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sageafk · 1 year

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Bingo: virus, marriage, mechanical keyboard

enjoy some blatant fem dnf pre-Florida

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It’s entirely too late, or maybe it’s too early—there’s a haze in the sky that's evident of pre-dawn, but she knows neither of them have slept yet. It’s been difficult to manage time passing, rather than meals and sleeping periods being the markers for days, they’re whenever Claire leaves the call. Ever since Grace’s visa was declined, Claire hasn’t left her alone. The discord logo lights up her monitors with a number nearing the triple digits, steadily increasing.

It’s been harder than ever, recently. Moving in with your best friend is supposed to be easy, regardless of the thousands of miles stretched between them. But then there were applications and denials and Covid and now Grace just wants to cry.

It was at the tip of her fingers. Claire was just one touch away. Now, ripped apart, she feels like a shell of who she was.

Her desk is littered with papers, things she had printed out from her mom’s shoddy printer in the back room. There are a lot of bolded words that talk about do’s and don’t’s of things she had thought she’d followed but apparently not. The most recent denial letter sits on her second monitor, coating her face in a red shine that she’d never want to share in the company of Claire.

“I just don’t get it,” falls from her lips. She’s not sure when the last time her face changed. So far from the happy girl that Claire knows her as. Grace just doesn’t know what to do. She wants to give up.

She wants to give up.

“I thought I did everything right. I don’t understand where I went wrong.”

“Sometimes they do that, G,” Claire mumbles, her mouth obscured by her hand. Grace wants to give up but how could she when she knows every single mannerism, every moment of the other even when she doesn’t have her camera on? “They’re, like, I don’t know, picky? They want to be careful of who they let into the country.”

“It’s dumb.” Grace feels her eyes dampen and she rolls them so hard they hurt. She’s spent too long crying over this in the last couple of days, and she knows that if she keeps going over it the more she’s going to hate herself. She brushes her tears away with the back of her hand: she wouldn’t be surprised if her skin is bruised. “What am I going to do? It’s not like I’m going to blow everything up.”

Claire laughs softly, chokes on a cough before settling down again. Claire never gets sick and yet here she is, borderline bedridden and alone in another country without her friend or her family to help her deal with it. This year’s been harsh, everything piling up on top of each other, and the nail that is Grace’s stability keeps getting hit on the head as thing after another impacts her life, and her and Claire’s relationship.

The ugly monster of selfishness crawls underneath her skin. “How are you feeling today?” She asks softly, like raising her voice will cause either one of them to go down some sort of spiral again.

“As good as someone with Covid can.” Claire blows her nose and groans afterward, then Grace hears it heavily slap against the desk, no doubt into a pile of pre-used tissues that have accumulated over the duration of their call. “The clinic said this was the new strand, Delta, I think? I’m so special I get the new strand.”

“That’s so dumb,” Grace laughs, fiddling with a hole in her sweatpants. “You don’t even leave your house and you get all the good stuff.”

“It’s just the joys of Door Dash, G.” Claire shuffles around, probably adjusting her position so her bones don’t ache as much. She’d said it wasn’t as bad as she was expecting it to be, but she complains about her muscles aching and feeling so heavy wherever she is. Grace can’t remember the last time she ate, and when she had she’d talked about her nausea, her lack of appetite, the pain it caused her head. Now, she fluctuates between her cushioned, reclined gaming chair and her bed to stay on the phone with Grace. She knows that if her visa didn’t decline, Claire would have slept through the entirety of her sickness. She’s a good friend. A really, really, good friend.

“Maybe it’s not so bad that you… couldn’t come,” Claire says delicately, like if she says ‘decline’ the floodgates would open again. To be fair, they probably would. Grace isn’t normally emotional, prefers to bottle everything up and never talk about it, but this is something that can’t be stored. She tears her heart out into little pieces over a red mark on pre-signed papers. “‘Cause I’m sick. I’d be all snotty and then you’d want to move out straight away.”

