right, and that unease turned itself in your stomach as you repeated back her medical jargon to yourself in layman’s terms. Steve fell off a ladder and hit his head. Again. He was unconscious but stable. The neighbor found him and brought him in and gave them your name and phone number 

“And why are you calling me?” You finally asked, followed by a long pause. You cursed yourself mentally, realizing the harshness of the statement after you had said it.  

The nurse sounded displeased, “You’re his wife, aren’t you? You were listed as the primary emergency contact.”

You hadn’t spoken to Steve in over a year, not since you broke it off with him. You trailed your thumb over the webbing between your middle and ring finger, still feeling the phantom sensation of the ring that sat there just a year prior. The dissidence churned in your stomach, and you couldn’t help the worry that filled you. 

Steve was the embodiment of everything you loved. He was smooth like linseed and fell into all of your texture. He didn’t understand it, but he agreed on the superiority of the Italian renaissance. If you hated the romanticization of Van Gogh, then so did he. Steve was agreeable. Steve was easy in all of the places you weren’t. 

Steve cared about people in the way that you didn’t. 

When you broke it off, your families, both found and biological, were shocked. Robin especially. You’d felt bad for her, caught in the crossfire between two of her best friends. You and Steve had both agreed not to make her choose. She was the sentient being of pure neutrality. It was as if she was a separate entity on two different timelines. If she was present in your reality, Steve did not exist. You assumed the same of her relationship with Steve. Though, a part of you still hoped he’d ask sometimes. 

Your brain is a flurry of Steve. His migraine medication, his medical history, his eyewear prescription, fuck his shoe size. You card through the rolodex of head traumas he had undergone through the years, recounting them between relationship markers. You don’t allow yourself the time to think, slamming the phone back down on the stand with a quick, I’ll be there. 

The drive to the hospital is sombering, though, you selfishly are less worried about him being okay than you are about what he would think of you showing up after they thought you were his wife. 

The smell of the hospital is pungent. Horrendously human and unnaturally sterile wrapped up into one fragrant demise. There are people buzzing, both physically and metaphorically, yet despite the controlled chaos the women at the front desk seem unnaturally calm. Uninterested, even. You tell them your name and who you are here to see, and yet, despite the fact that they had just reached out to you over the phone, they still attempt to validate your marriage. 

You knew it was nasty when, “If you don’t think I’m his wife, then why did you call asking if I was his wife?” rolled off your tongue, but you knew Robin would smooth the turmoil with an apology on your behalf. Frankly, you didn’t care. They buzzed you in without another word. 

There was an older man in a white coat standing in front of the room, flipping through a chart with Harrington across the top. The embroidery on it read neurology. You figured he would have to undergo a few whirring uncomfortable scans with any head trauma, but his face remained stoic. You couldn’t read him, and, personally, it was terrifying. 

“Mrs. Harrington?” He asked, holding a hand out. 

You took it as an appeasement, tried to let his old man charm seep into your bones and put you at ease. If he was old, that means he’s done this before. “Yes.” You knew it was a lie, but who else was going to claim him? Not his parents. There was no one else remaining in Hawkins but you and Robin, and she wasn’t family. Technically, you weren’t either, but you weren’t cruel.  

“I wanted to formally speak to you before you saw him. There’s a few things we need to discuss.” This sent a panicked chill through your bones. You expected to step into the room and they would ask you for permission to pull the plug or something. 

“Is he..?” Your face must have registered as panicked, because the neurologist quickly backpedaled with a grounding hand on your shoulder. 

“Oh, no. He’s fine ma’am, we weren’t seeing any bleeds or swelling that he can't recover from.”

That he can’t recover from. Meaning that there is, in fact, something wrong with his brain. You figured that much, with maybe six concussions within the last ten years, but you wouldn’t dwell on that fact too much for now, “But?”

“There is a small amount of swelling in the temporal lobe, which is responsible for short-term memory storage. Your husband is suffering from a form of fixation amnesia that is pretty uncommon…”

You zone out listening to him talk, trying to piece everything together. Steve is okay. He lost his short-term memory for a while. Words like retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global are thrown around and bouncing back with a resounding tenor in your phonetic loop. Steve has forgotten the last year, he cannot store new memories for the time being. He forgot your breakup. He still believes you are together. He needs around the clock care. 

Steve was awake when they opened the door and pulled back the curtain to the room he had already been admitted to. At least someone in this administration was competent enough to get him into a room instead of keeping him in the ER. 

“Baby.” A large, flat palm reaches itself towards you. You stood in the corner in silence, waiting for someone that wasn’t you to speak. But, it just so happened that you were the only person in the room. You don’t realize he’s talking to you, so he says it again, a little more firmly, and you walk up and sit at the chair next to his bed, avoiding the hand outstretched towards you. 

Though, in all of his firmness, where the weight of your elbow finds a dip in the bed, his hands finds your arm. It searches for your hands and finds them with a firm grip. They’re warm like you remember. Steve was always warm. 

“Hi, Steve.” You keep your voice quiet, remembering the days of migraine management. Barely-there decibels creating resounding, echoing pain around his skull. 

“What happened?” He asks you, “ –-head hurts.” He manages, burying his face into the polyfilament of the pillow below him. 

You tried to make your explanation concise, only giving him the cause and not the prognosis. You’d deal with that at a later time. “You fell off a ladder, hit your head pretty hard. Cullen brought you in.” You explained. 

“The dentist? With the labs?” He asked you, and it made you laugh. Steve always remembered people by their cars or their dogs. 

You agreed with him nodding your head despite his closed eyes, “Yes, the dentist with the labs.”

“He’s a really nice guy.”

“He sure is.” 

+

The discharge process was long and rigorous the next morning, swarms of insurance and neurologists and shrinks and case managers. All faces to a crowd that apparently had never communicated with the other department a day in their sad, corporate lives. 

Steve had no car, no means of getting home, and, quite frankly, no recollection of the year leading up to the accident. So, you loaded him into your car, pulling out as slowly as possible and driving at least ten under the speed limit the entire way. He seemed chipper as his hand found yours resting over the shifter, hands meeting your movements as your gears moved up and down with the rhythm of traffic– almost as if he was driving the car himself. You silently thanked him for the movement, already distracted by the constant fear of rattling his already tenderized brain any more than it had been. 

The street looked like it had frozen in time as you slipped past its residents unscathed. The dentist, surrounded by the flurry of yellow labs, waved as you drove by. The house sat in a caul de sac, the one you used to call yours, the third one in from the end between a vacation home and a stalled fixer-upper. It was a smaller Victorian built at the turn of the century. Your selling point was the turret at the front end of the house, sporting floor-to-ceiling windows and housed by oak buttresses. 

You pictured Steve carrying you through the threshold of your home the night of your wedding as you half-dragged him from the driveway to the bedroom. Some of your spring daylilies were coming out of dormancy, the pertinent blooms bulbous and waiting to open. You remembered picking the pink ones, to match the pink peonies and coneflowers that you had planted alongside it. 

This house was a dream. Actually, this house was his dream. Encased in dark oak and copper plumbing. You just wanted a place to paint – and, for this, he had spared no expense either. 

