toni, mid-20s, they/them. queer digital humanist. hopepunk in academia. expect some inspirational and aesthetic reblogs and occasional fandom things. profile pic is by @kyuhu!
to be honest even if vaccines did cause autism i would rather live in a world where everyone is vaccinated and some of those people have autism than an unvaccinated autismless world. like ok whatever. would you rather have autism or polio. autism or measels. idk about yall but im choosing autism every time. its not even a hard choice.
I just think "data center water usage should be federally regulated," while less catchy and less emotionally charged, is a stronger political stance than "fuck AI." Targets the systemic flaw rather than a product, you know?
Data centres shouldn't be allowed in areas that experience drought or are Koppen classification B category (arid and semi-arid).
They should have federally regulated water usage and be required to have heat and exhaust treatment ON SITE
They should have daily penalties for failing to meet zero emissions targets scaled to their profit margin (i.e. a percentage rather than a set amount) THAT ARE ACTUALLY ENFORCED.
NO DEFERRED PROSECUTION AGREEMENTS. EVER.
They must show provenance for EVERY piece of art and writing in their data sets, and show that they have made contracts to use EVERY SINGLE ONE before they are allowed to use them. Hold them to the same standards as every other form of media.
They must inform the end-user about data privacy and that chatbots are not a substitute for therapy, research, programming, work, school, and are not to be used for anything but novelty.
All of this would severely hobble them and expose how much of a turkey GenAI actually is. I doubt they can make money off it without theft and lies. It's a very expensive toy.
39. I don't want to keep us a secret anymore.
46. Or we could make out.
Yooo anon I'm always happy to write NorHong again! And these two prompts fit perfectly with a fic that I'd been vaguely thinking of already, except it grew more plot than I was expecting lol. I hope you like it!
As always, Einar is Nor, Leon is HK, Egill is Ice, Dragos is Romania, Mei is Taiwan and Arthur is of course England and Yao's China :)
Send me a pairing and a number and I'll write you a fic!
-
The door of the living room slams open, and Egill nearly falls off the couch when Leon storms in, looking very frantic and waving his phone around.
“What the hell,” Egill starts, pulling his earbuds out, “what’s the matter with—”
“Can you reach Einar?”
Egill blinks up at his roommate when he comes to a halt in front of him.
“Einar?”
“Yes, Einar!” Leon’s thick eyebrows jump wildly. “Your brother? You might have heard of him? Can you reach him?”
“I don’t know, it’s not like we speak every day,” Egill says. “Why?”
“Can you just…” Leon starts pacing around the coffee table, looking at his phone intermittently. “Can you try calling him?”
“I never call, he’ll think something’s wrong. Leon—”
“Good! Maybe he’ll pick up!”
“Leon, what is going on?” Egill repeats, raising his voice a little. “Why are you so worried about my brother?”
Still pacing around the table in the small room, Leon says, “I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since yesterday afternoon, and I’m—I’m worried.”
Why the fuck does he even have Einar’s number, let alone have such frequent contact with him that one day without is enough to send him into this much of a frenzy? And why is Egill not aware of it?
“He’s probably on one of his, I don’t know, nature trips that he does. Really, why are you so worried?”
“He’d let me know,” Leon mutters, which makes no sense; Einar frequently just disappears for a couple of days without telling even his closest friends where he’s off to. Even when it’s March and still cold like it is now.
“Leon…”
“Can you please just try, Egill?” He turns to him again, clutching his phone in both hands.
With a sigh, Egill unlocks his own phone and navigates to his brother’s contact info. He’s a good friend, he wants that on the record. If his best friend wants him to talk to his brother, he will. He presses call. Listens.
“Voicemail,” he tells Leon, the robot lady’s voice still reading numbers at him. Leon’s eyebrows draw together and he sighs deeply as he sits on the edge of the coffee table, facing him. Something in his eyes gives Egill pause. “Should I text him?” he asks. Leon nods.
“Please.”
Egill texts Einar a simple ‘what’s up’ message, but doesn’t get a notification that it’s even received, so he shakes his head at Leon, who presses his lips together tightly.
“Will you tell me what’s happening here, Leon? Why do you apparently talk to my brother more than I do? I didn’t know you were friends.”
As soon as Leon opens his mouth to reply, Egill realizes with sudden clarity that there’s really only one explanation, and feels like an absolute buffoon for not piecing it together sooner.
“We’re dating,” Leon says, just as Egill thought, although it doesn’t make it any less of a shock. “We’ve been dating for over a year.”
Over a year? Alright, that part, he didn’t see coming.
