#But that’s a relatively small percentage at this point

[teabeexo]

I would like to say that going forward I will be posting more about my other interests besides OLNF.

Unfortunately, I felt as though if I did that you guys might lose interest in my art, and I’m generally just very shy about putting myself fully out there in terms of divulging what I like. But this is my blog! And I can post whatever I want.

If you’re not interested in a particular fandom I draw stuff for, that’s okay! You can just enjoy what you are here for. And you can still interact with it based on the fact that it is art alone.

Some new fandoms I might be introducing to this blog are:

My Hero Academia

Touchstarved (visual novel)

Fields of Mistria

Stardew Valley

The Arcana

and generally whatever I’m enjoying at the time.

Thanks everyone :)) <33

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

At this point like 40% of what i like about the owl house is just shit i made up in my head lmao

[unknought]

In 2007 the US Department of Housing and Urban Development started reporting homelessness rates:

As you can see in this chart (from Statista) there was a fairly steady decrease in the number of homeless people from then until 2016. It flattened out for a couple years in 2017 and 2018, and then rose in 2019 and 2020. No data was collected in 2021 (due to COVID) and the increase from 2020 to 2022 was negligible, so one might hope based on the data from this chart that the upward trend was flipping around, and that by now by now it might be on its way back down, but this does not appear to be the case.

For 2023 the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported a homelessness count of 653,104. This is a dramatic increase which blows previous annual changes out of the water. It's a 12.1% increase relative to 2022, an 18.7% increase relative to the low in 2016, and the highest absolute number of homeless people since data started being collected in 2007.

So this is one way, at least, in which standard economic metrics being up has not translated to people doing well.

An objection one can make here is that even this new high is only about 0.2% of the national population, and while things may have gotten worse for the people in the very worst of economic straits, this doesn't say much about what things are like for the rest of us.

I agree with this up to a point. (Probably not the implied argument about what we should care about but let's not get into that for now.) It's probably true that homelessness rates don't shed a lot of light on how the median American is doing. But I think they are relevant to the well-being of a lot more than 0.2% of the population.

Even though only a small proportion of Americans are homeless at any given time, there a lot more for whom the threat of homelessness looms very large in their financial considerations, not irrationally. More people who are homeless probably means more people who can just barely make rent as long as they skip a few meals, more people who stay with an abuser because they wouldn't have anywhere else to stay, more people who can't quit their job to find a better one because they couldn't afford to miss a month's rent, more people who can't move out of a mold-infested apartment, more people who are just struggling with anxiety about whether they're going to be able to make rent every month. It also almost certainly means more people couch-surfing and more people who were homeless for part of the year that happened not to include late January, neither of which would be counted in the official statistics.

How much of an impact does this end up meaning, on how many people? I'm pretty unsure, but here's a suggestive statistic from the Federal Reserve:

> Challenges paying rent increased in 2023. The median monthly rent payment was $1,100 in 2023, up 10 percent from 2022. In addition, 19 percent of renters reported being behind on their rent at some point in the past year, up 2 percentage points from 2022.

It seems at least very plausible to me that claims about how great the US economy is doing merit a substantial asterisk.

[stsgluver]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄 — geto suguru

synopsis. somewhere along the way, geto suguru had gone from being your greatest challenge academically to your greatest challenge emotionally

wc. 12.4k

tags. college/uni!au, supposed to be academic rivals to lovers but that lowkey became a subplot sorry, friends to lovers, fluff, mention of being sick , happy ending, not proofread, shoko tells you to have sex

a/n. hi!! this is my first long long fic so thank you to anyone who reads. sorry if it seems disjointed at any point, half of it was written several months ago and half in the last week <3

geto suguru was the bane of your existence to say the least.

if you could split your life into two, it would be distinctly separated as life before geto and life including geto. admittedly, you didn’t really remember life before geto – having been only a child – but from ten years old, he’d been a constant in your life. having moved from a small school where it was relatively easy to maintain your status as top of the class, you were suddenly put in a position where you weren’t the only kid with an above average level of intelligence.

so from ten years old, to now, at twenty, you have found yourself in constant competition with geto. scores didn’t matter as long as you beat him. shoko had started keeping track several years ago – a little tally chart in her notes app to record who was the highest scorer after tests. currently, geto was a win ahead of you, something which you weren’t proud to admit but you blamed it on the flu that had meant you’d missed a week and a half of lectures.

“so close yet so far.”

you jumped at the sound of a voice so close to you. it was a thursday morning, the library was relatively quiet and you’d been so engrossed in the sound of the keys as you typed that you hadn’t heard geto come up behind you. you were fully aware of him now though, his hot breath on the back of your neck as he loomed over you to no doubt read the answer you had been writing.

“maybe if i didn’t have someone breathing down the back of my neck, i’d be able to focus,” you countered, grabbing your bottle of water to quickly unscrew the cap and take a sip, hoping that the cool liquid could ease the heat in your cheeks. his hands were on the back of your chair as his eyes skimmed through your answer.

despite your rivalry that had been established on almost the first day of meeting, you and geto had always found yourself in similar circles. now, at university, the two of you were a part of a small quartet with your other close friends, gojo and shoko. both you and geto had majored in computer science (much to your delight), while gojo had majored in business and shoko in biomedicine. so not only were you stuck with him in your group, you two shared almost every single class together too.

he grinned down at you with that annoying smirk that you’d become all too familiar with, “you consider me a distraction?” anyone with eyes would say yes – with his long, dark hair twisted into a half up, half down do and a loose fitting shirt that showed off his toned arms. you didn’t have to fully look back at him to know why girls were constantly asking for his number.

“what i consider you is an annoyance.” brushing him off your chair, you opened a fresh tab. you still had catch up work, plus your usual studies from your small period off, hence why you had been at the library since it had first opened. you only had an afternoon lecture on a thursday so you’d sacrificed your usual sleeping in day to study.

the last thing you needed was geto playing teacher and critiquing your work.

the male in question laughed as he took a seat next to you, bringing out his own laptop that you half wanted to take a peek at. in less than a week, both of you had a large project due that accounted for a large percentage of your final grade for the year. you had the majority completed, but after reviewing your code, you’d realised that in your ill-state you’d made more errors than you’d realised (it would’ve arguably been more beneficial if you had just accepted defeat and done nothing for two weeks instead of trying). 

“i come bearing gifts,” a familiar voice called out far louder than he should have – gojo rarely entered a library, let alone bothered to learn basic etiquettes. the snowy-haired male had pushed his dark glasses up onto the top of his head, cup holder in one hand with three drinks from the local cafe and a white plastic bag in the other.

gojo took a seat on the other side of geto, dropping the bag unceremoniously on the circular table, its contents (sugary sweets plus some pastries) spilling everywhere. he was more gentle with the drinks and you could have kissed him for the iced caramel latte he passed across to you. you were only three hours in and you were ready to flake and go home.

“oh good,” geto grabbed one of the paper bags with chocolate-filled croissants (gojo only knew food associated with sugar), “some of us are going to be here a long while.” there was no subtlety as he nodded his head towards you, something you were willing to throw your half drunk water bottle at him for.

but as per usual, gojo missed the obvious social context cues and stared eyes wide at the two of you. “why? do we have a test?” 

the four of you had decided to take a language class together (specifically german) so even when you got busy during exams you knew that there would be at least twice a week when the four of you would be sitting at the back of a lecture hall together.

“since when did you study for tests?” geto scoffed, leaning back in his chair, stretching his arms out above his head.

gojo giggled at the notion he was there to study. he’d only come to the library because shoko had plans throughout the day and his only other friends in the whole world were you two. “i just need to know what lesson i’m going to skip.” 

his attendance was horrific. he took two weeks off in solidarity with you so you ‘didn’t feel bad for getting the flu’. if he still felt remotely hung over on sunday evening, after attending one of his regular saturday night parties, he would make the decision then that monday was not the day for him to be attending lectures. if he woke up with a ‘bad feeling’, he took that as a sign that he would 100% die in a freak accident if he attended a lecture and skipped. you would kill to have his trust fund to cushion you if you failed university.

“no satoru we don’t have a test,” you laughed at his relieved look and little ‘phew’ as he dramatically swiped his hand across his forehead. to show his gratitude he offered you one of his excessively sweet croissants which you happily accepted. you knew you needed to get a real lunch soon but you just needed to do a couple more hours of real work before you could slack off.

unlucky for you, those couple of hours turned into the rest of the time the library was officially opened for.

you and gojo had taken an hour long break for lunch, before taking back sushi for geto (on gojo, of course). then both you and geto were in a video call whilst gojo played on his phone, attending your lecture online since neither of you were bothered to make your way back to campus just to come back out to the library.

geto had shown you snippets of his project and you were 70% sure that you were slightly ahead of him. but you weren’t about to hedge your bets and slack off – not when you still need at least two points to put yourself on top again on shoko’s chart. gojo had left a while ago once shoko had messaged him that she was back at your shared apartment. 

“are you walking?” geto asked you as he slipped his laptop into his backpack. gojo had been kind enough to take all of the remaining sweets with him so you only had your textbooks to clear off of the table and the empty wrappers he’d left behind. 

you nodded, grimacing slightly at the window. it was dark outside; it wasn’t winter but you hadn’t completely transitioned to spring evenings when the sun wouldn’t set till beyond seven. “my place is only a ten minute walk.” only a ten minute walk in the drizzling rain for which you did not bring a coat. as large as it was on you, you didn’t think gojo’s hoodie would suffice in keeping you warm (he’d forgotten it at yours after a movie night).

“i’ll give you a lift. can’t have you getting sick again.” he teased, chuckling at his own joke as you shot him a faux glare, lightly nudging his arm as you two descended down the stairs of the library. there was no one else in the library at this point, and your footsteps seemed to echo against the cool tiles of the floor.

“fine,” you sarcastically dragged, although you were grateful for the alternative to walking. 

somewhere along the way, the line between rivals and friends had been blurred. for you, the line had only become messier on your eighteenth birthday when the four of you had dressed up in suits and gone to your local laser tag place. as aforementioned, you’d always been aware that geto was attractive but it wasn’t until the close proximity under the neon lights, when you were a duo against shoko and gojo, did you truly see it. a few gentle touches on your waist to pull you back behind a wall, several whispers in your ear where he’d duck down to your height and you were a goner. 

for the most part, you’d been able to keep it to yourself, focusing all of your energy into being statistically smarter than him as opposed to admitting – or even really acknowledging – your feelings. 

“i was right,” you said, slightly out of breath having just run from the entrance of the library to geto’s car (which was parked as far away as it possibly could’ve been because he’d gone to the gym before meeting you). the light drizzle of rain and turned borderline torental in the thirty seconds it had taken you to exit the library. geto gave you a confused look as he pulled his hair out of his half bun, a slight frizz due to the dampness caused by the light rain. “my first answer,” you clarified, “i was right.”

he was smirking again, the same confident know-it-all smirk, “i know. i like instilling a little bit of doubt, better my odds.” 

“you’re an ass.” you huffed, crossing your arms in front of yourself. you’d reread the question three times and rewritten it once, coming to the same conclusion as before, before giving up and checking the mark scheme that had told you you were right all along. 

“i’ll make you pay for fuel,” geto threatened as he turned on the ignition, reversing the car out of the parking space. his hand was on the back of your headrest as he peered out of the back window.

“you can’t make me pay when you were the one to offer me a lift,” you retorted, playing with the strings of gojo’s hoodie and trying to ignore the close proximity between you and the dark haired male next to you. lucky for you, geto’s car was full of distractions for your wandering eyes, memorabilia of the last three years of your lives all around you.

on the dashboard was a dent from when gojo had hit his head after geto had had to emergency break and the former did not have his seatbelt on (there was a little blood and gojo declared that these were his final moments). the jelly belly car freshener that hung from the mirror was the same one that you had bought him as a congratulations for passing his driving test. there was a polaroid of the four of you graduating hidden in the folded mirror above your head, just the corner peeking out. 

each of you had your own designated seats – gojo was usually in the passenger (you could tell by the sweet stash in the door), you sat behind gojo and shoko behind geto. 

the only downside to geto’s car was the fact the heating did not work whatsoever. since getting the car at seventeen, he said every year that he was going to get it fixed but always ended up having to spend money on far more important things for the car. such as the light up gear stick and customised car horn. you shivered lightly as you wrapped your arms further around yourself, but the wet hoodie did little to warm you up.

geto glanced at you from the corner of his eye and nodded his head towards the backseats. “i have a dry jacket in the back if you’d rather that.”

you contemplated it for a moment before ultimately deciding that you would like to spend the next eight minutes warm. slipping off gojo’s hoodie, you turned to reach behind you to grab geto’s black zip up and slip it on, leaving the hoodie behind for your other friend to claim back. he would more than likely be in here the next day anyways.

the rest of the car ride was mostly silent, other than you critiquing his driving on several occasions – which he claimed you were in no position to do since you did not have a licence of your own. you argued you were perfectly within your rights as he’d had to swerve to avoid a stray cat.

“thanks suguru,” you said as you took off your seatbelt and reached for your bag. he’d pulled up just outside of the entrance to your apartment so you’d only be caught in the rain for a fraction of a second. “do you want me to leave your jacket here?”

“anytime princess.” what had started off as a mocking when you were kids had become your designated nickname and you hated how much you now loved it when geto called you that. you could only hope he couldn’t see your flushed skin in the dim lights. “and don’t worry about it. give it back to me another time.”

you thanked him again, waving him off before you scurried inside and up the stairs to the fourth floor where your apartment with shoko was. the two of you had been in separate student accommodation in your first year, but after six months and several awful roommates had both chosen to find a small apartment to share together. both of you had part time jobs to afford it and while it added to the masses of work you already had with school, it was worth it.

it was only small – two bedrooms, a bathroom and an open kitchen and living room – but it was your little home. as of a weekend, it wasn’t uncommon for geto and gojo to be there too. of a friday evening, the four of you would be huddled in your living room with a random board game (usually cluedo) and an excessive amount of vodka.

“where have you been?” shoko asked slyly, laying across the sofa with a pen in one hand and her ipad in the other. there was a picture of a human heart on her screen, her scribbles annotating it messily. 

“library. suguru gave me a lift home,” you called out to her as you dropped your bag into your room, passing shoko as you headed for the fridge to find something to eat. pushing your hair up into a loose bun, you grabbed a fork for the pot of mango you’d picked up. “when did satoru leave?”

“he was only here for twenty minutes. this place is too small for him,” shoko dropped her stuff down onto the sofa, following you to your little kitchen area. she jumped up onto the counter, happily accepting the fruit you offered to her. “so, geto gave you a lift home then?” she eyed your change in hoodie from the one you’d left in that morning.

“don’t start,” you complained, grabbing another fork so she didn’t have to eat with her hands. it had been shoko’s current fixation to over analyse the relationship between you and geto. you’d made it very clear twelve months ago when she’d first come to you to ask what was going on that there was nothing there. nothing tangible anyways.

“no, i just think it’s so sweet and so gentlemanly of him,” shoko tucked her hair behind her ear as she spoke with a mouthful of mango, batting her eyelashes innocently, “don’t you?” 

your refusal to point blank answer the question is enough of an answer for her. “i think it’s late,” you backed away from shoko and dropped your used fork in the sink. you’d sort it out in the morning. “and i have an eight am class tomorrow.” 

“with geto,” shoko called out before you could fully close your door and you could hear her smile in her voice. you rested your forehead on the cool wood of the door and tried not to think too much about how right she was. it was embarrassing – you were a grown adult, not a teenager anymore. it should be easy to pull yourself together and get over your silly crush that arguably stemmed from the rivalry between the two of you.

he challenged you in a way you had never been before you craved the competition. that was what you wanted from him – a challenge, not his toned body or honey-smooth voice.

when she’d confronted you the first time about your feelings from geto, you’d been honest (the woman was a walking lie detector, there was no way you could have lied). told her that yes you had a small crush but that was all it was – a harmless little crush. when you’d continued on as normal and didn’t make any sort of moves or obvious hints that you still liked him like that, she’d dropped it. 

you’d hoped that that was the end of it.

however, her interest had been revived after the two of you had stayed up a few weeks prior after coming home from a party. shoko had had far more than is recommended for the average person alcohol-wise whereas you had mainly sobered up by now. the two of you were curled up under a blanket watching whatever romcom shoko had found whilst you had made two bowls of cereal.

“if you had to sleep with anyone we know right now or you’d die, who would it be?” shoko had asked with a mouthful that you cringed at. neither of you had bothered to change into appropriate attire or cleaned your faces so it was almost comical to see her in her short dress and smudged make-up eating cereal. 

you nudged her arm gently, careful not to cause any spillages, and with a snort asked, “why would i die if i didn’t have sex?”

“shh,” she was messy and unbalanced as she leaned across to press a finger to your lips, “answer the question.”

you hummed, tapping your spoon against your chin as you mulled over her question. you knew the answer – you were sure she did too – but you didn’t want to come across as desperate. “i don’t know…” there was still a buzz in your system, especially as you thought back on your night out and the crowd of other uni students you’d been with. “definitely not naoya.” you pretended to gag after you said his name and shoko laughed.

he had made the first hour of your outing less than fun as he trailed behind you like a lost puppy. geto was away visiting family, gojo was somewhere on the dancefloor, and shoko was getting drinks from someone so you were left alone and the zenin thought that this would be the day you would accept his love confessions. as if two years of hard ‘no’s’ would suddenly become a ‘yes’.

the mere suggestion made you actually want to be physically sick.  

“he is the worst kisser,” shoko complained, staring up at the ceiling like she was reliving a moment you didn’t even know had happened. you stared at her, mouth agape, because in all your years she had never once told you when this had happened.

“why have you kissed him?” not only was zenin naoya renowned for his lack of respect towards women, the girl sat inches from you was a proud, outspoken lesbian who made it very clear she had zero attraction to men whatsoever.

“gojo donkey dared me to.”

“ieiri.” you deadpanned at your best friend as she snickered at your judgement, waving her hand dismissively towards you. 

“you would do it too for a free drink,” she tried to justify and you shook your head. 

“have some standards.”

you could practically imagine how it played out, gojo in fits of laughter and naoya in shock as shoko pulled him into a kiss (he’d mask it up though and use it as evidence that even lesbians wanted him). if you were lucky, gojo recorded the incident but the likelihood that he would have had the forethought is a fifty-fifty if he was drinking. even when he does remember to record silly things like that on a night out, majority of the time the camera is pointing at him instead of the incident.

“you’d kiss geto for a free drink wouldn’t you?”

you almost choked on your own spit at the forwardness of her question.

“i’m just saying, this whole rivalry thing? fuck it out,” she raised her hands in defence at the appalled look on your face. “the tension is unbearable.”

“you’re unbearable,” you flipped her off.

“you’re late.”

you weren’t a violent person but you think that just one little slap to geto’s perfectly tanned face would have made you a slightly happier person. it wasn’t fair that him and gojo looked happy and wide awake at sixteen minutes past eight in the morning whilst you and shoko looked like you had just run a marathon.

which, in your opinion, you basically had.

and now you were at your stupid language class that you didn’t really even need to be taking with no morning coffee to wake you up.

you huffed as you slid into the seat next to geto, grateful that you always chose to sit near the back so it wasn’t too obvious you’d just come in late. nodding your head towards shoko, “someone locked themselves in the bathroom.”

not only had you not woken up to your first alarm so you were already behind in your usual routine, just as you were about to leave your apartment, you heard shoko calling out from the bathroom saying the door was broken. ensue a fifteen minute battle with you both trying to jiggle the door lock open.

“i said it was a sign we shouldn’t show up at all,” shoko shrugged, grabbing out her pouch of tobacco so she could roll herself her first cigarette of the day. neither of you were overly morning people – especially not without your daily drink and cigarette (respectively of course, shoko found coffee to be too bitter and you weren’t a big fan of smoking).

“shhh.” a girl a few rows in front of you turned her head, giving you all a displeased look.

“shh.” shoko repeated back mockingly, not so subtly raising both her middle fingers up at the back of the girl's head. you bit down on your bottom lip not to laugh loudly at her childishness. the brunette on your right then turned her head down towards gojo and geto, holding out her hands, “one of you pass me your notes.” gojo looked over at you both with a grin, turning his laptop screen to face you. on it? a game of online chess. which he was losing.

“genuinely asking, how have you not failed uni yet?” shoko shook her head in disbelief before turning her attention to geto, “cough up, princess.” she mimicked the nickname geto occasionally used for you and you had to fight every urge not to nudge her in the ribs.

“i don’t know how you plan on topping me if you’re not showing up to class on time,” geto tsked disappointingly towards you as he sent the notes from his laptop to your group chat so you’d both have them. shoko slumped back into her seat, ipad in her crossed lap as she downloaded the pdf.

you ignored his jab with an eye roll, pulling your laptop out of your bag to see what you’d missed. it wasn’t much and it was a beginner’s class too so if you were going to be late to a class because shoko got locked in a bathroom, this was the one to be late for. you were glad, though, that geto always typed his notes because his handwriting was terrible. otherwise you would have to accept you lost the first fifteen minutes of the lesson.

halfway through the class, both shoko and gojo left to go have a smoke and get food (again seperately, gojo had tried to smoke once and had spent the next five minutes on the floor coughing and vowed never to do it again). the white haired male had kindly offered to grab you hashbrowns from the small on campus cafe and you’d accepted the offer after your stomach had decided that it was not happy you’d skipped coffee and breakfast.

that left you and geto alone together. well, not really alone since you were in a half filled lecture hall but the point still stood.

“it looks good on you.” geto’s breath was hot against your ear as leaned down and spoke in a low voice as to not disturb the people around you – it was either that or he too was aware of the crush you’d been harbouring for him and enjoyed seeing your flushed expression. for the sake of your sanity, you assumed the former.

you swallowed at the close proximity between the two of you; he was so close you could practically feel the loose strands of his hair brush against you. he hadn’t bothered to tie it up but you know he’d meticulously straightened it this morning. if you turned your head, there would be less than an inch between you and–

is he complimenting you in his clothes?

you’d worn his and gojo’s hoodies an endless number of times before in the past, this wasn’t anything new. you blame your flusteredness on shoko and her constant teasing at the minute. for the last couple years you’d managed to keep yourself in check.

clearing your throat, your straightened up in the uncomfy red seat. “i was in a rush this morning. you can have it back now if you really want it.” you hoped not – once again it was poor weather and you were relying on this to keep you sheltered from the rain since, for reasons that you were not at fault for, you’d left in a hurry this morning.

out of the corner of your eye you could see geto shake his head as he settled back into his seat. you let out a small breath of relief as you finally got your own bubble of personal space back. “don’t worry about it princess.” 

geto wasn’t oblivious to girls being interested in him – he would brush it off with a laugh and a cocky remark – but you hoped and prayed he was oblivious to the fool you were making of yourself. 

after class, the four of you had headed to your favourite cafe – only a five minute walk from campus but it was tucked out of the way in a little alleyway so that it wasn’t as busy as some of the others. you didn’t need to give shoko your order with how often you came here, you all always got your regulars.

“me and tweedle dee here,” shoko linked her arm around gojo’s as she spoke, ignoring the way she forced gojo to slightly bend down awkwardly due to their height difference, “are going to grab food, you two go grab seats.” 