You remembered the day he’d surprised you with the keys:

You had felt soggy, the stale coffee and milk drying into the stomach of your apron and hardening into a sugary breast plate. You knew you’d never be able to get the smell out, instead understanding that was just a part of life when you were a barista. Along with the burns and odds-and-ends scrapes and bruises. 

Steve had been waiting for you on a barstool in front of the door, looking like he had something to say. You knew he had most likely been pacing back and forth from the couch to the barstool as he had waited for you to get home. You weren’t a stranger to his mannerisms. Living with him had been a front-row ticket to The Steve Harrington Show. Sometimes you joked that David Attenborough should join you for dinner, narrating Steve in his natural habitat. 

He had greeted you with a kiss, saccharine sweet like everyone before it, grip on your waist like a vice and a smile that he couldn’t help on his lips. 

“I picked something up today,” He mumbled against your lips, “for the house.” 

The incomplete set sat freshly unwrapped in its paper casings. The Blue Willow china was beautiful nonetheless. Steve had taken a liking to it almost more than you had. You didn’t mean to get annoyed, you had just had a long day. Though Steve knew it, your defensiveness caught him off-guard. 

He would never admit it, but he took after his mother in his eyes and in his shopping addiction. You knew you were moving, house-hunting on weekends and late evenings. You didn’t want to begin your life together in this apartment, which had been filling quickly with heirlooms and antique pieces collected from both shops and family members, “for the house” and, “as an engagement gift”. 

“Steve, what happened to saving money?” You had asked him, reaching behind you to untie your apron to throw into the basket that needed  to be dragged downstairs to the wash. “We’ll never get a house if you keep spending the money as soon as we get it.” 

“Actually,” He said to you, pretty lips turning into a smile as he dug around in his pockets, “We already have a house.” 

He watched the cogs turn in your head, your face exchanging confusion for shock as your eyes widened and you brought your hands up to cover your mouth. You couldn’t help the small years that spill from your eyes and you jump on Steve, laughing along with him as he spun you in a circle. 

You remembered buzzing the entire way there, only remembering to pull your apron off once you tried to buckle your seatbelt. It was dark out, and the streetlights in the historic neighborhood were sparse, if present at all. 

The house was a great cathedral in front of you, rickety and crumbling in nature. 

“The bones are good.” He reminded you, “We can take care of the rest.” 

“I love it!” You squealed to him, throwing your arms around his neck. It caught him off guard, your enthusiasm. 

That night, he refused to carry you through the threshold of the house. He said he wanted to save it for the wedding night. Only do it once so it stays special.  

You sat alone at the dining table, cigarette in hand. You rarely smoked anymore, but you figured this ordeal permissed one. He kept the binders of your wedding planning, all of the stuff you bought, the cause of your cold feet. They were tucked away next to the dining table in the built-in for easy access. They looked like they had been untouched save for a finger print along the spine of the binder that remained bare of any dust or particles– like he had gone to take them out, but hesitated. You looked up and around at the main living space. 

He was going to build you a new life and it didn’t look like he had touched it for a year. 

+

The first day is just playing the game. You were aware he would have temporary, moderate-to-severe memory loss. You attempted to recall the words that swirled around your phonetic loop. Words from neurologists and trauma doctors and nurses alike. 

Steve knows he was in the hospital and knows desperately how horrible this migraine was. He spent it in the dark, on his regular dose of sumatriptan, supplemented wonderfully in a vicodin-induced haze. You did not expect him to remember today, nor did you expect him to care. You know he is alive from barely-spoken words between exchanges of water and his prescription, which, thank God, hadn’t changed in the last year. 

You sleep on the couch. 

The second day, you are up before him, sifting through the pots and pans you’d let him keep to try and feed both him and yourself. You are surprised when he gets out of bed before 9:00, and even more surprised when he asks, 

“So, what are you going to paint today?” Through squinted eyes, lean arm braced against the counter to support the weight of his body. He sips idly from the orange juice glass he used to take the sumatriptan, but not the vicodin. 

It’s not like it was a question that strayed away from the mundane, however, it had been almost a year since you’d heard it last. You’d tried not to let the surprise register on your face as you’d continued to stir the eggs around in the pan. You let the corner of the wooden spoon scrape some of the dried remnants of soft egg from the sides of the pan where the butter hadn’t reached. You shrugged with a soft, I don’t know, unsure of how to answer. 

As Steve retreats back to the master bedroom, you hear the kick of the plumbing and the steady stream of water rattling through the house. You thanked him silently for buying an old place, the plumbing was loud enough to drown out your own thoughts. 

The knock on the window sends you reeling back like the crack of a gun. Your ménage-a-trois with a nose ring and encased the ugliest yellow beret like some gay French Alp paratrooper stood guard outside the bay seating of your kitchen window. You hated yellow, but, for today, you would keep it to yourself. She came bearing gifts. The only suitcase you owned was filled with the only clothes you owned, and as many art supplies as she could carry with the promise of more. Today, she bore her yellow beret as a barrel full of brandy around her neck– a drooly Saint Bernard to your avalanche. You propped the window open on its stakes, cinnamon color mixed with dirt crumbling from its unused hinges. 

She looked around in secrecy, “How is he?” 

“Better today. He just got in the shower.” You shrugged, looking back over your shoulder. 

“How’s the…” She circled her splayed hands over her head, signaling amnesia. You wish she would just say it instead of tiptoeing around the subject. 

You shrugged again, running a hand over your head, “I’m not sure yet. He knows who I am, but, ugh, I don’t know.” You sighed, sitting down at the bench and burying your face in your hands.

Robin leaned against the windowsill, reaching a hand through to push your hair back out of your face, “What’s wrong? Why is that bad?” 

“He still thinks we’re together. Like– doesn’t remember that we’re not together.” You said through your palms, knowing that her linguistics degree also covered your dramatics and mumbling. 

“Oh God,” She gasped to you, not quite able to contain herself, “What are you gonna do?” 

“I’m just gonna have to roll with it, I guess.” You slurred past your arms, willing back the onslaught of stress-tears beginning to pool against your tightline. You couldn't abandon him now, not when he was like this. 

Your former studio, nestled at the base of the turret within the house, surrounded by windows encased in stained-glass embellishments and flying buttresses, remained the only room in the house that was finished. You sat on your spinning stool, ignoring the creak from the way you pushed yourself back and forth on the balls of your feet. Your eyes fixated on the piece in front of you. It had been sitting on this easel for a year– the only one too heavy for you to move on your own, however, you were past asking for Steve’s help. So here it sat, holding your work once again, arms open in waiting. 

“Woah, you work fast.” Steve’s voice startled you, the stool squeaked again as you jumped. 

He walked up behind you, hands smoothing over your shoulders in apology– his skin still shower-warm and tacky from the water, “What are you talking about?” 

Your voice was much softer than you initially intended it to come out as. It resonated under the guise of a smile rather than the initial annoyance you turned to as a defense mechanism. 

