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bellysoupset · 8 months ago

Note

Okay so this is what I thought of while reading the interactions with the kids.

I just remembered that Vince is lactose intolerant, right? So how would you feel about lactose intolerant Vince with (reluctant) caretaker Max for a change?

I mean I can imagine maybe a class party or something with a kid wanting to make sure that Mr. Monacelli (or Mr. Mo because that is freaking cute) is having fun too, so they keep bringing him snacks.

I can totally see Vin accepting anything and everything from a kid with doe eyes and not having any way to refuse because the kid is watching him and wants to see Vin eat it. (Let's be honest, Vince would never even speak up because he wouldn't want to hurt their feelings).

After that Vin is feeling gradually sicker and sicker until Max can't keep ignoring him anymore, so Vin has to spill the tea.

Then Max is like "why did you even accept?" While Vin, slightly offended, is like "did you really expect me to say no to that kid?"

I know it's really detailed, feel free to ignore it, I just couldn't get this little scenario out of my head.

- 💜

💜! I hope you like this one, I slightly twisted it and it's a little different from my usual... So let me know what you think!

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Max frowned, leaning on the doorway of the kindergarten. His hands were full with a large tupperware with baking soda, food coloring and vinegar, the usual science fair volcano mix.

What caused him to pause, though, was the sight inside the classroom. Mr. Monacelli, or Mr. Mo to the little ones, was standing, with a kid on his hip, a little girl… Livia, judging by how comfortable he seemed to be as he held her.

Liv’s dark wavy hair was up pigtails and she had face paint on, the tip of her nose painted black and whiskers on her cheek, a matching look that was mirrored on the other children. Cats, the Musical, kindergarten version? Max thought with a snort.

Vince also had face paint on and he was chewing something Livia had just pushed inside his mouth, out of a box. Across the room Max noticed a tall chocolate cake, with a glittery candle that said 7 on top.

That explained it.

Birthday parties were always the bane of his existence, so he was incredibly glad he barely taught kindergarten and the older kids would rather die than celebrate in class. As far as he could remember it, he had bad experiences under his belt. From his mom trying to throw him a fully vegan party that had been a flop with him and his friends, to his father getting drunk and forgetting about his birthday altogether, to the fact once he turned eighteen his birthday all but disappeared as celebratory day.

“Mr. Mo,” a kid ran across the room, with glitter face paint all the way to his scalp. Max snorted at the sight, the parents surely would be over the moon about that, “tell Jess she can’t play with my toy.”

Vince frowned, crouching down to look at the little boy and Max frowned, staring at the scene. He couldn’t figure out this dude. Monacelli gave off military vibes. Football star, with his little homophobic fit the other day, driving that ridiculous motorcycle everywhere… And there he was, covered in glittery paint, scolding a boy for not sharing his toys and being fed cake pops by his little sister and her group of friends.

It just didn’t make any sense.

“Daniels, do you need anything?”

Max’s cheeks burned as he realized he had been caught staring and he shook his head, as five little heads looked at him, as well as Vince.

“No, just passing by.”

“Alright,” Vince waved him off, taking the boy’s hand and dragging him across the room to apologize.

It was a couple hours later when they met again. Max was smelling like bleach, after finishing up a biology class with the 10th graders, and ready to head home as he entered the staff’s lounge to retrieve his bag. He raised his eyebrows as he found Monacelli sitting on one of the couches, in the furthest corner, with his arms crossed to his chest and his head tipped back, as if he was asleep.

“Hey,” Max kicked Vince’s foot to wake him in case he was asleep, “day’s over.”

Vince wasn’t asleep — or maybe he was a really quiet sleeper? — because he sat up straight with a groan, moving his arms to wrap around his stomach, “what do you want?”

Max frowned at the lackluster response, so unlike the man who always seemed to have his energy up, “school’s over, are you planning on crashing here? Maurice is gonna be locking this room soon.”

Vince let out a sigh, using the couch to push himself up and the other man realized he was a horrible shade of white… Damn near green.

“You look horrible,” Max said, taking a step back as he noticed Vince swaying slightly on his feet. Instead of denying, Vince simply nodded, bringing up a shaky hand to wipe the sweat off his brow.

“Yeah, I know-” he interrupted himself with a soft, sickly burp. He didn’t bother finishing his sentence, ceasing every movement as he gulped down, only to let out another little burp and a groan.

“What’s wrong with you?” Max eyed him suspiciously. There was no way this man had caught another stomach bug after measly five weeks of having one, right?

Vince pressed his forehead to the metal locker in the teacher’s lounge, seemingly devoid of any energy to put in his combination and retrieve his bag. Most teachers didn’t even put in a combination, everyone used the standard 0000.

“Monacelli,” he stepped closer, despite wanting nothing to do with illness or this guy. It was just unnerving.

“I’m fine,” Vince breathed out, but it would have been a lot more convincing if he wasn’t swallowing in convulsively and clutching his stomach. Stomach, which by the way, was pressing against his work polo. The guy wasn’t small by any means and Max could’ve told he had a tummy to begin with, but now it was nearly poking out.

“Yeah, you look terrific,” Max rolled his eyes, walking to retrieve his own bag and deciding he was done with the whole scene, “feel better-”

He never quite finished his sentence, before Vince let out a little strangled noise and then rushed across the room, to the teacher’s bathroom. He slammed the door behind him and Max cringed in sympathy as he heard a muffled groan.

Now he couldn’t just leave the idiot, right? Not after he had driven him home?

Max carefully walked closer, tapping his knuckles against the door, “Monacelli, do you need anything? Meds? The nurse? Your mom?”

He expected to hear Vince telling him to go fuck himself, but instead there was a noise of liquid hitting liquid, followed by retching and more liquid.

Shit. Perhaps, even, literally.

Max chewed on his lip, looking around the room helplessly as if an older adult would appear and take over the situation, but he sadly was the only adult. He looked at his watch. 3:40 PM. Office hours were over, the janitor and the security would soon be finishing their rounds and closing up the school.

“Dude,” he sighed, knocking again, “you kinda need to leave, they’re gonna lock us here.”

“Go away…” Vince groaned, his voice raspy and choked up.

Max scoffed, “are you crying?” really? “Mona-”

“I said, go away,” Vince repeated, much harsher now and Max’s mouth snapped shut, his cheeks heating up as his temper got the best of him.

“Fine,” he said bitterly,loudly walking away, “drown there, see if I care.”

Sadly, much to Max’s displeasure, he had a guilty conscience and couldn’t make it even to the parking lot. He let out a sigh and glared at the now empty parking lot. Only four vehicles left, one of them being Vince’s stupid motorcycle.

There was no way the man could go home in a fucking bike.

“Moron,” Max groaned, walking back inside. He fully expected to find Vince back in the teacher’s lounge, so it was much to his surprise when they ran into each other in the hallway. Or rather, he ran, because Vince was frozen in place, an arm wrapped tightly around his belly and breathing through the nausea carefully.

“Oh there you are-”

“Thought I told you to leave,” Vince groaned, not looking up from the spot in the linoleum he was staring at, trying to keep his stomach in check, “careful, or I’ll believe you give a shit.”

“Fever must be through the roof, you’re delusional,” Max snarked, curiosity getting the best of him as he stepped closer and raised a hand to touch Vince’s forehead.

Monacelli was much taller, and bigger, so when he pushed Max’s hand away with an impatient huff, the other teacher stumbled on his feet.

“I don’t have a fever,” Vince scoffed, straightening up. He looked worse, more green and more drenched in sweat, “I’m lactose intolerant and I ate- I ate half a chocolate cake…” his gut let out an upset, whiny gurgle that was loud enough for Max to hear.

The blonde stared at him for a second, before cackling “are you fucking with me!?”

When he didn’t get an answer, except for Vince’s cheek ballooning with yet another burp that he muffled with a fist, Max’s laughter lessened down to a chuckle, his shoulders shaking, “oh… You’re serious? You’re in this shape because of some chocolate?”

