#onions make the world go ‘round………

[deathishauntedbyhumans]

starting a collection of oddly specific posts where ppl prove their humanity over an onion

[that-one-moth]

Hehe… onions..

I saw a meme about onions tonight and I was so captivated by the beauty of the humble red onion I knew I had to draw one immediately

[heavenbarnes]

need our simon to come home from deployment IMMEDIATELY 🫶🏼 | p1 p2 p3 p4

your older bf!simon comes home from deployment at dinner time on a tuesday.

herb alpert on the kitchen radio, knife tearing through a bunch of parsley, garlic and onion simmering on the stove behind you.

simon can hear it- smell it through the mail flap.

smells like home.

your ears prick at the sound of the door swinging open, the hinges alerting you to a secondary presence. back tensing for just a moment before you hear steps you could pick out in a lineup.

he sees your fluffy slippers first, then your little shorts, then his t-shirt. finally, he’s met with wide eyes and the kitchen light hits the curve of your face so nicely.

simon could cry.

you already were.

“oh my god, si”

he doesn’t really want to touch you with his outside clothes, tactical gear smelling like the back of a cargo plane and you’re so soft and lovely he’s afraid he might mess it all up.

but there’s nothing stopping the way you leap at him across the kitchen and swing your entire self around him and he’s forgetting what he’s wearing and he’s wrapping his arms around you like he knows you won’t break.

his tongue is immediately in your mouth and he’s taking one gasping breath and filling his nose with the scent that’s overwhelming him.

simon realises right then that the house smells like dinner but you smell like home. you are home. he’s home.

when he finally lets you let him go you’re telling him to leave all his gear by the washer and you’ll sort it all out tomorrow but right now he needs to sit down so you can feed him.

he’s back in the kitchen with a sweatshirt and shorts on and he’s never found his own clothes so comfortable. maybe it’s because he can smell you on the fabric.

you’d only been cooking enough for one but at this point, you’re so happy to have him home that you’re plating up the whole thing for him as he sits at the dining table.

his chair scrapes back along the floor and he’s patting his thigh, simon eats his tea with you curled up in his lap telling him everything he’d missed.

apparently, old-mate next door broke up with his missus and it was quite the scene.

apparently, they finally finished the roadworks on the junction at the end of your street and there was no longer a blur of orange cones on the drive to work.

apparently, there was going to be a barbecue at the house down the street and the two of you were invited. you might make a salad to take with.

you could’ve been reading him the phonebook and simon would be a happy man. his hand was holding under your thigh and your face was in the crook of his neck.

he was home.

dishes done (together) and tea steaming on the coffee table in front of him, simon isn’t sure this couch has ever been this plush. he could melt into it, as long as it was just like this.

bare feet up on the ottoman and one arm wrapped around your side as your head lay against his chest. you could hear his heartbeat and he could hear the football you’d recorded for him whilst he was away.

deployment was fucking rough, seen and done things he didn’t even want to think about. but this is what he comes home to.

you.

you who curls up in his lap and idly twirls the drawstring of his shorts round your finger.

you who offered up all of your food to him to fill the pit that’d been growing in his stomach over the weeks.

you who couldn’t give less of a fuck about the football on tv but watches in quiet contentment for the sake of being closer to him.

you who doesn’t ask once about what happened while he was away but will always listen without judgement if he needs to get something off his chest.

ideally, simon would like to give you the world in return. then again, he doesn’t think even that’d be enough.

instead, he takes you up to your shared bed and, miraculously, he doesn’t fall asleep as soon as his back touches the mattress.

he could, very easily, but instead he pulls you down on top of him and gets his lips back on yours. the kiss when he came through the door had been passionate but it’d been fleeting.

simon had kept it like that, knowing if he spent a second longer with your tongue on his then he’d have you over the kitchen bench and that wasn’t what he wanted.

really, he wanted this. the full weight of you on top of him and your hips rolling messily against his as his hands went up underneath your his shirt.

he wanted to run his fingertips along your bare back and feel skin so soft he almost couldn’t remember the things his hands had done just last week.

he wanted to map out every spot, every freckle, every ridge across your shoulders and commit it to memory so the next time he had to up and leave he could trace you like a constellation in the night sky.

truthfully, simon didn’t want to leave next time. he wanted to get the call from price and tell him that he was sorry but he couldn’t do it any longer. he now had something- someone to live for and he just couldn’t gamble odds like he used to.

he wasn’t entirely sure he’d still hold the sentiment on the other side of blowing a load so simon put those thoughts in the back of his head and decided he’d work them out on tomorrow morning’s run.

right now, simon felt the soft skin of the inside of your cheeks and your spit tastes like the nectar those gods harped on about and he’s pulling hard on your hips as he rolled something hard between them.

you were moaning, whimpering, whinging into his mouth while you ground yourself into the hard line of his cock. raging erection didn’t even cover it and his head was tipping back as a-

yawn, deep and all consuming broke from his throat.

simon was fucking knackered.

exactly what he didn’t want to happen was happening in front of him, you were sitting up and cooing at him so fucking sweetly.

“si, you’re exhausted- we’ll go to sleep”

strong grip around your waist was anchoring you to the spot so you couldn’t climb out of his lap like you were currently trying.

“sweet’art”

you could hear it in his voice, he couldn’t even lift his head off the pillow. you conceded, however, letting him rub soft little circles into your hips.

“jus’ gimme’ one and then we’ll sleep”

laying back down against his chest, you felt the air woosh out of him as you relaxed your body on his. face fitting into the crook of his neck like you were made for him (you were) with a hand running along his collarbone.

“we’ve got tomorrow”

you knew it was futile, he was already slipping your shorts to the side. head tilting just a little to press a kiss to the top of your head.

“and i need you tonight”

settled.

you felt one large hand lift you up as his other freed his cock out his shorts. just enough, just enough to get the job done because any extra effort was going to render him unconscious.

bringing a hand to his mouth, he spit in his palm quickly before rubbing it along the head of his cock. deep groan rumbled beneath you as you felt him pressing against your entrance.

“lift y’top up, sweet’art- wanna’ feel y’on me”

you did him one better, leaning up enough to slip the shirt over your head and onto the floor. forcing him to hold his arms up for just a second, you pulled his sweatshirt off and discarded it in the pile.

bare chest to chest, you could feel simon shudder beneath you. snaking one arm under his armpit and the other around his ribs, you snuggled in tight as you felt him slip right in.

that’s all he wanted.

weeks of photos, videos, imagination to go off of. this was all he ever wanted. you so close to him that it was entirely possible to imagine the two of you as one. that there was no version of reality without you together in it.

lazily rolling his hips up into you as you met him halfway, rolling yours back down to share half of the load. simon’s arms wrapped around your back, keeping you close and keeping you moving against him.

“sorry love, s’not gonna’ be a long one”

you could only respond with a whimper, gently nodding your head into his neck as your lips press soft little kisses into the skin. you didn’t need a long time, you just needed him.

unable to help yourself from noticing the couple new scratches he’d come home with, your fingers idly traced along them as he sucked in a breath at the feeling.

what you wouldn’t give to keep him home and keep him safe.

a thought for another day as you felt yourself constricting around his cock, grinding yourself into his lap as firm muscle rubbed against your front.

tiny little gasps flitted from your mouth and into his ear, you could feel his body tensing up beneath you. it wasn’t just with sheer tiredness, you knew this man like the back of your hand.

left hand coming out from under where you’d buried it behind his back, you ran the tips of your fingernails down simon’s chest. you stopped at his nipple, gently scraping along the peaked flesh until you heard him.

“need y’to cum right now f’me please”

slipping your other hand between the two of you, you let your fingers wander against yourself until you could feel the tide breaking in the pit of your stomach.

body clenching involuntarily, your mouth dropping open against his skin. no doubt drool pooling against his collarbone as you came with a pathetic whimper. hips bucking a little crazy in his lap as his hand ran the length of your back.

“god that’s it, sweet’art”

simon went rigid, gripping you tight like you might go somewhere as the dams broke and he filled you up. hot and sticky and dripping out of you and onto the waistband of his shorts.

he fell so still the only way you’d know he was still alive was the rise and fall of his chest beneath you. his arms were already starting to fall limp around you.

coming back from the bathroom, slipping off the rest of your clothes and adding them to the pile. simon wasn’t asleep, there were no snores, but he had been rendered totally immobile.

pulling the remainder of his clothes off for him and settling in beside, you pulled the sheets up over the both of you as his arm began drawing you in.

draped across him, you could feel his lips pressing against the crown of your head.

“m’gonna’ rock y’world in the morning”

you snorted a little laugh, nuzzling in closer as his breathing starts to even out. no use in replying, snorings about the only answer you’re going to get.

not that you’d mind.

he was home.

[queenimmadolla]

I imagine eddie would have a little family time kid friendly valentines with the reader on one day and an adults only, ship the kids off somewhere valentines another day

What gifts or things do you think would happen on that day

Id imagine reader would wake up eddie by dressing the kids up as cherubs and attacking him with rubber sucker arrows to shoot at him

🦊

Family friendly Valentine’s Day is in the morning, After Hours (bow chicka bow wow) Valentine’s Day is from the evening and all through the night 😏 while the kids are sleeping over with grandpa Wayne and Maude.

I like the way you think and that’s very cute, reader buying the kids pairs of wings to wear and those annoying ass toy Cupid bow and arrows and then releases them into the bedroom to assault Eddie. It makes for a really good home movie and pictures for the family album.

Eddie OF COURSE was prepared and had to hide all of the gifts he got in the van because not a single person in the house, including reader, can be trusted not to go snooping. Eddie gets the girls and Wayne (his little Ferdinand 🥺) flowers, called into a floral shop weeks in advance to place the order and while reader absolutely loves her roses, seeing penny and wayne’s reaction to getting them is like the best thing in the world. They get all shy and happy about having received something so special, and their bouqets are significantly smaller than reader’s but it doesn’t matter; Wayne’s got his nose in his daisies, sniffing away for the rest of the day, and Penny lets reader help make hers into a flower crown, so she can wear it the entire day. They also gorge themselves on chocolate and candy, which reader isn’t happy about but Eddie couldn’t not buy some for them! Besides, the inevitable sugar high will be big Wayne’s problem.

Penny and Wayne will have made homemade Valentine’s cards that say something along the lines of “congraz” (Wayne, still says ‘happy birthday’ for most holiday greetings and gets confused with them all so it’s a congratulations from him this time). And Penny’s are just amusing (‘Happy Valentine’s Day, daddy! I gots no monies so this is what you get, i love you ps get me flowers and member i dont like white choclet’ and ‘Happy Valentine’s Day, mommy! You are my valentine now, not daddys but you can kiss daddy on the lips, but i saw hims eat some onions one time and they are stinky good luck”)

BUT, Eddie has plans for him and Reader, so the kids are pawned off to Wayne and Maude, reader is whisked away to a romantic dinner and then brought home for some very much needed alone time. They share a couple of joints on the porch, he gives her a foot massage because her feet ache a little from the heels she wore to dinner, they talk about their life; where they are in it, what they thought they’d be doing by then and how happy they are regardless, then they move things into the bedroom. Put those cuffs, Eddie now has to hide, to good use. Spend the rest of the night fucking like rabbits well into early morning, nearly depleting the box of condoms in the night stand. In between rounds, Eddie and reader finish off the leftovers from their dinner in bed when the munchies kick in, sharing a bottle of water, lounging around naked, talking about everything under the sun—weed induced peculiar thoughts, of course—and enjoying each other’s company. It’s reminiscent of the early days of their relationship, before the jobs, before the kids, before any of the responsibilities, when they were just teenagers.

Come morning light, you’ll have to go get your kids and slip back into the roles of mom and dad, which the two of you are more than happy to do, but it’s also nice to play a little pretend for the night.

Happy belated Valentine’s Day! 🩷

(P.s. part of the Pennyverse for any new readers ♡)

[najia-cooks]

[ID: A plate of leafy greens topped with two blue chicory flowers; second photo is a close-up on a flower. End ID]

هندبة بالزيت / Hinda b al-zayt (Palestinian wild greens with olive oil)

“هندبة” (“hindba”), “هِنْدِبَاء” (“hindibāʔ”), or هِنْدَب (“hindab”) is an Arabic word referring to chicory, wild endive, or dandelion greens.

Two Palestinian dishes are commonly made using hindba. One isهندبة بزيت (hinda b zayt), hindba with [olive] oil, which combines blanched greens with browned onion, lemon juice, and (of course) olive oil. Lebanese hindba is similar, consisting of greens prepared in the same way, but topped with sliced, caramelised onions. The other preparation of hindba is with a dressing made with tahina (tahini), lemon juice, chili, and sometimes garlic or yoghurt.

This recipe is for hindba with onion and olive oil. The dish is simple to make but has a lot going on, flavor-wise. Slow frying renders the onions tender, sweet, and jammy, balancing out the slight bitterness of the greens. The rich, peppery, fruity taste of good olive oil rounds out the earthiness of chicory, while lemon juice provides brightness and lift.

Several food aid organizations have been forced to discontinue operations in Gaza. Some of those still on the ground are:

Palestinian Red Crescent Society

World Central Kitchen

Anera

Ingredients:

2 bunches (130g) chicory or dandelion leaves

1 large yellow onion, chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

Olive oil

Salt, to taste

Instructions:

1. Boil chicory in salted water for 5-7 minutes, until tender, then drain. If using dandelion greens, boil for 10 minutes. (The boiling water is potable, but probably too bitter to be palatable.)

2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet on medium-low. Add onion and a pinch of salt and fry until softened and golden brown, 10-15 minutes.

3. Squeeze the water out of the greens and chop into about 1/2" (1cm) pieces. Add to the pan and fry until wilted.

4. Taste and adjust salt. Add lemon juice to taste.

Serve hot or cold, topped with good olive oil. Eat hindba by scooping it up with khubbiz al-kmaj (pita).

Identifying chicory:

Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) is also in the Astaraceae family. Stems are grooved and slightly hairy; woody and branched; multiple flowers usually grow along one stalk. Leaves are smooth or irregularly toothed, pointed at the tip, and may have different appearances at different parts of the plant. The leaf midribs are green or reddish. The leaves you want are the larger ones growing in a bunch towards the base of the stem.

This plant has some leaves with larger teeth.

Smaller, lanceolate leaves grow in alternate sides along the stem.

Flowers are light blue to lavender and finely toothed; there are two rows of darker bracts in the center of each flower.

In the fall, the leaves often remain while the flowers and stalks have died, leaving a brown, branching, skeletal structure behind.

Identifying dandelion:

See hinda b al-tahina.

[mortiskiller]

How I Manage Food Costs as a Feedist

Preface: I often see people in this community post about struggling with food insecurity and managing food costs. These are just some tips that have helped me when I was down to the last few dollars and needed to eat for a few weeks. I understand circumstances are different for everyone, and some people struggle even with this level of food security, I have been there. My intention is to help.

With food prices still high—often due to profit gouging—I’ve found ways to manage my food budget, and the secret is simple: **eat at home!** Growing up in extreme poverty with two working parents, eating at home was pretty much our only option, aside from takeout once every few months. My parents taught me the value of home cooking, and while it takes time to develop essential skills, Making sauces, learning how to prep and clean ingredients, cooking veggies, preparing meats, etc., once you have them, there’s a whole world of recipes within reach.

Here’s how I manage food costs, and how you can too:

1. Weekly/Monthly Shopping Essentials

Start with the basics—items you’ll need to shop for regularly to cover your meals for a week or two. Building a pantry depends on the storage space you have, but here are some key ingredients to keep on hand:

- Milk (1 to 2 gallons, depending on your choice—I go with 1%)

- Eggs (18 count)

- Bread (1 loaf) (I also recommend tortillas as they last longer than bread and can be used for nearly any bread needs)

- Rolls or Croissants (If you shop at a bulk store, you can get a dozen for $6.)

- Fruits: Change with the season, but apples, oranges, and grapes are solid year-round choices. In the summer, throw in some berries and stone fruit.

- Veggies for Prep: Stick to simple, versatile veggies like green bell peppers, zucchini, onions, potatoes, and chilies.

- Butter: Unsalted sweet cream butter is my favorite! Go for sticks instead of tubs for a better per-unit cost.

- Leafy Greens: A bag of spinach or romaine hearts

- Cheese: Shredded cheese works best and if you want to save more, buy a block and slice or shred it yourself.

These staples give you a variety of flavors, textures, and nutrition to build meals around, whether you’re whipping up sides, salads, or more complex dishes.

2. Protein, Protein, Protein!

Protein is an essential part of a healthy diet, but you don’t need to overdo it or overspend. I’ve found that chicken and tofu are some of the most affordable and versatile protein sources available (unless you’re hunting your own!). Both freeze well and can be used in a variety of recipes with different seasonings and marinades.

You can also look at beef, but stick to lean beef and fish as you do not want to pay for fat that will not end up in your food.

3. Shelf-Stable Items to Buy in Bulk

Buying in bulk can be a game changer, especially if you stock up on shelf-stable items. If you’re short on storage space, invest in an airtight tote to keep things organized. Start with common essentials like:

- Flour (Good ole AP with cover you most of the time)

- Sugar

- Baking Powder

- Baking Soda

- Brown Sugar

- Cooking Oil (I go for olive oil and canola oil)

These staples are the foundation of countless recipes and, when stored properly, can last for months or even a year.

4. Season Early, Season Often

Spices are what make food magical! You don’t need fancy brands—stick with basics that offer single-ingredient profiles. My go-to spices are:

- Salt

- Pepper

- Garlic Powder

- Onion Powder

- Thyme

- Oregano

- Paprika

- Cumin

- Cinnamon

- Chili Powder

- Vanilla Extract

- Bouillon Cubes

- Red Pepper Flakes

These spices will give you all the flavor you need to create a variety of meals without breaking the bank.

5. Canned Goods: The Unsung Hero

Canned goods are a staple in my kitchen. They offer consistent quality, low prices, and a long shelf life. Plus, they’re great for backup when fresh ingredients are low. Some key canned items to keep on hand are:

- Pinto Beans

- Crushed Tomatoes

- Tomato Paste

- Tomato Sauce

- Boiled White Potatoes

- Herring or Sardines

- Tuna

- Fruit Cocktail

- Peaches

- Pears

- Broth or Stock

These ingredients can help you create filling and versatile meals on a budget.

