#oc em

“Ohh, muffin,” she said softly, fingers beginning to run through his hair. “I know I don’t have to, but I want to. You just think of me as your temporary stand-in mother.” Em said this with a playful upturn of her lips, though the genuine warmth was more than evident in her voice. She noted Lor’s shivering and went to the unfolded luggage rack that had a small stack of cardigans and sweaters. “Do you have a preference for cozy clothes, sweetheart?”

“Oh, um…” Lor sniffled and shook his head. “Any is fine, but, uh...the gray one is my favorite.”

Em retrieved it and brought it back. Lor thanked her quietly as he pulled the cable knit sweater over his head. Emerging from it with disheveled hair, Lor still couldn’t look at her. His greatest fear at the moment was Em suddenly realizing how absolutely terrible he was, and deciding that even she couldn’t manage to be good to him. 

It didn’t always used to be like this. Sure, Lor had always been insecure with a poor self image, but it’s like that had all increased tenfold ever since…

Well. He couldn’t think about that relationship ending. 

Lor took a tissue from the box on the nightstand and folded it beneath his nose as it threatened to drip. Desperate to fill the silence so Em wouldn’t have to be forced to focus on Lor cleaning himself up, he said the first thing that came to mind. “I never got this sort of thing from...my mother…”

Em was quiet for a beat before taking a seat next to him on the bed. The mattress dipped slightly with her added presence, and Lor suddenly found himself sliding closer an inch. Normally he would be perturbed by anyone coming closer when he was clearly in a worse state than usual, but it was like Em always had a bubble of peace and calm and love around her. He wasn’t sure when the last time was that he had ever felt this...comforted. “Oh?” “Yeah, uh…” 

He had talked about his terrible mother to Piper some, both when they dated and when they used to be friends, but not enough to push himself past the point of ‘bitter and angry child’ and into the territory of ‘genuinely hurt and wounded child’. His brother was more of a ‘don’t hang onto the past’ kind of person. Lor was endlessly frustrated with this approach. Maybe it was because his past was so full of bruises that kept being pressed and pressed and pressed enough to keep them from healing even slightly. His brother had always been handsome and sociable and funny and athletic. His brother never had to worry about anyone hurting him.

Especially not the way that Piper had hurt Lor. 

God. The pain in his chest was a searing knife. When was this going to be over? When was he going to be able to think about her without feeling like he was dying? 

Em reached to squeeze his shoulder. Lor startled and looked at her with wide eyes before promptly sniffling, lower lip wobbling as he fought to keep tears back. He had spent years learning to steel himself against crying in the face of being mercilessly bullied, but he had never had to do it in response to someone...being good to him. It just plainly didn’t happen.

“I miss her so much,” he said through tight wheezes, visions of Piper’s face flooding his mind. He fumbled for his inhaler, popping the cap and taking two deep puffs of the medication. Lor squeezed his eyes shut, forcing hot tears to stream down his cheeks. He was feverish and cold and alone in the world, and his tear ducts knew this all too well. 

“Oh, you poor baby…” Em cooed, reaching to hold his face again. Lor finally, finally met her eyes. Her expression was one of ginger, permeating warmth that touched every bit of his aching heart. Why was she being so nice? Why did she care about him? How could she care about him? All these questions swam through his mind, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away. Lor closed his eyes again and trembled. “When did she pass?”

“...What?” Lor asked with a sniffle.

Em’s eyebrows were drawn upward in sympathy. She reached for two tissues and began to dry the tears running down his cheeks. “Your mother, honey. How long ago did she die?”

Oh. She thought he was missing his mother. Lor would have let an embittered laugh tumble out of him were his nose not scrunching with a noisy sniffle. He didn’t often get a warning when a tickle was brewing enough to turn into something concerning; Part of his chronic rhinitis keeping him congested a solid chunk of the time also came with a dulled sense of being able to predict when he had to sneeze. Thus, he usually wound up just barely managing to either A) twist away from what he was doing, B) cover, or C) both, when he got extremely lucky. This response was usually activated in kind in public, blessedly, though when he was relaxed or distracted, it wasn’t quite as diligent. His laptop could definitely attest to that. 

Luckily, Lor never really managed to be relaxed around much of anyone, which is what made this moment with Em so...challenging. He was now being given the briefest warning as his nose ran further, and--God, a running nose always--made him--

He fumbled to snatch the tear-stained tissues from Em, yanking them over his nose just as a hitch wheezed out of him. The softness of the mattress compressed beneath Lor with two sibilating sneezes that took him by surprise, hunching his shoulders. “Hh-! Hahh--Hhzz’zhuh! HehhzzHUE!”

