Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/5914015. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Underage Fandom: Supernatural_RPF Relationship: Jensen_Ackles/Jared_Padalecki Additional Tags: Alpha/Beta/Omega_Dynamics, Age_Difference, Teacher-Student_Relationship, Impotence, Mating, Rimming, Magical_Healing_Pheromones, alpha!Jared, omega!Jensen Stats: Published: 2016-02-05 Words: 4968 ****** My heart feels like a ghost ****** by sammyatstanford Summary “Mr. Padalecki?” The voice is a sweet nervous flutter, just on the edge of dropping much deeper, and Jared looks up at the boy in his doorway. Not one of his students, but he recognizes instantly a green-eyed gaze that’s caught his over the past few weeks, when Jared couldn’t help his eyes from roving endlessly over hallways, Assembly, the quad. Definitely a student though, skinny boy body under white button-down, blue tie, khaki knickerbockers, blazer caught on two fingers over his shoulder. Notes hellhoundsprey posted this_truly_stunning_art_and_scenario on her Tumblr, and I couldn't help but be inspired. I'm afraid I've not done justice to its (and especially Jensen's) beauty, but I have made porn, so no one's really losing. She promises she's drawing more of her version of this 'verse as well, so keep a sharp eye for additional decadence. Jared is 39, Jensen is 15. The students from Jared’s senior elective are milling about his classroom, perching on the desks and chattering away about what they did over the summer (he tries to ignore the echo that bounces up from the back corner to the blackboard, carrying Brent Denstrider’s story about knotting some ‘pretty omega slut’ during his beach vacation), their parents in a little ring around his desk attempting to poke holes in his reading list while he keeps a weary smile on his face. Orientation day is the last hurdle he has to get through before school starts again next week. Most of these kids he already knows, had them for freshman or junior English and they liked him enough to choose his class this time around. Some are new, interested in the subject matter or just new to the school entirely. One of those, Penelope Moore, is sitting shyly off to one side, stays there as the room empties at quarter past when his visitors move on to their fourth period subjects, because her mom is crowding into Jared’s space where he’s leaning back against his maple desk and trying to look casual instead of sweaty and exhausted. “I’m Diane Moore,” the woman says, smiling big, extending her hand out to Jared even though she’s left barely enough room for it between them. He takes it, lets go quickly, tries not to breathe in the chemical smell of the perfume dressing up her flat beta scent. “Penelope’s mother.” “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Moore—” “Miss,” she interrupts, smiling again. “Just miss now, since poor Penny’s father passed away.” She leans in conspiratorially. Jared correspondingly leans back as far as he can before the muscles of his lower back protest. “You know, I hated to uproot her in her senior year but, well, this was just such a great opportunity for her.” A small hand comes down on the forearm Jared has crossed over his chest, cool through the fabric of his shirt. “Maybe for me too, hm?” He wants to look this woman straight in the eye and say, droll, I can’t get it up, you know, but he’s not reckless, just a sad sack. So he pats her stiffly on the shoulder and smiles through his teeth and says, “I’m sure your daughter will get a lot out of the program. But my next class will be here soon, so if you don’t mind?” and steps to the right, since he can’t back away from her, breaking the contact between them. The woman’s smile goes a little still but then she’s laughing and saying her goodbyes and dragging her hapless daughter from the room by the elbow, giving Jared just enough time to slip off his glasses and beat his head gently on the wall a few times before his next class really does show up, and the rigmarole rolls over yet again. *** It’s not abnormal. Rare these days, but not medically or physiologically significant. Mateless alphas tend to go one of a few ways. Most of them either fuck everything in sight as though filling up warm body after warm body will fill up that empty, unattached place inside them, or instead they settle, set down with some beta or unmated omega or both until they’ve settled in, made a life, maybe eventually even hoping their true mate never actually shows up and rips their crafted world apart at the seams. And then there’s the alphas like Jared, the ones who—and Jared doesn’t like to think of it this way, it’s too pathetic—who pine away, searching every pair of eyes and every breath of wind for sight, scent, taste, touch, just a hint of mate, who let that emptiness fester into a great sucking wound until