#but unfortunately uni demands part of my time

[sanatomis]

⋆.ೃ࿔* ── 𝐃𝐈𝐘-𝐃𝐀𝐃!

it’s career day, and megumi has to bring his dad to school so he can tell the class about his job. the problem? he only has a 20-year-old sorcerer-guardian who has the brain capacity of a walnut.

content. canon divergence (suguru’s alive and studying to be a kindergarten teacher), possible ooc characters, female!reader.

notes. guys i’m a sucker for satoru who really, really tries and isn’t just a goofy man-child ໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -｡꒱ྀི১ also ! thank you all for your patience, it took me a while to finish this piece bc of uni, so i'm vv happy it's finally done <3

taglist. | masterlist.

“I don’t have a dad.” 

As cruel as it may be, a part of Megumi hopes that the sentence makes his teacher greatly uncomfortable. Demanding for a father to attend a Career Day at school simply isn’t fair to children without one—or, well, to the child without one. It’s not his fault his father hauled ass and left, so why is she making this so difficult for him? 

“Oh,” she mumbles. It seems his arrow hit the target, as her eyebrows pull together in a frown and she shifts her weight between her feet. “Well, you, uh, have a male guardian, don’t you?”

Megumi grimaces. Instantly, he thinks back to last week. Satoru Gojo, self-proclaimed strongest, had hit his head on a kitchen cabinet. With a dramatic pout and an overexaggerated wobble to his lips, he clung to you for hours. Some affection will make it all better!

Of course, when Megumi criticised his skills surrounding his infinity technique—because, really, how couldn’t it block a simple cabinet—the sorcerer opted to ignore him. He suspects there was some foul play at hand. 

“Barely,” he mutters, as the memory resurfaces. 

His teacher lets out a startled hum. “I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” Megumi says quickly. He watches as she starts typing on her computer, and the realisation that she’s probably currently taking a look at his file isn’t a particularly welcome one. “What about my other guardian? Can I bring her, instead?”

“This event is geared towards fathers,” she explains. It’s obvious she forgot her reading glasses today, Megumi thinks, as she needs to narrow her eyes to read the screen in front of her. “I have one Satoru Gojo noted down as your male guardian. Surely, he will be able to attend.” 

Megumi pauses. He blinks up at her expressionlessly, and fights off the urge to push his teacher down a well. You often preach about being kind to others, and that wouldn’t be very kind. 

“Can’t I take my oth—”

“I’m afraid not,” she interrupts him before he even gets the sentence out. It irks him. Megumi isn’t fond of speaking to begin with, so when he does, he’d prefer not to be cut off halfway through. “An exception will not be made. Please, make sure to bring Gojo-san to school.” 

Megumi briefly, and for the very first time ever, mourns the fact that you and Satoru weren’t married. A small part of him calls the man a coward for not asking you to. If he’d simply taken the step, then Megumi would be able to pass you off as Gojo-san. Unfortunately, he can’t, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s no way around this problem. 

“Fine,” he grumbles. It takes all of his remaining willpower to not stomp out of the classroom. Once again, he thinks of you. It’d be extremely bad manners. He can’t find it in himself to wish his teacher a nice day this time, though, and so she’ll have to make due with a slightly less polite Megumi for today. 

There’s nothing he can do about it. Satoru will have to come to the school. 

Megumi suddenly despises the idea of Career Day. 

“I need you to come to my school next week.” 

Immediately, all chatter around the dining table stops. For once, Megumi finds himself annoyed at the sudden appearance of silence. Before he said it, he knew his words would most likely have such an effect—he just didn’t expect it to be so instant. 

He tries his best to feign nonchalance, as if the topic that’s coming up didn’t make him feel stressed-out beyond belief. The confused, startled glances you and Satoru share don’t do much to help him, either. Perhaps it’s because Megumi is looking straight at him; him instead of you. Yeah, Satoru, he isn’t a fan of it, either. 

“Me?” The man asks then, and Megumi has to resist the urge to say, ‘no, I meant the snail in the backyard—yes, you,’ in the most sarcastic voice he can muster up. Satoru once again steals a look at you, ever so oblivious to Megumi's mental remarks. “Don’t you mean—” 

“I don’t,” Megumi cuts him off solemnly. His lips are pursed shut, and he pokes the slices of pork belly in his bowl with his chopsticks. One didn’t need to be of particularly high intelligence to notice the boy’s displeasure.  “I have to bring a male figure for Career Day.” 

It’s slow, the morphing of Satoru’s face, but it happens gradually and doesn’t stop until he’s positively beaming. Megumi doesn’t like it one bit. Nothing good happens when he looks like that, and he’s quite sure that all that will spew out of his mouth in a few seconds will be nothing except for pure nonsense. 

“Well, luckily, I will have the day off, then!” Satoru chimes, with a smile so wide it causes two dimples to appear on his cheeks. You copy his smile, and gently go to poke the little dent in his skin—Satoru lets you, as he always does. Megumi would think of it as cute if he weren’t so annoyed. “I will be there.” 

It seems he was right. Satoru’s words are pure nonsense.

“I didn’t tell you when,” he comments dryly. 

The sorcerer blinks. His smile is still on his face, but it’s fading, and the dimples do so with it. Your hand hovers halfway in the air, stuck with nothing to poke, and you slowly bring it back down to your side. It seems neither of you had taken time to think about that small fact—Megumi blames Satoru for dragging you down with him; him and those indentations in his cheek that you always seem to coo over. 

“Oh,” Satoru mumbles. A crease between his brows forms as his brain hurries to catch up with the newfound information. A few seconds pass, and then the previous bravado returns. “Well, it doesn’t matter! I can take the day off. When do you need me? Tell me, and I’ll be there.” 

Megumi very much doubts he can take days off all willy-nilly like that, especially after he pushed his workload onto someone else to attend his science fair last time, but then again, what does he know? If Satoru didn’t care about the consequences of his actions, then Megumi wasn’t about to break his own head doing so, either. 

“Next Friday,” he mumbles. From the tone of his voice, it’s quite clear that he’d rather be saying anything else. “We have to leave at eight a.m., please, be on time.”

“Sure thing!” Satoru chimes, and with that, Megumi thinks the dreaded conversation has finally come to an end. 

All in all—it could’ve gone worse. At least Satoru didn’t prolong it unnecessarily. Nor did he add a bunch of relentless teasing. He glances at the sorcerer. Satoru is happily munching on the dinner you’d prepared, both his cheeks stuffed full with entirely too much rice. It’s unbecoming, and a reflection of his poor manners, Megumi thinks, and he doesn’t understand how you look at the man with such hearts in your eyes. 

Though, your more than adequate cooking seems to have saved him from one of Satoru’s onslaughts. He’s grateful. Even if he doesn’t particularly enjoy the sight in front of him. 

“Hey, ‘toru?” You ask, breaking the silence with a slight hesitation to your voice. It nearly sounds nervous, and both Megumi and Tsumiki look up in alarm. Satoru hums, still chewing away. “What are you going to tell the class?”

Satoru stops eating. His chewing comes to a halt, and his chopsticks freeze in the air. A slice of pork drops from between them, and falls back into his bowl—It’s not hard to see the cogs turning in his head. “Uhm, I. . .” He swallows the food still in his mouth, and clears his throat. 

Right. It’s Career Day—but Satoru can’t tell a bunch of seven to eight-year-olds that he hunts and kills grimy, ugly, and freakishly scary curses for a living, now, can he? Megumi doesn’t think that would go over well with the other parents. The boy sighs. It’s just one thing after another. He grimly believes the world might just be out to get him. 

“I. . .Oh! I can tell them I’m a teacher,” his guardian scrambles for a solution, and Megumi can’t help but think it’s a little lack-lustre. Who would believe that guy is a teacher, anyway? Then again. . .Megumi doesn’t know a better fix for their current problem, either. He was so focused on the fact that it was Satoru that had to come to the school, he all but forgot about the fact that the dear thorn-in-his-side didn’t possess a normal job. “Suguru has told me a thing or two about his internship. I can take inspiration from there.”

Ah, yes. The famed Suguru Geto. Megumi has met him before. He hasn’t actually spoken to him, however. The man often visits, and has twin girls clinging to him when he does, and while Tsumiki seems to really like him—and them—Megumi doesn’t have an interest in seeking out some form of interaction, yet. Whenever he comes over, Megumi opts to hide in his room. Suguru never tries to disturb him, nor does he try to coax him into coming out. He’s very grateful for it. 

So, despite never speaking to him, Megumi knows about Suguru. Well, he knows enough. He knows Suguru went to school with the two of you, and he knows something really, very bad (nearly) happened that caused the man to take a step back from the world you all live in. What exactly happened (or what didn’t happen), Megumi doesn’t know for sure. You and Satoru almost never speak about it, and when you do, it’s in hushed voices—and you always stop immediately when he enters the room. 

But that’s okay. He doesn’t need to know. Suguru doesn’t force himself upon Megumi, and so he will extend him the same courtesy.  “I thought Geto-san wasn’t a teacher, yet?” Tsumiki speaks up from beside him, tilting her head to the side in confusion. “Mimi and Nana said he’s still learning. How can he be teaching, already?” 

“He’s not a teacher, yet, munchkin, well spotted,” Satoru answers with a proud grin. The nickname annoys Megumi—the feeling of irritation has been conditioned into his very being after Satoru chose it as the designated nickname for both of them. “An internship helps him build experience in the field. It means he is still learning, but he will do so while teaching.”

Tsumiki nods in understanding, her mouth opens and her lips curl into a small ‘ah’ as the information settles in. “So, you will pretend to be a teacher, then? At Megumi’s school?”

Satoru bites on his bottom lip, seemingly deep in thought. Seemingly—as Megumi is quite convinced he doesn’t ever think before he speaks. “I think so, yes,” he explains, and unknowingly retorates Megumi’s train of thoughts. How annoying. Satoru looks towards you for approval; it’s something he does very often. “It’s probably the safest route, no?”

“It’s our best option,” you say, and bring a thumb up to the corner of Satoru’s mouth. Gently, you wipe away a grain of rice stuck to his skin. It’s effortless, and nearly automated. Megumi wonders how many times you’ve had to do that. “Pretending to be a teacher shouldn’t be too difficult a task. Right, mochi?”

“Right,” Satoru echoes. His eyes track your every move, and the slight, pink colouring of his cheeks doesn’t seem to embarrass him even a little bit. Megumi thinks it should. Have some decorum. “I can do it, no problem.” 

“Alright then,” you say, and smile. First at Satoru, and then at Megumi. You look at the boy for a few seconds; you’re about to ask him if he’s okay with it. He knows you are, because you always do. “Is that okay for you, Megumi?” It’s like clockwork, almost. 

Megumi feels the need to answer with something snarky. Something akin to the sound of ‘What choice do I have?’ but he doesn’t—because you’re being kind, and you don’t deserve such a response. So, instead he turns towards Satoru.

“. . .Just don’t mess it up.” 

Satoru delivers a whole spiel about how ‘he’d never do that’ and that he’s ‘more than capable’ of telling a little white lie, but Megumi dilutes it to background noise rather quickly. He continues sputtering his nonsense when Megumi and Tsumiki stand up to clear the table, and still hasn’t stopped even when you and him start loading the dishwasher together—Megumi chooses to seek reprieve in his room while he’s distracted. 

It isn’t until many hours later, when Megumi leaves the sanctuary of his room to swipe a quick snack from the kitchen, that he first hears Satoru speak about something other than his great, and very much sufficient, ‘capabilities’. Your voices are muffled, and Megumi has to focus to make out your words. His soft, inaudible padding down the illuminated hallways comes to a halt. As if that would make his ears function better. 

“Are you sure you want to do this, Satoru?”

The boy frowns. With such gentleness in your voice, it’s hard to identify the worry lingering beneath the surface. Megumi moves a bit closer. He stops one step shy of bumping into the wooden surface, and peeks through the groove. The door is ajar—it’s something that allows him to watch how your eyes follow Satoru’s large frame as he paces around the room. It’s strange. Seeing him so. . .frazzled. 

Satoru nods. “I can do this, I know I can,” he says, and quits his pacing to look at you. Megumi can’t see his face, but he can see yours. He might as well not have, though, as he can’t make out the emotion that fills your eyes. It’s not one he himself has in his repertoire, that he knows for sure. “He never asks me for anything, princess. I have to do this right.” 

Ah, this isn’t a conversation Megumi is meant to hear. He should probably seize his eavesdropping, he thinks, and winces a little when he properly analyses Satoru’s words. They’re truthful. Megumi doesn’t go to him when he needs something. His first thought is to go to you—and his second, Tsumiki. And if he’s being honest anyway, his third thought very likely isn’t Satoru, either; He’d try to solve it on his own if it came down to it. Megumi frowns again. He doesn’t like how that realisation makes him feel. 

A careful shuffle of footsteps breaks him free from his thoughts. Megumi looks up, and catches how you place a hand on Satoru’s cheek. “I’m sure you’ll do great, baby,” you mumble. There’s a small, soft smile on your lips, one that quickly makes way for the peck Satoru places upon them. 

“Thank you,” Satoru whispers. One of his hands reaches for yours, and Megumi suddenly feels as if he’s intruding on something when the man brings them up to his lips to press a tender kiss to them. Okay, no, definitely intruding—ew. 

The boy scrunches his nose up in disgust, and hurriedly darts back towards his room. Suddenly, he has lost his appetite for a late-evening snack. Megumi lets out a deep sigh once he’s all tucked into his sheets again. Perhaps giving Satoru a shot wouldn’t be that big of a problem. Just one, though.

. . .Yeah, just one should be enough.

It’s the final, conclusive thought Megumi has before dozing off to sleep. Blissfully unaware of the conversation you and Satoru share—now behind a very closed door.

You stifle a giggle. The disappearance of Megumi’s presence outside your bedroom was quick and rampant as soon as Satoru started to kiss your hands. Something the sorcerer did very deliberately. It’s as if the boy suddenly forgot about the very special, very effective pair of eyes his guardian possesses. And with a cursed energy output such as Megumi’s, it would be hard not to recognise his presence.

“You did that on purpose,” you comment. “How cruel of you, mochi.”

Satoru hums, and kisses the inside of your wrist. “Maybe, the little brat shouldn’t eavesdrop, then,” he defends himself. There isn’t an inkling of guilt to be seen on his pretty face.

. . .Though, both of you still take some extra care to shut the door next time.

Megumi faithfully believes that, as of today, he has used-up all of his luck for the next five, no, ten years. It can only go downhill from here. For some inexplicable, mind-boggling reason—Satoru is actually pulling this off. That’s not all; he’s not merely winging it, he’s genuinely doing well. The boy can’t quite believe his eyes.

When he’d walked to the front with such an overexaggerated pep in his step, and an overabundance of bravado rolling off of him in waves—Megumi couldn’t help but watch on with a grim look, and a healthy dose of negative thoughts. It only amplified the nerves he’d collected so far during the walk to school. Somehow, watching Satoru give your flashcards a frantic do-over did very little to ease his bubbling anxiety.

There were many of them, flashcards that is. All possible questions his peers or his teacher could ever think of are written on those little pieces of cardboard. Courtesy of you, and your boyfriend. Megumi’s able to recall all those nights the two of you spend at the kitchen table—practising. He thought it was silly at the time.

But, as it turns out, it works.

Satoru is fun. To other people; Megumi doesn’t share the sentiment. Against all odds, he’s dynamic, and speaks with conviction. His flamboyant hand gestures have others think of them as amusing—captivating, even. Satoru is talking, and they’re all hanging onto his every word. No matter the fact that they’re all cleverly disguised lies.

Megumi can’t wrap his head around it. He doesn’t need to, however. If anything, he’s relieved that his peers think of his guardian as cool. While he certainly does not share the opinion, he isn’t too dense to admit that such a belief will save him a lot of embarrassment in the future. So, for this one, single day, he will let Satoru Gojo be cool. His snarky comments can resume tomorrow.

“Ah, it seems you have a deep love for your profession, Gojo-san,” his teacher says. She interrupts Satoru’s rant, and catches his attention as well as Megumi’s. Her voice is light and airy, and carries nothing that should cause him to fear the worst. Still, the boy feels on edge. “Though, I don’t remember the grade you are teaching. Could you tell us, again?”

Ah, and there it goes. The very first card in the elaborately built castle of lies.

Satoru pauses. A second passes, and then two, and three, and so on. He doesn’t speak for a good thirty, and Megumi can nearly see his mind leaf through his beloved flashcards—flashcards that are now neatly tucked into his pockets and entirely out of reach. That’s good. Because the absolute last thing Satoru should do now, is resort back to the flashcards.

Megumi shakes his head no as a signal.

“Ah,” Satoru says. “I teach kindergarten.”

Satoru didn’t catch the hint. Megumi wishes the ground would swallow him up. It would have been the correct answer—it is the answer that’s written on the flashcards—if Satoru hadn’t decided to go off route. Getting too caught up in the story he’d been free-writing, and allowing himself to get carried away by the looks of awe is resulting in his downfall, which, consecutively, will end with Megumi’s downfall, as well.

“Huh? But! What about the science experiment that exploded?” One of the children in his class whines. “I didn’t get to do that in kindergarten!”

“And the backflip you taught your students!”

“What about the first prize in the talent show? I thought your students were famous!”

The little bit of colour that normally resides in Satoru’s face steadily disappears, and he clenches his fist at his side. Ah, it’s great to know he’s at least aware of his mistake. That won’t help either of them at the moment, though. Megumi’s eyebrows furrow, and a feeling of distress overtakes him. It shows on his face. He doesn’t exactly go through the trouble of trying to hide it—there are bigger problems right now.

How utterly humiliating to be caught lying.

Satoru’s eyes find him. They’re just as troubled as his own. It worsens his anxiety.

“Oh, uhm, you see. . .” Satoru stammers, and Megumi’s stomach churns when the children around them continue to ask more and more questions. The wince his guardian lets out does little to soothe him. Megumi sighs, and looks at the ground. “Ah, I see. It seems you guys saw right through me.”

Megumi slides down in his seat. Maybe, if he tried hard enough, the ground would absorb him. It’s currently looking like a preferable fate.

“. . .I’m actually a detective.”

Oh, Jesus Christ.

“And. . .And for a detective, it’s very important to listen to what people say, because they could be lying!”

It’s a sad, pathetic excuse for a save. Megumi briefly ponders the distance between his seat and the door. Perhaps he could make a run for it. The subway station is very close by—getting on and travelling to an entirely new city to start a new life doesn’t seem like such a bad option. He sighs. No, that’s not possible. You and Tsumiki would be very worried. What else is there to do, though?

“You all picked up on my lie, which tells me every single one of you could make a great detective in the future.”

Megumi thinks Satoru might have some underlying mental problems. Though, they can’t possibly be as severe as the problems his classmates have—for they all believe the nonsense he’s giving them. Bright eyes, filled with hope and admiration, stare up at the man at the front of the class; impressed hums and entertained smiles get passed between the parents standing at the edge of the room. And Satoru, well, he seems entirely too proud of the fact that he made a bunch of children think they’re destined for a career in law enforcement. But, be that as it may, it works.

The children stir up unrest—the good kind this time, the kind that vocalises their excitement—and all rush to ask the detective a question. But, before they can even open their mouths, Satoru claps his hands together. It seems he has decided enough is enough, and it’s one of those very rare moments where Megumi agrees with him. The boy needs this to be over already.

“Alright, that’s it for today,” Satoru says, and feigns disappointment. He pretends to be affected by the sad groans of the children—keyword being pretend, as to the trained eye it’s quite clear that he wishes to leave. “I’m not allowed to tell you more.”

Ah, see, now that’s a good card.

“Wait, but, what about. . .”

“Ah, sorry, that’s confidential. Detective stuff, y’know?”

Confidential. Megumi thinks that might just be his new favourite word. The lingering feeling of anxiety slowly starts to subside with every step Satoru takes towards the back of the room—to the back, and away from the spotlight. His eyes follow the man’s large frame, but Satoru never chooses to look at him in return. His line of sight is firmly focused on the floor. It confuses Megumi, but he chalks it up to a mere whim.

All things considered (and minus the near cardiac arrest he went through), today went pretty well, after all. Much to his surprise.

Perhaps Megumi doesn’t hate Career Day. A strong dislike is more like it.

Megumi can’t count the times he wished for Satoru to be quiet. The exact number is much like the digits of Pi—huge, and absolutely never-ending. He can, however, count the times he didn’t wish for him to be quiet. As of today, that stands at a very solid one.

The birds around them chirp, and the bustle of other people is heard all around them—but they’re the only sounds gracing his ears. There is none of Satoru’s incessant chatter, nor is there even a glimmer of gloating about a job well-done. It’s eerily silent, and Megumi isn’t sure what to make of it. This isn’t quite how he imagined the walk home to go. Far from it, if he’s being honest.

“What’s up with you?”

It’s possibly the first time Megumi decides to break the silence, ever. The boy frowns, and fiddles with the straps of his backpack. There isn’t a middle-ground with Satoru, he has found out. Either he speaks entirely too much, or unnervingly little. There’s a tiny pebble in his path, and Megumi feels the need to kick it forward—so he does.

“I kind of messed up there, huh?”

The kick doesn’t have nearly enough force to it. Megumi watches as the little rock skips forward. Once, twice, and then it comes to a standstill again. “Yeah, kind of,” he agrees.

“I’m sorry,” Satoru rushes out. It’s said so fast, as if it physically pains him to say it. Perhaps it does. It’s sincere, however. There isn’t even a hint of a joke to be found. Something must be bothering him. “It didn’t go how I wanted it to go, and I don’t know why I went astray, and forgot about the cards. It—well, it was pretty stupid.”

Megumi doesn’t exactly feel the need to deny it.

“So, I get it, okay?” He continues, seeing the boy’s silence as an empty space for more conversation—more rambling. Since that’s what it is; rambles, plain and simple. Megumi doesn’t see the need for such a fuss. “I shouldn’t have strayed from the plan, and. . .”

“It’s fine.”

Satoru blinks at him. “What?”

“I said it’s fine,” Megumi repeats. Because it really is fine. Admittedly, it wasn’t smart of Satoru to all but discard your carefully planned presentation, but it ended well enough regardless. No harm, no foul. “Thank you for coming.”

That small, short sentence is enough to stop Satoru in his tracks. Megumi doesn’t, however. The man is very tall, he’s sure to catch up in a jiffy; he doesn’t need him to wait. There’s another small silence, though this one feels a lot more comfortable than the last. Satoru takes his time to process, and Megumi lets him.

“W—What?” The sorcerer stammers in shock. There is no need for Megumi to turn around and see—he can hear the smile curling onto his lips. “Did you just. . .”

“I won’t say it again,” Megumi grumbles definitively, and picks up his pace. The very tips of his ears heat up, and the apples of his cheeks turn red. The feeling of embarrassment. This wasn’t exactly how he’d envisioned it to appear when the day started.

Satoru attempts to run after him, to catch up. “Megumi!” He calls out, the very prominent, very familiar whiney lilt now back in his voice. Megumi didn’t miss it. “Wait for me, I didn’t hear you! Could you repeat that?”

“Yes, you did!” Megumi says, and throws him an annoyed glance from over his shoulder. He tightens his hold on the straps of his backpack. “Stop lying.”

“Nuh uh!”