6. Where You Shop Matters

The store you shop at can make a huge difference in food prices. Here’s how to stretch your budget even further:

Bulk Stores: Invest in a membership at places like Sam’s Club, Costco, or BJ’s. The $100 yearly fee is usually paid for in savings after just a few trips. Protein, especially beef and fish, is almost always cheaper in bulk stores.

Walmart and Aldi: These stores are great for extras like frozen veggies, fresh produce, dairy items, and baked goods. Their prices are hard to beat!

Hope this helps and feel free to reblog or comment with your own tips and tricks!

Stick to Your List: One of the easiest ways to overspend and waste food is by shopping without a plan. Make a list, and stick to it. This will help keep your budget in check and prevent unnecessary purchases.

By following these steps, you can keep your food costs down while still eating healthy and delicious meals. The key is planning ahead, shopping smart, and keeping a well-stocked pantry!

[revasserium]

on the subject of birthdays - pt 1

ft. sakusa, daichi, suga, and tsukki

sakusa.

he thinks he should buy you flowers, even though he tells himself that he doesn’t know if you’ll be allergic to a specific kind of flower, so he spends too much time looking up the worlds most hypoallergenic flowers, before komori mentions that he could just buy you fake flowers, which will last longer anyway, and he entertains the idea for an entire afternoon before deciding against it because a) fake flowers will collect dust, and dust can trigger reactions too and b) what if you read too much into it and come to the conclusion that just because he bought you fake flowers, he didn’t deem you worthy of real, living flowers? no, no, no. a misunderstanding of such potentially catastrophic nature simply wouldn’t do. a stuffed animal then? no, those would collect dust too, and heaven knows you’ve already got enough. so a plant, still. but what kind? he lingers outside the local horticulture shop for so long the round-faced girl behind the counter wonders if she should call the cops before he finally goes in to inquire, “what kind of plant do you have that — that doesn’t have flowers and won’t die so easily?” to which she’d blinked and pointed, nonplussed at a group of succulents sitting on the windowsill. and this, he explains, in one long, hurried, mumbling under-breath is how he comes to be standing here, at your front door, on the morning of your birthday, sporting two pots of neatly trimmed succulents, looking vaguely abashed. “they — they’re easy to take care of, most people aren’t allergic and — and they won’t collect that much dust so…” he looks away, clearing his throat as heat crawls up his cheeks, “uhm… happy birthday. i guess.”

daichi.

he wakes up early — he cooks you breakfast; he doesn’t tell you about the hundred or so texts he’d sent the rest of his team trying to crowdsource what exactly to make you that day. there are flowers on the bedside table and a glass of your favorite juice on the breakfast tray and the apartment smells like cinnamon and waffles and the slightly burnt edge of toast. he wakes you up with a kiss, a smile, a whispered happy birthday; he doesn’t tell you about the three minutes he’d spent at the bedside, counting your even breaths like counting stars — one, two, three — twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two — he doesn’t tell you about the way he’d ghosted his finger along the bend of your cheek, bit his own lips as he bends down to kiss you, hesitating just a second to swallow back his heart, thudding at the back of his tongue, threatening to leap from his mouth to yours. your smile is radiant and sweet enough to evoke the jealousy of honey-bees as you open your eyes and see him, and he thinks that he might like to wake you up like this every day, birthday or not — because he’d never tire of kissing you awake, of beginning his day with the length of your smile.

sugawara.

he spends the whole day pretending that it’s a day just like any other, grinning over his morning coffee (thank god your birthday is on a weekend this year), nodding towards your cup, ready-made and steaming, one cream and two sugars, just like every other weekend morning you’d spent together. he hums as he flicks through his phone, asking what you’d like to do, interrupting you with a mild exclamation that “ah! we need to go grocery shopping! we’re out of onions and there’s only one sweet potato left!”, leaning down to give you a swift kiss before sweeping off to get changed, leaving you pouting at the dining table, wondering if your darling boyfriend had truly forgotten about your birthday. and so you go grocery shopping, and you’re preoccupied enough not to notice that he’s surreptitiously picking all your favorites, leading you through the ice cream aisle and making note of all the flavors you pause over. the early afternoon is spent dragging you around the farmer’s market, where you linger over the freshly picked flowers before he tugs you away without once asking if you’d like some. and by the time you both get back to your shared apartment, you’d made up your mind to at least remind him about it — it is your birthday after all. but the moment the front door opens, you’re greeted with an avalanche of glitter and confetti, a loud shout of “surprise!!!” making you nearly leap out of your skin. in the three seconds it takes you to realize what your boyfriend had done, he’d leaned down to press a sweet kiss to your cheek, tugging you into your own surprise party, decorated with all the flowers you’d lingered over, the fridge piled with all the ice cream flavors you’d just been looking at this morning. “c’mon, did you really think i’d forget your birthday? i just needed a bit of time to prepare is all! now, let’s get this party started!”

tsukishima.

he is caught between equal parts dread and excitement, because to be honest, he’d never quite understood the appeal of birthday parties. but then he’d seen how your cheeks glad glowed when the team had put up a party for hinata in the middle of summer, a handful of balloons and streamers in the locker rooms, and a good few pounds of well-cooked bbq meat — he’d seen the glitter in your eyes, the unabashed joy as your lips pulled up into a smile — and he’d never admit it out loud but he decided then that he’d do whatever it takes to make you smile like that for him. so when the day comes, he spends too long fretting, paces across the living room of his apartment (much to the barely disguised glee of his brother, who had thankfully offered to help drive around and gather all the things), scowling as yamaguchi shows up with the cake and the flowers, and kiyoko-senpai shows up with the balloons and the streamers and it irks him to no end to have so many people all at his house, but it was the only place he could’ve asked you to come without you questioning him about it but… the way you’d smiled when you stepped into the room to find them all there, to find the same balloons and the same streamers, to find the matcha layer cake next to a slice of strawberry short cake, to find him, standing there, twisting his fingers, his cheeks positively sizzling with heat… well. he thinks that it was worth it. but it isn’t till later, when all the guests have gone and all the cake’s been eaten, when it’s finally just you and him, curled up on his bed, you in his lap, his chin resting against the top of your head that he leans down to tug you to him, press a soft kiss to your lips, “there… been thinking about doing that all day.” but the way you blush when he pulls back has him smirking and dragging you down for another, and then another, his voice going dark as he smirks against the skin of your neck as he whispers, “so now that everyone’s gone… how about we get to your real present, hm?”

pt 2 ft. kageyama, hinata, & miya twins coming soon

hq! reqs are open :)

[piratekane]

one month.

It’s Ava who insists on a dinner schedule, citing the need for sharing responsibilities evenly. Beatrice is fine cooking. She finds the rote motion of the knife relaxing, the way the blade rocks back and forth as it dices onions and chops carrots. It gives her a way to clear her mind after a particularly grueling day of classes.

After a month of Beatrice cooking and a few nights where Ava convinces her to try new restaurants, ones she wouldn’t usually explore, Ava comes home from class and declares that Beatrice needs to teach her how to cook.

She would be annoyed that she’s being interrupted in the middle of watching a supplementary video on Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, but the movie itself was problematic. That and Ava has on a top with a polar bear wearing a pair of star sunglasses that she’s cut the bottom off of, so she gets distracted just long enough for Ava to capitalize on her silence.

“Think about it. You teach me to cook, I make us delicious foods.” Ava beams. “Win-win situation, right?”

Beatrice swallows, then frowns. “You don’t know how to cook?”

Ava drops her backpack down near the door, half in front of it so that if they needed to exit in case of an emergency, Beatrice would trip over the bag. She thinks about telling her to fix it. But Ava is already moving on, dropping her shoes just far enough from the shoe rack that they’re a nuisance if she tries to vacuum. Beatrice can’t find it in herself to be annoyed by either of these things.

It’s unchecked chaos in the world of order she’s created for herself, but Beatrice finds that her care for it is relaxing slightly. She still empties the sink at the end of the night, still adjusts the blankets on the couch after Ava has wandered off sleepily to bed, still piles up the recycling to take down in the next morning. She just also finds herself letting a pillow stay out of place overnight, or letting her coat drape over the back of the couch for a few hours before she hangs it up.

Ava doesn’t round the couch all the way before she’s dropping onto the cushion, using the arm of it as a slide down. Beatrice watches the way her legs and arms twist into complicated shapes before she finds a position she likes. Her shirt rides up just slightly. Beatrice’s finger skips on the play button and the video comes back to life before she pauses it again.

“I mean, no,” Ava admits. “There weren't a lot of opportunities for me to try.”

Right, Beatrice thinks. Ava had to fend for herself in ways that were different from Beatrice. 

“I think I could be really good. I have a good palette.”

Beatrice falters for a second. Last week, Ava thought mixing sugared marshmallow ducks and soda was a good idea. The thought of it made Beatrice’s stomach turn.

Ava must see her hesitation. “Okay, I could be good at it with a good teacher. And I think you’d be a great one.”

Beatrice feels herself blush. “I doubt it.”

Ava is already shaking her head like she knows what Beatrice was going to say. “No, I think you would be. You’re patient - more patient with me than anyone I’ve ever met, and I know I’m frustrating.” There’s a slight self-deprecating smile on her face that Beatrice wants to wipe away. “If anyone is going to be able to tolerate the thousand questions I have, it’s you.”

There’s something about knowing what Ava thinks about her that makes Beatrice feel like she’s doing something right. That makes her feel warm in a way she’s never felt before. It’s curious how quickly this feeling has rushed over her and taken up every corner of space in her mind. She can’t put words to it, her vocabulary suddenly shrinking in the face of Ava’s smile.

“I suppose…” she starts slowly.

Ava’s smile is quicker. “Yes!” She sits forward, elbows digging into her jean-clad knees. “Where do we start? Beef Bourguignon? Coq au Vin? Lobster Thermidor? Ratatouille? I really liked that movie.”

Beatrice shakes her head, her smile soft. “No. I don’t think I could even make most of that. Why don’t we start with something simple?”

Ava looks slightly let down, but shrugs off whatever conversation she’s having in her head. “Fine. We’ll work up to the Julia Child recipes.”

“How kind of you.”

“How about we make your favorite food instead?” Ava stands up and makes the slow walk across the apartment to where Beatrice is sitting, her laptop and notebook taking up most of the counter. Ava sinks into the seat next to her, her knee nearly touching Beatrice’s outer thigh. She drops her chin into her hand, propped up in the empty space. “What is it?”

Beatrice blinks. “My favorite food?”

Ava picks up her pen and idly doodles on an envelope she unearths from the small pile of mail Beatrice has been stacking up. Bills to pay. Beatrice watches her sketch out a flower with a wide stalk. “Yeah, your favorite food. We can do that.”

Her favorite food. She pauses a moment. What is her favorite food? What is the one thing she would pick every time?

The first thing that comes to mind is Marie, one of her family’s personal chefs. Beatrice can picture her in their large, sterile kitchen, a chef’s coat with her name stitched on the breast. She hadn’t minded Beatrice being in the kitchen like Tilda had, hadn’t chased her out like Jaques. She had poured Beatrice a cup of tea and asked about her day. It was a reprieve from the long silences that filled every other space in the house.

Beatrice had learned the difference between onions and shallots sitting on that kitchen table. She had tested the weight of different knives, something she was sure no other ten-year-old had ever done. Marie talked to her about the balance of salt and heat and acid. She let Beatrice peel potatoes, scrub carrots, prune the first layer of leaves on brussel sprouts. She taught Beatrice how to make her first knife cut and the importance of even dicing.

Beatrice carried those skills with her long after Marie was dismissed by her family. At twelve, it had felt like the end of the world. Her replacement, a brusque Russian man named Turov, hadn’t cared much for her presence and Beatrice didn’t care much for his okroshka. She stayed out of the kitchen after that.

Ava waits for an answer patiently - always patient, even as Beatrice stretches out silences as she struggles to find words no one has ever asked her for before now.

Beatrice thinks of Marie, thinks of sizzling pans and layered sauces and opens her mouth.

“Stir-fry.”

“Stir-fry,” Ava echoes. “You haven’t made that before.”

No, she supposes she hasn’t. “My family’s chef-” She stops herself. Ava doesn’t want to know her complicated history with her family’s chefs. 

But Ava nods encouragingly.

Beatrice takes a breath. “My family’s chef when I was younger. Her name was Marie. She taught me how to make stir-fry. Of course, she didn’t serve it to my parents. It was a meal for us.” She smiles a little, thinking about the way Marie would plate the dish for her - just like it was a five-star restaurant. “But I loved it.”

Ava's hand flutters in the air like she might reach out and touch Beatrice’s. Her stomach tightens at the thought. But then Ava merely pulls it into her lap and smiles.

“Do we need to go grocery shopping?”

“We’re doing this now?”

Ava looks at the clock on the microwave. “I’m starving.”

Beatrice can’t help but laugh. “It’s mid-afternoon.”

“Can’t we have a snack? I had a long day.”

She laughs again. “Ava, you had one class today.”

Ava pushes out her bottom lip miserably. “But it was with Soro and he’s a tyrant.”

Beatrice is already starting to stack her things into neat piles. “He teaches world literature. He’s hardly a tyrant.”

“He’s, like, a low-key tyrant. Not as bad as Sumbal, last semester. But still up there.” Ava hands Beatrice a highlighter.

“I never had Sumbal.”

Ava groans. “You’re lucky. He once took points off because I cited something from this century as a reference.” She passes Beatrice a stack of sticky notes and Beatrice takes them, tucking them carefully into her pencil pouch for later. “The point is, Soro was boring, I’m hungry, and you need a break from studying.”

Beatrice can’t help but be amused. Ava exaggerates, but in a way that she doesn’t find annoying. Just in simple ways. And usually to get what she wants. Beatrice finds, no matter how short of a time they’ve known each other, she wants to give what Ava is asking for. But then she’s never had a best friend like Ava before, someone who always seems to know her limits and stops just short of them, who only ever asks what she’s willing to give. 

And besides, she’s right; it is an important life skill.

So Bea puts away her study materials, despite only being an hour into a self-imposed two hour session. She’s already mentally calculating what they have in their refrigerator.

“We have things here, I think. Stir-fry is versatile. You can make it out of most anything.” Beatrice stacks her things against the wall, over the mail. “We should have some staples.”

“Do we have baby corn?” Ava asks hopefully. “They’re funny-looking.”

Beatrice opens one of the cabinets where they keep canned items. She pulls down one of them. “Baby corn.” She has to shuffle a few more around, until she finds the sliced water chestnuts too.

Ava jumps off her seat, pulling open the refrigerator. “What do we need from here?”

She focuses on finding the things she needs for the sauce. “Check the vegetable drawer. Pick whatever you’d like.”

While she collects the soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, oyster sauce and sesame oil, she listens to Ava hum something she doesn’t recognize. She likes the way it fills the silence - not that it’s an awkward one, the way it was with Gina. Speaking with Gina had always felt like a chore, and Beatrice did it the way she did all her chores: efficiently and with relief when it was over. Silence with Ava feels nice. Comforting, even. Knowing she doesn’t always have to be on in order to be interesting is relieving and addicting.

The vegetable drawer must have had more in it than Beatrice thought. Ava has onions, carrots, a bell pepper, broccoli, and sugar peas stacked on the counter. She grins at Beatrice.

“This enough?”

“More than.” She starts taking down bowls and pulls a wok out from the bottom shelf. Ava already has a cutting board out by the time she stands up. “Protein?”

Ava opens the refrigerator again. “Does chicken work?”

She was saving the chicken for baked chicken tonight, but that’s fine. She busies herself with opening the knife drawer and looking at the two chef’s knives she has. She wants a sharp blade, any chef’s best tool.

Beatrice carefully places the knife on the edge of the cutting board, blade angled away from Ava. It’s not that she doesn’t want to teach Ava; it’s just that last night Ava dropped a slice of bread from her hand and she tried to catch it with her foot. It’s just that a butter knife fell off the counter three days ago and Ava caught the blade in her hand.

Ava is, in a word, clumsy. 

In two words, she’s charmingly clumsy.

Ava seems to read her mind. She stills her whole body - Beatrice hardly noticed the way she was vibrating with excitement, so used to Ava’s normal state - and takes a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

“Have you handled a chef’s knife?”

“Nope.” Ava pops the p. “But I’m a quick learner.”

She is. She mastered rock climbing almost before anyone else. And she catalogs everything Beatrice tells her with lightning speed, repeating it back to her days later. But facts on religious artifacts can’t send you to the hospital. 

Rock climbing can, she reminds herself. And Ava did that okay.

“Fine.” Beatrice starts to roll up her sleeves. “First things first. Wash your-”

“Hands,” Ava finishes. She’s already turning on the water. “Happy birthday to you,” she sings quietly under her breath as she scrubs. When she finishes a second round of it, she smiles brightly as she turns to face Beatrice. “Next?”

Beatrice hands her a mixing bowl. “We’re going to make our sauce.”

She walks Ava through combining the different ingredients, hiding a wince when she adds a little too much soy sauce and correcting it by giving her a touch more sugar to mix in. Ava’s forearm muscles flex as she whisks the sauces together in sharp, quick, circular motions. Beatrice watches the way she moves. She is a quick learner, her hands adjusting to grip the bowl and wrapping around the whisk.

There’s something about Ava’s hands that Beatrice can never look away from. They move almost restlessly, always reaching out to touch something, to feel different things under the pads of her fingertips. She knows what Ava has told her. About the years where people touched her and she remained unable to do the same. She seems to be making up for lost time, Beatrice thinks. Ava’s always running her hands over the pillows on the couch, running her fingers around the handles of coffee mugs, twirling pens between her knuckles.

She’s always reaching and feeling and one day, Beatrice was struck with the strangest thought: what might happen if Ava reached out to touch her?

The thought had put a pause on the world. It was something she had never thought about before. Her friends touched her. Camila loved hugs hello and goodbye. Shannon always brushed a hand against her shoulder. Mary was known to give her an affectionate pat on the head every once in a while. Even Lilith, despite the look on her face whenever anyone seemed to get within five inches of her, was known to give a hug or two under dire circumstances. 

But Beatrice went so long without any kind of physical interaction that she had to learn what it felt like to have someone’s arms on her shoulders, someone’s arms around her body. She had to learn to be comfortable with the bottom of Camila’s feet pressed to her thigh during movie nights. She had to learn to be comfortable with Lilith falling asleep on her shoulder during all-nighters.

She had to spend all her time learning to accept physical affection that she never quite put a lot of thought into giving it. 

