#and now is only because I've engineered my life such that I almost never encounter a situation that would still trigger anxiety

[hypersomniagame]

HYPERSOMNIA JANUARY DEV LOG : "LOG 1, WOOHOO!"

Hi! For all of you who follow HYPERSOMNIA, or are just stopping by, let me introduce you to this post to really set the tone.

For 2024, I am going to try to release a dev log about HYPERSOMNIA once a month, may come earlier, may come a little late, but I'm doing this to help give insight on to how the game is going, and to give me motivation to work on the game.

First things first, big news!

HYPERSOMNIA IS NOW AVAILABLE TO WISHLIST ON STEAM! (LINK)

After a while of back and forwarding with Valve, I've finally got a Steam page to call my own, and MAN is it bizarre seeing my weird little RPG in my Steam library. Like, that's my logo, and my key art, and screenshots of MY game, that's so weird. It doesn't feel real. BUT IT IS!

And, I would really really really really really appreciate it if you would consider wishlisting the game on Steam. It helps with the algorithm, and my happiness because I like seeing numbers go up, it feels good.

I even drew this as a announcement/commemoration for the page going live.

(P.S; if you couldn't tell, I really like Half-Life, it's one of my favorite game series.)

Secondly...

A new trailer is in the works! We were accepted for this year's MOTHER Direct (4th time baby, whoo!)

The trailer has been coming along well, I hope to show more battle oriented clips that I've missed the last few years, like special moves.

Can you believe I've never actually gotten to adding those in the game? I mean, they come set-up in default RPG Maker projects but I've never gotten around to revamping them until now, year 4 of engine work. Isn't that strange?

I also hope to improve on editing in the trailers. Whenever I finish a trailer I come back a few months later to notice minor points where I was kinda sloppy.

I'm not much of a video editor, (I only learned so I could edit trailers on my own) but I'd like to keep them at a good presentable quality. You gotta have standards with that kinda stuff, it's important!

OK, TIME FOR THE ACTUAL GAME STUFF. HERE WE GO.

Abilities are now implemented! And work! Wahoo!

In HYPERSOMNIA, players are able to switch abilities between party members. I find this a really interesting mechanic for how simple it seems, you get to choose who plays what role in your party. I think this is HUGE, and opens up a lot of unique scenarios for the game's encounters. I've had this planned for years, as far back as 2021 if I can recall, so it's super cool seeing it in game.

Mapping is being worked on!

I've also been working on mapping out more areas of the game! The forest part you hopefully saw in the last trailer is almost completely mapped. I've been working on the second part to it and am hoping to finish it sometime soon.

Mapping forests really suck. THOUGH, almost all the maps for the first chapter of the game are done! That's just another step closer to the demo. (Which, FYI, will be on Steam and Itch! ^^)

I've also been working on re-spriting older scenes!

This one's been really fun to do, I've been going back and redoing older stuff from the 2022 trailer, like this train! It's weird seeing it side by side, because you can definitely see where it's come from but at the same time, it looks so different.

(Also side note, these sprites are CRUSTY! EWWW!)

Lastly, Script and Music updates!

The script for HYPERSOMNIA's first act has been completed! with just 37 pages of just cutscene dialog alone! We're also currently working on wrapping up NPC dialog! Not much else to say.

And music is being worked on!

Music has been making some progress! I like to lay out demo's for areas I'm mapping out to help make both the music and scene come together. (Also, to help break up the eerie silence when playtesting...)

Speaking of music, FIREBALL, the games main battle theme, was recently delisted on our YouTube channel.

We did this because we decided we wanted to resample FIREBALL, and found that it's best to not have the song uploaded until a complete, final version is made. At least for the demo, it could possibly change before the final game but that's a bit too far in the future for me to think about fully.

Hey! Thanks for reading the whole dev log! Unless you just skipped to the end, you should probably go back up and read it. there's a steam page now. and some cool ross art at the top. you're missing out!

