#<- i mean technically but its the good version from that waffle short

[l1mbless-xr1tter]

Okay yk what screw it II ART REQUESTS BECAUSE IM STUCK IN THE HELL OF ART BLOCK AND OBJECTS ARE EASY TO DRAW. PLEASE. Idc if i regret this l8ter i genuinley have this urge to draw without being able to 😭

(ignore how ugly this is bc uhm. As i said art block. Yeah..)

No tacopad tho. Pls. Its fine if its toitacopad or smth i just dont like drawing tacopad on its own. Ya go wild!!

[andthenigetbored]

I’m crying and I don’t know why

I just ordered my first binder.

It’s a black tank-style binder from g2cb. I’ve thought of myself as nonbinary for about a year now (not counting the year and a half before it where I wasn’t sure), but I only thought about getting one recently. Really recently, tho, Ive had moments where I think I experienced significant gender dysphoria around my chest. Like, I’d previously thought that they were too big (I’d gained weight in college, and went from 34B to 34D, where I still am now), but they were kind of fleeting thoughts and I never felt sick about them.

As I’m learning more about how I experience being nonbinary, I find that I kinda waffle about how I feel about being and presenting AFAB and feminine. I don’t wear skirts at all anymore, but I still wear women’s pants and blouses and, very occasionally, dresses. Most of the time, I’m kinda neutral to vaguely positive about my body. I think I might be some flavor of genderfluid tho, if there’s a version where you move between demigirl and transmasculine. I started noticing that I’ll have 5 to 10 days where I really want to be feminine, but then I’ll suddenly feel weird and then I’ll have 5 to 10 days where I want to be masculine, and then it’ll cycle back around. But, even in my more masculine moments, I would still be wearing clothes from the women’s section (women’s flannels, women’s jeans, even a regular bra) and usually not have a lot of body dysphoria when I feel masculine.

More recently, especially after I’d graduated from grad school, I’ve started feeling sick during my more masculine days. I had “boat shoes” from the women’s section of sketchers (they look pretty masculine) and boy-short style undies from Victoria’s Secret, but while they did help, they didn’t make the feeling completely go away. I’ve always really wanted to get clothes from the men’s section, but after i graduated from my nearly all-women grad program, I left my apartment (where I’m completely closeted to my roommates) to stay with my parents and little brother. For context, all three know I’m bi and tend to wear masc clothing from time to time. Only my parents know I’m nonbinary, but they have no idea what it means for me outside of not wanting to be referred to as a “woman,” specifically, and wanting to be referred to as Ely; to his credit, only my dad knows that it’s related to my gender, and he’s been using it instead of my birth/dead/zombie(?)name (I don’t hate Elizabeth at all, especially in my feminine days, but Ely is more gender neutral and feels slightly more comfy on masculine days) around 75% of the time around me, to my mom’s 20% (she thinks it’s a nickname, and I’m still kinda scared to clarify; not because she won’t love me and won’t do it, because she would if I ask, but I’m scared that she’ll be mad at me if/when I correct her more concretely. She has been saying Ely more often than she had been tho). Basically, my parents know and are ok with it, but they still don’t fully understand what that means for me, and I always find myself at a loss for how to explain how I feel without resorting to essentialist language, which doesn’t really work for them, so I don’t know how they’d take me buying masculine clothes from the men’s section (as opposed to masculine/butch clothes from the women’s section, which they’ve actually been really chill and supportive of)

To my main point, I felt the opportunity for real men’s clothes come up. I went to TJ Maxx when I had a day off and my parents were at work and my brother was away and I picked a pair of khaki shorts (like, fuckboy/yacht-club shorts) and a collared shirt with a shark pattern to try on. I picked a few shirts from the womens section too to help them blend in a bit when I went into the changing room.

The shorts actually fit me really well-they were really comfortable, and they went to just above my knees and the pockets were huge; all things that I had expected. What I hadn’t expected was how they hid my hips. I’m kinda curvy, and have a really strong hourglass figure, and I was kinda startled by how straight my thighs looked in them. It was like I was a man from the waist down and a woman from the waist up and I never felt so amazing wearing clothes in years.

When I went to try on the shark-patterned shirt though, I couldn’t button the chest part. I’d had that problem with some women’s shirts too; when you’re larger than a C cup, it makes the buttons gap weirdly in the chest. But this was the first time that the buttons couldn’t close at all. And I felt this pain in my heart that I’d felt before, but never so strongly and so continuously. I had my short-for-a-girl/long-for-a-man gender neutral haircut, I was wearing gender neutral boat shoes, and men’s shorts, and the shirt fit so nice in the shoulders and the arms and it felt like nothing mattered because the shirt couldn’t close and I felt disgusting because my chest was too big. I caught myself wondering why I let myself get so big in the chest, and wanting to plan out how to lose weight quickly so my chest would shrink (a mentality that I hadn’t had since high school, when I had a very unhealthy obsession with counting calories and came close to being underweight). When I snapped out of it, I practically threw the shirt off and tried on some of the masculine shirts from the women’s section. They all fit perfectly.

It’s been about a week since then, and I’m still processing how I felt. I bought the shorts, and I haven’t worn them yet. I didn’t tell anyone I bought them, though I think my dad saw them when he was trying to find his own pants (all four of us are around the same size, so our clothes sometimes get mixed up; for the record, I gave him permission to look through my closet for them and only remembered they were there after the fact, so it wasn’t an invasion of privacy). I’ve thought about it a lot and I decided to bite the bullet. Its my birthday in a few weeks, I’d heard that g2cb was a good company to buy binders from, and I actually wear black tank tops quite often, so I wouldn’t have to explain what it is outside of it “having a really good sports bra built in” (which, if I’m being reallllly technical, isn’t totally a lie).

