#and am def not writing

[curiosity-killed]

while i am preemptively stressed about how my balcony plants are going to go over the winter, it is rather nice to sit in my little jungle now

[suntails]

love will truly live

[eupheme]

my love for this grumpy asshole has been reignited 👀 been working on a little one-shot about neighbor!reader (who is a baker) and wingman!wade trying to hook his new bff logan up - I have a little sneak peek below!

edit - fic is up here!

logan/wolverine x f!reader | rated e

(will include spoilers from deadpool & wolverine)

Wade claps his hands, standing between you.

“Logan, this is our neighbor, Sugar. She bakes a mean penis cake and likes emotionally unavailable men,” He explains cordially, as if discussing the weather.

A dejected sigh as he regards you, “Which is why it’s never worked out between us. I am just too open.”

You’re already cringing at the weight of Logan’s side-eye, fiercely regretting this deal you made, “Oh my god. Wade. It was one time. Why do you have to put it like that?”

“Just skipping over the ‘getting-to-know-you’s, so you can know if you’re compatible.” He’s already turning to Logan, who’s turned even more wary.

“And this is Logan. He’s from another Earth, is two-hundred years old, and has a metal dong.”

Logan’s teeth grit, before he snarls, “It’s not made of metal-”

Your eyes dip, curious. A knock rings out then, interrupting him from further clarification.

“Ooh! Door,” Wade thumbs over his shoulder, “Go on now, we’ve got some good energy going here. Sugar and spice, I love it.”

A spin on his heel, and he’s leaving the two of you alone.

“Nice to meet you.” Logan seethes, shooting daggers at Wade’s back as his jaw grits.

[dollsghost]

total shit post but ... .. ..

soap giving you shit about your arch. snickering and cooing condescendingly when he fucks you so good you cant hold yourself up anymore, arms buckling and collapsing face first into the pillows --

only to struggle holding his own when ghost gets to him. doing the exact same thing you did only with more whines that you're definitely gonna bring up the second he's isn't cock-drunk anymore.

[ceruark]

I love your entwined au! Nothing like political intrigue with a dash of yandere, simply scrumptious. Your phainonposting has me curious on how you would incorporate the amphoreus cast into the au.

anon when i tell you this ask literally got me out of bed this morning… like i was laying down scrolling through tumblr and then i saw this and got a rush of adrenaline…

thank you so much for your kind compliments! i have certainly been thinking about it. i haven’t written anything formal because i haven’t yet played through most of amphoreus, but things have been happening upstairs. oh the wheels have been turning.

allow me to indulge you a bit ;)

cw: yandere themes - obsessive, possessive behavior. "ensnared" - original entwined au post | entwined au masterlist

disclaimer: obviously, tribbie is meant to be totally platonic here. aglaea, anaxa, castorice, mydei, and phainon are meant to be the usual par-for-the-course yanderes.

The palace descends into chaos the moment you get the letter.

Nothing is known about Amphoreus beyond the singular fact that it is a kingdom whose size and power rivals that of the IPC’s vast empire. They’d been under isolationist policy until the recent ascension of one King Mydeimos to the throne, who outlined his wishes in his letter to your kingdom of wanting to connect with other kingdoms and discuss trade agreements and alliances.

You and the rest of your court spend weeks discussing his letter and how best to proceed. There’s a healthy amount of distrust in all of you given that, to your knowledge, you’re the only kingdom to have been contacted by them, and there is absolutely no information on this empire. 

Veritas and Himeko are the most hesitant, cautioning against being the first to make contact with Amphoreus when there’s nothing to be said about their policies, motivations, or military prowess. Too many unknown factors creates far too great of a risk to justify any potential gains to be had from blindly rushing into an alliance.

Welt and Dan Heng, on the other hand, are more open to the idea. They both bring up the fact that your kingdom’s reputation is maintained by your amiable image, and turning away King Mydeimos now could tarnish that and have ruinous implications down the line, especially since your kingdom’s decisions usually set the tone for how others will respond. You’re a cornerstone of the world, and with exceptions such as Penacony and the IPC Empire, many others look to you for how to respond to global relations. Amphoreus may not take kindly to you shutting them out if everyone else follows suit, and you’re still not certain how much of a threat they might be.

March, brilliant young woman that she is, suggests acting as a middleman before making a definitive decision; who doesn’t like a party? You can host a ball in the palace where the rulers of Amphoreus can formally introduce themselves to the world, and any first impressions and negotiations can happen on everyone’s own terms, without all the pressure being on your shoulders.

