#let me finish this chapter

[aquarian-queen]

Troy Otto - S3 / S8

[thecmaly]

really? right in front of my karaage?

-

more windbreaker comics

[grimalkinscribbles]

[starry-bi-sky]

mmmmmm read a disciple shen yuan/shizun luo binghe fanfic about two days ago where the first chapter was the Immortal Conference arc, and SQQ was the one who had to be pushed into the abyss (he was still the villain) except Luo Binghe was refusing and was like, lowkey losing his mind about SQQ being so close to the edge. SQQ ended up having to be the one to fall in himself because of the system's punishment system. The rest of the fic is leading up to that moment. But like, MMM i've been obsessively thinking about that first chapter for DAYS ever since.

now i've been in svsss for a grand total of *checks watch* a week. but god obsessed with that. I want to write/read a fic where disciple SQQ goes a little nuts down there. Like keep all of the things that make SQQ, SQQ, but just. Throw in a little bit more trauma in there. A little bit of a mental break. Let him go a little nuts as a treat. Just a tad unhinged. I wanna see him go, just a little, "god fuck it, i've tried so hard to change this shitty story's outcome and it feels like everything i've done has been for nothing. I'm going to die in this world no matter what I do, I've been doomed from the start, so might as well die the way I want to." and he just, breaks a little! Under all the stress.

He still retains the traits that makes shen yuan, shen yuan, like his overwhelming kindness. But he's just! yk. A little less patient. Paranoid. Jumpy. Colder. A little more aloof and closed off. A little more Shen Jiu. He's no asshole child abuser, but he was a Number One Hater in his past life and he's leaning into that old habit a little more now.

(On a totally coincidental not-at-all related note, there's not enough SJ-and-SY-are-the-same-people fics out there that i've found. This is totally unrelated...)

The Endless Abyss turns the mind into an over-sharpened blade, and SQQ is both fascinated and perhaps a little excited to explore a place that doesn't have a lot of info on it in the mortal realm, but still terrified out of his mind. And he's no Luo Binghe, he doesn't have the sheer brute strength and power to just bulldoze his way through, so he has to be a lot more sneaky and cunning if he wants to survive.

The fic itself role-swapped LBH and SQQ so that SQQ was the half-demon (which lowkey fucks) and LBH the human, but I'm equally-if-not-more obsessed with the idea that LBH remains the half-heavenly demon and SQQ the human. If only because I keep thinking about SQQ befriending some demons (particularly and specifically a group of succubi) and they grow very attached to this Human Cultivator so through magic plot stuff they create some kind of seal/illusion/talisman that makes SQQ appear as a demon because a human cultivator in the endless abyss may as well be the equivalent of putting a giant neon target on your back.

And iirc Shen Jiu was taught demonic cultivation by that one guy(?? i've only been here a week so im not caught up in ALL of the lore yet) so that could totally happen here.

(On the other end of the realms, poor Shizun Luo Binghe is just. losing his fucking mind over losing his most precious and beloved disciple. About .5 seconds from burning down the peaks himself. somebody sedate him.)

The Endless Abyss sucks and SQQ is having a really terrible time and can feel himself going lowkey mad, but also holy shit look at all this WORLD-BUILDING. look at all this flora and fauna, and oh if he had the equipment for it he'd be writing all of this down. ALL OF IT. He was kinda-sorta-already planning on never leaving the Abyss as some sort of fucked up self-exile and self-preservation thing, but now he might? actually just?? never leave if he can help it, like he lowkey likes it down here.

anyways the next time anyone ever sees SQQ again he's got hair so long its almost touching the ground and he's either in rags and half-feral or he's been completely dolled up by his adoptive succubi sisters and still about three seconds from biting anyone who tries to touch him. (he's also lowkey trying to book it back down to the abyss even if he has desperately missed all of his friends and shizun)

[coalitiongirl]

Regina cuts her off, her stomach roiling. “You talk about me with Henry?” Emma shrugs. “You come up sometimes. He really does care about you. And I think you care about him.” “You think?” Regina demands, and her fists tighten. “You think?” Emma turns away from her, focuses on Henry on his swing. Regina follows suit, letting the sight of him calm her. He’s going higher and higher, and he kicks off his shoes when he’s at the top of the swing, sending them flying across the playground. It’s so normal, so much like a scene from a year ago, before everything had fallen apart. “I wasn’t sure,” she says. “I didn’t know if you…if you saw him as something to have. Or if you really loved him.” Regina seethes. Something in her chest withers and dies. She’s furious. She isn’t hurt, because she will never give Emma Swan the power to hurt her again. “This town still stands only because Henry is inside of it. And you think that I don’t love him?” Emma doesn’t respond to the threat, which had been stupid and will set Regina’s time with Henry back again, she’s sure. “You didn’t kiss him. When he was…after he ate that turnover. You didn’t even try to kiss him awake.” Regina had sat in the hospital room and wept, had felt the world falling apart around her, and no, she had not kissed Henry as Emma had. How arrogant it is, to believe that a kiss can work magic. How privileged it is for the laws of the world to break only for you. “I am no Charming,” she spits. “I don’t get beautiful fairytales, and I don’t expect them. Forgive me for being a realist.” Emma is silent. When Regina turns, Emma is watching her again, and there is a lingering something in her eyes. Not quite pity, not quite sorrow. But understanding, and Regina hates seeing it more than anything else. Hates the way that her heart leaps, and the next few breaths hitch and don’t emerge right.

[sherrymagic]

At last, our dream is about to come true.

Poom Phuripan as JOE in Episode 12 MY STAND-IN (2024)

[causenessus]

i KNOW i'm not like "obligated" to read my moots' works BUT I PROMISE I'M CATCHING UP SOON I'M SO SORRY!! i have no energy whatsoever BUT i do have this single night to write and i'm feeling a little creative so i'll be cooking!! in the meantime, i was going to link this as a little teaser and then post the poll tomorrow but i thought i'd do both today as an apology :)) the link is to this mystery fic playlist!! (still in the works, i'm trying to figure out what the vibe of this fic is, but i'm definitely in love with like the first several songs and they are there to stay!!) and here is the poll <3 tagging my special people whose opinions are highly valued!!! (BECAUSE THESE ARE THEIR FAVS) and their votes i think i will count as double points!! -> @afyrian @guitarstringed-scars @bakery-anon. i'm assuming wyr and bug are voting for samu and mo is voting for kuroo BUT LMK PLEASE COMMENT IF I'M WRONG SO I CAN ADD THE DOUBLE VOTES TO THE RIGHT ONE

[sadlynotthevoid]

I caught up with the manga. Now I have to wait almost a week for the next chapter to be released. And for the translation.

(⁠ノ⁠ಥ⁠,⁠_⁠｣⁠ಥ⁠)⁠ノ⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

I don't hate Endo as I thought I would do. He's silly tho.

Tsubaki wanting to keep Sakura away from Endo is funny as fuck.

Like, I feel there must be a missing scene like this:

Hiragi: Sakura has gotten stronger.

Umemiya: Yep. He did.

Tsubaki: But... I feel like we're forgetting something.

Umemiya: It must be nothing important. And if it is, then he'll probably figure out himself.

After the fight,

Tsubaki: Oh, shit! I know what we forgot!

Hiragi: What?

Tsubaki: Stranger danger! We didn't taught him about the stranger danger!

Hiragi: ... I mean, he's sixteen, he probably knows it. Someone must had told him about, right?

Suo, thinking about his empty flat and how naïve Sakura can be : No, probably not.

Hiragi: Oh shit.

[edda-grenade]

so i drew this uhhhh. 3 years ago??? and forgot about it CANNOT believe we're actually getting eldritch horror goat mom in da4 👏👏👏

bonus:

[buwheal]

Are some dumpsters better than others? Do you have a favorite?

[nonsense-is-everywhere]

Being silly.

SIKE! THIS WAS AN AD FOR MY NEW FIC THE WHOLE TIME. Boy I had you fooled. Anywho, here’s the summary along with the tags.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: SMG3 & SMG4 (SuperMarioGlitchy4)

Characters: SMG4 (SuperMarioGlitchy4), SMG3 (SuperMarioGlitchy4), Mr. Puzzles (SuperMarioGlitchy4), Bob Bobowski (SMG4), Fishy Boopkins (SMG4), Meggy Spletzer (SuperMarioGlitchy4), Tari (SuperMarioGlitchy4), Luigi (Nintendo)

Additional Tags: Little Mr. Puzzles is very important to me, Cannon typical shenanigans, SMG34 if you squint, Relationships aren't the focus tho, Takes place in the middle of the Puzzlevision movie, Little Puzzles is like 11 to me and will be written as such, May have projected my adhd onto him a tad, No beta we die like Axol did, Angst, Relatively new to the fandom, Anon is on because I'm a nervous person, The SMGs and Mini Puzzles are the main focus

Summary:

SMG4 and 3 escape one channel, just to be hit completely off track and fall into a seemingly endless void.

After meeting the floor, they find themselves in a room with a shadow like memory of a child, who is ecstatic to have finally made some friends.

If you’ve been wanting to see more Mini Puzzles centered fics like me, then consider reading.

And as much as I like thinking of interactions between Mini Puzzles and Mr. Puzzles, they won’t be seeing each other in the fic for a while 😔

[moonshine-nightlight]

Nothing's Wrong with Dale - Part Thirty

It’s been a week, but you’re fairly certain your fiancé accidentally got himself replaced by an eldritch being from the Depths. Deciding  that he’s certainly not worse than your original fiancé, you endeavor to keep the engagement and his new non-human state to yourself.

However, this might prove harder than you originally thought.

Fantasy, arranged marriage, malemonsterxfemalereader, M/F

AO3: Nothing’s Wrong with Dale Chapter 30

[Part One][Part Two] [Part Three] [Part Four] [Part Five] [Part Six] [Part Seven] [Part Seven.5][Part Eight] [Part Nine] [Part Ten]  [Part Eleven] [Part Twelve]  [Part Thirteen] [Part Fourteen] [Part Fifteen] [Part Sixteen] [Part Seventeen] [Part Eighteen] [Part Nineteen] [Part Twenty] [Part Twenty-One] [Part Twenty-Two][Part Twenty-Three] [Part Twenty-Four][Part Twenty-Five] [Part Twenty-Six] [Part Twenty-Seven] [Part Twenty-Eight] [Part Twenty-Nine] Part Thirty [Part Thirty-One] [Part Thirty-Two] [Part Thirty-Three] [Part Thirty-Four]

You blink at the woman for a few long seconds, trying to comprehend her words. “Excuse me? Did you just say Lord Dale has called off the wedding? Our wedding?”

“I…” The maid is at a loss for words in the face of your incredulity. She swallows. “Yes, my lady.”

There’s a rushing sound in your ears, like wind roaring. You stay perfectly still, your face blank as you try to think. That is not possible. It’s not. How could he do something like that? Why would he? You’d dealt with so many surprises, jumped over every obstacle, and handled every challenge. Why instead did you feel as though you had survived a trip at sea only to find your ship crashing into the pier while within sight of home? You feel numb.

Perhaps you are making some sort of expression because the woman grows paler. “I’m sure it is simply pre-wedding jitters, my lady,” she hurries to reassure you. “Lord Archibald will have him seeing sense before you can blink.”