“What the… How the hell did that even happen?”
“It’s…” Leon clears his throat. “Kind of a long story.” He glances at his silent phone, eyebrows jumping indecipherably again. “But I guess I’ve got the time.”
-
There weren’t a whole lot of people on the train, but Arthur still insisted Leon stay near him at all times, as if he were a five-year-old likely to wander off without adult supervision. So Leon sat across from the man and scrolled through Instagram for lack of better things to do, occasionally glancing around when someone exited or entered the carriage.
“Arthur Kirkland,” he suddenly heard a deep, smooth voice say, from behind him. Arthur looked up and smiled in surprise.
“Einar!” he said. Leon turned slightly to look at the man Arthur was standing up to greet. He was taller than him, willowy and pale in a dark blue shirt, one long-fingered hand on the strap of a messenger bag as he shook Arthur’s hand.
“What brings you to the city?” the man was asking.
“I’m taking Leon here to school,” Arthur said, sitting back down and gesturing towards Leon, who lifted one hand in an awkward little wave. Einar raised his eyebrows so that one disappeared behind the wavy blond hair falling against his cheekbone.
“University,” Leon felt the need to clarify, because the way Arthur insisted on saying it made him feel like a child.
The train bumped on the tracks, making Einar stumble in the aisle, so he grabbed the back of Leon’s seat. His bag swung into his shoulder.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. Leon shook his head, smiling politely up at him, and Einar smiled back minutely, before turning to Arthur. “So you… Work for the university now?”
Arthur shook his head, and Leon just knew he was going to say another one of his stupid confusing things. Sometimes, he thought the man did it on purpose.
“Leon is my ward.”
Yep, there it was.
“Ward?” Einar looked down at Leon, who rolled his eyes, which made him smile. His eyes were a surprisingly dark blue, especially compared to his pale eyelashes.
“His family has entrusted him to my care for now,” Arthur was explaining, which was a gross oversimplification of the whole mess that was that situation, and made Einar frown over at him.
“Arthur, we’re the same age.”
“Yes?”
“So that’s… How do you get a ward?”
“He keeps saying that,” Leon muttered irritably. “I’m nearly twenty.”
Surprisingly, he heard Einar hum a little laugh, while Arthur just said, “It’s a long story,” as if that explained anything.
Leon looked up at Einar, who quirked his thin eyebrows and smiled when he shrugged. He smelled like pine and firewood, which seemed out of place on a train.
“We should meet up sometime—oh, excuse me.” Arthur pulled his buzzing phone out and looked at the screen. “Must take this.” He stood and walked quickly out of the carriage with a clipped, “Kirkland.”
“Sure,” Einar said dryly, and then he sprawled into the man’s seat.
“How do you know Arthur?” Leon asked. Einar vaguely waved one elegant hand around.
“We went to school together. High school. Had this little gang of nerds.” He looked at Leon from underneath his eyelashes, then leaned forward. “What d’you study?”
“Oh, uh, criminology.” And, because everyone’s next question was always if he wanted to be a cop, “I want to go into research. Maybe lab work.”
“That’s admirable,” Einar said. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, tucking his ankles between Leon’s. “Is Arthur still at the apothecary?”
Leon nodded. “It’s how my family knows him.” He blinked at Einar, suddenly amused. “Wait, a gang of nerds? That seems, like, contradictory.”
Einar smiled enigmatically and tucked his hair behind one ear. Leon, who’d never had any problems picturing Arthur as a high school nerd, found it difficult to visualize this man as such. There was a quiet elegance about him that was pretty distracting.
“We really were, though. Or at the very least, we upset the teachers plenty by showin’ up at all hours to look for ghosts or play Magic: The Gathering in the basement.”
“Oh my god!” Leon laughed. “Really? How many of you were there?”
“Just three, mostly, although others definitely joined in every now and then.” Einar seemed amused, and his ankle, which was bare between his jeans and his shoe, pressed to Leon’s. “And to my dying day, I’ll proclaim my innocence about comin’ up with any of these plans. All Arthur and Dragos.”
“Hm.” Leon leaned forward. “But what would the evidence show?”
With a languid smirk spreading across his face, Einar only sprawled more in Arthur’s seat.
“I believe I have the right to remain silent.” It was the way his dark eyes flicked down Leon’s body that gave Leon the courage to smirk back. He shook his hair out of his face.
“Sure, but body language always speaks volumes, doesn’t it?” he said. His own body certainly did; his heart beat fast, and he swallowed heavily when Einar nudged their knees together by spreading his legs. On the face of it, it seemed innocent enough, but the sprawl he was in felt absolutely indecent to Leon.