The set of sneezes left him thoroughly winded. This wasn’t exactly a difficult feat to accomplish, but the asthmatic astronomer still found himself woozy in the aftermath. Lor tried to sniffle and was unsuccessful. Lungs rattling with a weak exhale, he reached to fumble for the inhaler on the bedside table again. Lor finally opened his eyes and was only able to see through one lens of his glasses; the other was slightly too low after the temple had been jostled off his ear.

“B-..Bless you, pumpkin.” 

He was holding the folded tissues to his nose, and Em’s soft fingers along with it. She seemed startled, but instantaneously started to soothe him before Lor could even force his brain to work long enough to react to his hideous situation.

“Shhh, shhh, it’s alright,” Em cooed softly, easing her hand away as Lor stared at her with wide eyes. “Don’t worry--”

It was like her gentle voice was the button to jumpstart his horrified reaction. Lor scrambled back from her, headboard sounding off a loud thunk! in response to his head knocking against it. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry, I’m disgusting.”

Em shook her head as she slowly reached for him. “Darling, you’re not. I mean it. You’re feeling miserable. You just lost a relationship that was important to you, you’re missing your mother…You’re not disgusting. You’re tired and under the weather. And I’m going to get you taken care of, alright?”

It wasn’t the whole accidentally sneezing in a tissue held by his host thing that made Lor snap. He could have recovered from that with her gentle urging, even if the incident would haunt him before he fell asleep for the rest of his life. It was the soft, gentle promise to take care of him that sent him over an edge that he hadn’t been aware was coming up so fast. It was the straw on the proverbial camel’s back. 

There was no possible way for her to look at what an unlovable human being he was and still want to treat him like this. 

“Let me check your temp, lovebug--”

Lor’s fingers clenched into fists and unclenched rapidly as he squeezed his eyes shut. “Stop being nice to me!” he begged. “Stop--Stop calling me pet names and stop touching me and stop acting like you like me!” 

He couldn’t look at her. Every breath was coming in short, raspy pants that he couldn’t even begin to control. His arms shook as he let out an overwhelmed whimper, thrusting the palms of his hands over his eyes. Lor’s fingers pressed against his forehead and temples, turning the tan skin there to an irritated red. His brain was on fire as he curled in tight to himself with the meltdown--

The pause button was pressed immediately as Em held his cheeks again. Peace flooded his brain like fresh water being poured into oil. It was only then that Lor realized that this had to be magic in her touch; There was no other possible way for an episode to come grinding to a halt. He had spent his whole life trying. His mother had spent his whole life trying, though her harsh methods certainly wound up doing far more harm to him than good. 

This was unlike any calm he had ever felt, even as he continued to wheeze. 

“Use your inhaler, Lory, sweetheart,” Em whispered. “I promise I won’t touch you again after this. I just had to help you fir--” “No, no, I…” Lor sniffled and took two more puffs of his inhaler. The healing medicine helped him breathe again almost instantly, though he was still sounding worse for wear. Another weak whimper completely deflated his body as he leaned into Em’s cool touch. “It’s okay. I-I’m okay with it. It’s nice. I just…"

His nostrils both flared at once. Lor brought the tissues to his face, breath snagging with hitch after hitch as a sharp tickle raged through his sinuses. After several false starts, a low whine rumbled in his throat as he tried to urge the irritation along. “Hnngg…hh! S-Sorry…”

“Shh,” Em said with a shake of her head, rubbing Lor’s opposite arm as his head fell to her shoulder. “You take your time.”

His jaw hung slack with the mind-numbing tingling coursing through his nose. After several long beats of sneezy weightlessness, he was finally able to buckle into his tissues with a sneeze that shook he and Em both as he remained with his head on her shoulder. His nimble knees jerked toward his chest with the release. “HzzZZEUH! Woah…” Lor blushed, sniffling heavily as he mopped up the underside of his nose. “Sorry, th-that was—sdff! Big…”

Em immediately laughed with all the love in the world in her voice. Lor would normally bristle over someone laughing at anything related to his nose, but it was evident that Em was laughing fondly. She raised one hand and dried a sneezy tear from Lor's cheek before pecking his temple. "My goodness. Bless you, sweet thing. That cold’s just got you by the nose and isn’t letting go, mm?” She gave Lor’s arm a slow rub. “Now. What were you saying, love?”

Lor sniffled, lowering the tissues from his face. He leaned into Em’s hold, feeling perfectly enveloped by her warmth and love. “I, um…” He squeezed his eyes shut, chin wobbling as he spoke. “I…I don’t mind being touched by you. It’s comforting, and—and I’ve never had anything like this before. But I feel like I…I don’t deserve it.”