“Best to continue getting you ready,” Ms Dearden says as she lays out your corded underskirts. You appreciate her practiced dismissal even if you fear there’s more at play here than she’s aware of. “Young men these days always get cold feet. He’ll be over it soon enough.”

“Yes, of course.” Your own voice seems distant to your ears, but your words are enough for Callalily’s maid to resume work on your hair. At some point she finishes and you’re helped into your underskirts. Your mind stays blank as you try to conceive of reasons for him to do such a thing beyond tiring of you and this whole facade. Distant imaginings of what your life would be like without the wedding crumble to fog. 

You’ve been so committed and focused on today that the news feels nonsensical more than alarming. How could the wedding not be happening? Did you just speak with your sisters? Has every moment of the last few weeks been in service of it? Are you not now suddenly dressed in your lovely yellow wedding gown? The person in the hand mirror looks as though they are marrying today.

The door flings open and Steward Bilmont hurries in despite the reproach from the women in the room at both his presence and the dramatics of his entrance. 

You only need to look at his face to understand that the situation with Dale has not improved since the first maid broke it to you. He opens his mouth to speak, but something about your countenance, or perhaps your lack of reaction, must inform him that you know something of the situation.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him, my lady,” Bilmont says, wringing his hands. “He’s not been this unreasonable in weeks. Lord Archibald has refused to put a stop to anything, but Lord Dale refuses to see reason. He’s barred the door to his chambers after Lord Archibald wouldn’t accept his words.”

“I see.” With careful fingers you put down the small hand mirror and begin to stand, adjusting your skirts as you do so.

It’s Miss Adir who asks, her voice filled with trepidation, “My lady?�� 

“Excuse me,” you say, an undeniable calm spreading through your veins, as you cross the room towards the door. 

“Where are you going?” Steward Bilmont asks as you brush by him.

You realize your decision as you reply, “To speak with my betrothed. Please continue preparations without me.”

The maid who brought the news is the one who speaks up, as your hand closes around the door knob. “My lady, I don’t think—”

“Continue without me,” you cut her off, eyes snapping, because finally some emotion has made itself known to you and it is anger. You’ve worked so hard and been through so much. Dale thinks he can just put an end to it all mere hours before you’re to be wed? No.

“My lady…” Bilmont tries, his hand settling gently on your arm. He’s almost wincing, the look in his eyes resigned. As though he thought everything had been going too well and this was the inevitable shoe that dropped. 

You shake his hand off. “If Lord Dale wishes to call off our wedding,” some of that anger finally bleeds into your voice and you see the surprise in Bilmont’s eyes, “he shall tell me so to my face. Get out of my way.”

He obligingly steps back, hands hanging back at his sides. You don’t bother to observe the others' reactions, opening the door quickly, and letting it shut heavily behind you.

You walk briskly down the hall and towards the Northridge family bedrooms. No one else, servant or noble alike, crosses your path as you head that way. Not until you’re closer. You hear shouting and decide to peek around the corner, wanting to get the scope of the situation you’re walking into. 

“—utter foolishness!” Grandfather is shouting at Dale’s closed door with two guards flanking him. He bangs his fist on the door for good measure. “Do you wish for me to find your Grandmother? I’ve kindly not informed her of your idiocy, but I shall have to if you persist!”

There’s no reply from the other side of the door, not even a sound. Grandfather rattles the door knob to no avail, but doesn’t try anything further with the solid wood door.

He groans in frustration and turns to the guards. “I want to know the instant he leaves this room and if he does not within the hour, I shall have to inform Lady Deidre as promised.”

“Yes, my lord,” the guards chorus looked properly cowed by the threat, even if it isn't aimed at them.

Grandfather turns dramatically enough you see more of the original Dale in him than you thought possible and storms off. The guards take up posts on either side of the door, not baring it, but still present enough that you stay where you are. You’ve no desire to speak to them or to shout at Dale with them nearby.

You frown, unsure why but something doesn’t sit right with you the longer you look down the silent corridor. It seems…empty, or perhaps still, in a manner that makes you feel as if you are not where you should be. Not that your presence is unwanted, but as if you are lost. 

You study the scene more closely and find your eyes drifting towards the bright sunlight streaming through the windows and the faint light coming from under Dale’s bedroom door. After a second, you realize what is wrong with the light and shadow—both are completely still. Before, the maid had said both of them were shouting and you’ve never heard this Dale raise his voice except in a physical fight. If he were truly upset, or at least strongly emotional, there should be some evidence in the shadows, some unnatural movement.

You chance another glance down the corridor, but it looks utterly ordinary. As your gaze sweeps from further down where Grandfather disappears around a corner and then back closer to yourself they snag on the stairway down towards the studies and other meeting rooms. There’s no movement, but the shadows are deep and dark. There are no windows there, that stairway is more utilitarian than for show like the grand staircases in other places throughout the house, so that’s plenty of reason for the darkness, but…

You move as quietly and fluidly as you can towards that staircase, hoping not to attract the guards notice. You don’t want to talk to anyone except Dale. You don’t know what Grandfather would try to say to you given he is clearly trying to keep this news contained. He stopped attempting to prove anything with you since the attack, but you’re still not completely sure of what he thinks of you. Keeping your skirts just high enough off the floor and grateful your house slippers are soft and quiet, you make it to the stairs without the guards' notice.

Your footsteps are nearly silent as you hastily make your way down the flight of stairs. You’ve never given much thought to the amount of light that fills it, but surely it wasn’t this dark in previous mornings. Or is that simply your imagination? Is it just your hope that it means you can find Dale and talk some sense into him?

You peek out at the bottom, looking for anyone in this area of the house who might question one of the couple getting married wandering about alone. No one is present. An eerie silence permeates the corridor and like the staircase, it seems darker than it should be. You step out, eyes on the window that lets light in, but seems outnumbered by shadows.

Dale’s personal study is off a smaller side corridor from this hallway, in its own small tower. You think the upper floor might connect to his bedroom. Then there is the underground room, the real reason you believe the original Dale had requested his current quarters and this study.

There’s an oppressive aura that thickens the air as soon as you turn the corner and it builds the closer you get to his study’s door. You imagine that's partially responsible for the lack of others in this area, which in some ways you’re grateful for. You also manage to draw on its presence as fuel for your anger at such obvious overflow from his nature. The shadows under the door ripple, as if it were night and a lighted candle was guttering in the breeze, unremarkable except for the fact that it's closer to noon.

Cautiously, you reach out for the door knob. Grasping it firmly in your hand, you find that it's not locked as you had feared. The knob turns without effort and the door swings inside to reveal Dale’s study. The flickering shadows solidify as you step inside, eyes searching for Dale. 

You find him quickly enough, a trunk half packed of books next to him. Somehow you don’t think they are being gathered for your wedding trip. He’s by the window, back to you, but you can see tension in every line of his body. All the breath desserts you at the sight of him. All the words you could say dry up in your mouth. The door shuts with an audible click behind you.

“WOULD—” Dale whirls, his frustrated voice cuts off the second his eyes land on you. Abruptly all the anger in his face leaves him. Instead he practically deflates, merely gaping at you. To your surprise, he spins away from you. “What are you doing here?” he asks, voice pitched higher than usual. “I thought we were not to see each other until—” He doesn’t finish his sentence, his shoulders slumping.

You take another few steps into the room and clear your throat. “Yes, well, I’m fairly certain that the betrotheds laying eyes on one the morning of the wedding is of no consequence if there isn’t to be a wedding, hm?” You’re grateful that you’ve rediscovered some of your anger and your frustration to draw on for the strength to weather this conversation.

“I…” Dale can’t seem to think of an adequate response even as he refuses to turn around. 

Your heart constricts in your chest at this confirmation. “So it’s true?” You hadn’t realized how much you were hoping despite all the evidence to the contrary that once you found Dale he’d explain how it was all one big misunderstanding. “You’ve called off our wedding.”

He leans his head against the wall and says nothing.

“Dammit, Dale!” The words jump out of you, louder than you’ve ever spoken to Dale. “Look at me,” you say, your voice breaking. “If you’re going to do this, you’re going to look at me as you do so.”

Slowly, like a man condemned, he turns. Dale swallows, looking profoundly guilty. He murmurs your name, but you refuse to let his soft voice sway you and merely stare straight back at him. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

“My reasons are complex, but unchangeable.” His words are rote and his voice wooden. You imagine he said something like this to Grandfather. “I apologize.”

“I don’t understand,” you say as plainly as you can, tired of talking around topics and pretending to be sure when you aren’t. “Complex? How complex can they be that you won’t even enumerate them for me now. Please explain, justify, anything.” Dale just stands there and that anger surges through your blood. You take another step forward, your voice as stern as you can make it, “You owe it to me. Tell me why you are calling off our future.”

“I…” Dale starts before his blue eyes meet yours squarely for the first time since you arrived and he appears to shrink in on himself. He sighs a deep sigh, looking weary. “I could say any number of reasons, but you’re correct. They’re just excuses.” He pulls himself back up and braces himself. “In truth, I simply cannot bear to deceive you any longer.”

“Deceive me? About what? What can you not have told me that would cause our wedding to be canceled?” Panicked, wild scenarios begin to fly through your mind. “Did you marry someone else on your travels and they’ve arrived today? Have you been caught smuggling? Are you a wanted man? Did something happen this morning?”

Dale looks taken aback. He blinks at you. “Wha-? No, no—none of that.”

You feel some exasperation mixing with your frustration as he continues to talk around whatever he’s worried about. You’ve done this dance every day for weeks now and you are so, so tired of it. “Then what? I thought,” you swallow, hating how small your voice has gotten. You clear your throat and try again. “I thought you wanted this—wanted our marriage.”

“I do!” The words burst out of him, surprising you. How can he say so when he’s the one who is ruining it. He continues more quietly, as if the volume was what shocked you, “I do, but you don’t know…” He trails off again, looking away.

“Then tell me,” you plead, taking another step closer. Only another step or two and you could touch him. You could try in vain to keep him from leaving you. 

“I,” he starts, looking at you and away again. “A few weeks ago, there was a… I mean to say that I,” he begins again, obviously having difficulty getting the words out. At least you can see he’s truly making the attempt this time. “Well, not me, but he…” Is this something the original Dale had done that was coming back to ruin everything? That was what you hoped for, in a strange way, because at least it would mean that this Dale still might want you. That whatever prompted this was out of his control. That maybe you could fix whatever it was. “I care about you,” he finally says, his eyes bright, bright blue as they meet yours squarely once more and your breath catches at the genuine sentiment in his voice, “more than I ever thought I would, but I’m not who you think I am.” He takes another deep breath and says bluntly, “Dale of Northridge died weeks ago and then I possessed his body.”

Everything seems to screech to a halt as he stares at you, his eyes pleading with you to understand. Aside from the relief at finally hearing him say it out loud, you don’t. Understand, that is. “Yes…” you say slowly, nodding. “And…?” You’re still waiting for him to complete the thought. To tell you what he’s been building to. Prompting him seemed to help before. “Did you eat someone a few weeks ago and have just now been discovered? Did something you forgot come back to cause problems now?”

“What?” Now Dale looks nearly as confused as you feel. It makes you want to scream in frustration because he’s the one doing this—he has to be the one that knows what is going on. “No, I don’t think you understand.” He talks more slowly, like you’re not hearing his words right. “I’m not human, I’m a demon.” He once again appears to brace himself for your reaction, but you still don’t get it.