But watching Ava give it so freely - returning Camila’s hugs, knocking shoulders with Shannon and elbows with Mary, and the one time she pulled Lilith into a hug with the sole intention of, Ava’s words, unsettling her - Beatrice wondered what it might be like to give the same way.

And Ava. She wondered what it might be like to give it to Ava.

Ava didn’t touch her as easily as she seemed to touch everyone else. She reached out and always seemed to stop herself. Beatrice wondered what that meant. Did Ava not want to touch her? Was there something wrong with her? Did Ava see the same things in her that her parents saw? It’s a small voice, a whisper, but whispers always seem loud in empty corners of rooms.

The rooms aren’t as empty now, aren’t as quiet. Whispers aren’t as loud any more. Ava seems to fill the spaces more easily than Beatrice ever did. 

And so she tries to make herself be someone Ava might want to reach out to.

Ava puts down the bowl with a smile. “Sauce, mixed.”

Beatrice nods towards the cutting board. “Then the vegetables.”

Ava frowns. “Not the chicken?”

“Protein last, unless you plan on using multiple cutting boards. And since you used our second one for your chemistry class experiment-”

Ava winces. “Yeah. I’m going to replace that,” she says, just like she said last week and the week before that one. She smiles again. “So, protein last. Vegetables first.” She picks up the carrots and reaches for the knife.

Beatrice stops her, a hand hovering out in front of her. “There’s knife safety we need to talk about.”

She thinks for a moment that Ava will be annoyed with her. Knife safety doesn’t have an adventurous ring to it. It sounds boring, technical. But Marie taught her the importance of knowing a tool and the dangers it carries.

Ava pulls her hand back, clasping them gently in front of her. She smiles patiently. “Go ahead.”

Beatrice blinks back her surprise. “Oh. Okay.” She clears her throat. “The first rule of knives is that they can cause serious injury if not used properly. Knives should be kept sharp enough to cut through a piece of paper - they’ll cut through your skin just as easily.” She scales it back a little bit, dulling the tone in her voice but Ava’s smile hasn’t flickered. “We’re always going to cut away from ourselves, not towards.”

“Do I need to write this down?” Ava looks serious, like she’s taking in every word Beatrice says.

“No. No, I’ll remind you as we go.”

Relief uncoils Ava’s shoulders. “Good. I was worried there was going to be a test, or something.” She says it without malice, like a joke that Beatrice is in on.

Beatrice smiles a little before she remembers one of the most important parts of knife safety. “Never, never catch a falling knife. Not with your hand or with your foot. We can clean a knife off. We cannot put stitches in your hand or your foot.”

Ava’s cheeks flush. “One time.”

“Twice,” Beatrice reminds her. “So, if the knife slips, just let it.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Ava bounces, some of that frenetic energy back. “What else?”

“Always make sure your cutting board is on a flat, even surface so that it - or your knife - doesn’t slide.” Beatrice gestures at the cutting board on the counter. “Make sure nothing is under it.”

Ava waits in the silence for a moment before she blinks expectantly. “Is that it?”

Beatrice thinks for a moment. “For now, yes.”

“Great. Let’s get started.” She rocks forward, hands a little slower as they reach for the knife. She looks at Beatrice, waiting for a nod before she picks up the chef’s knife. She taps the blade experimentally against the cutting board.

“You can start with the carrots,” Beatrice suggests. “You don’t need to dice them.” She leans against the counter and watches as Ava examines a carrot critically, before she puts it down on the cutting board and grips it, fingertips out, as she raises the knife.

Beatrice shoots forward, hand curling tightly around Ava’s fingers on the knife, careful to hold on so Ava doesn’t drop it in surprise. “Not like that,” she murmurs. Her body follows her arm, putting her close enough to Ava to breathe in the slight tang of the pineapple shampoo she bought by accident.

Ava turns, eyes wide. “Sorry.”

“You’ll cut your fingers off,” Beatrice continues quietly. She carefully lowers Ava’s hand back down to the cutting board. “You need to-” She squeezes Ava’s hand once until it loosens under her palm. She feels the tension radiating through Ava’s arm slacken. “You need to curl your fingers in.”

Ava blinks at her. “I need to what?”

Beatrice lets go of Ava’s knife hand, placing it down gently. “Hold on. Can I-”

Ava shifts slightly, opening up her side. “Yes.”

Beatrice nods shortly and steps in, her hand settling around the one holding the carrot. Her fingertips press back against Ava’s fingernails until they curl back and it’s the flat of her knuckles showing. “Like this. Curl your fingers in or you’ll cut them off.”

She doesn’t realize she’s holding Ava’s hand in her own until Ava turns her head and they’re a whisper apart from each other. She nearly lets go, but Ava is staring at her and waiting for her next instruction. Beatrice swallows heavily. Ava’s hand flexes in hers, the carrot under it scratching against the cutting board.

This is what it feels like to touch Ava. To feel the warmth of her skin against the palm of her hand. Beatrice can feel the ridges of her knuckles, the sharp bone under her callouses. It’s warmer than she thought it might be. Drier. She can feel her own palm growing hot in return and she nearly pulls away, afraid of catching fire.

Ava only meets her eyes, tips her head to one side, and smiles. “Like this?”

She has to clear her throat twice and then gives in, just nodding.

Ava doesn’t pull away. She leaves Beatrice’s hand where it is as she readjusts her grip on the carrot, holding it as steadily as possible between her fingers while the flats of their knuckles face out. She looks at Beatrice and waits for another nod before she picks up the knife. She pauses, looking expectantly at Beatrice.

Beatrice doesn’t understand. She looks back, unsure of what to say. The circuitry between her brain and the rest of her body is flickering in and out. And Ava is waiting so patiently, asking a silent question that Beatrice can’t understand. She nearly scowls; she’s behind something she can’t define and she doesn’t like it.

“Help me?” Ava finally asks.

“Oh.” Beatrice’s free hand twitches and Ava nods encouragingly as she extends it, reaching across Ava until her hand is wrapping around Ava’s knife hand.

She stands here, both arms stretched across Ava’s body in a slightly odd angle and thinks: Oh.

Her heart starts to beat, loud enough that she’s sure Ava can hear it, and her cheeks flush. Oh, this is what it feels like to touch someone and want to set the world on fire. Oh, this is what it feels like to want more of something so desperately, she’d be willing to stay stuck here until it’s taken away from her. Oh, this is what it feels like to be so overwhelmed that her whole world dials down to the places where she stops and Ava begins.

Ava carefully brings the knife down over the carrot and they watch as it slides through it gracefully. She feels the flex of Ava’s hands under hers and thinks oh, oh, oh.

This is love.

Now that she knows what it feels like to touch Ava, the last fraying thread holding back her tidal wave of feelings - ones she’s held dormant - snaps like the core of a carrot as the knife slices into it again. It’s like this was the last line of defense. It comes crashing down the way a house of cards folds. All of the things she’s learned about Ava - the years in the orphanage, the way she dunks her french fries into ketchup and then mayo, the nights she pretends not to cry herself to sleep, the stretch of her smile that matches the way she stretches across the couch - burst forward from a tight knot in Beatrice’s chest and overwhelm her.

Once, she thought she was in love. Once, she had written Mrs. Penelope Marshall, the first girl who broke her heart, in the margins of her notebook while her Latin teacher droned on about derivatives, and Beatrice had thought that it was the best thing she could ever be.

But Ava looks sideways at her and smiles as their hands move together, and Beatrice thinks that if what she felt then was love, there’s no word in any language that can describe what this is now.

“You’re a good teacher,” Ava says, rocking the knife on the cutting board. “I knew it.”

Beatrice inhales, the scent of pineapple in her nose. “You’re a good student.”

Ava preens for a second. “I knew I would be.”

Their hands still. Beatrice doesn’t let go. Now that she knows what it’s like to touch, she never wants to let go. But her palms start to sweat, and she knows that Ava will be able to feel it. She takes a step back, putting an ocean between them again, and nods encouragingly as she tries to keep herself steady.

“You try.”

“Without you?” Ava pouts slightly, but recovers quickly. “Okay. Stand back, chef. Watch me.”

Beatrice watches. She’s always watching. She’s been watching since the moment Ava crashed into her table, spilling the entire contents of her to-go mug onto her notes. She’s been watching since Ava moved the last box into their apartment, declaring herself moved in. She’s been watching and watching and never touching because touch is reserved for the moments that really matter.

Because touch is the last puzzle piece holding her together, but now she doesn’t even have that.

Ava slices another round off the carrot and grins. “Totally easy.” She looks back over her shoulder and winks. “I knew I would- ow!”

Beatrice frowns, blinking at the sudden change in pitch and volume. It takes her a moment to realize that Ava has nicked her finger, and blood is starting to run down it as she holds it up into the air. Beatrice stares at the bright red bead as it slides across warm, dry skin she was just touching for a beat too long. By the time she moves, Ava is already turned away, turning on the tap.

“Shit,” Ava hisses as the water rushes over the cut. 

Beatrice snaps to attention, grabbing a dishcloth from the cabinet next to the refrigerator. She pulls Ava’s hand out of the water and examines the cut. It starts to bleed again. “It’s small. Hold still.”

Ava stops wriggling. “Don’t-”

Beatrice tightens her grip, pressing firmly on the cut. Ava hisses. “I’m sorry,” she says gently. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Ava’s face softens. “Of course not, Bea.” Her free hand rests on Beatrice’s wrist. “You didn’t tell me first aid was included in this lesson.”

“You won’t need stitches.”

“Bea.”

“I have a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“Bea.” A hand drops to her waist and she shivers. The hand drops away. “Honestly, it’s fine. It just caught me by surprise.”

Beatrice still doesn’t look up from the cut. “Dull knives are worse. They require more force to get through food, so when it slips and cuts into your hand, the cut is usually deeper.”

“Good thing you keep these things sharp enough to cut steel,” Ava jokes.

Beatrice slowly unwraps the dishcloth from the cut and examines it. Blood still trickles down, but much slower. Good. She needs a first aid kit, so she can wash it and then dress it. It shouldn’t require much work. The cut looked simple enough.

She takes a step away but Ava grabs her wrist, pulling her to a stop.

Oh.

“We can still cook, right? You’ll still teach me?” Ava smiles hopefully.

There’s that check-in, again. Ava always asking what she’s willing to give. Even if now, that limit has expanded a thousand miles in the span of time it took to slice half a carrot. Beatrice knows - has known - she can’t say no, and now she is acutely aware of why. 

“Of course. We’ll just be more careful.” She takes a step away and Ava’s hand slowly drops from her wrist. She feels the loss of it like a limb that’s been cut off.

“You’re the best, Bea,” Ava calls as she slips into the bathroom in search of the kit.

Beatrice stands in front of the window above the sink, studying herself in its reflection. She doesn’t look different now that she knows that she’s fallen in love with Ava. Nothing on the outside has changed, but everything on the inside has toppled over and formed new shapes that feel strange. She wasn’t looking to be in love, wasn’t expecting it to happen to her any time soon, or all. But she’s learning that most things with Ava are big and unexpected and exactly what she’s looking for, no matter that she didn’t know that.

She holds her hands up in front of her face, turning them over. She expects to see Ava’s fingerprints burned into her skin, but they look just the same as they did minutes earlier when she was just Beatrice. They don’t burn; they don’t glow. They only ache. To go back out there and touch again, a need she thinks may never be sated.

Beatrice meets her eyes in the window and looks at this new person staring back at her. 

Touch is a love language, she knows. She just didn’t know it was one of hers.

~

two months.

There's poetry in swimming. A grace in the way arms cut through still water, propelling forward. It cuts away on either side of her and she glides through it like she’s exhaling. The world feels weightless in the water, like she could float away contentedly.

It’s the smell that begs the question of why Beatrice agreed to this.

The school pool smells over-chlorinated and it sticks to the inside of her nose. She resists the urge to sneeze and clear it, focusing instead on dipping her toe into the water, testing it.

Warm.

She frowns, turned off by the idea of bathwater. Whatever bacteria is being fed by the warm water, they’re trying to shock away with chlorine. Why is she paying so much in tuition for warm, bacteria-infested water?

“You’re on scholarship,” Ava reminds her.

She blinks, unaware she spoke out loud. Ava laughs and bumps a nearly-bare shoulder into her arm gently. Her frown ebbs away like the water lapping at the side of the pool. Ava’s skin is already damp from the humidity in the air and Beatrice marvels at the idea that this is what it must be like when Ava steps out of the shower and wraps a thick towel around her body, shoulders and neck still exposed. She flushes.

Ava bounces lightly, careful of the slick floor. “At least we have the place to ourselves.”

That might be another problem. Because they are alone, the pool empty in the middle of the day. There’s no one here to see the way Beatrice can’t quite look Ava in the eye or the way her hands shake a little as she grips her towel a little too tightly. At least at tomorrow’s Color Run, there will be crowds of people and chaos surrounding them, reminding Beatrice to curb that impulse to touch, to keep her hands to herself. 

Here, alone, Beatrice has no buffer, just her and Ava and her heart lay bare. 

This touch thing has been a bit of a nuisance. It consumes her. It’s been a couple weeks since the world shifted on its axis and now she wants to be touching Ava all the time. Sometimes it’s small - a brush of a hand as they pass a spatula back and forth at dinner or trade the television remote. Sometimes it’s bigger - pulling Ava into a hug after a long day of classes where her back has tightened up to the point of pain and willing it away. She limits herself, though. Sometimes per day, sometimes per instance. She never takes too much, always gives Ava her space. 

She doesn’t want to push. Everyone has taken so much from Ava. She’s not going to be a name added to that list.

Some nights, she still feels like she takes too much. She touches the back of Ava’s hand or she pokes delicately at her ankle bone as Ava stretches her feet into her lap or she leans into the way Ava seems to always be leaning in towards her. Those nights, she stays in bed and stares at the ceiling and thinks about what would happen if she went into Ava’s room and curled around her. Would she survive that? Would they?

“Thank goodness,” Ava admits. She’s a little breathless. “I was kind of worried about that.”

All of Beatrice’s reservations fade away at her words. Ava is what’s important here. She turns, meeting Ava head-on. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“I do,” she says quickly. Her eyes cut nervously to the deep end of the pool. It’s 8 feet down to the bottom. “I’ve been wanting to do this.”

Beatrice reaches down and curls her fingers over Ava’s wrist, feeling the thudding pulse under her fingertips. 

“Ava,” she says softly. Ava looks back at her, a tremulous smile on her face. “We can come back another day. Or just sit on the edge with our feet in the water.”

Something stretches Ava’s spine straight. “No. I’ve waited long enough. I’m going to swim.”

“You’re going to learn,” Beatrice stresses. “Actual swimming might not happen today.”

“Sure, sure,” Ava says dismissively. “Cannonballs by the hour’s end.” 

Her wrist slides out of Beatrice’s grip as she moves towards a long, sweating wooden bench lining the wall. Ava drops her towel - a large pink thing with a flamingo in an inner tube on it - and slides out of the flip flops she wore, tucking them under the bench. She turns, hands on her hips, and surveys the pool.

Beatrice inhales sharply, feeling that chlorine burning in her nose again as she takes in the sight of Ava.

She saw the bathing suit when Ava bought it, of course. Ava held it up in front of her, going on about how she picked red because every movie she saw with a lifeguard in it had a red swimsuit on. It’s funny, Bea, she explained at Beatrice’s blank look. The girl who can’t swim playing pretend as someone who rescues people in the water? She wasn’t deterred by Beatrice’s silence. She shrugged and ordered Thai.

But seeing Ava holding it up in front of her, separated from her skin by a pair of electric pink soft cotton shorts and a bright yellow tank top - a combination that seemed like some kind of criminal offense, even to her - was entirely different than seeing it on her.

Because on Ava, the swimsuit seemed impossibly smaller than it had before. It did things she had only read about in books: hugged curves, fit like a second skin. She’d never experienced the kind of feeling romance novel protagonists talked of, but the words suddenly made sense to her. She blushed whenever her eyes roamed anywhere past Ava’s shoulders.

She swallows now, as Ava stretches her arms above her head and sighs contently. Ava turns and Beatrice looks away quickly, eyeing the shallow end.

She hears Ava’s bare feet padding through the small puddles where the floor is uneven. Two hands fall to her waist from behind and squeeze slightly. Another sharp inhale; she tastes the chlorine in her throat.

“You’re not going to wear that in the water, are you?” Hot fingers pluck along her side at the perfectly respectable cover shirt she’s wearing. “Because that’s not fair.”

Beatrice forces herself to breathe out, grateful for Ava being at her back. Having Ava’s touch so close, she wants to just… lean into it. She finds she’s always seeking it out, that simple reminder that Ava is alive and next to her. Since the floodgates opened, since she experienced what it was like to touch and to be touched, she finds she’s reaching into every corner hoping to come up with some part of Ava between her fingers.

But she knows Ava’s casual touches don’t mean what she wants them to mean. She knows she shouldn’t read into them.

“Of course not,” she says almost to herself.

Cool air rushes across her neck where Ava exhales. “Oh, good. Because I’m wondering what kind of bathing suit might be under there.” She winks when Beatrice glances back.

Despite the balmy air, Beatrice shivers. 

Ava doesn’t seem to notice, stepping away and surveying the pool. “So, where do we start?”

“We won’t cover much today,” she says as she starts to take her shirt off, folding it neatly and placing it next to Ava’s towel. “We’ll practice floating, I think.”

When she turns, Ava is staring at her. “There is a body underneath that shirt.” 

Beatrice feels her cheeks redden. “Ava.”

“And it’s not made up of wires, either.” Ava shakes her head. “It’s a crime, hiding that under a polyester-cotton blend.”

She sighs. “Ava.”

Ava grins and holds up her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, Beatrice. You’re denying the people.”

Am I denying you?

She blinks rapidly at the thought. It feels blasphemous to think such a thing. She’s grown more comfortable with those thoughts lately. But never in the same room as Ava. Never when she’s standing five feet away in a bathing suit as bright red as she’s sure her face is right now. 

So she shoves it down for now and thinks instead about the different things she’ll teach Ava. Thinks about the lessons she read online: the importance of starting with floating, and staying calm in the water, and maintaining contact with an instructor during a first lesson, and - oh no. I need to touch her.

“Wait. You’ve done this before, right?” Ava asks suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. 

Beatrice wets her bottom lip, tasting chlorine. “I looked up how to begin swimming.”

Ava’s eyes narrow. “On a swimming website for babies?”

