#otp: a pipe dream

[see-arcane]

I’ve been listening to it on a loop for days now and I’m convinced London After Midnight’s Selected Scenes from the End of the World album could and should have been the soundtrack to a trippy goth industrial 80′s-90′s Dracula movie in the style of The Hunger (1983). Like holy hell

“Claire’s Horrors”: Full of synth pipe organs and baying wolves and moody Castle Dracula backdrop tunes as Jonathan deals with Bisexual Vampire Hell for two months with this blaring in every room.

(This is the voice you have learned to fear.)

Spirits seem to drift up through a darkened sky Drifting through dead branches in the night While in the moonlight we go down upon our knees Entwined together only we can see their beauty

Beneath the stars a bell begins to toll For reasons which we really shouldn't know So take a walk with me down to the cemetery Wrap me in darkness, Claire make love to me

I am thunder, I am rain, I am pleasure, I am pain Only in darkness can there be light, tell me angel have you prayed tonight?

“Demon”: Dracula making his moves on Lucy, full stop.

Through darkened streets and blackened gloom the candles dim in your bedroom rain reflecting shadows in the night the moon is full and through the mist I hear your voice I feel your kiss the line grows thin between what's wrong and right.

Burning flesh, pale as the stars no one knows just who you are drive the knife in deeper to my soul

“The Spider and the Fly”:  Renfield is blasting this at all hours on his Victorian airpods while Dracula catfishes him.

Empty hearts I can hear them talking I close my eyes and I keep on stalking my love, my love No one's aware of the hunger I feel It's something you or time cannot heal I need someone to help me rise above

Eternal bliss is something I can show you Spread your arms and let my wings enfold you, my love, my love In the darkness shades of crimson rapture The world is ours alone to capture my love, my love

“Your Best Nightmare”: Coppola would take the lyrics at face value for his DracMina OTP playlist. Listeners with taste know it’s serving nothing but hellish horror irony for That One Night in October.

Long after midnight, on a night like this I'd sit by my black-light and dream of your kiss Pulsating music filled my room and my head And I dreamed what it'd be like to have you in my bedI'm your best night, your best nightmare I'm your best night, your best nightmare

And then it happened, you were in my arms Your lips on my throat, your hands on my, on my... Two bodies together the intimate sin The pain and the pleasure could do mortals in How could you know what I'm thinking of? To me lust can be as beautiful as love Here tonight, your pure heart and soul Untainted passion should have no control

“Sacrifice”: Dripping with Jonathan and Mina’s ‘holiest love’ gothic horror romance drama front to back.

And here we go again, We've taken it to the end, With every waking moment, We face this silent torment

I'd sacrifice, I'd sacrifice myself to you Right here tonight Because you know that I love you

That is HALF THE ALBUM and at least five full music videos that could, should, and must be filmed in grainy moody scenery of mountainside castles interspersed with underground clubs with an all black dress code, eyeliner mandatory. And instead we got Francis’ never-ending migraine and Annie Lennox’s tragically misused “Love Song for a Vampire.” Shameful. 

[purlturtle]

Okay, I've been meaning to do this post for a while - you know how sometimes you're listening to a song, totally innocent and unrelated, and all of a sudden WHAM it hits you that this song (the lyrics OMG the LYRICS) are just So Your Blorbo/OTP?

Yeah, that.

Anyway, may I present:

Moonraker

(arguably one of my most favorite Bond songs)

Here are the lyrics in their entirety:

Where are you Why do you hide Where is that moonlight trail that leads to your side Just like the moonraker goes In search of his dream of gold I search for love For someone to have and hold I've seen your smile In a thousand dreams Felt your touch And it always seems You love me You love me

Where are you When will we meet Take my unfinished life and make it complete Just like the moonraker knows His dream will come true someday I know that you Are only a kiss away I've seen your smile In a thousand dreams Felt your touch And it always seems You love me You love me

And now let's get to what hit me about this song and Helena Wells:

Helena explains her time machine and how it works with, among other things, with this:

I'd become intrigued by the idea of Gestalt, the collective unconscious. What if one were able to connect with the mind of someone who lived centuries ago?

We also know that she was conscious while in the Bronze - and I've always wondered: what if her unattached consciousness were able to join the collective unconscious through there? (which in and of itself is a different essay)

And then when I heard "I've seen your smile in a thousand dreams", it hit me: what if she saw glimpses of Myka, while in the Bronze? What if, among the millions of minds she touched only ever just once, there was this one mind, this one person, that her consciousness kept coming back to. Because "it always seemed you loved me". And oh, how starved Helena is for love. Imagine seeing glimpses of Myka's smile, again and again, and feeling like the owner of that smile loves you, loves you, loves you-

And then you get unbronzed and maybe, among the million things you need to do... maybe you search, with half an eye, every now and then, when the opportunity presents itself, because heaven forbid you devote important time on that but oh how you dream of love-

And then you tell yourself it doesn't matter, it's just a pipe dream, you are not made for love, you are made for oblivion, yours and that of the entire human race-

And then you run into her and realize you're on opposite sides.

(I know this second GIF has text that isn't the actual subtitles from the show but OH MY GOD is it ever accurate, Jo bless you Jo!)