“Didn’t you start that painting last week?” He asked, smoothing a broad hand down the exposed expanse of your upper arm, turning his face to look at the painting, “It’s done now.”

You tried not to let the confusion register on your face. You had finished the painting well over a year ago. The oil had long-since cured. You thanked the universe softly for Steve’s untrained eye. 

“I guess I just got really into it.” You shrugged, feigning your own insufferability for his well being– just this once. 

You had forgotten what it was like to be held by Steve. He lingered around your proximity in a near-shroud of constance. You had forgotten the soft feeling of nimble fingers as they grazed across any exposed skin you had. You had forgotten about warm hands cupping your cheek or twirling the ends of your hair. You had forgotten what the warmth of his felt like, in the same way that you moved away from the slow-creeping sun square that beamed from the windowsills. You didn’t realize how long you had been fighting any warmth after him. 

That night, his broad hands lured you to bed with the promise of warmth. You try to remember the way it felt a year ago, if it resounded in the same way. His hands were still a comfort as they encased you in a tight embrace. His breath still felt the same coming from his nose and traveling across your shoulder, dotted intermittently by haste staccato kisses. 

You tried to hold on to that feeling after he had long been asleep, and held on to it again as you peeled his hands from your waist. You let it slip from your fingers as you slid from the bed and let your feet pad across the hardwood flooring. You laid it to rest next to you on the couch, let it fold into itself and hibernate once more. 

By the next morning, Steve’s brain had pistoned back into his regular routine, which consisted of a god-awful early morning jog. It was almost obnoxious how perfect he was for this neighborhood, golden skin glowing against the rays of morning, efflorescence in nature and ugly, heinous perfection. By the time he gets back, it’s still ungodly early. The sun only casts a blue haze into the atmosphere in its feigning presence. 

You could guess by the way he tried to control his heavy breaths as he walked through the door that he was dewy, shirt tucked into his jogging shorts and hair raked back with sweaty fingers. You would not force your eyes open to look at him, leaving any feelings of adverse adoration back in the white quilt you had abandoned over a year ago. He walked up to you, feat unabashedly heavy against the hollowness of the floor despite the carpet muffling them. His hand was warm and heavy against the exposed expanse of your hip, riding your shirt up further.

“What are you doing out here? You know this couch kills your bac-” He started, pausing abruptly in surprise,  “Where did that come from?” 

“What?” You mumbled through closed eyes, still only barely awake. 

He traces the tattoo on your back, rough fingers tracing over the thickened lines of ink, “This.”

You didn’t bother to crack an eye open, instead folding your arms in further on yourself and readjusting against the couch cushions, “Gee, Steve, you must've hit your head really hard.”

“What?” 

“What?” You asked him, finally waking up enough. You pushed your arms underneath you, squinting at him as best you could through the haze of the morning light. 

“I hit my head?” He asked, confusion– then terror– registering on his face. 

You sat up fully, realizing then that, in your daze, you had effectively put your foot in your mouth. The look on your face, supplemented by the look on his face tells you that there is no way that you could backtrack now. 

“... Yeah-” 

“When?”

“Three days ago.” You started, and he let out a deep exhale, almost in relief that it hadn’t been longer. 

He turned to look at you, and you reached out to grab his hand. He took it, gripping yours like a vice, but never enough to hurt, “What did I do?”

“You were up on a ladder, doing something with the electrical. You fell and hit your head pretty good. Cullen brought you in.” You shrugged, trying to play it off. 

“Where were you?” He asked, it wasn’t accusing. He just tried to piece everything together. Still, you couldn’t help the pang of guilt that pooled in your chest after he said it. 

You weren’t going to break his heart, not now. Not while he was already fragile like this. You hated lying, but anything was better than a category five meltdown. He shook now, acting too tough to hide it. Steve was strong for everyone, too strong for too long. 

“Am I okay?” 

“Yeah, Steve. You’re okay.” You reassured him, no matter what. 

+

That night, you put a band-aid over your neck, despite the itching, burning sensation from the adhesive, it would live there for now. You said it was to save yourself the trouble. You didn’t know why you’d thought to care so much. You also don’t know why you felt so guilty. Maybe it’s because you weren’t there. Maybe it’s because you were here now and you shouldn’t have been. All you know is that you can’t break Steve’s fragile psyche now, not again. 

Steve’s routine was stone-set and rigorous, you’d remembered that much. He was the kind of person that thrived off of routine and egg-whites alone. You’d envied him for his discipline. 

He started out of bed every morning at the heinous, ungodly hour of five. Every morning, without fail, he rose silently, rubbed his hands over his face, fought the urge to disturb you and lost every time. He would smooth a tender hand over your hair and slip out the door with a soft, waking kiss, and proceed with a jog. Every morning, he would run his 3.1 miles, 5,000 kilometers, and every morning, he would slip back through the front door. 

Every morning, you woke to the smell of a better-than-cheap cup of coffee with a sweet kiss, and he would whisper to you that he achieved the run in thirty minutes– a personal best, and you wondered if one day it would slip below that number. Without missing a beat, he would place the coffee on a coaster placed there for that specific purpose on your antique bedside table, and your body would roll into the dip in the mattress where his body sat, his warm hand circling waking patterns across your bare back while you sifted through the prevalent swarm of too-little sleep. 

Because, every afternoon, Steve would take his Saturday (which was actually a Tuesday) and  paint that heinous yellow wall in the guest bedroom over with an earthy green tone– one that, without fail, would remind him of you enough to where he would seek you out to tell you. 

And every night, without fail, you would slip from the bed in silence, pull the heinous yellow paint bucket delivered thankfully by Robin out of the bushes from the window that was set just slightly too high to be comfortable reaching over, and paint that lovely green wall back to that awful, ugly yellow. 

There were no discrepancies to his routine. He was an unfortunate creature of habit, and it was so dreadfully painful that you indulged him in this routine. Because, every day, he would pull those old wedding binders out– no longer covered in dust and forgotten memories– and pick the same three options for wedding china that you never saw the point of anyways. Every day, he would try to cheekily pull you in for a shower, and you would make up the same excuse over the same dishes from the same meal that you had eaten to the point where you were just choking it down. 

And you would do it all over again. 

Because, if that same meal and awful yellow paint and ungodly six o’clock wake time would be enough to stop him from feeling like that again, you would keep doing it. 

Your nightly decompression was your saving grace. The only way you felt like a human again. Because every night, Steve would sit and read the same chapter out of the same book, and you would get in some still-life practice. 

Steve was pretty always, even in his blissful unawareness. Even in his ignorance. Even in the fact that he was no longer yours. Steve was pretty by fact. Pretty by nature. You had gotten good at drawing him, you knew where to block the square of his head and the triangle of his nose. You knew where his glasses rested against his face and exactly where to place every mole. You knew where the bone beneath would ebb and flow and where the warm light from that stained glass bowl-lamp would accentuate and valley against them like rivers. Steve was a topographical map and you had explored every inch in these moments of blissful dissonance. You did not need to waste your time getting the likeness correct by now, only getting in the fine details. 

