#but I can’t read my words

[demonictumble]

Im trying to post but the app is blending my words with the background??

[keferon]

*clasps your shoulders gently and looks you straight in the eye*

Keferon. Please read Ninth by Kyn on AO3. I think you would love it very much. It has a large chapter count, but don't be intimidated, it's very easy to get into. It is currently unfinished, but is being updated regularly.

You are the seventh person that recommended this fic to me so ahahahaha yeah

I’m doing great Help I hate some parts of it but I love the other parts I’m spinning in the blender

…..I made the moodboard….

[somerandomdudelmao]

@tapakah0

This little bunny means the world to me

[laurrelise]

someone talk with me about an AU where delores is a real girl who somehow survived the initial apocalypse and spends it growing old with five and keeping him sane

someone talk with me about delores being five’s age when he discovers her body in the rubble and thinks she’s dead before he notices the small rise and fall of her chest before he pulls her out and desperately tries to help her breathe normally again and watches the life fill her eyes with tears in his own that he’s finally no longer alone

someone talk with me about delores being an only child to parents who she wasn’t close with leading her to become dependent on herself until she meets five and learns to trust other people before finding out about his huge family and doing everything in her power to help him not only because she cares about him and wants him to be happy but also because she wants to experience the family she’s never had

someone talk with me about how delores never had powers but survived for the 40+ years in the apocalyptic wasteland of the future due to her seriously genius mind (and five’s help) and lives to help five figure out how to save his family

someone talk with me about young five and delores searching for anything they can find to survive before they stumble upon a half-broken mannequin with a surprisingly intact polka-dotted blouse that five says would suit her so she puts it on out of boredom from looking for materials before five looks at her with the most genuine, in-love eyes she’s ever seen and she decides to keep it just for him

someone talk with me about five always making sure delores has a comfortable place to sleep, to rest, to eat, etc

someone talk with me about five explaining his childhood so nonchalantly one day once he realizes that he can trust delores to her surprise, and she asks why he suddenly had the strength to tell her and he looks her in the eyes and says “believe it or not, you’re stuck with me, and i’m stuck with you, and i want you to know who i am when we’re kicking this apocalypse in the ass”

someone talk with me about teenage five teaching teenage delores how to defend herself with the training he was given during his childhood but reassuring her that he’ll always be there to protect her if something were to happen (to which she reminds him that she appreciates it, but knows she can defend herself with the spite and sheer willpower she has to survive)

someone talk with me about five and delores having a makeshift wedding and five’s vows being along the lines of “even if the rest of the world was alive, i don’t think i could ever hope to find someone that makes me as truly happy as you do, and i will be eternally grateful that of anyone i could get stuck in this goddamn apocalypse with, it was always you, and it will always be you”

someone talk with me about the handler showing up from the commission to recruit five as a temporal assassin and delores as a case worker because they’re both dangerously smart and incredible at surviving in harsh conditions (also, the handler approached them separately to see where their loyalties lied and they both firmly explained they wouldn’t go anywhere without the other)

someone talk with me about delores getting fed up with the handler repeatedly making moves on five despite him clearly being uncomfortable until it bubbles to a climax and she punches her square in the jaw, which results in an ER trip and zero regret (plus five falling even harder in love with the woman who endlessly sticks up for him)

someone talk with me about five and delores plotting an escape plan to get back to 2019 which all goes well, except five had once again messed up the math (or so he thought) and he and delores are placed back in their 13 year-old bodies, but she confesses that she doesn’t mind seeing the boy she fell in love with all those years ago once again

someone talk with me about delores learning to trust and love the hargreeves just as much as five, as they learn to love and trust her just as much

someone talk with me about five always keeping track of dates and specifically remembering the exact times of significant events for himself and delores, like the moment she looked at him for the first time, the moment he knew he was in love with her, and the moment they decided they were going to stop at nothing to keep each other alive and stop the world from ending

someone talk with me about five and delores, the 58 year-old couple that they are, snuggling up on elliot’s couch together because they can’t fall asleep without the other one there to remind them that they’re safe and out of harm’s way (mostly)

someone talk with me about how delores has never been the type to step down, and she continues to stand her ground and be brutally honest when shes upset or wants five to listen to her, and he admires her bluntness (and frankly, needs it) due to his impatience and expectations of honesty at all times

someone talk with me about delores knowing exactly when five needs his time alone and stepping away to help his siblings as much as she possibly can, usually by encouragement or (again) brutal honesty hidden behind a kind and genuine smile

someone talk with me about five reminding delores of his love for her whenever it’s too quiet or he thinks she’s gone too long without him showing it, in every way he can think of, like letting her know that he would’ve lost his mind in the apocalypse without her (which.. he kind of did?), finding little things that remind him of her and bringing them to her, and holding her hand whenever he sees frustration or discomfort bubbling behind her eyes

[valewritessss]

Can someone give me well written fluffy Percabeth fics I feel like I’ve read the majority of them already and I don’t want to open another tab to add on to the 107 tabs I have.

