#but yeah they're all still on ff.net somewhere

[ace-beef]

maybe I'll write one more Mavin fic... just for old times' sake...

[turtlesocksv2]

Liveblogging DFF Ep 2

It's time for Dead Friend Forever episode 2!

Ok I have to say this but it cracks me up every time i watch a Thai show and we get that little disclaimer at the start saying "we do not condone any characters/jobs/actions in this show it is for entertainment only" like what kind of 2003 FF.Net "Please don't sue me i am poor and only playing with these characters like dolls" ass thing to see in front of Mafia Dramas (Kinnporsche), Serial Killer hijinks (Dead Friend Forever) and fucking bittersweet adult midlife crisis vibes (Moonlight Chicken).

Top is absolutely losing it, and they need to leave poor Fluke alone. He is trying his best! What more do you expect from him?!

Oh, Tee is the first to break off from the group. RIP Tee, we'll see how that works out for you.

The mask the killer wears really is very freaky. well done, props department.

Phi the only one awake. I see you. I support you in your killings.

Oh I really thought Top was donefor there. Phi taking control of the group is so interesting. The way he leads everyone down what investigation paths...

Alright just what did you guys do to Non last time??? thank god the 3 newbies to the group are having a little sidebar asking that question. Clearly whatever it was was awful for the group to jump immediately to Non is Dead and his Ghost is Cursing Us and He Wants Us Dead Too for What We Did. But also, i think this rules out All Three Newbies working together to I Know What You Did Last Summer the group, otherwise this scene would make no sense. We'd have another Gossip Girl Dan situation where actions taken when they're alone don't add up to the reveal. So at least 1 of the newbies is not involved.

LOL at Tan trying to get Fluke to spill what the core group knows. If i was Fluke I'd be feeling very very threatened right now. "You think you're going to be next. I'm worried about you." and now Jin is being mean to Fluke too! for the love of god, Fluke is trying! just because he wants to be a doctor doesn't mean he can perform surgery in a cabin in the woods! Leave him alone!

"a good-mouthed and good-hearted man like you doesn't need to remind me" yessss. kill him.

lmao Por has old fucking floppy disks. are these people old enough to have used a floppy disk in their lives. but i know i've got old floppies around somewhere so it makes sense there'd be some at a like summer vacation house that gets used rarely. but also, did i miss that Por hid the footage last episode? because otherwise wouldn't the harddrive that had the footage still be in the room they were all in when Phi hooked it up to the TV?

Was that a mystery medicine bottle in the closet? 👀👀 yeah i'm gonna need someone who can read Thai to to screenshot and tell us what that says.

Oh i really don't need the squelching noises from Fluke tending to Por's wound, please.

Ok, that Por jumpscare with the balcony door got me. and How the fuck does Por have the strength to strangle someone when he's been bleeding out all night?! Obviously a hallucination or something but what caused the hallucination?!

Thank you, White, for bringing back up that they are in the Cult Sacrifice Woods and this might be a Cult Killer or have to do with the cult. a very important thing to remember.

I would absolutely be looking at that footage the second Tee and Top turned their backs, the fuck. No you don't get to act that sus about what happened three years ago and play it off! Phi fighting the fight to keep that footage intact and eventually seen. Tan trying to gently break the idea that the group was bullying Non to White.

oh SHIT the way Uncle Deng got fucking GOT by that wire i screamed! i knew something was going to go down because obviously they couldn't escape the valley mansion in episode 2 but jesus. fucking. christ.

Tee finally remembering he has a boyfriend that he abandoned to the serial killer lmao. Tee and Top keep almost getting away and then going back. they are being herded like cattle. but also, it's kind of sus.

No PhiJin and barely any TeeWhite stuff this episode, which makes sense in that they are busy they don't have time to fuck, but i do find it interesting that PhiJin seem to be on the same page the episode with like no relationship tension between them just situational worry considering Jin was literally biting Phi's dick last episode. Putting aside grudges to stay alive: i'm proud.

anyway that was a really good episode! Tee and Top are the worst. Fluke needs to get the fuck out of this toxic friend group. White needs to dump Tee and get the fuck out of this toxic friend group. Phi and Tan can kill whoever they want i support it. ❤️

[sky-kenobye]

Fic Tag Game

Thanks @ineffable-snowman for the tag! :D

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

7 works, 5 of them are my own fics and the other 2 are translations (in french) of other people's fics

