#crystal reads a fic
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leahaart · 30 days ago
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The fic Dance the Night by Gruoch (@madamedevil) made me a little insane when I read it so I had to doodle the girlies.
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linkvcr · 10 months ago
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doodles of gratitude (part 1) by @arecaceae175 :D
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idliketobeatree · 1 month ago
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PALASAKI WEEK [day 3: possessions & parasitism/rescuing] @palasakiweek
a collab with the most wonderful writer, friend, and dead gay detective wife @tumblerislovetumblerislife: 🩷
summary:
“I need to talk…” Crystal took a deep breath and continued, “…to the thing inside Niko. The demon. I have a really attractive offer.” The demon forced Niko upright in jerky, unnatural movements, the fully black sclera only adding to the horror movie effect. Nothing at all like Niko’s sweet brown eyes. Crystal fought back a shiver. “You’ve got nothing I want, sweetheart. I just need to read one pesky little book, and then I’ll be on my way! So stay out of it.” Or: A newly sprite-free Crystal will do whatever it takes to save a victim of demonic possession: her neighbor, Niko Sasaki.
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jays-bookmarks · 1 year ago
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Relief (Blade x gn!reader)
@genshin-obsessed so I heard u like Blade 👀
Summary: After being cursed with immortality by the Abundance, you joined the Stellaron Hunters as a doctor. Today, your most stubborn patient finally comes to you for help. Words: 835 Warnings: reader is implied to be shorter than Blade & can be held in his lap (but our Bladie is a strong boy so he can hold anybody uwu)
You muttered to yourself as you walked around your office, organizing your medicines and checking equipment. As the only doctor in service of the Stellaron Hunters, it was important for you to keep everything in tip-top shape in case of emergencies. Although Elio usually told you in advance if a mission would be particularly bloody, there was always the possibility he would withhold one of his predictions. You couldn’t get complacent.
Despite your regular interactions with the other Stellaron Hunters, you felt you couldn't truly connect with any of your “teammates”: Kafka was always inscrutable, Silver Wolf seemed to treat reality like a game, and Blade… Blade was the only one who you thought could understand you. You had both been cursed by the Abundance in your own ways, after all. But after he ignored your attempts at friendship for so long, you had resigned yourself to an eternity of loneliness in your empty office.
You were snapped out of your thoughts by a knock on your door. You paused for a moment. Neither Kafka nor Silver Wolf were due for an appointment, leaving only one other person…
You opened the door to see Blade standing with his arms crossed. His expression betrayed nothing of what he felt, but you could see a tension in his shoulders. He didn’t speak as you blinked up at him in surprise.
“Blade. Come in,” you said, stepping aside to let him enter.
Blade went to sit down in his usual spot, and you quickly busied yourself gathering the necessary materials to make the painkiller you devised specifically for his condition. You couldn’t mix the medicine in advance, as its effectiveness faded quickly with time, so you always kept the raw ingredients on hand.
You glanced over your shoulder at Blade. Your gaze flicked over his body as you observed him. To the untrained eye, Blade seemed fine as ever, if a little irritated, but you knew how to read him after having treated him for so long. You could tell he was holding back more pain than usual. The fact that he was here of his own volition told you all that you needed to know.
You took a breath, then walked over to him. The medicine you made would work in time, but you could provide him with a more immediate source of relief. Gently, you reached out and pressed a hand to his chest.
He stiffened at the contact but didn't push you away. You closed your eyes and poured your energy into him, letting it wash over him and dull his pain. You focused until you felt Blade’s breathing grow more even and his muscles relax.
You felt lightheaded as you pulled back. The process had taken much longer than you anticipated and had cost much more of your energy as well.
You tried to step away toward the counter, not wanting to linger too long in Blade’s personal space, but a wave of dizziness hit you and you stumbled. Before you could hit the floor, Blade caught you in his arms.
“What did you do?” he asked, panic bleeding into his voice.
You knew you would recover in time—the Abundance’s curse would not let you go so easily—but the pain was still nearly unbearable. Your breathing was shallow and your vision blurry. Blade adjusted his grip on you and pulled you into his lap. His arms shook slightly as he held you.
“I’m sorry… I just wanted to help…” Your voice was weak and shaky as you spoke. “It… it'll pass… I'll be okay…”
Though you said this, you were still on the verge of tears. You were not like Blade—you hadn’t spent an eternity in combat and had yet to become numb to the pain of pushing your body to the limit. What he bore with a straight face was agony for you. You tried to hold back a whimper.
Blade tightened his grip around you.
“Why?” he asked.
“I… just wanted to give you some relief…” you said. You pinched your eyes shut to try to block out the pain. “Did… did it work, at least?”
Blade was silent for a while. Then, he pulled you closer, letting your head rest against his chest as his breath fanned over your face. 
“…Yes,” he said. “Don’t do it again.”
“…Sorry…” You breathed out, letting your eyes fall shut. After what you had done, you were completely exhausted, and Blade's embrace was so warm… You fell asleep to the steady rhythm of his heart, for once free of worries as Blade held you close.
The next day, Kafka would enter your office only to see Blade glaring at her to stay silent. You were still slumbering in his arms. He had stayed in that same position all night, not caring about the fatigue in his muscles nor the ache that came with it. Kafka smiled knowingly, holding back her teasing words—if only for now—as she closed the door, leaving Blade alone with you.
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roseetube · 2 months ago
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MEGA ART DUMP #12!!!! SCHOOLS GOT ME BUSY, BUT MATH CLASS GOT ME COOKING RAHHHHHHH!!! DONT MIND MY ART CLASS NOTES LMAO
@pogostikk your sillies r here!!!
@spooksier drew your steeb from mothlight!!!