Maybe you aren’t hearing him right, but that’s never happened before. Is this some new demonic power or collateral influence? “Yes, I know,” you reply just as deliberately. You enunciate as you ask, “But what did you do that means we can not be wed?”

“You must not be comprehending my words.” He seems to be aware of the issue, getting frustrated himself. He runs his fingers through his long dark hair before he takes on a consoling tone, “I know it is a great shock to find out your fiance is now a demon—”

“What?” You stare at him because is that what he thinks you are getting caught on? You put your hands on your hips and can’t say anything except, “Of course, I know you’re a demon.”

“What?” He leans back, eyes wide. “No.” Dale shakes his head. “How could you know that?”

“Did you think you’ve been doing an exemplary job of hiding it?” The response bursts out of you before you can help it. Because no, this cannot be the conversation you’re having. It can’t be. “How about we begin with how the human Dale was obviously interested in demonology and black market dealing. How excited he was the night before this,” you gesture to Dale’s entire body, “happened. How sick you were after and your memory issues. The fact that you occasionally have more eyes than is proper and your influence on shadows and the claws. You’ve had a tail at times, for stars’ sake!”

“Oh.” Dale’s voice is small and his eyes big as he stares down at you, clearly at a loss for words.

You’ve seemingly found a well of words with which to rebuke him. “Do you know how many times I’ve had to conceal your nature?” You take a step forward, unable to contain your ire and incredulity. He takes one back. “It is not as easy as you must believe to distract people from wriggling shadows and additional eyes and all the strange things you say. Did you really believe I didn’t know? That you were hiding it that well?”

“Well, I don’t know.” Dale sounds more flustered than you’ve ever heard him. “Humans are so oblivious most of the time!”

“Not that oblivious!”

Dale throws his hands up. “Well, no one’s instigated a purge, have they? And Grandfather and Grandmother don’t know, do they?”

Your heart rate is slowly returning to normal and you grudgingly admit, “No. Although Grandfather did think I’d cursed you for a couple weeks.”

“He thought you cursed me?” 

“Yes!” you reply, exasperated that he didn’t even know. “After the hunt, where you did light knows what with the boar, he became convinced that I had cursed you or ensnared you with my ‘potions’. Perhaps while you were still recovering from your supposed illness. As a supposed practitioner of dark ritual or maybe even a summoner, he kept trying to exorcise me, which I had to make sure didn’t accidentally affect you.” When Dale just looks at you, obviously hearing this or putting the pieces together for the first time you can’t help, but feel as if you might be the one who has lost their mind. “You must remember when he practically threw a glass of holy water on us?”

Dale’s brow furrows. “…I did think that was a bit odd.”

You snort. “Yes, I would wager so.” Slowly, you realize you're laughing. You put a hand to your mouth but all it does is muffle the sound. Dale looks newly worried but you can’t stop. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that I knew.” Collapsing into a chair, you cover your face in your hands as you try to regain your composure. 

How is this happening? How had you managed to get so far along without realizing he didn’t know that you knew? Who does that say more about him or you?

After a moment or two, you sense him near you and he asks, “Are you alright?” He sounds so concerned, like he’s still worried the knowledge of what he is, even if it isn’t new to you, might be capable of breaking your mind or whatever he feared would happen.

“Yes, yes,” you finally sit back up, blinking in the light as you attempt to reassure him. “I will be. I simply need a moment.” Dale hesitates from where he’s leaning over you before turning to fetch a cup of water. Haltingly, he holds out to you. “Thank you,” you say as you wipe away the tears that had gathered in the corners of your eyes while laughing.

You sip it carefully as you pull the tattered remains of your composure around yourself once more. Dale watches you take the first couple of sips before he begins to pace in obvious agitation. He’s clearly waiting for you to finish the glass before saying whatever is so clearly on his mind. You’re content to take your time and make him wait after everything he’s put you through, seemingly without even realizing what you were doing.

After a minute, you set the glass down deliberately and Dale comes to a stop in front of you. “I don’t…” he starts to say before changing his mind. “If you know, then why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” you ask. He’s the one constantly doing incomprehensible things.

“Marrying me!” he says, rather emphatically, as though it should be obvious. He runs his hands through his hair. “Going through with this wedding! I don’t understand.” He sounds desperate to understand.

You feel of heat gather high on your cheeks, not having expected to have a light shown on your own actions so directly. “What do you mean? We’re betrothed. Getting married is the expected course of action.”

He gives you a flat look that says you’re not fooling him. “Try once more. I admit there were certain times where I did think you…” He looks at you, a distant look in his eyes as he remembers whatever particular instance. “Where I did think that you knew. Half a dozen times, I was sure you knew,” he continues, eyes intent once more, “but you didn’t do anything about it! You never revealed me or tried to exorcise me or even demand any sort of recompense for keeping it secret. You merely continued on as we had. You were still there, at my side.” He sighs and he looks so tired again. “And so I thought I must be wrong, that you couldn’t know.”

You're not sure what to say in the face of his conviction that you knowing what he is and you continuing to associate with him were so unlikely he’d discounted it out of hand. He made it sound like tolerating or using him was the most he’d expected. “I…”

“And you’re afraid of demons!” The words burst out of him. “So why would—?”

“I’m not afraid of you,” you reply because that’s certainly true. If the manner in which the shadows behind Dale are writhing in distress are any indication, the reassurance can’t hurt. You’re worried about how his nature makes life more complicated and what other people might do, but you’re long past the point of fearing he’d physically injure you on purpose.

“I heard you and Grandfather talking about Two,” Dale replies, as if that proves something. “How you feared them because of what they were. That night, when I remembered what I’d heard, I changed my mind again about what you knew.”

You stare at him before saying slowly, “Dale, I was afraid of Two because they were trying to kidnap and murder us. Their being a demon made them more dangerous, so yes, that made me fear them more than the others. You were who knows where fighting them on your own and I was worried about you.” If you thought Dale looked confused before, he looks downright confounded now. You keep talking, relishing in the opportunity to finally speak honestly about the attack, “However, you being a demon makes you stronger, which reassured me. I couldn’t say anything else because of Grandfather’s attitude, but I did not grow up in Northridge. I may not have met a demon before, but I didn’t live anywhere with the rigorous, studied suspicion and fear that Northridge cultivates.”

“The rest of the world is not Northridge,” Dale acknowledges having composed himself, “but it is not charitable in its view either. And it is not wrong in that opinion. I’ve been on the Surface before. No one has ever treated me in the manner you have after learning what I am. It was impossible to reconcile the person I got to know with someone who would want what humans understand demons to be.”

It’s not as though you can’t follow where he’s coming from. You haven’t told anyone else about what he is for a reason beyond just what Grandfather and Grandmother. You’d never even seriously considered telling any of your siblings because you know they wouldn’t understand. You want to ask further about the personal experience he’s alluding to but that isn’t what matters at this moment. “I…” You take a breath and finally say the obvious truth that you’ve never been able to say directly, even if you alluded to the sentiment right after the attack. “I do want to marry you.” Dale looks thunder-stuck. “Far more than I ever wanted to marry Dale before you took his place.”

“You do?” You’ve never seen Dale look so completely bewildered. “Why?”

“Because he was a selfish, mean, entitled prick.” The plain, honest words slip out without thought and Dale’s eyes widen. “Because you’re not. I like you.” You swallow and continue, “I think we get along well. I would have tolerated marrying him. You make me look forward to marriage.” 

It's a weight lifted to finally say those words, but they inevitably bring up your own confusion, your own lack of understanding of this Dale’s motivations and you can’t pass up the opportunity to ask. “But this is not just about why I have stuck to this facade. Why have you?” You still have no notion of what a demon might want. You’d only barely convinced yourself that Dale wanted this partnership since he was going along with it. He isn’t now. So perhaps you don’t know anything at all. “You could have stolen all you could from Dale and then disappeared to live your own life about a week after being here. You don’t have to be, to be,” you search for the words to define what’s he’s been doing, especially knowing he’s not been working toward the same end goal as you, “taking part in all these events, and playing dutiful grandson with Grandfather, Grandmother, or all the others.” You take a deep breath and add, with only a small shake to your voice, “Or being with me. Why are you still here?”

Dale opens his mouth, but no sound comes out as he stares at you.

Your shoulders slump in the face of his inability to give any reason, let alone a compelling one. “Although, I suppose there is no more wedding, is there? You’ve called it off, for all you haven’t left or told me why.” The prospect of the fall-out to come leaves you exhausted and hurt already. “I assume that leaving will be your next move.”

“No, no,” Dale starts to protest, “I…” Something changes in his expression as he searches for the words to say and this time, they come out steady, “Originally, I stayed because it was easy. I thought the best stroke of luck I’d had in my existence was when that imbecile broke himself opening an unguarded portal and I’d won the fight for his body.”

“Oh.” It had never even occurred to you that there might have been such an event. No matter what he does next, you’re grateful this demon is the one who won too.

“It’d been so long since I’d been up on the Surface,” Dale says wistfully. “I didn’t have a plan beyond getting here. I suppose, at first, I had considered taking what I could and leaving to make my own life. Except…” Your breath, your future hangs on that “except.” “I enjoy it here. Northridge, I mean, not just being out of the Depths. It’s somewhat impossible to know how much is experience and how much is borrowed memory, but I care for Grandfather and Grandmother. And for you. What is here in Northridge is more than I’d hoped for. A safe den, a loyal clan, a bountiful territory, an exemplary mate. Why would I go searching for better when it seemed I’d already found all I could want?”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

Dale seems so sincere but that only brings your mind back to what prompted this conversation. “Then why are you trying to stop the wedding?”

“Because I thought you didn’t know!” he protests. “I told myself that since I’d never out-right lied to you, that was good enough.” He sighs. “But I realized if my only reason for not telling you who you were even marrying was because you might make a choice I didn’t want, that it was rather despicable.”

You can’t help, but ask the obvious. “Then why didn’t you simply tell me instead of calling the wedding off?”

“Because I’m selfish too,” Dale says, “and I couldn’t bear for you to know the truth and look at me like—.” He breaks off, shaking his head.

He’s returned to not meeting your eyes. Tension has crawled back up his spine to settle in his shoulders. His arms are crossed and he still seems one wrong word away from running. As if Dale’s still waiting for you to reject him. Perhaps you need to make up for all the times you didn’t speak up before. It seems like a fair concession if the hope blooming in your chest is proven true. 

You stand up from your chair, crossing the remaining distance between you and Dale. You place gentle hands on his forearms and they loosen under your touch. Carefully you push those crossed arms down until they hang by his sides where you can entwine your fingers with his. You take advantage of the height he has on you to look up into his eyes, not even surprised to find more than just two. “Well, I do know.” Those glowing blue eyes stare back down at you with the same hope reflected in them. “And I still want to marry you. If you do.”

Dale’s answer is immediate and earnest, “I do. I want that. I want the life we spoke of building more than anything else I’ve ever thought to want.”

You nod, a smile breaking out across your face. “Good. Go-” He cuts you off with a kiss, which starts out light but grows in pressure when you kiss him back. He tries to lift a hand to your face, but instead the back of your own hand still held in his touches your cheek instead. You pull back to see the pout he makes as he stares at his hand, obviously unsure of whether to let yours go or to keep holding on. 