The train was braking for the next station, which meant that there was only one more stop before he and Arthur had to get off.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Einar mumbled, biting his lip.
Arthur was still holding up his phone conversation, which involved a lot of ‘have you looked in the other drawer?’ and ‘no, the other drawer’, even as the train came to a halt and some new passengers entered the carriage. Luckily, it still wasn’t very crowded, and no one bothered to ask Leon to move his luggage. So he just sat there, with Einar’s legs pressed between his, while the train started moving again.
“Next stop’s mine,” he told Einar, who nodded, lip still between his teeth.
Just as he opened his mouth to speak, Arthur entered the carriage again, and both of them straightened up. Arthur just smiled and thanked Einar for keeping his seat for him.
“No problem at all,” Einar told him, standing. “We really should catch up, Arthur. I’m sure Dragos would like to see you, too.”
“Certainly! Here.” Arthur handed Einar his phone, and the man—presumably—programmed his number in, then looked over at Leon.
“If—Leon here needs any help… Gettin’ around the city or anything, I’d be happy to…”
Arthur was nodding, and so Einar handed his phone over to Leon in turn, smirking conspiratorially. He saved his contact info simply as ‘Leon Li’.
The train started braking again, and Arthur began gathering Leon’s luggage.
“Nice to meet you, Leon Li,” Einar said, his cold fingers brushing Leon’s when he took his phone back.
“Yeah.” Leon glanced at Arthur. “See you around, maybe.”
“I’d like that.”
Leon shouldered his bag, and followed Arthur to the train doors. It was time to go meet his new roommate.
-
“People tell me all the time how much I look like Einar and you didn’t realize?” Egill asks, choosing to focus on that instead of all the blatant flirting. He doesn’t know how his brother does it, honestly. Well, Leon’s disarming, he supposes, in a way. It’s why they’re friends.
“Well, it’s not like it makes any sense for that to happen!” Leon says. “Also, your hair was literally purple.”
Oh, right, it had been.
“Yeah, alright. But you must’ve realized pretty soon, right?”
“Uh, it took a while, actually.” Leon taps his fingers on his phone. Turns the screen on and off. “We had other things to do, at first.”
Egill squints at him, then grimaces. “Leon, I don’t want to hear about my brother’s sex life!”
“What? No, that’s not even it. Look, it took us until two months into the school year to even meet again.”
-
Leon would’ve liked to see Einar soon, if just to see if it was a fluke, the way the man had looked at him, or if the crackle it had sent down his spine would be more than a one-off. But, with the start of his second year at university, and settling into the new apartment with his roommate—who was a cool guy, Leon thought, even if he’d taken a while to warm up to him—there just never seemed to be time. Einar had texted, not long after they met, and he took Leon’s excuses in stride. His texts were friendly, mostly, although he always responded in kind when Leon dared to make a slightly flirtatious comment. He sent nice pictures of the city, or little observations, and seemed interested in hearing about Leon’s lectures.
So, when they finally did agree to meet, Leon felt like he had somewhat of an understanding of who Einar was, and vice versa, and he rather liked it.
There was definitely a crackle under his skin when Leon spotted Einar at the local park where they were meeting and Einar’s dark blue gaze swept down his body again. Standing up from the bench he’d been sat on, Einar smoothed out his woolen coat and smiled at Leon as he removed his headphones.
“Hello, Leon Li,” he said, and Leon rolled his eyes.
“Just Leon will do. Hi.”
“If you say so. Nice to see you again.” Einar held out a hand, which Leon shook, politely, although he took the opportunity to step close to him, so that he had to tilt his head back to meet Einar’s eye. Einar only smiled some more, slowly, and swept his fingers briefly over Leon’s wrist, under his coat.
“Y’know, I wasn’t joking,” he said. “About showin’ you around the city, if you want.” His fingertips now curled into Leon’s palm as he finally drew his hand back, which made Leon shiver.
Much as he wanted to make a flirtatious comment right then about just what Einar could show him, he decided to save it for later, if the opportunity arose. Instead, he nodded.
“I haven’t really gotten out a lot, I guess.”
“Yeah, I remember that from university. Wanna go get some food?”
“Sure.”
Gently touching Leon’s back, Einar led them out of the park and into the winding streets of the old city, while Leon told him about how his classes were going—that, one of these days, he might get used to hearing about all the horrible things people do to each other.
“What did you study?” he asked Einar, because that had somehow never come up in all of their texts, and the man smiled wryly.
