#to something simple but keeping the same form or whatever other word I was looking for

[radishaur]

༄ kind words ༄

Warnings: mentions of unwelcome advances in Law's part Genre: fluff Characters: Luffy, Zoro, & Law Summary: How they realize they have feelings for you (words of affirmation edition) Author's Note: It's finally here! These keep getting longer and longer as I get more familiar with each character and the dynamic, especially Law's, but I don't think that's too much of an issue. I also kind of hate Luffy's but couldn't keep redoing it, so maybe I'll edit it later. Happy reading as I begin working on the next part!

masterlist

Luffy is great at giving compliments because he just says whatever he's thinking.

He gets complimented a lot as well. He's always running around and saving people, intentionally or not, so he's probably heard his fair share of compliments. I think hearing a compliment that's more deep and genuine, that comes from someone who knows him deeply, would be more meaningful than anything and would make him recognize his feelings.

~

Not every day on the Sunny was a fun adventure.

Setting out to sail across the whole world and strive for their individual goals there was bound to be hardship. Sometimes it came in the form of grueling battles with their latest enemy. Other times it was internal conflicts or disputes, simple disagreements or heated arguments.

This time, it was grief.

After so many months traveling together, the crew had learned how to tell when one of them was upset about something and needed space. Today, it had been Nami. For the past few days, her mood had been off. She'd been more quick to anger and had spent more time than was strictly necessary tending to her orange trees. Then today, she'd been even worse, snapping at Sanji's normal overbearing lovey behavior and brooding to herself under the shade of her grove.

It didn't take him long to realize what was bothering her.

Nami only ever got like this when she was thinking about Bellemere, which meant today must be the anniversary of when everything happened. The crew had spent most of the day giving her her space, allowing her to process what she was very clearly feeling. After a while, he took it upon himself to cheer her up. He made silly faces and played some of her favorite games on the deck, goading her into joining them by making bets he knew he would lose. He'd even secretly asked Sanji to incorporate oranges into their dinner. By the end of the night, Nami was laughing and she seemed a lot lighter, like whatever was weighing her down had lessened some.

Now, it was late at night, and the only sounds that could be heard on the Sunny were the lapping of waves against the ship and the snores of his crew as they slept. All except for him.

Sleep was avoiding him, so he decided that he would be much better off just joining whoever was on watch and maybe having some fun. He made his way up to the crow's nest and was happy to find you sitting on the bench, looking out across the sea.

"Oh, hi Luffy," you said, your voice quiet.

"Hi!" he said, sitting excitedly next to you on the bench as you looked out across the sea once more. "I couldn't sleep so I decided to come out and have some fun!"

You smiled, always amused by his antics.

"Well, unfortunately, there's no fun here. I'm on watch, remember?"

He pouted, knowing you were right but still disappointed anyways. You laughed at him as he whined and complained, but he didn't actually intend on distracting you, so after a while, he quieted down and let you focus.

"I hope Nami is feeling better," you said, resting your head on the arm you propped up on the window. You were frowning slightly, your eyes unfocused as your worry made itself visible on your face.

"She'll be ok, she's Nami! She's strong," he replied, no doubt in his mind that tomorrow she would be the same old Nami she had always been. "She might be sad now, but it's not forever. She has us to help her."

You hummed in agreement, a small smile on your face. He smiled himself, happy to see you smiling instead of with a frown on your face. He felt so lucky to have found a group who cared so deeply about each other.

"All that stuff you did today. It was to cheer her up, wasn't it."

You said it like a statement more than a question and he found himself smiling at how observant you were. "You figured it out. You're so smart!"

You laughed at him once again, his own laughter joining you as you said, "Of course I did. I know you wouldn't have made those bets under normal circumstances."

They had been stupidly dumb bets that left no chance for him to win and he found himself giggling as he remembered how Nami had perked up upon hearing him agree to them. He loved his crew more than anything, so what was a few beri down the drain? Your laughter subsided as you got lost in thought once more. You seemed like you were debating saying something and when you seemed to have made up your mind, he found himself sitting up straighter as you turned to look at him.

"You're a lot smarter than people give you credit for," you said, a small smile on your face and a playful admiration in your eyes.

He's not quite sure what to say to that. He's always been called stupid and to everyone's credit, he is. He doesn't think very often, preferring to act on instinct and figure out the rest of the plan later. He's been known to not read the room, to zone out during important world lessons, and to shout out the first thing that comes to mind. He doesn't think anyone has ever called him smart and for the first time in maybe his whole life, he's speechless.

"I guess that's probably not what you were expecting me to say, huh?" you teased, a light smile making its way onto your face.

He collects himself and asks, slightly incredulously, the question that's first in his mind. "Why do you think that?"

"Well, you just told me you did all that stuff to cheer Nami up, right? Someone stupid wouldn't be able to put together why she was upset and what would make her feel better. You pay attention when it counts and you're a lot more emotionally intelligent than people realize," you explain, relaxing slightly as you look out at the ocean once more. "Today it was Nami, but I've watched you help lots of people like that. Vivi, Robin, Sanji, even me. Maybe you don't say it out loud, but you pick up on people's emotions and what they need the most in that moment."

He listens as you talk and slowly realizes that you're right. He's always had a way of reading people and knowing what they really want or need, but he's never really connected it to intelligence. He always thought it was just his own special kind of stupid.

"I guess that makes me a genius!" he exclaimed, laughing heartily as your eyes widened in shock before laughing along with him.

"Maybe you are stupid after all," you say, but there's no malice in the words as you keep laughing at him.

Finally, your watch shift is over and the sun peeks up over the horizon. He'd stayed with you the entire time, just talking and goofing around until he realized how much time had passed and how tired he was. His dreams that night are filled with you and when he wakes up, your words are still floating around in his mind. Knowing that you think he's smart makes him feel funny and he thinks that maybe he should finally turn his ability to recognize people's feelings inward.

Zoro doesn't throw out compliments or encouragement left and right, he only says something if he really means it.

I think he's received his fair share of compliments, although I doubt he puts much stock in them unless they come from someone he respects. If he doesn't think there's any stock in the compliment, or on that same token an insult, why bother giving it attention? For this reason, I think getting a compliment or reassurance from you would rattle him a little and cause him to have an aha moment.

~

The town that the Sunny docked in isn't too interesting to Zoro, aside from the bar he's nestled into for the past few hours. He has a few empty glasses in front of him and he's almost done with his current one when he sees the door open.

He's not surprised when he sees multiple of the crew walk in, quickly noticing him in the corner and making their way to him. You're among them, talking to Robin about something that elicits a small laugh out of her. Begrudgingly, he scoots over and makes room for everyone in his booth as they smoosh in.

"I knew we'd find you here!" you say, the last to slide in so you're right across from him. "Already deep into your drinks, as expected."

"Shut it, woman," he grumbles, his brows furrowing as he finishes his drink and sets the cup down on the table. You laugh, looking at Robin as Usopp reluctantly hands Nami some beri. He feels his eye twitch in irritation as he notices the exchange. "Are you betting on me?"

Usopp gulps at the glare he sends his way and Nami simply smiles, dollar signs practically lighting up in her eyes as she answers, "Yep! I bet that you were already 3 drinks deep and I was right."

"We've barely even arrived! I thought-" Usopp protests, attempting to explain himself.

"You both are insufferable!"

His exclamation elicits another laugh out of you as Robin simply lifts a hand to her mouth to hide the amusement that is no doubt there. He wants to be annoyed, and he is, but he's been traveling with the lot of you for long enough that he can't really be upset, at least that genuinely. He simply huffs, waving down a server to ask for another glass.

The rest leap over each other to order their own drinks, some alcoholic, some not, and fall into easy chatter with each other. Periodically, he catches your eyes and you send him a smile, but he doesn't insert himself in the conversations, much preferring to listen. Eventually, Nami gets tired of just sitting in the bar and decides to go shopping. Usopp and Robin decide to accompany her, but you decide to stay behind. You wave, watching them go as he takes his previous spot in the booth back.

"Not in the shopping mood?" he asks, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye.

"No, I'd much rather stay here with my favorite swordsman," you tease. He bristles, knowing that you're just poking him for fun, but he can't stop himself from blushing, taking a long sip from his glass to hide the blush he can feel on his cheeks.

"You're worse than that damn cook," he mumbles, his glass now sufficiently empty.

You laugh at that.

"Now that's just a lie."

He can't deny that, the corner of his lips twisting up into a smile. He's spent enough time traveling with you to know that you don't act like that with everyone, just him. The notion that you reserve this behavior for just him is both agitating and yet satisfying. He feels something possessive lick at his heart but ignores it, waving at the server for yet another drink.

He asks you about what you've been up to on the island since they docked and you happily tell him all about it. It hasn't been long so you don't have much to say and it isn't long before the two of you fall into a comfortable silence. After a while, you finally talk again and it's not what he's expecting.

"I know you'll become the greatest swordsman, Zoro."

He sputters, the sip he was taking spilling all over himself as he coughs, trying to catch his breath. He can feel his ears heating up with embarrassment and sputters, "Where the hell did that come from?"

When you look at him, your face is set in firm determination, but your eyes are soft, filled with a fondness he wishes you would direct at him more often.

"Those pirates we fought yesterday," you explain.

He thinks for a moment before he's reminded of what you're referring to. On their way to this island, they had run into a rival ship following the same course. While they hadn't intended to battle them, the ship fired at them as soon as they were in range, so they had no other choice. He remembers the fight being fairly easy, each member of the crew handling their fair share of pirates.

He also remembers one of their crew having some rather nasty words to say to him.

"You're delusional if you think you can become the greatest swordsman," he had spat, struggling to breathe. "You'll see it eventually. Even if you won this battle, you'll never achieve your dream."

He hadn't paid much attention to the words. He was confident in his own abilities and his opponent had been defeated easily, so there wasn't any point in taking his words to heart. He hadn't thought anyone was close enough to hear it and he certainly hadn't brought it up, quickly forgetting about it.

He smirked then, letting the full force of his pride show in the grin as he said, "That loser wouldn't know what it takes to be the greatest swordsman even if it smacked him in the face."

"That doesn't make any sense," you say, your face wrinkling as you giggle at his statement.

He takes another sip as your laughter dies out.

"I'm not worried about what a crap swordsman has to say about me and my dream," he says, his voice a lot more serious now as he thinks about the promise he made all those years ago. "I will become the world's greatest swordsman or die trying."

"You'll do it. I know you will."

You don't say anything after that, seemingly having said everything you intended to, but your words linger with him. The thought that you had heard the man's words and felt it was important enough to dispute them made his heart feel weird. He had never doubted himself, even when he maybe should have. He'd always been sure that his will, determination, and hard work would take him to exactly where he was supposed to be. Still, hearing your words of encouragement, hearing your genuine belief in his ability, it affected him in a way he wasn't expecting.

"You will too," he says, his voice barely above a murmur.

A few seconds go by where you don't say anything and he wonders if you'd even heard him, but one glance at you tells him that you had. You're not looking at him, your eyes averted as if you're embarrassed and your lips are curved into a small, satisfied smile. The sight makes his heart stop and he almost goes to clutch his chest before the feeling quickly passes.

Before the moment can linger, you're shooting back into conversation with him. Despite his best efforts to pay attention, he finds that his attention is drawn back again and again to your words. He knows that the crew believes in his dreams just as much as he believes in theirs. It's part of why he's so willing to protect their dreams just as fiercely as his own, but for some reason knowing that you believe in him so much really sticks with him.

He thinks about it for the rest of the day as well as late into the night when they're all back on the Sunny and setting off for the next island. He doesn't like being distracted, so he mulls over why your compliment holds so much weight for him. He values your opinion, but you're also not a swordsman, so theoretically there shouldn't be that much weight to your words. When he finally realizes, it feels like everything clicks into place and so many things start to make sense.

He acts like nothing has changed, wanting time to sit with the feelings before he decides what to do about them, but he finds it hard now that he understands the full weight of his regard for you.

Law rarely ever gives out compliments, rather preferring to show how he feels with his actions.

I think he receives a few compliments here and there, but he's built an intimidating presence and image, so I think they're far and few between. However, I think if you took him off guard with a meaningful compliment, especially if its one that he hasn't heard before, it would make him start to think about his feelings towards you.

~

"Captain, we have a problem."

Law sighs, all of the worst-case scenarios running through his mind as he turns to face Sachi. They're docked at a port town so that they can restock the Polar Tang, preparing for another few weeks underwater. It's familiar and something that the crew should be familiar with by this point. They have a routine, a schedule that rarely changes, that details who goes with who to go get what. In theory, it should go perfectly smoothly.

It never does.

"What is it, Sachi?" he asks, his grip on Kikoku tightening slightly as Sachi walks up to him with the list of crewmates and jobs in hand.

"Well, you said that nobody is allowed to go alone into town right? For safety?" he asks, only resuming once Law has hummed in agreement. "Right, well uh, unfortunately, Penguin is sick today which means his partner doesn't have anyone to go with, which wouldn't be an issue since usually we have at least one group of three but, well, they're also sick so-"

Law grumbles under his breath about getting to the damn point, grabbing the sheet from Sachi's hands to just look at the issue himself. Sachi gulps, sensing his irritation, and nervously rubs the back of his neck. The problem becomes clear very easily. His beloved crew had partied a little too hard the last few nights and now two of them were sick, leaving no group of three to split up and someone unaccompanied. He looks for Penguin's name to see who's alone and feels his heart flutter slightly when he sees your name scrawled out next to it.

"Our only two options are to either make one group get two things, which would set us back at least an hour, or...," Sachi says, trailing off slightly. The unspoken second option is clear. Law always spend their restock days on the ship. The higher his bounty gets, the higher the chance that he gets recognized, so he always finds it easier and safer for him to stay behind.

"I'll go," he relents, watching as the tension in Sachi's shoulders dissipates.

"Great. Thanks, Captain!"

Sachi disappears before he can change his mind. He sighs, looking around the collection of his crew until he finally finds you in the mix. He makes his way over, watching as you converse with Bepo, catching the very end of your sentence.

"-seems like I'll be alone today. Sachi said he would look into it, but everyone already has their pairs so I don't know who could take his place."

"That would be me," he answers, watching as both Bepo and you finally notice his approach.

"Oh! Uh, are you sure? Don't you usually spend the day on the Tang doing research?" you ask.

He ignores your improper name for the Polar Tang as he explains the situation to you. You nod, smiling as you say, "I see. Well, I'm glad to have your company then, Captain!"

He's taken aback by your words but decides to just move forward instead of dwelling on them, so he turns around and shouts, "Let's go."

"Shouldn't you probably change?"

He stops, looking down at his attire as you add, "As much as it suits you, it doesn't really hide the fact that you're a pirate, let alone our Captain."

He can't really argue with that. The Heart Pirates logo is front and center on his shirt and Kikaku is certainly not doing him any favors either. He tells you to wait and then quickly shambles himself into his room to change. He has to dig really deep in his closet before he finds a shirt that doesn't have his symbol front and center, but once he does he leaves Kikaku leaning against his wall and shambles back up to you.

By the time he's changed and came back, most of his crew is gone. You're quicker to notice him this time as a result and the two of you finally head into town.

"What are we in charge of?" he asks, stuffing his hands into his pockets now that they're not holding his sword.

"We're in charge of the medicinal herbs, Captain," you answer.

"Just Law is fine," he says, his hand fidgeting slightly as he adds, "No use in me changing if you're just going to use my title."

He sees you smile softly out of the corner of his eyes. "Right. Law it is, then."

His ears burn slightly as you say his name so effortlessly, but he brushes it off quickly and continues into town. It's not hard to find the store you're looking for and he lets you take the lead as you begin listing off the various herbs you need. It's not long before the two of you are walking through town once more, heading towards the submarine.

"Oh, look! That art is gorgeous."

He stops walking as he turns to look at what you're pointing at. There's a small stall in the marketplace's square that's selling paintings of all different sizes and mediums. He sees your eyes light up as you look at them and isn't surprised when you say, "Wait here, I'm going to go buy one."

He huffs, leaning against the wall of a nearby building where he can see the stall. He'd like to pretend that today had purely been an inconvenience, but he can't find it in himself to be that upset. While it was inconvenient that he wasn't able to spend the time studying the most recent medical book he had been interested in, the day had been pleasant. You'd made pleasant conversation with him while walking in town and your bright demeanor always seems to calm him down.

He looks back over to the stall, curious about what painting had caught your eyes, but feels his heart jolt when he doesn't see any sign of you. He stands up to his full height, hoping to catch any glimpse of you, but he still doesn't see anything. He curses to himself for letting his guard down and allowing you to somehow slip away and starts searching for you with his observation haki.

He picks up your signature in an alleyway and feels his gut churning. Not wanting to draw attention to himself by using his devil fruit powers, he quickly makes his way to where you are. As he gets closer, he hears you pleading with someone.

"Look, I'm really not interested and I have someone waiting for me, so-"

"Surely I can show you a better time than them, hm?"

He doesn't recognize the second voice but he doesn't need to to know what's going on. He feels anger burn in him as he finally turns a corner and sees a guy caging your body against the wall with both of his arms.

"I already told you, I'm not looking for that. Please let me go," you say, your hands clutching the bag of herbs you'd bought earlier as well as what looks to be whatever painting you had bought at the stall. He also sees the man take a step closer and open his mouth to talk, so he takes the opportunity to interrupt.

"You heard them," he says, his voice like venom as he enunciates, "Let them go."

The man looks at him, sizing him up as he takes a step back and lets his arms drop. "What are you, a good samaritan? Buzz off," he scoffs, turning his head back to you, clearly intending to ignore him.

