#i have written side pieces that are adjacent to the main fic since going on hiatus | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starberry-cupcake · 4 years

Text

It’s the end of Aro Week and I decided to throw caution to the wind and talk about something that can potentially be a polarizing topic. I’m putting it on read-more not only because of length but also because in 2020 this blog turns 10 years of age and I’ve learned to leave a window open for retreat when it comes to Opinions, so I don’t know how long I’ll dare to have this up.

This is going to be about the aroace experience, fandom, ships, representation, fanservice, amatonormativity, allosexual normativity and transformative fanwork.

So, basically, a minefield, so tread with care.

Since the dawn of fandom time, there has been an aspect of it that is known (nowadays) as transformative. There are studies, dissertations and essays about this, and most if not all agree on the fact that the portion of fandom that is transformative tends to belong to the less represented portion of it in the media they consume.

It’s mostly people whose identities are rarely represented those who tend to transform, making a space in their favorite pieces of media for themselves and others. That has, in tow, created a scene in which authors and content creators are born within fandom and get exposed to these types of content and reproduce them as well.

The cornerstone of transformative fandom, to the point of being one of the main organizational elements in fandom-driven platforms, are ships. And when someone mentions the word “ship”, it most often comes with the added non-said descriptive of “romantic” and “sexual” attached to it.

Now, like I said, a lot of those who are involved in transformative fandom tend to go for less represented types of identities, and heteronormativity tends to be questioned often. Sometimes, it is legitimately for representation purposes, sometimes it’s for objectifying reasons.

On the other hand, in the media-creating sphere, there is a thing known as “baiting”. This word is used when pieces of media hint towards non het relationships that end up not coming to fruition.

This issue has reached paragons of shamelessness with creators using fandom for their own purposes, like making a series win an award, getting renewed or gathering numbers in cons, to then turn against the same portion of fandom by banning transformative fandom from cons, meet and greets and having actors and crew members publicly shame fanfiction or fanart. It became serious shit.

This, in tow, brought another problem. Baiting (and what used to be considered “queer-coding”) started becoming an immediate red flag for people, a warning to whether getting engaged or not with a piece of media.

In the mostly legitimate pitchfork and torches march against baiting, canonically aroace characters were caught in the fire, and queerplatonic relationships suffered the price of not fitting in the amatonormative and allosexual normative space fandom created.

It’s a standard for fandom that one of the most necessary reasons for transformative work, for fanfiction mostly, is to make characters confess the love they never did confess on screen/page and, most often than not, fuck each other senseless as a sort of “necessary guarantee of their bond”. Consummation, if you will.

Statistically speaking, explicit fics tend to be much more popular than non explicit ones and romantic relationships are what move the main search engines of fanfic platforms.

Headcanon-wise, anyone can do what they want. If a character is interpreted one way or another, that’s not for anyone to police.

With aroace characters, though, it’s a bit tricky, because it’s incredibly rare the amount of times a character is explicitly in the spectrum, and any evidence you can gather, which isn’t outright hearing it, is a lack of something.

A lack that fandom interprets in another way.

You can have a character be sexually attracted and romantically attracted to another and have that be enough for an audience to understand their orientation, to an extent, but an aroace character seems to have to explicitly state it because the lack of romance or sex in their narratives will be interpreted by fandom as “incomplete”.

It’s more frequent for fandom to interpret a character who is not in a romantic or sexual relationship as “lacking” it and “fix” it in fic than for it to be headcanoned as aroace.

An adjacent issue happens with this and the old notion of “queer-coding”. Audiences tend to sometimes interpret that lack as the incapacity for a media creator to explicitly state that the character is homosexual.

The unintended consequence of years of coding, baiting and censorship of non het relationships in media was the invisibilization of relationships canonically in the aroace spectrum.

For example, the first reaction to Elsa from Frozen not having a romantic relationship in the movie was that she was an amatonormative and allosexual lesbian rather than somewhere in the aroace spectrum. Not that there aren’t a myriad of overlaying possibilities between the two things, but you get my point.

The lacking, the incompleteness that fandom most often sees in characters is filled in, most often than not, with gay romantic and sexual relationships, as a result of the years of queer-coding in media. You know, the good ol’ “if she doesn’t have a boyfriend, she must be a lesbian” stance. Fandom is, sometimes, like a family dinner with a 60+ year old uncle.

This is a problem because it creates, within fandom, instances of tug of war between two under-represented factions who both deserve the due representation and which sometimes, very often, overlay in the same people, who fall in both spectrums. It creates arguments and fights for one or other character between the two, as if they were mutually exclusive at all times.

I recently came across different levels of discourse and comments on two pieces of media for this reason, in two different sides.

One concerned Mackenzi Lee’s A Lady’s Guide To Petticoats & Piracy, in which the lead is aroace and there is a girl who is romantically attracted to her and there is a hint of a potential qp relationship. After reading it I found in some review spaces opinions that considered the author hadn’t “gone all the way” with it, as if it was “cop out” for a potential lesbian romance, taking into account that the first volume of the series was centered on an mlm relationship, which gave people certain expectations.

The opposite happened in the webcomic Go Get A Roomie, in which a female lead character who seemed to be aroace for years ended up in a romantic and sexual relationship with the protagonist and there isn’t so far much of a descriptive of where her identity lied to begin with, but with some meaningful conversations that seemed to imply the spectrum after having suffered trauma. And this can be perceived as a sort of “deception” and to the problematic notion of aroace-ness as a “treatable phase”.

Both stories are valid. Both roads towards self-discovery are valid. There isn’t an immediate denial of the spectrum for one or other possibility and both narratives are experiences that happen to people, even maybe the same people at different times in their lives.

But the two happen to include female relationships and boy are those underrepresented. Like I said, it isn’t that both things can’t overlay in a myriad of places, Lillian could be a demisexual demiromantic, for all I know, Sim could be homoromantic and asexual, we don’t know the specifics.

It’s likely and valid to have a gut reaction when you think you’re being represented and then you’re not entirely. And that’s understandable. But it’s a pity that we have tugs of war for scraps of representation.

So, on the one hand, with headcanons, we tend to get fandom fights, most often than not between underrepresented identities, because we’re fighting for the little there is, when in reality we should be uplifting each other...but anyway, moving on.

That’s all in the realm of interpretation, up until the moment the author makes the characters explicitly make choices and take action. That’s someone having a headcanon because of things the piece of media was doing and then having it proven right or wrong, or never having it proved at all.

The other thing, where it gets nasty, is when fandom “fixes” canonically aroace characters. This is also incredibly frequent, most often than not with mlm ships, or what fandom considers mlm ships.

One of the nastiest last year was the Good Omens debacle.

Neil stated that Aziraphale and Crowley weren’t “homosexual men” because they weren’t “men” and they weren’t sexual beings (the whole “making an effort” thing that explicit fic writers like to latch onto). Neil also said they love each other, however that wants to be interpreted, opening it up enough for it to be platonic or romantic or anything you want.

