#malik doesn't even flinch

[realtapiocafan]

the romantic ass music... by the official nflonfox account...

(bringing this shit back up bc the commanders jayden won and malik was there to cheer him on)

[charaznablescanontoyota]

briskie & malik + elsewhere

It's Arturo, and then it's him, and then it's Malik, and then Arturo disappears when no one is looking, and it's just Briskie and Malik together in the forest and the fog. Everything is tinted pale with mist, trees rising into view only when Briskie is nearly close enough to walk headlong into their massive trunks. It's too wide open, the low visibility providing the illusion of a featureless void that goes on for miles in any direction. The sky is dark when it should be night, and light when it should be day, but there are no stars, no sun.

"It's cold," Malik says, after a day of walking. There isn't much to do in Elsewhere besides walk. The fog swallows you if you sit down, leaves you even more disoriented about what patch of land you're on and what direction you should be going in, and it's not worth taking the time to figure all that out again.

"It's -" Briskie starts, maybe to admonish, but turns just enough to see Malik's ears flattened down against aer scalp, aer hands nervously twisting at aer tail. "Do you want my jacket?"

"What?" Malik asks, eyes going wide, slit pupils dilating large and black. "Nyo - uh, no, that's! You'll be cold, then!"

"I grew up in Kansas City. I'll be fine."

Briskie shrugs out of his heavy, flannel-lined jacket and passes it over to Malik. It's huge on his frame, so it's similarly huge on aer's, sleeves hanging down past Malik's fingers, shoulders loose and just a bit too wide. It's one of the last things Briskie has left from his universe, before he alternated here. From home. But he trusts Malik with it. And it's not like either of them are going anywhere any time soon.

"You look cold," Malik says, squinting at him.

"I'm not," Briskie says. He still has his jersey on, anyway, and a long-sleeved shirt under that. He gets cold easily, sure, but he knows how to handle it, and he's not cold now. "Just...uncomfortable."

Malik cocks aer head, ears twitching and perking up with interest. "Why?"

"I don't like wide open spaces." Because that's easier than explaining what he does like - the cold, dark comfort of a Seattle sound booth, a makeshift cot on the floor of a shed in the Meadow. "They make me nervous."

"Well, I'm here. So you're nya-t allowed to be nervous," Malik says, with a grin that's all bright eyes and pointed teeth. Ae reaches out for Briskie, who very nearly flinches away before he realizes Malik is trying to take his hand. He gives it quietly, without protest, though his hand is stiff in Malik's and he doesn't squeeze back or hang on for dear life or anything like that.

"I won't lose you," Malik says, with confidence that Briskie can't help but feel is unwarranted.

"Good," Briskie says, and means it. "You had better not."