“Medieval history. And now I edit a newspaper, so…” He frowned. “I forgot to ask, any food… Allergies, or preferences?”
“Will it change where you take me?” Leon asked curiously as they crossed a bridge into a less busy part of town.
“Hm, I could probably think of many places to take you. It’s just good to know.” The smirk Leon could see out of the corner of his eye told him that Einar definitely knew what he was saying. “You know, what if I want to make you dinner?”
“What if you made me breakfast?” Leon replied, and watched as a corner of Einar’s lips ticked up again, though he didn’t reply. “Anyway, I’m lactose intolerant, but nothing too bad.”
“Good.” Guiding him down an alley, Einar pushed open the door of a little café and gestured Leon in.
The odd thing was, Leon thought as they ate some delicious pastries, that it felt… Easy. It felt as though he knew Einar already. And, sure, he never really had problems connecting with people, but still.
“You got any plans for the rest of the afternoon?” Einar asked, looking at Leon over the rim of his dainty little coffee cup with those peculiar eyes.
“Not really.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, and was sure he saw Einar smile as he sipped coffee. “Any ideas?”
“Hm… I could show you the river, or we could go to a museum…”
“Or we could make out,” Leon said, emboldened. He grinned when that made Einar splutter into his coffee, pale skin turning red. Oh, he had freckles! They stood out when he blushed.
“I guess we could do that, too,” he mumbles. Cleared his throat. “Very straightforward. I like that, Leon.”
Leon wet his lips, which Einar unsubtly watched, but then, the man frowned, and Leon met his eye.
“Look, we don’t have to,” he said.
“Oh, believe me, I wanna. But I do feel like we oughta talk about it first.” And, at Leon’s nod, he leaned forward over the table as well, lowering his voice until the smooth sound rose just above the general hum of conversation. “You barely know anything about me.”
“Isn’t that exactly the point of, like, dating?”
“Okay, fair enough. You really wanna date a guy twelve years older than you?”
Leon quirked his eyebrows, saying, “I’ve got no problems with that. A little into it, to be honest. Do you want to date a guy twelve years younger than you, Einar?”
“Y’know, I guess I do.” He blinked. “You’re… My brother’s age.”
His brother, huh. That hadn’t been mentioned before either.
“I’m also my sister’s age,” Leon offered. “On account of how we’re twins.”
“Huh. Got more to learn about you, hm?”
“Much more,” he replied, quirking his eyebrows again, and Einar smiled that languid smile that Leon already knew he would love to see more of, just because of the promise it held.
“Alright,” Einar breathed.
“Yeah,” Leon agreed. “You know, I’d actually really like to see the river.”
“I can do that.”
Einar showed him the river, and they didn’t quite get around to making out just yet, but Leon was honestly quite content with the way Einar tucked his hair behind his ear as they waited at the bus stop at the end of the afternoon, and how he swept his long fingers over his jaw softly.
“Goodnight, Leon Li,” he said, and laughed when Leon rolled his eyes, his bus pulling up.
“Night, Einar. I’ll hold you to dinner.”
-
“What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me. Did you tell anyone?” Egill frowns at Leon, who fidgets. Sure, it would’ve been odd, but in the end, Egill only wants the best for both Einar and Leon; if ‘the best’ happens to be each other, then so be it.
“We didn’t really tell anyone,” Leon says. “It wasn’t even on purpose, at first. We were just, you know, going on a couple dates, having fun.”
“Oh, god, did he make you his fish surprise?” Egill laughs when Leon grimaces. “See, if I’d known, I could have warned you to steer clear!”
“Very funny, Thomassen. Anyway, there is one person who found out.”
-
Einar looked a little dubious, which amused Leon.
“Not your thing, is it?” he asked, standing on his tiptoes to get close enough that Einar could hear him over the music. The man made a vague motion with his hand, letting it land on the back of Leon’s neck as he leaned down a little. The electronic beat thumped through both of them steadily.
“D’you want me to be tactful about it?”
Intrigued, Leon raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“Well, in that case, I feel like I could give a dog a drum machine and it’d be better than this.”
Leon couldn’t help but laugh, which made Einar smile.
“Fair enough.” When he turned his head, Einar’s sharp nose brushed through his choppy hair. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“If it’s alright with you.”
Leon didn’t mind; there would be plenty of time to check out this artist later, with friends who actually liked the music.
Once outside in the cold January evening, Einar turned to him as he was putting his earplugs away, saying, “You know this means you got full permission to make fun of the music that I like.”
