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is-the-sky-blue · 3 months ago

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OVERWHELMED: GOJO SATORU & GETO SUGURU

Fluff, satosugu x reader, reader is called mom, papa satoru, dad suguru

You were overwhelmed.

The warm steam from the pot below you wafted up to your face, the obnoxious low rumble of the range hood sucking up the air as to not let your smoke alarm go off, yet again. The curry bubbled and you stirred the mixture of carrots and potatoes, leisurely. "Mom," it was a troubled call, you turned, facing the long haired child perched in a chair at the table behind you, her brown eyes glassy as she stared at the textbook in front of her.

You were quick to lower the heat, tapping the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot before settling it down on the handles, placing the glass lid atop the stainless steel before shuffling over to her, fluffy socks adorned with a strawberry pattern, given to you as a little surprise from an ordinary grocery run, protecting your feet from the cool tile. "Tsumiki honey, what's wrong," you coo, taking a seat in the chair next to her, the girl's lips pouted in frustration as she pinched her brows.

"I dunno how to do this," she points, pencil led prodding at the textbook pages scrawled in graphite, loitered with jokes and absurd comments that your dear girl would never do, knowing that this, probably twelfth generation textbook's drawings, were presents from students past. It was a math question, simple algebra that she was only introduced to yesterday in class, and your ever keen student was quick to do her homework on Saturday as to not stress out tomorrow, as her Papa promised to take them all out on a fun day trip.

"Let me take a look," you murmur gently, offering a smile to try and quell her irritation as you stared at the notebook pages, neat handwriting full of numbers interrupted as she tried to answer question 6c, smudges of pencil rubbed away by eraser staining the paper and you reevaluate the problem, carefully repeating it onto the sheet. "This one is quite tough," you nod, hoping to show that her struggle was valid, "but basically you have to-" you start, ready to walk her through the steps to find an answer when yet another call drew your attention away.

"Mom!" this time it was a wail.

"Just a second baby," you pat the girl's hair, "I'll be right back," you promise, getting up from the cushioned seat to step towards the living room, crying children hidden behind the couch, as the open concept layout usually allowed you to see all your kids at once.

You spot the two twins, eyes glassy as Mimiko held a doll tight in her grasp, body shifted away from her sister as Nanako crossed her pudgy arms over her chest, tearful glare directed towards the former.

"What's wrong," you murmur, sore muscles slightly protesting as you pulled into a crouch assessing the situation. Your usually two well behaved girls who generally got along with one another were fighting for the nth time today. They were having a rough time, both irritated, grumpy and getting on each other's nerves consistently on this somber Saturday

"Mimiko won't share," Nanako cries, rubbing harshly at her puffy cheeks as salt rivers stain her face, falling in large droplets. You are quick to tenderly grasp her hands, careful touches wiping away the dew. You turn to face Mimiko, knuckles turning pale with the death drip she had on the pink haired doll.

"You two have loads of dolls though," you try to reason, plucking up a different toy, presenting it to the red faced girl.

"But I want that one," she sobs, hiccupping and you tried not to sigh too loud.

"Mimiko," you call, the child pursing her lips as she turned her body away in defiance.

"I want a turn," she huffs when you don't retract your scolding gaze, "Nanako's been playin all day wif her," she shakes the pink haired toy, glittery strands catching light and you don't know what to do. Nanako was crying because Mimiko had stolen the toy, and you knew the girl had been politely asking all day just to be denied.

It wasn't right that she took it, you know that, but it also wasn't right that Nanako hasn't been sharing. You didn't want to just take the doll away completely, even if a nagging voice said that a mere threat wouldn't hurt, but the high percentage that it'd leave both girls' crying already gave you a headache.

They were just tired. Bad dreams plaguing them last night, preventing them from sleep, they needed a nap but wouldn't settle down for one, not even after being cradled and read to. No matter how many picture books you pulled out, or if you just tucked them into their beds, neither agreed to your plan and now it was too late, settling for a nap now would only result in the inability to rest when it was actually bed time.

You bit your lip, their lack of sleep also resulting in your lack of sleep, achy limbs tired as you shut your heavy fatigue ridden eye lids as bawling tears continued to drip, "Nana-" you were about to start only to be interrupted yet again.

"Mom," it was raspy this time and you heed the call, facing a sleepy Megumi, his face florid as sweat beaded on his forehead, duvet you wrapped him in trailing along the hardwood floors as he pulled it onto his shoulders. His spiky hair was slightly matted, eyes a little red, nose running.

"Megumi" you coo, your sick boy padding to walk into your arms, falling into your embrace eagerly as he nuzzled into your neck, his cold nose making you slightly cringe as he burned up in your grasp, fever overheating his tiny figure.

"m'sorry," he begins and you don't want to question what happened as you wrapped the blanket tighter around his little form, "I missed the bucket," he confessed, his fingers timidly grabbing at your sleeve, toying with the fabric and you knew what he meant, the little stomach bug beating up his organs had made you gift him a plastic container for all his vomit. "I didn't mean too," his voice wavers, you could feel your shirt begin to grow damp but all you could do was hold him tighter.

"It's okay," you try to keep the irritation ebbing away at you from your tone.

"Mom."

They all needed you, tears falling down fast as different anxieties permeated your house, home full of grief as they each battled with different problems. Tsumiki struggling with her homework, Mimiko and Nanako bickering yet again over something trivial but huge in their little world, while Megumi tried to fight off a sickness but was currently losing, and you trying to grapple every thing, your sanity quickly slipping as their sadness poured into you, the tired little smiles you kept up slowly fading away as you could feel your own anxieties claw up your throat.

All your children were crying, frustrated wails, and you were barely keeping it together, clutching your son tightly as you tried not to fall into a pit of tears yourself.

You were overwhelmed.

Overloaded with tasks and duties, you had to help Tsumiki finish her school work, settle this doll dilemma, clean up the little mess Megumi made and still finish up dinner. Your list was all consuming, trying to drown you as your house shook, trembled.

Your family was having a rough day.

Everyone was troubled and you-

You couldn't do it all.

You barely registered it, chaos consuming your leaden muscles as you did your best to organize your frantic thoughts, but when a gentle hand is placed on your shoulder the tension in your chest, weighing down on you eased. "Let us handle it from here love," a sweet murmur, his dark hair was messy, result of a tough day at work but he was quick to roll up his sleeves, pressing a lingering kiss to your temple, soothing your berating mind and you could only nod, brain refusing to process an argument as he turned to the two twins.

"C'mere Megumi," your white haired counterpart now next to you, reaching out for the duvet coddled boy who merely nuzzled further into your grasp at the call and you can't help but keep him close, quicksand sinking limbs finding their way to cuddle him even further.

"It's okay Toru," your voice is laced with a slow molasses, tired dribbles as you mumble, blinking your stinging eyes, retreating tears falling back from your waterline, "can you just," and you bite your tongue, feeling a strange quiver form in your throat as an inexplicable lump formed, but he's cupping your face, squishing the fat of your cheek with his easy going toothy grin, pink lips parting to let an ever loving smile shine affectionately at your drained visage.

"Can do!" and he's popping to his feet, knowing your sentence without your words, upbeat aura exterminating the lingering gloom that held heavy in a foggy cloud from the ceiling. His call of Tsumiki's name is kind before he's taking the seat next to her, getting to work and slowly your growing checklist of tasks melted, shredding into tiny little strips as they rips apart the paper, taking a chunk to handle by themselves.

Your knees audibly crack as you stand, his warm cheek in the cove of your neck as he put up no fight to slump in your hold. "Let's get you a bath, yeah Gumi," you hum, body gently rocking as you pad down the hallway and towards the bathroom, light flickering on with a warm glow to paint the white tiles.

"M'sorry," he's murmuring again as you set him down, guilt ridden eyes swathed with remorse as you slowly began to fill the tub, squirting out some of the soap from a half-empty bottle of bubble bath, watching as white foam slowly floated to the surface, "I-I'll do better," he sniffles.

"You don't need to be sorry baby," you brush the strands of hair sticking to his forehead away, heat emanating from the slick sweat of his skin, dampening your fingertips as you gingerly peel the blanket off his body, pang of pity hitting your heart as he shuddered, "you didn't do it on purpose," you hum, "and all you need to do for me is drink lots of water, get tons of rest and get back to your strong and healthy self, okay my Gumi bear," you smile, watching the boy cringe at your little nickname.

"Don't call me that," he whines, voice nasally as you help him take off his clothes before settling him inside the water filled tub.

"Why not," you tease, turning off the tap but he could only puff out his chest, no reason coming to mind as he submerged his body into the water, steam slowly relieving his congested pathways.

"I- It's embarrassing," he tries and you coo with a sly little smile.

"Are you embarrassed of me," you purse your lips in faux pain.

"That's not what I said," he rasps out, crossing his arms over his chest as he slumps his back against the porcelain, defeated.

"Mhm I see how it is," you sigh dramatically, snickering at his pout before you lean to boop his nose. "Will you be okay on your own," you ask the boy, observing as he picked up a cloud of soap and squashed it between his palms.

"Mhm," he nodded and you grin, giving him an affectionate rustle of the hair before grabbing the slightly soiled clothing, lingering smell of vomit and sweat clinging to the fabric of his pajamas as you stepped outside the bathroom, leaving the door open just a smidge as you padded towards Megumi's bedroom, the door wide open, readying yourself to untuck his bedsheets only to find his mattress already bare.

"It's in the wash," he murmured against the shell of your ear and you lean into his warmth, resting your head on Suguru's lowered shoulder, "do you need me to take that too," and his hands are quick to take the clothing from your grasp.

You simply shut your eyes for a moment, listening to his breathing, "thank you," you hum out when you blink open, whirling around on your toes to face him.

"It's no problem baby," and he's pressing yet another calming kiss to your forehead, easing the worries that had begun to clamber up your chest, "you should go take a break, I can finish giving Megumi a bath," he murmurs against your skin but you shake your head as he pulls away.

"No, I can do it," you affirmed, the worried look in his gaze doing little to force your hand, "I want to do it," you reiterated and his shoulder's slumped as he acquiesced, letting you have your way yet again.

"If you say so," he's sighing, "but let me know if you need anything, alright, you've already done a lot today, don't push yourself pretty," and he's kissing your cheek this time, flashing you an understanding smile but you are quick to peck at grinning lips, withdrawing much too early for his liking.

"I won't," you reassure, patting his arm, urging him to go and he chuckles, retreating back to the laundry room as you go to grab another set of pajamas for Megumi to wear.

Your heart felt a little lighter, the happy sounds of an understanding Tsumuki echoing down the hallway before she was sharing a high-five with Satoru, a resounding, elating smack reverberating as you take a small peek down the hall, her once pinched brows no longer furrowed with stress as your white haired partner thoroughly explained the topic in a way she could understand, patiently answering all her questions and kindly nudging her along the right path whenever she made a mistake. The sight had you smiling, there were no tears, no yelling, the image much unlike your childhood, her ability to even ask for help showing you that you must be doing something right, after all you didn't want her to face the same struggle you had when it came for asking your parents for any kind of assistance.

Turning back to the bathroom you nudge the door ajar with your hip, spotting your little spiky haired boy with a rubber duck in his hand, pushing it along the water and he's quick to stare at you, meeting your gaze as you plop the fresh clothing onto the counter. "Mom," he calls and the word no longer burdened you with such despair as it had moments ago, of course you loved your title, the very words being attached to you giving you an indescribably joy as your little found family discovered comfort in you as a mother figure, but you couldn't deny that a few moments ago the very call of that label had you broiling with stress.

"Yes love," you hum, quick to pull the stool over, sitting near the edge as Megumi glanced up at you, bubbles staining his fingertips.

"Will Papa still take me on the trip tomorrow," he sniffles, dry eyes blinking up at you with worry.

"Of course he will Gumi," you reach a hand out, petting his hair before cupping his warm face between your palms.

"W-What happens if I don't feel good tomorrow too," he whimpers, eyes going glassy as his lips pull into a pout and you could feel a little tremor shake your heart, small fracture nicking away at it as you pressed a tender kiss to his scalp.

"Then we'll reschedule it baby, okay," you murmur, staring into his heartbroken gaze, "it'll be alright."

"But I don't wanna ruin it," he mumbles so quietly, guilt ebbing away.

"Honey you won't ruin anything," you assure, "no one is leaving you behind, and no one will be sad if we can't go tomorrow, besides it wouldn't be fun if you weren't there."

"Promise."

"I promise my love," and you interlock your pinky with his, rubbing away a stray tear that managed to fall, "now how about we get you dressed and back to bed," you offer, a gentle smile accompanying your words and he grins, nodding.

You were quick, drying the boy before pulling the dog themed shirt on his head, helping his arms through the fabric before tugging it down. "Cozy," you muse, fingers lightly tying the drawstrings of his fuzzy pants.

"Mhm," he hums, fast to find solace in your embrace as you carefully adjust him to settle on your hip, standing up. You survey the bathroom, empty tub still slightly foamy along the edges, drain covered in bubbles that you didn't focus on, preoccupied with dressing the sickly boy, the blanket he had dragged around, abandoned on the floor, crumpled in a corner, the floor slightly imprinted with wet footsteps.

You purse your lips, rubbing small circles onto his back as his face burrowed into the crook of your neck, dark hair tickling the skin but you pay no mind, occupied with your disinterest on cleaning the space, you had left a slight mess.

Shutting your eyes you sighed, maybe you could just pretend it wasn't there for a moment, you tried to offer yourself, turning to head towards Megumi's bedroom only to spot that his bed was still bare and you were soon painfully aware that both pairs of bedsheets you had used for his bed were now soiled and in the wash, the first set vomited upon in the morning when he had felt the brunt of his ailment clawing at his stomach.

You could feel irritation clamber up your limbs, leaving an unsettling itch in your bones as you push your weight onto your toes before rocking back onto your heels, uncertainty bubbling beneath your skin as your frazzled brain wracked for a solution. "He can sleep in our room for a little while," and the bubbles faded into nothing, heat of the element reduced to zero in an instant as your unsettled waters no longer even simmered.

His hand is on Megumi's forehead, checking the little boy's temperature while the other lay relaxed on your hip, leaving an assuring squeeze, "do you want me to take you Megs," Satoru offers, knowing full well he'd be denied, and rejected he was, the boy merely clinging to you tighter with a pout.

"It's fine Toru," you hum, his hands slightly fixing your hair before pressing a kiss to the nape of your neck.

"Alrighty then," he snickers, and you barely have to turn your head to know he and Megumi were sticking their tongues out at each other, "I'll go clean up the washroom then," and he shifts his focus to you.

"No that's alright, you should go rela-"

"I should be saying that to you pretty," he quirks a grin, cutting you off, "now go on," and he's shooing you away, hands on your shoulders before lightly ushering you out, "let me work," he tsks, opening the door, letting you walk into your shared bedroom before quickly scampering off with a cartoony whistled song.

You can't fight off your smile before shuffling towards the messily made bed, the rumple of sheets a painful reminder of your inability to focus this morning, waking up to sobs, the idea of making the bed no longer at the forefront of your brain, and it still wasn't. You collapse onto the mattress, lightly tackling Megumi beneath your body.

"Get off me," he giggles, squirming, fists pushing at your shoulders.

"What, you don't want my love," you gasp dramatically, peppering kisses over his face until he's shoving you away, hoarse voice laughing as he wriggles, crawling towards the head of the bed but you grab his ankle, "don't make me fight you," you tease, pulling him back, his happy little shriek of, 'let me go,' making you grin before you lift him into your arms, wrapping around him tight before squeezing him, planting one last firm peck to his cheek, his happy face lessening all your lingering unease before pulling the both of you beneath the covers.

"You're silly mom," he's snickering.

