#it is tho. like they last a couple hours and I have 1 in every downstairs room (bar the one with the fire going) and they’re completely lit

[existentialcrisis-24-7]

For years i have been waiting for the perfect opportunity to use the glow sticks I had impulsively bought and fecked in my desk drawer, and now that there is a power outage thag has been lasting for hours and seems to have to end point, I finally, finally get the chance to use them.

Also glow sticks are bright as fuck??? I highly recommend keeping some of you don’t live with small children or chomping dogs, especially if you live in a place that gets lots of blackouts

[seventh-district]

several days and 15 thousand words later, i am relieved to report that the suffocating urge to Write Something has been sated and no longer has me in a chokehold

[babygirl-riley]

Hi I have a request so it’s like Simon and his wife arguing pretty badly like to the point where she’s shouting bare at him she’s on the verge of tears and while their arguing their new born cries so the reader goes upstairs to the crying baby once their baby is calm she doesn’t even go back downstairs to talk to him she just like stays in the baby room and goes on her social media to distract her self from Simon.

Hii so I have this written in my notes I always do that so I don’t forgot what I’m gonna ask and I hope this is what u meant tho cause im so slow it acc took me bare long to understand 😭

Quiet Home

You and Simon have been back to back arguments. Before you both could finish this one a loud cry interrupted the fight.

A/N: this is exactly what you asked for 😭 So embarrassing truly 💀 However this really tugged the heartstrings

“I want to be close to you, but I don't know what to do.'Cause if we are near to through, it may make it worse.”

Warnings: baby blues, depression, anger, arguments, fighting, yelling, screaming, baby crying, swearing, soft!simon, husband!simon, happy ending

simon x reader guide

simon x reader family

You were exhausted, you would clean, go get groceries, wake up every hour with the newborn, and everything in between. Usually you had Simon right beside you and help you with the smallest things. However, duty calls. Price promised Simon a couple months leave however, it was an emergency.

When Simon first brought it up, you knew he saw the rolling of the eyes but you brushed it off. Simon brought it up later and you just tried to push it away. Eventually it blew up. Things were said and yelled that weren’t meant to come out. Simon slept in a different room and he was gone for a couple of weeks.

You didn’t answer his calls but text him updates. It was petty but it’s a petty time. You were promised to have your husband here with both your child. Yet you are here almost falling asleep anytime it was early in the morning to feed the baby. You sat outside of the room of your baby as she bailed and bailed, being irritated and tired. Eventually you would go in sure but you were so scared that you would yell at her for being a baby.

After the couple of weeks you tried to brush it under the rug as you made Simon’s favorite dinner. Knowing he would be home. He text you stating that he will be home around 7 o clock and he was excited to see both you and the baby. 7 went to 8, 8 went to 9, 9 went to 10, 10 went to 11, and so on. The food went cold and baby was down. Especially you were tired.

You already put the food away and sat in the living room. You watched the clock before you angrily got up and started the bath. You needed to cool down. You heard the heavy footsteps heading down the hall. You rolled your eyes with the clock read 1 AM.

Simon noticed the light beaming through the room you both shared. Inhaling deeply he stepped in and rounding into the bathroom. You stood with a robe on and touching the warm water.

“S’rry ‘m late.” He said watching your movements.

“Okay.” You said not looking at him.

He frowned and shook his head. “I had a ton of paperwork and didn’t notice the time. Thought I had enough time.”

You didn’t say nothing as you went to the cabinet and pulled out your favorite salts for the bath. Simon watched as you poured them in and went back to put it away. “Y/n please.”

“Please what Simon? You were late. You weren’t here. Shit happens right? Emergencies happen. It’s whatever at this point.” You scoffed as you finally looked at him.

Simon noticed the anger in your eyes. He was upset that he left without resolving the last fight. He was upset that when he called you didn’t want to talk. He was upset he wasn’t home when he was supposed to be and not seeing his babygirl. He also noticed you are tired. Exhausted even. The bags. The purple shade underneath your eyes. “It’s my job you knew that when you signed up for it.”

You laughed and shook your head. “You don’t think I know that? Don’t you dare throw that in my face Simon. We were promised a break for our child yet he drags you back and you are willing to without a second glance.”

“Really? It goes back to me not carin’ about our family huh? That’s what you said before I left. You think I care more about my job than us.”

“Yes! Yes I do! I think that you are stuck in a loop without anyone but you! You are fine with just going instead of being here!” You yelled starting to walk out and brushing passed Simon.

“It’s my job! I have to go! I can’t leave my team behind!” He yelled back following you.

You scoffed as you ripped your robe off, ripping open your drawers. “Right but you can do it to us.” You mumbled pulling out sweats and a t-shirt.

“What’s that supp’se to mean?” He basically growled.

You snapped up and looked at him. “Ever since Millie was born it was like you have been gone. You will help yes but how long did that last before you skipped your happy ass to Price,” You yelled pulling the sweats up as you felt a sting of tears coming. You laughed as you heard nothing from him. “I have been doing this by myself with no help! Nothing Simon!”

“That’s not fair! How many times do I have to say it’s my fuckin’ job…”

“You have a job here!” You screamed as tears started to spill and right before anyone could say anything a wail broke through the air.

You both stood there for a minute before you raked your fingers through your hair. You wiped your eyes angrily. “Damn it,” You pulled your shirt on before walking out, grabbing your phone on the dresser. “I am sleeping in the other room.” You slammed the door shut before walking to the baby’s room.

You opened it as Millie screamed louder. You cried as you walked closer that turns to a sob. You didn’t know what to do. How to do it. You don’t know how to keep her asleep and fed and changed without being upset. You gripped the crib hard as you couldn’t move. You were tired and your baby needs you. “I’m sorry,” You cried as you picked her up and shushed her softly. “I know I know.”

You sat in the rocking chair as you let your baby fed. You scrolled on social media seeing all the happy couples. All what they are doing. All your friends looking like they don’t have problems. You missed Simon, not like he changed, just his touch, he soft voice when he whispers I love you. You missed his laugh when you both would have that marriage banter. You missed his tea.

You are afraid that maybe having a kid was a bad idea. That it ruined or tainted everything. You looked at your baby and inhaled. How could you think like that? What has she done to make you feel that way? It seemed like anytime Simon was around you were angry. Small arguments that turned into this. Your lip trembled and you held your baby closer to your chest. Tears prickling your eyes.

You threw your phone on the ground and sobbed. You were a monster. How could a mother think like that? Why would a wife yell at her husband for doing his job? You kept thinking about all the bad things that happened or been thought of that you didn’t notice that your baby was being scooped up.

When the cold air touched your skin, you opened your eyes panicked. You thought you dropped her as you looked down with tears blinding you before you felt a hand on your cheek. You snapped your eyes to see Simon, holding your baby girl close to his chest as she was asleep. “Baby,” He whispered concerned on his face. He was kneeling as he wiped tears after tears. “Come on let me put her to bed and let’s go talk please.”

“No,” You mumbled as you stood up. “I got her.”

Simon stood up and shook his head. “Please, you look tired.”

“I-I no she needs me.” You whispered but made no move to grab her.

“She has me too,” He said quietly. “Go to the kitchen please.”

You stared for a moment and looked at your baby. How small she was compared to him. How secure she looks when he was holding her. You nodded as you wiped more of the tears away. “Okay.”

Guilt pinged your chest as you glanced once to see him bouncing a bit as he slowly put her down. You walked into the kitchen and sat at the island as quiet tears slipped. You are tired you felt your body relax and felt heavy. “Baby,” You snapped your head up and saw Simon holding a kettle. “Do you want tea?”

You nodded once and looked away. It was quiet as he face the kettle waiting for it to go off. “I’m still mad at you.” You mumbled.

Simon nodded as he turned to lean against the counter. “Why is that?”

You rolled your eyes. “Simon you know why.”

Simon walked up and leaned his elbows on the counter. “Y/n I’m not doin’ it to hurt you two.”

You froze for a moment before looking away. Thoughts of how it could be different with him not having the damn job. However, he was right he wasn’t doing it to hurt you. “I told Price to call someone else but…he needed me for what I know.” You slowly looked at him as Simon looked the other direction. “I fought the old man about it for days. I didn’ say nothin’ cause I knew you would be upset. I didn’t notice that I was pushing you and our princess away. Just-just tried to figure out how to get out of it…I’m sorry.”

Now you felt even more bad. He tried to fight not to go and fought for the two of you. You inhaled but don’t exhaled afraid of sobbing once more. The moment Simon looked at you, you sobbed and hid your face with your hands. “I didn’t-I’m so sorry Simon.”

Simon walked around and shook his head as he turned the chair to gently pull you on for a hug. “Baby I should have said something and not fought it alone.”

You sobbed and sobbed as everything came down. “I’m so tired Si. I am tired of being awake so damn early. I am tired of cooking. I am tired of not being able to do anything. I am tired of fighting with you. I am sorry Simon. I should have been m-more understanding. You don’t deserve me. You don’t deserve to marry such a bitch. I have been so ru…”

He gently pushed you off to grab your wrists to show your face. Simon smiled softly before grabbing your chin with his thumb and finger. “I know. I know. You been overwhelmed with so much. We will figure it out yeah? It’s okay, we are fine. I married you for you even when it’s rocky. It won’t always be perfect.”

You calmed down a bit as you leaned into his touch. “Okay.”

The kettle goes off as Simon kissed your forehead to walk over. You sat still as Simon came around. “I will be here right now, try my best to help you my love.”

You looked up and saw him, his eyes glowing with love. You inhaled and nodded as he pulled you back into his chest. You snuggled in and felt warmth throughout your body. God no one deserves Simon Riley.

[afterglowsainz]

dancing with our hands tied pt. 2 | pablo gavi

part 1

summary: after pablo’s plans to get back with your friend failed, the line between friendship and something more begins to blur

fc: jenna ortega

a/n: happy halloween! 👻 (i was actually giggling and kicking my feet while writing this)

—

liked by pablogavi, _ferminelopez and others

yourusername new happy place unlocked 🦌

view all comments

username can she be any cuter 😭

username actually loving y/n going to all the possible places in barcelona

username my girl really said imma explore the city!

pablogavi crazy how all the animals are your twins

yourusername oh look at him he’s got jokes!

username crazy how they are always together even tho he dated her best friend!

username i knew i couldn’t be the only one who thought that was weird

username no and look at gavi’s stories she went to the zoo with him 😭

pablogavi’s instagram stories

[caption 1: 💙] [caption 2: 🦒]

liked by hctorforrt_, joaofelix79 and others

yourusername halloween is very much our day 🎃🩸

tagged pablogavi and bffusername

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username INSANE CROSSOVER

username i’m so normal about this i swear

username no but gavi as ghost face ??? uhm ….

username she looks beautiful 😍

username already my inspo for next year

bffusername sexiest pirate out there 😉 (liked by yourusername)

username feeling feelings having thoughts

pablogavi oh we look good

yourusername covered in blood? 😭

pablogavi why not 🤷🏻‍♂️

liked by yourusername, _rl9 and others

pablogavi what’s your favorite scary movie?

tagged yourusername

view all comments

username this costume changed the trajectory of my life

username not gavi posting a photo dump with a bunch of people and only tagging y/n 😭😭

username so … i might’ve learned something about myself today

username him and y/n posting the same picture on their photo dumps ohhh the delusion hasn’t been this high

username no but is a bit crazy to see him with his ex and y/n which i’m assuming is like his friend now???

username do we think he got back with his ex?

username i would say yes but him only tagging y/n in the post and considering they have been going out to every place in barcelona 24/7 these last few days i would say … maybe not

yourusername can’t believe it took you 3 hours to think about that caption

pablogavi i’m 2 seconds away from blocking you

username ‼️‼️‼️‼️

username if this is not them flirting istg

yourusername’s instagram stories

[caption 1: 🖼] [caption 2:📍Picasso Museum]

liked by yourusername, bffusername and others

pablogavi win at home❤️

view all comments

username EXCUSE ME !!!!

username okay sir i was not familiar with your game

username you’re telling me he managed to pull baddie y/n ??? how the fuckkk

username not his best friend’s ex 🤮🤮

username his ex liked the post and she seems to still be friends with y/n so go hate somewhere else

bffusername cuties 🥺💖 (liked by pablogavi)

username did not expect this couple AT ALL

username not opposed to it though

username ohhh and the win is actually y/n 😮‍💨

yourusername visca el barça ❤️💙

pablogavi and you ❤️

[itsmarsss]

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before AU: Chapter 1 - Out [Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz x fem!Reader] (Cobra Kai)

You have been writing these love letters since seventh grade, but what happens when they somehow get sent out?

Warnings: high school (lol i wrote this one when i was in high school but im rewriting it now that im like three years out of it so it feels weird and i feel like it warrants a warning, definitely senior year tho.), hardcore crushing on miguel, mentions of a crush on moon so if ya don’t like women too then idk, uhh mention of smoking weed.

Word Count: 4,060

Your letters were your most prized possessions: yours, and yours only.

You wrote one when you had a crush so intense you felt like you needed to snap out of it or otherwise you’d collapse.

So, you wrote letters to try to find closure. Intricately detailed letters that contained every single unfiltered thought and embarrassing feeling you could find in yourself. Everything you noticed about them, everything you wished you had with them, everything you wanted to say but couldn’t.

It started a long while ago.

You never sent them, of course. That idea was completely off the table. They remained stored inside the little blue box with the white ribbon buried deep in the back of your closet, from where you would occasionally take them just to read them again and reminisce on the thoughts a younger version of you once had about all those different people.

They were all properly sealed, stamped and addressed in pretty cursive letters, but never, ever posted.

They were six in total, addressed to five different people.

The first one ever written had been for Eli, from seventh grade. Adorable little Eli, who was one of the biggest nerds you’d ever seen, always too shy to talk around others, but who would go on excitedly about a tv show or a comic book series he liked for hours around you after getting paired for a project got him to warm up to you.

Adorable little Eli, who trembled like crazy before kissing you in a dumb game of spin the bottle, right before running home crying because some girl thought it would be hilarious to comment on how she wouldn't have let him kiss her with "that mouth" if she were you. You, in turn, couldn't feel more different from that bullshit comment of hers after that messy seventh grade first kiss that lasted barely a couple seconds but fed your crush on him for months on end after.

That letter was followed by a new one, addressed also to him, but the new him this time around, many years later, in your sophomore year- to Hawk, not Eli. However that worked.

To Hawk, who had decided to “flip the script”, as he called it, by changing his entire aesthetic and his whole demeanor, showing up to school on a random day with a blue dyed mohawk and a brand new attitude. You liked it.

Confident Eli seemed happier even though he sometimes acted like a bit of an asshole and, as much as you didn’t want to admit it, he looked really, really hot. He was still Eli, but this Eli wasn’t afraid to flirt with you, which evoked brand new feelings in you.

Therefore, a new letter.

The second letter you ever wrote was addressed to Demetri, from eight grade, who you met around the same time as Eli.

Demetri, who would talk to you about superheroes and binary language and would be so excited about it that you didn’t care to tell him you couldn’t understand a word of what he said.

Demetri, who was so kind as to go to your house to help you with your part on the biology project you were partnered with him in because he knew it was stressing you out, who would offer to tutor you when you told him you were having a hard time with a subject he was good at at school, and who you got closer to when randomly put in many classes together.

The third letter you ever wrote was addressed to Robby Keene, who you became closer to after ditching the homecoming dance in your freshman year to hang out by yourself at the bleachers, despite Sam and Aisha’s protests, only to find out it apparently was Robby Keene’s favorite smoking spot.

Apparently high school dances could be pretty lame, no matter what all high school movies from the 80's had been telling you all your life. You had asked if you were interrupting something when you noticed his presence and he told you it depended on whether you'd be snitching on him or not, and suddenly freshman homecoming didn't suck all that much anymore, because you managed to make friends with the most unlikely acquaintance you could ever have.

Robby, who at fourteen years old got detention for threatening to beat up the kids who made you cry because they kept making fun of you during a presentation, which was about substance abuse, ironically.

The fourth one had been written to Moon, who you used to despise because she used to hang out with Yasmine- who, for the longest time, had loved to pick on you and your friends- especially Eli and Demetri.

But Moon, who turned out to be so sweet after she started doing and saying things for herself as opposed to whatever her friends wanted her to and started hanging out with your friend group.

Moon, who would excitedly invite you to sleep overs and braid your hair as you gossiped about people you barely knew from school, who would do your makeup for you and take you shopping and call you pet names platonically, making you blush furiously and putting you in the verge of short-circuiting by being so casually affectionate now that you’d become friends.

And, lastly, the most recent one had been written to Miguel Diaz, of course.

Miguel, who was your best friend in the whole entire world, ever since he moved to Reseda and you first befriended him at school.

Miguel, who was currently dating Sam, who you’d drifted apart from, but couldn’t for the life of you hold a grudge against.

Yeah, Miguel.

But before he became Sam’s boyfriend, he was your boyfriend. Well… boy-friend. A boy who was a friend. And things were good as they were.

But then things started changing.

Things started changing when Miguel asked Sam out and you realized you didn’t like that. When the first thing he did when he got home was to tell you all about it, and you felt a pit in your stomach as he went on about how well things had gone.

Until you couldn’t lie to yourself anymore and had to face the reality that the reason it all made you feel so awful was that you were jealous.

It was even worse to figure out why: as much as you could try to lie to yourself and pretend you were just jealous that she was spending time with your best friend, you knew you had to face it: it all came down to the simple fact that you were in love with him.

You didn’t know when it happened, or what was the turning point for that, but you were. Utterly and irredeemably.

And, in hindsight, it seemed obvious.

But then they started dating, and they didn’t want you to feel left out, so they would you and Aisha everywhere, which made things so much worse.

And then they broke up, and things got, somehow, even weirder. Now it was all you and Miguel again, and, even after all of that, you still had those stupid feelings for him. But you weren’t a complete bitch, or insensitive. You’d never make a move, you’d just have to live with it.

Which didn’t mean there was nothing you could do about it: you decided to try to put an end to it, your own way.

Hence, how letter number six came to be. Signed, addressed, stamped, sealed and stored in the blue box under all the others.

Maybe after this you’d be able to move on. Maybe after this things would go back to normal. How you craved for things to go back to how they used to be.