And you try. Oh how you try, tro wrestle your life away from the tracks you yourself have set it on, to stop hurtling towards oblivion and start turning towards that smile, that touch, that love. And you have read enough tragedies to know that it is impossible, you know that ink with which you have mapped out your plan is indelible, but you try-

you try

you try

you try

Now. The only part of the lyrics I have beef with is that concept of someone else completing you - but! Hear me out: Sometimes, someone comes into your life and- doesn't complete you, no, but offers you an insight into yourself that makes a lot of things suddenly make sense.

The italicized "oh."

And while the song started out to be a Helena Wells song, suddenly we're in Myka's head: the head of someone who, faced with the fact that H.G. Wells is a woman (nice catch there, agent), that she is this woman, who faced with all this starts processing, starts realizing, starts making connections between new input and old memories, and oh.

Oh.

So let's say Myka has had dreams too - just snatches, glimpses, a smile here, a touch there, the elation of two like minds connecting, the heady rush of being lifted to the sky, none of them remembered in the morning - but oh how they come charging in now, now that she is faced with H.G.-Wells-is-actually-a-woman.

But Agent Myka Bering is not one to trust her dreams - hell no. Facts only, please, hard, observable, ideally peer-reviewed facts- but here is this woman, is H.G. Wells, this woman out of her time, this smile she's seen in a thousand impossible dreams, this touch she's felt that always seems so-

Facts.

Facts only, please.

But maybe, just mabye, among the million things she needs to do, maybe she can make time for the owner of that smile, maybe she can indulge in the thought that the purveyor of that touch isn't all evil, maybe there is a dream that might come true someday-

And she tries.

She tries.

She tries.

She tries.

(thank you to all the GIF makers. You are seriously amazing. There was a GIF, sometimes multiples, for every single scene that I wanted, and I stand in awe of your talents. GIFs in this post by: lonely-night kiraslight aflawedfashion maiagaru finehs and taikoturtle

THANK YOU.)

[almaverses]

9, 18 and 45 for the OTP asks!

9. What are their thoughts on having children? Both of them actively want children but I don't think either of them really saw it as a real possibility. It was more of a pipe dream considering Anders carrying the taint in his blood. So of course when they have not one but two oops babies three years apart it comes as kind of a shock. A welcoming one, but a shock nonetheless. 18. How likely are they to have fur babies? How many and what kind? They have Alma's mabari for a bit, big lovable lug called Boros. But after they flee Kirkwall she gives him to Aveline, at that point he's quite old and probably not built for the amount of time Alma and Anders are on the run. Before Heidi (their first child) is born Anders befriends an extremely fluffy grey cat they end up calling The Wizard. The Wizard does his own thing but he knows Anders is always there for cuddles and food. 45. Can they fall asleep without the other? Alma can sleep through anything, she's like a baby bird in that the instant the lights go out and her head hits the pillow she's gone and won't wake for anything. It doesn't matter where she is or if Anders is there. Anders however, doesn't like being in bed without her. While he can fall asleep without her, he doesn't like it and it makes him uneasy. (a year in solitary will do that to a mf)

[noa-ciharu]

FuuKam 33,38,52??? (OTP)

Them 💕

33 - who's the better cook

Tough question really, because Kamui is canonically referred to housewife material and Fuuma also canonically helped his dad and sis with housework, including cooking. Still I'd go with Kamui here, he strikes me as type to love hobbies such as cooking for distraction purposes. Boy has been through alot, had to ease his mind somehow. So he'd have more practice and sense for what ingredients go well together and what not, therefore would be slightly better at cooking that Fuuma

38 - Who is more sexually experimental? Who's more vanilla?

Lmaooo neither of them are vanilla AT ALL. Alright they might do it vanilla if they get emotional so casual sex isn't entirely off the table. Kamui might have been for vanilla in beginning until Fuuma taught him every kink known and unknown to mankind. Kamui was shocked at first, but more shocked at his own repressed desires (and ofc how Fuuma came up with such kinks). Which brings me to first one: Fuuma is more experimental one since he brings new stuff into bedroom. Kamui gladly accepts them all 😌

52 - describe their weekend getaway?

Where can they go for weekend when Fuuma destroyed the entire planet??

I guess since Tokyo is flooded post X and if they manage to find a boat it'll basically looks like trip to Venice? Just in complete ruins and without a soul in sight. Kamui would be hissing how good boy Fuuma promised to take to fanciest places on earth and how that's basically a pipe dream now. Fuuma tells him they are at the fanciest place on current Earth and how it was a price Kamui had to pay for having a evil hot bf who sees his every masochistic kink. That shuts Kamui up for couple of minutes before he starts wondering how boat sex looks like. Antichrist Fuuma reminds him once more how glad he should be he's there to fulfill Kamui's every wish and then they [redacted]

The end

[sparrowdrama]

Thank you 🙈 I'm still "new" to fandom (5 years thanks COVID) and I am always worried that I'll come across as anti-ship when that is the last thing I want coz really that is obnoxious behaviour and not OK at all. I think I'm struggling because I now realise this is the first OTP I adore who aren't canon so there is some real anxiety for me around how it ends. If Buck and Eddie were both straight and I knew it was a pipe dream then I could just live in the fantasy world but now with part queering of the whole, it feels like I could almost get what I want but not and I do not like that feeling!