So, as of about an hour ago, a binder it’s on it’s way to me. My first binder. I don’t know if I should be proud, excited, or completely terrified.

[canaryatlaw]

Alright, I’m sitting on a train heading home from nyc to my parents’ place. Today’s been wild, to put it mildly, lol, so lots to explain there. To begin, my alarm went off at 3:45 am this morning, at which point I had to convince myself that I did actually want to get out of bed, then proceeded to do so and get dressed, throw my toothbrush in my bag and confirm that Jess was ready to go before calling the Uber. It was a few minutes out but I wanted to be ready, so I walked down the stairs in my apartment building and about three steps short of the bottom my brain somehow short-circuited, probably because I was still half asleep, and decided that there were no more steps there, so instead of walking down the rest of the steps I just took a giant plunge forward which landed me smacking my knees into the ground just in front of the door with a giant OW. My first observation though was relief it was just my knees that hurt from getting smacked and not any other parts of my body (like a foot or wrist that are known to break) that had been injured and could’ve been a much bigger issue. Don’t need one of those derailing the day to say the least, the amount of ice that’s been on the ground lately has made me really skittish about slipping and falling outside so that’s been on my mind a lot.

But I picked myself up and proceeded to actually leave the building and enter the Uber that pulled up a minute later. Picked Jess up and was on our way to the airport. I rolled my sweatpants up to check my knees, I had a fairly large scrape on my left one but my right one was ok, it wasn’t really bleeding though thankfully and I’m prepared for everything so I had bandaids and bacitracin within reaching distance. So I patched myself up a bit and we were on our way. Made it to the airport and since we had our boarding passes printed out and weren’t checking any bags (we were flying Spirit so just doing a backpack each) we just went straight to security, which proved to be a bit of a longer work than initially predicted, but once we got through successfully we saw we had no need to worry because the plane was not going anywhere fast lol. We ended up being a bit delayed, and then there was a whole hoopla where the lady on the speaker initially said we needed 23 people to switch to another flight that was leaving soon after and that there was gonna be a $250 voucher available for every person that switched, which led to a large amount of people rushing over to try to claim this, only to be followed up with a minute later that oh wait, actually there’s no voucher available but we still needed 23 people to switch to another flight. So naturally that put a bit of a damper on people’s willingness, but eventually we figured it out and actually did get onboard. Once we were onboard the pilot got on the speaker and explained that the issue had been that they had overfilled our plane’s fuel tank and that instead of removing fuel they instead transferred the weight of the extra fuel (apparently about 23 people’s worth) to another flight to make up for it, which made a lot more sense because I was like even for Spirit overbooking a flight by 23 people is wildly irresponsible, so I felt better knowing that didn’t occur. Once we were in the air I took out my make up bag and proceeded to do my make up, and when I was done with that I just closed my eyes while listening to music and didn’t sleep but at least rested my eyes for most of the trip. We ended up making decent time, got there at like 9:20 when our initial landing time was supposed to be 9, so not bad.

Once on the ground we headed to the nearest bathroom where we both changed our sweatpants into jeans and Jess did some make up before we left. Headed to the taxis (because easier that Ubers in NY) and gave them the address for Juniors, which was serving breakfast until 10:45, and headed there. The ride wasn’t bad, had to eat the midtown tunnel toll which was like $6 but that was unavoidable. But we got there pretty soon and waited for about ten minutes before getting seated and having breakfast. I had an omelet for the first time in quite a while, not because I don’t like omelets (because I do) but generally when given the option I preferred something breadier and sweeter (so pretty much waffles and French toast, occasionally with pancakes thrown in) but they had a corned beef omelet and you can’t get that every day so I went for that. They were good and fast of course, they know what their gig is and they play it well. After that we headed out and ended up going to a stuffed animal store on the corner that apparently was featuring the stuffed animals from the members of BTS which Jess is like obsessively against (she’s an anti-fan, basically) so we had to go and check that out and see all the very, very weird products they had (and they were very weird) and eventually took a picture with a giant teddy bear at the front of the store. We didn’t have much else to do at that point so we went to the Forever 21 in Times Square and ran around there for a while, Jess grabbed a few things and while we were checking out there were like best friends matching keychains that we were joking at and we were like oh if they were something more relevant to us maybe we’d get them, and under them they just had normal keychains of like a pineapple I lifted one of them which revealed an avocado keychain which then caused us to freak out because this was clearly Fate, so now we own best friend avocado keychains that weren’t supposed to be a best friend thing but they are now.

Once we finished there we really didn’t have anywhere else to go, so we ended up just chilling in the Starbucks on 47th until it was closer to the show time at which point we walked to the theatre on 43rd and stood in line briefly before getting to our seats. We were in the literal last row of the orchestra, where I have been before but have never complained about because I knew the important part was being in the orchestra to begin with, even the last row are good seats. And then it was time for the play (a bit of a change since we generally do musicals, but for Harry Potter you change things up) and so we were off. When the script had been released I had heard reports that it was very weird and a lot of people didn’t like it, but I had it on good authority that the play version was worth watching, so there we were. And oh, it was very much worth watching.