Edit: THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO GAVE ME RECS PEOPLE NEVER ACTUALLY ANSWER

[caterpillarinacave]

I would so many things to get my hands on copy of that script

[vic-does-battlecats]

Minor spoilers for the already revealed chapters of the next A Starless Clan book Wind

[swedenis-h]

Acts and plays and performances

[oobbbear]

Old man yaoi kill me old man yaoi…

[ratingboomercomics]

So I wanted to post a gay comic for pride month but when I looked up “gay boomer comic”(and I cannot emphasize enough)the only results were either homophobic or furries(idk what this was about but there was so much furries). Luckily Gary Larson came through. My friend in trying times

I gotta give this one 9/10 I think, I love Gary Larson obviously, it’s a solid pun, and I love the cow lesbian bar, that’s iconic(I always get a kick out of the cows)but it’s not the best Far Side out there. The best one is Cow Tools obviously

[blahblahbih]

I have been bewitched body and soul

@autoraving (TikTok) I love you

I didn’t know there was a way for me to be even more in love with them, im so utterly enthralled

How am I supposed to function now?

[artfartt]

love your art <3 can you draw sam and max with their ears in a ponytail?

THANK YOUUUU!!!!!!!!

[marquisecubey]

I have a new dnd character and I’ve been drawing her so much for the past week uuuuuuhhhhhh anyway here’s sister Frenelle I named her after a type of light fixture

(Congratulations! You have clicked on the Read More and you have unlocked her long ass backstory. Enjoy this thing I sent to my dm, which I can only assume that she must have liked because she gave me a free legendary magic item lmfao. Don’t worry if you’re not up to snuff on Eberron specific lore, I catch you up on the important bits.)

The secret child of an elven nobleman and a human scholar, Frenelle Albright was born in the isolated island nation of Aerenal.

Aerenal was not a kind place to anyone who was not a full-blooded elf, and with very few flesh and blood friends to talk to, her mother's wide collection of books became her dearest companions. From an early age, the doctor saw great intelligence and curiosity in her daughter; the tomes she pulled from her mother’s shelves were leagues above her expected reading level, and by the age of eight, she could even hold entire conversations about complex historical topics.

Humans cannot wander freely across Aerenal with no reason, but it was a vital place when it came to Dr. Albright’s research. The goal of the books she was writing was to help the rest of the world gain a greater understanding of Aereni society, and to hopefully encourage them be less afraid of their open practice of necromancy. But sadly, while it was a fantastic place for a researcher, there were also very few opportunities for her bright young daughter to truly flourish and learn at her own pace. So one day, she had a difficult conversation with her daughter: For the next several years, she would stay on the island, while Frenelle would be moving across the sea to attend a boarding school in Fairhaven on her father’s coin.

Frenelle was terrified at first of being alone. She was already a terribly shy girl by nature, and the new city and climate were overwhelming. For the first month, she hardly spoke to anyone at all, not even to her teachers. However, over the next few months as she properly settled into Fairhaven, she was taken aback by how welcoming the new environment was, especially compared to the coldness of her hometown. People actually wanted to talk to her, and they remembered her name. She had peers that she could talk to about all of the math and magic and history that were bottled up for so long, and when she excelled at a topic, she was rewarded instead of scolded.

The most exciting thing about the academy was that she wasn't even the only half-elf there. Or rather, Khoravar as they called themselves, and as they called her too. The main group of khoravar who took her under their wing were a group of rambunctious kids from House Lyrandar, and it was here that she met her best friend, a boy named Leeko.

