wallflowerwritesstuff

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Gnawing at the bars of my enclosure

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Reminders

Your calendar has everything.

Except your birthday.

Caleb's Version/ Zayne's Version (you are here)/ Xavier's Version (coming soon)

Sylus's Version (coming soon)/ Rafayel's Version (coming soon)

winter dividers by tsunami-of-tears~

The door clicks shut quietly. 

The entryway is dimly lit as he removes his shoes; the lights brighten as he steps further into the apartment. He moves toward the kitchen, placing the bags on the table and noting how you were curled up into a ball on the couch with your phone in hand. A video plays on loop, no doubt the last you’d seen before losing your battle with sleep. You probably had been waiting for him to arrive despite his best efforts to have you follow a regular sleep schedule. 

Just because he ran on fumes half the time didn’t mean he wanted that for you as well. 

With a small exhale, he walks toward the couch. Kneeling, he tilts his head to get a better look at you. You are comfortable, it seems, wrapped in a blanket with another resting on top of you. His eyes slid from the top of your head downward, tracing the shape of your eyes and slope of your nose. He can't help but smile a bit at the memories that wash over him—the way your eyes would roll and your nose would scrunch when he made a joke. 

How flustered you’d grow whenever he pressed a kiss to either area, making him want to do it more until you realized such intimacy was the bare minimum for someone as amazing as you. 

Clearing his thoughts for a later time, he slips his arms beneath your sleeping form and lifts slowly, holding you close. He waits, wanting to assure you didn’t stir awake when you were finally resting peacefully. 

He made it all but three steps before you started shifting, taking in a deep inhale of his suit jacket before opening your eyes as if to confirm something. 

“Zayne?” you murmur with your voice barely above a whisper. “When did you…?” 

His lips twitch at the sight of you. He moves back toward the couch and sits down with you in his arms. You curl into him, your warmth easing the nerves the day had left him with. 

Being a surgeon didn’t mean his job ever got easier—only tolerable. 

Mechanical, almost. 

“Not long ago. I told you not to wait for me,” he answers softly, cradling your face and brushing his thumb just beneath your right eye. You make a noise that has him smiling, your breath tickling his neck as he concedes for the moment. 

“Lecturing me this late…cruel,” you huff as a chuckle escapes him. 

“You’ve seen cruel,” he says with a glint in his eye that you miss, too busy burrowing into his neck as if you wanted to seep into his very skin. You tense in his arms when he leans in, close enough to your ear that you feel goosebumps form and move down your body. “...but I can always be even more so.” 

You push him away and stare up at him with wide eyes, your body warming at his teasing. 

“You–!” 

He presses a kiss to your forehead, standing with you in his arms, and walks toward the kitchen. You’re left in awe at his words as you work to calm your racing heart. 

“Now that you’re awake,” he starts, placing you on one of the stools at your kitchen island, “We can share a meal since I’m sure you didn’t have dinner.” 

Your rebuttal is cut short by your stomach betraying you with a decent growl. 

“...what’d you get?” you ask, unable to hide your interest as he removes the food from one bag. You take note of the logo, one bag from your favorite food restaurant, and the other from his favorite dessert place. Unusually, Zayne places the dessert in front of you first, the food boxes acting as decoration around it. 

“A birthday celebration that was meant to be for the morning,” Zayne says with a tilt of his head, offering you a plastic fork while opening the box to reveal your favorite dessert. “But why wait for then if we’re here now?”

You pause, squinting as you take the fork. Your attention moves between the dessert, the food, and the man watching you with an aura of calm confidence. 

“...did I forget your birthday?” you whisper in sleep-hazed horror, wondering how it could have happened, only to realize this wasn’t his birthday month. You’d never forget such an important date when it comes to the man you’d loved for longer than you could remember. 

A laugh has your heart fluttering again. Zayne places a hand on your head. 

“Happy birthday, you silly, sleep-deprived girl.” 

You blink. 

“What?” you question, patting yourself for your phone. You stand from the stool and move toward the couch where your phone rests against the pillow. You unlock it while walking back to Zayne, finding your calendar for today was empty. No plans, no reminder set….