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dont-offend-the-bees · 1 month ago
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“Hello, handsome,” he says, leaning in to kiss Edwin first on one cheek, then the other. His hands are on Edwin’s biceps, and Crystal’s almost sure he’s giving them an appreciative squeeze. “Gorgeous to see you, as always.” He’s American, like Crystal. He gives Edwin a long, deliberate look up and down. “God, you’re looking absolutely delicious.”
Crystal, who once heard Edwin describe the postman as ‘over-familiar’ because he asked Edwin how his week was going, is expecting the smackdown to end all smackdowns. But Edwin just gives him an indulgent little smile and tips his head to one side, showing off the long, elegant line of his neck, and says, “Hello, Thomas.”
Crystal’s eyebrows are in danger of disappearing into her hair.
Because I don't wanna spoil the plot of this chapter, I've left a couple of the drawings under the cut! Please read the chapter before you check 'em out! (Also one of them's violent, you have been warned!)
⬇️ more art! ⬇️
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Quotes from @aletterinthenameofsanity's may their carbon given be an echoing hymn
Link here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/4138024
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read-write-thrive · 1 month ago
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how much would I need to fuck with Niko and Monty’s genders to ship them
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suddencolds · 8 months ago
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The Worst Timing | [5/5]
we made it!!! part 5/5 + a mini epilogue (5.6k words) at long last 🥹 (aka the installment in which i remember that h/c has a c in it in addition to the h, haha.) [part 1] is here!
this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!
Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)
The world comes back to him in pieces—first the wooden panels of the ceiling, the sloped wooden beams. The coldness of the room, the slight, monotonous whir of the air circulating through one of the vents overhead.
He’s leaned up against the wall, seated on the floor in the hallway, and Vincent is kneeling beside him, his eyebrows furrowed.
It takes him a moment to realize where he is. He had been about to head back to the courtyard, hadn’t he? He doesn’t have much memory of anything that happened after, but judging by Vincent’s reaction, he thinks he can probably guess.
“Hi,” Yves says, for lack of a better thing to say. 
He watches a complicated set of expressions flicker through Vincent’s face—relief, first, before it turns to something distinctly less neutral.
“You’re awake,” Vincent says. He turns away, for a moment. Yves notes the clench of his jaw, the tightness of his grip—his fingers white around Yves’s sleeve.
“Was I out for long?”
“A couple minutes.”
Yves wants to say something. He should say something. Anything to lighten the tension, anything to get the point across that this is all just an unlucky miscalculation, on his part. It really isn’t something Vincent should have to be worried about. 
“I’m sorry for making you wait,” he starts. Really, what he means is, I’m sorry for making you worry about me. “I promise I’mb fine.”
The look on Vincent’s face, then, is something that Yves hasn’t seen before. 
“Why do you have to—” he starts, frustration rising in his voice. He sighs, his jaw set. “I don’t understand why you—” He drops his hand from Yves’s sleeve, and it’s then when Yves notices the stiffness to his shoulders, the tension in his posture. He runs a hand through his hair, lets out another short, exasperated breath. “You’re not fine.” 
It’s strange, Yves thinks, to see him like this—Vincent, who usually never wears his emotions on his face, looks clearly displeased, now. 
“Hey,” Yves says, softly. He reaches out to take Vincent’s hand. Vincent goes very still with the contact, but he doesn’t say anything. “I—”
Fuck. His body seems to always pick the worst time for unwanted interjections. He wrenches his hand away just in time to smother a sneeze into his sleeve, though it’s forceful enough to leave him slightly lightheaded. 
“Stay here,” Vincent says, getting to his feet. “Lay down if you get dizzy again.”
Yves blinks. “Where are you going?”
“To tell the others that we’re leaving.”
Yves wants to protest. Dinner is already halfway over. It’s not as if the festivities are particularly strenuous. They’ll probably move inside after dinner, where it’s warmer.
But he thinks better of it. Judging by how exhausted he still feels, how much his head aches, it probably wouldn’t be wise to push it. 
“Don’t tell them about this,” he says.
Vincent’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“Aimee is going to worry if she finds out,” Yves says, dropping his head to his knees. He doesn’t want to look at Vincent, doesn’t want to know what expression is on his face. “Just—let them have this night. It’s—supposed to be perfect.” I really wanted it to be perfect, he almost adds. There’s a strange tightness to his throat as he says it, a strange heaviness to his chest.
He knows what it means. If, after he’s tried so hard to do his part, their evening still ends up ruined on his own accord, he’s not sure if he could live with himself after.
For a moment, Vincent doesn’t say anything at all.
“Okay,” he says, at last. “Just stay here.”
And then he heads down the hallway. The door at the end of the reception hall swings shut behind him. Yves thinks he should be relieved, but he finds that he doesn’t feel much other than exhausted.
The ride home on the shuttle is silent. Vincent sits next to him, even though all of the other seats are empty. Yves thinks the proximity is probably inadvisable. He opens his mouth to say as much, and then shuts it.
Vincent sits and stares straight ahead, his posture stiff, and doesn’t say anything for the entirety of the ride. It’s strange. Yves is no stranger to silence—Vincent is, after all, a coworker, and Yves has endured more than a few quiet elevator rides and quiet team lunches at the office, but it’s strange because it’s Vincent.
Vincent, who usually takes care to make conversation with him, whenever it’s just the two of them. Vincent, who stayed up through the lull of antihistamines a couple months ago to talk to Yves, until Yves had given him explicit permission to go to sleep.
Yves tries not to think about it. Through the haze of his fever, everything feels unusually bright—the interior of the shuttle, with its leather seats and metal handrails.
The shuttle stops just outside the main entrance to their hotel. Just before he gets to the doors, he stumbles. Vincent’s hand shoots out, instinctively, to steady him.
“Sorry,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. It’s not that he’s dizzy. The roads are just uneven, and it’s dark. “I can walk.”
But Vincent doesn’t let go—not for the entirety of the walk through the cool, air-conditioned lobby, through the hallways to the hotel elevators. Not when the elevator stops at their floor, not when they pass by the grid of wooden doors leading up to their room. 
