#{imani answers

[mattodore]

The BOLD THE FACTS tag with Theo (requested)

tagged for theo by @wldestluv-rs and @earthmoonz <3

The Rules are simple! Tag people and name a character you want to know more about! If you want to let the person you tagged decide who to showcase, then don’t name a character and they can pick somebody. Easy! The person who is tagged will then bold the remarks below which apply to their character &, if they want to, include a picture with their reply!

[ PERSONAL ]

$ Financial: wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty / other (theo is financially dependent on his wealthy parents and technically has no money of his own) ✚ Medical: fit / moderate / sickly (he overworks himself, gets very little sleep, smokes frequently, and abuses drugs… he’s not doing so hot) / disabled / disadvantaged / non applicable ✪ Class or Caste: upper / middle / working / unsure / other ✔ Education: qualified / unqualified / studying / other ✖ Criminal Record: yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but hasn't been caught (theo uses illegal drugs) / yes, but charges were dismissed

[ FAMILY ]

◒ Children: had a child or children / has no children / wants children ◑ Relationship with Family: close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no siblings / sibling(s) is deceased ◔ Affiliation: orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parents / not applicable / other (while technically living with his parents and being raised by them as a teen, theo was raised more closely by his au pair when he was younger)

[ TRAITS + TENDENCIES ]

♦ extroverted / introverted / in between ♦ disorganized / organized / in between ♦ close minded /open-minded / in between ♦ calm / anxious / in between ♦ disagreeable / agreeable / in between ♦ cautious / reckless / in between ♦ patient / impatient / in between ♦ outspoken / reserved / in between (he can lash out but generally theo keeps a lot of his thoughts to himself) ♦ leader / follower (theo doesn’t like the spotlight) / in between ♦ empathetic / vicious bastard / in between ♦ optimistic / pessimistic / in between ♦ traditional / modern / in between ♦ hard-working / lazy / in between ♦ cultured / uncultured / in between / unknown ♦ loyal / disloyal / unknown (theo hasn't had enough people in his corner to answer this one with any amount of certainty) ♦ faithful / unfaithful / unknown (similar to the above, theo hasn't dated enough to give a general answer for this)

[ BELIEFS ]

★ Faith: monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic ☆ Belief in Ghosts or Spirits: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✮ Belief in an Afterlife: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✯ Belief in Reincarnation: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ❃ Belief in Aliens: yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✧ Religious: orthodox / liberal / in between / not religious❀ Philosophical: yes / no

[ SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION ]

❤ Sexuality: heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual ❥ Sex: sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable / naive and clueless / other (theo has sex regularly but that doesn't necessarily mean he's favorable... this isn't to say that he never wants or enjoys sex, but that he has a tendency to use sex in unhealthy ways. it's complicated.)♥ Romance: romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable / naïve and clueless / romance suspicious (doesn’t trust people not to hurt him)❣ Sexually: adventurous / experienced / naïve / inexperienced / curious ⚧ Potential Sexual Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all ⚧ Potential Romantic Partners: male / female / agender / other / none / all

[ ABILITIES ]

☠ Combat Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ≡ Literacy Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✍ Artistic Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✂ Technical Skills: excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

[ HABITS ]

☕ Drinking Alcohol: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / Alcoholic ☁ Smoking: tried it / trying to quit / quit / never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / chain-smoker ✿ Recreational Drugs: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / addict✌ Medicinal Drugs: never / no longer needs medication / some medication needed (headache meds regularly and sleeping pills a few months out of the year) / frequently / to excess ☻ Unhealthy Food: never / special occasions / sometimes / frequently / binge eater $ Splurge Spending: never/ sometimes / frequently / shopaholic ♣ Gambling: never / rarely / sometimes / frequently / compulsive gambler

tagging @wldestluv-rs for faye (i've got you nene ☝️), @veone for nick, @stinkrascal for vlad and also maybe amarie if you wanna, @omgkayplays for malaika, and @lucidicer for pogo and vincent whenever you come back from your break ♥

[borawinters]

👀 + Rank your employees from worst to best?

"I'd honestly put my employees in the Hunger Games as a team building exercise if I thought half of them wouldn't find a way to fuck it up."

"Current rankings would be, Sebi then Lori then Val then Harris with Uly and Imani duking it out for joint last."

@sebitorres / @lorelailewis / @valentinahq / @callme-harris / @ulyflynn / @xoimani

send my muse “👀 + a question” and they’ll have to answer with 100% honesty.

[shesmile]

tags incoming !

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙰𝙽𝙰𝙻𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚂     ›     dialogue     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙰𝙽𝙰𝙻𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚂     ›     musing     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙰𝙽𝙰𝙻𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚂     ›     appearance     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙰𝙽𝙰𝙻𝚈𝚂𝙸𝚂     ›     answered     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝚁𝙴𝙻𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽     ›     imani everett     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙱𝙴𝚈𝙾𝙽𝙳     ›     graphics     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙱𝙴𝚈𝙾𝙽𝙳     ›     headcanons     .

*     𝚁𝙴     :     𝙱𝙴𝚈𝙾𝙽𝙳     ›     wanted     .

[fangaminghell]

1, 27 and 43 for any OC(s) of your choice :)

1) What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

Imani has gradually learned to sit still for important stuff, and she has sat down for long periods of time....designing clothes. Sitting down doing nothing??? Oof. Something has to entertain her before she dies of boredom.

Asra is the royalty of sitting still for long periods of time. One would think they're a statue if they were to see them.

27)  What causes them to feel dread? 

WELP. There's a lot depending on the character.

Leo has his fear of water( specifically drowning), and the thought of being alone underwater for an extended periods of time is not fun. The manaphy quest was not fun for him.

Asra not knowing who they were before... everything. Where they a good person before meeting Ava? Also a certain something that is stated in the game ( if you know you know) genuinely scares them.

For Cande, it's anything that happening to her siblings. Losing the only family he has left....she don't know what he would do. The same can be said for Suraya and Blair, being older siblings themselves.

43) If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so? 

Arrow- " I like people I guess????" *Shrugs*

Blair- "No"

Flynn- *thinks about women/Rumi* * blushes and is too flustered to speak*

( Rumi belongs to @lemonade-juley :3)

Imani- " I'm asexual Demi romantic! I don't feel sexual attraction, and romantic attraction doesn't really happen for me unless I have a strong bond with another person :D"

( the only one who actually explains it )

Cande- " Bi for bi baby!"( I cannot remember if I made her bi or pan but this joke is fun so yeah. Referencing the fact he's bigender)

Philomena: :]

Leo: Men.

Suraya: Women.

( I was gonna have a bit of a NSFW joke here but I decided against it lol. Just imagine Suraya exposing her brother and Leo getting flustered about it).

TLDR: The majority don't explain it lmao. Only Imani gave an actual explanation. Suraya and Leo kinda too, but yeah.

[driptape]

“i think this was a mistake.” noah to imani 🥺🤭

“ w-what ? “ she snapped quickly . his word could’ve easily caused her to burst into tears . “ you think what was a mistake ? “ she asked more clearly . her heart already aching from the fact she basically threw her relationship into a blender recently . she did it for noah and yet here she was seeming to be on the verge from possibly losing him too . aiden wasn’t exactly talking to her . they hadn’t broken up , but if she was being honest , it felt like it was their last days . her mind started racing through the long list of possible answers . her eyes welling up with each passing second . was it being her roommate ? sleeping with her ? or maybe it was about that night she cheated on aiden with him ? she would at least agree with that one . it could also be noah admitting to liking her ? or just the fact that he felt so strongly about her when it wasn’t supposed to be that ? either way . . . all of it hurt .

[thebrixtons]

Whoops! OC 1 and 2 were playing catch near a window and the ball suddenly hit and smashed it! “That was your fault!” says OC 1. “It wasn’t my fault! That was a bad throw, how was I supposed to catch it?” says OC 2. Then, OC 3 and 4 comes in and sees the mess that 1 and 2 have created. OC 3 starts laughing at the fact that OCs 1 and 2 were going to get in HUUUUGE trouble with OC 6 and 7 whilst OC 4 tried to help clean up the glass, though it was impossible. OC 5 walks in and looks at them and runs to tell OC 6 and 7 that the 4 OCs were all by the “Crime scene” therefore it had to be all of their faults.

Who are your 7 OCs?

hii cleooo 💗 i love this loool 😭

imani (rhys bestie <3)

rhys

lina

clem

mrs. hwang lowkey 😭

edward

mary

[parasite-core]

3. Who do you put through the most emotional turmoil?

Thanks for the ask 😊

Definitely Draven. By a landslide. She is my most powerful OC but she is also kind of the universe’s punching bag. Her survivor’s guilt and hero complex do not help.