He really was the one to judge, Max thought with a snort, remembering he’d be hurling much sooner if he ate half a chocolate cake. But then again, he wouldn’t be stumbling around cradling his tummy and whining.

“What do you want, Daniels?” Vince groaned, rubbing a hand over his face, “I don’t fucking get you. I helped you, not once, not twice, but three times by now, and you’re still a dick.”

Max’s chuckle died immediately, his cheeks burning, “sorry, should I’ve been bowing and kissing your feet? What do you want, cuddles and kisses because your tummy hurts?”

Vince raised an unimpressed eyebrow, “I’m really sorry you weren’t hugged enough as a child,” he said coldly, “but yeah, actually, I do have people who take care of me when I feel ill, because I’m not a fucking jackass.”

“Says you,” Max snorted, rolling his eyes and gesturing to the empty hallway, “where’s the queue to cuddle you? I don’t see it.”

“I know what your problem with me is,” Vince scoffed, pressing his back to the wall behind him and huffing. He was shaking, which was not a good sign and Max bit down the urge to ask if the guy was okay.

“Enlighten me,” he said instead and Vince folded in half, planting his hands on his knees and breathing through a cramp.

“You’re jealous,” he said through his teeth and Max glared daggers at him, his stomach dropping to his feet.

He wasn’t jealous, he was… He just didn’t think Vince was anything special. Surely he was allowed this opinion?

For example, if Vince was so great, why was he about to hurl all over the floor that Maurice had probably already cleaned? That was asshole behavior.

Max mentally patted himself on the back, before saying loudly, “here, Mr. Moron, don’t hurl all over the floor,” and pushing a garbage bin in front of the guy. He didn’t expect Vince to make immediate use of it, falling to his knees and grabbing the metal bin with his hands, hugging it to his chest as a huge gush of projectile vomit fell inside of it.

He jumped back, startled, then tip-toed closer, feeling a new shade of shitty as he heard Vince let out a whimper and bury his head in, burping wetly once more and continuing to convulse and cough.

“If you’re such hot shit, why didn’t you not eat the thing you’re aware makes you super ill?” Max asked, mostly to himself, hesitantly moving closer to plant a hand in the middle of the guy’s back. Even down on his knees, Vince was still pretty freaking tall.

Max patted his back in a hesitant manner, then cringed as he heard footsteps down the hallway. Curse both their lucks, Vince’s because he was about to be caught hurling his brains out, and Max’s because now he’d have to look out for the prick.

He braced for Fernanda, the principal, or Maurice, the janitor, but raised his brows as the person who rounded the corner was no one he knew. The man was well into his mid fifties or early sixties, with wavy light brown hair and blue eyes… And he was really tall.

Max cringed as suddenly he realized he knew Mr. Monacelli from parent-teacher meetings and that the old guy would be expecting him to act like a lovable guy, the same lovable teacher he was when talking about Sophia or Livia. Fuck.

“Mr. Mona-”

“Dad,” Vince croaked, lifting his head for a slight second, “fuck- Fuck, it hurts.”

Mr. Monacelli all but ignored Max as he crouched down next to his son, planting a wrinkly hand on his back and rubbing in wide circles, “I got you, I got you. Get it up and then I’m taking you home.”

Max bit the inside of his cheek so as not to chuckle at that, “Uh- Hi…?”

“Mr. Daniels,” Giuseppe zeroed him, opening a small smile, “thank you for keeping him company.”

Sure. That was what he was doing.

“Yeah, uhm- Of course,” Max scratched at his beard, as Vince let out another sickly belch, bringing up a bit more watery vomit, and then leaned back, his head hitting the lockers, chest heaving, drenched in sweat.

“Babbo, I’m dying.”

“You should be,” Giuseppe glared at him, “what a stupida idea was that?” he softly thumped on his son’s forehead, “I couldn’t believe my ears when Livia told me. Cazzo, you’re an adult, Vincenzo!”

Vince frowned, looking pathetically close to tears, “babbo,” he breathed out, wiping at his mouth and clutching his bloated belly, “later?”

“Idiota,” his father scoffed, grabbing his arm and helping him get up, “Non pensi?”

“Dad,” Vince said a little harsher and his father stopped scolding him continuously, glaring at his son.

“Let’s go home- Thank you for helping him, Mr. Daniels,” Giuseppe said, still oblivious to the role, or lack of one, Max had played.

“Of course,” Max said cheekily, following them out, “any time, Vince. I hope your tummy feels better.”

“Go fuck yourself, Danie- Babbo!” Vince cried out, as his father slapped the back of his hand, dragging him out of the school and towards his car.

“Don’t swear at the boy, he helped you,” Mr. Monacelli glared at Vince, “get in the car.”

“What am I, five?” Vince groaned, stumbling to the car and bracing against it, breathing deeply through the nausea.

Max bit down a smirk, “Bye Mr. Monacelli,” he said happily, “bye Vinny.”

Behind his father’s back, Vince raised a middle finger at him.

#sickfic #mywriting #vince monacelli #lactose intolerance #emeto #emetophilia #nausea #stomach ache #loads of bantering in this one

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auxiliarydetective · 9 months ago

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Sweeter Than Sugar and Twice As Sharp

Behold! The ultimate cutie of this blog! It's Lily!

Bases by Destinys-Heart and ShinanaPixelBases on DeviantArt

Detailed breakdown and separate baby and kid forms under the cut!

As per usual, we'll be going top to bottom!

The ears. Lily is a fennec fox and fennec foxes have big ears, but baby fennec foxes especially are 90% ears, so the same is true for baby Lily.

Generally, I based Lily's fur colors off of real fennec foxes. Their tails are surprisingly dark!

Have you ever seen fennec fox teeth? They're tiny and razor-sharp. I settled for giving Lily only the canines, in true cute anime fashion. Still, those things cause serious ouchies. You do not wanna be bitten by them.

Funny story about that necklace: I simply didn't like that there was so much dead space in kid Lily's collarbone area, so I decided to add a necklace, but I didn't know what kind of necklace. So, I looked through my gallery and found screenshots from the garden of Kaya's mansion. One of those screenshots showed the pond with the gigantic lily pads - and water lilies! A pun? Perfect! Thus, Lily got a water lily necklace, and I will turn this into a plot point in a future fic because I have something very sweet for it in mind <3

The necklace was originally meant to resemble rose gold, but I'm not sure if I want it to be actual rose gold yet since that would be expensive. We'll see...

Ah yes, the dress. The bane of my existence. I found it on Pinterest and decided that Lily just HAD to wear it. And so, I spent hours drawing and coloring it :) - But I think it turned out really cute!

Lily is a ballerina, in case you didn't know, so she gets the typical tights, leg warmers and shoes. She would actually be in the correct age range to be starting to dance en pointe! Also, her being a ballerina just makes sense to me? She needs a little hobby and ballet just seemed perfect. One day, I'll write some cute scenes of her asking Sanji to help her train...

No shoes on baby Lily both because I did NOT wanna draw those again and also because a five year old should NOT be dancing en pointe. Their poor baby toes and legs and... entire bodies, really. So, she's barefoot like a true kindergartener on permanent summer vacation

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄✼▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ Taglist: @starcrossedjedis @oneirataxia-girl @daughter-of-melpomene @supermarine-silvally - let me know if you’d like to be added or removed!

#one piece #one piece oc #oc: felicity #fyeahonepieceocs #artsy

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writteninlunarlight-years · 7 months ago

Note

Hey can I asl for a Bg3 match up? :D

Gender:Male

Pronouns:He/him and they/them

Sexuality: Gay

Race: High elf

Class: he's multiclass Wizard and Bard

D&d alignment: Chaotic neutral

Appearance: Red-ish hair with some light "graying" its more caramelly but like graying anyways, he has heterochromia, his right eye is brown snd left one is light brown. He's dresses very eccentricly and likes wearing long robes with the main colors being dark blue and a magentay red and lots lots lots of jewelry, he's around 170cm or 5'7 ish

Personality: Confident, creative, definetly a problem solver, aloof from time to time, extremely emotional has not know a day of peace with how many emotions his tiny smooth brain can hold. They're wise but the intelligence department is lacking a little tiny winy bit, his brain only retains fun facts and obscure knowledge.

