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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 3 years ago

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Stalker X Stalker, Part 11

First

Perma tag: @nathleigh @peachmuses

Stalker x Stalker taglist: @aespades @jayjayspixiepop @blueslushgueen @fan-written @seraphichana @nerd-nowandforever @toodaloo-kangaroo

Plot? What's that? I only know domestic fluff

She really didn’t know what to think when Tim asked to move in for a second time the next morning.

On the one hand, it felt like she was taking advantage of him. He’d seen her get shot and she doubted he’d really thought rationally since.

On the other hand… he essentially lived there already and it would do a lot to alleviate the anxiety the both of them had...

She rubbed her eyes -- ha, as if she hadn’t been awake the whole night to make sure he hadn’t had nightmares -- for an excuse to look away while she thought. What should she do? She would be lying if she said she didn’t want him to move in, she knew that was clouding her judgement, but even if she recognized her bias it wasn’t easy to just put it aside.

She sighed lightly and lowered a hand from her eyes. Tim looked really cute after having just woken up with his hair all messy and his eyes half lidded and one of his cheeks slightly flatter where he’d been resting his head against her and who can really say no to that face?

… well, Marinette supposed that would allow both of them to relax a little...

She let her hands drop to rest on top of his.

“Sure, darling. If you want you can move in… but, if you ever want to move out, I won’t stop you. Just ask.”

He cracked a tiny smile. “The only time I’d ever move out of this place is if you were changing apartments.”

She snickered. “Where I go, you go?”

“You have no idea,” he said.

She rolled her eyes. “You bats and your dumb cryptic sentences. Would it kill you guys to ever say a single thing directly?”

“Yes. I’m pretty sure that I would drop dead on the spot.”

Her lips twitched. “Oh yeah? Heart attack or sniper?”

“Can’t tell you. I would drop dead on the spot.”

“Damn. Foiled again by the… mystery cause of death!”

The smile on Tim’s face brightened and he looped his arms around her. “You’d save me.”

“Oh? And miss out on my chance to get that rich boy money you probably gave me in your will?”

He schooled his face back into a serious look. “I see. I’ll have to write you out of my will, then. Make sure you bring me back.”

“Nooooooooo! My scheme! Ruined! Now how will I become a millionaire without trying?!”

They looked at each other for a few seconds, his face purposefully smug and hers pinched into a frown…

And then they broke character, giggles falling from their lips and smiles lighting up their faces. She tipped her head forward until it rested against his chest. He squeezed her tighter.

Then, to her surprise, he flopped back on the couch, pulling her with him. “Alright, sleepy time,” he said cheerfully.

“Darling --.”

“You didn’t sleep last night. Sleep.”

She pressed against his chest until she could sit up just enough to glare at him. “I have super strength. May not be as strong as Connor or anything but I can definitely get away from you if I wanted.”

“Of course.” A smug look made its way across his face. “But you wouldn’t hurt your darling, would you?”

She glared harder despite the slight reddening of her cheeks. His smirk didn’t waver.

Marinette huffed and dropped back down. “You’re the worst.”

“You love me.”

She didn’t respond to that, instead just grumbling ‘pillows don’t talk’ and letting herself finally nod off.

Having two perfectionists trying to figure out the layout of a limited living space might not have been their brightest idea. They should have, at least, gotten someone to help.

Instead they had brought out Marinette’s tape measure and mapped out the entire apartment on a sheet of paper and then made tiny shapes for the furniture. Now, they sat at the table, obsessively moving pieces around.

It could have been worse, of course. Neither of them were the type to hoard things. He wasn’t all that concerned with anything other than his clothes and his laptop. Marinette only cared about her clothes, video games, and baking tools -- all of which could be tucked away in the provided closets and cabinets with ease. If needed they could probably get by with nothing but a dresser and a pull out bed each.

So, yeah, their own personal living styles weren’t the problem…

It was their work. Who knew their workaholic tendencies would be their downfall (besides everyone, of course)? She needed a lot of space for her fabrics and mannequins to make sure nothing got damaged. Tim would need a lot of space for his supercomputer if he didn’t want to make the long trip to Bristol every night.

Speaking of the trip to Bristol! He needed a place to put his motorbike and his suit. Shit. He could find a place to park his bike if he tried, but… he started cutting out a piece for the suit.

Marinette saw him adding more stuff and her head hit the table.

He snickered a little and poked her hair until she, however reluctantly, picked her head back up to send him a halfhearted glare. He smiled, reaching over and plucking the tiny square of paper from where it had stuck itself to her forehead. A blush spread across her cheeks.

Then she happened to glance down and her annoyance was back in full force.

“We didn’t think this through,” she said.

His smile became more strained as he looked down at their map. “Moving sounds so easy on paper.”

“Maybe it’s easier for people who don’t have such complicated lives.”

“Yeah. You’re right. I’m quitting.”

“Aw, but then I’ll lose my patrol buddy! I’ll have to do everything with your siblings instead.”

His nose scrunched up. “God, no. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, you love your siblings.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t know they’re the worst.”

She looked like she was going to argue, but then she tipped her head and nodded. “True.”

He snickered.

Their smiles disappeared quickly as they looked back at the layout of the apartment. Could they even fit all their stuff?

… wait, actually, could they?

He started shuffling things in and he realized that, if they wanted to have space to walk, there wasn’t enough room. No wonder they’d had so much trouble finding a layout that would work. It was literally impossible. They needed more space.

She hesitated slightly. “... what if we bought out the apartment next to this one for work? It could even double as a backup in case you ever decide you want to have a place of your own again.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Can we do that?”

“You’re rich, you could probably figure it out.”

He rolled his eyes. “I mean, yes, we can technically kick out the people next door but I’d kind of prefer if we didn’t displace random families.”

“I mean… we could always…” She made a stabbing motion.

He couldn’t laugh at that. Laughing at that would be bad. So he wouldn’t do that.

“Bean -- Mari -- no.”

“I’m just saying! We’d even get the apartment at a discount!”

Okay, he might have laughed a little.

… they didn’t end up stabbing anyone but, hey, if the family next door happened to get some huge scholarship courtesy of The Wayne Foundation that they didn’t remember applying for with the stipulation that they would have to move districts... then they just so happened to have a lucky break. Good for them.

Which meant that they only really needed to buy a desk, a dresser, and a bed.

So they went to Ikea! A boring place where no shenanigans ever happen!

… well, no shenanigans ever happen if you’re not a pair of vigilantes that bounce bad ideas off of each other like they were playing a particularly intense game of Don’t Let The Balloon Touch The Ground and the entire world would blow up if they dared to lose.

Speaking of things that touch the ground, the resident dumbasses should probably have kept their feet firmly planted on it.

Marinette squinted down the escalator. “Oh, they’re definitely going to kick us out.”

“Definitely,” he agreed.

“Maybe arrested.”

“Maybe that, too,” he said brightly, checking the pot over his head to make sure it wouldn’t come off.

“... the PR team is going to hate us,” she warned him.

“Absolutely.” He could feel the gaze on the back of his head, telling him that the employees had noticed them and, quite likely, knew what they were planning. “Ready?”

A grin spread across her face. “Of course.”

He smirked. “Good, because they’re coming.”

She glanced back at the employees making their way over to interfere.

“Threetwoonego!”

He pushed off with his foot, relishing in her indignant yelp, and grinned widely as he started the very bumpy ride that was snowboarding down an escalator. He’d thought he’d be more or less okay because he had been a skateboarder but it turns out that boarding down moving stairs is very different from boarding down flat planes. He let loose a string of curses as he struggled to hold the plank of wood to his feet and not die a very painful, very stupid death.

Marinette came whizzing past him, eyes wide and the tray she’d been using as a board somehow missing.

She met his eyes briefly and flashed a grin.

And then they crashed.

It was about as painful as one would expect. Tim was glad that he’d thought to give himself a pot-helmet-thing because it had cracked down the middle and he didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t done that.

And he was the lucky one. He got out with a few bruises and a better appreciation for his own life. Marinette was nursing an arm that looked like it was trying to imitate the escalator they had just slid down, lips pressed together tightly as tears threatened to escape.

He carefully crawled over to check for any other injuries that might have been less noticeable.

She grinned up at him, either because he was currently checking to see if her teeth were all in place or to be smug. What she could currently be smug about, though, he had no clue…

“You’re so stupid,” he told her, just in case she wasn’t already aware.

Her smug grin remained even after he had removed the finger from her mouth. “You’re just mad that I won.”

“... sorry?” He hadn’t even been thinking about their impromptu race, too concentrated on the whole ‘making sure they hadn’t just died’ thing, and it took a moment for his brain to catch up. Then he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, won a pretty new cast, maybe.”

She snickered. “You had to cheat and you still didn’t even win. How does it feel to suck?”

“Probably still better than it feels to have a broken arm.”

She sat up. “It’s fine, I’ll live.”

He snorted. “You bet you will. I’m going to bubble wrap the whole apartment.”

“You can’t babyproof the place! We don’t even have kids yet!”

Before he could question her use of the word ‘yet’, the employees managed to get their attention. They were trying to get down the currently very broken escalator and the one that was currently going the wrong way for them. Despite this, the two of them had only a minute max before they reached them.

Marinette and Tim locked eyes.

“Run?” She suggested.

He was already getting to his feet. He dropped a business card for the employees and turned to her.

He grabbed her good hand and they sprinted out of the store, smiles lighting up their faces and laughter spilling from their lips. The poor employees hadn’t stood a chance of catching the two vigilantes, even injured as they were. They knew the city like the back of their hands and were able to weave in and out of side streets and alleyways without much thought.

Once they were sure that no one was following them -- leaving a store unattended in Gotham was a terrible idea and Tim had left a card for them to call -- she tugged him to hide between two buildings.

They squeezed into the tiny space and leaned into each other for support while they struggled to catch their breath. Her good hand came up to grip his shirt. He rested his forehead against the wall above her.

She lifted her gaze to his and he wished she hadn’t because he’d already been out of breath enough before she’d done that but now here was staring into her blue eyes, the corners crinkled in a way that had become so familiar to him over the past few months, and god… all he could think about was all the stories that described how time stopped when you fell in love… and how those stories couldn’t be more wrong. He would have hated for that to happen because if time stopped then he would have to see that perfect smile of hers in anything but real time and he doubted that it would have looked nearly as beautiful without the way her shoulders shook with barely restrained laughter or the slight fluttering of her lashes or the steady pinkening of her cheeks.

She finally gave a little puff of laughter. “What?”

He blinked once, trying to bring himself back to what was going on. “Oh, I was just thinking…”

“Oh? Don’t strain yourself.”

He smiled. “I was just going to say something nice but instead I’ll insult you on your stealth. You’d be a terrible criminal, laughing during your getaway.”

She rolled her eyes. “You laughed, too.”

“Yeah, but when I did it it was super cool and professional.”

“Ah, I see. How could I not have noticed it before?”

He snickered. “Well, if today has proved anything, it’s that you are not, in fact, the world’s greatest detective.”

She grinned. “You were the one that put the pot on my head originally.”

“You came up with the idea to go down the escalators like that.”

“You agreed.”

“You -- I -- shut up,” he complained, sending her a glare.

She smiled at him until he pretty much had no choice but to smile back, letting his head fall the last few inches to press his forehead against hers.

Her hand gripped his shirt a little tighter.

He moved his hands from the wall to her waist.

They stood there, letting time pass them by, searching each other's eyes for some sort of answer to the question neither of them could bring themselves to ask aloud. He bit his lip, trying to swallow down his anxiety.

Her eyes flicked to his lips, her own parted as if to say something, before she seemed to think better of it.

She closed the gap. His heart skipped a beat at the feather-soft feeling of her lips against his and he let his eyes flutter shut. She teased his lip out from between his teeth with her own.

And then she pulled back just slightly.

He opened his eyes just enough to see her shy smile and the blush lighting up her face.

“You… you really have to stop doing that. They’ll get chapped --.”

He pressed forward again, capturing her lips in a kiss that was far more desperate than the last. She gasped quietly and he took the chance to slip his tongue into her mouth. The hand fisted in his shirt slid up to wrap around the back of his neck, dragging him even closer. He pressed her back against the wall, a hand trailing up to tangle itself in her hair, trying to reach more --.

She brought her bad arm up to cradle his face and then yelped in pain.

He jumped back. Right. Broken arm. Looks like a staircase. Not good.

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Uh… let’s get you treated.”

Marinette ended up with a pink cast and an order to stay home for at least a week.

She pouted, resting her head back against the couch as she watched him shuffle around in search of his second shoe (it was tucked behind her back, but he didn’t need to know that). “I’m not a child, you guys can’t just ground me,” she complained for what felt like the millionth time.

Tim rolled his eyes. “We all have to do it when we break bones unless it’s an all hands on deck situation. Been like that since even before I was Robin.”

“But B goes out with broken bones all the time!”

“That’s different.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“It is. If there is a situation where B can be a hypocrite he will do it”

Marinette scoffed. “And you’re allowed out because…?”

He started counting off on his fingers. “None of my bones are broken, my job requires me to leave, I don’t get in trouble 9/10 times I leave the house… should I go on?”

“Last one is a lie,” she mumbled.

“No, I only get in trouble, like, 8/10 times I leave.”

It was hard to maintain her glare. She settled for sticking her tongue out at him like the mature adult she was. He returned it, despite the fact that he was also an adult according to the law.

He grinned and came to sit next to her on the couch. She shifted around until she was leaning against him instead of the couch, legs tangling with his.

He didn’t say anything about the blatant attempt at trapping him there with her. Instead, he leaned closer to her face and said: “Speaking of leaving, do you happen to know where my other shoe is?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Why do I get the feeling that you already know where it is?”

He snickered. “I know you, Bean. So, can I have it back?”

“Hm… I don’t know…” she said, twirling his tie around her hand.

