#espen got shorter

[roo-was-here-art]

Redraw time! Not sure how to feel abt this tbh they both have their issues...

First image: January 2023

Second image: November 2022

[melds]

𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓:  @axeattitude​ 𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐄:  💞  (  pull my muse in for a messy/desperate kiss )

fringing on the edges of curtains draped thick from above, cloaked by darkness, espen lingers. in front of him is a stage that yawns long and wide, colours dancing on a neon background, and ...

... him. kerry eurodyne. his voice stretches out along the swaying masses of people, carried like a ship over thrashing waves. waves that could easily engulf him whole if he let them, but he stays strong. he overpowers them all. 

the loud, pulsating thump, thump, thump of music threatens an ache to cradle amid espen’s eardrums, but his mind is elsewhere. thoughts drift away and all he can see is him. everything else seems to melt away into a blur of black and blue, kerry becoming that much more vivid and saturated, all lights on him, swathes of colour lashing on and off his face like a dozen whips cracked ...

espen almost misses the conclusion of the concert. before he knows it, kerry’s waving off the crowd and beelining straight towards him.

kerry’s hand snags his own and the shorter of the two drags him back further into the veil of shadows—possibly to ensure no one in the audience got a cheeky peek of their affections. espen’s mind starts to form words, sentences even, but before they can lunge off his tongue—they’re kissing. the kiss is nothing short of messy. kerry trips partway during his haste and espen thanks his quick reflexes for they catch kerry mid-tumble. better that than kerry’s beautiful mug meeting its maker on the ground.

his thumb sweeps circles fondly over stubbly skin and his voice trickles warm down lips and chin. “min skat, you did wonderful.”

[3one3]

The Sequel - 846

The Depth in The Shallows

André Schürrle, Juan Mata, other Chelsea/BVB players, and random awesome OC’s (okay they’re less random now but they’re still pretty awesome)

original epic tale

all chapters of The Sequel

“Are you sure it’s safe? I’m not going to break my head?”

“You’re jumping feet first.”

“Am I gonna break my legs?”

“No. I just did it! Jump!”

Christina held her nose and stepped off a rocky bluff into the Aegean blue water below, which was indeed just about deep enough to be safe. She could stand up in it just a few yards from there, so she worried she was doing something phenomenally stupid. Captain Theo brought them in as close to shore as he could get off the northwest corner of the island designated as a national park a bit east of Îles d’Hyères. Lilly XO was anchored too far out to swim into the pretty cove, so Christina and André used the dinghy to get there after her morning diving lesson in the water in between the shallows and the deep. It was great fun. The Fonz helped André remember all he’d learned before, and did most of the teaching. He got in the water with them and led the way to the bottom to check out some rocks, some plants, and some fish. The experience didn’t last that long, but it was still tiring. The rider made the footballer promise they could do it again the next day, wherever they were going to be. They had some lunch after that, and played with Lukas, and did nothing on loungers in the sun while he played inside with Espen. When they grew hot and it was time for his nap, they decided to go swim in the cove and cool off. It was mostly André’s idea. He wanted to be alone with his girl for a little while.

“Did you break anything?” he asked her when she swam back to where he was sitting, where the water came up to his chest. Christina’s lazy stroke brought her right up to his face, and she let herself sink onto the rest of him.

“No. What’s my score? Did I make a lot of splash?” They were competing to see who could create the least amount of splash upon hitting the water. Neither of them was good at diving, head or feet first.  

“I’ll give you a two.”

“Hey! That’s not nice.”

“Three?” The footballer sniggered with a face full of wet girl.

“I was generous and gave you a 7. You could at least kick some of that back to me,” she pouted.

“Maybe on the next one. Or are you staying here?”

“I’m staying here for now. It’s too much work to climb up there again, and I don’t like being alone on the shore. I kept feeling like some tribe of cannibals was going to come out of the woods and kill me.”

“What makes you think they wouldn’t come in the water to take you? Between us, they’d pick you to eat, Prinzessin,” he told her while sitting up off the hands he was leaning on so that he could grab her blue and white striped behind. “This ass could feed a whole family.”

“Gross.”

“There is nothing else to eat on either of us except your boobs.”

