#sorry if this was weird i just. have a lot of good feelings percolating under the surface rn

[tethered-heartstrings]

i am not on any other social medias besides tumblr, but a mutual showed me a screenshot of someone on tiktok asking for hannibal fic recs and someone replied not with just one of my fics but recommended all of my work and i am at a loss for words and trying not to melt into a slobbering pile of goo. whoever you are, THANK YOU SO MUCH <333 AHHH

[kindahoping4forever]

Directors cut thing for watch me bloom🥰

I'm honestly surprised and delighted you requested this one, idk why I've always been so self-conscious about it and always convince myself I was the main person that liked it 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

The skeleton of Watch Me Bloom, supporting Ash during the creation and release of Superbloom, started percolating in the week or so leading up to the album's release. I just kept thinking how happy, carefree and at peace Ash seemed and how it was such a stark but welcome contrast to the CALM release, which was fun and exciting but also overall kind of a weird vibe due to the scrapped promo, the issues with Billboard and the beginning of the pandemic.

(Continued under a cut because this fic was RIFE with complications so I ramble for a long time lmao sorry, y'all should not have told me you like long answers 🤓)

Director’s Cut Fic Ask Game (AMA, let’s talk the stories behind the stories!)

@cal-puddies and I wrote a fic about the CALM chaos called Release and I thought a fic about the Superbloom experience would be a cool juxtaposition. (I originally thought WMB might be good as a sequel to Release but it ended up just not feeling like the same couple so I pivoted to just having the stories be companions in theme and structure)

I kept the idea in the back of my mind until the night of the Superbloom livestream: when Ash revealed he went on a desert getaway to celebrate, I knew I wanted to write that and when he sparked that joint at the end of the stream, I knew I had to write it 😂🤡 I came up with the individual vignettes a few days later. (You'll notice it's basically what I ended up writing with one small change which I'll get to in a second) 🤓

The first chapter now takes place late night in Ash's studio but it started out as a middle of the night "can't sleep" smut scene, with Ash coming to bed late after being in the studio but unable to turn his mind off to rest and his girl helps him relax (😏). I showed the section to Cass and she was a TRUE friend and collaborator and said it was good but pretty standard fare and I could do better. So I shifted focus to the home studio, which I hadn't seen a lot of at the time, and it was absolutely the right choice!

Another change was I originally intended to post the fic all as one story but as hard as I tried to edit, I couldn't get it under 10k. I also realized the sections of the fic seemed to have much less of an obvious throughline than I thought, leaving them feel like 3 interconnected oneshots instead of one fluid piece so after much reassurance from Cass (and an audience poll bc of course 🤓) I eventually made the decision to flesh out the sections (especially the 2nd chapter, I was adding to that literally up until it posted) and publish as a 3 part series like it is now.

I was super apprehensive about this decision (I already felt like the fic was self-indulgent, prolonging it for 3 posts seemed like a lot to ask from the audience. Plus the smut contained acts I hadn't written before - and honestly don't see a lot in fic - so I thought it might alienate some readers 😬) but I'm glad I made this call, it reads much better as 3 individual stories.

Last anecdote: the last half of the shower chapter (Ash's "treat," so to speak 🤡) is actually reimagined smut that I cut from a previous fic. That was originally part of a shower scene in my fic Hot n Cold but I edited it because it felt suuuuper gratuitous in that context (and I was once again nervous about scandalizing my audience at the time who I thought were there for soft boyfriend feels 🤷🏻‍♀️). I think it definitely works better here.

Oh actually another similar anecdote: the scene of Ash rolling the joint was actually lifted and reworked from a high!Ash fic Cass started that I kind of horned my way into lmao. Her initial write didn't detail the process and when I suggested she expand on it, she asked me to "guest write" it basically 😂

By the time I got to the smoking portion of my fic, hers had kind of stalled and I asked if I could repurpose what I had written (partly bc I liked it and partly bc I was in danger of burning out) and if she picked hers back up, I'd write her something new 😂💙 And the new version ended up being one of my fav scenes in the whole series! 😏🥰

I learned a lot from this fic! I've always written for me but this was actually a big step in me deciding to write what I want without also worrying about the reaction. Everything in that story was something I wanted to see realized and I followed thru with it (even though it was a much more complex write logistically than I imagined) and I'm so glad I did! And I'm so glad that it seems like you enjoyed it too!

[thedreadvampy]

So this was sent to me by @atiredpan weeks ago when the White Jon conversation was very live and I'm posting it (belatedly) with their blessing (they didn't want to put it up publicly and have it seem like an attack which I really very much appreciate but wouldn't have minded) and I percolated for a few days and then got very busy for a few weeks. Response follows.

So I feel weird about how I'm responding to this stuff, I'm launching rapidly into taking about/explaining my own experience in a way I'm worried maybe comes across as a direct comparison. It kind of feels like I'm talking in a way that's like brushing off your experience and saying OK BUT HERE'S WHY I'M RIGHT and that's not what I'm trying to do, it's just that there's not much I can usefully add to what you've said - you know your experience better than I do, and I'm not gonna go around trying to read into it or reexplain it. So I'm going to talk about where I am/have been coming from, but not with the intention of countering your points, all of which I think really resonate.

First off, the post where I was like "Jon is white and if you disagree you're Wrong" was, unreservedly, just a shitty post and I'm not suprised it upset a lot of people. I'm really very sorry about that, it was thoughtlessly written and pretty stupidly posted.

I totally get that my whiteness has fed into how I hced Jon (and as I think I've said before I saw Jon a certain way well before I engaged with any fanworks, just as you did). There's a lot of reasons I imagined Jon as white from pretty early on, a non-negligible one of which was like...That's Jonny. This is a podcast by Jonny, about a character with the same name and mannerisms as Jonny, and Jonny is extremely white. It would have felt weird, when I was listening to TMA as a Friend Podcast, to stick a brown face onto what at least appeared at the time to basically be a self-insert character of my white friend. Now that's a really personal thing informed less by the story and more by the circumstances under which I've interacted with it, but it certainly laid a baseline. I didn't really have a clear mental picture of Jon (or most of the characters) for a looooooong time (for an artist I'm really not a very visual thinker) but I had a few sort of mental sketches (Jon is short white balding and awkward, Martin is tall biracial and scruffy Basira is fat and somali Melanie is my friend from work etc) which I developed a long time before I encountered fanworks.

I saw the alienation you mentioned and I connected it to class and gender, not race, because I’ve met a lot of cis men, white and otherwise, who interpolate trauma, class insecurity, insecurity about their own abilities, and so on into withdrawal, denial and snappiness. So for me I had an interpretation of that element of his personality which was pretty much race-neutral, and then I had these existing cues leading me to assuming he was white (largely that Jonny is white, but also wee stuff in the story that...it’s not like anything substantial enough to remember, let alone justify, but there were certainly interactions that pinged whiteness for me personally)

There are actually iirc a few throwaway references to Jon being promoted above more qualified candidates throughout (or at least I thought I knew that before s5), but the time I decided I thought White Jon was an obvious conclusion was of course the conversation where Sasha expresses frustration about it. and the context of that conclusion (at least as far as I can see) wasn't "people of colour can only exist in subservient positions/defined by oppression" but was informed by two things that were going on with my life around the time that episode aired

I had been having several conversations with friends of mine (and largely friends of Jonny's) who work in London in the museums/archiving sector and who are the only women of colour in whole departments or even whole museums, and who experience so little career mobility compared to their less-qualified white counterparts (we're talking about women graduating top of their class at Oxbridge with anthropology or library science masters and stellar original research, with a decade or more of impeccable work experience and acting up, being left in internship and low-grade positions, while white men who "fit the culture" but have 0 museums experience sail into upper management positions and then stay there until they retire). So I'd come almost directly from these conversations into what to me sounded like exactly the same gripe in TMA.

I'd been at that point working for about a year and a half on co-coordinating the anti-oppression committee in my workplace, which was a very Good Progressive Activist Charity with Good Lefty Principles, and over the course of experience sharing and discussions both with colleagues of colour and along lines of wealth, disability, class etc, I was very much confronted with the realisation of how much 'being adequately qualified' meant different things for middle-class good-university white men vs much more highly skilled and hardworking women of colour or people of different class and wealth backgrounds. Obviously I'd known that before in principle, but not really having been in Salaried Workplaces (as opposed to like. service and retail hourlies) I hadn’t got so up close and personal with it. So that was also very fresh in my mind, this like...big substantial experience of how Good, Well-Meaning, Caring, Thoughtful, Woke white men just........did not need to think about this. at all. and were startled and discomforted to face it. and that this was also true of most white middle-class women. and these conversations were really carved down the middle between white middle-class European women saying ‘this is such a surprise when we have such an equitable hiring policy and diverse staff, that there’s this gender gap’ and women of colour in the room wearily saying ‘yeah, there’s a gender gap, there’s always a gender gap and it is always a racialised gender gap’ so yeah I was definitely thinking about the intersection between being passed over at work because of gender and because of race.

The point about Tim is interesting because I think for me what’s getting lost is that I don’t think Jon is entitled as like...a Character Trait. He’s not like...Toxic Masculinity Man. He is very anxious about boundaries and about his own capacity to do harm. But it has to be pointed out to him where he’s doing harm. He doesn’t notice where he’s been unfairly advantaged, and that’s to me much more reflective of most people’s relationship to white or male entitlement. 

As I say, that exchange with Tim and Sasha cemented the Jon Is White hc in my head specifically because it was so reflective of conversations I had had with women of colour working in similar workplaces, about white men, usually about white men they generally liked or at least didn’t have beef with beyond their unfair advantages. 

It seems odd to me to frame ‘bitching about your boss on your friend’s behalf to make her feel better’ as more similar to white entitlement/white privilege than any of that tbh? That’s just...being friends with someone? 

Anyway I recognise that it’s not white entitlement to accept a job. Obviously it’s not, it’s just sensible under the circumstances, you get lucky and you grab it. For me my sense of Jon as white-because-of-this is not “he took a job he shouldn’t have taken,” it’s more about his obliviousness to the impact he has on others, and also primarily how people react to him. The interaction between Sasha and Tim is saturated with the of course it would be him I mentioned above, but even before that he walks through the world not expecting to have to think about anything but his conscious decisions, and he’s caught aback when people see him as out of place or as having power above his station.

I think it’s impossible to extricate ‘this is where my head was at’ from that interpretation, and also like obviously my own whiteness is a big factor. And not just my own personal whiteness but the place I grew up (which was 98.3% white) and the world which reflects back whiteness. So this is in no way intended as a bolshy This Is The Correct Headcanon the way my Bad Post was bc examining it I’m like...yeah I mean this is about how I personally interpreted this based on where I was at at the time. But I do feel like there’s some communication gap in what it is about this unqualified promotion thing that pinged me - it’s not that All Bosses Must Be White And All Brown People Must Be Downtrod, it’s something quite specific about the tone and tenor of the interactions around the getting-a-job.