She is cursed with the worst luck imaginable. This is both in universe and on a meta sense: any time I play her in a ttrpg or isometric rpg, she has the WORST rolls. Her first roll in game was a nat 1. When I played her in BG3 she got all single digit rolls for the opening section of the game, then her single nat 20 was to headbutt Astarion in the face, which just feels right 😂

She also has, just, a shit ton of trauma, both from her backstory and in-game. She spent years believing that she was a bad omen because it seemed like virtually everyone she got close to died. She hasn’t entirely gotten over this, but now she has enough power to try to protect everyone she loves. (And despite this, all of her friends have still died at least once, some more permanently than others)

So yeah, tl;dr Draven’s the universe’s punching bag and I love her.

[thecircusfreaks]

Eduardo, is it annoying that Imani seems to ignore her needs until she's absent-mindedly sinking her fangs into your skin? Or does that make her interesting?

Seems like she was the type of human that didn't realize she was hungry or thirsty until she was in physical pain.

"I wouldn't necessarily say it's annoying. It helps that she is trained properly and knows to not over do it. I think it's fine as things are now but I keep a close eye on it. There is no need for things to turn ugly if she is somehow too hungry or thirsty." Eduardo had a long history with vampires, most of it wasn't pretty nor fun to remember.

[everseens]

"❤" to tell my muse yours loves them - raleigh to imani

answered here , meme here . <3

[mattodore]

Hi ❤️

Does Matthias have problems keeping friends? How is he doing with Imani? Would you say that they are best friends who know everything about each other's everyday lives? Theo likes her? Do Imani and Matthias meet often? Does he tell her about Theo and things like that? Does Imani accept Theo if so?

matthias definitely has problems keeping friends, but that's only because he doesn't try to make friends in the first place. if it weren’t for imani approaching him first to figure out what his deal was when they were kids then they never would have interacted. matthias was very anti-social as a child. he's also... sort of unsettling to people who've been around him for an extended period of time. like, sure, he can play up the charm for awhile but when he's not performing he's very quiet and moves around in a way that normally makes your hair stand on end once you notice the stillness or the circling pattern to his steps—actually i'm just going to copy-paste these q&a answers i've given about him before:

“Matthias is never in any kind of rush. He leans and lounges and sprawls. He doesn’t move much, but I think he does have a certain lofty demeanor about himself when he’s waiting that’s reminiscent of a big cat swishing its tail and flicking its ear; if he’s crossing his legs you’ll see his foot sort of dip and swish while he’s waiting… he taps his forefinger on his temple… and he stares very intensely.” […] “Matthias is poised and confident in his movements and commands attention through them. He glides gracefully around the room when he’s entertaining guests and mingling. His tread is light despite his size and he has a tendency to creep up on people when they’re not looking. The way he moves is unsettling to some who’re watching on the outskirts, because it often appears as if he’s prowling.”

as for how he and imani are, they’re good! matthias is kind of at her whim since he’s a layabout just basking in the sun whereas she’s a busybody zipping from one location to another because of her job as a model. she touches base with him frequently via phone calls or facetime (when she can get him to use facetime… matthias is very anti-tech lol it’s funny to me) and will drop by his place unannounced whenever she’s just flown back in. she sometimes lives with him, even, when she’s taking breaks from work and feels like being waited on hand-and-foot (she does have her own place, to be clear. she hates being around other people for too long—even matthias). matthias is uncharacteristically dramatic and maybe a little childish, i’d say, when he’s with imani. they’ve been best friends since childhood, so they sort of act like siblings in that way.

he talks to her about theo a lot, but he’s also… a little possessive of the information he shares. so. not too much about theo, more so conversations about when he’s met theo, what they’ve been up to, how he’s feeling, what he’s thinking, etc. imani doesn’t really want to know all the ins-and-outs because she thinks matthias is a little weird lmaoooo. um, she’s like okay. that’s your business. she’s just seen enough of matthias’s debauchery so she does nottt wanna listen to him talk about what he’s thinking about when it comes to theo. you get me. and imani has met theo!!! she thinks theo is very endearing and innocent (he is, in a way, but also not really). she likes him and thinks theo is honestly too good for matthias. she just knows what matthias is like and she thinks theo seems very. opposite of that. she’s not wrong… and she doesn’t mean it in a bad way, she just calls things how she sees them. matthias wouldn’t disagree. in fact, matthias would say there’s no one good enough for theo, but there’s also no one better than him for theo regardless of that. arrogant little freak… said with love <3

as for theo’s feelings… hm. well, theo thinks imani is nice, but he’s also. an unwell individual. so. he’s jealous. she’s known matthias practically his whole life and she has all of this knowledge about him that theo feels he’s lacking, doesn’t know how to ask about, and he’s never had a best friend so he kind of just. doesn’t get it. so he feels uncomfortable when he’s with the both of them… kind of like he’s missing out on something—an inside joke he doesn’t have the context for, you know? he doesn’t dislike her, he’s just insecure and in his feelings. imani is a very sensitive type too, you know, so she can definitely tell and that’s kind of why she thinks he’s innocent (among other things). like she can tell matthias is the first person theo’s ever had a real crush on lmaooo. he’s just… cute about it. when she talks about something matthias used to do or what have you, theo will kind of frown a little but he still leans forward like he wants to hear more even if he wishes he were the person telling the story. so you see why she’d think he’s endearing. theo takes time to warm up to everybody, to get more secure in himself, but he does get there. like, theo and imani are really fun together once they get close but i do really enjoy the early stages when theo would be sooooo obvious with how jealous he is and imani would just shoot matthias these Looks. and matthias would grin back, all teeth, because he’s insane and thinks it’s sexy when theo’s jealous lmfaooooo.

[gypsybelladonna]

tag drop for imani graves

[chiquititaosita]

your blog is so pretty :(((

nice to meet you !!

it’s so nice to meet you too my love!!!

[ofcelestiials]

# imani and tomas

what your muse’s name is in mine’s phone

imani 💕

what your muse’s picture is in mine’s phone

what your muse’s ringtone is in mine’s phone

i'm pretty sure this man always has his phone on DND, but if it isn't on DND, then it's probably songbird by fleetwood mac !

my muse’s last text to your muse

[tomas]: do you think it's normal for a three year old to try sticking macaroni in his ear? i don't know if i should be concerned 

[kumkaniudaku]

At Last: Part Two

Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Richmond make their union official.

Pairing: Terry Richmond x Black!OC

Word Count: 6.6k

Warnings: None

Part One

Under two Spanish moss trees, the two that towered highest above the rest like gods watching over their creations, Patrice and Terrence were due to share vows and declarations of love with a small crowd of family looking on as witnesses in less than twelve hours.

Her mother referred to the quick turnaround between engagement and nuptials as a “small miracle” as she and her elder sister meticulously planned details that even Patrice had overlooked in the haze of the evening. 

Truthfully, after all the fuzzy feelings and congratulatory bubbly had worn off, she was left with a gaping pit of confusion deep within her belly. Terry had promised one year to prepare for a life together. That amounted to 365 days to learn, grow, and get ready for eternity. A calendar year to decide if the eagerness of fresh love could bloom into something everlasting. Three hours ago, she didn’t need any more convincing. Now, having 365 days cut nearly in half with a wedding occurring on the other side of the sunrise had suddenly become suffocating. 

They hadn’t taken a traditional road, one paved with tangible milestones on the journey to name changes and legal titles. There was no high school sweethearts storyline to follow. They hadn’t awkwardly fumbled over kisses after a first date or met each other’s parents at a Sunday evening dinner. Terry never officially asked to be her boyfriend and she never really treated him as a man to date on the way to some serendipitous revelation that he was, indeed, the one. In her mind, they’d always existed as lovers, time moving in a flat circle back to him as the only man at the altar when she envisioned jumping the broom with a new last name.

But, even with all roads leading back to Terrence James Richmond, the cotton sheets beneath her tired body provided no refuge. She was restless in the dead of night, head pounding with uncertainty and throat raw with questions. She kicked at the thick duvet for some relief from the stifling heat in the bedroom of the tiny guest cottage she and Imani were forced to share for the night. 

Because, even if she and Terry didn’t adhere to tradition, the women of her family held strong. 

Next to her, Imani grumbled into her pillow before flipping the bedside lamp on with a huff. 

“Damn, Petey, what now? You must wanna look like Frankenstein at the altar tomorrow.” 

“I’m sorry. I can’t get comfortable.” 

“What I gotta do? My arms ain’t big as his but I can be the big spoon. Turn over.”

Imani jokingly cuddled up to Patrice, pretending to be Terry as she spoke to her in a dramatically deep voice. “I love you, girl. You the only woman in the world, girl. Kiss me a hundred times so I don’t melt away, girl!” 

Patrice couldn’t hold back her laughter at her cousin’s silly imitation of a man she’d only just met in person but managed to get his mannerisms down to a science. She was good like that. Always able to break the ice and calm Patrice with a joke, even through troublesome storms. 

Turning in Imani’s arms, Patrice faced her cousin to feel less alone in the world. Imani adjusted her bonnet and looked back with a faint smile. 

“Tell me what’s wrong. You nervous?” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“Anxious?” 

“Not that one either.” 

“Worried.” 