“c’mon,” geto’s hand was on the small of your back as he guided you between chairs and tables and you could feel the heat emanating from his palm through his jacket. for such a small space, there were far too many tables and only half occupied, leaving the rest as a labyrinth to work through.

“where are you going?” you asked with a small frown when he gently nudged you in the direction of the dimly light corner when there was a table for four right in the window still available. despite the initial shower this morning, the sun had begun to shine through.

“i’m going to the seats in the corner. y’know since there is a sofa,” geto added in a ‘duh’ tone like the sofa was the best thing in the world. it wasn’t even like they were that comfy – too low down and squishy in your opinion. 

“it’s sunny,” you pointed to the light pouring in but he gave you an uninterested look, shaking his head.

“rock, paper, scissors.”

you blinked twice up at him and then down to his hands – one held out in a palm and the other in a fist over the top. the silver of his rings contrasted with the warm colour of his skin and you had to force yourself to look back up at him and not stare shamelessly.  

“we’re adults, i’m not playing that with you.” you deadpanned. this was a gojo response – clearly living together meant that his antics were rubbing off on geto.

geto laughed quietly, blessing you with a teasing smile and raised eyebrow as he nudged you with his open palm and fist. kissing your teeth with your tongue, you muttered an insult about maturity under your breath as you mimicked his stance.

“corner seats it is princess,” geto grinned, hooking an arm around your shoulder to lead you to the sofa after you picked paper and he picked scissors. “do you think that counted as another point to me?” the tease in his voice was evident and the smirk on his lips only riled you up more. not even his arm around you could distract you from your sore loser behaviour.

“no,” you said quickly and with a tone that had him laughing to himself. you weren’t about to lose another point over a child’s game that was just pure luck. there was a lot more integrity behind the tally chart titled ‘who needs to go outside and touch grass more?’ (named by shoko, of course).

the two of you sat next to each other, facing towards the counter so you could see as shoko pointed to various things on the menu and pastries on display. you were all too aware of how close you were when geto knocked his knee against yours as he slipped off his hoodie.

“i can pick you up if you’re going to the library tomorrow,” geto offered as he crossed one leg over the other. his and gojo’s apartment was in the other direction of the campus to yours, but you two did share a morning class – assuming he was driving in and not making the five minute walk then it wasn’t out of his way for you.

“are you going straight after class?” you turned your head to look at up, seeing him already looking down at you. in only his t-shirt, there was a sliver of black ink peeking out from beneath his sleeve.

several months after his eighteenth birthday, you, him, gojo and shoko had gone out for the evening and returned with matching tattoos of koi betta fish. his was fully inked in on his upper arm whereas gojo’s was just the outline on the back of his shoulder. your’s was a mixture of the two and on your lower hip whereas shoko’s was on her wrist. initially it had been both blue and black ink but the blue had begun to fade. 

“i need to go to the gym and then i’ll join you.”

the gym where he would most definitely be removing that shirt and not only show off the tattoo on his arm but the larger one on his back too. this one was much larger – a dragon that swirled around the shape of his spine. he always said that in another life, he would be training to become a tattoo artist and not studying computer science. 

“why aren’t we sat in the sun?” you turned away from geto to look over at shoko, the female in question holding a tray as she raised a brow at the two of you, displeased by your choice of seating. she, much like you, hated the sofas and would have much rather been in the window seats.

geto shrugged, pointing at you accusingly, like he wasn’t the one who wanted to sit here. “yn lost rock, paper, scissors.”

“yn,” gojo whined as he dropped into the sofa seat opposite geto, “one job.” he complained, shaking his head in a disappointing manner, like he cared so much where you sat and was not aching to eat his donut with a sickening amount of icing. you grimaced at his tastes.

“who’s going to meimei’s party saturday?” shoko asked once she’d divided up everyone’s orders. a caramel latte and muffin for you, croissant and black coffee for geto and a blueberry muffin and black coffee for herself.

meimei was a couple years older than all of you but since week one of university, her house had been the go to one at least once every couple of weeks. gojo and geto always got an invite – meimei would personally message them – whereas you and shoko showed up as their unofficial plus ones. it didn’t bother either of you, you were there to drink, not to hang out with the slightly odd and promiscuous woman. 

“yeah,” geto nodded, scrunching his nose up at the bitterness of his drink. you heavily judged both him and shoko for forcing themselves to drink a drink they barely liked. “if satoru goes.”

“i am 100% going,” gojo spoke with a mouthful, dark glasses pushed up onto the top of his head, “i need to redeem myself.”

“what after the dance floor incident?” you giggled, earning a kick under the table from the white haired male. after several drinks too many at someone’s house party, gojo had managed to create a circle in the centre of the living-room-turned-dance-floor. it was entertaining to watch him pull people in and out to dance with him… until the drinks caught up to him and he vomited everywhere. this was not at meimei’s luckily, or you don’t think he’d ever be allowed back

“shush! people won’t forget if you keep reminding them,” gojo whined, earning a sarcastic pat on the shoulder from shoko. 

“are you coming?” geto asked you as though the answer wasn’t obvious. when did one of the four of you ever do anything without the others?

nonetheless, you glanced over at gojo who was looking expectantly at you, “am i really getting a choice?”

“nope!” gojo grinned.

“you’ll pick us all up?” shoko smiled uncharacteristically sweetly towards geto who rolled his eyes and nodded. he was the only one with the car but both he and shoko had licences. though he seemed hard done by in his response, he wasn’t the biggest drinker and even less so compared to shoko. he was the unspoken designated driver.

“black is your colour,” shoko complimented as she reached past you for the straighteners. you thanked her through gritted teeth as you held a bobby pin between your lips, attempting to fix your hair with another one in your hands.

the two of you were in the same shared bathroom that shoko had gotten herself locked in several days prior. your sink was covered in the various skincare and make up products you used. the two plug sockets were occupied with your straighteners and hair dryer. it was a chaotic mess that would be tomorrow’s fun activity in your hungover state.

friday had gone by quickly, geto had even showed up at your apartment to take you to your first class before you went to the library together. you’d discussed both of your projects but for the most part you’d worked in a comfortable silence. in your lunch break, you’d gone to your local chinese takeaway and eaten in his car. for a brief moment, you’d indulged yourself in what your life could be as his girlfriend, spending each of your days like this with him. 

sighing, you slipped a bobby pin into the back of your hair. in a couple years time once you’d graduated and started your careers (albeit in the same or at the very least similar industries), your feelings for geto would dissipate into nothing more than the whisper of a memory. it was the competition, you reminded yourself. that was what created the ‘tension’ (as shoko put it) that had led you to believe you had these feelings.

you could laugh at yourself for how ridiculous and pathetic your thoughts sounded.

tonight however, that was not of concern. tonight, the only focus was on getting wasted.

you had dressed up in a tight fitting black dress that stopped midthigh specially for the occasion while shoko had opted for wide leg pants and a butterfly crop top. 

specifically the butterfly crop top that a mutual fashion student friend of yours had made for her.

you raised an eyebrow at her once you felt your hair was securely up, dragging your eyes up and down the top she was wearing, “are you coming back tonight or…?” 

“or am i getting laid by a certain very hot girl with blue hair? i’m getting laid,” shoko blew you a kiss with a grin. “you should try it some time,” she wriggled her eyebrows at you and it didn’t take a genius to know who she was hinting at.

in regards to her activities post-meimei’s, she had been getting closer to utahime over the last few months. you both knew her from high school but she’d avoided your group like the plague because of her strong disliking for gojo. you loved gojo, you really did, but to some he could come across as a bit much to those who didn’t know him well enough. 

at university, however, where there was a bit more space between the four of you (not by much), utahime and shoko had managed to get more alone time. despite her confident and cocky nature, shoko’s soft affection for the blue haired girl was obvious and you had fully encouraged her to ask her on the first date several months back.

“you know that means i’m going to be stuck with dumb and dumber all evening,” you complained light-heartedly as you stepped out of the bathroom to try and find the shoes you’d be wearing. geto would be happy to hear that though – it meant he only had to find you and gojo when it came to coming home.

the four of you had only ever stayed over at meimei’s once. her house was massive and you all took over one of her guest bedrooms which in itself made for a fun sleepover. however, there’d been a group of guys – zenin naoya included – who’d been trying to coax you and shoko with them to a different room. moving on from then, geto had made it a point to almost always drive.

“oh no, is that such a hardship for you?”

you held up your finger to the brunette who was peering around the doorframe of the bathroom to smirk at you. 

“you need to drop this.”

“nope,” shoko slipped past you, reaching into a pile of clothes to grab your silver strappy heels you were searching for. your living room was in just as much of a state as the bathroom with trial outfits and various accessories laid out on the sofa and floors. “i need some sort of fun here.” you scoffed at her reasoning, her fun at your expense, but still thanked her for finding your shoes.

the only clear space was on the small coffee table in front of the sofas where half a bottle of passionfruit vodka sat with two empty shot glasses. as you perched yourself on the edge of the sofa arm to start tying up your heels, shoko took it upon herself to pour the two of you another shot for the night. 

you grimaced as shoko handed you a full shot glass, but interlocked your arm with hers nonetheless. “three, two, one,” she counted down before you both poured the drinks into your mouths. the distinctive after taste ensued and you coughed at the overwhelmingness. 

“that’s nasty,” you stuck your tongue out and shoko snickered at you, having been completely unphased. 

a low rumbling could be heard outside through the open window of your apartment. you glanced at the clock – they were five minutes late. not that it bothered you since you were still struggling untangling the straps of your other shoe. 

“geto’s here,” shoko said, closing the window and pulling the curtains closed. you hummed in acknowledgement, muttering an ‘almost done’ when the vibrating sound of her phone went off. a picture of gojo wearing bright green goggles flashed up on the screen as shoko answered it. “yeah? yn’s just taking forever to put her shoes on.” you gave her a look. “yeah, i’ll tell her. geto told you to hurry up.”

“i am hurrying,” you shot back, tying the last bow. standing up, you pulled the skirt of your dress down so you didn’t flash anyone and did a little spin. “how do i look?”

“hot. we’re coming down now.”

“–and don’t accept drugs from strangers, i’m not dealing with another satoru situation,” geto said as he listed off the do’s and don’t’s for the evening. do’s including make sure you are always with someone you know and don’t’s including speaking to zenin naoya. not that the latter would be a difficult task. 

gojo was dressed in a white fishnet top and he’d opted to forgo his glasses for the evening. instead, he’d decorated his eyes with blue eyeshadow and gems – his usual going out look since he’d watched euphoria. in the drivers seat, geto looked far more casual in an oversized grey top and baggy jeans but it wouldn’t be far fetched to say that he stood out the most out of the four of you. his sun kissed skin and sharp eyes were alluring to anyone who saw him. the most effort he’d put into his appearance was pulling his half back into his half bun, pulling some baby hairs out at the front to frame his features.

you’d caught yourself watching him from your seat one too many times with shoko even nudging your knee once.

“me?” gojo gasped from his passenger seat, looking back at you and shoko like geto had made some outlandish statement.

“don’t you remember that time you took drugs from that girl because you thought she’d let you hit after,” shoko reminded with an unlit cigarette between her lips (no smoking in the car – another don’t on geto’s list). 

gojo cleared his throat, holding up his hands in defence, “look guys, i will be the first to admit it wasn’t my finest moment.”

that was an understatement. you’d been the one to find him after another party goer had recognised you as one of his friends and told you he was having a bad reaction. you almost felt bad when you found him upstairs in a bath, with a shower running all over him.

“you guys weren’t the ones who had to stay up till 4am while he cried in the bathroom,” geto shuddered at the memory and you were just grateful he’d taken over gojo’s care as soon as you’d called him.

“nope but i did have 15 voicemails from him the next day.”

again, gojo’s head snapped back, singling out only you this time, dread on his features. “you’ve never shown me these.” despite probably going out the most out of the four of you, his tolerance for alcohol was pitiful and his tolerance for any sort of substance was ten times worse. if it seemed like he had no filter beforehand, an under the influence gojo had to be supervised so he didn’t say something to the wrong person and ended up in a&e.

“i’m saving them for a special occasion,” you patted the top of his fluffy (and now also glittery) hair. it would probably end up in your annual slideshows you all did for new years eve. an ongoing tradition where each of you picked out your highlights of the year and made powerpoints with them.

once at meimei’s and out of the car, shoko gave you a quick side hug and told you to stay safe. “i am going to love you and leave you all,” she dramatically waved you away with one hand, the other holding a lighter up to the cigarette in her mouth. presumably, utahime was already somewhere around the back of the house waiting for shoko as opposed to inside where there were several dozen bodies already packed. “have a wonderful evening i will see you tomorrow for the debrief.”

the debrief in question being the mandatory coffee session post party to send each other pictures and make fun of how hungover gojo inevitably is.

“yn, come with me!” gojo slipped his hand into yours and dragged you through the sea of bodies out into the makeshift bar that had been set up in the corner of the living room. meimei’s house was massive, this room alone was probably larger than your entire apartment. geto had followed after you but he’d turned towards the crowd, opting to socialise over drinking whatever concoction gojo was about to make.

turning your attention back to the white haired male beside you, you cringe at the amount of liquid in the red cups. it was oddly graceful how gojo opened cupboards and grabbed bottles with no hesitation, haphazardly pouring them into each cup.

“how do you know where everything is?” you asked, leaning over to take a sniff from the drinks. surprisingly, it wasn’t awful, but you put that down to the lemon flavoured mixer he’d just added.

gojo lightly pushed your head back, shooing you away as he held up a bottle of malibu. after taking a neat sip (which you wanted to point out was not very hygienic but with what he was about to out into his body you doubted he cared), he poured in the final addition to your drinks. “look i’m number one meimei hater but i’d lying if i said i wasn’t a regular at this establishment.”

you scrunched up your nose at regularly attending a place like this. it was fun to a certain extent you could admit, but there was only so much of the pounding music and sweaty bodies that you could handle. “you need a life. beyond women,” you added once you caught his eye watching a short-haired ginger girl weaving through the crowd.

“oh honey i do. i dabble in both,” he winked at the pink haired boy following behind the girl and you quickly nudged him in the stomach with your elbow. you wanted at least ten minutes before he got distracted and tried to sleep with the first person that walks past him. gojo pouted, whining quietly, before making a miraculous recovery in order to hold out your drink to you. “try this.”

there was no countdown this time before you both began drinking. the alcohol burned your throat and the odd mixture of flavours had you calling it quits once the red cup was only halfway empty. you coughed twice as you dropped the drink back onto the table, wiping the excess liquid off of your lips. gojo committed to the entire drink, squeezing the plastic once he’d finished.

“delicious,” he grinned, already looking in the cupboards again to start up another mess. this was how he’d get borderline paralytic so quickly on nights out.

looking off at the crowd of huddled bodies ahead of you, it wasn’t difficult to spot geto who stood a head taller than everyone else. meimei had set up multi-coloured strobe lights that danced red and blue across his skin. he looked so effortlessly gorgeous. 

you couldn’t help but feel disheartened as he ducked his head down to speak to the girl in front of him. you didn’t know her but you recognised her from one of your lectures – one that you also shared with geto and there was no doubt in your mind she’d noticed him before. who wouldn’t have?

reaching for your red cup again, you decided that you could wallow in self pity all you want but you were not doing that sober.

“he looks at you like that too.”

“huh?”

your gaze shifted from geto and the unnamed girl to gojo. the male in question had one hand on a bottle of vodka and one hand on his hip as he looked at you accusingly. your face felt hot at the insinuation that you’d been looking at your mutual best friend in a certain way and you tried to take the vodka bottle from his hand.

gojo held it up above your head, easily out of reach from you as he too stood taller than everyone else. “look all i’m saying is that he was not very happy that you were asking nanami kento for advice on your project and not him.”

you frowned at the fact, willing yourself not to overthink what that could mean. nothing, is what it meant. 

you hadn’t even realised geto had still been in class when you’d spoken to nanami as he’d said he was going to the gym. the blond was smart and with you making a mess of your code when you were sick, you’d wanted a fresh set of eyes on it now that you’d somewhat cleaned it.

“why would i ask him? so he can sabotage me?” you countered. this was your chance to even the scoreboard in shoko’s notes.

“you are so smart, yn, so so smart,” gojo patted your head affectionately, arm slipping around your shoulders as he tugged you close to his body. he smelt like shoko, having stolen one of her perfumes the last time he was over. “and yet you’re dumb as fuck.”

“give me that.” you ignored the insult, which was pretty ironic coming from him of all people, and snatched the bottle from him, unscrewing the cap to fill up your cup.

“you can’t avoid it forever,” gojo sung but you were done listening to his unsolicited opinions, opting instead to console yourself with alcohol.

“have i ever told you how pretty your eyes are suguru?”

“you have. several times. all in the last five minutes actually,” geto sighed and you snickered at the two next to you. 

unsurprisingly, gojo was using geto as a crutch (more like he was being dragged along by the latter but it was all the same) having drunk more than his body could handle. you were faring slightly better but only after you’d given up on your heels. the grass was uncomfortably damp beneath your feet but it was better than falling headfirst into the mud. 

“goodie!” the white haired male giggled, almost tripping onto the ground as he struggled to keep up. you were glad you lived in separate apartments –  you did not want to be there when gojo started coming down from the bubble he was in and spent the next several hours with his head in the toilet.

“you take the front seat,” geto nodded his head towards the passenger side, “i’m going to lay him in the back.”

you obliged with a quick nod, skipping to the seat next to his. there was still the buzz of alcohol in your system and you know had it not been for geto calling it a night, you’d still be in the thrum of people dancing. you were shocked that there had been no noise complaints given the crowds of probably hundreds of students and the loud music still blasting despite having gone well past midnight.

you giggled to yourself as you recorded geto struggle to fit gojo into the backseat. he was like a large child; awkward and stiff and too tall for the small space. by the time geto’d finally managed to get the seatbelt around him, he was practically passed out and leaning across the backseats. you sent the video across to shoko.

“have you heard from ieiri?” geto asked as he slipped into the driver’s seat, pushing the key into the ignition but not turning it. your heart swelled at the concern he held for all of you – ever the gentleman. he’d been the one to help you untie your heels and held them in one hand as he held gojo up with the other, and now he was worried about the final piece of your group who’d already been clear she wasn’t coming home with you. it was basic really, a bare minimum one could even argue, but you were drunk and your feelings were already all over the place.

“yep,” you nodded, scrolling to your most recent message that she’d sent to you about twenty minutes ago saying that she was leaving meimei’s. leaning across the console so that there is only a few inches between your face and geto’s, you hold a finger to your lips and whisper, “she’s with her girlfriend but you’re not supposed to know that.”

it wasn’t not not a secret that utahime and shoko were seeing each other but shoko had been trying to refrain from using ‘girlfriend’ because it was still early days and she didn’t want to scare her off. utahime had never been in a publicly lesbian relationship before.

“mhmm. i won’t tell.” you were close enough to smell the mint on his breath (he probably went out for a smoke at one point) and you couldn’t stop yourself from glancing down at his lips. they were a soft pink and slightly damp from where his tongue had swiped across. in the corner of his lips was a small hole where he used to have a ring. you wondered what the cool metal would have felt like if you kissed him.

the sound of gojo muttering in his sleep brought you back to your senses, somewhat, and you quickly seated yourself back into the passenger seat. you could only hope that the drunken execution was as smooth as you thought it was in your head as you prayed geto didn’t notice your blatant glances.

you could see geto looking over at you out of the corner of your eye and you wanted to shrink away into the seat. you should’ve let gojo pour you another one of those awful drinks. he opened his mouth to say something but when you remained focused on pulling down the skirt of your dress, he chose to just start the car.

a ping from your phone had you frowning at an unknown number sending you ‘hi’. the follow up ‘it’s todo’ and ‘are you still here?’ had you groaning in annoyance at yourself.

“are you okay?” geto glanced at you, worry flashing across his features. you weren’t sure if it was for you or if he was concerned that you were about to be sick in his precious car.

“i gave todo my number,” you sighed. you could vaguely remember doing it after he’d joined you, gojo and several others for jello shots. after seeing geto with the same girl from your tuesday morning lectures, you hadn’t hesitated when todo had asked for your number. a futile attempt at getting back at the male sat to your right. you were already embarrassed by your actions now, you didn’t want to know how you’d feel tomorrow when you were sober.

if you turned your head, you would have seen the way geto’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, the skin of his knuckles turning white. but you didn’t and his voice was unsuspiciously calm as he spoke. “did you want his number?”

“no, maybe, i don’t know,” you rambled out in quick succession, hands moving in front of yourself as you spoke. you had wanted his number but you didn’t want it because it was his number. maybe this was an opportunity for you to stop with your silly crush. maybe you did want his number. taking half a moment, you continued, “well, i mean he’s not not attractive? but–” i want you. 

“but?” geto repeated when you stopped yourself mid-sentence. resting your head against the headrest, you turned to look at him. you found yourself tracing the outline of his side profile with your eyes – from the stray hairs that had clung to his forehead from sweat due to the heat at meimei’s, his brows that were furrowed as his dark eyes stared on ahead at the quiet roads, the soft shape of his nose down to his lips that you desperately wanted to ki– “you’re staring.”

you glanced at the intersection where you’d stopped because of the red light shining down at you, then back to geto who’s full attention was on you now. his own eyes were wandering across you now but his action seemed one of concern than your blatant admiration.

“do you…” you began, all inhibition foregone as you found yourself leaning across the console again towards him. geto’s hands dropped down from steering wheel to lightly hold your shoulders to ensure you didn’t sleep. it didn’t stop you from moving closer – he wasn’t trying to.

“do i…?”

geto wasn’t stopping you but he wasn’t encouraging you either. you stilled entirely when your faces had only a couple of centimetres away from each other. “would you stop me if i kissed you?” your voice was no louder than a whisper to the point you weren’t even sure if he had heard you.

there was a moment, a moment that you swear was real and not a figment of your drunken imagination, where you think geto was fully contemplating your question, just about to close the gap. the harsh sound of a horn ruined the trance you both seemed to be under and geto was back to focusing solely on the road.

you hurriedly settled back into your seat, running your hands across your face and pushing the stray hairs away from your face. your heart was racing, whether it was from the alcohol, the jumpscare from the horn or the realisation of what you almost just did, you weren’t sure.

“jeez, what did satoru give you?” he muttered aloud, though more to himself than you or the sleeping male in the backseat. his little snores may have been endearing if you didn’t also blame him for everything that just took place. ‘he looks at you like that too’ – he owed you at least a week's worth of coffee and doughnuts for putting the thoughts in your head.

“that was ages ago, i’m clear minded.” you were not clear minded at all. you wished shoko was here. you wish you weren’t.

“sure you are,” geto scoffed quietly under his breath. if he was annoyed at you, you needed to start plotting how you’d avoid him for the next few years.

“satoru said something,” you said when the silence became so unbearable you thought your mind would simply implode. the roads were familiar but you knew you still had a while before you got to your apartment. assuming geto didn’t banish you to the side of the street for trying to kiss him.

geto was frowning again and you wanted nothing more for the lines to disappear from his forehead. he was too pretty to get wrinkles. “what did he say?”