Before Yves can manage to reach for his keycard, Vincent has already swiped them in, scarily efficient. He slides the card back into his pocket, pushes the door open. 
“Thadks for walking me back,” Yves says. “Sorry you couldn’t stay longer. You mbust’ve been halfway through dinner.”
“I already finished eating,” Vincent says.
“Even dessert?” Yves says. “I think Aimee got everyone creme brulee from one of the local bakeries. I was excited to try it. Maybe Leon can save us some.” he muffles a yawn into his hand. It’s too early to be sleeping, but his pull out bed looks very inviting right now.
“Take the bed,” Vincent says.
Yves blinks at him. “What?”
“The bed’s warmer.”
There’s absolutely no way he’s going to let Vincent take the pull-out bed in his place, Yves thinks blearily. He’s spent the past couple nights muffling sneezes into the covers—if there’s anything he’s certain of, it’s that he really, really doesn’t want Vincent to catch this.
“I dod’t think we should switch,” he says, sniffling. “I’ve been sleeping here ever sidce I started coming down with this. I’mb— hHeh-!” He veers away, raising an elbow to his face. “hh—HHEh’IIDZschH’-iEEW! Ugh, I’mb pretty sure I contaminated it.”
“We can both take the bed, if you’d prefer,” Vincent says. As if it’s that simple.
Yves opens his mouth to protest—is Vincent really okay with sharing a bed with him?—but then he thinks about Vincent finding him in the hallway—the stricken expression on his face, then, his eyes wide, his jaw clenched—and thinks better of himself. 
Instead, he lets Vincent lead him to the bedroom. The bed is neatly made—the covers drawn, the pillows propped up against the headboard.
“Lay down,” Vincent says, pushing lightly down on his shoulders. Yves sits. He peels off his suit jacket, folds it, and sets it aside on the nightstand.
“Hey, I kdow that was sudden,” he says, in reference to earlier. “I’mb sorry you had to witness it. I… probably shouldn’t have pushed it.”
Vincent says nothing, to that.
Yves lays down, shuts his eyes. “You didn’t have to accompady me home, you know.”
Silence. He exhales, burrowing deeper into the covers. “It’s not as bad as it looks, seriously.”
He opens his mouth to say more. He has to say something, he thinks, to convince Vincent that it’s really not that big of a deal. Anything, to assuage that look on Vincent’s face.
But he’s so tired. He can feel the exhaustion now that he’s finally let himself lay down. The bed is traitorously comfortable, with its soft feather pillows and its fluffy layers of blankets, and Vincent was right—it really is warmer.
He feels the press of a hand on his forehead, feels the cold, unyielding pressure. Feels gentle, calloused fingers brush the hair out of his face.
“Sleep,” Vincent says, firmly. 
And Yves—
Yves, already half gone, is powerless, when Vincent says it like that.
When he wakes, it’s just barely bright outside. He takes it in—the first few rays of sunlight, streaking through the curtains. The bed, a little more well-cushioned than the pullout bed he’d spent the past few nights on—higher up and decisively sturdier. He blinks.
Beside him, seated on a chair he recognizes as belonging to the desk at the opposite end of the room, is Vincent.
Vincent, awake. Yves isn’t sure if he’s slept at all. He certainly doesn’t look tired, at first glance, but closer inspection reveals a little more. It’s evident in the way he holds his shoulders, stiff, and perhaps a little tired, as if there’s been tension sitting in them all night. 
He’s reading a book. Whether he bought it at the convenience store downstairs, or on one of the other days when Yves was busy running errands for the wedding and Vincent was elsewhere, or whether it’d been sitting in his suitcase since the start of the vacation, Yves doesn’t know.
“How’s the book?” Yves says.
His throat is dry, he realizes, for the way it makes him cough, afterwards. Vincent’s eyes meet his, unerringly. He shuts the book, sets it down on the bedside table.
“It’s a little boring,” Vincent says. “How’s the fever?”
Before Yves can answer, Vincent leans forward and presses the back of his hand to Yves’s forehead. His touch is unerringly gentle, and Yves allows himself to look. 
Vincent’s eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes narrowed slightly in concentration, and Yves wonders, suddenly, if he’s been this worried for awhile, now. If he’s been this worried ever since he’d walked them both back into the hotel room last night.
“I’m fine,” Yves says. 
It has the opposite effect he intends it to.
Vincent’s expression shutters. “The last time you said that, you passed out in front of me,” he says, withdrawing his hand with a frown. “So forgive me if I don’t entirely believe you.”
Yves sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. It’s a fair point. “I’m usually more reliable whed it comes to these things.”
“What things?”
“Kdowing my limits.”
Vincent says, “I think you knew your limits. I think you just didn’t want to honor them, because you decided the wedding took precedence.”
He’s… frustrated, Yves realizes. Still. He’s sure he can guess why. Their fake relationship does not extend to Vincent having to look after him, to Vincent having to drop everything in the middle of a wedding, of all things, to take him home. To Vincent having to worry about all this—the fever Yves knows he has, now, and the bed he’s currently taking up—on top of everything else. As if being in a foreign country, surrounded by people he knows almost exclusively through Yves, who, for the most part, converse in a language he barely speaks, wasn’t already enough work on its own.
And Yves gets it. He hadn’t wanted this to happen, either. He’d told himself that if this—this pretend relationship, this pretense—is contingent upon both of them playing their part, the least he can do is be self-sufficient outside of it.
But now—because Vincent is here with him, and because they share a hotel room—all of this is now Vincent’s problem, too, by extension.
“Did you sleep at all last night?” he asks.
Vincent smiles at him, a little wryly, as if the answer is evident. 
“You gave up your bed just for me to steal it,” Yves says, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s really comfortable, and all, but I’mb pretty sure they make these kinds of beds for two.”