“Do you think “We’re athletes- we’re all lean muscle and wouldn’t taste very good!” would convince them to leave us alone?”

“No.”

“Do you think there’s pizza on the next island over? I want pizza. Lulu Schü does too.”

“How do you know?”

“He always wants pizza.”

“I always want his mom.” André leaned forward with his fuzzy face to give her a smooch, and slid his hand up to her lower back to try to bring her closer still. The Up Dog position she was in on top of him made it difficult to move her. “She’s very attractive.”

“His dad used to be pretty attractive, but then he didn’t shave for a week and started looking like he’s been stuck on this island.” Christina stuck her tongue out and drew her knees up so she could kneel on the player’s thighs and get out of the water enough to be able to gather, ring out, and tie up her hair.

“I’ll shave before we go to St. Tropez if you make an appointment to get your hair done there,” her partner suggested with a pointed nod at the knot she was making. “Surely a place like that has someone who can handle it.”

“What about the length of my hair is so trying for you?” she asked back, incredulous. “It’s not like it’s on my face, or my chest.” She grabbed a tuft of his chest hair when she was done securing the hair elastic, to illustrate that he had more problematic hair growth than she did.

“Nothing at all. I just want you to have, like...the salon experience. You never have time to go get taken care of. You can get your manicure at the same time, yeah? You want to get our toes done together?” Have to use vacation while you have it, André thought. He wanted his wife to take advantage of all the free time to go get pampered a little, both because he knew she’d been wanting to kick back at a salon and let someone do her hair and nails for her instead of for a photoshoot or public appearance, and because he knew she started to feel a little gross living on the boat after a while. There was no point in making her hair nice when it was just going to be blowing around in the salty wind and in and out of the sea, getting dry and sun-bleached. Her feet got dry wearing sandals and walking around barefoot on the wooden deck, or in sand. Her skin was constantly slathered in sunscreen and then lots of lotion, which in general just made her feel dirty and oily and unpleasant. He already wanted to take her someplace nice for dinner in glamorous St. Tropez, and figured it would be perfect to send her to a salon for some primping first. With all the luxury hotels, it seemed safe to assume there would be plenty of high-end places with good stylists and “nail people”, as he thought of them.

“Are you trying to say I look rough around the edges, boyfriend?” Christina turned her nose up at him and appeared skeptical of his motives.

“No,” he laughed. “Haven’t you been wanting to go get all of your nails done?”

“Yeah.”

“So do it. I’ll go with you.”

“Mkay.” She crawled off the player’s lap and stretched out beside him to enjoy the cooling effect of the water on more of her body. The sun beating down on her shoulders and back was too hot after just a minute sitting there. She had to inch a little closer to the beach though, because the chest-height water on André was hit-her-in-the-face height when she tried to sit the same way. He laughed at her when a small swell bombarded her in the face. They both got up and moved backward a yard or so to where it was more comfortable for the shorter one, and the taller one continued to laugh at her because she kept turning around to make sure there were no cannibals emerging from the vegetation. Switching directions was vetoed on the basis that the only thing worse than a cannibal sneaking up behind her was a shark doing it. André then recommended that they sit parallel to the beach, so that they could see both the woods and the rest of the sea, and keep an eye on each other’s six. That was out because, Christina claimed, the ebb and flow of the tide would try to pull her over sideways and she’d constantly be fighting it just to sit still. It was fine when it was going the same direction as her legs, apparently.

To André, if the most significant thing plaguing her was figuring out how best to sit in the shallows off a nature preserve in the south of France with a view of her $26 million apology letter from her dad, then everything was great. Day three on the Riviera with his wife was when he turned his corner. For the first time in as long as he could remember, they could just hang out together and not think of the other layers of their lives, not worry about what was coming next or what they’d been through, not maintain a running internal commentary for analysis of how they were interacting with each other and what it meant for their marriage, and not pretend everything was fine in hopes that it would make it so. In fact, he didn’t even notice that all of that was out of the way. He didn’t reflect on anything at all until he sat there in the water with Christina and began to ask himself, rhetorically, how anyone could put so much thought into how and where to sit or lay in 18” of crystal clear water. Then he sort of absently reminded himself that that was nothing- that there were tons of other things for her to fret so much about.