Likes: Cats, pigeons, plants, herbs, herbal tea, coffee, sweets and lots of em, owning books without reading them and obscure spells.

Dislikes: Crowds, loud people, shoes are the bane of his existence, spicy food, silver as a color, his own ears and paper that's thin enough to see through.

Extra fun facts: He has stage fright which is why he has to know how to do other types of magic too, he's befriended every cat he's met and the mf grins like the cat who got the cream all the time... even when he shouldn't even be smiling, he gets into trouble for that.

I hope I did that right :) Have a nice day/night and tha k you :D

I love how sweet all of you guys are in my Asks. I should be the one apologizing cause I have so many accidental spelling mistakes, lol.

~~~~~ MATCH UP ~~~~~

Anon I love your character 10/10. Whether they are a representation of you or not, I love them! I match you with-------

Gale Dekarios

This ticking time bomb of a man (Literally, man is a bomb) loves your comedic sense and the fact he can relate to a true connoisseur of Magic. It's like the Weave made you two for one another.

~~~~~ HEADCANONS ~~~~~

Gale loves your shows when you perform; watching you use the Weave and your other talents impresses him greatly.

He has no problem helping you reconnect with the Weave if you struggle with a spell. (We all know the scene I am thinking of 0.0)

Gale enjoys learning your fun facts and feels like it connects him to you better. It also helps him keep up with what interests you.

Gale hesitates to start walking around shoelessly with you; however, when you two are in his tower, he doesn't mind humoring you.

Gale knew you were the one when Tara accepted you right away.

Correction: Gale knew you were the one when you and Tara ganged up on him and decided your new pastime was picking on him.

(I Wonder if it's just my dialogue scenes or everyone else's, but Gale also has an issue with smiling 24/7, even if there's something horrible going on. Like using runepowder to murder the whole Underdark on accident)

Gale loves to 'borrow' from your book collection to help you continue learning about the Weave.

~~~~~ BLURB ~~~~~

You stood atop the ruined stage at the fairgrounds, decrepit since you guys got rid of the imposters. Your group decided to set up camp here while waiting out at the location of the Nether Brain. As you began practicing the magic show you used to perform before the parasite, a lone Wizard stood by on watch. Gale loved watching you enjoy yourself; nothing set his heart more alight than watching you learn and process things.

Conjuring up a seat, he continued watching as you cast a fireball, quickly switching to an iceblast and causing an explosion similar to a firework. As you continued step by step, you could feel someone's eyes on you. Becoming more meticulous with your casts, you started to lose connection to the Weave. Noticing this, Gale smiled and began to walk over to you. "My dear, what seems to be the matter?" You look to Gale and sigh, frustrated that you forgot such a basic routine due to stage fright. Gale shook his head then stood behind you, "Close your eyes love and follow Mystras guidance, let the Weave move you, forget any eyes on you just flow with the Weave."

You closed your eyes, noting Gale was moving around you now. As you started the basic incantation for a mage hand, you were pulled out of your trance by a swift peck on the cheek from the Wizard before you. Shooting your eyes open, you turn to him with a smug smirk. "Rule number one, don't become distracted, Rule number two, stop looking so handsome while you focus."

~~~~~ EXTRA ~~~~~

(Tara and you were lounging about in the sun on the balcony of Waterdeep Tower. As you two were resting, a grumpy Gale appeared)

Gale: I woke up from my nap to find my lover and cat gone.

(Tara raises her head slightly, yawning)

Tara: Hmmm, it seems I am more critical to your elf than you are, Mr. Dekarios.

(Gale stands there in shock; before he can turn on his heel, he hears Y/N speak)

Y/N: On a scale of one to ten, Tara, how funny was his face? Be honest with me.

(Gale didn't even have to turn around to know you had a giant smile on your face)

#bg3 #bg3 x reader #baulders gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios x reader #bg3 gale #gale x tav #match up #x reader #head canon

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loreleismusings99 · 1 year ago

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Two Body Problem

Ch 3

[Masterlist]

Mark gets a rude awakening earlier than he wanted, you teach some kids about gravity, and Mark walks home in the dark (again).

As always, thank you for reading and commenting. It's genuinely so lovely to see that people other than myself are enjoying this. Sorry this took so long to get out to you all, though--I just went through a bunch of life changes, and the semester just started for me so I've been a hair overwhelmed as of late. I should be back in business though. I hope y'all enjoy this chapter. if you want add another layer to the experience, maybe listen to 'To Someone from a Warm Climate' by Hozier; I had that on repeat for most of the time I spent writing this, lmao.

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Why did I do this again? Oh. Right. Mark thought, kicking a rock that had been landing between him and his destination for the last 5 minutes only for him to have to kick it out of the way again. I decided I needed to follow the bane of my existence turned… friend? back to their building…

At the time, Mark had reasoned that it was to make sure you were safe, which admittedly was most of the reason why, but he didn't have to walk you to your door from the bus stop that was merely a yard away from it. If he rode the bus the rest of the way back to his apartment he'd be home right now, resting soundly in his bed and listening to the sounds of Downtown Chicago drone on outside his window. But, for whatever reason, he acted on a whim--walking you to your door and letting himself get lost in your presence. He could still feel the ghost of your touch on his shoulder blade; your hand was cold, and surprisingly grounding despite the light touch. Mark had to fight back the disappointingly real urge to lean into you every time your arm grazed his on the bus. Usually, he can explain away the thrill of hearing you talk as just being the effects of the adrenaline pumping through his veins as he anticipated the usually inevitable debate. But today couldn't be explained by that; the two of you weren't even arguing--you had a genuine heart-to-heart, but he still felt his heart skip a beat every time you locked eyes with him. And even now, as he was unlocking the door to his apartment, he could feel the memory of you sticking to him--like a stubborn piece of jello lodged in his esophagus, right behind his heart.

Mark lets out a jaw-breaking yawn before stepping out of his shoes and hanging up his keys. "I'm way too tired to process this…" he says, running a hand down his face as he walks towards his bathroom to get ready for bed.

The soil surrounding Mark's arm feels soft and cool, offering a small reprieve from the unwavering heat of the afternoon sun above him. He's adjusting a small lilac sapling into a hole he just dug. The soft purple petals from the bush’s flowers tickle his cheek as he looks up and around at the scene he's found himself in. He's inside a backyard he knows for a fact he hasn't seen before, but he feels calm like it's somehow his home. There's a vegetable garden behind him and to his right, there's a bed of sprawling wildflowers(presumably there to hold on to the soil, forming a retention wall while also bringing some color variation to the yard and attracting native pollinators). A shadow is cast over him as he contemplates adding in some ivy to reinforce the root system, making Mark look up to his left at a figure being backlit by the sun now beginning to set in the west. He lets his eyes adjust and finds your face in the shadow you cast, smiling down at him with an amused quirk of your eyebrow. You have a trowel in one hand and a pair of gloves in the other, resting lazily on your hip in your slightly askew stance.

"I wish you could see yourself right now, almost shoulder-deep in the ground." You say with a chuckle. Mark goes to respond but finds his breath caught in his throat. The sun almost looks like a halo around your head, and there's a spot of dirt on your forehead that he desperately wants to wipe off. You're stunning.

"Come down here and tell me more about it, smart-ass" he finally lets out through a breathy laugh. You roll your eyes while you kneel beside him, and he pulls a small rag from his back pocket to wipe the dirt from your brow once you're settled beside him.

"Thanks" You smile fondly at him before looking down at the fruits of his labor trying to transfer the lilac tree from its pot and into the ground. "Are you sure this isn't too close to the fence? You know we can't have sprouts showing up in the neighbor's yard-"

"Do I need to remind you that I literally have a PhD in Botany? It's far enough, there shouldn't be any issues-"

"Yeah, well, we'll see about that." You said after letting out a hearty laugh. You plop down fully onto the ground and gently fall back into the grass behind you, closing your eyes to protect them from the sun. "It's really nice out here…" you say with a sigh.