He let her pull him down for a kiss. She giggled against his lips as his hands ghosted over her in search of the missing shoe. She kept her good hand at his collar as a kind of silent promise that she wouldn’t -- couldn’t -- move the shoe, even throwing her bad arm around his neck just in case.

He pulled away a few moments later, squinting at her suspiciously. “I’m beginning to suspect I’ve been tricked.”

Her eyes widened in mock innocence. “Me? Trick you? I could never.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, where is it?”

She glanced at the time and smirked. “I guess you’ve earned it…” She pulled her foot out from between the couch cushions to show him the shoe she had hastily slipped on when he’d gotten close.

He scoffed lightly and slipped it off. “Y’know, if I had literally one of the most common fetishes in the world that wouldn’t have worked.”

“But you don’t, so it did,” she chirped with a cheeky grin.

“Guess that’s true…” He pecked her lips one last time before pulling his shoe on and she grinned as she watched him head to the door.

Only to stop a little short because of a knock.

He raised his eyebrows and glanced back. “Are one of my siblings coming over?”

She pressed her lips together thinly to keep herself from laughing. “It’s not any of their normal times. I just figured that, if I had to be home alone all day and couldn’t really do any work because my stupid cast, I should at least keep busy while you were gone.”

His eyes narrowed slightly. He stepped forward and opened the door to reveal a delivery guy with three giant boxes. The furniture they had ordered from Ikea had arrived.

He signed for them and then turned to glare at her. “You planned all this so I couldn’t go.”

“I mean… you could always leave me here to do them myself.” She batted her eyelashes at him innocently. “Of course, my broken arm will make it a little difficult but I’m sure I’ll manage.”

She had been stared down by Batman in full kevlar, she could handle the glare Tim gave her in his slightly messy work suit.

Then, he sighed. “Do you have a backup plan?”

“Obviously. Don’t think you’ll like that one as much.”

He scowled. “You’re really this determined to not be home alone?”

“Oh, no, this is about getting B to allow me out. Trapping you and your siblings here is just a means to that end.”

“You’re going to be trapping my siblings here, too?”

She grinned. “Yep. They show up all the time, might as well use that.”

His shoulders slumped a little.

She giggled. “If I have to stay inside all the time then so do you guys. It’s the rules.”

And, so, she reached for him until he pressed a short kiss to her lips.

Then, they got to work. Or, rather, he did. She had been relegated to just sitting nearby and helping him figure out how to build it.

She took a few pictures for their public accounts as necessary: a picture of him with three screws poking out of his mouth while he tried to figure out the weird L-shaped tool he’d been given, a picture of the two of them staring at the instruction sheet with confused frowns on their faces (taken by Tikki), Vanelope enjoying the boxes the stuff had come in, what was definitely not a thirst pic of Tim, and then the finished furniture in the apartment.

It was there, right before she was about to post it, that she realized that she hadn’t actually publicly followed any of the Waynes. She squinted at her bio, which proclaimed that she would only follow people she genuinely liked, and then at the ten people she had followed. The internet would notice if she suddenly followed eight more people.

“Darling?”

He peeked an eye open from where he was relaxing on the couch and then raised an arm for her. She took his hand and smiled a little when he pulled her into his lap so he could hug her like a pillow.

Then she pulled a more serious look to her face. “Do you want to go public or not?”

He buried his face in her neck. “Sure.”

“... not even gonna think about it?”

He shrugged. “They’re going to suspect it no matter what. Especially since we were goofing around in an Ikea of all places and you’re uploading pictures of me helping you with furniture.”

She nodded slightly. “I know, but I don’t have to upload them.”

There was a long silence as they considered their options.

Eventually he just sighed and tightened his grip on her. “I’ll go with anything you want to do, Bean.”

She relaxed slowly and, hesitantly, she sent him the photos. “Here, you can upload them, too. Might as well make it public on both of our accounts.”

He picked his head up slightly to check out the pictures. She felt his lips curl into a smile against her shoulder at the picture of Vanelope. “This one is nice.”

She snickered. “All cats are cute, obviously it would make a nice picture.”

He hummed his agreement. “No offense to you, you’re cute and all, but the cat definitely wins the cutest here.”

“I’m not offended at all. We could never beat that.”

Then, she got an idea.

“Except… maybe… want a picture of us kissing for the reveal?”

“I’ll take any excuse,” he said with a wink.

She rolled her eyes even as she felt her face warm. “You don’t need an excuse to kiss me, dumbass.”

Now it was his turn to blush. Yay, revenge.

… also, it would be cute for the picture if they were both a little red for it.

She twisted in his lap to press a kiss to his lips. His hands came up to cradle her face. She threw her bad arm around his neck, fingers threaded in his hair.

Her camera clicked. They ignored it.

#im going to write a million words of fluff and no one can stop me #unless i get like zero likes #im v motivated by likes and reblogs pls guys i need it #pls #also they're getting worseeeeeee #tim is lowkey possessive and mari is lowkey controlling #but its v lowkey so #baaasically doesn't exist #stalker x stalker #maribat #tim drake #red robin #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #timari #timmari #timinette #shutterbug

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oogaboogasphincter · 3 years ago

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A Magpie, a Goose and a Sparrow Walk into a Found Family Trope (Ezra x f!reader)

Summary: A nightmare caused by trauma he endured before and on The Green haunts Ezra one night, his fear bleeding into reality. Under the fog of sleep, he hurts you, thinking you are the monster that is endangering you, Cee and himself while on your next trip. He apologizes by doing something that terrifies him: opening his heart up to another person.

Word Count: 10.7k+ (holy shit i deeply apologize for putting my readers through this agonizingly long junk)

Rating: M (mature) just to be safe (some pretty intense themes but i don’t think there’s anything too explicit)

Warnings: non-fatal manual strangulation and bruises from it, swearing, sexualization of two adults, mild references to sex, mild allusions to sexual arousal, discussion of trauma and its effects, Prospect (2018) spoilers, some argument, hair braiding, one (1) ✨neck✨ kiss, one use of (y/n), sprinkles of that sexual tension we all love, a resolved ending!

Author’s Note: first off, thank you SO much to @martinsmomo for this request!💜💕 this was so creative, i hope i did it justice :). second, AHHH!!!!! my first piece ever!!! i haven’t written anything on my own time for my own enjoyment since i was like 13, which may or may not be apparent by my comma splices, repetitive sentence structure/word choice and disagreeing verb tense💀. the thought of i have no idea what i'm doing never left my mind while i was writing this, but i just tried to go with it and have fun :). ALSO, i had so much fun reading all of the lore about the world that Prospect (2018) takes place in. Here is a link to a pamphlet about a lot of stuff that is featured in the movie, which i used while writing this piece. i highly recommend you check it out! i tried to stick to as much canon stuff as i could, but 🦋The Blue🦋 is something that i made up. also this is not beta’d, i just wanted to throw this into the void and see what happens✨. i also also want to point out that in no way am i trying to romanticize or sexualize domestic violence. i know that the subject matter in this piece can be triggering, and even though the violence wasn’t intentional and it’s resolved through love, i don’t want it to be misconstrued as something that it’s not. with that being said, i hope you enjoy it! :)

gif by @anakin-skywalker

A grunt stirs you from your deep slumber. Your eyes open easily, a treat that you weren’t given often due to the dryness of the pod’s recirculated air. The inside of your shared galactic chamber is as dark as your mind; no illumination to shine on your thoughts and wake them up or to show you how Ezra is doing. You know the grunt had come from him, as the only other passenger was his adopted daughter, Cee. You turn in your pilot’s chair, looking over your shoulder to try and make him out through the impossible darkness.

Parcel-Class Planetary Drop Pods were designed to fit only two travelers, however the three of you had decided to embark on your next journey together. To save on costs, your partners opted for a model without cots. Being the gentleman that he is, Ezra insisted that you and Cee sleep in the pilots’ chairs. He had thrown a few blankets on the cold, flat floor and had proudly announced, “Sleeping quarters fit for a king!”, eliciting pitiful laughter from you and Cee.

Now, your eyes can’t find the sad bundle of warmth that is his sleeping figure. He is a restless sleeper, and every time he made a noise that was more than a good-natured hum or a soft swish of rearranging his blankets, you would wake and turn to make sure that he was okay. You would do the same for Cee, but she was a fantastic sleeper. Not too deep, not too light, and never made a peep. You turn back around, giving up on trying to spot Ezra in the dark, when you hear another grunt.

This one is louder than the last.

You turn back around yet again, your own blanket falling off of your chest and into your lap. Eyebrows furrowing together and eyes squinting, your pupils strain themselves to find any shred of light to let you see. The noises increase in abundance and volume. Ezra’s sleeping fit has transformed from a halfhearted rustling to an aggravated clamor in less than a minute. Your eyes stay on the dark patch of space where you know his “bed” is situated while Cee arises from her sleep. Her chair lets out the slightest creak as she follows your gaze and attempts herself to see what all of the commotion is about. She asks you, “Is he okay?” Ezra answers her with an irritated growl through his teeth. You say to her, “I don’t know, I can’t see him, should we-”

Your suggestion of waking him up is cut short as two hands wrap around your throat. The hands twist your head to face forward, and you’re greeted with Ezra’s sweat-slicken face. Instinctively, you grasp at his forearms in an effort to ease the constriction of your neck.

Cee screams, “Ezra, let go of her!”

He defies her command and puts one of his knees in between yours on the seat of the pilot’s chair and leans closer to you. The brown eyes that you had grown to love now bore into yours with unwavering menace as the pads of his fingers press harder into the sides of your neck. His palms are flush with your larynx, threatening to crush it. You want to let out sobs of heartbreak, but are unable to. He’s restricted your actions to only being able to watch him attempt to strangle you. Your fingers aren’t able to get a grip on his limbs due to his angry sweat and your panicked claminess. Your mouth hangs open as his is shut tight, his jaw muscles stuttering with intense rage. He starts to growl through his teeth again, but a flash of light turns it into a howl.

His entire body falls back, his hands losing their purchase on your neck. You suck in a harsh breath and lean forward as Cee grabs your hand and pulls you out of the pilot’s chair. In her other hand she grips a Boscelot Frontiersman: the source of the light that had extracted Ezra’s shriek and drilled its way into his thigh. He sat on the floor in front of your chair and laced his hands just above his injury, throwing his head back and wincing.

Cee puts some feet in between the two of you and guides you across the floor to the other side of the impossibly small pod. Hoarse coughs begin to rise from your surprised larynx, accompanied by trembling of your entire body. Cee, still holding you by your arm with one hand and the Thrower in the other, yells your thoughts at Ezra, “What the fuck was that for?!” She flicks the lights on, allowing everyone to see each other’s face for the first time all night.

Ezra stares at the two of you in disbelief. Both brunette and blonde strands of hair are stuck to his forehead with sweat, eyes depressed from the subsiding adrenaline, his whole body drenched in distressed perspiration. You and him lock eyes, even through your flailing about as you continue to choke on air and delicately place your own hands over where his just had you in a vice grip. He knows what he’s done as soon as he sees you. He begins to cry and opens his mouth to start an apology that can never be adequate, but Cee hurls a field kit at his head. It hits him and he takes the blow without complaint. His devastated eyes keep to your bloodshot ones as he opens up the kit and starts to treat his justified wound. Cee stares at him with aggravation, and so do you, but her expression is void of confusion.

You are confused as all hell. What could have possibly made him do that? He seemed to be having a nightmare, but that didn’t give him the excuse to nearly strangle you to death.

Your coughs and stress start to dwindle as all of you sit there, not saying a word, the only other noise in the room being Ezra opening and closing medical supplies. He squirts a sanitizing solution over his wound, hissing, and then he takes out a Patch Gun. This sets your heart racing. The strangling was unpredicted and almost successful, would he get up once he was healed enough and try to do it again? You push yourself back against the wall and keep your widening eyes on him as he sprays the medicated foam into the hole the Thrower had burned through his trousers. He squeezes his eyes shut, winces intensely, and then fails to keep a painful wail inside his chest. You’ve seen him treat himself before, and usually his next step is to throw more than the recommended amount of pain relievers into his mouth and chew on the tablets, redirecting the pain from his injury to his mouth. He doesn’t do that this time.

Instead he throws the used Patch Gun to the side, closes the field kit and pushes it Cee’s way. He breathes your name out of his mouth, causing you to retreat further into the wall. You bring your legs to your chest and wrap your hands around the back of your neck, resting your elbows on your quaking kneecaps. Burrowing your face into the cavity you’ve created, you start bawling. Pain sears your throat, and is only intensified by your sobs, but you can’t help it. You’re absolutely terrified. Ezra says your name again, genuine with care, in an effort to get you to look at him. You shake your head once and continue to gasp into yourself. Cee startles you by touching your shoulder, and she quells your worries, “He won’t do it again.”

Her five simple words plant a seedling of peace in your heart, but it is nowhere near close to blooming. You don’t look up as she gets up and goes over to your pilot chair and grabs your blankets. Her footsteps return to you quickly, and within moments her warm, calm hands are draping the fabric over your shoulders. She rests her chin on your shoulder, moving with your heaves. A softening tone takes over her beautiful voice as she murmurs “It’s okay”s, “I’m here”s and “You’re safe”s into your blankets. Before you know it, your body succumbs to the overwhelming desire to heal mentally, emotionally and physically with sleep. Your trust in Ezra may be broken right now, but you know that Cee will watch over you. Despite her lack of size and experience compared to Ezra, you know she has the upper hand on him intellectually. He may be full of wondrous prose, a never-ending vocabulary and sharp wit, but Cee has had him in the palm of her hand ever since they met. You can sleep knowing that she can protect you and herself, if need be.

You peek out underneath your arm to qualify to yourself that Ezra is in no shape to attack again.

He sits where he landed when he fell, slouching with exhaustion. His eyes sparkle with tears of regret, his eyebrows quirked in a way that reads “There aren’t enough ways to apologize, but I’ll try every one until you forgive me.” You close your eyes, lay your head against the wall and beg the Sandman to bring you all a night of peace as you rest until the Sun comes up.