Leeko was outgoing, kind, and a bit of a hothead, but he was also passionate and smart in the same way she was. He loved all of the flying machines and massive airships that his family was building, and he talked intensely about how excited he was to pilot them one day, proudly showing off the Dragonmark of the Storm on his right hand. Despite them seeming like total opposites at a glance, the two couldn't have been closer. Every time they met up to try and study for classes, they'd end up talking for hours on end about everything from old magic to new technology. For the first time in her life, Frenelle wasn't alone.

Each year, she would return home to her mother for a couple of weeks, but as she continued to thrive in Fairview, she began to notice that the doctor was growing more isolated and depressed each year back on the island of the dead. Eventually, she was able to convince her mother to leave behind her studies, coming home with her daughter, never to return.

Frenelle quickly rose to become one of the top students in her class, graduating from her boarding school with honours and moving on to study divination magic and history at the University of Wynarn. By then, Leeko had left for the island of Stormhome to train as a pilot, but the two continued to write long, cascading letters to one another every single week.

Her unconventional background gave her a unique perspective when it came to her studies at Wynarn. This was all well and good, until it led to her constantly interrupting professors during lectures to question their biases. This was especially true when it came to the taboo field of necromancy, which she had grown up seeing as a very normal thing in her culture. Eventually, however, she quickly grew wise to the fact that if she wanted to succeed as an academic, she would need to suck up to her less worldly professors every now and again. After all, if she wanted to make her point of view known, she should attempt to hear them out as well.

While working on one of her Master's degrees, Frenelle's work ethic and passion managed to attract the attention of a temple of Aureon in Arcanix, where she was offered a position as a novice. She was hesitant to quit her studies at first, but at the urging of Leeko, who just had gotten a job as an air shuttle pilot at the floating towers, she dropped everything and accepted the massive opportunity.

In fact, the chance to see Leeko again may have been her biggest reason for moving to Arcanix, because it turns out, she had started to develop romantic feelings for him. And, as she would later come to find, he felt the exact same way. She would even learn that he had planned on marrying her, which was no small deal of course. After all, Leeko wasn’t simply just her best friend, he was an heir to House Lyrandar, the Half-Elven dynasty who controlled the rapidly growing industry of air travel across the civilized world, using the Dragonmark of the Storm that ran in their blood.

A proper, pure Dragonmark gives a person tremendous power. Most importantly to those in the twelve Dragonmarked houses, it is a predictable power. However, the same cannot be said of the unpredictable power that results when people from two different houses produce a child. Unpredictability is volatility, and volatility is danger. For the sake and the preservation of society, all marriages and sexual relations between those with different Dragonmarks are strictly prohibited.

Frenelle didn't actually notice her mark for the first few days. She had figured it was some benign skin condition, a small rash around her eye. When it didn't go away, she went to see one of the healers at the temple, who laughed when she said she had no idea what it was. When he realized she was being serious, he explained that she was a foundling, a Dragonmarked person with no previous ties to a house.

He explained that her Dragonmark of Detection was an incredible thing.

With the power of her newly manifested mark, Frenelle became an obvious standout among the rest of the clergy in ways she hadn't even thought were possible. She could look into people's thoughts, see entirely new creatures from beyond the material world. She could protect people from danger.

The royal family of Aundair was in search of a governess for their children, but not just any regular teacher would do. They needed a cleric, a person who could embody the very will of Aureon, the god of magic, knowledge, and the law itself. Their job wouldn't be just to teach, but to physically protect the future of the kingdom. And, who in the world could possibly be better for that than the gifted foundling who just landed on the steps of Arcanix?

Frenelle walked past the cockpit as she boarded the air shuttle. The pilot smiled as he called her name and waved with a childlike excitement. She lowered her head. Words that he’d never get to speak reverberated through her skull. She felt his heart sink like a rock through her own chest. He wanted to marry her.

Vows of celibacy aren't necessarily a requirement for becoming a cleric. However, many choose to take them on in an effort to avoid mortal matters clouding their judgment. It's not as though she had much of a choice in the matter. After all, when the queen who funded your schools and the god who bestowed you these powers give you a call to action, to uphold and protect the law, you listen.

So, as a cleric with a high stakes mission, Frenelle simply chose to take that mission very seriously. And you see, it's actually fine. She's fine. They're fine. It’s fine. He’s fine. They’re fine. They're all fine. She's fine. It’s fine.

[kacievvbbbb]

So the thing is with Shinsou and his place in the ErasMic family he is so middle child coded to me. Like he just has so much middle child energy it’s insane.