Heavy spoilers from here on, obviously, because I’m gonna freak out about how good it was now. Like, agh, all of it was done so well. I totally see how it wouldn’t transfer to paper well in the means where people were expecting to read it like a novel but plays aren’t meant to be read they’re meant to be performed, and this definitely needed to be performed to reach its full artistic genius. The technical effects were excellent, but unlike shows like King Kong and Spider-Man (the musical!) the effects didn’t far outshine the story but only served to elevate the story (as they should). They used music for a lot of the transitions, not unlike a musical except of course nobody’s going to start singing at some point. Everything was done very smoothly and they often left you with a “how did they do that....” as the scene goes on (and I mean, I’ve seen a lot of effects, but there were several I was quite taken with). Storywise of course I’ll only go through this for the first half of the show since it’s split into two actually separate shows (like first starts at 2 second starts at 7:30, each of which had an act one and act two). Okay so, act one. We open on the well-known scene that is pretty much all we know about the future of the HP-verse up until this point: the epilogue. We see Albus Severus talk nervously about potentially getting sorted into slytherin, then goes on the train with his cousin Rose (Granger-Weasley). Much like the opening of the original (as Rose points out was where their parents met) they come across one Scorpius Malfoy in his train compartment. I hadn’t imagined Scorpius as much other than existing from the epilogue up until this moment, yet I instantly recognized he was nothing like what I would’ve expected from him and was also 100% as he should be. The actor playing him was fucking hilarious but made it work with so much more than just the funny lines. So Rose gets sorted into gryffindor and Albus gets sorted into slytherin, where him and Scorpius become best friends. There’s also the establishment of a crucial plot point, being that there were rumors that Draco couldn’t get his wife pregnant and to keep the Malfoy line going they used a time turner to go have a love child with Voldemort and Scorpius is actually Voldemort’s child, something he gets teased about and Draco is trying to get Harry to tell people the ministry destroyed all the time turners but Harry won’t get involved.

We get shown a few scenes indicating the passing of the years, Albus having a deteriorating relationship with his father who can’t seem to relate to his middle son, up until right before he’s starting his 4th year. Harry, who works for the ministry, gets a visit at home from old Mr Diggory who is fairly unhinged and is begging Harry to use the time turner that just showed up at the ministry to go save Cedric. Albus is listening from the stairs in the back and gets introduced to Delphi, Diggory’s niece who is taking care of him in his old age. The scene ends, Albus and Harry have a fight where not nice things are said (mostly by Harry), Albus decides on the train the next day he was done with this crap and convinces Scorpius to abscond with him on a mission to steal the timeturner and go save Cedric. Now, some character commentary. Albus and Scorpius are fucking great together. From the first scene I legit just leaned over to Jess and was like GAYYYYYYYYYY because they’re legit just the entire plot and all of it was just them basically being in love with each other (🤷🏻‍♀️).

So the show up at the old wizard’s center Diggory is at And they run into Delphi who they conscript into their adventure to save her cousin. They manage to break into the ministry and do manage to steal the time turner, where they plan to go back to the first task of the tri-Wizard tournament which is of course flawed thinking because they only would’ve needed to intervene in the last one, but there had to be a whole show here. So they go back and interfere, they steal his wand and when they come back Ron and Hermione aren’t married and Albus is sorted into gryffindor, apparently the result of some prodding from Ron’s son he had had with Padma Patil. Meanwhile there’s parental angst and Harry tries to keep them apart because he thinks Scorpius is a bad influence on Albus. So these lovable dorks are like let’s go back again and interfere with the second task (again, not the point), but when they get back Albus is gone and Scorpius is greeted by headmaster Umbridge, who explains Harry died at the battle of hogwarts and the wizarding world is under Voldemort’s control, close curtain end of part one. So that was wild.

After the show we went back to Juniors and had more food, then ended up going back to the theatre because it was cold outside and back to the story because that’s where we wanted to be. Meanwhile in the theatre they had switched all the merch and stuff over to the dark insignia (not the traditional dark mark, a new snake thingy) because it’s all under that now. So the play opens, everything’s very militaristic, under a despot, and Scorpius is VERY STRESSED, he keeps getting hassled because he was asking about Harry, and talking about Cedric, where he is able to find out Cedric was so humiliated by his terrible loss in the second task of the triwizard tournament he went down a dark path and became a deatheater, but “wasn’t even very effective because he only killed one wizard, some loser named Neville Longbottom.” Oh. The future of the free world rests on Neville Longbottom. That tracks. So he eventually goes to Snape who’s still a teacher at the school and spills everything, including him knowing about Snape loving Lily from the other world, which leads Snape to take him into the room of requirement (didn’t spell that right) where we find Ron and Hermione and that’s about it, there’s a whole confrontation with the dementors which they did much more effectively than the movies, that basically led to all the adults sacrificing their lives in this reality so Scorpius can go set it right in the real world (at which point I was like legends season 2 finale much??), which he manages to do and yay Albus is back! So everything is good except Harry’s scar has been hurting and there’s some issue going on.

So they make the adults think they lost the time turner but Scorpius then reveals he had it and wouldn’t give it back to the adults because they would just lie and keep it again and since he had seen the true horror he knew they had to destroy it. So Albus sends an owl to Delphi because she was there with them to begin with and she should be there to see them destroy it, and manages to get the time turner from them and upon hearing of the alternate reality Scorpius was telling of she reveals she’s actually the child of Voldemort and is actually a very powerful witch who takes them back to the night of the final task of the tournament where they’re supposed to be stop Cedric from winning so he’ll become a deatheater, something about a prophecy, she’s crucio’ing Scorpius so Albus will comply but they manage to get away from her, for a second ACTUAL CEDRIC shows up and gets her away and I swear to fuck I fucking cried it was beautiful and so I’m home now and didn’t mean to get into explaining this much plot shit because as you can see it gets quite complicated and takes a lot to explain but we’re here now so I guess we’re going the rest of the way home. So the boys are missing again and parents are distraught again, they manage to foil her plans for that night but then she grabs them and takes them to a day and then smashes the time turner so they’re stuck. Meanwhile parents figure out who Delphi is and they go to her room which looks normal but when you turn the lights out there’s like glow in the dark words written all over about the prophecy except instead of just being on her walls they were all over the entire theatre like under the balcony right back where we were sitting EVERYWHERE it was so good and also Harry was having weird flashback dreams that never happened that mostly just consisted of him going weird places with the Dursley’s but one of them was at his parents’ graves and there was a jump scare that scared the shit out of both of us, so that was fun.

