#my anxiety in general has gotten really fucking bad over the last month and a half and i'm not sure why. like it's always been there but.

[agerefandomstuff]

little soldier boy???

I think he'd be small but also have bigger ages? But if you could write about him being a small guy it be much appreciated!

Soldier Baby - Is it Him or the Drugs?

Content warning: not kids’ appropriate media. and has not been censored to be even though it involves sfw age regression.

(if you’ve watched The Boys you have an idea of what to expect from the characters’ vocab and personalities.)

Word count: 3175

Tags/warnings: Regressor Soldier Boy - Ben, Caregiver Billy Butcher, Hughie Campbell, poor hughie’s always bullied, Soldier Boy and Butcher accurate cursing and sexual jokes, general vulgarity, Ben being borderline racist/sexist/homophobic/ OUTDATED THINKING except I didn’t actually wanna make it as bad as he actually can be and I also don’t know how to be, anxiety, mentions of drugs and alcohol, mentions of violence, threats, insults, French fries dipped in frosties, if that’s something that disturbs you idk, my American attempt at writing a British man played by a Kiwi man, first time regressing, confusion, panic, misunderstanding, I don’t know, Ben commenting bad things about The Little Mermaid, Butcher being dumb, Butcher taking charge and being a dad, not beta read. Never beta read. I don’t know who I would be if it was beta read.

Perhaps it was because he had taken too much. Or more likely Butcher gave him something laced since his body filtered out most drugs within minutes and he'd been feeling this way since he’d started yawning a couple hours earlier. His yawns started while watching dumb new century movies, one moment he was bitching to Hughie about how his generation relied too heavily on special effects instead of getting creative (like back in his day) the next he was getting asked when the last time he slept was. As if he was some toddler and not a grown fucking man who can occasionally yawn if he wants to damn it! Hughie might’ve been his “babysitter,” as Butcher titled it, when they were alone but he wasn’t a fuckin child for him to fuss over like some sniveling house wife.

“I’ve stayed awake for over a month before partying, kicking ass, and slinging pussy all while doing my damn job as a hero. Then I was asleep for decades because of Russian scum. This is nothing.” He growled at Hughie, the poor boy shaking like one of those fuckin rat dogs he use to see rich women carrying around at those mind numbing Vought galas. “I am not tired. And you'd be wise to stop assuming I was.”

Although if Hughie hadn't said something about it he probably would've put more thought into it. because… beyond just yawning he was feeling… uncharacteristically spacey, even though he really hadn't been awake long enough to excuse that. He hadn't been here for more than a week, right? Doesn't matter now. He was stubborn and would purposely not give it any more thought because Hughie was a cunt.

...that was until his eighth yawn of the day. It was like he was yawning all the time. He couldn't stop himself and at this point he wasn't even watching the movie let alone making his usual commentary. His mind was just focusing on fighting the yawns and the odd feeling in his mind. He couldn't remember a time he felt so unfocused like this. Even in his most fucked up state at the first Herogasm party he threw, he didnt feel this way.

It had gotten to the point that even Butcher had noticed once he had come back from his food run. However Butcher’s attention on him only fed into Ben’s theory that he’d been slipped something and they were just waiting for him to go down so they could do something to him. Maybe the food he’d brought just had more of whatever supe roofie was inside and they would use it to get a second dose in so they could drag him back to the Russians to be tortured again. Maybe they were working with the evil sons of bitches to turn him into this perfect weapon they wanted and this had all been a ruse to gain his trust.

“The fuck you lookin at?” He snapped out at Butcher but the man only raised his hands in surrender, not even putting up an argument which almost made him feel bad since he… had respect for the guy. He was a badass leader that did–albeit unintentionally–released him from his permanent cyro torture. Even if he was suspicious of him right now… He somewhat owed the man.

Also he was placating him with his favorite things. Drugs, trashy food, his own movies. Only things that would make his time better would be to not be spending it in this shithole hotel unless it was with a woman.

Or a few women.

Aged-like-wine women.

Maybe he was overreacting to this spacey-feeling bullshit.

He probably just needed to do a couple lines to get rid of the yawns and he would be good as new.

“Didn’t say nothin, mate. Calm yer pretty little ticker down.” Butcher responded, glancing down at his chest in warning, reminding them all what would happen if he didn’t get over whatever he was getting so defensive about. “Take some pills, take a nap fer all I care. Whatever keeps this buildin from shambles and our goals within sight.”

The nap line was really all he heard and it was definitely the worst thing to say. The bottle in his hand shattered between his fingers like it was nothing more than a breakaway and Hughie’s face drained of color in time with the beer that dripped down his arm.

Ben stood up his finger pointing at Butcher in a real warning, “Whatever the fuck you think you accomplished–whatever shit you roofied me with–it’s best you undo it right now before I turn your queer side piece into– into…” he couldnt even think of a clever threat. It's like his brain was completely malfunctioning leaving him to just angrily settle for a more embarrassingly simple correction. “Before I fucking kill him.”

The Brit raised his eyebrow as he had to take a second to actually will his mouth to hold back a sarcastic comment about the tongue trip, shockingly actually valuing their lives for once since he was so close to getting Homelander with Soldier Boy in his pocket. “A’right.. hold on now. I ain't got a clue whatcha accusing me of but we ‘aven't done it.” he closed his laptop softly, never taking his eyes off Ben the same way he would never take his eyes off a wild horse. “Why d’ya fink we roofied ya? Beyond the actual roofies yew requested, that is?”

His reaction made Ben second guess his theory again. He never second guessed himself like this. Even when he was wrong. And he sure as shit didn't share his feelings. Feelings were for pussies like Hughie. You didn't have feelings in war or at Vought. Yet…. he felt oddly compelled to answer Butcher’s question honestly and without more threats. He couldn't rationalize this strange compulsion other than maybe it was the way Butcher talked to him or managed to not be afraid of him. Or maybe it was because he was potentially slipped something–he still hadn’t ruled it out!

“I feel… wrong. My head ain't clear but everything I’ve taken should’ve worn off by now.” His hand dipped in the air like a physical indicator of his current lowering confidence and defenses which Butcher–in true Billy Butcher fashion–promptly took a shit on.

“Sounds like someone’s backed up. How boutcha go have a wank in the shower while we plug our ears and pretend we hadn’t noticed yer on edge?” Ben scoffed at the suggestion, his defenses rising back up. Butcher didn't get it. He didnt have blue balls, he had a fucked up head!

“No, you fuckin foreign– guy! ” this was really getting pathetic.. “I-it’s like… like–”

“Like PTSD…?” Hughie nervously piped up from where he was watching, still frozen to the couch. The other two men looked over at him and Ben opened his mouth to shut him down but hesitated. While he was actually kind of glad the little runt was taking him more seriously than Butcher had.. he also didn’t have an answer. He wanted to say no, I've seen shell shock, idiot. I don't have it! He wasn't really sure this time because he really didn't feel normal which was only making him feel more… antsy.

Picking up on his discomfort and hesitation, Butcher turned back towards Ben and watched him for a second, actually deciding to have a good look at him beyond his front of anger. He was tense but his body language was severely lacking its usual arrogant confidence. Like he wasn't comfortable within his own space right now. Once Butcher really looked, even his face, which normally lacked any expression beyond irritation, was practically screaming; I don’t know what’s going on! Someone fix it!

He’d seen that look more times than he could count in his life with his line of work but something about it reminded him more of a little kid than an adult in the middle of a PTSD episode. The look was similar to the one that made him call Hughie “kid” regardless of him being a full adult and insisting on it all the time.

He could see something in Ben right now that activated the part of his brain that had always taken care of Lenny as a kid.

The softer part of him that insisted he help the poor sod’s silent beg for help.

“Oi..kay, kid.” Butcher softened the gruffness in his tone and stood up from his seat at the table, snagging a bag of greasy fries and the frostie he had yet to dig into. “Let's get on then, yeah?” He slung an arm around Ben’s shoulder and led him back to the hotel bed in front of the TV he had long set up shop on.

Although still confused, Ben didn’t stop him. Instead following on autopilot while his mind still reeled with thought until his knees bumped against the mattress.

“No– I'm not tired. I told you I'm not tired–” had he told Butcher that or had he only yelled at Hughie today? “I’m not taking a damn nap–!” christ, he sounded like a whining child! Sleeping wouldn’t kill him for fuck’s sake! If the Russians hadn't figured that out after this many years surely they never would– unless they did. He didn't want to be tortured more– how long would it be before his mind broke for good? Before he died?

“No, y’ain’t so hush and stop yer worrying. Were jus’ gonna sit and eat the food I boughtcha before my money goes ta waste.” Ben looked surprised to have been effectively told to shut up and do what he's told but what he was most shocked about was the fact he didn't immediately get the desire to punch the shit out of him for having the audacity to do so. He just felt… odd. Like there were butterflies tying uncomfortable knots in his stomach. Like… it was almost nice to have a direction to go into so his thoughts would pause.

“Come on. Don’t make me wait. Fries ain’t neva last too long outside the frya.” Butcher pat his lower back, almost like he was a little kid getting encouraged forward and he listened. He crawled up onto the bed and sat in his spot looking at him with big eyes, clearly at a loss with the situation. He felt like he didn't know himself. This was a part of him he’d never experienced and he didn't know what to do, yet Butcher… seemed as at ease as ever. Like he’d dealt with a hundred men with nukes in their chests yelling at him.

Though he knew him longer than Ben did, even all Hughie could do was watch with the same odd mixture of shock and amazement when Butcher sat down beside the supe, tossed the fries between them, then changed the channel. No one had touched the remote since Ben had figured it out just enough to channel surf onto his own films. He had guarded that thing like a kid who found a new toy he didn't want to share.

“I.. was watching that.” Ben struggled to get out in a mumble that had never left his lips before.

“Won't spoil the ending for ya then, just say it ain't worth more than a prostitute that's got the clap.” Butcher casually informed him while he looked through the menu. The hotel, although shitty in every other aspect, actually had a Vought+ subscription, which begrudgingly had a pretty good selection. “Hughie, be a good lad for me an name a tolerable animation that aint Disney.”

“The Little Mer…maid..?” Hughie stuttered out, his brain automatically picking the last Disney movie he’d watched with him, too scared to really absorb the question.

“That’s Disney, Champ. Lookin fer somethin on Vought+”

“Oh. Right. Um..” He racked his brain for a moment trying not to mess this up and get his butt chewed by Soldier Boy later for choosing a movie he would hate sitting through. But the more he thought about everything the grumpy old man complained about when they were alone the less movies he could think of. In fact all he could think of was Ariel. Ariel.. Ariel, save me. Oh wait. “Isn't… isn't there a Disney princess section on Vought+ now?”

“Hn.. There is. Good thinkin.” Butcher cleared his throat a bit as he clicked on the movie then tossed the remote to reach for a fry, not paying attention to the way Ben was currently staring at him like he was an alien. “Redheaded broad it is.”

“Disney.. prin…cess? Like… the films for.. little brats..?” Ben slowly asked out, his voice not really feeling like his own with how insecure and… small it sounded. This all felt like a drug fueled dream. A really weird one, not one of the fun ones. Maybe he’d already fallen asleep and was back in some cyro-coma.

“Mmhm. Hughie likes em. Usually he leans more towards that lil boffin Belle over the glorified sushi princess but–”

“I like Ariel!” Hughie instantly defended but his cheeks went pink as he realized he meant to defend himself in a different way. Like one that might keep his reputation intact or keep himself from being relentlessly bullied by resident tough man, Soldier Boy. “I-I mean–” He gave Butcher an embarrassed, desperate look as he hissed out between his teeth a clear plea. “Butcher..! Come on..!”

Ben’s head swiveled between Hughie and Butcher feeling like he was missing out on something. He felt like that a lot recently since the world was so much different than it was back when he was last in it but this felt like he was out of the loop on something he should know.

“Why… why does Hughie like–” Before he could even finish his question, Butcher had slipped an ice cream dipped fry in his mouth, surprising him further. His reaction time was lacking, he hadn't even seen the man’s hand until it was too late. His senses were dulled. Could only imagine the foul shit his father would say if he saw him now.

“Film’s startin, kid, eat yer food.” Butcher spooned a mouthful of frostie into his own mouth with the grace expected of a grown man whose shirt was stained as much as it was and Ben watched him as he slowly followed instructions and chewed what had been given to him. His gaze flicked over to Hughie still trying to figure out what was going on but all Hughie was telling him was that he’d rather be swallowed alive by the couch than make eye contact with him.

The sound of water splashing alongside loud music on the tv stole his attention away from his less than stellar detective work and he watched for a few seconds as sailors began to sing. His brows furrowed and he turned to Butcher to protest and ask again about why the hell grown men would watch cartoons like this but the moment his mouth opened he was spoon fed some frostie. And while it was more careful than how the Brit had fed himself the action was aggravating. Ben looked at the Brit with an unhappy glare that probably looked more harmless than his usual happy expression if the rest of him looked as pathetic as he felt. But when he was given no attention from it he finally turned away to begrudgingly watch the stupid movie they insisted on making him watch instead of dealing with his problems.

Twenty minutes was all it took for Ben to be fully enraptured, his thought process having melted away with the colorful fish on the screen without his knowledge. Butcher had kept a casual eye on him after he’d realized he was dropping, mildly worried that the loose cannon might start to get anxious again if he broke out of his distraction. It was a little rockier at the start of the movie when he was still incredibly uneasy with the situation and unhappy with having been fed twice without permission; however Butcher was stupid and confident. An that’s what got ‘im this far in life, right?

So sue him if he let himself feel a bit smug as Ben obliviously settled into this new headspace, watching the movie as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever witnessed. The only time he occasionally turned away from the screen was for the brief moment it would take to be spoon fed another bite being offered. Nothin beat the tried and true combination of an age regression classic an comfort food t’keep someone perfectly satiated in a headspace, eh?

Kid would barely wait to swallow before pointing at the screen to yell something about it because he was trying so hard to listen after having been told “ta swallow ‘is food ‘fore speakin,” but still NEEDED to give his commentary on everything since at his core he was still Ben. He might be acting younger but he was still who he was for better or for worse. And that included movie commentary.

Ben: “That crab is such an ass-munch! I mean look at him! He’s practically makin out with King Trident’s butt.”

Butcher: “His name’s Sebastian, you’ll like him more later on, bud.”

Ben: “I don’t like commies.”

Butcher: “Now why’dja go an call the poor ol bastard that?”

Ben: “He’s red.”

Butcher: “That don’t mean… he’s a crab, mate.”

Ben: “And? Crabs can be commies.”

Hughie: “That’s weirdly the most inclusive thing I’ve heard you say.”

—

Ben: “Hell yeah King Trident!”

Hughie: “You can't cheer for him, he just destroyed his daughter’s most prized collection!”

Ben: “Uh yeah. She didn't do what he said so she earned it. And she was probably kissin on that statue like a weirdo. Anyway he looked cool doing it.”

Butcher: “An how’dja know she was doin that?”

Ben: “I dunno.”

Hughie: “Ariel wouldn't kiss a statue!”

Ben: “Shut up, Hughie, you don't know that!”

Hughie: “Yes, I do! I’ve watched this movie more than you!”

Butcher: “Boys.”

Hughie: “Sorry..”

Ben: “Well I’m not sorry.”

Once the junk food was gone, Ben started his yawns again but Butcher counted himself lucky that his anxiety didn't notice them this time since that was the only thing he could guess set him off earlier. That or he just took too much while he was gone and got paranoid. Supe was a nutcase anyhow and Butcher probably trusted him even less than Hughie did.

Near the end of the movie though was when the brick of a man made himself comfortable against Butcher’s side and without making it a big deal, the infamous bloke wrapped his arm around his shoulder to pull him in tight. He was softer than he looked. Maybe that level of comfort he was providing was why Ben’s aggressive commentary died away before he could give a final scathing review and instead slipped asleep the moment the next movie started. But Ben would certainly deny that to anyone that brought it up. Including his own thoughts. He’d rather blame those supe-special roofies he never confirmed.

[choctalksalot]

@tipsygnostalgy HELLO HI UH THIS IS AN INCOMPLETE VERSION. i snipped out some bits because im throwing down anxiety in.the ring even posting this. im frankly a little embarrassed i can't give everything tonight even what i have down as okay to upload is not my top form at all, im just really really excitedaaaa i'll probably reblog the lovers post with a complete version eventually, but for now this is the best thanks i can offer for the nigh lethal dose of dopamine you've shot into my skull.

apologies in advance for my verbosity it's chronic

im posting dirk's half first because i definitely talked too much on jake's. it's almost double the length. i think it's partially because ive chewed through dirk so much i can make it through a considerable amount of his sections without dissolving completely. and i'm impatient!

note: my interactions with philosophy are limited to the two month bonanza i spent when i was 14 which i barely remember due to my general memory issues because my philosophy teacher was shit at his job and i took matters into my own hands, and uh. dirkjake! and one character from one other fandom. yeah. i am a nerd who loves breaking shit down, i love information, and i love philosophy nonetheless but i am So unqualified to be doing any of this

entry 1:

can i scream? i'm screaming. out loud. in real life. holy two fucks and a half. what do i even say it's So Good. dirk could excuse his inadequacy with the minute comfort that the brother he idolizes is functionally perfect in a way he could never conceivably live up to be. everything is shattered when he meets a version of him who is on the same footing. Yes. i literally have a post typed up about it.

im copypasting a small segment here but it's so close to exactly what you said im almost unnerved. mostly excited tho i am SHAKING

the most devastating thing to know is that dave is just a guy. dave strider, 16 year old. human and flawed and still enough in ways dirk never could be. what he did for his team his friends the things dirk couldn't, he is made to serve and no matter how hard dirk tries he cannot live up to be the same because this is not his role.

words? words. that's so much many words.

this is not his class. he is doomed to be selfish, his thread is already in the tapestry and he falls right into the path no matter how much he fights it. what can be counted as him indirectly the plot was created at the service/detriment to himself (hal) and what is himself directly aiding his party is in fact orchestrated by other more helpful, more selfless people and he hates it so much.

YES IT'S EXACTLY THAT RIGHT THERE RIGHT RIGHT THERE dirk is so so So aware that he is selfish that he cannot help the people he cares about oh so deeply and the knowledge that dave on his own, after being hurt so much "more" than dirk direct abuse he was able to pull through, he was still enough. shit man !!!!!!!

funnily enough i think dirk might have been able to learned new skills to do with his classpect besides the passive narrative bend it has on everything he does to destroy. this is entirely theory but your classpect and your development with it helps you develop as a person. it's like a muscle if you think about it; the more you use it, the closer you get to its core, the more you learn to bend ithad he tried to use it (resisting the urge to say like dave did because that will stomp on the shattered pieces of my heart) i think he would have gotten a bit more control over his position in the narrative if it makes sense.

ironically, i think learning how to direct the destructice force his classpect gives him might have allowed him to get a hold on said narrative bending, and stop unintentionally wrecking shit. but doing Anything as a prince is the last thing dirk wants.

(god it's so tragic this theory is so tragic without it dirk was always doomed to the inevitable but with it he could have done better in his eyes nevermind that destruction of selves isn't always bad if you know how to direct it, see bgd @ aranea, but it literally requires him to take the path he's trying to hard to fight. you define how your classpect changes you. oh dirk.)

i think a lot about this if you can't tell

FUCK IM GETTING OFF TRACK. STOP OKAY CAN THE THEORIES FUCK.

[insert 2 paragraphs more of me screaming about the katana line hally lieu yeah]

entry 2:

HAL MY FAVOURITE KENTUCKY FRIED FUCKER HELLOOOO HELLO OOHOHOGO

god my old hyperfixation on deep learning models is coming back to bite me in the jungular. delightful slash gen

dirk does love his control mhmm mhmm god im gonna go dig up that picture my friend sent me once one sec

that's who he wants to be. so badly

he Hates not understanding shit prides himself on being the (im quite sure it's part of how he gauges his use. he has a very utilitarian view on it. being the one to pull the strings thus being useful by virtue of organizing their success. proceeds to eat gcatshit trying)

i think a part of why dirk insists so fucking much that hal is Not him and Not alive could be one of two 2 reasons, beyond the already tangled pumpkin patch of conflict.

1) not taking credit for hal's contributions. the fact that hal has served the team without dirk's direct orders + dirk's objective pride about being the puppetmaster, he wouldn't want this tied to him

i doubt this one honestly, it's incoherently explained on its own because it's really late but also it just there's a lot of holes in the logic here. the second one breaks my heart a little:

2) if he accepts hal to be sentient, he has to accept he has created a new conscious person. he cannot cling to any notion that he did help his friends, he created an intelligent AI and that tool he made in turn was used to aid and guide his friends. he is still in control here. he still helped, he built that bot and it helped.

right?

[cutoff point 2. im rushing. im so sorry ajsjaj]

entry 3:

killing me

"He likes emotion, he likes people, he just wants to be completely perfect when interacting with them so that he’ll never lose them." YES. YES. YES YES YES yes okay yes exactly Yes

this is one of the things i headbutt against in dirk fandom stuff a lot (even borzoi's take once i think correct me if im wrong) it's the fact that i think dirk likes people. he's been alone his whole life yet he delights in dialectics and dialogue, he's socially awkward and introverted but he's not socially averse. i am not gonna let myself run over the hills and far away with this tangent but i am hushdhsj AAAAA

what he doesn't like is feeling inadequate interacting with people. he doesn't like being inadequate in general he reflects on his flaws near constantly and the biting reminder of his alternate selves' sins in the back of his mind doesn't help, but with people he Cares About interacting with them he does not like not knowing what to do, he does not like being unable to navigate these situations. he likes being human and experiencing emotions and connection and he hates the fact that it requires error to the trials, he just wants to be entirely logical while still having a metaphorical right brain totally not a big thing to ask for ahshdhskjrh[explodes]

AHAAAAA SISYPHUS YYYES YES YRS EYSBEYDHHWHEHSHEHD FUCK YES oh man i am much more a theatrical literature person so this is ringing off bells in the wrong direction than intended but im reading reading reading chewing

"upon facing the question of the absurd in the fullest extent, one can either choose to kill themselves or make a ‘reply.’" hogh

two roads: become god, or kill yourself. jesus fuck that's a screwed up twitter thread if ive seen one. and of course he picks the secret third option: Both. absolute DiStri Moment™

fuckitweballkind that's joining my regular vocabulary holy shit your language is amazing

this feels like an extension of dirk's dilemma between subjective experience with objective control; coming to grapple with the unpredictability of his absurdist existence and his solution being to take control of the narrative entirely. i feel like there are a lot more dots i could connect here. i will sleep on this

[addition i feel is important even though it has minimal connection as of right Now:

roxykisser put out something about classpects and the ult self being the literal narrative very recently and how they tie into the narrative and it's That it's that. my take is partly influenced by past fandoms but it has always ruined me that in order to god tier, quite literally, you're killing the person you were before the embrace the narrative role. you the actor are giving up your freedom to the performance, and the closer you get to your classpect the more you embrace the narrative. in return, you gain more flexibility and control in said narrative, more ways to use your classpect. to become the ult self is to become the role. you kill the person, you become the role, but at the cost of your self, your mind may be driven by the consciousness of an amalgamation of every You, but your core is now your role.

im incorporating and altering this with my consumption]

really hope this is like at least mildly entertaining i have no idea what im doing but!!!! I Am So Abnormal About Everything i love this i love you i love love this so Much

[bystreetlight]

Here we go again!

1. What did you do in 2022 that you hadn’t done before? Lived in a house that I owned, bought a car…I genuinely can’t think of anything else.

2. Did anyone close to you give birth? Not this year.

3. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no.