Fic writers have written more GO fics in the last year than ever probably, because of the show, and they’ve experimented with a lot of places of the spectrum. I’m not here to judge anyone because a GO fic was my favorite ace explicit fic I’ve read, so interpretations can be fascinating, I’m all here for them.

The problem arose when people (mostly cis het women) on social media (mostly twitter) started calling Neil a homophobe for not making them pretty much fuck on screen or explicitly state that they were fucking offscreen in canon.

That’s where we need to draw a line and reevaluate our life choices.

I can’t count the amount of posts, tweets and reactions I saw rejecting the possibility of Aziraphale and Crowley not being a) cis men and b) allosexual. The two things created a gutted reaction, to the point that you have to consider the nature and intended result of those comments and, in that case, who’s being an intolerant asshole.

There was a point in time in which fake woke rep discourse became the excuse for people to demand fanservice from creators, especially in the cis het women + mlm media overlay, and this is a problem. We need to separate the discourses, we need to figure out why we’re here and what we’re demanding.

Another similar example I saw recently, yet less overwhelming, was with Banana Fish and the queerplatonic relationship between Ash and Eiji in canon.

I came into BF later than most, but when I read the epilogue manga I found one of the earliest descriptions of a qp relationship I’ve seen, and there were a lot of interesting comments made by the author and other people interviewing her about why sex was never a part of their dynamic and how the bond they had was more of soulmates than romantic lovers and why it was meaningful all the same.

Still, even if the author doesn’t, Banana Fish is considered among the key “BL” animated series of the last few years, alongside stuff like Doukyuusei, Yuri On Ice, Given, etc. And fandom likes to “fix” that “lack of” situation often, apparently.

This case isn’t as feral as GO but it is, however, deceptive. Coming into BF I never would have guessed their relationship was to be qp because fandom let me believe it wasn’t.

And, in this case, the author explicitly stated that this was her intention, this was the story she wanted to tell, it wasn’t her adjusting to censorship or having to code her characters, it was, at heart, what we now can consider a qp relationship.

And, in all of these cases, in which there are aroace characters or relationships involved, or at least somewhere in the aro spectrum or the ace spectrum or both, there’s one main issue behind it: the lack of belief that relationships that aren’t romantic and sexual can be crucial.

That they can be storytelling worthy.

In media-creating and in fanwork-creating, it seems to be the norm to have an endgame romance, or at least for romance to be a key part of your content. It’s the expected box to tick for a fulfilling story, it seems, and the lack of it is the “problem” fandom likes to “fix” the most.

This is also mirrored in the platforms we use. There is a lack of possibility to tag qp relationships as something separated in ao3: the / is for romantic/sexual relationships and the & is for all-encompassing platonic relationships (described by the guidelines as family, teammates, friends, etc.). In order to write a qp relationship you have to tag it & as per guidelines but you have to add another descriptor because you’re not writing family or teammates, and in the case of fandom-polarizing ships, it can be a problem.

And all of this influences us as creators, to the point that it’s easier to write something we’ve never experienced, like romantic attraction, than it is to write without it, because we’ve heard the romantic stories all the time, we’ve grown up reading them, and we’ve learned that no kudos will come to your fic if you don’t have them in there, because it’s that / what’s gonna move the search engines towards your stuff.

Maybe, hopefully, with time and more media around us, we’ll learn different ways of exploring transformative fanwork. Maybe while knowing ourselves and others, we’ll start believing that a lack of romantic relationships doesn’t necessarily mean someone was “too much of a coward to not make these two explicitly x or y”.

Maybe we’ll learn to coexist because, after all, some of these things coexist within our own spectrums sometimes, and it’d be nice to see the capacity for us to not fight for the scraps of rep that media throws at us but be able to understand each other and ourselves enough to create the media that we need.

#long post when expanded #Opinions #aro awareness week #i'm not gonna tag the examples I'm already risking to much by mentioning them in the post #i don't know how long this will be up tbqh

22 notes · View notes

hydrospanners · 5 years

Note

A-Z on the writing meme because I need to know absolutely everything immediately.

WELP okay but just remember you asked for what’s about to happen. meme is here. most of this is under a cut cause i’m longwinded as hell.

A. If you could rec a piece of music to accompany one of your fics, what would you pick? Why?

Um I absolutely was vibing to Lips by The xx when I wrote a wish your heart makes and you should too.

B. Who’s your favorite side-character from something you wrote?

I feel like the answer here is supposed to be Doc because he is not The Main Character in the game but also I have written about him and from his POV so much it feels unfair to call him a side character at this point. So instead I’m going to say this random woman named Cherita who was just trying to make a midnight snack for her pregnant wife from a little eggstra. I thought she had a lot of character for someone I pulled out of my ass for the sake of an outside perspective.

C. Get any good comments on your stuff this year?

I am thirsty for praise and I feel every single comment is a good comment but I think the one that sticks out to me is when I wrote a wish your heart makes someone said something like “if you like doc at all you have to read this” and I don’t remember who it was or where they said it but it really stuck with me!!! If that was you, thank you!!!!

D. Any drawings or pictures that had a big influence on your writing?

No!!! I feel guilty about this answer somehow but it’s true. I think it would be a fun challenge to try to write a piece of fic inspired by someone’s art so I may play with that idea next year (Editor’s Note: it was still 2k18 when I wrote the answer for this one) but for 2k18 the answer is no. :(

E. Who’s your favorite main character you’ve written?

I feel like this answer is obvious but it’s my girl Rea. I’ve reincarnated her as an Inquisitor and a Pathfinder but the OG Jedi Knight is still my fave.

F. What stories are you planning for the future?

I won’t pretend that a lot of planning goes in to my fic. I normally only write short bits so it kind of goes like this: I have a concept, I write the bit I fixate on, and then it sits in my WIPs for five years until I get motivated during some Fictober or something to finally finish it.

I will say I do have serious designs to finally finish the second chapter of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one as that one is a little more complex than stuff I usually write. I have plans to do some kinda flashback-y thing that finally lays out The Velaran Backstory in clear and obvious terms after years of hints and tidbits I’ve been peppering through my fic. I also have a thing planned and kinda partly written about the first instance of horrific violence in the lives of all the Knight’s companions. Also I have a long series of AU vignettes that glimpses into universes where Rea is a Sith or Kira never made it off Korriban or Rusk remained a pacifist or where Rea never joined the Jedi after losing her family the second time. Stuff like that.

G. Where do you think you grew the most this year?

Structure? I’ve been really working on trusting my reader to bridge some gaps and not letting myself get caught up in details that are important for me to know to write the next part but that don’t necessarily need to be in the story. I think I’ve really tightened up my game where trimming the fat and staying focused are concerned.