The sound of a door opening above you followed by disgruntled voices pops the bubble of privacy you’d been enclosed in. You sigh. “While we still need to have a full conversation, I think it can wait for tonight at the least, yes?” Dale nods eagerly. “Then I must return to getting ready.”

“And I must assure Grandfather my ‘bout of childish insanity’ is indeed over. I’ve never seen him so furious.” At the look of surprise on your face, Dale smiles. “Regardless of what he thought before, Grandfather certainly thinks well of you now. He repeatedly told me that this would be the worst decision I ever made if I went through with it. He’s refused to even tell Grandmother, more out of fear for me than for her.”

High on emotion and relief, you giggle, too pleased that Grandfather spoke so strongly in your favor. “Did he?”

“Yes,” Dales says as he leads you to the study door. “And it's not as though I could provide a solid defense when I knew he was right.” He pulls you into a solid embrace before letting you go with a final kiss pressed to your forehead. 

You pull the door open without looking away from him, not able to resist asking for one last reassurance, “Your word that you will be there at the other end of the aisle?”

Dale smiles. “Yes, sana, I give you my word that I will let nothing stand in the way of our wedding, not even myself.”

[Part Thirty-One]

[corviiids]

based on how i approach plotting ive come to the conclusion that even if i were morally and logically okay with becoming kira i would get the death note and think "okay, im going to make sure i come up with the perfect plan so i can't get caught", spend several months on it, refuse to execute it because it's not foolproof yet, and simply never get around to it. if ethics and reason didn't stop me from becoming kira then sheer procrastination would do the trick

[clowningaroundmars]

Hobie1610 pt. 3

part 3 has finally arrived!!! at a faster rate than part 2 but a bit of a wait nonetheless lol

not entirely sure how long this lil story will go on for but hope y'all are enjoying this ride regardless, whether it ends on the next part or in 3 more chapters ldfjkdhf

in this installment: thrilling action, a high stakes chase, and we get to learn more abt our beloved hobie jones! yippee!

>pt. 1 here<

>pt. 2 here<

♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧♤♧

By some miracle, Hobie did not mention the suit to Miles once they started texting semi-regularly.

Unfortunately, they also couldn't really make their lunch date (date? God, get it together, Morales. It is not a date…) as soon as Miles would have liked, due to a million different things getting in the way of them setting a solid day aside to chill together.

Just his luck, of course.

But in the hallways, Hobie actually deigned to give Miles a passing smile every now and then. They didn’t ever get to hang out like they did for those precious few moments on the first day of school, but Miles didn’t feel the crushing weight of guilt every time he saw Hobie in his same classroom anymore. What a relief!

So Miles was mostly okay with how things were going anyhow, even if the hangout ended up falling through and they both decided not to go in the end. He was able to patrol and do his homework in blissful peace for the first time in months.

… Kind of.

That look on Hobie’s handsome face as he looked down past Miles’ coat collar though…

That still ate away at an anxious part of Miles’ brain whenever he had the time to sit down and really let his worries manifest.

No time to think about that now, though. Miles was suited up again on a school night, hoping to get at least an hour’s worth of patrolling in before security at Visions noticed he was absent from his dorm room. He hoped Ganke would be able to cover for him like he always did.

It was yet another cold evening out in New York City, and Miles was steadily covering the edges of Brooklyn, heading towards Manhattan to do a quick sweep through Central Park like he did on occasion. There was always something going on in Manhattan, especially during the evening.

Miles decided it wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek before calling it a night and heading back to Visions.

So away he went-- now fully in his Spiderman element-- vaulting and soaring over buildings, showing off every now and then by doing silly flips and tricks mid-air for the opportunistic New Yorkers looking to snap their Spiderman Sighting of the day. A little social media promo never hurt anyone, after all…

Spiderman finally swung down onto a tree branch on the western side of the park from a street lamp and was just about to lower himself down as inconspicuously as he could, before immediately feeling the tingling electricity of his Spider Senses race up and down his spine, giving him the usual headache along with it.

He crouched down quietly on a branch and watched as a familiar lanky figure streaked across the path underneath him onto the grass and beyond.

Whoever this runner was, he was fast. And hot on his trail was a gang of burly bumbling assholes cursing up a blue streak as they gave chase.

Spiderman’s eyes stayed glued to the fast runner like they were a lifeline. His senses honed in on the person and he erupted out of the leaves of the tree with one mighty leap, sailing through the air to shoot a web out and swing his way on over to the excitement.

Several joggers, people walking dogs after work, and mothers with baby carriages exclaimed and shouted as they were barreled into by the gang of men trying to keep up with their moving target. The runner didn’t seem to be giving up, though, as their long legs sent them flying over bushes and rocks and lounging people as gracefully as a ribbon in the air.

It was indeed getting dark soon again, but the darkness didn’t really affect Spiderman’s senses at all. His mask helped him fine-tune his powerful vision and anticipate the runner’s next moves.

It looked as though they were trying to make their way up towards the Great Lawn from Cedar Hill, but whether the person was planning to make a break for the now-empty Delacorte Theatre or the Metropolitan Museum Of Art… or beyond? That was the million dollar question.

Spiderman didn’t want to lose the person in case they happened to just be a petty thief, since that would be a quick and easy problem to fix. But as he silently chased down the runner alongside (and unbeknownst) to the gang, his suspicions gave way to some other... ideas.

Namely, that the runner seemed young, a bit too young for someone to be pissing off this many fully-grown gang members.

He pushed through his confusion and made a break for the theatre the second he guessed that the runner was pivoting in that direction.

The trees were getting thicker the closer they got to the Belvedere Castle and Spiderman eventually resorted himself to hoofing it, mindful of sticking to the shadows of the foliage that surrounded them on all sides.

He was super grateful now more than ever that his suit happened to be his signature sleek black and red, rather than the tacky and hyper-visible reds and blues of many of his Spider counterparts (sorry Peter!)

Once he confirmed that the suspicious target was indeed planning on hiding in the bleachers of the massive amphitheatre, he shot up a web to hoist himself into the infrastructure from the tall stadium lights. From there, he positioned himself a bit closer to the fray, hearing the loud and heavy boots of the gang following the runner, not far behind.

Then, he squinted into the dusk as he watched one of the entrances from his perch up high... and almost choked on his own saliva!

In comes none other than Hobie Motherfucking Jones, streaking down several steps like a shooting star, clutching onto… something tucked under one of his arms. He was breathless, panting loudly, and heading straight for the Belvedere Lake.

Upon hearing the heavy bootfalls get ever closer with every passing second, it seemed that Hobie got the idea to attempt a last-minute juke by throwing himself underneath the stairs that faced the lake, tucking himself as tightly as he could under the massive stage at the center.

Spiderman watched all of this happening with wide eyes, holding his own breath in. He prayed that the ugly thugs didn’t see Hobie’s sneaky last-second move, but climbed up high onto the stadium lights and prepared to swing down anyhow, just in case.

What was Hobie even doing here, out at this hour? And what the hell did he manage to steal that was so important to these men anyways? It was quite a chase they were caught up in, running nearly two entire miles all the way up to the amphitheatre just to catch him, and that was only from what he could see when he swung into action.

The group split up and pulled out flashlights, determinedly searching the bleachers and corners as best they could while the sky rapidly darkened above them.

From right below the webbed crime-fighter, Hobie poked his head out from the shadows and took a peek.

No, no, duck back down! Spiderman wanted to shout, but he couldn’t.

No one knew he had followed them and he was safe high above the action where he balanced himself on the metal bars that housed the bulbs. His muscles tensed as the bright beam of light from one guy’s flashlight swept a little too close to Hobie’s head. Damnit.

Spiderman couldn’t just sit there all day! He had a friend to save, stolen item be damned!

He rechecked his web shooters furtively and took aim.

He set his sights on another stadium light pole across from the stage, figuring that if he was quick and agile enough, he could time his swing well enough to scoop Hobie up from where he was hidden and avoid any detection. Hopefully.

Seemed like a solid enough plan though, until Hobie just. Shot out from his hiding place all of a sudden, the heels of his boots rapping loudly against the cement and echoing all around the stage as he made a beeline for the lakefront.

Shit!!!

Miles wanted to kill him. Those guys didn’t even suspect he was hiding where we was in the first place!

... Okay, plan B!

Spiderman’s brain whirred at breakneck speeds as he watched the thugs exclaim loudly and give chase yet again, this time much closer to Hobie than they ever were before.

Without thinking, he swung down from his perch and bowled over a couple of men in his haste to simply just… grab Hobie like a damsel in distress and fireman-carry him back around the gang to get a good line of web onto a nearby pole.

The men all cursed and shouted in surprise of course, flashlight beams waving around everywhere.

One of them even yelled, “what the hell was that?!” like a character in one of his dad’s favorite cheesy slasher movies.

Spiderman was too fast for them, a black blur simply whizzing by as he grabbed Hobie and hoisted the both of them up into the air with a mighty leap. Hobie yelped in surprise, grunting from the effort, and seemed to let whatever he stole slip out of his hands which then clattered loudly onto the ground below.

The thugs rejoiced then, shaking fists at Hobie and his rescuer as they flew up to the top of a tree and detached themselves so they could fall onto the stadium light opposite from Spiderman’s initial hiding spot.

Spiderman didn’t stop until he attached another web up to the lights and dangled there for a bit. Adrenaline still coursed through his veins as he shifted Hobie off of his shoulders and let him slide slowly onto his side, his friend’s wiry arms clutching him tightly.

They both watched with rapt attention at the goings-on several feet below them.

The thugs congregated around the fallen item, picking it up and turning it this way and that. It looked like a briefcase, though with the low lighting it really could’ve been anything. It was only when one of them-- the biggest and burliest of them all-- shouted out another colorful swear word that Hobie then seemed to come back to himself again.

He squeezed Spiderman’s shoulders with his arms and kicked at him. They swung a bit from the wiggling.

“Ouch!” Spiderman hissed, as quietly as he could. He was hoping the dark dusk would conceal their position now as long as they made No Noises, but even that wasn’t guaranteed.

“Go, go, go, go, man! Let’s get out of here!!” Hobie hissed right back into his ear, his face mere centimeters away from Spiderman’s mask.

Spiderman stubbornly ignored the heat radiating out from his face at that realization and jerked this way and that, looking for an easy escape from their conundrum.

Flashlight beams danced around the ground before finally swinging up to the trees and catching sight of a pair of shoes dangling in the sky.

The biggest and meanest one of the bunch pulled something out of his pocket and took aim.

Bullet! Spiderman’s senses screamed into his cerebellum.

“Goddamn,” he huffed ruefully as the shots rang out. Hobie panicked. “Bullets for us? That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”

Hobie clung onto his hero for dear life. “Brother, if you do not get a move on from here, we are both gonna get turned into fish filets!” He shouted into Spiderman’s ear.

“Ow. Okay,” Spiderman grumbled, sticking himself to the side of the pole they dangled from and readjusting Hobie so that he clung onto his back instead.

He took a deep breath and narrowly dodged a bullet that whizzed unnervingly close to their heads. Hobie yelled again.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Spiderman began, speaking quickly. “Hold on, okay? Hold on tight. Just hold on and do not let me go for even a second!”

“On it!” Hobie shouted back, legs kicking a bit before wrapping themselves tightly around Spiderman’s torso.