He doesn't know what comes over him as he finds himself stepping closer and punching the man square on the side of his face. The man, clearly caught off guard, stumbles slightly. He doesn't give him any time to recover as he steps forward, putting himself in between you and the man whose face was now swelling up.

"What the hell?" he shouts, cradling his face as he finally catches his balance.

He can see the punch coming but knows that you're standing right behind him, so he only shifts slightly so that the punch only hits him in the shoulder. A moment afterward, it dawns on him that he can just get rid of the man, so he does.

"You're lucky I don't have my sword, or you'd be getting much worse than this," he seethes, holding his hand out as he says his classic phrase and sends the man shambling into the ocean. In his place, a mossy stone drops to the ground, echoing in the now almost empty alleyway.

When he turns around, you're staring at him speechless. He frowns slightly as he gives you a once over, checking for any visible signs of harm.

"I'm ok," you finally say, your voice shaky before you cough slightly and repeat, voice calm, "I'm ok. Just unnerved."

He doesn't take his chances and calls another room, switching you both closer to the Polar Tang. His guilt at letting you out of his sight and allowing this guy to drag you off eats at him as the two of you approach the ship. Once inside, he shambles the two of you to his examination room, pointing to the table and saying, "Sit. I want to check for injuries with the proper equipment."

You don't fight him as you make your way towards the table. You're still holding the bag and the painting until he gently takes them from you, placing them next to you on the table.

"I'm really ok La- I mean Captain," you begin, correcting yourself back to his title now that it's just the two of you.

He finds himself missing his name from you but keeps the comment to himself. He's supposed to be checking you for injuries. He's supposed to be assessing your well-being, which is only in question because of his own negligence. He frowns to himself and continues to check you for injuries without answering.

You let him, still assuring him that you're fine, that he only grabbed your arm for a moment at the stall, but he doesn't stop until he's sure that there's nothing wrong.

He sighs, finally stepping back from the table. His guilt still eats at him regardless as he goes over everything he did wrong. "I'm sorry, I should have been watching more carefully. No, I should have just come with you."

You simply smile at him in response and say, "It's my fault. I was the one who stepped away."

He doesn't have anything to say to that. He knows it's true, you did step away despite it being an explicit rule not to, but he can't deny his part in it as well. He curls his fists as the silence continues.

"Why didn't you dodge his punch?" you ask, your voice quiet.

He's surprised by the question, but also by how quickly his cheeks warm up at his answer. He looks off to the side, hiding behind his hat as he says, "You were right behind me. If I moved, he would have just punched you."

You have the audacity to laugh, loud and full as if he had just told you the funniest joke you'd ever heard and he can't help but scowl.

"You know," you start, laughter still floating in your voice, "For someone with such a cold exterior, you sure are kind."

The compliment catches him off guard. His face whips towards you as his eyes open in shock, the faint blush now burning bright red across his whole face. He meets your eyes and he doesn't see any hint of a joke.

He's heard himself called a lot of things. Scary, cold, bitter, even downright malicious, but never kind. It sends shivers up his spine as the word settles somewhere under his skin. You think he's kind. Kind.

"You're my subordinate. I'm not being kind, I'm just doing my job as your Captain," he corrects, not wanting you to misunderstand his intentions.

Your laugh this time is softer, more full of fondness, but it rustles him all the same. "You really are kind though," you insist. He's not ready for you to continue, barely able to handle the few words you've said, but that's never stopped you before. "I think you care a lot more than you want us to think. You wouldn't worry so much otherwise. Besides, you're always going out of your way to protect us. I think that makes you kind."

He doesn't know what to say, so he tries to navigate back into familiar territory. He takes a deep breath and calms his nerves, grabbing the bag of medical herbs from your side and turning around to begin putting them away. "Well, since I've checked and you don't have any injuries, there's no reason for you to stay."

He hears you shuffling around as he begins unpacking the herbs from the bag and chances a glance over at you one more time. He regrets it immediately.

You're looking at him like you can see right through him. You have your painting tucked under your arm as you look over your shoulder at him in the doorway and you're still smiling at him as if he didn't just ignore your comment and dismiss you rather rudely. It makes his heart ache, wanting to prove you right. To prove that he is kind, that he's worthy of your opinion of him, that he's worthy of your praise.

"Thank you, Captain. I enjoyed your company today."

With that, you disappear down the hallway, presumably back to your shared room to hang up your new picture. He stares at the spot you left long after you've gone, your words echoing in his mind. They rattle around in his heart until they finally settle, leaving a warm comfort he didn't know he craved.

You think he's kind.

That thought plagues his mind for the rest of the day. His guilt is completely forgotten, his mind too consumed by your compliment to make any room for it. He finds himself unable to even focus on reading the medical book that night that he missed out on reading earlier. Your words and the simple fact that you truly believed them chip away at his resolve until he finally has to come to terms with why it affects him so much. He mumbles your name, his hand clutching his heart as it beats, solidifying what he'd been ignoring for a long, long time now.

ღ radishaur — i do not own any of these characters. do not plagiarize. please enjoy and remember to be respectful! 

[woiwais]

I have several ideas for HSR fanart but their detailed and complicated designs are making me postpone them, I have no clue how other artists do it I want to oversimplify them or just straight up change their outfits so it doesn't hurt my brain everytime I pull up the refs

[popponn]

sick day safe distance.

summary: you caught a cold and really doesn’t want him to also get sick. it’s that simple, actually.

notes: was tempted to add more, but yeah one day, maybe. this is me trying to pump myself up and trying to grasp sae more for an upcoming fic. also warm up for a bit. still i hope it will be an enjoyable read, as simple and unserious it is haha. warning: none, just mentions of colds symptoms here and there. fluff, clingy slash affectionate bfs, reader's gender unspecified.

character: nagi, sae, isagi.

nagi seishiro

this guy somehow turns even more similar to his favorite chat sticker. just a bit more fluffy, and bigger, and with grubby hands. put simply, nagi is pretty troublesome because he insists on still being close to you. he really doesn’t see a point in keeping his distance since he still lives under the same roof as you—which doesn’t mean you could go somewhere else though. he is not above actually hanging on your hip. don’t test him.

in a way, you will be lucky if he must go out for practice. but if he is not, then good luck. if before you sleep, he was sitting a few meters away from you, the moment you took a nap nagi would be laying his head somewhere near or on you while playing his game. pray for your debate skill, because you really need to convince him that ‘getting sick is even more troublesome than not cuddling with you for a while. yes even when that’s what he really wants.’ also a little tip, be strong and don’t look at his baby face too much. that’s a losing fight with a natural puppy face. and if you want to take a bet, use his hoodie as your sick attire. it will either satiate whatever it is in him or worsen it.

he is a bit childish and adamant when he is clingy. even when he is not in the clingiest mood, that wouldn’t necessarily mean his concern for you would be gone immediately. every hour or so, you will definitely see a nagi peeking at you, asking if you want anything because ‘if you got worse it would be even more troublesome’. and honestly just let him do anything he wants to take care of you—this guy will be okay in the kitchen and in anything even if it’s his first time. that’s the resident giant sloth doing something for you out of his own willingness. plus if worst comes to worst, hey, maybe adrenaline could be an instant cure.

itoshi sae

sae makes a face that indicates he is a little upset, hums, and then actually says he will stay somewhere else for a while. he reacts so gracefully and normally it’s kind of cold. but then again, this is sae and his personality. just because he seems unaffected and puts you somewhere pretty low on his priority list, it doesn’t mean that is how it truly is. and if you are trained to translate sae-speak through experiences and are already used to him, it’s kind of obvious, from his actions especially.

it’s obvious in the way he leaves you messages and voice notes. and in the way he insults you when you try to do something dumb or eat something that you shouldn’t. in the way he sends you food and reminds you to drink every hour he can—and if he has to practice, he will find someone to do that task through sheer deadpan alone. also in the way he keeps the call on until you sleep every night—saying that this is to make sure you won’t infect his part of bed, which is a lie. if you show him that you miss him by cuddling his side of bed this guy will short-circuit, in a very positive way.

also, since this is sae with his terrible case of ‘showing he actually cares’, most of the proof of him being genuinely upset from being away from you will come from others. in the form of complaints. all telling you to get better soon because he got extra grumpy and blunt in his wording as if he is on a vengeance quest. and even if his play got better somehow, help his teammates because they really are not here to deal with a boyfriend who has love deficiency or some bullshit. of course, you hardly believe them because in every video call, sae acts like it's nothing. still, go do loving gestures in your temporary long-distance relationship. some people will actually owe you for that. also don’t forget to at least give him an update if he somehow couldn’t contact you. just in case.

isagi yoichi

isagi takes it with a grimace and an understanding sigh that truthfully still sounds very exasperated, but accepting nonetheless. he will still whine a little though, in a very joking and light manner. this guy’s schedule is packed and he rarely has any time with you, so of course if any chance he should have gotten sabotaged by some random flu, it’s entirely within his right to get at least a little upset. so understandably, his priority as an egoist who really wants some loving would be to get you healthy again as soon as possible. also, maybe, that part of him that takes care of people so naturally kind of screeches when you cough roughly.

the sweetest part is probably how he will still find a way to take care of you no matter what his schedule is. what isagi wants, isagi will get somehow after all. it’s his break day? you are not leaving his sight and he will watch the old matches from your side—also he is wearing a face mask so don’t bother to shoo him away. if he has training? maybe you have to walk around a little bit by yourself still, but somehow everything from food to medicines is ready. his friends ask him to hang out? this one is a straight-out pass, his baby is sick.

this is the guy who will try to cook porridge for you while calling his mom in the process and sends a longing gaze when you keep a distance between the two of you. he won’t protest and will actually do his best. remember to walk around the neighborhood with him the moment you get better. also give him as many handholds, hugs, kisses, and praises as possible. actually, go do a headstart on the praise if possible. even if he scolds you to rest instead of giving him sugary words, the soft dotting look on his face can’t lie. just make sure to not suggest sleeping in the hotel or have him stay at someone’s though—trust this guy and his self-centeredness. when he really wants to stay with you and stay healthy for his career, he will. don’t doubt him or make enemies of the protagonist.

[justanotherlifeff]

Love is meaningless

[True form heian era Sukuna x reader. I may have taken many creative liberties with his backstory alongside certain spoilers so be warned!] [ Part 2, Part 3]

Love is meaningless, this was something Sukuna believed for most of his life. He can proclaim it precisely because he understands it. Being born a wretched curse by his foolish starving mother was not a start to life he had appreciated, but it was what it was. Fate was that he absorbed his twin for nourishment, fate was that he was born monstrous. One can only live with fate and become stronger, after all. Of course, he had to raise himself, of course he had to get stronger to survive. The golden age of Jujutsu meant many other cursed spirits, and of course, humans were no better. Weak people shouldn’t complain about their transgressions after all. That is simply how the world is built, to please the strong.

Yet, unexpected things happen, as it is part of life as well. Some people find it in their stupid, human, hearts to love a monster. And sometimes, something as meaningless as love creeps up in a monster’s heart too if they are weak enough. Sukuna wasn’t born the king of curses after all. It was a meaningless gesture that one might call kindness, something he believed that he didn’t deserve, that started it all. Just like his mother who birthed him, this foolish girl gave him an apple from her basket when he was starving. A foolish act of kindness from a human to a cursed being. He accepted nonetheless, as a starving man would, since this was before the days when he took whatever he wanted.

The days when he was weak enough to be considerate. For some reason, you kept coming back, with food every time, and for some reason, he didn’t leave the outskirts of that village after the first few encounters. He convinced himself that it was because your cooking was amazing, not because he wanted to see that smile on your face again, not because he was getting addicted to that kindness. Why would a human be kind to the likes of him after all? Surely, he was being delusional. However, weeks turned to months, and you wouldn’t stop visiting the small cave where he was living at, since no one would give him shelter or a job due to his monstrous features. Somehow you weren’t afraid of the four arms, the four eyes, the odd markings on his body. Somehow, you made conversation with him at one point as you watched him eagerly eat whatever food you brought him and somehow, he found himself replying. Hope was something that the weak shouldn’t have and yet, he found it in you, he made that mistake.

Looking at water in streams was something he hated, because it showed him his inhumanity and made the struggles he faced his entire life be something that was acceptable. Who would care for a monster after all? And yet, one day, you looked at him and called him beautiful with a blush on your pretty little face. He didn’t know how to reply to that, as someone who never encountered a situation like that before and yet, he couldn’t sleep all night, thinking of those words. He awkwardly called you beautiful too the next day.

Small compliments turned into teasing and at one point, neither you nor he had to say it out loud that you loved each other. It was simply something that happened. However, you had to keep it a secret from the village, and he understood why. Loving something like him had its consequences as they would kill you for being with a curse. He understood the consequences but his hunger for you was far too much to ignore. It started with kisses, and then he wanted more, so much more. And you let him take what he wanted with a smile on your face, that same smile he fell in love with. Even your old kimonos started looking like ones that queens would wear, your simple hairpin was better than the highest quality jade to him. You were beautiful and you were his and that was the best thing that happened in his wretched life at the time. Or at least, he was foolish and weak enough to believe so.

During his days as the king of curses, he saw the women he fucked as no more than pieces of meat that exist for his pleasure. One might think he wasn’t capable of being gentle, of having any other expression than the ruthless and deranged smile that adorns his face. Yet, his first time was so different, as he looked upon your beauty with nothing but wonder in his eyes, not believing his own luck as you were naked underneath him, that beautiful tint of red adorning your face. Perhaps that was when he found himself loving the color red so much, it was never about the blood of the thousands he killed later in life. You looked beautiful even with your old kimonos, but you looked divine without it, and he wasn’t shy enough to keep that opinion to himself, mostly because he wanted to see that blush on your face when he says it out loud. He wanted to hear you call out his name in that affectionate and yet pleasured voice when he was deep inside you. He wanted you, all of you, even if he didn’t deserve you.

The weak gets trampled on, it isn’t something they should complain about as it is the way of life. He almost had you, the day you came to him with a worried expression on your face and told him that you may be expecting his child. For a moment, he dreamed, despite being weak. He asked you to elope with him, that he would protect you. He knew that the child he sired would be cursed too, and that you were unmarried, so of course, overall, you would be killed if he left you alone. He loved you far too much to even consider that. “Come with me, Ill take you far from here and protect you. I’ll make sure nothing hurts you or our child. I’ll get stronger for you.” He told you with that gruff tone of his. To his surprise, you agreed. However, you were a kind little thing full of hope. You wanted to see your parents one last time before leaving with him forever. He didn’t understand it, but he wanted you to be happy, so he suggested making a binding vow. A part of him felt wary as all these felt too good to be true.

The vow was simple, it was to live as long as you can. He was still new to forming binding vows, so he forgot to acknowledge the fact that breaking the vow didn’t mean much if someone else killed you. Only that your death would be far more painful. Things were peaceful, too peaceful. He ate the food you cooked him, talked with you about a future together, looked at the sun set together. Like every day, you left him after that with a kiss on his cheek. Yet, he felt uneasy enough to sneak near the village that night after hearing the commotion.

It didn’t take long to find you, as you were right there, in the middle of the village square, or at least your severed head was. The blood splattered everywhere indicated the effects of the binding vow, your entire body exploded when your head was cut. Perhaps you were weak and ended up telling your parents, perhaps somehow, they found out that you were pregnant with his child, he would never know. That village burned that night and not a single person there survived. As he stood there, watching whatever was left of you burn with the village, it was almost as if he achieved enlightenment. The weak shouldn’t complain, so he wasn’t complaining. He would get stronger so that he would be the one taking, to fill the void that was created this day. His hunger was endless because he would never eat the food you cook again. Love is meaningless, because without you, this world lost its meaning.

[pinkyqil]

Flirt // Jenni hermoso x r

Jenni was a flirt least to say she could flit with anyone as long has it as lips head and a body anything else wouldn't matter to her. So that why you felt really confused with your "relationship". with her cause she always gave you mixed signals that rarely made any sense to you.

One day she's all over you complimenting you, making you blush and all as it the usual Jenni package. next thing you know someone else is getting the same treatment that she gives or how she likes to call it "her delicate taste".

That made absolutely no sense to you but one thing you knew was that you were done. with anything that had to do with Jennifer hermoso you didn't want a part of it unless it was something serious. But it didn't look like it things where going to change with her so you thought.

You started pulling away from jenni it went from you two always partnering up to you straight up ignoring her and picking someone else as your partner.

To dismissing her and canceling plans that she made cause you knew it would be some different by tomorrow.

Slowly a hole formed in your friendship you both couldn't even spare each other a glance or a simple greeting.

The only time you would actually say a few words would be around game days where you needed to communicate with jenni but that wasn't something you both could do outside of work.

It honestly broke your heart to be pulling away from her like this. You missed her smile silly jokes that she would make trying to lighting up the room.how she would be there whenever you needed something or that you weren't feeling well she was always by your side like your order half.

Least to say jenni also felt the same way her heart felt incomplete like the other pieces to it was missing. but she knew one thing and it was to make it up too you for whatever she did cause her heart couldn't take you acting like she didn't exist.

The last few days you noticed Jenni putting in some efforts but you would always denie her and.

still continue shutting her out she tried everything from leaving notes and your favorites chocolate in your cubby opening the door for you. helping you carry heavy equipment without calling out for help but you wouldn't come forward.

It wasn't that you heated what jenni was doing you loved it all but your heart wasn't ready for what would happen if you guys where to talk it out.

Would things go back to the same way with how she was treating you or would you two become something. Was what you wondered.

Jenni's act had been going on forever but still she didn't get any improvement from you side always the cold shoulder and nothing more for her.

Today she jenni had planned to conner you when everybody as left as she knew you loved taking your time.

