#but it... is what it is

[rockingrobin69]

Trying

It takes time, just like Draco promised, and it’s not easy, as he’s warned. Harry takes a course in the local community centre, classes every Tuesday and Thursday, six o’clock. The teacher is at least a head taller than him, and language seems to flow from her hands like magic, like the easiest thing in the world. Harry can’t wait to have a conversation with Draco like that. He’s aware he may never get this good, but it’s nice to imagine.

Learning BSL is nothing like learning French or Latin. Harry kind of likes that. He likes the signs that seem obvious, the ones that paint a picture of what they mean. He likes stating the topic in the beginning, likes the order of things being different. And he likes the way Draco looks when Harry shows him what he’s learned, the way his eyes open all big when Harry uses it to ask him what he wants for tea. Likes that he’s doing something, that it feels like he’s trying. Turns out it’s good to try.  

Level one is nice, but level two is better. One of his classmates is a lady named Rhiannon (“Fleetwood Mac, honey, what can you do”), who’s got a deaf son. She’s also got this laughter that rolls, all the way from her Adam’s apple to her shoulders to her belly, and it’s the best when he makes her laugh. They go for coffee every Tuesday after class (decaf for her, it’s past eight, baby!), and Draco sometimes joins if he gets out of work on time. Rhiannon adores him. She keeps badgering Harry every time they partner up for practice. Tell him already, sweet idiot.

Sometimes a few of the others come too. Brian, who teaches p1, and Moe, who makes the best petticoat shortbread, and Nikki, who signs in a Cardiff dialect, and Heather and Lucas and Tanya. They’re a good group. Harry’s sort of forgot you can do that, make friends simply by being at the same place at the same time. It starts awkward, but in a nice sort of way, and then in level three it’s just nice. They all stay, which is a bit unusual, they’re told. Harry likes it.

They have a Christmas night out early December. It’s at this tiny pub Rhiannon’s managed to drag them to, where all the cocktails have the funniest names and the beers are all Czech. It’s fucking fantastic. He even manages to convince Draco to stop by after his shift. Lucas and Moe dance, Tanya keeps getting shots for everybody, Nikki and Brian demolish Harry’s crisps so he buys them five more packets. Their teacher comes too, halfway through the night, and she’s written cards for everyone and shyly distributes them one at a time. His says You’re doing so well, Harry, and it makes him tear up a little bit, unreasonably so. Makes him feel—small and also, warm. In the dim pub, Draco’s smile is the most brilliant thing he’s ever seen.

It’s a lovely night. Everyone gets smashed and Draco says they’re all slurring with their hands and it makes them laugh so hard, so so hard, like it’s the funniest thing in the world, like they’re all so alive it’s electric and everything and anything is possible.

Draco takes him home. Helps him change into his pyjamas. Maybe he even strokes Harry’s hair once or twice before putting him to bed, with that smile, and the way his eyes sometimes sparkle. Spark.

Good night? He signs, eyebrows raised. 

The best. Because you were there, he doesn’t seem to be able to say. Not with his words and not with his hands.

Sleep. You’re tired.

But he doesn’t want to close his eyes. Stay?

Draco gives him a questioning look, like Harry’s missigned, said the wrong thing.

Stay with me tonight?

He tilts his head to the side. His hair’s loose, falling into his eyes, has to be brushed back by insistent fingers. Harry wants to kiss them. He must really be quite drunk, because he thinks he’s leaning forward to try it.

Please.

Draco sucks in his lower lip, but then he’s nodding, and this writhing thing in the pit of Harry’s stomach settles. He climbs into bed with Harry, fully dressed. Not smiling anymore. Harry’s a bit too drunk and too excited to make much sense of anything. All he can concentrate on is Draco, here, warm and in his bed and warm and wonderful. He tosses and turns until he finds a comfortable way to lie, with his hand brushing Draco’s, and then he’s asleep before he knows it.

Sometimes he thinks he’s dreaming in sign.

He wakes up with a headache and completely parched, slightly stricken to see Draco lying next to him. Has to think really hard before he remembers, and the way his whole brain’s thumping inside his skull isn’t helpful. The sight makes his heart flutter, bird against its cage bars: Draco’s on his back, arms at his sides, and his face is… entirely, completely soft.

Harry’s stomach gives a frightening lurch. He slides out of the covers as quietly as possible, grabs the miraculous glass of water someone’s left on the bedside table. Takes careful, measured sips, until his vision isn’t swimming, until his heart climbs back down from his throat. He feels like shit.

He can’t stop smiling.

(Flufftober day 13. Find the soft AO3 collection here).

[skipppppy]

So there’s a trend going round where you draw Miku inspired by your own culture and normally I just sit those out bc i’m from England but then the image of her covered in fake tan with the full chav makeup and sloppily bleached blue pigtails popped into my head and i almost threw up laughing. So here’s bri’ish Miku. She smells like impulse body spray and spent the last 30 minutes arguing with the teacher who told her to take her coat off. It’s chewsday innit

edit: i fucked up with the cigarette i know it’s the wrong way round blease stop making fun of me 😔💔

[koobiie]

shoutout to everyone who wants to infodump but cant string together coherent thoughts to form sentences and instead just look at you like this

[chrismcshell]

northern hemisphere babes we made it to the longest night of the year. we made it. for the next 6 months, every day will give us a little more daylight than the last. let's go. take my hand. climb out of the darkness with me

[princehendir]

I also think that all the "um okay knives out & glass onion were good. Wrap it up now" posts are so funny. You're tripping if you think there's not going to be at least five Benoit Blanc films lol

[fangs-4-fags]

remembering the time i drunkenly told a stranger i was a trans man and he started going off about alpha sigma and beta males and how each one was equally important no matter what anyone says and that i shouldn't feel pressured to be a strong alpha male because emotionally intelligent beta males were just as important

[so-many-ocs]

[on the verge of having a complete breakdown] i need to make some kind of list or perhaps sort things into categories

[emj4yart]

Google is cooked

[alocalfrog]

Can you imagine suing Boeing and coming home to find Boeing's faulty plane parts washed up in your backyard?

[riacte]

not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing [what would happen between earth and the moon if the earth stopped spinning as illustrated by xkcd randall munroe]

[ramshacklefey]

Kind of hilarious to me how poorly the title "Mob Psycho 100" localized to English-speaking areas. To someone whose first language is English, it scans as:

Mob (Yakuza, Mafia)

Psycho (violent person with "crazy" behaviors)

Thus: a particularly violent member of organized crime.

But in Japanese it scans as:

Mob (background characters in crowd scenes in manga or anime)

Psycho (short for psychic)

Thus: a psychic who looks/acts like someone you'd never pick out of a crowd scene in a comic.

[skenpiel]

i hope i never ever ever see this image while im high or it will also straight up kill me. it would make me so scared my skeleton would run away And id be a boneless scared heap on the ground

[x0401x]

So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????

I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.

Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?

[littlelightfish]

I hope you see my vision

[fellooooowsys]

Has this been done before