It seemed reasonable enough to just wait on your feelings to die out.

But a certain day came when then Eli- well, Eli, who was Hawk now, marched up to you in the middle of your gym class.

“Y/n?” He called your name, and you stopped running your laps, turning around to face him, eyebrows knit together in confusion. What was Hawk doing in your gym class?

You let him approach you. “What’s wrong?”

“Look, I appreciate it but it’s… not gonna happen. Like, you know we’re friends, and you know I'm still like… hung up on Moon, or whatever. Right? I know the power of the Hawk’s pretty irresistible,” he smirked, quickly going back to his stern expression, “but you should cut it out.”

You really had no idea what the hell he could be possibly talking about. “Dude… what?”

“C’mon you don’t have to play dumb, it’s cool that you think my scar makes me look cute or whatever but like. I uh. Don’t have any feelings for you now.” Wait, what did he say about the scar? He kept on. “And like it’s- it’s pretty cool that you liked me before and now too but this would just- this would be weird. You know that, right?”

You just weren't getting it.

And then you saw it: in his hand, signed, addressed and stamped, were two open envelopes with two different names written on them in your best cursive handwriting. Fuck.

“Hey- woah are you alright? You look like you're gonna pass out.”

You felt like you were going to pass out. You couldn’t even form a sentence in the midst of your shock.

And then, Miguel came into your line of sight. Because of course things had to get worse.

“There’s no fucking way,” you muttered, incredulous. He was walking up to you, a red envelope in hand.

The letters got out the letters got out the letters got out.

He looked confused. He obviously, and much understandably, wanted answers. Answers you’d much rather get hot by a bus than giving him.

This could not be your fucking life.

“No, no, no, no, no, oh, my god,” you looked around frantically as he got closer, trying to figure out what to do. Hawk surely thought you were crazy now.

And then Miguel made eye contact with you and he had that fucking look of pity on his face and you panicked. And so you did the first thing that came to your short-circuiting mind, which was possibly the dumbest thing you could have thought to do: apparently all you managed to think of was jumping Hawk, tackling him to the ground and kissing him in the middle of gym for Miguel to see.

How maturer and over him you were! Incredible!

The kiss was over as soon as it happened, and you pulled away as Hawk stared at you with two wide eyes and shock all over his face.

You could sympathize with the guy- getting this as a reaction to your rejection was probably really confusing.

More important things going on, though. You got a glance of Miguel stopping in his tracks at your little theatrics, making you realize it definitely didn’t do anything other than make things more awkward for you.

“Uh. Thanks. Sorry or… whatever. I’ll see you in bio!” You told Hawk, patting his chest before standing up and booking away from him, running past Miguel way too quickly for him to be able to approach you and ignoring his call of your name, and locking yourself in one of the stalls of the closest bathroom you were able to find, trying every single breathing exercise you’ve ever come across to calm yourself down.

This was it. Miguel hated you, surely.

No, worse: he pitied you. Because obviously he didn't feel the same and obviously receiving a love letter so embarrassingly honest from his closest friend was weird. Now your friendship was going to be weird, and it was all you fau-

“Y/n? Are you in there?”

No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. This can't be happening, there was no way.

“Y/n? Are you okay?”

Goddamn Robby Keene.

“Oh my god,” you muttered to yourself. Maybe willing him away in your mind would alter reality so he wasn’t there in the bathroom with you.

If only it were that easy.

Resting your head in your hands as you tried to convince yourself this was some sort of nightmare, you heard a noise come from really close to you and opened your eyesto the pink envelope being slid under the stall to you.

“I thought you’d want it back. Seemed pretty personal.”

“Robby, holy shit, I’m so sorry. You do know I wrote this like years ago, right?” He had to have figured that out, didn’t he? You weren’t even close anymore.

“Yeah! Like freshman year right? When we smoked together while everyone was at the dance.” He didn't seem to be mocking you, didn't seem to be angry. Just pointing it out. You sighed and opened the stall door, deciding facing Robby wouldn't be as bad as facing Miguel. You walked out.

“Yeah it was- it was pretty cool. Better than whatever was going down in the dance.”

“Yeah, I taught you how to smoke that day!” He smiled. “Thinking back on it makes me think you shouldn’t have been hanging out with me back then, actually,” he points out.

You could only let out a small laugh. “I guess not.”

“Look, I don’t know why you decided to send this but uh. I feel like I should tell you that Sam and I are like. Together.”

They were? “Oh. Right! Duh. Obviously. I knew that.” You most definitely did not know that. “I don’t know how this got out, really. I never meant for you to actually see this.”

“Look, we can still be friends. You’re pretty cool. Even with… you know…” he motioned vaguely, “the whole Cobra Kai thing”

“Okay! Yeah, definitely.” He was only being polite, because that’s how he is. But this was much better than having him think you were trying to get with him. You let out a nervous laugh. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.”

Jesus fuck.

[. . .]

You looked everywhere. Everywhere. The stupid fucking blue box just wasn't anywhere. You tried asking your mom about it, but her answer was short and simple: It probably went with the Goodwill box you’d made last week.

How, you couldn’t figure out, but it seemed to be the only slightly plausible possibility.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. That meant there were five people out there total, five people you still saw every single day, who you were friends with, who had received a fucking love letter with your name signed all pretty on it.

This was hell, it had to be.

You were sure of it when you heard a knock on your front door, accompanied by Miguel’s voice calling your name.

Shit, shit, shit, you were not ready to have this conversation. Why did he have to be your next door neighbor on top of everything? It had always been convenient to live so close to each other, but right now it seemed everything but.

So you did what any sane, responsible person would do: you got out by the kitchen window. Naturally.

Miguel would think you just weren't home.

Again, very mature and totally normal and over it of you.

You decided someone would probably be at the dojo and the last thing you wanted right now was to accidentally encounter someone else who had a letter by surprise. You figured it was too early for someone to be at the diner nearby, so there you went.

You ordered yourself a milkshake and tried to reason with yourself. You couldn't avoid Miguel forever. He’s obviously find a way to talk to you at some point. And then what would you do? Admit you were in love with him even though to him you were just best friends? Let him tell Sam you were in love with her (well, at-the-time) boyfriend? Get politely rejected by him and go around pretending being pitied by him for not being corresponded wasn’t pathetic? It all seemed to come down to terrible endings.

You were so lost in thought you didn't notice him sit beside you at the counter until he spoke up, ordering some fries.

Oh, shit.

Hawk.

“What are you doing here?” You asked him, annoyed.

“Went by your place. Miguel said you weren't there. Things felt preetty awkward I’ll be honest with you. But you weren't at the dojo either so I thought I’d find you here.”

“Okay. And why did you wanna find me, exactly?”

“Look I just wanna make it double clear that nothing’s gonna happen between us. Nada.”

“Eli Moskowitz I am not trying to date you.”

He seemed to cringe at his own given name, but didn’t complain out loud about it. “Then why would you write me a love letter?”

“It was in 7th grade!”

“No, you talk about me as Hawk though.”

“Last year! Right when you did… that,” you motioned vaguely to his mohawk.

“Okay I hear you but like. Your mouth is saying one thing… but then your mouth said… something… else. To my mouth. Directly.”

“What? Ew!”

“You jumped me!”

“I was panicking! And I’m like, actually sorry.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

You let out a sigh, defeated. “Miguel was walking over.”

“And?”

“And he also got one of those,” you motioned with your head at the letter in Hawk’s hand, “and I cannot deal with that right now.”

His expression shifted. “Wait, I’m not the only one who got a letter?”

“No.”

“Huh. You really think you’re special.”

“Are you not, like, surprised about Miguel?”

“Oh, no, it was pretty obvious. But damn you get a love letter and think you’re the man but then you find out she wrote to another guy too?”

“Oh there’s six of them, so don’t go feeling too special.”

“Six of them?”

You then realize you’d spoken too much. He doesn’t need to know all of this. “Nevermind.”

“Damn y/n, fuck yeah, you're a player! Who were they for?”

“No one! It’s none of your business.”

“Come on, I deserve to know! You did kinda jump me in front of a bunch of people.”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“I mean I wouldn't- I wouldn't want people to find out you think my scar looks hot. Or that when you look at me you think about ‘kissing the annoying smirk off my lips’- I mean who knows what guarantees you don’t have a tattoo of my face on your ass-”

That was embarrassing enough. “Okay shut up! Shut up. Fine, if you wanna know so bad. So two for you. Then uh. Demetri, in-”

“You had a crush on Demetri?”

You kept on. “Then Robby Keene, on freshman year.”

“What, do you have a thing for LaRusso’s boyfriends or…?”

“How did you know they were together? I didn’t know!”

He just shrugged, and you continued. “And then there was uh-” you glanced at him and back to your milkshake. “Moon, after she uh. Started dating you, and hanging out with us.”

He let out a snort. “Right.”

“Sorry. I uh- I know she broke up with you-”

“What, are you gonna make a move on her? Is this what you have a thing for, crushing on your friends’ partners?”

“No. And you asked me about it!”

He looked sorry. He didn’t say it. He sighed. “Fine. Is that everyone?”

“With Miguel, yeah, that’s everyone.”

“Okay. I was the only one to get two letters though.”

You rolled your eyes at the comment. Of course he’d make this be about feeding his ego. The two of you finished your food in an awkward silence before he spoke up again. “Did you walk here?”

“Yeah.”

“You want a ride?”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s fine.”

“Okay.” After paying, you walked outside, getting on his motorbike. He surrendered his only helmet to you.

Holding onto his waist the whole time after all this was definitely weird but you didn’t let yourself think about it too much, instead thinking about a bigger issue: you really, really hoped Miguel wouldn’t be there when you got home. You got to the parking lot, getting off the bike, taking off the blue helmet and handing it back to him. “How do you even put this on with your hair?” You questioned.

He laughed. “I just like. Push it back.”

“But how does it not ruin it?”

He shrugged. “Power of the Hawk.” He smirked, full of himself.

“Oh, come on. I bet you walk around with a little bottle of hair gel so you can fix it when you take it off.”

“Magician never reveals his secrets-” he looked off at something behind you that caught his attention. You furrowed your eyebrows together in confusion, turning around to see what it was.

Miguel. He hadn't noticed your presence yet, but there was no way he wasn’t going to.

What do you do now? You felt paralyzed.

Hawk seemed to think of something before you could. He placed his helmet on the handle of the bike, very obviously making sure to make noise with it to attract attention, and leaned in, pulling you into a kiss. A… rather passionate one.

He pulled away, wordlessly leading you in the direction of your front door. You got the hint, walking to your place without turning around, and unlocking the door. He pushed you in and closed the door behind him with his foot, loudly. You stayed like that, with him leaning on the door and your bodies flushed together, in silence, trying to listen if Miguel was walking towards your door or not. After a couple seconds, you figured he was not, and you pulled away from him.

“Sorry,” he looked at the floor, sheepish. An usual sight for the new him. “First thing that came to mind.”

“Why is jumping each other the first thing that we think of when we panic?” You laughed.

Hawk laughed along, more at ease knowing you weren’t mad at him. “You did it first.”

You sat down on your couch, but he stayed standing. “Sorry to pull you into this. And thank you for helping out just now. Think I’ll just pity myself ‘till I sleep and then die of embarrassment tomorrow when I see him or something. You can go if you want.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll- yeah.” He started walking to the door, but stopped midway, turning around to face you again. “Hey what if-” he tried to find the words to explain his idea- “um- he probably thinks we’re dating right? Or at least hooking up, or something. I mean, after all the kissing… and stuff.”

“Shit. Yeah. I’ll clear things up, sorry-”

“No! What if- what if we let him?”

“What… do you mean?”

“What if we let him think we’re dating? And not just him. Everyone else too.”

“Why would we do that?”

“So he won’t think you're in love with him!”

“I’ll rephrase it then. Why would you do that?”

“I mean you know- you know I’m still really into Moon. Maybe we could make her… want what she can’t get?”

“You think that would work? On Moon?”

He just shrugged. “Maybe.”

“So you’re suggesting we fake-date.”

“I guess.”

“Have you never seen a movie with a fake dating trope? Doesn't end well.”

“What, you think you’ll catch feelings?” He opened his signature grin, and you sighed, annoyed.

“I’m just saying it’s probably gonna blow up on our face eventually.”

“Why? We can just pretend to date for like a couple weeks. And then we break up or whatever.”

“I’m not-” This could not be a good idea. Could it? “Look I’ll- I’ll think about it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

[. . .]

Miguel, Miguel, Miguel. Miguel seemed to be what occupied your thoughts the most. No matter how absurd the amount of drama you were going through was, your thoughts always came back to him.

But the night after the letters got out… it wasn't like that. Eli Moskowitz- well, Hawk, hadn’t been in your head all that much ever since you got over the last crush you had on him a couple years ago. But now Miguel wasn't the only thing in your head anymore, weird of a way as everything else had come into your thoughts.

So you decided.

A/N: in all honesty im only rewriting this because im in a bit of a slum and i almost deleted this off of my ao3 bc of how terribly written the original chapters are lol so idk here’s something someone might like i guess. I won’t be in any rush to post the chapters of this whatsoever, scandalous is 100% my priority this is just for some piece of mind bc I know I’m better than the shitty writing in the original version of this lol

[rubra-wav]

Why So Blue? Vox x Reader

[ Part 1 - A Like Morning Unlike Others ]

A/N: I have a kind of loose idea of where I'm maybe taking this one, but I am very much open to any suggestions.

People asked to be tagged in what was going to be part 2 to the oneshot. My ideas changed a bit with this tho, and it's being rewritten as a fic from the start - sorry if this isn't what you really had in mind w that request 😭

[ Taglist ] @gigglesandshits @serendipitous-fernweh @valentinosbabycakes @ seriouslyaverage (won't let me @ ???)

[ part 2 ] >>

Cw: SFW, Gn!Reader, slight staticmoth reference

The morning you first showed up was like any other for the Video Star.

As always, Vox awoke at 7:00 am on the dot, staring at the ceiling for a couple of seconds as his system warmed up properly for the day ahead.

After the 'sleep' cleared from his mind, he sat up and then climbed from his bed to quickly change before swiping his phone off his nightstand as he walked to the personal kitchen in his part of the building (he had it installed so he didnt have to see his colleagues before his persona was up to snuff) and began scrolling through his emails.

He opted for those from Carmine rather than Velvette or Valentino.

It was frankly too fucking early to deal with whatever bullshit they were yelling about on seemingly all of his socials in his mind. (a decision he'd come to regret rather soon)

Last night's hangover still clung to him, but he pushed through it. He was rather happy all things considered. Carmine's email confirmed that she was on board with partnering up for personal surveillance systems without much questioning, thankfully.

He was about to get even fucking richer.

He grinned widely at the prospect as he leisurely made his coffee - black, naturally - fantasising about how he'd be able to spy on hell's citizens even more with them literally installing surveillance cameras into their own homes for security purposes.

Those poor, desperate idiots practically exploit themselves!

Vox chuckled at the thought, humming as he walked in the direction of his broadcast room, scrolling to look over the email Carmine sent once again to fully understand all agreements. To try to see what he'd be able to push her into doing potentially.

The hatch to his lair broadcast room opened loudly and closed just as loudly behind him as his footfalls echoed in the silent room against the cold tiles.

Vox didn't look up once as he made his way to his seat.

He didn't need to.

He knew where everything was in here as nobody else was ever in here. And if they were?

Well, those demons wouldn't be 'employed' much longer, we'll say that.

His seat squeaked as he sat on it, sipping his coffee as he swiped through some more notifications.

He glanced at his monitor momentarily as he took a deep sip of coffee that would gross anyone else out, then promptly choked on it, gracelessly spitting some onto his keyboard and lap.

He felt truly chilled to the bone for the first time in a long while.

Wide, red eyes watched in horror as a very drunk version of himself from last night met him. In the video, he was shaking his hips from where he stood on a bar while singing (he assumed) shittily if his memory served right.

The video was muted from where it played on the screen of every monitor in his room, but he expected it.

His frozen present self watched himself in the video as drunk Vox stumbled and then proceeded to topple off-camera to the ground.

His instant assumption was that Valentino or Velvette had posted it online, but that was quickly off the cards when he noticed that not only were both of them watching him while laughing with no phones in their hands, but it was posted from his own fucking Sinstagram account.

It already had over a million likes, and it'd been up for only an hour at this point. His colleagues wrote surprised comments underneath, asking if he meant to post it. Valentino adding that Vox looked cute in it either way.

He could feel his fear and anger rising, loud zaps of electricity emitting from him already as his claws dug into either armrest of his desk chair, leaving long scratch marks on them which exposed the padding within.

Then he read the bottom caption of the looped post of himself and fully lost it.

'For someone who talks so big about being ahead technologically, it was awfully easy to hack old Boxy here.'

Vox lets out a loud, enraged yell, slamming his fist on his desk, promptly causing himself to Bluescreen and knocking out much of Pentagram's electricity in the process despite not being plugged into his set-up.

-

On the other side of the city, you laugh loudly as you watch the press conference where the Tech demon overlord fought to clean up his image.

It began just a few minutes after you were exposed to Vox's rage in the form of your lights shutting off.

It didn't affect your setup, of course. A certain someone you knew had helped you craft it, and it ran on a different server.

While others were still waiting for their shit to get back in order after Vox stopped plastering his rather strained grin on every screen, you were watching the press conference in one window while admiring how quickly his men raced to try and patch up the code you'd gotten through last time in another.

Of course, it hardly would do anything for you the next time around you decided to clown on him.

You shifted into a cross-legged position on the floor, glancing between the mess of old and new monitors surrounding you all interlocking with equally messy and tangled cables.

You passively wondered if anyone had been killed during all this, expecting yes, but not paying much attention to it. You couldn't do anything about what he decided to pull in response to your attacks.

Anything for your entertainment.

You cracked your fingers loudly as you began to prepare for the next bag of shit you'd be leaving on his doorstep.

Snickering with a smile, you watched his hypnosis ability activate, manipulating everyone watching outside of your own eyes.

They would forget this, but you wouldn't. And neither would Vox. You'd make sure all of them remembered you eventually.

Snorts and giggles echoed out in the silence of your small, shitty apartment as you mulled over all the things you had planned for the next few months.

Jesus christ, this would be fun.

