Ollie Ashcroft has always worn his emotions where everyone can see them. At sixteen, his eyes change colour with every feeling - fear, sadness, joy, overwhelm - betraying him long before he can find the words. In a world that asks him to be quieter, calmer, less, Ollie learns to survive by shrinking. Then Elliot Mercer transfers from Canada. Eli doesn't stare. He doesn't ask Ollie to explain himself. He simply stays - steady, observant, and unafraid of what Ollie's eyes reveal. What begins as shared silence grows into something quieter and deeper than either of them expected. As Ollie learns that calm doesn't have to be earned - and Eli learns that love doesn't mean rescuing - they're forced to confront what it means to choose each other without losing themselves. Set in the late 1990s, The Colour of Staying is a slow-burn coming-of-age story about emotional truth, gentle love, and the bravery it takes to remain present - even when leaving might be easier. Trigger Warnings / Content Notes * Emotional overwhelm * Anxiety and panic responses * Sensory overload * Themes of mental health and emotional vulnerability * Discussions of homesickness and change *(No sexual content. All romance is PG-13.)* This is a quiet story. There are no grand declarations here - just moments of choosing to stay, again and again. The Colour of Staying is about emotional honesty without spectacle, love without urgency, and learning that calm doesn't mean empty. Please read gently. Please comment kindly. This story is PG-13 and centred on emotional growth, not explicit content. If you're here for softness, steadiness, and slow-burn connection - you're in the right place. 🤍

Some names are easy. Some names are chosen. Some names are never meant to be spoken until everything is ready to change. Rowan Hale believes that language is intimacy - that the words you use can keep someone close or push them quietly away. Lucas Whitaker doesn't think much about names at all, until he realises there are some he's afraid to say, and one boy he's terrified of losing. Set over the slow shift from summer into autumn, *What We Called Each Other* is a soft, slow-burn boys' love story about proximity, silence, and the weight carried by the things left unsaid. Through borrowed clothes, shared nights, and the careful shelter of nicknames, Rowan and Lucas learn how closeness can exist long before it's named - and how one word, spoken at the wrong moment, can change everything. This is a story about almosts and accidents. About learning when language becomes truth. And about how sometimes, love begins not with what you say - but with what you dare to call each other when it finally matters. Trigger Warnings / Content Notes * Gender dysphoria (non-graphic, internal) * Miscommunication * Emotional vulnerability * Fear of rejection * Mild internalised anxiety (No explicit sexual content. Romance remains tender, emotional, and PG-13.) Transphobia, misgendering, or debates about trans people's legitimacy will be deleted. This space is for respectful discussion only.

Love doesn't end when the choosing is done. Sometimes, that's when it begins. After finally finding their way to each other, Rowan Hale and Lucas Whitaker aren't learning how to fall in love - they're learning how to stay. In shared mornings and borrowed space, in silence that no longer needs filling, they discover that intimacy isn't built on grand moments, but on repetition, trust, and choosing each other again and again. Still Learning the Shape of Us is a soft, domestic boys' love story about what comes after the almosts - about love that doesn't rush, doesn't demand, and doesn't disappear when things get quiet. Some stories are about discovery. This one is about keeping what you've found. TRIGGER WARNINGS / CONTENT NOTES * Emotional vulnerability * Anxiety surrounding intimacy * Fear of abandonment * Mild dysphoria (non-graphic, internal) * Relationship growing pains *(No explicit sexual content. This story remains PG-13, with gently maturing emotional intimacy.)* AUTHOR'S NOTE (WITH COMMENT RULE) Thank you for returning to Rowan and Lucas. This sequel is about staying - about the quiet work of love once the fear has softened, and the choice has already been made. It's intentionally gentle, intentionally domestic, and intentionally slow. This is not a story about escalation. It's a story about continuity. Comment Rule (Please Read) I welcome thoughtful, respectful comments - especially ones that reflect on emotion, language, or quiet moments. Please do not: * Rush the characters * Ask for explicit content * Demand faster progression This story breathes in silence. Let it. Thank you for reading with patience. - theo.

When the Tideborn are forced to leave their sea caves beneath the chalk cliffs of England's south coast, they are sent to live-and learn-among land kids who know nothing of tides that remember names or skin that still tastes of salt. Elliot Rowan was raised to endure the sea, not question it. Matthew Hawthorne has lived by the water all his life without ever belonging to it. Between classrooms, storm shelters, and quiet beaches, a bond forms that neither of them knows how to name-one that asks impossible questions about love, home, and what it means to choose a future without erasing the past. As the sea calls its children back and time pulls them apart, every relationship is tested by distance, grief, and the slow understanding that some loves don't disappear-they wait. A soft, melancholic coming-of-age story about land and water, memory and change, and the people we become when we are finally brave enough to choose. Main Characters Elliot Rowan A Tideborn boy raised beneath the sea, bound by tradition and quiet devotion. Struggles between loyalty to his past and the future he secretly wants. Matthew "Matt" Hawthorne A land-born boy with an instinctive gentleness and an emotional steadiness that draws others in. Loves without strategy, even when it hurts. Isla Meredith A Tideborn girl defined by patience and emotional resilience. Knows when to hold on-and when to let go. Jonah Vale A Tideborn boy whose anger masks a deep fear of abandonment. Protective, reactive, and slowly learning how to soften. Theo Ashley An older land-born observer, already half-gone from the town. Represents what happens when you stay too long without choosing. Trigger Warnings / Content Notes * Slow-burn romance * Emotional repression * Separation / disappearance * Grief and loss (non-graphic) * Identity conflict * Coming-of-age themes * Mild angst * Mentions of environmental collapse (non-explicit) *(No explicit sexual content. Romance remains soft and emotional.)*

Eight boys. One rain-lashed island. A week to survive. In the UK, the Duke of Edinburgh Award is a rite of passage-a way for secondary school boys to prove they have "grit" and "character." For Archie, Baz, Toby, and the others, it was supposed to be a week of wet tents, map-reading, and terrible banter on the desolate Skellig's Maw. But character isn't the only thing being built on the island. Something is waiting in the grey North Sea mist. Something ancient, engineered, and hungry. It begins with an itch. Then a silver thread in the blood. Then the "renovation" of the human body begins. Seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Toby, the youngest and most vulnerable of the group, The Duke of Death Award is a descent into a biological hell where the lines between friend, monster, and environment disappear. On this expedition, no one is coming to save you. Because by the time they arrive, there won't be enough of you left to rescue. [ THE EXPEDITION PARTY ] *TOBY (The POV): 12 years old. *ARCHIE (The Leader): Year 11. Self-appointed king of the camp. *BAZ (The Alpha): The school bully. *LEO (The Hero): The American exchange student. *SUFYAN (The Brain): The rationalist. *CALLUM (The Artist): Quiet and detached. *DAZ (The Consumer): A boy driven by a hunger that the parasite turns inward. *NIGEL (The Victim): The first to sneeze. The first to itch. The first to burst. [ TRIGGER WARNINGS ] WARNING: This story contains Extreme Body Horror and is intended for a mature audience. * Graphic depictions of biological mutation and liquefaction. * Self-cannibalism and self-harm (surgical). * Child/Teen death. * Animal death (seagulls/seals). * Extreme gore, visceral descriptions of parasites, and psychological trauma. * Claustrophobic and nihilistic themes.