Your day went on with how it usual was Jenni still left you some notes and perfume in your cubby for when you arrived but you hadn't seen her anyway around the training grounds which was quite weird as she hung out with her group of people. But needless it was none of your busses.

You were tye last one to shower as everyone else had left or that what you think.you quickly dressed up and started existing the building until you felt a strange but familiar hands grab you by the waist.

It was none other than jenni she looked broken and hurt. All you could do was stare at her.

"What do you want hermoso". you asked her as you tried pulling your hands away.

" I just want to talk to you it would only take a few minutes". She said

"Well get talking cause I didn't have enough time to spend with you in my way".

She took a deep breath before speaking.

"I know that lately have been giving you on and off signals and just acting out as if you aren't important to me which is false so I just wanted' to tell you that I love you so much more than a friend we've both been through anything".

anyone can imagine and I just can't keep living like this knowing that j hurt you instead of protecting you so I just wan to apologize for that". She said as she took time to catch her breath.

"oh jenni you don't understand how long I waited for you to tell me how you feel cause I' also share the same feelings as you, I love you more than anything else that you can imagine"

and it hurt me a lot seeing how you would always treat me I love you jenni hermoso". You told her not expecting all that to come out of your mouth.

"So will I be able to treat you out to a date". She asked

"Yes you can have honestly seen the way that you've improved and I love it". you told her before tip-toeing and leaving a peck on her lips.

"You deserve it". You said

"I guess I do". She replied back

"So I'll see you saturday for dinner". She asked

"Definitely". You told as you walked away holding the notes that she had been living for you onto your chest.

Maybe luck was on your side after all and jenni wasn't just a flit after all.

A/n: hope y'all enjoy this read and if you see any mistakes no you don't cause I just finished writing this at 12:18 so mistakes shall be fixed later. anyway feedbacks, request and comments or if you want to chat with me inboxes are always opened and everything else is appreciated and don't forget to take care of yourself 💗

© PINKYQIL

[fizziepopangel]

A Surprise For You, My Dear

* Author’s note: In this story, I’m going to interpret Alastor’s asexuality and aromanticism as more fluid than it seems to be canonically. Also, this is my first fanfic so please keep that in mind if it's shit... That being said, I hope you enjoy!

P.s. If you enjoy this fic, you can always request more with the Fic Request Form

Alastor. The radio demon. Everyone knew the radio demon, and though he had been gone for quite a while, most still feared him upon his return, but not me. Because he was different from me. Softer, kinder, more genuine. It wasn’t a relationship, at least I didn’t think it was, but I still enjoyed my time with Alastor; the dancing, the laughter we both shared, every moment left me in awe of the man that had come to be feared by so many.

“You gonna answer me or not?” Husk snapped, pulling me from my thoughts. 

I tried to cover my embarrassment that struck me when I realized that I hadn’t been listening to the old bartender at all despite having been the one that came and started conversing with the man. I sat up a little straighter and looked over at the bar cat. “Sorry, I… my mind was somewhere else. What did you say?”

Husk rolled his eyes. “I’m goin’ out with Angel tonight but that damn pig of his is sick. I think the little shit got into my whiskey when Angel brought him down here last night. Angel wants to know if you’ll watch him.” He takes a long sip of whiskey in his glass. “So you up for it?”

Although I loved Fat Nuggets and would usually jump at the chance to spend time with the sweet little pig, I shook my head. “Sorry, I have plans with Alastor.” I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face. “Al said he has a surprise for me tonight…”

“Right.” Husk gives me an unimpressed look that seems to say something along the lines of fuck you without outright saying fuck you. “Your boyfriend and your date night.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” I say awkwardly. “I mean.. I don’t think so…I mean, I… I just… I like him but its, it’s…” I sigh deeply, a heat rising in my cheeks. “Shut up, Husk.”

 “Whatever.” Husk says in his usual empty sarcastic tone. “Guess Angel and me’ll just stay in with the pig tonight…” I watch as he turns, grabbing a glass and beginning to polish it with a rag that ironically  didn’t all that clean.

“Oh… sorry, Husk…” I mumble awkwardly, suddenly feeling a bit like a dick for essentially denying the couple a night out. I knew they both deserved it but I just couldn’t bring myself to say that I would cancel on Alastor when he made the night out seem so special. “I…” I trail off for a moment, feeling the other demon’s judging eyes despite his back still being turned to me as he continues to polish glasses on the shelf behind the bar. “I’m gonna go get ready to meet Alastor. I’ll see you later, and maybe I can take Fat Nuggets another time?”

I receive a grunt in reply, but as I get off my barstool, I hear the old demon grumble under his breath…. A simple warning. “Just… Be careful around Alastor, kid…. You been having a rough enough time without his bullshit” He says, not even sparing me a glance as the words left his lips. I promise him I will, knowing that he’s only looking out for me… Husk always told me that, or at least something along those lines…. But this time felt different; this time it sent a spear of anxiety through my chest and made my mind wander to what everyone in hell knew about Alastor versus the Alastor that I knew. The Alastor that I loved despite knowing he probably didn’t and would never feel the same about me… when I really thought about it, I did wonder why the man had taken such a liking to me. I wasn't indebted to him, I had no real power in hell or the hotel, and even I knew that no matter what version of Alastor was on display, he didn't keep people around without a reason. 

My thoughts continued to wander from one shitty thought to the next as I went up to my room to change for our little hang out. I was so lost in the whirlwind of thoughts when a knock at the door jolted me from where I sat in my room.

“Darling,” Alastor’s cheery, sing song voice. “Are you ready to go?”

Despite the fact that I had just been questioning my entire purpose in his life and why my companionship was so valued by him, I practically tripped over my own two feet trying to get to the door. “Al!” I beam the second I see him. “I thought we were supposed to meet up? What are you doing here?”

Sporting his signature smile, the usually detached demon waltzed into my room, grabbing me and spinning me around. “I thought we could make our way to our outing together, hmm?” He says as I giggle. “What do you say, my dear? May I escort you to the roof for your surprise?” Alastor’s smile faded into a warmer grin as he held out his hand in invitation, waiting for me to take it.

When I took his hand and let him lead me through the halls of the hotel toward the roof, it felt as if all at once the anxieties that had been gnawing away at my gut just melted away ... it was like butterflies just swarmed my insides.

“What is this big surprise, Al?" I giggle as he whisks me up to the roof, stopping just outside the door. 

“Now, I know that you've had a rough week, and that you've been absolutely dying to see that new horror film…” He said giddily. “And I've set something up that I think you'll enjoy very much.”

A frown crossed my face for a moment. I had mentioned wanting to see the horror movie that came out last weekend, and I had been pretty having a shitty week, but I wasn’t sure where Alastor was going with this surprise since he wouldn’t dare touch a tv that would stream the movie. “Yeah…?” I laugh lightly as we stand in front of the door. “What, did you find someone to go to the movies with or something?”

“Not quite.” I can actually heat the excitement in his voice as he opens the door and pulls me through it. “What do you think?”

“Alastor…” I breathe, looking around at the rooftop. There’s twinkle lights strung up all over and blankets and pillows and wine sitting and a basket of my favorite snacks all sitting beside a projector pointed at the wall beside the door. “This is…”

“Oh, but wait, there’s more!” Alastor said, his shadow hitting play on the projector. The beginning sequence of the movie I had been dying to see popping up.

My eyes lit up and despite myself, I launched myself into the radio demon’s arms, eliciting a small ‘oof’ from the man before I felt his arms snake around me. “Alastor, this is amazing! I love it!” I looked up at the man who everyone around me seemed so terrified of, the man my friends warned me to be careful around. “Did you really do this for me?”

“Why of course!” The man smiled down at me, pulling me a bit closer than he usually did before his head dipped just a bit lower and I felt him place a soft kiss on my forehead. “I would do anything to make you happy, my sweet little radio wave.” 

My heart stopped for just a moment before it began racing, hammering against my ribcage as the butterflies in my stomach went wild. “Al…” Before I could stop myself, I found my lips connecting with his and despite his usual aversion to touch and romance and anything that could even possibly lead to sex, he pulled me a bit closer. 

When he didn't pull away, it felt like electricity crackling in my veins. I felt like every star in the sky aligned perfectly as he held me. It felt perfect, it felt right. 

Radio static cracked in the air around us and Alastor’s face was just a light shade of red, no doubt mirroring my own embarrassment at what I had just done.

“Well then, “ Alastor cleared his throat, the static seeming to fade a bit as he straightened his jacket and held his hand out to me. "Shall we sit down and watch the movie?” I take his hand and nod wordlessly, afraid that I would ruin what was certainly a perfect moment if I uttered even a word or asked him to define our relationship.

Alastor showed me to my seat on the blanketed area he had set up, I immediately sank into the soft pillows and blankets, and smiled as he sat down beside me. The movie began to play and as the opening credits began to roll, I knew I should at least thank him for all of this since I knew it was a show of care he reserved for only those he loved on some level, but before I could form a coherent sentence, I felt it… His arm snaked around my waist and pulled me closer to his own body.

“I don’t think I could’ve made this anymore perfect if I tried, Al.” I sigh softly, resting my head against his chest and listening to the quiet, steady crackle of radio static that always seemed to emit from the demon. Although he set this movie night up for me, I’m not even watching the movie, but rather, just trying to soak up this moment before it slips away. “Thank you.”

Alastor chuckles, his hand gently coming to rest on my chin. My breath caught in my throat as he leaned in, our lips hovering just apart from one anothers. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, my dear.” The static completely stops and his whisper tickles my lips as he catches them in another soft kiss.

The week had been shitty, but this… This was perfect.

Alastor Tag list : @writersonicfan91

[ghost-emoji-anon]

hi! i'm not entirely sure how this is going to play out if i post something here and now, but i'm going to post it and see how it goes! it's for the call of duty fandom and audience, but hopefully whoever follows me here can engage with it as well. :)

right so, könig obviously has his sniper mask on at all times. sticks to himself and doesn't go out of his way to make friends. talks when he's being spoken to, etc. that sort of thing. that is until one day someone new is joining the team

he sees you. first thing he notices is the mask you wear and his interest in you went from 0 to 100 real quick. but he doesn't want to jump to conclusions, maybe you're wearing it because you just got off a recent mission before coming here.

but that all changed when he sees you and your mask on at all times. in and out of the battlefield. he notices your demeanor is different on the field and out of it. you remind him of himself sometimes, but you're a little more open to speaking to others than he is so he's sort of afraid to approach you. so he just silently admires you from afar.

you, obviously you, take notice of this giant man off in the back keeping to himself and no one around you ever says anything about it. you wonder why no one takes notices of könig, but you never bother asking anyone that. you just silently watch him from afar as well. neither of you catching the other watching.

but by some odd miracle, you two are paired up on a mission. you really don't know how that even happened but you're grateful for whoever is watching over you and glad you've gotten some opportunity to at least speak a few words to him.

what you expected was a silent man on a mission... what you got was the complete opposite. you can very well get used to this, because you were in the same boat. both of you grinning under the masks, neither of you seeing the others smile but could only tell just by looking into the others eyes.

that one simple eye contact was what sent you and könig a jolt of some sort of electricity and now the pair of you became inseparable.

the others on the team noticed how well you worked together and more often than not, you two were paired up. getting the job done quick and efficiently.

as the months came and went, you formed a sort of friendship that bordered onto something more.

down time was soent with him. he taught you simple words and phrases in German, you taught him your own. (whatever language you speak)

he shared his favorite foods from his homeland, you did the same.

very rarely would you two open up on your personal life, but it was starting to get to the point where you two would indulge the other on your past.

he told you about his hard time growing up, being bullied and the like.

you told him of your own insecurities.

each day was a anew experience with him and as the months continued to go by, you and him had gotten to the point where you would nap/sleep in each other's rooms.

and one day, the tension was so high between the two of you that you could no longer hide the one thing you kept from him

your face.

so you asked him to come by your room one. kept the lights low but just enough that he could still see you when you finally decided to take your own mask off.

he stops by and wonders what was going on

you tell him exactly what you were going to do and of course, he panics a little inside and reassures you that you don't have to do this. but you tell that it's something you want to do and that you felt like you can trust him with everything you have. all of you.

he nods in understanding and that's when you let out the breath you didn't know you were holding

slowly, you remove your mask. lifting it from your neck and up. your neck is exposed first. revealing the soft flesh of your skin and könig nearly chokes on air.

he's antsy. his fingers are lightly drumming across his thighs and he doesn't know what to do with himself at this very moment. but he lets you continue

his eyes are taking in everything and it nearly makes you nervous but it also fills you with this adrenaline

your chin is next then your lips

könig's throat is DRY

your nose and cheeks come into view and at this point, he doesn't know how he hsdnt passed out yet

and then finally

you reveal the rest of your face and könig is just staring

you're not sure how you should react to his staring but you almost think it's a bad idea until he mutters something in his native language

you know the word, you've heard him say it before and he told you what it means as well

he called you beautiful.

you nearly choke on your own breathing just from that one word alone

what you weren't expecting was for him to do the exact same thing. you never asked him to, you didn't say you expected him to do the same but he did

könig did it just for you. only you.

he didn't take his time, he just took off his mask like it was something he did with everyone. but that's how you knew that he could trust you with everything.

you both stared at each in awe. taking in each other and memorizing the lines, ridges and everything and keeping it within your memory for as long as you both drew breath

neither of you ever realized the two of you were getting closer and close, not until both of your breaths mingled with one another and you both shared a small, hesitant chaste kiss.

what felt like eternity was only a couple of seconds. both of you opening your eyes and giving each other a smile that only you two had the pleasure in finally seeing

[fatphobiabusters]

I hear a lot about how fatness is a "risk factor" for certain illnesses and diseases. I don't hear much about how so are age, socioeconomic status, experiences of abuse, starvation, sex, race, queerness, and so many other aspects of a person's life. And that's because the world already for the most part accepts that a lot of these factors cannot be changed and that many of these factors are not what actually causes an illness or disease.

You don't develop a medical condition because your bank account suddenly shows a different, smaller number. You developed that medical condition because poverty means unbearable stress every day, less access to healthcare, worse housing, inability to clothe yourself for protection from the elements, having to overwork yourself to be able to afford your basic necessities, going without food, and so many other aspects of oppression. You don't weigh your wallet to measure your health because the amount of money you have is not what actually causes a medical condition.

But no one wants to look at the studies with legitimate methodology and admit that fatness is also in this category—that fatness is not something that we can just choose and will away, that fat people face immense systemic oppression just like any other oppressed group, that the correlation of fatness and illness is not some simple relationship of causation. And that's because doing so would mean no longer making hundreds of billions of dollars off of fat people's oppression and having to admit it's not actually okay to treat fat people as an acceptable punching bag.

When I look at medical information for whatever illnesses, see the risk factors laid out, and the only risk factor the website says to change is fatness? I think about all of the research I've read that shows actual permanent weight loss is as likely as finding Atlantis. The amount of hypocrisy at not telling someone to drink a youth potion as a form of treatment at the same time as they lose weight becomes so palpable that I can taste the dirty money being made off of this website telling people to "just lose weight, fatty." It's as cruel as selling an ill person a random crystal that you tell them will fix their health, which they then rely on instead of actual medical care, causing them to get worse and even die. And if you think that comparison is a stretch, you do not realize how many people die every day because they were told weight loss was the answer or were forced to lose weight before the doctor would actually respect them enough to run tests or so much as touch their fat body.

We live in a world where people with PCOS are told to "just lose weight" to solve their infertility, where that is the very first bullet point listed on a website about a medical condition that makes weight loss even more impossible than the already 95% failure rate for the general population. A world where fat people have to stick their own fat bodies with needles during a doctor's appointment because the doctor is too disgusted by fat rolls to even look at the person's body to give them a shot. A world where fat people with eating disorders are encouraged, applauded, and told to keep going while the thin person with an eating disorder has the "luxury" of receiving help, compassion, and a diagnosis that isn't separated in the DSM with the word "atypical." A world where a fat person accidentally given chemotherapy is told by the doctor "At least it helped you lose weight!" A world where weight loss corporations are making the exact same promises they did in advertisements from 1910, yet somehow over 100 years later we have an "ob*sity epidemic" because diets, weight loss products, and exercise regimens "Really work!!!"

If this single "solution" to ill health has not worked despite well over a century of desperate, constant attempts, maybe we should stop trying to jam a triangle into a square hole.

-Mod Worthy

[seros-chaotic-scribbles]

Favorite Customer

sho haizono x [frostheim student] reader!

a/n: oh god i havent written a fanfic in YEARS! please be gentle with me (no beta because that's scary!!!)! apologies for any occ sho! this lil fic is dedicated to proxy from my TD guild! <3 enjoy!

The food truck had been a hit since it opened, attracting crowds of students during lunch and dinner. Faces blurred together and Sho struggled with keeping track of everyone. There were a couple of exceptions, of course, Subaru, Leo, the honor student, and you. 

At first, he thought you were a bit strange. Unlike the others who stopped by you tended to change your order. Each day brought a new dish with a handful of customizations that made him think you were purposely trying to annoy him. The first time he had decided to confront you on it led to no results. You were an expert at dodging the question, a simple smile and flutter of your eyelashes had him stunned, stuttering and quickly turning away to work. It was the way you effortlessly seemed to brush off his passive-aggressive nature, the fact that you decided to tease him for it rather than glare due to the reputation of his house. 

It made him feel… oddly soft.

He didn’t understand at first. The way his brain refused to comprehend your motives, the sudden increase in temperature that came with your arrival, the urge to prove that he could meet your requests with only a few complaints mumbled under his breath. He used to hate your visits, but now he looked forward to them. In fact, he was a bit worried at how Leo had started to pick up on his apparent ‘favoritism’…

“I told you, she’s just a customer.” 

