rekamohcs

(Baby, don’t hurt me, right?)

The delicate flutter of nerves gnawing at your belly on a first date. Sweaty palms, shy smiles, warm skin, soft kisses. Stealing fries from his plate at dinner, laughing when he swats your hand away. Offering the cherry on top of your milkshake as penance (he hates cherries – that’s why you offer).

Quiet whispers at midnight, stolen touches under tables. Inside jokes. Outside ones. Stealing the blankets and pressing your cold nose into his warm neck, smiling against skin. Listening to his ideas as they tumble out from between his lips, clawing their way into existence. Giving input when you can and support in the form of hot tea placed on his desk at 2am when he’s still at the drawing board. You end falling asleep alone that night.

Tears at 3pm when he hasn’t slept in two days and you have three meetings in the next hours. He snaps; you do, too. Making up the old-fashioned way – with tough conversations, hard discussions that build and break down walls simultaneously. Picking out a cat together (he’d rather have a dog, but he knows you’re both too busy for that right now) six months after you move in together (he loves that cat even though he won’t admit it). Planting a vegetable garden that dies in two months and crying at your dad’s funeral that comes too soon.

Perhaps love is all of these things. Perhaps it is none.

Maybe it’s giving the man on the street corner the lunch you had packed for yourself on Tuesday. Maybe it’s putting bird food out for the squirrels and picking up the can on the sidewalk after your evening run. Maybe it’s encouraging someone to drink water or offering your time even though you don’t really have any to spare. Maybe it’s simply existing, giving what you can without expecting anything in return.

Perhaps love is like a god – we may never know who it is, may never see its tangible form or understand it completely.

Perhaps we don’t have to.

Perhaps love is all-consuming, inclusive, and gilded into the fabric of every seam that holds this universe together.

What is love? 

(It is the center of your soul, and his, and theirs. The pillow on your bed and the wind that caresses your hair in Autumn. The light through the leaves when you’ve been lost in the forest so long that you can’t see the trees. It is you on your best days and you on your worst. It is every god that may or may not exist. It is us, and above all, it is inevitable.)

I want to hold it in my hands, bright and beautiful, colorful and magnificent, so that I might hold it up to the light and say, 

“Isn’t this cool?”

And I want someone to see it, to see me, to understand what I’m asking, and say,

because I am on the other side

(of my trauma),

but also because I have watered it.

I have fought to be here, he thinks.

There are callouses on my palms from holding my blades and there are scars on my back from those who have challenged me.

There is sweat on my brow and sand in my shoes and wounds on my heart.

There are pages and pages of pain in my book, and yet, I am here, at the top of this mountain, even though the baggage on my back made it feel as if this climb was impossible.

The view from the summit was worth the fight.

The thing

about

joy

is that it’s always there.

Omnipresent.

Sometimes

it’s bright and sugar sweet,

like cotton candy fingers and Ferris wheels on crisp Autumn nights. Clear skies

and glittering starlight, melted ice cream in fields of sunshine and lilacs.

Sometimes

it’s young and free,

like a swarm of careless laughter and blinking lightning bugs. S’mores and 

stories around campfires, hair tangled in the wind, loud music and coolers full

of questionable drinks.

Sometimes

it’s light and new,

like plush baby blankets, hand-sewn teddy-bears, toothless smiles and wet dog 

noses. Sightless kittens, the first rays of sunlight after two weeks of clouds, the

buds of Basil seeds popping up through soil.

Sometimes

it’s old and classic,

like farm houses and ancient castle ruins. Elderly couples in the front row at 

Sunday service, hands clasped together and in prayer. Homemade banana

breads that Mom bakes (the ones with extra bananas, the good stuff) to hand

out for Christmas.

Sometimes

it simmers,

hot beneath the surface. Raging to boil over and spill onto the counter-top, like

sweltering summer heat and melted chocolate on the dashboard of Dad’s old

Chevy. Heated skin and pink cheeks, soft presses of lips into sunburnt shoulders

and fingers in hair.

Sometimes

it’s dark and heavy,

hidden in the shadows beneath piles of snow after a heavy winter storm. A tiny

ember beneath piles and months of used, spent ashes. Burrowed beneath the 

blankets of a bed that hasn’t been made in weeks. Forgotten and lost.

The thing

about

joy

is that it’s always there.

Omnipresent.

Different shapes. Different places.

Different feelings. Different moments.

Different losses. Different loves.

Sometimes

it wears the face of a stranger,

but it’s always there

to hold your hand while you find your way back

IT spirals (in and out and in and out and in and out and in)

out of control

like evolution.