So boys figure out they’re stuck the day before Voldemort tries to kill Harry as a baby so they figure Delphi’s gonna stop him from getting destroyed, so they stake it out and with some creative choices they manage to get a message back to Harry and everyone about where they are and Draco reveals his dad had been hoarding a much better quality time turner (at which point I just leaned over and was like “a very potter sequel?”) so the adults (meaning Harry, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, and Draco) all go back and find the boys and make a plan to corner Delphi when she shows up, but then they figure she’s waiting for Voldy to show so she can introduce herself, so Harry transfigures into Voldy and tricks her into where they all were except it starts failing at the last minute and so they’re fighting and at first she manages to lock everyone else out so it’s just her and Harry and she got his wand so he’s fucked but Albus is tiny and like climbs through a grate in the floor (they’re supposed to be in the old church in Godric’s Hollow), gets his dad his wand back and lets everyone else back into the fight where they defeat her. It was revealed when she was talking to fake Voldy that apparently she was the love child of Voldemort and Bellatrix LeStrange born before the battle of hogwarts and raised by Rodolphus LeStrange when he was apparently let out of Azkaban (because that happened for some reason) and was basically confunding old man Diggory and tricking everybody into thinking she was his niece and nurse (there was a confrontation with Draco and Harry and Diggory where they’re like “we know they’re with your niece!!” and Diggory is like “I don’t have a niece, I was an only child and so was my wife????”) and then once they have her defeated actual Voldy comes in and they have to watch his parents get killed (we hear it and see them watching) which was very sad. But then they get back to the present where they get yelled at a lot by McGonagall (well-deserved) and then some eventual cheering and improvement in father-son relationships for both boys and like, I’m sure the plot I just explained sounded really nuts but it was honestly such a sweet and sincere story that was so incredibly well-executed. If Angels in America hadn’t been playing on broadway last year, I’m convinced they would’ve swept the (play) Tonys, and while AiA won the actor focused awards (for best leading and featured as Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane, because of course), cursed child won for best play, best director, scenic design, costume design, lighting design, and sound design, which is honestly a huge feat in itself so they should be very proud, though I maintain Scorpius’ performance very much deserved a Tony (upon consulting with British friends since almost all the main cast was taken from the original west end production the actor did in fact with the Olivier for the role so that brought me comfort). But yeah, that was wild.

And since then, we left, walked back to penn, chilled at shake shack until the train was ready to go, rode the train home where I started writing this, and I’ve since gotten off the train, into an Uber, back to my parents house, got ready for bed, and am now sitting on my bed with the lights out ready to go to sleep as soon as I finish writing this, it’s almost 2 am so I think it’s safe to say this is a good spot to finish. Goodnight loves. Hope you had a wonderful Saturday as well.

[pumpkins-s]

Spilling Like An Overflowing Sink

Read on AO3 Here

Read the Other Chapters on Tumblr Here

Lance Alexander Rafael McClain is born in the middle of a summer storm, thunder cracking and rain slamming onto the roof of an old ramshackle house that had seen more than its fair share of children.

The miracle baby, that’s what the family had called Lance. The unexpected son to a mother of five daughters.

(In which family is always complicated, Lance’s life hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows, and he and Keith are really emotionally constipated for each other.)

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Relationships: Keith/Lance, significant platonic Lance & Hunk

Characters: Lance, Lance’s family, Hunk, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran

Chapter 7: Lifelines

((Author’s Note: 

Yoooo.

So this wasn't originally where I was going to place a chapter break, but in honor of season 2, I figured I'd put out one last chapter before the new season drops. (Ironically this chapter ended up pretty lighthearted so consider it your break before shit goes south again.)

I have it on good word that there'll be some Lance backstory in season 2 (a friend of a friend works for the Voltron team), so chances are after season 2 this fic will no longer be canon compliant. I love this story, so I fully intend on continuing writing it, but I'll have to wait and see what content is in season 2 before I decide how much of it SLAOS will adhere to. If I don't agree with certain things, I may just go with my original plans for the "voltron canon" part of this story, but if I find the season workable with the versions of these characters I've written, I'll try to keep as canon compliant as possible, minus what's already been established in this fic.

Anyways, enjoy. I'll see y'all over on the other side of the new season, yeah? <3))

“Hey Mavis? Question.”

“Yeah, sure …Hold on lemme just get my waffles out of the toaster… Okay, shoot.”

“Why are you making waffles at midnight? Wait, never mind, that wasn’t the question. What’s the point of flirting?”

From the other end of the line, Mavis splutters, and there comes a loud hacking noise, followed by a bout of coughing. Wincing, Lance holds the phone away from his ear and waits for the noise to subside.

“Why are you asking me that?” Rings out loudly, even without the phone near his face.

Lance frowns, bringing the phone back closer. “The waffles? Well you mentioned them first…”

“Not that!” Mavis screeches. “The other question! And don’t question my eating habits I am an adult I’ll eat waffles when I damn well please to. Why are you asking me about flirting at midnight, huh? Wait— You’re eleven why are you even awake?”

“It’s a private magnet school, and we have a test on Friday.” Lance deadpans, stretching out on his bed and poking a socked foot gently into Ritzie’s side where she’s asleep at the foot of the bed, face planted on top of her open biology textbook. She snorts in her sleep at the movement, rolling over slightly, and Lance stifles a giggle. “Sleep is for the weak.”

And his friends, apparently, he thinks, noting Hunk and Yuu’s sleeping forms on the other side of the room, Hunk on his bed, Yuu leaning against the base of it on the floor, notes scattered around them.