“what did you say?” you spun around in your seat to see the white haired male unceremoniously spread across the backseats, mouth hanging open. absolutely no help, as per. “fuck, he’s still asleep.” you closed your eyes as you thought back to your conversation with gojo when you’d first gotten to meimei’s. “he said you didn’t like i went to kento for help.”

“that means i want to kiss you?” geto seemed almost… amused? his usual confident demeanour seemed to be returning as he shot you a glance, the tension from his shoulders dissipating.  

“no, ieiri said that. kinda.” you chose to leave out the specific explicit detail of what shoko actually implied. the hole was deep enough, you didn’t need to dig any further.

“why aren’t you saying anything?” you asked after several beats.

“because you’re drunk.”

“oh.” what did that even mean?

you picked at the black nail varnish on your nails, willing the minutes to go by faster. maybe if you’re lucky you won’t remember any of this tomorrow and geto will pity you enough to never remind you.

“i would let you kiss me,” geto spoke so quietly you were scared you’d misheard him. you even looked back at gojo for confirmation that he had in fact just said those words. he was, however, still asleep and still useless. with one hand staying on the steering wheel, geto used the other to gently stop you from ruining your nail varnish any further. “would you let me kiss you?”

you were finding it hard not to smile like a little kid. you didn’t care what this meant – geto suguru said that he would let you kiss him. a win is a win. “depends if you’re good or not. i have standards, y’know.”

“of course,” he patted your thigh twice before returning his hands to the steering wheel. if you thought your heart was racing before, it was now running loops at a thousand miles per hour. 

several minutes later, geto pulled the car to a final stop. “this is your place,” he said but you weren’t really focused on that, you were entirely focused on him. the car wasn’t moving anymore and he could look and speak (and maybe even kiss you) without any car horns or other external distractions. 

except you weren’t entirely right in that assumption as your shameless staring was interrupted by a particular loud snore from the backseat.

you forgot gojo was still there.

letting out a quiet sigh, you picked up your shoes from behind geto’s seat and pointed several stories up to your apartment. looking up at geto as pathetically as you could muster, since not even embarrassment would convince you to walk on the pebbled path, you asked, “help me?” 

not another word was spoken between the two of you until you had entered your apartment. geto had lifted you from the car bridal style and you’d cherished the few seconds so close to him. he set you down once you were in the building of your apartment but stayed by your side as you walked up the stairs.

“drink this,” geto handed you a glass of tap water he had poured and you thank him quietly as you sip it. he avoided eye contact with you as he passed by you in the direction of your bedroom. when he came back out several moments later he gestured for you to enter the room. “i laid out some clothes for you and put out some paracetamol, you’re going to have an awful headache when you wake up. so whilst you’re being pathetic here, i’m going to be up bright and early finishing that project. then it’ll be me two up.”

you laughed quietly at the notion, walking past him. “thank you suguru.” tiredness was beginning to seep deep into your bones and you craved the softness of your mattress more than you did his attention right now. 

geto was still stood in the doorway, watching you from afar. clearing his throat, he pointed to the keys in his hand – keys for his car, your apartment, his apartment and the sweet safe he kept hidden from gojo. “i’ll lock the door with my spare key. night princess.”

you were an idiot who was never drinking again – that was your only thought when you woke up.

after taking the paracetamol that geto had left for you and finishing the glass of water off, you waited another ten minutes for the painkillers to kick in and subside your headache and then you just lay there. last night definitely wasn’t your worst but it was far from your best. between unopened messages from todo and a large question mark over your friendship with geto, you just wanted the ground to swallow you whole.

‘i would let you kiss me.’

geto suguru would let you kiss him. was that a confession in itself? you groaned, you wished the world was black and white and that was exactly what was meant and you knew that and didn’t have a voice in the back of your head conjuring up twenty other possible meanings.

you’d skipped your usual debrief with the others, sending shoko a message that you were headed straight to the library. she knew your project was important but she also knew that you’d had closer deadlines and still attended both the saturday night party and following debrief. still, she didn’t push you to come and just told you that you’d talk in the evening when you were both home before offering to grab you something sweet from the shops.

you weren’t lying about going to the library – you just left out the whole geto moment. 

after showering and eating some food, you didn’t get to the library till gone noon. nanami was already down there and you apologised for being late. why you arranged to work with him the day after going out, you weren’t entirely sure, but past you clearly expected you to make a miraculous recovery.

several bottles of water and paracetamol kept you functioning enough that you were able to make good progress on your work with nanami proof checking every now and then. gojo’s voice was in the back of your head – you could be spending your time with geto doing this instead of nanami.

that was no hate to nanami, you thought he was super sweet and helpful, but he wasn’t geto. 

you weren’t sure what had been discussed at the debrief but you had received several more cryptic messages from shoko that had made you put your phone on do not disturb. you were already reliving last night’s car ride home over and over in your head, you didn’t need to know everyone else was too.

with the evening creeping closer and the snacks that nanami had brought dwindled, the blond stood up from his seat beside you and nodded downstairs. “i’m heading down to the vending machine, do you want me to grab you something?”

you shook your head, leaning back in your seat and rubbing your eyes. “i’ll just have whatever you get.”

you wanted desperately to go home and back to your bed to sleep for the next twelve hours (had to be up in time for your 8am close, though) but you were dreading talking to shoko about geto. the conversation would go one of two ways; either she already knew and would inevitably tease you or would have to explain it to her, get her live reaction and then be teased. neither seemed fun. 

the sound of footsteps had you turning your head in the direction of possible food. the library was too quiet for your stomach to rumble.

your smile dropped when you saw who was standing next to you.

“hey suguru,” you swallowed, sitting up straight in your chair and pushing your hair back behind your ears. being nonchalant didn’t matter now and no amount of pretending you didn’t try to kiss him last night would actually make it not happen. 

“hey,” he waved before stuffing both his hands in his pockets. he must have just come from the gym – his hair was still wet and he was in his usual post-gym hoodie and shorts. it was odd, to see geto not sure of what to say or odd, appearing almost out of place. a pang of guilt washes over you – you created this situation.

scratching the back of your neck, you pointed at nanami’s seat next to you on your right, “you looking for help from nanami too?”

you were joking, obviously, geto wouldn’t need his help, and you hoped your weak attempt at humour would at least ease some of the tension. he cracked a smile as he raised a brow at you, “why? you think i need it?”

“all i’m saying is don’t come crying to me when i come out on top,” you raised your hands in defence, smiling with him. geto rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue. he pulled out the seat to your left, dropping down next to you. 

that silence settled between the two of you again. geto was hard to read as he looked down at you, his dark eyes searching for something in yours. you swallowed again as you felt your throat dry up.

“are you avoiding me?”

your eyes widened at the forwardness although you tried to play off your shock (extremely unsuccessfully). “why would i possibly do that?” 

geto shrugged, that familiar smirk appearing on his lips, “i told you that i’d let you kiss me and you don’t even want to at least ask me what that means?”

“do i want to know what it means?” you countered quietly. you were glad the library was pretty much empty and you just hoped that nanami stayed downstairs as long as possible. it felt odd to be so publicly vulnerable.

“god," geto looked thoroughly amused as he tilted his head back towards the ceiling and then looked back at you. "you’re dense sometimes.”

you frowned, turning back to your laptop screen with your project. you weren’t here to be mocked. “if you’re here to make fun of me, i’m sorry, let’s just forget this all ever happ–”

geto spun you around, hands on both arms of your chair and suddenly you were back in his car with his hands on your shoulders and your lips brushing against his, “come with me.”

“right now? to where?” nanami was about to return any second, you couldn’t just up and leave him.

“i’ll take you to the sushi place you love,” geto offered, leaning over to close the screen of your laptop. like taking away your access to your project would lead you to the conclusion that going with him was the only possible outcome (as if though there was any outcome in any scenario where you didn’t pick him).

you hesitated at the idea. if he was asking you to go out after saying that you could kiss him it was definitely not a stretch to assume that your feelings were reciprocated.  “like… a date?”

“well princess that’s what girlfriends and boyfriends do is it not?” he posed the question in such a casual and natural manner that you had to bite down on your lower lip to try and control your grin. 

“yeah,” you nodded, interlacing one of your hands with his, “yeah, it is.”

you made a mental note to bring an extra coffee for nanami next lecture as an apology for disappearing.

bonus, several weeks later.

you had come out on top when it came to your project, being only several marks ahead of geto. he hadn’t been all that bothered, saying that he’d let you have the win since you’d had to resort to nanami for help (and he was head over heels for you and would probably flunk every future project and exam if it meant you’d be happy).

you found out that in the debrief that you missed, gojo and shoko practically demanded that geto ask you on a date because they couldn’t allow the two of you to keep going round in circles with each other any longer. needless to say your second debrief with shoko once you came home after your sushi date was a long one that covered both of your current love interests.

for the last few weeks, it had been about adjusting to the new dynamics that a relationship had brought to your group. it was little things like geto picking you up every morning before class and gojo having to decide who to third wheel when it came to parties.

one thing that had not changed was the existence of the list between you and geto.

the german test you had taken the day prior was the first test you’d both completed since your project. this was the deciding test as to who would be on top again.

“wake up, wake up,” you nudged geto’s arm repeatedly, the male in question groaning as he tried to hit you away with a pillow. if someone told you a month ago you’d be waking up in his shirt, in his bed, with him, you would have laughed. 

when your insistent poking didn’t work, you climbed ungracefully across him, your knees resting on either side of his slim waist. that caught his attention and he opened one eye to peer up at what you were doing,

“look,” you practically shoved your phone in his face, the screen too bright for his eyes to adjust to.

“okay?” geto squinted, trying to read the black text unsuccessfully.

you sighed when he didn’t get it fast enough, “it’s our test scores. i have seven more percent than you therefore i am winning.”

“hold on,” he grabbed your wrist as you tried to move your phone away from his face and pointed at the email your lecturer had sent out. “you’re still only second place in the class.”

“yeah wait,” you slipped your wrist from his grip, rereading the email twice as your face dropped in disbelief. 

“what?”

poor geto was wincing again as you spun the screen back to him again, “what the fuck?”

with an almost perfect score, for a class he spent more time playing dress to impress in, was the gojo satoru.

[hereticpriest]

Alpha Mine

Relationship: Laszlo Kreizler x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Explicit, A/B/O Dynamics, Omega Laszlo Kreizler, Alpha Reader, Trauma, Childhood Trauma, Dynamic Discrimination, Period-Typical Views on Gender and Dynamics, Dynamic-Based PTSD, Healing, Not Actually Unrequited Lust and Love, Scent Kink, Praise Kink, Knotting, Oral Sex, Anal Sex, Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Breeding Kink, Mpreg.

Dr. Laszlo Kreizler was looking for a typist to work at the Kreizler Institute.

You knew it might be your only opportunity. Dr. Kreizler had a reputation for surrounding himself with queer cases, and having wildly unpopular ideas about what was and wasn’t appropriate socially. He was an Alienist, and thus a man immersed in the latest scientific inquiries. If anyone were to offer you a job, it would be him. If anyone were capable of looking past your… affliction, it would be him. Not solely because you were a woman, which was queer enough on its own. No, you are something far worse than a working woman.

You’re an Alpha.

Biologically, you knew it was completely normal for a small percentage of the population to be both female and Alpha. It was no more or less rare than male Omegas. Most of the population - about 60% - were Betas. The ideal, frankly, for many. Devoid of pesky extra hormones and impulses, a Beta can live a relatively normal life without the pressures of an Alpha or Omega. Betas have scent glands, but their scent is weaker, less obtrusive, and their nose is not as keen as the other designations. Betas have only their primary gender characteristics to worry about. Secondary gender has little to do with their lives.

Alpha males are less rare, and idealised by the wealthy elite who can afford to handle their more difficult impulses. They’re stronger than a normal man, with scents as aggressive as their impulses, and anger issues abound. Omega females are similarly idealised, though still held to the same standards, if not stricter, than a normal woman. Prim and proper and never lifting a finger to do more than birth babies for a strong Alpha. One can even raise their station considerably by virtue of being a strong Alpha male or a fertile Omega female from a lower class family that might entice a higher class mate. 

Male Omegas and female Alphas are more rare than their counterparts, and often looked down upon in high society. Your parents had been certain you would be an Omega like your mother before you. So certain, in fact, that they had sent you to an Omega prep school - education provided to young Omega ladies to prepare them for their future life, and the submissiveness that would be required of them. Even unpresented, your parents had been able to enroll you based on your mother’s designation. When you presented at age fourteen, you were surrounded by Omegas, and completely shell-shocked. You were thrown into a rut completely out of your control, and had to be dragged bodily from the building by several Beta men who performed security for the school.

Locked in your bedroom, you ached, nearly tearing yourself apart with need and confusion and disgust. After a week of torment, you were finally released from your confinement to face the wrath of your parents. Your ‘little episode’ as they called it, had been reported upon in the society papers, and you were made a mockery of on multiple fronts. First, that you were female and an Alpha. Second, that you had been placed in an Omega school in the first place. Third, that you presented there, were thrown into a rut, and had to be dragged through the streets like a rabid animal.

You had not entered the light of society since, at your parent’s behest. They cared for you, to a point, however they were now tasked with finding a male Omega for you to mate with. They could have tried to find you a Beta, who likely wouldn’t care so much about your designation, however your parents were of a purist breed. Alphas and Omegas mated as far back as designations had existed. You almost thought they might break the streak just to get you pawned off on someone else. Your reputation had improved since your presentation, thankfully. No one stared, and mostly, no one gossiped.

You were, however, bored. Bored of being confined. Bored of taking rut blockers and bathing yourself in scent blockers just to never leave the house anyways. Bored of seeing nothing but the small neighbourhood around you. Bored of life. So, you decided to get a job. You hoped that having a purpose beyond ‘wait for someone to find you an Omega to rut into the ground until one of you gets pregnant’ would spark some joie de vivre in your bland, grey life. An unwise decision, according to your parents, but one they weren’t going to interfere with for now. You know that they assume you’re going to fail, and that’s likely the only reason they’ve allowed it.

On a cold Autumn morning at half past eight, you walked into the Kreizler Institute in your most demure but professional dress, high collar pulled up to cover your bare neck and contain some of your scent. Despite being bathed in scent blockers, you were paranoid about an incident. Your reputation couldn’t handle it. Nor could your sanity.

“Hello, I’m here for an appointment with Dr. Kreizler at quarter to nine?”

The receptionist looks up at you for a moment, studying you curiously, then sighs as he stands from his desk. His bland, calming Beta scent fills your nose as he approaches to lead you along, and you do your best to breathe and calm your racing heart. You’re led to Dr. Kreizler’s office, and the receptionist knocks twice, then leaves. His calming scent abandons you, and the nerves creep back in.

“Come in.” An accented voice calls from inside, and you tentatively open the door, doing your best to look as passive as possible. Signs of aggression in a male Alpha might be forgivable, but the same was certainly not to be said for a female Alpha. Even the slightest sign of confidence could be interpreted as aggression by many, and you were trying to make a good impression. You peek around the door to see a man sitting alone at a desk in one of the most beautiful offices you’ve ever seen. It’s quite grand, lined with countless bookshelves that you want to peruse though you’d never dare. The furniture is opulent but comfortable, and the room is far more spacious than you expected.

Dr. Kreizler himself is of average height, with a sturdy build. His facial hair is perfectly groomed, and you imagine he takes great care of himself in every way, for his appearance is immaculate. His clothes are obviously expensive and well-tailored, and he chooses his outfits to suit him quite impressively for a man of science. You’d always imagined they’d be more dowdy and less handsome. He looks at you with no real warmth to him, but he’s calm and collected, and not necessarily cold.

“Ms. L/N, I presume?” He breaks the silence, and you step into his office hesitantly, nodding.

“Yes, Dr. Kreizler. Lovely to meet you.” You reply, and he nods, gesturing towards the chair across from him. He doesn’t try to get up and pull it out for you, which you appreciate since there’s truly no need. He’s about to be your boss, hopefully. You don’t expect him to treat you like a delicate lady when you’re anything but. You sit in the offered seat, smoothing out your dress and offering him a polite smile. He smells medicinal in the way of scent blockers, but they must be quality like yours, for you can’t get even a whiff of his designation.

Somehow, you secure the job. Dr. Kreizler blinks when you tell him your designation, looking you over for longer than is necessarily comfortable, but otherwise has very little reaction. He surveys your typing skills, backhandedly praises your knowledge of medical terminology, then gives you a dubious but curious look when you admit to reading his works. When you prove it by quoting him, he softens, seemingly noticing how much you’ve bristled from having your knowledge discounted. He tells you you start tomorrow, and that a requirement of your job is that you take rut blockers and apply scent blockers, which isn’t a problem since you already do both of those things. You depart with nothing more than a handshake and a nod, heart nearly beating out of your chest with excitement for the job you’ve managed to land yourself.

~

Nearly eight months pass in the blink of an eye. You grow closer to Dr. Kreizler, who appears to be the only person willing to treat you normally despite your queer designation. He trusts you and your opinion, asking you endless questions about yourself. He treats you better than anyone else you’ve ever met despite his moods, and always apologises after a day when he’s been particularly snippy, which you appreciate. He notices sometime into your employment your fixation with biting yourself when you’re nervous. First, chewing the skin around your nails, which escalates into biting your thenar eminence when your parents put pressure on you to quit your job and stop making a fool of yourself.

One day, he dares to ask about the news in the society pages. He’d been thirty-one at the time, and expressed a certain sadness in regards to how you’d been treated. It isn’t easy to talk about, but he listens as if you’re riveting, and you’ve never had someone find you interesting in any way that wasn’t cruel. You tell him about how you’d been prepared to be an Omega your entire life. You knew what to expect - the hormone changes, the physical changes, the emotional volatility. You were ready for it. And then, one day, you became something wholly different than expected with zero preparation for how to be that thing. You felt something akin to a monster, only worsened by how you’d been confined with Omegas when you presented.

Dr. Kreizler listens with a certain sympathy on his face as you explain that you’d tried to leave the room when their scents got overwhelming. That you didn’t want any of them, nor did you want to attack or hurt anyone. The only reason you’d even fought the security guards back then was because one of the Omegas was crying, big fat tears rolling down her face, and you could fix it. You knew in your gut that you could, and that you were supposed to. Already, raspy, unused little chuffs were rolling in your throat, subvocals full of comforting tones. Alphas were meant to make Omegas feel better, to protect and nurture not just your mates but any vulnerable person who needed you. It was instinctual. They tried to stop you from doing what you were meant to do, and your body took over. You weren’t going to hurt her - you had no sexual feelings towards her whatsoever. Then, your rut set in, caused by the crying and the aggressive action against you by those security guards, and the scent of hundreds of unmated Omegas.

Your instincts had been made a mockery of in the papers. You were turned from a scared fourteen year old girl into a wild animal maddened by her impulses. It was framed as why women shouldn’t be Alphas - your emotions were too volatile to be mixed with the fire of aggression of an Alpha, or so they said. Dr. Kreizler reaches out at one point, touching your arm so gently you could barely feel him, and you realise that you’re crying. He apologises for the sensitive subject, but you can see in his eyes that he wouldn’t have stopped prying if he had more questions. He’s kind, but his curiosity sometimes makes him just a little bit cruel, prone to poking and prodding until he gets what he wants.

Only a day or two later, he finally tells you why he understands and empathises with you so much. He’s an Omega. Like you in reverse, he’d been believed to be an Alpha from birth, and was sent to an Alpha prep school. Your stories were mirrored, except that his presentation had been significantly more discreet. He’d presented young, while visiting home for a weekend, with only his family in the house. You envy him for a moment, swiftly followed by relief that he hadn’t had to endure what you had. Unlike you, his designation was able to be hidden, and very few knew the truth.

It bonds you. Both of you, oddities, controlling your designations as best you can in a world that finds you unusual and distasteful at the very best. You are a constant ball of tightly wired control, but you allow yourself small intimacies with Dr. Kreizler. You tell him more. He inquires as to the nature of your biting habit, and you admit to the level of control you need to have at all times, and that the biting was always a compulsion but has only grown more frequent and harmful as you got older. Thankfully, you haven’t bitten anyone else. Dr. Kreizler calls it self-harm, and you do not refute him, though you do tell him that you aren’t trying to hurt yourself. Dr. Kreizler makes attempts to curb your habit, but the gloves he gives you only dull the pain and keep you from biting the skin around your nails.

Not long into your employment at the Kreizler Institute, the doctor begins solving crimes with John Moore, an Alpha who struggles with his own warring physical and emotional needs. You like him, at least partially because he doesn’t try to posture at you and prove his dominance as the biggest Alpha in the room. You wouldn’t want to have to be involved in a fight like that, because you aren’t sure who would win, and you know it would be worse if you did. Then comes Sara Howard, the calmest and strongest Beta you’ve ever met in your life. You like her quite a bit, and you like her even more when she, when told your designation, simply shrugs and asks you if your female nature makes you less of an aggressive arse than a typical Alpha. The Twins come along shortly after, and to your surprise, the good doctor demands you join them as well. You take notes and type them up for the team, and copy ‘borrowed’ police documents without a hint of shame.

Suddenly, before you even realise it has been so long, spring is upon you. Your least favourite season, with rain clouds looming high in the sky every other goddamned day. You begin keeping a spare bottle of scent blockers on your desk at work just to reapply when you have to go out in the rain. Which is, regrettably, often. On one clear day, you head out with Dr. Kreizler to examine a crime scene not too terribly far from the Institute. You hold his arm politely, poised and elegant the way you’re meant to be as a well to do woman - Dr. Kreizler always gives you the confidence to play the role you’ve always been meant to play, despite your lack of surety. You needed to play your roles in public, and you especially needed to keep yourself buttoned up to avoid attention.

You meet John and Sara at the crime scene, and Sara sticks close to you while John draws the scene and Dr. Kreizler makes observations that he expects you to write down despite the speed at which he makes them. Thank goodness for Sara, filling in any blanks of words that you might’ve missed. By this point, John no longer tries to protest your involvement at crime scenes, though he always gives Dr. Kreizler a judgemental look when he shows up with you. You’re not bothered by the blood and gore, despite Mr. Moore’s concerns. The smell is a bit much on your sensitive nose, but blood doesn’t turn your stomach the way it does for others (him included). The nature of the crimes - the murder of young boys who were only children - was more disturbing to you than the gore itself. You were very curious about the crimes, in fact, though you did your best to keep that to yourself to avoid appearing odd.

Eventually, Dr. Kreizler determines he’s seen enough, and he offers you his arm as he turns to leave, the motion casual now after so long travelling the city together in the name of criminal inquiry. John does the same to Sara, but she pointedly ignores it, stepping out through the door behind you both. Only a few minutes into your walk, the skies turn, the clouds grow dark, and it begins to pour rain down upon you. Together, you all run towards the shelter of a covered overhang between two buildings, and you ring out your clothes as much as you can, panic sparking in your heart. You’re soaked through, and it's dangerous to catch a chill, however your concern is not for your health.

