#Intertwined chapter

[animeboye]

Mid Dragon's World Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Another Half-Dragon?

And so once again, I was starting at another new school. My new school was going to be closer to home, its name: Elwood Elementary. This school wasn’t as big as my old one, only one story. It was a long tan building with the playground and a large open field right in front. Just like at my old school, the playground was to the school’s left with the field to its right.

As I took my first steps into my new school, I thought about Jericho and Cassie and wondered how they were doing. Were they thinking about me? And what was my old class doing? I wished I was still there.

But maybe things wouldn’t be so bad here I told myself. After all, just because I was friends with Jericho and Cassie that didn’t mean that I couldn’t make friends with the kids at this school. And I remembered that that Drake kid was going to this school as well. If I saw him around school, maybe the two of us could be friends.

I followed dad into school. There, we met with the principal who introduced himself as Principal Smith. He welcomed me to the school and just like with Principal Beckman, dad told Principal Smith about what happened at my old schools and asked if he could keep it between them. Thankfully Principal Smith agreed. After that, he gave me my locker number and combination and led me to my locker. I put my stuff away, taking out only what I’d need for class. Once I was ready, the principal showed me to my new classroom. As we walked there, I thought about that half-dragon boy from the other day. What were the chances that I’d be going to school with someone who’s the same species as me? If he was also a half-dragon, then that meant one of his parents was a dragon. I wondered to myself…just who was Drake really?

“Alright, here we are. Your new classroom. Room 303. Your teacher is Ms. Thermacker.” The principal explained.

“You’re gonna like her.” Principal Smith smiled. “She’s really nice but she can be pretty strict.”

“That’s good.” I smiled back. I was hoping I’d get a nice teacher again. Not like my old teacher, Mr. Falkson.

From inside the classroom, I could hear my new teacher tell the class that a new student would be joining them. They sounded pretty excited. This was my chance to make some new friends. I put on my biggest smile and walked into the classroom. I studied the kids I was going to be in class with. I was surprised when I saw that Drake and his friend were also going to be in the same class as me but I tried not to think too much about that for the moment.

“Please introduce yourself to the class.” Ms. Thermacker told me.

I moved my hair out of my eyes and looked at everyone. Still smiling, I introduced myself to my new classmates.

“My name is Jake. It’s nice to meet everyone.” I said, trying to sound as friendly as I could be.

After introducing myself, my new class talked about me amongst each other. I looked over at Drake and saw him talking with his friend. I couldn’t hear them over the other kids but I assumed that they were talking about me, like the rest of our classmates were.

“Jake, you may take your seat now.” Ms. Thermacker said.

I sat down in the only available seat which was right behind Drake’s. As I sat my stuff on my desk, Drake turned around and introduced himself to me. He looked really happy to have a new student in his class. I thought this might work out after all.

“Hi! My name’s Drake!” Drake said excitedly.

“H-hi, Drake.” I said a little bit nervously.

“Drake! Are you paying attention?!” Ms. Thermacker scolded him.

“Yes, Ms. Thermacker.” Drake answered.

“Well turn around and stop bothering Jake.”

After the next three classes, it was time for lunch. I sat at a table by myself, eating my lunch. I watched Drake who was sitting at the table across from mine. He was eating lunch with his friend and a girl. Must have been another one of his friends. I thought about going over there and joining them but for some reason, I felt nervous about doing it. Was it because Drake was a fellow half-dragon? If that was it, then shouldn’t I have been more excited to talk to him?

While I continued to eat my food, I kept trying to get up the courage to approach him. Eventually, Drake and his friends finished their lunch and headed outside. I finished my lunch as quickly as I could and followed them. When I got outside, I saw the three of them running towards the jungle gym so I ran towards the playground too.

They climbed up to the slide and the girl sat down, getting ready to slide to the bottom. I figured this was my chance to talk to them and try to become their friend. I took a deep breath and approached them just as the girl was about to go down the slide.

“Hey guys.” I said, trying not to sound nervous.

“Hey Jake!” Drake smiled. “So what do you think of the school?”

“It’s…it’s okay…” I said, my nervousness becoming more obvious.

“That’s cool.” Said Drake. “Hey, I want to introduce you to my friends. This is Crystal and that’s Sean.”

“Hey.” Crystal and Sean greeted.

“Hi.” I greeted back with a little smile.

“Sean’s dad and my dad have been friends ever since they were even younger than us.” Drake explained.

“Really?” I said surprised. “That’s a long time.”

Crystal gave herself a little push and went down the slide followed by Sean, then Drake, and then myself. As soon as we reached the bottom, we raced each other to the swings. As we swung together, I smiled widely. This was awesome! I was becoming friends with another half-dragon! I felt really embarrassed for being so nervous about talking to Drake. He was actually really nice and so were his friends. Who knew? Maybe things would be alright at this school.

“So Jake, are you really from Michigan?” Crystal asked.

“Yep! My dad and I moved to California when I was in Kindergarten. After we moved here, I went to a few other schools before this one but I had to leave because the kids would pick on me.” I explained.

“You too, huh?” Drake asked. “Kids used to pick on me and Crystal too but Sean would always kick their butts for messing with us.”

“You do?” I asked Sean, feeling reminded of how Alex would try and protect me from bullies when he was in elementary school too.

“You bet! Crystal and Drake are my best friends. I’m not gonna let some losers pick on them.” Sean smiled proudly.

After he said that, Sean placed a hand on my shoulder.

“If any kid tries picking on you too, just let me know and I’ll make sure they never do it again.”

“Th-thanks Sean!” I said with a surprised look on my face.

Sean laughed. “Don’t look so surprised man. You’re our friend now, aren’t ya? I’d do anything for my friends.”

I smiled back at Sean and thanked him. After that, the four of us played together all throughout recess, playing games like tag and kickball. After the bell rang and we returned to class, the day went by like normal. At 3:30, the bell rang and everyone rushed out the door. As I was grabbing my things from my locker, I saw Drake who was just shutting his own locker. I figured this might be the best time for me to ask Drake about him being a half-dragon.

“Drake?” I asked, walking up to him.

“Yeah? What’s up?” He asked as he slid his arms into his backpack’s straps.

“I…wanted to ask you something.” I said with that same nervous feeling I had earlier today.

“Okay.” He said, looking curious. “Go ahead.”

“Drake? Yesterday…when you transformed…well…you’re a half-dragon, aren’t you?” I asked.

As soon as I asked that, Drake looked at me with a shocked expression. He gasped. I knew that gasp couldn’t mean anything good. Could I have just screwed up our new friendship? Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. At least not until later. My stomach twisted and sweat began to trickle down my forehead.

“Jake…how…do you…know that?” Drake asked me, with a growing look of surprise on his face.

I didn’t answer him. I was too scared to say anything else. I gulped and took several breaths.

“Jake, what’s going on? Who are you?” Drake asked me suspiciously.

Oh no! I thought to myself! I did mess everything up! Without thinking, I took three steps back and ran as fast as I could out of the school. Once I was outside, I collided into a group of older kids, knocking one of them, as well as myself over.

“Ow! Watch where you’re going!” The older boy said.

“Sorry!” I said.

I looked back and saw Drake was chasing me. I got back on my feet and continued to run, looking back one more time to see Drake being stopped by the same kid I ran into. I made my way to the back of the school and hid. I tried to take some quick breaths before I continued fleeing. I realized that just running from him wouldn’t be enough. I had to hide somewhere. The only question was…where? I couldn’t hide inside the shed and I couldn’t hide behind it either.

And then I realized: I was so caught up in trying to get away from Drake that I didn’t even stop to think that I could fly! I could hide on the roof of the school! Quickly, I changed into my half-dragon form and flew up to the roof to hide. Once I was up there, I crouched down and watched the ground below as Drake ran to the same spot I was hiding. He looked around in an attempt to find me, then he went over to the shed.

He looked around the sides of the shed, only to find that I wasn’t there. While Drake was busy looking for me, I decided this would be the best time for me to go. I flapped my wings and flew away from the school. Once I was a few blocks away, I landed on the sidewalk of a nearby neighborhood and changed back to human form.

I sat down on the sidewalk and took my backpack off, sitting it beside me. I took several deep breaths, trying to get some air back into my lungs. I wiped the sweat away from my forehead and gazed into the sky. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how badly I screwed things up. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t said anything. Perhaps I should have just let Drake eventually show me his half-dragon side instead of pretty much giving away that I was spying on him the other day. Well, it was too late now.

I saw someone walking down the street, coming towards me. It was Drake. As soon as he saw me, he walked right up to me. I was certain he was going to ask me if I was spying on him or something. Or maybe he was going to ask me again how I knew he was a half-dragon. Either way, I didn’t want to talk to him right now so I stood up, grabbed my bag, and was about to run again when Drake stopped me.

“Jake, stop.” Drake said in a surprisingly calm voice. “Can I just talk to you?”

His calm voice helped make me feel a little calm myself. I was still worried but not as badly as I was before. I decided I’d stay and hear what Drake had to say. I sat down again, once more taking my backpack and setting it down next to me. Drake sat down beside me. He took a deep breath, stretched his legs out, and placed his hands in between his legs.

“Jake…I just wanna know how you know my secret. I haven’t told anyone except for Sean. So how do you know?” Drake asked.

I looked at him. I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t angry or blaming me for anything. Maybe there was still a chance for me to make things better. However, I still couldn’t bring myself to tell Drake how I knew his secret. I mean, what I supposed to say? “I saw you transform when I was going home”? I was certain he wouldn’t believe that. Perhaps there was another way for me to fix this. That’s it! Since I knew Drake was a half-dragon, I’d show him that I was also a half-dragon.

I turned away from Drake without answering his question. Instead I grabbed my backpack and stood up, taking a few steps away from him.

“Jake!” Drake exclaimed. He sounded a little angry that time.

“…I want to show you something.” I said in a soft but understandable voice.

Drake stood up and followed me. We walked down the block as I tried to look for a place where I could show Drake my half-dragon form without anyone else being there to see it. As we walked for a few more blocks, I noticed an alleyway. All that was there was a single car. No one was around and the two closest fences were made of wood which made things perfect. I set my backpack on the ground and closed my eyes.

“Jake?” Drake asked, no doubt wondering what I was doing or why I brought him here.

Neither of us said anything for a little bit. But suddenly, I felt my tail begin to grow, ripping through my pants, my wings soon followed as they ripped the back of my shirt. Three holes were now present, two in my shirt, and one in my pants, making it possible for my tail and wings to fit through.

I turned around and looked at Drake. He stood there, not saying anything. I could tell he was surprised to be seeing another half-dragon.

“Jake…” Drake began to say. “How…is…that…”

“I’m a half-dragon also Drake. My real name is Jakol but my friends call me Jake.” I introduced myself as I really was.