Sho felt like he had repeated that at least ten times now. 

“Mhm… just a customer alright, one you let walk all over you anytime she smiles. I’m surprised you haven’t just started giving her meals for free.”

Leo’s tone was filled with disapproval and… disgust. It was hard to pinpoint the exact negative emotion he was expressing. 

“Yeah, yeah… Whatever…”

Sho had begun to tune out Leo’s rambling, instead turning his focus to getting ready for the dinner rush. Classes were done for the day and students were bound to be hungry. Hopefully, you would show up early and—

“I mean, I don’t even understand what you see in her. She’s in the same house as that dumbass who tried to fight you. Isn’t that a sign to ignore her?”

Leo’s voice was starting to annoy him. Sho could deal with his own belittlement but hearing the way the silver-haired teen talked about you had him tensing. He knew he could put an end to his words but there would always be a consequence. Knowing Leo it’d be something stupid, especially with his newfound vice captain privileges…

“Don’t you think it’s annoying how she always has to have a different meal? Oh and those stupid customizations that she manages to get you to do! You always get mad at me when I change something so why don’t you get mad at her too? What’s the deal with that?”

Fuck the consequences.

Sho turned to face Leo, staring him down inside the small kitchen area of the truck. He watched his friend blink slowly as if he was confused by the anger that was building up in the truck. 

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get. Out.”

Silence filled the kitchen as neither of them moved. Tension started to thicken the air as the chatter of students could be heard. The rush would begin soon.

Leo moved first with a roll of his eyes.

“Fine, fine, I get it. Work has you stressed or whatever. Have fun!~”

Completely ignoring the real reason behind Sho’s anger, Leo took his leave with a cheerful smile. He didn’t seem to care about the state he had left his supposed friend in nor the fact that people were already starting to form a line outside the truck. At least Sho could use the rush to help get his mind off of Leo’s words and the… implications they held on his feelings towards you.

Time went by far too fast for Sho’s liking. His stomach held a slight knot from his earlier bout of anger and he struggled quite a bit with the number of students. He was definitely going to need to find someone to help… at least with prep work beforehand. It seemed like there was always something more to do.

But, what bothered him most about this rush wasn’t the work or the annoyance students showed when he took ‘too long’, it was the fact that you hadn’t shown up.

The sky was darkening and Sho watched as a few stragglers went towards their dorms. Soon the campus would be quiet. This had been the first time that you hadn’t shown up. You hadn’t mentioned anything at lunch about not being here…

So he decided to stay open. Just for a bit longer. Just in case…

The silence allowed him to think. 

Leo had been pushing him earlier, that much had become obvious. But why? It was like he was trying to make Sho angry, trying to force a reaction out of him. 

He didn’t… He didn’t actually like you, did he?

No. No, that was stupid. 

You had become friends. That’s all. Friends. 

Friends over a series of conversations, over food, over your careful observations of his cooking habits, over the way you endlessly seemed to come up with challenges for him, the gentle curiosity you showed, the concern when he mentioned leaving for training, or the bruises that followed.

He stood there, stuck in a particular memory. It was the day after a harsher training session with Alan, the bruise that had bloomed on his shoulder was obviously causing him pain. He tried to hide it and work through it, but you saw past his efforts. 

He hadn’t realized it but the way you insisted he take a break, just a day off to heal, reverberated around in his subconscious. Your tone had been so soft, so sweet…

“Oh fuck.”

He did like you. 

Leo had figured it out before him. 

Sho just had to hope that he hadn’t gotten to you beforehand, talked to you about it, somehow twisted it, and—

“Hey, Sho!”

Your voice broke his thoughts, pulling his gaze to you. You seemed slightly disheveled, and out of breath as you approached the truck. Stray hairs stuck to your face as you tried to regain your composure.

Had you sprinted all the way here?

“Sorry, I’m so late! Luca—“ you took a deep breath in before flashing a bit of an embarrassed smile,” He went a bit rougher on training today. I was worried you’d already be closed and I’d have to sneak into the Vagastrom dorms just to have dinner.”

Sho blinked for a moment. You would sneak into his dorm… to see him? The notion had his ears turning red as he quickly looked away, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I would just bring you dinner at that point… Sneaking in would only get both of us in trouble.”

“Aww Sho! You care about me getting in trouble? That’s so sweet!~” 

Your laughter filled the night air and for the first time that night, Sho felt his body relax. He shook his head before leaning against the counter of the truck, looking down at you.

“Whatever. What do you want tonight?”

He feigned disinterest but his small smile gave him away.

You pretended to look over the menu before meeting his gaze. There was a mischievous glint in your eyes. He wasn’t going to like this, was he?

“Let me cook for you.”

Huh?

Sho just stared.

Had he heard you correctly?

“What?”

“I said,” you held the word for a moment as you walked to the side door. There was no hesitation in your movements as you opened it,” Let me cook for you! It’ll be a nice change. Don’t look at me like that!”

He didn’t believe in your abilities. Maybe he shouldn’t make that obvious? I mean there was a reason you came to him for nearly every meal, right? He really shouldn’t let you…

But when you looked at him like that he didn’t know if he could say no. There was determination in your eyes and a confidence that you didn’t seem to have before. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt… Plus it was just one meal…

Sho sighed, crossing his arms and shaking his head. If this ended in disaster he would never let you live it down. 

“Fine… Just don’t make a mess.”

“I won’t! Scouts honor!”

You did a two-finger salute before moving towards the fridge, opening it, and searching through the leftovers from the dinner rush.

“Wait…” Sho leaned against the counter, watching your movements as he considered what you said,” Were you ever even a part of the scouts…?”

Your lack of response didn’t help his confidence.

It wasn’t long before a pleasant aroma began to fill the food truck. You had ignored Sho’s questions about what you were making and instead kept the conversation flowing by asking about his day. He didn’t have much to tell but he hesitated when mentioning that Leo had been hanging out with him before the rush.

He saw the way your body tensed slightly upon the mention of his friend and the dread in his stomach from earlier returned. Had Leo mentioned something after all…?

“I don’t mean to be rude but…”

You started before trailing off, keeping your head turned towards the stove. You sighed for a moment before trying to start speaking again. It was clear you were putting a lot of thought behind your words.

“I know he’s your friend and all but don’t you think it’s rude that Leo knows you could use a hand but refuses to offer?”

Sho relaxed at your comment. You were just peeved with Leo’s laziness, nothing else. That was good at least. 

He shrugged as he moved to stand next to you, peering over your shoulder curiously.

“Leo only does things that interest him. Plus, he’s a terrible cook.”

You snorted at that before glancing at Sho. He swallowed, trying to avoid staring at you but it was hard when you seemed so relaxed. The slight smile on your lips seemed to hypnotize him. They looked so soft. 

Then he realized that you were saying something. Something that he had completely missed. He was an idiot. 

“What do you think?”

Your voice was so deceptively sweet. You absolutely knew he wasn’t listening. He refused to admit it though. That would be even more embarrassing.

So, he looked away, awkwardly clearing his throat.

“I didn’t know you could cook.”

“You didn’t know or didn’t think I could?”

“Want me to be honest?”

“Sho!”

You lightly nudged him, pretending to be annoyed at his underestimation of your abilities.

“What?! You come here for almost every meal. It was a reasonable assumption.”

“Do you think I only come here for the food?”

Your boldness caught him off guard. 

Sho turned back towards you, his heart beginning to race. His eyes were wide as he struggled to talk. He needed to say something! Anything! You were starting to look so unsure of yourself now, a blush taking over your features.

“Cute.”

No! Don’t say that!

He wanted to bang his head into a wall when your blush increased tenfold. He felt one of his own start to consume him as he started to rub the back of his neck. He should be suave, charming, not struggling like this. 

You two seemed to be at a standstill. Neither one of you could speak or look away. It was infuriating but in the best way. Sho couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face as he cleared his throat. 

Well, now or never right?

“I’m glad that you aren’t just using me for food.“ 

Oh, that had come out wrong. So wrong. He swallowed before trying to continue.

“I like seeing you every day! I wouldn’t mind if we, y’know, uh… spent more than just lunch and dinner together…”

He trailed off, suddenly unsure. He was trying to read your expression, it seemed to be a mix of shock and excitement. Your face was bright red and you were smiling. That was a good sign! 

Sho hadn’t realized how close the two of you had gotten. He was lost in the moment, struggling with how to express this softer side of him that he hadn’t paid attention to your movements. He watched as you slowly blinked before starting to talk.

“I’d like that too.”

It was as if time was moving in slow motion, your lips had just begun to brush his when—

“Is something burning?”

Sho had pulled away when the scent of burnt… whatever it was you had been making quickly took priority over the moment you two had been having. The two of you quickly worked in tandem to try and save the meal but it turned out it was beyond saving, much to your frustration. 

Luckily for you, there was someone who was more than happy to make you something else. 

[miffysstash]

Eddsworld Tom/Reader Headcanons

Dates He’d Take You On: 

Dates are sporadic, whether it be to the local bar for a few drinks or to the local skating rink to go around the rink a few times together. He sometimes takes to band concerts or underground concerts if they’re in town, especially if it’s an indie band you really like. He’ll be holding your hand the entire time as you cheer and raise your other fist into the air at the band, his eyes half-lidded with a smile as he doesn’t look away from you almost the entire time. Like you and your thrilled reactions were enough of a show for him.

As stated before, he takes you on dates to the local roller rink close to his house. If you’re not very good at skating, he’ll help you from behind. One hand is located at your hip while the other holds your hand to help your terrified form keep balance.  “Hey, it’s ok (Name). Baby steps, you won’t get it right away.”  After a bunch of practice, you're skating side by side. Holding hands as you dodge passer-by’s and talk about whatever life is throwing at the both of you.  “Hey, you’re doing great babe. Proud of ya.”  He gently squeezes your hand in reassurance that his words are genuine, knowing his voice may sound sarcastic.

There’s also late-night rendezvous with him, whether it be him practicing chords on Susan or just chatting in his room or your apartment with a couple bottles of alcohol (or mocktails for you if you don’t drink).  He’ll chat about his roommates, whom you’ve met on a few occasions, or bands that he’s recently discovered. His head will be in your lap, your fingers dragging through his hair as he rants to you,  “My stupid friends did something stupid like always. One of these days they’re gonna get us killed I swear to God.” “Tom, did you join them though?” “...Maybe?” 

He tells you all the things the three of them get into and on rare occasions the antics they had with his former roommate. You think his name was Tord? You thought he was great at coming up with stories until he came to your apartment one day with a spaceship. “Hey (Name)” He waved nonchalantly.  “Hi, Tom’s partner!” His friends called out.  Meanwhile, your coffee was now dropped and spilled all over your balcony floor as you stared up in disbelief. 

Romantic Stuff He Does:

This man truly doesn’t really change in a relationship, plain and simple. Of course, he does the usual romantic stuff like holding your hand and giving you affection behind closed doors but he treats you the same around others like he did before. He’ll joke around with you like he would before he confessed (although sprinkling little flirts and pet-names into it),  “You’re an idiot, and I love you so much for it babe.” Of course, he doesn’t think you’re an idiot, you both know this. Behind closed doors though? Tom loves to hold you close as you cuddle, sure he loves to be held but to have you in his arms gives him a sense of almost overwhelming comfort. 

He’ll hold onto one of your hands the entire time and just inspect it, whether the lines of your palm or any scars/marks you have on them to remember every last detail.  Places gentle kisses on your hand and forehead as well.  As cliche as it is, he loves mumbling sweet nothings to you. He can mumble to you for hours. “You’re beautiful, ya know that (Name)? I could be here for hours with you and I wouldn’t complain one bit.”

You also noticed he starts to smell less like alcohol and more like a nice light cologne when you get further into your relationship. He starts frequenting the local bar less and less, even on his own when you don’t go there on a date.  When or if you bring this up, he shrugs “Haven’t had a reason to go lately.”

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Rafal headcanons (not all have a basis in canon):

He doesn't and will never get hype culture much to Rhian's chagrin.

He probably has some item, like an article of clothing, such as socks, that he buys duplicates of, so he doesn't have to waste thought and energy on them everyday.

He likes olives, especially the sour ones, in some of his sandwiches.

He suffers from "irony poisoning" by a certain stage in life.

One of the worst things in the world to him is writing Thank You cards, usually to people like alumni who send generous donations. He always foists the task off on Rhian because he can’t bring himself to sound sincere or fawn over anything. Also, it irrationally humiliates him to have to thank someone for something in person, even if it's something small. He doesn't know why he feels that way, and doesn’t care enough to find out. It’s an unplaceable, inexplicable feeling, and it’s just there.

On the converse, Rhian lets him respond to the letters of complaint and petitions for reform. He vetoes almost everything.

He likes to manipulate the sky and weather patterns, particularly lightning, to look more foreboding, as if nature were his personal backdrop. He secretly lives for drama as long as it stays a spectator sport for him. (This one might be canon going by the Snow Ball edict scene in Rise, but it's sort of unconfirmed.)

If he ever appreciated sentimental elements in the tales (unlikely), he’d never tell anyone. And he would only play those things out in his head where there would be no record of them.

In his own thoughts, or if he were a writer, of course he’d write about taboo subjects, but the one obvious thing he intentionally wouldn’t write about would be love (or specifically romantic love). He’d probably write around love. He’d write the negative space that makes love’s presence known, but somehow not engage with it directly, eye to eye, and instead define it by what’s not present in his work.

He’d avoid thinking or writing about the human condition, even if all writers, by default, end up writing about human condition in some shape or form, by hazard of being a human. He’s immortal and he’d view himself as above human and above humanity as a sympathetic trait. Simple as that. (He’d be in denial, essentially.)

And yet, he’d write about it. Incidentally. The same way he’d write around love—somehow managing to snare everything he’d circumvent into his works while he circumvents it.

His critics and fans would have a field day, trying to parse out what might have been intentional or not on his part.

For his part, he’d never give interviews, and would let his works stand for themselves, alone, as art, as they’re meant to be read: gone into blind. He hates it when educators flatten his works, so they can be consumed by a broader, apathetic (in his eyes) audience. He hates abridged versions.

He even hates abridged versions of the tales the Storian writes, and he unconsciously spurns the laymen of the Woods.

Even if he wouldn't write about love, a subtle, recurring theme of his would be sacrifice. Sacrifice for personal gain and ambition, or whatever else there is that he’d value, that wasn’t always in his hands, that didn’t always drop into his hands immediately, if he couldn’t orchestrate it.

He wouldn’t admit to valuing Rhian, but well… that’s one other “thing” he keeps like an object to be owned. It’s a form of "love." And to him, sacrifice is a form of "love" or devotion, because you let go of everything else for the one gain, in pursuit of it.

He often thinks along the lines of “all-or-nothing," "the thought doesn't count," and “actions, not thought, not words.”

If he wrote, lectured, or thought around love, he'd also leave a gap for his students or readers to fill in for themselves.

And it's just as well that he probably would only ever write the povs of hard-boiled figures like detectives, or the solvers and perpetrators of crime that would never fall prey to emotional appeals. He can’t stand putting himself in the shoes of the “fool” or the duped, even in an imaginary world, even in the safety of his head—because what if it bled into his real life? He's not superstitious, but what if, one day, he were played for a fool? Never. He would never allow that.

And it makes sense really, as, ironically, writing these figures, the least emotionally vulnerable characters for an audience or outlining them on the blackboard for his students when discussing a tale is probably at once the most impersonal route and also the most revealing. To his students, those behind-the-scenes decisions are themselves telling in some way.

It’s all just up for interpretation—because, what would he be if he didn’t leave gaps and holes in his character? The chinks in his armor are left there for others to do the work for him because he’s impressively lazy and apathetic about "introducing” himself, and has the good fortune of having a job that doesn’t require introductions to new faces, aside from the students he doesn’t truly need to know by heart in order to teach. They can just fill in the gaps however much they want, ideally or relationally and so on.

And he’s content to leave them with a false image of himself because even that’s less unnerving and disconcerting as people being too close for comfort, and knowing too much of what he can no longer moderate in the privacy of their own minds. You can’t unknow something or someone after all.

He’s afraid of the "mortifying ordeal of being known" in a less conventional way. To an extent, humanity is fear-driven deep down. Thus, he doesn’t want to give anyone a window into his psyche—lest he be taken advantage of, so he contents himself with not being known at all, feeding into his paranoia that the world is out to get him.

Why give it more ammo? He should deprive the world of anything it could use against him. Maybe he has a fear of being mocked for however he really is? Though, if there is a facade (I mean, he is a public figure), it's not actually that far removed from whatever he doesn't reveal anyway.

Perhaps, he would respond to mockery internally the way he did at his own Nevers expressing their hatred of him with a brief, sharp, jabbing twinge of hurt, at the disapproval he largely never cares about, but that under the right conditions, he may indeed care about.

Now, he's no longer in a position to be mocked, but perhaps, before becoming School Master, he used to tell others harshly: "Do. Not. MOCK. Me." whenever they would mirror him because he did not think as far as to realize that emotional reciprocation was two-sided, especially with Evers and their behaviors. Yet, he mocks Rhian, Evers, pirates, and everything else in sight. Nothing is immune from being subject to his irreverence, and he is both hypocritical and hyper-critical.

