#one thing that either didn’t translate well or age well is how will gets thea to calm down

[e-adlirez]

So this scene in Cloud Castle exists

I love how Will’s answer for “why aren’t you seeing your nightmares in this place specifically designed to show you your nightmares” is “I go to therapy”

[jemej3m]

A prompt for your consideration: pro Exy player Kevin Day, many years into his career, taking a sabbatical. He heads to Ireland to get in touch with mother's side of the family. Enjoys slowing down, reading + meets a man who falls in love with him as he is, not Kevin Day the Exy star.

okay but irish history is so rich and so awful and no one even cares at all about it, so this is the idea i got

*

Kevin was well used to flying, but usually it was towards Exy, not away from it. 

Neil would tell him he was flying away from his problems, running from them, if you will, but Kevin disagreed. He was returning. He just needed some time to himself. It was unlike him, he knew, to want to set Exy aside and live differently for a moment. His life depended on Exy. It was what he was risen upon. Some assumed that it all he could realistically talk about or be interested in. 

But even the world-famous, most talented striker known to Exy needed some variation. 

He and Thea had separated a while ago: Maybe that was why he’d found his life so monotonous recently. She always had provided a welcome distraction from the chaos and the constant threat of death looming over his head. 

But he was thirty five now, and the Moriyamas had laid off. He earned them well into the millions. They could live with him taking an off-season to himself. 

(That was Neil’s suicidal confidence getting to him. After all this time, it was bound to.)

He tapped his fingers against the armrest of his chair as the plane rumbled down the runway and flung itself into the sky.

He was finally homebound. 

*

Kevin’s mother was tucked into a dismal corner in Newry. He’d flown into Belfast and rented a car to work his way from North Ireland down into Ireland. He stopped at gas stations and pubs and no one really knew who he was. 

He kept the tattoo concealed by a few splotches of makeup, just in case. 

Anonymity was a beautiful thing. He could book into a hotel room without the receptionist gushing wildly over him: He could sit outside on a park bench with only a pastie and a bottle of water (no more alcohol, not since college) and no one would waddle up to him and bother him.

The quiet was - well overdue. 

He crossed the border on the way to Omeath, looping around and falling back to Dundalk.

He didn’t even mean to stay there - he’d intended to travel to Dublin and reconnect with lost family ties, somehow - but he saw a small, water-logged poster outside of a quaint looking cafe and decided to stay an extra night. 

Irish History: Come and Chat! 6pm with Professor Meir

Kevin was a fucking sucker for history. He missed it more than he was willing to admit, but he was alone here: No one knew him, no one needed to, and that was fine. 

So he booked himself a bed-and-breakfast and spent the day in Dundalk’s public library, letting his fingers brush across the spines of novels and poetry. 

He had the time. He could read Keats and Heaney and Joyce. He could try interpret the non-translated version of Sweeney’s journey, or even attempt Ulysses and enjoy proper European coffee beans and fresh produce that was a staple rather than a privilege. 

He ended up in the public library for hours, reading an annotated version of 1979′s Field Work, completely and utterly absorbed. There was a chair opposite him, and for a good half an hour, he sat and constructed an image of Kayleigh Day, wondering what would have happened if she’d just lived.

He didn’t miss his mother, really. He just - wished they’d had more time. Wished he could venture through their homeland together, hand in hand, and have her point out where she grew up, where she went to school, where she picked up a lacrosse stick and decided to change the rules. 

At five-thirty he went out to grab something to eat, walking slowly back to the little brown-stone cafe, tucked into an alleyway’s darkest nook. The warm glow emanating from the windows was inviting and Kevin gave up on stalling time, entering the premise and removing his coat. 

The cafe had wooden beams running across its ceiling and a fire crackling in the corner. All the chairs had been dragged to face the mantelpiece, which heralded a man about Kevin’s age. He didn’t strike Kevin as a professor. Where was the coat, the slacks, the boater shoes? Kevin’s own history professors at Palmetto had dressed so similarly that he could barely recall their differences, fifteen-odd years later, but this man looked like nothing of the sort. 

He was in a white button-down, rolled up to his elbows with the top button popped. The jeans he donned were tight to his calves, his hips at a lazy tilt as he grinned at the early-comers. 

Kevin was only ten minutes early, but it seemed as though there were some even more enthusiastic than him. They had to be regulars: They chatted with the professor on a first-name basis. 

“Tea or coffee, love?” The patron of the cafe asked, sweeping around the tables that had been pushed aside in favour of the talk. Kevin jolted, voice stuck in his throat momentarily. His tattoo was still covered, wasn’t it?

“Yes,” He said carefully. “Cappuccino, please.”

She clucked her tongue distastefully but then winked at him, sending two completely contradictory signals. “Americans.”

Maybe it was an Irish thing.

Kevin took his seat. 

The professor acknowledged him with a reserved smile. “Newcomer. What’s your name?”

“Kevin.” He said, almost wincing at how his own accent twinged the name out of its Irish lilt. 

The professor’s eyes glittered, a shade of brown deeper than the blackest coffee. “Welcome, Kevin. I’m Cian.” 

“Fitting.” Kevin muttered. Cian meant ancient. 

The man laughed: it sounded like bells.��“Your accent is deceiving. I’m guessing you’re Irish?”

“Northern.” Kevin agreed. “My mother was Northern Irish.” 

Cian gave him an appreciative look, lifting his chin slightly so that the curls shifted out of his gaze. His hair reminded Kevin of Nicky. Maybe Kevin could go visit Nicky and Erik on the way home: He hadn’t seen them in years.  

The woman handed him his coffee, ruffling his hair affectionately in that way that old women loved to do. Kevin couldn’t escape the professor’s gaze as he fixed his hair, letting his cheeks flush. 

No one had recognised him as of yet, but attention outside of the Exy realm was unknown and unprecedented. Kevin would be an idiot if he couldn’t recognise the appreciative curl to the professor’s lips, but it wasn’t like he was here to act on urges he’d repressed for years. 

More people arrived: The moment passed. Kevin clutched onto his mug and avoided Cian’s gaze every time he glanced in Kevin’s direction, eyeing the hint of a collarbone that peeked out from the man’s popped collar. 

That wasn’t exactly helpful either, Kevin supposed. But it was all he could do to avoid the feeling of being taken apart, layer after layer of his resolve peeled back by just a warm gaze. 

No one had looked at him like that in a long time. 

It was - 

thrilling. 

* 

ThAnK U I LovED THiS PRoMpTTttttT (i will do a part 2 i swear)