“But…that can’t be.”  Drake said as the two of us stared at each other, our eyes locking, focusing on each other.

How couldn’t it be, I asked myself. Drake had never met another half-dragon before? That was hard for me to believe. That made me wonder how many half-dragons there really were in the world. Were me, Drake, and Alex the only ones? I always thought there might have been more out there.

“So Jake…or Jakol, or whoever you are, who are your parents? If you really are a half-dragon like me, then one of your parents must be a dragon, right?” Asked Drake.

Drake was right but I didn’t want to talk about my parents. I wasn’t as upset about mom as I used to be but thinking about what happened between me and dad yesterday…it just hurt too much to think about it. I looked down at the ground and sighed, choosing to answer Drake’s question anyway.

“I never knew my mom. She died after I was born and so my dad’s been the one taking care of me.” I explained with a heavy feeling in my gut.

Things became quiet for a minute. Perhaps Drake was thinking about what I just said.

“Then…who was your dad?” Drake finally asked, breaking the silence.

“My dad?” I asked back.

“His name…is Saulstrance.”

As soon as I told him my dad’s name, a terrified look suddenly appeared on Drake’s face. I wasn’t sure why he looked so scared. Had he heard of my dad before? And if so, where?

Drake was breathing heavily, the look on his face growing ever more fearful. I approached him, placing my hand on his shoulder which helped calm him down a little.

“Drake, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” I asked, worried for him.

“AAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!” Drake screamed at the top of his lungs, pushing me off of him which sent me dropping to the ground, landing right on my tail which caused me some pain.

“St-STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!” Drake screamed in a terrified voice, his face now looking even more fearful than before.

I watched as Drake ran as fast as he could from the alley. I was speechless, not knowing what to think about all this. What just happened? Why the heck did Drake freak out like that?

I sat up a bit so that my tail spikes weren’t digging into my leg. I grabbed my bag, and went to sit against the door of a garage. I just sat there for a bit, watching the sky and trying to calm myself while I tried to make sense of everything. I couldn’t believe just how quickly things went bad. And yet…just a few hours ago, it seemed like we were going to be great friends. Now not only did I screw up a potential friendship but a friendship with someone like me.

I stood up, changed into my human form, grabbed my bag and walked home. As I walked, I kept thinking about what happened in the alley. Drake’s scared face, him pushing me, and his last words to me, “GET AWAY FROM ME” rang loudly in my head.

As I neared home, I passed school. I could hear some kids talking about Drake chasing me earlier. They said they had never seen Drake go after someone like that before. The kids noticed me and ran over to me.

“Are you okay?” The kids asked. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” I answered in a sad, gloomy voice.

“Why was Drake chasing you?” They asked again.

“I don’t know.” I lied as I started becoming a little angry.

I walked past the kids without saying anything else and continued for home. Once I got home, I sat my stuff by the door and sat down on the step. I sighed to myself. I wished I knew why Drake freaked out like that and how I could make things better between us.

As I sat there, thinking to myself, I saw Alex walking down the street.

“Hey Jake.” Alex said as he approached the step I was sitting on. “How was your first day at your new school?”

[torantuga]

SUMMARY:

intertwined chapt 3 is out!!!! noah is so distressed in the drawings im so sorry lmao

also a lot of POVs this time around!!!! yippee!!!

Due to their internship status, the intern-teens were tasked with decorating the entire challenge venue for the London Challenge. Some worked great with others, forming a amicable bond, while others had to ensure their teammate didn't get their head crushed.

Since she's scary and wanted to be something that resembled her boyfriend in any way, Axel was tasked to become Jack the Ripper and terrorise the World Tour contestants with her sharp hunting skills.

But... what will happen if her sharp hunting eye doesn't shut off, and tries to eliminate a curious soul in the very same place she was not supposed to be catching a certain someone?

[xiaoaetherposts]

Aether and Lumine reunited 😭💛

Aether's expressions broke my heart. 💔

"There's so much I wanted to ask you, but for some reason, I'm not interested in asking those questions right now.

There's just one thing I have to ask, one thing I could never understand...

Why... why can't we continue our journey together?"

Twitter(X): @xiaoaetherposts

[concreteburialplot]

Intertwined // 05

-> 05 - Girl Crush*

pairing; noah sebastian x nicholas ruffilo

masterlist; here | crossposted; ao3 | word count; 10.3k 😅

warnings; sad lol, dumb boys, mutual masturbation, p0rn, alcohol, peer pressure, vomiting, college!omens, jolly intro, gay panic & very mild gender confusion??, denial is a river in egypt, 18+ MDNI

REMINDER: this is an au where everyone is around the same age, follows no actual timelines/events, and uses oc's for family members.

a/n: don't like it don't read it. don’t be mean for no reason & let others enjoy things thnx :)

-NICHOLAS- 

It had been about a month since Noah moved out completely and was fully living with us. It wasn’t that difficult of a transition since he stayed with us most of the time anyway. He seemed to be finally settling in and getting comfortable, which I was happy about.

Him living in my house wasn’t the only thing that became comfortable - in fact maybe we’d gotten too comfortable. 

That first night weeks ago, where we took care of our morning wood next to each other, wasn’t the last time. It started as that one time thing, then an occasional thing, then finally, a casual thing. Neither one of us seemed to take it seriously, maybe to play off the implications of it. Because what else are you supposed to do when you jack off next to your best friend regularly?

It became so casual, sometimes as if the other wasn’t there.

--

My half-asleep ears fill with the faint sounds of moans, accompanied by restrained groans I recognize. The more I wake I feel movement behind me.

I stir a bit before turning around finding Noah pumping himself under the covers while holding his phone in the other. He jumps a little when I catch him but doesn’t stop. His actions only halt temporarily.

“Sorry if I woke you up.” He says bashfully, baby pink tinting his cheeks.

“It’s fine.” I gulp, my eyes drifting to the obscene noises coming from his phone. “Whatcha watching?”

He shrugs, tilting his phone to me, revealing the most generic looking porn I’ve ever seen. But porn is porn and it makes my already semi-hard dick twitch. “You wanna… watch too?”

My cheeks grow warm at the offer, “Oh, um, I mean, I don’t wanna intrude…” Though, I can’t help my eyes from being glued to the screen.

He shifts a bit and reaches over, setting the phone down between us propped up in a divot of comforter. In the clumsy process, the duvet slides off his lap revealing his cock.

My eyes widen at the sight of him but I immediately divert my attention so that he doesn’t catch me and assume something else.

“Oh sorry.” He blushes and goes to cover himself again but pauses, “Actually, do you mind? I just don’t wanna deal with the mess and-“

“I don’t mind.” I reply faster than intended. I shake my head, “I just don’t wanna… do that. But I don’t care if you do.”

“Cool.” He nods and returns to his previous position with his eyes locked on the screen.

There’s a panicky heartbeat lingering in my chest but the throbbing in my cock takes precedence. I relax a bit beside him and life the duvet higher up on my body, trying to cover as much of myself as possible.

I spit into my hand before dipping it beneath the covers and down around my member, working it out from my shorts. A hiss leaves my mouth at the coldness of my palm but it doesn’t take long for that discomfort to fade.

My eyes begin on the phone, to the blonde woman with large unnaturally perky breasts being railed by some strong man with a big dick, something you’d find on the first page of any porn site. Not my usual cup of tea but whatever, it’s doing something for me right now.

Naturally, my eyes drift and happen to fall on Noah’s cock. His large hand works up and down his member – he’s duo-toned darker at the base and lighter towards the tip, kind of like me just much pinker. I glance between him and the man in the video. He’s smaller than the man, but he’s definitely not small. The video is obviously emphasizing the man’s large size, but he’s still smaller than me, not by much but he is. It makes me wonder if Noah would be impressed by my size.

Why would I think that? What do I care if Noah’s impressed by my dick?

Noah’s probably not even looking at him like that, I’m just weird I guess.

As if on cue, Noah comments.

“I wish my dick was that big.”

Not wanting to stay uncomfortably silent, I nervously chuckle, “Yeah me too.”

“Well, how big are you?” He asks casually.

My eyes nearly pop out of my head. Surely, he doesn’t actually wanna know.

“Oh – oh, I don’t know, but I don’t wanna take the covers off because-“

Noah proposes a solution, “I could feel?”

“I uh – what do you mean?”

“Like, feel it under the covers. So, I can’t see it. That’s what you’re insecure about isn’t it?”

“Um, I, well,” I stutter, trying to think of any sort of appropriate response. I should say no. I shouldn’t want him to do that. But something in me screams that this might be the only time this could happen – not sure why that’s even important. “Um, sure.”

I scooch a little closer to him so it’s easier for him to reach. Unexpectedly, he brings his free hand up to his mouth and spits into it. My eyebrows furrow at the action, not quite understanding why that’s necessary. But when his arm snakes itself under the covers and his hand replaces mine, I’m suddenly not as confused.

My eyes round at the feeling of his hand around me and every muscle in my body tenses when he starts moving.

“Jesus, you’re pretty big.” He says before his hand even reaches my tip.

Suddenly, all the nerves in my body seem to flood to cock and I feel so sensitive under his fingertips. I should be watching the video, but my eyes bounce between his still working on himself and on his other one bobbing under the covers. I can’t tell fully, but it seems like he’s pumping himself faster than before.

His palm reaches the head then slowly slides back down. “You’re so much bigger than me.” His voice seeming casual, but there’s a hint of strain beneath it.

His words and his even faster movements on both of us only worsens the buzzing in my cock.

“Is this okay? I just, I’ve only ever felt my own dick so, I’ve only ever imagined what having a bigger one would feel like.”

“Yeah, yep. It’s fine.” I reply quickly, just trying to maintain my composure.

My chest rises and falls rapidly and my fingers curl into the sheets. A familiar knot forms in the pit of my tummy and the last thing I want to do is cum while he’s touching me. His hand moves on me at the same speed as on his own. His fingertips stride up and down the underside of my length, hitting the sensitive spot beneath my tip every time. My lips press flat together as I try to stave off my orgasm – I don’t want to cum while he’s touching me, but I also don’t want him to stop.

Thankfully he has less stamina than I do.

“Ah, fuck, I’m gonna cum.” He groans, working quickly on himself chasing his climax. “Fuck, fuck!” He whines desperately. His hand doesn’t stop on me while his hips buck up into his hand spurting milky white all over his exposed tummy.

The visual of his cock twitching and spilling cum all over his hand, combined with his high pitched moans and his hand on me catapults me over the edge. “F-Fuck.” I sputter out a strangled groan and scrunch my eyes closed. Before I have time to yank him off of me, my body goes rigid beneath him. The buzzing across my skin seems to all rush into my throbbing cock in Noah’s still moving hand. “O-Oh.” Slips from my mouth just above a whisper while every muscle in my abdomen tightens. I feel myself twitch and spill my own cum into the duvet and all over his hand.