Move out implies that she’d be moving in. She knows this, of course she does. There’s a room in Claire's house with a blue-made bed that has a welcome pack prepared and placed on the foot. Grace wonders how many cobwebs have formed on it, whether the blanket Claire had crocheted still smells like her perfume or if it’s been too long. In their calls, when she shows Grace, the room looks cold, unlived in. She supposes that’s because it is, but there’s no ‘almost’ about that room. Is it even hers?

Grace hums, not wanting to commit to an answer. She’s not sure what she would say that isn’t horribly telling. She just wants everything to fall into place, she wants them to settle beside each other and only be brought apart to be put back together.

Claire huffs and her chair squeaks as she sits herself up. Grace slumps back in hers as she hears the stupid clacking noise of Claire’s horrible mechanical keyboard while she types something. It’s white with RGB lights that were programmed to flash as she clicked them, entirely too advanced for the Walmart-branded base they were on. More often than not they black out and the lights don’t turn on at all, sometimes it disconnects from her PC even though they’re plugged in. They make so much noise, Grace supposes it’s what you get when you buy a mechanical keyboard for $20 from a supermarket, but it’s so impossibly Claire Grace can’t really complain. In the last 4 days, it’s been the only source of comfort, the repetitive non-smooth clacking as she types a thousand words a minute at some idiot on Discord.

The clicks peter out for a second, before picking up again, faster than before, repetitive with many spaces in-between the words. She’s never seen them, but Grace imagines her fingers as she types. Does she paint her nails? Does she wear rings? If she does—what about her left hand? Is there space there for a ring that only Grace could give her?

“Check your email,” she says suddenly, and her chair squeaks again as she lowers herself back. She’s panting slightly, and there’s a short pang of bad going through Grace’s spine at the fact that Claire exhausted herself for her. She clears her throat and leans forward, clicking out of the nasty email that hasn’t left her screen in days, and navigates to the main page. There are hundreds of unread emails from the past few days, many subscription services or promotions from websites, but the top one is from Claire with a smiley face as the subject line and every anxiety melts from her.

She opens it and furrows her brows.

“This means a lot to you, yeah?” Claire asks, and it’s heard over a tapping on the desk. “Like, a lot. Me too.”

“Yeah,” Grace breathes, because really, what else is she supposed to do? “What does—”

“Do you want to get married?”

Grace bursts out laughing, the bubble exploding out of her throat and erupting before she even gets a chance to think about being polite and hiding it. Claire just sits in silence, not responding.

“Dear, god! Thank you, Claire. I needed that laugh, oh my god.”

“I’m being serious, G,” Claire mumbles, and the tapping stops. It’s still in the call for a beat, not enough for it to really mean anything. That doesn’t stop Grace from overthinking. “We could get married. They keep denying your visa but if we get married you can get your green card and you can live here. You can stay here.”

“We aren’t together, Claire. Don’t we need to be dating before we get married?” Grace hums, but tries not to let her emotions bleed into her voice. This isn’t a topic she’d expect she’d be having with Claire. Maybe about other people but not about each other.

“It doesn’t have to be real.” It’s quiet. “It can just be for convenience. So you can get here. We can divorce in a year or something so it’s not suspicious if you want.”

If you want. What if Grace doesn’t want to?

“You’re serious?” Grace doesn’t know what’s funnier: how outlandish Claire’s proposal was, or the fact that she’s already considering it. She feels a little selfish like she’s playing house and manipulating her feelings. “You don’t even like girls, Claire.”

Claire is uncharacteristically quiet. For a long time. The silence kind of sounds like nights locked inside her room, sounds like careful eyes looking down in the locker room, sounds like staying up too late and looking up ‘Am I gay?’. It sounds a bit too familiar to something Grace has already gone through.

“Claire?”

“I’m sick, Grace.” Claire mumbles, and Grace can picture a soju red flush on her cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it now.”

Grace notes how she didn’t say that she isn’t thinking right. She means this, it’s not something that’s just randomly come out. Has she thought about this before? Has she typed this very email many times before, with the hope that Grace will accept? Is this the way that she tells her that she’s gay? That she loves Grace the same way she loves Claire?

No. It can’t be. Don’t be an idiot.