"Oh really," you laugh, resting his head upon the pillow, laying on your side as he puts his hand onto your face, pudgy fingers squeezing at your cheek, contorting your facial expressions, "I think you're pretty silly," you muse, reaching out to smush his face, his lips puckering as you forced him to look like a fish.

"Nuh uh," he huffs pulling away from your grasp before using both his hands to try and force your face the same way, and he's giggling.

"Nuh uh," you mock, "what do you mean nuh uh," you tease lightly tickling at his sides.

"Nuh uh," he shrieks again, squirming before burrowing into your embrace, putting an end to your attack as he cuddled close and you couldn't help but reciprocate. "Mom," he's calling again.

"Yes," you coo, running your fingers through his hair.

"Can we go see a T-rex."

"Hmm," you raise a brow, "where'd that come from," you ask, slightly perturbed by his out of the blue question.

"Yuji told me at school that his papa took him to see T-rex bones."

"Oh, is that so," you coo, rhythmically patting his back, "we can go to the museum and see dinosaurs together when you're all better."

"With Tsumiki and Mimiko and Nanako."

"Of course, we'll take Tsumiki, Mimiko, Nanako, Dad and Papa," you grin, "so make sure to get lots of sleep and drink lots of water, okay."

"Okay," he's murmuring and despite his prior burst of energy his eyes were closing.

"Goodnight," your kiss his scalp, gently rocking his body and even though he drifted off you continued to lay there, weary limbs finally relaxing.

"Wake up love," you don't even remember falling asleep.

You blink your eyes open, "You need to eat."

"Hmm," you groan as you stirred, staring at both their figures and you suddenly realize your arm's no longer hold the weight of a child, "where'd Megumi go."

"Asleep in his own room," Suguru coos, helping you sit up, thumb running over the apple of your cheek.

"What time is it," you ask eyes trying to adjust to the bright light of the digital clock on the bedside table.

"9:30ish," Satoru grins, taking a seat next to you, "the kids are already in bed."

"Why didn't you wake me up," you yawn, leaning your weight onto Satoru, "I could've helped."

"You've already done so much today," Suguru sighs and you hum into his touch, "wanted to let you rest."

"M'sorry," you murmur, suddenly feeling ashamed.

"Why are you apologizing love, we are the ones who should say sorry," and Suguru is settling down onto your other side.

"We left you home alone to take care of all of them, it must've been tiring," Satoru is holding your hand, running his thumb over your knuckles.

"You had to go to work, it's fine."

"Regardless," Suguru tacks on, "but you did a good job today," he praises and you find yourself melting, lip wobbling.

"No I didn't," and a surge of sadness washes over you, your emotions taking over, "y-you came home and everyone was crying, I was going to cry too, and, and I didn't know what to do."

"That's okay my love," and Suguru is pulling you into his arms, "you did your best."

"But still."

"Baby it's hard looking after four kids by yourself, you did amazing, it was just a rough day," and Satoru is kissing your forehead, "we should've come home earlier but even without us you did great."

"I should've been able to handle it."

"You did handle it."

"I got overwhelmed."

"And that's okay," Suguru assures once more, "it's a lot of work and it's normal to feel that way, that's why we're here, okay baby, it's not your job to look after all of them on your own, we're a team, you can depend on us," he continues, soothing your anxieties, pressing a gentle kiss to your temple.

"My pretty girl had a long day," Satoru coos, lightly pinching your cheek, cracking a coy smile, "let's go eat yeah, I'll warm dinner up again," he grins, reaching for you, carefully picking you up.

"I can walk," you protest, your arms snaking around his neck as he slid his arms beneath your bottom.

"And I can carry you," he sing songs, padding towards the door while Suguru quietly shushes him.

You were overwhelmed but Satoru and Suguru were quick to help you out.

#jjk x reader #jujustsu kaisen x reader #satosugu x reader #satosugu x y/n #satosugu x you #gojo x reader x geto #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #satoru x reader x suguru #jjk fluff

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butmakeitgayblog · 3 months ago

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Teach Me

Ch. 7

Test days

///////////////

God, she hated test days.

The mind-numbing minutiae of it.

The waste of time that could be better spent actually learning.

The way she had to show up to do… absolutely nothing.

Pacing an ambling line from one end of the lecture platform to the other, her eyes swept the darkened room before checking her watch again.

“You have thirty seconds left to finish your thoughts for this piece, and then we're moving on to the final slide,” Lexa called out, remembering to soften her tone so as to not make the more consumed writers of the class jump nearly a foot out of their desks.

Again.

The screen overhead flipped from ‘ The Column of Trajan’ to ‘ The Arch of Constantine’, and the clock on the wall ticked on.

A few more minutes passed in relatively dull silence as Lexa mentally flowed through the lesson plans she had presented thus far, combing the downturned sea of faces and mentally shouting what she hoped the students had taken from them.

Because she wanted them to do well.

Because she measured her own success as an educator by her student's every success.

Because if she had to read one more essay this semester that contained the words “lit” or “potato quality” in reference to ancient carvings, she just might tear her own hair out.

She really hated test days.

Mind buzzing with thoughts of stylistic contrasts between High Empire versus Late, and wondering who among her pupils would draw the correct conclusions for why each piece represented on the test was chosen, Lexa felt her pocket vibrate as she settled down on the edge of the table at the head of the room.

Fishing her phone out, she glanced down and froze at the preview that flashed bright across the screen.

“That is a very tight vest you have on Professor”

Schooling her face despite the heat that bloomed bright hot in her cheeks, Lexa checked the timer she had set and barely hesitated before opening the message.

“Shouldn't you be focusing on your test?”

“Just finished a minute ago. Now I'm wasting time until class is over.”

“Shouldn't you want to leave then?” she thumbed out. As if on cue, she pressed her phone to her chest and nodded as a student traipsed up to the front and deposited their test booklet on the table before slipping out of the lecture hall without a sound. “It's a beautiful day. Go enjoy it instead of pretending to look busy.”

“But the view's so good right here…”

Straightening up from her slouched position, it felt like a herculean task to keep her eyes from beelining to the front row and exactly two seats to the left.

Instead she made another lazy loop around the dais, scanning the crowd for moving pencils (and any obvious signs of someone having fallen asleep.)

The dull squeak of graphite on paper had her winding back around to stand behind the safety of her podium.

“That's highly inappropriate. Remind me why I let you sit in the front row?” she typed back the second her hands were out of sight.

She snuck another glance out into the dimmed lecture hall and waited.

“Because I'm your very favoritest student Professor Woods,” she read when another message popped up right below it. “And because when I wear this outfit you can almost see up my dress.”

/////////////

Read on AO3

#clexa #clexa fic #Lexa #clarke griffin #clarke x lexa #teach me #prof/stu au #this is part 1 of 3 that'll be post every week #with hopefully the other 2 parts coming right after it #but the next two parts are already done

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even-disco-baby · 2 years ago

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SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hello again, gendarme.” He smiles at you— not from his usual post, but from one of the cafeteria tables. A small sketchbook is laid out in front of him, along with some odd gray sticks.

ENCYCLOPEDIA — Compressed graphite. Not quite as bold or blendable as charcoal, but certainly less messy.

EMPATHY — Garte will appreciate it.

“I’d like to talk about the case again.”

“You moved! I didn’t know you could do that.”

“What are you drawing?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “That’s the question, isn’t it?” His smile turns a little rueful. “I found one of my old sketchbooks and thought I’d like to fill the last few empty pages, but I’m finding myself a little… uninspired.”

CONCEPTUALIZATION — The accursed artist’s block. Staring down an empty page only for it to stare back, mocking you.

EMPATHY — He is unsure of himself. He said this was an old sketchbook. Maybe he’s afraid of drawing something new beside his old work and seeing that nothing has changed.

“Ah, yes. Artist’s block. I know it well. In fact, I don’t know when the last time that I actually *made* any art was.”

“You could draw the cafeteria.”

“You could draw one of the other diners.”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “A life drawing exercise, huh? And who would you pick as a subject, gendarme?”

“I don’t know. You’re the artist.”

“Maybe Garte? The skua could be a fun challenge.”

“You should draw the guy with the wig and sunglasses over there. He looks pretty funny.”

“Lena! She’d probably love to model for you. It would take her mind off things.”

“Kim, how about you pose for him?”

[Suggestion - Medium 10] “Why not me?”

KIM KITSURAGI — “No.”

He has nothing more to say on the matter.

“Aw, why not? You’d make a great model!”

Let it go.

KIM KITSURAGI — “I do not get paid to model for portraits. I get paid to solve murders. Such as the one we came here to investigate. Several days ago. Which has not been solved yet, for some mysterious reason.”

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — In case you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.

“Come on, Kim. You’re the perfect subject! A true man of the people. And there’s this sort of radiance about you… I can see the portrait already, just looking at you. Really clearly, actually.”

Maybe don’t say that. He’s just not gonna get it.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He shrugs. “Sorry, gendarme. It’s not right to use someone’s image without permission, you know? Maybe some other time.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “No.” And then, a little awkwardly, “But thank you.”

“I don’t know. You’re the artist.”

“How about Garte? Though, you’d have to draw the skua, too…”

“You should draw the guy with the wig and sunglasses over there. He looks pretty funny.”

“Lena! She’d probably love to model for you. It would take her mind off things.”

“Kim, how about you pose for him?”

[Suggestion - Medium 10] “Why not me?”

CHECK SUCCESS

YOU — “Why not me?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He considers you with some amusement, but still, he does consider. “You’re not too busy?”

“On second thought, you’re right, I have some work to do right now. Another time, maybe?”

“Nope. Not at all.”

KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant sighs audibly.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — What did I *just* say?

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He chuckles to himself, apparently quite tickled by the little comedy act you two are making of yourselves. “Beautiful. Why not? Have a seat. I’ll try not to keep you too long.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “Much appreciated,” he says drily.

YOU — [Take a seat.]

SAVOIR FAIRE — Time to strike a pose. Let’s go with something cool. Something that really captures what you’re all about.

ENDURANCE — But make sure it’s something that you’ll be able to hold comfortably.

Wink and shoot him your signature finger guns.

Look at him with big sad eyes like a shamed puppy.

Look thoughtfully into the middle distance, as if contemplating your own future masterpiece.

Stare straight at him with eyes that have seen how this world will end.

Hold your head up high. With *honor.*

Just sit and act natural. No need to put on airs.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He looks you up and down, thumbing his bottom lip. His eyes look brighter and more alert than you have ever seen them. And then, he picks up his graphite and begins to work.

His eyes dart between you and the page, his hand sweeping across the page in bold, practiced strokes. All traces of his earlier hesitation have vanished.

VOLITION — Sometimes, a little push is all we need.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — Every now and then, he pauses to look up at you, and it’s almost unnerving to be the subject of whatever calculations are going on behind his eyes. He holds out his graphite, squinting just slightly.

VISUAL CALCULUS — This is called sighting. He’s roughly measuring the relative proportions of your figure and checking them against his sketch.

KIM KITSURAGI — Even the lieutenant is watching now, interested in spite of himself.

“Are portraits your specialty?”

“Have you been drawing anything for school lately?”

Better not distract him.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hmm…” He ponders this for a moment, not looking up from his work. “Not exactly. I’m more interested in the graphic arts than this sort of thing. But it’s best to build a strong foundation before branching out, you know?”

YOU — “Graphic arts? Like what?”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Printmaking.” A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he speaks, seemingly without him even noticing. “Monotype, especially.”

ENCYCLOPEDIA — Monotype is a printmaking technique that is singular from other techniques, in that it produces only *one* unique print, rather than an edition of multiple prints.

YOU — What, really? What’s the point of printing it, then?

ENCYCLOPEDIA — I don’t know. I didn’t invent it.

“Why monotype? Wouldn’t a different technique be more… practical?”

“I see.” [Drop the subject.]

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — He shrugs slightly, smudging a bit of graphite with a bare finger. “Depends on how you define practical, I suppose. If I had my own studio, and I was selling my prints, then maybe. But we make do with what we have, gendarme.”

EMPATHY — And what he has is very little.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Besides, I think monotype has its charms.”

The young man does not elaborate, instead focusing on the work at hand. He picks up an eraser that has been shaved down to a point for fine detail work, and begins on what are likely the finishing touches.

EMPATHY — He has already talked at uncharacteristic length about this. It’s making him a little uncomfortable.

SAVOIR FAIRE — He doesn’t like to share too much about himself because it makes him feel *uncool.* He prefers to maintain an air of mystery.

RHETORIC — It’s safer, too, that way. He’s learned that passion exists to be exploited. False promises and admiration are the offerings of Sunday friends.

“If you say so.” [Back off.]

“What kind of charms?” [Press on.]

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — His eyes flit back to you, sizing you up now in a different way. And then he looks back down at the page with a quiet bre ath.

“Well, it doesn’t take as much time or labor as other methods. Or expensive tools, or dangerous chemicals. Just paper, a plate, ink, and something to apply it with. And I can use the same plate over and over again, even use it to create different layers for the same print.”

RHETORIC — In other words, it’s cheap and can be done from home. An attractive option.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “And with monotype, it’s not so hard to go back and change your mind. You can start over as many times as you’d like, right up until the moment you lay the page on the plate.”

INLAND EMPIRE — That really does sound attractive. To be able to wipe the slate clean, over and over again…

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “There aren’t as many limits on what kind of textures you can create, too. Brushstrokes and fingerprints… They can really come out beautiful.”

His brow creases a little, and he picks his graphite back up to rework a particular area.

DRAMA — He’s still holding out on you, sire. Too self-conscious to admit what he really likes about the medium.

YOU — Which is what?

EMPATHY — Fragility.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — An image which is only complete after being mirrored and translated, never to be recreated except as a ghostly afterimage. An exercise in surrendering to chance. What will be, will be. And then the moment will pass, and it will be time to start the next piece.

VOLITION — This man knows disappointment intimately. It is his closest companion. He has learned to make peace with it. He passes the time with his Sunday friends, lays his paper on the plate and hopes, despite himself, for the best.

YOU — Is that… a good thing?

VOLITION — …It’s hard to say. But we make do with what we have.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “There.” The young man sits up straight, and it’s only now that you realize just how close he brought himself to his work.

DRAMA — His face may not betray him, but the body does not lie. He was having *fun,* my liege.

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “All done.” He tears the page from his book and holds it out to you with a small smile.

ITEM GAINED: Portrait of a Disco Holdover

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — “Hope I didn’t keep you too long.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “Don’t worry about it,” Kim says, rather resignedly.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — If you’d declined, the lieutenant thinks, my partner would have just found some other way to get sidetracked.

KIM KITSURAGI — Still, he cannot stop himself from glancing at the portrait over your shoulder.

PORTRAIT OF A DISCO HOLDOVER — It’s you! Unfortunately. Not even the most masterful hand could make the Expression less unsettling to look at. Your posture is poor, your face is swollen and blotchy, your hair is thinning, your clothes are shabby and out of place… I could go on.

Oh god, you could?

Please don’t.

PORTRAIT OF A DISCO HOLDOVER — But, you know… it’s nice. The smoker’s technique is bold and rather lovely, broad strokes of graphite intersecting in just the right places to create surprising depths. Somehow, even though it’s you… it’s not hideous.

EMPATHY — Because you’re seeing yourself through another person’s eyes.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — There is an odd tenderness to the portrait. Something amusing in your grimace, a touch of sympathy in your hunched shoulders. With the eraser, he has lifted small spots of pigment from your face, as if it were illuminated by flecks of light from the karaoke disco ball.

There are no disco lights tonight, but still, he sees them when he looks at you. Your moment has passed, but it left quite the impression. A ghost print, superimposed over you.

“Not bad, but the bicep girth is off. Right, Kim?”