4. Did you travel? Where did you go? Best holiday memory? Hahahaha! Travel?! Holidays!? What are those? The only time I left Melbourne this year was to go to Mildura in March for my nephews’ birthdays. It was lovely but my god I’d kill a man for an actual holiday in the near future.

5. Best thing you bought? A Ring doorbell. And our new couch.

6. Where did most of your money go? To the bank to cover the neverending interest rate increases! Yay!!!!!!!

7. What do you wish you had done more of? Reading books? I really gave up on reading in the second half of this year which makes me sad 😥

8. What do you wish you had done less of? Thinking about money and worrying about the cost of living.

9. What kept you sane? Probably listmaking, as in many previous years of my life hahahah.

10. What drove you mad? The fucking awful weather. I feel like it rained for about 95% of the year and it really sucked my will to live.

11. What made you celebrate? When Novak Djokovic got deported from Australia for being an anti-vaxxer/general dickhead, and then Rafa won the AO and it was the best tournament of all time. When the Queen died and we got an extra long weekend.

12. What made you sad? When our house got broken into, and all our jewellery and our car got stolen in October. I don’t think I will ever really get over it 😔. Also when Shane Warne died, for reasons that I still can’t quite explain.

13. How was your birthday this year and how old did you turn? I went into the office for the first time in months, but no one knew it was my birthday and I didn’t bother to tell anyone, so it was very lowkey! Went for lunch the weekend before and had a beautiful meal at Riso Diner (RIP!!!). I turned 38.

14. What political issue stirred you the most this year? SAVE THE PRESTON MARKET. And when SloMo got the boot in May.

15. Were you in love in 2022? Always!

16. What would you like to have in 2023 that you didn’t have this year? A HOLIDAY PLEASE DEAR GOD LET ME HAVE A FEW DAYS OFF WORK TO GO ON A PLANE SOMEWHERE AND HAVE A NICE TIME.

17. What date(s) from 2022 will be etched in your memory and why? 18 October, when we got burgled 😭

18. What song will remind you of 2022? Anything from the Lizzo album, which I listened to excessively. And Miles From Nowhere because #ofmd.

19. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I did!!!! FINALLY made a will after having it on my to do list for about 4 years!! Next year…I want to look after myself a bit more. Two years of lockdowns and overindulging because there was nothing else to do has left me with some bad habits.

20. Did you suffer illness or injury? I was so stressed earlier in the year from moving house and changing jobs and a repeated water leak situation at home that a chunk of my hair fell out and I had a bald spot for several months hahaha!!!! Great times! Then I had COVID in July which FUCKED. ME. UP. I had surgery in September which also fucked me up, but it was elective, and has improved my quality of life considerably so I don’t know if that counts.

21. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? I wouldn’t say I’m sadder but my anxiety has definitely gotten worse this year so I want to work on that for next year! ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter probably, given that I stopped exercising in July when I got COVID and then didn’t start again 🙈. iii. richer or poorer? Ugh, richer on paper maybe, but I feel very poor every time I look at my mortgage account hahahah.

22. How will you be spending Christmas? Christmas Day at my inlaws for lunch, which should be lovely. And then a few days off to chill out and try to relax after a fairly intense year.

24. What was your favourite TV program? Our Flag Means Death, The Bear, the final season of Atlanta, What We Do in the Shadows, Reservation Dogs, the final season of Derry Girls…it was a very good year of TV.

25. What was the best book you read? Devotion by Hannah Kent DESTROYED me. And against my better judgement I read and enjoyed Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney. I have also been attempting to read To Paradise but the fact that it’s taken me 6 months and I’m only halfway through says it all really.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Orville Peck.

27. What did you want and get? A new couch, some beautiful custom cabinets, a great new job for next year.

28. What did you want and not get? Time off/away.

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022? It was a bit all over the shop this year, but the most important thing I learned is that any shoe can be a work shoe if you’re wearing it to work.

30. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Taika Waititi (sorry), Bad Bunny (again).

31. Biggest achievement this year? I started out the year feeling sad about having to leave my last job but I ended up smashing it on the career front this year! Worked on an amazing project for most of the year and then was offered a role I’ve always wanted to do as soon as the project started wrapping up 💪🏼💪🏼

32. Biggest disappointment this year? When some of the gardenias we planted in the front yard died. And when Chan vs Chan (the most amazing local restaurant) closed down.

33. What is the one thing that would have made you more satisfied? If a pilates studio had opened within walking distance of my house.

34. Best new person you met this year? Our lawn mowing man 😂

35. A valuable life lesson you learnt this year? See question 29.

[fragilecqpricorn]

ooo looks fun thank u!

1. Were you named after anyone?

Lee is shortened from my birth name, but the "-lee" portion of my birthname did come from my grandfather!

2. When was the last time you cried?

not sure, it's been a little while. maybe a month or so. i mostly only cry when my hypochondria is bad and I haven't had a rough patch in a bit. I'm not super emotive in general unless it's very intense anxiety or anger. I'm not really a cryer.

3. Do you use sarcasm?

Daily. Without meaning to. I can't stop. It's a problem. Never take me seriously, but also don't laugh at me I'll cry.

4. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Hair, and then voice / inflections (if you have a calming voice you are the coolest person ever to me)

5. What's your eye color?

Medium brown. Not much else to say there lmao.

6. Scary movie or Happy Ending?

Scary movie!!! Actually fuck you, scary movie with a happy ending, bc they can coexist. But if I have to pick I love a tragic horror, scary movie, final girl type vibe. give me the gore and blood and body horror and fear.

7. Any special talents?

I'm pretty damn good at knowing like every fucking song ever I think. Turn some shit on and I will probably know the name of it. And if I don't I will next time. I also play like 6 instruments so music in general is somewhat of a talent I suppose.

Also would like to think I'm good at math and writing (two things I like a lot). I've gotten a decent following writing romantic fanfics over the years, but I've also been told I'm pretty decent at writing horror both in gruesome ways and slow, psychological ways and I wanna explore that a lot more.

8. Any pets?

Juno !!!

she is my pride and joy. my baby. I love her dearly and miss her constantly when I'm at college. so ready to have a place of my own where I can keep her full time.

9. What sports do you play / have played?

nothing, ever lol. was always the nerd and the music/theater kid. I was a cheerleader in kindergarten and decided I'd never do anything remotely similar again.

10. How tall are you?

5'5 :)

11. What was your favorite subject in school?

Pre-college days, it was government and history. Math before it got hard enough that I actually had to try. College has made me really enjoy economics and accounting. Love me some business courses. Anything where I don't have to do a significant amount of boring reading is alright with me though tbh.

12. Dream job?

I could see myself being happy in many places in life, but with the college path I'm on right now, probably either financial analysis or accounting! preferably somewhere in a creative field or where I feel like I'm making a difference, rather than just a random soulless corporation. I also wouldn't mind looking into treasury type, political jobs at some point. Running for an office is more of a back burner thing, maybe if I get frustrated enough with the state of the world that I finally feel like taking it into my own hands lol

Tagging: no one in particular (seems like majority of my mutuals have already done it) but it's fun so like,,, do it!!!

Thanks for the tag @theydoctor <3 :D

1. Were you named after anyone?

I named myself after Theodore Laurence from Little Women (a very trans book, go listen to the Jo's Boys podcast)

2. When was the last time you cried?

Recently. Like Friday maybe

3. Do you use sarcasm?

Yes :P though it is mostly in reaction to other people's sarcasm

4. What's the first thing you notice about people?

I think their vibe? like maybe their sense of style

5. What's your eye color?

Brown :)

6. Scary movie or happy ending?

false dichotomy but happy endings mainly

7. Any special talents?

I can solve a rubik's cube (it's a good fiddle)

8. Any pets?

My bby boys! We have two corgi/chihuahua puppies. they're 6 months old and I love them.

[Image description: 2 images of corgi/chihuahua puppies.

The first image is a brown and white corgi/chihuahua mix puppy standing outside with snow on his nose. Both his ears are standing up.

The second image is a brown corgi/chihuahua mix puppy standing outside with snow on his nose. His left ear is standing up while his right one flops downward.

End image description.]

9. What sports do you play/ have played?

I played volleyball and basketball as a youngun

10. How tall are you?

5'6

11. What was your favorite subject in school?

Probably lab days in Chemistry :D titration my beloved

12. Dream job?

Public librarian or archivist. In community with others, in some way for sure.

Tagging: @prismartist, @sherlock-is-ace, and @join-me-in-the-bog. No pressure tho!

[burning-omen]

Mutations and pleasure headcanons

Characters: Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Warren Worthington III, Peter Maximoff

Warning ⚠️: N*fw

Kurt Wagner:

It’s not part of his mutation but it’s worth mentioning, he’s flexible. To the point that it might be unreasonable.

He can fold himself into so many goddamn position and he’s strong enough to hold them for however long he needs to

Anyways, he has 100% just disappeared durning sex.

One moment your railing him into the mattress the next the entire room is covered in blue smoke and Kurt is nowhere to be seen.

About 10 seconds later he’s back with an extremely flustered look in his face.

Before you could question him about where he went he told you he was going to bed. He climbed in next to you and faced the wall for the rest of the night

The next morning he practically begged you to forget that it happened but to also say away from Logan for a few days.

And that’s how you figured out where he landed.

Your avoidance didn’t last long because at some point the next day you ran into Logan, who just let out a long sigh before patting you on the shoulder and walking away.

A few days later Kurt’s over it, just a freak accident, right?

Nope, happened again the next time you had sex with him.

After this kept happening he, begrudgingly, went and asked for help from no other than Logan!

The conversation was basically “hey Logan you fuck a lot right? Can you help me with my sex-teleporting problem?”

And he did, pretty much told him he just needed to be more in the moment mentally so his body wouldn’t take him out of it physically. (whatever that fuck that mean)

After he re-figured out how to stop teleporting spontaneously he decided to use this to his advantage.

I would like to introduce you all to a concept that I like to call “teleportation as a form a teasing”

Intentional teasing wasn’t one of Kurt’s strong suits so he figured that it might help

The first time it happened you were not prepared at all.

You were watching tv, as one does, your mind wandering off as some show played.

Then BOOM

There’s Kurt, looking determined but you could see he was nervous.

Carefully he climbed into your lap, staring down at you for a moment then leaning down, pressing a quick kiss on your lips, he kept going, kissing you over and over again.

He grinds himself against your thigh, groaning softly as sped up. The fabric of his underwear somehow hits every nerve just right.

You watched him as you gently kissing his neck and the bit of exposed chest just above the collar of his shirt.

“You’re bold today, sweetheart.”

“I-i know.”

And just like that, he was gone. A cloud of blue smoke left behind.

You knew this was different from the other times he’d disappeared, then he’d been so absorbed in pleasure that he just POOFED away. This was different, you barely even started, you hardly even touched him and he was gone. And even if it was an accident, he told you he had that under control now.

You just hoped that he hadn’t lied to you.

A few minutes later you wandered into Kurt's room, watching him from the doorway as he frantically arranged and rearranged the things on his desk. A nervous habit of his.

He tries his hardest not to look over at you, focusing incredibly hard on all the stuff on his desk.

He refused to look up even when he heard you close and lock the door, or when you walked up behind him, pressing your body against his as you wrapped your arms around him.

“Kurt..”

“...”

“I know you can hear me sweetheart, you wanna tell me what happened earlier?”

“Nothing..”

“Really? Nothing? Didn’t feel like nothing..”

Feel a little bad for him, he doesn’t know how to tease correctly.

You’re going to have to make him admit to attempting to tease you through the ultimate means of fucking him into the mattress until he’s seeing stars.

Scott Summers:

And now, a list of things you couldn’t do with Scott before he got some semi-permanent glasses:

Roughly fuck his face, because if you did and you knocked his glasses off you’d, at the very, very least, have your entire dick cut off.

Fucking him too hard. Period. It sounds fun but who’s going to pay for the holes in the ceiling or continuously replace your mattress when giant holes are inevitably burned into him?

So if he doesn’t have some semi-permanent glasses by the time you two start having sex everything’s going to be extremely soft and gentle

But the moment he shows you the new glasses it’s over for him.

He’s getting railed on/in/against everything you could think of, because you can do that now without bodily harm or thousands of dollars worth of property damage.

Have y’all been caught having sex in a place y’all shouldn’t be? Yes.

Do you give a flying fuck? No!

No Scott can’t do anything on his own the next day because moving hurts but hey, he had fun.

Warren Worthington III:

Hey Siri, define wing kink

For y’all’s that don’t know “Wing Kink is a related trope which often appears in wingfic (or in fanworks where a canonical character has wings), in which the character's wings are an erogenous zone and caressing them produces pleasurable feelings.” - the fanlore wiki

His wings, when you first started having sex with him, were completely off limits.

He made that undeniably clear to you.

Not because he didn’t like having them touched, but more because he didn’t think you’d like touching them.

All of that went straight out the window a few months later.

He was drunk, which had recently stopped being a normal occurrence for him. He tries to break out of his alcoholism, but it’s a slow and painful process. Instead of just outright stopping all at once he decided it would be better for him to just slow down. It works, he’s not drunk every minute of every day anymore so that’s better. He’ll drink on the weekends, and maybe take a shot before bed but other than that he won’t drink too much. But tonight he was drinking with Logan and in his attempts to keep up with him he’d ended up drunk out of his mind.

He cut himself off, he knew that if he drank more he’d blackout and he didn’t know what he’d do if he did.

So he stumbled all the way back to your room and tripped on literal air.

The sound of him hitting the floor woke you up.

Sitting up you saw Warren laying face down on the floor, giggling like a fool as he made multiple attempts to get up only to end up right back on the floor.

“Warren, it’s 3 in the morning, come lay down.”

You wanted to go over and pick him up. But you knew how he was about his wings and being touched in general.

After a few minutes of coaxing and encouraging him to get into bed he finally did.

Basically plopping down on top of you with a tired grin spread across his face

Burying his face in your chest, he closed his eyes.

After a few minutes you thought he was asleep, but you were proven wrong when he let out a long sigh and looked up at you.

“Fucking hold me..”

No, he doesn’t know how to ask for things nicely he’s a little bastard

You try and avoid his wings at first, gently draping your arms around his shoulders.

But that very quickly frustrated Warren, causing him to grab your arms and forces them around him and his wings.

Before you could try and say anything about it you could hear him snoring.

You sighed, deciding to deal with the breakage of limits could be talked about in the morning.

When you woke up Warren was already awake, still laying on your chest, just staring at you. His cheeks turned a light pinkish color when you looked down at him.

He wouldn’t say anything. He just stared at you for a solid 10 minutes before rolling over onto the other side of the bed.

He’s afraid that in his drunken state he’d made you uncomfortable, which led him to the never ending spiral of anxiety that made him say his wings were off limits in the first place.

Asking him what was wrong just led to him apologizing without actually saying what for.

Throughout the rest of the day he avoided the subject which made him ultimately avoid you.

You see? This is why you should talk to your partners, guys.

It took him awhile but he eventually said what he needed to say.

NOW ONTO THE SEXY BITS

Lightly running your finger through his lower feathers can be a way to get him in The Mood or to calm him down after a particularly rough sex (it helps with his sub drop)

This ones a bit more romantic but kiss his wings, especially the little part where they connect to his back.

He’ll melt, just straight up die on the spot because it’s just so nice and soft and feels so good.

Try not to be to rough with them, it hurts a fuck ton.

His wings are still off limits in certain aspects.

No using them to overstimulate him, he doesn’t like it. No pulling on his feathers, it hurts in the Not Good way.

But do kiss, massage, pet, and run your fingers through them.

He was very nervous when he first let you touch them, unintentionally flinching away when you reached for them.

Run your hands through his feathers while he rides you, he won’t last very long if you do.

praise him and call them beautiful, it took him a long time for him to learn to love himself and his mutation and he needs to be reassured sometimes

STILL BE CAREFUL

HIS WINGS ARE PRECIOUS AND MORE PRONE TO BAD PAIN THAN ANY OTHER PART OF HIS BODY

Just be careful with him stg I love him so much

Peter Maximoff:

Zoom zoom bitch

He fast

He has the nicest ass because of how much he runs

He can and will grab you and take you back to his room if he’s feeling especially needy.

And then he’ll act extremely bratty despite the fact that he brought you there.

He vibrates.

Most of the time unintentionally.

It’s his version of shaking, so he definitely does it when he cums

“Peter, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Just...give me a moment..”

He’s gotten too eager before and fallen off the bed while trying to change position.

When I say this man gives the best blowjobs in the history of blowjobs I mean it

His tongue vibrates too. That added with the fact that he has no gag reflex AND no shame? Rip

Quickies, anywhere anytime.

Cameras can be covered in less than a second and he can have both of you looking relatively decent before anyone comes in.

You have to guide him while he rides/fucks himself onto you because he might hurt you or himself by going too fast.

He’s not aloud to use his speed when given sexual orders

Usually after being punished he’s much more shy and nervous.

Making him do things slowly only adds to that.

Make him get on his knees in front of you? Gone, he’s so blushy and embarrassed at just being in that position.

Make him strip and prep himself while you watch? Ceases to exist

Will beg and cry for you to let him speed up, but he’s just putting on a show.

Grinding against pillows or folded blankets with some kind of plug up his ass is his preferred method of masturbation because he can go as fast as he wants without worry.

He’s ripped holes in a few blankets and pillows and has very unsuccessfully hidden.

“So are we not going to talk about the hole in my brand new blank?”

“No we are not.”

[littlemisslipbalm]

I live in the neighbourhood  Part 2

Part 2 is hereeeeee YAY! There will be a part 3 eventually :) I hope you enjoy and as well lmk you loved it with reblogs and messages, they truly make my day and y’know do it for other writers too, trust me we all love it. this fucking gif still gets me,,, but anyway there is so much i want to talk about in this part its killing me so plssss message me about it aghghghggh idk what else to say 

um this part is filled with: yn not knowing cars, harry being a dork, almost kisses and kisses  , but daddy i love him, the crown, gardening, and so much more mwah

Read Part 1

Word Count: 10.8k | Warnings: minor anxiety attack, swearing?, drinking, think that’s it (some more taylor swift)

-

“You want me to what?!” She feels herself all but scream.

He sighs in exasperation and ruffles his freshly cut curls. He can’t help the smile that grows shortly after his sigh. Y/N’s reaction on the other end of the line has sent him into a fit of giggles that he has to suppress quickly when she sends a warning ‘Harry’.

“It’s simple, love,” He twists to lay on his stomach. “I left you the spare to my place. Just go in, find my car keys and then drive to the airport and snap me up!”

She sighs now over the phone as she contemplates whether she could truly go into Harry’s home and then drive his surely expensive car to the airport and get him. It was something a friend would do for another friend, especially one who was a neighbour and especially a neighbour who had nothing better to do on a Friday night.

“Alright,” she says finally, “I’ll be there on Friday, text me the flight number.”

She grins when she hears a little “woo” from Harry. Even if he’s smiling half a world away it still made her happy to know it was because of her.

They had mostly texted each other randomly over the past three weeks while Harry had been away in California. She told him about her job, which he insisted was endlessly interesting and she countered that he found it interesting because it was new to him and eventually the grandeur would wear off. She loved her job, of course, it was for a public relations company that dealt with various London based companies and she was on multiple accounts with various clients ranging from tech companies to music artists. But she didn’t think it was as interesting as Harry made it out to be.

Harry told her about the filming of the movie and about everyone on set. He told her how he bought everyone on the crew his new ‘Treat People With Kindness’ sweatshirts and joked how he’d have to get her one as well to match her other one. She noted that one of Harry’s love languages was very obviously gift giving. He was so generous and she really admired that from him considering how successful he was. Her father was an accountant so she knew how rich people could be about their money sometimes, hiding it away in different entities just so their money can make money instead of spending it on things that matter.

He said everyone was nice and amazing overall, he gushed about people’s performances, but he’d always end with how much he missed London. He liked LA, he would assure her, but then he’d say how it wasn’t home-y at all. London was home to him. She would smile whenever he said that because she felt that way too, even though she wasn’t originally from the city, it just felt like home to her.

One night, he even confided in her his loneliness while on set. He wondered that maybe it was because he had no real roots in LA, nothing to go home to - no home to go to. She tried to reassure him that he wasn’t alone and all he had to do was ask and any person from the movie would love to spend time with him. He nodded along to her words, but they both knew he was being overly kind when he said everyone was nice. Not everyone in Hollywood was nice and certainly not everyone in Hollywood had substance. He searched for a month and seldom found time where he was truly relaxed with others and enjoying himself. More than ever he was excited to return home to London to say the least.

-

“Harry!”

She jumped out of her seat and into his arms, her cheek brushing his as she leaned in. He stood just on the sidewalk by his car that she had gingerly driven into the city and to the airport at 9pm on a Friday night in November.

The car was a dark blue vintage convertible, Mercedes-Benz, she was pretty sure but she really was completely clueless when it came to cars. Harry had taken her call right before his flight took off and walked her through finding the car. He had two garages and one garage had two cars and the other had only one. She had gone on her own and found the first garage with the two cars and seen a lime green tiny little vintage convertible and a cherry red vintage non-convertible and became distraught that there was no navy car. When Harry picked up the phone he had been greeted with some yelling about how he must be colorblind if he thought one of these cars was navy and he had laughed heartily before explaining that there was another garage. She had huffed and traipsed through his house until she came upon the other garage. When she saw the blue car she was equally annoyed and elated. “Thank fucking god,” she muttered over the line and Harry had laughed, but found himself cut off when the line went dead.

He smiled and groaned slightly at her tight embrace. He was happy to be back in England after a month away and he was happy to have her in his arms even if he didn’t know whether he should admit that.

“It’s good to see you,” he musters and he feels her smile into his neck. The only fabric between her face and him being his thin waffle knit long sleeve. He could feel her breath softly against him. He pets at the back of her hair, “Thank you for coming to get me, I know it might have been a bit much to ask.”

“Don’t mention it,” she pulls back from his embrace and smiles happily up at him, “What are friends for?”

She brushes her hands at his shoulders and then moves to start putting his luggage in his car. He had two suitcases and a backpack with him, but he had told her he had more stuff sent over that would just be sent simply to his home. She had texted back a shocked face emoji when he said that, unaware that he traveled with that much stuff.

“Right,” Harry affirms, twitching into action at the word ‘friends’. He felt like they had gotten so close over the last month even though they had only talked over the phone for that time. Seeing her in person now felt like she had been his friend for years.

Once in the car, Y/N settles back in the driver’s seat, not wanting Harry to have to drive after the horrible flight from California to London. A direct flight was just about as bad as layovers in Ohio or Utah. She wasn’t sure what it was like in First Class, but she still knew it was rough being on an aircraft for 10 plus hours.

Harry closes his eyes beside her after a moment. He had watched her settle in the car with his head against the headrest, his eyes drooping as they regarded her movements. She was so sweet to him and he nodded when she asked if he wanted his seat warmer on.

“You’re too good to me, pet,” he whispers, head lulling once again.

She glances at him swiftly as she pulls out of the loading area. He smiled contentedly before drifting off to sleep.  

She turned the music low and silently drove them back to Sherwood Avenue. When she pulled the car into Harry’s garage, she sat there for a few moments as Harry softly breathed beside her. She had hoped he’d wake up upon their arrival so she wouldn’t have to wake him, but alas he was sound asleep.

She watched him, he was so quiet in this moment. So unlike how he normally was with her, talking about everything and nothing almost constantly. She liked that side of him. But she had to admit something about him this peaceful was just as entrancing.

The flutter of his eyelids brought her out of her reverie and she was grateful for the dim lighting in the garage because when Harry’s eyes focused on her she was blushing.