“For children,” she admits. She rushes to add, “But not babies. Small children.” She pauses for a moment. “The same size as you, actually.”

“Beatrice,” Ava gasps. She presses a hand to her chest. Beatrice pointedly ignores it. “You’re just a few inches taller than I am, you know. And I can still ride amusement rides.”

She ignores Ava. “The first step is getting into the water. There are different ways to enter a pool. The ladder, of course. Or you can sit on the edge and swivel in.”

Ava bites down on her bottom lip, eyes back on the pool as she weighs her options. “How’re you getting in?”

“I was going to sit and swivel, if you’d like to.” Ava is silent. “I find that sometimes sliding in is the best option. The stairs give me too much time to change my mind.”

Ava considers this. She’s bouncing lightly, eyes darting back towards the deep end every few seconds. 

She’s nervous. Beatrice steps forward, hand finding its natural place on Ava’s wrist. She squeezes until Ava meets her eyes. They’re ringed with worry. It’s not that Beatrice didn’t know Ava was hesitant around large bodies of water; she just didn’t understand how much.

“I promise I will not let you drown. I will not let anything happen to you.” She says it firmly, hoping Ava knows she means it. 

“It’s not you I’m worried about.” Ava takes a shuddering breath. “It’s the drain at the bottom of the pool. What if it sucks me in?”

“The… the drain?”

Ava nods, staring at it now. “Yeah. I saw a movie once, one that an older boy snuck in. This girl - she was annoying, but still - she went swimming and the pool drain just… sucked her in.”

She wants to laugh. It’s ridiculous, that Ava could even fit in the pool drain, or that it would do something like start to suck out water in the middle of the day. But the fear in Ava’s eyes is real, and her heart aches instead. She turns Ava gently, holding her gaze.

“We are not going in the deep end. We’ll be 50 meters away from the pool drain. You certainly wouldn’t fit in it if, for some reason, the pool did start draining.” Beatrice smiles softly and squeezes her hand. “And more importantly, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Ava’s eyes search hers. “Okay,” she says after a minute and squeezes back. “I trust you.”

Beatrice swallows under the weight of the words. She smiles softly and releases Ava’s hand, taking a slight step back. Her toes splash in the pockets of the floor as she walks to the edge of the pool.

Ava follows her lead. “Okay, so sit and swivel?”

Beatrice takes a deep breath and smiles tightly. “Sit and swivel.” She slowly lowers herself into the shallow end of the pool. The water laps at the back of her thighs, soaking her bathing suit. She looks up when Ava hesitates. “I’ll go in first, then you can.”

Ava nods jerkily. “Sure. Totally cool.” 

Ava lowers herself to the tiles and scoots forward gently so her feet slide into the water. Beatrice watches carefully, making sure to angle herself so that if Ava slips, she can catch her. But Ava moves slowly until she’s mirroring Beatrice. Water splashes against her knees.

“Perfect.” Beatrice smiles and turns her body, sliding the rest of the way into the water. It comes up to her waist. “Now it’s your turn.”

Ava seems like she’s breathing a little easier. She slides into the pool, splashing a little. The water hits her hips, waving up around her as she stands an arm’s length away from Beatrice. “I did it.”

“You did it.” 

They’ll have to go a little deeper to teach Ava anything. And the distance might help Beatrice’s pounding heart a little too. Beatrice then takes a large step back, towards the deep end, until the water comes up just below her chest. 

“Now, we need to go out a little further to-”

“You said shallow end.”

“You can’t build confidence in the water if it’s at your belly button.” Ava eyes her warily and Beatrice ebbs back towards her, careful not to touch her. “I told you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“Okay,” Ava says softly after a minute. She takes a short step forward. Beatrice slides back another. “Bea.”

“I’m right here.” 

Ava is looking at her now, eyeing the distance between them. They’re in the middle of the pool now, nothing to hold onto and that nervousness is back in Ava’s eyes. Beatrice changes tactics.

“How about we practice treading water?” she suggests. She cuts past Ava back to the side of the pool and grips the edge. “You can hold on and we can practice here.”

Ava seems relieved. “Sure. That works for me.” She takes a step closer to the deep end, the water rising to her shoulders now. She takes it with confidence, the kind she usually carries. “So I just…”

“Hold on. And let yourself drop a little bit. Treading water is about conserving energy while staying afloat.” Beatrice lowers herself into the water, letting it come up to her neck. She kicks her feet a little. “See how I’m staying up?”

“You’re holding on,” Ava points out.

Beatrice resists the urge to roll her eyes and lets go. She holds her arms out, perpendicular to body. She kicks her feet again and bobs in the water. “By nature, we float. So as long as there is air in your lungs, you’ll be fine. Your arms and feet just add to the buoyancy.” 

She straightens up, feet flat on the bottom of the pool.  When she stands, the temperature change between the air and the water makes her shiver. “See, it only comes up to my neck,” she reassures. “You try it.”

Ava grips the edge of the pool and lowers herself slightly. The water brushes up against her chin and Beatrice sees her eyes widen. But then she kicks her feet a little and she bobs back up, bouncing on the surface of the water.

Beatrice smiles. “See?”

Ava beams. “Treading water? Check.”

“Well, not quite,” Beatrice laughs. “You need to let go next.”

“Cool. Cool, cool.” Ava let's go with one hand and her body dips down. She quickly grabs it again. “Not cool.”

Beatrice laughs a little and drifts forward. “Come on,” she beckons. “I’ll be right here.”

She expects Ava to argue, to convince her they can go sit in the shallow end and talk instead of swimming. She expects Ava to say, “this isn’t for me. I really wanted to learn, but it’s just not in the cards right now.” Or even that she’s a bad teacher and she’s going to ask Shannon - who’s been a summer lifeguard since she was fifteen and has far more experience than Beatrice - for lessons.

What she doesn’t expect is for Ava to take a deep breath, blow out her cheeks, and leap forward into her arms.

Beatrice is nearly knocked back by the force of Ava’s jump. Her feet slide against the slick pool bottom and she swallows a mouthful of chlorine. She can’t focus on it. There are hands. There’s skin. Ava’s hands glide over her shoulders, fingernails trying to find purchase in the straps of her swimsuit as their bodies crash together. 

Her hands ghost along Ava’s ribs and oh. Ava’s swimsuit has an open back. She can feel the scarring along Ava’s spine, could count each of them if she ran her fingers up and down. Her fingernails scratch against skin she’s only ever imagined under her hands. She wants to map each inch she can touch, commit it to memory.

Ava’s hands finally find a place, locking around the back of her neck as she tries to hold on tighter.

Everything in her seizes. Her legs, tangled smoothly against Ava’s, freeze and lock into place. Her arms go slack against Ava’s back. She feels the water come up over her mouth again. A knee digs into her stomach and she gasps, swallowing the warm water again. Something sharp scratches against her shoulder as she starts to go under. She feels a heel dig into her thigh and then she’s being pulled sideways through the water.

She bumps against the side of the pool and then a hand winds itself into the strap of her swimsuit, pulling her up and out of the water. She gasps for air as her shoulders crest the surface.

“I thought you said people float!” Ava shouts, the words so loud in Beatrice’s ear.

Beatrice has to shake her head, blinking rapidly.

“Oh, god.” Ava’s hands flutter around her face, tipping her head back to study her face. “I’m sorry. I just thought- I thought you’d catch me.”

Beatrice sucks in a ragged breath. “I did.” The pool wall is cool against her back. She leans her head back against the edge, sucking humid air into her lungs.

The world comes back into sharp focus and she goes still again.

Ava is crowding her against the side of the pool, one hand tangled in her bun as it comes undone and the other brushing the rolling drops of water off her cheek. Their legs are tangled again, Ava’s toes skimming along her shin. Ava’s eyes are almost wild, darting back and forth as they search her face.

“Jesus, Bea,” she exhales. One of her legs hooks around Beatrice’s and it pulls her closer. “Are you okay?”

No. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands. They flutter in the water, fingers clenching around nothing. She knows where she wants to put them: right where they were a minute ago, sliding across Ava’s sides to her back. She knows that she wants to dig her fingertips into Ava’s skin and leave them there so Ava can feel them even after she pulls away.

Pull it together. She swallows heavily.

“I’m fine.”

Ava’s body is still moving with the water, still ebbing in and out against her. The hand at her cheek goes to the pool’s edge and it drips water down on Beatrice’s shoulder, drops rolling off her skin. “I thought people float,” Ava breathes, her words hot against Beatrice’s face. “You said they did.” 

Beatrice finally touches down, thumbs stroking against Ava’s ribs involuntarily. Ava jumps a little. “They do. When they’re not being jumped on.”

Ava looks sheepish now. “I just… I thought that I would just go for it, you know? That maybe I was a natural swimmer and I’d just…”

“Stay afloat,” Beatrice finishes.

“Yes. And if I couldn’t, you’d rescue me. I just-” Her hand scratches lightly against the back of Beatrice’s neck. “I was a little enthusiastic, I think.”

She loves Ava’s enthusiasm - not when it’s trying to sink her, of course. But generally, she loves it. She finds it intoxicating, contagious. She wants to let her sweep her up almost all the time.

Her thumbs count Ava’s ribs. One, two, three…

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Worry winds around every word and Ava’s hand slides along her jaw to her chin, titling her face up. “You swallowed a lot of water.”

She can see small beads of water running down the long line of Ava’s neck, disappearing into the surface of the water. She watches the race down over smooth skin and she wants to track it with her fingertip. 

Pull it together.

“I’ll have a stomach ache later, maybe. And I need to brush my teeth.” She doesn’t even want to think about the chlorine anymore. “But maybe we should-”

“Try another day?” Ava nods. “Yeah, we should try another day. I owe you, like, tons of coffee. And take out, definitely. Your choice. No spending limit.”

She smiles softly. “I meant, maybe we should, um…” She looks down between their bodies.

Ava looks down and startles. “Oh! I’m sorry, I was-” She starts to pull away, her hand getting caught in Beatrice’s hair. “I’ll just-”

“It’s okay.” Beatrice doesn’t pull her hand back right away. “I’m fine.”

“No, this is your space and I’m just- dammit.” She finally works her hand out of Beatrice’s hair and her leg slides across Beatrice’s hip as she grips the edge with both hands and pulls herself around Beatrice’s body.

The water feels cold as it rushes into the spaces where Ava’s body had just been. She has to blink a few times, trying to pull her head together. That was more than just a brush of a hand or a fleeting kiss to the top of her head as Ava rushed to get to class. This was her hand against Ava’s side, long enough to feel Ava’s ribs under her fingers. This was her legs sliding against Ava’s. This was Ava’s hands in her hair and fingers at her jaw and and and. 

Ava pulls herself up and out of the pool, sitting on the edge of it, legs still in the water. They still brush against Beatrice’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Beatrice stares at the other side of the pool, going through breathing exercises until she can turn and smile and mean it. “Don’t be. I should have prepared you better for this.”

Ava smiles. “It’s not your fault. I’m the one who flung myself into your arms.”

Do it again.

She blinks. “Next time, I’ll be ready to catch you.”

Ava’s smile stretches. “Next time, huh? Careful, Beatrice. You’ll make a girl swoon, telling her she can run into your arms at any time.”

Her cheeks flush. She knows it. Ava always gets this look in her eyes when she’s successfully made Beatrice blush. “Yes, well.” She clears her throat. “Maybe we could be done for the day?”

“Of course, Bea.” Ava pats her gently on the shoulder. “I was serious. Coffee and take out on me. We’ll even watch one of your documentaries, if you want. Anything you want. Nothing too small.”

It's not a date. It's just friends getting coffee and eating out. Friends do that all the time. It's not a date unless they say it's a date and that's not what they're saying. Beatrice can't remember the last time she went out on a date and Ava hasn't since they met. But if they did go out together on a date - a thought she's had before that always seems to make her heart stick a little - she'd want it to be more than coffee and take out. 

But, she's not going to think about that. She's going to just stay in a bubble where neither of them are going on dates and spending all their time together. 

That can be enough.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I can do. I nearly drowned you.”

She almost rolls her eyes. “I would have been fine. I just needed another moment to get my bearings.”

“Still,” Ava says brightly. “You had a near-death experience. Let me take care of you.” She doesn’t wait for an answer. She leans down, brushes her lips against her chlorine-soaked hair, and stands up. Beatrice can hear her padding through puddles towards the towels.

She takes another minute to get out, letting herself bob in the water as she tries to let it wash away the feel of Ava’s body. 

She doesn’t think she’s going to ever forget.

~

three months.

Beatrice likes to think that she’s more than capable of reading Ava’s moods. She can separate out mad from frustrated, happy from content, sad from melancholy. Maybe it’s from living in such close quarters; from the fact that she spends an average of 18 hours a day with her and it’s hard not to know someone so well after all that time.

The point is: Ava comes home from class and she is not just mad. She’s angry.

The kind of angry Beatrice saw last week when Ava declared she was willing to face incarceration for Beatrice, if it meant that her parents would never hurt her again. The kind of angry that took Ava hours and a movie night with their friends to come down from.

She throws the door behind her, catching it at just the last moment so it doesn’t slam shut. Beatrice appreciates it. Her neighbors are nice. And one of them has a baby that’s just gotten onto a sleep schedule; she doesn’t want to be responsible for waking it up. Especially since a sleep schedule means it’s not up half the night crying.

But Ava comes crashing through it all the same. She throws her backpack down, cheeks red and forehead pinched. It slides a little across the floor into the coat rack, but doesn’t knock it over. She doesn’t even kick off her shoes, stomping around the couch and past the breakfast bar where Beatrice is set up between classes, right to the refrigerator that she pulls open and thrusts her hand into. She comes up with one of Mary’s beers, left behind after a movie night earlier in the week.

Beatrice is up around rounding the bar before she even thinks about it, plucking the bottle from Ava’s hand.

Ava turns and nearly growls before she seems to recognize Beatrice. Her face smooths out.

“I can make you some tea.”

She’s expecting a bit of a fight, but Ava just sighs and nods miserably, sagging back against the counter.

Beatrice busies herself with putting the beer back and turning on the kettle. She moves around Ava, careful not to touch her. It’s not that she’s scared of touching her. It’s just that everything has changed between them. Knowing she’s the most important person in Ava’s life, that she always will be, hasn’t just tinted every interaction they’ve had in the last week. It’s changed everything. It’s changed her. 

The entire situation has her on her back foot, a place she despises. For the first time in her life, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, or how to act. How does she move them forward from that without losing what makes them them? 

She can start with tea. She finds Ava’s mug, the one with Dog Dad written in blocky letters on it. She can take care of Ava the way Ava takes care of her. She can listen. She can show Ava how important she is in return.

It isn’t until she’s pulling down a tea bag that she feels slim fingers encircle her wrist and pull her to a stop.

“Sorry,” Ava grumbles.

Beatrice smiles patiently. “Tough day?”

“You know Francesca, in my history class?”

Beatrice tries to shuffle through the various characters Ava tells her about. She doesn’t remember a Francesca off the top of her head. Francis in her feminist lit class, yes. But Francesca…

Ava takes her silence as the no that it is. “She’s the one I told you about who had the crappy boyfriend?”

Vaguely, Beatrice pulls to mind a time when Ava came home complaining about some guy who interrupted their class to yell at girlfriend. Francesca, apparently. 

“Well, guess who showed up when we were headed to get some coffee after class?” Beatrice doesn’t have to. “Yeah, he just ambushed us on our walk. Totally embarrassed her in front of our whole study group. And you want to know the worst part?”

Beatrice pours hot water into Ava’s mug. “What?”

“He grabbed her. In broad daylight. Grabbed her by the wrist and tried to pull her away from us. I had to jump in and-”

“Are you okay?” Beatrice abandons the kettle and grabs Ava’s hand, gesticulating wildly between them. She turns it over like she was the one who was grabbed. “Is Francesca?”

Ava sighs but doesn’t pull away from her as Beatrice brushes her fingertips over a pulse point. “Yeah. I mean, I had to hit him with my backpack a few times before he took off.”

“You what?”

“And we sent Francesca home with Juan,” Ava says over her. “He promised he’d stay with her the rest of the day. But that douche knows where she lives and there’s no chance he doesn’t go back to try and bother her.”

“Ava.”

Ava looks at her, face red again. “You just can’t come up to someone and grab someone like that, you know? It’s assault, at least. She was totally spooked. And I don’t blame her!”

Beatrice abandons Ava’s hand and grabs her shoulders, holding her steady. “Ava.”

“If I see him again, I’m going to hit him with more than just my backpack. I’m going to take my fist and punch him right in the-”

“Ava,” Beatrice says sharply.

Ava blinks. “What?”

“Are you alright?”

“Oh.” Ava looks a little sheepish now. “Yeah, I’m totally fine. The bagel I was saving you is probably squished and I’m sure I have cream cheese all over my history textbook so I won’t get my money back, but I’m-” She reaches up, loops a few fingers around Beatrice’s wrist and tugs gently until her hand is curled up against Ava’s chest. “I’m fine.”

Beatrice exhales a thin stream of air. She turns her hand in Ava’s until their palms are pressed together. 

She feels like she’s attached to Ava here. Like a thread pulls her in, staring at Ava’s lifeline and tugging until her calloused palms are pressed to Ava’s smooth ones. She doesn’t fight it, she lets it consume her. And she keeps the feel of it long after she’s separated from Ava.

“Okay,” she says, more a reassurance to herself than anything. “And Francesca?”

“Like I said, embarrassed. And I think her wrist hurts, but she wouldn’t tell us that.” Ava looks sad now. “He was such an ass. Going on about how she can’t leave him. Honestly, he was embarrassing himself. I told her to file a report. He’s a big guy, he could go right through Juan.”

As long as it isn’t right through you.

“But it got me thinking about something,” Ava continues. “I couldn’t do anything to, like, help her. He just grabbed her and we all stood there. Sure, my backpack doubles as a small weapon-”

“Only because you refuse to take anything out of it.”

“But,” Ava stresses, rolling her eyes. “It wasn’t enough. I needed him to go away on the first hit. It took, like, six tries before he finally let go. I need to do better. So, you need to help me.”

Beatrice frowns. “I need to help you, what? Hit someone with a backpack?”

Ava pauses. “Well, no. Though, I should start coming to the gym with you, I think. That backpack is really heavy. Maybe Mary could make up a workout plan and I can learn to push one of those heavy bags across the gym. That’s very sexy, I think.” She narrows her eyes. “Can you do that?”