“Not there…is it?”

Zayne’s voice pulls you from your confusion as you meet his gaze. Rather than confident, his eyes show a bit of sorrow made lighter only by the affection that lingers. 

“You have so many things going on in that mind of yours when it comes to others,” Zayne says as he steps closer, pulling the fork you still held out of your hand and placing it on the island. “Thankfully, my mind only ever has one focus. One person that everything comes back to, even at the most random of times.” 

You lean into his palm when he cups your cheek, taking a deep breath as you warm at his words. 

“You didn’t have to…” you murmur. You felt somewhat embarrassed even while knowing your birthday was more of a smoke screen than anything. The day didn’t matter so much as the company you’d once kept to celebrate it. 

Company taken from you far too soon.  

As if sensing your thoughts, Zayne presses a kiss to ease the tension in your brows. 

“I wanted to,” he says without hesitation. “Because while outside of these walls you’re known for being the great Miss Hunter…here you can just exist.”

You part your lips, finding no words managed to get past the lump in your throat. Instead, you shove your face into his chest, wrapping your arms around him in a hug. He waits patiently, his arms mirroring your actions as strong hands rub your back in a familiar rhythm.

His heart is steady, growing louder when you turn just enough for it to vibrate near your ear.

“What if I’m not enough?” you ask, voice slightly muffled by his jacket. You hadn’t been enough, even with your Hunter skills, to save Caleb and Gran. It was why you had grown worse in your habit of overworking, often getting called the pot while Zayne was the kettle whom you told to take a break. 

Being a Hunter has become a huge part of your life and, by default, your identity. 

Without it, what were you? 

Just an anomaly gone so incredibly wrong.  

“You’ve always been enough,” Zayne insists, the shock in his tone shifting into something gentler. “Even when you were just the stranger crying outside of the hospital, only stopping when we shared old popsicles.” 

You smile a bit, expression softening when he pulls away, only to press his forehead against your own with great care. 

“Even when I made fun of your seals?” 

Zayne smiled back, his eyes creasing with growing affection. 

“An accident. And you kept them, as messy as my attempt was. Shows how kind you are.” 

You still have them, your mind corrects, thinking about where they sat on the shelf next to the newest one he’d given you. You didn’t have the heart to get rid of them, even going as far as to prevent people from touching them entirely by getting each of them a small display case. 

“You cared about the boy who didn’t know himself at all,” Zayne reminds, bumping his nose against your own. “Let the man he’s become care about you, now. Let me show you just how important you are as the person I love most.” 

You don’t speak—don’t trust yourself to, rather, just nodding your head as he presses a quick kiss to your trembling lips. You aren’t sure how long you stay together in the kitchen, wrapped in each other's arms. 

All you know is you both ruin your sleep schedules to indulge in good food and better dessert, followed by soft conversations down memory lane. 

And when you wake the next day with Zayne pressed to your back as your phone alarm goes off, you aren’t at all surprised at the new entry on your calendar, set to repeat every year indefinitely. 

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Writing Advice #4

Some of y’all are sitting on genuinely good story ideas and trashing them because “it’s not complex enough.” Because it doesn’t have a twist ending or a spreadsheet full of plot threads.

But Simple isn’t the enemy. Boring is, and a story is only boring when it forgets to FEEL.

We have been emotionally devastated by stories with the barest bones of a plot, something like “Boy and dog become friends. Then sad happens.” Or “Boy meets girl. They hold pinkies under the table.” Tears. “Stranger gives someone a sandwich.” Existential crisis.

It’s not about complexity, not really guys, it’s about impact.

Simple stories give your characters room to be human, they give your readers room to care. They don’t bury the heart under eight subplots and a riddle only your Reddit fandom can decode. You don’t need a chosen one and a revolution to earn a reader’s tears (I promise). You just need something that matters.

So please stop apologizing because your story is “just” about a guy who’s been writing love letters to someone he thought was dead.

That’s not “just.” That’s everything.