“Is that a proposition?” Vincent says.
“Maybe.” Yves thinks it through. “Realistically, probably ndot, until I have a chance to shower.” He’s still dressed in his dress shirt and slacks from yesterday, a little embarrassingly—he should probably get changed. “Speaking of which, I should do that soon, so you don’t feel the need to stay up all night reading—” Yves leans forward, squints at the book cover on the nightstand. “—Hemingway? Somehow, I didn’t expect you to be the type.”
“I’m not,” Vincent says. “Victoire lent it to me.”
“Oh,” Yves says, trying to think of when Vincent would’ve had time to ask her for a recommendation. “Yeah. She’s—” He twists aside, ducking into his elbow. “hHEH’IIDzschh-EEW! snf-! She’s quite the literary reader. Is it really that boring?”
“I can see why people think the transparency of his prose is appealing,” Vincent says. “But I’m fifty pages in, and nothing has happened.”
“Isd’t that the sort of thing Hemingway can get away with, since he’s straightforward about it?”
“In a short story, maybe,” Vincent says. Then: “You are trying to make me feel better.”
Ah.
Yves laughs. “Where in the world did you get that idea?”
Vincent just sighs. “I would be exceptionally unobservant not to notice when I’ve seen you do the same thing all this week.”
“What?”
“Telling people that you’re fine,” Vincent says. “And distracting them when they don’t believe you.”
Yves doesn’t think that’s entirely accurate. It’s not like he was trying to be dishonest. It’s just that it was never the most important thing to address.
“Distracting is a bit disingenuous.”
“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, with a frown. “You’re so insistent on putting yourself last, even when you were obviously—” He sighs. There it is—that expression again, the one that makes itself evident through the furrowed eyebrows, the tense set of his jaw—frustration, and maybe something else. “You’re surrounded by people who care about you, so why not just—”
“There are plenty of things more important than how I’mb feeling,” Yves says.
“I don’t think that’s true.”
But of course it is, Yves thinks. A wedding is a once in a lifetime occurrence. An illness is nothing, in the face of that.
“I promised I’d be there,” he says, because when it really comes down to it, it’s true. He had no intention of going back on his word. “I didn’t want to be the one to let them down. Is that so hard to believe?” He reaches up with a hand to massage his temples. His head aches, even though he’s slept for long enough that he feels like it ought to feel a little better, by now. “It’s already bad enough that I had to drag you into this.” 
“You didn’t drag me into this,” Vincent says. “I came on my own volition.”
Yves tries a laugh, but it’s humorless. “I made you leave halfway through the wedding dinner.”
“I’d already finished eating.”
“Ndot to mention, you practically had to carry me upstairs.”
“Because you’re ill.”
“That’s no excuse.” Yves wants to say more, but he finds himself beholden to a tickle in the back of his throat—irritatingly present, until he concedes to it by ducking into his elbow to cough, and cough.
When he looks up, blinking tears out of his vision, Vincent isn’t looking at him.
“You should get some rest,” he says, simply.
Yves can tell—just by the way he says it—that there is no argument to him, anymore. Just like that, Vincent is back to being closed off—poised and perfectly, infuriatingly unreadable, just like he is at work, his face so carefully a mask of indifference, even in the most stressful presentations, the most frustrating disagreements. Yves wants none of it.
 “Hey,” he says. A part of him itches to crack a joke, to change the subject—anything to take away this air of seriousness. A part of him wants to reach out, again—to take Vincent’s hand, entwine their fingers; to reassure him, again, that he’s really fine.
“I’m sorry,” he says, instead. Maybe it’s the fever that loosens his tongue. Maybe it’s just a combination of everything.
He can feel Vincent’s eyes on him, still. Vincent has always held a sort of intensity to him, a quiet sort of perceptiveness. “I’m not sure I follow,” Vincent says.
“This visit was supposed to be fun for you,” he says. “And now you’re here, stuck in the hotel room because of me, even though today was supposed to be for sightseeing.”
It doesn’t feel like enough. What can he say to make it enough? There’s a strange ache in his chest, a strange, crushing pressure. Yves is horrified to find his eyes stinging. He’s held it together for so long, he thinks. Why now? Why, when Vincent is right here?
But a part of him knows, too. Of course traveling to a different country would be more involved than going to a party, or spending an evening at a stranger’s house. But there was a time when he thought this could really just be a fun excursion for the both of them—half a week in his family’s home country, with someone who he thoroughly enjoys spending time with. 
And now, because of this untimely illness—or because of his own short-sightedness in managing it—it isn’t. He didn’t get to stay through dinner, didn’t get to wish Aimee and Genevieve a good rest of their night, like he’d planned to. He has no idea if things went smoothly in his absence. To make matters worse, Vincent is here, having endured a sleepless night, instead of anywhere else.
And really, when he thinks about it, who does have to blame for all of this, except himself?
“I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this,” he says. “So I’m sorry.” He resists the urge to swipe a hand over his eyes—surely, he thinks, that would give him away.
He turns away. It’s convenient, he thinks, that the embarrassing sniffle that follows could be attributed to something else. 
“You’ve been nothing but accommodating to me, this whole visit,” Vincent says. “If anything, I should’ve insisted that you take the bed earlier. You haven’t been sleeping well, have you?”
He says it with such certainty. Yves opens his mouth to protest this—or to apologize, for all the times he must’ve kept Vincent up, including but not limited to last night—but Vincent presses on.
“You spent all of yesterday morning helping everyone get ready, and when I got back, you apologized for not being around—as if the reason why you weren’t around wasn’t that you were so busy making sure everything was fine for everyone else.” Vincent pauses, takes in a slow, measured breath. Yves is surprised to hear that he sounds… distinctly angry, in a way that Yves is not used to hearing.