Mark looks down at you, now fully illuminated in the midday sun, and responds, "Yeah… it is."

Mark blinks and the blaring sound of someone's car horn jolts him out of his dream. He lays there for a second before extracting his pillow from under his head and using it to muffle an exhausted groan.

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"You've gotta be kidding me…" you mutter under your breath while staring at the email the marketing team just sent you confirming that you're headed to the South Side STEM Festival to table for Adler. Alone. While also running two different activities 'concurrently, ideally.' Do they have any idea how much it takes to run one demo, let alone two? You think to yourself, reasoning that it's probably not the best idea to voice your grievances out loud--not while you're on the clock, at least. You have to pack up the outdoor tent, gravity demo, and a prize roulette wheel and head out for UChicago in about 30 minutes. Luckily for you, though, it's all easy enough to take apart and load into a car, and you're on your way over a couple of minutes ahead of schedule, hoping to get a jump on setting up the booth.

While you're stuck in a traffic backup on Columbus, your mind wanders to the events of a couple of nights ago; you and Mark competed in a game of trivia(which reminds you that you need to get Hana a coffee sometime to apologize for monopolizing the game). But, on the way back to your side of town he went with you--even walked you to your building. That was sweet of him , you think as you find yourself staring at your hand resting on the steering wheel--the one you touched his shoulder with. At the time you weren't entirely sure if it was the right call, but seeing him begin to talk himself out of going with you triggered a flash of inexplicable panic in you. Not wanting the interaction to end quite yet, you'd touched him, hoping the contact would do something . And it certainly did--at least to you; that initial contact felt like a bolt of lightning shooting up your arm. At first, you thought it was the instinct to recoil from the man who'd, for all intents and purposes, been your academic rival but there was something else hidden within the feeling. A softer undercurrent you hadn't expected.

You're jolted out of your rêverie by the Lexus behind you laying on their horn, mad at you for not moving the very second the car in front of you had started moving. Grumbling to yourself, you inched the car forward by a foot and put the car back into park, waiting for the chance to inch further out of the traffic jam.

The field was already packed, and it wasn't even open to visitors yet--and despite the slight cloud cover, the sun felt like it was beating incessantly on you while you tried to set up your booth’s tent on your own. There was a ring of tables populated with a smorgasbord of science demos lining the edges of the field the organizers put you all in. There was a booth being managed by a local bioengineering company to the left of your own with a wild mess of tubes transporting a bunch of red fluid--supposedly a replica of a human circulatory system. To your right, there’s a constructed functional model of one of da Vinci’s flying machines that some undergrad MechEs built for a design lab project. Someone’s drone buzzed overhead, presumably just to test out the inevitable aerial shot they were going to use for marketing the event, but the wiring of the small quadcopter’s motors only added to your malcontent while trying to deal with the heavy and surprisingly fragile canopy.

After getting your hand pinched for the umpteenth time that morning and letting out a yelp and a string of colorful expletives that seemed to fluster one of the undergrads setting up next to you, you hear someone chuckle behind you and ask, “You need some help with that?”

You whip around and see Mark carrying a box of decorations in his arms. The surprise at seeing him causes you to lose focus while holding up the tent’s frame for a second too long, and the structure starts to fall with you standing under it. You let out a " SHIT! " as you try to handle the tent quite literally crumbling around you.

You hear a frantic "woah, woah, whoa!" as Mark rushes into the falling structure to help support it and stop it from folding you into it.

Mark lets out a soft grunt and pushes away a pane of polyester fabric to see your face. Once he locks eyes with you and sees your disgruntled expression he huffs out a "hey-" through a laugh and asks "You alright there?"

"Yeah, I think so…" you adjust the tarp above the two of you before continuing."What are you doing here?" You ask, letting an incredulous look twist your features, hopefully communicating your confusion.

"I'm a volunteer;" He nods towards the t-shirt he’s wearing which says in bold lettering SSF VOLUNTEER , which you grimaced at how obvious it now seemed. "I did my undergrad here, and I like to pay it forward to my alma mater when I can" Mark adds with a wink and a smirk, making you roll your eyes.

Trying your best to right the falling structure around you, you ask "Well, since you're 'paying it forward' today, would you be available to help me set this up? I'm here from Adler." Mark responds with a cordial 'for sure' before taking the other side of the tent and helping you expand it fully, locking into place its folding joints. You let out a sigh and thank him before moving on to setting up the prize roulette table

Mark props his fists on his hips and says, "I'm guessing you'd like some help with that too?" Gesturing towards the collapsed gravity table frame in front of your tent.

You pop your head up from your place under the table while trying to get its legs to stay in place and say, "Yeah if you don't have anything else to get to right now. Usually, we're sent out with at least one other person to make all this manageable, but I somehow got sent out alone." You say that last part with thinly veiled vitriol as you finally get the table legs to straighten out. Mark gets to work and you stand and brush the grass and dirt off your dark-wash jeans before looking up to see how Mark's tackling the gravity table. You watch him organize the parts according to how they fit together and huff out a small laugh, causing him to look up at you from his seat on the grass. He looks like he's about to say something before he looks up at you and stops in his tracks; his expression morphs quickly from questioning and amused to the same ambiguous and hard-to-decipher look he gave you before leaving you at the front door of your building on trivia night. The sudden change slightly startles you and you ask, "What? Do I have something on my face?" You raise an eyebrow in an attempt to look at least a little unflustered while being scrutinized by Mark.

"… Uh, n-no, no you don't. Just spaced out…" There's a beat of silence between the two of you before Mark clears his throat and asks, "Does this look right? I think you guys had this set up last year, but it's been too long for me to remember how it was set up." He stands and awkwardly tries to brush blades of dead grass off the seat of his pants.

You look down and nod, "Yeah, that looks good. Just need to put the legs on and turn it right side up." You pick up two PVC pipe legs and hand another set to Mark, and the two of you finish constructing the frame. You take the elastic fabric that goes with the table and stretch it out over the frame, making sure one side of the ring doesn't have more fabric draping off it than the opposite side.

"Need any more help setting up?" Mark asks, causing you to look up from the fabric. If you didn't know any better, you'd say it looks like he has a hopeful glint in his eye, but of course, that wouldn't make any sense. The two of you are becoming more friendly now, but that doesn't change the fact that he hated your guts not even two weeks ago. Not to mention how much work needs to be done around other parts of the fair, there's no way he has the time to stand around here.

You give him a soft smile and say, "Nah, I think I've got it from here. Thanks, though…genuinely." You look down and run a hand through your hair. Your thoughts begin to spiral as you finish clipping the fabric to its PVC frame; Did that sound too soft? Too nice? God, why are my palms sweating so much???

"Alright; flag one of us down if you need any more help, I can't imagine running two different activities is, uh, easy." Mark picks back up his box of decorations and is back on his way to what you think is the Biology building.

You look up at him and cross your arms, sporting a smirk of your own. "You underestimate my ability to multitask" you call out to him and hear him let out a loud and singular 'HA!' as he turns his back to you.

Maybe Mark was right about how well you'd be able to manage this on your own; you completely underestimated how busy it was going to be. Every time you went to one side of your booth to interact with a family, another one would arrive at the opposite side, wanting to do the prize roulette. You felt like a chicken running around with its head cut off trying to keep up with the two activities. There's finally a lull in visitors around lunchtime, and you take a moment to collapse into the fold-up chair behind the roulette table and pinch the bridge of your nose out of exhaustion. It’s only gotten hotter since you arrived in the morning, and the temperature is starting to get to you. It would be one thing if it was dry out, but the humidity is making the heat feel like it’s sticking to your bones, and no matter how much you sweat or how much water you drink, you can’t seem to get any relief. You're still sitting with your eyes closed when you feel something cold press up against your cheek. You open your eyes and see Mark again, this time holding a blue Gatorade bottle up to your face. “What are you doing? ” you ask tiredly and try to bat the bottle away from your face only for him to move the bottle from your face and offer it to you normally.