Patrice nodded and chewed her bottom lip before answering. “That’s the one.” 

“Spill. You already got me awake. Might as well make it interesting.” 

“I wish I could but, I don’t know what exactly I’m worried about,” she started, shifting to her back to search for answers on the vaulted ceiling. She found nothing. “You think this is all moving too fast? It’s only been a few months. We said we’d wait a year at least.” 

“A year? Three months? Who’s countin’. Those rules are made up.” 

“Yeah, but what about the courting? The whirlwind romance? Being held close while you dance in an empty jazz club tasting champagne on his lips while Etta James plays in the background? What about all that?” 

Imani watched her cousin jump from the bed, waltzing in circles with her head thrown back, treating the empty space between the bedframe and dresser like a palace ballroom. An amused smile tugged at her lips as she sat up to get a better view. 

“Girl,” she exclaimed, laughing and shaking her head to Patrice’s dismay. “None of that shit is real! You watched the Brandy Cinderella one too many times during the pandemic.” 

“Only four times. Five. Six if you count the time we watched it on FaceTime.” 

“That’s why it’s rotting your brain now. How many times you been in love?” 

“Once,” Patrice answered, her mind drifting to Terry and what he might be doing all alone in that room upstairs.

“It’s been three times for me. And guess what?” she questioned, not expecting an answer. “None of them had a formula. Love is illogical, girl. There are no steps or rules or movie scripts to guide you through this shit! It’s about the willingness to give yourself over to something incomprehensible in hopes that you found your person for as long as you can hold on to them.” 

Imani’s rant floated around the room until it began to burrow itself deep into Patrice’s ears in hopes of reaching her brain. She stood there, taking every word in, eyes intently focused on her wise older cousin, knowing she was right yet having a hard time turning that insight into something she could fathom for herself. 

She’d always had a plan that she followed to the letter. She thrived in logical next steps and absolutes. The black and white kept her organized. Routine was her center. But love with Terry? That was different. That was whimsical. That was girlish pining and a botched kiss when they pretended to be a couple for one night during senior prom. It was time away wondering what their bond had become amid infrequent communication and eventual radio silence. Their love was reuniting as adults and running so fast into dizzying passion that she hadn’t time to wrap her mind around what had happened over the last seven months. Their love was intense and scary, beautifully abstract with no rhyme or reason. Nonsensical even. But it worked. 

Scooting to the edge of the bed and standing to her feet, Imani mimicked a chivalrous prince, pulling Patrice into a silly little waltz around the room. “Create your own fairytale, P. Everything doesn’t have to make sense.” 

“You think he misses me?” Patrice asked, her voice so tiny and meek that it almost surprised Imani. “Think he’s thinking about me like I’m thinking about him right now?” 

“Only one way to find out.” 

A mischievous smile spread across Imani’s face as she dashed for her phone. Patrice chased after her, calling for her to stop what she was doing at such a late hour. 

Ordinarily, Terry would be asleep. He was never one to stay up too far beyond the early hours of the night, often dragging Patrice away from a good book to force her to sleep beside him. 

Peaceful slumber, however, had been elusive all night. The moon was too bright. The room? Too hot. He could complain about the bed being a hair too soft or the floorboards creaking too loud whenever someone would sneak down the hallway for a late snack, but all of those would be a deflection from the true issue - he missed Patrice. 

Just as his longing was reaching a tipping point, his phone buzzed against the solid oak nightstand. He had half a mind to ignore the sound. It was likely his mother confirming details yet again or one of his twin sisters finally responding to the engagement video, he thought to himself as he lay on his back staring at the constant revolution of the ceiling fan. 

Then another buzz came accompanied by several more to let him know this was a phone call and only people with emergencies call at that hour. 

He answered without looking at the screen to verify the caller.

“Hello?” He answered, slightly annoyed by the interruption. 

“Terry put some clothes on and come to the cottage. We got an emergency.”

“A what?” 

“Boy, just come on! Skip the third step from the bottom and go out of the side door by the kitchen.” 

Terry wished that sneaking around his fiancée’s family home was among the silliest things he’d done in the middle of the night for a woman. 

He carefully slipped into a hoodie and sneakers before tiptoeing his way down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out of that side door like Imani instructed. The moonlight provided the only guidance down the cobbled pathway leading to a tiny shack at the edge of the property with a little light flipped on in the bedroom. 

Imani watched through the peephole with Patrice hot on her heels, peering over her shoulder as if she could see too. 

Moanie shrugged her away with a harsh whisper. “Girl, get off my ass. He’s coming!” 

Patrice backed away with her hands up in surrender. The wait for his eventual appearance felt like forever. She fiddled with the hem of her nightgown, wondering if he would care that this was all a half-baked scheme to circumnavigate their forced separation. 

Terry ambled up the dirt path with his normal scowl and fists pushed into his pockets to shield his hands from the wind chill. Imani timed his arrival perfectly, swinging the door open before he created a disturbance by knocking. 

“Everything good?” He asked, one eyebrow hiked high as Imani pulled him into the cottage by his arm. 

She stepped back and gestured toward Patrice who stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. 

“I just wanna sleep,” she sighed. “Take her, go in that room, and do whatever y’all do until the morning. Then you gotta dip because I’m not getting in trouble for y’all. My mama will still hit me.” 

Terry’s eyes drifted from Imani to Patrice, catching how she looked nervous under his gaze. He smiled and extended his hand for her to take. 

“C’mon. Let’s go to bed.”

His voice, honied and soothing to her soul, gave Patrice her first rush of comfort in what felt like forever. She placed her palm in his and trailed behind him as he led the way. 

Imani called behind them. “Please, don’t have sex on the bed. I gotta sleep here until Tuesday and I don’t really need that image in my head.” 

“Can’t make any promises but, thank you. I’ll make sure you get the bouquet.” 

“Hard pass. Give it to Moon’s desperate ass. I like to let my fairytales unfold organically.”

She winked at her cousin just before Terry could close the bedroom door to block them from the outside world. 

Wrapped in the midnight hour, they’d finally found peace. 

Patrice watched from the bed as Terry stepped out of his shoes and pulled off his hoodie to expose bare skin to the night air. He slowly crawled in beside her, brushing his fingers against her midsection to guide her against the mattress the way he liked. He pulled her close to his chest to rest his nose in the crook of her neck for a deep inhale of her unique scent. She sighed and pressed even closer, at ease once eyelashes painted butterfly kisses where his warm breath fanned against her skin.

“How’d we get like this,” he laughed once they were settled.  “Can’t even fall asleep without each other.” 

“I still think you put a spell on me in that bathroom. I loved sleeping alone before then.” 

“Had to pull out all the stops for you, baby.” 

“I’m just that fine, huh?”

He chuckled and closed his eyes, already feeling slumber's clutches coming for him in the darkness. His grip around her waist tightened. She trailed her fingers up and down his forearm with her focus on the soft rustle of the linen curtains against the window. Her mind quieted. The room fell silent save for steady, deep breathing and the crickets making music outside. 

“You wanna know something?” 

Terry blinked himself awake to answer. “What?”

“They call me Petey because I had a big crush on Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man one summer,” Patrice admitted in the darkness. “I figure if you’re gonna be my husband by this time tomorrow, you should know.” 

No answer. Only the smack of his lips pulling away from the skin behind her ear in another kiss. He knew not to interrupt her fleeting moment of vulnerability with the silly joke on the tip of his tongue. So, he joined her confessional.

“I used to think Roxanne from A Goofy Movie was fine.”

“The animated dog?”

Terry scoffed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know being attracted to a human spider was better.” 

Their shared laughter reverberated off the walls, uncorking the bottled-up pressure to be present as perfect beings to the world. Terry felt Patrice’s ribcage expand and contract in his embrace as she took a deep breath to release pent-up nerves, silently thanking God that he was the one allowed to mold himself into the curves and contours of her body every night. 

“I want to know more about you.” she requested, sounding like a child asking for a bedtime story. “Tell me something else.” 

So he did. With no hesitation, he told her secrets that seemed so daunting to share until she was the one listening. Anxieties about the future fell from his lips freely, receiving no judgment on the other side. He told her about his fear of clowns and felt his first dose of validation when she agreed that expressionless mimes shouldn’t be around children. The backstory of the small scar on his upper lip was followed by a giggly recollection of the time she put her brother in the dryer to see how long he could spin without getting sick which made him laugh until his abdomen ached. Together they shared uncomfortable memories that introduced intense insecurities, weird theories about the existence of intergalactic forms, and wondered if LeBron James was secretly an android. An elementary game of 21 Questions created a crash course in the entire history of one another. 

They lay there together in a pitch-black room drunk off the jagged, imperfect pieces of each other until their eyes burned with exhaustion and sleep was no longer an option. 

The last thing Terry whispered into Patrice’s ear was a promise to never stop learning about her, to never stop being curious about her likes, dislikes, hopes, and dreams as long as they both lived. She could barely mumble out a worthwhile response but hoped that her gentle hum served as an oath to do the same.

