it’s BACK, now ft the dread corps and Amaya’s new pool. I imagine this song in the bg
Rei pushes Arata’s head underwater, as Masa points and throws his head back in laughter. Bright sunlight catches in the choppy pool water as Arata thrashes around.
Amaya pushes her sunglasses up, watching as Rei finally relents and allows Arata to catch a hard gasp of air. Maybe next time he’ll watch his hands. She wipes a few droplets over water from her thighs and rests back against the lounge chair. After a month of nothing but work, it was nice to finally enjoy what summer and a brand new pool had to offer.
Her skin warms under the warm sun, and Amaya lazes further into the chair. Her eyes slowly close to the sound of splashing and laughter melding with the music from the speakers. Every tension that had worked into her body over the last few weeks eases away. Rei and Masa begin to bicker over the next playlist choice, and Amaya can’t help but smile
“Only one Taylor Swift song,” She calls out, keeping her eyes shut. Masa’s defeated groan answers back. Amaya arches her back with a stretch, and sighs softly. Just what they needed, what she needed. Rest, and some sun.
A cool shade crawls over Amaya, drops of water pelting onto her. A shiver racks her body as she opens her eyes. Instead of a storm cloud like she expected she found something just as bad.
“Sachi,” She grumbles, glaring at him. “You’re in my light,”
Sachi grins lazily, his hair soaked, sticking to his face and neck, in a more alluring way than Amaya would ever care to admit. “Senpai, your dad spent all that money on this pool,” he sweeps his hand to the pool.
“You’re in my light,” Amaya repeats, shooing at him.
“I’m just saying,” Sachi continues with a shake of his head. “You could make all that money worth it and-”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Amaya cuts off, snapping her finger with each word. “My light,” She reaches up, pushing him away. Sachi stumbles, catching himself.
Amaya only has a moment to react when she feels Sachi’s arms sweep under her, and lift her up. “Sachi!” She shouts, her eyes alight in anger. Wind brushes by them, and her arms wind tightly around his neck, and her eyes widen with realization “Sachi!” She squeals, kicking her legs. “Don’t you da-”
A giant splash erupts around them, Amaya tenses as the cool water chills against her sun soaked body. Sachi keeps his arms around her as lifts them above the water. Amaya’s thick hair blocks her face, but she can hear Arata’s loud laughter. With her hands, she parts her hair and glares up at Sachi, who still keeps his infuriating grin.
“You’re dead,” Amaya declares.
Sachi laughs, dropping Amaya. Her startled cry is cut off as she goes under again. “You’re welcome to try,”
It’s just a throwaway comment at first; frustration, disappointment, anger at a government failing their nation and a teenage girl so furious her hands are shaking. “At this point any shitbag could do a better job. I’d rather see a walrus in the White House. Fuck, I’d rather have Charles there than this kiwi peel.”
Rylee chuckles, her shoulders briefly shaking, while Lucas looks up with a frown. “Who’s Charles?”
“You, dickface.”
“Ah, come on! I’m here, like, every day, you gotta know my name by now!”
Bianca looks him in the eye, expression elaborately neutral. “Whatever, Sawyer. Your name isn’t the point. The point is that even your useless ass would do a better job of running this country and that’s saying a lot.”
While Lucas weakly attempts to object, Rylee catches her sister’s eye. “He’d try to stop wars by smiling at other leaders.”
“Hah, probably, yeah.” Bianca’s quiet for a moment as she looks out into empty space. “If he had a really good team behind him…”
Isaac is rarely still, rarely quiet, his brain always going a mile a minute. His busy mind rests only in short bursts and when he comes to visit it is, at first, difficult to make it feel like a proper reunion. There is too much to say that gets lost over video calls and texts so they play catch-up long into the night, fall asleep exhausted.
It doesn’t help that the apartment is too small for three people, especially when two of them don’t get along. They all feel like they climb on one another after a day and so Cherry takes her friend out for the afternoon.
They wander at first, aimless, talking and listening (and she, of course, does more of the latter) until they reach the harbour where the New England Aquarium rises tall and made of glass above the water.
The light in Isaac’s eyes is all Cherry needs to take his hand, say “let me treat you. I have heard they have a touch tank with sharks.”
There’s a moment of hesitation, everyone looking around and trying to think of where they saw her last. Paddy glances at his mother-in-law, sees the furrowing of her brow and stands up with a smile. “I’ll go find the wee lass, I’m sure she’s just sittin’ lost in thought somewhere.”