The pale blue morning light penetrates your eyelids and alerts your brain that it is time to get up. You awake to find Cee and Ezra sound asleep, her in her pilot’s chair and him in his “bed”. You are still huddled up against the wall, opposite to Ezra, and look upon him with a wary gaze. The fear he inserted into you last night makes your nerves feel like static, but at the same time you can’t help but be relaxed by his presence. It’s obvious he didn’t cause any more damage during rest of the night, so maybe his eyebrows were telling the truth: that he is sorry.

The muted sunshine washes his complexion out and dulls the warmth that his chestnut locks hold. It makes the blonde patch in his hair and the arc scar on his cheek glisten cerulean. His expression is relaxed, eyelids fidgeting under the controls of REM sleep.

The sound of Cee’s alarm clock distracts you, and moments later her hand reaches out and pushes the ‘stop’ button. Awakening limbs appear above the back of her chair, accompanied by a yawn. Your eyes dart to Ezra. He’s still asleep. She turns to you first and smiles, “Are you alright?” You nod once, return her smile, and you both turn to the slumbering man. She says, folding her blanket, “He’s fine. Calmed down after you fell asleep. He said he had a nightmare that you had turned against us. He said he wants to apologize but understands if you don’t want to speak to him.” You sigh through your nose, glancing over at him, “That’s okay. I think I would like some time away from him though. Just to process things, y’know?” Cee turns to face you, “That’s what I figured. I told him that.” You look at her and nod once.

She gets up and stretches again, folded blanket still in hand. She puts it on her seat and looks up at you excitedly, “Want to come look for aurelac with me today?”

“Definitely.”

Her face lights up with a wide smile and you mirror her reaction. Getting up and dropping your blankets to the floor, you go over to the compartment in the wall that holds your equipment. You take out what you’ll need - suit, helmet, air filter and a few Slurry Packs - and close the latch. The door slams shut harder than you intended, the resulting crash jolting Ezra awake.

A shy, apologetic smile graces his face as he meets your eyes, and you return the expression. You were still tightly wound, but were ready to start dispelling the fear, and that began by being cordial with him. His smile fades when his eyes lower to your hands and take in what you are holding. He gets up off the floor and inquires, “What do you have all that for?” His expression is neutral, but you worry that you will anger him by telling him what your plans are.

He had made it very clear since you joined him and Cee that he did not want you to prospect. He had told you that it was too dangerous of a task in itself, let alone the implications that came along with it: bartering, lying, gambling, stealing, killing. He didn’t want you or Cee to be subjected to any any of the horrors that accompanied prospecting, but Cee had been stubborn about her desires and had proven her abilities. She was great at prospecting, possessing an attention to tedium and an unwavering sense of calmness while performing the task. For a man who seeps with wisdom, Ezra wasn’t all that good of a prospector. He had the tendency to lose patience and cripple under pressure, which sometimes led to compromised digs.

“I’m going to look for aurelac deposits with Cee.” You nudge your head in her direction and she smiles at Ezra. He waves his hand dismissively, “That’s all fine and dandy,” now pointing a lazy yet warning finger at you, “But don’t you dare let prospecting dance upon those beautiful brain waves of yours.” His comment irritated you. You had never shown any signs of true disobedience to his wishes, besides the casual sigh of boredom or the bratty roll of your eyes. The words also set your heart aflutter. As you try to hide your blush and bury your annoyance, Cee says to him, “We don’t be doing any prospecting if we can’t find any aurelac.” His head tilts in agreement. He pads over to you and gingerly puts a hand on your shoulder. He had sensed your irritation and repeats his mantra of why he doesn’t want you prospecting, “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

Your anger became fiery again. Shoulder jerking to flick his hand off, you jab at him, “Because I’m safe in the confines of the pod?”

He points a finger at you again, this time accusatory, “That was purely an accident. Do not take it as anything but.”

Cee commands, “Both of you, stop, now. I’m not dealing with this all day. It was an accident. An inexcusable one, but an accident.”

Your and Ezra’s eyebrows had shifted to take on the same irate slope, however you both decide to just let it drop. You visibly signal your concession by dropping your shoulders and Ezra reflects you. He spins on his heels to open his own equipment hatch, and you turn to the wall yours is on. You all face the walls and change into your suits, a ritual of trust and time efficiency you decided on when the three of you agreed to work as a group.

Once dressed, you exit the pod, Ezra being first and Cee being last, and embark on your daily journey. The Sun had retreated behind some dark grey clouds. The sky was a royal blue, the ground was greige and the dark foliage that surround you drips with dew. You were stationed on the Blue Moon, an orbiting moon in the Bakhroma System. This place wasn’t highly traveled like its permanent sister (the Green Moon), due to the popular aftermath of the Aurelac Rush. Although Cee and Ezra had been there and left, many people in the galaxy still went to try and scoop up some valuable remains. Unlike The Green, The Blue wasn’t known for its abundant aurelac deposits, which is precisely why your partners chose to come here.

Their original plan was to travel to The Blue with just themselves, but while on a stop to Puggart Bench you had entranced Ezra while Cee tried to scope out her old friends and catch up with them before she set off on another mission. Demonstrating your eagerness to explore the galaxy and your expansive knowledge of it, Ezra decided to add you to his partnership. It didn’t hurt that you also tried to express your attraction to him, complimenting the rugged floater on his impressive vocabulary. He had complimented you on your willingness to listen to his ramblings, and it had been love ever since. Neither of you had come out directly and said “I love you”, and you hadn’t partaken in any physical affection, but your yearning for each other could not be more understood. His adoration for you only deepened when he saw how you interacted with Cee. Being closer to her generation than Ezra’s, you were able to connect with her like contemporaries. However, you were far enough away from her age group to the point where Ezra couldn’t act as a father figure to you. This duality made you irresistible to him.

Back to the present, you gaze at the back of his helmet intently, waiting to see what his plan of action for the day is. The Green requires visitors to wear air-tight suits and breathe through air filtration systems at all times because of harmful spores that float in the atmosphere. The Blue’s spores are far less harmful, and helmets can be taken off for 45 minute intervals, but the three of you only took them off when the confinement of the helmets became a little too much. The glass window of Ezra’s helmet swivels to you and he asks, “Split up, hourly check-ins, reconvene for lunch?”

As you’re thinking of your answer, you notice his eyes dart repeatedly up and down your body. You can tell by the way his mouth is slightly parted that he isn’t assessing your body language to predict your response. He’s thinking about all of the ways he would devour you for apology’s sake.

You look to Cee in the middle of your answer, “Sure. I’ll go with Cee today.” She smiles at you and turns to him. His mouth closes and he looks down to fiddle with his radio with thick-gloved fingers, “I’ll be on channel one.” Cee says, “Okay,” and beckons you to follow her as she sets off on a worn path. You and Ezra look at each other one more time before you turn in opposite directions and begin your divergent treks.

Catching up to Cee by jogging, your steps slow to match her pace once you are by her side. There’s silence between the two of you for a little while as you weave your way through trees of varying heights, eyes keeping to the ground to spot humps in the dirt. Humps gave away the location of aurelac deposits. A couple of slips were shared between the two of you as you climbed over hills and shuffled through valleys, the forest floor littered with puddles. What The Green has in vegetation, The Blue has in water. There were multiple lakes, some touting depths that are only achievable by advanced marine technology. Rainstorms are common, but they never grow to something like a hurricane. Everything was doused in a blue hue, whether it was the air, the water or the plants. The spores in the air resembled stagnant raindrops, peculiar in the way that they seemed to stay in their place in the atmosphere.

Cee broke the silence, “So, are you okay?” You know exactly what she is referring to and answer, “Yeah. Still a bit shaken up and confused, but other than that I guess I’m fine. I can feel bruises where his hands were.” She turns around to look at you and you lift your chin for her to see. She grimaces and says, “Yeah, you can see where each finger was and everything.” You look down, feeling disappointed that the event even happened. You ask her, “So he had a nightmare about me?” You watch the back of her helmet as she nods, “Yep. He just said that he thought you were going to endanger the three of us. He didn’t say in what way, really, just that you were a threat.” You take a moment to process the information and then fire off another question, “So, I have nightmares too, but I don’t act on them in real life. So why did he do what he did? Is there, like, an underlying feeling of distrust that he has for me, or...?” She started shaking her head halfway through your last sentence, “No, no, not at all. It’s just that The Green was so traumatic that I can understand just how vivid nightmares about it can be. And even though I don’t know much about what he went through before I met him on The Green, I’m sure prospecting was just as dangerous as it is now. I wouldn’t be surprised if at one point, or at a million points, someone that he trusted backstabbed him. But it’s nothing personal against you at all.” You nod and take in her words, trying to reassure yourself that you can trust him, even though he had done everything he could to prove you otherwise the night prior.

Cee stops and turns to you, chuckling, “If anything-”

A short sound on your radios cuts her off, and Ezra’s voice comes through the speakers, “How are you little birds coming along?”

Cee answers, “Fine. No deposits yet. What about you?” She grins at you, not forgetting to finish her comment as soon as he leaves the two of you alone.

“Nothing. I’ll be shocked if we stumble across any hint of a deposit today. Like every day. Over and out.”

You look at her, eager to hear what she has to say. This only widens her smile, and she rolls her eyes as she begins, “Like I was saying.” You both laugh as she continues, “If anything, you’re the best thing that’s happened to him. I’ve never seen his eyes light up so much at anything like they do when he looks at you.” You blush and look down at your feet shyly. She gives you a playful shove and knocks you out of your butterfly-ridden trance. Her tone changes serious as she sighs, her pitch dropping a little bit lower than normal, “You really don’t have to worry about him hurting you or me. He’s just fucked up from our time on The Green. I am too, but I experienced it in a slightly different way, and deal with it differently too. I mean, I lost my father, but he killed two other people. It got us out of there, but that’s probably going to haunt him for the rest of his life. And since it was recent, he’s still trying to figure out how to handle the whole thing. I’m not making any excuses for him, because he didn’t have any reason to attack you, regardless of any dream, but he seriously wouldn’t do that under any other circumstances.” She puts an assuring hand on your shoulder and smiles. You smile back and nod once in understanding, saying, “I believe you.” She pats your back, and you both turn to continue on your walk. A few moments pass, and she lets out another laugh. You teasingly ask her with a smile on your face, “What is it now?”

“I mean, it’s obvious that Ezra’s been through some shit, because the guy’s fucking weird as hell.” Your helmets are filled with your cackling as thoughts of the strange man play out in your head. Cee jokes, “I mean, little bird? His confusing speech pattern in general? Someone who talks in crosswords is either an ancient person who is trying to be clever in their last days because that’s the only form of strength they have left or just some asshole who finds enjoyment in verbally tricking people.” Another few moments of giggling pass before she ends with, “And what’s with the drawl?” She turns to you, the injuries in your throat burning from laughing so hard, “Have you ever heard someone else, in the entire Bakhroma System, talk like that?” You shake your head while wheezing and she says, “I haven’t either. So how did that weirdo even get here?”

The surrounding forests may be quiet, but the inside of your suits are filled with the joyful laughter of two friends who continue on their merry way to find some aurelac.

What yesterday lacked in aurelac, it made up for in emotional gains. You had spent the rest of the day with Cee, strengthening your tender bond, exploring the terrain that The Blue had to offer. Ezra kept to his promise and checked in on you two hourly, making sure that you hadn’t run into any other travelers or went too far off the grid. Your group hadn’t crossed paths with any other citizens of the galaxy since you landed, which didn’t surprise or disappoint any of you; the three of you needed some peacetime for regrouping.

You start today by scanning the pod’s dashboard of lights to make sure nothing is out of order. Because of his contempt to the idea of you prospecting, Ezra had assigned you to be the pod’s programmer. Pods were cheap to rent, so they were justifiably subject to malfunctions. Given that Cee and Ezra were tasked with mapping out The Blue and harvesting aurelac, you obliged to take the responsibility of operating the astronomical vehicle. The other job you had been given was keeper of the harvested aurelac. Once in its containers, you were to check on the gems every day and make sure that none had cracked during transport. The problem is that you haven’t had any luck at finding such valuables. It has been documented that The Blue does contain aurelac, but that it is extremely difficult to find. However, the average gem on The Blue is thrice the size of that which The Green holds. So the size and abundance differences are a lawful tradeoff.

While you’re analyzing a digital screen on the dashboard, an expressive yawn escapes a man’s mouth. You twist to see Ezra stretching his arm out, eyes and nose scrunched in delight at the wringing out of his muscles. A smile graces your face as you take in his exaggerated display of awakening, and he mirrors your smile when he opens his eyes. His arm relaxes at his side, and a raspy morning voice greets you, “Hi.” You smirk at his unadorned statement and say back, “Hi.” He holds your gaze for a moment before turning to pick his mechanical arm up off the floor next to him. After losing his arm on The Green, his prospecting abilities fell drastically. He had to take out a loan to pay for the artificial limb, but it would restore his talents, so it was a fair deal. That’s why the three of you had gone on this mission, rather than building your friendship on Puggart Bench: to harvest aurelac to repay the loan.

Cee grabs both you and Ezra’s attention as she wakes with a start. Getting up and out of her pilot’s chair, she merrily folds her blankets and marches over to her equipment hatch. You and Ezra share a look of bewilderment, and he questions, “Good morning?” She flips around to you both, forgetting that you were in the pod with her. She cheers, “Good morning!” Reading the two confused expressions that watch her, she explains, “I want to go and look at this area that we missed yesterday. It has a lot of hills, so maybe that’s an indicator of more deposits. I was going to look at it yesterday, but then we came together for lunch, and I completely forgot about it until now.” Noting that she is the only one in the pod that is anywhere near awake, she asks both you and Ezra, “Is it okay if I go by myself?”