By morning, he was gone. Out into the breeze by first light, leaving only his scent on Imani’s pillow and the fleeting memory of his fingers making a home between Patrice’s legs with whispered praise on his lips as evidence that his presence wasn’t an apparition in the witching hour. Patrice couldn’t resist burying her face into the sheets, squealing and kicking her feet beneath the duvet in elation. 

She was getting married. 

“Y’all are so cute,” Imani swooned, leaning against the bedroom doorframe as she watched her cousin hold a pillow close to her chest like an actress in a romantic drama. “We gotta get you ready, sis! It’s your wedding day!”

People whisked around all morning like busy worker bees, each one darting off to a new place around the estate to fulfill a purpose. Some balanced stacks of white chairs under their arms like magicians to turn a portion of the backyard into a wedding venue. Others hustled through the kitchen’s service door with mounds of ingredients for what could only described as a feast fit for royalty. Women giggled on their way out of the backdoor to meet Patrice and her small entourage to prepare her for a day she’d planned as a girl, but never saw coming together in a dizzying whirlwind such as this. 

In the cottage, women laughed and sipped tea in porcelain cups to go with their fancy hors d'oeuvres on fancier china. The soothing purr from an antique sewing machine placed careful stitches in a beautifully plain satin gown gifted by Imani and Rosalyn to ensure that the garment was made to Patrice’s exact proportions. She was a princess for the day, the world bending to her every whim.

Terry wasn’t so lucky. The bedroom was still too hot and growing even hotter with each unwanted guest moving in and out with more questions than he thought he needed to answer. He wanted a moment to write out heartfelt vows with pen and paper but found himself so frustrated with the whole production that he slammed his writing utensil against the writing desk in the corner and cursed at the wall. 

Another visitor tsk’d behind him. “Boy, you better not let Mama hear you talkin’ like that.”

”She’d pull that ear clean off the side of your head!” 

Equally raspy voices made Terry sigh with relief before he stood to his feet. As two almost identical copies of their mother, Zorah and Zanah were Terry’s first loves. He remembered the day they entered into the world. So precious and honey brown with striking chocolate eyes that could make him bend to their will without a word. He watched them mature through the world like their hired security, never letting harm come to a single hair on their head. He wiped tears, kissed scrapes, and played with dolls like a third parent. When they went their separate ways to grow into adults with individual hopes and dreams, he cried in secret like he’d been the one to birth them. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged his baby sisters but he knew he’d never needed their embrace quite like he needed it in that moment. They hugged him back, two sets of arms wrapping him up in a quiet group hug until he’d had his fill. 

“How is this supposed to be the happiest day of your life and you’re in here cussin’ and breathing all heavy,” Zorah, the oldest of the pair, asked as she cleared her brother’s face of invisible debris. 

She’d always acted as his surrogate mother despite being six years his junior. The everpresent pillar of stability, she left home as soon as she could to explore the other side of the country at UCLA in hopes of studying the ins and outs of music performance. Tall and athletic with long dark locs, her voice became her calling card, but her big brother knew her as a young lady that was once too afraid to sing in the children’s choir at church. 

“You know how Terry is. He think he Obama. All serious for no reason sometimes.”

“That’s not true.” 

“You’re right,” she conceded. “You never gon’ be fine as Obama.” 

Zanah was the hell raiser. Loud and full of energy with an afro big enough to block the sun, she lived to tease her older brother. A zest for bold flavors that could bring even the worst enemies together for a good meal sent her in search of the best culinary school their parents could afford. If you could dream it, she could make it appear in the kitchen with little effort. Terry admired her for her gift, but couldn’t stand her poking and prodding at his expense. 

He kissed his teeth and broke free from their short-lived period of civility. “Treece and the girls are out back. She’ll be happy to see y’all. Zo, get the rings from Daddy as soon as you can. You know how he gets.” 

The twins rolled their eyes at each other while watching Terry pout on his way back to the writing desk for another crack at his speech. Zorah was the first to move with Zanah bringing up the rear. 

She stood over his shoulder to take stock of what he’d managed to write in his time alone. Half sentences and scribbled words scratched through several times over littered the page as if a madman had gotten ahold of his journal. Something about how much he cherished her but with far too much Shakespearean language to be sincere made Zanah giggle behind him.

She sat on the edge of the desk, pretending to judge his work. “Are you writing your vows or the sequel to Romeo and Juliette?” 

“Zanah, please. Pick with me after all of this is done. I can’t deal with the stress right now.”

An invisible weight seemed to push Terry into a defeated hunch, forcing his head into his hands as he angrily rubbed at his eyes. His stress tick was back and more ferocious than ever. Zorah flanked his other side and gave her twin a look of concern before looking back at him.

“Wanna pretend we’re Patrice to practice?” 

He sighed. “No, not really.” 

“Don’t be like that. We won’t tell and you gotta get a move on these vows. It’s a win-win.” 

Terry sat back in his chair to mull over their proposition. A practice run couldn’t hurt. At worst, he’d rid himself of the useless mass of words clogging his brain. 

“Fuck,” he conceded, pushing back from the desk with a loud scrape across the wooden floor. “Look, be nice. If I say something stupid or too mushy just let me finish, alright?” 

“It wouldn’t be nothing we ain’t heard you writing poems about before,” Zanah laughed along with Zorah. 

Terry showed her both of his middle fingers with a smirk as he walked to the center of the room. His days as an amateur poet were a well-kept secret that only his family was forced to witness. One day, when he and Patrice were old and grey, he’d reveal a shoebox full of terrible musings in her honor.

Taking a needed inhale through his nose and long exhale through his mouth, Terry prepared to ramble through his feelings. 

“When I try to imagine my life without you, my mind goes blank. It’s kinda like when you get an error message on a computer or something. No images, no search results, nothing. Empty.” Terry began to pace, finding inspiration in the back-and-forth motion. 

Zorah pressed for more. “Why?”

“I’m not supposed to imagine life without you, Patrice. I don’t want to experience another birthday or Christmas, Earth Day, Juneteenth, shit anything if you’re not there. I prayed for you.” Terry didn’t anticipate getting choked up until the sensation brought with it a lump in his throat. All of the instances he’s asked God for guidance in matters of the heart came rushing back to his remembrance with only one answer at every turn. “Trying to imagine an existence without you feels like I’m telling God that bringing you back to me wasn’t enough.”

His eyes flashed up to his sisters, finding them in the throws of emotion right along with him. 

“Keeping going. Bring it home,” Zanah encouraged. “Give her the fireworks, loverboy!”

Terry laughed through misty vision. “I’m excited to spend the rest of our days together. Tonight, I’m promising you a lifetime of my protection, my devotion, and my desire to show up every single day to make our time together worth the wait. Thank you for choosing me, baby. Let me work on making sure you never regret that decision.” 

A slow clap took over the room, first from two sets of hands that Terry expected, making his shoulder slump from relief. 

“Shit, now I gotta remember all that.” 

“Don’t worry, we recorded,” Zorah assured.

But there was still applause. He whipped his head around to investigate the extra spectators and found his parents beaming from the room’s threshold. 

Diedra spoke up first as she made a beeline for her son. “Oh my God, oh my God! This is really happening. My baby is about to be somebody’s husband.” She claimed his face with her hands, distributing doting kisses on both of his cheeks. “Beautiful vows. Remind me of your father’s.” 

“Not nearly as eloquent,” Marvin laughed, joining the conversation. “Matter of fact, I don’t think I got past the to have and to hold portion without stuttering. The pastor had to move us along because I was so tongue-tied.” 

“Yeah, but the feeling is the same. Your heart’s in the right place.”

“Not right now,” Terry laughed before kissing her forehead. “My heart is in my ass, Mama. Stomach too.” 

The Richmond family laughed harmonious laughs, providing the first bit of ease Terry had felt all morning. 

Marvin reached out to grab his boy’s shoulder for a small squeeze. In all his wildest dreams, he couldn’t have imagined a better man than Terrence had become. All the rearing, the man-to-man talks, the tough love, and every stern redirection had become another foundational brick in not only a worthwhile man but a spectacular human. 

He looked around the room at his girls and wife, trying to hide the overwhelming rush of emotion tightening his chest. “Can you ladies give us a moment?”

Zanah released a dramatic sigh.

“Oh, here we go. They about to cry a river in here. Come on, y’all. Patrice says they’re opening another bottle of champagne and you know I don’t like to miss hearing a cork pop.” 

“You honestly need to talk to somebody about that.” 

“We talk all the time, Zo!”

Time winding down turned advice into a hot commodity, transcending social groups as the sunset drew closer. Everyone had an opinion, an unsolicited tidbit on how to navigate the peaks and valleys of marriage. A hodgepodge of dos and don’ts thrown out like casual information whether Patrice wanted it or not. 

Don’t go to bed angry. Have sex every night. Make sure there’s a separate account for personal emergencies. Keep the kids out of your bed. Some were helpful, others mostly nothing but projections and special circumstances veiled as some sage secret that Patrice and Terry should offer special thanks for receiving.