“What are you? Six?”

Satoru’s toothy grin is infuriating. But—it’s familiar. And Megumi discovers he’s much more at ease when that grin is on display, than when the man in question is moping around. It’s a lot less alarming.

“And a half,” Satoru adds.

The scowl that’s on Megumi’s face appears almost instantly when he goes to ruffle his hair. For a man whose technique largely surrounds being untouchable, he has a surprising lack of awareness concerning this thing called personal space.

“Ugh,” Megumi groans, and pushes him off. It doesn’t work. Satoru gravitates towards him again—almost as if he’s a magnet. He doesn’t attempt to move a second time. In moments like these, it’s best to let Satoru get it all out of his system. “You’re so stupid.”

It’s true. He does think Satoru is stupid, but he can’t deny it—Satoru tried his very best today, and in the days prior. Which makes him one of the very small, barely existent group of people who have done so for him.

It seems one shot was enough, after all.

© MADE BY SANATOMIS — please, refrain from stealing, copying, or reposting any of my works.

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[alwayscorvus]

"Petals of love" - Blade as your boyfriend Part 2

"Petals of love" - Blade as your boyfriend Part 2

Blade x malereader, fluff, soulmate au; requested, Part 1; sorry for the wait but med uni is terrifying sometimes. and thanksss again, that made my day. Hopes its acceptable

Mornings:

In normal work days, when you don't have time to fool around in the shine of a rising sun, you both wake up pretty early.

Blade is an early bird which unfortunately affects you too. He involuntary gets up around 5/6 a.m.

And compared to you, he looks brand-new.

But even when you are sleepy, can hardly open your eyes and all you dream about is to just cuddle into your boyfriend's warm body for a few more hours, Blade shows no mercy.

With a swift motion he gets up from your bed, puts on a nearby shirt, which was hanging on a chair just a minute ago and in a firm voice announces you that it's time to wake up.

Maybe the reason why Blade is so strict is because he's afraid that he'll actually succumb to you and won't get out of your grasp till noon.

And he has a goal. A clearly stated goal. To work hard and successfully complete missions. As many as possible.

And to achieve this, you both need to put yourself together. The earlier the better.

Before just leaving the room, he sticks his finger between your ribs and tells you to not delay.

Still, Blade realizes that your habits are quite different from his. And although he pretends to be demanding, he secretly gives you some blissful extra minutes of sleep. Going to the shared kitchen firstly and leaving you alone.

While you are enjoying your last moments in a soft bed he is already preparing your morning coffee. Black. Strong. This kind that a true warrior should drink. Blade wouldn't allow you to show any weakness.

Or at least that's an official version. When Kafka and Silver aren't looking, he secretly adds a little milk or a pinch of sugar. If that's your preferred version, of course.

When you finally manage to join him, he is already waiting for you with a mug of steaming from heat drink.

By rubbing your eyes you try to fight off last signs of sleepiness.

Thanking, with one hand you receive a gift and with other you grab Blade by waist.

He involuntarily turns his cheek towards you. In order for you to lean over his smaller form and kiss him for a greeting as usual.

Later, when Blade is satisfied, you just lean against the stone countertop.

Your lack of shirt and low-rise sweatpants allow its cold to scratch your back unpleasantly.

You ignore it, however, and ask what your boyfriend is in the mood for.

In this relationship, you are the one responsible for rational eating. If it weren't for you, your "silly" boyfriend would have set off to fight monsters without a breakfast.

And it is obviously impossible to conquer world on an empty stomach.

When he is/you are sick

In this relationship, it is mainly you who take care of his health and try to introduce his life to healthy habits.

Blade is a big and smart boy. He knows that he has to take care of himself if he wants to perform well. But unfortunately, he often forgets that. Or sometimes, worse. He thinks that he deserves a little more pain and suffering.

Hearing this makes you want to punch him for the mere thought of such a thing, and everyone else who in the past led to his present state.

However, you know that currently you can't do anything about it. So you act here and now, by looking after his health and well-being for him.

When he is sick, you literally have to keep him in bed by force. So he doesn't run off to train. And even though he is wrecked by fever, Blade in his “weakened” state is still very strong. After giving him pills and plenty of water, you end up locking him in a tight hug.

Then you sleep for hours. Cuddled together in a bed. Blade is covered with extra thick layers of fluffy duvet to warm up his body.

You stay awake the whole time, never letting him out of your sight. And every now and then you sooth his burning forehead with kisses.

Meanwhile, when you get sick… Blade becomes oddly protective and possessive. He doesn't let anyone into your bedroom. Only he can take care of you, and only he knows how to do it. He prepares cold bandages for you. And what's even more shocking, cooks a ramen. You wouldn't suspect him of having a great culinary talent. But you've never eaten anything better in your life. Maybe because you know it was made by your lover. Or maybe it's because Blade really put an effort into preparing it.

If that weren't enough, Blade demands for you to sit still while he feeds you with his soup. Cooling each spoon beforehand.

What he does for you/Massages

During training, Blade doesn't give you a break. So he can understand when you're tired and everything hurts you afterwards.

He is already used to them, he even likes it at some point. By them he feels alive.

You, however, are something else. He knows it.

Blade has only you. You are the only one that really matters to him. So he has to take care of you.

It is for these reasons why after every difficult training or mission, Blade offers you a massage. Whether it's your back, shoulders or ankles. He always does it in silence and great concentration, with hidden love and great care.

To do this, he uses his own handmade oil. Made from rose petals.

He dips his soft, bony hands into an oily liquid and kneads your sore body in a slow, steady motion. Towards the end, he gently brushes and strokes your skin to prolong your pleasure. Silently thanking himself for protecting his hands under bandages and gloves every day. Thanks to that, despite his constant weapon gripping, his fingertips aren't rough.

When he wears your clothes

Apparently, this is something that couples do. It is also said that your partner looks adorable in your clothes, especially when they are too loose for him. When your shirt reaches halfway down his thighs, almost resembling a dress.

Blade doesn't understand this idea. It's weird, strange.

What's more, Blade doesn't feel the need to “steal” your clothes because he just doesn't like your style. Not that he doesn't find it good-looking. Indeed, you look attractive in things you wear. (from an objective point of view, of course. Blade would never get fooled by your handsome face)

Despite this, however, Blade is a very simple man. That's why, when his part of closet is in a laundry, he suddenly needs to throw something on himself and in his reach he has only your dark sweatshirt or blood maroon shirt, he doesn't think twice.

Second option greatly highlights his good features and depth of eyes. It's really hard for you keep still.

If we are already on subject of clothes... Quick mention about matching clothes. You know Blade enough to know that there is nothing more stupid than suggesting this idea to him. You prefer to keep remnants of dignity in his eyes. You're also no longer a teenager to get excited by such things. But this cultural tradition in some parts of world captivates you. And you want to mark your possessiveness a bit. That's why you've changed the color theme of your closet to match your other half. Dark, black colors with ruby and emerald accents.

Blade never pays attention to this. But Kafka, seeing this, smiles softly to herself.

How he calls you/nicknames

It's probably obvious that Blade wouldn't use any adorable nicknames in a relationship.

The only thing that you can hope for is your name and in the future... maybe a straight "fiance" or "husband".

You can use whatever you simply prefer at a time. As long as it's not "too cute". For "honey bun" and names like that you could expect a dagger in your guts.

You often use a classic "babe" "love" orrr... "hubby".

Holidays and valentine

Blade isn't a person who would celebrate any holidays, especially commercial ones. Sure, he may show respect to deceased ancestors or something like that. But he's not going to decorate a Christmas tree with you, start baking gingerbread houses, light lanterns, or give you any gifts related to valentines day. He's just not the type. Besides, Blade has no time for that.

You respect that. But on such days, you still give him some small gift straight from a heart.

When he has a nightmare

Unfortunately, this happens pretty often. Blade can't get any sleep at night. He regularly gets up even before sunrise, and goes to bed around midnight, if not later. You tried to change that, but no matter what you did it was completely pointless.

Even when you went to bed earlier together, Blade couldn't fall asleep. Despite your "magical" embrace, nothing helped at those moments.

Maybe it was the darkness. Thought about what lurks in the shadows. Past and future. All of Blade's victims. These whose lives he took. And these who were preparing a revenge.

Threat not only to him alone, but to you as well.

Memories wouldn't let him shut his eyes. And even when he finally did manage to fall asleep, he would wake up screaming during the night.

Blade would rise rapidly to a sitting position. And worried you, did exactly the same.

He was breathing heavily. His forehead was covered in sweat. He stared dully at the wall in front of him. As if seeing something in it that you couldn't.

His suffering was killing you. But all you could do at such moments was whisper to him quietly, "Everything will be fine. I'm here. You are not alone. I will never leave you. You are safe with me" and make a slow circles on his back, waiting until his breathing would normalize.

Such situations happened quite often. Especially at the beginning of your relationship. Over time, however, they were less and less frequent.

Presence of a soulmate nearby, healed Blade's wounds slowly.

When you ignore him

Don't. Even. Think. About it. That would make him feel so uneasy. He would start doubting himself. And the idea of him being not enough for you could break him.

You know in fact how fragile his ego is. So even in the hardest moments, when you're fed up or tired, you remember to give him at least a little attention.

His way of being clingy

This definitely doesn't happen often. Especially in Blade's case. But there are times when he seeks your attention. He misses the warmth of another person. Especially after being left thirsty for many years. And soulmate bond also does its job.

At such moments Blade doesn't leave your side.

When you get up from a couch he gets up with you. When you go to the kitchen he goes with you. You don't even have a second for yourself. He is like a shadow. He is able to follow you even to the bathroom. It's a good thing that after a years of relationship, a shower in his company is no more a problem for you.

Blade doesn't say anything, doesn't touch you and doesn't take the lead.

He just takes a seat next to you and waits for you to finally figure it out. Embrace him or put a hand on his thigh. Only then does he feel satisfied and stops " following" you.

In heath of a fight

This was one of those missions when Blade just had to do everything on his own way.

He made plan in his head and just had to fulfil it.

Of course, without consulting you beforehand, or even notifying.

Seeing a threat surrounding Blade from all sides, you were beyond panicked. You started screaming. That he should stop. That he should look out.

You even begged for a signal to retreat.

However, Blade in heat of a battle turned completely deaf to this. Only when he felt a piercing pain in his chest only then he stopped.

He came to his senses. Pushed back opponents that were rushing at him and hurriedly looked at his body. Aside from a blood of his enemies and standard "minor" injuries, he saw nothing suspicious there. At least not a huge hole in his heart which he had just felt.

Urged by a sudden realization, he looked around. And to his horror, he saw something that he definitely didn't want to see. You, protecting his back.

But you were supposed to stay behind. And not take part in it. That precisely how his plan sounded. That way he wouldn't have to constantly look for you and control safety of his other half. By that, he could completely lose himself into a fight and use his 100%. Spreading a total destruction.

However, it didn't occur to him that such turn of events would put him in a great danger.

As it was proven by your arm, pierced straight through.

It was only by this sight that the seriousness of your situation hit him. And he immediately took you out from that massacre you both were in.

You found shelter in some warehouse. Somewhere behind a pile of boxes.

You were sitting on the ground, resting your head heavily against a cold concrete wall. While Blade was between your legs, hugging you tightly. Or rather, you were the one squeezing him with all your strength. Making sure he was all right.

Blade didn't realize it, but if it hadn't been for you, just a few minutes ago, he would now be lying on a battlefield having wounds on all sides. You really had to work hard to prevent anything more serious from happening to him. Your hot-headed boy, definitely miscalculated the backup that came to support your enemies.

You didn't say anything. You didn't even have a strength to argue with him or point out stupidity of his plan. It was pointless. Anyway, you were just happy that he was right there with you. Safe.

You couldn't stop thinking, however, about this possibility that something bad could happen to him. That if you had reacted even a few seconds later. That if it hadn't been for your arm. Blade might have just had his lungs stabbed through… That drove you to pure convulsions.

-Can you… stop? - Blade asked somewhat unsurely but still in scolding voice.

And you turned your gaze to him, filled with confusion.

-I can feel your stress in my chest an it's… not comfotable at all - this time he said that far more confident and sharp.

You, after a moment of realization, laughed lightly. You forgot that some strong emotions can really effect your soulmate.

-I'm right there with you and I'm perfectly fine so stop worrying about me. Better worry about yourself. You are the one with a big hole here.

-I'm sorry love, I'm just really glad that you are safe - you said kissing him on a forehead.

He only blushed slightly and snuggled more into a crook of your neck.

He truly felt safe.

[uzuitengensfourthwife]

Unbearable - Kuroo x (fem) Reader

Summary: Kuroo was UNBEARABLE. No matter the occasion, he always annoyed you and made sure your blood was boiling.

Wordcount: 2219

Warning: Swearwords, otherwise none, besides my bad writing! So enjoy!

Authors note: Soo.. it was definitely time for me to do something with Kuroo as well! I feel like some parts were terribly rushed, however I hope you enjoy it anyways!

A year ago, when you started with Uni, you and your friends found yourselves within a friend group of 6 people. Quite unfortunately tho, Tetsuro Kuroo was part of your friend group as well. The day you've met up until now, he's been nothing but an annoying brat. He did everything in his power to make your blood boil the second he sees you. Be it in a lecture or when you guys hung out with your other friends. Whenever he was close to you, nothing could stop him from annoying the shit out of you.

And this has pretty much held on for the whole year you've known each other. The others seemed to enjoy themselves whenever you two were in the same room, but every remark that came out of his mouth brought you one step closer to punching him in the face.

And today, where you all gathered to get ready for a party together, he made sure to rile you up real good once more.

"Give it back you fucker." you hissed, trying to grab your lipstick from his hand. He ,however, decided to hold the lipstick above his head, grinning down on you. "Too small to get it?" He stuck out his tongue, waving your lipstick around in front of your face. This time, you were fast enough to grab it and to kick his knee, earning yourself quite the painful sigh from Kuroo. You grinned at him, acknowledging your win. "That fucking hurt!" - "Good." You replied, walking past him to finish your make up in front of a mirror.

"You two finished trying to kill each other? We kinda got somewhere to be." A friend of yours asked the both of you, chuckling. "Let's go before they start fighting again." Another friend exclaimed loudly, already opening the door to indicate that you should finally leave to get there on time. And so you did.

Your friends obviously tried to keep you and Kuroo apart, so you wouldn't delay your arrival by an unknowing amount of time. Fortunately for your friends, it worked and you appeared on time for the party.

The party was already quite lively, which made you really stoked. And it wasn't quite a surprise when you've found yourself an occupation shortly after your arrival at the party. It was a guy from your lecture, who actually looked pretty cute. So you definitely didn't mind when he came over to talk to you.

While you were talking to this nice guy from your lecture, you felt someone staring at you from the kitchen, where drinks were made. Yet, you still tried not to pay the staring gal any attention.

"Not to be rude but... du you know him?" - "Huh..?" You looked back, just to be greeted by Kuroo, who seemed to be staring holes in to your back. However, once he realized you were looking at him as well, he made his way towards the two of you. "Hey, think your shirt's dirty." Kuroo said, pointing at the guys shirt, placing himself right behind you. "Huh.. what do you me-" but before the guy was able to talk, Kuroo poured his drink over the guys shirt, which led to a bright red stain on the guys shirt. "Right there." - "What the hell!?" the guy yelled, looking up to Kuroo, who had a grin plastered on his face. The guy, who no longer seemed interested in you, turned around and left, while cursing out loud about Kuroo. He, however, seemed to have found quite the joy from this situation.

"What the hell was that about?" You asked him in a demanding tone. "What? His shirt was dirty." Kuroo shrugged, while looking at you with an unserious expression. You groaned, quite agitated from the little stunt he pulled. Whatever, you thought. "You should be more careful you know?" - "What do you mean?" Without even answering you, he pointed towards your drink. You looked at your drink, while realizing that the guy from before had dropped some pills into your drink, probably while you were looking at Kuroo. "Fuck..." you whispered quietly.

"You're welcome." He grinned, grabbing the drink from your hand, just to pour it in a trash can. "Yeah thanks I guess... you're free to go now." You said, rolling your eyes. "Sure you're able to fend on your own?" - "Yes Kuroo." And with that, you left him standing, there, trying to find yourself another occupation within the party.

You talked to some friends, then to some strangers, but nothing seemed to really interest you.

So, after some time walking around the party, you got quite bored of what was inside. Which is why you decided to go outside to get some fresh air. You immediately walked towards a bench that was close to the house, sitting down all by yourself before looking up to the sky. While observing the stars, your thoughts went back to Kuroo, who before, saved your ass from quite a horrible fate you had almost encountered. You sighed out loud, thanking god that Kuroo was there, before anything bad could happen. Now that you were outside, you realized how much more relaxing it was outside than in there, just quiet and peace.

You wanted to get up again, before you suddenly heard two guys talking, not far behind from you. You tensed up, yet, you decided to just be quiet and try not to listen to their conversation.

Howevere, when you heard Kuroo and you being mentioned, you felt like you were justified to listen to their conversation

"Fucking Kuroo..."

"He's so fucking annoying dude."

They sounded awfully agitated to you, which, honestly? You understood, considering you had to put up with Kuroo's shit almost everyday.

"I couldn't even get to Y/n for fucks sake..."

"I know. He's been glaring at us whenever we even tried to get close to her..."

"They're not dating tho, right?"

"Nah bro. But he has a huge crush on her. It’s so fucking obvious.”

"Damn… prolly just too scared to ask her out then… fuck it’s cold... let's get inside."

And with them leaving to go inside again, you were left there dumbfounded. What the hell did you just hear? There is no way that this was true.. right? There was just no way Kuroo had a crush on you. Not after all the things he did. No way. But then again, you had no clue if what these guys said was false. Or maybe they just misinterpreted the way Kuroo acted towards you and them.

Yet, you weren't really sure what to do or how to react really. All you did know though, was that you were going to try and avoid Kuroo as much as you were able to.

That's exactly what you did. You avoided Kuroo like your life depended on it. Whenever your friends tried to hang out together, you didn't appear, unless Kuroo wasn't there. In lectures you sat as far away from him as possible, even if it meant that you had to sit alone during some lectures. You did everything in your power to avoid him and it definitely worked for a week straight.

Until he decided himself, that he had enough of your childish bullshit. It was a quite uneventful Monday, where you tried to avoid Kuroo, just like you did the past week. After your last lecture, you decided you’d go to a café close to your Dorm, so you could pass some time there. As you were about to leave the building, you saw Kuroo standing right next to the exit. Without giving it a second thought, you did a 180 and immediately went the other way. But it was no use, because Kuroo had seen you turn around and walk away from him.

It was no use after all, because quite unfortunate for you, Kuroo was faster than you. So, right before you were able to run out another exit, he grabbed your wrist, pulling you back to him. “You’ve been avoiding me.” He pointed out, making sure you weren’t able to run away from him. “Ugh… no… I’ve just got an appointment…!” You lied, nervously smiling at him. To your reply, he raised an eyebrow, seemingly not convinced of your lie. “Uh huh. And that’s why ran away from me?” - “I wasn’t running away from you..! I just realised I was.. going the wrong way.” You argued back, finger pointing at the door you were about to exit. A sigh escaped his mouth, while he rubbing his temple in an annoying manner. “Yuki’s hosting a dinner tonight. Are you joining? “ - “No.. no I’m afraid not..” you replied quietly, looking away.

He then let go of you and without even saying anything else to you, he left. You watched him walk down the hallway, letting out a sigh of relief.

—

You felt bad for not joining Yuki’s dinner tonight, but you just couldn’t face Kuroo at the moment. A sigh escaped your lips as you sat down on the couch of your dorm, tunring on the TV to watch some lame series. While watching the series, you thought of the night of the party again, remembering the two guys who you heard talking about Kuroo and you. It felt as if you still heard them talking.

He has a huge crush on her. It’s so fucking obvious.

There was no way Kuroo had a crush on you. You were sure there was another reason he glared at them, probably just to prevent you from getting hurt, since you almost got drugged at the party… right? Yeah, that must’ve been it, because the way Kuroo acted towards you would indicate everything ,but him having a crush on you. You laughed to yourself, imagining how insanely silly it would be if Kuroo Tetsuroo had a crush on you. You bit your lip, turning off your TV, groaning to yourself.

Wait. Were you disappointed… that he might not have a crush on you? God no. You hated his guts, especially when he got on your nerves. And most definitely when he made fun of you. You hated him, you knew. Or… did you really?

You were about to scream out loud, when the doorbell rang out of the sudden. Getting up, with a visibly confused expression on your face, you made your way to the door. You weren’t expecting anyone. At least, you dont remember inviiting anyone over. So when you opened the door and Kuroo was standing in front of you, you almost passed out on the spot. Your first instinct was to just slam the door in his face, which did not end up quite as successful as you thought it would be.

Oh no, he held the door open by force. “You’re really driving me nuts, Y/n.” he hissed, making his way inside your dorm, slamming the door shut behind him. “What the hell?!” You yelled, seemingly confused why he was here in the first place.

“Oh you have nothing to be mad about.” He snapped, while walking dangerously close to you. “You’re fucking killing me Y/n.” You took a few steps back until you suddenly felt the door behind you. He did not back off, quite the opposite, he camee just as close as he was able to get without completley pressing you against the door. “What are you on about Kuroo…?” - “Quit toeing with my emotions, love. You sure can’t be that oblivious.” A soft, yet dangerous chuckle escaped his lips while he hovered above you. “You’re driving me crazy, and you sure as hell made it worse by trying to avoid me all week.”

This, had to be dream. There is no way in hell that this was just hapenening to you. You quietly looked up to him, not really knowing how to answer him.

You thought of something you could say to him, but he left you no time, when he crashed his lips onto yours. As if it was your second nature, your arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer to you. His hands moved to your waist, trying to get you even closer than you already were. The kiss deepened within seconds and you could swear, you’ve never experienced something as sensual at this.

Once he pulled away from you, he grinned down at you like an idiot who had just won the lottery. Your face on the other hand, flushed red. “Awe look at you, are we getting shy?” He mocked, placing a short kiss on your lips. “Oh shut up you idiot.” You said, slightly hitting his chest which lead to him pretending you hurt his poor feelings.

“So… I heard you had a crush on me?” - “Well, obviously my dear. I’m just quite surprised you never noticed.” He answered slyly, squeezing your sides. You shook your head, replying to his comment. “Well you surely annoyed the shit out of me!” - “And that’s exactly what I thought would make it obvious.”

You roll your eyes, yet you had the biggest grin on your face. As he was about to make a remark, you shut him up by pulling him into another kiss.

Kuroo wasn’t as unbearable as you thought after all.

[jolenes-doppelganger]

Reflected Through the Looking Glass (Part Two)

Lucifer Morningstar (The Sandman) x fem! Reader

NSFW 18+- MINORS WHO INTERACT CAN AND WILL BE BLOCKED.

Summary: Lucifer’s pretty little angel learns a few things; never trust too quickly, and never judge a book by its cover. Hell isn't welcoming, Mother is nowhere to be found, and trouble has a knack for finding the Reader throughout the maze of twisted answers and lies. Is Lucifer truly the savior Reader was looking for, or merely a demented shell of what they were created to be? (Too many 'hell' puns).