The orgasm nearly blinds my vision and my heart beats so fast I can hear it thumping in my ears. Those couple seconds where it was just me, my racing heart and my throbbing cock, it was pure bliss. Possibly the hardest I’ve ever came before. 

It’s not until I begin to come down that I realize what just happened and that… he worked me fully through my high? 

My eyes shoot open the second I return to earth and feel his hand finally slip off my softening member. For a split second I contemplate if there’s a way for me to get out of this without even looking at him and god I wish there was. 

Fuck

“Fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-” I begin to profusely apologize before he cuts me off. 

He laughs, “It’s okay. I’m sure having someone else’s hand probably feels a lot better than your own. Even if it had been you I probably would’ve came even faster than normal… and you know I already don’t last long as it is.” He chuckles with a light peach tinting his cheeks.

One part of me feels bad that I hadn’t returned the favor, until I remember I didn’t really even want to do this to begin with. Then, another part of me wishes I had returned the favor, maybe I wanted to know the same thing he did - maybe I want to know what another cock would feel like in my hand too. 

“Yeah - um,” I swallow the little saliva I have left in my dry mouth. “Yeah it was nice.” 

He pulls his hand from beneath the covers. “So much for not making a mess.” He laughs. 

My eyes round when I see just how much I had spilt all over his hand. “Yeah, yeah sorry again, I just didn’t think that…” My eyes follow his stare on the milky white mess of mine on his hand. 

His coffee brown eyes snap up to mine and utters out the last words I ever thought he’d say. “Have you ever tasted your own cum?”

I blink blankly at him, completely devoid of words. 

What the fuck

“I-I um, no? Why would I?” 

“I don’t know, curiosity?”

“…Have you?”

“Well, yeah, I wanted to know.” He shrugs. “It was gross, bitter. But,” His eyes flutter back down to his hand. “I’ve obviously never tasted anyone else’s. I wonder if yours tastes different?”

My brain seems to glitch, not fully comprehending his statement. 

“I-I um, I mean, probably.”

“Would it be super weird if I tasted it?”

My brows shoot up at the question. 

But I reply before I’m even sure of my answer. “No, I um, don’t think it would be that weird?” 

And it wouldn’t be, right?

He’s just curious.

Just like he was about my cock. 

“Alright.” His tone much less confident than just seconds ago. 

His dark brown eyes drop to the puddle of my cum on his right hand, just above where his thumb meets his hand. He lifts it tentatively up to his mouth; my eyes can’t help but rotate between his face and his approaching hand. Hesitantly, he darts his pink tongue past his lips to dip the tip of it into the puddle. Unexpectedly, his eyes find mine, snapping me out of my gaze that was locked on his tongue. His mahogany eyes surprise me, with how round and soft they are - so puppy dog-like for a situation such as this. I blink at him and for some reason, seeing him flatten his tongue a bit on the remnants of me makes my cock twitch. He takes a scoop of my orgasm on his tongue and into his mouth. 

“Hm.” He hums, almost sounding pleased, like he was taste-testing wine. “You taste better than me. Sweeter. Must be all those bananas you eat.”

Sweeter

My brows join together, perturbed, “It can’t be that different?”

His boney shoulders raise into a shrug. “You can try mine if you want? To make it even or whatever.” He gestures his left hand up a bit to remind me that his mess remains on that hand too. 

“Oh - I - well -“ I watch his hand gesture towards me again. The turbulence in my tummy reminds me of when someone offers you a gift and out of politeness, you’re supposed to refuse it - but I don’t want to refuse. I want to know.

“Oh c’mon it’s only fair, it’s not that bad.” He urges me, only reaffirming my inability to voice a decline. 

I look down at the back of his hand covered in cloudy white rivers. My fingers gently take hold of his wrist and he lets me take control of his arm without a single ounce of resistance. I bring his hand to my lips and copy his actions - dart my tongue out and meet his eyes. His are just as intrigued as mine were, locked in my tongue. 

The second his cum meets my taste buds, my eyes flutter closed. I’m surprised at the taste, it’s bitter and salty, what I imagine battery acid must taste like. The texture is about what I imagined, thick and slimy. And yet, even with the immediate disgust of it, it makes my cock twitch again. There’s a tingle in my fingertips and on my tongue that urges me to lap up the rest of his orgasm but I fear if I did, I’d be completely hard again. I never thought something as rancid as battery acid would make me hard, but for some reason right now it’s threatening to. 

I’ve never been more grateful for anything more than the duvet on my body right now. 

I half-force a twist in my face at the taste as I pull back from his arm. “Augh, that’s disgusting.” 

He lets out a hearty laugh, “See! Told ya.” 

A nervous chuckle escapes me, “That you did…” 

-Next Day- 

Since landing an apprenticeship at a local tattoo parlor, I don’t see much of either Noah or Folio. While I’m at work after class, they’ve been hanging out at the library in a study group full of people I barely know - people from the frat party a couple weeks ago. 

Today though, I got off my shift early and I’m on a different mission. 

-

My tires screech and the weight of my entire body jerks forward as Stella makes another abrupt stop at a redlight. My hand lands on my dash as a reflex I had gotten far too familiar with.

My tongue passes between my lips before pressing them together and close my eyes through a deep breath. I consider myself a fairly patient person, but if there’s anyone on earth who could get me to snap, it is definitely my sister.

“I told you to start braking 5 million feet ago.” I exhaled with the hopes of Buddha himself coming down and bestowing me with a well-deserved medal of excellent patience.

“Whatever, we still stopped, didn’t we?” She sasses, as she continues to dance to whatever pop song pours through the speakers.

“Yeah, barely.” I grumble, crossing my arms in the passenger seat. “I have no idea how they let you pass your driver’s test.”

“You are so grouchy today.” She glares at me. “What, did the shop bully you again?”

My eyes roll so hard they could’ve fallen out. “No.” I clench my fingers into my palms and stretch them out as overlayed flashbacks of scrubbing every inch of the tattoo parlor flash across my mind. “No, I just cleaned a lot. Fumes. Headache.”

“Right.” She responds unconvinced.

The car takes a sharp turn into a plaza I’ve only ever driven past before and pulls into a parking spot right in front of the destination of my mission.

“We’re here!” She beams, turning the engine off.

We walk up to the small shop snuggled in the tiny strip. The walls look like they were once white, a long, long time ago. Now they’re stained a yellow-y beige with weeds and vines growing across the plaster.

“’Record Store. Plus repairs.’” I read off the giant red letters above the door. “How creative.”

Stella’s elbow sharply jabs into my ribcage. “Ow!” I hiss and recoil away from her. 

“Be nice. Be cool.” She scolds me in a hushed tone.

Whatever the fuck ‘nice and cool’ means to a teenage girl.

A bell trills sharply when she pushes open the glass door. A rush of cold AC blasts against our skin soon as we step into the foyer. 

At the tall reception desk stands a man with lengthy brown hair and a long face. He looks a couple years older than me, at least 23ish.

“Hi Jolly!” Perks Stella almost jumping the second her fingertips meet the glossy wood.

My teeth dig into my bottom lip in an attempt to stifle a giggle when I see the man noticeably deflate the moment he hears the shrill chirp of my sister’s 16-year old voice.

He sets down his pen on whatever paperwork he was working on and turns to us, “Hello Stella.” He greets flatly, with a hint of a foreign accent I can’t place yet.

It’s quite obvious that she comes in here often, more than she’s let on – enough for them to be on a first-name basis.

“Jolly, this is my brother Nick, Nick this is Jolly.” She beams at his name, completely smitten with the older boy. If it wasn’t so obvious that he’s irritated by her mere presence, I’d be more protective of her - but she’s perfectly fine. She’s made sure of that herself.  

“Hey.” I meekly wave at him.

He acknowledges me with a nod and looks back at her. “What’s up.”

“Well, we need your help!” She rocks up and down on her feet with her hands behind her back.

“Great. What is it you need help with?” His fingertips restlessly patter on the table top, impatiently waiting for her to deliver her pitch faster. 

“Go on Nick, show him.” She urges motioning her hand towards him.

I sigh and pull out my phone from my jean’s back pocket, then scroll to find a picture of Noah’s snapped guitar and hand it to the man.

“Could you fix that? Or know someone who could?” I inquire, already feeling as though the trip was hopeless.

His brows pull together as he inspects the picture then uses two fingers to zoom in on the instrument. “Whoever did this really did a number on it.”

“Yeah.” I mumble, scratching the back of my neck. “So, do you think you could fix it?”

“Hmm.” He hums, pulling down his thick-rimmed glasses down his nose. “I can’t say for sure, you’d have to bring it in.”

Air escapes my throat with another sigh, that’s the last thing I wanted to hear. “Okay. I’ll get it in as soon as I can.” Even though I have no idea how I’ll be able to do that without Noah noticing.

He hands me back my phone, “That’s a really rough break.”

“Trust me, I know. Thanks for looking.” My tone suddenly lacking optimism. “And sorry about…” When I turn to point at Stella, I realize she’s not beside me anymore, now shuffling through the various wooden crates of records. “Her.”

He taps his pen against the counter and glances over at her. “It’s fine. She brings friends in. They buy records. Sales are sales.” He shrugs before going back to whatever he was working on before we interrupted him.

Stella doesn’t seem to want to leave anytime soon so I let myself roam around the shop. The majority of the small store is made up of boxes full of records, a mix of old and new. A small, separated section has various instruments strewn about, most of them looking refurbished. The air is pungent with the smell of sandalwood incense, some kind of chemical-y polish, and stale wood.

“Okay! Ready to go!” Stella calls from behind me and when I turn to her she’s holding a record that I recognize.

“Since when do you listen to Nine Inch Nails?” My brow arches up, seeing as she’s only ever been a Taylor Swift type of girl.

She giggles, “Jolly suggested them.”

I take two fingers and pinch the bridge of my nose with a deep sigh, “Okay, whatever, let’s go.”

--

Stella and I walk into the house and my ears are immediately unsettled by the sounds that fill the house. They’re giggles, some I recognize to be Noah’s but the other is quite … feminine. 

The edges of Stella’s lip curl into a mischievous grin, “Oooooh Noah snuck a girl innnn.” She snickers in a sing-song tone.

“Go to your room Stella.” I order, mostly because her tone irritated me but also because I don’t want her to see what’s behind the cracked door.

She gives me a glare, “You’re just jealous that he’s getting some and you’re not.”

“Go. To. Your. Room.” I repeat sternly through gritted teeth.

“Fine, whatever. Be the party pooper you always are.” She huffs before turning down the hall and slamming the door behind her when gets to her room.

I blink at the doorknob as her words sear into my chest. I question even interrupting until another giggle pierces my eardrums.