Yeah, this reader isn't a good person either. They just wanna fuck around with Vox as much as they can and don't care much who becomes cannon fodder in the process.

I was considering also writing pt. 2 into this as well, but I figured that I would do this as just a taster for this series starting for the first post. Pt. 2 will be soon 🙏

Why So blue Masterlist (not much here yet obv)

Main Masterlist

[alexfromjersey]

𝓓𝓮𝓶𝓸𝓼 & 𝓕𝓪𝓷 𝓓𝓮𝓽𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓿𝓮𝓼

jenna ortega x g!poc

summary: jah submits a demo. jenna gets questioned by hudson. fans start to piece things together

warnings: mature language

a/n: I want to quit my job 🙂. I wish we got paid to write fanfiction. I walked 14,987 steps in one single shift

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Series Masterlist

🤰🏻🩵

@modernbussywhip: AIGHT I NEED EVERYONE TO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND PAY ATTENTION TO ME

@ghostridingwhip: aggressive for wat tho?

@modernbussywhip: SSSHHHHHH I HAVE NEW INFO BOUT JAH'S MYSTERY GIRL! I have two potential candidates and please note that one of them is a little bit of a surprise

@highondatgreen: i thought it was clear that I'm Jah's girl

@ghostridingwhip: @highondatgreen whatever u smoke...slide some over here

@ghostridingwhip: @modernbussywhip who are the candidates 👀

@modernbussywhip: ALRIGHT CLASS IS IN SESSION. Now like I said i have two candidates but it could be more cuz we all know Jah is a hoe...a respectable one tho but i digress.

@modernbussywhip: CANDIDATE NUMERO UNO: Stacey Vernon, a popular social media influencer on TikTok. She has a twin sister Diana and with Davis, they all attended school together (as she has mentioned in a TikTok video). They were together at Stacey's birthday party not too long ago and even though Jah shut the rumors down of them being together...we never know when it comes to Shiesty.

@fnthechat: geeeeezzzzz if this Jah's girl....

@behindthespecialk: I love jah but there's no way jah bagged her

@shiestylover: @behindthespecialk: whoa whoa not u doubting my girl's ability to bag bad bitches. you must not seen her roster 😏

@behindthespecialk: HOW?!?! @sheistylover

@shiestylover: she just built like that 😏

@modernbussywhip: LMAOOO while we can admire the untouchable rizz Jah has later....we should move on to candidate numero dos because this one...is a little out there but plausible.

@modernbussywhip: CANDIDATE NUMERO DOS: we all know her, we all love her and it's Miss Jenna Ortega. Now now now before everyone start think pieces just look at my evidence ok come come....evidence number one back when the Scream 6 premiere happened Jah accompanied Davis to it. I'm 95% sure that's where they first met because Jah didn't go to Canada while Davis was filming Scream 6. 1/4

@modernbussywhip: we all saw jenna appear in Jah's vlog...the eye contact, the sexual tension, everything was there between them. But fast forward a couple of hours later, a fan posted a pic with jenna who was at a restaurant and in the pic u can see a tattooed arm and it's the same tattoos Jah has! 2/4

@modernbussywhip: CONTINUE TO WALK WITH ME! Fast forward more, they follow each other on Instagram and as a jenna fan also...that girl avoids that app like the bubonic plague EXCEPT for when Jah posts...every single post of jah has a jenna like...i don't think jenna even likes her mother's posts so for her to only be on Instagram liking Jah's posts....my spidey senses are tingling 3/4

@modernbussywhip: ALMOST DONE! now we always mess with jah on her Reddit so lately it's been nothing but pics and edits of jenna on it...NOT ONCE has she told anyone to stop sending pics and edits of jenna. AND every time she looks at one...her eyes lights up and she starts to smile and blush! Plus after the Met Gala, Jenna stayed in New York...why did she stay in New York?? Jenna's from Cali across the fucking country and she was seen around the Bronx area....YALL NOT FOOLING ME! 4/4

@fnthechat: if jah managed to bag the baddiest scream queen in existence...imma need her to write a book about how to generate THAT much rizz

@ghostridingwhip: fr...that's like level 100 rizz...past Duke Dennis level of rizz

🤰🏻🩵

"Man this is the fucking FIFTH studio I called today and none of them got availability tonight" You groaned out of frustration.

"Why you wait until the last minute to call these studios?" Delyse questioned.

"Well I just signed up for the contest. It was a spur of the moment thing I didn’t really think it through." You said.

Delyse hummed in response and turned her attention back to the food on the stove.

"We can see if Kenny still got his home studio. I think he still live on 33rd" Davis said.

"Bet let's go. We'll be back Ma" You said to your mother and left with Davis.

"You got a song you gonna record?" Davis asked.

"Yeah I wrote it a long time ago. I made the beat and everything" You smiled.

Soon the two of you made it to Kenny's house. You walk into the building and climb up the three flights of stairs, remembering that his elevator never worked. You got to his door and knocked on it.

You waited patiently and slightly out of breath. You knocked again, "Yo Kenny it's me Jah."

Suddenly, the door was ripped opened and a furious looking woman stood there with a crying baby on her hip.

"Uh is Kenny here?" You asked.

The woman laughed sadistically, "Of course you're looking for Kenny. Kenny left four months ago with a skank from Brooklyn."

You and Davis looked at each other stuck on what to say.

"Um...you don't happen to still have his studio equipment?" You asked carefully.

"Nope. I burned it. I burned everything of his" The woman replied.

"Okay thanks" You both gave her a small smile and walked away from Kenny's former apartment. The two of you left the building with you feeling utterly defeated.

"What the fuck am I gonna do? I have to submit this demo by 11:59 tonight" You sighed.

"Don't stress bruh we gon' figure something out. Trust" Davis reassured you. You nodded and took a deep breath in to calm your body down.

🤰🏻🩵

London, England

1:23 am

Jenna had just got to her temporary home after a long day of filming. She was exhausted and was glad she had the day off so she can rest properly. She pulled her shoes off and placed her purse on the table.

Just as she was about to sit on the couch, a knock is at her door.

She internally screams before she walks to the door and opens it to reveal Hudson.

Jenna sighed, "What do you want Hudson?"

"I...just wanted to check in on you. I know you've been working hard which could be harmful to the baby" Hudson said nervously.

"Now you care about me and my baby" Jenna said and raised her eyebrow in suspicious at the boy.

"I always cared about you Jenna. If I didn't I wouldn't be here right now" Hudson replied.

"If you cared about me you wouldn't have told my family about me being pregnant. That wasn't something someone who cared about me would do" Jenna said and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're right. I shouldn't have done that, it wasn't my place to do that and I sincerely apologize" Hudson said.

Jenna hummed in response, not really believing his words.

Hudson sighed and scratched the back of his neck, "I truly am sorry and I regret doing it. I just...I just wanted to check on you after everything that happened with Neil on the plane."

At the mention of the male, Jenna tensed. She was doing good with pushing him out of her thoughts. Instead, choosing to focus on her filming. She couldn't and won't let him control her...not anymore. She deserved to be happy.

"I'm fine. I'll handle it" Jenna lied.

Hudson opened his mouth to say something but decided against it after seeing the look on her face.

"Okay...I'll uh...see you tomorrow" Hudson said and walked away from her door. Jenna shut the door after he left and sat on her couch. She was stressed and that wasn't good for her or the baby...she needed to relieve some stress.

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

i need help

NYC 🩵:

with 👀

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

im stressed

NYC 🩵:

well taking deep breaths and meditating i heard is a good source of stress relief

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

NYC 🩵:

was that not the right thing to do?

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

nope

NYC 🩵:

ah shit

WAIT

😏😏😏😏😏😏

i know what u want

🤤🤤🤤 vegan food looks bomb don't ya agree

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

I hate you with everything in me 😂

NYC 🩵:

💀💀💀 wym? wat i do? is that not right also?!?

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

you know that's not what i want

NYC 🩵:

what u want then

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

you know

NYC 🩵:

i dont know ms ortega

not a mind reader

use your words

A chill went through Jenna's body as she read the message, imagining you actually saying those words to her...under different circumstances.

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

don't say that

it makes it harder when you say things like that

NYC 🩵:

😂😂😂😂

ain't it like almost 2 am or something over there

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

no...

NYC 🩵:

nice try

go to sleep

goodnight my honey bunches of oats 😘🥰

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

you're annoying 😒

Jenna groaned and placed her phone down next to her. She needed to eat, shower, and sleep. But before she could even attempt to start, her phone dinged again. She grabbed it and opened the message from you, she took a sharp inhale of air.

NYC 🩵:

word?

*attachment: 1 image*

It was picture of you in the mirror with your head titled to the side and tongue stretched out your mouth. Your tongue was naturally long, almost reaching to your chin. But what also caught her eyes was your hand placement which was grabbing your genitalia through your gray sweatpants. That's all Jenna needed.

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

i take back what i said

🤰🏻🩵

You laughed at Jenna's message and fixed yourself before walking out the bathroom. You and Davis got back to your Mother's house defeated from the lack of progress in finding a studio.

You don't know how you were going to finished this demo and submit it in 4 hours.

A knock at the door grabbed your attention, you watched as your mother walks to the door and cracks it open.

"Hey Leon" Delyse smiled brightly at the sight of the man.

"Hey Del, how you doing?" Leon gave her a smile back.

"I'm good just cooking for these clingy kids" Delyse answered and opened the door wider for Leon to see you and Davis.

"Hey Mr. Greenhill" You and Davis simultaneously greeted the older man. Leon chuckled and waved at them.

"Oh I knew I smelled something delicious. Man I missed smelling your cooking reminds me of the old days" Leon flattered.

Delyse let out a little giggle, "Yeah the old days."

The two adults stood in the doorway looking at each other basking in the comfortable silence. Meanwhile, you and Davis looked at each other before looking back at the older adults.

"I...uh just wanted to stop by and say hello. I don't wanna intrude anymore than I already have" Leon smiled at Delyse.

"No, no, no intruding...do you want a plate?" Delyse boldly asked.

It took a moment for Leon to come up with a response but eventually he did, "Uh yeah sure."

The older gentleman walked into the house and Delyse closed the door behind him. Leon pulled off his cap and held it in his hands. He sat next to you at the end of the table.

"How you guys doing?" Leon politely said to you and Davis.

"Eh" You shrugged.

"Eh? Why eh?" Leon questioned.

"Jah signed up for this music competition. Winner gets a five million dollar record deal with Passion Records. The contestants must submit a demo by 11:59 p.m tonight but we haven't found a studio all week" Davis explained.

"And I tried recording it on my phone but the audio is all grainy and hard to hear" You sighed.

"Hmm...can you sing the song you are going to submit?" Leon questioned.

You and Davis glanced at each other again but Davis just shrugged. You scrolled to the notes app and pulled the beat of the song you are going to use.

"Rollin' through with stacks, it's easy, money rainin' down, just like a storm, I got the riches-" You get interrupted by Leon pausing the beat on your phone.

"No" Leon said.

"No? What you mean no? It's a good song" You scoffed.

"Yeah for the early 2015 era when singing about money like that could get you hits. It's 2023 now, people want to hear something different something unique. If I was a judge and I heard that...I would think you're just hopping on the trendy music hoping for yours to be the hit. But you don't realize that everyone is thinking the same thing as you. The only way for you to be looked at twice is if you stand out. Let the lyrics come from within you, come from your heart" Leon explained to you.

Delyse then comes from the kitchen with a plastic bag with aluminum foiled wrapped plates inside.

"Here you go" Delyse smiled and handed Leon the bag.

"Thank you. I really appreciate this Delyse" Leon smiled at her grateful. He stood up from the table and grabbed his cap.

"Once you find those lyrics, come and find me on Southern BLVD but hurry though you got four hours left" Leon said and left the house.

Meanwhile, you sat stuck at the dining room table. Replaying the words Leon said, basically calling your song shit. It stung but deep down you knew he was right. The song didn't feel like you, it felt like a 14 year old wrote it and it wasn't your style.

You glanced at the clock on the wall as you grabbed a pen and paper. 7:48 p.m. Your eyes then glanced down to your phone and an unopened message from Jenna.

Hollywood 🤰🏻:

you have to be the greatest partner alive 😏

"Have to be..." You muttered to yourself. Instantly, your hand starts to move by itself as you write down the lyrics to your new song.

Let the lyrics come from your heart.

🤰🏻🩵

Two hours later, you finally finished and made your way to Southern BLVD with Davis tagging along.

"Why Southern BLVD though? What's here besides crackheads and prostitutes?" Davis commented.

The two of you continued walking down the block until you start to hear the sound of music. The closer you got to the corner, the louder and clearer the music became. It was street drummers and Leon was in the middle of them playing the electric guitar. You and Davis watched in amazement as he kept up with the drummers until they finished their last cord together.

The small amount of people that were gathered applauded them and a couple gave a few dollars before walking away.

"Yo I ain't know you could play the guitar Mr. Greenhill" Davis said.

Leon chuckled, "I'm a man with many talents son." The older male turned to you.

"I'm assuming you got something better with you this time" Leon teased.

You laughed, "Yeah I do. Wrote it from the heart like you said."

"Alright, well you better warm up that voice. You got a song to perform" Leon smiled and patted your back.

"Wait what? Right now? In public?" You questioned.

"Uh yeah. You need to submit that demo in two hours. I checked to see if you submit a live version of your demo and it said you could so get a move on" Leon said and stepped to the side.

"I don't got a beat though I just have the lyrics" You said. You were really trying your hardest not to perform in front of people severely underprepared.

"Don't worry about that" Leon said and placed the guitar over his shoulder.

Leon then played a cord on the guitar, soon the bucket drummer started feeling the vibe and matched the cord Leon was playing. Then you heard someone sweeping from behind you, it surprisingly also matched with everyone. You start to nod your head, feeling the rhythm and you grabbed the beat up microphone from the ground.

Davis pulled out his phone to start recording you.

"Can't wait for you to get home, we ain't got to go nowhere. Airplane on my phone, it can wait til the morning. I can't fathom why you choose me out billions but I'll take it" You sung. You felt your eyes close as you got lost into the music.

Soon, you finished off the song to a large crowd cheering and clapping at your performance.

"I told you let the lyrics come from your heart. You made magic tonight Jah, take pride of your work" Leon educated you.

You nodded at him and walked over to Davis who was fiddling with his phone.

"And submitted" Davis smiled at you as he submitted the demo on the competition website.

"Hard part is over for now. Now we wait" You exhaled deeply.

a/n: if you put a buck in my cup I will shut the fuck up… but you ain’t gotta be a baller to give me a motherfucking dollar…

taglist: @grandpatrolnut @raven-ss @fanboy7794 @morganismspam23 @cinffy23 @darklron @cheesybacon1 @octavias-next-meat-bite @playboysaleen @niqmandu @zaclewiss @yescruzzzzzzz @silentfor @gemz5 @alwaysdangerouschild @onceblinkarmyandmore @melonfruit442 @zataracloud @nepobaby08 @jennasslut @rimaybank @jaewu @j3nc0re @fillthwvoid

[dialucidefender]

DiaLuci - Pregnant Lucifer headcanons

TW. Mpreg

I can admit that I like to write about mpreg. It is kinda comforting for me? Anyway, I have never thought about making obey me and mpreg work together but as I'm fixated on DiaLuci right now, I thought why not give it a try? (Now, should I ACTUALLY make it into a fanfic..?)

♪ --------------------------------------------- ♪

• Satan would actually be the first one to know Lucifer is pregnant, since he is very knowledgeable even about pregnancy and this kind of stuff.

• With this, Lucifer was THE LAST ONE to find out he is pregnant (even Diavolo knew sooner than him) as Lucifer wasn't interested in pregnancy claiming he'll never be in one.

• Diavolo became overprotective of Lucifer because of it but even more a couple of weeks before his due date.

• After some time, it started to be annoying for Luci but he wasn't angry or anything because he understood why he was acting this way.

• Lucifer would have THE WORST morning sickness ever and he'd spend 1/3 of the day in toilet.

• He'd also have the weirdest food cravings at night and when he'd come to the kitchen, Beel would make him whatever food he wanted.

• Also he would've enjoyed Solomon's cooking at the time.

• Diavolo thought the baby could hear him so he tried not to say anything that a kid should not listen to and Lucifer thought it was adorable.

• Belphegor didn't believe that Lucifer was pregnant and so he almost pulled a prank on him that would be dangerous for the baby. Fortunately MC managed to stop him in time.

• After this, he apologized to Lucifer like 200 times even tho he said that he wasn't particularly mad at him.

• Almost every day, when Lucifer was asleep, Dia would put his hands on Lucifer's stomach and talk to the baby.

• One time Luci wasn't actually asleep and almost started crying when he heard what Diavolo was saying.

• Satan was really the only one among the brothers that started to care more about Lucifer's well-being. He knew that his older brother had a "tendency" to overwork himself so for the whole 9 months, Satan was making sure that Lucifer ate, slept properly and didn't strain himself too much cause it wouldn't be good for the baby.

• He also prohibited everyone from stressing Lucifer (that means no stupid actions, pranks or causing trouble).

• Leviathan took it so seriously that he didn't even want to talk with Lucifer, scared that he might say something wrong.

• Diavolo was so proud that on EVERY occasion he would mention that "he'll soon become a father" which was pissing Barbatos off but soon it became his excuse for forcing Diavolo to work.

• Immediately after finding out Lucifer is pregnant Asmo and MC went shopping and bought lots of baby girl clothes and accessories, only to find out it's a boy...

• Asmodeus was in fact really mad about it cause, if it was a girl, he wanted to dress her up in dresses and pretty pink clothes.

• Despise morning sickness and crazy food cravings at inhuman hours, Lucifer's mood swings wouldn't be so bad. He'd usually just become more clingy and attention-seeking.

• Only one time he started crying because he couldn't fit in his clothes.

• Mammon tried to cheer him up but ended up making Lucifer cry even more and in the end Diavolo and MC were the ones to calm him down.

• Afterwards, Mammon felt bad that he couldn't make Lucifer feel better but never admitted it.

• Simeon of course told Michael about the news. Luke says that Michael started crying but Simeon denies it (It's probably true but no one is actually sure if they were tears of joy or not).

• About a week before the due date, Lucifer started to feel even worse than for the whole pregnancy. He was even having a fever and bone pain.