Every night, your wonderful moment away from the catatonic nature of this ordeal would end when Steve would finish his chapter. You would act like you didn’t notice, like you weren’t staring at him. He would act like he didn’t know you were. He would press a tender kiss to your shoulder, smile at the work in your hands, tell you how talented you were, and finalize the ritual with a kiss to your cheek– an invite to bed. 

You know there will come a time when there will be a deviation from this routine, and you try to prepare yourself for this by running every possibility through your head. Calming tactics in the event that he has a category four meltdown, the words you would say and the explanations you would give him, but nothing prepared you for this deviation. Not in the slightest. 

You are unsuspecting as you wipe down the kitchen counters, melancholy with your towel in hand. Your hair is still wet and dripping uncomfortably down your back. You breathe deeply, enjoying the smell of kitchen lemon multi-surface cleaner. Steve approaches you. You feel his presence before you see him or feel his arms around your waist. You indulge in his warmth before he even touches you, before he reaches for your hand. You bask in his radiance before you feel the cold smoothness of gold scrape across your ring finger. 

“You forgot this after your shower.” He whispers through a kiss against the tender skin beneath your ear. He does not understand the devastation his words have caused you, not in his innocence. 

You reconstructed the scene in fragments of memories:

They were lawn seats, and you had no idea how he scored them. This concert had been sold out for weeks. The Tragic Kingdom tour was potentially the greatest album to ever grace this earth, and Steve agreed– potentially more than you did. 

When your eyes turned to get a good look at his face, it was hard to tell where that light sheen of sweat ended and the glitter that wafted in the air began. He was so fucking beautiful. You could look at him forever, put him in a jar on a shelf to admire for a lifetime. He was more blonde than brunette at this time of year, gold-skinned and eager. The July rays had set minutes ago, yet seemed to settle their clinging remnants in his eyes. 

His eyes that shone when they met yours, the eyes that gripped on to your hands, met your mouth, and settled within your gaze. 

You came in with the breeze, on Sunday morning…

You almost missed his words over the ambient concert sounds around you, louder now as Gwen started the beginnings of the song. Had you not been staring at him, you figured with your mouth open like a trout, you would have missed the two quiet words he mustered. 

“Marry me?”

You didn’t say anything back, you didn't need to. You remember the feeling of your knees sinking into the grass beneath you, wet against your skin. You remember how his body was too-warm in the staleness of the July air and the hardness of his body pressed tight against yours. Any qualms he had about saying more than those words disappeared in an instant, your hand willingly accepting the modest diamond encased in a gold band the only answer he ever needed. 

You thought back on that time, on the I love you’s and the please hold me’s. 

You remembered the I can’t do this anymore.

The problem was never committing to Steve. He had you. He had all of you. He could take you whole or in pieces in any slice or interval or fracture that he could have ever dreamed up. Though, that was the problem. You had committed yourself to him fully, never to the idea of committing yourself to anyone else, never thought of having to share him or change what you had. You lived in comfort, willful bliss. You’d never wanted anything more. 

But you saw that hopeful glimmer in his pretty eyes. The ones that looked like chunky baby legs and bubbly giggles. The distant memories that sounded like mimed laughs and raspberries against new skin. You were not maternal, not by nature nor by instinct. You felt broken, not wanting that. 

And knowing how well Steve was made for it. 

How he mapped rooms in the house with oak cribs and baby-pastel paint colors. How he pointed out names he liked and stared for just a little too long at happy families in passing. 

That night, long after Steve had fallen asleep, those dusty old wedding binders called out to you, screamed your name in birdsongs and infant wails. You clung to them, still covered in that awful yellow paint on the floor of that awful yellow room, and you cried awful tears that stained the pages of the awful thing that could have been. 

Except that could have started to feel less awful. It felt more like a should have now. 

You kept the wedding band on, convincing yourself it was more for him than yourself. 

+

“Hello?”

The shrillness of the landline still rings in your ears despite picking up the sound of a voice on the other end. Instinctively, you twirl your fingers into the cord. 

“Hey.” Her voice is scratchy on the other line. You know who it is, yet you still ask. 

“Who is this?” 

“Bill fucking Clinton.” You can hear the way her eyes roll in her voice. You almost find it endearing. 

You roll your eyes back, knowing that she can’t see it. You hope the sentiment is the same. “Hi, Robin.”

Silence on the line. You know what she will ask. She asks almost every other day or in the in-betweens where you can catch each other and she doesn’t have to fake a conversation on the phone with Steve. 

“How is he?” 

You feel like she knows the answer by now, she knows every part of his routine and exactly where you fit into it, “He’s fine. He just got into the shower.” 

There was a silence again, this time slightly more deafening. It felt like she was thinking, pondering the exact thing she was going to say and how exactly she planned on saying it. 

“How are you?” You hated it, despised it. It almost made your blood run cold. You didn’t do feelings, you were just a pawn in this big, fucked up game. It was your obligation to live in this lie. You had already hurt Steve once, the least you could do was keep him safe now. 

“Fine, Robin. I’m good.” You willed, regurgitated it like a curse. 

She sighed, hoping she wouldn’t have to pry but knowing she was going to, “Ha-ha. But really?”

“Really what?”

“How are you?”

You fell silent, the static basso of the line between you buzzing like a flatline as the tears welled up and over your lash line. The first sob you choke out is louder than you expect, and draw your knees up to your chest in the bay as you cry over the phone, unable to find words and unable to speak if you had then anyways. 

For once robin shuts the fuck up. For once she doesn’t have anything to say. Somehow you wish she would. Instead, she lets you cry for a few minutes in silence. She lets you let it out. 

“Do you need me to come over?” She asks, voice a welcome comfort not that you can breathe through the snot and tears running down your face. 

“No.” You sniffle, wiping the stream of facial fluids across your sleeve like you didn’t disgust yourself when you did it. 

“Do you need a professional?”

“No.”

There was a sigh, followed by another moment of silence. She didn’t know how to help you, though, she didn’t really think you needed help. 

“Hey, Robin?” You finally spoke up, eyes finally dry and your throat finally clear enough to be coherent. 

“Yeah?”

“Tell Monica Lewinsky I said hi.” 

+

You have a headache, simply put. That you could supplement. The ache and the pressure behind your eyes could be solved with acetaminophen and a glass of water and a bath. The ache in your chest was less tangible, and would have to wait until the ache in your head was fixed to even be evaluated. 

You’d managed to slip past Steve getting dressed in the convex opening of your walk-in closet, light spilling yellow against the dark floors in the dim lighting of the master bedroom. The one thing you’d greatly missed about this house that your apartment did not have the luxury of was the cast-iron tub, in its claw-footed, wing-backed glory. The water spilled steam from the mouth of the faucet as it spilled down the white porcelain glaze, hot enough to turn your skin red and draw the overage of blood from between your temples. You dimmed the lights, shoulders lax as you slumped your arms sideways over the edge of the tub, water tinged green from both the reflection of the seafoam walls and the capful of eucalyptus epsom salts dissolving in the water around you. 

You close your eyes, focusing more on the crisp smell of the water instead of the pounding of your head. You rest one arm beneath your head as a barrier between your temple and the porcelain, allowing the other to hang off the side. 