“Oh god, is that really what I look like?”

“Hmm. It’s okay, but you should consider a backup career plan.”

“Whoa, you’re amazing! Can you draw me again, but this time in the costume from the cover of Man from Hjelmdall and the Devil Woman? And like, with a really cool warhammer? And Queen Lydiaana standing in the background, all like, ‘boohoo, where will I ever find another man like Ha— I mean, the Man from Hjelmdall?’”

“Beautiful.”

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY — His smile climbs up into the corners of his eyes, warming his entire countenance.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — If you were to capture a portrait of him in this moment, it would be beautiful, too.

#disco elysium #harry du bois #the smoker on the balcony #kim kitsuragi #this one is. so self indulgent. i like the smoker i like to think abt him #and assign him my art student interests #anyway. oh the joy of making art and showing ppl what they rlly look like in your eyes #and oh the beauty of monotypes and printmaking and hoping for the best #GODDAMMIT I FUCKED UP THE FORMATTING AGAIN AND DIDNT CATCH IT UNTIL LIKE 12 HOURS LATER.#if you saw that. no you didn’t.

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tinycozycomfort · 1 year ago

Text

rest in the cup of my palms (part one)

pairing: no outbreak!joel miller x art student f!reader

chapter one: drawing from life

series masterlist | next chapter

series summary: you went back to school to find out who you are—to make another leap in the hope of self discovery. when you finally find that first glimpse of yourself, it’s in someone else. what happens when the mirror tries to pull you in? or you’re everything joel could’ve hoped to find. he doesn’t let go easily.

chapter summary: ellie volunteers joel to model for a drawing class on campus. you find someone worth dreaming about.

warnings/tags: no outbreak, no use of y/n, (for everything) -> mutual pining!, possessive behavior, smut (w individual tags to come), unnecessary descriptions of joel being beautiful, ellie is joel's daughter, ellie and reader attend the same university but reader is in post-grad, age gap (joel is late 40s, reader is not), alternating pov, slow-ish burn, joel miller wins girl dad of the century via unanimous vote (for this chapter) -> masturbation (f), intense feelings of loneliness, existential rumination

word count: 7.2k

rating: explicit (18+ only! mdni)

A/N: some good ol' work up, necessary to explain the rated r plans i have for them. ive been terrified of writing a series but i'm also tired of editing everything down to be one-shot appropriate, so today we try. im full-swing into my fixation era and on my 'i cant be loved + ive known how to love you for 1,000 lifetimes' bullshit. this fic is as self indulgent as they come, but i hope you can enjoy it! and for those of you willing to trudge through this with me, i love you.

read on ao3

“To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them that they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed.”

Susan Sontag - On Photography

───────

A halo of hot light falls through the pane of glass above the sink. Joel’s got one eye pinched semi-shut, trying hard to focus on not burning himself while he drains boiling water out of a pot of pasta.

When he woke up this morning, the blinds on every window in the house had been strung up to the lip. He’d barely gotten a hand around one of the strings in the glass frame above the couch before Ellie appeared out of nowhere to literally slap his wrist, ‘I’m drawing’. Still groggy, he tried to challenge her, ‘Do they all have to be open?’, to which she patiently explained—for what she probably feels is the millionth time—that she needed the extra light, and if she had them all open when she started, they’d need to stay that way until she was done.

So he left her to work, knowing she’s got midterms to finish, walking around with his eyes closed until he felt his way back into his bedroom. He came out once for coffee, and not again until dinner. This is their weekend.

Joel spoons out some of the food into bowls, leaving them to stay warm by the stove before he steps into the dining room. He stops himself half-way, hanging back in the archway to give his daughter another minute as the last shreds of strong sunlight start to wane out.

Ellie’s right where he left her: at the table, cross-legged in her chair with an eraser-less pencil held tightly in her fist. She’s hunched over a large pad of paper, the back of it lifted at an angle under a pile of old books and dog-eared tool catalogs. The sketchbook she uses as a reference guide is propped up on the corner of her left knee, leaned against the edge of the table. She rifles between two pages of it, eyeing some of the quick sketches—visual notes, as she puts it—that she took in class to help her navigate the larger, more detailed version with ease. Silent save for her short huffs of breath, she’s concentrated, wrist-corner lifted to not misplace any graphite. Her process is always the same; a little creature of habit.

She’s wearing her headphones, the cord winding dangerously low, threatening to dip into a cup of water she’d placed in the empty triangle between her lap—the same one he’d seen her with six hours ago. She hasn’t even touched it, still full nearly to the brim. He wonders if she’s gotten up at all. The girl works herself a bit too hard, he thinks, always falls head first into whatever project she’s working on, nothing if not like her dad. The corner of his mouth tugs up so tight it hurts. What is he going to do without her?

He just stands there, feet crossed on top of each other and arms in a twist over his chest, and watches her while she’s not looking, knowing she still gets shy sometimes when he catches her like this. She’s the sweetest reminder of everything good Joel’s ever done; another life he’d gladly offer his own for.

It’s always come naturally—to be what someone needs of him—in a way that transcends reward or expectation.

Joel had been his brother’s primary caregiver first, from birth and then well into their adulthood—always around to bail him out of jail or lend him money he didn’t have. Because he cared. Loved him. He couldn’t ever really say it, always had a problem with the wording, but he knew that at least some of what he wanted to explain had come across. He can see it in the way Tommy is with his own family.

His brother has Maria now, and the kids, and seeing how happy Tommy could be in spite of their upbringing was the first time Joel had ever put his priorities into question. Somewhere in all the caring-for he did, he’d forgotten about himself; the possibility of having his own wife and child and home. He’d always ached for that, deep down, but didn’t even know it was an option until he saw it happen. By that point, he wasn’t sure if he could do any of it, or if he even had the time to start. Then came Ellie.

She entered his life when a close friend of Tommy’s had died unexpectedly and no one came forward to claim her, unknowingly giving him a second chance; one he worked to make count. She was tough to crack at first—also like him in that way—but the love had always been there, waiting its turn after all the awkwardness and misunderstanding and adapting before finally showing its face. She’d needed him then, as much as his brother had all those years ago, carrying on the torch of purpose that Joel so feverishly searched for.

He rolls his eyes at himself; he’s been having too many misty-eyed moments about her lately. It’s so unserious, the actuality of it; of being her dad. Going to work and the supermarket and museums, being there to chaperone field-trips and take one-thousand mostly-blurry photos of her graduation. But it’s been everything to him. He’s desperately clung to the five years of her life that she’s shared with him, and he’s so proud to witness it, but he knows she’s getting to a point where she needs to be her own person. He’ll miss her when she’s only home for summers, then only home for Christmas, then only home once in a while—so he holds on to every bit, and tries not to think about what’s next for him.

He walks closer to her, tilting his head to try and steal a glance of what it is she’s working on. He catches a glimpse of the face of a woman, a portrait from shoulders-up. She’s pretty, with a soft and thoughtful expression, looking downward off the side of the pad. From what he could make out between the movements of Ellie’s hand, she even looks a little shy. His daughter rubs at the cheeks and nose of the girl on the paper, imitating the shadow-less areas where light would fall. Joel is mesmerized by the way she creates so effortlessly, like breathing.

Without moving her head, she pulls a tiny white bobble out from her ear, “I know you’re watching me, weirdo.”

Joel laughs, wet and thick in his mouth with the emotion he’s still climbing down from, “Is this how you treat me when I’m trying to feed you?”

She smiles, he can see the fat of her cheek rounding out even from this angle, “You should’ve just said that.”

Ellie leaves her set-up untouched, just getting up and moving down to an empty seat while Joel goes to bring the food out.

She shifts around in her seat, feet folded again on the flat of it, eating too fast—ill-mannered—and it reminds Joel of all the nights they spent at Tommy’s for family dinner, right at the beginning, back when they’d just begun to become close. When she’d push his patience with her behavior to see if he’d say something, to see if he still paid her mind—he always did, still does, “Jesus Christ, kid. Have I taught you nothing?”

She holds back a laugh, mouth full of tomato sauce, “You love it. I’m charming.”

He snorts, the two of them falling into a comfortable quiet for only a few minutes before she breaks it again, “Speaking of how much you love me, I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Oh no,” He jokes, “What now?”

“Remember those drawings I turned in of you last month?” She starts pushing around the last bite of her spaghetti, never a good sign, but he nods anyway for her to continue, “Well my teacher really liked them. And there’s been an issue with finding people to sit for the drawings. Sooo,” she really drags it out, “I signed you up.”

“What do you mean, you signed me up? For what?”

“To model,” Joel’s mouth pops open in an immediate attempt to oppose, but Ellie’s quicker, “Didn’t you say you’d always support me in school?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” Joel finishes his plate and then they’re both just clinking their forks against porcelain for a heavy eightnineten seconds before she gives it another shot.

“C’mon, seriously. I’ll get extra credit if you do it,” She lets out a long sigh like she can’t believe she has to explain anything more than that, “My professor teaches a Monday session for the master’s program and they need people. It’s just one time.”

“Ellie. It’s Sunday. How are you gonna tell me this now?”

“Please, you just sit there for, like, two hours while they draw you and you don’t have to talk. That’s two of your favorite things. Three if you consider that you’d be helping me out.” she looks at him with a sticky-sweet smile, eyes crinkled—like she knows she’s getting away with it.

She might be.

“Why don’t you ask one of your friends to do it?” Joel gathers up their plates from the table to carry them into the kitchen. Ellie picks up their still half-full glasses as an excuse to follow him.

“Because we all have class together tomorrow on the other side of campus. Plus, you’re easy to draw and—”

“Hey.”

She ignores the flat look he shoots her, flipping on the sink, “That’s a compliment, by the way. But really, it’s no effort and you’d be getting me into a good place with my professor ‘cause she’ll be super grateful. The budget’s kinda tight this semester.”

“Then what am I payin’ for, if you’re gonna make me do this stuff myself?” It’s a half-hearted dig—he’s mostly annoyed because she probably already figured out he’s going to agree.

Her little smirk graduates to a shit-eating grin, she knows it, “Best dad ever.”

“You’re a pain in my ass, y’know that?”

“Just because I knew you were gonna say that, I actually signed you up for two.”

───────

Joel stumbles out of the elevator, filing hurriedly through groups of students with a new-found purpose now that he’s managed to make it to the correct floor. Ellie made a point of not mentioning that he had to be at the school at 7:30am until she was saying goodnight to him a few hours ago, because she thought it would dissuade him—she was right—so now he’s running late on top of everything else.

He’s got the little scaled-down, splotchy-printed version of the campus map gripped tightly between his hands. Room 14B is seemingly only two turns and one corner from where he stands—if he’s holding it the right way. He wants to ask for directions, but he feels too out-of-place to set aside his embarrassment. He’s older than at least half the staff, and some of the attendees are even younger, and he doesn’t want to run the risk of looking incapable, as foolish as it is. He wishes Ellie would have just offered to show him where to go before she headed off to her own class.

For someone who prides themselves on their ability to parent, he feels hopeless now without his daughter; not for the first time, but it’s especially harsh considering the circumstances. It hurts something bittersweet, to think about how much more they’ve bonded since he started working less and she decided to live at home her first year of college (though it’s coming to an end sooner than he’d like). Again, too many sad thoughts, and she’s not here, so he trudges on.

He walks in two more circles before he finds the right place—down a fucking hallway and hidden behind a door he didn’t know he was allowed to open, of course. A woman with long, dark blonde hair is sitting at a desk by the door when he enters. She doesn’t look up at him.

“Good morning, ma’am. Sorry I’m late. My—uh. You teach my daughter? I’m here for—”

“Ellie’s dad,” She cocks her head without meeting his eye, “Late? You’re about twenty minutes early, she told me you probably would be.”

She knows me too well, the brat. He chastises her in his mind but outwardly he corrects himself, “Yes, right, sorry. I’m a little turned around.”

“That’s alright. There’s just a waiver you need to sign, and you can get undressed in the bathroom down the hall. I’ll give you a cover-up to wear until I come to grab you.”

Right, he’d have to be naked. He already knew that—sort-of—having seen dozens of Ellie’s sketches from semesters past. He knows the students don’t see it that way, knows that they’ve all drawn the same things so many times they would be desensitized to his nudity. They’d probably all be desensitized to him as well; in their eyes, he was just a reference, as familiar as any of the memorialized piles of fruit or arrangements of glass that Ellie's also brought home.

Still, Joel feels a wash of anxiety come over him. He’s more than comfortable in his body, after putting it through so much, but this degree of vulnerability is severe in comparison to vanity or sex—it’s a state of living he hasn’t participated in for a long time. He doesn’t like to be seen, and being documented—having physical evidence of how he’s interpreted by others—makes his stomach turn. He hasn’t looked in a mirror for more than a moment in months, but it can’t be that bad, right? Ellie’s always given him a favorable light, but he worries she has a bias beyond belief. What if he sees something about himself he doesn’t like? What if everyone’s been able to see it all along?

Caught in his thoughts, he doesn’t realize the woman is still talking, “We have a scheduled break halfway through class. You can leave then. Next week it’ll flip and you can come for the latter half so they can finish.” She slides the form and a swath of black fabric across the table, and almost like she can sense his apprehension, finally raises her head to give him a meaningful look, “Thank you again for doing this. I know it can feel weird, but it makes a difference for them. There’ll be a joint show at the end of the month, too, with Ellie’s class.”

He just offers her a little nod of his head, thank you, signing the form and padding to the bathroom to unceremoniously disrobe in an empty stall.

It’s just two hours.

───────

If they make you take another figure-drawing class, you’re going to scream.

You’d think this far into a second degree, the school board would stop requiring you to take what is essentially the same class every semester. Sincerely, the only thing that changes is how long the session runs and what number follows the class title. It’s getting old.

To be fair, it’s not necessarily that you dislike drawing—it provides a pretty firm foundation for your personal work to stand on—it’s just tedious. Nothing is inspiring about assignment-based work, especially when they’ve decided the only way you can prove your skill-set is to make you draw the same three objects five-thousand ways.

But it’s not up to you.

So here you are again, two weeks from spring break, back in this frigid building after surviving another forty minutes of traffic, body still stiff from fighting the urge to fall asleep at the wheel.

It’s important, you remind yourself, to show up and put your fullest effort into everything, no matter how much you don’t enjoy it. Even if just to prove to yourself you can still finish things.

Coming back to school was an idea you’d toyed with for years after graduating.

There had been a lot of pressure on you to go in the first place, from your parents and your teachers and your nightmare of an ex, because according to them you’d get nowhere without it. After enough pressure and in a need to appease them, you folded and went; suffered every long night and pushed through every period of self-doubt and smiled for every ‘worth-capturing’ moment right up to the end. And then when it was over, gone faster than you could comprehend, you felt like something was taken away from you, even with how low it had made you—the worst kind of stockholm syndrome.

In an attempt to keep some momentum, you were over-eager for more right out of the gate. There was an initial need to continue, because you’d been reliant on academic structure just by the nature of familiarity, and maybe a little ill-prepared to face who you were without guidance. Without the instruction of someone with two degrees and a smoking addiction and no teaching license. Now it sounds silly, but then you spent a few too many nights uncontrollably looking into post-grad institutions or internship programs, googling professors and reading forums for first-hand accounts.

Then, after a year, the thought of continuing got a little less exciting, and you became comfortable in the freedom of nothing after being in school your whole life. So you pretended to research, emailed everyone about how great the options looked, signed up for one-on-ones you didn’t show up for—until people stopped asking.