“We’ll just have to agree to disagree, I guess.” Leon bumped his shoulder into Einar’s arm as they walked down the street. “Besides, you should hear the stuff my roommate’s into. Sometimes, I think he’s trying to summon something with all the, like, chanting and flutes and all.”
“That sounds like the things my brother likes.”
They had already reached the edge of the city’s main nightlife area, and it was getting less crowded. Leon didn’t have any particular destination in mind; over the past few months, it had continued to be easy to just spend time with Einar, and he was happy to do just that. Even if it meant walking outside in freezing weather, his fingers all but threatening to fall off.
As if Einar could feel it too, the man reached down and silently tangled their fingers together. Smiling ahead at the street, Leon tucked both of their hands into his coat pocket.
“How come your hands are warm?” he asked. Einar squeezed his fingers.
“Just used to it, I guess.”
Before Leon could reply to that, they were both startled when a hoarse voice ahead of them called, “Einar! You didn’t tell me you had a thing!”
Leon’s hand jerked, and Einar looked down at him with concern. He shook his head, squeezing the man’s long fingers in his coat pocket.
“Not that I’m calling you a thing,” said the man the voice belonged to, halting in front of them. “Unless you’re into that—”
“Dragos!” Einar snapped, and the man grinned lopsidedly, rocking back on his heels.
“Sorry, I’ll leave that to you.” He looked down at Leon with a frown. Although he was significantly less tall than Einar, both of them towered over him. “You either got good genes or Einar never gets to make fun of me for dating a guy eight years older than me ever again.”
“Dragos…” Einar started again, while Leon looked up and said, deadpan, “I am 59 years old.”
The guy, Dragos, barked a laugh while Einar fell silent. Leon met his eye and shrugged, biting his lip to keep a grin down.
“I like this guy, Einar,” said Dragos, and why was that name familiar?
“Me too,” Einar told him, in such a quiet, earnest way that it made Leon shiver.
Hold on…
“This guy is the other member of your gang of nerds?” he asked Einar incredulously, and Einar actually grinned while Dragos started to sputter indignantly.
“You have a good memory, Leon Li.”
“But you’re… And he’s…” He gestured with his free hand at Dragos’s floor-length coat and pointed boots and the eyeliner he was wearing, visible in the glow of streetlamps. “And Arthur is so… Arthur.”
“He had a whole punk phase,” Dragos said. “Besides, I don’t know if you know this, but this guy knits his own sweaters.”
With a jaunty little wave, he flounced off, while Einar angrily muttered, “It’s crochet and you know it.” And, calling after his friend, “Hey, Bălan, don’t mention this to Arthur!”
“Sure! See you later, Thomassen!”
“Thomassen,” Leon echoed, just as Einar was about to say something to him.
“Yeah, that’s my surname.” A pause. “Hm. Guess I hadn’t mentioned that before.”
“Einar…” Leon blinked up at him. “Is your brother’s name Egill, by any chance?”
Einar blinked back. Nodded slowly.
“Huh. Small world.”
-
Leon shrugs once more.
“I don’t know, I guess it felt kind of awkward to tell you at that point.”
Egill slumps against the back of the couch. Even if that’s true, he’s sure another opportunity could’ve been found in the year since.
“I can’t believe Dragos knew,” he just says. “Of all people.”
“You know Dragos?”
“Yes, I know Dragos! I was around when this infamous gang of nerds was formed.”
“Oh my god! You knew teenage Arthur!”
“Yes, but—Leon, I don’t think that’s the point right now.”
Sobering, Leon checks his phone again, and Egill does as well. There are no messages from his brother, and despite himself, he’s getting worried too.
“But Dragos is the only person?” he asks Leon. “You didn’t even tell your sister?”
“Dude, you know Mei. She can’t keep a secret.” Leon sighs. “It’s mostly about the whole mess…”
“With your uncle. Right.”
-
Wearing those platform boots, Einar was even taller than he usually was, and Leon might not understand his taste in music—it all, unfortunately, just sounded like men with sore throats shouting a lot to him—he very much enjoyed some of the outfits that came with it. The shoes made Einar’s long legs look even longer, and Leon focused on that. On how those legs would feel wrapped around his waist as he now knew they could be, or trembling around his shoulders.
It didn’t quite seem to work like usual, though, and by the time Einar was done playing him a song on his violin that was surely very good, the man looked concerned. After putting his violin away, he slowly crouched in front of Leon, putting his hands on his thighs.
Swallowing, Leon met the familiar dark blue eyes. He still kind of felt like an idiot for not realizing sooner that Einar was his roommate’s brother, or at least related. They had very similar features, especially the striking eyes. And here, in Einar’s house, there were actually plenty of photographs of Egill, but he’d been very preoccupied the first time he’d visited.