2. What's your Ao3 word count?

18,740 words

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Only Star Wars at the moment. I used to write for Harry Potter but not anymore, and one translation is from a Sherlock fic and I sort of tried to write for that fandom but never managed anything.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Who's having a gay crisis? (424 kudos) (HP)

2. Partenaire Particulier (397 kudos) (HP)

3. Not exactly common (221 kudos) (HP)

4. Happy as a stick bug (132 kudos) (SW)

5. I wish you with me always (99 kudos) (SW)

(I honestly don't think they deserve to be in that order, I would put the entire thing upside down lol. But drarry/hp in general is a much bigger fandom than obikin and they're older fics, so more time to get kudos. And my top one doesn't deal with aroace stuff so it must have helped too.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to, yes! I might not if it's just a few emojis or a very very short one, and sometimes I just forget, but I like when authors answer my comments so I try to do the same.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

None of them, I'm a fluff writer, I can't handle the unhappy endings 😅 I guess the worst one might be my very first fic, that must still be somewhere on ff.net, it was a pretty angsty/bittersweet fic (and probably very badly written, yikes)

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them? They all end with people cuddling/holding hand/being really sappy 🤷 The one where the characters are the happiest is probably I wish you with me always though, it's the only one where nobody's traumatised one way or another.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I haven't so far, luckily. But I don't have that many hits either so less people reading it=less likely to get hate (I think?)

9. Do you write smut? What kind?

Nope! No smut for me I'm afraid, I think I'd be pretty bad at it tbh. I'm not ruling it out but being an aroace virgin myself, I think I'd be a bit out of my depth lol. But if I ever do it'll probably be the sappiest most vanilla smut you've ever seen x)

(I enjoy reading way kinkier stuff, but I don't think I have it in me to write it)

10. Do you write cross-overs?

I haven't so far. If we're talking about characters crossover(?)(like, making characters from different media meet) I'm not sure I ever will, I'm definitely not inspired at the moment. If putting characters in another universe counts as a crossover (like, idk a pacific rim au?), then I probably will eventually, yeah.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, probably not.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I did some translations myself. I'm vaguely thinking about translating my own fics in french though. It's thanks to translations of fics that I started reading in english, and it's thanks to that that I became so good in english, so like, I owe fic translators a lot? And I also feel kinda bad about speaking french but "gatekeeping" my fics by writing them only in english. Idk.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No, I don't think that's for me, too much pressure to write something good and that the other author(s) actually like.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

Hmm 🤔 I want to say obikin because they're my current absolute fav, and they might rank first in term of investment, and maybe even intensity, but it's a relatively recent ship for me soooo 🤷 My oldest and longest lasting was Harry/Ginny, but I wasn't quite as much into it as other ships. Drarry was a pretty intense one for a while but I went multiple times from being obsessed with it to being almost squicked by it, so I don't think they can go first. Stucky, Dinluke and Johnlock are up there too but idk.

15. What's your WIP you'd like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Idk if it counts but I wanted to write a sequel to Partenaire Particulier. I didnt have anything really planed but I really wanted a sequel and I promised up and down that I would write it, no matter how long it took. And uuuh, now I left the fandom and don't intend on getting back to it 😬 So that's haunting me a little bit.

16. What are your writing strength?

Strength? No strength here sir.

I'm kidding but I really have no idea. Dialogue comes the easiest to me but I'm not sure I'm actually good at it, i tend do make my characters ramble and go on emotional rants.

Or in middle school I wrote a scene description so good that my teacher read it for the whole classroom, so maybe that was my strength back then? I was twelve though.

And I dont know if it's a strength, a weakness or just a fact but almost all my fics so far are about aro/ace/qpr stuff (projecting much? me? naah. 👀)

(If anybody wants to tell me what's good in my writing I'd kiss you on the mouth)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Blending dialogue and not-dialogue (forgor the name). I either write 1k without anyone speaking or 1k straight of dialogue but you don't know what anybody's doing. I try to blend both when I edit but it's haaaard.

Also sometimes I feel like I have the vocabulary of a 5 years old.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I think it can be perfectly fine if the pov isn't supposed to understand what's being said, or if it's translated straight away, but when you read a long fic with mando'a every 5 seconds and none of it is translated (or all at the end) it gets pretty annoying and doesnt really add much to the fic. imo if you want a character to speak in a different language you should just write in english, put it in italics, and specify that they speak the other language or something.