“And then you showed up to the rehearsal and the wedding, even though you weren’t feeling well. And you still think you have something to apologize for? Are you even hearing yourself?” Yves hears the creak of the chair as he stands, the sound of quiet footsteps. Feels the dip of the bed as Vincent takes a seat at the edge of it. 
“You know, after you left the dinner table, Genevieve was talking about how much she liked your speech? Do you know that yesterday morning, Solaine told me how grateful she was that you helped her with fixing her dress? Do you know that when I got lunch with Leon and Victoire, they told me how much time you spent preparing for everything—the speech, and the wedding, both?”
Oh. Yves hadn’t known any of those things, and he knows Vincent isn’t the kind of person who would lie about this sort of thing.
“I don’t get it,” Vincent says, sounding distinctly pained to say it. “How could you possibly think that you haven’t done enough?”
Yves finds himself taken aback—by the frustration in his voice, by the fact that Vincent has noticed these things in the first place, by the fact that he’s deemed them important enough to take stock of. He makes it sound so simple. 
“I don’t know,” Yves says, at last. He shuts his eyes. “If it was enough.”
“I’m telling you that it was,” Vincent says.
But Yves knows that he could have done more, if the circumstances were different. If he hadn’t been so out of it during the wedding. If he’d taken the necessary precautions to avoid coming down with this in the first place. If he’d been able to stay through dinner, at least; if he hadn’t needed Vincent to accompany him home. 
“You don’t believe me,” Vincent says, with a sigh.
Yves doesn’t say anything, to that.
“I can’t speak for anyone else,” Vincent says. There’s the slight rustling of the covers as he shifts, rearranging one of the pillows at the headboard. “But I had fun.”
Yves’s heart twists.
It’s sweet, unexpectedly. “You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better,” Yves says.
“When have I ever said anything just to make you feel better?” Vincent says, with a short laugh. When Yves chances a look at him, he’s smiling down at himself. “I mean it. Meeting your family has been a lot of fun. It’s not often that I get the chance to be a part of something like this.”
Whether he’s referring to France, or the wedding and the festivities, or being surrounded by Yves’s large extended family, Yves isn’t sure. But if Vincent is trying to cheer him up, it’s working.
“I can see why you like France so much,” he says, turning his gaze out the window, though the view outside is filtered through the semi-translucent curtains. “It’s beautiful.”
“Today was supposed to be the last day for sightseeing,” Yves says, a little regretful. “But you’re stuck here.”
“In a sunny, luxurious hotel room, with a view of the pool and the garden?” Vincent says, with a scoff. “I could think of worse places to be.”
Staying up all night, just to check up on Yves, more accurately. Vincent must be tired, too—yesterday was already tiring enough. And now it’s morning already, and he hasn’t gotten any sleep. 
“Reading Hemingway,” Yves adds.
Vincent looks a little surprised. Then he laughs. “Yes. I guess you’re right. Perhaps it’s an agonizing experience after all.”
The yawn he stifles into his hand, after that isn’t half as subtle as he tries to make it.
Yves feels his eyebrows creep up. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? There’s plenty of room.” He scoots a little closer to the edge of the bed, just to make a point.
Vincent peers down at the space beside him, a little hesitant. “At 10am?”
“It’d be, what, 4am, back in Eastern time?” Yves says. “By Ndew York standards, you’re supposed to already be asleep.”
“That’s not how it works,” Vincent says, but he dutifully moves a little closer to Yves anyways. He’s changed out of yesterday’s wedding attire, more sensibly, but now he’s wearing a knitted cardigan which Yves thinks looks unfairly, terribly good on him. Yves finds himself marveling at the unfairness of it all. How can someone look so good wearing something so casual?
Vincent smells good, up close. When he lays down next to Yves, pulling the covers gingerly over himself—leaving a careful amount of room between them, but still dangerously, intoxicatingly close—Yves feels his breath catch in his throat.
Vincent is right there, less than an arm’s length away from him, closer than he’s ever been, and Yves—Yves is—
“See,” Yves says, as evenly as he can manage to, in his current state, as if his heart isn’t practically beating out of his chest. He swallows. His throat feels dry. “This bed definitely fits two.”
“I suppose it does,” Vincent says. “Now you can tell me if I’m a terrible person to share a bed with.”
“After everything I’ve put you through,” Yves says, “I think I’d honestly feel reassured if you were.”
Vincent smiles, again, as if he finds this humorous. “Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”
“Positive,” Yves says. “You should sleep. I’ll wake you if I ndeed anything.”
“Okay. If you’re sure.” Vincent shuts his eyes.
It’s not long before his breathing evens out, not long before he goes perfectly still. He must really be tired, Yves thinks, with a pang.
Yves, for some reason, finds that he can’t get to sleep. He stares up at the ceiling for what feels like minutes on end, shuts his eyes, all to no avail. Maybe it’s because he’s already slept far more than his usual share. Maybe it’s the jetlag. Maybe it’s merely Vincent’s unusual presence—the strangeness of having him so close, in an environment so intimate.
But when he allows himself to look, he sees—
Vincent, his eyes shut, his eyelashes fanning out over his cheeks. From the window, the filtered light gleams unevenly across the crown of dark hair on his head. There’s almost no movement to him at all, aside from the even rise and fall of his shoulders.
And Yves knows what the feeling in his chest is. He’s regrettably, intimately familiar with it.
He just isn’t sure he likes what it means.
Vincent—despite falling asleep so quickly—is up before him. When Yves wakes, next, it’s to a hand to his forehead.
“Hey,” Vincent is saying, softly. “Yves. You have a visitor.”
Yves opens his eyes.
He’s feeling—a little better, remarkably. Still feverish, still a little unsteady, but leagues better as compared to yesterday. When he looks over, he sees—
He doesn’t jolt upright, but it’s a close thing. “Aimee!”