“Think about it, okay?” Claire sighs and it seems further away, like she’s sunken further into her chair. Grace clicks on the links that Claire had emailed her and saves them to her bookmarks bar, typing out some half-assed name for them that she hopes she won’t cringe at the lovey-dovey-ness when she’s not so in her feelings about everything. She wonders if Claire can hear the affection and fondness drip from smooth Gatreon Reds. “I… I need you here. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Grace melts. If only everything could be easy. If only this stupid virus was gone and she could fly over and hug her, buy her a new keyboard just to keep the last one for sentimentality.

Tomorrow is another day, whenever tomorrow happens.

Now, she indulges her. “Would you wear a dress?”

Claire giggles, covers her face with her hand for a beat. “You’re an idiot, G.” The mood lifts, and for the first time in a while, there’s something good in the air. The call isn’t filled with anxiety and dull-toned clicks. “Only if you do.”

#dnf #fem dnf #discussions of marriage #talk of covid #love confessions #writing #ao3 #skriving #bingo

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apollowritesstuff · 2 years

Text

We share just a wall

dnf one-shot

...where George has become almost invisible while Dream pretends to not tend to orbit his thoughts around him - until one day, George cries

wordcount: 2543

keywords: dnf oneshot, fluff, college au, soft sad thoughts because Dream is a dumbass

read on ao3

continue under cut:

We share just a wall

I feel like he’s become invisible to me. Sure he’s just always kind of there - probably watering the plants in our corridor, because I’m sure I never do, sometimes I hear him playing music quietly, I hear him laughing at tiktoks at 3am when we both can’t sleep. I know about him, but it’s like knowing about a ghost. You might see him closing the door as you’re going out and you might notice the obviously loud silence when he leaves his apartment once a month, but he’s got this untouchable aura around him.

I’m sure he knows about me. He just doesn’t care - and I, for a fact, don’t care that much either. I’ve got life and I’ve got girls and I’ve got my friends and I’ve got stuff to drink when I’m too lonely.

I’m sure we used to be friends.

—

It all started in October, last October. Not that I knew something was starting, it was just a regular fucking October, I was cold as hell and people annoyed me. Seconds from yelling at the first person who’d wanna talk to me. I brought a monster drink and poured it into my steaming hot black coffee. It wasn’t good, but that’s what I did to stay awake and look cool. I was cool. Freshmen feared me and I had the most fun of it.

I sipped on my drink the whole morning and thought about how easy it would be to just leave this all behind. I didn’t have any serious commitment to anything.

My lecture finally ended and without letting anything bother me even for a second more, I rushed to get out of the door as soon as possible. I threw my books and pens all over each other in the bag and figured I could care about that later - or not at all. I finished the rest of my survival elixir in one gulp - and a second before entering the direction of freedom, I ran right into him.

Like the clumsiest idiot he always was, George dropped all his books - why do you even have a backpack when you’re just going around carrying it, to show you’re stupidly clever or what - and his glasses slipped a bit down his nose.

I remember him taking a sharp intake of breath and wanting to apologise, perhaps to scold me (let's be honest, George wasn't much of a scold), but something in me didn't want to hear a word from him. I remember his confused expression as I grabbed his stupid books and shoved them into his arms, my fingers fleetingly touching his chest, and then I just kept walking.

I didn’t seen him for a few days after that, I don’t even know if he attended the lecture. I did my best to not care- but I think that was where it all started again. The image of his stupidly basic grey shirt that he wore that day was carved in my mind, and how his dark hair looked so I-just-woke-up good. Anyways, I really didn’t care.

So that was last October.

November passed by like it never even existed - honestly, fuck Novembers, I was all alone for my birthday - and then we crashed somewhen in December. I was actually happy that day, excited that everyone’s leaving for Christmas and I’ll have the time to do whatever- which usually meant to find a girl and a few shots and get out of this world for some time.

I bought another coffee - it was just after all my lessons, so also probably like a third cup - and went to go drink it to my only favourite place at this shithole that this school was. Well, still is, but November always makes everything worse, doesn’t it?

Fire escape, top floor, where I technically never had a reason to be. On the other hand, who cares. If a building has roof access, you'll find me there most of the time - and if it's your school, which strictly forbids roof access, you'll find me there exclusively.