Basically, I need to learn to sit in my anxiety (my imaginary therapist would be so proud of me) and continue being happy with the very very vast world that exists (someone said there are 25K Buddie stories on AO3 so I guess I'm spending this (long in India) weekend deep down a Buddie exclusive rabbit hole.

And fingers crossed about Eddie. This whole slowing down with Marisol thing makes me want to throw things at Eddie coz seriously I adore that man but dude what is up with him??

I'm feeling terribly guilty about my feelings here but for some reason this whole Kinley storyline is giving me anxiety. I want Buck to be comfortable in his own skin. I want him to have a love interest that treats him well. I am so happy that the bi community and the larger queer community are going to get such an insanely great rep experience because I truly believe this storyline is safe in Oliver Stark's hands.

But I'm still anxious. I can't get onboard with Tommy. I don't want to make Buck's story all about Buddie but maybe I am and that isn't cool. But I don't know how to express that when fandom is so so happy and we deserve happiness. I'm just sitting here feeling stressed though and that sucks.

[winterblues]

But yeah Andrew is the softer one in the relationship:

- This is a part of him he thinks must be in new bloom. The world says rough, the world says weapon, the world says joyless and so there must be some truth to it, right? Yet he finds himself wanting to cradle Neil’s hands to his chest when he needs steadying from a nightmare, have Neil’s bare wrist pressed flush against his ribs so that he can feel their pulses thrumming against one another. And he can’t sleep at night until he’s ran slow, deliberate fingers through Neil’s soft hair, every comb-through an indulgence, fingers massaging Neil’s delicate scalp, learning the structure, the very shape of it. He wants to press his lips to every scab, every contusion, everywhere Neil tore himself apart in hopes of survival. He wants to alleviate and cradle and absorb.  - Neil often ends up kicking his own blankets off of himself at night, and in the winters it drives Andrew absolutely crazy, so he’ll wake up a couple of times in the middle of the night just to fix Neil’s blanket and pull the covers back up over his shoulders to keep him from shivering too much, right before closing his arms down over Neil’s middle like a brace like a ring of fire. - Andrew likes to tease Neil about being clingy, but there are times when it’s difficult to say if there’s something wrong with his system or if being separated from Neil for longer than a few hours at a time has him emptied and aching in more ways than one. One particular evening at Sweetie’s, while watching Neil, Nicky and Kevin engage in some idle conversation he doesn’t remotely care to pay attention to, Andrew subtly tilts his cone in Neil’s direction. Neil regards it a moment before gladly accepting the soft serve and taking a small bite out of it. They share the rest of the cone together. Nicky attempts to tease them about it at one point, but stops mid sentence when he catches Andrew’s murder-glare from his periphery and changes topic. Andrew will never admit it, but once it becomes a quiet, shared ritual; he likes getting a little ice cream on his nose on purpose so that Neil has the urge to kiss it off. Slowly it becomes ok, even in  public. - There are nights when Andrew lets Neil wrap his arms around his stomach and pull him close, his chin on his shoulder, Andrew’s back digging into Neil’s chest. Andrew sleeps better when he can feel Neil’s heart beating against his spine. It leaves him strangely warm and punch-drunk.  - Sometimes in the midst of exploring, Andrew will take Neil’s hands and press them to his own diaphragm over his t-shirt so that Andrew’s breaths can do the speaking for the wordless, happy hum that he’s feeling. He likes Neil’s palm resting there, at the centre of him. - Andrew anchors his fingers in the back collar of Neil’s sweatshirt whenever he feels Neil tense by his side. As soon as Neil’s on edge, all it takes is for Andrew to hook his fingers and give a light tug on his clothes to reground him. Other times he’ll bunch his hand in the hem of Neil’s t-shirt and twist or press a steering hand around the back of his neck, but never to control. Always to guide. Neil will never not be amazed by the impact the slightest contact with Andrew can make on his nervous system. - Andrew strives to smoothen out his hard edges, catches tail ends of hushed conversations where the Foxes relay mutual shock at noticing the incurvated places where Andrew lets himself cave in, allowing himself to be vulnerable, allowing himself to be worshipped. The devotion and unrepentant trust that builds a monolith within him when Neil fiercely defends him. “I don’t need your useless concern,” he’ll mutter. “Too bad because you’ve got it,” Neil will usually reply. “They have to stop preying on you at every given chance. You’re not a monster to me. You shouldn’t be a monster to anyone. If they fail to understand that, they’ll be sorry.” Andrew’s tone is offhanded. “I don’t care about what they think. Nor should you.” Neil just shakes his head. “We’re family. We have to treat each other like one.” The words bite at the crumbs of Andrew’s nonchalant demeanor and he lets his guard down wholeheartedly. It’s an understanding. He and Neil have something that the rest of the world can only dream of, and nobody can take that away from them. - Neil often spends time bare-chested with Andrew so that he can further familiarize himself with the feel of Neil’s lacerated skin and by the time they’re falling asleep, Andrew almost invariably ends up wearing Neil’s oversized hoodie he shed earlier to bed.       - He doesn’t feel particularly gentle, but Neil insists that he is. “You’re always so careful,” Neil’s voice is thick with some unchained emotion, yet conversational as he runs fingers over Andrew’s split knuckles. The night air is humid and dark, rain-heavy clouds blot out the stars. They feel exhausted after a particularly grueling game, like battlefields after war, but the heat of Andrew’s body is lilting and makes Neil feel kind of dreamy. “With me, I mean. Nobody else has ever been that considerate.” Andrew’s blank amber eyes stare back at him, shone like opals in the campus lights reflecting from down below. “It’s not concern,” Neil nods in agreement. “No, it’s not.” Andrew then wordlessly takes their entwined hands and holds them against the side of his jaw, just below his cheek. Neil reacts with an elaboration. “Even though it’s always yes with you, you understand that some days it might be a difficult yes. You don’t touch to feast, you touch to steady. You make me feel safe and like I exist. You go about it like flower picking, if that even makes any sense. Cautious but hot, never incomplete and still somehow leaving me wanting more.” Now Neil’s smiling and nudging Andrew’s foot with his own. Their hands still twined at Andrew’s throat. “It’s really sweet.” Neil expects a comeback, an evasion, an immediate it is not but instead Andrew’s silence is pensive. Neil can feel him swallow against his fingers. The swift bob up and back down. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to.” He finally declares. Neil’s heart enflames as he leans in, close enough to Andrew’s mouth that he can taste his breath on his tongue, an inch keeping from tipping over into a kiss. “And I don’t ever want you to feel like I don’t want to. Because I do. I want so much it scares me. Pretty weird, right? Going from being nothing to wanting so much.” They gaze patiently at one another, not kissing, breaths spreading against lips like ripples in a pond. “What if I stopped asking?” Andrew’s voice is barely a whisper, hoarse; afraid almost. “I would like that, but only if you feel comfortable with a decision so big. You don’t have to make it now. Not for me.” Neil replies. Andrew closes his eyes. “Tell me one final time.” Neil traces one of Andrew’s eyelids with a barely-there finger and takes a breath. “Yes. Eternally yes.” Andrew crushes his lips hard against Neil’s: a chemical reaction. The kiss is a languid drink sipped by a man who’d been thirsting for years. The kiss is a game changer and Neil feels it in every single one of his arteries. If such a gesture could be measured, it’d stretch on for eternity. Neil is so thankful when they come apart for air that he’s stunted speechless. Andrew’s expression, once an uprising, now lays its armor down and then, the barest, shortest of burning smiles. Neil thinks he’ll forget how to inflate his lungs. And sitting there, atop their little pocket dimension of a rooftop, with Neil’s face moon-bright and stained red with surprise, Andrew thinks this gentleness will become a bad habit.

