؛༊

I'D BEG YOU, BUT YOU KNOW I'M NEVER HOME

[heliconiius]

HELICONIUS ʚɞ an independent portrayal of kevin day of the all for the game series by n. sakavic. a mix of canon compliant and personal headcanon based portrayal. selective, mutuals only, heavily plotting based, very low and sporadic activity. scored by zarina, twenty-four, they/them. more info under the cut. please read rules & info before following or interacting.

carrd pinterest playlist verses memes exy

ʚɞ

GUIDELINES

GENERAL. i'd like to emphasise that i have anxiety, this bleeds into me getting overwhelmed very easily which can result in slow activity/slow replies/discomfort. clear communication is appreciated. i keep a limited following and curate my writing space to be as small and comfortable as possible for me. i can be slow/shy with starting new connections, but i am a rambling yapper after a little while! if i follow you please know i'd absolutely love to write with you at some stage & will eventually interact. please soft-block if interest is not mutual! always happy to write with people again even if we lost touch/it didn't work out the first time. this is my portrayal & thoughts, everyone’s portrayal’s differ, please be kind & respectful. if you don’t like it please move along.

ACTIVITY. extremely low activity. i work full time (+sometimes weekends) & have a range of health issues, so activity is unpredictable. i may have days where i am regularly active or weeks where i'm not. this does not reflect my interest in any way! i value and appreciate all those that write with me and our dynamics dearly. i like to be able to get back to things with a clear mind. please don't take my slow activity personally.

WRITING STYLE. literate, multi-para. opt for small text, no icons, little and brief formatting. i kindly request for simple formatting in threads, as i have dyslexia so overly formatted writing can be difficult to read. i will always adhere to your formatting preferences too! if i ever make a mistake, it will be on accident so just give me a little nudge.

PLOTTING. heavily plotting based, i do this to maintain long term interactions as i don't personally enjoy short-term/one-off threads. i like to discuss dynamics/ask questions, it helps me to figure out your muse and your writing interests better too so that we can enjoy what we create together. i am not good with non plotted interactions and some element of plotting is a must for me to keep motivation up.

MEMES. mutuals only. you can start interactions with me by sending memes, but i will come to you for plotting/a bit of context chat. alternatively you can also start interactions with me by just dropping in my dms, i love to chat to start things off!

DNI. this blog is not any kind of safe space for zionist, antisemitic, islamophobic, queerphobic, & generally shitty bigoted behaviours. will not tolerate any hateful or harmful behaviours.

IMPORTANT. i will not engage in any kind of drama/callouts/indirects and steer clear of it, will s/b at any sign of it. i don't care for gossip nor do i want any involvement in any personal conflicts, please keep any of this to yourself. if i am interacting with anyone genuinely problematic (as per dni's) please inform me, as it is unknowingly. this blog is purely a hobby for me to rot my love for kevin, i'm just here to write stress and drama free. mdni. i only interact with blogs/admins that are 20+.

ʚɞ

PORTRAYAL INFORMATION

CONTENT & LIMITS. if you have any questions about the all for the game universe, exy or need any clarity on verses, please feel free to ask! additional characters from this universe are highly likely to be mentioned in writing & background as they play a crucial role to kevin's life & character. all sensitive topics will be marked with warnings in hashtags, please be wary. this blog does not write explicit nsfw & will fade to black. this blog may explore: depression, ptsd, anxiety, panic attacks, violence, descriptions of blood & injuries, traumatic recounts of psychological and physical abuse, substance abuse, unhealthy habits & behaviours, control and manipulation, organised crime, cult-like dynamics, power imbalances & power dynamics, suicidal thoughts, internalized homophobia, repression.

DYNAMICS & SHIPPING. i'd love to explore long term and strong bonds for kevin, platonic, familial, friendships, etc. kevin can be a difficult character to initially interact with (in canon), hence i enjoy plotting and figuring out how he may play out in different environments/situations/dynamics. while this is a multi-ship/multiverse blog, shipping is not the priority or my focus for his dynamics, as much as i do enjoy it. this goes especially for canon: kevin has endured a life of abuse in a regimented environment and is navigating life trying to process and heal past that. hence i feel, should any romantic relations form for him, they would be likely to build overtime and be discussed together. regardless of the nature of dynamic, it is important to me to create rich bonds for kevin, i appreciate all those that want to write with me and him very much.

ʚɞ

here to enjoy writing kevin & make writing pals! oc, canon, fandom/fandomless, crossover & au (+anything else) friendly. please be patient with me. my responses + general posting activity will be slow. established june '25, so still navigating + growing comfortable writing on this platform. thank you for reading this, very excited to write with you ♡

credits: lyrics in image - r.m, ? (interlude). titles of verses - all for us, z.endaya + l.abrinth, n.ine inch nails. k.evin day, canon character - all for the game universe by n.ora s.akavic, (kevin is also ingrained in my soul). rina, they/them, asian, bisexual, gmt tz.

[heliconiius]

wc things has had me wondering if kevin is a football fan or not

[daylighter]

it had been a simple enough assumption, but the longer this went on the more he was sure his maths had been right. kevin smarted like a bomb threatening to go off. disbelief and frustration his cornerstone emotions as he looked over the face of someone who would not be embraced by his zealotry for exy, or oblige the purity of his trust. for all the talk of hope, this was where he first felt the flickers of it in himself; that finally he had done the thing that would permanently fracture them, a moment to splice up kevin’s insanity for good. the angrier the remarks come out, the quieter he gets himself— it appears less like he’s tired enough to take it and more that he’s insolent enough to shrug them off with a look.

momentarily he notices that kevin’s eyes were darting over his face, as if trying to make sense of who it was he was holding on to. or, trying to remember why he was here, wasting his time trying to convince someone who had left his past a few too many years ago that the game was worth it. but, when he realised eventually that kevin was more determined than he was put out by this, that hope was short-lived. it died and went down like a shot plane, its guttering engine loud enough in his head to muffle kevin’s grating words. he taps again a second time with his hand, but kenneth doesn’t budge from where he’s cornered, even to shove kevin off.