Look, I'll give you some helpful advice. If you ever go out with someone, don't spill all your favourite places on them, because then they'll make you cry, and then you'll keep meeting said person there until one of you gives up. And honestly? I thought George would be the one.

Luckily I spotted him in time and stopped just around the corner, a list of pros and cons and all the possible consequences running through my head. I didn't even have time to make a decision and I was already walking in his direction, registering his freshly shattered face in pain as I passed him without hesitation and ran up the stairs to the roof. What a perfect asshole I was that day, you don't see that very often, do you? I heard the rustle of his jacket as he turned behind me, and the stupid sound almost made me take those few steps back. Almost. But I didn't.

Something in me refuses to forget the moment we ran out here together. It was the day after I almost thought I was going to die standing here alone, and suddenly George dragged me here, without the slightest clue, made me taste his sickeningly sweet coffee, and told me about how his physics professor's hair had almost started burning just moments before I pressed my lips into his. He offered me sliced apples and a handset and then we sat like that, me with my back against the chimney and George against my chest.

Yeah, I guess we used to be friends.

Christmas was painful in the end, because I knew he stayed just as well as I did, and I heard him singing these overly sweet melodies long into the night, even though he was all alone in there. Even through the wall his aura of peaceful, unbreakable and unattainably easy happiness was undeniable and so real. Not for me. I came home - ugh, home - late and only prayed it was really my door I was trying to open with thoughts clouded by God knows what.

When I looked at my keyes and realised his key was still there, I wondered for a while - but then my senses kicked in and I threw it somewhere into my drawers, for it to never be seen again. Bye bye, memories, now burn in hell.

I haven’t seen his face for a few days now, and I wanted nothing more than to forget it completely. The past months had stirred up too much of what I had tried so hard to bury. I haven't spoken a word to him in weeks, and I wish nothing more than to hear him answer my every thought, to simply forget how painfully close I am to someone who no longer cares for me.

He even celebrated New Year's Eve with someone. I have no idea who with. I don't care. Have you forgotten? Then in January we ran into each other more than once, a couple of times at school, once he knocked on my door to shove some material from a professor I supposedly left in class and once I ended up in the elevator with him. The most painful two minutes of my life.

Back in January, I was going crazy in his presence - again -, back in January, I couldn't even greet him with an easy "Hi," like a small child easily could, because behind every greeting I gave him was the unforgettable memory of his door opening and how I pulled him in for a kiss and how he inhaled sharply when I closed the door and pinned him against it.

Anyways.

We were like two planets, orbiting each other, still millions of miles away, perhaps like a deadly meteorite miraculously passing the planet it threatens. I'm the meteor, if you don't get it. Just so we're clear.

To shut up with these pathetic rants, I still had a crowd of girls and plenty of drinks and probably plenty of work, but I was so good at forgetting them that I eventually got fired and contacted my parents for the first time in months. Life was going well, well, at least my old ways were still here.

And then suddenly it was February and I kept running into him, and one day he bumped into me, perhaps as a belated revenge for October, and my fingers closed around his arm so quickly and instinctively so that he didn't fall completely, that my whole skin sparkled with the desire to be touched for several hours afterwards.

I met him in the library and reached for his book while he was looking around for a chair to climb on - saving me the jokes I would have otherwise thrown at him for another week, come on, I deserve plus points for that.

I silently handed him the missing change as he ordered his disgusting coffee parody and left his forgotten textbook by the door. So yeah, I'm too much of a dick to knock and face the consequences, okay? Either he wouldn't even want to see me, or I wouldn't be able to control myself and he'd probably have to throw the book at me.

It’s the seventh of March and I can’t sleep. Partially because the silence is too loud today. He isn’t watching a movie, he isn’t on a call with anyone, but he barely ever is, he isn’t laughing at cat compilations, or whatever he likes to watch nowadays. I considered listening to something with headphones to block it off, but his silent presence is so real once again. He’s so close and I’m going insane about it, can’t even lie now.