• Everyone was really worried about him and his baby but especially Diavolo. Every day he was stressed out that something might happen when he's not with Lucifer.

• Fortunately the illness lasted only two days.

• Lucifer started to feel contractions at night with no one close enough to help him immediately but he managed to call Satan who fortunately wasn't asleep.

• Just a couple of hours later, Lucifer gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

• The one to help Lucifer deliver the baby was Simeon, since Diavolo didn't trust anyone else.

• Diavolo couldn't stop crying from joy when he saw Lucifer holding their son. Everyone stated that this was actually the first time they saw Diavolo cry (including Barbatos).

♪ --------------------------------------------- ♪

So that is kinda all. Maybe I'll do part 2 if I have more ideas but I don't know. Hope yall enjoy!!!

[yawn-junn]

★Unlikely Couple - Sohee★

★Special thanks to: @/drippymap

★Note: writing  this in advanced so don't be confused by the date lmfao also thank you for requesting I hope you enjoy I was waiting for someone to request for him-

★Taglist: @eumppappasgrippers

★Words: 795

★TW: I might refer to reader as a girl : cliché love story : cringe : like 1(one) curse word :

8-20/27-23

©Yawnzzznnn don't steal or copy my work

Unlikely couple is what everyone calls you and Sohee rightfully so. You two had met when you were the new kid in school, no friends since you had just moved to Korea everyone kinda ignored you having there own clicks, everyone except one(1) person and that person being Lee Sohee.

He saw you sitting at your desk playing with whatever eraser dust that was sitting there all alone, he walked up to you and introduced himself encouraging you to do the same, all throughout the week he'd come up and try to incage in a conversation with you, even tho you don't say much

"good morning y/n!" He said as he skipped over to your desk "why do you have so much energy at 6 in the morning" you mumbled causing Sohee to tilt his head to the side A small pout rested on his lips "because someone has to put a good mood in the classroom before hell starts" he said a smile growing back on his face you nodded your head slightly to tired to respond properly "are you sleepy? Did you go to bed late again" he asked crouching so he came face to face with you

"Yeah I did" you said quietly burying your head in your arms you heard Sohee let out a small groan before he grabbed your arms and lifted you off the desk causing you to look up at him with wide eyes "your gonna hurt your back sleeping like that" he said before taking your seat and putting you on his lap "Sohee were in school we can't do this" you whisper yelled trying to get up

"I don't care the teacher isn't here so it's fine now take your nap" he said guiding your head in the crook of his neck, you sighed in defeat knowing he isn't going to give up that easy so instead of arguing you opted for taking a nap. Sohee rubbed your back and slightly swayed you while humming a random song he heard on the way to school an hour or so later the teacher came in "Yn" Sohee shook you "wake up the teachers here" he said in your ear

You whined and snuggled closer to him "Lee Sohee" the teacher called out "may I ask what you and l/n y/n are doing?" The teacher said in a stern tone "oh she was tired so I let her take a nap Im trying to wake her up" he said as he patted your back the teacher nodded "hurry up we don't have all day" the teacher said before turning to face to board

Sohee sighed before shaking you again "Yn" he said again, he sat back before a thought came to mind "Mr." Sohee called out the teacher turned around "may I take Yn to the nurses she didn't sleep last night" he explained hoping to sway the teacher. The teacher sighed before speaking "fine but next time make sure they sleep" the teacher said after the confirmation Sohee stood up holding you from under your thighs and carried you to the nurses

Once he got there he explained what the situation was luckily she accepted and let Sohee put you on the bed, hesitantly Sohee left back to class the nurse assured to watch after you. You woke up around an hour later "good morning Mr/Ms. L/n" the nurse said, she let you wake up fully before you left the nurses the bell rang signaling your next class

"Sohee!" You semi yelled out seeing him Infront of the classroom "what are you doing" you asked once you got face to face with him "well I was waiting for you I wasn't sure when you'd wake up so I decided to stand Infront of the door before every class" he explained kicking some of the dirt from the floor, your cheeks flushed as your heart rate picked up "oh-" was all you said

"Come on, before we miss class" he said grabbing your hand and leading you in. The rest of the day was boring and pretty Usual Sohee speaking up in class when you got too nervous and you napping on your desk during the last class and when you got home Sohee ordered food for the two of you before y'all spent the rest of the day watching movies.

[whenanafallsinlove]

hihi ana!! congratulations on 150!! can i get..

✒️"SAD PROSE" - send a character + your favorite folklore lyric, and I'll write a short blurb

with hitoshi & “the only thing i wanna do is make it up to you” from betty !! 🤍🤍

ahhh tysm elle! sending looove <3

✒️"SAD PROSE" - send a character + your favorite folklore lyric, and I'll write a short blurb

THE ONLY THING I WANNA DO IS MAKE IT UP TO YOU!!! -HITOSHI SHINSO x reader

"Please babe, I swear it wasn't on purpose!"

Shinso had been apologizing for the last hour, but you were still too angry and worried to even look him in the eye and engage in the conversation.

You continued walking through campus, looking in every corner, with a mopy Hitoshi by your side.

"Tell me how to help, I'm really sorry." He continued.

You sighed, and stopped on your tracks. You turned around to see him and finally find two seconds of patience to talk to him.

"Toshi, I know you're sorry. But right now I'm still angry and I don't feel like having a heart to heart; I feel like finding my cat before something happens to him." You turned around again and continue your walk.

Hitoshi knew he had messed up. You and him often had sleepovers in each other's rooms, loving to spend time together playing video games, reading, watching movies... But you always fell asleep too early, at least for Shinso's liking. So, whenever his insomnia was making it too hard for him to pass the night, he went out to the balcony and let the cool air swirl away his thoughts.

You never had a problem with that, you had even accompanied him in a couple of occasions. The only thing you had asked him was that he was careful with closing your balcony door, so your cat wouldn't take the opportunity to sneak out.

And, oops! This time he had completely forgotten about your cat (strangely, since he loved it too), and as you had predicted he escaped...

So now, while strolling through the entire campus you could only wish that 1. Your cat was okay; and 2. That a professor wouldn't find it, because you would probably have to give it out.

You weren't even that mad, you were just too worried. And Hitoshi's neverending apologizing was only irritating you more.

"Please, Y/n. I'll tell the others to help us, we'll make a search party. The only thing I wanna do, is make it up to you..." Shinso almost whispered, about to give up.

You took a deep breath, feeling guilty for making your boyfriend almost beg for your forgiveness, when he was probably as worried as you and already feeling accountable for the situation.

You walked up to him and hugged him; burying your face in his neck. He was startled by your sudden change of attitude, but he felt relieved, and hugged you back.

"I really am sorry, I promise you we will find him." He spoke again, giving you a small kiss on the temple.

You moved your face to meet his gaze.

"Stop apologizing; it's fine. I know he won't be missing for long." You said, offering a smile.

"What are you two problem children doing here? You're supposed to be at the dorms, aren't you?" A voice behind you spoke, making you falter and break away from Hitoshi.

It was Aizawa. But he was not alone; he was holding your cat.

You felt the blood from your face drop, but before the situation got worse, your boyfriend intervened.

"Ah... Sensei, can I talk to you for a moment?" He said, and Aizawa raised an eyebrow, before nodding.

Shinso and him walked away a few meters, and you couldn't understand what they were saying; but suddenly, you saw Aizawa handing your cat to Shinso, while he gave him a scolding look. Shinso then thanked the professor and started to walk back at you, with a grin on his face.

"Told you I would make it up."

"Shush. I'm just glad he didn't get lost. What did Aizawa say?"

"He said that if he sees it roaming around ever again, he's taking it."

"Oh."

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Don't you think I deserve a kiss for rescuing our son from getting kidnapped, tho?" Hitoshi spoke, with a smirk on his face.

"Ew! Don't say it like that!" You smacked his arm laughing, and kissing him anyway.

[merrysithmas]

warning: The Hobbit review where I am a hater lmao

I know I'm like a decade late to watching these but:

• Mourning bc we could have gotten Guillermo's version of King Thanduil who wouldve been the ancient and frightful Becoming-the-Forest shadowy, eldritch, eerily mad power-clinging creature we deserved but instead we got Makeup Vlogger Thanduil (which is still so funny to me I'm almost not mad) & jock spray-tanned Legolas. THEY KILLED LEGOLAS AND THEN LET A MEAN JOCK WALK AROUND IN HIS SKIN FOR 3 HOURS.

We could've had scary pagan Green Man Thranduil the ancient being who refuses to give up power so much so that he's being consumed by the (ever-darkening) Forest which he once ruled with magnanimity ... and baby!Legolas struggling with the isolationalism & prejudice he learned from his father's court but we got... That instead.

LMAO proof nothing perfect can last

• also Tauriel? every scene between her and Thranduil should've been between Legolas and Thranduil to flesh out their relationship, instead of sideling him for an unnecessary OC who was put there to fulfill a weird corporate romance tick box, a repetitive and boring romance nonetheless with a subpar stock Strong Female Character.

• The only good thing about the movie was Martin's Bilbo (spot on!!) and the Gandalf/Elrond/Galadriel teamup even tho it was a little infected with the Avengers-y virus for me, they're all just such good actors I could watch them sleep and I'd be like... Oscar.

• I also hated Bard (they shouldve cut Tauriel and genderbent Bard or a couple of the dwarves if they wanted to add women) and I hated the design for Smaug & the Trolls. No creativity there at all.

• The film had zero regard for tone and went for pseudoLOTR instead. Where was the fairytale-esque children's tale of growing up and leaving one's comfort zone and discovering the big, sometimes terrible, world? Where was the almost Winnie-the-Pooh shine which covered the Through The Looking Glass maze?

• Also, I hated Thorin (why did they make him Discount Aragorn?) and none of the Dwarves had ANY development... wtf? They were Dollar Store Fellowship.

• I cannot for the LIFE OF ME understand why they put BILBO in the "Emotional Supporter" role for Thorin LMAOOOO... what??? Anyway, I support all the Bagginshield shippers because everything should be, and is, gay. No issue there.

That's my review, overall I was deeply surprised how bad it was and it makes me leery about The Hunt For Gollum, because shockingly Jackson&Co are 1 for 2 in regards to triologies right now and the odds of it being quality are split.

IMO I genuinely feel like The Hobbit should be remade by another team, that's how off it was.

[breyito]

Fear your sins, not your monsters: Part Three: Paths Converging

Continuation of Day 1 and 2 of @painlandweek

Part 1 Part 2 Chapters: 3/5 Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Charles Rowland, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland (DCU) Additional Tags: Protective Edwin Paine | Edwin PayneUnhinged Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Violence, Torture, Hurt Charles Rowland (DCU), Sickfic, love language: acts of service, painlandweek, BAMF Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Angst with a Happy Ending

Here on AO3

A/N: Hello! I'm so, so sorry about the delay! My ADHD has been kicking my ass for the last couple of weeks and istg i feel like i can't do anything. Anyways. I had to split this chapter in half, cause it was getting ridiculously long again, and I wasnt going to finish the rest of it today. (I have this new app on my phone that is voice-to-text and it changed my life! All the dialogues i keep forgetting bc of lack of energy to write i can just *dictate* and it feels so good lol. It also lenghtened this quite a bit, tho.) No moodboard for this one either, not yet. I'll try to make one tomorrow (or in a few hours, as it is, once again, 5am). No beta and English is not my native language, so any mistakes please point them out. I hope you enjoy this one! I'm very curious about what you'll think of this one ;P Oh, WARNING:This contains violence, threats of rape towards Charles and other children's souls, etc.

Part Three: Paths Converging

They headed back to the office. On the way, Crystal with her phone in her ear, Edwin had explained the general gist of things to her. Mainly that the other ghost hadn’t known the location of the lair of the witch, but had visited a few times. To allow him to travel there via mirror, she had given him a token attuned to him and his energy. They could use the token, but not to travel with it more than once; and definitely not to escape the place. (Not to mention that Crystal would have never let Edwin go on his own alone, without even the possibility of helping him. She was glad, still, that the ghost boy had not even suggested that.)

“So how can we use it?” she asked, looking right at him, as she plopped down on the couch. They were inside the office now and nosy taxi drivers couldn’t watch her suspiciously anymore. Also, she was exhausted and couldn’t bother with more acting for a couple of hours.

Edwin had gone straight to the massive pile of books on top of every single flat surface, including boxes full of files. He had looked at the books covering the desk for a full thirty seconds and then sent a wave of the black smoke at them, and they actually began moving on their own towards the floor. Crystal was…ignoring that for now, for the sake of her sanity. (How many things was she already ignoring?)

“I think I can combine a couple of rituals to create a sort of…tether, between Charles and myself.” he replied to her, as he removed his outer layers. “This would, basically, allow us to communicate with him and follow his energy to the place where the witch has absconded him.”

“Don’t tethers usually need something more physical to work?” she questioned, curious. At least that’s what the book she had been reading before their last case went wildly off course had said. Maybe the black smoke allowed him to tweak the limits?

“I have something more physical of his.” Edwin said, touching Charles’ necklace still around his neck. ”And for me, well, some blood or the ghost equivalent should work.”  His eyes showed his mind went far, far away for a couple of moments. She said nothing, remembering the sudden rush of cold, dark, wet she had felt the last time she touched it. Edwin eventually shook off the melancholy and straightened his posture.

“I will need to compile the different arrays and rites I need to build this ritual. It will take me at least a few hours, so I suggest you rest up.” 

“Are you sure I can’t help you…?” she asked, despite knowing he probably wouldn’t let her. Building rituals from scratch was a whole new area and she had exactly zero experience with that.

“Crystal.” He sighed, already spreading an alarming amount of books on the now clean desk. “I don’t mean to be rude, but unless you have a working knowledge of any of the Celtic languages, Aramaic, Latin or Fuþorc Runes I’ll ask you to keep out of it.”

“Okay, okay.” she rolled her eyes. Kicking her shoes off, she got comfortable on the couch and covered herself with the blanket.  “But wake me up if you need to leave, alright?” she mumbled, half asleep already. “I don’t wanna panic if you’re not there when I wake up…”

Several hours later, Edwin shook her awake. Still woozy from sleep, she understood he needed a specific kind of knife he didn’t have but knew where to get. And that he had to travel by mirror to the place. She mumbled her understanding to him, and he left. 

It was only when she was about to drop back into a deep sleep that her brain actually zoned in to the important part. She sat up on the couch so suddenly she felt dizzy.

“ Esther Finch’s fucking house!?” she yelled at the flat mirror, frustrated beyond belief. “Are you shitting me , Edwin!?” she cursed at the empty office. She creamed into the pillow a bit more, then got up. At least this should give her time to shower.

—-- —-- —--

—-- —-- —--

Edwin really doesn’t want to go back to Port Townsend. The place was bleak, damp and filled with memories of suffering. Whether it is mental, emotional or physical; he’d experienced more pain in that little town in a single month than in the rest of the world in the last fifteen years. 

But Charles was missing. Taken by another witch with a penchant for sick, twisted games and children’s pain. The ritual he came up with was novel and needed every single element to work. The dagger was fundamental. Edwin could not risk wasting more time looking for another knife with the same qualities when he already knew the location of one.

So he travelled to Port Townsend via mirror. He landed in Crystal’s old room above Jenny’s shop, and walked up to the house in a disguise. It was better than trying to travel directly inside Finch’s house, which surely had enchantments against ghosts using her mirrors that way.

As soon as his feet landed inside a ten metre radius, he could feel the repellent wards telling him to go away. This magic felt different than Finch’s. Probably the Cat King, then. Or maybe Tragic Mick? He ignored the compulsion, and kept walking up the path into the porch. 

He took off his glasses before reaching the stairs, and became his true self again. A loud caw immediately greeted him. He paused and looked back,  and saw Monty in his true form on a tree branch. The pause allowed the crow to land in the handrail of the porch, exuding an air of disapproval. Edwin sighed. 

“I need to get something from inside this house.” he said, focusing on one of the crows’ eyes. “I’m not going to-” he paused before he promised something he couldn’t keep. Because he couldn’t promise not to hurt someone with what he took from inside. “I’m going to get something from inside this house.” He said instead. “And you are not going to stop me.”

Monty lifted into the air, agitated, cowing. His wings produced so much wind that Edwin took a step back, but then straightened up and pulled his notebook and held it open with one hand.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Monty.” he stated. “But I will if you try to stop me.” His other hand opened and a bright orange flame erupted, tinged with wisps of black. An alarmed cry made Edwin feel like garbage, but he held the flame on his palm. In control, but ready to attack.

The crow flew off then, shrill caws on his way. Edwin took a deep breath and extinguished the fire, wiping his hand on his coat. He pocketed his notebook and climbed the stairs. Fortunately, he went in as easily as he had done for Becky.

By the time Edwin had found the dagger, and snatched a book that looked like it had been involved in the creation of the ghastly machine that so much pain it had caused him; it was already too late. He felt a pulse of energy from outside, and cursed under his breath. He could try to undo the spells on the mirrors of the house, but that would take too long. So he sighed and marched outside. 

“Edwin, Edwin, Edwin. You don't write, you don't call…” the Cat King said with a fake moue. Edwin looked up and saw Monty flying in circles above their heads. Little snitch , he thought, resentful.

“Cat King.” he said, nodding in respect, trying to walk around him. “I'm just leaving.” But diplomacy never worked on him. 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” The other man clicked his tongue, stepping in Edwin’s path. The ghost boy stopped where he was, not willing to get closer.

“What do you think you are doing, entering the house of the Wicked Witch of the West?” The shapeshifter asked, sauntering around him. He was wearing heeled boots, and it added a little height difference that irked Edwin.  

“I already have what I came here looking for. Now, if you please, I'm in a hurry.” Edwin tried to give another step, but the Cat King walked closer again, forcing him to step back. He was not putting himself in reach again. Monty cowed, flying faster, agitated.

“No. I don't think I please.” he tilted his head. “Knowledge like Esther's is dangerous. And I just can't let you leave with something dangerous.” The trickster’s tone was still playful, and it was grating on Edwin’s nerves.

“Knowledge is just knowledge.” the detective said, exasperated. “And I'm not asking you for permission.” he countered, snappish, head held high. “You're wasting my time .” The Cat King’s eyes shone.