They both took a breath and then Spiderman jumped, gaining some air before twin webs erupted from his web shooters-- aimed directly towards the seating area entrance.

Together, he and Hobie rocketed from their airborne position towards their escape route once the fluids connected to solid architecture. To his credit, Hobie only whimpered a little bit through the ride.

The thugs had no chance! They stumbled on tired, aching legs towards the very door the two teens had left out of, complaining and cursing some more as they searched through the steps and made their way out onto the theatre’s general admission and concessions area.

They searched and searched through the bushes and trees, going so far as to even check the sculptures near the structure.

After several tense moments of gruff shouting back-and-forth, the search eventually died down until only a couple of the men were left sweeping the area once more. The others had already given up their fruitless endeavor and called it a night.

“Fucking kids, man. What the hell,” Spiderman heard one of them grumble before kicking at the Romeo and Juliet statue angrily and following the rest of his cohorts down the path towards the Great Lawn again.

Hobie and Spiderman let out matching sighs of relief then, happy to have given the men the slip by managing to hide behind the giant 3D Delacorte Theatre sign right above the box offices. Lucky for them, most people don’t think to search behind lit-up signs, so they went completely undetected.

“… Wanna let me know what you were doing here this whole time? You could’ve gotten killed!” Spiderman breathed. He wanted his tone to be sharper, more authoritative… but he was just so glad to see his new friend still in one piece instead of riddled with more holes than a chunk of swiss cheese!

Hobie scoffed, tucking a loc behind his ear and sitting back. Thanks to the lighting of the sign and the other park lights in the area, Spiderman could see him digging around in his coat pocket and fishing out-- a USB drive?

Hobie held it up triumphantly, sleepy down-turned eyes glistening with pride.

“I got it! Suckers! Screw them by the way, I’m not the thief, if that’s what you’re wondering,”

Well. He was sneaky, alright. Spiderman had to hand that to him, at the very least.

He sat back on his heels as well and exhaled. “Fine. I believe you. What’s on that drive?”

Hobie squinted at him then, really giving him a good once-over now that the excitement had officially died down. “…Damn. You’re Spiderman,”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, hi, nice to meet you, I’m your friendly neighborhood Sp-- ugh, seriously man, just tell me what all of that was back there or else I’m webbing you up and calling the cops.”

“Hey!” Hobie objected. “Like I said already, I’m the good guy here. I snagged this from those guys because I caught them snoopin’ around the museum over that way. I followed them and found out they were stealing this!”

Spiderman bobbed his head. “Okay? And what’s on it?”

Hobie turned the drive over a bit in his hands, admiring it. “Most likely? Security codes, schedules, maps. I’ve been uh… investigating those dudes for a while after watching them sniff around the museum for a few days now. It looks like they were just art thieves plannin' a heist, so I jumped on the opportunity to deliver justice myself.”

Hobie’s mischievous grin was met by Spiderman’s disapproving stare.

“And why didn’t you just call security and let them know? Like I said, super dangerous thing you did back there! If I wasn’t there to save you, you could’ve died, man.”

Hobie pocketed his USB drive again and rolled his eyes. “Y’know, for a vigilante hero with cool superpowers, you sure are a square.”

Spiderman sat up and placed a hand on his chest, feigning hurt. “Oof, ow. That’s mean,”

“Yeah, it is, but you know I’m right. If a kid like me walked up to some cops and tried to warn them of a possible art heist, you just know those pricks’ll laugh in my face and do literally nothing about it. I had to take matters into my own hands!” Hobie jutted his chin out defiantly.

Well. Couldn't really argue with that, especially considering PDNY’s less-than-stellar track record of taking preventative measures most times. All that they would most likely do is nod along to whatever Hobie was telling them and chuckle, shaking their heads as they walk away. Not their problem.

Spiderman rubbed his chin. “Point taken," he conceded. "So what’s your plan now?”

Hobie glanced around, as if he was checking for any eavesdroppers. “I’m gonna submit some photos to a journalist I met online before turning this in back to the museum. The journalist’ll help get those guys behind bars once a story's published and some actual adults talk to the cops. I am going to go collect my reward,”

Spiderman blinked. He had a bunch of questions swimming in his head, but the first question out of his mouth was, “what reward?”

“The reward for turning in precious security info, genius!” Hobie tapped at his forehead with a finger and grinned. “If I get to negotiate with them, I can get some money to save up and-- uh. Nevermind. Listen, are you gonna rat me out or not?”

Miles’ brow creased behind his mask. “… I don’t think I will. Sounds like you’re doing the right thing… mostly.”

Hobie cheered silently. “Yes! Okay, I take it back, Spidey. You are cool!”

Spiderman sighed. “But first, I need to know you’re gonna be safe. Like, actually, and that you’re not gonna get followed home.”

Hobie shrugged nonchalantly and pushed more locs out of his face again. “Yeah, you can walk me home if you want,”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, that’s not the only thing I mean. I need you to promise me that you’re not gonna get into stupid stunts like this again. That was so dangerous and you really could’ve gotten hurt!”

Hobie exhaled as well. He stared intensely into the mask’s giant white lenses for a beat, making Spiderman shift uncomfortably.

Then, he held up his pinkie. “… Fine. I won’t do stupid shit like this again. I promise.”

Spiderman blinked a few more times and hooked his pinkie onto Hobie’s. “Uh. Okay, cool! Cool, that’s what I wanna hear, considering keeping New Yorkers safe is my job! I just wanna see you safe, that’s all. No more art heists, you gotta leave that to the professionals to handle,”

“What, professionals like you? You might’ve not even gotten to them in time before they snuck off with like millions of dollars worth of art, bro.”

“Anyone ever tell you you are just so mean? Dontcha have a little faith in me? The ‘vigilante hero with cool superpowers’?” Spiderman shot back.

They both laughed.

“Seriously, though. I do appreciate the fact that you saved my ass back there,” Hobie admitted, eyes cast downwards for a second. “I was actually gonna throw this thing into the lake and hope this drive got eaten by like… a fish or something.”

“And what about you?” Spiderman smiled despite himself.

“Well,” Hobie shrugged. “If I died, I died. I guess,”

It was Spiderman’s turn to scoff now. “You have a family, man. Don’t be ridiculous. You have friends and family that would miss you!”

Hobie’s expression turned dark, his entire face shadowing for a second before being replaced by cool detached nonchalance. A slight hint of annoyance stayed put underneath.

“… My family’s barely my family. I don’t have any friends, either. Don't worry about me.” Hobie admitted in a clipped tone. He stood up abruptly and started doing some casual stretches.

Spiderman stood up as well, knowing fully well how this song and dance was going to go.

He would never admit it out loud, but he’d seen his fair share of self-destructive citizens throwing themselves into the middle of danger in the short time he’d been doing this whole vigilante thing. He had talked many a melancholy or manic person from tossing themselves off of multiple different buildings, different bridges, stopped them from “falling” onto train tracks.

And as loath as he is to admit it, this Hobie’s particular brand of cool detachment was entirely too familiar to him as well.

A flash of his uncle Aaron’s face lit up a part of his brain that he hadn’t really allowed himself to acknowledge since that fateful day. He quickly stamped that out.

He cleared his throat and rubbed at his neck. “… Well. That sounds pretty depressing, man.”

He didn’t notice Hobie’s shoulders hitch at that phrase.

“But,” Spiderman continued, “You got people out here who care about you, even if you don’t know it. You’re still so young, you could be ending your life before you even meet, like, your favoritest person in the whole world, right? So just do me a quick favor, take care of yourself. For me. Live long enough to meet your favorite person, alright?”

Spiderman put on his best comforting expression that he could despite the mask most likely getting in the way of Hobie fully seeing it. He hoped his words were enough to convince him not to dive off the deep end, at least not anytime soon.

It seemed to work at least a little bit, because Hobie looked back at him with a much warmer-- albeit hesitant-- expression.

“Can I ask you something?” Hobie finally said after a few moments of silence.

“Uh, sure.” Spiderman replied.

“Do you know about a kid named Miles Morales at all?”

The air was sucked out of Spiderman’s lungs right then as he floundered like a fish for a minute, brain working into overdrive to make his answer sound both intelligent and convincing.

“U-uh, maaaybeee? I dunno, I meet a lot of New Yorkers everyday and I don’t get many names, yanno? S-sounds familiar, but sorr--”

“I knew it,” Hobie exhaled a laugh and surged forward to embrace Spiderman with both arms.

Spiderman stood frozen in his place, arms held in mid-air as he worked to process this.

“Uh. What--”

Spiderman felt Hobie’s chin dig into the side of his cheek a little as he turned his lips to his ear. “Your secret’s safe with me, by the way. I’m not telling anyone,”

Miles felt his whole world turn on its axis before shattering completely.

Oh no, no, no, no, no! Goddamnit!

Miles pushed Hobie off and stepped back, holding his hands up. “Oh hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. I dunno what you’re thinking or who you think I am, but--!”

Hobie sighed loudly. “Miles, I saw your suit.”

The world screeched to a halt.

Hobie picked his gaze back up off of his feet and even seemed apologetic, almost. “I, uhm. Like, back on the roof. At Visions. I wasn’t… a hundred percent sure I saw it, since it could’ve been any logo at all, but. Well, you’re a pretty bad liar too, y’know that, right?”

Miles sucked in a slightly shaky breath, gulping loudly. “Uh. W-well,”

Hobie smiled shyly. “You, uh… you’re like around the same height as Miles Morales, anyways. And you sure sound a lot like him, too.”

Damn. Damn it all.

Miles spun this way and that, placing his hands atop his head as he panicked slightly. “H-Hobie, you cannot tell anyone else about this, whatsoever. Do you understand? No one. At all. Or we’re both dead!”

Hobie held his hands up, lines creasing in his face. “Look bro, you’ve got secrets of mine too. We pinkie promised, remember? I don’t break promises.”

Miles didn’t point out that the promise was so that Hobie would stop getting himself into stupidly dangerous situations, but he accepted it anyways, albeit reluctantly.

“D-do… do you actually, like actually promise me you’ll never breathe a word about this to anyone? Ever? At all?”

Hobie held up his right hand into the air, as if taking an oath. “I, MJ, solemnly swear to never breathe a single word to anyone about your super secret identity, so help me god.”

Miles planted his fists on his hip and shook his head. “Oh my god,” he exhales on a shaky laugh.

“Don’t you believe me? What would I have to gain by selling you out? Oh,” Hobie stops suddenly, perking up. “We could even work together! I got me my sweet camera and my extensive connects, man. Think about it!”

“No, no. Hobie. Stop that, man. I’m not putting you into any danger after I just saved your skinny butt. Spiderman doesn’t do sidekicks anyways,”

Hobie looked a bit put out, but shrugged anyways. “Well, I mean… think about it sometime. We could seriously take down criminal activity around here, if you’re down! And, uh. You do have my number,”

Miles looked up and took a deep breath. “Mmnyes, I do. I do have your number. That’s… I mean you’re not wrong about that. Listen, I think it’s getting pretty late and we should both be heading back home now, though.”

The corners of Hobie’s mouth curled up mischievously. “True, true. It is a school night, after all.”

Miles couldn’t stop grinning despite the heavy anvil that threatened to burst out of his chest. “Yep, yes it is! Okay, time to get you home now. C’mon, let’s go.”

Miles moved to step into Hobie’s space and carry him on his back again so he could lower the both of them down from the lip of the theatre roof.