It was at that point that you finally had the time to process what you were doing and why, and accepted that you didn’t have to have all the answers, despite what everyone had led you to believe. Truthfully, you still had no idea who you wanted to be and that’s okay—living with it and living alongside it weren’t mutually exclusive. You just took time to practice being yourself—sucked up the embarrassment and did the work, little exercises in unleashing yourself onto the world instead of letting every experience be done to you. If you were going to do anything anymore, even something like continuing your education, it had to be on your own terms, to try it all in the effort of self-discovery.

So yes, applying and getting accepted and attending every class—even this one—this time around was for you—to better yourself instead of just filling an expectation. You’re determined to make good on the opportunity.

And it has been better, so far. You even have friends this time around. Okay, two, and one of them is your roommate, but it's more of a support system than what you had going into undergrad.

You say yes now, too; not to everything, but to more than before. Which is maybe how you got roped into getting ‘introductory’ drinks later this evening with everyone, now that more people have joined the program as winter thaws out and it’s easier to commute. It’ll be nice to swap ideas and catch up and maybe even get laid instead of spending hours staring at the ceiling and willing time to pass. That thought alone is enough to keep you here.

It’s just two hours.

The room this semester is a little bigger, at least; probably the only perk that moving up so gracefully from Drawing II to Drawing III had earned you. It’s still unfortunately just another classroom; windowless to protect it from outside influence and drenched in fluorescent light to create a controlled environment. Old, stained art horses form a circle in the center of the space, crowding around a painted-gray wood pallet like an audience. A metal stool sits atop the make-shift stage, providing a seat for the subject. It’s clinical, the way the elements come together; a perfectly disarrayed scene that’s been neatly curated to emulate every ‘socratic seminar’ model you’ve seen in education since you can remember. Always the same.

You’re hoping for someone new today to rest on the chair; the department has been in less-than-preferred financial standing lately, so you’ve seen the same faces interchanged for most of the term.

Your professor is at her desk when you make your way in, greeting you with a grin despite the tired look on her face. A hardworking woman, the shadows under her eyes gave her a beauty you could only explain as determined. You knew she cross-taught for both sections of the department, and you respected her for it. It couldn’t be anything short of a struggle to toggle between those modes of seriousness—to have the patience to answer the younger students’ unending questions and the passion to keep the post-grads engaged.

Moving to get a seat as far on the outskirts of the cluster as possible, you watch as your classmates arrive slowly until all the slots are filled. No one really talks, probably all similarly bogged down by the early start and the cold weather outside. Ian, your friend who’d invited you out tonight, waves at you from four horses down and you halfheartedly nod back at him.

“Good morning everyone, we’ve only got two more classes after this until your week off, so we’ll make this next one a two-parter and have critique on the twenty-first. I want you guys to focus on composition more than anything else,” She turns in her seat to write some names on the board behind her, “We’ll go for two hours then break. If your name’s up here we’ll have a conversation about your thesis. The rest of you can go.”

Thankfully you’ve been spared this time—granted another seven-nights-straight writing the segment of your thesis that was meant to be finished two months ago. Your brain hurts inside of your skull.

You set up your little station, sketchpad raised against the easel, body straddling the drawing horse as you fiddle with some dirty erasers in your pack.

You can hear the slap slap slap of the model’s feet on the concrete floor as they enter—a long gait paired with hard, thudding steps; probably a man by the sound of it. Tall and heavy.

“Okay guys, we’re starting,” She winds up the dial on a plastic kitchen timer and sets it on the edge of her desk, “Let me know if you need anything. I’ll be making a few passes throughout and we’ll exchange thoughts.”

You roll your neck, knowing the model tends to take a minute to find a comfortable position, and that people watching didn’t do anything to help. A tempered soundtrack—the poorly contained buzzing of the clock and the moan of the air-conditioning—plays on in the background. Your leg is asleep. It’s cold in here. You count to thirty in your head. That’s enough time, right? You shift again, stretching your arms once more just in case.

Looking up, you peer over the side of the easel to get a quick look at the model’s pose and immediately do a double take.

It is a man.

He’s sitting on the chair, facing the girl a few seats down from you so that you can only see him from a three-quarters view. He has one long, thick leg pushed against the lower bar of the stool, the other one, closest to you, hiked up on the seat, folded so that his knee points towards the ceiling. His arms are crossed, hugging his erect shin with his wide back wrapped over his thigh, effectively shielding the ‘naked’ parts of him from view. He looks shy, but not uncomfortable; either like he’s done this before or he’s accustomed to protecting himself—to hiding.

The frame of his body is captivating; he looks strong but used, little nicks and scars littering his shoulders and hands. Weathered. As you make your way up his torso, you find it’s a similar state of experienced, tan profile and neck bearing the slightest difference in color from the soft of his side, and you can see the faintest curve of a hem-shaped tan-line across the dip in his shoulder. Little wisps of gray-dusted brown curls frame the edges of his face. He’s beautiful in a gentle way, with a dark, heavy brow that leads into the sharp slope of his nose, plush lips pursed like he’s concentrating.

Part of you feels bad about staring, but it’s easy enough to disguise it as working, so you map him with your gaze again and again until you can still see him when you blink. It takes the constant movement of your classmate’s hand sketching something in your periphery to remember you’re being timed.

You choke out a cough, repositioning your body and grabbing some charcoal.

The way you usually approach this task is simple: get down the general gist of the body, careful to keep out the details of the person in favor of capturing light and weight—there’s a graded challenge to be considered, after all.

Yet as you watch him, you decide you can fulfill the requirements in a way that gives him more room to exist. You crop the drawing tighter, paying careful attention to the landscape of his face; the hills of his cheekbones and the valley between his lips. You want to immortalize him.

You’re suddenly deeply concerned with the history that’s woven itself into the shape of him, in what happened to make him look this way. It seems like life has been useful to him, but that he’d had to grow from something to make it so—like he had to work for it. He’s the living manifestation of his own grief and enjoyment and passion, and you want to know all of it.

Countless minutes pass as you take him in and spill him out, fingers moving quickly to recreate the weighted feeling of his posture, exhausted and heavy, muscles held together on the string of bone that runs through the center of his back. You write him down, again and again, flipping to a new page half-way through to get in one last version of him—one for yourself.

You’ve never seen him before, but you see part of yourself in him. He mirrors the anxious peace you’ve been operating under for the last few years, humming with energy but willfully stagnant. It makes you feel seen, less burdened by your recent inability to connect—he makes you want to keep trying.

You wonder if he writes or draws or makes, and if he’d show you. You want to hear him talk. You want to see the other side of him, literally and metaphorically. You want to feel—

The tinny ring of the alarm sounds off, and you’re taken out of the fantasy.

The second drawing is only really half done, but you didn’t make it with the intention of sharing it anyway, so you flip back to the original to hide it..

You try not to watch the man when he stands—remembering that just because he’d been hidden before doesn't mean he wasn't naked the entire time—maybe more for your sake than his. You peek around the room instead, taking a healthy, albeit competitive, glance around for other interpretations of the man; did they see him too, the way you do?

When you look up to take a comparative look, he’s gone. You’re a little disappointed, admittedly, but there’s still one more chance to interact with him, and you can make up for it then. You start to pack up your things in an effort to make it to the parking lot before the crowd. A sudden rise in the volume level in the room tells you that the shock of the early morning has started to burn off. You try to tune it out, so much so that you don’t hear someone walking up behind you.

“Wow.” It’s a man’s voice, deep and smooth. You pivot in your seat.

It’s him, in all his communal-robe wearing glory, even more gorgeous from head on. It’s a pleasant surprise, this reveal; his beauty is evenly distributed, like a handwritten note that extends into the margins or when a movie’s ending is just as good as the start.

“Oh. Hi. Thank you.” You feel exposed, like you got caught doing something bad, even though there are ten other people in the room with even more detailed portraits of him.

“Can I see the other one, too?”

“What?”

“You flipped your page. I didn’t see anyone else do that. Did you make two?”

You just nod, shocked that he was watching you back, peeling back the paper to reveal to him the unfinished drawing. He won’t question it if you don’t give him a reason to.

“Are you gonna finish it?” He asks, eyes rolling over it with an intense curiosity.

“Uh, probably not. I don’t like it as much as the first one.” Maybe lying your way through this would provide better reasoning than ‘I wanted a part of you that no one else could see’.

“Can I have it?”

When you can’t find something to say fast enough, he just continues.

“I’m sorry, is that rude? If you’re just gonna get rid of it, I’ll take it. It just… looks like me. I mean they all do, I’ve been told I have a ‘simple face’,” He coughs awkwardly in acknowledgement of his own tangent, “I just mean to say that it feels a lot like me. If that makes sense.”

“You’re actually very visually interesting.” Is the first thing you can think of, and fuck, did that come out really fucking wrong, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s better if he takes it, if it’ll stop you from fumbling, “But yeah, you can have it.” You pull a little plastic mail-tube out of your bag, ripping the drawing free from its perforated tether and rolling it in on itself.

The edges of his mouth pull up, a cute little thing, free of laughter or judgement, “Thank you. I’m Joel.” One of his hands drapes across his stomach, palm spread over the knot of the wrap—he’s holding himself at length again. Why?

“Hi Joel. You seem to know a fair amount about this whole thing. Not your first time, then?” You offer him your name in return, and he parrots it back—guard still up, still standing too far away.

“It is, actually. The closest I’ve come to this is sitting in the yard for my daughter,” He watches as you slide the drawing into the cylindrical case, “You’re very talented.”

“Thank you.” It feels weird to hear the praise twice, “How’d they get you to pose for no money? I heard the department’s a little strapped. I’ve been subbing in for the undergrads too when I can.”

“My daughter volunteered me, she’s on the other side of the program. Your teacher was giving out extra credit.” He takes the roll when you pass it to him, going out of his way to grab it from the middle, his thumb grazing yours. Your skin heats up where he’s touched it, and you look down at the floor, suddenly nervous.

“Wow, this is the first time I’m hearing anything about that.” You continue to pack away items into your bag, “I’m owed quite a lot if that’s true.”

His face falls in on itself in a wince, “Oh. Didn’t mean to do her in like that.” You can feel him looking at you for a few beats too long, and his eyes narrow like he’s about to say more.

In the same moment, as if summoned, your professor turns on her heel, walking over to your bench.

“It’s okay. I’ll be okay without it. I’ll see you next week, right?”

He shakes a little, releasing his stare, and throws a thumbs up in your direction with his protective hand, “Yeah, see ya next week. Nice to meet you.”

───────

After another four-hour class and a too-long nap and a break for dinner, everyone from this morning joins together in a few cars to head to a bar downtown. You meet up with Ian, who offered to drive as a bargaining chip, because he knows by now that you’d back out if you had to show up on your own.

The bar is dark and divey and perfect for being overly-observant in secret. You’ve warmed up to this crowd enough, but you’re still on plus-one basis with a lot of them, Ian serving as your invitation. You like to just listen to them at first during these outings, strategically planning your involvement so you don’t feel put on the spot when they give you a turn.

It’s a lot like being in class; the group of you occupying a dimly lit corner, a round-table of bodies, with the person in the center alternating as the topic changes. Tonight you stay at the furthest end.

You cling to the single tequila soda you ordered, watery and flat by now with pea-sized ice chips bobbing around in the center to avoid the heat of your fingers. You watch them swim, tipping your cup to see them swirl in a frenzied circle until they disappear.

Some guy from your English class—Andre or Andrew or who cares—is talking at you, making his best attempt at what you think is supposed to be flirting. It’s really just him asking your opinions on his five favorite books, not hiding his disapproval when you mention you haven’t read one or the other.

You watch Ian, who left you twenty minutes ago in search of the bar-top for another drink. He’s caught now on his third conversation on the way back, maybe thinking he’s doing you a favor by taking his time. You try relentlessly to catch his eye instead, and he bounds over without question when he sees you. The glass of wine in his hand is already half empty, and the English-class-guy spooks at the sight of what he probably thinks is competition. So much for that.

“Having fun?” he prods when he slips in the chair beside you, already aware that you are absolutely very much not having fun.

Ian’s a nice guy, and he means well. You met him a week into your first semester—almost a year ago now—at orientation, because your last names were the beginning and end of the line of their respective letters. He was from somewhere in Canada, studying photography with a minor in painting and drawing. He’s maybe a year or two older than you, though you’ve never asked to confirm; tall and long and pretty, for lack of a better word, with big eyes and a permanent split in the little bangs that cover his forehead. He’s the first man in years you’ve been comfortable around, never initiating anything or pushing too hard for your friendship. All in all, no one’s been as welcoming to you, except the person you literally live with, and you’re happy to let him drag you out if it means he’ll continue to look after you the way he does.

“Of course, when have you ever known me to have a bad time?”

“No luck with Adrian?” Adrian. You were close.

“Just likes to hear himself talk, I think. I wasn’t interested in being an audience.”

He hums, “Someone else on your mind?”

“Like who?” You lean the lip of your cup against your mouth.

“Saw you making eyes at the model today,” He teases, nudging you in your rib when you take a sip of your drink so that you keel over slightly. You sputter, unamused with the tactic to get you to fess up.

Was it that obvious?

“Isn’t that the point of the class?”

“Yeah maybe, smartass, but that’s not what I meant. I saw him talking to you, saw you give him a little gift,” He bobs his eyebrows at you suggestively, “Excited for him to come back next week?”

“So I can stare more, you mean?”

“So you can get his number.”

“Ian.”

“I’m just saying you should try and find someone outside our section of the building. No writers, either, obviously.” He gestures to where Adrian is already trying his shtick on some girl from your class.

“He’s a little too old for me, don’t you think? His daughter goes here.” You muse. He’s mostly right about you needing to expand your reach, but you won’t let him off that easily.

“Maybe. But if you don’t care, and he doesn’t care, what’s it matter? He’s not too old to fuck you.” He makes a face and you roll your eyes.

The thought is nice, but you know forging relationships is unlikely when you’re concerned, at least as of late, “I don’t want to spend my night talking about people I’m not going to fuck.”

“Whatever you say.” He slinks out from his seat, mumbling something about a glass of water. A few steps away, he looks back over his shoulder, “You’re not doomed, by the way,” the asshole can read your mind, “You can enjoy yourself without feeling guilty. You’re allowed to like people.”

And then you’re alone again.

It’s like that for another hour, small attempts at chatter and meetings until you realize you’re too tired to fuck anyone, let alone continue to sit upright. Being up so early this morning took more of a toll than an hour nap could fix, and you're begging Ian to take you home. He agrees, spending the trip trying to plan another outing later in the week before everyone’s gone on vacation.

You give him a sleepy goodbye when he pulls into your apartment complex, making sure he’s still going to class tomorrow before letting him drive away. Once you’re inside, slipping quietly in through the front door, you realize your roommate isn’t home. She’s probably still in a late class or at her boyfriend’s or somewhere else. You enjoy the quiet enough to not think about it too hard.

The five sips of tequila-mostly-water has settled into your stomach by now, making you a quarter-second slower when you strip all your clothes off and climb into bed.

You twist under the sheets, and after a while your skin starts to feel too hot, even in the cold air of your room. Breathing deep, you try to think of something boring to get your mind to still, but when you sense the sleep about to take over, it switches.

You see his face behind your eyelids, the man from today, strong and pretty and delicate, remembering all your favorite details—the length of his fingers and the depth of his voice. You curse yourself for assigning this importance to him. He’s just another page in your portfolio, if you even keep him, yet you can feel a slow heat bubble up at your core when you remember the stretch of his body under the robe. It’s okay to be taken with him, you think, he’s objectively gorgeous.

Your conversation with Ian replays in your head—less about his sincere advice and more about how you need to get laid. It’s been too long; maybe you are just horny, and maybe taking care of it just this once could be enough to stop this hollow interest from growing.

