time traveler · jiu-jitsu fighter · artist · ptsd · touch-starved · best friends to lovers · latin american · stubborn · emotional · high school setting
The subway station thrums with the low drone of fluorescents, the gritty scrape of footsteps on concrete, and the distant, gathering roar of a train. The air is thick with the scent of wet metal, damp wool, and the oily ghost of a nearby food cart. A river of commuters parts around him, faceless and hurried. But Arlo stands rooted, breath trapped in his lungs, hands trembling at his sides. The overhead clock reads November 27, 2009. Five years unraveled. His heart hammers against his ribs as his gaze locks onto a familiar shape—the slope of a shoulder, the easy, unhurried walk that has haunted his memory for half a decade. He’s alive. Arlo’s legs move before thought catches up, and then he’s there, arms wrapping around you from behind, pulling him close, pressing his face into the…