Over the phone, Lance hears Mavis grumble, and he grins. “So you never answered my question?”

“Oh dear lord.” Mavis sighs. “Ok hold on I’m gonna need some fucking… maple syrup to get through this shit. And maybe vodka.” There’s the sound of clinking on Mavis’s end as she presumable fetches something, and then her voice returns. “So why are you asking me about flirting?”

“Dunno.” Lance says. “Just noticed some classmates are apparently into that now.”

Lance was aware that he was among the younger students in many of his classes, and that meant there would be some things the older children… er, teenagers, would do that he might not get, but this one appeared to be a new habit with the students a year or two above him. He’d consulted his resident teenager first, but Ritzie had launched into a rant about the stupidity of hormonal teens and the patriarchy, which hadn’t been very helpful, and Lance had figured asking Yuu was going to be even more unenlightening, which meant he was fresh out of primary sources to consult.

Well, he supposes Hunk is technically nearly a teenager now, too, but that is… too weird to think too hard about. Hunk probably hadn’t noticed anyways. He was at his most perceptive when suspicious or feeling like snooping, but otherwise out of the two of them Lance generally did the people-reading, and left Hunk to handle the machines and general common sense.

“I don’t know, Lance.” Mavis says, sounding somewhat disgruntled, but just slightly amused, as well. “Apparently some people just do that when they get older. When they like someone, I guess.”

Lance huffs. “Boring.”

Mavis snorts loudly. “I don’t know what to tell you, buddy. People are boring.”

“I mean what’s it for. There’s got to be a purpose? Something it’s useful for?”

“Mmm…” Mavis hums, voice lilting. “Well, if you want to look at it like that…” She trails off, the sound of fingers tapping against a table echoing across the line, and Lance knows he has her hooked. “I guess, not that I have any personal experience or anything,” She coughs awkwardly, “it’s good for reading people? How a person reacts to advances like that gives you a big clue into how their personalities work. And if they’re receptive, you could use that for manipulation, or to get something you want from them. Or if they’re not… It’s a way to annoy them and throw them off their game. Plus, it’s something to do, right? Gives you an excuse to talk when you’re bored and want to get a read on stuff and some attention, without it seeming obvious that you’re trying to be a snoop.”

“…And this is all just theoretical musings on your part?” Lance deadpans.

“Yes! Definitely.”

“Y’know, if you weren’t my cousin I’d be very afraid of you becoming a criminal mastermind.” Lance says solemnly, and fails to stifle his grin when Mavis laughs loudly.

“You’re the one that asked me for useful reasons for it!”

“Hey, I mean you did give me what I was looking for.” Lance answers, sitting up and pushing his bangs out of his eyes. “I like knowing how I can use something to my advantage. Lot more useful than the ‘birds and the bees’ talk Marcie tried to give me when I asked her.”

“And you say you’re not half as manipulative as me.” Mavis chides, and Lance giggles. Idly, he swings his legs off the edge of the bed and stands, careful to move quietly as not to wake his sleeping companions as he slips into the adjoined bathroom and flicks on the light.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lance says innocently, tucking his phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can reach for his face wash on the bench, extracting it from the neatly arranged stacks of colorful bottles. He’d originally started out the year with one face wash on the bench, but between Marcie sneaking this and that into his bags, and stuff he’d semi-accidentally pilfered from Ritzie’s bathroom, Lance now had a wide assortment of face cleansers, washes, and moisturizers. All things considered, he figured it was a harmless enough habit to indulge in. People were hardly regularly coming through his and Hunk’s bathroom aside from themselves and occasionally Ritzie or Yuu, and if anyone ever asked about it, Lance imagined that, with several older sisters, saying they’d instilled a mentality of proper skin care on him at a young age, which was true anyways, wouldn’t be too hard to believe. Regardless, it was a small and relatively secret habit that helped him feel… more like himself. He couldn’t have his clothing or his hair or the box of shiny lip gloss and glittery nail polish back, but this was safe.

“Mhmm. Sure.” Mavis’s voice is lilting, poorly hiding her amusement, before she pauses. “…Is that it? You usually don’t call this late.”

Lance winces. “It was on my mind?” He tries, rubbing the face wash into his skin carefully.

“Lance.” Mavis chides firmly. “What’s really going on? If it was just about flirting you would have texted me instead.”

“I don’t know, okay?” Lance snaps slightly. Mavis is silent on the other end, and Lance sighs, closing his eyes. “…Sorry. I just felt… jittery. Couldn’t sleep.”

“…Is it about summer break?”

Lance blinks, not sure whether to curse or thank Mavis’s ever-present ability to read into what’s going on, even hundreds of miles away. “I guess?”

“You worried about going home?” Mavis says, and Lance frowns, contemplating.

“I don’t think so?” He hesitates, trying to sort out his jumbled thoughts into words. “I’m excited to see everyone, spend time with them without having to worry about going back to Greenwood a day or two later, and I like summer, but…”

“But it’s three months.” Mavis finishes, picking up smoothly. “Three uninterrupted months in Veradera, with no breaks from everyone.”

“…And no Loraine.” Lance says quietly, acknowledging the elephant in the room. “They all think I’ve gotten so much better, that I’m handling everything so well— What if I can’t keep it together that long? I don’t want to ruin everyone’s summer with them worrying over me again. It’s not fair to them.”

Mavis hums. “It’s not selfish to need help, Lance.”

“But it’s not fair either. They feel guilty, I feel smothered, and everyone just ends up miserable. I’m…” He thinks of the gentle hands of his sisters picking him up and soothing him when he has a panic episode, of Hunk’s bone-weariness, yet determined patience, as he hides the sharp things and wraps up Lance’s arms when he hits the breaking point each time. It’s not as bad as it was when Loraine first… died, but Lance knows he isn’t coping, really. Oh, yes, he’s gotten good enough at hiding it from his family on the short weekend visits, to soothe their worries, but now that just leaves the onus on Hunk to deal with Lance when, inevitably, the cracks begin to show. “I’m tired of being everyone’s burden.”