After working out the details, you draft a response with your proposition of hosting a ball for Amphoreus in honor of King Mydeimos’s ascension and send it off to the distant, mysterious kingdom. The response is signed by “Heir Tribios,” who eagerly agrees to the event and sends their many thanks and behalf of all the “Chrysos Heirs.”

It’s information Veritas dutifully files away for later. He and Dan Heng have spent hours picking apart every last word of both letters you’ve received, gathering whatever meaning they could in an attempt to know what to expect come September, in three months, when the ball will occur.

You invite every ruler you believe is important enough to be present, and that you are on at least civil terms with: Emperor Diamond and all of his advisors; Queen Fu Xuan, Generals Jing Yuan and Feixiao, Lord Yanqing, and Lady Yunli; Lady Kafka and her equally notorious court; Prince Gepard and General Bronya; Queen Herta; Queen Ruan Mei; and—after swallowing your pride—Prince Sunday and Princess Robin.

You wouldn’t admit to it even if you were held at swordpoint, but somehow, Sunday’s presence would make you feel more comfortable that night; despite everything that’s happened between you two, you’ve always recognized how good of a leader he is, and just this once, you’ll appreciate his rather manipulative, cunning nature when it comes to assessing Amphoreus and their “Chrysos Heirs.”

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the IPC is the first to confirm their attendance, and for the first time, your palace will be seeing the rare honor of having all ten of Emperor Diamond’s advisors present at his side. The Xianzhou Alliance is next to confirm the attendance of the rulers of the Luofu and Yaoqing, shortly followed by both Queen Herta and Queen Ruan Mei’s attendance. The rulers of Belobog accept your invitation soon after that. You don’t hear from Lady Kafka, but she never formally responds to any invite, anyway. She always chooses to just show up when she feels like it, and you have a gut feeling that she wouldn’t miss something like this.

Penacony’s acceptance is penned by Sunday himself—you’d be able to recognize his flawless script anywhere. At first glance, his letter seems cordial and polite, but you know Sunday, so you’re able to read between the lines; he holds the same reservations you do, subtly responding to the doubts that you, too, had expertly hidden into the verbiage of the invite you sent him, one that had differed slightly from everyone else’s. 

Something bitter twists deep inside you at the thought of how easy it is to slip back into working seamlessly with him as you did so frequently as children and early adolescents, how even after putting so much effort into distancing yourself from him, you still end up relying on him in some way, because he’s familiar, and you two know each other as well as you know yourselves.

The taste of iron sits heavy in your mouth as you file his confirmation away with the rest.

When the day of the ball finally comes, you are surprised—one, to find out there are so many Heirs (and these are just the ones that have agreed to be here, there are still more in Amphoreus), and two, because they’re actually… nice?

Well, most of them are. At the very least, none of them seem to be outright threatening, like Lady Kafka. The first one you meet is a spry child with bright red hair and a blinding smile who introduces themself as Heir Tribios, but insists on being called Tribbie. Their manner of referring to themself in plurality is a bit… odd, but you don’t dwell on it too much—you’re certain Veritas and Dan Heng are already doing that for you.

Tribbie then introduces you to a well-built man decorated in countless battle scars and a warrior’s regalia. You’re a bit pleased to find out that this is King Mydeimos; you have a high level of respect for leaders who have actually fought to protect their empire. Though he’s the sitting ruler of Amphoreus, you come to learn quickly that he doesn’t consider himself higher than the other Heirs, and governs the kingdom equally with them. 

You find yourself quite taken with all of the Chrysos Heirs. After getting past her initial wall of wariness (that you can’t really blame her for, given your own hesitance), Aglaea proves to be a warm, comforting presence whose honesty is refreshing and appreciated by someone in your position. Anaxagoras can hold a conversation with you of such high caliber that you haven’t experienced with almost anyone before, perhaps not even Veritas. Castorice’s sweet nature comes through to you even with the distance she insists upon keeping, and you find yourself smiling to yourself every time she eagerly approaches one of the many animals kept on the palace grounds. You also somehow always get dragged into Mydei and Phainon’s banter, finding yourself laughing yourself breathless at the two’s antics, which you end up wrapped up in when they argue around you, refusing to budge from their places at either side of you, for some reason.