You don’t miss the way Steve slips in, nearly silently. The change of air pressure that came with his presence was what gave him away– that and the soft click of the chair legs against the hexagonal tile as he rotated it to face you. 

His touch is so gentle. His touch feels like the only inherent good in the world around you. His touch is soft enough to bring you to tears. And it does. 

You cannot help but let two roll down your face, not upset enough for it to scrunch up in the ugly sobs that you heaved on the kitchen floor to Robin. They splat quietly on the tile beneath you, and you sigh like an exasperated hound. One deep, shuddering breath beneath Steve’s hand. 

You cannot confide in him, even if he asks. You wonder if that fact hurts worse than understanding that he is going to wake up eventually. 

Steve does not pry. He’s really good at that. Instead, he rakes his fingers across the grain of your hair, thrown upwards with reckless abandon– fingers both a consolation and a devastation. He wishes desperately to know. Wishes desperately that he could fix it, but he knows this sadness. Knows the pain of forcing you to talk. The only thing that hurts worse than not knowing is the pain of seeing you cry. 

But he’s so tender, and he’s so endearing. You can’t help but want him. 

“Can I get you anything?” He says to you, just above a whisper. He even dips his head down closer to yours so you can hear, but you’re already clawing at the collar of his shirt. 

“Wanna be close.” You mutter, words muffled against your arm. He understands it anyway. 

His skin is hot. Hot enough to still be felt under your hands despite the temperature of the water. You missed the texture of it, smooth, interrupted by soft constellations of moles and bone. Quickly, and with grace, he stands– pulling your hands from his body for a mere few, painful seconds. He strips his clothes quickly, and you watch the muscles of his shoulders ripple as he maneuvers to pull his shirt over them. 

Silken skin glides across your back, the hot water squelching between your bodies as he slides into the tub behind you, arms encircling your waist in an iron-clad grip. Caring and grounding all at once. 

His lips are soft as they press a hot path against your neck and you sigh, tilting your head further away to allow him the affection you so desperately need. 

“That’s it, honey. Let me give you what you need.” It’s a low growl, not quite a whisper. His voice keeps that resonant patriarchal basso that vibrates against your neck and settles in your coccyx. His kisses turn to soft nips, as he takes the suppleness of your flesh between his teeth– never enough to hurt. 

His hands reach up to cup your breasts, squeezing tenderly as he runs a thumb over a pert nipple. He leaves one hand on your chest, gently pinching and rolling the flesh between his thumb and forefinger, another hand sliding over the hills and valleys of your body to find a home between your legs. 

Despite the water surrounding you, there is a much more distinct slickness that has gathered there in decadent anticipation of him. When his thick fingers finally breach the threshold of you, it is both a devastation and a need. Slowly, he finds the bud of your clit, circling it slowly. 

You suck in a breath, accompanied by a soft whine. When you arch your back, you feel him press against your back, hard and heavy against your flesh. 

“Come on, honey,” He urges, a heeding groan fans across your shoulder disguised as a breath, “I’m gonna get you there. Just gotta let me do it.” 

His middle and ring finger circle your core, easing their way in. You relinquish the new, subtle stretch. His other hand leaves its place on your breast, coming down to hold the soft flesh of your lower belly, creating a soft pressure that soothed the ache in your core as he held you there, relentlessly pumping in and out of you with his fingers. The other hand crept lower, the other two fingers continuing the rhythmic circling of your throbbing clit. 

You cried out, the coil in your core hitting that vapid crescendo and tumbling over the edge with shaky legs and breaths. Steve continued working his fingers within you, easing you through the climax of your orgasm and slowing when you whined. His arms remained around you like a vice, holding you in your place against him. 

He nibbled at your ear softly as you came down from that wonderful, floaty place, and whispered softly, “You did so good.” against your neck. His hands rubbed the insides of your thighs in slow, soothing circles. You felt the water from the tub rush over his arms and create whirlpools over the valleys of your skin. 

It was then that you turned, your arms locking around his neck and your lips crashing into his. Your body fell against his with enough force to push a wave across the edge of the tub, but the wet floor was an issue for another time. Your own carnal desire to have him seated within you was far worse than your desire to maintain the grout in the bathroom floors. This much you knew. 

The stretch was welcome and familiar, albeit foreign to you, now. You cried out, as you slid down to the hilt and seated yourself firmly atop his thighs, either one of your thighs bracketing around his. You felt the scrape of hair from his thighs scratch against your skin, broad hands planted firmly on the plush of your waist, and deep, guttural groan fan out across the crevice of your neck where he buried his head. 

Your hand clutched the nape of his neck for purchase, fingers burying themselves in the damp locks there and tugging softly. It draws a gasp from pretty pouted lips as his head tilts back in reverie. He looks at you through dreamy, half-closed lids, reminding himself to draw himself back and forth again, now that you have adjusted to the sensation of him filling you. 

“Oh, baby. Honey.” He cried, pistoning his hips upward, more rhythmically now. It was more of a cry now than it was a plea, and a rosy blush crept its way across the bridge of his nose, spread over his cheeks, and kissed the tips of his ears. He was ethereal as it spread across his chest and he heaved whines into your mouth like he needed to feel himself inside you to survive. You caught the way his dark lashes kissed the apples of his cheeks, and the way the space between his brows scrunched as he huffed breaths towards your face. 

There is a realization in the impending vapid crescendo where Steve attempts to push you over the edge a second time. Your body is on fire as he rubs fast, sloppy circles around your already sensitive clit. He falls from the edge first.

“O-oh, fuck.” He cried out in pleasure as a tear rolled from beautifully crinkled eyelids. Though, he desperately urges you to continue bouncing with fingers buried into the plush that accumulates where your hips fold. His thumb is still relentless over your sensitive bud until he pushes your already teetering form over the edge as well. 

He holds you close, strong arms around your shaking frame and wet hands smoothing back your flyaway hairs. He presses a kiss to your forehead, guiding your head between his palms and trailing them down your nose. He lands his final kiss, longer this time, against your lips and fans his palms across the expanse of your cheeks and neck. 

You whine when he pulls himself from you, suddenly empty. Steve soothes you with a, “Shh. It’s okay honey, ‘ve got you.” as he pushes water up from the tub and over your cold, drying shoulders. 

You cannot tell if you feel better or worse, having him in this way again. You think of the way he slid the ring back over your finger, and relived all of the gilded moments of your past. You’d always felt like a ghost in this house, haunting the remnants of what the life that should have been. But this did not feel like the life that you walked out on. This felt like the life that you chose. 

Steve felt like your husband when he kissed the skin of your shoulder in the early mornings after his runs. He felt like your husband when he sprinkled the feta into your spinach omelet in the morning, and when he sat behind you to watch you paint like you couldn’t sense him behind you, and when he gave you that goofy smile and wave when you caught you peering at him from the bay curtains while he tended to the lawn, 

And he certainly felt like your husband when he helped you from the tub on shaky legs, while he dried your legs with fresh towels and planted sweet kisses against your ankles and knees as he did so. He felt like your husband as he held your hand and guided you with soft hands to bed. He felt like your husband when he pulled your head to his chest beneath the sheets, sneaking a not-so-secret sniff to the crown of your head and smiling a not-entirely-concealed smile. 