H. How do you write? Paper, pen, computer? Music, no music?

My fic writing process is very different from when I am trying to write original stuff and is even kind of different depending on the mood I’m going for? I always write fic in Google Drive cause I write fic from a lot of different machines and need the easy cloud saving.

My ideal condition for fic writing is listening to instrumental music or ambient sounds playing through headphones either in a coffeehouse or the library or when I am at home completely alone. Angst and smut are best written at night with the lights low and warm. Comedy and fluff are best written in the late afternoon/early evening after one single alcoholic beverage (any more than and one I am drunk and no longer capable of writing).

Realistically though, I usually write in whatever time I have. Mostly at work. My job requires me to sit at a desk and wait for things to happen. Since I start work at 5am, things usually aren’t happening. Even with me going out of my way to create new work for myself and excel at what work I do have, I have a lot of downtime. I spend it writing fic. I get interrupted too much to have the focus I need for original writing, but fic writing is much easier so mostly I write my fic at this bland little desk under the terrible fluorescent lights with lots of noise and interruptions, occasionally playing a thematic playlist very quietly in the background.

I. What’s your favorite work you did this year? Why?

This is a very tough question. Surprisingly, I published a lot of things that I really liked? ([not pictured: me high fiving me for finally allowing myself to state that I like my own writing]) I think I’ll go with when the wicked play if I have to pick just one. Relative to my other work I think it’s very structurally sound and thematically focused and pretty efficient with its characterization and imagery without ever getting too sparse. Also I’m a slut for examining the commonplace nature of violence and brutality in the Star Wars universe.

J. What are the best jokes you told this year? Any jokes you thought were funny that people didn’t catch? Vice-versa?

I’m gonna say the pun I used as the title for bars and stripes. Honestly the whole fic is a joke and I like it and I don’t care if anyone catches it or not because I know that I am hilarious and no one will ever convince me otherwise.

K. Who have you killed this year? Why did they have to die?

No one, I think? I don’t think I even mentioned any specific off-screen deaths except for shit from the decades old Tragic Backstories. Not even Valkoriate. I’m not an especially murderful writer, maybe because I haven’t had to deal with a lot of that kind of loss in my own life. Mostly I write about things that are somehow adjacent to my own emotional state/journey. That’s why I fixate a lot on the weight of duty and moral philosophy and the nuances and complications of relationships, of how you can hurt someone and be hurt by them and still love them and how messy yet fulfilling the whole thing is. Thankfully--for me--not a lot of grieving the dead in there yet.

L. Which character did you most write about this year, and why do you like ‘em?

Pretty sure it’s Rea. Maybe Doc because of the Docember thing I squeezed in at the last second but I’m still pretty sure it’s Rea. Pretty sure it always is.

There’s a particular kind of release I get from writing her because her whole sloppy person is a part of me that doesn’t often see the light of day. I won’t say she’s aspirational because I like who I am and I don’t have any special destiny or Force powers or anything to save me when the consequences of living like she does catch up. But there are pieces of her that I admire, pieces that are still part of me that I have a hard time expressing, and spending time with her gives me a little more strength to unlock those dark musty corners of who I am, I guess? Writing Rea makes me a little more bold, a little less apologetic, a little less prone to overthinking and anxious fretting and a little more prone to doing. She makes me feel strong enough to ask for the things I want and confident enough to feel like I deserve them.

Also she is a damn good time, even when she’s falling apart.

M. Meta! Have any meta about a story you’re dying to throw out there?

Of course I do. I could ramble for hours about the story behind any single one of my stories. Aren’t all of us creative types like that??? Don’t we all love to talk about what we were going for and why we made the choices we did??? What we liked and what we think needs improvement??? Why we wanted to make the thing we made in the first place???

I could ramble about this for hours and honestly the possibilities are overwhelming so I am not going to go into any detail and just say yes. Obviously I am willing to ramble about the story behind every single story I’ve published but there’s 63 of them so if there’s something specific you want to hear about you’ll have to ask about the specific one!!!

N. Anything you were planning to write that never got written?

Nothing will ever be “never got written” until I am dead and unable to write. I am still going back to WIPs from 2014. I am rewriting garbage exercises I wrote in 2013. I like to think everything in my WIP folder will eventually be moved to my Published folder and I am going to keep thinking that until I am physically incapable of writing.

O. Do you believe in outlines? Show us one!

I believe in them very much and yet I do not practice them usually. I rely on them more with my original work which is longer and more involved and doesn’t already have a convenient structure to follow in the form of 300000 hours of video game. Most of my fic is really short, just a single scene or so. I usually start out by writing the moment that inspired me to write the fic and fill in the before and after. I do have an outline for the second half of the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one but I don’t really want to share it for something that isn’t written yet!

P. What are your pet peeves in other people’s work?

This question makes me kinda uncomfortable so here we go with some disclaimers: I write the stories that I want to read or that I really need to tell to satisfy something inside of me and I assume other authors do the same. I don’t want to say anything here that might have a chilling effect on someone exploring some idea they really need to explore, even if it’s tired or cliche or offends my own tastes. Writing is very personal and I think everyone should tell the stories they want to, whether anyone else likes them or not.

That being said, I am always desperately wishing for more media about close, intimate friendships and familial bonds. As someone who isn’t interested in sexual or romantic relationships, it makes me weep basically every time I read a story about characters who are friends or family that give that kind of relationship all of the value and weight and nuance that you see romantic relationships getting. It is a very special kind of feeling to see that it is possible for people to value what I have to offer them as much they might value someone who will romance them and sleep with them. It is very validating to see the possibility of emotional intimacy with people outside of romantic/sexual partners.

But I would never want anyone to feel bad about or stop writing their romances and their smut. That stuff speaks to people and that’s what fic is about. Telling the story that speaks to you. I want everyone to write what they want to write and if that leaves gaps, well that’s why I started writing fic in the first place. There was a story I needed to read and no one had written it yet, so I did it myself.

TL;DR Genfic & friendfic & familyfic is the greatest gift anyone could ever give me, but no one should write to satisfy other people. Always write for yourself first and foremost.

Q. Quote three bits of writing you read his year. Can be your writing, or not.

I keep little quotes everywhere--index cards and sticky notes scattered among all my belongings, snippets on my phone, untitled documents on every cloud service there is, random word docs hidden amongst my many hard drives--but the only ones I can find right now are from @meonlyred‘s Dark Horse so please enjoy three bits from that fic that I loved:

They remained sitting on the floor, Rossa leaned against him, eyes staring into the distance. Her silence might as well have been weeping.

I just love how I can feel the vacant, numb quality of her despair in this line. How it feels more poignant for its lack of drama.

“You're an idiot and I hate your hair,” Jonas said over the rim of his glass.

I mean.... Do I need to explain this?

He had never believed in happily ever afters. Not for him, at least. But the cruelest thing about being with Rossa was that he had begun to believe that maybe, just maybe, it was possible.