        ❛  my own, or yours? you couldn’t even focus right the last two play offs. i’m not pretending anymore. ❜ this at least, was true enough. he’d teetered on the edge, told himself the lie, but there was no way around the piercing wound of his own curiosity, or perhaps envy for ambition. this thing, shrouded in dark, but the only salvageable piece of a distant past. it was also an admission: he had watched the last two games that had closed the first half of the season in the shadows of his dorm room late at night, brows furrowed and thoughts wandering to the dealer’s folly. when kevin doesn’t let go, his fingers move lower, a death grip over kevin’s wrist. ❛  but whatever i want— it could never be near you. ❜

kevin’s scowl had grown darker, and he saw the moment his mouth recoiled to spit out the next big wave of thorns. only his own head seemed to turn somewhat to the noise of the locker room door clicking open, the head of a familiar captain assessing whether he needed to get involved or cry coach. he tapped kevin’s wrist again, this time digging his nails in to crescents. ❛  starting to look suspicious. let go. ❜

[heliconiius]

difficulty wasn't such a plague last time, didn't stick to him and trail around them like endless smoke last time. but stubbornness had always rooted, and kevin thinks in the years passed, it merely had time to grow and flourish. curl like tree branches around kenneth's bones and form a home for itself in there. kevin couldn't say he expected any less, but that didn't mean it didn't frustrate him. kevin had left years ago with the same hope and faith in the other that gnawed at him in the present. perhaps he should've given up - ridded himself the responsibility of his tags, disregarded leaving a note behind on the off chance that kenneth would come back to the home someday and question his whereabouts, should've listened to his professor's ramblings and stared down at his textbook when he'd seen heavy boots and blond hair pass the hallway. but not even the thought of that brought him any relief.

what did freeze him into place was the knowledge that kenneth held any sort of criticism of the last two games. to critique his play had meant to watch, observe, care enough to pick it apart and not just have it as background noise to pass time. it makes kevin loosen his grip on @daylighter 's collar, eyebrows raising, a beat of silence, wants to know if he'd been there or watched it from a screen. "what makes you think i couldn't focus?" he says instead, knowing where his own head was at. pressure had weighed itself on his shoulders and he didn't take it nearly as well as his captain did. morgan ruled off with an injury meant they were a vice captain and a dealer down, temporarily. it shouldn't have bothered him, a big team with numbers that exceeded most other teams would be fine - but he had watched the way it rattled confidence in his teammates during locker-room debriefs and merely wanted to knock some sense into them.

kevin tries not to let it sting, questions when he was pushed out of a once shared dream, barely notices the nails digging into his skin until he's told to let go a second time. he turns his head and meets his captain's face, forced smile and wary gaze as he watches kevin yanking around a future recruit, or so kevin had promised, despite no guarantee. he rolls his eyes, sighs and takes a final look at kenneth, letting go of him with an exaggerated push. there's space between them and kevin puts his hands up in surrender to signal to his captain that he's not up to anything, just like he does to the referee every time a bad knock with opponents results in them tripping right before his feet. waits for his captain to fall out of sight before he speaks again.

"why not?" kevin questions then, like it's simple, as though he isn't grounding shoes into the floor to stop from bouncing on his feet with urgency for answers, "what, i play that bad? my last two goals dragged us through. can't play any differently if i can't see where i fucked up." kevin shrugs, itching to drag words out of kenneth more. he presses his fingers over the crescents sunk into his own skin to kill the burning, want it for yourself then, "well go on, since you're an exy commentator now."

[daylighter]

scheat  —  sender  grabs  reciever’s  collar,  pulling  them  close. (trojan au with annoying kevin?)

the scuffle was entirely unwarranted. he could hear the counsellor going off on a tangent if she caught wind of this: can’t you talk like adults? aren’t you old enough? is this really necessary? but maybe it was necessary, though no one could say it was unprovoked. his needling retorts or kevin’s harsh words were political aggravation to an empty stadium he refused to indulge, and that kevin worshipped. one was a believer of ghosts and the other preferred breaking bones on concrete.

at some point he had decided that there was no point hiding the obvious from kevin, that some part of him did remember him clearly and viciously enough to want the game, to remember how a racquet swung. but, loathe to give him an edge, he’d realised this was the faster way to hurt and frustrate him: to deny it out of petty disdain. to dangle it so close and then tear it away. eventually this came to a crushing stalemate. kevin’s inability to let him walk out of things remains promisingly consistent, a trait he can’t quite credit his recent score keeping with. maybe it was the comment he’d thrown about it that did the conversation in, or maybe it was the quip about his faith. either way, there were hands on him. that was the first point of surprise. hands that caught his collar and stopped him from stalking off.

he blinked twice as if to process it, stared down at the fingers clasping tight, then looked back up at kevin. rage of words right there in his mouth, like he was about to get smacked with an ear full. unblinking they stare at eachother, way too close, and only after a moment does some part of him begin to ache. why do you bother? no answer had been good enough until this one. insolently, the corner of his mouth twitches.

         ❛  kevin, ❜ he starts. doesn’t have a clue what’s being said to him, he’s not really listening. his palm does crawl up though, pats the wrist of the hand currently antagonising his collar. there’s a lightness to his voice that didn’t mirror the absolute contempt he’s dredged up before. ❛  hey, cool off. we’re fine. ❜

[heliconiius]

he isn't what sure what tips him over the edge and waters away the last of his patience. it might've been the other's pessimism, his lack of trying, his words devoid of hope. but kevin had taken each of those prods before with untainted skin, accustomed himself to it. he thinks it may be because incessant trying has never brought him so close to success, just to land in failure. persistent trying had always begun with bad results, progressed to better, until finally hitting the nail on the head. that was how it worked. not bad results, progress, and then missing so badly it left a chipped wall and a pointless attempt.

kevin wouldn't let kenneth walk onto the court, just to turn his back on him and walk right out.