“Checking on you.” You look him up and down and give him a judgmental side eye as you take the Gatorade bottle from his hand and crack it open. “I was checking out your booth hoping to mess with you, but when I saw that your eyes were closed, I actually got scared that you’d passed out.” You raise an eyebrow, taken aback by the genuine concern that Mark’s expressing before he continues, “Cause, you know, having a medical emergency like that would be an absolute drag and throw a monkey wrench into the whole operation." He finishes the sentence with a sly grin and you lightly kick his foot and roll your eyes in exasperation. After a moment of laughter, though, his expression turns serious again as he asks, "Are you sure you don't need any help out here? I could operate the prize table or something, I really don't have much to do other than stand around and look official." He takes a seat on the table in front and slightly to your right.

You consider his proposal for a moment; within the past two hours, you've been maybe the most scattered and stressed you've ever been outside a scholastic context. Being split between two activities was technically possible, but it was quickly wearing you down. Having to ask for help though, especially from Mark, seemed worse than the exhaustion, but at this point, you might keel over. You let out a sigh and respond solemnly, "I mean… if you've got nothing else to do. Sure, I don't see how it would be a problem." You look up at him and are slightly taken aback by the soft look of concern gracing his features. "Are, uh, are you sure you're okay with it? Please don't feel like you have to-"

Mark says your name to interrupt you and continues, " I'm here to help. I'm more than okay with it, I want to."

The relief that washes over you is immediate and alarming in its intensity. You fight the urge to weep at the prospect of not running two things at once and look wearily up at Mark. "... Thanks… um… here, let's set you up here." You get up from your seat and show Mark how to operate the prize roulette wheel; once spun, the guest has to answer whatever question it lands on, but no matter what, they get a planetarium sticker. Once you're done showing him the ropes, people start to trickle back into the demo area, signaling the end of lunch, and the return of the hoards of families and excited children.

An hour after resuming the festivities, a group of what you can only assume are siblings walk up to your booth with their parents. Preparing for the new interaction, you put on your usual customer service façade and start addressing the group. "Hey there! How's it going?" You beam with a wide and inviting smile. Your voice is about an octave above what you usually speak at, but talking like this makes it easier to make your voice carry farther. After becoming more acquainted with the new visitors, you begin to walk them through the demo--teaching them about the Einsteinian model for gravity from general relativity, and showing them how objects are attracted to each other in space using a collection of marbles and a bocce ball sat in the middle of the 'space-time" fabric stretched over its PVC frame.

The kids have fun starting orbits and you show them how to make two marbles orbit each other, something that immediately captivates them and causes them to frantically start throwing marbles into the pit, hoping to send a bunch of them in orbit with each other. Putting a hand up and gathering a set of marbles from the pile you begin to try to calm the frenzy. “Alright alright, hold on; you guys are putting them in too quickly. You have to make sure they’re close enough to get pulled into each other’s wells without having them get too close.” You let out a chuckle and prepare to send the set of marbles in your hand in orbit with each other. You set them loose with a flick of the wrist and they start to spiral around each other, dancing around in a decaying dance while falling towards the bocce ball and the kids are in pure awe. “They’re falling towards each other, but moving just fast enough to miss each time. It’s hard to get, but I know you guys can do it; it just takes time and practice,” you reassure the children surrounding the table.

You feel someone's eyes on you and you turn around to see Mark looking at you… fondly??? No, surely it's something else, some other reason he's looking at you like that. Your cheeks flush under the weight of his attention and call out to him to break the quickly forming tension. "Wanna give it a shot?"

One of the younger kids in the group gasps and calls out, "Marble battle!" as Mark walks up to the table and picks two marbles out of the mound of them sitting in your hand.

"How could I not ; especially if it's a contest!" Mark exclaims, confidently preparing his toss. He looks up at you with a cocky grin as he drops the marbles onto the fabric. You pull your eyes away from him to watch as the marbles do not, in fact, orbit each other, but rocket off the table and into the center of the field instead. The kids burst out in peals of laughter, and it takes everything in you to not bark out a laugh of your own at full volume.

"So, um, that was a great example of a hyperbolic orbit-" you were interrupted by your own giggles, and the kids' laughter at your attempt to not openly make fun of Mark.

"Which is technically a type of orbit, you didn't specify a particular path-"

"I certainly did not, but I wasn't expecting that! " Your ribs start to ache from trying to hold in giggles as Mark tries to talk his way out of his embarrassment.

At the end of the day, you pack up the demos and drive them back to the planetarium after thanking Mark for his help(not without any begrudging or jest on Mark’s part), excited to get home. You still have some work that needs grading, but you can finish that from the comfort of your apartment and not in the middle of a field. After waking through your front door and kicking off your shoes you get a text from Mark.

I’ve still got a shit ton of grading to finish. You free to meet up?

You type back a quick 'sure' and pause before asking, my place or yours? having decided that you'll try to be bold for once. It was normal to invite people over if you're working together, and the two of you have been getting along surprisingly well the past week so surely this would be within the bounds of normalcy to ask-

Yours, if that's okay? I would suggest mine, but Colin's asleep already :P

You let out a huff of a laugh at his uncharacteristic use of an emoji and told him that it was fine.

We really need to find a time to work together that isn't the middle of the night, lol

You scoff at this and respond, what, you worried people are gonna talk?

They might! The Devil works hard, but gossips work harder ;)

Hfjshfhsjck 🤣

After confirming that he'd be over in about 20 minutes, your brain finally settled down for long enough for the reality of the situation to kick in. It was a quarter till 10 p.m. and Mark was coming over. He’s going to see your apartment--the inside of it this time, not just the building from the outside. Trying to distract yourself from the impending intrusion, you start to stress clean, making sure every surface is clear of dust and looks at least less chaotic than how frantic your thoughts are.

Is this weird? Not it isn't, this is completely normal. Acquaintances visit each other. Maybe not this late, but this isn't entirely outside the realm of normalcy, friends visit each other late. God he's going to see my apartment; I wonder what he'll think; I wonder what he's expecting? Wait. Why do I care?? Ugh, he's probably not as messed up about this as I am, he's probably cool as a fucking cucumber right now.

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"Okay, okay okay okay - " Mark hisses under his breath while pacing back and forth in his room trying to put together his work bag and an outfit that looked a bit more put together than just wearing his pajamas would. You just invited him to your apartment. Inside your apartment. You trust him enough to let him in your home.

Okay, Mark thought, this is normal, this is fine, it shows that they most likely don’t hate me. I think. He picks up a shirt and grimaces at a stubborn ketchup stain in an impossible-to-hide spot before putting it down and rummaging through his drawer for something not so marred by his messy eating habits. Settling for a black turtle neck and the khakis he wore for the STEM festival, Mark rushes out his door, forgetting his bag in the process and having to run back inside to retrieve it before leaving for your apartment building

Your apartment feels homey despite its small size; every square inch held little clues hinting at who you were, who you are, and want to be. There’s a bookshelf in front of him where most people would put a TV and the couch he’s sat on directly to your left has a little divot in the cushion next to his where he can only assume you habitually sit whenever you have some work to do or a book to finish while wrapped in the blanket that was now messily draped over the backrest. The air around him smells like cinnamon and honey, and the fabric under him is impossibly soft, matching well with the warm light that fills your living/dining room as the two of you work in silence. The volume of the comfortable quiet the two of you have settled into is almost too much; Mark tries to focus on anything else, the work in front of him that he's trying to grade, his heartbeat, anything to distract him from the weight of your presence next to him, scribbling away at the work in front of you on a clipboard while being cradled by a Papasan chair. Mark runs a hand down his face and puts down his quickly drying out pen before asking, “Do you have a bathroom?... wait, of course, you have a bathroom… uh…”

“... where is it? Or, can you use it?” you ask, trying to decipher what he’s trying to ask.