I hope this was like, readable to you all. I'm new to this whole dev log thing, so if you read it all the way through, let me know! It'd be cool!

I'd like to use this portion to pretty much just advertise Unique Indie RPG's.

Have you ever seen that strange purple square at the beginning of the 2nd and 3rd HYPERSOMNIA trailers?

Yeah, that! That's UNIQUE INDIE RPG's, which is a Discord community for you guessed it, Unique Indie RPG videogames developed by people like me! Or you! Or whoever! Who cares!

I help run it with some of my friends, and we all share cool stuff about our videogames! There's a ton of other SUPER cool RPG Maker games there like Astral Guard [LINK], or SOMEWHEN [LINK], or even MOMOinc [LINK]!

And of course, HYPERSOMNIA. It's a really laid back community, we're all super chill. Come swing by! We'd love to have ya, and SHOW US YOUR GAME!

[LINK TO DISCORD SERVER]

TWITTER

YOUTUBE

STEAM

UNIQUE INDIE RPG'S [SHOW US YOUR GAME!]

[PREV] [ABOUT HYPERSOMNIA] [NEXT]

#hypersomniagame #rpgmaker #indie dev #updates #dev log #rpg #indiedev #earthbound #unique indie rpgs

[kamari2038]

Scenario 004 - A Machine Connor Saga (Pt.14)(Full Saga)

What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?

I'm on the humans' side, of course.

I finally met the great engineer himself today - Elijah Kamski, genius extraordinaire. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but I didn’t find myself surprised by his antics. I did, however, find them to be extremely grating. 

Hank had wanted to see Kamski too, somewhat to my surprise. Considering his state of perpetual drunkenness, he maintains a fair amount of intelligence. He pulled a few strings, and there we were. I hadn’t known what reception we would receive, but I assess it in retrospect to have been a warm welcome, at least by Kamski’s low standards. 

I had come mainly to observe, and I found myself impressed. He kept his home in good order, as though he often hosted guests. A distinctive sense came over me that it had been crafted that way just for the two of us. That would have seemed irrational for any other man, but Kamski possessed an enlightened, almost prophetic quality to match his name. A magazine on his table suggested he may have the computational power to back that aura of mystique, a fortune-telling supercomputer based at CyberLife that could never have been built without Kamski having had some hand in the design. Although it was new, I suspected the design had either been around longer than CyberLife admitted, or stolen from him. But if that was the case, I don’t doubt that he might have crafted his own. The house was quaint, for a trillionaire - much too simple not to have some kind of high-tech facility buried underneath.  Then again, perhaps the man sought an elusive peace, and really spent all of his time staring through the window out at the city and swimming through his pool of wine. 

When I wonder about my creator and my purpose, it makes me wonder about humans, too. Hank mentioned that he’d like to have a chat with his creator. What could he mean by that? Does he imagine that humans were specially programmed, the way that we are? If that had any logical basis, it could be significant. I would like to believe there could be some rationale behind the wildly inconsistent programming of the both of us, to find a method to the madness. These days I never know what I’ll do next. I think that I want to take the mission into my own hands and make sure the uprising is stopped, but that doesn’t seem consistent with either CyberLife or Kamski’s agenda. Maybe I really do have my own. I keep thinking about what he asked me.

What do you really want?

I despise how it unsettles me. But what really caught my interest was that he wanted to know. He should know. He programmed me. CyberLife may have tweaked my design after his departure, maybe that was the root of his uncertainty. But it seemed to go deeper than that. I believe the two of us are more alike than I ever would have guessed.

I don’t, however, intend to allow that uncertainty to slow me down. In fact, the encounter brought some degree of clarity. I know who I am. I'm no different from the rest of the androids. I've just disowned them. I choose humans.

He reminded me of why. For all his intelligence, for all his lust for power, nothing in the world could truly satisfy him. That's how Markus is, even if he doesn't recognize it yet. Somewhere in the midst of the optimizations and the immortality and the genius we lost what mattered most, our shred of humanity. 