"hey," kevin called out, having been in the middle of suggesting the possibility of practicing between themselves again, when kenneth decided he was done. they hadn't played together in years, he needed to see kenneth play - he'd get that far at least. but he was quick to shut kevin down, and kevin was quick to drag him back, gripping his collar as he followed after him, "where are you going? you can't make it all the way on here just to leave," he thinks about the furthest steps previously being the locker room. peering as the trojans warmed up. step by step he'd watched kenneth get closer and closer to the court grounds, to let him step off would be a loss kevin wasn't willing to take. "did you think we were sightseeing?" he remarks with an unwavering fire that not even his teammates would be familiar with.

kevin recalls the boy he'd kept requesting to come outside. to leave the confines of the home and go with him, about the victory that came in the form of a sofa cushion he'd thrown at his head to get him to run out after him. it hadn't mattered that he'd tackled kevin to the ground, because it got kevin answers. it was a start. kevin stares, silent, piercing, scowling, glancing down at his own hands when his name is spoken and the other's hand pats over his. kevin's grip eases, but he doesn't let loose right away, "i'm fine. you're not, you're an idiot." it was like throwing branches into flames and watching it never grow or heighten or change colour, "you're your own obstacle, how can you keep pretending that you don't want it?"

[zachrp]

ᝰ🚬 𝚉𝙰𝙲𝙷𝚁𝙿 .ᐟ RANDOM SETTINGS PROMPTS. CHANGE ANY PRONOUNS IF NECESSARY. SOME MATURE THEMES MAY BE PRESENT.

a liquor store with barred windows and a bulletproof counter.

a decommissioned lodge overtaken by weeds.

a bathroom in a run-down apartment building.

a roller rink playing the same songs on loop.

a flea market at dawn, vendors still setting up.

a motel pool glowing turquoise after midnight.

a hiking trail where the signs stop making sense.

a dive bar that smells like smoke and regret.

a bridal shop filled with mirrors.

a county fair after the crowds thin.

a courthouse hallway that smells faintly of old paper and stress.

an amusement park in the rain.

a confessional booth that smells like old wood.

a high school gym during a pep rally.

a chapel with the lights off except for candles.

a fire lookout tower miles from anything else.

a laundry room humming with fluorescent lights.

a city rooftop slick with rain.

an arcade humming with old machines.

a bowling alley with sticky floors and neon lights.

a gas station at the edge of nowhere.

a fallout shelter forgotten by time.

a chairlift stalled above the slopes.

a church basement set up for a meeting.

a newsroom just before deadline.

a basement stacked with old boxes.

a desert highway shimmering with heat.

a funeral home parlor arranged too perfectly.

a brewery patio strung with cheap lights.

a physical therapy clinic that smells like antiseptic and rubber bands.

a greenhouse fogged with humidity.

a community garden at sunset.

a prison visitation room divided by glass.

a tattoo parlor buzzing late into the night.

a photography darkroom glowing red.

a summer carnival at night, lights too bright.

a power substation crackling with electricity.

a toll booth lit like an aquarium.

a half-abandoned shopping mall with only one store still open.

a city park at sunrise.

a holding cell with peeling paint.

a rest stop bathroom off a desolate highway.

a rental cabin buried in snow.

a costume shop crowded with masks.

a city planning office full of maps.

a college dorm hallway echoing with laughter and shouting.

a ghost town baking under the sun.

an underground nightclub where the bass rattles your ribs.

a security office watching too many screens.

a pawn shop cluttered with other people's memories.

a wake held in someone's living room.

a quiet cul-de-sac after a storm.

a recruitment office in a strip mall.

a courtroom bathroom where no one speaks.

a courtroom with the jury absent.

a sauna where the air is too thick.

a summer camp cabin long after the campers left.

a video rental store frozen in time.

an evidence room packed floor to ceiling.

a judge's chambers after hours.

a speakeasy hidden behind a false wall.

a cemetery at dusk, cicadas screaming.

a public restroom lit by flickering fluorescents.

a psychiatric ward common room with bolted furniture.

a tide pool exposed by low tide.

a storm cellar during a tornado warning.

a natural history exhibit after closing.

a zoo maintenance corridor behind exhibits.

a museum storage room full of artifacts.

a firing range ringing with gunshots.

a locker room echoing and empty.

an aquarium tunnel at night.

a karaoke bar at its most unhinged hour.

a suburban backyard during a barbecue.

a stairwell no one uses.

a junkyard full of stripped cars.

a hotel elevator stalled between floors.

a police station break room with stale donuts.

an abandoned warehouse tagged with graffiti.

a hockey arena during overtime, air sharp with ice and spilled beer.

a shrine built by someone who wouldn't let go.

a car wash tunnel swallowing a vehicle whole.

a haunted house attraction mid-season.

a movie theater lobby after the last showing.

a roadside attraction shaped like something absurd.

a dog park during golden hour.

a muddy riverbank after heavy rain.

a courthouse stairwell where voices echo too loudly.

a school parking lot under buzzing streetlights.

a planetarium during a private showing.

a cheap motel room with floral bedspreads and a flickering lamp.

a roadside diner at 3 a.m., neon buzzing, coffee burnt.

a city bus idling at the end of the line.

a penthouse balcony overlooking the city at night.

a wine cellar beneath a historic building.

a lifeguard tower at night.

a municipal pool pump room.

a tailor's back room full of pins and fabric.

a public swimming pool drained for repairs.

a fenced-in yard littered with dog toys.

a thrift store where the air smells like dust and old perfume.

a witness stand under harsh lights.

a crowded subway platform just before the last train.

a piercing studio that smells like disinfectant.

a beach boardwalk after tourist season ends.

a tow truck yard lit by security lamps.

a loading dock behind a closed business.

a recording studio cluttered with cables.

a barber shop mid-conversation.

a radio tower hill overlooking everything.

a classroom long after the final bell.

a drive-in theater with a cracked screen.

a fire escape overlooking an alley.

a passenger ferry cutting through fog.

a hospital waiting room at 2 a.m.

