יוני 2018

johnkat + regret

John is a different person in the cold truth of white-blue morning light, Karkat thinks. No longer caught in an unknown sway, grin wild and bucktoothed and voice bubbling over with overbearing laughs and eyes too bright to be sober.

John has been stirring the black coffee in front of him for roughly five minutes. Karkat didn’t have anything to offer him to sweeten it.

“I have a girlfriend,” John says. It’s all he says. It’s the only thing he’s said since he woke up.

“You also have a hickey,” Karkat offers in curt response. He’s frowning too, now. They’re both strained—a perfect mirror to their night prior.

“I should go,” John says, and stands, and leaves.

My brain is a horrible thing because the first prompt I could come up with was "you were mine." So whatever pair you want to be angsty with, go wild.

There’s postcards, scattered across the kitchen table. Dirk has a drawer full of them for special, drunken occasions such as this. They’re all different. Each hails from a different location, from the exotic wilds of India to the bleak monotony of Minnesota. England. South Africa. Albuquerque. Every one of them a now-faded square of longing in Dirk’s chest.

Dirk rereads their simple messages: “Wish you were here,” “Lovely weather!” “Brilliant views from up here,” “I miss you tonight, Strider, I never should have left.” Dirk’s favorite has a simple “Love, Jake” in a haphazard pencil scrawl, as if the green-eyed adventurer was in a hurry and the clipped words were the first thing that sprung to his mind.

There’s never a return address.

Space gays + DirkJake

You met him at space camp.

You were the one who refused to try the Multi-Axis trainer on grounds of safety and an undiagnosed anxiety disorder. He was the one who didn’t and puked in the garbage can next to your bench.

Now, he calls you from up there, once a week and for only 20 minutes. He answers the call upside-down sometimes, hair splayed around his head like a halo, drifting slowly offscreen despite his best intentions to the opposite.

“Starchild,” he calls you. “I miss you.”

“Jake,” you respond, voice cracking, face flushing, because who knew angels could get their wings in zero-G. “I know.”

DirkJohn + Restaurant

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Dirk says. He’s sat on the curb, waiting for John’s dad to come pick them up. John takes a bite of the breadstick in his hand.

“I can’t—” Dirk starts again. “This is the fifth one you’ve gotten us kicked out of,” Dirk says. “Five Pizza Huts, John. Five. In two weeks.”

“I ‘unno why i’s so unbe'eevable ‘en,” John says with a mouth full of carbs.

Dirk lowers his face into his hands. “Fuck,” he says. “Oh my fucking god. Someone’s going to call the police on us. It’s only a matter of time.”

John swallows. “The only illegal thing you did was put olives on pizza.”

“You threw the slice across the fucking dining area. It almost hit the hostess.”

“Mmm. Yep.” John takes another bite. “Technically that was intended for you, though, so the only thing I’m guilty of is attempted assault on my boyfriend with an olive-adorned weapon which is—hey, you’re not going to press charges, right?”

Dirk pulls his head up to look at him. His right eye twitches.

“Uh. I’ll make you dinner at my place to make up for it?” John attempts.

Dirk sighs. Looks away. “Fine.”

“But if you even think about olives I’m throwing your skinny ass on the street.”

dirkjake and hitchhiker??

It’s safer to travel in groups, you tell him, when you find him face down on the side of a highway, face bruised and spirit deflated after he had demanded to be let out from a red flag of a ride and ended up tumbling out of the cab before the truck had made a complete stop. You found him like that, glasses cracked, eyes ringed with tears. Grass was in his teeth.

It’s safer to travel in groups, you had attempted to explain to him. Like wolves.

He tells you many things as you travel. You stay mostly silent, but he keeps telling you things. He tells you about how he’s going to California, how he’s going to be star. He tells you about the people he’s met so far, the places he’s seen, the dogs he’s befriend. He tells you he’s met men like you; he’s not afraid of them, he makes sure to tell you. Really, he says, he doesn’t have a problem with it. He’s going to Hollywood after all. It’s the 60s, he tells you. It’s legal in England now. He tries very hard to tell you things are changing.

You start calling him “Hollywood” as an affectionate jest, but you know that “Jake English” rolls off the tongue like the name of a future celebrity. He calls you “Wolfpup,” occasionally “Dear.” You ask him to remember you, when he’s famous. You ask him lots of things while you’re lying in a field with him beside an empty highway. Looking up at a dark sky with pinprick stars.

He curls his arm around you and says “‘Pup.” Nuzzles at the side of your face. Tells you: “You’re a rather tough face to forget.”

I have to say I've missed your writing! It's been too long and yet your work is still so top notch!

Thank you sm!!!
I missed writing fic. I just love to explore the space of shortform. It’s so loose and you get to choose just the right amount of details to shape the feeling of the world and…….

I’m getting indulgent. Feel free to send in a prompt if you haven’t already! I’m gonna do some more in the morning as my warmup for some Actual Work Writing. 💪✨