He quirks a brow and his smirk begins to settle back on his lips. “Home,” he raspily mumbles and begins to shift in his sea.

She nods and smiles softly, shaking off all the thoughts had been going through her mind.

“We’re back,” she affirms. “Let’s get you inside, sleepy boy.”

Harry shakes off his slumber with a rub at his right eye and a run through his hair. He climbs out of the car. She throws him the keys at his silent instruction of an extended hand and an eyebrow raise. She knows she read him correctly when he smiles sweetly and travels to the boot of his car to begin unloading the suitcases he was in charge of.

She follows him and rounds the end of the car, preparing to take some of his luggage.  

“You don’t need to carry anything, it’s fine, dove.”

His voice is extra gravelly still and she would’ve complained about the new nicknames if he hadn’t sounded so hot. She didn’t think she had any feelings for Harry other than friendship, she was almost sure of it. Sure he was attractive, but ever since she actually got to know him she hadn’t thought of him in a way that could be considered more than friendship. He made her blush, but he was just inherently smooth. It wasn’t because he was specifically flirting with her.

Except right now, the whole reuniting of it all paired with his voice and his sleepy eyes that she imagined likely looked similar to his bedroom eyes. She was having a hard time seeing that line of friendship.

“No!” She protested, tugging the backpack he was attempting to carry along with the two suitcases from him.

He sighs and sets down one of the cases, “Y/N, you’ve already been too good to me by picking me up. I’m not making you do any more physical labor with any of my heavy shit.”

“It can’t be that heavy,” she pulls the backpack on and she resists the slight step back her body wants to take from the weight of the backpack.

“Give it back,” he says, sounding concerned for her.

“It’s fine, I’ve got it, Har,” she smiles and gives a little twirl in his large garage, the backpack making her look a bit smaller.

He twists his lips trying to ward off a smile. He wasn’t annoyed, moreso he was delighted by her antics. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and kiss her.

“Oh you got it? Do you?” His amusement betrays his British accent, making him sound like he did at 19. He places the other case on the ground and walks quickly to stand right in front of her.

She squeals as he gets so close, his nose just about brushes hers. He’s smiling sinisterly as he takes hold of the straps of the backpack and tries to tug them off of her. Yet, she holds on tight to the front of them, laughing happily at their silliness and causing her nose to brush against his.

Their eyes are strong on each other, watching their every move. And they settle a little, laughter dying out, breathing evening out. Her hands are still strong on the front straps of the backpack, while Harry’s are strong on the top of her shoulders, wrapped around the backpack’s straps as well.

He licks his lips, feeling especially interested in seeing how hers finally taste. Right as he is about to lean in, brush his lips against hers, she pulls from his grasp, swinging away from him and dashing to the door that leads to the rest of his house.

“C’mon, it’s freezing out here!” She twists the nob of the door and beckons him.

He huffs, shaking himself out of the daydream he had almost made reality. He wanted to kick himself, he felt like a kid. He needed to get a grip.

“I’m right behind ya’,” he called, nodding his head to tell her to go before him.

Her smile sears in his mind like the shine on a brand new coin as she flicks on the light in the entryway. The light comes flooding in the doorway and around her. For that quick moment only she is illuminated in his eyes. She shines for him and he wonders if it’s possible to drown in light.

-

Next Thursday

“Crown came out on Sunday!” Harry said as he opened the door, knowing it was Y/N who had knocked.

“Had no clue from the ominous text you sent, ‘come over, i promise popcorn *crown emoji*’,” she laughs and enters the house and holds out a bag of chocolate chips.

“I already have it queued up and popcorn’s popping!” He says happily and takes the chocolate chips to put in little dishes.

They walk into the kitchen and she’s still in awe of his home. It was clean and sleek but with all the hominess still easily found if you looked a little closer. Tea cloths hanging over the ovens’ handles that had interlocking G’s - a facet of Gucci she could only assume. Various paintings of different scenes, one a Japanese store front and another a Blue Jay perched easily on a thin branch.

There were unique painted tiles that he must use for hot plates and a single fancy floral mug tucked next to an espresso machine and just little things that she was keen on exploring at some point, but Harry caught her attention.

“Adult slushie?” He inquires with an arched brow.

“Does the slushie perform exotic dances?” She asks jokingly.

Harry rolls his eyes and chuckles, “Sometimes those that drink it do.”  

She reddens at his implication. He then looks at her seriously and she regards him with utter delight. Her eyes twinkle as he moves about his home with ease.

“If you make it,” she confirms, in awe that he would make cocktails on this random occasion.

He smiles at her and begins his final tasks, checking to make sure the popcorn doesn’t burn and grabs the ingredients he needs to make the drink he was thinking of.

She stands beside him, eyes constantly wondering between his moving physique and his home.

“Did you know I know Emma?” Harry asks, looking up from the blender. She notices how his neck muscles twist and strain as he gazes at her. He was wearing a white t-shirt with ‘But Daddy I Love Him’ in a red vintage font and a black cardigan with different colorful objects on it, mostly flowers, it said ‘Spaceboy’ on the back and she had smiled when she saw it when he led her to the kitchen.

She hums, her gaze focused on him. His green eyes flicker across her face and down her body, simply taking into account her outfit. Pink sweatpants and a long sleeve with a drawing of a cute little clown holding two guns up at the air. While it might have sounded like a weird thing to have printed on a shirt, he found it fun, he was always appreciative of different clothing. Of course she had a gun-slinging clown shirt that she managed to make sweet, he thought.

“Fascinating connections of the rich and famous,” she muses.

“Yeah, well, Susan - Harry Lambert,” he corrects his friend’s nickname, catching himself, “he styles us both so we’ve met a few times. She’s really lovely.”

“That’s pretty epic,” she says and wanders closer to Harry, wanting a better look at his progress on the drinks.

Her hand rests on the countertop next to the two glasses he intends to place the ‘slushies’ into. The liquor he used just said “Blue” and she wondered what blue would taste like as he pours the glasses now. The consistency of them being relatively slushie like, she was impressed.

Her smile gives it away and Harry eyes her, “What’re you smiling at?”

“I’m admiring your bartending skills,” she meets his eyes and she realizes how rather close they’ve gotten as he leans slightly over her and the countertop.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he says playfully, “I take my mixology very seriously so I don’t want any praise until you’ve actually tried it.”

He holds the glass up to her and instead of grabbing it from him, she simply guides it to her lips. Her hand lightly grasping at the soft fabric of his cardigan. She parts her lips and takes a small sip, maintaining eye contact with Harry.

When the icey liquid passes her lips, her eyes flutter shut at the sweetness of the drink, it was like candy but with a light kick at the end from the alcohol. She loved it and when she opened her eyes again she took the drink from Harry’s strong hand and took another sip.

“This is dangerously good,” she finally says and Harry grins.

“Fantastic! Now we’re ready to start the show,” and he leads them into his living room that is just as big or bigger than his kitchen. A large screen television and a turquoise velvet couch are the main attractions of the room, at least what Y/N is focused on. There’s more art and posters up in this room, a lovely round coffee table and gorgeous vintage rug.

“Wait, Susan?” she circles back to Harry’s earlier comment about Emma Corin and their shared stylist.

Harry smiles and sits next to her comfortably, placing the drinks on coasters and the other various items on the coffee table.

“It’s my nickname for Harry since we’re both...Harry. Just felt silly calling each other Harry and Sue and Susan, they just fit so well.”

She nods, “I see.” But she didn’t really get it. She’d never had a friend where they only called each other a different name from their own, maybe a nickname that she would occasionally call them, but never one so ingrained that she would call them it when referring to them to someone else who surely didn’t know them and wouldn’t know them by the different name. Not that she really knew who Harry Lambert was in the first place, but it still made more sense than Susan. She shook it off just as another quirk of Harry being who he was.

They settle in for the show and they love talking through it, which Y/N was happy that Harry liked to talk during shows as well. She hated when people shushed her during movies and shows when she had something to say. They commented on the fashion and how wild some of the stuff was. Thankfully, as well, even Harry thought some of the things the royals did were absurdly lavish.

“He is so hot,” she finally says when Prince Charles is on the screen for another time and she can’t keep it in anymore, “How could they cast him for Prince Charles, they are far too kind.”

“Josh?” Harry questions, glancing over at his friend curled up on the couch next to him. She had her feet tucked beneath her legs and had her body on its side while staring at the television.

“Don’t tell me you know him too?” She says, taking her focus off the TV to look at Harry, a chocolate chip landing in her mouth once she finished talking.

Their blue slushies had been finished and the popcorn was half eaten. She was pretty sure they were on the second episode already.

He laughs, “No, but Emma says he’s very nice...He is rather attractive.”

That makes her smile, the both of them finding an actor attractive. It felt like Harry was like one of her friends from home, chatting about boys, something she really didn’t do anymore.

“Maybe you can introduce us,” she laughs, her head nudging at Harry’s shoulder beside her.

She doesn’t notice Harry’s lack of mirth at her joke as she turns her attention back to the screen, re-immersing herself in the plot. He twitches slightly uncomfortably at the thought of him introducing her to someone she might be interested in romantically.

“Why not,” he says half-heartedly and he hopes she doesn’t notice his tone.

-

The next day was Friday and she had the day off as per usual.

After three episodes of the Crown, she and Harry had decided to call it a night. He had offered that she could spend the night so she didn’t have to walk home after she had refused to let him walk her across the street. However, she declined, saying she didn’t like leaving Rori alone at night, especially since he was still getting used to the new house. Harry had understood but she could tell he was saddened by her leaving.

She had decided to plant some flowers in her front yard, hoping to liven it up. She had bought some plants at the local flower shop, pansies and aster thinking that purple and gold would look lovely together. She planned to set to work with little experience, but plenty of intention. Rori was outside with her for moral support, prancing through the growing grass and nibbling at the shrubs, more like a bunny than a dog.

Her mother had gifted her gardening tools a long time ago and their entire family had laughed because they knew Y/N didn’t have a green anything, most definitely not a green thumb. Today she had grabbed them and the plants and had placed it all in front of her planters. Then she sat there and went on her phone, scrolling through it mindlessly. She had no idea what she was doing or where to start so getting distracted was easy.

“Need any help?”

Her head turns and she slides away her phone with a sigh, knowing exactly who had just kindly asked to lend a hand.

Harry squints down at her and in this moment she is especially aware of just how tall Harry actually is. Normally she notices his height and thinks ‘yeah he’s tall’, but right now he towers over her. His hair is catching the surprising fall sun and causing glints of gold to radiate off him. His eyes are especially light right now and she feels oddly unnerved by their color, the hazy mint of some kind of predator. He is such a presence and she thought she had finally gotten used to him being in her life, but in this moment she is taken aback. She shakes her head after a moment too long of staring up at him.

“Hi,” she breathes and stands up from her sitting position. “I was just starting to do some planting, and I don’t know if you can tell but I have no gardening skills whatsoever.”

She gestures to her set up and Harry turns his gaze from her to the plants and smiles. He had been coming back from his morning jog and instead of entering his gate, he walked through hers. He looks at everything and reaches down to pet Rori when he comes running up happily to his friend.

“Well, it looks like a good start. Aster is an interesting thing to plant…” He kneels down to start digging up the soil in the planters.

She kneels beside him and watches him attentively. “I wanted chrysanthemums, they’re one of my favorites. But they were out, so it will have to do.”

“It will do perfectly,” he looks up at her from his work, “you wouldn’t have picked it if it wasn’t amazing.”

She makes a small smile at his statement, but doesn’t respond. Instead, she takes up mimicking his actions with the soil.

“Do you garden a lot?” Her voice is soft, not wanting to disturb the quiet that had fallen over them.  

“Not much anymore, I don’t really have the time, but I used to with my mum.”

She hums and scratches behind Rori’s ears absentmindedly when he looks curiously at what they’re doing.

They work silently, only talking intermittently. At one point, she grabs them glasses of water from the kitchen, mostly for Harry because he’s actually working up a sweat planting her garden. Harry hums random songs that are on his mind and she wishes he would sing for her, but she would never dare ask him to.

They talk about the Crown and how much they loved all the clothes in it last night and where the plot is going since they know the true history it’s based on. Harry offers British insight into the Royals that she had never thought about and they even venture into British politics which she admits she never really thought about since usually the US politics is far more in the spotlight.

He talks about his views on politics and she gives hers, even stranger though they even venture further into usually rocky territory and discuss religion. She is very interested by what Harry has to say about religion, his answers are both completely expected and unexpected. Something she’s noticed about Harry with her is that she always seems to be surprised by what he says, but it still manages to make complete sense after a moment.

“I’m going back to LA tomorrow,” Harry muses as he regards one of the pansies, like he’s almost staring it straight in the eye.

“Oh?” She turns to face him.

She stops her aimless moving about of the dirt. She had mostly been playing with the dirt while he did the majority of the work. She just didn’t enjoy it. Harry had definitely made the activity palatable. She’d have to tell him she would have likely given up an hour ago had he not been there.

He sighs and sets the pansy into the hole in the soil he had made for it. “More shooting for the movie, I’ll be gone for another month.”

“Wow…I think saying goodbye to you is just going to get harder and harder.” She looks away, her arms crossing over herself instinctively when the wind blows just a little too hard.

Harry looks at her now and sees her curling in on herself and he wants to hug her, but they weren’t like that. Instead he places a hand on her shoulder, rubbing it slowly up and down trying to offer her some warmth.

“I think we’ve made enough progress today. It’s starting to get cold, hm?”

She looks at him now and nods, her hand moving up and capturing his in hers. Like they had when Harry walked her home after his game, their fingers twist and turn around each other. Their eyes shying between each other’s faces and interlocked hands.

She springs to her feet after a couple quiet minutes of dodging eye contact and simply enjoying the feel of one another against each other.

“I should thank you for all this help,” she starts and Harry gets up to stand, beginning to say there is no need for a thank you for what he did.

“No, no.” She stops him, “I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without your help and I took up all of your day, practically.” She takes hold of his hands now to examine the dirt that has managed to cover them since he was convinced that she should wear the gloves her mother gave her. “You should come over tonight and I’ll cook you dinner. I’m a much better cook than I am a gardener.”

Harry looks at her quietly, his eyes blinking slowly. Like he’s basking in the small movements she’s making on his hands. She traces the little cross that straddles his thumb and pointer finger on his left hand.

“I’ll make sure to bring dessert then.” He smiles and tilts his head to the right and a little forward towards her. She gazes up at him softly. “I might even bring something extra special.”

She raises her brows, “A special treat from Harry Styles himself. I’ll be anxiously awaiting your return then.” She taunts him only slightly because what he had said just about brought her to her knees. The way his smile had shifted to a smirk and how his voice has grown quiet and low, it just felt very intimate.

Harry returns at half past six, as requested by Y/N. He was freshly showered and cologned and she had never found a man more attractive than in that moment. Before he came over he told her he was dressing nice and she had no idea what that might mean with him. But when she saw him, she understood.

What it meant was a crisp blue big collared Gucci dress shirt unbuttoned almost half way down his chest revealing his ever present cross and fitted high waisted brown trousers. His fresh haircut meant for the 50’s slicked back with pieces beginning to fall about just perfectly. No belt, no cufflinks, and no suit coat. Instead of a coat he had on a jacket that was similar to her giraffe jacket he had borrowed all those days ago. His own was comfortably settled over his shoulders and it was obviously made of fabrics far nicer than hers and wasn’t fraying in any place.

He posed in her doorway and even gave a twirl at which time Y/N laughed happily. It looked amazing on him, she had no idea how her jacket had been the thing that started this all.

“How do you like it?” He asks seriously. “Does it look alright?”

“It looks perfect on you, Har. Is that the extra special surprise?”

He smirks smugly at her compliment and comes into the home, greeting Rori quickly before following her back into the kitchen where she was still cooking.

“Oh no,” he says and places a bag filled with a bottle of red wine and a pint of her favorite ice cream on the counter (and the surprise tucked neatly at the bottom of the bag).

She looks at him quizzically as he begins to take the items out of the bag.

“There’s one last thing in there,” he points to the bag casually, while putting the ice cream in her freezer. “Do ya’ mind grabbing it for me, dove?”

She rolls her eyes and reaches into the bag. Her hand retrieves a magazine from the bottom of the bag and when she flips it over to the front side, a gasp escaped her lips.

“Harry! Oh my god!” Her hand goes to her mouth as she takes in the cover.

A US Vogue magazine with Harry on the front of it. He’s blowing up a balloon in the photo and he looks beautiful. His skin is flawless and his hair is luscious and flowing a little longer than he kept it now due to the movie.

“I’m a Vogue cover model now, eh?” He asks, looking on apprehensively as she begins to gingerly flick her fingers through the magazine’s pages.

“This is the surprise?” She looks up from the page with him and Gemma sitting side by side.

Harry nods and watches her absentmindedly trace his face on the page.

“Do you like the pictures?” His voice is soft and almost timid?

“Of course!” She exclaims, not wanting to let any doubts pass through Harry’s mind. “Is this what you were doing up in Scotland a couple months ago, right before we became friends and you said you wanted to surprise me with something top secret?”

He nods again, his grin creeping onto his face as she stares at the photo of him in the cover photo’s outfit where you can see the entire dress.

“I want that dress...did they let you keep it?” She continues flicking through the pages lightly and glancing at Harry across from her. The dinner forgotten for the moment.

“It’s Gucci, I didn’t keep it, but I’m sure I could call Susan and get you one ordered,” he replies easily, leaning over the counter to watch the magazine.

She scoffs, “I can’t afford a Gucci gown for no reason...AND before you try to say you’ll pay for it, I would never accept such a gift and I am so for real about that, Harry.”

He waves his hands out in front of him as if to say he’d never suggest such a thing even though they both knew he’d buy it for her in a heartbeat.

“These pants…” she mutters, eyes now fixed on the trousers Harry is wearing in a specific photo in the magazine. They’re tan with a darker stripe on the side of them but the most intriguing part is all of the different drawings on it that seemed to be all related to Harry.

“They’re fab, no?” He quirks a brow at her, his face still holding an apprehensive grin like she’ll take back her praise at a moment’s notice.

“So fab,” she echoes. “Are they bespoke?” Her question has a hint of sarcasm dripping behind it, knowing by now Harry was notorious for custom-made items.

“What gave it away?” He wiggles his brows.

Her eyes flicker to meet his and she sees they’ve ended up face to face once again. It seemed to happen too often with one another. She settles the magazine down and stands up straight. She couldn’t allow herself to indulge in the proximity of his inviting lips. The proximity of his warmth that had seemed to seep into all facets of her life in the last two months or so. It was wonderful and warm, but it wasn’t hers. She shared him with so many other people and she couldn’t get carried away with him because tomorrow he’d be gone.

“That really is amazing Harry. I’m very proud of you, but if you don’t want a burnt dinner, I need to start paying attention to what I’m cooking.” She turns away from him and she quickly takes a palm to swipe beneath her eye, collecting the stray liquid that somehow fell from her eye. Funny thing, she wasn’t cooking with onions.

Harry doesn’t notice the movement, simply sighing that she turned from him yet again. He ran a hand through his hair, further tousling the once coiffed hairdo and then twisted his ‘H’ ring around his finger before settling on a bar stool to flip through the magazine and watch her cook.

“When does the magazine come out?” She calls as she stirs the sauce that she’d be pouring over their spaghetti squash once it was finished baking.

“Next week, They’ll release the story online and then I’ll be hitting shelves,” he muses, reading a different story in the magazine, not particularly interesting in himself.

“I’m sure you’ll be flying off those shelves the second you’re placed down.” She laughs at her joke and Harry rubs his lips with his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

“You think so?” His eyes sparkle with mischief at his question.

She turns her head, an open-mouthed grin already on her face, a slight scoff falling from her mouth, “Oh c’mon, you know so. I think you’re one of the most loved men in the world and people fall more and more in love each year.” She almost added ‘and I don’t blame them’ but she refrained thankfully.

“Most loved...I like that. Such an interesting way to put it.”

“I mean, you’ve been famous for what? Ten years now? That’s a long time and I don’t think you’re going anywhere...At this point it’s not about how big your celebrity star is, it’s your level of belovedness and I think that level is quite high.” She comments on something about Harry they never talked too much of. Sometimes they talked about him knowing famous people and about the work he had to fly off to do, but never the specific fame of it all. She didn’t really think Harry liked to talk about.

She didn’t have much of an opinion on it, it didn’t matter to her whether Harry was a famous multi-talented big-C celebrity or he was a nobody with a random job. As long as he was still her neighbour she would never complain. He made her so happy and maybe if he hadn’t been famous he wouldn’t be the way that he was so she would never say it was a nuisance. It just came along with him.

“Well...like I said, it’s a lovely way to put it. So, thank you for that.”

He stands up now, forgetting the magazine and rounding the counter to find a cork for the wine seeing that Y/N was doing the final touches on their food.

They eat dinner across from each other at her modest-sized dinner table. Harry slips his giraffe coat off and rolls up his sleeves to allow him to “really dig in” to the dinner she made for them. Maybe some footsy occurs beneath the table but neither of them would ever admit to it so did it really happen? Just feet moving randomly and happening to rub against one another every so often.

After dinner and a bottle of wine, the two of them join Rori in the living room where he’s curled up on one of the throw pillows. Y/N runs back to the kitchen to scoop them ice cream and whips of two Moscow Mules to go with it because she had brought up how when she usually goes home for the holidays, her and her sister always have a competition of who can make the most unique but best tasting Moscow Mule. Harry had said how he’d love to be there one day for that and she had blushed and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear from the comment before taking a large gulp of wine. Since that wasn’t possible right now, her tipsy mind had decided that the next best thing was to make some basic ones right now.

“I bring a Mule and an ice cream,” she says airly, playing like a royal herself, as she holds them out to Harry.

He laughs softly and accepts them graciously, doing a slight head bow to her. Before he can say anything she’s a flash of plaid and red as she runs back for her own ice cream and drink. He had been complimenting her plaid pants with golden bees on them all night and asked her where she got them, teasing that they must be Gucci, but all she would say is that he couldn’t have them to go make a copy of this time.

She re-enters the room and dims the lights with her hip. Then she settles beside him, clinking her glass with him and they both take their first sip.

“Hmmm,” Harry hums after he tastes the cocktail, “I like it.”

“Moscow Mules are a favorite with my family,” she muses, flicking through the television to get them set up to watch the Crown again.

“Maybe I should meet them and thank them for bestowing such a good favorite unto their daughter?” Harry asks and she laughs and rolls her eyes. Questions of meeting family when they were just friends didn’t need a response. Right?

They spoon ice cream into their mouths as the show begins and they murmur comments to one another throughout the episode. They idly pet Rori sometimes as he moves randomly around the room trying to find the place he likes most. Once Harry’s done with his ice cream, Rori thinks his chest is the best place to be and Y/N can’t help but snap a quick photo of it.

“Not quite as handsome without the dress, but it’ll do,” she sighs and snuggles into Harry’s side. Her hand reaches up to scratch at Rori which then leaves her arm wrapped around Harry when her dog inexplicably leaves to go to bed a few minutes later.

He was an awfully good wingman Harry would easily admit at a much later date.

They stay cuddled casually with one another for the entirety of two more episodes and they realize they’re more than halfway done with the season. A yawn from Y/N cues to Harry that he should suggest they pause for the night. She agrees easily, her head nuzzling into his strong shoulder for a little while.

Harry takes the remote from her and turns off the television before flicking on the side table turquoise glass-blown lamp.

“Can I put some music on?” He whispers in her ear, already knowing the answer, but waiting for her to nod her head. She obliges and he slowly slides her onto the couch beneath them. Then he begins padding around her house to find her speaker.

“Arrow Through Me” by Harry’s all time role model Paul McCartney’s second band Wings begins to play through the speakers. What a fucking moutful.

