#Off The Road Tire Market

[sophiainspace]

I really appreciate having a job. It is a very good thing. Especially as it’s in the field I want to work in, with a really lovely team, and not usually very stressful at all.

I do not appreciate that it’s four hours’ drive away.

But hey! Next year I’m moving to a closer job!

Only 3.5 hours away.

[sports9885]

The off the road (OTR) tires market size is valued at USD 9.06 billion by 2028 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.50% over the forecast period of 2021 to 2028. Data Bridge Market Research report on off the road (OTR) tires market provides analysis and insights regarding the various factors expected to be prevalent throughout the forecasted period while providing their impacts on the market’s growth.

[futuretonext]

The Chile Off-the-Road (OTR) Tire Market is expected to grow at around 3.23% CAGR during the forecast period, i.e., 2021-26. The growth of the market is driven primarily by the mounting demand for earthmoving & construction equipment tires for infrastructural & residential construction activities in the country, coupled with massive investments by the government of Chile in the mining sector and construction activities associated with roads, railways, residential & commercial buildings, seaport & airport expansion, etc. Moreover, the burgeoning requirement for tractors and the increasing expenditure on various agricultural programs to boost farm mechanization are also driving the market.

[reasonsforhope]

"For [Tanner] Green, the chief engineer at Not a Wheelchair, this is one of the thousand complications standing between his team and a rather lofty goal: upending the manual wheelchair marketplace.

If you’ve heard of Not a Wheelchair, it’s likely because of its owners, Zack Nelson, the star of the 8.8-million-subscriber YouTube channel JerryRigEverything, and his wife Cambry, a para and manual wheelchair user. The Nelsons got into the mobility equipment business a few years ago when they released The Rig, an electric, adaptive off-road device with a simple yet robust and functional design priced significantly lower than anything else on the market. Now, they’re bringing that same ethos to manual wheelchairs.

Not a Wheelchair aims to offer a base-model, custom manual wheelchair at a similar or better quality than most of the insurance-approved wheelchairs in the U.S. for $999.

Yes, that’s just under $1,000 for everything — wheels, handrims, tires, side guards and rigid, angle-adjustable backrest included. And the company plans to have a turnaround time of weeks, rather than the monthslong slog that it typically takes from order to delivery.

When I first heard about this, it sounded awesome and a bit far-fetched. It’s hard to find a pair of quality wheelchair wheels for less than $500. Same with a rigid backrest. How were they going to offer both, plus a custom wheelchair frame without compromising on quality? I drove to their headquarters in Utah to find out...

So how does Not a Wheelchair’s base model chair stack up to other options on the market? I hate to sound like a preacher, but … it’s totally reasonable! It hits the mark of being at least as good, if not better, than the majority of insurance-approved wheelchairs in the U.S.

Touring the factory, I saw other prototypes scattered all around the facility. There’s a beefier, four-wheel drive version of The Rig that the company just launched. There’s a track wheelchair that’s still in development. It’s clear that Not a Wheelchair doesn’t intend to stop at a simple, manual wheelchair. Inexpensive components, more advanced electric off-road devices, power assist, it’s all on the table. “We’re just really excited to see where this leads,” says Green."

-Article and video via New Mobility, October 1, 2024

[97kuu]

Out of gas?

Summary; It was a setup between Taejoon and Jungkook to get him to hook up with you in the car. However, his guilty heart and physical desire revealed that he wanted more than what he was willing to confess that night..

Au; jungkookbestfriend! Friends to lovers!

Paring: Jungkook x reader!

WC; under 3k

Warnings; Smut, accidental f^ndling , random jump scare, car s^x, doggy, exhibitionism, voyeurism, dirty talk, light f^ngering, Almost caught, slight teasing, o^al (m), no condoms, creampies, Jungkook being thirsty, needy!jungkook, older Jungkook, acidental gr^^ping, passionate s^x, etc..

“Jungkook, it’s midnight..’ you whispered, eyes flicking to the time on his phone before scanning the view outside. The dark, foggy night pressed against the car windows, and a drizzle pattered on the glass. You both had been voted—unanimously, of course—to head out and grab pizza and snacks for the group. But now, here you were, driving slowly down the narrow forest road that connected the rented house to the nearest small-town market, headlights cutting through the thick fog as the car crept along.

“Should we call and say it’ll be an hour-” he paused, eyes squinting as he saw the smallest bit of light around the corner.

“Aha, so we’re near it. I recognized the light when we first came. Which means we’re about-“Jungkook pauses and out of nowhere a sudden movement burst from the left—a blur of fur and wide, the image of a deer’s silhouette flashed in the headlights.

Jungkook’s reaction was instant, a sharp intake of breath as his foot slammed the brake, tires screeching against the slick, uneven surface of the old road. The car lurched violently, wheels slipping as it swerved, fighting for traction on the rain-slicked asphalt.

In that split second, Jungkook’s arm shot out instinctively, pressing across your chest to brace you, a protective reflex as your bodies jolted forward. The vehicle shuddered, threatening to spin out, while the pounding rain roared louder, drowning out the racing hearts from the sudden but almost dangerous act.

“what? What?” You questioned, already on edge from there being little to no road light already. With his hand on your chest you realized wearing a bra would’ve been a bit better of a decision, if you knew a dear would just jump out like that.

Due to that, you could notice your nipples harden from the touch of his inked right forearm by hand. Embraced you looked away and hoped he didn't feel it, but deep down inside you both knew he did.

“A dear just jumped in front of us, that could've ended badly. I almost swerved us, you, into a tree.” He sighed, knowing his focus was off a bit.

Removing his foot on the gas, he felt for the window button and pushed down about an inch to get fresh air. The silence between the both of you was heavy, punctuated only by the rhythmic thud of rain and the soft hum of the engine as he recollected himself, only now remembering to remove his arm from your chest.

Hesitant, you look back at him and see from the little light offered from the headlights he was a bit distressed, and come to think of it since you both left he’s been a bit stressed and yet you couldn’t ask why. Yeah, the both of you are close and have a history but even now you couldn’t ask ‘Are you okay’ So with the silence between words you also relaxed with the windshield wipers filling the void.

“I’m sorry,” he uttered quietly, eyes not locking in with yours. “are you okay? You didn't hit your head on anything?” he questioned softly as he rolled the window up a bit.

“No, no I'm okay, your arm prevented that. So thanks” you reassured him, pushing on the light button between the both of you on the car's control panel.

You made sure to turn the back seat lights on and not the front to not flash the both of you. In doing so, Jungkook watched and crossed his legs a little bit more in fear of slander and disapproval. Then again it wasn’t like he didn’t want you to at least look at him hardening, it was a setup after all, all thanks to the member's naughty ideas.

It started when Jungkook was leaving after a vote of who would go, he was simply standing by the door of the rented place, shifted on his feet, while the teasing glances from Taehyung and Namjoon made it difficult to keep a straight face. The faint light above them illuminated the playful smirks tugging at their mouths, the rain-soaked night casting a shadowed veil over everything beyond. You were already inside the car, oblivious to the exchange happening outside between them three.

Namjoon leaned in closer, lowering his voice so only Jungkook could hear. “This is your moment. Don’t waste it.” His eyes sparkled with mischief, a knowing look that made Jungkook’s stomach twist in anticipation. Taehyung, arms folded casually, added with a cheeky grin, “There’s only half a mile of fuel, so if you want to fuck, that’s your best chance.”The bluntness of the remark sent a jolt through Jungkook, heat spreading across his face despite the cool mist of rain.

A crooked smirk broke across Jungkook’s lips, an attempt to mask the rush of desire that thrummed through him. “You two are unbelievable,”he muttered, his voice low but tinged with excitement. Namjoon gave a soft chuckle, stepping back with a pat on Jungkook’s shoulder, while Taehyung shot him one last suggestive glance before they both disappeared back inside.

Jungkook took a breath, trying to steady his racing pulse before turning and making his way to the car. He slipped inside, shutting the door with a quiet click. The soft patter of rain enveloped the space as he glanced over at you, eyes darkening with intent as anticipation crackled like electricity between you.

From then on all he could think about was how good you’d look as the moon covered your body. The way he would thrust upon you or your chest bouncing while he drove or the subtle suction from your lips on his tip as he drove. Just clouded with naughty imagery that worsened when he touched your chest, a movement that prevented you from any minor injuries or bruises he should be doing and not the car.

However the squish of your uncovered breast on him made him freeze, made him feel cray to think maybe you did want him. All because you typically never go out without one, your breasts are free and relaxed, and… he was trailing off mentally at the thought of wanting you until he released you were staring at his cock and he was drooling at the thought of your breast.

Jungkook could feel the weight of your gaze on him, a look that lingered longer than usual. His pulse quickened, and despite his best efforts to focus on the quiet hum of the night, his mind kept drifting to the way your eyes moved over him—slow, wondering, and curious.

There was something in the way you looked at him—something that pulled at him, making it harder to pretend everything was fine when his heart was pounding, his body betraying him. He knew that it was obvious and that connections could be made and he’d swear it was innocently done and not intentionally for his pleasure.

Not daring to speak he shifted again, knowing there was an awkward silence. The awkwardness hung for minutes at a time, but Jungkook couldn’t ignore the growing pressure inside him. Despite the discomfort, despite the way his nerves seemed to freeze him in place, his body still managed to betray him. Every subtle shift in his posture, every lingering glance from you, only intensified the craving he couldn’t shake. He tried to keep his mind focused, he tried to push the thoughts away, but it was just impossible.

There was something about the way you stood there under the car’s dim light, the silence between you both stretching just a little too long, that stirred something deep within him. It was awkward—undeniably so—but his body had its rhythm, its desires, and right now, they were begging to be satisfied. He shifted again, trying to will the discomfort away, but the tension only seemed to grow, and it became clear that no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, the need for something more was undeniable.

“There’s no denying what you see, but it’s killing me. I can’t ignore it anymore. You’ve got me worked up, and I don’t know how much longer I can pretend that it’s not there.” His body was wired, every nerve alive with need, desperate for release. The ache inside him only grew stronger, a constant reminder that he was on the edge, craving the relief that only a touch could bring. His mind raced, and yet, nothing seemed to ease the pressure building within him. The frustration clawed at him, knowing that it was impossible to ignore, and the only thing that could silence the throbbing tension was the very person in front of him, you.

With a slide of your hand towards his inner thigh, he bit down on his lower lip in anticipation as the throb and lift of his cock spoke louder and clear than he could.

With a slight chuckle to yourself, you placed your thumb on the outlining of his sweatpants and rubbed the pleading tip in circles. He couldn’t focus on anything the moment you placed your thumb in him and with the light movement on his tip, he was truly feeling his heart drop to his tip in need.

Jungkook was holding back thoughts of pulling his cock out and placing your slightly smaller hands around, to truly get a good feel of how you made him fall in a quick desperation of need. He was holding it all back, taking one circle around the tip at a time as if being entranced.

Not asking to stop he shifted in his seat, unconsciously widening his legs, allowing more space between his thighs. The motion was deliberate, almost instinctual, as if his body was craving more room, more freedom. The fabric of his pants stretched slightly with the movement, the tension of the moment becoming more evident as his posture opened up. He wasn’t just making space physically; it was as though he was inviting something, shifting his stance to make himself more accessible, more vulnerable in that quiet, charged atmosphere.

Grabbing the hem of both his sweats and boxers he pulled them down to his knees exposing his aching, twitching, drooling member that throbbed for you in every way. He was vulnerable, he needed to show he was serious and stand firmly on the idea of you touching more of him. Even if it was with bold actions or words.

“Oh you’ll my cock, want it even,” he said, his voice low and commanding. “If not, you’ll love the feeling.” he continued, his attitude shifted. The change was almost immediately, when your hands wrapped around him, without asking, without hesitation. The action made his breath hitch, a smug smirk spreading across his face as he leaned back, knowing now that there was no turning back.

With a lick of your bottom lips, knowing that if there was any chance of this happening again it was zero and you wanted it as much as he did. You wanted his touch, his need his cock. Maybe it was a good idea to be braless, if you were truly disgusted or afraid why was your tongue now lapping in circles around his tip? Why were slight moans threatening their way out while you embraced him in your mouth? All the while your panties began to feel damp, slightly sticky from your ongoing aroused state.

Jungkook was average length, but thicker in circumference and curved a bit to the left. His tip is wider than the base. He was a good size, maybe a great size from just looks which made your teeth sink themselves into your bottom lip with desire. A desire, a desire to be filled up and fucked against the leather seats in his car. Oh, how the way he slowly drove you insane quickly should be studied.

The more you thought about how Devine his cock would be, your body became needy as if being free of restraints that you never knew you had with him until you began bobbing your head and using your dominant hand to fondle his cock. Even jungkook was surprised by how willingly you took him, how much focus you put on sucking his cock with utter grip while he put the car in park.

Groaning his heart was eased by the mutual feeling of lust, but curious about how far you’d both go. Lifting your head off his cock, he leaned down a bit to embrace you a lighthearted kiss, your mind not even having to think as you kissed toughly back in response.

Oh, you both loved it, bodies heating up and coming closer second by second as if being pulled by a now-known shared moment of hunger and urgency as you both pulled each other closer. The kiss was frantic, and deep, as if you were both trying to take in every inch of each other, the world around you fading away.

Your hands moved instinctively, tugging at his shirt, pulling it off with a sense of urgency, your breath mingling in the brief seconds you parted to take in air. His lips found their way back to yours in those fleeting moments, your bodies pressing against each other as if you couldn’t get close enough. The rhythm of your kiss grew more intense, matching the pounding aching desire between your thighs.

Pulling away, leaving you speechless he helped you take your shirt off and pull down your bottoms throwing it in the back seats with his own before lowering your seat’s back down and making his way across the car's middle section to be between you and your aching cunt.

“I have no condoms” he mentioned, helping you in a tight space to get on your knees, to then help press your chest on the passenger seat. Essentially kneeling doggy in a space limited of room.

“Pretend you do when you cum inside me” you teased, his hand swatting your ass causing a hiss of pain.

“Sure will” he teased back, hands gripping your waist as he began to grind his bare erected cock between your lips, coating the top with wetness as if asking slightly if he could go in. Without a verbal response, he could tell you agreed from the way you arched your back and pushed against him with need. And oh did that send him to the heavens and back in a movement.

“Fuck!” Jungkook, under his harsh breath cursed. Body enjoying the wetness of your pussy sliding on it.

Shortly after a few grunts and hard slaps on your ass, he teased the tip of his member around your entrance. Leaning over your back a bit, he stabilized his left hand on the side of your body before going to strum his thumb on your clit. With light circular motions on your bundle of nerves, his tip was merely sitting just around your entrance.

“There's more in store baby,” he whispered low, yet still audible to your ears. Right after saying that his motions stopped as he smooched your back and sat on his knees as much as he could in the shared passenger seat. Lining up, he slowly pressed himself in to see how he’d fit and if he’d be able to thrust himself in with no problem. With a deep groan, he thrusted himself in further feeling the tightness mixed with the warmth of your insides that felt nice and snug around him.

He felt good, he was excited and desperate to be inside. The small thrusts of his tip, soon turned into slow strokes that went from tip to base filling you up every time, feeling that stretch as your warm wet liquid dribbled around his aching cock. Resuming he placed both of his warm hands on your waist, his grip becoming tight, warm, and firm against your colder skin as he held you closer to his pelvis.

Picking up the pace, he could start to hear your moans muffled into the chair and he wanted more. He desired to fuck himself against your wet cunt with passion, need, and raging desire as an insatiable heat coursed through him. One driven by the singular desire to make you unravel beneath his touch

He felt like every fiber of his being pulsed with a need that was more than just want—it was a raw, consuming hunger to feel you respond, to watch your body react under his command. His heart pounded with anticipation, each thrust of his cock fueling the fire that pushed him to take control and make you surrender to the pleasure he craved to give.