“You’ve been quiet.” Einar curled his fingers into Leon’s jeans.
“I know. Sorry.”
Einar shook his head, blond hair covering one eye. Leon swiped it away, letting his hand linger over Einar’s sharp jaw.
“Just let me know if there’s anything I can do?”
“I think…” Spreading his legs, Leon pulled Einar closer until he leaned up and pressed himself against Leon’s chest. “For right now, I think I just need to be distracted.”
“I can do that,” Einar breathed, voice heavy with promise and nudging their noses together. “You sure that’s what you need?”
“For now,” Leon repeated, and he turned his face down to kiss Einar, immediately deepening it.
Einar leaned on his thighs to press back, the smell of pine and woodsmoke surrounding him. He tasted like coffee, as he nearly always did.
“I want to make a request,” Leon mumbled into his mouth.
“Yeah? Whatever you want.”
“Leave the boots on.”
Einar pulled back and that slow smirk stretched across his slick lips.
“As you wish.”
-
“How the fuck is that relevant to the mess?” Einar shouts, desperately trying to erase the mental image his friend’s put in his head.
For his part, Leon is just laughing, doubling over on the edge of the coffee table.
“Jesus Christ, I’m suddenly very happy I was never informed.”
“It’s—it’s relevant, I promise,” Leon giggles.
-
While Einar finally tugged his boots off, Leon sat on his knees on his bed and leaned his forehead against the man’s bare back, letting his hair fall around his face. Einar stayed still until Leon shifted to rest his chin on the man’s shoulder, when he leaned his head back. Still quite flushed, the freckles on his nose and cheeks stood out. Leon absently carded his fingers through Einar’s hair, working out some tangles he’d probably caused himself.
“It’s about my uncle,” he eventually mumbled, his lips nearly against Einar’s neck.
“Hm?” Einar nodded slightly. Reaching back, he swiped his fingers over the top of Leon’s free hand.
“I never really explained how Arthur came to be… You know, whatever Arthur is.” Leon took a deep breath. “I’ve told you my uncle basically raised me and Mei. He’s run the apothecary my whole life.”
Einar hummed again, fingers stroking gently. He’d closed his eyes, listening.
“Arthur came to work there when I was, like, fourteen.” Leon bit his lip. “Anyway, long story short, some shady stuff happened, my uncle’s gonna be on trial for something he definitely didn’t do and so Arthur’s looked after us for a while and I really want to believe he wasn’t involved but sometimes I’m just not sure and I hate it, and I guess that’s just been on my mind today.”
Throughout his tirade, Einar had slowly turned to him and was now watching him with something very close to incredulity.
“I feel like that was a very long story, very short,” he said, but his fingers were still softly caressing Leon’s.
“Probably.” Leon pressed his lips to the junction of Einar’s neck and shoulder more deliberately, tugging at his hair in a way he knew he liked. Sure enough, Einar made a small, choked noise.
“That’s why you don’t want to tell your family about us?”
“It’s part of it. If Yao’s trial ever actually happens, I feel like we could…” He huffed. “Maybe it can be on your podcast.”
Einar, much to Leon’s amusement, had a podcast with the infamous Dragos, where they talked about legends and folklore. It did good numbers according to Einar, which Leon privately attributed mostly to Einar’s hypnotizing voice. Recently, Einar had confessed to him that what he really wanted to make was a true crime series, but Dragos just wasn’t interested. Leon would love to hear it, and he had plenty of ideas to contribute. Not about his uncle, though.
“Who knows,” Einar said, softly. And, “Really, again, if there’s anything I can do…”
“Honestly, it’s just nice to be with you.”
That made him smile one of those rare, beaming smiles that Leon loved to see, even as he shifted and climbed back on to the bed, and pressed Leon down into the sheets to straddle him. His hair was all loose in a mess of pale blond waves around his face, and Leon raised his eyebrows at him, amused.
“It’s almost summer, Leon.”
“Yeah?” It was; end-of-year exams were already underway.
“You wanna go somewhere?”
“Together?”
“Yeah. Somewhere else.” He kissed Leon, slowly, until Leon arched into him. “I wanna take my time with you.”
“I—ah— That sounds awesome.” He bit his lip as Einar ran his teeth along his jaw. “I have some—ideas.”
“About where we can go?”
Leon curled his fingers into Einar’s hair and tugged until the man looked up at him, blue eyes bright, flushed once more.
