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It started because she wanted to wash the dishes.Re stood in front of her sink, five days standing and it wasn’t exactly looking pristine. She didn’t remember when she’s gotten so many dishes, or where all of them had come from, but today she’d told herself she’d get to cleaning up the sink and that was the day she’d do it!It wasn’t exactly her fault, so much time at the school and working long hours with the kids and her co-workers tended to leave her drained as soon as she got home. The only dishes that had gotten washed regularly being the pots she cooked rice in…still, she had a full day and she figured sparring an hour or so doing dishes would at least make her feel somewhat productive, and at possibly more clean.She just………hadn’t expected the volume to be so…intimidating.“Okay, just….clear out one half then.” She muttered to herself, knowing her energy for the task was unfortunately limited. “I can do that, right?” And she could get to the other one……later. Or who knew, maybe she’d get so into the task she’d go on to clean up the whole kitchen, she just needed a push to get started was all, gotta leap on the motivation when it comes after all.So, she took a deep breath and got started.It was fine enough, just….cleaning. Nothing all that interesting about cleaning the dishes, and she even enjoyed the task sometimes…Then water splashed on her dress, a blue sundress who’s material wasn’t really damaged by wet and tended to dry off fast…making it perfect for dish duty…Which was why she wore it a lot back…then…Suddenly her heart sped up, her hands shook and a sick feeling rose in her stomach, but she kept cleaning. It needed to get done, right? Just needed to clean out one sink half and she’d be fine. It wasn’t that bad after all! Just a few pots and pans and bowls and silverware, it wasn’t doubled in size or…..or weeks old or filled with clogged dirty water hiding bits of razor edges that bit into her hands or crammed into a tiny kitchen half built with piles and piles of useless garbage covering every spare inch…She wasn’t there, she wasn’t back there, she was in her apartment…cleaning her own dishes.At least that was what she kept telling herself.Good news, she managed to meet her goal and clean out half the dishes. Bad news, it left her wrapped up in her blankets on her couch shakily turning on Netflix and picking out a movie with absolutely zero desire to do anything else for the day. She was fine, she was fine, she deserved a day off anyway.Then a knock sounded on the door.Nope, not today. She resolutely proceeded to ignore it and snuggled deeper into her blankets, cuddling a plushy as she perused cartoons and mentally debated if she had the energy to get up and get some snacks or not. The knocking persisted however, until eventually the one behind the door called out (it wasn’t a very big apartment nor did it have very thick walls.)“Re, I know you’re in there, open up!”Ah hell it was Ink.She bit her cheek, debating. Ink was alright, (a little more than alright but she tried to ignore that) though his high energy tended to be draining after a while. Still, he was relentless and probably wouldn’t go away until she told him to his face so…she sighed as he kept knocking and thought, did she have the door unlocked or no?With a mental grumble she managed to untangle herself from her blanket nest and called out “Wait a bit!” as she went up to unlock and unbolt her door (could never be too paranoid in her neighborhood. It was cheap at least.)She opened up the door to view the art teacher, a shorter, dark skinned male with bleached hair and the most ridiculous fashion choices-it was mid summer and he still wore a scarf, freakin’ hipster.He grinned at her, homochromatic eyes lighting up soon as the door was opened. “There you are! I was wonderin’ if I was gonna have to knock on this door all day.”She gave him a flat, incredulous look. “Why……?”He laughed in response, glancing away. “Well, er, Error an’ PJ kinda abandoned me tonight so I thought I might try seein’ if you were doin’ anything.” He glanced back at her, bright grin once again in place. “Are you?”She slowly arched a brow, not that normally she wouldn’t be inwardly, secretly, sort of thrilled at this attention but she and Ink weren’t exactly on friendly terms…at least not from her side of things. Ink had a flexible view on who was ‘friends’ or not it seemed. “What about Dream?”He flapped a hand at her, huffing out a breath. “Dreamy an’ Nightmare are off doin’ some kinda ‘family thing’ so he was busy too. Anyway you still haven’t answered my question-you don’t look busy.” He glanced closer at her, face falling for a moment as he looked at her midriff, and suddenly she was aware that she was still wearing the dress gods dammit.Ignoring the sudden sick feeling returning she wrapped an arm around her stomach, visibly shrinking a little, though she didn’t notice it. “I was just staying today, don’t feel like going out.” She said, giving him a quick glance before looking away again.