[tim-lucy]

#two times Tim let go of the woman he loves #but only one time he couldn’t stop himself from looking back (inspired by @sculderfan)

[mymelodypink]

I... listened to the album you gave me. To be honest though, "Exercising in the Moon" wasn't that good. But I did enjoy "Blue Scar on the Heart." The melody was nice and I could enjoy the lyrics. I really enjoyed it.

[rhodeslibby]

“I’m not a hallucination,” Neil said, nonplussed.

“You are a pipe dream,” Andrew said.

[watermelonsverything]

My happiness hinges on the thought that after Cyclonus and Tailgate left; they either founded and led an interplanetary exploration team of their own or work for one while living in an apartment or big house full of alien cyber plants

[andthebubbles]

guys i’m so fucking tempted... /sobbing in the corner (lol)

it has AIRCON!! it nearly has the same tape deck as my car!! it has such low km and no rust!!! it has one of the most reliable engines ever and epic off-road ability!!!

the biggest thing i am hmmm about is that i’ll probably have to upgrade the suspension immediately (it’s leaf springs at the front and back). also, the price. i will be so broke. but they’re selling it pretty cheap, which is why i am like *grabby hands*

siiiiiiiiiiiiigh. some pics for longevity because they’ll disappear when it’s sold:

gosh you’d have to do a lot to it though...

anyway and then people do such cool things to it, like:

this ^ is the 2019 model though but yeah, it’s ... a lot of it is the same...

*deeeeeeeeeeeep sigh*

[sparring-spirals]

Also Yasha has been super soft to/protective of Jester this whole episode and it gives me all kinds of warm fuzzies. <3 <3 

[doortotomorrow]

eight and grace

[klanced]

Will there be any klance in this rewrite?

Yes because I am a 🤡

If this was ao3 the first tag would be “#rivals to friends to lovers” bc I love slow burn development.

V:LR doesn’t revolve around Klance so I can’t tell you the exact timeline of their relationship but, in general:

Season 1 involves them going from rivals -> work friends -> something approaching real friends.

Season 2-3 will develop their relationship further until i have CEMENTED the fact that they are a good team. I am ATTACHED to my otp tag for them on this blog lol.

Seasons 4 & 5 are yet unknown.