I’m precarious with the way I approach the cracked door and peer in. Noah and the girl from the party, Kassidy, next to each other on the bed with open textbooks and notebooks littered about. They’re laughing at something but all I can focus on is her hand on his thigh. An odd twist forms in my abdomen, somewhere between my ribs and my gut. It makes me feel sick, like I ate some gas station sushi.

My knuckle taps on the door and creaks it open. “Hey.”

“Oh, hey Nick!” Noah seems surprised to see me but not necessarily upset by my presence, which for some reason eases the knot in my chest. “I heard a door slam did-”

It’s not until the blonde waves at me with the hand that’s not glued to Noah’s thigh that I realize the anger staining my fingertips.

“Noah, can I talk to you for a minute?” I ask through a fake smile.

“Sure.” He nods, “Be right back, Kass.”

Once the bedroom door clicks behind him, I feel myself begin to unravel.

“Does my mom know you’re bringing girls home?” I question, my voice coming out much harsher than intended.

“No…?” He answers. “I figured I would just do what we always did with each other? Sneak in.”

“Okay well, I don’t appreciate you bringing girls into my room. Please tell me you guys didn’t do anything in my bed.” The words shoot from me, quick and sharp, like acid bullets.

His face falls and I see the light behind his warm eyes dim.

My

Fuck

I regret the words the second I realize my mistake. Though I suppose on some level, deep down, I knew that the word choice would hurt him, but I said it anyway.

I said it anyway.

I was so upset that I said it anyway.

“No?” He replies sounding a bit offended at the accusation, even though it’s not out of the realm of possibility. “I wouldn’t do that in your bed.”

The impulse to lash back is there, bubbling just under my skin, but I have no reason to be angry. No valid, explainable reason. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Lie.

“Right.” Noah says softly but with a slight edge. “Well, I” He thumbs over his shoulder. “Um, she was just about to leave so.”

“Okay.” I reply quietly, suddenly overwhelmed with an odd mixture of anger and guilt.

-

While Noah escorts the girl out to say goodbye, I begin tidying up the room. Noah is pretty clean thankfully, so the room itself is clean, but I can’t shake the feeling of something oddly foreign within the four walls. The room suddenly feels so dirty and the taste on my tongue is sour like expired milk. My eyes land on the bed sheets and my stomach feels like I had drank expired milk – maybe 3 whole gallons of it. My mind struggles to account for the food I had eaten today but fails. Surely that is the reason for my abrupt nausea.

Before I can even process my actions, my fingers hungrily latch onto the bed sheets, snapping each fitted corner off the mattress. Heavy textbooks and pens hit the floor with a loud crash.

Despite having just washed them, I’m absolutely positive that they’re filthy.

Maybe they smelled too much like stagnant laundry this morning

Maybe they were making me itchy last night

Maybe I developed an allergy to our detergent

Maybe it’s been too warm and I soaked them in sweat

Or maybe I just want to clean the fucking sheets.

“Oh,” Noah’s gentle voice startles me from the doorway. His eyes trail up from the mess on the floor to the balled-up sheets beneath my palms. “Um, did I accidentally get highlighter on them or something?”

“Nope.” I’m quick to answer. “Just wanna wash ‘em.”

His brows furrow still looking at where my hands keep the shape of the large sphere of material. “Oh. Um, well. I just washed them like 2 or 3 days ago?”

“It’s fine, I just want to wash them again.” I respond shortly.

“Okay… well, let me do it then.” He crosses the space between us going for the sheets but I pull away.

“No. I got them, thanks.” I avoid him by swerving around his thin body and head towards the door.

 “Well, what can I do? I could mop again or… reorganize the fridge? Or…” He trails off, not being able to come up with much else.

“No, Noah. It’s Stella’s turn to mop and who the fuck offers to reorganize a fridge?” I snap at him from the doorway, “You don’t need to be cleaning the house 24/7, okay?”

His eyes falter but he nods “Oh, sorry, I um, I just wanna be doing my part. You know… earn my keep and all that? I just… wanna help.”

My face softens and the tight muscles in my shoulders ease. I feel guilt all over again. 

I sigh. “I’m sorry – I just - I just had a bad week with school and with the shop and,” I pause. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, okay?”

He nods and the edges of his mouth upturn ever so slightly into a tight-lipped smile. “Okay.” He pauses, fidgeting with his fingers. “Sorry about Kassidy. I should’ve asked.” He says quietly while his eyes drop to his anxious hands.

The tips of my fingers curl into the sheets a bit, a stream of… frustration maybe?  shoots through my veins. “It’s okay. I just don’t want my mom to get mad.”

A half lie.

“Right.”

When I turn to leave, he stops me, “Oh – I wanted to ask you something?”

My eyes widen while still turned away from him. A chill rolls up my spine at the realization that we’ve barely spoken since yesterday morning, when his hand was around my cock.

“Um sure, what’s up?” I turn back to him cautiously.

“Well, the fair is in town this weekend, I thought we could go? You know, me, you and Folio?”

I smile at him, relieved it wasn’t about something else. “Sure, sounds fun.”

-Friday Night-

When Folio comes to pick us up, I immediately regret agreeing to carpool. The passenger side door flings open with yet another blonde in the front seat. This one a bit more of a natural, darker blonde and not nearly as bobblehead-like. She looks vaguely familiar, maybe she was one of the wannabe sorority girls from the frat party.

I sigh when I glance over to my busted blue car that’s been acting up every morning since the cold weather’s been getting closer.

The girl smiles wide at us and gets out so we can fold her chair to get to the backseat.

We squeeze our way to the back and naturally, Noah’s mile-long limbs take up most of the room.

The thick distinctive stench of paper-wrapped nicotine coats the cracking plastic of his car doors and the pungent aroma of $10-per-gram weed oozes from the stained beige seats.

Even though Nick brought his ‘friend’, I feel decent about the fair tonight. I mean these are the things we should be doing, right? Going out is what college kids do.

The girl hands back a plastic bottle wrapped in brown paper and Noah hungrily takes it.

“Vodka.” She says simply with a dazed smile.

“Cool.” Noah grins, though I know he’s never tasted pure vodka in his life.

He puts the bottle to his lips and tips it back, immediately scrunching his face in disgust at the taste. If it was just us, I know he would’ve spit it out.

He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand, “Not bad.” He lies straight through his teeth.

Noah tips the bottle offering it to me. I shake my head and wave it off, “No, I’m good thanks.”

“Oh, c’mooonn Nick, don’t be a wuss.” Noah whines.

“Yeah Nick, loosen up! Have some fun!” Folio perks up from the driver's seat and watches me in the rearview mirror.

The last time he told me to “loosen up”, he ended up floundering in a lake so it hardly has an enticing ring to it.

“No really.” I reaffirm. “Not for me.”

Noah tsk’s and rolls his eyes, “You’re no fun.”

The words hit me square in the chest and my ribs mold around the letters like playdoh.

You’re no fun.

They’re simple words. Logically, I know they’re mostly a joke. Yet, they burn like a lit match colliding with white paper.

You’re no fun.

We’ve been friends for a long time. Long enough to sit in boring silence scrolling on our phones comfortably for hours. But now I’m no fun because I won’t drink out of a foreign bottle?

The searing in my lungs forces my hand to reach and snatch the bottle from him abruptly. I don’t think, I just do. I take the bottle to my lips and tilt my head back with scrunched-closed eyes. I chug, better he did and better than the girl, until the scorching of my throat gets too much.

I shove the bottle back at him, now an extra quarter empty. His face and every other face in the car seem shocked, eyes wide with slightly dropped jaws.

“What?” I hiss and let out a vodka-singed burp. “You told me to have fun.”

--

Nick’s wheels roll to a halt in the dirt of the fair’s extended parking. The crowded car disperses faster than I anticipated, leaving me alone in the empty car. I stumble out of my seat and precariously steady myself in the dirt to scan the parking lot for the group. The four of them are already ahead of me, nearly halfway to the entrance. Their laughter carries in the wind all the way back over to me. 

Once I catch up, I trail behind them quietly. My hands stuffed in my pockets and my Vans kicking up dry dirt, just trying to focus on walking in a straight line. 

As we approach the ticketing office, my heart plummets to my stomach when I see two familiar girls standing at the gate waiting for us. 

I should’ve known.

“Nicholas, you remember Brooke, right?” Noah grins and gestures to the carbon copy of every other sorority girl on campus.

“Yeah. Hey.”

That’s when I notice the delay in my words and the lag between my fingertips as I wave to her. And as we buy our tickets and make our way into the fair, I catch the warmth all over my skin and the growing numbness in my lips.

I think I’m drunk. Really drunk. 

 --

We make a solid lap around the entire park – picking up random snacks here and there, some fried oreos, a shared funnel cake, slushees, and more I can’t even remember. All the fried food mixed with the couple spin-y rides and the alcohol sloshing in my stomach, I was more than ready for an actual meal. I convinced everyone on hotdogs since it’s the cheapest food here and I’d already spent a good chunk of my tip money on ride tickets and overpriced junk food.

When we reach the window of the hotdog stand we’re met with a familiar face.

“Bryan!” Exclaims Folio, excited to see his fraternity mentor.

As always, Bryan looks about as thrilled as a mother of toddler triplets after a candy bender.

“Trout.” He replies unenthusiastically with his monotone cadence matching the deep sleep-deprived purple beneath his eyes.

Normally I would’ve giggled at Folio’s ridiculous nickname but my body was too focused on sustenance.  

“Two hotdogs and fries please.” I skip past the rest of the indecisive group.

“We’re out of fries.” He replies flatly.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

He just shrugs, unbothered.

“Fine. Just the hotdogs then.” I huff.

“Coming right up.” He feigns enthusiasm.

The rest of the group place their orders and I can’t help but find amusement in how comical Bryan looks. He’s uniformed in a hotdog themed apron and a silly hotdog visor.

We finally make our way to a painted blue picnic table that sits off to the side away from the busy crowd. I’m grateful for the small respite from the overwhelming, overstimulating chatter.

I fucking hate hotdogs. Usually.

But the minute that meat and bread combo meets my tastebuds, it is as though heaven itself found home in my mouth.

The rest of table fades out as I devour my food and it is only when I’ve finished my 2nd dog that start regaining consciousness. I glance over at the boys who are in the midst of telling some story that’s got all the girls laughing.

My eyes land on Kassidy. She’s giggling at every single thing Noah says and he’s looking at her like she hung the moon. 

No matter how tacky or annoying she is, she’s still objectively beautiful – beautiful in a way I could never be.

The way she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, makes me want long blonde hair too. When she bats her fake lashes at him, it makes me wish mine were longer. Her nails adorned with white tips suddenly make my nailbeds feel bare. The foundation caked on her face reminds me of the breakout I have on my cheek and the stubble growing beneath my nostrils. All at once I’m disappointed with every bit of myself that isn’t like her.