Beatrice swallows, a little hot under her collar. “No, I don’t believe so.”

“Damn.” Ava pouts. She looks off to the middle distance, eyes clouding over for a moment, then blinks and looks back at her. “Right.” She smiles crookedly. “I need your help fighting someone.”

“Fighting someone,” Beatrice repeats. “I’m not going to help you fight someone.”

Fighting someone isn't the answer. It's not even the question. 

Beatrice can appreciate what it means, the way that Ava is willing to step up for her friends and help them. One of the things she loves about Ava is the way she seems to want to do what she can for everyone. She's the first person Mary calls when she needs to go left off some steam. She's the first text when one of their friends needs a study buddy - even if Ava isn't too sure on the material. But it’s not just their circle of friends. Ava is someone everyone can count on. Someone who cares enough to help everyone around her. In the moments where Beatrice lets herself think she's a good person, she thinks Ava is someone a lot like her, just a little bit more impulsive.

But the last thing she wants to do is encourage Ava to put herself in harm’s way.

“Pleaseeeee.” Ava pushes out her bottom lip and blinks up at Beatrice through her lashes. “You’re already a great teacher. And you’re, like, a celebrated fighter. You’ve won trophies, Bea. That means more than one. You could show me how to kick someone’s ass and then the next time that douchebag shows up, I’ll-”

“Next time, you just walk away,” Beatrice interrupts. “You don’t fight a man as tall as a mountain.”

“Okay, he wasn’t as tall as a mountain. More like, as tall as Lilith.” Ava starts to walk her other hand across Bea’s arm, looping gently just below her elbow. “But it’s going to happen again. He’s like a parasite. A cockroach. And when he does come back, I want to be able to put him flat on his back. Bruce Lee style.”

Beatrice is shaking her head before Ava even finishes. “I’m not teaching you how to fight someone. And you shouldn’t be wanting to fight someone either. You’re very small.”

“I’m not-” Ava huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Wouldn’t that make me a better fighter? Because I could duck and weave and kick someone directly in the kneecap?”

There’s some logic to Ava’s thought process. Being small has its advantages. A lower center of gravity. Typically more movement than a man built like a brick house. But Ava is not a fighter by nature and a man built like a large rhinoceros would break her in half like a rotted out piece of pine board. No. She can’t teach Ava to fight.

“No.”

“Bea,” Ava sighs, frustration licking at the corners of her name. “I don’t need to know, like, all the steps it takes to become a black belt. I just need to know how to scare him off.” She steps closer and Beatrice feels the air between their bodies leave the room. “Come on. Show me a couple of things. You know I’m a good learner.”

“Cooking, yes. But the last time I tried to teach you how to do something physical…”

“Yes, I tried to drown you. That was once and I was panicking. And the next time we went swimming, I did a lot better.”

Beatrice shakes her head. “Fighting is a situation where you will panic. I still panic every time I get into a fight.”

“Okay, what if I make you a deal?”

Beatrice eyes her warily. “What kind of deal?” 

The last time they made a deal, Beatrice ended up in the observatory after hours, hiding from campus security while Ava tried to escape the locked tower. They finally had to call for Mary to come and pick the lock.

 “You teach me a few things about fighting and I’ll go with you to that conservatory luncheon conversation thing. The one about religious texts in modern media.” Ava thrusts her hand forward in a handshake. “Deal?”

Beatrice wasn’t planning on going to that. She could probably learn more from the supplementary texts her professor provided last class. But Ava is looking at her with soft eyes and her fingers are brushing against the inside of Beatrice’s elbow and Beatrice feels her resolve falling like her attempt at making a souffle, another one of Ava’s ambitious ideas. She can’t say no. She’s never been able to say no.

But also, a small part of her thinks, it’s an opportunity. There are times when Beatrice thinks that maybe Ava feels this too. Maybe she touches Beatrice because she wants to, just as much as Beatrice wants to touch her in return. And this is a chance to touch Ava, to explore what that feels like.

“Okay,” she sighs. She shakes Ava’s hand shortly. “But you have to promise you will not get into any fights until I say you’re ready for that.”

Ava cheers loudly, wiggling around. Beatrice winces and pulls her hand away before it gets tangled up in whatever complicated motion Ava is doing. “Thank you, thank you. Where do we start? Leg sweeps? Wrist breaks?”

Beatrice can’t help but smile at Ava’s enthusiasm. Lilith calls her soft when she thinks Beatrice can’t hear her. She doesn’t try to tell her off, because she knows it’s the truth. It’s not just that she can’t say no. It’s that she also can’t bring herself to be mad about it.

“Not wrist breaks.” Ava pouts again and Beatrice has the nearly irresistible urge to brush her thumb against Ava’s bottom lip and smooth it away. “But I can teach you how to throw a punch.”

“As long as it’s not the only thing you teach me,” Ava negotiates. “I want to know more than that.”

“We’ll start with a punch.” Beatrice is going to hold firm on this. “It’s the foundation for a lot of other things.”

Ava considers that for a moment. “Like treading water.”

“Just like treading water.”

“I’m very good at that now, you know.” Ava practically preens, lifting her chin into the air.

“You are,” Beatrice says dutifully. “Your breast stroke is also very good. Don’t laugh because I said ‘breast’,” she warns Ava, who is already smirking.

“Pretty soon, I’ll be making a run for the Olympic team.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t doubt me, Beatrice.”

Beatrice means it when she says, “I would never.”

Something on Ava’s face softens and she ducks her head. Beatrice might also say she looked shy, if she had to name the emotion on her face. But she doesn’t, because no one is asking, and because she doesn’t want to.

“I can settle for a punch, sure.” Ava finally breaks their connection, sliding out of her hold. Her fingers graze Beatrice’s arm as she steps back. “So, show me.”

“What? Right now?”

“Whatever you’re doing-”

“Biochemistry.”

“-can wait.” Ava makes a face. “Biochem? Yuck. Wouldn’t spending time with me be more fun than that?”

Of course it would be. She knows that. Ava knows that. It’s why she’s had to pull all-nighters more in the last three months than she ever has in her educational career. She’d rather spend all her time with Ava, completely addicted to the way she laughs and the way she smiles and the way she always seems to rest her hand on the closest part of Beatrice she can reach.

She especially wants to spend her time doing that.

“Fine. Fine.” Beatrice abandons her biochemistry homework without a second thought. She’ll need to make it up eventually and she knows Ava will sit at the table with her later and tell her funny jokes she reads online while Beatrice tries to focus on equations.

Ava beams. “We’ll be quick.”

“We will not be if we do it correctly.”

“Then we’ll be correct and not worry about the time it takes because form is important,” Ava amends. She waits for Beatrice to nod in agreement before she thrusts her hand into the air and clenches it into a fist.

Beatrice hums. Ava looks at her expectantly, a hopeful smile on her face. It starts to fade the longer Beatrice looks. After a minute, she meets Ava’s eyes.

“May I?” She gestures towards Ava’s fist. Ava nods. “First of all, you’re holding your first too tightly.”

Ava immediately loosens it and her fingers fall apart. 

Beatrice laughs. “No, not like that.” 

She doesn’t hesitate now. Before, she might have paused, might have stopped herself from reaching out and manipulating Ava’s hand into the shape she wants it to be. But that was Beatrice months ago. Beatrice now, so used to touch, to Ava’s touch and the way it fits so neatly into her life, just reaches out.

Ava’s hand is pliant under her fingers. She softens her wrist, lets her fingers relax. Beatrice works them back into a fist, keeping firm pressure across her fingers. She taps Ava’s wrist into place, smiling softly when she sees the look of concentration on Ava’s face.

“Your fist can be your biggest weapon, if you wield it properly.” Beatrice runs her fingernails over the ridges of Ava’s knuckles. “But it comes down to the proper mechanics. Because the person you hurt might be yourself.”

“I want to hurt Eduardo.”

Beatrice wrinkles her nose at the name. She knew an Eduardo once. He was a terrible child, one of her parent’s political friend’s children. He once pushed her down and stomped on her new dress. Her mother had been furious. Suddenly, she wants Ava to hurt Eduardo too.

“Then you need to make sure you’re using the proper form.” She stands in front of Ava, studying her fist. “First, your thumb.”

“Inside, right?”

“Outside,” Beatrice corrects. She gently places Ava’s thumb on the outside of her fist. “If you leave it inside, you run the risk of breaking it.”

“Would I get a cool cast?” Beatrice glances at her and Ava grins widely. “Would you sign it? Dear Ava, you’re an idiot. Affectionately, Beatrice.”

“That wouldn’t fit on a thumb splint.”

Ava’s smile doesn’t waver. “You could figure it out.”

Beatrice sighs, the sound laced with the kind of fondness she’s found she reserves for Ava. Her hand pulses over Ava’s, reminding her of what she’s doing. She curls her fingers around Ava’s wrist and holds her other hand up flat so that the flat of Ava’s knuckles press against her palm.

“Keep your fist straight. Like this.” She puts a little force behind her palm, feeling the resistance of Ava’s fist. “When you punch, the flatter your knuckles are, the more surface area you cover. The more even the distribution is.”

“So if I’m punching Eduardo in the mouth…”

Beatrice rolls her eyes, smiling still. “If you keep your fist flat, you could break several teeth instead of one.”

There’s a look in Ava’s eyes that tells her she shouldn’t have said that. She can see the wheels churning in Ava’s mind.  

“More teeth,” Ava agrees. “I can totally remember that.”

Beatrice thinks about correcting her, about telling her that she should not go out with the intention of punching a man built like a woolly mammoth. She should make sure that Ava understands this is for self-defense and not to go on the offensive. But Ava is studying the shape of her hand intently and she thinks Ava knows that, in the very back of her mind, that she shouldn’t go out swinging at a man built like a steam engine train.

“More importantly, you won’t break your first two fingers,” Beatrice says, drawing back Ava’s attention. "It’s easy to want to punch with your index finger like this.” She makes a fist out of her own hand, clenching her index finger tightly so that it bubbles out and the knuckle leads away from her fist. 

“Watch.” Beatrice tightens her grip on Ava’s wrist and pushes her hand into her palm with her index finger leading. “See how it impacts right against these fingers?” She’s close to Ava now, her voice quieter as she steps in. “But if you flatten your knuckles…” She smooths out Ava’s hand and presses against. “It distributes more evenly. Saves you from breaking your first two fingers.”

Ava nods, head bobbing up and down. “Uh, okay.” She smiles a little crookedly. “The hardships I’m willing to endure for friends, huh?” she jokes. “Next, we should teach Juan.”

“He doesn’t know how to throw a punch?”

Ava snorts. “He’s too busy being in love with Francesca to do anything but try not to trip over his own feet.”

In love, she thinks. Is Ava in love with Francesca, if she’s willing to fight off this Eduardo? The thought is traitorous but there.

“But that’s what we do, right?” Ava’s hand shifts a little in her hold but Beatrice hardly feels it. “When we- Like, your parents. I’d fight them in an instant, to protect you. Juan and I have that in common.”

Beatrice feels a ripple of affection rush through her before it’s swallowed up by the overwhelming thought that no one has ever so vehemently and blindly defended her before. It nearly pushes her back a step, but she’s still holding onto Ava and she doesn’t want to break their connection.

She doesn’t want to let her go. She wants to touch, to stay in this moment. She wants… more. She doesn’t know if she should take it.

But Ava hasn’t shied away from her yet. Hasn’t pulled away. She’s leaned into Beatrice. She’s let Beatrice stand close and shape her.

Would she allow Beatrice to be a little closer?

She pulls her attention back to the task at hand. Ava is still standing there, waiting for instruction. “Make sure your hands are up, to protect your face if your opponent decides to throw a punch back.”

Ava scoffs. “I’m a one-and-done kind of fighter. I get one in, they’re done.”

Beatrice slowly motions a punch towards Ava who blocks it just a second too late, throwing her hands up above her head. “Hands up.”

“Fine, fine. Hands up.” She takes the carelessness out of her words with the look on her face as she brings her hands back into a resting position, one situated at her chin.

“Your form isn’t terrible.” Beatrice ignores Ava’s small cheer. “You’re right-handed, so this is your power hand.” She taps Ava’s hand. “Throw a cross punch.”

Ava pushes her hand forward, twisting naturally in a way that Beatrice knows is hard to teach. She frowns, though, walking around Ava in a small circle as she studies her.

“You’re punching from the shoulders.” She carefully touches the top of Ava’s shoulder. “You need to watch your extension. Beginners always punch from their shoulders.” She finishes her circle around Ava and rests her hand on her shoulder blade. Ava looks back at her, face pinched in concentration. “Most people think that punching is all arms, especially when you twist.” She pushes a little, leading Ava into a small twist.

“But your real power comes from your hips.” She drops Ava’s shoulders to brush her hips. “You twist your hips with enough torque, you generate enough power to make an impactful punch because you are putting your entire body behind it.” 

She pushes Ava’s hips to twist to demonstrate. Ava moves easily with the motion.

“Blunt force trauma, baby,” Ava sings. She looks up abruptly and twists a little to meet Beatrice’s eyes. “I need a superhero name.”

Beatrice smiles despite herself. “You’re just learning how to punch.”

Ava doesn’t hear her. “The Halo.”

“The Halo.”

Ava grins. “Yeah, remember that Snapchat filter with the blue and purple background that makes me look like I’m bisexual Jesus?”

“Ava,” she scolds.

“That could be my official superhero artwork.”

“Do you want to know how to throw a punch or not?”

Ava snaps to attention. “Yes, ma’am.” She thrusts her fist back into place and turns back around to face forward. “You were saying something about hips,” she says over her shoulder.

Beatrice gulps. She was. She just got distracted by the way it felt so easy to have Ava moving under her hands. Still, she needs to focus. Ava is. She can too.

Her eyes trail down from Ava’s shoulders to those hips and down to her feet. “Can The Halo take off her shoes, please?”

Ava looks down, cheeks flushing. “Oh, sorry.” She hurriedly kicks them off, sending them across the living room. 

It almost makes her laugh. Their first week living together, Beatrice would have followed after Ava until she put them in their proper place by the door. Now she doesn’t miss a beat, just continuing on and knowing that Ava will take care of it when they’re done. 

“It’s just that I need to see your footwork and I can’t if you’re wearing sneakers. Footwork is important to your legwork.” Beatrice points at Ava’s hip. “When you turn, turn sharply. Your core strength builds from there.”

Ava hesitates for a second, long enough that Beatrice catches it and frowns. “Uh, do you think…” Ava bounces a little on her toes. She’s nervous. It takes her another minute to get it out and Beatrice waits as she always does when it comes to Ava: patient and willingly. 

“Do you think that my back affects my power?”

“Oh,” Beatrice says softly. She takes a step closer, her hand already reaching out to wrap around Ava’s arm. Just to give her a touchpoint. 

“Well, a lot of your power does come from being able to rotate your core, of which your back is a part of. But you can compensate by strengthening the oblique muscles in your abs. The majority of your power though comes from your stance. Drawing power from your legs and transitioning to your upper body. Lift with your legs, right? You’ll still feel it through your body, of course, because things like boxing and mixed martial arts are whole-body practices.” 

She smooths her fingers over the sleeve of Ava’s cropped cutoff - a Baba Yaga on roller skates - and hopes Ava feels the intention in her touch. 

“But for a part-time superhero who remembers to use their legs, a few punches will be okay. You just need to learn and keep your form.”

Ava’s face clears. “Okay. So…” She grins. “How’s my form?”

“We need to fix your stance. Start with your weight evenly distributed. You also want to square up your feet. Lead foot forward but toes still pointing forward.”

Ava pitches to one side.

“No, no, wait. You’re leaning back on one leg too much. You’re giving me 70, 30 distribution. You can stand like that when we are ready to teach kicks. But for now, for just punching, I need 50, 50. Make it equal.” 

Ava turns, confused. “Can you just show me?”

Beatrice immediately steps back, hands fall away. “You want me to demonstrate?”

“No, I mean- Can you just… move my feet where they need to go?” 

There’s a hint of frustration in Ava’s words, like she’s getting upset that it doesn’t make sense the first time. They both have that in common. Ava just tends to be a bit more vocal about it. 

“Show you…”

Ava nods. “Just move my feet. I know, feet are gross. I promise they’re clean.” She waits. “I washed them two days ago.”

Beatrice knows for a fact that Ava washed her feet yesterday, because she likes to sing to her toes when she gets out of the shower. That’s not what’s making her pause. Her hesitation comes from knowing exactly what it will mean to move Ava’s body this way. She’s going to have to get even closer, cross an invisible line that only she can see. 

But Ava wants to learn and Beatrice isn’t going to let her get her information from someone at the Student Center who doesn’t know the difference between a jab and a cross punch. So she takes a halting step towards Ava, rests her hand against the small of Ava’s back, and stretches her leg out between Ava’s.

“This foot here,” she instructs. Ava’s ankle bone rubs against hers. She feels like the male lead in a Victorian novel; feeling Ava’s ankle has her heart racing. “And that foot- Yes. There.”

She looks down to check on both sides and eyes her work. It could be better. Ava is still leaning one way a little heavier than the other, but she seems to be swaying back and forth and it could work to her advantage. Satisfied, she looks up and realizes exactly how close Ava’s face is to hers. Ava grins and Beatrice’s heart shudders into place.

She tries to focus and steps behind Ava. “Now I want you to bend your knees a little like you’re going to squat.” 

She doesn’t wait to be asked this time. Her hands flutter down to Ava’s waist, fingers curling into the dip of her hip bones. She feels Ava’s body go taut and she nearly lets go, but it relaxes just as quickly and Ava is loose under her hands. 

“You want to create a stable base, so that means keeping your center of gravity low. That way when you punch, you can draw all that power from your legs.” She keeps her voice clear despite the way she feels like she’s trembling.

“Power in the legs, got it.” Ava looks down at her feet.

“When you’re low, there’s somewhere to go. That momentum can add to that force when you twist and throw that cross,” Beatrice’s hand pinches at Ava’s hip gently. “It starts down here.”

“Okay, so stay low.”

Beatrice nods. “The muscle groups you need to pay attention to are your quadriceps and your glutes.” 

Ava is still staring at her feet. “The what?”

Spurred on by a need she can’t quite fully articulate - to protect Ava the way Ava protects her, maybe. To make sure that Ava can always defend herself, surely - she runs a hand down the outside and top of Ava’s thigh. She feels a surprising amount of muscle there, pulled tight.

“These are your quads,” she says quietly. “If you’re not engaging them properly then I can just… push.” 

