#i really really like /working/ with birds

[freyito]

ᴅᴇʟʟɪɴɢʀꜝ ⨟ ᴍᴏʀɴɪɴɢꜱ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜɪᴍ

✭ pairing(s): aventurine, dr ratio, boothill, gallagher, sunday, argenti sampo, jing yuan, blade, luocha, jiaoqiu, moze, dan heng, gepard, caelus, welt (seperate) x reader

✩ in which: you wake up next to them.

✧ a/n: for those who have read my works since i first started writing, i made a little masterpost on the mk(1) boys nightly rotuines... i figured id do one for hsr men since my mk hyperfixation died and is buried 6ft under... and i might do one for the hsr men nighttime routines but for now... wakey wakey

✦ taglist: @fffrost, @shinysora

🗒 cw: gn reader, just fluff, not proofread

✎ wc: 3.9k

⎯ Aventurine

Ever the gambler, AVENTURINE even takes a gamble on waking up in the morning. He can set as many alarms as he wants, but he always sleeps in. He finds any excuse to cuddle up next to you and enjoy your warmth for a minute, or even an hour more. He doesn’t mind coming into work late, he always finds a way to slip out of write-ups.

You’ve lost count of how many alarms went off by now, as annoying as it was. Still, despite how important Aventurine was, he’s cuddled up against your back, hands gripping your clothes tightly as if you’d dare to wiggle out of his arms. You could remind him, again and again, that he needs to go, that he has a meeting that day, or a certain deadline, and he’ll just groan and say that his superiors can handle him being gone for another hour or so.

When you do manage to convince him to get up and start the day, he does everything with such reluctance. Forget his rank, forget all of it, he’d much rather spend several more hours in bed with you, even when the sun dips low. He’s slow to put on his uniform, asking you the most mundane of questions, with answers he already knows. He skips out on breakfast at hope, douses himself in that expensive cologne that makes you have to distance yourself until he leaves, and wires you enough money to buy the entire menu from the cafe you mentioned you liked in passing.

⎯ Dr. Ratio

The early bird gets the worm, as they say, and VERITAS is no exception to the saying. Considering work has him busy, he’s thoughtful enough to leave you to sleep, if you are not accustomed to a sleep schedule like his. He tends to wake up early, to give himself enough time to prepare himself for the day. He likes to be thorough, check over his lesson plan for the day, make sure he made no mistakes the day before (although he rarely needs to revise it).

While on the outside, he seems cold and uncaring, on the inside he’s flustering himself with how much he worries about you. He knows he will see you later in the day, when you’ll bring him his lunch, or after his lectures, but some part of leaving just unsettles him. Not that he believes you’d be in danger if you were gone, but more so how you take care of yourself. Of course he knows you’re capable, but some part in him wants to make sure.

So, before he leaves, right when you wake up, he does his best to cook a filling breakfast. Most of the times, Ratio has to put it in some tupperware and save it for later at work, but there are very rare occasions that he gets to enjoy the meal with you. He always makes more– “it was an accident, nothing more,” he’ll say, shaking his head, stoic as ever. But you know it wasn’t– and shovel it onto your plate, it’s his own love language. 

⎯ Boothill

BOOTHILL is an early riser. It’s a habit that was ingrained in him since he was knee high. Granted, he doesn’t need much sleep, and he isn’t around as often as you’d like. He doesn’t stay in one place for long, and he really only swings by your apartment once or twice every month. But that doesn’t mean he’ll sleepover, if only for a night.

Despite the fact that he wakes up even hours before you, he decides to let you sleep. Sometimes he’ll stay in bed as long as you are, soaking in the peaceful sight, one that he’s never afforded himself until you came along. He reaches out ever so tentatively, as if he’ll feel your warm skin underneath his finger tips, but all it earns him is a shudder and your face scrunching. And when you wake up, he’s in such a hurry to pretend he wasn’t watching you sleep, mumbling apologies like he’s disturbed you.

When he’s not watching over you, Boothill enjoys cooking. He might’ve lost his taste and stomach a while ago, but he’s still an excellent chef. For all he can’t eat, he loves cooking. And he believes one of the best ways of waking up is to have a hearty breakfast. While you catch up on your sleep (most likely because he showed up at your apartment late into the night scuffed and bloody(?), acting like nothing happened), he’s making the most heavenly smelling pancakes ever, humming some old country tune to himself. If you dare get up to see what he’s cooking, he shoos you back to bed, tutting and claiming that you’re ruining the surprise, as if he doesn’t do this every time.

⎯ Gallagher

For such a busy man, GALLAGHER tends to sleep a lot. Or perhaps, too little. His schedule is always fluctuating, which means he’s up early and home late. It’s unfair, you think. Most of the time he’ll come home all quiet, settle on a snack, and then sneak into bed, and pull you up close. Half the time he doesn’t even care about his clothes, opting to take off his vest and shirt and throw them on the floor. He’ll worry about the laundry later.

That being said, it’s often a gamble if you’ll see him in the morning or not. He wakes up quite early, and as much as he’d love to spend time with you, cuddle up, and go straight back to sleep, he has to at least look presentable for the next time he’s called in. Most of the time, he accidentally wakes you up when he gets up to shower, but you settle back in quite comfortably. 

Most of the time, he’ll have to leave right after his shower. So he’ll do his best to be quiet as a mouse, sneak in, and press a kiss to your forehead, before starting his day. But on the days he can sleep in, or when he doesn’t have work… he climbs right back into bed. The scent of his body wash rolls over you, in the near-overpowering sandalwood haven it is. He’ll wrap his arm around your waist, pull you impossible closer, and nuzzle into your neck. If you are awake by that time, he urges you to go back to sleep. ‘5 more minutes’, he’ll grumble, and in possibly record speed, he’s out like light. His arm loosens ever so slightly, as he snores away until his thirteenth alarm goes off.

⎯ Sunday

As a stickler for schedules, it’s no surprise that SUNDAY has a strict morning routine. He wakes up at 7 AM system time, 6 AM being too early, and 8 AM being too late. Of course, he encourages you to do the same. You get used to it with time.

He likes to start with a shower, of course. Something intimate with you, yet so normal. He does not mind spending an hour in the shower, but with his station, he cannot. So unfortunately, he has to cut such time short. But he makes sure to soak in every single minute left in the morning with you. A nice breakfast and some tea, as he chats away about his ‘chores’ for the day, what matters he is attending to, whether or not it is a day in the office or out and about. 

Regardless of how busy his day is, Sunday makes sure you know that you are in every waking thought of his. A kiss and a hug at the door, and he’s on his way. You can see some flicker of sorrow as he leaves, as if it is something to grieve over, not being by your side for a minute longer. But alas, to achieve and infinite amount of sundays, he cannot afford to make room in his schedule for more down time. 

⎯ Argenti

ARGENTI never ceases to look as heavenly as ever, even in his sleep. However, he has quite a strict schedule he sticks to, something that manifested when his master started training him. He has quite the strict schedule: wake up early, shower, enjoy his breakfast, and start training, unless he has somewhere to be. 

However, he does allow him so rest days, where he sleeps just a little longer, and allows himself more spare time. Very rarely do you catch him asleep when you wake up, and most mornings when he does ‘sleep in’, you often wake up to him gazing down at you. His head propped up by his hand, hair cascading down his shoulders. He could even miss out on several hours of sleep or perhaps even the entire night, and still look angelic. He greets you with a soft smile and a huff, his fingers brushing against your cheeks, as he waits for you to properly wake up.

And once you’re ready to get up, he’s ready to start the day. Anything you do, he's practically following you around like a lost puppy. When you make breakfast, you're either watching over his shoulder, or he is. He never skips out on a chance to dance in the kitchen, making something that was normally a spectacle regulated, and yet, it still feels as intimate as it does the very first time he pulled you into his arms.

⎯Sampo Koski

SAMPO KOSKI needs his beauty sleep. Granted, his sleeping schedule varies based on his business. Sometimes he needs to rob someone blind in the early hours of the morning, or his clients want to meet way past his bedtime. He’ll huff and puff and complain about it, but he always makes time to curl up in your arms like a poor little stray kitten.

When he is finally free of his dreaded work (his path in life that HE chose), he sleeps in quite late. Most of the time, he wants to enjoy the time he has left with you, pout and complain about how hard his job is (again, a career HE CHOSE). He has a lot to say when he (or you) wake up, only because he’s missed talking casually, and most of all, he’s missed you. His jobs and clients have him acting all proper, putting on some other character than he truly is for his clients. While there are some acts he likes… sometimes he just wants to break character and get his clients to buy whatever piece of junk he’s stolen.

Despite all his yapping, he truly enjoys the time he gets with you, even if most of it is him keeping you in bed. He pulls you up close to his chest if you even dare to move, burying his face in the crook of your neck and muttering pathetic little ‘don’t leave’s and the like. When you look down at him he’s just so tired, his eyebags are somehow seven times darker and he’s lost all that luster in his eyes. But you know he’s putting on an act. When you get up, he’ll be crawling to your side in no time.

⎯ Jing Yuan

Ah, the Dozing General. Who better to wake up with? While JING YUAN has to be up early, he doesn’t skip out on any time that could be spent with you. When his first alarm goes off, he’s quick to snooze it, rolling over and throwing his arm over your waist, pulling you closer. He’s used to waking up this early, of course, but he doesn’t like to miss out on those precious 30 minutes where he’s holding you close, uninterrupted. You’re accustomed to this schedule, as well. Wake up; but not really, spend the next moments cuddling, and then start your day.

As the Divine Foresight, he doesn’t get as much leisure time as he’d like, or days off. He could spend all day in bed, really, spoiling himself (as he sees it) to high heavens. But unfortunately, there is work that needs to be done, and he needs to start his day. And (un)fortunately, he quite enjoys dragging you along. A nice walk in the garden before he truly starts the day is a sign of a peaceful day. With you by his side, half-awake or not.

That being said, he does so because he wishes to spend every possible moment he has with you. His station means his workload will be unpredictable, and while he wishes that all days would be mundane, that wish will never come true. So, spending the first thirty minutes to several hours of his morning with you is what he rewards himself with. A nice meal and a good bath sets him in the right mood, being simply a step away at most in the morning. 

⎯ Blade

BLADE doesn’t sleep well in general. Often times he’s woken up at all hours in the night by things he won’t share– “It’s childish.” is what he says, with a huff. Nightmares. It’s nightmares. He doesn’t have much of a reaction to them anymore, aside from grumbling and complaining quietly, which is normal. As much as he tries to go back to sleep, he simply can’t most of the time, opting to do something to keep his mind and hands busy, as sleep deprived as he is.

You tend to be met with his back when you wake up, tense as ever. When he can’t find something to do, he settles on meditation, which does nothing to calm the voices and ‘vengeance’ that addles his mind. It does too little for him, his mind always circling back to what could have been. The minute you shift in bed, he snaps out of it quickly, looking back at you with his unreadable gaze. 

Most of the time, if you ask him to lay down with you, he will, as long as he doesn’t have an assignment he needs to be on. For all his sharp edges, he’s quite… dull when it comes to you. Perhaps it’s the many years he’s faced that’s made him lose his luster, or simply his own undoing. Yet, somehow, when you pull him in close, he relaxes ever so slightly. Perhaps not all the way, but it’d take you a couple more years to break down his walls completely. You could sleep for another three hours and he’d at least get time to close his eyes and let his mind rest; something he desperately needs.

⎯ Luocha

While LUOCHA’s “work” has him up quite early, well into the AMs. Of course, with all the traveling he’s done, his sleep schedule varies, and it’s not like he gets to spend as much time as he’d like with you, but you tag along all the same. He could be awake at 3AM system time and you’d be sound asleep until 10AM, and somehow, he’d still look as handsome as ever. You’re starting to feel a little jealous.

Still, he makes time to greet you in the morning. Aside from being a merchant, he is, of course, a healer, and he wants to make sure you're sleeping right. And, perhaps to catch up, if he has been gone for a few days. After all, not only does physical health matter, but mental, as well. A quick little chat, maybe some tender touches, and a hearty meal that he’s brought from the markets is quite enough mental stimulation, yes?

Sometimes, it seems he disagrees, choosing to crawl in bed alongside you, even if you chose to wake up properly. He’ll play with your hair, whisper sweet nothings to you, or simply just stare and smile. He doesn’t get to be affectionate often, either, and often that need for human touch culminates, which leads to those impromptu cuddling sessions in the morning.

⎯ Jiaoqiu

As a healer, JIAOQIU wants to make sure you (and him) maintain a normal, healthy sleep schedule. Unless he’s on an emergency call, he tends to wake up at a mostly normal time, between 8-10 AM. Of course, he wakes you up with him, wanting to start his day off right with your pretty face.

He wakes you up oh so sweetly for a man with such a scheming smile. His fingers glide over your skin, pushing your hair behind your ear, using such a sweet voice, one so sweet that it makes your teeth ache. And when you're finally properly awake, he’s all too excited to rush off to the kitchen, like a giddy child. 

Of course, what’s a morning without Jiaoqiu without some breakfast? When you return from your shower, the kitchen is alive with his cooking, the sounds of sizzling and smells of spices (what else?) a delightful concoction. What is he cooking? Ji dan bing, a fulfilling breakfast. While you are the only person he cuts down the spice for, the food still has enough kick to make you make a face. Of course, his plate smells so spicy that it makes you recoil, which earns a chuckle from the Foxian.

⎯ Moze

Most of the time, MOZE sneaks into your shared bed by the morning, seeing as most of his work is carried out during the night. By the time he’s settled in bed, it’s around the time you wake up. It’s a peaceful sight, really. You’re so used to him scowling or simply not emoting, that when you wake up to his face, tranquil as ever, it makes your heart flutter.

Of course, that does not last. He is up within the first couple of seconds you stare too long, easily woken by any simple rustling. The feeling of someone’s eyes on him means one thing: danger. And he unfortunately hasn’t shaken that habit. However, he has grown used to the fact that it’s you staring at him in the morning hours, and thankfully you are spared a knife to your throat.

He jolts awake with a disgruntled groan, his eyes darting over your features, taking in as much information as he can in his hazy mind state, as if he hadn’t seen your face a thousand times over. Once he is satisfied with the fact that it’s you, he lays back down with a huff, before pulling you down with him. You may have the day to start, but he would like at least a couple more moments in bed with you, he’s stubborn that way.

⎯ Dan Heng

With his days off, DAN HENG tends to enjoy lounging. If not lounging, then reading, and if not reading, then cleaning. But most of the time, since you came back from the Xianzhou Loufu, he’s been sleeping in an awful lot. You're often the first to wake up, or at least, the first to get out of bed.

Most of the time, you sleep in with him, happy to get a couple extra minutes to a couple hours more of sleep. It’s a nice moment of peace and quiet after the amount of missions you two have been on, while March and the Trailblazer updates you on what’s happening wherever they are. Still, sometimes sleeping in gets kind of boring. So while Dan Heng catches on some much needed sleep (and alone time), you busy yourself with cleaning around the express, helping Pom-Pom with certain tasks, and even doing your best to cook up some breakfast.