Like my two most favorite ErasMic fics; Wards of AU by FeckedSpectrum (one of the all time pieces of literature I have read truly) and A Heart Grows Fonder by Laroyena both have Shinsou playing the youger sibling to Mirio and Shigaraki respectively and that’s when it clicked for me. It just felt so natural so easy for him to slip into this middle child role.

And it’s because he has all the bitchy confrontational energy of a younger sibling but with enough of the care and consideration of an Older sibling and so putting him against this older figure he doesn’t have to be as soft with as he is with Eri and he can really develop other aspects of his personality is so natural. H is such a bitchy constantly rolling their eyes sarcastic little brother I love it so much.

And this isn’t me saying I have anything against the Eri Shinsou dynamic ofcourse not I love them as siblings but I don’t know the dynamic just feels powered up when Shinsou’s a middle child there’s a more grown child figure kind of buffering a lot of Shinsou’s more abrasive tendencies so we still get to see that familial bitchy banter. A Heart Grows Fond described it perfectly with his relationship with Shigaraki. Shinsou gets a support system but he also gets someone he can practice his responsibility on without the fear that he might fuck it all up irredeemably because Eri is 6 and can’t pick herself up the way a 21 year old Shigaraki can of Shinsou miscalculates (it was explained so much better) but yeah that’s like the crux of it.

An older siblings is a much less pressured relationship that Shinsou really needs and god I just fucking love it. Middle child Shinsou you will always be famous to me.

[designernishiki]

it’s kinda funny to me how that dumb scene in kiwami 1 of majima getting shot and left for dead in the harbor was basically just added as a half-assed way to explain majima not being around for a bit of the plot, but they accidentally(?) just made it seem like start of a chain reaction where majima ended up feeling slighted and heartbroken after being abandoned like that and then lashed out about it via smashing a big truck into the building kiryu was in. and yeah that isn’t inherently a romantic thing as-is but then they go and add the part where majima grabs a hostess and performatively hits on her as in-kiryu’s-face as possible, she says she’s already in love with someone, and majima lets her go immediately, no questions asked, making a big fucking point of it just to say see THAT kiryu? I appreciate when people are HONEST about their FEELINGS. people who won’t just BACKSTAB someone who CARES about them to save themselves. is that so crazy kiryu?? huh??? anyway make it up to me get down here and fight me right fucking now

[mappingthesky]

angst prompt idea: they get into a fight and nymphia says ‘just leave me alone’ in the height of emotions but doesn’t really mean it, and jane would actually leave thinking that’s what she wanted, making nymph cry even harder

basically miscommunication at its finest

i said leave (but all i really want is you)

It’s been building in the way that all breakdowns do.

Everything accumulates. The things that are all manageable in the moment - the insecurities, inconveniences, odd interactions and instances of discomfort - start to stack up, sticking to each other like snow, feather-light flakes amassing into unmovable drifts, and suddenly they’re an avalanche crashing down upon her. All at once it becomes unbearable - the weight of the world which Nymphia has fought so hard to remain soft in spite of.

It’s not the first time that Nymphia has hit a rough patch, but it’s the first time Jane is here to see it, and for some reason it’s making Nymphia spiral out, like swerving to avoid the ice and driving them right off the fucking road.

It could be because she’s used to dealing with this alone. That she’s used to everyone assuming she’s alright, used to disappearing until she can find it in herself to be sunny and bright once more. It could be that she’s scared to let Jane see her like this, scared that every day she remains sullen is doing irreversible damage to Jane’s vision of her, whatever it is, and replacing it with this - the slow blinking, soft-spoken, unsure, shell of a girl that Nymphia is lost somewhere inside of. It could be that Jane is being so sweet about it, that every one of her tireless attempts to lift Nymphia’s spirits so clearly comes from her heart, that she’s so obviously willing to do whatever it takes. It could be that, because with every one of Jane’s displays of affection meant to make her feel just a little bit better, Nymphia feels guiltier. More frustrated with herself and her inability to pull herself out of the hole she’s in. More afraid that it’s their grave. More afraid that she’s dug it herself.