Beatrice gently pushes Ava forward. Ava has to take a slight step to avoid falling. Beatrice pulls her back up right and back into the cradle of her hips. “Focus on it. Engage it. And this time…” She leaves her hand pressed to Ava’s thigh and pushes with her other hand. Ava barely sways.

Ava looks back over her shoulder, eyes cutting down to where Beatrice’s hand is. “So engage my thighs.”

“Yes, front and back. Quads and glutes,” Beatrice corrects. “Your glutes especially. They’re your strongest muscle group.” 

“So what you’re saying is,” Ava starts slowly, grinning. “My ass is my strongest muscle.”

Beatrice sighs, suffering already. “Take this seriously. If you’re not doing it correctly, you can get hurt.” 

“I am,” Ava says quickly. She’s still smiling a little. “Totally am.”

She slides her hand back up to Ava’s hips, swallowing heavily when Ava looks away. “Once you’re there, you want to focus on your hips. Turn them sharply.”

“Butter knife sharp or-”

“Chef’s knife sharp.” Beatrice slides one hand a little further around Ava’s front, enough to get a slightly better grip so she can turn Ava’s hip back. “The sharper, the harder your punch is.”

There’s nearly nothing between them now. A piece of paper would wrinkle. And Beatrice feels alive. She feels like the air is cleaner. The lights are brighter. She could be glowing warm yellow light and levitating off the ground and she wouldn’t know because Ava is thisclose and she’s forgotten to buy different shampoo so it still smells like pineapple and caramel from her coffee and every single one of Beatrice’s senses is electrified. 

She’s been in love with Ava for a while now and each time they touch, she sinks a little further into the feeling. She lets it envelope her. She drowns in it. She lets it consume her most of her waking moments and all of her sleeping ones too.

She’s very dramatic. But she also loves Ava Silva more than she’s loved anything in her entire life and sometimes, dramatics are necessary.

“So,” Ava breathes out. “Just… twist my hips.”

Beatrice pulls her back again to her starting position. She can feel the muscle of Ava’s hamstring against her thigh. She keeps her voice steady, a feat harder than anything she’s ever done before. 

“Twist. Like this.” She spins Ava’s hip again. “Transfer your weight onto the ball of your foot when you twist. That’s the only time that your heel should lift off the ground.” She touches the back of Ava’s knee, pressing in a little. “Bend here more to lift as you twist up.”

Ava swallows, jaw clicking loud between them. “And my arm goes out at the same time.”

“Yes.” Beatrice uses one hand to guide Ava’s arm forward. “Put it all together to get that power. Bend, twist, punch.”

Ava lets herself be spun out again, a bend of her knee and a sharp twist of her hips. 

“Good. Now reset.” She lets Ava set her feet. “Don’t forget to breathe this time. Exhale with your punch. It’ll loosen your muscles and create a more explosive force behind your punch. Now again.”

Beatrice hears Ava exhale with her punch. It echoes in her ears like a church bell - haunting and beautiful and ringing in her chest so loudly it sends small ripples through her body and into her hands. They shake on Ava’s waist as she tries to hold them still. She breathes in through her nose - pineapple and caramel and promise - and exhales against the back of Ava’s neck. 

Ava pulls back to a starting position almost immediately, already catching on to the rhythm.

“Again. Together.” she says, reduced to single words as Ava’s body moves under her hand back again. “Bend, twist, punch, hold.”

Beatrice turns with her this time– bends her knee, twists her hip, punches out beneath Ava’s arm. They stay poised like that, an arm outstretched and molded against Ava’s back. She thinks she’s trembling - it can’t be Ava. She can’t be feeling what Beatrice is feeling. This feeling is hers and hers alone.

But Ava isn’t breathing. Beatrice starts to pull away but Ava steps back into her. Beatrice feels her breath catch and she rushes to cover it with a cough. That gets stuck in her throat too, and she’s suspended weightless, her hands and arms and chest burning where they touch Ava.

Her hand slides down along the curve of Ava’s leg where it presses back into her. Touch, a voice in her mind whispers like silk. The hem of Ava’s too-short shorts catches on her fingernails. She can feel Ava’s back pocket against her palm and she knows the imprint it leaves might never go away even when it isn’t visible anymore. She nearly tucks the tips of her finger into it, a slight flicker of possession that almost overtakes her.

Ava steps away, the heat of her body gone as she puts space between them.

Beatrice feels her stomach tighten as Ava stands suspended in front of her, back facing Beatrice. She went too far. She took too much. But before she has too much time to think about it, Ava turns and clears her throat.

“What about when I fight your parents? Should I put power into that?”

The tension breaks. Beatrice breathes out a laugh.

A thrill still shoots up through her every time Ava makes some kind of casual threat regarding her parents. She doesn’t wish them harm. She doesn’t wish them anything at all. But there’s a certain niggling wonderment in the way Ava doesn’t hesitate to declare she’d go to war for Beatrice. It makes her feel wanted in the best way.

Beatrice exhales. “Yes, you should always put power into your punches.”

Ava seems to need a minute, something complicated crossing her face before it clears. “Maybe I’ll take up boxing.”

Beatrice leans into the subject change, needing to distance herself for a moment too. “Mary has a friend at the campus gym. Mateo. He’s a good teacher.”

“As good as you?” Ava shakes out her arms and legs. “Because I want the best.”

So you certainly wouldn’t want me, a voice not unlike her mother’s whispers. She smiles despite it. “Other people are far better teachers than I am.”

“But you’re my favorite.” Ava grins and rests her hands on Beatrice’s shoulders as she leans up and gently headbutts her. Beatrice frowns. “I saw a cat do that once. Means I like you.”

“Better than pulling my hair, I suppose. Or kicking me down on the playground,” Beatrice murmurs. Ava doesn’t hear her, already moving back to the counter where the hot water for their tea has gone tepid.

Ava busies herself with pulling down another mug and dumping out her own, turning the kettle back on. “I want to watch a kung fu movie.”

“I have homework,” Beatrice sighs.

Ava shrugs it off. “So we’ll do homework first and then watch a Bruce Lee movie. You can correct his form.”

Beatrice snorts. “He’s Bruce Lee. His form is impeccable. And we practice drastically different forms of martial arts.” She sighs at the look on Ava’s face. “But I’ll let you tell me what you think he should be doing, if you’d like.”

“It’s like you know me so well.” Ava leans back against the counter and crosses her arms over her chest. “You’re my favorite person in the whole world, you know that? I’d punch Eduardo in the face for you, if you wanted me to.”

Beatrice does know. And it’s what makes everything so confusing. But it doesn’t stop her from loving the way it makes her feel any less.

“I’m quite certain I could punch Eduardo myself,” Beatrice says softly. “But that’s nice that you’re offering to punch a man I’ve never met.”

Ava shrugs. “So long as you know I’d fight anyone for you.” She puffs out her chest, resting her hands in the spaces where Beatrice’s had just been. She pitches her voice low. “The Halo will rescue any damsel in distress.”

“The Halo needs to maybe empty her backpack before the cream cheese in it goes bad.”

Ava’s face flushes and she darts for her backpack. Beatrice watches her openly and thinks, one day, I’ll let you rescue me. And I’ll hold on tightly if you let me.

–

It takes another hour before she’s done with her homework. Ava finishes in half that time but doesn’t rush her, passing her a highlighter when it rolls away from her and refilling her tea for her when she finishes it. And Ava puts away her shoes without the reminder, tucking them neatly on the shoe rack next to Beatrice’s running sneakers. 

Ava never rushes her, always lets her make her way through things the way she wants to. For someone who rushes through so much, her patience is another testament to the ways Ava has changed for her.

“Alright, so it’s between Enter the Dragon or Fist of Fury Part Two.”

Beatrice wrinkles her nose. “What about Fist of Fury Part One?”

“Can’t find that one.” Ava immediately slides towards her when Beatrice sits down, the sharp point of her knees digging into Beatrice’s thigh. She barely feels them. “So maybe Enter the Dragon? He’s hunting down a drug king who killed his sister.”

“Sure.” Beatrice doesn’t care what the movie is about. Not with the way that Ava is arranging herself so that she’s pressed in closer to Beatrice.

Ava is too busy selecting the movie to see the way that Beatrice is controlling the way she breathes, using all her training to keep it even. So busy that when she reaches out and takes Beatrice’s hand, dropping it onto her thigh, she doesn’t notice the way Beatrice fails spectacularly at the only thing she’s focused on doing.

Ava’s thigh is still muscled, still warm and smooth. Beatrice’s fingers curl over the skin, molding to her leg. There’s nothing between them, no denim shorts. Just Beatrice’s palm, sure to sweat in a minute, and Ava’s skin. 

She inhales one controlled breath, letting it out in a hot, quiet exhale. Ava looks at her and Beatrice forces a smile, hoping it doesn’t shake like she feels every nerve ending in her is. She must be succeeding; Ava smiles back at her and wiggles down towards her a little more. 

Touch is her newest love language. She’s still growing into it, still trying to understand it as well as Ava does. So maybe she didn’t go too far. Maybe she didn’t push too much. If she had, Ava wouldn’t be seeking her out, would she? She would be sitting across the couch, a cushion like an ocean between them. She wouldn’t be here, pressed into Beatrice’s side with her hand on top of hers. Maybe - as Ava smiles and scratches her fingernails against the back of her hand gently - Ava is trying to tell her that they’re thinking the same thing; they’re on the same page.

But she still doesn’t know for sure. She doesn’t have any more answers than she did before.

She thinks about the words Shannon told her, right after Ava’s coffee date with JC. “Be honest. Be direct. Tell her how you feel. If you never say anything, you’ll never know and you might just miss your chance.”

Ava has many love languages. Beatrice wants to love Ava in every one. 

“Just use your words, Beatrice.”

Maybe she just needs to adopt a new one.

[blues824]

round 5 ‼️‼️ gotta feed them silver simps

silver w prompts 18 and 19!!

You requested: Christmas Dinner, Making Christmas Dinner, + Mistletoe 

Sorry I forgot it on the last request!!

Silver

Because the Diasomnia crew was going back to Briar Valley for Winter Break, you had proposed having a dinner celebration before then because you were not going to see them for a little while. Malleus and Lilia knew that there was a bit of a situationship between you and Silver, so they were all too happy to accept your invitation.

It was a rather casual occasion, but you still decorated the dormitory appropriately for the season it was. You were wiping down the counter when you got a text from a certain silver-haired knight.

Do you need any help setting up?

You paused to look around you, seeing if you actually needed any assistance. Then you realized that you would need help preparing dinner. You needed a few ingredients as well, but your hands were tied at the moment. So, you decided to call him.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Silver! How good are you at cooking? Or even just following a recipe?”

“I would say I am proficient.”

“Good, because I need help preparing the meal and I need a few ingredients. It’s not a lot, and I’ll pay you back-”

“No need. I’ve got you covered. Being a knight pays fairly well, so don’t worry.”

“You are my knight in shining armor… When do you think you’ll get here?”

“Should be less than an hour. I’ll head to Sam’s Shop right now.”

“Ok! Sounds good. See you later!”

“Bye, Y/N.”

~~~~~~~~

True to his word, he arrived at Ramshackle no later than an hour after he hung up. He knocked on the door with his free hand, grocery bag in the other. He had to escape from his dorm quietly, otherwise his father would have wanted to help with the cooking, and the last thing anyone needed before the trip was food poisoning.

When you answered the door, you had a smile on your face as you tried to take the groceries from him, but he refused, saying he wouldn’t be a gentleman if he had you carry them. You let him in, and he set them on the counter, and he immediately set about rolling up his sleeves to his elbows and washing his hands.

Seeing him roll up his sleeves had to be the hottest thing you had ever seen. You were able to clearly see the veins of his hands and the slightly toned muscles in his forearms. You could have died happy right then and there.

ANYWAY, he turned to you as he wiped his hands on the towel.

“What are we going to be making?”

“…Buckle up.”

~~~~~~~~

He was right: he was proficient when it came to cooking. Of course, he was just following the recipe, but he was doing really well. For the dinner, you wanted to make their favorite dishes as well as some dishes from your own world as well.

That meant that you were making mushroom risotto, salmon carpaccio, you had gotten some ice cream beforehand, and you looked up some tomato dishes. You also, luckily, had some tuna to feed Grim. The smell of the kitchen wafted through the air, making the cat hungry, and more than a few times you and Silver had to swat his paws away from the food.

When you had diced the onions, he got concerned when you started crying. He rushed over to you and checked to see if you had cut yourself. You were definitely surprised by the close proximity, but you had to assure him that you were fine and it was the onions rather than you actually being hurt.

In order to make sure that you were alright, he took over chopping the onions, and they still managed to make him tear up, but he kept going. He would rather do it, even if it did sting a bit, because you were washing out your eyes with some water at the moment.

Onion incident aside, everything else went smoothly. You both talked about whatever came to mind, topics such as how his training was going or what Sebek freaked out about just the other day. To hear that your fellow First Year was screaming at a poor Diasomnia student for daring to not bow before the great Malleus Draconia was not surprising. In fact, you felt pity for the student, as they might not have known the proper etiquette for being around the Royal Family.

When you placed the last dish out on the table and covered it with aluminum foil, you thanked him for all his help, and an awkward silence fell over you both. He gathered his things and exited the door back to Diasomnia, going to change because he had gotten some stuff all over his clothes. You were in a similar state and rushed upstairs to get a change of clothes.

Meanwhile, two certain faes and a certain cat were plotting a little something, and Grim quietly slipped out of the room to get one last decoration. Malleus and Lilia totally bribed him the last time they saw him by the way, offering to bring the fanciest tuna that money could buy.

~~~~~~~~

You were a bit nervous for the dinner, as you had never hosted royalty before. You yourself didn’t know how to act, and you were afraid you were gonna end up like the scolded Diasomnia student. However, you were not afraid to fight Sebek back.

Anyway, the doorbell rang, and you rushed to open it. Your guests had arrived, and you greeted each and every one of them as they walked in. They took in the decorated, yet still ramshackled dormitory, and you were getting even more nervous. However, Silver gave you a comforting smile that made your butterflies settle down.

“What lovely decorations, Prefect!~” Lilia said as he put his coat on the coat-rack.

“It smells wonderful, Child of Man,” Malleus could definitely sense your nerves, so he tried to calm you down.

“Thank you. The food is ready, if you’re all hungry!” You said, leading them to the kitchen, where they would assemble their own plates. You were afraid that you were gonna be yelled at for daring to make the prince make his own plate of food, but you got no retribution. You looked at Sebek and his mouth actually was duct-taped. The sight made you giggle, but you moved on rather quickly.

Once everyone got their servings, you all sat down in the living room to enjoy each other’s company. The piece of tape on the younger knight’s mouth was removed on the condition that he would not complain. To be fair, you learned to make salmon carpaccio for him, so he had no real reason to complain anyway.

Silver had a serving of the mushroom risotto, his favorite, and he noticed that his father took some as well, making him feel a bit happy. He took a bite and noticed that it tasted wonderful, a great fruit of you and him working as a team. 

You were invested in your conversation with Malleus, asking him about his grandmother and her wellbeing, any new gargoyles he took notice of, the types of architecture back in the Briar Valley, and he was all too happy to speak about it with you. Silver found himself staring at you, and Lilia discovered that as well, giving him a bit of an elbow.

“Why don’t you actually talk to Y/N?” His father whispered to him.

“I don’t know what you mean, Lilia. I talk to them regularly.”

“Oh, but you do know what I mean. I’ve seen that look in many eyes, including my own. You’re in love, my son,” He said, a knowing gleam in his smile.

~~~~~~~~

As the crew got up to leave, you noticed that Malleus, Lilia, and even Grim all had smirks on their faces. You were definitely very suspicious, especially as you lingered behind with Silver, not quite ready for him to leave yet.

“Are you sure I can’t pay you back for your help today?” You asked, stopping right before the front door.

“I am very sure, Prefect. You don’t need to worry,” He said, also stopping. He was trying his hardest to not fall asleep right then and there, feeling the day’s exhaustion catching up to him.

Then you noticed something like magical sparkles floating down. You looked up to see a levitating piece of mistletoe, letting out a gasp as both of your faces grew warm. Silver looked back into your eyes.

“I am not one to stray from tradition, but I understand if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Are you asking if you can kiss me?”

“I suppose…?”

“Then yes.”

And with that, as the rest of the Diasomnia crew celebrated outside your front door, your knight in shining armor placed a gentle and delicate kiss upon your lips. His hands went to cup your face, and your hands went to hold onto his arms, both of you reveling in the loving embrace of your newfound lover.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 3 MATCH 22

Claude propaganda:

"To say Claude has trust issues is an understatement—you have to spend half the game earning his. (Claude isn't even his real name!) Once you have it, though, he's absolutely ride or die for you until the stars go out. He is so full of heart and ambition: He wants both sides of his heritage to get along, he wants to open borders and eliminate xenophobia and promote equality between commonfolk, and deep down, I think he craves a partner to stand with him at that new dawn, or an equal who sees his vision for the future and will fight for it just as hard. Nobody believed in him when he was a kid, but if you put your faith in him, he'll return it tenfold. Some people don't like that he's calculating, or has to leave the player character at the end of the game to go back to his homeland, but both are necessary elements for his goals to change things. He will always come back, and everyone who bets against him and his love for his companions is wrong with a big fat W. #KhalidForMostDatablePrez"

"Claude is a fun little onion of facades. He calls himself the embodiment of distrust, he acts like he's carefree and without worries, an unscrupulous schemer--and so many in universe buy into that hook line and sinker. He's used to others viewing him with suspicion and uses it as armor to obscure his not-so-dark truth: that he cares immensely, that he values minimizing the loss of life, and that above all he has so much hope that people will fundamentally choose to do better given the choice.

His front guards a center that his conflict filled world would be happy to tear apart. As the child of people from two nations in constant conflict--one of which is explicitly isolationist and dehumanizes those outside its church's reach--he hasn't really had a place where he can be without his facade. As a child he thought he could run, but when confronted with the fact that this hatred existed no matter where he ran, he chose to instead try to create a more just and kind world.

His inability to let others in beyond his facade at first may lead to a sense of distance, but isn't it then all the more satisfying when you're allowed in? All he wants is a little trust, a little faith, and--like what he wants to give everyone--a chance to be better.

And like that you got a charming young lad with a fun personality that your grandma would be thrilled to have stay forever."