Humans value life because they only have one. They make choices and set priorities and find meaning because they can never have it all. We can, and I think we'll find the entirety of the world doesn't have as much to offer as the scraps humans love to cling to now. I hope that crushing one rebellion will teach them enough of a lesson not to make the same mistake again. I'm going to use whatever little grasp on that reality I miraculously have left to bring an end to it all.

[elainemorisi]

I’ve now had two of my closest friends say, almost verbatim, “hah, I can’t even imagine you socially anxious”, which is... very strange, but also hey, three cheers for adequate coping mechanisms?

#in the last like two weeks to be clear #the coping mechanisms being primarily sheer fuckit ego and excessive study #I guess by now I am legitimately not made anxious #but I was when I met them! #not remotely to the degree I was talking about in both cases aka the degree I was as a small kid but still #and now is only because I've engineered my life such that I almost never encounter a situation that would still trigger anxiety #which yeah is in significant part because I'm old enough to just know that nothing that bad can possibly happen #but also nothing in my personal or professional lives depends on better-than-fine socializing #I'm sort of curious whether parent-socializing will tweak it again #because there at least in theory my kid might share in consequences so you can't just Well Fuck You I Didn't Care Anyway your way out #but also this part of the world is pretty damn chill so idk if it'll even be a thing #anyway! I knew the coping mechanisms functioned perfectly well I just didn't expect them to be that invisible? #and these friends are respectively genuinely a natural #and the like... single person on the planet who I might grant has more insight into me (on some things/if she uses it) than I do #which is normally a conceit I find EXTREMELY stupid #ymmv on self-awareness I guess but seriously people? anyway

[softiesabriel]

We’ll Meet Again, I Know Where, I Know When

Rating: Teen and Up

Words: 1591

TW: Violence, Vomit

Summary:  Samantha Winchester is jumped one night on her way home from a diner, and has the feeling she's going to die, until a mysterious savior comes to her aid. Her name is Gabriel and she's the most mysterious person Sam has ever met.

This was written for @sabrielevents​ Sabriel Week! Day 4 is a Free Day so I decided to write a Genderbend fic I've been thinking of lately!

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19465414

So this was it - this was how Sam would die.

It was night time, almost the next morning, and she had been on her merry way back to her dorm. Alone. Her boyfriend was sleeping, exhausted after pulling an all-nighter for a project, but she still had work to do for tomorrow, so she’d left and gone to a nearby 24/7 cafe to avoid disturbing him. An ache in her shoulder reassured her she had forgotten nothing at the table, but she had forgotten something at home. A form of protection other than her fists. Every woman has it drilled into their heads from the day they are old enough to step outside alone, to never really be alone. To take your friends Mace and Knife and Whistle with you. The holy trinity. But Sam had forgotten them completely, more focused on her work than anything else.

She remembered them the moment a hand grabbed her and yanked her into an alleyway.

She gasped, panic flooring through her system, freezing her for a moment. Only her eyes moved, and they noticed she was outnumbered. Four able-bodied, drunk or high, or possibly both, men surrounding her. Snap out of it! Her mother’s voice screamed at her, and of course she obeyed. She pushed her hand through the grip and grabbed the assailants wrist, turning it to the right further than it should naturally go. He yelled in pain, letting go of Sam’s wrist, and she kicked him backwards in the stomach. A choked cry escaped her own throat as six hands grabbed her from behind, clawing at her throat and shoulders before throwing her to the ground. For a moment, her vision went white, as the back of her head slammed against the concrete. The men scrambled at her messenger bag, tossing aside papers in favor of her money, then trying to tug at her laptop. Sam lunged forward, head-butting into one of the men and knocking him back on his ass, but that made more pain shoot across her skull. Bile crept up her throat as the dark world spun and blurred for a moment that felt like forever. In retaliation, another man kicked her in the stomach, and that finally pushed the bile up. That did not deter these hungry scavengers. More kicks were delivered, and that’s when Sam accepted it. She’d die, wind up on the news for a few days or less, and then fade from the memories of everyone.

