#isharan

Shoes slapping on the wet pavement, Techie dashed through the unforgiving rain. It splattered down his neck, soaking through his hair and clothes and chilling him to the bone. He’d been forced to leave work early; the severe weather had left his entire building without power. He only hoped their apartment was okay.

Soaked and bedraggled, Techie climbed the steps of his apartment block, hopes disappearing at the sight of candles in his neighbours windows. Of course the power was out here too, and of course they lived on the fifth floor. Techie sighed, shoving his wet hair out of his face and starting the climb.

By the time he reached the apartment, he was shivering. Goosebumps prickled down every inch of his skin and Techie could feel his teeth starting to chatter. He sighed to himself, key sliding into the lock with a click.

Matt’s voice rang through the hall the instant the door was closed, “Hey baby, you get sent home too? It looks like half the town’s blacked out.”

“Mmph.” was Techie’s only reply. He shuffled through the dimly lit hallway and into their bedroom where he dumped his wet clothes. Matt’s curly head appeared around the door.

“Oh baby, you’re soaked.” He disappeared for a second, returning with their biggest, fluffiest towel and wrapping Techie in it like a cocoon. “How’s that?” Matt asked, keeping his arms firmly around Techie and pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Better,” Techie admitted. It was hard to stay in a bad mood whilst wrapped in a combination of warm fluff and strong arms.

Matt grinned and pressed another small kiss to the tip of Techie’s nose, “Well then, get dressed and come through to the living room, I have the feeling you’ll like what I’ve done.”

Techie smiled, towelling off his hair and slipping into his pyjamas; if he was home for the rest of the day then he might as well relax. He wandered back into the hall, wondering exactly what Matt had done and gawping as he entered the living room.

The entire floor was covered in blankets and pillows, invitingly soft. Another throw was draped between the backs of the couch and the chair to create a roof and it was under there that Matt sat, looking extremely pleased with himself.

“I made a fort!”

“I can see that,” Techie smiled, crawling between the couch cushions that served as walls. “This is so cool!”

Matt grinned, catching Techie by the waist and hauling him into his lap, “Well I just thought it would be a fun way to spend the afternoon off work. What do you wanna do first?”

never seen it | need to see it | hate it | ugh | it was okay | LOVED IT | asdfghjkl

i have a super-low second-hand embarrassment tolerance. i cringe and need to either leave the room or cover my ears like an awkward nebbish. despite the Domhnall factor, i feel like i’d have to watch the entire thing with noise-canceling headphones, and that’s just no fun for me

They hadn’t even scheduled this, but when they compared schedules, they saw they both had the same afternoon and following morning free–24 hours to spend together! No scrambling to get ready early in the morning after an evening spent enjoying themselves, or having to take a nap in the afternoon because they both had early shifts. “We could do anything we wanted,” Techie had said, swinging his arm as he and Matt had walked hand-in-hand to the mess. “We could make–plans?”

Plans are a slippery concept for Techie, Matt knows, since he’s been lied to and had the rug pulled out from under him far too many times. Plans for freedom, plans for payment, plans for success, so many of those have not exactly worked out for him. It’s been much easier for Techie to live minute-to-minute, just keeping the short-term in focus. Unlike Matt, who had pretty much been planning his entire future with Techie from the second week they’d known each other, Techie let himself imagine life with Matt only in the smallest slices–first maybe getting to be friends with him, maybe getting to hold his hand, maybe getting to kiss. A future in which the same person wanted to stick around for, well, forever–fully unimaginable.

At least, back then. It might be easier for him now, Matt thought, now that they’ve been together for awhile. “Yeah, we can make plans,” he agreed. “What’ll it be, then?”

Techie looked down at his datapad, back at the schedule, as though he had never seen so much unrequested free time in his entire life and wasn’t sure what to demand of it. “We…..”

Then, for several minutes, silence. He looked like he was calculating, trying to decide. 

“I mean, we have some time,” Matt added. “It’s not until the end of the week. You don’t have to decide anything immediately.”

“But I want to!” Techie insisted. “I want to have things to look forward to–and for you to look forward to.”

“Well, there are holofilms showing that night. And probably shuttles to–oh, we could go somewhere with a beach, that’d be a lot of fun. And then sleep in the next morning. Or we could splurge on like, some real food–or we could–”

But he stopped, seeing the look on Techie’s face, which looked positively pained with indecision. “I–I don’t know. Oh, stars, Matt, I’m really sorry. I want to decide right now, but I don’t know what I want.”

“Even if you want to decide really soon, you don’t have to decide now,” Matt said. “Decide tonight, and then we can look forward to it all week.”

Techie allowed himself a smile, and it grew broader when Matt smiled back.

“You’re too damn cute, you know that?” Matt asked, and it made Techie hide his face with glee. “I kinda really love that you want to build all this anticipation. It’s really sweet. Just–don’t stress yourself out over it, all right?”

Can I be an elven wizard?? Because that’s totally what I want to be! I mean I suppose if I have to choose between elf and wizard, I’d choose to be an elf. Long-lived, graceful, proficient at combat… well, at least the LotR elves are, haha. If it’s not that kind of elf, then please toss me some magic!

Thanks for asking, lady! xoxo

Oooh! WELL. I am not well versed in art but I do love looking at it. Some of my favorites are: Starry Night by Van Gogh (seen at MoMA last year), Person Throwing a Stone at a Bird by Joan Miró (seen at the High in 2012 and at MoMA last year), Monet’s Waterlilies (seen at MoMA last year), Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa (seen at the Tokyo National Museum in 2001), The Broken Column by Frida Kahlo (seen at the High in 2013), Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (thanks to @fauxtalian for getting me into Klimt! but I don’t think I’ve seen it in person? Was it at MoMA?), The Daydream by Vik Muniz (seen at the High last year​), and Full Fathom Five by Jackson Pollock (I believe I saw this at the High in 2012). And I mean, this is just what I could scrape together by searching through old photos...I’m sure I’m forgetting something.