She perks up at the music and sits up straighter on her couch. Her smile grows as Harry shakes his hips a little and moves to the beat of the song as he makes his way back over to the couch. He opens his mouth to say something, but instead of words ringing loud through the room, it's the sound of a phone buzzing from somewhere between a few cushions on the couch

“Oh shit...shit, shit, shit,” she awakens herself out of her daze with her profanity. Attempting to find her phone rather haphazardly, she stumbles around the couch.

It’s Harry who fishes the phone from beneath a throw pillow and hands it over to his friend. She smiles thankfully, her hair a little messy and her eyes slightly crazed, before picking up the phone without even looking at the caller ID.

“Hello?...Cate?...Oh, hey….No, I didn’t look at the ID...figured it was you or someone in the states...no one in the UK would call me right now...It’s almost midnight here, you asshole,” she pauses and points at the phone and mouths “it’s Cate” like Harry hadn’t been sitting there listening to the entire conversation.

“I’m just hanging out watching the new season of Crown...with Harry...yeah, that Harry,” she flits her eyes to Harry for a second and rolls her eyes sarcastically.

“Talk to him? I mean.. I can put you on speaker, I guess?” She looks at Harry and he nods his head eagerly.

She rejoins him on the couch and places the phone on the coffee table, tapping on the speaker.

“You’re on speaker now.”

“Hi Harry!” Cate crackles over the line, happily, likely just awoken from her slumber in California.

“Hullo, love,” he says sweetly, his voice beginning to slow even more as the night wears on.

Y/N rolls her eyes at both of her friends, knowing Harry was laying it on thick and that Cate would squeal over this exchange for the next three weeks.

“What are you two lovebirds up to?” She inquires sweetly and Harry makes an arched brow at Y/N and she only supplies a shaken head and a shoulder shrug.  

“Cate….” Y/N drags out, annoyed with her for both saying that and for calling just as she was planning on going to sleep.

“Sorry! Friends, I know. Even though staying in on a Friday night with just the two of you doesn’t sound very friendly…” She begins to ramble on,  but Y/N offers another warning ‘Cate’. Cate takes the hint and finishes her teasing. “Anyways…”

Harry and Y/N are completely red, sitting next to one another but grateful for the minimal lighting.

“I was just calling to check-in. Do you know what you’re doing for the holidays yet? I know you don’t do thanksgiving anymore - which was yesterday by the way - since you’re all British now.”

Y/N scoffs at her close friend and Harry nudges her side about the British thing.

“I don’t know yet, I have to see my work schedule and all that. I don’t know if I want to fly across the world this year though…” She trails off, kind of quieting in hope that Cate will miss it.

Harry regards the conversation, casually interested, yet intrigued since he had been meaning to ask the exact same question.

Cate hums, obviously unhappy with the response. “Alright. And you Harry? Do you usually go home to your family for the holidays?”

“You don’t need to answer that,” Y/N interjects.

Harry places a hand on her thigh to let her know that it’s completely fine. An easy smile on his lips as he speaks to the phone. Y/N places her hand over Harry’s on instinct.

“Usually, yeah. This year we were thinking of all going out to my place in Italy so it’s kind of up in the air right now. When I get back from LA, I’ll probably finalize it.”

“LA you said? We should get together while you’re here.”

“Cate. He’s there on business.”

“I know...but still. It’s fine,” Cate laughs lightly, knowing she was pushing her luck with this conversation as it was. “Anyways, darling, I just wanted to tell you I miss you and that Harry’s not allowed to replace me as your best friend. Y’hear that Mr. Styles?”

“I sure do, love.”

Everyone laughs whole heartedly and Harry and Y/N are still playing with each other’s fingers on top of her thigh.

Y/N thinks that’s enough of the conference call with Harry and Cate so she snatches the phone with her free hand and raises it back to her ear.

“Alright, Cate, I think we’re going to head to bed...not...not like that...I hate you...Now I definitely don’t want to come home...I’m kidding, I’ll think about it...Love you, too….Yeah I’ll tell him...Have a nice day…”

She throws the phone on the coffee table again and falls back on the couch. Her head rolls to rest on Harry’s broad shoulder and she sighs softly. Harry moves his head to rest over hers, chuckling softly. His sweet breaths of joy are why he then receives a soft slap on his far arm, only making him laugh more.

“Shut up,” her muffled voice comes out from against his blue shirt that is far more crumpled than it was when he came over hours ago.

“She’s so funny,” he laughs again, nosing his face into her hair.

“She tries to get away with way too much,” she sighs and Harry just pats at her side, smiling and not caring at all about the things Cate was hinting at because he wanted what she was alluding to to be reality.

“Y’know I have a question because she said I can’t be your best friend and that’s fine with me, but I wanted to tell you something, love.”

Her head raises to look Harry in the eye, slightly confused by his preface.

“You’re my best friend,” he says earnestly in the dark living room, “Is that allowed?”

His accent was thick with anticipation, the night wearing on his vocal cords. It was so quiet in the room, Harry was sure she just heard him swallow his own saliva - he had paused the music after a minute into the call with Cate. He blinks twice while waiting for any response, he stares straight at her.  

Her eyes barely shine through the darkness as she looks back at him. His question rattled through her mind. ‘Is it allowed’ for him to think of her as his best friend. It just didn’t make complete sense to her and she wasn’t sure if she should vocalize that doubt. But as his eyes begin to mist like a forest on a cold morning she knows she has to say something.

Her eyelids shut as she lets out a heavy breath, the processing of what Harry’s just said finishes.

“It’s allowed...Do you mean it?”

“Course I mean it,” his voice cracks, an incredulous laugh leaving his lips.

She straightens up, moving slightly from his warm embrace. He becomes fidgety without her tucked in his side. His fingers itch without her arm to caress. His lips move between his teeth without her hair to ghost over.

When she remains silent, Harry decides to continue.

“I remember the first time I saw you,” he croaks and she furrows her brow at this. “It was the day you moved in...Had just come home from my morning run and you’d pulled up in your moving van. I thought you had on the coolest pair of jeans I’d ever seen…” He pauses. He takes a deep breath and her eyes are watering now.

“I also thought you were one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen and I knew I had to know you.”

“Why’d it’d take you so long?” Is all she asks as she tries to will away the water welling in her eyes.

Harry rolls his lips together and breathlessly laughs, head tilted up to the sky. “Never knew how to approach ya’. Then you bumped into me, felt like it was the universe kicking me for being so damn slow.”

She bites her lip, a tear rolling down her cheek finally. “Oh, Harry.”

Then there it is. What the last few months had been leading up to. The moment where they no longer were able to wonder what the other would taste like. No more guessing. No more wondering. It was concrete. It was her lips pressed to Harry’s. She laughed lightly after a moment, pressing closer to him. His lips felt like the softest pillow she could ever lay on and she never wanted to get out of bed.

A small breath came out of his nose as he pressed eagerly back against her. She tasted like ginger and chocolate and maybe cherry - her chapstick possibly. He sucked at her lips, never wanting the taste or the feeling to go away. She was so soft and smooth and she responded quickly to his push.

Her hands wrapped around the back of his neck and into his hair as he pulled her closer by her waist. They were attempting to inhale one another, taking inventory of every possible crevice of each other they hadn’t touched before.

Harry’s lips part slightly as he swipes his tongue across her bottom lip. She giggles, tugging him over her and opening up her mouth easily. He pushes forward, a small sound leaving his mouth as he shifts them into a lying position on the couch, her legs encircling his waist.

A hand runs along her jaw, down her neck, across her collarbone and then down her arm. It lands so that he can intertwine their hands together. He feels her smile beneath him and he smiles back despite their lips never leaving one another. His other hand caresses her cheek as he kisses her.

Eventually, his lips roam around her face and on her neck aways, but mostly he focuses on her lips. Both of them are more than happy with this decision as they continue on for what feels like hours. Yet still those hours don’t feel long enough.

She pulls at a button on his shirt at one point, but Harry pulls back.

“I think we should call it a night.”

“Really?” She looks at him with confusion and a swirl of hurt in her eyes.

“It’s late, love, and… we just, I don’t want to rush anything.”

“Alright,” she nods, sitting up and running a finger down the side of his face.

“I think I’ve been doing best friends wrong all this time.” she muses, tracing lines on Harry’s neck now. Her eyes focused on her work.

“And why’s that?” Harry asks, his own hands running up and down her back.

“I’ve never snogged a best friend for hours on end.” She laughs and Harry can’t help his snort.

He moves his head to rest on her shoulder, almost like a hug, but not quite. She doesn’t move away, simply turns her head to continue watching her hands trace him, her work now moving to the back of his neck and his upper back and shoulders.

He hums a little bit, a love song he had played for himself the last few weeks when he tried to fall asleep and all that he could think of was her. She smiles softly and places a kiss on his shoulder.

“Let’s go to bed, darling.”

Harry nods, wrapping his arms around Y/N and carrying her to her room.

-

The next morning she finds herself wrapped happily in a set of strong, tattooed arms. She sighs content, snuggling closer to the warm naked chest in front of her.

“G’morning,” the man beneath her whispers. His voice a low rumbling rasp, she feels the vibrations below her.

“Morning,” she mumbles, nuzzling her nose into the crevice of his sternum, just above the butterfly that lives on his chest.

He hums at the feeling, slightly shivering from the cold, but pulls her closer nonetheless. She caresses his side with a light touch in response. Her fingers trace unknown patterns down his ribcage and then dip to the ferns peeking from his boxers. He shifts slightly when her fingers travel there. A place no one but him had touched in a long time.

“’ve got a plane to catch,” he says sadly and he brushes a hair from her face as she turns to look at his face.

His neck strains to regard her and he has a bit of a double chin from this angle, but she couldn’t care less. He looked so beautiful staring down at her. She never wanted to look away or lose this image. His eyelashes lightly caressed the skin just below his eyes everytime he blinked. It was quiet enough that if she listened close she could hear each flutter. The eyes behind them were even better, a dark rim of green encases emerald irises that hold black and gold specs, stars and stories swirl hidden beneath it all. She wants to drown in it.

He winks at her as she stares, growing disarmed with her intense gaze on him for so long. Her calming caress keeps him grounded though and she laughs at the wink, relieving him of her scrutiny that he didn’t understand was awe.

She groans, unhappy, “Miss it.”

“I can’t,” he drags out, not wanting to leave either.

“Can’t convince you to stay, no?” She rolls on top of him, pushing her chest against him and giving him doe eyes.

His strong arms encircle her waist as her legs straddle him. She arches more into him and leans down to kiss in between his pecs. Her eyes never leave his face, watching his reaction. It’s his turn to groan with a loud sigh to match. He throws his head back and steals himself to say,

“Not even a chance.”

She remembers when he had begged her to come with him and she smiles at his recycling over her response.

“Fair enough,” she says and rolls off of him. His head falls to the side to watch her get up and begin her day. He takes a deep breath, wishing he didn’t have to leave.

Harry heads back to his place to get ready for his departure. Before he leaves he joins Y/N and Rori for an early tea at the café. They get their drinks to go and walk back to Harry’s together. When they arrive, Harry’s car is waiting and she feels a dryness in her throat. He looks down at Rori and gives him a quick pet. He turns to her and she smiles weakly.

Harry’s hand encircles her wrist, caressing her softly. He leans down quickly and pecks her lips. It feels like he was barely there and then he was gone. It was like a butterfly had landed on her lips and wrist and then it had vanished.

Off his sleek black car goes, soon out of sight and headed for the airport. And there she is, left on Sherwood Avenue. Her fingers move to dance over her lips and then over her jaw and down her neck. Every place his touch had burned her in the past 24 hours. And now he was gone, across the world.

No talk of what came next had been spoken between them. She wasn’t sure what they were and didn’t know if she could handle that talk over the phone. She walked home after a few minutes of standing with her dog in front of Harry’s now vacant home. She sat silently in her house for half of the day.

At dusk, she decides on a run, maybe it will get her mind off her neighbour. She had sat in the same spot for too long. The same spot they had kissed each other last night. Maybe a change of scenery would stop the movie reel of last night that kept playing over and over in her mind.

She runs down the street, specifically keeping her eyes off the lovely home across from her, and keeps running down different streets, past the café, down to the park, and then finally reaches a stream that is past some brush and trees at the end of the park. There’s a bench there that seems like a nice place to rest.

Her music has been playing the entire time, the playlist she chose was inundated with Taylor Swift - but not chosen for that specific reason. Each song thankfully not from 1989. At least not until she’s running through the park. “You are in love” begins to play, it’s soft Twin Peaks-esque opening is familiar to her. It fits the cool rush of wind against her skin and the leaves that have turned brown as fall has worn on. She’d listened to it a thousand times. Sometimes thinking about the man who inspired the song, but all those times were long before she had ever met him.

Now that she knew him, she almost skipped it, but shook her head to herself feeling silly for feeling uncomfortable listening to a song she liked. Her run turns into a walk as she reaches the stream. The chorus begins. Taylor softly serenades about being in love. About a man in love with a woman. About Harry being in love with her.

She takes a deep breath, hearing the words a little different this time. Taylor sings “You kiss on sidewalks” and this morning flashes in her mind. She looks out at the stream, the water rushing along as she stands there, still catching her breath. Then the next part of the song reaches into her heart and twists it with all its might.

“One night he wakes, strange look on his face, pauses, then says, ‘you’re my best friend’.”

And that’s it. She takes out her headphones, her breath no longer capable of being caught. She breathes heavier and heavier. Her throat was as tight and dry as when Harry had left this morning. Possibly even worse. She can’t even swallow this time. Her phone and headphones are discarded on the bench as she raises her hands to her face and begins to pace beside the stream. Her eyes eventually match the body of water next to her and she feels a sob wrack through her. She couldn’t breath, her running and panic had brought her asthma to the forefront and she was hyperventilating, gasping for air. She was drowning and no one was there to help her.

Tears stream down her face and she moves her hands to her thighs as she tries to calm down, not knowing how she reached this level of distraughtness. Deep breaths she reminds herself. She licks her lips and shuts her eyes. “Just ground yourself,” she whispers.

When she’s finally gotten ahold of herself she sits at the bench and stares into the stream. A distorted version of herself seems to stare back. It’s constantly moving, swirling, and changing  and as she watches that version of herself she wants to scream. Her tears had faded awhile ago, but the fear was still there.

The last few months had been so easy, had been so perfect. Going over to each other’s houses and being with each other. But if she ignored history wasn’t she destined to repeat it? When she heard the confessional of the man Taylor had loved in her song, when he had told her she was his best friend which meant he was in love, she felt hurt. She knew how their story ended. Taylor and Harry’s. He left. He left her when she needed him and today, Y/N realized it’s what he does. It wasn’t his fault, she didn’t blame him for leaving today. It was his job, not another woman. But holy fuck when she heard Taylor sing those lyrics, it felt like she had been hit on the head out of nowhere. Reminded that she had been living in a fairytale for the last few months, swept up in a fantasy that she wasn’t meant to be a part of.

She ran a hand over her face, rubbing slightly at her cheek. The same cheek Harry had caressed last night and she sighed. She stared off into the trees and then shook her head, standing up and heading back home. Alone.

Harry calls her when he arrives at LAX. She doesn’t pick up. He calls the next day. She doesn’t pick up. He texts and receives no response for three days.

She thought she didn't know what she would say.

“I listened to too much of your ex’s music and now I’m insecure.”

“I feel like you’re gonna leave me someday so I’m too afraid to do anything with you.”

“Is it alright if we’re just friends, I don’t think my heart could take the pain of falling in love with you and then losing you.”

“You can’t promise me forever and after just one kiss I knew I couldn’t do anything less.”

“The price of loving you is far too high.”

She types them all out and then deletes them every time. Too scared. Instead:

“I’m busy with work, I don’t know when I won’t be. Let’s just plan on meeting up when you’re home.”

Harry nods when he sees the text on Friday. He tells her to take care and make sure she gets enough rest. He wipes away the stray tear that decided to escape his eyes after reading her response. He exhales and looks to the sky, wondering what could have possibly happened since he had left. He sends little emojis over the next few weeks that she puts a heart on, but she doesn’t communicate otherwise.

Harry doesn’t ask her to pick him up. Instead he sends flowers to her house the Thursday before he returns. They make her smile and she wonders if maybe she can move past every red flag she feels like she sees. After a month away, she can’t lie and say she’s not excited for Harry to return. She missed his warm skin and his soft hair. She missed everything and the flowers had only made her wish it had been Harry on her doorstep a couple days early.

He gets home on the 12th and he’s at her door after throwing his things in his entryway.

She opens the door and bites her lip as she takes in who it is.

Harry says her name breathlessly and she melts. Her doubts fly out the window for the moment and all she wants are his lips on hers.

She falls into him and his lips are on hers. They twist into one another and their lips move softly yet urgently against one another. Not sure how to explain the last four weeks, they both attempt to say everything in that kiss. All her pain and confusion press into Harry’s lip with each breath. All his sadness and longing tug at her lips as he sucks her bottom lip into his mouth and hungers for more.

He pulls back and stares straight into her eyes, “Come to Italy with me for the holidays.”

She tilts her head confused, trying to catch her own breath.

“I’m not sure what happened while I was gone, love. But I know I missed you and I can’t go another month without you. Just say yes and we’ll take it from there...Please,” he begs, voice cracking as he holds her cheek.

She wets her lips and opens them to speak, but her voice betrays her. Instead she just nods and squeaks out a noise of approval. Too elated to speak, they press their lips back together and she pulls Harry into her home. 

December was far too cold to snog out in the freezing night air.

-

[barry-j-blupjeans]

Blupjeans and 5!!!

5. “are you flirting with me?”

(general/fluff prompt list - accepting!!)

((sometimes u just wrote 1k+ of blupjeans and their mental illnesses and that's ok))

--

If Barry was being honest, he had never been the best at keeping his thoughts to himself at inopportune times. It got better, with the ADHD pills. Today, unfortunately, he had forgotten to take them. Along with the rest of his meds. Today was a mess. He had been staring at his lab work for the last fifteen minutes, while Lup worked on something next to him. His mind was- wondering, at best, focusing on Lup, at worse.

Lup was so- gods, she was the best. Barry didn't have many friends before Lup and her brother showed up. To be honest, he didn't have many friends after they showed up, either, but once they had gotten past their differences, Barry had never met someone he liked more. Friendship-wise and, well, romantically.

Barry was- he was a walking disaster, in his humble opinion. Half the time he was running late to school, the other half he was there so early that school didn't start for at least a few hours. He was a good student, he had decent grades and he could function pretty well by himself most of the time. He liked to stay after school because getting work done at home just wasn't the same. He couldn't motivate himself there.

Most of his friends opted to go home. Lup liked to stay sometimes. Barry liked Lup. It all worked out.

He had thought... okay, well, he had thought he was being subtle about it. He thought he had been able to keep his act together pretty well, despite the fact he had had a crush on Lup for the last five years. Or more. Probably more.

His friends had broken the news... not so gently to him a few months ago. Meaning that Taako had literally hit him in the head with a book when he tried to bluff his way through "not liking Lup" and Magnus hadn't stopped laughing for a whole thirty minutes when he had insisted Lup "didn't like him back".

She did. Apparently. According to Lucretia and Magnus and Taako, who probably knew her the best out of all of them. Then he spent another thirty minutes listening to Taako bemoaning about having to put up with Lup's crush on Barry. Their little meeting had ended with them insisting that he make some kind of move with her because she probably wouldn't reject him.

He got word from Magnus that they had had the same exact conversation with Lup, too. They were both "too fucking stupid" to make a move on each other, though. Barry assured him that they would talk.

It had been... nearly six months.

And he forgot his ADHD pills today.

"Are you flirting with me?" Barry asked, breaking the silence of the otherwise empty lab room. Lup looked up from her work (AP physics, maybe-?) and stared at him. It took Barry's brain a second to catch up with what he had just said.

"Not right now!" he rushed on. "I- fuck, uh, I- okay, so. Taako and- they talked to me. A while ago and were like, "Hey, Barry, stop being so fucking dumb about liking Lup!" and I was like, "hey, that's none of your business!" and then Taako said you liked me too, but I was just like, y'know, that's Taako just trying to get me to do something stupid for- for a joke.

But they've all been like- weirdly insistent on it? Even Lucretia, who, uh- I don't think she or Magnus would do anything mean-spirited like this, most of the time, which makes me think they're being serious- not that Taako is mean spirited, he's just more-" Lup was staring at him. "...eccentric. With how he shows affection. Sorry."

Lup... wasn't staying anything. The grip she had on her pencil had loosened considerably and he watched as it fell onto her paper. He swallowed tight, panic seizing up in his chest. This was maybe- okay, this wasn't the best way to talk about it, yeah. She was- Fuck, okay, he-

"Sorry," Barry said, looking away finally, even though it still feel like her eyes were burning through him. "Right, sorry, I, uh, I should go, and-"

"Barry, wait," she said and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to cry. He also didn't take his anxiety meds this morning. What was the point of his fucking pill caddy if he didn't remember to take his pills-

"You're not fucking with me, are you?" she asked. "You really- uhm. You like me too?"

"Yeah," Barry choked out, eyes still shut. Was his heart pounding because of anxiety, or the tension, or- "I should go," he said again, standing up. He stood up, eyes trained to the ground, and Lup caught his arm.

"Deep breaths," she said and Barry sucked in a one that maybe was too deep. She let him sit back down, hand going from holding his wrist to holding his hand. He was sweating. Was that gross? That was probably gross.

"I forgot my pills this morning," Barry said, trying to make it sound like a joke.

"I know," Lup said. "You said during lunch. Babe- Barry, just focus on your breathing, okay?"

"Okay," Barry said, doing that. He shut his eyes again, but his mind was still jumping up and down at the fact that Lup was holding his hand. He didn't know why, she had held his hand many times before, especially when he was anxious. It was just- it was different now after he had actually confessed to her. Did she feel required to do this? He didn't want to make her uncomfortable.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Barry asked, finally, finally looking at her. She was looking at him, too, carefully. That was her Thinking Face. Barry swallowed.

"No," she said. "I'm processing some things."

"Sorry," Barry started.

"No because of you," she assured him. "Well, I mean- it has to do with you, but in a good way. Taako told me that I was being stupid about... not telling you that I liked you. Because you liked me too? And I was being dumb?"

"You like me too?" Barry repeated. Lup let out a little breathless laugh, nodding.

"Yeah," she said, squeezing his hands.

"You're not fucking with me?" Barry asked, just to make sure. She smiled at him like the sun.

"Never with something like this, babe, I promise," Lup said. "I was... nervous. About telling you. Like I'm confident and badass and stuff-"

"Yeah," Barry agreed.

"But still got this little friend called abandonment issues, so, y'know- it's- it's hard to like... talk about feelings with people. Even if I know they probably won't, uh. Do anything bad, on purpose."

"I- I might screw up sometimes," Barry said honestly because it was true. "I'm trying my best to not fuck things up, I promise, but I... really like you, Lup."

"I really like you too, Barry," Lup said. "Can I- I don't know if I wanna, uhm. Y'know. Kiss you yet. But can we... try a date. Maybe?"

"If you want!" Barry said. "I- whenever's good with me, I just- I mean, preferably on a day when I remember to take my meds, but-"

"Yeah," Lup said. "Yeah, of course, babe, just- I'll text you the dets, later. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," Barry said. "That's- that's great, yeah!"

"And can we... not tell anyone yet," Lup said, finally looking away from him. "I mean, like- I don't want to fuck things up and then have to tell everyone everything went badly. Not that I think it'll go badly."