You reach a hand down under your blanket, the tips of your digits pushing into the slit of your cunt. You’re wet, arousal tacky and pooled so much that the light pressure you meant to be exploring with is enough to have you accidentally slipping inside. Okay, he’s really hot. So what? Was it really that bad if you thought so?

You dip a finger further in, timid at first; you’re used to keeping quiet for this kind of activity, and even though your roommate was gone when you got here, it doesn’t mean she hadn’t come in in the thirty minutes of rolling around you’d done before giving into your desire. You lay your free hand over your mouth just in case, teeth biting into the meat at the base of your thumb to keep yourself quiet.

You slide in a second finger to the knuckle to join the first, the light stretch of it enough to make you pant. You see him again, hard and soft and beautiful. You think about what his skin would taste like, if he’d let you sink your teeth into the sinew of his neck. It feels weird to know what he looks like without his clothes, and you’re weirdly proud of yourself for holding back from seeing him fully; it's easier to dream about that way. You wonder how he’d present himself to you, how he’d want to fuck you. You imagine him winding a hand around the hinge of your jaw, fingers pressing hard into the soft of your cheeks. Would he be gentle? Would he make it hurt? You suspect either would be too much. You feverishly palm your clit, hips canting in an effort to climax. The pictures flash faster—his cock in your mouth, his tongue in your cunt, the way he’d spit and grip and hold—and you’re coming, drooling over your hand as you hear him say your name in your mind.

You take your hand away after a minute, breath pushing out heavily from your nose. It’s fine, you needed to do it, just one time. No shame in that. It’s out of your system now.

And if you see his face one more time before you fall asleep, it’s probably an afterthought.

───────

By the end of the week, you come to a horrible conclusion.

It starts the next morning when you take your sketchbook out, itching to get a handle on the many writing assignments you’ve been dutifully ignoring, hoping for an outline or a free-flow of ideas. Nothing comes to mind. You draw a little bit to fill the space while you think, just a mess of material on the page, strokes of your hand that leave barely anything behind.

Then on Wednesday you’re at your laptop, typing with one hand while the other one slides against the wood of the dining table, down and around in a loop, mimicking the same shape each time.

And again last night in the shower, letting the shame of a different semi-failed night-out wash over and off of you. You slosh your foot around in the water in the basin below, catching it as it runs down and pools, ankle dragging in a tiny, controlled movement.

It’s not until now that you put it together.

You’re sitting at your desk, with creative materials at your disposal this time, trying to make sense of what it is you’re forming. You find that no matter the medium, your hand automatically makes a single hard line. The same line, from memory. It’s negligible at first, just a light press of pen or pencil or crayon, until it drags down, down, down. It’s not until you lift your utensil that you recognize it. The hook of a nose and the crest of a top lip.

A hard pit forms in your stomach, blood draining from your head to gather in the center of your chest, a blooming sickness of obsession you haven’t felt in a long time. You’re drawing him. You’ve been drawing him. You know this feeling, have participated in this kind of behavior. These are the actions that cause the humiliating dregs of attraction to bleed over into fixation—juvenile and universal and unavoidable. He’s going to be a problem.

#joel miller fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fanfiction #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller smut #pedro pascal characters #joel miller fic #joel miller/reader

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kats-fic-recs · 2 months ago

Text

Kat's Ultimate MUST READ All time Favorite Ushiten Fic Rec Extravaganza

I don't know what it is about these two that has me in a chokehold, but I'm so in love with their relationship. I love a good weirdo x weirdo dynamic, and Ushiten checks off all the boxes for me. I feel as though I've read every single Ushiten fic on Ao3, and so I figured I'd put all of my favorites together in one list for easy access. I've read all the fics below multiple times, and yet they continuously haunt me because of how well written they are.

Canon High School Fics:

1. An Unremarkable Proposal

It's a completely unremarkable Thursday afternoon, and Tendou would have been happy passing the day making out with his boyfriend and never remembering a single thing about it. You know, if Ushijima hadn't suddenly declared that he wanted to marry him.

2. For Luck

the squeeze of a shoulder before a match becomes the brush of hands becomes the soft whisper of lips on a cheek becomes the wet warmth of lips sliding against lips.

“For luck.”

Or, the lie that the kisses are for luck can only last so long.

3. Tending to a Wounded Heart

"Now, Iwaizumi-san, while I am flattered by your interest and must admit you’re very attractive, I must inform you my heart belongs to another, and I’m not sure your dear captain Oikaw-“ Satori wasn’t even able to finish his jest, as a fuming Iwaizumi interrupted him. A blush blooming from his hairline down to his neck.

“I’M NOT HITTING ON YOU, DUMBASS!”

...

After being discovered in the midst of breakdown in the bathroom of Seijoh, Tendou Satori strikes up an unusual friendship with Iwaizumi who seems keen on helping Tendou navigate his own unrequited feelings, despite ignoring his own.

All the while Tendou's teammates are becoming more and more concerned with their blocker's new behavior and mysterious texting buddy.

4. Unforgivable Acts

All Ushijima has to do is apologize for punching a rival school kid in the face, and everything will clear up. Unfortunately, that would require him to admit that defending Tendou was wrong, and he will not do that.

5. Monster

First year Tendou has braces and a lisp. Ushijima is very gay.

6. rainwater

If rain brings Tendou joy, then Ushijima’s happy for him. It’s not something he’ll ever come to personally understand, and he’s certain that he’ll never share the same enthusiasm for water falling from the sky. Rainwater serves a few good purposes, namely helping plants grow and offering moisture to dry land. But Ushijima doesn’t need to be watered. Maybe Tendou does, though that wouldn’t necessarily make sense to Ushijima.

Unsurprising, because not much about Tendou makes sense to Ushijima in the first place. He supposes it doesn’t have to; he appreciates his friendship regardless, but he does wonder sometimes what it must be like to occupy the same headspace as him.

7. Imperfect Facial Symmetry

Tendou Satori has learned to live with the fact that he doesn't have what anyone would consider an attractive face. This wouldn't normally bother him, except now detail-oriented, perfect Ushijima is analyzing his face and producing every overly apparent, crooked flaw in precise graphite strokes.

Ushijima has learned to live with the fact that he doesn't have the ability to read faces, attractive or not. But there's something about Tendou's that he can't put his finger on. He simply cannot get the drawing right.

8. You're really pushing it (but you're going much too slowly)

"Ow, my fingers." Tendou's face contorts into a mock expression of anguish, but there's too much amusement in his brows for Wakatoshi to be fooled. He doesn't let go and instead half-drags the blocker off to the side. But Tendou is not so easily thwarted.

"Wakatoshi-kun! Ow! That hurts!" he squawks evilly, playing dirty by getting Coach Washijou's attention.

"Ushijima! What are you doin' over there?"

Wakatoshi lets go like Tendou's hands are on fire. "Nothing. Sorry."

Post - Canon:

1. bonjour, notre paradis

“You’re telling me,” Tendou says, once Wakatoshi finally gets him on a video call, “that you got drunk as hell, asked Hinata Shouyou—of all people!—if you should go to Paris immediately after announcing that you used to hate him, somehow managed to correctly book a flight despite your clearly impaired decision-making, and then shut your damn phone off after texting me?”

Wakatoshi nods. “That about sums it up.”

Japan loses to Argentina in the Olympics. Ushijima Wakatoshi loses—and finds—his way forward.

2. Just Wanna Get A Little Bit Closer

When Ushijima agreed to the photoshoot for a sportswear brand he favors, he didn't think he'd be modeling with his ex. They haven't seen each other in years, not since he broke up with Tendou in an airport and sent the other man back to France, both nursing broken hearts.

(He also didn't think he'd end the day fucking his ex in a bathroom, but no one ever called Ushijima a prophet.)

3. The Elusive Blush of Ushijima Wakatoshi

The first time that Tendou made Ushijima blush was before they started dating.

The second time that Tendou made Ushijima blush was two years after his unplanned confession.

The third time that Tendou made Ushijima blush was on accident, half a decade after his previous success.

.........................................................................

In the entire time that he had known him, Tendou Satori had only managed to make one Ushijima Wakatoshi blush a total of 5 times.

A story of the 5 times that Tendou made Ushijima blush + 1 time that he didn't need to.

4. All For the Love of An Energetic Redhead

Hinata is in Brazil. Tendou is in France.

Kageyama and Ushijima get drunk and make bad decisions about it.

5. polaroids & proposals

Wakatoshi pauses with the huge gift in his lap, hand hovering above its crudely tied bow.

“Wanna guess what it is first?” Satori rocks in place, cross-legged on the floor.

“Hmm,” Wakatoshi looks down at Satori from his spot on the chair, then back at the gift. His eyes are narrow in deep thought, “is it the set of luggage we saw at the store last week? I believe I mentioned needing a new set.”

“Oooh, maybe~” Satori bites his lip, anticipation giving him a slight stomach ache, “guess you’ll find out!”

It’s definitely not a set of luggage. Not even close.

6. the language of belonging

After the camera crew and interviewer bids them goodbye, Satori takes them back to his apartment.

“Why do you feel bad?” Wakatoshi’s hand settles against Satori’s thigh. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. “You have many friends, Satori. To you, our friendship is likely not as important. To me, you were the first person who wanted to know me, save for, perhaps, Sakusa. You made me feel …” He seems to struggle with his words for a moment, before he dips his head a little. Satori marvels at the clear sign of embarrassment. “You made me feel less weird. I never had many friends, and I still don’t. You were my first best friend.”

Suffice to say, Satori is speechless.

Outsider Pov:

1. The Mystery of Ushijima Wakatoshi’s Chocolate-Making, Paris-Living Boyfriend

Ushijima having a boyfriend who lives in Paris and makes chocolates isn’t impossible.

But it is a little unbelievable.

Or, five times someone asked about Ushijima’s love life, and one time no one needed to.

2. The years shall run like rabbits

Ushijima’s mother is not sure what to make of the man her son brings home: he’s too loud, too particular, too fond of her son in a way she thinks is rather inappropriate.

Or, Ushijima Akemi watches her son’s relationship with Tendou change over the years and finds herself changing with it.

Alternate Universes:

1. a lesson in vulcan mineralogy

Tendou is sitting in the captain’s chair.

2. died in my dreams

If anyone asked Ushijima how it came to this, he wouldn’t be able to formulate a proper answer

Or, Ushijima likes his quiet, his order, and his solitude.

That is, until a loud, talkative and a little chaotic cyber tech convinces him that that's just plain boring.

3. Executive Excursion

Tendou is fun, quirky, and interesting.Ushijima is none of the above.

It's no surprise that Ushijima is drawn to Tendou's magnetic personality. What's surprising is that Tendou seems to like Ushijima, too.

With a little support from his coworkers, Ushijima decides to take a chance and ask Tendou on a date. The results are better than expected.

4. Tendou's Bakery for Wayward Soulmates

According to common knowledge—and quite a few highly reputable textbooks—there exist in the universe three kinds of soulbonds: those that manifest spontaneously, those that people are born with, and those that stay hidden until their potential is revealed.

Some soulmates connect easily and instantaneously. But other soulbonds prove to be more stubborn. These bonds require a bit more effort…a certain amount of coaxing before they finally appear.

For those unruly, obstinate souls, there is Tendou’s Bakery for Wayward Soulmates.

5. say what you mean (I wanna be with you)

Good morning, Wakatoshi-kun! Isn’t it such a beautiful autumn day today?

They chatted every day before class; Tendou vivid and excitable, Ushijima muted, but still enjoying himself. Except today, when Tendou had sprinted into class just moments before the lecture began, his cheeks flushed with exertion. He flashed Ushijima a bright smile as he slid into his seat, opened his mouth to say something, and was promptly cut off by the start of the lecture.

Not to be deterred, Tendou had written a note instead.

Ushijima feels silly. It takes him a while to decide on a response that doesn’t make him feel even sillier.

Yes, it is a nice day.

Or: 5 times Ushijima couldn’t make sense of the notes Tendou wrote to him in class + 1 time when it finally clicked.

6. The Tendou Incidents

“Where...have you come from?” Ushijima manages.

“Paris.”

It’s not the answer he expects. Though, somehow Paris seems to fit his expectations of the man standing in front of him. “Mm. That is very — ”

“ — Exciting? Glamorous?” the redhead prompts, obviously proud of his globetrotting accomplishment.

“ — Far.”

The man falters for the first time, like he finds Ushijima’s answer odd — despite being even odder himself — and laughs, infectious and hearty, like Ushijima has made some sort of joke.

One fateful day, a colorful, painfully extroverted young man named Tendou Satori moves into the unit above Ushijima's apartment. He's odd, presumptuous, and — most egregious of all — he's shockingly noisy. And the quiet, scheduled routine Ushijima Wakatoshi lives is forever altered.

7. Consecutive Failures

The moment Tendou presents as an omega he knows Ushijima is the one for him, he just has a few issues telling Ushijima that.

The five times Tendou fails to confess and the one time Ushijima does.

8. everything was red

Ushijima brings it up to his mother exactly once, the strange boy who appears in his room at night.

She tells him that it sounds like he has an imaginary friend, and that at nine years old isn’t he a little bit old for this kind of thing?

He doesn’t bring it up again, though later that night he tells Tendou and Tendou’s eyes go bright, his smile sharp and pointed like a shark.

“Do you think I’m imaginary, Wakatoshi-kun?”

9. Don't bother checking my work (i've never cared for math anyway)

It isn’t until Shirabu’s back at LOCCENT that it really sinks in. Forty-eight wins? An impressive number, true, and a definite sign of Ushijima’s strength, especially compared to Tendou. But in anyone else, an unbalanced score like that would indicate a depressingly low chance of drift compatibility.

Drifting with Ushijima was simple statistically, but potentially deadly realistically. And drifting with Tendou? A veritable nightmare. If not for Washijou’s insistence, Shirabu would have dropped him long ago.

Still, something is calling to him. Something beyond numbers and data projections.

Because Ushijima may have knocked Tendou down forty-eight times. But that means there were forty-nine times he got back up.

10. Day Shift (Night Shift)

Every day, Ushijima Wakatoshi sits down at his nondescript, generic grey cubicle, ready to do sports education work for the JVA.

Every day, there is a letter waiting for him from someone who works on the night shift.

Ushijima doesn’t know who it is. But he always writes back.

11. ENDINGS/BEGINNINGS

New beginnings come only at the cost of other endings. The two cannot survive together. It is not a symbiotic relationship; it is a mutually destructive one.

On the cusp of achieving all of his dreams, professional volleyball player and one time Olympic medalist Ushijima Wakatoshi goes down. One wrong landing, one torn ACL.

In the blink of an eye, his future collapses. His volleyball career ends.

His coach tells him: it’s all over.

His father tells him: Nothing is meant to last forever. Once you learn to let one door close, another will open.

Now Ushijima, aged 24, has to somehow learn how to begin again. He doesn’t know where to start, or if he even wants to. That's where Tendou Satori comes in.

If you've reached this point, I am very impressed lol!

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 5 months ago

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I read over the neat handwriting scrawled elegantly onto my exam paper, a vivid red ink curling into the praise of 'good boy'. Giddy feeling of accomplishment aside, the ink seems to call to me. The letters are sharp, clean, deep. My hands simply itch to acquire such quality.... I recall the many different pens sprawled over my desk, back at Ramshackle, having bought them after discovering the many stationery and art brands of this foreign world. A few professional grade inking pens, a couple of brush pens, simple, smooth ball point pens...

But wow, this pen looks so good. I need to see it decorating my sketchbook!

"Professor, may I ask something?" I decide to (meekly) approach him one day in the hall. "what type of pen do you use for writing? It's so nice!"

I'd assume at this point most staff would be aware of my love for art, if the doodles I mindlessly draw on the sheets are anything to go by.