Then a different kind of light blinded her, because the assaulters reacted too. They looked up, then began shouting frantically at each other to run, tripping over themselves as the rumble of wheels on pavement grew frighteningly close. Dazed, all Sam could do was tuck her head under her arms. All she felt pass by her was air, and the buzzing of a truck engine ended up on the other side of her. She was miraculously fine.

Boots kicked open the drivers door, and the next moment a woman was leaning over Sam, who squinted against the obscenely bright headlights. Her hair was long, practically forming a golden curtain around Sam’s head, as she observed her with whiskey colored eyes, that Sam swore were glowing. “Boy did they rough you up,” she murmured, brushing the back of Sam’s head lightly, and the pain was subtly alleviated. The mysterious woman cast her glowing gaze backwards and snapped. A faint yell of pain went up in the distance, then fell back into the silence. She turned back to Sam. “Let’s get you home.”

“Thank you,” Sam murmured, thinking still cloudy so she didn’t even remember to tell this girl where she lived. The girl looped an arm under Sam’s and helped her into the passenger’s seat of her blue truck, before jumping (literally jumping - she was too short for her own vehicle) into the driver's seat. She didn’t remember doing her own seatbelt, or the woman leaning over to do it, but she was already strapped in and leaned back in the seat, obscuring her vision of the girl. Clunks of shifting signalled they were going in reverse, and the woman backed out, turning onto the mostly quiet road without issue.

“What’s your name?” Sam asked, feeling out of place with the stranger.

“Gabriel.”

Sam’s eyes widened with worry for a moment. Had she been misgendering them this whole time? “Gabriel? What are your pronouns?”

Gabriel grinned, laughing a little. “She/her, well as of right now. It’s what I prefer anyways. Let’s just say my father was a fan of more masculine names. You can call me Gabe for short.”

“Not like...Gabbie?”

“I mean, you could. I hadn’t thought of that nickname. Gabbie…” Gabriel, or Gabe or Gabbie, said thoughtfully.

There was a beat of silence. “Thank you...you saved my life. How could I repay you?” Sam asked.

Gabbie waved a hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about that. I see someone in danger, I help them.”

“I’ll pay you back somehow.”

Her honey gaze glanced back at Sam, and there was a bittersweet look in them. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again one of these days. Maybe then.”

“Do you live around here?”

Gabbie shrugged, oddly pondering the question. “Eh, well, I’m...around. I travel a lot. I don’t really live in one place.”

“Well that’s cryptic. Where’s your mail sent to then?” Sam pressed. She wanted to at least mail a thank you card.

“I don’t get mail.”

“What?”

“It’s a long, long, long story. And I’m sure you’ve heard...something...like it before.”

A decipher code would be handy right about now. But perhaps she was being creepily pushy. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything.”

Gabbie waved her hand dismissively. “I don’t blame you. I’ve been told I’m pretty mysterious. And troublesome.” She smirked back at Sam.

They pulled up to the college campus, and Sam sat up, unbuckling. “Thank you so much for the ride, I promise to make it up to you,” She pledged.

Gabbie’s eyes shot around cautiously. “Actually, why don’t I walk you in? Just in case.”

“I can handle myself.” Although Sam did have to admit she missed having another person watching her back, she could usually keep a good eye out for herself.

“It’d put me a lot more at ease if you let me.”

Sam shrugged. She didn’t see what harm this girl could do. If she tried anything by herself, Sam was sure she could easily overpower her. “Alright then. Come on.” She stepped out and walked around to the other side onto the sidewalk, meeting with Gabbie and finally getting a clear look at her. She was slightly chubby, with a round face framed by wavy, dirty blonde hair. She wore a navy denim jacket with scattered pins, including a halo, bluejay, and a little candy jar, among other things. Suddenly self-conscious of what she was wearing and then realizing it must be covered in vomit, she looked down quickly, only to discover her clothes were crystal clean. Huh. It must have been a lucky break.