Steve may not have been yours anymore, but he was yours for tonight. 

+

The morning light is dappled when you wake, and the way it sparkles hurts your eyes. You half expect to see Steve, feel his lips against your shoulder and relinquish the warmth that radiates from his skin like the sun as he invades your waking space. Instead, you find him sleeping, golden and beautiful under the dappled light, white linens draped over the oiled ellipses of his hips and legs tangled in the sheets. You bury your nose into the valley of his spine and he jolts awake. You can’t help but to giggle. 

“Jesus, what the fuck?” He starts, pushing himself up on his elbows, stomach pressed to the bed. 

“Oh, good morning, Steve.” His brow furrows as he looks at you. Steve does not look happy to see you. Steve looks confused. 

“What are you even doing here?” He asked, more towards the sheets than you. He buried his face in his hands, groan echoing in his palms before he asked, “Oh, God, how drunk did I get?”

Your heart sinks. He is awake. There is no retrograde and anterograde and Transient Global to worry about anymore. It is just you, and him, and your new sense of impending doom. Though, how impending could the doom really be if it was staring you in the face this very moment? Impending should have been reserved for when you decided to move back into the house you tried to build. Impending was reserved for the phone call from the hospital. No, this was doomed from the start, and now, it was blowing up in your face. 

You can tell he doesn’t know what happened, and that he has a throbbing headache. 

“Here– let me–” You start, turning over to grab his prescription from the drawer in your– Steve’s bedside table. He stood, suddenly. 

“No– ugh,” He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to apply some pressure there, “I think you need to go.” 

“No, Steve, let me explain–”

“Just, go. Please.” He pleaded. 

You would not argue. You especially would not cry in front of him, not now. Instead, you scrambled the bathroom floor for your clothes that were shed before your bath, pulling them on, scrambling for your purse and car keys on the counter, and promptly leaving with those items to your name. It was foolish for you to build another home there, to leave remnants of yourself and reminders to him of just how fucked you were around his house. You don’t remember breathing on the drive back to your apartment. The air in this place is stale and, if you owned more things, you figured they’d be shrouded in a fine layer of dust from your negligence. 

When Robin answers the phone, you are incoherent. At first, she figures it is the shoddy signal from her company-issued brick phone, though she eventually realizes that it is not the faulty technology. You are in fact, choking on words and hot tears. Robin has a nagging feeling that she knows what happened, and your few words, “Steve” and, “fucked up” both confirm her suspicions and are reminiscent of a time where she was caught in the crossfire over a year ago. 

Robin’s car zig-zags in and out of the morning traffic, shaving both minutes off of her commute time to your apartment and her life. Her entrance to your apartment is dramatic, tired screeching and door hitting the wall so hard you can almost feel the security deposit solidifying in you landlord’s bank account. She greets you with a hug that you don’t ask for– you don’t need to. She doesn’t ask what’s wrong. 

Instead, she stands there, in the nearly empty room where your studio once stood, and she holds you. And you cry. And you want to scream and want to throw things and want to curse the universe and ask why me? But you know why you stand here. You know that you are shitty. So instead, you sit here, and feel sorry for yourself, and let Robin hold you. Because, no matter how shitty you are, she won’t say anything about it. 

This ugly nostalgia rears its even uglier head when the phone rings shrill, deafening against the brick walls that encase you in this place worse than they had when there were paintings occupying this space. She slides across the concrete on the floor just slightly so she can grab her phone.

“Hey– you busy?” Steve asks, and she can tell he’s been crying. 

You look at her, eyes red and confused. 

“No,” Robin lied to him, it was small and white, “What’s going on?” 

Who is it? You mouth. 

Robin is inherently a bad liar. She could say it was her boss, or her mom, or a telemarketer. Instead, she stares back, contemplating the lie and the inevitable conversation she would have to make up on the spot. She decides it is not worth the effort, and mouths back, 

Steve. 

You sit up, looking at her with wide eyes. You will not ask to eavesdrop, though, there’s a small, shitty part of you that wants to. 

“Something happened.” He started, and she knows exactly what happened, “but I don’t exactly know what.” 

What’s he saying? You mouth back at her, though, she holds a pointed finger up at you in waiting. 

“Are you in trouble?” She asks, “Do you need help?” 

“Look, I don’t know. Can you just come over? I’ll explain everything.” He asks, voice small. He sounds like he is on the precipice of a breakdown. She hangs up the phone, knowing you know what she is going to ask next. 

“Hey, are you gonna be okay? I’ve gotta–”

“Yeah, I’m fine. You can go.” You tell her, pointedly, though, she doesn’t fully believe it. However, your nosiness outweighs your ability to be this hurt for this long, “Look, can you just give this back to him? It doesn’t feel right.” and it's not right, it never was right. 

You slide the ring from your finger, closing Robin’s palm around it. She opens her palm once again, twirling the diamond between her fingers. She slides it over her middle finger, diamond side in to protect it. 

“Yeah, I can.”

“Thanks, Rob.” 

“Call me.” She says to you, and It is both a threat and a consolation. 

“Okay.” 

+

There is an aura that has overtaken the house since this morning. It was threatening. Robin had sensed the shift from her car, clear up the avenue. There was something frighteningly wrong here. 

Her knock on the door was poignant, scared almost, and she held her breath as Steve turned the knob. He looked tired. He looked spent. He looked like he wanted to cry, and yell, and throw things, and curse the universe, but was too morose to perform any action but stare blankly at Robin. 

“What happened?” She asked, taking the invited, but welcome, step through the threshold of the front door. She knew what had happened already, there were remnants of you strung about this place like shrapnel. Steve avoided them like landmines, even though the explosion had already happened. 

“She– she,” She meaning you, he started, but didn’t know where to begin. He sat on the couch, bouncing back with the weight and force of his body thrown against the cushions. 

“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Robin finally asked.

Steve looked up at her, red eyes slick with freshly fallen tears, “What?” 

“Steve, you hit your head. You fell off a ladder and knocked something loose.” Robin explained to him, voice soft as she said it, “You couldn’t remember anything that happened in the last year.” 

Robin wished you were here to help her explain. She wished she could remember the big words you remembered to describe what was wrong with him– maybe it would help him understand better. Maybe you should have come. She could have been able to act as a buffer between the anger– 

“You fucking knew about this?” Steve interrupted her thoughts, he had stared for a few seconds while he figured out his thoughts. 

Robin went quiet, more quiet than she already had been, “Yeah. I did.” It was a statement riddled with shame, though she didn’t quite know for what. 

“Steve, you were sick fo–”

He stood, rage apparent in his eyes as he poked his finger into Robin’s shoulder, “No, Rob, I wouldn’t put it past her to lie to me like that but you?” Robin didn’t say anything to him. Instead she just looked up at him, “Whose side are you even on?”