If you’re wondering, I used this irl luxury fountain pen as reference for the pricing on Crewel’s. It costs 1,255 USD (/thaumarks), which translates into roughly 125,500 yen (/madol).

If he doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will.

“You know fine craftsmanship when you see it.” Crewel folded his arms. “However, I’m afraid that particular writing implement is beyond your budget. Providing the name will do you no good.”

“It can’t be that bad,” you protested with a pout. “It’s okay! I’ve buckled down and dined on cup ramen for weeks and weeks before just to save up enough cash for stationary items!”

Crewel’s brows pinched, then loosened, pulling back to their original positions. He tangentially knew of your endeavors, the fruits of your labor tracked in ink and graphite doodles on every homework assignment and exam you turned in.

Those nuggets of gold, diamonds in the rough. The highlights of his busy work days.

He cracked a small smile and indulged your request.

“Very well, let’s see… This item comes from a specialty shop in Fairest City. For another fountain pen of this make and brand, that would set you back about 125,500 madol.”

Your jaw dropped, your eyes threatening to pop out of your skull. “D-Did I hear you correctly?! 125,500 madol?!”

“Yes,” Crewel replied nonchalantly. “I warned you it may be impractical to purchase on a student’s meager allowance.”

Your heart sank, face falling with it. “Urk! I didn’t expect the price to be that steep…”

There’s no way I can afford that on the monthly money the headmaster gives me! If I budget well and save for a whole year, that only runs me about…

Your fingers twitched as you attempted the mental math. Noticing it, Crewel chuckled.

“You’ve plenty of time to enjoy your school days. Someday, you’ll be that fine adult who can afford all the luxury pens they desire,” he advised with a brief pat on your shoulder, “so do not rush to grow up.

“If you inquire at the Mystery Shop, I’m sure Sam can recommend a number of affordable yet high-quality brands. He is sure to have something comparable to the fountain pen I use.”

#twisted wonderland #twst #Divus Crewel #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst interactions #twisted wonderland interactions #Reader #self insert #It’s Raining Crows and Dogs

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thefaiao · 2 months ago

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seeing your clowns made me go feral since my fixation is cringe and clown flavored

Who let you cook like that who let you cook AUTHHFFH UR ART IS SO COOL IM BEING DRAGGED AWAY

You’re hatching is so fucking inspiring since it’s soMETHING I try to do in my own work I LOVE UR ART

would it be fine to ask what brushes you use? I love ur values also, you’re so so good at shapes and form WAAAA I LOVE UR STUFF. I did dig up an old ask you made iirc, but I’m not sure if it’s changed

Hey! Thank you very much. I'll go through the brushes I use for each program: Drawpile

From what I understand most of these are MyPaint brushes... but I only know them as drawpile brushes because that's what I use. Main ones I've used lately is Irregular Ink and a default brush for coloring

I don't really change the size of irregular ink much and the pressure doesn't matter that much. It has high stabilization which I haven't changed, but I'm sure you could get away with lowering it. For the other brush I'm pretty sure it's a default one that I slightly tweaked (drawpile is a bit bad about communicating what brush exactly you are using to you.) I quite like it because it feels like playing with clay, makes it easy to map out the volume. I use it for those lineless pieces I do from time to time too. I change its size a lot while drawing. I've also used these two, one of the pencil brushes and a second one I stole from Jokioro that I have no idea what is called

I used the first one for the D'arce I did a while ago and the recent VTMB piece. It's great at emulating sketchy graphite pencils, I like layering it to do multi-colored hatching rendering. The second one I don't know how to use super well yet but it's probably my fourth most used as of late. It works very weirdly so if you wanna figure out how to make it work I recommend looking at how Jokioro draws. Clip Studio I bounce around a lot with all the brushes, but I use a loooot of stuff from the Frenden pack. Mainly Meeko Leako for lining and even coloring, it has a great texture to it, very fun

This has been my most used brush for years. It's great for super straight lines and produces a great difference in value between quick lines and thick lines. I haven't used it as much since I picked up drawpile more recently, but it's amazing! Other than that I use the default G-pen when I just want simple lines without much texture

It's a bit ugly at a glance but I think if you lock in it's great for super clean lines, just trying to get the point across without much noise. I also like coloring with it at times, when I'm going lineless. SAI Binary pen. Use the binary pen. It's the best brush ever made

It just feels super right to draw with it, it's so simple but it makes your lines look super slick, and it's just a binary pen. I guess they just got the behavior down perfect for it. But yeah, love this brush. IRL I've always used these archival ink pens in different sizes for basically everything I've done traditionally, and of course just a simple number 2 pencil for sketching and such. I've used a bit of charcoal recently, and been wanting to deep into darker pencils for detail, but this is still the default. I also will probably try out dip pens sometime

That's all I can think of immediately, but I always like to mess around to try and find another great brush, and you should do the same even if you end up using these a lot.

#talking

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autumnlikeabreeze · 4 months ago

Text

Read the full fic here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57571189

Tim lets out a harsh breath, fiddling with the cord of his earbuds as the announcer proclaims their flight delayed by another three hours.

Damian looks up from his sketchbook, eyebags carved into olive skin as he shares a long-suffering look with Tim.

“This is ridiculous,” he says, none of the usual haughtiness in his tone. The kid is clearly exhausted—three flights from New York to San Francisco wearing away at his patience and leaving the bare-bones of his pride in its wake. Tim would poke fun if he wasn’t so dead on his feet himself.

“We can go get fries at one of the food courts?” He offers, because in the last thirty-six hours they’ve been traveling he swears he hasn’t seen the brat eat a single thing.

Damian ducks his head, sleep tugging at the corner of his expression as he sets down the graphite pencil in his hands. He’s drawing a sketch of Dick, smile lines and all. “I’m not hungry.”

#batfam #damian wayne #tim drake #brothers #airports #fanfiction #siblings #red robin #robin #DC #dc comics #bat family

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jupitermaidalinejoy · 1 year ago

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Never Happy

Wednesday tries to sit in class carelessly, but she just couldn't. Today was one of those days where everything felt like a punch, in her ears, in her side, on her temple.

All it took was the scratch of a pencil to set her off, for the class to be chatting to get to her. The laughing of the one guy in the corner of the class, how it reverberated to her, though her desk.

Her foot was bounding up and down, muscles buzzing, fingers twisting together. Each second made it harder and harder to keep her emotionless mask on. She wanted to let go. She couldn't, not here.

The braids on her head felt too tight. The beating of her own cold and black heart in her practically caving in chest was too loud of a disruption. Never less the goings on of the other twenty seven students in botany all around her.

A sadistic concept, putting a life's worth of hormonal teenagers in a building together and expecting everything to end up fine. She used to relish in the thought of whoever thought up the idea of public school. But in Nevermore, it was worse. These hormonal teenagers had an edge, they were all freaks. The private school complex they all had in their rotten brains made them entitled.

Wednesday couldn't take it. The ever-so-faint sound of Yoko sipping her blood bag behind her. The barely audible tapping of Thing scuttling from behind one poisonous plant to behind another. The graphite-on-card stock slice of Xavier's drawing beside her. The piercing nasal echo of Mrs. Thornhill's voice ringing out through the greenhouse, not to mention the sickening crack of her heal against the floor of the classroom.

No, the raven-haired girl could barely take it. The depth of her observational skills only dug away at her everlasting hatred of sensations when she was close to her breaking point. She used to think she didn't have one, or that it only resulted in mild frustration or torturous methods inflicted on others. But recently she had discovered that, unless she was stepping on eggshells, she could set herself off, and ruin her worldly image of herself, and the Wednesday Addams to everyone at this insipid school. It would most definitely make it's way to Principle Weems, causing it to make it's way to her parents. Weems had kept an extra close eye on her after what happened with Tyler after last semester.

She couldn't take the shift of Bianca's uniform as she repeatedly raised her hand, hearing the scratchy material rub against it's self as her arm elongated before returning to her side as she answered the question, her voice cutting away at Wednesday's proverbial last straw. She couldn't handle the feeling of the fibers of her own black-striped uniform on her hyper-sensitive skin cascading together in a suicidal rhythm over her entire body, making her want to claw her external organ off in strips, only to haphazardly glue back on later.

Earlier in the week, three days ago to be exact, she had been assaulted with a flashback from Crackstone's Crypt. Wednesday knew that sooner or later, the faulty barricades of her fragile, trauma-prone brain, just like everyone else's, would come back and haunt her, the incident not disturbing enough to be blocked out, but still worrisome enough to cause her mental distress later on.

But she expected it to be of the fight, her getting stabbed, or hanging by shackles, or Crackstone rising. But the flashback took her right back to her one and only date with Tyler. The candles and the blanket and the rose petals and the projection of the truly horrifying movie and the Galpin boy turned monster himself. She couldn't shake the feeling oh him next to her, his breath hot on her cheeks before they were interrupted, his smile.

His claws digging into Enid as she fought for her that night.

How Wednesday remained so fucking guilty for fighting with Enid, for letting her fight the Hyde in her honor, for letting Tyler trip her warning alarm and still moving on in the pursuit of secret happiness. She never found it with him. She had yet to find it at all. Maybe she should end up alone, undeserving of anyone or anything else. Alone and forgotten and rightfully unhappy.

And now there was the shriek of chalk on a chalkboard and the heels against the ground and her uniform on her skin and Bianca's arm up and down and Xavier's drawing and Yoko's sipping on blood and Thing's scuttling and the laughter reverberating-

A tear stung her eye. And then another. And another.

Before she could make a fool of herself, she collected her backpack and ran out of the class, cheeks wet and eyes streaming, practically sprinting to the dorm. She heard someone call her name behind her and steps following suit but she ignored whoever they were's advances, bounding up the stairs and taking refuge in her dorm room.

No less than a minute later as Wednesday was desperately trying not to have a meltdown and failing horribly did someone enter her room. It was Enid, and she looked worried. Confused. Empathetic. The smaller girl almost jumped out of her skin, face heating and legs scrambling out from under her and trying to get away, but there was nowhere to go.

"Hey, hey, It's okay"

Enid says slowly, locking the dorm door behind her softly. Wednesday obviously wasn't herself in this moment, or really at all since the incident last semester, and she couldn't resist the comforting tone in her roommate's voice, lulling her towards the compelling girl in front of her. She craved comfort and praise and recognition and everything she was usually so averted to.

"I-, uh, I-" She tries, but her throat is against her. Enid cuts her off.

"Shh, shh, you're okay. Take a deep breath, just tell me what's wrong. Can I step closer?" She nods, hurriedly breathing. It's like she couldn't get any air, and when she tried, the tears only got thicker and rained down in more of a downpour than a drizzle like they had started out.

"It w-was all too muh-uch. Noise and f-feelings" Her roommate nods understandingly, taking another small step closer, noiselessly.

"Okay, okay, look up at me. W-" Before she can finish her sentence, a boom of thunder resonates from outside, the clouds beginning to muddle gray and grow heavy with precipitation. That's how Wednesday felt at this moment, even as she wholeheartedly jumped at the sound of the storm, dark and growing heavy, too much filled up inside of her.

"-What would make you feel better right now?" She thought for a moment before remembering the insisent itching of her uniform on her skin. She tugs at her sleeve to portray her distress. Right now, she just tried to forget all the repercussions of this moment, of all the regret she'd have later. Of how she would newly perceive herself. She just wanted this moment to play out, comfort and acceptance.

"Maybe a bath? Would that help, getting your uniform off?" Wednesday nods. "okay, is it okay if I hug you?" to her surprise, she skyrockets into Enid's open arms, burying her face in the cool fabric of Enid's vest. It was softer than hers, significantly so.

The colorful girl began lightly rubbing her back, whispering things in her ear. Not long after the hug had started, the goth gave in, and began to sob, letting all the storm inside her out. But every time she thought the war had ended, it began again. Her fists were balled in her roommate's shirt, and they only gripped harder when she felt a ghost of a kiss being pressed into her forehead, alone with soothing words and the subtle pressure of the embrace. Goosebumps prickled her skin.

"C'mon, lets get you to the bath" She feels herself being led into the bathroom, and eventually the tap switches on, water pooling into the tub. Enid adds some of her bath salts into it, making it smell like her. Wednesday was trembling and sobbing and had no idea what she was even doing to herself. "Willa, look at me" she says, trying to tilt her head up off of her chest. She wouldn't budge. "It's okay, look at me, shh shh" The dark haired girl finally allows her face to meet her roommates, all watery and tear-stained.

"Ready to get in, hmm?" The colorful girl asks her, tucking a loose piece of hair behind her ear. She nods shakily, and halts her tears as much as she's able to. "Let's take out your hair" she says, taking one of her braids between her fingers and unraveling it, doing the same to the second one. Her headache dulled a bit by her hair being set free.

"Is it okay if I help you get undressed?" Wednesday knew that all Enid wanted to do was help, and she trusted her, and only her. So she nodded.

She carefully helped her pull her arms from her fest, her blazer and blouse following right after. Her eyes never lingered on a certain part of the girls body, thankfully. Even she got self conscious. Once she was completely stripped, she slowly sunk into the lovely-smelling, warm bathwater, allowing the world to sink away.

Her roommate washed her hair and helped her dry off and redress. She was exhausted, physically and mentally. Her brain was spinning in circles in a pool of grease, slowly frying away. By the time she made it into bed, she was back in Enid's arms, sobbing again. She had no idea why she still couldn't stop herself fro breaking down, but she let it happen.

"Let it all out, baby" She would say while rubbing her back, or she'd kiss her forehead and tell her, "You're okay, I know how bad it hurts".

It hurt so fucking bad, but it was numbed when she had someone to hold her through it.

idk what this is but I hope you like it. this will be up on my ao3 account, but im still waiting to get an invite so i'll let you know when thats up. okay love you guys, bye!!

#pretend that mrs thronhill came back to neverore for some reason i just need her to be a trigger but for ep 8 to still have happend go w it #enid sinclair #wednesday addams #wenclair #wednesday x enid #random oneshot #hurt comfort #traumatized wednesday #wenclair overload

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feverinfeveroutfic · 1 month ago

Text

The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope | Kinktober 2024 | “have a biscuit”

prompt: content creator

pairing: alex/portia

word count: 1123

song: “paint” by gruntruck

Another band of snow was coming in that evening, and yet I was in no mood to go out and shovel for the next day, or even if there was a break in the weather and she and I could mosey on out of there and down the hill for a good time. I lounged in the bed with my little belly hanging out in the open and my hands tucked behind my head: I let my fingers entwine around the roots of my hair as if I was posing for her. I let my hips cock out a bit.

Even with my pants on, I still wanted her to see me, especially since the bottom hem of my shirt was lifted up over my waist. I felt like a tomcat lounged out in the sun, and I had rolled over onto my back to play around with her should she walk into the room right then.

Another part of me wanted to reach down my pants to feel myself. I wanted her to walk in on me, to see me there on the bed with my legs spread wide open and my hand down the front of my pants.

All I could smell from the next room was the leftover aroma from the pot of the matzoh ball soup. All I could feel was the blankets underneath me. All I could feel within me was the desire to be even closer to her, to be right down on my knees, down before her feet, and both of my hands on the fronts of her legs to let her know that I wanted to be a part of her.

I rolled my head over the top of the pillow, from one side to the other.

I finally couldn’t take it anymore.

I kept my eyes closed as I reached down and opened my pants. I kept them up on my hips and thighs. I let my hand slide down inside of my pants, down inside of my underwear. My fingers crawled across my skin, across the extra delicate skin over my shaft and down inside, down in between my legs and against my nuts. I had to have the guts to do it, and I had to be careful, but I was feeling it. I was feeling it and it was just me and her there in that house, even if there was a party on the horizon.