Oh, he wanted it badly, he wanted you to surrender to the touch, to the thought of the very feeling of his cock buried deep inside of

your gripping, creaming pussy. Which was something he took great pride in getting even if it meant showcasing a shy, hungered, and needy side of him. You were his weakness, you were his desire and necessity and there was no going back after this. After years of a good friendship, this was going to change it and more for both of you with no thoughts against it from either of you and he was satisfied with that in mind.

“You’re mine now,” he growled, breath ragged as he pressed closer, each word laced with a rough, possessive tone. “And after tonight—” a low grunt escaped him, “there’s no going back. Not when you know how this feels.”

Your breath hitched, a shiver coursing down her spine as she met his intense gaze. “Then don’t stop,” you whispered, voice trembling with anticipation. “Show me why I’ll never want to.’”

A controlled, deep warmth spread through him, fueling a commanding need that made his jaw tighten and his breath deepen. His pace slowed but became striking as he pounded harder. The feeling coursed through him like a slow burn, power, and pleasure entwined as he let out a low, pleased groan, curses flowed out like an ongoing river as he pounded and relished the hold he had on the moment.

“Come on, let go for me,” he urged, voice deep and rough with need. “I need to see you fall apart. I need to hear every sound.” His moans were loud and filled with need as he built up to his edge, slowly holding on to his orgasmic finish so that he could cum with you.

“I’m right here,” he murmured, voice low and commanding. “Let go for me. Indulge, and you’ll see how good it feels.” His eyes locked on yours, full of intensity, as his touch guided you closer. “Cum for me,” he urged, the need in his tone impossible to ignore, “show me everything.”

As his voice reached you, rough and commanding, it sent a shockwave through your body. The tension inside you snapped, and a powerful release took over, making you cry out as the sensation overwhelmed you. The intensity was enough to make your body tremble uncontrollably, and a sudden rush of wetness followed, leaving you breathless and shuddering as you surrendered to the peak he had driven you to.

He felt the tight coil in his core snap, a deep, guttural moan escaping as the rush overtook him. His body shuddered, muscles tensing, every nerve on fire as the wave of pleasure surged through him, overwhelming and unstoppable.

Each pulse left him breathless, eyes squeezed shut as he surrendered to the intensity of the moment. His voice dropped to a commanding tone as he thrust harder, “Cum baby, cum on my cock now! I want you to cum babygirl.”

The force of his thrusts pushed them both over the edge, and he felt her release, her body trembling beneath him as he rode out his own, his breaths ragged and deep. He continued thrusting, each movement a desperate need to finish and he was close. He was there and once that loud cry of “Jungkook” slipped your lips, he was gone.

His body trembled as the pressure built within him, each movement intensifying the feeling. The edge was near, and his breath came in shallow bursts, his grip tightening as he felt the overwhelming rush rising from deep inside. With one final push, the wave of pleasure crashed over him, his body shuddering as he released, a guttural sound escaping his lips lost in the sheer intensity of the moment. He was done, his body spent and trembling, feeling the warmth of her against him.

He was panting, he was sweaty, and hovered over your nude body in weakness almost wanting to crash into you. But no, he pulled out watching his fluid follow out behind him with a smirk. Shaking the last of his cum onto your legs, he shortly gained the strength to scoot back over to the driver's seat and lay back in it with a huge sigh of release.

Meanwhile, you plopped yourself on the chair ass faced out, and sat there in silence as you regained your consciousness and energy to move, coming down from your high as his seed dripped out and slid down your thighs. He was right, there was no next after him and you wanted that as much as he did. You were ready for whatever came next, that's something you didn't have to have sex again to decide. You did have feelings for him in the past and now, so why not go for it?

With that in thought you felt a cold wet press against your legs only for him to reassure its a wet wipe just to clean a bit before heading to get food and back where the both of you would shower soon. Well until he sat down and the blinking light of the gas along with the tank on zero.

“Shit we're out of gas,” he groaned in frustration, hitting his head on the window.

“Well, I guess we call for backup once we’re dressed. Speaking of do you think anyone you know saw us?” you questioned, voice weak and shaken up, mind still out of it as you handed them his clothes and grabbed your own.

“No, this road only leads towards the house. If it was anyone it’d be” Turning to the side he sees a car light in the distance and hears a honk. With quickness, you turn off the light and both of you jumble to put your clothes on as the car slowly drives closer.

“Run out of gas?” Tae hollers, out the window, as he pulls up. Rolling his windows down, jungkook yells back “Yeah” and then whispers to you “There’s a convenience store, take my wallet and we’ll split up so you can buy what you may need because-” he cut himself, shy but what he was gonna say next. Giggling you nodded and fixed your clothing as he got out to help Tae fill the gass up to full before continuing for what was tasked. Pizza, drinks and other things.

M.List

[blueweaveconsultingblog]

Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market Trends, Analysis, Report 2022-2029

BlueWeave Consulting, a leading strategic consulting and market research firm, in its recent study, estimated Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market  size to grow at a steady CAGR of 5.22% during the forecast period between 2023 and 2029. Major growth drivers for the Europe off-the-road tire market include an increasing construction activity, rising agricultural mechanization, and the growing mining industry. The continuous upgrading of commercial structures like bridges, dams, highways, and power supply grids across various geographical locations is also contributing to the market's growth. The expanding mining sector is another significant factor, leading to a rising demand for large haul trucks in mining and quarrying applications. The European market is witnessing a surge in the adoption of radial OTR tires, which offer numerous advantages such as improved mileage, reduced fuel consumption, and enhanced road grip. The growth of the agriculture sector and the increasing adoption of farm mechanization trends are further fueling the market's expansion. Also, the adoption of government regulations aimed at ensuring the safety of workers in industries involving heavy-duty operations is stimulating the need for machinery like forklifts, cranes, backhoes, and bulldozers. Hence, such aspects are expected to contribute to the expansion of the market in Europe. However, fluctuating raw material prices and shift of energy sectors towards renewable energy are anticipated to hinder the overall market growth during the period in analysis.

Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market– Overview

The Europe Off-the-Road (OTR) tire market refers to the segment of the tire industry that focuses on the manufacturing, distribution, and sale of tires specifically designed for vehicles operating in off-road conditions. These conditions typically include rugged terrains, uneven surfaces, and challenging environments where standard passenger car tires would not be suitable. OTR tires are designed to provide enhanced traction, durability, and stability for various off-road applications such as construction and mining equipment, agricultural machinery, industrial handling equipment, and specialized vehicles used in sectors like forestry and ports. The Europe OTR tire market encompasses the demand, supply, and trade of these specialized tires within the European region.

Sample Request @ https://www.blueweaveconsulting.com/report/europe-off-the-road-tire-market/report-sample

Impact of COVID-19 on Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market

COVID-19 pandemic adversely impacted Europe Off-the-Road (OTR) tire market. The market experienced disruptions in the supply chain as global restrictions on transportation and factory closures caused delays in the production and distribution of OTR tires. Reduced economic activity and uncertainty resulted in decreased demand from industries heavily reliant on off-road vehicles, such as construction, mining, and agriculture. However, there were shifts in usage patterns, with increased demand in the agricultural sector due to its essential nature. As the situation improved and restrictions were lifted, the market began to recover, aided by government stimulus measures and infrastructure projects. The pandemic also emphasized the importance of safety and efficiency, leading to a greater focus on technological advancements in OTR tires.

Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market – By Application

Based on application, the Europe off-the-road tire market is divided into Construction and Mining, Agriculture, and Industrial segments. The construction and mining segment holds the highest share in the Europe Off-the-Road (OTR) tire market. The construction and mining industries require heavy-duty and durable tires that can withstand challenging terrains and heavy loads. OTR tires specifically designed for construction and mining applications offer features such as enhanced traction, cut and chip resistance, and increased load-carrying capacity, making them suitable for these demanding environments. Also, the construction and mining sectors are significant contributors to the European economy, driving infrastructure development and resource extraction. These industries rely heavily on off-road vehicles and equipment, such as loaders, dump trucks, excavators, and bulldozers, which in turn require OTR tires. The ongoing construction projects, mining operations, and infrastructure developments in Europe contribute to the consistent demand for OTR tires in the construction and mining segment.

Competitive Landscape

Major players operating in the Europe Off-the-Road Tire Market include Michelin, Continental, Pirelli, Nokian Tyres, Trelleborg, Vredestein, Yokohama, Magna Tyres Group, Petlas Tire Corporation, and Alliance Tire Group. To further enhance their market share, these companies employ various strategies, including mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures, license agreements, and new product launches.

Contact Us:

BlueWeave Consulting & Research Pvt. Ltd

+1 866 658 6826 | +1 425 320 4776 | +44 1865 60 0662

info@blueweaveconsulting.com

[quarterlifekitty]

Some more thoughts on the former Babysitter!Soap AU

Soap is a little beside himself when he gets back to the taskforce, his mind is swimming with all of the things he wants for the two of you.

“There’s a girl I wanna marry.”

“Didn’t think you were seein’ anyone–”

“Ahm not– technically–”

The taskforce ends up seeing you. Of course they do. He’s very unsubtle in how he’s consistently stalking your instagram whenever he’s on his phone.

“Tha’ the bird you’re so fuckin’ sick about?”

“Shove off, LT–”

“Outta your league, that one. How’d you even meet her?”

“It’s… It’s complicated, alright?

They don’t believe that he used to babysit when he tells them, let alone someone that young. They expected someone who had already known how to take care of themselves for the most part, not a four year old.

“Soap, you’ve killed literally every succulent you’ve ever had, and someone trusted you with their baby?”

“Big difference between a plant and a kid–”

“Yeah, you can replace a plant for five quid at the shops if you kill it!”

It’s very fucked up when they see the two of you together, when he agrees to host them at his for the next holiday. He’s so… responsible. Always making sure you’re not hungry, or tired– he literally holds your hand out of pure instinct whenever you have to cross a road, keeps you on the inner part of the sidewalk while he walks the curbside, almost sternly tells you not to wander off while browsing different shops and markets… He’s like a whole different animal.

And it’s incredibly obvious to everyone but you how much animosity he holds for any guy that glances in your direction. How the easygoing smile is strained when you talk about male classmates, inviting you over to study.

“Guys dinnae invite cute things like you ‘round jus’ tae study, hen.”

[parkerslatte]

Incompatible | Part One

Eris Vanserra x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Warnings: none

Summary: Y/N Archeron was a human living in the land of the fae. For her own protection, the Inner Circle keeps her in Velaris, safe and protected. One day, Azriel invites her to a meeting after seeing her close into herself more and more. There she meets the one who flips her whole life upside down.

A/N: This is a request from @talesofadragon , thank you so much for sending it in, it definitely helped with my writers block :) also this will have a second part and possibly a third so keep an eye on for those soon!

A Court of Thorns and Roses Masterlist

•••

Y/N Archeron remembered the day she returned to the house her two younger sisters lived in and found it completely destroyed. It had only been three months since she had last visited as making the journey across the human lands was a tiring one that Y/N did not make very often. Far from the village her sisters lived in, Y/N lived mostly alone with a large stretch of farmlands and woodlands. The closest neighbour to her was nearly a mile down the road. But Y/N liked that, she liked the peace living on the farm brought her. 

After she moved when she was freshly eighteen, Y/N sent most of her earnings to her family and lived off of the bare minimum. But she was happy, probably happier than she had been in a while. 

Now years on from that, at twenty-eight, Y/N continued to sit at the table in the town house and watched the world go by. She tried to concentrate on her book or anything else but she couldn’t, her mind was elsewhere. It always was this past year. Occasionally someone would walk by but Y/N made no effort to make conversation. All she wanted to do was leave the damned house. 

Y/N was only a human living in the land of the fae. When she first arrived, she was happy. She was back with her sisters and she was in a new place to explore. At first, Rhys allowed her to walk the streets of Velaris, browsing the shops and market stalls. Soon that transitioned to her needing an escort wherever she went and very soon after that, it turned into Y/N being locked up in whatever house everyone decided that week. Today was the town house. She knew that her family were only looking out for her and only wanted to protect her. After all, Y/N was not immortal. She was not fae. She could bruise easily, was far weaker than anyone else around her. 

Y/N sighed yet again and threw the book in her hands to the floor. She didn’t understand why she was here anymore. Y/N knew that she was of no use to anyone around her, she felt more like an inconvenience if anything. They should have just taken her back to her own damned farm.

“Hey,” Azriel said, approaching the eldest Archeron. “I came to check on you.”

“Of your own free will or because you were forced to?” Y/N snapped back. She instantly felt guilty. Since she was brought to Velaris, Azriel had been nothing but kind to her. They all had but he was the only one who had gone out of his way to talk with her everyday. Her sisters had stopped doing that when they had either begun their own families or had gone travelling. 

“My own free will if you really want to know,” Azriel said and sat down in the chair next to hers. He glanced down at the book on the floor. “Did the book really deserve that?”

“It probably deserved a lot more than that,” Y/N said, bringing her legs up onto the chair. She looked back out of the window.

Azriel sighed. “Y/N, look, I know that you don’t want to be here–”

“What gave you that impression?” Y/N interrupted.

Azriel simply ignored her. “But you are safe here.”

“I could have been safe at my farm,” Y/N said. “There was no need to bring me here. Feyre and Nesta are both busy with their families to sit with me anymore. Elain is busy travelling the continent with Lucien. I don’t have any friends here–”

“I am your friend, Y/N,” Azriel interrupted her. “And all we are trying to do is protect you. The whole of Prythian knows that there is another Archeron sister and they all know that you are human. If anyone were to get to you, it would put you as well as your sisters in danger. Because you know that they would do anything to get you back safe.”

Y/N sighed. “I know but this is not a life, Azriel. All I do is sit indoors and waste away. I am not even allowed to go outside anymore. Whenever there is a meeting happening, I am sent away to the furthest possible room. I feel like a prisoner, Azriel. You may not see it, but it is how I feel.”

Azriel sighed and stood up.

“Where are you going?” Y/N said. 

“To a meeting,” Azriel answers. 

Y/N huffed and turned back to the window. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. “Have fun.”

Y/N expected to hear Azriel’s retreating footsteps but she didn’t. Slowly she turned her head and found him standing there, his hand outstretched. 

“What?” Y/N asked.

“Are you coming or not?” Azriel asked. 

Hope lit up Y/N’s heart. “You’re serious?”

“Deadly,” Azriel said. 

Y/N stood up and threw her arms around the shadowsinger, nearly knocking him off balance. “What will the others say?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Azriel said. “If they say anything, let me deal with it.”

“Thank you!” Y/N exclaimed, pulling back from Azriel.

Azriel chuckled. “Don’t thank me yet. You are going to hate it once you realise how boring these meetings are.”

“I don’t care,” Y/N said as Azriel began to lead her to the meeting hall. “As long as I can actually be involved in something, I’ll find entertainment in anything.”

As soon as Azriel opened the door to the meeting hall, all eyes were on her. Y/N didn’t shrink away, she lifted her chin and looked around proudly. There weren’t many in the room at all, in fact there was only one new face amongst everyone else. Y/N studied him and, upon inspection, decided that he was the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on. His copper hair sat neatly on top of his head, a singular strand falling across his forehead. His fashion sense was immaculate and Y/N wanted to study the embroidery on his jacket up close. 

As Y/N moved her gaze back to the man’s face, she found him looking at her, a smirk pulling at his lips. Y/N gave him a small smile. 

A chair scraped across the floor, drawing Y/N’s attention away. 

“Azriel, what is she doing here?” Rhys asked, his voice low and deadly as he spoke to Azriel.

“I thought she could sit in on a meeting,” Azriel shrugged, pulling out a chair for Y/N. One directly across from the handsome man. “You and everyone else made Y/N read books on fae politics, so I thought she could see a political meeting in person.”

Rhys tried to remain calm but Y/N could easily see the anger and tension slipping through the cracks. 

Cassian was the next to speak up. “Az is right Rhys. Y/N must learn about all of this at some point. And there’s nothing like the present.”