Memories of the last 36 hours flicker in your head, discomforting your nerves. It’s not that you don’t trust Ezra, but you don’t trust Ezra. The outburst that he had the other night frightened the shit out of you, and you’ve been wary to interact with him at all, let alone without Cee present to diffuse the situation if it got too tense. The fear he had shoved upon you was still fresh, but the excitement in Cee’s face and your tiresome brain convinced you that it would be okay. Maybe during this time alone you could patch things up with him. Him and Cee had given you a general rundown of what had happened on The Green when you first met, but you could prod Ezra about the details. Hopefully you could uncover some explanations to his night terrors.

You look over at him to gauge his reaction to her proposition, and he’s staring at you with puppy-dog eyes. His mouth is turned up in a soft smile, and you can’t help but grin at the way his hair is still unruly from his sleep. Suddenly you feel a pleasant heat between your legs, and you can’t tell if it’s just your body waking up or the overwhelming desire to pepper a million kisses over the sleepy man’s face. Refusing to admit to yourself that the latter is the true culprit of your wetness, you shake your head slightly to rock you out of your trance and say to Cee, “Yeah, that would be fine.” Ezra’s smile at you widens before he turns to Cee and inputs, “I concur. Like always, just be sure to watch your surroundings carefully. You’ll find us here when you return.” She nods once and turns to her equipment hatch, signaling you and Ezra to turn to yours as well to give her some privacy as she changes. Once changed, she closes her hatch, puts her helmet on and departs, “I’ll be on channel one. See you guys later!” You and Ezra both give halfhearted waves, still too tired to formulate any meaningful words. The door to the pod closes behind her, and you are alone with Ezra.

The anticipation of being alone with him made you more anxious than how you feel now, letting your eyes fall to the man still on the floor. He’s already looking up at you, the lazy smile still pulling at his cheeks. The desire to invite yourself into his bed, wrap yourself in his blankets and limbs in order to match the warmth that is flooding your genitals, and doze off into a lustful nap tries to take over your mind. You fight it with everything you have and make your way over to your pilot’s chair. Positioning yourself so that you’re facing Ezra, he simply asks you, “Hungry?” You nod your head and he reaches behind himself. His hand reappears with a Bits Bar, tossing it to you. The only sounds that fill the pod are the crinkling of the wrappers and your respective chewing. Although you’re both preoccupied with eating, Ezra’s silence is deafening. He tended to drop his confusing lingo when talking to you, since he wasn’t trying to trick you. He hadn’t had the courage to reveal his true feelings to you yet, which will be so poetic and heartfelt it will make you sick to your stomach, so he stuck to simple statements. He wanted you to note the difference between his conversations with you and other people, so he made it a very clear point to forgo his prose and expansive vocabulary. He wanted you to note that he revealed his truest sentiments to you and tried his best to hide them from others.

The peaceful nature of the morning encouraged you to bring up an irritating topic with him, “I only want to prospect because I want to help you guys.” He tries to keep his eyes on his food, knowing that looking into your eyes will ignite his possessive and protective nature, “I know that. And it doesn’t matter how many motives you come up with, birdie, there will never be a time when you’re in my care that you will prospect. That’s the extent that I will let this conversation fester to.” His dismissive demeanor infuriates you. You fire back at him, trying not to let your tension leak into your voice, “I’m not Cee. You are not my parent or my guardian, you’re my partner. So there’s no social expectation that I have to submit to your desires.” His irritation grows, entertaining his fingers by folding the wrapper, “That is technically true. But a good partner will never put their partner at risk. And I have deemed it risky for you to prospect.” His retaliation sets you off. You didn’t want this to turn into an argument, but you also don’t want to back down from this. Your eyebrows crease together in frustration, your arms cross and your mouth sets itself in a frown.

He looks up from his distraction and becomes infuriated by your look. Now he’s pissed. He begins a verbal knife fight, “Maybe if you had experienced what it’s like to have a shitty partner, you would appreciate my efforts to protect you.”

“I’m not ungrateful.”

“In a way, you are. You abandoned everything you had on Puggart Bench once you met me and Cee. You had friends, a nice family, a stable living situation, a good education. Don’t blame me for a position that you put yourself in.”

“First of all, that’s how it looked to you. Second, a good education in prospecting! Maybe if you weren’t staring at my ass every second of every day, you would have asked me what I was studying. I can probably prospect better than you can.”

“I’d find pure, mocking enjoyment in seeing you try to harvest. I would bet my life that I can prospect better than you can, even with my impediment!” He motions to his mechanical arm.

“You wouldn’t have the impediment if you weren’t so fucking devious! And don’t even get me started on the arrogance, or the fucking pretentiousness!”

Your overheated exchange comes to a halt when the pod’s door opens. Cee climbs in, and you and Ezra try to mask your fury for each other as much as you can. She acknowledges the two of you and says, “Just need an air filter.” The atmosphere turns awkward as you watch her get what she needs out of her hatch. She’s leaving as soon as she came in, and you hold up a parting hand and say, “Be safe. Have fun.” She tilts her chin at you, and Ezra chimes in, “Be safe, Sparrow.” She exits, disappearing into The Blue.

Her interruption quelled the fire that burned between you and Ezra, subsequently drowning you in a wave of guilt over your words. Ezra’s looking down at his hands, shadows keeping his expression unreadable. You uncross your arms in defeat as you feel tears gather on your bottom eyelids. Opening your mouth to apologize, Ezra puts his hand up and directs, “Don’t apologize.” You protest, “But-” He cuts you off, “Don’t. Apologize.” You audibly sigh and sit back in your chair, not facing him anymore. You wish you could just kiss him. It would shut the both of you up and finally bring your shared, passionate feelings to the surface. Instead you opt to stare at the program board in front of you. How sexy. Such allure. You roll your eyes at your own naivety.

Both of you sit and replay all of the moments that led you to the peak that you sit atop, questioning how to safely start the descent. You decide to break the silence with a neutral topic, “Why do you call her Sparrow?” Staying turned away from each other, Ezra answers, “Well, now that I have two little birds in my life, I have to distinguish them.” Your heart glows at his comment, but it’s not enough to wipe the somber expression off of your face.

“Why Sparrow though?”

“She’s adaptable. She’s been able to keep a sane mind while traveling through Puggart Bench, The Green, The Ephrate, The Blue. The presence of others doesn’t deter her from her work, yet she’s not aloof to their existence.”

His musings entertain you. Your anger begins to become a thing of the past as you get off of your chair and sit down on the floor a few feet away from him. Being on a literal level playing field only increases your ease.

“What are you?”

He smirks, “A magpie.”

“I should’ve known.”

You share a bit of laughter before he explains, “I’m intelligent in trickery. I take pride in my illusions, but that’s not all I possess. Once I find my mate, I become protective of them, sometimes to the point of absurdity. A magpie male and female share the brunt of building a nest; as all great relationships should split the responsibility of reconciliation equally.” Regarding his last sentence, he raises one eyebrow at you. You stretch your legs out so that the soles of your shoes touch his.

“Magpies mate for life.”

You break your eye contact. You have grown shy from his pointed allusions, so you playfully fiddle his feet with yours. A moment passes before he says, “You’re a snow goose.” Confused, you look up at him, “A snow goose?” He nods enthusiastically, “Yes, a snow goose.” You shake your head, giggling, “I’ve never heard of those.” He leans forward with shock, “Really?” “Yep.” He shakes his head once and stands up to open his equipment hatch above you. He pulls out a book and sits back down, this time beside you. All About Birds. You assume the birds are alphabetized as you watch him flip the book open about 4/5 of the way through, and he presents you with a page: “Snow Goose”. Amused by the fact that he wasn’t lying, you let out a laugh. He laughs with you, “My Goose needs to brush up on her avian animal knowledge.” A minute has to pass before the cackling subsides. Then he paraphrases, “Snow geese are another adaptable bird, preferring to travel in packs. They roost mainly in bodies of water: marshes, ponds, the like. Ringing true to stereotypes of the general breed, they are very territorial of their property once they claim what is theirs. Snow geese have a brilliant white coat, which I equate to your magnificent aura. They are similar to magpies in that they mate for life.”

You look up from the book and are greeted with chocolate eyes glazed in infatuation. Thighs and arms pressed together, you turn to rest your chin on Ezra’s shoulder. Flickering eyes go back and forth between his eyes and his lips, signaling to him that if he wanted to kiss you, you wouldn’t object. He inserts, “Snow geese also don’t lack in paying homage to their reputation of being loud bitches.” You gasp and lay a swat on his chest as he chuckles away at his poking. After he has had his fill of laughing, you return to your resting place on his shoulder and let out a sigh.

A few quiet moments go by before you look up at him and admire the handsome, irritating, brave, stubborn, loving man who are you enamored with. You reach your hand up and comb your fingers through his hair once, twice. He leans into your hand as you continue to brush his locks, “Ezra?” He hums, eyes closing rapidly from the lulling pleasure you’re giving him, “Mm-hm?” You whisper, “I’m sorry.” A stark contrast from earlier, he allows your apology. He opens his eyes and they’re dripping with honest remorse and helpless romance, “I’m sorry too.”

Yesterday didn’t amount to what you had originally planned to accomplish, but it was still a good day. Despite all of the insult hurling and badmouthing, you and Ezra ended the day on a nice note. Getting to the bottom of his nightmares could wait for another time. You both had needed a day of fun together to put aside your hostilities before you embarked on discussing trauma. Cee had returned without a problem, hands void of aurelac but filled with notes of The Blue’s landscape.

You wake up, startled, All About Birds slipping off of your lap and onto the floor. You had sliced it out of Ezra’s dormant fingers after he had fallen asleep, your curiosity piqued from his earlier paraphrasing. Cee’s awake and bustling about in the pod, trying to find something, anything, to eat that isn’t a Bits Bar or a Slurry Pack. As you lean over to pick the book up from the floor, you catch Ezra’s eyes on you.

He’s standing at his equipment hatch, doing some much needed cleaning up. He’s a traveler who believes in organized chaos, that putting things in their “right” place takes up too much valuable time.

You smile up at him shyly and as you sit back upright with the book in your hands he says, “Did you find any specimens that better suit us?” You shake your head, “No, you were pretty damn spot on with your choices.” He flashes a smug grin, one that paints your face pink with amusement. Cee plops down in her chair with a huff of defeat, unwrapping a Bits Bar. Ezra hears her and says, “(Y/N) and I will take today’s assignment, Cee. You’ve warranted yourself a break after your ingenious expeditioning yesterday.” She says, “Good, because my legs feel like jelly.” The three of you laugh and you get up and rush to your equipment hatch. With your and Ezra’s friendship on its way to restoration, you were excited to find what the day would hold. The two of you get dressed in a flash, and you tell Cee before putting on your helmet, “We’ll be on channel one, like always.” She sticks a thumb up from behind her chair, and with that you and Ezra are on your way out of the pod.

The rays of the Sun today are periwinkle, streaming through small gaps in the overhanging vegetation. The air is tinted royal blue, the trees shimmer with teal sparkles, the soil a shade of navy. You inhale deeply as if you can smell the fresh air through your air filter, imagining a place where you could be with your gang without all of this clumsy equipment, without giving up the majesty that this landscape has.

Ezra snaps you out of your daydream, “Where to today, Snow Goose?”

You pull out a map from a pocket on your back and scan it, looking for any uncharted territory. “Let’s go west today. There’s a big chunk of land that we haven’t documented yet.”

He nods and begins your quest by turning to the left and walking. You follow him, folding the map and keeping it in your hands. Little conversation is shared between the two of you for the first bit of the journey and the silences aren’t awkward. The majority of your time is spent looking up, admiring the scenery as the Sun comes up and illuminates more of the land. Different hues of blue are unearthed as light reaches deeper crevices: the underside of leaves show turquoise veins, the inside of a hollowed tree trunk boasts a purplish-blue hybrid. The puddles on the ground vary in shape, size, depth and color, and are scattered about the ground in an oddly methodical fashion.

After a while of marveling at the sights, you regret getting dressed so quickly. You hadn’t brushed your hair properly, and the braid you had put it in was loose. Rubbing against your helmet with all of your head turning, the braid had fallen almost completely out of his shape and it was threatening to combine with your sweat to mold to your face. You instinctively put your hands to your helmet to try to push it out of your way, but you are met with glass resistance. Ezra, peeking over his broad shoulder to make sure he hadn’t lost you, notices your frustration, “Let me help you with that.” You furrow your eyebrows at him and wave off his help, “No, it’s okay. I’ll deal with it.” He shook his head quickly and spins on his heels, looking around and spots two conveniently placed tree stumps, one behind the other, that will accommodate te his fantasy. He gestures to them, “Have a seat, Goose.”

You stand there, not wanting to indulge in the dream. This was just as much of a dream for you as it is for Ezra. He watched you, everyday before you went out of the pod, braid your hair and willed that one day it would be his hands that would twist your smooth locks. And everyday you braided your hair, you would envision him standing behind you, concentrating hard on his handiwork, his hot breath cascading down the back of your neck, his knuckles grazing your back. Ezra starts walking over to the stumps and motions for you to follow.

You obey his command and sit down on the seat in front of his, scooting back so that he doesn’t have to reach very far to touch you. A depressing gasp fills the air as you detach your helmet and set it in your lap. Ezra’s gloves appear over your shoulder, “Can you hold these for me?” You were already turned on enough by the thought of him braiding your hair, now he would be braiding your hair with naked fingers and you got to hold the battered material that guarded those impossibly large hands almost everyday? Yeah, this is an illusion. You wait to wake up from your slumber. but are reminded that this situation is very real when Ezra’s fingers reach around your head to brush the sweaty hairs out of your face. His touch is gentle, unlike from the incident a few days ago. Now that you aren’t fighting for your life, you can take in the small, romantic details that you didn’t notice before. The pads of his fingers are rough but not scratchy. You see his fingernails, neatly trimmed and free from any sort of grime. How he pulls off that sorcery while being a prospector, regardless of the gloves, you will never know.