Nerves were turning into embers of annoyance. By late afternoon, they’d both requested for rooms to be emptied and questions to cease. They’d had enough. No more information. No more guidance. Anything left to learn was up to the test of time, not a bunch of people who meant well, but would ultimately return to their own lives with no say so in what went on between the newlyweds.

Reprieve came when the white chairs were in perfect rows on either side of a flower-lined aisle, ties were neatly draped underneath starched button-up collars, and dresses were pressed to perfection. The sun had begun to dive behind the clouds, leaving the sky full of pink and orange hues. A half-moon hung high in the sky as if it were invited to witness a show made especially for the cosmos. Guests took their seats without care given to which side belonged to the groom or bride. They were all family now. A beautiful mix of lineages and temperaments bonded for as long as Patrice and Terry saw fit. 

At the altar, Sybil stood under two Spanish moss trees towering high above the rest, her gray hair pulled up into an ornate headwrap that matched her dress. She smiled up at both trees as if saying hello to living, breathing beings before asking stragglers to take their seats. 

From the kitchen’s sliding door, Terry bounced on his toes, waiting on his cue to step into the early autumn chill. A tailored suit hugged him close, finally fulfilling its duty to carry him down a path lined with his love's favorite flowers to forever bond himself to the woman handpicked for his unwavering fidelity. 

This was the moment. Fate had willed it so. He wouldn’t turn back for any reason. Destiny had come knocking and he welcomed her in with open arms. 

Dreamy chords from a baby grand piano served as the soundtrack to his final walk as a single man. Measured steps carried him forward, his chest puffed with pride and his shoulders rolled back in the type of relaxed confidence only afforded to people who had no doubt that they were on the exact path they’d been ordained to traverse.

Candles and soft, white light from paper lanterns hanging nearby provided romantic theatrics to accompany his every step. Voices whispered, some calling his name, others leaving comments as he passed. In his periphery, he caught a glimpse of his family. DeeDee’s eyes welled with happy tears as Marvin rubbed her back for comfort. His sisters, both beside themselves with excitement, flashed Terry a look at the wedding bands as a final check-in on their whereabouts. 

At the altar, Junior waited for his arrival as his best man. Terry had requested his presence during a surprisingly heartfelt conversation where Junior had all but lifted his brother-in-law off of his feet to show his appreciation. 

“I love my sister, man.” He repeated over and over under the spell of brunch liquor. “I’m happy it’s you, T. I’m happy it’s you for my sister, man.” 

Junior tapped his right hand over his chest and nodded at Terry, jumping right back into the masculine display of affection that had escaped him when no one else was around. 

Patrice watched it all unfold as she carefully made her way into the kitchen at the tail end of a secret mission to hide her from her husband. Imani trailed her with a bouquet of blue hydrangeas in one hand and the train of her dress in the other. If not for her heels clacking against the black and white tile on the floor, Patrice was sure that her cousin could hear her heart thudding against her sternum. 

“Alright, girl, this is where I leave you,” Imani spoke, a small smile forming as she took another look at Patrice. She tucked a stray curl back into place and presented her with the flowers. “You look beautiful, P. Stunning. My friend is all grown up. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thank you, Imani. For everything. Let’s not allow too much time to pass before we see each other again, okay?” 

“Of course. I’ll be back for Christmas. But, don’t focus on me. You gotta get down the aisle, Mrs. Richmond.” 

Patrice sighed and grinned at the mention of her new last name. “I can’t believe this is happening.” 

“Believe it, baby! It’s time.” 

A final hug connected the two before Imani was out of the door and comically announcing the bride’s arrival before taking her place as maid of honor.

She stood behind that glass door, beaming as all in the area stood in anticipation of her entrance. 

You fix your makeup just so

Guess you don’t know that you’re beautiful 

Try on every dress that you own 

You were fine in my eyes a half hour ago

Terry had mentioned the song in passing once, commenting on how he heard it in a department store and found John Legend kind of corny. What he didn’t mention was that he was in the department store getting fitted for the very suit he wore as he watched Patrice walk toward him and how he took the song as a sign that he was doing exactly what God intended. 

That cheesy song from a cheesier artist was the reason he was dabbing at the corners of his eyes with his knuckles to stop the incoming tears. 

In a lovely satin dress with a high halter neck, Patrice was the center of attention. Imani had specifically chosen a white dress without any reverence for outdated tradition. If her girl was to be wed, she’d be in the appropriate color, no doubt. A split in the front was a personal gift to Terry, a peek at her oiled legs with each step immediately catching his attention.

Her bantu knots were unraveled, leaving behind shiny, bouncy curls that framed her face just right. Soft makeup enhanced ancestral facial features. Minimal jewelry kept the look tailored to her flare for the understated. 

When she waved at Terry, he waved back with a smile so wide that it made his cheeks burn. In all of her glory, every perfect inch from the top of her head to the soles of her feet, was his to cherish. 

And this evening, I won’t let the feeling die 

I never wanna leave your side

Before the music could fade to make way for the ceremony, Terry had already found himself unable to hold back emotion. His fingertips were damp with tears as he assisted Patrice onto the low platform. 

“Sorry,” he whispered while she pulled the handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to clean his face. “Think they got all this in the photos?”

“I hope so. Might get a couple wallet-sized prints to carry in my purse.” 

Patrice chucked as she tucked the pale blue fabric behind her bouquet’s stem and smoothed Terry’s collar. He captured her hand in his and kissed her knuckles. 

Sybil cleared her throat. “We aren’t at that part yet, but I love the enthusiasm. Should we get to the good stuff?” 

Patrice hoped the good stuff was captured in ultra HD on a camera somewhere. She couldn’t bring herself to care about the flowery words and intricate language. She tried her hardest to listen for her name to avoid embarrassing herself in front of everyone hoping to see something movie-like unfold in front of their eyes. But seeing the light etch beautiful reflections and shadows on Terry’s skin was all she could lend her focus to in the moment. 

Luckily, she made it through her vows without stumbling, even managing a joke that garnered a communal chuckle. 

“Honestly, we’re lucky this is happening now instead of at 18 like you said you wanted. I got to see Juicy J at homecoming one year and that wouldn’t have happened if I was chasing behind you in my 20s. You cute but not miss a Juicy J concert cute.”

She listened to Terry sniffle his way through heartfelt lines, occasionally wiping under his eyes to clear his vision. He gripped her hand tight and bathed her in a gaze so intense it sent a shiver down her spine. 

What she was present for, however, was the grand finale. 

“Do you take this woman to be your wife, to live together in matrimony, to love her, to honor her, to comfort her, and to keep her in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?” Sybil asked Terry though she was already sure of his answer. 

His top lip almost disappeared from being stretched so wide in his smile. “I do.” 

Sure as he knew his first name, Terry affirmed his decision with two words and all of his teeth on display. Sybil looked to Patrice, finally seeing her niece as a woman and not the little girl that kept her on her toes every summer. 

She took a deep breath and then laughed. “Lord, now I’m crying!” The family laughed, some using the moment to wipe away their own tears. “Okay, I’m back. Do you take this man to be your husband -” 

“Yes! I do! I mean you can finish if you need to, but that’s my answer. One billion times, yes.”

There was no need. Under the twinkle of ancestors acting as stars and God showing his splendor in the marvelous brightness of the moon, man and woman became one. Mr. and Mrs. Richmond, free to jump hand in hand over a small, decorated broom to honor the folks that had come before them.

Well wishes came in abundance. Gifts big, small, and monetary spilled from a small table onto the rug beneath. Toasts became the preferred way to start a conversation. Buttons and ties had come undone from tight collars. High heels swapped for sensible shoes. Couples already squarely in the mature stages of partnership rushed to slow dance in the center of the communal area between tables. Pictures memorialized a wondrous occasion. They’d sign official paperwork another day. Tonight was for celebration.

While the party raged on, Patrice and Terry sat in the center of the table wrapped up in one another. His chin rested in the palm of her hand as he watched her lips move in time with the lyrics to a line dance song her parents led on the makeshift dancefloor. Her fingernails gently scratched at his jaw, an absentminded habit she’d picked up recently. He nudged her temple with his forehead like a cat begging for affection. 

“Hmm,” she hummed, not looking in his direction. He repeated his actions to receive the attention he craved. She finally looked over and giggled. “What, baby?” 

“Nothing. Just wanted you to look at me.” 

Patrice pressed her nose to Terry’s before placing a soft kiss on his full bottom lip. “Let’s get away from here for a second. Follow me.” 

Without question, Terry allowed Patrice to tug him along, past the throngs of dancing guests, away from music blasting out of jumbo speakers, down a shallow hill, and to a small lake shimmering in the night. 

He held her steady when she stopped short to remove her heels, saying something about needing to feel the grass between her toes. She jogged the rest of the way to the lake with Terry holding her shoes and taking long strides to catch up. 