But also? Idk. Kind of unrelatedly, and people obviously should feel free to disagree with me on this, it feels kind of off to frame this as defaulting to a white Jon? I sort of think that my idea of Jon as white is very much not ‘white until proven otherwise’ - part of the reason for my original strident tone was that I felt that I was being expected to drop a headcanon I had for specific reasons and default to the fanon version of Jon without actually having any reason other than ‘this is how the community thinks he should look,’ and without really understanding anything about what that means, and while obviously defaulting to a non-white headcanon isn’t like...entrenched in the way that defaulting to a white headcanon is, it does seem to me like this is perhaps part of why white fans slap brown skin onto a character without thinking into what that means or why they’re doing it.

The thing I’m struggling with as regards my personal headcanon here is that I could decide to only ever draw Jon as Fanon Jon, but it wouldn’t be because I had strong reasons to see him that way, it wouldn’t be the same as why you see Jon as brown, or why I see like...Melanie as Indian, it would literally be Default To Standard in a way it isn’t for you. And I don’t feel that I have Defaulted To Whiteness, or where I have it is for reasons specifically to do with Jon (I visualised Jon as white because I visualised him as Jonny, who is white), not because I think every character is White Until Proven Otherwise. Like, my reasons for understanding Jon as white may be bad reasons, but they are reasons, not post-hoc excuses (I can’t like...prove that. but I know it to be true at least on a conscious level). I didn’t go Oh Jon Is White Because Everyone Is Unless I Have Reason To Think They Aren’t, Hooray, Here Is A Post-Hoc Justification For Why It Isn’t Racist To Think That. So while I am totally on board with the idea that it may be shitty, harmful or poorly thought through to hc Jon as white, I’m not sure I can fully see it in myself as being default. But I do understand that that isn’t necessarily what came across in my original short post.

Honestly, the reason I took issue with Fanon Jon and Fanon Martin in such a bolshy way in the first place was that I didn’t get why these characters were universally seen as Asian and white, respectively, and had such strong and consistent fanon images, when none of the other characters did, and when I was seeing people drawing people like Sasha and Melanie and Tim as white way more when in my mind there was no reason to assume they were white. On an emotional level I guess I think either there’s Fanon As Lore, or there’s no fanon (and I prefer the latter) and my discomfort came from the place that the one character I absolutely saw as coded as white in the core cast had this one really specific Ambiguously Brown Fanon Look (which from what I’d seen at the time didn’t seem to be like...backed with anything or coming from any personal interpretation for most of the white fans I was seeing on like Twitter and Tumblr) but white headcanons are everywhere for characters like Melanie or Sasha or Georgie, who seemed to me to be unambiguously people of colour, or characters like Tim or Martin (who could perfectly reasonably be people of colour and who I hc as Rroma and biracial respectively)? I don’t know, it’s difficult to express, but I find it frustrating.

[sherlolly-siya]

Magnum P.I. S02xE18-20 spoilers and tidbits

I thought i’ll give a prologue first 😅 Remember i pet project where i was trying to decipher the episode names? yea i didn’t get very far on that.. but i have come to a conclusion, that each title is a convention for what the clients in that episode, and/or our P.I. is going through. Eg. S02xE16 : Farewell To Love

Episode starts with Gladys and Bert who had given up on love but eventually found it in one another. The fact that Gladys narrated this part makes it poetic in a sense that she was the one who had to say bid farewell to Bert.Then TC and Teresa, they found the one that they always loved. The one who made them happier, but TC had to let her go go, he bid farewell to his love, instead of ruining 3 lives.In the beginning of the episode, we see magnum all in for online dating, but after what happened with Dylan, we see him coming to an abrupt conclusion that online dating is just isn’t the thing for him, also adding to the fact, the girl who met through an app (Abby) had just recently broken off with him. So magnum kind of bid a metaphorical farewell to finding love online.

Spoilers for S02x18, S02x19 and S02x20 under the cut if you wish to continue. Warning: My rant got hella long, longer than i planned and there are lots of pics and links below. Thanks @maggiesoa​ and @lizzysfavs​ for providing some food for my thoughts  😊

So.. lets begin with S02x18 : A world of trouble I’m just grouping together the pics that I’ve found so far which seem to be related to episode 18: Perdy and Bobby discussed about having a scene together ignore jay’s comment here, I’m all for #TeamJin and I will riot if they ever kill him. I believe the episode starts with Jin, showing up at Robin’s nest, where he ends up in a situation where he has to change in magnum’s clothes (note the t-shirt magnum is ironing... (Edit: DIDN'T HAPPEN!!?? I MEAN!! This could have been cute.. didn't have to be a total BTS for once!!) Where we get this scene, All i can guess right now is that is a tab in Jin’s had, and he’s being a fair judge for miggy while they prepare for their visa interview, or he could be here with today’s case

Which takes us to to the primary promo for 2x18, where they solve the case at hand. Now my guess is that the case doesnt take up entire 47 minutes, because this promo also exists. What this secondary promo also shows is them at a office(?) guessing visa or may be its a school where the current client works? where magnum/higgy blurts out that they’re marrying and some lady says that they don’t look like a couple. We also see Katsumoto warning Higgy about the consequences of marrying their business partner. (Edit: this did happen and fueled Higgy’s resolve to back out.. nothing wrong there..but as Jin said.. may it be with Magnum or TC, u’re still breaking the law Mrs. I can figure out how pretending with TC is going to get good results? if anything.. it only comes out of nowhere) I’m sensing a connection here again with the title of the episode: A world of trouble:  - The current client, the case was definitely given to them by some one else because they approach the lady coz Higgy says “You’re in trouble, we just want to help you.”, which means she might have refused help at one point. - Literally 2 people in a 2 min worth promo have commented on their wedding, does this not sound like trouble to you?

When magnum is possibly heading out to go to La Mariana, (Edit: DING! DING! DING! This was indeed before the bar scene.. which kinda broke my heart.. but we’ll talk about that in detail later) she tells him that she’s reconsidered her decision that she will be marrying TC instead (which is weird, but for the sake of it, OK). Which also implies that she’s going to have a heart to heart with TC how she had one with Rick before in 2x13. (Edit: Umm.. i would have liked to hear the entire convo here.. but i guess its going to come back a flashback some day?) Magnum than heads to the bar, with Jin where he meets up with his friends and we get this, going by past experiences, this is going to be the last scene where he’s with his friends. Now what leaves me confused is this guy below, the one that magnum rescued and now has a food truck (Rem S1x01, they got him all the way from there now). He’s not listed for 2x18, but the actors caption says 2x18? So is he like the caterer for the wedding? (i thought kamekona was doing that?) or he’s there for entirely other reason?

Now this all leads up to S02x19 :  May The Best One Win Again the title is the synopsis here,

Magnum and Higgins are each hired by a different spouse who are in the middle of a contentious divorce to dig up dirt on the other, and Thomas and Higgins soon find themselves competing over resources. 

But i don’t think them competing again each other is the only thing here, remember this gem from TV guide magazine? - Jay mentions there being an odd jealousy there, and there is something percolating between the duo which magnum doesn’t want to address just yet. I think the competition is not just between Magnum and Higgy, for magnum it is also between him and TC. May be he’ll be still trying to show her that he is the one she should be marrying, even if that’s fake.  - And for the implied element we also have this garage fight, where they’re up against “just one guy, but a very big guy”. This again i don’t think takes forever to solve since, there’s an upcoming wedding everyone has to attend, we’ve all seen the famous pics, but this:

Him again!! And looks like he is in fact catering the event. Now since S02x19 and S02x20 are to be merged into one mega episode, lets slip into: S02x20 :  A Leopard on the Prowl 

Magnum and Higgins help Rick when his father figure, Icepick , just out of prison and battling terminal cancer, gets double crossed on one last score. Also, Magnum makes one last bold move to help Higgins stay in the country.

This is the rick centric episode the viewers were promised, Adding pics of Zac coz he looks great here:

But do you see anything missing here? My sleep deprived brain does. Icepick seems to be have fallen pray to something on the run, nothing pre-planned, the guy has terminal cancer, he’s dying any day now, why would someone spend any time to plan something against him? (He’s probably going to die in this epi..he only had few months.. the article says “reluctantly try to help him” seriously guys why do you have to be reluctant? And below pic is probably of the same related fight scene Jay talked about in the TV guide snippet:

And if the video Jay uploaded is even close to the actual scene, it could be because the guy hit Rick/Higgy and Magnum picked up another fight with him.. or that’s just for insta.. I’ll leave it open. There’s a fight scene with TC as well i suppose. Now what does the title have to do with the episode? Here’s my theory: - Remember Dr. Kim i already mentioned twice above. He’s gotta be here for more than just “catering the wedding”, magnum said he was a code breaker, he was mentioned in one of Robin’s books, he instantly identified the co-ordinates which Nuzzo left for Magnum, (which is duh!  u’re telling me that magnum was a navy SEAL and can read waves but cant piece together actual co-ordinates?!!). Magnum was kidnapped by Ivan’s people coz he needed something from him which was in the books, later Ivan had magnum delivered to himself on a secret mission of retrieving Hayek, who was a weapons dealer but he got away with drones instead.. I think this is all related somehow, there has to be something in this episode that points to this.. I thought may be its in Robin’s books.. but they have never mentioned the same book twice.. I’m still looking for answers though.. But going ahead, see this ,

“ Magnum makes one last bold move to help Higgins stay in the country.” “You see Higgins in a unexpected position, which magnum is very uncomfortable with and where he is not sure about his place”

Soo.. the wedding didn’t happen? So that’s not helping her stay in the country? 

It didn’t bother me much before.. but think about this, what if since the wedding plan backfired, she has to go back to London until her visa is renewed/reapplied for : an unexpected position since she has found something in Hawaii she doesn’t want to loose. Which leaves magnum as the in-charge of Robin’s nest and Zeus and Apollo and part of the deal [I can almost see my HC at the horizon]. An uncomfortable position where he has to manage the estate and the hounds of hell without his “professional better half”. I think there is a beach good-bye scene on this day, may be an actual hug between miggy? Supporting evidence as follows:

Now the last attempt Magnum makes, does he offer her a job? Does he confess? But that wouldn’t automatically land her in an unexpected situation , that would be magnum putting her in that situation while being full aware of his position. I bet lenkov has got pretty good plan for this to play out. Now this doesn’t back up my crack where Higgins leaves, because

This story was posted along with the one where magnum is boating.. so they’re probably from the same episode.. where the last ditch effort has paid off but Magnum and Higgins roles have now been shifted a little and lenkov’s quote makes sense “Nothing really changes”.. has anyone ne noticed that there are no Juliet pics from 2x20 yet? 