You tense as his fingers glide over your bruised neck, collecting your hair and bringing it all to your back. He holds your hair in one hand while the other stutters on a bruise. He senses your unease and strangles out, “I’m sorry.” You grip his gloves a little tighter, trying to fight your tears from spilling, and shake your head slightly, “It’s okay.” You’re ready to move past it. It’s important to remember that it happened, but you’re ready to rebuild your relationship. Like he jabbed at you the other day, leaving Puggart Bench had been tough for you. You worry that your leaving left behind permanent scars that would impact the relationships you had there. Ezra and Cee feel like the only friendships that you can count on to last. You need them.

Knocking you out of your despair, Ezra pulls your hair to one of your shoulders and rests his chin on the other. He turns his head so that his breath spills across your bare neck. He runs a finger lightly across a bruise and asks, mouth millimeters away from your skin, “May I?” You nod, and he plants an imperceptibly light kiss on your neck. You let a tear dribble down your cheek, wiping it away as quickly as it ran.

A thought enters your mind: my god, his lips are soft as fuck. The combination of the softness with the tickling of his patchy facial hair was heavenly, if not orgasmic. You giggle at your own thoughts* (*thots), intriguing Ezra, “What is it?” You decide to be transparent, “Nothing, it’s just that your mouth is soft as fuck.” A hearty laugh erupts from his chest, “Now I don’t want to put an end to your seductive observations, Goose, but I want this to be an innocent affair.” You smile and sit up straight, letting him know that you are willing to drop the flirtation. For now.

His fingers separate your hair into three sections and he says, referencing the other day, “As a treaty to our battles, I would like to clarify that I don’t think you’re ungrateful.” A soft smile graces your face and you input your own treatise, “And I don’t think you’re arrogant or fucking pretentious. You are a little devious though.”

He chuckles, “If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be the scoundrel that I am, now would I?”

You shake your head no. No, he wouldn’t be the scoundrel that you are not so secretively in love with. As you sit there, enjoying the limited amount of time you are allowed with your helmet off, the details of your dreams prove to be true: you can feel Ezra’s concentrated breath warm the nape of your neck, his knuckles tap your suit when he twists your hair a certain way. You yearn for the day that you will be able to touch each other, feel each other’s true weight and texture, without the suits getting in the way.

“So, if you’re so good at prospecting, why don’t you tell me how you do it?”

His tone is playful and your situation could not be more peaceful, so you decide to indulge him, “Well, first you have to find a deposit, which is usually indicated by a lump in the ground.”

He verifies your first step, “Uh-huh...?”

“Then you want to pour a solution into the deposit’s hole. You don’t want to pour too much though, or else it could cause an explosion.”

Ezra’s hands stop. You turn and ask him, “Is everything okay?” He nods, his eyes first staring off into the landscape and then refocusing once they land on you. He continues to involuntarily nod as he says, “That’s what permitted Cee and I to escape The Green. She threw an entire pint of solution into a deposit. Nearly blew the entire place to bits.”

You feel rude when you realize that your mouth is hanging open in shock. You close your mouth and words about his time on The Green tumble out of his, “I am devious, indeed. But there were people--beings--there that would make me look like an angel. I take responsibility for killing Cee’s father because he tried to hijack my stash. A man’s work is no petty thing, Goose. I ended up having to kill two others there, in the end. I overestimated our luck after the first one, thinking that it would’ve been a simple escape. I killed the other mercilessly. You see now, Goose, the dangers that I encountered on The Green alone. I would never be able to forgive myself if I allowed you into harm’s way, and you became a tragedy.”

You reach a hand out and cup his face, which he leans into. He still holds onto your hair, your braid halfway done, and you say, “I was ungrateful, and I’m sorry for that.” He shakes his head once, taking your hand from his face and kissing your palm, “Now you see why I wanted to strangle you in my nightmare. I dreamt that you were someone else, some other thing, that was threatening to drag our trio back to that wretched land.” You both breathe out a shaky laugh, trying to lighten the mood. Even though it was nervous, you are glad that the both of you are taking some steps in the right direction.

He clears his throat and sits up straight, “Now, after you dodge an eruption, what is the next step of prospecting?”

You face ahead and let him continue your braid as you speak, “Next you want to remove the husk from the deposit, and cut the cord that connects the two. Then you want to remove the inner membrane from the husk.”

He quizzes you, “And what’s inside the inner membrane?”

“The aurelac gem.”

“Correct. Continue.”

“Then you want to cut out any blisters, but if you cut too carelessly you could puncture it, which will release acid. If that happens then the gem ceases to be worth anything.”

“That’s where my expertise usually falters.”

“Finally you want to remove the gem from the inner membrane, douse it in fazer solution, and you have your stone.”

He tests you again, “What is the purpose of the fazer solution?”

“To stabilize the gem and increase its clarity. Higher clarity grants higher payout.”

He pats your shoulder twice and ties your hair off with the hair tie you used for your loose braid, “Fantastic job, Goose. Couldn’t have explained it better myself.” He stands, walks around your stumps and holds a hand out to you. You take it, even though you were perfectly capable of getting up yourself. You got to hand him his gloves, and he stops you, “Wait a minute.” Both of his hands come to the sides of your face and push a few stray hairs behind your ears; the finishing touches to his masterpiece. You can tell he did a good job without having to look at it, since it didn't feel too loose or too tight, and the problem you had before was now solved. His tongue darts out and runs the edge of his bottom lip before he takes a step back, throwing his hands up, “Voila!” You giggle, eliciting a smile from Ezra wide enough to make the skin around his eyes crinkle in happiness. You hand him his gloves, which he puts on before you both secure your helmets back to your suits.

Ezra checks in with Cee, “Everything alright, Sparrow?”

A few seconds pass before she answers, “Yep, just listening to my music. Everything alright on your end?”

“Affirmative. We’ll be staying outside for lunch. Over and out.”

Ezra’s eyes gaze into yours for a brief moment before they move past your shoulder, eyebrows raised and mouth agape. You ask, “What?” before turning and following his stare. A patch of undisturbed soil, littered with lumps. In his rush by you, Ezra grabs your hand and pulls you along with him as you run to the potential aurelac deposits, laughing at his enthusiasm. He halts at the brink of the field, choosing which one he wants to dig up first. You suggest, “Why don’t we start from the outside and work our way in?” He nods, “That’s a great idea,” and drops to his knees. You stare at the mound in front of him as you sink down to the ground, pulling out your map. You mark where this field is located as he preps his harvesting tools. Once he’s prepared, he sighs and takes your hand, “Do you want to help me, Goose?”

You nearly spring to your feet with excitement, “Would I ever!”

He beams at your reaction and begins the process by clearing the dirt away from the mound to reveal the deposit. “How about for this first time, you just hand me the tools?” You nod, taking this as slowly as he wants to, “Whatever you’d like.” He grins as he cuts a hole in the deposit, knife already in hand. “Solution,” he requests. You hand him the bottle and he does the honor of pouring it over the deposit. A white steam emits from the hole, and he reaches in and grabs the husk. “Let me cut this cord, you can do the next one.” You agree and watch as he cuts it with his knife. He places the husk on a flat patch of land and requests his next tool, “Scalpel.” You hand him a Ralon Crusader Laser Scalpel and watch him work.

Laser scalpels are primarily used for precision work, like this step and the removal of blisters, while any generic knives will do the job when cutting the cord or opening up the deposit.

You watch as he makes an incision in the husk, handing you back the tool once he’s done. He wrangles the inner membrane out of the husk and holds his hand out. You know that he wants the scalpel back, and you give it to him. He flashes you a smile for your readiness, but then hands you the scalpel back. You take it, confused, and he says, “I’d like you to cut the blisters off of this one.”

Your pupils narrow and your muscles grow tense. You know the steps of prospecting backwards and forwards, but you had never carried out a lab experiment, let alone prospected aurelac in the wild. Ezra lays a gentle hand on your forearm, “I have eternal faith in you, Goose.” You move toward the membrane and turn the scalpel on. Ezra holds it steady for you as you go to remove the blister. There’s only one, which is a slight relief. You plunge the scalpel into the membrane, thinking that the skin would be thicker, and a hiss greets you. You pull back as the membrane deflates and an amber liquid seeps from it, the hissing never stopping. Your mortified eyes look up into Ezra’s and you immediately apologize, “I’m so sorry, Ezra, I thought that-” He raises a hand, “It is not a big deal in the slightest, Goose. I’ve never come across a prospector that didn’t puncture the membrane, or fail to mix the fazer solution correctly the first time.” He senses your lingering humiliation and grabs your shoulders, turning you even more towards himself, “Really, it’s fine.” You want to melt into his hands, crawl into his lap and just hide there until you feel better, but you know that you have to move on.

He points to the mound behind you, “Let’s try that one.” You stay on the ground and move the tools with you, while Ezra stands and walks over before he squats. You hand him the knife, watch him repeat the process and hand him tools as he needs them: slice the deposit, squirt in the solution, remove the husk, sever the cord, open the husk, take the membrane out. He looks to you, “I want you to try again.” Turning the scalpel on, its vibrations feel more vigorous against your heightened nerves than they did last time. Ezra assumes his position of securing the slippery pod, and you begin cutting. Again only one blister, you circle the blemish with the blade. Once the circle is complete, Ezra reminds you, “It’s easiest to pull it off with your fingers.” You follow his directions, turning the instrument off and setting it to the side. You pull on sticky flesh, and the part that you cut comes off easily. Ezra sighs, “Incredible.” Sliding his fingers in between the membrane and the aurelac, he pulls the rock out and discards the pouch. He calls for the fazer solution, which you hand him and watch as he washes the gem with it. Another hissing sound can be heard, much quieter than the one that came when you punctured the membrane. He holds the aurelac up to the blue Sun, and both of you observe, amazed, at how the light shines through the gem. Aurelac is an amber-hued stone, sometimes with ripples in the color, encased in a foggy crystal. The blue light complements the orange shade of the gem exquisitely.

Ezra turns to you, eyes bright with satisfaction, hands muddied with gristle, “Superb job, Goose!” He leans into you, helmet shields touching and reaches forward to kiss your glass. You smile and laugh with him in gratification. You can’t wait to harvest the rest of the mounds with your partner.

A warmth you have never felt before bestows itself to you this early morning. It flourishes in your heart and subsequently pumps through your body, reaching from the crown of your head all the way down to the soles of your feet. It stretches from your ribs to the ends of your fingertips, running in cycles back and forth. The cause of this pleasure was not from the large aurelac haul you had pulled yesterday, but from the man that you harvested with. Ezra’s arms encircle you, heavy with sleep. You’re swaddled in his blankets with him, the depths of sleep tempting you to fall back down to their level of subconscious. The Sun hasn’t risen yet.

You had crawled into Ezra’s awaiting lap after Cee had fallen asleep the night before. It wasn’t that you felt like you had to hide your feelings from her, but the dynamic still made you feel a little bit awkward, even with Ezra’s reassurance and Cee’s encouragement to pursue him. You would feel more comfortable if she were to wake up and find the two of you in your designated sleeping arrangements, and not in an amorous yet innocent entanglement of limbs.

You can practically feel a rainbow sprout from your chest as you look up at Ezra, finding delight in his relaxed expression. His hair is messy not from the tossing and turning of a restless night’s sleep, but the enamored strokes of a yearning partner’s fingers. The whirlwind of malachite butterflies in your stomach nudges you away from sleep. You press your hands into Ezra’s chest, where they have been resting, and turn to nuzzle your nose into his collarbone before you start to slip out of his embrace. Gently lifting his arms off of you in an effort to keep him asleep, you fail. He cups the side of your face and rubs his thumb back and forth against your cheek a few times before he lets his arm fall to his side. He gives you a smile of understanding, allowing you to leave him only because he will dream about holding onto you for forever once he drifts off again. You give him a playful boop on his nose before you stand and trudge over to your pilot’s chair, sinking down into your own cold blankets. You try your best to recreate the heat you just deserted by bundling yourself up tight, but it’s not the same. However uncomfortable, you quickly succumb to the temptation of sleep.

The true morning gives rise to an energetic group of prospectors. Still joyful about yesterday’s collection, you, Cee and Ezra are enthusiastic to stroll around The Blue again and see what else could be in store for you. Stretching in your chair, Ezra grabs your raised hands and leans over the back of your seat. You look up into his eyes and he greets you, “Good morning, Goose.” You smile and tease, “Good morning, Magpie.”

Cee blurts out, “Finally, you give her a nickname too!” You and Ezra laugh as he releases your hands, and you turn to face Cee at her equipment hatch. “I like Magpie too. Very fitting,” she raises an eyebrow at Ezra and he shoots you a wink. You get up to fold your blanket, Ezra glides over to his own equipment hatch, and Cee says, “You know, I say you guys last night.” Your face instantly beats red, and Cee notices, “No, it’s fine. It makes me happy to see a couple that can get over obstacles and love each other through it all.” You still feel a bit embarrassed, but shrug it off.

A word she chose makes you question Ezra, “Are we a couple?”

“Of course. We’ve always been partners, haven’t we?”

Suited up, the three of you enter The Blue. After your daily assessment of the land (beautiful, as always) you turn to Cee and wait for her direction. She had mapped out the majority of the Blue Moon the day that you and Ezra stayed inside the pod, so you trusted her guidance the most. Ezra asks, “Where to today, birdies?” Cee analyzes the map before pointing to an area, “This block was filled with hills. It didn’t look like there were many deposits, but then again I’m not the best at spotting them.” Eager to start, you ask, “Which way do we go?” Ezra glances at the map, points to the right and commences your expedition, “This is the way.”

💘taglist: @pascalpanic

#ezra x reader #ezra prospect x reader #ezra prospect #ezra fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #ezra x fem!reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #pascalitos #found family trope #prospect 2018

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waveypedia · 3 years ago

Text

and now, for my next number, i’d like to return to the classics

Rymin Week Day 7: Domestic

1 2 4 5 6

Ao3

It’s been years since he lived primarily in his van on tour, but Ryan will never not be grateful to always have a kitchen.