Maybe that’s what’s scaring her into silence now, as Jane tries to will her to open. She’s been rattling off things they could do for a few minutes now, trying to coax Nymphia out of the apartment with the promise of a walk around the park, or a trip to the thrift store, or slurpees at 7-11. It’s been days of this, and Nymphia wants it to happen just as badly as Jane does - for something to light her up, to pull her from the place on the couch she’s content to spend the rest of her life wallowing in, for some miraculous gleam to pierce through the low-hanging fog that’s clouding her vision. Jane sighs, and Nymphia feels too heavy to hold.

It’s not Jane’s fault. She’s unfamiliar with the freezing over of Nymphia’s feelings, unprepared for her aloofness after the bright, sparkling fizz of the first few months. She’s doing the best she can with absolutely nothing to go off of. Jane asks for the second time if it’s anything she’s done, and Nymphia feels worse than she did the first. “It’s not you,” Nymphia says, and can’t quite admit the other half of it out of some newfound fear. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why I feel this way. I don’t know how to stop it.

“You would tell me if it was me, right?” Jane asks and it’s like a knife, her voice a thin blade of worry. It cuts right through Nymphia - that Jane thinks she could be to blame, when Nymphia has created this hurt all on her own. The truth is that there’s nothing Jane could do that would hurt her quite like this, in the specific way that Nymphia hurts herself. She doesn’t know how to confess something like that, isn’t sure she would want to even if she did. All she can do is nod, and the hot tears spill over as the thoughts completely overwhelm her.

Jane’s oh, Nymphia is crushed with concern, and she moves to comfort her so instinctively that it makes Nymphia’s heart break all over again, because it’s Jane we’re talking about -Jane, the girl who was too shy to make the first move or say the first I love you or shed the first tear is now breaking through her own emotional barriers to comfort her, coming to Nymphia’s aid like it’s as natural as breathing, and Nymphia is the one that’s too emotionally tapped to know how to respond to that. She feels Jane wrapping around her even though she’s unsure, can feel her wondering how to go about putting her back together, and all Nymphia can manage in the face of Jane’s bravery is to cry into her hands.

“Baby,” Jane says, and Nymphia can hear it in her voice - the mounting desperation, the options she’s running out of. “What can I do?”

Nymphia doesn’t know why it happens - why she goes cold when she so desperately wants to be warm. Why she becomes so irritable, why she leans so hard into her roughness when she knows what she really is - patient, kind, loving. The truth is, she’s exhausted. It’s hard work to be so soft-hearted. Sometimes it’s too much to ask.

So all she does is shrug, mumbles that there’s nothing Jane can do. She hears the words come out of her mouth in slow motion, and doesn’t know why she can’t stop them, why she can’t seem to say this is enough. Just hold me until I stop feeling like this. Just see it through with me.

“Hey. Talk to me, Nymph,” Jane says, soft and urging, like she can sense the words Nymphia can’t seem to bring to the surface. It’s more of a plea than a command, but all Nymphia can hear is the frustration buried at the back of it - the part of Jane that surely must be exhausted from her unrewarded efforts, exhausted by Nymphia’s inability to keep it together.

“I can’t read your mind, baby,” Jane reaches out to brush Nymphia’s hair from her face like it’ll reveal something, like she’ll find some semblance of an answer there. “I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me,” Jane says as gently as possible, but it still sounds like a cue, like she’s begging for something to go off of.

“Okay,” Nymphia says, because she doesn’t have anything at all. “So go.”

She can feel it - the moment of impact. The moment Jane pauses, still mid-reach, still tucking Nymphia’s hair tenderly behind her ear. The moment lightning strikes, the moment the air goes electric.

Jane’s eyes go wide. She looks startled, dumbfounded, afraid to move. Her lips ghost open, breath visibly hitching in her throat. “What?”

”Go home,” Nymphia hears herself say, her voice a scrape against her own soul, a contradiction to everything she cares about. She sees Jane wince, watches as the reality sets in, and the right words feel farther away than ever.

“Nymphia,” Jane shakes her head, scrambling to find her footing amidst the shaking of the ground they’ve been standing on. “I don’t think I-“

”Just go, Jane,” Nymphia forces the words through her teeth and can’t seem to figure out why she sounds so angry.