Warnings: A little angsty, sensuality used as a form of manipulation. Brief smut (simulated masturbation R receiving, nipple play R receiving, groping R receiving), mild elements of dub-con (Reader gives verbal consent but has limited knowledge of what sex is and what it contains), confusion regarding post-coitus/ sexual activity [Adding in additional info regarding the very brief smut scene just to be safe. It is quick and practically glossed over, PWP.]

A/N: The LONG awaited part two! This series is still not finished, unfortunately my first semester at Uni really took a lot of time and energy out of me. I appreciate everyone's patience and understanding. It appears that my writing slump is momentarily abating, and I am better coping with managing my courses and other adulting things. Anyways, comments and feedback are ALWAYS appreciated and welcome. :)

Word Count: 2.1k

The morning of this sacrilegious place took away the mysticism and otherworldly nature of Lucifer’s domain. The screams that were once eerie and fear-inducing felt... Old. Lucifer's arms that had once been inviting and calming paled in comparison to the safety Mother's gnarled hands had given. Hell was hell. It smelled awful, you realized, curling your face deeper into the bedsheets. Sulfur and other dastardly concoctions of filth drifted upward into the room from the open window. Lucifer stood in front of the window, their hands clenching against the dark stone.

"Little one, come here." they sighed.

Sliding out of bed your feet made clumsy progress, and you managed to stumble over towards them, much to their amusement.

"Like a wee lamb, precious." Lucifer cooed, bringing you into their arms.

The embrace was... Restrained. Lucifer pulled the robes tighter around you, frowning in distaste.

"You should cover yourself more, my love." the quietly scolded.

You chewed your lip in anxiety, pausing when you felt the sting of your busted lip that was still healing. Lucifer was... Off somehow. The warm protector had changed into a preoccupied guardian, their thoughts elsewhere.

"You need a name."

The thought was odd. Surely you had a name... Right? Mother would have named you, you were 'little one'. That's what Lucifer called you too.

"I have a name." you answered, brow quirked naively.

Lucifer's gaze darkened, nostrils flared as they breathed in and out rapidly.

"What do you mean? Who named you?" they demanded, gaze growing dangerous.

It was scary, this sudden shift in behavior. Surely it was not aimed at you? Regardless of the intent of their anger, you shrunk away, raising your wings and covering yourself like a frightened bird.

"I'm 'little one'. That's what Mother calls me. It's what you call me too." you whispered, eyes filled with fear.

Lucifer immediately softened, laughing good-naturedly. They gently reached for you, combing your hair back, cradling your face affectionately.

"Oh, sweet one, that's just a pet name. No, a name is a title. It signifies ownership of creation. And you, my sweet one, were created for me."

You nodded at the notion, turning it over in your head. There was a hang up, naturally. You were created by Mother. Surely Mother would name you?

"What do you mean, I was created for you?"

Lucifer pursed their lips for a moment, considering their response.

"There is another power in this world. A deity, of sorts. I am both that deity's and Mother's creation. But you are entirely Mother's creation. And you were created as my counterpart, a reward for my allegiance to this other deity."

The story made sense, and the slow, methodical way with which Lucifer spoke complimented your ignorance surrounding the world around you. Most things you could piece together from what you'd observed in the century or so you'd been awake. But larger things involving higher powers and domains still confused you.

"Your counterpart?"

Lucifer smiled, bringing you into their arms.

"My other half, my partner, my beloved, my everything." they cooed.

Partner. Well that was a twist.

An impish creature shrieked into the room, jumping and bristling like it was on fire.

"Your imminence, their has been a breach!" the imp shouted, cutting short the tender moment.

Lucifer scowled, shielding you from the gaze of the imp.

"What have I said about barging in when I am with my angel?" Lucifer growled. "She is for me, she is *mine*, she is not for your eyes or anyone else's! I should have you beaten!"

The imp whined, it's ears flattening against the back of it's head. It was a sickeningly sad sight, and it made your heart ache.

"Lucifer, it did not mean it," you defended the poor creature, looking up at the leader of Hell imploringly.

Their gaze went hard, and you feared for a moment that they were going to reprimand you too, but it was for naught. Instead they reached forward bringing you in.

"My angel is very accommodating of other's mistakes." they gently mused. "But the imp has made a serious transgression against my beloved in the name of haste. I will take your views into consideration, but I must attend both to the breach and to the disobedience that runs rampant."

Lucifer turned themselves, hooking a finger under your chin. They seemed to consider you deeply, blue eyes skimming over your features. Then, with a slight smirk, they leaned forward, placing a slow, wet kiss on your lips.

"I'll see you soon, beloved."

Lucifer gracefully released you from their grasp, following the whimpering imp out of the room. Though without activity, you were occupied extensively by the whirlwind of thoughts racing through your head. Lucifer was not some protector, not like Mother had been. They were your partner, and according to Lucifer, you'd been made for them. What was the word they'd used? Counterpart? Counter; against or corresponding to. Part; apart, a piece of something. You were corresponding to part of Lucifer, or perhaps you were a piece that connected to the whole part. The extensive thinking of the eccentricities of words and meanings gave you a slight head ache. Never before had you so deeply analyzed such a simple bit of information.

Mother had always promised you a day sometime in the distant future where you would join her outside of the cradle, where you would be allowed to walk and fly amongst her and her creations, helping her with the Earth and it's many duties. That day had been yesterday... Except... You'd been forcefully taken from the cradle by the dryads. Yes, that is what happened. You'd been afraid, the dryads had been afraid. The outer world had burned and creaked, there had been screaming, destruction, and from that pain Lucifer had appeared.

From one trauma to another, Lucifer had removed you from the good, the safe, the dependable, and thrust you into a world of pain, confusion, and obscurity. Lucifer's domain was that of pain and suffering, you realized. The pain and suffering of Mother's domain had arrived shortly after them. What kind of hell had they thrown you into?

<------------->

"Sweet thing, you seem to be quite the thinker." Lucifer mused, drawing a hand over your shoulder.

You'd spent the hours they'd been away pacing and concerning yourself with the dilemmas of both your situation and awareness. Your body had begun to catch up with your mind, although both were advancing at rapid, nearly blinding rates.

"I have a lot to think about."

Lucifer chuckled at this.

"You need a name, little one. That is what you should be thinking about. I've decided on the perfect one, you need only say 'yes'."

Having a choice in your own name? Surely it was an illusion.

"I see." you nodded, twitching your wings in thought.

"From here on, you will be called (Reader)." Lucifer whispered, bending down to press a kiss on your ear. "You're mine now. I've named you, and that makes you every bit my creation and my beloved."

Their logic felt skewed. You were skeptical, but Lucifer tolerated it.

"Come, dear. I believe it is time we explore the benefits of this relationship."

Their hands trailed down resting on your hips, pulling your back against their front. Lips remained hot on your ear, and an unfamiliar feeling stirred in the pit of your belly.

"Little angel, my little (Reader), do you know what being my counterpart means?"

You shook your head, 'no'.

"It means that we share things with each other that no one else does. Do you remember that kiss from earlier? That's an example of something you only give me. And when we took the bath together? All of your beauty is for me to see, and me only."

Possessiveness vibrated from every conceivable pore of their body. The large, sinewy black wings bore down upon you, covering your soft, pale white wings, hiding them from the light. It was both a metaphor and a reality. Lucifer had taken you from the light, they had taken you from your rightful place among the good, natural things of Mother's Earth and brought you down into the recess of this hellish province.

"You took me away from Mother." you stubbornly retorted.

Lucifer paused at this, their breath ghosting moisture upon your neck.

"I did, but only because you belong here with me." they answered, kissing your neck sensually.

The action caused your breath to hitch. It felt good. Strange, a little unwelcome in it's profound effect on your body, but good.

"Do it again." you asked, curious to see if the stimulation would have a similar effect the second time.

Lucifer chuckled, placing a longer, wetter, sinfully erotic kiss on the other side of your neck. It did have a similar effect, but the feeling from earlier fused with the added arousal, and it seemed to cloud your senses.

"See..? I told you that we were made for each other. No one knows your body like I do. Nobody can please it like I could."

Their hands trailed to the tie of your robe, jerking it down.

"This body? It was made for me. Everything I could desire, everything I could ask for in a partner is right here.

They kissed your neck again, nibbling and sucking the flesh intermittently. The feelings growing in your lower abdomen, you believed it was referred to as your womb or pelvic floor, grew. Leaning against them, you watched with interest as they trailed their hands over your stomach.

"Can I touch your breasts?" Lucifer crooned.

You frowned, but then you nodded. The devil chuckled, reaching up to cup them. It was a generically pleasant feeling, and then they slowly began circling their thumbs over your nipples. The sensation was odd, for the first few moments, and then it became pleasurable. Sensation travelled down to your core, and it amazed you that such places could be connected so. Lucifer hummed in approval, continuing to plant slow kisses over your neck.

"Does your pelvic area feel funny?"

You nodded. It ached, in a both exciting and frustrating way. Lucifer smirked, dipping their hand down, resting it right above your pubic mound.

"May I?"

"Yes."

Long, thin fingers parted your labia, a finger slowly circling around a bud. It was the clitoris. It felt good, and you let out a soft gasp, followed by a moan. Lucifer chuckled, continuing to rub slow circles around the bud. Your mind grew foggy from that point on. One hand squeezing your breast, pinching your nipple, the other rubbing slow circles over your clit. A rising sensation, like an incoming tide drew over you, and bliss. A few soft moments of bliss, like a release.

"Good..." they cooed. "Very good."

Your brain felt foggy, your legs were tired. The added strain of the experience combined with the exhaustion of using them for such prolonged periods caused them to ache. Lucifer carried you into the bath, climbing in with you like the night previous. Few thoughts circled your head as they washed you. Most of them were conflicting. The act of sex... Had it been sex? You weren't sure. It had felt good, but it hadn't felt... Natural. Moreso you felt a little used, like Lucifer had manipulated your body to avoid more questions regarding Mother, regarding the world around you.

As their soft hands washed away the minimal dust from you, an overwhelming urge to cry came over you. Tears poured down your cheeks, and you found yourself briefly wishing that you could go back to Mother. Briefly wishing turned into profusely wishing. Lucifer's hands did little to console you, and for the first time you saw a flicker of doubt cross their features. You weren't supposed to be crying, what you had just shared had been pleasurable, good.

"Honey, sweet lamb, I didn't mean to confuse you." Lucifer whispered, stroking your back desperately. "That was supposed to be good, a loving thing to share... I've screwed up, I'm sorry."

Eventually the tears subsided. The bathtub turned into garments. Garments turned into food. This time you noticed the sourness of the fruit, like it was on the verge of going bad. The small seeds got stuck in your teeth. You winced as you spit them out. This time you noticed the insecurity of Lucifer's embrace. Cracks were showing. Lies were unravelling. But which ones, whether they were lies you could even guess upon, those were unsure.

<------------>

Far above Hell, Mother crawled from the cradle. Her Earth remained charred, the fields remained lifeless, and a low growl came from her lips.

"Where is Kore?"

A/N: SURPRISE!!! Greek mythology infused with Christian lore? Who would do such a thing?

Tags: @vii-v @s-c-rambledegggs @lakita-fisher @kermidd5 @popularpop

[LMK if you want to be tagged in future parts]

[eva-does-its-best]

Transition is going great, it is genuinely saving my life, it's just unfortunate that it is happening at what could be one of the worst parts of my life.

Huge vent tw: self harm, abuse, sexual trauma

Hormones are the only purchase I can make every month, I don't have a job, our bank account ends up negative multiple times every month. I have a security camera in my room because my father is an alcoholic and my sister a junkie and they've stolen money from me since I was a child, they singlehandedly ruined our whole family but we can't even get rid of them because she has children and he pays the rent.

I try to accept my disability now that it got worse but despite the pain and frailness of this body they won't give me any help. Would diagnoses of my mental illnesses help convince them? Too bad, psychologists don't want to diagnose anything, they prefer trying to gaslight me into thinking nothing is wrong.

Clearly nothing is wrong when every time I make someone upset by mistake I whip my back until I can't feel it anymore; when I can't go to uni class because eventually I always get depressed and then my body takes over and makes me miss class against my will; and many other things.

I spend the days alone in my room because none of my friends ever visit me, and the most important people in my life live too far away and I may never see them. The people whose existance makes me want to try to have a life despite the constant feeling that I'm dying (thanks to doctors for saying that since I was 6) and despite the fact that I've never wanted a life before. Is a simple hug too much to ask? I miss you even when I am speaking with you.

5 years on an abusive relationship, trying to be good and safe and accomodating my whole life to a person who took all her life's and studies' stress and threw it at me every day, who sexually treated me like a biohazard and an afterthought despite demanding so much from me, who yelled at me so often I flinched every time her hand went near my face, who never even tried to understand my disabilities or support me with them in any way, who months after dumping me and being radio silent CALLED ME just to tell me how many people she had fucked and how she got raped only to then go silent again. I had to take YEARS to heal from all of that, terrified of people, unable to want, feeling like a monster and in danger at the same time just for having sexual thoughts. And now that I can finally attempt to trust someone again everyone I love is too far and fuck I feel so alone.

Do I demand too much? I really just want someone I like and love, I want to be cared for for once in my life, I want patience and understanding with how little control I have over my emotions, I want to take care of someone and make them happy, I want someone who doesn't take any recreational drugs, I want to stop suffering every day. I know I am a fucking huge burden, do I not deserve love? Do I even deserve to dream of being alive?

[1141520851813892291920]

ENT0012

RE: Dreams, hunger, and...libraries.

Apologies to anyone reading this if my words are...difficult to parse. It is difficult for me to write them. My compositional skills seems to have been affected strongly by whatever malaise I'm currently plagued with.

I feel...exhausted. My head is still throbbing. It's as though I've been hit with a full body migraine. It feels like I've just been on a bender - I haven't been hungover since uni, but this feeling is upsettingly close. The headache, the nausea, the stiffness in my joints and soreness in my muscles...the overwhelming sensation that you are just about to vomit but never do. I feel my eye twitching and my hands shake as I type this. No amount of hydration and pain medication seem to be effective. I'm tempted to rifle through Jon's medicine cabinet, I'm sure he has something to at least ease my symptoms a little bit.

Regardless -

As reluctant as I am to admit it, it would appear that Gerry is correct regarding the...altered state...I assume when I am...hungry.

It is the most delectable and destructive binge cycle, an addiction and craving that simultaneously drains and fulfills. And like all addictions, it leaves me starving for more. More and more and more, the hunger inside me demands I pursue and consume until my body cannot physically stand it, and even still it pushes and pushes pushes.

It was due to this craving that I found myself in the library - not the one I work at, but the public library. The staff there always is happy to see Jon, it seems, he is a staple there of sorts. Before, he would come in almost daily, chat with the staff, exchange book recommendations and petty gossip - I'm sure they wonder at "his" new less than sunny disposition. One of them asked after me, offered assistance and "anything I can do to help". That same employee was the one to greet me this visit, and I requested access to their own archive - typically a closed collection that requires staff supervision to access, and only by appointment. Jon, however, is apparently an exception to this rule; whether by virtue of his own position working with rare and special collections or a personal connection with library staff, I do not know. I am not going to question it too thoroughly though, as it got me the access I required.

The local library's archive is in the basement of the central branch, in a dark room with humming overhead fluorescent lighting and a concrete floor that is prone to flooding. The stacks are tall and close together - not the open and accessible structure of the stacks above - but claustrophobic and daunting. The books seem to watch you as you enter, and the feeling of being observed is enough to make you snap your neck for checking behind you constantly.

It is...a comforting, familiar feeling. I felt more relaxed in that moment than I have for a while now, knowing that whatever was Watching me, I was Watching it back. I felt the stacks welcome me, embrace me, coax me in with sweet whispers of long forgotten knowledge and like a moth to flame I followed, allowing it to consume me as I would soon be consuming it.

That is, unfortunately, the...last thing I clearly remember. The rest of the day was spent in a blur of crumbling old paper, the smell of ink and dust and blood, the furious and unbreakable feeding. The more books I devoured, the stronger I became, the more fervid and energized and demanding; from the darkest corners of this place I pried centuries old documents full of forgotten names and statements. I could feel their ghosts inside me, part of me now, revived by the despicable necromancy of remembrance. If I want, I can still hear their voices speaking to me, though it makes my headache worse.

I...am not sure how long I was there. I seem to have lost an entire day of time, if not longer. At some point I must've fallen asleep, as I remember the dreaming - the dreams of Watching those that have fed my hunger. I walked the corridors of a House that is not correct, I sat inside the suffocating toybox, I saw the colors shift and twist and laugh, I saw claws and teeth ripping flesh and running through the forest, I heard the buzzing of a million flies, I watched as the beast executed the immaculately strategized murder, and I watched as a familiar but strange face awoke me in the library so that I could Watch him, too, as he gave himself to the power that calls to him.

It wasn't until...sometime...this morning? Yesterday? I'm not entirely certain, but at some point, the friendly library staff member shook me awake, her face stern but concerned. She told me I had to leave, and I didn't resist, I don't think I could've, the state I was in. She had threatened to call emergency services, I apparently looked terrible. It seems as though the library staff believed me to have gone on some sort of drug induced bender - the kind that made me lose my mind and tear through the archives leaving a mess of paper and blood in my wake.

Today I received a letter in the mail informing me that I've been banned from all public library locations for a period of 3 months.

I think I've gotten everything I needed from there, though. After all...

I ate their entire Archive.

And it does not want leftovers.

[bfish]

Hi! Idk why I’m telling you this here, when I could just as well comment on ao3 (which I did, do, already). But this feels more important, and I just wanted to convey so bad how much A Man Passing Between Two Bombs Told Me touched me.

I’m not a sad person (and I hope you’re not, but if you are I hope you’re not alone). I don’t usually cry over books or whatever some such. But that story. It ripped something in me, or showed me a hole in my heart I never knew existed. It wasn’t painful so much as beautiful in its absence. Like staring in the galaxy, the abyss and crying — not because it’s sad but because it’s empty and infinite.

Like… reading this (once, twice, three times) made me cry. Every time. And I smiled, I was smiling that small, secret, inescapable smile you make when you don’t know how else to react but can’t stop the tears from flowing.

I think it was beautiful. In its prose, in its composition, in its characters… it will haunt me, like the ghost of an old love you can’t even regret because every single instant was worth the pain.

(… if I am to ask a question — I have no idea what kind of etiquette tumblr demands, nor how to interact with strangers on the internet, I am, for the most part, a lurker — will you be my friend?)

hi !!!!!!!!!!! sorry this is a month late .

ive actually been thinking about your ask every day but ive been so busy and losing my mind and only online for five minutes daily and i forgot to get back to you .thank you for taking the time to read the fic, comment and write to me !!! im happy you liked it, that means a lot to me :') unfortunately for all involved i am very sad and very alone .this fic was really personal, mostly because i dont know how to write things that i havent been through/have not happened to me, but also because the entire document was literally me writing whenever i needed to say things and had no one to talk to, which is very miserable and sad to think about but in a funny type of way (to me at least) .im trying to talk to people now . or at least leave my house. it's sort of working, i think. i just want to say that i am glad it made you feel something . thats important to me when i make art so ! i appreciate you writing to me about it . sorry for making you cry. but its kind of like hmmmm we are sitting together so its okay to cry. its kind of like that ←saying nonsense but also meaning it . again, i'm really glad you liked it. i wrote it over ten months, because half the time i was staring at the doc and not actually writing it, and i wasnt going to share it because my target audience is always me and i was like who else would want to read about heart failure funtimes, so i continue to be surpised whenever someones like hey ! this fic. like ohhh yeah hi .i like mu qing and i like making him cry and i like oversharing in fic form on the internet . all normal stuff .sorry this is incoherent i havent slept properly in about two months (uni, u know how it is) but ! if you dont mind my very, very . very slow replies ! please feel free to dm me anytime :) i'd love to talk !

[thegamingempire]

Sims 4 - Legacy challenge!

Generation one! Partners in crime

When I was a child, my parents were often absent, leaving my older brother with the responsibility of raising me. Unfortunately, he was frequently unavailable due to his demanding schedule in university and medical school. This left me with a lot of free time and no one to turn to. To gain attention, I resorted to mischievous behavior and began stealing items from my parents and brother's rooms, just to see if they would notice.

As I grew older, my skills at stealing improved, and I started venturing out into the streets to steal more significant items. Surprisingly, I never got caught, and my parents remained unaware of my activities. I continued living this way, relying on my own abilities and never relying on anyone else.

As an adult, I joined the criminal underworld and dated several people throughout my life, but I never found true love until I married my best friend. Together, we had two children, and I tried my hardest to be there for them, unlike my own parents. However, we faced many challenges as we constantly moved to different cities to escape the police.

As I and my partner reached our elder years, we retired and settled in Willow Creek near the bridge. This is where we spent the rest of our lives together, happy and content. Despite the difficult circumstances of my childhood, I was able to find love, start a family, and retire in a peaceful place.

Rules/Things you need to do :D Start as a young adult (or if you want you can play through from baby your choice!)

Must still be living with parents and older brother until the parents pass on  

Go to Uni for Villainy 

(If you don't have University you can just go straight into the career when you are a young adult)

Join the criminal career

Complete the Criminal career  (Boss Branch) 

Traits: Kleptomaniac, Jealous, Ambitious ( and if you have more CAS traits:  Hot-headed and Romantic)

Aspiration: Soulmate

Career: Criminal (Boss Branch)

To complete! :

Master Criminal career and complete Soulmate aspiration

Master mischief and Charisma skills

Be the partner of 3 sims at different times 

Marry your Co-worker/Best friend (Must work in the Oracle branch) 

Have two children (Doesn't have to be with the partner you marry)

Retire to willow creek 

Stay with your partner till death do you part

[coloursflyaway]

I've been working my way through your AMAZING fic and saw you take prompts? I'd love a brotzly fic where they have to go under cover as a couple to a wedding or similar

First of all, thank you so much, I am glad you enjoy it! ♥ And then, yes, of course, here you go, although it turned out a little bit different that the prompt… I hope you don’t mind too much.

Seal My Fate

Pairing: Dirk Gently/ Todd Brotzman

Rating: T

Words: 3.777

Or: Todd Brotzman wouldn't know a date if it bit him on the ass.

„Cominghere was really the most splendid idea, Todd“, Dirk tells him for the thirdtime that day, and Todd can just so resist rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t really an idea”, he tells the other, stuffs his hands into thepockets of his suit. He hates wearing it, the fabric too stiff to feelcomfortable, but back in the days when Amanda was still speaking to him morethan for the occasional quick text or call, she had assured him he looked good init. Or rather, hot as fuck, big bro,in her words. “I just got an invitation.”