I cant wait to see that though.. and for a 100% i know there is a season 3, its a gut feeling i have. Thank you for stopping by.. sorry it was too long  😘

[1soos]

Wasting Time: Part Deux

type: slice of life, best friends to lovers, eventual smut

pairing: namjoon x reader

warnings/things to look for: there’s a moment where something homophobic could happen, but doesn’t. drug and alcohol use, cursing, eventual sex, movie and music references,   other than that this is some real soft 

length: 5.3k

summary: Namjoon is your best friend and that comes with a lot of perks and privileges.

a/n: it’s been the hottest minute, but here’s part 2. I do not have it in me to angst this up. Read part one here if you wanna.

Namjoon was gone when you woke up; the spare blanket he’d used in the night folded thoughtfully over the back of the couch. He’d cleared away the chicken containers and the beer bottles and moved the weed to the middle of the coffee table. His delicate care and thoughtfulness sits heavy in your chest, making you feel weird and wishing like hell that it didn’t.

You scoop your piece off the table and take a hit while you make your coffee. You don’t work at the boutique until noon and you aren’t scheduled for the park today, so you decide on a chill morning scrolling through memes on insta. You get stuck on a Raimi Spiderman thread, scrolling endlessly through screenshots of The Goth Dance Moment (^TM) when Lisa throws open the apartment door, the long strap of her purse getting caught on the handle. “I have been fucking for the past 7 hours. I need coffee.”

“Nice,” you say, genuinely impressed and point to the percolator.

Lisa throws her miniscule ‘going out’ purse (really the length of the handle is not proportionate to the actual size of the bag and the ridiculousness of it amuses you) to the floor and whispers, “bless,” as she downs half a cup in one go. She tops herself off and lowers herself gently into the chair across from you.

You sit in silence, every once in a while, turning your phone in her direction when you come across particularly relevant Baby Yoda memes. The moment is broken when Lisa groans dramatically and asks you if she’s on the schedule at the boutique like she’s suddenly remembering that she works there.

You tell her to pull up the spreadsheet that your boss sends to you a week in advance (truly the most organized woman you know) and Lisa tells you, “no.”

Instead of having it turn into A Thing, you open the schedule on your phone. You scan quickly for Lisa’s name color coded in bright blue. “You go in at 5,” you tell her. Kind of disappointed, but not surprised that Sunmi scheduled you in different time slots. Something about not having two crackhead, meme lords in one shift.

“Ugh, fuck. Okay, so I’m going to be dead until at least 4:45. Do not attempt to revive me or I will kill you.”

“That’s a lot of negative death imagery you’re using there.”

“I said what I said."

And like that, she disappears into her room and you’re left overthinking every tiny noise you make until you leave the apartment.

 …

 One of the things you love about working at the boutique is trying on the clothes. You do a dramatic turn in front of the tri-fold mirror and strike a pose while the extremely see-through, sparkly, tulle skirt shifts around you.

Your co-worker, Bambam, stands behind you, switching between gassing you up and, “wow that skirt does nothing for you. Take it off; I’m gonna try it on.”

“Rude.” You work the elastic of the waistband down over your hips, careful to avoid taking your leggings off with it, and throw the skirt at his head. The fabric muffling the curses he shoots your way. The bell above the shop door chimes, announcing the presence of a potential customer so you leave Bambam to figure his own way out of the mess of tulle.

You put on your best ‘I work in retail and get paid on commission’ smile. “Good afternoon! Welcome to Siren’s! Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you find.” The woman smiles good naturedly back at you and says she’s just looking. She already has some shopping bags loaded up her arms, so you’re feeling pretty good about a sale and place yourself equidistant between her and the cash register while eyeing Bambam over in the corner still struggling with the skirt.

The bell goes off again, to your surprise as there is hardly ever more than one person in at a time.

“Joon?” His presence shocks you and for a moment, you forget about last night. The smile that jumps out is too real; genuine joy filling you up and spilling out. He looks slightly stunned himself.

“What are you up to?” he asks, and you look around at the over-priced clothes all around you and then back to him a little confused.

“Working?”

He blushes and your chest hurts. “Ah, I mean, do you have plans for lunch? Um, I think we need to talk.”

Your stomach feels like its going to fall out of your ass and your thoughts spin around and take off like Road Runner.

Beep beep, bitch.

He wants to tell you how weird last night was. There is this horrible feeling that persists; that he knows how you feel and now he’s uncomfortable. He’s probably going to tell you that he doesn’t see you That Way and that you should just continue being friends. Which is fine; you can take that and so could your friendship. Besides, you haven’t really had the time to examine your feelings for him past the fact that he’s your best friend whom you also might want to kiss right now (and constantly) because he’s being awkward and it’s unfortunately adorable. And that you’re scared, kind of. Whatever is going on between you feels major; like, life altering. You feel a duty to yourself and Namjoon to handle the situation with care, so yeah, you think that talking would probably be good.

You smile again at him, more weighted this time and softly say, “okay.”

Caught in your own feelings, you don’t notice Bambam gliding over to you both.

“Knew it would look better on me.” The fabric flutters beautifully around him though he stopped walking several moments before and you have to admit that it does give him the ethereal look that you were hoping to achieve. You nod, conceding the point.

You subtly try to will him away, but his eyes focus on Namjoon. You can see the moment that Bam recognizes him. Bam doesn’t really run in the same group as Namjoon, but there are a few mutual friends and enough shared drunken moments for him to say hi.

“Woah, Namjoon! What’s up, man? I haven’t seen you since Jackson’s.” Bam wiggles his eyes, dramatically suggestive, making you wonder exactly what happened at Jackson’s.

Namjoon’s eyes go wide and he responds quickly. “Nothing much. Just working. You?”

Bam shrugs and gestures around the boutique. Your eyes follow his hands and you notice that the customer is looking at the skirt that Bambam has on and you really do hope it’s because she wants to buy it. “Did I overhear that you’re going to take this one,”—he points at you and you give an annoyed ‘hey’— “to lunch?”

“Trying to anyway.”

“I forgot about Bam,”—“rude!”—"I don’t want to leave him to work alone.” Bambam once again looks around the almost empty store and then back with an incredulous look at you and a pitying one at Namjoon.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the woman says, but doesn’t actually look very sorry at all. The way she’s eyeing Bambam looks like she’s about to say some shit about the skirt. Your eyes find Bam’s, but he looks ready to do battle. Your adrenaline kicks up a notch and you prepare to throw this expensive looking woman out on her ass if she tries to pull any bullshit. “I noticed you wearing this skirt.” You stop breathing and Bambam goes very still. You fist your hand into the back of his shirt to let him know you’re there, barely registering that Namjoon has placed his hand in the middle of your back in much the same manner. “And I just wanted to say, it looks so good on you! You have a really interesting look. Do you model?”

The collective anxiety that the three of you felt leeches away almost at once. You sag back against Namjoon and he rubs your back. Bambam lights up and tells the woman, “I’ve walked a few runways.” Liar. The most he’d done was a photo shoot for one of those coupon books that goes in the middle of the Sunday paper.

The woman smiles. “Well, if you’d like to walk a few more,” she trails off and hands Bam her card. He raises his eyebrows at the name written there. “Do you have some time right now to talk?”

“Yes!” You interject. “He does. He was just about to go on break.” The woman and Bambam look pleased and as they head out the door, Bam turns, eyes wide and sparkling, and mouths ‘thank you.’

The door chimes shut behind them and you sigh, leaning even further onto Namjoon for a moment, your body giving in to the comfort it wants before your brain reminds you that you shouldn’t be taking advantage. You step away from him and immediately feel colder.

You cough awkwardly and immediately cringe. “Sorry about lunch.”

He smiles down at you and tells you not to worry about it. “I’ve got a plan b. Be right back.”

He drags his hand down your arm as a parting gesture and you try really hard to suppress the shiver that the small act sends through you.

…

While Namjoon is gone, your only customers are two women. One model tall and the other almost a head shorter, holding hands and smiling at each other.

After giving your standard “Welcome to Siren’s” speech, they tell you that their looking for party clothes, you take them to the rack with sparkly dresses and tailored pants and ask them to let you know if they need anything before giving them space.

They go through the rack; the tall woman, seeming to have more fun looking at the clothes than the other who had her clothes picked out in under 5 minutes, balks at the price of a bright sequined number that she had been considering. The other woman places her hand at the small of her back. You can only just hear her ask in a low voice, “do you like it?”

The woman takes a long look at the dress, running her fingers across the sequins. After a moment of consideration, she nods, and the shorter woman takes the dress from her and puts it over her arm where the clothes she’s chosen for herself lay.

They come up to you at the counter and the short woman smiles at you, “just these, thank you.”

You ring up the clothes and give the total. The tall woman looks embarrassed while the other pays with a matte black credit card.

You hand over the bag and tell them to have a good rest of their day and to come back anytime; giving them a genuine smile that most patrons do not get from you.

As they exit, the taller woman says, “I’ll pay you back.”

The other shrugs and says, “okay,” and taps her finger to her pouted lips.

“That’s not what I meant,” she grouses, but the woman pouts harder and taps her lips again. There is an audible sigh and the tall woman leans down and presses a short, sweet kiss into the other’s lips.

They leave and the bell above the door doesn’t ring again until it’s Namjoon that’s coming through it. His dimples pop out as he drops the bag of food onto the counter. The smell hits you and you already know that he’s gone to the Indian restaurant down the street.

“Please tell me that there’s aloo gobi in here,” you say, even as you’re digging through the knotted bag and the excess of napkins that cover the takeout boxes. “Yes!” you exclaim when you open the top container and find the curry dish inside. There’s a brief moment where you wonder if it’s too hot outside to eat something so heavy, but you forget to care, placing your face directly into the Styrofoam container. “You really know me,” you intone dramatically through a comforting mouth full of potatoes and cauliflower.

He huffs, “yeah, I do,” through his own mouthful of what looks like vindaloo.

“What do I owe you?” and even as you ask, your mind supplies a pouty Namjoon asking cutely for a kiss and you flush, eyes almost watering with how much your body craves that contact.

He waves his hand that holds the fork around, brushing away your question, “I was the one who asked. You don’t owe me anything.”

Your brain must short circuit because the words that come out of your mouth cannot be stopped, “But what if I want to owe you something?”

“Are you really about to fight me over, like, eight dollars?”

You stare intently at your food, separating the cauliflower from the potatoes rather than answer.

“Hey,” he says, trying to get your attention. You look up and his eyebrows are scrunched, and lips pursed, an overall confused Namjoon. So fucking cute, lord help you. He looks like his brain is working overtime, but he keeps his mouth shut until he’s chosen what he wants to say. Completely the opposite of you and a quality of his that you usually admire, you really should take a page or two out of his book, but right now you’re on tender hooks waiting for what comes next.