She watches the pain rippling out across Jane’s face, the searing flare of her eyes. The way Jane watches and waits for Nymphia to change her mind, the way she looks like she’s going to reach out again but doesn’t, the way she awkwardly rises from the couch and looks around the room like she should have more to take with her. Like it’s wrong to leave without Nymphia beside her. The way she so obviously doesn’t know what to do with herself - whether to fight or to flee. The way she’s never sounded quite so meek as when she says goodbye and tells Nymphia to call her if she needs anything. The way she shuts the door so gently, like she’s trying to be silent, like she’s scared to upset Nymphia with something so insignificant as the click of the door even as she’s being shoved away. The way she pauses on the other side like she’s waiting for Nymphia to change her mind. The way that, when Nymphia doesn't move, her steps sound different as she walks the length of the hall - heavier, somehow. And then Nymphia knows why she’d sounded so angry - because she’s doing this to Jane. Because she’s doing this to herself.

There’s a few moments where she can bear the quiet, and then it all comes crashing down, because Nymphia is utterly, completely alone. Because she didn’t have to be.

-

Nymphia misses Jane from the moment she lets her slip away.

She spends most of the night sulking in it, recounting everything that led up to the moment when it all went wrong while the sun sets on her and what feels like everything else. She stays there until the room has gone dark, illuminated only by the far off glow of the hallway light, the blinking power button on the television, the electric green of the clock on the stove.

The night passes, and the sun rises whether she wants it to or not. She knows how this goes. She’s weathered this sort of storm before, knows that there’s nothing to do except feel her way through it. She’s done it before, but it’s not until she wakes that realizes she can’t do it again. Not in the same way she’s done it before. The ache is bigger now that she’s let someone in and shooed them away, and Nymphia desperately wants Jane to hold her hand through it, wants to go back in time and undo the thing that she thinks could do her in for the rest of forever.

She does it more times than she cares to admit - types out a long text message to Jane, deletes it, types a shorter one, deletes that too. The various iterations of the apology doesn’t matter. They all boil down to the same thing. i love you, i’m sorry, do you still love me?

They don’t matter, period, because Nymphia never sends them. She’s scared to see the damage she’s done, to inevitably take inventory of what survived her most recent storm. She hopes beyond belief that Jane will be the first to reach out, that she’ll magically know just what Nymphia needs in the way that all star-crossed lovers supposedly do, and is reminded fifteen times that afternoon that there is no such thing - that star crossed lovers are doomed from the start, that’s what makes them so. And just when Nymphia starts to think that Jane must truly hate her, that she must have already moved on and left Nymphia in the dust to chase after happier, more stable girls, she remembers that she’s the one who sent her away.

-

It’s on the third evening without Jane that Nymphia is forced to reemerge. She’s sat in the dark for longer than she cares to admit, has doom scrolled far past the point of finding anything interesting, and has effectively run out of anything remotely appetizing in the pantry. And so she rises, drags herself into the shower and lets the hot water remind her that there’s something inside her that can still be warmed. She pulls on something she can disappear inside of, sweeps her still-drying hair into a ponytail and slips on her headphones. When she emerges from her apartment building and onto the city streets, she’s reminded that there’s still a world out there - a world that will carry on with or without her, a world in which anything can happen. It doesn’t matter that she’s doing it on her own terms, replacing the noxious whirr of the world with her own personal soundscape - as she walks the seven minutes to the supermarket, she’s meeting that world halfway. It’s a win in itself.

She’s only feeling so brave on this particular trip, so she sweeps through the aisles quickly, eager to get home and label today a success, if only for her brief stint in human interaction. She plucks a few things off the shelves, whatever sounds remotely appetizing, and finds herself thinking of Jane; her insistence on satisfying Nymphia’s sweet tooth, on coming home with brown paper bags of flaky pastries or chocolate-covered confections or sweet, doughy balls of mochi. Missing Jane and all of the sweetness that comes with her, Nymphia rounds the corner, and nearly runs right into her.

Jane’s at the end of the aisle and reaching for a bag of those dark chocolates that she’s gotten Nymphia into, because of course she is. Her blonde hair is in a top knot and she’s dressed for comfort much like Nymphia is - leggings, a t-shirt, a cardigan slipping down her shoulder. She gasps ever so slightly, tugs the airpod from her left ear and looks back at Nymphia, a little awed and a little afraid. She looks so soft, so warm, so much like home that Nymphia just wants to curl into her, to give in to her completely.

“Hi,” Nymphia says and her voice wavers, because it’s the first word she’s spoken in two days, the first thing she’s said since she sent Jane away.

If the last Nymphia saw of her was Jane’s complete and total collapse, this is exactly the opposite. Jane’s eyes flash, her chest fills, and Nymphia wants to pour into her again and again. “Hi,” she says, and it’s almost a whisper, almost a smile on her lips.