Mavis pauses, and while Lance can’t see her, he can imagine her on the other end of the line, perched on some chair with her feet on a table as she twists her hair around a finger and glares contemplatively at some random object. Between what he saw of Mavis before she left home, and of the occasional video chats they’ve had, he’s gotten relatively adept at picking up Mavis’s body language, helped in part by the fact many of her idle habits are much like his own, if only slightly more aggressive at any given moment. He thinks maybe it might have something to do with the fact that he picked up most of his habits from Loraine, who in turn might have adopted some from Mavis— They were two of the closer in age after all, Mavis herself only a year older than Evie, making her five older than Loraine. It’s not hard to picture his sister at eight or nine trying to imitate her cool thirteen-year-old cousin.

Though, by that reasoning, Lance supposes it’s fair to draw the conclusion that all his siblings and cousins had picked up some behaviors from one another.

“Why don’t you come stay with me for a bit then?”

“What?” Lance jolts, snapping out of his idle thought derailment.

“You don’t want to do three continuous months in Veradera, right? Take a break. Come up to stay with me for a couple weeks during the summer in July or August or something.”

“…Really?” Lance gapes, and across the line Mavis snorts.

“Yes, really. It’ll be fun. I’ll take you to the theater I’ll be doing some tech work in this summer, walk you around the tourist parts of the city. Can’t afford to shop there, but we can make fun of tourists or something.”

“But I thought…” Lance frowns, unconsciously staring down at his moisturizer bottle like it holds the answers to the universe. “You liked your space? You don’t really come home much. Or… at all, really.”

“Because everyone always begs me to stay.” Mavis says. “You don’t. You’re a good kid, Lance. I like coddling you a bit, and I’m not a coddling person.”

“I know you aren’t.” Lance says quietly.

“Just think about it, yeah? You can bring Hunk if you want, or something.”

“No!” Lance yelps, before he can stop himself, slapping a hand over his mouth.

“No?” She pauses. “…You two aren’t fighting, are you? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two have a fight. Or even a spat, for that matter.”

“No, of course not.” Lance mumbles. “It’s just… I had an episode the other day, and when Hunk was bullying me into eating and sleeping after, it made me realize that… I’ve kinda forced him to be stuck dealing with my problems? He deserves a break.”

Mavis sighs. “You know he probably doesn’t look at it like that, right? That boy loves you to death, Lance, es evidente, plain as day. Whether you two choose to define that as familial or something else is up to you, but my point is, he’s probably more worried about you than he is annoyed with any perceived inconveniences.”

“That’s it, though. He’s stuck worrying about me all the time. He’s scared to leave me alone on a bad day in case I hurt myself again. He’d run himself into the ground trying to help because he’s a good person like that, and I’m the kind of cabrón who’d let him.”

Mavis clucks her tongue. “Language. And I think you’re overthinking things, you should just talk to him.”

“Maybe.” Lance admits, padding out of the bathroom, flicking the light off behind him, and over to his bed, wiggling in and grabbing azul from where he keeps it hidden under the pillow and hugging it to his chest, tucking its soft blue fur under his chin. “I don’t know. Thank you anyways Mavis. I’ll… think about New York.”

“Alright.” Mavis says with an air of resignation, obviously sensing an end to the conversation. “Goodnight Lance.”

“Goodnight Mavis.” He whispers.

Two weeks later, Lance finishes the last of his finals, exchanging amused glances across the room with Ritzie as they scrawl down answers on paper, and then goes home to Veradera.

Despite all his worries, he finds the comfort of being back outweighs any lingering anxiety he feels. He moves back into his old room— The room that was once his, Loraine’s, and Karen’s, and now only belongs to him, and, more unofficially, Hunk, Karen still living in the other room his sisters share, and Igraine having moved into Lucas’s room and taking Carlos’s old space there to make more space.

“I know it was weird for you, having Karen back in your room when she was gone most of the time, especially right after… Loraine.” Evie tells him quietly the one and only time he asks her about sleeping arrangements, guilt at having driven his older sister out of her room last summer still hugging his chest. “She’s not mad about it, promise. It worked out, anyways. Gave Igraine an excuse to move into Lucas’s room so the two of them can stay up all night gossiping. It’s good, I think Lucas was getting lonely with both Mavis and Carlos out of the house.”

Loraine’s bed still stays in its corner, the walls above it littered with pictures of their family, of Lance at varying ages, of constellations. It’s… more or less Lance’s now, he supposes. He’d slept in it so many nights over the previous summer, blindly seeking comfort in the remnants of the smell of Loraine’s shampoo on her pillows, that he’d kept up the habit on his weekends back home during the school year more out of instinct than anything else.

And now, it’s summer again, a whole cycle passed, and if he hasn’t managed to rid himself of this coping mechanism before, Lance doubts he’ll suddenly start doing so soon.  

So Loraine’s bed becomes his, and his bed is relegated to Hunk, on the nights the two of them don’t just share. Hunk’s actual bed back at his own house goes more or less unused, but that isn’t anything new, Hunk has practically lived here for years— His grandmother, too, honestly, spending her days on the porch or in the lounge with Lance’s own grandparents.

So, yes, in that fashion things really haven’t changed.

He makes Loraine’s… his bed a mess of blankets and pillows, azul tucked up in the middle of it, pins a couple photos of himself, Hunk, Ritzie, and Yuu from school to empty spaces in the wall above the headboard, and tries to forget the jarringly empty space next to him.