"No, I- I get that," Barry said, nodding. He squeezed her hand. His heart was doing a little dance in his chest. "I really do, Lup, I understand. We can talk about like... conditions and stuff now, or-?"

"On the date," Lup said, "would be better, I think. I've still got math shit to figure out."

She looked over at her homework with disdain. Barry's brain kicked back into gear.

"Oh yeah," he said, looking down at the genetics worksheet he had. "I- this slipped my mind, my bad."

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 21, part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Reunions

All together in The Unclean Realm, The Yunmeng trio find a spot inside where they can sit down and have a proper Yanli-Wuxian reunion, while Jiang Cheng sits across the table watching them. 

For years Jiang Cheng has been rejecting Wei Wuxian's free and easy affection; now Yanli might be the only person Wei Wuxian offers to hug until Wen Yuan comes into his life.

Jiang Cheng is really going through it. He'll do nearly anything for Yanli--except, uh, stay in the goddamn inn with her when she's sick and the Wens are hunting them--and what makes her happiest is Wei Wuxian. He's brought them together, and so he's happy, even though he's excluded from their dynamic. This absolutely fucking kills me.

Here Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian are sweetly pledging to always keep the trio together and put each other first. Neither of them will keep this promise. 

Wei Wuxian will leave first, to take the Wens to the Burial Mounds. Jiang Yanli will leave second, staying in Lanling at Jin Zixuan's request instead of accompanying Jiang Cheng to retrieve Wei Wuxian. Jiang Cheng will be the last to let go.

(more after the cut)

Nie Huaisang comes literally running in, filled with joy at Wei Wuxian's return. When he goes to pat his shoulder Wei Wuxian flinches away.

I feel like something important is happening in this rapid sequence of glances and expressions between Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang. NHS is startled, and WWX realizes he's shown something about himself that he didn't want to show. He glances at Jiang Cheng and back at NHS before laughing and covering his slip with a squeeze of NHS’s hand.

NHS switches from shocked to cheerful just as quickly, helping with the coverup. It’s like they have a quick mutual agreement, rooted in their history of shared shenanigans, to not point out that something is wrong.

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji is wandering around the grounds, having feelings. At this point it's presumably been at least a couple of weeks since their breakup fight. 

He sees Wei Wuxian sitting contemplating his flute, and as he sees him he goes from sort of neutrally apprehensive to full on angry judging, complete with sword clenching. 

Part of this may be that his feelings are hurt over their fight, but the larger issue is his distress over Wei Wuxian's apparent heretical cultivation.  That, at any rate, is what's on his mind when he's selecting music, later in the episode, and when he's selecting flashbacks. 

Party Time

Later, the Nies host an excruciating party to celebrate Wei Wuxian's slaughter of Wen Chao return. Jiang Yanli is sharing a table with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng is sharing a table with his crippling social anxiety. 

Everyone starts grilling Wei Wuxian about his sword, because that's suddenly all anybody cares about even though Jiang Yanli, Nie Huaisang, Meng Yao, and probably plenty of other people don't carry swords most of the time.

Wei Wuxian says "after the Wens caught me, Wen Zhuliu crushed my core, so I can't use my sword any more, too bad so sad, can we change the subject?" And everyone is very understanding and admires his resiliency. HA HA HA HA HA. Of course he doesn't opt for that simple lie, but instead mopes audibly without saying anything.

Nie Huasiang tries to change the subject by asking how he killed Wen Chao. Apparently "I had a sexy ghost mostly flay him" isn't good party chat, though, so neither Wei Wuxian nor Jiang Cheng opts to tell the story. 

Everyone lapses into awkward silence, all the more noticeable because there are no dancers, musicians, or entertainers of any kind at this event. OP has gone to audit-kickoff meetings that were more fun than cultivator banquets.

Moment of Clarity

While the awkwardness builds, we hear the sounds of the Song of Clarity. Lan Wangji is skipping the party, which is part of why Wei Wuxian is so mopey. But instead of sitting and stewing in his anger, Lan Wangji has shifted gears, and is starting to work on his "save Wei Wuxian's soul" plan.

This isn't the God-botherer version of soul saving, however. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian disagree about correct practice, but they both are still practitioners within the same spiritual system, and the majority of their beliefs are closely aligned.

Lan Wangji has powerful magic at his disposal, and now he's taking a step back from his plan of forcing persuading Wei Wuxian to give up heterodoxy, and instead he's preparing to use his magic to offset the consequences of Wei Wuxian's choice.

He still isn't ready to accept that choice, but he's working on it. This is a big moment for Lan Wangji's relationship with Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji is a deeply, deeply uncompromising person, as well as being super bossy, and he’s taking his first steps toward supporting Wei Wuxian’s free agency. 

Wei Wuxian leaves the party in the middle of Yao's toast, saying "I have to see you and your lover all over my tumblr dashboard but I am NOT going to listen to you talk!" He takes his wine to go roam around near Lan Wangji's quarters to pine and feel conflicted.  Lan Wangji has thoughtfully set up a projection scrim to catch his shadow and make the pining easier.

Jiang Cheng comes looking for Wei Wuxian, partly to reprimand him for rudeness and partly to see what the hell is wrong with him. Jiang Cheng is trying very hard to be pleasant. He's bad at it, but he's trying.

Wei Wuxian is trying to be unpleasant and he's pretty good at it. He won't say why he isn't using his sword. He’s obviously super fucking depressed about it, calling his former self childish for liking to spar, and only smiling once during the whole exchange.

He finally tells Jiang Cheng that he will always want to do the opposite of what Jiang Cheng tells him.  Jiang Cheng lets this go with an eyeroll.

(Point Break Quote Alert)

But actually this is a sign of trouble, right here in River City, with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for abandoning the Jiang Clan. Wei Wuxian has just told Jiang Cheng he has no intention of obeying him; not just about the sword, but in general. That's no way for a disciple to talk. 

OP has nothing to say about this gif. OP watches gif over and over and over and over

Wei Wuxian ends the conversation by tapping Jiang Cheng's chest with his flute and then walking away. The (still nameless) flute has no problem with this - does it, like Subian, recognize Jiang Cheng as an extension of Wei Wuxian?

The next day, Wei Wuxian is chilling in his room, looking ungodly sexy in his bold slashed robe, holy frack. I mean, he is sex-on-toast at all times, but the cut of his post-burial-mounds combo is particularly heart-stopping when he decides to stick a knee or two out. 

He's meditating and flashing back to being in the burial mounds, where he was also meditating. I admire his ability to fractally meditate about meditating. 

Chenqing

He didn't put a sock on the doorknob, so Jiang Yanli comes in and startles him. He brandishes his flute at her before calming down. The flute definitely does not see her as an extension of Wei Wuxian, because when she touches it, it smokes and then knocks her out of the frame so fast it's comical.

Did they put her in a jerk vest for that shot?

Wei Wuxian hides the flute from her, freaked out by its behavior. She, however, is unfazed, and gives him the first & only affirmation he's gotten about his new cultivation path, and says the flute is "like Mother's Zidian."  She kind of walks him through the whole "first class spiritual tool" concept, beaming with approval and telling him he must name the flute.  

Jiang Yanli is hardcore Jiang Clan, seriously. Freedom and impossibility. You survived 3 months of mystery trauma and now you're all fucked up? We'll roll with it. You have a demon flute now? Rock on. You're going to use necromancy to beat the other clans in a group hunt? Gold star for you.

He names the flute Chenqing, which @hunxi-guilai​ translates and explains in depth over here.

Bichen

Lan Wangji has finished practicing the Song of Clarity, and regardless of whether it's had an effect on Wei Wuxian, he himself seems much calmer. 

As Wei Wuxian contemplates Chenqing, Lan Wangji contemplates Bichen and remembers Wei Wuxian's assertions about resentful energy way back in Gusu summer school. 

This time when he grips his sword, it's loosely, as if he's made some progress with his anger.

Soup

Jiang Yanli sits Wei Wuxian down for some soup, and talks to him about what's going on with him, saying he's changed. He insists he's fine and works very hard to be convincing.

She's not convinced but says she won't press him, and then abruptly shifts tone and works very hard to act like everything is fine. She leaves, taking a lot of soup with her, and Wei Wuxian remarks that it's unfair she is giving so much to Jiang Cheng. But of course, some of it is secretly for Jin Zixuan.

Everything isn't fine, as Wei Wuxian scream-meditates with resentful energy just rolling off of him. He's got some of the dark energy stored in the Yin sword in his bag of holding, but I get the impression that a lot of it is just stored in his body.

Club Ruohan

At some point in the episode we stop in to check on Wen Ruohan. He and his wind machine are mad that Wen Chao is dead. 

Meanwhile, his interpretive dances with the Yin iron now turn his puppets into...Klingons? Sure, why not. 

Literal Stand-Up Meeting 

Jiang Cheng needs Wei Wuxian at games night a meeting and comes running to Jiang Yanli to find him. He is freaking out and she tells him to chill. 

No matter what fuckery is going on in the world, Jiang Yanli is going to find herself a nice little outdoor table and she is going to sit her ass down and have some tea and civilized lady activity. Queen.

This shot of the meeting is composed so nicely. The blocking (placement of actors) in this scene encapsulates the familial dynamics, and I’ll talk about that as soon as I finish admiring Jiang Cheng’s proportions. 

Here we have four clans represented by four family pairs around the game war table. The Jin cousins, despite their differing personalities, are side by side, matchy-matchy, in lockstep. Jin Zixuan lets Jin Zixun do the talking for him, so maintains his own rep as a reasonable guy.  

The Nie brothers are even closer together, also in matching greys, Nie Huaisang giving all of his attention to his brother/clan leader. You can see his careful watching of his brother's temper...not fearful for himself, but fearful for Mingjue.

The Lan brothers have a growing distance between them; they are in different colors (which is pretty usual for them), and Lan Wangji is standing well away from his brother and the rest of the group. Partly this is his personality, but it's also symbolic of his growing distance from his brother and other proper cultivators. He's carrying WWX-related secrets, and he's wrestling with what he's learned.  

While Nie Huaisang is looking at Mingjue, Lan Xichen is turning around to see what's up with his own volatile sibling.

Lastly you have Jiang Cheng, alone in the room, with his shidi nowhere to be found, and seriously feeling the heat because of his isolation. 

He's alone in his purple, but the color value (lightness/darkness) of his robes exactly matches Xichen's. 

And Xichen, bless him, makes a point of speaking to him respectfully as a fellow clan leader, gives him a path out of the "where is your brother" conversation, and is just generally his kind and helpful self with Jiang Cheng.

Next: Awkwardness Increases!

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Inspired partially by the twitter trend of The Face Vs. The Face Sitting On It and just in time for Valentine’s Day! 

Gender Neutral Reader Insert. 

Enjoy my masterlist!

Support me on KoFi!

__________________________

While sitting in the car, you watch out the window. Folks buzz around you--some folks looking content, strolling about their day. Others are flitting around, a bit of crease in their forehead. And you feel for them. You know those days where there’s just not enough hours in the day to get it all done. Or it’s when one thing sets off a spiral of all terrible things. Or when you just don’t wake up on the right side of the bed. You know that crease all too well because currently you were having a bad sleeping week. 

You were getting tired when you were supposed to but the second you put your head on the pillow your brain was hot wired--keeping you up with all the things you needed to do, hadn’t done, all the appointments you had kept pushing off. It was finding the littlest things to find that anxiety and keep you staring up at the ceiling. Calum noticed the tossing and turning and tried his best to lull you to sleep this week, fixing you tea in the evening, getting you off your phone or laptop a couple hours before bed. He even started reading to you, but your ears picked up on the white noise of everything in the house. Your brain picked up the embarrassing memory that you hadn’t even considered in decades and now holding it in front of your mind’s eye for hours on end during the week. 

Like right now, you should’ve been at home sleeping. Your work was giving you a long weekend and you really could’ve used the time to catch some extra Z’s, but you were, admittedly, a little scared to stay home. Sure maybe you did fall asleep cuddled up next to Duke. But you worried that you’d stay up, worry yourself sick some more so when Calum told you he had some errands to run you immediately tagged along. The time running around would hopefully tire you out enough that when you got home you could actually fall asleep. 

So after Calum’s personal training session in the morning, which you sort of tagged along for, but mostly went through your own routine and getting a solid breakfast, you two were now buzzing around from store to store. Calum had gotten most of the grocery the other day, but he forgot a couple things so your first objective was to grab those and bring them back up. He then had to go to the post office to mail out his mother’s birthday cards and a few other things. 

While in the line at the post office, your head tucked into his back, Calum got a phone call from a guitar shop on the other side of time about a new model that had just come in. Calum had been eying it for ages, but he didn’t want to be reckless with his money especially after getting some work on his teeth and to the house. So he asked the guitar shop to keep an eye out for when more stock arrived in case it sold out before Calum felt comfortable spending a large sum of money like that again. 

The store agreed to set one off to the side for him and could keep it on hold until the end of the day. Which was perfect--still gave the two of you time to get lunch. You didn’t need to get anything, didn’t need to do anything. But even after lunch, Calum made one more pit stop. Here now at the gas station, you sit peering through the windshield and can see a mother with her two sons walking from the doors. They boys hold brightly colored icees in their hand, each clutching a bag field with goodies. 

You aren’t entirely sure whey Calum needed to stop here for anything. It’s not like he needed stamps, since he got those at the post office. He hadn’t pulled in to get gas. Lunch had been filling, though you tried not to stuff yourself too much just because you knew that on a long car ride, the last thing you wanted to do was be uncomfortably full. 

The door opens again, Calum strutting through with his glasses covering his eyes and resting comfortably atop the chubby cheeks. Barely hanging from the crook of his fingers is a brown plastic bag. The doors click open and he climbs into the driver seat. The guitar shop wasn’t that far, but today seemed to be a busy day on the road. Took you all too long just to get to the grocery store this morning. 

“Snacks?”

“Was craving something sweet after lunch.” 

You peer into the bag as he hands it over to you. Some gummy bears, gum, a bar or two of chocolate you can’t quite tell. You set it onto the floor at your feet. “Let me know when you want something.” But he’s already tearing into a Twix bar when you glance at him. “Or not,” you laugh. 

“The other stuff is for you--if you want to indulge. Can’t forget ya,” he pushes the glasses down for just a moment to wink at you and then looks into the rearview mirror. 

“Do you think you’re going to get this one?” you asks as the SUV rolls out from the parking lot and onto the asphalt of the highway. 

“Hmm, maybe. Gotta see how it feels first.”

You nod at his question, resting your head into the cushion of the seat. And it goes quiet for a while. The radio plays softly in the background, and every so often the packaging crinkles as Calum downs more of the chocolate and caramel treat. 

“Valentine’s Day is coming up soon,” Calum states, while paused in a bit of traffic. “Got any ideas on what you want to do for it?”

You think for a moment. Valentine’s Day has never been your thing--being perpetually single does that to a person. “Restaurants are going to be a nightmare.”

“Yeah, they will be.” Another crinkle comes from the right side of the car and then his arm reaches behind your seat, finding the small bag of trash you stash there--though you have to be careful when Duke sits in the backseat. Generally though, he doesn’t mess with too much. “My mom sent me a recipe of hers. It’s really good.”

“I’d be down for cooking.”

“Nothing else? Don’t wanna go sky diving? Give me another heart attack?”

You laugh thinking about the first birthday you spent with Calum together as a couple. “You didn’t die.”

“But I did almost shit myself.”

“You can play on stage to thousands of people, but no, jumping from a plane is a no-go.”

“Yes, because I am a sane human.”

You huff out a small tuft of laughter and turn to look at him. One hand on the wheel with the stainless steel linked chain dangling from his wrist. His other arm is resting against the door, gently tapping out a beat with his long slender fingers. “Do you want to do anything?”

“Valentine’s Day,” he scoffs. “How long have we been dating? When have I ever been dying to do anything on some random day in February.” His statement doesn’t fall venomously from his mouth. He even looks over to you with a smile. “I don’t need one day out of 365 to declare my love for someone.”

And it’s true. While Calum wasn’t super accepting of love from new people, while it took you months to show Calum that you were trustworthy and not someone to keep at an arm’s length, once he cracked open, he oozed adoration and love for people. And you knew it was a defense mechanism. You knew that when someone did care as hard as Calum did it wouldn’t always be an easy thing to win over. 

Calum, when he finally let someone one, loved hard. It could be a random Tuesday in July or a Sunday in February, and he would make sure his love was known. He never needed a special occasion to send flowers, to cook dinner, to offer to drive you to doctors appointments because he knew that sometimes you got too nervous or flustered by them to drive but did manage to push through if absolutely necessary. He’d easily pick up some gloves and an extra sponge if he saw you wiping down the walls in the kitchen or wiping through the counter. He kept fridge cleaning days marked on the calendar. And when you added reminders to wash bed sheets to the shared one, he also include rest breaks for you too. 

Calum had never needed someone to force him to show appreciation. 

“I mean, there is the option to literally do nothing on Valentine’s Day. Like treat it as any other day.”

“That’s still something,” he countered, turning on his signal and switching out from the middle lane. His exit was approaching in another mile and a half. 

“Oh fuck off,” you laugh. “We can’t cease to exist that day. Bare minimum we need to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.”

Calum laughs softly, showing some of his teeth too. “Fair, fair. There’s another Netflix documentary coming out, true crime one. I forget what it’s fully about, but I think it’s about a serial killer if you’d be down to start it then?”

“When would I ever turn down the opportunity to be a detective with you?”

“You haven’t yet,” he states with laughter in his voice. 

“And I never will.” The ramp takes the two of you down and down and soon you’re winding through streets and not too far you can see the shopping center coming into view. He pulls into the lot of the shop and the two of you step out in unison. 

The bell above the door chimes as he opens it for you and you smile often in your thanks. “Hey, Calum!” one of the guys at the register calls out. The store is fairly empty. But you’re not shocked on a Tuesday afternoon. 

“Hey, Derek. How’s it going?” Calum heads directly over to the counter and you look up to the left wall, at the records on display.

“Let me know if you need anything,” the second guy states to you, “or if you want to see anything.” He’s younger than Derek, both look to be equally tattooed from the pieces that peek out from the short sleeve work shirts, but his face is significantly brighter. 

“Thanks,” you return and go back to the displays. You can hear Calum and Derek chatting but slowly tune it out, make it background noise to the music playing through the speakers. 

You turn to walk towards the back where more instruments sit and you can see Calum leaning into the glass display of the counter. The palms of his hand pressed into the metal edge. The sunglasses sit on top of his head and you notice the younger guy glancing over at you again.

He nods again and then goes back to his computer. Nothing else is said. And you look over the stringed instruments, ukuleles, some violins and then you spin around again, done with that lap and go to head up to Calum. “See anything?” he asks. 

You shake your head. “You’re the musically talented one. I just nod and smile when you talk about it.”

Derek returns, a case in hand. He comes out from the hinged doors that separate the sales floor from the registers and back of the store. You scoot a little closer to the display as the case is transferred over. Calum takes it easily heading to the corner you just abandoned to sit and check out the instrument. It’s a beautiful deep green, almost reminds you of the thick Washington forest. The body is slender. 

“That’s a pretty cool color,” you note, watching Calum work his fingers over the frets. 

He grins up at you. “Think so?” You give another nod. He doesn’t inspect it long before you can see the desire to give in crosses his face. 

Derek’s standing close by and you turn to him and keep your voice as close to a whisper as you can while still being heard. “What’s a bass like that cost?”

He rattles off the price, one eyebrow slightly raised over the other. You know Calum will riot--he’ll pitch a fucking fit. But you reach into your wallet and slide out your card. You had been saving--for a year. You wanted to do something big for Calum. You just didn’t know what it was yet specifically though you had some ideas, a bass was top of the list.  But you didn’t want to try and go out and buy a bass without consulting him, without getting an understanding of what he liked. You thought about maybe a really good leather jacket and some more boots. He loved the ones he had, wore them as much as he could. 

And when you mentioned possibly getting him more, he told you the ones he had were still in good shape. Calum wasn’t the type to just buy clothes to buy them. He indulged here and there, but always made a point to wear something he had down before replacing it. You’d tease the subject a couple more times after that, but he never took the bait and you weren’t going to force him into a thing he didn’t want or need. 

But it’s clear to you that this is something he wants. But he’ll tussle with himself and never give in on it. It’s pricer than you thought it would be. But you too were being smart, having finally paid off the last of your car, you start moving those payments to savings and it helped a great deal. You were fine. You get insurance and the whole deal as Derek advises. By the time you slide the receipt back across the counter, Calum comes back to the registers. “I appreciate you holding it for me, man. But I don’t think I can right now.”

Derek looks at you and you look down into the glass. “It’s--it’s yours, dude.”

“What?” Calum breathes behind you. 

“They-uh, they paid for it,” Derek says, nodding at you.

You can feel the heat in your body now and spin around to face Calum in a rush. “Consider it a not Valentine’s Day gift.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Ever since I finished paying off my car, I saved the payments to do something nice for you. Didn’t know what it was going to be for sure. But I know you, Calum. You’d want something and tell yourself no. I mean you can treat yourself sometimes.”

“You-you didn’t?” His eyes are rapidly blinking, head shaking like he doesn’t want to believe you. Like he can’t believe you as his mouth mumbles out, “No,” repeatedly. 

“It’s yours,” you nod. “It’s really yours.”

If it weren’t for the weight of the bass, you’re sure Calum would’ve tipped over, maybe even rushed to Derek to hand the case back over, but instead he’s weighed down, chained to this spot in the blue speckled carpet of the store, still repeating, “No,” softly. 

“‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re gonna have to find space in your office for it now. Because I refuse to return it.” You step forward, find the handle and slip your hands around it taking it from Calum. A small grunt leaves you and then you start to the door, throwing a thanks to Derek. 

The lights to the SUV blink and you can hear the locks clicking open as you push open the door to the store. “Wait--what are you doing?” Calum asks. 

“Open the trunk please,” you ask. 

“Let me do it,” he demands, stepping in close to take the case with the bass now. “What the fuck did you do? Baby, this is expensive.”

“It’s not a Valentine’s Day gift,” you answer again. “Because I love you. On a random Tuesday.”

He gets the instrument safely into the trunk and then closes it, watching dumbly as you climb into the passenger side. He walks to the driver seat and climbs in, taking you gently by the chin. “That was absolutely reckless and unnecessary-- ”

“I am just absolutely reckless and unnecessary then,” you counter, “because I’m not returning it.”

“--but thank you. Thank you so much,” he continues as if you hadn’t interrupted him. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Then it’s silent, as the two of your gaze at each other, watching what could almost be tears well in his eyes, but they don’t fall. 

“I don’t know what I did to deserve a person like you, but whatever it was, I’m glad I did it.”

“I’m glad you did it too.” The two of you return home, Duke rushing to the front door as the two of you step through it. Calum safely places the bass in his music room/office and returns shortly after to help you decide on what to order for dinner. 

As the two of you settle onto the couch, Calum takes your hand and presses a kiss to teach knuckle. “I’m gonna teach you how to play.”

“You know we’ve done this before.”

“And you were good at it.”

“I was alright at it.”

“It’ll be your bass,” he whispers. 

“I bought it for you,” you return tossing your head back to look at him. 

He kisses your lips. “Yeah, but it’ll be the one that I teach you to play for real one and it’ll be yours--just as much as it is mine.”

“A true sap,” you laugh, but nod and return your focus back to the TV. 

In the week that follows, Calum makes sure to take an hour in the evenings to set you down and pick up on the lessons. They fizzled out as work for the both of you picked up. But now things are a bit more calm. He sits next to you, assessing what you remember from last time and correcting finger placements as needed, but they go smoothly. 