they’re infected, hollow, unable to want anything at all. Impotent. Broken. It used to seem poetic to him, wasting away your everything waiting for your one true love to show up and free you from your existential bonds of loneliness, but now he knows better. It’s just pitiful. Growing old and dying alone with a cock that doesn’t work, useless to himself and everyone else around him. Turning down awkward advance after advance from parents, teachers, students. Fuck’s sake, he’s thirty-nine! He’s not supposed to be this defunct creature. He was supposed to find a pretty omega girl or boy and share the world and live happily ever after, and even now, the deep, dark part of him aches for that life so badly it makes the air sting in his lungs. For connection, intimacy, love, the kind you can’t have with anyone other than your true mate. He aches, but at least he doesn’t hope. That part of him is long since dead. *** Lunch monitor duty, his first time of the fall term, wandering acres of Formica tables with plastic stool seats attached that look out of place in the wood- paneled hall, a gnawed roast beef sandwich in one hand, veggies torn by the line of his teeth and threatening to spill in a puddle of mayo onto the oak floor. He’s on the far side of the room, a sea of students, teachers, aides, administrative employees spread out before him, when he catches it. Somewhere under overgrilled burger meat, the spicy teriyaki tang of stir fry, his desperate nose gets just a hint of something indescribable, untouchable, vital, carried his way on a hush of conditioned air. It chokes the oxygen right out of his lungs, makes him dizzy in an instant, whole room lurching around him before the world resets, settles back into itself just the same as before except everythingis different. He’d read about it a thousand times, heard the stories. How do you know when you find them? You just know. Jared knows. His mate is somewhere in this room. He feels weak, untethered, shaking so delicately he hopes no one has noticed. His eyes are on the floor, on the half-eaten tomato that did, in fact, make a slippery bid for escape from his sandwich. He takes an unsteady breath and looks up, terrified, determined, fraught. There are students watching him, conversations passed behind secretive hands. He catches eyes that he can tell from even this far across the room are green and knows his strange behavior will be all over the school by the afternoon bell, but he can’t care. There’s hundreds of people in this room, hundreds of odors and the cloying smell of cafeteria food, and Jared feels nothing but despair because how will he ever trace it, that tantalizing smell tugging at the bleakness inside him. His mate is here, now, the one thing, the only thing he’s ever wanted and he has no way to— The bell cuts sharply into his miserable reverie, and the lunchgoers rise en masse, fill trashcans to overflowing on their way out the three sets of double doors that lead into the sunshine, leaving Jared behind. Bewildered, alone, and very likely late for his next period. *** It’s better this way, he tells himself a week later when he’s out sick, sweating under a nest of blankets because the weight pressing him down into the mattress feels like the only thing holding him here, keeping him from searching blind and needy every inch of campus until he finds his one. It’s better this way. Repeats it again, for the hundred dozenth time. Because Jared is an embarrassment, not just uncharismatic and oafish but truly worthless. What does he have to offer a mateship? Four walls and a roof and all the oral sex you can shake a stick at? Why did this have to happen now? When he’s nearing forty and irretrievable? Because no one comes back, no one’s dick gets fixed once they’ve become like Jared. He remembers hours, days, years of wasted time daydreaming about the joy of mated sex instead of having it with anyone else, of burying himself into sweet secret places created just for him. Fantasizing until fantasies didn’t work anymore, until even artfully shot, filthy good porn of mated pairs didn’t so much as make his dick think about it. And it had happened for him young too, much younger than most, so that this is basically all he’s known since he got a knot. Nothing to give to anyone. His feels light with hunger but hasn’t been able to stomach much for days, too busy with that scent still heavy on the back of his tongue, starving want consuming every inch of him. He’d tried at first, to stay at school, to behave as normal, but he’d found himself searching desperately and not wanting to search at all, not wanting his only to see him and know the true extent of their own unluckiness. To be mated to Jared, some kind of cosmic joke. He knows he can’t stay here forever, has a job to not get fired from for delinquency, but at least when he goes back