“You feel unlovable,” Em said quietly, thumbing the tears from his cheeks again. “You feel like nobody could ever think that the person you are is worth looking past your appearance. Which, by the way, is darling. I think you’re just as cute as a button, and I’m sure your mother thought you were handsome, too.”

Lor tried to laugh, but all that came out was a sound that seemed to be a mix of a sigh and a sob. “She’s not dead,” he murmured. “I wish. She never…” Fresh tears were streaming down his cheeks every moment. “She never loved me, I don’t think. Never acted like she did, anyway. And, and you being nice is so...weird...because nobody has ever looked at me and thought I was-....w-worth being taken care of…” He sobbed again. “And I try to make myself think that I don’t need anyone to ever love me, but….”

She was patient and quiet as he struggled to get ahold of himself. Lor was sure his teary, dripping face had to be the worst thing she could possibly be seeing, but everything in him was just so...soothed by her energy. 

“But this is really nice…” Lor hiccuped weakly. “And it’s painful, because nobody is ever going to love me enough to--”

“I will.” Em took Lor by the chin and gently raised his face. She looked into his eyes with purpose. “Alright? I don’t care what your horrible mother thinks. I feel everything good inside of you, and that is worth loving. You’ve been hurt, and damaged, and that clouds the way you view the world, but you still aren’t bad. You are a wonderful young man.”

He felt horrible for flinching. Everything she was saying was so special, and unlike anything he had ever heard, but…“Um-...” Lor sniffled and rubbed a tired wrist back and forth beneath his nose. “Maybe, um… Maybe I don’t like being called a-...uh, a-a man…”

Em processed this information for a beat before nodding. Her hands slowly moved back from his face as he began to recover. “Of course. Well, you are a wonderful Lawrence. And I want you to stay here. Alright?” She gave him a small smile, eyes filled with more emotions than he knew were possible to have at once. “I think you’ve spent too long living on your own.”

He blinked slowly through teary eyes. Lor was exhausted and emotional, and the thought of being in a place where he could get warmth like this without even having to ask for it was....too good to be true, right? But, God, still so, so good. 

“...O-Okay,” he said quietly, sniffling as his nose threatened to run again. “...Thank you. Let’s--um, just let me know what rent and utilities and--hih!--hhh--!" Damn all this fucking hitching! His breath snagged for another several seconds before the tickle backed off. Lor let out a shivery breath. "And...And how much all that is..." he murmured exhaustedly.

“Shh, shh, shh.” Em gave his hand a small squeeze before beginning to stand up. Lor was hardly aware of the way she gently urged him down as she spoke, reaching to remove his glasses. “You just think about getting better, my dear. Everything else can wait.”

Lor’s head eased into the pillow. He closed his eyes immediately and felt a heavy weight on them. Em’s next few words barely made sense as sleep so thoroughly consumed him. The last thing he was aware of was the way her fingers remained laced with his, unrelentingly loving. 

He must have recognized her as well, because he gave her a wink on his way to the laundry room. 

Rook grinned incredulously and looked back out the window. How cocky could he be to give someone a wink without ever even talking to them first? 

Rook settled down at a table in an uncomfortable chair and started her calculus homework. She was so focused that she forgot about Jacob until he called from a couple of tables away, “Hey, what’d you get for number fifteen?”

It took her a moment. She tried to think if she’d seen his face out of the fifty students in her calculus class, but gave up. 

Her eyes skimmed up her lined paper to her completed problem number fifteen. 

“Uh, I got 10.02.” Her pulse picked up. 

“Perfect. Me too.”

So he must be in her calculus class. But the way he said “perfect” made her proud of herself and she hated that it made her proud. She didn’t even know him. 

-

Rook was watching a movie with some other residents  in the common area of the floor below her. Almost every floor had the same blueprint, but the male and female restrooms alternated. It was late and she sleepily walked in what she thought was the women’s. While washing her hands, she did a double take in the mirror. The person showering in the background was Jake. The small dorm shower curtain didn’t cover everything, and she caught a glimpse of his toned freckled ass. At first she was wide eyed and absolutely confused, but then realized that the fourth floor’s men’s bathroom was where her floor’s women’s bathroom is. She was too sleepy to care to look at the door before she walked in. He didn’t seem to notice her, and she was distracted by the scars and tattoos on his back that she’d never seen before. He was quietly singing to himself. His low voice singing a delicate tune was an enchanting combination.

Finally she snapped out of it and realized how she was violating his privacy, and would be mortified to get made fun of by whatever boy walked in.