You can already smell yourself. The woodsy, spicy scent rolls off of you, made worse by your nervousness. John sniffs the air as subtly as he can, but you notice him, and your cheeks grow warm with embarrassment and nervousness. The scent of figs, geranium, vetiver, cedarwood and citrus fills your nose, sweet and tangy, with a hint of floral. Your tension eases, and you take a deep breath through your nose, instinctively soothed by the scent. And then, you seem to put two and two together.

Dr. Kreizler.

Sweet and floral like an Omega. The scent was your boss, and his scent soothed you in the way of compatible Alphas and Omegas. Shit.

Shit shit shit.

You step back from the Omega and press your wrist to your nose, huffing on your own scent gland just to try and drown out the smell of him. The good doctor gives you an odd look as he squeezes some of the rainwater out of his shirt, unaware of the dilemma you’ve found yourself in. Your good fortune doesn’t last. His pupils dilate quite suddenly, and he sniffs, then rubs his nose as if unsure what he’s experiencing. His brows furrow, and he takes a deep breath through his nose to try and process the scent. Finally, his gaze settles on you, and you don’t recognise the look in his eyes. It’s heavy, and you feel the weight of your designation settling around your shoulders as you finally connect his expression to one you’ve seen before.

Hunger.

“I’m sorry.” You mumble, and John raises an eyebrow at you. A myriad of emotions cross your boss’ face in a flash, but none of them seem particularly negative, always accompanied by that intense hunger. The doctor lifts a hand to delicately pluck open the top button on his shirt, and then the second, showing off his bare neck. You can see the soft bump of his scent glands, and your body burns with the knowledge that he’s exposing them to you. It’s a blatant invitation. Unbecoming of an Omega, typically, but not unheard of. John sucks air through his teeth, and your hackles raise instantly as you position yourself between John and Dr. Kreizler.

“What exactly is going on?” Sara asks, her voice tight with some amount of distaste at being out of the loop.

“It’s-” John begins, taking a half-step closer to you, then cuts himself off as you give a quick display of your teeth. He retreats back, his gaze slowly trailing over the doctor before he rips it away and turns his back on you to instead face Sara. You’re only distracted from him by the preternatural awareness of someone leaning over your shoulder, a deep inhale only an inch or two from your scent glands startling you. Dr. Kreizler’s eyes are nearly black when you look back over your shoulder at him, panic and hunger swirling together in your gut as you observe what you’ve done to your intelligent and calm boss. This is your fault. He’s fine around John, who wears only light scent blockers if any. You’ve done this to him - devolved him to his baser instincts.

“Dr. Kreizler…”

“Laszlo.” He corrects you, tipping his head back and to the side to expose his neck to you, and a high-pitched, awkward ‘Oh!’ slips from your lips. Your cheeks are on fire as you look away from him. He reaches out, skimming his thumb over the scent gland on your right wrist, an intimacy that was reserved for mates or family. The tangy scent of slick reaches your nose, and you panic, pointedly keeping your eyes away from the prominent hard line in his trousers. John pats you on the shoulder gently.

“We’ll leave you here, I suppose. I should get Ms. Howard home. I trust you’ll be able to get each other home safely, yes?” He asks, and you gap at him.

“Yes, thank you, John.” Laszlo replies for you, and you only nod when he gently nudges your ribs. You start to take Laszlo’s arm, but he takes yours instead, and you turn your gaze to the sky as his crafty fingertips stroke across the slight bulge of your bicep. Like male Alphas, you were gifted with a certain strength that went far beyond what any other woman your size would be capable of. You hid it well under clothes that were just a little bit bigger, which is only made clearer when Laszlo stares at your arm in surprise as you walk. His pupils are already blown, eyes half-lidded with blatant desire, but the scent of slick gets stronger and you get more and more protective. You reach up to your neck, unbuttoning the collar of your shirt and giving it a shake to disperse more of your scent, hoping to cover up the scent of his desire.

It earns you looks, but it’s worth it to avoid anyone else being able to smell the slick on your Omega. You wonder if it’s running down his thighs. You wonder if he’s hard as a rock in those perfectly tailored trousers of his. You wonder how sweetly tangy his slick would taste should you follow his silent requests and bend him over the first chance you get. There’s a couch within maybe twenty feet of the front door of his house - you could bend him over it, pull those expensive trousers down over his round little ass and spread him open. Lap up the slick pouring from him and stroke his pretty little cock until he falls apart. You could make your Omega cover his own couch in cum, then get him to lick it up while you make him fall apart on your knot where he belongs.

“Alpha.” Laszlo murmurs, and you blink, finding yourself just outside the door to Laszlo’s home. You look at him, surveying his somewhat disheveled appearance, his eyes wide with hopeful desire. The smell of slick and ripe Omega fills the air, and you shake your head to clear it. You were calling Laszlo your Omega in your head. Claiming him. You were being an overbearing Alpha, drowning this poor Omega in your scent and forcing him into this needy state. You bite down on your hand, sharp teeth sinking through your skin like butter and filling the air with the fresh iron scent of blood. The pain grounds you, cutting through the hormones and thirst, and satisfying the ache in your jaw to bite and claim and make Laszlo yours.

“Go inside, Omega.” You insist, mouth stained with blood, opening the door for him from behind his back so he can’t see what you’ve done, and he heads inside with the clear expectation that you will be following him, “Goodnight, Laszlo.”

“Wait-” He begins as he notices the scent of blood, turning to see you sinking your teeth back into your hand as you slam the door closed behind him and run. You get home in record time, and instead of going through the front door, you scale the wall through the backyard to your window then sneak into the bathroom to scrub yourself raw in the bathroom. You normally don’t sleep in scent blockers, but you do tonight, and you take an additional dose of rut blocker just for safety. Now that you know how good Laszlo smells - now that the scent of ripe, virgin, needy Omega is stuck in your nose - how are you supposed to go on without bending him over his desk?

You bite your hand until your brain goes fuzzy, then wash the blood away in a bit of a trance, bandaging yourself up. You crawl into bed in a daze, burying your face in your pillow and falling into a deep, exhausted sleep.

~

Walking into work the next morning is unnerving. You’ve bathed yourself in more scent blocker, and brought an additional dose of your rut blocker to take midday just in case. You’re wearing a dress with a high collar just for further coverage. A couple of people throughout the Institute take a second glance at your bandaged hand, but you ignore it, focused on getting to work. Without your left hand, typing will be slow going, but you can manage. You resolve to act as if yesterday didn’t even happen, and you hope that Laszlo won’t be too angry with you. You’ll apologise again if he seems angry.

You stand before the large door to his office, hesitating to take a steadying breath before you push it open. Laszlo stands by his desk, dressed elegantly in a white shirt, an ornate dark green vest with gold threading, and a pair of black trousers. His glasses sit at the end of his nose, and he’s reading through some of the papers you’ve typed up. He looks up as you enter the room, and you freeze as he smiles at you, warmer than you expected in the best case scenario. He puts the papers on the desk, circling the desk to sit his bottom on the edge of it.

“Good morning.” He greets you, and you blink, then nod your head quickly and head for your desk.

“Good morning, Dr. Kreizler.”

“I told you to call me Laszlo. I still desire that today.” He replies, with a weight to his voice that you know is meant to imply something more, but you’re too anxious to even acknowledge him. You hurry to your desk, and miss Laszlo frowning at your back in consternation.

“Of course, Laszlo, I apologise.”

“Is your hand-”

“I took care of it. Thank you.” You reply shortly, rubbing your good hand over your hot cheeks, then flipping open his journal and getting back to work. Laszlo tries to talk to you a couple of times throughout the day, but you keep it professional as much as you can. He sweeps past your desk at one point, and you feel the ghost of his fingers across the back of your neck. You shiver, glancing at him, and he makes and holds eye contact with you before demurely dropping his gaze to the floor. His submissiveness sparks something in you, and you have to swallow hard and take deep, soothing breaths to calm down. You turn back to your work, and Laszlo huffs an annoyed breath behind you.

~

Several days pass, and you fall into a steady rhythm with Laszlo. You’ve begun reapplying scent blocker throughout the day to avoid bothering your boss, and despite the way he looks at you, you think it might be working. He hasn’t made any kind of moves on you so far, but you can feel his gaze burning into you, and it always makes you nervous. One evening, you visit his home with John and Sara to discuss the case, and Laszlo makes a brief trip to the bathroom before returning, smelling so strongly of ripe and ready Omega that you find yourself biting your cheek to keep from growling at John.

The other Alpha seems as confused as you, and even remarks privately to Laszlo that his scent blockers have worn off, but Laszlo simply shrugs.

“Am I not allowed to take them off in my own home, John?”

Mr. Moore has nothing to say to that, but he keeps his eyes on you as Laszlo sits on the other side of the couch you’re perched upon. It takes every ounce of control in your body to avoid biting through your hand again, and when it very clearly becomes too much, John gives you a tidy excuse to go home by rounding up Sara and departing with you both. Much to Laszlo’s disappointment.

~

A knock upon your door is not what you expect two days later while your parents are attending a party and event outside of the city. You open it tentatively, almost afraid of what you’ll find, and John Moore stands upon your doorstep. In his arms is a beautiful bouquet that he appears to be trying not to sniff too much - given the slightly red state of his nose, you assume he might be allergic. The flowers are beautiful, but as a well-to-do lady, you know their meanings as keenly as you know your own soul.

“Mr. Moore, may I ask why you’re attempting to court a fellow Alpha? It isn’t unheard of, of course, but my parents would never allow-”

“No!”

“Beg your pardon?”

“No, sorry, sorry, they’re not from me.” John replies shortly, then hands the bouquet over, “Laszlo asked me to deliver these for him.”

“Laszlo. As in, Dr. Kreizler.” You state blankly, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Do you know any other?”

“Of course not. John, Dr. Kreizler has no real interest in me. This is surely a mistake.” You insist, trying to give the bouquet back, but he shakes his head firmly.

“No, you can discuss that with the good doctor yourself. I’ve done my part.” John insists, and you frown as he stalks away quickly, sneezing at the bottom of the steps. You close the door, carrying the flowers inside and looking them over.

Borage, to deliver a blunt or direct message. Pink camellia, to convey longing. Red carnations to convey heartache, and edelweiss for devotion. Nasturtium was a blunt choice, conveying conquest and a foreseen victory in battle. Savory to add spice and convey interest. Red roses for love and seduction, and red tulips to convey passion. Red hyacinth for intense passion and adoration, jasmine for sensuality, and orchids for seduction.

The message of the bouquet is shockingly blunt. A bouquet like this would be inappropriate, and should you tell anyone about it, you’re certain Laszlo’s reputation would be damaged. You stroke the petals, carrying the bouquet up to your bedroom and splitting it into smaller bouquets. One goes onto your vanity, another on your night table, and a third in a vase on your windowsill.

In return, you leave a bouquet of your own on his desk. Blue saliva, to convey that you think of him fondly. Chamomile to request patience in your lack of surety. Fennel for flattery. Apple blossom, to convey your preference for him over others, and clematis to show appreciation for his mental prowess and beauty. And then, to send a clear message, you attach tarragon for lasting interest to lavender for distrust and rue for clear vision. You want to make it clear that while you hold affection for him, you distrust his lasting interest and that his thoughts are clear. The following morning, you come in to a single flower on your desk.

Blue hyacinth for constancy.

~

Over the next couple of days, Laszlo is a bit gentler in his pursuits - for you can call them nothing less, with how keenly he observes you and tries to gentle your heart to him. He pries no less than he used to, but he does his best to stop before he goes too far. He asks you questions about yourself, talks to you about your interests, compliments the way you’ve styled your hair, and compliments your work. He wears a lighter scent blocker going forwards instead of the near-impenetrable one he wore before. It gets you more used to his scent instead of being completely overwhelmed every time he takes it off when you go to his home after working on a case. You’re beginning to wonder if perhaps he is serious about his intentions. You’ve never heard of an Omega pursuing an Alpha like this. Short term, certainly, but usually only while they’re in preheat and wanting a specific Alpha. It’s been just over two weeks now, and he has not relented.

You go into work a couple of days later to find a small box on your desk, and you open it slowly, hesitant, only to find a lover’s eye pendant inside the box. You recognise the colour in an instant. You also recognise the portraiture. John Moore painted this, and it is Dr. Laszlo Kreizler’s honey-brown eye. John has perfectly captured the very light crow’s feet at the corner of Laszlo’s eye, and his lovely long lashes that you’re somewhat envious of. The portrait is beautiful, and you stroke your fingertips across the gold frame, a small smile pulling at your lips. You put the pendant on, tucking it down into the bodice of your dress, holding it against your chest as if it might become a part of you with enough contact.

Laszlo watches from his desk, a smug smile on his face as he shuffles through his papers, pushing his glasses up his nose when they slip down. You’re so pleased that you don't even protest when he invites you to Delmonico’s with John and Sara, though you know you’ve trapped yourself.

“Your parents thought you were going to be an Omega?” Sara asks at one point through the evening, and you agree, awkward but not necessarily uncomfortable divulging in the present company.

“They did. I was… quite a surprise.”

“Did they have a nesting dowry for you?” Sara asks softly, as none of these matters pertain to her and you know she is endlessly curious about them. You smile fondly at her sincerity, and the lack of judgement she’s shown you.

“That might, perhaps, be the only benefit of them thinking I would be an Omega. I have a nesting trunk from when I was a child.” You reply, and you politely pretend that you don’t hear Laszlo’s sharp little intake of breath. Sara laughs, a wide smile on her face as her gaze darts over to Laszlo, then back to you.

“Oh, that’s very special.”

“Indeed. My father has also set aside a suitable nesting dowry to compensate for anything missing. I also…” You trail off, cheeks getting hot as you become a little embarrassed.

“What is it?” Sara presses, and you give the tiniest shrug of your shoulders.

“Well, I was taught to embroider, of course. But I also learned to knit, and sew. I made a baby blanket when I was younger, and little matching booties and a little hat.” You admit, and Sara gasps with delight, leaning closer to you over the table. You notice John also leaning in, a soft look in his eyes that you’re especially fond of - he’s so sensitive, he makes your heart melt, “I’ve been working on a blanket as well, for… well, most of my life since I presented. I’m almost finished, in fact.”

“That’s wonderful.” John comments, and you smile demurely, “What a lovely gift for your future Omega. I envy you the skill - I’m sure many Omegas would be thrilled with such an offering.”

“It must take you so much time.” Sara adds, and you nod your agreement.

“Oh, it does. I work on it every night after work. I had a lot of time after presenting - my parents didn’t let me go out much, for obvious reasons.”

John frowns a little, as does Sara, but she reaches across the table to cover your hand on your glass.

“You’re a welcome addition to our team. I’ve never met an Alpha with such strong control over their instincts.” Sara muses, and you bite your lip, guilt flooding you as you think of what you’ve done to Laszlo. Certainly, his behaviour is your fault, right? He wasn’t interested in you before you smothered him in your scent.

“It is a constant struggle.” You admit, turning your head as you hear a small clatter and smiling fondly at the sight of an Alpha with his arm protectively around his heavily pregnant Omega. She waddles, cheeks aglow with motherly mirth, her hand cupping her round belly as she squeezes between tables. Her Alpha pulls out her seat, tucking her in at their table, and you sigh happily at the clear love between them. You turn your gaze back to the table to see similar looks on John and Sara’s faces, though Laszlo instead looks surprisingly… sad.

“Laszlo?” You ask quietly, and he blinks, looking at you with a certain longing in his eyes that makes you squirm in your seat.

“I always wanted to be a father.” He admits, quiet enough that it’s nearly a whisper. You stare at him for a moment, shocked at his vulnerability, and slide your hand across the table to brush your fingertips across his knuckles.

“You will be, one day.” You promise him, and you only realise after saying it what that sounds like. You want to correct yourself, but Laszlo gives you a look so soft that you melt, your heart pounding in your chest. You pull your hand away, turning to look at the others, until a familiar scent reaches your nose. You freeze.

“John.” You murmur, and he nods to indicate he smells it as well.

“What is it?” Sara asks, and you swallow hard around the lump in your throat.

“Dr. Kreizler, I believe it’s about time that I escort you home.” You state instead of answering her, and his pupils blow before your very eyes. He stands swiftly, and the scent gets stronger, sweet and tangy slick begging to be bred. You crudely dip your fingers in the water glass in front of your plate, rubbing at your scent glands until the blocker begins to wear off. John watches with a certain knowing sadness in his eyes, while Sara frowns, out of the loop.

“I will handle the bill.” John states, and you nod your thanks to him. Your scent fills the air, and you slip an arm around Laszlo’s waist possessively, leading him towards the entrance to the restaurant. Once out of sight of the dining room, you tuck Laszlo into a dark corner, unsure how you’re going to make it home with him in this state.

“Laszlo, dear, I need to scent you in order to get you home safely. May I?” You ask, and Laszlo shivers visibly, tilting his head to the side for you.

“Please.” He whispers, and you cup the back of his neck, rubbing your chin against his scent gland delicately. Your other hand sweeps down Laszlo’s back, and you feel your cheeks burn as you touch a wet patch that you realise means you’re touching his ass. Your hand will smell like his slick until you wash thoroughly - the scent of slick lasts for ages. Laszlo is like a furnace against you, and you do your best not to be too obvious about your body’s reaction to him as you hold him like something precious in your arms. And he is. God forgive you, he is. You know you’ve done this to him, and it is a betrayal of his trust in you that you’ve manipulated him somehow into losing himself like this. And yet, it feels so right to have him so close to you. His scent combined with yours is heavenly. How could sin be this sweet?

“That should last you for a little while.” You whisper, pulling away reluctantly with every ounce of strength in your body, and Laszlo whimpers. You are gentle but firm as you lead him from the restaurant, his hand holding your bicep tightly.

“I meant it.” Laszlo murmurs, and you startle at the sound of his voice, so focused on walking towards his home.

“Pardon?”

“The flowers. I meant it.”

You let out a quiet sigh, petting his hand on your arm gently, soothingly, “I know, Laszlo. I know.”

This time, when you leave Laszlo at his home a short few minutes later, he makes an attempt at getting you to come inside instead of leaving him alone.

“This is what I want. And it is what you want, whether you will admit it or not.” He snaps when you begin to protest, and it takes everything in you to restrain from baring your teeth at him for taking that tone with you.

“What I want is not important. Go inside, Laszlo. You’ll think about what you truly want a bit more clearly in the morning, and appreciate my restraint.” You insist while backing away from him, turning to flee not a moment later. Thankfully, you’re faster than him even if he did try to chase you, and once again you enter your bedroom through the window. You bathe in silence, trying to figure out what to do with yourself. Shame fills you as you slide your hand between your legs, your other hand against your nose, breathing in the scent of Laszlo’s slick like the disgusting monster you know you are.

~

There are gloves on your desk. You’ve finally removed the bulk of the bandage on your hand, but you find it constantly irritated by everything you touch, and clearly Laszlo has noticed. Even last night while eating dinner, you’d struggled with holding your fork and knife without the bandage protecting the sensitive bitemarks. You lift the gloves, sighing at how soft they are, but the scent rolling off of them hits your nose and makes your face burn.

He’s scented them. Rubbed his pretty little chin on them until they smell so strongly of him that you want to bury your nose in them and huff for dear life. And yet, you can’t, because Laszlo is watching you keenly, and has been since you walked through the door to his office. You wonder if he regrets giving them to you. You wonder if he’s finally come to his senses, and realises you’re an overbearing Alpha knothead. Perhaps he’ll fire you.

You spiral until the door to the office opens, and John steps into the room with a lead. A prostitute he knew had indicated that her friend had heard something about the case and was willing to talk to you all. You stand with your notebook, following the men out of the office and down the street, your head buried in the clouds enough that you don’t even notice John and Laszlo whispering feverishly to each other. In fact, you don’t notice much until you’re brought into a rather high class brothel. Immediately, you smell the scent of ripe Omega and virile Alpha, and you instinctively posture in an almost mirror of John Moore. A young woman catches your eye, smiling with faux-shyness, though she straightens up as she notices obvious signs of your designation. You stand aside from the others, taking notes as you go, writing quick descriptions of anyone who looks at you three for too long.

“Here for business instead of pleasure, Alpha?” A young, redhead Omega woman asks, approaching you with a sultry smile on her face. You offer her a faint nod, lips quirked up into a smile as you try to look benign and uninteresting. She only seems to smile wider.

“I’m just taking notes for my coworkers.” You inform her, and she hums, sweeping a hand across your lower back as she circles you. You stiffen, but don’t remove her hand, painfully aware of appearances and how you may come off as aggressive even in these sorts of situations.

“You know, I almost didn’t even notice you. All these Alphas come in here, puffed up like peacocks, scent rolling off of them like they dumped a bottle of perfume over their heads. And then there’s you.” She smiles coyly, skimming her hand over your bicep where it bulges under your puffy sleeves, “I can’t smell you at all.”

You swallow, watching her intently, “Not at all?”

“Not even a little bit.” She pouts, leaning in far too close to your neck and breathing in deeply, and the only thing that stops you from yanking your wrist out of her delicate grip is the many eyes on you both, “not even up close. You must wear the really good scent blockers. You smell even less than a Beta.”

Your mind reels, and your growing panic begins to ease somewhat as you’re distracted by putting your thoughts together in a coherent order. You blink into awareness as Laszlo steps between you and the Omega woman, his hand pulling hers away from you, the slightest hint of a hiss slipping through as he breaks the contact.

“You’re making her uncomfortable.” He informs the Omega as if she didn’t realise, and she pouts.

“Aww, I’m sorry sugar, I can make it better for you if you like?”

Laszlo bares his teeth at her in a threat display that sends excited shivers racing down your spine, and you rub his arm gently to soothe him.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” You murmur to him, and he leans into your touch, “Did you get what you needed?”

“I did.”

“Then, let’s go. I’m sorry I couldn't help more.”

John joins you both and you all leave together, with the artist quickly filling you in on the conversation they’d had with his acquaintance’s friend. You listen, but your mind is warring with conflicting thoughts, until finally, you stop midstep.

“Are either of you able to smell me?”

“Pardon?” Laszlo asks, but John looks almost knowingly at you. There’s an understanding in his eyes, and it makes you uncomfortable, like when you find something out that everyone else appears to know.

“No, we can’t smell you. Aside from when the rain washed off your scent blocker, I’ve never got even a whiff of your actual scent.” The artist informs you with a gentleness to his tone, and you nod, the truth sinking in.

“Ah.”

“Quite.” John agrees, and you nod thoughtfully. Your worldview of the last couple of weeks tips on its head. How is it possible that you’ve been influencing Laszlo’s hormones and feelings with your scent if he isn’t even able to smell you? And if it isn’t possible, and thus you haven’t been influencing him, then what does that mean? What is going on? Does that mean that Laszlo actually does want you? Does that mean that all of the displays from Laszlo are real? What are you meant to do about that?

You’re the Alpha, but he’s the man. Suddenly, the rules become so much more complicated. Do you propose courtship, or does he?

You should, certainly, as the Alpha. But will he be offended if you do? He’s been pursuing you this entire time, surely that means he’s intending on proposing courtship to you, right?