no one will question his excuses. He knows he looks like absolute shit. Greasy, unwashed, stricken-thin. His stomach aches hollow and he draws the blankets tighter around himself. *** “Mr. Padalecki?” The voice is a sweet nervous flutter, just on the edge of dropping much deeper, and Jared looks up at the boy in his doorway. Not one of his students, but he recognizes instantly a green-eyed gaze that’s caught his over the past few weeks, when Jared couldn’t help his eyes from roving endlessly over hallways, Assembly, the quad. Definitely a student though, skinny boy body under white button-down, blue tie, khaki knickerbockers, blazer caught on two fingers over his shoulder. “Can I help you?” Jared asks politely, but the boy doesn’t answer, shuffles around with shy eyes on his feet and a thumb plucking at the bag over his shoulder, long caramel eyelashes flicking up and down like he can’t help looking to where Jared’s seated at the desk. Oh. One of those then. “What’s your name?” he asks evenly, and the boy looks up again to reply, “Jensen,” eyes failing to drop away this time even as a blush starts heating thin cheeks. He’s pretty, gorgeous really, a flower right on the edge of blooming and showing sneak peeks into the pink of his petals. If Jared could be interested, he knows he would be, in this one. “Come in then, Jensen, and shut the door.” It’s dangerous, he knows, but in his experience these kids don’t like to be told off where just anyone can hear their mortification. It’s late, gone five a while ago and not even the teachers are likely around at this point, but Jared’s learned to let them down easy and he’ll give Jensen the same courtesy. The boy complies shakily, heavy door slamming when he pushes it too hard, wafting the barest wave of air in Jared’s direction as it closes, bringing with it a wave of that—that scent. He feels his blood vessels dilate, dizzy want flooding his body just like the first time, and he’s suddenly on his feet, wooden chair rolling back to collide with the blackboard. He can’t stop staring. Jensen seems to have taken some courage with the hallway blocked out, and he turns back with a new set to his narrow little shoulders. “I think…” he starts, but it trails off when he sees Jared hovering beside his desk, one foot trying to step closer but the rest holding himself back. Jensen’s cheeks flush deeper. His voice is barely a whisper. “Do you—do you feel it, too?” Jared can’t find his voice, nods like a marionette, licks his lips. Jensen’s smell is everywhere, everything, ripe and mouth-watering. Jared’s suffocating in it and it’s just exactly how he wants to die. They seem to be stuck in some kind of staring contest, twitching and fidgeting but somehow too frozen to make a move. Finally, Jared speaks around his dry throat, the saliva pooling on his tongue. “How did you…?” Jensen shrugs, arm with his jacket swinging down off his shoulder. “First Assembly of the year, I smelled…coriander, poppy seed, melted butter on syrupy pancakes. I wasn’t sure, but—.” He chokes off, shakes short bangs down into his face to hide behind, nervous fingers plucking at his shoulder bag strap again. “Well, I couldn’t forget it, anyway.” Jared should really do something, say something, but he’s trapped like a bug under glass in this moment, the one he’s been dreaming and dreading in equal measure for weeks and his blood is thudding through his palms like a heartbeat and oh god, this boy, this beautiful, perfect boy, such a frail little thing and who would have entrusted him to someone like Jared? Finally, Jared manages to work some syllables onto his tongue. “You’re so” perfect, wondrous, unfathomable, “young.” It’s not what he wants to say at all and he regrets it immediately when Jensen’s face falls in, that lovely flush turning to shame and teeth in his bottom lip like he’s trying not to cry. “I’ll get older,” he says sadly, and Jared’s sure his own heart is broken and god, why has he spent the last twenty years being such an asshole? “No!” he says, frantic, and it’s enough, his little colossal fuck up, to get his feet actually moving, to carry him to Jensen tucked into the corner by the door. He cups his hands around bird-wing shoulders that feel so small, so warm. God, from a distance Jensen is stunning, but up close he’s intolerably lovely, freckles under his blush and hints of teal in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—one thing you’ll learn about me is that my foot basically lives in my mouth, I put it there so often.” Jensen looks up and up at him, a small smile curling at his pouting lips. Jared can’t keep a hand off that face, thumb brushing the delicate curve of Jensen’s cheekbone. “I just, I feel like a monster, I—I—” but Jensen shushes him with a so-tentative brush of fingers to the tie dangling from Jared’s neck, smiles wider. “I think