They’re the center of your attention throughout the entire ball—so much so that you don’t even notice Aventurine’s arrival, or perhaps, even more egregious, you don’t notice Sunday’s arrival.

Perhaps, if there weren’t so many of them bombarding you, you would be able to take a step back and realize that the opposite is true: you’re the center of their attention. They seem to be switching between occupying your focus, leaving you oblivious to the way Aglaea and Anaxa speak in hushed whispers to each other behind your back, a dark cunning revealing itself in their eyes, or the way Phainon and Mydei stand just a bit too close to you, closer than any other ruler present in the room who’s been familiar with you for years would dare to stand. With her distance, you don’t notice the way Castorice wards off anyone else at the ball who tries to approach you, or the way Tribbie distracts onlookers by eagerly introducing themself and answering questions about the vast kingdom of Amphoreus.

But you do notice Veritas standing in a secluded corner of the ballroom, willingly conversing with Sunday and Aventurine.

Terror is a frigid, biting thing as it courses through your veins—but you hardly have time to process it when Phainon is already placing a hand on the small of your back, inquiring about the palace’s grand gardens that he’s heard so much about and guiding you away from Aglaea and Anaxa before the words “fated one” can reach your ears.

[amalgamationink]

NAPOWRIMO25 #18: you only listen to the mountain goats and i only listen to you

[skellydun]

made it to my tiny cabin and realized I forgot every single book I bought to read so we love that for me

[deviouz]

. . . WILDFLOWER !

a/n: just a little drabble about satoru and a chubby coded!reader <3

“Satoru, what are you doing?”

“‘m just admiring you.”

From your sprawled out position on the couch, you lifted your head up and glanced away from your phone to look at Satoru. He had nestled his way between your legs, toned arms going to wrap around your middle while his head laid on the plush of your stomach. From what you had gathered, he looked content. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and his eyes closed, allowing the white of his lashes to dance across his cheeks.

A sudden bout of anxiety flooded throughout your mind, rendering your muscles tense and nails digging into your palms.

You weren’t blind. While Satoru was the ever attentive boyfriend, there were only so many times you could resist the dread that wracked your skeptical mind. You were aware of what other people said, sometimes when out of audible range and sometimes not. The beauty standards were unfair and scarcely regarded your body type as something to be viewed as beautiful.

“You’re thinking again,” came a huffed out voice, dragging you away from the depths of your mind, “you’re tense. What’s wrong?”

Forcing your muscles to relax, your head dropped back down, cushioned by the pillowy fabric beneath.

“Nothing.”

Satoru groaned, long and definitely played up for a dramatic flair, ever so in character. “You know I can tell when you lie, right? It’s my super power. I’m like Daredevil.”

Scoffing, you rolled your eyes. “When were you gonna tell me you have superhuman hearing?”

Satoru caged you between his arms, leaning over you with a smirk. “What do you think the glasses are for, sweetheart?”

His head dipped down, nose briefly brushing against your own before his lips captured yours into a gentle kiss. It conveyed every emotion he felt about you — happiness, safety, and an overwhelming amount of love.

The kiss could have lasted hours, for all you knew. By the time the two of you had separated, Satoru’s lips were a little pinker and swollen, pretty eyes garnering nothing but a profound adoration and fondness.

“I think you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met in my life.”

Although the words were whispered, they rang about in your head, reverberating into your very core. The stunned look must have given you away, as Satoru was quick to cover your face with kisses and continue whispering compliment after compliment until your eyes glazed over with tears and lower lip began to tremble.

“I love you more than you’ll ever know. Don’t forget that, okay?”

[capesnjapes]

[ledetlore]

Wishing hoping praying that @azirowley knows that the chapter wherein frost wears a dress was inspired by your art of Frost in his green dress. That's all my brother xx

[beetlethebug]

okay so i'm thinking about like. in my emmrich x rook x lucanis x spite polycule, it probably bothers emmrich (and spite) that spite cannot be heard by rook. so, he and bellara team up to use the power of ancient elven technology, some magic, and a whole lot of sleepless nights to make something for spite to speak into that allows rook to hear them. kind of like an object for him to possess, in a way? in my mind it's like an earring or ear cuff, and it's a set. lucanis, emmrich, and rook each have a piece, so no one gets left out. in my mind it works a lot like the earrings of sending from the vox machina season of critical role. they can touch the earring and send a message to a person who has an earring.