When you bring your expert attempt at pancakes back to you and Dan Heng’s room, he perks up. He goes from sulking to practically beaming (or what you can consider beaming, you get a soft smile nonetheless), and digs in eagerly. It seems like enough to energize him for a couple of days, pushing away what had happened on the Loufu to the furthest reaches of his mind.

⎯ Gepard

GEPARD does not get much time in the mornings with you or himself. As captain of the guard, he has to be up early, and on call whenever the need arises. While it is very rare that he is called to dispatch an issue in the middle of the night, he is often reluctant to simply leave you in the morning. Of course, he won’t wake you for his own selfish reasons, he just simply wishes he could get more time to enjoy your presence in the morning.

As quietly as he tries to move, somehow he always wakes you up, or perhaps that's what your sleep cycle has gotten used to. Oftentimes, you wake up when he’s taking his shower, his soft humming rising over the sound of water. You know he only does this when he believes he is alone or heard, and every single time, you can’t help but think of it as cute. But you won’t tell him you heard it.

Most of the time you stay up so you can say goodbye to Gepard and tell him to have a good day, while he stumbles over excuses that he doesn’t need. He’s adorable in all his fluster, before he finally collects himself with a deep breath. He promises he’ll see you at the end of the day, and that he’ll bring some dinner home from one of your favorite restaurants.

⎯ Caelus

What adventure with CAELUS drag you on next? That’s a constant question that haunts your mind every time an adventure is done. The most sleep you get is on the Express, in between missions. In the morning’s, he wakes up with such determination, it’s almost impressive. He could have the worst sleep of his life and he wakes up raring to go.

Of course, he does his best not to wake you if you aren’t up. In fact, he’ll do his best to be as quiet as possible, sneaking out of the room, and even tip-toeing down the cabins. Like any little movement will wake his precious partner up. However, sometimes, when he’s feeling a little clingy, he’ll cuddle back in bed and pull you really close, refusing to let go unless you need to do something.

On the occasion you guys are out on a mission, he is the complete opposite. He could wake up well into the noon and groan and complain about not getting enough sleep, even if he slept like a baby. Of course, he wants to get on with his adventures, but at the same time, the hotel’s bed is soooo comfy, and he doesn’t want to leave. Which, he’ll keep you there too until he’s fully awake, spooning you and hiding his face in the crook of your neck.

⎯ Welt

On his days off, which seems to be most days now, WELT sleeps in only a little. Mornings with him are nothing short of intimate, simply laying there in each others arms, muttering sweet words. Truth be told, he enjoys these quiet moments, even if they push back the work he has to get done around the Express.

Still, no one's complaining, right? The work he has to get done will get done eventually, and he can spare a couple hours for his beloved. He cherishes every stolen second, as the hours tick away, his fingers trailing over your skin, before cupping your face. Framing his entire world in his palm.

However, you can’t stay in bed forever. Unfortunately, you do have to get up, and start your day. Welt won’t leave your side, though. Not if he can help it, at least. You two share a shower together, some more words, of course, and even cook together afterwards. Pom Pom huffs and puffs about not only Welt, but you being late and taking too long, and how the Express is founded on the structure of the schedule. It’s okay, however, because Pom Pom will be thanking you two for your hard work (sweeping the other cabins, cleaning the windows, and vacuuming the carpet) at the end of the day.

© freyito, 2024 | masterlist | queue | kofi | discord server (16+) | star header by roseschoices DO NOT REPOST AS YOUR OWN OR USE FOR AI/AI CHATBOTS.

[devil-in-hiding]

imagine there’s a bar near the base the 141 are at. The bar caters to an older crowd, always playing classic rock songs and such. Obviously this is Prices favourite bar. All the songs he loves, pool tables and dart boards all around, the whole building has a nice old pub kind of feel. It’s a good place for him to unwind, most of the patrons there are in their late 40s to early 50s, they’re all there there to just unwind and relax after a work day. It’s the kind of bar people either go to with a small group of friends to hang out, or on their own to relax. It’s not the kind of place to go if you want a party, so of course there aren’t usually too many young people. So of course, imagine Johns surprise when the prettiest little bird plops down onto the bar stool next him. Big smile and bright eyes as she orders her drink, placing her ID down on the bar. John can’t help but sneak a glance at the card, looking at her name and age. And like he suspected, she was only in her early twenties. As she waits for her drink, she pulls out her phone, scrolling through her social media (Tumblr) and humming along to music that’s playing. Price keeps sneaking glances at her, admiring her out of the corner of his eyes. He’s pleasantly surprised to see her singing softly to the music, not expecting someone her age to know all these older rock songs. Eventually she notices his lingering gaze, looking over to him with such a sweet smile and she holds out her hand to shake his. She introduces herself, he introduces her, and they talk. Once she finishes her drink he offers to buy her another, and another, and another. As the night goes on, she asks if maybe he can walk her home, to which of course he accepts. When they get to her door she invites him in, but he declines.

“Oh pretty, I’d love to really.” He says with a smile as he puts a hand on her waist, “But you’re drunk, s’not right luv.”

He leans down and kisses her. Not the type of hot, lust filled kisses she’s usually used to receiving at men, or boys rather, at the end of the evening. But soft, passion filled, sweet kiss. He pulls back, and takes a small notebook from his back pocket, writing down his phone number on a page before ripping it off and giving it to her.

“Call me though, ya?” He says, giving her another kiss, this time on the cheek, before turning to leave.

-🫧

now this is what i’m talking about )): i need him so bad he’d take such good care of me and i would be the BEST little girlfriend)):

[cevansbrat0007]

Forget-Me-Not

Summary: Ari forgets to do something important before leaving out the door...

Warnings: Mature Themes, Ari Being A Menace, Fluff, Implied Smut, Kisses, Chocolate Covered Strawberries, Cursing, Minors DNI

A/N: Part of my Sweet Renegade Series. Semi-proofread, not beta'd. All mistakes are my own. Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!

You’re currently standing at the stove, slowly stirring a pot of freshly melted chocolate. For some reason, you’d awoken this morning with a craving for chocolate dipped strawberries. So, instead of paying an arm and a leg to buy them from some fancy shop, you’d simply decided to make your own. 

Humming under your breath, you’re surprised when you hear your front door open and shut. A quick glance at the clock suggests that it’s much too early for Ari to home for good just yet. More likely he’d probably forgotten something. 

Turning off the heat, you move to pour it into a bowl. Next up was your favorite part – turning your favorite fruit into a delicious confection. You run your finger along the spoon, wincing as the still-too-hot treat burns your skin.

But you don’t care. Not when it tastes so good. So good, that you can’t help the satisfied moan that escapes your throat. 

“Is it really that good, sweetheart?” 

“Mm.” You purr before helping yourself to another taste, this time using your tongue now that things have cooled a little more. “It really is.” 

Grinning, you take a moment to get a good look at your man. He’d been a man on a mission this morning, rushing out the door before you were barely awake and alert. And while you weren’t quite sure what business it was that had him moving so quickly, you were pretty certain that he’d tell you at dinner.

“You in the mood to share?” Ari rasps as he leans against the wall, looking exceptionally sexy in his dark blue Levi’s and black henley. You find yourself slightly disappointed that he’s not rocking one of his signature flannels. 

Mostly because you liked to steal them. But to be fair, your sweet Beast also never seemed to complain when he caught you wearing one. He mostly just sighed and grumbled about his diminishing wardrobe. 

Which was fine by you, considering the fact that he was the sole reason your entire panty drawer had been reduced to next to nothing. Those flannels were owed to you by right! 

“Just what are you doin’ back so early?” You ask, holding the spoon out to him. “I didn’t expect to see you until dinner.”

“Forgot to do somethin’.” He rasps as he moves towards you, his long, powerful legs bridging the distance between your bodies in mere seconds. “Somethin’ important.”

“Oh?” Guess you were right. The man had been moving so fast this morning that he’d likely left behind an important file or notepad. “I don’t recall seeing anything on the table, but–”

“That ain’t what I forgot, little Bird.”

Now he’s standing in front of you, his work boots almost brushing your bare toes. You’re caught off guard when Ari moves to tenderly cup his cheek, his roughened palm warming your delicate skin. 

“What…what did you forget?” Confused, you move to offer him the spoon in your hand, only to be surprised when he declines. You watch as his normally brilliant blue eyes darken as they stray to your waiting mouth. Your heart speeds up when his head descends, making his intentions all the more clear.

“Something much, much sweeter.”  

Squealing in surprise, you can’t help when your eyes flutter closed as his sinful lips capture your own. The kiss starts off soft and sweet, that is, until you feel Ari’s free hand make its way down your lower back so that he can grab a handful of your ass, pulling you closer to his big body.

You feel his tongue sweep against your bottom lip, encouraging you to open. To respond in the way you so desperately know he wants. Rising on your toes, you eagerly grant him access, wanting him to know that you were feeling just as hungry and wanting as he felt for you.

Feeling emboldened, Ari lifts you off your feet, prompting you to wrap your legs around his trim waist. Your fingers find their way into his hair, lightly tugging at his already tousled locks. Meanwhile both of his impatient hands busy themselves with kneading and squeezing your curves as he rocks his hips against yours, letting you feel the weight of his already impressive erection.

It makes you want him here. Now. So you can't help but feel disappointed when he slowly eases away, leaving you wet and needy.

“Fuck." He promises now that he's finally allows you up for air. "Promise I won’t forget to do that again.”

“Uh huh.” You breathe, your legs wobbling slightly the moment he releases his hold, lightly setting you down. It doesn’t help when he leans in once again to gently brush his lips against your temple. And his satisfied grin has you giggling as your head falls to rest against his broad chest. 

“Tell me what I interrupted here, baby.”

“I was making chocolate covered strawberries.” Nuzzling your nose against the fabric of his shirt, you continue. “I woke up with a taste for them, so…” You offer up a small shrug. “I decided to make some.”

“Well, that’s funny. On account of I woke up with a taste for you.” You feel his big palm come to rest on your head, stroking a path along your silky curls. “And these are about to make the proceedings even better.” 

You can’t help but feel a little dizzy when he pulls away. His teasing words were filling you with all kinds of spicy ideas.

“I’ve gotta run.” Ari tells you. “I only came back to rectify my mistake. But I want you to save some of these for tonight…” He glances down at your now cold bowl of chocolate. “Because I have plans to enjoy my little Bird for dessert before I even think about dinner.”

Reaching around you, he snags a ripe berry and lifts it to your mouth. His eyes never leave yours as he watches you bite down on the plump fruit, its juice lightly dripping down your chin. Groaning low in his throat, Ari leans in once more, lapping up the sweet trail with his tongue. 

“And Bird?” He calls as he turns to walk away, confidently striding towards the front door.

“Y-yeah?” Dear God, this man was going to be the death of you.

“No panties, alright? I don’t want anything between me and my strawberry delight.”

Fucking Beast.

END

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[flowerfreya]

The Office AU

part 17 - Poly!141 The men are trying to show reader that they like , but she has some issues reading the signs Pairing: poly!141 x reader

There has been a lot of causal touching. That you are starting to slowly freak you out. 

Everytime John calls you into his office to ask for a really simple and almost down right disrespectful task that he is asking for you to do. 

“Hey bird, need your help for something”, John calls to you , leaning against the doorway in his office. 

“Sure, let me just find a stopping point”, you could stop at any point but just wanted to seem like you were doing something, not because you aren't doing anything but because you always finish your work early in the day. Standing up and walking over to his office , he puts his hand on your lower back as you walk in, it has you stiffening up and developing a little sweat on your hands. You don’t know what he means when he touches you like this. 

Is he doing it on purpose? 

Does he always touch women like this or just you? 

Does he like me ? 

“Can’t figure out the printer again”, he says, a little too shameful. Considering you’ve shown him how to do this a couple of times already and he just seems to not be getting it. You go over the steps again , sitting down in his chair and you swivel around to him to see if he’s got it. 

“Does that make sense”, you ask him. Look up at him. He then crowds your space and points to the screen and asks a question but you miss it because all you can do is feel his body heat. 

He’s standing right behind you leaning over, which puts some weight on his body on your shoulder. 

You breathe in long and hard and swear you can smell his deodorant and a little of his natural body musk. 

You want to have an oxygen mask of just that scent and only have that survive. 

He brings you out of the haze when he lays his hand on you shoulder, “think I got it, hen” 

“Got what”, you ask. 

“Seems like it printed”, he says, then points to the door frame where Gaz is standing holding what looks to be about 20 copies of some order form. 

“Oh”, you let out quietly, standing up from his chair , “let me know if you need anything else”, you say as you walk out. Going immediately to the bathroom and re applying some powder because you know you are shiny after going through that tortuous 20 minutes. 

You do your nails almost every two weeks. Since you do it yourself it takes forever and you always had a design or too and you’ve been getting better at it. 

So when Soap grabs both of hands and stares at your nails, you forget that you did themand the only thought that is going through your head is that his hands are soft. 

“This look right good," he says , leaning on your desk and bringing your hands closer to his face. 

“Yer did it yourself?”, he ask and you know it takes a second to answer him but he’s still holding your hands and it’s kinda hard to focus. 

You answer and it gets you excited about your nails. You're super proud of them. 

Then god damn him , he starts giving your hands a massage. 

You were not prepared for that, letting out a quick but low moan. 

It has Soap stopping what he’s doing , giving your a little smirk , “feel good?”. 

“J-just surprised me is all”, it did feel good but you didn’t want him to know that, you don’t even know how he feels about you. 

He still flirts with everyone that comes in this office. And he’s playful. Maybe a bit too playful. You’ve done playful before and that just turn into taking care of all the important stuff because “your better at that stuff” and whole bunch of resentment. 

Pulling your hands away slowly , you thank him for the compliments and start to open your yogurt that doubles as your breakfast. As he walks away, “that yogurt is expired”, he says. Which has you looking down and you see the expiration date of two days ago. 

[rosyhoneydew]

Against his better judgment, Tommy had actually been excited for the visit.

It had been over a year since he last saw Ron, longer since he'd seen his nieces and sister-in-law. They got along fine and all, they just got older and busier and life gets in the way, doesn't it? So when his big brother floated the idea of a stopover in LA on his way back from a business trip overseas, Tommy had looked forward to it.

Two full days to take him around, show him his city, let him see a little bit of what his life looked like these days. He'd definitely gotten overeager. He'd packed their weekend with stops in Hollywood, a proper tour of the city from the bird, and a few drinks with their friends, and Evan, of course. It'd been a while since anybody came to visit, in his defense.

They're at one of Evan's favorite breakfast spots when he starts to pick up on it.

Ron knows he's gay, Tommy had come out to his whole family a few years back, not really expecting much. A cursory this is who I am, take it or leave it was all that really needed to be said. He had been pleasantly surprised when his brother didn't so much as bat an eye. Sure, they didn't talk about it, but they never really talked about anything in his family. Par for the course on that one.