She carefully lifted her dress before stepping into the water, only allowing it to cover the sides of her feet as she tilted her chin to the sky. Terry watched her with a placid grin and low eyelids. 

“You having fun,” he asked as he placed her belongings on a tree stump and stuffed his hands in his pockets. 

“Mhm. You?” 

“Yeah. I am.” 

“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” 

He watched her for a few seconds more, admiring the way she seemed to salute every piece of nature in the vicinity. 

“You know, we didn’t get a first dance.” 

Patrice stopped creating ripples in the water with her toes and looked over at Terry. “Oh shit, we didn’t, huh? Wanna go back and do that? I don’t even have a song picked out. Slipped my mind, I guess.” 

“Nah, it’s cool,” he answered, still smiling. “We can dance right here.” 

He presented his hand for her grab, pulling her from the lake with care until she was up against his chest. They swayed to nothing for a second while Terry fiddled with his phone to find something worthy of their time. Patrice closed her eyes to listen to the breeze, more content with the wind as a soundtrack than she expected. 

Soon, Etta James came rolling through his phone’s speakers. 

Terry dropped one hand just above Patrice’s backside, the other wrapping around her back to lead them in a slow dance. A waltz of sorts in the blue moonlight. 

Her hands snaked up to the top of his head and pulled him as close as he could be, his nose so tight against her neck she could feel the slight suction and release from every breath. 

They stayed there, moving side to side under Etta James’s sweet song of found love until all distractions faded and left them in the fullness of each other. 

Patrice angled her head upwards as Terry kissed along her collarbone. Then her ear. Her cheek, her nose, and, finally, her lips. 

As he said I love you without words, Patrice tried to place the sweet taste of citrus and apple on his tongue. Was it dessert? Maybe her lip gloss or the fancy compote from their dinner plate? 

No, none of those. 

She closed her eyes tighter to taste more. There it was. The ghost of her fantasy. The secret marker of her one true love. 

Champagne.

---

TAGS: @planetblaque @wvsspoppin @thatone-girly @avoidthings @slutsareteacherstoo @eilujion @amyhennessyhouse @yaachtynoboat711 @jenlovey @pinkpantheris @blowmymbackout @onherereading @hrlzy @becauseimswagman1 @thiccc-c @urfavblackbimbo @blackburnbook @ashanti-notthesinger @xo-goldengirl @ariiijestertheklown

[driptape]

“ the way i felt about you hasn’t changed. ” slater & imani

the laugh that bubbled out of her was so utterly disrespectful . she shouldn’t have been antagonizing the man following his confession , but she’s heard it all before from slater . that despite the things he’s done to her , he cared about her . bullshit . it only worked if she was drunk or lonely enough to use it as an excuse to sleep with her ex just one last time . her eyes just barley looked up at him from her phone . the two orbs rolling before bringing her attention back to the device .  “ do you ever get tried of lying to me ? “ imani spat . “ it’s a serious question . “ — “ 'cause we both know it isn’t true . i mean . . . you said we weren’t supposed to catch feelings , right ? that i shouldn’t be mad ‘cause you warned me not to , so how do you have any feelings for me ? “ finally looking at him . “ oh , wait . “ she chuckled , “ lust’s a feeling . . . so , uhm , i guess you got me there . “

[sellasstories]

CLOSE (II)

word count: 4.9k

pairing: paige bueckers x azzi fudd

⚠️warnings⚠️:

slightly explicit themes, light angst, swearing

prompts:

what happens when two best friends with strong, undefined feelings quarantine together (part 2: paige)

in other words, the pazzi covid fic

Azzi gazes at the girl beside her, taking in Paige’s long lashes and the way the sun streaming in from the window is practically making the blonde glow.

“Thank you for taking care of me,” Azzi says softly, leaning in and placing a hand on Paige’s arm. She realizes too late that she doesn’t know if her best friend is awake yet.

“Fuck, Az, not so loud,” groans Paige, not bothering to open her eyes.

Azzi jerks her head back in disgust. “Your breath smells awful!” She ignores the other part of herself that fixated on how the words sounded coming out of her best friend’s mouth. “Sorry, I just need to know what you did with the bottle,” she whispers, a hint of anxiety piercing her voice.

Paige only gets closer. Seemingly unbothered by Azzi’s concern, she buries her face in the dark-haired girl’s neck. “It’s hidden, we’re good.”

After the night she’s had, the feeling of Paige’s lips on her neck (which, she quickly realizes, has never happened before) is entirely too much for Azzi to deal with.

“Paige, tell me.”

“Closet. Hamper, under clothes.” Her head falls back onto the pillow and it seems like the blonde falls asleep almost instantly.

Azzi bites her bottom lip almost hard enough to draw blood. And since she already seems to be in her own personal hell, she admits to herself that Paige may have had a hand in (or entirely been the cause of) the sudden swooping sensation in her stomach.

Looking around for her phone, Azzi takes two photos. The first shows the curtain of blonde hair doing little to hide all the points of contact between Paige’s face and Azzi’s neck. The second shows the pale hand nearly digging into Azzi’s exposed side, the pushed up hoodie (she’d always recognize it as Paige’s) making it look even more suggestive.

She knows it’s a bad idea, maybe even a terrible one, but she tells herself that she’s going to use them for something productive, like sending them to Imani (whoever she is) and telling her to back off. It doesn’t even sound convincing to her. She’s fucking ridiculous.

Reluctantly, Azzi pulls herself out of her best friend’s tight embrace, only managing to do so as the blonde appears to have completely knocked out again. She gives her head a firm shake but instantly regrets it as she feels her headache worsen.

Sighing, she stands up and makes her way to the bathroom. Soothed by the familiar morning routines of washing her face and brushing her teeth (the bitter aftertaste in her mouth taking a while to go away), Azzi is able to look at her reflection without wanting to scream.

Making fun of herself has always been her best defence mechanism, so she does a stupid pose in the mirror and takes a stupid photo of herself in Paige’s hoodie and posts a stupid ‘Who wore it better?’ poll on her private story. She’s been sitting on the counter brainstorming what to do with the bottle for less than three minutes when a FaceTime from Colleen covers her phone screen.

Azzi is quick to answer, not even getting a greeting in before her friend blurts out, “So what’s up with you and Paige?”

Eyes widening, Azzi hops off the counter to find headphones, frantically mashing the volume button down before Colleen can say anything else.

“What are you even talking about?” She whispers once she’s settled back in the bathroom.

The other girl shrugs. “Did something happen between you two?”

Azzi still doesn’t get it. “Like, a fight? We’re fine, I promise. Why are you asking, though? Did Paige say something to you?” She hopes her voice doesn’t sound as paranoid as she feels. It’s been a long 24 hours.

“Your story? It looks a bit… y’know,” Colleen smirks. “I figured it was only a matter of time, but I didn’t think you’d post it like that. I have to say, though, I thought Paige would be the type to leave hickies. Unless they’re just somewhere el-”

“SHUT UP!” Azzi shrieks, immediately slapping her hand over her mouth. “How are you getting all of this from a photo? We’ve never even kissed!”

Colleen has the decency to look slightly apologetic. “Sorry, I guess you wouldn’t see it that way. Look at the photo again, Az. Try to understand, because I promise I’m not the only one.”

“Fine.” Azzi clicks on her story. Shit. Her hair is messy, her tongue is out in what she realizes now looks like a smug smile, and Paige’s hoodie is hanging off her in a way that makes it look like she’s not wearing anything else. Colleen is totally right.

“Oh, my god.” Her reaction is so genuine that Colleen finally drops the teasing.

“You really didn’t know, huh? Look, forget I said anything, but you might wanna think about taking it down if you’re worried about what people could say.” There’s an awkward silence as Azzi sits with her head in her hands.

Suddenly, she raises her head, eyes narrowed accusingly. “Care to explain what the fuck ‘a matter of time’ is supposed to mean? Does everyone know something I don’t?”

Colleen fails to suppress a giggle as she raises her hands in the air. “I was never gonna assume anything, but I figured you two wouldn’t be able to spend that much time together without… figuring it out. Apparently,” she rolls her eyes, “I was wrong.”

“I don’t know what you think you’re seeing, but I can’t deal with this right now,” Azzi squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath. “I’m so hungover, and I still have to deal with P and my parents.”

“You’re WHAT?!” Colleen’s screech of disbelief nearly sends Azzi falling off the counter a second time. “You don’t even drink… what the hell happened last night?!” It’s really more of a statement than a question, and Azzi has no choice but to explain.

Briefly, she considers telling Colleen everything, but she’s given up enough secrets recently, and it hasn’t gotten her anywhere good. The other girl believes her when she claims to have forgotten a large part of the night, and the story is apparently more interesting than the original subject of the call, of which Azzi is very grateful.

Miraculously, Paige is still asleep when Azzi hangs up the call and goes back into the blonde’s bedroom. She really needs to focus on making sure that she doesn’t get in a massive amount of trouble, but she can’t stop her eyes from continually drifting to her best friend’s sleeping form.