Closing his eyes, Theron didn’t expect to open them again.

This little snippet still punches me in the gut no matter how many times I read it. It’s so relateable and so Theron and so painful.

R. If you had to rewrite one of your stories from scratch, which one would it be? What would you do to it?

I don’t think I’d rewrite any of them? At least half of my fic has been completely rewritten once or twice before it ever gets published so I mostly have it out of my system before anyone else sees it.

S. What’s the sexiest thing you wrote this year?

a wish your heart makes. It may also be the saddest thing I wrote this year which I consider an achievement. (I was asked for smut but I literally do not know how to write just smut without anything else going on in the story.)

T. Themes, motherfucker, do you have them? What are they?

The importance and nature of family (it is what you make it and not what you were born with! but sometimes you get lucky and get to choose the one you were born with!)! The cost/impact of violence and war! Failure and coming back from failure! The nature of what is right and what is wrong and how much responsibility any one individual bears for the moral direction of their society!!!!

I don’t think I’ve ever written anything that didn’t include at least one of these concepts and most of my stuff deals heavily in at least two of them.

U. Any stories that took a abrupt u-turn from where you thought they were going?

Yep! I was trying to make a stupid joke about a haircut when I started making take back what the kingdom stole but in working my way backward from the joke I ended up with a heartfelt exploration of my character’s past emotional trauma, her character growth, and the nature of friendship and forgiveness.

V. Which story was the most viscerally pleasing to write? Tell us your narrative kinks.

I don’t know that I would necessarily call the sensation pleasing but, once again, the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one was probably the story that made me feel the most, that I was the most connected to. It hit on every single one of the themes I find compelling and I really got to play with telling the story in the white spaces, which is something I really love. I’ve been working a lot on trusting my readers and not over-explaining and I think this story really saw the impact of that work, stylistically. It’s peak self-indulgence honestly.

W. Who are your favorite writers?

Does this mean like authors of original published works or fic writers????? How am I supposed to choose???!!!! Either way my reading habits this year have been abominable. I have really been going through some shit, lifewise, (not bad shit but emotionally consuming and time consuming nonetheless) and I had to let the reading go a little bit.

I have been really into NK Jemisin though. Her stories are complex and challenging and there is so much poetry and power in the straightforward way she tells them. I also was obsessed with the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. The characters were so textured and real with such clear voices and the relationships and ideas were so complex and compelling, yet the story never got weighed down by the heft of the subjects. She has a very light touch as a storyteller that makes her work so easily digestible without making her tale any less impactful or profound.

As for fic…. I’ve got about forty million fics bookmarked, waiting for me to get around to reading them and I am the worst kind of person because I have not yet read any of them. I’m behind on reading one of my very favorite fics right now. I think I’ve read a total of like ten fics this year and straight up probably only read that many because I was doing a bit of beta’ing.

I’m gonna do better in 2019 and I’ll get back to you on all the good shit I’ve read then.

X. What’s your least favorite work of this year?

crapshoot. It was a really old concept that probably would have been better as visual art than a fic but my artistic talents were too limited so I wrote it instead. It could probably stand a little more meat and a lot more polish, but I don’t have the time to try and turn every goofy image in my head into a fictional masterpiece.

Y. Why did you write? For fun, for a friend, for acclaim?

For fame and fortune obviously. It’s why most of my fic is about a super popular ship in an enormous fandom.

Or, y’know… not. I write for fun and because I have to. Because there are stories inside of me I want to tell, ideas I feel compelled to explore, things I need to say. It doesn’t matter if anyone else hears them or likes them; I need to get them out of me. Also it’s a really great way to work through my own emotional turmoil at a safe distance, so I can engage with what vexes me without being consumed by it.

Z. If you could choose one work and immediately finish it, what would it be? How would you end it?

the things you do for love are gonna come back to you one by one. It’s the most self-indulgent thing I’ve written probably but it means a lot to me and if I knew how it ended I would have finished it months ago. D:

#memery #writing tag #long post #Anonymous

4 notes · View notes

saintmccann · 7 years

Text

#1 all because of the El Croquis

So this is my first fic, and I’ve never written Van before so if I could get some feedback on how I did with his dialogue/movements/general aura I’d love that. I wrote in second-person POV for the present-time stuff and I wrote in first-person POV for the flashback stuff. I hope it’s not confusing! Also, I feel like this could make a great sequel. Just let me know if you have any feedback. Thank you all so much for reading! Enjoy!

This one’s about a reader who studies architecture and is looking for an architecture journal called El Croquis in the library, but comes across something much better in the end.

-------------------

In a sleep-deprived haze, you sit back in your chair under the warm, dim fairy lights above you. With weary hands you open the first drawer of your old worn desk, grabbing your black leather journal. Wobbling slightly as you twist around your piano keyboard adjacent to the desk, you pick up your wine glass off the concrete floor and turn to the journal laying in front of you. From the ceramic cup you spun yourself on the pottery wheel in school, you find your best fountain pen. Staring at the paper, you have no words --- you need to record what happened tonight before sleep whisks you away and you forget everything. You begin:

Today I found another piece of myself.

You swirl the last bit of red wine that’s left in your glass, and finish it off. You remember that show on Netflix, Sense8, and marvel at how that’s not far off from how truly connected people can become in reality, and how sometimes the universe brings people into your life that can fit so perfectly in every way possible.

You pick up your pen and start to write again.

Browsing through the architecture library with a close knit group of people from my studio, following our professor through the narrow shelves, and her showing us book after book of the most beautiful work imaginable, I felt at home. All of us stood huddled around her in the tiny, three foot gaps between shelves; an incredibly intimate scenario for a university library. Nooks and crannies for reading and perusing, peeking at each other through the spaces where books weren’t.

At the end of the library perusal, our professor said goodbye to us and left through the glass doors around the corner of the long hallway. I looked down at my watch and realized I had the rest of the day to work on whatever I wanted, and maybe go out for a few drinks tonight with some friends if the forecasted rain didn’t hit until later. I was lucky that my last class ended at 11:00a.m. on Fridays; just before the cafe rush at the front of the school of design’s library got too hectic.

As I walked down the same long hallway my professor and fellow students had exited from just moments earlier to grab a cuppa, something peculiar caught my eye. A sign for the most recent El Croquis journal boasted that our school had obtained a copy and bound it already -- I looked up the call numbers for the book and I rushed to the back section of the library to try to find it.

Squinting at the paper numbers taped to the shelves, I couldn’t find it. I slowly walked up and down each aisle of the library, and then back to the sign. “Coming to Section D on April 16,” it read. April 16 was today. Just then, I had a thought - what if it was still in the back room? I hated going back there because of the dingy lights and the damp, gravelly smell of cement blocks. I decided to brave it to find the newest edition of one of the world’s best architecture journals and have a look at it.