Early morning sunlight streams through the soft white curtains as he goes through the motions of breakfast. The curtains were a gift from one sister, the cookware a gift from their old manager before she got promoted. The sleek fridge, which Ryan opens next, was a careful purchase he and Min worked together to carefully pick out, as is the same for most of their furniture. The eggs he pulls out from inside it are from their local farmer’s market, where all the vendors know them by name. Not because they used to be semi-famous rock stars, but because they come by every week toting instruments to serenade the shoppers with.

Ryan coats the pan in nonstick cooking spray and cracks the eggs into it. Salts it. He puts the ingredients away while he’s waiting for it to cook and pours two glasses of water.

Then, all that’s left is the waiting.

Ryan finds one of his guitars leaning against the wall in the next room. Their apartment is chock-full of all kinds of musical instruments they’ve accumulated over the years. After all the fuss Ryan had to go through to get his first guitar as a teenager, it feels both strange and gratifying to see how far he’s come.

One instrument they do not have is a viola. Min has played it on his own, usually on lease from friends, but he won’t play it regularly enough to buy one. Ryan is more than happy with that.

Ryan sits down on top of the counter and plucks a few, soft notes on his chosen guitar. He doesn’t have any particular melody or song in mind; he just lets his fingers play what they wish.

In no time at all, the eggs finish cooking. Ryan regretfully sets down the guitar to flip them and slide them onto plates. Just as he’s turning off the stove, the sound of a door opening down the hall and resounding footsteps reaches his ears.

Ryan snorts.

His husband emerges into the kitchen, hair still messy from bed. Even after all these years, Ryan’s heart flutters at the sight of him.

Min leans down to steal a kiss off the top of Ryan’s head. “Ooh, eggs. Are those for me?”

Ryan swings the plate away, nearly spilling the coveted breakfast. “Of course not. I cook for myself. Never for my handsome husband.”

“Hmm, too bad.” Min grabs a fork and leans in for a bite. “Hey, these are good!”

Ryan laughs and leans against Min’s chest. “Almost as good as your ability to come running as soon as there’s food ready. I swear, Min, it’s superhuman.”

“Only if it’s your food,” Min promises, struggling not to laugh.

Ryan cackles. “Of course. I see how it is”

Min kisses him again and steps away. “I’ll get the table set if you plate the eggs and get some fruit, dear.”

“I can do better than that!” Ryan dishes out the eggs on two plates and cuts some oranges up. He walks over to the toaster and drops two pieces of toast in. “A full breakfast. How about that?”

Min laughs and pulls a tub of butter out of the fridge. “Lovely, thank you.” He peers at the plates. “Eggs and toast. How downright American of you. Would you like some bacon with that?”

“Hey, at least it’s not post-war,” Ryan quips back. He stretches his arms over his head and sets the plates down on the table. “Eh, that would take too much time.” He leans over to peck Min’s cheek. “After all, I would hate to miss breakfast with my lovely husband.”

Min beams. “Good choice.” His wedding ring twinkles in the early morning sunlight.

Ryan sighs dreamily. “Man, am I glad I married you.”

“Me too.” Min’s smile is fond and so full of love it makes Ryan’s heart swell. When he smiles, all his wrinkles soften and curve upwards like little smiles themselves. Ryan loves to kiss each one.

“So.” Min straightens out and pulls out his phone. “We have a practice session at 4 today, booked at the venue for Saturday’s performance.”

“Okay, good.” Ryan nods. “I want to run through the new arrangement Train to Nowhere.”

Min shakes his head, chuckling. “We’ve been playing that song for forty years, Ryan. Shouldn’t you know it inside and out?”

“I just want to tweak some things for this arrangement,” Ryan shoots back, not unkindly.

“Ryan.” Min reaches across the table to lay his hand on top of Ryan’s. Their wedding rings make a soft clink sound when Min’s hits his. “It’s going to be fine. The fans love that song, as do we. We know it well.”

I know, I know.” Ryan squeezes Min’s hand and glances away. His eyes catch on a vase of beautiful purple flowers. I need to water those today, he notes offhandedly. “That’s why I want it to be as good as it can be.”

“It will be,” Min promises.

Ryan smiles. “I believe you.”

Min laughs, reaching across with his other hand to squeeze Ryan’s cheek gently. Ryan laughs, batting his hand away. “Of course you do. You should listen to your husband more often, Ryan.”

“What are you talking about? I always listen to you,” Ryan snorts.

Min waggles his finger. “Ah-ah, that sheet music you bought last week would beg to differ,” he says. “I told you we already had it in a songbook somewhere.”

Ryan crosses his arms, faux-affronted. “Excuse me for wanting more music to play!”

“I don’t care about that. Just spend our money on music we don’t already have,” Min says, leaning back in his chair with a smile.

Ryan shrugs and lets out a small huff of laughter. “I can do that.”

“Good.” Min gets up to clear their plates. “I’m going to go grocery shopping and then call my parents. Do you need anything?”

“No, but I’ll pop on that call if you don’t mind,” Ryan replies, standing up. “And can you grab some cheese? And the-“

“Those crackers you like, the ones that come in the blue box, I know, I know,” Min says, laughing and shaking his head affectionately. “It’s on the list.”

Ryan walks over and wraps an arm around his husband. “Ah, you know me so well. Thanks, babe.”

Min shrugs him off, laughing. “Stop calling me that! It’s not classy!”

“Pfft, okay.” Ryan kisses Min on the cheek before releasing him. “See you in a few hours?”

“You know it.” Min waves and kisses him goodbye before he’s out the door.

Ryan hums softly to himself as he cleans up the kitchen. It starts out as a B-side from one of Chicken Choice Judy’s earlier albums - their third, if memory serves correctly. Four years after they’d escaped the train, when their career was steadily taking off and they started touring outside of North America.

Ryan shook his head, chuckling softly to himself as he wiped a dish clean. “Man, what a time.”

As he works, the tune slowly shifts into something more original and unique. Something new. When he notices the change, he immediately scrambles for a pen and paper. Luckily, there’s a large notebook of blank sheet music in the drawer under the microwave for this exact reason.

Ryan flips past pages of sheet music penned from similar scenarios to a blank page. He leans against the counter, writing down notes and chords and lyrics as time slips away. Before he knows it, he has a full song on his hands and Min’s returned.

“Hey, honey,” Min says, dropping the grocery bags on the kitchen table and leaning in for a kiss. “Whatcha got there?”

Ryan tips the sheet music notebook over so Min can see. “A new song. I’m calling this one ‘Sunsets’ for now. What do you think?”

Min hums thoughtfully as he peruses the notes. “It sounds pretty, Ryan! May I suggest a ukulele rift here?” He taps the third line down as he talks. “I think that would add to the image.”

Ryan grins. “You’re a genius, Min.” He’s said similar statements many times over their forty-year music-writing career, but it never gets old.

Min preens, laughing. “Oh, I know. I’m gonna call my parents in a few, okay?”

“Sure. Call me when you’re ready.” Ryan doesn’t take his eyes off the music as Min leaves.

When he eventually hits a block, he puts away the groceries. He’s just finished when Min pokes his head out of the office door and beckons.

“Hello, Ryan!” Min’s mother greets when he steps inside. “Lovely to see you.”

“You as well, 어머님,” he replies, squeezing into the office chair next to Min. It’s not supposed to be big enough to fit them both, but they always seem to manage. Min laughs and tries to bat him off, but it’s halfhearted at this point. Ryan has been doing it for long enough that Min gave up a while ago. Besides, they both know Min likes the subtle affection.

“Just get another chair,” Min’s father grumbles, not unkindly. His wife gives him a small nudge on the shoulder.

“Leave them alone. Let them enjoy each other’s company,” Min’s mother replies, shaking her head in mirth. “If they’re still in their honeymoon phase after all this time, that’s on them.”

“엄마, please,” Min sighs, burying his head in his hands. His mother just laughs.

At precisely four P.M., he and Min are settled onstage at Saturday’s venue. It happens to be a beautiful outdoor amphitheater with vines and greenery gently climbing up the pillars holding up the stage’s ceiling. The audience area is open-sky and curves gently downward, like a bowl.

Ryan stands in the center of said “bowl”, guitar hanging from his shoulders by its strap. He raises his arms to the sky and spins, taking in everything.

From his place onstage, behind his synthesizer, Min laughs. “What are you doing?”

“Just taking in the sights.” Ryan does a final spin for good measure before turning to face Min. “It really is quite pretty.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Min gazes up at the orange-tinted sky with a soft smile. “Our manager really outdid herself with the booking this time. We’ll have to thank her.”

Ryan clambers up on the stage, silently wincing at the height gap between the audience floor and stage floor. He’s really not as young as he used to be, is he? “Should we send her flowers?”

“I think she really liked the sunflowers we got her last time. They were on her living room table when we visited her.” Min places his fingers on the keys, hovering just above them. “Maybe chocolate, too.”

Ryan laughs. “How cliché. Is there something I should know?” He waltzes over to Min and wraps a lazy arm around his husband, leaning all of his weight into Min’s shoulders.

Min laughs and shoves him off. “Please, do I have to come out to you again? Not all of us are interested in women, you know.”

“And what a great loss to the female community it is. The ladies of the Min-Gi Park fan club will have to go in mourning,” Ryan giggled. “But really, flowers and chocolate sound nice. She’ll like it.”

Min gave him a thumbs-up. “Sound check?”

Ryan gives his guitar an experimental strum. It echoes across the amphitheater beautifully, filling the bowl with sound and vibration. He whoops. “Let’s get this party started!”

“Not until Saturday, or else we’ll have some very unhappy neighbors to contend with,” Min admonishes, laughing. His fingers fly across the keys. “I’m good too.”

Ryan taps his mic. “Then let’s get ready to rock!” His voice booms across the venue. A few peacefully roosting birds take flight, squawking indignantly.

Min rolls his eyes. “Leave the poor birds alone, and you have a deal.”

“Please, we all know they just want to hear us play.” Ryan fishes his guitar pick from his jacket pocket and holds it poised over his guitar strings. “How do you feel about Train to Nowhere as a warm-up?”

“Fine by me,” Min says. His eyes don’t leave his synth. “It’s my favorite song to play with you, Ryan.”

“Well, of course,” Ryan says. “It’s what got us together, after all. In more ways than one.”

Min laughs. “Well, I can’t argue with that. Care to count us off?”

“Oh, I was just waiting for you to ask.” Ryan raises his pick and grins. “Five, six, eleven, twelve!”

Somewhere in Canada, the sun sets over a practicing music duo in the early 2020s. They laugh and goof around on an empty stage as birds and a few curious passerby stop to watch. The notes of their original hit song, “Train to Nowhere,” grace the evening air.

In the middle of the song, their eyes meet. They do not speak outside of the song lyrics, but an entire conversation passes through their gaze. It’s all they can do to not run to each other and hug each other right then and there.

After all, Ryan and Min-Gi Akagi-Park have lived a lifetime with each other. And they will live out the rest of their lives with each other, happy and content beyond imagination.

i'm not korean so i'm not sure if the words i used for min's mother are right. if anyone knows better and sees i'm wrong, please tell me! the website said the word min uses ( 엄마 / eomma) is the informal way to say mom, and you only use it for your own mother. the word ryan uses ( 어머님 / eomeonim ) is formal and often used for mothers-in-law. eomma is really similar to the hebrew word for mother, which is amma. i think that's fascinating because hebrew and korean are not similar languages at all. lingustics as a whole is fascinating because you can see where languages and dialects split off from each other and where/why that happened in history. it's also really cool to see languages so similar to each other you can communicate with someone else in two different languages. languages also have cognants (not sure if i'm spelling that right) where a word is basically the same across multiple languages. it's really interesting to see in this modern world of quick and easy communication how many cognants we have, especially for semi-recent terms (the technology unit in french was SO easy). anyway sorry for the tangent i just really love linguistics

man i wasn't planning to write for today until i realized i'd overestimated the chapter count and it felt weird to not write aksdgfjs. i hope i can keep to this schedule of writing every day but school will probably put a hard stop to that. gotta get out as much writing as i can before then! i started writing this at like 9pm i'm so sorry if it's messy dkfhjfkd

we've come full circle! this started with baby rymin and now we have much older rymin. poetic cinema........

the euphoria i got everytime i wrote "his husband"......... they are MARRIED gamers!!!!!

this is a callout post for every time i pour myself a bowl of chips at my aunt and uncle's house and all five of them suddenly think my bowl is a free-for-all even though the bag is sitting right there. stop i am not a chip dispensary. do not be min-gi akagi-park leave my chips alone

title is from uhhhh i don't know what it was called (some indie thing) but it was in my last winterguard show (fuck covid i wanted a senior season) and it just popped into my head. or it might have just been a voice line from something i heard it in another show with different music. whatever it's almost 1 am i'll look it up later. i put it on my titles doc (which is 90% song lyrics and which my brother likes to call the "song lyric moodboard" even though it's just a bullet list) out of impulse and nostalgia and never really intended to use it but it actually fits really well here?? who knew

it didn't make it in but i imagine that ryan and min have a parrot named kez and they've taught it some of kez's favorite and most iconic phrases. imagine you are visiting acclaimed musical duo chicken choice judy's house and you hear a parrot squawk at you "Why do you hate fun, Min." another thing that kind of made it in but not quite was that ryan has all those weird guitars. im picturing this one my temporary songleading teacher at camp, who's a professional musician and probably the most famous jewish folk artist out there (which is a very niche group so he's not really famous), brought out once. it was really small and had like eight tiny strings all crammed in together and it both fascinated and terrified me. i have no idea how you can play that without accidentally pressing all the wrong strings all the time but dan nichols can do it so i've decided ryan can do it too

tomorrow is au day... you know what that means... *shoves rymin into my current hyperfixation*

if you ever wanna talk infinity train, writing, these amazing characters, or really anything hmu here on my tumblr or on twitter! thank you for reading, and please leave a reblog/like/comment if you enjoyed it!