Rhys’s gaze hardened on Cassian before he turned back to face Y/N. He offered her a small, barely there smile. “Very well.”

The stares of her two sisters burned into Y/N as she looked down at the table. Y/N hadn’t seen Feyre and Nesta in at least three weeks, but Y/N had to admit that by fae standards, three weeks was not a long time. But to Y/N it was, especially when there was barely anything she could do to pass the time. 

The chair next to Y/N scraped across the floor and Azriel sat down next to her. Y/N turned her head to look at him.

Thank you, she mouthed. 

Azriel gave her a small nod before he turned his attention to Rhys as he began to speak up. Y/N had to admit to herself that she did not find any of what Rhys was saying particularly interesting, but she still felt glad to finally be included in something. 

The meeting felt like it had drawled on forever and Y/N had learnt to block everyone out. Though, if Y/N had to admit to herself, whenever the man with copper hair spoke, she found herself tuning into the conversation just to hear his voice. Not only was he the most beautiful man she had ever laid eyes on, his voice was the most beautiful she had ever heard. Y/N wasn’t sure if one could fall in love with the sound of someone’s voice but she already had. 

Y/N shuffled in her chair and finally looked up from where she was looking at the small crack in the table. Her back ached from her lack of movement and the uncomfortable seat she had found herself in. The sun outside had begun to go down, casting the room in a faint orange glow. The expression on Y/N’s face saddened as she looked at the sunset. All she wanted to do was go outside and bask in the sun on her own. She wanted her own place to live without the constant feeling of being babysat. All Y/N wanted was her own life back. 

Cassian cleared his throat and it interrupted Y/N from her own thoughts. As she zoned back in, she made eye contact with the handsome man again. He was looking directly at her, a gleam in his eyes that seemed like…concern. Y/N didn’t avert her gaze. Something within her made her not want to look away. She was swimming in his eyes and she would happily drown if she had no other choice. 

The corner of the man’s mouth twitched and Y/N couldn’t help but mimic that movement, fighting the urge to smile. Nothing had made her smile properly in a while but just simply from looking at this man, she wanted to smile, share that experience with him. Y/N pressed her lips into a thin line and averted her gaze, only for a quick second. As her eyes met the man’s once more, a small smile pulled at his lips.

“Eris,” Rhys interrupted and the man reluctantly looked away from Y/N. 

“What?” The man, now known to Y/N as Eris, said sharply. “Sorry, what did you say?”

Rhys’s gaze flicked between Eris and Y/N and his gaze darkened the smallest amount. “I asked you if there was anything else you wished to discuss.”

Eris leaned back in his chair. “Actually there is one thing. I would like to know the name of the beautiful woman I have not been introduced to yet.”

Rhys rolled his eyes. “Her name is–”

Eris held up his hand, cutting Rhys off. “Ah, I did not ask you for her name.” Eris turned his attention to Y/N. “I would like her to introduce herself.”

Y/N briefly glanced at her sisters. Their expressions did not give away much but for some reason Y/N had a feeling that neither of them wanted her to introduce herself. It only made Y/N want to do it more.

Y/N plastered a bright smile on her face as she faced Eris once more. “I’m Y/N Archeron.”

“Y/N,” Eris repeated, her name sounding like poetry on his tongue. “A beautiful name to match such a woman.”

Y/N’s smile only brightened. 

“Now all introductions are over, I will see you out, Eris,” Rhys said. 

“I can see myself out Rhysand,” Eris replied, standing from his chair. “Although I would not complain if the beautiful Y/N walked me out.”

Y/N felt Eris’s eyes bore into hers and she couldn’t help the heat that rose to her cheeks. 

“I–” Y/N began to speak but she was cut off by Rhys.

“She will not escort you out, Eris,” Rhys said.

“I’m sure Y/N can speak for herself, Rhysand,” Eris said, his eyes not leaving Y/N’s. 

Reluctantly, Y/N shifted her gaze from Eris to Rhys. The High Lord’s violet eyes hardened and Y/N knew exactly what that look meant. It was a warning. Y/N then looked at her two sisters. Feyre did not seem to mind as she slightly nodded at Y/N. Nesta only looked at Rhys’s annoyed expression in amusement. Y/N looked at Cassian and Azriel. While they didn’t say anything, the protective look in their eyes said enough. Though as her gaze met Azriel’s he shrugged. Do what you want, his look seemed to say. It doesn’t mean that I need to like it.

Y/N turned back to face Eris. “I’ll escort you out.”

Instead of a smirk, Eris plastered a pleasant smile upon his handsome face. Y/N pushed back her chair, it scraped loudly against the floor. She could feel the eyes of everyone on her yet she was only focused on one. As she walked around the table to meet Eris, he offered her his arm. Y/N took it gracefully, feeling the hard muscle beneath his jacket. 

As soon as they were outside of the meeting room, Y/N let out a long breath. She looked at Eris to find him already looking at her. 

“I can feel how suffocated you are,” Eris said, his eyebrow knitting together in concern. “I know the feeling all too well myself.”

Y/N sighed. “This is honestly the first time I have ever been allowed to do anything on my own in a long time.”

“I cannot imagine how that must feel,” Eris said. “If I were in your shoes, I would simply run for the hills.”

Y/N’s lips twitched. “Don’t you think I’ve thought of doing that?”

“I don’t see why you don’t,” Eris said, as they finally stepped outside. Y/N lingered in the threshold of the doors. Eris’s concern seemed to heighten. “How long has it been since you have been outside?”

“Well only a few days since I moved from the House of Wind to here,” Y/N said. “But actually being outside and feeling the sun on my skin, quite a while.”

Eris scoffed. “Moved around? You are not a piece of furniture.You are a human being.”

“Exactly,” Y/N replied. “A human being. I am not fae. I am not safe if I am to live and walk around in daylight.”

“That is no way to live,” Eris said. 

“It is the way I have been living for nearly four years now,” Y/N said. 

“Well why don’t you and I change that,” Eris said, trailing his hand down Y/N’s arm to intertwine their fingers together. Y/N smiled as she felt his warm palm against hers. “Step out into the sun with me.”

“But it is sunset,” Y/N commented.

“It is said that that is when the sun looks the most beautiful,” Eris replied, nodding his head in the direction of the large hill obscuring their view of the sunset. “We will get a perfect view just up there.”

“I don’t know,” Y/N said, stepping back from Eris, though she didn’t release his hand. She didn’t want to release his hand. The warmth she felt from it was unlike any other. 

“Don’t do that,” Eris said softly.

“Do what?” Y/N asked.

“Shrink into yourself,” Eris said, lightly pulling her so she stood close to him. “Come with me. It is only over the hill after all. I can walk you back here safely after.”

Eris’s expression held no ill intent and deep down Y/N already knew that for reasons she couldn’t explain. Y/N nodded her head slowly. A wide smile spread across Eris’s face and Y/N couldn’t help herself but smile back. His smile was infectious. 

Together they stepped out of the townhouse and Eris led her further away from the building. Y/N’s eyes lit up as she felt the warm sun on her skin. They stopped at the top of the hill as Y/N’s eyes widened in wonder. It had been a while since she had seen such a beautiful sight. 

“I have to admit that this sight is rather beautiful,” Eris commented. “But the sights in Autumn are even better.”

Y/N turned her attention to Eris. “Perhaps I can see them one day?”

Eris smiled. “I would happily take you now if you wanted.”

The smile fell from Y/N’s face. She glanced back towards the townhouse. “I would love that, but…”

Eris glanced at the house. “They won’t let you.”

“It is their way of making sure I am protected, though I just feel trapped all the damn time,” Y/N said. “I hate feeling useless and that my life has no meaning. I rarely see my sisters because they are busy with their own families or travelling. I am not even allowed to train to pass the time, I am considered too delicate apparently, even for the training dummies. I just want to finally leave this court. I want to go back to my farm.”

“Your farm?” Eris asked.

“Before my sisters were turned into fae, I lived on my own farm hundreds of miles away. I sent most of the money I made to my sisters. I lived on the basics but I was happy,” Y/N explained. “I would kill to go back there.”

“Why don’t you?” 

“Well everyone inside of that house for starters but by now I am sure it is run down. I didn’t have anyone to help out on the farm, only the occasional person passing through if they were in need of work,” Y/N explained. “I am sure that it is not the cosy home it used to be by now and if I’m being honest, I do not have the motivation to even think about remodelling it.”

“What if you had help?” Eris suggested. 

A small smile creeped onto Y/N’s face. “Eris, are you offering to help me?”

“Perhaps I am,” Eris replied, taking a small step closer. “And if I was, Y/N Archeron, what would your answer be?”

“I would say–”

“Y/N!” Rhys called from the townhouse. 

Y/N rolled her eyes and turned to look at Rhys. He stood in the doorway with his arms folded across his chest. Y/N sighed. “I should get back inside now.”

As Y/N went to take a step back but Eris gently gripped her hand. “I take it that it would be impossible to convince you to come with me.”

“It wouldn’t be impossible to convince me,” Y/N said. “But convincing the Inner Circle to allow me out of sight is near impossible.”

Eris briefly looked at Rhys before looking back at Y/N. “Maybe I can convince them.”

Y/N laughed. “I’d like to see you try.”

“I take that as a challenge,” Eris smirked. “Mark my words, Y/N, that by this time three days from now, I will get you out of that house.”

Y/N linked her fingers through Eris’s. “Well I cannot wait until you do.”

Eris lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her knuckles. “I will look forward to seeing you again, Y/N.”

“Y/N,” Rhys said, interrupting Y/N from responding. 

“Rhys,” Y/N greeted. 

Rhys turned to Eris. “I see that my sister-in-law has escorted you out, maybe it is time for you to take your leave, Eris.”

“I was just leaving,” Eris replied, a gleam in his eye. “I have a very important letter to write tonight.”

Eris slipped his hand away from Y/N’s but Y/N found herself wanting to take his once more. The immediate coolness that wrapped around her hand was far from pleasant and she missed the warmth Eris provided. 

“I will see you very soon, Y/N,” Eris said, that gleam still shining brightly in his eyes. He turned on his heel and walked away without turning back. The light shone on his copper hair and Y/N wanted nothing more than to follow him. 

Rhys offered his arm to Y/N. “Let’s get back inside.”

“Before someone sees?” Y/N replied sharply. She walked ahead of Rhys the short distance to the town house. Though she felt a fluttering in her stomach and waited in anticipation to see if Eris’s words would come true. 

[scrompsautobotsrchives]

The grand race

Alright, first Mirage fic !! *Cracks knuckles* Lets do this. Word count:1K

Mirage lived for adventure even back on cybertron. He would always get up to antics which would have pissed off the prime leader back then. Now on earth, it was his personal playground, He would always toy around with the police in chases, Doing the best stunts he could do. But he always wanted to do more.

One day as he was cruising around the city, He parked nearby just to watch the city go by. He then saw two friends walk up to each other and have a quick chat before one said. "You still down for the race tonight ??"

"Yep, I also heard that they jackpoted the prize to a $1000" The other said enthusiastically.

"Woah..." That was all he needed when he started to zoom back to the makeshift HQ, You were busy helping Optimus and Bumblebee setting everything up when you heard the familiar revving.

"Hey y/n !!" He transformed and kneeled to your height, eager to tell you the news. "Guess what I heard today ?? Your gonna love it"

'What's up ??' You stopped what you were doing and gave him your full attention.

"I heard these guys in the city talking about a race that's happening tonight"

"Oh yeah, They do those almost every year now"

"Really ?? We should go !!"

But before you could give your answer, a familiar prime's voice boomed. "Absolutely not Mirage, We need to remain undercover and away from prying eyes, Drawing attention to yourself will only cause more damage then good" He said, bee whirred in laughter and soon the radio flicked to an audio of the Nelson Muntz... "HA HA !!"

"You must promise me to stay away from that race" Optimus said firmly.

"Yeah yeah sure, I'll stay very well away so far away... Dude don't leave me with these tightasses bro, We'd make a great team" Mirage whispered to you pleadingly.

"Mirage you heard what Optimus said, I'm not doing a race just so you can get kick out of it" You frowned to him.

"But what about for friendship ??" He said, making you raise an eyebrow in dissapointment.

"Ah or or or what about for cash ??"

You looked up at him. "How much are we talking ??"

"$1000, I can get that to you easy"

Now what you could do with $1000, ooooooh you could buy that new games console that just went on a market. You looked at Optimus who was helping Bee before back at Mirage.

"Ok, I'm in" You nodded.

So later in the night, the two of you went out. Heading to the start of the course where all the racer's would line up. You got out as you heard rap music playing on full blast, People catching up and taking selfies. You saw a dude with a clipboard standing nearby, Taking down the names of another person who arrived before you.

"Guess that's our ticket in" You closed the door and went up to him. "Hey, I wanna enter the race"

"Awesome, What car are we racing with ??"

"The Porsche behind me" You nodded to Mirage.

He nodded and took down your name as well. "Alright, your in kid"

"Thanks" You headed back to Mirage and got inside. "Ok remember, we need to make this look natural so nobody notices something's off ok ??" You reminded him of the rules.

"Don't worry, your boy's got this" Even in car form, you could tell Mirage had a huge smirk on his face.

You lined up, Eyeing the competition. some had modified cars ranging from old to new. They took this seriously.

"This'll be easy" Mirage chimed in, revving his engine as he got into place. "Relax"

You nodded as you gripped the steering wheel, Watching someone walk to the middle with the chequered flag, signalling the race was about to start. The contestants around you started to rev up their cars as the flag was raised, and then with the swish downwards, Tires skidded on the road and soon everyone was off.

"Come on Mirage !!" You cheered as you made pretend movements on the drivers seat.

"'scuse me 'scuse me'" He chuckled softly as he passed some contestants with breeze.

But some were proving to be a little bit of a challenge, like we said, some were modified specifically for this race. Mirage grumbled as he attempted to pass some of them. "Move over !!"

The driver in one car could only chuckle and pressed the nitro, picking up speed.

"Damn it !!" You pushed the pedal to the medal, and Mirage began to speed up, pushing a little more and sped past the guy, blowing dust in his face.

"WOOHOO !!!"

The first lap was done, Just gotta keep up the momentum. "Let's kick some aft !!" Mirage cheered.

You cleaned up the second lap, But on the third, one of the contestants began to kick it up a notch. Mirage was cruising along when he felt that he wasn't ahead anymore. "Huh ??"

You watched as one of the contestants sped past you, This car looked like it went through hell and back on the performance.

"Shit !! Come on we got this !!" You reminded.

Mirage was determined, as determined as ever to win this. He tried to speed up as best as he could, Tires burning every drift. The other driver wasn't giving up as well, Both of you pushing the pedal to the medal as the finish line was nearing. The crowd cheered as the two of you crossed, Mirage made a total stop. "Did we win ??"

"I'm not sure ??" You got out of the car, asking the racer. "Yo what's going on ??"

"Beats me" He shrugged.

Because it was such a close call, Some people had to review the footage on their phones just to see who touched the finish line first, You waited for almost 5 minutes before one nodded and shouted. "It was the Porsche !!" Making everyone cheer.

"YEAH !!" You were so goddamn happy, Mirage was so goddamn happy, Oh screw it you were both so goddamn happy.

Others watched as you showed off from mirage and as promised, you were awarded the $1000. You drove off soon after.

"Holy shit that was incredible !! Did you see the guys face !!??"

"Oh, he was so mad !!" Mirage was so happy. "We gotta do that again sometime.

"Maybe... Just maybe" You smirked. You made your debut, a race or two never hurt anyone.