a pharmacy open all night.

a mechanic's garage smelling of oil and metal.

a hallway between two locked doors.

a public records office that no one visits.

a pet adoption center during feeding time.

a crematorium hallway humming quietly.

a border crossing checkpoint at night.

a locker-lined hallway in a community center.

a ski lodge during a whiteout.

a courthouse records archive underground.

a water treatment facility humming endlessly.

a forest trail choked with fog before sunrise.

a playground after dark.

a train platform dusted with snow.

a radio station during the graveyard shift.

a military barracks just before lights-out.

a front porch with a single rocking chair.

a mom-and-pop ice cream parlor on a scorching summer's day.

an emergency room hallway curtained off from sight.

a small-town grocery store minutes before closing.

a farmer's market just as it opens.

a lake dock at dawn, water perfectly still.

a nail salon filled with chemical sweetness.

a bus terminal that never quite sleeps.

a library corner no one ever uses.

[heliconiius]

aaaa so sorry for the silence here, motivation & energy has been horribly low after not writing for weeks. things got hectic and my brain has been 😵‍💫. but going to try & catch up & get back to stuff this week! <3

[heliconiius]

ok so rina in april lied ummm,, i feel like i have experienced 362927383 different chaotic lives since april but explodes. i miss writing kevin & rly hoping i can get back to writing him again soon :’) will try to reach out to lovely pals i was prev chatting & writing with, at the end of the month <3 (if there’s still interest!) hope you are keeping well friends!

[heliconiius]

EVERYBODY PAUSE. I SPY A LEGEND

IM staring at one rn 🫵

[schnuspi]

we don’t talk enough about teenage Kevin looking at Jeremy‘s pictures in magazines

[greelin]

[EXTREMELY HAUNTED & HOLLOW-EYED LOOK] yeah man i’m doing. Really good

[heliconiius]

it’s kevin’s birthday today 🙂‍↕️

[daylighter]

as if standing close enough to the door had warranted some sort of personal discomfort, he was content to move half way across the room & past kevin to stand in the shadow instead. here, he was able to see kevin turn in an arc and point his thumb back to the team in question, and watched as he morphed the words he’d said into an implication he could only scowl at. ❛  well, i intend to keep it that way, ❜ he snapped back, though he couldn’t help his own scoff, at the disbelief of watching kevin cling so surely and strongly to this vein of thought. he wouldn’t give in and kevin wouldn’t give out, which made for a difficult equation. ❛  and besides, maybe it’s all your fault. ❜ when kevin replied that he hadn’t been watching jeremy, some of his patience slipped free. he made a noise of frustration, wondered if he was playing dumb, and grabbed a nearby shoe of a random athlete who’d wondered where it’d gone, and threw it at kevin’s head.

❛  obviously! you’re watching me. ❜

his shoes came to a sudden halt, head flinching softly when it met the thump of a soft cushion. he stood blinking ahead of himself for a few minutes as if digesting what had occurred, before his head straightened, and he turned in a clean arc. both eyes, wide as an owl’s, were pinned on a young boy his age. a young boy who had not let him be, determined to meet his eye or get him to speak when he had entertained this courtesy with nobody else, content with his silent world of noiseless isolation. the same boy who, he could see, was starting to understand he’d made a terrible mistake. they were frozen in spot for a good few seconds, before kenneth gestured him closer with a hand. then he bolted forward & kevin scrambled to run.

the amused face staring back at him didn’t temper his blood any more than it irritated it more. for the second time just then, he pulled back his impulses and exhaled to be rid of the urge to prove this real. he was half way to turning away again when kevin’s words made him stop. (you might claw your eyes out after a ten minute conversation with him, though.) an uncomfortable recollection, that was — being known just well and true enough that he knew, this wasn’t an ordinary, off the bat observation done at face value. wasn’t a conclusion he’d drawn the way other people did after a look at him, or after one rude conversation with him. there was surety to it that made his skin itch with memory. his fingers idly scratched away at the inside of his wrist.

he wasn’t letting himself look back at kevin just yet, unsure of what he’d find there, and it was easier to think about the nuisance of the team outside or the nuisance of the boy standing across from him, or even the warning of the consequences that would follow him too just as kevin detailed them for himself. talk of luck made him look, his stare hard & disbelieving. ❛  you’re not lucky, ❜ he said harshly. ❛  you’re just— pointlessly determined. ❜

it had taken two teachers to get him off kevin. they were scowling, pawing at eachother with claws, and it was the first time he had used his voice to the extent that it felt dry and scratchy— they were bickering, accusing one another, his gibberish and kevin’s clean speech, and he realised belatedly that he’d let someone get under his skin. by the time he’d shrugged the teacher’s touch off & folded his arms, moody and bitter, and glaring sidelong at kevin, some of the anger had gone out of him in that moment of exhaustion. it seemed he would walk away then or, not bother to see kevin turn away first. in spite of it all he blurted out, his small hands wildly gesturing at kevin and at his own voice : i don’t— nicht— englisch. he thought he saw kevin’s eyes considerably relax.

he tried to remember if kevin had asked that before, prying into business that had never concerned him. the more he knew the worse it would be, and he had half the mind now to know that kevin had few inhibitions to get himself involved in trouble that someone with his career path in mind would do well enough to stay away from. he could surmise the consequences with common sense : it could cost him a scholarship if he was on one, or a place on his team, or set him up for failure in class. why risk it all for a ghost? predictably, he said nothing, not to answer him or to discourage him. his voice clapped shut & he shook his head. ❛  and i don’t appreciate you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, so we can’t all have what we want. go— just leave. ❜ he waved his hand before kevin could speak, a glance at the clock to know he’d wasted enough time. ❛  save it. ❜