After asking permission from the library techs to go into the room, I went down the stairs to the basement. I opened the creaky door to the back room, which was quite spacious; it was situated underneath the campus lawn space, which was about the size of a football field. The books and shelves that had become too worn to show off in the front part of the library were cast off into this room; the back corner is also where the books were bound by the student library techs. I walked the main corridor between the shelves to the back end of the room where I was sure I’d find the book.

Instead, I found six guys huddled in between makeshift room dividers made of bookshelves arranged in a mildly square shape, passing a joint around, sitting on top of stacks of books, and cackling unintelligibly in thick British accents. The smoke was surely going to infiltrate the books’ pages and never leave.

I had approached quietly up until I stepped on some crumpled paper that had most likely been flung from this microcosm the boys had created.

“Oi!” the one with the short, dark hair yelled as he heard the crunch of the paper under my shoe, “lads we’ve been found!” and all but one of the guys jumped and bolted past me with wild expressions, gripping their bag of joints tightly, laughing down the main corridor toward exit, sending my hair and nearby papers into a flurry. The racing footsteps echoed down the hallway.

I peered down at the man who was still there in the makeshift room. He was asleep on the floor, head laying on one stack of books and his arm propped on another smaller stack next to it. He looked dead peaceful. His eyelashes were impossibly long, and rested there near the tops of his cheekbones, which were quite chiseled. His jaw was a little crooked, and his lips were plump and the corner of his mouth was resting on the top of one of the books in the stack. My eyes traveled down the rest of him, realizing his gold necklace tucked into his black shirt under the leather jacket, and how his arms looked toned from here… and that’s when I noticed it. The new El Croquis. On top of the stack under his arm.

I moved over to him and slowly dropped down to my knees so that I could get a better angle on the situation. I thought, Should I wake up the guy? He’s not really supposed to be in here anyway, and I really want to get my hands on that book.

I decided to shimmy the book out from under his arm and try not to wake him; I’m not one for conversations with strangers, especially considering how weird the conversation for this situation would be. I slowly reached to pull the El Croquis from under his elbow and twisted it around so it wouldn’t hit his limp fingers. A corner of it caught on his leather jacket and my breath hitched - pleasedontwakeuppleasedontwakeuppleasedontwakeup - I thought with each beat of my heart as my pulse sped up. He stayed asleep. I lowered my purse to the floor, allowing my movements become a little daintier, and I opened the book’s cover a bit so the jacket sleeve would slip away from the corner. I gathered myself for a second, kneeling on the ground with the El Croquis tucked into my chest, and internally cursed myself for going through this much trouble for an architecture journal. I stood up, and padded away from him as quietly as possible.

I got to the newer portion of the library and checked the book out at the counter. I put it in my purse and set on my way to get a cup of hot tea from the Starbucks on the other side of campus because during my El Croquis escapade, the library cafe had closed for the employee’s lunch hour. I looked outside, and surely enough with the day I had already experienced, it was raining harder than it had in a long time just to add onto the trouble I went through. I decided to use the back exit of the library since I had nothing but the denim shirt I was wearing over my black short sleeve shirt to shield me from the rain.

A rich, cold rain was beating down on everything, and much earlier than the meteorologists had expected. Jumping out into mayhem from the stale purple hallway, I walked half a mile to my apartment. The drains were gurgling and sipping on the water as it ran down the street. The shirt I was holding over my head gradually got heavier and heavier with water, and moisture was seeping in my hair and in my boots but the reflection on the street and the buildings twinkling behind the droplets and the wet pitter patters on my hands filled me with a kind of nostalgia. It was like a scene from a movie.

When I stepped across the threshold of my apartment in sodden shoes and threw my keys down on the table next to the door, I peeled off my clothes and took a searing hot shower. When I got out, I wrapped myself in a towel, sat on my bed and pulled out my phone. I had a text from Jen asking what my plans were for tonight, another text from Chris asking the same question, a text from Brooke telling me which bars to hit up tonight, and three missed calls from a weird number.

I answered everyone’s texts, and contemplated calling the weird number back. I left my phone on the dresser and made myself a snack in the kitchen. I was taking the contents of my backpack and putting them in their respective places; pencils and pens in the cup, books in the bin under the desk, the El Croquis in plain sight on the nightstand, ready for night reading. I heard a faint ringing and went to get my phone again. It was the weird number from earlier.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hellooo, is this y/n?” The caller’s accent was British, like the guys from the library earlier. Oh, geez, I thought to myself.

“....Yes, may I ask who’s calling?”

“So uh, you left your wallet here in the library, and, well, I found it and got ya number off the studio access card.”

Great. So much for a sly reconnaissance mission for the El Croquis. The cute sleeping guy now had my wallet AND he knows my name AND he’d seen my shitty ID photo.

“You there, love?”

“Yeah, sorry. Um, where can I pick it up from you? Thanks for not leaving it there.”

“Well, I’m hangin’ with my friend Larry - his mate’s an exchange student here from where we’re from and he’s got a house ‘round here. I can text ya the address. He’s ‘avin a party tonight anyway so we’ll be here all night. Oh, and you’re welcome.”

There was some muffled talk about “gig” and “tonight” and “lids” in the background as he spoke.

“Right, so I’ll text you the address. I’ll see you later then, yeah?” he said into the phone.

“Yeah. Also, one last thing - what’s your name?”

“Van.”

“Alright Van, thanks, didn’t want to keep thinking some spam caller was trying to reach me again.”

***

Shortly after Van had called and sent me the address, I texted Jen, Chris, and Brooke and told them I was going to a party in the neighborhood tonight. They replied that Brooke had found some fantastic club on the other side of the city and they were all going to try it out. I told them I had to go to this one party to get my wallet, but they responded they were already on their way to the other choice. Sigh. I was riding solo. I ate a quick dinner, put on some minimal makeup, and wore my signature “architect” look: black jeans, black top, black chelsea boots, and some geometric jewelry. I went for some boxy cube earrings.

I walked to the house since it was only about a 10 minute walk from my place. Someone was exiting as I was entering the house, so I made my way in and looked around for Van. I spotted him in the corner of the kitchen chatting to one of the guys who had been smoking in the library earlier, who had big bouncy curls and thick-rimmed glasses. As I approached, the curly one said, “Come to bust us again?” in a cheeky tone and I rolled my eyes.

“Van, could I get my wallet please?” I asked him.

“Mmmm…. It seems there’s been a slight hiccup in your retrieval of the wallet.”

“What do you mean there’s a hiccup?” I asked.

“I can only reveal the wallet’s secret location if you stay and party with us lids until midnight.”

I stared back at him with an expression of disbelief for a moment, and then checked my watch. He just winked at me with a smirk on his face.

“That’s four hours away, Van,” I said through my teeth. I was starting to get a little pissed off.

“Did ya come here alone?”

“What?”