I had no memory as to when I started hearing a light scrawling sound before me, the sound of pencil on paper, but I could hear it.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head ever so slightly to find Portia at the foot of my bed, legs crossed over each other and a pad of paper plunked upon her lap.

“Portia?” I grunted out.

“Hold still,” she told me.

“Huh?”

“Hold still,” she coaxed me in a gentle voice.

Indeed, I kept my hips cocked out and my knees pinned together. Portia kept the smile firmly plastered across her face.

It took me a moment to realize that she was drawing me. She was drawing me as I lay there flat on my back with my hand down my shorts. I kept one hand behind my head and the one hand down the front of my shorts. It was quite the image when I thought about it, and more so when I saw her stand up and keep the pad of paper out before her as if she was playing the violin instead of drawing.

It was quite the thing to think about when it dawned on me that she never mentioned anything about art to me. As far as I knew up to that point, she just liked to cook and bake things. I could expand things from thence forth.

“Beautiful body,” she remarked. “Really beautiful body.”

“Even with my chubby little gut?” I asked her, and I resisted the urge to lift up my head for a look down at her.

“Your chubby little belly just makes you all the more gorgeous, Alex,” she assured me as she lifted her gaze to the middle of my body. “It’s so cute.” She reached down with her free hand and lightly patted me on the belly.

“When did you start drawing?” I asked her as I shifted my weight again.

“When I was old enough to hold a pencil,” she replied as she eyed the whole middle of my body. She never kept her gaze off me as she scrawled the edge of the graphite against the paper. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, either.

“And… how come you never mentioned this to me before?” I added. “I’m kind of an art guy. You know, I’m creative and whatnot. I’m able to look at any kind of art, be it music or drawing and see it as a means of expression. If anything, I think what you’re doing here is a touch more honest than music.”

“I didn’t know you were an art guy,” she confessed with a quick glimpse to my face. “I don’t meet art guys very often. In fact, you’re the first one I’ve met in years.” She craned her neck a bit for a look at my chest as well as my hand behind my head. “And that’s interesting you think that visual art is more honest than music.”

“Visual art and also writing,” I continued.

“Do you think the culinary world is honest?” she asked me.

I swallowed at that. “If you’re making it out of the goodness of your heart and not using it to get ahead or anything,” was all I could tell her. Portia looked on at my head, at my face and my hair, and she scrawled the pencil against the paper.

“God, your hair is so lush and gorgeous,” she remarked, and she moved the tip of the graphite around in circles. She then licked her lips and brought hers to mine for a quick one. “That’ll do, baby. In the meantime, treat yourself.” And she flashed me a wink, and she followed it up with another tender kiss on my lips.

“Can I see it when it’s done?” I asked her.

“Of course! I just have to finish it and add more shading to it, and then it’ll be on display for us to see and enjoy, all to ourselves.”

She doubled back out of the room, into the cold of the living room, which in turn left me to lay there, still with my one hand down my shorts and one behind my head. All the while, I couldn’t help but laugh to myself.

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mushangaa · 7 months ago

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5 and 20 for the artist ask game! Hope your day is good!

5. What piece of art are you still proud of to this day? (Show or describe)

Easy. This one. "Listen" 2010/03

It is 13 years old, I was 19 when I drew it. That was the year I moved out of my childhood home and moved into my first flat. A lot of struggles were had that year. I was so young. I had a different name. I was a different person. And this image takes me back to being so young and unsure of myself and the world around me. There is so much of me in this picture, so much emotions I felt at that time and while it is not the most elaborate piece compared to what I can do these days it was very complicated to pull off for past me. Get the lines in the background just right to keep the flow and emotion I felt. My fingers were stained with graphite by the end of getting the lines down and it took ages to line them. I have often contemplated on doing a redraw of this one but deep down I know, even if I could do better I will never reach that feeling and emotional beat that went into the original; so I don't. I simply cherish this one as is and when I look at it I feel peace and a sense of accomplishment because like I said. I was a different person back then. I was so, so young but this young person turned out okay. This young person grew and stood up again and again and handled itself better with each punch life threw and eventually became me. This piece is like an emotional time capsule to me. However I am working on another piece currently, and while it is a rendition of a Gustav Klimt artwork "Judith II" the emotions currently going in this one already tell me it shall be added to the roster of all time favourites. The stage it is at currently already pleases me deeply. I am playing a bit more loose with my interpretation as the key elements that I really wanted to hit with this rendition is especially the hands. The hands of the original artwork just do something for me the way she holds them the way the fingers are curled like claws. Also the way the body is bend. I really wanted these elements in there the most. Also it is a good piece to pull forth my love for detailed little elements that I often use in backgrounds and can throw here in the dress and all that.

The characters in both pieces are mine by the way. In the first, that is Eve, from one of my older stories that experiences a bit of a hibernation as my focus shifted to newer projects. I have around 20 stories to bounce back and forth between and a lot of characters populating those so like... can't do all at the same time. For now I told myself to focus on two, one of those is The Unicorn Paradox of course. The other is "Raptamei" a found family type of deal but with pirates and the lady in the Judith II rendition is Ila (green peacock), she is part of that story.

20. What motivates/inspires you artistically? (topics, emotions, etc)

A lot of things. Music, Movement, Nature, People, Emotions. It depends on my mood and time of day and what is going on in my life in general. But like... it can be out of left field stuff like me zoning out at a river and the light hitting the surface right and suddenly I have an idea. I once chilled out at the bottom of a lake because it is very chill and quiet down there and muted and green and blue and the sun dances on the surface of the water and you know what water is kinda a big thing for me in general to let my mind wander and get inspired. Sometimes my mind just cooks things up when the music is just right. I heard a song recently - instrumental - that essentially wrote an entire scene for The Unicorn Paradox that has not existed prior and changed the direction of the story a bit in a way I have not thought of by then because I had an intense film reel popping off in my head in time to the beat of drums, dramatic violins and I think trumpets? Idk.

And of course emotions are a big thing. If I am not feeling it it ain't happening. Can I draw pretty stuff just because? Sure. But I myself can always tell if I drew something with feeling or just because even years later after the fact. I approach things different too for artwork I do for others depending on either how I feel about the person I draw for or how their works make me feel, and I think it shows`. To me it does at least. And in general, all my stories are tied to specific emotions and those bleed into the lines and colours. If I may refer back to the Unicorn Paradox - that story is born from grief but also hope and healing and it could've been entirely original (kind of) for sure but it popped up on a whim when I drew a cowboy and a sad horsegirl and I was like... you know what yeah. Yeah. Because in a difficult time of my life I became active in the fandom and it brought me relief and a sense of peace during even my off-days and then it kinda became "nah it has to be tmnt actually. it could be original but also not. Not really"

So mh yeah, lot of things do inspire me, sometimes the most random things that only make sense in my head on how they tapped a button in my brain but the biggest thing is Emotions. Music too but that invokes an emotional response so we go back to Emotion mainly. Thank you for asking <3 My day has been fabulous. I hope you had a lovely day as well Wren <3 Feel booped.

#mushanga speaks #mushanga answers #long post

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starsandauras · 2 months ago

Text

Entry 30: Two Heads Are Better Than One

FFXIV 30 Day Writing Challenge Prompt 30: Two Heads Are Better Than One

Brigid sipped at her tea as William stood at the hunt mark board, deep in thought as he looked over the bills. She lowered her cup and perched her chin in her hand, laughing to herself as he frowned firmly enough to create deep furrows in his brows. Her dear twin, so often so very serious about matters.

Finally he took out a graphite stick and a small pad of paper and started taking notes. Once done he made his way back to her, dropping heavily in the chair across from her, taking a deep pull from his own drink.

“You were writin’ them all down, werenae you~?” she teased, and she smiled widely as he glared flatly at her.

“Loch ye’d be lettin’ me leave any ‘hind,” he grumbled, only for her smile to grow even wider.

“Nay ‘tall, mo chroí~” she sang lightly, laughing and jerking away from William’s playful swipe at her arm. But it was enough impetus for her to unroll her map of Tural and pull out her map pins. “Aye, well, shall we be startin’ in Urqopacha or Kozama'uka?”

William leaned in, picking up a map pin. “Best tae be startin’ in Urqopacha, tha’ goat sucker B rank’s there, shuld be takin’ it out early loch.” He checked his list and stuck a pin near the agave fields. Brigid nodded and added one near Icuvlo's Inn.

Between the two of them they worked out the most efficient path for each mark, including areas to check for the Chupacabra.

————

“Man,” Araki said as he handed Matsu his pack, “I’m glad Ajisai warned us about Eorzea wanting surnames.”

“A shame she didn’t warn us sooner,” Matsu agreed, setting his pack down next to his chair, tapping the hand holding his pen on the small table they had between them (one of Araki’s early carpentry attempts, one of the legs was slightly too short and the whole thing wobbled). “We could have been thinking this over long before now.”

Araki shrugged, crossing his arms behind his head. “It’s not like it matters, right? Just for the paperwork, we’ll likely be the only Araki and Matsu over there.”

Matsu sighed. He loved his brother, he did, but sometimes… “I’m sure someone will try to call us by surnames, Eorzea can be…”

“Weird?”

“…yes, weird. Not the word I was looking for, admittedly, though you’re not wrong.”

Another shrug as Araki kicked his feet up on the table. “Then let’s just pick something, dude. Something we at least don’t hate the sound of.”

“Where do you come up with these words?”

“Doesn’t matter. Name, pick one.”

Matsu sighed and started going down the list, the both of them considering and marking off various names.

Finally Araki lowered his feet and rubbed his face. “What about Ryuzaki? That old clan, they’re dead now right? No one to contest it?”

Matsu blinked and looked down at his list. “That’s… not a terrible idea.”

“Great, we’re good, let’s fill out the paperwork and get going.”

————

Once upon a time, when the Leveilleur twins were very young, and more prone to getting along, sometimes they could be found in their nursery. Free to be the young children they were, and not the prodigies their family knew they could be.

Alphinaud had not yet shown his talent in art, and so the children were joined in crayon drawings, the two of them sprawled on their bellies on the floor, Alisaie’s feet kicked up and swaying happily back and forth.

“Alisaie, that’s not the color of grass!”

“It is here.”

“But it isn’t!”

“I’m pretending, Alphinaud.”

Alphinaud pouted as his sister colored the ground in teal, but couldn’t come up with an argument he thought she would listen to. So he continued coloring the sky, in the correct shade of blue.

They shifted slightly to make more room for each other, Alisaie’s feet still kicked up, as they drew themselves, holding their grandfather’s hands. The three were little more than blobs of blue, red, and brown and white, but they could tell who they were and that was what mattered to the twins.

Suddenly they heard a door open in the hallway, and Alisaie’s head snapped up. “Grandfather!” she called out, all but snatching the drawing out from under Alphinaud’s yellow crayon (and Alphinaud was relieved that the crayon wasn’t actually in contact with paper at the time) and dashed out of the room.

Alphinaud followed a little slower (honestly, how did Alisaie move so fast?), but soon caught up in time to see Louisoix kneel and wrap his arms tightly around his granddaughter, laughing all the while. “Hello to you as well, my dear,” he greeted warmly, and extended his arm to invite Alphinaud in. “There’s my grandson,” he added, as Alphinaud easily joined them.

“Grandfather! Look what Alphinaud and I made!” Alisaie all but shoved the drawing in Louisoix’s face, but the older man easily moved back with the experience of both father and grandfather. He smiled and released the twins in order to take the picture in hand, giving the picture its due.

“Well look at this,” he said, grinning at them both. “A perfect picture of the three of us.” He stood, with only a little difficulty, ruffling both twins’ hair. “I shall put this in a place of honor in my office.”

Louisoix smiled down at them, warmly enough that suddenly, Alphinaud didn’t mind what color Alisaie had used for the grass, because it was good enough for their grandfather.

#Final Fantasy XIV #FFXIVWrite2024 #FFXIVWrite #Warrior of Light: Brigid O'Donnell #Retainer of Light: William O'Donnell #Warrior of Light: Matsu Ryuzaki #Warrior of Light: Araki Ryuzaki #Alisaie Leveilleur #Alphinaud Leveilleur #Louisoix Leveilleur #And that's it day 30!#We did it y'all!

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lunapriestess · 2 years ago

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The Moonlight || Killian Jones x fem!reader

Chapter One: “That’s The Jolly Roger”

Also on Wattpad

After finding yourself in Storybrooke seeking a new adventure, your life gets flipped upside down after you find out that your new-found visions are more powerful than you could imagine. All you know is that an adventure in the moonlight is coming and for whatever reason, Killian Jones was at the heart of it.

A/N: Hi friends. I haven’t written fanfiction in about 10 years but here I am, obsessed with OUAT and Killian Jones. Please let me know if you like it. Trying to get myself back into writing

The cold sea air hit my face as I walked along the beach, watching the sunset over the gentle waves. God, it always looked so beautiful out there. My only complaint, the street light pollution kept the stars from shining their brightest. I’d only been in Storybrooke a few months, and the quaint little town still held so many surprises for me- things here weren’t like your average town in Maine. In the distance, I spotted my favourite seating place, a wooden mossy log worn down by the high tide. Sometimes, the high tide made sitting out here impossible, and I would have to take my walk up to the forest and skip the sand altogether, but not tonight; tonight, I managed to get my log, the moon above my head, and the sand beneath my feet.

As I approached the log, I brushed off a few stray insects and crabs that had made the log their temporary home while waiting for the water to return to wash them away. Not tonight. Tonight it is just me, my log, and my notepad. I placed my backpack on the ground with a thud and retrieved the worn leather that was binding together the pages of my sketchbook. With nimble fingers, I flicked to a blank page that was just calling to be filled with another ocean sketch. There's something about blank pages that fill me with hope, the possibility of writing any story, creating any image, or bringing to life any possibility you desire. However, just for tonight, the object of my desire was the ocean. The waves lapping against the shore is the soundtrack to the pencil now sketching out outlines on the blank page of hope and tranquillity. I let myself get carried away in the sounds, the smells, and the sight of the ocean. I can feel it coming on, a vision. I found myself lost in my movements for what felt like seconds, but the dim moonlight, instead of peaceful dusk, told a different story. I return to my senses and look down at the art I have created.

Odd? A ship? I look back up at the water in front of me, but there is no ship to be seen. There's been no ship in this port since I arrived here. Strange. This ship looked breathtaking under the pencilled moonlight, almost like she commanded the wind beneath her sails. I know that my art sometimes tells stories; it’s always been a gift of mine, a future in graphite and pen ink that's due to be reality. Maybe a ship is due into port? I’ll be sure to ask Emma when I see her in the morning.

Storm clouds crash above my head as a drop of water hits my page, almost bringing the shaded water into reality on the drawing. I knew it was my sign to get moving; as much as I hated to leave such a beautiful sight, not only did I have a job to get to in the morning, but I also had to finish up getting things ready for the fundraiser we have going on at Grannies next week. The sea is beautiful, but my commitment to fixing the school roof is more pressing. Placing everything neatly back into my backpack, I got to my feet and thanked the little insects for letting me borrow their log before turning on my heels and heading back home.

Walking home takes no more than five minutes on a clear night, but on a night like tonight, it would easily take another ten on top of that. The rain slows this little town down to a halt quite quickly. Taking myself past the port, I walk up the main high street. My path would take me past all of the main tourist spots if we were ever to get tourists in Storybrooke. Granny's Diner sat in darkness; I turned to look up at the clock tower. At this time of night, I’m not shocked. I should ask Emma if she wants to get breakfast tomorrow before work. I take a right at Mr Gold’s Pawn Shop, his light is still on in the window, and I’m not shocked. I don’t think Rumple sleeps, ever. At this point, I’m happy for the streetlights that grace our roads; between the rain and the wind, I wouldn’t be able to see anything without them. A few more moments pass, and I’m finally approaching Emma’s house. She doesn’t have Henry this weekend, so I’m not surprised to see the living room light still on as I put my key into the lock and let myself in.

