#spent all its time bouncing between being gross and being bland

[phantomrose96]

Watched the whole 90-minute opening episode of Oshi no Ko and By God it was not good.

[j-writes-and-suffers]

NaNoWriMo Day Eleven

Wandering around the top floor of the library, Philip took a minute to explore before properly searching for Lucien. He discovered several nice alcoves for studying, as well as a large collection of dictionaries, thesauri, and other writing resources surrounding a big desk. He was busy snooping about for anything else cool when a voice murmured in his ear.

“Finding everything alright?”

“Fuck!” Philip jumped about a foot in the air, spinning around to glare at Lucien. “Dude, I swear, you’re gonna be the death of me…”

Lucien chuckled. “Sorry. I can’t help myself. You’re so easy to scare.”

Philip rolled his eyes. “You’re an ass.”

“Perhaps so,” Lucien shrugged, “but you came to visit anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Philip’s cheeks were tinged pink, and he tried to change the subjects. “That Kyle kid is a piece of work.”

Lucien sighed deeply. “Oh. You met him, did you?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Yeah, he’s… he’s something.” Lucien grumbled, “Sadly, no one but Heather and him applied, and I need the extra hands.”

“Jeez man, if you’re that desperate, I’ll chop off my hands and you can have those instead.” Philip jested.

Lucien’s resentful scowl faded, and he chuckled warmly. “I appreciate the offer, but I think you need those.”

Philip shrugged. “Nah, it’s fiiiine. Voice typing is getting pretty good. I’ll just learn to open doors with my foot or something.”

Rolling his eyes, Lucien dropped into a nearby chair. “You’re ridiculous.”

“The world needs a little ridiculous.” Philip replied, sitting next to him.

“That it does.” Lucien smiled. “You do make for some nice entertainment in my incredibly bland life.”

“Oh! Speaking of entertainment…” Philip remembered what he had actually come to the library for. “Do you want to go see a movie this weekend? I hear the newest superhero one is pretty good.”

Lucien paused to think, “I haven’t seen a movie in theater in years… It sounds nice, though. Dinner and a movie or just a movie?”

“How about a movie and a walk in the park?” Philip suggested.

“That sounds excellent.” Lucien smiled, but his cheeriness faded at the sound of bickering from downstairs. “I have to go deal with my lackeys… see you Wednesday, perhaps? Hopefully, by then, I’ll have them more under control.”

“Yeah, sure.” Philip nodded, following Lucien down the stairs and heading out the front door.

Wednesday afternoon, Philip returned to the library as promised. He and Lucien spent a few hours talking, with Philip helping carry stacks of books so they could actually stay productive. The evening drew to a close when it started raining outside, as Lucien urged Philip to get home before it got bad. As much as he wanted to stay, Philip knew that he’d be royally boned if he waited to leave and the rain got worse. With a reluctant goodbye, he hurried home, getting misted the whole way by the growing precipitation.

Philip spent most of Thursday bouncing around, his energy increasing as date night grew closer. He practically jogged to the library on Friday, wanting to iron out the details of their plans for tomorrow. Bolting in the front door, Philip was relieved to see Heather, rather than Kyle, on circulation duty.

“Hi, Heather.”

“What’s up, blondie?” She asked, looking up from her bio textbook.

“Uh, where’s Lucien?” Philip asked, “I wanted to talk to him.”

“Then you’ll have to call him, cause he’s not here. Sick or something.” Heather shrugged, as if this didn’t worry her at all.

“What?” Philip’s jaw dropped, heartbreak shining in his wide, dark eyes.

She shrugged again. “He’s out sick a lot, it’s probably nothing.”

“B… but we had a date tomorrow.” Philip was trying to hide his distress, but his voice wavered audibly.

“That sucks, man. I’m sure he’ll make it up, though. Luci’s loyal. He’s just also sickly as hell.”

Philip didn’t seem convinced. “But what if he’s not sick? What if he doesn’t wanna see me, and he’s just too nice to say so?”

Heather rolled her eyes. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Or maybe I’m being realistic. I was always suspicious that he wasn’t really into me. I’m too young and dumb and annoying. I don’t know why I ever thought we had something.”

“Dude, calm down. Go drink or something. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.” She snapped, losing her patience with Philip’s nervous antics.

“Sorry. I don’t mean to bother you. I’ll… I’ll go now.” Philip hung his head shamefully, hurrying out of the library and heading for home. He only made it about ten minutes before tears started dripping down his cheeks. His already sluggish pace slowed further, and he sniffled softly, rubbing his eyes as he trudged off campus, heading for his miserably empty apartment.

Philip curled up on his couch as soon as he got home. Though he was normally hungry after such a long walk, today the pain in his stomach was a gut-wrenching sadness. He felt rejected, unwanted, pathetic. He’d known somewhere in the back of his mind that he wasn’t good enough, but he’d convinced himself that Lucien didn’t mind. Why was he such an optimistic idiot?