“You should always have time for me, dear.” he said, smile cutting. “I can always just trap you here again, Edwin.” He offered, the smile still on.

“...And I can always start killing your subjects until you let me leave. But we are not doing that, are we, Thomas? ” he smirked back, biting. There was something cold in those green eyes that made the shifter want to shiver. The faint wisps of black coming up from the ground were certainly unnerving. Monty screeched in alarm and abruptly landed on a branch several metres down. 

“You know my name.” the Cat King realised, stepping back. 

“I do. I know a lot of things about you now.” the ghost added, taking a step forward. “You like to play games . But I already knew that, from last time.” Edwin took another step closer. “The difference is, Charles is not with me right now. And I don't have a lot of patience for games when he is in danger.” he snarled. 

“So that is why you're doing this? For him? You came all the way to America, to the house where you were tortured in, just for him ?” Thomas asked, indignant.

“I would do many more things for him.” Edwin stated, staring right into those yellow eyes, daring. The shifter scoffed, leaning closer, looking down at the ghost.

“Like threatening me?” The man asked, incredulous.

“I'm not threatening you. I'm warning you.” Edwin said, looking up, teeth bared. It looked more like a show of aggression from a cornered animal than a smile. “You're either on my side, or standing in my fucking way. And I'll get through anything standing in my way to get to him.” Their faces were only a few centimetres apart now, noses almost touching.

Thomas knew, in that moment, that Edwin was being completely honest. He seemed not to care a single bit what could happen to him as long as he could leave to go help his little friend. Nor what enemies he could leave behind. The Cat King felt a bit peeved about it, quite hot under the collar, and a lot jealous. That kind of loyalty to another person, to the point of detriment to yourself? He’d never felt it nor had he had it. It was alluring , damn it.   

“Deathly little thing, aren’t you?” he whispered to this mysterious boy, unwillingly feeling more attracted to him still. The tension between them finally broke when Edwin’s lips formed a teasing smile and his eyes softened a little.

“Only when I have to.” he whispered back, before breaking his gaze and pressing the faintest of kisses on Thomas’ jaw, surprising him. He then sidestepped him and walked out of the yard. 

By the time the Cat King turned around, Edwin was already jumping into a puddle, travelling to where he needed to be. Monty cowed twice and Thomas felt the hidden amusement.

“Oh, shut it, bird-boy. Like you didn’t defy your witch for him, even after he rejected you.” he snapped. 

—-- —-- —--

—-- —-- —--

Charles woke up all at once, gasping. He was sopping wet and chained to the ceiling. The metal of the chains was iron, and they were burning every part of his body that touched them. He was still only wearing his trousers, felt his extremities numb with cold and some of his curls had crusted over with ice.

When his eyes got used to the dim room, he could see it was the same basement he had been trapped in since the beginning. The only real difference was that he wasn’t alone this time. There was a woman on the corner, deep in the shadows. For what he could see, she was pretty fit. Charles might have looked twice if he had seen her on the street.  But with her wild blonde hair, tight red dress and tall boots; she looked like she was wearing a halloween costume that couldn’t decide if it was vampire or witch. A large white spider, with its eyes closed, peacefully placed inside her hair didn’t help matters. He had almost missed it.

“You’re finally awake!” she cheered, getting closer. “Now we can finally get started .” her grin was dangerous and the boy felt a shiver go down his spine.

Taking advantage of the fact that his feet barely touch the ground, she spun him around, making him lose balance. His knee buckled under him and his whole weight was left suspended from his shoulders until he managed to find his footing again. He was trembling even worse  after that, and tears of frustration began leaking from his eyes.

“Are you crying? How cute .” she cooed, grabbing his face and licking the trail the drop had left on his cheek. ”I’d give you a comfort kiss, but I don’t snog anyone that’s not my man.”

“You. Are. Crazy.” Charles said, leaning away from her. The spider opened its eyes and winked with half of them, waving two of its legs. The shivers got worse.

“Don’t be like that, poppet. Everything I’m doing is for love.”

“ Love ?” he repeated, sceptical. 

“Yes! I’m gonna get the love of my life back, and you’re gonna help me.”

“I don’t know anything about love potions or spells; we don’t mess with that shite.” Charles explained, weary. The witch snorted, the spider wiggled, like it was laughing too. (Was this her familiar? Did it share the same amount of sentience as Monty? Somehow, that thought was terrifying).

“Pffff, I don’t mean like that . My boo and I were tragically separated when he was killed by the police and then he got dragged to Hell! ” she huffed. “Like, what even? I just want him back .” 

Usually, Charles was willing to give everyone a chance to explain themselves. It’s not like the system was flawless. Good souls could be sent to Hell, like it had happened with Edwin. 

However, since he was still shivering from the literal torture this woman had put him through (torture she implied her ‘boo’ would enjoy); he would go out on a limb an bet the bloke completely deserved his tenure in Hell.

“And why was he killed by the police?” he asked anyway, already tired of dealing with this. The chat was a step up from the freezing water, but the talk itself so far was three steps down from the earlier solitude.

“Because his stupid best friend and he decided to rob a bank!” she exclaimed, clearly miffed. This time, when she grabbed him to spin him around, her nails left deep scratches, burning and bleeding. This bitch had iron in her nail polish, apparently. “They were caught doing that. I mean, you have to give it to the pigs. They really messed up on that one.”she laughed. “They were caught and got done in as fucking robbers. They didn't even search their flat! They just killed them and left them at the morgue.  They never found out that we were the ones dropping the mangled bodies everywhere.”

“You're sick.” Charles said, swallowing, as he found his rooting again. 

“Oh, baby, of course I am. Didn't I tell you already? I love making people break, playing with them.” She licked her lips, seductive. The ghost boy just felt nauseous. “What I love even more is watching my man do it for me. And that's why you're going to help me bring him back.”

“From Hell ?” He asked, incredulous. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn't help you. Edwin is the one with the knowledge of Hell and its paths, not me. You chose the wrong one of us to kidnap.”

“I don’t think I did. Word is, you are the one that I saved him from hell this time.” she smiled.  She put her extended arm on his shoulder and placed her weight on the claw-like nails sinking in the muscle there. He felt blood dripping down his back. The spider began walking down her shoulder and onto her arm. Leaning in until their faces almost touched, she looked him dead in the eyes, despite his efforts to keep the blasted thing in his line of sight. 

“I did, yeah.” He admitted. “But I had help. I had someone else, much more powerful than I or you ever could be. They opened a portal down to Hell and they kept it open until we got back. You can't do that.” He swallowed. “Can you?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking, now looking at the spider.

Cursing, she pushed him back and started roaming the room, hands wildly gesturing. The spider had quickly climbed up to her head again. Charles had lost his balance and was spinning again, but at least that beast was not near him. He took her cursing as a negative to his question. Charles wanted to believe this was good news (he dreaded the thought of that man anywhere but Hell), but you never knew how others were going to react when you didn’t give them the information they wanted. This woman? Completely bonkers. Hopefully she would just let him in here, until Edwin rescued him. Suddenly, she stopped in the middle of the basement.

“Hmm, maybe I can't open up a portal. But I can make a deal with a demon so that I can get into hell.” She was smiling again. “And you will help me find my way out.”

“A deal with a demon is a terrible idea. Besides, lady, even if I tell you all I know about hell, which I won’t do. The level Edwin was at? It was terrible, but it wasn't that deep. The level your boo must be in… it has to be one of the deepest and darkest ones, just based on what you describe me you two did, to people.”

“I can think of a few things I can offer the demon so that he helps me.” she countered, now pensive instead of agitated.

“Like what?”

“Like you, your soul. Essence, whatever. Or one of the others’.” Charles was almost afraid to ask.

“Others?”

“Oh, yeah. I've been collecting little souls as gifts for my boyfriend when he comes back. Since, you know, he won't be able to interact with the living now he is dead and will become a ghost.”

“... Little souls?” he asked again, disgusted. He tried leaning away, but she plunged her nails into his face to keep his eyes on her. 

“Yeah, the souls of little ones!” she smiled, and it was a terrible smile. A wild hunger seemed to seep from her feverish eyes. “He's not that much into kids. He prefers young people, teenagers, you know.” she winked at him, suggestive.

“So he's a paedophile, but not that much of a paedophile?” Charles mocked, deciding to ignore the implications. 

She let go of his face only to slap him hard, hard enough to leave deep gouges from the iron on the nails she wore.

“He hates that word!” she screamed, offended. “He just… really loves young people.” The sheer incredulity must have shown on his face, because she just continued. “Anyways, I was collecting these souls so he could play with them when he comes back, you know? I bet he will be in a foul mood, and I just thought 'well what better way to cheer him up than letting him blow off some steam on a couple souls he will find pleasing?’ ' I took great care in ensuring they were innocent, as well. The responses to all the pain and the bit of little pleasure here and there that we can teach them are always the best .” she sighed, dreamy. “And ghosts are so much more resilient! We can play with you and play with you and play with you until you break.” She said, eyes evaluating him up and down. “And then we can start all over again!” she laughed.

Charles puked all over the floor.

"You truly are," he said in disgusted awe " the most despicable person I've ever met. And a few months ago I was at the mercy of a witch that cannibalised little girls. "

“Oh, cannibalism.” she hummed. “That sounds fun, doesn’t it, Ari?” she cooed at her familiar, reaching for the thing. “You have to get me her number.” she said to him.

Charles spat at her. It barely touched her face before she shrieked and sent him crashing to the back of the room. The chains had fallen from the ceiling and onto his torso, burning him terribly.  

“And you need to learn some manners." She said as he screamed from the sudden agony. Then she turned her back on him and walked towards the door. "I guess I will just leave you to repeat the cycle until you have had enough."

Charles’ last coherent thought before he was dropped under the thick frozen layer of water of the lake instead of through the ice as always, was that Edwin and he would absolutely need to save those poor spirits.

—-- —-- —--

—-- —-- —--

“That took longer than you said it would.” Crystal said as soon as he stepped through the mirror into the office. “Did the house not let you in?” she asked, remembering how they had just phased through the walls last time.

“The house gave me no problem at all.” Edwin answered, placing the knife on the desk. “It was Monty, actually.” he explained, with a grimace. “I had an encounter with the Cat king,” Crystal’s eyebrow went up “but not much came out of it. He was very insistent about not letting any kind of knowledge leave that witch's house.” He took off his coat and his gloves and, uncharacteristically, threw them onto the couch. It was the only free surface, she supposed. “Which would normally be a good thing, but in these circumstances, I could not abide by it.”

“And did he give you any trouble?” she questioned, sceptical. 

“He tried to threaten me, so I just…threatened him back.” Edwin said, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves, trying to play it off as unimpressive. Yeah, Crystal was not gonna let that one slide.

“ You threatened the Cat King?” she said, incredulous. “He left you trapped in Port Townsend for weeks!”

“Ah, but I didn't know anything about him back then.” He countered. “And I wasn't dabbling in anything more dangerous than usual. And perhaps the most important thing of all…” Edwin started, leafing through his notes.

“...It was you in danger, not Charles.” Crystal interrupted, finishing the idea.

“Exactly.” He said, pleased that she understood this about him by now.

As they began prepping the materials for this massive ritual, she managed to corroborate that it was far beyond anything they had shown her so far. The ritual seemed so complicated. Beyond the dagger that he had to pick up from the other side of the world, it required them to move every single piece of furniture against the walls, then grabbing the bathroom mirror for a later use. 

After that, they placed a bedsheet on the floor, drawing a big circle on it with black chalk, and drew a set of runes inside it, near the centre. Then Edwin grabbed Charles' backpack, and took out a bottle full of a viscous dark liquid. He then lit a dozen candles inside the marked circle, each one in its specific place. A wave of different smells assaulted Crystal’s nose. She supposed that ghosts weren’t bothered by it since they couldn't smell much. She tried very hard not to sneeze.

Edwin retrieved two different cups from a cupboard, one made from silver and one from crystal, and poured the liquid from the bottle inside the silver one. For the other, he took out Esther’s knife from his pocket and sliced his forearm with it. Blood tinted with ectoplasm began to pour inside the empty cup, and once it was three quarters full he removed the wound from it to avoid overspilling. He slid two fingers over the wound and the black smoke that was becoming familiar to Crystal ate up the blood and sealed the wound. Then, he reached for Charles' chain around his neck and took it off. Gently, he let it fall inside the cup that had his blood. He took a big piece of parchment paper, those old ones that you see only in movies, yellowed with age, thick, and coarse to the touch. 

With a grimace, he sank his fingers into the first cup. A low hum came from his throat, sounding almost like words but not really. He began writing symbols with the blood onto the parchment. With the other hand, he began tracing the same symbols again, on another blank sheet of parchment, on top of the first one. These symbols were mirrored, and written with his own blood from the second cup. Once he was done, a string of Latin came out of his lips, and the second set of symbols lifted up in the air, glowing golden light, and fused into the first set, on the first sheet of parchment. The other parchment disintegrated as soon as the last trace of blood left the paper. 

Edwin let out a breath Crystal hadn't noticed he was holding. Done, he took the parchment, and began ripping it in pieces, keeping each symbol inside its own square of paper, and placed the symbols inside the circle according to the instructions written down by his own hand. The bloody symbols then sank through the paper and sealed themselves to the linen fabric. Edwin waved his hand and all the blank pieces of paper flew from the array. Then he took the necklace from inside the second cup and put it into the first cup. 

He took the bathroom mirror, and placed it in the middle of the circle array spell, then took the necklace out of the cup and flicked it in the air where it remained still, frozen in place at about two metres high. The symbols on the bedsheet and the blood on the necklace pulsed with golden energy every couple of heartbeats.

“I need you,” he started to say, very clearly, “to not, for any reason, enter the circle.”

“All right” she said, heart beating like crazy. 

“Whatever I ask you to bring me, you will put it inside the circle without touching inside it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Edwin repeated, breathing deep. He knelt beside the foggy mirror on the floor and began writing on it with his finger. At the same time, he spoke up, to keep her in the loop. “Charles? Are you there?”

Charles

are you there?

[suddencolds]

Foreign Home | [1/1]

hello!! I am back after 8 months of not-really-writing with an 8k word fic (which I cut down from 9k words). this is another OC fic w/ Vincent and Yves, who were introduced here!

anyways, this is very character-centric and establishes some things I wanted to establish about them / their world... I hope the little detour into character-development territory is okay.

Summary: Yves has told all of his friends that he's dating Vincent, so it's going to look increasingly suspicious if Vincent never shows up. Good thing Vincent is compellingly good at lying. Anyways, what could go wrong at a housewarming party? (ft. banter, fake dating, cat allergies)

—

Yves spends three weeks turning down invitations.

It’s lucky, he thinks, that he’s been able to stay in contact with so many friends from university—that so many of them have settled here, in New York. It’s less lucky considering his current circumstances:

Out of the people who made it to Margot’s New Year’s party, almost all of them remember Vincent. And—even more inconveniently—many of them seem set on inviting Yves and Vincent places.

Yves thinks up a dozen excuses. No, Vincent can’t join on our coffee outing—he’s got an important, un-reschedulable meeting with a client that Saturday. Sunday? His Sunday’s booked through until 5pm. I know, busy season is the worst to plan around. Or, I think Vincent’s going to be out for a business conference that weekend. The 22nd? I can check with him, but he’s taking a redeye flight the night before—I think he’ll be jet lagged.

The number of excuses he is capable of coming up with is unfortunately finite. Perhaps sorry, I think Vincent has an optometrist’s appointment that afternoon isn’t Yves’s best work, but he has to say something.

Really, it’s just more work to invite Vincent elsewhere—to explain that they’ve played their role as a couple a little too convincingly. That his friends all want to meet Vincent, now.

Back during his days of rowing crew, Yves has given out his fair share of relationship advice to the underclassmen, which has unfortunately—according to Margot—“cultivated an air of mystery about his personal love life.” It was always him and Erika, until it wasn’t. (Ex-matchmaker Yves and his mysterious, highly coveted new boyfriend, Leon says, when Yves complains, which is how Yves decides he will no longer be consulting Leon on the matter.)

“My friends really like you,” Yves says to Vincent, offhandedly, when he runs into him on the way back from lunch.

Vincent blinks at him. 

“You’re saying that like it’s a bad thing.”

“They really like you,” Yves says. “They want to meet you. They think we’re an interesting couple, and they keep pestering me for double dates and inviting you out to a whole bunch of events. I’m running out of excuses as to why you can’t come.”

“Oh,” Vincent says, deadpan, but there’s a slight twitch to his lips, as if he’s trying not to laugh.

“I’m dead serious,” Yves says. “I told Nora that you couldn’t make it to dinner because of an eye appointment. Now if I want to keep this up I’ll need to photoshop you with new glasses.”

“I am a little overdue for new glasses,” Vincent says.

“Not the point. Regardless, I need to keep this up until we stage a breakup.”

“A breakup?”

“A fake breakup. To our fake relationship.”

“Is there someone else you’re interested in?”

“No,” Yves says. “But I’m preemptively saving you the stress.”

“The stress of playing your boyfriend?” Vincent says. “Last time, that just entailed going to a well-organized New Year’s party. I wouldn’t consider that exceptionally stressful.”

“That’s just the beginning. Don’t tell me you want to be dragged along to every dinner party and every downtown outing and every birthday I go to in the foreseeable future,” Yves says. “On top of working 60 hours a week, you’ll have to say goodbye to your weekends.”

“So that’s why you’re plotting our breakup.”

“Yes,” Yves says. “I’d need to explain to everyone how I dropped the ball.”

“I’m sure those new glasses must’ve been the dealbreaker.”

Yves laughs. Truthfully, Vincent could wear the most terrible, unflattering glasses in the world and still manage to look like someone whom Yves wouldn’t bat an eye at upon spotting at a photoshoot. The fact that his current glasses actually complement him very well, and the fact that he knows how to dress himself is just salt to the wound. “Yes, that’s the entire reason why I dated you in the first place. The glasses.”

“If you wanted to keep our false relationship up for a couple months,” Vincent says, “I wouldn’t mind.”

Yves—who, until now, has been walking in the opposite direction of the floor on which he works—stops walking. “Pardon?”

“I like your friends,” Vincent says. “And more importantly, I don’t think it proves a point to Erika if you’ve just gotten into a relationship you couldn’t keep. So if you wanted to keep this arrangement for a little longer, I would be fine with it.”