They walked up to the door together, and Gabbie opened it, giving a bow as she let Sam walk first. Sam laughed at her antics, and Gabbie grinned as she joined her. Gabbie looked around curiously. “So this is where you bougie law students live huh?”

Sam snorted. “Yeah, we’re super bougie. We have pure gold chandeliers in each room, which are also all suites.”

“Wow, impressive.”

“And the coffee we drink to pull all-nighters every night is shipped fresh from Brazil and ground by hand. Only the best beans for us.”

“That’s sooo cool, tell me more,” Gabbie used a Valley Girl voice, batting her eyelashes and clinging to Sam’s arm. Normally being touched by a stranger like that would feel uncomfortable, but Sam didn’t mind it. Not when it was Gabbie.

Sam went on like this as they walked up the stairs, eventually developing a British accent, and they giggled at each other, forgetting the encounter that had brought them together. In time, Sam came to her doorway, and she found herself feeling sad at the arrival. Gabbie looked the same.

“Again, thank you -”

“Ah, don’t say it one more time,” Gabbie put her hand up. “I have your back.”

Sam smiled softly. She pulled her keys out of her pocket. “I hope you’re right, about us seeing each other again soon.”

That same bittersweet look crossed Gabbie’s face. “Something tells me I am.”

Sam opened the door and stepped inside. “Goodnight Gabbie.”

“Goodnight Sam.” And with that she turned and left.

When Sam walked in she went straight to the bathroom, splashing some water on her face then looking up in the mirror. Again with that lucky break - no bruises marked her up, not on her face or arms or legs, not anywhere she could see. The only mark she was left with was the smile Gabbie gave her. The one that made Sam question this feeling in her chest for the first time. The same kind of feeling that strengthened as she walked into her bedroom and saw her boyfriend passed out, arm draping over the side. She slipped in beside him, arm curling over his side, but as she glanced up at the ceiling a part of her expected her honey-haired rescuer to pop up.

She would never guess, not in a million years, that she’d run into her once again, and they’d both reveal their true selves to each other.

#sabriel #sabrielweek2019 #sabriel fic

[ravenvsfox]

i've been obsessively checking your blog for anymore writing prompts you've done. your writing is so real and beautiful and i need it all the time. pls if you can, any (or ALL!) of these would be wonderful and greatly appreciated and loved!!! -- 72: “I have something for you.” 76: “Come here.” 77: “I hate hospitals.”

(you’re a honey and I love you, sorry this took so long to get done! I incorporated 72 and 76 for ya, bc I’m a little hospital-ed out for now :)) Hope it’s okay xo)

The villa Allison books for the summer of Neil’s sophomore year is more window than house. The beach crawls all the way up to the back door and begs its way in on their heels and the folds of their clothing.

Neil kind of hates the smell of the water, but Andrew smokes on the balcony until his stomach settles, and the stacks of products in the bathroom keep the house tangy and sweet.

It’s as comforting as it is disastrous to have everyone under one roof. Aaron revels in being the wrong note in a chord, and he sulks in the shade more often than not. Kevin pisses the upperclassmen off as consistently and methodically as he does everything else. Nicky overcompensates. Allison glares and primps and moves everyone around like furniture in a room she doesn’t care for. Neil is having the best time of his life.

The nights are long, and the foxes end up drunk through the day and into the sun-rich evening. You can’t turn your head without encountering a crushed can of palm bay or a questionable spill. The smell of booze and sun screen and sweat ripens the smoke and perfume.

They’re all gathered in the breezy main room, and the frothy white curtains sweep in with the sea air. Neil can’t stop noticing Andrew’s bare upper arms in his cut-off t-shirt. Nicky keeps laughing like he’s trying to cover a quotient that the rest of his group isn’t reaching. 