A fleeting moment of curiosity passes pondering if this is what it feels like to question your gender. It had never crossed my mind to be anything other than male, nothing else I ever desired. I’ve never felt like I was in the wrong body or anything of the sort – so, I don’t quite think that’s what I’m feeling now.

Maybe I just envy her existence or how confident she is. Maybe I find her attractive? It’d be kinda shitty if I found her attractive, seeing as she’s Noah’s date and I’m here with Brooke. I don’t think it’s that either, since I can barely tolerate either of them.

Perhaps I’m just drunk and confused.

I must just be drunk and confused.

Once the food settles in my tummy, I feel significantly better, a little nauseous still but better nonetheless. My buzz has fizzled, but the tips of my fingers still tingle and words are still hard.

I quietly use a leftover bun to move around a glob of ketchup as entertainment. Noah’s always been the social one, he’s always been the connections, the glue. So, it’s no surprise that he’s captured the attention of the whole table, filling the air with collective drunken giggles. Normally though, he helps nudge me gently into conversations. He helps me not stay silent like I am now. It’s fine though, I don’t have much to contribute since they have all these inside jokes from their study group.

I snap out of my daze when I hear Folio crunch a coke can in his hand as he gets up from the table. There’s an emptiness beside me I hadn’t felt til now – Brooke is gone.

My gaze follows the group as they get up from the table to bring their trash to the overflowing garbage can.

“Where did Brooke go?” I ask to the general conglomerate, most of which pay no mind to me.

“She left to go meet up with some other friends.” Noah replies, his tone suggests that he’s downplaying the situation. I’m sure she wasn’t having fun with a half-drunk silent boy.

‘You’re no fun’ rings in my head from earlier in the car.

2 things I’ve learned from tonight are:

1 – eat hotdogs when drunk.

2 – pretending to be “fun” is really fucking exhausting.

“Oh.” I say quietly, matching their actions by tossing my flimsy paper plate and Dr. Pepper can into the trash.

“We’re heading towards the bigger rides, if you want to come.” He turns and follows the rest of the group through some carnival game tents.

‘If you want to’ I mimic him in my head.

No I don’t fucking want to but I was driven here and I’m stranded.

“Yeah.” I mumble and quickly jog to meet them ahead of me.

--

The others made their way to the short ferris wheel line after I insisted it was okay to leave me behind. I sure as fuck didn’t want to sit in a pod alone or 3rd wheel on one of their’s.

I watch Noah and Kassidy’s pod reach and stop at the peak of the small ferris wheel, I don’t know why I’m watching but my body is rooted where I stand. Upon it’s a slow descent down, I see it.

His hand cupping her face. Their lips locked.

It’s not a decision I make until their pod locks at the gate and they’re being let out. My foot swivels in the dirt, kicking up dying grass as I try to dip around various family-owned booths for cover. As feared, I hear him calling from behind. I knew I had messed up by making a run for it so late.

“Nicholas!”

His calling only makes my legs move faster – I’m not sure exactly why I’m running or what good it’ll do, just that I need to get as far away from him as possible.

He catches up to me faster than I was prepared for. Fall leaves crunch beneath his worn-out Converse. “Where are you going?” He asks and before I even turn around to see him, I know the look on his face. The same look that I can’t seem to ever say no to – the one that breaks my back just to make me bend to him.

I sigh and turn to him. “Noah, I’m going home.”

“What! Why?”

And there it was. Big, round, puppy dog eyes full of decadent chocolate so sweet it could rot the teeth right out of your skull - paired with pouted lips that demand pity and restitution.

“I’m not having fun. I don’t want to be here.”

“What? You told me you wanted to go to the fair?” He questions with curved eyebrows.

“No. I didn’t. You invited me. You told me that I wanted to go. You tricked me into being on a triple date I didn’t want to be on.” My arm gesturing towards the fair.

“Well, c’mon we can still make it fun! We can just get some more ride tickets and-” He grabs the sleeve of my flannel and tugs at it towards the fair.

I yank my arm back so hard it nearly pulls him back with it, “No you’re not listening to me Noah. I don’t want to be here. Why do you continue to bring me places that you KNOW I won’t like?”

“We’ve been to the fair a million times, Nick.” He crosses his arms over his chest.

“Yeah! With just us! Not with three random fucking girls!” The churning in my chest begins to spit drunken thoughts out without filters.

His brows knit together in confusion. “They’re not random girls Nicholas, and I really thought you’d hit it off with Brooke-”

“Oh my god, why the fuck would you think I’d get along with her? Just because she’s got tits and ass? Sorry, I’m not you, I need a little more than that.” I scoff.

“Well, I-I don’t know just thought you’d want-”

“Augh!” I groan and pace a tiny lap around the grass. “Can you stop assuming you know what I do or don’t want?”

“So, let me get this straight. You don’t want to go to parties, or the fair, or hang out with girls… normal college stuff, you don’t want?”

My heart pounds hard against my eardrums and my fingers burn with frustration. My fists tighten at my sides and my jaw clenches, digging each row of teeth into the other. Molten lava threatens to spill from my throat.

“No, Noah. I guess I don’t want ‘normal college stuff’, I don’t fucking like alcohol and I don’t even know if I like girls!”

My yelled words tumbled from my mouth so easily I didn’t even realize I said anything that odd until Noah’s eyes widen.

I don’t even know if I like girls.

“What?” Noah asks softly and genuinely with his head tilted slightly.

“I-I,” I stumble back, accidentally hitting an oak tree behind me. “I’m- I just need to go home.”

“Nick.” His hands stretch out to grab my arm as I turn to leave but he’s a millisecond too late. “Nick!” He calls after me.

Every bit of adrenaline available in my body propels me forward, past all the booths, all the rides, and through all the neighboring forest. When my feet finally find asphalt, my head feels like a basketball on a player’s fingertip. My eyes widen at a sharp turn in my stomach. I analyze my surroundings in a split second, running towards a lamp post for support. The moment my palm touches the cold metal, I double over and empty the contents of my stomach onto the concrete. The funnel cake, the cotton candy, the fried Oreos, the slushees, and the goddamn fucking hotdogs all found home the sidewalk.

I don’t even know if I like girls.

I don’t even know if I like girls.

Why would I say that?

Is that true?

Do I not like girls?

Of course, I like girls.

I wobble over to a bench and sit on the cool wood. The weather’s a lot colder now that the sun has set, and I regret not bringing a proper jacket.

I like girls. I know I like girls. Right?

I mean, I’ve been jerking off to girls… this whole time? So, if I didn’t like girls, why would I do that?

I like girls.

Only.

I like girls.

Right?

I shake my head of the thoughts spinning faster than I can even grasp.

The dim light of the street lamp flickers and it occurs to me that it’s almost 10 pm and I have no idea where I am or how to get home.

Fuck.

Pulling my location up in my Maps app tells me that I’m still fairly close to the fair, which unfortunately means I’m pretty far from home. Tears begin prickling in my eyes and a tight knot forms in my throat.

The weight of the night crashes down onto me all at once.

The “you’re no fun”

The fucking hot dogs

The “she went to meet other friends”

The “if you want to”

The ferris wheel

The “I don’t even know if I like girls”

“Fuck.” My voice cracks as tears take hostage of my cheeks.

My body doubles over, folding in on itself to bury my face in my hands.

I’m drunk, I had a shit night, I left my best friends at the fair and now I’m stranded on some random street.

Even through my own heaving, a brief pang of guilt shoots in my stomach for leaving Noah behind.

He wanted to have a good night, perhaps I ruined it. 

In the past, I would’ve stayed feeling guilty because I knew for a fact that if the roles were reversed, he’d come back to find me. But now, I’m not so sure. I don’t think he’d leave Kassidy for anyone or anything.

Not even me.

My palms try to stave off the tears by digging into my eye sockets.

“Fuck, okay. I need to get it together.” I say out loud to myself, letting out a deep exhale. “What the fuck am I gonna do.”

Both of my only friends are still at the fair.

Mom is at work.

So that leaves me with…

Stella.

“Shit.”

I unwillingly pull myself from the bench and begin to pace back and forth taking fast but deep breaths. I ring out my hands out, trying to expel any sort of panic from them. The last thing I need is for her to see me like this.

Finally, once I’ve composed myself, I dig my phone out of my pocket and click her contact name “Snot”.

It rings for a little bit too long and I almost hang up just before she answers.

“Hello?” She asks a little louder than necessary, shortly after I hear a flood of giggles in the background. Her sleepover.

“Hey.” I barely get out without my voice cracking.

“Hey, what’s up?” She asks with concern lacing her voice. There’s the sound of a door closing behind her, shutting out the chatter.

“Oh um-“ My tone pitched up and I feel tears welling up in my eyes again. If the rest of tonight’s events weren’t enough, here I am making a fool out of myself to my little sister. “I forgot about your sleepover. It's fine – I’ll just walk home or something.”

“Walk home? Where are you?”

I swallow the knot in my throat trying to keep my voice level, normal and calm but my pause is long and loud.

“I-I,” My eyes squeeze shut pushing as much of my tears out. “I don’t know.”

“Did you drink?”

The back of my hand roughly wipes my nose. “Yes.”

“Are you with Noah?” Her voice is gentle and kind and reminds me of how our mother would talk to us when we scraped our knees.

I sniffle and my voice threatens to break once more. “No.”

“Okay.” She states as if she just got handed a checklist of effortless tasks. “The girls were just about to go home.” I know that’s a lie. “Drop me a pin and I’ll come get you.”

“Thanks Stell.” I reply quietly.

“Of course.”

--

It took about 20 minutes for Stella to pick me up in my own car.

My arms wrap around my shivering body and my head rests on the window as I watch the streetlights zoom past us. Her speed is inconsistent, fast in short bursts then slow in long drags. Her stops are jerky and her turns wide. If this was an early Tuesday school morning, she wouldn’t be able to stop my mouth from rambling off critiques. But tonight, opening my mouth seems more dangerous than her driving.

“So. Do you wanna talk about what happened?” She cuts through the silence unapologetically, like opening a crisp can of Coke in a dead, silent room.

I shake my head.

“C’mon. You can’t really expect me to pick you up in the middle of nowhere at midnight without any context?” She patters her fingertips on the steering wheel and glances over at me. “Did something happen with Noah? Did you get into a fight?”

“Something like that.” I mutter.

She squints her eyes and kind of tilts her head to the side. “You guys never fight?”

“Well.” I reply bluntly. “Things change, I guess.” The fabric of the seat cover stretches as I shift. “I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.”

The gears spin in her head, I can almost see them. “Weird.” She mumbles under her breath. “Was it about a girl?”

“I said I’m done answering questions.”