He un-scrunches and looks at you, “What exactly do you want to owe me?”

“I don’t know,” you skirt.

“Hmm.” He stares at you like he’s trying to decipher your soul. It’s…intense.

He looks so serious; it’s intimidating and so much of you doesn’t want to give away your feelings even though you’ve already hyped yourself up to do just that. And no matter how much you want to shut down and deflect, you owe it to yourself and to him to be honest.

You set down your fork and swallow your food. “Okay, so please keep in mind that you’re my best friend in the entire world and you matter more to me than my own feelings.” He straightens up and opens his mouth to say something, but you put up your hand to stop him. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do this if I don’t get it all out in one go.” He nods tightly. “I guess I’ll start with the obvious,” you take a deep breath and looks down at your hands knotting and twisting together in a physical manifestation of your anxiety, “I like you. Not in a platonic way. I like you like I’ve had to stop myself from wanting to kiss you at least 3 times in the last hour. I like you like I want to hold your hand and tell you you’re cute when you’re being cute; like I want you to sleep in bed next to me and not on the couch when you stay over. I like you so much that I’ve been trying really hard not to notice it, but I think that last night changed something between us and I think that you noticed too and that’s why you wanted to have lunch with me today.

If that’s not the reason and you wanted to talk to me about something else and you don’t like me the way I like you, I will be really fucking embarrassed, but that’s okay. I can deal with my own feelings, okay?” You stop because you don’t think you can say anymore without accidentally making yourself cry.

“My turn?” he asks after a few moments of silence. You nod and brace yourself. “You said that you wanted to kiss me?” You nod again, daring to look up at him, wanting to see his face even if it might break you. He considers your confirmation. “Something did change last night. I think, that for me, it was the hope that you saw me as something more than a buddy to kick around with because I more than like you.” And then, it’s the way that he breathes out your name that makes a tear slip out and down your cheek. He says it with so much care that you can feel it.

Food forgotten, you move around the counter and into his space, wrapping your arms around his middle and squeezing tightly. “I more than like you,” you say with your face smushed into the warmth of his chest.

His hands come up to frame your face and guides you to look up at him. “When did you want to kiss me?” he asks, and you let out a wet laugh.

“Right now.” You tap your lips and pout and he laughs too, but he leans down and presses his lips to yours. Your eyes close after a moment; he’s too close for you to see properly anyway. It a sweet first kiss, mouths opening just a little, testing boundaries that have been in place for so long that it feels strange to be kissing him.

You’re kissing Namjoon.

You confessed and he likes you back and now you’re kissing and it’s weird, but nice and you feel like you’re going to explode you’re so happy.

You go up on your tiptoes to press more firmly into him and he presses his hands into the small of your back, helping you arch yourself closer. You can feel the difference between your bodies, the plush give of yours to the hard planes of his and all you can think is, “Does this mean I can see your tattoos?” you say against his mouth, words coming out slurred as your lips catch against his, and tug on his shirt so he gets your meaning.

“Baby,” he warns with a smile, and you close your eyes at the pet name, but it makes you remember that, while the store may be empty currently, you are still in public and actually on the clock. “You can look at whatever you like for as long as you like.”

You hide your face in his neck and wonder if he can feel your smile against his skin. You drop a kiss there, at his collar bone because now you can. “I’m really happy. You make me happy.”

He taps your shoulder to get you to look at him. He kisses you softly, barely anything at all and it makes you unsteady. “Always.” The implication of forever makes you want to fall apart in his arms; you want him to make you feel the weight of his forever which is kind of embarrassing. You note that Namjoon Kim makes you disgustingly sentimental.

“Shut up,” you mumble, face red.

“Cute.”

You smack his side until his grip loosens and you’re really looking at each other. “You need to go before I get in trouble.”

He pouts and it’s just so fucking adorable. It’s emotional terrorism is what it is. “Is this how it’s going to be?”

You take your pointer finger and push his lower lip in toward his teeth. “Yeah, I wasn’t allowed to kiss you before, so.”

He smiles and your finger hits his teeth before he grabs that hand and manipulates it into holding his. “You were always allowed; you just didn’t know it.”

You let out an undignified screech and he laughs. “You gotta go, for real.”

He concedes, but not without stealing another kiss. “I’ll see you tonight? I don’t want to wait until tomorrow. I think we still need to talk about some things.”

“Your place?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he agrees as he backs his way through the doors, eyes on you, smiling like an idiot, but you know you are too, the bell chiming as he exits.

…

Bam makes it back before the end of your shift, coming in with a big shit-eating grin on his face. He’s landed an actual modeling gig for an actual brand that you’ve actually heard of and you couldn’t be happier for him.

You part ways at the end of your shift, trading the guard with Lisa and Chung-ha. Lisa slips you some fresh Star Wars prequel memes and you drop that there’s some Indian food up for grabs in the communal fridge.

You don’t say anything about Namjoon. The knowledge your talk brought this afternoon sits so warm and comfortable in your chest you feel like you’re glowing, and you need to keep that cheesy ass sentimental shit to yourself. You can’t stop yourself from wondering about the reactions from your friend group, though. You would think that they’d mostly be positive considering how many times you’d been asked if the two of you were secretly dating.

Damn. Hindsight really is 20/20.

Heading over to his place is different than usual; your stomach full of nervous butterflies. Which is gross and wonderful at the same time. The fact that you could get used to kissing him and being with him the way you want to is so absurd and fantastic that just the thought of being next to him carries you all the way to his apartment.

Even knocking on his door borders bizarre. He opens the door and seeing his face opens you up.

The amount of smiling both of you have done today is obscene—it really is destroying your Bad Bitch persona— but you can’t stop your mouth from turning up, cheeks pushing your eyes almost closed. The good news is Namjoon looks just about the same as he ushers you into the same apartment you’ve visited a million times before.

Once you stop smiling, the anxiety that follows you into new situations starts to pool out from your stomach. You clench your hands together and squeeze, knowing what you want to do with them, but not sure if you should.

“Hi,” he says, stirring the quiet. He reaches his hand out to you, fingers spread in invitation. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding and link your fingers with his. It feels weird, but good to squeeze his hand instead of your own.

He leads you over to the couch. He sits first and then you, making sure that there’s a respectable amount of space between you.

Both of you are facing forward, only chancing glances at each other every so often. The awkward silence between you stretches until you can’t take it anymore; feeling like it’s your fault, or rather your duty, to fill the silence.

“So,” you say and trail off. A strong start. “You said we should talk, and I think that’s a good idea.”

He nods but doesn’t add anything.

“It’s kind of strange, right? We’re transitioning from one thing that we’ve been for a really long time, into another, so it’s weird?” He uses his other hand to play with your intwined fingers while you speak, and it distracts you from your nerves. “It feels like it’s happening really fast and like I got so comfortable with the idea of us being more than best friends so quickly and that’s the weird part?” You kind of hate that everything is coming out like a question. You want to say things with certainty, but, fuck, if it wasn’t difficult.

“I think it would help me to know what you’re thinking about all of this,” you finish.

Your hands jostle between you as he shifts his body to look at you. His eyes like magnets, pulling you to mirror his posture; leg tucked under you and fully facing each other.

“It’s weird, but I like it.” It’s your turn to nod, communicating that you feel the same and want him to continue. “I think it’s something that I’ve spent more time thinking about than you. I was fine with how things were, but I’d hoped that we could be more for a while.”

You held his gaze for as long as you could before staring down at both of your hands. Yours almost completely dwarfed by his; long, inked, and beautiful. You think about yesterday, when you were high and tracing his tattoos and how you had no idea that less than 24 hours later you would be holding his hand without needing an excuse.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He asks as you bring his hand up to your lips.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t- “you stop because you were going to say that you didn’t know he felt this way, but you’re not sure if that’s true and that just makes you feel worse. You start again. “I’m sorry that I didn’t do anything about it. I’m not sure that I didn’t know that you had feelings, you know? And I’m even more sorry that I ignored the way I feel about you for so long. And I’m scared, but I can’t ignore this,” you shake your tangled hands between you. “I’m sorry you had to wait for me.”

He kisses the corner of your mouth quickly, smiling as he draws back. “I have to apologize for doing the same thing then. I didn’t know your feelings for sure and we’ve always been really close, so it was hard. I had to convince myself that every touch and smile and moment that we got too close was just how we were as friends. But I’m not sure that I didn’t know that you had feelings, either. I think we’re both afraid of the same thing. That things will change; that we’ll be different with each other and we won’t work.

I can’t say that won’t happen because nothing is certain, but I know you and I know us. I think we’ll be okay.”

“God, I really like you.”

Namjoon laughs happily and somehow over the next few moments manhandles you onto his lap. Your arms come naturally around his shoulders just as his go around your waist.

The kiss that comes next feels more reckless than the mini make-out session in Siren’s. You know from the moment he teases your mouth open and slides his tongue in to taste you that you’re his. Every swipe of his tongue feels like a brand making you melt into him.

You break the searing kiss to scoot forward in his lap, pressing yourself against him hip to chest. You wiggle and wish that you could help the gasp that escapes you when you feel him. He’s not even fully hard and you already know that he’s going to be a lot for you to handle. The thought of him inside you, stretching you to your limit, filling you up like you deserve, makes you shy.

You tuck your face into the curve of his neck to hide your rising blush and the want in your eyes.

“Talk to me, baby. What’s going through that head of yours?” He asks, mouth pressed to the top of your head.

You groan and move your hips to try and make it clear what’s going through your head, so you don’t have to say it out loud. The feeling of your underwear moving uncomfortably against your slick folds sending another round of blood to your already heated cheeks. You’re so worked up already and it’s embarrassing. Which seems to be the fucking theme of your life right now. But his hands on your hips tighten, stopping all movement.

You whine and try to move, but his grip is strong. Flitting thoughts of him holding you down with the same strength in his tattooed arms are enough to make you try again for any friction.

And again, he stops you.

“Hey,” he whispers. “I need you to talk to me.”

You lean back and see the tension on his face, the softness that’s usually there, sharpened and dark. A look that you’re not familiar with. You’re struck by how fast this is going. How quickly you went from oblivious to this moment, dry humping your best friend (your boyfriend?).

You feel needy, the unbridled want coursing through you and the ocean in your panties is evidence enough of that but is it too soon to make this jump from platonic to…decidedly not platonic?

Namjoon waits in silence for you to speak. Always handling you with care.

You frame his face with your hands, rubbing the apples of his cheeks with your thumbs. “I’m scared that if we talk about what we’re about to do, we’ll realize that we’re going too fast.”

“Are we?” he asks with real concern, pushing you further down his hips, away from his heat.