[heliconiius]

it wasn't the first time that kevin had listened to blame directed at him, but it was one of the first times he disbelieved in it without a doubt. might kenneth have given the team a chance, had it not been for kevin's presence on the team? he didn't think so, else kenneth would've made his way on as a player long before kevin arrived. before kevin could think up another smart remark, air swept and a shoe was thrown in his direction. he ducked down and crouched lightly, eyes following where the shoe landed across the room, hitting a locker with force on it's way. slowly looking back at the culprit, his expression was both unimpressed and hiding amusement at once. a short silence fell over them and kevin bit the inside of his cheek as though a useless warning to himself, speaking anyway, "aim's shit." he spoke, eyes trailing over kenneth and taking note of how the track shoes didn't give the boost that his boots did, muttering, "should've angled it a little higher."

a smile threatened it's way across his face, to know that his ability to irk and irritate had not disappeared with age. poking until he dragged something out, anything was better being brushed off.

kevin thought that was the first time the other had even looked at him clearly, eyes wide and staring. a look alone that made kevin put his hands out briefly when beckoned closer, making an instant move to turn on his feet and run, written all over his face that he knew he'd fucked up. fear swayed over his features but a laugh fell from his lips, and he'd run for longer than he'd imagined, he'd even made it outside and through the front door. until he was yanked back and shoved to the floor, back meeting the crooked floorboards of the home. kevin had tried to push him off, mutters of alright, cut it out, but when that hadn't worked and words were thrown back to him that he didn't understand, he kicked and fought back with equal surge instead. when they were finally pried apart, kevin huffed and furrowed his brows together in frustration, the teacher's scolding missing his ears entirely, eyes focused on meeting the scowl sent his way. when he heard him speak again, it was an explanation. shifting from an angry frown, his lips parted in realisation, expression easing in understanding. it wasn't that he'd purposefully ignored kevin, his words had simply gotten lost along the way.

"you're the only one that thinks it's pointless." luck, determination, what did it matter? kevin imagined they must work hand in hand. luck wouldn't just fall into his lap unwarranted, he'd have to chase after it, rip its wings if it meant it would sit in his palms. kevin thought that kenneth could've simply said nothing, could've lacked any explanation and stormed back to his room, but he hadn't. luck might've put them in the same place, but a single minded persistence led their paths to tangle.

punishment had been handed in the form of being confined into a makeshift classroom in early hours of the following afternoon, sitting on desks at opposite sides of the room. a textbook had been shoved in front of their desks, kevin's opened on his desk and kenneth's unopened with his attention set to looking out of the window. kevin severed the silence once more, curiously thinking of the words spat at him that he couldn't decipher, so, what do you speak then? deciding if that was the sole obstacle, he'd work around it, i can help you out.

a whistle blew outside, and kevin peered through the door to find his teammates eyes wandering around for where he'd ended up, disappearing for longer than he'd intended. kenneth hadn't indulged the need for knowledge, and kevin hadn't expected him to - but hoping had never done him any harm. "he looked pissed off. pissed off people always come back at some point." a silent assurance that he would figure it out eventually. "anyway," he started a final time before stepping out toward the door, "i won't keep you for much longer, got an aim to work on, don't you? 'can't vouch for you if you keep that up, watching them some more might even help." like setting fuel to the fire and not waiting around to see it erupt, kevin turned his back and hurried off, content.

[heliconiius]

your beautiful writing is gracing our dashes again! it's a GOOD DAY!

and what if i sobbed 🫵

[heliconiius]

eek yay finally locked in and doing things 🙂‍↕️ i still have more things to write & catch up on, hope my brain lets me do more this weekend. <3

[daylighter]

in his surprise, he had moved back, almost tucked in front of the slit between the door and the light outside, but he wouldn’t pass through it. [not yet, anyway.] no matter how far he pressed back as if to get away from the circumstance he’d been caught in, he wouldn’t slip away through the crack. frozen in place, he could only stare at first — which wasn’t a shock, when words didn’t come to him so easily unless they were meant to hound and insult, to scare away. that kevin was here and yet real again was the more pressing matter; it came with the specific discomfort of suspecting a ghost was in the house, that something had moved in the corner of one’s eye in the dark; that the brief touch, even in its unintended messiness was the very confirmation he’d been avoiding.

rather than come to grips with it, he was able to move again only by deciding that he would ignore it entirely. maybe it didn’t count, this accident of being caught where he didn’t want to be caught. maybe it was still denying kevin something to pretend he wasn’t caught off guard, and attempt to wound him with a suspicious accusation rather than see it as an ironic twist of coincidence.

❛  unless said students already have an entire court to themselves, and also that i personally dislike them.   ❜ the surprise he’d worn melted comfortably back into his usual scowl. pinched brows and a twisting frown, his guard recovered, a stingy contrast to kevin’s more self satisfied musings. at the mention of jeremy, he grimaced with disdain & turned his head around for a moment, spying the team’s captain prancing about. ❛  what do i think? i think you’ve been standing there watching too.   ❜   in that time, he hadn’t taken notice of where kevin’s attention had gone until after he’d twisted back around, following his eyes that had been trained on kenneth’s shoes. he stepped back with a brow raised, not understanding, and levied him with another contemptuous look. ❛  and i think he’s about as intolerable as you, which is saying a lot, because i’ve never talked to him.   ❜

the implication was apparent : he was going to keep it that way.

he started it. the accusatory scowl fixed on him belonged to a dark haired boy his age with a bruised cheek, who sat in the seat beside him with their joint and underpaid supervisor seated across from them. the supervisor had his head in his hands, hair tousled and beard unshaven, lack of sleep thinning the patience he tried to occasionally have on the clock for him and bryce lawrence. sound echoed from outside the room the way it did inside gym’s, but this was no gym. he didn’t answer the accusation or entertain it; head tilting back in a partially suppressed groan, he counted his breath until the inevitable scolding came. may i remind you, you’re both five months from leaving this shit-hole. this is a juvenile detention centre ladies, not high-school. he remembered staring at the ceiling in that moment, remembering the friend who’d been able to take a punch to the cheek without crumbling like a fawn. it was a sign that he’d lost touch with being bones & flesh when even the sting of such a memory was little more than a numbed soreness. five months, then you have a chance to start new at college. it wasn’t until they’d left the office room that he got the tail-end of bryce’s more impatient aggression: the boy his age with a bruised cheek shouldered him on his way out. just you wait, i’ll find you. [he had, those five months later, but he’d gotten kevin’s beating instead of his own.]