The other thing that bother me that I see a lot especially with mando'a in fics, is just putting the word in mando'a in the middle of an English sentence. That's not how being bilingual works!! (at least not that much). Like, I don't call my sister "my soeur", so why do the clones call each other vode in basic? Idk, it doesn't bother me enough to stop reading, it's more of a mild annoyance, but it doesn't really make much sense to me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter! But Star Wars is the first fandom where I'm actually (somewhat) active and interacting with people instead of lurking and blurting out a fic every once in a while.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I'll go with I wish you with me always. I think I made a decent job at writing it and qpr are just so important to me. It also made me sooo happy to see so many other people liking it <3

But I think my wedding au will steal the first place if I ever manage to finish it!

I feel like everybody had already done this a while ago, so I'm tagging whoever is reading this and hasnt done it before!

[apocalyptic-dancehall]

Claptrap!!

OHOHOHO first to the punch!

- favorite thing about them

SO MANY THINGS TO CHOOSE UHUURRHRG but if it had to be like one or two: his voice and his undying loyalty.

pre-ffs claptrap's voice is so unique, and it can get oddly soothing in a way, and it just makes me so fucking jealous and his loyalty because even though he's a scaredy-cat he's still a raider at the end of the day (also the scene where he declines shadowtrap's offer to rule the goddamned universe because he genuinely loved his 'friends' fucks so hard)

- least favorite thing about them

not easy for me to say. claptrap's got tons of flaws but they're easily either linked to his horrendous 'childhood'/his bl1 antics/his time as fragtrap. i'd go off on a limb and say that he's waaay too naïve for his own good. even then it's less of a criticism and more of the fact that it always gets him into trouble :<

- favorite line

again! hard for me to say, but i've always loved the little sounds he makes when he jumps on a gravity pad. eup! and when he tried to stand up to flynt, it felt so cool because he finally bites back! (granted he did cower because 'geddit he's a pussy'-brand bl2 humor)

and then there's the part in bl2 where claptrap says this golden line: "You killed my friends! You destroyed my product line! I am the last CL4P-TP in existence, and I am going to TEABAG YOUR COOOOORPSE!" // absolute king shit

and when he calls everyone out for being an ASSHOLE to him in the pre-sequel, it's such a good moment in an already awesome dlc!

all in all claptrap has so many good quotes hhh

- brotp

a lot. gaige and claptrap are arguably at the top of that list, and i can never see them as anything more than friends/besties. angel and clap are a close second tho! also thanks to you the bl3 vhs are somewhere on the list hehe

- otp

uh.. 👉👈 obviously not a whole lot considering that most of the universe hates his guts lmao but traplicity/felicitrap/(insert felicity x claptrap ship name here) would've been SO COOL had jack not been a little greedy bitch baby and kill her off.. :(

not my only one but definitely a topper

- notp

jack. and claptrap. obvious reasonings aside i read this one fic of the two on ff.net and never recovered. took 999999 psychic damage. angel and claptrap, again, obvious reasonings 2: electric boogaloo. shadowtrap and claptrap for.. well duh. (they're bros to me and it'd feel weird.)

okay i feel like explaining the first notp a little more because it irks me to death. jack and claptrap have a kinda parent-child relationship. jack also canonically abused the shit out of claptrap which is double icky. it wouldn't be out of place that they'd have the most lopsided, shittiest relationship because jack's not only claptrap's employer, but also he generally has more power over him in general because he's hyperion property and uhm.. yeah. ew.

- random headcanon

1. he's like a little magpie. he collects the shiny™ and hoards 'em in his room. chances are he might actually have something of use there

2. by bl3 his voicebox is fucked, and rarely come the times where he tries to say stuff it comes out all staticky and shit. and sometimes it peaks and uh.. becomes 10 leagues beyond unbearable.

3. also bl3, he stops taking a lot of shit. like he'd still cower and stuff but whenever some rando talks shit about him he'd fight back (verbally. i think he'd rarely ever get into legitimate scuffles esp bc he's not a fragtrap anymore) and it kinda works-ish.