they spend a whole day just testing the limits. can spite speak to rook when they're all the way across the lighthouse? how about half-way into arlathan woods? can rook speak to them underwater (quickly abandoned for obvious reasons). spite is so so happy for rook to be able to hear him that he talks to them all the time. Lucanis finds it hard to be annoyed when Spite is so eagerly and happily saying "Hi, Rook," for the fourteenth time that day. Maybe it's because he gets to hear Rook giggle and say, "Hello, Spite," back.

spite being able to ask every question that he wants! spite who has two patient teachers (and lucanis) readily available to answer any question that he has. yeah, sometimes they're silly. but it's also so fucking charming when spite goes "do you like this?" and then seeing twelve of them in their room later. spite who can now ask for help when lucanis cannot. who isn't afraid to admit when they're struggling because what's the point? help is right there and he can reach them now!!!!

spite who is so happy because now he can flirt with rook directly! and he can flirt with emmrich and rook when they aren't in the same room!! spite who will get on the line and demand manfred updates. emmrich who finds a way to fashion it for manfred to wear so lucanis and rook get to hear manfred and spite chatting away. (it's actually very endearing. they forget that the others can hear and talk about how much they love and care about their people and they all get a little tear eyed).

i just!! i 100% think that between everyone in the veilguard they can absolutely provide spite with a vessel to communicate!

[akkivee]

this is real it’s actually the dialogue in the manga trust LOL

[ooh-theseus]

Sucker for aro character that doesn’t know they’re aro but they experience love REALLY different, because they CARE so profoundly but it’s not ROMANTIC or not like entirely but it’s so soft and genuine and GRAHH QUEER PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS MAKE ME GO INSANE LOVE ME A GOOD QPR. Read an aro Philza fic like that (deathduo) with Phil who’s aro but doesn’t have the language, I have NOT been the same since, I think about it at LEAST twice a week.

Love as a promise :(( as a promise to make another happy :(((((( love not as an emotion, but as concrete actions, as a pledge, as an active choice!!!!!!!!! LOVE AS A PROMISE!!! A PROMISE TO FULFILL EVERYDAY!!! GIVE ME MORE OF THAT!!! Love where it’s not that one is in love, but that there is pure unbridled adoration for what the other is, for what they represent to one, for WHO they are to one.

Love where just looking at them is ENOUGH, where just having them near is ENOUGH, just being able to have them in any capacity is EVERYTHING. Where the softest touches and the gentlest of words are enough to make their knees weak. But it’s not like just romantic, yknow? Like sure they could kiss, but it’s not about that, it’s about the intimacy of the action, the feeling of comfort and safety that can bring them to tears. Because isn’t that everything? Is that not the human condition?

[honeyhotteoks]

um……. i started writing something unhinged and i’m like praying i can stay motivated and get this done by halloween because i really want to participate in kinktober for at least one fic but 🙈 anyways yeah this art killed me

[angelofdumpsterfires]

y’all i love bard’s lament you know i do, the emotional damage that deals, but but but, scanlan’s overall relationship with vox machina is a lot more healthy in tlovm, they take him seriously, they treat him with respect, this wasn’t necessarily true all the time with C1, so while it sucks we didn’t get bard’s lament idk if they could’ve made it work? tonally? bc like the whole crux of the matter is feeling like VM doesn’t know him or care about him and failing his promise to not look weak in front of kaylie but none of those things are true with tlovm? so idk maybe it’s for the best we didn’t get it? i’m sure there’s time for plenty more scanlan angst in other places

[suddencolds]

excavation of habit

hello! i honestly didn't think i still had it in me to thirst-write a fic, but on friday i watched the only 3 aired episodes of To Be He//ro X and had to whump the main character immediately 🫡

if you haven't watched the show yet, i highly recommend it! with that said, this fic can be read w/o any context if you do not mind ep1/ep2 spoilers.

(3.5k words, ft. a secret identity, a cold, a popularity-driven hero society, and a two-way character study)

—

It’s only a sore throat, at first. Barely registers, between the carefully choreographed morning appearances Miss J shepherds him through. 

Something Lin Ling is learning is that she always has something new ready for him. We live in a digital age, she said to him the other day. There is no such thing as privacy. If you want to stay relevant, you need to make yourself seen. He had been puzzled about that, at first. He’d asked her: “Haven’t I already been to enough interviews this week?”

“I’m not talking about interviews,” Miss J had said, and then refused to elaborate.