“I don’t know,” you say, pouting. For fuck’s sake. You don’t want to have to dissect every move you two make. It doesn’t feel wrong, just weird. “I know that I want you, but if it’s too soon, I can wait until it’s not so odd.” And as much as you don’t want to, you know that you will because, “You’re worth waiting for, Joonie.”

He hugs you and it’s nice. It feels comfortable; not sexually charged, but beautiful. You can feel yourself calming down, the moment of intense need fading into something softer.

“I do want you. I’ve wanted you for a long time. I just- I feel like this is a big step and maybe we should think about it.”

You sigh and kiss him quickly twice before hoping off his lap. “Okay, do you want to watch a movie?”

He smiles and agrees easily.

You shift in your seat and remember the slick between your thighs. “Pick a movie while I change?”

“Sure. Any requests?”

“Not Leon,” he scoffs, and you feel the familiarity of your dynamic. You slip into his room and rifle through his drawers for a pair of sweatpants and band t-shirt before going to his bathroom to clean yourself up.

When you emerge, clean and comfy, the main menu for Howl’s Moving Castle is pulled up on the TV. Namjoon is lying across the couch on his side with enough space for you to be little spoon. You feel giddy at his choice of movie, your favorite, and his choice of position. Even though sex is not on the table tonight, you feel the thoughtful intimacy in his deliberateness.

“Hey baby,” he says when he notices you watching him. You marvel at how quickly he fell into calling you the pet name and how quickly you’ve taken to hearing it. Maybe you should pick one for him, too.

You press play and the subtitle button until you see brackets down at the bottom explaining that title music is playing. It’s how Joon likes to watch movies and you’ve watched enough movies with him at this point to prefer it as well.

He pats the empty space in front of him and you go, pushing yourself against him in a different way that still had your heart soaring. You put your head on his bicep and he cages you in, wrapping one arm around your shoulders and the other around your middle so there’s no danger of you falling off. You shove your legs back to tangle with his and settle in.

Neither one of you says anything until Namjoon says, “that’s my girl,” in synch with Howl and you shiver. You had never been quiet about your crush on Howl or about how hot you found those words.

You turn your head slightly and glare at him. “Are you trying to seduce me with the greatest movie of all time?”

He honest to god smirks and says, “I’ve always wanted to say it to you. And now you are my girl, so I’m not not going to say it.”

“Oh.” He watches you fidget and turn pink.

“Cute,” he says, kisses your burning cheek.

masterlist

a/n: Kim Namjoon cured my two year long writer’s block.

[thisisthepartwhereyou]

BEASTARS MINI-STORY #3: “The Pitfalls of Thin Walls pt. 3” by JCL

We're back in Sebun's apartment. Raika looks surprised and bewildered. RAIKA: "Wow, I didn't see that coming!" Ebisu on the other hand looks a little shocked. EBISU: "How can they talk about having kids? They're basically kids themselves!" ZAGUAN: "You think Haru is pregnant with his baby?" Eugen shakes his head at this notion. EUGEN: "The way young people carry on these days, I wouldn't be surprised." Bogue on the other hand nods and looks intrigued as he continues to take notes. BOGUE: "I can see it right now: The hidden condo full of playful little wolf-rabbits. Little... I dunno, what would be the therm, 'wunnies?'" -- Haru begins to cheerfully rant while Legosi looks weirded out. HARU: "There's so many pretty flower names for girls you know. *HIC!*" LEGOSI: (She's not poisoned.. She's DEAD-DRUNK!) HARU: "Rose, Hyacinth, Violet, Daisy, Jasmine, Lily... The list goes on!" Legosi tries to inernally calculate how this could've happened. LEGOSI: (But HOW?! I mean I had some sake in the soba, the way grandad always makes it, but...) Haru begins to pout and begins to scratch her chin in a pondering manner. HARU: "Not a lot of names for boys though, that might be a problem... Hazel? Nah, that's such a typical rabbit name..." LEGOSI: (Wait a minute...!) He grabs Haru by the shoulders in order to gain her full attention. LEGOSI: "Haru, focus. If I poured 1,5 dl of sake into the kind of small cups you have at your family's house, how many cups would I fill?" Haru looks confused; warped scribbles of matemathical equations and numbers holding martiniglasses dance around her head. HARU: "... How many?" She then laughs and gives Legosi a playful slap on the arm. HARU: "SILLY! I can't drink that much! I get tipsy from just one cup, six would just slay me!" Legosi looks horrified. -- Fina facepalms. FINA: "Ooooooh now I see what is going on. You can have liquor in yakisoba right?" The rest of the guys look confused. MUGI: "Yeah?" FINA: "I think that Legosi has made a classic mistake that can sometimes happen when you cook a meal for a smaller animal: He didn't take their different size proportions into consideration." The other guys still look confused. EBISU: "I don't get it." FINA: "It's simple: Lets say he made a meal with proportions adapted for a larger animal like himself, with alcohol." Explanatory illustrations pop up behind Fina as she details what she means. We see a chibi-version of Legosi standing next to a stove, pouring the contents of a flask of sake into a wok containing yakisoba. FINA: "Within those proportions, that amount would have virtually no effect on him." Chibi-Legosi proceeds to eat from a bowl of the same yakisoba. He seems completely unaffected. FINA: "But give it to an animal who has a smaller body to process it, that amount might just be much more potent, and make-" We then go over to a Chibi-Haru who eats from the same kind of bowl. She seems unaffected at first. BOGUE: "That poor little bunny more drunk than a skunk on junk outta some trunk!" Chibi-Haru turns red, puts the bowl on her head and starts to dance drunkedly back and forth. We cut back from this illustration and return to the gang in Sebun's apartment. Zaguan shakes his head sympathetically. ZAGUAN: "Poor Haru, poor Legosi. What bad luck!" -- We're back in Legosi's apartment. Legosi looks incredibly guilty, while Haru looks a little stunned. LEGOSI: "I am so sorry Haru! I didn't mean for this to happen!" HARU: "Oh... So that's why I feel strange..." Then she points and laughs at Legosi. HARU: "Haha, you idiot!" Legosi doesn't seem offended though; just sort of relieved that Haru seems to take this in stride for now. LEGOSI: "Don't worry about it, I'll fix this somehow...!" He gets up in a panic, unsure of what to do. He freezes though as he suddenly hears a voice coming through the wall. EBISU: "Make her some coffee!" -- The gang in Sebun's apartment stares daggers at Ebisu, who is holding down his beak, having realized that he thought WAY too loud just now. Fina hisses at him under her breath. FINA: "Idiot...!" Ebisu looks panicked, but then he suddenly spots a coffee jar on a nearby table with the brand Walker's Instant Coffe printed on the side and gets an idea. EBISU: "W-Walker's Instant Coffee, the brew for every couple!" He then proceeds to sing like it's all part of a commercial jingle, set to the tune of "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round". EBISU: "Dun-dun-dun, just make her some! Dun-dun-dun, just make her some... He gives the others an imploring look. They get what he's trying to do and joins up in his singing. EVERYONE: "Dun-dun-dun, JUST MAKE HER SOME!" -- Legosi hits his fist in his open hand, completely buying into that it was just a commercial playing next door. LEGOSI: "Coffee, that's a good idea!" He turns around and goes over to the sink, where he grabs a percolator. He opens it and proceeds to fill it with water from the tap. LEGOSI: (And I who thought this kind of stuff only happened in mangas or bad fanfics...!) He suddenly gets a shocked expression though. He turns his head back and looks down to see that Haru has walked over and grabbed his tail. She is proceeding to snuggle with it like it was a stuffed animal. HARU: "I've wanted to touch your tail for the longest time! Heeee it's so warm and fluffy! It's like a steering wheel cover in the winter!" Legosi gives Haru an imploring look. LEGOSI: "Haru... Could you please not touch my tail?" Haru looks up at Legosi in drunken confusion. HARU: "Why? Is there poop on it?" LEGOSI: "NO... Because it is making me a little uncomfortable." HARU: "Oh... Okay." Haru lets go of his tail, looking a bit dissapointed, while Legosi breathes out in relief. LEGOSI: "Phew... HUA!" Legosi looks shocked yet again. It turns out that Haru's attention has moved away from his tail and onto the second best THING. Though we don't see exactly what she grabs, as she is off screen. HARU: "I've wanted have my hands on THIS for the longest time too...!" Legosi looks like he wants to die. LEGOSI: (I AM IN A HELL OF MY OWN MAKING) -- Fina has a little blush on her face. FINA: "I suspect her hands found something else to fondle..!" Zaguan looks a little uncomfortable. ZAGUAN: "Maybe this is getting a little too private?" Bogue on the other hand seem to writing things down in a notebook. BOGUE: "Maybe, but you can't deny it's total gold!" -- Legosi is now carrying Haru in his arms towards his mattress, while she sings a tonedead rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You". HARU: "And aaaaah-ah-ha-ha *HIC!* Will alwaaaaays love uuuuuu-" Legosi looks anything but enthused by Haru's musical aspirations. LEGOSI: "Haru please... My neighbors will hear you...!" At this, a text bubble with a large sweatdrop spawns from the wall behind them, illustrating the neighbor's sense of irony. Legosi proceeds to put Haru down as carefully as possible. He leans down and gives her an assuring smile. LEGOSI: "Just lie down here for a while. You'll be back to normal in no time." He's about to rise up, but Haru grabs him by his t-shirt. HARU: "Hey... " LEGOSI: "Hm?" She has a come-hither sort look in her eyes. HARU: "... You're not gonna leave just yet, are you?" LEGOSI: "I, um, well...!" HARU: "There's a pretty girl lying underneath you, intoxicated and vulnerable... It hasn't crossed your mind, has it? *HIC!*" LEGOSI: "Wha-wha-what are we talking about?" Haru raises her other hand and proceeds to caress Legosi's cheek. HARU: "To take advantage of the situation. Full and complete, ADVANTAGE." Haru speaks the last of this line with such a low voice, that it is obvious to everyone except the completely stone-deaf that it is an invite. -- Most of the gang in Sebun's apartment has gone red in the face, the exception being Raika and Zaguan, who looks relatively calm. Fina begins to speak in a nervous and high-pitched voice. FINA: "Oo-ho-ho-ho-kay, maybe we should stop listening now!" Raika waves this away though. RAIKA: "It'll be fine, we all know Legosi. He's too much of a gentleman." Zaguan nods at this. ZAGUAN: "Agreed. He would never do something so clearly amoral." -- Legosi grabs Haru's hand and gently (but firmly) removes it from his cheek. LEGOSI: "You´re drunk Haru, of course I wouldn't!" -- Raika smiles and points at the wall. RAIKA: "See? He's a regular Gregory Peck!" The others look a bit relieved. -- Haru suddenly sits up and looks Legosi straight in the eye, a sudden sharpness appearing in her gaze. HARU: "What if I said I'm not as drunk as you think, and I'd like you to?" RAIKA: "OH HOT DIGGEDY DAMN!" Both Legosi and Haru turn their heads to look at the wall. The sudden outcry is then followed by a loud acapella-styled jingle. EVERYONE: "DUN-DUN-DUN! JUST MAKE HER SOME!" HARU: "What the hell?" Legosi's large, muscular arm moves past Haru's face. She looks up, and Legosi appears to be leaning in to kiss her. Haru swallows, thinking that Legosi is about to accept her invitation. But then we see that Legosi was merely reaching for the pillow next to his mattress, which he places behind Haru. He sits back and gives her mature look. LEGOSI: "I'd say you're still drunk, and it would still be wrong." He then grabs her with both hands and pulls her back, putting her head down against the pillow with a gentle, yet strict, care.   LEGOSI: "Now lie back, while I make you some coffee." He stands up and walks back to the sink. Haru looks a bit annoyed, kind of like a kid that has been sent to bed early because she wouldn't eat hear vegetables. HARU: "... Fine." -- The gang in Sebun's apartment looks relieved beyond belief, almost collapsing from the whole ordeal. RAIKA: "The force is strong in that one..." -- TEXT: LATER, AND ABOUT 5 MINUTES BEFORE SEBUN COMES HOME. Haru and Legosi are now sitting next to each other on the mattress, both holding a cup of coffee in their hands. Haru is much more sober now and looks ashamed. HARU: "I am sorry." LEGOSI: "Don't be. It was my fault to begin with." HARU: "But I acted like a complete idiot... I fondled your naughty bits and asked you to take advantage of me...! God I must be so screwed up!" LEGOSI: "I... Think everyone does something they normally wouldn't do when they've had too much to drink. Or in your case, eat food filled with booze." Haru gives Legosi a sad look. HARU: "But I made you uncomfortable. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. Not when you're so nice to me... It's frustrating you know, cause it seems like I can't do anything for you. I just want to do something for you in return and I don't know what..." Legosi blinks. He puts a hand on Haru's shoulder. LEGOSI: "Haru... You know why we can't go too fast. Our instincts tell us one thing, and that is either to eat or get eaten, and we don't want either to happen." HARU: "I know... But our heads and hearts, they want us to do nice things to each other, because that's what people do when they care about each other. I mean, you work so hard to make this work, and now you're making me dinner too? It just doesn't feel fair somehow... It's kind of like Christmas when you exchange gifts; you feel guilty when you don't have anything to give back." Legosi stares at Haru. She sighs, gets up and proceeds to pace back and forth. HARU: "I know it's stupid, but I just feel bad about not having given or sacrificed enough compared to you. I mean you dropped out of school, you're covered in scars, you work your butt off in a restuarant and get involved in all kinds of shady stuff, all for me. Meanwhile, I just keep going to school, I have a good relationship with my family, I don't have any problem with money and I'm not even bullied anymore! I mean be honest with me, doesn't any of that bother you?!" As she turns to Legosi with a frustrated expression, she suddenly trips over the carpet and almost falls over. Legosi reacts with lighting-fast reflexes and catches her. She looks up at him, and he gives her a serious look.   LEGOSI: "It doesn't bother me a bit. What kind of person would I be if I wished my girlfriend's life sucked? You make me feel good, just being you. Coming to visit me, letting me come to visit you and your family, talking to me, looking at me with no fear... You don't have to feel oblidged to sleep with me because I cooked you a meal. This isn't a third world country you know." Haru blinks, then gets a shy expression on her face. She looks away with a wobbly smile and begins to run her finger across Legosi's forearm. HARU: "Hey... Since when did you start to act so adult?" Legosi smiles in response. LEGOSI: "I'd say you're rubbing off on me, and I like it." -- We're back in Sebun's apartment, where the whole gang seems to be nearly moved to tears. Ebisu is rubbing some away as he speaks. EBISU: "That guy is my fricking hero...!" Bogue on the other hand is biting into his notebook with tears running down his cheeks. BOGUE: "I'll have to dedicate my next book to them. They are so inspirational!" Fina smiles with a proud look on her face. FINA: "Gregory Peck can throw something old over himself." All of them look up though as they hear the door opening. TEXT: SEBUN IS HOME -- Haru's ears suddenly flickers. She appears to have noticed something, and she moves her hand up to her nose. She sniffs it and then gives off an amused little giggle. HARU: "Nope, it's still here." LEGOSI: "What is?" HARU: "The smell. I think I was mistaken earlier. It wasn't the apartment. It's probably coming from you." Legosi looks embarassed. LEGOSI: "Oh..." Haru grabs his big hand with her two small ones, takes it to her face and presses her nose against his fingers. HARU: "Don't worry about it." She looks up, and her eyes meets with his. They got more tenderness in them than the entirety of "Love me tender." HARU: "I like your smell..." Legosi blushes heavily and swallows. LEGOSI: "..." (Her touch, her eyes, they're so full of warmth) He grabs both of her hands in his, and begins to lean down closer. Haru looks up. LEGOSI: "Haru..." HARU: "Hm?" She sees in his eyes that there's something Legosi wants; coincidentally, the same thing that she wants. Her eyes begin to glitter with anticipation. HARU: (Really? Now? Is he finally ready, so that we can... we can... finally ki-) She raises her head, he lowers his, they both ready their lips and are about to proceed when: SEBUN: "LIKE HELL YOU CAN!" The sudden, loud voice coming from next door startles them both. Especially Haru, who jumps up and grabs Legosi around the throat. Legosi on the other hand gets so surprised that he trips backwards to the kotetsu, which he violently crashes into.   -- Their screams and the violent crash is heard next door, turning into the exact same scene at the end of part 1. SEBUN: “… Did you say.. That Legosi was making her dinner?” -- We see the disastrous result of the crash in Legosi's apartment. He is sitting in the wok atop the collapsed kotatsu. Both he and Haru, who is lying atop of him, are covered head to toe in yakisoba. Legosi looks tired. LEGOSI: "You know what, maybe we'll just go out and eat next time." Haru looks like she's in a murderous state of mind. HARU: (I am gonna kill that woman next door...!) TO BE CONTINUED...