He can hear Margaret start before he’s out the room, something about if she’s made a mess somewhere… but he tunes it out. She can be an awful puss, Margaret. Don’t get him wrong, he likes her and Oscar fine as in-laws, and he agrees that Rachel needs to be mindful of her manners - but she’s also turning five in a couple of months. You have to be a bit lenient with kids that young.
The library is empty. She’s not allowed to be there without supervision, is never allowed to touch the shiny leather armchairs or the old desk and only allowed to read the backs of the books. Most of them are nonfiction and not for little children - especially little girls - but Paddy’s found her there once or twice all the same. Just looking, daddy, promise. The dining room is empty, too, even the space under the table where she brings her toys sometimes so she won’t be in the way.
Paddy wonders if he’ll have to go upstairs to look when he spots a flash of white through the branches of one of the fruit trees outside and shakes his head. He should have guessed.
Being pregnant is dysmorphic af for Rylee, especially when her body/breasts grow bigger. It takes a lot of self care & talks with Bianca for her to remind herself that her body is still non-binary, that her uterus and breasts are only there to give and nourish life, not to assign a gender-meaning onto her. She tolerates being pregnant but definitely can’t wait to give birth and be done with it
She’d be in a few Facebook groups about being pregnant & nb, wouldn’t post or comment but likes to read about people who are similar to her and discover how they’re going about being pregnant/parents
For obvious reasons, she doesn’t care about the sex of the baby while pregnant, but would want to know asap, just so she can just tell people and move past it/not make it a big deal
Rylee sleeps for like 24 hours post-birth fdfflgh. The nurses are all concerned but Lucas is like “no this is okay trust me just let her sleep”
She’s very okay with being called mom/mother etc, because while she’s not a woman, she gave birth to miri so shes a mother in the most literal sense. When Miri starts talking, it’s definitely weird the first few times she calls her mom (as it is with most parents i assume) but she likes it a lot
She has the Talk to Miri fairly early on about her gender, Miri is very proud of “her mom who doesn’t have the gender which makes her cooler than allll the other moms”
She’s also okay with Lucas calling her his wife/wifey because there really is something about the word wife that just transcends gender & she knows that Lucas knows her for her anyway, regardless of the term. It is something she’d prefer he did in private or with people who know shes nb, though, but it’s not really a hill she’ll die on
Rylee doesn’t care about naming godparents because she thinks its mostly an ornamental title these days, so she leaves it to Lucas
Does Lucas then ask Marc and Joshie to be godparents? Most likely Yes. Who could he leave Miri in better care than Two Nice And Cool Sports Dads?
She’s very tactile & cuddly with Miri, because lying around watching television is only made better by lying around watching television while hugging your baby. I think between her and Lucas, Miri spends little time of her baby-life not in either of their arms fjjfjfjk
Rylee would 100% want to co-sleep, like in a cot attached to the bed like this. Once Miranda gets too big for that, they’d slowly move her out into her own room but Miri would probably still end up in their bed a few times a week because she associates sleep with mom fgfjdk. Does Rylee fight it? No
Rylee also has a bad habit of letting miranda get away with things because it’s too tiring going against it hhhhh (she’ll obviously stand her ground on important things but like....if Miri wants ice cream for dinner....they probably having ice cream for dinner)
Miri is, clearly, one spoiled young lady who learns to be sassy af from her parents, but also learns gratitude and kindness and what true love looks like
Also Auntie Bee comes to the rescue to crack down on anything else LOL
hozi and i had a conversation about future lulee today and uh. Guess I Was Inspired
Rylee’s tired of walking already but knows the distance is worth the struggle to get away from the popular section of the beach, filled with tourists and beachside sellers. The further they get from everyone, the more the sound of the waves folding against the sand fills the air and nothing but the fresh smell of salt water reaches her nose. Miranda’s hand is in hers as they walk along the ocean’s edge, Lucas happily walking in front of them, bags of towels and food and sunscreen on his arms and a beach umbrella strapped to his bare back.
She knows Lucas is satisfied with how far they’ve walked when he suddenly veers left, making his way up the sandbank to drop the bags onto the dry sand. Miri lets go of her hand to run after her dad, too excited to start playing in the water to wait for her mum, and it’s not only the golden sun making Rylee feel warm when she sees Lucas turn around to catch Miri and swirl her through the air, their smiles matching.
They lay out the towels, make sure the containers of fruit Rylee packed are against the ice packs and under the shade of the sun. She takes off her ripped denim shorts before sitting down on the towel, leaving her in a baby blue gingham one-piece and one of Lucas’ old white t-shirts that says CALIFORNIA across the chest. Miri is in her cute little one-piece with the ruffle skirt and watermelon print, and Lucas is in his red boardshorts, every single muscle on display. Not that Rylee is complaining.