He barely has a chance to ask before she’s crashing into him, encircling him in a tight hug. “Yves!” she exclaims, pulling back from him. “How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, when I heard you left early because you were unwell, I was so worried…”
Yves grimaces, turning away. “Sorry, I had every idtention of staying until the end—”
“You came all the way out with the flu!” she says. “I honestly can’t believe you. The fact that you still took the trouble to attend with a fever—”
“It—” Yves starts, but he finds himself twisting away, lifting an arm to his face. “hhEH-! HEEhD’TTSCHH-iiiEEw! Snf-! It’s fide, snf-! I’mb practically recovered already.”
“I should’ve told you not to push yourself when you told me you were coming down with something,” Aimee says, shaking her head. “And you stayed and gave such a lovely speech, even though you weren’t feeling well? When I was talking to Victoire after, she mentioned that you’ve been sick for days and Genevieve—you should’ve said something.”
“I’ll say somethidg next time,” Yves says, a little sheepishly. “Did the wedding go okay?”
Aimee visibly brightens, at this. “It was more than okay,” she says, her eyes gleaming. “It blew every expectation that I had out of the water.”
Aimee fills him in on everything that happened after he left, last night—dessert, the first dance, the cake-cutting; her favorites out of the photos they’d taken after the ceremony (a shot of Genevieve braiding her hair during the cocktail hour; a shot of them leaning in close, for the dance, tired but smiling; a shot of the cake with its multiple tiers, the frosting strung like banners across it; another where both of them are holding onto the cutting knife together and Genevieve looks like she is trying not to laugh; a shot of the bouquet toss, the flowers suspended in mid-air). She tells him about the conversations she and Genevieve had with others about marriage and their futures and their plans for their honeymoon.
Then she lectures him on how he should worry about his health first, next time. She tells him, in no uncertain terms, that she’s fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind the next time he tries to pull something like this. She insists that his health is more important than anything. Vincent stands off to the side the entire time, his arms crossed, passively listening in, but when Yves looks over helplessly, mid-lecture, he definitely looks a little smug. 
All in all, she doesn’t seem disappointed in him at all. And, more importantly, she seems happy. Yves finds himself relieved, at this.
Genevieve stops by, too, a little later, to thank him for the advice he’d given her the day before the wedding. She hugs him too, and she leaves him a bag of tea that she promises “is practically a cure to anything—I hope it makes your flight home tomorrow a little more tolerable.” Victoire stops by, with Leon, and Yves resigns himself to more lecturing from the both of them. It’s humbling, a little, to be lectured by his younger sister and his younger brother, though he concedes that perhaps this time, it might be at least partially warranted.
Then Leon opens their hotel fridge to show him the two creme brulees he and Vincent had missed out on, packaged nicely in small paper containers. (“Vincent told me you were interested in these,” he says, and Yves finds himself slightly mortified—but perhaps also a little endeared—that whatever it was that he’d said last night, offhandedly, Vincent had deemed it important enough to text Leon about.)
Later, after Yves showers and gets changed—when he and Vincent eat the creme brulees at the table in the living room, and Vincent tells him that he’s finished the book, perhaps a little masochistically (“it doesn’t get any better,” he says, sounding a little spiteful)—Yves finds himself smiling.
He’s happy, he realizes, despite everything that’s happened. Even with the slight headache, and the lingering congestion, the fever that hasn’t quite gone away entirely. The revelation comes as a surprise to him, at first. But when he thinks about the people he’s surrounded with, he thinks perhaps it isn’t all that surprising.
EPILOGUE
“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Vincent asks.
“Yes,” Yves says. It’s not a lie.
This time, he’s seated right next to the window, and Vincent is in the middle seat. Yves had offered to take the middle seat instead, but Vincent had insisted(“If you wanted to sleep, you could lean against the window,” he’d said, and Yves had accepted only because it would be better to fall asleep against the window than do something embarrassing, like fall asleep on Vincent’s shoulder).
“It’s just the annoyidg residual symptoms, now,” he says. “I—”
God. He always has the worst timing. He veers away, muffling a tightly contained sneeze into his shoulder.
“hHEH-’IIDDZschH-yyEW! Snf-! I’mb — hHhEHh’DjjsSHH-iEW! Ugh, I’m fine. I feel better thad I sound.”
“Bless you,” Vincent says, leaning over to press his hand against Yves’s forehead. “No fever,” he says. “That’s good. But you should take another day off when we get back.”
Yves doesn’t think taking another day off is necessary. “I spedt the entirety of yesterday sleeping,” he says. “I think I’ve rested enough.”
Vincent just raises an eyebrow at him. “Need I remind you that someone very wise told you to take it easy?”
“Since when has Aimee been your spokesperson?”
“She made a lot of good points,” Vincent says, deceptively unassuming. “I think you should consider taking notes.”
Yves looks at him for a moment. “You’re laughing at me.”
This time, Vincent smiles. “Maybe.”
Yves leans back in his seat, reaching up with one hand to massage his temples. The changing cabin pressure is not exactly comfortable—his head still hurts a little, but he’s flown enough times to know that it won’t be as much of a problem once they finish their ascent. 
“Thadks again for coming,” he says, unwrapping one of the small, packaged pillows the airline has left on their seats. 
“You invited me,” Vincent says, blinking. “All I did was show up.”
But that isn’t true at all, Yves thinks. Vincent is the one who spent time learning basic French, who met Yves’s family and who spoke with everyone with genuine interest, who bought Yves medicine and water, all while being careful to not be overbearing. Vincent is the one who left the wedding early to walk Yves back to the hotel, who stayed with him the entire day afterwards.
“That’s such a huge understatement I don’t even kdow where to get started,” Yves says. “Thanks for meetidg my family—they love you, by the way. They’re going to be askidg about you every summer from now on, I just know it.”
He can already picture it—June, this year, after busy season is over, if their fake relationship lasts that long. Another flight where they’re next to each other. Another dozen conversations about how they’d met, about what it’s like dating a coworker, about what their plans for the future are.