What gift do you give him to propose courtship? It’s traditional to give something deeply personal and, preferably, luxurious. This gift represents what you want from the courtship, and can be largely symbolic instead of personal - expensive fabrics for comfort of home, jewellery for wealth of life, exotic foods for abundance of resources, children’s items for a large family. The options are endless. These gifts are not returned by the Omega if they should reject a courtship proposal either. Many Alphas nowadays only give an Omega something truly special if they know that their intended will accept them - otherwise, they go with something less personal and more symbolic. What if you give him something special and he doesn’t want it? What if he doesn’t want you?

Panic sparks, catching fire in your veins and boiling through your blood. You can feel your heartbeat pounding. You can feel it. The throbbing pulse of it in your ears drowns out all other sound. Your heart is a frightened bird in the cage of your ribs, frantically slamming against the walls of its enclosure and breaking its neck against the bars. 

You’re spiraling. Based on the looks on Laszlo and John’s faces, you’re visibly spiraling. You feel yourself moving but have no control of your own limbs. John grabs you suddenly, wrestling your arms down to your sides as the fresh scent of blood fills the air, and a sharp pain breaks through the anxious fog swirling in your mind. You roar as you’re restrained, instinct and panic building upon each other as you are guided into an alley out of view. John chuffs soothingly against your ear, big chest practically vibrating against your back with the effort of calming you down as he gets your wrists into one hand. The other grabs the back of your neck to squeeze and scruff you like a family member might scruff a younger Alpha. It breaks through some of the panic, and you take a deep, ragged breath of cold, fresh(ish) air to try and calm yourself down. Laszlo’s warm hands cup your face, and you lean into his palms, his quiet purring finally breaking through that last instinctive fight or flight response that had sent your mind into overdrive.

“Las.” You whisper, and he rubs his thumbs under your eyes to wipe away the tears streaked upon your face. The scent of iron sticks in your nose, and you kick yourself when you notice you’ve bit down around the scent gland in your wrist the way you used to when you were younger and far more fearful. Or had you ever really grown out of the fear? Had you ever actually healed from the trauma of your presentation? Or had you simply learned to cope as best as you could while maintaining the appearance of sanity?

“Shh, Alpha, we’ve got you.” Laszlo promises, and you nuzzle your cheek into his palm. John chuffs softly, and you shiver something fierce as he rubs his chin against your scent gland in the way an older brother might - a little too rough, but affectionate and soothing.

“I… I think I’m okay.” You whisper, and John slowly releases your arms, rubbing your shoulders to help work out the inevitable pins and needles. You turn towards John, rubbing your chin over his scent gland gently, and the chuff you let out is a little choppy and disused. He’s blushing when you pull away, and his warm, woodsy scent sticks to you, blending with your own in an interesting way that feels very comforting. It wasn’t completely unheard of for two Alphas or two Omegas to get together, though it was certainly not the norm, and wasn’t a well-regarded decision. It was somewhat interesting to find how well your scent blended with John’s, in a way that to some might indicate you were sexually compatible, but to you felt far more like a familial relationship. You didn’t smell anything like your Alpha father, but your scents blended well, just as your scent blended well with your mother’s.

“You stink.” Laszlo informs you with an almost playful sneer, and you laugh at the disgruntled look on John’s face as you offer Laszlo your arm and let yourself by led from the alley, finally feeling like yourself again. 

~

Just over a week later, you place a box upon Laszlo’s desk. For once, you’ve managed to make it to the Institute before him, and you adjust the phthalo green gift box a couple of times to make sure it looks perfect. You adjust the ribbon, fluffing the bow up, and nearly jump out of your skin when Laszlo clears his throat behind you. Your cheeks burn as you slowly turn to face him, clearing your throat before you start talking, hoping to cut in before he has a chance to speak and throw you off your plan.

“I know that I might not be the ideal partner, and that you might have reservations about both my societal standing with regards to my recent and past public embarrassments, and my capability as an Alpha. But… but, should you accept me as your Alpha, I would love you in whatever way you desire to be loved. Not in the way that someone, or many someones, determine is the best way for you to be loved. Not in the way that I want to love you, Laszlo, but however you wish to be desired, pleasured, revered, and adored. I will give you anything you ask for - no, anything you desire at all, for I will endeavour to meet your needs before you even have cause to ask. I will always respect your intelligence, and swear to never make you diminish yourself to improve my own image. I will worship you in place of the God so many pledge their soul to. I will protect you, and any family we may or may not have. I will share in this life with you, should you… should you simply want me to.”

Your breath comes shaky, your nose stinging as you bite back a more emotional response, and you finally lift your gaze from the box in your hands to look Laszlo in the eyes. He looks soft. You pray he isn’t upset with you. You pray you’ve read this right. You beg every deity you’ve ever heard of that perhaps, just this once, you’ve gotten it right. Just this once, you’ve managed to convey yourself in the way you wish to be perceived, free of any chance of misinterpretation.

“You’re asking to court me?” Laszlo asks, his voice so soft, it’s barely a whisper. An exhale of shaky breath, disbelieving, and you swear you can almost hear his heart pounding. Or perhaps it’s your own, combined with wishful thinking that you could perhaps affect him as much as he affects you.

“I am.” You breathe, then hastily shove the gift box into his hand, a hint of panic in your movements. You’re the worst Alpha, too anxious to portray the smooth, easy confidence that so many Alphas are seemingly born with. Laszlo clears his throat, stepping past you to set the box on his desk and open it slowly. Inside, he finds a long jewellery box and a wider jewellery box. In the wide box lie a gold and emerald set of cufflinks and matching tie pin. Folded underneath it is a handsewn handkerchief of phthalo green, embroidered with both his initials, and your own, in gold thread. In the longer box, he finds an ovular gold locket wrought with intricate scrolling, which contains a portrait of you, and on the other face, a piece of fabric that is so heavily scented by you that you’d be shocked if it ever wore off. A small clip keeps it clasped inside, allowing it to be removed and re-scented when necessary.

You wet your lips as Laszlo goes through each item in the box, and you feel your chest tighten as he comes across the handkerchief, which you’d dyed and sewn yourself, and painstakingly embroidered your initials upon. You’d also scented it, and your cheeks grow hot as he brings it to his nose, breathing you in. You have to grab the edge of his desk to ground yourself when you see his eyes roll back in his head.

“You made this for me?” He whispers, and you nod hesitantly.

“I… I wanted my first courting gift - should you accept me, of course, I wouldn’t presume that you don’t have other options…”

“I do not have any desire for other options. Finish what you were saying.” Laszlo interjects, and you take a shaky breath.

“I wanted my first courting gift to… well, it’s a bit of a cheeky message, I suppose. I apologise. It is simply that… Well, appearances can be deceiving.” You murmur, pressing your thumb gently into the tie pin, which unclips into two pieces to show a sharp blade of metal hidden within. Not a dagger, but enough to do damage and defend oneself. The cufflinks, you show him, contain a hidden compartment in which you’ve hidden two small folded pieces of paper. One is the words which end nearly every German fairytale, which you quite liked for its morose nature and odd romance.

Und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute.

‘And if they haven't died, they are still alive today.’

The second is a quote from Gustave Le Bon’s The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind which you had spoken with Laszlo at length about in the early days of your work with him. The quote was one which you quite liked, and Laszlo teased you for enjoying it so much. It had been one of the first times that you had ever heard him laugh. Even then, you’d remarked upon how much you liked the sound.

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will.

The secret of the handkerchief is not difficult to find - You’ve embroidered a simple message upon the bottom right hand corner of the handkerchief in phthalo green thread, making it difficult to see but obvious to the touch. ‘You hold my heart in your palm.’ He rubs it between his fingers several times, staring at the message to try and see it against the softer fabric. Eventually, he tucks it into his vest pocket, then picks up the chain of your last gift. Laszlo rubs his thumb over the face of the locket, and you smile as he examines it for several moments before looking up at you.

“And what secret does this treasure hide?”

“You’ll find it.” You reply softly, “you need not answer me immediately. All of this is yours, should you want me or no-”

A warm, large hand cups your face, still wrapped in the delicate gold chain, and you gasp as his thumb traces your lower lip. The locket thwaps against your collarbone, and you stare into Laszlo’s honey eyes until he leans forwards and presses his lips against yours. Your first kiss is dry, and perhaps a little awkward, for you’ve no idea what to do with yourself and frankly hadn’t been expecting it. Both of your breathing is loud, shaky, practically panting through your noses as you smooth your hands over his waist to hold onto him. Finally, he releases you, then strokes his fingertips over the imprint of the chain of his locket on your face.

“I accept your proposal.” He whispers, “Come home with me tonight. We have much to discuss.”

Cheeks on fire, you brush your fingers across his cheek, brushing through his beard to stroke the line of his jaw, “I would… very much like to scent you. May I?”

Your Omega - you can say that now that he’s accepted, so long as you can keep his interest long enough to convince him to mate you - tips his head to the side to expose his scent gland to you almost demandingly. You lean in, breathing him in and gently rubbing your chin against his scent gland, and Laszlo gasps as you swipe your tongue across the soft bump. His pheromones are tangy and electric on your tastebuds, and while some might find it a little unpleasant, you chuff against his skin with approval. You only lean away from him when he gives a disgruntled chirrup, but before you can panic, your Omega buries his face in your neck and rubs his chin against your scent gland.

“You smell so good.” You whisper, and Laszlo purrs against your skin, chest vibrating something fierce as he tries to encourage your body to override the scent blockers you’d applied that morning. A whine rises in his throat, and you feel the need to fix it, and make your Omega’s distress go away.

“I’ll wash it off.” You mumble, and his purring kicks up a notch. You kiss his forehead, his temple, and then his orbital bone, “I’ll be right back.”

You return from the bathroom, freshly washed as best as you could, to see Laszlo sitting at his desk wearing his courting gifts proudly. He gestures to the door, telling you to lock it, which you do with a bit of reluctance simply because you would never want him to think that you only want him for sex. His left cufflink rests on the desktop, and you circle his chair, picking it up and putting it on for him with gentle hands. Once you’re done, Laszlo gently encourages you into his lap, and while you hesitate to sit on him, you settle on kneeling on either side of his thighs to keep most of your weight off of him. Laszlo immediately takes the invitation to nuzzle into your scent gland, and he moans softly at the smell of you, his left hand squeezing your hip tightly. He rubs his chin aggressively against your scent gland until his beard smells like you, and you’ve begun to smell like him as well. That blending of scents soothes you, and you relax against him, nearly jumping out of your skin when Laszlo licks your scent gland and moans quietly at the taste.

“Enough.” You mutter, leaning in to catch his lips again, and kissing him soft as butterfly wings, “I’m going to court you properly, Las. And as much as I want to worship you and show you how much I want you, I won’t until we get towards the end of our courtship.”

Laszlo groans quietly, squeezing your hip tightly, then gently pushing, “Get up, Alpha. We will discuss this tonight.”

~

Later that evening, you find yourself draped across a large, comfortable sofa in Laszlo’s home with your Omega laying with his hips between your legs and his head nuzzled against your chest. You comb your fingers through his hair, nails scraping gently across his scalp, and he purrs loudly, melting you into a puddle of happy goo beneath him. When you first arrived, you both had tried to talk briefly about your firm stance of not having sex until later in your courtship. Laszlo was firmly of the opinion that sex would only strengthen your bond, and that he was well aware that you felt for him beyond the sexual desire between you. You, on the other hand, wanted to prove yourself to him as a good, nurturing Alpha that wanted him for more than just a pretty little Omega to knot.

In the end, you promised to table the discussion for now, and instead pulled him onto the couch with you. Laszlo was touch-starved, and you were adamant about fulfilling his very clear need for some snuggles. If you were being honest with yourself, you may admit you were a little touch-starved as well. Nothing felt more satisfying than having your Omega’s weight on your chest, his weak arm tucked between him and the back of the couch, and his good arm wrapped around you. Feeling the tension in his body bleed out of him as you pet his hair, and the way he nuzzles against your chest needily, his purr almost deafening - nothing could be better.

You press your lips to the top of his head, and he coos, leaning his head back to blink up at you so that you press your lips to his forehead instead. His long, pretty lashes brush against his skin as he closes his eyes, purring and nuzzling closer to you. Gentle as can be, you kiss his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, and then the tip as well. You brush your lips across his cheeks, then tip his chin up, making eye contact with your Omega before you lean in to kiss him properly. Your lips move softly against his, deepening just a little when Laszlo tilts his head and pulls your lower lip into his mouth. With a soft chuff, you nip him softly, lapping at the roof of his mouth, and laugh as he gasps at your audacity.

Apparently he enjoys your audacity, because he cups your face, kissing you hard and licking into your mouth clumsily but eagerly. You sigh happily into the kiss, eyes rolling back in your head as he sloppily kisses your chin, sucking and biting your lips, his hips pressing ardently into yours. Laslo moans at the pressure against his erection, clearly already rock hard and leaking slick. You pet his cheeks, running your nails through his beard as you catch and suck on his tongue. You’re lulled by his purring, practically in a trance as he kisses you, your skirts pushed up nearly to your hips and your bloomers on full display. A soft moan slips through Lazlo’s lips as he ruts between your legs with little pulses of his hips, his knee pressed under your thigh to keep your legs spread.

“Las, darling.” You murmur against his lips, and he whimpers, biting your chin when you break the kiss, “you’re getting over-excited, little Omega.”

“Need you, Alpha.” Laszlo moans against your lips, and you sigh blissfully when he tilts his hips, the line of his cock rubbing perfectly against your cunt even through your layers. It feels so good - too good - and you struggle to regain your self-control. Laszlo’s nostrils flare as he catches the scent of your arousal, spicy and warm, and he groans, already starting to move to get a better whiff. You grip his hips to stop him and roll the both of you over, adjusting to make sure his arm doesn’t get trapped, and Laszlo gives an eager chirrup as you sit atop his hips.

“Relax, Omega. We’re just cuddling.”

“We could be doing more.” Laszlo reminds you, grabbing at your hip and looking up at you like he wants to devour you. You smile despite yourself, leaning down to kiss him again, then nipping the tip of his nose.

“We need to talk, Las.”

“I know. Where would you like to begin?” He asks, and you get up from the couch, pushing your skirts back down. Laszlo sits up so you can sit down, then drops his head into your lap so you can resume petting his hair.

“I don’t… I don’t know how to be a proper Alpha. I want you to understand what you’re getting into. I don’t want you to be… to be disappointed in me. I don’t want you to be unhappy with me, or suddenly realise you don’t want me. That’s why I want to abide by more traditional courting rules, despite the lack of… need for them, I suppose.” You murmur, and your Omega sighs quietly, like he expected the topic but hoped you wouldn’t bring it up as well.

“I know what I’m getting into. I know you. I know your fears, and your desires. I know the little things that bother you day to day, and how easy it is to bring you joy. I know the way you feel about yourself, and what you are. I know the trauma that weighs on you regarding your presentation, and I can empathise in a way that few others could. I understand how you feel about your responsibilities as an Alpha, and how your caring nature has affected that view. I know that you believe that your father is a bad example of an Alpha because your father did not show the same care and love to your mother as you do for me when they had been together since they were young adults, and we only just began courting. I know that unlike seemingly every other Alpha I have ever met - including John, who I consider a very good example of an Alpha - you believe that I hold all the power in our relationship. I know that you suffer from a severe need for control, not of others, but of yourself. Induced by your presentation, and the subsequent ridicule you received, and executed in many ways including your self-biting habit. I know that you would hurt yourself before you ever hurt me, either emotionally or physically. I know that I trust you enough that you are one of the only people who know the truth of my arm.” Laszlo practically rants to you, his voice gentle but passionate as he shifts up until his lower back is resting against your thigh, his upper body resting against yours and his head pillowed on your chest. You wrap your arms around him to support him, rubbing his arm with one hand and his stomach with the other.

“I want to give you the chance to change your mind. Once I have you, I won’t ever be able to bring myself to let you go, Laszlo. Already, the idea of having to let you go is… is nearly inconceivable. You have to have the chance to know me and… and choose not to keep me. Otherwise I would never forgive myself for claiming you, knowing that if you regretted it, it would kill me to release you.” You admit, and Laszlo takes a shaky breath, clinging a little tighter to you.

“I won’t change my mind.”

“Neither will I.”

~

You wake to hazy light filtering through the gauzy curtains, and the warm weight of Laszlo nestled against the front of your body. He’s curled up tightly, your knees scooped behind his to press yourself firmly against his back, and your arm is looped possessively around his waist. You’re dressed in a pair of Laszlo’s sleeping pants and an old shirt of his, unprepared for this impromptu sleepover that you’d been conned into by your Omega, but you won’t complain about getting more time to hold him. You nuzzle your face into the curve of his shoulder, breathing in the sweet floral smell of him straight from his scent glands, and he relaxes in your embrace. There’s a tangy note to the air that registers more and more in your mind as you wake up, blinking your eyes open to look at the warm expanse of Laszlo’s freckled and beauty-marked skin before you.

Something stirs in your chest, and you feel the sharpness of your own fangs against your lower lip as you chuff instinctively. The beast inside of you awakens having your Omega so close, and you tamp down on your impulses as best as you can even as you feel a swelling and growing between your legs. It’s not an extremely familiar sensation - you haven’t often played with your anatomy the way you can as a female Alpha - but you recognise it enough not to panic. The tangy scent settles in the back of your throat, coating your tongue, and you finally connect the dots. The spice of your own arousal begins to fill the air as you stroke your hand in slow, deliberate circles on Laszlo’s stomach.

“I know you’re awake, naughty little thing.” You whisper, and Laszlo purrs, turning his head to look at you with lust-blown pupils.

“Alpha.” He murmurs, practically a moan, “I can feel you.”

“I know you can. You’re tempting me with this sweet Omega cunt, aren’t you?” You growl, running your hand over his ass and squeezing gently. A new wave of tang fills your nose, and you nuzzle against the back of his neck, licking a stripe up to his ear.

“Need you.” Laszlo purrs so prettily, tilting his head to expose more of his throat, and you take the invitation to rub against his scent gland possessively.

“I can smell it on you, Las. So, so needy. How did I end up with such a ripe little Omega slut?” You croon, and Laszlo arches against you with a whimper, “Must’ve done something right to get a chance with a sweet little thing like you.”

Laszlo shivers, grabbing your hand to force it under his shirt, and you splay your fingers out over his belly possessively. His body hair tickles your palm as you stroke over planes of bare skin, chuffing softly against his neck. He rocks his ass back into your pelvis, and you gasp against his shoulder at the firm pressure against your growing erection. As soon as he feels it properly, Laszlo moans, reaching back to try and touch you. You’re not quite fast enough to grab his hand, and you groan as it closes around your cock, the pressure too much and simultaneously exquisite.

“Gentle, Las, gentle.” You murmur, and Laszlo lets go, rolling over so he can grab at you a little softer. He slips his hand under the waistband of your borrowed pants, and you gasp for air as he rolls his thumb over the head of your cock. You look down at yourself, and thank God that you look relatively how you expected. The last time you’d seen your cock was during your first rut, in a miserable week locked in your room as a teenager. Since then, you had gotten hard a few times, but never looked at yourself as you took yourself in hand or humped a pillow. Your cock is large, as is typical of an Alpha, with a rounded bulge at the base that would later swell into your knot.

“Want it.” Laszlo mumbles, and you laugh quietly, hooking your fingers in the edge of his waistband to slowly pull his sleeping pants down under his cock. He moans as you close your hand around him, stroking in slow, gentle pumps of your hand. He’s leaking slick from his cock, coating your hand and easing the glide, but you are far drier, and it’s a little uncomfortable. You guide him onto his back, laughing as he gives an eager whimper as you pull his sleeping pants down out of the way. You press your cock against his, wrapping your hand around the both of you and setting a firm but eager pace. 

“I’m going to make you come, Las. Can’t have anyone smelling all this slick pouring out of my sweet little Omega and thinking your Alpha isn’t taking care of you. Is that what you want? You want people to think your Alpha isn’t taking care of you? Am I neglecting you?” You coo, and Laszlo shakes his head, clinging to his bedsheets.

“No, Alpha, you’re not neglecting me. You’re taking good care of me.” Your Omega insists, and you nuzzle against his throat, rubbing your chin against his scent gland.

“Needy thing. Such a little slut, I don’t know if you’ll be able to make it through the courtship period. I’m surprised I didn’t wake up to you climbing onto my knot.” You tease, and Laszlo groans, his cheeks pink as he stares up at you with half-lidded chocolate eyes.

“Close. Alpha, please, close!” Laszlo groans, and your laugh is laced with love and affection as you stare down at your Omega.

“Mine.” You whisper, and he nods frantically, bucking his hips up into your grip.

“Yours. Yours!” Laszlo cries out as he reaches his orgasm, coming across your fingers and his own stomach. You prop yourself up above him, letting go of his cock and instead jerking yourself off above him. Laszlo pants for breath, his good hand stroking up and down over your side as he stares hungrily at your cock.

“So fucking pretty. Can’t wait to claim you, Las, can’t wait to make you mine.” Your pace falters as you get closer, the scent of spent and happy Omega sending you reeling. Your breathing is heavy, practically panting for breath as you rut into your hand.

“Come for me, Alpha. Want it.” Laszlo begs, and you groan, spilling across his trembling stomach. He’s covered in you, his own cum drowned out by your heavy load, and you nuzzle against him lovingly as you lick the sweat from his throat. You drop your hand, swiping your fingers through your cum and rubbing it into his scent glands while Laszlo stares up at you with wide eyes. Once he’s covered, you tear your shirt over your head and clean up his stomach. You pull up his sleeping pants, then your own, peppering kisses across his face.

“I need to go home to change, sweetheart.” You murmur as you roll him onto his side and snuggle up against his back, “let me feel you for a little while before I go. And you better not wash that off. I want everyone to know who you belong to, and that I’m keeping my Omega happy.”

~

You spend almost every night at your Omega’s house for the next two weeks despite your parents’ concern for what remains of your reputation. You’ve moved your nesting trunk to Laszlo’s spare bedroom, along with a suitcase of your clothing and other belongings to avoid having to go home in the morning before going to work. Every night, you curl up around your Omega, showing him the love and affection he so desperately needs. You help him dress every morning, eat breakfast with your hand holding his weaker one, take a carriage to work with him, and leave with him every evening. You give him a music box at the end of the first week of courtship, and you can’t help but smile every time you hear the gentle tinkling of it.

At the end of the second week, you give him a silk phthalo green robe that made you think of him, heavily scented just for him. He wears it every morning from then on, and you beam as one lazy Saturday, he puts on the gramophone in his family room and walks around in his robe. You sneak up behind him, slipping an arm around his waist and using the other to grab his hand and spin him to face you.

“What are you doing?” Laszlo asks, and you grin, guiding his weak hand to your hip.

“Dancing with you.” You hum teasingly, and he rolls his eyes at your cheek, letting you bully him into a fairly acceptable waltz. Neither of you are particularly good dancers, but you make it fun, and you delight at the small smile that tugs at his lips as you use your strength to lift him just barely off the ground so you can spin him with you. When you put him down barely a second later, he lifts his strong arm and spins you, and your heart beats wildly in your chest at his playfulness. You both dance around together happily, laughing when you trip on the edge of the carpet and nearly topple the both of you over.