That’s another thing Lin Ling is learning about her. Despite her curt attitude, she is only non-communicative when she thinks an answer is self-evident. He found out what she meant soon enough. People’s trust, as it turns out, relies just as heavily on Nice’s actions out in the open. He can nail every interview and every game show and every celebrity appearance, and it won’t be enough. This is part of staying relevant, too—that he masquerades himself as just an ordinary citizen from time to time, that he shows himself to be remarkable even in ordinary circumstances.

Last week, he waited in line at a coffee shop downtown for thirty minutes, even though Treeman has more than enough money and resources to get an assistant to get coffee on his behalf, just so he could—with Nice’s strength and superhuman reflexes—1) rescue a cup of scalding hot coffee from being nearly-dropped onto someone’s open laptop, and 2) offer to help the workers haul in a heavy shipment of new machinery.

Compared to normal hero work, these sorts of appearances aren’t really that hard. There was even minor press coverage of it—some girl caught it all on video and posted it to Weibo—and everyone in the coffee shop left charmed.

Well done, Miss J had said, clapping him on the back. The people need to know what Nice is like on a day-to-day basis, you see? If you wait in line for coffee like everyone else, it makes you just that much more relatable. And that had been that.

It does not occur to Lin Ling to ask the question until lunch time, when he swallows again and feels it again: that flash of pain. He reaches for the energy drink on the table—Double VVoltcharge, a brand Nice has recently been sponsored by, which they have excess stock of lying around—and finds that his throat is still hurting when he gulps it down. 

“Miss J,” he says, setting the bottle back on the desk, in the exact corner he got it from. Makes sure his tone comes out sufficiently unassuming. “What was Nice like when he was sick?”

She regards him, scrutinizing. “Why are you asking?”

It’s a trap. She’s trying to gauge if anything is off, so he pretends not to notice. “Oh, you know, just—all this conversation about what he’s like as a normal person, like, what his coffee order is and everything, and I was like, huh, it’s strange that Nice drinks coffee. Like, since he’s so perfect and everything, I wouldn’t have been that surprised if I found out he never got tired.”

“Everyone gets tired,” Miss J says, rolling her eyes. “Even heroes.”

“Yeah, I guess so, or maybe he just liked the taste?” Lin-Ling-as-Nice shrugs. “Just wondering if he ever got sick, too, or if the public’s trust in him willed that away.”

“Of course he got sick,” Miss J says. “He’s not some kind of robot.”

“So what was he like? If I’m supposed to be him, shouldn’t I know these kinds of things?”

“Hmm.” Miss J seems to consider this for a moment, worrying at her lower lip. Lin Ling wonders if he’s happened upon a touchy subject.

He’s about to provide more justification—shouldn’t she be happy that he’s taking interest in Nice’s habits?—when she responds.

“...Excessively polite,” she says. “You know, always wearing a mask, coughing into his elbow, apologizing about it, that kind of thing. Sometimes he would even wear gloves or bring disinfectant spray around with him, if he really had to be somewhere. Though mostly he would stay in.”

“Ah,” Lin Ling says. “Okay. I guessed as much.” That doesn’t sound too difficult to emulate, on the off-chance that he is getting sick. The disinfectant makes sense, considering Nice’s borderline-obsession with neatness and cleanliness—the same tendencies Lin Ling feels as a static buzz at the edge of his consciousness more often than not, these days, whenever there’s clutter on the table or a cup is in the wrong place.

“You aren’t asking for any particular reason, are you?” Miss J says.

“Of course not!” Lin Ling says. “Just making conversation, is all.” He downs the rest of the energy drink, makes sure he doesn’t let the wince show on his face as it goes down.

—

The sore throat doesn’t get any better.

If anything, it gets worse. By the time dinner rolls around, Lin Ling finds that his nose is running, too, and even though he’s cleared his throat about a hundred times, it’s starting to take on a slight rasp. It’s strange and disconcerting to hear Nice’s smooth, low baritone marred by anything at all.

At the very least, he has confirmation now that Nice did get sick, even as a hero. The fact that Lin Ling is coming down with something now is not going to be the thing that exposes him as a fraud. That alone is a small comfort.

But the comfort ends there. Despite Miss J’s earlier descriptions, Lin Ling has no idea what kind of person Nice was when he was sick, aside from the usual obsession with cleanliness, and he has no idea how much the public knows about it either.