“Miri,” Rylee calls, picking up the yellow bottle of sunscreen from one of the bags. “Sunscreen.”
Miranda looks at Lucas, as if she could get him to weasel her out of having sunscreen applied, but he just smiles at her until she trudges over to Rylee, a pout on her face that reminds her so much of Lucas.
Rylee laughs, “Is having to spend a couple of minutes with me so bad?”
“No! It’s not that!” Miri says, still stubbornly pouting as Rylee spreads the sunscreen on her precious little face. “I just wanna swim so bad! And dad doesn’t have to put sunscreen on.”
“Dad’s a silly goose. And we’re not, isn’t that right?”
That changes Miri’s mood, making her go from pouting to smiling and laughing and throwing her arms around Rylee’s neck. “We’re smart! Daddy’s dumb!”
“Hey!” Lucas says, walking over with his hands on his hips in fake dramatics. “I can hear you.”
Miranda pokes her tongue at Lucas, then let’s go of Rylee to chase him across the sand. Rylee puts the sunscreen away and adjusts her wide brim straw hat from where Miri knocked it, relaxing back onto her elbows and smiling softly as she watches them play.
“Alright, alright, little gremlin,” Lucas laughs, tickling Miri so that she laughs so loud that it echoes off the rockface behind them. “Let’s go for a swim.”
“Yes! Swim, finally. Mom, are you coming?”
“No, sweetie.”
Lucas lets go of Miri to go to Rylee and lean over her on his hands, a look of mischief on his face. Rylee looks up at him, his skin tan from the sun, hair already beach messy, his smile surrounded by some shallow laugh lines, and he’s still as beautiful as he was when they were young.
“I think mom does want to come for a swim,” Lucas says, wrapping his arms around Rylee to pick her up off the towel.
Rylee pushes against his chest to no avail, her hat falling onto the sand as he starts jogging towards the water. Miri runs after him, laughing in pure mirth.
“Lucas, no.”
“It’s happening,” Lucas laughs.
“No, no -”
Rylee cuts herself off once she hears his feet splash into the water, followed shortly by the sound of Miri screaming and throwing herself into the waves. She squeezes her eyes shut and braces her muscles against the inevitable cold shock to the system once he throws her into the water.
It doesn’t come. Instead, she feels Lucas slowly lowering her down into the water, her feet touching first, the water surprisingly warm and pleasant. She opens her eyes and stares up at Lucas, who’s smiling down at her, looking like a stupid idiot in love.
“No, dad! You have to throw mom in, like this!” Miri says, throwing herself into the water as a demonstration.
“Nah, mom’s too delicate like that. You have to do it slowly, like she’s a cat.”
“Oh my god,” Rylee says, because the thing she actually wants to say is shut up, asswipe, but they agreed not to talk around Miri like that.
They go down into the clear blue water together, and when they’re submerged to their chests, Rylee leans her head against Lucas’ shoulder and he kisses the top of her head. Miri comes over then, too impatient to put up with her parents being sappy, but Rylee catches her before she can splash them and brings her to her chest. Miranda wraps one arm around Lucas’ neck and one around Rylee’s, presses her face against their shoulders in a hug, and if it wasn’t for their skin on hers, Rylee would struggle to comprehend the fact that this perfect life, with her perfect husband and perfect daughter, is hers.
Bianca frowns, slowly swirling the wine in her glass. “Wait, you were on the soccer team?”
“…I mean. Yeah? Literally the whole time we went to high school.” The exasperation is already visible on Lucas’ face; he’s always taken pride in being unforgettable and Bianca’s blatant nonchalance isn’t easy to tackle.
“Huh. I had no idea.”
“I - you came with Rylee to a couple of my games!
“Oh, that’s why we went?”
Lucas is so focused on her that he doesn’t see Rylee trying to hide a grin by taking a sip from her own glass, doesn’t see Jamie biting her lip as she goes to the fridge to pour herself another glass of chilled rosé. “Oh my God. Why did you think you were there?”
“Eh, figured Ry had the hots for someone on the team.”
“She did! Me!”