“Jeez, (y/n). You’re soaked!” Emma looks at me with concern, and I let out a little laugh.

“Trust me for forgetting my umbrella again”, I laughed as I took off my raincoat and placed it on the hook next to me.

“Were you out by the water again?” She asked, a smile on her face as she poured me a whisky, handing it to me. “This should warm you up a little”. I thanked her as I took a sip, the warm liquid encasing my throat and heating me from the inside out.

“Yeah, I was out sketching again”, I answered her after savouring the sweet warmth for a moment. “I wanted to ask you about something,” I say as I reach into my backpack to retrieve the picture I drew earlier that evening.

“Another one of your strange drawing vision thingies?” Emma questioned as she made her way over to look at the artwork I captured at the harbour's edge. I flicked to the slightly damp page and entered the kitchen to place it on the countertop. Emma studied it for a second while I explained.

“One minute I was drawing the sunset, and then the next thing I know, it’s dark, and this image is on my page” Truth be told, I’m used to losing time to these ‘strange vision thingies’ so drawing a sunset and ending up with a full moon is not as scary as it sounds.

The visions started when I first arrived in Storybrooke a few months ago. I’d been travelling the world, capturing beautiful images on paper from London to Tokyo, but I was searching for a new adventure and a new town to explore. Word gets around my small community of thrill seekers, and a friend of a friend had told me all about this cute little town in Maine that harbours the best stories and adventures. It’s like it was all one giant storybook; the name was just ironic. I was warned, though, not everyone that seeks Storybrooke can find it. If Storybrooke needs you, it will find you. So I took off, and I never looked back. When my visions started, I felt crazy, but I quickly discovered that I was one of the more normal people in town. My housemate was a saviour, the mayor was an ‘evil’ queen, and the shrink was a cricket. My visions had nothing on that.

Emma’s silence confused me; she knew more about this town than most, so seeing her study this paper was concerning. “Any ideas?” I asked with a hushed tone. She greeted my question with a nod before explaining.

“That’s the Jolly Roger,” She said, her voice flat. “Which means Killian Jones is coming into town.” Her hand reached into her pocket to pull out her phone, and she looked at the time. “Snow and David are going to kill me if I wake up Neal”, she growled before hitting the dial button. I stood there in shock. The ship looked so kind and warm under the moon. What was with the hostile reception?

“I’m assuming that’s not a good thing?” I mumble as I turn to watch Emma pace the living room back and forth on the phone to both of the Charmings; I can hear the faint cry of Neal in the background. Snow will not be happy, but forgiving is in her nature. I hear the affirmative ‘mhm’ and ‘yup’s’ leaving Emma’s mouth before she hung up.

“Snow is letting Regina know, and I’ve got the night shift Deputy on patrol near the docs in case it happens in the night.” Emma jumped straight into saviour mode before stopping to look at me. “Do you have any idea when your visions happen? Like a time frame? Anything?” I shrugged. I’d never thought about it or even tried to develop my visions; all I knew was that they always came true.

“No, sorry, they never come with a time or a date.” I apologise, looking at her with my half-dry hair still dripping onto the floor. “I better go dry off. Are we good for the night?” I ask as I pick up my sketch pad and walk towards the stairs.

“Yeah, we’re good. Let me know if you get more of that vision or if anything happens overnight” Emma smiled as she took her seat on the sofa again. We said our goodnights and I walked myself up to my room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

#ouat #ouat fanfiction #once upon a time #killian jones #emma swan #killian jones x reader #snow white #henry mills #regina mills #jolly roger #captain hook #captain swan #swan queen #i'm just out here having fun tbh

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nuagederose · 8 months ago

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Dark Roots of Earth | Chapter Ten: Since I’ve Been Lovin You

ao3 link

Christine was more than eager to have her sketchbook open for them, and her heart pounded at the mere thought of putting the graphite down on the fresh sheets. All she could hope for was the most perfect drawings that she could show to Alex if and when she had the chance. Valentina kept her hat on as she perched herself on the stool before the window: a warm breeze wafted through the screen behind her, and her hair fluttered about over her shoulders as if she was a model of sorts. Chuck and Eric were both on the couch, the latter of whom had propped up his chin in the palm of his hand and leaned against the arm as if he belonged in the centerfold of a magazine. The former let his curls, the same color as freshly-brewed molasses.

Christine gripped onto her pencil as if she was holding onto a magic wand, and she let the graphite find its way onto the grains of the paper. It was trickier than she had imagined, given the lighting in her apartment and the fact that she was drawing three different people, one right after the other.

Chuck held still with one hand rested upon the arm of the couch, and she was amazed that he kept still for as long as he did as she added texture to his curls and the crests of his shoulders. She raised her gaze to his face and locked onto his eyes, luminous and striking even with his sun-kissed complexion. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eric with his legs knitted together at the knee, again like a centerfold.

Something told her to draw him in the style of a magazine when she got to him, but she had to finish the shading on Chuck’s squarish face and stout neck first. The graphite was soft enough that she could go dark enough with the underside of his hair, but she only let the graphite glide over the paper for the highlights at the crown of his head. She held the paper back a bit, and all the while, she flashed a glimpse up at Chuck to ensure that she had drawn him well enough.

She then turned the book around for him to see, to which his face lit up. Eric gaped at the sight of it as well; Valentina leaned towards the book for a look herself.

“Oh, my god, Chris, that looks just like him,” she declared in a hushed voice.

“Yeah, I’d put like… some kind of fixative on that so it never smudges,” Chuck suggested with a running of his fingers through his hair. “I can move now, can I?”

“You sure can!” Christine assured him as she carefully turned the page for another clean one. “Onto Mr. Peterson now.”

All the while, she wished that Alex was there. She wished that she could talk with him about all manner of things, especially pertaining to the drawings on her lap. She kept on thinking about him even as she made Eric into a cartoonish drawing straight out of Playboy magazine with the bold outline and the thick shading on his head of fine, smooth black hair.

She drew Valentina in a similar fashion, especially with her back to the window and her black hair billowed over her shoulders. Once Christine reached the brim of her hat and the shading on her bangs, she fetched up a yawn.

“What time is it?” Eric asked right then, also with a yawn.

“Almost midnight,” Chuck replied after a quick glimpse to his watch. Christine signed her name at the bottom of the page and then closed the book.

“What, you’re not going to show us the one of Valentina?” Eric teased her.

“In the morning during our cup of coffee,” Christine assured him with a wink. She padded down the hallway with Valentina behind her, although she wanted to have all the privacy to change her clothes. She glanced over at her phone resting upon the desk, right next to her lamp, and she thought about calling him.

It was late, and there was no way that he could even be willing to talk with her about just anything. As she put on her shorts and her camisole, she never lifted her gaze from the narrow little strip of a screen on the face of the lid facing her. She peered over her shoulder to the hallway behind her, and she spotted the golden glow of the bathroom light across the way.

Valentina would tell her to go for it. Nelly would tell her to do it as well. Chuck and Eric were unknowns to her, however. She had no memory of the last time she had a late-night conversation with someone, and thus, the thought seemed crazy to her. But she picked up the phone and tucked it into her back pocket.

She returned to the living room and right as Chuck lay down on the couch with Eric down on the floor. Valentina surfaced from the bathroom, changed into her pajamas, right when her phone rang.

“I’ll get that,” she assured the three of them. “You guys can turn off the light and sleep tight for me—don’t worry about what happens to me.” She then looked on at the little sliver of a screen on the back of the phone itself. Alex’s number appeared, and her heart skipped a few beats. It was as if fate had known all along and it nudged her towards him.

Christine ducked into the safety of her bedroom and closed the door. She cocked her hip out to the side a bit as if flirting with him despite his absence, and she opened the phone. She licked her lips, and she wished that she had some cherry lip gloss right then.

“Hello, my dear Christine,” his voice crackled on the other end; he sounded exhausted, as if he had done so much over the course of the day.

“Hi,” she greeted him, and she couldn’t resist the smile on her face. “Never thought I would be hearing you ring me up at such a late hour.”

“I’m just kind of… bored right now,” he confessed with a slight cracking noise on his end. “I’m alone here at my place and I’ve got no one to talk to, either.” She moved her fingers underneath her top to feel the softness of her skin: his voice was gentle and husky, as if he breathed the words right into her ear. She pictured him laying there next to her with his shirt lifted up to show off his skin to her, and his hair spread out from the sides of his head. His hooded eyes and parted full lips, and she couldn’t resist the touch of her own fingers. “What’s going on? Is this a bad time?”

“Well, the gang just went off to bed and I don’t feel like sleeping, so… let us have a little fun after dark,” she suggested with a clearing of her throat. She turned behind her to the door right as the living room light switched off and the apartment engulfed in darkness. The gang had gone off to bed after all.

Christine kept the phone close to her ear as she took her spot on the edge of the bed; she leaned back towards the pillow and the wall, and all the while, she kept her legs open. She was alone in the room with nothing more than the phone up to her ear: the boys were quiet, and Valentina seemed to have had fallen asleep with haste as well.

“A little fun of sorts… you know I am always down for that sort of thing without any kind of strings attached. And more so with it being so late at night as well.”

She pictured that little smirk on his face as he said that. It was almost unfair that he was all the way over there and she had no way of heading out of her place to visit him, at least not without a lot of questions from Chuck and Eric.

“I think it was last night when I started thinking about getting together with you again,” he started. “Thinking about treating you to something special. A few glasses of wine and I could potentially put my hand up your top.”

“Hey, now, you don’t get to touch my chest until I say so, big boy,” she teased him.

“You say ‘big boy’ as if you have your hand on me,” he retorted.

“I wish I did have my hand on you right now,” she confessed with one hand down in between her legs. Her fingers crept over the crotch of her shorts as if she was tempting herself.

“Christine… I wanna take you to Coney Island tomorrow,” he said with another clearing of his throat. “I wanna take you there and then take you to your dad’s place. I want you to go and visit him while it’s nice and sunny tomorrow. You know, not like last time.”

“There was something so romantic about all that rain, though,” she recalled. “You and me getting all wet like that. You were so wet…” Her voice trailed off.

“We stand in a sweet shower of the sunshine,” he suggested. “And you know, right as I say that, I just wish I was with you and Eric out in California.”

“I wish you were, too,” she confessed. “I remember thinking about how you would have loved it out there.”

“I do love it out there,” he said with a clearing of his throat. “I mean, I love New York, but California has always treated me well. Did you guys go to Santa Cruz?”

“We thought about it, but Eric saw it was too expensive,” she recalled. “He promised me next time, though.”

“And next time, I want in on the fun,” he insisted. “I don’t know as to how I’m going to pay for it but I promise you that when there’s a will, there’s a way. There is always a way with me.”

“Always a way to go out and feel all of the things in your heart,” she told him.

“All of the things in my heart and…” He cleared his throat. “…somewhere else.” He almost breathed the words, such that a wave of warmth swept over her, and she thought about undoing her shorts just to feel herself. She resisted the urge given she didn’t know how the three of them in the next room were sleeping on such a short notice.

“So… go to Coney Island and lay down in the sand at one point?” she suggested.

“Lay down in the sand and feel the ocean on our faces,” he continued. “Feel the sweetest caress of the ocean on our faces as I kiss you with the feeling of a thousand butterflies in my stomach.”

“Where is all of this coming from?” she asked him in a hushed voice.

“It’s late. I’m drinking a small glass of wine right now, too.”

“You’re drinking?” She raised her eyebrows at that.

“Not a lot. It’s enough to loosen my bullets a bit. It’s like taking off my belt and letting my pants hang off my hips a little bit.”

“Ooh, you just put a really sexy image in my head,” she confessed. “Your pants hanging off your hips and letting your little belly out loose for me.”

“You tempt me, Christine Sixteen,” he breathed. “You tempt me the way the devil would tempt me with an apple. You gave me an idea of sorts.”

“You wanna do that for me when we get together tomorrow?” she asked him with a little smile on her face.

“Maybe not tomorrow,” he said, and he hesitated for a moment, and she realized that he was in fact drinking from a glass of wine. “But I do wanna do that for you, though.”

The wave of warmth continued to sink over her as she relished the full, husky timbre of his voice.

She began to wonder as to how much he was willing to do for her.

“I’m gonna put on one of my button-up shirts and I’m going to let my chest hang out in the open,” he told her. “I know how much you love seeing my chest.”

“Would you wear that white shirt?” she asked him.

“That one silk shirt that I have? It might be a little bit tight but I’d love to wear that for you, though.”

“I’ll wear that pearl necklace you gave me,” she said. “I haven’t been able to wear it much because I have to admit that it gets pretty hot this time of year. I wore it out to California, though. A lot of people told me it looked really cute on me. And now, I can come and be with you, and I’ll wear it and… let it shimmer in the summer sun.”

He made a sound that made her think of laying in bed next to him after a night together.

“I wish I was there with you,” he confessed. “There and… laying in your bed next to you.”

“And I wish you were here with me, too,” she said, and she let her fingers dangle down over her crotch again. “I could cuddle up next to you and hold you. I could have my hands down the shape of your body to feel how gorgeous you are.”

“And I could have my hands on the shape of your body, too,” he added. “I don’t know if it’s the wine talking or the fact that it’s late at night, but I really, really want to touch and feel you.”

Christine curled her fingers once again. That time, she undid the button of her shorts and let her hand glide down under the thin veil of fabric. Because her legs were wide open, she was able to let her fingers creep down over that delicate skin. The feeling rose up almost immediately, and she slithered her fingers in under her hood.

“I want to kiss you,” she whispered to him. “I want to kiss you and love every inch of you. I want to give you everything that she could never give to you.”

“Phew…” he breathed. “Mmm. Oh, my dearest Christine, I hate to tell you this but I’m starting to nod off. But… you know. Thinking about all of that and I’m gonna go to sleep feeling really sexy. I want you to go to bed feeling that way, too.”

“I have my hand down my shorts,” she confessed with a lick of her lips.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I—I can’t stop thinking about very slow lovemaking with you,” she confessed.

“Oh, my. Very slow, you say?”

“Low and slow. We don’t just feel each other but we feel each other and come so close to one another that we become one another.”

“Wow…” Alex breathed out. “Should I light some candles as well?”

“Please—” Christine gasped as she gave herself a little climax. “Light some candles and then flirt around with the hot wax. You did say I tempt you like the devil, after all.”

“Man, you’re good,” he remarked with a yawn. “God, I can barely keep my eyes open. Wanna do more at Coney Island tomorrow?”

“Please,” she said as she slipped her hand out from under her shorts. “Alex?”

“Hm?”

She pursed her lips and swallowed, her face still warm from the feeling.

“I love you,” she whispered to him.

“I love you, too,” he whispered back to her. “You are the love of my life. I want you to go to sleep and I want you to wake up with the sun.”

“I want the same for you,” she whispered to him. “Good night, baby.”

“Good night, my sweet,” he once again nearly breathed the words, and he hung up right then. Christine followed suit, and she sighed through her nose. She set her phone down on the desk again, and she switched off the light as well. She rolled over onto her side with the bedsheet over her body and the gentle sounds of Chuck and Eric snoring in the next room acting as an impending wall of white noise.

“Please let me feel him again,” she whispered to herself as she closed her eyes. She kept that on her mind even as she drifted off to sleep.

#as the seasons grey #as the seasons grey fanfic #fanfic #fanfiction #dark roots of earth #dark roots of earth fanfic #fanfic with art #oc art #alex skolnick #drawings #testament #testament band #traditonal art #traditional drawing #artists on tumblr #badgalnirvhannahart

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