But before that happened, he felt Hobie place a cold but strong hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

Miles looked up inquisitively and felt his breath catch in his throat as he felt those same hands slowly slide up the smooth spandex of his suit, up his shoulders, and then they stopped at his neck, at the seam of where his suit and mask met.

The entire thing probably only took a few seconds to do, but to Miles it felt like eons passed as he felt every single muscle twitch and the pulse beating underneath Hobie’s skin while he ran those fingers up his arms.

He was standing so close to him! Oh god!

The entire ordeal was unbearably intimate, and Miles could barely stop the shudder that wracked his body suddenly.

Hobie’s soft lips were slightly parted, the lighting of the sign next to them caught in the dark brown portals that were his eyes.

“U-uhm. Sorry, this is weird...” he mumbled quietly. But his hands didn't move.

All around them, crickets started their soothing chorus.

Here they were, right behind the giant lettering of the Delacorte Theatre, intertwined in each other’s arms on a cold night-- and Miles’ core body temperature has never felt hotter before. He felt like he could melt steel, the way this night was going. He didn’t know when his hands raised to grasp onto Hobie’s arms, but they must’ve done it of their own accord because Miles then felt himself squeezing softly onto Hobie’s biceps.

Slowly, painstakingly, and carefully… Hobie made his move.

Every centimeter of the mask being pushed up was accompanied by a soft look that asked-- no, it begged-- for permission to continue. His hands seemed to move on their own eventually, as he slid the mask up over the back of Miles' head and then eased it up off of his nose.

Hobie wore a soft look of determination then, that fully came into view again once Miles felt his mask slide right up off of his eyes. Hobie’s soft hands eventually fell away, mask in one hand, no sounds in the air except for the wildlife of the park starting to wake now that the night has officially fallen.

Miles wasn’t sure why he did, but he held his breath.

After a few seconds of appraising gazes from each other, pupils meeting pupils, exchanging a million words a second with just a few looks… Hobie grinned beautifully.

“Damn. There you are,”

Miles felt a plume of heat erupt from his gut and rush up to his face. “Uh. Hm, y-yep. Here I am,” he blinked back at Hobie with his big brown eyes.

Hobie had a look of pure joy on his face before it started to melt away suddenly. “You know… I should backstab you for abandoning me out of nowhere that one time, though… I really should...”

The moment collapsed like an undone web, a delicate thing now completely destroyed as Miles leaped up in indignation.

“Hobie!”

Hobie stepped back and laughed loudly. “Re-lax! I’m not gonna actually do it. But. Y’know.”

“And if you do, I’ll leave you webbed up to that billboard near Visions,” Miles threatened, mostly light-heartedly.

“Psshh, and then get my mom’s two million lawyers on your ass? Good luck,”

“As if they could ever catch me! I’m Spiderman!”

Just as easily as they had stepped out of being just kids for a moment, they stepped right back into it, bickering like they'd been friends since forever.

Miles lowered the both of them from the sign and they headed towards the eastern side of the park, making their way over to Hunter’s Gate. They bickered and bantered back and forth the entire way there, and it was only once they made it to the outer gates of the park that Miles stopped them both.

With his mask back on and other New Yorkers now milling nearby, Miles made it a point to lower his voice as he turned to Hobie and puffed his chest out heroically.

“So, random citizen. Where are we off to today? I told you I’d take you back home safely, and that’s what I’m gonna do.”

“’Cause you promised, right?” Hobie smirked, tucking his hands into his coat pockets.

“Uhm. Yeah, yeah. I did. So, lead the way!” Spiderman made a grand ushering gesture, and Hobie chuckled good-naturedly as he stepped aside and exited Central Park.

“You gonna walk me home, Spiderman?” Hobie threw him a side-long glance.

“Yyyeah…? Why? You’d rather swing home?”

“I liked swinging, actually. Yeah,” Hobie stopped where he was on the sidewalk and nodded with an air of finality. “Yeah… let’s swing!”

Spiderman felt his heart do a few somersaults in his chest before he gestured towards his shoulders. Hobie quickly assumed the position, long lanky arms wrapping around him and leaning his body weight against Spiderman’s side.

Spiderman shot up a web to a nearby street lamp and gave his friend one more glance.

“You sure?” He asked again, really making sure that Hobie was okay with this. Not many people really liked swinging, which was understandable. Even Miles wasn't the biggest fan of it at times.

Hobie chuckled and ignored the onlookers as they slowly ambled past the two, throwing the teens questioning glances as they made their way past them.

“Yeah, I am! Let’s go,”

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Miles: Do you actually actually really like on your LIFE promise that you’re not ginna tell a soul about… well…

Miles: gonna*

MJ: Yes, Miles. I PROMISE [eyeroll emoji]

Miles: I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE

MJ: Do you actually, though? ;)

Miles: No. But I can find out… I got connects

MJ: Uh huh. I’ll tell your “connects” that if you don’t take me out on that promised lunch date, our friendly neighborhood Spiderman just might be the next trending topic on ALL social media apps again very soon……..

Miles: Oh my god. You are Evil. I can’t believe this. My next arch nemesis… damn

Miles: What a killer plot twist. The greatest foe I have yet to face happens to be none other than one of my very own classmates

Miles: It be ya own people

From his family’s Lower Manhattan penthouse, Hobie laughs out loud as he reads the text messages, ignoring all of the curious glances thrown his way by various members of his team.

From Miles’ own humble dorm room at Visions, he laughs aloud as well.

[trensu]

do you think you'll put "Stasis in darkness" on AO3 eventually?

see, when the idea first came to me, I hadn't really planned on doing anything with it because I wasn't sure if I could make it work. there's a level of gravitas in the relationship between a god and their devoted servant that I didn't think would translate well to steddie because, let's be real, those boys are goofy dorks. but the idea wouldn't leave me alone so I typed up the original post in an attempt to work it out of my system and move on.

(the post kind of blew up, which I was not expecting at all!! like, not even a little bit! i post all sorts of rough little ideas for my own amusement and I've been able to do that without drawing much attention until that point.)

Anyway, I wouldn't have done much with it but @acowardinmordor left some comments/tags/what have you that helped me nail down the setting in my head which really opened the door for me to explore how the story could progress. (apologies, strife, I'm not sure I ever properly thanked you for that burst of inspiration, so please accept this shoutout as an expression of gratitude). And the amazing @ent-is-indecisive allowed me to rant about it which really helped flesh out the story. Seriously, there are elements and lore coming up that would not have existed if it weren't for ent. (and thank you once again ent for the ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL fanart you made for the reveal scene, I'm still overcome with joy whenever I think about it!).

Once it got to that point, I knew I wanted it to be a self-contained story and I was afraid that if I did a multi-chapter fic I'd lose the thread and never make it to the ending I want the fic to have. (no, the end scene hasn't been written yet but I KNOW what it's going to be and I hope everyone will love it as much as i do). So I promised myself that I was not going to post it on ao3 until the whole thing was written out completely.

However, I occasionally need a confidence/motivation boost so I've been posting consecutive parts of the rough draft here. you have no idea how much the people who reblogged with tags or left comments have helped me fight off the discouragement my brain likes to bog me down with; off the top of my head, @godsweakestboy , @redfreckledwolf, @fuctacles , @spectrum-spectre , and @lawrencebshoggoth have given me lovely, enthusiastic words of encouragement. and they're only the ones I can think of at this moment. there's so many other people who've done this, so if you've ever left me nice tags or comments, please know that I've read every single one of them repeatedly whenever I need to get over a slump. I'm so grateful for all of you!

Anyway, all this is to say yes! It is going to be posted as a oneshot on ao3 once I've finished writing it. <3

[suddencolds]

The Worst Timing | [4/?]

happy friday, everyone! here is part 4 (5.3k words) as a little pre-valentines-day installment :) [part 1] is here! this chapter was a pain to edit; i think i deleted + rewrote about a fifth of it in the revision process

anyways, i promised this chapter would be the wedding, so... please enjoy the wedding

this is an OC fic - here is a list of everything I've written w these two!

Summary: Yves invites Vincent to a wedding, in France, where the rest of his family will be in attendance. It's a very important wedding, so he's definitely not going to let anything—much less the flu—ruin it. (ft. fake dating, an international trip, downplaying illness, sharing a hotel room)

—

It’s a hectic morning.

Yves wakes up with the sinking realization that the medicine he took yesterday has worn off entirely. That is to say, he wakes up with the kind of unshakeable exhaustion he only feels when he’s coming down with something bad. His head is throbbing—sharp, cutting pain lances through his skull as soon as he finds it in himself to get out of bed.

All of that is inconsequential. He takes two pills from the cold/flu medicine blister pack with a generous few sips of water, brushes his teeth, washes his face in the sink with water cold enough to jolt him awake, and heads out.

He finds Aimee early, to ask her if she needs any help with anything. Then he makes himself available to the relatives that need him. There’s a last minute printing issue with the seating cards, so he goes through all of them again, finds the ones that are misprinted, talks extensively with the hotel’s front desk to explain what selection he needs to get reprinted and why, gets redirected towards the hotel’s business center, and finally gets them reprinted properly in one of the storerooms in the back. He lines the cards up and cuts them manually with a paper cutter he finds in one of the conference rooms on the first floor.

Then he takes a shuttle to the wedding venue to help set out all the seating cards according to a seating plan Genevieve texts him, but it’s windy enough outside that he has to find a way to weigh them all down. The venue has card holder stands, thankfully, but he doesn’t figure that out until he spends a good fifteen minutes asking around for them.

Then he waits twenty minutes in the cold for the shuttle back—the shuttles are thankfully in operation, but they’re running infrequently enough at this hour to be a slight inconvenience. By the time he gets on the shuttle, he’s shivering hard, even in his jacket, and his hands are almost numb from the cold.

The temperature certainly doesn’t help with the pressure in his sinuses, or with the sore throat that he’s had for a few days now. Perhaps it’s a blessing that the shuttle is near-empty save for him, because no one is there to question it when he ducks into his elbow with every loud, wrenching sneeze, or the coughing fit that almost inevitably follows.

When he gets back, he finds a sewing kit for Roy’s sister, Solaine—they don’t sell them at the convenience store downstairs, but he finds some in one of the tourist shops on the opposite end of the first floor of the hotel—for some last minute fixes to the way it’s hemmed. He delivers some safety pins from Victoire to one of his aunts, picks up breakfast pastries from the café across the street for his parents.

He takes a quick, hot shower, hot enough that the entire bathroom steams up because of it, and hopes that no one can hear the way every sneeze sounds so terribly, unnecessarily loud, even in the presence of his rapidly depleting voice. He rehearses his speech from memory and then rehearses it again, thinking through his notes on the pauses and the reflections. He irons his suit out, for good measure.

If he stops and lingers too long, it becomes quickly evident just how exhausted he is, just how unwell he feels when there’s nothing strictly keeping him on his feet. So instead, he makes himself useful where he can, busies himself with whatever he finds, if only because it’s the best distraction he can think of—if only because it’s the one distraction he has the luxury to take.

—

Lunch is a quick affair—he’s not especially hungry, and there will be more than enough food at the reception, so he grabs two pastries from downstairs, a coffee with two shots of espresso, and heads back up. Sitting down and eating them in the hotel room is somehow worse than running errands—like this, he can’t chalk his exhaustion up to his hectic morning, can’t attribute the heavy, shivery feeling that’s been following him all day the cold weather outside. 