[reidsaurora]

hellohello i'd like to order a confetti cupcake with luke alvez and a hint of a "oh shit are we really doing this" kind of relationship/date whatever thank youuu

this is the cutest ever, i'm so happy with how it turned out! hope you enjoy 🫶🏻

"The Mistletoe Mishap" ~ L. Alvez

pairing: luke alvez x gn!reader

summary: "you'd be surprised just how seriously the bau took their christmas in july celebrations."

word count: 922

warnings: a couple swear words, mentions of food, a lil splash of sexual humor at the end, i think that's it!

genre: festive fluff ❤️✨️

extra notes: the icon in the collage is by @delicatejareau (edited to fit the theme of the collage a lil better) and the dividers below are by @anlian-aishang!

beta read by: @dungeons-are-too-cold (thank you, love!)

birthday bash | masterlist | ask box

🧁 Confetti Cupcakes - send me a character + concept/trope/au and i'll write you a blurb!

You'd be surprised just how seriously the BAU took their Christmas in July celebrations.

What started as Penelope bringing Christmas cookies to the office one day turned into watching Elf during their lunch hour, Secret Santa exchanges, and weekly contests to see who could show up in the ugliest Christmas sweater (Spencer was winning so far with his sweater made completely out of tinsel).

However, the one unfortunate part of Christmas in July was the mistletoe hanging over every. single. doorframe.

Sure, mistletoe in the workplace was awkward enough as it was, but it certainly didn't help that there was one person you absolutely couldn't get caught under it with.

You and Luke had been dating for a few months by this point and, thus far, you'd successfully kept it under wraps. But every time one of you stopped in a doorway, your heart began to beat so hard, you thought it would bang its way out of your chest.

Usually, you two found a way to keep enough distance that it would be almost impossible to pass under the mistletoe at the same time. But today? The last day of your Christmas in July celebration? Of course it would be the day you didn't.

You and Luke were the last two to show up at the round table room for lunch and a movie, which you'd gathered was Frosty the Snowman when you heard the familiar theme song upon walking in.

Your shoulder brushed something hard as you entered the room, and for some reason, you just knew it wasn't going to end well when you looked up and made eye contact with whoever else was under the mistletoe with you.

You attempted to make a run for your seat, but a familiar voice stopped you in your tracks. "Now, Y/N, you know the rules of mistletoe," Penelope reminded you from her seat. You should've known there wasn't a way out of this, not when Penelope Garcia, self-proclaimed President of the 'Christmas In July Club', was around.

The rules of mistletoe varied a little in the workplace, at least. Some people went for high-fives while others went for hugs. Emily had even gone as far as kissing Tara on the cheek one day, but no one dared to kiss anyone on the mouth yet. So, really, there was no reason to panic, right?

Still, you froze in place, your fight or flight mode clearly not having kicked in yet. Instead, your eyes met Luke's with a look that said, 'please save me,' your hands gripping your lunch bag for some form of stability.

Your chest rose and fell in a rapid rhythm, your heart beating hard against your sternum. "Are we really gonna do this?" you silently mouthed up at him, your whole body on the verge of something close to a panic attack.

"Come on, you guys," Rossi teased, "If Boy Genius can high-five people under the mistletoe, you can too."

Chuckles erupted from your coworkers, but not from you nor Luke. Instead, Luke looked down at you, his tongue jutting out to wet his lips, and somehow, as simple a gesture as it was, the soft eye contact was enough to bring you out of your state of panic. You knew that whatever happened, whether he kissed you or not, and whether or not this kiss led to your secret being exposed, Luke had this, had you.

In one swift motion, he had both his hands planted on either side of your face. "Fuck it," he whispered, barely giving you a second to process the words before his lips were on yours.

His familiar scent fell around you like your own protective bubble as he kissed you, his hold on your face absolutely intoxicating. The taste of his morning coffee burned through you, your stomach doing a loop-de-loop at the sensation.

You knew as soon as he pulled away that all eyes would be on the both of you, but you didn't expect half of their jaws to be on the floor.

"Damn," Emily said, flabbergasted. "Is everyone around here getting laid except for me?"

Penelope was the next to speak, which was quite surprising, considering it looked as though her jaw was out of commission not three seconds prior. "Who knew Newbie could canoodle like that?"

Your face flushed as crimson as the sweater your colleague wore. "Penelope," you scolded her, your hands bringing your lunch bag in front of your face, covering the blush that had taken over.

Luke was having none of that, pulling the lunch bag away from your cheeks. "Y/N sure knows," he smirked before leaving a soft kiss on your forehead.

The blonde all but jumped out of her chair. "Is this a thing? How come no one told me about the thing? Why am I always the last to know about a thing?"

Luke tossed an arm around your shoulders, providing you with a sense of calm and comfort as you thought about your next words. "Technically," you started, "you're all the first to find out about the thing."

"Except Roxy," Luke corrected. "She pretty much knew it was a thing before it actually was a thing."

Next thing you knew, the girls were pulling you over to one side of the room, practically begging for details. Out of the corner of your eye, you caught Spencer sharing a fist bump with Luke, a smile overtaking your face.

Oh, how they got on your nerves, but oh how, you loved the BAU.

-> taglist: @1234-angelika @drayshadow @alexxavicry @nomajdetective @cordyandbilliehavemyheart @darkloverfox @sammyrenae68 @cherrycandle @asgardprincess97 @gh0stgurl @randomwriter1021 @eddieharrington @danielle143 @esposadomd @reidselle @dungeons-are-too-cold @louderfortheback @reidsbookclub @cwritesforfun @cynbx @juismissing @captainchris-pike @lukeclvez

[demonicnarwhale]

Carapaces!!!!

RC / Raptorial Clerk: RC is one of the archivist on Prospit who deals with mainly Prospit's history and keeping things neat and tidy (just in case if it's needed then carapaces can go to him and retrieve that information) there's other archivists for different sections of society like political, economical, etc. When Midnight City happens / fall of the kingdoms he ends up being a librarian teehee

his origins: and due to his specialties being historical archiving, he's in the same department or area as HK and the two are actually hatch friends!!! YAYYYYY!!!! (they are both smiling)

HN / Harbinger Newel: Newel is just the sort of look the outpost tower he's situated at looks like as seen in the small doodle. He just blows his clarinet looking instrument (i giggle since he choses to play the actual clarinet in CMS) when there's some arrival. There's a certain tune he plays depending on what it is. Enemies/Derse army or Prospit army / workers.

WN / Willowy Notary: She's basically some note taker for court records and such. The cloth covering her eyes is a form of "judgement solely based on the case itself" rather than having any bias (that and I wanna continue her lil "no eyes can be seen" thing going on :D. So like she sits in the court room (grinning so wide when i get to share their architecture and infrastructure) and notates what happens and is being said so that if the case needs to be continued/looked at later to come up with the "right" decision they have a reference. Or if there's important documents being signed and such, she's a witness. (like whatever actual notaries do)

MG / Monoceros Goliath: I thought I was gonna be so smart with the first word, tried searching up for a word to describe a horned animal or synonyms for rhinos (cuz haha helmet rhino beetle) but i got no answer(s) and the ones I did related mainly to constellations. Monoceros mainly just being some Greek word for a legendary animal with a horn so like a unicorn. Weeps guys I'm not cut out for elaborate names.

Also she's (so far) a pawn mainly or somewhere near being a rook but not quite there hence being goliath as she's pretty strong/big for a pawn yay. oh yes and she's well aware of innocent lives (aka farmers or pawns that aren't in either army) and so she'll send out a warning or make it known so said carapaces can evacuate/gtfo (both for Prospit and Derse). Like she wants to make it fair and also avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Or something like that cuz overthinking on it makes me think it sounds silly and odd.

Her armor does have some little pearl-like beads cuz why not :) and- and- and it's supposed to be like constellations with the metal engravings (that im too simple minded to give detail to)

Tallest soldier i have and the shortest (also! I had realized that Dynastinae is, THE SCIENTIFIC NAME FOR RHINO BEETLES OAUGRHAUGHRA clawing at my under eyelids (ive realized this while typing this all out <3) so it's either she's MG or DG

SH / Splendorous Headhunter: Basically she goes out and recruits or finds Dersites (who don't already have a job) some role in society that benefits both the community and themselves. Like she's not just going to randomly assign them jobs but try to understand the individual and go suggest jobs. Cuz like, there's of course other Dersites in this similar role (as her) that don't care. But to SH she thinks of it like "why would I make someone miserable, it makes no sense to force someone to do a job they dislike cuz work won't get done at an efficient rate" that and so there's no strikes-

CC / Canorous Clergyman: just listen to this: (and Powerwolf in general please guys oaughh I fucking love this band so so so so so so much)

Midnight Madona teehe i love Powerwolf so much oaugh my goodness (so much so i would've done gone gatekeep em but then i realized. that's corny. and this sorta genre??? is corny on its own in the best way possible, to me :)). but yes im just adding this here because i kept listening to it when drawing this mf

Midnight Madona (Orchestral Version) also the orchestral version fucking ROCKS (and all the other songs they do orchestral versions of) and is what I like to imagine Derse's choir would sound like (the tone or feeling more than the words teehee and of course not with a big ass orchestra track behind ok you know what I MEAN) like do to around the same time stamp as the version above gehehee

I also already kinda explained his whole deal in a previous post. here be CC. But basically, he's more of a figure for individuals to look to either for help or a sense of "oh so this is what we should be doing for our society". So yeah, he's like, the royal family lol, no real political power as he's a lower status bishop. Like, he's a Bishop for the individuals, to ensure they fall in line and yadda yadda support the community and all. Kinda like, a pastor lol

KH / Kinetoscopic Hallucinator: Due to Derse being, ya know, Derse, connections with these fuckassers (horrorterrors) is prone to happen. As we've seen with players and even Feferi having gigglybob and yay yadda Derse Void dreamers yadda. Basically he gets to listen to all the wonderful stories of the past these eldritch beings share with him. Whereas Prospit gets those lil clouds from Skaia to hint at the future. So, he takes the words and stories from horrorterrors as signs of "precautions" or warnings of what may happen in the future. A sort of doomsday gig going on.

Teehe. He still gets to deal with trying to predict Derse's future but that's a bit hard on him so he turns to memorializing Derse's past, and the Horrorterrors give him information that can precede Derse or even what was missed from its history. But it's mainly just them messing with him going "oooh Derse is doomed in the foreseen future! OoooOoooh" and he goes "aight bet" then boom red miles upon ye. Oh and the kinetoscopic thing is just the fact he has his own lil kinetoscope where he enjoys (the process not the actual fact he needs to listen to them) trying to figure out what the Horrorterrors tell him and depicts it as short stories and then draws frames for a lil animation. He just replays them only to get a sense of dread lol. Later on just outcasts himself in his tower to deal with the horrorbobs instead of looking like a loon in front of everyone, possibly to Derse's moon because ahA obvious motifs! of like, the horrorbobs keeping him chained down and yeahhh

It's basically the medium or locations for Sburb/Sgrub but at the moment I'm more focused on Carapace + etc instead of trolls and humans. I ain't no physic astronomer or something so I'll go back and change things up if it's needed but like, I can bs some stuff right??? yeaaahhhhh.

The idea is like I know it's made for the game but what if no game??? It still very much takes after the set up for the medium with Sgrub but woe upon yet.

The locations of Prospit and Derse is why HK (Historiographic Knitter) and KH (Kinetoscopic Hallucinator) are able to look into the future/past. Due to the locations of their respected planets

HK being on Prospit can receive snippets of the future but it's all randomized so it's like she needs to put it all together, or just write down what she sees. She uses these to make stories or piece them together then create textiles for them along with the stories recorded of the past

KH being on Derse, yeah you read his gig.

Skaia: Trying to deal with what the point of Skaia is for both sides. I think I'll go with it's just been so embedded in both societies to either protect or destroy it that carapaces at this point just need to continue what their ancestors had fought for. Honestly, I'm just going to go with Jack Noir doing his red miles thing and destroying Prospit and Derse then killing (almost) all soldiers and the Kings on the battlefield leaving Skaia dormant. (But then whYYyy would he do that in this context)

Midlay: Basically this version's planet of where exiles go and where Midnight City will soon be made.

The Veil: just asteroids to make traveling to and from Prospit and Derse to be dangerous-ish so it's not like carapaces can just go to the opposing planet and cause chaos. If it's really needed then there's only a handful of carapaces suited for that job.

Dream Bubbles: I know it's thanks to Feferi that they're a thing, so they're not a part of this actual universe, BUT I thought they were just cool to include where I think they'd go.

Green Sun: hi Doc Scratch

In terms of like biology/features of carapaces:

I'm going with Carapaces either being like RC where they got them bug-wuggy/crusty marine life features or like HK with a more chess-come-to-life sort of look, thinking it might just be from the cloning? or however these freaks are made getting fucked over with the system or something, just cuz it could be like "oh it derives from chess pieces but also some bug-crustaceans-alien thing" and sometimes the bug-crustacean just wins. It's totally not so I can shit and giggle with other designs and stuff, what??? no. And then of course carapces can have spawn of their own, but lay eggs yadda yadda and so some of these features can get passed down and such. It's just cloning is used in both kingdoms to ensure there's a steady flow of carapaces to work on the planets or get thrown into battle and yeah.

NOTE AS OF NOW: I just copied and pasted information i had saved on them all and so I will most likely go back and fix things up, or make a new post if it's anything major like "Oh I'm changing this character up" but yeAH

[suddencolds]

Small Price to Pay | [1/1]

you know all those posts about making out with someone with a cold and the associated consequences? This is that in fic form, ~8.8k words. I'm embarrassing myself typing this, so here it is.

This is an OC fic ft. Vincent and Yves - you can read more of these two here! :)

Summary:

“So,” Brendon says. “You’re still dating him.” Something about the way he inflects the word still makes something sour in Yves’s chest. Yves frowns at him. “Is that supposed to be surprising?”

Yves has a birthday party to attend and a fake relationship to prove. Vincent is nothing if not adaptable. (ft. fake dating, an argument, contagion)

—

Here’s the problem:

Francesca throws a party.

It’s a birthday party, strictly speaking, but functionally it’s more of a college reunion—Francesca invites everyone from their year who rowed crew, which means that one: Yves will be surrounded by some of his best friends from college, and two: Erika will be there.

He thinks up an entire contingency plan—if Vincent can’t make it that weekend, for one reason or another, Yves will show up, hand Francesca his gift, spend the rest of the hour avoiding Erika and Brendon, and leave early, citing some excuse or other. It’s not that he doesn’t think he could handle talking to Erika—it’s just seeing her feels like reopening a wound. A part of him is scared that he’ll see her, and feel the loss intensely all over again—or, worse, he’ll get ideas about forgiving her, about letting her into his life again, about accepting her explanations.

And Brendon, too—seeing Erika means seeing Brendon, most likely, and Yves doesn’t want to justify himself to him any more than he already has. 

The point is: the less of the both of them that he has to deal with, the better.

When he asks Vincent a week before the event, though, Vincent’s response is immediate.

V: You can fill me in on the details later. I’ll be there.

It’s a little strange, he thinks, that Vincent always agrees so readily. Vincent isn’t a fan of parties—he’d been clear about that. He doesn’t seem interested in talking much about himself, either—he’s just the kind of person, Yves is realizing, who likes to keep his personal details close unless they offer some sort of utility.

Perhaps there’s something else that Vincent is getting out of this, then.

But when Yves asks, he’s met with the same cryptic answer:

“I don’t mind it,” Vincent says. “And you have something you want to prove to your ex. Ultimately, it’s a net positive.”

“While that’s technically true,” Yves says, “this seems like an unfair arrangement. I mean, you’re only doing this because I dragged you into it.”

“If I didn’t want to be dragged into it,” Vincent says, “I would say so.” as if it’s really that simple.

It can’t be that simple, Yves thinks—there must be more to his reasoning that he’s omitting—but he doesn’t press. Vincent is right. Vincent is the kind of person who knows precisely what he wants. If he really had a problem with this arrangement, he would’ve said so.

And, besides—a little selfishly, perhaps—Yves has started looking forward to their outings as of late.

—

Nevertheless, he doesn’t think about the party again until the Friday before it, when Vincent shows up at his desk.

“Do you have a moment?” he says.

“Yes,” Yves says, saving the spreadsheet he’s been working on and shutting his laptop. “What’s up?”

When he looks up, Vincent looks a little tired, though that’s not unusual—it’s been a long week, and busy season always means long hours and little sleep. 

“We can talk later if you’re busy,” Vincent says.

“I’m very free,” Yves says. He’s decisively not—and he’s sure that Vincent knows this, too, so whatever Vincent is approaching him with now must be important. 

“Regarding Francesca’s party tomorrow,” Vincent starts. He looks a little sheepish—as if he doesn’t quite want to be the deliverer of bad news. “I can still go. But I’m…”

“If something came up,” Yves says immediately, “you don’t have to come.” “It’s not that,” Vincent says.

“Or even if nothing’s come up,” Yves backtracks, “and you’re just not feeling it anymore? Also totally fine. Seriously. I can always just go by myself.”

Vincent seems to consider this. Yves is starting to get worried that something might actually be very wrong—something that Vincent is hesitant to even bring up—when Vincent takes a generous step backwards, raising his elbow to his face as his eyes squeeze shut.

“hhih’nGKTsHuhh-!”

The sneeze sounds harsh, even muffled into the fabric of his sleeve; it tears through him with little warning, loud enough to echo slightly in the confines of the office space.

That’s when it all clicks into place: the tiredness. The slight off-ness to his complexion, the tension to the way he’s holding himself, the fact that Yves hasn’t caught him in the break room at all over the past couple days. The fact that he’s currently standing so far away from Yves’s desk.

“You’re ill,” Yves says, comprehending.

“Yes,” Vincent says. His voice sounds a little off, too, now that Yves knows what to look for; it has that quality it often takes on after a long day of discussions with clients—not quite hoarse, but getting there. “I’m positive it’s just a cold. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“Don’t worry about it at all, seriously,” Yves says. He feels guilty, suddenly—here he is, asking Vincent to spend his already-limited free time at a party, when Vincent probably has a high volume of important clients—and a burgeoning head cold—to deal with. “If you want to take a rain check, you should. I’m sure this week has already been rough for you as it is.”