He isn’t sure how he’s going to break the news to Miss J. He’s never been—well, blatantly unfit for work before, ever since he took up Nice’s identity. Up until now, he’d like to think he’s been pretty good at taking up whatever she’s thrown at him. He still isn’t quite sure what her response to this might be. 

There was one time, a couple years back in December, when he’d come down with something when he was still working the advertising job. The heat had gone out in his apartment, and he had picked up this bug he couldn’t quite shake, had just about lost his voice with all the coughing. He’d finally worked up the courage to ask, meekly, for time off work.

His old boss had said, Do you think that just because you’re sick, Nice doesn’t need any more advertisements? And then, The proposal for next weeks’ advert needs to be emailed to me by 7am tomorrow morning. If it’s even a minute late, consider yourself fired.

In the end, Lin Ling—well, Lin Ling had apologized, put his head down, and gotten back to work. The week passed, and the week after that. That was just the life he led, then.

Things are different, now that he’s Nice. Now that he’s someone the public cares about, someone the public might miss. Nice’s public persona is damn near spotless, which makes sense at the surface, seeing how Miss J keeps virtually everything about Nice’s life squared away under lock and key. She probably has a collection of all of Nice’s favorite things, listed alphabetically, for God’s sake; she probably picks out his damn cologne for him based on market trends. But Lin Ling knows, deep down, that part of it has nothing to do with Miss J at all.

Part of it is this: Nice was Nice before he was a hero, too. Before he earned the trust of the people, before he was taken under Treeman’s wing, he was probably good at all of this: at appearing effortlessly charming and likable, which are things that Lin Ling has never been in his entire life. These days, he thinks he’s just one misstep away from having the entire foundation to his fake identity crumble under his feet.

“Not to your liking?” one of the agents says, casting a pointed glance towards the braised pork and steamed eggplant in front of him. Like all of the other agents, he’s dressed in all black and wearing sunglasses.

“Ah… sorry,” Lin Ling says, tightening his grip around his chopsticks. “I was just lost in thought. It’s delicious.” 

The agent nods, gruffly but not unkindly. “Then eat up.”

This, too, is foreign—having the agency be responsible for all of his meals, or even beyond that, having someone who cares whether something is to his taste. Lin Ling isn’t sure if it’s something he’ll ever get used to. He doesn’t have much of an appetite, but he makes himself eat, nonetheless.

The steam makes something shift in his sinuses, prickling, like the static edge of noise on the radio. He sniffles, leans forward to take a bite. Then the static edge sharpens into something he can no longer ignore.

“hh-hEh—!”

Remembering suddenly Miss j’s description of Nice, he ducks into an elbow. “—’IKkTSH’iIEw!—iihhh!”

The sneeze, when it finally comes, is surprisingly vocal. It’s the kind of sneeze you can hear the ending in, all high-pitched at the end, and it scrapes at his throat in a way that makes him want to cough afterwards. It sounds… well, markedly different from how Lin Ling is used to sounding when he sneezes. Then again, his voice has sounded different—less like his, and more like Nice’s, low and honeyed—ever since he made his first public appearance under the new identity. If he thinks about it, it isn’t all that strange that his sneeze sounds different, too.

He looks up, a little anxiously, to see if anyone’s noticed. Thankfully, the agent who stopped by earlier is on the other side of the room now, and none of them have so much as looked up at him. 

He resumes eating. The rice is steaming hot, and he’s been cold all day, though he’s only known the agency to set the thermostat at reasonable temperatures. He wonders distantly if Nice was ever susceptible to the cold.

Aside from Miss J, there’s only one person who might know.

—

Lin Ling texts Xiao Yueqing after dinner, from the privacy of his room on the tenth floor. After the incident at the wedding, he’d resigned himself to never speaking to Xiao Yueqing again—he didn’t know where she was anymore, and she’d changed her number—Miss J was very clear about not leaving behind any digital evidence. There was no reason for him to contact him again.

But it turns out that she had Nice’s phone number memorized. She texted him from a new number a week later, with a photograph of a tropical white sand beach, the line of water blue and sparkling from a distance, and followed it up a cheery: weather’s rly nice here ✌️u should come visit sometime, when you’re not so busy :p

He knew it was her immediately. The relief he’d felt, receiving that text, was nearly crushing.

They’ve been talking on-and-off ever since: Xiao Yueqing sending him pictures she’s snapped of the different cities she’s been to, accompanied by offhanded comments on what she’s seen, what she’s found surprising, and what she’d like to see; Lin Ling texting her whenever anything particularly amusing happens on the job.