Three more hours until the wedding. Anticipation always feels the worst, like this, when it’s nearly inseparable from worry—just a tangle of emotions in his chest.

He exhales.

Vincent is off—somewhere. Getting lunch, maybe, or getting ready for the wedding somewhere else. Yves has exchanged maybe all of twenty words with him this morning—do you know if our room has a sewing kit? Or, I’m going to stop by the café downstairs. Do you want me to get you anything?

Truthfully, Yves isn’t feeling much better today. His nose is running a little less now, thanks to the cold medicine, but the headache that he’s had all morning hasn’t gotten any less persistent. Even with his suit jacket on, he still can’t quite manage to get warm. He’s sneezing a little less, but each sneeze catches him off guard, harsh and sudden and embarrassingly loud.

But Vincent—who is, on average, unusually perceptive—hasn’t said anything about any of it. Yves tries not to think too hard about it. The less Vincent is worried about him, the better. Maybe he’s just preoccupied with other things.

He finishes his pastries at the small coffee table in the living room, downs half of his coffee, and then leans back in his chair and shuts his eyes.

His head hurts. He feels dizzy, even though he’s sitting perfectly still—as if the ground beneath him isn’t quite as steady as it should be—a strange feeling of vertigo. Surely if he sits here for just awhile longer, that feeling will go away.

He doesn’t fall asleep, exactly, but it’s a close thing. The discomfort doesn’t let up, either—no amount of massaging his temples seems to make the headache any better, and no amount of shuteye seems to do anything to lessen the exhaustion he feels. Maybe if he takes a nap he’ll wake up feeling passably fine. But he thinks it’s just as likely that he’ll get woken up early—by a phone call, or a text, or a knock on the door—to be told that he’s needed somewhere, and that alone is enough of a deterrent to keep him from properly falling asleep.

From somewhere at the edge of consciousness, he hears footsteps out in the hallway.

Someone’s here, then. He should let them in. But before he can bring himself to stand up and head over to the door, he hears the sound of the room card being inserted into its slot, hears the click of the door as it unlocks.

Someone—Vincent—shuts the door quietly behind him. When he spots Yves, he looks a little surprised.

“I didn’t think I’d find you here,” he says.

Yves blinks. His face feels unusually hot. “I got lunch,” he says, clearing his throat. “Well, I fidished it, but if I’d known you’d be getting back, I would’ve gotten somethidg for you.”

“I’m surprised you made it back,” Vincent says, leaving his shoes in a neat line at the door. “Are you done putting out all the fires now?” Yves laughs, though it turns into a cough. “For the foreseeable future, yes. Sorry i— hhH!” He twists over his shoulder, away from Vincent, to cover the sneeze in a manner that does not come at the expense of his suit jacket. “hHh-! iiDDzschh-IEW! snf-! Sorry I’ve barely been around this mornidg.”

Vincent is his own person—Yves has no doubt that he’s entirely self-sufficient when it comes to travel—but still, Yves is the only person Vincent really knows here. He’s not sure he can claim he’d be good company in his current state, but he feels like maybe he ought to be around more often—to translate, or to serve as the conversational buffer, or something else.

“It’s no problem,” Vincent says, frowning. “You were busy.”

“Still. If we were actually datidg, I think this would make me a slightly terrible boyfriend.”

“If we were actually dating, I would understand that you have important things in your life to attend to,” Vincent says.

Yves laughs. “Like cutting sixty sheets of paper into even rectangles?”

“Is that what you were out doing all morning?”

“Among other things.”

“Then yes,” Vincent says. He stops just short of the coffee table where Yves is sitting. “Are you finally off of paper-cutting duty?”

“God, I hope so. Weddings are always so hectic, even if you’re only peripherally idvolved. It’s like everyone’s worried about things going wrong beforehand, but then when you finally get to them, they always go fine.”

“Have you been to a lot of weddings in your life?”

Yves considers this. “Cobpared to the average person? Probably.”

“Then you should listen to your own advice,” Vincent tells him. 

“What?”

“It’s going to be fine.”

Yves blinks. If Vincent can tell that he is nervous after a three minute conversation with him, then Yves must really not be doing a good job at hiding it.

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he says. He really is tired. Maybe another cup of coffee, or two, will help—he can hardly think of anything more mortifying than nodding off halfway through the vows. “I don’t think I’ll forgive mbyself if it doesn’t.”

—

It’s a near-perfect wedding.

The weather is as temperate as it gets at this time of year. It’s sunny out, and brisk enough that no one feels stuffy in their suit jackets and their summer dresses.

The wedding venue is like something out of a storybook—the white stone paths, arcing around a circular fountain, the water a clear, searing blue; the rows and rows of flowers that crowd around it. Flowers—roses, peonies, tulips, gardenias—line the walkways, strung up over arches in crisscrossing rows of sprawling green leaves.

When Aimee and Genevieve walk down the aisle, Leon grins; Victoire turns away to wipe at her eyes. When they say their vows, Yves feels a tightness in his chest, a fierce sort of pride. He knew, of course, that this moment would make him emotional.

But nothing compares to seeing them here, right here, smiling. Aimee’s hair is half up, half down, held in place with a half moon clip that winks white under the sunshine. Genevieve is wearing a long white dress—her hair is braided into a crown, threaded with flowers, a translucent lace veil settling over her shoulders. The afternoon sunlight trickles over them, gleaming. And Yves—

Yves has always believed in love.

Perhaps it’s overly idealistic—he’s certainly been told as much before—but he believes in it still. He believed in it even before he started dating Erika, and he believed in it after they broke up, too. It’s not so much the idea that people can be soulmates, more the idea that people can spend thirty or fifty or seventy years together and not tire of each other, the idea that the little mundanities of life might be made special in the presence of someone whose existence sublimates them endlessly into interest. The idea that two people who may not ever fully understand each other might try, ceaselessly, to get close. 

He remembers: hearing about Genevieve, over text and over call; at first peripherally, but then frequently. He regrets, sometimes, that he wasn’t there more for the both of them, that he could only help from an ocean away with celebrations and holidays and special events, that he still doesn’t know Genevieve as well as he’d like to.

But a part of him thinks, now, that maybe it was a privilege, too, watching from afar. Hearing about the dates secondhand, from Aimee, all of it filtered through her own excitement—hearing Aimee talk about everything that left an impression on her. It would have been different, of course, if he had really been there. But in a way, it is a little fitting that his first impression of Genevieve—his first mental portrait of her—was by someone who was already already half in love with her.

And he remembers: Aimee, unusually quiet one night over Facetime, sitting cross legged in the living room of their new apartment. The world, dark outside through the living room windows, even though for him it was only mid afternoon. The way she’d smiled, wistful, staring off into the distance at some point he couldn’t see. I think I might marry her, she had said.

She had said it like she was certain. He finds himself going back to that moment, to her certainty. He’s always wondered—how had she known? How had she been so sure of it, even then? 

But the way Genevieve takes Aimee’s hands, during the vow—the way her hands tremble slightly with it, the particular carefulness with which she handles the ring—all of it makes him think that he’s been right to believe in this, in them, in love. After all, what more convincing proof is there than this?

—

All in all, it is nearly perfect.

Nearly, save for how unwell he feels, how self conscious he is about not making it expressly known. Yves shivers through the entire ceremony, occasionally lifting the collar of his suit jacket to muffle a harsh, wrenching sneeze into the fabric. He’ll get it dry cleaned later. Beside him, Vincent looks to him, his head tilted in question—and, after Yves smiles apologetically at him—says nothing.

He makes it through, as a combination of everything—the adrenaline, the cold medicine, the four espressos he’d had this morning and the energy drink he’d downed right before the ceremony to keep himself awake. 

He doesn’t have a thermometer, doesn’t know what kind of temperature he’s running, but he has a hunch that it’s higher than it should be. It’s freezing outside—cold enough that he can’t keep himself from shivering, even when he tries—but no one else seems to be as cold as he is. He can only hope, now, that no one else notices him ducking into his jacket, periodically, to catch another sneeze, or wiping his nose on the back of his hand to keep it from openly running.

The world looks fever-bright, fuzzy around some edges but unusually sharp around others. He’s awake, but in the sort of uncomfortable, all-consuming way where it feels like he’s too nervous to get any sleep at all.

He feels only half-present during the cocktail hour, while Aimee and Genevieve take their pictures. He thinks he should make himself useful somehow—help with positioning props for photos or with setting up the proper lighting or whatever else—or, at the very least, converse with the relatives that he hasn’t had much of a chance to catch up with yet.

Instead, he sits, half hunched over at one of the side tables, and tries not to shiver too visibly. His head hurts with the sort of sharp, incessant pain that makes it near-impossible to focus on anything else. 

“Are you okay?” Vincent asks him. 

Yves looks over to him. Vincent looks concerned—his eyebrows are furrowed, his mouth set into a frown—and Yves—

Yves considers it, for a moment: telling Vincent the truth. That it’s taking everything in him to appear even remotely presentable. That a part of him is nervous that he’ll crash before he gives his speech. That he might have overestimated his own ability to get through four more hours of this, outside in the cold.

“Of course,” he says instead, with the best smile he can muster, because what else is there to say?

He doesn’t end up having any drinks, even though he’s usually a fan of cocktails. Leon offers him one, and when Yves shakes his head, shrugs and heads off to find someone else, which Yves thinks is probably the best. He’s a little too out of it to keep tabs on where all the others are—there are enough people that it’d be hard to spot everyone in the first place, but like this, it feels impossible.

And Vincent is… surprisingly, absent, for much of it. Yves considers texting him a couple times, just to see where he might be, but then decides against it. If Vincent has found something fun to do, then Yves definitely isn’t going to keep him from doing it.

Except, a small part of him says, he’d explicitly told Vincent not to worry about him. It doesn’t have to be your problem, he’d said, and Vincent had stared back at him, blankly, except was his expression really blank, then? Hadn’t he seemed a little hurt? After all of this is over, Yves really ought to apologize to him for all of the trouble—for making this whole wedding a lot more stressful than it should’ve been.

Vincent had known, after all, that he was nervous just this morning, even though Yves hadn’t wanted for it to show. And perhaps Vincent has always been perceptive, but Yves likes to think he isn’t always so obvious. Vincent is here to enjoy his vacation in France, first and foremost. Yves doesn’t want anything—not the fever he feels brewing, not the nervousness he feels regarding the wedding—to get in the way of that.

But right now, Vincent is nowhere to be found, so he tables the apology for later. For now, he just has to get through the entirety of the wedding. He spends a good part of the hour in the same seat, blowing his nose into cocktail napkins, wishing he had packed something warmer that would fit the dress code.

He makes polite conversation with whoever stops by, and tries—and fails—to ignore the fact that it feels like his head is going to split. Maybe he should’ve picked up some aspirin at the convenience store, too, though it’s not like he has the time to go back and get it now. And, anyways, as painful as it is, it’s really just a headache. How bad could it be?

—

At six, he finds his seat for dinner. A couple minutes later, Vincent takes a seat next to him. Yves turns to speak to him, only, he has to turn away to muffle a throat-scraping fit of coughs into his elbow.