you’re very handsome,” he murmurs, and Jared’s knees go weak. An angel, Jensen is some kind of angel with willow limbs and knocking knees and Jared doesn’t deserve him, not one inch of palesoft boy skin, not one of the hundred cinnamon-dust freckles painting the bridge of his nose and the sweep of his cheeks, not one gold-tipped eyelash under gym-dirty blonde hair. And fuck, the smell of him, apricot, sweet pea, caramel brulee. It’s blooming, warm and opening up and Jared knows he must be days away from his first heat, body at the peak of first ripeness, summer fruit to sink his teeth into. He’s hunched in and kissing Jensen before he knows it, sugar and petals flowering on his tongue when Jensen opens right up like he was made to do it. It’s wet and inexperienced on both ends, soothes some part of Jared he didn’t even know existed, a part that feared a boy this beautiful can’t have come to him untouched. He pulls himself away after far too short a time, tries to rein himself back in. This is a student, eyes closed and chin tilted and lips parted, quick little breaths that brush across Jared’s mouth like a tease. A student, and Jared could lose his job for this (or can he, there have to be laws for this somewhere, he should remember to look that up), and Jensen’s eyelids flutter open and he whimpers and Jared is ruined. “Please, Mr. Padalecki,” Jensen whispers, presses those spit slicked cotton candy lips together. His blazer and bag hit the ground at their feet. “It’s Jared,” Jared replies because, well, when you know the back of someone’s teeth, they ought to be using your given name. “Jared,” Jensen echoes, like it’s manna on his tongue, and Jared shivers. “I want—I want—” His voice breaks a little and he flushes so deeply he’s almost red. “Not here, we should—I should take you home or…or—” “Please,” Jensen groans, wriggling with need where he stands, nails curling into the front of Jared’s dress shirt and tugging. “Don’t want to wait, I just—I feel crazy, Jared, make it better, please, please.” Jared is only a man, and no man could resist such pretty pleading, and so he presses Jensen into him, gropes for the lock and turns it as he drags Jensen away from the little diamond glass window set into the classroom door, over to his desk where the view is obstructed. Jensen’s almost jumping for his mouth again, and Jared gives it to him, kisses his boy breathless as he curls his fingers at the tippy tops of those slender thighs and carries Jensen down into his desk chair with him, ignoring the shriek it makes in protest at the weight of two bodies. Jensen takes no notice either, pressing himself closer and closer to Jared until his bony knees dig harsh into the meat of Jared’s thighs, Jared’s hands encircling his fragile ribcage (God, his fingers can almost meet around all that leanness) to steady him as he hovers, Jared’s neck tilted back and mouth open to let Jensen in for plunder. Jensen’s shuddering when he pulls away, gazing down at Jared with half-lidded eyes, pink flush and sweat on his cheekbones, and Jared can’t do anything but gaze wonderingly back at this boy god, this delicate little bird who belongs to him. His one, his only. “I need,” Jensen says, a statement all on its own that Jared’s supposed to know the meaning of, and with sinking horror Jared does. He slides his hands down, over the luscious curve of Jensen’s cute round butt, and he can feel the humidity there where Jensen’s starting to leak, body getting ready to share something that Jared can never give him. He’d forgotten, carried away like a wave on this precious moment. He’d forgotten. His heart falls like a stone into his guts and he shakes his head numbly. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry but I can’t—I don’t—Jensen.” But Jensen’s not listening, grinding his ass into the press of Jared’s fingers eagerly, mindlessly, pretty little pleas from his bumblegum lips and Jared knows there’s no sense now in trying to explain, not when Jensen’s half out of his teenaged mind with feelings he’s never had to deal with before. “Right,” Jared reassures, more for himself than the boy who’s writhing in his lap. “Right, well, I’ll just. Come here,” he says clearly, and Jensen presses close again, hands slipping up to tug and pet at Jared’s hair, little kisses on Jared’s hairline and forehead as Jared’s fingers pluck loose the knot of Jensen’s tie, work open the buttons of Jensen’s uniform shirt until more rose cream, freckle-strewn skin is bared to his gaze and Jared loses himself all over again. He licks at the pink petals of Jensen’s nipples and Jensen whines, grips his arms around Jared’s neck like he might just collapse as Jared’s tongue dances between them. Jared kisses his way back up Jensen’s neck, wet, wide-mouthed drags of his lips, hint of his teeth as Jensen shakes so intensely he might