“Still.”Dirk, as always, is absolutely undeterred by his words, smiles to himself andfollows Todd through the pews. He looks different today, his leather jacketreplaced by a grey suit with some kind of subtle plaid pattern on it, the onlysplash of colour a tie that reminds Todd vaguely of someone killing a flamingoand wrapping it around Dirk’s neck. All in all, he looks, for his standards, atleast, normal. “You decided to bring me, which I am certain the invitation said nothing of,and that was very good thinking on your part.” Dirk looks happy enough withthat explanation and Todd knows protesting won’t change anything, but stilltries. “It did say “plus one” so…” He shrugs, and Dirk stops for a moment, obviouslythinking, then his face lights up again; he’s found the solution to a problemthat really isn’t one. “You could have brought Farah!”, he exclaims, looking more satisfied than agrown man should possibly be allowed to. “But you didn’t. A very wise choice,really. Oh! Who knows, we might find a case here! Or rather, the case mightfind us! We should try and blend in, very sneaky, so they don’t notice –“

At thispoint, Todd does what he does more often than he’d ever admit (amongst otherthings; there are a lot of things he would never admit, most of them having todo with Dirk), he stops listening and instead ponders something Dirk has saidbefore. Farah. He could have brought her, absolutely. She would have been the logical choiceto take with him to a wedding, a gorgeous, witty, if strange woman, who couldhave protected him from any and all kinds of attacks, such as unwanted smalltalk or those tiny mayonnaise-covered shrimps the waitresses keep offering him.Dirk is useless at that, talks to everyone who just looks in their directionand has eaten his body weight in hors d’oeuvres before the actual ceremony haseven started. And yet, he didn’t even consider asking Farah, but had gone to Dirk straightaway, had basked in the glow of the other’s smile when Todd asked him to come.

Heremembers that smile well, the way it had made Dirk’s eyes shine even morebrightly than usual, the exact pitch of the other’s voice when he had agreed,the – Todd shakes his head slightly, banning the thought from his mind. Thereare some things that he won’t ever admit, but even more things that heabsolutely refuses to think about.

Fortunately,he doesn’t have to, is saved by two people he didn’t think he’d ever see againjust three weeks ago: a lanky man in his late twenties with hair of the mostboring shade of brown imaginable and more freckles than should fit on a singleface, but an impossibly kind smile, and a woman with dark skin and hair dyed somany different, clashing colours that it looks like Todd imagines Dirk’scloset. Andrew, former bassist of the little known, but still very good Indie band The Mexican Funeral, and hissoon-to-be-wife and former band member, Mindy.

“Todd”,Andrew greets him, smiling a smile Todd does not deserve. “I’m glad you couldmake it.”Mindy nods and smiles at him as well, although this is a smile he does deserve– polite, but not very pleased. It’s not hard to figure out who insisted oninviting Todd. “Me too. Thank you again for the invitation, I didn’t – well. You know.”He sounds as awkward as he feels, which at least seems to please Mindy; Andrewpretends that he doesn’t notice. To say something, anything, really, that isn’tan apology, Todd gestures to his right, to Dirk, starts, “This is Dirk Gently,by the way. He’s –““I’m his date”, Dirk finishes the sentence for him, extends a hand, his smileso bright Todd can hear it even over how utterly dumbfounded he is. Date? “And I am so glad to meet you.Todd doesn’t really speak much about anything to do with The Mexican Funeral, so it’s great to meet someone who might do soinstead. I am terribly interesting in, oh, anything to do with his past,really. And such a joyous occasion as well! I truly do wish you all the luck inthe world.”

The couplein front of them looks as confused as Todd feels, but Andrew is the politestperson Todd has ever met, so he takes Dirk’s hand and shakes it. “Dirk, uh, good to meet you too. I didn’t know that – well, I suppose it’s beensome time. Anyway. We’ll see you two around, alright?”Todd nods, not sure if he remembers how to speak, and they leave; the word date still echoes in Todd’s mind. Adate? Could this be considered a date? Of course, they dressed up, and Toddsupposes that a wedding could be considered romantic, but - He doesn’t get any further with that train of thought, because his brainsupplies him with a memory that clears everything up instantly: Dirk talkingabout a case, about blending in, being sneaky. And of course, that is all it isand can be. Explaining that he is a holistic detective who is looking for a mystery tosolve would cause a commotion, most likely, and definitely be the end ofblending in and being sneaky. But there are couples all around, so what betterdisguise to use?

Todd looksover at Dirk, all spruced up, with his hair perfectly coiffed and his tie alittle bit crooked, and tries to ignore that his heart feels like it’sbreaking.

They taketheir seats and the wedding begins, Mindy and Andrew both glowing withhappiness, stumbling and stuttering and sobbing out their vows, and, unknown toanyone but himself, Todd suffers from a series of heart attacks when somewherein between, Dirk reaches out and laces their fingers together.

“So how didyou meet?”, Dirk asks and almost bodily pushes some other felicitator out ofthe way to sidle up to Mindy and Andrew. The two of them are sharing a flute ofchampagne and a piece of cake, and are apparently too deliriously happy to mindTodd and his not-date intruding. “At band practice”, Andrew answers, hardly missing a beat, which is quiteimpressive. He turns to his wife, beaming at her like he is seeing her for thevery first time. “Because of Todd, actually. He had put an ad in the paper and theboth of us showed up. I was sure that Mindy hated me at first, until I figuredout that it was just all that eyeliner that made it seem like she wanted tomurder me.”

“I wasstaring at him the whole time, that’s what he means”, she butts in, soundingmore content than Todd has ever heard her, even after being in the same bandfor nearly three years. He might not have any right to do so, but Todd stillfeels happy for them. “Couldn’t believe that someone so cute wanted to even bein the same room as me, let alone smile at me and try to make incrediblyawkward jokes.”“She laughed at them though!”, Andrew clarifies with a chuckle, presses a kissto Mindy’s cheek. Todd’s own cheek aches jealously. “What about you? How didyou meet?”

There is amoment in which Todd panics, proper, vicious fear clutching at his throat, butDirk just smiles his most charming smile and doesn’t notice that Todd almostdies right on the spot when he takes his hand once more. Through the fog ofpanic, longing and confusion, Todd registers that Dirk’s thumb is softlybrushing over his knuckles. “Oh, it’s quite a different story, that!”, Dirk replies easily, like he has toldthe tale a hundred times already. “I broke into Todd’s apartment one night – Ihad… seen him before, and I just had the strangest hunch that he’d beimportant. It wasn’t the most conventional way of courting someone, I have toadmit, but it worked. And I was right. He turned out to be the most important thingthat ever happened to me.”He turns to face Todd, who wishes he could just close his eyes, because seeingDirk like this is almost painful. His eyes are blue and gentle, filled with somethingTodd can only describe as devotion, love sparking from them; he looks soearnest Todd could almost trick himself into believing him.

Who wouldhave thought that Dirk Gently was any good as an actor?

He stillhasn’t looked away when Andrew chuckles and saves him, ruins the moment. “I would say that is quite romantic, if strange… and possibly illegal”, hecomments, and Todd finally turns to look at him, feeling his cheeks heat up tothe point where he’s fairly certain he’s running a fever. “Oh, Todd, there’s no need to be embarrassed”, he continues, obviously noticinghis discomfort and interpreting it horribly wrong. “We always kind of suspectedthat – well. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Now that you’ve found eachother. I’m happy for you.”Andrew sounds genuine, and even Mindy is smiling at him, and the thought hemight have earned just the slightest bit of their forgiveness feels too good toprotest, or say anything at all. So Todd just nods, swallows thickly, and wonders why Dirk keeps stroking hisknuckles when no one will see.

“Do youwant to dance?”, Dirk asks suddenly, and Todd isn’t quite certain how manymetaphorical deaths it will take until he really, actually dies, but ratherconvinced he will find out before the day is over. Dirk is standing next to him, the fairy lights decorating the garden aroundthem making his eyes shine, his skin glow golden. He isn’t beautiful, becauseit’s still Dirk, and Dirk is skinny and awkward, just handsome instead ofirresistible, but he doesn’t have to be, because he knocks the breath right outof Todd’s lungs anyway.

And thereit is, spelt out so clearly in the pounding of his heart that Todd cannotpretend he doesn’t see it anymore, a truth: he might only have known DirkGently for a few, short months, but sometime along the world, Todd has givenhim his heart.

“Yeah,okay”, he mutters, and Dirk beams at him, extends a hand, and for the firsttime since they got here, it’s Todd who clasps his fingers around the otherman’s; the fluttering, uneasy feeling in his stomach is the same.“Oh, good. I thought that it would probably be the appropriate thing to askyour date, judging by everyone around us.” Dirk grips his hand tighter andpulls him onto the dancefloor, where, he is right, at least a dozen couples areswaying to the music, Andrew and Mindy in the middle of them. And there it is again, that word, unprompted and without anyone else to hear,and Dirk’s fingers intertwining with his so easily, that Todd can’t help buthope that maybe, just maybe..

He doesn’tget to finish the thought, and doesn’t really mind it, because Dirk pulls himcloser, looking down at him and not for the first time, making Todd aware howmuch taller the other is. Usually, he’d mind it – being short is nothing he isproud of – but with Dirk, it really doesn’t seem to matter. Especially when Dirk puts his other hand on Todd’s shoulder, his stance farfrom perfect.

The music is slow, sweet, and they don’t haveto talk about it, just start moving. It’s hardly enough to deserve being calleddancing, rocking back and forth a little bit, occasionally taking half a stepto let some other couple pass, and yet it feels more intimate, more subtlyerotic than full-on grinding against each other could ever be. This time, when Todd feels breathless, he doesn’t really mind it.

Time passeswithout Todd really noticing, a song changing to another to another to another,and then, Frank Sinatra crooning about only having eyes for that one person inthe background, Dirk leans in. Fairy lights and the bit of champagne they hadbefore are illuminating his face and Todd knows he should close his eyes, andyet can’t help but watch, mesmerized, and wonder how Dirk’s lips are going tofeel against his.

“I thinkI’ve found our case”, Dirk whispers.

The caseends up being a woman – some obscure aunt, Mindy tells them later – systematicallystealing the catering company’s silverware, and Dirk is ecstatic about havingsolved their seventh case together; Todd feels like someone has ripped hisheart from his chest, sliced it into little pieces and stuffed glass wool intothe vacant space to keep him from collapsing. He’s tired, impossibly so, tells Dirk that much, but can’t convince the otherto stay behind while he leaves, no matter how much he tries. Andrew and Mindy tell him to call sometime, which he probably won’t, and then Toddis left with an overly-concerned holistic detective in his car, instead of in acab on his own, where he’d like to be, trying to figure out how much of the shatteredpieces that once made up his heart are still salvageable.

“And youare certain that you are fine? You don’t look fine”, Dirk asks for the fifthtime when they have finally pulled up at the curb in front of the Ridgely. Hesounds genuinely worried, which would be sweet, if sweet didn’t just serve to crushTodd’s heart into smaller splinters still. Hoping, he decides, is always theworst course of action.“I’m okay, Dirk”, he tells the other, ignores the puppy eyes and gets out ofthe car. He should wait for Dirk – they do live in the same building after all– but right now, he just doesn’t have the strength to do so. Instead, Todd walks, makes it up the few steps to the front door before a handwrapped around his wrist causes him to stop. It’s the same hand he knows sowell by now, and it still makes Todd’s skin burn and tingle with want.

“Are youmad at me?”, Dirk asks with the quietest, most forlorn of voices, making Toddlook up at him although he really, really doesn’t want to. “Have I donesomething wrong? …again?”“…no.” The word takes more strength to utter than Todd thought he had leftinside him, but it makes Dirk smile again, and therefore, is worth it.“Oh, thank God”, the other answers, so very obviously relieved that Todd almostexpects him to start awkwardly patting his shoulder. Instead, Dirk’s hand stayswhere it is, around Todd’s wrist. “You had me worried. I would always mind itif you were upset with me, obviously, but I’d mind it a lot more tonight, Ithink. I enjoyed the wedding a lot. Thank you for taking me.”

Dirk looksalmost shy at his admission, even if still like he is burning up withhappiness, like solving this one dumb case really made all the difference tohis world, and Todd manages half a smile. “No problem”, he tells him, “Thank you for coming. It would have been a lotmore awkward without you.”The not-even-praise makes Dirk light up, and Todd wants to reclaim his wrist sohe can go back to his flat and get as drunk as he possibly can with whateveralcohol he has left, but he’s not fast enough; Dirk speaks first.

“I guessthat’s good night then”, the other says, and sounds nervous, looks like he isblushing. “This is – I mean, I think it’s appropriate to – oh, bugger it.”There is a split second that Todd spends wondering whatever the hell it is Dirkis speaking about, and then. Well. He doesn’t think anymore at all.

Dirk’s lipsare as soft as he thought they would be, clumsy as they kiss him, leaving thetaste of champagne on Todd’s mouth when the other pulls back, and the faintsensation of his heart mending itself in his chest. His own eyes haven’t closed the entire time, his brain to shocked to evenblink, but Dirk’s only flutter open after he has straightened again, like he isunwilling to let the moment pass completely. Todd is impossibly glad for thehand around his wrist, preventing him from doing something stupid like touchinga finger to his lips, hoping to feel Dirk’s kiss on them still.

“…so thiswas a date?”, Todd finally says, and of course, it is the stupidest possibleresponse anyone could have thought of, not only effectively ruining the moment,but also wiping the blissful happiness clean from Dirk’s face. “Yes? Wait, wasn’t it? Was that what I did wrong?”There is something like panic slowly creeping into Dirk’s eyes, a look thatsuits him far less than contentment, and although Todd usually is only good atruining things, not fixing them, he manages to do so now. “I was – I mean, no, it wasn’t, but not because – not because I didn’t want itto be. I wanted it to be a date. More than I realised at first, even, I really wanted it to be a date. And itwould have been a great date, too, even with the stealing aunt, if I had justnoticed that it was one.”He tries to give Dirk a smile, which works far better than it did just momentsago; his heart, now fully functioning again, realises what is happening andpicks up its pace. The other, though, still looks shaken, so Todd adds, “I thought it was adetective thing. A disguise to blend in, you know? But the point is that I’dlike it a lot better if it wasn’t any of that. Just a date.”

Todd’swords seem to finally catch up to Dirk, make the shock and pain melt away atlast.  “Oh”, he breathes out and there aremore relief in that one syllable than should be possible. “Oh, good. That wouldhave been horribly awkward – not to mention, utterly devastating, really,because I really enjoyed it. The date, I mean. And – and kissing you. I reallyenjoyed that too.”There is a faint hint of pink tinting Dirk’s cheeks, the tips of his ears, buthis eyes are bright with something Todd has seen before, just hours ago; loveshining out of them with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe. “I – “, Todd starts and doesn’t know to finish the sentence, doesn’t even knowwhat he could have wanted to say, but one single thing. “Me too.”

A smilegrazes Dirk’s lips, the kind that Todd knows would bloom into a fully-fledgedbeam grin soon, if it had the time. It doesn’t, because Todd gets up on histiptoes and this time, his eyes flutter closed even before he kisses Dirk,shutting out the world around him so it’s just the two of them. The other’slips are curved against his, allowing themselves be coaxed into kissing back byTodd’s hand coming up to cup Dirk’s cheek, trailing calloused fingertips overhis skin. The kiss is soft and slow, almost lazy, the kind you don’t mention in any storyyou tell but sometimes think about at night and feel your lips tingle; whenTodd draws back, his chest is aflame with affection, maybe even love.

Dirk looksawestruck somehow, eyes glazed over when he opens them again and his cheeks thepink of his tie. Before he speaks, he clears his throat and yet his voice isstill slightly hoarse when he speaks, lower than Todd is used to. “I liked that one even better.”“Me too.”

It’s not arisk when he leans up and steals another tiny kiss, and that alone is enough toamaze Todd, who expected to go to sleep with a broken heart and now can tasteDirk on his lips, can feel the other’s breath against his skin. Has Dirk lookat him like he is the single most beautiful person he has ever seen, the mostimportant thing that ever happened to him. Can finally put a name to hisfluttering, adoring heart without fearing what that could change. “You know”, Todd says, and feels said heart beat a little faster, like it isjust warming up for later. “You could come in. With me.”Dirk loses a bit of the glow surrounding him, brow furrowing slightly inconfusion, somehow making him look younger than he is. Innocent, almost. “Butdidn’t you say you were tired? I don’t want to keep you up. Well, want to, yes,but –““Dirk”, Todd interrupts, says the other’s name like it’s a term of endearmentand finds that to him, it is. “I’m definitely not too tired for that.”

He stepsjust the slightest bit closer still and watches the blush of Dirk’s cheeksdarken as he begins to understand what it is Todd means. “A-Alright”, he finally replies, voice breathless and nervous and excited; thegentle warmth and affection spreading through Todd’s body turn into somethinghotter, more anticipatory. “I’m fairly certain that I’d like that even better.”

This time,when Todd kisses him, there’s more heat in it, his tongue darting out to tasteand drawing the faintest moan from Dirk, a sound Todd knows he’ll treasureforever. He only pulls away when continuing would put them dangerously close topublic indecency territory; Dirk isbreathing hard, lips kissed pink and eyes dark, a look Todd would never haveexpected to see on him and yet wants to keep there for the rest of his life. Stepping away at last, Todd turns his hand so he can grasp the one Dirk stillhas around his wrist, and gives him a smile that most likely only looks half asseductive as he wishes it would, but seems to work on Dirk anyway. “Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure of it.”

[wherefore-whinnies]

7. 8. 9. 10. 11 for the music ask game!!

ty for the ask and also the ask game my brain is definitely going at like 500 miles a minute after this. is this what people mean when they say brain light up

7. What's an OST that you heard a lot as a child?

man when I was a child we didn't yet have such newfangled things as "YouTube" and such so I couldn't simply play music on demand. I had to google the track and sort through hundreds of sketchy links and ultimately not find what I was looking for. or search it on freakin SHAREAZA that we used before limewire. when I wanted to save video game music I would open the game in an emulator and then open audacity and have it record from audio out or something and I would have to turn the volume really loud to make sure it was recorded at a nice volume and inevitably my computer would do something to make the audio stutter at some point so I would be stuck forever with a version of the track with small audio glitches. all this to say I guess I had some questionable quality tracks from PMD Red Rescue Team on my computer including one of the best ones ever Great Canyon. you love to hear it.

8. Share with us one of your all time faves!

ok in an effort to pick something that not everyone has heard a bunch of times before I will go with Battle of Eight Beat from Disgaea:

it's kind of simple I guess but it's also very nostalgic for me because I played this game the summer before I went to uni. I really really really like the part at 1:36, honestly it's what really makes the track for me and the whole reason I rate it as highly as I do. I mean the whole thing is pretty banger but that bit in particular is just 👌👌👌

9. What's a piece you could listen to on repeat?

LIKE ALL OF THEM??? HELLO??? am I not supposed to listen to music on repeat?!?! ok ok for a track that I always listen to on several loops, My Castle Town from Deltarune:

it is so pretty and relaxing. I started using it as my go-to piece to calm down from The Anxieties and Horrors after a time when something very loud and scary was happening at my house and my friend put My Castle Town on repeat on the music bot for me. it is very helpful!! highly recommend. unfortunately it doesn't help me fall asleep though but I play it on repeat a lot while trying to fall asleep anyway. heavily prefer the bits where it's just piano, the part that has another thing in the background are kind of distracting and unnecessary imo.

10. What's your favorite work with lyrics?

Lost in Thoughts All Alone is the actual answer but I already said that before. I listen to God-Shattering Star while suffering through a 150-second plank. I like Edge of Dawn too. I want to think of something more original but I'm not sure there is any, I tend to prefer not having lyrics in my video game music.

11. What's your favorite instrumental work?

I have absolutely no clue what is my favourite but for variety's sake I offer The End of a Thought from Tales of Symphonia:

I love this track so much I love the different variations on Kratos's motif and it is just so intense and cool. I actually got obsessed with this track and listened to it dozens of times before I ever actually got to the point in the game where it plays so when I got there I was kind of underwhelmed by how it sounded coming from my TV lol.

[evak-fic-rec-turtleanon]

Evak Fics - Pining

I’m posting half of this list first because I started it a long time ago and it’s taking me a while to go through all the fics. So I will update with more later. 

*** Mutual Pining *** Pining - I might put mutual pining under pining if we don't see much of the other person pining. *** Bonus - The pining is not between Evak 

For the anon from this ask.

I will try my best to separate out the mutual pining fics but I think it will be tricky if it's not tagged as that. So bear with me and let me know of any mistakes or fics I missed out on.

. First Posting : 11 July 2021. Under 15k fics.  .

******* Mutual Pining *******

Even the Illustrator by eavk (SERIES, 3 fics) - An AU where Even’s an illustrator who draws what kids describe to him for YouTube, and Isak is the smitten father of a six year old with a wild imagination.

Postcards by HedwigsTalons (1k words) - Isak's wall is covered in postcards. Isak is supportive of Even's career and he cherishes every postcard but the long distance relationship hurts.

Feelings Come and Go, But Not With You by ultimatelawrence (1.9k words) - It was meant to just be a holiday romance. A fling. Nothing like love. But now it was six months later and Even was still pining over the angel he had met in Paris.

let's pretend into forever by Bellakitse (2.3k words) - “Let me get this straight,” Even starts. “You lied to your boss about having a boyfriend, told her it was me, and now you need me to go with you to your science nerd dinner?”

i will love you until the very, very end (and you were my best friend) by traumatic (2.4k words) - Isak and Even share something in the cool waters of a spring fed pool that no one, not even their fiancées, could ever understand.

Breathe Me by photographer_of_thoughts (4.5k words) - A high school reunion brings Isak and Even together after ten years, and neither of them can forget what happened when they were both seventeen.

Everything comes back to you by MermaidsandMermen (4.8k words) - Light pining. A dribble oneshot for Halloween, full of fluff and Even and Isak and a tiny pinch of angst. Because we need some Halloween fluff. That's all.

Fuck Tha Police by MacksDramaticShenanigans (5.2k words) - “This,” Eskild said, spinning the photograph around so everyone could see it, “is a picture of the latest piece of vandalism from our favorite little street punk.” he finished with a heavy sigh. They are both cops.

i tried to be strong but i lost it (i knew it was wrong, i’m beyond it) (6.3k words) - Even has a thing for his intern, Isak has a thing for his boss, they're both a bit clueless and their friends just want them to get their shit together.

all I see is you by littlemovie (Lejla) (7.4k words) - “Aren’t you gonna ask me why I’m a bad person?” Isak somehow whined and demanded at the same time. Jonas blew out a breath in amusement, which made the dark curls on his forehead move with his breath. “I’m guessing it has something to do with that guy, Even, from the coffeeshop?”

Addicted by endlessandinfinite (8k words) - They’re both completely, overwhelmingly, and incredibly...addicted. Best friends to lovers.

Calleth You, Cometh I by Kollakolan (8.4k words) - “Isak!” Mikaels pipes up. “Didn´t you two have a thing?” he turns to Even. A thing, Even thinks to himself. Yes, Isak and him definitely had a thing. They actually had a low-key thing going for years, but it never really turned into something more. The timing was never right.

In Vino Veritas by Sabeley (9.9k words) - After seven years apart, Isak wakes up to find Even in his bed and a wedding ring on his finger.

Let Me by GayaIsANerd (10.6k words) - Summer brings a lot of things. The smell of sunscreen. The sound of children playing in the shallow part of the lake. The taste of cold beer. The sweet tang of weed. But most importantly, summer brings Isak.