The coughing fit lasts longer than he anticipates. When he looks up at last, Vincent is already in conversation with the person next to him, who Yves recognizes to be one of Genevieve’s friends—perhaps one of the ones he ate dinner with the night before, though Yves can’t be sure. Yves hunts down another cocktail napkin to blow his nose into—it’s starting to run worse now that the sun is starting to set.

When it comes time to give his toast, he’s afraid, for a moment, that he might forget what to say. That he might trip up mid-speech, despite all of the practice. That his current affliction might make itself clearly, embarrassingly apparent right when everyone’s attention is focused on him.

But the speech goes well. He gives his speech in French. His voice is noticeably off, but he hasn’t lost it entirely, and if he has to resort to clearing his throat as quietly as he can in between sentences, it’s a small sacrifice. Aimee giggles at the anecdote he tells about her in grad school, texting him about meeting Genevieve for the first time at a networking event. He throws in a couple inside jokes—references to things he’s heard his extended family laugh about during their yearly summer reunions, things that he can tie back into the wedding that he hopes might land well with this audience—and then he tells everyone about a surprise party he worked with Genevieve to plan, last summer, for Aimee’s birthday: how she’d stayed up late to make sure everything was carefully accounted for. How he’d known, then, from how seriously she was taking it, by how well she seemed to know Aimee already, that she would be the one. 

The jokes seem to land, for the way everyone—buoyed from the adrenaline of the wedding and in part thanks to the cocktails, he’s sure—laughs, and by the end, Genevieve is beaming, and Aimee breaks tradition to run up to him and give him a tight hug. After that, he asks everyone to raise their glasses in a toast—“To Aimee and Genevieve,” he says, “what a joy it is to see the team you’ve been rooting for win,” and the room erupts into clamor—into applause and cheer and the resounding clinking of glasses.

Then someone he recognizes as one of Genevieve’s closest friends stands to give her toast, and for the first time today, Yves lets himself relax in his seat. Only, it isn’t really relaxing—after all of the caffeine, he feels simultaneously exhausted and strangely, artificially alert, in a way that feels a little wrong.

The rest of the wedding should be smooth sailing, he thinks. The ceremony is over. His speech was fine. He just needs to stay through dinner and the cake cutting, and then he can ride the shuttle back with everyone else, and then—

—And then he’ll be back at his hotel room, where he can apologize to Vincent for perhaps being the very reason why this vacation hasn’t been as stress-free as it should’ve been, considering that it’s likely one of the few reprieves he and Vincent are supposed to get until busy season winds down.

He blinks, rubs a hand over his face, sniffling. He really does feel dizzy.

It’s usually like this. Yves thinks he should probably be wiser by now. If there’s anything he’s learned from past experiences—attending that end-of-semester crew meeting with the flu, or getting through the second half of finals week his senior year of university with a high fever—it’s that half a week of ignoring all of his symptoms is going to catch up to him eventually. 

Usually he’s better at defining what constitutes eventually.

He feels a familiar prickle in his nose—the kind that he knows once he gives in to will plague him for the rest of the hour. The cold medicine must be wearing off. Better to do this elsewhere—anywhere instead of here, on the courtyard, where everyone is eating dinner.

“I’ll be right back,” he says to Vincent. Then, without waiting for a response, he rises from his seat and heads off in the direction of the nearest restroom. There’s one in the main building, past the catering stations, the ballroom, the indoor bar.

“Hey, Yves,” someone—his sister—says, when he’s halfway to the building.

He stops walking. “What’s up?”

“You nailed that speech,” she says.

“In no small part thadks to you,” Yves says, forcing himself to turn and face her with a smile. “I’m glad we cut it down. And by we I mean, mostly you.”

“You were a hit,” Victoire says. “And it was funny. I liked the anecdotes you picked. I don’t think people would’ve minded if it were longer.” 

“Three mbidutes was the perfect length. Ady longer and people would’ve started losidg idterest— hHh-!” Yves thinks, a little frustratedly, that he always has the most inconvenient timing. “Excuse mbe, I— HHehh!” He lifts his arm to his face, twisting away. “hHhEH’iiDZSSchh’iiEW!”

When he turns back around to face her, Victoire is staring at him with the sort of calculating look that Yves is sure is not a good thing.

“You’re still sick?” she asks.

He blinks at her. “A little,” he says. “I’ll get some sleep todight.” 

She nods. “Does Vincent know?”

The question startles him into laughing, which he immediately regrets, for the way it makes him cough. “That I’mb sick?” he asks. “Yeah, I’d assume so. We share a room.”

“Assume? So you haven’t talked to him about it?”

“Whether or ndot I have a cold is not the mbost enthralling conversation topic,” Yves says.

“But you’re dating,” she says, as if that explains everything.

It explains nothing. “Yes, glad you ndoticed.”

“I just mean that — I mean, he got breakfast with us the other day, which you weren’t there for, and then we had the rehearsal dinner, which he wasn’t invited to. And during the cocktail hour, you were sitting alone.”

“I’mb not sure where you’re goidg with this,” Yves says, if only because he doesn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “But if you’re wondering whether—” He veers away again, pressing his arm to his face. “hh… Hehh-! hhHH’GKTT-SHHiiew!Ugh, sorry… Hh… HEHh’IIDZZSCHh-yyEEew! snf-! If you’re wondering whether we got into a fight, or sobething, then the answer is no.”

“It’s not that.” Victoire hesitates, for a moment, as if she’s still thinking about what to say. She probably is. She’s always been deliberate with her words. “It kind of seems like—well, like you’re doing that thing you always do.”

“What thidg I always do?” 

“You know.” She looks at him, her expression carefully, deceptively neutral. “Avoiding the people who care about you when something’s wrong.”

“I have ndo idea what you’re talking about.” Yves glances wistfully over to the bathroom. “I do really ndeed to pee, you know.”

He half expects her to press, but she just sighs. “Okay,” she says. “Don’t let me keep you.”

It’s a convenient out, and he takes it. The walk over is thankfully not too long—the bathroom turns out to be located just a couple hallways down from the entrance, but it’s hidden enough that it’s a little hard to find. For now, that’s a good thing.

He imagines the wedding party might move inside shortly after dinner, but as it stands, the building is mercifully empty. The restroom on the first floor is nicer than expected—warm lighting, floor to ceiling mirrors, polished white sinks on a black granite countertop. He braces himself against the countertop, suppressing another shiver. 

His nose is running slightly. He reaches over and grabs a couple paper towels from the dispenser, just to be safe.

It’s not a moment too early. It’s only moments after that he’s pitching forwards into the paper towels with a harsh—

 “HhH’iiDZSSCHh-IIEW!” 

The sound echoes off the tiled walls. Yves finds himself coughing, afterwards. The medicine must really be wearing off, then, for the way his nose is starting to run incessantly—for the way the discomfort prickles at his skin, suggesting a fever. It’s a good thing there’s no one here to see him like this.

“hHEHh’iIZssCHH-iiEW! snf-! hHEh… HDDt’TSSCHH-iEEW!” The sneezes are harsher than usual, too, and forceful enough to snap him forward at the waist. He stays hunched over for a moment, steadying himself with the side of the countertop, and tries, somewhat unsuccessfully, to catch his breath. 

The bathroom feels frigidly cold. He shivers, reaches up with trembling hands to try to button up his suit. His nose is starting to tickle again. It feels like he might be here forever, like one wrong breath might be enough to—

“hhH…. hHEH…. hhHEH’DJJJSHH’iiEEW!” The paper towels in his hand must be drenched now, but before he can get a chance to replace them, his breath catches again. “hhEH’GKTT-SHhhEw!” It’s immediately clear, from the subsequent twinge in his nose, that he’s not done. For a moment, he wonders if the sneezes will ever let up—if he’ll be stuck in the bathroom all evening, trying to keep his illness under wraps.

Before he can entertain the thought properly, he finds himself jerking forward again, his eyes snapping shut—

“Hehh… hEHh’IIZSCHH-YYEEW! hHihhH’-iiTsSHHH-YYEW!”

He blows his nose, as gently as he can, but the paper towel is rougher against his skin. When he looks up afterwards, blinking tears out of his vision, his nose looks noticeably red. 

It takes all the resolve in him to not just slump against the wall.

His next breath comes in wrong, and he finds himself coughing—harsh, grating coughs which seem to go on and on, leaving him feeling distinctly lightheaded.

He can’t stay here. He needs to make it back to dinner, where the others are waiting for him. He has to get back before Vincent starts wondering where he’s gone.

Yves squeezes his eyes shut. If he’s being honest with himself, he feels awful. Nothing he does seems to do anything to assuage the chill that’s settled persistently over him, the uncomfortable, shivery feeling that makes him want to curl up somewhere warm, sleep the next day and a half away.

Would it be so bad for him to stay here for just a little longer? To send a text to Vincent to let him know he’ll be back in twenty? It’s not the most comfortable of places, but it would be the easiest to explain if someone ends up finding him here. Anywhere else might suggest that he has a big enough problem to deliberately hide away instead of properly enjoying the festivities, like he should be doing, which is not the impression he wants to give off at all.

He tries to think of a convincing enough excuse, but nothing he can think of takes precedence over a wedding dinner, of all things. It should be fine if he goes back now, but any longer might be pushing things.

And, anyways, he feels guilty for even considering it. The others are waiting for him. He has to show up, and at the very least, be courteous where he has to, make pleasant conversation when he can. He has to make sure Aimee and Genevieve are having fun, and that Leon and Victoire are doing fine, and that nothing needs to get done logistically, and that Vincent is not there alone, surrounded by strangers speaking a language he’s just started to learn.

His head is pounding. He tosses the paper towels into the bin, leans his weight against the countertop, squeezes his eyes shut. The exhaustion from the past few days of on-and-off sleep must be catching up with him. His head is pounding.

He can do this. More aptly put, it’s not a question of whether he can. He has to do this.

He splashes his face with cold water, washes his hands in the sink, dries his face with another generous handful of paper towels, and heads towards the door. He feels almost too tired to stand, but that’s only a temporary concern. It won’t be a problem once he gets back to his seat.

Everyone is waiting for him, he tells himself. Soon, they might be asking where he’s gone. He needs to show them that he’s there—present and attentive and engaged, just like he promised everyone he’d be. No one expects any less of him, after all.

It’s with that in mind that he presses forward. He makes it down a couple hallways before he finds himself having to lean against the wall to catch his balance, shutting his eyes against the sudden wave of disorientation. He inhales, slowly. Exhales.

Fuck. Perhaps he’s dizzier than he’d expected.

“Yves?” He freezes. Vincent is not supposed to be here. Vincent can’t see him right now, not in this state. He forces himself to smile. “What’s up?”

“You disappeared,” Vincent says. “I wanted to make sure…”

His voice shutters, sounding distant and close by all at once. “...that everything was okay.”

“It is,” Yves says. “I was just about to head back.” “We can head back together,” Vincent says. It’s not that long of a walk—just a couple minutes, at most, to the exit Vincent presumably came in from, and then back down the stone path that leads to the courtyard.

“You didn’t have to come find me. I’m really fine.” Yves shifts his weight off from the wall. Takes a couple steps halting towards the exit, which is a mistake.

It all registers simultaneously: the darkness encroaching upon the edges of his vision, the surge of panic in his chest. The world, suddenly angled wrongly, tilts towards him. He thinks he is definitely going to owe Vincent an apology.

[ Part 5 ]