“Sheesh, okay.” She says defensively.

Silence fills every empty space in the car. I’m not sure I’ve ever been uncomfortable around my sister before, but I certainly am now. It’s a new feeling, something I want to run and hide from. My knee bounces nervously as my mind cycles through everything that happened tonight. Regardless of anxiety and confusion twisting my organs into pretzels, I fear that if I don’t say what’s chanting in my head right now, I could explode.

“I told Noah that I don’t even know if I like girls.” I blurt out with extreme urgency, as if I didn’t get it out now, I never would.

Her eyes widen a bit but they stay focused on the road. My heart thumps hard against my chest threatening to jump right out.

“Okay.” She says calmly but cautiously. “And why did you say that?”

“I-I don’t know.” I let the weight of my body finally relax and sink into the seat. “You’ve known me my whole life. Do you think that I… might not only like girls?”

She turns to me at a red light and the face she gives me reminds me of when she was 4 and I was 7, when I speculated that Santa might not be real. Without a second thought she replied, “Of course he’s not real, silly.”

Even at 4 years old she was smarter than me.

“I think that might be a question you have to figure out yourself, Nick. I can’t tell you what you do or don’t like.”

I huff, suddenly frustrated that I couldn’t hand off such a complex task onto someone else – that I couldn’t have someone else give me a quick, solid, factual answer.

“I guess you’re right.” I mumble. 

She returns her focus to the road and lets out a little sigh. “Do you remember when we were little? And we liked Power Rangers?”

“…Yeah?” I reply confused as to what exactly Power Rangers has to do with my sexuality.

“Well, I remember the first time we watched it - and you thought it was so stupid.”

“No I didn’t? I loved Power Rangers?” 

“No.” She corrects me. “At first, when it was just us, you thought it was dumb. But then all your friends started liking it and suddenly you did too. You even wanted to be the red one for the group costume that Halloween, remember?”

“Okay… and? What are you getting at?”

“I can’t tell you what you are or aren’t, Nick. But you’re right - I have known you my whole life. And I know that sometimes you change things about yourself to, I don’t know… not make waves? Not stand out? To fit in? I don’t know your reasoning and I don’t know if that’s what you did with this. But… just something to think about I guess?”

My fingers tap at my knee in thought. I don’t really remember that specific component, only that I had Power Ranger shirts and bedsheets. I remember playing with the figures on the playground with friends and running around the neighborhood with them on Halloween as the Red Ranger. If I was having fun, does it really matter if I didn’t actually like Power Rangers? 

“Yeah… I guess it’s something to think about.” I let out a deep sigh. “How’d you get so smart anyway?”

She shoots me a smile, “I learned from the best.”

“Nope, definitely not me. That was all Mom.”

“Who did you think I meant?” She smirks.

“Ha-ha so funny.” I roll my eyes with a toothy grin, finally feeling the tiniest sliver of ease enter my body.

The relaxation slipped from me as quickly as it arrived. “Please don’t um, tell her…or anyone that we talked about this – especially Noah.”

“You got it. I would never.”

I somehow feel relieved yet terrified of what I’ve just divulged to her.

“Do you wanna get donuts from that 24-hour place? And maybe some water for your inevitable hangover?”

“God yes please.” My thumbs rub circles into my throbbing temples. “And a burger please, jesus I need a burger. And fries, I need fries more than air right now.”

“Fiiine, McDonalds too, I guess.”

“Thanks, Stell.” I say soft and genuine.

“Of course, Nick.”

I smile kindly at her. Tomorrow I’ll probably regret everything I said and did tonight but right now, I’m getting junk food with my sister at midnight and the world is quiet. Everything feels okay, even if it only lasts until the end of my Mcdonald’s.

I wave Stella goodnight as she walks into her room. With a twist of my doorknob, I open my door and my feet halt in their tracks. My swollen eyes widen at the last thing I expected to be in my room.

“What are you doing here?” I question before I can even really gauge my own reaction.

Noah sits on the edge of the bed still in the same outfit from the fair.

“I went looking for you.” His brown eyes find mine and it makes my chest ache the same way it did earlier on the bench.

“You did?” My square shoulders soften briefly before straightening back up again. “And why would you do that?” I snap at him.

The space between his brows burrows slightly, seemingly confused by my harsh response. “Well, I-I,” He presses his lips together while his fingers pick at his nails. “I was worried about you.”

My eyes dart down to the carpet and try to ignore the way my heart swells at his words. I swallow hard and curl my fists at my sides. “Well, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”

“Oh okay…” He trails off and lets his gaze drop to his fiddling hands and bouncy leg. “I just wanted to make sure, I guess.”

“Okay well, you’ve made sure. Now I really just wanna go to bed, if that’s okay with you.” I cross all of the two feet from the doorway to my dresser and forcefully yank the top drawer open.

He carefully lifts from the bed and meets me where I dig for clothes. “Nicholas.” His voice is gentle and full of concern, but no matter how much it should comfort me it just fans the flames of my resentment.

“What now, Noah.” I sigh harshly and turn to him.

“What did you mean at the fair?”

After the food adventures I had with Stella, it had almost erased what I had said from my memory. Too bad it couldn’t have done that to him too. I was really banking on him being too drunk to even remember. But I should know better than that – Noah and his very selective memory.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I feign confidence and turn back away from him to focus on finding PJs. My chest and limbs fill with a feeling similar to sitting in the waiting room of a principal’s office. Suddenly, I’m small and the room triples in size while the oxygen rapidly depletes.

“You know what I’m talking about Nick.” His fingers gently grab my arm to turn my attention to him again. “Do you… not like girls? Do you think you’re-”

“Gah! No!” I all but spit out. The thought of what he was about to say makes me want to vomit all over again. “No, I’m not…that.”

“O-oh, okay…but if you were, you know you could tell me, right? You know you can tell me anything, like we’ve always done.” His voice is quiet and tender, even through the vodka I can still smell on his breath.

“Oh my god Noah.” I grasp at the air in frustration. “No. I just said it to, to throw you off. So you’d let me go, so you’d leave me the fuck alone.”

“Oh.” His hand slips from my arm and he takes a step away from me.

If this was any other night, after any other event, I would apologize, minimize it, and say that I’m just having a bad night. But it’s not any other night and I don’t have enough energy in my entire body to make more excuses.

My fingers dig into the bundle of PJs I hold, and my stare stays straight on his chest. “I just, want to take a shower and go to bed. Okay?”

“Right.” He sucks his teeth and nods. “Okay, enjoy your shower then.”

“I will, thanks.” I reply blandly, shoving the overflowing drawer closed.

-

The world seems much lighter now that the thick layer of carnival muck, the remnants of alcohol and vomit were washed down the drain. I scrunch my hair with a terry cloth towel while I walk to my room from the shower.

I’m confused to find my door cracked open with the big light still shining through the door. I spent almost an hour trying to get all the grime off and let the water ease the pulsing in my head. Surely, Noah wouldn’t still be up, it’s almost 3 am.

I quietly creak the door open to find the bed empty.

“Huh?” I whisper to myself and make my way over to the disheveled bed. Noah’s nowhere to be found, but instead there’s a plushy on his pillow. I hook my finger through the plastic carabiner attached to it and lift it to my eyeline. It’s a stuffed tuxedo cat with sunglasses that look similar to the knockoff RayBans I usually wear.

I look back at the pillow and notice there was a note beneath it. I pick it up and unfold it with the cat dangling on my pinky. 

‘Saw this at the fair and thought of you. 

Went to stay over at Kassidy’s so, you can have your room back for the night.

-N’

The breath that escapes from deep in my torso seems to deflate me completely. I knew the slip of up of my words the other day hurt him, more than I thought. A vine of thorns wraps around my throat, each guilt-drenched spike digs into my windpipe. He left because of me.

I take a precarious seat on the edge of the bed, holding each item in each hand. My palm aches to crush the note in my fingers but my eyes burn with salty tears too. All while the cat swells my chest in the saddest way possible. How could someone feel so many things at once? 

I have no screams, no yells, no sobs left in me and my body begs for rest. I can’t let myself wallow in whatever this is, how could I make sense of it now? When my brain is so hazy and my eyes are so sleepy. 

I use the back of my hand to wipe away the tiny bit of tears left in my eyes and set the note and the stuffed kitty on my bedside table. The bed creaks when I bury my knee into the mattress and let myself fall to the middle. 

The bed feels colder and emptier without him in it, but right now I’m not sure this is where I want him to be. 

I reach up to tug the lamp light off and pull the duvet around my shivering body. 

After about 20 mins of stirring with no hope of falling asleep, I give in and just stare into the stillness of the room. My eyes finally adjust to the darkness and start making a sort of mental inventory list counting all of the items scattered around my room that aren’t mine. I try to remember what the room looked like before he moved in, but I can’t.

While there are growing pains, I can’t imagine my room without him in it anymore. He’s tangled himself into the very essence of the space. 

Drawing my gaze across the room, I land on the kitty he’d gotten for me at the fair. I reach across the space and bring it to the bed, placing it in his spot. 

It fills a tiny void in the vast emptiness of the bed and for about 15 minutes I cling to the minor comfort it brings, believing it might help me fall asleep. 

I let out a frustrated sigh. The heaviness of the night drops onto my shoulder blades and finds refuge beneath my eyes. Once again a venomous coil tightens itself around my ribs.

It is mostly confusion that I feel, the only factor I can distinctly pick out. 

The only other one I can somewhat recognize is, loneliness. 

I glance back over to the cat and it dawns on me the possible reason I can't fall asleep. My fingertips tap rhythmically against the mattress cycling through my options until I find one. 

I wrap my thick duvet around my body and grab my pillow before shuffling down the hall. I gently tap my knuckle against her door then crack it open just a bit.

“Stella.” I whisper-yell into her room. “Stella.”

She shifts in her bed and cracks one eye open at me. “Hm?” She groans sleepily.

I let myself in and scuffle across the carpet to her bedside. “Can I sleep on your floor?” I request in a hush. 

“What? Why?” Her brows knit together with her eyes barely open. “What’s wrong with your bed?”

I chew on my bottom lip searching my brain for an answer that makes any sense but there’s only one. 

“It’s empty.” 

Next Chapter -> 06 - Like Us*

tag list; @ladyveronikawrites @sinkingteethinwhitenoise @concretenoah @kingdomof-omens @the-hell-i-overcame @blackveilomens @xxrainstorm [comment if you'd like to be tagged?]

Thank you for the support on this series and on my other series, Virality. I appreciate it more than you know. I love reading your comments and asks. I am incredibly grateful for them, thank you.