Something Borrowed, Something Blue by BluebeardsWife (10.8k words) - Fake dating AU, you know the drill. Even hires Isak to pretend to be his boyfriend at his ex's wedding. This Means Nothing to Me by cuteandtwisted (10.8k words) - Isak and Even are friends and roommates who don't believe in love anymore (after they both get dumped by other people) until they do. Aka the Friends/Roommates-To-Lovers Don't you let me go by solarpower21 (12.2k words) - In this universe, Isak and Even are roomates and nothing more. Except that there is something more between them and they both know that but are too stubborn to admit it. Too bad it takes a very unfortunate event for them to face the truth. Burn Down The Disco by TheGirlNoOneKnows5 (12.2k words) - A 'Black Mirror: Hang The DJ' AU in which Isak and Even decide to rebel against a futuristic dating system that pairs users up with various people in order to find their perfect match.

La Petite Mort by EvenbechNeiheim (13.4k words) - Even Bech Næsheim is one of those cool and very hot media students at Uni who might just got the task to make a film project. Eskild is the best wingman and things like accidently falling in love with an asshole media student happen. Based on the FIRST KISS YouTube video that gave the internet an entire meltdown. 

when your heart is bleeding, i'm coming to get you by orphan_account (13.5k words) - Isak doesn't exactly expect his hookup from last week to be the love advice columnist at the school newspaper he's working at. He also doesn't expect to fall even harder for him than he already has, which is a shame, really, since Even's crushing on someone else. 

Heal My Heart for Christmas by iwritetropesnottragedies (recklesslee) (13.5k words) - It’s been ten years since Isak left his small town for the big city of Oslo with his father. He hardly even thought of his time there anymore. Until he received a letter from his mother asking him to come home for Christmas for the first time since he had left. 

Love in the Time of COVID: Battlestar Edition by sweetasmaple (14k words) - Isak and Even find each other again during the COVID-19 lockdown, one Battlestar Galactica episode at a time. 

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******* Pining *******

never seemed so alive by retts (1k words) - Nothing special, just four letters strung together to spell out E V E N but they made Isak's heart race and his face blush and his hands tremble.

Hopeless by waitineedaname (1k words) - Light pining. There was no way in hell Isak would be able to talk to Even. He was tall and cool and handsome, and Isak was pretty sure talking to him would make him spontaneously combust.

i could probably just curl up in you. by milominderbinder (1.3k words) - Isak is away at a cabin with the guys when he gets a text from Even. 'hey, babe, did you take my favourite hoodie?' He is, of course, outraged that Even would accuse him of such treachery. The fact that Isak is wearing the hoodie at that very moment has nothing to do with it.

stuck on you (what did i do?) by itjustkindahappened (1.8k words) - It’s not that Even doesn’t try to be friendly with him—Isak just makes it so hard. Whenever Even approaches, Isak either makes up a fumbling excuse to leave, or just becomes really stiff and refuses to acknowledge Even’s existence.

now and forever (i will be your man) by thekardemomme (2.2k words) -Warning for pain. 3 times isak kisses even +1

i be up in the gym just working on my fitness by orphan_account (2.3k words) - Even knows that he's quite literally going to die when he finds his crush sweating on an elliptical, reading a book with his glasses slipping down his nose.

You know where I stay by nofeartina (2.4k words) - Warning for pain. Isak is so beautiful first thing in the morning. When he still has creases in his face from the pillow, when his face is red and puffy from sleep, his hair all messed up and curly. Even prefers this Isak. This is his Isak, this is only for him.

won't you be my livewire by itjustkindahappened (3.2k words) - "i've been tryin to grab your attention in class for over half an hour by poking you and throwing things onto your desk and you're refusing to acknowledge me and gdi all i wanted to do was tell you that you look cute and now it's gone too far and i can't go back"

Cookies and Cream by GayaIsANerd (3.5k words) - Isak has a crush on the barista. He's too scared to do anything about it, but luckily there's a blizzard coming up.

i can feel the weather in my bones by EvenbechNeiheim (3.7k words) - Isak and Even are childhood friends. There’s a boyfriend sweater and Isak is just desperate to wear it.

On the silver screen by Lokkanel (4k words) - Isak was really not in the mood for this. He had a long week at work, and all he wanted was to relax with his friend, drink a few beers, maybe even smoke some weed and just chill. But no. When Jonas called him to say that he won tickets to the coolest indie film festival in Oslo, Isak knew he could forget his plans for a quiet and simple weekend.

I want to love you (in my own language) by fauu_stine (4k words) - “Okay. Maybe I’m not happy,” he admits in a resigned whisper. “Do you need a shrink discussion or a best friend discussion?” "I think- I think it’s more of a friend with benefits kind of talk."

Don't be an ass by Julieseven (4.1k words) - Even really tried to forget about him. It started out as a harmless little crush, really. He saw him at the karaoke bar SYNG one night, singing "I don't want to miss a thing" at the top of his lungs, clearly drunk out of his mind, but looking like an angel with his messy dark blond locks and crooked smile.

Little Black Book by Laika (4.3k words) - Isak Valtersen is studying his third year at the University of Oslo and having the time of his life. Enter Evy Bech Næsheim, straight out of Nissen, in his stockings, mini skirts and bubblegum scented lip gloss.

cracks in our foundation by towonderland72 (4.8k words) - “You know, like a thousand years ago, men used to wear makeup?” Even asks, as Isak gapes at himself.

Safest With You (Green Curtains) by eavk (5.3k words) - Isak keeps staying up too late studying at the library, but luckily there's an escort service that gives students a buddy to walk with to keep safe at night.

the one with the prom video by thekardemomme (5.5k words) - Even has been in love with Isak since they were younger, but he never intended for Isak to find out this way.

Senses by Lokkanel (5.5k words) - Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste… Or Even falling in love with Isak, one sense at a time.

you're the one i wanna grey with (5.6k words) - They've only been dating a month, so Isak shouldn't be pathetic enough to miss Even this much when he's only gone for a weekend.

Orion's Nebula by thekardemomme (5.6k words) - Light pining I think. Even Bech Næsheim was enrolled in an astronomy class for one reason and one reason only: the cute ass boy he saw standing in the registration line.

with the taste of a poison paradise by chasingflower (6k words) - It’s routine by now. Isak hangs out with his friends during the day and at night he kisses the Dream-Even that lives on the other side of the door in his living room, and basks in the warm fuzzy feelings he gets as a result of the attention. Coraline Au.

How to Get Your Man - A Plan By Even Bech Naesheim by Evakkk (6.1k words) - When Magnus drops a big secret in front of Even... Even comes up with a brilliant plan to get Isak to reveal his true feelings. All it takes is one little lie, and one crazy family reunion.

To Burn With Desire by photographer_of_thoughts (6.1k words) - AU in which Isak and Even are neighbours and Isak's father has a secret job that unintentionally helps Isak realize he's in love with his best friend.

Watermelon Sugar by MermaidsandMermen (6.6k words) - A little tribute to fruit and touching. To sex, and friendships and finding what you were looking for all along. And of course inspired by Harry Styles latest video offering, just because.

The Fake Boyfriend App by Crazyheart (7.2k words) - AU where Isak is desperately pining for his flatmate Even, and downloads a fake boyfriend app to get over him. When he discovers that the Fake boyfriend is a human, and not a bot, he is sceptical.

That look you give that guy by Lokkanel (7.4k words) - Isak and Even love each other in secret. It is almost thrilling at first, but when hiding and lying to their friends begin to take a toll on Even, Isak decides to end it all. He thinks he has taken the right decision, until Even eventually moves on with someone else.

my longing drives me crazy for you (7.7k words) - Isak's mum worries, Isak makes bad life decisions and Even loves Isak. It's a fake dating au.

I'm Always Here by nofeartina (9.3k words) - “Did you know that Even is working this summer? At that pool at the Plaza?” Jonas says. Isak actually sits up in excitement at this. “Fuck yeah!” Oh, a pool. Actual water they could go swimming in and cool down. And also, Even.

a garden for your love by eggsntoast (9.3k words) - He’s learning to breathe with them, even if he ends up with a floor full of violets by the end of it all. They remind Isak of him, and that’s all that matters. That’s what makes it worse. or: a Hanahaki au ft. Isak heavily pining after Even. Lots of angst.

I wrote an angry letter to the void, and the void responded (9.5k words) - Monday comes, and the book is still there. Isak looks around, content to find the floor practically empty, before giving the book the finger. Fuck that book. - a book finds it's way to Isak's sacred study spot. this proves to be a major distraction.

a constant state of closeness by chevythunder (9.7k words) - “What is it about this dude, anyway?” Elias asks. “You’ve barely even talked to him, right?” “I don’t know,” Even says. “I just got this feeling, you know? Just- I want to make sure he’s okay and safe and… stuff.” - It starts with a hug.

Is This Our Time? by Evakkk (9.9k words) - This is a world where everyone is born with an indistinguishable soulmate mark... it only changes into something recognizable, once you have physical contact with your soulmate, and it's always something meaningful to the relationship. Both partners will bear the same mark. Isak is about to turn 18... and he's the only one in his friend group who still hasn't found their soulmate. But what happens when he goes out one night, gets drunk... and wakes up with his soulmate mark?

Is This What You Wanted? by cuteandtwisted (9.9k words) - Isak is filthy rich and Even is a hardworking male model who just got signed to his father's agency. Even gets an awful offer from Isak: one night with him in exchange for money, and begins to despise him. Little does he know that everything he thinks he knows about Isak is wrong.

Just like in the movies by Lokkanel (10.5k words) - As he began taking in his surroundings, Isak realized he was in one of those small theaters that programmed independent and artsy movies, even old black and white films. He was ready to turn around and walk away when he heard a deep voice say, “Halla.”

my tiny heartbeat in his ear by riyku (11k words) - Now, about a week after the longest day of the year, the empty house across the street has stopped being empty. most beautiful things by scarletbluebird (12.7k words) - This fic is a whole ass journey. Warning for pain. This isn’t a fairytale, Isak tells himself. Even is standing at the bend in the road. He looks like a metaphor for immortal life: the youth a god would kill for. Ambrosia eyes, the universe trapped in the curve of his mouth. He looks like every warning from his mother about strangers you run into after dark. 

One week by Lokkanel (12.8k words) - This thing going on between Isak and Even, whatever they called it - fuckbuddies, friends with benefits - was simple, fun, nothing more. They were friends, they were both free to do whatever they wanted with other people. They’d just meet and have sex whenever they felt like it. Simple. Until what was bound to happen eventually did and Even fell for Isak. 

Plum by Jamz24 (13.2k words) - Femme!teacher!Even asks masculine! plumber!Isak to fix a broken shower on a scorching hot summer day...And if you think it sounds like the start of a porn film you're absolutely right! There's LOADS of smut but ... with LOTS of feelings 

Never be the same by nofeartina (14.2k words) - It starts with a bet - one of those really stupid ones: can they last an entire month without any kind of sex?It’s been 22 days – and Even is dying. 

Somewhere I’ve never been by MinilocIsland (14.6k words) - The first time Even meets Jonas' best friend, nothing goes according to plan. 

If I Should Fall Behind by MinilocIsland (14.7k words) - The plan for tonight had been crystal clear. Stay close to his best friend, and steal her away if needed. Hold her hand through the ordeal of meeting Noora again for the first time in years. Then Even shows up – and suddenly, nothing goes the way it was supposed to. 

All I Ever Wanted by MinilocIsland (14.8k words) - Isak is such a good friend. Probably the best there is. How else could he explain that he's agreed to join Magnus to this place deep in the woods for six full days of silence, meditation, and utter boredom? One thing, he knows. There's nothing exciting for him there. Right? Or: the silent retreat AU. 

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******* Bonus *******

Season 3: Jonas by Laika_the_husband (WIP, SBB 2021 fic) - There is a scene in the end of the script for season 1, where Jonas and Isak kiss each other on a dare. This story is a retelling of season 3 in a universe, where that kiss happened and completely changed the way Jonas sees Isak. Written in Jonas' POV, the story examines sexuality, love, friendship and coming to terms with never getting the boy you shouldn't have fallen for in the first place.

What the fuck is wrong with me? by notanugget (11.6k words) - The five times isak felt guilty for being in love and the one time he didn’t 

thanks for the weed, thanks for everything by evak1isak (13.1k words) - Jokael. Jonas' dealer has moved to Denmark, and Even recommends his friend's weed. What Jonas didn't expect, though, was to develop a crush on a boy, on Mikael. 

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******* WIP *******

Baby, why do you have to shine so bright? by Lilacpotter - Even knew he was radiant, and he was used to people always wanting to be around him, enchanted by his captivating words and glowing smiles, as if he was the tantalising sun. But then one day, he comes across someone who shines much brighter than the sun itself in Even’s eyes.

Lonely Hearts Club by EndingsNotTheStory - The Hearts Club. A show run by Isak and his 3 friends. He's kind of had enough with hearing about people's relationship issues and giving advice. Until the guy from his theatre class and Isak's totally not crush Even calls, dealing with relationship issues. pining

[alicedrawslesmis]

another funny really long story - and kinda related to the university situation in les mis thing - that happened at my uni was that they were renovating the ceiling. Bear with me

Now the architecture building was already a design nightmare because they hired a fancy architect (shakes fist at hell ARTIGAS!!) who designed a very complex building, but when they built it they cut a Lot of corners. The result is the air circulation was null, the ceiling was partly transluscent and no teacher could project anything on the board cause it was too bright. You could get sunburnt in class and you needed to wear sunglasses indoors to draw on white paper. That's what you get when basically all of the architecture canon is european but you're designing for Brasil. Anyway

The concrete ceiling wasn't fully waterproofed and it had deteriorated since the 70s when it was built, so when I enrolled they were in the process of scraping off the top layer of concrete (and throwing all the dust inside???? theoretically they weren't but we saw them do it several times). There were also leaks constantly and the ceiling had developed several long white stalactites that I kinda loved, unrelated to the renovation this is just what happens to bad waterproofing on concrete. Also occasionally you had wall plugs short circuiting and catching fire cause of the leaks. So to sum up: ceiling was in rough shape.

So every morning you had to bring a cloth to wipe the seat and your desk and toxic concrete dust would be falling on your head all day. Classes went fron 8am to 6pm but because people loved to take extended luch breaks to smoke pot in practice lessons lasted from 8 to 8. 12 hours of very toxic dust on your head and no windows in the classrooms

(the rest of the building was very open, lest you think I hate the building. But the classrooms.............)

Instead of redoing the waterproofing in sections (shutting off one part of the massive building at a time) they decided to do it in waves, so they scraped all the dusk on top of your head while classes were still going, exposing the metal structure to rain and making horrible noise all day! Like maniacs! And then covering it after (I never made it to that era before I dropped out)

One bio student that was taking an extra class there gave up because there were pidgeos flying around and she was afraid to get some parasite from the ceiling pidgeon water. True story

So the revolting architecture students one day had enough. The student government called the company that was doing the renovation into a meeting and they demanded they change their plans. Work different hours and stop fucking throwing dust on students. The meeting led to nothing and the students decided to do a walk out.

Important to note that elsewhere, the dean was discussing cutting paid vacation from the uni's employees and teachers and there was some serious organizing going on there. The dean is an elected position and it was election year. There were a lot of protests blocking off the university's gates, it's complicated to explain but the campus is as big as a city and a lot of regular traffic passes through it

Now, the walk out of the architecture students lasted two weeks. They blocked the entrance ramps with a mountain of chairs and piled up the desks of the workshops. I also used the opportunity to climb up the desks and touch the ceiling cause I had always wanted to do that. It was a pretty high ceiling as well

During the walkout, the employee's union and the teacher's union, as well as the student government, had a massive meeting on the auditorium (I think there were about 800 people there in total) where it was decided they would go on strike and the students throughout the whole uni joined in so what was supposed to be 2 weeks extended to 6 weeks. The employees got what they wanted.

Unfortunately the ceiling renovation continued as usual. But I did take some cool pictures of the pile of chairs that's in my hard drive somewhere

All this to say that the american concept of university is very new and does not reflect my experience in uni at all. University is messy, extremely political, an administration nightmare, full of protesting and organizing and it's also full of pidgeon shit and pot. So people slacking off for 20 years to graduate, not unusual and not even that noteworthy

--

Also ok sorry last thing, the public architecture course in 1968 - during the absolute toughest time in the military dictatorship - was located in the city center next to a fancy private neoliberal school named Mackenzie. Mack and FAU students hated each other. A big chunk of Mack students were fascists and FAU were all left wing and a bit gay, and so for some reason I'm not familiar with, there was a big march of FAU students and of Mack students in Maria Antonia street. There was a confrontation that led to hospitalizations and a huge backlash against the left wing side, with a ton of teachers getting fired and students being arrested. Government ended up taking that as an opportunity to move the architecture students to the suburbs in a big campus that's very hard to reach by bus so they'd stop being a nuisance

well joke's on them cause this isn't the suburbs anymore and all of the city's traffic can be easily stopped by closing one gate. Suck on that

[jincherie]

fox rain | five

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 9.9k+ • ☽ — rating: sfw • ☽ — warnings: stop two on the angst train express!!! not as blatant, more reading between the lines here...... have fun! • ☽ — notes: bros... it’s only downhill from here. cowa-fucking-BUNGA amirite cowboys???????!?!?

— posted; 18.09.2020

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterpost | prev. | five | next • —

You lay in a sort of placid, bewildered shock, the kind that is sourced from confusion as opposed to an unpleasant surprise. After waking to blearily turn off your alarm before it blasted through the entirety of Dancing Lasha Tumbai, you’d unlocked your phone to find this curious set of messages from a number you haven’t saved. You’ve been lying in place for several minutes as your tired, wired brain slowly kicks into gear and attempts to debunk the mystery. After another unsuccessful few minutes of staring blankly at the screen, you’re saved from impending cranial combustion when your phone lets out a delightful little tinkle and another message hastily joins the others.  

Ah, that makes so much sense now! Except it doesn’t. Actually, it kind of adds to your bewilderment. Taehyung… is texting you? You don’t think you’ve ever in your life had any correspondence with him that didn’t either take place in the presence of Jimin or under the influence of alcohol… also in the presence of Jimin, now that you think of it. You haven’t really interacted with Taehyung outside of Jimin. So it is particularly odd to wake up to a series of messages that are from him, and pertaining to such an odd topic. You’re still so tired you can’t even fathom what would warrant a text from him. Maybe you dropped something at one of your tutoring sessions and Jimin asked him to give it back to you? It would make sense, since after the rollercoaster of a ride the last week has been for him (in particular, the questionable events that took place at the hands of one Kim Seokjin but somehow ended up with Jimin and Hoseok making up? You don’t really understand it but you’re not even going to bother to try to at this point) he has ended up a little preoccupied.

Tapping the screen when your inactivity leads it to go dark, you take a moment to scrounge a response from the empty barrel bottom that is your brain. Once satisfied, you drop your phone onto your bed and flop yourself back to the position you’d been in before your own alarm woke you so rudely. Technically, you don’t have to be up and about for another hour…

With faith that your additional hour of sleep will revive your ability to think, you allow yourself to slip somewhat self-indulgently back into sleep and pass the fuck out like a woman who has spent the night trying to forget.

(Which you are, and did do, except with maybe a little less alcohol than what that sentence implied.)

X     X     X     X

 It has been almost a week since the unfortunate end to that tutoring session on Monday, and while you’ve managed to stay off social media enough that you haven’t triggered yourself by accident in the entirety of that duration, every time you come on campus it’s like for however many steps forward you took, you take double the amount backwards. University students are such gossips! Well, the jobless ones are, anyway. The students that work and study are too busy dragging themselves around campus in a stunning rendition of the undead from various media to be bothered with the latest plot twist in the resident school drama. Which is to say, there has been no twist. The population is still shamelessly up Sera’s ass in the belief that she is the author of the poem, and as has become the norm you find yourself resisting the urge to hunt the bitch down and go in for round two on her face. Surely, your self-control has earnt you the title of a saint by now.

You’re blasting some angsty shit on the way to your music history class and pretending you’re in a music video for some indie band (it’s cathartic, and you will argue that fact to your grave), when you make it a few steps past the entrance to the food court and have the absolute living daylights scared out of you. Thudding footsteps reach you through your earphones and two hands clamp on your shoulders to halt you in place and spin you around like Barbie Ballerina.

“You’re a disgrace!” It’s Seokjin who has halted you in the middle of the hallway, every bit as dramatic as you’d come to expect. “You skipped drama class? And you call yourself an acting major, PSH!”

Yanking your earphones out, you nail the tall, pink-haired idiot with a glare. Very bold of him to be approaching you after you nearly chopped off Lil’ Jinnie barely a few days ago for his bastardous antics. Perhaps he’s getting a bit big for his glittery pink rainboots.

“First of all, will you please listen to me when I tell you I’m not an acting major?” Unfortunately, when you speak your voice comes out more exasperated and less threatening than you intended. “Second of all—very bold of you to be approaching me right now. You’re lucky you escaped with your life, you meddling bastard. You want me to bite the rest of your dick off?”

“You should know by now that I take that as a compliment,” Seokjin sniffs, haughtily, ignoring the latter part of your threat. “And do you know how boring it is for me to crash your class when you’re not even there? No one threatens me like you! It’s getting harder and harder to get it up these days, you know. I need a hit of the good stuff.”

For a moment you’re simply stunned into silence, staring at him and wondering just how and why he seems to have been sent here with the sole mission of making you want to kill him and then yourself. Nothing you could think to say really is enough, so you settle on simply turning and walking away.

Of course, you forgot that no one turns their back on Kim Seokjin and gets away with it.

“YAH!”

You wince—you think he actually just broke a sound barrier, or maybe your eardrums— or both. Seokjin quickly scrambles to place himself in front of you, arms out. His eyes are wide in something you suspect he thinks is a puppy-eyed look, but actually comes across more like he’s trying not to shit himself.

“Promise me you won’t skip drama again!” Seokjin says, pointing a finger at you in borderline accusation. When he doesn’t see your expression budge, he quickly changes tactics. “If not for me, the most charming prince in the story of your life, then at least for Jungkook, that poor virgin—”

You blink, distracted for a moment by what he said. “Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?”

“’Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?’” Seokjin repeats in a voice a few octaves higher than your own. “Listen to you, not even knowing who is in your own class. For shame! But have no fear, since you clearly skip so much I will happily extend my generosity and take you under my wing. Tutelage fee starts at $55 with an extra $5 for every question you ask that I don’t know—”

“Do you ever actually hear yourself talk?” you ask, feeling your will to live draining out your ears. “Like, the shit that comes out of your mouth? Do you hear it? Because—wait, are you saying you would charge me for questions that you don’t know the answer to?!”

Seokjin shrugs, “It’s a little unorthodox, I know. But—”

“I would literally be bankrupt! Thousands—no, millions of dollars in debt!” You exclaim, grabbing him by his stupid big shoulders and shaking him about. “Do I look crazy to you?!”

“Oh, what, you think you can do better?!” Seokjin demands, voice wobbling from your shaking. “What’s 2x2?”

“Fucking four!” you wail, releasing him in your despair. You can’t do this, your day only just started and you are not exhausted enough to micronap while he talks like usual. “I’m leaving, don’t follow me. DELETE MY NUMBER.”

“Haha jokes on you!” you hear Seokjin holler from behind you, voice rapidly growing quieter from the speed that you’re powerwalking away. “You never gave me your number!”