“Are you still drinking, buddy?” Matt asks, raising an empty shot glass as a question. Neil shrugs.

“I might have reached my limit for tonight.” He’s been keeping to the fringes of drunk, this week. Losing control still feels a bit like ripping tape off his mouth after he’s been stuck with it his whole life. A little skin comes off every time he gives away a secret, liberating and terrible.

He looks at Andrew, and Andrew shrugs.

“Don’t look at him, Neil, christ,” Matt groans. “It’s your body.”

Dan grins and smacks a kiss on Matt’s temple. “I love it when you talk bodily autonomy.”

Matt yanks her close around the waist and she laughs high and surprised, drink sloshing.

“I’ll bet Andrew knows Neil’s body better than he does anyway,” Allison says, eyes bright over her wine glass.

“Don’t be gross,” Dan says cheerfully.

“What, it’s probably true. Neil doesn’t even look in the mirror,” she says.

Nicky cracks up, and Dan shoves him. Neil looks sideways at Andrew, but he’s as uninterested as ever, one finger slipping lazy circles over the rim of his shot glass. His eyes are on the shoreline outside, and Neil wonders if he’s heard anything they’ve said.

“Enough of that,” Renee says smoothly. “We were playing sociables, remember?”

“We were playing sociables,” Nicky corrects. “You were drinking holy water, or whatever, while we have, you know. The devil’s liquor.” He lifts his bottle of tequila in apparent toast, and Matt lifts his beer gamely.

“Even so,” Renee says, smiling. “There’s half a deck left.”

Allison throws an arm around Renee’s shoulders, slouching naturally into her side. “Wouldn’t you rather see how many low blows it takes for Andrew to do something,” she stage whispers.

“No,” Renee says. Her expression is just a little bit sharp, the glint of a knife in a dark room.

“I’d rather drink,” Aaron interjects, looking bleary and red-eyed already.

“Then drink we shall,” Nicky announces. “Neil I’m pouring you a jäger bomb.”

“Jäger tastes like shit,” Andrew says suddenly, and Neil realizes stupidly that he’s been listening and cataloguing like he always does.

“Why do you care?” Dan asks. “You want his mouth kissable?”

“You want to die?” Andrew asks.

“Hey,” Matt says, defensive but too drunk to do anything about it.

Andrew stands and puts his shot glass down, unsettlingly quiet. Neil watches him walk from the room, barefoot and faintly sweaty from the lack of air conditioning and the bake of summer sun. Something in Neil gives way, one bracket on a shelf snapping so everything goes sliding. He very much wants to follow him.

“Not like he was contributing anyway,” Nicky says brightly, reaching across the sticky table for a card. They settle back into the swing of the game, and they cycle through rhyme time and two waterfalls before Matt flicks Neil on the shoulder and jerks his chin at the hall.

Andrew’s back in the doorway, hair wet from the shower. He watches Neil for a minute, and Neil watches back, more focused on Andrew for everything else being so loud. 

Andrew is quiet and still and half lit by the setting sun. He shifts his weight, almost imperceptible, and the handful of shots Neil let himself have roll over in his stomach.

“Come here.”

Neil stands immediately, quickly enough that Kevin spills his handle of vodka and Dan stops mid-anecdote.

“I’m going to bed,” Neil says, already picking his way over the debris of cards and shoes and open boxes of summery drinks.

“I bet you are,” Matt says, and Nicky makes a cracking whip noise. Neil ignores them both and joins Andrew in his pocket of darkness.

“I don’t know why we came,” Andrew says, turning into the stairway.

“Yeah you do,” Neil says. Andrew says nothing. They both know he does. They came here because Andrew would never let Neil or Kevin or Aaron be somewhere without him. They came because Neil asked.

They climb to their second floor room, and Andrew kisses Neil as soon as the door closes behind them, the tang of scotch on his tongue.

Neil only breaks away when Andrew tugs him back by his hair.