Mark bows his head and huffs out a weak laugh before looking up at you with a small grin, “Yeah, where is it?” Letting out an amused huff, you direct him to a short hallway behind the two of you, saying that the bathroom should be the door immediately to the left of the start of it. After thanking you and walking into the bathroom, he shuts the door and sits on the floor with his back to it, cradling his head in his hands in an attempt to stop the memory of your laugh from seeping into his bones. “...what the Hell…” Mark says under his breath, closing his eyes after noticing you use peppermint-scented body wash. What he’s feeling almost has Mark thinking that he’s getting overstimulated--maybe the day of volunteering had gotten to him and he was just now feeling the effects--but in his self-inflicted solitude, Mark notices something lingering beneath the surface of his strife; a warmth taking root beneath his sternum that is equal parts pleasant and unbearable, like an unknown need that's only halfway satisfied. He tries to swallow it down though; whatever it is, he's got work to do, and you to get back to.

Mark stands and splashes some cold water on his face before leaving the bathroom. On his way back to his spot on your couch, he notices a small picture frame sitting on a table by the hallway he's emerging from that he didn't notice on his way to your restroom. In the photo, an elderly woman is holding this tiny pudgy baby and they're both looking up presumably at the person taking the photo. Upon further inspection, Mark is pretty sure it's you, the face on the baby looking into the middle distance is vastly different, but their eyes have the same brilliance and gravity that he sees nearly daily now that you work and have classes together.

He picks up the frame and continues back to the couch before asking, "This you?" and turning the picture around for you to see. You look up from your work and at the photo, pausing for a second before your face settles into a fond smile.

"Yeah, that's me and my great-grandmother. I'm maybe only a couple of months old in that picture." You take the photo from his hands and look at it thoughtfully. "Where'd you find this?" You ask, looking up at him finally with an amused smirk.

"It was on a shelf in the hallway back there and it caught my eye. I thought I recognized you, could spot those eyes from a mile away." He responds with a comfortable smile before settling back into his spot on your couch. Mark watches as your expression morphs into a look of pleasant surprise.

Panicking, thinking he might've alarmed you, he lampshades; he dawns a smirk and says, "They have a certain haughty, greater-than-thou air to them that's hard to miss." You roll your eyes, scoffing out a "fuck off" and lightly kick his leg while he laughs at your reaction.

After about an hour of grading, you set down your clipboard, looking off into the distance in front of you before turning your gaze to Mark and asking, "Are you hungry?"

Mark is surprised by the sudden question and pauses for a bit before answering. "Actually, I kind of am. Why, are you craving anything in particular?" Mark leans back to look at you properly, his arm draping across the back of your couch.

You ponder his question for a moment, tapping your fingers against your chin, before answering, "How do you feel about pizza?"

"I feel great about pizza, how could I feel bad about it?" Mark responds with an incredulous smirk.

You laugh and pull out your phone, presumably to open DoorDash or something similar. "Pizza it is, then. Giordano's?" You ask, looking out from your phone. "Always, of course," Mark says with a smirk and sets down his pen before turning to face you fully.

You type for a bit before asking, "Any toppings suggestions? So far I've just got cheese."

"Hmm… maybe veggie? With some mushrooms and bell peppers? Oh, and we should get some ranch with it too."

"Oh, I've already got ranch, we can just use mine."

Mark instinctively senses a button to press to fluster you and pursues it. "Well, what if I want my ranch in a small cup?"

You raised an eyebrow before continuing, "Why… would the shape of the ranch make a difference? Wouldn't having it outside of the container make it easier to utilize?"

"I mean, sure, maybe, but the container makes it more fun!" Mark beams at you with barely contained laughter.

You consider him for a moment with a thoroughly amused twist to your grin before asking, "Do you really want the little ranch? I mean, I can get it, if you want it-"

Mark bellows out a laugh, "No no no, it's fine; I was just being a contrarian--I appreciate that though." He says between chortles.

"I swear to God, Watney…" you say through chuckles of your own before continuing, "Alright, that's all ordered; should be here in about 15 minutes." You stand up out of your seat and start to walk over to what looks like your kitchen before saying, "I'm gonna make some coffee; you want any?"

"Sure" Mark responds as he goes to follow you into your kitchen so he's not left alone sitting awkwardly on your couch. Your kitchen feels like a little alcove, tucked away in a corner and separated from the rest of the space by a false wall. The slightly ajar door to one of your cabinets reveals colorful bowls and plates, and just below them is a toaster in the shape of Saturn.

Seeing this makes Mark huff out a chuckle that you pick up on, "What?"

"Oh, nothing, it's just. Your toaster."

"What about my toaster?" You ask, filling up a couple of mugs with some cold brew you took out from your fridge.

"It's funny, it's Saturn; I don't think I've ever seen a Saturn-shaped toaster."

You let out a scoff and turn around holding two mugs of water before saying, "Well, now you have." You hand him one and take a seat on top of your counter before taking out your phone and starting to scroll. Mark distracts himself by looking at some of the fake vines crisscrossing the tops of your cabinets and your fridge before he hears speak up again. "Take a look at this: 'NASA successfully deploys first module of new 'Hermes' space station into orbit.' Looks like we're finally getting serious about sending people past the Moon."

"Really? Do they have footage of the launch? I've been meaning to watch it but it was at the ass-crack of dawn." Mark leans himself next to you on the counter and reads the article over your shoulder.

"Yeah, there should be one on here…" you scroll to the top and press play on the video that appears there. The two of you watch the video of the massive Falcon Heavy launch a little under 6 tons of infrastructure made to sustain human life into low Earth orbit, the speakers in your phone trying and failing to communicate the intensity of the engines roaring to life in Cape Canaveral in the dead of night. "What I'd give to get the chance to see one of those in person…" you mutter under your breath as the two of you watch the camera feeds switch to the ones on board the central module of the new Hermes space station, being built to supposedly facilitate human travel not just to Mars, but to the outer planets and their moons.

"Would you ever want to be on one of those rockets?" Mark asks, turning his head to see your reaction.

You scrunch up your face and set your phone down in your lap before answering. "Ehhh, not really, to be honest. I, uh, have a lot of opinions about sending humans that far before sending robotic explorers…"

"Yeah? What are your thoughts?" Mark asks while he crosses his arms, listening intently to what you have to say.

" Well, Mars is one thing, right; We've sent countless rovers to the surface and have the infrastructure set in place to accommodate people, but I think sending out human explorers farther than that is too risky right now. There are too many unknowns, and not nearly enough probes have been sent out to the outer planets. I think sending out robotic explorers first would be wiser, considering we don't have that great of a map of the in-situ resources we could use in places like… the Galilean system, for example. We've got heritage to work off with MSL and Perseverance; we know pretty well what robotic explorers are capable of. Not to mention they'd need less infrastructure to keep them functional. The grant money would go farther."

You end your rant with a sip of coffee, and Mark pipes in. "Alright, I hear you, but consider the technology transfer; we also have historical examples showing how human spaceflight advances tech we use here on Earth; air conditioning, Bluetooth, MRI, enriched baby formula, the list goes on. Those are all things we wouldn't necessarily have if we had waited and sent robots instead-"

"Need I remind you of the disasters that came out of human space flight? Using more fuel to launch both humans and all the junk we need to stay alive has real environmental costs. Not to mention all the damage that being exposed to radiation does to the human body over time and the lives lost on the launch pad in the late 20th century. Whenever people die, the public forgets why we go out there in the first place. Sending robotic explorers would not only be safer, but could yield more science than if we sent humans who can't go into harsh environments, or stay on another planet for longer than 5 months before they have to return." You gesture emphatically in front of yourself while trying to argue your point, and Mark takes your empty cup from your hand before you end up accidentally throwing it across the room.

"Well, I can't argue with that. But there is a certain something that sending people out to the far reaches of space does to the collective human psyche. 'Going farther than No-one has gone before', and all that jazz." Mark coincides while you cross your arms with a thoughtful frown contorting your face.

"Yeah, there is that… What about you--would you strap yourself to a rocket?" You ask while Mark rinses out your cups and sets them on a bamboo drying rack next to your sink.