Yves considers this.

He’s asked more than enough of Vincent already. But Vincent is right. He’s sure Erika must have her fair share of doubts about all of this—about Vincent, about their fake relationship, about its longevity. She seemed skeptical, when he’d last seen her, that Yves could’ve moved on so quickly. The worst thing about it is that he can’t blame her for that doubt. The worst thing about it is that he’d spent so much time accounting for his future with Erika that he hadn’t seen her start to slip away, hadn’t noticed the first sign of inadequacy, the first time her gaze lingered on someone else, the first time he ceased to be all that she wanted. He hadn’t steeled himself for a future without her, and now, half the time, it feels like he’s still playing catch-up.

If he wants to commit to this fake relationship, he’ll need more than one outing to show for it.

And, despite all odds, Vincent is offering just that.

“Okay,” Yves says, before he can think about how bad of an idea this is. It is really, really inadvisable. He’s sure if he weighs his options for more than a few seconds, he will come to the conclusion that he should be shutting his mouth. “If you’re sure—and only if you’re actually sure—what are your plans after work next Tuesday evening?”

“Nothing as of now,” Vincent says. 

“Great. If you can make it, there’s a potluck. Joel’s hosting. He recently finished moving into a new apartment, so I think it’s something of a housewarming party. He lives a little North, past the stadium, so I think I’ll head there right after work—I can drive you.” 

“That works,” Vincent says. “What kind of food does he like?”

“I’m not actually too sure,” Yves says. “I think he’s a fan of spicy food. But honestly, I think he’ll be grateful if you bring anything at all—which you don’t have to, by the way. You’re the esteemed guest, here.”

“I’m sure Joel’s new apartment is technically the esteemed guest,” Vincent says. “But I’ll be there.”

“Okay,” Yves says. “It’s a date. I’ll make it up to you in any way you want, by the way—if there’s ever an instance where you need me to lie for you, I’ll do it.”

“Duly noted,” Vincent says. For what Vincent would ever have to lie about, Yves can’t guess.

More importantly, he has a date for next Tuesday. Something about it is more exciting, even in its dishonesty, than it has any right to be.

—

It’s only a few moments after Yves presses the doorbell that Vincent emerges, holding a couple plates covered meticulously with aluminum foil.

“I haven’t cooked for anyone in awhile,” he says, a little sheepishly. “I hope this doesn’t make a bad impression on your friends.” “Are you kidding? It smells really good,” Yves says, and it does—from the doorway, he can make out the scent of sesame oil, roasted garlic, ginger. “They’ll definitely like it.”

Vincent looks off to the side. “We’ll see.” It takes a moment for Yves to properly parse his expression for what it is.

It never occurred to Yves that Vincent might actually be nervous. At work, it’s rare to see Vincent even remotely out of his element—he always volunteers to take on their more difficult clients, and even on the rare occasion that something falls out of his expertise, he picks things up quickly. Yves has seen him give presentations at conferences without a sweat, articulate as ever. 

If Vincent had been nervous, those times—over prestigious conferences, over negotiations with major clients, over other difficult points of contention—it hadn’t shown. Either he wasn’t nervous at all, or he was just good at hiding it. But he’s nervous now, Yves realizes, which means— 

Vincent wants to make a good impression on his friends. It won’t be his first time meeting Joel, but it’ll be his first time talking to Cherie, Joel’s fiancé, or Giselle, one of Cherie’s friends from work. Mikhail and Nora will be there too. All in all, it’s a decently sized group, but Vincent has talked to larger groups of people before without so much as a shaky voice.

Something about it—about the seriousness with which Vincent regards this whole arrangement—is strangely endearing.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Yves says, and means it in more ways than one.

—

Joel’s new apartment, as it turns out, is already decently furnished, even though Joel had sent out the invitation with the disclaimer that everything is a mess, please bear with us.

“When you said everything would be a mess,” Yves says, leaving his shoes in a line at the door, “I thought your apartment would actually be something other than spotlessly clean and well arranged.”

“It’s easy to make things look neat if you move all of the clutter into the closets,” Joel says.

“It’s just a few boxes,” Cherie says. “But it was tricky to figure out how to place things. It’s a lot more spacious than the apartment we had in college.”

“No kidding,” Yves says. “It’s a seriously nice place.” Back in their last two years of university, Joel and Cherie had gotten an apartment just a few buildings down from the apartment which Yves picked out with Mikhail—they had similar floor plans. Yves distinctly remembers the space: creaky floorboards, space heaters lined up against the walls to last them the winter; decent natural lighting, and never enough kitchen space.

Back then, he and Mikhail had had separate rooms, so their apartment became a spot in which Erika became a frequent visitor, and then, at one point, stopped visiting at all. 

But that’s not the point. The point is, the apartment Joel and Cherie have picked out is much nicer than the one they’d had in college—for one, it’s more spacious, and the entire building has nice facilities and looks newer—and Cherie’s eye for interior design has only helped their cause.

“I’m glad you were able to come!” Cherie says, turning to Vincent. “Yves is always telling me about how busy you are with work.”

“He’s the one putting out all the fires,” Yves says. 

Vincent smiles, extending a hand for her to shake. “Cherie, right? It’s nice to meet you. And you’re—” He turns to Joel, with a slight sniffle. “Joel. I think we met last time.”

Cherie squeezes his hand. Joel laughs and says, “I’m surprised you remember my name.”

“He’s good with names,” Yves says. An acquired skill from all the hours of networking, probably.

“That’s a useful skill to have, especially if you’re dating Yves,” Joel says. “I swear he knows everyone.” He goes on to tell a story about how, back in university, Yves almost accidentally got elected as vice president for a business club he’d only shown up to once.

At some point into the conversation, Yves ducks into the kitchen to help with setup. He sets out the dish he’s brought—salmon sliders with mango salsa—and the beef skewers that Vincent made earlier (he’s not sure why Vincent was worried in the first place, because the skewers look very competently made). After that, he busies himself with finding a way to keep everything temporarily covered until they eat.

Something soft and fuzzy winds around his ankles.

He looks down, and the soft and fuzzy thing looks back at him with pointy triangular ears. This is news to Yves.

“You guys have a cat?!” He shouts from the kitchen, vaguely in the direction where Joel and Cherie should still be standing. “Since when?”

“Since a month ago,” Joel shouts back.

“Her name is Gingersnap,” Cherie adds. “Gin for short.”

“Oh,” Yves says, kneeling down to scratch her behind the ears. His hands are a little calloused from all the snow he’s been shoveling lately, but Gingersnap purrs anyways, evidently unbothered. “What the hell, guys, now I’m never going to be able to leave your apartment. Consider me a permanent resident.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” Cherie says.

At some point, Gingersnap gets up, mewing, and heads out of the kitchen, and Yves resumes life as an active contributor to the potluck’s success. When he finishes reheating everything up, setting the table, arranging the dishes, and filling up two pitchers with iced water, he wanders back out into the living room. Vincent is there, alone, except he’s not really alone, because…

Oh.

God.

He’s kneeling down, unmoving, speaking to Gingersnap in a soft, low voice, holding out a hand for her.

She approaches him, a little tentatively, and then nuzzles her orange head into the crook of his hand. Vincent smiles—a soft, private smile. “Hi, Gin,” he says.

There’s the low, lawnmower hum of a purr as Gingersnap rolls onto the ground to let Vincent continue petting her. It’s a heartwarming sight—Vincent, from the office, crouched down to pet a cat that’s smaller than his hand. Yves thinks he might cry.

Then Vincent withdraws his hand, reaches up with an arm to swipe at his eyes. Something jolts through his shoulders, a tremor so slight that Yves wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t already been watching—

“—nGkt-!”

Gingersnap mews at him, perplexed but undeterred. “Sorry,” Vincent says to her, quietly, “I’m not trying— to—” It’s all he can get out before he’s veering away again, this time with both hands tightly steepled over his nose for—

“hhIH’—GKKtt-!”

He sniffles softly, though the sniffle is immediately followed by a small, quiet cough. He reaches up with one hand to rub his nose. Yves watches his expression draw uneven, his eyebrows furrowing. 

“hhIH…”

Whatever sneeze he’s fighting seems terribly indecisive—but terribly irritating—for the way he rubs his nose again, his eyes squeezing shut in ticklish anticipation.

“HhIH… hh… HH-hhH-hHIHh—”

 He cups a hand over his mouth to muffle the sound, and not a moment too early—

“—hIHh’iiIKKTSHh-!”His shoulders jolt forwards with the force of it, though it gives him barely a moment’s reprieve before his breath hitches again, sharply, urgently. “IiI’DSZCHuuhh-!”

“Bless you,” Yves says.

Vincent turns to blink at him. His eyes are a little red-rimmed and watering. There’s a thin flush over the bridge of his nose.

“You didn’t tell me you were allergic to cats,” Yves says, rounding the corner to close the distance between them.

“Slightly allergic,” Vincent admits, turning aside with a liquid sniffle. “It’s ndot - hhIHH-! - a big deal.”

“I didn’t know Joel and Cherie had a cat,” Yves says. “I’m sorry. I would’ve told you if they did.”

“It’s fine,” Vincent says, with a laugh. “I like her.”

“You might like her, but your body doesn’t seem to be a fan.”

“It’s a good thing that I have a consciousness, so I can codtinue petting her.” Vincent sniffles again, lifting one hand to rub his nose with his index finger. Yves does not know how to even begin to tell him what an inadvisable idea that is, but either way, he doesn’t have a chance to before Vincent’s eyes graze shut, and he turns to face away from Gingersnap before he jerks forward, catching a muffled - “Hh’GKK-t!” - into a clenched fist.

“Bless you,” Yves says. “You know, you’re really not going to make the situation any better if you keep on—”

“nNGKT-!!”

“—bless you!”

“hh—hHhih’iiKKsHHhUH!” The last sneeze is noticeably harsher than the others—it sounds loud enough to scrape against his throat, which seems to be further evidenced by the small cough that succeeds it.

“I’ll ask Joel if he has any antihistamines,” Yves says. 

“It’s fide,” Vincent says. 

“If you insist on spending time with Gingersnap, wouldn’t it be better to spend it without having to sneeze?”

“I would still have to sdeeze,” Vincent says, as if he’s already experienced in the matter—briefly, Yves wonders how many cats he inadvisably plays with on a frequent basis. “Just less.”

“That would be an improvement.”

Vincent looks away. “Antihistamines mbake me tired,” he says, after a little hesitation. 

“It’s a good time to be tired,” Yves says. “It’s not like you have any pressing work to get done.”

“I want to make a good ibpression on your friends,” Vincent says, wiping at his eyes with the edge of his sleeve. “That’s ndot going to happen if I fall asleep halfway through dinner.”

“If you did, I’m sure no one would fault you for it.”

“I’ll take something after we finish eating,” Vincent says. “If things haved’t improved by then. ”

“Okay,” Yves relents, and—since it doesn’t seem like Vincent is leaving anytime soon—takes a seat next to him on the rug. It’s a compromise he can accept.

—

Nora gets there next, followed by Mikhail and then Giselle. It’s Yves’s first time formally meeting Giselle, who turns out to be very tall and a little intimidating—she’s come straight from work, so she’s dressed accordingly, and she talks with the sort of quiet authority that Yves knows is usually indicative of years of experience. Right before they sit down for dinner, Vincent ducks out into the bathroom—‘I need to look at least marginally presentable,’ he’d said, seeming like he was in a rush—so Yves saves him a seat at the table. 

“Yves,” Giselle says, taking another salmon slider. “You made these entirely from scratch? This is delicious.” 

“Thanks,” Yves says. “To be honest, it was a bit of a gamble. I wasn’t sure if the sauce was going to pair well with it.”

“Yves is really good at cooking,” Mikhail says. “That’s half the reason why I roomed with him in college.”

“So what’s the other half?” Cherie says. 

“The other half is that he lets me eat his food,” Mikhail says.

Yves laughs. “For a second, I thought you’d have something nice to say about my personality.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mikhail says. 

“Yves is very good at cooking,” Vincent says, emerging from the hallway. Yves blinks at him. Whatever he’d done in the bathroom has done wonders—he looks remarkably put together. Not a strand of his hair is out of place. His eyes are dry, not red, not teary, not irritated, his collar crisply upright, his voice devoid of congestion. The only telltale sign about his ailment is the slight bit of redness to his nose, but it’s winter—that could easily be chalked up to the cold.

He slips easily into the seat next to Yves, his posture impeccable. Yves does everything in his power not to stare. 

“I think he’s responsible for some of the best hot chocolate I’ve had,” Vincent continues. That remark is surprising, too—repurposed from a memory as it is, it seems almost like something that could be genuine.

But Yves remembers how easily Vincent had lied, back on New Year’s—how easily he’d drawn the fictitious threads between them, almost thoughtlessly, as if they had always existed. 

I could make better hot chocolate, Yves thinks, before he can stop himself. I could really make the best hot chocolate you’ve ever tasted, if I just had time. It’s an absurd thought, and one that he doesn’t have much grounds for. He had been pressed for time, back then—he hadn’t known when Vincent’s ride was going to be arriving—but even if he’d really, properly tried, even if he’d succeeded in making the best hot chocolate he’s capable of making, there’s no guarantee that Vincent would’ve liked it.

He’s surprised by the pang in his chest, now, the desire to make true something that he knows to be false, to be worthy of the compliments that Vincent’s so easily spoken about.

“That’s definitely an exaggeration,” Yves says. “Technically, Mikhail didn’t even know that I knew how to cook when we signed the lease. The real reason why we roomed together is much more interesting.”

It’s a story he’s told before, though Cherie and Giselle haven’t heard it before. It’s easy to fall into it again: Mikhail and Yves met in their first year, over a group project in an intro to finance class. The two other members of their team had been dead weight, and at the time, Yves had thought—incorrectly—that Mikhail was just as bad as the rest of them.

It’s practically a comedy of errors—a series of miscommunications had led them to each finish the project independently. Yves remembers the all-nighters he’d pulled for that, nervous and over-caffeinated, until the day before the presentation, where he found that Mikhail had not—unlike the other members of their group—spent the last few weeks slacking off. 

Beside him, Vincent goes still.

When Yves chances a quick look at him, he sees: a slight, almost imperceptible ripple to his expression, before it smooths out again.

He nearly backtracks—his first thought is that perhaps something he’s said is the source of Vincent’s irritation—but then Vincent turns his face away. There’s the slightest disturbance to the line of his shoulders, and then—

“—gkT-!”

The sneeze is barely audible, stifled as it is into a half-closed palm, though the gesture is subtle, too—easily mistaken as Vincent simply looking away, resting his chin on his hand.

“I can’t believe you guys are still friends after all of that,” Nora says.

“Right,” Yves says. “I was so ready to never talk to him again. But obviously, we still had to give the presentation.”

He talks about how, in a half-asleep effort to salvage the project work, he and Mikhail had found some way to relate their findings to each other, to loosely bind the disparate subjects into a coherent thesis. Mikhail talks, too, about how they’d manipulated their presentation to get their combined work to seem sufficiently on topic.

Mikhail is halfway through his story when Yves sees Vincent jolt forward beside him.

He looks up just in time to catch the tail end of a sneeze—expertly stifled, just like the others—into a clenched fist. This one’s a little more forceful, even in its quietness—it leaves Vincent hunched over for just a moment, his shoulders slightly slumped, before he straightens again, covertly lowering his hand.

There’s a slightly hazy, distant look to his features, as if whatever’s been bothering him hasn’t begun to let up yet.

Yves nudges him with his arm. Vincent doesn’t exactly jump at the contact, but he does freeze, his shoulders stiffening.

“Hey,” Yves says, quietly enough that he doesn’t think anyone else should be able to hear. “You okay?”

Vincent nods.

“You sure you don’t want to take anything?”

Another nod. 

“I can’t tell you how little either of us proofread that paper,” Mikhail is saying.

“I reread it three months later,” Yves admits. “And he’s right. We really didn’t proofread it.” 

But it was a winning proposal, even though they’d both been too tired to realize it then. And still, Mikhail had still managed to hold a grudge against him for two long months. And then Mikhail had run into last-minute problems with his upcoming lease arrangement, and Yves had happened to find a decently priced two-bedroom apartment with no roommate, and he’d reached out half as a joke.

“You know those friends who say they can never room together?” Mikhail is saying. “Like, they hang out all the time, or they’ve been friends for years, or they trust each other with their lives, or whatever. But the second you put their living habits in close proximity, everything goes to shit? I think we were the opposite.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just because you two never had a good enough relationship to ruin in the first place?” Nora says jokingly.

She has a point. Yves is starting to think that all of the formative relationships in his life have all happened by accident.

—

Vincent and Giselle get along very well, Yves notes, listening to the two of them talk. Halfway through dinner, they get into a heated discussion about the more outward-facing expectations at work, as Joel and Cherie exchange knowing glances. Giselle talks about feeling accountable for the team she manages—for knowing that if they don’t perform, she’ll take the fall for them; for being careful not to disperse the stress from higher ups unevenly, for constantly feeling her way through how much work is reasonable to expect of them. Vincent talks about the stress of apportioning work to others—the knowledge in his own competence and the knowledge gap when it comes to how others will handle things, the desire to take on more work alone to make sure everything is accounted for.

Nora, who’d had an internship at a different firm after each year in college, weighs in too on the management styles she’d been under, to what extent the expectations from leadership affected the dynamic between her coworkers.

It’s interesting, Yves thinks, that they all have their own subset of worries, even when they come across as people who are so certain of themselves.

As the others speak, Vincent stops periodically to rub his nose with the knuckle of his index finger—an action that always seems to keep the irritation at bay, but never seems to mitigate it entirely. For a moment, his expression goes hazy, his eyes watering ever so slightly, but it always lasts only a moment.

When Mikhail cracks a joke that has the entire table laughing, Vincent takes the opportunity to cough quietly into an upheld fist. When Cherie talks about her and Joel’s extremely mathematical efforts to fit everything into the car before moving, Vincent turns aside, raising a napkin to his face with a quiet, well-contained sniffle.

It’s difficult to tell, at first. But his attempts to keep quiet, to succumb to his symptoms as inconspicuously as possible, take their toll on him. Every time he jerks forward with a near-silent stifle, Yves can tell, by Vincent’s expression when he emerges, that it’s just short of relieving.  Every sniffle seems to only add on to the mounting congestion, in the long run. It’s a slow, almost imperceptible unraveling.