“Where’re your mates? Pretty girl like you has to have mates,” he said with a smile.

Ignoring his latter comment, you replied, “They went to another party across town.”

“So, love, looks like your schedule’s completely free! Here, come have a drink with me and meet everyone.”

Van hovered his hand over the small of my back and led me out to the patio outside where the makeshift bar was. He stopped me on one side of the bar and walked around to the other.

“Now then, what would you like?” He looked sort of cute, playing bartender.

“Vodka Sprite please. And make it a strong one.”

***

9:00p.m.

Van and I had just made the rounds through the entire house. He introduced me to literally everyone that had come in to party, and was cordial to everyone. He even made me snicker a few times with cheeky comments to others, even though I was supposed to be mad about him making me stay here until midnight. By now, I had consumed 2 ½ Vodka Sprites, mixed by Van himself, and Van had drank as much as I had plus what he had before I arrived. We were equally tipsy, and I was slowly forgetting that I was here for my wallet.

“Low” by Flo Rida had just come on over the speakers, a certain change from the previous chill music they had been playing here; it’s obvious whoever had the aux cord was ready to turn the party up. Van said, “Let’s dance!” and I clutched my red solo cup tighter. It was getting harder and harder to resist his charm. He wiggled his hips to the music, and it was obvious he wanted me to join him and the other people dancing in the living room. He hopped over to me, took my hand, and then used his other hand to take my solo cup and chug the rest of the contents while he walked backwards into the living room.

With no cup in my hands, Van had the opportunity to swing me around and around and around the room with his hands in mine. He wove in and out of people, sometimes having to raise our hands high to get over people who weren’t moving out of the way in time for us to plow through the room and outside where even more people gathered. We danced, tipsy and all-smiles, only focused on each other, for a long time.

****

10:00p.m.

Another hour had passed and Van and I had grown a lot closer. He couldn’t keep his hands off me - but in a respectful sort of way. He put his hand on my back to guide me to the next person he knew, and he had his arm around me when he was talking to people. He kept looking at me with those big, blue eyes framed by dark eyelashes, inviting me to participate in the conversation. Inviting me into his world.

We ran, hand in hand, back to the bar outside, and he started mixing everything he could together, throwing caution to the wind while I watched him with my chin resting on my hand. I was enjoying watching him. A little bit of vodka, a little bit of rum. Something blue; something gold with bubbles. This and that. He shook it with his hand over the rim of the cup, and then poured half of it into another cup, not afraid to accidentally pour some out all over the patio, and knock over a few bottles of liquor in the process. He held one out to me, and linked our right arms together over the bar. With our arms still linked, we drank from our own cups.

As soon as the liquid hit my tongue, I had to spit it out, and from the sound he made, Van did too. We both spit the nasty concoction into the grass, noses wrinkling and throats burning and lots of coughing. Van fell over me onto the grass and kept coughing and laughing at the same time.

A few minutes later, whatever he mixed hit the both of us and we were stumbling everywhere, having to mutter slurred apologies to the people we bumped into. One of those people I recognized; it was Kyle, one of my acquaintances from a lower-classmen studio.

“Heyyyyy Kyle!” I called out to him, even though he was about four feet from me.

“Hi Y/N! How’s it going? Great party, right?”

“I’ll say,” Van said, tripping into the room just as I had moments before.

“Oh! Y/N, you know Van?” Kyle said in a less drunk version of Van’s accent; he must be the exchange student his entire friend group knew.

“You know Van?” I slurred back at him. “I just met Van today. He stole my wallet.”

“Noooooo I didn’t!” Van playfully replied in a high pitched voice, swatting my hand in denial.

“So, Y/N, how’s that architecture project coming? You finished your exploded axons and section views yet? That’s been the real kicker for me. I’m still working on building my 3D model as well. So much work.” Kyle was trying to have a legitimate conversation with me, and I felt bad because Van was trying to distract me and I wasn’t in the right mind to be talking about coursework seriously.

“It’s fine… My project is based on simplicity and elegance, and experiential maps, so it’s coming along nicely. It’s all about emotional experiences you can convey in the spaces, that atmosphere, ya know?” I knew I was slurring every word I spoke to him. “I think the final review will be a cinch if I can pull off the rendered views,” I said as Van wrapped his arms around me from the side and started whispering things about art and big words in my ear. Kyle started realizing that we were getting cozy, and so it was then that he decided to break off from the conversation. “So some tosser mixed together a lot of our alcohol and wasted a lot of it, so if you two want another drink, you can have friend privileges and raid the stash of wine in my room. There’s a lot of it that I bought for just this kind of situation. Have at it!” He said with a wave of his hands. “Not that you need anymore,” he muttered.

Of course, Van and I immediately locked hands and ran through the kitchen, through the living room, down the hall and up the stairs to the bedrooms. Van threw open the door to the bathroom by accident and Van’s friend Bondy was heavily making out with a girl who had Bondy’s hat on backwards and was sitting on the bathroom counter. They didn’t even notice we had opened the door and kept on kissing furiously. Van shut it, and we both looked at each other for a moment before erupting into raucous laughter. We almost fell back down the stairs from laughing so hard and clinging onto each other roughly, and people started staring at us wondering what was going on.

The next door we opened was to a bedroom, and we began searching for the wine. We looked on the dressers, in the closets, and in the drawers, like it was a game. I got down on my hands and knees to look under the tiny bed, and Van did the same from the other side of the bed. We were laughing the entire time, and our hands met under the bed while searching for bottles. Van held tight to the hand he brushed up against. Under the tiny bed, he looked at me with those eyes that sparkled even in the dark, and we realized our faces were only a foot apart now. The atmosphere changed. The laughter stopped and we stared at each other, mouths falling open, eyes darting to and from each other’s lips as we realized what we really wanted to do.

“Just what the HELL are you two doing in here?” A guy, not Kyle, but still British, shouted as he walked into the room. Van and I hit our heads on the underside of the bedframe looming above us as he walked in, and we grimaced and grumbled in pain. The guy dragged Van out from underneath the bed by his feet, and Van yelped, “Larry, stop!” In a high pitched voice.

“Mate, we’ve gotta keep you in sight. Straighten up.” Larry turned to me and said, “And as for you, miss, don’t let him drink anything else.”

***

11:00p.m.

We had found the wine in Kyle’s bedroom and we stashed a bottle of champagne and a bottle of red wine behind the fireplace screen for later, whenever that would be. At Larry’s request, we had stopped drinking. He’d even given me his number just in case Van had decided otherwise and needed to be given a talking-to by Larry. And although we were now just tipsy instead of drunk, Van continued the touching. Brushing fingers up and down my arm, holding my hands even when we weren’t walking anywhere.

We both sat close, thighs touching, Van’s arm around me on the little couch someone had dragged from inside the living room to the backyard. Most everyone was inside the house now, waiting around for more alcohol to arrive since Van had mixed up most of the stuff they had before. He told me earlier he slipped Kyle some money to pay for what he mussed up.