Now, he sends off the text with no small amount of self-consciousness.

LL: Quick question, if you aren’t busy

These days, he never quite knows which country she’s in, so he doesn’t know what time it is for her, though she’s usually pretty good at responding if she’s awake and if he’s asked her a question. This time, Xiao Yueqing responds almost immediately.

MOON 🌺: ?

Lin Ling pulls the tissue box a little closer to him and extricates one carefully—he’d nabbed one from the agency storage room right before Miss J had driven him back to the Hero Tower. That is proving to be a wise decision now, considering that he’s gone through nearly a quarter of the box already.

LL: What was Nice like when he was sick?

MOON 🌺: wdym?

LL: Like 

LL: When he had a cold? assuming he did at least once when you were living together

LL: Idk did he act any differently or 

MOON 🌺: ohh

MOON 🌺: haha. yea i think he did get sick a couple times

A beat. Xiao Yueqing’s typing indicator vanishes on the screen—probably she’s been pulled away to talk to someone in real life. Then, after a moment, it pops up again.

MOON 🌺: he was toooootally

Lin Ling waits with bated breath.

MOON 🌺: insufferable :/

He very nearly falls out of his chair.

Nice, insufferable? The very Nice who Miss J described as excessively polite, the very Nice who couldn’t seem to make anyone hate him, even if he tried? That Nice? Insufferable?

LL: Come again???

LL: You’re going to have to elaborate, I’m not following

MOON 🌺: well u alrdy know nice was like a bit of a neat freak

MOON 🌺: when he got sick it was like cranked up to 200%. he was soo fussy abt everything

MOON 🌺: brought him tea once out of pity and he nearly bit my head off bc i made the water 15 degrees too hot for the type of tea or smth??? like there’s no way u can even taste the difference when ur congested???

LL: Oh

Lin Ling doesn’t quite know what to make of this information. He’d never thought that Nice might be anything other than pleasant, especially to Xiao Yueqing. Even learning that his entire relationship with her had been scripted hadn’t changed that.

LL: Maybe it was too bitter for him?

MOON 🌺: extremely rude

MOON 🌺: dont start taking his side now

LL: Sorry, sorry, it was nice of you to make him tea

MOON 🌺: ur on thin ice 🫵

LL: I’m sure it was delicious

LL: Please go on

MOON 🌺: this other time i caught him rearranging all the medicine in the agency cabinet 

MOON 🌺: like some crazy organization system based on strength and symptoms targeted and duration and wtvr

MOON 🌺: he was at it for like an hour. and when i asked him why he was there it turned out he was looking for

MOON 🌺: cough syrup and he just got distracted. but he got annoyed at me and insisted they had to be sorted for some reason and so i left him alone 

LL: That’s heroic

LL:Do you think he was delirious?

MOON 🌺: honestly that would be giving him too much credit

MOON 🌺: hey

MOON 🌺: why r u asking abt this anyways =.=;;

He freezes. He isn’t quite sure how to justify himself, other than the fact that it’s natural that he’s curious about the very person he’s supposed to be replacing. But she’s right—usually, he would go to Miss J with questions like this. Not Xiao Yueqing, who he’s learning seems to be happiest when she’s avoiding thinking about the old Nice altogether. 

LL: No particular reason 

MOON 🌺: hmmm~

MOON 🌺: you just happened to be curious abt nice for no particular reason?

LL: He seemed so put together all the time

LL: I just wondered

LL: Wasn’t sure if he could even get sick in the first place 

For a long moment, she doesn’t respond again. He lets himself think that maybe she’s gone for real, now, offline to haggle with some vendor or book some kind of ticket, or maybe she’s found someone to have lunch-or-dinner-or-whatever-meal-lines-up-with-her-timezone with. His head feels heavy. He’s more tired than he usually is at this time of night. Maybe he should call it a night early.

Then his phone vibrates in his hands. Onscreen, in bright white characters: INCOMING CALL.

He scrambles to pick up the call, nearly drops his phone in the process.

“You are not a very good liar,” is the first thing Xiao Yueqing says.

It’s his first time hearing her voice in weeks. It sounds a little tinny through the speakers, the higher frequencies a little harsher than the crystal-clear recording quality he’s used to from her advertising livestreams. He holds onto it like it’s a lifeline.

“Sorry?”

“I said what I said. Are you going to tell me how long you’ve been sick?”