After a few minutes of dancing and nearly an hour of recovery cuddling on Laszlo’s sofa, you both get ready for your day and take a walk through the park. Lunch is a picnic of snacks you made for the both of you, and Laszlo reads to you while you trade between giving him a piece of food, and then yourself. He smiles every time you try to feed him mid-sentence, unable to help himself despite his obvious distaste for being interrupted every few seconds. On your way home, you stop by a jeweler to pick up your latest gift for Laszlo, and he demures at your side as you are handed a ring box. He tries to peek over your shoulder to see what lies inside when you pop it open to look at it and approve the piece, but you turn away from him, tutting.

“I’ll give it to you in a minute, sweetheart, have patience.” You coo teasingly, and he has to work not to pout since you’re both in public. When you get back home (when did you start calling it home?) you lay with your head in Lazlo’s lap while he reads to you, and you glance up at him through your lashes to catch him glancing at the pockets of your poofy navy dress. The next time you look up at him, you catch him staring again, and you giggle, startling him out of his reverie.

“You really want your present, don’t you, sweet?”

Laszlo purses his lips, and you grin, sitting up.

“I suppose I should give it to you, shouldn’t I? You’ve been very patient.” You muse, pulling the ring box from your pocket and opening it with a flourish. Inside lays a stunning cameo ring modelled after yourself, the lines smooth and reminiscent of a marble statue. It’s white on a backing of black stone, and the ring is made of gold with delicate scrolling. Inside the band lies your initials, a possessive statement just for him, and you watch his face soften as he studies the ring carefully. A heady sigh leaves his lips as he strokes the pad of his finger across the cameo of your face, his eyes going half-lidded.

“This is… stunning. It must have cost you a fortune. You didn’t need to-” Laszlo begins, and you cut him off with a raised eyebrow and a huff.

“I wanted to. I want to spoil my Omega, and show him how much I adore him.” You interrupt him, and you watch his eyes go half-lidded and dreamy.

~

It begins with a trip to the opera. In the last week of your courtship, you had been sleeping at your parent’s home more often, preparing your things to be moved and finishing up your final gift for your Omega. Laszlo had warned you early on that he didn’t have a nesting trunk of his own for various familial reasons, though his mother had given him a blanket that she treasured. To compensate, you had gone through your entire trunk to see what might be missing, bought several expensive fabrics that you thought Laszlo might like, and arranged for a shopping trip with Sara and John to give him what he should have had to begin with. In order to distract Laszlo while Sara and John schemed up his surprise, you had made the mere mention of being interested in going to a show. Your Omega jumped on the opportunity with open arms, arranging for you both to go to dinner and the opera together.

It began with the opera, but now, had somehow led to you being pushed up into a dark corner during intermission while Laszlo shoved his hand under your voluminous skirts to stroke his fingers against your cunt. You bite your lip to keep quiet as Laszlo strokes his fingers across your clit, murmuring praise against your throat as he works you into compliance. You’re on half-doses of your rut blockers and heat blockers in preparation for the end of your courtship, and the evidence is obvious in how you can’t keep your hands off of each other. Laszlo had even tried making a case for why if he fucked you, it wouldn’t count, because there wouldn’t be any knotting involved. His desire to bend and rewrite the rules was duly noted, but you were adamant about waiting.

Less so now, with two of the good doctor’s fingers buried in your cunt, his skillful thumb rubbing devastating circles around your clit.

“Las, someone is going to catch us.” You moan quietly, and Laszlo purrs, nipping at your scent gland.

“Not if you stay quiet.” He retorts, and you scoff at his brazenness.

“You’re meant to mingle during intermission, Las, someone will notice us missing.”

“They won’t find us. Let me make you feel good, Alpha, you spend so much time devoted to my care - shouldn’t I be able to devote a little to yours?” Laszlo asks, and you chuff, eyes rolling back in your head.

“Please, Las.” You moan, and his purring gets louder as he moves his fingers faster, lapping at your scent gland eagerly. Pressure builds inside of you, white hot pleasure compounding until a swift flick of Laszlo’s thumb sends you tumbling over the edge. You bite down on Laszlo’s shoulder to avoid being too loud, trembling against him as he guides you through your orgasm. Panting for breath, you run your fingers back through Laszlo’s hair and pull him up into a proper kiss.

“You’re so beautiful when you come.” Your Omega whispers against your lips, and you sigh blissfully, petting his tummy lovingly.

“S’been a while since I came like that. You’re so obsessed with my cock.” You murmur, and Laszlo scoffs, gripping your hip tightly. Heat shoots through you, burning under your skin as your Omega nips and sucks your lower lip into his mouth.

“I want all of you. I can’t wait until you finally let me sink into your warm, tight cunt.” Laszlo corrects you, then pops his fingers into his mouth to clean them while you stare with blown pupils and half-lidded eyes.

“We should get back to our seats. Intermission should be over soon.” Laszlo comments, and you nod obediently, following him in a satiated and happy daze. He’s smug and you know it, but you don’t mind it after getting to come in the middle of an opera show.

~

After a lavish dinner, Laszlo snuggles up to you on the carriage ride home, blissful with the knowledge that in only one more day, he’s able to stop taking his heat blockers. After that, he’ll never need to take them again if he doesn’t want to. One more day and he can have his Alpha’s knot, and get the chance to experience fucking his Alpha in his nest, and maybe even finally become a father. He can’t take his hands off of you now that you’ve got him used to being touched whenever and however he likes. He’s never considered himself anything close to spoiled before, but now? Now, he knew he was overindulged. Every night without you in his bed was a struggle, and this last week, his sleep had been poor at best.

“Las? We’re home.” You murmur, and he sits up a little, just the way you say ‘home’ sending butterflies through his stomach. He slips from the carriage, offering you his arm and smiling at the way you take it without any offense. He loves that you take such good care of him, but he also loves that you let him care for you without acting like it’s some sort of insult to your designation. You let him push you around, most especially when you both are playing, even allowing him once to scruff you and push you down onto the bed beneath him. Caged in by his body, you let him bite into your shoulder, his still-clothed hips rutting against your bottom, treating you like you were his Omega instead of the other way around. No other Alpha that he knew of would be so confident and self-assured in their designation that they would allow him that. You let him bend you over however he likes, pinning you down beneath his weight and threatening against your ear to tie you up. He loves to see you beneath him, most especially when you’ve removed your corset and he can feel the soft curve of your back under his hands.

Omegas love soft things, and you are the softest thing he’s ever touched. Skin soft as silk, lips like flower petals, breasts plush like the expensive pillows on his sofa, and hair always well-cared for and smooth because of how much effort you put into brushing it every day. He covets you. Laszlo can’t imagine not having your softness now that he’s luxuriated in it for so long. He thinks about you so often it almost distracts him from his work - your scent, your voice, the way you hold him, the way you sneeze, the way you laugh when you don’t expect to find something funny, and the way you smile when you see him and your eyes sparkle like you’ve never seen anything more beautiful in the world.

Laszlo opens the front door for you, biting back a grin at the dainty little curtsy you give him with a cheeky smile on your face. He follows you inside, and you pause, giving a very unconvincing gasp that instantly draws his attention. He pauses partway through removing his coat, almost instinctively giving a confused chirrup before he asks what’s wrong. He finishes removing his coat, hanging it, then approaching you to help take yours off as well.

“Oh! What is this?” You ask, and Laszlo raises an eyebrow at your odd, theatrical tone. He slips his arm around your waist from behind to peer over your shoulder, pressing a couple of kisses to the curve of your neck. In the centre of the floor lies an ornate trunk of dark wood with gold clasps. He raises an eyebrow, lifting the latch with all the care one might use while handling a bomb, and opening the trunk trepidatiously. The green lined interior protects its contents, though they won’t be in the trunk for much longer - considering the look in Laszlo’s eyes, it’s obvious that matters little to him, for he’s white-knuckling the lid.

“You did this for me?” He asks in quiet awe, and you giggle, while John and Sara step out from around the corner. They’d complied with your flare for the dramatic despite claiming Laszlo would be unnerved by the surprise until it was revealed to him.

“Not without the help of your friends.” You reply, touching his lower back and beaming as he reaches into the trunk. The first thing he pulls out is a pillow made of fabric so soft it feels like butter, but filled with stuffing so firm that it is evidently made for support. Sara steps forwards, rubbing the scent gland on her wrist against Laszlo’s in a quick, platonic show of love.

“It’s supportive. For your arm. I hope it gives you some much-deserved comfort.” She hums, rubbing your tricep as she steps up next to you, “I don’t have a particularly strong scent, but I did scent it for you. Your Alpha told me you’d like that.”

Laszlo shivers, and you rub his lower back supportively. He puts the pillow down, picking up the first blanket in the trunk, a silky thing that runs through his hands almost like liquid.

“I thought you’d like the colour. It’s… well, it was for a dress, but I asked if it could be hemmed and made into a blanket for you because it’s so soft, and the blue is so unique.” John explains with pink rising in his cheeks, “The tassels are made with one of my old shirts, and I scented it too. Your Alpha insisted it was okay.”

You hum your approval despite how unusual it is for an Alpha to allow their Omega to nest with materials from a non-familial Alpha, squeezing Laszlo’s waist as he processes these gifts from his closest friends. Laszlo pulls a thinner sheet and pillowcases from the trunk, which you indicate are a gift from Teddy, and then a thicker winter blanket that came from the Isaacsons and his staff. Finally, at the bottom of the trunk lay his final courtship gift. He recognises it immediately although he’s only seen it once, very early in your time working for him. He had visited you at home while your parents were away with family, desperately needing notes you had taken of the case to confirm a conclusion he had come to over dinner. It was too late at night for a man to visit a woman, but propriety had never been one of Laszlo’s key skills. You had been working on the blanket when he arrived, and he caught sight of it when you invited him inside. He’d been stunned by the embroidery work, and covetous even then when he only knew you as his employee, and the gentlest Alpha he’d ever known.

Now, he holds the delicate blanket in his hands, rubbing the embroidery between his fingers and marvelling at how soft it is. He nuzzles his face against the fabric, breathing in the heavy warm smell of his Alpha, noting how different parts of the blanket have traces of variations of your scent. He can smell a younger you working on this blanket throughout your life, preparing it for your future Omega. For him. He thinks of you then, gentle hands carefully, painstakingly sewing, dreaming of having him to yourself one day in the future. He wonders if you imagined anyone like him when you dreamed of your Omega while a younger you worked on the blanket. He can smell the anguish of your just-presented self starting the blanket as you languish in your isolation. He can smell the hope of your young adulthood, the lack of surety as you reach the age most young women are mated, and the hopeless despair as you drift closer to the age of spinsterhood. More recently, he can smell your desire, your hope, your happiness, and most key of all, your love.

“You finished it.” Laszlo murmurs, and you smile, nuzzling your face into the back of his shoulder.

“I did. It is part of why I slept at my parent’s house for a time, despite how much you complained about it and tried to get me to reconsider.”

“I didn’t complain that much, szerelmem.” Laszlo corrects you, and you snicker, rubbing his hips as you press yourself up against his back even in the presence of your friends. Neither Sara nor John seems upset about it.

“I’m sure you believe you didn’t. You didn’t have to listen to it all day while trying to type up your notes at work.” You mutter against his shoulder, and Laszlo scoffs playfully, stroking your hand on his belly.

“Home smells more like you.” Your Omega comments after a moment, a smile growing on his face as he begins to put the pieces of what you’ve done together. He’d been dreading the move, worried about looking useless in front of your parents, as he wouldn’t physically be able to carry as much as you.

“John, Cyrus, Stevie, the twins, and Sara were kind enough to move my belongings into your home.”

“Our home.” Laszlo corrects you, twisting his head a little and kissing the high point of your cheek even though John and Sara were right there.

“Our home.” You agree with a smile, “say goodbye to your friends, little Omega. We’re going to go through your nesting materials and start building your first nest.”

Laszlo’s breathing instantly deepens, and you nuzzle your nose behind his ear as he swallows, then clears his throat. As he turns, John puts his hands up immediately, cheeks pink.

“Yes, right, well, I’m happy for you both. I… uhm, I hope the nesting goes well. I will escort Ms. Howard home.” John insists, his embarrassment clear. Sara laughs, but for possibly the first time you’ve ever seen, she accepts John’s arm and, based on her body language, appears to escort the Alpha from the Kreizler home. Once the door closes behind them, you slip your hands under Laszlo’s vest to pull his shirt out of his trousers, then skim your hands up under both layers. You splay your hands across his belly and he sighs blissfully as you rub your teeth against his scent gland.

“Go upstairs, sweet thing. I’ll bring all this upstairs so we can strip the bed and get your nest ready, okay?” You purr, and Laszlo shivers excitedly, then heads for the stairs at a quick pace, his cheeks pink with desire. You watch him go with a smile, bending and lifting the trunk easily despite its solid weight. Laszlo’s honey-brown eyes stare down from the landing, and you can’t help but smirk as he licks his lips before he continues up the steps at a quicker pace. You follow, leisurely, the sound of your Omega’s loud purring from the bedroom reaching your ears despite the distance. As you enter the room, you find he’s already nearly stripped the entire bed, and you croon praise at his eagerness as you set the trunk down next to your own. Laszlo preens, opening the trunks while you finish stripping the bed and securing it against the two walls. Together, you line the bed with pillows, then trap them in place atop the bed with a secured sheet. Once that is finished, you back off, petting Laszlo’s arms and helping him take off his vest so he’ll be more comfortable as he works.

A nest is an Omega’s role, and they take great pride in them. It’s an instinctual process, seeming to come naturally to them, and you’d seen countless Omegas work on them when you were in prep school. You yourself had tried, but you didn’t have the same passion for it. That maybe should’ve been a sign. Laszlo, you know, has never built one before, but his eyes light up as he begins to tuck blankets into place. First, thicker layers to protect the shape of his nest and provide comfort. Then, he moves on to softer layers that will feel good against his skin. Pillows are added for extra plush, and you’re happy to see that he finishes the bed with the blanket you made for him. You praise him throughout the process despite understanding very little of his decision-making, knowing he needs to hear how good he’s doing. He’s doing this for both of you - it should be appreciated as the gift it is. As the gift he is. It’s a long process, made longer by the way that Laszlo keeps pausing to adjust, tuck and re-tuck blankets, and fluff pillows. Finally, however, he appears to be happy. His purring is near deafening as he sits in his nest, feet tucked under him as he surveys his little kingdom like a little prince.

“Look at you, sweetheart. You’ve done such a good job.” You croon, and Laszlo tips his chin up proudly, “Can your Alpha come in?”

“Now.” Laszlo insists urgently, and you obey, crawling up into the nest carefully to avoid messing anything up. He kisses you the moment you’re close enough, and you sigh happily into it, pulling him closer.

“Such a good Omega. Are you excited for your first proper heat?” You murmur as you kiss the point of his cheek. He nods eagerly despite a hint of trepidation.

“Nervous, but I am excited.”

You smile.

“May I confess? I am too. But, I can’t wait to mate you and make you mine. I can’t wait to give you children, however you want them.” You purr, and Laszlo groans quietly, his hand fisting in your dress.

“Take this off?” He asks, and you raise an eyebrow. It takes a moment before you concede. He’s been so good this entire time, and you know he wants so desperately. He’ll probably be in heat by the morning at this rate. Who are you to deny him? You let him help you strip out of your layers, and you don’t stop him when he gets to the last piece of fabric blocking you from his sight. He takes it off carefully, with your help, pupils blown to the size of saucers as he takes you in. You help him with his shirt, and then his trousers, pausing at his undershirt.

“Are you sure, Omega?” You ask, and Laszlo agrees before you can even finish the question. He presses you back into the nest once he’s as bare as you, both naked as the day you were born despite it only being early evening. You let him take control, fueled by the elation of finishing his first nest and getting his Alpha’s enthusiastic approval. He purrs as he licks his way into your mouth, devouring your lips in his eagerness, his hips gently rolling into yours as if he can’t help himself. You gently push him back, and he whines, but you shush him as you stroke his cheeks and kiss his nose.

“Does my pretty little Omega want to mount his Alpha?” You ask, your voice soft and velvety, and Laszlo groans weakly.

“Please. Please, Alpha, need you. Let me, please, I’ll be good.” He begs, and you smile at the unbridled lust in his eyes as you crawl onto your hands and knees, then sink down until your face is pressed into the soft fabrics of his nest. Presenting for your Omega. You’re shocked you aren’t struck by lightning immediately.

“Fuck.” Laszlo mutters, and you’re shocked at his cursing, but you’re more shocked by the feeling of him rubbing his cock against your cunt sloppily.

“Gentle, sweetheart.” You murmur, and he nods as he presses the head into your soft warmth. It’s bigger than your fingers. Bigger than anything you’ve had before, but you’re eager and wet enough to ease the glide. Nowhere near as wet as an Omega, but enough to let Laszlo thrust his hips and not hurt too badly as he sinks all the way in to the hilt. There’s a bit of a pinch, but you grin and bear it for your sweet Omega.

“Feels so good. You feel so good, Alpha, oh god.” Laszlo breathes, kissing his way up your spine as he crawls over your back to use his weight to force you further into the nest.

“Nice and slow, Omega. You’re my first, remember? I’m all yours.” You coo, and Laszlo practically sobs against your shoulder, nodding his head mindlessly.

“Mine. So warm. So soft, Alpha, I need-” He cuts himself off, groaning and balancing as best as he can, “can I move? Please!”

You stretch out beneath him, getting comfortable on your knees before nodding with a blissful sigh. Laszlo takes a moment to find the right pace for him, choppy and short thrusts to start that seem to be mostly born out of desperation at the intense feeling of being inside of his Alpha before he finally gets a hold of himself and slows down a little. He’s thicker than the average Omega, but average in length, and he fills you perfectly as if you were meant for each other. Soft moans fall from your lips as he begins to thrust deeper, slower, supporting himself on his good arm as best as he can. You push up a little to give him something to lean on, supporting his chest with your back, and he presses kisses against your neck in appreciation. 

It feels like heaven to have your Omega inside of you. He’s so eager, hips rutting into your ass and drawing little ‘ah ah ah’s from his lips with every thrust. You groan for him, and he moans in response, nuzzling his face into your neck to try and cope with how good you feel wrapped around him. You reach between your legs, stroking your fingertips across your clit in loose circles, then tighter as you build yourself closer to your orgasm with every thrust. Your Omega’s angle has him rubbing against a spot inside of you that feels like heaven, and you shiver as you get closer and closer, your cunt fluttering around Laszlo’s cock. You don’t expect him to last very long, and he doesn’t, but you’re not surprised. This is also his first time, and he’s been waiting a very long time to finally get to come inside of you - you’re honestly a little surprised he even lasted as long as he did.

When he comes, it is far more than you were expecting. His hips stutter as he fucks his cum deeper into you, and you moan as that sudden feeling of fullness triggers your orgasm, sending you reeling. You press your face into the sheets, practically drooling as your Omega floods your cunt with his spend, and part of you hopes it takes just as much as you hope it doesn’t. You know Laszlo wants to carry your first baby, and you’re bound to put pups in him during his heat - it would be inconvenient to be pregnant together, even as much as it would be blissful. 

You groan with surprise as Laszlo’s sharp little teeth sink into your mating gland from behind, his hips pressed tightly against your ass like he’s trying to keep everything inside you with his weight alone. You’re claimed. Your Omega has claimed you - made you his and only his, so long as you claim him in return. Blood trickles down your throat, but Laszlo chases it, licking it up with that clever little tongue. You sink deeper into the nest, happy little chuffs escaping you as newly-mated bliss sinks in bone deep. 

“You’re going to get oversensitive, my little Omega. You can pull out, sweet, it’s okay.” You purr, and Laszlo adjusts on his knees as he laps at your new bond mark. Finally, he pulls out of you, then curls up around your back with his hand stroking your hip and belly.

“I love you.” He murmurs, exhausted, and you smile as you snuggle closer to him.

“I love you too, Omega. Sleep. Your heat is going to settle in soon.”

He’s asleep before you finish speaking.

~

You wake to the scent of tang and sweetness cloying and heavy, filling your nose and sinking into your brain almost like it’s taking control of you. You blink awake, breathing in deeply, and a heavy weight rubbing against your soft heat tells you everything you need to know.

Laszlo’s heat has settled in, and your little Omega is desperate.

“Good morning, sweetheart.” You croon, and Laszlo moans in response. You sit up and find your Omega achingly hard, his thighs and the blankets beneath him soaked with his slick. Licking your lips, you pat his hip, “Up. Present for me if you want my knot, Omega.”

Laszlo’s on his knees in an instant, legs spread and sunk down into his nest so eagerly he looks desperate.

“Sweet little slut. Look at you.” You praise him, stroking his hips, smacking his pert little ass, then sliding your hand between his legs to cup and stroke his cock, “God, you smell fertile. I can smell how badly you need my knot, Omega. You’ve soaked your new nest.”

Laszlo whimpers, and you grin, settling in behind him and swiping your tongue over his twitching hole. A fresh wave of slick rolls down his perineum, and you coo mockingly as you lick it up.

“Never seen an Omega this slutty, Las. I could put my big cock in you in one thrust and it wouldn’t even hurt you. No prep. Is that what you want? Want me to fuck you nice and ruthless?” You ask. Your Omega nods against the blankets, drool pooling under his pretty little mouth as he moans for you. You stroke his cock gently, grip loose and lazy as you roll the flat of your tongue across his hole.

“Need it, Alpha!” Laszlo cries, and you chuckle, biting his asscheek.

“Need it, huh? Need my cock in your tight little Omega cunt? What’re you gonna do if I don’t give it to you?”

“I’ll die!” Laszlo insists dramatically, and you laugh as you get up onto your knees behind him, rubbing your thumb across his twitching, leaking cunt. The head of your cock sinks into Las so easily it’s like he’s sucking you in, and his heady moan is loud and pleading, drool pooling under his mouth. You take it slow despite being able to feel that you don’t need to - Laszlo is truly deep into his heat already, sleeping through his preheat just like you’d hoped. He’s wet enough that his slick squelches as you pull out then sink back in deeper, displaced by your cock and welling up around the rim of his perfect hole. You lean over his back, adjusting your hips to let yourself sink deeper, and Laszlo sobs as he feels your knot pressing against the rim of his cunt. 

“Please! Alpha, Alpha, please, knot me, I need it!” He begs, and you nuzzle against his neck as you pull out, then push back in nice and slow. Laszlo’s cunt clenches up around you, trying desperately to milk you as he comes for the first time of the day. You pet his hips, praising him for making a nice little mess of his nest, then pull out of him and thrust in again without giving him a chance to breathe. He sobs for more as you begin to fuck him in earnest, deep and a little rough, but nowhere near the fast sloppy thrusts of a rut-crazed Alpha. You’re mindful enough that you’re able to treat him right, dropping a hand between his legs to stroke him as you fuck deeper into him, your cockhead kissing his cervix.

“You want my pups, Omega?” You tease, and Laszlo moans wordlessly, his eyes rolling back in his head as he presses back on you in answer, “Ohh, good answer, sweetheart. I’m going to fuck a baby into you, make you round with my seed. I’ll keep you nice and knotted your whole heat so you have no choice, yeah? Is that what you want? Your Alpha to fuck her knot into you and keep you brainless on it until your heat passes?”