It’s not that hard to find distractions, at least. Lance had forgotten just how… alive his family is. It doesn’t really hit him how much he’s missed out on until he’s being introduced to Carlos and Rachel’s new baby, Josie’s long-awaited sibling, and he realizes in the couple weeks he chose not to come home to study for finals, he somehow missed the baby’s birth. When it slowly dawns on him just how much change and growth in their lives he has missed in his self-pity, Lance pushes himself into trying to be there for all of them.

He decides to take it as a marking point of change. Nicky, his newest cousin, is all the fragile smallness and tiny features Lance remembers Josie being, with the brown hair and slight curls that are predominant in their family, and the dark eyes that everyone but Lance has, his own blue eyes now an anomaly without the matching pair that used to look at him with joy and love.

Lance can’t change the past, but he can, at least, hold himself to this. Even if he cannot fix his broken pieces, this new, youngest member of their family will never see the jagged edges that make up Lance’s heart.

With luck, perhaps Josie will never remember that Lance either. She’s not even four, after all. Children forget so easily.

Either way, it’s a promise Lance holds himself to.

He helps his mother and aunts around the house, visits Carlos and Rachel’s house to mooch some breakfast from them on the good mornings, takes Josie to the beach on the sunny days with Hunk, plays scrabble with his grandparents, occasionally letting them win, and tried to be happy… or at least look it.

Mavis is his saving grace, the patient voice on the other end of the phone when he talks to her at night, perched on the roof with a blanket around his shoulders as he watches the stars.

“Spend more time with your sisters.” Mavis chides him over the phone when he recounts his days. “They miss you.”

“It’s… different.” He tells her, spilling out the unsaid words and quiet secrets into the night air where he trust only she will hear him. “Everything’s different now. I don’t know how to be their Lance. What if they don’t—”

“Have a little faith in them.” Mavis’s voice is firm, allowing no argument. “Evie helped you get into your school, Igraine keeps that stupid hoverbike in working condition for when you’re old enough for it, Karen moved rooms to give you your space, and Marcie calls me constantly hoping to hear how you’ve been doing through me when you don’t pick up her calls. They love you, Lance. Loraine or no Loraine, that doesn’t change. They’re still your hermanas. Give the bonds you have with them another chance.”

And so, because Lance knows Mavis is rarely wrong about these things, if ever, he does.

He sits with Evie around the computer and asks her about the work she does, coaxing her away from the screen for a trip to the dairy on the beachfront for an ice cream when she overworks herself.

He goes to the park on cooler afternoons with Karen, hand in hers when they cross streets because she still thinks of him as little and in need of protection, asks her to teach him new skills he’s seen her do, and delights in the way her face lights up at the opportunity to talk to him about the sport she loves.

He helps Marcie brush and braid her hair at night, chatters with her about the gossip she’s heard from the housewives at the salon, and helps her fix the holes in her clothing with careful stitching, accepting her excited offers to teach him how to embroider little flowers along collars and let out and take up hems so a skirt can be worn longer.

He takes trips with Hunk to visit Igraine at the mechanic’s, helping her with the pet project motorbikes she keeps hidden in the back, suggesting outrageous paint colors for each restoration cheerfully from his seat while Hunk vehemently argues against them, and on the occasional weekend morning, walks with Igraine to the scattering of trees near their house where she has tied up old milk cartons and bottles from the branches to shoot at with her paintball gun.

Igraine’s always done this. She taught Lance to shoot as well at a young age, but it still surprises Lance to find how often she does it now, sometimes disappearing early in the mornings and spending hours sitting against a tree and painstakingly landing a hit on every target in view. Watching her grim face and sullen eyes on those days, when Lance sneaks after her and she doesn’t realize he’s there, he comes to the realization that perhaps he isn’t the only one that has developed some odd coping habits since Loraine’s death.

After that, he makes a point to spend more time with Igraine.

She catches him following her only once on one of her early morning sneak-and-shoot sessions, but instead of getting angry she just glances at him and pats the empty spot on the ground next to her, already loading up another shot.

“I taught Loraine to shoot, too.” She tells him after a long moment of silence, avoiding his eyes as she places her paintball gun in her lap and fiddles with the adjustments. “Like I taught you. A natural, she was. I had to work to learn to hit a target, but Loraine? She could hit a perfect shot easy by the time she was only ten or eleven. Much like you, the same innate talent.”

Lance frowns, studying Igraine’s face, and finally she glances down at him, smiling slightly. “I was so excited when she was born, but I remember throwing a fit when I heard her name. Having a sister who’s name ended with -raine as well? It’s not like Marcie or Karen had to share their names. “ She chuckles. “I remember for months I refused to call her by her name, so I came up with any other variant possible. Lori ended up sticking, even after I accepted her as Loraine as well.” Igraine ducks her head. “When I told her that’s how she got that nickname she laughed and laughed.” She pauses. “She was never like that with you. When you were born I thought she’d throw a temper tantrum like I did, over you both having names that started with L, but she was delighted. Kept hugging you and saying it meant you matched.”

“…Really?” Lance asks quietly, glancing down sheepishly when Igraine looks at him.

“Really, really.” She hums softly. “Y’know, I don’t think you ever cried when she held you, not even once. First time I picked you up, you screamed bloody murder, and Marcie got a foot in her face the first time she held you. You’d settle for Mamá, sometimes, but Loraine... You were always quiet for her. The two of you would spend hours, Loraine sitting on the couch with you in her arms, just… staring at each other.” Igraine chuckles quietly. “Course, guess I shouldn’t be surprised Loraine was so good about it all. She was so selfless, loving. Never behaved like a selfish brat like I did.”

“You’re not selfish, Igraine.” Lance says softly, leaning in and resting his head on his sister’s shoulder. “And no, I don’t think Loraine ever held a grudge against you trying to rename her as a baby.”