So it twisted in his gut when he noticed.

Tommy and I actually thought about taking a trip to Yosemite this fall. Maybe make a vacation out of our anniversary, Evan said. Ron had just grunted.

You should see Evan's place, Tommy had rolled his eyes, not without affection, I swear I should just move in there. Ron had cleared his throat and asked 'where the hell a guy could take a leak in this place.'

It's not a big deal, but Tommy feels his face growing hot. He feels stupid. Evan rests a hand on his back while Ron's away, but Tommy can't tamp down the impulse to shake him off when his brother makes his way back to the table.

The ride home is quiet, each of them unsure of what to say. Tommy invites Ron inside for a last coffee before his flight, but he declines. Gotta see what that LA traffic is about, don't I? Tommy nods, claps a hand on his brother's shoulder. See ya later, man. Ron's mouth tightens into something like a smile, nods once at Evan, and drives off.

He's quiet when they enter the kitchen, hands resting on the cool countertop. He feels Evan come up behind him, rest his forehead on Tommy's shoulder, wrap his arms tight around Tommy's chest.

I'm sorry.

Tommy sighs and fits his hand over Evan's. He lets himself wallow, just for a little while in his partner's arms. He's not okay today, but tomorrow he'll wake up in those same arms, he'll tell his friends at work about the docuseries Evan's been loving lately, he'll spend guy's night at Eddie's with his partner like they do every other week now. And he'll be okay.

[lk0727]

I'm crying because I love the idea of correspondence between the students leaving next year and I'd love to see more of it. The white day cards are so cute that I just want to elaborate (hc) on handwriting and maybe even writing quirks. Just Malleus (for now...)

Malleus would be really interested in how his partner writes, it's all so fascinating to him and he's a pattern noticer. The noticerrrr. And he sees so much that he even finds himself compiling all the repetitive actions you take when writing -not just what you're writing, and brings them to you to discuss further. The way you slant letters, when your pen lets up, if you type then the frequency of paragraph breaking, how you insert images, etc. I think it'd be something like "Did you know you tend to smudge the paper when you reach the furthest margin, are you perhaps left-handed? Oya, you are? I knew that to be the case." He says with a slight smile and downturned gaze because he knows he ate that. Sherlock Horns.

He would get overzealous about the fact that you're only a word away and would immediately call you with his archaic phone and pester you until you receive it. His Correspondence wouldn't actually be a surprise because you are usually visited by a heavy knock on your door and fae appropriate fanfare when it arrives, that's just etiquette when writing royalty. But, he always calls you the day he receives it so that you know he shall be returning post haste and he intends to dazzle you. In fact, you'll spend so long speaking to each other about what was written to him, that when you finally get his response, it's more or less just recapping what you spoke of two days prior. He can't hide his giddyness, even if he keeps a cool baritone while on the phone. Because you're a kind person, you pretend that his tail happily thumping against the ground is inaudible, because you know he can't help it.

He is going to surprise you by the emojis he uses because WHO taught you that!?!? He learned these from Cater and Lilia, but he doesn't change the way he speaks. It's "Good evening, How have you've been? The summer season of Briar Valley is particularly exhausting and hot💧, I am very bothered by the heat of it all.🥵🥵" and when Lilia intercepts it, he's like "that's a perfect sentence, go ahead and send it. Actually, one note, send more sweating emojis, it's really hot this summer, right?"

Your messages go through a diverse array of moderators and middle men. Those people being his Grandmother, who reminds him that he's a prince, Lilia and Silver (the two who initially opened the letter, and finally his transcriber and narrator, Sebek who scoffs at the quality of the smut you're peddling his young master, who shouldn't even be hearing this, but he'll read on against his better judgement. (It's literally benign, the furthest thing from smut, Malleus argues). His letters would look a little like this:

21.09.19XX Child, It's been nice knowing you.😌 Why do I say that? Since we've met, it seems as if Briar Valley has taken a lead in comedy and our collective temperament could not be more jovial. Your humorous description of your familiar, Grim child, was very well received by my Grandmother, as I was awoken early enough to the sounds of insects humming and birds chirping well into the night to read it aloud to me, guffawing as she spoke. (I apologize, I cannot stop her from opening my mail, but we're working on her problematic behavior, that's a fact.😉) She in particular has asked if she may keep it, you know how older individuals are with their chucklesome cat stories. 🙄 There's this understanding of the world that I just don't possess when it comes to what grabs the attention of the people's comedy, it continues to evade me. For instance, what is the humor of "surprise hot dog 🌭" and why must it be a surprise to be enjoyed? The children of Briar Valley seemingly shout this and end their sentences with it, and I am surprised and annoyed every time. It seems like you have an understanding in the matters of humor, so you are welcome to explain it to me. But I digress, If I sat down and listed to you all the things that escaped me, well, you might find yourself as old as I am by the time we've finished! 🤣The trees and wind must sense the happiness in our friendly union, and have planned accordingly to block out bad weather🌧️ and unforgiving spirits. The weather is nice enough that (forgive me I've overstretched my hand) planned your visit for sooner rather than later. Next time we meet in person, this shall be us ->🕺💃, as I've already made arrangements for a night in a cabaret club in the Capitol for us to partake in. It's a culture so far from the realm of possibility of establishing itself in our quiet little country, that I was astounded when I stumbled across its zoning request permits one day and I rushed to see it in person, paperwork be damned. The smaller fae who perform insist it to be a "cheeky, yet inoffensive showcase of the arts", and after witnessing it for myself, I knew it would be the type of entertainment you'd enjoy.🤫 Even now, it doesn't feel natural to write, like an odd mouth feel that doesn't change as I turn it over and over. A cabaret in Briar Valley, a music club in a quiet kingdom... it's as I've mentioned earlier, Briar Valley has surprisingly given itself wholly to the Joviality of life. Sincerely yours; Malleus Draconia, Heir to Briar Valley p.s Surprise hot dog 🌭

On the other hand, as confident as he is in your responses, he's always a little embarrassed to send something back. It's not fear of his ability, but rather, if you'll care to hear about the day to day of a crown prince who's routine is very boring and full of nothingburger drama. He doesn't understand that his 18 page assessment of his life is literally replacing the cable you can't afford, and when he describes the way the lion prince attacked him during a diplomatic meeting, the colorful language of his response makes you laugh, and then cry, and even gag because "how did he get close enough to gash you!?" You can see the face he's making as he writes this, pouty and angry and even chuckling when he describes the punishment that followed. Just like in his real life, Malleus has a hard time concealing his emotions. He's not shy about who he is as a person, and his writing is not either. The way it flows is a little different from traditional correspondence, if anything, he's sending you disjointed journal entries and prose while also clipping what you send him to respond directly. Your 2 page crapped out response filled with emojis and memes and inside jokes is returned in full by 20 pages of thoughtful dialogue, assessments of politics and fondness of your life, and even sketches of the things around him (okay... just gargoyles and Sebek, but those are things in all fairness.) He has a real zest that he doesn't try to contain, and even his handwriting gives it away. When he's in a good mood, it's very pristine, heavily slanted cursive that his heavy hand oppresses by not dotting his i's or crossing his t's. It's just understood between you two what he means. Likewise, when he's angry or melancholic it's surprisingly very light, almost inelligeble as if he was speaking through gritted teeth. He must be getting up and pacing, because of course he is. When upset or recounting something terrible, his handwriting is unusually neat, funnily enough the sentences are much shorter, as if he's hiding something or thinking long about what should be said next. He's a very wistful person, after all.

Malleus enjoys fine art that seeks to appease the senses and refine beauty, so attached to his letters will often be trinkets like necklaces, earrings, watches, and pocket squares that he found in shops in Briar Valley, or a ticket to a play or music shows that dazzled him. The heavier packages (these tend to come at random) are filled with small desserts, books on the anthropological history of different fae species, woven pieces from more aesthetically competent fae and their fashion, and of course, fragmented pieces of ancient gargoyles he found hiding in deserted rooms of the castle. <- He'll know if you've thrown it away, so hold on to the heavy, weird rock fragment, please.

[qyuubu]

i’d like to think gun took comfort in the fact that goo was his “equal”. in goo, he hit two birds with one stone: he can fight him (and therefore be “loved”, presumably by the people he works for and with, like charles choi) while also having someone who was there for him, someone that would stick around for a while.

so when he managed to take goo down a few chapters ago, i imagine that sense of comfort shattered. and with charles choi jumping off the roof, everything just exploded in his face. with nothing else to really hang onto, he accepted the consequences with grace.

i’d also like to be delusional for a sec and think that maybe this is also the reason he pushes daniel away. he knows daniel is strong. he’s gun’s masterpiece, for god’s sake. but gun knows that right now, daniel’s not stronger than him. even if he does become his equal, gun is worried that his insatiable quest for strength will eventually win out and ruin daniel too. gun’s really good at ruining the things he loves, and the best thing he can really do at this moment is to leave.

i joke about gun being a hardcore masochist, but the only way for him to really feel safe in any relationship, is if they were stronger than him. maybe he’ll only ever feel at complete peace in the last few moments of his life, looking up at the person who managed to quell the raging beast in him, with death and complete utter defeat.

[twoa-plus]

part 2 of turning everyone in gravity falls into creatures !! also my specific monsterfalls lore involves human versions of The Horrors so some of those will be in here also

(part 1)

i’m pretty sure unicorns already have some kind of association with nobility or the upper class or whatever and the in-universe unicorns are. Like That. so i think it fits :)

someone on tiktok said she’d be a cyclops and i agree :3 a lot of older depictions of cyclopes seem to still have like empty sockets where the eyes would normally be which i thought was neat so i kept that, felt like she needed smth extra too so i gave her little sheep ears & a tail :3 something something odyssey reference

LISTEN HEAR ME OUT OK i don’t. like a lot of more stereotypical “demon” depictions of bill. like i think it would be neater if he had a design where u could imagine him doing his whole “i’m a muse :D” thing and actually be believable yknow. also he’s short this guy totally has tiny man rage u can’t convince me otherwise

orthrus-like thing for blubs & durland :) blubs is a shih tzu for the mustache and durland is a borzoi bc he long. also for anyone concerned this au is post-canon & all of these people were born human they are not related lmao

baku fiddleford. LISTEN OK there’s like this whole thing of “oh yeah baku will eat ur nightmares but if they’re still hungry they’ll eat ur hopes and dreams too and leave u an empty shell of the person u once were” and i read that and i thought abt him and it made me sad so now all of u have to be sad too

toby determined is a squonk. i don’t even have to explain this one

tad strange is a normal human.

(personally i think of him as some kind of lovecraftian horror in human form but he can be whatever u want lol)

cockatrice tambry ?? i had no clue what to do with her other than that she kind of has bird vibes to me, and the cockatrice has enough edgy teenager energy that i think it works

mrs gleeful is an asrai bc they have anxiety and also it’s an excuse to give her a pool vacuum

human axolotl !! i really like the sort of pastel space thing they have going on in canon, hopefully this fits them :)

that is all for now !!! if i remember i’ll link part 3 here when i have it :D

[michaelnordeman]

Hello Michael,

I just wanted to say I’ve been reblogging so much from you and you take the most amazing photos. They’re very high definition and clear as day. You do such an amazing job!

What camera do you use? Do you ever have to edit them or are they naturally like that?

Thanks so much for all your photos, they really are astonishing :)

Hi,

Thank you so much for your kind words! It means a lot to know that the animals, birds, bugs, and plants I love so much are appreciated by people from all over.

For most of my nature photography, I use my Canon EOS 80D. I also have a Canon 6D Mark II. My go-to lenses are a 100mm macro lens and a 100-400mm zoom lens—though the zoom lens is a bit worn from years of use, it still gets the job done.

I do edit many of my photos, but never to exaggerate or "enhance" nature. My goal is always to make the image as true to the original scene as possible. I often carefully crop my photos to draw the viewer’s eye to the subject, and I may adjust shadows and contrast to bring out details. If I’ve captured a rare bird from a distance or in low light, I might work on reducing grain, but I prefer to handle all adjustments manually rather than relying on special software. I like to keep my editing process personal and hands-on.

So, that’s a bit about my process. Thanks again for your kindness and for reblogging! I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

[ohmyeyesmyeyes]

you never knew how much i really liked you - s. crosby

summary: 'In truth, it wasn’t nothing – it was never nothing with Sid. It was always something, and usually it hurt. The timings; what wasn’t said; the history. There was more to the two of you than what even Nate and Taylor knew of – not even when they seemed to stop breathing when you admitted what it could be.'

warnings: sid x f!reader (ex-hockey player), swearing, miscommunication trope, mentions of the consumption of alcohol, bonus point if you spot the unintentional olivia rodrigo lyric, mentions of food aversion (in relation to illness & hints at anxiety), passing mentions of someone potentially having alcohol poisoning, confrontation

< a/n: the ending is abrupt but i can't be arsed changing it! sorry! ALSO: IT'S PENS PRE-SEASON DAY!! >

word count: 13k

 There was a chair, this time. They’d never been a chair there before, ever. You’d been to this house and you’d sat on the end of the deck with your feet hanging over the edge countless times in the last decade or so, but there had never been a chair there before, at least not one that didn’t have to be dragged from inside and unfolded. 

It didn’t particularly strike you as odd or anything, but it did stop you in your tracks at the top of the deck, and you did try to see if you could see him through the windows of his house, but it was early so the sun only reflected against the glass panes, completely blocking your view. But you’d seen his car in the driveway, and you knew he’d be up – probably eating his breakfast or in the gym already.

You gripped your book a little tighter, making your way towards the end of the pontoon and assessing the chair with your own eyes. You almost laughed at the blanket draped across the back of it, but it didn’t stop you from picking it up and covering yourself with it after you got settled.

It was a lovely morning, it always was here, and it was partly why you loved arriving earlier: there was something about the crispness of the sun in the morning and the rawness of the view. It wasn’t one you could ever imagine getting tired of. The water was gorgeous, the trees were gorgeous, the sky was gorgeous, the birds were gorgeous. As usual, it took you a while to work yourself up to actually pick up your book and tear your attention away from the view.

It was a muffled bark that finally did it, your fingers absent-mindedly playing with the pages of the book, and you turned to peer around the side of the chair, a golden labrador bounding down the pontoon, tongue lolling out and ears flapping as she did. You grinned, sitting forward in the chair and anticipating Sam to stop right in front of you, her tail wagging ferociously as you scratched behind her ears.

“Good morning to you, too.” You muttered, clenching your jaw and stroking her fur as she collapsed to lay at your feet, her belly exposed for you to scratch, “Where’s Sid?” At the mention of his name, Sam’s ears perked up and she barked, her head turning to something behind you, “Is he walking down now?” You didn’t turn around, instead focusing your attention entirely on the pup in front of you – until the pair of footsteps echoing against the wood became too noticeable to ignore.