When Valentine’s Day does come, Calum pulls you back into bed for just five more minutes of sleep. And five minutes turns into half an hour. But finally you two pull yourself out from the sheets, figure out what to do in the midmorning that results in food being consumed and then you slowly gravitate towards different sections of the house. 

There’s still a bit of laundry to be done and Calum takes Duke out for just a little bit. The two of you migrate back together by mid afternoon. He finds you making a quick lunch and presses a kiss to your cheek. You turn to face him, squeezing at his. “I bought some face masks,” he offers. “Care to join me in doing the bare minimum of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide after your lunch?”

“Don’t see how I could pass up such a wonderful offer? You want anything?” He shakes head, mentioning grubbing on some of the leftovers earlier while you took a nap. 

With your lunch done and the plates cleaned, you find Calum in the bedroom and let him know you’re ready for the face masks. He shuffles to the bathroom. “I hope I got the right one for you,” he mutters. “I got them forever ago it feels, so who the hell knows what I got.” His laughter is soft as he rummages through the bins under the skin. 

“I’ll be in the office,” you tell him and he nods, still pulling bins out. You settle into the couch and spy the green bass still on the stand from yesterday. You pull it into your lap and sling your arm over it. The amp next to you is off, you know but you still pluck away at it as if it were on. 

Calum shuffles in a few minutes later. “Um, babe. It’s off.”

You don’t reply but do look up. He holds up three different packages. “Here’s to hoping one of these is worthwhile.” You place your bass back to the stand and take one that sounds like one you’re okay with using. Calum hands you a towel so you can wipe your fingers off after you get it placed onto your face. He helps get it right and then you help him with his and the two of you slip onto the couch, legs entangled and leaning into opposite ends of the couch.

You laugh at Calum’s story as you scroll mindless through app after app. In the boredom you snap a picture of Calum with the face masks on and don’t think too much of it, saving it to the album with all the silly and cute photos of him are--there are tons. 

“I mean the sun is a star. Though the ones we see have been dead for a long time.”

Calum taps your leg with his foot. “It was a simple question--to be the sun or the stars. I didn’t ask for this philosophical crisis.”

“Why would it not weigh in your decision! If you’re a star like the ones we see at night, you’re technically already dead. You wanna be dead?” You huff, sitting up. 

“I mean, no, but c’mon.”

“It’s a valid thing to consider, that’s all I’m saying!”

He laughs. “Okay, sun or the moon?”

“You first,” you return and just then your alarm on your phone goes off. The two of you shuffle back to the bathroom and take off the masks. 

“Moon, maybe,” he counters. 

You nod. “Fitting. When should we get started on that recipe of your moms? Is it super involved?”

“Nah, it’s pretty easy. Normal time should be good. I’m going to read outside if you want to join.”

“Maybe in a bit.”

Calum nods, grabbing his book as he passes through the bedroom and the patter of Duke’s claws follow behind him. You go back to the music room, turn on the amp and then actually play a little something. It’s nothing fancy--just the arrangement you put together with Calum as a practice exercise once. You play it for a bit, adding a little flair. When you phone rings, you pause to answer it. You wouldn’t normally, but the number looks semi recognizable so you answer it. 

It’s just a scam call and you hang up but then notice some other notifications. Before you realize it, you’re deep into Twitter. You’ve run across the trend of people posting pictures of themselves and their significant others with the caption, The Face Vs The Face Sitting On It. It made you laugh just a little bit at first. And then you kept going down the rabbit hole. Some are silly, most are good pictures. 

While it’s not exactly secret that you and Calum are dating, you two don’t post too much. Calum isn’t incline to post on social media in the first place and while you use it a bit more than him, you try not to post too much about him out of respect. However, as you look tap on quote retweet and bring up your photos you think maybe one silly post wouldn’t hurt. So you grab the one of him recently with the face masks and then one of yourself--it’s silly too, a little blurry too in the darkness that it was taken in. 

You hit post and watch the likes come in. Then keep scrolling. Eventually you have to put the bass away and peel yourself from the couch to find Calum and see if he’s hungry enough for dinner. Just as you round the corner to the office, you spy him stepping through the glass sliding backdoor. “Hungry?” you ask. 

He nods, “Yeah.”

The two of you, with Duke trotting ahead, make your way down the hallway and into the kitchen. “You’re funny,” he states, washing his hands first. 

“Thank you. I’ll be here until you kick me out.”

He laughs. “No, the pictures you posted. On Twitter.”

You’re shocked that he noticed it that fast. Normally it took him a bit longer to see silly stuff like that. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah. What I hope you don’t mind is my reply.”

At first you’re nervous. Calum could’ve gone one of two ways--super silly and broke out even worse photos of you possibly not sober or he went super on trend with it and pulled out a photo of you done up for a date night. Not that you preferred one over the other, but sometimes you liked to keep your relationship light on social media. It was easier that way. There wasn’t any real pressure that way. Though the fans seemed to have enjoyed it when you posted more posed and serious content. 

You liked to keep it a bit more real. You and Calum didn’t do the whole nine yards a lot--you two were normal people who hated getting out of bed some days and went as well into the afternoon before showering at times and walked Duke and went to doctor’s appointments like everyone does. So you always opted for a bit of a joke, a silly Tweet or photo whenever you could. 

“What did you post?” you ask. 

He shrugs, taking up the knife to dice the onion. “I’m not telling you.”

You glance at the printed out recipe and get a pan on the aisle over medium heat before pulling out your phone. As you load the app, you listen to the snap of the knife fitting the wooden cutting board. You type Calum’s name and tap onto his profile. 

While there’s is silly--I do want to take a moment to show off my favorite person in the world. So here we go, The Face Vs. The Face Sitting On It. Below is attached a picture of him--you snapped while you two were out for lunch one day. The black t-shirt tight around his biceps as he slyly grins into the camera. The lights in the background are just barely in focus of the resturant and Calum’s glancing out of the window next to him. You remember that you were recording him, or at least you thought you were, and told him that he was handsome. Not the first time, but everytime he did, he blushed and turn away. And you captured it here too. 

The photo of you is actually one with him in it. The guys got together and did a big family dinner and the two of you posed at Crystal’s request in the slightly matching outfits. You hadn’t intended to match--though black was a staple in both your wardrobes. You were a bit different thanks to the pop of color in your shoes, but in the lighting of the street lamp, you had to admit that you did look hot. The first couple of  buttons on your shirt you were undone and with your hands tucked into the pockets, you looked like you owned shit. 

“While I hoped that you’d go with something more silly, I will take this,” you finally say. 

“That picture is literally my background for a reason,” he returns. 

You kiss his cheek and then trace over the stubble with your teeth to his ear. “Can I make a reservation for tonight?”

“The table is reserved for you literally at all times,” he returns in a breathe. 

“Good,” you laugh and then glance back to the recipe. 

[sundaeserenade]

Okay, so, on twitter a couple days ago, I mentioned how I wanted to talk about Red’s condition after Mt. Silver based on my own headcanon which I think is pretty popular among the fandom? But also not. Maybe it’s mildly popular. But anyway.

cw for near death experiences, disturbing body descriptions, and heavy trauma. I think.

SO this whole thing started because of one of my ongoing fics (Gone and Back Again) delving into it a little bit. I mentioned that I didn’t go into as much detail as I wanted, so here’s all the things I would’ve liked to talk about but couldn’t.

Red’s skin is really pale and thin. So a dermatologist? Yeah.

He’s anemic obviously. Hematologist too. 

The muscle strength in his hands/wrists is bad, so he has trouble gripping things or closing his hand into a fist because of the cold. So physical therapy.

Dentist?? I actually think Red would boil water, wait for it to cool, and use the toothbrush he carried with him on his journey to brush his teeth. forgetting that he needs to use a new one...but his teeth still need work done.

he suffers from malnutrition so he’d be put on a strict diet of what to eat, and he follows this because of his mother.

just a lack of muscle strength in general. so a LOT of physical therapy actually.

red has bruises and wounds from his brushes with wild pokemon plus y’know. just living on a mountain so all those would get looked at and treated. stitches definitely. i don’t hc that he broke any bones, though.

just a lot of looking over any old injuries for infection and stuff. x-rays for every part of his body.

his KNEES???? his knees

frostbite

and, most importantly, hypothermia so a cardiologist

Because Red has hypothermia and that causes confusion and a lack of like. coordination and self-awareness, he’d push himself even further and not be aware of just how bad of shape he’s in. so he’d go out and train/explore/whatever he wants, and not realize how cold his body has gotten.

he’s constantly shivering. he sometimes can’t remember what he was doing or what he was saying. his pokemon notice this, of course, because it’s such a drastic change for their trainer. but red moderates his schedule to combat this. like he’ll stay inside a cave or whatever for a day (because he’s also low energy and drowsy) to get his bearings and then go out for a couple of days at a time. he’ll always have charizard out to help with heat.

the point of this is that instead of red leaving the mountain, he’s so determined to stay up there that he adapts to his environment and ignores the warning signals his body is sending him.

so that hypothermia doesn’t help him in the passage of time. months pass and they feel like days to red. green comes to visit him and he’s confused because hasn’t it just been a week?? but it’s been two months since his last visit. he forgets things but..not the things that he wants to.

his skin is bone dry. so? frostbite. especially in his fingers. i think he’d definitely get blisters, but i don’t think he’d stay out to the point of deep frostbite, as the stages reaching to that point cause extreme pain, which not even red can ignore. the feeling of numbness and slight pain? sure. but those tissues dying, the stabbing/tingling feeling? no. and since he doesn’t wear gloves, red would have frostnip constantly.

so he’d often  be at the cusp of deep frostbite in some areas. on his feet and like elbows/arms, i think the third stage of frostbite with blisters is very common for him. but constantly reddened skin, bleeding, scabs, broken skin, that kind of stuff. constantly, all over.

his pokemon help like immensely though, they’ll go find food/firewood/whatever the fuck to help out, and charizard doesn’t leave red’s side. and this lessens even more when green visits and brings supplies to help.

but these health issues lead to him being treated for like 2-3 years after coming down. and i haven’t mentioned his mental health but like

anxiety (social and just in general)

depression

PTSD (fighting team rocket in Saffron particularly)

So psychiatrist would treat those, which i mentioned, but for probably a few reasons, red only takes his medication/stays on the treatment for those 2-3 years and then stops. it’s partly because of being overwhelmed (he’s on a lot of medication at this point) and burnout so quickly after coming back down

there isn’t a gradual reintegration into society for him, and society is one of the reasons he left in the first place, so he’d stay on it for as long as he could put up with it, for his mother’s benefit more than his own, but then he. stops.

[scatterpatter]

Corren - 1 through 100 - You did this to yourself.

FUCK YOU *UN-IRONICS YOUR ASK*

UNDER THE FUCKING CUT

1. What do they smell like?

Bad. Do you think their party is able to regularly take showers? I thinketh the fuck not. ... Pine and old books when he can self care tho.

2. What is their voice like?

Listen I know Corren, being taller, would be more likely to have a deeper register but you'll tear "tenor Corren" out of my cold dead hands

3. What is their biggest motivator?

Spite.

4. What is their most embarrassing memory?

When he first met his BFF Alondra, he was so antisocial and good at ignoring people that she actually got the impression he might have been hard of hearing. She never let him live that down. (one day I'll finish this fic i promise)

5. How do they deal with/react to pain?

"I will keep all of my pain in here, and one day I'll die." ... Okay but listen he's squishy so he takes like one hit and is bloodied up. Someone get him a healer. Pls.

6. What do they like to wear?

He likes his cloak. Its weighty and soft(well. WAS soft. got a bit of wear and tear these days.) and like. Who doesnt love cloaks.

7. Which of their relationships have impacted them most positively?

Ohhhhh fuuuccck this one's tough. I might have to go with Torvid honestly. While the entire party has had a positive impact on him(and trust me I was this close to picking Alistair), Torvid's been more of the one to call him out on his bullshit and to, oh I don't know, talk about your emotions? Ever??? Yknow BEFORE they become too much to handle and he absolutely breaks down???

8. What’s the weirdest thing they’ve ever eaten?

Alistair's cooking.

9. Describe the way that they sleep.

Good luck finding him NOT cuddled up with at least one dog. Tbh he just enjoys cuddles in general.

10. What is their favorite food/kind of food?

FUCKIN. GIVE HIM A GOOD STEAK. THIS BOY IS MOSTLY CARNIVORISTIC.

11. What do they feel most insecure about?

As tempted as I am to say "His cooking", it's actually his singing.

12. How do they like to dress?

"Comfort over flashiness tbh. I gotta go ADVENTURING in whatever I wear after all."

"... Also don't you DARE perceive me as cishet."

13. How do they react to feelings of guilt?

Call him a genie because he will BOTTLE THAT SHIT UP.

14. How do they react to/deal with betrayal?

Denial :D

15. What is their greatest achievement?

Shrike: Killing his dad

Me: NOOOOOO

EDIT: WAIT THIS WAS ANSWERED IN Q99 WHAT THE HECK

16. What are they like when they’ve gotten too little sleep?

Somehow more of a dick than usual. Snappy and cranky and just. Mrehhh.

17. What are they like when they’re drunk?

Doesn't get drunk often, but when he does I imagine he's actually giggly and a little clingy. It's cute :)

18. What kind of music do they enjoy?

*Opens my Corren playlist* Oh yeah. It's either full edgy alt rock or indie alt "depressed millenial" tracks.

19. Are they right or left handed?

FFFuuhhhhck uhhhh well

Looking over my old art I can't seem to pick a dominant hand(I've even drawn him handling his sniper with either hand???????????) so like oops guess he's ambidextrous.

20. Fears?

The dark, the ocean, dying alone and forgotten, his friends losing their trust of him

21. Favorite kind of weather?

Rain!!!! Especially cool rain like what people often get in fall months.

22. Favorite color?

Indigo!!!

23. Do they collect anything?

Books :3

24. Do they prefer either hot or cold weather more?

Cold weather by far.

25. What is their eye color?

Electric blue!

26. What is their race/ethnicity?

Well his race is a homebrew race known as Marelienth. Uhhh ethnicity? Idk he's from a mountain town way up north *shrugs*

In human aus I imagine him as half-Mongolian half-Norwegian so ayee

27. Hair color?

Black!

28. Are they happy where they are currently?

No :D He loves adventuring with his party don't get me wrong but he still has a lot of trauma to unpack. ... Also he was just possibly broken up with soooo. :/

29. Are they a morning person?

NOPE.

30. Sunrise or sunset?

*motions to above question* Sunset.

31. Are they more messy or more organized?

More organized, actually!

32. Pet peeves?

*unravels a list. It's all shit the party has done. Mostly Alistair.*

33. Do they own any objects of significant personal importance?

HOOUSIDSJFK- HE- Y-YEAH HE SURE DOES

His amethyst pendant used to belong to his brother, Julian, and he gave it to Corren right before they were separated so you BET it's sentimental as shit and he wears it daily.

34. Least favorite food?

Mecha's usually a great cook but one time trolled him with some absurdly spicy curry he couldn't handle and he's never forgiven them.

35. Least favorite color?

Hmmm. Maybe... yellow?

36. Least favorite smell?

He spent a year with his party in a damp cave and no showers, so uh. I'll give you a guess.

37. When was the last time they cried?

Literally last night in our game's timeline :D Full breakdown and everything!

38. Were they with anybody the last time they cried?

Torvid :D He was there to comfort

39. Tell us about one of the times they got injured?

One time they were in combat and Corren took a few hits and was down to about 2hp or so. He had a temporary level thanks to Kieran, which boosted his HP a little bit. When he teleported them to a safe town, though, well... Torvid was waiting for them so that's cool. But uh. Yeah that temporary level wore off then and there, dropping Corn Cob to exactly 0hp and he just- flopped down face first in the snow and started dying then and there KJNDKLFNSLKN

40. Do they have any scars?

:)

Do you want to talk about the scar over his eye from a fight he got in with his dad or like. The scars on his limbs from the time he was literally experimented on.

41. Do they struggle with any mental health issues?

:)

Undiagnosed+Untreated Anxiety, Depression, DPDR, PTSD, just to name a few

42. Do they have any bad habits?

Running away from his problems, definitely.

43. Why might someone dislike them?

He's a pretentious nerd. He can be a dick if he doesn't care about you.

44. Why might someone love them?

He's an adorable nerd! He's a hopeless romantic and oddly enough an optimist. He's passionate and driven too!

45. Do they believe in ghosts?

Well ghosts are like- a canon proven thing in his world sooo. Yeah.

46. Is there anyone they would trust with their lives?

His party. Well- most in his party.

47. Are they romantically interested in anyone?

Nethyl :)

48. Are they dating/married to anyone?

He's dating Nethyl and they're in a happy and healthy relationship :) *politely ignores canon*

49. Do they like surprises?

NO >:(

50. When is their birthday?

Heroya 5th! I think. I don't wanna check, assume it's this.

51. How do they usually celebrate their birthday?

"You guys celebrate your watchdays?"

Jokes aside, he mainly just treats himself to a nice dinner and a new book or something :)

52. Do they have any family?

Two older siblings: Julian and Mila. His parents are Andreas and Fanya!

53. Are they close to their family?

... *Coughs*. He was close with his siblings, but Mila died and he hasn't seen Julian in 30 years. Was close with his dad but last time they saw each other, they fought and Corren might have killed him so. ... Yeah. :/

54. What is their MBTI type?

FUCK uh. I... N... T... J? INTJ. Sure.

55. What is their zodiac sign?

In Sekrezia: The eagle

In our world: Uhhh. Idk. Capricorn????

56. What Hogwarts House would they be in?

Uhhh. Ravenclaw??? I know almost nothing about HP :/

57. What D&D alignment are they?

THIS ONE'S EASY- lawful neutral!

58. Do they ever have nightmares? If so, what about?

:)

Used to have typical nightmares, nothing special. Nowadays though he often dreams of being underwater. Not drowning, though. It's... weird. He doesn't like those.

59. What are their views on death?

He's a necromancer lol.

Death is inevitable, though. It's a necessary part of life. Death is not an entire loss, though. One lives on in the memories others carry of them, in the love they hold in their hearts. Death is complicated, but that's okay.

60. What is something that they’re sure to laugh at?

Alistair :)

61. When bored, how do they pass time?

Dog time :)

62. Do they enjoy being outside?

... Ehhhhhh?

63. Do they have an accent?

Technically??? It's an accent from where he's from but like. I just barely tweak my own voice when I rp him so? Damn Corren I'm sorry you've been cursed with east coast dialect.

64. Upon seeing a slice of chocolate cake, what is their first reaction?

"Damn who's the rich bastard here?" (cake is kinda a delicacy in their world- not like elites only but not NEARLY as common as it is here)

65. If they knew they were going to die, what would they do/say?

Reassurance mode to whomever he's with. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm okay. Remember what I told you, death is a natural part of life, yeah? I don't have any regrets, I'm okay... Just. Thanks. For giving me a chance. Thank you. Thank you."

66. How do they feel about sex?

I SWEAR he's allosexual. I'm just bad at writing allosexuals.

67. What is their sexuality?

He doesn't really know how to pin it down, so he just calls himself "queer". Definitely not straight, that's all he knows.

68. Do they become squeamish at the sight of blood?

AHAHA no. He's hella desensitized

69. Is there anything that they find really gross?

Skulking cyst. Look it up at your own volition. It's. NO.

70. Which TV Trope(s) best describes them?

It's 12:21 in the morning and I'm NOT about to scroll through a bunch of tv tropes just. just. NERD stereotype.

71. Do they enjoy helping people?

Yyyyes? Only really if it's the people he cares about.

72. Are they allergic to anything?

Bullshit.

73. Do they have a pet?

WINGTHARA!! HIS SKELE-DOG!!!

74. Are they quick to anger? What are they like when they loose their temper?

Oh yeah he's all bark and no bite. He usually just throws a little fit and/or yells.

75. How patient are they?

More than he should be :/

76. Are they good at cooking?

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

77. Favorite insult? Do they insult people often?

Oh yes he insults the others all the time. No particular favorite, he likes so spice it up.

78. How do they act when they’re particularly happy?

Stim. Stim. Stim. His eyes get all sparkly and he. He.

79. What do they do when they learn about other people’s fears?

He will do everything in his power to assure they won't ever have to deal with their fears alone- You afraid of spiders? It's his job to get the spiders from now on so you won't have to deal with them.

80. Are they trustworthy?

Oh yeah. He's like Rapunzel- doesn't break promises.

81. Do they try to hide their emotions? Are they good at it?

Oh yes he tries to hide it. And yes, he's awful at it.

82. Do they exercise regularly?

Yes and no? No like- exercise regimen, but the amount of travelling and fighting they do is just- a workout in and of itself

83. Are they comfortable with the way they look?

Yeah! He's cute and he knows it baybie!!!

84. What are some physical features that they find attractive on people?

He,,, he likes someone who's physically stong,,, Muscles are,,, aaaaa >///>

85. What kind of personalities do they find attractive?

Someone he can nerd out with :)

86. Do they like sweet foods?

Impartial to it. He won't turn sweets away but he's not crazy about them either.

87. What is their age?

43, the equivalent of- I think someone in their mid 30s?

88. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between?

He's 6'8" :) Which is actually normal for his race

89. Do they wear glasses or contacts?

Sometimes! I like to think he has reading glasses or something like that.

90. Do they consider themselves attractive?

HE'S CUTE AND HE KNOWS IT.

91. What is their sense of humor like?

Julian tainted his sense of humor and now he finds the most dumb shit hilarious. Think very millenial/GenZ humor like "I wish I was Jared, 19"

92. What mood are they most often in?

"I don't get paid enough for this" or Fear.jpg

93. What kinds of things anger them?

People who don't keep their FUCKING WORD. Oh and like. Yknow. Half the shit his party does.

94. Outlook on life?

Again he's??? Oddly an optimist? In the "Things will get better and that is a fucking THREAT" way, but still optimist!

95. What kind of things make them sad/depressed?

Talk about his family :) Or the fact that his boyfriend might want him dead :)

96. What is their greatest weakness?

He's squishy as fuck. He goes down easy.

97. What is their greatest strength?

He's extremely intelligent and great with magic and his sniper!

98. Something that they regret?

Not doing more to stop his brother when he tried to resurrect their sister

99. Biggest accomplishment?

Either convincing an entire town his name is Torren or accidentally convincing some very OP people that he's secretly a dragon.

100. Create your own!

FUCK YOU I SPENT LIKE 2 HOURS ON THIS. NO PROOFREAD. IVE ALREADY DESIGNED CORREN'S AND NETHYL'S HYPOTHETICAL KIDS. ANYWAYS THEY'RE TWIN IRINAGA AND I'VE NAMED THEM AFTER THE DNDADS TWINS: THEIR NAMES ARE LARK AND SPARROW.

[idontmeantosoundrudebut]

This is Home (stupid Eretlout oneshot)

Oh hello it is currently 4 am and I've just finished this impulse one-shot about Modern Eretlout haha lol bruh! It's set in Britain by the way, because I'm British and I love my British culture lol! This hasn't been edited by the way so... yeah, it's really bad in my opinion but I need to post some writing because yeah! I'm actually currently working on a long Eretlout fic but I have no idea when/if it'll be finished so haha lol bruh awkward! Oh yeah, warning of abuse and past child abuse and only slightly steamy content, really its just making out and all that!!! haha lol bruh enjoy

=============================================================

Blood fills his mouth. It drips from his chin, pours from his head, spills from his nostrils.

He opens his red-speckled fist and a tooth lies in the scarlet pool gathered in his palm, it almost looks like gold beneath the glow of the streetlamp that slants into his car. His upper jaw throbs from where he'd yanked out the already loose tooth and he can make out the rivulets of gum-flesh still clinging onto the roots. He stares at it with an unbothered and tired expression.