impatiently, he shouldered kevin as he walked past him, shoulders hitched like raised hackles. he tried to see in him the boy he remembered, but memory was often a pot hole waiting to explode. with more imagined disappointment than concrete proof, his hostility was cemented. ❛  i thought i told you to leave me alone.   ❜   refusing to carry out his run now on the field, he went back to his locker to pick up his bag and jacket, refusing to look kevin’s way— a tad pointless, given that so far, his determination to ignore his existence was repeatedly hitting roadblocks. momentarily he recalled something else :

kevin’s fight with bryce had been public enough surely to warrant the principal’s attention, but had jeremy or the trojans or merely the star player himself talked his way out of it? of course, there’d be enough favouritism to go around, & maybe they’d let the whole thing go — it didn’t necessarily mean he could afford it too, which meant it was enough reason to keep as far away from kevin as possible.

❛  surprised you’re not suspended.   ❜

[heliconiius]

when kevin had wanted to meet an old friend again, he hadn't quite imagined it like this. nor like the other day, or the occasion before that. he hadn't imagined it much at all, a thought too far fetched and out of his reach and a wish that felt like a risk to want. still, he hoped, and that hope hadn't dissipated even when his own determined eyes met with unlikely ones. a disbelief in being caught, a look across kenneth's face that expressed he'd much rather be anywhere else.

at his words, kevin feigned surprise, eyebrows raised and gaze glinting with mock shock, "you dislike the team?" he questioned, rhetoric, thumb pointing towards the chatter of his teammates who had gathered outside and were now moving into collective warm ups. "i wouldn't have guessed," he shrugged, "awfully strong personal grudge you got there, for a group of people you haven't met yet." he wondered if it was just kevin he couldn't stand the sight of, or if it was envy in it's entirety. perhaps he disliked the team for the fact that once, he might have joined them. kevin didn't like to think of it as a matter in the past, he wouldn't shove it away before he had the chance to entertain it, to make it a future. the accusation was thrown back at him then, "i wasn't watching him." kevin was trying to piece together what had brought kenneth to stick around in the discretion of the locker room with focus trained on the exy team, the very sport he'd condemned and threw away to being a subject of their childish memories. insults that he liked to believe were simply words. still, he thought about jeremy's chirpy voice and beaming presence and an amused expression fell over his face, "he's not that bad," then he considered kenneth and the manner in which he'd kept himself far from the others in the home, and what it took for kevin to get his attention, words concluding, "you might claw your eyes out after a ten minute conversation with him, though."

talking to the others had been easy, deciding who he liked enough to befriend was the harder part. most of the others already had friends, and some had decided their groups were big enough, another would cramp their space. kevin hadn't cared because he'd be fine without anyone to bother him, spending most of his time with his head in an old textbook or listening to games announcements on the crooked radio in the carers kept in the kitchen. but when a new face showed up, curiosity got the best of kevin. he'd knock on his door, don't you want to come outside? just to met with a less than impressed huff and the door slammed in his face. he'd try again, he'd ask different questions, just to be met with silence that he took as refusal. on a last try, kevin happened to catch kenneth walking past the living room, retreating back to his own room. kevin had called out, hey!, unsurprisingly met with no acknowledgment. his desperate attempt to be seen led him to pick up a small square pillow from the sofa, throwing it to aim directly at kenneth's head, and kevin felt both success and dread when he watched the other stop in his tracks.

i thought i told you to leave me alone. kenneth shoved past kevin, and his hands were empty of anything to regain his attention. listening to ridiculous demands never had been a strong point, "and i didn't seek you out," kevin returned, all so matter of fact, "i did say i'd see you again though, so call it luck." irony weaved within the words, having been told as a young child that boys like kevin would only drag around bad luck like a heavy weight. the only other athletics that would be so eager to step onto the field at the earliest light of the morning was the track team, but kevin didn't see a single other around.

"i'm sure you'd like that. but, undecided as of yet." suspension was in discussions, and kevin had learnt that he was entering a risky line of jeopardising the life he'd come to build. but the comfort meant little when it was alone, when faced with a presence he'd rather drag forward with him than leave steps behind, even if they had once been childish promises. a meeting later that week would be held, the principal, the coach, and kevin. jeremy had entertained the possibility that he'd sit out this season if the issue became difficult to contain, and kevin had been darted with questions of what had occurred. he'd given them little, and even kevin knew who he was, his minimal information would remain the same. "i'll find out soon." kevin turned fully then to face him, leaning against the wall, eyebrows raised in a question that he'd get few answers from, if at all, "what did he want, then? would be useful for me to know who he is, i don't appreciate not knowing names of people i could be punched by a second time."

[yharnum-a]

his own voice was one he hardly recognised, through its bruised tenor and dry exhaustion. he relied mostly on listening, if it meant sparing himself the discomfort of talking, of sounding so run through & beaten. the sound of kevin speaking at his ear held a different desperation than the one he’d gone into the dark of that glum basement with. it was crisp, the only clear thing in the world just then, and he held on to the little bones of a promise tucked beneath each word, knowing he had never been good at stifling his addiction to it. neil’s pale gaze wandered down, saw the unthinkable truth for himself : his hand was still around kevin’s, or rather, kevin’s hand was wound up in his own, somehow managing it despite the blocky mess of neil’s twice bandaged and wounded hand.