The sun was still blinding from reflecting off the patio doors, but the silhouette of Sid was nearly impossible to ignore, more so when he was effortlessly carrying another chair in one arm and a travel flask with two cups balanced on the lid in the other.

You shielded your eyes with your hand, about to get up to help him in some way, but he shook his head adamantly, “I got it. Here.” He passed you the mug with the cups, and you sat silently, watching him unfold the chair (it looked a lot less comfortable than the one he’d set out for you, though you didn’t comment on it) and settled himself in.

“Morning.” You greeted, passing him one cup before unscrewing the lid and sniffing.

“Morning.” He replied, grinning, “It’s decaf, by the way.”

You couldn’t help but smile at that, “Thank you.”

“‘Course.”

“Are you sure you wanna put this in your body this early?” You asked, taking his cup from him and pouring out the steaming coffee. It warmed your hands nicely through the plastic, and you snuck a look at him out of the corner of your eye. He was sitting comfortably, a little lower than you because of the height of his chair, and he was watching you carefully, completely unashamed at having been caught in the act. His grin did seem to melt into one more bashful, and he looked out across the water, blinking in the light.

“I feel like I’m gonna need it to get through today.” He answered, gently taking his cup from your hand, fingertips brushing delicately against yours.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be pretty hectic.” You agreed, placing the flask on the floor, giving Sam a quick pat before sipping on your own coffee, your book tucked under your chair. You had a feeling you weren’t going to get much reading done now anyway, not when Sid had decided to join you.

You both leaned back in your chairs, the blanket tucked around your waist, and nothing was said for around ten minutes. Nothing needed to be said. Even Sam seemed to get that message; she was curled up at both your feet, her head turned in the direction of the water. Every so often she’d perk up, maybe when a bird flew overhead or when she heard something in the woodland, but she’d always end up placing her head back down on the wooden beams, bathing in the sun.

“This is always my favourite week of the entire year.” You admitted a little shyly. It wasn’t something you were afraid of saying out loud, per se, but you’d known Sid for years. He was the one that started the week-long camp for the kids in Cole Harbour, and for some reason admitting that it was his creation that you always looked forward to the most was a little daunting.

He didn’t seem to think so, but he couldn’t quite keep the shock off his face when he registered what it was you’d said.

“It is?” 

You nodded, “Is that sad? I feel like it is.”

He shook his head, “Nah, it’s not sad at all.”

If it had been anyone else that had admitted that, Sid might have teased a little – or if you’d said something else altogether, but almost as soon as you’d thrown those words out there he felt a twinge of empathy for you. To have played hockey with each other most of your youth…you’d obviously stopped playing against and with boys at a certain age because of the regulations, but you’d managed to secure a spot on a local girl’s team and eventually you’d gone on to play at college. And by the time graduation came around, you had your degree, sure, but there was no women’s hockey league to play for, not one you could live comfortably off anyway.

Sid had often tried to put himself in your shoes…it killed him every time, like getting stabbed in the chest. Only, when you said that, the knife twisted and was pulled out, and he swore his heart broke a little. To have the skill and the talent to play professionally, but no league to play in was his worst nightmare.

To not have hockey, to him, was to not live and breathe. If he didn’t have hockey, he couldn’t even imagine what he’d be doing right now.

You just hummed, clearly not believing him, and he inhaled sharply, resisting the urge to give you a reassuring touch. He was about to say something, but you turned to look at him sharply, an odd expression on your face.

“What?” He found himself asking, taking a self-conscious sip of the coffee to hide his face.

Your eyes narrowed, and a small smile curled at your lips, “Aren’t you gonna make a comment about ‘wow, you must really miss me, huh?’, or–”

“I don’t sound like that.” He shook his head, managing a tight smile. You were trying to cover a wound that had scarred over the years by switching the subject, but Sid could only muster a forced laugh and a curious glance in your direction, “Did you miss me, though?”

There was a brief moment where he thought you’d play his question off and pretend you hadn’t heard him, and in that brief moment there were a few things that happened to him: his heart seemed to pound and drop to his feet at the same time; he realised that if you didn’t miss him he wasn’t quite sure what else to do, and regret. The regret was anticipatory, though, of you ignoring him.

And it also seemed to dissolve completely when you answered: “Yeah. Not as much as I used to, though.”

Sid swallowed, picking at his navy joggers. Instead of regret, it was guilt that ate away at him – for something he couldn’t even control.

“What do you mean?” His mouth felt dry, and his grip on the cup tightened.

You turned to look at him, shrugging hopelessly, “That first year without you was just a lot to adjust to, that’s all.”

“It was?”

Something on your face seemed to flicker; your brows twitched downwards and any trace of happiness that was previously written on your face was suddenly no longer visible. Your head tilted, and you stuttered, clearly not quite knowing what to say or where to start.

“I…” You trailed off, and Sid felt the beginnings of dread begin to creep up his stomach and settle there like a pebble, “Yeah. You didn’t know that?”

He shook his head, jaw clenching. You looked inexplicably sad at his reply, and turned to fix your eyes on the water in front of you, a sip of scalding coffee seemingly hinting at wanting to end the conversation.

But Sid wasn’t quite done, not yet. His first year in the NHL: he remembered it pretty clearly, and he also remembered that neither of you were that good at keeping in touch with each other. You were on the other side of the country in California for college, and he was mainly in Pittsburgh, but nearly everywhere. Moving out of Nova Scotia was a big thing for both of you, but having lived next door to each other for your entire childhood and having played on the same team as little kids? That first year was difficult.

“Did something happen?” He asked, voice a little frailer than he’d liked to have conveyed – so much so that even Sam’s ears seemed to prick at the slight twinge in pitch.

You shook your head, sighing deeply, “I just kind of had the sense that I was never gonna see you again those first few months, that’s all. I psyched myself out…it’s fine now, though.”

***

“Is Sid okay?” Taylor sidled up to you on the edge of the group of kids listening intently to the man in question, skates scratching to a stop as she murmured the question in your ear.

You felt your brows pinch, your gloved hands resting on the top of your stick hiding your mouth as you turned to her, “As far as I’m aware.”

He looked okay from where you were standing: the very picture of effortless leadership as he explained the next game to the group of kids all staring up at him intently, some with dropped jaws and some with frowns of concentration etched on their features. They were all wearing monochrome jerseys and the overhead lights were reflecting off their helmets. Not a single one wasn’t watching Sid talk.

His voice wasn’t wavering, and he was giving the kids his entire attention – devoted as usual to his sport…so?

“Why?” You raised a brow, looking at Taylor out of the corner of your eye.

Her mouth was pulled down at the corners, and she shrugged offhandedly, “I dunno, he just seems a bit off today.”

Yeah, okay. You turned your attention back to him, trying to commit every little motion of his hand to memory, intently keeping an eye out for any trembling or straying of his attention. It must have been another fifteen seconds before you sighed, turning back to Taylor, who was regarding you with an air of amusement, a sly smile hiding on her face.

“What?” You asked, feeling as though she was looking right through you.

“Nothing.” Then, after a pause, “Did he drive you over here?” 

You hummed, nodding, but your mind was stuck replaying and analysing what she’d previously said, “What did you mean by ‘off’?”

“What’s up with Sid?” 

Your heart thundered in shock, not having anticipated Nate to shuffle over to your other shoulder. His voice in your ear was jarring, but still as soft as yours and Taylor’s had been, not wanting to disrupt the talk at the front of the group.

“What do you mean?”

“Three guesses.” 

You and Taylor spoke up at the same time, and when you turned to look at her she was glaring at you rather pointedly, and Nate whistled lowly in your ear, a deep laugh shaking his ribs.

“No way, what did you say to him?” Nate asked, half-giggling, and you sighed, getting slightly infuriated by the lack of real answers and use of cryptic mutters that had you no closer to figuring out exactly just what they were on about.

A part of you was losing your cool a bit because you liked to think you knew Sid pretty well; in fact, you did know him pretty well. It was why you couldn’t possibly fathom another two minutes in the presence of these two without getting an answer, because he’d been like this since…

Oh.

Nate’s laughter immediately halted, and Taylor leaned forward, the two of them sharing a cautious look at the way you seemed to wince.

“What?” They chorused, the combination of their voices causing a few heads to turn in your direction, and you ducked your head, adjusting your skates as an excuse not to draw even more attention to yourself.

After a nudge in the elbow, you lifted your head up. 

There was no way that was what was causing him to be more distracted than usual. It wasn’t even a big deal or anything, and it certainly wasn’t a secret – you thought he knew, that wasn’t your fault. And it wasn’t like he’d actually done anything all those years ago, either. That first year was almost radio silence on both ends, and you were honestly glad that wasn’t the case now.

But, still? No way.

“It’s not much, I don’t even think it could be what I’m thinking anyway.” You shook your head, watching him.

“What’re you thinking?” Taylor whispered, the lip of her cap catching you in the cheek with how close she’d shuffled.

You recoiled slightly, “It’s genuinely nothing. He just apparently didn’t know that I missed him the first year.” Your voice trailed off weakly, “Nothing.”

In truth, it wasn’t nothing – it was never nothing with Sid. It was always something, and usually it hurt. The timings; what wasn’t said; the history. There was more to the two of you than what even Nate and Taylor knew of – not even when they seemed to stop breathing when you admitted what it could be.

There were weeks and months and years where you didn’t talk much, mostly due to the distance and the clashing of schedules, but there was a lull that you’d both managed to keep from everyone else, and if you were being honest, now that you were thinking about it…that and with your earlier admission on top of it…

Maybe it was your fault.

“What did he say?” Taylor said, shaking you out of your own head. You blinked, apparently still looking at Sid.

There was something grave and more serious in her features that hadn’t been there earlier, and when you shot a look at Nate, he was wearing an almost identical expression: his brows were furrowed together and his mouth was pulled in a tight line, altogether looking uncharacteristically morbid.

You felt your pulse quicken in foreboding, “He asked if anything happened and then we got in the car.”

“Nothing else?” 

You inhaled, blinking twice, “Should there have been?”

***

The car ride back to your house was silent. Eerily so. Your body was exhausted and your brain was still playing the soundtrack of pucks smacking against posts, sticks and boards in your head, along with the joyous yells of the kids. That was why you loved it so much – not just the ice time and the familiarity of having a stick in your hands and a puck at your feet – but for the look on their faces when they looked up from the ice to see a grinning Sidney Crosby or Nathan MacKinnon singing them praises.

It made you wonder how many of them would eventually go on to play college hockey or even make it to the professional leagues.

You stifled a grin, your hand over your mouth as you turned to look out of the passenger window.

The only thing that broke through to you was the motion of the driver when his head turned to watch you briefly before returning back to the road. That simple movement had the smile melting off your face. 

You’d never been particularly nervous around Sid – and on the few occasions you had been, all it had taken was a fifteen minute conversation with him and it all dissipated – but this time was different. Not only was what Taylor had told you swirling around your mind, but the tension in the car was palpable, at least in your opinion.

Sid hadn’t said much, just kept his jaw clenched and his eyes focused on the road. Since this morning, it was probably the only glaringly obvious symptom that something wasn’t quite right, or something was playing on his mind.

It didn’t take much for you to box your own miseries and turn to him. You looked at him out of the corner of your eye first: the strong jaw, the full lips, the prominent nose, the dark eyes and darker hair. He really was quite breathtaking. The hands on the steering wheel, the rippling forearms each time he had to turn the wheel. It wasn’t something you were immune to at all: in fact, since the age of about fourteen you’d been hyper aware of the fact that Sid was stunning – and it wasn’t just in his looks, either. His work ethic, concentration, determination, kindness, generosity. He was the insurmountable sum of all of those qualities, and you were a damn fool if you didn’t recognise the fact that you’d been a tiny bit in love with him all your life.

And because of that, you knew him well. Not as well as some people might initially assume, but well enough.

“You okay?” You asked, earning nothing but a nod and a tight-lipped smile.

“Yeah, why?”

You shrugged, “You’re just quiet.”

“I’m tired, that’s all.”

You nodded, looking to your lap. He’d be tired the entire week, that was always how this went. But he’d get by and he’d manage and he’d recover like he wasn’t tired: he still kept smiling, still showed enthusiasm, and maybe he’d gotten used to it over the years, because you could have sworn each time he organised this he was less and less tired.

“You sleeping okay?” 

He nodded, running a hand from his wrist to scratch under his sleeve, and you followed the motion unconsciously with your eyes, “More than. You?”

You shrugged, pulling an unsure face, “The usual.”

He snuck another glance at you out of the corner of his eye before turning his attention back to the road ahead, “What about you, are you okay?” He echoed your own question back to you, and maybe if it wasn’t for the genuine thin film of concern to his voice, you’d have brushed it off with an answer and a huff of laughter. Instead, though, you parrotted his words back to him, nailing the equal part-suspicion and amusement.

“Yeah, why?” 

“You’re hilarious.” He shot back drily, shaking his head.

“Hey, can you drop me off at my parents’ house please, I need to collect something. I’ll literally be five minutes.”

It was Taylor’s voice in your head that kept bashing about, repeating words and flashing images – Nate was thrown in there too from that earlier conversation you’d all had when Sid was oblivious, and it didn’t let up, not even when you pushed the key into your childhood home and shut the door behind you.

The house was pretty quiet, the sound of the door shutting echoing down the hallway. The TV was flashing in the living room, and you could hear voices, from both the news anchors and your parents talking over it. Only then did Taylor’s words quieten. 

“Who is it?” A voice yelled out just as you’d scraped your shoes off your feet, and the smile that bloomed on your face was almost instantaneous.

“Your favourite child!”

There was a brief pause, and you stopped in the hallway, waiting until he replied.

“That doesn’t sound like Sid.”

You pulled a face, snatching a pair of socks from the staircase before entering the living room, pelting the ball at your Dad’s head, the soft cotton smacking him straight in the nose. He was sitting in his PJs: plaid bottoms and a crumpled top, with slippers and no socks on his feet. When the socks collided with his face, that smirk was still there, even as he lobbed them back at you with surprising force to say he didn’t have a lot of arm room.

“Nice to see you, too.” You rolled your eyes, smiling at your Mom, who’d since gotten up off the sofa to peer through the blinds.

“What’re you doing?” Your Dad asked, turning his attention to his wife, and before she’d even answered you knew what she was going to say.

“Sid’s outside in the car.” You said, shrugging when they both turned to you with equal appal written all over their faces.

“Get him in here.” Your Mom grinned, knocking on the window and motioning for the man himself to come inside.

You just rolled your eyes, “I’m just gonna go get something from upstairs.” Your words fell on deaf ears, however, because almost as soon as you’d taken initiative and left the room, the front door was shutting and Sid was standing, smiling, at the door, still decked out in camp kit and looking every bit as nervous as the first time he’d ever met your family. And then he seemed to spot you walking towards him, your parents in front of you, and he let out that telltale breath, his shoulders and face relaxing fractionally.