“Steve, you know goddamned well I’m not picking a side.” She was angry, standing now to match his posture, “You brooded for months fucking haunting this house like a ghost, Steve. You. Were. Miserable– and you were making me miserable too! All you did was talk about how you were gonna get her back, and now that you had her, you decide you don’t want her?” Robin started. It was Steve’s turn to stare, now.

“I get that you’re mad, and I get that you’re confused, and I’m sorry that this happened to you, but this isn’t my fault.” She continued. She was a republic of voices tonight, and unfortunately, that republic was Italy. 

“Oh, and here’s your stupid ring back. It’s ugly, anyways.” She finishes, shoving the ring back into his chest. He holds it in his hands, stunned. 

There is an immediate regret that fills him up and drowns him in it. Robin was right, it was not her fault. “Ugh, Robin. I’m–”

She turns at the beginning of his apology, scooping her back from the doorway, “Don’t. I’m not the one you should even be apologizing to.”

“Rob–”

“Bye, Steve.”

He is alone now. The house is quiet and stale, the walls sing in silence, speak their truths, tell him how awful he was. He was so quick to anger, wore his father’s anger like a hand-me-down coat. It hung loose in the wrong places, did not cling to him like his father and looked silly while he was wearing it. He twirls the ring in his hands, watching the light refract white off the brilliant-cut diamond. 

He should call Robin, should. He knows that, even after this, that she will forgive him. You, however, would not be so easy, though, he can’t exactly fathom how badly he wants your forgiveness when he has not quite forgiven you himself. 

He twirls it in his hands as he gets into his car, runs his thumb over the cluster of diamonds in his pocket as he drives down the road, in search of your apartment. It burns a hole in his pocket as he parks, burning hotter and hotter until he swears it scorches his skin the closer he gets to your door. 

When you answer, door swinging open in reprieve and eyes holding the morosity of several generations, he feels a pang of guilt begin to choke him, though it is not big enough to not be swallowed. Something else burns there, still hot and still angry and still confused. It takes over the forefront of his mind. He should not have come here. It was not right to come here. 

“Seriously? This? You still had it?” It is an ugly statement, it's the first thing that he can think of. The angry coat was still tied tight around his waist, the anger was still bubbling in the forefront of his temporal lobe. He holds the ring up in your face, the sparkle hurts your eyes. 

You furrowed your brows, confused by both the fact that we was standing at your apartment door and also that you opened your door to him yelling at you, “You gave it back to me Steve–”

“No, the version of me that forgot what you did gave it back to you. And you took advantage of that. You–”

“Steve, I couldn’t–”

“Couldn’t what?” He wouldn’t give you a chance to explain yourself, he took a step forward and crowded your space. It wasn’t entirely fair, but you hadn’t been entirely fair either. There was no winning this battle. 

You stared back at him in silence, willing fresh tears from breaking over the edges of your lash line. His eyes seethed with anger. You had never seen Steve this angry before. 

“Couldn’t what?” He asked again, taking another step closer. He stood over you now, towering and angry. 

You were shaking now, seeping with your own anger and frustration, “Anterograde Amnesia!”

“What?” He stops sudden;y, realizing his closeness to your figure, taking a step back. 

“That’s what you had. Every morning you woke up and it was the same day. Every morning you woke up and you– you–” You were crying now, hot tears running down your face at an embarrassing, unrelenting pace. You could not tell if they were of anger or sadness. Probably both, “You woke up and did the same thing, and then every night you went back to sleep and we started all over again.”

“Why didn’t you just walk away?” He asked, turning and bracing himself on your counter, hand on his hip as he stared you down. 

“I-I I just couldn’t, okay?”

“Why not?” He had a way of backing you into a corner, making you feel small in this confrontation. Steve was rarely angry with you, and never like this. 

“Because the one day you did find out, before all this shit,” Before he felt like yours again, “–you begged me to tell you that you were okay. You fucking begged me to.” Your arms were flailing now, it was your turn to back him into a corner. You hadn’t meant to be this defensive, hadn’t meant for this to end in a screaming match, but no one ever intended that, you supposed, “How the fuck was I supposed to leave after that, huh? Let them institutionalize you? Saddle Robin with you? How the fuck was that supposed to be the better option?” 

His hands were up now too, defenses in a war against yourselves, “Oh so you just did this so you could be a hero? So you could prove to yourself that you aren’t shitty? Prove to yourself that you weren’t gonna fucking leave again?” 

You found silence, suddenly, more hurt and more angry than before. You stare at each other. He knows he’s crossed a line. Several lines actually. You aren’t as forgiving as Robin. 

“Just go, Steve.”

“I–”

“Just fucking go.”

+

This felt like the remnants of a hurricane. You could hear the wind ringing heavy and violent in your ears like screams. You could feel the rain hot and heavy as it rolled across your cheeks still. Yet the air was still, entirely too still. The shrapnel of your reality built back up and torn back down again, and now you were here. Alone. In silence. 

Robin’s pointed knuckle is quiet against your door, yet it crashes and booms a resonant patriarchal tenor across the echoing walls of your solitude. You groan at her, something akin to its open. You hadn’t managed to lock it again after she left this morning. 

“Are you still being insufferable?” She asks you, as if it isn’t clear by the way you seem to enter a state of active decay, melting into the corner piece of your sectional. 

Though you are insufferable, you are not so insufferable that you cannot bite back, “Are you still being annoying?”

She does not answer, instead, the clinking of glass on glass and heavier glass against granite serves as an answer for her.

“Do you want a glass?”

The ruffling of a paper bag wills your head up, and she exhumes the bottle from it. You see that it is red, but don’t say anything about it. You recognize the bottle as Beaujolais Nouveau, from the same region in France in which it is aptly named– the same region in which Robin did her semester abroad. You could have said something about how it is not winter, or how there are better italian wines or better whites or literally anything else from Trader Joe’s, but alcohol seems nice, and you are never one to complain about free alcohol. 

“Yeah.” you say instead. 

“Okay.” 

She serves you a too-full glass on the couch. She had half a mind to bring some snacks over, but did not feel like putting forth the effort into making a snack board. Instead, she pulls a bag of salt and vinegar chips and a candy bar open with her teeth, pointing the mouth of the bag towards you in a peace offering. You oblige, stuffing a handful of them into your mouth as a chaser for this awful, dry red. 

“What a jerk.” She says, and you know who she is speaking about. 

“What an ass.” You say back to her, and she knows who you are speaking about, 

Your body rolls into the dip where hers sits on the couch, and you let the natural flow bring your head to her shoulder. You do not wrestle with the qualms of physical affection, and, if she is surprised by your sudden affectionate nature, she doesn’t say anything. 

“I spilled some wine on your counter.” She said to you, but you’ll clean it up later. 

You have half a mind to let it stain. 

+

You beg Robin to get your stuff from his house. Your heartbreak is scabbed over enough for you to pick at, and you have a desperate urge to smear some goo all over a canvas in an Oliver De Sagazan-esque pity party, but alas, your studio resides in the place of your demise– Steve’s house. 

Robin is more forgiving than you are, and also more willing to brave the walls of Fort Steve for your stuff. Robin is also a saint, and you have let her know ten times over. 