And if anyone tells you it’s not enough? Write it anyway, and go tell them to fuck off.

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Feeding the Neighbors Masterlist

Meet Caleb...

The aerospace engineer major who canoodles as a private chef on his downtime. His favorite past time is experimenting with new flavors and picking your brain as the residential food scientist, aspiring recipe developer.

Meet Sylus...

The nepo baby of a huge offshore tech conglomerate no one knows the name of. His favorite past time is keeping a clean tight ship during monthly supper clubs (and annoying you). Somehow keeps everyone fed when they're one step away from death's door.

Meet Zayne...

The med student growing increasingly worried about everyone's lack of balanced meals (especially Xavier's, who subsists off of instant ramen and meat skewers). Occasionally cares for underclassmen at the university clinic and is often relegated to revive the most wasted (or sick) residents in the apartment complex.

Meet Xavier...

The English Lit major who dedicates an entire room towards anthropological texts dating back to the Sumerian Era. An absolute atrocity in the kitchen (banned for life). Some speculate those texts should really be preserved in a museum somewhere...

Meet Rafayel...

The walking artistic catastrophe who permanently has paint embedded under his nails. Others have tried to recommend mani pedi services, only for his immaculate cuticles to be stained by a homemade pigment he's sourced abroad. Becomes the sushi master who hosts weekly sushi nights (don't worry, he hasn't killed anyone from lead or cadmium poisoning yet).

Apt 1 : Sylus | Caleb

Caleb | Prelude

Apt 2: Zayne | Xavier

Apt 3: Rafayel

Apt 4: You

coming soon...

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

──── 𝑺𝑼𝑩𝑴𝑬𝑹𝑮𝑬𝑫 𝑬𝑪𝑳𝑰𝑷𝑺𝑬

╰ 𝑹𝒂𝒇𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒍 LOVE AND DEEPSPACE: SUBMERGED ECLIPSE

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Puppy eyes υ´• ﻌ •`υ

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

I've always wantedd to draw caleb :>>>>

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Intern zyane 🥹🥹

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

GLASS BETWEEN US Pairing: Merman Rafayel x Scientist Reader

author note: ive been into love and deepspace recently, so here ya go hehe

wc: 4,870

───⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ───

You took the job because you needed a way out.

It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t even particularly well-paid. But the offer came with minimal paperwork, restricted clearance, and one very clear instruction: ask no questions.

So you accepted.

The facility—remote, underground, heavily secured—was the kind of place not listed on maps. It didn’t exist according to the public record, and yet it buzzed with life: researchers, guards, engineers, medics. They all moved with the quiet, tense urgency of people doing work that couldn’t be acknowledged outside these walls.

Your first day was a blur of orientation. Non-disclosure clauses, retinal scans, and procedural briefings stacked with redacted pages. You caught glimpses of terms like “specimen,” “cognitive divergence,” “aquatic containment.”

No one told you what exactly was inside Lab C. Just that you’d be assisting with long-term observation. You assumed it would be another mutated marine species pulled up from some trench, something grotesque and territorial. Maybe even dangerous.

But the truth was stranger.

When they finally led you through the corridors and into the observation chamber, you expected cold steel and sharp smells.

Instead, the room was quiet. Dim. The tank was massive—more an aquarium than a cell—bathed in low light that shimmered across the walls like waves. The water inside was dark, cold, impossibly deep. You stepped forward, clutching your tablet, already preparing to log oxygen levels and salinity.

That was when you saw him.

Not a specimen.

Not a subject.

Something else.

Your breath caught before you even registered why.

And just like that, the job you took to escape your life became the one thing you couldn’t walk away from.

You didn’t know it then, but that first glance would mark the start of something irreversible. Something that would pull you under, inch by inch, breath by breath.

The moment you saw him, your surroundings blurred into static. The beeping monitors, murmuring technicians, even the weight of your data tablet—all of it fell away.

Inside the isolation tank, a living impossibility drifted in manufactured saltwater. Designed to emulate the hadal zone, the deepest part of the ocean, the containment system glowed softly under rows of harsh overhead lighting. The glass was nearly ten inches thick.