"Couldn't even punch my tooth outright," He mumbles to himself, opening the glove box and chucking the tooth inside, "Had to yank it out myself,"

It makes a high-pitched clanging sound as it bounces off a half-finished bottle of Captain Morgan and then, silently, it disappears behind the several cigarette cartons that lay piled unceremoniously within (Marlboro Reds, Marlboro Golds, Caramel Blues, Regal Kingsizes, even the odd Mayfair for when he gets desperately low). He reaches a hand inside and rummages through the collection, most of them are empty at this point, he needs to restock and clean out his car, it's been a solid few months since he did that. He shakes a Caramel carton, empty. Another Caramel? Empty. Marlboro Red? Empty. Regal? Ah, lucky day, only half-empty.

A great sigh forces its way through his clogged nostrils and, with the abruptness of a cut artery, blood spatters all over his shirt and along his forearms. His hand freezes mid-air, fingers tight around the bending carton as he blinks slowly, anger simmering beneath his skin because really? Really?! He looks down at his shirt, it was ruined anyway. He'll never get the red out that white, looks like someone's just slit his throat from all the blood that's been pouring down his neck. That table-corner got him good in the head and cut a deep gash just above his eyebrow, the entire right side of his face is crimson with blood and it shimmers in the flickering lamplight.

He bites into the end of the cigarette and lights it with a silver zippo, the flame casting writhing shadows across his blood-spattered hand. The first drag is the best, the first hit to the back of his throat, the first exhale of smoke. Each heartbeat hurts a little less with a little more smoke, a little more tar, a little more death in his lungs.

Snotlout starts the car and drives away. He watches his childhood home disappear around the corner and it feels like goodbye. He can't kind it in himself to be sad about it.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He parks outside of Eret's house on the edge of the path, walking up to the red door with a tidy black seven nailed on it.

"Oh Snotlout, love, you alright?" Comes a familiar voice and he looks over to see Chantel from next door, wrapped in her dressing gown with a black bin bag clutched in her hands.

Eret's house is tucked in the centre of a row of brick houses, it's the kind of street where everyone knows everyone and everyone knows everything, whether you like it or not. In the last year, Snotlout has gotten to know a lot of people (and a lot of rumours) who live along this here street.

"I'm alright, Chan," He says honestly (because he is alright, it's just a bit of blood and few bruises) and stamps the butt-end of his fifth cigarette in thirty minutes into the cracked path.

"You 'aven't been fighten' again, 'ave you? With those Trapper boys?" Chantel asks severely, a mother of four, she's very intuned to her maternal instincts and even the slightest sign of distress has them flaring up, "It better not be with those Grimborn brothers! I'm telllen' you Snotlout, those two are shady bastards and its best to stay clear of 'em-"

Snotlout lights another smoke, this one from a full carton of Marlboro Red, and spits blood and phlegm onto the grass, tongue prodding the empty socket in his jaw.

"I haven't been fighting, Chan, promise," He reassures her, and that's also true because he didn't fight back at all, it was more of a beat down, "Just a disagreement with my old man, you know how it is,"

Chantel's back straightens like she's been in the army her whole life and she crosses her arms over her chest, red hair wet and shining like blood in the moonlight. Only four of the streetlamps work and they're further down the road, so the road and paths are alight only from the horseshoe moon that hovers amongst the star-filled sky, the black-asphalt gleaming silver. They've been complaints to the council to get them all fixed, but they won't do anything, they never do, they just leave the poor to rot.

She looks like she's about to say something about it, but he shakes his head at her. Instead of telling him to call the police, she says;

"You're bleedin' like a stuck pig all over the place, Lout, people'll gonna be thinkin' that Jack the Ripper is back from the fuckin' dead," He laughs at that and he offers a straight to her, as a thanks for not making a big fuss over finding him bloodied like a murdered boy in the middle of the night, but she shakes her head.

"You're grand, love, I got a pouch this mornin', save 'em for desperate times," Chantel looks him up and down, black eyes near white in the moonlight, "You look like you're in one now,"

Snotlout agrees with her. He waves a hand to bid her goodnight and goes inside. He closes and he turns on the hallway light. The marrow-deep tension in his bones slips away, causing a breath that comes from the very bottom of his tar-clogged lungs to fall from his lips, and his hurting heart finally stops beating against his ribs like a jackhammer as he leans against the front door.

He's safe, he's home. Because this small, shoddy house with its water-stained ceilings and peeling wallpaper and creaking floorboards is home. It's simple and a little broken, but it's home.

"Snotlout?" Eret calls from upstairs, he can see the bedroom light glow up the hallway at the top of the stairs, "That you?"

"Yeah," He takes a generous drag, then exhales slowly, "It's me, sorry I'm late... Went to see my dad, after work,"

Footsteps ring across the house and Eret appears at the top of the stairs, dressed in nothing but a ratty pair of grey jogging bottoms, his terribly handsome torso bare for Snotlout and Snotlout alone to see. He grins proudly around his cigarette at the sight of those hard abbs, those firm pecs, those faint scars, those old gang tattoos. Oh, what a handsome devil he is and Snotlout caught him all on his own.

"Fuckin' Hell, Snotlout!" Eret comes charging down the stairs like a mad horse and Snotlout barely blinks when he comes over to him, large hands gracing over his oozing temple and along his bruising jaw. The touch is very much welcomed.

"What happened? Were you jumped?"

"No, I wasn't fucking jumped-"

"You've lost a tooth!"

"It's in the car, in the glove box, I'll get Gobber to stick it back on,"

"I don't think that's how it works, darlin',"

Eret drags him into the living and posts him on the black vinyl couch. Hookfang, his German Shepherd, immediately bounds over to him and rests his snout on top of Snotlout's knees, wet nose twitching and throat moving with unfurling whines and whimpers. He pets him affectionally between his ears, humming lowly to Hookfang to help ease the old war-vet. Eret goes to snatch the half-smoked cigarette from his fingers, but Snotlout's reflexes are too fast.

"Hey! I'm not done, asshole,"

"Not smokin' in the house is your rule, not mine, I'm just helpin' you out,"

"Fuck that rule, just for tonight, fuck it,"

With a rich laugh, Eret saunters into the kitchen to get the med-kit. But Snotlout saw the concern and anxiety in those dark, earthy eyes and he heard it too in that laugh, it was a little shaky at the end. Hookfang barks at him.

"Easy Hookfang, I'm okay," He barks again, louder, black eyes glistening with fear, "I know pal, there's a lot of blood, but it's okay, I'm okay, soldier," He ruffles the War-dog's neck lovingly, trying to ease Hookfang's unnerved mood and distract him from the blood. It probably brings back bad memories for him.

Eret comes back with the med-kit tucked beneath his armpit and a large bowl of water cradled in his hands. He set it on the coffee table and politely nudges Hookfang out of the way, the Shepherd in turn leaps onto the couch and curls dutifully at Snotlout's side. Such a loyal friend, Snotlout doesn't deserve something as honourable as Hookfang's fidelity.

"Look like a stuck pig," Eret whisper, running a wet dishtowel along the drying river of blood that pours down his face and throat.

"Ha, Chantel said the exact same thing," He chuckles lowly, watching rivulets of watery blood travel down Eret's powerful forearms as he sponges at the blood along his cheek.

"Chantel?" He queries, eyes briefly flickering to meet his.

"Yeah, caught outside just as I was coming in," Snotlout closes his eyes as he lifts his chin so Eret can easily swipe the already stained towel down his throat. It leaves a funny tightness in his gut and a nice shiver ghosts up his spine at the vulnerable display.

"Well, expect the whole street to know by lunchtime tomorrow," Eret replies, then adds, "I mean, I love Chantel to pieces, but by God, she gossips like there is no tomorrow,"

Snotlout nods in agreement, smoking his cigarette and tapping the ash into an ashtray that's always kept on the coffee table, despite his own rule of no smoking in the house. But he's never been good at keeping to the rules, even his own ones. Eret wipes away the twin-tracks of maroon streaking from his nose and begins to wrap the gash above his eyebrow up.

"We'll go to the doctor tomorrow mornin', yeah? Think you might need stitches,"

"Cool," Is his reply, tired and uninterested.

All the blood is finally cleared from his skin. The towel is scarlet. The bowl on the table is no longer a bowl of water, but a bowl of blood. A swathe of bandages is wrapped around his head like a bandana, but there hasn't been any bleed through for a few minutes so Eret looks satisfied (and rather proud) at his nursing work.

After a moment, Snotlout flicks his finished fag into the ashtray and stares into Eret's dark eyes; he's very tired.

"Thanks for patching me up, babe," Snotlout says quietly, not because he doesn't mean it but because he is full of such a sudden exhaustion that it feels well overdue. His head, his brain, needs a good rest or else he's going to start screaming.

"No problem," Eret soothes his large hands up and down Snotlout's thighs, "Now, are you going to tell me what happened?"

Snotlout sighs, big and heavy, hand settling on the nape of Hookfang's neck and running through the dense fur. His heart shudders, his lung quiver, his blood boils, his body doesn't like any of this. Just get it over with, as he did with his dad.

"I told my dad about us. About me... you know, liking guys and all-"

"And he did this to you?" Eret's voice goes low, like a growl of an animal with its teeth bared. Snotlout would be lying if he said it didn't turn him on a bit. Thick fingers curl protectively around his thighs.

"Eret, don't get yourself all riled up about it, okay? It's done. I knew he'd react like this, it's not the first time he's punched me around and called me a faggot, just this time, he actually had a reason to call me one,"

"Yeah, well, it may not have been his first time but it sure as fuck is his last, do you understand?" Eret snarls vehemently, hands moving from his thighs to his hips and sides, Snotlout doesn't even flinch when he accidentally brushes against a forming bruise, "You are never going near him again, Lout, I won't let you be hurt by scum like that,"

Eret's eyes burn. Dark soil and spitting embers in furrowed sockets. The firm frown on his face and the clenching muscles in his jaw, grinding teeth that thirst for a hating man's blood. It's making Snotlout's throat go dry.

"You're hot when you're angry, have I told you that before?" He says lowly and Eret looks at him, vengefulness fading as he takes note of the wanton look in those pale eyes.

"You may have mentioned it once or twice,"

They breathe on each other's lips, tempting, waiting for the first one to move. Hookfang books it upstairs, sensing the heady change in the air.

Eret pushes Snotlout back onto the couch and crawls carefully over him, their lips immediately locking in a wet and obscene kiss that stretches on and on forever. Snotlout moans as Eret forces his tongue down his throat, golden hands skimming beneath his shirt and touching the tender flesh beneath in a skilled and teasing way that drives him mad. They make out for a while, dominating each other's mouths with vigour and gusto till their breathless and sweating.

The bloodied shirt is pulled over his head and Eret stills above him when he sees the black and blue bruises that bloom along his ribs and chest and stomach, even Snotlout gazes at them with morbid curiously. Fuck, his dad got him more than he realised. Not that it matters.

"I'll kill him, Snotlout, I'll kill him," Eret promises in a snarling growl and Snotlout wraps his arms around his shoulders, drawing him down so he can mumble against his lips;

"I know, but fuck me first,"

Of course, Eret complies.

Later, tangled in a mass of sweaty limbs and exhausted desires, Snotlout knows that he'll be okay. With his head on Eret's chest, he closes his eyes and sleeps because he's home, home has always been in those dark eyes, in those large hands, in those warm arms. Home has always been here.

Eret, a wanderer for most of his life, a lost man at sea who was bound for dirty work, has finally found a place to set loose his anchor. Snotlout is home, is the harbour he'll always be homebound to. He'll protect his Snotlout because who is he but a wanderer without his home.

[vtforpedro]

LONG POST, medical update. ptsd, suicide TW: I’m really tired. I feel like I’ve been saying that for a year but I am exhausted. mind, body and soul exhausted my head got better after I lost the water weight my chemo pill was packing on (I was 15lbs lighter than the three weeks previously. so it was pretty bad lol) but now it’s getting bad again. it never gets to the point of relief, but it gets manageable and now it’s becoming unmanageable again. it’s not water weight but it might be cause I’ve put on a couple pounds over the holidays (just barely a couple pounds, I’m eating much lighter in general) anyway I don’t see the point of being scared to name what it is my neurosurgeon and I believe this is anymore. my psychiatrist thinks it makes sense, my pcp, even the ER doctor I saw on dec. 2nd lol but I am 99.9% sure this is what I have and it does makes sense but every fucking time I think about it for a while it makes me so angry. so so so angry y’all. I wish I could sit every single medical professional I interacted with over the last year or so who didn’t believe me and tell them it’s all been real, they failed me to such a degree I have ptsd and anger problems that I’m going to need therapy for, and tell them to learn how to be better providers. blegh so I saw my neurosurgeon (one of the best in the country) for the first time in april. his thoughts? anxiety with muscle tension in my back and neck that led to tension in my head. as in the muscles around my bones, not inside of my skull. didn’t listen to me or believe me, thought all my crazy symptoms were just anxiety and possibly the chiari malformation but there’s no treatment for that beyond surgery and mine is so mild no one wants to go that route (me most of all lmao) I put off seeing him again because I saw different neurologists and my PCP over the months who basically all said the same thing. like my PCP believed me and gave me referrals to the neuros, but one told me to ‘stop worrying about this and just enjoy life’ and the other sat with me for an hour, the first half of which she was all on board the ‘anxiety is fucking with you, none of this is real’ train until I had to tell her to LISTEN TO MY SYMPTOMS firmly enough that she did. she went the opposite way then and said yeah ok something ‘mechanical’ is happening, you need to go back to a neurosurgeon. turned out she loves the neurosurgeon I saw in april (worship the ground he walks on, were her words) but told me maybe I still needed a second opinion. she did also mention that I’ve been living with this for so long that I’m ‘married to it now’ which still implies I’m making it worse than it actually is but :) whatever, she couldn’t think of what it could be decided to just go back to that neurosurgeon and tell him the physical therapy he prescribed in april I had to stop because it made things worse. his PA tried to prescribe me more PT on the phone before I firmly told her I needed to SPEAK with him face to face because my quality of life is gone, because I get close to killing myself weekly because of how bad this is and nothing has improved since april. only gotten worse. so I had my appt with him in late October I think? I explained all of my symptoms (again) and told him how nothing has changed, things have gotten worse, when I do x y z I have an episode, etc etc. he said he still doesn’t think it’s the chiari but he said it *might* be IIH idiopathic intracranial hypertension first time I’ve ever heard of it and even though it was over 11 months into this, it might just save my life now that I have idiopathic = we don’t fucking know why this happens, intracranial = HAPPENING IN MY SKULL AND BRAIN, hypertension = technically high blood pressure, but for here just high pressure cause my BP is good it is rare, it is unknown why people get it and why others don’t, it is most common in women of child bearing age who are obese. the thought is that the weight on the body causes the brain to very slightly inflate, decreasing spinal fluid flow and increasing pressure in the brain, sometimes CAUSING a chiari malformation to appear, which can cause other symptoms on top of IIH it used to be called pseudotumor cerebri because IIH makes the brain behave like it has a tumor while no tumor is actually present (which means normal MRI/CT scans and the main reason everyone told me I was faking it) I gained 80lbs in less than two years due to severe depression and ptsd. I’ve been at the same weight for almost two years now and was at that weight in Feb 2019 before things started happening in Dec 2019. sometimes it does just come on one day. it can be chronic, it can randomly go into remission and come back, and they have no idea why it even happens. it’s rare enough that no neurologist I saw could even think of it. rare enough that one of the best neurosurgeons in the country didn’t think of it until he decided he believed me lol he leans even more heavily into this because I gained weight so quickly (one of the hallmarks of getting IIH) and I had not a single symptom like it before the weight gain I don’t trust anything or anyone right now and I am extremely pessimistic and have no hope. but the one thing that’s given me a little hope, that’s made me believe this is what I have, is the fucking wikipedia page on IIH. it lists one specific symptom that I’ve seen nowhere else (and is EXTREMELY specific lmao) that I have and that everyone thought I was crazy explaining. beyond destroying your quality of life, the one thing IIH can do is cause permanent blindness. I’ve had a fuck ton of problems with my vision since this all started happening. one of the worst is that if I’m in the middle of an episode and I look up or to the left, it makes it h u r t and makes the episode worse. which is on the wikipedia page! which explains why I couldn’t fucking do EMDR therapy which involves rapid eye movement from side to side :) :) :) even my therapist was thinking this was all in my head and I was just letting my anxiety tell me EMDR would send my head into an episode instead of it actually happening lmaaaao god I am so angry y’all my mom and my uncle The Doctor wanted to commit me in March/April. I had an entire ER nurses station mock me for ten minutes for coming in repeatedly and having bizarre symptoms that, because they were unexplained, they thought I was faking. they belittled me when talking to me. one put the tv remote (no tv in the room) instead of the call button in my hand when I was too out of it to notice. the ER doctor that day told me I was making up a story, none of this was real, and to continue seeing my psychiatrist. I went home that day, told my mom I was fine for her to go back to work (she was angry with me and wanted me to go to a psychiatric hospital), took a shower and planned on swallowing a bottle of pills. I was in agony, utter agony, every single day multiple times a day I thought I was going to die, and it was being made clear to me that no one, not even my mom, believed me. I told my best friend and she talked me out of it, but I came very close and I will forever be heartbroken and angry beyond belief about this (my mom came around not long after this after seeing that this wasn’t going away and has thoroughly apologized for wanting to commit me. she has been helping me every single day since this started even tho she thought it was anxiety. I’m angry but I don’t hold it against her, not after the incredible sacrifices she’s made for me for a year) so yeah. every bizarre symptom, every agonizing thing I go through, the weird discomfort, pain and burning, vision problems, etc etc, all explained by IIH. the very specific ‘looking in a certain direction makes it worse’ has been there since day one. it’s because pressure has increased on the nerve behind my eyes so looking in a certain way aggravates the affected nerve further gaining all that water weight and having my head get so so so severe, enough to send me to the ER again, made me also think this was a real possibility and the ER doc agreed that the fluid retention was making pressure in my brain even more severe and it did ease quite a lot once that was all gone, another reason I believe this is IIH if you read up on IIH or read stories by people with it, it is life altering, debilitating, and agonizing to live with. most people will also have the same story of doctors not believing them and saying it was anxiety before getting this diagnosis the good thing? there’s a cure and while some people may need additional help later on, it works for most people. and it is, very simply, losing weight. 10-20% of body weight (some places say relief can start at just 3%) seems to completely cure it for most people because the brain is no longer inflated and because of that, any chiari malformation (cerebral tonsils sitting in the spinal cord opening) will actually go away, because it makes room in the skull for the tonsils to go back to their normal place I have some trouble knowing that I am partially at fault for gaining weight like I did, but my mom keeps telling me it’s so rare and how could I have possibly known and it was after severe trauma so. trying to deal with that too lol but yeah! weight loss journey. my chemo pill, if you read my last update, completely fucked me up for a while (including the fuckin weight gain despite a low calorie, low fat diet since like nov 1st) so it’s made it hard to lose weight. but now that I’m off of that pill, I’m down 7lbs and I will continue to lose. I have never been more motivated in my life to lose weight lmao and I’ve successfully done it before! I can’t exercise but my neurosurgeon said as the weight comes off and my symptoms start getting better, I will probably be able to incorporate more movement in my life. I can’t even walk around my apt for too long right now cause it builds pressure in my brain. it fucking sucks because this is something they don’t understand, it’s really only diagnosed if everything else has been ruled out (and with a lumbar puncture, but I am too fucking traumatized to have that done. but if I showed high pressure with no reason for it, it would be an ‘official’ IIH diagnosis). but I’m choosing not to do the LP because if I start to have my symptoms relieved as I lose weight, it’s pretty obvious that’s what this has been from the start my brain thinks it has a brain tumor and is going absolutely batshit insane and no matter how much I tried to get people to believe me, it took 11 months to get there. I will carry this with me for the rest of my life and once covid eases, I’m finding a good trauma therapist and working through this if my symptoms DON’T ease, we’ll talk brain surgery. but I think this is what I have and I think I’ll be okay when I lose enough weight (and I’ll feel better all around lol) anyway I’ve had an extremely bad couple of months and I wanted to get this off my chest, sorry it’s so long. if you can please, please, please cross your fingers for me and wish me luck that this is what it is and that over the next handful of months I lose the weight and get my life back, I will appreciate it more than I can say I’m going to thank all of you ahead of time because I lack spoons to reply right now and I also want to thank you all for your support over this last year and never doubting me. for always offering me words of encouragement and for being angry on my behalf. thank you thank you thank you I love you all <3

[we-are-inevitable]

modern art // javid (ch. 1)

A/N: hi !! so some of you may remember an old songfic i did in march of last year, titled ‘modern art’ after the song “IDK You Yet” by Alexander 23. well, i’ve always thought that that one shot would work great as a stand alone fic, and here we are! i have ch. 1 edited and SO MUCH of it as changed- like, for example, the fic is a chapter fic now !! regardless, i hope you guys like this !!

WARNINGS: depression, anxiety, self-deprecation, past addiction, mentions of addiction, just general Bad Times- pls be mindful when reading !! it’s just very Not Happy rn ADDITIONAL INFO: all characters are in their mid-twenties in the fic. oh also this is probably important but it’s a soulmate au !!

Read On AO3!

tag list: @bound-for-santa-fe @wannabecowboypunk @shippingcannons @yahfancyclamwiththepurlinside @smallsies @deliciouspeachpirate @newsies-is-my-erster 

Jack doesn't know what’s going on with himself, but he knows that he could really use his soulmate right about now.

They’ve communicated before. Never verbally, and never enough to reveal who they were. Perhaps they are both just... dealing with some unspoken fears, dealing with the worry of rejection sitting heavy in their chests. Perhaps they both like this mystery- the uncertainty that came with the notes scrawled across their bodies in a handwriting that isn’t their own.

Or perhaps they just aren’t ready to take the plunge. To grow up and face the harsh fact that, as soon as they meet, wherever and whenever that may be, a new chapter of their life will unfold. Consume them. Change anything and everything they’ve ever known or held dear.

They had been braver when they were children, that much was true. Jack remembers staying up late often, writing notes on his skin and watching in awe as the replies appeared. He remembers the giddy rush of trying to quickly wash off the ink on his wrist when they ran out of space to talk, and, oh, how they talked. There were school days when Jack would go to class exhausted, feeling like he’d been walking through quicksand for miles on end, but all of it had been worth it. The exhaustion he felt had been worth being able to talk to them until two, three, four in the morning. Sometimes he regretted it, of course, but only because it was harder for him to focus in class. Never because he was upset at them.

He could never be upset with them.

Even now, Jack remembers a lot about his soulmate. They liked music. They knew how to play the piano. They were into a few video games, even some that Jack had never played, and said that they always tried carrying a book with them wherever they went. Jack remembers that, as a younger kid, they liked Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, but also liked analyzing Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe and a bunch of other fancy authors that Jack had never even heard of. They were intimidatingly smart, and sometimes, would carefully correct Jack’s grammar whenever he misspelled a word or something- but they were never mean about it, they were just… there. A steady presence that he could count on.

Fifteen year old Jack dreamed of finding them one day. But now, twenty-five year old Jack is losing hope.

He can’t exactly help it. For starters, he and his soulmate haven’t communicated in… well, shit, it had to be nearly a year. Maybe nine months or so, but there’s no way to tell for sure, and even then, their conversations since reaching adulthood have been dull, for lack of a better word. A few positive comments here, a ‘have a good day’ there- it’s all so mundane, and neither of them can be blamed for it. They both have busy lives- or, well, Jack does, at least. His job as a graphic designer is hard enough on its own, but the added pressure of doing freelance work and commissions on the side has been eating away at him for weeks, coupled with debilitating self-doubt and lack of motivation for… anything.