“Have you talked to Mario lately?” she asked equally as absently while lifting each of her big toes up from the surface of the water in turn.

“I talk to Mario like every day.”

“Oh. Well how is he? Is he coming back for preseason?”

“Yes. He’s been training a little with his fitness coach. Actually, he told me to ask you if Stefanie is home next week or in Monaco with us.”

“She’s going to Rotterdam to ride in the Nations Cup, which is soooooo great for her. I hope she kills it,” Stefanie’s coach smiled. Her grin wasn’t as pretty as some of her others because she was squinting against the sinking sun. “Holger is bringing a groom for her, and she’s taking Dezzy too to do some really low classes, and she gets to ride with Marcus and Marco and Andreas, who you don’t know but never mind, and so it’s not like the other times when she only gets to ride with the B Team. Rotterdam is a big deal. I wish I could go with her, but Heiner and Holger will look after her. I can’t wait until we get to do one together!”

“Aw it’s cute that you’re so positive about that right now, when you know when it happens you will turn on her and be worried that she’s going to beat you,” André teased.

“Nah because we’ll be teammates.” Christina rolled her eyes. “You want your teammate to ride well. She’s a long way from being consistently good enough to compete against me in the big stuff as an individual. You can hide a little in the team. There is always a drop score. We don’t want to put her in top, top classes too much and have her lose and have it damage her confidence. She has time. It’s best for her to just keep getting as much experience as she can one level down and then do these cameos when the conditions are perfect. Ya know what I mean? I don’t want to over-class her too much. It can get demoralizing. Plus she only has one horse that can compete at that level. Jelly Bean can handle being her second horse at a Nations Cup weekend but just barely. Once we get Dezzy fully fit then we’ll see. She has more natural ability than he does, and she’s a little bit more rideable than he is, but it took us a while to get to that and we lost some of it while she was out injured. We’ll see. But you should tell Mario to never mind where Stef is and what she’s doing. She’s head over heels for this Michael guy, and I see it in her riding. He should leave her alone.”

“Riding trainer cock block, ouch,” the riding trainer’s partner chuckled. He had no intention of passing on her message though. Mario should focus on himself, he thought. He’s doing fine with the support of his family, and his friends. He doesn’t need a girl right now, but he also doesn’t need to hear that the one he’s interested in is thriving with someone else. Nope. I’ll just tell him she won’t be home.

“Gotta do what I gotta do,” Christina shrugged. “I feel responsible for her. She could be one of my greatest achievements,” she winked. “Consider my looking out for the whole girl and not just the rider like a way of protecting my investment- my time spent working with her.”

“I get it, Prinzessin. No argument.”

“Kyle will be in Monaco with us though. He’s doing the 2* with Cartito and Calvin.”

“Have you ever called that horse by the same name twice?”

“Probably not. I’m still looking for one that feels right.”

“Uhhuh.”

“Do you wish we invited friends with us this week?” the girl in the striped bikini inquired, thoughtful. She kept having to fight the instinct to fill the time. It was difficult for her to do nothing, or do the same thing for an extended period. She constantly felt like it was boring for André and that she should do or suggest something to do next. The main thing fueling the feeling was an anxiety inside about conversation. Unless she was speaking about herself or something to do with her riding, she didn’t have a whole lot to say to him. It made her slightly uncomfortable. It wasn’t like she was deliberately avoiding certain topics and thus limiting the choices. She just didn’t have much to say. It also wasn’t like they were experiencing awkward silences. They’d been talking all day- just about nonsense. Christina wasn’t used to feeling like that wasn’t enough. She kept reminding herself that they didn’t normally have deep, philosophical or intellectual chats every afternoon at any time during their relationship. But she still felt unsettled. She still felt like she was supposed to be more entertaining.

“Absolutely not,” the chief source of her anxiety snorted. “Why would you even ask that? Espen and the 6 people working on the boat are already too many. I had to drive you away on a little boat to this island to be alone with you!”