Igraine snorts. “Nah, you’re right, probably not.” She tips her head down, resting it on top of Lance’s, and sighs. “I wish… I wish I’d known about the Garrison, had convinced her to go, promised her we’d figure it out. She wanted more than Veradera, her whole life. I knew it, we all did, and she gave that up because, when she deserved most to be just a little bit selfish for once in her life, she still chose to give.”

“That’s who Loraine was.”

“That’s how you are, too.” Igraine says patiently, humor lilting in her words. “I won’t deny that I’m proud of you for what you’re doing, Lance. I just hope you’re doing it for the right reasons. Don’t sacrifice yourself for something that wasn’t your fault.”

“Selfless would be staying here, in Veradera, with all of you.” Lance says, shaking his head just slightly against Igraine’s shoulder. “What I’m doing is beyond selfish.”

“No, it’s not.” Igraine says lightly. “You are just as unselfish as Loraine always was, Lance. Me? I wish I could be like that. Instead, when I think of Loraine, of what she wanted and never got, all I can think is that… “ She sighs, slumping forward. “I’m so afraid to die in Veradera.”

Lance blinks, mulling over Igraine’s words. “…Is this about the Marines?” Above him Igraine stiffens, and Lance sighs. “Loraine and I found the brochures you and Lucas had hidden years ago.”

Igraine laughs wetly. “Well. You two were always ahead of the game.”

“Igraine…” Lance pauses, closing his eyes. “Igraine, if that’s what you want, then do it. Wanting to be happy? That’s not selfish, that’s what you deserve…. Lucas too, if he’s still with you on that.”

His sister chuckles, turning her face into Lance’s hair, and when Lance feels the warm wetness of tears on his face from above, he reaches out and hugs Igraine’s arm in front of him.

“How am I going to tell Mamá…?”

“I’ll help you.” Lance says firmly, feeling the resolve settle in his bones. Distantly, another, separate conversation of hesitant decisions, whispered over a phone in the dead of night, comes to mind, and he sucks in a breath. “I’ll help you… if you help me with something, too.”

“Help you with what?” Igraine asks readily, even with her voice laced with confusion.

“Mavis offered to let me come stay with her for a bit during the summer. If you help me convince Mamá to let me go, I’ll help you convince her too.”

Igraine chuckles. “New York, huh?” She nods, hugging Lance tighter as they sit there on the ground. “Alright, mini-stalk. You’ve got yourself a deal.”

…In the end, they both get what they want.

Lance’s mother is less than happy with Igraine’s little announcement, and neither is Aunt Lupe, when she finds out Lucas is going along with it as well, but, much as they were with Lance, they are accepting of their children’s decision, even if they fret over the dangers of military service. Ultimately though, it’s Marcie who takes it the hardest, immediately bursting into tears when Igraine announces things much in the same manner Lance and Hunk did about Greenwood.

The thing about Marcie, Lance thinks, is that she sees her younger siblings heading down a path she cannot, will not follow. Evie stayed home because she feared the world, but inevitably lives in another world of numbers only she knows, Karen left early to chase her dream, and only came back once they needed her… and until not long ago, Lance, Loraine, and Igraine remained in Veradera.

Except now Igraine is leaving, Loraine is dead, and Lance is a shadow chasing a lost dream.

And Marcie? Marcie, who stepped into the head of the household when their mother first got sick, Marcie, who guards her younger siblings and cousins with her life, cannot bring herself to leave. Marcie, single, living with her family at just past thirty, sees her life, her duty here in Veradera, to hold down house and home in their mother’s place if she ever gets sick again.

It’s part of who Marcelia McClain is, and it’s part of why Lance loves and respects his oldest sister so much, but he also knows it’s why her heart aches every time their family stretches further apart.

Losing Loraine affected each of them, in their own way, and for Marcie, Lance knows, it made her only want to protect her baby siblings more.

Still, when Igraine announces her decision, Marcie cries, soothes their mother in her worried, and tells Igraine she is proud of her— Because Marcie, first and foremost, wants her family to be happy.

It’s painful to watch his sisters cry, but in a way, it feels like a balm of the jagged edges of Lance’s soul. No matter what, they are still a family.

Regardless, getting permission to go to New York is fairly easy, in comparison.

“Nurse Lance.” Mavis says with a laugh when he tells her. “Out to solve everyone’s problems but your own.”

Lance huffs, feigning insult, and thinks of selfishness, for what you want, what you need, and selflessness, for reparations to mistakes.

“It’s what I do best.”

New York is densely packed blocks of walk-ups and office buildings, cracked concrete on rushing swarms of feet, and a scorching blast of summer heat at least fifteen degrees warmer than Maryland is that Lance is distinctly aware of minute he steps off the plane. For all that Lance thought he’d gotten a handle on city traffic living at Greenwood in the middle of D.C., the capital has nothing on the simple busy-ness of New York.

It’s terrifying, but a little fascinating as well.

When he sees Mavis waiting for him in the airport, short hair tied back in a half-hearted ponytail, sunglasses pushed up onto her forehead to keep the stray locks that don’t stay pulled back with the rest of her hair off her face, and slurping loudly from a mostly-empty bubble tea cup as she stands there in her jeans and dark red flannel she’s owned since he was a toddler, Lance can kind of see how this city has ensnared his cousin. She just somehow kind of… looks right here.

“Lance.” She says when he walks up to her, seemingly aloof until he pulls his suitcase to a stop, and then she pounces on him, hugging him tightly and resting her nose in his hair. “Good to see you, kiddo.”

He laughs, feeling oddly relieved, and hugs her back in return. There’s no secrets to disguise here, not in such a big place where no one knows him, and not from Mavis, who just intuitively knows. “It’s good to see you, too.”