Constantly changing under the pressure of an ever-shifting environment.

IT has no goal,

no ambition.

IT just is.

Chaotic. Destructive. Heartbreaking.

A maladaptive trait if there ever was one.

IT spirals, but you

are

not

IT.

(you may feel that you are, but, my love, you are the farthest thing from IT.)

You are wild

like a tree within a forest.

Sturdy. Steadfast. Prominent. Admired.

You are wild

like the honeybee stealing pollen from a flower.

Vital. Important. Crucial. Delicate.

You are wild

like the river that connects land to sea.

A connection. A necessity. An image of serenity.

You are wild like the stars, constantly fusing and brimming with energy, shattering stardust into the heavens.

You are wild like the moon, the beauty who constantly moves through her phases, who sets only to rise again the next day anew.

You are wild like the otters playing in the streams,

like the microbes who nourish the planet and coexist in our guts,

like the lions with their prides,

and the ever-changing atmosphere of our sky.

You are wild, like this universe.

You are one of its most important parts.

You are not IT, the thing that tries to control you, to tamp out your spirit, to cripple you with shame.

You are wild,

I’ve been lagging behind on posting my work here, but I’m slowing working to catch up! You can also find me under the same username on ao3 because I have been more active there than here recently and am in the process of updated a couple new works!

This fic is 100% inspired by Sorey’s alternative colored outfit from toz. Seriously, he looks so good in red and black. So here’s a little fluffy drabble about it.

Rating: General

Pairing: sormik

Fandom: Tales of Zestiria

Summary: Mikleo thinks Sorey looks nice in red and black.

Mikleo was fairly certain that he’d never seen Sorey wear red before. Sorey generally leaned toward cool colors – mainly blues, or perhaps a green shirt when he was in desperate need of doing laundry back in Elysia. But red – red was new.

Red was distractingly attractive.

Sorey tugged at the sleeve of his shirt as he slid the bathroom door closed. They had made a pitstop in Ladylake to check in on Alisha and were staying at the Inn for the evening. The others were out around town, giving Mikleo and Sorey their time to nerd out over the recent ruins they had explored earlier that day in peace.

“This is certainly different, isn’t it?” Sorey inquired as he lifted the black and gold Shepherd’s cloak up to examine in the light flitting through the window. The cloak matched the new, black denim that stretched across his thighs, the cuffs tucked into gold and red trimmed black leather boots. He swung the cloak over his shoulders and fiddled with the buttons on the front.

“Yeah, it certainly is.” Mikleo agreed, violet eyes fixated on how Sorey’s tanned fingers looked against the black background.

Sorey smiled, forcing Mikleo to meet his eyes. The red shirt made his green eyes shine impossibly brighter and the light blush on his face a tinge deeper. “It’s not quite as elegant as your inverted Seraph cloak that we found, though.”

Mikleo flushed as Sorey took a seat on the bed next to the water Seraph. He huffed in embarrassment, averting his gaze and covering the shy smile on his lips with his hand. “I’m not so sure about that. My colors are just inverted – your entire outfit is different.”

Sorey reached out and ran his fingers over the white and navy fabric of Mikleo’s shirt gently, chuckling at Mikleo’s comment idly. “Does that mean you don’t like this outfit?”

A blush began creeping its way up Mikleo’s neck, much to the water Seraph’s dismay. He looked back at Sorey and let his eyes scan the outfit again. He averted his gaze and tucked his bottom lip between his pretty white teeth shyly. “No, that’s not what I mean.” He stated.

Sorey raised a brow. “So you do like it?” He pushed forward, tilting his head slightly. Getting Mikleo’s feelings out of him was sometimes like pulling teeth.

Mikleo glared at the Shepherd without malice before reaching out to touch the red fabric of Sorey’s shirt. “It’s… distracting.” He murmured, flush deepening. Sorey’s brows furrowed slightly at the comment, but Mikleo continued. “I kind of don’t want you to ever wear anything but red and black ever again.”

Mikleo’s candid words brought a fierce blush to Sorey’s cheeks as he felt affection bloom through his chest. He reached up to grab Mikleo’s hand from his shirt to bring it up to his lips. He kissed the back of his hand gently before meeting Mikleo’s gaze with a teasing smile. “You know, they say red is the color of love.”

Mikleo scoffed, blush persisting, and rolled his eyes. “You’re so corny, Sorey.” He laughed softly, fingers tightening around Sorey’s where he was still holding his hand.

“But you love me for it!”

“Shut up, you idiot.”

“Only if you make me.”

“…shut up, you idiot.”