Taglist: @callofdudes

[mattsbows]

surfer!chris. . .meets you

chris was flying down the curvy roads of kauai, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel to “walking on a dream” by empire of the sun. he was careless and worry free like always, a distinct change to his personality after moving to hawaii. the smell of salt water, coconut, and sunscreen wafted through the doors of his open air jeep, reminding him just how much he loved living on this island. he was pretty sure he could stay here forever and never tire of it. it didn’t matter how many times he drove by the endless palm trees that lined the road or the quaint acai bowl stand on the left. 

as he drove, chris thought about how he had gotten here. just one year ago he had been a burnt out content creator, struggling to thrive in the oversaturated market that was modern youtube. eventually, he’d given up on the dream, making one last “goodbye” video for his subscribers, packing his bags, and getting the hell out of LA. 

being a lifeguard wasn’t what he had planned, but when his brothers matt and nick had invited him on a trip to hawaii as a way to cool his head, he’d fallen in love with the islands and just never left. it wasn’t exactly the most well paying job, but it was work regardless and it left him with plenty of time to do the activity that had kept him here anyway: surfing. it didn’t matter that his bank account had taken a significant hit since his content creation days. he was happy, and that was that. 

sure, it wasn’t a particularly glamorous lifestyle, but he had money for groceries, gas for his jeep, and rent for his small, beachy apartment. saving people’s lives should’ve earned him a little more than $15 an hour, but money was money. 

chris’ tank top blew in the wind as he hit the gas pedal. the fabric was becoming more wrinkled by the second, but he didn’t care. he rarely work more than a pair of swim trunks at work anyway, allowing him to earn a nice tan that definitely boosted his ego.  

everything was fine. better than fine, actually. he was mellowed out, now on island time. life was peaceful, even right now as he drove to work. that changed, however, when he saw you run out in the road, forcing him to slam on the brakes. 

“kid, what the hell are you doing?” chris cursed. 

“sorry!” you yelped, turning to face him. “there was just this really pretty butterfly and-”

“let me get this straight,” he said, leaning around the side of the jeep. “you ran out in the road for a butterfly?”

you nodded meekly, the way this unfamiliar boy said it making you realize how reckless your choice had been. you were taken aback though by the way he looked at you. there was a smirk on his tanned, freckled face, clearly an indicator of how comical he found the situation. it was stupid, really. you knew that, but that didn’t stop you from wanting to wipe that smirk off of his maybe, slightly, possibly gorgeous face. 

“you could’ve gone around me,” you stated with a shrug, trying to make the butterflies in your stomach not show on your face. “that was an option, y’know.”

chris rolled his eyes. you couldn’t be serious. you had to be joking. thankfully, you were a good actor because he seemed to believe that you weren’t. he simply rolled his eyes, climbing back into the jeep and smirking at you once more as he restarted the engine. you were pretty, there was no denying it, but chris wouldn’t let you know that.

“try not to get hit again.” he yelled at you as he sped by. 

and that was how your first, and definitely not last, interaction with the surfer had played out.

a note from the author: surfer!chris has my whole heart and soul. hope this helps ❤️ enjoy!!

❁ tags: @mattsdemi @purpledragon222 @slxtarchive @natashad0627 @quinnysnursery @tyummyz @colorthecosmos444 @lockettesstage @mattyblover07 @marrykisskilled @beautyloves @nicksbestie @mrsarnold @st7rnioioss @sturn777 @sophand4n4 @mattsdolll @lottieluhvs @reidshearts @sturns-mermaid @lovergirl4gracieabrams @emely9274 @blahbel668 @khlolovessturn @ncm9696 @raesalvatore @sturniololuv08 @sturniolosymphony @eternaldesi @irene-martinez777 @mamamadssss @sofieeeeex @courta13 @blushsturns

[edgeray]

CREATURE | HALLOWEEN EVENT FIC

Arlecchino x GN! Reader

Link to my Halloween Event Masterlist. Check out amazing works done by other blogs <3 there!

A/N - I know this is extraordinarily late, but the sunk cost fallacy got to me. Can you tell I’m American from this? Also, not finished because I couldn't find any more ideas for this, so have this semi-baked story because I don't want it to catch dust. Content warnings - Alien AU, Alien! Arlecchino, a gun is there but not used, semi-graphic violence, mentioned deaths but not shown, could be seen as platonic or romantic, 6.5k words

It starts with a streak across the sky. Or, it starts with the rushing of the wind. No, it starts with a reverberating boom that shakes the Earth. Whatever the case, it's around 2 or 3 AM when you're startled awake. Lurching from your bed and trying to blink the sleep out of your eyes, you stumble out of your blanketed sanctuary, cursing out whatever was the origin of the disturbance under your breath. You hear the jolted protests of your animals: the squealing of pigs, the barking of your cattle dog, and the squeaking of chickens. Damn it, you'll have to calm them down too. 

You slip on your boots while you grab your flashlight, hastily grabbing handfuls of treats in a bag for the various animals in order to help placate them. You hesitate as you're about to exit your home, the shotgun laid against the wooden frame of the door. Deciding against using it, you rush out to soothe the animals by feeding them the treats by hand, gentle brushes along their hair and shushing them tenderly. 

“There, there,” you whispered to your dog who was barking her head off, standing boldly towards the fields. There was nothing you could see beyond the road and the tall grass beyond it. You run your hand down her back as you give her chin scratches. “It's okay. It's okay, you're okay. Good girl. It's alright. Thank you for protecting us.” 

Still, she didn't persist until another half hour when her voice grew tired. You stay there, petting her in an attempt to ease her distress, but your efforts were futile. The Pyrenees still has her ears pinned back and her tail tucked, quivering like a leaf in the wind. You've never seen her like this, even with coyotes. What could possibly terrify her like this? You don't know–and you don't want to face whatever creature was out there. No matter how much you try, you couldn't budge her from her spot, her gaze fixated before her. Sighing, you decide there's nothing you could do, and after giving your animals one last check you return to your bed. Nearly in the comfort of slumber's arms, you're pulled away with the screeching of your alarm clock. 4:30AM.

You nearly cry. 

After wiping your unshed tears in front of the mirror while you brush your teeth, you make some quick buttered toast, pouring food in your dog’s bowl before heading out. She'll come get it when she wants. You go around your farm, feeding your animals, letting them graze, checking their wellbeing, ensuring the fences are secured, and tending to your garden. You're thankful your parents left you a small farm–not too big for it to be overwhelming, yet still sustainable for you. You only have to go to the market for supplies or when you want to get more baking ingredients. 

A sloppy kiss to your face from a calf wrenches you away from your thoughts, and you giggle, petting it. You give one last pet to the baby cow until you venture to your chicken coop. You successfully pocket a few eggs with only a few pecks to your hand. Once the sun really starts beating down on you, you head inside to make lunch. An egg sandwich later, you're out again, this time to make sure your horse gets properly groomed and some exercise. It's around sunset when you herd your animals to their respective shelters after their last meal of the day. Finally able to settle down from a hard day's work, you laze on your couch, reading a book you just picked up last week. 

Your ears don't pick up on it first, but then you hear it again, a sound that causes you to shudder involuntarily. It's the kind of sound that makes your heart sink all the way into the depths of your stomach, as if hiding from the source of the noise. The kind of sound that cuts through the tranquility of your farm–an eerie, off-putting sound whose origin is inexplicable. The kind of sound that makes you freeze in place, while your thudding heart roars to life, thumping through your eardrums but not loud enough to drown out that archon-awful sound. 

It's a harsh, chilling thing. It's how you imagine a knife scraping alongside a chalkboard sounds like, and it persists for another moment or two before disappearing. You're paralyzed, still enough to have blended into your sofa, waiting, anticipating another damning sound, for it to grow closer to you. Then, there’s some scuttling sounds, fading out just as suddenly it appears to leave behind silence. The thing, whatever it is, is gone now. 

With bated breath, you check through the window of the door to your fenced garden, seeing that nothing seemed to be there. Opening the door, it’s almost a relief that nothing really seems out of place. What's left is little dents into the ground with bits of dirt uprooted from said holes. You examined the area to see what caused the scraping sound, before spotting your metal garden bed. There's a thin, long white line that extends from one side's end to the other. Shuddering at the sight, you turn to examine the fences. You have wooden and wire fences tall enough that no people or animals can climb, yet something got in. It's evident by the dirt tracks on one side of a wooden pole that this thing has the physical prowess to climb–or jump–over five feet. 

You examine further for any more damage around your property. Your gaze spins around your crops, stopping at your bell peppers. 

Or at what remains of them. 

— 

“Some folks are saying that there's some creature, sneaking around their yards and stealing their vegetables. You know anything about that?” the store clerk says as a greeting while he bags the juice cartons along with your other groceries. 

You almost let out a sigh. After the incident, it never repeated, though you're always anticipating the next time you'll hear that damning sound. Your bell peppers weren't much of a casualty, but if it returns, what more will it take? 

“It's true,” you whisper, filing through your wallet for the appropriate amount of bills. “Last week Tuesday, I heard something, scampering in my garden. When I checked it after it left, all my bell peppers were chomped off. I thought I was going crazy, making things up. But every archon-damn morning my peppers aren't there.” 

“Well, I heard someone tell the local authorities to hunt it down–animal control wasn't very helpful,” he remarks, taking your money, and you raise an eyebrow.

“You reckon they'll catch whatever it is?” You inquire, gathering the bags of grocery. 

“I better hope so. Who knows if that thing will stick to just fruits and veggies.” 

You're afraid of that thought too. Yet… “What do you think they'll do when they catch it?” 

The man gives a shrug of his shoulders. “Dunno. Probably kill it. Things like that shouldn't be thieving around.” 

You frowned. “Thanks. Have a good day.” 

—

Coincidentally, it's a Tuesday when it happens again. This time, it's a loud, distinctive crash that makes you drop the bowl of batter from your arms. Like last time, every muscle of yours seize to move, subjecting yourself to the sounds that come from your garden. This time, the creature is more clamorous, all kinds of thumping and thudding accompanied by that dreadful, shrill scraping. Spotting the shotgun perched against the front door, you will yourself to make the short distance to it. As your hand wraps around the cool wooden grip, you gulp considerably. 

Perhaps you should have asked your parents about practicing a shot or two with this before they passed. You hadn't even expected inheriting the farm so early, nonetheless having to use this. You had always hoped there wouldn't come a time you'd need to use a lethal weapon on someone or something. 

You load the chamber of the shotgun, the small, satisfying click of it nearly a reassurance compared to the thrashing still among your garden. Damn it, your hands are shaking. Confronting that thing? You? The shy, lone farmer, left behind by their parents? You, who's susceptible to the faintest pleading from your dog for table scraps, despite having been fed? You, who's entire day of plans is derailed at the sight of a newborn animal? You, who can barely wake up to press snooze on your alarm clock? 

No, you need to do this. You don't know what that thing is, or what else it'll decide to destroy. Step by step you approach the door, tentatively peeking through the window.

By archons, what is that? 

It's not normal, closer to an extraterrestrial creature than something a part of this planet. You’re hesitant to even call it a creature, rather a child’s crude creation made from shoving different bunches of playdoh together with a faint semblance of a human. It has too many  different features jutting from the main body for it to be any normal thing, maybe about the height of the bear, though it's hard to judge from its crouching and writhing. Unsure of what could be the cause of its writhing, you decide if it's in such an agitated state, you shouldn't confront it yet. 

You squint your eyes, attempting to piece together feature by feature to even pretend what you're looking at. 

Its back is turned towards you, but you can see at an angle their limbs. Nestled on top of its snow white hair with black strands are tall, white, black-tipped flattened ears–like the ears of an erect-eared bunny. From there, you make out pitch black hands (wait, are those claws?) that are clutching the sides of their head–is that a face? Pointedly skirting your eyes away from the facial features, your peer travels lower. Its skin–or fur? You're not quite sure–fades from a white to a darker gray the further your sight goes, with crimson splotches dotting across the spine. Six jointed appendages protrude from the vertebrae, three each on the right and left side. The limbs, reminiscent of a spider (minus two legs), appear as a vibrant, scarlet color in comparison to the darker red spots (which you now realize are crosses, and not just specks) with a midnight outline. 

Connected from its spinal cord is a lengthy, thin charcoal-colored tail. At the end of the tail is what can only be compared to a scythe blade. It whips around wildly, as untamed as the beast itself, adding more casualties of your produce with each manic swipe. Suppressing your urge to wince at every revoltingly audible drag of the blade end of the tail you study the rest of the creature. Beyond the spine, it becomes evident that this a bipedal creature, with sable slender, furred (you're more certain it's fur now) legs, and similarly colored feet, though around the ankles breaks up the color with a strip of red. 

Even if you were dreaming or hallucinating, you didn't have the creative ability to imagine whatever is in front of you. From its spasming and the guttural groans escaping it, it reminds you of a wild, injured animal. 

Then it'd be better to put it out of its misery… right? 

Summoning all your courage, you deliberately unlock the door before turning the door in the same manner. No longer behind the closed barricade, you feel as if a piece of armor was stripped from you, your protection peeling off the wider you open the door. It seems so much bigger, so much closer to you now, so much more tangible. Your footsteps over the wooden porch are masked by its pained groans, and you maneuver your shotgun to be held in both trembling hands. Inhaling deeply, you step behind the creature, lifting the barrel until you aim at its head. Your finger finds the trigger. 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur to it, though your speech is drowned by its agonizing sounds. 

One second passes by. Then another. You give the trigger a miniscule press, before stopping. 

Your stupid, idiotic heart is pounding in your chest too hard, and your thoughts are scrambled. Two sides of yourself are at conflict, and it's clear the more soft-hearted one is winning. You're taking a life, alien, mutant creature, or whatnot, it's instilled in you to preserve every life as much as you can. Throughout your entire childhood, you've been taught on the farm by your parents that every life is worth preserving. Even the gophers that eat your crops, or the wasps that occupy a corner of the barn, or the spider you find in your bathroom have a right and place to live. Because they too are struggling to live as much as you are. Perhaps it's your cowardice finding an excuse, but the longer you watch its grotesque twitching, the more your expression contorts from grim to that of sympathy. 

You can't pull the trigger. Not even to save it from pain. 

Your finger moves away from the trigger and you lower the gun, your heart both lighter and heavier. A voice in your head keeps repeating ‘fool’ and ‘coward’ to add further insult. You can't argue against it. Shuffling away, you make your way back to the open door with the intention of pretending that nothing happened. There's no creature, there's no screeching, and your garden is not tarnished. You'll simply just go back to hiding in your house, hoping that the creature will disappear soon. 

You turn, stepping back onto the porch, making your way to the door. The wood underneath you creaks. Loudly. 

You don't even turn around fully when red-crossed pupils grab your sight, and then your body is struck with a heavy impact. Tumbling onto the floor, a sharp pain erupts at your back from your landing while a heavy weight now rests on top of your body. Large claws prick your skin as it grips your neck, tightening with each second, restricting your breath. 

You futilely try to kick away the thing above you, but it’s too sturdy, or perhaps you're too weak. Either way, it doesn't budge on top of you, so you attempt to pry away the hand. You scratch it hard, desperate nails finding the skin underneath the fur and piercing into it–a fruitless and provocative action given the rumbling growl you receive. It refuses to let up despite your efforts and your strength diminishes with each passing second. Your hands lose the ability to move anymore and your body involuntarily concedes, stilling in place.  

“Please…” you attempt to mumble, pleading into eyes that hold no humanity, eyes that don't know of mercy. Does it even understand you? The notion slips from you like fish, and your thoughts begin swimming, comprehension ungraspable just like your breath. The heart beat that used to pound in your ears like crashing waves begins to slow, until it is reduced to nothing more but ripples. Cloudiness fills your mind, and your eyes unfocus. As if injected into, exhaustion seeps throughout your form, lulling you to sleep. 

Then you're ripped away, your windpipe free from the crushing pressure as you greedily suck in air, choking at the abrupt intake. Lurching up, you grasp at your chest as the oxygen rushes back to you in rapid huffs. Adrenaline pumps through you once more, making you frighteningly aware of the beast still there. Its head is tilted, like a confused dog, upright ears perked up and pointed towards you. That's when you finally realize you were peering at it, face to face. 