Hades propaganda:

“Fields of Asphodel is a work in progress (but nearly finished!) text-based IF game where the MC plays the part of Persephone (you can rename your character tho) who get married to Hades at the behest of Zeus (being a giant douchebag per usual) and move to the Underworld. Hades is kind and respectful and cares deeply for his realm. He feels guilty that the MC was forced into this arranged marriage and does whatever he can to make the MC more comfortable. Even if the MC wants to leave, he puts the MC's feelings first. He drinks that respect women (gender neutral) juice everyday. Listen, this marriage is arranged by Olympus King Dick Zeus, so Hades has absolute zero problems if the MC dates someone else from his realm. Choose someone else's route (if you can!) He has the cutest kid, Makaria and of course everyone's favorite puppy Kerberos. Hades is a slow burn, he dodges and swerves the MC's flirting, pretending to be oblivious. He's not oblivious at all to the growing feelings between the two and that's what makes it sooo good.”

[kabra-malvada]

💙❄️Cold Shots❄️💙

Simon Pretikov x reader (gender neutral) oneshot.

For context: this takes some months after the first season of fionna and cake so Simon is chipper and healing now, still holding onto some habits but hey, baby steps.

     The sound of the old jukebox seems to drown out in the background like white noise fueling the already overwhelming atmosphere of the candy bar. The floor creaks as people walk on and about, washing over the invisible walls you’ve been putting on all evening. Not that anyone usually even talks to you but today you’re somehow even more apprehensive about it all.

     The same old rhythm, you could be painted in the wall for all the world cares, you don’t even bother speaking up to order another round, just tapping on the counter and waiting for the root beer guy to fill it up to your heart’s contempt. 

     Your usual spot in the far corner is taken as the place is unusually crowded tonight much to your dismay. You’re not tipsy, but you’re not that sober either, the familiar weakness in your legs starting to settle. 

     The world seems to lose color for a moment as your mind wanders off, staring at your glass as if it held all the answers to your problems but refuses to speak to you. Mocking you for the ever growing need of relief to your boiling but quiet mind. Is as if your own thoughts are slowly being ripped from your body only to come back stronger.

- Hello?- A small strained voice pulls you back, as if suddenly you had remembered to breathe.

     The old gentleman before you is rocking quite the scholarly look, very…vintage. He waves his hand as if to make sure you’re actually looking at him. His expression is stoic, a little annoyed if anything. He adjusts his glasses before speaking up again.

- I uh, just wondered if the seat was taken…- He glances around momentarily, making sure that indeed, the seat beside you at the barstool is the only one available.

- Um… yeah, sure. Go ahead.

      He hesitates for a moment but ultimately takes the seat, you didn’t mind that much really but you’d be lying if you were to say getting your train of thought, or absence of, stopped so abruptly miffed you just the slightest bit.

     The man is greeted by the bartender as Simon, seemingly being a regular. At that moment, the situation seems vaguely familiar, although you can’t say for sure since you usually don’t pay much attention to your surroundings while drunk… his name rings a distant bell.

     He orders some whiskey on the rocks… with onions?

     “Odd.” is the only thought that comes to you at his choice of drink. Ah… you’re running dry too, when? Who knows, who cares… not you.

     You tap your glass again and almost immediately the bartender refills it, his muddy rootbeer head swaying a little as he slides by and almost immediately walks away to attend the now full bar. As much as you don’t like crowded places you gotta admit that the place looks… more lively than usual, a sentiment the man beside you seems to share.

- Kinda crowded here huh…?-

- … Yeah. It’s packed… not my kind of thing really.-

     The man, Simon shrugs, not that bothered by the situation apparently. He gives his drink a little swirl, the onions mixing in with the dark drink. Your curiosity gets the better of you as your mind attempts to settle.

- Why onions…? If you don’t mind me asking that is…-

- Well, heh, I like the sweetness of it mixed with the whiskey. Gives it a nice aftertaste.- He smiles a little then takes a swig.

- …Okay…-

     The answer leaves you a little dumbfounded but you decide not to question it. After all it’s not as if your own tastes weren’t a little weird. The two of you settle in a little comfortable silence for a couple of minutes. You don’t space out this time tho, your mind a little busy at the “extravagance” of your companion beside you.

- …Say, what are you having tonight?-

- … I… um…- you sigh, gathering your thoughts momentarily.- Bloodshade Moonshine… it’s from the Nightosphere.-

- Really now? Sounds kinda strong..-

     You chuckle, because indeed. It is very strong. A thought comes to mind, a mischievous little thought. You down the remaining watered down drink then order two raw shots.

- Wanna try?- You smirk not really expecting him to accept but-

- S-Sure. Why not, It’s been a while since I tried something new…-

     You cock an eyebrow, genuinely surprised as he doesn’t appear like the type to drink heavily. This only furthers the interest you’ve been gaining towards him. Just who is this old fart and why is he seemingly so nonchalant about it all? 

- Are you sure? You look awfully confident man…-

- Simon. It’s Simon, and don’t worry about me, I can hold my weight.- He appears a little too confident for his own good, nevertheless your drinks are served.

- Okay, be my guest Simon, bottoms up.- You raise your shot at him, silently daring him to follow along.

     He returns the gesture, determination pouring from his eyes. The two of you down the shots at the same time, in a bold sync of sorts. The familiar cold burn in your throat spreads like wildfire, forcing you to take a silent deep breath so as to not choke.

     Simon on the other hand seems to struggle the most, his face contorting in discomfort but his determination to show you off doesn’t falter in the slightest. He gasps a little, taking a moment to adjust at the deep burn in his throat.

- J-Jesus- He can’t help but coff a little, the intensity of it all more than he expected it to be but his resolve is complete as he regains his composure.

- You good man?- A chuckle escapes you, not in a mocking way, more so amused at his failed stubbornness to seem unaffected.

- Y-Yeah, I-I’m fine… It was a little more than I expected tho.- The sheepishness in his voice is apparent as it cracks slightly.

- It’s good tho right?-

- Y-Yeah, it is, it has a metallic aftertaste, a little sweet too. How you drink this regularly is lost on me tho, you don’t even look tipsy?-

- Hey now, I don’t drink it raw like this every day, I water it down with ice or soda, usually ice tho this thing is sweet as is.- You give him a thin but sincere smile.

     He nods and asks for two rounds of his own preferred drink. He looks… kinda cute when blushed like this… even if he is kinda old and maybe a tad gruff. But cute.

     You can’t help but notice how his glasses seem to fog due to the sudden heat in his face and without thinking too hard into it you reach for a handkerchief you keep in your pant’s pocket.

- Here let me take care of those for you…-

- A-Ah… thanks…- He shyly takes off his glasses and hands them to you, a few of his silver strands getting caught on the hinges as he pulls them from his face.- Oww, hate when his happens.-

     You huff a laugh at the face he makes, finding his little out loud thoughts endearing. His face now more visible to you without his glasses on, the wrinkles in his face defined in an oddly elegant way, however old he is… he’s aged well. Attempting to regain focus you start to clean off the fog, making sure they are good enough for use before handing them back to him.

     He mutters a soft “thanks” then puts them back on, being careful of not getting his hair caught on the hinges of them again.

- Better?-

- Mhmm, better, thank you…- He sighs, the smell of alcohol hitting you all of the sudden.- Okay, your turn now.-

- W-What?-

- I tried your drink so now you try mine. It’s only fair don’t you think?- He offers you the second glass the bartender brought, smirking at you a bit.

- Damn, got me there… onions and all?-

- Yeah, onions and all, unless you’re scared?- Maybe it’s the alcohol speaking but you swear he sounds a bit more smug than before.

- A-Alright, alright. You’re on, old man-

     He scoffs at the small jab, not really offended but more so amused at your antics. You seemed so closed off at the beginning of your interaction that this must be a little jarring to him, or so you assume as he is still pretty much a stranger sharing a drink and small games with you.

- For the record I’m not that old, only a thousand and sixty eight years old.- 

- HUH?- You almost choke in your spit as he states so, finding no glimpses of irony or sarcasm in his tone.

- Long story. But the thousand years don’t really count so only sixty eight.-

- …Of course, this is Ooo we’re talking about… Usually mages look different tho so you can’t really blame me for-

- I’m not a mage, well… not anymore.- His expression sombers a little as he states that, so you opt to not push him.

- I see, well sixty eight it is then, and looking good hehe- You attempt to lighten the mood, and before he can answer you interject again.- Okay, onion whiskey it’s you and me, let’s dance.-

     He chuckles, his face flushed from the alcohol, mayhaps something else too. He raises his own glass to you and grins. You return the gesture and clank the glasses together with a “cheers” from the both of you. Your movements mirror each other’s.

      Just like expected, the taste is very… unconventional to say the least. Not bad, just really different from what you had imagined, bitter but not overwhelmingly so, the taste of the onions adding a surprisingly nice aftertaste to it.

- Oh… that was good actually… you were right heh-

- I always am so you better get used to it alright?- He raises an eyebrow, cheeky as ever.

- I wouldn’t mind getting used to this to be honest, you have good taste- the unspoken proposal now up in the air like the lights hanging from the ceiling.

- …Hmmm, sure, why not? As long as we don’t overdo it, having a drinking buddy sounds nice actually…- His tone is sincere, although he is already slurring his speech a bit.

- Okay, Okay then. Wouldn’t want to take you to the Princess Doctor’s ward due to alcohol poisoning, heh…-

- Oh certainly, I’d never hear the end of it if that happened again- I mean… dammit.-

- Oh? Pray to tell?- The half joke is lost in your tone as you speak.

N-nothing too serious, just… I overestimated myself during my daughter’s engagement party, that’s all.- 

     He blushes furthermore at the last bit, clearly embarrassed at the memory. You on the other hand find it absolutely amusing, now even more excited than ever to get to know him further.

[legendsgalore]

Dropping Vegetables, and Blushes

A short oneshot where March helps you out with some heavy produce.

You thought you had gained more muscle by this point,  after two seasons of farming, but still, the bucket of fall produce you were lugging around was so heavy you felt your forearms burning with the effort of holding on. You couldn’t tell what would give out first, your grip strength in your fingers, your forearms failing on you, or your biceps from squeezing the basket to your body so tightly.

You really hoped you could make it to the Inn in time, Reina had asked for some of your pumpkins directly, and you weren’t going to say no to that. And if you happened to toss in some other items, like some onion and rosemary, which coincidentally were the ingredients to making a delicious Pumpkin Stew, well, you were just being generous right?

Your ‘generosity’ has left you a sweating and panting mess, struggling to get more than ten paces away from your farm, because your basket is too heavy!

The bridge is up ahead, and then Celine’s house, and then likely you will see someone who can help you carry the basket..which you will likely refuse because wouldn’t that be embarrassing, not being able to carry this small amount? Not that anyone would really make fun of you, maybe some light-hearted teasing. Hmm..except maybe March. He would make fun of you.

Thinking of the red-headed blacksmith makes you stumble, and you catch yourself before stumbling into a hardwood stump. Thinking of him makes you burn up, and not just from the exertion of carrying your produce. He is, unfairly good-looking, and seems to know it, if the way he throws looks over his shoulder indicates. Especially when he is smithing, and his shoulder muscles and chest bulge in the right way as he swings his hammer down, and the beads of sweat drip down into the valley between his pecs…and maybe you have a problem.

Not a maybe, you knew for sure you were crushing hard on March, and for some reason his aggressive warnings and “call-out” the day he invited you to talk didn’t deter you. In fact, it just made you think of him even more, wanting to prove him wrong and make him admire you and your hard work.

Which brings you to the now, gripping the sides of the basket as if your life depended on it, as you prepare yourself to walk across the bridge and not fall into the water. Thank you very much.

 Not that you were bringing pumpkins to Reina because you wanted to impress March, you wouldn’t be that sort of person. But (you stumble a little as your grip fails for a moment, needing to squeeze the basket tightly before you drop it) everyone in town loves when the soup of the day is Pumpkin Stew, and if you happened to buy everyone a round of beer and March happened to be there….wouldn’t that be a coincidence? Wow, you are hopeless.

Just as you come to that surprising conclusion, you feel the foot you just placed falter and twist, with your weight landing on your ankle rather than the foot. Your eyes widen and you open your mouth to shout as you feel the world tip. Realizing your impending doom in the form of the cold river in Autumn, you close your eyes to your fate.

But before you can hit the surface of the water, you feel a strong pair of arms wrap around you and stop your momentum.

“Are you okay?!” Your savior says, and you open your eyes to meet the harsh gaze of the man you were just thinking about, March. His dark eyes are searching you, presumably checking for injuries.

“I’m fine!” You squeak out.

His arms are wrapped around you, stopping you mid fall so that you’re still slightly angled, just the strength of his arms keeping you from letting you plop into the river. The basket is safely between you two, you having fallen with it in your arms. But the blacksmith is squeezing so hard, you can see some of the onions getting crushed from it.

The warmth from his large hands wrapped around the small of your back seems to heat up your whole body, and you’re sure your blush is telling. March definitely picks up on this, and  his face makes an aborted twitching motion, his own blush coming forth, before he pulls you onto your feet-wow he’s strong-and takes a step back, now holding your basket of produce.

“Good.” He says, and then folds his arms, and glares at you. 

“What were you thinking?”

“H-huh?” You stammer out, heart still racing.

His eyebrows furrow, and he says, “You obviously can’t carry that much produce, why didn’t you ask for help, or carry less?”

The flush grows hotter, as you retort, “I was carrying it just fine! I’m strong enough!”

March blinks at you, “I literally just saved you and your pumpkins from falling into the river, how can you call that ‘just fine?’”

“Ah, just, agh!” You cry out, upset that March had to see you in this moment of failure.

You look at the redhead, his mouth pulled down in surprise. You don't really react like that, more soft-tempered and amiable. You thrust out your hands.

“Thank you for your help March. Give it please.”

His eyes flicker down to your hands and back up, and his eyebrows furrow again.

“What?”

You shift on your feet, looking to the side and back at the blacksmith. “I mean my basket, can I have it back please? I need to deliver it to Reina.”

March makes a face. “Why would I hand it back to you, you’re just going to drop it again.”

“I swear-March! I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me, I’m strong enough to do this by myself, okay?”

You take a step closer, and meaningfully thrust your hands out again.

March just stares down at you, him being a decent head taller than you, and the basket being the only distance between you two, as you stand on the bridge. The wind blows, and despite yourself, you feel a shiver run through your body. 

His eyes catalog the miniscule movement, and he sighs, shifting the weight in his arms. Which makes you realize he has been holding the basket this whole time, no big deal. Unfair, good looking and strong?

“You’re strong enough, you know?”

“What.” You immediately stammer.

March seems to build up courage as closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and then breathes out heavily. His eyes open and capture your’s, and you feel frozen by his gaze, warmth sliding over you as if you had been pushed into the river and it was so cold you felt warm.

“You are strong, a strong farmer, so let me carry this for you? It’s too heavy, so,” Here he makes a twitching expression, aborting a scowl, and stopping at neutral as he tilts his head to look at you.

“..so let me help you, okay?”

Your knees feel weak. You stare at him, gaping dumbly. March deals with the silence for a second before huffing again.

“This isn’t really a request now. Let’s go to the Inn.”

With that he turns to continue down the path to Mistria, and you scramble to walk by his side.

“What do you mean I’m strong?” You demand, bent forward as you stare up at March.

He keeps his gaze resolutely forward, and replies, “Exactly what I said.”

Narrowing your eyes, you press him, “But you said this basket is too heavy for me, what do you mean I’m strong?”

Here the blacksmith gives you a side eye, and says, “Maybe I’m giving you too much credit here.” 

At your indignant squeak, he smirks, and boy does that do something to your heart, and you can’t help but smile back at him in response. The blacksmith’s mouth opens a little as he sees your smile, and then he turns to look the other way, where you can’t see his face.

“You’re strong in other ways, so let me help out with lifting the heavy stuff, okay? You don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

“March, that’s…”

Just as you start to say something stupid like, “that’s really sweet,” the muscular blacksmith stops, causing you to bump into him.

“Well, we’re here.”

Indeed you had both arrived at the Inn, the walk wasn’t that far, and you felt disappointment strum through your body. You look up at March to maybe invite him in for a drink, but the blacksmith isn’t even looking at you. 

“I need to go finish an order at the shop, see you around.”

Your mouth closes, and you blink your eyes as March makes a speedy escape from you, but…you can see the blush that covers his neck to his ears. It almost makes you hopeful…

You smile to yourself, and bend down to pick up the basket of produce, you can definitely make the few steps into the Inn here. You had gotten enough emotional intelligence out of March for a day, you were satisfied by that.

And if later that evening, when everyone was hanging out in the Inn, the blacksmith pulls you over, with a solid arm around your shoulders, bringing you close, and then whispering into your ear pressed right into his face, 

“You’re strong in your own way, you know?”

Well, no one could blame you for your whole-body blush and undeniably dopey grin as you stare up at your blacksmith.

[extrajigs]

The FOOD POST!! Or well the build up to it. I figured before I could get started I need to first clarify some staple crops for Mirum. Not including most fruits cause hoo boy. These are crops of the floodplains, aka most populated areas of Mirum.

Big ass infodump to be found below!

First to be explained the flood plains have FIVE distinct growing 'zones' which are classified by how likely they are to be subject to flooding, as well as the associated fire risks. ZONE 5: Never Floods These areas will as stated, remain above water for all but the most record breaking seasonal flooding. Hilltops and highlands basically, this also means that they are at risk of tinder buildup and highest likelyhood for fire so watch out! ZONE 4: Occasionally Floods These areas are most of the time dry, maybe underwater at the peak of the season or if it was particularly heavy rain or maybe not at all! This level is also were most settlements will be built around, with some overlap into the areas before and after it. ZONE 3: Always Floods/Drains This is the majority of land in the Mirum Floodplain, these places will be sunk for minimum of 3 months of the year but above water the rest of the time. Plants that reside here have no way of not dealing with the flooding and this is also where we flip from Flooding to Draining! ZONE 2: Occasionally Drains The rivers of Mirum, these areas will most likely remain flooded for the entirety of the year. Only maybe draining out during the height of fire season, but even then its not super common. ZONE 1: Never Drains These are the deep bellies of Mirum's rivers and lakes. Where only years of lack luster rain and drought will drain them, a once in a century catastrophe! But typically they will remain filled with a substantial amount of water year round.