[madrabit]

“You're late”, he sighed, almost as if this hadn't been part of their routine for the last few months, or really, for forever. Then his eyes darted behind Jan and a confused expression spread over his face. Jan quirked up an eyebrow, having the urge to turn around and see what Kris was looking for, but he stopped himself, hanging his umbrella onto the little coat rack instead. “Where is Bojan?” Kris continued and Jan just shrugged, swallowing around the little lump forming in his throat, making it hard to speak.

The 6th chapter of Intertwined is up now! I've tried keeping the chapter shorter than the last few, which only partially worked since it's still 6k words, but it's okay.

Also the sad part isn't over yet...

[marciaillust]

I feel like I missed something, what is Asterism?

Hi! Aaaaaa I guess I never explained it in an accessible way, I talked about it during livestreams but it's not like these are out there forever

Looooong story short, my best friend is a writer! Additionally they are my confidant and know the plot of The Clockmaster, my webcomic, through and through. So! I commissioned them to write me a Clockmaster fanfic(?) based off of the Superhero Au that we cooked up. My friend is a bit of a perfectionist and very diligent when it comes to their craft and they spent a year writing this story. It ended up being 42k (I comissioned them for 10k)! 42k is literally the length of The Great Gatsby, so I suggested that we should toootally print it and make a book out of it, just for ourselves as a memento. They let me draw the cover for it!

Asterism is the title of the story! :) So tl;dr Asterism is a 42k The Clockmaster fanfic written by my best friend I am so so lucky to have been born just in time to be this person's best friend. Also it feels weird calling it a fanfic? It's a custom made work of art for my eyes only, my golden chalice, my black diamond, the divine balm for my brain and ambrosia for my eyes-

[queenlucythevaliant]

Northern Lights

.

I heard a voice that cried, “Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!” 

.

Who knows what to call the lonely exhilaration of gazing out into a bright Northern sky? Who can name it? 

Jill could.

It was the same feeling that came to her at the teetering edge of a cliff at the end of the world. The same feeling as when she said her goodbyes to Puddleglum and Scrubb before they freed the prince. It was the same feeling that engulfed her now, sitting in the professor’s library with a volume of poetry before her. 

.

The wild northern wastes were well named: utterly wild, perfectly desolate, and terribly Northern. 

It was lonely there and often cold, but the sky was an endless whorl of gales and gray clouds. The stones were indigo under the pale winter sunlight, and at sunset they glowed a soft gold, as though lit from within. The gorges and moors lay before her, and Jill loved them for their vastness and their distance. Little grew in that country, but that which did was full of vigor. The grass was short and coarse. Every tree was victorious. 

On a still, deep breathing winter night, Jill lay on her back beneath a covering sky. It seemed beautiful to her, rich and strong and glorious. Her eyes drank in the breadth of it until her tears began to blind her. Yet even then, she still couldn’t look away.

She felt bigger here in the wastes, like the landscape. Stronger, wider. The further she walked, the more she felt herself stretch out. One of these days, maybe, she would catch hold of herself at the edge and tug, and Jill Pole would open up clear as the Northern sky. 

.

And through the misty air passed the mournful cry of sunward sailing cranes.

.

The thing that surprised Jill most about the battle with the serpent was this: there wasn’t any yelling. Always, it seemed, whenever she read stories about people fighting with swords, the combatants would let loose some guttural yell before their blows fell. They would scream and writhe in pain as they died. They would shout instructions to their fellows, “Look out!” or “Hit him there!” But the whole affair with the serpent passed with very little noise. 

The poison-green coil constricted around the prince; he raised his arms and got clear, struck the serpent hard, and then Scrubb and Puddleglum dispatched the creature with heavy, hacking blows. The monster died writhing, but not screaming. And then it was over. 

The thing that surprised Jill most about the moments before battle was, of course, the noise. She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears. She couldn’t stop listening to her own breathing. Every footstep rang out like a gong, and any words exchanged rang with a kind of finality that made them sound louder than anything. 

“You are of high courage,” Rilian told her when it was over. 

Yet the thing in Jill’s chest just then didn’t feel like courage. It was a deep breath, a plunge, and a release. It was loud and quiet all at once, till she was standing, blinking in the night air as snowballs whizzed round her, and maybe that was something like courage after all. 

.

And now, there was a stirring in her chest as she reread the words on the page. Sing no more / O ye bards of the North / Of Vikings and of Jarls! / Of the days of the Eld / preserve the freedom only / nor the deeds of blood! 

She thought of grief. Of freedom. 

The lonely ache in her belly grew stronger. She felt herself uplifted into the huge regions of sky that were just beyond those cliffs, weightless as the breath beneath her buoyed her up, further, further…

.

When she saw Caspian up close, Jill thought that he looked like the sort of person who was meant to live in a castle. A silly thought, perhaps, since she knew he was a king– only she wasn’t thinking of Cair Paravel. No, Jill was picturing the ruins of an old British castle she’d visited once on holiday. She still remembered how the stonework had loomed over her, all towering arches and crumbling walls. That was where Caspian seemed to belong. He had an air of ancient tragedy about him. 

When Rilian disappeared, all things had wept but one. The serpent coiled beneath the earth and flicked its forked tongue, spewing poison. 

Now, the king half rose to bless his son. He whispered a few words as he caressed Rilian’s cheek, words meant only for those beloved ears. Jill saw Caspian’s lips move and wondered what a man like that could possibly say, when time ran so short. 

.

They laid him in his ship, with horse and harness, as on a funeral pyre. Odin placed a ring upon his finger, and whispered in his ear.

.

Jill furtively took Myths of the Northmen and held it up to the professor with a question in her eyes. She was still shy around him and Miss Plummer, though she wished she wasn’t. 

“Would you like to take that with you?”

“...Please.”

.

It takes a certain kind of person to be exhilarated by the heights. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

They walked to the train station with an autumn wind blowing hard, and though Jill couldn’t fathom why, she turned and saw Lucy grinning, fierce and joyful– grinning and reaching a hand out towards her friend.

Jill reached back and grabbed it. “What will you do, once we’re back in Narnia?” she asked. 

The wind blew harder. The feeling of anticipation grew and grew, until it felt so big that she couldn’t dream of containing it. And there was Lucy, holding Jill’s hand and laughing like it was easy.

.

Preserve the freedom only, not the deeds of blood!

.

The second time Jill went to Narnia, she found herself not at its edge, but at its end. 

The thing about the Norse apocalypse is: it feels believable. It doesn’t reach beyond earth’s horizon to pull down hope beyond hope. It’s only the kind of courage that hopeless humans have: you are going to die, so you might as well die bravely. 

They found the last king of Narnia bound to a tree. His eyes were faintly red from crying, and his wrists and ankles red from the coarseness of his fetters. 

In the Norse myths, Loki broke free of his fetters at the end of the world. He escaped to the helm of a ship made from the fingernails of the dead.

The last king of Narnia fell forward onto the ground when Eustace cut his bonds. Jill crouched down beside him and watched as he rubbed feeling back into his legs. He wasn’t so much older than her, she thought. Jill was sixteen years old; the last king of Narnia could not be older than twenty-two. 

In the myths, the gods were ancient, hewn from the bodies of giants old as the earth. 

Jill put out a hand and helped the last king of Narnia to his feet. Not for the last time, she shivered. Something deep inside her (deeper than her chest, than her heart, than the marrow of her bones, deep as her soul, deeper) was singing an elegy and she didn’t know why, or how, or where it had come from. The king clutching her hand, who could have been her older brother, would have no heir.

Yet when he asked, “Will you come with me?” Jill could only smile. 

“Of course,” she said. “It’s you we’ve come to help.”

.

And the voice forever cried, "Balder the Beautiful is dead, is dead!"

.

“This really is Narnia at last,” murmured Jill. The springtime wood had little in common with the wintry lands she had traveled the last time she was here– but it awakened the same feelings of Northernness in her chest. 

Their party may as well have been the only people in the world, for how isolated their little wooden path seemed. Yet it wasn’t lonely, really, cocooned in all that green with the wind in the leaves and the primroses nodding and blue of the sky peeking through above. 

Jewel told stories about what ordinary life was like when there was peace here. As he spoke, Jill could almost hear the trees' voices speaking out of the living past, whispering, stay, stay. She was caught up to a great height, looking down across a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from distance. 

“Oh Jewel–” Jill said with a dreamy sigh, “wouldn’t it be lovely if Narnia just went on and on– like what you say it has been?”

She needn’t be a queen, as Susan and Lucy had been, but Jill would’ve liked to stay. She would've liked it all to stay, if it could. She might have been a woodmaid in a place like this: with the turn of the seasons, the swaying trees, swords into plowshares. Oh, if only she could stay!

Ahead, the last king of Narnia was softly singing a marching song. Jill tilted her head back and let warm shafts of sun caress her face. 

.

I saw the pallid corpse of the dead sun borne through the Northern sky.

.

“So,” said the last king of Narnia, “Narnia is no more.”

He tried to send them back. Jill shook her head. It was very loud and very quiet. “No, no, no, we won’t. I don’t care what you say. We’re going to stick by you whatever happens, aren’t we Eustace?”

They couldn’t go back anyway. Neither would they flee, not south across the mountains nor North into the great wide wastes. No, they would stay. They slept in a holly grove on the edge of ruin, waiting for the bonfires to light.

Jill slept fitfully, but in between she dreamed. She was high up in the air, buffeted by clouds and pierced by shafts of silver sunlight. 

.

They all died, in the myths. Jill knew that. It seemed beautiful and brave when she read it in her book, tucked away safe in the Professor’s library. It was terrifying now– and yet it was beautiful and brave still.

The dogs came bounding up, every one of them, running up to the king and his men with their tails wagging. One of them leapt at Jill and licked her face, tongue roughly lapping up the sweat and tears that had dried on her cheeks. 

“Show us how to help, show us how, how, how!” the dogs were barking, almost ebullient in their enthusiasm. Jill bit back a sob. How lovely, she thought. How terribly beautiful. How dreadfully brave. 

.

So perish the old Gods!

.

The white rock gleamed like a moon in the darkness when Jill finally reached it. She ran back to it alone, her hands shaking, while her friends stayed forward with their gleaming swords and Jewel’s indigo horn.

The while rock gleamed like the moon. Jill’s first shot flew wide and landed in the soft grass. But she had another arrow on her string the next instant. It was speed that mattered, not aim. Speed, and turning aside when she cried, so as not to drip tears on her bowstring.

The white rock gleamed. In the myths, a wolf devoured the moon. Peter’s wolf, slain many thousand years ago in this world, opened his jaw wide and darkness fell over everything.

Her next arrow found its mark. After that, she lost track. She pulled, and she prayed that her hands kept still another minute. 

The unique thing–maybe the appealing thing–about the Norse myths, was that they told men to serve gods who were admittedly fighting with their backs to the wall and would certainly be defeated in the end. Jill let loose another arrow, felt the white rock at her back, and she knew that the clawing fear–beauty–bravery deep in her gut was the same feeling that she felt on the heights. The same feeling, but a different face. You’ve got to love vastness more than you fear falling. 