“She wants her shit back. Have it ready on the porch when I get there.” She says to him on the phone, the line aptly going dead seconds later. 

His hands on your things feel foreign when they touch them, like they might blow up. He had been avoiding them like landmines as he haunted the remnants of this home. Nothing had been touched since that morning. The house would not change. 

There is a fine layer of dust that has accumulated over the confines of your studio, and it makes his eyes water as he agitates it enough to send particles swirling through the air. He stacks your canvases in piles according to their sizes and fills your water cups with brushes. He takes extra care to separate the current painting you abandoned midway through, the one where the linseed-to-oil ratio wasn’t quite right and, in turn, the layers of paint would not cure properly. 

When he moves to the last stack, one of a modest collection of books and sketchpads, he loses his bearings, and the top sketchpad slides out with loose pages all over the floor. He sighs in exasperation, and bends down to scoop them into a pile. He recognizes the figure drawn on one page, and then another, and then another. A mirror image of himself, ruched hair at the end of the day, glasses perched on the end of his nose, elbow on the arm chair. In some he can see the tops of his folded knee. In some he is smiling and looking directly back at him. 

Every one of them is dated one a day for eighty-six days in chronological order, yet every paper he is holding has the same headline. 

The final page in the stack is a doodle page, he almost misses it. A series of boxes and riddles. Number two down, number three across. You were creating crossword puzzles, a new one every day, and yet none of the answers vaguely familiar to him. His blood runs cold. He was the ass. 

In a panic, he scoops the drawings up, sliding them as quickly as possible into the sleeve from which they fell and clutching them to his chest like previous gems. To him, this was a lifeline, and he did not have time to wait for Robin, though she is sitting outside waiting for him when he runs out the front door, leaving it open in a panic. 

She is colder when she greets him, colder than he’s ever seen. It's an odd juxtaposition, seeing her be so cold. She adorns black jeans with a black turtleneck. She does not look like herself, she looks like you. 

“And where are you going?” She asks him, watching hum fumble with his car keys and with the drawings in his hands. 

He puts his hands on her shoulders, wraps her in a hug, and gives her a kiss on the forehead. 

“Robin, I love you, and I know you came here for her stuff, but I’m going to talk to her.” 

She is stunned, staring at him with wide eyes at both the kiss and the sudden change in demeanor. She does not have time to ask him what drugs he possibly could have been on or make a back-handed remark about how hard he hit his head. Because, instead, she is standing in his driveway while his car takes off down the road. 

Your ground floor apartment has floor-to-ceiling windows. It was charming, really. It was one of the reasons you chose this place despite its ridiculous cost. Well, that, and the fact that it was the least suburban place you could think of. You are sitting on the kitchen island, scrubbing now at that wine stain on the counter with a rag and granite polish at the forefront of this battle when the first thud sounds off clear against your winder. You thought it had been an unsuspecting bird, but the shadow of a man behind your sheer white curtains startles you. You unfold yourself quickly, going over to pull them back and investigate. 

Steve stands with his feet in shrubs, hands with papers pressed flat against the glass. He pulls more from his chest, switching them out every so often, and then ends the spectacle with a crossword puzzle placed flat to the glass. He looks ridiculous like this, hands splayed across glass, hair disheveled and out of breath from running. He left his glasses on in the shuffle, and they slid down his nose in the commotion. Your confusion registers clear across your face, and he says something adjacent to, “Can I come in?” against the glass. 

You nod, and he shuffles the drawings back into a cohesive, carryable pile. You meet him at the front door, letting him run in and dump them on the counter you were currently cleaning. He spreads them out in front of you, breathless and disheveled. They are in order, chronologically. All of your drawings of him. You are both mortified and embarrassed. 

“That one.” He points to it, moving to stand next to you on the counter to look at it. 

“The first one.” You say, looking at the date. 

“Was that the first day?” He asked, “Of being home from the hospital?” he specified, staring down at you with intent eyes. 

You nod, looking back up to meet him, “Yes, that was the first day. I knew you had amnesia, I knew you thought we were still engaged. Though, I didn’t know the extent of your condition yet.” 

You go through all eighty-six drawings, the things he said to you, the things you did. A lot of them are repetitive, some of them caught you off guard and you are able to  laugh about it now. You talk about the day he gives you the ring back, and the day you realized he was in the same infinite time loop, you talk about the dastardly yellow paint and the vellum crossword puzzles so he wouldn’t get bored even though you knew he wouldn’t remember, and the binders. You talked a lot about Robin and her place in it all. You talked about the dentist up the street, and how Steve, even in his delirium, still knew him as the guy with the labs. 

There is one day where the drawing is missing. 

“Is this the day,” He asks, “The day that I–”

“Yeah, it is.” You answer. 

“What exactly happened then? On that day?” 

You struggle to recall every detail, so you start by giving him the gist, “Well… you saw the tattoo on my back,” You reach up to touch it, running your fingers over the raised lines of ink beneath your fingers. Steve tilts his head back to get a glimpse of it as well, his own fingers calloused as they chase yours across it. 

“Looks nice.” He says, without thinking. 

“Thank you.” You reply back, “And then you got really confused. I was still sleeping on the couch then. We were still figuring it out, and I was still clumsy. I asked you how hard you hit your head, and you didn’t even remember doing it. You panicked so quickly, I– I had a hard time calming you down.” 

The guilt still ate you alive, the guilt at your own clumsiness for letting it slip, and the guilt that you lived in the lie for that long. The guilt mostly for leaving in the first place. 

“You asked me where I was, and I couldn’t answer. I wasn’t there because I was trying so hard to live my life separately from you. We hadn’t been together in a year, but I couldn’t tell you that.” You said, words becoming frantic as you fought off tears. 

His hand is both a consolation as it is a devastation as it rests across your shoulder, broad and warm and grounding. 

“What did you say to me, then?” He asked. 

“You asked me if you were okay. You were so confused.” 

“And?”

“I told you that you were.” Hot tears broke the threshold of your lash line, and spilled in streams down your face. It cut through the dryness there, and you choked on a sob. “I didn’t even know if you were or how to take care of you or what I was doing and, and I’m sorry.” You cried ugly tears now, wet into your own hands. 

He grips your shoulders, pulling you into a familiar hug as your words grow frantic and your breaths become shallow and stuttered. He holds you close to his warm chest, encased in soft arms. He cradles the back of your head like you are encased in glass, and he plants a kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers into your hair, now rocking your back and forth as you calm down. A wet drop falls on your shoulder, and you cannot tell if it belongs to yourself or him. You would forgive Steve in every life. 

He pulls back from you, hands still planted firmly on your shoulders as he stares at you, amber eyes both piercing and comforting. 

“Listen, you don’t have to take this, not yet. But it would make me so fucking happy if you would.” He pulls the ring, sparkling and brilliant from his pocket, and presents it to you. You oblige happily, sliding it back on to your hands before tackling him into an embrace. His kiss is as soft as it had always been. 

You would do this again, and again, and again if it meant you could have him, because the same day with Steve was better than any of the days you had ever spent without him.