I know you don't follow it anymore, but I feel cruddy so if you have it in you somewhere to do some snuggily obiyuki I would be much obliged. Otherwise, as you were, lol
For you, my dear, I will attempt anything <3 Sadly, that does not mean that I succeeded?? There are indeed snuggles, but this is perhaps a very weird, highly ridiculous fic in which Obi has Touch Issues??? I am sorry but also not sorry and I hope you enjoy it <3
They learn how to come together stubbornly, anxiously, the both of them entirely out of their depth when it comes to love returned and what to do with it.
It's like speaking a new language, relearning your body and how it moves in concert with another. Redefining boundaries long held. Gazes unable to meet, yet unable to keep away. Obi scrubs at his nape with a rough hand. Shirayuki feels hot and cold in equal measure, her skin prickling, heart pounding, each inch between them electric with tension.
"Sorry," she says. "I can take the chair."
"No, no," Obi replies, fingers squeezing bloodless around his nape. "That won't do. My fault anyway, sorry, so I'll take the chair, it's fine, it's fine-"
"Obi," says Shirayuki.
"Hm?"
"We can try again," is all the bravery she can muster.
A grimace, his thin brows quirking up his brow. "Yeah? Yeah, I mean... We probably shouldn't though."
"Obi," Shirayuki says, because she has finally hit the point where this has become ridiculous and her nerves become steel instead. "It's only a cuddle."
"Is it though?" he asks, heavy with skepticism.
With a huff of a laugh, Shirayuki reaches out and grasps his arm in hers, hands resting atop his tensed forearm. She leans in against the softness of his uniform, the warmth that he exudes, and is amazed to find that she can feel the breath in his lungs, the gentle pull in and out, in and out, his rib cage expanding against her own.
It takes a moment, but she syncs their breathing together- as he deflates, she inhales into the space he opens up for her; as he inhales, she makes way for him.
"Easy," she says, smiling.
Obi stares down at her with a complicated expression, some dread and tender thing. "Yeah, sure. Easy," he murmurs, and then sits like a garden statue with Shirayuki a clinging vine for the next half hour or so, until he can't take it anymore, practically slithers out of Shirayuki's grip to dance off the bed, across the floor and out the door, all the while rambling about duty and mischief and the rapid pace of time.
There is a lingering warmth left behind, one that makes Shirayuki frown and curl her fingers into her palm, longing for more.
-
What matters in the end, she thinks, is that the stubborn wins out over the anxious. "Obi," she says, peeking over her book at him. "You don't have work?"
"No, I do," he says, lazing on the grass beside her.
For her lunch break, she has come out to sit beneath a tree to read in the sun, the rays shining down weak and barely even warm, but bright and lovely nonetheless.
"You're slacking?" she asks, more amused than anything when he gives a little innocent grin and lithe stretch of his body, like a smug cat that refuses to be moved. A warm rush of fondness sweeps through her, so she says, "You can use my lap as a pillow, if you want," before she can turn coward, and because she wants more of that closeness, that innocent touch with someone she loves and who loves her back.
Obi's eyes open wide, staring blankly at the sky through mostly naked branches. "We are not cuddling in public," he rasps out.
"No," Shirayuki allows, and her cheeks are hot and her heart pounding and there's a shiver running cold down her spine again. Her stomach twists. Her mouth doesn't know whether to smile or not. "But- the ground can't be comfortable, can it?"
"I've had worse," is the casual reply.
Shirayuki hates how true that likely is. With a sigh, she sets her book down. Smooths out her skirts and stretches out her legs. Obi rolls his head to look at her thigh, covered in thick blue fabric. She pats it nervously, staring down at her own hand as she does, the delicate bones and the dry knuckles and the freckles on her skin.
"C'mon," she says, strangled but determined.
"Is this a thing," Obi asks.
Shirayuki says, "I'm almost positive this is a thing." because she understands he means is this a thing people who love each other do and Shirayuki doesn't know, exactly, because she's never really cared much for romance or the expression of it, but she thinks she's seen lovers seated like this in books, in paintings, out the corner of her eye when passing through parks and courtyards and-
"I want you to," she says, muffled, face on fire.