He floated at the bottom, not quite asleep but clearly subdued. His body was serpentine, a long and powerful tail coiled beneath him like an anchor. Its surface shimmered with deep cobalt and streaks of pearlescent silver, every movement creating subtle waves of reflected light. Even now, in apparent stillness, he seemed to shift with the current, his tail flicking faintly like a ribbon suspended in water.

The upper half of his body resembled a human form—broad shoulders, strong arms—but with a sleekness and symmetry that felt engineered rather than natural. It was hard not to stare. Harder still to assign him the term specimen, as though he were just another data point.

His face was unnerving in its beauty. Too elegant. Too calm. Dark purple hair floated around his head, surrounding him like a halo. Thin, branching scars ran near the gills along his neck—signs of struggle? Or surgery? You couldn’t tell. Around his wrists were red rings where restraints had dug in, proof that something here had gone very wrong before it got quiet.

You took one step closer to the glass.

His eyes opened.

Bright blue, slit-pupiled, and utterly alien, they fixed on yours with uncanny stillness. Not vague awareness—recognition. As if you were something known. Something expected.

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until Dr. Havers spoke behind you.

“Sedated but semi-lucid,” he muttered. “You’ll get used to it.”

You doubted that.

You didn’t look away.

Neither did he.

Your formal role changed within forty-eight hours. A sudden shift, approved without ceremony. You were now responsible for the nocturnal observation cycle—Lab C, 2300 to 0400. Solo rotation. Minimal contact. Maximum discretion.

It wasn’t framed as special. If anything, it felt procedural. But there was an unspoken reason behind it. He responded to you—consistently, uniquely, and visibly. While other personnel were met with either silence or aggression, your presence generated stability. Lowered agitation. Reduced biomarker volatility.

“You’re not a risk variable,” Havers said, handing you a new clearance badge. “He recognizes that. Use it.”

That first night on shift, you sat alone behind the curved monitor console, tank lights dimmed to deep ocean blue. The lab echoed with the soft churn of water filters and the occasional mechanical click of the oxygen injectors. You opened a new file. Began a log.

SESSION 01 2303 HRS — Subject floats near lower quadrant. Motion minimal. Eyes open, tracking. 2317 HRS — Approaches glass at station-facing side. Remains within one meter. 0010 HRS — Mimics observer posture. Arms crossed. Head tilted. Intentional or coincidental?

The entries became more granular with each passing hour. You logged pupil dilation, fin twitching, shoulder alignment. The angle of his fingers against the glass. The way he followed the rhythm of your breathing when you leaned forward. Occasionally, he'd trace your silhouette on the other side of the glass, following your hand movements with uncanny precision.

He blinked less often when watching you, and more when others entered the lab—a strange, deliberate contrast. He began to tap his claws rhythmically against the tank wall when you wrote, a pattern that shifted in tempo depending on your pace. When you stood up, he rose. When you sat, he settled. A mirror, distorted by water and light, but growing clearer by the day.

By your third shift, the notes had started to blur.

SESSION 03 2248 HRS — Subject at station wall prior to entry. Appears to anticipate schedule. 2350 HRS — Subject mirrors tablet tapping. When observer writes, subject responds with claw motions against tank interior. 0104 HRS — Sustained eye contact. Three full minutes. Observer initiated break. Subject remained locked in gaze.

You began categorizing his behaviors under new terms. Not hostile. Not adaptive. Instead: intentional. Self-directed. Curious.

And eventually: fixated.

There was a pattern now, undeniable and precise. Every time you entered the room, he was already waiting. Every time you left, he followed your departure with slow, measured turns around the glass, as though mapping your absence.

Your notes became less technical. More observational. And then, more personal.

You started writing things you didn’t submit to the shared logs. Quiet questions scrawled in the margins of your private notebook.

Why only me? How much does he understand? Is this intelligence, or attention? Or is it something else?

You didn’t know the answers. Not yet.

But you couldn’t stop asking.