Saying that he’s overwhelmed is the understatement of the century.

There is always another design, another client, another meeting, another deadline, another sleepless night as he stares at a blank canvas and prays for a spark of inspiration from whatever God is listening. Usually his inspiration comes from the world around him- his friends, city life, even the quiet confines of his apartment, but right now... Jack is stuck. He had holed himself up in his room days ago, trying and failing to get out of bed every morning when the time came to work- and thank God that the majority of his work could be done from home. His boss was understanding, too, to an extent.

Still, though, there’s a constant heavy weight on his chest that prevents him from moving most days, and he’s lucky if he even gets up long enough to shower or eat or do literally anything aside from lie in silence and count the cracks in his ceiling.

Nothing had happened to him recently to bring this on, from what he can tell. Jack has always been the happy-go-lucky leader, the man with a plan, the guy who always knew just what to say to motivate others into doing the best thing for themselves, but when that responsibility is reflected back onto himself, Jack feels helpless. There are words waiting to be said, sketches waiting to be drawn, designs waiting to be sent to clients… yet Jack lies there, motionless in his room for three days before he even has the energy, the willpower, to pull back his curtains and allow the sunlight to shine through. There is so much he wants to do, so much he needs to do, but he can't bring himself to do any of it.

In all twenty-five years of his life, through all of the things he’s been through, the ups and downs and foster homes and graduations and birthdays and funerals and therapists and rehab facilities and whatever the fuck else life decided to throw at him, Jack has never felt so worthless, so… lonely. His closest friends are all moving on with their lives. Many have already found their soulmate, have settled down and hidden their rowdy, rambunctious pasts behind skeletons in a closet. They’d all gotten their adventures done and over with in high school and college, and most are moving onto bigger and better things in life. They have careers. Families. Some have children, others have pets, a few have an insane amount of plants to care for.

All have seemingly left Jack behind in the dust.

No one told him when to flip the switch.

No one told him when he had aged out of adventure.

Now, they would never say it, but Jack knows. He knows. Saturday hangouts and trips to the bar had been replaced by Sunday church services and playdates for the kids. Rather than hearing yelling from his living room after his friends had all been teetering just on the edge between tipsy and fucked up, Jack hears the news, and documentaries, and podcasts, and the ghosts of a past life that he still seemed to be desperately clinging on to.

Katherine had been the one to tell him that he needed to grow up, though she didn’t put it in such a blunt manner. No, she’s just.... gently urging him to find a bigger apartment, or buy matching furniture from a place that is not a thrift store, or purchase dishes that weren’t of the plastic Walmart brand. She says it was because she wants to see him in a more professional, "adulty" lifestyle, but he knows it’s really because she can see that he’s a mess.

Deep down, Jack knows she’s right. She’s always right.

He just can’t help but feel cemented in place, dreaming of the past while dreading the new future ahead of him.

Jack never asked to feel so broken for no reason. All of the hope and optimism he had felt as a teenager was gone, lost in a sea of uncertain plans and shitty jobs and bill extensions and canvases dropped onto the floor with no rhyme or reason. And, yes, maybe Jack would look dramatic to someone who didn’t know his situation, but Jack knows what dramatic feels like. Dramatic feels like watching his best friend, Charlie, belt onstage in front of a backdrop that he helped create for the school play. Dramatic feels like laughing at the top of his lungs while walking through a random gas station at two in the morning, joined by Race and Al, all while higher than a kite. Dramatic feels like driving to the outskirts of the city with Katherine, climbing onto the roof of an old building and screaming about all of their stress, their anxiety, their insecurities, just to have some form of emotional release.

Dramatic doesn’t feel like sadness. It’s not supposed to.

Not for Jack.

He had been so… so happy, as a teenager. Proud and defiant and carefree. He was the kind of guy to skate and smoke weed in Central Park until midnight and take a math test at eight in the morning the next day. He was the kid who stood on a table in the cafeteria and came out as bisexual to everyone around him, just because of a dumbass bet that he didn’t even get paid for. He was the boy who wasn’t at all good in an academic sense, but who always knew how to talk himself out of trouble, who always came up with the most ridiculous- or most believable- lies to cover his ass when he needed it, who was always the class favorite, the teacher’s pet without meaning to be.

Jack had felt on top of the world back then, but now he’s struggling to even get off of the ground. The longer time goes on, the more lost Jack feels inside his own life. He feels like something was missing, something big. Something bigger than himself.

When his mother was alive, which now felt like lifetimes ago, she would often echo this old wives’ tale about how it’s best to find your soulmate while you’re younger, just to save them- and yourself- the pain of being alone for a long time. Jack had always kind of believed her; logically, he knew it was true, but he had always told himself that it wouldn’t happen to him. That he would be fine alone, though it wouldn’t be ideal, and that he would have plenty of time for soulmates after he got out and made a name for himself.

He’s starting to think, though, that maybe she was right. Maybe Jack had waited too long to make a move, to make contact again, because now, he just feels nauseous even thinking about it.

Don’t get him wrong, he knows the negative effects of self deprecation and not taking his own mental health seriously, he’s been to rehab before, blah, blah, blah, but, fuck, how could he put his soulmate through something like this? This fucked up state of mind he has now. Jack can’t even imagine talking to Katherine about this, and Katherine had been his best friend for over a decade. He can’t just meet his soulmate now- it’s been too long, he’s too messed up, they won’t like him, they’ll hate him for not trying hard enough, and Jack will just end up alone again, wasting away in his bedroom because no one fucking cares. No one cares. He has nobody.

That’s not true. He has Medda, his mom, his savior, his impulse control, but the thought of telling her that everything is acting up again makes him want to scream. He has Tony, but Tony has Al, and Tony and Al have a kid- a sweet little five year old girl who calls Jack ‘Uncle Jackie’ and takes no shit from anyone. He has Katherine, but Katherine has her soulmate- this dude named Darcy, who Jack doesn’t have much of an opinion on because they just met, like, a month ago, and Jack hasn’t exactly been emotionally ready for a hangout session between the three of them. He also has Charlie, and Charlie has certainly seen him in worse times- like when Jack was kind of hooked on pills for the entirety their freshman year of college- but Charlie has grad school to worry about and Charlie would hate him if he bothered him with this.

Still, there are other people who would listen, probably. He could easily talk to Elmer, or Romeo, or Specs, or Jojo or Finch or Sean or a fucking therapist but that’s just it, isn’t it? If he talks, he burdens, and Jack Francisco Kelly would rather run himself into the ground than be a burden anyone.

So, he makes a vow.

He makes eye contact with his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’s gripping onto the sink, holding on for dear life, as he stares into his own sunken eyes. He takes in his appearance. Damp, messy hair, falling down to cover his forehead. Pale skin, which isn’t normal at all. Dark circles have taken their place around his eyes, and his smile- one of his favorite things about himself- is… nonexistent.

Distantly, Jack registers himself dumping a full bottle of ibuprofen into the sink. And then, he does the same thing with the bottle of melatonin from his medicine cabinet. The valium follows. He lets the water run for a long time. It's not that he doesn't trust himself- he'd done so, so good in rehab, and he doesn't even feel urges that often anymore- but it's better safe than sorry, especially since he's like... this.

This is not the Jack Kelly he’s used to anymore. This is not the Jack Kelly he wants to be.

But this Jack Kelly is the one who vows not to reach out. The one who vows to only answer when his soulmate is ready, and maybe not even then.

He doesn’t have to wait long, though.

Not when a heart appears on the back of his hand the next morning.

It’s there when Jack wakes up, and, honestly, it almost brings Jack to tears- but not necessarily for happy reasons. Sure, Jack wants to be happy. Who wouldn’t be happy after seeing something like this? A lopsided heart drawn in red ink, right on the back of his left hand- it was the definition of a symbol, of a romantic gesture, and Jack wants so badly to write back, to strike up conversation, to draw a goddamn heart, but… he can’t.

He can’t, and that’s horrible of him, and he knows it.

Right now, though… Jack can’t even work up the courage, the energy, to call his mom.

His soulmate, whoever they are, is going to have to wait.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #440

from a day or two ago.

Do you drink a lot of soda? I definitely do. :/ I'd lose weight so much easier if I could drop the habit. Are tomatoes the best food in the world? I don't like tomatoes unless they're very fresh and on a mayo and bacon sandwich. Have you seen The Blindside? I actually haven't. Do you have a favorite local pizza place? Not really. There's a place I like that isn't huge, but I don't have like, a serious passion for or loyalty to it. Would you date someone 10+ years older than you? Meh, I think ten years is my cut-off. Are you due for a haircut? For sure. >_< Are you dealing with any health-related problems right now? Yeah. Even with my APAP mask, because I apparently move it too much in my sleep, I'm struggling with my sleep apnea nightmares/terrors. Do your parents like the music you listen to? Most of it. Do your parents approve of your beliefs? Not all of them, no. How many different digital cameras have you owned in your life? How about cell phones? Cell phones, idk. I've had two "pro" cameras. Do you typically do your make up the same each time? Or do you like to change it up often? It's pretty much always the same. Who is the last person you were in a room with just the two of you? What were you doing? Mom. We worked together on my room. What do you usually order at Subway? Turkey, bacon, American cheese, pickles, banana peppers, and chipotle on I want to say Italian bread. How long is your mother’s hair? It's hard to say, because it's all poofy now versus wavy like before it had to be shaved off. Don't repeat it to her ever, but she has, uh... "old lady hair" now, ha ha. What is your favourite car brand? I don’t care. Whose chore is it to clean the bathrooms in your house? My mom does it. Pick your three favourite fruits. Strawberries, kiwi, and uhhh... apples. Or pineapple. Have you ever played Cards Against Humanity? Yeah. We used to play that a lot at Colleen's house on nights we had some drinks. Who were the last friends you went to hang out with? Oh jeez, idk. I haven't hung out with a friend in a long time. How many chairs are in the room you’re currently in? Zero. I'm in my bedroom. Are you bored right now? I'm bored almost every waking hour of my days. Have you ever seen a pelican in real life? I'm actually not sure. What’s important about April? My younger sister's birthday is in April. Is there anyone who hates you? Jason probably does. Would you consider adoption? Not for me personally. What’s the largest animal you’ve ever had as a pet? Our late boxer mix. Do you own any kind of helmet? No. Do you ever put fruit on your cereal? Noooo. How do you usually celebrate your favorite holiday? My younger sister comes over here and we open our presents with Mom, who also cooks a nice breakfast. We then go to my older sister's house for the day to watch the kids open presents from their extended family. I say "extended" because the kids obviously aren't going to wait for us to get there to open the majority of their gifts from their parents, ha ha. What’s a few facts about the last person that talked to you? She's from New York, has five kids, has survived cancer (one almost advanced to a fatal level) twice, she loves owls, and recently graduated with her bachelor's in social work (it's never too late, people). What would happen if you had a baby with the last person you kissed? We're both cisgender females. Where is the biggest scar on your body? It's probably where I had a cyst removal, which is in a spot I can't see. Would you date someone who was addicted to drugs? Absolutely not. I am NOT getting involved in that. If you could go back and change something in the past 5 months, would you? I'd go to the gym sooner. Have you ever kissed anyone with a tattoo? Hmmm... I think Tyler actually may have had a The Legend of Zelda tattoo? I can't really remember. If not him, then no. Have you ever kissed someone you weren’t dating? No, but I've been kissed by someone I wasn't dating. Do you know anyone who drinks a lot? Yes. What were you afraid of the most when you were a kid? Being separated from/losing my mom. Do you like to make the first move? No. When was the last time you completely broke down? A few weeks ago when I was having a PTSD episode. Are you listening to any music? No; I'm watching Gab play Final Fantasy X. Is your hair long enough to put in a ponytail? No. Has someone ever told you they want to spend the rest of their life with you? Hm, it's funny, I don't see him anymore. Have you ever peed in the woods? No. Have you ever played Twister? Yeah, I liked playing it as a kid. Are you looking for a boyfriend//girlfriend? Not actively, no. I really don't need one right now. Out of all of your friends who have you gotten in the worst fight with? Of all friends I've EVER had, probably Colleen. Of the friends I still have, maybe Sara. What is the last microwaveable meal you had? I've been on a SERIOUS grilled chicken pesto kick lately. Mom buys these small Healthy Choice (or some brand like that) bowls that you put in the microwave and then pour the noodles and chicken into the sauce after and mix, and oh my GOOOOOOOOOOOD it is so good. What would you consider a talent of yours? Assuming the worst out of every imaginable situation. If Hogwarts was a real place and you were able to attend, what class do you think you’d excel at? According to those little quizzes I've taken, I lean mostly towards Hufflepuff, but with Gryffindor traits as well. Would you rather learn more about space or more about the ocean? Well, ideally, space, but I think learning much more about our ocean would be more beneficial to our planet and our prosperity on Earth. Do you have a mental illness? If yes, how have you learned to cope with it? If no, do you ever suspect you may have one? I have a lot. My bipolarity, OCD, and PTSD are *mostly* under control, but I most certainly still have trouble sometimes. My anxiety and AvPD are still rabid fucking hounds. My depression was well-managed not even that long ago, but life circumstances have it so it's been more aggressive than what was usual. Do you have a favorite character from The Avengers? I dunno, I like Loki ig. Thor is cool, too. It's been WAY too long since I've seen that movie. What type of cake would you like right now? Double chocolate cake sounds great rn. @_@ What was your dream job when you were a child? Are you going after that dream or not? Why? Paleontologist, and no, because I don't want to travel for work, and I could also never handle the heat during site excavations. Even though it may not work all the time, what usually helps make you feel better when you’re upset or down? Watching one of my comfort series on YouTube from channels I enjoy. Why do you personally take surveys? It's a method to just get all these thoughts out of my head and to vent when I need to without actually directly burdening someone with my problems. No one has to read 'em. It's purely for my benefit, and also to pass the time, which I have too much of. Are there any words that you can’t stand? Derogatory terms for certain groups of people. What are words that you love? Words like "serendipity," "bliss," joyous, bubbly words. I'm blanking on actual terms. If you had an endless supply of money for clothing only, what would you load your closet with? Ohhhh, lots of shit with studs and spikes. :') I've wanted a studded leather jacket since I was in middle school. Have never gotten one because of how pricey they are. :( I'd also get some KILLER boots and just obtain a more gothic wardrobe. I'd love corsets too if my body ever shrinks back to a point I'd be comfortable wearing well-made ones. What is your favorite type of cookie? Chocolate chip. What is your favorite type of candy? Strawberry Sour Punch Straws. What color would you like to paint your nails next? I don't paint my nails. Realistically, they probably won't be 'til my entirely hypothetical wedding, in which case they'll probably be black. What do you think is creepy that society accepts as normal? Urinals, alsdkfja;klwejr. Like I get men's bathrooms give the option of using a stall, but still... side-by-side urinals are so weird and a breach of privacy to me. What is the silliest secret about yourself that you sometimes feel the need to hide? That I enjoy forum RP. I tell NOBODY because I fear being judged and found as weird. Like seriously, in my "real" life, maybe two people know. What do you think is a good date other than dinner and a movie? I want a picnic date really bad kalj;dkl;jwe. Do you dread certain days of the week? If yes, what day/s and why? No. They're all very similar. Do you ever give money to homeless people? No, admittedly. Mom instead likes to sometimes offer them bottles of water or if she's really feeling generous, a cheap meal at like McDonald's or something. She doesn't like to hand out money because, well, we know what a vast majority of homeless people spend it on. Do you like to brag or are you modest? I get really uncomfortable bragging, so I try to be as modest as I can be. What your favourite thing to have on toast? I love giving it a light toast, then adding a thin layer of butter, cinnamon, and sugar. It's bomb. Do you know how to surf? Would you ever like to learn? No to either. If you eat oatmeal, do you have it plain or do you have certain toppings that you like to add to it? I love sprinkling some sugar in there. Would you prefer to spend time with your whole family all at once, or would you rather quality time with one family member at a time? Depends on what I feel up to, but I tend to enjoy family time as a group more. That way, I don't have TOO much pressure to be constantly social. I can just listen sometimes. What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever heard somebody say in their sleep? I have no idea. I worry what people have heard ME say/scream in my sleep. Do you own a pair of slippers? Yeah, they're meerkat ones! :') Choose one: Butterfinger, Milky Way, Snickers: Absolutely a Milky Way. Who was the last person to comment you? My mom. I'm cool, I swear. How many arguments have you had with the last person you kissed? A lot over all these years, but I'd say that's normal when you've been friends since you were 8 and 10. Do you know anyone who has been arrested? Yes. What are you planning on doing after this? When I'm done taking this survey, I'll probably either go to bed or play a bit of WoW. Idk. Will you be up before 7 am tomorrow? I have my alarm set for 7, actually. Ever been the only one trying to fix a relationship? Mhmmmm. -_- What was the last bad thing that happened to your phone? The case that came with the phone got a big crack in it. Have you ever been with someone while they were throwing up? Absolutely not. I would start vomiting. I can't handle the sound or the act in general. Have you been to the beach this year? No; I haven't been in a long time, and I am noooot complaining. Have you ever skipped school just because you were tired? Yes. Are you tan? God no. Do you own any leather? No real leather, no. I never would. Have you ever bought a shot glass? No. Do you have a therapist? Yes. We actually just talked today. Well, technically yesterday. What’s the worst name your mom has ever called you? I don't know. She doesn't really call me bad names. Have you ever listened to Christian music? Not of my own volition, but I've heard it because of other people controlling the radio. Are you the ‘creative child’? Yes, I'm considered that one. Did you like your life when you were in middle school? God no. That's when everything started going downhill. Have you ever been 'popular’? No. Has someone ever tried to convert you? Yes. Are you a fan of muffins? I LOVE muffins. What’s your most recent obsession? It's kinda chilled out now, but when Resident Evil 8: Village released, I was CRAZY over it. I watched SO many different let's plays of it. I think it's safe to say it beats out RE4 as my favorite installment.

[britts-galaxy-brain]

The Normalization of Toxicity

This will be my last post, and unless some miracle occurs within the greater Tumblr community, my last time on Tumblr in general. I’ve been thinking on giving some sort of final update for a while now just to get some things off my chest. This may be long and/or rambly. I will be linking some resources at the end of this post that have helped me tremendously over the past couple of years.

First off, I would like to express my utter disgust at what this website and by extension the fandom communities in general have devolved in to. I greatly underestimated just how out of control this beast had become. Before I got on Tumblr for the first time, I had heard the rumors but assumed they had been wildly exaggerated. How wrong I was, and yet I remained in denial during most of my time here, including when I was sharing information and speaking openly with people I should never have trusted. That is the only thing I feel I need to sincerely apologize to Lily for. Yes, what she has done and continues to do is reprehensible. Yes, everything I have shared about her is true and I have done my best to keep every bit of this sensitive information as accurate as possible. I absolutely should NOT have shared it with the people I did. All I succeeded in doing was feeding the beast, and contributing to the mental distortions and distresses that causes her to act the way she does in the first place. I did so with the best of intentions, albeit I was tainted with anger in such a way that I was denying at the time. I didn’t handle this well. I didn’t research the audience I was sharing this information with. That was a massive mistake which ended up producing the exact opposite results than what I hoped would happen (either Lily would see the pain she caused people and would be inspired to change for the better, or would be ousted from her position and be unable to hurt others). 

I stupidly believed the people who claim to care about this sort of thing were being genuine. They aren’t. These self-described ‘hunters’, at their core, mainly care about fueling the drama they use as an escape from their real life. The worst of them use it as a means to cover up their own closet skeletons and stroke their own egos. In the short time I was regularly involved with all of this, I witnessed an increasing amount of instances that have left me completely dumbfounded. Open predators are defended by some, while the ones who claim to want “justice” do nothing that would actually bring any sort of justice. These people are quickly forgotten within the internet’s short attention span, and they are left to continue to do what they do. People bandwagon around them, reducing the impact these people leave and making it harder for their actual victims to be taken seriously. It’s difficult to know how much of the dishonesty is intentional, or a result of moderate to severe uncontrolled mental illness. In Lily’s case, most of the conversations surrounding her involve debating her political and entertainment opinions rather than things she’s done that actually warrant discussion, and even that has been handled incredibly poorly and has just fed into her self-defenses. I do not excuse myself from feeding into it as well.

On the topic of mental illness, I realized a hard truth during my hiatus. The things we use most as coping mechanisms are actually harming us. I quit social media entirely for a few months, and realized I really was addicted. I also realized the memes and self-deprecating jokes we think are cathartic and helpful are feeding into these negative feelings about ourselves. They reinforce the identities we’ve built around ourselves. “Being trash”, “depressed”, ect become a comfort zone because that is what becomes familiar. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not railing against social media in general, just how we’ve been using it. Think about the last time you scrolled your Facebook feed, or whatever you spend a lot of time scrolling on. You automatically relate to and maybe even laugh at self-deprecating images and jokes. “Hah, I’m so fucking depressed.” “Hah, I’m garbage.” “Hah, I have no friends.” “Hah, I want to kill myself.” Now think about when you see something positive. “Psh, that’s not me.” “I don’t deserve that.” “I’m actually ugly, but okay.” You push against anything positive because on a deep level, it scares you. It threatens the identity you’ve built around yourself, which is the thing that gives you a sense of grounding to the world around you and the role you play in it.

I was an absolute MESS when I first started challenging my own darkness. I hadn’t realized just how deep I had gone. I was horribly paranoid. Angry. Deeply depressed. My memory is still recovering from the several years of constant extreme stress I went through. I’m finally getting stable, which is genuinely the first time in my life I can say that. It felt fucking weird for a while, and it still does at times. It feels strange being comfortable in my own home. It feels uncertain but great that I’m at a point where I can afford my bills and still have some money left over. I’m finding interest in old and new hobbies. I have real goals for the future that I am actively working toward. I have a support system that cares about me enough to tell me the truth instead of enabling my bad habits and behaviors, and it took a long time for me to trust that they truly had my best intentions at heart. 

It has been one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced. I had to break and completely reshape myself. It has taken daily maintenance, practice, research, ect and I have gotten lazy and fallen off the wagon multiple times, but I absolutely refuse to let myself go back to where I was. Never again. It has cost me quite a few people that I thought were friends, and most of my family. I’m still not quite where I want to be with myself, but I’m taking steps to get there and I feel like I’m making real progress. 

I guess the point to this is to hopefully send out a message of hope to those of you who want to get out of the dark, and are ready to do so. There are ways to heal, and you deserve that, regardless of your past or what other people have said about you. It’s never too late and it’s okay to hurt and grieve during this process. It isn’t easy, it can take quite a while and a LOT of willpower, but it is doable. 

I may check back at some point to see if anyone has any questions or would like advice, but I won’t be discussing Lily any longer, nor will I be resharing any information about her. It’s out there in multiple places if you really want to find it. 

That’s all for now. I wish you all the best and hope this reaches someone. - Thought Bubble https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpuqYFKLkcEryEieomiAv3Q - Therapy in a Nutshell (licensed therapist specializing in anxiety, depression, attachment styles, and trauma-related mental illnesses. Uses neuroplasticity along with other therapeutic practices. This one has helped me the most.) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCybBViio_TH_uiFFDJuz5tg - Einzelganger (Philosophy channel with a focus on stoicism and individual existentialism.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiRiQGCHGjDLT9FQXFW0I3A - Academy of Ideas (Philosophy channel with a focus on self-mastery.)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-tLyAaPbRZiYrOJxAGB7dQ - Pursuit of Wonder (Philosophy channel with a focus on existentialism in relation to the world as a whole.)