“Yes!” Laszlo cries, and you grin against the back of his neck as he comes again, covering your hand as much as the nest. He watches with half lidded eyes as you lift your fingers to your lips and lick them clean, and you giggle as his cock gives a weak throb in response. He’ll be hard again in a minute, but you don’t give him the chance to recover. Instead, you use your knees to spread his legs further, lifting his hips a little and setting a brutal pace. You want your Omega brainless on your knot, and you’re going to get it. You want to relish in the experience before your rut settles in and makes you wild.

“You feel so good, Las. So fucking good. Sweet little virgin Omega cunt so tight around me I don’t even know if I’ll get my knot in. You’re so wet. Such a good little breeder slut, slick dripping down your thighs, fucked out around my cock with every fucking thrust. S’getting creamy.”

Laszlo pushes back on you eagerly, and you groan as your knot slips past his rim, then back out, and the reaction is immediate. Your Omega cries out as he rocks back on you, and each time your knot slips inside, he sobs with relief. Each time it slips back out, he moans with frustration.

“Want my knot?”

“Yes!”

“Want me to bite your pretty little neck, make you mine?”

“Yes! Please, Alpha, stop teasing!”

“Gonna milk my cock with this perfect Omega cunt?”

“Alpha!” Laszlo’s cries grow more desperate, and you pull him back against you, pushing his head to the side so you can sink your teeth into his mating gland. He screams, and you push your knot into him one last time as you finally come together for the first time. A guttural groan rattles your chest as you lick his mating bond clean, your hands stroking down over his body to pull him closer. Your knot swells, locking you both together, and you use your strength to carefully move you both onto your sides so you can snuggle up against your mate while you fill him up. Laszlo moans quietly as you rub his belly, feeling the slight bulge as you pump him full of cum.

Soft snores fill the air as you relax into your nest, and you kiss Laszlo’s shoulder, proud to have put him to sleep on your knot. You know it won’t last long. You can already feel your rut setting in.

“Rest while you can, sweet thing. I’m going to make you a father, just like you asked me to.”

~

Your vision is hazy. Desperate, hungry, thirsty, love, need. It all burns through you as your rut sets in, and you hold Lazlo tighter to you as you fold him half, his knees nearly up to his ears. You’re knot-deep inside of him, fucking your own cum out of his sloppy hole as he cries out for more, more, always more. Your perfect little Omega. All yours.

“Mine.” You growl, and Laszlo sobs a loud ‘yours!’ in response as you fuck his rim with your knot. Over and over again, feeling it stretch around you, wanting you to lock with him again. You’ve filled him countless times already over the last couple of days, putting him to sleep on your knot as many times as you can to give him just a brief break. Bathed him, fed him, rubbed cream into his body and then did it all over again every single day for nearly a week. It isn’t a surprise. Being on suppressants this long is ill-advised. Normal heats and ruts only last a few days once they’re regular. Four at most.

“Alpha!” Laszlo cries, and you kiss his mating bond, forcing your knot into him and pinning him there, then wrapping your hand around his cock and stroking it until he screams as he covers his belly in cum. His chest vibrates as you growl your release, your knot locking into his soft body for hopefully the last time this heat cycle.

“Fuck, you’re so sweet.” You murmur, and Laszlo pants for breath, nuzzling his cheek against yours. 

“Love you.” He whispers, and you kiss him softly, and briefly since he’s already struggling to breathe.

“Love you too, Las.”

~

Laszlo Kreizler walks into the Institute three months later, hand cupping his rounded belly, while you fuss over his every step. He looks unimpressed, mouth in a tight line as you growl at an orderly that drifts too close. Neither of you are going to be able to work much longer - Laszlo is growing quickly with his first pregnancy, and you’re an overprotective mother hen. You rarely let anyone near him aside from John, Sara, Cyrus, Stevie and the twins. You barely let him out of your sight, and you know he’s getting a little sick of it.

“Alpha.” Laszlo hums to get your attention, and you turn to him instantly, your arm tightening around him as you hang on his every word, “you’re making it hard to walk.”

“You don’t have to walk.” You retort, and Laszlo raises an eyebrow, “I can carry you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun!”

“No! We’re in public.” Laszlo snaps, and you pout, nuzzling his mating bond.

“We don’t have to be. They know you’re leaving soon - everyone is ready for it. We could go home. I could take care of you. Rub cream into your belly and do that thing you like.” You tease, only to get a smack to the arm.

“Preposterous. I can work longer than this.” Laszlo insists, and you sigh, pecking his temple.

“Whatever you say, Las.”

He makes it another week, and only because of his stubbornness.

Many months later, he gives birth to your first child, a baby girl with dark hair and honey eyes who cries her lungs out from the moment she takes her first breath until the moment she’s laid upon Laszlo’s chest. He holds her, and you hold him, nuzzling your nose into his sweaty neck as you tell him how much you love him. How perfect he is. How perfect she is.

“What will you name her?” You ask quietly against his ear, and he purrs, stroking his daughter’s tiny little hand.

“Adelaide.”

“Adelaide it is, then. Adelaide Kreizler.”

[mariacallous]

The headlines coming out of COP29—the recently concluded United Nations climate conference—focus on one key number: $300 billion. This is the annual amount of climate finance the governments of wealthy countries are responsible for generating for developing countries by 2035.

But to focus solely on whether the number is too big or too small misses what it means and why it matters. The agreement does not automatically produce any funds on its own, and no court can enforce it.

Wealthy countries will not provide most of the funds directly; the money will pass through entities like the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund, or even private companies. And the $300 billion number is not even the only climate finance goal to come out of COP29—the agreement also includes a target of $1.3 trillion per year in climate investment from all sources for developing countries by 2035.

As many have argued, the $300 billion goal is too small, and both it and the $1.3 trillion goal are riddled with ambiguities. But the agreement is also a rare force that places pressure on developed countries’ climate finance, and taking its targets seriously demands more transformative action than developed countries had been anticipating. Actually achieving the agreement—and more importantly, maintaining a safe shared climate—requires a set of actions that must unfold across the global economy. Setting the goals was just the beginning. What matters most is what happens next.

The $300 billion goal is structured similarly to the original climate finance goal agreed upon in Copenhagen in 2009, which said that developed countries would provide $100 billion per year by 2020. It is perhaps the greatest failing of the new climate finance agreement that it did not correct the key unanswered questions in the formulation of that goal: the distribution of responsibility among developed countries; the allocation of resources between developing countries; how and whether to distinguish between grants, subsidized loans, and market-rate loans; and the relationship between climate finance and development finance.

The ambiguities are so great that countries could not even agree if the original goal has been met. Developed countries say they met it in 2022, but earlier versions of the new climate finance agreement contained dueling language on the question. It proved so impossible to agree that the subject was simply dropped from the final draft.

Unfortunately, developed countries will presumably continue using the same, disputed method of counting climate finance as they did before. And as with the original goal, only a relatively small share of the $300 billion will come from grants from a developed country to a developing country. Bilateral climate finance—climate finance from one country to another—currently adds up to $41 billion.

Increases in this bilateral finance, which tends to place the greatest strain on national budgets, will likely only go a small way toward the $300 billion. It is not that developed countries do not have the means to provide more, but that domestic political realities stand in the way.

Contributions from major developing countries, which are not required to contribute toward the new goal but can do so voluntarily, may add some money. For example, from 2013-2022, China provided an average $4.5 billion per year in climate finance under the label of South-South cooperation.

Finance through multilateral climate funds like the Green Climate Fund will also increase. The new agreement called for a tripling of financing through these mechanisms, but they are starting from such a low baseline that even this would only form a few percentage points of the $300 billion.

This leaves two main sources for developed countries to meet the goal. The first is mobilizing private finance, which developed countries controversially count toward the total. But despite years of ambitious plans to mobilize private finance, it has demonstrated little success. In the most recent year with data, less than a fifth of developed countries’ climate finance came through mobilized private investment.

These realities mean that multilateral development banks (MDBs) like the World Bank are the most viable route to power the growth in climate finance needed to reach the $300 billion goal. They were already the fastest-growing source of climate finance under the $100 billion goal and became the single largest source in 2022.

These banks provide few grants, but they provide loans at cheaper interest rates than borrowing countries could access on the market. And they are cost-effective for donors: They can lend out several multiples of what governments put in. However, if MDBs are to provide finance on the necessary scale—and if they are to ensure new climate finance does not come at the expense of development priorities—they will need shareholding countries to contribute more.

In recent years, as developing countries were hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, high interest rates and debt levels, as well as mounting climate impacts, the idea of international financial architecture reform grew in prominence. The idea expands focus beyond individual aid programs or funding priorities to the broader rules and institutions that direct money around the globe—too often in ways unfavorable to developing countries.

While the new climate finance goal does not explicitly engage with these debates, its contents make its achievement dependent on international financial architecture reform. Expanding and improving MDBs has been a major priority of these efforts: During the recent G-20 summit, members approved a road map to achieve this.

The overall $1.3 trillion investment target in the new climate finance goal is rightly criticized as vague, but it is more closely tied to the needs of developing countries than the $300 billion goal—and meeting it would require more ambitious action. The implication is that private finance is expected to fill the gap between the $300 billion goal and the $1.3 trillion goal.

But private financial flows will not suddenly proliferate without government action, and given how low private finance mobilization rates are, it is implausible that $1.3 trillion in investment could be met without an increase in public finance well beyond the minimum necessary to meet the $300 billion goal. Even the International High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance, whose work was influential in shaping the $1.3 trillion target, projected that private finance would account for just around $500 billion of the $1.3 trillion total.

Reaching that target will also require addressing the financial constraints that prevent climate investment in developing countries. Many countries will need debt relief so that unsustainable debts do not crowd out climate investments. The International Monetary Fund will need to reorient itself to prioritize a green investment push. And international levies on undertaxed activities like shipping, aviation, and financial transactions could produce reliable revenue streams for climate finance.

The $1.3 trillion target also creates opportunities through the “Baku to Belém Roadmap to 1.3T”—a plan added to the agreement to address outstanding issues before next year’s COP30 in Belém, Brazil. It provides an opportunity to address the broader reforms needed in the international financial architecture, as well as to salvage priorities excluded from this year’s agreement, such as guaranteeing funding for particularly vulnerable countries and for adapting to climate change. With countries’ new climate action plans due in the coming months, it is crucial to give quick signals to developing countries that they will be backed by adequate finance.

The new climate finance agreement demands transformative action in the international economy. It is also eminently achievable. Even the broader $1.3 trillion target equates to about 1 percent of global gross domestic product. It is around half of global military spending. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will likely pull the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement—again—but Washington already provided relatively little climate finance.

Much depends on whether rich countries see this year’s new goal as the bargain at the heart of global climate cooperation or an unwanted obligation they should minimize, as many developing countries understandably perceive them to have done under the original goal. This dynamic is part of why the $100 billion struggled to advance the objective it was meant to address—the need for developing countries to manage climate impacts they did little to cause and to forgo the fossil fuel-heavy development model today’s developed countries used to get rich.

Since the signing of the Paris Agreement, a period in which global emissions should have fallen rapidly, global emissions have grown, with two-thirds of growth coming from developing countries other than China. If developing countries cannot reduce emissions, any emissions savings from initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States or the Green Deal in Europe could quickly be canceled out.

Wealthy governments will need to understand the centrality of climate finance to their global legitimacy, as well as the inescapably global nature of the climate crisis. And supportive domestic political constituencies must put organized pressure on them to follow through on the agreement.

Still, this climate finance agreement is not what decides whether humanity pays for climate change. Someone will pay. It could be—and often already is—farmers spending their savings to replace drought-ravaged crops and governments drowning in interest payments they incurred to help citizens drowning in floods.

It could be the governments of developed countries paying for the consequences of emissions and instability they could have helped avoid. But it doesn’t have to be. Working together to pay now is cheaper and fairer than paying the price later.

[lostyesterday]

Percentage of Star Trek Voyager Episodes Focused on Each Major Character

I’ve been thinking about which major characters Voyager spends the most time focusing on, and which characters are more often left in the background. I decided to collect data on this topic, and I made the following graph:

The percentage for each character on the graph represents an estimate of the percentage of the total number of Voyager episodes that are focused on that particular character. Double episodes were counted as singular episodes, bringing the total number of Voyager episodes counted for the graph to 160.

Episodes that I judged as focusing fairly equally on two major Voyager characters counted as half an episode for each of those two characters in my percentage calculation. I decided to do this because I felt it more accurately represented the overall proportion of time that Voyager allocates to each character than if I were to only count episodes that focused solely on one character. Episodes that focused equally on three or more major characters were not counted in the graph.

After tallying every episode that I judged as focusing primarily on either one or two major characters, 22% of Voyager’s episodes remained uncounted. These were generally episodes that focused on the crew as a whole, or on characters outside of the main cast.

Obviously, all of my decisions about which episodes to count for which characters are subjective. There are a lot of complicated questions to ask, such as, how does one draw a distinction between an episode focused on Janeway in particular versus an episode that focuses on the whole crew where Janeway takes the most significant role in the plot simply by virtue of being the Captain? Or how does one count episodes such as Someone to Watch Over Me or The Haunting of Deck Twelve where the major subjects of the story and the character whose perspective it is told through differ? I made my own determinations for each episode, but there is plenty of room for alternate interpretations, some of which might cause a significant shift in the allocation of episodes to each character.

I welcome any disagreement with or discussion about the methodology I used here. I also welcome analysis of what this data means – whether it reflects positively or negatively on Voyager as a show, how it fits with or contradicts popular perceptions, or anything else.

A full list of episodes that I counted for each character is below the cut.

Kathryn Janeway:

Parallax (with Torres – half points)

Time and Again (with Paris – half points)

The 37’s

Resistance

Alliances

Deadlock

Resolutions (with Chakotay – half points)

Sacred Ground

The Q and the Grey

Macrocosm

Coda

Scorpion (with Chakotay – half points)

Year of Hell

Concerning Flight

Prey (with Seven – half points)

The Omega Directive (with Seven – half points)

Hope and Fear (with Seven – half points)

Night

Counterpoint

11:59

Equinox (with Chakotay – half points)

Fair Haven

Good Sheppherd

The Void

Q2

Endgame

Seven of Nine:

The Gift (with Kes – half points)

The Raven

Prey (with Janeway – half points)

Retrospect (with EMH – half points)

The Omega Directive (with Janeway – half points)

One

Hope and Fear (with Janeway – half points)

Drone

Infinite Regress

Bliss

Dark Frontier

Think Tank

Someone to Watch Over Me (with EMH – half points)

Relativity

Survival Instinct

One Small Step

The Voyager Conspiracy

Tsunkatse (with Tuvok – half points)

Collective

Child’s Play

Unimatrix Zero

Imperfection

Body and Soul (with EMH – half points)

Human Error

Natural Law (with Chakotay – half points)

EMH/The Doctor:

Heroes and Demons

Projections

Lifesigns

The Swarm

Real Life

Revulsion (with Torres – half points)

Message in a Bottle

Retrospect (with Seven – half points)

Living Witness

Nothing Human

Latent Image

Someone to Watch Over Me (with Seven – half points)

Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy

Virtuoso

Life Line

Critical Care

Body and Soul (with Seven – half points)

Flesh and Blood

Author, Author

Renaissance Man

B’Elanna Torres

Parallax (with Janeway – half points)

Faces

Prototype

Dreadnought

Remember

Blood Fever

Day of Honor

Revulsion (with EMH – half points)

Random Thoughts (with Tuvok – half points)

Extreme Risk

Juggernaut

Barge of the Dead

Muse

Drive (with Paris – half points)

Lineage

Chakotay:

Initiations

Tattoo

Maneuvers

Resolutions (with Janeway – half points)

Unity

Scorpion (with Janeway – half points)

Nemesis

Waking Moments

Unforgettable

In the Flesh

The Fight

Equinox (with Janeway – half points)

Shattered

Natural Law (with Seven – half points)

Tuvok:

Ex Post Facto (with Paris – half points)

Learning Curve

Meld

Innocence

Flashback

Alter Ego (with Kim – half points)

Rise (with Neelix – half points)

Random Thoughts (with Torres – half points)

Gravity

Riddles (with Neelix – half points)

Tsunkatse (with Seven – half points)

Repression

Harry Kim:

Emanations

Non Sequitur

The Chute (with Paris – half points)

Alter Ego (with Tuvok – half points)

Favorite Son

Timeless

The Disease

Warhead

Ashes to Ashes

Nightingale

Neelix:

Jetrel

Parturition (with Paris – half points)

Investigations (with Paris – half points)

Fair Trade

Rise (with Tuvok – half points)

Mortal Coil

Once Upon a Time

Riddles (with Tuvok – half points)

The Haunting of Deck Twelve

Homestead

Tom Paris:

Time and Again (with Janeway – half points)

Ex Post Facto (with Tuvok – half points)

Parturition (with Neelix – half points)

Threshold

Investigations (with Neelix – half points)

The Chute (with Kim – half points)

Vis a Vis

Thirty Days

Alice

Drive (with Torres – half points)

Kes:

Elogium

Cold Fire

Warlord

Darkling

Before and After

The Gift (with Seven – half points)

Fury

[bitchy-peachy]

Tw: fucking profanity.

I swear I'm so tired of shitassed racist people on tiktok using this poor girl for their agenda bs. Her own family have told these assholes to fuck off using her this way.

Also love how she "cares" so much, she misspelled her name.

Her name was Laken Riley.

Her full name was Laken Hope Riley.

She was 22 and a nursing student before a degenerate male did... Well you know. (I hate this world sm. May she forever be in peace)

While my reply might mention white men as stats of higher crimes of this nature (sorry, guys. Its true) the truth is that crimes of these nature aren't about race at all, but about some men being pieces of shit that enjoy hurting others.

This isn't even political. It's a rot we have to deal with every day that can affect everyone, regardless of age, gender, race etc. Humans can be both a wonderful and terrible creation.

Conservatives wanna make her death an anti immigration point as if all immigrants are doing this daily.

Its a man thing, stupid assholes.

And it turns out that our biggest racial majority in the US are white people therefore most of the ones committing crimes against women will be white men due to population percentages.

Immigrants are such a small percentage and even a smaller percentage is committing crimes.

Conservatives love using the fear tactic of exaggerating issues of this nature by pretending it's a massive spread-about problem.

Republican politicians also have a history of grabbing on to any minority to fear-monger people into voting for them to "protect" them from this perceived threat.

I wish they'd leave this girl and her family alone. Cos her family is suffering.

I've lost relatives in terrible circumstances and the pain never goes away, so I imagine them finding people using her to be a racist pieces of shit (and also using her as an excuse to vote for Trump. Yes I've seen shit like this! People are so disgusting) is only hurting them more.

I kept quiet on it until now not outta apathy, but outta personal experience with grief.

Leave Laken Hope Riley alone and stop using her in your internet activism crap to attack everyone that isn't in your Trump cult.

You people look like soulless assholes.

Also if you're a man and are offended by me you might want to self reflect on why my comments upset you... Because I've talked to men that are just as angry as I am and they admit there's a serious issue that other men aren't taking as seriously as they'd wish.

The only men that would be upset are men that see themselves in these criminals.

[gwydionmisha]

Personal: This Physio Pamphlet aka I am so sick of Ableist blame the victim shit.

In home physio re-started Monday and I've been exhausted ever since. The theory makes sense and so do the exercises, but I have to do them all the time I'm up, basically in small portions, on top of me still trying to do bare minimum regular physio, which also wears me up. I had to flat out give up on a lot of the exercises since Covid last September. I can't come close do doing them all and perform basic tasks like feeding myself and beasts and deal with the endless laundry the Emperor now generates.

The physio is good. At the same time, a bunch of the things that she said last time are clearly for people who are not me. And there's this booklet I promised to read and return. I finally finished it Thursday. It wasn't long, but it was endless experientially.

I get it. Most Americans did not have a descent science education because Republican school reforms always attack science and social studies for obvious reasons. I did have one and spend a lot of time with new medical any specialist trying to prove they can stop dumbing things way down for me. No, I don't have specialist training, but I actually do have descent general knowledge. It goes much faster if they bump me up to educated layman, if you see what I mean. So explanations of anything directly from her are slow, but this book is molasses, which is really what they need if they are giving it to people who may know little to nothing about how bodies work.

This I could tolerate.

I actually applaud the large type and the explanation of how to do housework with a disability. I had to work that out myself decades ago, but a lot of people don't understand the short form of the advise when they hear it, so I usually do a long explanation with concrete examples, which is a useful thing to hand people with new disabilities.

The problem is that there is a lot of stuff that assumes average neurotypical brain and a person who has had trouble recovering from one or even a few injuries or surgeries.

It assumes I'm not naturally day-night flipped on sleep cycles. (Supposedly this is a disorder, but it sure looks like useful alternative brain design to have some percentage of the population alert at night against predators or later fire or invasion or later still third shift jobs like emergency response. It's a problem because society isn't structured for nocturnal types and is judgey about it, not because somethings inherently wrong).

It assumes I have a strong fear response. Which I don't. (I suspect Toxoplasmosis contracted as a child from our cats. I remember still being able to feel fear properly when I was small. Then at some point I stopped. I can startle; I can worry; I don't fear. I have learned to use reason to assess risk because otherwise I'd do really dangerous stuff). I am legitimately struggling to figure out how to translate the fear stuff into anything I can use.

There is no fucking way I'm kicking my cats out of my bedroom, and doing that would not improve my sleep. Less pain improves my sleep. The cats are not the problem.

They didn't seem to understand functional limits caused by disabilities at all. The Author seemed to assume everyone can get better and resume normal activities from before, which is bullshit.

They waited until the end to trot out the inevitable ableist shit, the assumption that everything can be solved by willpower and taking rehabilitation slowly enough. The physio herself has carefully not crossed this line, and I've been watching her warily because she skates close to it on occasion.

I read the thing anyway. I gave my word. It was like shifting through shit to find specks of gold and finding hardly any.

I hate this fucking book.

I'm doing the exercises she gave me anyway, because the exercises are clearly correct.

Reading that last section though, I kept thinking of a paraplegic guy I used to know whose relatives took him to a faith healer a couple years after the motorcycle accident. They made him transfer out of the chair and sit at the end of a middle row. There were people in wheelchairs down front who were "healed." That they were plants was obvious to my friend. Otherwise, why wasn't he down front too? Why else take his chair away and hide his disability.

It did not work, of course, and the people who took him their blamed him. He'd be healed if he just believed harder. I had the same thing happen to a friend on the spectrum when she was a teen, which is offensive on so many levels.

It's gross when the right wing fundamentalist do it; it's gross here when it's packaged as left wing holistic power of positive thinking crap.

Yes, some people get better. Maybe the injuries are temporary. Maybe new and improved treatments alleviate or heal things.

I want people to get better. I'm happy for people who get better.

There are two general types of problems going on in my body: the big permanent damage ones, and the things that can be mitigated. I do think a more whole body approach to physio will help me recover from all the damage hospital fatphobic PT did and help me recover from a shoulder replacement. I don't think thinking about pain in a new way will remove two degenerative genetic diseases and the actual physical damage they do over time. I don't see how dealing with fear I don't have will grow back cartilage or until damage to the bones of my spine or the bone around my joints.