A few moments fly by and I think I’m falling asleep, when I hear some rumbling behind the wall. I yawn and turn to the other side. I am now sleeping and I do not care about anything else, especially not the brown-haired boy who’s technically just inches away from me, if he hasn't moved his bed since I last visited. I wish he hadn't and I’m not sure why. I don’t wanna think about that.

I can see him turning around in his bed, because he always sleeps on his right side. I can imagine him checking some notification from his family, I can imagine the cold breeze slowly flowing in through the window that he always keeps open at night but never during the day, I can- I can hear him crying.

It’s too clear. It’s too clear for it to be one of my George dreams.

I sit up straight and keep listening. For a moment he's quiet and I think Maybe it's really my fantasy going insane, maybe I need to find a new apartment to live in, but then it's there again. Sobbing as one does when everything becomes too much. Not that I ever cry - well, okay, I’ll admit it.

I sit up straight, unsure of what to do. I’d like to ignore it, something in me would really really like to ignore it, but something in me is fighting that with a power I didn’t know my thoughts had.

I sit up straight, wondering who hurt him.

I sit up straight, convincing myself it wasn’t me-

and I get up, because there’s a clear, urgent voice that says it has been me, all this time.

(what an awesome jerk I truly am)

I run my hands through my hair, desperately looking for the pyjama t-shirt I've tossed somewhere in the corner of my overheated apartment, exhaling sharply, yanking out the drawers and rummaging through them desperately, trying to find the one thing I've decided to bury, something inside me is so desperately impatient, in such an awful hurry, so miserably panicking, quick quick quick.

Where. Is. The. Key.

I found it.

I feel like a psycho, rushing out of my door as quietly as possible. The corridor is dark and silent as death.

I stop right in front of his door, suddenly uncertain. It can still be heard if I hold my breath. I raise and lower my hand a few times before I actually knock, but I can't go back to myself and pretend nothing is happening. I feel awful for several - all - reasons, I'm screaming at myself and my fingers are slightly shaking. Just slightly.

I knock and there is a grave silence. Then I hear a rumble, followed by a moment of silence. Another noise. I raise my hand to knock again when the door actually opens and my heart skips a beat. Or two.

He looks- he looks broken. But also damn sexy. Shattered in pieces. Cute too. Damn, my George - well, he's not my George anymore, but they look so much alike. We lock eyes and what I see in his face is what has been growing inside my soul.

“I still have your key,” I say like a total dumbass and we both look down to my hand, holding this small key that once had the power to open gates to heaven. He doesn’t say a word.

“Can I- can I come in?” I ask, not knowing what to expect in answer. Probably a “fuck off” and the door slammed right in front of my face? Yeah, sounds about right.

George inhales and I notice his breath is shaky. He wipes his eye as if there was just an annoying eyelash. “Yeah,” he says quietly and I’m almost not even sure he said it - until he steps back and lets me go through.

A familiar smell I can’t describe hugs me like a blanket - but then it’s suddenly George hugging me, he somehow closes the door and he’s burying his face in my neck, I can feel his hands around my waist now and it takes me a second before I realise George is truly here, hugging me and it almost makes me tear up how fragile he is when I pull him closer and I feel his shaky breath again.

I pick him up without thinking further and take him back to his bed, the bed is all crumpled up and I feel the tension in his body as he’s holding onto me and I’m not thinking other than I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m so fucking sorry George I’m so sorry I’m a dumbass who hurt you-

He curls up and he looks so small, but grabs my hand as I awkwardly sit on the edge of the bed and pulls me closer to him.

He’s whispering through the tears, I can see them reflecting the light of the moon behind the window.

“Can you stay tonight?”

I don't care about anything other than him.

His head is on my chest, sometimes he shakes all over and I hug him as best as I can and it's been a long time since I hugged him with all my soul. His breathing settles and I feel his cold tears fall on my hand and he is my George and he looks so fragile when he leans against me, when he holds me.

“I’m not leaving,” I whisper into his hair. “Not again,” I promise.

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taglist: @thingsstuffsworld @clayfoam @existingthingiguess @georgouseyelash

#apollo dnf oneshots #writeblr #dnf fanfic #dnf oneshot #oneshot #writing #writing community #writing prompt #writers on tumblr #writing tips #writeblr discussion

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