You make it to class barely on time due to Seokjin acting as one of the biggest inconveniences in your life, and while you manage to push him from your brain for the duration of it, you wish you could say that is the last time you see him,

It’s probably the fact that you busted his ass being a weirdo with Jimin and Hoseok last week that has him so…. attached this week, you suspect. You’re at your third Seokjin encounter for the day and you’re honestly considering whether you should trip to the campus pharmacy and look for some pepper spray, or maybe an umbrella. Pepper spray would be more effective, but the umbrella…. You can’t argue against the satisfaction it would provide.

You’re trying to sneak your way into a library on the Arts side of campus, one you don’t usually go to, so you can study without worrying about going absolutely batshit insane in the presence of Seokjin. It was hard, but you think that you’ve finally managed to shake him. What on earth had him so determined to tail you today? Was it seriously because you skipped your own class? Nutcase.

You peek your head around the corner looking not only for Seokjin, but for another thing you had happened to notice every time you were ambushed. You have yet to determine whether the glimpse of phenomenally bright floral print right before Seokjin pounces you is causation or correlation, and it makes you a bit nervous. Cautiously, like timid forest animal, you creep around the corner and begin to make your way into the building, eyes flicking from the library door right at the end to the rest of your surroundings. The café coming up on your right tempts you greatly, but you know it is too great of a risk. Out in the open, you’d definitely be seen.

This area is almost like a courtyard, an undercover area between three separate buildings. With a looming cement and glass ceiling, though, it feels like a building of its own. The library sits nestled in the corner of the largest building, and although it isn’t very wide, it spans several floors. You plan on going to the highest one and hiding in a corner near a window.

You’re close, so close to reaching the library in fact that you’ve fallen into a false sense of security. By the time you register the sound of pounding footsteps approaching behind you, for the second time today, it’s too late.

“Ah, y/n! Wait!”

Instinctively you prepare to burst into a sprint to get away, but at the last second stop yourself. That doesn’t sound like Seokjin… that sounds like—

“Taehyung?” you ask, turning in surprise as the boy comes to a screeching halt in front of you, bending with his hands on his knees as he attempts to catch his breath.

“I’ve… been trying….” he huffs, “To talk to you…. all day….. hah…Why are you so….. good at running away?”

He looks absolutely wiped out, cheeks red and sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. You’re just beginning to feel guilty when you notice his shirt, the bright floral print that you literally don’t know anyone else bold enough to wear, and you realise he’s really not lying. Poor Taehyung, just like you he has fallen victim to—

“That Seokjin bastard,” you say, completing a quick scan of the area to make sure the mention of his name didn’t somehow summon him. “He’s been harassing me all day. I’ve had to really up my game. By the way… are you okay? Please breathe… also what did you want to talk to me about?”

Taehyung straightens, eyes closed as he attempts to control his breathing. One of his hands comes to sweep the ashy hair from his face, the ends slightly damp with sweat.

“I’m fine,” he says, sounding slightly like he’s about to pass out. You prepare to take a step forward and catch him if he does, but he opens his eyes in the next second and shoots you a dopey smile. “I’m fine! Apparently just… whoo… really out of shape.”

“Your sacrifice is not in vain,” you say, smiling when he lets out a sudden laugh. Another shaky breath rakes past his lips before he straightens, eyes blinking a little wider. “Ah, right. I was looking for you because, um… you didn’t respond to my text… and I needed to ask you something that’s a little time-sensitive…”

“Your text…” you wrack your brain, sure that you remembered responding to it this morning in bed. Your mouth shifts into a wince, though, when you can recall writing a response, but not actually sending it. “Oh. I am so sorry, I’m an idiot. I was kind of half asleep when you texted, and I swear to god I typed a response but I think I fell asleep again before sending it…”

There is not a shred of accusation on Taehyung’s pleasant features, lips instead slightly curled in a smile. “That’s fine,” he chirps, rocking on the balls of his feet for a moment. “I do it all the time too. I’m just glad I caught you.”

You return his smile, before a thought that had been nagging you earlier returned and you acted on the urge to voice it. “By the way…. How did you get my number?”

Your question seems to be unexpected and, for some reason, flusters him slightly. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck, averting his gaze for a moment. “Uh, Jimin gave it to me. It was for something stupid a while ago but I never needed to use it.”

You raise your brows at what he said, but get the feeling he’s not going to elaborate. Instead, you remain quiet and wait for him to continue his thought from earlier. He shuffles on his feet, returning his gaze to your own. “Anyway, the reason I was trying to catch you all day was because I wanted to ask you something…”

“I know it’s not really any of my business, but I kind of noticed, and Jimin mentioned lightly that things haven’t been, uh…. great for you lately.” He doesn’t even give you time for that statement to sink in amongst your shock, continuing without pause despite the way his cheeks begin to flush, “And, uh, my exhibition is this Friday, and I was gonna go with Jimin but he double-booked himself with Hobi, so now I have no plus-one and I was wondering… if you wanted to go?”

When you simply stand there, dumbfounded, he clears his throat awkwardly, fiddling with the cuffs of his button-down. “To um, you know, take your mind off things… maybe… you don’t have to, of course, but I just thought I would—”

Snapping out of your stupor before he can take back the invitation, you hastily step forward and outstretch your hands. “Oh, no I would love to go! This is really—” you clear your throat, trying to ignore the light sting of your eyes “—sweet of you. I’d like to go, if it’s ok. You’re sure Jimin doesn’t mind…?”

Taehyung seems shocked, and you suspect he might have thought you would turn down the invitation from the way his eyes seem to light up. Have you really been walking around campus looking like that much of a gloomy bitch? You need to check your facial expressions when you get home this afternoon.

“He won’t mind,” he says, waving his hand excitedly. “Great, perfect—um, here is the little info sheet. I’d stay to tell you more but my class actually started a few minutes ago, so…”

“Oh!” you exclaim, taking the sheet from his hand before waving him away. “Go! Go to class! I’m sorry I made you late! Thank you for this, by the way!”

He seems slightly dazed at your enthusiastic thanks and farewell, but he shakes himself out of it and before he goes he sends you a smile that you can’t think of any other way to describe except dazzling. “It’s no problem, y/n. See you then.”

And then he’s off and you’re left standing alone in the pseudo-courtyard, clutching the exhibition pamphlet in your grip. Your eyes sting ever so slightly, and you can’t help but think how kind of sad it is that one person goes out of their way to think of you in the midst of everything you’re dealing with and you’re so touched you’re nearly driven to tears.

Hormones suck and you want a refund.

 X     X     X     X

 Taehyung was right when he said that what he had to ask you was time-sensitive. 

You hadn’t realised it at the time, but Friday was only a few days away— and in the midst of classes, schoolwork, and everything else, those days went fast.  Before you know it, it’s Friday morning and a panicked glance at the pamphlet Taehyung had given you reveals that the exhibition opens officially around 4:30PM. That works out surprisingly well for you, considering your last class ends at three o’clock and you can easily reschedule your session with Hoseok and Jimin. 

There’s a lot about the invitation you haven’t gotten to really dwell on, and that continues to be the case as the day flies before your very eyes. By the time your music theory class comes to an end and you finish scribbling down the last few lines of note from your teacher, the event is even closer than you anticipated. From your recent examination of the pamphlet, you’d found earlier that Taehyung’s exhibition is being held at a small university-sponsored gallery downtown. It shouldn’t take you too long to get there from your house, and on the way home after packing your things, you plot out the route you’re going to take. It’s about a twenty minute trip, as you discover, since there is by some stroke of luck a bus that goes straight there from a street just around the corner from your own. Taking that into account, you should have around forty minutes or so to get ready. 

Considering you’re one of many poor university students populating the area, it’s not often you actually put the effort in to get dressed up. Around these parts, there is a distinct culture of sweat pants and comfortable tops and more often than not a socks-and-slides combo, something you take part in more often than you’d like to admit. Still, you feel that considering the nature of the event you’ve been invited to and what you know of Taehyung’s works, you should probably be putting in much more effort than usual. 

While you might act like a slob sometimes, this isn’t actually a problem— even goblins like you can have a stash of decent clothes somewhere in their cave. Yours happen to be pushed to the back of your closet on hangers that haven’t seen the light of day in months. What can you say? University takes its toll in mysterious ways. 

Standing before your closet, eyes boring into the portion that’s been held in its depths for longer than you can remember, you wonder which way you should go with your outfit. Exhibitions are fancy right? Should you dress it up? Logic says you should, but on the other hand what if you are the only one dressed up? That would be humiliating. You pause for a moment to think about the type of garb you usually see Taehyung in— you have a feeling that he will probably dress the same way tonight. Recalling his bold, avante-garde taste in fashion is about as helpful as one might imagine, but it does comfort you to know that no matter what you choose, most eyes will likely be on him anyway. 

Comforted by that fact, you make up your mind and pull out a set that isn’t too over the top, and won’t make you look like a rat. Once you’ve slipped into those, you freshen up and wash your face, trying to make yourself seem a little bit more alive afterwards and not like you had an 8AM class today. You’re successful, to a degree, but you’re a little tight on time so you can’t really dwell on it. Feeling your stomach rumble as you grab your bag and key, you can only hope that this exhibition has free food.

x — x — x

“Ah, y/n! You’re here! You… you look nice.”

You were so busy staring at the large, shiny building before you that when Taehyung’s voice rings out in greeting, it startles the hell out of you. You don’t even register what he says before you’re pointing with eyes and mouth wide open, “Your exhibition is in there?!”

His expression of surprise melts into one of amusement, a laugh tumbling from deep in his throat. You don’t even notice the way his cheeks are flushed ever so slightly as he meets your gaze.

“Fancy, right?” he says, wagging his brows. “Some loaded alumnus who actually enjoyed his university experience practically donated it to them. So now they use it for, uh… for most exhibitions.”

“For the best ones, you mean,” you say, your grin widening when he scratches the back of his neck, bashful and blushing. “But yeah, damn. I was expecting it to be nice but I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice.”

Taehyung laughed again, clearing his throat. As he takes a moment to collect himself, you let your eyes scan over his form. The second you do so, you feel a foreign flutter in your stomach, heat flushing to your face. There is truly no other way to describe his choice of outfit for today except for painfully boyfriend. Perhaps on anyone else it would look a little less than presentable, but on Taehyung’s model-esque form the loose chestnut pants and an oversized leather jacket over a boldly patterned shirt work wonders. How does he look so effortless yet so…?

If you’d attempted to wear something like that you’d end up looking like the local court jester. Perhaps you should just make peace with the fact that God has favourites and Kim Taehyung is clearly one of them. 

“It, um. It started a few minutes ago, shall we head in?”

Taehyung offers you his arm, a gentlemanly move that completely contrasts the boyish grin on his face. Ignoring the sudden sensations in your abdomen, you make a show of curtsey-ing before you take it, eliciting a laugh from your company as the two of you head to the entrance and the full exhibition experience begins. 

As soon as you enter there is someone by the door, who seems to be at the very least taking note of how many people enter, a table with flyers and booklets beside him. Taehyung parts from you only to move over and grab a few, brandishing them as he returns with a bright grin.

“Here is all the information about the event, madame,” he says, with an extremely exaggerated air of grandeur, presenting one of the flyers with a flourish. You take it, unable to help your soft snort.

“I would have thought I had something better, what with the very artist behind the event accompanying me,” you say, grinning when you see his cheeks turn an endearing pink as he flashes a bright, boxy smile. 

“True,” he returns, folding the other flyer and slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. “You can’t ask a flyer questions in real time. Anything that crosses your mind, you can ask straight to the source.”

“Oh? Then, may I enquire as to what the theme of this exhibition is?” You’re enjoying the playful air that drifts between you now, unable to rid your face of the smile currently displayed on it even if you wanted to.

Taehyung’s eyes flick to you, a lopsided smile tugging his lips to accompany the sly accent to his gaze. “Ah, a tough one right off the bat. I think telling you straight-up would be too easy. Let’s see if you can try to guess it as we walk through.”

You turn to him with an affronted look, having expected him to easily supply you with the answer. Taehyung is a little cheekier than you remember. You snap your mouth shut, cheeks heating when you notice he has offered his arm to you once more. Taking note of the other people in the room walking around in a similar manner, you slip your arm through his and try to ignore the way you feel your ears light on fire.

“Okay, you’re on,” you respond, if a few moments too late. He doesn’t comment on the delay, simply sending you a smile that you can’t quite decipher the emotion behind. You don’t get to dwell before the two of you are off, beginning on your journey through the building and starting on your tour of the exhibition. 

You’d kind of always known that Taehyung was talented, considering he managed to make such a name for himself on campus in such little time with such ease. Hell, he’s well-known enough to have made it onto the list of suspects for the muse of your poem. Still, this knowledge is only compounded the further into the building you go and the more of the exhibition you see. Taehyung is truly talented, the images blown up and displayed on the wall each capturing a certain emotion that you don’t have a name for, yet is so familiar that each time you see a new one it gives you pause. Viewing his works, seeing into this part of him and witnessing this bit of his soul he has bared, you can’t help but feel a slight sense of kinship. 

It’s something that rests in the space between your lungs and diaphragm, something that tickles but also something that aches. You do know this feeling, so familiar yet so out of touch and far from the tip of your mind’s tongue. You do try to guess the theme of the exhibition as you go, throwing out the occasional dumb guess to elicit a laugh— he always laughs, and it always makes you smile— but you don’t quite manage to pin it. 

“The five senses,” you shoot into the dark, standing before an image that has made you stop and stare for a good five minutes now. It’s not quite black and white, and it’s not a particularly unique image— but something about the composition, something about the movement in the two hands that are so close yet so far from actually touching, speaks to that hidden part of you. The way one of the hands simply hangs, unbothered and neutral, but the other, the one slightly closer to the foreground, has fingers ever so slightly outstretched, reaching but never quite committing to the movement and the unspoken consequence of the hinted action. 

Of course, you know the answer even before Taehyung says it. He laughs, hands in his pockets, “Nope, ddaeng.”

“This is hard,” you whine, without much heart behind it. The smile stays on Taehyung’s face.

“Whatever. You’re smart, I know you can guess it. It should be easy, for you.”

The compliment catches you off guard, and you have to turn away so that he doesn’t see your cheeks warm. The two of you had parted when you caught sight of the snacks table; you’d been prepared to abandon him and make a beeline over, but Taehyung had surprised you by marching over himself and coming back with a loaded plate. He’d confessed with a sheepish smile that he hadn’t had lunch, and really you were in no place to judge since you hadn’t either. By this point in your journey, though, the plate is almost empty. There’s only two tiny cupcakes left and you’re letting the rest of the things you scarfed down settle before you go in for more. 

Perhaps it was a little dangerous, coming here with Taehyung. He looks so fine, even while shoving sweets in his mouth, that you spend about the same amount of time looking at him as you do at his artworks. It takes all of your willpower to tear your eyes away every time you catch yourself looking at him and admiring the truly boyfriend fit he has donned for this occasion. Every so often he will simply stand before one of his works, scrutinising it with a fresh perspective and ever-criticising eyes, and the sight of it will make something nameless and foreign well within you. You don’t quite know what to do with it, so you ignore it. Or at least, you try to. 

It feels a little too similar to what you know of yearning. It leaves you confused.

You stop not long after in front of another piece, this time a combination of three images that act as separate snapshots of smaller parts of a larger image. You admire the way he has set it out, revealing not too much but just enough that the viewer gets a sense, a feeling, but isn’t confronted with the message. It allows everyone to take their own sensation from it. You like that a lot about his works— he doesn’t tell people what to feel as they view his images, but merely hints, prompts and nudges. He sets the stage and allows people to take what they need, see whichever bits draw their eye most and spell meaning from elements of their choosing. He’s talented, you find yourself marveling again, so incredibly talented.

But still, you can’t put a finger on what the theme is.

By the time you make your way completely though the exhibition, having doubled back at a few points to look again at a select few of the pictures, you’re still no closer to guessing. It has you deep in your thoughts as you stand outside, waiting for Taehyung to return from thanking one of the guests who had recognised him for coming. 

“Guessed it, yet?”

You turn, pinning him with a look that you hoped didn’t look as dumb as it felt. “Leave it with me,” you say. “I’ll figure it out eventually.”

At your words, Taehyung laughs— it’s one of the full-bodied ones you’ve come to enjoy, where he throws his head back a little and shakes his hair back into place after. You have to snap yourself out of it before he catches you staring. 

“I’m sure,” he says, unable to keep the cheeky grin off his face. It does slip ever so slightly though, just for a moment, as you watch a thought cross his features. “By the way…”

You tilt your head, waiting for him to continue. You feel an odd combination of at-peace, and unsettled. Holistically, this is the most at-peace and relaxed you’ve been in weeks. However, when you take a moment to tune into the inner machinations that make up your being… something in this exhibition has reached into your insides and fiddled around, moving things where they shouldn’t be and touching things that aren’t meant to be touched. It’s odd, and you acknowledge that it gives you quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. Even so, you’re calm enough that you have no trouble being patient while you wait for Taehyung to continue and say what he seems so nervous to say. 

“Um, I know I initially only asked you about coming here, to the exhibition…” he begins, reaching to rub the back of his neck in what you recognise to be one of his nervous ticks. “But, I actually have these vouchers I won in a competition a while ago for a paint-and-sip session that are about to expire, and I was wondering… would you like to go? Now, I mean. Since they actually kind of expire tomorrow. Unless you’re busy, because if you are that’s—”

You decide to put him out of his flustered misery, reaching to nudge his arm. “Of course, that sounds fun! Plus, you were right the other day; I could really do with the chance to relax. Thank you, for all this. I really appreciate it.”

It takes a second for your words to register, but when they do the most blindingly bright smile spreads across his face; he’s practically beaming at you. 

“Of course,” he says, with barely a moment’s hesitation. “I’m really happy you agreed to come— I’m glad you said yes to the paint-and-sip, too, because it’s one of my favourite places. Come on, let’s get going. If we get there at just the right time, we can get a really good seat, hopefully by the window.”

The journey continues, Taehyung leading you through the city while chatting easily all the while, a stunning twilight cityscape backdrop and the gentle glimmering surface of the river meandering through buildings providing the perfect scenery. If you had a little more faith in your artistic ability, you might try and paint the image you see now; Taehyung in the colours of dusk, soft and natural against the bright lights and harsh lines of the metropolitan landscape. But alas, you aren’t as talented as the man besides you, and you don’t even want to think of how it would turn out if you attempted to paint such a thing. You quickly throw the thought from your mind before it can linger and get up to more trouble than it’s worth. 

“Here we are!” Taehyung’s cheer breaks you out of your stupor, bright smile directed your way once more as he stops in front of a large establishment with long strips of window and a colourfully sewn awning. 

‘Brush & Bar’, the cursive, neon sign reads above the door, flickering between soft pink and peach orange. It’s an interesting aesthetic the place has going on, but when you look over and catch sight of Taehyung once more it suddenly makes sense why he likes it so much. The style of this place is very similar to some of the more outlandish things he tends to model around campus. Before your reverie lets you remain abandoned outside, you hurry to follow after the ashy-haired boy, grabbing the back of his jacket when you almost trip over the door frame. He spares a look over his shoulder to make sure you’re okay before he continues, moving towards the counter and smiling with more charm than you can personally handle at the staff member there. 

It’s a woman, who you suspect is in her mid-thirties, and she is pretty enough that it takes you by surprise when she rolls her eyes heavily at Taehyung’s approach. 

“You again, boy?” she asks, though it sounds more rhetorical than anything and you catch the slightest tinge of humour accenting her words and it soothes your hackles. “Don’t you ever get sick of hanging around here?”

“Nope!” 

She cracks a smile, lines appearing at the edges of her eyes. “Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. We’d miss you an awful lot if you ever stopped showing up here.” Her eyes flick ever so slyly to you, and then back. “Say, is today the day you’re finally gonna make good on those vouchers you won? I know you said you were waiting for the right chance to ask that g—”

“Yes!” Taehyung cuts in loudly, eyes wide and cheeks flushing darkly. “Yes, yep! I brought the vouchers! They do expire tomorrow after all!”

The woman, Bora as you now see from her nametag, simply smiles, something sly about the action intriguing you. Taehyung clears his throat, reaching to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. “So, um… I will use them now. Is the window seat free…?”

Bora nods, a fond curve to her lips now as she rummages around behind the counter and takes the offered vouchers from Taehyung to punch holes in them. “Your favourite spot? Of course. I had a feeling you were coming, too, so I’ve already gone and set it up with some canvases and acrylics.”

She hands the vouchers back, and Taehyung slips them into the pocket of his jacket.  “Paintbrushes and jars are in their usual place, and I know you don’t normally drink while you’re here but if you’d like some tonight just take your order up to Kyungsoo. Oh! And tonight’s special for snacks is tea cakes, so definitely make the most of that. There are some good ones in the display.”

At the mention of food and alcohol, your gaze had already started to wander on its own— you catch sight of the display of cakes and other sweets and feel your mouth water. Ridiculous, since you were kind of full before, but what can you say, you’re a complicated woman. Lots of layers, not unlike an onion. The thought almost makes you snort.

With a gentle nudge to your arm, Taehyung is bringing you back to the present moment and leading you over to the window, where a medium-sized table has been set up with two square canvases and a basket of paint bottles, palettes leaning to the side. Taehyung instructs you to take a seat, informing you with a smile that he’ll grab some paintbrushes and water for the two of you to use. At his suggestion, while he is gone you open up your phone and search for something to paint. Something that’s not too hard and not too easy. Because your skills are… well, they’re not nonexistent but you’re not about to go around tooting your horn in front of someone with actual art skills and talent. Apparently there is usually an image supplied for each night, but Taehyung says it’s not strict and that tonight is one of the nights where all the patrons just have free reign. 

You sort of get distracted part way through the activity, eyes subconsciously seeking Taehyung’s leather jacket amongst the decently filled establishment. It’s really quite nice inside, actually; the walls and general decor are soft and neutral, with pops of colour everywhere that bring each corner and table to life. A lot of the furniture is wooden, natural and polished underneath specks of paint that decorate in layers that tell of time spent well. The lighting is soft with the exception of the bulbs stationed above each table, which are brighter and angled towards where the canvas would be. On one of the walls, the one near the bar, it is completely covered by greenery— vines that, as far as you can tell, aren’t actually fake. A soft, almost jazzy tune filters lightly through the room, complemented by the low hum of chatter and paintbrushes hitting glass. You’re incredibly impressed and, admittedly, you like this place a lot. It has the kind of vibe that just… makes you content. 

“Here we go!” 

You startle at the sound of Taehyung’s low register, looking over to see him placing a bundle of paintbrushes in between the two of you and a jar beside each of your canvases. He takes his seat across from you, smiling brightly. “Did you decide what you want to paint?”

You hum, turning your gaze out the window for a moment to see if it grants you any inspiration— it’s a gorgeous sight, the twilight sky broken by the outline of buildings with glimmering insides, but it doesn’t help much. You don’t know what you want to paint. Of course, there is this big, expanding feeling inside you, the urge to express it somehow filling you to your fingertips, but what do you do with it? You don’t even know its name.

“No,” you answer, reaching for one of the palettes propped up to the side. “But I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll just see where the vibe takes me.”

The smile Taehyung gives you at that is softer than most, and he eagerly follows suit in grabbing a palette and beginning to set it up; he squirts a big dollop of white, blinking at it for a moment as though he hadn’t intended to put that much. “There are some pencils and erasers to the side there, too. I prefer the moldable one.”