You hadn’t planned to speak to him. You weren’t even sure he could comprehend language.

But on the sixth night, everything was too quiet. The hum of the facility, the subdued flicker of the monitors—it all pressed in like static. You were tired. Frustrated. Your head rested on your folded arms, your mind drifting.

“I hate this place,” you muttered.

The water stirred.

Your eyes shot up. He was near the glass. Closer than before. His hands hovered just beneath the surface, claws relaxed. He tilted his head, as if listening.

Then he repeated it.

“I… hate… this… place.”

His voice was strange—raspy, resonant, shaped by a throat unused to speech. But he’d matched your cadence. Your tone. Even the way you’d slurred the words.

You stood.

“You understood that?”

He moved his mouth again. Slower. Testing the rhythm of speech.

“You… are… different.”

The room felt suddenly warmer. Or maybe colder.

Maybe both.

From that night on, your interactions became more complex.

Every time you entered, he was already waiting. You’d sit. He’d drift toward the glass, his body weaving gently behind him, as if pulled by invisible threads.

He began to mimic you in increasingly specific ways. When you tapped on your tablet, he tapped the tank wall. When you shifted in your seat, he mirrored the motion, down to the tilt of your head.

Researchers noticed. They logged it as proof of successful imprinting.

But you knew the difference between mimicry and obsession.

There was an intensity in his gaze that couldn't be dismissed. It was full of purpose. Of attention. He was learning you—not just your behaviors, but your moods. Your microexpressions. He watched your fingers when they trembled. He watched your lips when you breathed.

You tried to maintain boundaries.

But then the dreams started.

The dreams began as fragments.

At first, they were flashes—flashes of cold, of water creeping into your lungs, of sound that wasn’t quite voice but still carried meaning. Pressure without pain. Depth without fear.

Then they became immersive.

You were no longer watching from behind glass. You were inside the tank—or somewhere like it. A vast ocean with no surface and no floor. Everything shimmered in gradients of blue and black, lit by pulses of distant light. You were floating, suspended, and something was circling you.

You felt it before you saw him.

His presence. Electric. Intentional. Like gravity made flesh.

In the dream, Rafayel didn’t speak with words. He moved closer with the slowness of a creature that knew time was irrelevant. His fingers brushed your shoulder, your wrist, your waist—not with heat but with a chill so profound it burned.

You were never afraid.

Sometimes he held you. Other times, he watched you from below, his eyes glowing brighter than the deep. Always silent. Always there.

And always, just before waking, he would place his hand against your chest and say:

You belong here.

You’d wake gasping. Covered in sweat. The room dry, your lungs aching with the ghost of imagined water. And you’d feel it: a residual pulse. As if part of you hadn’t returned.

It was nearly 3:00 a.m. when the emergency alarms shattered the stillness.

You were off-shift. Sleeping. Or trying to. The facility-issued cot in your quarters was thin, the recycled air too dry. But exhaustion didn’t matter—because when the klaxon blared and the lights above your bed pulsed red, your heart dropped into your stomach.

Containment breach — Lab C.

You didn’t stop to think. You didn’t change. You threw on your coat over your sleep shirt and sprinted barefoot through the corridors, barely registering the startled faces of guards and technicians scrambling toward lockdown protocols.

When you reached the lab, the glass was already webbed with cracks.

Inside, the tank churned like a storm-tossed sea. Rafayel was in full fury—no longer the silent, observant being from your shifts. He was something else now. Magnificent and terrifying. His tail whipped with bone-cracking force, slamming the reinforced walls, again and again. The steel supports groaned. Water frothed with foam and light. Machinery sparked along the edges. A lab tech screamed as a panel exploded.

Two guards aimed stun-rods at the tank. “We have to subdue him—!”

“No—!” You pushed past them, breathless. “Let me try first!”

They hesitated—just long enough.

You stepped into the observation chamber, doors sealing behind you. A protective barrier of glass separated you from the tank, but it felt far too thin. Rafayel turned—spun mid-air like a coil of silk and muscle—and slammed his claws into the tank wall right in front of you.

You didn’t flinch.