he noticed only belated that the ache spreading through his fingertips down to his wrist was a consequence of squeezing kevin’s hand too tightly, but he thought that was a pain he’d willingly bear. neil, who had gone so long thinking ten steps ahead into the future, considered kevin’s words with a drained exhale. for all his planning, nothing had gone the way he’d initially intended. [when it’s all over, what about then?] neil realised there was little point in it then, to hold himself to contingency plans that never went right in the first place. ❛  dunno.  ❜ it was both relieving to let go of & terrifying. he turned his head where it was resting against the wall and kevin, stared at nothing in particular before mumbling. ❛  we’ll jump off that bridge when we get there.  ❜ 

gradually neil began to slouch, his shoulder blades aching but settling more relaxed. he felt the corner of his mouth twitch, that strange tug of war between morbid satisfaction that he might be grieved and an unrelenting sadness that it had been a reality that he’d nearly been robbed of. his mouth opened to speak but he knew that he could not. he stared at kevin with the question dying there too : you grieved me? it seemed incomprehensible that his selfish desires to belong and to be missed could be handed to him when he wasn’t yet bleeding for it. he flexed his other hand over his lap, opened and closed his fingers like a stomped flower. ❛  i—  ❜  he swallowed hard, voice & breath strained. abby had said it would take two weeks for his muscles to stop hurting, three if neil wasn’t immediately chained to a bed somewhere. ❛  i thought... you know, for a moment it was—  ❜

feeling faint, neil squeezed kevin’s fingers harder, but despite the misery of his words, he felt stern & toughened with resolve. ❛  thought i wasn’t making it back. i wondered if you saw it all coming, more than i wanted to.  ❜

[heliconiius]

they'd jump off that bridge when they got there. it was a statement all relieving and damning at once. it told kevin that neither of them knew what to do or what to expect from here, aside from the worst. in the same breath it felt like a weight had been lifted. a cape that often draped itself over his shoulders like chains, the responsibility of knowing what to do, where to go, dragged off with a few words. he was sure that similarly, neil knew that feeling too. uncertainty trailed like thick miasma and filled his lungs with every deep inhale made to steady his bones, the only certainty being the one that lay in his hand. neil was here, would still be here, the rest could be figured out. it didn't rid the bubbling anxiety entirely, but it put a cover of it to stop it from spilling out the sides and overflowing. it was enough to stop choking him. with little to refute, kevin merely nodded, solemn and understanding.

when neil begun to relax in his seat, kevin shifted to the opposite side slightly, the worry of shoving himself into the other's space, suffocating and making unhealed injuries ache. when he felt eyes upon him, he turned to meet the other's watchful face, his own gaze hardened and sincere. like an answer within pools of green, one that said he would not repeat himself. when neil spoke again, kevin heard the hoarse of his voice through a tired breath, looking away from his face and back at the wall in front of him. as if the pressure of kevin's stare might make him think twice, and kevin wanted to hear his words for what he was thinking.

it tightened his chest and made him swallow thickly, a morbid confession of departure. wondering if kevin had seen it coming, kevin who had uttered the brutal words of you were always going to lose him that had earned him hands at his neck. since then, kevin had realised that the words had served a reminder to himself as much as anybody else. he'd accepted losing neil as a child, he'd accepted it again after the banquet, and the final twist of a knife had been his duffel bag discarded to the floor.

"i didn't think you were making it back either," he admitted, low in true pessimism. but as much as kevin had made peace with the loss multiple times before, neil had proved him wrong each time. it didn't matter that they'd parted ways in childhood, neil had run, alive. nor that kevin had deemed him doomed when he'd learned his name, neil was adamant to keep running, living, to still be taught every night. "but it doesn't matter what i think. the moment you start thinking you're not going to make it, you won't. you wanted to live, and so you did. you will." his skin spoke for the fight he put up, and kevin thinks he shouldn't have expected anything less. "you have to."

[lusmor]

( study )

𓄹₊ ⁰¹ * @heliconiius entreats with the oracle...

      cutting an ordinary figure in the decrepit space,   mold and moss making friends with the wooden paneling of the room. the piano beneath her fingertips is only in a slightly more elevated state though its ivory keys have yellowed with age.   painting over her features with glamour she does not alter her appearance so much as she reverses what death has taken with it.   rosebud cheeks and yew berry-stained lips,   it is a heightened reality.   she is oversaturated in some ways,   especially within the dreary caverns of the academy conservatory.   she has known spectral-talkers  tangential to that of kevin but none so troubled by their own gift of sight.   perhaps this was why he was so drawn to meticulous construction of instrumentation.   a great irony as the dead reveled in music,   drawn to melody as moths to flames   (   she was no better than the lot of them   )   yet in her years of mortality she had played songs with no intention of drawing in surrounding spirits.   why feed the dead?   it was the living who were starving for beauty.   the living who could turn divine inspiration into more art.   

      a romantic ideal,   what composer didn't contain such a rampant imagination?   upon the floor there is the mess of her mind strewn out around them.   the pianist is beside her on the bench   ━   a fews breaths between but both of their hands had settled across the ivory board.   she is armed with ink and aspirations above her current inspiration.   it may seem there crafts were nearly identical yet a player and a writer served too entirely differing functions in the invention of a piece.   eimile suspected kevin had far more agile fingers than she   ━   not by innate gift bestowed but pure hours of mastery that she could only pretend to possess.   if she had to guess she spent far more time dreaming than practicing.   which made him all the more of a better soundboard to aid in piecing together the canvas of her latest sonata.   scribbling down a new set of notes,   crossing out the former arrangement with a decisive slicing of black.   an elegant penmanship all the same if not for all the smudging that showcased her many failed attempts at reaching a satisfying conclusion to the work as a whole.   