@ryminweek

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mattyrambles · 7 years ago

Text

20:18

It’s coming up to half eight, when Penelope wanders downstairs. The house - quiet, a distant hum of the record she had left spinning upstairs, and a static of voices drifting from the lounge, Matty and the telly.

Kitchen - dimly lit, much like the rest of the rooms. Dark outside - although it was the beginning of March, spring - the weather told a different story. Weather warnings of snow storms, plummeting temperatures had littered the news. The snow was beginning to take its toll, weighting outside from what Penelope can figure, see - face pressed to glass, window. A shiver - instinct, turning back on the heating and switching on the kettle, picking at dried paint on her thigh.

Lounge - finding Matty sprawled on the couch, laptop balanced on his stomach, seemingly engrossed. Queer Eye. Setting his tea down on the coffee table.

Fingers - ruffling through bleach blonde as she passes, he glances up lazily - a muffled ‘thanks, love’ through a yawn, stretching but not making any attempt to reach for the tea, legs over her lap when she sits at the opposite end of the sofa. She eyes him - doubtfully, while he giggles at something that’s just been said. Earlier in the evening he had told her he was going to work on some stuff, album stuff - after spending the afternoon spread across the bed with Allen doing much of the same as he was now. She thinks now it was just a ploy, an excuse to be alone, an escape from her constant fidgeting.

Cabin fever was beginning to creep up on Penelope - earlier in the day, aimlessly wandering between her studio and art corner of the bedroom. Angsty and tiresome, restless. Mood - mirroring the weather.

Like Matty she had intended to get some work done - illustration, instead ending up on the bedroom floor, sketching and half finishing a canvas portrait of Allen, who spent most of the day curled up on the bed, an equally sulky state. It wasn’t the day for trying to work, built on procrastination and dense atmosphere, and Penelope was getting increasingly exasperated with how little attention Matty was giving her. Alone time was over - as far as she was concerned, but his gaze still didn’t shift from his laptop, no matter how long she stared.

Until finally - albeit there was a pause, the next episode loading, dark hazel meeting indigo; “What’re you looking at?”

Penelope - taking that as a cue, cold cups of tea, closing his Mac and shifting it off him, despite halfhearted protests of ‘oi’, and ‘’m watching sommat’.

“For someone who’s about to announce to the world how much they hate technology - you’ve been using it a fair deal to fucking ignore me all day.”

Vexatious complaints - maneuvering, thighs either side of his ribs, stomach.

“Sorry darling, what was that?” A lopsided smirk, glancing up at her while thumbs moved haphazardly over his phone screen. She didn’t need to ask - knowing it was George, stranded somewhere in Ireland with Kelsey. Snow.

Fingers - plucking the phone from him, tossing it across the room, the other couch. Matty raises brows in a silent questioning - before he can say anything, she collapses into him, face burrowing into his neck. A whine, scratchy sound resembling his name.

Something he chortles at, resounding her name, an amused tone, fingers - trailing down her spine. Comforting - content with his touch, smell, until he begins to speak again, after having time to mull over what she had said.

“And actually I don’t hate technology, you’re missing the point - it’s about how subversive-”

Penelope - a groan, shushing him, nipping at his neck. She had heard this speech, rant - over and over and over again, the past few months. She could recite it back to him, or some variation - his spiel on it was ever changing. Mumbling - key words, concepts from ‘Kanye’ to ‘Black Mirror’ to ‘Obsolescence’, between kisses, his neck.

She continues until he interrupts, complaining about being too warm, asking if she had turned the heating back on, she meets his complaints with her own - cold. Something he scoffs at.

“Because you have no fucking clothes on.”

Warm hands, bare skin - her thighs, highlighting his point. Only one of his Gucci tshirts, underwear. Comments that transpire into a minor argument over the heating, and heating bills, and overheating, and Allen’s dislike of the sounds the boiler and radiators made, and how it makes Matty’s nose all stuffy. Domestic. The kind of domestic that would make George utterly repulsed if he was present.

Until it’s giggles, and kisses. Kisses that grow quite heated, quite fast, after she tries to sit back up, lips chasing. Hands wandering - her thighs, hips, under her tshirt. All hot breaths, soft sounds, and suppressed smirks - between mouths. A heavy scent of sandalwood, from earlier candles. Frost tinting window panes.

Slow - but still with a hint of urgency. His jeans - pushed down just far enough, her, or his, tshirt ends up on the floor, following a bit of a struggle his jumper joins it. Swollen lips - pressing kisses, her lips, jaw. Fingers - pushing aside, underwear, rather than struggling to take them off, cramped space and bad coordination, something that would most likely end with him knocking her onto the floor, and killing the mood.

Muted gasps - when fingertips brush against sensitive skin, echoing sounds from Matty - when her fingers wrap around him. Air thicker, heat rising - blood rushing, messy tongues and soft sounds. Penelope - hips gyrating, in search of more friction, a mewl resembling his name tumbling from her lips, fingers dipping into her. Thighs - trembling against him, nails grazing skin.

Impatience - rising after a few minutes, a lazy kind of rhythm between them both, his fingers, her hand. Slow and tormenting - setting off sparks, fueling the heat, radiating. Fingers - tugging at his wrist, hazel focusing on blown out pupils as she leans back down, lips hot against his, telling him that she wants to feel him, while nails graze across ink, tattoos.

Instead of attempting to change positions, cramped and partially because of his own impatience, heat spiraling through his veins - fingers grip her hips, guiding her on to him. Perfect angle - to watch her face, reaction as he fills her. How her lips part with scattered expletives, brow furrowing, fingers imprinting against his ribs. Naturally - taking a few minutes to gain some sort of rhythm, momentum. Not something he minded - relishing in the feeling of her, the soft sounds that surpassed her lips. A mutual desire, rippling through bodies.

Later - much later, bedroom. Penelope finding Matty once again on his phone, giggling to himself, when she returns from the bathroom, pajamas and brushed teeth. The living room escapade had transpired, traveled to the bedroom - between cool sheets, when hands and mouths grew peripatetic once more.

Horizontal - head on Matty’s stomach, fingers playing with her hair, twirling curls. Announcing - out of seemingly nowhere that George and Kelsey are going to be the first to have a kid. Indigo - glancing up, an amused smirk, asking him what made him think that.

He shrugs, tossing him phone down - “was reading some article, said there’s gonna be an influx in babies born in December ‘cause of the snow, people have nowt else to do but shag apparently. So what’s the bet that we’ll have a cute, but very odd new little drummer by next year?”

Penelope only scoffed at his logic, shaking her head.

“Fine be like that, Ross will bet me.” - picking back up his phone, eyes lighting up with immature excitement. Penelope - burrowing her way under the duvet, “they’re staying with her parents, I doubt they’re spending their weekend trapped in the house shagging.”

“Never stopped us did it, darlin’?”

She didn’t have to look at him to know that that stupid sly grin was tilting his lips, turning off the light, but letting out a low chuckle all the same.

“Oh my God, go to sleep - Matty.”

It’s quiet for a while,once Matty had finished sending Ross his preposition for the bet, much like earlier in the night. Only sounds of wind outside, and the sparse creeks of the house. Penelope - drifting in and out of sleep, until Matty’s voice, a whisper - her ear, clearly in deep thought over the matter.

“Babe, what colour do you think I should dye my hair next?”

#hola i tried to write smut and failed #but heres something until i finish the BIG thing im working on #xx #matty healy #george daniel #matty healy fanfic #matty healy fanfiction

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ouma--kokichis · 8 years ago

Text

花言葉 / A flower's meaning

Word count: 4206

Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff

H-hello it was me all along!! (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و I got really inspired by the saiou comic you drew a while ago, and decided to borrowed your hc that Saihara is bad at waking up early until he starts living together with Ouma.

I felt terribly clumsy writing this (I don’t have a beta reader so I’m sorry if its riddled with mistakes) and Ouma might be a bit ooc but once the idea formed I couldn’t let it go anymore. I really want to say thank you for blessing the fandom with your wonderful art ;w; so I hope it’ll at least make you smile a little bit!

EDIT by ALSIUSHAKU---

Link to the story on Ao3 is HERE! please send kudos/comments for the author there!

Thank you so much for this!!! omg!! I had to draw a “cover” image for this so here you are (They are wearing the school uniforms cause...uhm... >///<)

It had been about a week since Saihara had agreed to share a room with Ouma. The flat was rather large and comfortable, the rent was affordable thanks to some mysterious connection to the landlord Ouma didn’t want to tell him about in detail, both of their universities were easy to reach and… Saihara had been incredibly reluctant to move in. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to live together with Ouma, quite the opposite actually. During their last year at Hope’s peak they’d grown close, so close that Ouma would occasionally refer to him as his boyfriend, but maybe that was exactly what had made him hesitate. Was he really ready to take their relationship to the next stage? And even worse, bring all of his bad habits into a new household?

He had ended up agreeing anyway, unable to refuse Ouma’s bright smile and the way his eyes lit up whenever they talked about a domestic lifestyle. And their first days spent together were also just like Ouma had imagined them to be.

They helped each other with unpacking, teaching each other how to cook simple meals (although Saihara couldn’t help his heart rate shooting up dangerously high whenever Ouma was handling a knife), and staying up late watching crime shows while snuggling up together on the couch until one of them dragged the other off to bed. It was more than Saihara had even hoped for. This shared lifestyle was almost perfect. Too perfect to be true.

When classes started again, the change Saihara had dreaded was about to happen. Their schedules required a bit of effort to work together, with Saihara’s lessons usually starting in the mornings whereas Ouma’s would usually be in the afternoon, and too soon Saihara became unable to keep up with his roommate. Of course it was entirely his fault. He and his stupid habit of trying to get as much sleep as possible out of a morning was what made him trip up from the beginning. The feared pattern he was all too familiar with.

On the first day of early lessons, Saihara woke up 30 minutes before class.

He had barely enough time to change clothes and grab his bag to stumble out of the door when a voice resounded behind him.

“Uhm…? Saihara-chan? Good morning?”

“O-Ouma-kun?!” Saihara almost fell over, trying to put on his shoes and turn around to face the shorter boy at the same time. A wretched feeling settled in his gut. Had he…?

“Hmm, seems like you’ve already forgotten that I live here too?” Ouma tapped his chin thoughtfully as if he’d just read his mind. Visibly he didn’t seem upset, but there was a distinct lack of cheerfulness around him that made Saihara gulp. A bead of sweat made its way down his neck.

“I,… I know that! I’m sorry, I just… woke up really late and now I have to hurry or else I’ll be late for class,” he tripped over his words, already sure that this halfhearted excuse wouldn’t be nearly enough to please him. The fact that he had ignored, or maybe even worse, forgotten about Ouma was very much present to both of them.

“I’ll— make up to it, I promise!” Saihara’s uneasy smile bounced right off of Ouma’s unreadable mask. Without another word, he grabbed his hat in hopes it would cover his shame and stormed out of their shared flat.

Oversleeping was entirely his fault. His stupid habit was entirely his fault. A small part of Saihara wished Ouma would’ve woken him up for class and he felt disgusted with himself for trying to put the blame on anyone but himself. Ouma always got up early, sometimes even too early whenever he heard him move the covers of their shared bed at 4 am, but he had always been patient with Saihara, letting him rest and get up when he felt like. Sometimes Ouma even prepared breakfast for both of them which had Saihara feel guilty until Ouma assigned him to cooking dinner and doing the dishes, a role distribution which made both of them smile every time they saw the other working for their behalf. It was good and balanced and ideal, enough to dissolve the worries Saihara had had about living together with someone and now he had just gone and ruined it. In a span of a single morning.

During class, Saihara found it impossible to pay attention to the subject, his mind always wandering off to Ouma, what the other was doing, what he was thinking about, and of course how to make up for it, how he’d said so boldly. Was there even a way to appease him?

When he finally returned home, he was still empty handed safe for a heavy heart. His key turned to unlock the door and stepping inside the apartment, he was greeted with soft light and TV noise in the background. Ouma was nowhere to be seen but he still called out a weak “I’m home” while putting away his shoes. To his surprise, a purple shock of hair peaked out from behind the sofa as soon as he entered the living area.

“Saihara-chan, welcome home!” A smile followed before Ouma returned his attention back to the TV. “Your breakfast is in the fridge.”

A chill ran through his body. There was a false sense of security in the air and Saihara’s gut immediately told him to run. Of course that would just worsen the whole situation. Even if Ouma feigned ignorance right now, he could still feel his eyes on him with every move he made. Was there even a way out in this scenario? He slowly turned to the fridge. There was no way Ouma could be this upset about a small mistake like that, right? Except that this wasn’t small and… Had Ouma just said breakfast? Wait, so this morning, had he made breakfast for both of them just to have Saihara storm out of the apartment without a word of thanks? It couldn’t be…

Shakily he opened the fridge, to find a plate with omurice preserved with plastic wrap around it. There was a big ‘S’ written on it with ketchup and next to it, a few hearts. There was no way he’d be able to eat this. Ouma had made this for him and in return, he had completely ignored him. While he had been able to push away the guilt for most of his day, rather thinking about how to make up, now his own failure was shoved so directly into his face that it almost felt like it was consuming him. A small part of Saihara wanted to throw himself on the floor to bow down in front of Ouma and apologize, but the logical part of his brain reminded him that knowing Ouma, following his directions would be the best action. And that meant eating his omelet rice.

Saihara sat down at the small table of the shared living space and removed the plastic wrap. Ouma was still slumped on the sofa, his back to him.

“Thank you for the meal.” He couldn’t keep the wavering out of his voice. Ouma just hummed in response so he gingerly cut off a piece and put it in his mouth. The food was slightly too cold which was expected, but otherwise had a pleasant taste, as always. It just made things worse. This was certainly not a hastily thrown together meal, showing how upset Ouma was. It was a guilty reminder of how much he cared for him and how little Saihara was able to reproduce these feelings properly.