“Oh. Well...I dunno,” she squirmed, lifting her hand out of the water to fiddle with the bracelet on her wrist. It was burgundy and black cotton string in a tight fishtail braid, secured with a tiny button. She made it the week before while doing nothing with Juan, with string stolen from grooms at the show who had it on hand for mane braiding, and the extra button in the little plastic baggie that she cut off with the tag from her new show jacket. It was a lot easier to do nothing with him. There was no compulsion to entertain him when they were sitting around outside her horses’ stalls and killing time between classes. There was no struggle for conversation. She made her bracelet on the packing list clipboard and he played with the dogs.

“Why do you look like the kid lying about her dog eating the homework?” André asked knowingly after leaning all the way over to bump his shoulder into hers. He saw the squirming, and he saw the anxiety before that too. Christina could be as transparent as glass at times, especially to the footballers in her life. She usually knew it too, and it kept her from lying.

“I keep thinking we should be doing something more than...sitting in the water,” she admitted while still turning the bracelet around on her wrist. “Like going diving, and playing games with Luke, and go-karting. That stuff is great and I can tell you have fun. I can’t tell if I’m boring you or not when we just lay out on the boat, or here, or, whatever.”

“Why would you bore me?” the player asked back with furrowed brows. What on Earth is she on about now, he groaned inside. “Why would- I- Don’t get it...”

“I dunno. Sometimes I get anxious,” his girl confessed in a quiet voice streaked with sadness. “I worry that-“

“Since when do you care if I’m bored or not? I think you have planned shopping trips with boring me to death specifically in mind.”

“Yeah but, that was a long time ago...”

“Not that long ago.” I hate this. No guy wants to hear his girl say she gets anxious around him and not mean it in some sexual context. We were doing so good...

“I’m just telling you how I feel,” Christina bristled.

“Okay. Calm down. You’re getting defensive like I reacted badly. I didn’t. I’m trying to understand,” André explained. He was trying to stop her from pulling the pin out of the grenade. To him it was as if tension cropped up out of nowhere and then grew exponentially by the word, but all on her side. She was sliding the pin out for no good reason. He thought she wanted the explosion.

“And I’m trying to tell you that- That I- It’s like...I don’t know,” she sighed. “Sometimes I feel this pressure to entertain you and make you visibly happy, and then I guess I get upset because I never felt that before. That’s like how you feel on a first date or something.”

“I don’t get how you end up in these terrible thought spirals. A minute ago everything was fine. For three days, everything was fine. We’ve done a lot of nothing in three days. Why just now are you feeling pressured?”

“I have no idea! I just want not to.”

“Okay. Well take a deep breath and relax,” the BVB man advised, a hand kneading at the nape of her neck. “I really like being alone with you, regardless of what we’re doing. I don’t want to hang out with friends, or do activities 24/7. This is my holiday. I’d be happy to spend this entire week on a towel next to you. Shit, Chris. Where do you find in your head that I don’t want that? Where does that idea come from? I don’t get that. I don’t get what I’m doing that could make you think that.”

“You’re not doing anything, and I don’t know where it comes from. That’s why it’s so frustrating.” Christina puffed out her cheeks and then sat up Indian-style to relieve a budding ache between her shoulder blades. “I just want it to go away,” she added, eyes on her legs.

I don’t know what to say to that, her partner realized. I think maybe she’s getting anxious because SHE doesn’t like doing nothing with me. You have to let the guard down and fully relax and be real, and you can’t do that with just anyone. You can’t hide behind a detailed conversation, or an activity. Especially her. She doesn’t get comfortable with most people. That used to be our thing. You feel good because you’re the one she loves to be herself with.

“I’m sorry. I hate that my inability to be a normal, emotionally stable person gets in the way of so much stuff.”

“You’re not getting in the way of anything. I’m glad you’re talking instead of hiding everything,” he told her. It took real effort to keep the indignation out of his tone. She was right. She could be very frustrating. “And I’m not bored, and you don’t have to entertain me, and you’re not unstable, and it’s not a problem that you have feelings. Everybody has feelings.”

“Can we go out into deeper water? My face is so hot.” And you’re making me feel like a foolish child, the rider added to herself. I hate how whenever I try to tell him, or Juanin for that matter, how I feel and what’s going on in my head, they have to talk me down like I’m some kid who needs reassurance. I hate how all this emotional garbage is back again. Half an hour alone with him and it’s back. What does that mean?

“Yeah, let’s go.”