He’d explained it to you before, about how he still feels awkward meeting people’s parents, no matter how long he’s known them, and you never seem to remember that until you see it with your own eyes: I don’t know, it’s weird, but if I see, say you, someone I know, it kinda gets me out of my head a bit. I don’t know why.

“Come in, come in – oh, she’s just picking something up–”

You immediately turned on the stairs, one hand still clutching the bannister tightly, to look upon a pair of eyes that practically gleamed ‘don’t leave me here’. The rest of his face was pretty neutral, a polite smile as your parents chatted his ears off, the both of them making their way back into the house, and there was a split second where they weren’t looking at either of you.

For some reason, instead of laughing at his misfortune, you inhaled quickly, leaning over the bannister, “Wait, I need Sid’s help with something.” 

Everyone seemed to freeze. Even despite the mental pleading he’d been doing, Sid couldn’t help it when his lips parted in shock, kind of like he couldn’t help it when his brows knitted together. Your mom stopped talking about how nice it was to see Sid again, and looked up at you too. It looked as though she was about to say something, but with the guilty, rather hurried smile on your face she clamped her mouth shut, nodding. Your dad hadn’t stopped walking, but even from the other room the rather loud ‘mutter’ of, “Is that what we’re calling it, now?” 

Needless to say, both yours and Sid’s cheeks were still a little bit pink by the time you’d walked into your old bedroom.

“What’re you looking for?” He asked, desperate to get his mind out of that gutter, and flopped on your still-made bed, picking up the penguin teddy he’d brought home after his draft. He’d bought it in one of the stores in the airport in Toronto on his way back home, and you’d never had the heart to even move it out of this house: it belonged here.

“Do you remember that video camera I used to have?” You pulled open the first contender: the bedside table drawer. There were loose cables, hair ties, various joint support bands…but no sign of the camera.

“Yeah.” Came the reply from near your head, and you blinked, not expecting him to be so close. He’d rolled onto his front, his face smushed into your pillow, and he made no attempt to pretend as though he hadn’t been watching you rifle through your drawers – at least not if that cheeky grin didn’t automatically make its way onto his face.

You pushed his forehead back, stopping your mild attack when he screamed before dissolving into giggles severely reminiscent of when he was younger. It was so incredibly infectious, so incredibly nostalgic that all you could do was crouch, an unconscious open-mouthed smile on your face.

“Why are you laughing?” You slammed the drawer shut, heaving yourself off the floor and over to your old desk. There were still some notebooks scattered across the surface, pens in the stand. The cupboard and shelves were almost full, and it was only as you started to pull everything out, looking inside baskets and boxes that Sid could be bothered to speak again.

“Because I’m pretty sure we had this exact conversation when we were twenty.”

“We did?”

“Yeah.” He punctuated it with a sigh, a despondent one, and you looked at him over your shoulder. He was sitting up now, his hands clamped around his ankles, a thoughtful look on his face.

The ‘twenty’ year with Sid had been very weird, and you never really figured out why. The nineteenth was almost non-existent, the twenty-first good, but it was tinged by what happened at the end of his season (not the winning the Stanley Cup for the first time, but the other thing), which made your twenty-second awkward, and the twenty-third was almost like a reset. You never really realised how much you’d both changed until you got to relearn each other as adults. 

He was eyeing the corner of your room you tried to avoid looking at. 

“So why are you looking for the camera?” He asked, voice sounding far-away. He was still staring at the trophy corner, and you turned your attention back to rifling through old relics in the hunt, gladly looking anywhere but that shrine.

“If I told you Taylor would murder me in my sleep.”

He groaned, “I told her not to do anything for my birthday.” 

“It’s nothing big, I think she just wants photos from when we were younger.”

“We?”

You shrugged, missing the slight catch in his voice, “Well, you, but there’s loads of photos of you on my camera, I think she just wants a look. I always forget how young she was when we left.” You sighed, slamming the cupboard door on your desk shut, before standing in the middle of your room, hands on your hips, “I don’t know where else I could have put it.”

He didn’t say anything, but the creaky springs of your mattress groaned under his hands as he pushed himself up off your bed, before walking straight passed you and into the forbidden corner.

There was a clinking sound of metal, and you whirled on your heel, watching him carefully rifle through the trophies, photo frames, certificates and medals all hung and displayed neatly, before spinning around on his heel, holding the camera in his hand with a knowing look on his face.

***

Saying you were nervous was a bit of an understatement considering what it was you were about to do. The camera’s SD card was safely tucked into your laptop, but you’d been staring at the folder on the homescreen for ten minutes, and you were sure you hadn’t felt this nervous since your driving test. Your hands were clammy, your heart was racing and your brain was loud.

You’d lied to Sid earlier – well, partially. Taylor had wanted to look at some photos, and you had every intention on bringing the camera in to the rink tomorrow so you could giggle at the contents in your breaks, but there was something else she’d also said, something that got your brain working, and you hadn’t been able to think about anything else since. 

You inhaled shakily, before double-clicking the yellow folder, the seconds where the mouse loaded into a swirl of blue almost knocking your soul out of your body from the sheer anxiety of it all. You hoped you were wrong, but a small part of you hoped Taylor had been right. If she had, it’d make so much sense as to what happened when you were eighteen-nineteen, but if she was right? You weren’t entirely sure what you were going to do.

The screen flooded with images…school corridors, ice rinks, soccer fields, bedrooms, cars, bars, Rimouski, until–

Fuck.

You froze, eyes fixated on the one photo that had caught your eye. It was someone’s back garden, you couldn’t remember who exactly, but you remembered being there. It was dark, string lights and strobe lights hung across the verandah and neon streaks flickered from between plants. 

You’d drunk so much that night but you could still remember handing your camera off to some of your classmates – it must have been graduation – and everyone had been drinking, that much you could tell from the quality of the photos, and this one in particular wasn’t any different. It was a blurred photo of someone celebrating a beer pong game, their arms raised over their head and their mouth open in some kind of celebratory roar, but it wasn’t that that caught your attention.

It was the shadowy figures of two teenagers sitting on the stools towards one side of the garden, a makeshift table pressed against the wall. They were sitting close together, knees slotted between each other, and faces mere inches apart. Both were wearing grins, even despite being mid-kiss.

Shadowy, yet so unmistakably you and Sid.

***

“You okay?”

You blinked, the staff room coming back to you. The fluorescent lights glared along the surface of the table you’d picked, your lunch tray sitting untouched in front of you, and there was a general buzz about the place. It was lunchtime, and you’d opted out of kid-duty – partly because you were on the brink of giving yourself a headache and mostly just because you couldn’t really focus on much without immediately thinking about Sid – which meant sitting at a table in a quiet room by yourself just for a breather.

Only, a rather determined, hazel-eyed man seemed to have other ideas if the tray plopped down opposite you was anything to go by. He collapsed against the chair with a sigh, hands picking up his knife and fork with practised ease, and he hadn’t even given you a chance to answer his question before he was pausing, eyeing you with mild concern. His eyebrows knitted together and he ducked his head to try to get a closer read on you.

“Yeah.” You nodded, swallowing, almost nervous.

This thing had happened all those years ago and he’d never brought it up. Yet, that still didn’t explain why he’d then…he was confusing, in the present tense. 

His mouth turned downwards for a brief moment and he shook his head in disbelief, “You disappeared ten minutes ago and you haven’t touched your food.”

You just shrugged, managing a tight smile, “Not very hungry.”

It wasn’t a lie, per se, but it was the honest truth when your stomach rolled just as he put a forkful of food in his own mouth. It revolted you to such an extent you pushed your own tray further away and turned to sit sideways on your chair, all just so you wouldn’t have to look at him eat.

He froze, his fork stilling, “Are you…I can take the food away if you want?” 

You shook your head, closing your eyes, “No, it’s fine.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and your hand found its way into the pocket of your tracksuit bottoms, fingers finding the smooth plastic of the USB stick you’d copied the photos for Taylor on. You had a plan, see. You wanted to kind of broach the topic of the graduation party with Sid, mainly just to test him for a reaction without outrightly admitting anything, and you figured – despite your current situation – that now was…appropriate.

“Do you know where Taylor is?” You asked, keeping your eyes screwed shut.

“No, why?” His answer came all too quickly, a hint of nosiness creeping into his tone. You could imagine the slight raise of one eyebrow and the thinly veiled look of ‘why the heck are you wanting my sister?’ expression on his face. You’d seen it many times before, and it never ceased to amuse.

“I have that USB of photos to give her and I haven’t seen her all morning, I was just wondering if you knew where she was?”

He would, of course. If one thing was ever going to be guaranteed about Sidney Crosby, it was the protective ‘eye’ he kept on Taylor.

“She’s in the canteen. Did you find any good’ens on there?”

“Yeah, actually.” You peeled your eyes open, ensuring to keep them fixated on his face instead of the sickly pile of food on his plate, “Do you remember that graduation party?”

He chewed thoughtfully, his jaw slowing as he nodded his head cautiously, “Yeah.” He said, dragging the word out, and there was a prick of pink on his cheeks, as though he’d suddenly come under a severe amount of stress.

He was getting a little uncomfortable.

“There’s a photo of…Jack, I think it is? Is that right?” He nodded, “He clearly won a game of beer pong or something because there’s a couple of blurry photos of him celebrating and if you look really closely you can see us in the background. It must have been towards the end of the night or something because I looked like I was falling everywhere.”

He nodded, humming interestedly, “What were we doing?”

You felt your mouth part, almost shocked at the sudden ease rolling off his shoulders. It was as though he’d prepared himself to deny, deny, deny this for his entire life, and purely because you were feeling like shit and like a shit, you shrugged, “Couldn’t really…make it out, I don’t know. I can’t remember what happened that night anyway, I drank way too much.”

He nodded once more, shrugging, “Yeah, I remember having to hold your hair back and almost dialling for an ambulance because I was pretty sure you had alcohol poisoning.”

You nodded, staging a faux look of confusion, “Did anything happen that night? You were really weird for a couple of days after.”

There was a pause – a brief one, maybe a quarter of a second, and he looked straight at you, jaw frozen mid-chew and for a moment you thought he’d picked up on something and you were found out. Then he blinked, and with the way he was acting: sitting up straighter, almost hesitating saying something, you thought maybe he was about to tell the truth.

“No.” He pulled a face, “Nothing happened that I can remember.”

***

It turned out the aversion to food was part of a larger issue, a result most likely of possibly contracting a bug from one of the kids – or maybe you were just horrendously unlucky, because you spent the rest of the night in the bathroom, and were so unwell the next morning you had to cancel helping out at Sid’s camp.

He’d sent a string of texts and a few unanswered phone calls, but you didn’t really have the energy to answer them – not when you were feeling so weird around him. You’d thought, prior to finding out about the photos and what had actually happened (bless Taylor’s oblivious nosiness when Nate had asked about you guys before – Sid had actually admitted to the whole graduation thing to the blonde, and that was Taylor’s knowledge of the entire thing), that you and Sid had maintained a pretty honest friendship, but apparently not? You wouldn’t have been so put off by the whole thing if he hadn’t pulled that same stunt later down the line, either.

There was definitely a pattern, and he definitely had a pattern and it seemed to just be deny, deny, deny at all cost.

And you weren’t entirely sure when this had happened, but you’d come to the realisation that you were sick of pretending like the two of you hadn’t been dancing that line for years. What you’d thought was seven years of denial was actually ten. This thing had been going on since you were kids, and each time something had happened you’d get weird around each other and when you tried to talk about it he’d make some excuse.

If it wasn’t a big deal why did it always have such a big impact on the two of you?

That entire thought process was what you’d been unable to escape from nearly all day. No amount of episodes of TV shows or films could distract your brain from that little spiel, it was like having a grating voice go on and on in your ear and you weren’t quite sure how to proceed, what to do to distract yourself.

Your kettle clicked off, and you sniffed, reaching out to grab the handle, the steam from the boiling water offering some kind of relief from the pressure in your sinuses.

You really were ill, but not nearly as ill as you’d made out to be to Sid. In truth you just needed a break, mostly from him, which felt horrendous to admit considering your ‘break’ from that man consisted of an entire NHL season, and your days spent in each other’s company were severely limited anyway.

But there was something in you that knew if you saw his face you wouldn’t be able to hold back saying or doing something.

Taylor knew what was really going on, and if you knew Taylor like you thought you did that probably meant Nate knew, but you know Nate well enough now to guess he wouldn’t go blabbing to Sid about something that’s not his business. The blonde likes his gossip, but he knows when to stay out of certain situations.

You liked Nate.

You inhaled, the hot water turning a bright-yellow from the teabag you’d placed in the mug (a lemon and ginger one you’d managed to snag from a local store a few days ago), and it was just as you’d threaded your fingers through the mug handle that there was a knock at your door.

You froze, brain a little slow to understand you should be moving to answer it, when a voice could be heard through the frosted glass panes.

The mug seemed to slam against the countertop of its own going, not loud enough for the intruder to hear it but loud enough to satisfy your irritation at who it was.

Think of the devil and he shall indeed appear.

He quieted down for a few seconds and you ducked from where you were standing, knowing if he made his way around to the back of the house where your kitchen window was he wouldn’t be able to see you crouched behind the counter.

And then your phone started ringing. It didn’t exactly take a genius to know who it was and the eye roll came almost automatically.

He could be so dramatic sometimes.

It must have taken barely ten seconds for him to stop ringing, and you held your breath, desperately trying to figure out if he’d moved away and given up; your knees and hips were seizing, you could feel them begin to lock from not having moved nearly all day, and you winced, hand reaching up to grip the countertop.

If you were lucky he wouldn’t be looking—

“I can see your hand and your tea.” His muffled voice deadpanned and you sighed defeated, pulling yourself up.

He was standing in your backyard, his phone in his hand and a rather disappointed look on his face as he stared straight at you through the window. 

You had to give him credit where it was due: the man could certainly kick up a fuss and coax you out of hiding.

Granted, you weren’t allocated a set amount of time to even begin to make it look like you were really holed up in bed. If you had, the TV downstairs would be off, as would the lights, and there wouldn’t be an easily visible makeshift blanket bed on the couch. All he’d really had to do was walk along your drive to peer through the front window, and then walk straight down the side of your house to the back gate.

You’d kept it unlocked for the last couple of days because you hadn’t been in much to accept parcels, and you’d never gotten round to locking it again.

Of course you’d come to regret that immediately.

The back door lock clicked open as you twisted the key, and you didn’t spare him a glance, instead making a beeline for the half-made tea. For one, you knew watching him walk through the door with his current sulk on was only going to encourage him to start talking about it, and you absolutely weren’t about to give him that satisfaction. You also really wanted that tea, it was probably the only thing standing between you getting better for the camp and the weird sickness you’d managed to contract.

Your immune system was shit.

He cleared his throat, and you lifted your eyes lazily in his direction, taking out the tea bag and leaving it to drain, “Hi.”