[atreefullofmonkiesonnitrous]

Remeber When I Moved In You

AO3 link Thanks to @waywren For Beta and Squee The thing about Adam Young, on That day especially,  was that he was an eleven year old human boy, who knew everything.  But, for the most part, he knew everything the way an eleven year old human knows things.  Oh, he was a very bright human, definitely a wise one, but still, an eleven year old human boy.  He rather had to be, for it all to work out as it did.  So while he may have known, in the part of him that knew everything, that Angels weren’t at all like people, he also knew, in the part of him that was doing the driving, that Angels were basically people with wings.  So when his power was building Aziraphale’s new body, his mind had a bit of an influence about what went into a body.  Aziraphale likely would have taken better stock of himself, but there were Horsemen, and this surprisingly nice young anti-christ, and he just had other things on his mind.  When you are pretty sure you are about to die, you generally don’t take much time to consider if you’ve gotten your tie right.  

On the bus ride home Aziraphale’s mind was caught entirely in the last prophecy, and his body, left to its own devices, was enacting a slow motion collapse into the demon next to him.  He only became aware of this when Crowley moved his arm out from under him.  Their entwined hands had been so nice, but he guessed that was a bit much to ask for the whole way home.   “Oh dear, so sorry…” he began.  Crowley continued to brood out the window.

“You should be, my bloody arms gone to sleep.”  He sounded gruff but he wrapped the “sleepy” appendage around the angel and pulled him in against his side.  Aziraphale sighed and leaned in.   The ride to London passed then, in a churning mixture of dread, hope and a glimpse at a new kind of profound comfort.

Crowley opened the door to his flat and immediately sauntered in, leaving Aziraphale to close the door behind himself. It could have felt astonishingly rude, just leaving a guest to themselves without any invitation to come further, but the angel knew it was the opposite.  You don’t show a man around a place he already belongs in, and despite hardly ever having been there before, Aziraphale belonged in the flat, because it was Crowley’s and from this point on, they each belonged wherever the other was.  That there was nothing of him in it didn’t much signify, there was hardly anything of Crowley in it either, but there was Crowley himself, and that was all that mattered.  They were, indeed, their own side.  Heaven and Hell and them.  The Earth, he supposed.  That had been what it had been about, saving the earth, and all the humans, and all the wonderful complexity. And each other, if they were very very lucky.  

Crowley came back from the kitchen with two glasses and a rather small bottle. 

“I’ve got a Malivoire Shiraz I’ve been saving,” he wiggled the bottle “frozen on the vine and everything.”  It was a sweet gesture, though Aziraphale knew better than to say so just at the moment.  Crowley had never shared his sweet tooth, so the bottle could only have been acquired with him in mind.  He smiled softly.  “That sounds lovely.”  Crowley pulled out the slightly less ornate chair from the corner for Aziraphale before draping himself bonelessly across his ridiculous throne.  Which was just fine as that chair was facing away from the rather interesting statue with implications the angel was not quite ready to contemplate.  The bottle continued to pour for an unreasonable amount of time, given its tiny size, but it’s not as if either of them were worried about misused power at this point.  

“I just thought...,”  Aziraphale started, stopped, blinked, and began again, “I just thought, which one is Mr. Young’s real son, do you think?”  Crowley was staring at him, pupils almost round in the dim light.  It seemed to take the question a moment to percolate its way through the layer of wine and into his consciousness.

“Oh,  erm, our Warlock, I suppose.  Had a bit of the look to him.” “Ah, yes.  Then what of the Amearican diplomat’s son?”

Crowley thought about the fire.  He thought about the timing.  He thought about telling Aziraphale about those things.  Then he thought about Sister Mary Loquacious.

“Adopted out, I expect.  Records would have been lost in the fire,” he said, glad to have a plausible answer that he was willing to say aloud, and might even be true, for all he knew. 

“I expect so, yes,” the angel gave a relieved sigh.  “It’s amazing the Youngs never noticed their son had the wrong sort of face,” he mused.  Then he sat bolt upright and looked at Crowley, who was staring back at him with wide eyes.

“Do you think?” “She couldn’t mean!” “That cunning old witch,” Crowley breathed. 

“What good will it do to endure each other’s torments, though?” “Hastur wasn’t going on about torments when I escaped him,” Crowley replied.  “And he really could have done.They are kind of our thing after all, and he’s considered an artist.  Nah, he was much more direct, right on to the killing.  I imagine your lot are feeling about the same.”

“Yes, well, as you say, we don’t much go in for tormenting Upstairs.” Crowley thought about who it was that had tossed them all in their pit, and wanted to disagree, but didn’t see the point in bringing it up now.   “And what’s the only thing that can kill a demon?”  Crowley was beginning to get excited. 