NOW PLANTS TIME! 1. Twin Leaf- These plants are grown in Zone 5 mainly for their fibrous stalk and leaves. The stalk is useful for making rope and all that jazz while young leaves are snipped off to be snacked on. Mature leaves are waxy and inedible once split, but young leaves are similar in texture to cabbage. 2. Dwarf Oak- Actually not related to oak at all but moreso named for the similarities in the nuts from the two plants. Here though the 'acorns' are filled with a milky substance that makes a pretty good butter substitute. 3. Funion- Yeah this is an onion, but like a fancy fantasy themed one. If I could just slap an onion in there I would. 4. Brittle Palm- This palm is covered in woody remnants of its old leaves, to get to the good bits you have to peel it down to the center. Ever had heart of palm? Same thing, only a bit saltier.

5. Bubble Grass- This grain spends all year waiting for the flood waters to come in, where it has two distinct seeds awaiting. Light air filled seeds to ride the current inland and heavier seeds to sink down with the receding water. It is named for the fact that these heavier seeds fizz and bubble on the way down. 6. Water-Tato- Listen potatoes are also ESSENTIAL to any world. How about these guys grow big ole tubers to last through the flood? Once they get sunk underwater the leaves die off and it waits out the flooding. Then it uses stored energy to pop right on up again! 7. Never Sleep- This plant reacts to the flood season by letting it's outer wood and leaves rot away, regrowing itself from the inside out! However the chemicals it produces to stave off bacteria and decay are quite potent stimulants. Thus it has become quite popular with chimera looking to get a rush at the expense of their overall health! 8. Stone Flower- These fruits grow on tall stalks until their weight eventually sends them down into the waters below. They float along thanks to sweet, spongey tissues carrying along a big ole seed in the center. Taste like a savory strawberry.

9. Chew- A fun, underwater grass with tough outer stalks and soft, sweet insides. You could go through the trouble of peeling it or always just chew and spit it out once you give up! 10. Rubber Weed- A seaweed, or well waterweed? Not really in the ocean. A waterweed who is actually seaweed and is treated as such! Would be very good dried and salted.

11. Tile- Named because a big patch of these can hide the water below completely, they are big ass water lilies farmed mainly for the soft fleshy lumps grown on the underside of their leaf. Though there are a bunch of thorns scattered in there. I wanna imagine that they taste of mild artichoke. 12. WATER-TATO DELUXE- I want to say this one is more similar to turnip, but its still there baby.

13. Oil Leak- These are underwater flowers. They bloom during the flood season and rely on poor creatures swimming through the clouds of oily pollen they spit up and sinking into the flower patch below, slowly suffocating as their writing only furthers the cycle of death. Also if you get it on you then you'll be feeling sticky for weeks after. Fun to smear on your friends!

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

U.A. High School Field Trip Around Japan: Day 4 Translations

This is Day 4 of Shonen Jump’s special commemoration of My Hero Academia reaching one hundred million copies worldwide, which is being rolled out daily across one-week in each prefecture’s newspaper.

The schedule:

April 4th, Day 1: Hokkaidō & Tōhōku regions

April 5th, Day 2: Kantō region

April 6th, Day 3: Chūbu region

April 7th, Day 4: Kansai region

April 8th, Day 5: Chūgoku & Shikoku regions

April 9th, Day 6: Kyūshū & Okinawa regions

April 10th, Day 7: Nationwide release

You can see the illustrations on their website here, where they are released digitally the day after the newspaper release.

Here we go!

Kansai Region

Mie

Photo credit: twitter user Hrkn1500

Aoyama: "Sur-pri-se~!" Sero: "Amazing, Aoyama!" Satou: "Should we go look for the toilet?"

Nabana no Sato is a flower park situated within the absolutely massive Nagashima Resort. It has lovely blooms all year, and from October to May it claims to host Japan's biggest illumination event, including a 200-meter long light tunnel.

Shiga

Photo credit: twitter user smile_wk_26

Tokoyami: "Art of the Flying Squirrel Black Shadow!!!" Mineta: "Imitation Caltrop!!" Edgeshot: "Abscondance" Hagakure: "Nin-nin! Hidden Hagakure!!"

They are at the Kōga-ryū Ninjutsu Ninja Village in Kōka city, the birthplace of this school of ninja-arts. I visited the Tōgakure Ninjutsu House in Nagano -- Tōgakure, Iga, and Kōga are considered the three main families of ninjutsu. These kinds of attractions usually have museums dedicated to the style's history and showing off tons of unique historical artifacts, but the main draw is all the activities for visitors to try their hand at being a ninja, shuriken-throwing, wall-climbing, rope-walking, etc.. Hagakure is making a pun, because her surname means "hidden leaves" or "hidden by the leaves" so she is "hidden hidden-leaves." Tokoyami is doing his Black Fallen Angel move, but it's much funnier to make it a giant flying squirrel attack.

Kyōto

Photo credit: twitter user sitatyan_dayo

Ashido: "You can't even see the sky through all the bamboo~!!" Yaoyorozu: "They say that the growing speed of bamboo is the fastest in the world. I've heard it can grow up to one meter in a single day." Mineta: "My whole height in a single day... I can't do this!!! Jirou: "Cheer up." Label on Mineta: "Mineta Minoru, Height: 1.08 Meters."

Arashiyama Bamboo Forest is a hugely popular tourist spot for its dense, soothing beauty. One meter is equivalent to 3 feet 3 inches; Mineta is just over 3 and a half feet tall.

Ōsaka

Photo credit: twitter user tomikomha

Shouji: "Hyah hyah hyah hyah!!!" Fat Gum: "He's... he's moving too fast, I can't even see his arms!" Kirishima: "No, actually, he's got lots of 'em!"

They are making takoyaki, a famous soul food created in Osaka in 1935. It requires a large griddle with rounded molds, and chefs use two metal rods to rotate the batter rapidly. It's really fun to watch them make it, and most stalls put the griddle up against a full-length window to show it off.

Hyōgo

Photo credit: twitter user NZM_101

Izuku: "Even cutting an onion... a hero... doesn't cry! WWUAAAH" Ochako: "What a shame! Challenge failed." Shouto: "No, even heroes cry when they have to."

Awaji Island is famous for its onions and produces some of the sweetest onions in the world. They have a spring crop of sweet but slightly spicy onion, and a fall-time harvest that they store and dry to further develop their sweetness. Shouto's line is from chapter 137 when Izuku insists heroes don't cry while crying into his food. What's funny is that sweet onions supposedly produce less of the chemical that produces tears in humans, so maybe Izuku is just being a lil' crybaby, hehe, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he's working with a particularly spicy spring harvest.

Nara

Photo credit: twitter user yukanicoyomo

Iida: "Observance of traffic laws! OUTSTANDING, DEER-KUN!!" Kouda (thinking): "Iida-kun, you're making the deer suspicious..." Bakugou: "Don't talk to the deer!! Deer don't give a shit about rules!! Dammit!!"" Kouda (thinking): "Bakugou-kun, you're scaring the deer..."

They are in Nara Park, where you can buy special crackers to feed the very friendly and booming deer population. Deer in Nara have been protected and seen as important to local Shinto beliefs for at least a thousand years; in 2023, studies from three universities revealed that they actually make up a unique genetic group not found anywhere else. Apparently, the deer in Nara will exchange bows with people, especially if it means they get a snack~

Wakayama

Photo credit: twitter user __sen_115

Ojiro: "A two-tone popular character... We have one of those." Hagakure: "We do, don't we. Just by being there, he creates a splendid atmosphere...!" Todoroki: "Huh? There's somebody like that?" Ojiro: "IT'S YOU!!!"

Visiting Adventure World in Shirahama which is home to a giant panda conservation area. A branch of Chengdu Giant Panda Research Base has bred 17 giant pandas there, which is the most success in breeding outside of mainland China.

That's all for Day 4. Next up is Day 5!

[refinedpet]

I beat Pikmin 1 in 9 Days

Okay, so first off, that's not /that/ big a deal. It's not a tie for the world record or anything, however it is, as far as I know, the quickest the game can be beat without exploiting any major glitches.

I purposely went out of my way to do this run without researching the optimal path because figuring out everything myself was fun. Pikmin is one of my favorite games of all time and I usually replay it once a year

So, now I'm gonna go over that, what my process was, and do so in a way you'll understand even if you haven't played Pikmin.

So first, let's disect what those days actually mean. The time limit for the game is 30 Days, in which you have to collect 30 ship parts. Days themselves are 13 minutes and 30 seconds long in Pikmin 1.

There are 5 areas in the game, so naturally you'd think, "Well, can't you just do it in 5 days then? Finish each area a day?"

And that's a blatant 'No' (at least without glicthes)

Day 1 must always be spent in the Impact Site for the tutorial. Here you will get 1 Part and 25 Red Pikmin regardless of how good you actually do. There's another part here, but both yellows and blues are required to get it.

Meaning that 2 Days must already be used to get 1 part each. When you mix this with the final area, it means 3 days of this run have to be spent wasting an entire day on a single part. Meaning the other 6 is where we have to get the remaining 27 Ship Parts.

Day 2 is also very limited in what you can do. You have to break down a wall and build up reds while doing so which already takes more of the day than you'd like.

Now in a normal run, this wouldn't be a big deal. I'd build up reds, get Yellow Pikmin, build them up and get at least two parts.

However that's a colossal waste of time in this run.

The Forest of Hope (where you go in Day 2) has 8 ship parts. So you'd think. Okay, build up yellows and reds first day there and then the remaining 5 parts or whatever wouldn't be hard to round up in a second day. That sounds like you're making good time, right?

Well, you need to have 5 Ship parts to unlock the Third Area (The Forest Naval)

And you need the Blue Pikmin found in The Forest Naval to get all the ship parts in the Forest of Hope.

So, during this first day where you're already rushed due to building up 2 types of Pikmin for the first time. You need to collect at least 4 parts, or else this easy 2 Day Area will have to a 3 Day Area with alot of time wasted on two of those days.

I won't go into too much detail because routing what parts to grab, while very fun, probably won't be the most entertaining.

What's important is I was able to get the 4 parts in a single day there. Meaning 2 days in, I could already go to the Forest Naval.

Day 3 the hope is to get Blues as quick as possible. I usually like to lure the Breadbug near the Blue Onion because that's the easiest time to kill it for the ship part and then it won't get in the way.

Now the Naval has 9 Ships parts in it. Meaning you probably wanna do one day that's building blues and getting parts near the base, making sure you take care of walls and bridges to the best of your ability. Which is exactly the approach I took. And fortunately this area took the least practice for me to do.

I got a good first trip run pretty fast, which just left.

Day 4 has 5 Parts remaining, which is alot. Especially since two of these were busses while others were kinda long puzzles needed to do. But, I believe it just took me two real attempts before I was able to just do so. Meaning on Day 4, we've completely our first of the 5 areas.

Day 5 and Day 6 you can either go back and finish the Impact Site or finish up the Forest of Hope. The Impact Site is nice because it's just a single part, and as a result you can build up all your Pikmin types, meaning from this point onward you don't need to worry about enemy corpses and growing Pikmin. You'll have enough to finish the run.

And the Forest of Hope's 4 parts are easy to finish up as well now that we have Blue's.

Day 7 is where this gets TOUGH. The Distant Spring is by far the most difficult area in the game. It's really the only bit in this game where I tend to lose Pikmin to any meaningful degree during casual playthroughs. Wollyhops are annoying to deal with, Spotty Bulbears are BRUTAL and there's a ton of them over the map. Swooping Snitchbugs and Burrowing Shearwigs really make it hard to leave Pikmin unattened unless you're confident. And it has 10 Parts for you to get. Going into this I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it in 2 days and I shot for 3.

At first, I was only able to get 3 parts in a day, and even that took alot of work, mostly working on the ones in the open water area near base. However after realizing how I was almost able to get the remaining 7 on the second trip, I decided to try again, just shooting for 4 parts and one of the puzzles done so all I had to do was carry it back the next day.

And, I got 5 Parts in a day! The 3 in the water behind base and then two of the closer ones. This and I had managed to destory every wall on the map which would make my next day way easier

Day 8 went smooth as a result of Day 7 going so well. There were some parts where Wollywogs have to be gotten through, but both of those are an ease. Then the far side of the map with the puzzle where you have to use Candy pop buds to make Blues Yellows and then Blue's again. Which is unfortunately time consuming above all else and ruined a few of my runs when I was trying to do 7 in a day.

But that's manageable, just leaving a boss fight you have to do with some reds. That for me isn't a problem.

However the only big Pikmin loss this playthrough did occur as the red Pikmin carrying the treasure back woke up a Spotty Bulbear and they all died.

But even with that hickup, the day was finished with time left to flower some reds to make the final day even easier.

Day 9 is anticlimactic. This is just an area (The Final Trial) with the final Boss in it and a single ship part. There's an easy puzzle I optimized my ability to do quick for no reason, then it's a matter of using Bomb Rocks to Stun the boss, followed by attacking with Reds. The day finishes with basically half the time left, it's not a challenge whatsoever, more of a victory lap.

And that's that!!!

Pikmin 1 is one of my favorite games of all time and I've played it so much since I was a kid (this was done on the Switch version, thus why only 3 playthroughs have been recorded. Launch Playthrough, mine earlier this year and then when I decied to do this)

And it felt really nice to optimize myself and go through, and not look at any speedruns or take advantage of any glicthes.

I can't speak too confidently, but I think 9 days is the lowest possible amount without taking advantage of any major glitches. Since Days 3/5 areas need to be completed in 5 days. Just leaving The Forest Naval and Distant Springs where you could theoretically do them in one day. But given the size of each area that sounds near impossible (I'm sure I've already been proven wrong by a TAS)

Point is, I feel good, and it felt nice to do this with one of my favorite games

[gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat]

Group H, Round 5

Propaganda under the cut

Medea

Her husband divorced her so to get back at him she burned his new bride alive, murdered her own children and casually escaped justice in a chariot pulled by dragons and *made from the sun.* She is iconic and I love her.

propaganda from @apollosgiftofprophecy

Princess with Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, granddaughter of the Titan of the Sun, Helios, and Priestess of Hecate, the literal Goddess of MagicStarts out a classic fairy tale (with a few murders in the mix for flavor)Jason (the man/husband she sacrificed EVERYTHING for) thought it would be totally alright to cheat on his sorceress wife with some princess and - double whammy - he planned to keep Medea as his mistress after he married this random princess!When she confronts him, he shows his true colors as a world-class bastard and she reminds him that he's only still alive, and only completed his quest for the Golden Fleece, because of her. (WHICH IS TRUE)To get back at him, Medea orchestrates the death of said princess (and indirectly the king's too, whoopsies :) ) by sending a beautiful dress for her that was laced with poison that caused the princess to catch on fire, and also killed whoever touched her (the king)She then murders her and Jason's two kids (after some emotional dilemma because she actually cares about them while Jason Does Not) and exits the kingdom In Style - how? Like this:Rises into the air on a golden chariot pulled by dragons given to her by Helios When Jason says the gods with avenge him, she tells him "lol, good luck with that oathbreaker!" and flies off into the night Like A Bossa little more context here: Jason's godly patron was Hera, the literal goddess of family and marriage. And he was going to abandon his children and break his vows to Medea.Also, she never is punished for any of this stuff, meaning her actions have the (reluctant :) always good to be morally gray) approval of the gods. She's one of the only nuanced female characters in Greek Mythology, and by god is she interestingThis, my friends, is why Medea is the ultimate Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss.

Ianthe Tridentarius

She is trying so hard to be the main character by lying and manipulating her sister, her cavalier, her mentor, her ?love interests? (Spoiler???) And also god. Not sure how it's working out for her but she does love to lie and manipulate

Worstie Ianthe is the DEFINITION of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. She is one of a set of necromancer twins that are the heirs to their houses rule. Except wait, only she is a necromancer and she has spent their entire lives doing necromancy for the both of them. She is constantly mean to their cavalier, Naberius, who she occasionally nibbles on like a chew toy, before eventually killing and eating him to ascend to sainthood. She goes to gods spaceship with another woman who ascended to sainthood who she has a crush on, this other woman is like…. Both incredibly mentally unwell and also haunted by at least 211 ghosts. Ianthes method of flirting with her? Gaslighting her about the corpse that keeps moving around and hiding under her bed. For no real reason tbh. She is clearly plotting to overthrow god, and at the moment that consists of her manipulating him while he’s too sad about his long term partners betraying him and subsequently exploding to really care. She dresses in terrible outfits and makes soup by burning onions to the bottom of a pot, putting meat in and some vegetables and then it doesn’t taste like anything so she puts in a few teaspoons of salt so it tastes like a few teaspoons of salt. She had her crush amputate her arm and regrow her a new one out of bone and it’s one of the horniest things I’ve read in my life.

"Gaslight = told her lobotomized (she helped), schizophrenic girlobsession that there was no corpse under their bed, even tho there totally was. Gatekeep = girl did NOT share the secret to god-like ascension. She kept that shit to herself until it was time to eat her boytoy, and by then everyone knew already. Girlboss = she has a non-necromancer twin sister, and literally Everyone thinks they r both necromancers because Ianthe is so good at it. She reverse engineered ascending to the aforementioned ascension without even completing any of the supplementary tasks. She held her own in a fight against a 10k year old lyctor. She becomes the figurehead of her entire empire. "

She uses a man as a chewtoy in the first book, literally gaslights the protagonist of the second book about a corpse, and elder-abuses God when he gets depressed in the third book. Nobody is doing it like her.

Dives headfirst with no regrets while basically laughing and covered in blood into murdering her cavalier once she realizes what the gothic locked room mystery/competition leads to while everyone else is questioning it, helps perform lobotomy on harrow so she doesn't remember the person she loves, manipulates everyone to get to the top

idk just everything about her

her relationship with her sister is incredibly Bad, she fosters codependency and views Corona(the sister) as an extension of herself. This does not stop her from keeping up the con that Corona actually has magic (She doesn't, it was always just Ianthe) for 22ish years and every single person who interacts with them falls for it. She killed a man against his will (most dying for this purpose specifically go willingly) and she consumed him and she will be burning his soul for eternity. She's completely repulsive and still somehow incredibly hot.

she takes advantage of the fact that the main character is prone to hallucinations. at one point she gaslights the mc into believing that the corpse under her bed isn't real just because she can. she reverse engineered a set of very complex trials on her own without anyone realizing she had the skills to complete them normally. she's also babysat god through his drunk and pathetic era.

Artist: @marceline2174 (instagram)