You raised your hand. Slowly. Palms open.

“Rafayel,” you said softly, almost whispering, “Stop.”

His body stilled, suspended in violent motion.

The roar of the alarms, the hum of the oxygen pumps, even the buzz of the failed lighting—all of it faded into the background.

His breath came in sharp, rapid bursts. His eyes glowed like deep-sea lanterns. He hovered there, inches from the glass, claws still pressed hard enough to screech against it. But he wasn’t attacking now. He was… watching.

You stepped closer, until you were nearly touching the tank wall. Your hand hovered where his claws had struck just moments before.

“It’s me,” you said.

He blinked.

Then, without a sound, he floated backward. A slow, deliberate motion. One hand slid down the tank’s interior, leaving a trail of pale bioluminescence behind it. His tail coiled gently beneath him. The water settled. Foam dissipated. The light in his eyes dimmed—not dulled, just… quieter.

And then, unbelievably, he pressed his forehead to the glass.

Directly across from yours.

The room held its breath.

He closed his eyes.

You mirrored him.

The silence stretched.

Behind you, through the speaker system, you barely caught Dr. Havers’ voice: “Subject de-escalated. Immediate threat withdrawn.”

The guards didn’t speak. They didn’t move. No one did.

Because they saw what you saw.

He hadn’t calmed because of sedatives. Or fear.

He had calmed because of you.

And something in your chest cracked—splintered under the weight of a realization you weren’t ready for.

Whatever Rafayel was…

He wasn’t just watching you.

He needed you.

After the incident, you were called in for multiple evaluations. The staff expressed concern. His reactions were too focused. Too specific.

“Forming a fixation,” they said. “You’re a variable he’s centering around. It might become dangerous.”

But you didn’t feel afraid.

Each night, he was waiting. Sometimes he pressed his hand to the glass, palm to palm. Sometimes he mirrored your face until it felt like looking into a distorted reflection.

You broke protocol.

“Why me?” you asked him softly.

He moved close.

“You… are mine.”

Your heart thudded. You stood frozen.

“You don’t know me.”

He smiled, faint but assured.

“I remember you.”

You shook your head.

“That’s impossible.”

He only repeated, quietly: “You were always coming here.”

You stopped sleeping.

Each night, your dreams blended into your shifts. You began bringing small things into the lab. A book. A ring. A scarf. He noticed all of them. Watched each object with careful interest.

One night, you left a pen on the console.

When you returned the next night, it was inside the tank—placed delicately in a shrine of coral, shells, and scavenged materials. A gift.

You didn’t say anything.

But your chest ached with something unnamed.

And he knew.

The lab was quiet when you arrived, as it always was during your late shifts. But tonight, something felt heavier in the air. As you keyed into the monitoring station, you sensed him waiting.

He was already pressed to the glass, body still, eyes glowing faintly in the dim blue light. His gaze locked on you the instant you stepped into the room. You hadn’t even set your tablet down before he moved—slowly, fluidly—closer, so close that his breath fogged the glass.

Your heart pounded.

You didn’t need to say anything. He already knew you were listening.

“Free me,” he said.

The words were clear. Measured. Spoken not as a plea, but as a promise.

You stared at him, your throat tightening. “I can’t.”

He didn’t move away. He simply watched you, eyes scanning your face like he could read what you didn’t say.

“You don’t belong here either,” he murmured, voice soft and steady. “Not with them.”

He pressed a hand to the glass, and instinctively, without thinking, you lifted yours. His fingers aligned with yours, claws brushing the barrier.

“They see a cage,” he whispered. “You see me.”

The words didn’t sound rehearsed. They sounded like something he’d been waiting to say for a long time.

You swallowed hard. “If I open that tank, they’ll—”

He tilted his head, interrupting gently. “They fear what they cannot hold.”

You felt the heat of your own breath fog the glass. Your hand stayed pressed to his.

“Take it away,” Rafayel whispered. “Let me show you what you already know.”

The glass vibrated faintly under your palm. Not from his strength. From something else. Something deeper. A resonance that pulsed in your bones.