Additionally:

Lance has a bi arc, but it does NOT revolve around Keith. Klance WILL happen, but not immediately happen after Lance’s bi arc. Keith is not the reward for Lance’s internal growth, nor is Lance’s sexuality contingent on Keith.

Keith yearns first.

They will go on dates. I have no idea how I’m going to write that bc I am way out of my depth when it comes to romance, but. I will try nonetheless.

They will be sweet, and dumb, and normal teenage boys, but never ever tragic.

[neil-jostenminyard]

me, reading & re-reading fic about soft andreil & imagining it as a movie:

[winterblues]

the shape smoke takes

andreil + shotgunning + long-haired neil, nuff said.

“Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks.

Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.”

Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me.

Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real.

read it on ao3 or under the cut

Neil’s eyes are glued to the man sitting at the table nearest to the bar; dressed as always (like he’s prepared for his own funeral.)

The heavy gleam of a stare, ambling spectrally, giving itself away in its attempts to be inconspicuous. Neil’s fingers grow warm and leave lined imprints on the shot glass he’d been polishing. He has a feeling that his gaze is being carefully returned, somewhere past the foggy algorithm of dry-ice and the pool of flooding customers, all drunkenly swishing and swaying against one another like plastic bags caught in a squall. Their movements erratic and possessed, as if the bass dropped a demon in them. He catches a quick glimpse of a pale blond head thrown backwards, and the empty glass sure to follow suit. Neil’s stomach erupts with warmth at the sight; as if touched; by something as trivial as a blink.

Neil knows how dangerous it is. If his mother were here, she would strike him in between the shoulder blades, and tell him to snap out of it. His father’s bloodhounds will kill him if they sniff him out. Whether he plays by the rules or not, someday, his past is bound to return in the form of a haunting. The dead always catch up. He may be escaping the clutches of said death, having changed his name and being forced to lie low; working in the flashy wilderness of Eden’s Twilight to keep himself from raising any suspicion and assuming a whole new identity—but, it still feels like being strangulated.

He was offered a new life, the least he should be able to do with it is live a little.

Neil’s spent the past year under the Witness Protection Program, living with a tight leash around his neck in return for that protection. It’s a borrowed freedom, and Neil isn’t sure how long it’s going to last. The sharp, familiar gaze reaches him; burns a hole straight through him. He feels the leash loosening in silent revolt and a relief in his chest like a retreating snake.

He's still interested in me.

Neil looks up, just as Roland snaps heavily-ringed fingers in his face. “Hey, Romeo. Stop ogling and start attending. I know he’s cute, but will he still be cute after you’re fired for boning a customer?” Roland’s tone is lighthearted as he animatedly twirls a glass of vodka behind his back and expertly tosses it at him. Neil catches it on instinct, before pouring a drink for an eager woman with the foreboding depths of her cleavage propped up against the counter.

Neil offers her a dull, plastic smile as she carelessly waves her credit card in his face. He plucks it smoothly from her fingers before punching the price into the machine and handing it back to her.

Neil finds himself fascinated by this night-time species, this throng of people with dazzling grins, an insatiable thirst for alcohol and fairly inexhaustive wallets. This secret world that exists like a sweet distraction from the frantic city that lies above it. The job is easy enough. He’s worked up a colorful resume over the years, and though the training period was trying, six months in and Neil’s able to tie a cherry stem with his tongue while flinging a bottle up into the air with one hand, and pouring champagne with the other.  

Thrust into eye-contact, flighty feet, glass-shard violence and wrists tilted in precision—the bar becomes a stadium in its own right. Neil has gotten so used to people divulging their life stories to him under the influence; without asking for anything in return, that he almost forgets that the truth often comes at a price.

That is, until Andrew.

“Hey,” Roland murmurs. “Tuck that shirt in, we aren’t barbarians. Bar- barians. Get it?”

Neil slides him a bone-dry look. “No.”

There are two facets of the job Neil could live without: Roland and his shitty puns, and bar dress code. The uniform is far too flamboyant for his tastes. Neil can’t help but feel like he stands out, despite his repeated efforts to dilute himself as much as he can. Every staff member is required to, at the bare minimum, wear eyeliner and body glitter. Something about fitting the customer aesthetic and subliminal sales techniques; as if people actually give a damn whether Neil glitters or not before buying a drink. It doesn’t quite help that Neil is stuck in a pair of unforgivingly tight pants. The bartender’s vest he wears on top of a standard black shirt is heavy over the shoulders and clings to his torso like hide skin, the grating magenta making him feel like some kind of a glorified eggplant. Roland of course, often works shirtless, wearing nothing but an unnecessary and painfully bright tie around his neck. The eyeliner is doable, but the glitter splashing his eyelids and cheeks is rather itchy and unfavorable.

Luckily, Neil usually sweats it all off by the end of a routine shift. Unluckily, it gets extremely hot as the crowds drool in, and Neil hasn’t had a haircut in weeks. They’ve taken on a life of their own at this point and grown out just past his chin. He keeps the hair that will cooperate tied back in a bun, but it still manages to fall apart from friction. Neil would have chopped it shorter if it weren’t for the fact that Andrew seems to like getting his fingers tangled up in it. Now that his protection has been more or less secured, Neil has taught himself to let go of the clutch of contact lenses and hair dye. He’s still reminded of his father everytime he looks into a mirror and cold blue eyes stare back, but he’s still learning. He can’t live his entire life hiding. It’s not worth half the effort that goes into it. There’s also the fact that anyone with a keen enough eye would be able to recognize his frail disguises with no trouble. If he has no choice but to hide, maybe he should do it in plain sight.