[communist-ojou-sama]

Okay so I'm gonna go ahead and put a disclaimer up top that these are the ramblings of a dilettante that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but I think that people (understandably) frustrated with with the ICJ ruling and convinced it will have no material consequences should consider some things before they say that.

The first thing I want to remind everyone is that the west is far from invincible. Their rule is not iron-clad and their ability to enforce their will on the world is far from complete and is waning apace.

I think a lot about how in the process of the transition to late capitalism (as I personally define it), one consequence of the mass financialization of the economy is the pricing-out of most common consumer commodity-based manufacturing enterprise in favor of transactions that are most elastic in price, and how the result of that is a mass outflow of raw productive capacity from the imperial core to the global periphery.

If I can frame that in another way, and forgive me in framing this in very neutral terms, but it turns these countries from production-rich countries to production-poor countries with economies defined by the phenomenon of asset-price inflation.

The resulting global situation is that, similar to the assertion that Africa for example is rich because it's where the natural resources that facilitate the global economy are located, Mexico is rich. Vietnam is rich. Bangladesh is rich. These countries are awash in raw capacity to create goods that have a use value. What is the one thing that keeps them relatively cash-poor?

That is, the law. There's a bit of poetry in the idea that just as how within imperial core economies the most important economic instruments are legal contracts to either some percentage of a company's equity or its debt, what sustains its (nominal) riches over the global periphery is a legal regime of ownership that entitles them to the rights to all of the profits going on in these incredibly production-rich countries in the Global South.

It is absolutely correct to say that at the highest level, these legal regimes are enforced at the barrel of the gun, we've seen how too much refusal to to honor these laws by heads of state can lead to mass disinvestment and eventually coups d'état, and even now it would not be a good idea to say, seize the productive assets of a bunch of US firms.

However, and this is where the ICJ comes back in to my point, let's not think about the US. Let's think about, for example, the Netherlands or Belgium. These countries maintain fantastic financial wealth via contracts of ownership with countries in the global south but they are also small and geopolitically unimportant, with little in the way of individual military power.

For little countries like these, genuinely the Only thing that secures their ability to act as a parasite on the global productive economy is the strength of legitimacy that international law affords them, and the position of overwhelming power the west Once had, decades ago.

But the power and prestige of the West continues, as I said, to wane apace. it's too early to happen now but these less militaristic countries are aware of how exposed their assets are to simple seizure if over time international law comes to be seen as a joke.

As awful and condamnable as the current global system is, it is not total dictatorship. It is only able to perpetuate itself because the overwhelming majority of countries that are parties to it have buy in and because, albeit much more slowly than they could have under socialism, they have been able to make dents in their own poverty with it.

The exposure of the international law framework as having absolutely no legitimacy, as being a naked tool of domination of rich countries over poor countries has knock-on effects that stand to be incredibly dangerous to less militarily capable countries that rely on them for their economic structures. On a long-term scale, especially as these countries become richer and more geopolitically influential in their own right, they may well begin to pose the question: why Shouldn't I seize these french factories in my country? Why Shouldn't I seize this Belgian-owned diamond mine? Why Should I pay back this IMF loan, if the ICJ framework can't even compel the Zionist Enemy to end a genocide? And I promise you, this is a reality of which at least some people in those countries are highly cognizant and wary, so I'd wait and see a bit before being Too pessimistic.

[velvetvexations]

lmao though like I sent that anon about how you are out of touch with other transfems for you to call me emily programmersocks and tell me I'm privileged and affluent as if you know even a single thing about me. I literally have been assaulted for being a trans woman and I also think you are heinous to other trans women. consistently. Seriously like that response is so defensive it really confirms my point more than anything I could have ever said.

Every hate crime is a sin and I hate that it happened to you because no one deserves that. Nonetheless, it does not change my opinion that most trans women I'm "heinous" to are a very small percentage of trans women overall that're relatively insulated from the worst of transphobia, based on how out of wack their priorities are. A trans woman who wakes up every morning and bitches exclusively about how evil trans men are is not someone who comes off as having greater worries.

At best, they're incompetent activists who don't know what they're talking about. At worst, they're deliberately malicious grifters with morals no better than the transphobic media whose tactics they imitate on a pathetically smaller scale, while portraying themselves as leading a transfeminist revolution when all they really are is bullies who find contentment in being big fish in a small pond. I am no more "heinous" to them than the ideal allied cis woman is to TERFs.

Furthermore, I'm hardly "heinous" to only trans women when most TRFs are self-identified to TMEs anyway. You may call thata deflection to hide attacking trans women all you like, but it's the truth, and believe me, I feel the same way about them being relatively privileged, although many are also just trying to be good allies. If that sounds like I'm being more forgiving to the TMEs, I think it's extremely skin-crawlingly creepy that at least some seem to get gender euphoria from imagining themselves privileged men who are so totally capable of flexing patriarchal power over women if they wanted to, and I've been told by multiple that they believe this specifically because they were huge transmisogynists themselves, which is a fucking hilarious own goal.

This doesn't even just apply to trans issues. A painfully high percentage of TRFs are also tankies, and I don't think any tankie who told people to not vote are likely to have the next four years effect them in any way nearly as badly as it will others. All I want is for people to care about others.

To put it simply anon, if I were a transmisogynist who hated other trans women the entirety of this response would be the sentence "that sounds like misdirected transandrophobia, are you sure they didn't just mistake you for a trans man?" like it almost was until I decided that it would be too callous to dismiss your experience even sarcastically and that it merited taking seriously.

[csykora]

Random general question, but what is something about sports medicine--anything relevant to that topic--you wish more sports fans understood?

This was extremely fun to think about! There are a lot of things I'd like people to know about just because I think it's neat, but a rough list of the things I really wish people were taught:

Yes, there's sugar in Gatorade and other sports drinks. That's the point, that's why it was created that way. When your body is doing work, your body needs fuel. A huge percentage of athletes show up to their sports activities under-hydrated and by the end are clinically dehydrated. If you like how your drink tastes, you're more likely to drink more of it. That's the priority. While plenty of people need to manage their personal glucose intake at various times for various reasons (most of those times won't be while they're working out, when they're burning energy and are at risk of their blood sugar dropping), if you have not been told that you need to manage your blood sugar, you do not need to manage your blood sugar. Sugar-free electrolyte drinks are not "healthier": I actually wouldn't say that any one thing is "healthier" for everyone, because different people's nutritional, metabolic, physical, etc needs are completely different.

It has been suggested that blood sugar spikes may effect certain areas of athletic performance, but it's not thoroughly established that this does happen, for who, or which areas of physical performance are affected, or whether there are other areas of performance that it may have a positive effect on, and there are plenty of other things that also affect performance. (Also, despite the standardized glycemic index being used to estimate how different foods affect blood sugar, this actually varies because different people process foods differently, and even the same person might process foods differently in different situations).

This one is something I wish many current hockey coaches understood.

On that--different areas of physical performance are different. Explosive strength or speed vs. enduring strength or speed require different types of muscle fiber, different metabolisms, the works. Other qualities like speed and precision can have a reciprocal relationship. Different kinds of muscle development work well for different tasks. One area of performance can actually impair other areas of performance: there is no one universal athletic build or training regimen that will result in an athlete doing well in all areas.

This is also something I wish current hockey management understood, because I'd really love to see more physical diversity of athletes in more specialized roles. I'm actually fine with it or even excited when a player isn't an "all around guy"!

It is extremely difficult to measure the physical factors in human performance without the social factors (and we should probably try less to). When you measure "men" against "women", you are not just comparing genders, you are also comparing two groups of people who have had different access to physical activity and athletic training, been encouraged to be active in different ways, etc.

Also, in pretty much every area of the athletic performance, the spectrum of "male performance" and the spectrum of "female performance" overlaps, with the significant majority of people living in the normal area for both.

(Including, for the record, the amount of testosterone in your body. Which has no clear single impact on performance.)

Athletic ability is not the same as health. And neither of them have much of anything to do with how much body fat you have. The extreme of human performance is not "ideal" human performance: we made sports up, and in many cases they require us to move in ways that are very different from the movements we evolved doing.

(Also, I don't think health should be idealized either)

Traumatic brain injuries don't just happen when you're hit on the head. That might be a relatively small fraction of the times that they happen! What matters is the internal forces acting on your brain and spinal cord. Sudden changes in speed or direction like falls and certain collisions can and will do the job. So while penalizing sports plays that involve hits to the head is a good idea, I think fans shouldn't let that appease us as the only change that pro sports make to prevent TBI and CTE.

TBIs are also not "the most dangerous" of sports injuries. I'm not sure if there is an objectively most dangerous one, honestly, outside of things that cause instant death. TBIs can have profoundly difficult and serious impacts on people, and so do many other injuries that affect the way someone moves, feels, their pain, or how they see themselves. We shouldn't let pro sports appease us when they focus on CTE and avoid addressing other injuries, either: they absolutely will use the attention on CTE as cover.

[script-a-world]

Submitted via Google Form:

Would it make any sense that humanoid looking aliens to be herbivores but still be the dominant species?

Tex: What is your personal definition of humanoid? How much of it depends on physiology similar to humans? Why is it important for you, plotwise or otherwise, to have herbivores as dominant species? How would an herbivore be a dominant species, when trophic levels rely upon carnivores, omnivores, and detritivores? A lot of these questions are interconnected, as something like bipedalism isn’t the sole cornerstone of what makes a human human-shaped (nor is opposable thumbs, speech, or other aspects).

Wootzel: It’s probably a bit less likely than having omnivorous sophonts, but wouldn’t seem implausible.

When designing a plausible intelligent species, you’ll want to think about what evolutionary pressures made such a high degree of intelligence successful. Big, hard-working brains are REALLY expensive, energy-wise. The main reason why a species will need to develop high levels of intelligence is to take advantage of a variety of food sources in a complex environment. Think of parrots and corvids--they’re not sapient, but they are very intelligent, and both have varied diets. They both take advantage of food sources that are high in protein and energy.

So, if your sapient species are herbivorous, they’ll need to have a diet of mainly high-energy food that takes brains to acquire. This will probably mean whatever their planet’s equivalent of fruits and nuts is.

Most herbivores on Earth can digest animal proteins in some form, and often will take advantage of carrion and/or opportunities to eat small animals or insects, even if they don’t hunt. It’s possible that your aliens wouldn’t, but you might want to think of some reason for them to avoid it--maybe there’s something toxic to them in most animal species? Maybe they’re evolved to eat toxins in plants to the point of relying on them, and can’t function well without specific nutrients as a result?

An herbivorous diet tends to require a longer digestive tract, so your humanoid aliens are likely to look somewhat pot-bellied by human standards, or just be built thicker in the torso to make room for more guts! This is less dramatic with a fruit/seed sort of diet, but it’s still likely to be an attribute.

Addy: Intelligent herbivores do exist - just look at gorillas! They may eat insects or snails occasionally, but most of their diet is straight plant material. Chimpanzees also mostly eat plants - they might snack on other animals when they get the chance, but that’s a very, very small portion of their diet. An extinct human relative, paranthropus robustus, was also predominantly a plant eater (https://www.ucl.ac.uk/human-evolution/news/2022/may/palaeoanthropologists-discuss-diet-paranthropus), and had a brain roughly the size of a chimpanzee’s brain. Nothing specific there, mostly pointing out another calibration point from hominid history.

So if it’s a matter of straight intelligence, then it’s certainly possible. Some of our closest living relatives eat mostly plants, after all. Parrots, too, are intelligent and incredibly social creatures that… mostly eat fruit. As Wootzel said, large brains are very energy-intensive, but that doesn’t make them impossible. Human brains take up around 19-24% of our energy expenditure, while a chimpanzee brain takes up around 9-13% of their energy expenditure (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11019715/). So roughly double, by percentages. With a fruit-based diet, I’d say that it’s doable. We also have brains that are around 3x the size of a chimpanzee or gorilla brain (1400cc vs ~400-500cc)

The big thing, I think, would be the development of adductors and gluteal muscles. To put it frankly, the human butt is quite unusual amongst primates. It’s crucial in allowing us to walk upright, keeping our torso stable and steady while our hips rotate while walking. Watch a video of a chimp walking - they kind of waddle, no?

Humans are persistence predators. We are optimized for walking long distances with little rest (lack of fur, sweat, achilles tendon, etc). That’s the hunter part of hunter-gatherer. If you’ve got a group that’s mostly just gathering, then they likely won’t have that evolutionary pressure. You can have them walk upright anyways (nature has done stranger things), but a bit of a waddle could be an interesting touch.

[tirsynni]

As someone who was raised in a military family, whose family is from a military-esque town, Veteran's Day always makes me twitch a bit, not just because of the holiday but because of people's responses to it.

My dad's family came from a poor, small town. A high percentage -- especially from my dad's generation -- joined the military because they were poor, the military offered them money, and they thought it was their best choice. One relative joined because he knew it was that or being drafted. At least voluntarily joining gave him choices. Later, people from my generation joined the military for the same exact reason: they were poor, their prospects were few, and the military recruiters were happily knocking at their door, offering them options they didn't otherwise have.

"They willingly joined the military and they willingly bombed/shot innocent people!" I promise you, that never occurred to many of them. They were young. They were in survival mode. They looked at their future and saw very little. Then this military guy knocks on their door and offers them poisoned hope. They usually know it's poisoned, but it gives them some sort of hope for a future, especially when the opportunity for education is tossed in the bucket. Many people only obtained a college degree because of the military.

My mother was a military spouse. She couldn't keep a job. My dad's job was more important. If she got a job, she would lose it when we had to move to a different state. Same for education, fyi. This was before online schools.

My mother had very few friends. All of them were also military spouses. It honestly formed an unhealthy circle after a point. Most adults form friends through their work. Obviously, not an option. Physical activities? Again, probably going to get dropped in the next move. Few opportunities to make friends and fewer opportunities to keep them.

Every couple years, we moved. The military provided housing, but that meant they chose the house. The location. The school district. Our education, friendships, everything were guaranteed to be messed up every several years. I started speech therapy in one state and had to stop it in the next move. I still have problems with my speech. There was no consistency. We were told that it was our problem.

My dad was deployed once overseas. We were left in the States. When he returned, he was absolutely traumatized because he said that I looked at him and didn't recognize him. There was no Zoom or anything then. He swore that he would never accept another deployment. At his 18-year mark, he was given the choice: deploy again or accept an early retirement. He took the early retirement.

There was no aid afterwards. After 18 years in the military, with us kids being born and raised in the military and on military bases, we now had to figure out civilian life. Years later, we're still figuring out the extent of how much that messed us up. Hint: it was a lot.

I'm anti-military, pro-veteran, because the military loves targeting the poor, the young, and the vulnerable, going after specific communities, and then leaving their people to hang after they drained them of everything they could. Yeah, some people are asshats who joyously cuddle their guns and dream of glory and shooting people, but many -- most -- are vulnerable people who were targeted when they were 17 or so, who had few hopes for their future, who weren't old enough to drink but were told they were old enough to die for their country... and hey, if they fulfilled their contracts, Uncle Sam would even give them a degree for it! Isn't that nice!

[brehaaorgana]

What if I just become an annoying ADHD money blogger sometimes

#adhd adult money liveblogging

If you have problems saving money (especially emergency savings money) because you always spend it on too many impulse purchases, or take money out of your savings to cover your fun money:

you need to open a savings account with a new bank. The more impulsive you are, the more I recommend a small credit union or online only bank, or a really local bank. Someone whose online fund transfers to other banks takes three whole business days, so you literally can't just instant transfer money from savings to your checking account to spur of the moment buy things. If you're afraid this defeats the point of an emergency savings fund in the case of, well, an emergency, set up a small checking account with a minimal amount at this bank too, and just set aside the debit card somewhere you won't frequently use because it won't have much money until you pull it from emergency savings and put it in the checking account.

Look for one with a high APY relative to having basically no deposit minimum (mine is like 3%) and no minimum deposit or monthly fees. The APY is basically when bank sometimes pays you money for not spending money. It will be like, cents at first. Change in the sofa cushions. But over time, it will be more. Don't worry about it. It's just surprise money for later. Not a lot, mind you. But you're a competitive winner and every cent they give you FREE is a success to zap your brain with dopamine. (Eventually if you have enough money you can do this by like, investing in shit or buying CDs and they just give you MORE MONEY. BUT!!! BABY STEPS.)

This is crucial: if you have some kind of direct deposit paycheck set up, see if you can SPLIT the direct deposit between multiple accounts. The company my job uses to pay people allows us to choose between depositing a fixed dollar amount to certain accounts (with "remainder of paycheck balance" being automatic for one account), OR depositing a percentage of my paycheck to certain accounts. (Percents of a paycheck tend to be higher to start). If you don't get paid this way, figure out a good date to set a recurring transfer from your checking to your savings for an amount so it won't sit in your spendy account long. The goal is to pretend like you just actually never had the savings money in that paycheck. Poof. Gone. Disappeared. It got saved before you became aware of the money.

Feel free to start with a small amount. It can be $5 or whatever. Once you start doing this for a few paychecks look at your money. If you're not genuinely struggling to stay afloat after 2-3 months and are still comfortable, try increasing the number a little. Repeat as needed.

Now you've saved money. 🎉

This is genuinely how I managed to save money more consistently than anything else I've ever tried. Savings money goes in the secret money account. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Incredibly silly but it works.

[ahmedperfumes]

The Allure of Concentrated Perfume: A Journey into Luxurious Fragrances

Perfume has long been a symbol of elegance and personal expression. Among the various forms of fragrance, concentrated perfume holds a special place for its unparalleled intensity and longevity. Unlike its diluted counterparts, concentrated perfume offers a rich aromatic experience, making it a favorite for those who appreciate sophistication and depth in their scents.

Concentrated perfumes are distinct due to their formulation. These fragrances do not rely on alcohol as a base, unlike many mainstream options, which means the scent is not only more potent but also gentler on the skin. This makes concentrated perfumes ideal for individuals who seek a luxurious yet practical fragrance solution.

What is Concentrated Perfume?

Concentrated perfume, often referred to as perfume oil, is the purest form of fragrance. It is created with a higher percentage of aromatic compounds, free from the added alcohol found in other perfumes. This makes the scent more potent, ensuring a long-lasting effect on the skin.

Unlike typical sprays, concentrated perfumes are applied sparingly, often to pulse points like the wrists, behind the ears, or the neck. This small application is enough to envelop the wearer in an aura of luxurious fragrance for hours. The absence of alcohol not only enhances the scent’s intensity but also ensures that it maintains its authentic aroma over time, allowing the natural ingredients to shine through.

The Connection with Eau de Parfum

Eau de parfum is a term commonly associated with fragrances that have a relatively high concentration of perfume oils, usually between 15% to 20%. However, concentrated perfume surpasses even eau de parfum in terms of intensity and purity. The key difference lies in the absence of alcohol in concentrated perfumes, which allows the scent to remain unadulterated and direct.

Eau de parfum, while rich and long-lasting, can sometimes lose its depth due to the evaporation of alcohol during application. Concentrated perfume, on the other hand, retains every nuance of its fragrance, ensuring an immersive olfactory experience. It is a choice for those who seek not just a fragrance but a statement that reflects their personal style and refined taste.

The Beauty of Oud & Roses

The combination of oud & roses is a timeless blend in perfumery. Oud, often called "liquid gold," is derived from the resinous heartwood of the agarwood tree. Its earthy, woody aroma pairs beautifully with the soft, romantic scent of roses. Together, they create a bold and delicate fragrance profile, offering a balance of strength and elegance.

The smoky and resinous notes of oud are deeply grounding, while the sweetness and floral nature of roses provide a touch of lightness and sophistication. This blend is not only harmonious but also versatile, making it suitable for both formal occasions and intimate gatherings. A well-crafted oud and rose combination can transport you to a world of luxury and allure, enveloping you in a fragrance that speaks of timeless beauty and cultural heritage.

The Charm of Oriental Perfume

The term oriental perfume refers to fragrances inspired by the rich traditions of the Middle East and Asia. These perfumes often feature warm, exotic notes such as spices, amber, musk, and oud. Concentrated perfumes in the oriental category are particularly captivating due to their depth and complexity, offering an experience that is as mysterious as it is enchanting.

Oriental perfumes are celebrated for their ability to evoke a sense of warmth and sensuality. Their rich, layered compositions make them stand out from other fragrance categories, creating an aura of sophistication and mystique. When applied, these perfumes develop beautifully on the skin, revealing their intricate layers over time. This makes them ideal for evening wear or special occasions, leaving a lasting impression that resonates with those around you.

Why Choose the Best Oud Attar?

An oud attar is a pure perfume oil made from oud, known for its luxurious and enduring scent. The best oud attar offers a refined aroma that is both powerful and elegant. These attars are crafted with precision, capturing the essence of oud in its most natural form.

Oud attars are cherished for their versatility and timeless appeal. They can be worn alone to enjoy their robust woody notes or layered with other fragrances to create a bespoke scent. The absence of alcohol in these attars ensures that they are skin-friendly and retain their fragrance for an extended period. This makes them an excellent choice for those who prioritize quality and authenticity in their perfumes.

How to Use Concentrated Perfume

Using concentrated perfume requires a delicate approach:

Choose the Right Application Points: Apply the perfume to pulse points like the wrists, neck, or behind the ears. These areas generate heat, helping to diffuse the scent naturally.

Use Sparingly: A single drop or dab is often sufficient due to the high concentration of fragrance oils. Overapplication can overwhelm the senses, so it’s best to start with a minimal amount.

Layer Fragrances: To create a unique scent profile, you can layer a concentrated perfume with complementary scents like an eau de parfum or a body lotion. This allows for a more personalized fragrance experience.

Benefits of Concentrated Perfume

Longevity: Concentrated perfumes last longer on the skin, making them a cost-effective choice. Their intense formula ensures that the scent remains prominent throughout the day without the need for frequent reapplication.

Richness: The absence of alcohol ensures a pure and unaltered fragrance experience. Each note is allowed to shine, creating a more nuanced and captivating scent.

Versatility: With just a few drops, you can achieve a fragrance that adapts to your body chemistry, creating a personalized scent. Concentrated perfumes are suitable for various occasions, whether it’s a casual outing or a formal event.

Choosing the Right Scent

When selecting a concentrated perfume, consider the following:

Season: Light floral or citrus notes are ideal for summer, while warm oriental or oud-based scents are perfect for winter.

Occasion: Subtle fragrances work well for daytime, while intense scents like oriental perfume are better suited for evening events.

Personal Preference: If you enjoy floral and woody combinations, the blend of oud & roses is a must-try.

Conclusion

Concentrated perfume is more than just a fragrance; it is an art form that embodies luxury and elegance. Whether you’re drawn to the intensity of eau de parfum, the timeless allure of oud & roses, the exotic charm of oriental perfume, or the unmatched richness of the best oud attar, there is a world of olfactory experiences waiting to be explored.

By choosing concentrated perfumes, you not only embrace a timeless tradition but also elevate your personal fragrance game to a whole new level. These perfumes are a testament to the beauty of natural ingredients and the skill of master perfumers, offering a sensory journey that lingers in memory long after the scent has faded.