Outside the tank, you were still an employee, a researcher, a name on a schedule.

Inside the tank, he was waiting.

And in that moment, the glass no longer felt like protection.

It felt like a wall you weren’t sure you wanted to keep.

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

NEVER GIVE UP

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Promise?

Your calendar has everything.

Except your birthday.

Caleb's Version is up first :)

Zayne's Version / Xavier's Version (coming soon)

Sylus's Version (coming soon)/ Rafayel's Version (coming soon)

dividers by firefly graphics.

“What’s this, pipsqueak?” 

You look over your shoulder as he digs around the items on your desk rather than help you clean like he said he would. Placing the nth box you’d dug out of retirement on your dresser, you smile a tiny but at the stack of calendars he pulls out of another slightly more beaten box.  

“Such a pack rat,” you murmur to yourself, walking over and taking one from the top. You flip through it and sigh at how empty it is. You really need to get better about filling it out.

“These are—” 

“Calendars.”

His expression shifts as he flips through another one, his eyes scanning each month with growing interest. He places last year's down and goes to the very bottom of the pile to spot the familiar apple-themed one. Your messy handwriting and random letters you swore spelled something way back when littered the back, but the front remained untouched.

“You kept it,” he whispers quietly, thumb brushing over the faded but otherwise intact cover. 

You watch him closely, noting the way his eyes softened. When he met your eyes, you could see it…the debate of whether this was a conversation to have or allow to end. 

You chose for him, reaching out as your fingers brushed along the cover as well. 

“I did. I know it started as a joke about my bad memory,” you say with a smile, this time missing the twitch of his lips and brows at your words, “But it became a habit. One I carried with me even into adulthood. All thanks to little Caleb.” 

He pushes the air from his nose, amused as he flips through it with a lot more care than the first. You let him bask in the moment, holding the most recent to your chest silently.

“You were such a kid,” he says with a grin. “Always keeping score.”

You moved closer to peek at what he was referencing. It took you a moment to decipher what you’d written, misspellings and all. 

“Allowance day- Meanie Caleb owes me and Zayne an old popsicle each,” you read, scrunching your nose and feeling your face warm. It was short-lived, a realization hitting you soon after. “Hey…I don’t think you ever paid up!” 

Caleb rolled his eyes. “In my defense, I couldn’t find ‘old popsicles’ anywhere! Zayne said the place he got them was closed and every popsicle I brought to you, you denied.”

You squint at him, not accepting the explanation. 

“You promised.”

“So should we get the band back together and go hunting for old popsicles?” Caleb questions with a raised brow, flipping through the rest of the months before grabbing the next year’s and doing the same. You two went back and forth, topic changing every time you found something that spurred your memories to rise to the surface.

Your high school years are where things got really interesting much to your chagrin, Caleb laughing as he held it out of your reach and drank every written word in different colored pens. 

Pens he’d gotten you as a gift after ruining your fancy dress shirt in the wash after forgetting a pen in a sweater pocket of his. 

“Every basketball game and PT appointment, huh?” he hums as you hiss his name in warning, debating a sneak attack until he hands it to you without much fight at all. When he grabs the next, you feel a bit of relief that it was from after graduating. Those were much more sparse than the previous. University had taken a lot of your time and energy, only for you to then jump into the Academy once you realized you wanted to become a hunter. 

Part of you wonders whether Caleb’s encouragement or the dreams of that bright light that saved you way back when was the final nail in that coffin. 

“Man, you had a pretty packed schedule before graduating,” Caleb points out. “No wonder you would always be out cold when I came home to visit.” 

You ignore the comment, watching him go through them faster with how little detail there was compared to the older ones. He eyes the one in your arms, which you give without much thought if it meant he would leave you alone. The sooner he was done nosing around your past, the sooner you could….

You freeze, turning back to face him as your lips part. 

“Caleb—” 

“You wrote our death anniversary,” he whispers, like it was harder to breathe at the realization. He flips through the months once. Twice. “But not your own birthday?” 