- unpopular opinion

i don't got much because the most i've got is a: claptrap should've gotten a much more significant role in 3, and b: i think claptrap recovering more of his old combat data, which also leads up to shadowtrap's possible return should be a thing. no way in hell they're gonna forget about this one essential part of cv and tp-s!

- song i associate with them

considering my taste in songs is otherwise shit and/or vocaloid: amygdala's rag doll - ghost (we've talked about this hehhe) or world's end dancehall - wowaka (which honestly isn't as fitting but imo it's kinda in-line with him. // also it's got themes of suicide in the lyrics so you might wanna avoid it if that stuff bothers ya) (i make up imaginary amvs with him and shadowtrap it's so fun)

- favorite picture of them

this screenie of claptrap with his cord-tail-thing in the bl1 main menu

i kinda like that it just randomly pops out when he sneezes

[austennerdita2533]

How do you think Rory and Jess are celebrating New Year's? Because they're together, right?! I like to think they are by now!

I’d like to believe they’re together, too! In fact, I’d like to believe it so much that I wrote a thing about it…a oneshot, if you will. The damn thing just poured out of me yesterday. I don’t know what happened, but there was no stopping it lol. Sorry not sorry.

(A03) (FF.net)

Happy New Year, my lovely friend! Here’s some post-revival Literati for you to start off 2019 right. 💗

xx Ashlee Bree

Like A Calendar, The Heart Skips Forward

With drunken crowds, ugly tinsel streamers which hang in windows, and snow that’s beginning to stick to the city streets in inches as deterrents, they decide to spend the night in. At home.

The baby’s with her grandparents tonight, probably high on too much sugar and Dr. Seuss. Knowing Luke, he’s likely baby proofing everything again to be safe while Lorelai’s using scary voices so her granddaughter never goes near the stove (but hey, neither did Rory, and she’s turned out fine, hasn’t she?), so she and Jess have plenty of time to themselves. That’s a rarity these days, especially with a toddler in the picture. Alone time seems possible only at ungodly hours in the morning anymore, or during nap time, or in stolen minutes between hectic work schedules. So they’re grateful to Mom and Luke for the offer to babysit every now and again. And they love to do it, to spoil her little angel rotten with small town affection and attention. All the people of Stars Hollow love it, too.

As for Rory and Jess, they enjoy these adult-only nights. It’s a time to revel in intellect, in intimacy.

They love to tune into the timbre of the other’s conversation and fade into each new day talking, listening. It’s exhilarating to them to share new ideas. To uncover deeper feelings in their relationship, but also for them to reach further into the world to figure out what more they can do. Experience. Be.

Parties hold no charms for them this evening. Neither do bars or over-priced concert tickets. Invites from friends go unanswered because they forget to read their messages. They’re more than content to spend the night far away from the end-of-the-year bombast, anyway, with nothing but each other and the hum of this ratty old radiator for company.

They live in an old building so it’s no one’s fault when a malfunction occurs, as one often does.

Luckily, the heat works fine thanks to Jess and his patient tinkering. (Rory never says it out loud, but she swears he’s inherited this from Luke.) Countless hours he spends bent over tools with a concentrative crease in his forehead because their super, Mel, is a slovenly middle-aged coot who binges too much Netflix and refuses to answer knocks on his door from any of his tenants past 9 P.M. Mel likes to blame this incompetence on narcolepsy, but truthfully, it’s because the couch has molded to his prone body by that point, the television playing episode after episode of Frasier or The West Wing, so why trouble himself to move? Better yet, why not put his ringer on silent and ignore all the incoming calls he receives?

(Spoiler alert: he does.)

Encountering one of the Seven Deadly Sins in an actual person still seems a little ridiculous to Rory, borderline unlikely here; especially in a city teeming full of worker bees who supposedly never sleep, but they’ve managed well enough with the radiator on their own. And by well, she means she’s prone to kicking the darn thing any time it roars like it’s a beast straight out of Kevin McCallister’s nightmares in Home Alone.

It’s cozy and comfortable in the apartment tonight, however. Just the way they like it.

That means Rory’s in her favorite pair of slippers, big cumbersome things with floppy ears and shaggy puppy faces curiously similar to Paul Anka’s. Her hair’s loose, fallen past her shoulders, and her arms are stuffed into an oversized Cashmere sweater. Meanwhile, her boyfriend’s walking around barefoot, half-naked in a pair of boxer briefs and a green v-neck tee, his jeans in a ball near the door, seemingly impervious to the December weather.