He buried his face in the couch cushions, sobbing loudly now that he was in private. As the night dragged on, he finally quieted down, sitting up and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Maybe Heather was right. He should drink or something. That would cheer him up, or at least distract him. He went searching through the kitchen, wondering if he even had any alcohol around at the moment. All he could find was a bottle of blueberry wine; it must’ve been a gift or something, because he never drank wine and he fucking hated blueberries. However, he was in no mood to go out shopping, and decided he’d rather drink some gross wine than be sober.

Philip woke up on Saturday morning with no memory of the night before. His phone was on the floor by his bed, dead as a doornail. He groaned in dismay, plugging it in and praying that he hadn’t drunk-texted Lucien. The screen glowed with life, and he narrowed his eyes against the brightness. His heart skipped a beat as he saw a heartfelt plea sprawled out across the screen complete with typos and a confession of love. Philip cringed, ready to commit seppuku just to restore his dignity from this disaster, when his eyes wandered to the name at the top of the screen.

Team Snapchat.

For a brief moment, Philip actually believed there might be a god. He sighed deeply, relieved beyond words that he hadn’t spammed Lucien with an embarrassingly badly-written sob story. He set his phone aside, pulling a pillow over his face; he was feeling pretty rough after the previous night, and didn’t really want to do anything. Luckily, it was a Saturday, and his date had cancelled, so he was perfectly free to spend his night on absolutely nothing.

The weekend dragged on in a consistently boring and somewhat depressing fashion. When he finally found the will to get out of bed, Philip made himself a dinner of cinnamon toast crunch and ice cream, curling up on the couch to watch romance movies and cry. When Sunday evening rolled around, he started to get anxious. Should he go to the library tomorrow? Would Lucien even be there? Would Lucien want to see him if he was there? Should he even go to work tomorrow? His thoughts grew overwhelming, and Philip forced himself to stop caring. He curled up, ready to go to sleep. He’d just roll with the punches tomorrow, and let what happened happen.

Monday morning rolled around in its usual sluggish manner. Philip had no desire to be up before noon, but he crawled out of bed in time to lead his morning lecture nonetheless. Even less awake than usual, he grabbed an extra large coffee between each lecture, as well as a muffin from the coffee shop. By the end of the day, he found himself bouncing off the walls from an overload of sugar and caffeine. The excess energy only lent to his anxiety, and Philip paced around the lecture hall as his last class let out, contemplating whether or not to go to the library.

He’d told himself last night that he would relax and do what felt right, but he wasn’t anxious and caffeinated when he said that. Now he absolutely had to know what Lucien thought of him, even though he was nearly panicking just at the thought of outright rejection. He made a few more laps around the room before finally gathering his courage. He had to go to the library.

Philip’s legs were shaking as he walked up the old stone steps, but he took a deep breath and yanked the door open anyway. Kyle was manning the front desk, too busy with his cheetos and anime to even look up. Philip was honestly grateful for that; Kyle was the last person on earth he wanted to talk to right now. Nervously creeping into the library, he looked around, scanning every aisle for signs of Lucien. Instead, he found Heather re-shelving books. She looked up at him, giving a brief nod of greeting.

“Luci’s in the lounge.”

“Oh… uh… thanks.” Philip forced a smile, shuffling off towards the door in the back. It was slightly ajar, and he peeked nervously inside. No one was visible in the sliver of the room he could see, so he tentatively pushed the door open. “Lucien?” He squeaked, his voice breaking front sheer anxiety.

“I was wondering if you’d show.” Lucien was tucked into the corner of the couch, tea in one hand and a book in the other. His voice was incredibly scratchy, as though he’d just gargled with broken glass, and he honestly looked more like a week-old corpse than a live human. He was paler than a cartoon vampire, with deep shadows under his eyes. His face was startlingly gaunt and thin, as though he hadn’t eaten all weekend, and his normally-impeccable hair was slightly disheveled and more grey than ever.

Philip’s jaw nearly fell to the floor, and a pang of guilt struck him for ever thinking Lucien was lying about being sick. “Of course I’d show… I wanted to talk to you. Are you okay? You look really rough. What’s wrong?” He asked, stepping closer to get a better look at the older man.

“It’s a chronic illness I’ve dealt with for years. It’s not deadly, it just… gets the better of me sometimes. It’s not contagious, so you’ve really nothing to worry about.” Lucien seemed intent on calming Philip down; he could tell that the younger man was stressed. “Come sit with me, and we can talk.” He patted the couch cushion next to him, motioning Philip over.

Philip plopped down next to Lucien, frowning in concern. “You don’t seem to be feeling that good. Why come back to work so soon?”

“If I skipped work whenever I wasn’t feeling well, we’d need a new librarian.” Lucien quipped, “I learned to manage years ago, you really needn’t worry so much. All that aside, I do apologize for missing our date on Saturday. I told Heather to tell you that, but I don’t know how well she relayed the message…”

“Nah, it’s fine. She told me.” Philip lied. “Anything I can help you with while I’m here? I don’t want you overworking yourself.”

“Don’t be absurd. That’s what student workers are for.”

Philip couldn’t help but laugh, and he leaned against Lucien, a smile spreading across his face. “I’m glad you came back to work. I missed you on Friday.”

Lucien smiled back, some of the life briefly returning to his face. “I missed you, too."