It's almost human–if you subtract the ears, the pupils, and the fangs that cover its mouth. Fangs, like those of a spider, are on either side of its mouth. Ignoring those features and isolating the face from the rest of its body, it can pass as an androgynous person. Just another face you could see in a crowd and think nothing of.  

Its fangs clack together, the sound invokes shudders from you. You have no doubt that they could crush bones between them. Perhaps that is what it will do to you. It's still observing you, a curious red glint in their inky pits. It finally settles in that you are alive–rather, the creature decided to let you live. 

Was it mercy? You can't help but wonder–is it as animalistic as you make it? If it was nothing but that, then you're certain that it wouldn't waste time to sink their fangs into you. It attacks you, then releases you without harm; it's a clear threat, a concept that no wild thing can really possess. If a wild beast was threatened, they either attacked without restraint or cower away. It did none of those. Then, in that case, it would suggest that it is more intelligent than you previously thought–for all you know, this thing can possess emotions and rational thinking like all humans. It's indubitable that this creature is not from this world.

You slowly scoot back, away from the creature, observing if it would strike again. It does not. You finally have the chance to stand up, viewing its hunched form fully. That's when you notice that the spider legs-like appendages were actually folded wings. That explains how the creature was able to intrude into your garden so easily.

You have half the sense to book it, run away as swiftly as you can, yet it's your curiosity that stops you. Why was it screaming and jerking the way it was? Tentatively, you step to the side, and flinch as it shifts its head to track your movements. You take another step, and begin circling the creature, before spotting a silver liquid cascading down its side underneath its middle appendage where there is a noticeable wound. Revealing pale, almost white flesh, and a gaping hole, the size of a coin. A bullet wound?

The voice of the grocery store cashier rings through your head. 

Did the authorities do this? Was this a result of them hunting this thing down? You look back at it now. 

It's too human-like for your liking. It chatters, fangs clanking against each other again, and it raises one ear. It reminds you of your dog when she's seen something new. Inquisitive, keen, gentle. Swallowing thickly, you edge closer to it, raising your palm to tender stroke around the wound. It tenses, its tail dragging across the dirt irately. You pull away with a flinch, gazing back towards its face.  

“I'm sorry,” you find those words tumbling out for a second time, but this apology holds a different meaning. You know it doesn't understand. It blinks at you in response, giving a low chattering with their fangs. There's a standstill between the two of you, observing the other with mutual wariness. 

The hard thudding against a door sounds through your house and yard and you snap out of your trance. Someone was at the front door? A deep snarl comes from the creature beside you, and you note its response. Who could possibly be there? 

You make your way from the garden to the front door of your house. The creature scuttles behind you, and while the sound makes you cringe, you ignore it. It is harmless… you hope. 

You make your way to the door, looking through the eyehole. A sheriff and who you presume his deputy stood just outside. You gulp, shifting your eyes behind you before deeming it safe enough to at least greet them. You can't fathom what they wanted, but their presence currently is certainly inconvenient. What would happen if they spot the alien creature thing currently roaming around your interior house? 

“Gentlemen… how could I help you?” you question tentatively, cracking the door open just the slightest bit. 

“Good evening,” the sheriff greets gruffly, flashing a polite smile. “We just wanted to question if you’ve seen or heard of any… disturbance around your property.” 

Your heart leaps out of your chest, and you clench your hand into a fist behind your back. Feigning a puzzled expression, you cock your head. “A disturbance? Not that I know of, sirs. It's just me and my animals. What kind of disturbance are you referring to?” 

There's a single pause that allows both of the men to scrutinize your face. “We're wondering if you've seen a creature prowling around lately.” 

“A creature? Well, I haven't seen any coyotes or those damn things around. We're not a bear nation, are we?” You let out a fake chuckle. Something thumps in the kitchen, and you swear you will kill that thing with your bare hands if it outs the both of you. 

“No, we're not a bear nation. Well, that is all we wanted. Thank you for your time,” the sheriff states as they both turn. You nearly cheer in victory, but something stops–a minority voice that rushes to the surface of your thoughts just as you watch them leave.

“Wait, gentlemen,” you exclaim, stepping out of the doorframe and into your yard. You shut the door behind you. Both men pivot to face you again. 

“What, what kind of creature are you looking for? Hasn't someone shot it down yet? Or doesn't animal control usually wrangle it in? Why would some stray animal get your attention?” You inquire. You knew the answer already, but you couldn't help but wonder if there was more to the foreign creature in your household. Evidently, questioning the creature itself is out of the question, so perhaps the sheriff and deputy would know more. 

Their gazes meet one another as if they were telepathically communicating to one another before the sheriff sighs. “This creature isn't at all natural–it's been raiding and destroying people's homes. It's responsible for the mauling of two people. That's why it's imperative that we catch this thing as soon as possible.”

Everything stills at that moment, and your blood runs ice-cold through your veins. Your body trembles, and your surroundings fade from your consciousness. That thing killed two people? The very thing that's likely scavenging your cabinets? The creature that spared you, showed you mercy? It's taken two innocent lives, and you were nearly the third. How can this be? No, rather, you weren't sure why you expected anything more from it when you knew nothing. The knowledge that you're housing a killer weighs heavily on your shoulders. You shouldn't be sheltering this thing, not with what it has done. You should tell them, confess that a wild beast invaded your property and assaulted you. 

You open your mouth to speak. You have the sudden urge to gag. You swear bile rises up in your throat. 

“That's… terrible. I hope you catch it soon,” you state. 

“We surely will. Have a good day,” the sheriff responds.

You watch their backs grow smaller as they trek their way back to their cruiser. When they finally speed off, you collapse against your door, your back sliding down until your bottom meets the ground.

You clutch your chest, heaving gasps escaping from you as you stare at your shaking hands. It's as if something is actively prying the air from your lungs, and every inhale is never enough for yourself. Your heart thrums and thrums with a deafening beat in your ears, threatening to wrench out of the cavity of your chest. Each hammering of the organ creates a pang that wracks through your body. The air is chilling, so frigid that you can't help but bring your knees to yourself, preserving any body warmth you can. Your stomach protests against the movement, squeezing and constricting so intensely you fear that it'll burst like a balloon. Your very reality seems to cave in, and every sensation you can feel is too much. 

The thing in your house is a killer. It nearly killed you. It can kill you. You're as good as dead, and yet you're shielding it. Why are you protecting it? Don't you care for your life? For the lives that it killed? Can you call yourself human? How could you do this with the knowledge of the atrocities it's done? Are you stupid? Probably. Do you have a death wish? Why would you let the sheriff leave? He was right there, just one word away from saving you from this predicament. And yet you watched him turn his back, when you know that his job would have been able to protect who knows how many lives. Are you a terrible human? Are you heartless? What's wrong with you? Why are you like this? Why didn't you just tell them? Why are you still here? You should have never inherited your parents’ farm. You should have never been here. Do you even deserve this farm? Do you deserve anything? Why–

Oh. It's warm–incredibly warm, actually, like your back is against a fire. But that's impossible, not when your back is against something solid and there's no crackling or smoke. Instead, there's a low constant humming, like that of a ceiling fan, but also different. It's almost like the purring of a cat. Your vision slowly returns to you, and within some moments of blinking you realize you are face planted into your knees. How long have you been in that position? Your overalls have a wet patch–you must have been crying. You release your knees from your hold, letting them straighten out. That's only when you notice larger legs surrounding your form, midnight in color. You don't quite question them yet until you let your eyes traverse more. Clawed hands are gripping your sides comfortably, heat emanating from the contact there as well.  

It's the kind of warmth you sink in after an exhaustive day, sapping away all the heavy weight on your shoulders and securing you in its soft embrace, shielding you away from all that is harsh. It's nice… You lean back further, feeling a subtle rumbling from the rigid wall. Strange, but no matter. All you know is that you're tired, your eyes are stinging, and your body demands rest. 

Just as you're about to bathe in the warmth, a revelation hits you: this isn't your bed. You sit up in an instant, prying away from something's grasp as you scramble away. Adrenaline courses through your body as you pivot around, and it sits there, just right where you were as if it had always belonged there. You see its very claws, and all you can envision is how crimson liquid drips from them, wondering when will that be your blood that it draws. When will those fangs pierce into your flesh? Was that what it was about to do? How long has it held you there? What was it waiting for?

You urge your body to move, to do anything but stare at the thing, but the numbness in your legs protests against your mind. The more your peer remains on the thing, the further you're drawn in by its crossed-pupils–you can't look away. Why can't you look away? All you see is the red, the red of blood, rivers and pools of it that forms beneath your person, coming from you and two faceless bodies that lie next to you–victims of the creature. 

Even though your limbs couldn't find the courage to move, your lips could. 

“Why… why did you kill them? Are you… are you going to kill me too?” You start, rising onto your knees and standing above the creature. The longer your stare lingers, the hotter you seem to get, like an inferno slowly manifesting in your chest. A boldness, empowered by the rhythmic drumming of your heart surges you onward, twisting every strand of fear into something unknown to you.

“Why did you kill them?” You repeat again with a foreign callousness, standing straighter as you approach the still sitting creature. It only stares at you, blankly, emptily, and you've never seen someone–something–with such a punchable face. For once, you are glad that this creature has a more humanoid form; it certainly made any hostility towards it a bit more justified. But for how human this creature may appear, the expression on its face is nothing of one–how can something appear this apathetic? 

A part of your mind lashes against your action, reminding you not to provoke the beast. What could you do against this thing, especially now that you don't have your shotgun? However, with a willful shove, the warning is dismissed in an instant. 

“Tell me! Was the produce you stole not enough?! How many homes have you broken into? How many people's lives have you ruined?! Don't look at me like that!” You exclaimed, your hands gesturing wildly and your face contorting to that of fury. “Are you going to kill me?! What are you waiting for?!”

All the creature does is cock its head, and the mere movement makes you pause. The hare ears twitch and the tail swishes gently. 

Right. It doesn't even understand human language. How could you expect it to? Why were you just aimlessly talking to it? How could it have known? How could you have expected it to?

… How could it have known better?

And suddenly the blaze crackling inside of you is snuffed out in an instant. Once more you find yourself lost in its pupils, only this time you can not see apathy written on its face. Perhaps it's the bleeding heart of a ranch farmer, but before you is only a creature trying to survive. No, it's someone trying to survive. Is it foolish to believe that it was sitting with you out of comfort? And did it spare you out of their own consciousness? It appears human-like… then is it so far fetched it too has its own sensibility, just like other people? 

It's not human. But… It is alive, sentient. Feeling. That does not mean it understands.

But maybe it can. 

—

It still weighs heavily on you. Not surprising, given that it's been a week since you have met the creature… person… thing. It's still too human-appearing for you to comfortably label it as an animal. You really need to give it–them (because finding the sex of the creature is difficult, if it had any at all. Or maybe you just did not know what it looked like. You did not want to know the answer or go searching for one)–a name.  

At night, the knowledge that you house a killer of two people haunts you. Two sides of yourself are at war, though it's largely your guilt festering inside of you. It's this, added with the paranoia that they'll decide to do the same to you, that makes sleepless nights common now. Tossing and turning, just waiting and lying for your death, only to realize that morning has once crept up the sky. Dawn breaks through and by then, you feel like death given the lack of sleep. 

You did not have the strength to shoo them away. And they did not make an effort to leave–they left whenever they pleased. To do what, that evades you, but whatever they did was given how fast they return. You find that outside of eating, the creature lounges about, usually occupying your couch. They sleep a lot. You reckon that it's because they're still recovering from the wound. It had taken you a few days to reassure them that you were trying to treat them, but the language barrier was difficult to cross; bandaging the wound seems out of the question. Besides resting, they follow you, watching your everyday activities. For hours throughout the day, your hair would prick up and for several moments, you find yourself anticipating with baited breath for something, anything that would trigger them to assault you. But just like the nights before, nothing ever happens, and all you've done is stall your routine. 

Unexpectedly, your routine hasn't changed much besides that, though there comes the bouts of unease with their presence and now you have to cook for two (well, more like three, since they can eat at least twice your portions). 

Why did you start cooking for them? You don't know. (Whenever you are reminded that you, in fact, do not live alone anymore, you hear the faint voices of your parents, telling you to treat your ‘guest’ properly. ‘Guest’ is a bit generous, but you did not want to incur your parents’ loving wrath beyond the grave.) But on the day of your encounter, you decide against your instincts and make more pasta than you usually do. 

When the bowl of pasta was presented to them, they gave you that usual chilling stare. They remained like this until you stuck a fork in it and ate some of their portion. That swayed them to take the bowl (with the utmost tenderness, likely mindful of its sharp talons–the behavior had you in awe for a little while) and eat it, digging their face into the bowl and ravaging the spaghetti. You bit back your tongue when specks of sauce and meat flew out, dirtying your carpet. Safe to assume that extraterrestrial beings did not have table etiquette. 

That reminds you, you still haven't quite figured out what they are. You're almost a hundred percent sure that they do not belong to this world. Earth and its animals may have its oddities, but even this creature surpasses all of it in its uniqueness. 

It eases you a bit that they act more bunny-like than their other arthropodic counterparts. It tricks your brain into thinking they are more docile than they seem to be. Sometime during their second day of their stay, they snatched your extra rags and towels from the laundry room before making a nest-like structure on your couch. During midday when you re-entered your home to make lunch, they were curled contently in their nest. Never again have you approached the couches of your living room, nor turn on the television. For all you know, they may be territorial or something. 

As far as you know, they are not predatory animals–odd, given their fangs. All of your animals have never been touched by them, and as far as you know, not a single wildlife creature near you has been slaughtered. Actually, they are not opposed to eating anything. Whatever you have made, they have scraped your dishes clean, and there has been no strange– well, stranger–behavior exhibited by them afterwards. Either they have an especially strong stomach or they really can like humans. But based on their first appearance when they have snacked on your bell peppers, you can assume they lean more towards vegetation. After all, if they were carnivores why do they not prey on the nearby forest animals and instead barge into people's gardens? In fact, if they can eat vegetation, why not eat the wild vegetation, like grass and such? 

They are so close to being human, it is terrifying.

You are no biologist, but many of their features do not make sense for them to possess. Animals have evolved with almost every bone, muscle, fur, organ, and limb altered to give them the best survivability. Rabbits do not need fangs because they eat vegetation, and spiders do not padded feet or even ears since they can sense vibrations. For archon's sake, it has three pairs of wings. What creature needs that many wings? Their tail is a weapon, a freaking blade. The main purpose of tails for Earth animals is for balance and stability, not to be swung around like that. Biologically, they should have neither of these combinations as features, and thinking about how it naturally came to be is enough to drive you crazy. 

…Are they even natural? Were they conceived as is like any other wild animal in their own world, or…  

A croak comes across the table and you glance up from your bowl of stew, your spoon having already sunk into the liquid depths. Damn it. The creature makes the noise again, their crossed pupils peering at you expectedly. You raise an eyebrow and note that their bowl is empty before sighing, picking up the ladle again to scoop more soup into their bowl. They go back to consuming the contents ravenously, clawed hands scooping up the meat and vegetables in their clawed hands before shoveling it in their mouth. 

As the liquid contents drips from their hand, the color flickers, a deeper hue setting into the stew. 

You cringe as specks of the liquid drop onto the wooden table. You bite back a sigh, knowing you will have to wipe the table. 

Damn it, you have had enough with this.

Pushing back your chair, the wood screeches against the floorboards but you pay no mind. You grab a spoon from a drawer, and stomp around the table towards the creature. The creature pauses midchew, turning their head towards you. Cross pupils mark across you, brimming with wariness. For a moment the two of you are locked in eye contact before you break away. You reach over the table to grab a napkin, wiping your other hand with it despite it being clean. Then, you offer the napkin to them. 

Their hand takes the napkin and they still a bit, seemingly confused, glancing back between the napkin and you. Slowly, they mimic your action, cleaning their hands, though clumsily so, likely not knowing the purpose of the napkin. After they do it for a few seconds, they peer back at you. 