For a second, Lin Ling feels a flash of anxiousness in his chest—could she tell, just from that one word of his? Did she know, even before he picked up this call? “...I don’t recall ever saying that I was.”

“Uh huh. So you’re just studying what Nice was like when he was sick for fun,” Xiao Yueqing says. “Just as a trivia question, nothing more.”

Lin Ling bristles. “I’m supposed to be him,” he says. Winces when he can hear the congestion in his—Nice’s—voice. “Learning about him is part of the job.”

“Yeah, so that’s why you texted me to ask about it. That’s the only reason.”

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t— s-seriously missing the mark…” Lin Ling really doesn’t want to be interrupted. His nose has other plans. This time, the action of turning to shield the sneeze with his elbow comes reflexively, even though there’s no one else here. “hH… Hhii-HH-GZSCHh-Hiiew! -hhIh… Snf-! IIh—!!!’KKTSHh-EwW!—-iiih…”

His face feels like it’s aflame. The phone speaker is right there, he berates himself. He really should have moved it away, who knows how loud those were on her end, who knows how close she was holding her phone to her ear, who knows what she might be thinking now—

“Bless you!” Xiao Yueqing says breezily, sounding utterly unfazed. Her voice has taken on a different turn, now—something closer to concern. “Man, you sound pretty rough. How are you holding up?”

“I’m not—” Lin Ling starts, and then breaks off into an undignified cough. “It’s just—”

His voice cracks on the syllable. As if there could be anything more embarrassing.

“You can say, you know,” Xiao Yueqing says, a little softer now. “However you’re feeling, you can say. It’s like I said. I’ve seen Nice sick a handful of times already. It’s not anything new to me.”

Lin Ling considers this for a long moment.

“...In that case,” he says, with another sniffle. “I’m–I’m probably getting a cold. I didn’t mean to bother you at—ahh, I don’t know what time it is there. I don’t even feel that siIIhh… iIhh’ii’DSHhH-EEew!—hh… snf… hhEh…!”

“Bless you again! Times two?”

“—-G’KTTSSHh—IiEEw! ugh… thanks.” He takes a tissue out from the tissue box, folds it in half, buries his face into it. “I’m sorry I’ve been doing that so much. It’s probably right next to your ear.”

“You sneeze differently from him,” Xiao Yueqing says, with a breathless little laugh that makes something tighten in Lin Ling’s chest. He can’t help but feel like he’s making a fool out of himself in front of his longtime—well, crush is probably the right word for it, just going off of definitions, but it seems laughably inadequate in the face of everything.

“Oh,” Lin Ling says, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “I can fix that. How did he sneeze?”

“Don’t fix it,” Xiao Yueqing says, sounding gleeful. “I think it sounds cute.”

He definitely heard her wrong there. “Cute?”

“The more ways in which you differ from Nice, the better.”

He shakes his head, despairing. “I can’t accept that. If I happen to sneeze in public—”

“No one will notice any difference,” she says. “It’s just a sneeze. You’re so concerned about acting in character, but have you stopped at all to think about how you’re feeling? Like even once? Did your own health ever once factor into your concerns?”

The defensiveness he feels—the defensiveness he’s felt, this entire conversation—gives way for something else, something like resignation.

“...I don’t know why it would,” Lin Ling says, honestly. It’s more than he means to admit.

Xiao Yueqing makes a noise that’s somewhere between exasperation and understanding. There’s another moment of silence. Lin Ling wonders how it’s possible to feel so strangely exposed over a phone call, even though she can’t see him, even though this is their first time talking in weeks.

“I called to tell you there’s this herbal tea in the kitchen of your flat, in the third drawer from the right side,” she says. “It’ll work wonders on your throat, if it’s hurting. You’re still early into this cold, so it probably is, right?” Lin Ling doesn’t have the time to process how she knows this. “Oh, and there are extra blankets in the storage closet, to the opposite side of the elevators. Three, I think, but the yellow one with white stripes is the warmest. Text me if you can’t find them.”

He blinks, a little overwhelmed. “How do you know all this?”

“I did live there for years, whether I liked it or not. Oh, and Lin Ling?”

“Yes?”

“Take care,” Xiao Yueqing says, sounding sincere. The call goes dead. 

Lin Ling sits there for awhile, his phone dark in his hands, contemplating the feeling in his chest, the strange weight to it.

Then he gets up to head to the kitchen in search of tea.