Perhaps it’s wishful thinking. This was never meant to be a long-term arrangement in the first place. But something about this—about being here with Vincent—just feels so unthinkingly easy.
“It’s no problem,” Vincent says. “The feeling is mutual. I’m glad I got to meet them.”
“Thanks for looking after me, too,” Yves says, with another apologetic smile. “I’mb sure being stuck in a hotel room all day wasn’t how you were planning on spending your last day of vacation.”
“I don’t mind,” Vincent says, sounding strangely like he means it. “I like spending time with you.”
Yves nearly drops the pillow he’s holding. 
When he looks back at Vincent, Vincent looks faintly amused. “Is that so surprising? I think I’d be a terrible fake boyfriend if I didn’t.”
“You make a really good one, as it stands,” Yves tells him, sincerely, and Vincent smiles.
Yves looks out the window—where the city beneath them begins to resolve itself into miniature, where the sky stretches where he can see Vincent reflected faintly back at him, from the glass—and finds that he feels impossibly light.
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j-unos · 3 months ago
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In the first official year of King Taejo’s reign, the fifth of his eight sons became a problem.
(link)
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terresdebrume · 1 month ago
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You know, I will fully admit that Charles is my Blorbo and I probably take criticism of him harder than I should
At the same time, it's the second time in as many weeks I've seen either a meta post or a fic blaming him for everything that goes wrong in the show and I am genuinely not into that at all
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baadeo · 6 months ago
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really debating writing a fic about a case set in a theater, a haunted play... a phantom of the opera if you will
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lesbicosmos · 1 month ago
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day 2 of @palasakiweek !!
day 2 prompt: fondness
summary: Crystal comes home from meeting with her parents and she isn't in the best mood. But, how can she be sad when her girlfriend is in the kitchen making cookies?
notes: sorry it's kinda short, i wrote this in like two hours so it's not the best but i wanted to get something out today despite how busy school's getting lately :((
also on ao3!!
i'd be home with you
Crystal was pissed off. She always was whenever she returned from visiting her parents, which she begrudgingly did once a month. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her parents; after losing her memories of them, all she wanted was a hug from them, to be told that they’d been scared out of their minds when she disappeared, to be told she was loved. But finding out her parents hadn’t even realised she was gone because they were too busy planning an art show hurt. It made her angry. And the fact they still didn’t seem bothered by her disappearance, even after she told them about it, made her even angrier. She didn’t even really think they believed her about what happened, just like how they hadn’t openly believed her when she first told them about her psychic abilities when she was ten years old. No, they only seemed to care about or acknowledge those when they became something they could make money out of, when Crystal could become the Surname-Von Hoverkraft’s Little Star.
Now Crystal knew what she did about her lineage, she wondered why her mother didn’t seem to have the same powers she did. Maybe it was a magical recessive gene and managed to skip a generation, or perhaps she did have abilities but somehow hadn’t tapped into them yet. Either way, Crystal was almost glad her mother wasn’t a psychic. She couldn’t imagine what it would do to her already monstrous ego.
So, when Crystal entered her apartment complex after another conversation with Maddy and Seth that ended up involving more talk about them and their projects than it did their daughter, she was feeling pretty down. She was more than ready to collapse onto the sofa with a tub of ice cream and watch shitty reality shows.
But upon entering her flat, her mood was lifted immediately by the overwhelming sweet smell of homemade baking, and the sound of a familiar voice singing along to a pop song on the radio.
Crystal dropped her tote bag near the door, unlaced and kicked off her boots and hung her coat up next to the bright green one on the wall hooks. Despite the rest of the day being a total shitshow, she couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto her face as she entered the kitchen, and that smile only grew at the sight before her.
Niko was taking a tray out of the oven, her hips swaying to the music as she hummed along. She was wearing her bright pink apron, which was dotted with little purple and blue flowers, over pale orange pyjamas as she danced along in her fluffy hedgehog slippers.
“What’s this?” Crystal asked, walking up behind Niko and kissing her cheek.
“This is cookies!” Niko said excitedly, turning to face Crystal to do the same.
“I can see that, but...for any particular occasion?”
“Well, I know you’re not usually in the best of moods after you go and see your parents, so I thought…maybe this would cheer you up?”
“Oh babe…” Crystal wrapped her arms around Niko’s waist tightly, burying her head in her shoulder. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. You deserve something good after having to deal with them, and I know these are your favourite.”
“Hmm, yeah, they are,” Crystal hummed.
“So,” Niko said, dragging the word out playfully. “What do you wanna do while we wait for them to cool down?”
“This is good,” Crystal replied, hugging Niko tighter and pressing soft kisses to the spot where her neck met her shoulder.
Niko hummed in agreement and then, without warning, reached behind Crystal to hold the backs of her knees and hoist her up into a piggyback.
“Niko!” Crystal shrieked, laughing.
“What?”
“Give me some warning first!”
“Hmm, no I don’t think I will,” Niko grinned.
Crystal just laughed, resting her head on Niko’s shoulder again.
Niko walked into the living room, Crystal holding on to her tightly. When they reached the sofa, Niko turned around and all but threw her girlfriend off her.
“Oh, that was uncalled for!” she said, the smile on her face letting Niko know she was just teasing.
Niko smiled again, her nose crinkling slightly and her eyes seeming to sparkle despite the dim room they were in. Perhaps it was just Crystal’s imagination – she couldn’t help it, whenever she looked at Niko it was like she glowed, just as she had when they first met, only this time it wasn’t the work of any sprites or supernatural intervention; it was just Niko Sasaki in her natural kind, sweet, gorgeous state.
Crystal found herself unable to look away from her, unable to even speak. Somehow, this beautiful person had chosen her as someone she wanted in her life, as a friend, as a roommate, as a girlfriend. Sometimes Crystal convinced herself she didn’t deserve her, but Niko would never accept that, and would spend hours talking, making sure Crystal knew how amazing she was no matter how horrible she had been in the past. With Niko holding her like that, speaking so softly, her voice undeniably full of love and admiration, it was impossible for Crystal to not believe her at least a little bit.