"Honestly… I would. I mean, I'd miss home, for sure, but… there's just something about being able to touch something we've only interacted with from afar. I think it would make it feel more real."

You respond with a reserved hum and consider him for a second. Usually, Mark doesn't feel uncomfortable in your gaze, not really. But he feels exposed--like you're trying to pick him apart, see his motivations and what makes him tick. Mark squirms a bit under your gaze before you alleviate the tension by asking, "What's 'home' to you? Where do you go when the quarter's over and it's time to pack up?"

This takes Mark by surprise, and he has to think for a second before responding. "... Wilmette. I have yet to really venture far from home. My parents are still there, haven't left since they had me…. What about you?"

This time, you shift uncomfortably under Mark's gaze before you answer cautiously, "Ah, New Mexico, technically. I moved there from Philly with my parents when I was a little kid. Not sure if I'd call it home anymore though…" Mark waits for you to continue if you want to, seeing how serious your face turned when you finished your sentence. "My family didn't exactly react well when I came out to them. They didn't kick me out, though, and I'm thankful for that but…"

"You need more than that…" Mark finishes your sentence for you. "... I'm sorry. I can't imagine what having to deal with that must've been like… I mean, coming out to my parents wasn't exactly a walk in the park, but they didn’t treat me like a stranger."

You huff out a deflated laugh before asking, "You're also queer? No offense, but I didn't exactly clock you as a member of the alphabet mafia."

"I am a proud representative of the letter 'B', thank you very much" Mark laughs out before continuing, "I was kinda late to the game, but my egg finally cracked in undergrad; I met this guy who would later become my TA for dynamics so it never would've worked out, but falling for him was like being hit by a freight train in the best way possible. It freaked me out, I'd never felt like that about anyone before. I talked to my parents about it and they helped me through that journey… I'm sorry you didn't have that."

You shrug and hop off the counter before saying, "Well, I had my friends. They stepped in when my parents dropped the ball." A small smile graces your lips before you continue, "I still call them every week. We still find time to gab and play D&D together, even after all these years-" Your phone interrupts you with a sharp buzz. You pick it up and read the notification before sticking it in your pocket and walking out of your kitchen. "That's the pizza, I’ll be right back."

Mark is left standing alone in your kitchen, absorbing all of what you just told him, and lets out a sigh before returning to your couch and picking up where he left off in his pile of grading.

After the two of you finished your pizza and packed up the leftovers you got back to grading. After about two hours, though, Mark heard a soft snore to his right. He looks over and sees you curdled up in your Papasan chair in the position you were grading in but with your head leaned back and your clipboard clutched in your hands. Your lips were slightly parted and he could see your eyes dart back and forth beneath their lids.

Mark lets out a soft chuckle before standing up to take the blanket that's draped over the back of your couch and gently covers you with it. You shift slightly in your sleep and turn to the side, somehow managing to wrap yourself in a messy blanket burrito. Mark notices a small eyelash on the apex of your cheek and goes to brush it off before pausing with his hand a mere millimeter from your skin. What is he doing? Why is he tucking you in, brushing stray eyelashes from your face? Why does he want to do this for you? Would you do the same for him? What would you think when you found yourself wrapped in a blanket that wasn’t there when you fell asleep?

While he's agonizing about this, Mark's heart both races and feels extremely sluggish. He's almost painfully aware of how his pulse makes his hand twitch. He notices the same pulse in you too, your chest rising and falling in a slow and deep rhythm, your breath lightly passing over the back of his hand. He finally resolves to brush off the rogue eyelash and picks up his bag. He walks to the door and looks back at you once more before picking up a spare key you have hanging on a hook next to your door. He walks out and locks the door behind him before sliding the key under your door, the softness of your skin still lingering in his nerves' memory. He clenched his fist to try to lose the sensation, but it's too late--you've wormed your way into him, enveloping his senses like the warmth of sunlight on a summer afternoon.

#mark watney #the martian #the martian(2015)#gn!reader #mark watney x gn!reader #mark watney x reader #self insert #andy weir #academic rivals #no use of y/n

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halloweenvalentine1997 · 1 month ago

Text

Arsenic Weather by Darla Cathilde Cutherford

I am as cold as the moonlit snow that drifts onto a frost-covered grave. I am the reason she is in a casket underground. She was the bane of my existence and a hollow, shallow piece of trash. Now, I live in a storm-colored cell. All I do is avoid the rest of the prison population and read an eternal supply of paperbacks.

I got sentenced in 2019. I was only fifteen at the time and am now twenty. My family completely disowned me. They never come to visit me. Each phone call I have made is a dead end.

“Charlotte, you are dead to me!” my mother screamed as the cops led me out of the mansion. My father glared and kept silent. I was arrested for the murder of Katrina Haze. I killed her in my bedroom when my parents weren’t home. I called 911 and turned myself in. My parents arrived at the house just as the cops were escorting me away from the crime scene. Blood stains and yellow tape and a teacup full of poison. They hate me forever now.

I have many years ahead of me filled with walls and text and dreams of portals that lead me out of the grim cell and into brightly-lit sanctuaries. Flowers as red as wounds, windswept beside a picket fence. A green lawn and a sky as blue as the skin of someone drowned in a pool. I don’t care for the world outside of the prison. All I want to do is read and dream of liminal spaces. I’m glad I don’t have a cell mate. If I did, they would probably end up like Katrina. For years, my rage has festered like a creature trapped in a basement, throwing itself against a bolted door trying to get out. I cried oceans and longed to construct chandeliers out of my teardrops.

Adolescence was a hard road, and I don’t regret the fucked up decision I made in my freshman year of high school. It’s not like I ever wanted a job or a love life or further education. I spent junior high wanting to run out the doors of the school, sprinting until I was out of breath. Away from Katrina, away from her tittering acolytes, away from the classrooms that seemed to suck the air out of my lungs. Katrina Haze transferred to my school in eighth grade. Her eyeliner was like black wings at the corners of her eyes. She had hair dyed purple and a vacant glare. Bow-shaped lips always painted a dark color. Katrina was obsessed with being thin and looked down on everyone who wasn’t skinny. She terrorized anyone that she found weak, inadequate or lacking in any way. I was one of her favorite targets. I remember the first time she ever spoke to me. We were passing by each other on the way to class. She said, “Charlotte Elizabeth Taylor, lose weight!” I thought, who is she? And how does she know my full name? It must have been an old acquaintance of mine who told her. I’m sure their conversation was callous and spiteful. I didn’t reply to her, but felt glum once I reached math class. I learned later from overhearing conversations at school that she transferred from somewhere in Seattle. Her family spoiled her rotten. She had too many followers on her vapid, depthless Instagram. She sometimes smoked and had once been arrested for shoplifting.

We had English class together in freshman year of high school. By then, she had been making my life a living hell with endless comments about my weight and my acne. She stole my clothes from the locker room. She wrote hate messages on pieces of scrap paper and left them on my textbooks and in my locker. As we were sitting at our school desks, studying James Hurst’s short story, The Scarlet Ibis, Mr. Woods received an urgent phone call in the middle of class. He stepped outside the room to take the call. As soon as Katrina noticed his absence, she also noticed an opportunity to tear into me. She was sitting at the desk behind me. She tapped me on the shoulder with a pen. I turned around. She leaned forward, her face close to mine, her eyes lined in black, pupils dilated. “Slit your wrists,” she whispered. A boy sitting nearby laughed as he covered his mouth. I punched her in the face. Her mouth filled with blood as I relished the shock in her wide eyes. Mr. Woods returned into the room after hearing the din of raised voices and urgent calling of his name.

“She hit me!” Katrina shrieked.

“Charlotte, go to the principal’s office!” Mr. Woods commanded.

“She just told me to kill myself!” I screamed at him. Before he could reply, I walked out of the classroom and accepted the principal’s punishment of suspension. He decided that me and Katrina needed to be in separate English classes. A few months later, I discovered that Katrina had developed a cocaine habit. I heard two jocks discussing it during gym class. When they noticed me listening intently, they asked me, “What are you looking at, weirdo?” I shook my head and sauntered away.