“When is the next time you’ll be going to an event where Erika’s going to be there?”

That question makes him pause. “I don’t know. In another month, or so, if I had to guess?”

“So this event is important,” Vincent says, sniffling. It’s the kind of light, liquid sniffle that implies that whatever he’s caught, he’s just at the start of it. “In that case, I’ll go.”

“Wait,” Yves says. “That’s not what I—your health is more important than any event. You shouldn’t push yourself.”

“I feel fine,” Vincent says. “No headache, no fever. It’s just a slight cold. I will be fine tomorrow if I make it a point to sleep early.” he sniffles again, his expression growing hazy for a brief moment before he blinks, rubbing his nose on one knuckle. “I just wanted to make sure you were fine with it.”

“I am completely fine with it,” Yves says, reaching for the box of tissues that’s perched on his desk. He holds it out. “I just feel bad about making you go if you’re sick.”

Vincent takes a handful of tissues out of the box, brings them up to cover his nose, just in time for—

“hh- hH’nGKT-! snf-! hH-Hhih… hh’hiHhh’iiZSCHHh-uhh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says, with emphasis, pushing the entire tissue box towards him. “Times two. Seriously. I think you could use the weekend off—you know, to catch up on sleep.”

“Assuming that things haven’t changed from the event details you forwarded me, the party will be in the evening,” Vincent says, taking the tissue box from him, a little hesitantly, and tucking it under his arm. “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep in.”

Yves opens his mouth to protest.

Vincent says, “I’m fine. I’ll call a rain check if I wake up with a fever.” He turns on his heels. “Otherwise, see you tomorrow.” 

—

Vincent, as Yves is coming to realize, is very good at appearing presentable, even when he’s under the weather.

“You made it,” he says. This time, they’d driven here separately. Yves had thought, initially, that it’d be easier to just drive Vincent places, so that the only thing he’d had to account for was his actual presence—but Francesca lives between them. I don’t mind driving, Vincent had said. You’d be going out of your way to pick me up, but he’d coordinated a spot a couple blocks down to meet up, so that it would look like they’d come together.

It’s cold outside still—it’s the sort of indecisive weather that seems to periodically hint at spring: a cold front, then a few warm days when all the ice thaws, a few flowers lining the grass along the road where the snow’s melted, and then another snowstorm. It’s easy enough, then, to chalk up the slight redness of his cheeks, the redness at the tip of his nose, as another effect of the not-quite-spring weather.

Yves is carrying his present for Francesca under one arm—a hardcover book—a sequel to one she’d read last year and gushed to him about liking; a couple fridge magnets, which she likes to collect; film for the polaroid camera her sister got her last year; and a letter, all wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. 

It’s nice to have an excuse to see everyone again, especially some of the members from crew whom he’s not close enough to invite to parties personally, that he knows Francesca was closer to. 

“It was a pain to find parking,” Vincent says. He’s wearing a red scarf today, and a white overcoat with black buttons and a sharply cut collar. Personally, Yves thinks it’s unfair that someone can be down with an irritating head cold and still look so good.

“No kidding,” Yves says. “You would’ve thought there’d be more than one tiny parking lot for all those shops.”

Yves asks how he is (fine, Vincent says—perfectly capable of spending a few hours at a party. Yves says, I feel like you would say that even if you were like, dead on your feet with a high fever, to which Vincent laughs, but doesn’t explicitly deny.)

Yves supposes he isn’t one to talk—he’d showed up to a crew event, near the end of the season, with the flu, just because it had been their then-captain’s last big event, and he’d been planning to give him a farewell speech. The speech had gone fine—and so had the first few hours—but then all his symptoms had hit at once—fever chills, exhaustion, a pounding headache, the likes—and Francesca and Erika had practically had to drag him home.

But that had been an important event—a once in a lifetime thing—and he’d drafted that speech for two weeks. This is so much less high-stakes. 

“I prombise I’m fine,” Vincent tells him, lifting up the side of his scarf to muffle a cough into it. “It’s just all the - hHIh-! all the annoyidg symptoms. I dod’t - snf-! - feel any worse than I did yesterday.” “Any worse?” Yves says. “Does that mean you were already feeling pretty badly off yesterday?”

“I barely even feel udwell at all,” Vincent says. “It’s just— I keep havidg to— hHih-! hihH’IIITshHHh-uuH!”

He sniffles, raising a sleeve to his face to cover the next, resounding, 

“hHih’iITTSshh’Uhh! snf-!” He buries his face deeper into his sleeve, his shoulders trembling with another gasp. “Hhih…. HIih’nNGKT—SHhuh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says, laughing. “Okay. Point taken.”

Vincent lowers his arm slowly with a curt sniffle. “Are Erika and Francesca close?”

“Yeah,” Yves says. “I think they still keep in touch pretty frequently.” it’s one of the reasons why he hasn’t told Francesca—or anyone else in the friend group—about the specifics of their breakup.

It feels wrong, somehow, to paint her in a bad light, to give people reason to take sides, when it’s always been all of them together as a group. 5am practice was a hell of a bonding experience, she was part of all of that, too. He has no right to take that from her. 

“How about Brendon?”

“Brendon’s sort of an odd one out,” Yves says. “I don’t think most of us had met him until he started dating Erika during our senior year. He usually hangs out with a different crowd, so he’s only really around when Erika is.”

Perhaps that’s better, too—more merciful—that when Erika had left him for someone new, it hadn’t been one of the people he knew and deeply trusted. If Brendon had been there too, at all those 5am practices, at all those oddly timed meetings—if Yves had had that much time to look back on, to wonder when Erika’s feelings for Brendon had materialized, to watch her fall for him firsthand, to look back and know that he was losing her…

It’s better, this way, he thinks, that at least he can look back on his time rowing crew as he’d always wanted to—not like the way he feels when he looks at Erika: heartbroken, and a little betrayed.

“I guess I’m in that positiod now,” Vincent says.

“In the sense that you didn’t meet everyone through crew?”

“In the sedse that I’m an outsider.”

Yves considers this. “My friends really like you, though,” he says. “I don’t think they think of you that way.” It’s a short walk to Francesca’s doorstep. Vincent really does seem to be okay, Yves notes—aside from the frequent sniffling, and the sneezes he turns away to direct into his sleeve, he isn’t shivering under his coat, and he doesn’t look more tired than usual.

Despite everything, Yves finds himself feeling cautiously hopeful. Something about Vincent’s presence has that effect on him. Vincent is always so sure of himself, even in situations Yves thinks he can’t possibly be certain will go well.

It makes Yves want to have faith in this too. Yves will see Francesca and his friends from crew, and he won’t have to say anything to Erika and Brendon, his friends will like Vincent very much, and everything will be just fine.

“Wait,” Vincent says, right after Francesca’s let them in through the apartment buzzer. “We should look like we actually like each other.” He holds his hand out, expectant.

“Good point.” Yves takes it. Vincent’s hand is warm, and a little calloused—when Yves tugs his hand a little closer, Vincent’s fingers interlace nicely with his.

“For the record, I do like you,” he adds.

Vincent laughs. “You kdow what I meant.”

—

It’s almost a relief, seeing everyone again. Yves used to feel a little apprehensive about reunions—around the possibility for the people that he’d known and loved to have changed past recognition, to have internalized everything some way but to come back and see that everyone’s moved on in their own ways, grown a little more into themselves—and a little further from him—than he remembers them to be. 

But when he sees Francesca, she still greets him with the same hug — one arm looped around his shoulders, for a firm squeeze. He hands her her gift, and wishes her a happy birthday, and she laughs and says the only good part about getting old is having an excuse to have everyone back in her living room.

“And Vincent’s here too,” Francesca says, turning to Vincent, who—after looking caught off guard for a second—smiles back at her. “I’m so glad you were able to come!”

“It’s good to see you agaid,” Vincent says. “And happy birthday. You look great, by the way.”

“Thank you!” she says, beaming. She’s wearing a cocktail party dress which slips elegantly over her still-bare shoulders. “I needed to pick something out for the occasion. I swear, these days, half my closet is just business formal attire. It’s depressing.”

“If that mbeans that the other half of your closet is filled out with idteresting clothes,” Vincent says, with a quiet sniffle, “you’re doing a lot better than I am.” 

Francesca laughs. “It’s just for my sanity,” she says. “Can’t let the clients dictate everything I wear.”

“It’s ndice that you’re celebrating your birthday, though,” Vincent says. He lifts a hand to rub his slightly-reddening nose with one knuckle. “My coworkers are always sayidg that they’re too old to want to ackdowledge it anymore.”

“It definitely feels that way sometimes,” Francesca says. “But it’s a good excuse to have everyone here, while we still can. Speaking of which—Yves is the worst at planning things for himself, which is ironic, because he’s always the one planning things for everyone else.”

“That is not true,” Yves says.

Francesca gives him a pointed look. “Last year, you were practically banking on having everyone forget your birthday.”

That is an exaggeration. “I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t let that happen, even if I wanted it to,” Yves says.

“You’re damn right.”

“The ndext time you’re planning a birthday for him,” Vincent says, clearing his throat with a quiet cough, “I’ll pitch in.”

Francesca brightens, at this. “Finally another soldier on the right side of the war,” she says. “You can definitely be part of the secret planning council.”

“Thadk god,” Vincent says, playing along. “I was starting to thidk I was going to have to do it all alone.”

“It’s not a secret if I’m right here,” Yves says. Francesca ignores him in favor of having Vincent type his number into her phone.

—

Halfway through the evening, Vincent disappears into the kitchen for a moment. When he comes back, it’s with two drinks in hand—canned cocktails, Yves realizes, judging by the cans. He hands one over to Yves.

“I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink before,” Yves says to him. “Even at happy hours.”

“I don’t drink very often,” Vincent says.

“Does this mean that I get to see you tipsy? I’m sure our coworkers will be jealous.” 

“If you’re expecting my personality to change,” Vincent says, “you will be disappointed.” he says it with such certainty that Yves pays closer attention to him after that. 

Vincent does hold his alcohol well, as it turns out, with the exception of the slight flush to his cheeks a few drinks later—though even then, Yves can’t be entirely sure it can’t be entirely attributed to his cold. He listens intently as Yves talks to Diane—who’s a couple years younger than Yves—about how Crew has been ever since Yves graduated (mostly the same; the new underclassmen are good at showing up to practices on time, but that’s partially because their captain this year is a little intimidating). He gives several of the crew members a candid summary of his relationship with Yves, when asked. He tells Marin how they first met and he tells Kenneth what it’s like keeping their relationship secret at work and he laughs—a little sheepishly—when Sasha says they make a cute couple. If lying so openly is difficult for him, it doesn’t show.

If there’s anything that’s off, it’s subtle. It takes some time for Yves to notice—

The next time Vincent sneezes, his breath hitches with a sharp, desperate, — “hHhiH—!” Then he turns away, craning his neck over his shoulder for an uncovered, “HIiiIKTshH-uh-!”

He blinks in the wake of it, as if a little dazed, before he seems to straighten, lifting a hand to wipe his nose on one knuckle. It’s not stifled, as it usually is, nor is it neatly pinched off into his fingers, which is unexpected.

It’s as if the sneeze has fully caught him off guard—as if all the systems he has in place to sneeze as quietly and as unobtrusively as possible are just slightly impaired by the alcohol. Not that it matters much—Francesca has put some music on, and it sits in the background now, a low thrum, all but the percussive elements muted by the chatter of conversation.

“Bless you,” Yves says, leaning over to grab a cocktail napkin from one of the neighboring tables. He hands it to Vincent, who blows his nose and emerges with a small cough. “How’s the cold?” 

“Fide,” Vincent says, with a sniffle. “Ndo worse than before.”

“Are you just saying that to get me to drop the subject?”

“I’m sayidg it because I actually mean it. It’s a very tolerable cold.”

Yves laughs, and reaches for his drink. He’s about to take a sip when he feels Vincent’s fingers close around his wrist

 It’s only a brief moment of contact, but the warmth it leaves around his wrist stays, even when Vincent lets go.

“Sorry,” Vincent says, a little panicked. He withdraws his hand. “That’s mine.”

“What?”

“The cocktail.”

“Oh.” Yves looks down to the can in his hands. He supposes Vincent might be right—they’ve both had a few drinks, so he’d lost track awhile ago. A lot of the canned cocktails taste roughly the same to him, anyways. “Is it? I can get you another one if you want.”

“No,” Vincent says. “I drank from it.” As if that explains everything. And then—a little quieter, as if he’s embarrassed to say it: “I don’t wadt you to catch this.”

Truthfully, the possibility hadn’t crossed his mind until Vincent mentioned it. It seems a little endearing that Vincent would be worried about it in the first place—Yves has certainly shared food and drinks with friends who were worse off. “I’m not worried about that,” he says. “It’s just a cold. Didn’t you say it was very tolerable?”

“It’s still…” Vincent trails off, averting his glance with a sniffle. “...an annoyance.” 

He looks like he’s about to say more when his expression goes distant, his eyebrows furrowing.

“HHih’IIIzSCH-uhh!”  It sounds so thoroughly unsatisfying, half-shielded by a hand raised a few moments too late. “hh-HIh-! Hh…” He pauses, his eyes watering, his breath still wavering, and—after a few seconds of nothing—sniffles; a forceful, liquid sniffle that practically emanates frustration. “hIiIIh’kSHhhhh! snf-!”

“Bless you!”

Vincent emerges, teary-eyed, still sniffling. “Case in point,” he says. 

—

He doesn’t see Erika when she gets there. It isn’t until she passes him in the living room, halfway in a conversation, that she makes her presence known to him.

“Hi Yves,” she says, and he looks up. Today she’s wearing a pink dress which cuts off at her knees—a strapless dress, save for a pink rose over her left shoulder which blooms into a sleeve. She is every inch as beautiful as she always is.

He smiles at her, cordial, tight-lipped. “You made it,” he says. She looks at him expectantly, waiting for him to say more, and he realizes—with a flash of panic—that he doesn’t know what more to say to her. He hasn’t kept up with her over the past few months. He knows that she’s working as a quantitative analyst, at a company she’d been hired at a couple months after they’d broken up, but he doesn’t know if she likes her work, if she likes her coworkers, if it’s been busy as of late. If she works long hours, if she’s taken up any new projects. “Glad you found time. I assume work’s been keeping you busy,” he says,  

“Are you kidding? It’s Francesca,” Erika says. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

And there it is—that decisiveness. That same resolve that, back then, made everything with her seem so easy. Erika and Francesca have always been close—through college, back when they met during crew, and even after, when all of them had been still settling into their jobs or going off to grad school or moving halfway across the country; when seeing each other no longer meant just a fifteen minute walk across campus. 

“Yeah,” Yves says. “I know.”

They don’t speak, after that. Yves thinks it’s probably for the best—he doesn’t have anything to say to Erika right now. Back then, he could talk to her about anything, even if it was pointless or insignificant or of no real importance, and she’d make the conversation fun. 

These days, he only tells her things on a strict need-to-know basis, and—given that the only times he sees her these days is at events like this—there’s not really all that much to talk about. 

It had been difficult, at first. He’d wanted to share everything with her, still, back when his work schedule had settled enough for him to take long walks downtown, to start to go to concerts and bars again; when he’d redecorated his apartment, when he’d gotten someone to mentor at work, when he’d gotten back into cooking. For some time after the breakup, it still felt instinctual to turn to her, to text her about something interesting that’d happened, to ask her to try out something new that he’d found. 

But he hadn’t. Something about feigning normalcy seemed worse, even then, than accepting that she was really gone.

Perhaps her avoidance of him tonight is merciful. It’s easier, when he’s not thinking about her, to slip into the familiarity of talking to everyone, to enjoy all of it just as himself. 

It’s only when he excuses himself to get another drink that he runs into Brendon.

Yves has always been civil with Brendon. 

Brendon is—well, to say that Brendon isn’t someone he considers a friend is a vast understatement. The less of Brendon Yves sees, the better. Yves avoids him when he can, but he is good at holding up small talk, when it’s necessary, and on most days, Brendon has enough good sense to not start a fight.

Today, it seems, is not one of those days.

“So,” Brendon says. “You’re still dating him.” Something about the way he inflects the word still makes something sour in Yves’s chest.

Yves frowns at him. “Is that supposed to be surprising?”

“I guess I’m surprised,” Brendon says. “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting it to last.”

“Well, I’m happy to have exceeded your expectations,” Yves says. “Though it doesn’t sound like they were very high.”

“I don’t mean it like that,” Brendon says, waving a hand. “It’s just—new relationships can be fairly unreliable. Especially when you’re dating around.”

“Maybe in your experience, that’s the case,” Yves says. “But personally, I tend to date people I can see myself with long term.”

“That’s the thing,” Brendon says. “I’m surprised you can see yourself with him.”

Yves sets the drink he’s holding down and turns to face him properly. “I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

Brendon scoffs. “It doesn’t take a genius to see that you two are very different people.”

“So people can only date their clones,” Yves says flatly. He’s already tired of this conversation. “My bad. I must’ve missed that rule somewhere in dating 101.”

“Obviously, I don’t mean it to that extent. You’re blowing it out of proportion. I just mean that you can only be so different from someone before you’re incompatible. ”

“I agree,” Yves says. “And I don’t think we’re incompatible.”

“Are you sure?” Brendon crosses his arms. “This isn’t his scene, is it? Cocktail parties? I mean, he’s practically married to his work. Does he even like parties?”