Nymphia looks at Jane and doesn’t know where to start. There’s a breathlessness between them, a brink that they stand on together. Somewhere between uncertainty and sureness. Nymphia looks at Jane and knows where she wants to end.

Her eyes fall to the bouquet of sunflowers that peek out of Jane’s basket, pretty and plastic-wrapped. Nymphia has a horrible, gut-wrenching thought. Jane interrupts it.

”I, um,” Jane stammers, looking down and shaking her head at herself, mouth closing momentarily, a little ashamed of herself but admitting everything anyways. It’s a little sad, somehow still endearing. “I was gonna drop them off for you,” she shuffles her feet, avoiding eye contact. “And some other stuff,” she says, and Nymphia notices the things at the bottom of the basket. All of Nymphia’s favorites: the instant noodles, the hot chips, the loose leaf teas that Nymphia can never justify splurging on, and the strawberry bubblegum, and the dark chocolates with chili that Jane had been reaching for (because of course she did).

“Sorry. If that’s weird,” Jane sputters in the way Nymphia knows she does when she’s nervous. “I was going to call you. Or text. Um. But I didn’t-I didn’t know if you wanted to talk.”

“It’s not weird,” Nymphia blurts out, and Jane’s head snaps up. “It’s nice,” Nymphia hears herself say, but it’s so much more than that. “I wanted to text you.”

Jane blinks through the disbelief, and Nymphia wonders for the hundredth time what the last forty-eight hours have been like for Jane. Whether she spent them hoping beyond hope in the same way that Nymphia had. She thinks maybe she did, because:

“You did?”

It’s the shyest Nymphia has seen Jane since the very start, when both of them were so unsure and so obviously smitten in the way that women who fall for each other so often are: both so in love and so unwilling to believe that it could be possible.

”Yeah.” Nymphia suddenly feels like she could cry, and is suddenly aware that she’s feeling again. All at once she’s swept up in the exhilarating thrill of risking it all, of surrendering so completely to someone else. “I wanted to text as soon as you left.”

Jane’s breath sort of hitches and the look in her eye is so many things at once -hope, fear, relief, worry. They open their mouths at the same time, both start with, “I didn’t-”, both sort of gasp and start to laugh at each other, and it’s the best sound in the world, because Nymphia didn’t know if she could ever laugh again, if she’d ever hear that sound she loves so much - Jane laughing just for her.

“You go first,” Jane nods, and she could be giving Nymphia a second chance, except she doesn’t quite have to. Nymphia could never fail her, would never need a second chance. Jane would never write her off in the first place, would keep choosing her time and time again.

“I didn’t want you to go,” Nymphia says, because she wants to be honest with Jane; she feels that she owes her that much. So she speaks softly, slowly, making sure that every word is as close to what she means as possible. “I don’t know why I told you to leave. I was scared, I guess. I’m sorry.”

Jane shakes her head, “I didn’t want to go, Nymphia, I swear. I only did because I thought that’s what you wanted.”

”I know. I thought that’s what I wanted too.” Nymphia’s bottom lip is curling out and her eyes are starting to mist and she’s in the middle of a fucking supermarket. “But it’s not.”

Jane swallows. “No?”

“No,” Nymphia shakes her head, can barely get the words out without choking up, but she’s determined. She wants to. She doesn’t care who knows, just as long as Jane does. “I want you there with me.”

Through the first of the tears that are welling up in her eyes, Nymphia can see Jane resisting the impulse to reach for her, just barely holding herself back long enough to ask. “Can I-”

Nymphia sputters, half-laughing. “Please.”

This is the part that makes all the work of letting Jane in worth it - the part where Nymphia is completely enveloped by her, slotting so perfectly into place against her, because she isn’t meant to be alone. She’s meant to be with her. They aren’t star-crossed lovers destined for some ultimate doom, and they aren’t the stars of some great tragedy. They’re something so much simpler. Something so much better. They’re just each other’s people.

“Are you okay?” Jane says against her hair, not daring to let go, not even wanting to, because this is all she’s wanted from the start - to know what to do.

”I will be,” Nymphia squeezes tighter, eyes shut, savoring her return to safety. “Are you okay?”

”Yeah,” Jane says, and Nymphia can hear her smiling. “I think I will be too.”