Underneath the blue and green lights Kyle had strung up earlier that day, we sat in silence for a while and watched the people inside have conversations and go about their drunkened business.

Van spoke up first, his voice low. “You’ve got less than an hour to go.”

“Mmm?” I murmured, drawn from the quiet by his raspy voice.

“Your wallet.” He replied.

“Yeah? Haven’t checked the time in a while, what with being distracted and all.” I shot him a small smirk.

“Distracted?” Van played like he didn’t know what I meant.

“Oh, ya know, drunk dancing, bumping into Kyle, looking for the wine, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Speaking of Kyle - that was a nice talk you two had. That art stuff, I mean. Don’t know much about it, but I vibed with the idea that emotional experiences have effects on how people perceive things.” He continued as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and fumbled for a lighter. “Atmosphere means a lot to anyone who’s on the receiving end of a work, whatever that work may be.” He lit the cigarette. “And that simplicity and elegance, right, from seeing the true potential realized, that’s what people look for.” He blew a puff of smoke to the sky.

Van looked so beautiful in the soft blue-green light the overhead strands cast on his face. I took a finger and traced over the line of his nose, across his lips, and down to his chin. He watched me intently. I traced across his jawline, almost to his earlobe, and down his neck to the collar bone poking out of his shirt. I put my hand down and gave him a small smile.

“In every building I design I take the experiences I’ve had in my own life and I use what I feel to create the aura that people feel when they walk in. There’s only one first impression. It’s got to count.”

“Your first impression was an interesting one, love, how you proper slithered a book out from under my arm today in the library so casually. Real talent there,” Van chuckled.

My eyes almost popped out of my head. “You were awake? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“For the same reason you didn’t try to talk to me! Strange way to meet a person, yeah?” He smiled and took another puff from the cig.

I checked my watch. 11:50p.m.

Larry came over to us and sat down next to Van. “People’re gettin’ antzy, ay? Great party, great vibes. Love the lights.” Boy, Larry talked fast. He lit up a cigarette as well and motioned to the people inside, capturing Van in a banterous conversation about guitars and sets or something. A little left out, I stood up and walked into the house partly to get away from the smoke, and partly to give Van some alone time with Larry. Walking away from Van was physically difficult; his warmth had been so near to me all night that lack of it was uncomfortable. I realized just how chilly the April night had gotten.

I found the bottles of wine behind the fireplace screen and thought about popping the champagne. There wasn’t really a reason to, though. Maybe when I got my wallet back! I chuckled to myself. I meandered around the house, trying to find some other of Van’s friends like Bondy or Benji or Bob to speak to, but they were nowhere to be found.

I circled around back to the living room, about to go outside through the sliding glass doors to the backyard. Arms tightened around my waist just as I was about to pass the threshold, and a voice whispered in my ear, “I believe I have something of yours.” I twist around and there Van is with my wallet in his outstretched hand. I wiggled my hips a little as he handed it over. I smiled and hugged him. “Thank you so much for finally giving this back! Took me forever to get it.”

“You’re welcome, love.” He stood there, a little awkwardly. I didn’t really know what to say. Maybe we were done here. After all, most of the stuff we did involved us being drunk and not particularly normal. Maybe that’s just what Van did at parties.

“Well…. I’ve had such a lovely time tonight…. See you soon, then” I replied. I slowly started to turn around and walk toward the door, a little disappointed that the night was over.

“Y/N, wait! You’re gonna miss the best part!” Van called after me.

I turned back around to face him. “What do you mean? Isn’t the party over at midnight? Like, now?” His actions were confusing me.

He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t place. “The show?” He questioned.

“What show?”

“Catfish and the Bottlemen. Please stay and watch!”

I wanted to stay with him, but I didn’t really want to watch one of the crappy bands that usually played at the university parties here.

“Van, I’ve never really heard of them, and the name sounds a bit odd…. Maybe next time? It’s kind of late…” I was starting to feel funny. He was pressing about this. I looked back up at him, and he looked very disappointed. He turned and briskly walked outside, bolting into the crowd looking a little angry. Or determined?

I headed outside shortly after Van, and he pushed through the small crowd to get to the front of the stage, probably before the band started playing. I shook my head. I took a right and was walking across the yard along the side of the house until I heard someone speak up on the microphone right as I was about to exit the yard.

“Hi everyone, I’m Van from Catfish and the Bottlemen, and this song’s called Kathleen” he said, breathing heavily from the run up to the stage. I stopped in my tracks and slowly pivoted. There he was, on stage! With a guitar! With Bondy and Benji and Bob!

As Van sang the first lines, my mouth was still hanging wide open. I walked back to the small crowd that had gathered in Kyle’s backyard. Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed my arm from the outskirts of the crowd and helped me move toward the front. I twisted my head over my shoulder and realized Larry was the one pushing me up there. As soon as he stopped pushing me, I was right there in the front, and could register what was happening.

His voice was incredible. Raspy when it got louder, and so smooth and effortless at the same time because he sang what he knew with such raw emotion. He was probably waking up everyone in the neighborhood with those pipes, and he didn’t seem embarrassed at all, though he didn’t really need to be. He was the best I’d ever seen live.

***

1:00a.m.

The show had been amazing, nothing like I’d ever seen before. The blue lights beaming down on Van and the boys created an atmosphere so cool and beyond heavenly. Van had made eye contact with me so much during the show, and at one point it was so sensual that I felt a little self-conscious. The last riff of a song called Tyrants was played and Van hopped down off the stage right in front of me, dripping sweat with Larry trying to pat him with a towel. He shooed Larry off and put an arm around my waist, pulling me toward him and pushing our hips together. “How was that for a first impression?” He asked. He ran his tongue across his lips before he crashed them onto mine in a short, but hot, kiss. Everyone watched and some people even gasped.

“How bout summa that champagne?” He grinned, and brushed his nose up against mine; I just nodded, still in awe of the aura he created and the fact that he just kissed me in it.

Larry had already thought ahead to bring a bottle nearby; he gave it to Van, and it was popped right there. The foam ran into the grass, cork nowhere to be found, and he held it to my lips to drink.

***

?:??a.m.

Stumbling through the streets of Kyle’s neighborhood, Van and I laughed and bantered and slurred our way up against many a tree to kiss each other senseless. We had lost the other boys a while ago on their way to find some fried food. We ran through the alleys of the neighborhood, trying not to hit our then-stashed bottles of wine on anything. My feet were getting tired. Van tried to carry me through the dark city streets, but he was stumbling too and couldn’t get very far. He teetered over a little too far with me in his arms and I dropped the champagne bottle. It shattered piercingly loud on the street, green glass flecking everywhere into a million pieces. They reflected in the wet pools of water left by the downpour earlier. Our eyes met again, and I dropped onto my feet and shouted “Run!”