Telling herself that she and Paige can come up with a lie if worst comes to worst, she finally allows herself to do what Paige definitely can’t help her with — process the previous night. The cold wall against her back grounds her as she sifts through her feelings.

In hindsight, her best friend being queer isn’t all that surprising (Azzi does have eyes, after all), and really neither is Paige liking a girl. Even when it comes to Paige, Azzi tries to be logical and reasonable, but she’s only human. She can’t help but imagine all the girls that must be throwing themselves at the blonde (her brain conveniently chooses to ignore the fact that she doesn’t even know if Paige is out), and the jealousy sits heavily in her stomach.

Paige must be used to it, then, and according to Colleen, it looked like Azzi was one of the aforementioned girls. She cringes internally. Was it really that obvious? The problem is, though, that it must look like Paige has been reciprocating this hypothetical, unintentional flirting in some way. Azzi can’t think of any other reason for what Colleen had told her, and her friend had been very clear about it being something with both of them. She thinks about the way Paige held her while she cried, and she thinks that she might understand.

Azzi can’t tell if her head hurts from the hangover or the absurd mental gymnastics she’s undertaking, and she hasn’t even considered the dream yet. Wanting Paige is nothing new for her, but she’d broken too many of her own rules the previous night. She’s never messed up with Paige like that before, and she worries that it’s only going to get worse.

As her thoughts drift back to her conversation with Colleen, Azzi realizes that she never actually deleted the photo on her story. Maybe it speaks to how far she’s fallen, but it fills Azzi with a sick sense of pride as she looks at it with new perspective. Maybe she wants people to see this- maybe she wants Paige to see this, wants to know how her best friend would react.

Shutting her phone off, Azzi feels like she’s just made a pivotal choice, one she knows she wouldn’t have made a few months ago before Paige was living with her, and she’s going to have to make another purposeful concession to keep her sanity. Rationalizing once again, Azzi reasons that flirting with Paige just a bit wouldn’t be all that bad. The older girl might just be oblivious if Colleen is to be believed and they already have that outward dynamic.

Maybe her sudden feeling of giddiness is preventing her from seeing the obvious flaws of the idea, but the more she thinks about it, the more Azzi likes it. While there’s no guarantee that it will make her life any easier, it’s something that she can control, and she hasn’t felt in control of anything when it comes to Paige for years now.

By the time Paige wakes up, Azzi has two plans: the first one being another secret that she’s going to have to keep, and the second being something that she immediately goes to share with the other girl.

Paige is groggy and hungover, but somehow she gets past the rambling and mild panic in Azzi’s voice to understand what she needs to do. They’re able to sneak craft supplies onto the back deck, and Paige even manages to keep a straight face when she runs into Jose with the bottle under her hoodie.

She nods dutifully as Azzi explains the smashed bottle to her parents as a simple accident while trying to do a TikTok trend, and the girls escape with nothing more than a request to ask before taking anything else after promising to clean up the mess.

“You’re scary good at that,” Paige remarks as they’re squatting on the deck with dust pans in hand.

“At what? Lying?” Azzi asks absently. Smiling brightly, she picks up a big piece of glass and makes a heart out pink and purple glitter on it. The gesture makes Paige melt.

“No, at solving problems. You’re incredible, Az.”

The dark haired girl gives her a look. “Is this what you’re like hungover? All sappy and shit?” Her judgemental tone is offset by the fact that she’s currently making a second heart on another piece of glass.

“I’m like this all the time, what do you mean?” Paige pouts. “I know you love it anyway.”

“Mmm,” Azzi’s busy adding the finishing touches to her masterpieces. She carefully places them on the table before turning back to Paige.

Their gazes cross briefly and Azzi thinks maybe she sees something that looks like love. As she goes back to sweeping up the glass, she has to physically shake her head as she tells herself to get it together. She figures she must still be drunk or something.

But Azzi isn’t seeing things. Paige is lucky that the younger girl is distracted, because the lovestruck gaze that she’s failing to hide is the least of her worries. Since she woke up, there’s been a feeling that she just can’t shake, and she’s run out of explanations of what it could be.

Except for one, that is. Waking up tangled in Azzi’s arms this morning had felt different, and so, so right. Paige wouldn’t hesitate to say that Azzi was the person she was the most comfortable with, but never before had she considered the feeling that they belonged together.

That feeling had only intensified when Paige had accidentally brushed her lips against her best friend’s neck and then compounded it by holding Azzi’s side like she belonged to her.

Sure, that would’ve looked really bad. But what felt worse — not worse exactly, just… new and kind of scary — was when Paige, still drifting in and out of consciousness, heard Azzi’s anxious demands and found them only endearing.

Not long ago, she would’ve found herself getting annoyed, but even with the stress of covering their tracks pushing Azzi into her controlling state, the fondness in Paige’s heart still hasn’t dissipated. Does this mean Paige… has a crush on her best friend?

There, outside on the deck, Paige metaphorically gives Azzi her heart as the younger girl gives Paige a physical one. Paige thinks the broken glass that is the medium of Azzi’s creation makes a pretty good metaphor for her perception of their friendship. Shattered, splintered, permanently altered.

Trying not to say anything too sappy (or too insane for that matter, she has no idea how she came up with the broken glass thing), Paige elects to admire the methodical way that Azzi is now checking for missed pieces of glass.

When they finally go back inside, the first thing Paige does is place the glass heart on her night table so she can look at it every day. The second thing she does is open Snapchat, which is apparently a terrible decision. As soon as she clicks on Azzi’s story, that weird feeling is back, but it’s less surprising.

Azzi wears Paige’s clothes all the time, but she doesn’t normally draw attention to that fact the way this story so clearly is. Has the dark-haired girl always looked so good in Paige’s hoodies? Probably. Somehow, Paige had just been blind to it. She wishes desperately that it was still the case, because it would definitely be weird to ask her best friend to share clothes more often.

Groaning, Paige throws her phone onto the bed before flopping facedown after it.

“Whatcha doing, Paigey?” says Azzi in a singsong voice from the doorway.

Paige rolls over, not bothering to open her eyes. “I’m sleeping- or at least I was,” she says exasperatedly.

“Can I join you?” Azzi’s sounds seductive in Paige’s ears, and she has to open her eyes to confirm it’s just in her imagination. Fuck.

Azzi’s still wearing her sweater, and there’s definitely a slight smirk on her face as she stands with her arms crossed and her head tilted to the side.

“You look good in my sweater,” Paige mumbles sleepily. Shit, shit, shit. There’s no way she just said that out loud. Throwing her arm over her face to hide her blush, Paige misses Azzi’s smile widening.

“I know I do,” Azzi is closer now. She traces a finger down Paige’s bicep. “You didn’t answer my question, though.”

“Just come here,” Paige whines. She moves her arm so Azzi can rest her head on it. At the younger girl’s sigh of contentment, Paige has to squeeze her eyes shut. She is so, so fucked.

•••••

‘Fucked’ is maybe an understatement. Paige doesn’t know what to do anymore. She really wishes she was able to keep her thoughts locked away. She knows Azzi would be able to.

At first, they’d been manageable and fairly harmless. She’d just catch herself staring at Azzi here and there and find that she had the urge to ask the other girl if she knew how beautiful she was. Sure, she’d noticed that Azzi was pretty before, but she hadn’t had time to really appreciate how her features complemented each other so well. Friends look at each other like that, right? Paige wasn't totally sure, but she’d sort of been able to convince herself that they did, backtracking on her earlier realization. That had worked for all of a few hours. Then she was right back to where she started, looking at Azzi like she wanted them to be something more than best friends.

Now that a few days had passed, it seemed that Azzi coming out to her had been both a blessing and a curse. Fortunately, it had allowed Paige to come out with much less stress. She was never planning on keeping it from the younger girl (she didn’t think that was something she was even able to do), but she had never found what felt like the right time and it had been weighing heavily on her. She really didn’t think they could get any closer, but since the mutual confession, their bond felt even deeper.

Unfortunately, it seemed to have unlocked something in her subconscious mind. And that was the problem — not when she realized that Azzi was pretty, but when she realized that Azzi was hot. Like, really hot, so hot that she regularly got Paige worked up. The blonde would toss and turn in bed, thighs squeezed together, as she tried to push away some of the crazier thoughts, reminding herself that they were about her really hot best friend, not some random crush.

Knowing that Azzi liked girls had apparently given Paige’s brain new material and explicit permission to use it. Even though she was quick to dismiss the thoughts as soon as they popped into her head, she was bombarded by images of Azzi in various states of undress, doing things with her that girls who like other girls do. While they did make her feel a bit guilty, she wasn’t going to lie to herself and pretend that she didn’t also enjoy them. She also wasn’t going to pretend that, on the rare nights where Azzi wasn’t wrapped around her, her hand wouldn’t dip below her waistband as she allowed herself to briefly indulge in her newfound forbidden desires.