And yet, when Yves asks about it—when he offers to ask the others for antihistamines, or when he offers to make the drive to a convenience store himself; when he suggests that they go out to get some fresh air—he’s always faced with the same nonanswer, the same dismissive, I’ll be fine. The same persistent, Don’t worry about it.

So Yves doesn’t worry about it, for now—at least, not outwardly.

—

At some point after dinner, they disperse. Yves talks to Joel and Cherie about the apartment, about the pains of moving in, about the other places they’d considered and about why this one had been at the top of the list. Then about the cat— “we had been talking about getting one,” Cherie says. “And then one day Joel was wandering around downtown, and one of the pet shops there was holding an adoption event, and then when I got home there was a cat in the living room.”

“He didn’t call you to come pick out a cat with him?”

“Have you ever heard of ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission?’” Joel says. 

“He texted me before he brought her home,” Cherie says, and scrolls through her phone until she finds a text that says: Would you kill me if I brought home a cat. Just asking for a friend. And hypothetically if we extended this thought experiment it would be an orange cat that’s 2 months old.

“That sounds like a text from someone who’s absolutely decided already,” Yves says. “Ask for forgiveness, huh? So how’s the forgiveness going?”

“I let her name her,” Joel says.

“He’s on litter box duty for the next six months,” Cherie says.

On the other side of the room, Mikhail and Vincent are having a conversation—it could be because Vincent is the person in the room that Mikhail has talked to least, to date, but Yves has a feeling that it’s so that Mikhail can gain embarrassing intel on what Yves has been doing for the past few months.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vincent turn away, his eyebrows drawing together, raising both his hands to his face to catch a sneeze into steepled hands. Then, not a moment later, his shoulders shudder forward with another.

“Totally off topic,” Yves says, to Joel and Cherie. “Do you guys have any antihistamines?”

“I think we have some Benadryl,” Cherie says. “It should be in the bathroom cabinet, behind the mirror.”

He does find it there, eventually—next to a box of band-aids and a small cylindrical container of cotton swabs. Perhaps he’ll hand it to Vincent, discreetly, when he’s done talking to Mikhail. Vincent had said antihistamines made him tired, but now that dinner is over, it shouldn’t be an issue—Yves suspects people will start heading out soon, and he’ll be the one driving, anyways.

When he steps out into the hallway, Mikhail and Vincent are in the middle of a conversation. It’s a conversation Yves has every intention of interrupting, and no intention of eavesdropping on, until he overhears—

“So,” Mikhail says, “When you first started dating Yves, what was it that you saw in him?”

Yves winces. That’s certainly not an easy question to answer—he and Vincent don’t know each other all that well, and any planning they have done on the basis of their fake relationship has been almost entirely centered around logistics—events, important dates, flagship moments in the relationship, trivia-worthy personal details. Not… this.

But Vincent just laughs, seemingly unfazed. “Honestly, if I told you everything I liked about Yves, you’d want to date him too.”

“That’s a tall claim,” Mikhail says. Yves is positively certain that no permutation of words in the universe could make Mikhail want to date him. “You can’t just say that and not give any examples.”

“I guess Yves is a very considerate person,” Vincent says, with a sniffle. “It actually confused me, at first. When I was growing up, after I moved here from Korea, I was brought up in the sort of environment where there was always an expectation for self-sufficiency. It didn’t matter how young I was, I guess—there were certain things I was expected to know, and certain things I was expected to teach myself.”

Something about his expression looks wistful, if not a little sad. But perhaps this is a trick of the light; perhaps his eyes are just watering from earlier. “My parents trusted me with a lot of things, but it was the kind of trust where they weren’t planning on filling in the gaps for me if I fell short.” 

“I know what you mean,” Mikhail says. “That must’ve been difficult.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Vincent says. “But I’m not telling you this because it was a burden to me, or anything. Back then, it was all that I had ever known. It was normal to me, then, because it was inevitable.”

“Yves is a very different person than I am,” Vincent says. “At times, when I was growing up, it felt like kindness was always something that had to be calculated.”

He pauses, sniffling again, before he raises his arm to his face with a forceful—

“hIhh’GKT-! Hh… hh-HHih’NGKktshH!”

“Bless you,” Mikhail says reflexively.

“Thadk you,” Vincent says, sniffling. He lowers his arm. “I was always taught that if you lend a hand to someone else, you have to make sure their success is not the thing that robs you of your spot—that sort of thing. But Yves is kind even without thinking about it. He’s kind even when there’s nothing in it for him.”

“So that was what made you develop feelings for him?” Mikhail asks.

“Eventually, yes,” Vincent says. “At first, I thought that we were irreconcilably different.”

“What changed?”

“Yves is an easy person to like, romantically or otherwise,” Vincent says. “It’s a little disarming to be on the receiving end of his type of kindness. And I think that’s ultimately what made me start liking him. He’s just the sort of selfless person you can’t help but admire, if that makes sense. It’s like—when someone does so much for you out of sheer selflessness, at some point, you start wanting to be a part of their happiness too.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yves sees a small orange blur—mostly fluff, on four short white legs, with two pointy ears—bound from the kitchen into the living room.

“I get it,” Mikhail says. “That’s an interesting answer. It makes me hopeful that Yves might’ve stumbled into a relationship that will be very good for him.”

That’s a statement he’ll have to revise, Yves thinks wryly, in a few months, whenever it stops being practical for Vincent to keep up this act.

“Oh,” Vincent says, blinking. “What makes you say that?”

“When he and Erika broke up, he was—” Mikhail pauses, briefly, and Yves is thinking about the many embarrassing—but completely, verifiably true—ways he could finish off that sentence. “—he was pretty upset,” Mikhail says, instead, which Yves decides is suitably merciful.

“Look, what’s between them is between them—I’m not going to claim I know all the ins and outs of their relationship. But given that Yves was living with me for much of the time that he and Erika were dating, I’ve seen them interact more times than I can count.”

“I don’t think Erika is a bad person,” he continues. “She’s very ambitious, which I think was good for Yves back when they first started dating. But I don’t think she recognized those things about him—how much he cares for others, how much he gives people the benefit of the doubt, how much he… well, frankly, how much bullshit he’s willing to endure on his end. I think she took his kindness for granted, a little bit, and she certainly didn’t go out of her way to reciprocate.”

“What I’m saying is, I’m glad he met you,” Mikhail says. Beside him, something small and orange hops onto the couch they’re standing next to. “I can tell that what you said was sincere.” 

If even Mikhail thought he was being sincere, perhaps Vincent is a little too good of an actor.

“Obviously, it’s early for me to be saying this, so you can take it with a grain of salt,” Mikhail continues. “But I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.”

The sentence feels like a punch to the stomach.

And—well.

I’m glad he met you. I think you could be kind to him in the way he deserves.

Yves has really dug himself into this hole, hasn’t he?

Mikhail thinks that Vincent is good for him—Mikhail, one of Yves’s closest friends, someone who is by no means quick to express his approval over whoever Yves is seeing—which means that when they inevitably stage their breakup, Yves is never going to hear the end of it.

Is it cruel to be taking Vincent to all of these events, to be introducing him to all of his friends, when—after the impending breakup—Vincent might never see any of them again? Is it cruel that Mikhail likes Vincent enough to be hopeful that this is going to last?

Yves doesn’t have time to contemplate it more when three things happen.

One—Gingersnap, who is still perched at the very top of the couch, nudges her face against Vincent’s arm and mews softly at him.

Two—Vincent stops what he’s doing to reach out slowly, cautiously, to scratch gently at the fur under her chin. Gingersnap purrs, leaning her head into his hand.

Three—Vincent withdraws his hand, suddenly, as if he’s been burned, twisting away reflexively. He lifts his hand—the same hand he’s been petting Gingersnap with (probably inadvisably) to his face, to cover a resounding—

“hh—hiHH-hHihh’iIZSChHH-uhh! snf-!”

The sneeze sounds ticklish and barely relieving, as if he’s been holding it in all afternoon. 

It’s only a few moments later that Vincent’s jerking forward with another ticklish, wrenching, “hh… hhiHH… NgKT-!—hh’hiiIIIK’TSCHhuhH! snf-! hiIh… hIIIH-IITSCHh’yyue!”

“Oh,” Mikhail says, finally comprehending. “You’re allergic to cats?”

“Just slightly— hIh… hH- Hiih—hhH’nNGkT-!” Vincent sniffles wetly, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “Sorry to - hh-! - cut our codversatiod short - hH… I… hhiHh’IiKSHhuh! Excuse mbe… hH… Hhh-! I’mb going to rund to the bathroom… hh… hhiIh… hh-HIih’iiIK’SHhUHhh!”

Yves ducks out into the kitchen before Vincent has a chance to head his way. He busies himself with removing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with water, Somewhere behind him, he hears the bathroom door click shut, hears the slightly muffled sound of a sneeze, then another.

He shuts his eyes.

Vincent had said that it was fine. Should Yves have insisted? It’s Yves’s fault, again, that Vincent is in this situation, but then again, he couldn’t have known—both that Joel and Cherie would have a cat, and that Vincent would like her so much. Either way, Yves can’t help but feel partially responsible.

But would it be strange, now, to offer Vincent something to take for it, to openly acknowledge his affliction? Should he have done something earlier? Or should he wait to acknowledge it after they leave?

Against all doubt, he finds himself outside of the bathroom door.

Yves knocks.

There’s the sound of water running, inside, and then the sound of the faucet being turned to shut. Then there’s a brief pause. Yves is contemplating knocking again when the door opens just a crack.

There, Vincent stands, his eyes a little watery still, his nose just slightly redder than usual, his hair slightly out of place—he’s just washed his face, then.

“Yves,” Vincent says.

“Um,” Yves says, holding out the glass of water and, next to it, the bottle of Benadryl. “Thought you could use these.”

Vincent takes the cup, a little hesitantly, and sets it on the bathroom counter. Then he takes the bottle of allergy medicine, unscrews the cap, and removes two small pink pills.

“Thank you,” he says. Yves thinks he’s about to take a sip when he twists to the side suddenly, his eyes squeezing shut, snapping forward with a loud—

“hIIH’IIKKSHh’hUh!”

The hand he’s holding the cup with trembles a bit with the action, but the water inside doesn’t spill. 

“Bless you,” Yves says, taking the cup from him, before—

“hIHH… hh-Hhih’iISCHhh’Uhh!”

“Bless you!”

The only acknowledgment Vincent gives him is to take the cup back from him, sniffling, and down the pills in one quick, decisive sip.

“They’ll take some time to take effect,” Yves says, though he’s sure that Vincent knows that already, for the way he knew to take two, even without reading the label on the bottle. “Are you okay?”

“It’s been awhile since my last edcounter with a cat,” Vincent says, sniffling. 

“You forgot how bad it was?”

“It gets better with exposure,” he says. And worse without.

Yves says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I really didn’t know they’d have a cat.”

“Even if you’d known, I ndever told you I was allergic,” Vincent says. “It’s fine.”

“I should’ve thought to check. Seriously, a housewarming party—”

“I told you, snf, I like cats,” Vincent says, clearing his throat. “So it’s fine.”

Yves looks around—at the bathroom, which looks just as pristine as he’d left it earlier, except that the tissue box on the bathroom counter is a little askew. At the slight tiredness to Vincent’s posture, even as he looks off to the side, tilting his glasses up to his forehead to swipe at his eyes with his sleeve.

“Do you want to get out of here?“ Yves says.

“I cad stay,” Vincent says, as if he really is willing to, despite the side effects. “Do you want to stay longer?”

I want you to be comfortable, Yves wants to say. 

Instead, he says, “I think I’ve just about caught up with everyone. Besides, we have work tomorrow, and I think Cherie and Joel do too, so I don’t want to stay too late, you know?”

“Okay,” Vincent says. 

“I’m happy you came,” Yves says, stepping past Vincent to put the bottle of Benadryl back into its original spot, where he found it. He snags the glass from the counter on his way out.

“Your friends are a fun crowd,” Vincent says, following him out.

Yves laughs. “I think just between you and me, Mikhail has been dying to interrogate you about this relationship.”

“He did idterrogate me,” Vincent says. “How much of it did you overhear?”

“What?”

“When you were standing out in the hallway.”

Oh. Well, perhaps he hadn’t been as discreet about eavesdropping as he’d thought. Yves says, “Okay, you got me. I heard a good amount.”

“I don’t think Mikhail noticed you there, if you’re worried,” Vincent says. “In any case, it doesd’t matter if you overheard. It was just the same story.”

They step out into the hallway. Giselle has left, already, to be home in time for a cross-timezone call with a team that works somewhere halfway across the world. Yves bids everyone else a goodbye (Cherie and Joel thank him for coming, and Cherie hugs him and Vincent both on the way out; Nora asks Vincent to send her a recipe to his beef skewers, to which Vincent admits sheepishly that he stole from a cookbook, to which Nora says “making it successfully is half the work;” Mikhail says, “If you and Vincent get a place too, I want to be invited to your housewarming party.”)

On the way out, Yves grabs both of their coats off from where they’re hanging in a closet next to the front door, and hands Vincent’s coat to him. There’s never much street parking by the apartment, so the car is parked a couple blocks down, and it’s cold enough to be worth bundling up.

“You’re very good at lying,” Yves says, when he’s sure that the door is shut behind them.

Outside, it’s snowing just a little. Snow falls from the sky in thick white flakes. Vincent pulls his hood over his shoulders, sniffling a little—though whether that’s from the cold or from the allergies, Yves can’t be sure. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“Definitely a compliment. I just mean, you play the part really well.”

“So instead of being a good boyfriend, I’m a good fake boyfriend,” Vincent says, lifting his sleeve to his face to muffle a cough into it. “Somehow, that seems much less impressive.”

“It’s arguably more impressive,” Yves says. “It definitely requires a different subset of skills.”

Vincent is quiet for a moment. When Yves looks over, he sees Vincent raise both hands to his face, steepling them over his nose, his eyes fluttering shut.

“hHh… hHh’iiiIKKSshh’uhh!”

“Bless you,” Yves says. 

“Ndot— hh… hHh… done — hH-hhIh’nGKKTsHuuh! hHh-hH’IIZSCHHhhuh!”

“Bless you! Cats, huh?”

Vincent hums. It’s snowed all through dinner—the snow under their feet coats the sidewalk, powdery and untouched. Their shoes sink into it while they walk.

“I didn’t know you used to live in Korea,” Yves says.

“It’s not a secret, snf-!,” Vincent says. “But I ndever found an occasion to bring it up.” 

Yves can think of a hundred things to say—how it’s strange only learning this information secondhand; it’s strange to play the part of someone who knows Vincent and knows him intimately, and to know so little about him, at the core of it. Isn’t it like that, with coworkers? The only window he has to Vincent’s life is made up of the things Vincent has chosen to share with him—over small talk in the break room, or conversationally over their outings, or during longer drives.

He knows an assortment of trivia, like Vincent’s favorite color (green) or Vincent’s birthday (March 15th) or the number of siblings Vincent has (one), or when he had his first kiss (during his first year in university) or his least favorite chore (vacuuming) or how he spends his weekends (generally at the library downtown, catching up on work or working on his personal projects). But even that was only for the sake of having something to say if his friends asked him—of having a basic understanding of his supposed partner that Vincent could later corroborate.

“Was it very different there?”

“I moved here when I was pretty young,” Vincent says. “But it was very different.”

When Yves looks over, there’s something complicated to Vincent’s expression that gives him pause. “Back then, I was young enough that everything was new to me. So the cultural shift wasn’t as pronounced for me as it was for the rest of the family. I think that’s why they moved back, eventually.”

“Did that happen recently?”

“They moved back just six years after we came here,” he says. “I was in high school at the time, so I stayed with my aunt to continue my education here.”

“Was it difficult living here on your own?”

“Is this useful to you?”

Yves blinks, taken aback. “Sorry?”

“Is this information useful to you?” Vincent says, looking over at him. His glasses have fogged up a little in the cold.  “Do you think your friends are going to ask about it?”

“It’s—not exactly useful in that sense,” Yves says, backtracking. “I just wanted to know. But you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

That’s right, he reminds himself—he and Vincent are only doing this for appearances’ sake. 

“I got used to it,” Vincent says, finally, which isn’t exactly an answer. “It’s hard to say if—hold on, I— hh-!”

Yves sees him duck off to the side, raising his arm to his face.

“Bless you—!”

“hh-Hhiih’IIZSCHh’uhH!”

The sneeze is muffled slightly into his sleeve. Vincent sniffles, keeping his arm clamped to his face for a moment, in trepidation, before dropping it to his side.

“Apologies, snf-!,” he says, as if he has anything to apologize for. “It’s hard to say if things would’ve been better if I’d gone back with them to Korea. I just know things would’ve been different.”

Yves doesn’t know what to say to that. It feels like something that Vincent has thought about for years, something that Yves couldn’t even begin to comprehend—growing up here, alone. Away from his family, in a country foreign to him, with his family all the way on the other side of the Pacific ocean; staying with a stranger. To say that it had to have been difficult would be a vast understatement. 

Had he doubted himself, then? Had it been his idea to stay here, in the States? Had his parents told him it was for the best? Had he argued with them on the subject? Had they listened?

“Do you think you’re happy enough now to justify that decision?” Yves asks.

Vincent is quiet for a bit. Around them, the snow continues to fall, silent and slow, listing upwards on every updrift. “Sometimes,” he says.

—

When they get back to the car, Vincent is quiet. The car is frigid, the window panes cold enough to fog up when Yves puts his hand on them—he puts the heaters on to the highest setting. If anything, being out of the cold seems to make Vincent’s nose run even more—a fact which he carefully obscures, resting his face on the palm of his hand with a few muffled sniffles.

“Thanks again for coming,” Yves says. “I know I—and everyone else—already said that to you like a hundred times. But I mean it.”

“It’s ndo problem, snf,” Vincent says. “I’ll be sure to avoid putting you into contact with cats in the future,” Yves says.

“There’s ndo need for that.”

“While we’re at it, is there anything else you’re allergic to?”

“Not much,” Vincent says. “Unless you pland on getting rid of the entire season of spring.”