“Come here,” she said at last, just about able to think something other than my pretty girl.
Niko stepped forward, and Crystal reached out to pull her down onto the sofa with her. She ended up sitting on Crystal’s lap, facing her. Both of them immediately erupted into giggles that were only stopped when Niko leaned in, kissing her firmly. She moved to back away, but Crystal only held her by the jaw and kept her there, deepening the kiss. It was still gentle, still so soft and fond, but there was a sense of desperation there, like they needed their lips against each other, or they might die.
The two of them spent the next twenty minutes lying together on the sofa, kissing and whispering sweet nothings and giggling about anything and everything that came to mind. It was just what Crystal needed after the terrible morning she’d had.
Then, all at once, Niko stopped and gasped.
“Cookies! They’ll be cool by now!”
Crystal chuckled, letting go of her waist so she could stand up.
“I’ll be right back,” Niko said, kissing Crystal’s cheek before sauntering back into the kitchen.
Crystal couldn’t quite believe how lucky she was that she’d met Niko. She had so many regrets from her past, and part of her believed she didn’t deserve something this good after all she’d done, but another part of her knew that without going through everything she had, without dealing with David, she never would have met Charles or Edwin or Niko. Crystal would have stayed a mean bitchy rich girl, and Niko would have stayed a shut-in who likely would have died thanks to the sprites feeding off her. Crystal didn’t want to thank that demon for anything, but it was true that he indirectly gave her the life she had now, the life she loved, surrounded by people who made her a better person every single day. She would rather have gone through what she did and get this chance to be better than go back and change anything. She had friends now – real friends, not just people from school she hung around with – and she was in the healthiest relationship she’d ever been in. Sure, her new life came with chasing ghosts and monsters around London every other day, but it was more than worth it for her sibling-like bickering with Edwin, for going out to concerts as friendship-dates with Charles, for coming home every day to her girlfriend, who sometimes happened to be baking cookies in the kitchen.
It was that moment that Niko walked back into the room, a plate in her hands.
“Okay, they’re still a little warm but they’ve definitely cooled enough that they won’t fall apart when you pick them up,” she said, offering the plate out towards her. “You try one first.”
Who was Crystal to deny her? She picked one from the plate and took a bite.
“Woah,” she said.
She might have been a little biased, but she was fairly convinced they were the best cookies she’d ever had.
“Are they good?” Niko asked, slightly worried – for no reason at all.
“Niko these are fucking awesome, oh my god.”
That smile immediately returned to Niko’s face and she sat down, putting the plate on the coffee table in front of them and taking one for herself.
“Oh, they really are good,” Niko giggled as she ate.
“You gotta teach me how to make these.”
“Are you sure you won’t just spend the entire lesson sitting on the counter staring at me baking like you did when I ‘taught you’ how to make brownies?”
“Hey! It’s not my fault you look so good in that apron,” Crystal argued.
“It’s okay babe, I know you just like to watch.”
“You’re pretty when you’re focused, okay? I mean you are all the time, but you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know,” Niko laughed.
Once both of them had finished their cookies, Crystal pulled Niko in to kiss her again. She tasted like chocolate. The cookies had been great, but Crystal didn’t think anything could ever compare to the taste of Niko’s lips against her own. They were soft and sweet and Crystal felt like she was at home whenever they kissed.
Because, she was, really, wasn’t she? Her home wasn’t with her parents, the people who raised her but didn’t really know her. No, her home was right there in Niko’s arms, surrounded by people who knew her better than anyone else ever had, who had been there for her through some of her worst experiences. Home wasn’t a place, it was a person; it was three people. It was why she’d felt the most comfortable she ever had when they were in Port Townsend, despite the ongoing threat of David and the overwhelmingly emotional caseload – because she’d found them.
Crystal Palace had finally found her home, and she wasn’t letting go of it any time soon.
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jesperr-fahey · 5 months ago
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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crystal Palace & Charles Rowland (DCU), Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace & Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace Characters: Crystal Palace (DCU), Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland (DCU) Additional Tags: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Developing Relationship, (but in a qpr way) Summary:
Crystal nodded, claiming her spot next to Charles and reaching over to take his hand in hers. As soon as they made contact, she felt her eyebrows raise. “Woah, Charles, your hands are… really cold today. I didn’t think that was something that could happen to you guys?” Beside her, Charles stiffened. Behind the desk, Edwin glanced up from his book, his brow furrowed. “Are you cold, Charles?” he asked. “You didn’t mention it.” ~~ Back in London, still trying to find their version of normalcy, Crystal, Edwin, and Charles find themselves dealing with a different kind of problem.
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sillyfairygarden · 2 years ago
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swiping through the hairstylist magazine: tango edition
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the-ipre · 6 months ago
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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crystal Palace/Charles Rowland (DCU), Crystal Palace & Charles Rowland (DCU) Characters: Crystal Palace (DCU), Charles Rowland (DCU) Additional Tags: Piercings, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Aromantic Crystal Palace, she doesnt know it yet but i do o7, Post-Season/Series 01, these two have such fun chemistry but also !! need to sort some things out Series: Part 2 of becoming crystal palace Summary:
Her hair rustles with the light breeze coming in through the opened window, and it's nice. Charles can't feel the breeze himself, of course, but Crystal seems to appreciate it, especially as the weather begins to grow warmer. Turns out, an unoccupied attic space can turn into quite the oven in the summertime, not that its two ghostly inhabitants were exactly aware.
He glances over at her again, just in time to see her toss her phone to the couch beside her and throw herself to her feet. “Okay, I need to do something or I am going to crawl out of my skin.”
Charles blinks, attempting to process the abrupt shift. “What...kind of something?”
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