You offer it a gentle smile, a bit of warmth settling in your chest. You pluck the dirtied napkin from their grasp, taking a new napkin to wipe the rest of the remains of stew on their skin. They bristle at the contact, but relax. Raising another hand to grasp onto their wrist, you turn their hand to swipe across their palm thoroughly before retracting the napkin. In its place, you place a spoon in their now clean hand. 

When their hand closes around the utensil, the spoon dents underneath their fingers, the handle contorting around their fingertips. 

You gape at the cutlery. That is–was–a metal spoon. 

Tentatively, you pry the tableware from their grasp and replace it with another spoon, a wooden (and less expensive) spoon. Thankfully, they seem to have gathered that they needed to control their strength. This time, they were successful even without your instructions! You assume that they have been watching you and learned to mimic you because they begin eating from the bowl like you do, spoon in hand. After their first bite, they turn from the bowl to you with a placid expression, a wordless question of affirmation. You nod. 

They still chew loudly. 

Despite this, you scoot your chair from across the table to beside them.

Behind you is the scratching of something, the floor it seems like. When you turn, it is their tail, swishing like that of a dog's, and the sharp end of it gently drags across the floorboards. It is an irritating sound, yet you cannot find yourself too upset. 

if anyone has more ideas of their interactions please send through inbox so i can finish this oneshot. i have been banging my head on my desk for months now.

[rennybu]

AAAAUHG.. so many things come to mind so i will start with... i like to imagine he and Fenris are the same height :') (5'11"). This got a bit long but i'm always happy to talk about this guy!!!!!!!!! @trebuchet151

he's got a big garnet signet ring with the Amell family crest carved in it, and that's about the only recognizable thing that denotes his lineage... he has always liked stamping wax seals on letters with it!!! he's a ring guy generally, he likes mixing and matching stones and metal.

his hands are very scarred and rough from reckless casting, and especially casting fire magic without a staff (in a pinch).

He has a heart tattooed on his ring finger for Fenris :') their wedding was very. Andraste as the witness, on the road, impulsive. Vows for themselves, nothing legally binding. Fenris has a plain gold band on a red cord somewhere on his person at all times.

his testosterone is taken via oral tincture, some kind of oil solution he takes drops of daily. like a mild and highly personalized potion recipe! it's the only reason he sometimes needs a home base or shop to set up in, to prepare a big batch. He stores it in little glass vials he collects from trinket shops. Malcolm found the recipe for him after he came out in his tweens.

Bethany is kind of sainted in his mind, when he's exasperated or stunned he might utter an "oh Bethany" (in the tone of "are you seeing this shit") rather than an "oh Maker"

He struggles a lot with empathy, in that he frequently can logically recognize when he should feel for another person's situation, and yet finds himself unmoved. He will deliberately go out of his way to care for others, sometimes more than is needed, to try to make up for what he perceives as a personal flaw. This is how he ended up like a wrung out mouldy rag, emotionally, by the end of DA2.

His spell class is fucking terrifying, he has a lot of mana and not much hp, but is really reckless about his reserves. He combines force magic with fire magic, trapping foes and incinerating them, and sometimes leaving himself winded in the wake of too much magical exertion at once.

he's pretty spry and strong but doesn't have a great constitution. He tires out quickly in fights, hence trying to end them explosively and quickly.

Was briefly stalked by a sloth demon, perhaps around Act 2, and passed a very "get off my doorstep" homebrew harrowing as a result. Burnt it out of his shadow and got some spring back in his step, around roughly the same time he recognized his feelings for Fenris, settled into his role as Hawke within Kirkwall, etc. He Killed Dysphoria, Forever!!!

His love for Merrill makes him very "blood magic is okay", he loves her worldview and wisdom about its use, but his upbringing prevents him from extending that grace to himself. He was forced to use blood magic in his duel against the Arishok in order to survive it!!! Angst. Hates himself quite badly for this. Until Merrill is like "why are you special" and he's like ooohh. I get it

We all kno Hawke goes thru hell but I love reflecting on Orson's arc from early family life to Now/post-DA:I, he found closure among his friends and family and was able to fully remove himself from a public leadership role and is doing much better for it. He's a bit of an anarchist i guess, jack of all trades with a pretty rigid set of personal morals that sometimes forces him to act outside the law. He's very grey market, hard to contact, arrive in the nick of time.

He and Fenris do not ever shut up around each other. Two dudes who talk about fuck all, very intelligently. If you see Fenris in the wild, Orson is probably around, too. They love hunting Venatori and only sometimes get in the way of other spy/subterfuge activities.

he smells like BRITTLE sun-baked wood, with a hint of oily herbal medicine.

[futuretonext]

The North America Off the Road (OTR) Tire Market is projected to grow at a CAGR of around 6.42% during the forecast period, i.e., 2022-27. The growth of the market is driven primarily by the increasing government focus on infrastructural developments, i.e., displaying a swift escalation in the number of housing facilities & industries, along with the construction of roads, railways, & airports, among others. It, in turn, is augmenting the need for heavy commercial vehicles and fueling the sales of OTR tires. Besides, various ongoing & upcoming construction projects, i.e., leading to the deployment of cranes, bulldozers, etc., is another aspect infusing the demand for OTR tires and driving the market.

[jokeroutsubs]

ENG translation: If we believed that we were "kings", that wouldn't be us

An interview with Bojan Cvjetićanin for Slovenian newspaper Delo, originally published on 24.12.2023. Audio version by IG GBoleyn123

Original article is available here for Delo subscribers. Original article written by Lucijan Zalokar for Delo; photos by Jože Suhadolnik; English translation by a member of Joker Out Subs, native proof reading by IG GBoleyn123.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post! And if you repost the photos, do not crop out the photographer credit.

With Bojan Cvjetićanin about the international breakthrough of Joker Out, the movie Kaj pa Ester?, about life on the road, football, sociology…

I met up with Bojan Cvjetićanin in Ljubljana's Stegne industrial zone, where the members of the popular pop rock (in their jargon: shagadelic rock'n'roll) group Joker Out created a rehearsal space for themselves two years ago. "Lately we've been on the road a lot, but this is still a great second home. If only you knew about the parties that happened here. There were fifty people dancing downstairs," he proudly looked from a small gallery towards the space that measures approximately thirty square metres. Even though the clock had just struck three in the afternoon, the 24-year-old Ljubljana resident had a long day behind him, which had been entirely dedicated to media obligations.

In journalistic circles, we often hear indignation about how modern day influencers - especially those who had gained their influence on social media - have no books on their shelves. Joker Out are first and foremost musicians, of course, but with 150,000 followers (Bojan's personal profile has 190,000) on Instagram, we can count them among the big Slovenian influencers. And there are plenty of books on their shelves.

I don't want to falsely portray the popular fivesome as enlightened donors to the Slovenian literary market: most of the books resemble those you can buy for little money in second-hand bookshops, or even get for free at library write-offs, but they still deserve praise for both the aesthetic sense and the content.

I also don't want to falsely portray the books as the only notable objects in the rehearsal space. There are also the golden plate for the Eurovision single Carpe Diem, which got over two million streams in Finland, a transfusion bag (Rh-) that Tomi Meglič¹, Cvjetićanin's biggest teenage idol, personally brought to them, and a small shop's worth of props given to them by fans: pillows with hand-embroidered patterns, plushies, bras with Instagram accounts written on them, various sweets, you could even find a vinyl from a Soviet cover band of The Beatles. If things continue like that, they soon won't have any space left for instruments, but those are just sweet worries. Joker Out, who were formed in 2016, are currently conquering Europe in a way that the Slovenian music scene has never seen before.

¹frontman of Siddharta, whose third album was called Rh-

I've heard that you approach your job with the utmost professionalism and that you wake up at five in the morning for media obligations.

That's true, today we started early in the morning in Maribor. The first few hours were the most tiring because we were constantly changing locations and driving around the city. After the third or fourth activity, we relaxed a little because we got to the studio. After that, everyone started coming to us instead of the other way around.

Slovenian cinemas have started playing the movie Kaj pa Ester? in which you play a boy who enrolled in high school just to get close to his ex girlfriend again. Did you have any problems with trying to get into the high school mentality?

We filmed the movie two years ago, when my memories of high school were much more fresh than they are today. But on the other hand, I played a boy who had just finished the ninth grade of primary school, so I had to put myself into the shoes of a primary school kid, which is much harder. We're also pretty different personality-wise. But almost the entire cast was around the same age, so too old. We joked about that a lot during filming.

Still, that's nothing unusual in the movie world.

Of course, there are 35-year-olds starring in High School Musical and no one is complaining.

Could you draw any parallels between a musical stage performance and filming a movie? You have to play a kind of role during a concert too...

I have to admit that it's completely different. On stage, I never feel like I'm performing. Of course I am actually performing, but I'm still in the role of myself, Bojan, whereas in the movie, I'm someone completely different. It might be easier to compare filming a movie with recording music in the studio, but there are big differences there as well. The biggest one is that for a movie, the director has the main and the final say. You have to trust him. When you film a scene, you don't even see what you've filmed for a long time. The movie in which I play one of the main roles will be played in cinemas, and I don't even know what I will look like on the big screen. It's different with music, because us authors listen to the songs a hundred times, a thousand times; we're the ones who make all the final decisions. That's quite a mental leap, but I didn't have too many problems with it, because I knew the previous projects of that team. V dvoje ('In a tandem') is my favourite Slovenian TV series. On the other hand, I needed time to get used to this new method of working. If I asked to see the scene we'd filmed one more time, but the director said it was good, we kept filming without hesitation.

You said that on stage, you are always in the role of yourself. Does the nature of that role change from concert to concert? And what influences it? The audience, the outfit…

The outfit has an influence for sure. More than I initially thought. Lately we've been playing with our stage look a lot and looking for the right combination. I currently find that the outfit suits me very well, it's just the shoes that bother me because they're too rigid. I have to change them. They're huge and massive, which makes me feel like I'm clumsily marching around the stage, whereas during rehearsals I wear sneakers and I'm therefore a lot more in the mood for dancing.

What about the language you sing in? Many people say that they feel as if by switching between different languages, they are also switching between their personalities.

I agree. When you change the language, your voice has a different colour and register, you come up with different jokes than in your mother tongue. If I lead a concert in Slovenian, Serbian, or English, I'm a different dude every time. This is also influenced by my notion that each time, I'm performing for a different group of people who are connected by a certain mentality. In Slovenia, I'm performing as a local for locals, and I feel like there are different "game rules" than for example in Croatia or Serbia. Elsewhere, I feel like I don't even think about this.

How did you get the idea to start creating and singing in English? You already broke through internationally with Slovenian.

Us creating in foreign languages isn't so much a result of wanting to break through internationally and the mentality that only English ensures global success. If we thought that way, we wouldn't have gone to Eurovision with a Slovenian song. We're primarily driven by a desire to learn new things, to push the boundaries... In the studio, it's similar to being on the stage. If you change the language, you're not only a different person on stage, but also inside your head. Your creativity is different. Playing with languages is actually also playing with your own creativity, because you enter a different space, a different mentality. The song Sunny Side of London could not have been made if we hadn't mentally transported ourselves to an English-speaking space. We want many more projects like that, not necessarily in English.

Can you be more specific? What kind of mentality do you associate Sunny Side of London with?

That song is a sort of homage to all the people who have suddenly become part of our story. Sunny Side of London has nothing to do with London as such. I was looking for a name of a well-known place with which to name all our concerts, and I decided on London.

The first time I said the words Are you guys real? – Is this really happening, are you really here and singing our songs? – on the stage, certain English phrases snuck into my mind. What the hell is going on? and so on. We also experienced, for the first time, foreigners coming up to us and talking about their own experiences connected to our music. That was something completely new for us. We listened to all those stories in English, as our fans of course can't speak Slovenian, even though they can sing our Slovenian lyrics. Sunny Side of London therefore emerged as a collection of all the experiences and stories that fans told us after gigs.

You've already touched on fans who sing your lyrics by heart from Finland to Spain. Could you highlight the nation with the best ear for the Slovenian language?

On the latest tour, when we visited Lithuania, Poland, Czechia and Croatia, there were moments when I felt like I was singing in Slovenia. In Prague, I filmed the audience singing Umazane misli without me. As if I were in Križanke, for example. But it's even more fascinating that people sing well in England and Nordic countries too. It's understandable that our Slavic brothers have the best ear for Slovenian, but northerners aren't far off either.

How much of your international success do you attribute to the Eurovision performance?

A huge amount.

If you had to express it in a percentage?

99.9.

Really?

Definitely. It was an incredible catapult. Whenever I ask the audience at our international concerts if anyone was already with us before Eurovision, a few hands shoot up every time, but those are rare exceptions.

How do you explain the fact that you finished in the relatively humble 21st place in Liverpool, but your visibility still grew in leaps and bounds?

We were very, very, very dedicated to the Eurovision project. We put a lot of time and energy into demonstrating to the people who were open to it that we weren't just a three-minute performance, but very much an existing band that has made many songs and that lives on stage. With time, and of course in connection with the Eurovision performance, more and more listeners got to know that. We clearly showed them: we are here, we are real, try it, connect with us.

Because they had so much different content available, this actually happened. I think it was also because they saw that Joker Out really was made out of five completely regular dudes from Slovenia who live a totally normal life, and at the same time we make music and have a great time doing it. That is already a slight deviation from what's been happening recently, when we're being bombarded from all sides by messages that we need to distance ourselves from each other, that we have to hate each other...

That was the sociologist in you talking.

That's true. The atmosphere in society nowadays is such that it emphasises individuality more than building a team. Young people, however, need and want to be part of a community. And we offered them that chance.

Where does your interest in social sciences come from? Your father is a gynecologist, your mother a pediatrician, and you have a degree in sociology.

I had a very good professor in high school. If you wanted to listen to him, he offered a lot of knowledge. Even though sociologists often think about society in an abstract way, the subject always felt tangible to me. I recognised it in very concrete life situations that I was trying to understand. At my final exams, I did a great job with sociology with very little effort – and then made a mistake and enrolled in economics. I wavered between those two options from the start, and in the end, what tipped the scales were the warnings of many people I knew that sociology doesn't have good employment prospects. I gave in to the pressure and very quickly realised I had made the wrong decision. I gave up on economics after the first semester. That was when I seriously threw myself into the band, we made Gola, and then I transferred to sociology and there was happiness all around.

You clearly won't work as a sociologist for a while yet, if ever...

But I am a sociologist.

In your soul?

No, as my profession. Us musicians are sociologists. A lot of sociological terms could easily be transferred into our environment. Locale, for example. In third year, the professor asked me several times: Well, Cvjetićanin, if you have a concert, is that locale or something else? And then I said it was locale and started rambling on. (laughter)

So you are a singing sociologist?

Exactly.

How do you explain the success of Joker Out from a sociological point of view? How do your songs address the zeitgeist?

I write the lyrics exclusively based on stories that really happened. Not necessarily to me, but to people I love. Therefore, I have a strong emotional relationship with the subject matter. My opinion is that there will always be people who will connect with the story if it's real. Because it's easiest for us to connect with real emotions. Our songs are love songs, they talk about finding yourself and personal growth, some are socially critical... I think that I have managed to find the right balance between being direct and being poetic.

I'll word it differently. The Beatles already sang about love and personal growth. And they weren't the first ones by far. Later on, those same themes were covered by hundreds of successful bands and an infinite number of slightly less successful ones.

I think that nowadays, we most often associate societal changes with technological development. Technological advances largely dictate the rhythm of our life. But those advances are mostly just a substitute for something that already existed in the past. The basic emotions have therefore certainly stayed the same. Love, fear, hatred... I think that the use of language is very important here. Even though the emotions don't change, the way we put them into words does. In music, too. I don't sing about a topic the same way my peers would have in the 1970s. Consequentially, our relationship with emotions is changing and evolving as well. As if our entire society is gravitating towards the point of holding the belief that it's better for an individual to feel less and less, and in a more and more censored way.