Is he secretly a werewolf or something, she wonders? An alien? Or just some weirdo who sweats when it’s only sixteen degrees outside, a furnace for girls like her who huddle closer for warmth and never utter a word of complaint?

Music plays low in the background. It’s a playlist curated on one of their phones. Songs from Bjork, the Clash, the Distillers, so many other new and old bands - their favorites - add to the ambiance of this eclectic space they call home.

A half-edited manuscript perches on the edge of the coffee table. Its pages are blotted with black ink and arrowed notes that spill wide into the margins because Jess had spent the morning editing his latest draft, unsatisfied because his characters aren’t where he wants them to be yet. Books litter the kitchen counter. They sit scattered across the floor in organized piles near shelves that are already overflowing, some still stuffed in paper bags because they’d pilfered a thrift shop earlier and now can find nowhere to store the bulky bastards. (Typical for a pair of bookworms who will never have enough reading material between them.)

Appointment reminders and cute little post-it notes stick to the refrigerator in an array of colors. Most are in Rory’s hand, flourished in cursive or silliness, except for the few Jess added by famous authors or musicians because the words moved him; or because he thought they’d start her day with a pretty thought. A smile. A laugh that’d brighten the blue of her eyes.

The living area’s a messy snapshot of their family life with its stench of stale coffee, cologne, and baby lotion. There’s a jacket thrown over the arm of a plush designer sofa and way too many half-empty boxes of Pop Tarts fighting for space in the cupboard with jars of smooth peanut butter and pureed carrots. A laundry basket holds many of the little one’s toys: choo-choo trains, baby dolls, a Batmobile, three sets of ABC blocks, a Wonder Woman figurine, and a stuffed robot aptly named Bee-Doo.

The remote control is always lost somewhere unknown. They might as well attach a key finder around its middle. Or perhaps they should rip up the floorboards instead - a lá the Tell-Tale Heart - because it never takes less than twenty minutes to find the stupid gadget. Either it’s buried under cushions, kicked under miles of folded clothing or prose, or it’s stuffed beneath pillows with spare kernels of popcorn and pens attached to the buttons. Worse than all of that, though, is how the lost-and-found treasure hunt never seems to diminish their scrolling-for-something-to-watch minutes at all. Not in the slightest!

Later, they order takeout from five of their favorite places. It’s too much food for two people to consume in one meal, but who cares? It’s never stopped her or her mother before, so why start now?

There’s pizza, burgers, Thai, Chinese, and one heaping order from that Indian place she’d found around the corner about a month after they’d moved to Brooklyn. It has the most delicious, pungent food so naturally that leaves Jess scrunching his nose and Rory twinkling appreciatively because he’s caved to her doe-eyed pout for once, her belly and heart happy for getting their way.

“See here, mister: victory is mine! I knew you loved me too much to deny me. Admit it,” she says before pecking him sweetly on the cheek.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says after he pays for the delivery and dumps the bags on the table. “Whatever you say.” He remains noncommittal, but the truth shines in his eyes. “Just don’t complain about the cold when I open all the windows. It’ll take weeks to air out the stink in here—weeks. Probably three.”

“Two.”

“Three,” he fires back.

“Two.”

“Okay, two…maybe.” He brushes hair from her face and lets his fingers linger, then smiles her favorite crooked smile. “If we’re damn lucky, anyway.”

After dinner, they eat cheesecake with a bottle of wine. Ice cream with cones is Jess’s dessert preference usually, but they’re out, so they settle for booze and a tasty variation on dairy to help them compile their to-read lists for 2019. He’s on the left side of the sofa, her on the right. Call it a private, serious exercise. Extra points docked for peeking or flirting.

Such a silly idea it is, really, this hoarding then exchanging of lists. Yet it’s a fun way to pass the hours before midnight. Even more fun when they discover the selections that align, and those that don’t, sending them into a tizzy’d discussion about literature and writers the other still needs to know. Pretty soon, another list follows full of recommended titles Jess thinks she should read in the New Year, and vice versa.

Lane had called them a cute agoraphobic couple once, many years ago, if Rory remembers correctly. And by golly, what a label! If only she were here to see them right now, tangled in warmth and limbs and solitude.