You thank him for his advice, before realising as he puts his own pencil ever so lightly to canvas that he hadn’t told you the subject of his painting. “What are you going to paint?”

“A secret,” he says, leaning around the canvas to grin at you. “Since I don’t know what you’re painting. Let’s swap paintings after, though. I do want to see eventually.”

That makes you laugh, but you don’t bother pushing further. A surprise is nice every now and then, you know. So long as it’s not the kind that ruins your life as you know it indefinitely.

But you’re here to have fun and relax, so you’re not going to get into that. You’re not even going to think about it. 

Taehyung clears his throat, catching your attention immediately. “Right, before we start we should probably order. Did you—”

“No need, my boy!”

Two new figures appear at the side of the table, one a youthful man on the shorter side, the other older and plumper with grey beginning to speckle through his hair. The shorter one places two drinks onto the table, colourful cocktails in a generous glass, and the older laughs before placing down two plates, each with a different kind of cake slice situated neatly in the middle.

“On the house,” the man continues, chuckling at the shocked and somewhat flustered look on Taehyung’s face. “You’ve given us a lot of business so don’t even worry about it. Plus, we heard you were finally making the most of those vouchers so… here’s a little something to start the night off well!”

“...Thanks, Mr Kang,” Taehyung finally manages, shooting them a smile that could honestly give Hoseok’s own a run for its money. “You too, Kyungsoo. Do…. do I wanna know what’s in this?”

He’s gesturing to the drinks, a somewhat fearful look on his face. The shorter man shakes his head, thick brows curved in mirth as his lips twitch into a lopsided smile. “Nope. Tastes good though, so you got nothing to worry about.”

You can’t tell whether Taehyung is relieved or concerned, and so step in to save him a moment of reprieve. “Thank you so much— this all looks amazing!”

Happily, the two men soak in your praise. “I assure you,” Mr Kang says, patting his chest proudly. “It tastes as good as it looks.”

Kyungsoo snorts, but doesn’t disagree. He gives the two of you a small smile. “Right, we should be on our way. You two enjoy yourselves, and if you want refills just come let me know.”

Taehyung nods, thanking them again, and then it’s just the two of you once more.

“Well,” he says, licking his lips and reminding you of a puppy as he stares intently at the slice of strawberry crepe cake, decorated with a generous drizzle of syrup and two fresh, sliced strawberries in a dollop of cream beside it. The other one, a coffee-caramel blend you presume from the heavenly aroma reaching your nose, looks just as good but is nowhere near as successful at capturing his attention. “I guess… let’s begin!”

Whether he meant painting or devouring the food, you end up doing a bit of both. Each mouthful of cake that enters your mouth is announced with an explosion of flavour so rich it lingers long after you’ve swallowed the mouthful down. The drinks, too, are delicious. Fruity but not too syrupy or sugary, you suspect Kyungsoo had used spirits and tempered the fruity flavour with a bit of lemon or lime.

You still aren’t really sold on what to paint, but in the meantime you end up sketching out the flowers that sit on the windowsill a little behind Taehyung. They don’t seem too complicated, and if they end up looking terrible you can just smear the canvas with paint and call it abstract. Of course, part of Taehyung’s shoulder cuts the vase off from view so he’s probably going to end up making an unwitting appearance in whatever mess turns up on your canvas. 

Even though neither of you have any idea what Kyungsoo put into those drinks, you’re sure its something strong. Before long the two of you are already giggly, conversation flowing easily as you put paint to canvas and attempt to make something decent. It’s around the time the two of you are almost finishing your drinks that the conversation takes a delightful turn, which consists of Taehyung telling you about his little fluffball, Yeontan.

“Oh my god,” you say, fingers gripping the paintbrush tight as you try to pet the urge to pet a dog that isn’t even here. “He’s so cute! Look at his grumpy little eyebrows!”

Taehyung laughs, having taken a break from painting to show you his dog like a proud parent. He takes his phone back and slips it into his pocket, paint-flecked hand returning to the brush he’d abandoned. “He’s such a smart dog, but he’s also super dumb. Runs into shit all the time. And there was one time that a friend came over and brought a new camera that he hadn’t seen before—”

Taehyung has to pause recounting the story, he starts giggling so hard. It makes you erupt into laughter as well simply because of how contagious the sound is. “He got so mad, he ran in front of me with his little legs and started barking at it like he was trying to protect me. I love that little dog.”

“I love him too and I haven’t even met him,” you giggle, using your pinky (the only finger you’re sure you haven’t gotten paint on yet) to wipe under your eyes. You don’t think you let a tear slip but you’ve been laughing so much you can’t be sure. 

Taehyung beams at you from around his canvas, brush held midair.  “That’s exactly what Jiminie says.”

That gives you pause. “Wait— Jimin hasn’t seen your dog? But you’ve been friends for ages!”

You catch the photographer smiling as he delivers a few soft strokes to his painting, affection hidden in his tone as he responds, “Yeah, a few years. Since… the last? Second last year of high school? Maybe? It was a wild start to the friendship.”

“Wild?” you echo, intrigued. 

“Yeah. What really kick-started our friendship was this one time I came over while Jimin was really upset about something. I can’t remember exactly how it happened but we ended up at some wack university event nearby. It was boring as hell, and somehow we figured the best way to be entertained would be to commit a mild crime and get away with it.”

Once more, the ashy-haired male has to pause his story to get the giggles out of his system, taking the opportunity to sip a little more of his cocktail. You do the same, not one to pass up much of any drink these days. 

“Long story short, he ended up streaking across the field and earning himself a title at the university as ‘mooncheeks’ or something equally dumb and funny, earnt himself a bit of a nude legacy.”

You pause, the alcohol beginning to slow your mind just enough that it takes a little longer for you to connect the dot between his story and something you’d shoved so deep in the back of your mind years ago that you’d almost forgotten it.

“Wait—” you smack your paintbrush down, eyes wide as an accusing finger is thrown his way. “That was— he ran into me on the way back! Oh my god I almost forgot, that was you two?!”

Taehyung erupts into laughter that is an octave or two shy of being too loud, having to place a hand over his chest to brace himself. He’s nodding wordlessly, eyes pinched shut, and it’s probably the alcohol making your eyes blur but for a moment you could almost swear he’s glowing.

“Yeah,” he finally manages to articulate, wiping a stray tear or two from his eyes, sniffling. “It cheered him up, though, so I think it’s worth the potential trauma.”

That makes you laugh, another sip of your drink going down. A lot of the spirits must have settled at the bottom, because this one had a little warmth as it went down. 

The night goes so easily it’s like a dream, the atmosphere and alcohol in combination with Taehyung’s company making you feel much like you did before this whole shitshow, back when it wasn’t so hard to release the tension in your shoulders or to muster a genuine smile. Taehyung happily gets you a few refills, refusing to let you pull out your card— which is probably for the best because you’re not sure where your wallet is and you’re not coordinated enough to look right now.

You’re on the further side of tipsy, teetering on the edge of pleasantly drunk where nothing makes sense but you’re still somewhat coherent, and everything is funny. Taehyung has almost dipped his paintbrushes in his drink instead of the jar a few times, resulting in a long round of laughter and sore stomachs each time. Eventually, you’d moved his drink to the other side of the canvas and he’d offered you a sheepish smile. 

Surprisingly, your painting doesn’t look too bad, either. Currently it has a bit of a blurry, undefined quality to it, but in your current opinion it kind of works for it. Taehyung’s shoulder did end up making a feature and as the two of you talk you find yourself distractedly painting patterns in the ‘leather’, swirls and hearts and hell, even a few triangles. Eventually, you reach the point where you think that you really can’t do anything more to make the painting better in the time you have, so with a contented sigh you place your brush down and instead turn your attention to Taehyung.

Even as he talks to you and wobbles a little in place, he’s still so incredibly focused in his work, in every detail that meets canvas at the direction of his nimple finngertips, that you don’t think you even see his hand shaking while he paints. Which, your hand was— a lot. It’s the main factor responsible for this one squiggly flower stem in particular you can see in your painting.

As you sit there, happily listening and laughing at each anecdote Taehyung offers you about his life, you find your mind wandering a little bit. Back to the exhibition, and the works and even the way you caught him regarding them. You recognise the critical lens that he viewed them through, because it’s one you adopt yourself for your own creations. Something wells in you, an urge to reassure him in case he ever had any doubts about his own talent; you’re far too many drinks in to be in a place where you can stop yourself.

“Taehyung,” you begin softly but seriously, with minimal slur. He doesn’t stop his motions, but you see him pause for the briefest moment before humming in acknowledgement. “Taehyung, I have to tell you…”

You’re figuring out how to best word your impression of his works and his talent, but you must take longer than you thought because Taehyung lets out a soft huff, giving you a smile that you can’t quite decipher.

“Don’t worry,” he says, flicking the paintbrush back to rest the wooden stem on his knuckles. “I already know I’m not the muse. You don’t have to worry about convincing me.”

For a second, all you’re able to do is blink. Taehyung simply goes back to his painting, expression neutral and his soft hum brushing your ears beneath the soft melody floating from the speakers. You realise quickly that you don’t know what to say to that, and that the full implications of his words haven’t really sunk in yet. He must have noticed that you’d been trying to go around and convince all the suspected subjects that they aren’t the muse of the poem… you feel oddly ashamed, for some reason. Your cheeks feel hot, and not just from the alcohol flush.

“Done!”

Taehyung’s voice breaks you from your reverie, his cheery smile greeting you once more. “All finished?”

You nod, offering a smile of your own and taking the opportunity to say what you wanted to earlier. “Yep. I’m excited to see yours, you’re so incredibly talented, Tae.”

His smile turns shy at that, a bashful laugh tumbling from his lips as he does his best to clean up his area. You do the same, standing up for the first time in a while and having to reach out and stabilise yourself on the table so you don’t fall. The drinks hit you a little harder than you first thought!

“Thank you,” he finally mumbles a few moments later, collecting the brushes. “I’m excited to see yours, too.”

You let out a short laugh at that, knowing that whatever you threw onto that canvas isn’t going to be able to hold a candle to what he made.

Quicker than you can keep track of, the two of you finish tidying and then before you know it you’re saying your goodbyes to the staff and stepping outside. You shiver at the unexpected breeze that greets you, people along the other side of the street huddling together. It’s a windy night and the breeze carries a bit of a bite.

“Oh, right,” Taehyung starts in place, offering his canvas to you. “Careful, it might still be a bit wet…”

Somewhat mindlessly, you swap paintings with him, smiling brightly before your gaze is drawn to the side. By nothing but absolute chance, it passes over the line in front of a bar popular with students at your university, and you almost blink and move on before your eyes halt in familiarity. At the hands of nothing but stupid luck, there is someone you recognise over there. Yoongi stands, face indicating a loud complaint before it even leaves his mouth, and there are a few others around him that he seems to be with who are laughing as they wait in line.

Your head feels so messy, like the wind has managed to get inside your skull and fling everything about like leaves on the autumn breeze. You’re so distracted in the moment that you don’t see it as Taehyung follows the direction of your gaze, and his expression drops. When you jerk out of your reverie, it’s just in time to see his eyes flicking from your painting, to his, and then back to you.

You’re about to peek at his painting and fill the silence with a compliment, but he beats you to it. Something is different about his expression, and not just because he’s no longer under the warm light of the paint bar. The glow you’d noticed so easily earlier seems to have dimmed a bit.

“Did you figure out the theme of the exhibition?”

At his question you startle, gaze flicking to the side as you try and figure it out on instinct on the spot. You’d completely forgotten to think about it, and considering you spent about as much time looking at him as you did his works while at the exhibition, you can safely determine you’re still nowhere closer to the answer. “Ah… no.”

As though drawn like a magnet, your gaze ends up over in the direction of Yoongi for the briefest second. You struggle to tear it away.

“It’s anaxiphilia.”

Even through the inebriation slowing your thoughts, his words reach you immediately. It’s as though your heart has turned to stone and dropped straight through your chest. That unspeakable, unknown emotion wells and bubbles within you, swelling to twice, thrice its size and blocking words before they can even reach your throat. Your eyes are on Taehyung again, but his are still centred where yours had been— had he also noticed Yoongi? You didn’t know they knew each other...

“Oh,” you finally manage, swallowing down that nameless sensation. Taehyung’s gaze slowly slides back to you, dark eyes full of so much… something, you think it would take you years to unpack and familiarise yourself with it all. 

For a second, the two of you stand with your gazes locked, both of you too deep in your own thoughts to do anything about it. Taehyung is the one that breaks the spell. 

“Well, it’s getting late, I shouldn’t keep you out any longer… There is a bus stop here, and tons of ubers in the area…” His eyes flick away as he talks but return as he murmurs this last bit, “Thank you for coming today. I hope you had fun.”

“Of course I did,” you rush, finally finding your voice amongst the shambles in your head. “Thank you for inviting me, Tae. I really… I really needed this. Thank you.”

He nods, smiling at you, but you notice it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

“Please get home safe,” he says, and you nod immediately, making his gaze soften. “See you later.”

“Bye! Thank you again!” you wave, Taehyung turning quick and already a decent way down the street after his farewell. He offers a wave over his shoulder and you catch it just in time before you turn back, gaze unconsciously seeking out the familiar figure across the road. Distantly, you observe that Yoongi is no longer in line for the bar and has switched to the bubble tea place a few stores down.

Taehyung’s exhibition and it’s theme swim through your mind, a sudden impulse welling within you in response that spurs your legs into a motion. You’re about to go across the road in a sudden spurt of something like bravery, but for some indecipherable reason, you stop before you can get more than a few feet. You turn your head, gaze thrown over your shoulder, eyes seeking without an explicit goal in mind.

You catch sight of him just before he rounds the corner and disappears from view— even from the back Taehyung presents a handsome figure, but in the split-second you manage to view him, the most notable things about his retreating form is the slumped curve of his shoulders and the lowered angle of his head. He’s gone before you can blink leaving you for good this time with nothing but your messy head and the one thought that swims to the surface that says after seeing him glow in happiness for the better part of the evening, sadness doesn’t suit him much at all. 

Clutching the painting, your turn back to the front and try and focus on the present for just a minute or two, like whether you’re going to catch a bus or uber it home, but each time you start a new thought it always brings you back to the odd mix of guilt swirling deep in your gut. There’s something else there, the familiar hollow pit of yearning, but for once… you can’t quite tell who it’s for. 

a/n: thank u so much for reading! i really hope it was worth the wait and that you look forward the future parts as fox rain begins to slowly draw to a close!! pls let us know u liked it w a like and rb and screaming in our inboxes is always ALWAYS welcome!! thank u !! love u !! <3

[hopeswriting]

I'm sorry but I'm on a Sky Arco roll, and I don't think we write them angry enough actually.

And by angry I mean furious, wrathful, merciless against whoever or whatever would come for what little's left for them to call theirs.

The world makes it so it survives only if they die, only by taking so much from them, curses them twice over with visions of the futures, and expects them to be, what?

Kind, gentle?

Forgiving?

They have to laugh.

I want Luce to speak before Kawahira has a chance to, and her first words are "I've been waiting for you", and it's a threat.

I want her to crush the map to the meeting place in her fist and says, "I will bear the Sky pacifier, but if you ever should manage to have my Guardians bear theirs, I would have had no part in it."

Luce leads them on top of that mountain, but they aren't there to look for a treasure.

They're out for blood, and Kawahira looks them each in turn, realizes he could very well submit them, but it'd mean the pacifiers would hang around corpses' neck.

"It's unfortunate," Luce says softly, and means none of that, "but you don't become the Strongest in our world by being selfless."

She smiles, and she means every inch of it.

I want Luce to watch the world crash and burn and to laugh through it all, because she has memories of her grown-up daughter and knows what happiness looks on her face, and never had to see again that horrible, betrayed look on her Guardians' face she saw in that future that was never going to happen.

(It still haunted her, and who said she hadn't every right to decide which futures were worthy enough for her to let them come true?)

I want Aria to put her foot down, Aria who also sees parallel universes and is no less overpowered than Byakuran, and meet his war blow for blow.

And win.

I want her to kneel beside Genkishi, who's about to betray and slaughter them all, but he sees death in her cold eyes and he can't move.

Aria softly holds his hand, and he feels death pulling him below.

Did he think he was the only one who knows the terror of looking death coming for you and having nowhere to escape?

Did he think Aria's bitterness and anger from death coming for her so much sooner than it should have, weren't leaps and bounds greater than his?

After all someone still has to show up and save her, and she'd love to see Genkishi try to put her one leg in the grave deeper.

Genkishi doesn't.

I want Aria to go to that little, silly, trap meeting of Byakuran, look him dead in the eye and remind him where his place truly is.

How dares anyone calls themself god in her face, when the world stands only on the life she'll never get to live?

She was born with already so little time left, and Byakuran will not taint her remaining time with war and loss and death.

He will not push the Sky pacifier onto her daughter a second sooner than she'll have to bear it, or so God help him.

I want Aria to look him dead in the eye, and dare him to try to make himself at home in the worlds she was always meant to bleed for.

(She wants him to.)

I want Uni to give it her all in the representative battles, to be a major player, to be a threat.

Why shouldn't she?

She's still a child, and this is not how soon she was told she'd die.

I want her to, let's say, side with Bermuda.

Why not?

She knows the representative battles are a scam, a trap, knew it even before Bermuda confirmed it for her.

It's only the last use Kawahira will have of her, and who does he think he is?

(He might truly be some kind of god, but she never believed in them.)

How dares he bait them with a chance to be free from the Curse, how much more will he demand from her?

Didn't he take enough?

He did.

I want Uni to make Kawahira bleed if it's the last thing she does—let him bleed alongside with them for once—, and who knows, being an Earthling herself she might just succeed.

Because Uni truly is like her grandmother, and she will not let the Curse be forced upon her loved ones.

(It's a promise.)

[readytospock]

How do you dig for cool and good films? I am curious.

Sorry about the late response! I’ll try to be as helpful as possible! I am writing this quite late before I forget abt it so don’t hesitate to ask for clarification!

For film recommendations, a good place to start is with film festival lineups - there are genre specific ones, probably local ones near you, and there are also the more well known international ones like Cannes and Sundance etc. As a film nerd, sometimes I just like seeing what people make videos/articles/papers about and checking those out too! Once you find a screenwriter/director/producer/actor or even a cinematographer you like you can always look further into their catalogue for more films!

If you are at a university, or even if not, check to see if there are film societies you could join. I promise you most people aren’t weird Joker-obsessed dudes (lol) and it’s a good way to make friends and get recommendations

Accessing more films

Here’s the (sorta) harder part. Now, some indie films and even critically acclaimed ones may be available on YouTube (short films especially) but there are other places you can try:

Public libraries are the best! Most classic films will hopefully be available to borrow or request from your local library, and it’s good to support them :)

Check to see if your libraries or university (if applicable) are signed up to kanopy or any similar streaming services. I access kanopy through my uni, and it’s full of interesting films, series and documentaries about all sorts of topics from all over the world. It’s a great way to get watching films that aren’t in english (the subtitles are so comprehensive ahhhh <3) and lesser known critically acclaimed films too. There’s also so many great documentaries about so many interesting topics. In a similar vein is SBS on demand, which unfortunately is an Australian only free streaming service from the broadcaster SBS. It’s got things in a pretty similar vein to kanopy, as well as international news and SBS’s own news coverage and programs. It’s accessible outside Australia with a VPN, but protonVPN (the only worthwhile free VPN) slows down your speeds too much to make streaming video (or too many browser tabs) any fun :( I suppose if you’re willing to you could get a paid vpn but idk how worth it it is - though it does let you access what all streaming services have available in different countries…

Obviously these specific services I’ve mentioned above^^ mightn’t be available to you, but it’s worth seeing whether any local institutions or broadcasters offer anything similar! At least in Australia, lots of broadcasters now have free streaming services where you can stream their programs as well as a few other morsels, and looking back my high school even access to some ~educational~ streaming service… it did have a max of like. 480p to 720p resolution for most things but there were some great films on there!

Even on the more mainstream streaming services, it’s worth having a look beyond the algorithmic recommendations. Most services will have a few gems on them for a few months at a time, and even if your pick is a bit of a miss it can be nice to change things up. As a bit of a film nerd I usually find something worthwhile in everything I watch, and can appreciate good craftsmanship even if i don’t necessarily enjoy watching a film, but if that’s not you don’t feel bad for turning something off - there are plenty of films I’ve never finished and it doesn’t make me a bad person.

Getting into stuff that’s more stylised and less polished/quippy/fast paced/attention grabbing can be an adjustment, especially if I’ve not sat down to watch something in full for a bit and have just spent snippets of my spare time scrolling through social media and the like.

Also there’s the good old skull and crossbones method (if you catch my drift 🏴‍☠️☠️…). It will likely be harder to find non English films with subtitles or dubbed though, as well as indie films.

That being said, I am a proud barbie movie enthusiast and trekkie, so I don’t have a media diet of like. Fine Cinema™️ only.

Also, the attitude of “old films good modern movies bad” is also pretty wrong because many films that are remembered don’t necessarily break the box office or top earnings lists. Many don’t even make it into top ratings lists and rankings, only to come back with a vengeance down the track. Just like how a lot of pop music charts and then fades into obscurity while sticking to a predictable formula, lots of movies do similar things and achieve differing levels of success. The fact that we remember the good ones is no accident, but it’s also no reason to get too pessimistic about the present. also yes capitalism is messing things up as always but I promise you so many ppl are trying tl work against it

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 31

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation, pt 4/?

A/N: Soo sorry about the long wait! This was a very long and kind of tricky chapter to write so it took me longer than I would have wanted. But in a way this is (ironically) a good day to post this chapter as it's the Mother's day in many parts of the world today. (Happy Mother’s day Esperanza Valdez ;___;)

Before we head into this chapter, I want to give you guys a warning that it (specifically, the flashback in the beginning of the chapter) talks about what happened to Leo's mother, so in case you find that too hard to read, feel free to skip it. (If you have read HoO, I think you can somewhat guess what to expect)

Thanks for all the amazing support you guys have given me so far! ♥ It's what keeps me going! Now, enjoy, and remember that I'd really like to hear what you think because there's a lot going on in this chapter!

Words: 5550 (yeah, long one)

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: minor character death (talked about), be aware!

previous chapter / AO3

*flashback*

There was fire. So much fire.

Leo had been tinkering with his toy tools and drawing some simple blueprints in the living room when he had remembered that he had left his hammer into his room. He went to look for it and it took him a couple of minutes to locate it from under the unfinished toys and papers he had thrown around. Unfortunately, that couple of minutes had been enough for all hell to break loose in the living room.

He started smelling smoke and ran back downstairs to see where it came from. The wooden floor and several pieces of furniture in the living room were on fire, which seemed to have started from the papers he had left near the fireplace. Leo’s mind went completely blank like a machine that had just been shut down. The only thing that he was capable of thinking was: what do I do?

His mother had put a fire in the fireplace before she had left to run some errands because it had been a cold day. She had warned Leo several times to be careful with it, even putting a bucket of water and a smothering blanket nearby in case of emergency. But it was already too late to use them; the fire had already spread too far in the room. Because of his state of panic, it took Leo a while to manage to make decisions, but finally, his brain told him: get your phone so you can call mom, and run.