“That’s secretly why you chose an office job,” Yves says. “So you could avoid all the pollen by staying inside all day.”

“Busy season was - snf-! - idvented solely for that purpose,” Vincent says.

It’s barely a couple minutes into the drive when Vincent stifles a yawn into his fist.

“Are you tired?” Yves asks. “I mean, you did say that thing about antihistamines making you tired.”

“Wide awake,” Vincent says, before—moments later—hiding another yawn behind a cupped hand.

“Evidently,” Yves says, which earns him a quiet laugh.

“Tell me if you ndeed me,” Vincent says, leaning his head lightly on the passenger seat window. As if this is work, or something. As if Yves could have any conceivable reason to need him during the drive home.

“Not at all,” Yves says. “As a matter of fact, it’d probably be a good thing if you close your eyes. You wouldn’t have to look at all this traffic.” It’s a little past rush hour, but traffic is only just starting to clear up, and driving in the city at any hour has never been a particularly pleasant experience.

Vincent opens his eyes. “Do you wadt me to help navigate?”

“I want you to sleep,” Yves says. “I’m an expert at handling traffic.”

It’s as if all this time, Vincent was merely waiting for permission. Yves isn’t certain if he’s asleep, but he certainly looks to be—when Yves sneaks a glance at him, his eyes are shut, his shoulders slack, and his breathing has evened out. It’s an image Yves wants to thoroughly take in—the slow rise of his chest, his eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks. 

Instead, he drives. Instead, he stares hard at the rows and rows of cars before him, at every traffic light, and tries not to think about—

Vincent, at the housewarming party, kneeling down to pet a cat smaller than his hand, despite being well aware of the consequences.

Vincent, calling Yves kind even without thinking about it, talking about him—about his best qualities—with near-artful dishonesty.

Vincent, walking beside him in the snow, talking candidly about growing up here; the unspoken understanding between them about how much he must’ve given up.

That Vincent, the same Vincent from work, asleep in Yves’s passenger seat, while Yves drives him home.

Yves can’t help but think that if he caught feelings for someone like Vincent, Erika would be the least of his problems.

[lonelycowgirls]

Harry and Stellaween

Liked by itslucyy, riley.wills and others

stellaflorals LEAK OF STELLA'S HARRYWEEN COSTUME via dolly_malonex

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itslucyy she's jessica rabbit!!!!

starrylove his very own bunny 🐰❤️

novalove13 Stella's first Harryween?!

frankie_oliver11 boring 🙄🙄🙄

harrysgirl she's so beautiful tho guys 😭😭

↳starrylove brb throwing myself off a bridge

harryflorals 🌼

sideboobrry she kinda ate

yasfullman harry going feral somewhere rn

larry4life wouldn't a real couple match? 🤔

stellerrrr god bless @dolly_malonex

↳lauraloo21 she stays feeding us 😩

31 October 2022

Liked by samanthastewart2, freddie_m and others

harryflorals THE BACK OF HARRY'S SHIRT SAYS 'HARRYWEEN'! via fernsrrylou

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harrytheone this picture will be studied one day

florence_oliver_ HARRY LAMBERT I TAKE EVERYTHING BAD IVE SAID AB YOU

starrylove stella gets this man every night

↳just.nia SHES GETTING THAT DICK EVERY NIGHT SHES GETTING THAT DICK EVERY NIGHT SHES GET-

tbslamber just saw stella walking to the tech box!1!!

tbslamber she looks amazing

↳larrysinlove FAKE

↳corinne_styles how can it be fake its been like 10 years 🤣🤣

andreaashley wonder if the gf likes the black hair

31 October 2022

Liked by katyjonessss, harryking21, and others

harryflorals "You've come as... Jessica Rabbit? Yes? Yes! I got it! That's proving to be a very popular costume this evening." HARRY POINTING OUT A FANS COSTUME AT HARRYWEEN via babyhoneymonique

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starrylove stella punching the air somewhere 🤣

↳larrylove that's what you get for having no creativity or originality

heatherbrown he was so cheeky with Stella tonight! When he said this he kept glancing towards the tech box and winking

↳charliebennett our king of subtlety

↳harrystella18 he just loves to wind her up and I love it

giovanna_rodriguez stella was so drunk tonight we could hear her singing from the tech box behind us!

harrytheone whoever wore the same thing as his gf won tbh

trinawong but who wore it better @harrystyles?!!

31 October 2022

Liked by starrylove, stellamalone and others

harry_update More of Harry on stage for Harryween last night! via pia321234

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rina_gee Stella liked!!

court_xo Stella liking this is so me coded

stellerrrr if only Stella's account wasn't private 🫠

rowanelizabeth Stella screenshotted this for sure

tbslamber he is beyond hot

itslucyy I mean how am I supposed to go on with my day after seeing this

dee_rizxx stella liked omg omg she's creeping on fan accounts????

1 November 2022

Liked by annetwist, gemmastyles and others

stellamallone Throwback to Halloween 2018 because I'm missing my spooky soulmate @dolly_mallonex

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dolly_mallonex miss you my girlie! Harryween is calling my name! 🦇

annetwist gorgeous girls ❤️

harrystyles was this grim's party?

↳stellamalone nah, corden's

↳harrystyles ohhhh yeah

hannahparker this lewk stell 😍

↳stellamalone miss you Hannah! 🫶 we must catch up soon

↳hannahparker absolutely

1 November 2022

Liked by stellamallone, niallhoran, mitchrowland and others

scottysakamoto "Harry, you actually have Halloween weekend off for once, we're going to a haunted house. Whether you like it or not."

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niallhoran ten quid that chair will end up in your house mate

dolly_mallonex Don't lie to yourself, H! We all had so much fun, good to have you back on the dark side ❤️

benselleymusic on the beers Stell, good girl! 💪

↳harrystyles you don't have to carry her home

↳stellamalone two pint Stell is OUT OUT 😘

roxannedrake come through leather trousers 👏🏿 miss your arse @stellamallone

↳stellamalone I'm coming Manny soon babes, we need a reunion asap 🫶

28 October 2023

Liked by harrystyles, dolly_mallonex and others

stellamallone no Harryween but we're still gonna party 🎃

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hannahparker yesss

Angel_212 killerrrrr, missing my night shift gyal

↳stellamalone back in less that 48 hours 🙃

dolly_mallonex the dark bride 🕷️😍

annetwist Have fun tonight you lot. Be safe ❤️

harrystyles Out with the sole breadwinner. Drinks on you x

31 October 2023

~~~

Happy Halloween. Only short but hope you love.

For more from this universe, click here.

Nel xo

[kuschelkissen]

Watched Ep1 of Yingdu Arc and survived!!

Thoughts under cut because spoilers!! Duh.

ok. Uh. Where do I even start.

The basketball scene, man, that looked so good. OH that looked SO DAMN GOOD???

And then BAMM whiplash, Vein's in the fucking photo studio, throwing Cheng Xiaoshi around as if he wasn't a full grown man of 1,80m 💀 I kinda expected to see CXS die soon, but wow. That was... uff, wow, thanks for the tears I guess

I will sound terrible, but... I kinda wish that scene had been longer? Dunno, feels like we barely saw LG grieving over this.

Watch this statement come back to bite my ass, when we get the full extended scene in the last episode lol

Because I feel like it has to come back? Like. What the fuck happened? Why is Vein here? Like. HERE here, in the photo studio. Why is Xiao Li dead? And Qiao Ling??

This makes the intro including her in all of these scenes so much worse! 😭 And no wonder LG dove back... EVERYONE IS DEAD. Who wouldn't have done the same...

And oh god, that whole power-transfer scene. Not only was it a fucking beautiful metaphor with the basketball, it also looked so pretty how the gold faded from CXS's eyes 😭 And I guess he transferred it voluntarily? Gave it to Lu Guang so he could save everyone (no pressure, tho). God, I'm sobbing again as I type this...

I really wonder what happened in that almost hour long time period between CXS dying and LG diving. Since LG was hurt when he got the photo, and I don't assume that Vein just... you know, LEFT, I guess there was a fight? Do you think LG went feral again? Or did Vein think he'd die from his wound(s?) and just left him to bleed out?

(Also I guess an interesting thought, that all of that doesn't matter anymore once he's diving 🤔)

Anyway.

THESE FUCKERS FAKED BLACK HAIR LU GUANG FOR THE PREVIEW?! WTF?

Like. Okay?? I knew there would be all sorts of misdirects, but??? Just plain out faked it, huh?!

I'm not mad tbh. While I like the white hair theory (what if Black/White Doomed Yaoi™ can only be fixed by making both of them black haired??), I stopped liking it when they made it seem like the power transfer gives you 1 white hair at a time. That would've been too much for me to handle T___T And LG looks great with white hair, so. Yeah.

I did NOT need the next whiplash after crying over CXS's death, but I guess they met by one of his classmates (?) literally throwing a fucking BASKETBALL into LG's face??? And apparently there was a need to show that THREE times. OKAY, SURE, see me laughing through my tears??

(ok, other than that, that scene was so cute. And sad. LG almost crying again, the sound of his voice, grabbing his arm, as if he had to feel that he was actually there, ALIVE...)

Cried through the whole opening again, obviously.

And then the moment I have been waiting for.

Cosplayer. Lu Guang. And not just ANY cosplayer, no no. He's apparently famous in the scene?? What??

("Taking photos of beautiful women~" (Lu Guang almost dying from choking on his coke) I can't)

AND HE'S A WEEB, he's cosplaying and reading manga AND I DIDN'T THINK I COULD LOVE HIM MORE BUT APPARENTLY I CAN???

"I thought you were more the Shakespear type" ALL OF US, CXS, ALL OF US!

Seriously, I love this so much??

Trying to sort my thoughts, but it's kinda hard. It was a bit of a ride??

And the Club girl wanted to put CXS in a couple cosplay for LG, I can't! CXS, you COWARD, you looked great in that! (I wanna draw that, but I'm already like 20h late so there's probably several drawings of that already...) (LG taking a picture of it and then mocking him with it!! I swear, that whole scene was heartwarming?? He felt so... so...??? IDK?? Different. Somehow more playful? I love it T___T)

(Him being swarmed by people who want to take a photo of him, UGH, perfection. And QL clocking her brother immediately, "are you jealous" lmao)

I love the Chibis every now and then. And the funny faces, kinda missed that after S1. CXS and QL are such siblings, they way they ganged up on Zhou Xun... or pleaded with LG... UGH I love them. Love them so fucking much!!

CXS carrying patches with him at all times is such a cute detail, idk??

Handholding 😌💕 and an actual hug. Well. A short one, before LG chickened out.

"Are now partners for life", lmao, extra funny because that's what homosexual marriage is called in German.

I missed that, but my gf pointed out that LG's eyes were golden at first, and when he joined CXS and QL later, with the voice over about "maybe after 12h you're stuck forever", he had his normal grey eyes. And since they zoomed in on the eye to show us that, I guess she's right that the 12h are over at that point and he's now stuck. After all, he clapped at the con and was still there.

Also, CXS was WAY too relaxed about him having powers? "Wait, so you DO have powers?? Wow." Uh, not how I would've reacted lol xD but then again, he said, he felt that he had a secret and that he "knew 2 people with eyes like yours", so... uh... what does that mean, CXS? (Except that your parents probably had powers, too)

The way LG looks at him. UGH. UUUUUGH my heart can't take it.

That scene on the couch where he hugs himself... after that soft smile. yeah, why not, break my heart again, sure sure...

LU GUANG. CANONICALLY. WEARS CHENG XIAOSHI'S CLOTHES!! The fucking cat hat wasn't a present to LG, it is CXS's!! (well, maybe he gifted it him anyway, but whatever xD he originally bought it for himself! Now I wanna draw him in that outfit lol??)

There were several moments in this that gave me Live Action feels. I don't remember all of them right now, but CXS calling LG handsome/beautiful was one of them and the "we're not even together, and she's breaking up with me?? T__T" cries come to mind. idk xD Makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

UUUUGH so yeah.

I really wonder if this is the current timeline or not. Or if we will see the deathscene one more time in the last episode?? Though "I'll use my last chance and go back to the beginning" kinda feels like that was the current one?? Or we will find out another reason why it might be the last chance...

Uh. Final thoughts?

It was A LOT less bad than I feared it was?? The blow from Cheng Xiaoshi's death scene was softened with all the cute and funny stuff later, so right now I actually regret not watching it before work lol

Animation quality was nice, but it's very obvious that the most of that episode's budget went into the first 10 minutes xD Not a complaint, just stating the obvious.

I like the new style, though I still think I slightly prefer Studio Lan's style? Can't even put into words exactly what it is.

Also I miss thick eyebrow Lu Guang =T Thankfully, at least the ending delivers on that front.

Lastly, I'm really not sure why they made this into one hour-long episode? It was pretty clearly meant to be two, with a very clear cut pretty much exactly in the middle, and two stories that are completed in themselves. I feel like that would've made more sense for the finale, when everything's going down? Idk.

(who knows, maybe we will still get that, so we get the full 8 episodes after all?)

[kacievvbbbb]

I finally got around to watching Arcane’s final part and like all parts it’s so beautiful. It really is. But Arcane kinda has the same problem with MHA for me as in the ending is actually pretty satisfying but how we get there could have been so much better.

Don’t get me wrong MHA’s problems were seasons in the making. Arcane actually suffers from the opposite problem there just wasn’t enough time. Like I don’t know why they felt Arcane should be a 2 season show I can only hope it wasn’t a studio pulling the strings (I want to say Netflix would never but yes they would no other company so against the idea of success like them)

But yeah not that Arcane couldn’t have been a 2 season show the 1st season wraps up its main conflicts pretty nicely honestly if not for the cliffhanger and some other lingering plot lines it could have been a good stand alone. But there was just soooooo much happening in season 2. With season one at the core of the story no matter what craziness happened at its core it was about the tragedy of 2 sisters and that was its grounding piece. Season 2 just had nothing like that. It could have been Jayce and Viktor with how that’s kind of the main conflict? This season and given the resolution but Jayce is barely in the thing 😭. They have one moment together and then don’t really interact again until the final part. I just needed more honestly form every relationship.

The only relationship I felt was kind of properly developed was Isha and Jinx (even tho they kind of dropped the ball a bit after she died) but like you actually kind of see that relationship grow. I wish we got more of heiminger and ekko’s new proffesor student relationship (u wish we got more of ekko period honestly) ekko has a way of barely being in the season and then pulling up at the most important moment for a huge blow out in the final part. I just think it would have made Heimidinger’s (I am butchering this name forgive me) sacrifice for ekko more meaniful (not that I don’t think he wouldn’t have literlaly done that for anyone but it would have been nice to see that relationship develop in particular them getting lost in time together and all)

And the getting lost in the multiverse/time thing was really good I really liked it. It needed to be more than 1 episode. I wish we could have really sat with it. The horrors Jayce was experiencing and this new reality that ekko is faced with (like don’t get me wrong for one episode they did a lot and it’s so beautiful it would have just hit harder if it was longer)

Don’t even get me started on Mel and the black rose I still do not understand what that was all about. That definetly needed a whole season dedicated to just that and not (I hate to use the word shoved) but shoved in as a C plot to Viktor’s cult.

For a season they (hopefully) knew going in that this would be their last they were trying to accomplish so much in just 9 episodes like yes they are about an hour each but they are still just 9 episodes. Honestly we don’t even spend enough time with maddy to care about her betrayal. I felt more about Ambessa’s right hand’s death because at least he’s kind of been a steady presence through out the season. I don’t know what was going on with Loris. I though he would have more to do they kept giving him little moments where it felt like he knew more than he was letting on but I guess not? He really was just some guy?…..well okay.

I love the Vander reunion I love it so much the fight was epic the resolution was epic god the fucking memory sequence with the water color kill me now. But again I wish we had more time we just got him back and now we are losing him again drag that shit out really make it hurt twist the knife deeper give us a couple episodes let us truly believe that everything might be okay and then throw that shit in our face that would have hit so much harder. (Well that’s just me though)

There’s was so much happening this season. It all felt like build up it felt like build up till literlaly the last 30 minutes of the show. It just felt like there was no proper middle the show just kept building and building and then tried to cram ever resolution in the last 2 hours. (I know they didn’t fully reveal the what the Black Rose drama was because of this Noxian show they are planning but I don’t know I just didn’t like how they left things 😭 Mel was barely in the season and then she’s back and there’s so much left unsaid and 😭😭😭)

I might be in the minority but I just really didn’t know what to make of Jinx’s arc. Like I can see the parallels and the beauty of it but at the same time it just didn’t click for me. I know she’s probably not dead like I’m not even going to pretend she is. But yeah. Same with Vi honestly. Vi felt so passive this season shes just kind of being led around.

I just think the pain problem this season was that there was no central story. There was no grounding piece that the story all revolves around. And I hate to be an advocate of taking stories centered around women and focusing on the men there but Giving how it ended (and honestly I’m not mad at it) and just the whole hectech being at the center of it all this season, it should have been Jayce and Viktor their relationship should have taken center stage they should have been this seasons Powder/Jinx and Vi the parallels are literally already there. One being consumed by everything they thought they wanted but not like this and the other still after everything trying desperately to reach them (mostly through a lot of violence) they even have the falling out like Vi and Powder did at the end of the first part. But their relationship just wasn’t explored enough for me to really say it was the center of the season. It would also flow well with the general established conflict Vander and Silco mirroring Jinx and Vi mirroring Jayce and Viktor (I personally don’t ship them nor do I think of them as overtly sibling coded I can just see the parallels it is not my fault the other characters are either siblings or heavily sibling coded 😭 but don’t come for me)

Honestly the most developed relationship this season was Cait and Jinx and that mirror they hold up to each other as blue haired girlies manipulated by desperation grief and power. And I enjoyed that. Caitlyn in general got a lot of good screen time this season that I love taht for her.

I don’t want to harp on about the negative because there was so much that I loved about arcane it is such a beautiful story and I know the story isn’t technically finished atleast I don’t think so and maybe mine and everybody’s expectations where impossible to live up to. But I do still genuinely think it is one of the best pieces of television out there and all in all it was a truly amazing season of television that we were so lucky to experience.

Also the music was just straight banger after banger. Like Whoever curated that playlist? You need a raise like asap.