She beams at the memory because that’s what she and Jess were back then. It’s what they still are. It’s who they want to be this New Year’s Eve, and the next…and the next…and for every one after for as long as they can live them like this: in love, happy, and together. They’d live this way forever, if only wishes like this could be granted.

“What I wouldn’t give for a Fairy Godmother right now,” she blurts out without thinking, all wrapped up in blankets and curled tight into his chest. “To have a dash of Disney magic or two in my possession would be supercalifragilistic.”

“Why? You don’t need saving.”

“That’s true.”

“So is it Prince Charming you’re after?” Jess asks with a quirk of the eyebrow.

Frowning, “What kind of girl do you take me for? I’m a feminist.”

“You want to freeze the world like Elsa then, huh? Is that it?”

“No.” Tracing his lips with her forefinger, Rory pauses. Reconsiders. “Well, I mean…only if I got to spend all of that time skating across it with you.”

“You mean falling,” Jess mutters.

“Rude! Read my lips: skating.”

He shrugs then. It’s followed by a smirk. “Impossible things are happening every day…or so it goes.”

Giggling, she shoves him, then covers her mouth with her hands.

“Wow, I can’t believe you’re quoting Whitney Houston from Roger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. Who are you?”

“Like you haven’t seen it. Give me a break.”

“Many times,” she says, “but that’s not the point. The point is you’ve given a Gilmore ammunition to mock you for the rest of your life. Hasn’t Luke warned you about this? We’re unapologetic mockers, Mom and I.”

“Jeez, you’re mean,” Jess says with a shake of his head and an affectionate pinch to her side. “I should start calling you Grory.”

“Hey, no fair! I’m no Grinch. No Grendel, either.”

“Pre-coffee, that’s arguable.”

“I demand a re-write,” she says, crossing her arms, determined for her pout to win out for a second time.

“No way,” he replies. “That’s too much work, Green One.”

“Fine. As long as you realize you’re stuck with me regardless.”

“Am I?”

“Aren’t you?” Rory asks like a question that dangles then deflates. Her voice catches with uncertainty. The sound’s worse than the squeal a lobster makes in a boiling pot as she shifts onto her ankles on the sofa to pin him with a wide-eyed look, her heart pounding, mouth drier than Death Valley in the middle of a drought. Color rushes to her cheeks because Jess remains silent before her…because he reaches for the tattered copy of Persuasion that’s perched near his feet so he can underline one of Captain Wentworth’s most famous passages in black ink. I can listen no longer in silence, it reads. You pierce my soul. She knows the quote well. She knows it by heart.

However, it’s not until Jess scribbles down his own line onto the page with some rogue pen he’s found teetering on a shoe with no mate, his hand trembling, the apple in his throat bobbing like it’s been pinched by some invisible force he never saw coming; and it isn’t until he places the book in her lap so she can read what he wrote, that joyful disbelief betrays her. That her tears start flowing and flowing. They cover her face in red-eyed tenderness and devotion.

One look back at him, and she knows he feels the same. The love between them so real and so right, it fills the calendar with fulfillment they no longer wish to live without.

Marry me?

Two words, and the jerk’s a poet. Two words, and it’s only him she sees. Two words, one question, and Rory’s faced with an answer that takes no energy to give at all.

I’d be honored to be the Anne to your Wentworth, she writes back with shaky fingers and a grin so big she can barely see. So yes! Yes! A million times yes!

Wine switches to scotch sooner rather than later after that. Then talking turns to kissing, kissing moves to roving touches without either one of them noticing.

Both hands of the clock reach nearer and nearer to twelve as Rory pauses the movie they weren’t actually watching with a yawn, her sapphire diamond sparkling in the T.V’s muted light. Then she stands to refill their glasses one final time before 2018 ends, slippers scratching against the carpet. Jess wraps his arms around her waist while she pours. He smells of booze and sex and home.

Eyes closed and body rocking, he places a kiss against her arm, her shoulder, her neck, her mouth. He leaves a promise there that tastes of all that awaits them and more.

Together, they watch the snowflakes fall and drift to the fire escape outside their window, a moment of quiet before they pack the rest of the leftovers away so they can head to bed with this year lapsed behind them like another chapter closing. The page turns, and before they know it, December endings become January beginnings. The calendar’s blank and in wait for prose that has yet to be written, both of them looking forward to another 365 days full of learning, laughter, commitment, and so many more family firsts along the way.