be all hollow inside. “On the desk for me,” he growls into Jensen’s ear, and the boy scrambles out of Jared’s lap, perches himself on the wood with a whorish cant to his legs. Jared rises too, shoves his desk chair so hard it bangs into the filing cabinet. He starts with Jensen’s shoes, lifts one flexible leg up at a time to slip off penny loafers and little boy socks, plants kisses across the toes, up the arches, around the bump of the talus while Jensen just watches, pitiful little moans catching in his throat. Jared slides his hands up the legs, covered in downy soft, fresh beginning hair, up under the hems of Jensen’s shorts so he can massage into the careless heat of Jensen’s inner thighs, and Jensen almost falls back onto the desk when his elbows give out from under him. “Jared,” he pleads, and Jared listens, moves his hands to undoing Jensen’s belt, button, the zip of his shorts, urges the boy to lift his hips so he can slide them down long ivory legs and toss them to the side. White briefs underneath, and the picture Jensen makes, open shirt, undone tie, undies translucent where the wet of him is soaking toward the front and neatly tented by his little cock—it should be, is, criminal. “You’re sure, Jensen?” he checks, just one time before he pushes too far. “That you want this?” “Yes yes yes,” Jensen chants, pushing at the elastic of his shorts himself until Jared hooks it with his long fingers and draws them down. Jensen’s cock is candy pink and looks downright edible, and Jared presses it with the heat of his palm as Jensen grinds helplessly back. He’d like to get his mouth all over it, but it’s not what Jensen needs. Jared can’t give him that, not really, but he’s seen enough porn to know what else to try. “Please please please.” Jared steps back. “Stand up for me, take off your shirt, and turn around, hands on the desk.” Jensen’s immediately obedient, gets in position and braces himself just as Jared instructed, unconsciously tilting that perky ass out for attention, the graceful arch of his back astounding. Jared’s tempted to spend hours worshiping every millimeter of it, but he’s not so cruel, puts himself on his knees instead with that delicious little peach butt right in front of him. “What are you—” Jensen starts to ask, turning to look down over his shoulder, but Jared shushes him, spreads his hands wide over each cheek, plants dry kisses between his fingers. The smell of Jensen is so strong here, pure pheromones right at their peak, and Jared can’t wait for a taste, doesn’t, uses long thumbs to spread cheeks (even here, Jensen is sparsely freckled), admires the glistening wet, cherry blossom hole that’s twitching for him. He leans in slow, and then snorts when his glasses press against the plump swell of Jensen’s buttcheeks. Jensen’s so small, the frames had hardly been noticeable when they were necking, but now they’re in the way, and Jared fumbles them off and to the side somewhere he hopes they’re safe, one hand still holding Jensen open while the boy squirms above him. “Shh,” Jared mutters again, leans in and just barely touches his tongue to that fluttering muscle, trying to ease Jensen into it. There’s a high, shocked sound above him, and the noise of hands scrabbling at the desktop, and when Jared licks a wide stripe over his hole, Jensen keens. It’s almost lost under Jared’s own words. “Fuck, Jen, fuck,” because the taste of Jensen, it’s—it’s honeycomb melting on his tongue, salt sweat, spring berries and summer breeze, and when Jared leans back in to lick at that taste again, he feels his cock twitch in his dress pants. Oh god. Tears press suddenly at the backs of his eyes, but he fights them down because wouldn’t that be a mood killer, focuses all his energy on sucking away at Jensen’s hole instead, the rim soft and pliant under his tongue so he can slip it in easy and make Jensen swear for the first time from where he’s still turned to look down at Jared, eyes wide like they can’t believe what they’re seeing. Jared eats, feasts on that little boy hole, tender insides of Jensen’s buttcheeks growing hot red from his stubble, swirls his tongue in and around until Jensen gives up, collapses down onto his elbows, head on the wood of the desk so he creates a little echo chamber for his own moaning. Jared drags a palm up and down those spindle legs, delights in how soft and smooth Jensen is all over. He tries to pointedly ignore the steady fill and rise of his cock in his pants, but inside his heart is soaring, his mind is racing with joy right beside the pleasure, relishing the painful press of his zipper because he’s hard enough for it to happen. When Jensen’s almost sobbing above him, he slips in one long finger, hot knife into butter. It’s so easy he immediately follows with two, and then his innocent little fawn is pounding a palm on the wooden desk