On the one hand, excessive use of social media and other media causes us to feel like distinct individuals. On the other hand, it connects us to the world and places us into a very wide picture. In every moment, we are only a click away from becoming cosmopolitan and being able to access all the information, events, and people, but at the same time, that's exactly what reminds us that we are a small and actually not very important dot on this planet. The magnitude of everything that's constantly available to us makes us feel small. I think that we mostly listen to, watch, and use those who manage to poke the spot that unnerves people the most in this context. If performers manage to break through the firewall of someone's VPN, then those people will also show their interest in an analogue way. Otherwise, they will only be a swipe away.

And now a question that's more psychological than sociological: do you ever try to get into the heads of the people who time and again show their interest in very analogue ways?

I have an infinite appreciation for their dedication, because for myself, I don't see the chance of a phenomenon exciting me so much that I would be ready to dedicate so much time and love to it.

So you've never been a very hardcore fan?

If, at twelve years old, I had to highlight one musicians that I would've wanted to meet more than anyone in the world, that would definitely have been Tomi Meglič. That hasn't changed to this day. The only difference is that we meet up with Tomi and we're friends. I still feel the highest possible level of respect for him. Every time he calls me, I am extremely proud of myself. But I still cannot imagine going to, say, Berlin tomorrow if Siddharta were playing there and I had a free day. I'd go to Maribor or Zagreb, but absolutely not across all of Europe the way the biggest fans do. Not even at twelve. I could sooner imagine that at that age, a football match rather than a concert would be the thing that excited me beyond all reason.

We're probably talking about two groups of celebrities that get worshipped as deities by the masses in Western society: footballers and pop and rock musicians. And this is probably linked to emotions again.

True. The thing that wakes up a person's sense of smell, sight, and all other emotions that overcame them as a child, is what has the best possibility of succeeding.

Now please explain how this is connected to football.

If I go to a concert by Siddharta, Big Foot Mama, Magnifico, I turn into a ten-year-old kid who will explode from happiness. There's no Bojan anymore. He gets lost. It's the same with football. When I watch it, I dream about how I played for Slovan² as a kid and what I wanted more than anything was to score a goal and for everyone in the stands to yell: Yeeeees!

²ND Slovan is a football club from Ljubljana

You don't score goals, but you are in a similar position that Tomi Meglič used to be in.

All the band members come from very loving families that have always provided us with a very good support system and instilled basic values in us that we internalised deeply. That is why everything that's currently happening around us hasn't gone to our heads in a way that would make us think that we're bigger or more important than anyone else. If we started believing that we were "kings" because everyone was clapping for us and singing our songs, that would probably be a very strong feeling, but that simply wouldn't be us. We mostly love to see all the people, because we know how much we mean to them and how much they mean to us. Without them, we wouldn't be able to focus on what's most important to us – our music. On the other hand, I can say with a thousand percent certainty that I would easily and happily do my job if I was performing at venues like Cankarjev dom. So, in front of a calmer audience, without unreal hype.

But what I would like most in the world is to turn into a footballer for ten seconds and score a goal at an important match. You know why? Because that is the biggest adrenaline hit that exists. When we perform on various stages, there's mayhem around us for two hours straight. But in football, when a goal is scored, that happens in a millisecond. You go from nothing into total chaos. Everyone loses their minds. I'd love to experience that. Well, I did – much like everyone who played football in primary school. When I scored a goal for Slovan and a hundred people in the stands clapped for me, I felt like I was on Maracanã. Imagine what it would be like to experience that on the real Maracanã.

It's interesting that you highlighted a loving and stable family background. Many of the biggest pop and rock stars in the world grew up in a diametrally opposite environment. From John Lennon and Janis Joplin to Prince and Rihanna. There are actually so many of them that we can talk about a pattern.

I know, because I love to read their (auto)biographies, and I agree with your assessment that their family circumstances are fundamentally different than ours. That is always my answer to the question when someone wants to know how debauched our tours are. When I tell them that we mostly drink water and tea on the road, they just can't believe it. But it's the truth, because we've realised three things. First, we enjoy what we do immensely, and from the experiences of many musicians, we know that you can almost definitely forget about a long career if you start doing everything that we perceive as the proverbial rock'n'roll lifestyle. A band like that breaks up sooner or later, either because of frayed nerves, or exploding egos, or because of money. Second, we've all had to go to work hungover and we know very well that it's unbearable. I especially can't imagine how we could stay healthy and keep our strength and our voice if we were constantly hungover on the road. In that case, the only short-term solution is drugs, which we fortunately [knocks on wood] don't do. And third: I'm sure that you have a much better time on stage if you're aware that you are on it.

Your international breakthrough doesn't have a precedent among Slovenian musicians. Would you dare to point out where the difference is, why you made it and not for example Siddharta, who had filled Bežigrad stadium and later did not hide their international ambitions?

We have to understand that Siddharta didn't have the chance to perform at a festival like Eurovision. It's hard to understand what it means for 160 million people to watch you. That is a bizzarely huge number. All this happened in the time of social media, and we had set up a pretty good mechanism in that area even before Eurovision, and then also used it, whereas Siddharta established itself as a band in the time of analogue media. I can't even imagine how it would've been possible to break through abroad from Slovenia at that time. Because even we are already – even though some things have opened up for us very nicely and we've been joined by the right people – finding out how much of an investment going international demands. Dreams of megalomanical earnings and a luxurious life brought on by a European tour shatter quickly. Even when you start filling up venues, you stay in a kind of hustle mode. You fight. Unfortunately, the costs in the music business are so high that performing abroad is more or less just for promotion for a long time.

You're probably thinking of logistical costs?

Yes. Some of my colleagues have total misconceptions about our earnings. They think that we're literally swimming in money, while we actually earn what amounts to a normal salary.

In March next year you will have eighteen concerts. You will start in Helsinki and end in Milan. How will you travel?

With a tour bus. We've rented it twice so far: for the UK tour and for the tour around Lithuania, Poland, and Czechia. There are beds on it, so we can sleep while driving from one concert to the next. The tourbus is prohibitively expensive, you pay almost half of your royalties for it, but it's the only way for a musician with such a packed schedule to survive in the long run. Sometimes people ask me why we don't travel with a van instead, but you have to understand that we sometimes have concerts two days in a row and the venues are 800 kilometres apart. If we spent all night in an uncomfortable van, then looked for a hotel in the morning and so on, we might be able to endure it for a week, but definitely not all month.

Do you ever sleep in a hotel?

Only on free days.

Will the March tour be your most exhausting one so far?

It will definitely be one of the more exhausting ones, but I am definitely happy that we will be able to sleep on a tour bus. We haven't been on a month-long tour yet, so it's hard to predict anything, but on the Nordic tour this year we played six concerts in five days, because we had two concerts in one day in Helsinki. We didn't have a tour bus there, we flew instead. That meant that after the concert, we got to the hotel at midnight, then we had to be at the airport at three in the morning, a few hours later we were already at the new location, we napped for two hours on a couch, had a soundcheck – rinse and repeat for five days in a row.

Let's not talk only about the negative sides of tours…

Of course. I love sleeping on the bus! I fall asleep like a baby who's being taken for a walk in a stroller. I can't sleep more than nine or ten hours in my bed at home, on a tour bus I easily get twelve hours. Maybe it's because it's constantly shaking a little. The other guys also sleep very well on the road.

But the most magical thing on tours is when I visit a city for the first time just because we have a gig there. That seems unimaginable to me. To meet new people, wonderful fans, to bond as a band, experience new, funny situations, to bring home a bunch of new inside jokes and incredible gifts that fans have made themselves. [Points towards a hand-embroidered pillow in the part of the studio where they keep the gifts.]

Elite athletes often lament that it's true that they compete all over the world, but they often only see the airport, the hotel, and the sports venue.

It's similar for us. When we travel with a bus, we only see the venue. If we happen to have a free day, we walk around the city, but we definitely don't visit all kinds of tourist attractions as some people might wrongly imagine. When we go to Paris, we definitely won't go to the Louvre, and we will see the Eiffel tower through the bus window if everything goes well.

But you meet a lot of interesting people.

That's true. I find it the most fascinating if we meet fans when we don't expect them at all. In a restaurant, on a plane… When we were flying to Poland, it turned out that one of the flight attendants was a big fan of ours. She told us that she was going to three of our concerts and brought us champagne and a model of a Lot Polish Airlines plane.

I was even more surprised in Helsinki. I went to some kind of dark club that had a techno music party. Suddenly I was approached by three people, two guys and one girl, and they told me that they were our fans and that they couldn't believe that they met me in that club. I also couldn't believe that people recognised me in the middle of Helsinki. What's going on?!

In the summer, you took a step back from Instagram for a while. What brought you to that decision?

Many things. I felt creatively empty. I also, for the first time in my life, experienced the internet – not just Slovenian, but global – being completely oversaturated with me. That started negatively pressuring me and eating me up. I thought about it a lot, and the first time I asked myself whether I'd be less Bojan Cvjetićanin if I didn't have an Instagram profile, I turned it off. Immediately after that, I wrote three songs; I felt as if I had cleaned up some of the mess that had built up recently. I returned to social media some time ago; with much healthier habits than before, I think.

How do you see social media? As a space for playfulness, for promotion, part of the job, part of private life?

I think that at the time when they started killing me, I perceived them too professionally. I had a feeling that Instagram was a platform through which I had to achieve all sorts of things. Lately, I prefer to joke around more.

If you repost quotes from the interview, please link back to this post! And if you repost the photos, do not crop out the photographer credit.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Adventure: Cracking the Snowglobe

As the dark closes in and the cold weighs heavy on us on all, it’s important to remember that there is light and warmth to be had, if only we seek it out, and share it with others. Stories round the fire, good food shared with those we love, songs of hope sung in defiance of the bleak, all these things give the soul the tender it needs to burn on through the winter until the days begin to grow long again. 

Setup:  Decades after retiring from a busy life of adventuring, the local wizard Hypatia has fallen into a depressed bout of isolation, raising a barrier of magical force around her manor in the hopes of keeping out distractions while she works on yet another project she hasn’t the energy to complete.   Her old friend Moroz the outrider is having none of it, tired of being brushed off every when he visits and concerned about Hypatia’s wellbeing, he’s journeyed around gathering presents from all their old friends and allies as a reminder of the good times they spent together, and a symbol that people still care about her. His grand display of affection has been somewhat delayed when a gang of hobgoblins ambushed him on the road, stealing the majority of the gifts and leaving him for dead. 

When the party stumble across the scene of the ambush and follow the scatteres of red snow (and Toboggan, the distressed reindeer), they find Moroz crawling his way out of a ditch, alive, pissed off, and in need of some holiday helpers.

 Background: It has been some score of years since the wizard Hypatia walked the roads of the realm with her friends, using her magic and more often her wits to mend what’d gone astray.  She settled, as she had always wanted, into the life of a country wizard, persuing her own studies in a manor just far enough from town that neither she or the locals would bother one another unless the cause was worthwhile. While every shy accademic is due their alone time, decades and distance have not been good for Hypatia. More and more she has sunk into the lony existance she has made for herself, losing the strength to keep up correspondance with old allies, to visit the market for supplies, to even leave the little island she calls home.  She says she is working, but her work suffers too, the grand tretisies and formulations she hoped to write stagnate along with her mind, and frustration at being unable to focus on one thing she was good at has inspired her to cut herself off further, raising a globe of magic around her home and denying all visitors.

Moroz knows what it means to be alone.  The dwarven outrider has spent most of his life carrying messages between settlements and outposts for weeks at a time. He also knows how dangerous that loneliness can be, and that a life without other people in it is a life without hope, and the winter is not kind to those without hope.  The last time he saw Hypatia, when she came to turn him away from her door and raise her barrier, Moroz saw a look in her eyes that reminded him of travellers he’d found stranded in the snow, the look of slowly forgetting your reasons to live. He knows he must remind her, or he won’t see her again come the thaw. 

Adventure Hooks: 

The party could encounter Moroz on any wintry road (A mournfully bellowing Reindeer is one hell of a hook), but If you wanted to run this adventure as a oneshot, consider having the heroes be part of a search party specifically sent out to look for him after a snowstorm delays the local mail delivery.  

The hobs have taken their loot and fallen back to a deserted fortress half buried in snow. While most of what they’ve stolen are keepsakes destined to be sold off or tossed into the fire if the party doesn’t intervene, a few of the more interesting presents have some wizz-bang magical powers. Hopefully Hypatia doesn’t mind some of her gifts being used as powerups to help the heroes survive the dungeon.  

After they’ve recovered the majority of the gifts, Moroz and the party still have to break into the wizard’s warded fortress. The globe of force is highly impressive, but careful perception could reveal a few careful weaknesses.   There’s a boathouse left abandoned on the isle that happens to contain a forgotten tunnel leading into the manor proper (which just so happens to have a local river monster hibernating inside of it).    An eagle eyed scout might likewise notice that the dusting of snow on top of the globe isn’t uniform, and that there’s a thin spot riiiight above the manor’s chimney in order to let out the smoke. 

Once inside the party have other hurdles to face: the phantom servants that manage the grounds are also programmed to repel intruders… but they don’t seem to notice the sinister, shadowy entities that now lurk in the Manor’s unlit halls.  They’ll find Hypatia in a sorry state, having spent several days staring into the yawning mouth of a dark portal she doesn’t quite remember calling up.  After spending so long cut off, so long failing to achieve anything with the work that gave her purpose, despair overtook the wizard’s heart and the shadowfell called to her… she was not that long from answering it when the party intervened. They chose to care, and they ended up saving her life, and the life of her friend besides.  

After their tearful reunion Moroz decides to stay to help take care of his old friend, but extends an invitation to the party: The winter holidays are coming up and it is better to spend it with friends, perhaps they could help him decorate the manor, cook a couple meals, maybe head into town for supplies and get caught up in a snowball fight.  When the Festivities are done, Hypatia will extend the invitation even further: being alone is evidently bad for her, and she has so much space in her home it’d be a shame not to give the party a place to stay every time they stop in.  The party will have a new home base and a new reason to go out adventuring: what with Moroz retiring for the time being and needing someone capable to take over his role as outrider.  

Art 1

Art 2

[heich0e]

leave the light on - miya osamu/f!reader (haikyuu!) part 10 in the bff!osamu series tags: childhood friends to lovers, tw instant coffee mention, miscommunication, confessions, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Onigiri Miya closes early on Sunday nights.

It’s not for lack of business—the shop would certainly take in enough revenue to justify staying open regular hours an extra day per week, especially on a weekend. But in the early days of Onigiri Miya, when it was just a one-man show, Osamu needed at least one night that he could count on having off. The workweek business—office workers and students going through their routine hustle and bustle—kept him going, enough so that Sunday nights weren’t a make or break for him, and he was able to start shuttering in the early afternoon once per week.

He remembers those early days. Sweet talking vendors to bring down the cost of produce and haggling with the grubby, bleary eyed men at fish market stalls at the crack of dawn for a deal on the catch of the day. Promising suppliers that he’d be able to get them their money in a couple of weeks if they’d just give him some more time. Standing on the road, because Onigiri Miya was just a street stall back then, trying to coax people in and try his food. To convince them to take a chance on him. He remembers burns on his hands and cuts on his fingers and an ache in his bones that ran so marrow-deep he forgot what it felt like to not be so sore. Sunday nights were the only night he had to relax. The only night he had to sit down, to take off his hat, and to have a beer—or, even more frequently, pass out on his couch in his uniform at 8pm and sleep right through to his alarm the next morning.

Closing early on Sundays had been your idea, way back when— suggested to him gently while he rested with his head in your lap in your tiny student apartment after another 16 hour workday. He still remembers the worry in your eyes as you brushed his hair back from his tired face.

Nowadays things aren’t so hectic. Osamu’s got a good team of people around him to help Onigiri Miya run smoothly—a team who he trusts and values. It doesn’t all fall onto his shoulders in the same way that it used to: he doesn’t have to be there for every open and every close, his bills are paid, he’s not fighting to lure people in off the street just in the hope that he can scrape by for another week.