Your voice was scratchy and rough, and the reaction it elicited from the man in front of you: brows raised, mouth dropping open, sprung a rather odd thought to the forefront of your mind: “Did you not believe me when I said I was sick?” You managed, laughing awkwardly and inhaling the vapour from your mug, watching him closely.

He shrugged, pulling off his jacket and hanging it up on the hooks. There was a spare hook, one not used for your own stuff: a plethora of raincoats, boots, kitchen aprons…and Sid’s jacket. 

“I did believe you. Kind of.” He admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the kitchen counter, “I thought you were maybe avoiding me, though.”

You blinked, keeping your face neutral, actively trying not to scoff at him or narrow your eyes in his direction, “I am avoiding you; I’m not about to give whatever this is to you, am I?” You asked softly, cradling the mug of tea under your chin, feeling the irritation begin to swirl under your skin already.

You shifted uncomfortably, and Sid watched your eyes dart to a chair pressed up against the wall with longing. He knew there was something up, something not linked to being sick – he’d felt it in the car earlier and you were practically drenched in tension yesterday. It was difficult to ignore, and judging from the way you’d been seeking out Taylor recently he had a feeling it might have been something to do with him.

What, though, he had no idea.

“Well,” he inhaled, mouth flattening into a straight line. His chest seemed to ache suddenly when you nodded, an almost sarcastic grin on your lips, purposefully avoiding looking in his direction, and he’d known you long enough by now to know when you wanted him out of the house. Now it was no different, “Thank you, I appreciate the thought.”

An uncomfortable silence.

He wanted to scream.

“I best be going.” He hurried out, the words almost getting tangled in his mouth, and before he could cause himself more harm by looking at you and the action not being reciprocated, he turned his back and reached automatically for the coat he’d literally just hung up.

Sid had never been a cryer – he didn’t class himself as an emotional guy, which was why he was so shocked at the sudden burning of his eyes and the tightness in his throat. Fuck, he couldn’t cry here. One, because it’s embarrassing, and two: he had no clue why he was upset to this extent.

He’d managed to put his arms through his sleeves, just about to start zipping it up after a quick glance at the sky outside when you suddenly spoke, voice somehow even rougher than before.

“What reason would I be avoiding you for?”

Sid froze, swallowing nervously. It didn’t take a genius, even in that exact moment, to dissect the words you’d chosen to come to the conclusion that you’d picked them carefully. Not ‘what made you think I was avoiding you?’ which would certainly have been easier for him to answer, but he had a feeling you knew that. 

It was pretty obvious from the avoidance at lunch yesterday and the weird behaviour in the car the day before that, and then the cold shoulder and lack of interest in conversation now, that something was wrong. The signs were pretty subtle, though, he had to give you that.

He turned slowly, fingers detaching from his zipper. You were now sitting at the chair against the wall, knees tucked up to your chin, the hot mug of tea still clasped in your hands. Your eyes were a little red, probably due to exhaustion, and your hair had been twisted to sit across one shoulder, attention faced solely and rather intensely on him.

“Uhm–” he cleared his throat, blinking quickly to rid of the shining moisture in his eyes. He could feel his heart racing against his sternum, and he wondered briefly if you could hear it from across the room, “I don’t know.” He muttered sadly, eyes flicking to his shoes.

Camp had been great today, as it usually was, but he always found himself scanning the ice for your familiar face. 

You nodded, sighing with disappointment, and Sid felt himself deflate. His fingers tapped against his thigh seven, eight times before he inhaled, throwing the words out in the open before he lost the courage to do so.

“What’s going on with you?” He was about three seconds away from stamping his foot; he was so desperate to know the answer. It was childish and it was stupid, but it meant something to him when you shrugged, eyes suddenly misty.

He knew what you were going to say before you even said it, but he kept quiet anyway.

“Nothing.” You sounded as wrecked as he felt, a hint of sheer resignation in your voice. It was so uncharacteristic of you: to Sid it was as if you’d not only given up on whatever it was that was bothering you but you’d given up on hiding that something was ever wrong in the first place.

It was a victory, no matter how small.

“Come on.” He took a step closer, quite literally on the verge of begging, “Really? That’s all you’ve got?”

Silence.

“I know you. Better than anyone–”

The expression on your face changed immediately, and it felt as though you’d socked him in the chest. You didn’t believe him.

You didn’t believe him.

“I want to know you better than anyone else does.” He sighed, hands pressing against his temples before he dropped them back to his sides, not quite registering what his words meant. They’d flown out of his mouth before he even heard them in his brain, and even when he’d spoken them out loud it felt surreal. He wasn’t sure what was what with all the blood rushing in his ears.

It was because of that, trapped inside himself and his own mind that he failed to register the look on your face.

“Even still,” he continued, plopping himself down on the chair on the other side of the table from you, hands knitted together on the tabletop. He was leaning right across the table but you haven't moved an inch, “This…This, you being quiet, withdrawn, skipping a day of camp – I know you’re sick and everything, but that’s never stopped you before, not when it comes to hockey.” He paused, taking a breath, “What’s going on?”

You took a sip of tea, ignoring the scalding sensation against your tongue in favour of stalling. If you didn’t say anything now, then you probably never would. In fact, if he hadn’t said what he’d just said, clearly without thinking about the meaning of the damn words, you knew you wouldn’t even be considering telling him at all. But where there was doubt…

“Why did you never mention what happened at the graduation party?”

You heard him stop breathing. There was no reason to look at him to see it when you could practically hear the hitch in his chest and the lack of air. When you did look at him his cheeks had paled and his mouth was opening and shutting, shoulders stuck in a shrug as though you’d genuinely caught him off-guard.

You could ask him that question without it meaning anything – it could just as easily be read as ‘huh, funny that you never mentioned it before’ than as ‘you kind of denied me the truth of why we’re so weird because everything that’s ever happened between us since that night has been a direct result of whatever fucked-up miscommunication gig we’ve got going on here’.

“How did you find out?” He breathed, a deep crease between his brows. Now that he’d had time to recover, he looked more concerned – angry, even – than sheepish.

You shrugged, “Those photos I got for Taylor? We’re in the background of ‘em.”

He nodded slowly, mouth pressed in a straight line. This time it was him that couldn’t look at you, probably just to gather his thoughts. You could tell his mind was racing, eyes zipping back and forth against the grain of the table.

You could feel your heart banging in your chest, the speed of it almost stinging. The anticipation was debilitating, and it took everything in you not to spit out question after question, because he was taking ages to say something and it was driving you crazy. Your fingers were tapping against your mug, a sharp exhale blowing the vapour around.

It was maybe that that had him looking up, head tilted backwards slightly, a thumb teasing at his lip. It was probably the first time you’d seen him lost for words.

“You really don’t remember it?” He muttered, brown eyes wide and clear, shiny in the last rays of sun poking through the back windows.

You shook your head, “I told you I didn’t remember.”

“I thought you were…I thought that was your way of letting me down gently.” 

You huffed a disbelieving laugh, staring at him, half-expecting him to take those words back and say he was kidding, but he never did. He just continued to look at you, that damn crease between his brows, eyes glassy and playing with his bottom lip like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He was still wearing his coat.

He never spoke.

“Why would I reject you?”

His hand fell from his mouth, landing with a soft thud on the table as he smiled, in such a self-deprecating fashion that you couldn’t help recoiling from him.

“Why wouldn’t you? I was moving to Pittsburgh, you were going to LA. We would have barely seen each other, and you deserved better than that. You still do. I mean, you know how much of a mess we were that year anyway, right?” He rambled, brows knitted together and mouth hung open. His elbows were resting on the edge of the table, hands palms-up towards the ceiling. He’d asked it like it was a rhetorical question but he was looking at you so intently you had to swallow your mouthful of tea and start talking.

Your mind had been running away with you, spitting counter-arguments for nearly everything he said, but it seemed to keep wanting to come back to the fact that he so clearly just assumed you’d reject him. 

“Did it not occur to you that maybe we were such a mess because of what happened?”

“I thought you didn't remember?”

“I didn’t, but it didn’t take a genius to know you weren’t bothered about keeping in contact with me. I wrote you emails and I got one-word answers – maybe even a full sentence if I was lucky; I called but you either didn’t answer or you cut it short because you had to go to practice. You never called back. On my birthday, the first one away from my family, you never called. I didn’t get anything from you when I got a card from your parents without your name signed because they’d just assumed you’d have written one yourself. For about nine months, the most I heard or saw of you was through the TV.” You inhaled sharply, a sudden burning sensation behind your eyes. That first year was honestly pretty awful for you when it came to Sid. What you’d told him on his decking a few days ago had been true, every single word of it. You’d agonised over every single possible thing that could have happened to change it, and for some reason the realisation of why he’d done what he’d done hit you rather emotionally, “You did all of that because you didn’t believe me when I said I never remembered what happened, didn’t you?”

His hands fell to the table, his expression softening into one of sheer guilt, “I’m sorry.” His voice cracked, “I really…I didn’t know, I thought it was what you wanted.”

You huffed a bitter laugh, suddenly cold, and right as though it had been scripted, rain began to splatter against the window panes, the sky now an overcast, stormy grey, “When have I ever pretended I wanted something if I really wanted the opposite?”

He swallowed, his throat bobbing up and down, “Never.”

You nodded, satisfied with his answer, and took a rather angry sip of tea, ignoring the uncomfortable burn. There was still so much you wanted to know, so many questions you wanted answers to, but at that moment: looking through the window of the back door to see nothing but dark skies and heavy sheets of rain battering your house, there was only one thing that you could really think of.

“While we’re here,” you started, voice lowering almost as though you were anticipating hearing something you weren’t going to like, “Can we talk about your first Cup win?”

Your fingers were back to tapping anxiously against the porcelain of your mug, and the heavy silence broken only by the rustle of his rain jacket was enough of an answer to let you know how this was going to go.

He inhaled, and you risked a glance at him across the table. His eyes were open, but barely, and it looked as though this conversation, or the last few minutes at least, had exhausted him. He suddenly had bags under his eyes, and his eyelids were heavy. He wasn’t smiling but he nodded anyway, face pale and hands beginning to tremble slightly. 

Sid wasn’t one to ever really get emotional about anything. You’d only seen him cry a few times in person, but nearly every single one of those occasions was for something good: a Cup win, a house-warming party in the pantry after he’d moved into his new-build, saying goodbye to his parents at the airport. 

This was entirely different, though. It wouldn’t entirely shock you if he walked back out of your door with a few grey hairs.

“Do you want something to drink or eat?” You eyed his pale cheeks and trembling hands wearily.

He seemed to think about it for a few seconds, before inhaling and casting a quick glance at your cupboards, “Yeah, I’ll get it though, you’re sick.” And then, almost as if something else had occurred to him when he went to push himself up off the chair, he turned back briefly, “You’d tell me when you want me to leave, right?”

The barest of smiles appeared on your face, and you nodded, “Yeah.”

“Good.”

You watched him manoeuvre through your kitchen, flicking the kettle on and reaching to take a mug out from one of your cupboards, as well as taking a tea bag out of the little box you kept them in and shaking the dust out of it, the bag landing in the mug with a soft plop. He turned back when the kettle was still boiling, hands crossed over his chest and standing against the countertop right in front of you.

There was something on his mind, you could tell. There was a high probability that it was something relating to this Cup Incident, but there was something almost impatient about the way he kept shooting an angry glance at the kettle, as though it wasn’t boiling fast enough for his liking, that had you perhaps thinking there was something else playing on his mind.

“What?” You asked, swallowed anxiously.

His head snapped in your direction, eyes wide with alarm and his mouth opened and closed a few times, thoroughly confused, “I didn’t say anything.”

“I know, but you want to.”

He closed his mouth just as the kettle clicked, and there was a brief moment where he turned his back to pour the water into his cup, but before you could even say ‘hockey’ he’d spun on his heel to face you again, “I just…We’re gonna be okay after this, right? I don’t want you to not be in my life, I don’t want to not be in your life.” He sighed, “I don’t want this to break us.”

Us. 

Us.

It echoed in your mind, and despite agreeing with almost everything he said, all you could offer by way of reassurance was a sad shrug, “I don’t want that either.”

He nodded, before finishing off his tea and grabbing a protein bar from one of your drawers and sitting back down at the table, shedding his coat and laying it neatly over the back of the chair.

Neither of you said anything for a good minute. It might have been because Sid was munching on that protein bar, but you really wanted to put the matter off for as long as possible just in case what he said did become true. Prolonging a possible heartbreak – an entire era, person and a piece of your identity – from ever occurring, even if it was only hindered a few more minutes.

It seemed, though, he took the liberty of deciding exactly when to start talking.

“So,” he cleared his throat, “this is about the second kiss, isn’t it? My Cup day.” His tone was firm, but there was a hint of sombreness hidden somewhere.

“Yeah.” You whispered, looking down at your mug. Your knees were still tucked to your chin, and technically Sid was sitting to your left, you still choosing to sit on the chair sideways and face the window instead. You were spending an awful lot of time staring at him though.

You spun, feet hitting the floor and mug clinking on the surface of the table. 

“I’m gonna ask a few questions and I just want you to answer honestly, okay?” You asked, inhaling a deep breath and choosing to ignore the thundering heart rate.

He nodded, leaning forwards in his chair in anticipation.

“We were both pretty drunk, yeah?”

“Correct.”

“Nobody saw, correct?”

“Correct.” He was starting to smile.

“I leant in first,” you started, voice shakier than you’d intended, and despite moving so you could see him without giving yourself a neck cramp, you found it almost impossible to be able to look at him. You’d kept some of this hidden from yourself, locked away in a bottle somewhere in the floorboards of your mind – completely inaccessible, even to yourself. To bare them aloud for the very person who shared the secret was nothing short of absolutely terrifying, “but then I stopped, right?”

You couldn’t tell if he was hesitating or if he was struggling to remember the event that had been burned in your mind for so many years, yet you still couldn’t look at him. Not even when his fingers slowly inched into your line of sight, seeking to touch your own hand still wrapped around your mug.

You didn’t move. It might dissuade him from touching you – you hoped it would because you weren’t entirely sure if you’d be able to admit all of this to him if he did.

“Yeah.” His voice was low, and his fingers dropped on top of the table, tapping silently.

“Then you…made the move.” You struggled not to cringe at your wording of it, eyes screwing shut before peeking open again, just in time to hear him answer. You hadn’t asked it as a question, but he took the hint anyway.

“I did.” 

You paused, thinking. There weren’t many times you’d had to ask for unadulterated honesty when it came to Sid: most of the time he gave it to you anyway, but when it came to this kind of topic – you, it seemed, especially in the more romantic sense than simply lifelong friendship – he always kept his cards to his chest, never really revealed anything too damning.

But you’d asked for his honesty, and the least you could do was reciprocate that. It wouldn’t hurt to also milk it a little.

“I wanted to kiss you.” Want to kiss him, “Did you want to kiss me?” Your voice was higher than you’d like it to be, still a little hesitant and unsure. It somehow all felt unnatural, like scaling a foreign terrain for the first time. You couldn’t quite find your feed, where you could or couldn’t stand that would be safe and efficient.