There is also a second (and admittedly more complicated) problem: Paige isn’t just attracted to Azzi, she’s pretty sure she’s in love with her. Like, the full-blown ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’ kind of love. She’d been drawn to the dark-haired girl since the day they met, and the more she actually thinks about it, the more she realizes that there was probably never a time where she wasn’t in love with Azzi. She goes back and forth between cringing at her own obliviousness and thanking the Lord for not making her have to live with it for all these years. She can’t imagine grappling with these feelings at the age of fifteen when even looking back at the mess of interactions from her short time at the Fudd’s is enough to give her a headache.

Even if this whole love thing is new, Paige would still consider herself something of an Azzi expert, or at least an expert on the way that Azzi acts around her. And she’s sure that it’s not the same as it was last week, or ever, for that matter. Because in all their years of friendship, Azzi has never whispered in Paige’s ear so close that her lips ghost across her skin, never ran her hands across Paige’s upper thighs, and certainly never looked at Paige with those eyes. And at the family dinner table, no less.

Well, she’s at least somewhat sure. Technically, Paige realizes she can’t be completely sure because she wasn’t exactly looking for it before. Maybe it was there all along and she was just oblivious. Or worse, maybe Azzi isn’t even doing anything and Paige is making it all up to serve her own interests.

But whether or not it’s in her head, it’s absolutely torturous. Nighttime fantasies aside, Paige wants it to mean something when she holds her best friend at night. She wants Azzi to know that the forehead kisses (a new habit she’s picked up) and words of affection whispered in the dark are a million little confessions, all uttered in place of one that she will never dare voice out loud.

She never imagined the thought crossing her mind, but sometimes Paige wants all of this to be over, almost needs to get away from Azzi for both of their sakes. But then her best friend will flash a smile in Paige’s direction and everything else melts away. Because Azzi has Paige wrapped around her finger, and Paige is hardly fighting it anymore.

•••••

Paige has seen Azzi in a bathing suit before, but not since she’s… figured some things out. When the dark-haired girl runs out of the house in a simple black bikini, Paige doesn’t even know where to look. There are so many places that she wants to but basically nowhere that she thinks would be appropriate at this point, so she settles for the safest option of locking eyes with Azzi. That turns out to be a mistake, because of course Azzi’s looking at her like that, and Paige wants to go back inside to hide from her.

Being unable to make eye contact with her best friend, Paige’s gaze inevitably shifts downwards. The blonde has enough self-awareness to realize that the look on her face as her eyes snag on Azzi’s lips and collarbones is something she never wants the other members of the household to see. She schools her features into neutrality as she turns around, confusion quickly clouding them when she sees only Tim at the grill.

“Where are Katie and the boys at?” she asks.

A brief smile ghosts across Tim’s face. “Inside, I guess,” he shrugs dismissively. “They’ll be out soon, I’m sure they’re getting dish soap or something.”

Paige doesn’t have long to ponder his evasive answer before Azzi is calling her over.

“Come help me with these staples!”

The DIY slip-n-slide was another idea they’d seen on Tiktok, and when the forecast predicted a particularly hot and sunny day, it seemed like the perfect time to try it.

Paige and Azzi are securing the last corner of the plastic sheet when they’re finally joined by Azzi’s mom and brothers. Only Katie is holding a bottle of dish soap, which Paige registers as somewhat suspicious, but she’s quickly distracted by Tim’s call to come eat.

—

They try the slip-n-slide after lunch. After much bickering, Azzi gets to be the first to go. She slides gracefully on her stomach, laughing joyfully the whole time, before jumping to her feet and turning to Paige with a huge grin on her face.

Paige would be the first to tell anyone how much she loves Azzi’s smile, but she barely registers it this time as her eyes latch onto a water droplet on Azzi’s shoulder and her earlier attempts not to look are all for nothing. Almost hypnotically, her eyes follow the trail of water past her best friend’s collarbones, between the valley of her breasts, and across her abs before it soaks into her bikini bottoms. Paige fully takes in the warm brown skin glistening with soapy water and it’s just so much. All Paige wants to do is touch, anywhere she can. She’s imagining running her hands down her best friend’s body in very inappropriate ways when Jon’s voice next to her snaps her back into the present.

“Hello, Earth to Paige?” he yells, practically screaming in her ear. Face burning, the blonde’s eyes snap away just in time to watch Azzi’s youngest brother turn the hose on her.

“Oooh, you’re so dead for that!” she shrieks, chasing after him.

It soon becomes apparent what Katie and the boys were doing when Jose comes running out of the house with a huge bucket of water balloons. He starts chucking them at Paige and Jon, who are wrestling in the grass, and soon the whole family is having a water balloon fight.

Paige and Azzi try to seek shelter behind a table, but it turns out to be a bad decision as the rest of the Fudds gang up on them. With their supply dwindling, both girls jump up and run across the yard, dodging many balloons but still getting soaked.

“Please, spare us,” Paige cries as she ducks behind Azzi. “You wouldn’t hurt your sweet sister, would you?”

Jon and Jose consider it for about three seconds. “Fuck family, this is war!” Jon shouts, earning a cheer from Jose and poorly masked laughter from Tim and Katie. The onslaught continues, with Paige still trying to use Azzi as a human shield.

If Paige’s hands slide when she puts them on Azzi’s sides to reposition her, surely it’s just because of the soapy water. If they brush across Azzi’s abs as she turns around to push the older girl away, Paige’s breath certainly doesn’t catch in her throat. And when the girls lose the water balloon fight, it’s definitely because it was basically two against four and not because Paige was horribly, atrociously distracted.

—

“Today was really fun,” Azzi muses as they lie in her bed that night.

“Easy for you to say when you didn’t get a sunburn,” Paige winces at the slight sting as her back rubs against the sheets.

“That’s because I’m better than you,” Azzi shrugs like it’s obvious. “Don’t worry, I still think you look cute… even if it means you won’t let me cuddle you tonight.” She yawns and rolls over.

Paige freezes. What the fuck? Her brain is telling her that there’s no way she heard Azzi right, but with the way her best friend has been acting, it almost makes sense.

Shaking her head, Paige shifts around before deciding that the least painful sleeping position is flat on her back. When Azzi slinks her way into Paige’s arms, the older girl grits her teeth against the pain, never once considering pushing the dark-haired girl away to ease her discomfort.

—

Paige is in a desert. Her burnt skin stings under the sun and the hot sand scorches her feet as she stumbles desperately towards a jagged mountain, the only landmark for miles. She’s disappointed to discover that it offers no shade, but hope blossoms as she circles it.

The back of the mountain is an imposing rock face, but all thoughts of trying to climb it are dispelled when a small dark line running down it catches Paige’s eye. She draws closer and is relieved to find that it’s a trickle of water descending from the top of the mountain hundreds of feet above her. The rivulet is scarcely wider than one of Paige’s fingers, but she desperately presses her tongue to the rock, needing to get as much as she can in case it runs out.

The first drop of water invigorates her. It tastes like dreams and desires and a million other things all at once, and soon Paige doesn’t think she could stop lapping it up if she tried. The water drips down her chin and she welcomes the sensation. The trickle grows into a stream and still Paige keeps drinking, closing her eyes as it washes over her like a baptism.

Paige’s senses are flooded by vanilla and jasmine and she has only one thought. Azzi. When her tongue brushes against the rock face again, it’s not the rough feeling she’d gotten used to, causing Paige to open her eyes in shock. She’s on her stomach on what appears to be a flat rock in the middle of an oasis.

But Paige barely has time to take in her surroundings because right under her is the source of her desires. Azzi has an arm thrown carelessly over her eyes, legs spread so that Paige can lie between them, her head inches above the other girl’s smooth, toned stomach. Paige realizes what she’d felt on her tongue and dips her head down, experimentally tracing the path of a water droplet up Azzi’s stomach. She swallows thickly, revelling once more in the heavenly taste of it.

“Why’d you stop?” Paige’s head snaps up. They make eye contact for the first time, Azzi’s relaxed body language juxtaposed by the lust darkening her deep brown eyes.

Paige realizes that Azzi’s wearing the black bikini top she loves, but as her arm brushes the dark-haired girl’s bare hip bone, she’s not brave enough to look down.

“It’s just us here,” Azzi purrs. She arches her back slightly so she can reach the knot holding her top on. “Just you and me.” Azzi fixes Paige with an intense stare, not once breaking eye contact as she begins to pull her top off.

Azzi’s scent is intoxicating, clouding Paige’s senses and leaving her almost in a trance. “You know what I want, baby.” She licks her lips.

Paige doesn’t know if it’s the pet name or the sultry tone of Azzi’s voice, but her head is starting to feel fuzzy.

“I- I do,” she says almost reverently.

“Good girl,” Azzi murmurs. “Think you can do that for me, then?”

And Paige finds herself nodding eagerly, letting soft hands tangle in her hair as Azzi gently pushes her head down.

—

Paige wakes up absolutely parched. She tries not to be disappointed when the water she gulps down tastes nothing like the elixir from her dream. There’s only one thing that she thinks could possibly taste that good, and it’s the one thing she can’t possibly have.