.

“I feel in my bones,” said Poggin, “that we shall all, one by one, pass through that dark door before morning. I can think of a hundred deaths that I would rather have died.”

“It is indeed a grim door,” said Tirian. “It is more like a mouth.” 

“Oh, can’t we do anything to stop it,” said Jill. Better to be dashed to the ground than it was to be devoured. 

“Nay, fair friend,” said Jewel. “It may be for us the door to Aslan’s country and we sup at his table tonight.”

A hand tangled itself in her hair and started to pull. Jill braced herself hard, for a moment, until her strength gave out. She was standing on the edge of a high, Northern cliff. She took another step, and fell.

.

Perhaps when the moment comes, our bite will prove better than our howls. If not, we shall have to confess that two millennia of Christianity have not yet brought us to the level of the Stoics and Vikings. For the worst (according to the flesh) that a Christian need face is to die in Christ and rise in Christ; some were content to die, and not to rise, with Father Odin.

.

The world inside the stable was beautiful. It made Jill’s chest ache in all the loveliest ways. 

.

Build it again, O ye bards, fairer than before!

[mikichko]

Ghoap/bluetooth anon. I personally have my own experiences in my family of butterflies being seen as passed loved ones visiting us (seriously. My godmother, my grandmother, and me all have stories) so I thought that was really cute in the response you had to my “Simon’s happy endings” ask. I like the idea of Reader telling a story about that meaning of butterflies, Simon hearing it and connecting it to his own instances of butterflies, and then gifting his loved ones with butterfly based things. Like getting at etching of a butterfly on a necklace or watch for soap, one of those hair clips that makes it look like the butterfly is flapping its wings for the reader (which definitely gets her cool points in the eyes of her students), and a endless book of temporary butterfly tattoos for Zach since he wants to be like Simon and have tattoos!

I was just thinking about the butterflies when I got this ask. I actually saw a Monarch on the train tracks. It landed on the section of the tracks right next to my window and I swear it was someone coming back to say hi. Made me grin a little, like the universe affirming my belief in this.

🦋 Learning about the butterflies part of chao mi niño

It’s sweltering. Or so the boys say.

Frankly, this is light sweater weather where you’re from, but the isle isn’t familiar with these heat waves. Though, it makes perfect weather for birdwatching. Which is why you find yourselves gathered in the garden.

Zach’s attention is honed onto the bird feeder, hands planted on the table for a better vantage point. There’s a pair of binoculars next to a Scottish Bird Identification List and a few uncapped highlighters next to it. There’s a streak of white across his left cheek, unblended sunscreen he’d begged for to mimic Simon’s eyeblack.

Beside him, you’re fussing over Johnny, making sure the sunscreen properly blends well onto his face before you can apply the second coating on his arms. He’d learned his lesson a few weeks ago after his last burn and peel endeavor. Simon’s disappeared inside, trying to find the rest of the bird feed so that he and Zach can restock the feeders.

It’s not quiet, instead, your little bubble of Glasgow is filled with soft comfortable sounds. The call of the birds, Clover’s occasional sleepy half barks and whines, Zach’s highlighter marking off another spotted bird, and the soft melodic blues that play from the kitchen. Your own piece of peace within the city.

Which makes it easier to hear Zach’s small gasp amidst all the noise. You think he’s spotted another bird, but it’s not followed by the scratchy sound of a highlighter marking the page. Instead, Zach’s hands stay planted on the glass, leaning forward just a bit. You follow his gaze and find a small two winged creature familiarizing itself with one of your poppies. The red poppy is angled towards the sun, petals wide open to receive her light. She flutters her wings as she adjusts herself on the flower before finally settling down for a drink. Zach’s jaw is wide open as he watches the small delicate bug drink from the flower.

“Looks like someone came to visit you, bud.”

Zach’s eyes stay trained on the butterfly but his head tilts at the sound of your voice. “Visit me?” His voice is low, afraid he’ll scare the fragile thing off.

You hum, capping the sunscreen as you finish up with Johnny, “When I was little, mom used to tell me that butterflies were people who had passed coming back to visit.”

Johnny arches an eyebrow at you, silently questioning the validity of your story. Just like his son does moments later.

“Is that really true?” Zach asks as he sinks back on his heels, resting his face on his palms, eyes never leaving the butterfly.

You laugh, pinching Johnny’s cheek before looking over to the occupied poppy, “I thought it was silly at first. Plenty of myths and superstitions told through the family, but this was the first one that stuck. Well, that and the duendes.”

Right then, Simon appears at the door, “Spent ‘bout fifteen minutes looking for the bloody thing. Found it right where I left it after last feedin’.”

You gesture at him, “See? Duendes!”

Johnny snorts at you, Simon tilts his head, and Zach’s eyes widen just a fraction. But you carry on, “I got to experience my own butterfly visit. I didn’t get to be with my grandma when she passed. Too quick and too far for me to make it in time.”

You stop to take a drink of water, the sting is still there even after all these years. Her most dutiful grandchild relegated to mourning abroad. And yet, the ones who took her for granted the most were right at her side until she was lowered into the dirt. It’d taken a while for the bitterness to fade. Her butterfly made it easier.

“I was at a park sometime later, trying not to feel guilty for not being there for her. When suddenly this little butterfly with black-tinged wings landed on my knee. Don’t know how but I just knew it was her letting me know it was okay.”

Johnny’s hand lands on your knee, rubbing his thumb across it. Simon makes his way over, crouching next to Zach and sharing a look with you.

You clear your throat, “Were you thinking of anyone specific bud?”

Zach’s mouth twists in concentration for a moment, working through a thought. It’s a few moments before he pipes up in a small voice, “I was thinking if the mommy that had me in her belly would like you.”

It’s still, your breath caught in your throat. Simon’s eyes have not left yours but you’re focused on Zach. He’s thinking if his mother would like you.

Simon’s the one who breaks the silence, “How come bud?” Deep and soft, pushing the boy for an answer.

Zach’s eyes are wide and creased, wonderment, curiosity, and a small bit of fear shine through. “Because I love you.”

It pushes the breath out of you, melting you, “I love you too bud.”

Zach beams back at you, “I think she does like you!”

In your peripheral vision, almost as if responding, the butterfly’s wings flap. Simon’s eyes look just a little more shiny than normal and Johnny’s hand squeezes your knee as he huffs out a small laugh.

Zach perks up again, back up on his knees as he speaks, half shout half whisper, “I had bees before school so I asked the clouds to pretty please make sure everything went good! Then I saw the butterfly and then I saw you!”

You grin at him, laughing a little as you smooth his hair back, “Sounds like she led you straight to me bud”

Zach’s grin widens, positively glowing at the revelation. Simon wears a near identical grin to his, spitting image that they are. You can’t help but smile back at them both before pressing a kiss to his nose.

“Aye butterfly brought you straight to us, lovie.” Johnny says before planting a kiss on your cheek.

You’re next to Simon, putting away the dishes from midday while he washes the evening’s batch.

“Was all that true about the butterflies?” He rumbles curiously.

You smirk, “Why? You becoming superstitious?”

He snorts at you, “’Am trying to conduct research and compare sources.”

You giggle at him, checking him on the hip, “Yeah it’s true. Anytime I’d get stressed or worried about something, it seemed like a butterfly would come by. Grandma basically telling me to calm down like she always did.”

Simon hums, silently washing the dishes for a moment before he speaks again. “Don’t see them often, not the kind of thing that gravitates towards me if you can believe.”

You snort at him.

“But I’ve seen four in total.”

“Lotta people looking after you.”

“Yeah.” The scrubbing stops and his hands rest against the sink, suds dripping off the gloves. “Brought me one of you, each one of them.”

You feel warmth at your side as Johnny returns from checking on Zach, “Never told me about tha’”

“Never knew about the butterflies.”

You hum, raising your hand to stroke his cheek, “Guided us to you, sweet thing. They just wanted to make sure you were taken care of.”

Simon hums, eyes closing as he presses into your palm, “Did a great job picking you lot out.”

You grin as Johnny presses you into Simon, wrapping his arms around you both. Somewhere in the background Clover’s tail thumps against the sofa.

💉 The mementos

Simon: Tattoo! Gets four butterflies trailing from his wrist down his forearm with the first one being the biggest and decreasing in size so that the fourth one is the smallest.

Johnny: Another tattoo! His is a butterfly flapping its wings with different shading and color so it looks like there are actually 4 different butterflies. It’s really cool and Zach loves to stare at it.

Reader: Chose to stick with hair clips on this one! Pinterest showed me a lot of really cool inspo for all different hair types which was a huge plus! Once this reader is brave enough for a tattoo they'd probably get it on one of their shoulders with their initials hidden somewhere within!

Zach: Temporary tattooes GALORE! He absolutely loves having his dads put them on him. Of course he wants to be just like them and begs them to cover him up. He also has a pink butterfly stuffed animal that he sleeps with that he calls Betty. It’s his confidant (she also serves as a treat hiding place)

[todayisafridaynight]

they were out of line for this. by the way.

[atthefishhouses]

The worst fate, they utterly agreed, would be to become like Mother and Dad, stuffy and frightened. Not one of them, if she could help it, was going to marry a broker or a banker or a cold-fish corporation lawyer, like so many of Mother’s generation.

Mary McCarthy, The Group (1963)

[torantuga]

rendering practice + fake cover for my fic

[hobermallowed]

not entirely sure how it works but I’ll go ahead and headcanon that Frey and Susurrus are intertwined at the soul now. So what happens to Frey happens to him. So if she dies he goes with her.

[fromtheseventhhell]

The more I think about it, the more I believe that Arya has to have one of the highest chapter counts in TWOW

[madrabit]

Ok! So second try! How abouuuuut blanket?

If I didn't get the word again could I please get random snippet? 🥺

Uhhhhh, blanket is in there, so here you go! 🥰✨️ (Might be a tiny bit of spoilers, but the general mood is quite angsty in the fic rn)

“I got caught in the rain”, Bojan said quietly, giving Jan a little smile that wasn't convincing at all, but he looked away, eyes darting over Jan's shoulder to look at the others. He took in their faces for a second, then he let his gaze drop to the floor again and Jan wanted nothing more than to pull him into his arms, wrap Bojan up in a blanket, hold him tight and keep him warm.

[lunar-years]

legit chills reading the new career change snippets!

Thank you! The good news on that front is that I'm fairly certain it's the next fic I'm going to update, because it's what I have the most motivation to work on right now. And the even better news is that chapter 3 (jamie's chapter) is already partially written and fully plotted out, so the update time between chapters 2 & 3 should be much MUCH less delayed than between chapters 1 & 2. ❤️