I was in a waiting room earlier and there was a radio on, with a quiz show. A little kid in the waiting room was listening intently, sometimes whispering answers to his mum and he looked proud when they turned out to be right. And at one point the question was "What kind of animal is grown on a bouchot?" (The French word for the stake that mussels grow on)
The kid had a baffled frown, and the quiz show candidate wasn’t finding the answer either so the presenter added helpfully, "A bouchot is a sort of wooden stick in the sea…"
The look on the kid’s face had morphed to one of clear concern, at the concept of growing animals on a stick in the sea—but then his face lit up with the sudden light of perfect understanding and he said "Dolphins!!"
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"everyone should get more aromantic" can appeal to tumblr's sensibilities but I genuinely think everyone should also get more asexual. I don't mean everyone stop having sex, what I mean is
Sex is not essential. You can live without it. Full stop.
Not having sex isn't shameful or a sign of failure. It also doesn't make anyone boring.
You are not entitled to having sex with anybody and nobody is entitled to having sex with you.
Sex is not what makes someone an adult.
Nobody's worth is defined by how much sex they have or don't have.
Sex is not equally important to everyone.
You can have fulfilling and happy relationships without sex.
You should only have sex on your own terms, not because you feel like you owe it to someone, or because you feel like you'd be incomplete without it.
Know your boundaries around sex and be firm about them. Know how to respect other people's boundaries.
The previous point also applies when it comes to discussing sex. If someone doesn't wanna talk about it or hear about it you have to back down.
Anything can be sexual but not everything has to be sexual.
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accidentally referred to someone’s elderly rescue dog as their secondhand dog and I feel like that was a massive linguistic failure on my part 🧍♂️…their Goodwill chihuahua
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Michael's apartment was dark except for the low, flickering light of his TV that was almost painfully familiar.
Robby stood in the doorway much longer than he needed to, his bag strap cutting into his shoulder as he just… breathed it in. The smell of the place. The low murmur of some game coming from another room.
The fact that he was here at all.
It all felt comically familiar and yet so strange. Like he was coming back to a house that used to belong to a version of him that he had buried weeks ago.
He dropped his keys into the little bowl on the counter, noticing a different, awfully familiar pair already stuck in there. The sigh that started to leave him, got stuck right in the back of his throat as he slowly but surely followed the light down the hall.
Jack was in his bed.
Not on top of the covers, no; in them. On the left side… his side, the TV remote loose in his left hand like he'd fallen asleep while channel-hopping. His stump was sticking out from under the duvet the way it always did because the man ran hot and his scar was sensitive.
All of these years and he still couldn't keep both legs under the damn covers.
Michael leaned against the doorframe and just looked at him.
Honestly, he didn't know what he'd expected to come home to. Whitaker had texted him that he appreciated the offer to crash long-term but he decided to just pop in every now and then. So… an empty apartment, probably?
An empty apartment with that nice quality of silence a place gets when no one had been living in it.
Ultimately, Michael hadn't let himself think too hard about coming home at all for a long time. And then, when he finally started to- when he finally decided, somewhere in the middle of week seven, in a dirty motel with bad plumbing and an inexplicably good view, he had finally gotten that thought.
Jack.
Not the apartment. Not his own bed. Just Jack.
And here Jack was. In his bed. Wearing his hoodie… the grey one with the bleach stain, Michael hadn't worn outside for the longest time. Looking old and rumpled and completely unbothered by everything around him.
Something cracked open in Michael's chest. Slow and close to painless. Like ice thawing out in spring.
Maybe he'd made a sound, or maybe Jack had felt his presence - the way he usually did, always half-aware of everything despite the unbotheredness - because he stirred, blinking at the ceiling and then turned his head.
The disorientation on his face lasted only a second. A second that was enough for him to come completely undone. One second of Jack not knowing where he was, eyes unfocused, reaching back through the dark for his bearings.
When he found Robby in the doorway, though, something in his face just settled. Like a compass finding north. Like that was all he needed.
"Hey…" Jack said, his voice absolutely wrecked with sleep.
"Hey."
"You're back."
"Yeah."
Jack looked at him for a long moment and Michael recognized that look. It wasn't one to check him over, not one cataloguing any kind of damage but just… looking at him. The way one were to look at something they thought they might not ever see again.
"Good," he finally said. Like that was enough. Like it was everything that needed to be said.
"Good," Robby repeated, his own tone similar but not the same. "You're in my bed."
"Well, your couch sucks ass."
"I know."
"You should replace it."
"Yeah… I know."
Jack shifted and reached over to turn the TV off, turning the room dark almost instantly.
"You eat?"
"Not really. Not for a while."
"You sleep?"
Michael didn't even need to answer that one, knowing the silence would be enough to serve as a reply. Even if it was one that Jack didn't appreciate much.
"Mm." A pause. "Come to bed, Robby."
Pushing off the doorframe, he simply abandoned his bag in the hall. Michael didn't even bother to turn the light back on as he moved towards the bed. Instead of letting himself fall onto it though, he merely sat on the edge for a moment, elbows propped up on his knees, just breathing.
He could feel Jack waiting behind him, giving him both the space to process and the time to do so before Michael finally decided to lay down.
The darkness of the room was quiet. The city outside was doing its city thing, distant and indifferent, and Jack's breathing was already slowing back toward a light sleep. Or something performative that was supposed to act it.
Michael, though, was staring at the ceiling, feeling that specific weight of being horizontal in his own bed for the very first time in two months settle over him like something he hadn't yet earned.
"Jack."
"Yeah?"
A long pause followed. Long enough that even Michael believed he imagined himself speaking.
"I almost didn't."
Jack didn't answer him right away, didn't ask for clarification. Because he didn't need to.
The mattress shifted ever so slightly as Jack turned towards him in the dark. He didn't close the distance between them, but merely reoriented himself, facing him.
"I figured," Jack finally said.
Eventually, Jack's hand found his arm in the dark. Not grabbing or gripping, just landing there. It was heavy and warm and so still in the way Jack went still whenever he tried to get Michael to understand that something mattered.
Michael felt his throat close around a heavy lump in his throat even if he couldn't exactly name why it was there in the first place.
For a good while, they neither moved, nor spoke, until finally, Michael gave in.
It wasn't so much a decision, as it was a surrender. His body made the call way before his head could even begin arguing it. He turned into Jack's side, forehead dropping to his shoulder. Jack's arm came around him with no hesitation, no fumbling, like he'd been waiting for it. Like it was very simply the next thing.
His chin came to rest against the top of Michael's head.
"Glad you did," Jack murmured after a while; his voice low and rough and right against his ear. "Come back, I mean."
Michael closed his eyes.
"Yeah…" he replied into the worn grey cotton of his own hoodie. "Me too."