Vincent doesn’t like parties—Brendon is right about that point. But hadn’t Vincent been the one who’d agreed to come here in the first place? To imply that he’s only here because Yves has dragged him along seems somewhat disingenuous.

Yves says, “If Vincent didn’t want to be here, he wouldn’t be here.”

“Sure, but from what I’ve heard from Erika—” Yves doesn’t like this implication that Brendon and Erika talk about them behind their back, but he supposes it’s to be expected. “—he’s not exactly the type of person you’ve tended to go for in the past.”

That sounds awfully like an accusation.

“What exactly are you getting at, here?”

“I’m saying that it sort of looks like you just picked the most convenient rebound you could find,” Brendon says, quiet. “But usually people are honest with themselves when that’s the case.”

That startles a short, indignant laugh out of Yves. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Do you really not think that’s the case? Wouldn’t you say you’d usually go for someone more personable?”

“Personable?” Yves repeats. “Personable? Don’t make me laugh. Do you know how many clients I’ve seen Vincent talk down to a pleasant resolution because he’s so good at negotiating? Do you know how many conferences I’ve been in where Vincent is the one people come to after to privately compliment, because he’s so good at knowing how to talk to people?” he thinks to Joel’s housewarming party—to how compellingly Vincent had lied for him, then; to how good he had been at conjuring up a sense of history between them, of warmth. “His ability to answer difficult questions on the spot, with virtually no preparation at all, is something I can’t even begin to comprehend.”

He’s not sure why the accusation from Brendon makes him so upset, only that it does. Only that he wants to do nothing but tell Brendon just how wrong he is. “If you’re trying to imply that I’m settling for him, don’t patronize me,” he says. “Vincent is one of the smartest and most thoughtful people I know. Do you seriously believe I’d be dissatisfied with someone who holds himself to such a high standard?”

“I’m happier than I’ve been in months,” he says, resolute. “Because of him.”

Through the adrenaline, Yves realizes, faintly, that he hasn’t lied about any of it. He certainly could have—after all, Brendon would be none the wiser—but everything he’s said about Vincent is something he really, genuinely believes.

“Ah,” Brendon says, knowingly, as if he has it all figured out. “I got it wrong. This whole time I thought you were the one that felt lukewarm about him. But it’s the other way around, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re so sure he’s the one that you’re willing to overlook all of your obvious differences,” Brendon says. “Have you ever stopped to consider whether he feels the same way?”

“Presumably, he does,” Yves says. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in a relationship.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Brendon says, as if Yves should already know this from past experience, which—if Yves is being really honest—makes him want to punch him.

Instead, he takes in a deep breath, schools his expression into a smile. “Usually, people in relationships aren’t still looking for other options.”

“Yes,” Brendon says. “Unless they’re unhappy.”

“Yves!” 

When Yves turns to look, Vincent is standing in the doorway. How long has he been here? Just how much of the conversation has he overheard?

“Sorry for the wait,” Yves says sheepishly. “I was getting us drinks.” Evidently, he’s been away long enough for Vincent to come check up on him, so he’s already spent unreasonably long getting drinks, and now he doesn’t even have the drinks to show for it. “Or, I guess I got a little sidetracked, but I swear that drinks are on the w—”

Vincent leans in, unprompted, and kisses him. 

Yves’s brain grinds to a complete halt.

It’s only a moment later that Vincent pulls away, but the decisiveness with which he’s carried it out, the broad confidence on his face as he smiles, unwavering, is—

Fuck.

“Oh,” Yves all but stammers. His face is most certainly red right now, and he can’t even blame it on the alcohol. “Um. Did you need anything?”

“No,” Vincent says. There’s something telling to his expression, some sort of quiet acknowledgement. “Just wanted to see what was takidg you so long.”

Suddenly, it makes sense.

Vincent must have heard. Everything Brendon said—or at least, the last part of it; the implication that Vincent isn’t as invested in this relationship as Yves is; the implication that their attraction towards each other is somehow one-sided. Vincent is doing this to cover for him, because he wants to make it excruciatingly obvious that Brendon is wrong.

The fact that he would go to such lengths to make a point makes something settle in Yves’s chest.

“It’s actually good that you showed up,” he says, playing along. “I don’t know what kind of drink you want. I was just going to get you something generic.”

He heads over to the ice box on the other side of the kitchen, and Vincent follows.

They’re far enough that they’re separated from Brendon by the granite island—and, beyond that, the cushioned high stools lined up next to it, but not so far that Brendon can’t still see them. 

So he certainly can see, Yves thinks, this:

Yves leans in, reaching up a hand to cup Vincent’s jaw, and closes the distance between them.

It’s nothing like the kiss at the New Year’s party.

That one had been all nerves—brief, impulsive, all adrenaline. This kiss is much more involved—Yves presses in closer, so close that he can feel the heat radiating from Vincent’s skin, so close that he can smell the faint, not unpleasant smell of laundry detergent on Vincent’s shirt collar. So close that he can feel the breath that Vincent exhales, warm on his cheek; can feel the softness of Vincent’s hair as he shifts. He feels Vincent’s hand settle on his chest, feels his fingers curl inwards to rest on the fabric of his shirt, and—

On the other side of the kitchen, Brendon is watching, and Vincent is here—here, present, in the flesh, looking as put together as always, looking like someone out of a goddamn magazine—so Yves kisses him like he’s used to kissing—greedily, as if he’s been wanting this for ages. It’s been awhile since he’s kissed someone like this. Back then, there was university—the people at parties who he’d met and kissed out of momentary attraction, or out of alcohol-induced courage—though of course back then, neither party had harbored any delusions about how impermanent that connection was, or how little it meant. And then there was Erika, who, for the longest time, he thought was going to be the last person he’d ever kiss like this.

For months after they’d broken up, he hadn’t looked for anything. It felt wrong to subject others—even strangers, to which he had no allegiance—to the messy remnants of his feelings, to attempt to get into something he knew could only be half-hearted, at best, when there was a person in his mind who lingered so sharply.

But Vincent crowds up every corner of his mind, as if to say, pay attention, and Yves finds that for once, he’s not thinking about Erika at all.

When he feels the small hitch in Vincent’s breath, he thinks nothing of it.

Except, then—abruptly, and with barely any warning—Vincent is wrenching away, craning his head over Yves’s shoulder to let out a sudden, uncovered—

“hh-hIIIH’hH-IIKTshHuh!”

Their proximity to each other means he feels the way Vincent’s body jerks forward under his hands, his chest tensing. For a moment after, the rigidness of his posture doesn’t dissipate, tension still strung through the line of his shoulders.

“Bless you,” Yves says, surprised.

Then Vincent curses under his breath, drawing away with a sniffle. “I’mb sorry,” he says, sounding really, honestly panicked—a reaction which Yves finds both disproportionate to the situation and a little endearing. “That was— sorry, I should’ve—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Yves says, with a laugh; “I honestly couldn’t care less.” Impulsively—and maybe to prove just how little it bothers him—he leans back in.

Vincent is less hesitant, this time around, when it seems to register to him that Yves really doesn’t mind. He’s a surprisingly good kisser—Yves probably isn’t the first person he’s kissed, and he probably won’t be the last, but the second Vincent’s mouth works around his, Yves feels himself nearly go weak in the knees.

Fuck. Yves can’t say he expected to spend this evening making out with his very attractive coworker-slash-fake-boyfriend, but at the same time, he isn’t complaining. Yves thinks he could do this for hours, given the chance. He kisses Vincent as if to say, thank you—for the New Year’s party, for going along with this, for lying on my behalf—and Vincent kisses him back as if he wants this just as much.

It registers to him, faintly—as Vincent pulls away with a sharp gasp before he pitches forward, smothering another abrupt, wrenching sneeze into the palm of his hand—that he’s probably dooming himself to Vincent’s cold ten times over. But it occurs to him, too, that if he were really dating Vincent—if, after the party, they’d head back to Vincent’s place together; if they were really close enough to share car rides and food and drinks on the regular, to see each other frequently both in the office and outside of it—he would’ve almost certainly caught this anyways.

Something about the intimacy of it, the false closeness it seems to imply, is a little intoxicating. 

When he finally pulls away, Vincent is breathing a little heavily, his glasses askew, his hair slightly unkempt from where Yves had—mid-kiss—run his fingers through it. Yves looks over his shoulder to see that Brendon has, at some point over the last few minutes, slipped off. Presumably, he’s gotten the point, then.

It’s a relief. Yves is glad to not have to talk with him for any longer than he has to. 

“God,” Yves says, with a laugh. “Where did you learn to kiss like that, anyways?”

Vincent smiles. “I’ve had some practice,” he says, which Yves thinks must be a massive understatement. “Do you think it was convincidg?”

“I don’t know what kinds of standards Brendon has,” Yves says, lowering his voice so that he’s certain no one outside of the kitchen will be able to hear. “But I’d definitely be convinced.”

“He seems strangely idvested in our relationship,” Vincent says.

Yves sighs. “I think he was just trying to make trouble. How much of our conversation did you hear?”

“Just the tail end of it,” Vincent says. “I—”

His gaze goes distant, which is the only warning Yves gets before he’s turning away, steepling his hands over his nose and mouth with a forceful:

“hH-! hhH-hH’iiKTsSHH-uhh! Hh-! Hih… HIIh’IzsSCCHh’hhh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says.

Vincent is quiet for a moment, his expression still hazy, the irritation evident on his features, before he’s ducking away again.

“hIiih’GKTTSHh-uhHh!”

The sneeze is loud enough to scrape against his throat. It leaves him coughing a little, his eyes watering.  

“Bless you,” Yves says, with emphasis. He takes a small stack of napkins off of the kitchen counter and hands it over to Vincent, who eyes it for a moment. There’s a slight flush to his complexion—whether it’s from the alcohol, or from embarrassment, or from slight fever, Yves can’t tell.

“I hope you dod’t regret this in a few days,” Vincent says, carefully extricating one napkin from the stack to blow his nose softly into it. “You—” His breath hitches, sharply, and then he’s pitching forward into the handful of napkins with a muffled, “hiiHh’IZSSCHh-uhh!”

He emerges, sniffling, looking a little apologetic. “You’ll almost certaidly catch this.”

Yves laughs. “It’s fine. I know what I signed up for. Besides, I’m glad you stepped in.” He kneels down, at last, to procure two drinks from the long-neglected icebox. “A cold was a small price to pay for getting out of that conversation.”

He hands Vincent a drink. “Can I have a sip of yours? Now that I’ve doomed myself to it already, I suppose you don’t have to try so hard to keep me from catching it.”

“That’s not very reassuring,” Vincent says, but he lets Yves try some, nonetheless.

Brendon is suspiciously quiet for the rest of the evening. Neither he nor Erika so much as look Yves’s way, which Yves thinks is better than another confrontation. Vincent looks happy—a little tired, a little tipsy, but happy. At some point into the evening he resorts to crossing his arms as a means to keep warm (“Is it too cold in here?” Francesca asks, passing him from where he’s sitting on the couch, to which Vincent shakes his head quickly, his face flushing red. “I’mb just slightly under the weather,” he says. “The temperature’s perfect.” to this, Francesca brings over a quilt from one of the closets and drapes it over his shoulders. “Your friends are very nice,” Vincent says, pinning the quilt in place with one hand, and Yves laughs).

At some point, Francesca brings out a cake (“earl gray with buttercream,” she says, “Erika and I made a smaller one as a test run last week, and it was a little too dense, so we’ll have to see how this one turned out.” which Yves thinks is very impressive—he’s certainly better than average at cooking, but that expertise does not transfer well to baking—truly, he’s not sure he’d be confident in his ability to pipe frosting in a straight line. When he tells Vincent this, Vincent laughs and says, “I’m sure people would forgive you as long as it tasted good,” to which Yves says, “I think you’re underestimating how bad I am at decorating.”) She’s piped small blue flowers around the periphery of it, and leaves that curl around the edges of the cake. Diane says, “this is way too pretty to eat,” and “are you sure you want us to destroy it,” while Kenneth—their year’s Crew captain—helps Francesca with setting up the candles around the periphery of the cake and lighting them one by one.

Francesca laughs when Erika tells a story about a series of errors pertaining to their last grocery store run and tears up when Marin gives a speech about how Francesca is the main reason she stayed in Crew. After that, everyone sings—for a brief moment, the clamor in the living room becomes strictly unified. Then she blows out all the candles in one go, and everyone claps.

All in all, it’s a good evening.

—

It’s really not a surprise when Yves wakes up a few days later with a sore throat.

It’s not a surprise, either, when his nose starts running shortly after, or when—a couple hours later—a harsh, wrenching sneeze catches him off guard at work.

It’s as if that first sneeze has opened the floodgates. After that, he finds himself muffling sneezes into his elbow, scrambling for tissues from the rapidly depleting stash—a travel sized tissue pack that he keeps in his briefcase, just in case. The persistent tickle that settles in his nose seems impossible to appease, no matter how many times he sneezes, or how diligently he tries to ignore it. Worse, the sneezes are forceful enough to leave his throat feeling tender and painful, and violent enough that he finds himself coughing a little after.

Vincent was right. The cold isn’t particularly miserable—aside from the sore throat, he’s a little tired, but he doesn’t feel strictly worse than usual. It is irritating, though, to deal with—and irritating, too, to be at the office as it settles in.

It’s probably not worth taking a sick day for. It’s more an annoyance than a tangible inconvenience. Besides, he has only a couple days left of work before it’s the weekend, when he can catch up on sleep.

He’s scheduled himself for a morning’s worth of back to back meetings—two meetings with clients, one with a coworker he’s been working with to go over her findings, another status update meeting to review the work they’ve all done over the past few weeks.

Yves is prone to losing his voice when he’s ill. It’s one of his most embarrassing tells—it’d certainly garnered more attention than he’d wanted in college whenever he was under the weather—but in a work setting where his participation in meetings is non-negotiable, with every meeting he takes, he can feel his voice get closer and closer to unusable.

His second meeting ends a few minutes early, which is a relief. But when he heads to the break room to make himself a cup of much-needed tea, he finds that the hot water machine is out of order.

Just his luck.

He pours himself a cup of cold water and looks through some of the storage cabinets for tissues, though he has no luck with that, either.

The office is always turned a notch too cool—air conditioned to keep everyone awake in the afternoons—but today, it feels brutally, unnecessarily cold. He really should’ve dressed warmer. Yves heads to the conference room his next meeting is booked in, speaks on the material he’s prepared, and tries his best not to shiver too visibly. His meeting before lunch runs over, too, which is not uncommon, but today it just feels like insult to injury.

All in all, he’s exhausted. He eats a quick lunch in the cafeteria, downs two glasses of water, and goes through an embarrassing number of cafeteria napkins.

“Coming down with something?” Stanley, one of his coworkers, asks him.

Yves smiles at him sheepishly. “I wish it wasd’t so obvious,” he says.

“It’s just the season for it, I think. Vincent was just sick last week.”

“Oh, was he?” Yves says, feigning ignorance. His cold is definitely, most certainly not related to Vincent’s. “I was just goidg to grab a bottle of hand saditizer to keep at my desk,” he says, with a small cough. “I thidk there’s somethidg going around.”

Thankfully, the afternoon is—for the most part—just occupied with work. Still, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to focus on the financial statements in front of him, the slew of emails he has pulled up.

His nose is running fiercely, the trash can at the foot of his desk is close to overflowing, and the stack of napkins he’d taken from the cafeteria—certainly not an ideal solution, but it’s the best one he can come up with at the moment—is almost entirely gone.

He grabs one off the top of the stack—he’s only able to unfold it partially before he’s jerking forward with a wet, spraying, “hhEHh’iiiZZSCHh’EW!” 

Fuck. The napkins, while infinitely better than nothing, are not as soft as tissues would have been. Given the frequency with which he’s been using them, he’s almost positive that his nose is redder than usual.

The next sneeze nearly catches him off guard. He barely has time to lift the napkin up to his face again before his breath hitches again, sharply.

“Hhehh… HEHh—’IIDDSCHhiew! hEHH’iITSSHh’Yyew!” 

His nose is still running fiercely, and worse, the sneezes are loud enough to scrape against his throat. He thinks his voice is never going to recover if he keeps this up.

From behind him, he hears someone clear their throat.

Yves freezes. His first thought is that he’s probably being disruptive. His second thought is that even if he isn’t, whoever’s behind him must have been waiting to speak to him for some time—he’d just been too caught up with sneezing to realize, which is a little embarrassing.

His third thought is—whoever it is, he wants to face them looking at least marginally presentable. He’s almost certain that right now, he doesn’t.

He blows his nose into the napkins he’s holding, runs a hand through his hair, and pivots around in his office chair with a smile that is admittedly a little forced. “What’s up?”

He expects to see Cara, who he’s been working more with, or perhaps Laurent, who he’s been shadowing. But standing there, looking every inch as formal and as put together as he always does, is Vincent.

For a moment, Vincent just stares at him, as if he’s cataloging Yves’s appearance in silence.

Yves tries not to fidget under his scrutiny. “Did you ndeed anythidg?” 

In lieu of responding, Vincent steps past him to set a box of tissues down at the edge of his desk. 

“I figured you’d want this back,” Vincent says.

It’s the same tissue box he’d handed off to Vincent last week, he realizes, when Vincent was the one who had a use for it. Vincent has taken care to set it down at the same spot where it was initially: at the right edge, next to his monitor.

“Thadk you,” Yves says. “I’ll treasure it.”

“This, too,” Vincent says, setting a mug down in front of him. Whatever’s in there is hot enough to be steaming.

Yves muffles a cough into his hand. “What?”

“Tea,” Vincent says, as if that explains everything. “Chamomile, if it matters. I didn’t know if caffeine would keep you up.”