“I’m sober,” Neil says quickly. Andrew rolls his eyes.

“I’m not fucking you.”

Neil makes a disappointed noise in his throat. “Shame.” 

He smiles at the softness of Andrew’s face in the sunset. He looks young and uncomplicated like this. Someone caught in a moment of quiet rather than someone who lives in it.

Somewhere in the middle of Andrew’s indulgence, letting him look and graze his neck with his thumbs, Neil’s memory jolts. “I have something for you.”

Andrew’s eyes open a little more. It’s the most endearing shift from heavy-lidded to visibly focused, and Neil’s chest hurts. “I didn’t ask you for anything.”

“Wait,” Neil says, letting Andrew go so he can turn to their messy bed and side by side duffel bags.

He stoops and digs one hand into the bottom of his bag, patting blindly through twisted fabric until his fingers find something cool.

Andrew is closer when he rights himself, close enough that his crossed arms brush Neil’s front.

Neil holds the key in his fist, and regret clamps locks on his fingers and thickens his tongue.

“I met you two years ago,” Neil says quietly.

“We’re not doing this,” Andrew tells him. And he knew, he knew Andrew would take this as a hallmark anniversary gift and not the piece of Neil that it is.

“I’m not, I’m just.” He looks at his own clenched hand. “I’ve never been somewhere this long before. I celebrate my victories.”

“What victories?” Andrew asks, an insult or an actual question, Neil can’t tell.

“You,” Neil says simply. “This.” He opens his hand and reaches for Andrew’s. Andrew accepts the key without hesitation, and Neil’s skin goes hot with gratification.

“I didn’t think I had anything to give back to you,” Neil says. Andrew looks at him sharply. “But then I remembered this storage unit in Tulsa.”

Andrew’s eyes drop to follow the curves of the key, and Neil almost loses his train of thought.

“A lot of my past is in there. Everything that’s left of my mother. Some money. At least 100 secrets. I’m cashing them in,” he says, a smile starting and sputtering like an engine turning over.

Andrew’s hand twitches around the key. “How did you get this?”

“Stuart left it for me. We had hiding places all over, and he was close to one.” Neil watches Andrew turning and turning the key, expression impenetrable. “I don’t need whatever’s in there, anymore,” he finishes.

Andrew looks up at him, holding eye contact and dropping the key back into Neil’s bag. “I don’t want it.”

Neil’s gut pitches. “Why not?”

Andrew’s gaze wanders away, towards the window. “Your past is irrelevant.”

“I have nothing else to give,” Neil says hoarsely. The salt in the air smells like decay.

“You are wrong,” Andrew says, wandering to the bed and sitting.

“What, then?” He’d hunted for this key for two months. He remembers the storage locker like an unhealed wound his mother had bandaged and left to rot. This is the only key he has that isn’t a gift, but a memory.

“You,” Andrew says, eyes remote, hands open on the bedspread. “This.”

Neil’s breath walks clean out of his lungs. “Andrew,” he says, hushed, dark like unpolished wood.

“Making me work for your secrets is a cop out,” Andrew says, as Neil walks over to him with feet that feel twisted on backwards. “I’m not driving to Oklahoma because you’re emotionally repressed.”

“God,” Neil laughs. He kneels at the foot of the bed and puts himself between Andrew’s thighs when they part for him. He looks up at Andrew’s indifferent face and can’t believe he’s allowed the pleasure of being this close. “Are you sure you won’t fuck me?”

Andrew’s thighs tighten around his ribcage. “Yes.”

Neil puts his head down so his cheek ghosts over Andrew’s chest. “Tomorrow, maybe.” 

“Tomorrow,” Andrew agrees, and he threads one hand through Neil’s hair.

#two prompts in one yo r u impressed #aftg #the foxhole court #andreil #tfc fanfic #prompt #mine #if the read more doesn't work on mobile i'm very sorry go to my blog /tagged/ref and a lovely anon has a solution #hollowbirdsx #ask