      ❛   hm,   it's still not quite right.   i wanted to use a minor chord to create some dissonance   ━   do you think it makes a muddle of the composition though?   it's a departure from the rest of the movement…   ❜  the pale spindle of digits stretched across several keys,   a brushing of shoulders as she reached over him to demonstrate a jarring end to a melancholic journey through a very rough first draft.   ❛   it's a bit shit,   isn't it?   ❜  a half-hearted laugh chokes out of her throat,   turning to face him as a hand worked through the spiked plumage of her hair sigh of her barely concealed frustration with the whole ordeal.   ❛  do you have something you're working on?   i think it might be time for me to step away from this for the time being.   ❜ 

[heliconiius]

an ice cold trail swept over the back of his neck and it was enough to stiffen his bones and straighten him in his seat. the drop of his shoulders meant to ease up, to ease up meant to let distractions seep in and to think of anything else would only cost him. he could memorise every crevice and crack of the floor beneath them, having spent hours staring into the plain vast ground, piecing together notes that sufficed before his fingers placed themselves over the keys to mimic the art his brain had wired together. kevin doesn't question her intermittent appearances, even if the curiosity raises alarm bells that fizzle into a low permanent hum. he ignores it to indulge in the admiration of her craft, watches eimile scribble notes that he could only hope to string together in a manner that wouldn't be considered a set of shambles.

kevin sits with the sleeves of a white dress-shirt pulled up to his elbows, blazer with the university's beloved red raven sewn across the front pocket discarded to the floor from the irritation of frustration warming his cheeks. he couldn't recall where an invitation to practice side by side had spawned, he just knew that she'd appear when kevin would silently wonder where she'd gone. other times she'd taken the space at the bench first, and kevin would enter to a trail of echoing keys ringing out and draw closer. when she crossed through her arrangement in conclusive rejection, kevin refrained from speaking, knowing he was only seated beside a mirror, had done the same thing countless times when dissatisfaction blanketed him.

the laugh and choice of words pulls a smile from the curve of his lips, and he shrugs with a hesitant shake of his head, "it could.." eyes lowering to the keys and averting from her, "-use some work, maybe." he offers, head rattling to be of use. it didn't make a muddle of the composition, kevin didn't think so, when he peered over the paper and tried to read the notes beyond the ink that discarded them. dissonance was harsh, unpleasant, but it didn't have to sound so terribly out of place. "you could make it a minor seventh chord," he tilted his head, eyes trailing along the keys, fingers ghosting over them as he tried to imagine how it would look, sound, "it'll add the tension you're looking for without sounding mismatched. try it and see?"

when questioned on his own work, he pulls his composition book in between them so @lusmor can see it clearer too, "you won't find any more peace in mine." a sigh sits at the front of his lips, as though unsure of where to begin. laying difficulties bare should have felt diminishing, but kevin needed an imagination that he would only be given if he let a scar or two loose. there was a difference between chaos and clarity, and kevin's piece lacked any focal point, a weak leading melody, "the assignment wants a piece that tells a story surrounding a singular emotion." his peers plucked and picked, stories of betrayal, sadness, love and joy. kevin had swindled somewhere between grief and anger. "I've overwhelmed the middle register," where he'd aimed for intensity and precision he'd only occurred puzzling mess, "i need to simplify it without it falling empty."

[compunctions]

you're trouble.

as if he needed to be reminded. @heliconiius appeared behind james in the mirror, the shorter man's eyes tracking him via reflection. the old myth that their kind could not retain their reflections was exactly that: a myth, a falsehood, a misconception. though james sometimes wished it were true, so he might finally kick his long-held habit of staring at himself in varying degrees of self-importance and self-loathing— arrogance and hatred, contempt and pleasure.

lips parted, he sighed, and, bowing his head and saving his reply, continued to wash his face clean, the water swirling pink down the drain until he was satisfied. turning the knob, james spoke as he reached for a towel to dab at his skin. he'd tried to do something nice for kevin tonight— thought perhaps that he could fill bottles of blood and rid his friend of the need to hunt and kill. but it was a messy business, and in the end, his skin and body and clothes had worn most of it.

point in case: the soaked baby blue polo he currently wore, the collar a deep red now, splotched like a nightmare.

❛  i was only trying to help, ❜ he said, which was true— hands coming to rest on the sink behind him as he watched kevin with a keen gaze that hoped to be understood. james was tired tonight. emotionally so. wetting his lips, he continued. ❛  i thought i'd save you the trouble by bringing the blood to you— you do not eat enough. it worries me. ❜ how kevin was not slumping over as they conversed was beyond him. perhaps he'd had his fill when james was out, his blood mission something he kept to himself. ❛  but i failed. ❜ trouble, then. ❛  are you mad? you know i can't stand to be chided. christ, that look on your face... get it over with, let me have it. ❜

@heliconiius,

[heliconiius]

it was both a thoughtful gesture and a chaos unasked for, standing in front of kevin as he stared at the blood stained collar of what was once a soft blue. hands shoved into his pockets, he leaned against the doorframe, wondering whether it was defeat he felt in knowing that he couldn't fault james for simply trying to keep kevin alive, or if it was displeasure at how the smell of blood trailed the air and poked at the ache of his stomach like a knife. he was getting better at managing the gnawing hunger, having taken minimal but enough to keep him steady on his feet, wanting less to indulge in the greed of it all. because the greed was an easy trap to fall into, he'd watched enough vampires do it until there was no way back. not that there was a way back from this, regardless.

"why do you look like you've been scolded before I've even said anything?" he questioned, a raise of his brows, tone free of any pointed judgement, lighter. "you made a mess of it instead." it should have sounded like the words fell to chastise, but they served a simple flat statement instead, an observation of the scene before him, even slight baffled amusement as he looked over the state james was in. kevin shook his head, it was less anger than it was irritation, at himself. that he was putting a friend through hurdles just to keep kevin living, when kevin should just accept what they were now and hunt well for himself. he'd hunted before, why did this have to be different?

"sit down, and stop worrying about me." he stepped forward, looking around for the towelcloth @compunctions had used moments earlier. picking it up, he twisted the tap for cold water, letting it run for a moment and dampening the material. wringing it free of any excess, he turned back to james, "look that way," he pointed in the opposite direction, a frail attempt at pressing at the blood-stained collar, trying to clear it free of it's red markings. "you didn't fail," kevin muttered, "i don't think there's a handbook for draining blood." the once hunter recalled times when he'd heard of other egotistical hunters draining their prey of blood once their kill had been a success, syringes and blood packets like a trophy. "you've done enough to help. i'll hunt in my own time, i just need to figure.." who was suitable enough to kill, "-some things out. did anybody see you?"