“Ideas about what exactly you could do with me, with all that time.”
“I have plenty of those, Leon Li,” Einar replied, and leaned back down.
-
“Please don’t—oh my god!” Egill interrupts himself. “I fucking introduced you guys at the end of the school year, and Einar was all ‘Hello, Leon Li,’ and I thought it was odd but—”
“I mean, it is a little odd,” Leon agrees. “I like it, though.”
“Weirdo. So that’s why you were so vague about your vacation? You spent it doing god-knows-what with my brother—do not tell me.”
“There was plenty of family-friendly stuff,” Leon protests. “Oh!” He turns his phone on again and shows Egill a picture of him and Einar, looking disheveled—though thankfully, fully clothed—on a riverbank. It looks nice, Egill thinks. They seem happy, and it makes sense somehow.
“He managed to convince you to go camping?”
“It was nice!” Leon says, smiling at his phone. “As long as I don’t have to his winter camping trips.”
“Fair enough. So, what do you guys do?” He narrows his eyes at Leon, who chuckles, but his smile turns soft in a way that Egill has never seen.
“You know. Stuff. We go to museums. We watch TV shows and then I watch ahead without him. I like to cook for him. He plays violin, or guitar, and I listen, or I play my keyboard. Stuff.”
“That’s nice,” Egill says, sincerely. Leon shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “But the mess with your uncle is basically done now, right?”
“Basically.”
“So…”
-
“What’re you doing here?” Leon asked incredulously. In the doorway of his and Egill’s apartment, Einar was framed by the hallway light, which shone through his wavy hair like a halo. He hoisted his shoulder bag up and didn’t immediately answer, biting his lip instead.
“Well, come in. Egill isn’t here.”
“Yeah, he’s home for the weekend,” Einar said. “I think him and dad went skiing.”
“Alright.”
“I heard your uncle got acquitted.”
Leon took a deep breath, leaning both hands on the kitchen counter, where he’d been waiting for water to boil for tea when the doorbell rang.
“He did.” He turned around, leaning back against the counter. The kettle clicked off.
“That’s great news, right?”
He nodded, smiling slightly. It really was. Finally, he and Mei had their uncle back, and they didn’t have to lose another parental figure.
“Would you…” Einar took a breath. “Would you introduce him to me?”
Leon looked up at him, somehow startled by the question.
“Or your sister. She sounds great. Or…” He stepped closer, and Leon hopped backwards on to the kitchen counter as he’d done many times in Einar’s house, to make them more level. Einar stepped between his legs as he always did, spreading his hands over his thighs.
“I want to,” Leon breathed. “Yao would like you, I think, and Mei’s gonna tease me. But it’s…”
“I don’t want to keep this—us—a secret anymore,” Einar whispered, leaning their foreheads close together. “I will, if you want that, if you aren’t ready, but I want to… I wanna introduce you to my parents, Leon. I wanna have Egill be disgusted at how much I like you. I wanna—”
Leon swore under his breath and kissed him quiet, curling his legs around the man’s thighs to pin him to the kitchen cabinets.
“I’m just…” Leon took a deep breath and met Einar’s eye. “It’s still not clear who is guilty. And I still don’t know if Arthur…”
“What if he is? What difference does it make for us?”
“I don’t—if Yao’s back, and this was all about control of the apothecary, and Arthur had something to do with it…”
“Leon,” Einar said softly, reaching up to push his hair from his face with ever-cold fingers, “do you think he did?”
“I don’t want to, but after everything, I just don’t know, Einar,” Leon confessed.
“And what does the evidence say?”
Leon paused. Huffed a laugh while Einar smiled a soft, fond smile, swiping his thumb over his cheekbone.
“Look, if all you’re worried about is Arthur Kirkland, I’ll talk to him, when you’re ready. Even if he did something, it has nothing to do with you, and certainly nothing with me.”
“I guess that is the only thing. It’s stupid.”
“Maybe.” Einar shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be worried about it. I’m claustrophobic.”
“Huh. Not really the same thing, but…” Leon nodded. “I’d like to meet your parents, Einar. Actually, your mom brought Egill food once. You look like her, both of you.”
Einar smiled wryly.
“But… Give me a couple more weeks. I need some time with my uncle, I think.”
“That’s alright. I can think about what to say to Arthur that doesn’t end with him thinkin’ I’m a creep.”
“I’m 21,” Leon grumbled, even as Einar pressed his lips to his forehead.
For a moment, they just stood there—or sat on the kitchen counter—silently tangled around each other.
“Wanna watch Ghost Adventures?” Leon asked, eventually.