loud enough to wake the dead and begging “Fill me up, Jared, I want it, I need you,” and okay, yes, all right. Jensen’s dark forest gaze watches from under one arm as Jared rubs his sleeve over the mess on his face and toes out of his Oxfords, opens the hook-and- button fly of his pants and shucks them down with his boxers in one go, Jared’s blissfully, wonderfully hard cock bouncing free and bobbing about like it’s just as excited as he is for it to be there. Jensen shudders and moans at the sight, and Jared steps so close, slides his erection up and down the crease of the boy’s ass a few time and that’s—Jesus, wow, that’s really so much, almost too much already and how’s he going to handle where Jensen’s all tight and burning hot? He wants, more than anything, to turn Jensen over, to stare forever into those lovely green eyes while he makes Jensen his, but this is something he’s learned from his watching and reading, too, that the first time is easier, less painful from this angle, so Jared promises himself next time, next time, as he drapes himself over the lean muscled lines of Jensen’s back and presses in. “Ah,” Jensen groans like it hurts, and Jared stops right away but then Jensen’s putting a hand over Jared’s where it’s gripped around Jensen’s hip like a lifeline, squeezing and saying, “Don’t stop, please,” so Jared eases in, goes slow and steady and grits his teeth against the incredible feel of it, like nothing he could possibly have imagined even in his happy hopeful days. Because it’s hot and clutching, which alone is incredible, but layered heavy over it all is a weighty sense of rightness, of being finally whole and complete. It’s ecstatic, fireworks in his heart and mind and body as he drags his cock back out and presses in again. A few more thrusts and Jensen seems just as flustered and content, a steady stream of little “ah ah ah” noises escaping his lips, eyes closed and tears on his lashes where he’s resting his head on the back of one hand. “Jensen,” Jared murmurs, realizes this is not the first time he’s said it, that he’s been whispering and muttering and groaning that sweet sweet name again and again as he fucks in deep, feels the startling pressure at the base of his cock where his knot is about to pop for the first time since the first time. He pulls Jensen up, back against his chest and pins him there with one secure arm, Jensen’s toes grasping for purchase on Jared’s calves as Jared holds him in the air and fucks him something wicked. “Can you come for me, my sweet boy?” he whispers hot against the shell of Jensen’s ear, and Jensen sobs, gets a hand on his cock now flushed dark pink to the tip, moving in time with Jared’s thrusts. It takes a bare few for him to cry out, lock down vice tight around Jared’s cock and squirt thin white come onto Jared’s desk. He goes easy and pliant in Jared’s arms, and Jared presses them into the solid wood in front of them, gets the leverage he needs to grind his hips in, the squeeze around him growing tighter and tighter and Jensen whimpering richly as Jared’s knot grows and ties them together. Jared manages to get a hand on his desk chair, drag it back close enough for them to collapse into, the jolt of it forcing him somehow deeper into Jensen’s body and he’s done, coming hot and hard, marking Jensen up inside so that the world knows always that he’s Jared’s, forever. He maybe passes out a little, because he only slowly becomes aware of the way Jensen’s slumped against him, head back on Jared’s shoulder so their cheeks press warm together, five o-clock shadow against silky softness, his hands running gently over the arms Jared has wrapped around him. Jared turns his face, kisses along Jensen’s jaw, nuzzles into the space behind his ear. “Jared?” he says quietly. “Hm?” “Can we do that again?” How Jensen can sound so shy when he’s naked in Jared’s classroom with a knot up his ass and asking for it again is totally beyond Jared’s comprehension. “I hope so,” he says gently, and he’ll explain to Jensen what that really means soon. They enjoy the quiet for a few moments before a thought slips into Jared’s post-coital brain. He pulls himself away just enough that he can see that lovely face, those soft doe eyes. “Jen, how old are you?” “Um,” Jensen says, eyelashes fluttering again. He looks sideways. “Well I’ll be sixteen this year.” “Oh god,” Jared groans, not unkindly. “I just can’t believe…I’ve waited so long for you.” Jensen’s face splits into a sunny smile, and Jared falls in love. “Well, I’m here now, right?” “Right,” Jared agrees, and they cuddle back together in the old wooden chair, wait for Jared’s body to finally decide to release them. Jared hums a few bars against Jensen’s earlobe. “Sweet sixteen,” he sings softly. “Sweet sixteen…sweetest thing I’d ever seen.” Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!