You risked a quick glance at him. And oddly found you couldn’t quite look away. He still had that one hand almost outstretched towards you on the table, but his other was wrapped safely around his mug, still billowing vapour. His cheeks had flushed since he’d had something to eat, but it was his eyes that you couldn’t peel yourself away from.

He was looking at you, right at you, with something you’d never seen before. You couldn’t put your finger on it, but it was soft without being too gentle, firm without being angry or aggressive. The corners of his mouth were downturned in a sort of sad, melancholic smile, too, and you’d never seen him look at anything else like that – anyone else – apart from when he’d be getting ready to serve a big milestone on the ice.

You’d seen it when he’d put on a gameday suit for his 500th game, you’d seen it when he’d clocked the family in the box at his 1000th game. It was appreciation, gratitude. There was a third answer lurking in the back of your mind, but you refused to acknowledge it for the sake of not getting ahead of yourself.

One question at a time, one answer at a time, only look at the facts.

“Yeah.” The answer flew out of his mouth barely even half a second after you’d looked at him, and he broke into a cheeky grin, quickly ducking his head to his chest to calm himself.

He inhaled, eyes closing briefly before turning back to you with a straight face, and this time it was you breathing an amused laugh.

“Yeah, I wanted to kiss you.” He repeated, nodding for you to continue.

There was one question left. The reminder of it was enough to melt any previous traces of a smile off your face, and instead your mouth twisted at the corner, pulse humming in your head with dread.

“Why did you blow me off the next day when I said we needed to talk?”

His eyes focused on something behind you, and his mouth flattened in a line, self-deprecating and devoid of any true emotion, “I saw it going two ways: you were gonna reject me, or we were gonna do something about it. The way I saw it, I thought you’d already rejected me way back when – I know now that’s not the case – so I wasn’t really scared of that. The thought of it stung but…”

You frowned, “You were scared of me not rejecting you?”

He nodded, “I could never have asked you to sacrifice your entire life just to make me happy. You had a career, a house you’d just bought, friends, you were close to your family. I wasn’t gonna make you choose between all of that and – and just me, was I?”

Your face seemed to crumple sympathetically before you could even control anything. Everything he’d just admitted was nothing short of a testament to his character and who he was, no matter how…you wanted to say he was selfish for choosing for you, and a small part of you believed that, but he was also right. You had everything he’d just listed, and it would have been upsetting to move away if things progressed further and ‘got serious’, but it wasn’t like you would have been completely isolated, either.

He spends a good portion of his time in Pittsburgh, that’s true, but he spends his entire off-season at home in Cole Harbour. An entire four to five months, almost half a year.

You shook your head, hands unclasping from your mug to rest at your temples, “Okay…I kind of get where you’re coming from, but did it ever occur to you how much you had to sacrifice to get to where you are?” 

He blinked.

“You’ve earned the right to be selfish, especially when it comes to me. I mean, sure, I have a life here, I love it, but I never wanted to stay here. That was never my plan. I wanted to play hockey as a career, I wanted to travel and experience things, but that wasn’t what happened. I’m constantly missing a life I never even got to taste and I guess…I guess I’m kind of miserable because of it? I’m grateful for what I’ve got, but it won’t ever equate to what I wanted for myself. I love hockey, I love this camp, but I love seeing you just as much, I always have. It meant something to me.” You hesitated, “You mean something to me.”

You searched his face for a reaction, and it might have taken a few seconds for what you were saying to sink in, because his eyes suddenly went glassy and his jaw clenched. He couldn’t look at you for a while, and he kept sniffing.

You hoped more than anything he wasn’t actively catching your cold whilst you waited for him to say something.

And then: “I mean, for what it’s worth, you mean everything to me–”

“It’s not a competition.”

***

You were lost.

Or, at least, from Sid’s perspective you were: he was standing near the boards on the ice, keeping a close eye on the kids playing the shooting drill he’d set up for them, and he truly was watching them…he just couldn’t exactly help it when his eyes would wander curiously and scour the rest of the ice, practically desperate to drink you in. Wherever you were. He couldn’t see you, and it was getting to that point in the day where he wasn’t sure if that meant you’d left the ice to supervise the locker rooms and talk to parents or if he just wasn’t looking properly (again: he had to watch a bunch of kids with knives screwed to their feet).

See, it had been three days since you’d both sat in your kitchen and mulled things over, uprooting what you both thought to have happened when you were younger and twisting everything into a more truthful, honest version (he admittedly spent the rest of the day in bed; he was so emotionally drained he actually forgot to feed Sam until she started barking relentlessly at him) of events. 

Did he know where you stood with each other now? Not entirely, but he knew you were both thinking about it. That was a shock and a half to have uncovered on a Wednesday evening.

Did he know what he planned to do within the next few weeks? Kind of.

Had you actually seen or spoken to each other since that day? Not apart from group settings: you’d taken another day off to recover from that little bug you’d caught – of which Sid had managed to avoid catching – and the past two days including this one were full of nothing but red cheeks and a peculiar affinity to wrestle a smile off both your faces if you even so much as looked at each other. 

It was a pretty big switch-around from last week, but he welcomed it with…well, he’d honestly never been happier or more excited to be on the edge of starting something with you. He’d thought about it often before, mostly as a weapon to torture himself with when he was already upset over something, remind him of another failure – only that one had been personal and about his life, not anything to do with hockey. It always used to sting more.

He sighed, “Hey, Ryan, try gripping the stick a bit lower, you’ll get more control on your shot next time, ‘kay? Yeah, just like that! Poppy stop poking people in the face with the stick please, I know you find it funny when it gets stuck but it could poke someone’s eye out.” The culprit in question sadly dropped her stick to the ice, and Sid didn’t even have to be near her to know her bottom lip was sticking out in a pout “Thank you.”

It was as Evie pushed forward on her skates with a puck at her feet that something whacked Sid softly on the bum with enough power to send him trailing forwards slightly, but he didn’t take his eyes off the girl in front of him, who sent a powerful slap shot towards the goalie, and the puck couldn’t even be seen until a ding! echoed in the back of the net. Sid huffed a laugh, “Wow, Evie, that was incredible! Keep it up.”

She flashed him an awkward thumbs up, the gloves interfering with the action, and Sid mirrored it before finally turning his attention to a rather beloved blonde. Nate’s brows were halfway up his forehead, mouth contorted like he’d also just breathed a quiet ‘woah’ under his breath, and when he registered Sid was even looking at him, his face melted into one that had become rather synonymous with another person in his life. Nate always smirked when he was about to bring you up to Sid. There were a few occasions where he’d read the room and approached the topic with a bit more consideration, but it appeared this time was no different to usual.

“Kind of reminds me of a certain someone when they were that age, huh?” 

Sid clenched his jaw, trying not to give away just how true that statement really was, before muttering a quick, “You’re too young to have known what she was like at that age.”

Nate made a sound that came from the back of his throat, a short huff of laughter passing his lips, “Dude, you’re so easy to read.”

Sid shook his head, “Next!” Another kid skated forward, and both professionals watched as the goalie caught the puck safely in their glove before chucking it across the ice in their general direction.

“Hey, if you want to skate around for a bit, I can watch this drill.” Nate said, intercepting the puck and adding it to the small pile that had slowly been accumulating next to the boards.

Sid frowned, a crease forming between his brows, “Why?” He drawled, rather suspicious of the sudden generosity.

He had a feeling he knew what it was about, but he wasn’t going to speak ahead of himself and make matters worse – Nate already had enough teasing material when it came to his silent pining.

“It’s pretty obvious you’re distracted and it’s been killing me and Taylor watching you. She’s over there,” Nate lifted his stick, pointing to the opposite side of the rink, where Sid could only just now make out the back of your head. He had no idea what had caught your attention so much as to have your back facing the ice– “There’s a little kid on the other side of the glass with a mini-stick. She’s been pulling faces for the past five minutes, and I just thought I’d warn you before you…y’know–”

“Nate, what the eff?” Sid hissed, watching wearily for any kids overhearing. 

“I’m just kidding. Kind of.” He grinned, “Go say what you need to say and then come back.”

Sid rolled his eyes, but still patted Nate gently as he skated by, “Thanks.”

Nate just shook his head, waving him off, and Sid took that as his signal to skate away, ignoring the undoubtedly humorous glance Taylor was giving him. It was bad enough that they’d noticed what he was doing at all, let alone to have it pointed out right to his face. 

He pushed loose pucks out of the way, skating right around several different drills before crashing into the boards right next to you, his face pressed against the glass to see…three different dribbling toddlers staring up at you both. One had an armful of teddies, the other was wearing a Pens PJ set and the final one was holding a mini stick, the ball left forgotten behind them.

You didn’t even need to turn your head from where you’d leant it against the glass to know who it was that had rather abruptly pulled up beside you. Not only was the side of his face in your peripheral vision enough, but the faces of the parents sitting in the seats were enough to go by. Everyone seemed to sit straighter, smiles a little bit wider at the sight of their local boy interacting with a small herd of toddlers who obviously had no idea who he was.

Except…the kid with the mini stick dropped his fingers from his mouth, stick lazily pointing in Sid’s direction, and even through the glass you could make out the vague words of "Siddie Cosby!” and the excited smile on his face.

Sid waved, spinning the cap on his head the other way around so he could also press his forehead to the glass, and you laughed softly, breath fogging up the panes for a brief moment. The sound had him tilting his head slightly so he could look at you.

He wasn’t sure if he was smiling before he’d turned – he had to have been, though, surely? – but he felt himself smile, if not more than he had been. It was unconscious, like a reflex made worse because you were just so infectious to him.

“Hi.” You muttered lowly, catching him out of the corner of your eye. You didn’t turn your face away from those kids, still pulling funny faces no matter how demanding of your attention he was. You could look at him all you liked later, but for these kids, their moment was this moment.

At least, that’s what you tried to tell yourself. Really, you just felt a little too shy looking at him with all those people watching from the stands.

“Hi.” He grinned, also turning his attention back to the kids. The one with the hockey stick suddenly banged on the screen right in front of him, and even despite his quick reflexes, he couldn’t help jumping at the sudden noise in such close proximity.

The kid just giggled, and when Sid cast his eyes to the seats, heart racing in his chest, some of the parents were trying to hide their own laughs behind their hands. 

He almost forgot he had an audience.

His tongue darted out nervously to wet his bottom lip, and he felt you look at him rather than saw you do it, “Are you coming to my birthday party tonight?”

There was a brief silence between you both, and you struggled to hold in a laugh as Sid registered what it was that he’d just said. His eyes closed and he leant his forehead against the glass, sighing hard enough to fog it up.

“Yes.” You answered, tone full of amusement. 

His eyes opened and he twisted his head, still resting against the glass, “Can I pick you up at five?”

You blinked.

His party starts at seven.

It was probably the easiest yes of your entire life.

[ranticore]

Curious about Holly. What's his (their?) relationship with the evil dragon and vice versa? Ishe the only one working as a kobold servant or are they a group. also whats his height he looks like I can punt him (afectionate)

His height is a cool 100cm and his relationship with the dragon is "this is a living piece of architecture"; no real interaction. imagine how a tiny bird feels about the rhino whose skin parasites it's eating.

There was a thriving community & culture in the cave where he used to live (currently working on that but the lil guys had a good thing going. relatively. when the dragon wasn't trying to eat them). Then some knights came to slay the dragon and died in the process, which was just an everyday occurrence there really except for the fact that one of these knights was a direct relative to a very important someone, and carrying keys & an important sigil that then became lost in the hoard. that very important person enacted wholesale slaughter on the lair & dragon and everyone in it except for holly because they needed to leave one alive & take him captive so he could point them in the direction of the key and sigil. and that's how he got out of the cave and learned that the world is very large and almost everyone in it wants him dead

[tater-tot-jr]

Yapping time! Spoilers for DRDT C2E14

So the entire episode was great, but there’s one part I’d like to talk about most. David’s monologue towards the end. Specifically the second half, where he gets away from his logical stuff and into the more interpersonal stuff. I’ll break it down line by line.

“All I want is for Teruko to distrust others.”

Okay we are starting off interesting. Now, due to David’s nature we can’t trust him to be honest. We cannot take this as explicit confirmation of any sort of goal. With that said, his goal appears to be fucking up the class trial in some manner. We don’t know his motive, but that goal seems consistent enough to work with. So let’s work with it. Teruko is literally one half of this classes helpful trial participants. Her and Charles are the entire brain of this class. Charles can be killed, he has a glaring flaw in a debilitating fear of blood, he’s easy enough to deal with when the time comes. Teruko is stupidly resilient. To everything. The one thing she obviously struggles with is her trust issues/paranoia. If you’re looking to get under her skin that’s where you gotta go. Saying this is a clear demonstration he intends to poke at Teruko emotionally, which is an interesting thing to admit out loud. If I had to guess, it’s because he’s trying to kill two birds with one stone and make the class start to distrust Teruko as well.

“That’s why I’m doing this, telling such obvious lies.”

This is him saying he’s lying about seeing the body, I think. He’s doubling down on inciting paranoia, in both Teruko and the class. It’s interesting he would say this out loud. He’s hyper focused on fucking with Teruko and it shows. If you take out the brain, the body goes as well. It’s certainly a strategy of all time.

“There is no other proof of Eden’s innocence.”

As far as we know, this is a true statement right now. Unless I’m unaware of something that was the biggest piece of evidence meant to clear her name, and he brought it into question.

“As long as there’s a possibility that the evidence is false, as long as there’s even the slightest reason to distrust others, then Teruko cannot trust Eden.”

Oof, he’s got her dead to rights. I don’t think there’s a good faith argument for him being wrong. It’s cool to see how much he understands the cast. It’s an interesting way to show how Teruko’s thoughts process works without betraying her guarded nature. Having a character so ready to pick at her weakness is a good writing choice, and I hope they keep David around for a time. Teruko is the least trusting character I’ve ever seen in any fangan game, granted I haven’t played them all but still. There’s a chance the story doesn’t have any sort of lesson, and we’re just gonna watch Teruko suffer. The idea that she can’t bring herself to trust if there’s even a 0.001% chance of something being false is such a good character flaw. She’s clearly terrified of risk, and she doesn’t know how to get rid of her paranoia, even though I think she wants to.

“Isn’t that right, Teruko?”

Ohohoho you smug piece of shit. You fucking dick. This is more proof he’s not just saying these things in an objective way. He’s just trying to hurt her, as far as we can assume.

“…”

Yeah she’s fucking rocked. Teruko really doesn’t take things lying down. Befitting of her backstory, she’s the type to struggle and fight back against anything she can. But here she has nothing to say. David has read her for filth and they both know it. Now that I think about it, this probably also plays on her fear of being vulnerable. What could possibly be more vulnerable than someone telling you your own exact thought process?

“It’s in your nature to distrust people.”