Einar laughed. “Sure, let’s watch Ghost Adventures.”
-
“He said he’d go talk to Arthur yesterday,” Leon finishes. “And I haven’t heard from him since.”
Egill frowns. “And Arthur?”
“Not answering anything either.”
That certainly is odd, Egill thinks. He can’t really imagine Arthur Kirkland harming anyone, but then again, Leon probably knows him better, at this point. And he certainly knows more about psychology than Egill, who studies geology and mostly knows things about rocks, and tectonic plates, and volcanoes. He knows a lot about volcanoes.
“Do you think I should call the police?” Leon is asking, flipping his phone over and over between his fingers, like a card in a magic trick.
“Maybe we should go to Einar’s place first,” Egill suggests. “Aren’t you supposed to wait 24 hours or something to report someone missing, anyway?”
“Common misconception. If Einar would just make his podcast, you’d know. Alright.” Leon abruptly stands up. “I’m gonna go—”
“Me too,” says Egill, rising too. Leon blinks at him. “Leon, you’re my best friend. Even if it weren’t my brother we were talking about, of course I’d help out.”
“…Thank you.”
Somehow, at the exact moment that the both of them are in the hall of their apartment to get their coats, the doorbell rings. They look at each other, startled. The bell rings again.
Leon stands on his tiptoes to look through the peephole, gasps, and yanks the door open.
Einar all but falls into the hall, looking tired and disheveled but otherwise fine, and Leon immediately drags him down to kiss him, holding tight to the collar of his coat while Einar buries his hands in Leon’s messy hair.
Pressing his lips together awkwardly, Egill looks away, and only then notices that Einar wasn’t alone—Arthur Kirkland is standing out in the hallway, equally as tired as Einar and as awkward as Egill, but he has quite a nasty bruise on his jaw. With a sigh, Egill waves him in, shutting the door behind him.
“Well, it’s been quite the day,” Arthur says dryly.
“What the hell happened?” Egill asks him, because his brother is a little preoccupied whispering against Leon’s lips, slumped against the wall as if he can’t hold his own weight up. Arthur clears his throat lightly.
“To make a long story short… Yesterday afternoon, Einar was at the right place, at the right time, quite possibly saved my life, we got several people arrested, and we spent the night at the police station giving statements.”
“I’m sorry, what the fuck?” Egill bursts. Leon just stares up at Einar, who shrugs, as though this all makes perfect sense.
“My phone got smashed,” he says. And, “It’s not how I thought it’d go, but it worked out.”
“Worked out!” Leon echoes, tugging at his coat again. “I was so worried! I thought I—fuck—”
“I love you, Leon Li,” Einar whispers, barely loud enough for Egill to hear, but he gets a little choked up at just the soft expression on his brother’s face.
“Right,” he says, turning to Arthur while Leon whispers unintelligibly into Einar’s chest. “Do you want some coffee? You look like you need it.”
“Ah—right.” Arthur blinks, glancing once more at Leon and Einar. “If you have tea, that’d be nice.”
“Probably.” Egill leads Arthur into the apartment, glancing back once into the entrance hall. Einar smiles at him overtop Leon’s head, and Egill nods, smiling back.
Hopefully, he’ll get the rest of that story one day.
The fact that you can’t raise taxes on billionaires even slightly without them pouring money into fascist political movements is, of itself, evidence that billionaires as a class shouldn’t be allowed to exist in the first place.
I’d just like to point out that every single thing that has happened in the 6 years since I created this post has only reinscribed its absolute moral correctness in my mind.
Also now that I have my internet connection back I can finally post some of the lovely cookies @tonitoewyn sent me, which are related to the Ed and Lat christmas tree war post from 2020 and I'm over the moon about this ;v; They are so cute!
I'm saying some of because there where more types of cookies but I ate like 3/4 of them
Me, on the welcome desk in the library: Good morning, how are you today?
Customer: I have welcomed Jesus into my heart and so I am well today and every day.
Me, a little unnerved: Okay then! Is there something I can help you with?
Customer, digging around in his bag and pulling out an iPhone in a box: Unfortunately, Jesus can't help me with this fucking phone, so I came to the library.
i hate when i send someone a meme in another language and they're like "uhm... translate? 😒" fucker i sent you a meme where 90% of the words have an english cognate and/or you don't need to know what they're saying to find it funny. can you at least TRY
one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become
Aging userbase this, aging userbase that, the german side of tumblr apparently became aware of their retirement pension over night and are suddenly discussing and sharing tips on how to make sure that you get the right amount of money in the end.