It isn’t until the cocktail crowd clears up a little that Neil’s eyes gravitate to him again. This time, Roland’s gaze follows. “Can we share him? He could be my type. He’s a little short, but look at that body, and he’s got that whole dead-inside, estranged bad boy vibe going on. A mysterious hunk with definite chances of a damaged past. They’re usually really hot in bed. Kinky, too. That is, once you endure the tragic backstory, but it's worth it. Trust me. ” Neil can practically see the thirst building in Roland's eyes and alarms sound off in his head. “When he returns for a refill, I’ll be the one to serve him.” Neil isn’t sure if his voice sounds unnaturally gruff, or if he’s just imagining things. By his side, Roland pouts. “You never let me have any fun.”

“Sink your dirty claws in someone else,” Neil snaps, without sparing his coworker the attention he so craves.

“Uh oh,” Neil hears the grin in Roland’s voice before he realizes the insinuation it carries. “Threat Level Midnight.” Neil ignores him in favor of frothing at the mouth as Andrew begins to amble over, but now Neil’s caught up in the way the strobe lights limn the sharp length of his jawline, like the edge of a blade. In a millisecond, Neil’s caution furls into a disbelieving and growing fascination. Maybe it’s because he’s spent so much of his life in the shadows—but he’d convinced himself long ago, that he's incapable of conceptualizing notions of butterflies & pounding heartbeats & urges beyond that of the animal.  

Andrew parks himself right in front of Neil and swirls a vague finger at his empty tray. “Hi,” Neil’s voice trembles like a short circuiting wire, his hands reaching for the faucet. As he watches the gold liquid sloshing around in it, he puts every remaining ounce of effort in trying not to think about the places where Andrew’s lips met the rim of the glass.

Andrew slants an intent look his way. “When do you get off?”

Their eyes meet, and Neil’s anxiety ebbs away, transforms to a solid state of certainty. “That’s up to you.”

Roland’s lips curl up into a suggestive smirk. “Get out of here, you two. I’m practically suffocating in the fumes of your oh-so-sexual tension.” Andrew does not acknowledge the comment, but Neil turns his head. “My shift is still—”

“I’ll cover for you tonight, but you owe me one, Foxy.” Roland had taken to calling Neil that, solely because he turned up to work in a graphic t-shirt with a cartoon fox on it one time—and that had only been because Stanley had picked it for him. It isn’t long before Neil finds himself on Andrew’s solemn heel as they head down a dimly lit hallway. The smoking zone allows for just a little more room than an airport bathroom stall. It’s a small, airy balcony that Neil often takes the liberty to close off to the general public. This is not the first time Andrew and Neil have ended up here together, and it won’t be the last, but tonight feels different.

Tonight feels like a confession.

Andrew clambers onto the edge and settles down with his knees drawn up to his chest, and his back against the cold wall. Neil joins him, a leg dangling loosely on either side. There’s rain trapped in the air, and the clouds hang like blemishes yet to burst, a humid breeze that preys on skin. The steady trickle of dull music springs up from the ground beneath their feet, all too easy to compare to a heartbeat. Neil finds himself inexplicably drawn to Andrew, pulse thrumming like rippling water.

Andrew produces a pair of slightly bent cigarettes out of his back pocket and hands one to Neil. At his appraisal, Andrew leans in and bunches a fist in Neil’s collar. “Your shirt reeked of nicotine last week,” he explains, and lets go; even though Neil doesn’t want him to let go.

Andrew lights them, and Neil accepts his without a thought. The pure orange flame glows in the night like a rescue flare. Andrew’s cigarette slips effortlessly in the hollow between his lithe fingers, as he places it, like the barrel of a gun, to his mouth. Something craved and immediately lost in the thoughtless routine of the movement.

(They are caught up in this dance, in this game, in this ritual. Neil spoke his first truth in years, out loud in some back alley under a bleary moon, staring softly into a disenchanted pair of honeyed eyes, his words a relief and an invitation; spilled into Andrew’s open mouth; his chest soaring with quiet sounds of touch and need and want—all words that bloomed like roses along the thorny stems of resolute promises. Neil has never been interested in another person before, not like this. Even as his toes itch with the whim to run, his ribs burn for more, more, more. This is something he wants to hold onto. Does that make him selfish? Does that make him greedy? Does he care?)

“You’re staring,” Andrew says, watching the distant highway lights, the predictable performance of miniature cars snaking past narrow roads in a gentle, vein-like flow. Low sounds of traffic popping and fizzing far away from where they are. “Did you notice me watching you?” Neil knows the answer, but maybe he can trick himself into taking a confirmation as a promise. “I could barely focus on my job, you know. It’s starting to become a real problem.”

“Your problem,” Andrew corrects, and Neil smiles, cigarette flickering in a suicidal haze between his fingertips. “What’s one more problem to add to my multiplying list?”