One late afternoon, next to the school buses, Katrina walked up to me. I rolled my eyes and pulled my earbuds out, interrupting the Talking Heads song I was listening to. “What is it this time, you stupid cunt?” I asked her.

“I can see why you would say that. I’m very sorry for making fun of you this past year. I don’t think it was right of me, and I feel guilty.”

Pathetic. Suddenly, an idea sparked in me like a red beacon in a dark cavern. It only took me a couple of seconds to jump to the conclusion that Katrina should die. So I fabricated a lie that would lure her into a trap. I can’t believe she bought it. I said, “You know, whatever. It’s in the past now. I want to ask you something, though. I heard some guys say you do cocaine now. Is that true?”

“Uh, yeah! It’s like my favorite thing to do now. I need to get more.”

“I’ve tried it myself,” I lied. “I have some at my house. You want to come over and get high?”

“Sure,” Katrina said. We decided to take the bus up the hill to the Tudor mansion I lived in.

To this day, I have no idea why she apologized for all of the things she said and did. I don’t know why she was stupid enough to believe that I would sincerely forgive her. I wonder what the last thing she thought of was before I killed her.

The mansion I once lived in was once owned by the Mulvenna family. They were a family of four, a husband and wife with two daughters. Sinead and Mathilde. Sinead committed suicide by slitting her throat while sitting at her vanity table. Later, Mathilde died when the cops showed up outside the estate, accusing her of the murders of Jamie Frances and Stormy Hale. She shot herself in the head. Unlike me, she was desperate to avoid prison. She killed them on a hilltop at Cliff Park and a witness saw her in that area and turned her in. The police had also received tips that she was involved in other dangerous, homicidal situations. Her parents sold the house to mine and they moved away from the city. It was a more exciting house than the one we lived in before.

Mathilde Mulvenna was an enigma to me. I found her journal in a hidden compartment and was enamored by her prose, about the dead speaking to her from underground, her addiction to methamphetamine, and the glimpses of a ghost with glitter tears gliding down her cheekbones. The ghost, according to her, was haunting the same foyer I walked into every day. I didn’t ever see the ghost until right after Katrina died. Sinead and Mathilde (I recognized their faces from true crime blogs and news headlines) were standing beside the ghost with tears of red glitter blood. She is still anonymous to me. But before I get to that, here’s what happened in Katrina’s last moments on earth. The bus let us off on Grove Street. We walked up to the door and let ourselves inside.

I told Katrina my parents weren’t home, which gave me the opportunity to carry out my plan. I led her into my room. “Where’s the coke?” She asked.

“Just a minute, let me go to the other room to get it,” I said.

Instead of cocaine in the other room, there was chloroform in a cloth. I kept it hidden in case I needed to use it someday. I returned to my bedroom and rushed at Katrina as fast as I could, pressing the cloth over her face. I stifled her screams and her protests. She went limp. I tied her to the bedpost. I left her there, unconscious, while I went downstairs to fill a teacup of water with powdered arsenic. I sprinkled in many spoonfuls. I went back upstairs and forcefully poured the water down Katrina’s throat. I slashed it and laughed as her blood gushed all over me. Once I realized she was dead, I was startled by three people standing over me. Sinead and Mathilde Mulvenna. A girl with bleeding glitter eyes. My mouth dropped open. I suddenly knew that ghosts are real. They didn’t say anything. They just smiled at me beatifically and nodded their approval before they vanished. I decided to call 911 and tell them what happened, unafraid to do time. Now I am here and I feel a strange sense of peace. I only leave my cell to eat or watch the occasional TV. I keep to myself so I don’t have to use my claws.

I don’t believe in purgatory, but I wander through a garden of it every night in dreams. I love the liminal spaces that seem boring to some, like the concrete parking garages, roadsides, riversides, waterparks and red doors of backrooms. Sleeping in my cell at night is a divine escape from reality. I dream of strangers with blurred features in unfamiliar houses, letting me kneel in front of a TV to gaze at flickering images. None of it ever makes sense. The screen shows a golden key, a wrought iron fence, a pink, bloodstained room. Many would say that I’m an evil bitch and that I’m forever doomed by now. But I’ve found that the mind can conjure a paradise out of a hell. My life was always hell before prison, and of course, prison is hellish, too.

So I transcended that in my mind, willing myself into different dimensions, fictional kingdoms, places full of foliage and blooms, where the sun never dies and the sky never screams. I’ve lost my ability to cry or care when I’m taunted. I shut down my emotions. I write all over my walls. Outside in the prison yard, I watch a group of birds circling a piece of animal carrion on the ground. I peer through the fence, watching them eat the dead thing, their black wings spreading as they fight over it. A fight breaks out between two inmates. They are at each other’s throats, attempting to strangle each other. Guards intervene and threaten them both with solitary confinement. I smile placidly. I wonder what the birds are eating. I see one woman crying silently in the corner of the chain-link fence. Another is on the outdoor phone, promising whoever she’s talking to that she’ll follow the conditions of her probation when she’s released. Nobody addresses me. Once it’s time to go inside, I’ll crawl into another world through the wall. Somewhere pretend, but ideal. I’ll stare at that wall until I see it turn to woodlands or meadows. I’ll stare at the ceiling light until it becomes a sunburst and my bed becomes a moor beneath my tired body. In my mind, I can go wherever I please, even if I’m locked up and damned. I can live inside of books. Pretend I’m sitting in a cottage or a gazebo. I can ignore the real world and live in an illusion, if I please.

I don’t miss what I left behind. I feel calmer since I got incarcerated.

I saw Katrina as a problem that needed to be eliminated, and I did the eliminating.

I am not sorry.

#prose #10-16-24

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cathilde · 1 month ago

Text

Arsenic Weather by Darla Cathilde Cutherford

I got sentenced in 2019. I was only fifteen at the time and am now twenty. My family completely disowned me. They never come to visit me. Each phone call I have made is a dead end.

“She hit me!” Katrina shrieked.

“Charlotte, go to the principal’s office!” Mr. Woods commanded.

“I can see why you would say that. I’m very sorry for making fun of you this past year. I don’t think it was right of me, and I feel guilty.”

“Uh, yeah! It’s like my favorite thing to do now. I need to get more.”

“I’ve tried it myself,” I lied. “I have some at my house. You want to come over and get high?”

“Sure,” Katrina said. We decided to take the bus up the hill to the Tudor mansion I lived in.

The mansion I once lived in was once owned by the Mulvenna family. They were a family of four, a husband and wife with two daughters. Sinead and Mathilde. Sinead committed suicide by slitting her throat while sitting at her vanity table. Later, Mathilde died when the cops showed up outside the estate, accusing her of the murders of Jamie Frances and Stormy Hale. She shot herself in the head. Unlike me, she was desperate to avoid prison. She killed them on a hilltop at Cliff Park and a witness her saw her in that area had turned her in. The police had also received tips that she was involved in other dangerous, homicidal situations. Her parents sold the house to mine and they moved away from the city. It was a more exciting house than the one we lived in before.

Mathilde Mulvenna was an enigma to me. I found her journal in a hidden compartment and was enamored by her prose, about the dead speaking to her from underground, her addiction to methamphetamine, and the glimpses of a ghost with glitter tears gliding down her cheekbones. The ghost, according to her, was haunting the same foyer I walk into every day. I didn’t ever see the ghost until right after Katrina died. Sinead and Mathilde (I recognized their faces from true crime blogs and news headlines) were standing beside the ghost with tears of red glitter blood. She is still anonymous to me. But before I get to that, here’s what happened in Katrina’s last moments on earth. The bus let us off on Grove Street. We walked up to the door and let ourselves inside.

I told Katrina my parents weren’t home, which gave me the opportunity to carry out my plan. I led her into my room. “Where’s the coke?” She asked.

“Just a minute, let me go to the other room to get it,” I said.

I don’t miss what I left behind. I feel calmer since I got incarcerated.

I saw Katrina as a problem that needed to be eliminated, and I did the eliminating.

I am not sorry.

#writing

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