“Oh.” Yves stares at it. “You got the hot water machide workidg. It was broken this morning. Or maybe I’mb just really bad at using it.”

“Actually, no,” Vincent says. “I got this from the third floor.”

“You walked all the way up here from the third floor?” Yves says, a little surprised.  He’s about to say more, but then—in a progression that he should probably be used to by now—he finds himself succumbing, with little warning, to another sneeze, which he muffles into a perhaps-too-generous handful of tissues. At this rate, he might run out of them, even given Vincent’s generous contribution.

“It was just two flights of stairs,” Vincent says. 

“Still,” Yves says, lowering the tissues from his face so he can take a sip. The thought of Vincent precariously taking the tea up two flights of stairs, careful to not let it spill, just to get it to his desk is so endearing that he finds himself smiling. “Thank you.”

Vincent blinks at him, as if he wasn’t expecting to be thanked. “I don’t think it will keep you from losing your voice,” he says, at last. “But it might help with your sore throat.” 

Yves doesn’t remember mentioning that. “How did you kdow I had a sore throat?”

“How do you think?” Vincent says. “I had the same cold a week ago.”

Even so, the idea that Vincent already probably knows, and knows intimately, how he’s feeling right now, even though Yves hasn’t said anything about it, feels a little incriminating. Yves is under no illusion that his current affliction is subtle, by any means, but at the very least he’d thought that the less visible parts of it—his sore throat, the growing exhaustion, the pressure he feels building at his temples—were things that no one else would have to think about.

“Was it this bad for you?” he says. “I’d feel terrible if I mbade you talk to all my friends if your throat was already— Hh- heHh-! hHEH-heHh’iSSSchh-Iiew!”

It’s a good thing, Yves thinks, hazily, that he’s still holding onto the tissues from earlier. His nose is running again, and the tissues feel traitorously soft as compared to the napkins he’s been using all day.

“No,” Vincent says, frowning. “I think you just wore your voice out at work.”

“That mbight be the case,” Yves says. “I had a lot of meetidgs this morning. Ndow it’s pretty much just heads-down work, thankfully.” He muffles a yawn into one hand. Vincent is probably here for a reason—but Vincent is usually very conscientious about the work he passes onto others, so whatever he needs Yves to do for him, Yves doesn’t expect it should take too long. “Did you ndeed me to look over somethidg?” “I just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Vincent says, which is not the answer Yves expects.

Yves blinks at him. “How did you find out I was sick?”

“I heard from Cara.”

“Ah.” He probably owes Cara an apology—he’s sure that she’d probably prefer to work somewhere quiet, and his cold is certainly making that difficult. “Yeah, she would kdow. I’ve been like this all day—well, sidce this mording, I guess.”

“It came on quickly for me, too,” Vincent says. “Can I get you anything?”

“It’s just a cold,” Yves says with a laugh. “I’ll mbanage.” He means for it to be reassuring, but Vincent just frowns, looking off to the side.

He looks… strangely upset, Yves realizes.

“It’s ndot really all that bad,” Yves insists, backtracking. “And the weekend’s coming up soon. I’ll catch up on sleep when I get the chance.” Now is a really inopportune time to have to cough. He raises an elbow to his face to cough as quietly as he can, though the effort only seems to prolong the coughing fit—it leaves him slightly breathless, blinking away the tears that surface in his vision. “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Vincent says, quiet.

“For what?”

“For giving you my cold.”

“I dod’t think you can even take credit for that,” Yves says. “I was the one who kissed you.”

Vincent does smile, at that—a small, almost imperceptible smile. “Even so.”

Yves wants to tell him that he would do it again, if he had the chance to. He wants to tell Vincent how easy it had felt to kiss him, how right.

How it felt to forget about Erika, and Brendon, and all of it—even if just for a moment—to feel so perfectly grounded in someone other than himself. To let himself experience the sort of closeness he’s been scared of seeking out, after the breakup, after Erika, in fear that no one would ever fit quite the same. To lean into the warmth of someone who still, even now, continues to be kind to him for reasons he can’t quite rationalize. 

How long has it been since he’s been able to place his trust into someone, blindly, in the way he trusts Vincent to keep up this act of theirs, to lie on his behalf? Vincent is nothing if not competent, but Yves hadn’t expected that competence to extend to this arrangement of theirs. How long has it been since Yves has been able to lean on someone the way he’s leaned on Vincent, to trust someone to meet him where he is?

“For the record, I dod’t regret it,” Yves says. He finds that he really means it.

[umeoniii]

DATE NIGHT WITH HANGE….sfw and nsfw if you don’t mind🤗 -📚

date night w hange sfw & nsfw ∧( 'Θ' )∧

!: fem reader, she/they prns 4 hange

sfw:

☆ hange would take you out to something like an aquarium, museum, book store, amusement parks or out to coffee

pretty cliche ik, but it’s something i do see happening

this is only if it’s not something meant to be super romantic or special, obviously she’d take you out to a nice restaurant if there’s a special occasion.

☆ buys a whole bunch of souvenirs each time! u guys have so many plushies, shirts, n’ random prizes from places you’ve been to

☆ takes lots of photos to capture the moments

many off guard but cute pics of u

☆ does not wear dresses

i can not see them wearing dresses or super duper feminine outfits if it’s something formal.

like maybe, MAYBE if they really had to or if you really wanted them to they’ll wear a nice dress that you pick out.

she actually pulls it off very nicely with her hair up <3

☆ when you are at a very upscale restaurant she orders the most sophisticated thing on the menu

“i’ll just take what she’s getting” you say through gritted teeth having not a clue in the slightest what you’re about to eat

☆ pays in full. restaurant, the mall, museum. whatever the date is she pays for all expenses involved

never ever makes u pay when you’re out together

☆ lots of ppl look at you guys in restaurants. actually just at hange. i feel she sometimes cannot read the room and just acts super kiddie.

like she’ll get her spoon n say “here comes the airplane” to you in a baby voice and try to feed you

☆ but at the same time i feel she can be super classy and keep it at a 0. it’s great she can do both

☆ really likes goin out w u. so literally anytime they’re off they’ll take you out somewhere.

☆ they try to take you to new places not just the same places over n over

there’s only two places that they like going w u a lot. the planetarium and you guy’s favorite restaurant.

~

nsfw:

♡ “i gotta tell you something privately” is what she tells you luring you into the family bathroom

♡ literally begs you to touch them

and you just stare in disbelief as it all unfolds

♡ she can’t even contain herself in public no matter how hard she tries…

♡ like seriously hange’s literally obsessed w you

sometimes she only plans dates just to see you all dressed up and in public.

watchin all the ppl starin at you in admiration never being able to have you. it keeps her content and satisfied.

and u just stare at her clueless (not really bcs u know what you’re doing deep down)

♡ back to the bathroom, she’s literally begging and pleading. she’s not even worried about keeping her cool anymore. if you’re not gonna touch her at least let her touch u. and you say no plain and simple and let her deal with her thirst on her own.

♡ she goes back to normal and eats and converses like nothing happened even though she still wants you, even more now.

♡ they’re literally shaking under the table

♡ gets super touchy after… rubbin your thighs your arms

when you leave your date, her arm is wrapped around your waist.

♡ nicely opens the door for you so you can get in the car. whole time she’s just eager to get you home. has a grip on your thigh while drivin (left hand is steerin the other is gripping your thigh)

~

“you look so beautiful in that dress.” hange said, fixated on your appearance

“thank you baby. i don’t understand why you had to rush me into the bathroom to tell me that” you laughed softly looking up at her.

the light in her eyes flickered like a lighter for a split second, before they switched and brightened.

her muscles formed a soft smile, “it’s just that… wow… this is so crazy right?” she chuckled

deep down you couldn’t find yourself to be bothered with her front and little games. you washed your hands and prepared yourself to leave through the door of the restroom.

hanges hand swiftly grabbed onto your wrist making your bracelets jangle.

“wait, please don’t leave” frantic words left her lips

“i know what you want, i don’t want to do this with you in a place like this” you looked at her disheveled form through the mirror.

“don’t say that, i know there was a reason behind you wearing that dress.”

“yeah, because i wanted to look nice for our date”

the only thing that could be heard was that of the muffled conversations behind the bathroom door. hange couldn’t help but to eye the dress. it was so short and all of your back was showing. your jewelry matched it perfectly, everything about you that night was more intoxicating than the sweet red wine the two of you sipped at.

“i said im not doing this with you and i mean it” hange watched you in shambles as you walked out the restroom, leaving them alone with only their thoughts and fantasies.

upset is how she felt, pissed even. but she knew it was impossible to make you do something that you didn’t want to do and she respected it. she really wanted to snatch you back into the bathroom, prop you onto the marble sink not worried about anyone coming in and have her way with you. still it was a fantasy distant from becoming a reality.

she washed her hands and fixed her hair before going back to the table where the two of you sat with no words for a few minutes.

“the dress really does look pretty on you though”

you watched as hange just barley ate the food that sat on the platter. taking tiny bites of the meat then sipping at her wine. eventually you’d strike conversation again about your work and she’d listen and give some comments.

she still didn’t eat the food and you couldn’t help but ask her about it.

“why aren’t you eating hange, don’t waste your money like that!”

a breathy laugh left her mouth before she responded, “it’s fine really, i’m just not hungry”

she was lying.

“you sure were hungry before we went into the bathroom” you said in a snarky tone

she said bluntly, “it’s just that now in saving my appetite.”

“for what? dessert?” you scoffed

“yeah, if that’s what you would like to call it.”

the two of you looked at each other before you stated you were done with dinner as well.

you watched her pay the bill and leave the waiter a tip before you and her left.

the two of you walked outside, the crisp autumn breeze brushed against your legs giving you goosebumps.

when the two of you stood before the shiny black car, hange opened the door beckoning you to get in. a small smile accompanied you as you sat on the beige leather seat.

she got in briskly turning on the car and driving. the weather report was on the radio.

it was supposed to rain tonight.

usually in the car hange would listen to it the whole time. it was practically music to her ears, hearing that it’s going to be 67 degrees and drafty. it started to change when you started dating her, making her loosen up and listen to music.

“there’s a weather app, check it. i wanna listen to something else” you would change the radio while her eyes were on the road.

she listened too, she listened to mostly anything you told her to do and she wasn’t one to listen to anyone.

“you didn’t get your dessert hange. what’s up with that?” quietly you said, your glance was out the window.

warm hands rubbed up and down your legs. her eyes still on the road.

“nothing looked good on the menu”, was the last thing she said to you the whole ride.

the rest of the ride you looked out the window, hange’s hand still resting on your thigh. no words were exchanged between the two of you and you felt no words had to be. the thought of what was going to happen when you got home raced throughout your head.

it was pretty obvious just how they were going to act but you were still somewhat nervous.

as soon as you got home she exited the car and went to your side opening the door for you. her hand reached out for yours, you held it and got up.

“c’mon i got something for you.” she whispered into your ear.

the two of you walked into the house and as soon as the door closed hange came behind you and picked you up walking to the bedroom.

the heat in your body was rising, you felt your panties becoming more wet by the millisecond. every touch from hange made you even more shakier.

she layed you down on the bed and took of her glasses, setting them on the night stand. lights weren’t even on her mind because she was so needy. warm hands rubbed at your lower legs before pulling up your dress. carefully she pulled down your panties, practically drooling from staring at your glistening cunt.

her index finger softly ghosted your clit, pressing on it and rubbing it slowly. you couldn’t help but let out a breathy gasp from the touch.

“you’ll let me won’t you?” words left softly from her lips, still rubbing you.

“y-yes” you sputtered looking at them, the moonlight illuminated their face making their eyes shimmer.

she draped both of your legs over her shoulders, your soft tummy folding, before going down on you. kisses were placed inside your thighs, your pubic area, then your wet pussy. her tongue slid through you, separating your sticky folds.

she licked at your clit slowly, her hand rested on your clothed breasts before she quickly pulled down your dress ripping the fabric. you almost shouted at her but couldn’t when she slipped her tongue into your hole.

your rock hard nipple rested in between her thumb and index fingers as she went back to sucking your pretty clit. you heard her moaning softly into you while she lapped at your cunt.

her hand slowly moved from your chest to under the bed, her eyes met your teary ones before she detached her mouth from your pussy.

you watched as she put on the strap, aligning it with you and slowly inserting it.

“that’s it” she praised softly

the pace started of slowly then sped up causing the headboard to squeak. your boobs bounced in the pattern of hange’s thrusts making them paw at your breasts.

“fuck im sorry for ripping the dress, you looked so cute in it” she sighed

words didn’t even come to your cluttered mind. a ring of creamy cum circled the base of the strap. your arms rested around hanges neck pulling her in for a kiss.

your lips clashed and your tongues met during the messy kiss. you held her tight moaning into her mouth as she still thrusted into you.

scattered was the perfect word to describe how you felt. your brain was foggy and a mess, nothing went on inside of your pretty little head. only moans and hiccups left your pretty little lips.

hange leaned out of the kiss wiping the saliva off her mouth with her sleeve.

“your cute greedy pussy always takes me so well.” her hand squished your cheeks

“mhm hm” you hummed scratching the fabric of her shirt.

movements became slower but her thrusts became harder, slamming into your cunt. your body started to tense up as you felt yourself getting close.

your arms wrapped around hange’s back embracing them. your head lie in the crook of their neck inhaling their scent as you whine and whimper to yourself.

“oh god” you shakily said muffled inside of hange’s neck as you came all over the strap.

your eyes were shut tightly as you clawed at hange’s back still thrusting inside of you.

overstimulated, you begged her to stop.

“you know earlier i was begging as well” she said smartly into your ear, nibbling at your earlobe.

a few thrusts later though she stopped and pushed your legs all the way to your chest.

“attagirl” she praised spreading your folds watching the cum trickle down onto the sheets.

her hands rubbed at the fat of your ass before kissing your on your cheek.

♡

tags!: @hangesgirlypop @yiugen @heartshapedtearss 💗

a/n: this took forever didnt it.. im sorry 📚 anon.. i added the end as a lil bonus! since it took me a million years to write and then post this…

[strawberrygrapesandcherry]

“What do you want?” Scott asks as he stares at the lawn just in front of the porch where he and Theo are sat.

Here we go again. “For the last time because you idiots keep bringing it up,” Theo starts saying while rolling his eyes. “I’m not planing on backstabbing you or killing you, and quite frankly I don’t want to part of this pathetic attempt of a pack.” Look, Theo gets the worry and concern, but at this point it’s beyond frustrating trying to repeat over and over again that he is in fact not up to anything.

It’s quite shocking even to himself, that he’d somehow became a normal— as close to normal as he can get anyways— person in the last few months. A rehabilitated murderer, Liam likes to call him. Domesticated was used more than once by Mason.

“That’s not what I asked” Scott responds with a softer tone, his eyes crinkling slightly; an effect of the gentle smile he offers. “What do you want?” He asks one more time.

The question continues to ring in Theo’s mind on loop, because truth be told he isn’t really sure anymore. He knows what he wanted before. What the past him who was fuelled by anger and passion, and an insatiable need to be something—to be someone— outside of the dread doctors puppet wanted. He knows he wanted the power that came from pack, but somewhere in the deep scars of his heart, he wanted to belong. That had always been the goal, even if he’ll never admit it to himself.

The whole alpha thing wouldn’t hurt either, and from his life experiences, he didn’t know any other way to get what he wanted. Between being a failed science experiment, or a make believe version of a boy, Theo never really had the time to make friends or even learn how to do so anyway, so it’s no surprise that his perception of companionship was to be viewed through the lense of hierarchy and control, rather than loyalty and trust.

But that’s all irrelevant,because from the moment Kira’s sword struck the ground and Theo rose from the dust of his personal nightmare, his entire life would never be the same.

Now though? What does he want? He’s never genuinely been asked that before. Scott asks him like it’s a simple question but here Theo is, having a midlife crisis over it regardless.

Theo doesn’t believe he has the right to want; not after his past actions since he’d met the dread doctors. And more importantly, what he wants isn’t something he can have. Someone he can have. No matter how many sleepless nights he spend staring at the roof of his truck, thinking of ocean blue eyes and soft strands of hair he wishes to run his fingers through, he knows he’ll never have that. But oh does it comfort the hallow feeling in his chest.

An angry beta who he always finds himself being around, intentionally or not, like he’s some compass and Liam is always north that he points to. Theo finds him like a moth finds a flame. Like it’s natural, almost. He’ll always find Liam just like he did in the elevators or during the wild hunt, and Liam will always find him. But still, Theo will never get to have him.

Maybe he doesn’t get to have Liam—not in all the ways he wants him—but that will never deter from taking whatever Liam gives him, no matter how small. He’ll have to make do with what he gets; just like he always has done.

After what has definitely been the longest moment of awkward silence he can remember, Theo finally responds. “It doesn’t matter.”

Scott shakes his head, mostly to himself rather than at the dissatisfaction with Theo’s answer. “You and I both know that’s not true.” Neither of them says anything after that for a moment, and instead let Scott’s words linger in the delicate vacuum that had formed around them since they started talking.

Eventually though, Scott stands from where he sat next to Theo on his front porch and starts to make his way back into the house. Though just before he steps forward to shut the door, he turns around one last time to Theo. “You really should tell him. He deserves to know”.

(I don’t know why I wrote this tbh and Idek if it makes sense. Either way I thought I’d just post it instead of leaving it in the drafts lol. I know no one’s gonna see this, but I just had to. If I made typo, no didn’t)

*also this is the first fic snippet I’ve ever written so be nice pls 🤠

UPDATE= I finally got around to writing the rest of this on ao3 (the things we won’t let ourselves say)