“Holy items…   Oh Yes, I see!”  Aziraphael jumped up. Crowley held up a finger.

“Right.  Theory is all well and good, but in practice.  I mean how?  How do we switch?”

“Possession.” The angel responded instantly.  “Our corporeal vessels are basically bodies we are inhabiting, they aren’t really all that different.  We could make the same modifications to any body if we were sole inhabitant.”

“There’s a catch, though.  We are going to have to be convincing.  They’ve known us for as long as we’ve existed, more or less.  We have to convince them we’re who we appear to be.  Do it so well they don’t try to look past the surface.” “Darling,” Aziraphale, excited, drunk, and feeling very daring, patted the demon’s cheek.  “I hardly think anyone knows either of us half so well as we know each other by now.”

For a task so serious, Crowley laughed more in the next few hours than he had in the previous few centuries.  Almost as soon as they had worked out how to possess each other’s bodies, Aziraphale had fallen flat on his arse when he misjudged the length of his new stride.  Crowley laughed at him right up until he knocked over a vase turning around too close to a table, and forgetting that his own arse was several inches lower, and rather fuller than he was accustomed to.  Aziraphale also kept doing this thing with his, well Crowley’s, face.

“What on earth are you doing?  I absolutely do NOT go around looking like that!” “I’m trying to get your eyes to focus!  Everything is either blurry or glowing.”  

“Yeah, sorry that’s just what the world looks like with snake eyes.  The glowing is either the UV or infrared.”  Cowley held out the dark glasses he’d left on the table earlier.  “You’ll find these a great help, my dear boy.[^1]Specially enchanted.”  Aziraphale almost dropped the glasses trying to grab them, his face suddenly flaming.  Crowley cocked his head.  “Did I not get the voice right?  Lay it on too thick?”

“No, err, nahh,” the angel stammered a bit before falling into the looser cadence of  Crowley’s speech.  “Nahh, you had it. Took me by s’prise is all.  This what I always look like to you?  With the glowing?”

Crowley squirmed a bit, and found Aziraphale’s body much harder to squirm in.  “Well, yes, it has to do with the spectrums you see.  You are very warm, and white is very reflective in ultraviolet.  Put on the glasses, do, they’ll make everything right.”  Crowley found he was almost more uncomfortable having his cursed eyes seen through than seen.  From the outside they looked odd, but several angels had odd eyes, too.  From inside it was much clearer just how much of a mark of the animal they were, and much as he didn’t like Aziraphale thinking of them at all, and especially like that, he needed to be sure the angel understood what he’d be walkinging into.  “Remember that lots of them down there will be like that.  Have weird eyes, or other senses.  Never assume they can’t be watching, even if you can’t see them or feel them.”

“They will only see what we mean them to see,” Aziraphale declared, attempting to sashay around the room in Crowley’s distracting loose limbed fashion.  He felt the limbs of the corporation were, in fact, looser than he was accustomed to, but that still did not account for how very much Crowley tended to sway his ass. 

“Oh come off it, I do not shimmy my butt that much!” the demon protested.   “You most certainly do!” “I never did!” “You wiggle more that shape than as a snake!” Azirapale countered, before thinking that he might not want to admit, at quite this juncture, exactly how much of his attention he’d devoted to watching that particular wiggle. 

“You might see better, if you recall that my body does need to blink from time to time,” he deflected.  Crowley made exaggerated slow cat blinks back at him and folded his hands primly in his lap.  Aziraphale tried to duplicate one of Crowley’s many sneers in response, then tested a few others.  They all felt strange. 

“I have no idea what you are trying to do with my face angel, but I’m sure I don’t ever do that.  I think you are trying to do is this,” Crowley’s sneer looked very little like itself on Aziraphale’s face.

“I’ve been watching your face make that expression for 6,000 years, doing it with mine is hardly going to help.  It’s hard to tell what I’m doing from this side of the face!”

“Very well, my dear,” Crowley miracled up a pair of mirrors for them to test their faces with.  It was a bit hard to keep focus though, when Aziraphale kept making his face do such strange things.  He caught a glimpse of himself in the other mirror then, watching the angel’s japes and was struck by the thought that he, perhaps, had seen that particular look on this face when the proper occupant was in it.  Which was a thought full of possibilities so rich he found himself even more determined to survive.  

“Think I’ve got your number now,” Aziraphale crowed. “Maybe I should splash around a bit, see how many of them I can catch?”  The expression he gave should have been ridiculous.  A not-quite-a-smile that turned sinister somewhere around the eyes.  It should have been impossible to make something so cute and rabbit-like threatening.  It was absolutely terrifying.

“Yes well,” Crowley adjusted his cuffs.[^2]

 “Let’s not go too far, hmm?  We want them scared into rationality, not out of it.”  He thought he really was getting the hang of the beatific smile.

If faces had been a round of silly buggers, walking for more than a few steps was a combination of hilarious and horrifying that Crowley, for one, was not eager to repeat.  They had both fallen flat more than a few times due to floors that were either too close or too far away.  Feet were Entirely the Wrong Sizes.  Aziraphale persisted in swinging his hips around in a fashion that the demon felt was well into parody.[^3]

 The attempt at stairs would have taken years off Crowley’s life, if he’d had a definite lifespan.  Aziraphale came down too hard on the first step, misjudging his leg, and Crowley missed his grab at him, because his arm had about 2 less inches than he expected.  A quick miracle was all that saved him from real injury.  The Angel shouting “Oh Fuck” on the way down was a further distraction.  

“Didn’t know you used profanity like that, Angel” Crowley jibed to cover his reaction at watching Aziraphale take any kind of fall.

“There is nothing profane about the act of love in the right context, my dear,” Aziraphale  tried to project cool, but had been shocked into his own speech patterns, which could get them both killed if he didn’t watch it. Crowley’s mind was eating its own tail stuck on the implications he might draw from the casual yet firm conviction in the angel’s tone on that matter.

“Then why use it as a curse, my dear,” he found his mouth said with very little input from the higher brain functions.

“Well, ‘s just what you say, ‘innit,” Aziraphale forced himself back into Crowley’s speech patterns.  

They retreated back to flat surfaces for a bit longer after that.  A few plants and objects d’art paid the price of Aziraphale trying to teach the gavotte as an exercise in limb usage.  They didn’t even make it to the kissing part, which was both a relief and a vexation.

Still, by the time false dawn was pearling the sky, they were as good a pair of duplicates as they could make themselves, and that was very good indeed.  Aziraphale looked at the large clear puddle that still marked a corner of the flat Crowley had been avoiding.  “Right.  One last test then, and we’ll know this rubbish will actually work.”  He summoned up a towel and bucket and headed over. 

“Do start with the left hand, darling, I’m rather partial to the right,” Crowley instructed, trying to sound flippant, but not quite hitting the mark.  Aziraphale repeated to himself that the corporations had no inherent connections to the beings who habitually wore them.  What mattered was that he was an angel, and holy water was his to hold and use.  It would not harm this body so long as he was its sole occupant.  He reached out, left hand first though that was surely unnecessary, and began to use the towel to clean up the mess that looked like pure clear water, and had once been a demon.  It felt no different than Holy Water ever did, and he turned to show Crowley his undamaged hand.  “Right as rain,” he said.  “Let’s go give them heaven.”

Footnotes

[^1]: It had not occurred to Aziraphale that he used that particular endearment with Crowley often enough for Crowley to have picked it up that much, and he was suddenly VERY glad Crowley, having slept through the Victorian era, didn’t know the full connotations of the phrase, or perhaps very not glad.  It was honestly rather confusing. 

[^2]: No wonder Aziraphale was always fussing with his clothes, with this many layers, even perfectly tailored clothes seemed to always have some bit out of place. 

[^3]: In fact, the hip swinging was barely into the believable range.  It was difficult, even in Crowley’s skin, to lead with his hips quite like that, though the indecent tightness of the trousers helped.  It was hard not to wiggle just to try to take a step. 

[dragonscanbeplantstoo]

Oil & Sky: echoes from the trash

The Price of Honey

Maeva drops her brush in water and turns away from her canvas. Her left hand is throbbing, and a dull ache lingers in her right, just in the tendons below the edge of her cast. She gives her fingers a light shake and turns back around. She scans her painting from a distance, checking the values and proportions. The surface undulates in greens and grays; bubbly, graceful, the shapes uncannily familiar without being obvious. But she knows. The uneven glazing of the focal points, the patchy blending between colors. She knows they are there, even if she can’t see them. Courtesy of left-handed painting. Solutions are percolating behind her eyes before she summons them. She is itching to throw them at her canvas.

But, the paint is wet, and her hands have lost their luster for now. Maeva relaxes her cheeks with a scoff. She checks her watch. It is time, above all things, for coffee. Caffeine will make her content again, and allow her to finish her finance homework before class. She does her best to dry the wet paint on her hands, soaking up the oil with a cloth, and picks her bag up off the sofa.

Outside, the early air is dim and cool-toned. The buttery sun tones are still hidden behind the Eastern halls. Maeva stops walking to blink upward. It reminds her of Paris in very early spring. The gray and silver and edges of the tower cutting into the blotted sky.

She takes an immediate seat on the cobblestones, next to a smudged chalk piece someone has done of Frida Kahlo, and slides her sketchbook from her bag. Squinting at the sky again, she begins dragging and scratching her pencil across the page. Catching the shapes and angles she’s thinking of, the different values of gray, building a sense of how a painting will come together. This is exactly how she thinks a piece of art should come into existence. The spark of seeing something pretty, tearing it down to its core and pulling out only the most beautiful pieces. There’s something so utterly pure in it, untainted by joy or bitterness or extraneous messages. When she has excised the basic shapes from brain to page, she closes the book, and sighs. She gets back to her feet and cuts across the grass to the café.

It’s another world inside, a Renoir world. Colors and bodies pushed together in an elegant sort of blur. Humid and loud with students packed all the way to the corners. Dancers tacky-skinned after AM classes, rehearsal-exhausted actors hunched over steaming cups of espresso, musicians barking at other musicians over jostled instrument cases. The congregation at the counter is thick and dark, hands going up wildly as they fight for the attention of baristas and flag down friends. Maeva steps around an old prop statue and a group of students seated on floor cushions. She glances through the crowd to see if there is an empty spot on the floor. Fate is not on her side.

“Maeva!”

She turns her head and finds Corin waving at her. Maeva steps over to him and stares down at the music he has spread in front of him.

“How did you get a table?”

As a rule, the tiny, rickety tables in the café are permanently occupied by the fourth-year theater students, who have their rehearsals well into the witching hours. In her two years here, she’s obtained a table exactly twice. Both times occurred because she was in the studio overnight, and because she got lucky.