Now when he closes early on Sunday, it’s more for the sake of his staff than anything else. Occasionally Osamu will take the night off, too; he’ll go home and catch up on housework, run an errand or two, or even grab dinner—usually with you, though evidently not so much lately. But most Sundays he stays behind after his last employee heads out for the night; locking up behind them, switching off the sign in the window to tell the world the shop is closed, and then holing himself up in his office to do some admin. He’ll grab a plate of whatever’s leftover from the day’s service and a cold can of beer from the fridge, put on a rerun of Atsumu’s game from the night before, and get to work shuffling through the paperwork that he’s left to pile up over the past seven days.

Osamu hates paperwork.

It’s not that it’s particularly challenging work—the really hard stuff is left to his bookkeeper after all. It’s just tedious, a mindless task in many ways, and he always finds his thoughts drifting as he sorts through invoices and inventory registers: catching himself being inattentive halfway through a spreadsheet, and having to force himself to go back to the beginning just to make sure he hasn’t missed anything in his carelessness. 

You used to help him with this kind of work, or at least keep him company while he got through it—sitting on the lumpy couch crammed into one corner of his little office and pretending like you weren’t asleep each time Osamu caught you with your eyes closed. More often than not, he’d throw his jacket over you to keep you warm while you napped and then rush through the last of his work so that he could wake you up and get you home. But just having you there on those late nights was enough for him; your presence was the thing that helped.

Coffee is his only saving grace, these days.

Samu shuffles out to the front of the shop on one such Sunday evening, taking off his baseball cap and ruffling the hair underneath tiredly. He’d finally gotten a trim, and he’s glad that things feel a bit more normal again as he rakes his fingers through it—his mother had been right when she remarked that it was getting too long the week before. He tosses his hat down on the front counter of Onigiri Miya, rounding the end to grab a sachet of instant coffee from behind the bar where he keeps his emergency stash.

The overhead lights in the shop are off, but there’s enough brightness filtering out from the still-lit kitchen that he doesn’t need to struggle to see as he prepares himself some hot water to add to the mug in front of him. He tips the granulated contents of his instant coffee sachet into the bottom after ripping it open with his teeth, tapping the empty plastic packaging against the edge of the cup to make sure it all comes out. The kettle behind him hums quietly as it heats to boiling, and Osamu sighs, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest.

He stares out at the restaurant—his restaurant, as hard as he still finds it to believe some days—his gaze sweeping over the tables with their corresponding chairs resting atop them. One of the staff had mopped the floors at the end of the night, which left them still slightly wet and glistening. There’s light filtering in through the front windows from the streetlights and the other shops that line the Osaka street outside, and their glow catches in the water that hasn’t yet dried from the tile.

Osamu’s eyes suddenly snap up to the glass that lines the front of the restaurant.

There’s a silhouetted figure—so familiar he could trace it even with his eyes closed, from memory alone—standing on the other side of the door.

Osamu blinks, thinking that the paperwork must have finally gotten the best of him, or maybe that the beer he’d had earlier is inexplicably hitting him too hard. But no matter how many times he squeezes his eyes shut, the familiar shape stays where it is on the other side of the glass each time he opens them again.

His heartbeat thumps, loud and wet, in his ears.

Like the shot of a gun, the man stumbles gracelessly into action: loping around the end of the bar and slipping slightly on the wet tile as he heads towards the door. He fiddles with the lock as he struggles to unlatch it, accidentally trying to force it the wrong way in his haste before eventually getting it right. When he finally throws open the door, a gust of cool night air flooding into the restaurant along with it, he takes in a deep, gasping breath.

“Hey.”

His voice is shaky when he greets you—mostly air and very little shape to the word.

You stare at him from a few paces away, your arms crossed firmly over your chest and a frown tugging down the corners of your mouth. Osamu thinks you look pretty when you’re mad. He always has. But it’s worse now because he knows all too well that he shouldn’t—because he knows you’re mad at him. 

You seem to have something to say, he can tell as much from the almost spiteful glint in your eyes, but you stay tightlipped as you simply stare at him.

“D’ya… wanna come in?” Osamu asks, still holding the door open. He nods his head back into the shop. “Still got some stuff prepped, I could make ya—“

“You’re a jerk.”

Osamu blinks, taken aback.

“Yeah,” he agrees plainly after a moment, thinking it’s only fair of you to say given then circumstances. 

His concurrence only seems to upset you more.

“Like, you’re a real asshole, y’know that?” You’re nearly spitting you’re so angry, your features twisted up in contempt. Your arms uncross and drop down to your sides, and Osamu watches as your hands ball into fists. He’s the one who taught you how to throw a punch, years and years ago now, and he’s wondering if he’s about to experience a practical demonstration of his teaching abilities firsthand.

“I don’t necessarily disagree.” He nods, agreeing with you once more, though this time his response is slower, more hesitant—not because he doesn’t mean it, but because he’s not sure that it’s what you want to hear.

“Ugh!” Your following exclamation is loud, and palpably frustrated, all but confirming his suspicions. “You…!”

Your tone is climbing with every passing second, and Osamu looks furtively up and down the road around the two of you. It’s late in the evening but there are still a few people out, and he sees heads turning in your direction at the commotion.

“Hey,” he says, his own voice dropping in volume but still pleading all the same. “My name’s on the door and we’re gettin’ some weird looks. I wanna hear everythin’ you have to say, but could you please just say it to me inside?”

You look at him blankly, your lips puckering into a petulant, unhappy pout. You seem like you want to say no, to keep causing a scene, and for a second Osamu really thinks you’re about to round in on him again. Instead you trudge forward, stomping past him over the threshold of Onigiri Miya.

Osamu hesitates for a moment after you pass, half in shock and half in relief, and then he lets the door swing closed and locks it behind him for good measure—he’s not sure he wants any unsuspecting people coming in search of onigiri and stumbling upon a brawl.

It’s dim in the restaurant when he turns to face you, but he can still see your fury burning in the dark.

Neither of you say anything.

“You can keep goin’ if you want,” Osamu is eventually the first to speak, and he means what he says. This is the least of the punishment he deserves, after all. And hearing you yell at him is markedly better than the silence.

“Martyrdom doesn’t suit you at all,” you mutter sullenly.

Osamu sighs, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I just wantcha to say whatcha came here to say.”

You begin to pace as you work through your thoughts, slowly walking back and forth in front of the counter, picking at your cuticles. You’d put a fair amount of distance between the two of you, and he’s sure it was intentional. Osamu keeps himself confined to the entryway near the door, while you walk a path back and forth along the length of the service counter. His eyes follow every step you take, like a captivated child watching fish at the aquarium.

“I had a terrible dream last night,—” you finally force the words out, your feet stilling against the shiny tile as your pacing comes to a sudden halt.

Osamu decides to just do the right thing and shut the hell up for once, giving you the floor.

“—I was going to buy 30 kilos of rice from Kita-san’s farm—”

That’s a lot of rice, Osamu wants to note, but his lips part to let the words through and then he decides better of it.

“—and I was there, at the farm, and then Kita-san started telling me that you got married and had a baby. A baby, Samu! Kita-san standing there telling me all these terrible things with that big bag of rice in my hands, and I couldn’t even get mad at him because he’s Kita! So I just had to listen to him go on and on and on about the venue and the flowers and the baby name that you picked out. And the more he’d tell me the worse it was, and the bag of rice just kept getting heavier.” Your teeth bite down so hard into your lip as you suck in a breath that Osamu's amazed he doesn’t see blood. “I was hearing all of these things—terrible things—and all I could think was that I should have been there to see all of that for myself. I shouldn’t have been hearing about it from someone else. And I realized that you were living a whole life apart from me, a life that I didn’t know about or get to be a part of, and it just kept getting worse and worse and I woke up and I felt like I was going to scream.”

You’re out of breath by the time you finish your rambling thought, your chest heaving and your eyes wild and your mouth faintly wet. You look to him, and Osamu doesn’t see that same indignation in your eyes anymore, only hurt. He watches as the expression hardens again, whets itself like a blade—sharpened not in anger, but rather in resolve. In resignation.

“That day. I looked for you first.”

Osamu feels lost now. Are you still talking about that dream?

You understand without him saying it, and explain yourself further. “In high school. The day that I kissed Suna.”

Osamu’s stomach drops, all of the blood rushing to his head so quickly that the shop begins to spin a little around him. He can hear his pulse in his ears. He can feel it in his throat. He can’t help the twist of jealousy in the pit of his stomach, writhing and ugly though it may be, at the mere mention of his friend’s name. He doesn’t have the right to feel the way he feels, but it happens all the same.

“I looked for you,” you keep going, like you’ve broken a seal and have to let it all out. Osamu doesn’t dare try to stop you. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. He watches on like it’s a conversation that’s happening not with him but rather to him. “You were eating lunch with Tsumu in your classroom. I realized he would have had a fit if he knew that I was asking you and not him. I thought about asking him but…”

Osamu can’t feel his fingers from how tightly his hands are balled into fists at his side. His lungs burn in his chest—the breath he’s holding having long since lost the oxygen his body needs, though he can’t seem to draw in another.

“If it wasn’t you, I didn’t care who it was. So I asked Suna.”

The young man processes your words slowly. Incompletely. Like only every third word seems to register.

“Ya wanted me to be yer first kiss?” It’s not the question he ought to ask you but it’s the one his brain chooses to spit out.

Your reply is frustrated, but with an unmistakably melancholic rasp running through it. “Yeah. I did.”

Somewhere distantly, Osamu recognizes a sharp, stinging pain. An ache as part of him realizes that it could have been him. All along. All this time. Him. But the pain is muted, because part of him—most of him—still doesn’t quite understand.

“I think that was the first time I realized it.” 

Osamu watches your face, maps the achingly familiar lines and dips and curves of your features as he tries to read meaning in the space between your words. But he still finds nothing.

“I liked you, Samu. More than I should have. Differently than I liked Tsumu, or Suna, or any other guy.” You laugh, but it’s a hollow, watery sound. “I realized it and it was awful.”

You’re waiting for him to say something, but Osamu is at a loss for words. No, that’s not quite it either. It’s not that he has nothing to say, but that he has everything he wants to say to you. To ask you. But he doesn’t know where to start, or how to sort through them, or even how to will his lips, teeth, and tongue to shape any of them.

“You… Y’know ya don’t have to say this,” his voice is tight, like a rope drawn to secure a knot not unlike the one in his throat, when he finally manages to speak. “Ya don’t have to pretend or convince yourself that you… felt the same as me. I care about ya too much to ever ask that.”

You laugh—a single, sharp, distinctly mirthless ha!—as you throw your hands up in exasperation. “There you go again not letting me have any say, Samu!” You punctuate your exclamation with a frustrated little sound. “Stop deciding things all on your own and just listen to me.”

That shuts him up again.

“I thought I was over it,”—you begin to pace once more, your steps slow and measured—“I really did. I told myself it would never happen and moved on because I never ever wanted to fuck things up between us. Between any of us.

“You told me that you’ve loved me your whole life, but you don’t know if or when something changed. I do. I had a singular moment that I could point to where I realized that if I did or said the wrong thing after that, I could fuck up something that meant more to me than anything else in the world. Even if you felt the same way I did, there’s no guarantee that something like that would work out. But if we tried and it didn’t work, we wouldn’t be able to just go back to how things were. So I told myself that no matter what I wouldn’t. No matter how hard it was or how awful it felt. I could get over it if it meant I never had to lose you. And it was fine. For years it was fine. We were fine. Everything was fine. And then I lost you anyway.”

You suddenly stop pacing and crouch down, your arms winding themselves around your knees as if to comfort yourself. 

“That night, when you…” You swallow, and risk a glance up at him. “I don’t think I’m over it.”

Osamu feels like he might die. Maybe he did already. Maybe this is his life passing before his eyes, because it’s always been you anyway.

“But it’s scary, Samu,” your voice is so small, so vulnerable, when you speak to him again. You’re trembling as you hold yourself. “Aren’t you scared?”

Osamu is suddenly reminded of that fall day in the woods, so many years ago now. Reminded of two kids who didn’t know what they were doing. Who didn’t know anything. But who knew each other.

Slowly, Osamu crouches too—his joints cracking in protestation as he drops his body down to your level. Your eyes never leave his.

“Yeah,” he says, after a moment. Soft but sure. “‘Course I am.”

You let out a soggy, incredulous laugh, but it somehow doesn’t feel out of place. He watches as you reach up and scrub at your eyes.

“I love you,” Osamu says, because it’s true. Because there’s no other words he can possibly think to say in this situation. Because it’s the only thing that he has in his mind.

You look over at him, sniffling a little, wiping at your running nose with the back of your hand in a way that Osamu absolutely should not find as endearing as he does. “How can you just say it like that? Like it’s so easy?”

Osamu wants to laugh too, like you did earlier, but he worries that the sound might come off as almost hysterical thanks to the misplaced hope he can feel simmering in the pit of his stomach. “Sayin’ it’s the hard part, that’s why it took me so long. But I’ve spent forever lovin’ ya. S’always been the easiest bit.”

You choke back a sob, your head hanging defeatedly as your body slackens. You’re a ghost of the angry little thing that was outside of his door only a few minutes earlier, but more yourself now than Osamu has seen you in weeks.

“What about you?” he poses the question so quietly he might worry you didn’t hear him if not for how silent the dark shop is around you both.

“What do you mean?” You know what he means. He knows you know what he means. You’re stalling, trying to buy yourself time that’s run out now.

“Do you love me?” he asks, praying to anyone who’s listening that he’s been a good enough man up until this point to deserve the answer that he wants to hear more than anything else in the world.

“Of course I do,” you say evasively, refusing to meet his gaze. But it’s not the same. It’s not enough.

“But are you in love with me?” Osamu finally dares to ask.

There’s a stretch of the most painful, profound silence that either of you have ever experienced. It goes on for an eternity, though the clock hands in the corner say differently.

You still refuse to look at him, your gaze fixed instead to a point on the wall on the other side of the restaurant. Osamu watches how the light from the windows catches in the tears that cling to your bottom lashes.

“Yeah, I am,” you say, barely a whisper. You speak the confession like it’s the most terrifying thing imaginable. Like it's wretched.

And it is maybe, but Osamu’s never felt happier to hear anything in all his life—he feels a rush of something so visceral and elated flowing through him, he thinks he might pass out.

“Can I touch ya?” he asks hesitantly, his voice thick and unlike its normal tone. He hardly recognizes it as his own.

You peek over at him for the first time, and Osamu revels in the feeling of having your eyes on him. Delights in watching you watch him and knowing that behind the gaze is the same feeling as the one he holds inside of himself. You consider it for a moment, and he doesn’t dare rush you, but eventually—mercifully—you nod. 

Osamu inches forward slowly and wraps you in his arms. Your body relaxes into his hold instantly, and he pulls you into his lap on the tiled floor. He holds you so tightly that he’s scared he might break you, but he still can’t find it in himself to be more delicate. You cling to him anyway.

It’s the first time he’s touched you in months, but every inch of you is still known to him. Still familiar in every way that matters. You smell the same. You feel the same. You’re soft and warm just like always. Osamu buries his face into the crook of your neck, and your fingers eventually lift to play with the hair at his nape. He holds you, and holds you, and holds you more—sating a thirst that’s been building for longer than the time the two of you have been apart.

And you let him.

You hold him too, in the same way.

“If I kiss ya, you gonna cry again?” Osamu asks you quietly after a while, his lips brushing against your throat as he murmurs the words.

You snort, your fingers twisting into the material of his t-shirt at his shoulders. Osamu peels himself away from you and looks up, and finds that your faces are so close. Too close, in any other circumstance.

His palm lifts, cupping your cheek in his hand, running his thumb against the smooth skin underneath.

“Shut up, Samu,” you say, a little smile twisting up the corner of your mouth.

And Osamu happily obliges by pressing his lips to yours.