What his 8-year-old brain didn’t understand: he should have just left the building right then and asked a neighbor or someone to call the fire department instead. But Leo could only think how the very thing his mother had been worried about just happened and how she’d probably never forgive him for – no matter how accidentally – burning their home. He had vague memories of leaving his cell phone that he had gotten a few months earlier on his birthday into his room, so he ran upstairs as quickly as he could with his short, wobbly legs. However, the phone wasn’t on his desk like he had anticipated, and it took him a while to remember he had thrown it under the bed after getting frustrated with his homework; the words on the textbook they were supposed to read had not made any sense to him.

Once he finally found the cell phone and went back downstairs to leave the building, the fire had already spread so much that he could barely see anything from the smoke. Coughing, he tried to cover his mouth with his shirt so he could protect himself from the smoke and dash to the door, but he soon realized it was not possible. His road was blocked, and the only way for him to get out would be through the upstairs windows.

Leo didn’t have the time to figure out how to open the windows so he ended up breaking his bedroom window with a real hammer that he happened to find nearby. Shaking, breathing heavily and trying to avoid the glass shards, he looked down. The fall would be quite big, at least 5-6 meters, but he was no stranger to broken bones. The fights with other school kids had taught him a thing or two about that. He would still be more likely to survive the fall than trying to go out from downstairs; at least there were no stones or other hard objects under the window. He was so full of adrenaline that he didn’t even notice that his hands were bleeding; they had hit the broken glass when he had peeked out.

Finally, he managed to gain enough courage to climb up the windowsill and lift one of his legs over the edge. In the process he scraped himself some more in the glass and tore his pants a bit as well, but who cared? It was a very minor thing compared to his mother’s face if she’d find him dead in the house. For a moment Leo thought about all the blueprints and devices in development in the basement of the house, how hours and hours of his mother’s work would go to waste if the entire house burned down – but that was a thing to worry about for later. It was already too late to do anything but to try to escape.

With a huge lump in his throat as he imagined how his mother would hate him when she’d find out about the fire, Leo finally lifted his other leg over the edge as well, sitting on the windowsill with his legs hanging in the air. The distance between him and the ground seemed even bigger than it had earlier, but he had to do this. Slowly, he inched himself forward, hesitating a bit more, but the sound of the fire breaking something downstairs startled him and finally, he dropped down.

After that his memories started getting hazy. He fainted when hitting the ground and when he first woke up he noticed the pain in his left ankle and some blood coming from his forehead. He was laying on the grass, not unharmed but at least alive, and suddenly he got aware that he had to get farther from the house because the fire could easily spread to the surrounding grounds. He could only hope that a neighbor or a passerby had already called the fire department because he himself would not be able to do that, not with his dizzy head and the pain everywhere in his body. Before he passed out again, his last thought was: when would his mother be back?

The next time he was conscious, he remembered trying to drag himself forward with his hands. He could not stand up, and not even crawl, so that was the only thing he could do. Inch by inch, he got a bit farther from his falling spot, and by that time he also started hearing some distant sirens and human yells somewhere, but his mind could not comprehend what all of it meant.

After that, the next thing he remembered was being lifted from the ground by a first responder. The man tried to tell him soothing words, probably something like ‘poor child, it will be alright’, but Leo didn’t care. He wished the fogginess of his brain would just fade so he could speak and walk on his own feet and find out what happened to his mother – if she returned yet – but afterwards, he wished he would have never found out.

He kept slipping in and out of consciousness for a while, not really sure what was happening around him, until finally he woke up in the hospital. One of his legs and arms had been plastered and a bandage had been wrapped around his head. Already he wished he could have just ripped them off and run away but he knew that wasn’t possible. A couple of minutes later, a nurse finally arrived at his bedside.

“Oh, good, I’m glad you’re awake,” she said, testing his forehead to see if he had a fever. “You scared us there, young one.”

“It’s not me you should be worried about! Where’s my mom?! Hasn’t anyone told her I am here?” Leo demanded in a hoarse voice.

The nurse ignored his question. “Now, what is your name?”

“Leo Valdez,” he answered grumpily, glaring at the nurse.

“Good. How old are you?” the woman asked then.

“8 years. But how does that have anything to do with anything? I want my mom here!”

“Calm down, Mr. Valdez. We are just doing some routine tests. You hit your head pretty badly. Now, do you remember your home address?”

Leo, despite still feeling quite dizzy, got really angry about the question. “Yes, I do, but it doesn’t matter! There’s probably nothing left of it anymore! Because it burned down!” The tears finally demanded to get out of his system as he added with a tiny voice: “And I don’t know where my mom is.”

The nurse looked very hesitant for a moment. “I, um… You know, I think we are gonna complete this test a bit later. There are some people who have been wanting to see you.” She looked towards the door restlessly.

“Is it mom?” Leo asked instantly.

The nurse just shook her head. “You’ll see soon.”

She let the visitors in and left the room, closing the door behind her. Leo found himself staring at a firefighter, who he vaguely recognized as the same one who had carried him to safety after his fall. With him entered a police officer whom Leo had not seen before. Why would a police officer want to meet him, he wondered. Maybe they’d sentence him to prison for burning the house down?

“It was an accident!” Leo blurted before the men had time to say anything, trying to look brave even though he had just cried.

“We know, we know,” the firefighter tried to calm him down. “That’s not why we are here. We wanted to see how you were doing, and, um…” he looked helplessly at his companion.

“We have some bad news,” the police officer went straight to the topic.

“Is it about the house?” Leo asked.

“No, it’s about your mother… she’s gone.”

It took Leo a moment to register what the police officer had said.

“What?” he yelled.

“I’m sorry, but she is dead.”

Leo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was already so panicked that denial was his only coping mechanism left. “Again, what?”

“It is true, young man,” the police officer stated matter-of-factly.

“But she can’t be! She wasn’t even home…!” Leo squeaked, trying to make sense of the situation in his blurry, shocked mind.

The firefighter spoke this time. “I’m so sorry, son… but he’s not lying. We found her in your house. The neighbor who called us had seen her go in before we arrived, and… when we got there… it was already too late.”

“But… but…” Leo had a very hard time getting any words out at that moment. “Why… why would she go in…? And… why didn’t anyone stop her?”

Again the visitors hesitated before answering. “This is just what we heard from a couple of witnesses, but… it seems like she had gone in to… look for you…”

Leo wished the sweet unconsciousness had returned to him in that moment, but that didn’t happen. Instead, it felt like something tried to pull his heart out of his chest. His mind was going through about a hundred different things at the same time: grief, anger, denial… and perhaps above everything else, guilt. It was his fault. It was his fault that the house had burned, and it was his fault that his mother had gone into the burning house. If he had been there to warn her… if she had known… But no, he had had to jump from upstairs to the backyard from where he had been harder to find. And then he had, only half conscious, dragged himself to a nearby trench where the humidity had protected him, being even harder to spot unless you happened to walk right next to it.

That meant that his mother had gone into the house thinking he was there… and she had died thinking he had died. All because he hadn’t listened to her, because he had left some papers on which he had been drawing too near the fireplace.

‘My fault. All my fault’, was all Leo could hear in his head on repeat. He noticed that the firefighter was trying to say something, but he could not register what. Leo didn’t ask him to repeat what he had said. Instead, he stuttered with a weak voice:

“You didn’t answer my other question. Why… didn’t anyone… stop her?”

The police officer sighed sadly. “From what we know, your neighbors had tried to tell her to not go in, that there was nothing she could do, but she refused to listen. The… smoke had already suffocated her by the time we arrived.”

Leo clenched his small fists, unable to focus his gaze anywhere. Everything around him was just a meaningless blur. All of a sudden, nothing mattered to him anymore. With his mother, Leo hadn’t just lost the most important person in his life, the only person who had ever really cared about him and understood him. He had lost his home, his safety, everything that he had loved. More to himself than to the men in the room, he sobbed:

“What's going to happen to me?”

And then everything went blank.

*end flashback*

…

When Leo woke up, he noticed he was breathing very sharply. He had to tell himself to slow it down a bit, trying to focus on the breathing instead of the dream he had just seen. Once he had calmed down a bit, he realized his face was soaked from the tears. The good feeling from the day before was gone, and suddenly he remembered all too well why he hated that holiday so much. His mother had died on Christmas day, 11 years ago.

The worst part about the nightmare he had just seen? It had actually happened. Sure, the details might have changed in Leo’s mind a bit because he had been so young when his mother had died, but most of it was true. The fire, the jumping, the people in the hospital, all true. When he had still been a kid, he had dared to hope that maybe someday the memories would start fading and it wouldn’t hurt so much. But now, 11 years later, he knew better. Thanks to the therapy and Jo, Emmie and the friends’ help, he did have moments when he managed to feel happy, focus on the future and forget the pain for a time being, but when it came back, it was always as intense. And it was especially bad on Christmas days, the anniversary of those horrific events.

‘Pull yourself together’, Leo told himself. ‘This is not what your mother would have wanted for you.’

‘No’, another, the evil voice in his head said. ‘But then again, if it weren’t for you, she would still be here.’

He groaned at himself and decided that it would be better to get himself up and moving rather than lay there listening to the voices. Sitting up, he combed his fingers through his messy hair in an attempt to tame it, with little success. After that, he wiped the tears from his face, trying to pretend it had never happened. Registering the voices coming from the living room, he figured some of his family members were already awake even though it was still rather early. They, especially Georgina, were lucky that they didn’t know what was going through in his head that day; it would have ruined everyone’s Christmas.

Trying to pull himself together and put on a happy face, he got up and washed his face in the bathroom quickly before joining the family. The moment he reached the bottom of the stairs, Georgina ran to him and hugged him.

“Merry Christmas, hermano!”

Leo patted her hair absentmindedly, thinking that Georgina was now only a year older than he had been when… no, he had to stop thinking about it. If not for anyone else’s sake, then Georgina’s. She deserved to have a happy day.

“Merry Christmas to you too, hermanita. Well, did Santa visit? Did he receive my memo on your behavior towards me this year?”

Georgina pulled away from him and folded his arms. “I’m not a little baby anymore; I know Santa doesn’t actually exist. But we did get presents! Even you, although I was kind of surprised about that.”

Leo clutched his shirt. “Ouch, Georgie! I thought you were on my side!”

The siblings continued bickering playfully as they waited for the others. They had a tradition in their house that everyone needed to be there for the present opening. Soon Josephine appeared with a tray full of coffee cups, gingerbread cookies and certain small pies she used to bake every Christmas.

“Where are the others?” Georgina asked impatiently as she started stuffing the cookies into her mouth and drummed her legs against the sofa. “I want to open the presents already!”

“Calm down, Georgie,” Jo scolded her. “Emmie is checking the cats and dogs because they also need care on Christmas day, and Calypso may still be sleeping.”

“Ugh, I told her I wanna start opening the presents early!” Georgina protested. “I’ll go wake her up if she isn’t here in 10 minutes!”

“You’ll wake who up?” Calypso showed up from the stairway. Hearing her voice and seeing her face, Leo forgot for a moment why he had been so upset earlier. Somehow her presence just had that weird effect on him. She was wearing a green holiday sweater knitted by Annabeth over her pajamas – pink with some small flower prints – and her hair was flying freely, slightly wavy because of the braids that Georgie had insisted on making the previous evening. Somehow even that casual look made her look adorable in his eyes and his throat felt dry for entirely different reasons than a few minutes earlier. Leo almost missed Calypso’s next words due to his distraction. “Sorry that you had to wait, Georgina. I was finishing up one last present because I wasn’t entirely happy with it.”

“No worries!” Georgina exclaimed. Apparently the last minute gift preparing was a good enough reason to be late in her books, because Leo knew that if he had been late for the gift opening, the little girl wouldn’t have forgiven that easily.

Calypso put her pile of neatly packed presents under the tree to wait and turned to the others.

“So, merry Christmas, everyone! If I am allowed to be honest with you, I don’t really know a lot about Christmas traditions… My family never celebrated it… But I want to learn!”

“We’ll teach you,” Georgina told her immediately. “It’s gonna be so much fun, you’ll see!”

Leo wished he himself could have been as enthusiastic about the holiday as Georgina was, but tried to keep the happy face on anyway.

“Cal, try some of those pies before Georgie has eaten them all.” He pointed to the tray Jo had brought. Calypso glanced at him suspiciously for a moment. “Don’t give me that look; I swear I didn’t make them. It’s all Jo and Emmie.”

“Fine,” Calypso agreed and took a bite. “This is really good!” she exclaimed once her mouth was empty.

“Told you. Now do you trust me?” Leo asked her teasingly.

“Hmmm. That’s still to be determined,” Calypso replied, but Leo could see her smile into her piece of pie.

As everyone waited for Emmie to return inside, they kept up a light banter as they ate their Christmas breakfast in the living room. Even Leo did his best to participate in it, and soon he did feel a bit better, although if someone had looked at him more closely, they would have noticed the smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes.

Finally, Emmie arrived together with Festus and Georgina instantly pulled her towards the Christmas tree so they could start the gift sharing. A grin spread across Leo’s face as well when he watched the little girl run back and forth as she delivered the packages to their rightful owners. This was now, he tried to remind himself. What happened in the past… was in the past and his mother would probably have wanted him to enjoy these moments.

Not that he’d ever know that for sure, the nasty voice in Leo’s head said again, and the grin almost disappeared from his face.

To no one’s surprise, Georgina got the most presents because even some family friends and neighbors had sent her something (that’s what happened when she got everyone wrapped around her finger, Leo thought), but everyone else got their fair share of self made gifts as well. Leo noticed that Calypso had three packages; one from him, one from Georgina who had insisted on making her own present, and one from Jo and Emmie. He found himself wishing she’d like what he had made; he had spent quite a lot of time on it.

Before anyone could start ripping their wrapping papers off the presents, Festus was given some treats so he wouldn’t interrupt the gift opening too much. Georgina got the privilege of getting to open hers first. She chuckled at Leo’s jokes in the photo album, which Leo took as a success, and squealed excitedly at the tiny dragon toy he had carved from wood and painted. Calypso had sewed her a detailed gryphon plushie, because Leo had told her that Georgina had recently gotten interested in the mythical creatures, a topic Calypso knew a lot about. The little girl hugged the plushie enthusiastically while Calypso promised her to tell her more about the Greek mythology later when they’d have more time. Emmie gave Georgie a tiny beginning of a plant that she’d get to raise on her own, and Jo, the practical person that she was, gave her a pocket knife for tinkering with a warning that she’d only get to use it under her supervision.

Leo and Calypso allowed Jo and Emmie to open their presents next. It was mostly practical stuff, like woolly socks, self made chocolate, and new tools (which broke the ‘homemade’ rule but Leo knew Jo needed them), but Leo had also tinkered frames for a photo of the Waystation family and asked Calypso to decorate it with her paints. The final result looked pretty good in his opinion.

Next was Calypso’s turn. Georgina had attempted to crochet a potholder for her because Leo had guiltily admitted that he may have accidentally ruined one of Calypso’s potholders while cooking something. However, since she was still a beginner in the handicrafts, the potholder had some room for improvement, but Leo could see from Calypso’s happy face that she appreciated the gesture. Leo had also told his mothers that Calypso really loved her flowers, so they gave her a white orchid in a pot that Jo had once crafted. Finally, she opened the gift Leo had made for her. He was biting his lip and tapping his fingers nervously even though he tried to act nonchalant as he watched Calypso’s reaction. Before she removed the paper, she knocked on the surface of the gift, trying to guess what was in it.

“Is this a tool box? So you could borrow mine when you lose yours?” She teased.

“Well, at least that would be useful, don’t you think? But hold your horses; it’s probably not what you think it is,” Leo hinted. Calypso gave him a quizzical look and Leo took that as a sign that she really had no idea what the gift was.

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” she noted and started carefully removing the paper. Unlike Georgina, she made sure that the paper would still be usable on some later occasion. Calypso wasn’t entirely wrong with her guess; the gift was indeed a box of sorts. But it wasn’t for tools. Instead, it was a jewelry box; wooden, self made, painted rose pink, which happened to be Calypso’s favorite color. When she opened it, she noticed a small mirror on the lid with some text on it. The box also played one of those few songs that they both happened to like. Calypso traced her finger on the smooth surface of the box for a moment before she noticed that there was still something more in the box: a silvery bracelet with a letter C hanging from it. She took it into her hands and admired it for a moment before reading aloud the text that had been written on the mirror:

“You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep rereading the last one.”

“Um, yeah…” Leo was unsure how he should respond. Suddenly he got worried he had been too straightforward with that message, and Calypso wouldn’t appreciate it. “It was a quote, um, that I happened to stumble upon somewhere recently… But I thought it was quite fitting?”

Calypso looked at him straight into the eyes and for a moment Leo managed to forget that there were others in the room. It was as if she was trying to message him wordlessly that she understood the meaning of the quote.

“Yes, I think it works,” she replied slowly. “For both of us.”

Leo felt his ears getting heated and attempted to comb his hair over them with his fingers to not make it so painfully obvious. Given what day it was, he understood that it was ironic he was using that quote when he himself was struggling to let go from his past.

“True,” he had to admit, looking at the others nervously from the corner of his eye. “It’s… it’s something that we both should try to remember. Something we have in common, right?”

Calypso seemed to accept his explanation. “Right. Um, this box is really beautiful. You’ve seen a lot of trouble with it. The music and all… It’s really nice. Did you even make this bracelet?”

Even though Leo should have prepared himself for that question, he felt embarrassed to reveal the bracelet’s origins, afraid it might sound too sentimental. He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat to get more time to consider his answer.

“The… the chain was from an old bracelet my mom had… My biological mom, I mean. I didn’t get to keep a lot of her belongings but this had survived… and my dear aunt didn’t want to keep it so I’ve been carrying it around as a charm of some sort. But the thing is, I don’t really need it so it was Jo’s suggestion that I could give it to someone who’d use it. She helped me make this,” he showed the C, “because I don’t really…”

“Want to forge anything,” Calypso finished for him. “Yeah. I understand.”

“Good. If you don’t like it, you can give it to someone else; I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind…”

Calypso gave him an encouraging smile. “Oh, no! This bracelet meant a lot to you so it means a lot to me. It’s a really nice gesture, Leo.”

“You’re welcome?” he replied, kind of flustered by her reaction.

Calypso fiddled with the gift for a moment before turning her attention back to Leo.

“Would you like to put this on my wrist? I’d like to see how it fits.”

“Oh… alright!” Leo agreed, wishing he could say something that didn’t make him sound like a complete idiot. But then again, he reminded himself, wasn’t that what most people thought of him? And since when had he cared?

Calypso handed the bracelet to him and Leo took a very light hold of her wrist, as if afraid that he’d burn her skin with his hot fingers. He was so focused on his task that he even forgot that it was technically against the ‘rules’ they had set, but Calypso had initiated it so who was he to deny her request? He put the chain around her wrist with fumbling fingers and closed the lock. After that he allowed his hand to stay around hers a moment longer. He swiped the surface of the chain with his finger, also touching the back of her hand by accident (or maybe on purpose). Calypso looked up from their hands to him with a surprisingly soft expression that he hadn’t seen since that day when they had promised each other to try harder to be ‘just friends’. His brain sent sparks through his spine and he felt very warm all of a sudden.

“I… um… it seems to fit, doesn’t it?” he finally stuttered, looking down at the bracelet, Calypso’s gaze still lingering in his mind. He let her wrist go and already his hand felt much colder, as if it was missing something.

“Oh, yeah,” Calypso nodded, absentmindedly fiddling with the chain of the bracelet. “It’s small enough that it won’t fall but it’s not too small.”

“Good,” Leo said, a smile returning to his face. “Guess you’re just as tiny as my mom was.” He finally managed to bring out his more playful side.

“Have you looked into the mirror lately, Mister Super-Sized McShizzle? You’re not exactly a giant yourself,” Calypso teased back.

Georgina giggled at her response. “You tell him, Calie!”

“This Georgina here, though,” Leo grinned at her, “she must really have some giant blood in her. She uses my overalls in the garage sometimes!”

“I do not,” Georgina denied quickly. “They’re stinky.”

“Yeah? And you smell like flowers and rainbows,” Leo retorted and started tickling the little girl.

For a moment Leo was able to forget that he hated Christmas as he played with Georgina, but then someone reminded him that he still had to open his own presents. He looked at the pile he had gotten and thought briefly that he had gotten more of them than what he had expected. Georgina had drawn him a picture of him with Festus and sewed him a simple pencil case for his blueprint pencils. Jason and Piper had gotten him a book about weird mechanics facts. Percy had sent him a new orange t-shirt so Leo could return him the one that he had once borrowed after a workout (which, according to Percy, was ‘way too big for him anyway’). Leo’s moms had made him an awesome tool case where even the bigger tools would fit and baked some of his favorite goodies. Finally, it was the turn for Calypso’s present, though.

“What do you think it is?” Calypso asked, glancing at him curiously.

“My first guess would have been a pack of olives because you know how much I love those things… But this doesn’t feel like them. It’s mostly soft but there are some hard parts too. Maybe a bit like a backpack?"

“That wasn’t a half bad guess,” Calypso responded. “But I won’t tell you the correct answer; you can figure it out on your own.” She invited Leo to open the present.

“Okie, Sunshine, will do.”

He ripped the paper (which was Leo’s favorite shade of red) off notably less gracefully than Calypso had done with her presents, but his mouth opened involuntarily when he saw what was inside. It was a toolbelt, not looking like one of those belts that broke in his use after the first couple of days (Leo had a habit to load them too full sometimes), but sturdy, well made. Leo wondered where she had obtained the leather she had used in it, and hoped that it hadn’t cost her too much money. The belt had four different sized pockets for the tools and it seemed like one of them had something in it, but before Leo checked what was inside, he turned to Calypso:

“How did you know I needed one of these?”

“Probably because you’ve been carrying wrenches and stuff in your jean pockets and I’ve also seen your room and that’s enough for me to be able to tell you need a place for your tools,” Calypso smirked. Leo barely heard her answer. He didn’t want to admit aloud that one of the reasons why he was suddenly feeling so sentimental about a tool belt was because it reminded him a lot of the one his mom had made for him when he was a kid. “I hope this wasn’t too much trouble…” He noted more quietly than usual.

“It was not trouble at all,” Calypso reassured him. “I have sewed more difficult things. The leather was actually from one of my old bags that my dad got for me – which I hated – so I didn’t even have to buy a lot of the materials. Besides, you yourself made this,” she knocked the wooden cover of the jewelry box, “and I bet it was a lot more difficult.”

“Nah, it wasn’t…” Leo tried to protest and he noticed the others in the room had a hard time keeping their faces straight as they listened to the flatmates competing whose present had taken more time. “The music was probably the most complicated part.”

“Okay,” Calypso said, deciding to leave the debate there. “Hey, I forgot to mention that there is something small in one of the pockets. You could check it out now.”

“Alright, I will,” Leo told her. He reached out to the said pocket and found a small box from it. His smile instantly disappeared from his face when he realized what it was. Everyone went quiet for a while as they were waiting for his reaction.

“Why would you give me matches, especially today of all days?” He lifted his gaze from the box, his eyes sparkling angrily. Before anyone could say anything, he threw the box away and jumped up from his seat. Calypso’s sad face was the last thing he saw before storming out of the room.