Andrew falls quiet, and Neil chews on his bottom lip nervously. That’s a new feeling. He's spent a laughably large portion of his life in acute danger, and now he’s on a nightclub rooftop, growing nervous over something like this. Growing nervous over someone . Curious, too. Neil's mother used to say that learning about people will do him no good. Do you bother to learn the name of every road you tread on, to get you where you need to go? Of course not.

He doesn’t care. He’s hungry to know—every conceivable thing, hungrier more, for what’s invisible. The reason for the black cloth that veils Andrew’s forearms, the reason for the technicolor bruises he wears around his knuckles, the reason why he understands Neil, on a seemingly molecular level— without a morsel of question or concern.

“When did you start smoking?” Neil inquires, to which Andrew only blandly says, “You do not get an answer out of turn.” Neil frowns. “How about a bonus round?” When Andrew says nothing, Neil sighs and meets the other man’s eyes. “I do actually want to tell you something, and you can have this for free.” Andrew nods, before tilting his chin and taking a lengthy drag.

"Andrew-"

Neil hesitates, throat closing up at the sight of the muscles working in unison under Andrew’s neck and making a blue vein strain in result. Andrew exhales with the same efficiency, plumes of smoke exiting his lips like fluid ghosts, leaving him in search of the light.

“This… whatever it is we’re doing. It means a lot to me. I’m not used to having desires, or being attracted to other people. I didn’t even think I was capable of anything like it. You make me want to be something other than nothing. You… You don’t have to answer. I just wanted you to know that.”

Cool fingers close around his neck. Neil’s body is slack with notions he’s grown weary of trying to comprehend, notions bigger than the both of them, bright and wide as rivers. Neil’s attention flickers to the rapidly dying cigarette—and why does it feel like it’s burning him down with it?

“Did I ask for a reason?” There’s a stray ringlet of blond hair interrupting Andrew’s eyes. The urge that dawns over Neil is heavy and explorable, but it’s only when Andrew does not back away, that Neil raises his thumb to gently brush it off, tucking it as far as it’s willing go, just above the slender curve of his upper ear. “You asked for the truth.” Neil says, hand falling into his lap in between them; lest his touch mistakenly linger.

“The truth has its limits,” Andrew’s face is close and not close enough. Neil wants him so close that he can longer tell their bodies apart.

“Mm,” he mutters, absently; skin hot from the humidity or maybe from the need to be touched—not just any need. The need to be touched by Andrew is different—but maybe it’s more than different, something too sacred for words. It's not a purely sexual feeling, it's a certain, overwhelming sense of safety (a notion as unfamiliar as the surface of Mars). Safe. Somehow... Andrew makes him feel safe.

“How do you know?”

“Because you seem to have none. Come here,” Andrew’s fingers against the nape of Neil’s neck are shaping; guiding, as he gently pulls Neil towards him and picks the half-exhausted cigarette from his hands, before flicking it away. “How wasteful,” Andrew says, tone tinged with the palest hint of disapproval, while his lips part in earnest. “I need the smell, but I don’t really hold a desire to smoke it.” Neil admits. Andrew shoots him a hard glare, and it feels, for a moment, as though there is nothing in between them—not even air or moonlight. Neil can’t look away from the face of the man he has been kissing in silent corners for six months. He can’t quite keep his lungs from pooling either, like light through a doorway.

“Yes or no?” Andrew asks.

Neil’s answer is an incontrovertible ‘yes’ gasped out like a dying man’s final wish.

There’s a sudden look behind Andrew’s glassy eyes, and maybe Neil is just seeing what he wants to see, or maybe not. Maybe there was a shock of increible feeling that momentarily eclipsed Andrew, before passing as swiftly as it had arrived. Then again, maybe it was just a smoke-induced hallucination.

Andrew draws closer and Neil stares at the way his cracked and peeling lips navigate around his cigarette, how his fingers tremble without volition. Andrew watches him back; closely. Neil is unsure of the steel expression betraying nothing; but the flicker of his eyelids suggest he is furiously muling something over, something clearly substantial. Andrew lets out a preparatory breath, before taking one of Neil’s hands with his free one and placing it over his shirt, just beneath his ribs. The world shivers and Neil’s pulse rings out like a snare-beat. This is the first time Andrew has ever allowed him to touch him like that. To touch him somewhere below the neck. Neil finds himself suddenly overwhelmed with more gratitude than he can convey in the involuntary twitch of his fingers against the worn fabric of Andrew’s shirt. Andrew makes it a point to keep a firm hand wrapped around Neil’s wrist; now pressed into his diaphragm, before he inhales, deeply. Their gazes are rapt on one another. Beneath the scar-ridden skin of Neil’s fingers, Neil can feel the conscious rise of Andrew’s chest, the strong muscles expanding beneath his stomach, the lick of heat as Andrew's lips slide open to meet his own and he pours his breath into Neil’s mouth. Momentarily suffocating; dreamy. Libation-spill.

Neil’s eyes fall closed.