With a hushed curse, Obi rolls over.
His back is to her now. He's laying on his side with his head just barely touching her, temple to her thigh, a heavy weight. Shirayuki stares at him, surprised even though she was the one pushing, but-
She knows this is hard for him.
She knows what it costs him to reach out, to touch and be touched, to be still and allow comfort, safety and trust.
Very carefully, Shirayuki reaches out and skates her knuckles across the ends of his wild hair, dark and silky. He shivers. His shoulders hunch up, but he doesn't flee and Shirayuki's heart is heavy, swollen up, and somehow love feels like joy and sadness at once, a pained affection.
She lifts her book again, does her best to continue reading.
Obi stays as long as he can.
-
"Are we getting better at this?" he asks one lazy morning, the two of them curled up on Shirayuki's bed. They are laying on top of the covers with the window open, their bodies puzzle pieces carefully lined up, the breeze tickling Shirayuki's hair across her face and onto Obi's neck.
He keeps having to gently sweep it back down behind her ear, smoothing the strands.
Beneath her cheek, Obi's shoulder is hard and bony and a little painful, but Shirayuki never wants to move. She is warm and happy and terrified and wildly afraid to put her arm over his chest like she so badly longs to. Afraid to hold him too close, pin him down the wrong way, to fracture this fragile peace by being too greedy, but-
That's okay, probably.
This is more than enough to start with- Obi's hand in her hair, her cheek on his shoulder, their bodies slowly, gradually relaxing into one another.
"Yes," Shirayuki says, smiling. "I imagine that we are, Obi."
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If you are not on Twitter but are interested in what's going on with Elon Musk's Twitter, never fear, I am back as your Twitter Correspondent.
So, on Thursday, 4/20, Elon removed all the "legacy verified" blue checks. That means that if you are, say, Taylor Swift or the Pope, and you have a blue checkmark because you have proven you identity and want to avoid being impersonated, that check mark went away unless you paid the $8 to subscribe to Twitter Blue.
The assumption was clearly that, despite all their blustering, when push came to shove the power users would nut up and pay for it, if only to avoid their fans being scammed using their likeness.
That didn't happen. As of 4/21, only weirdo Elon stans had blue checks. Those stans immediately got mad, because they had intended to purchase access to an exclusive club, and all the cool kids left as soon as they arrived.
To make matters worse for Elon, several influential shitposters began posting about #BlockTheBlue, a movement to block all paid Twitter bluechecks, and some even released scripts that would automatically block all bluecheck accounts for you.
However, some people retained their blue checks who swore they hadn't paid for them -- in particular, Stephen King and LeBron James, who had tweeted that they would refuse to pay.
Elon admitted that he had paid for these users' blue checks out of his own pocket. Is he trolling? Is it a weird simp move? Hard to say.
Now, as of 4/22, a whole mess of famous people have bluechecks who aren't paying for them. This seems to be a move to confound the automated Block The Blue scripts. Lil Nas X is tweeting angrily about how he doesn't want his blue check. People are speculating that a new policy has been silently rolled out to automatically assign a blue check to every user with over 1 million followers. Several people have pointed out that this amounts to false endorsement, i.e. implying falsely that a notable person uses or endorses your product without their permission, which is a crime. Blue checks have been posthumously assigned to Anthony Bourdain and Terry Pratchett, whose estates my money is on to be the ones to actually sue.
dril, famous shitposter and Block The Blue promoter, keeps being assigned a blue check as an apparent punishment for crossing Elon, but you can lose your blue check by changing your display name. (It seems really wild to tie the blue check to the display name and not use the username, but it became necessary after the era where all those legacy verified folks unleashed their inner Jaboukie and changed their display names to Elon Musk. As recently as last month a legacy verified user with 100k followers got banned for impersonating JK Rowling apologizing to trans people.) So dril just keeps changing his display name every time they bluecheck him. Elon and dril have been engaged in this game of cat and mouse all day. The "Elon bans dril and we all throw trash at him like New Yorkers defending spiderman" meme will probably come to fruition today or tomorrow.
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