You pick at the skin of your lower lip. You genuinely hadn’t thought much about your birthday. It wasn’t like it was your official birthday anyway. 

It was just a day. A reminder you’d wished to avoid.

“Why so surprised?” you asked, gently nudging him and trying to make the air in the room lighter. “Between being a Hunter, random wanderers appearing on a whim, it’s probably a cursed date,” you joke, but Caleb didn’t laugh or tease you as usual. 

Instead, he sighed, placing the desk calendar back on the stack and keeping his hand there for a moment. 

“It isn’t a big deal,” you try again, picking at the fabric of your pajama pants. 

And it wasn’t. Not to you. The only reason you’d celebrated was because other people seemed to want you to. Important people. 

People who hadn’t been around last year for reasons outside of their control. 

“Did you at least spend the day with someone?” Caleb asks quietly. “Anyone?” 

You hadn’t. 

Zayne had been away on some research project. 

Tara had been at an office in another city at the time. 

Xavier had disappeared to who knows where, returning the next week as if he’d never left with an injury you’d forced him to let you treat. 

Each had sent birthday wishes or belated birthday wishes which you accepted with a bit of hesitation, but the day of? 

You’d gone on a mission much to Jenna’s confusion. 

You’d come home after getting drenched by the rain that invited distant thunder and lightning to Linkon City. You’d curled up in bed, listening to the worsening storm and imagining those ‘silly’ birthday celebrations that involved party poppers the moment you walked through the door.

At least those loud noises provided nostalgia rather than fear. 

You clung to the memories, pulling your blanket over your head and closing your eyes while clinging to a plushie.

Picking the confetti from your hair as Gran and Caleb crowded while singing around you.  

The hugs from Gran that became weaker every year without her realizing, making you hold on a bit tighter. 

(not tight enough.)

The hugs from Caleb that became stronger every year until he no longer needed his evol to lift you up to spin around. 

(you needed to catch up.)

“Pipsqueak?” 

You snap out of your thoughts. “I can’t give you an answer you want,” you admit. “But I wasn’t forgotten if that’s what you’re worried about. I got birthday wishes and little presents from the people around me.” 

It wasn’t enough if the look he wore while eyeing your carpet was any indication of how he felt. 

You nudge him again, this time linking your pinky with his own as his focus shifted to you in an instant. 

“Stop wallowing. If you feel that strongly about it, then spend my next birthday with me,” you state. “And the one after that…and after that—”

You suck in a breath when arms wrap around you, all too familiar. 

You hadn’t realized how much you’d needed it until you wrapped your arms around him, too. 

“Deal,” Caleb promises, lips pressing a kiss to your temple. 

It shouldn’t have made your heart skip a beat. 

“I get it,” you say while trying to cool your cheeks and ears. “Now help me like you said you would, decluttering this room won’t happen if we’re standing here all day.” 

Caleb doesn’t let go right away, easing up slowly and allowing you to pull away first. 

He places the calendars back into the box, not daring to touch them as you make piles of things to donate, throw away, or keep.

And months later, you come home to a new desk calendar and flip to the current month. 

You look through it with a knowing smile, fingers brushing against the familiar handwriting and tracing the apple-like shape drawn around the date. 

Pipsqueak’s Birthday.

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

Lyrics that remind me of Caleb and MC

"Put another X on the calendar Summer's on it's deathbed There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends And I meant everything I said that night I will come back to life But only for you Only for you"

-The Calendar, Panic! At The Disco

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

This was also inspired by that one call we got from Sylus.

Your feelings are valid ❤️

PS: Had to censor some words cause of this app. 😮‍💨

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

You've always had a sneaking suspicion that your friend was secretly a god pretending to be human, but you've never been able to prove it. Until they slipped up one day by doing something only a god could do.

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

This Day in History: Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United Sates. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

[wallflowerwritesstuff]

doing anything with technology these days is an unending cycle of going no i do not want to use AI. im not interested in setting up copilot. I do not want help building my site. I would like my autocorrect to make sense again. I do not want AI generated search suggestions. no. nope. still not. die