Bianca turns to her sibling, then, eyebrows raised in surprise. “You guys dated way back then?”
cherry would have the neatest town. she would carefully make sure she had the villagers she wanted - and if that takes a year, so be it - and then she’d start planning. neat paths, trees in immaculate rows, the only flowers would be lilies for uniformity and all of them would be pink or white. It’d be such a beautiful, symmetrical place. town & house ratings would be through the roof in no time.
lucas’ town would be a mess. “this looks cool!” he’d say and then you would have that fucking oil rig right next to the fountain. he’d neer figure out that the evergreens have a better chance of surviving if you plant them on the top of the map. he’d want palm trees everywhere and be super annoyed when he can’t. and then he’d plant fucking bamboo and it would spread everywhere. he’d neglect the game for weeks and then ask cherry to visit his town because he KNOWS she’ll pick every single weed for him. he’d be the worst at museum stuff and have, like, the basement full of forged art because he’s too embarrassed to sell it and you can’t just THROW stuff!!
bianca’s town would be so cute?? she’d have cute villagers and some cute patterns and stick the game in jamie’s hands and say “go wild”. alternatively, she’d ask jamie to find her some cute QR codes and mess around with them until she liked the result. she’d probably not really care about the art or insects, but she finds the fishing nice and does it in bed while listening to audiobooks.
i found this while looking for the other timeline doc and it’s UPDATE TIME on this very important subject because of reasons
- i think cherry would share her switch with isaac (or at least offer him to make a character on her island) and plan things together with him. she would enjoy decorating, definitely wouldn’t let her island turn into Flower Hell, and everything would look very neat and organised. the museum would probably dominate the island, i can see it placed on the third tier in the back/center with dinosaur skeletons and the ~scientific~ space stuff nicely placed around the island. izzy would probably be the one to make sure the bugs and fish of the month are caught if they share. cherry decorates with primarily white lilies/hyacinths/roses and doesn’t really touch the beaches (but doesn’t mind if izzy does). resets until she gets a town plaza as centered as possible. favours normal and snooty villagers. eunice is def a fave.
- lucas’ town would STILL be a mess. he might hand his switch over to one of the others and let them do whatever, he doesn’t care. as a result, his island would always change a lot week by week. he’d just pick whichever villagers he vibes with and end up with a bunch of jocks/uchis/peppys and be super annoyed when he HAS TO pick a snooty villager and settle on ankha because she’s the only cool one (to him). the others might feel bad for him and come over for flower digging/weed pulling raids. he decorates with a bunch of gym equipment and, in contrast to cherry, has so many things on the beaches. probably reset a few times at the start to get as much beach as possible and constantly complains about his plaza location.
- bianca’s favourite villager is pashmina because i said so and because it’s a given considering pashmina-centric conversations in the discord. they’re neighbours. it’s cute. pashmina is probably also the only villager who never moves off bee’s island - otherwise i think she goes for the most colourful ones just for fun. TOTALLY gets pietro, francine, anc chrissy. her island is very colourful as well; all flowers, all colours, tons of bushes, and a lot of nice bright hangout spots. she collects everything that glows, has rocket lamps/floor lights/mush lamps/nova lights/palm tree lamps everywhere in all colours. it’s possible that she and rylee share a switch? and if not rylee probably has a lot of input and there are green beach towels in flower patches here and there, and lots of benches and chairs wherever you go. absolutely no paths though, because fiddling with the controls like that puts too much strain on bee’s fingers and the closest you get to paths is areas without flowers. she probably does very little terraforming tbh. it is what it is.
my ocs sharing switches with ur ocs <333 just soulmate things
- izzy definitely is the one to complete the critterpedia + fossil collection, LOVES every celeste DIY and would also grind to build every colour of the robot hero and would probably have as many godzillas as cherry would allow :3c ribbot still stands as izzy’s fav villager (ROBOT FROOOOOG), is a cranky + snooty villager stan for life otherwise
- rylee would be glad for bee because without her, her acnh town would be as messy as her acnl town. old post for reference dgjdf --> rylee’s town would be suuper messy. like, she would buy nice things from the shops but would be too lazy to put them in her house or locker so she’d drop them on the ground. and she ends up with shit ev e r y where. she would never touch terraforming or anything like that, would be Beyond devastated that brewster and phyllis arent in the game (is a bit of a new leaf elitist on those facts alone), loves the lazies, crankies and normals, is a coco stan because she relates to the emptyness :3
you get in my way? i’ma feed you to the monster
i’m normal during the day, but at night turn to a monster
when the moon shines like ice road truckers
i look like a villain outta those blockbusters
godzilla, fire spitter, monster
blood on the dance floor, and on the louis v carpet
kinda obsessed with thinking about lucas’ thought processes as he goes from “lol rylee has a crush on me” to “rylee??? kinda hot tho???” so heres This
Stray snowflakes fall through the dark evening sky, drifting slowly down until they melt against Lucas’ jacket. He knocks at Rylee’s front door before cupping his hands around his mouth to blow onto them, trying to take the chill from his skin.