The back of his throat scalds and he has to repress the urge to break into a coughing fit, but then the discomfort passes, to be replaced with an indelible need. Even the smoke escaping between them seems to linger reluctantly against their mouths, and then everything within Neil returns to the eager slide of Andrew’s tongue. A gasp of pleasant surprise and a soft scratch of teeth and delicate devouring. Neil’s hair coming undone, his grip on Andrew’s shirt growing more faithful, their breaths rattling out heavy and indulgent.

Neil’s mind mimics a blank slate, Andrew’s breaths run through him. His free hand slips into Andrew curls. He does not tug or disrupt, just holds on for some sense of an anchor and Andrew’s palm latches harder onto Neil’s neck, a finger twisting a loose strand of hair. Just as Andrew begins to draw away so that they can catch their breaths, Neil tugs at his lower lip and pulls him in once again. The smoke is long lost to the whims of air. Neil can feel the way Andrew’s stomach contracts with the sudden gesture, how his body falls slack as if aching to be reshaped, the pronounced jut of his neck. This time, Andrew rips himself away and takes Neil’s lower lip between his fingers, pinching them together in feigned annoyance. They’re tangled together like a pair of wrinkled clothes on a washing line. Neil’s heart pounds dizzyingly. Andrew’s eyes slant lazily and take on a starry glaze, a consequence of a kiss shared like smoke and digested.

Andrew’s cheeks are red and raw with stray constellations of sticky flecks.

“I'm sorry I got glitter all over you,” Neil hums, unapologetically.

Andrew blinks a sparkling speck out of his lashes. "Liar."

"I've never kissed someone like this before."

"I can tell."

There's a pleasant halo of warmth spreading around them now. Neil pushes his hair back from his face. "You're really good at that."

(A perfunctory pale stare.) “You claim to hate it yet you consume like a junkie.”

(More importantly,) Andrew hasn’t dropped Neil’s wrist yet.

“I think I could get used to smoke as long as it comes from your lungs.” Neil grins. Andrew shoots him an unempathetic look, but it holds no bite. He looks so young all of a sudden, with glitter dust highlighting his features and Neil's hand held to his lungs, standing as a counterweight to the fumes.

"102%."

"What does it signify?"

"The likely chances that I will hurl you off this ledge to your untimely death."

“Before you kill me..."

"Do you want to try it again?” Neil asks. Andrew tips Neil’s chin up, softly prying Neil's lips open with the hilts of his fingers and placing the cigarette in between them. “Breathe it in. Do it slow and make sure it reaches down into your lungs. You will feel it. Here,” Andrew brings Neil’s loosely curled palm up over the expanse of his own sternum and flattens it there with his hand. Neil detects the faint stir of Andrew's heartbeat. “Hold it for five seconds and kiss me.” Neil does as he is instructed, his every thought pirouetting around the phrase kiss me kiss me kiss me . Andrew said it out loud. That makes it real. That makes it a promise. Neil’s hand creeps up Andrew’s chest and locks around his neck. He leans in and Andrew’s mouth falls open invitingly, swallowing the smoke that seemingly travelled light years to reach him.

They’re still kissing long after the smoke has dissipated and their mouths are sore and Andrew’s cigarette has died out in his hands. An airplane grazes the night sky overhead, drowning out the consequences of body heat and the sound of hitched breaths and transparent bodies colliding; like a car crash in the dark.

When they finally break apart, Andrew has glitter sprawled over his nose and Neil’s body is an ocean.

“Fuck,” Neil breathes. “Andrew, you’re amazing.”

Andrew blinks at him, expression steady, chest still heaving from the aftermath. “Don’t say stupid things.”

“I mean it,” Neil insists. “Thank you for…” He fumbles over the words for a moment, unsure of how to put a feeling so massive into a weak network of words. So he reaches out for Andrew's shoulders instead. The delirious feeling of fingers digging into the soft skin of his inner forearms, and tracing back. “Shh,” Andrew moves smoothly, like the start of a flame, and then he has Neil pinned down, the weight of a knee digging into his chest, and an arm, coiled over his side as counterweight to the ledge. Voice tender. “Stay.”

“Will you?” Neil asks, breath thin and collapsable.

The longest silence in the universe.

“I am not going anywhere.” Andrew’s tone is perfectly dry, but it conceals open wounds. Wounds Neil wants to fill with kisses and shared cigarettes and a heady rush of safety. The sort of imagined, persistent safety found beneath blankets after midnight, at the bottom of cardboard boxes, along a line of streetlights.

Neil smiles—big and genuine. “Me neither.”

Neil wants to see Andrew. Again and again. Why? Because of the way roofs cave in to mounds of snow, because of how a hand can be transformed by the simple act of touching another hand, because of a dry spell in the tropics, because of alcohol warming a system, because of the blood spoiling almost every single one of his shirts; the smell of nicotine. And the way that the world feels calmer; less angry, less out to get him. The way their friction reinvents hope and blocks out both sun and shadow. Because he does not want to live like the dead when he's not dead yet. Because Andrew’s breath tastes like a promise. Because he wants to be selfish and brazen and in love with something he can’t understand (not yet). Because Neil is tired and everything hurts and he just wants to feel something good. Because Neil could choose to run, like he always does, but he doesn’t. Not tonight. 

Because living like that doesn’t mean a thing.