“Ouma-kun, about this morning…”Trying to choose his words carefully, he went in to scoop up another bite when…

Underneath the sheet of fluffy scrambled egg there was…

… nothing?

Saihara moved more of the egg to the side. No rice?!

The omelet had been completely hollowed out safe for the sides to keep its shape. Baffled, Saihara stared at his deconstructed dinner. Was this… Ouma’s idea of revenge? He couldn’t deny that it was working. There was a pang in his chest, adding to the heavy weight of his guilt. Getting so worked up about the feelings conveyed through omurice just increased his disappointment now. Not that he didn’t deserve every last of those spiteful feelings. Ouma’s signature giggling was ringing in his head and he took another bite shamefully. Only to find something with an extremely unfamiliar texture in his food. Just what—? Did Ouma actually want him to die? Was he that upset?

Once he removed the strange component and laid it back on the plate, he found it to be a delicate flower stem adorned with small purplish blue blossoms.

“Ouma-kun, what is this…?” he stammered.

“Oh, this?” Said boy turned around and looked at him from over the back of the couch. A malicious grin stretched over his lips before he went back to regarding his fingernails in disinterest. “I tried out some new seasoning. I thought you might like it.”

What a blatant lie.

“You’ll do the dishes right? I’m kinda tired so I’ll take a bath and then head to bed.”

As announced, Ouma stood up with a yawn, turned off the TV and then disappeared into the bathroom. Saihara was left with a measly rest of rice and scrambled egg that was probably poisoned by this strange flower, and the emptiest he had ever felt.

It had gotten pretty late until Saihara finally went to bed. After the dinner disaster he had made himself some instant noodles and moped in front of the TV to waste time, and when he wanted to take a bath he had to find out that the water had already been drained from the tub. Cruel. But apparently, he deserved this. No, not just apparently. It was probably just a fraction of disappointment Ouma had felt this morning. Being pranked by him wasn’t news, but it usually made both of them laugh, except neither Saihara nor Ouma were laughing now. In fact Saihara was miles away from just cracking a smile, the space between them on their shared bed feeling abysmal. He hadn’t even managed to properly apologize today.

A sharp beam of sunlight caused Saihara to blink himself awake. Once his consciousness started to rouse, yesterday’s events hit him like a truck and he scrambled into an upright position.

Wait. He didn’t have morning class today, did he? And this wasn’t some time loop he got himself stuck in just so he could go back and fix his mistake?

Saihara groaned. This was irrational and he knew it, and yet some part of him needed to check the phone next to his bed just to make sure today’s date was a different one. After all, his luck wasn’t that great to grant him a second chance. He was about to reach out when the pads of his fingers brushed against something…

“Uwaah—!” He hastily shook his hand in panic, and a blurry blue object dropped from his palm to the floor. What in the world…? A bug? Some lint he had stuck on his hands for some reason? A death trap set up by Ouma?

He took a deep breath and decided to investigate. Underneath his bed laid…

A small flower with purplish blue blossoms. Somehow it looked familiar. Memories from yesterday’s disasterous dinner filled his head involuntarily. There was no doubt that this was Ouma’s doing, but why? Maybe it was poisonous after all? Saihara shook his head violently. Ouma wanting to kill him was already a bit farfetched, and if he really did, there would be a lot more efficient ways. And yet, this little stem had appeared again.

The more he looked at the flower, the more it seemed to wilt before his eyes. Guilt seeped into the pit of his stomach again when he thought about this small flower, Ouma’s flower, die just because of him. Saihara left the bedroom to get a glass of water as a substitute for a vase, just to discover a note from his roommate, saying he’d gone out to run some errands. Today, there was no breakfast waiting for him.

The next few days passed in a similar manner. He and Ouma barely met during the day and when they did, only a few words were exchanged. They still cooked meals for each other occasionally but even at night, they stayed distant from each other.

The only change were the flowers. The makeshift vase next to Saihara’s bedside now held four small stems in bloom, each from a morning he’d woken up and miraculously found one in his palm. Or that one time in his hair which he hadn’t noticed until someone at university pointed it out to him. On one occasion he’d actually woken up and found himself covered in small blue petals additionally to the one in his hand. He hadn’t been able to save any of the tiny blossoms and felt a little extra sad that day.

Until now, neither Saihara nor Ouma had spoken a word about this weird ritual. The flowers were just kind of there and Saihara would be lying if he wasn’t somehow looking forward to finding another one, like he was picking up bread crumbs on a trail that would hopefully lead him back to Ouma. He knew who put them there, and with the lack of interaction between them, the flowers felt like the only connection they shared. In a weird way, they even reminded him of Ouma. Fragile and small by the looks of it, but the stems were quite sturdy. And despite being a bit plain and unnoticeable compared to other flowers, there was a hidden beauty only someone with an eye for detail could appreciate.

Lost in his own thoughts, Saihara didn’t hear the door open while preparing dinner. Soft-footed steps barely announced his arrival and Saihara was surprised when two arms wrapped around his midsection.

“I’m home, Saihara-chan.”

Ouma’s breath was warm through his shirt. It felt like ages since they had touched in any way and he couldn’t help but smile. Saihara put the knife down that he was previously chopping vegetables with.

“Welcome home.”

The embrace was tight enough to make it unable for him to turn around, as much as he would have liked to face Ouma. Instead he was confronted with his own thoughts. The hug was the most sincere interaction they’d had in a while, so maybe he should…

“U-uhm, the… the flowers?”

He felt Ouma sigh while burying his face into his back, but Saihara was unable to tell if it was out of relief or annoyance.

“Did you understand their meaning?”

Meaning? Saihara tensed. Of course there was a meaning. How could he have been so caught up marveling at their sheer presence that he forgot to look for a deeper sense? Ouma had left them there for him to… to…

As a means to communicate with him? To guilt trip him? Or maybe this was just a red herring?

“If you don’t know, maybe you should just look it up.” Ouma’s grip loosened slightly and Saihara already prepared for the emptiness to hit him the moment he would let go.

Look up the meaning of the flowers, why had he been so stupid as to not do that before? Had he just assumed those were ordinary flowers Ouma found at the side of the street? Truth be told, he hadn’t thought about the why and where at all. The flowers reminded him of Ouma and that’s where his train of thought had ended, in a pile of unresolved guilt. Of course he couldn’t just blurt that out. It would only make him seem like a fool and the purple haired already knew that much.

“Could you at least tell me the name?”

Ouma chuckled, sending vibrations down his back. “Eehh, but I don’t want to? Besides, that would ruin the fun. You’re the detective here, aren’t you?”

It had been worth a try. The only comfort was that Ouma seemed to be in a fairly good mood even after their conversation. Saihara decided to research the flower later, not wanting to be caught and embarrassed by his roommate with wild guesses.

Finding out a flower when you didn’t even knew its name proved to be more difficult than expected. Saihara had kind of wished to mull over some books in the library instead of typing various key words into a search engine but in the end, he managed to find out both the name and association.

He stared at the computer screen in disbelief, checking again if the flower in his hands matched the picture but there was no doubt. Even though this plant was commonly found in Europe, there it was, a small bouquet right in front of him. This had been Ouma’s true intention? His newfound knowledge produced a giddy feeling from deep within him that left him unable to sit still for another second. There was an anxious mess in his head and his throat felt tied. He wanted, no, needed to wake up Ouma right away and confront him.

Saihara’s chair clattered to the floor as he rushed to the bedroom door. One last deep breath and…

“Ouma-kun, I—!“

The sleeping form on the bed was only illuminated by a dim streetlamp outside. Purple hair framed his peaceful face, a look devoid of all worries on his features. Saihara’s throat felt dry. Suddenly he was unable to produce a single sound, the electrical current he had been feeling seconds ago dying into a weak static, crackling in his veins.

It wasn’t fair.

He had caused so much sadness, so much distance, just because he had been unable to read the signs. Up until now, this hadn’t been revenge. The message he had been unable to read properly… If he had to put them through another week apart from each other, he might just get struck by lightning for real. How could he have messed up so bad in the first week of them trying to progress with their relationship? And even now, he had been the one to make Ouma wait for almost a full week. If he had just realized the flower’s meaning earlier, then maybe this whole conflict…

Ouma stirred.

His face scrunched up and then his eyes opened slowly. Searching for the source of what caused him to wake up, his gaze fell on the boy hovering above him. Saihara felt purple eyes drilling into him with question, but yet again his voice failed him. All he could do was stare back, distressed and so tense he thought he might snap any second. But instead of falling into a thousand pieces, Ouma’s smile greeted him warmly. It was as if he understood, even without words exchanged between them. He extended his arms, welcoming Saihara into an embrace. Saihara in turn felt his layers of anxiety falling off, dropping to the ground like flower petals. He climbed onto the bed and lowered himself into Ouma’s arms, melting into his warmth.

Soft sunrays fell on his face. A warm sensation tingled the skin of his palm. Saihara’s consciousness began to stir. His arms felt empty but something else was different from his usual mornings as well. He tried to free his thoughts from sleep’s haziness. A blur of purple appeared before his eyes and he blinked rapidly to get accustomed to the light in his bedroom. “H… huh?”

Ouma pulled his hand back that had been intertwined with Saihara’s just seconds ago. Left in his palm was a single stem of…

“Saihara-chan, you’re awake!” He seemed genuinely surprised, if not even slightly embarrassed to be caught in the act. However he managed to recover quickly as always, the sheepish look replaced by a playful grin soon enough. In a swift motion, he climbed onto the bed and straddled Saihara. “You found it out, right?”

Saihara nodded eagerly, now fully awake. He propped himself up with his elbows. “Forget me not!” he blurted out.

In response, the boy raised an eyebrow questioningly but his lips already curled into a mischievous grin again. “What was that?”

Saihara felt his face heat up just a little as Ouma twisted his words. “Forget-me-not,” he repeated in a quieter voice. “A flower that symbolizes remembrance and connection between two people. And,” here he had to swallow, too embarrassed to keep eye contact, “… true and undying love.”

Now it was Ouma’s turn to color, if just ever so slightly. “Nishishi… looks like your research was thorough. Spot on.”

Saihara sat up and grabbed Ouma’s shoulders to draw him close and possibly keep him from tumbling off. “I—“ Now wasn’t the time to chicken out. He had to say it! After all these days!

“I could never forget you! You’re what’s most important to me!”

Ouma’s hands pushed against his chest to gain some distance. The blush on his cheeks made it obvious that he was uncomfortable. “T—Then, if I’m so precious and important to you, you also realize the true meaning of this, right?”

True meaning? Saihara had to pause for a second. There was another message he had missed? Something that was unique to Ouma, unique to their relationship.

All this thinking early in the morning wasn’t good for him. How was he supposed to concentrate when his mind was still clouded from… wait.

Early in the morning?!

Saihara’s head shot up, frantically searching for a clock. His gaze stayed on it, mesmerized. The hands had just reached 6:30 am.

Using Saihara’s confusion to his advance, Ouma threw his hands around his neck and pulled him close. “That’s my beloved Saihara-chan! A true detective!”

He tried to ignore the underlying sarcasm and embraced Ouma instead. So this had been a trick to make him get up earlier? It was true that he had woken up on time today, but it seemed like such a hassle to go through the trouble with the flowers, the whole not talking to each other… A prank. Another one of Ouma’s damn pranks that just needed to be this little bit of ‘extra’.

Groaning, he fell back onto the mattress, taking Ouma with him. “Why…”

He received a chuckle as a reply. “Because I love you?”

Saihara rolled his eyes.

“Besides, you were getting soo worked up over it! Whenever you looked at me with those sad, desperate eyes I got so excited, I almost spoiled the plan! Oh, did you know you’re making a really funny face when you’re asleep? Since I watched you every day for like 30 minutes or so, I won’t forget it for an eternity!”

The joy in his voice was enough to make Saihara forget the dread he had been feeling minutes ago. Almost. He tried a shaky smile and was pleased to find it reciprocated on Ouma’s face tenfold.

“I thought you were really mad at me,” he confessed his worries.

Ouma’s expression changed into surprise. “Me? Mad at Saihara-chan? I could never get mad at you! Not in a thousand years! Not even if you broke my favorite mug and made me eat the shards!”

His voice lowered dangerously. Saihara tried to laugh it off with an insecure laugh. “I definitely won’t do that…”

He seemed pleased with this answer, leaning down to push Saihara’s bangs away from his forehead and placed a soft kiss on his face. “Then I don’t have any reason to get mad, as long as you stay close.”

Saihara buried his face in the crook of Ouma’s neck, wondering if his scent reminded him of forget-me-not or the other way around. Experimentally he moved his lips along the delicate skin, half-expecting a backlash but Ouma only hummed in appreciation. He felt encouraged to move down to his collarbone peaking out from beneath his low cut shirt, mouthing kisses all over it. The taste of his skin made Saihara’s thoughts grow hazy. It was like he had forgotten the other’s warmth and got addicted to it all over again. Before he knew it his hands sneaked past the fabric of Ouma’s shirt to stroke his sides and pull him closer. “Good morning.”

Breathing the words that had been lacking in their lives for so long really did something for Ouma. He let out a startled whine and sat up rather abruptly. Saihara was about to ask if he did something wrong when the boy hastily removed his t-shirt.

“If Saihara-chan wants to do this…” His face had turned into a cute pink but Saihara figured he probably didn’t look any better color wise. He smiled shyly in return, waiting until Ouma leaned back down and initiated another kiss.

Lazily tapping away at some phone game, Ouma sighed with feigned annoyance. Yet Saihara could feel his triumphant grin bore into him while he refused to look up, curled into a tight embrace with his head against the shorter boy’s chest. His face was burning with embarrassment.

“Nishishi… I can’t believe you missed morning classes because you wanted to have sex with me instead. You’re the worst, Saihara-chan.”

#ouma kokichi #saihara shuuichi #saiouma #stuff for me #sternenmaler #THANK YOU SO MUCHHHH #please support them!!#submission

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