It takes a few long moments for the door to open, but when it does, it reveals Rylee with a knit cardigan falling off one of her shoulders, a grey bralette tight across her chest and baggy sweatpants hanging off her waist.
Lucas stands frozen for a millisecond, hands still over his mouth, taking in the pale skin of her shoulder, the curve of her breast as it disappears under grey material, the expanse of her stomach, bare for once. It’s the most of her body that he’s ever seen and he isn’t sure what to do with it or the sudden rush of blood that goes straight to his pelvis.
“Did you forget your keys again?” Rylee grumbles, but then her eyes grow wide and her cheeks flush pink when she realises who is standing at her door. She pulls the cardigan across herself, much to Lucas’ disappointment. “Lucas? What are you doing here?”
“Was bored, thought we could watch a movie,” Lucas says, his voice sounding weak even to his own ears.
“You could have rang, asshole.”
“I tried. You never answer, Rolls.”
Rylee looks less angry, less embarrassed after he says that. She turns, looking over her shoulder to make sure Lucas is following, and it only reminds him of her bare shoulder and oh god, he only has sweatpants on, he can’t pop a boner right now.
He follows her, shutting the door behind him. He takes off his jacket and beanie and leaves them by the front door before joining her in the living room, where she’s already sitting on the couch, television on but muted.
When he sits next to Rylee, she leans her weight against the left of his body. That isn’t unusual, but what is unusual is Lucas’ hyper awareness of her next to him -- he’s aware of the pale skin hiding under the wool of her cardigan, skin he suddenly wants to taste and maybe sink his teeth into, just a little bit.
It doesn’t make sense -- Lucas is above getting horny over a flash of skin like a fourteen year old, and this is Rylee. She’s a friend, a good one, sure, but not one he wants to kiss. But It’s as if he’s realising for the first time that there’s a person under all that material and long blonde hair, and that person might be hot, and all he wants to do is . . .
Something.
“What did you want to watch?”
“Uh,” Lucas says, because if he didn’t, something stupid like you on top of me might have slipped out. “I wanted to watch the new John Wick movie.”
“Sure.”
Even Keanu Reeves being cool isn’t enough to take Lucas’ attention. As the movie plays, Rylee relaxes, the cardigan slipping off her shoulder again, giving Lucas another glimpse of the front of her chest. Without thinking, he moves his arm to run a fingertip along the curve of her shoulder and her skin is just as soft as he thought it would be.
Rylee looks up at him when he does it. There’s a long moment where they stare at each other, their faces too close, and something akin to anticipation curls in Lucas’ gut but then Rylee looks away and Lucas is left again feeling weird and misplaced, as if something in his bedroom had been slightly moved but he can’t tell what.
bianca’s home alone at the farmhouse when something crashes out in the cornfield. she gets herself and her dog into the truck to investigate but definitely didn’t expect what she finds.
in this installment: we move forward! camp is set up, we learn a few more things, the nerd-squad has some Moments™.
The fire burns low, almost all embers now but still bright in the deep dark. It won’t be long before frost paints fractals on the windows and winter sets in for real.
She reaches in under his arm and he flinches, jolted out of his concentration for a second. “I did not mean to startle you,” she whispers, but of course there is no response - not beyond his arm moving enough to let her hand slip in and find its place in the crook of his elbow, a subtle change of pose so she can rest her head on his shoulder.
It was similar with her husband and the thought makes her heart ache - it has been three years since he passed and she cries less often now, but this, the way she is allowed to lean in rather than encouraged to do so is a reminder of what’s lost and what was meant to be a sigh curls into an almost-sob at the end.
He asks “do you need anything?” and that is enough to bring her out of it, to smile and tell him no before they both settle back in, him with his reading and her with her thoughts.
this is so beautiful celeste my heart is being squeezed, SUPER NERDS they're so tender and i love them and i love you most of all and your writing
the fact this happens over a long time frame is so perfect, the line about them not accepting change easily hhh its so perfect and so perfect for isaac's character because he would need time to, i guess get mentally ready
Osawagi's lips against her own feel like a cloud's touch: feather-light with blue-black lightening hiding underneath, powerful, sapping her breath. Electricity runs through Kimiko's blood straight to her heart, like a defibrillator waking up every emotion tucked away in the shadows. They are all Osawagi's. She is all Osawagi's, now and before.