“That’s fine, can I come in?” He asked, and his voice had a tone to it that made her look up again, there was something in his face, an almost pleading look to it- “We can watch movies and have snacks-it’ll be fun!”She really wasn’t in the mood for company, but that look in his face and the fact that she was probably the last choice he had (seriously they’d only known each other a few months) made her feel guilty enough to concede. “Sure.” She said, backing away and opening the door. “C’mon in.”The best descriptor she had for his face was ‘instant relief’ as he gave a small cheer and practically skipped into the tiny apartment. Instantly he made a beeline for the couch while she locked up, and she couldn’t help but feel a bit of easing in her chest at the sight.She plopped back down and picked up the remote, hand going to and freezing for a moment above her blanket nest, before she went ‘fuck it’ and wrapped herself up again. Ink could judge however he wanted (and he never struck her as the judging type anyway) and she still wasn’t feeling stable-she deserved blankety comfort dammit.She towed the line at plushie cuddling however, she had some dignity. Okay no she didn’t but anxiety was a bitch so screw it.Ink kept a respectable distance between them, though he did end up fidgeting with the plushy himself, holding it in his lap as he offered suggestions for what they should watch. He was completely down with watching cartoons which was excellent on all accounts. Soon enough they had their selections and both settled in while the movie started.“Do you have any snacks in?” He asked, turning to grin at her.She turned back and a moment of holy shit there I actually have a guest in my house distracted her. Her eyes flickered over the patterns of alternating light and dark skin on his face before she shook herself out of it and finally managed to answer. “Yeah, in the fridge I think. I can…” Then she glanced down and noticed her tangled up in blankets again…good job Re.He waved her off, setting the plush aside as he got up. “I’ll get it, shouldn’t be a moment.”“Should I pause the movie?” She asked as he headed to her kitchen.“Nah! I’ve seen this one anyway.” He called back, so, shrugging, she turned back to watching and left him to it.It was only about a half hour into the movie that she started to wonder if maybe he hadn’t gotten lost in the depths of her snack stores? So she turned around only to catch him coming back with bags of chips and couple cans of soda. “Sorry about that luv, took me a little to actually figure out where you kept everything.” He grinned, handing her a soda. “Hope you don’t mind?”“Uh…no.” She said, taking the soda as he settled back down next to her. He must’ve gotten really lost or…distracted? Or maybe….nah. She mentally shook herself and went back to the movie, dismissing it. It was Ink, he did a lot of weird stuff and lost track of things all the time, goodness knows she’d done the same more than once or twice.The rest of the day was spent watching more movies, with them playfully ribbing on the cartoons or getting riveted to the story. Sure, she’d have to resupply her snacks but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, she was just glad to have enough for her and Ink when normally she didn’t get such a surplus (she was a simple woman with simple needs after all.)After a few hours Ink said he had to leave, claimed that he had a few errands to run and a lot of papers to grade, so he gathered his things and gave her a brief hug at the door. “Thanks Re, you don’t know what this meant to me. We should do it again sometime!”“Sure.” She said, surprised at the sincerity of it. Ink wasn’t actually that bad to hang out with, and in fact was less draining than she’d expected. Sure, he fidgeted and got up and down a lot to get more snacks or whatever, but overall he was actually a fun guest to have…and she’d relaxed. “Anytime.”With that and a salute he left, leaving her to clean up but…eh, some of that getting up and down was him doing a bit of cleaning as they finished snacks so it wasn’t that bad. She’d feel bad for not helping but he kept insisting…made less work for her at least.Though she got a bit of a shock as soon as she walked into the kitchen, so much so that it caused her to drop the snacks and the nearly empty soda bottle.Spotless.Clean.The rat bastard heckin’ cleaned her kitchen! He, what, why would he do that? Who even does that? What…?Feeling conflicted overall, Re went and put her snacks away, periodically checking to see where the heck some of her pots and kitchen implements had gotten placed….granted she tried to be organized where she put everything so-it wasn’t that hard to figure out where she put her cutlery.“He organized my Tupperware drawer…” Matching lids to tubs and lining them up by size even….she shut the cabinet and went back to her couch, her mind simultaneously blank and spinning.Then she paused and looked down at herself.She was still wearing the dress.“I should take a shower.” She said, and went to do just that.It was the first one she’d taken in a week.