He laughs at her. “I came to practice really early this morning. Do you want to sit with me?”

Maeva pretends she nods because it’s easier to do homework at a table. Not because his ankle bone propped against his knee is achingly pretty, and certainly not because her sternum is insisting on proximity to him.

“I’m going to get coffee first.” She glances at the empty cup by his English dictionary. “Do you want more tea?”

“I’d love some.” He slips his wallet out of his back pocket.

She shakes her head. “Put that away, it’s like two cents.”

“It’s ten, but thank you. Ginger tea with honey, please.”

Maeva slithers her way up to the counter and orders from the first-year with the lackluster French. She’s grown to prefer him though, because he’s fast. He produces her noisette and Corin’s tea in less time than it takes her to pull coins from her wallet. She has to hold the cups in close and work her way back with care—it’s always easier to get in the café than get out.

“You’re an angel, Maeva Leroux.” Corin says when he takes his cup from her.

Of course he’s referring to tea, but she can’t help but think back to his words in the park a few weeks ago. You’re the reason my heart is still beating. Maeva hides her face behind her own cup and wiggles her math book out of her bag. Corin scoots his music and dictionaries to the side to give her some space. She pops the book open and sighs immediately.

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that much air escape your lungs.” Corin leans back with his tea.

“I think it’s apparent how I feel about subjects unrelated to painting.” She says as she writes out the first problem.

“Apparent?” Corin raises an eyebrow. “You’re not as mild as you make yourself out to be, Maeva.”

She glances up at him. “Neither are you.”

He smiles and shrugs in agreement, then rests his tea on the English dictionary and resumes his work. Maeva rests her chin on her hand and works through her math. She realizes that she’s begun to find his presence oddly soothing. It feels like she has less to worry about when she can see him. It’s probably his stupidly pretty face. She gets a similar feeling when she has a Monet hanging over her head.

She taps her pencil against the second problem. It’s different. Of course it’s different. There’s no way she’s going to finish these before class.

“Something wrong?” Corin asks. He has stopped working to drink tea again.

Maeva follows his example and swallows her coffee, washing the irritation into her stomach to die. “I don’t know how to do this one. It looks different than the example.”

He leans forward to peer at the page. “Oh, there’s just an extra variable, so you do this step twice.”

She snaps her chin up, and his eyes are very close to hers, massive blue whirlpools. He blinks.

“What?”

“You’re good at maths.”

“Oh.” A smile breaks through the confusion on his face. “I mean, passably. Music is basically just maths with feelings. Are you having trouble with it?”

“My grade starts with a two.”

“Oh, fuck.” He sets his tea down. “Well let me help you then.”

She shakes her head. “No, no. You have your own work to do, it’s going to take too long for you to walk me through every single different problem.”

He narrows his eyes. “You…speak German, right?”

“Um, yes. Why?”

Corin snaps open his binder and pulls out a thick stack of music. “Translate these for me while I do your homework. I’ll walk you through what I did afterward. If you want.”

She stares at the music caught under his thumb.  She is torn briefly between her fear of further entanglement with him, and her desire to escape to graduate school. She picks graduate school. Corin laughs as she snatches the music from him.  

“You’ll have to tell your professor you realized writing neater made them easier to solve.” He says, dragging her mathematics book to his side. “You write like a parakeet.”

Maeva scoffs at his criticism and watches him breeze through an equation in neat, blocky handwriting. It doesn’t suit him at all. She turns her attention to his music. The words are written with lots of weird spacing and dashes beneath the notes, but it’s easy enough to parse out phrases. She writes the most literal French translation she can underneath, paging through an entire song in just a few minutes. She misses her German classes. It will be nice to start speaking it again once she gets to graduate school. Assuming she makes it there. She swishes a big swallow of coffee around her mouth and returns to the songs.  They’re all painfully pretty poems; she wishes she could sound out the music that they are set to. She finishes the last one—a Mozart—and puts the stack back in order. As she taps the edges into place, she checks on Corin, and finds him hunched down on his elbows over her book. He has his lower lip caught between his incisors, and two parallel creases between his eyebrows. His eyelashes cast a shadow on the page.

As a rule, Maeva never draws the same face twice. She remembers faces only for the expressions that cross them; her sketchbooks are full of acutely detailed vignettes of bitterness, fury, heartbreak, dejection, mischief. Shapes that haunt her perfect memory and refuse to leave until she immortalizes them.  

But looking at Corin now—the way his chin is tilted down, and his fingers are curved around the pencil, and that delicate puzzlement across his forehead—she wants to draw him twice. She knows she’s going to draw him twice. The image will live in her head and slowly gain weight until she does.

She might even draw him in color. Break out all of her golden and brown pencils. Find the right rosy color to mix in for his mouth, the right orange to capture his undertones. Experiment with blues until she picks out the perfect combinations to match his eyes.  

He flicks them up at her. “Oh, sorry, are you done? I’m almost there.”

Maeva shakes her head and picks up her coffee. “Don’t be sorry. You’re already getting through it in half the time I would.”

He shrugs. “I took this class two semesters ago, I have a leg up.”

Maeva rolls her eyes at his insistence on deflecting compliments. The crowd at the counter has thinned to look less like a wall, so she takes their cups to be refilled. While the slower barista meticulously measures the espresso grounds out, Maeva slips her phone from her pocket. She texts her mother back, confirming that she’ll swing by the boucherie for a chicken on the way home. Then she taps on an email from her photography professor.

Maeva,

You’ve still not submitted a proposal for your final project. I would like you to submit as soon as possible so we have a chance to review/make changes. If you’re still struggling to come up with an idea, I’d be happy to brainstorm with you during office hours.

Best,

Professor Cairn  

Maeva reads it twice, her lips pinching a little tighter each time. She hides her phone away again as two full cups are presented on the counter.

“Oh, thank you.” Corin says when she sets his back on his dictionary. He picks it up and takes a slow swallow. “I’m so scared I’m going to get a cat in my throat before finals.”

Maeva settles down across from, seeing that he has closed her textbook and set her finished homework neatly on top. And he called her an angel.  

She asks him, “are you excited though? About the scout and everything?”

“I’m so excited.” He sighs, his eyes making a dreamy trip to the ceiling. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long. I mean, there’s no guarantee I’ll get in, of course. But it isn’t even about that. It’s like…” he bites his lip. “The moment I’ve been working toward isn’t the acceptance, it’s being good enough to stand on a stage in front of them.”

Maeva lifts her eyebrow. “Your debutante moment?”

He laughs. “Something like that. What about you? Is the moment you unveil your portfolio going to be exhilarating, or terrifying?”

Maeva thinks that those are very strong words. She’s only ever been terrified once in her life, the night she found him, and she is still healing from the havoc that word wrecked inside her body. She does not want to imagine what the other side of that coin is.

She says, instead, “my professors can already see my pieces coming together. I doubt it will be as dramatic as all that.”

He prods her shoe with his. “Are you nervous about anything?”

She gives him a dull look, because he has seen her nervous more times than anyone except her mother. That’s a very full spectrum of nerves—the emotions closing in around her, graduating, the constant threat of a headache, her nightmares. His smile disappearing forever. Corin raises his eyebrow, like he still wants an answer.  

“I mean, I’m almost ready to throw in the sponge on my photography class.”

“What? But I thought you were hell-bent on getting out this year.”  

She rests a finger against her temple. “Please don’t remind me.”

“Sorry.” Corin winces. “Can I ask what the problem is?”

Maeva snorts. “Yes, that’s easy. My professor doesn’t like my photographs, he thinks they lack artistry or something.”

He tilts his head. “Well, do they? Something tells me you have a low opinion of photography.”

That angle under these lights bathes his cheekbone in a color like goldenrods. Someone this pretty should not be allowed to be this perceptive. It is thoroughly unfair and Maeva dislikes it immensely.

“I think photography has it’s uses.” She picks her cup up. “Just…not for me. I don’t need a photo of something to remember it.”

“Yeah that’s true.” Corin takes another sip of his tea. “But I can’t imagine you’re bad at it. What does he want from you?”

“I don’t know.” Maeva waves her non-coffee-containing hand. “He wants something more, something that ‘showcases my eye for color and light’.”

“Huh.” Corin frowns that over. “You should just take pictures of a concert then, that would be a great place to play with color and light. Literally.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.”

“Or are you just making it too complicated?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not, that would just be boring! Why would I take pictures of a concert when I could draw it in rainbow colors and make it so much more than it already is.”

He laughs outright at her. “But concerts do that inherently. When you put music with beautiful visuals and have people listen to it together, it becomes transcendent. That’s why opera has stuck around so long.” Corin leans his chin into his hands. “There’s nothing boring about capturing that moment.”

Maeva narrows her eyes at him. “You just want me to take pictures of you.”

He grins right back. “Well don’t you want to take pictures of me?”

Maeva sucks a furious breath in through her nose. Her teeth clamp down, then her lips, thinner and tighter and thinner and tighter. Corin’s smile is a wall of effervescence.

She is saved from having to snipe back by Corin’s pleasantly sepia friend sidling up to the table. Corin turns away from her so they can kiss each other’s cheeks.

“Maeva, you’ve met Sacha, right?”

“Briefly.” Maeva says, remembering the red around his dusty eyes. They look fine today. “You look like you’re feeling better.”

“Much. It’s been a good few weeks. And you?”

“You know, the usual finals season.” Maeva murmurs. “I smell turpentine in my dreams.”

“Oh my god, yes.” Sacha tosses his head. “Except, rosin, obviously.”

Corin snorts. “I smell rosin in my dreams by now.”

Sacha tugs one of the curls on top of Corin’s head. “Then you don’t practice enough.”  

“Who was up at three to practice today?” Corin sneers. “Not you.”

While they bicker about what singing would even smell like, Maeva settles in to finish her coffee. Then, Sacha rests his taupe knuckles on one of Corin’s dictionaries, and she sees the face of his watch.

“Oh my god, it’s almost ten.” They frown as her as she bolts from her chair. She says, “I’m late for class. I have to go. Thanks, Corin.”

As soon as she gets her bag in her hands, she is shoving her way out the door. She blinks against the sunlight and steps off the path toward the Ack building.

Behind her, someone sings in a sweet, silvery tone: “Maaaaaeva, stop walking!”

She stops, and turns. Corin raises an eyebrow and waves her math book at her. She strides back to him.

“Oh, thank you.” She hugs it to her chest. “I mean, thank you for your help too. I would never have gotten it done otherwise.”

“Thank you for doing my translations.” Corin says. “You should get going. Call me if you need help again.”

She nods, thinking she can’t afford not to, and tears her eyes off of him. As she speed-walks down the path, she glances over her shoulder and sees him walking back toward the café. It unnerves her, how deeply she wants to follow him.