We bolted down the alleyway and turned the corner just as lights were coming on where we had been seconds before.

After a few minutes of running and huffing and puffing and a few more hot stolen kisses against dimly lit lamp posts, we had arrived at my apartment complex. I fumbled for my keys as Van kissed my neck from behind.

Once inside my apartment, I set everything down and took the bottle of red wine from Van’s hands - the last bottle left from the party - while he looked around my place curiously. I poured us two glasses of the thick red wine.

Van sat down in my desk chair and stared at the piano keyboard. “Do you play?”

“Why else would it be in my apartment?” I gave him a coy smile.

He scooted off the chair to sit on the floor while I took the chair. I started playing some of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, my favorite classical song. Van was enraptured with the way my fingers glided across the keys, hitting every note perfectly. Under the warm yellow lights of my desk, he smiled and set his head against my thigh as I played him many a composition. His eyes glistened, probably as mine did earlier when I watched him have a hand at his own craft.

We sat like that for a while as I played. Van peered up at me through long eyelashes, watching me concentrate on tunes I hadn’t attempted in a while. Chuckling when I hit a very wrong key.

When I had exhausted my repertoire, Van took to looking through my vinyls I set up on a table near the balcony of my tiny studio apartment. I sat at the table, sipping my red wine, listening to him murmur “good record” or “don’t know this one” and the like. I started sketching on some scrap paper. Drawing a mass of green and blue meeting a warm abstraction of yellow and orange. I overlayed some geometric shapes on top of the swirls of color.

Van plopped on top of my bed next to my desk, setting his wine glass on the nightstand. The wine was gone from his glass. I realized he had also thoughtfully corked the bottle and put it on the counter.

I moved to put my glass on the floor next to the piano keyboard, still a little wine left in it. I climbed on the bed next to Van; he sat up. Never breaking eye contact, I slid the same leather jacket I had tried so hard not to come into contact with earlier off his shoulders. He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me delicately.

He pulled away from me and helped me lay onto the bed next to him. He pulled off his shoes and socks and placed them neatly at the foot of the bed, and then did the same for mine. He climbed back onto the bed, lying on his side, head propped up with one elbow. He reached out and ran one of my cube earrings through his fingers.

“You’re gorgeous, you know.” Once again, it was he who spoke up. I smiled and thanked him quietly. “You’re not so bad yourself,” I said. After a pause, I kept on: “I had a really great time tonight. You’re lovely. The more time I’ve spent with you the more I’ve realized I’ve never had someone get on with me so well. It just worked today.” Van’s subsequent lean-in for a long, passionate kiss was his answer to that.

When we broke the kiss for air, I sat up. “Hold on. I have to do something before I forget.” He stared at me as I got up, sleepily walked over to my desk, and sat down. I opened the first drawer of my old worn desk next to the piano we just played together, grabbing my black leather journal, not unlike Van’s jacket. I picked up the glass of wine from the floor and set it next to the journal. I grabbed a pen from this old ceramic cup I made forever ago, and began to write this epic. I drained the glass of wine.

And here we are.

You look up at Van, who’s been patiently waiting for you to finish writing. He didn’t ask questions. He probably does the same thing when he gets song ideas. He’s hunched over something on the other side of the bed, looking perfectly at ease. You get up from your desk, and peel off your jeans. Van takes this as a cue to return his attention to you, nevermind whatever he was doing before. He watches you as you return the cube earrings to your jewelry box and brush out your hair. His eyes ask permission that he can strip down to his own makeshift pajamas. You nod ever so slightly and walk into the bathroom. You take off your bra and put on a bigger, warm black t-shirt over your skin. You take off the little bit of makeup you had on, brush your teeth and look at yourself in the mirror, loving how mussed your hair looks from staying out so late. When you return to the main room, Van is already under the silky sheets and most of his clothes are strewn across the floor.

You climb under too, and love the feel of your skin on his. He wraps his arms around you and the both of you drift off into a fulfilling sleep.

****

The piercing light of the sun through the windows blinded you at an ungodly hour. A voice said, “go back to sleep, love,” and drew the curtains. The voice left to have a smoke on the tiny balcony.

****

You awaken to the side of the bed being much too cold for your liking. The night before is a blur; you remember some things… you remember a boy…. He was in a band… You may have slept with him. You stand up from the bed, body aching from a hangover. You sit at your desk and start to read the journal at the open page.

Memory refreshed, you stand to make yourself some breakfast. You’re a little surprised; Van left no note. You wonder if he was just in it for last night only. He didn’t seem like the type to do that, but at least you’re glad you didn’t do anything but kiss him.

Breakfast was delicious - eggs and avocado salt and peppered on toast, and a heaping bowl of fruit.

You sat back on the bed with a full stomach, contemplating everything. At last, you decided that if he wanted to leave and be done with it, then so be it. No chance in chasing someone who doesn’t want to be committed. You’re disappointed, but at least he didn’t bail later when you were more emotionally invested. Although he spent the night with you. Played a show and wanted you to stay. Looked through your records. And played piano with you. And ran through the alleyways wasted, kissing you dirty up against light posts like you’ve never been kissed before. Sigh.

You open the El Croquis book that was on the nightstand and start flipping through the beautiful photos of built projects, reveling in the precisions of the plans and the ways the sites were mapped. You came across some wild projects that would probably influence your later work. They had everything you wanted in a project, all that stuff you said to Van last night.

You sit there flipping through the glossy pages for more than an hour, reading dissertations and examining the plans. This was one of the best journals that El Croquis had ever released. You were saddened as you made it to the end of the journal; that same feeling you get when you want to finish a book as quickly as possible because it gets so good, but then you’re sad when there’s no story left.

You flip to the last page, and gasp.

Taped over the back inside binding is the sketch you made last night, of the green and blue and yellow with the shapes overlayed. New lines inside the shapes denoted pockets of rooms, and new thicker lines showed boundaries of places, and soon you realize the sketch had been made into a rudimentary version of Kyle’s house, and parts of his neighborhood you got lost in, and your apartment. Van had studied the El Croquis to produce a mapping of your journey together while you had written about the same journey; your roles had reversed. Scrawled above what you both had drawn, he wrote simply, “El Croquis forgot one.”

You closed the book, smile beaming, and you hopped off the bed, walked around it, and your foot hit something solid. You realized a little something was peeking out from under the bed skirt…. Van’s phone. How ironic.

Immediately, you dial Larry’s number.

“Hello? Y/N?” a confused Larry answers. You can hear Van speaking in the background.

“Hi Larry. Could you hand me over to Van real quick?” You say in a chipper voice.

“Yeah, sure. One second.”

The phone crackles as it’s being handed from person to person until it reaches Van.

“Heeello?”

“I believe I have something of yours.”

#vanfiction #van fic #first one woo!!!

34 notes · View notes