This is a more interesting statement than it appears at first glance. Specifically because he says it’s in her nature. To him, this isn’t a choice she’s making because of the killing game. It’s not circumstance that has pushed her into this. No, this is who she is, and this is who she’ll always be. Which is a horribly insulting thing to say, because it’s within most humans nature to trust each other somewhat, and it’s life circumstances that push them away from collaboration. He’s saying that Teruko is so fucked in the head that she’s fundamentally different from the standard human baseline.

“Everyone you know has already betrayed you. There’s no one in this world who won’t hurt you. Even the people you love will turn their backs on you in the end. You know that well enough, don’t you?”

…Jesus Christ. He really is just the devil on her shoulder. These are her worst thoughts said out loud and back to her. Do you think she considers someone dying on her and leaving her alone a betrayal? Is that a part of this? Him saying “even the people you love” is interesting, does she really even have anyone she loves in the cast? Or does she just tolerate them. He’s making grand, sweeping statements about her life potentially before the killing game and hitting the nail on the head every time. An impressive feat of manipulation and perceptiveness.

“So distrust in others. Because that’s the only way you know how to live.”

Ow. Ouch. Owie. Not only is this a banger way to end the monologue but it’s just so telling. Teruko doesn’t even say anything in response she just waits for Charles to change to subject. Also, is he even really wrong? She tried to afford people trust and then she got stabbed and everyone else blamed her. She’s definitely swung too far the other way, but it’s not like she was good at knowing how much trust to afford people. This life is really the only way she knows how to live. How things are now, she’ll suffer any other way. It’s such juicy character writing. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. David has definitely been watching Teruko’s behavior, and quite frankly he has her figured out. He’s perceived her, and she hates it. I think we all know Teruko is lonely, she deeply wants people around her. But between being a danger to them and all her trust issues she shuts herself away. David is doing everything he can to keep her as far away from forming meaningful connections as possible. He’s clearly got some sort of plan.

—

There’s also a few things I want to talk about that I didn’t have the ability to put under a spoken line, so I’ll yap down here.

Firstly, Teruko extending some “trust” to Eden doesn’t prove David wrong. If anything, it strengthens his argument. Looking at the actual content of Teruko and Eden’s back and forth, it’s barely a scrap of trust and it’s completely conditional. Teruko basically said “because you helped me last trial I will trust you enough to investigate you second” which is still incredible progress for her, but it’s nothing close to genuine trust. This is not to diminish the progress Teruko made in that scene, but it’s nothing close to countering David’s claims.

Secondly, THAT VOICE ACTING HELLO?!?? David’s VA has always been great, but combined with DRDTdev’s wonderful writing and sprite design/choices he really brought this scene to life. He was perfectly smug and condescending. He had a voice that really portrayed that “I’m 100% right about you and you can’t do anything about it” vibe. Just a total piece of shit. 10/10 would listen again.

[wyvchard]

Birds of a Feather...

Agent Phoenix found themself displaced in time after waking up to Reginald's younger self. Chaos ensues.

Content Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, guns, restraints, Reggie's field days, Phoenix chaos

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"Are you doing alright?" Agent Phoenix groaned as they woke up in a rough bed feeling far worse than the time they stayed up until daylight. They took a deep breath to calm down in order to observe their surroundings. It wasn't as clinical as a typical Zoraxis base, a relief to them.

"Nothing too unfamiliar. Where am I?" They glanced at the source of the voice, suddenly pausing when they finally registered a familiar looking face peering at them with worry.

"Is there something on my face?" He raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms to show his disapproval. "If you think these bandages look horrible, you should take a good look at yourself."

"You look like someone I know... just... younger. It's not what you think. I know I look horrible but believe me, I can manage." They looked away, taking a deep breath to focus on something other than their heavy limbs. "I've been through worse."

"You were found unconscious in the middle of nowhere. What could be worse than that? Actually, I take that back."

Phoenix gave him a sympathetic smile before getting up, much to his panic. They chuckled at his fussing. "You remind me too much of my dad. I'm sorry for laughing. He frets a lot."

"Who wouldn't? I know I can be stubborn as a mule but you seem to be on another level."

"Well, I'd say I like to take things on another level." They smirked, amusement spilling all over them, only for them to frown when they felt their ear emptier than usual.

"We confiscated your earpiece. For some reason, it caught the attention of one of our technicians we're taking a poke at it a little bit."

"I'm getting it back, right?"

"If you can get R&D to return it, that is. Speaking of, I have to go. Please stay here? I'm sure some of doctors have plenty to be curious about. Would it be alright if you satisfy their curiosity a bit?"

"I don't have much of a choice, do I? All I can do is sit up at the moment." They mumbled, shooing him off. A part of him remains unconvinced but he has somewhere to be: Roxana is waiting for him.

Phoenix absolutely hated the probing that came moments later. They miss the fact they didn't have to answer questions that weren't "where does it hurt? Have you injested anything you shouldn't? How are you even alive?" or any of the sort.

They so badly wanted to grab the clipboard from the doctor with their TK but that was classified information that mustn't come out, so they put on a smile and answered as best they could without releasing anything classified.

They really wish to know who that young man was, seeing as though he looked a lot like the older photos of their beloved handler.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Reginald..." Roxana stared at her friend who approached her with a silly grin. "You know you really shouldn't have taken their earpiece. Who knows what it is made of."

"You are curious about it as well. Don't give me that look." He stifled a huff, watching as she hands him some schematics. "Roxana, you know I don't understand any of this."

She sighed, pointing at a stool nearby a table with an open sewing kit. "The earpiece is definitely more compact than anything the agency is capable of producing at the moment." Her eyes darted to him working on one of the tears she accidentally created when it was snagged by a tool. She really needs to make a case to allow a bit of leeway in the dress code.

"That's not what I'm interested about. Why is their earpiece so tied to my own? I know I don't pay attention to the other agents as much as I should but I'm sure I can recognize someone like them."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well-" His words were cut off by a transmission. "I have to go. My handler is telling to check out the source of a distress call in the building."

He gently put away the repaired garment and rushed outside, leaving her alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agent Phoenix is currently curled up in a corner, one spare radio borrowed from the "supply closet" (empty and unused office) they barricaded themself in.

They need to get evac there. Immediately. Everything felt so familiar yet so wrong. There were some places where they can delude themselves they were back in their office, bullet holes and all. Yet it was too new to them, as if someone patched up the structural failings on the surface.

They held their breath, really hoping that the mail slot there wasn't going to have a-

"Woah! Gun safety rules aside, it's me. Come on. Please get outta there." He sounded surprised at the fact his gun was practically ripped from his grasp in the mail slot although here was a hint of reprimand.

"Leave me alone! I wanna go back. I miss him so much." They covered their ears, still shivering from how similar the young man's voice was to his.

"There isn't really much to miss there. A lot of things you can shoot at point blank range. And I don't think he's around."

They counted the seconds, internally cursing at the fact they need to use their TK to open the door in order to escape.

Despite their preparation, they managed to falter, earning him a chance to tie their limbs with a rope.

"Let me go! I swear I only want to go home." Indignation laced their voice as their struggled. "Please. I'm sure they're worried."

"I only came with a gun because you were reported to have a knife on you. How did you even manage to sneak it past us?"

"Well, why was your first thought to push a gun through a mail slot to calm me down?"

Their unfriendly glare made him wear a wry smile as he mumbled an apology. "Well, why wouldn't I be guarded? You were sending a distress call to the agency, not to mention your earpiece always connects to mine."

Eyes widening at the realization, they looked resigned a few seconds later. "... I won't participate in any questions until you do this one thing for me, Mr. Reginald Crane."

A shiver ran up his spine as they gave him a devious grin.

"Please ask Dr. Roxana Prism if she's willing to make a tine machine with me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have NO idea where I'm going with this so this is a one shot for now.

Tag List:

@phoenix-and-found-family, @the-one-and-only-043, @ghostlystarwanderer, @jellyfishgummy

[torchickentacos]

Im here for your opinions on roundworms and parasites.

THANK YOU! Your enabling is always appreciated (and I think I have a pokemon ask from you that I lost in my drafts like six months ago????? I'll go find that later!) Here are some of my parasite opinions. Under the read-more because, re: last post's tags, this is not what most of you guys signed up for 😭

My main opinion- worms are, by far, the most interesting type of parasite, even amongst other endoparasites. Exoparasites are largely boring. Sorry to any tick or leech enthusiasts out there. Amoebas (and other protozoan parasites) are just okay. They were more interesting in season 2 of House MD than they are in real life, imo.

Guinea worms (draculculiasis) are maybe the most disgusting type of endoparasite, but thankfully they're incredibly rare. I'll keep it not-revolting but the removal process is disgusting, and not much gets to me but that does. When I was in vetmed classes back in like 2018-2020, I was the person who wanted front-row seats to literally everything, and despite that, guinea worms make me viscerally uncomfortable... but very fascinated. Heartworms are pretty high up there, too, and roundworms do get an honorary mention.

Not really an opinion but I need to know what kind of worm RFK JR has. I have been so darkly fascinated by this for months on end. It's PROBABLY neurocysticercosis, but what if it's something more interesting???? I have never wanted to see the full medical work-up of a politician more badly. I periodically check to see if there's any updates in the brainworm department. ALSO, it didn't actually eat his brain. I'm not a parasitologist but I'm like 95% sure that any worms that would have a presence in the brain would not actively feed on any organic tissue in that sense. It's probably a cyst caused by a calcified tapeworm larvae that damaged surrounding brain tissue. There was probably no actual ingestion of brain tissue despite claims and headlines. BUT IF THERE WAS, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT. But nobody has a concrete answer.

If we want to talk about non-human parasites, then horsehair worms are a fun starting point! They infect insects and cause the insect to seek out water and drown themselves, and then the worm escapes in the water as part of the worm's life cycle. If you've got a strong stomach, go look it up on youtube. It's vile but SO interesting. The Green-banded broodsac is also a lovely little freak. It invades snail's eye stalks and pulses bright, strange colors to attract birds. The bird eats the snail (and the worm) and the worm uses the bird's droppings to scatter its eggs. It's some real freak of nature type shit and I love it.

Also not really an opinion, but I learned very quickly as a child that telling the other kids fun worm facts is not a great way to make friends, but on tumblr it works just fine!

[theramseyloft]

I’m wondering if this makes sense?

A regular pigeons raised by its parents is typically able to bond to a human given enough time and patience.

So would an imprinted bird who thinks it’s a human being able to bond to another pigeon the other way around? Idk I’m having a shower thought 😂

I understand what you are asking, I think.

And, yeah, that kinda is how that works.

Cheeto bonded with Cotta about like a child might with a monkey who can sign.

It weirds Cheeto tf out that Cotta speaks words he instinctually understands, but I don't.

And after he got used to the fact that Cotta wasn't going away and Cotta realized he wouldn't get in trouble for standing up for himself when Cheeto got all the way out of line (Imprints tend to present hyper aggressive out of frustration and fear, and that doesn't ever really go away, it's just something you have to work with them for the rest of their lives to mitigate.), they developed something like a sibling relationship.

They like each other: They prefer to be in the same room and within eyeline of each other, one typically follows the other, they eat together, ect.

But they bicker pretty frequently over who has what rights to what humans or specific perches.

Cheeto thinks he owns me and every perch except Cotta's bed and shelf.

Cotta will fight God over the right to snuggle with my husband or ask for contact from me when he wants it.

[indigos-stardust]

Violet, Blue, And Bruised All Over: Long Talks

Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3/ Part 4/ Part 5/ Part 6

Note: this has been in my draft for at least 2 weeks, hit a slump and then a hyperfixation couldn't write lol. so this is alot shorter and the drawings wont make as much sense without part like?? 6.5???... but I just wanted to post it cuz I felt bad

Reblogs and comments appreciated <3 I wanna hear y'all's thoughts >:3c

Red and Blue: a deep conversation filled with compassion and vulnerability:

Meanwhile Vio and Green:

(sorry I haven't updated this in a while, real life calls :')

The following days were hell. Red knew how much fights shredded his heart into a bajillion tiny pieces, but really the forced normalcy was so much worse!

The two had gotten an even bigger longer (and honestly ranty) lecture from Green the next day. Red didn't think it really helped much. Like sure they were cowed into NOT biting each other or whatever, but c'mon!

It felt like everyone was mad at everyone else! And even though technically no one was really mad at him, they were all mad at each other which- considering they were all sorta kinda not really the same person? It still felt that way!

Green had gotten really bossy and super serious, and Blue and Vio were just avoiding each other like the plague! Whenever they did come into "an unfortunate proximity" as Vio put it, there wasn't anything but a ton of silent hate! Red really just wanted to curl up into a little hole and die. Well not really! But like, emotionally! Just a bit!

Green kept pushing them to talk about the details, but neither one would talk. Red decided to try asking them one on one, you know, use his charm a bit and soften the edges- But even when he cried it didn't work! Him crying always worked! Especially when he said just the right words in just the right way to softly push them into making a realization.

Red wouldn't really call himself a manipulator in that sense, because hey! He was using his powers for good, right? At least most of the time, anyways. It was a useful way to get out of trouble and get things he wanted...

By why couldn't it work now when he needed it most!!

Vio just treated him like how a parent would to their kid when the kid just, well, asked about death or some hard grownup topic. Like Red just simply wouldn't understand and not to worry about it- But he was worrying! He knew Vio just didn't want him to be sad but still...

Then Blue- Well, Blue was just sad. And a little p*ssed. But it was clear he was just mostly sad. At least when he talked to Red anyways. At first he had been all huffy and insisted that it was all so stupid, so why even bring it up anyways? Because it was "over already!" Which, no that was super stupid of Blue to think, because obviously all their relationships were like super mega sad???

When Red expressed that sentiment though, it seemed to change something in Blue. Blue just closed up and got all quiet. He hated when Blue did that. But it also meant his plan was working. Blue may be a little, uhm, explosive to people and things when he got upset- But really if he was like actually really seriously upset? Then he got all quiet and intense all by himself. But Red knew how to pry all those layers off, even if it was just melting his way though each one of Blue's icy walls, one at a time.

Not even a day later of the guilt obviously devouring Blue inside out, and clearly losing against his ego. (Red knew that's what happened, he probably didn't want to be the "first one to show weakness" and just talk about how his feelings were hurt and acted like he was just all angry and didn't care, but Blue was a big softie and no amount of pouting was gonna change that in Red's eyes.)

They'd been walking to the training yards extremely early in the morning, the sun had barely peeked over the horizon really. In Red's opinion, going all the way to the castle to train in the big professional courtyard before the birds even woke up was probably some sort of crime against humanity. And him. But Red was so close to getting Blue to spill! SO he had to stick with Blue the whole time to make sure his plan would work. He just had to be consistent! Even if... it was at like... Red blearily squinted against the horizon. Five AM? Uegh.

Green was right about those too being similar. But it wasn't just cuz they were so stubborn. More like they were both weirdos that had a vendetta against sleep. Seriously, would it kill Blue to sleep in for five more minutes...